john >> i got another oncology stock, scott. maybe there is something going on in this sector. veru big upside call buying i bought that during the show. >> yeah. big move in that stock today 15%. guys, thank you. good conversation today. thanks so much for watching as well does it for us "the exchange" is now. hello everybody and good thursday afternoon i am brian sullivan. your money on the move higher again as covid cases continue to fall fast. and mitt romney comes out with a big stimulus surprise. inside the renter rebellion the story of a -- the reddit rebellion the story of a 23-year-old who turned 500 bucks into 200,000 albeit briefly. don't believe the hype not all socially conscious or environmentally conscious investing is the same.

plus the very latest on how the vaccine roll out is really going. let's get more now on the markets and your money with the dow up with a two handle seema mody with all the movers >> we are near session highs a day where value is out performing growth, financials, energy leading the pack right now on the back of those higher bond yields we are seeing. let's take a look at earnings. two stocks in the payment and ecommerce base trading at record highs. we are talking about paypal and ebay both delivering a beat on profits helped by the surge we're seeing in online shopping. qualcomm, though, that stock on pace for its biggest percentage drop since march of last year when we saw the big market move. stock currently down #9% on the back of worse than expected earnings take a look at gamestop, extending its decline, now trading below $64 a share. it has now fallen about 86% from the all time high it hit back on

january 29th of 483 a share as this reddit rally, certainly losing a lot of investors here brian, back to you >> yeah, i mean it is still above, seema, where i think 17 or so was the level of gme before sort of all the mania kicked in. there are people theoretically who still made money but overall it has been an incredibly painful run for the holders off the top. >> absolutely. important to note it is not just gamestop that this move is confined to. other names like amc, koss, among others also facing similar pressure when you look at reddit the messaging platform that bull vs. bear debate certainly continues. >> yeah. we'll talk about it more with greg zuckerman in a few moments. seema mody, thank you very much. before we do that, let's talk about this for over a year the market's theme song could have been bon jovi's "living on a prayer" because with pandemics and lockdowns companies simply had no idea what to expect from

their business and investors had no idea what to expect from earnings but it seems like many things we might be turning a corner and that could be changing as vaccines roll out at more than a million a day maybe there is a little light at the end of the tunnel companies are starting to give some guidance again. in other words, that earnings clarity may be coming back as we hit the half way mark and maybe overall by the way with the american economy joining us now is the director of research for regent atlantic and the senior portfolio manager and managing director at wells fargo asset management do you feel like companies are -- i know you track them so closely -- are finally starting to have some visibilities into what the next if not six months maybe 12 to 18 months might look like >> yes, and we're seeing fourth quarter earnings doing the same as third quarter's basically surprising on the upside

corporate earnings have really powered back management looks pretty optimistic about the course of the next year. in a lot of the earnings disappointments we've seen often it has been short term glitches in supply chains they don't have the parts or the shipment and that really hurt earnings in the quarter. but basically it looks like more of the same and an astounding market looks as if the economy is almost back to where we were before the whole covid crisis a year ago pretty remarkable. >> it really is. i just saw a stat cross the wires that bankruptcies actually continued to decline which is great news and signals that the american might be sort of firming up their balance sheets especially for those businesses that have just been absolutely obliterated in all of this are you, if not happy with what you're seeing, do you feel like companies are giving you enough information and guidance to be able to make some kind of informed investment decision >> yes the earnings season so far has turned out to be mostly a lot of

very positive news the most positive news -- last year was an absolute fog with many companies withdrawing any guidance whatsoever saying they can't call this and now coming out with actually, well, first of all guidance at all second of all, fairly positive numbers. i think one of the most positive developments over the course of the earnings cycle has been the financials really seeing a very upbeat set of numbers from them in particular on investment banking and trading revenues there might be more surprises still over the course of the past few weeks we've seen a steepening in the yield curve that will help improve net interest margin. >> that's why you're recommending jpmorgan chase as well but, also, i noticed that exxon mobile was on your list. yeah, juicy 7% dividend, but they just posted their first annual loss and i think in 40 years. that's not scaring you off exxon mobile >> it's not scaring me off exxon mobile but we have to acknowledge that oil companies are in fact a risky play today

what we've seen is a change in how society travels, a change in gasoline consumption here's the thing materials in general benefit from the current reflationary environment. energy stocks as a sub segment of materials haven't really caught this rally. and i think investors are too reluctant to own them even though the price of oil is actually at a 12-month high. >> oh, yeah. we've certainly noticed. margie, the other thing about coming out of this pandemic is for the better part of a year all of our medical and scientific focus has been on solving covid. and with good reason but there's still a lot of other bad things out there that we have had to deal with and will continue to deal with. cancer, diabetes, etcetera do you believe that investor attention, then, may soon pivot to biotechs and companies in health care that have been trying to solve the stuff that we've been living with for decades? >> wyes.

i think we'll continue to see good news from biotechs, new drug discoveries, new treatments for a lot of these conditions that are plaguing us once covid goes off stage and also so many of these companies have fabulous cash flow, even those that may have a patent cliff in a few years. we think we'll see a lot of activity and value add through mergers and acquisitions in addition to refining business plans. we like that sector very much across the board >> mara good discussion as hopefully we return to normal and the weather warms up thank you both very much well, stocks surging again today. goldman sachs says the bull market is still in its early stages head to cnbc.com/pro they have six trades on how to play it. get those names on our pro website. well of course what has captured the market's attention though over the past week has not necessarily been earnings or

earnings clarity now, has it there's been the reddit rebellion. small traders. the gamestop saga. it has been one week since gamestop hit its intraday high of $483. since then, the drama only intensified. >> things are reversing a bit. gamestop hit as high as 500 in the premarket. it is certainly down from that though still up. >> the reddit rebellion is where we're going to start this morning. gamestop resuming its rally, now up 73 plus percent >> gamestop got as low as $212 and is up above that right now but a long way from 325 where it closed on friday. >> but it is not all sunshine on the street of dreams there is a lot of pain in the robin hood trade right now gamestop's run stopped shares are down more than a hundred bucks right now. nearly 48% it's $117 stock.

it was an over $400 stock just three trading days ago is that really how i sound all right. who really are some of the day traders? they use terms like just trying to turn stimy into trendies. translation i think let's put our stimulus checks into stocks and try to make some money i hope i got it right. "the wall street journal's" greg zuck zuckerman dove in more as only he can and also the author of "the man who solved the market" about probably the exact opposite of the redditers in one of the biggest hedge funds in the world. you uncovered a guy 24-year-old mit grad he turned $500 into more than $200,000 >> yeah. pretty remarkable. he did it through options as one can as a leverage bet. he also got the timing perfectly right. i mean, he got out last

wednesday. he admits and acknowledges it is mostly luck. and what i kind of found fascinating is, yeah he made $200,000 in a few weeks. this is a guy making, they got a $36 a year stipend, grad student, but it was about the money but also about the community and the rush he got just by being with others and taking on wall street and i think that is as much of an attraction for some of these redditers as it is just making the money. >> did he make the money or did he lose -- is he still in the stock or the options position or did he actually cash out and cash in? >> well, he got out and you got to give him credit but most of why he got out is his friends had a mini intervention so here he was on the board hearing it was going to a thousand it was going to go to 5,000. he was kind of bullish he acknowledges it went from sort of an intelligent trade he believes in the company's turn-around to one where it was

sort of gambling but he couldn't get out. he couldn't bring himself to get out. it was all he could think about. he was playing tennis with his friend and literally checking his phone after every point. he couldn't bear to be torn away from the market. his friends said, dude, you need the money. you should be getting out. they challenged him, hey, would you put new, fresh money in at these levels, he said no, and he realized i got to get out. >> $500 into $203,000. a 40,000% gain that, not ackman, that guy, the greatest trade of all times. that guy that you found, i don't know how, but that's what you do best, greg zuckerman is there any correlation between -- because this was always like about let's get the hedge funds right? take down the hedge funds. first off looking at the trade size in gamestop the last few days there are big players in gamestop big hedge funds doing huge bloc

trades i want to throw that out there do you feel like there is any similarity at all between the worlds or is this literally, let's go get them? >> i mean, to the extent that the redditers are sharing ideas it is not unlike the idea dinners we're all ware of wher hedge funds get together and give ideas to each other and to the extent a small investor is sharing thoughts and maybe their research i think it is all really great stuff. you start getting worried when you hear people say hold on don't sell almost like a moral obligation we're in this together and you almost feel -- i know my investor felt bad he was getting out, he was letting down the community. which isn't really the proper way to be investing. that is quite emotional. you want to take the emotions out of it. when people are urging you on and you're sending a message to

wall street, not clear what the message is, citadel is one of the firms these people are angry at and yet is probably doing among the best so it is not clear what the message is they're trying to send >> when you sell there has to be a buyer. so if you're leaving the, quote, community, somebody new might be coming in. the gentleman previewed now has 200,000 that he might be able to put into the market as opposed to 500 and help out the community in a big ware. by the way, he is clearly not the only one given gamestop's price action that has sort of left that trade. what's your final -- greg, you've been studying stock markets for so long. is there a takeaway? the silver squeeze sort of went on for a day do you think there is a bigger, longer term impact from this on the macro markets or will it be a single stock or single trade

type story >> that's the great question we're all struggling with. part of me wonders we're in an age where there is easy money be it from stimulus checks or from the fed and it's not going away look at certain investments be it bitcoin, and you look at these investments maybe short term or a longer term period the prices aren't necessarily in keeping with traditional metrics and maybe we're going to be in this era when we have easy money continuing where here and there you have pockets of the market where people scratch their heads and throw up their hands one wonders if we are in that kind of era. >> yeah. listen, i don't know if there is any correlation but you and i were doing this in 1999. go back and look, yahoo message boards, some the covers of fortune. maybe i'll put up one or two on

my twitter feed as well. i'm not saying it is the same as '99 because it ended poorly but there is a feeling of community and newness that we kind of felt like in 1999 or at least i did great find on the trader of the century. congrats, greg. >> thank you for having me >> take care coming up, an inside look at what recruiters are really seeing in the job market where are the jobs maybe where are they not plus, the popularity of so-called esg investing has boomed so, too, have some of the stocks they invested. the names may be winning and losing ahead. obsession has many names. this is ours. the new lexus is. all in on the sports sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for $359 a month

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all right. welcome back to "the ekts change." a market is rallying for the fourth straight day with the dow up 258 points at the moment. you got vaccines up. cases down we've got big blow out earnings as well. and tomorrow is the january jobs report so can we expect the job market to start to take off as states and economies hopefully reopen sooner than later. let's find out joining us is the chairman and ceo of recruiter.com they put out their recruiter

index every month. evan, we appreciate it the index coming in at 3.6 out of 5 which is a long way off the lows of april 2.4. what does the number tell you and what does it tell us about the job market >> well, you're absolutely right. we use our community you talked about community before we use our community of recruiters to help us determine where the sentiment, where the leading indicator is to the job market and finally at the most optimistic since we started with the beginning of covid you said 3.6 that is out of 5 we certainly have a long way to go the most optimistic in terms of looking forward, 73% most optimistic about 90 days. a slight uptick from 17 jobs per recruiter they're working on to 18 jobs. those are the numbers we tend to look at and really see the growth that were real optimism

>> is there any -- sorry to jump in is there any seasonality to it do we tend to see this pop between november to january anyway or is this truly sort of a real improvement even versus the prepandemic years whenever those were >> yeah. it's a great point a couple months ago in november we really predicted a huge uptick and we saw that from the recruiters in logistics jobs, transportation jobs. there were 144,000 of those added in november. we saw the december numbers go down because the seasonality of retail wasn't there. we're starting to see that pick up january isoften a slower month for recruiting in terms of specialized jobs but what we're not seeing, last month we saw one of the top three industries manufacturing around 77% optimism and it dove to 25%. so really disappointing for us to see those nonspecialized jobs, retail jobs, manufacturing

jobs, logistics jobs those have to come back. for the job market to really recover at prepandemic rates >> are they? >> we could only hope. we saw health care now hit 80% this month last month it wasn't even in the top three. which was surprising when you start to hear complaints from the states about lack of resources for vaccine distribution we said gee you're not hiring the people. when you do a census the government hires people to help. we didn't see that last month. we're finally seeing those numbers move up now. >> evan, do you remember the commercials, i've fallen and i can't get up do you remember those? >> sure. >> i wonder if there is a part of this based on what i'm looking at from your data which is, i have moved and i can't go back in other words, how much is remote work maybe permanently going to matter?

because somebody says oh, i like your job you know what? i used to live in new jersey now i live in wisconsin. how much is that going to factor in >> when you saw that statistic the remote working was 36% of workers prioritized remote work to 31% compensation. that is an incredible statistic. something we used to call quality of life not too long ago is really looking at remote work i tell you something i think part of the challenge we're seeing is that the companies have shifted to remote, the companies themselves are recruiting remotely. they've moved over to online services you have the workers themselves for them to be really effective you have to be on premise. how do you do that the days of walking into a factory and seeing 30 people sitting in the lobby filling out a job application with a clip board, we've all seen that it doesn't exist anymore we have to have this paradigm shift that allows those jobs to

turn >> 36% remote work by the way, the biggest slice even over pay. of course if you move to wisconsin from new jersey you effectively get a big raise. appreciate it. thank you very much. good stuff. >> thanks for having us. coming up. 23 and me. you and you and all of wall street the company going public via a spac of course we'll dive more into it. as the reddit fueled rally sent shares of costs higher the insiders were doing something some people might not like selling. a lot. we'll talk more about that ba aern 4 ckft this.

all right. time for the data bank let's check on the markets and your money because we are up in the markets four days in a row the dow is up 264 just off its high of up 301 again, we're seeing the nasdaq out perform up nearly 1% in the sectors you got banks, industrials, information technology really the leaders the materials really the only sector in the red right now. that is not by much. in other words, it's a fairly broad based run that we've had the last couple days let's get a couple of the big money individual single stock stories. number one, align technology the maker of the invisalign dental braces an all time high

following a beat on the top and bottom lines fourth quarter sales jumping 28% from a year ago. by the way, align up 14 3% the past 12 months stock number two department store nordstrom. the stock was halted earlier then jumped as much as 4% and fell 7% now down just over 5% on jwn. struggling retailer revealing its new growth agenda focusing on rack. nordstrom rack small format stores. e-commerce nordstrom seeing revenue rising 25% this year slightly less than previously thought stock number three is merck. ken frazier announcing he will step down as ceo and transition to the role of executive chairman effective june 30th frazier joined merck back in 1992 he has been ceo for a decade stock up 135% during his tenure. cfo robert davis will take over the ceo role at merck. all right. let's step out of the world of

money and business and get a cnbc news update with sue herera >> good to see you, brian. thanks very much here's what's happening at this hour, everybody. another voting company has filed a massive libel suit over allegations of election fraud. smartmatic wants $2.7 billion from fox news and fox hosts as well as trump lawyers rudy guiliani and sidney powell house speaker nancy pelosi saying it is very concerning that republicans have not taken action against representative marjorie taylor greene forcing democrats to require a vote on removing her from two committees >> today the house will vote to remove representative greene from her seat on education and labor and the budget committees. it is just so unfortunate. you would think that the republican leadership in the congress would have some sense of responsibility to this

institution. >> impeachment managers are requesting former president trump testify under oath either before or during his impeachment trial. they say trump has denied, quote, incontrovertible facts. you are up to date back to you. >> thank you very much now to a little good news on the vaccine front. while we still have a long way to go, things are undoubtedly getting better as roll outs ramp up in the states as of last night just under 56 million doses have been distributed around america 27 million americans have received at least one shot just about 11% of the adult population over 6 million of those have gotten the full two shot regimen. this puts us on an average pace of about 1.35 million shots in arms per day or about 1.5 to 2% of the u.s. adult population being inoculated every five

days of course if j & j, astrazeneca, and/or novavax are approved it would speed it up tremendously we'll try to keep you up to date on this each day it is incredibly important follow me on twitter coming up on "the exchange" why one analyst says it may be game over for at least one stay-at-home stock market darling. how the goose is running loose and elon can't stop, won't stop, all that and more on "rapid fire." stick around

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♪♪ the road has been rough and nothing from hell to sky has turned us back. ♪♪ welcome back to the exchange shares of netflix that are moving higher right now. let's get to julia boorstin for more on why. why, julia >> well, those now up about 3% and that is on the news that netflix is raising its prices in japan, specifically raising prices on its basic and standard plan the premium prices for the premium option are going to stay the same the price increases are up to 13% so the basic plan going from 880 yen to 990 yen brian, back over to you. >> all right

julia boorstin, thank you very much all right. 23 and all of wall street, canada goose running loose is a big video game maker losing its juice? it is time now for "rapid fire." here to join us, seema mody, and welcome everybody and looking forward to this "rapid fire. topic one genetic testing firm 23 and me is going public. it is of course through a spac, nach all part of a $3.5 billion merger with sir richard branson's firm the merged companies will trade under the ticker me. the dna testing market has slowed down a bit but 23 and me is pivoted to therapeutics with more than 30 programs in process. the ceo telling us this is a big opportunity. >> covid has taught us that the importance of prevention and what the human genome gives you is this information about what your risks are and now what we're going to be

able to do is give you more and more of those tools. how do you help keep our customers healthier? >> all right josh lipton, therapeutics, 23 and me, and the spac tie it all together. >> yeah. here's the question, brian what do shaq, wilbur ross, and bill ackman all have in common they are all looking to apparently strike deals through their spacs. i think that is one reason my buddy jim cramer of was saying today on cnbc he understands the trends, understands the themes maybe this is starting to feel a little bit like fantasy football to him another question, clearly, you have demand from shaquille o'neal to wilbur ross but you have to wonder about supply. are there enough good companies to meet that demand, brian >> i thought the answer to that question was seema would be they're all really rich. you need big names in these spacs for them to succeed. >> they certainly do you have richard branson add that name to the list. the real opportunity seems to be in all of the genome data that

23 and me has been able to collect over the last five to ten years, data it can now use to study and develop potential therapeutics you were just saying it has about 30 therapeutic programs currently in progress and when you look at biotechnology the industry some of the hottest buzz words right now are gene editing which you have, rnma when it comes to the covid vaccine. maybe there is a role for 23 and me to play there in gene therapy and editing in general >> yeah. courtney, the point is, all of these spacs have a big name. that's the sponsor whether it's richard branson, every spac has got like their star it's like you put brad pitt in a movie and it'll probably do pretty well. these spacs without big names i'd love to see some comparison between the ones with names and the ones with not. who cares what their business is like to see how much that affects it >> but isn't that kind of the

point? if it's a blank check company aren't you buying into the name that's behind it i mean, that's what you're buying, right, if you don't exactly know how this portfolio in the end is going to shake out. i don't know if it works as well if it's not a well known name. i was going to pick up on seema's point about all of the data that's been able to be collected on the genome and, yes, they have collected a lot of it but i also think of course we haven't even mentioned the word privacy yet in any of this. i know they're going to anomymize the data as they develop these therapeutics which is montreal but i think as more of us understand a little more of what goes on with this there is some reluctance i know when i thought about doing some of this i did the ancestry instead of 23 and me. part of it was i wasn't sure if i wanted my data part of the subset i also didn't know if i wanted to please be what i had a possible genetic propensity toward maybe it is better if i don't. so you have to continue to have users submit to that information to make this valuable.

>> that's a great point. a lot of privacy concerns around it as well what is in a name? i think bill shakespeare got it right. the names matter by the way, those big sponsor fees on some of the spacs. sit tight. i'm coming right back to you canada goose the retailer noted for its rather pricey parkas is flying high after beating top and bottom lines and estimates for the fourth quarter shales are soaring demand in china remains red hot. no surprise. online sales are up. courtney reagan, apparently there is a giant market for $900 jackets. >> these things continue to be on fire. they have not shown to be a fad. i sort of thought they might have been when we first saw these parkas really heating up in the market. china was really, really important to canada goose as to a number of other high end players during the last quarter. and even before that as china

got hit with covid-19 first and then started recovering first, online though really important they also saw some nice demand in the stores. they doubled the number of stores they had previously over there in china i think it is pretty amazing that overall revenues grew almost 5% when we're still living in a pandemic world the company really leaning on line, brian. you talked about 39% revenues but wholesale actually wasn't so bad either or the director consumer when you're talking about the stores this is a pretty amazing story we should continue to follow as they continue to launch things like shoes going forward i don't know if the demand will be as hot but i wouldn't count them out seeing what they've been able to do with this very, very pricey coat >> it's been a heck of a run seema mody, i'd love to know what the canada goose shoe is going to look like as well what is your take? #93% gain in six months for this stock. we talk about 30 million, 25

million unemployed for those of us that are blessed and lucky enough to have a job, a lot of people saving money and spending it on big ticket items. >> great point tremendous then you think of outdoor dining in new york city at 28 degrees perhaps that underscores the reason why so many more consumers need the big jacket. when it pertains to china, courtney and i have had this conversation on the sidelines, there is strategy they've used and really doubled down on their retail footprint across the mainland even during thecourse of the pandemic while other companies held off on expansion and they doubled down. that seems to be paying off to get that level of brand recognition with the chinese consumer which we know is so important. >> i like it the outdoor dining especially new york city. good point topic number three, it's in the game but maybe shouldn't be in your portfolio atlantic equity slicing its rating on electronics arts to a neutral. they don't hate the stock. they just want to see more movement in mobile josh lipton is that on the horizon for ea

>> i'm glad you brought that up. it is an interesting name to talk about because it has actually lagged its peers. when you pull back the charts at three months or 12 months, i think if you talk to analysts who covered that name what they'll tell you is there's been some kind of consistent concern among some investors about whether ea can consistently grow outside its bread and butter sports franchises like fifa. some guys have moved to the sideline i will give you the bull case though i checked with mkm's eric handler. eric covers this name. covers the space he is still recommending it. he has a buy on it i asked him why and he said he does see some catalyst ts ahead. one point he talked about apex legends, ea's answer to fortnite broadening the reach to nintendo switch mobile versions coming too maybe it expands the user/player base, brian. >> yeah. it's been that way and certainly the video game trade i guess it goes, courtney, to a broader -- the stay-at-home, the

work from home, i mean, no the a lot to do. a lot of kids in this remote learning, your class days are maybe an hour or two long over zoom and activity is going to pop either way is there a broader story here you think about the stay-at-home, work-from-home starting to roll over? >> it seems pretty clear to me that there is some white space here if you come out with new and exciting games like the college football game they at least confirmed to espn they are going to roll out after some rumors, i mean, the kids got extra time on their hands. can't go anywhere. pretty cold outside in a lot of the country with snow on the ground it looks like there could be some opportunity here for ea and for others though. not just a single company game as josh has pointed out with the shares lagging behind some competitors for sometime >> all right topic number four. twitter and some other cryptocurrencies apparently hanging on. one mr. elon musk's every word the price of those coins shot as high as 50% after just one word.

doge no highs no lows only doge he returned to twitter after a self-imposed two day hiatus. that is a separate issue doge is hot today but could it be gone tomorrow seema mody, your take on the coin, the crypto named after a meme of a sheena ebu dog >> pretty incredible how it went from an internet meme during the 2013 cryptocurrency to the 12th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $6.1 billion, brian. it followed a similar strategy to the amc and gamestop. it generated a lot of excitement and interest on reddit the platform there that invited the likes of elon musk who has 45 million twitter followers to join the conversation and there you go, up 600% over the past week if it follows the similar foot

steps to gamestop you would think at some point this has to fizzle l out obviously this is just a random crypto coin and doesn't have the type of algorithm bitcoin uses >> doge coin look at that chart real or fake it's real money people have been making on it. certainly that is it for "rapid fire." seema mody, josh lipton, courtney reagan and wherever that sheena ebu dog is thank you all very much. all right. still ahead koss corp off more than 50%. reddit traders were not the only ones making money when they targeted the short sellers and the stock last week. we'll tell you who also cashed out to the tune of dozens of millions of dollars. by the way, if you are getting out, you can watch us live anywhere on the go on the cnbc app we'll be right back. no, but we came through smelling of mistletoe. the now platform lets us identify problems before they became problems.

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exchange." redditers not just targeting gamestop and blackberry. they also came hard after koss the head phone maker it had a huge percent of its stock bet short. and its costs ran up others ran out robert frank joining us with more on this story the insiders selling, robert >> that's right brian. new filings from the sec show executives and directors of koss corp sold $44 million in stock early this week while it was getting swept up in all the reddit trades. the koss family sold $31 million in stock more than the entire market cap of this milwaukee based head phone maker before its shares went from $3 to $64 as it became a favorite of that retail trading crowd now, it looks like the family sold over about a two or three day period when prices were between $19 and $60 a share. at least that is what they sold for. among the sellers was the ceo and chairman of the company

michael koss his father founded the company and the family owns 75% of koss corp other directors and executives sold an additional $$13 million. koss had short interest above 35% with a low dollar share price. that made it a favorite among the traders. it's unclear whether the sales were part of a prearranged trading plan a company spokesperson declined to comment when reached by cnbc. brian? >> well, that's the key. okay before everybody gets all up in arms with the pitch forks and the tar and the feathers, a lot of these insiders, and i don't know if it's this case or not, but it happened by the way i think the pfizer ceo a few months ago on the vaccine news was like he sold into the news it's automatically triggered at a certain price. right? so a lot of these folks, they don't even know. the stock hits it. it sells they get a notification. we don't know if that is the case but it does happen a lot.

>> well, brian, if you look at the pattern of sales usually the prearranged sales are sort of one slug at a certain price on one day. these sales don't look like they were part of a prearranged sales program in that they were at various prices on the same one or two day period multiple sales. so you're right. we don't know. we also don't know what the family plans to do with this money. maybe they plan to take this $31 million. they own 75% of the company. and take it private. or reinvest in the company and they may think it's a great company. it's just not worth $150 million or $200 million market cap that the investors put in it. so you're right. we shouldn't villainize them you don't want a situation where the retail investor is buying and the insiders are selling at this scale that doesn't instill confidence in the company or the d democratization of the stock market which is what we want to

happen. >> that's true hopefully they'll come out and say yeah it was automatic or yeah we sold and made some money and maybe somebody will actually say you know what? the stock has stunk. i made a lot of money. we sold some and because i'm going to have a big tax bill who knows? robert frank, interesting story nonetheless on koss. thank you very much, my friend >> all right. so when you think of environmentally or socially conscious investing, you probably thing about things like solar panels, biofuels, tesla. what about generators, semico semiconductors we'll tell you why you should, next

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es good. have evidenting has been picked up speed and is getting more attention with the biden administration two years ago investors bot $13 billion of esg funds, but last year it soared to $85 billion. for more on maybe what they're selling and maybe what they're missing, we're joined by eugene clark. thank you for coming on the program. we know the names, any solar

companies are obvious esg plays. are there under the radar companies that are esg and weaver not aware of it >> good evening, brian actually, to your point, yes, we saw on the renewable energy space has been under-owned as far as or analysis is concerned, and we're only really seeing that change toward the end of last year when solar pretty much around the world was starting to make inroads into the key holdings of invest offers. i think when it comes to under-owned areas, what we find is that water technology companies, building efficiency companies, those are areas green related that still have to make inroads into the most popular holdings >> looking at the list, there are some names that make sense looking at the list there are some names that don't. you've got cummins, the engine

maker. u.p.s., they have a lot of trucks, even more planes how are those esg plays? >> there's two things to bear in mind historically speaking esg investors pretty much had an exclusion approach they didn't want to touch anything that was remotely, if you like, brown or dirty and i think what we find more recently is that the debate is moving toward engagement, it's trying to move companies along cummins is an interesting company where the hydrogen business is starting to change investors are looking for tomorrow's esg winners typically the market tends to under-appreciate the change. it's very well in identifying companies that already score good, not necessarily good at identifying who is good tomorrow >> that's an interesting and

important point. looking at your list, some of the names that are maybe sort of either future or sideways, mccormick the spice company, lowe's, nike is on the list as well let me flip it, you'd gene are there companies that have been overbought and overplayed, and they're getting bought because they're esg, but maybe the business isn't worth as much as the stock implies. >> when we look at key holdings of 13 dedicated funds we track, what is remarkable is that the key holdings are the sort of who's who in the tech space, and probably the pharma space. i think some of that is due to the fact that esg data tends to be readily available for smaller companies, whereas smaller companies tend to have a tougher time generating data for investors to analyze over time, our view has been

megacap tech space and megacap pharma space, when data becomes available for more smaller companies. over the last couple months, particularly on some of the tech names, we have seen investors cool off a bit you're talking names like visa, mastercard, but eek a many zone. >> we saw generac on that list as well. thank you very much, eugene. take care. >> thank you. up next on "power lunch," the spac team that took draftkings public is back. this time they're hoping to strike it with the skillz. the ceo joins us after this quick break. we'll see you tomorrow

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