and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc happy friday, i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin, and as joe mentioned, we've seen a pretty strong market this week. yesterday we saw some pretty sizable gains as well with both the dow and the s&p 500 up by better than 1%, and the nasdaq up by about 1 1/4% it's been four days in a row now that we have seen the s&p 500 and the dow higher that hasn't happened since i guess five days in a row we haven't seen since august of last year. if we keep things up where we stand this morning in positive territory, it's going to be pretty impressive to watch in fact, both the nasdaq and the s&p 500 set new records yesterday, so did the russell 2000, and you're going to see right now that dow futures are indicated higher once again.

dow futures up by about 126. s&p futures up by about 16, and then the nasdaq up by 40 we do have that jobs report coming up today, and we'll see what that means for the indications of the economy take a look at the treasury market in the meantime right now, it looks like the ten high temperature year is still sitting at a yield of right at about 1.155% 30 years at 1.947% it's creeping up towards 2%, and that would be impressive if we could actually see a yield with something other than a one in front of it. we'll continue to kaeep an eye o that let's get a check on reddit stocks, robinhood has removed trading limits across the board at this point. that means some robinhood users will be able to buy gamestop for the first time since last wednesday. here's where that company is trading after yesterday's 42% dip. this morning it is up by about 10 3/4%. that's a gain of $5.75 back to $59.25. >> what's that joe >> no, no, i didn't know my mic was on

i went wow, surging. >> wow it is. right, people can buy again, and there it is up 11%. >> amc also higher, up by 5% to $7.45, shares of amc had been another one of the stocks that were restricted for more than a week on robinhood. that stock was down by 21% yesterday. in the meantime, treasury secretary janet yellen met with top financial regulators late yesterday to talk about the retail trading frenzy that's been surrounding many of the heavily shorted names. a treasury department spokesperson says regulators will continue to look whether volatility in these names, and brokers responses are consistent with investor protection, and fair and efficient markets as you have said, fair and free markets. >> that's all we wanted. we can't really disclose conversations we don't have on the air, can we, sorkin? we were talking about this reddit situation >> sure you can. >> okay. i will then, andrew looks

nervous. remember when we said, when are we going to say -- no, i said are we ever going to say we tried to warn people, and the nastiness of the response you get when all you do is say valuations do matter, and the nastiness of the response. it's happening before our eyes what you were talking about in terms of, okay, so you really do, if it's okay that you're going to lose money, fine. if you know that, fine, but then when it happens, it's unpleasant, and, you know, when something is run up like that. >> that's putting mildly. >> for whatever reasons. and then, you know, suddenly the shorts whether they're covered or not or something changes and the stock suddenly is wily coyote, you know, looking down with nothing underneath it, this is what happens. if you don't want to, you don't have to. you're worried they called you a suit, and you love suits. >> i love wearing a beautiful pinstripe suit, as you know. >> you said friday, we might be able to say something on friday,

and now you're chickening out. i'll be the one who gets the nasty. we're red. i'm surprised you even have red, sorkin i'm surprised you even have red because you are like mr. wonderful. mr. wonderful, every tie he has is black you like dark no pattern ties, and you somehow drag this out. i don't know if you went out and bought it or someone gave it to you. today is the 18th annual national wear red day for the american heart association's go red for women in the fight against heart disease and stroke in women and you got red andrew got the message. we are willing to do this. and we got spirit day. we got purple. we'll do this. there's 363 other days if you have an idea i'm open to it. >> only about 250 that we're on air. doughnut day, don't forget national doughnut day, we celebrate with andrew. talk like a pirate day. >> purple is my favorite

doughnut that was homer's favorite, purple for the inside, but what color would we wear for national doughnut day i don't know >> brown >> we have 250 you're going to let me dangle, hang out to dry. you're not going to disclose any private conversation. >> we can say we told you so we told you so if you were you were going to make money doing this, we told you so. >> thank you had to drag it out of you. my word. >> right >> you're very sensitive to some of these, i don't know, they reminded me -- >> the only -- and i've said it before, the only reason i'm se sensitive is because some of these people say they didn't care about losing the money and i just never believed that, but who am i to say. if they really didn't care about the money, sure. >> but they were saying, you didn't care that they were going to lose money either

but i mean, we do. >> i care. the whole point of this is to make sure people don't lose money. >> we have years of watching this finally, some of the millennials come in, and this is their first experience with the stock market i don't know that's not democratization, that's like the school of hard knocks. >> and the concern is with that, if these are people who are new to the market, and who lose their shirts on any of this stuff, that will turn them off to the markets forever, and the markets are your best way over time of maintaining wealth and building wealth, so that's what i worry about. >> it's all red. >> i have people in my family that i have seen this happen to, right, who get burned on something like this, and then want nothing else to do with it, and that's the concern is we want them to see how it builds wealth over time it's, you know, not a slot machine. if you're investing, it builds wealth over time >> by the way, andrew is more sensitive to this because he doesn't block every single

person on twitter like you. >> who doesn't >> you. >> andrew doesn't block every person like you. >> yes, he does. people send me, look, i just got blocked by andrew. >> very few. >> what do you mean very few >> did you block anyone yesterday? >> if i don't understand, if there's innuendo >> a dozen people i have blocked over the years. >> i have auto block i do i love that. >> i have people who appeal to me to say i don't even know why joe blocked me, can you have him unblock me. >> there was question as to what the innuendo was anything about hair, you're blocked. anything about hair dye, you're blocked. anything about baldness, anything about age, you're blocked. some breaking news out of capitol hill just moments ago, the senate voted to approve a budget resolution, it's going to allow democrats to pass a proposed $1.9 trillion covid-19 aid plan,

without republican support anything about a split in my teeth, you're blocked. vice president kamala harris cast the tie breaking vote, the passage triggers the legislative tool known as reconciliation, which means the aid bill could be passed with a simple majority the bill now goes back to the house where it's expected to pass quickly andrew, i got something out of you. now you got the next >> i can't believe it. >> and just -- and by the way, for saying that aloud, some lovely person on twitter says you're a wonderful example, i'm a wonderful example of a young suit talking down to the common person you're everything that's wrong with wall street and that's the point. >> they're gun shy. >> that's the point of the whole situation. >> get your block ready. >> it's not about being gun shy. it's also the point of the different mindset that's about investor protection that has shifted during this period. >> you've got 800,000 followers,

block, block you've got 800,000 followers. >> they love you 99% love you that's why they follow you >> the point that's so unique about this is that people really are playing out for a lottery ticket it isn't about investing that's the distinction, as to what becky was saying. you want people to be actually investing, really investing. real investing is not day trading. it just isn't. so we can have a debate about that another time, but nonetheless. let's give you some of this other news. >> that's going to win you another twitter. >> get your finger on the block. johnson & johnson said it applied for emergency use authorization from the fda for its coronavirus vaccine and the fda has scheduled a meeting of a key committee to review the vaccine on february 26th j&j vaccine only requires one dose, it does ease logistics for health care providers. the vaccine was 66% effective overall protecting against

covid-19, the number was skewed lower by reduced efficacy against other variants j&j's vaccine was about 85% effective in preventing severe cases of covid that's very good news. the company says it's ready to begin shipping doses as soon as it receives approval, and we're expecting to hear more on that very soon. pfizer has now withdrawn its application for emergency use of the vaccine in india india's drug regulator may need additional data for approval and will resubmit the application when more information is available. india wants a small local trial on the vaccine safety and efficacy on indians. in january, they approved the use of two cheaper shots, one from astrazeneca, and one by an indian company, barat biotech. there's a lot to chew on here. hopefully india is going to have enough of this vaccine because

there are obviously an extraordinary number of people in india that's an extraordinary economy. this is a little bit of a setback on the pfizer side and potentially if there's going to be needing more studies for some of the other vaccines there too. i don't know what you guys make of that. >> i want to go back to the j&j news because i think that this is a game changer. i was really excited to hear about the emergency use authorization, official request that they put in yesterday i know the fda is considering this at the end of the month on the 26th there's a lot of pressure. i'd love to see it approved more quickly. i have been watching some scientific reporters who i've been following for a while who i trust saying look, this is the best the fda can do, they're chronically under staffed. there's a lot of data you have to go through but obviously all of us would like to see a third vaccine here in the united states get rolled out more quickly. they go back and forth, and i just want to go back to this

point, the idea that the efficacy levels are not the same as results that we saw for the mrna ones, pfizer and moderna, where they are talking about 95% efficacy lower efficacy numbers for this, but it's not an apples to apples comparison because the trials that were being run for the j&j vaccine came later when there's these other variants that are out there. a lot of their testing was done in south africa. i think they had something, this is a massive test that took place, 45,000 people, 15% of it was in south africa where you had this other south african strain running around. it proved more effective in terms of 85% cutting out the severe issues and hospitalizations, and cutting out 100% of death, even in south africa where they were running those trials, so those numbers hold true even against these other variants i think that's incredibly important. we're used to getting a flu shot which doesn't mean you're not going to get the flu, but you're less likely to get a severe case

of it. that's how people need to be looking at these things. this is going to be a game changer because in the quarter, you'll wind up, if it's approved, getting 100 million doses of j&j, that's 100 million people, and the 200 million from moderna and pfizer, you're talking about 300 million people that will be able to be vaccinated that's a serious game changer. >> you got to divide. >> 100 million for each. >> that's the thing with j&j, the 50% moderna on the first shot, so 75% or whatever it is whatever lower it is it's one shots, and easier to handle and refrigerate and, you know, get it i might get them all. >> they are running a test on two shots for j&j, i think they're half way through. >> that will be probably similar. >> yeah, running a test to see what would happen after two shots of that. >> probably 90 hopefully. >> i think it's nothing but good news >> right and you know, there are different variants, and there's

hundreds and probably thousands of different variants that we see. but this is really a great technology to modify you modify it quickly. you have to produce it after you modify it. you know the exact sequence, and it's really exciting, it's a model for what we can do with molecular genetics at this point, and even the automation of it. as all good hopefully. hopefully. but it's worrisome >> science question for you, joe. >> yeah. >> joe, science question, i understand how you can change the model very quickly on the mrna, the pfizer and moderna one, j&j and some o. of the oths same thing or is it harder >> with the messenger rna, it's a little bit different than dna. we don't need to get into all of that, but it's not that different. they're not that much more difficult to do it i was cloning things and not the cloning you think, but cloning genetic sequences, i don't even

want to say how long ago, what is it, 40 years ago, i was cloning things with plasmid, and fade, and everything else. i've done it i haven't changed the dna, but i have cloned it out of the genome it's not about me ever. >> when we come back -- >> not what? >> not about me ever i try to make it never about me, ever that's sarcasm anyway, go ahead >> when we come back, we're going to get you ready for today's jobs report. we have predictions straight ahead. as we head to a break, here's a quick round up of the latest headlines out of washington. the house voting to strip congresswoman marjorie taylor greene of her committee assignments as punishment for promoting extreme views and conspiracy theories. eleven republicans sided with the democratic majority in that vote former president donald trump quickly shot down a request to testify under oath for his senate impeachment trial. trump's lawyers called the

request a publicity stunt. "squawk box" will be right back. you saw the markets higher this morning, indicated up for the futures. traded with a touch. the gold standard, so to speak ;) ♪♪ dad, i'm scared. ♪♪ it's only human to care for those we love. and also help light their way. ♪♪ it's why last year chevron invested billions of dollars to bring affordable, reliable, ever cleaner energy to america. ♪♪ wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness.

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it's jobs friday polled forecasters expect an increase of 50,000 non-farm jobs in january after a decrease of 140,000. if you recall back in december the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 6.7%. joining us now, nela richardson,

chief economist, and michelle gi re you do not have the same opinions about how the numbers match up with consensus. you're looking for basically what the market is expecting, 100,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate to stay steady a lot of it has to do with how we're handling the pandemic. >> that's right. when adp released numbers this wednesday, we saw 175,000 private sector jobs. we expect with the bls report today those seasonality adjustments will boost leisure and hospitality. we know that's the hardest hit sector you might see well above 100,000 jobs, and hopefully see more folks coming into the labor market look for more jobs. that should keep the overall unemployment rate about the same >> michelle, i was reading and

my eyes started glazing over, but we need to talk about it because you're looking for 300,000, and liesman, if he's somewhere, his ears are burning because it has to do with the seasonal adjustments being different this year because of the pandemic, michelle >> it's not that the seasonal adjustments are different, it's that what was happening was different than what we would typically see in january, so normally you have a lot of seasonal hiring in december, and those were temporary for the most part workers that are then laid off in january. obviously in the retail sector, in the leisure and hospitality sector, with more restrictions being put on, you didn't see that typical seasonal hiring that you do over on the holidays, and so there are less workers to actually lay off in january, and the seasonals won't be expecting that. they'll be looking for a big drop they'll try to adjust to, you know, kind of smooth out that effect but, you know, the end result

will be that you'll end up reporting what looks to be a larger job gain in those sectors, and again, it's just a fact that the seasonal patterns this year are different. so we do have a 300,000 number boosted by that type of, you know, kind of an anomaly, and that isn't where we think that the current state of the labor market probably is. >> right after saying all of those nice things, you said that the good numbers we got this week are all illusory, right? >> well, it's interesting, though, i mean, your adp numbers, i wouldn't have thought would have maybe such a -- wouldn't necessarily show that same kind of anomaly, and the numbers were strong there, so we have not only seen from adp, but the ism numbers show that businesses were reporting more hiring, so it is interesting that in general labor market indicators in january have

surprise on the up side, even kind of looking through what could be noise around faulty seasonal adjustment. >> and then, nela, michelle worries that they will be on the surface positive enough that the motivation for stimulus could be lessened which would be a bad long-term. is that how you view it, you think we need 1.9 trillion >> let's be clear, we're 10 million jobs in the hole at 300,000, which would be a really strong outcome this month, even at 300,000, we're talking a very long time until we fill the hole, let alone create new jobs, let alone get permanent unemployed workers into jobs. there is still a lot of scarring in the labor narmarket, and we don't have a good sense of how many businesses that have exited who are the job creators a lot left to do it's important that the stimulus not just be dollars given but dollars employed, which means creating new jobs.

remember that those hardest hit were low income jobs do we want to bring back more low income jobs or do we want to create better jobs with infrastructure spending, with broad band investments these are the things that stimulus dollars should be directed to. let's see what hay athey actual become it's not just about the top line number in any of these things. it's not just about the 1 $1.9 trillion, it's where that money is employed, and does it create new and better jobs. >> nela, thank you, and michelle, thank you, we'll know all of the answers to these things at 8:30, and i may send this tape to lies,man, that seasonal stuff, he has done some important work, and he loves it. >> us econ geeks we love to dig into that. >> really gets the blood going for you economists. >> i can feel your enthusiasm,

thanks. >> i got all fired up. unfortunately, is it a good idea to tell people out there your four main things that bother you. i probably should not have done that >> i thought it was refreshing, actually >> you did >> to be honest. >> i opened it up, now i'm a fat balding old hair dyed person according to the block, block. all right. thank you, see you guys. andrew >> coming up on the other side of this break -- what did you say? the biden administration looking to tackle the $1.7 trillion debt load we'll tell you how companies are easing the burden. and later an update on the vaccine, the johnson & johnson candidate, the new emergency use request. dr. scott gottlieb is going to be with us to talk about all of it back in a moment ♪ the holidays weren't exactly smoo this cnbc program is sponsored by baird visit bairddifference.com.

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welcome back student debt in the united states is on the rise. topping $1.7 trillion, according to the most recent fed data and the gap in that debt held by black and white borrowers is also growing now, some employers and the federal government are taking steps that could help lessen the burden and bridge the racial divide. >> all extra money goes toward the loan. >> 31-year-old aaliyah gibson, a research specialist for new york life spends a third of her budget paying off student debt she's not tackling her college loans alone, she's getting help from an often untapped source, her employer.

>> the program pays out 10$10,2 over the course of five years, and it's $170 per month. >> according to the society for human resource management, about 8% of organizations often student loan repayment assistance as an employee benefit. vault, a leading technology platform that helps companies navigate that process says employers have a new incentive. >> now is a perfect time for employers to intervene. >> reporter: that's because the covid-19 relief package that passed last december now allows employers to make contributions of up to $5,250 a year to their employees' student debt. tax free through 2025. employees don't have to pay taxes on those contributions either and gibson says there's another big bonus. >> you, one, are saving money on not paying interest, and you're paying down the principle, which is the name of the game to paying off your student loans. >> reporter: borrowers got a break from accruing interest and

making monthly payments on federal student loans, starting in march under the c.a.r.e.s act. and after one of president biden's first executive orders, that pause will now last until at least october 1st but it's temporary relief. >> a pause only delays the inevitable, which is the student loan debt still exists >> reporter: and can play a significant role in future wealth studies shows black young adults start their careers with more student debt than quits, and that disparity grows over time as white borrowers pay down faster the average net wealth of -- >> having employers, and individual borrowers work on paying down debt is a strategy gibson hopes can close the racial wealth gap. >> for people like myself and other people of color, this helps close that gap

tremendously, because once again, you are able to take control over your financial situation. >> and as companies compete to attract the best and most diverse work force, vault ceo says offering student loan repayment assistance can be a powerful tool for retention and recruitment. advocates are also pushing for congress to make the tax incentives around this employee benefit permanent. becky. >> hey, sharon, just in terms of the employee benefit of student loan repayment assistance, how much of a dent do you think that that could actually make in the overall borrower's debt? >> well, when you consider that the average borrower who graduates from under grad has about $30,000 in debt, and the average monthly payment is about 40 $400 a month, this is making a significant dent in that average amount, $26,250 over the course of five years if an employer

contributes the maximum that's allowed according to this legislation, could wipe out debt for a lot of people. it's definitely something that i think more and more companies are considering. especially now with the tax advantages >> it's great to hear. thank you for joining us, sharon, and by the way, thanks for getting back to me on that other thing. i know i owe you a phone call. i'll call you this weekend see you. >> definitely. and you look great in red. go red >> thank you, you too. that's right joe, by the way, when we came back, i don't know if you noticed, i said welcome back, welcome back twice. >> i noticed. >> i saw what was happening. >> tell me. >> because that's what twitter -- i had somebody on twitter telling me you were talking about the hate things, you were talking about the things people hate, the guy was razzing me for saying welcome back, he hates that. somebody else said you should say it twice, and i said i will. >> you shouldn't say i hate things, too. it's just an expression. we tell kids that, and then you said i hate very view.

>> welcome back. >> and that was a person, a nice person, who said i'm with you. i never change the channel, so you don't need to welcome me back it's you that went away. >> we're just playing sgr. >> working on a rap version of you're blocked i don't know how to do this. can someone who knows how to do audio, i want to see that, and they said i'm on it. crypto somebody, i like them. and andrew, when we're going to break, i say i want you to cop the things that would really get you if people send it in do you have people the courage to give people your soft underbelly that's a double entandre, do you have the courage to do that? what is your soft underbelly, you don't have one, do you >> i have no courage, no courage. >> that's your soft underbelly. >> coming up, an update on the clover health story that we told you about yesterday. that's coming up next. as we head to break, here's a

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welcome back to "squawk box. we've got an update now on a story we told you about yesterday. shares of clover health falling after hin denburg research, calling it a quote broken business, chamath palihapitiya holds a 27% stake in clover and brought it public through a spac in a response issued just moments ago, cloud cover reporting that the report is rife with sweeping inaccuracies, and gross mischaracterizations, and saying that hindenburg did not contact clover prior to publishing the report. it did receive notice of an s.e.c. investigation and says it intends to fully cooperate, and more importantly, it acknowledges that hindenburg's research of saying that there's

a department of justice inquiry taking place and that they're cooperating with that inquiry was, in fact, true, and something that they did not disclose they said they did not disclose it at the behest of their lawyers who said it would not necessarily be required to be disclosed, argue it was not material but in fact, chamath palihapitiya, and other investors and people involved in this transaction clearly knew about it as partof the diligence process in advance of course, the public did not know about that in advance, they're now saying they didn't have to tell the public about it in advance saying that there are lots of inquiries in the medicare space like this, and that this was quote unquote, i don't know if they used the worry routine but that was the idea that they were trying to get across this is going o rto raise all ss of questions about this particular transaction but again, goes to the bigger question around diligence in the context of an ipo or a spac versus an ipo, and what's

required in terms of disclosure. >> andrew, what do you think on that it seems to me that is an obvious. if there's a department of justice investigation, and oh, by the way, medicare, a government payor is your biggest source of income, almost your primary and only source of income, that seems like it would certainly be something, if it was an ipo, you would have to disclose you think that spacs are that much looser? i know it's a little bit of a gray area, but i can't believe that would be something you didn't have to disclose. >> maybe it's the same they're saying here that their underwriters understood it, the lawyers understood it, and they deemed that it was not quote unquote material to disclose. >> smells crappy >> it is true -- in this day and age, smells crappy, with everything going on. so retail, the poor retail people, you know, that might have been involved in buying the spac, that they didn't need to know, andrew, and mr. chamath, mr. retail proponent, you know,

i'm a billionaire but i love you, and i'm one of you, it just wreaks, doesn't it s >> i'm going to tell you what they said. they do it as a q and a and they ask the question, how could a doj inquiry not be considered material information they write as heavily regulated organizations, they request information from regulatory bodies these are typically confidential we promptly respond to the requests i agree with you. >> wouldn't you error on the side of more than less. >> 100%. 100 100%. >> that rings hollow, doesn't it sounds like lawyer speak, you know the other thing is i read that hindenburg report yesterday, and there were so many things they brought up. again, we haven't heard the response from chamath palihapitiya or more of a response from clover, which doesn't sound like they took on a great number of issues that

were brought up but, you know, just the idea that chamath was given a big part of this go ahead >> no, all i was going to say is it is a -- this document is long they do respond to virtually every accusation. >> every point >> in it, you have to decide as a reader. >> it is point by point. it goes point by point it will take you -- they run it on medium, and they actually tell you it takes 18 minutes to read it's not a short statement this is a very lengthy response. but as a reader, and as an investor, i think you have to go through it and decide wlhether you think the answers are acceptable kw when i say acceptable, they are forthcoming as they acknowledge the investigation,s, you have to decide whether that's okay, and that's the distinction here. >> there were a lot of charges in the hindenburg report on

every level from up coding, whether they're doing things like that, you know, and even just what chamath's role was in all of this. how much money does he have on the line with this he's there to potentially be the guy who does due diligence on this and promote it is it sounds like a lot of this is getting paid for and it's promotion. >> up coding, they have a question, was chamath aware of the investigation, when he went on cnbc, by the way, including when he said that they don't motivate doctors to up code or do all things in order to get paid, and their answer, and this is why said, it's a very odd document in so far as they acknowledge things in a unique way. that's why you as an investor have to make a decision, they say we agree as does chamath, that up coding is a significant problem in the medicare advantage industry and chamath was fully aware that we have built the cloud cover assistant to address the problems

addressed by other insurers. it doesn't say whether they don't have code. >> it doesn't say whether they were up coding. >> that's my point so they do, in certain ways, they are acknowledging certain things but then they're not. this is going to be a case study when it's all over >> yeah. we're definitely going to hear more about this. the stock this morning up by about 3.8%, but pretty significant, andrew, you right, that they acknowledged this department of justice investigation that was there before but now there's an s.e.c. investigation, too, based on what hindenburg came out with this we're going to hear a lot more about this when we return, though, peloton posting a big earnings beat, but the stock is taking a hit this morning. we'll tell you why, next. then, johnson & johnson filing for emergency use authorization for its vaccine candidate. dr. scott gottlieb will join us and tell us what comes next.

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shares of peloton are under pressure this morning. the company came in with earnings of $0.18 a share, and that was double what the street was expecting. revenue was slightly higher than expected, too, and the company raised its full year outlook, but it warned that it still faces hurdles in trying to get products to customers quickly amid the demand surge.

that was a big problem at the end of last year peloton plans to invest more than $100 million in air freight, and expedited ocean f freight over the next six months to speed deliveries. the company said that would dampen near term profitability and would improve the member experience for the long haul that stock down by about 6.9%. >> yep coming up on the other side of this break, the latest on the vaccine news with j&j. we're going to talk with dr. scott gottlieb who's going to join us after the break check out shares of sanofi, the french drug maker posting better than expected quarterly results. that stock up 2% this morning, and promising more cost cuts as it looks to increase margins sanofi facing pressure to deliver a vaccine after it warned in december the vaccine it was developing with glaxosmithkline showed an insufficient immune response in older people we're back right after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box. j&j submitting its approval for a vaccine. one shot is higher than the total number of u.s. infections. i want to bring in former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib. he's a cnbc contributor. it's great to see you, scott, this morning they've now put this in to the fda. how quickly do you think we're going to hear back how quickly can we get the jab >> well, the fda scheduled an advisory committee for later this month on the 26th if the past precedent is p prologue here, they'll make an authorization after that they did a lot of the work in advance.

so if things go well and the data supports an authorization here, which we think it will based on what we've seen put out by the company already, i think you could have this available by early march. remember, j&j will be prepared to supply the market at least in that first month with tens of millions of doses. you know, they've talked about maybe 30 or 40 million doses within the first month possibly based on some of the public statements that's a lot of additional supply coming into the market in march in addition to the upwards of 220 million doses that will be supplied by moderna and pfizer by the end of march so i think we're going to have a lot of supply in the market if this does get authorized the situation in terms of availability is going to change quite dramatically towards the end of march. >> scott, speak to the issue of distribution obviously one of the benefits of the j&j vaccine is the refrigeration issue is not an issue. are there certain places in the country that you think are going to get this in a way that maybe they weren't getting the pfizer and moderna drug

also, is there going to be a battle over consumers wanting to get one or the other given some of the efficacy numbers that we've heard already? >> yeah. we have to wait and see what fda does, whether or not this gets a broad label or whether or not the data allows the agency to try to authorize this in certain targeted populations we don't know what the data shows and whether or not there's a difference in efficacy across different groups including age and co-morbidity it's possible it could get a different label than the other products assuming it doesn't, i think you will see this pushed into pharmacies and other austere situations the others will be put into large distribution sites where they have equipment on hand to handle the vaccines in the ultracold storage. i suspect that this vaccine is going to get thrown into the mix, that it's not going to be

distributed in a special way where consumers are going to be able to say i'm going to this site to get this vaccine or this site to get another vaccine unless the fda does give a label that's a little bit more narrow than the other products. >> what do you think the chance is that those who are taking the j&j vaccine will end up getting a second shot if, in fact, the studies come back that show that a booster improves the situation and its efficacy >> yeah, we have to wait and see what the data shows. i would say the chance is probably pretty good i think that data is going to show you get an increment in efficacy we've seen that with all of the other vaccines when you deliver a second dose. one of the benefits is you develop antibodies to the vector itself, the delivery vehicle j&j has shown with a lot of the data that this sort of eludes the immune system and you don't

develop neutralizing antibodies to the vector itself that lends itself to a second dose this is my hunch, but i would expect the data to look good at getting increments of the second dose people who get the first dose may well when the supply is available come back to get a boost. the other thing you're seeing in the literature and discussions among virologists is whether or not you can mix and match vaccines there will be studies using a viral vector vaccine and boosting it with an mrna and vice versa you're trying to elicit a fuller complement there's question whether a viral vector vaccine can elicit more of a t cell response could you stimulate multiple arms of the immune system? i think you'll see more data coming out towards the fall looking at that. >> scott, what do you mean when you say they could give a narrower prescription from the

fda in terms of who would be using it would it go to people who are not in high risk populations what do you mean >> we don't know what the data looks like, right? there was a decline in efficacy with the existing vaccines we don't know if it's showing lower efficacy across the board. mind you, it's a very he efficacious vaccine. we don't know whether or not it's showing declines in efficacy in certain subgroups or whether or not that's across all subgroups and you really can't identify a patient who isn't deriving the same level of benefit. if the fda is able to look at the data, this is just speculation, i don't have any idea that the vaccine is demonstrating this, but if you see that people over a certain age are the ones who are experiencing more of the great infections or people with certain co-morbid conditions, the fda is able to identify that, you might see a label that's a little bit more nuanced. that's why the fda is going to

provide a lot of insight from the review. >> scott, thank you so very, very much. we'll talk to you soon have a great weekend by the way, super bowl be careful at the super bowl if you're having super bowl parties -- basically don't have super bowl parties, right? that's the point. >> don't cheer don't do anything. coming up, we're going to get you ready for today's employment report just 90 minutes away full report with 50,000 nonfarm mi rhtacbs congig bk.

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futures pointing to a higher open with wall street trying to turn its best week since november. there's no shortage of big corporate stories this morning including johnson & johnson, ford, peloton and more we'll run you through what you need to watch. and it is super bowl weekend. we're going to talk commercials, betting, and the big business behind the big game. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen u.s. equity futures 2 1/2 hours before the market opens on friday morning all these numbers could move

around a lot we'll get some of the job numbers but right now the dow looks like it would open up $141 higher s&p 500 looking to open, we'll call it 18.5 points higher right now. got some headlines for you we are less than 90 minutes away from the january jobs report economists looking for a nonfarm payroll list to increase by $50,000 jobs that's the number to beat. the unemployment rate expected to remain steady at 6.7% after working all night the senate approved a bumming be get resolution that will ultimately allow democrats to pass a $1.9 trillion covid package without republican support vice president harris cast the tie-breaking vote a move triggering what's known as reconciliation, which will allow the senate to pass the aid bill with just a simple majority. regeneron reported a profit of $9.53 per share, beat the

consensus estimate of $8.39. results boosted in part by a 10% jump in sales of its i drawing ila. >> i don't know. >> thanks, andrew. joe, just so you know, that you let us know you hate that song, too, which is the same thing's everything going on. >> i was going to block greco. ♪ ♪ >> i'm going to block you and i'm not going to follow you. >> yeah. >> i heard -- i heard an ending version of it, greco there's cover. start playing some -- i don't know the name of it. >> well, no, because thatwould make you happy we want to do what annoys you most. >> okay. one more thing, if it is pronounced ilea, we've got to play that song that is a -- do you know that song

aaliyah? >> no. >> it's a great rock song. next time you do that, andrew, we're going to have that in the background for your read about regeneron. $500 i've got to see what that market cap is because we know the guy, right? len. rgen he's got to be worth about -- oh, no that's not rgen. what's the -- that's repligen. regn maybe. >> regn. >> that's tregn. it's going to be up today. $60 billion. just amazing >> wow >> you know, guy's young >> tell you about another big story -- you what? >> he's young. the guy that started the whole thing. yeah. >> he is yeah he is. frequently on the show. let's tell you about another story we've been following today too. cracks may be starting to form in the spac boom as they come under scrutiny from short sellers. leslie picker joins us with more on that. we were talking about one of these stories front and center with what happened yesterday

with clover. >> chamath palihapitiya who's credited with the idea of taking ipo candidates public via spac, he tweeted this about the process on wednesday spacs may be easy to raise but they are hard to execute and success isn't guaranteed the following day one of palihapitiya's recent spac deals became the subject of a short seller's report. as you mentioned, becky, hindenburg research calling clover health a broken business facing an active undisclosed doj investigation. the research questions palihapitiya's due diligence hindenburg usually takes short positions, it didn't with this specific instance. clover responding in a lengthy response which included their note saying that they have not received any civil investigative demands or subpoenas from the doj, but a request for information from the doj which it responded to voluntarily. the stock plummeted 12%

yesterday anyway, and it's worth noting that cnbc has not independently verified hindenburg's claims. clover is just the latest company that's gone public via spac shortly thereafter targeted by short sellers. others include muddy waters short on multi-plan and hindenburg's report last year on nikola they have said publicly spac mergers are potential targets for them there's about $100 billion worth of spac capital chasing deals, many of which need to be signed in the next year or so that could lead to hasty due diligence, higher valuations inked. the efforts may be complicated by the recent backlash against short sellers prompted by that short squeeze. guys >> i read the hindenburg report yesterday and i started going through this response from clover it's pretty long more than 19 points.

through 16 right now but there is some pretty heavy duty back and forth and hindenburg kind of acknowledged that shorts have really come under pressure recently and tried to lay out the case for why he thinks the shorts really provide a service in the market with issues like this. it will be interesting to see how much traction that picks up. >> yeah. i think that was honestly one of the more interesting take aways from the report, the fact that they spent four months of -- and a lot of resources it's not easy to put together these reports, and then they didn't even take a short position to profit from the stock declining 12%. they said that the reason is because they wanted to show that short sellers can, you know, do more than just profit from a stock declining, that they can expose fraud in other areas of malfeasance in the market. of course, clover disputes those claims but hindenburg's point was more just that look at all of this deep research that we have been doing and we're not even profiting from the stock

declining. >> i thought it was interesting that clover complained about the short sellers not contacting them first hello? you thought that was going to happen before they put the report out that's not really how it works not a reporter. >> they don't usually do that. right. right. >> hey, leslie, what's your take on this issue about the disclosure of this doj inquiry and the fact that clover acknowledging it it was something that had never been disclosed before. shareholders would have not learned of it had it not been for hindenburg, however, clover saying chamath palihapitiya knew about it it appears the company's lawyers and other underwriters understood it, knew about it, said it wasn't material and therefore wasn't required to be disclosed. do you buy that? >> reporter: that's something i want to -- yeah. i want to check in with some more sources on that today because i'm not as well versed on the various levels of doj

inquiry and whether this rises to something that would be material for investors to know i think a lot of companies do tend to err on, you know, more information is better than less. it can't actually hurt you to disclose something like this as opposed -- unless it, of course, you know, reveals something that's proprietary or the secret sauce to a product from a spac manager's standpoint, from a company's standpoint, i think shareholders would prefer more disclosure thanless whether it's problematic from a legal standpoint, i'm not exactly sure at this point in time >> leslie, thank you we'll check in with you, if not later on this show, definitely later throughout the day as you learn more good to see you. coming up, the ceo of penn

gaming on this weekend -- aaliyah. aaliyah, sorkin. perfect for you. aaliyah. donnie iris. anyway, coming up, penn gaming right before the big game, the relationship with this guy, barstool sports founder and the captain of day traders he'll block you if you call him a suit anyway, before we head to break, let's get a check on the markets. "squawk box" will be right back.

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penn national gyming shares hitting new highs. they have a partnership with barstool sports. the super bowl weekend is expected to be the biggest sports betding weekend joining us is jay snowden. adjusted ebitda is what you would prefer as a metric, would you say, at this point, jay? >> yeah, i think so. adjusted ebitda is typically what -- how we judge, you know, profitability within the industry our fourth quarter was impacted by some state closures that came through. we had to shut down our properties for a second time in illinois, pennsylvania, and michigan we've since reopened those properties and as i mentioned on the call yesterday, we had our best friday/saturday combination this past weekend in terms of slot volumes since q1 of 2020.

when we reopen and there's relaxing of curfews and restrictions, people want to get out of the house, they want to do something fun we obviously offer that for people across the country. >> can't not -- can't talk to you if we don't talk about barstool, whether you're ever going to own all of it, how it's adding to the results. you know, anyone else think it's ironic that your big name, portnoy, all he had to do was buy penn gaming. didn't have to screw around with anything else. what's the low it's at 120. what's the low >> down to $4 in march of 2020. >> $4. your stock might actually -- i could actually make a case that the valuation here, while obviously high, but i at least understand it in the real world to some extent i just wonder, why didn't he tell all his friends to buy that >> well, dave did quite well for himself because -- >> i bet he did. maybe that's why he -- maybe

that's where he gets the play money for the other stuff. >> when we acquired 36% of barstool, the way he structured that, the key principles, dave being number one on that list with eric nardini and big cat, it was in penn stock and 45 in cash they've all done well. we've been along for a heck of a roller coaster dipped from 30 down to 4 and a ride back up to wherever we are at the moment, 110, $115 after a good call yesterday. super excited. there's a lot going on i'm sure there's a lot you want to get to on this interview. >> i want to know about your plans for the sportsbook, barstool sportsbook. you launched in michigan in january. you're in pennsylvania how many states will you be in in a perfect world what would that mean for the company? >> so we're live in two right now as you mentioned, joe. we went live in pennsylvania in

september. great results. our goal in every state is to be top three in market share, number one in profitability. we're delivering on that now in pennsylvania i'm confident we're going to deliver on that in michigan. we launched two fridays ago. two weeks ago we had 50,000 registrations of our app and 26,000 first-time depositors in the app. $27.5 million in handle. we're well positioned. to answer your question, we're planning to be live in at least ten states by the end of the year as you and i are hopefully doing a preview of the super bowl next year, we're hopefully in more than 10 states and live in more than two. >> you already get 100% of the sports betting from barstool only own 36% of it it obviously would be synergistic to buy the rest, but if you're already getting 100% of the revenue, would it make sense as a media company to -- if you're going to transform more into that or if it's just

core gaming, do you just stay with what you have now >> well, we've already agreed on the front end, joe, that our ownership is going to bump up. we go from 36% to 50% at the third anniversary. there's put call rights after three years. somewhere between 50% and 100% owners of barstool sports, the media company, which i'm thrilled about eric nardini would tell you they had their best year ever in 2020 their revenues and their ebitda were up significantly year over year they pivot from just being a sports media company to all things lifestyle, davie day trader, unboxy ceremonies and now he's helping small businesses across the country through the barstool fund. i couldn't ask for a better partnership, dave's my guy, eric is great, big cat. i couldn't have it any better from a partnership standpoint. >> hey, jay.

complicated question for you given your support for dave. how do you think about dave portnoy in the context of being a key man for the success of barstool the reason i ask the question, there are people online that are furious with him there are people saying that he should be sued, that the sec should investigate him effectively as one of the people that manipulated the stock or part of a pump and dump. you could see real -- look, we don't know if anything is going to happen in that regard, but given all of his various roles and a lot of the things he says off the cuff, how do you think about the key man risk from a shareholder perspective related to dave portnoy? >> well, look, dave -- dave is a entrepreneur down to the core. he started barstool in 2003 in his parents' basement. he's turned it from that and two employees to over 250. they've got 80 people that create content he's a marketing genius and i think that, you know, look,

there's different ways to look at what happened with this gamestop issue i think dave makes some good points around some of the concerns and we'll see where this goes. i think time will tell but, you know, dave -- dave is certainly going to be vocal about how he feels. i applaud him for that i think that his audience is loyal because of how real dave is and he's full of transparency, even as a day trader he makes it very clear where he places his bets and what stocks he owns, when he sells them so we'll see where it goes. i think dave being true to dave, being true to his fans and i think he feels like, you know, retail day traders were wronged in how they were halted from being able to buy the stock when everybody else on the other side was able to continue to buy, sell, short the stock on the same day we'll see where this goes, but i think there is reason to -- you know, on both sides maybe to have some concern. >> he is amazing he's bigger than life. for some of us that don't -- aren't thrilled with the cancel culture, he's kind of a -- kind

of a folk hero you know the story of ikeras, sooner or later they try to get you. you fly too close to the son he's not a suit. are you a suit, jay? do you know? do you -- you're not a suit, are you? >> i'm not a suit. >> you do not want to be a suit? dave's world >> i'll tell you, i have my own quick suit story my mom's a poker dealer i grew up in a poker family. my mom said the suits don't talk to them, the suits kick the chair when they're not dealing fast enough. i've never been a suit for different reasons that dave don't like suits. >> i don't wear a jacket i've got that. so i've got that going for me. when we had draftkings on, they talked about people not being back at work so there's no office pools >> yes. >> they weren't making as much money. same thing with you?

>> well, we don't make money on office pools. >> you don't >> we make money when people are bething on sports inside the casino and online. i think what you're going to find this year, joe, maybe office pool spend is down but betting online on legal sports books across the country is going to be exponential from what it was last year and the year before. we're excited about that we're in two states today and we have some special, unique bets that dave portnoy came up with he picked up five different personality. everybody gets 10,000 bucks. whoever has the most money winner keeps all as the retail fan, if you bet $100 on the super bowl, you get randomly assigned to one of these five personalities, if your personality wins at the end of the super bowl, you get $1,000 dropped into your account. pennsylvania, michigan, download the app. have some fun with us. have some fun with dave. enjoy the game >> it's a lot of fun, jay, the sportsbook i do -- did a four way parlay, just missed. i had cincinnati, i had the

under. i lost with arizona. utah beat -- >> should have bet a 15 parlay. >> i had a four game. >> should have had a three game. >> i had ohio state. i had ohio state i had three gate calls and then utah killed arizona. on $3 i would have made like $38. >> yeah. >> i just missed it. >> three teams next time three game parlay. >> is three better, jay? >> yeah, better chance of winning. >> half of half -- that's like a 1 out of 16 chance, a four way, isn't it >> good half, joe. >> thank you i know enough to be dangerous to myself anyway, thank you. jay, it's good having you on jay, not a suit, snowden see you later. >> see you, joe. see you, andrew. >> nice to see you coming up on the other side of this break, retail investors learning about the ups and downs in the market, and they may also get a painful lesson in tax

surprises. we're going to have that story when we return check out shares of ford a surprise profit of 34 cents per share versus an expected loss of 7 cents. ford plans to invest $22 billion in electric vehicles and 7 billion in self-driving vehicles "squawk" returns after this. time now for today's aflac trivia question. how many pounds of chicken wings are consumed on super sunday the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues o the mailbox and there it was - a medical bill for twelve-hundred dollars. i had no idea i'd have to pay that. that's right. it's hard to know exactly what your health insurance is going to cover, so you gotta protect your blind side. aflac! aflac pays you money directly to help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. really? aflac.

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now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. how many pounds of chicken wings are consumed on super sunday the answer, 1.25 billion did he just say 1.25 billion. welcome back a couple of corporate headlines this morning the january employment report is going to be released at 8:30 a.m. eastern time this morning that release is expected to show

that non-farm payrolls rose by 50,000 in january. consensus forecast also predicts that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.7%. peloton doubled consensus estimates in reporting quarterly profit of 18 cents a share while the revenue came in above estimates as well. it was concerns about how much it's going to cost to get everything shipped on time and speedier they're going to be paying a lot more for air freight and some of the ocean freight that they're shipping things. as a result, that stock is down by 7.6%. as i mentioned, peloton will be incurring extra costs from those things. gilead sciences beating estimates by 4 cents with adjusted earnings of $2.19 a share. revenue coming in above wall street forecast. it has an antiviral treatment re remdesivir that stock this morning up 2.6%. still to come on "squawk box" this morning, the battle

between retail investors and wall street could have tax implications for the small guy we'll talk about that after this break. flexshares are carefully constructed. to go beyond ordinary etfs. and strengthen client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully. how am i doing? for a prospectus contsome say this is mytion. greatest challenge ever. governments in record debt; inflation rising and currencies falling. but i've seen centuries of rises and falls.

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♪ ♪ ♪ i think everybody's cutting this you know what, we may be able to get a springstein version. springstein style version of this i'm big. look at me look at me i've always wanted to do that, to be towering over -- yeah. look at -- look. there's not a whole lot of people down there today. >> you're like king kong. >> that's right. retail investors are learning about the ups and downs of the market they may also get a painful lesson in tax surprises. that happens every april 15th,

an anyway robert frank joins us now. even more painful? >> even more fatal to these people that are new to this market and haven't been through this tax system before accountants and tax preparers are getting flooded with new business from stock traders just getting their 2020 tax bills here are the three most common and costly tax surprises that these new traders are seeing one, many didn't know that gains on a stock held for less than a year taxed at ordinary income rates. that's a short-term gain that could be as high as 37% on that tax rate rather than the 20% that is the normal top tax rate for capital gains also, you have a lot of mistakes around loss trades you sell a stock at a stock and buy it back and the rule says you have to wait at least 30 days for the buy back. many sold their losing positions in late ecember, but it back i early january thinking they would get that loss for 2020, but because they didn't do it within 30 days, it means they

can't use that tax loss. lastly, a lot of them use local brokers. unless they combine all of the 1099b statements, bought one at robinhood, sold one at schwab, their actual tax bill could be higher they have to net all of that together one piece of advice for the gamestop traders between now and april 15th, you've got to elect mark to market for your 2021 returns. that's also known as section 475. if you don't do that, the capital losses that you can deduct against your other taxes for this year is capped at $3,000 now with mark to market you can use the entire loss, whatever that may have been, against any gains this year. so that could save these traders a ton of money if they do that but, again, you've got to mark that on your 2020 returns to apply to 2021. joe? >> all right, robert

give me the -- just handicap on a different subject the real possibility that the cap goes away what would you say the probability or the odds on that are? it's so much money i just can't imagine they could afford to do that >> i'd say 40% the more likely scenario is that cap goes from 10,000 to, say, 25,000 but getting rid of it entirely, you've covered so well, we've covered so well how it helps the top 1%. you can raise the cap but getting rid of it altogether, i think even moderate democrats are going to say that's tough to sell with the progressive party for a tax break that's costly and helps those at the top >> although we have democrats in new jersey who say they're trying to help their constituents they don't look at their constituents who it benefits and who it doesn't >> rich people, what is your story? make up your mind.

anyway, thanks, robert andrew >> okay. we're going to take this topic on right now for a closer look at the tax considerations of these trades i want to welcome in joel griffith, research fellow with the heritage foundation. >> do you think they don't understand >> i can say even the most informed, intelligent investors when they begin trading, often times they don't understand the tax implications i am concerned a lot of them are going to be very surprised, number one, by the higher bill because this will be taxed with ordinary taxation. a lot of them might not be reporting properly if you don't fully report what the sales prices were, you might end up with a bill from the irs far in excess of your actual income and it will take a number of hours to work through that

properly i recommend finding a good accountant for this coming tax season if you've been actively trading. > do you have tax advice to younger traders? >> i don't want to say anyone is required there are a lot of questions a lot of people will lack answers for this year at the federal and state level. the new retail investors who, you know, ran this bubble and do not know the tax implications. people who are working remotely in another state who have tax requirements there that know nothing about this 2021 is going to be the year of tax surprises. the bottom line is if you had any circumstances changes, you might want to talk to a tax preparer sooner than later entities working with these individuals like a trading platform like robinhood, providing that information sooner rather than later could

save them a lot of money. >> joel, what do you think the chances are there will be a tax reform proposal that gets passed and to make this more complicated is retroactive >> i think passing any substantial tax reform in the current senate will be an uphill battle we saw so much progress a few years ago, the generation that lowered taxes on income earners, on those taking risks in our economy, on investors. i think there was a recognition there was a boost to economic growth there is a concern there will be a boost to the short term and discourage the type of trading that we saw. we have to recognize and realize what we saw with gamestop, that is a tiny fraction right now that's less than 1/10. i'm sorry, 1/10,000th.

that would be a mistake. >> joel, but take the stock part ought of it or this particular episode out of it. do you think that we should have a tax policy that appears to benefit those that are in the effectively day trading business rather than the investing business wouldn't you want to come up with a tax policy that makes sure that people are incentivized to make long-term investments, not short-term investments? >> well, unfortunately, some of the recommendations, such as a financial taxation tax or tax on high frequency trading, people fail to recognize that tha hurts regular investors as well. it diminishes liquidity. it means you have to earn slightly less when you get out of a position. that adds up over time we've crunched the numbers at the heritage foundation. it shows this adds tens of thousands of dollars a year in costs even to a typical middle

class ira once you compound the interest recognize there are lots of impacts to what you think is only those at the top or day trading as a business. >> jarrett, i assume you're on the other side of this one >> no, i agree with him on this. you want to be careful with this there's been some suggestion you could do that for everyone all of these things, you can look at "the game" stop situation and say this would prevent be it, but it wouldn't what it would do is impact all retail investors and change the overall landscape. financial transaction tax is going to make it difficult to invest in certain equities it's going to affect not only the liquidity but the market information we have. if you want to avoid these run away stock trades, if you want to avoid a bubble that is driven for some reason, you want information. you want liquidity

these could interfere with that. >> let me ask both of you about the idea of either making a capital -- raising the capital gains rate to an income rate for people over a certain level or having a version of an ant across the board, call it the buffet rule if you want. do you think that makes sense? do you actually think it would reduce real investment >> i think increasing the short terms capital gains rate would be a mistake that's because increasing taxes on whatever you're increasing it on means you're going to have less than that i understand there's not as much value for short-term investments as there are for long-term investments. they're stepping in saying we're favoring one investment time horizon over longer. gamestop, i understand most people might not recognize the value of that, but that's a tiny drop in the overall bucket there are many, many growing companies that are riskier

ventures and need a capital and know the risk is higher and recognize they can get out quickly if they need to. disincentivizing investments, that's going to have repercussions as well that need to be thought through if we're making these type of changes. >> jared, final word to you. >> yeah. joel's right on that i think it's important for people to recognize there isn't this distinction usually at the state level. ordinary apply to the short and long-term gains except in massachusetts where there's a 12% gain for the short term. be aware you are getting the lower term rates at the federal level and not at your state. >> okay. we're going to leave it there. thank you both, gentlemen. appreciate it much it's a longer debate i'm sure we're going to have more of it this year have a great weekend super bowl is coming up. enjoy your sunday. becky? >> that's right. super bowl ads are going to look a little different this year, too.

we're going to be talking about brand strategy right after this. also, check out shares of activision they reported an adjusted profit of $1.21 a share that beat the street's expected consensus of 3 cents they gave an upbeat 2021 forecast with the call of duty franchise. up 8.4% this morning "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back welcome back here's a quick roundup of the latest headlines out of washington the senate voted to approve a budget resolution that allowed them to pass the $1.9 trillion covid-19 aid plan without republican support vice president kamala harris would pass the tie breaking vote the passage triggers the legislative tool well known as reconciliation the aid bill can be passed with a simple majority. it now goes back to the house where it's expected to pass quickly. the house voted to strip, meanwhile, congresswoman marjorie taylor greene her committee assignments as

punishment for extreme views and conspiracy theories. 11 republicans sided with the democratic majority. the former president quickly shot down a request to testify under oath for the senate impeachment trial. trump's lawyers called the request a publicity stunt. all right. coming up and -- >> thank you, joe. no, no, no, solidarity i heard you say welcome back twice. welcome back welcome back >> i have something i wanted you back for this is huge ♪ ♪ >> going to break. >> the boss. ♪ i don't care if monday's blue ♪ >> e. street version >> this is a great version. >> this is good. >> it's friday >> coming up >> our children, not all of them, i wanted you back. i wanted you back, becky i didn't think andrew would like

it are you okay with this, andrew too much too much, isn't it just too much? you know what, they tell me we have to get back to business news again we will. >> we're going to talk super bowl. >> it's a super bowl ads and this year there's an extravaganza of super bowl advertisers. we'll get a preview of what to expect and how talk about the ad landscape changed since the start of the pandemic. here are the futures at this hour we'll be right back. it used to be that brainstorming required a whiteboard and squeaky markers,

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welcome back, everybody. this sunday's super bowl is going to look different for fans and for advertisers. major brands like coca-cola, pepsi and budweiser have decided not to run ads joining us to talk about the ad strategy is andrew robertson andrew, this is going to look different this time around a little shocking to hear brands that have been there for more than 20 years won't be there this time around what do you think of that decision >> i mean, i think each case is slightly different if you take pepsi, they're not running an ad but they are still obviously sponsoring the

halftime show with the weekend and they have air time booked in that for cheetos and doritoss. coke has pulled out. i don't know the reasons but i know obviously coke with its big fruit service business has had a very challenging year. this may just be a question of cutting costs. and budweiser, you had the ceo on the show talking about doing something different. taking the money putting it into the budget through the ad council to get people vaccinated each is slightly different >> do you think this is going to be something that changes permanently? or do you think next year it's going to be game on again, back to business as usual with all of the same brands? >> well, i think it will depend what happens for the brands that are going to be on it. there are some off, but there are 19 new advertisers in this year's super bowl, some of whom

have done particularly well through the pandemic, like doordash, uber eats and even, you know, the story of the week, robinhood. so it will depend what they're trying to achieve. i would be surprised if some of those advertisers who are out this year aren't back in the future >> how much does an ad cost this time >> well, nobody knows exactly, but we think about 5.5 million, which is down slightly from last year last year was about 5.6 for 30 seconds. they sold out eventually a few weeks ago. it took a lot longer to sell out. that's not surprising. nobody was clear a lot of people held back before committing >> you know, the one thing i wondered is just how valuable that -- you know, this is a congregation of a lot of eye balls. it's a smaller number than it used to be how much of that, you know,

decline in the price is just because of covid and what's happened this time and how much of it is just the way we change our viewing and how we see things >> what's interesting is if you look at viewing of linear broadcast television, it's obviously down significantly through covid as a fundamental change down 20 to 30% in primetime, but if you look at the nfl, it's only been down 7% across the regular season and actually the championship games have audiences that were higher than they were last year. and i'm reasonably hopeful that the audience for the super bowl itself will be at least as high as it was last year and possibly higher just to put it in context, i've been trying to do the math on this we have 101 million people watch it last year that's 21 billion minutes viewed netflix got all excited about bridgerton being the biggest streaming success with 82

million households reached their definition of a reach is somebody watching 2 minutes of a streaming show so i'm willing to bet that the super bowl is bigger than the whole of "bridgerton." >> wow okay potentially. i don't think i'd take the other side of that bet against you let me ask you just about the advertising industry overall because it has been such a difficult year we're seeing so many different industries that have gotten hit and hammered as people aren't going out, they're not eating out, they're not traveling, doing any of those things. one way the companies have tried to make up for it is on things that they would normally spend on i would guess advertising budgets are one of the first things to get chopped for the companies and industries hit hard you did mention there are some industries that have done well as a whole, is there more or less money floating around in

this industry right now? >> through 2020 it was down. obviously it was down because as you point out, lots of industries have -- >> how much? >> i think if you look at the total media spend, i think it was down 14 or 15% across the year, but within that there were very significant movements obviously digital media grew all the way through 2020 because of significant shift in the way consumers were not only consuming information but also shopping there was a huge rise, had been a huge rise in online shopping we've all experienced it. >> how long -- yeah. how long do you think it will take before things normalize or will it? >> no, i don't think they'll normalize. i think we're moving forward into a new chapter rather than going back to where we were. a lot of those habits that consumers have developed aren't going to change. if you got used to spending much

more of your -- or doing much more of your shopping online, just because you can suddenly go back to the store doesn't mean you necessarily will certainly not for everything so i think some things will change and have changed for good one of the interesting side effects of all of that though is some research we've done is that where people are going into stores, they're what we're calling mission shopping they want to go in, get what they need and get out again. and what that means is the whole con september of a shopping list, which has frankly disappeared over the last 15 years, is actually back on the table again. people are going to the store knowing what they want to buy rather than just browsing through aisles for hours and hours. and that actually increases the importance of brand salience and top of mind awareness which creates more of a need for

advertising. >> andrew, always good to see you. this is a habit we talk to you around the super bowl. it's really good to see you. talk to you soon. >> thanks very much. take care. >> you, too. joe? >> thanks, beck. intel chairman, former chairman and ceo of medtronic omar ishrak talking about the spac craze including his own january job report and a lineup of guests to break down the numbers as soon as they cross. "squawk box" coming right back

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good morning futures green across the board as we make our way across the board. the dow, s&p and nasdaq all on pace in less than three months the senate taking a big step towards passage of president biden's $2 trillion covid relief plan the early morning vote coming after nearly 15 hours of debate. and it's jobs friday in america. january payrolls are due out in just 30 minutes. we've got the data, analysis and

investment incite you need as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick who would also like to welcome you back andrew, you too, right andrew, welcome back. >> welcome back. welcome back >> welcome back. >> and that guy. u.s. equity futures at this hour are indicated up about 126 i think they're all records. most of these things we look at. 124. nasdaq indicated up 35.61. the markets are smiling at all of the good tunes today. the s&p up 15. that was not bruce obviously, becky.

that was some scary guy -- >> no. >> -- that looks like the clown from "it." that was springstein style springstein style. awesome. >> yes it was a combination cover of "friday i'm in love" and a springstein song melded together >> right >> sung by a scary looking clown, "it" clown. not me. >> yeah. all right. let's get you caught up on some of the stories that investors are going to be watching today somebody yelled "thunder road" in my year president biden's $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. they they're allowing them to have a vote of a 50/50 split. kamala harris broke the tie in favor of the democrats robinhood removing all temporary stock trading restrictions those had been in place since

volatility spiked by the reddit answers. gamestop is down more than 90% this week. when we checked it earlier this morning the shares were trading higher after the limits were removed. shares of movie theater chain amc down more than 40% and then there's clover health the medicare advantage insurer backed by chamath palihapitiya says it has received a notice of investigation from the sec and it intends to cooperate. it's pushing back on a report by hindenburg research calling some claims completely untrue yesterday hindenburg produced a report saying clover was broken. it said it was under investigation by the department of justice and it had not disclosed that to investors. if its response today clover said it has received inquiries from the department of justice

and it did not hide material from the investors the sec declined to comment on the investigation. clover health down double digit. andrew >> trying to find out the law firms investigating chamath palihapitiya and some of the early underwriters who they're saying didn't believe this needed to be disclosed they're going to be lawsuits about this, there's no question. it raises all sorts of questions about why this wasn't disclosed and whether this would have been disclosed in an ipo, whether there would have been a distinction there. i'm not sure this story is not going anywhere. meantime, two other things we're watching in this hour. the markets and the fight against the covid-19 mike santoli is going to join us

on the embrace by investor's riskier access meg tirrell with johnson & johnson filing to be emergency use authorization. >> reporter: andrew, that filing news came yesterday from j&j they say if and when they get the fda's green light, they'll start shipping immediately and them' have 100 million doses for the u.s. government in the first half of 2021 so the fda has already said coming out last night, the advisory committee meeting for this vaccine, that will be february 26th. that's so important as part of this process it's an outside group of advisers, meets, looks over all of the data including an independent analysis from the fda. we'll hear from the company, the fda, cdc, the public this is a big meeting. that is 22 days after they apply. we will get the documents from the fda likely on february 24th, which will have tons of

information about this vaccine that's always a very big day how does that 22-daytime line compare with what we saw with pfizer and moderna it's slightly longer for pfizer they filed on november 20th. their advisory committee meeting was december 10th. for moderna, shorter, filed november 30th. and december 17th was the meeting. why are they scheduling this 22 days after they filed for emergency use authorization? guys, we have seen the fda move with unprecedented speed to clear these vaccines after a positive vote just the day after. this is on a friday for j&j. we'll see if the fda does this over the weekend and we'll see if we see the shots that following monday guys >> hey, meg, before you go, what is the time line on the studies being done for a booster shot on the j&j, whether that would change the efficacy? >> reporter: well, they had an

ongoing clinical trial testing two doses. so we don't know exactly when we should get those data. this, of course, is just for one dose they showed 72% efficacy against disease and 85% efficacy against severe disease kept everybody out of the hospital after 28 days after getting the shot health experts think this is a pretty strong vaccine on its own. we will be getting data on the two-dose regimen over the coming months. >> seeing new data coming in from oxford. what do you have on that this morning? >> reporter: yeah. so okay ford coming out with a press release saying that their vaccine, that's partnered with astrazeneca, has now shown efficacy against the b117 strain of the coronavirus that's dominant in the u.k. we haven't seen the data this is a pre-print. we haven't even seen the pre-print itself, this is just a press release. they say despite lower neutralizing antibody levels against the variant, the

efficacy was similar that's interesting with the nova vaccine, 86% towards the variant versus 96% towards wild type or the older forms of the virus so it would be encouraging if vaccines still work as well against that since the cdc has predicted that will be the dominant strain here in the u.s. by march >> all right, meg. thinking through that all of that info. thank you. let's get over to senior markets commentator, mike santoli, on the higher growth that asset markets seem to be pricing in and whether it's long in the tooth because that's what we have been pricing in for about a year. >> reporter: we have, joe. no doubt about it. it's interesting i think the stock market is feeding off of the overlap of the stay at home story where tech earnings have been dominant in social media and everything else that's in play everybody is expocketing economic numbers to get better

they are, in fact, improving you have a little bit of a sweet spot 4% dip little bit of a stress test and sentiment check. yesterday we did surmount those former er highs a lot of people looking at 3900 to 4,000 so on the spdr etf, it will be more one way to think about it, the highest earnings forecast for 2021 that i know about, people saying $200 a share. 4,000 is 20 times 200. still a little bit rich. look at long-term treasuries and gold it doesn't always work out this perfectly. look at the synchronicity. people are not interested in hiding in things that appear safe the steepening of the yield curve is weakening the prices of long-term treasuries you have the 30 year pushing 2%, joe.

>> we'll get data points today on all of that, mike santoli important data point, obviously. see what kind of jobs numbers that we have before i think you'd have to say that the vaccine is really having any positive effect that we're all hoping for >> yes. >> maybe next month? do you think that's too soon, santoli? >> i don't know if it's too soon you are seeing case counts plunge alongside the vaccine rollout. today's job number, maybe not as much high stakes feeding on the trend of better economic numbers and the bond yield's up and stock is up and the pattern has been so strong that you wonder if it's disappointing. perhaps you get a moderation of that trend at least in the short term, whereas, if it's a strong number, it probably just confirms the way people have already been leaning for a while. >> mike, thank you beck thanks, joe. when we come back, we're going to wrap up a big week for the spacs with yet another

news-making interview. intel's chairman will join us to lay out the deals that he is looking for in the health care technology stoecr. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc

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welcome back to "squawk box. futures up 119 points. nasdaq up 28 points and s&p up 13 1/2 ford reported a surprise profit of 34 cents a share. surprising loss of 7 cents ford cfo warned the 2021 outlook was a surprise with lowering earnings of 1 to $2.5 billion. ford outlined plans to invest 22 billion in electric vehicles and 7 billion in self-driving vehicles for 2022. big piece in "the journal" talking about all of the stuff phil was saying yesterday and you about chips and the 150 and they had no idea they didn't order enough now there aren't enough. >> yeah. because they've been taken by other manufacturers, not car manufacturers.

>> people at home. >> manufacturers for all of the demand for these laptops, ipads, iphones, everything you've got it's going to take a while to catch up. >> hey, you know what someone wrote in yesterday, andrew, this was for you because we don't have to say hyundai. if it is kia and it is an apple car, would you call it the ikia? >> that is really clever good one. >> i've got to tell you, i've said this before on the air. the kia vehicles these days are such good quality. >> they are. >> it's unbelievable the kia telluride -- >> for a few years. >> that's the best car of the year. >> the ikia. that was someone i haven't blocked that wrote that in so -- but we'll see. >> one of the three. right. >> my son showed me how to look that up, how many people you've blocked, becky you can look up how many people you've blocked, 5 or 6,000.

>> how many? >> like 5 or 6,000. >> that doesn't surprise me at all. people literally beg me to ask you to reinstate them. >> no, one shot. >> yup when we come back, the first jobs report looking at 2021. we're just a few short minutes away from that report. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box. this is cnbc consensus looking for a gain of 50,000 we'll see.

welcome back spacs are booming on wall street we talk about it virtually every day. backers are just a few of them former boeing ceo dennis muilenburg, wilbur ross and now a-rod. we have another one to bring you this morning, and it is a big one. omar ishrak is the chairman of intel, former ceo of medtronic he's joining us to talk about his spac and the health care sector the spac begins trading today on the new york stock exchange. omar, i should tell you, i'm particularly fascinated by your spac i've been skeptical in some cases of spacs broadly i'm particularly fascinated by yours in part because it looks like one of the first i've seen that may be backed by a corporation which is to say med

tron nicks has disclosed or in the disclosure appears to be one of your investors. that appears to me to potentially be a new model for how these even work. tell us about it >> well, yeah. i'm very thankful that medtronic is an investor and other long-term investors too. the key to the spac that we're looking at is the spac is a means to an end. the end here is to impact health care it's a long-term process we explore areas where medtronic is and perhaps can benefit from. the companies that we identify can also perhaps go into a partnership with medtronic at some point also other investors, too, are interested in this i've said often that, you know, my goal inthis, my partner's goal is really to create a platform in health care and the de-spaccing process is the start

of our journey, not an end we want to make a difference in health care to see how complication technology can directly impact health care and have the same benefits and the same rate in health care complication technology has in the consumer so it is a long term method. we found the spac to be very helpful going forward. >> in terms of this model and its connection to medtronic, i appreciate there are other investors in this, do you see this is a new model where they use spacs and leverage the spac as a form of venture capital and how may they help and find new companies? >> i this is that is right the model has to be proven out

the way you lay it out is actually a potential benefit and the help we'll get from them in many ways, they are very big m&a department they have access and knowledge to many people out there we intend to get some help from that that's a pretty big effort and then the other is, you know, whatever we do will be complementary to medtronic because of that it may help medtronic, it may help us as we try to scale the company because one of my biggest geoals here is to scale the company m&a, back office, diligence, we can get assistance and the

partnership and the thought process. go ahead >> tell me how this came about though because i know that one of the arc teblhitects of putting this together was josh fink >> it was. >> son, i should say, of larry fink >> yeah. the way it came together was this look, i reached out to medtronic in april of last year. i was looking at what i wanted to do and i have a deep interest in competition technology. i have a background in engineering and obviously i'm interested in health care. and noted, like i pointed out, a potential opening for connecting competition technology, a clear line of sight. improvement in health care and the level of a patient is one that is really missing there's a connection there but the improvement doesn't happen at the same pace so that is an area i want to really work on. and one of the last acquisitions

we did in medtronic is digital surgery which is ai company in the surgical space through that i met john who's one of the founders of digital surgery. and he's a entrepreneur as well. he's a surgeon john introduced me to josh and josh had helped digital surgery grow by introducing softbank to digital surgery and i soon learned john was a highly accomplished investor himself. he had connections with the venture capital world, long-term investors which i had peripherally, but josh was really connected to that and so josh came up with the idea of the spac and i really didn't know too much about it until i learned, and what brought me to that through interaction with josh was that the spac for me is a long-term investment and where i can take a scaled opportunity and attack

it quickly and make it benefit quickly. so josh has been doing the work on it. >> speak to this if you could because there's some news this morning that potentially raises questions about the spac model in terms of disclosure and just the kind of scrutiny around companies that are de-spacced as opposed to going public and looking at this clover spac that went public through chamath palihapitiya's spac. now there's questions from short sellers about investigations and whatnot. do you think the diligence process is different >> no, it shouldn't be different, especially for -- if you have a goal of making whatever you de-spac into a successful enterprise and are committed to it, because if you are committed to it in the long term, you can't have flaws in the diligence process because it is going to come out all the

time the important thing for me and for us is we are committed to this in the long term. it's a platform for the future and the next decade. whatever platform we come up with has to have the right background to it, it has to have the right diligence done associated with it and if there are flaws, we've got to identify them up front and deal with it but this is not something we are doing to leave, it is something we are committed to for the long term. >> we want to thank you for joining us i want be to talk to you about intel and the world of chips at some point i hope you'll come on back we've got the jobs number coming up in a moment we do thank you and look forward to following your progress. >> that's great. great talking to you. >> absolutely. great to talk to you joe? >> thanks, andrew. january jobs report. big predictions from the job panel and the number of the morning are next we stole goolsbee from fox

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welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. ahead of the january jobs numbers let's get to our jobs

panel. i love these days because we get to do it in zoom format. we do it just like at a zoom meeting. kate moore, austan goolsbee, steve liesman is going to be with us as well. steve, we understand that you do this on the fly so we are going to give you a couple of seconds to make sure that we have a right number we like breaking news, we just don't like to break things and then have to correct them. steve, are you ready it's time for the january job report, steve. do you have the number please >> i have some numbers in front of me here, joe. i have -- hang on. they just all flew across right here let's see. participation rate, 61.4 unemployment rate, the u-6 is 11.1 jobless rate and payrolls 49,000 which is within 1,000 of the estimate, which is pretty good

looks like december was revised down even further, down 227,000. let's see if i've got some s sectoral stuff here. construction down 10,000 service providing -- goods producing jobs down 4,000. construction down 3,000. private sector up 10,000 retail taking another hit, joe down 37,000. let's see, government jobs up 43,000 u-6 was 11 that's about it for now, joe i'll come back, get you more detail real close to the estimate of 50,000 up 49,000. a little worse for december, which doesn't surprise me. and i think no matter what the number is, even if it's the high side, i saw some estimates of 200 or 3 o,000, it wouldn't matter we have a very long way to go. my estimate before this number came out was we were off 9.8 million jobs compared to where we were in february. back to you, joe

>> okay. thanks, steve. let's see if, you know, technically everything is working here let's bring in our jobs panel for some instant reaction. see if the zoom thing is actually going to work we have kate is that -- kate, austan. >> yes, joe, i'm here. >> hi. nada, seth seth. >> hey, joe. >> and -- okay we're good we're good kate, on first blush, what about the numbers? >> slightly disappointing number, i have to tell you incredibly difficult to forecast the january numbers given some seasonal adjustments and the fact that we knew there were lots and lots of shutdowns as a result of virus spikes across different areas of the country it was pretty difficult to come up with the number a little bit disappointing i think the december downward revisions are not that surprising given the activity we know or the slowdown of activity that we know happened in december the equity market is focused on

three things at this point number one, the physical stimulus what's coming down the pike and the impact on the consumer number two, how successful vaccine rollout is going to be and additional efficacy data on the vaccines for the new variants number three, earnings they'll look past the earnings on today's number. >> austan, we're going to go across, but, austan, your comments and the day is coming, austan, where we all have vaccines and we can do our lunch. the day is coming. >> exactly send me a gift card. what is the deal >> the day is coming just hold. you're chomping on the bit we're going to do it how about these numbers? >> well, look, the private sector number is pretty close to zero, and we've been doing this for a lot of years, joe, and we always say don't put too much on any single month we've now got three disappointing months in a row and i think we basically have to admit we've stalled out.

there's a danger of double dip recession and i think we need to be -- >> i'm going to get to nada here just a follow-up, austan you think one nine from the greatest school -- >> i appreciate that. >> that dismal science, do you think one nine is okay should we add that to the tab? >> i think one nine is okay. i'm more concerned about what the money -- make sure the money goes to who needs it because i don't think this is stimulus i think this is relief they're arguing about one nine is really about thinking of it as if it were stimulus and i'm just trying to give relief. >> nada? >> so i agree. i'm not surprised with the number i expected stagnation and i agree that the determination is what we do on the fiscal side.

one nine, i'm not sure how i agree with that. i agree with ustan, it's more important what's in the number -- what's in the bill i agree also that it should be about relief stimulus at this point doesn't really make sense when we're closed down because of the virus. so until we take care of the virus, i don't see a point for stimulus >> and, seth, still at ubs i figured you might be changing addresses. is that -- is that in the cards any time soon or what? you know what, it's too personal you don't need to disclose do you have anything to tell us? >> i'm happily still at ubs. for the jobs report, it was a little bit disappointing for me. i was expecting on the technical seasonal factors to boost things a bit. the downward revision is telling. the spike we saw from the latter part of the year in covid cases had an effect.

that might have a small bit of a silver lining and now we're seeing covid cases coming down, governors realizing restrictions the falling cases will encourage people's confidence. the rollout of the vaccine will encourage people's confidence. so even though january was a month where we stalled, february probably not going to be great we are looking for a bit of a pickup coming probably as soon as march >> steve, they give out those nobel prizes in economics like a dime a dozen your work on the seasonal factors that go into these numbers is seminal they do. we were talking about it earlier. do you see any of the effects of the ground breaking study you've done do you see it here in these snums because it skews them every year >> yeah, the problem is, joe, the nobel -- they don't award the nobel posthumously the problem is, we won't know it

for many years they were trying to change it -- >> what are you saying you're healthy that's a horrible thing -- >> maybe another five or ten years, joe, before we know if the first quarter is weakness. >> you're fine still a young man. >> i want to give you a few more details. they don't give nobels for reporting data on the fly unfortunately, but there was a pretty big seasonal number, maybe not as much as seth and others expected. i would point out the high frequency data we follow, ukg and declines did a little bit better job of forecasting where we'll be there's two sectors we want to be on. the first is the retail trade sector down 37,000, 38,000 and leisure and hospitality, those are the two sectors most supremely sensitive to what's going on in lockdowns. they showed again they had an impact both in december and again in january and those are big, big issues for the economy. the private sector, austan

absolutely right, just about a stall speed. up just 10,000 one sector that is perhaps a good sign, and we're going to watch this to see how employers act, is the temporary help sector up more than 80,000 that may be a way that employers bring workers on at least initially while they're unsure about what's happening with demand, joe. we'll watch that then i like the idea what seth was talking about. when did we start to see the vaccination in the economic numbers, in the jobs numbers it may be there's another tough month to come in february and not until march do we start to see the economy start to react to more and more people being vaccinated >> i'll just throw this out to anyone that wants to answer. we're down 10 million jobs or something which is not good. do we ever get 10 million back or too many people staying at home too many people have changed

is that something to shoot for do you think what's it going to take? just stimulus or structural reform in some way, kate >> joe, i think we have to have some big structural reform as well we know a significant portion of the people that have lost their job since the pandemic are women. a lot of that is because they're primary caregivers for their family we need to get back to a place where people are vac sin nated, where we can gather together in groups, where kids can go to school and everyone can go back to work in a regular way before we can see a big step change mentioning some of the temporary hiring and what signal that may be giving us i've highlighted for some time that companies are really focused on cost controls and cost management with uncertainty in terms of the path of economic recovery i think this temporary hiring may be something that is going to be very popular across a variety of different industries until there is full visibility

into revenue growth in the future nevertheless, that kind of temporary hiring and cost management is quite good for margins is one of the things coming out in the fourth quarter earnings result. >> the floor is open and i will recognize whomever wants to -- >> joe, first of all, do you not spend enough time on zoom meetings you can't open up the floor and say everybody just start speaking that's a disaster. but, look, the thing is, i don't think we should set our sights too low. yes, we've got -- not only do we need to get back the 10 million that we're down from what it was in february, we're supposed to have been adding 175,000 a month since then so we should be aiming for 12 million jobs, something like that if we get control of the virus, absolutely we can go back to that and unlike normal business cycles where much of the effort is you're trying to convince people to get off the sidelines, this is a case where the economy

wants to come back, it's just we've got to finally get control and take the public health side of it seriously. >> yeah, joe -- >> go ahead, seth. >> yeah. i mean, i completely agree with austan i think the other key point there is how many people have left the labor force along the lines of what kate was talking about, but also just in business cycles more and more, we see people leaving the labor market when things are tough. it takes years to come back. the last business cycle, prime age business force fell from 2008 until 2015. it took until the beginning of 2020 to recover that not only should we aim to get everyone back who is out of work from this particular slowdown, but i think there's a lot more we can do to push the economy. this is where the fed can plumb the depths of how low you can push the unemployment rates will be key for this expansion. >> joe, do you mind if i -- >> go ahead. >> i have something seth was talking about. >> yeah, go ahead.

>> that's an important point here because you have two separate sets sort of overlapping data there's the 9.8 or 9.6 million, 7 million jobs that we have -- fewer than we had in february but there's also 4.3 million people who have left the work force since february and that's been pretty much growing month to month here. that's another issue i think that larry somers piece in the post this morning raises some interesting questions but whether it was fighting the last war. many people back to work and a lot is going to come back, i think, with the reopening of the economy so we'll have to wait and see. >> i was going to say, nada, i don't want to do a percentage down for things that just never get normal again, but there is some real number for businesses that say, no, you're not going

there. we're going to a conference call or pensions. i think there is a real number down what do you think it is, 5%? there's 5% we're never getting back, don't you think? >> that's a really hard question to answer, but i do think some of the points are brought up about the long-term decline. we have to pay attention to it there's two separate sets. one is what's going to happen in the short term and i think that austan is right and kate also brought up an important point about the labor force so when we do get control of the virus, we'll see quite a bit of recovery on the unemployment side but there is this medium to longer term issue of what's happening in the labor force and there are a lot of dynamics here that we need to start paying attention to. how do we get people who left the labor force in their prime age to come back in? i'm not sure we have as solid an understanding of the trends and

what's happening to really do something -- propose something at this point. something we have to pay attention to it speaks to the bill as well. to the extent we're just giving out cash, it creates a problem down the line on infrastructure, invest in things that increase long-term productivity we have to be careful about taking on too much debt at this point. so i worry about how we're actually thinking about the short term versus the long term as we move forward on the policy side >> okay. thank you. thanks to our jobs panel does everyone feel like this was fair did everyone -- are you -- kate, austan, nada, seth, steve, do you all feel like -- austan, are you all right with the way this was done you've got enough time >> that you were fair and balanced >> yes you would know you would know austan, you made a joke about zooming. i'm not going to make any jokes about zoom meetings.

i can't. you know what i'm saying i'm not going to do it not going to do it anyway, thank you all. thank you one and all. i like the -- you've really got -- you worked on that whenever anyone talks. you're right, austan i will not toss it open. i will assign people to answer specific questions thank you. thank you one and all. becky. >> very orderly. well done. >> thanks. when we come back, we're going to tell you what you want, what you really want to watch on the final day of another wild week on wall street. the dow, s&p and nasdaq tracking for the best week in three months in fact, the nasdaq, s&p 500 and russell 2000 all closed at record highs yesterday we'll see how we end this week right now green arrows aoscrs the board. stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back

♪ ♪ ♪ >> say it here, it comes out there. joining us to talk about the markets is jason trennert. jason, i have so many things i'd like to put together and figure out what you're thinking about the markets right now. we had started the earnings season and said that companies were performing pretty well but not getting credit for it. now you're looking at the markets and they're sitting at new highs. do you think this is fair valuation? high valuation what are you thinking today? >> becky, right now if you look

at trailing multiples and forward multiples, we're not too far away from where we were in march of 2000. the difference, of course, is in march of 2000 the 10-year treasury yield was 6%. now the 10-year treasury yield is 1 and change. so the multiples are a little bit scary, but i think given where long-term interest rates are for the time being, it's sustainable. the earnings have clearly been quite good and there is no question in my mind you're going to have a very, very strong economy in the second half of the year just given the amount of stimulus that's in the system so the earnings expectations, in my opinion, are going to continue to be driven higher this is nose bleed stuff, but i wouldn't get too worried, to answer your question directly, until 10-year treasuries get meaningfully higher, by that i mean well above 2%, probably 3 >> all right that could be a while because we

just got above 1% very recently after being below that for quite a while. let's talk about the jobs number we did get a jobs report that was right about in line with expectations a gain of 49,000 jobs for the month. that was below what you were anticipating there is a lot of question about how deep the scarring is that goes into this where are you on the economy, and what do you think we need to see from washington? >> well, listen, i think we're still 10 million people short of where we were a year ago i think it was 150, for 153 million people, in nonfarm payrolls, down about 143, something along those lines, and so there's, it seems to me there's going to be some structural unemployment problems after this is over now, by the same token, you know, travel and leisure, other things, as the economy reopens, that's going to be the best jobs program you can get. my own opinion, and maybe

echoing what steve wag says about larry summers, we may be overdoing it here, because there is still a trillion we haven't spent from the last round of stimulus, we're talking about another 1.9 trillion perhaps, and personal savings is a trillion and a half higher today than it was a year ago and you add into that opening up the economy, and i would think, my hope is that a lot of the people that are unemployed will get jobs, you know, pretty quickly in the second half of the year then you may have other issues like inflation, and other structural issues that i think people are willing to worry about that when it comes, but there is a chance in my opinion, from watching perspective, we're very close, if not past the point of overdoing it. >> jason, even what you said before, you're not going to worry about where stocks are, where valuations are, until you get past two or even 3% on the

ten year, i mean that still sounds like such an historically, low, low number. what starts to worry you at that point? is it how quickly we get to those levels or how quick we we get to levels beyond that? >> becky, it's really, it's a good question, and i think it's really the pace at which we get there, as opposed to the levels, because normally, what happens, when a market peaks, is that for a while, at least, interest rates go up at the same time markets, the stock market goes up and people are willing to deal with the fact that you have higher interest rates, because the economy is growing and so you have nominal interest rates that move up as a reflection of that the problem is, again, you're trying to get a fair value between the bond market and the stock market and i mentioned march of 2000 earlier today, or earlier before, and you know, the ten year treasury yield will stick --

gain, you have a lot more to work, with because the equity risk traders we talked about is positive by 2 or 300 basis points, so it's going to take 2 or 300 basis points for people to really start getting worried about equity valuations but the pace matters if you get, there if you get there by the end of the second quarter, i have a feeling multiples are going to come in, even though with earnings, maybe, multiples are going to be quite a bit less >> jason, great to see you have a good weekend, okay? >> you too thanks for having me on. meantime, let's get over to jim cramer he joins us live, and talk to jobs number, and i wanted to ask you a spac question, because you have been talking and tweeting a lot about it recently, we've been watching this clover health situation that chamath palihapitiya brought public through a spac. we talked to the chairman of intel, at his own spac for this morning, but you wrote this, or said this, rather, these newer spacs increasingly feel like an

inside joke for the super rich and a way for celebrities to monetize their reputations how concerned should investors be one way or the other? >> i think they have to be very concerned. i think we're getting to a point where these are happening so quickly that you can't keep track of them, and yes, everyone's made money so far and that's terrific but when i read through the report yesterday, i've got tell you, clover, to me that was very stinging and of course what you should do, clove shear come on "squawk" and say these are not true, i didn't hear that, and i went to the clover site yesterday, it's almost like the hindenburg bomb did not occur, it did, and i think also, when i see these people just taking money, when i say to myself, as much as i like omar, i liked hick at medtronnic, chairman of intel, but time, time is hard to come by, andrew, and i don't want to see a celebrity, i want to see a worker, i don't want to see a promoter, i want to see an operator omar is not a promoter but at

the same time how many minutes a day are people going to devote though these things? if they don't go full time with these spacs, we will end up with a lot of empty suits telling us pretty well. i don't like it. these are full time jobs i want to see full time people >> jim, quick view of the jobs number, they're playing us out i'm getting in trouble what do you think in terms of which way the market goes as a result. >> job numbers fine. we're back, we're really focused on earnings again. it's nice, no gamestop today >> okay. jim, see you have, a great weekend, enjoy, ndsuay night, we'll see you in a few minutes "squawk" returns after this.

i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t.

well, it's my last opportunity to say welcome back this week, so welcome back, everybody. >> welcome back. >> andrew, i want to tell you, welcome back, i wanted to tell you guys about a rumor that i heard, and normally, we wouldn't trade on rumors or seeks, but this one is pretty harmless, so i'm going to share a little bit of it with you i don't want to give too much away but i did hear a rumor about a super bowl surprise ad that's going to be on during the game this week. i'm not going to give it away because i hate spoilers but i

will say it involves a singer that we have talked about today. i'm just going to leave that with you >> not that scary clown, the "it" clown he was doing a boss song, he was doing a boss song, so maybe that's who you mean. >> and i mentioned the spice girls. >> oh, you did >> spice girls. >> i'm not going to, we got a lot, i'm not going to tell you who. >> did you see yesterday, brady, or it came out that brady was yelling at someone after the game who had tears in their eyes because they made it to the super bowl there's no crying, there's no crying, there's no crying until we get it done, and i'm not even going to be here on monday usually we're the the at&t, becky, right, we're on our way or something, that's not happening, but i'm going to stay

up and watch it and red, it wasn't the chiefs, right? subliminal messages? the goat of all time maybe versus the best current player it should be a fun game. >> it's not always the case with the super bowl >> a great game. >> have a good weekend >> yup >> and we will welcome you back here on monday morning right now, it's time for "squawk on the street. good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer and david faber stocks have five straight gains, something we have not done since august the senate clears the way for stimulus the jobs number has personality at 49 k but the unemployment rate is the lowest since march our road map begins with the return of john, we will get the first reaction from the white house, later on this hour. >> plus the retail trader