asset that's what you want that sort of goes against my thought what have cash is for. but whatever. >> that is the debate. micro strategy up 20%. bitcoin, all-time high te tesla off because of the bitcoin news it will be a discussion we continue to have he didn't deny talking to elon musk. >> he certainly didn't it wasn't a no or a yes. we have got to go. >> thanks for watching "power lunch," "closing bell" starts now? we right also be responsible for record closes here on "closing bell." welcome to the show. i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen the rally continues. all four major indices hitting new record highs because of us energy leading the market. exxon up 4%. crude rise forth the sixth straight session value and small cap outperforming. the retail-led mean stocks

game stop below $60. but bitcoin booming. all ice on the stimulus bill as the $179 billion plan moves for a. airline stocks jumping as they could receive billions more in aid. the dow up half of 1%. sara b 59 minutes left in the session. >> coming up on today's show, tesla and bitcoin both on the rise as elon musk's company buys $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency we will talk to arc analyst tasha keepy about the new streaming. plus as vaccines continue the roll out in the u.s., what role will testing have in getting the economy back on its feet we will talk to the ceo of quest diagnostics in just a bit. later the energy drink market. is it getting too bubbly we will talk with the ceo of beverage company celsius which is up 1,000% over the past year. what a run. let's focus on the big stories we are watching.

one hour left of trading mike santoli tracking the market action and joining us to discuss the climate for retail investors. and alley mccartny from ubs. mike, kick it off with today's market moves notching are you new record highs. >> in a low drama orderly way. feels familiar to some of the rallies in the past. look a the two-year chart of the s&p 500. as i kept saying, kind of returned back to this narrow orderly uptrend. people thing look frothy but this is sort of under control in a rotational market the pullbacks are brief and hort, causing just enough nervousness to ge to the next leg higher also looks like what we came into 2020 with it is almost like parallel tracks interrupted by the massive crash. look at 2017, the year bracketing that.

showed this same type of action. post your post 2016 election burst higher which we also got this year starting on october 30th then this was your grind almost all year this is right around where we are stretching through into february for a bit of more of an accelerated upside it can happen that we could have these low volume tilts grind higher we are at higher valuiations and looking overbought in the short-term above 90% off the 2009-2010 bow and back in '97. what this means is vulnerable to short-term chop and maybe some slippage but on a long term basis it tends to have positive implications going out several months. >> i want to hit wick lebon.

ier the 30-year note yield moved above 2% the first time we have seen that in about a year. it is back up at that level. we are watching the rising bopped yields move what is it when could it get in the way of stock market. >> i think we are -- it is too early to say that bonds are registering overheating concerns but they are really in harmony with what stocks are saying, what oil is saying it is essentially saying there is a lot of stimulus in the pipeline already probably more to come. that kind of early recovery tail winds are backing this economy globally it seems as if everything is fitting. when can they pinch? it seems like you have to have at least room let's say on the ten-year yield up toward 1.5, where we were before the crash before you start to challenge things like stock versus bond valuations there might still be a bit of a cushion. markets tolerated higher bond yields so far relatively well.

steepening yield curve kblimt inflations are higher, higher than they have been in years but that doesn't mean it is a precise forecast of inflation. it is more people are clenching up in anticipation of some. >> thanks for that the reddit retail trading frenzy seems to be fizzling out. shares of game stop down by 0% amc down by 11%. for more, let's bring in jj kin hand and alley mccartney good afternoon to you both good to see you. jj, i will come to you first on the retail side of thing what about account openings and overall engagement of your clients so far in 2021 >> that's a great question, wilf we have continued the see the pattern we saw in 2020 and that is many more people

interested in the market overall. we continue to see very strong account growth into 2021 because people, you know, had time last year, got educated and now we saw at the beginning of this month obviously with the move in some of these stocks that were should we just say unexpected, many people came and said, what is going on here? i want to try to learn more about it so overall, i certainly don't want to see people go in and you are going to go crazy on one stock. obviously that's not good for anybody. we work really hard to get these accounts we don't want to lose them but the fact is more people are interested in the margaret than ever that's a really really great sign i just hope people spend the time to get educated before they go in and make these investments. >> to that point, jj whether overall or in specific names do you think your clients made money or lost money on the likes of game stop >> well, i think that's a really difficult question overall, to be honest with you, wilf

what i will say is i look at game stop. i look at amc. one of the things that we saw, our clients were more involved with amc than they were in game stop part of it being perhaps the price point but i tell you there was a lot of rotation in both of them it wasn't like end of the month they were sitting there, oh, my god, there is a huge long presence people were rotating throughout the stocks quite a bit. >> ali, how has it affected the mood or appetite for stocks among your wealthier clients >> i have to emphasize what jj said there have been three times throughout the years when there has been this much flux and opportunity and movement and engage men the first was after the internet boom, the second was the financial crash. here we are again. back to people like bill miller, a mentor, cash is courage and

profits is priceless there is a lot of interesting in getting back to the fundamentals of investing getting back to the technicals of investing. we might have a third wave that all they are talking about a way to look at the environment but the clients weren't interested in these stocks they were looking at how it affected the environment and whether it could be one of those unknown unknowns like the pald that set off something this the economy or the market. look what a week has done. >> ali do you feel now like the correction thepullback many were talking about has been and gone and it is onwards and upwards from here? >> everybody was desperate for a correct. that's what happens when you have a move of 40% in one year

when you look at what happened last week, the degrowthing the leveraged hedge funds was historic, right? we came down from about the 80th percent sil in history to the 40 that's historic. we had a lot of correction and we had a lot of people going into the market at the same time because they had previously either used pure discipline or the options market to establish a lower entry point. again you fast forward a week and look where we are. i think that there are thing in the market that can continue to produce volatility w. that said, we think that the bull market is largely uninterrupted. we have the information thatwe have gotten in the last number of weeks out of the earnings season is very, very positive. we have management teams coming in and giving guidance talking about extreme focus and increases in margins over the next 12 months we have $3.4 million you

cannot -- the fed in fiscal policy increasing assumption that that 179 will go through. i don't see why it can't continue to go up. we do think it will focus on the areas that you have seen price improvement in today in terms of small and mid cap, emerging markets, china, and dividend payers >> finally, jj, just want to get some specific names out there with you i notice that your retail clients were overall net buyers but sellers of pfizer and moderna, the vaccine stocks. what does that tell you? >> well, if you look at what our clients did last month, they had 10% more exposure to the market than they had in the previous month. that's the biggs leap we have seen in a lindsey graham long time it tells us our klein went into 2021 with a plan to buy some thing and absolutely did yeah, the moderna/pfizer thing also took me my surprise in fact they were the top two

sells rotating every week of the monday of january. the reason being, i think, although great news, great for humanity we came out with these vaccines, at the end of the day i think our clients are looking at it and saying what is the next stimulus? what can take these stocks higher if they did this unbelievable job on this and the stocks leveled out end of january into february that's i think why people lightened up on those particular stocks. >> interesting insights from both of you as always. jj kin hand, ali mccartny. >> coming up on the show, hard numbers behind the minimum wage debate the congressional budget office is out with a new report on the impact of a hike to $15 an hour as president biden has proposed. later bitcoin rocketing to new heights as tesla gets into the crypto game. we will discuss with tasha keena with arc which counts tesla among its top holdings in a number of funds that has helped those funds soar you are watching "closing bell" on cnbc.

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about 45 minutes left of trade. record highs all around. the congressional budget office is out with a new analysis the cost and benefits of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, as president biden wants to do. ylan moi with the details. >> the cbo found dramatic effects but they do swing in both directions. it estimatesed $1.4 million more people would be out of work by the time the minimum wage hit $15 than there would be if wages stayed the same and that young people and those are less education would be disproportionately impacted. also, raising the wage would add 4 $54 billion to the deficit over the next decade and higher inflation and interest rate

costs would tack on $16 billion. however on the flip side, raising the wage would help lift 900,000 people out of poverty. from an economic standpoint it is a mixed back and politically it is not clear how this is going to shift the dine lick senator bernie sanders argues the analysis at least shows this measure would come lie with the special rules that democrats are using to try to pass a covid relief package but clearly the unemployment numbers could make it harder for moderates to get on board we will find out more as the lawmakers put pen to paper as they craft the new covid relief package? how much of a sticking point is this minimum wage in terms of republicans in hopes of getting bipartisan support so they won't have to push it through reconciliation >> i think it is clear that republicans aren't going to be in favor of this

it is not clear if all democrats will be object board it is going to be tough to get through this covid relief package in either form, whether it is bipartisan or with only democratic support the numbers that came out today and the process that came out today also shows it is going to be an uphill battle for them. >> ylan, thanks. 43 minutes left in the session. up by half a percent across the major amps. still ahead, tesla makes a $175 billion bet on bitcoin. was it a bet or cash management? we will discuss with tasha keeney from ark investments. as we head to break, some of the top searched tickers game stop, tesla, apple, ok you jen and the ten-year note. we are back in a couple of minutes. key portfolio events, all in one place.

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welcome back bitcoin hitting all-time highs after tesla announced in an s.e.c. filing that it is buying $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency company the company also said it may start accepting bitcoin as a payment method tasha keeney joins us, ark's funds outpaced the market in the last year. tasha, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> what do you make this move. what do you think is the main reason that elon musk is doing it is it to prepare for future

transactions in the cryptocurrency is it to maximize returns for his cash holdings? >> yeah, you know, a couple points that i will make. you know, this actually ties in nicely with a report that we just put out our big ideas report first my colleague who is our crypto expert we have actually done quite a bit of research on this in the past tesla is not the first company to do this we have seen this with square. we have seen it with micro strategy this -- using bitcoin as corporate cash, especially if you are doing business in many different countries with many different foreign currencies, you know, this could be -- instead of dealing with the complication and the risk that treasury risk, you could instead do this with bitcoin we think it makes sense certainly from a corporate cash standpoint we have done analysis that to say that if 1% of all of the cash in the companies in the s&p 500 were converted to bitcoin

for carpet cash purchases this could increase the price a meaningful amount, $40,000 tesla put roughly 8% of their cash into this that's meaningful. from the payment perspective we have done a lot of work on the ride hailing space we think this is an opportunity that should be measured in the trillions. so if tesla is operating a ride haling service globally, you know, again, they would have to build out that payments function to make it work. so you can imagine that bitcoin would be useful again in that case as they go into foreign countries and operate there. >> overall, could you welcom this moving? or is there an aspect of it that you feel that might point to general market topiness especially the move of bitcoin and tesla after this which on the surface doesn't necessarily mean anything immediately? >> i think this is a trend -- from the ark invest standpoint

this is a trend that you could see happening with more companies. i would say this is, you know, part of sort of the longer term view that we have taken on bitcoin, which is interesting. when we first looked at bitcoin we weren't necessarily looking at it or institutions from the treasury perspective we were really looking at it as binn as its own asset class from an investment perspective. but we have found that this is a really meaningful opportunity for bitcoin as well. >> i get why tasha as supporters of bitcoin you would be happy to see this but what about as shareholders of tesla is this what -- what does tesla get out of it? do you really want to see elon musk tweeting about dogecoin which is kind of a joke cryptocurrency, and now bitcoin. is he just looking for publicity? >> no, i think this appears to be a very serious move from the company. again, it is validated by these other firms doing the same thing. again, i think when people think

of bitcoin they think it is this risky unfamiliar thing but if you are looking at it from a treasury perspective, it could actually be more useful to you than doing all of these transactions in foreign cu currencies so it could actually reduce that risk so you can picture companies that do this in the early days could benefit from a tail wind from getting in early on bitcoin. so, again, i think this is part of a long term trend that we are seeing you know, innovation is really taken share over the past years across our platform. in 2020, i think in 2021 we are sort of in the early innings of the adoption for some of these technologies, bitcoin being included again, i think look at it from the ride hail perspective, we think tesla could launch both a human-driven at first, eventually autonomous platform and they would want to build out that payment functionality so, you know, being one of the first companies to invest in

bitcoin, to transact in bitcoin, actually gives them sort of an advantage to really lay that infrastructure as it becomes increasingly important and again, as other firms right do it. because we think there will be sort of that need for the infrastructure to be set up. so they will be one of the first players to figure this out. >> would apple entering the space more prodbly, electric vehicles, ride hailing, autonomous driving, be a threat to tesla >> we have been following the apple project for quite some time i would say that apple has a lot of great talent. they have done -- certainly from the user interface perspective, we have thought that they could enter the electric vehicle market maybe make something like a neighborhood vehicle that really has a great consumer interface. that's really where they have played the best in what they do. but i would say today, you know -- well, broadly we think there will be a lot of other

players in the electric vehicle market we think there could be 40 million evs sold annually in the next four years. in order to make that happen you need producers other than tesla. this is really the future. electric vehicles are declining in price and reaching the crossover point with gas-powered cars well, they will actually become cheaper and perform better i think in terms of competition, we welcome competition in the space. apple has had sort of stops and starts in this project certainly from the autonomous technology perspective i would say they are a little bit behind there. i think it is a good idea that they put their -- you know, an a.i. person in charge this project. that's really the most important, you know, piece of this technological puzzle that you need to figure out so i think we will wait and see. but, you know, certainly today we see tesla leading the market in electric vehicles over 20% share there you know, from a data collection -- or a data

advantage perspective in the autonomous driving space and they still have the largest fleet of robots in the world you know, i think they have a comfortable position, and certainly lead n the ev space. i wanted to also ask you -- i know you are focused on a.i. at a major theme at ark about palantir it is ripping high again up 15% on news the collaboration it is working on with ibm for a.i. data insight for businesses. do you like palantir on this as a play in this category. >> yeah, i think, you know, we do hold pal an tir in our arkws, our web strategy, that etf we saw the announcement today. i am not the analyst that covers it but i would abroadly certainly we see, you know, these sort of applications becoming more popular at firms

from what i understand of the announcement it is specific to ibm. it would be better if it was sort of across the board or open to others as well. but i think, you know, broadly in terms of artificial intelligence we see this as a major platform of innovation that -- the likes of which we haven't seen to date and we -- certainly in the autonomous vehicle space, this could be extremely disruptive. you know, as i said in our big ideas report that we just published, we think that the opportunity in autonomous ride hail platform owners in earnings could approach $190 billion globally in the next five years. if you take a 0 times multiple of that, that's a $3.8 trillion enterprise value opportunity alone most of which is not accounted for the public equity markets today. this is just one segment a.i. space that we see as really crit k. really, it is impacting every industry across the globe.

>> uh-huh. off its highs. only up 6% right now for palantir tasha keeney, thank you very much. let's check in on individual market movers right now. steeple upgrading target to buy from hold. the firm points to the retailers' strong gains in digital sales, also increasing popularity of its same day services up 2.5%. petco higher after a pair of initiations today. citi with a buy rating and a $31 price target goldman sachs also with with a buy and a $31 price target that stock up more than 2% i guess the pet boom is going strong you can't really get rid of your pet. >> certainly can't petco up 2%. >> time for a cnbc news update with seema mody >> the last undecided

congressional race has been decided. new york officials certified republican claudia tenny as the winner in the 22an congressional district 310,000 battles were cast. in boston a federal george has dismissed most of the claims in a discrimination suit against wheel foods. some workers say they were illegally barred from wearing black lives matter face coverings. in the open, the german had an outbreak. he next won three sets in a row and advances to the final round. >> seema, thank you. >> one wall street firm says apple should make a bitcoin play as well and it could generate billions of dollars in the process. we will talk to the analyst behind that call

plus the ceo of quest diagnostics joins us to talk about the state of testing for covid in america and whether testing for variants will be a new priority. here's a check on bonds for you. yields are kind of mixed to start out the week they were firmer earlier this morning. stocks are where the story is. record highs all around. there is the ten-year. 1.117. grinding a little bit higher 30-year back off that high 2% level. we will be back here on "closing bell" with every sector higher except for utilities and health care energy iinheeas t ld. (sam) gamers! he who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

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reporting fourth quarter earnings the demand for covid testing driving record revenues of more than $3 billion. it is up almost 56% from the same period last year. the company plans to increase its dividend and will authorize a $1 billion increase in its share repurchase plan. joining us in an cnbc exclusive interview is quest diagnostics ceo. >> thanks for having us. >> my first question is, now what we are seeing a drop in cases, which is welcome vaccines are here and happening. and yet so are new variants, and spreading in this country. so what does demand for testing look like over the next few weeks and months >> yeah, we are watching it carefully. this winter we hit the third wave and we had a very strong fourth quarter for testing. and that's continuing into the first quarter. what we see happening right now is we are starting to see some drop in some of the measures we

look at. positivity rates, hospitalizations and we do believe that the testing volume will come down for covid throughout the second quarter into the third quarter and we are watching carefully what will happen in the second quarter with the new variants as well and with the measures that we are taking in public health, in particular, the vaccinations at that point, we will be able to assess what we do going forward to get back to life activities >> on those new variants, steve, how well do your tests overall hold up to them? and i guess that you are not doing the gene sequencing or analysis that we need to find the variants but do you have a sense of how much of that is happening based on the testing you are doing >> yeah, we actually are doing the sequencing to determine the prevalence of the variants that

we see coming into the country and we have worked with the cdc and we are continuing to do studies to see what's happening with some of those variants over time and to answer your first question, our testing stands up very well with what we have seen so far. >> steve, will the identification of the different variants become like for like with just doing a positive or negative covid test in the months and wieeks ahead or will that be a separate diagnostic >> for now it is a separate piece of diagnostics it requires sequencing but right now the testing that we do would pick up the virus whether it has a different variant or not and we are just watching that carefully to make sure that doesn't change. >> one of the biggest questions throughout this pandemic, steve,

has been how lasting immunity from those who had natural infection. are you seeing reinfections, those taking tests through quest, especially with these new variants >> yeah, so far we see very limited reinfections those that have had the infection. we see that either in the positive test results or in the antibodies and we do serology testing to test for those antibodies. so reinfection has been very low. and that's true in our own data and the data we see from others. and we are watching that carefully to see what the durability will be for immunization and that's true for the vaccines, and also your natural immunities as well. >> steve, thank you for joining us >> we appreciate it. thank you. have a great day. >> you, too. rbc giving apple an outperform rating and laying out a proposal for the company to

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[triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. 15 minutes left in the trading day. we are now in the "closing bell" "market zone." commercial-free coverage of all the action going into the close. cnbc senior markets commentator, mike santoli, is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. and today charlie bore inskoi is back the stocks are rallying again. the dow, s&p 500, nasdaq, and russell 2000 are all on track

for record closes. it has been three out of four lately but the dow is now joining the party. mike, we know charlie is going to talk about his beloved value stocks where has the value versus growth debate gone so far this year where does it stand right to you? >> the feature of the market right now is it is broad, inclusive. it is not an either or market. the cycles are doing well, at the same time that you have all of these high valuation sort of pie in the sky emerging growth type tech stocks also working. maybe that's a sweet spot. we have this overlap period where we are benefitting from the long term tech friends and the stay-at-home plus, everyone sees the cyclical upturn coming. right now. there hasn't been a wrong answer we will see if that changes. >> charlie, i have a feeling the other thing you might talk about today is yields and inflation as well >> yeah. that would be a good feeling that you have. yes, wilf.

we are seeing lots of signs. it is finally starting to be talked about of inflation coming in we are seeing commodity prices going up talking about a $15 minute wum wage even larry summers is talking about how these action put together are going to be inflationary that's going to drive interest rates up and those are better for value than for growth. growth companies earn their cash way in the future. high interest rates have a much more megtive impact on growth stocks. >> although, secretary yellen responded this weekend and said the economy faces more trouble by not spending enough some of the fed numbers including chair jay powell said if we do see inflation out of it it is likely to be transitory. you are saying you entry with all of that? >> absolutely. it is going to come in phases. last time i was on i said we

would have 2.5% cpi by the april numbers. i think at the beginning of the summer we will be staring at 3% cpi. some of that is because we are lacking weak numbers from a year ago. signs of inflation, less globalization, an important force in keeping down costs is being reduced. higher wages around the country. more regulation, tougher energy policy, less energy and higher energy prices. all of those thing are pointing one way and the fact that the u.s. secretary of the treasury is saying it is not a problem is one of the reasons it is a problem. because we are going to be spending a lot of money in this administration and it is going to be inflationary. >> quickly on this theme, char lesion one of the sectors that you said is a beneficiary of this is up recently is energy. i don't think you have been had the oil names yet. is that still the case >> well, if you look closely you willsee a few names. you will see apache which has got north sea oil. it has got some new find that is

they have had off of africa and south america. so apache is a name that we own. but you are fundamentally right. we don't want to participate here in commodity businesses because they don't have the bury yes, sir to entry that we buffet style investors look for in general you are right, we are going to be playing in inflation in places other than energy. >> charlie, thank you. the hedge fund industry posting gains in january despite the short squeeze. alsoly picker has the numbers for us. >> surprising, new data showing that hedge funds posted gains for month of january on average they were up about .9% according to hfr the bigger funds fared even better than that base oddan an asset weighted average indicating returns of 3.4% for the month. hedge funds also bested the s&p 500 and a widely used bond index. but the disparities were very

wide during the month. in other words, the winners won big. the losers faced significant losses with the bottom decile down nearly 8% on average. the top up 11.6% on average. guys >> leslie, i mean, this is so interesting to see such a diverse level of performance, and big and bad performance at the same time. do you think this is going to be a sort of defining moment for these funds both for closures and attracting new capital, particularly in a moment whereas we got into late last year it was starting to be talked about oh, this next decade could be an era for hedge funds again? >> twau interesting because last year in the february or march time frame it was look how well we handlinged the volatility, around the pandemic and the shutdowns. the hedge funds were opportunistic and beat the s&p 500 during that time as well

i think a lot of those are going to go to lps from prospective investors and say look how with we traversed the numt. we posted begins we were on the right side of this and they will use that to try to attract more capital. >> leslie picker, thank you. mike, it also shows the retail traders in part of their mission didn't exactly take down the hedge fund world in january. they did take down maybe a few that was very short game stop. but when it comes to going up against that industry it is going to take a lot more. >> right it was always after oversimplified in aens sense almost madeup story line that that was a tarting of hedge gunds generally speaking some of the most heavily owned hedge fund stocks if you look at the concentration baskets are big growth stocks. they have done very well i think you would perhaps want to be short something against it

so you could keep the huge winners on the books that's the thinking of hedge funds. it is not targeting stocks and running them into the ground it isset up for good stock selection because you have divergent valuations and a lot of macro stuff through flying lieu the market. tesla may going a big bet on bitcoin, buying $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency according to an s.e.c. filing. the company also saying it would accept bitcoin as payment for its products look at square and paypal, both companies which allow bitcoin trading on their platforms rallying on the back of bitcoin's surge. bitcoin itself up another 15%. mike, what do you think about this move by tesla and the knock-on effects it is starting to have on the stock market? real stocks moving, including tesla now in the s&p 500. >> right the math is if you put $1.5 billion of our u.s. dollar cash into bitcoin your market cap

goes up by $8 billion. that's what has gone on with tesla today. does it make sense not really if you want exposure to bitcoin, that's not the most tarted way to do it but it is a way of associating tesla with another strand of this, you know, futuristic thinking and this idea that they are on the edge of enovation and associating themselves with the excitement for this area and may be it pays off and maybe it diversifies their treasury holdings who knows? it could play out for them this is a company that fascinatingly without the subsidies, still consuming cash. it is not as if this is an apple situation where they could never ever put all of their cash to productive use this is investment of a finite resource right here. >> let's talk about what potentially apple could do with their cash and whether bitcoin should be a place for it to go joining us now rbc analyst mitch

steve. gives apple a price target of $171 good to see you. mitch. thank you for joining us let's start on that particular topic, about whether apple should start to get more broadly into the cryptocurrency spacings bitcoin in particular. >> i think this is a clear opportunity. if you look at square's r&d budget they spend about $670 billion a year apple spends -- generates cash flow of that amount in less than two and a half days. the amount of r&d expense it would take to create a crypto exchange for them, to be clear, you don't need to own any crypto assets they could just create an exchange if you run that math, coin bits is going public. they are valued at $52 billion with 35 million people as their install base apple has a $1.5 billion install base and sell 200 million phones

per year what prevents apple were using its best asset, software, a closed ecosystem and putting people on crypto wad and using the piece. the question is why can't they become an exchange, use the software and get fee based on the exchange of crypto assets? i don't think cryptocurrency is going away any time soon f. they simply become the he can change, it is a low risk way for them to utilize the most valuable part of their asset, which is curt and software. >> do you expect this to happen? are you reporting on this based on any expectations, anything you have heard from the company or it is just your analysis of an opportunity theyive might have. >> this is entirely my analysis. if i was working at apple as a strategister this is legitimately i could do. if you could invest $500 million to create 50 to $80 billion in equity value that's more

compelling than trying to compete against elon musk and tesla where you are going to send 15 to $20 billion just for maybe. full disclosure i do own jbtc and tesla. i don't want people to think i have nefarious activity here but it just makes sense. if you have a 200 billion install base and you could create that exchange, why wouldn't you do it the feedback i have gotten from investors is that it sounds that it is out of left field but if you don't think exchanges are going away any time soon, why wouldn't you do this. >> i think two reasons one, it could open you up to all kinds of new regulatory scrutiny they are all focused on bitcoin, becoming a bitcoin he can change also you are assuming big gains if the price continues to go up which i am not sure that that's necessarily a universal idea a lot of people still think this is a massive bubble and it is worth nothing. >> so, again, they don't even

have to own the bitcoin, right that second part, i don't agree. what i am saying is they could basically just be the he can change let's say you wanted to bitcoin or a fraction of bitcoin you go into your apple wallet and click buy, they take a small fee. at that point you are making money on the exchange n. terms of the regulatory part is, tesla is involved, care is involved, micro strategy involved, paypal is involved. they did it legally in a closed system again a closed system guarantees you can't take something off the he can change because they are keeping it within the ecosystem. why wouldn't they be able to do the same thing >> mike, what do you think about this idea? >> i think it is a very sort of low cost experimental thought for something like apple you for example they have -- they are very sophisticated financial player keep in mind they are one of the biggest fixed income managers in the world just for their own

treasury purposes. i am sure they would have considered something like this i think they would also take a long time to decide to do something like this because it is not as if there is a direct upside obviously for their only own wallet purposes maybe that does make sense and i would imagine that might be the way in for square and paypal there is a business purpose to keep an inventory of bitcoin to facilitate those transactions. >> mitch steve of course interesting idea thank you for phoning in to talk about it. >> thank you very much. >> with that, two minutes to go in the trading day mike what do you see in the internals as we march towards four record closes >> we are out on a streak. it includes the internals. the advancers to deliners is strong it is not like 80% of stocks are up, but definitely well more than two to one to the positive side in the new york stock exchange today semiconductors and faang stocks both working well, both outperforming the indexes.

that tells you the kind of market you are in. cyclicals, tech, financials working. defensive stuff like low volatility and utilities are done volatility index, sticky, sticking around the low 20s. scraping around the lows for the post covid period. we will see if it can crack. because that's the one thing that has not really fallen into line in terms this quasi meltup scenario we have in the index. elevated volatility because people are buying hedges. the dollar is flat, it was higher at the start of the session. yields are now essentially flat on the ten-year. at least 1.16. it almost touched 1.20 earlier and the 30 year near will he got to 2%. we have bitcoin at 13%, 44,000 oil is up 2% gold is up 1%. silver is up 1.5%. equities, though, the real focus for us, as always. four record closes, likely to hit any minute now we have got the s&p gaining as we approach the close up .7:%. dow up .7%

'02214 points higher the nasdaq is up .9% and russel wow, surging in the last ten minutes, now up 2.5% taking its month low gains to 10% the s&p's february gains, 5.4% at the close, sara, four record highs. .7% higher on the s&p 500. a strong close, right at session highs. and a quadruple record closing high all of the now major averages. welcome back, everyone, to "closing bell. i'm sara eisen here with wilfred frost and mike santoli, cnbc senior markets commentator take a look at how we finished up the day on wall street. the gains continue after a strong week last week the dow closes up 236 points, 31,385 that is a new record high. biggest contributor to those gains today was disney ahead of its earnings late they are week. nike the biggest loser s&p 500 up .75%.

pretty broad rally every sector up except for utilities. energy the standout, up 4% the nasdaq also closing at a regard, up 1% thanks to the strength in technology and consumer discretionary and communication services ask the russell 2000 another 2.5% higher as small caps continue to attract a lot of attention and big gains lately coming up this hour, real estate developer and investor steven with it could have on whether people will move back to big cities once the coronavirus pandemic ends. what are you seeing in luxury real estate right now? first up on the markets, charlie boron skoi still with us tiffani mcgee from pivotal advisors joins the conversation. first to you, mike what continues to take us higher as we see this meltup in stocks across sectors and strategies? >> i think the key factor is that there isn't one particular thing driving it the machinery of this rally is

we did get a little bit of a shakeout a couple weeks ago. things bent but didn't break credit is still strong and you have this rotational market where strength begets strength i don't think there is anything more to it obviously we are benefitting from lower case counts the fact that treasury yields are holding up and not destabilizing anything and people do expect some kind of a fiscal push. when you look at the russell 2000 i think we view that as main street type businesses broad cyclical plays let me read you the top holdings as of last night plug power, pen national gaming, novavax, caesar's entertainment, sun run. alt energy type stocks, vaccine and sports betting it is people getting aggressive on the risk edge not necessarily saying we are raising our gdp forecast. >> three month return for the

russell 2000 is 40% to the s&p's 11.5%. tiffany, do you want to bet against markets rising further at this state? >> no. i would like to hedge my bets. i am definitely not betting against it is. you know, i just want to be clear. i really agree with what mike just said. it's not necessarily one particular thing i think it's multiple things so, you know, i am in the business of hedging bets i'm in the business of diversified portfolios so i think you know for us it is still a stock picker's environment. it's still an active management environment. that's what we are going with. we are looking for opportunities as we still kind of come out of this stay-at-home environment but still haveway kind of in it and when will we be out of it? is the vaccine news kind of baked in, baked out, all of those things, tail winds, head winds -- all those thing are kind of circulating around us at all times.

and so at the very minimum for us at our firm, you know, it comes down to fundamentals and really thinking about what we need to be in for us, the overarching theme is tech but, really, not just like the obvious tech names right? it is just utilizing -- what companies are utilizing technology to be more effective? what companies are kind of taking advantage of the environment in 2020 and the environment going into 2021? >> like what do you have any example tiffany. >> sure. >> and other opportunities that you see given the in between place we are in into the vaccination? >> absolutely. one name that we like -- we are extremely bullish on e-commerce. everybody thinks about amazon. one name that we like is carter little bit ray they report earnings after the close today. the symbol is meli with meli one of the things that we get, it is almost like this

triple play. so we get a lot of bang for our buck, right? we get an e-commerce platform. we get a payments platform because they have their own payments platform. and it is primarily in latin america. so we get an emerging markets play it is 193% over the past year. it continues to do really well they put a lot of money and focus into black friday in brazil we are looking to see how that paid off so we are expecting good things from them. >> charlie, i wanted to switch focus and ask you about one of our stocks in particular and whether you are still as bullish on it because it has had a good run and to what extent the short squeeze january effect drove the stock price higher that's viacom cnbc. >> thanks for bringing this up because i don't know if you know this, but a lot of people watch your show. a lot of people watch your show.

when they see me on the street they ask about viacom cbs. >> they do >> there are a lot of people that do. it went to below 10 in march and i got a lot of angry confrontations on the street and we are at 50 it was cheap at 106789 it was trading at three times earnings. there was no reason for the stock to trade at 10 it has come back paramount plus was advertised a lot on the super bowl yesterday. then the short squeeze started and it was one of the most hated stocks on wall street and the stock got propelled by the game top phenomenon up to $60 i would say right now it is at a p/e of 13 that's a big discount to the market i can't pound the table on this stock at 54 the way i could at 11 but we still believe in the long term value. >> do team that come to you on the street not yell at you about

cruise stocks? royal caribbean. are you still there? >> glad you asked me about that one, too n. our disclosures, this is public information we don't own carnival anymore. that stock got down to ten more than doubled i think when you and i talked about it in the spring it was a name we thought was going to survive, their business would come back. but there are fundamentally issues about long term cruising and whether they are going to be down that's an industry that needs to fill every boat. we still like royal. we still lying some of the other names, norwegian cruiselines but carnival has the lower margins and the stock went up a lot. so we no longer own carnival. >> i want to come back on one broader point as opposed to the specific stocks. clearly most of the discussion the last couple of weeks has been whether the hedge funds that have been short squeezed suffer degross and that takes

some out of the sails of some of the other markets. whapt what happens when your stocks go high center is there a risk that the broader markets suffer from this in a way that people aren't thinking about >> that's a good question. the good news is our names are not the big components of the indexes in the way the tech stocks are whether viacom or whether mosaic which we talk to you about a lot. lizard isn't even in the big indexes. the numbers we love are not getting moved around in the flow and they trade on their fundamentals unless you have a viacom situation with exception to that most of our names don't get whipsawed around by the flows into equities >> sorry take two numbers are out josh lipton. >> wilf, reporting q 2 eps of

1.57 that is not comparable books 814 million a beat street was closer to 447 million. for q four they are guider for between 602 and 652 million in bookings above forecasts. 664 million bookings fis ral retail, $150 million the ceo saying take two is exceedingly well positioned he says to capitalize further on the positive trends of our industry and pursue our core mission to become the most innovative creative and efficient entertainment company in the world heading into this, it was up 20%. up more than $100 sense the march low. >> mike santoli josh just ran through some of the numbers. up 80% in the last 12 months well set up for this in a sweet spot. >> everybody in this industry, just really a trim right now

this is sort of the smaller of the market caps. $25 million. it seems like it mass more of a spring load in some of the share prices but i don't see too much of a change in the story or the reaction given what happened after-hours here. >> tiffany, i know you don't want to talk specifics on take two -- or maybe the gaming stocks but it does raise a question about the pandemic winners where we have consumer habits and behavior change so drastically and which stocks benefitted and what to do with those stocks now. >> yeah, listen, i am happy to talk individual names. take two is not a name that i follow i think we tend to -- for the past year we have been talking about stay-at-home stocks versus reopen stocks. i don't think that is the story. i think we are labeling these things wrong i think we need to look at potential -- we need to look at the companies who took advantage of opportunities kind of going into this pandemic and which ones gaped market share and which ones kind of stand to kind

of capitalize on the lost market share in 2021. so i think about staples like starbucks. i think about names like particularly in like the restaurant industry, chipotle and wing stop. the restaurant industry lost $150 billion so there's a lot of market share out there to bet so when you talk these three names, starbucks, chipotle and wing stop they have these robust kind of mobile ordering apps so these customer loyalty programs where they have an incredible amount of data about their customers. they can focus and target strategy and marketing campaigns. starbucks has over 20 million members in their loyalty program. there is just really crushing it and i know that they reported earnings and missed a lint b -- missed a little bit. we are long term investors we are not just investing for a couple of weeks or a couple of months we think that really in 2021

those three names in the restaurant industry from the ones we like the most because they were really able the kind of harness the power of what they were doing digitally and really kind of take market share not just with mobile ordering in 2020 but really in 2021 now that there is a lot of space left. >> charlie, quickly to finish, since you mentioned it mosaic up 5% today up 25% or so year to date. is that another one of your names that you think benefitted from the short squeeze or is that fundamentals? >> that's inflation. agricultural prices are way up it is tougher to ship fertilizer from overseas. mosaic has their mines in florida and the u.s. the american farmer is doing very well right now. and so mosaic, which has had some tough years has really got the wind at its back and is going to benefit from inflation. >> charlie and tiffany, thank you both for joining us. up next, take two shares around about flat after hours. they were a little bit lower moments ago. they are now 2.5% lower, in

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which ea is going to acquire glu mobile for $2.1 billion in enterprise value upon closing the acquisition is going to be' concretive to ea's total net bookings and expected to grow underline profitability beginning notice first year. the ceo saying mobile continues to grow as the biggest gaming platform in the world. with the asession he says of glu's games and talent we are doubling the size of our mobile business ea saying it is buying glu mobile for $2.1 billion in an apprised value >> thanks for that, josh even though we are after-hours anyway, i think the futures for glu have been halted that's why you are not seeing reaction in that price. for more on that and more on take two's earnings, brandon schaub joins us. great tiling what do you make the ea news.

>> it is a deal ea had to make they have basically been nowhere mobile i would say broadly the publishers, the pc and console publishers have been behind in taking advantage of that explosive growth in mobile, and especially ea. and this should help them get some footing additionally, they have been building a lot of cash, and a cash deal here should be very accretive to them. a smart deal i would say. >> what about the take two earnings clearly it is trieding down a little bit is that purely because their share price appreciation had been so strong beforehand? >> yeah, i think the stock is up over 20% since the last print. expectations were definitely high going into the quarter. they have fulfilled those expectations that sort of recurrent spend continues. it continues to grow

engagement, whether it is pandemic-related or not, continues to be robust we happen to think that all of these publishers are benefiting broadly from what happened in the pandemic, but it will stay as we come out of covid. into just want to dig into the deal for a moment, brandon. >> sure. >> because it is a big deal. what is glu? i think -- is this the one that does the kardashian game it >> it is, it is. >> what is the valuation proposition? >> two thing a fanlly accretive deal and two, footing in mobile gaming and something that ea can build off of and you heard i guess on their last report that mobile was going to become more of a priority as they are looking to do things even with their fifa

franchise and have several mobile experiences attached to that but you need to have kind the know-how internally to execute on these things. they are definitely bringing in some know-how now in addition as i said to being an accretive deal. >> zynga is up after-hours on this deal, ep why, almost 4% brandon r there other act wi decision targets is zynga one of them is this going to kick off a wave as we have seen tremendous growth in this sector as the gaming companies try to hold on to their new customers >> yeah. i mean, we have seen consolidation among the mobile publishers and i think it makes sense for -- look, acti vision has a good mobile strategy but wouldn't surprise me if take two

wants to do something additional in mobile as well. zynga is a much bigger company to swallow and i think that they have plans to continue to be a quiztive themselves. so we will see if there is anyone that comes to try and buy them. >> brandon, to what extent to you worry that we are getting to the top or peak of some of these valuations for the next couple of years, at least i know you can really argue with some of these earnings, some of the engagement numbers, some of the user growth numbers. but i guess the pandemic has played quite a lot into that with people having more time on their hands. >> sure. it is interesting, though, if you lock at this space, numbers have certainly come up for, you know, obviously 2020, beat expectations across the board and there were continued upward resci revisions, '21 numbers have come up but you haven't seen multiple expansion among the video game

publishers like you saw with other kind of stay-at-home winners. and that's despite the fact that you have had a lot of people who weren't really tiraditionally gamers come in and start hanging out in games and developing new habits so i think that as we come out of the pandemic you have a much wider and deeper player base and there should have been some multiple expansion, real multiple expansion in this space. but i look at acti vision which issid trading at 25 times earnings it traded at 30 times a couple of years ago so i think there is room for multiple expansion in this space. >> hmm brandon ross, thank you for joining us good to have you on. >> thank you. >> good to have you on to react to those two pieces of news. the ceo of ea tomorrow on "squawk alley" on that deal. glu is still halted but it

represents about a 36% premium the friday's closing price. speaking of paying a premium, comingr up next mike santoli looking at a historically high valuing ametric and what it means for investors. plus, the ceo of energy drink maker celsius whose stock is over 1,000% over the last year discusses this increasingly competitive industry folks the world's first fully autonomous vehicle is almost at the finish line today we're going to fine tune the dynamic braking system whoo, what a ride!

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the dow, s&p, and nasdaq all closing at record highs. let's go back to mike santoli looking now at different market valuation measures what do they show. >> price to sales for the s&p 500. we know about forward price to he wering. it is elevated but it has been stable since last may because earnings forecasts have been up so much. price to sales has been on a steeper path higher here this goes back ten years it has been steadily upward. then it really shoots up here. there is an explanation which is not scarywhich is the index is heavily weighted in more profitable companies than it used to be, in other words high margin big tech companies that have their margins fall to the

bottom line. look at this measure of extreme valuiations in a certain class of technologies. credit suisse pointed this out [ no audio ] -- times forward revenue is what you want to look at. pinterest or snap or something like this. this tells you there is a lot of kinds of binary bets out there some of these companies are expected to get huge in a hurry. some will fall by way side it goes back to the late '90s. another echo of that period. it basically says we have a market that yes is seizing on good economic trends but also along the side of that is getting a little bit overexcited perhaps or maybe the entire economy is going to be revolutionized by these handful of companies we will have to wait and see. >> quickly f this was done on earnings would the steep increase over the last year or two be as steep or not >> not as steep. we stepped up from the high teens to 22.

but it has been stable, gone sideways instead of rising. the work from anywhere trend led to an exodus from big cities during the coronavirus pandemic. up next, real estate developer up next, real estate developer and investor steve us by the hundreds of thousands of people at the tournament is repurposed. in 2020, wm diverted 988 tons of material and kept 421 metric tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. see how zero waste is one of the many ways wm is always working for a sustainable tomorrow at wm.com/stories.

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numbers trend lower when will we see a real recovery for cities here with us steve witkoff, the chairman of ceo of wit cough, he have led the financing and construction of over 75 properties and business districts across the u.s. and abroad obviously we have got to start with new york city what is the state of luxury real estate market that you are seeing right now >> hi sara, thanks for having me today. the sales have increased in the last couple of months. that's something encouraging i think the jury is out on what's going to happen in the office sector and when people come back and physically occupy offices. and i think real estate is a tough enough business, it has enough risk in it without having the added government risk when people sort of don't understand regulatory policy. i think that's the most challenging thing facing new york city real estate today. >> what do you mean, regulatory

policy i would have thought it is just covid and the finances, the higher taxes i am surprised to hear you say it is regulatory issues? >> regulatory issues in that grouping i include taxing policy. i include increased mancz taxes. >> got it. >> i include increased taxing policy that could result in people leaving the state it is all of those thing it doesn't just go for new york. it goss for chicago. it goes for los angeles. san francisco. you are seeing that type of dynamic. on your show, you are interviewing tech people and the tech people out on the west coast are talking about that they are just really unsheer ab - unsure about what some of these policies are going to be and going to states where they have more receptive government. >> clearly, steve, there is lots of factors at play that are leading to these shifts.

what level of price connection in a city like prime manhattan would put a stop to that is it a 10% fall in prices that would outweigh everything? or would it need to be much more severe than that >> you mean for people to begin buying gwen? >> yeah, or people who had been considering moving for tax reasons, cost of living reasons, lifestyle urban to rural reasons would decide not to do so. >> well, i think -- i think there has already been at least a 25% correction in the high end kondo market that's a guide post for everything else. i think that probably every major office landlord is prepared to give significant concessions above what they would have given pre-covid, and on top of that reduce rent probably in the neighborhood of 25%. the base rent might try to make

it look the same but the givebacks in that lease are going to bring the cost of leasing probably down 25%. those are big numbers. the hospitality business has been ravaged in new york estimate i don't know the exact statistics but i mean there are a lot of hotels that are closed in the marketplace now that's not to say that people are not encouraged about where the market goes somewhere in the neighborhood of 2025. but for right now, with those who are managing these properties, it's a tough grind >> lack of foreign tourists? how about lack of foreign buyers, steve? how and when do you see them coming back to the new york real estate market or other major cities >> well, we began to see -- we began to see condominiums being sold because pricing came down at least 25% i would suspect that if you are

a suler of condominiums today you have got to increase brokerage commissions and you have got to increase the discounts and that includes maybe even waving common charges for some period of time. same thing for institutional buyers institutional buyers are very, very nervous about buying in new york city today. i believe that to be a maxim multiple reasons they changed rent regulations in the state of new york. i think that it is going to be very, very difficult for people to buy rent regulated apartments in the city of new york. but what people don't understand, sara, is that by changing those rent regulations, they changed how these properties are going to be financed the banks don't want to finance rent regulated properties anymore. they may not say that out loud but that's just the simple fact. they don't >> what about rates, steve is that an added risk that you think could add to the pain? are you already factoring rates going up a bit into your thinking >> you know, rates, i believe,

never rule pricing in a real estate transaction what rules pricing in a real estate transaction is the availability of financing. so if you can finance a real estate deal, that -- that really goes to whether the transaction becomes viable and, remember, increased rates probably means inflation and inflation is the friend of real estate owners, particularly in the hospitality business when you get to reprice your asset every single evening so rates are not necessarily a bad omen for real estate inflation is actually a good omen for real estate the issue really is can people get their feet on the ground, i.e. in the hospitality business and it is not easy when you have to be closed we have a hotel out in l.a we opened up they told to us close it and we

had to close again it is -- i understand the reasoning behind it, but when you understand how difficult it is to be an operator in this environment, and how much risk there is, and the challenges of these cost decisions that you have to make every day, i think it becomes a lot more real and a lot more urgent. >> what about if washington -- what if the democrats go the other way on salt? what if they get rid of the deduction cap which was put in place in 2017, disproportionately as you know hurting the markets in new york, san francisco, and so many other urban hot spots? is that realistic? >> i mean, is it realistic that that policy change happens it could be. but i don't believe if you run the math that that make all the difference in the world. here's what some of these cities have lost. when i first started in the business, there was always a compact between government and private business in 1992, when giuliani

promulgated the downtown revitalization act and you had families like the ruttens that stepped sprint cup made investments when you probably couldn't underwrite them that's what changed the course of the city. and i think today there is a lot of people in the business world who have lost faith in that compact. it's not to say that it can't be resurrected. i spoke on a call the other day where i complimented the governor because of what i regard as a very proactive policy about making inefficient hotels and office buildings and converting to affordable those are smart programs that have seen -- that have been instituted in new york city and have worked, particularly in downtown manhattan but we need to get back to that compact. you see that compact in other states in the other states where you see it, you see a very, very vibrant real estate business, and a very vibrant economy as compared to some of these other cities you are referring

to >> finally, steve, i want to ask you about your political support. because we are facing the impeachment trial of president donald trump this week you have supported him as a friend, financially. do you regret any of that support given how the events unfolded at the end of his presidency >> the president is my friend. and, sara, i -- and i think this is the right standard. i judge a person by how he has been with me he has been really an incredible friend to me when my son, andrew, who i lost, passed away. so i remain a friend of the president. i always will be i hope it all works out for him. because he has been a very, very dear friend to me. >> steven witkoff, thank for sharing. we appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you coming up, shares of energy

drink maker celsius heating up against after a brief cooldown the stock is up an astounding 1,000% over the past year. coming up the company's ceo discusses the stock's huge rally and whether these gains are sustainable in an increasingly competitive energy drink market. as we head to break, look at shares of chegg, chugging higher, education technology company beating wall street estimates and issuing strong first quarter sales and earnings guidance thstk e ocis up 5% after hours we'll be right back.

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check out glu mobile, resuming after an earlier after-hours halt the stock up around 30% on news that ea will acquire the company for around $2.1 billion in enterprise value a reminder the ceo of ea will be on "squawk alley" tomorrow, an exclusive interview, 11:00 a.m. eastern. ea stock is up also, about 1%, but glu is up 35%. >> trading around the deal price. time now for a news update. >> here's what's happening at this hour. more people charged with taking

part in the capitol hill riot are citing president trump as helping motivate their actions a. lawyer for a 21-year-old says his client was quote merely following directions unquote of trump and other speakers the "washington post" says trump has been mention medicine more than two dozen cases on the floor of the house of represent house speaker nancy pelosi leading a moment of silence for ron wright, the first member of the house to die of covid-19. the congressional budget office says it totalled $738 bil billion. freezing temperatures are covering lake erie with a sheet of ice one person enjoying paraskating. they won't enjoy a thaw any time soon it is one thing to skate but not

paraskate. not for me. >> shares of celsius surging higher over the past year. can this rally continue amid the big boom in energy beverages we will talk about the path forward with the brand with the ceo right after this break it's a thirteen-hour flight, that's not a weekend trip. fifteen minutes until we board. oh yeah, we gotta take off. you downloaded the td ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets? yeah, actually i'm taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. excellent. and you have thinkorswim mobile-

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skyrocketing over the last year, the stock up more than 1,000%, the company gaining ground in the energy drink market, expected to reach $84.8 billion by 2025. joining us now, celsius ceo john fieldly. john, your company has been around for a while basically went nowhere for over a decade, and then started shooting higher. what has been happening with the underlying business? >> well, it is exciting at celsius. we have been around over a decade born in gyms and health clubs and really aligned for today's health minded consumer we are the future of energy. we are not your father's energy drink. we are seeing exciting times here as you mentioned the category continues to grow. people are looking for better healthier alternative energy option asks celsius delivers on that >> but there are such big competitors in the space red bull with its first moving advantage, monster which has seen growth explode, coke and pepsi are now going in big to

get a piece of this growing market where do you see celsius competing there? >> you are absolutely right. it is a competitive market over 5,000 brands come to market each year. celsius is unique. it provides essential energy, seven essential vitamins, no crash no, jitters, great taste and we are backed by science, fat burning and calorie burning. >> i note you sell really well on amazon relative to other areas. why is that? is that by design? >> no, i mentioned we started in the gyms it seemed great expansion into grocery, mass, and drug. just now we are entering the convenience channel. 0% of sold in convenes sold. due to the health club, due to covid in 2020 we saw aum of our gymbusiness which was 20 to 25

of our business go to zero it shows you the opportunity we have at kelcious we are aligned with today's health minded consumer and celsius is more than an impulse purchase consumers went the other avenues, as a result we have a 14% share right now on amazon. that shows, apples to apples, giving celsius's same opportunity and shelf presence we will turn as fast as major categories that's what gets people excited. >> it seems like there is a lot of caffeine in your poukt. 16 ounce of celsius heat has 300 milligrams of caffeine, device the amount of monster and almost four times the amount that you would see in a red bull. how is it without jitters? is that healthy? >> that's our performance line our celsius heat our core line has 200 milligrams of caffeine. it is all backed with green tea, ginger and gun aa. and one thing consumers all say,

celsius brings no crash and no jitters. we have a great experience on the product. it is all clinically proven. that's one key differentiation from many consumers in the energy drink category. >> to what extent going forward do you feel like a major partnership will be required to properly crack the market? it is such a fiercely competitive space and so many big partners are partnering with energy competitors >> you are absolutely right. on the volume, we pretty much have been driving. and we are at a $95 million run rate through the first nooip months of 2020 has really been derived from direct to retailer and wholesaler revenues. keep in mine you mentioned those major brands are being sold through dsd, which is direct store delivery that's which gets the cold placement at the convenient stores that you see and major grocery and metropolitan markets. we have just now brought on over 150 distributors over the last

n year and a half. we are activating them in cvs, rite aid and speedway to dsd that keeps us in stock, better placement and keeps us cold as well we are excited where we stand right now and we feel we are at an inflection point. >> to the point, a lot of the big brands, even monster has a stake from coca-cola have partnered with some of these bigger companies is that -- is that the ultimate goal here to get bought out by a coke or a pepsi, or do you think you can go at it alone >> we think we can go at it alone. we've seen great opportunities, not only in north america but in asia and in europe as well we have almost a 10% share in sweden expanding in norway and other opportunities are seen in asia as well so we have as, as i mentioned, in north america, over 150 distributors. many of those are independent anheuser-busch distributors and independent pepsi and kdp and in new york city we have big geiser, one of the country's top

renowned dsd partners so we feel we have a really good distribution partnership in place to be a major contender in the category. >> john, thanks so much for joining us,much appreciate it. >> thank you for having us. >> still ahead, shares of twitter gaining 30% over the last three months. the social media company is set to report earnings tomorrow and we'll break down all the key things to look out for coming up "closing bell" back in a couple. and in an emergency, they need a network that puts them first. that connects them to technology, to each other, and to other agencies. that's why at&t built firstnet with and for first responders the emergency response network authorized by congress. firstnet. because putting them first is our job. finally moved in. it's a great old house. good bones, wraparound porch. the pipes are... making strange noises.

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up next, your wall street look ahead tomorrow is shaping up to be another big day for earnings the key things every investors needto wchs at and a deep dive on the closing report when "closing bell" comes back. good morning! the four way is a destination place. right here, between these walls, is a lot of history. i am black. beautiful. i must be respected. black lawyers, doctors, educators, martin luther king, b.b. king, queen of soul aretha franklin. you're sitting in the place where giants ate. the four way, as a restaurant, meant so much to

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looking ahead. we've got another big day for earnings on deck mattel, lyft and canopy growth also set to report results we'll talk to the ceo of the cannabis company and a first on cnbc exclusive tomorrow on "closing bell. twitter is on the docket julia boorstin takes a closer look at what to expect there. >> reporter: twitter is expected to benefit from the surge in advertising that boosted facebook, snap and others but big question is whether facebook are add the 20 daily monetized active users analysts procorrect to end the quarter with 199 million. this after last quarter growth stalled and twitter added just 1

million users. we're also watching any comment on plans to launch a subscription service and on the impact of apple's operating system change. twitter shares gained over 2% today ending the day at a seven-year high. guys, back over to you >> julia boorstin, julia, thank you. >> mike, what will you be watching as the market closes at a record high. the dow, s&p and nasdaq, russell and the number of key earnings report as we just laid out is it the earnings that's moving this market steadily higher? >> the earnings are absolutely one of the drivers here because the forecasts keep going up. everyone knew that the companies and aggregate were going to beat, beating by more than people expected. looks like the fourth quarter has a chance to be positive year over year so that's way kind of before people thought we were going to go into the green on that number. yes, that's part of the backdrop but not part of the whole number this is really a grab for exposure to the recovery as well as all the big secular growth themes a lot of stocks, you know, just

kind of went vertical in this grab at the close today, so, look, bull markets spend a lot of time looking very stretched and repeatedly discounting the same good news, and that's what this one is doing for now anyway. >> to that last ten minutes, i mean, an intraday chart of the russell, we closed up 2.5% and the last five, ten minutes was almost vertical as you said. the bitcoin as well, mike, is up near 45k also kind of ramped into the close so to your point, some of the most overbought things already. the dollar most interesting to me today had started stronger and ended just in the red. >> just in the red i would kind of characterize it as it stayed out of the way so it wasn't really making a majo move unless you really see a sustained rally. i don't think it shows the dollar, this kind of liquidity story. global stock markets also doing well oil was up 2% today, so it's -- it's essentially a big rush higher in all sorts of assets, at least for now

it seems like people are kind of, you know, getting their fill, sort of, you know, using up whatever dry powder they have sitting around. >> yeah, the euro stock, and the ftse and s&p 500 up all over 5% for the month of february so far. the s&p up 0.7% today. four record closes that does it for "closing bell." "fast money" starts right now. i'm melissa lee. tonight's trader lineup and tonight on "fast" another record-breaker on wall street offering major averagesed a all-time highs as the reopening rally moves on plus, target hits the bull's eye, the retailer jumping more than 2.5% thanks to some big news on stretchy pants you heard that right we'll explain, and later game on shares of taking to interactive. we'll bring you the big numbers from the quarter but we start with a bitcoin bombshell and the return of the "fast money"