it is 5:00 a.m. at cnbc global headquarters and here is your top five at 5:00. stocks once again climb to go new record highs on strong earnings reports and vaccination homes but those gains may be on hold a bit today but not holding back, cryptocurrencies including bitcoin hitting a new record high in the overnight session, now well above $45,000 per token. new details emerging in a lawsuit over boeing's 737 max, and whether the company's board did enough to challenge its former ceo on the plane's

safety. and reddit's valuation doubling, thanks to a new round of funding on the heels of the wall street bet stock trading mania and hysteria and training in twitter, keep an eye on that focus. it's set to report its latest quarterly results as the company looks for new ways to freshen up its business model amid continuing challenges. it's tuesday, february 9th, 2021, and you're watching "worldwide exchange" here on cnbc ♪ ♪ good morning, and welcome to the show i am dominic chu in for brian sullivan this morning. here's how your money and the global markets are setting their day up stock futures pulling back just a hair from those record levels. you can see the dow jones implied lower by 3 points, the nasdaq down by 15 points at the opening bell if the futures hold into regular cash equities

trading. this is all after stocks kicked off the new trading week by climbing to new highs. the dow and s&p have advanced for six sessions, with the nasdaq climbing higher in five out of six the rustle 2,000 small cap index leading the charge, climbing 2 1/2% to its own record high, gained nearly 16% year to date, and we're only in the early stages of february at this point. also want to check the price of oil, as it hovers near the highest level in 13 months we have supply cuts and optimism over fuel demand, helping to fuel the recovery there, helping to support energy markets. wti crude, half a percent gain, ice brent crude futures, almost just shy of $61 per barrel there. 64 basis points to the up side for world benchmark crude, and we have to take a look at the

continued rise in cryptocurrencies, bitcoin trading right now, and the coin base platform is off 1/2 a percent, but still over $46,000 per token. on the ethereum side of things, ether up 2%, near record highs, ripple light coin, following suit, after a record high of 48,000, following tesla's announcement of the $1.5 billion investment in that cryptocurrency julianna tatelbaum has a look at the early trade in europe, and it seems like it's fairly stable just kind of holding like ours are in the u.s., right >> that's exactly right, dom, we're basically tracking u.s. futures this morning we've got red on the board wu overall, the moves fairly muted to the downside. the spanish market leading the way down just over 1%. this does come after a decent

day yesterday. the main benchmark, the stock 600 rose .3%, a lot of those same reflation procyclical forces that you saw in the u.s. were taking hold here in europe. from a sector perspective, you mentioned the rally in oil prices that is providing a lift to the energy majors. the oil and gas basket is up 0.5%, the only basket trading higher this morning. on the downside, we have utilities down 1%. media, construction, chemicals and auto no major trend when it comes to si si . >> julianna tatelbaum live in london with the latest there thank you very much. tesla says its sales in china have more than doubled last year according to a filing yesterday. the company says sales in the country rose to $6.7 billion that's about 1/5 of the company's overall sales. tesla's model 3 was the best

selling electric car in china in 2020 and the gains come after the company began ramping up production at its factory shanghai we're off 1% in the pre-market trade for tesla. boeing's board is reportedly being accused of failing to challenge its former ceo on the safety of the company's embattled 737 max jet. or his push to counter negative reports amid two fatal crashes according to the "wall street journal," citing newly released portions of a shareholder lawsuit, after the lion air crash in 2018, dennis muilenburg designed a lobbying campaign to push back against bad publicity and criticism against the plan he discussed the plan with lead director and board member david calhoun who is now by the way boeing's current ceo and door dash has announced its buying salad making robot

start up, chowbotics door dash is looking at how to deploy chowbotics. automation technology across restaurants in a bid to expand their menu and market trade. it's up 75% since its ipo. back to the markets now, all three major indices hovering at record highs with half of the s&p 500 reporting their earnings results. today we'll get results from the likes of twitter and lyft and cisco, and then later on in the week, you've got coca-cola, under armour, general motors, uber, disney, pepsi, you get the idea still a lot of big names left to report for more, i'm joined by rob morgan, director of market strategy if we are halfway through the earnings season and markets are at record highs, is it fair to say that investors are at least happy or not worried about the earnings strength picture? >> yeah, dom, i think that's absolutely right

it's been a pretty great earnings season so far you know, as of friday, as you pointed out, 53% of the s&p 500 have reported. and 83% of the companies are beating estimates, which is a big number probably even more encouraging is the fact that analysts are upping their estimates for future quarters, which is rare because usually in the second month of a quarter which we're in right now, they're usually cutting estimates, so yes, investors are certainly happy with earnings season right now. >> has there been anything that has stood out to you that has you either optimistic or a bit more cautious with markets at record highs >> well, i am, and you noted earlier in the program, how well the small cap space has done, and i think it may have gotten a little ahead of itself i think from more of a macro picture, i would overweight

large cap growth stocks and under weight, you know, small cap value stocks, partly because of that valuation. also partly because, you know, the fed is going to keep printing money here, and so that's going to be pulling the dollar down, which should help big cap multinationals >> so if it's those big cap multinationals, it's been a big debate among guests we've had on our air over the past several weeks at this point, this idea that many favor that the pro cyclicality, the covid recovery trade in small and mid cap stocks if you're going back towards large cap names, what exactly in large cap tempts you at this level? many argue that the stocks at the high end of the technology and communications services sectors are, again, overvalued at this stage? >> yeah, technology not hugely in favor right now my three favorite sectors are financials, energy, and materials, and when i'm looking at sectors that i like, i look

not only at visible earnings growth but also valuation, and technicals, and you alluded to it earlier in the program that the energy space seems to be firming up, which is good. so those are three areas i'd be looking at right now. >> if you are -- we're also taking about the reflation trade these days there's been a lot of mention in the financial press these days about this idea that inflation may be picking up again. we have the bond market signaling that inflation could be at the highest levels since prepandemic. is this normalization in prices, is this normalization in inflation expectations something to worry about or embrace? >> well, i think right now it's probably a good thing because that's what the fed is looking for. the fed is looking for not only full employment but 2% inflation, and so right now, that's probably a good thing now, you can always get too much of a good thing, but i think at this stage, we're pretty far away from them

all right. interest rates certainly a focus for a lot of investors, rob morgan at sethi, thank you so much we appreciate it. now shifting to washington, d.c., as congress shifting some attention from a covid relief package to the second impeachment trial of former president donald trump tracie potts joining us from washington with more on that good morning, tracie >> dom, good morning, and let's point out, this is the first and only time in our country's history that any public official has faced a second impeachment trial. it gets started this afternoon 100 senators weighing the evidence of whether or not there's enough to convict president trump, but really starting with the question of whether this trial should be happening at all today's impeachment trial begins with senators deciding if the trial itself constitutional. >> there must be truth and accountability. >> it's political retribution.

i fear we're skating on very thin ice. >> reporter: former president trump is accused of inciting the january 6th riot at the capitol. in 32 hours of arguments, lawyers plan to use his own words for. >> i know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the capitol building to peacefully -- >> and against him >> we fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore. >> reporter: still unknown, will either side call witnesses trump's lawyers say he will not testify. >> he got an offer to come and testify. he decided not to. we'll let the senate work that out. >> reporter: trump's team calls the trial political theater, arguing his fiery speech is protected by the first amendment. democrats claim he aimed the mob quote like a loaded cannon down pennsylvania avenue. >> i got to listen to this crap, so i hope by sunday or monday, the trial will be over. >> we have to put an end to donald trump's big lie once and for all.

>> reporter: democrats plan to make their case with social media posts and videos aiming to convince 17 republicans that the former president is guilty and the white house press secretary says president biden actually doesn't plan to watch much of the trial at all this week tom. >> tracie potts in washington with the latest there. thank you very much. when we come back on the show, scientists investigating the origins of the covid-19 pandemic offering an update into that probe we will go live to china for the latest there plus, a multibillion dollar deal for electronic arts as it makes big push into mobile gaming again and see you in september, what some of new york city's biggest companies are telling workers about returning to the office and when a very busy hour still ahead when "worldwide exchange" returns after this break

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." it's a live shot of hong kong right now. they just closed up their trading day. it's a bit cloudy over there, but hopefully everyone is relaxing since the day is now coming down to an end. let's now check out some of the charts we are watching closely in trading so far. over the past week, in another sign of the covid recovery trade taking hold, at least in the near term to start 2021, take a look at the last week's best performing sector in the s&p 500. that is the energy sector.

it continues a near term trend energy has been a huge outperformer as fuel prices start to go higher oil prices on the rise up 11% over one week meanwhile, health care related stocks, the worst performing sector, it's still positive over the last week. it's up just about flat on the session. you can see the gap pretty large here between energy and health care, perhaps another sign that people are investing that they think that the covid vaccines are rolling out adequately across the country one other place to watch right now is what's happening in the bond market. we mentioned it earlier in the last segment, but this idea that inflation expectations are on the rise take a look at ten-year notes and two-year notes on those particular yieldis you can see there. on a three-year basis we have seen some of the biggest gaps w have seen, indicating that perhaps interest rates are signaling better economic times ahead, and that has led to, again, out performance, near and medium term in the bank stocks

the ticker is kbe, the spider bank etf, down about 2/3 of 1% in the pre-market trade. however, take a look at this move higher over the last one week 6% gains right there, and by the way, this particular sector, etf is near its highest levels over the past year. still on deck for the show as lawmakers this washington continue to fight over a covid relief bill. some states are going it alone ylan mui joins us to break down the steps they're taking to get a stimulus package done in place. that's coming up after the break. today's big number, 700 million. that's how many electric vehicles could be on the road globally by 2050 according to research from wood alkenzie ev ses are expected to reach 62 million per year. [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito]

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treatment facility in oldsmar, florida, just outside of tampa the suspect was able to change the levels and send a burst of lye into the water system. the public was never in danger adding they don't know whether the breach originated within the united states or outside the country. a pair of rare nike sneakers designed for president barack obama in 2009 will go on sale starting at $25,000. the size 12 1/2 hyper dunks are one of only two pairs in existence. they were made to honor obama's love for basketball. the shoes are displayed at z sou southerbys. mary wilson, cofounder of the supremes has died. the group with diana ross on lead vocals had 12 number one singles and became motown's most successful acts.

she died suddenly last night she was 76 years old, and dom, for tuesday, those are your headlines. >> frances rivera, thank you very much for that. still on deck for the show here, twitter preparing to release its latest quarterly results. axios sarah fischer lays out the hurdles ahead that could curb that climb, up 59% this year in a programming note, don't miss cnbc's healthy return spotlight. it will have a deep dive into the rollout of the covid-19 vaccine. among some of the special guests in the program, walgreens, rick gates, johnson & johnson, alex gorsky, and howard university's hospitals, anita jenkins and more register now at kcnbc events/healthyreturns. "worldwide exchange" is back after this

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futures pointing to a breather at the opening bell after the major u.s. indexes all closed at record highs washington watch as democrats on capitol hill push for another covid relief bill. some states are looking to take stimulus matters into their own hands. and wondering when the world will return to in-person work, a growing number of new york companies are saying see you in september. we'll bring you those details. it's tuesday, february 9th, 2021, and you are watching "worldwide exchange" right here

on cnbc. ♪ ♪ >> bringing me back. welcome back to the show, i'm dominic chu in for brian sullivan this morning. here's how your money and investments are looking halfway through the 5:00 a.m. eastern time hour. stock futures are pointing to a muted open the dow is implied lower by roughly 45 points, the s&p off by about 5 points implied and the nasdaq down by roughly 17. let's now check on oil prices as well as they hover near their highest level in almost 13 months we have supply cuts by major producers, opec and its partners, optimism over fuel demand recovery helping to support energy markets you can see wti u.s. based crude prices, $58.12, world brent crude futures, 38 basis points higher, $60.79 and we have to take a look at the continued rise among

cryptocurrencies, right now, bitcoin prices are off of those highs that we saw overnight. 46,185 on the coin based platform right now that's about a 1% decline. this after hitting a record of $48,000 and change overnight following tesla's announcement yesterday of its $1.5 billion investments in that particular cryptocurrency, so keep an eye on those bitcoin prices. in corporate news, electronic arts is buying mobile games developer glu mobile for $12.50 in cash that's a 36% premium to the closing price on friday. glu mobile up 35% premarket. electronic arts up 1%. reddit valuation doubling. the "wall street journal" reports the social media company most recently known for its role in the wall street trading frenzy is now worth around $6 billion reddit raised $250 million in its latest funding round

that internet board growing in value thanks to wall street bets. and boeing has a warning for the biden administration as the federal government considers the idea of requiring covid tests before allowing passengers on domestic flights two senior executives at the aerospace giant wrote a letter to the white house arguing the rule could post significant financial harm saying there would be a heavy burden on an already financially beleaguered airline industry to washington, d.c. as congress continues it debate over another round of covid relief. about a dozen states and cities are proceeding with their own round of stimulus checks ylan mui joins us with what we know about how the money is being spent and whether it's making a difference in the broader economy. good morning, ylan. >> good morning, dom, you're right, cities and states across the country are not waiting on washington to send more relief to their residents six states and seven cities have already handed out their own version of the stimulus checks,

and that list includes colorado, new mexico, north carolina, along with los angeles, portland and houston. the amounts range from 200 to as much as $12,000. the irony is in some cases the checks are funded in part with federal money from the last covid relief packages. those checks are one time direct payments but this st. paul, the mayor, melvin carter tapped $200,000 in federal funding to launch a guaranteed income program that gives 150 families $500 a month for 18 months >> we are used to creating public resources in ways that sort of say to families you can only use it in this way, or you can only use it in that way. we know one family who needs food help in january might need rent help in february. our goal is to invest directly in those families, and provide a resource that they can invest, that they can use to do what they know is in the best interest of their children and

family. >> what we're seeing is that the checks from cities and states tend to be more targeted than the blanket payments coming from congress for example, in new mexico, they only sent the checks to low income residents who didn't already get one from washington. but dom, this is all part of a growing economic movement that really sees direct payments and straight up cash as the most effective and efficient benefit of all back to you. >> ylan, so what exactly now do we know about who will get the federal stimulus checks that are being debated right now? it seems to be dynamic, it's a moving target. but what types of people could be targeted for that type of payment from the federal government >> while there is political and economic consensus that these checks should go out to residents of states and residents of the country, exactly who should get it has been such a big source of debate, and so what democrats are now proposing is that the threshold to qualify for the full amount should stay the same at $75,000 for individuals,

$150,000 for couples, but that they should phase out more quickly, so they would be capped at 100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for couples and that really answers the criticism for republicans, and some democrats that these checks are not well targeted and it's really lower income residents, and lower income citizens who would benefit the most from receiving them. >> that cash desperately needed by millions of americans ylan mui with the latest thank you very much. twitter reports fourth quarter results after the closing bell today the two big moments for the company after the last several months, first of all, banning former president trump from the platform and ceo jack dorsey appearing remotely before a pair of contentious congressional hearings along with the heads of facebook and google as well. let's talk more about what twitter may say today and the issues it could face down the road joining me now is sara fischer, media reporting at axios thank you very much for joining

us here. how big of a target does big social media have on its back from the likes of congress, and what will twitter say about it later on today >> well, dom, it's an absolutely huge target. we know that congress is looking to potentially revoke or reform section 230, which as you know, gives social media platforms some immunity for the content that's posted on their sites but the big challenge for twitter today ahead of earnings is not just going to be addressing regulatory threats but threats about whether or not these actions, you know, banning president trump and some of his allies actually impact user growth that's what analysts are going to be wondering today, whether or not user engagement is impacted we know there have been some surveys that it might not have had as big of an impact as some forecasted but if it does, dom, that presents a huge threat to twitter's business. >> do you think, sara, that investors are keying in on that. fortutively as a user of the

platform, president trump had millions of users. he was probably one of the biggest catalysts for driving engage the on that platform. you have taken that out of the picture, how exactly, then, do investors start to handicap the likes or the prospects for twitter knowing that there are a lot fewer people engaging the platform in the way they used to over the last four years. >> yeah, well, twitter is uniquely impacted by this, of course i think a lot of media companies and platforms are facing this. what do you do when donald trump is no longer driving a crazy news cycle that drove tons of engagement i think what analysts want to hear is what's twitter's plan for tackling events. twitter has over the past few years made itself the stage by becoming the platform you go to when there's breaking news, when there's a major sports event, et cetera, but the problem for twitter is it hasn't been able to turn that engagement into really meaningful revenue. i'm looking for analysts to ask questions about what's your plan

to increase average revenue per user, especially during breaking news events, with things like new video ads and potentially new subscription offerings that will get the deep dive engaged followers, more enagaged on certain topics. >> we have heard reports and twitter confirmed to the verge that they are considering or looking at some of these subscription type offerings you mentioned there. it seems as though, i remember the days of yahoo, you know, and for some of the younger folks out there, yes, yahoo was a big thing back when i was growing up in the internet age, when they started charging for things, it signalled a top for them do we feel as though social media companies right now when they start charging active daily users fees that this could be something that is perhaps a top for some of these companies. the advertising model is seemingly what signals health in some of these companies. >> sure. dom, and advertising is going to continue to float these companies for the foreseeable future, but we see a different trend happening during the

pandemic look at these acts like only fans, like sub stack, we have found that people are willing to pay their favorite creators for exclusive content. and i think twitter gets that. i don't know that people are going to subscribe just to be a part of twitter, but they will pay to make sure that their favorite creators can continue to make content for them and so that's why you're seeing twitter lean into possible subscriptions around writers and journalism they just acquired a news letter platform, and they're also reportedly testing features where people can directly pay twitter users for other types of content, whether it's commerce and things they're selling or unique writing and journalism again. so i think that twitter, it really just depends on what it is they're going to be charging people for and whether or not they can execute in a way that actually gets those monetizable daily users to your point interested in fact. >> monetizable is the keyword here before we let you go, the big

difference between twitter, facebook, instagram, is that i have actually transacted on facebook and instagram, it's driven purchase decisions for me does twitter need to look at some of that, the ecommerce and digital payment side of things to help sort of drive engagement >> yes, twitter, in my opinion, needs to focus on core ad product. when you talk to marketers, the reason we pour our money into google and facebook is because we see return on investment. we know our ads geo focus on making sure its ad product is compelling enough to get people to buy things, and two, twitter has no efforts to your point, to introduce commerce to the platform as we're in this pandemic, more and more people are buying things online, if twitter doesn't start to think about it, it's a missed opportunity. >> twitter results after the closinoughts. >> thanks, dom. every corporate leader is asking these days, when will work return to pre-pandemic

normal levels or will it will. robert frank has been talking to new york city businesses and gets some of those answers next. someo of your other top stories this morning shares of chegg climbing, reporting earnings of $0.55 per share on revenues, up more than $205 million shares up 5% premarket a federal judge has set a hearing next month in spacex's bid to block a department of justice subpoena over its hiring records. the federal government has been investigating whether elon musk's company discriminates against foreigners in its hiring practices, and low cost airline sun country has filed paperwork for an initial public offering the carrier, which was bought by apollo global management back in 2017 is betting on a rebound in air travel amid improving covid-19 conditions. air travel a big focus for many travelers out there. "worldwide excnghae" is back in

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city the skyline in manhattan there, it's 5:40 a.m. eastern time. the days are getting longer, little by little, so we'll see when the sun comes up. welcome back to "worldwide exchange." countries across the country are trying to figure out when to bring workers back to the office and what the new normal, to coin

a mohamed el-erian term, robert frank joins us to tell us what he has been hearing specifically >> good morning, dom, the ceos, the top employers in new york city are looking at september as really the earliest date to start bringing workers back to the office the partnership for new york city, they represent about 300 ceos of the top companies and employers in new york city they say that september target, that assumes an optimistic rollout of the vaccine, and workers getting vaccinated that date could easily slide even further when the ceos were surveyed back in october of last year, most said the reopening would be july of 2021. so you can see that that could push forward yet again the partnership saying only about 10 to 15% of the 1.5 million manhattan office workers have currently returned. tiffany is the latest to try to bring some workers back with the new owner telling executives and staff they will be required to be in the office two days a week

starting march 1st that they're going to follow state and cdc rules. since the retail staff at tiffany's have worked through the pandemic, lvmh saying that management and back office can also work hybrid manhattan's office vacancy rate now at the highest on record at over 15%, and the leases in january fell by 47% over last year so dom, a long way to go here on the occupancy side, even when workers start coming back. >> so let's kind of focus on the occupancy side we know how bad it's been for certain metro areas. people are moving to the suburbs. i'm suburb guy i have seen the real estate market in my neighborhood surge over the last year when it comes to space about those leases are companies actually giving up their space are they moving, getting out of the city, how exactly are they dealing with all of that empty floor space that they have in manhattan and elsewhere? >> right now since a lot of

these leases are long-term leases, many of them ten years, it's really tough to get out so what you're seeing is a lot of companies trying to negotiate, trying to get out, looking in new jersey, and so far you haven't seen a mass exodus, simply because those contracts are pretty iron tight. what you have seen, which is kind of surprising are some companies continued to look for more space robinhood apparently is looking for quite a bit of space in manhattan. you've got newcomers coming in, but even at the new billions, you've got millions of square feet of new space that came on to the pipeline last year and will come on this year, and so even if you don't get people leaving or emptying their space, it's that absorption of the new space, about 8 million square feet of it coming on to the market that's going to be the issue, and so the question is what does the real rent turn out to be in manhattan? both on the residential and commercial side. it's got to come down. the question is how much

and the longer workers stay out of manhattan, the further that's going to fall. >> i'm also curious, robert, as you've been kind of going around and reporting this out, do you get a sense, just from a general perspective, a layperson's perspective, about whether the new york city market, when it comes to workers and residents is tilting more towards people wanting to be back in the city,city, wanting to be living in the city, wanting to be in the office physically in the city or people are a little more a apprehensive i don't know how many people want to go back to the office. i know a lot of people here at our company have been trying to get back to the office there's just not capacity to do so with social distancing requirements and everything else. >> i think it's a mix, dom it's not only the health issues but to your point, a lot of people who already lived in the suburbs or hundreds of thousands of people that went to the suburbs or out of new york city, what they thought temporarily during the pandemic, and the

longer this drags on, we're now looking at september, the more used to that new life they're going to get, whether it's up in the hudson valley, long island, west chester or further away so for those people, beyond the health issues, it's getting used to that new life, way outside of new york city, better lifestyle, lower cost of living that's going to be -- those are the folks that probably don't want to come back to the office, and if they do, they probably want to come back maybe one or two or three days tops a week, and that's going to be the issue is how many that 1.5 million office workers that did work at manhattan actually come back on a regular basis. >> all right it's that hybrid model still evolving there robert frank with the latest there on the new york city real estate market. thank you very much for that now to a developing story out of china a world health organization team is in china investigating the origins of the covid-19 pandemic, and offering an update on its probe it happened just a short time ago.

eunice yoon has been monitoring the situation in beijing with the latest there good evening, eunice. >> good evening, dom the press briefing is happening as we speak, and even before this briefing, the w.h.o. team on the ground had been trying to manage down expectations of exactly what could come out of this investigation and it looks as though the conclusion is really that the results are not very conclusive. now, in terms of the key findings there were some. the w.h.o. chief on the ground had said that the overall picture has not changed, but their understanding of the beginning days really is still there. so he said one of the highlights is that the market, which is the wet market which had within linked to most of the early cases is not the source. they did find that the virus was circulating in other parts of the city at the time

now, another interesting highlight was that they believe the most likely scenario of the way that the virus moved from animal to human or that was introduced to humans was through a third animal species that is closer to humans they did not rule out bats they said that the virus looks very similar to one that you would see in bat populations but still also mentioned that wuhan is not really known for a place that has bats. the other interesting point, though, dom, is that they did not rule out the possibility that the virus could have come from a lab incident. he mentioned that this was the least likely scenario from their perspective, but it is still on the table. >> eunice, we've been focused so much on wuhan. is it pretty much a given right now that wuhan is the epicenter? is there a possibility that the

w.h.o., the chinese officials are looking at, that the origins might have come from somewhere else i'm just curious whether or not wuhan is truly the epicenter i say that because i see photos and videos of life in wuhan right now, and it looks like the virus never even existed. >> yeah, that's right. well, if you were just talking to some of the chinese officials as well as the w.h.o. officials, they were saying that it looks as though the virus was circulating in other parts of the world and not necessarily in wuhan before december 2019 the chinese official had gone through a lot of the data, he said, and then of course the w.h.o. followed through as well saying that a lot of the data, either blood samples they were checking, animals they were checking over the course of the year for 2019, they didn't find widespread circulation of the virus, not only in wuhan, but also in some other parts of

china. so they put forth the idea that it could potentially have come into the country or just come from a different part of china through frozen food or frozen, like the cold chain because it does actually still survive in frozen areas and low temperatures so this is another idea that's been put forth we've heard from the chinese in the past but also has continued to be propagated here by the chinese authorities. >> all right eunice yoon with the latest in beijing on the w.h.o. briefing on the origins of the coronavirus. thank you very much for that we appreciate it. coming up on the show, futures pointing to a breather after the u.s. indexes closed at record highs in yesterday's session. we'll talk about the trading day ahead and the week ahead coming up next. if you have not done so, subscribe to our new podcast, "worldwide exchange" every day in audio format, if you miss us

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♪♪ welcome back to "worldwide exchange," back to the markets right now. stock futures indicating a modest downside move in the dow. the s&p and nasdaq this all after the three major indices once again hit new record highs in yesterday's session, but your next guest says a near term may be on tap and good for the overall markets. joining me is potomac wealth advisers, president mark avalon. we should look for a dip, but are they buyable and should you look at certain types of sectors over others? >> well, the markets, you know, we're still in a bull market, so when we talk about volatility we're talking about an end to the consecutive days, up days, we're looking at froth in spac

stocksm stocks we're looking at oil rising with other kmocommodities, and high yield bonds are dipping into investment grade bond territory. when you look at all of that, clearly investors are optimistic and optimism sometimes has to be tempered and when it does, it weeds out some players that aren't committed it weeds out investors that are in for quick trading gains and creates a foundation for a next leg up higher. and we think that next leg up higher continues 2021 with a relentless fed, with vaccines, with congressional money, prudent or otherwise, coming out into the market i think that creates a good year, a good opportunity for investors, any pull back we get. >> it's the billion dollar question, and i know that you're not a fortune teller, mark, but you are an investor. how deep of a pullback can we expect is it a 5 to 10% type thing? is it even broader than that

i'm not sure many people are foreseeing a 50% pull back, but some people are. what exactly is your base case for the type of pull back that we would see >> it's not the crash style event, and that has been the problem. we have a lot of investors with cash on the sidelines, and they ask us this question almost every single day the reality is as soon as we get a 2, 3 or 4% decline, money rushes back in when you have $5 trillion of cash by some accounts on the sidelines, and a lot of people waiting for this they keep moving stocks up higher this is an unloved bull market this cash on the sidelines is a bullish indicator, negative pessimism is a bullish indicator. so it's really difficult and i think a mid single digit correction is something these investors will eat up and get right back into. i don't think we're looking at a big correction here because the underpinnings and liquidity from the fed are too strong but i think any opportunity investors are jumping on, and

that's what's keeping people on the sidelines. >> what exactly are people buying what are your clients asking you about with regard to where the opportunities are now? >> i think people are segmenting some of their investments. there's too much glory out there to not be in these unproving companies and new tech names, and a lot of people are gaining a risk appetite to be in the technologies of tomorrow but there are found fundamental sectors that are working we think financials are going to have a great year. i saw your chart earlier on two-year, and ten-year treasuries when you start getting a widening in the yield gap and you get an upward sloping yield curve, those are really good for banks, and we think banks are going to head through a mergers and acquisitions wave this year. we saw the start of it with sun trust earlier in the year becoming truist now, and we think that banks need to gain scale. they need to compete they need to pay for technology. they need to fight off these online deposit wars, which are raising their cost of funds. the best way for them to do that

is to merge and join forces. that's going to raise valuations in the banking sector at a time when interest rates are going up we think the financials are going to lead a continuation into in value trade that we have seen earlier this year and late last year. >> we've just got about a half minute left here what do you think are the biggest risks right now to the market overall >> biggest risk is a change in interest rates, either market driven, driving yields up or the fed changing tone. unlikely the fed changes tone because half of their mandate is full employment, and we're far from full employment we think the markets, the movement up in rates could eventually make bond yields, and take luster off tech stocks which tend to flourish in low rate environments. >> great thoughts. mark avallone of potomac wealth. we appreciate it sir. >> good to be here. let's take a look at what's happening with the futures markets, all three major indices hit record highs

401(k)s across america are doing well the s&p implied lower by 6 and the nasdaq down by just about we'll call it 16 to 20 points. that does it for us here on "worldwide exchange. "squawk box" is coming up next want to save hundreds on your wireless bill? with xfinity mobile you can. how about saving hundreds on the new samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g? you can do that too. all on the most reliable network. sure thing! and with fast nationwide 5g included at no extra cost.

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good morning, equities, stocks pulling back, but bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are soaring to new highs meantime, a round of fundraising at reddit, now doubling the company's valuation to $6 billion and democrats looking to ramp up payments to families with children, as part of president biden's relief package we have details of the plan. it's february, you know that, and it's tuesday, the 9th of

february, 2021, "squawk box" begins right now ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. joe, welcome back. you got to sleep in yesterday. >> it's hard to sleep. it's hard to sleep, for a lot of reasons. you know that. did you make it past eight ever make it past eight? i never make it past eight. >> no, but i'll take 5:45, any day of the week. >> believe me, when it's 4:00 a.m., and i got like two or lee more hours, but i have two huge animals that are just like, they're like animals one of them is in a cage got that going on: i get up. i've told you this before. i'm up a