Skip to main content

tv   Squawk Box  CNBC  February 11, 2021 6:00am-9:00am EST

6:00 am
cannabis actually might make sense. it's thursday, february 11, 2021, and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ your love lifting me higher than i've ever been lifted before ♪ ♪ so keep it up which my desire ♪ >> good morning, everybody, welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin, and yesterday, the dow set another record this morning, it's looking higher once again. let's check things out you're going to see the dow futures and the other indices indicated up right now, dow futures up by about 63 points. the s&p was down yesterday but only by 1 point, so you can basically call it flat it's indicated up this morning by about 11 points and then the nasdaq which was off by about a 1/4% is indicated up 060 point this morning comments from jay powell yesterday suggesting the fed is
6:01 am
going to keep rates very low for a very long period of time i think the phrase he used was a patiently accommodative monetary policy that embraces the lessons of the past. you can see right now the ten-year note is yielding 1.142% that is a little lower, 30-year bond at 1.9% andrew >> thanks, beck. shares of uber, they're falling as joe was mentioning at the top there. the company posted a quarterly loss of $0.54 per share. revenue fell short of estimates. the company telling investors it's on track of reaching its goal of reporting adjusted profit by the end of the year. despite today's dip in the stock, uber is up for the week following a big jump following li lyft's up beat guidance. we will have dara khosrowshahi first right here on cnbc a conversation you don't want to
6:02 am
miss meantime, bumble pricing its ipo at $43 per share, above the target range the black stone backed company raised $2.2 billion in its ipo offering and shares set to begin trading today on the nasdaq under the symbol bmvl, and bumble ceo is going to join the gang on squooek at -- "squawk alley. >> you can't go out to meet anyone then when you meet someone. >> right >> what do you do, just hang out online or something or i'd probably be pretty good online i'd send ab pictures that i got out of men's health. >> use your avatar instead. >> no, so how does it work i mean, can you imagine the day where you are date ready with like something that shows you
6:03 am
had a vaccine or antibodies or something. we have to get there or these are young people who aren't really scared. >> yes i think that's where it's at, joe. >> yes >> really? >> young people who are less concerned, and maybe rightly so. >> and oh, the producer of the six just said that we can pull the producer of the seven to find out exactly how it works. i can't believe they told me that we'll talk to matt at 7:00 meanwhile, pepsico throw him under the bus. quarterly numbers. beverage and snack giant earning an adjusted $1.47 a square and pepsi announced a dividend increase of 5%, and we're going to talk about the quarter with cfo hugh johnston in the next hour i love talking to pepsi, and i've said this so many times, guys, you know, if it ends in
6:04 am
toes, sign me up, you know, all of them. >> doritos, cheetos. >> and within the subgroup of fritos, chipotle fritos, barbecue, twisty, and doritos, you get the scoops and then the tostitos. >> i'm in the tostito camp. >> so you have a toe fetish. >> yes, tos. now, this is what i want to ask about. this got my attention because i have begged for a non-carb snack to dip into something, and they are working with beyond meat it's not going to be meat. >> pork rinds. >> it's going to be something else that maybe could be like a chip but not made of cauliflower which i've had >> cauliflower is not bad, actually. >> i think it tastes like, i can't use my kid's term.
6:05 am
>> ass, which i probably shouldn't say. >> it's mixed up in good ways. if you have cauliflower rice, cauliflower pizza dough that's pretty good. >> those things taste like -- they're disgusting. >> cauliflower pizza, though >> did you try that? >> cauliflower pizza works >> the crust is pretty good. >> okay. all right. could have been talking about a donkey, right. anyway >> sure. >> ass, i said. >> or a jack >> right >> anyway. >> hugh jazz we'll talk more about pepsi coming up, and i think the big question, will they say the same thing we have heard from coca-cola. coca-cola said yesterday they expect their business to catch up before global demand returns to those levels, they're seeing things pick up quickly we'll see if pepsi is seeing the same mastercard said yesterday it planned to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year. that comes after recent moves by
6:06 am
asset manager black rock and payments company square and paypal mastercard said the change may open merchants to new customers who are flocking to these digital assets but obviously it raises the question, guys, whether they would be actual buyers of bitcoin like we saw with tesla earlier that week earlier this week. >> yeah. >> that's pretty interesting i haven't read it all the way through yet, but the guy's a professor. he must really be smart. bitcoin can be a good investment, but be wary. it's rising on a -- yeah, anyway, it's in the "wall street journal" on a17. i don't know, do you guys think it should be thrown in with the reddit trades? see, that bothers me but, you know, when they throw doge, however you say it, when you throw that in there, i don't like that when they decide we're just going to -- >> it feels like more of a twitter trade than a reddit
6:07 am
trade. those were people following twitter calls. >> the doge thing. how old is bitcoin, it's like fifteen years. people have been rampantly bullish on bitcoin for, you know, other reasons rather than being on the cha rt room tryingo squeeze the shorts all of a sudden it's thrown into that with the recent speculation, and i think it's apples and oranges i don't know, that's just my opinion. >> the connection -- well, i will say there does seem to be a connection between some of the early investors on the reddit boards some of them actually became, it appears, became wealthy as a function of bitcoin, meaning they were early boitcoin investors and they have been using their winnings in the bitcoin world for these other investments. that part is true. >> not the stimulus checks that's a narrative, right. >> well, i think that there's an element that some of the clever reddit -- some of the most
6:08 am
clever and wealthy folks on reddit who started some of this ultimately had to quote unquote induce others to participate in this with them, and that's when i think you then get into the stimulus check part of this. >> we have a chip analyst coming on from morgan stanley that's a lot of really aseesotec things happening with the shortage but the shortage is how much chip power is used to mine a bitcoin, and that made me think, it almost reminded me of kinetic and potential energy there's a lot you're putting in to mine a bitcoin which is kind of like the potential energy that you eventually have kinetic energy through being able to ascend it anywhere free, you know, with zero friction in terms of transactions. so i don't, you know, it costs a lot to make them. >> that's some deep thoughts for 6:00 a.m >> yeah, okay. >> deep thoughts for 6:00 a.m. >> deep thoughts, remember,
6:09 am
saturday night live. deep thoughts. >> it was. you know the other saturday night live, i don't know if you guys saw over -- finish your thought, this is a tangent the other "saturday night live." i don't know if you guys, well, good you're going to like this one. there was a "saturday night live" skit this weekend on zillow being like the new porn essentially. it was pretty good because i know we've been guilty of it just looking constantly at houses you're never going to buy. it was a pretty good one, and zillow was out with numbers, too, and maybe we'll talk about that in a little bit in the meantime in geo political news, president biden and president president xi jinping spoke by phone last night. this was their first call since biden took office. in a statement, the white house said biden raised fundamental concerns about beijing's coercive and unfair economic practices, crack down in hong kong, human rights abuses and increasingly assertive actions
6:10 am
in the rengion, including toward taiwan they talked about other issues including covid, and climate change it sounds like it got off to a little bit of a tough start bringing all of these issues up in that first phone call, there was some back and forth about cooperation, china pushback, and said that these were issues that were their own to deal with, and not things that the united states should be pushing into. >> i guess we'll talk about tiktok, sorkin you must be just have all kinds of thoughts about. so it's, i mean, it must be tough to be a foreign country when we change administrations over here, and things that are set in stone all of a sudden are completely not set in stone, and so what was all that about now it's just, it's oh, never mind >> i don't know that that's the case they're reviewing all of this stuff, and we'll see i think it will be difficult for the biden administration to completely throw out everything that the trump administration
6:11 am
did because there was support on both sides of the aisle for a tougher stance on china. >> i thought that was, wow, after all that, biden shells for sale coming up, an update on the pandemic and the vaccine rollout, dr. atul gawande, and why jim cramer says stocks are on the highway to the danger zone let me play that, top gun. futures right now up about 69 points nasdaq up 60 ♪ wow, where's goose iceman we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ heading to the edge, listen t the ♪ your daily dashboard from fidelity -- a visual snapshot of your investments,
6:12 am
key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity. ♪ ooh la la by cherie ♪ you need decision tech. the moxie showerhead speaker. only from kohler.
6:13 am
6:14 am
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. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today.
6:15 am
you wouldn't know it, 62 points, nasdaq declined .25% this is starting to feel like a kenny loggins market, yep, we're on, i'm going to say it, the highway to the danger zone hmm. that was jim cramer on "mad money" last night with a warning
6:16 am
for viewers. kenny loggins, i was immediately thinking of maverick i thought of the movie, but yeah joining us jake, capital advisers >> good morning, joe >> good morning, i'm working through your preinterview notes. i just was struck that maybe you're not quite as sanguine or bullish about things right now did i get the wrong impression or is it just watching bonds kind of rally that makes you think that people aren't buying as much, maybe need to move back into equity. >> sure. i'm not in the kenny loggins camp, i'm probably in the glenn close camp, where she says i won't be ignored i was looking at the 13-week
6:17 am
moving averages in terms of fund flows. and i'm surprised to see that after a close to 20% return last year on the s&p 500, investors are rotating out of equities and into fixed income and i don't exactly know why but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. on the ten-year, you've got a 1.3% rate, on the 30-year, a 1 pnl1.9, on the savings account, .05, and high yield bonds, less than 4% for the first time in history. i can't come to understand why investors are taking more of a risk off posture than a risk on posture in this particular market at this particular time >> but they are. you think that's not indicative of smart money you think they're going to come crawling back? >> i think you look at the u.s.
6:18 am
equity market as being expensive, and the truth of the matter is if you strip out the large tech names, the market doesn't look unreasonable from a valuation perspective. look, i think the pandemic is getting a little long in the tooth, but my prediction is that the second half of 2021 is going to be a block buster year for economic recovery. in 2020, we saw what happened at the height of the first spike. consumer savings shot up to 32%, consumer spending shot down 12 1/2%. things shut down and the market went right along with it but we saw what happened in the second half of 2020, and so from my perspective, it's the old cliche, history repeats itself, and we're spring loaded for the second half of 2021, and those that are out of equities and in the fixed income, i think, we'll probably regret that rebalancing decision we're making here early
6:19 am
in 2021. >> when we were still unclear about the makeup of the senate, part of your, you know, feeling good about things had to do with divided government you figure we're still in divided government or do you embrace some of the potential legislation that could be on the horizon with a 51-50 vote if the vice president gets involved here is that okay what you're seeing from the biden administration right now in terms of your view towards equities >> it's a really big package, and it doesn't look like divided government is going to get in the way of this being passed i happen to think it's going to be great for consumer spending let's face it, consumer spending is 70% of the u.s. market, and with a stimulus package in place, consumers are going to feel much more comfortable going out and spending money i also think that the biden package, you know, focuses on
6:20 am
things like higher minimum wage. that i've got mixed feelings about. we all know that higher minimum wage can have a negative effect on job growth and an increase in unemployment could result as a result of businesses having higher costs i like the fact that they're focused on student loan debt, which i think frees up more discretionary income that can go into the economy, so there are parts of it that i like. there are parts of it that i would rather not see, but for the most part, i think it's going to be great to have a real stimulus package here in march >> a lot of people feel that way. there's offsetting, there's head winds and tail winds but the stimulus probably a good one, i guess until it's not in terms of how much we're spending. jake walthauer
6:21 am
we'll check back with you. >> thanks for having me. >> you're very welcome we'll talk later >> when we come back, the pot stocks are surges as they pick up chatter on reddit we'll talk about names you should be talking about next. and a huge lineup coming this morning, including the cfo of pepsico, the ceo of duke energy, and thube er ceo, dara khosrowshahi we'll be right back. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps manage supply chains while predicting demands with ease. from retail to healthcare, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm.
6:22 am
6:23 am
6:24 am
reddit traders turning their attention to the cannabis sector, sending a lot of those
6:25 am
stocks higher in trading yesterday. frank holland joins us right now. he has more on that front. frank, what are you seeing >> good morning, becky cannabis stocks, they appear to be the new focus on the wall street bets reddit page, really a block buster day for these stocks that are already trading higher on a lot of optimism that federal legalization is coming soon, so take a look at this meme that got more than 40,000 interactions yesterday it may actually just sum up this whole thing. that's not the meme, it's a different graphic. we're going to get to the meme in just a second a lot of the traders on reddit, they're saying they want to take their gamestop gains and amc gains and put those in the cannabis stocks. there's the meme right there you see gamestop holders, they see the cracker that represents the weed stocks, take a bite, they're in love. a lot of traders bid online saying quote i have been putting money into weed for decades and now i own stock in it. another calling the whole thread weed stock bets, to give you a
6:26 am
flavor of what's going on online sundial closed 78% higher, going from a penny stock to one with a market cap of over 4.5 billion tilray, organigram, 50% higher organigram, 643% higher than its 30-day moving average. tilray, 500% higher. that was more than facebook, amazon, alphabet combined. one trader talked about being the shorts on these stocks but right now this does not appear to be one of those gamestop situations tilray the highest out of all the names but nowhere near the 100% plus. a lot of interesting moves for cannabis stocks that have already been huge outperformers this year. legal cannabis sales expected to increase 40% in 2021, possibly a factor, but definitely reddit has taken a hole on all of this.
6:27 am
back over to you. >> frank, you're right this does seem a little different though it's not so much a short squeeze with this that's happening but it could be potentially fundamental changes, a fundamental aspect with what's been driving things higher, right? >> itcould be some fundamentals, a lot of traders are trading on news, with tilray and fria planning a merge, and they're looking at companies that are small like sundial that are easier to move becky, some of them are taking advice from warren buffet, invest in what you need. a lot about smoking weed for decades and switching over from buying weed to buying weed stocks >> i don't want to be cynical, frank, i really don't want to be cynical. i don't want to be cynical the whole david and goliath. these nasty horrible people are shorting more stock than allowed to have the float. it's 140%.
6:28 am
we're on the side of right we're doing this we're the little guy taking on these terrible people. >> yeah, that's not going on here. >> now it's just a classic pump and dump now we are just pumping and dumping. we're going to get together on a chat room, and drive the stock up that's good, though. at least we can drop the pretense we can just drop the pretense and get back >> i'm not going to speak for reddit traders and wall street bets but what we're seeing is a lot of people saying i love cannabis, so why don't i invest in cannabis. they are picking some of the stocks because they're easier to move but also trading on m and a. i think there's a combination of different interests. >> you know, i went to colorado, and may have -- i don't remember if i inhaled or exhale but that was not always the greatest frame of mind to make big decisio decisions. i don't know if it's better for the long-term financial decisions. most of the time it would be
6:29 am
better to hang out for a while and not do anything too important. maybe not in this case. >> i think it's better if you have a bag of doritos mostly but yeah. >> we're going to talk about pepsi, and they have to be bullish on pot stocks. >> i was trying to help you with the segue. >> yeah, all right, thanks, frank. >> joe, it's the peter lynch school of investing, that's how you have to think about this. >> tell me i don't get it peter lynch was a fundamentals genius >> yes, but peter used to say that you have to actually -- you have to use the product. >> use your product. >> peter's whole thing was if you use the product. >> right >> all right pfizer. >> disney shares up 38% in the last three months, the company set to report after the closing bell we're going to talk to analyst rich greenfield nengs xt about all. as we head to break, look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers
6:30 am
♪ reach that higher love we're just hanging on facing our feelings feelings ♪ executive edg i made a business out of obsessing over network security? at&t business, our people and network will help keep you connected. let's take care of business. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t. the holidays weren't exactly smooth sledding this year, eh santa? no, but we came through smelling of mistletoe. the now platform lets us identify problems before they became problems. if only it could identify where my ball went.
6:31 am
this you? hmm... no, mine had green lights. whatever your business is facing. let's workflow it. maybe i should workflow my swing... servicenow. 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! i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq 100 like you you don't have to be a deep learning engineer to help make the world a smarter place does this come in blue? become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq
6:32 am
6:33 am
♪ it's the circle of life and i moves us all ♪ good morning, let's take a look at the u.s. equity futures. you're going to see there are green arrows again the dow closed at a record high, today indicated up by 65 points. s&p futures gave back 50 points and this morning in the futures market indicated up eleven points the nasdaq gave back 1/4%, it's indicated up 63 points. disney grinding higher, despite limited capacity investors rewarding the media giant's streaming strength last we heard from disney was december 2nd the company saying it had 80 million disney plus subscribers. we should get anupdate this evening when we get 4th quarter
6:34 am
results, and joining us to talk more about the media sector is rich greenfield, found egg partner at light shed partners, with a new fund launching today. i want to get to that in just a bit. i should tell you, i haven't seen rich recently but i have heard rich a lot because we're on a clubhouse thing last night, and then we were on twitter, new spacist thing, and maybe we can get into that. that was pretty fascinating to see where the world is moving, rich, but let's talk disney earnings right now, and what you're expecting and most importantly, what you're looking for. >> look, the two main things investors are going to focus on. obviously the parks are closed there are still a lot of challenges facing the business movie industry is shut down around the world what investors are looking for, two things, andrew, one, what's that disney subscriber or disney plus subscriber number you mentioned it was 86 million. i think that number has got to be above 90 million for investors to be excited. there's a little bit of fear the u.s. number could be declining
6:35 am
slightly everyone is looking for what's the progress in disney plus. they gave out subscriber targets but i think the real thing is the leaning in they want chapic to lean in harder to screening. you have seen what warner brothers has done, taking their movies to hbo max. i think with things like black widow coming up, and theaters just not going to be open to real capacity around the country, let alone around the world, i think investors want to hear from disney they are taking movies like black widow and going directly to disney plus. those are the things that can keep the momentum in disney stock going. >> how do you thread that needing in terms of explaining that to the investor, and how much do you think that that is a phenomena of the pandemic because we've talked about this, you know, once the tooth paste is out of the tube, can you ever put it back? >> we were talking about that related to the whole clubhouse and twitter spaces phenomenon
6:36 am
last night, actually, right, but from the standpoint of the movie business, look, i think you're never going to put the tooth paste completely back in i don't think windows, you know, the historic windows of when a movie came out in movie theaters and when a consumer could watch them in some capacity in hair home prepandemic was 75 days there were exceptions, what netflix and amazon was doing i don't think when we come out of the pandemic, so think about 2022 and beyond, my guess is movie windows are going to be somewhere between 17 and 30 days obviously universal has come out and said we want to get movies to pvod, which is call it 20 or $30 premium pricing for video on demand you know, after movie's theoretical release. whether it's svod or pvod, i don't think movie windows will be the same. it's why we're so skeptical of the movie theater business amc is never going to look the same on the other side of this pandemic >> rich, real quick, and then i
6:37 am
want to talk about your fund speak to this, the cord cutting movement, and what that means also to espn you always have that hash tag about cord cutters do you think it's going to be accelerate or do you think we saw the worst of it, if you will, not the worst of it, but in terms of just magnitude of it last year? >> no, i think every sign, i mean, if you look at what comcast said, your parent company. comcast came out and said they're going to lose 1.8 million subscribers in 2021, that's a meaningfully worse number than 2020 the reality is with so much amazing content. every major show outside of sports and news is moving to streaming, peacock, disney plus, netflix. discovery has discovery plus you can't turn on discovery without seeing a chyron saying going to discovery plus. all of this is going to lead to faster cord cutting in 2021 than we saw in 2020 it's clear consumers are basically being told to go to
6:38 am
streaming. >> let's talk about you for a moment because you're putting your money where your mouth is this is a little bit different for you. what's this fund about >> look, we've been focused on disruption at light shed, you know, in terms of the way we have been thinking about the media space for a long time. we met evan spiegel at snapchat when there were 20 people, and our first report on facebook was 2007, five years before they went public saying why everyone sh should buy it. we have been obsessed with disruption in the private media space for 15 plus years. now we're going to start investing in the space directly, in the private space, and we're launching lightshed ventures fund one, $75 million early stage, seed through series b investments across the tm space, and we have been angel investors for many years, but now we have the ability to put real capital to work. we have an incredible group of lps throughout the media and telecom sectors. we're excited to start putting that capital to work in
6:39 am
companies that we have already been surfacing through our research for many years. >>so here's my question since we spent, i don't know, we were up too late a last night at least i was up too late last night on clubhouse, which is a private company currently valued at a billion dollars, and on the other end, we were on spaces together, which is this new area on twitter,obviously public, would you invest in clubhouse today given what you saw happening on twitter or would you invest in twitter in this new conversational audio world >> we are huge believers in twitter. i think if you look at what happened last night, the fact that we already have an interest gr graft and a friend graft you and i are connected on twitter. we have 40,000 plus followers on twitter, being able to leverage that immediately into an audio experience i think is a huge opportunity for twitter, not that clubhouse, i mean, look, instagram copied snapchat, and snapchat's doing just fine there's room for more than one player i don't think this is winner
6:40 am
take all i think this is a big deal for twitter stock, and i think we have been very bullish on twitter for quite some time, believing in the turn around, and we talked about it on cnbc a few weeks ago, why we thought the stock was far bigger than president trump, with president trump being banned and i think you saw they're going to grow users 20% in q1, and really add 70 million plus daus without trump being on the service there's something far more than politics on twitter. >> would wow take money from your fund and put it on twitter. john mcgar, former ceo of t-mobile was on last night, and people were jumping in bethenny frankel, and katie couric, it became this sort of crazy, fun, over-the-top situation. that was on clubhouse, that was different, and then we were doing a separate thing randomly on twitter where we all sort of came together, and the fellow who's running the actual twitter spaces jumped into the conversation and started talking. >> look, there's going to be
6:41 am
lotso of winners. clubhouse raised a billion dollars. audio is getting big we have been big leaders i was an early investor in w wondry which just sold to amazon audio is growing dramatically, air pods, smart speakers, in car audio. everywhere you look, audio is exploding. it's an intimate way of getting content to consumers it's literally in your ear there's a tremendous surge look what spotify has done in the last couple of years there's going to be a lot of winners in audio light space ventures, audio is a space where we focus our investment dollars we believe there's a lot of legs to the growth of audio and content creation, basically building ip, and building content brands out of audio is a major business nbc universal is creating dr. death, that was a podcast that wondry created.
6:42 am
>> rich, as a gamer, were you involved in the whole gamestop, i mean, you got your gaming stuff on are you going to go back what were you playing before, what are you going to be playing after? you just go right back to it, don't you, with your thing on and everything >> joe, i'm just glad that, you know, valuations are starting to matter again and that sort of this quote unquote bubble that happened in some of these stocks, i mean, whether it was gamestop or i mean look at amc, the fact that amc got up. >> yeah, amc, you're obviously a gamer, and you've settled on tooth paste back in the tubes. i think it's possible to get some tooth paste back in a tube, if you work at that. >> you'll get some you won't get it all back. >> you can't unscramble an egg there's no way if you're going to use one of those things because the genie can go back in the bottle if you say the right thing, can't it? i mean, i've seen that i know that's been done. >> can you get the milk out of the oatmeal squares from last
6:43 am
night. >> that's a good one i haven't heard that one. >> the horse can go back in the barn easily. every night, you know, so i was thinking about that. you settled on the tooth paste, anyway, that's probably not important. andrew, just saying good-bye >> i'm just saying good-bye. >> we'll see you in audio world, andrew >> that's right. >> it sounds like it it sounds like it. >> it sounds like it, yep. >> if you took the time, you could put humpty dumpty back together piece by piece if you took enough time theoretically, no way unscramble an egg. we're going to have the latest details on mass distribution efforts and what states are doing to encourage residents to get the shot. i'm going back to shot it's like calling soccer football ya i can't. "squawk box" will be right back.
6:44 am
6:45 am
6:46 am
shares of aye -- i robot are jumping this morning revenue also beat but the stock is up about 160% over the last year you can see right now it's up by about 10.8%. this is that thing where we're all sitting at home realizing the floors are dirty, realizing we don't want to vacuum. you get one of these things, and they do it for you also, check out shares of zillow this morning they're higher, too, after the real estate company beat on both the top and bottom lines there was a dip in revenue during the quarter but that was offset by lower costs. again, this has been another one of those stocks that are
6:47 am
climbing, because while people are sitting at home, staring at their four walls, they're wondering what's happening in other people's four walls. i don't know how much this is translating into purchases, but a lot of people have been spending plenty of time oog lg places they wish they could check out or wish they were in the middle of the pandemic lock down when we come back, the latest on the vaccine rollout. dr. atul gawande will join us next right now, as we head to a break, check out astrazeneca shares, earnings for the company were in line with the estimates. revenue beat expectations. the drug maker now expects 2021 revenue to increase by low double digits. that forecast does not include any impact from its covid vaccine. that stock is up by about 3/4 of percent this morning don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. you'll get interviews, original content, and behind-the-scenes access look for us on alepp podcasts or
6:48 am
your favorite podcast app and subscribe to "squawk box" today.
6:49 am
6:50 am
6:51 am
welcome back, everybody. the federal government will partner with new york to get vaccines to minority communities. joining us is dr. gawande. he set up gillette stadium and fenway park. he's also a surgeon at brigham and women's hospitals and new york staff writer. his piece is one north dakota community hit hard by the covid crisis good morning good to see you today. >> great to see you, becky. >> why don't we start with the mass vaccination sites you set up how do you think things are going so far and where do you think the problems are >> we've had a gradual start with planning really only starting around christmas to get them launched, but at this point we're up past 5,000 shots a day
6:52 am
across our two sites and we're basically seeing across the country mass vaccination sites that have helped us get to the point we're at four times the vaccination rates a day. 1.5 million shots a day. >> that's great news >> it is that will continue to climb. what clearly is the challenge is the mass vaccination sites are not everywhere there are major community holes where we're not reaching enough people and have to have added solutions, including new sites but also creative solutions to bringing people in. >> just in terms of how much demand there is versus supply, scott gottleib has posited that he thinks by april we'll start to see a flip where we have more supply than demand
6:53 am
i hope that's the case there are a lot of people who have no chance of getting a vaccine appointment any time soon. >> certainly the case. we're reaching the point where i think the ability to administer the vaccine is growing steadily and we're going to hit -- we're hitting the bottleneck of supplies not being able to keep up with the number of appointment slots that we can create at this point we in big sites can increase the -- can increase the schedule if there was more supply now i would love to see that the production get to the point that we have over supply for the -- for where we are if we see the johnson & johnson vaccine approved in the next couple of weeks, that will open up a new channel and there is, you know, two more vaccines that are -- have good preliminary clinical results that could be coming in the next month or two and that will be a big deal having five different vaccines >> what are the other two?
6:54 am
>> that would be astrazeneca and novovax. >> cross our fingers on both those counts dr. gawande. and you wrote about a small town called minot why did you pick that? >> north dakota became the place with the highest cases, number of deaths per capita and minot was the hardest hit county, in the hardest hit state in the hardest hit area of the world. can democracy succeed in enabling us to get things under control. i started tracking things as things got worse and, you know, i highlighted a couple of people on the city council, one who proposed a mask mandate when the state wouldn't do it, a woman named carrie evans who had multiple sclerosis and a guy
6:55 am
named tom ross who was strongly anti-mask. my conclusion was it's ugly we don't all pull together consensus isn't possible democracy is frayed but it worked what you saw in the community is the mandate came through, eventually the state did it was only when the disaster was really upon them, but at that point, you know, north dakota got to 89% of the population wearing masks most or all of the time and the tide was turned >> and the key being when people knew people who were very sick or who died that maybe changed their minds? >> certainly the case. it's not necessarily that it changed people's minds some of the people i profile have family members who became extremely sick or sick themselves but were willing to make the tradeoff that if people
6:56 am
were going to get sick, they wanted the freedom to have life pretty much as normal even if that was the cost. the bulk of the society looked at that and said they weren't willing to pay that price and voted and backed the representatives to call for the masks to be instituted and limits on restaurants and bars put in place you know, you never get to consensus. the debate doesn't stop. >> right >> but it does work. >> atul, we haven't spoken to you since haven folded you used to run haven. i just wonder what you think the legacy of that was and what maybe lessons we've learned about trying to include health care, especially in light of covid. >> so haven was the health care startup from amazon, berkshire hathaway and j.p. morgan chase and designed to be one to bring better health care solutions to the employees, almost 1 million
6:57 am
people across -- who were covered in those companies, and, you know, one of the clean results was there were a tremendous number of ideas that could be executed on, including leading a team to build a new health plan with no co-insurance and no deductibles, it was popular and rolled out to tens of thousands of people and are growing, but the implementation side handing over the operations of implementing moving benefits to one site among all of these companies. that went beyond what they were ready to do. implementation was going to be through their own individual companies and that was the reason it was dissolved. the key lesson is some things can be solved by the companies some things have to be done at the government level >> we made the mistake of putting you at the end of the hour we'll have to have you back soon. >> happy to talk to you. >> thanks, dr. gawande
6:58 am
see you soon >> thanks, becks three big interviews you can't miss hugh johnson is going to join us later we'll check in on energy with duke's ceo lynn good. and pepsi shares are slightly lower right now. we'll explain in a moment. back in a moment after this. looks good guys. success. it's often right place, right time. ♪ ("four seasons: spring" by vivaldi) ♪
6:59 am
fiverr gets that. from graphic design to web development. or even a pr expert for things like, i dunno, (over loudspeaker) booking a press conference. ♪ ♪ fiverr has the freelancers to get you where you wanna be. is this the lobby? this is not a hotel... got another update from school. how's that...is that better? ♪ well we have a safety net. we'll be ok right? ♪
7:00 am
7:01 am
pepsi reporting results. the company's cfo joins us for a first on cnbc interview. president biden's push to go big with stimulus has some questioning who should get checks we'll debate his plan and what it means for the economy bumble is bringing love to wall street. is it here to stay or is a bad breakup with investors looming we'll swipe right and talk about the company's ipo as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ we are young ♪ ♪ heart ache to heart ache, we stand ♪ ♪ no promises, no demands ♪ >> good morning, welcome back to "squawk box. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. u.s. equities. the dow would open 61 points higher the nasdaq looking to open 57 points higher. the s&p 500 up a little over 10 points a couple of big headlines to
7:02 am
bring you this hour. shares of uber, they are lower in pre-market trading. did lose less money than expected thanks to cost cutting. however, its ride sharing operation still seeing an impact on the pandemic. uber's ceo dara khosrwshahi joining us later best buy reportedly planning to cut the number of store workers it has as well as reduce the number of hours. best buy making that move as more of its sales move online. and master card planning to offer support for some cryptocurrencies later this year it does say that not all cryptocurrencies will be supported. master card does order some cards that allow cryptocurrency transactions but those do not go through its network so another move in support of crypto. joe? >> right right. andrew, pepsico just out with the results the beverage and snack giants beating estimates on both the
7:03 am
top and bottom line. pretty good organic growth the stay at home trend helped the frito lay ahelped its trend joining us is hugh johnson, vice chairman and chief financial office of pepsico. hugh serves on our cnbc global cfo council. hugh, welcome. great to see you all companies with the pandemic have both challenges and some opportunities and pepsico is so multi-fas city setted. how would you net-net describe operating in the pandemic and what it's meant for your company. >> good morning, joe nice to be with you as well. the pandemic has put great challenges on everyone for a company like ours with such a large supply chain, such
7:04 am
a large work force, it's an even greater challenge than many. i would argue we strengthened as we learned how to navigate through the pandemic and deliver results somethinguccessfully. the work force has done a phenomenal job figuring out ways to help our work force develop well we delivered strong growth 5.7% was a terrific number the snack food business grew 5.5. the beverage grew a little bit faster, 6. we've learned to operate in this interesting environment and that sort of new set of learnings have led us to the fact that we think we're going to have a very strong 2021. we have mid single digit revenue and we increased the dividend by 5% we feel like we've figured out how to operate successfully in what's obviously very difficult. >> even when we talk about one of your competitors, it's just
7:05 am
in the beverage business, there are so many things to talk about in terms of supply chains, bottling, all of this as a multi-national company you have all the other parts of the company as well. has the pandemic, you say one of your goals, to be faster, stronger, better have you learned things that will continue after hopefully we get back beyond this that will help you execute better as a company? >> i think we really have. and, again, i'll go back to putting the business in the hands of our operators i think they've done a marvelous job. i think one of the things we've done in particular is empowering our front line leaders and empowering our regional operating executives to make good, fast executives is one of the things that has enabled us to accelerate our growth as we've operated in the environment. that doesn't just take us through the pandemic but it's a learning that stays with us longer. >> hugh, i would think that comps in certain parts of your
7:06 am
business won't be as easy for like quaker. everybody's home for breakfast i don't know, i don't like saying the covid-19 in any way that is a lessen to say they've gained weight and part of that is lays, fritos and stuff. aren't there tailwinds for some of your properties with the stay at home? >> yes. >> also ecommerce and things like that? >> yeah. i think it's a balance, joe. i think if you look at our results overall for the fourth quarter, every one of our sectors grew at least 5% and two of them grew 8% so regardless of the environment they're operating in, it's quite diverse. we've figured out how to do this successfully clearly the quaker business has benefitted to some degree from the breakfast at home trend and dinner and meals at home as well the frito lay business would
7:07 am
have done the same regardless. i think frito has done a great job in the pandemic and will come out of this strong ger as w well the beverage business felt the impact by the time we got to the fourth quarter the north american business is up 5.5% as well. i think we've figured out how to navigate this successfully at the end of the day regardless of the channel they're going to eat, they're going to drink and they like our products i think we're in a good position to grow well. >> for innovation, i hit you up about non-carb snacks. what is the beyond meat? what's the goal to use beyond meat for snacks? describe it for me we put a lot of salt on whatever it is. that might be enough right there. >> yeah. i think we're going to look at that as a very healthy set of snacks it's obviously based on
7:08 am
plant-based protein which is terrific we're looking to develop a variety of products with the folks at beyond meat and put it on ours. joe, i know you've been asking me for a long time, what about a protein-based snack. internally we may have referred to this in project kernen. we have a product that can be exciting as we bring it out to the marketplace. >> that's all you're going to tell us, it's called project kernen i'm going to be excited but you're not going to say anything beyond that? i don't know about pork rhinds they're too degreesy maybe a beyond meat pork rhind >> these are going to be delicious. they're going to be healthy and they're going to be plant based. that's all i'm ready to talk about. >> don't go too hard on the health part of it. anything in moderation how about a beverage innovation? never ending is that still going to be a major part of r&d and
7:09 am
acquisitions and everything else or are you where you want to be? >> in terms of acquisitions, i think we're where we want to be right now. we've been pretty active over the last couple of years with the soda stream acquisition which has done terrifically well for us we recently acquired rockstar in the beverage business and we're getting that turned around after a slow start but we're excited about where we sit. i think we'll see something in the interview space for mountain dew going forward that will be exciting as i look at some of the recent innovation, the gatorade zero product which we really just launched out of nothing actually did a billion dollars in sales you'll see more in beverages, particularly lower calorie beverages where the consumer is going to. >> you didn't get a lot of clarity on the $12 billion tax liability. you're in similar businesses i'm not sure whether you have similar accounting
7:10 am
is there anything to worry about with pepsi and you've all had to navigate the new tax laws. nothing going on at pepsi in that regard, is it >> no. our tax, and we've been through our competitors pretty carefully, our tax planning is quite different than theirs. our facts are quite different. the thing i'd probably point to most for investors is the fact that we didn't change our tax focus as anything we learned >> you've got a diabynamite cfo. andrew has a question. andrew >> we're going to talk about bitcoin in a minute. i wanted today ask hugh as a cfo. we're starting to talk about this, corporations, tesla and others, who are thinking about putting some of their cash in bitcoin. with that -- is that a conversation that's ever happened inside of your company? >> we've had the conversation and the conclusion we came to
7:11 am
pretty quickly was bitcoin is too speculative for the way we manage our cash portfolio so we won't be doing that. >> fair enough >> yeah. >> pepsi, bitcoin. maybe some day, hugh, that's what you have to think about will you be the last to the party, but maybe it gets less volatile something down the road and you'll reconsider. >> yeah. i'll never say never on those types of things but from where we sit, we're a company that prides ourselves on stability, on consistency and performance and ability to increase our dividends. we just increased the dividend for the 49th consecutive year. big reason to buy pepsi stock. >> when will i know about this new thing, the kernen project bearings fruit what's a time line >> i think you'll see more over the course of this year. i think you're going to be
7:12 am
excited. >> okay. all right. something to look forward to, hugh thank you. we appreciate it great to have you back on "squawk box." >> thank you. >> hopefully we can do it soon. >> great to spend time with you. >> thanks. joe, the product -- let's just make sure the product doesn't have illustra in it. back to the bitcoin topics you can't get away from t. it a big bank is getting it bank of new york mellon. they plan to treat crypto like any other asset. more adoption coming in some form here from bny mellon. becky? >> that's interesting. you know, in time they say they'll do that. they say in time they'll allow the digital assets to pass through some of the same plumbing used by the managers other more traditional holdings.
7:13 am
for now keep it separate, see how it works and then they'll make those decisions. when we come back, dating app bumble exceeding the ipo goals and pricing shares at $43. investors sure seem to be in love with the stock right now but is there a bad breakup on the way? we're going to stretch this analogy as far as we can we'll find out before we head to break, check out the cannabis stocks soaring on heavy interest from reddit traders. sundial up by 46%. tilray ubyp 11% other big fwgains there as well, too. we'll be right back.
7:14 am
obsession has many names. this is ours. the new lexus is. all in on the sports sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for $359 a month for thirty nine months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.
7:15 am
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. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today.
7:16 am
coming up just in time for valentine's day, bumble set to go public. is it the future of dating or a flash in the pan jon fortt joins us with both sides of the argument next that should be good "on the other hand" today. good subject we'll be right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question. what stadium is scheduled to host super bowl lvi in february of 2022? the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues go aflac!!! what the heck, troy - that's not your kid!
7:17 am
the aflac duck is just covering for sophie. same way he got me money to help cover her hospital bill when my health insurance didn't pay for all of it. but this isn't fair! that's exactly what i said! but then i learned health insurance isn't even supposed to cover everything. wait...for real? for real real. luckily i had aflac. aflac!!! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. go aflac! !mm-hm! get to know us at aflac.com.
7:18 am
7:19 am
now the answer to today's
7:20 am
aflac trivia question. what stadium is scheduled to host super bowl lvi in february of 2022? the answer, sofi stadium it is a big day for online dating bumble, the women-led platform is making the public debut pricing the ipo at $43 a share that is above the target range blackstone raising $2.2 billion in the public offering those shares are set to begin trading today on the nasdaq under the simple bmbl. they will be joining "squawk alley" at 11 a.m. eastern time is bumble a flash in the pan or is it the future of dating jon fortt's here to weigh in on this and much more good to see you. what do you think? >> yes, bumble is the future of online dating because online dating for the longest time has been toxic
7:21 am
think about that the dominant approach has been a digital meat market where men are hunters and women are hunted big money. they estimate the global dating market ex china is $10 billion in four years. i know what you're thinking, bumble's a cute concept but the women led thing is niche they're about scale, tinder, match are always going to be bigger true online dating isn't a social network, it's a marketplace. in marketplace quality and curat ion mean more. i'm not saying that bumble is the next apple, but what whitney has built upending the dating meat market is going to lead to loyalty, margin and an ecosystem the others can't, well, match. >> that was an incredibly persuasive case for that, jon. but it's not like bumble is the
7:22 am
only dating out there with the counter cultural approach. there was eharmony, coffee meets bagel. >> true. on the other hand, we should bring a healthy dose of skepticism to this bumble thing. yes, the bumble app is women led, and that's wonderful, but that's not what's going public, it is the holding company, badoo. on badoo, women don't make the first move but they hold 39% of the revenue in 2020 and it's more than twice as big as the bumble app yes, the bumble app is growing much faster. what i mean to say here is there's lots of virtue in the bumble idea but investors need to take time and sift through how much of this company is virtue and how much is virtue signaling. it's not yet clear that bumble has a better marketplace that can scale both domestically and internationally, becky
7:23 am
>> so that badoo thing, is that back to the digital meat market? >> kind of if you read up on the founder of that who whitney wolff teemed up with early, there's some pretty icky stuff that the company that he led is accused of fostering in its culture and that's sort of what bumble holdings needed to separate from in its relationships in order to get to this point. i think it remains how much of a separation there has been and how great this leadership team is going forward >> you know, bumble ceo, you keep mentioning her, whitney wolff, we've spoken with her several times. she's a veteran of this space whampt does that mean? >> she was part of the team that worked on tinder and a lot of people would argue -- there was a lawsuit involved that she got the shaft in that situation. so in a way it's the sweetest sort of revenge to see her coming public with a company like this now with the sort of message that bumble had.
7:24 am
once again, the model, you've got to prove it out and there's more than one piece to bumble holdings investors need to really pay attention to the numbers here. >> excellent job, fleshing out that whole thing well done, jon. >> thank you good to see you. >> we look forward to the interview coming up. check you out later. when we come back, we've got a lot coming up on squawk still. the latest numbers in support of president biden's stimulus proposal we'll talk about the newest numbers of bipartisan compromise you can hope and what's being debated next cnbc interview with dara khosrwshahi after they reported a smaller than expected loss it is black history month and we are honoring some of our cnbc contributors here's robert johnson. >> black entertainment television in 1991 became the first african-american company
7:25 am
publicly traded on the new york stock exchange, and my team and i rang the bell signifying that we were a publicly traded company participating in the u.s. economy the fact that we were first. the fact that we symbolized what black americans can do if given an opportunity was one of the oustayofy fen business for busy veterans like kate. so when her car got hit, she didn't waste any time. she filed a claim on her usaa app and said, “that was easy.” usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa.
7:26 am
7:27 am
7:28 am
>> reporter: becky, a special qanon on line inauguration of the cnbc all america economic summary saying he's enjoying the first presidential honeymoon since bill clinton in 1993 biden begins his term with a 62% approval rating. that's better than presidents clinton, bush, obama and 18
7:29 am
points better than president trump. as president obama found out, sky high approval ratings can fall sharply with a downturn in the economy and controversial policies 65% approve his work with the pandemic they enjoy broad and bipartisan support. other biden agenda items are supported but not viewed as urgently 59% of the public thinks raising the minimum wage is important. only 30% see it as a top priority results similar for things like addressing the climate change and expanding health care. president obama's popularity suffered when he pushed health care amid a deepening recession. the survey suggests biden needs to be careful about the timing of the policy agenda at the moment president biden's
7:30 am
signature $1.9 trillion relief plan which includes some elements of president trump's plan is seen as the right amount by 46% too little by 18%. 36% say it is too much the survey also picking up a bit of optimism in the country views on the economy are down bead, 36% see improvement in the next year and while the government gets bad marks for distributing the vaccine, 60% think it will improve in the coming year. andrew, all of this is online on cnbc.com where you can get more detail about this inauguration special edition. >> steve, i'm going to take back some of my snarkiness at the top. it's much more focused on his handling.
7:31 am
>> there are a lot of differences, becky you have a deepening recession in '09 now most economists see the economy improving this year. we have a democratic and republican polster advising us both of them say, hey, this shows that trump did not do as good of a job focusing on the virus and that biden's beginning his campaign focusing on it, continuation of focusing on the virus and since being elected focusing on the virus has served him well with the american public some of the numbers from the republicans are much bigger than trump ever got from democrats.
7:32 am
>> steve, thank you for this we're going to continue this conversation right now with more on president biden's relief bill i want to bring resident scholar and director from the american enterprise institute. he testified before congress and austan goolsbee is with us booth school of business good morning to both of you. michael, make the case, if you will, that this stimulus bill is just too big i know that's the argument the question is, and i'm sure austan will get to this, hasn't the lesson of every financial crisis been that we actually spent too little, not too much >> yes so i think the lesson from the 2008 financial crisis is that we did spend too little the 2009 recovery act should have been bigger i think we're in a different
7:33 am
circumstance because we've already done so much and because the trajectory of the economy over the next year is to grow, not to shrink. back in '09 we still hadn't reached peak unemployment. the economy was still in bad shape. we have a weak economy right now. all of the forecasts suggest that over 2021 we should expect pretty healthy, robust growth and a falling unemployment rate. from a top down perspective, if you want to design the stimulus so you're kind of filling the economic hole that was created by the pandemic, that hole in 2021 going to be $420 billion. that's front loaded. so, you know, next month is the end of the first quarter the biggest part of that hole will occur in the first quarter. as we move forward the hole's going to shrink. the president's $1.9 trillion plan would fill that hole 4.5 times. if you add the $900 billion that congress appropriated just seven weeks ago that the policy debate
7:34 am
seems to have forgotten, the combined effect of the president's plan and that bill would fill the hole 6.5 times. so it's just too big in addition, from a bottom upper spekttive, if you don't want to worry about the size of the hole, i know austan doesn't. there are things this would spend money on that would set the economy back the unemployment checks would hold the recovery back while also costing a lot of money. the direct checks to households won't help the recovery but will also add considerably to the size of the bill no matter which way you look at it, from the bottom up or top down, i think the bill is just too big. >> austan, take it on. >> well, i just think michael's missing the main thread of what's going on, and we made the same mistake, as you highlight, andrew, much let's wait and see how it goes. let's not do much now. we made that mistake in 2009 and
7:35 am
we made that same mistake this past year. we passed the c.a.r.e.s. act, which some people said, oh, that's too big let's wait and see before we pass more. and through the summer and fall that led us to where we are now. the virus exploded again, and when the virus exploded again, we stalled out so we were recovering rapidly and we were told that that would continue, and it didn't. we now have had three consecutive months of lousy job reports and there's every bit of a possible danger of a double dip recession if one of these new virus variants comes in. so the argument that what it's going to be is too big and, therefore, would generate inflation, i just think you should be a little more circumspect about it when 1/3 or so of the economy is really suffering. >> austan, isn't there an element here though that this is not a supply problem, it's a
7:36 am
demand problem and the demand problem is a function of the pandemic and health issues, it's not a financial one per se so to the extent michael's talking here about a $400 billion hole that needs to get filled this quarter, is there an argument to be made that you would agree with that you could arguably overspend what's the implication of that >> well, i think you could spend on the wrong things. i think this line of reasoning is trying to think about disaster relief as a stimulus, and that's the wrong way to think of it. this isn't stimulus. that's not the purpose of this money, and we can walk through examples where if we're spending money on vaccine distribution, if we're spending money on trying to reopen schools, these are not things that the main way you should think about that as an increase in aggregate demand and stimulus those are aspects in which we're
7:37 am
trying to expand supply so the inflationary impact would not be there and then the rest of it, if we're giving you -- people money so that they don't get evicted from their homes so that a small business doesn't shut down permanently, the right way to think of that is not as stimulus that's going to generate inflation that's just not the way to think of it. i think given our 15-year track record of mistakenly saying there's about to be inflation, we should just be a little bit more circumspect. >> michael, what do you make of that what do you make of the idea unfortunately we don't have a system, the right financial infrastructure to actually make payments in a precise way so the only way to do this is to actually send checks to everybody? >> but i think austan's argument is reasonable to a point i think that part of it is really a distinction without a
7:38 am
difference i agree the primary purpose of vaccine spending is not to stimulate the economy, it's to get the pandemic under control if we vaccinate more people, those people will feel free to go out and engage in life and that will have a stimulative effect the primary purpose of direct checks or unemployment benefits is to fill the hole of income from the pandemic even though that's been filled on average across the country i think we have to look at what's actually going to happen, not what, you know, the first order is i agree with austan. i fully support the president's vaccine plan, increasing testing capabilities, reopening schools, strengthening the safety net i would support a round of $100 billion in federal grants to state and local governments. so i'm not saying we shouldn't do anything.
7:39 am
i'm not even saying that everything in the president's plan is bad, but if you do those five things, which i think are the five things that really make a lot of sense, you are looking at a bill that is around $600 billion, $700 billion depending how you add the numbers. that bill is actually doing the things that need to be done but is also right sized to the economic hole. so it makes the economic hole left by the pandemic so it makes more sense from the top down and bottom upper spekttive than spending another $2 trillion. >> austan, final word to you, my friend >> well, look, wait and see if we need it is the worst thing you can do in a pandemic it's a mistake that we made last fall and i just really don't think that we should make that mistake again. the head of the fed is the person that has to do with inflation is not warning that
7:40 am
this is a big problem and that a mass majority of the country favors exactly this approach that joe biden ran on, i kind of think both of those things suggest you ought to err on the side of doing more. >> austan, of course the country sides on this, because they're going to get checks from it. >> that's kind of a snarky way to view it i don't think that's true. your own cnbc poll did not suggest that that was the only motivation that people had. >> let me just ask you one other question as we see this euphoria in the stock market, austan, when you see what's happening with the gamestops, bitcoin, anecdotally people taking their stimulus checks and putting it into the market, does that concern you at all about the position you're taking >> wait, it concerns me that there could be a bubble. is the implication of that let's not help the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 of people who are really
7:41 am
suffering because the people higher up in the income distribution who haven't had a recession are partying with their money on the stock market? i kind of do not see the logic of that. >> okay. it's a longer conversation and i'm sure we'll continue having it michael and austan, thank you guys appreciate it. >> thanks. >> you bet joe. thanks, andrew coming up. the ceo of duke energy talks about the future of the power industry here are the futures the dow's indicated to add to 'lbeig bk.hsrecord hig wel rhtac we needed to make sure that, if they couldn't get to the food, the food would come to them. we can deliver for food banks and schools. amazon knows how to do that. i helped deliver 12 million meals to families in need. that's the power of having a company like amazon behind me.
7:42 am
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 this neighborhood and we wanted to continue that. to have a place where you have dignity and belong, that's the legacy of the four way. ♪
7:43 am
do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy
7:44 am
qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. welcome back to "squawk box. sonos, check it out, up 17%. after the maker of high end smart speakers beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines in the latest quarter sonos beat margins as no promotions were held it also raised the full year revenue guidance check out the shares of zillow the real estate website beat estimates by 14 cents with adjusted quarterly earnings of 41 cents a share
7:45 am
it announced the acquisition of showing time.com for $500 million in cash. i had no idea there was porn on zillow. >> it's house porn, you silly. it's housing porn. it's houses that you -- >> i had no idea. >> -- you long for. >> andrew's on clubhouse minnesota plays purdue >> and you're on draftkings. >> 3.5 points. purdue or minnesota? purdue won -- >> i would take purdue because my parents went there, and my uncle and my cousin. >> okay. but you'll be looking at porn and andrew -- >> housing porn, you dope. with your -- >> andrew, you're be on
7:46 am
clubhouse with katie couric, right? >> i don't know what to say. >> march madness is coming up. does that mean anything? >> march madness lots of betting opportunities. >> i had big plans for noon. game is canceled because of covid. so many games every day canceled >> yeah. >> maybe i'll go on zillow >> join us there's plenty to see. >> now that i know now that i know. >> we should tell you about news out earlier in the hour. a big bank is offering clip tow currency bank of new york mellon is holding, transferring and issuing cryptocurrency on behalf of clients it will treat it like any other asset. it won't put it straight into the same plumbing but they will eventually. >> andrew? >> when we come back, the ceo of
7:47 am
duke energy will be our guest. later, the ceo of uber joins us right here uber stock down in the pre-market we'll talk about it when we come back we see breakthrough medicines getting to patients in record time. at emerson, our automation software is empowering pharmaceutical companies to accelerate their production of critical vaccinations for the world. emerson. consider it solved.
7:48 am
want to save hundreds on your wireless bill? of critical vaccinations 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
7:49 am
included at no extra cost. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today. welcome back, everybody. we have more quarterly results to share with you this morning duke energy had quarterly
7:50 am
earnings of $1.03 a share. duke provides electricity and natural gas to customers in six states and also operates wind and solar facilities across the country. joining us right now an exclusive interview to talk about the company's results and more is lynn good. the chair, president and ceo of duke energy. good to see you. >> thanks for being here >> good morning, becky how are you. >> good. the adjusted number came in line $1.03 a share. revenue was a little bit below what the street had been anticipating what did you see with your customers that maybe the street wasn't ready to see? >> we have experienced the impact of covid just like every business leader that you're talking to during this earnings season so sales have been impacted by that our commercial and industrial in particular, becky, as you think about retail, schools, the other businesses that have really been challenged during this covid
7:51 am
period the bright spot for us has been customers who are working at home so remote work has really been a positive in our residential class of customers, but overall, you know, sales have been down in 2020 as a result of the impact of covid. >> do you anticipate that's going to change as things start to open up and vaccines roll out? >> we're seeing some positive indications. as i look at the year i think some weakness here in the beginning is probably consistent with what others are seeing around the u.s we expect strengthening in the course of 2021 some of the positive signs were infection rates are down in almost everyone of our states. as we look at mieg dwrags statistics, we serve four of the top eight states of population migration. carolina,, florida, tennessee.
7:52 am
>> we've had a lot of conversations, lynn, trying to figure out getting through the pandemic how will it affect it. it's part of our plan going forward. we're going to have to address social distancing, some of the covid protocols that will be required throughout 2021, maybe into 2022 as we bring employees back so we've got that to address. we see a hybrid work approach. sometimes in the office, sometimes at home. i think for our business that's positive that gives us an opportunity to sell more power.
7:53 am
in the past we have seen big swings and in the new biden administration i know when you're an energy company. part of that was to be looking at more renewables and trying to find a way to reduce your carbon dioxide output part was to expand your footprint when it came to natural gas and usage for that i wonder, have you tweaked the plan have you changed things depending on what you're hearing from the administration that's in power at the moment >> that's a really good question, becky. what you're raising is we run a long cycle business with a lot of capital spending. how do the policies impact that?
7:54 am
and at duke we've been very clear with a clear vision about reducing carbon emissions. we are at over 40% reduction from the 2005 baseline already headed to at least 50% by 2030 and net zero by 2050 so as i think about president biden and his administration, we share a common goal of pursuing carbon reduction in a way that achieves that result but also maintains reliability and affordability for our customers. there's no question as we learn more about new technologies, about the pricing of technologies, we will always refine our plan. you see more renewables in our plan than you would have a few years ago where the cost curve was still coming down. we look to double the renewable footprint by 2025. triple it by 2030. it will be the largest section by the time of 2050. what i will say to you is we try to keep a clear vision of where we want to go serving our customers well, serving our
7:55 am
investors well and then making adjustments as administrations come into play and we feel like we're really well positioned for the objectives that president biden has for carbon reduction >> so duke has said that you all are planning to spend i think it's 58 to $60 billion in cc cap ex over the next five years. where will that money be targeted >> the lion's share of the investment, becky, is around the clean energy transition. duke has one of the largest clean energy transition stories in the u.s it will be around a modernized grid that accommodates more renewables it will be around clean generation retirement of coal introducing renewables, battery storage. some natural gas is needed for reliability. it will be ev infrastructure it will be continuing the operation and investment in our nuclear plants so that capital plan is really a capital plan directed specifically at climate reduction and at duke we talk
7:56 am
about the fact that our climate strategy is our investment strategy that capital will be directed towards a clean energy transition which will be welcomed by our customers, our communities and our investors. >> what's the biggest challenge that you're facing now is it covid and trying to figure out how to handle your employees in that situation or is there something else >> as i think about challenges, becky, we operate a complex business, no question. i feel like the results of our work in 2020 demonstrate we can work through covid, and i am particularly proud of the employees and the work that they've done throughout the year to serve our customers well. i think as the industry transforms and expectations transform, our challenge is to keep pace with it. you talked a little bit about it from the lens of the politics. you think about new technologies you think about new expectations of customers and our objective is to continue to transform our business, continue to look at
7:57 am
our internal processes, continue to look at the way we engage with stakeholders so that we are changing at a pace as rapidly as our industry is, and i'm proud of where we're positioned today with a growth trajectory 5 to 7%, capital directed at clean energy we'll continue to look at our external environment and processes to make sure we're changing as rapidly as our industry requires. >> no easy task. got to be willing to do a lot of things at the same time. lynn, thanks for your time today. good to see you. >> becky, thank you. >> andrew? >> okay. when we come back, much more on this market, including this week's big pop in, what else, bitcoin. going to talk about what's next for the crypto after tesla announces ownership in it. plus, don't miss our interview with uber ceo dara khosrwshahi inflation rising and currencies falling.
7:58 am
but i've seen centuries of rises and falls. i had a love affair with tulips once. lived through the crash of '29 and early dot-com hype. watched mortgages play the villain beside a true greek tragedy. and now here i am, with one companion that's been with me for millennia; hedging the risks you choose and those that choose you. the physical seam of a digital world, traded with a touch. my strongest ally and my closest asset. the gold standard, so to speak ;) people call my future uncertain. but there's one thing i am sure of...
7:59 am
8:00 am
stocks pointing to modest gains as we head towards the opening bell we've got in some big earnings from pepsi, kraft hines and more pot stocks lighting up
8:01 am
"the game" stop surge now trying to make some serious green betting on weed. and signs of recovery and uber's latest results. the company said it's on track for adjusted profit by year's end. we have the first uber interview with dara ckhosrwshahi since those numbers were posted. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome back "squawk box" here on cnbc. becky quick and andrew ross sorkin u.s. equity futures marginally higher up 48 points nasdaq indicated up rebounding from yesterday s&p indicated up 10. treasury yields have stayed above 1% they made a move quickly up to about, as you can see, 1.13.
8:02 am
the move to 1.8 or 2% might be forthcoming. not yet. here are stories investors could be watching today, we don't presume to know. pepsi beating analyst estimates on the top and bottom line saying it expects to see organic revenue and adjusted profit growth pepsi cfo hugh johnston joining us earlier on the program and spoke about doing business during a pandemic. >> i think we've figured out how to navigate this successfully. at the end of the day, regardless of the challenge, they're going to eat and they're going to drink and they like our products i think we're in a good position to continue to grow well. >> pepsi announced a 5% dividend increase this morning. the wall street bets crowd on reddit hoping to push cannabis stocks higher.
8:03 am
check out how major pot stocks are going. yesterday tilray soared 10% and democratic control in the white house will mean federal legalization for marijuana short interest and a desire to profit from it is likely a factor in the trades gme, amc and such. >> president biden speaking by phone with chinese president xi jinping. the first talk the two have had. biden raised concerns over china's coercive and unfair practices in stands towards hong kong the call came just hours after biden announced plans for a new pentagon task force to review america's national security strategy towards china
8:04 am
becky? >> thanks, joe we told you the futures are higher this morning. the dow notched the sixth record close of the year. our next guest says she's often asked whether the broad market is in a bubble right now her answer is no anastasia a.moroso is with jpmorgan bank. she joins us to explain why. anastasia, great to see you this morning. why don't you explain first why you think we're not in a bubble right now? what tells you that? >> good to see you, becky. you're right, this is one of the most frequent questions we get these days the biggest answer to that is, first of all, it is not the classic definition we don't have the classic definition of a bubble where you have the price action disconnected from fundamentals earnings today is looking at $178 on s&p. if you assign a 22 times multiple to that, you are just about where we are today
8:05 am
where does the up side come from i think the up side comes from future earnings revisions. as we get to the herd immunity, 70% vaccinations by september, you are going to get some up side to the earnings i think the markets are fairly priced the other biggest condition i would say that is missing to call this a bubble in valuations that are not sustainable, something has to pop those valuations and typically that something is higher interest rates. we do not see that for the foreseeable future in fact, probably most frequent question i actually get is this 1999 well, in 1999 the fed funds rate was at 6.5%. it is at zero today. in 1999 the spread between the earnings yield and the bond yield was actually negative. today it's positive 3.6% so, becky, that's why any chance investors get to buy into this market on a 2, 3, 5% pull back, that's why the money keeps on going into the equities market >> i take it the comments you
8:06 am
heard from jay powell yesterday reinforced the idea, the idea the fed is going to be keeping this accommodative policy, low rates for a long time to come? >> yeah, that's right. we know this has been the fed policy for a while as they made that pivot to look at average inflation versus realizing any given month. even if we have a transitory spike in inflation in the spring, which we do expect, this is not going to change the trajectory of the fed. the fed is on hold probably until at least 2023 so this very supportive negative yield environment and this positive spread between earnings yield, this is what we've had for the bulk of the years. this has significantly supported the equity valuations. i will say there's things we have to watch in the markets for speculative activity you've covered them very well on this show. there are pockets of maybe a little bit of frothiness we have seen trading in negative
8:07 am
ebitda companies that have spiked to 16% of trading volume. back to what we saw in 1999. we saw trading in high multiple growth companies that is also significantly higher there's definitely pockets to watch and be cautious and, by the way, many investors have made a lot of profits in those names over the last year it is prudent to take a little bit off the table in some of those names. even if the market broadly may look a little bit expensive, we still see pockets of opportunity that are not at all expensive. >> we'll talk about those in just a second. just to be clear, if somebody's invested in the market, you wouldn't tell them to sell here, you would just say wait for a pull back whether that's 2, 3, 5%, whatever that may be before they put additional funds to work >> i don't think this is the time to broadly reduce exwitt at this exposure. i think it's a time to reposition some of the exposure. i'll use tech. some of the stock names have done exceptionally well.
8:08 am
i wouldn't be opposed to taking a little bit off the table in some of the high multiple names and repositioning it to some of the more industrial geared part of the technology. some of the semiconductor names as well. that would be the broad recommendation definitely not reducing broad exwitt at this exposure. i think we are a little bit extended and hedge funds that degrossed a little bit, they've added to those positions and, you know, we've run a long way in a short period of time so you could very easily get a 5% pull back if you -- if a catalyst comes along it is normal if when we expect a 5% pull back in every quarter, if you do get it, that's when it's important to have the shopping list of things ready that you do want to buy in that moment it was 5% pull backs do not last long in the market environment. >> what else is on your shopping list >> so the top of the shopping list i would put clean energy.
8:09 am
clean energy is definitely one of the sectors that, you know, shows up there when you talk about bubbles and excessive valuations, but clean energy is not disconnected from the fundamentals and that is the key for me here. so even though you've seen the valuations of clean energy more than double in the last year, what's also happened is the earnings revisions for a lot of the clean energy companies have risen significantly. you just had the interview with duke ceo and she mentioned how much cap ex is going to renewables that's what we're expecting in the next five years. we have pretty good visibility in some of these projects because they're long term. that's why we see the earnings rise and we have confidence in those earnings so while clean energy might have been a little bit exuber rant, a little bit expensive near term, it is ultimately not
8:10 am
disconnected from fundamentals a lot of what the biden administration has yet to do on clean energy is not priced into these shares so if you get a broad market pull back of 5%, i would suspect clean energy shares pull back by more than that and that's the time to go at them. >> what's one more item or one more area that you would put on that shopping list >> i would add emerging markets to that shopping list as well. as you know, emerging markets have done very well this year, but this is an environment where expect global growth to pick up and emerging markets to outpace the growth of developed markets by 2%. this is classically a great time to be invested in emerging markets. but i will add a more thematic angle to this as well. emerging markets have been known for their high commodity data and they still have that more so in the broad data. emerging markets are increasingly tied to the durable
8:11 am
secular trends we talk about like all things digital, like health care innovation and sustainability you look at things like latin america, for example, and latin america has the fastest growth of ecommerce and fintech adoption in the last two years china, renewable are top of mind there. becky, i like emerging markets for the cyclical as part of the cycle but some of this renewed growth that it brings to it. >> that's interesting. anastasia, thanks. really good to see you today. >> thanks, becky good to see you. >> andrew? coming up a lot on squawks thanks, becks. uber ceo dara khosrwshahi. the chip crunch. semiconductors and the shortage and whatit means we'll be walked through the fallout. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc
8:12 am
8:13 am
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. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction.
8:14 am
and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning dating service bumble making the wall street debut today after pricing the ipo at $43 a share that was above the already raised expectation from 37 to
8:15 am
$39. bumble had raised $2.2 billion giving it the overall value of $7 billion don't want to miss a first on cnbc interview with whitney wolfe heard on "squawk alley" at 11 a.m. eastern time. >> no relation to winston wolfe, andrew i don't believe. the global computer chip shortage is impacting industries from medical devices to military equipment. in autos, general motors saying to take a $2 billion hit in 2021 thanks to the semiconductor shortage joining us to talk about how it got here and how we get out of this, joseph moore, semiconductor industry analyst at morgan stanley. you've seen it, recessions in the past, and, you know, usually things are kind of similar, joe, but you point out this time
8:16 am
weird. it's not and things -- i don't know whether things came back more quickly or in a more synchronous fashion or whether some things like the stay at home plays, that demand never went away. so for whatever reason we have seen things rebound really quickly. so the demand side of things is very strong. then you've got the issues with supply >> yeah. it's really, you know, an interesting phenomenon usually early in an economic cycle they don't see strength. it usually happens because it's preceded by a period of significant weakness where customers are taking down inventory. we didn't see that last year we had unit growth and yet we have come back to this level that's pretty surprising in terms of the magnitude of some of these shortages i do think it's the breadth of up side. we're seeing very strong consumer electronics and gaming and things like that, which are really outliers, cryptocurrency in there as well, but then we're seeing this resurgence in the
8:17 am
more traditional analog, automotive, industrial markets it looks like customers drew their inventory down more than it appeared last year. on top of that there are some supply things that are leading to supplier anxiety and things like that. it's definitely the sweet spot for the semiconductor cycle. >> yeah. talk supply. not everyone is -- i read through all of your notes. you know a lot, so much more than i was really deciding i was going to know, the nodes, everything else. what are the three most important things that our viewers should know about supply constraints that are happening right now globally >> yeah. i think there are a number of issues i think that, you know, there are chinese foundries that are on the entity list, and that's causing anxiety from the semiconductor companies who use
8:18 am
those manufacturers to build products they're moving to other places that's leading to tighter supply you also have chinese customers anxious about getting blocked from purchasing u.s. components. they're building up inventory. you have outages of manufacturing around covid where you have different regions going offline at different times all of that leads to an anxiety from customers that will have them wanting to put some inventory into place i guess what's reassuring from a semiconductor standpoint is they're not really able to do that it's not necessarily good news to have customers like general motors having said what they said but it is good news from the standpoint of the longevity of the recovery. it means we're not at the phase where we're overshooting, where customers are starting to put inventory back on shelves. we're still at the point where we're trying to catch up to it. >> double ordering and an inventory cycle is unlikely to happen this time around.
8:19 am
there's a shift, i guess, to more advanced -- 5g and such there's a dynamic there as well. >> yeah. that's been pretty surprising to us we've had the cutting edge capacity that's used for, you know, qualcomm 5g chips or advanced graphics chips from nvidia that has become very tight there's noga available really on store shelves for those types of products that's been after a period of what we thought was high capital spending from foundry, we're still in a very robust environment. this is strong at the cutting edge strong at the trailing edge. it looks like we need to have a little bit more supply to kind of catch up. >> how do we decide to try and make money are there going to be pricing? is that how -- if they don't sell as much because they don't have as much, is that going to
8:20 am
be made up for in pricing? do we need to worry about -- i mean, that would be inflationary everything runs with a chip at this point, even your brakes, power steering everything will that be inflationary if prices really soar >> i think in the places where there's the most anxiety when you talk about autos and be things like that, the real issue is that a relatively small dollar content relative to the price of the car is tripping up production so when you have a $5 component means that you can't buy a $50,000 car, sure, there's some leverage for those prices to get a little better. you don't want to go in and raise prices on those types of customers. it tends to not have that much impact on the bill of materials of the car because it's a relatively small number. when you look at pcs, phones, i think that's a little bit of a bigger concern that you could have rising bill of materials cost we like micron and western
8:21 am
digital where memory prices will react favorably during periods of tighter supply. they have most supply. >> you would buy a basket, index, etf you're bullish on everything equally or you would differentiate? >> we stay pretty selective. as you navigate this in terms of how we make money to your question, it's going to be a pretty good year i think that's going to persist throughout the year. the question is is the strength semicon duktdor industry is seeing is a demand we're not shipping to so we're under earning and that could happen in the second half. we'll keep our eye out for that. we look for value-type stocks in this you have big upwards earnings revisions potentially. i think this year is going to be exemplified buying the ones where there are the biggest upward revisions, a little less
8:22 am
by the multiple expansion narratives some of the commodity stocks the most, micron and western digital we like quite a bit. my colleague in semiconductor likes nsada which is both guided for some level of collection and has a value. so we continue to be a little bit careful in terms of where we make our bigger bets, but, again, we focus on the upper divisions of the company most levered to the conditions we're talking about. >> i don't think everyone realizes, moore's law and joseph moore. you know your -- but, no, seriously. what about technological advances have we hit the wall yet can we keep going in terms of physical and i literally mean physics and those constraints? >> sure. no relation to gordon moore. >> you should say there is >> you know, generally, we are
8:23 am
reaching a point of diminishing returns to those technology transitions but there's still returns to the technology transitions. we're seeing -- a lot of why this happened is there is a lot of emphasis being placed on the cutting edge it's not the easy gains for the years past mike gre migrating technology is exciting we're seeing a limited number of companies which can supply that so that's pretty exciting. the foundry business has evolved into a space that's much more central into everything that's happening. >> all right joseph moore, thank you. you've come up with some other moore's law about something else thanks for coming on we'll be watching. this is pretty interesting whole shortage and the effects thanks thank you.
8:24 am
when we come back a wide ranging interview. >> we're back and take a look. 48,000 it's up by 7.5% this morning these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly.
8:25 am
in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps manage supply chains while predicting demands with ease. from retail to healthcare, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. we see smarter software delivering cleaner power. emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize and improve the electric grid. emerson. consider it solved. and improve to navigate your active days, weathertech has you covered. mirrorfone secures your phone to almost any smooth flat surface. ♪ ♪ cupfone keeps your phone secure while driving. ♪ ♪ hi mom. -hi. the deskfone even adjusts for horizontal viewing.
8:26 am
♪ ♪ while the tablet holder keeps everything in the perfect position. nice. the best way to secure your devices is at weathertech.com
8:27 am
all right. welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. watching the futures this morning. there are green arrows across the board. dow's up by 70 points after closing at a record high yesterday. you can see the s&p up by 13 points and the nasdaq futures up by 75. master card saying it plans to offer support for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year. that follows recent moves by asset manager blackrock and square and paypal. they said it may open merchants up to new customers who are flocking to digital assets bitcoin is up by 7.6% this morning, not just on this news but also bank of new york mellon saying it's going to be offering digital currencies and trying to wrap that into its bank as well. andrew >> thanks, becks coming up, breaking economic news new look at jobless claims
8:28 am
a look at market reaction. ayitusk"etnsquaw rur st wh this is how you become the best! [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today.
8:29 am
8:30 am
this is a no-nonsense message from three. don't get mad. small business insurance is usually so complicated, you need to be a lawyer to understand it. that's why three was created. it's a better kind of business insurance. it's only three pages. straightforward. if you own it, three covers it. got a cheese slice for "spokesperson?" that's me. i don't even need to see what's happening behind me to know it's covered. (screaming) this commercial is now over. logo. three. no nonsense. just common sense. welcome back to "squawk box"
8:31 am
on cnbc. 793,000. that is a decline. >> we are still way above the worst week of 2009, 2010 downturn numbers are still very high. incrementally improving. 4.545 on continuing claims down from the prior week of 4.69 million. that was also revised. 3.2% i think i'll leave it there.
8:32 am
10% when you factor in people who left the work force. >> that worries me, steve. we have a ways to go you would think. thank you, steve coming up next, uber ceo dara khosrwshahi following last night's fourth quarter rulests perfect time to stay tuned "squawk box" coming right back
8:33 am
8:34 am
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
8:35 am
the ride sharing giant finishing up 2019 with an adjusted profit by year's end. revenue from the company's core ride hailing business surpassed revenue from deliveries. u uber's fourth quarter loss is slightly higher than companies expected it has updated how it accounts for revenues fourth quarter miss isn't as
8:36 am
large as some indicated. joining us with first on cnbc is uber ceo dara khosrwshahi. >> great to be here. >> let's talk about the way investors should think about this and the way you think they should be thinking about this. >> well, listen, we're not one to give investment advice one way or the other we put our heads down and we run the company, but if you look at the results in delivery, the growth continues unabated. we have gross bookings growth, 128% year on year. revenue growth was over 200% in a delivery segment and losses are coming down. we're investing but actually in 15 countries now we're profitable generating $100 million in ebitda. up 2.5 billion in bookings the question, everyone believes delivery can be big but can it be profitable. the answer there is yes. on the mobility side, as things
8:37 am
open up, our business comes back mobility is proving profitability for some time. we feel very good for these results and investors can make a bet on us or not but if we keep executing and growing the company, i think we'll be more than fine. >> speak to the time line with which you think about the whole business being profitable, the core business, which i know in many markets is, and then when delivery unto itself becomes profitable >> sure. we have said that in 2021 we expect the whole business to be profitable and we expect the delivery business as a whole to be profitable. the timing of that is going to depend on when society opens up again, but what we're seeing over and over again in places like australia or brazil or taiwan is that as these countries are opening up, for example, in january in brazil and australia our volumes in the
8:38 am
mobility business were down only about 20 to 30% and in taiwan we're actually up now significantly, up 16% in january. so what we know is as the opening happens, people come to ride ubers again, we are seeing share gain on our platform versus other modes of transportation we've invested a lot in safety we've invested a lot in trust and it's showing and the delivery business is going to continue to boom again what we're looking forward to is both of our engines pushing significantly positively and we think that's going to happen by the end of theyear >> maybe this is a meta or philosophical question about growth long term in the core mobility business a post pandemic world, do you think that more people are going to be using your service or less and the reason i ask the question is there's clearly been more car ownership in many places and there's the potential
8:39 am
people have left cities and are starting to go into other places what that actually does to the business i can see it cut both ways >> yeah. i think that hypothesis is correct. so we look at the evidence one is we're seeing growth actually of uber in the suburbs as well, which is actually pretty interesting we had historically been more of an urban service with uber eats and now with some people living in the cities, they're living in the cities but they're still using our service, whether it's going to work or whether it's going out on social occasions, et cetera. so i see wherever people live they're going to use uber one way or the other the other factor is uber is coming back much faster than taxis. it's coming back faster than transit in some cases. actually, what we're doing now is investing in technologies with an investment in auto cad that's going to power taxi and
8:40 am
transit to the next generation we think it's a win-win. it's a growth opportunity for us but it also creates more transportation opportunities for society at large, which we think is a good thing. >> i want to talk a little bit about the competition and pricing potential in certain markets. i spoke with lyft's president john zimmer and here's what he had to say about the competition. >> lyft has been that underdog that has been doubted and counted out multiple times we keep growing our share. our focus is paying off and it will continue to pay off they're showing that they are not winning in the food delivery space, that there is not the synergies that they pointed to and our focus on transportation of passengers will help us win in this space. >> some fighting words from your biggest competitor i'm curious how you react to that >> i'm assuming by they he meant
8:41 am
us i think that lyft is a very strong local mobility competitor if i had a choice to make, which is to own the largest global mobility player and the largest global delivery player outside of china, i'd pick the latter, which is where uber is we'll put our results up you'll see it in the stock price as well. this is a unique circumstance. there's no other player that's global that is also in mobility in the size and scale that we are. time will prove out, but i think this year you see our results versus, let's say, pure mobility player the results speak for themselves we're much stronger. >> one of the things i talked to john about, i'm curious, if you're as successful as i know you hope you'll be and the delivery business really does take off, frankly whether you'll be able to be more price competitive than any other player on other parts of the business, like the mobility business that would compete more
8:42 am
directly with the lyft longer term. >> yeah, there's -- listen, the scale that we have when you look at our engineering teams, 3/4 are building common components for mobility and delivery, mapping, routing, pricing, identity, payments, et cetera so we have a price advantage as far as infrastructure and the technology that we're building and when you look at our audience, in q4 our mobility business was accounting for more than 10% of first time eaters on the delivery side. as we're building up our audience on the delivery side, that audience is going to move over to mobility underneath it all or introducing it, we're growing membership program from 1 million members to 5 million members, it will ramp up more it will be a unique membership program where you can get discounts on delivery, you can get discounts on mobility, alcohol when drizzly comes onto the platform, grocery. no one else is going to be able
8:43 am
to offer that. all of these advantages will compound over time and i think, again, you see our results on the delivery side and when mobility comes back, we know we'll be a leader. >> pandemic-related question i know you're moving aggressively to try to get access to vaccines for your drivers. do you see a day where either you require your drivers to be vaccinated to potentially argue and be a competitive advantage or to have your passengers vaccinated to protect the drivers? >> we're going to follow call guidelines here. these are calls for the government to make what the definition of safe is, people who go to work, whether they should be vaccinated or not. in the meantime, we think drivers who are putting their lives on the line should get access to the vaccine so we're representing our drivers that way and really the focus for us on vaccines is making sure that under served communities and
8:44 am
people who have a hard time getting transportation to get vaccinated are taken care of and that, for example, is a partnership we announced to walgreens to get people to a clinic and get vaccinated. that's the real focus right now and frankly that's what society needs. >> you recently announced acquisition of drizly. i know you came on cnbc and talked to the gang on "squawk on the street" about it my question was really about how you thought about the perception of a transaction like that, buying effectively an alcohol distribution company at the same time you are in the mobility business and the driving business and to the extent that there could be perception issues related to it. >> well, i guess there could theoretically be perception issues there listen, the people go to stores and they buy alcohol on the vast majority of that is people going to stores. that's all going to change local ecommerce is here to stay and we are going to be a leader in it and we're going to play a
8:45 am
part, whether it's food or it's grocery or it's medicine or it's alcohol. that's the way this world is going, and we're going to be looking forward and being a leader in those kinds of trends. >> and it's the question of the morning or maybe it's been the question of the week when you think about the cash balances that uber has, to the extent -- and hopefully there will be a day when those cash balances get even bigger, we saw what happened with tesla this past week buying a little bit of bitcoin or i should say a lot of bit of bitcoin and now you have cfos thinking about this in a more meaningful way. is that a conversation that's happened inside uber yet >> it's a conversation that's happened that has been quickly dismissed. we're going to keep our cash safe we're not in the speculation business the up side in our company is in the business that we build, not the investments that we invest in >> any thought about accepting bitcoin as a mode of currency
8:46 am
for your passengers? >> yeah, listen. just like we accept all kinds of local currency, we are going to look at cryptocurrency and/or bitcoin in terms of currency to transact that's good for business that's good for our riders and our eaters so that we'll certainly look at. if there's a benefit there, if there's a need there, we'll do it we're not going to do it as part of a promotion >> finally, i just wanted to ask you. we often talk about what the real future looks like you talked about evs, helicopters and all sorts of stuff. where do you think that really lands? how do you think about your own investment if that world at this point? >> i think there's evs and autonomous evs we are leaning hard into we have launched uber green essentially all over the world what we want to do is have an economic way to give an advantage to drivers who are driving hybrid or electric cars and create the flywheel of
8:47 am
moving from gasoline-power cars to electric cars we're a leader there we have said by 2030 in the u.s. and can did i we're going to be all electric by 2040 all over the world. we are leaning into evs. with autonomous, we're very big believers there. we've made a big bet in the aurora team. we think they're a real leader in the field and we have a very special partnership with aurora. you're going to find aurora driver on uber in a not too distant future >> labor question for you. i know your laborers are considered contractors, but does a $15 federal minimum wage potentially impact your business how do you think about it? >> yeah, well, they are contractors. listen, when you look at for
8:48 am
example prop 22 in california, we are providing safety, a guarantee of earnings for our drivers above the california minimum wage so whatever the federal minimum wage is, you know, i happen to think that raising the minimum wage federally is a good thing, especially within our society wherein equality seems to be going the wrong way. and if it affects uber and it's good for society, i'm all for it typically our drivers make nicely in excess of those amounts though >> okay. dara khosrwshahi, we'll leave the conversation there good to see you. appreciate you joining us this morning. >> thank you very much >> you bet talk to you soon i thought it was joe's turn but it's my turn when we come back, jim cramer is going to take a first crack at the trading day ahead. we'll talk to him about all the news we're seeing all morning.
8:49 am
"squawk" returns right after this dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. pd-l1 transformed, revolutionized, immunotherapy. pd-l1 saved my life. saved my life. saved my life. what we do here at dana-faber, changes lives everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere.
8:50 am
to defend against dark forces attacking your organization, you need to see in the dark. to have the wisdom to understand multiple cyber threats. the precision focus to end attacks instantly. on computers, mobile devices, servers and the cloud.
8:51 am
join the world's leading companies in our mission to defend. cybereason. end cyber attacks. from endpoints to everywhere. all right, everybody, welcome back, and c nbc headquarter force jim cramer who joins us now, first up, let's talk a little bit about uber
8:52 am
what do you think having heard that interview with dara. >> the conference call, that was a fantastic conversation with andrew and what i like about these guy, they are able to talk about the different extension, it's not just drivers, and if it is just drivers, obviously the numbers are not that good. deliveries are real. and i find it hard to understand, they're losing so much money and so many companies making money and they're not talked about but i think dara did a great job under very trying circumstances >> what about what we've seen with bitcoin today, i know this is something we come to you almost every day on. >> sure. >> the moves are big and this time around there is legitimate news in terms of bank of new york melon in terms of what they're saying about it. >> it is somewhat confusing. basically, you can look at, you can see, well, master card is taking it, are they taking it is, visa really taking it, pay pal, it is not clear, and the bank of new york says it is fine and andrew is asking the treasurers and joe, too, from
8:53 am
pepsico, with you, but i would point out there, is an excellent piece today by matt raskin went to summit high with my daughter, "the wall street journal," it will take you two minutes and explain why and exactly my view why you have to have it. you have to have it. it's an asset that was formed during the 2008 crisis it's made when we were printing a lot of money and i think the companies that aren't thinking about taking it are being very backward because the world has changed. they can't print more of this bitcoin. so an excellent piece. a primer for those who say why are we talking about it and i'm a believer, i think every single treasurer, when you dismissed it this morning, pepsico is a very conservative company, very well run but i think it has to be on the menu, i reiterate it has to be on the menu and master card should be more clear about what they're i doing because it is not really lear to me. >> is bitcoin unique among these digital coins? because there was another tweet from elon musk a few hours ago saying one coin to rule them all and he's pointing to doge coin
8:54 am
>> look, he has a lot of fun, he's a great man, i only have the time to know bitcoin and i know there are those who know far more than i do and i know it is a store hold of value and you don't print money forever if you're central bank and a hedge against the central bank, and that is bitcoin. >> i hope you had a great birthday yesterday you got the best birthday of all, the second covid vaccine. >> it feels very different it feels very different. i just felt like, i had a drink last night with two friends, and 12 days before it kicks in, but i just felt very different as if it was kind of, you know, the stadium super bowl, next year, i'm booking tickets. i am i just want to book tickets. i will book a norwegian cruise. >> freedom. >> it is the roaring '20s after the spanish flu. i felt so different yesterday,
8:55 am
1:45 to 1:50, i felt like a different person everyone's got to get this shot. everyone. >> getting these vaccines aren't easy >> no. >> the appointments are tough to come by. i know you struggled with it, too. >> yes. >> there is a lot of confusion about when it's somebody's turn and that depends state by state and depends how things stand and we should tell everybody, in order to help alleviate with all of that, and with education, nbc universal is launching a new tool, it can be found at plan your vaccine.com this is an interactive personal tool that actually helps users finds state by state eligibility. it's personalized to you you can find the closest vaccination location and lots of data about the vaccine in your area plus, you can also get a checklist of the items you will need to bring with you, for your appointments and jim, i checked this site out this morning because it went live at 8:00, and it is very up to date, it tells me, i didn't like what it had to say, and basically i'm not eligible till this summer but that could change, too, as we get new information coming
8:56 am
out with j&j and potentially other vaccines that get out there and it is really important to get the most up to date information. >> and staten island, it kept updating and i got the appointment and thank you for heather gains for getting it and i had to wait two hours, and it was a nice beautiful day and they sang me happy birthday when i got there, and in this last year, honestly, has there been any joy? this was joyful. >> jim, the second shot, when would you expect, if there is going to be a worse sort of, if you're going to feel worse, when is it supposed to come you're okay now? i mean what have you heard later today? like are you going to be on "mad money," can you guarantee, even if you got the chills or something? >> i took two tylenol. >> that was it >> yeah. >> and i feel the same i didn't drink my first cup of coffee because i didn't know what the day would be like but i feel pretty good
8:57 am
i got to get, you got to get the shot your life is going to change >> moderna, and pfizer, not as much, have you heard anecdotally that the second shot for pfizer is not, even though they're both messenger, i don't know. >> i thought the same thing. it seems like it is wide scale but i've heard the same thing. >> fauci said, you know, he's, he's not old but he's an older guy, close to 80, so he said, it's 24 hours, and if you're prepared for it, compared to, you know, compared to the alternatives, it doesn't sound that bad, like a bad tradeoff. >> you're not immunized until 12 days afternoon so i'm still in a window and i'm wearing masks of course and there is a window where you're not safe and i want everyone to know that. >> definitely. >> jim, we are really glad that you are totally vaccinated at this point it's really great to see and we hope everybody else follows. >> thank you so much thank you. >> we'll see you in a few
8:58 am
minutes. >> just a few minutes. >> dom chu joins us with a look at some of the biggest stock moves in the pre-market. >> let's talk about the stuff that becky and jim were alluding, toer, and -- were crypto and kraft heinz, better than expected revenues, and selling planters to hormel, and those shares up 1% on the crypto side of things, let's put some more context of the bny melon story, 70,000 shares of volume, america's oldest bank, the world's biggest custody bank getting into cryptocurrency, according to the journal, bny melon saying it will hold and transfer bitcoin and other crypto on behalf of clients going live with those capabilities later on this year so those shares catching a bid and it follows the master card news, 2% upside, 30,000 shares of volume, and it will start
8:59 am
allowing merchants to accept some cryptocurrencies on its networks later on this year. it's the latest embrace of those digital coins by traditional payments company, master card already works with some crypto platforms, that issued credit and debts cards, remember a lot of people are spending their crypto assets but remember, it gets processed through master card's net work, the company will look for digital coins with consumer privacy and offer stability in a way to buy and sell stuff not necessarily as an investment, so some caveats there as well. >> right right. that's what we've heard, that, you know, that's what we heard from elon musk, too, as well, about, you know, people want to use it, to actually buy the car, or just to keep it on the balance sheet. >> working capital. >> we're hearing it every day, though we'll see, you know, checking off the list of major companies that say things. we'll see if that continues. thanks, dom. a final check on the markets this morning, the dow, indicated up 53 points in the pre-market,
9:00 am
and the nasdaq, as you can see, has indicated up about 65, and the s&p indicated up, a little bit over 11, and as you can see, bitcoin, back above 47,000, it was at 48,000 at one point that's it for us see ya gentleman and lady >> bye-bye >> welcome back. >> welcome back. >> see you tomorrow. good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer and david faber futures pretty steady as the market chews on more profile earnings, uber and expedia, bitcoin, cannabis, the bubble ipo, part of the conversations and jobless claims still elevated and the road map starts with pot stock volatility. tilray, aurora, canopy giving back some of yesterday's reddi

158 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on