tv Squawk Box CNBC February 12, 2021 6:00am-9:00am EST
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aurora cannabis about the reddit fuel friday, february 12th, 2021. big day coming up on sunday. "squawk box" begins right now ♪ if you could see that i'm the one who understands you ♪ ♪ been here all along so why can't you see ♪ ♪ you belong with me ♪ >> good morning, everybody welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. we're seeing a pull back this morning for the futures but not by a heck of a lot yesterday the s&p 500 and nasdaq closed at record highs the dow was off of a record high but only by 7points. they're all three sitting right near these all time highs even with these pullbacks that you see this morning dow futures indicated down by about 41 points. s&p futures down by 8. the nasdaq off by about 22, and right now we are on track for a positive week for this week. that would be the second in a
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row for all three of these major averages let's take a quick look at what's happening in the treasury market right now, it looks like the yield on the ten-year, which is the one we watch the most closely is sitting at 1.15%. 30-year, at 1.139. let's cheget a check on the pot stocks joe was mentioning. love me, love me not, they have been pretty volatile for the last few days after being hyped on the sub reddit. yesterday, sundial was down by 19%, tilray plunged by 50%, and afria fell by nearly 36% this morning they're a little bit higher on each of them, and you can see how much they've grown over the course of the week actually, no, they're not. sundial down by another 4% tilray down by 4.2%, and aphria down by 1.7% this is a situation that things run down and come back up. at 8:00 a.m., we're going to talk to the ceo of aurora
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cannabis, that stock ripped out over the last week too we'll get his take, what he thinks is happening, and what it means for his business andrew. disney shares are higher take a look at what's going on in the premarket, earnings of $0.32 a share, beating estimates that disney plus streaming service added 21 million new paid subscribers, bringing its total to 95 million when you add in espn plus, and hulu disney has more than 146 million total paid streaming subscribers, and revenue at disney's parks fell 53%, as you might imagine, i should say either closed or operating at reduced capacity disney's cruise ships, guided tours, remain suspended. ceo, bob chapek told analysts, it will be determined by the rate of vaccination of the public joe. thanks, andrew let's keep our fingers crossed this sounded great
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yesterday president biden said his administration had secured another 200 million doses of covid-19 vaccine that brings the u.s. total to 600 million. you don't have to use a calculator here, that would be enough to vaccinate 300 million people with both doses he said they signed contracts yesterday for more than 100 million more pfizer shots, jabs 1 100 million more moderna shots as of yesterday, the cdc said nearly 35 million people had received at least one dose 11 million people had been vaccinated with two doses, and yesterday the federal government began shipping a million doses of vaccines directly to retail pharmacies across the country, including walgreens, cvs, rite aid, walmart, costco, kroger and publix, the supply at the pharmacies will be limited as the program ramps up, en at lea
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initially. nbc universal launched a web site, an interactive personal tool that helps users find state by state eligibility the closest vaccination location and lots of data on the vaccine in their area. check it out now at planyourvaccine.com. becky. >> in the meantime, "the new york times" is reporting that president trump was sicker with covid back in october than publicly acknowledged at that time the report said that the president had depressed oxygen levels down in the 80s anytime you get a level in the low 90s, that's a cause for concern. and a lung problem associated with pneumonia that was caused by the coronavirus i think they had pocket that is they saw, joe, in his lungs of, you know, disease or something that was there, kind of along those lines. yeah, that's what the report was saying. >> i went and thought back about the updates we were getting, and it was clear like by the next day that the initial update was definitely sugar coated.
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we found out, remember, that it was much -- the oxygen levels and everything else, but the -- >> they reported at the time that he left when he did because he didn't want to be carried out on a stretcher. >> but we've heard so many times, and i think it's improved with, i think, with ventilator, what happens with -- but remember, that was a very bad sign for a while if you were placed on a ventilator i forget what the numbers were initially about who would eventually come off the ventilator alive a lot of people obviously, you just don't get off it, but then, you know, we did get some of the antibody drugs and regeneron drug and things like that. he got that, i think, quickly, so maybe that was early evidence that for critically ill people some of those drugs do seem to provide some benefit, but if you heard that the leader of the free world was on a ventilator, i mean, that brings up all kinds of things. would you have to hand over the
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reins over to pence, i think you would at that point. >> i don't know. usually you're out. >> i think if you're being intubated that you're probably not in a position to run a, you know, to run the country, but that was -- how long has it been we're finally finding out. a little bit odd remember boris johnson when he went in, oh, yeah, i've got a few symptoms, and then we found out later that, you know, he acknowledged that for a while he thought he might not pull through. frightening. coming up, stocks at record highs, we're going to talk about what a strong start to february could be signaling for the rest of the year, and later this hour, the ceo of kraft heinz will join us on the latest quarter. i can't imagine that mac and cheese sales aren't going through the roof, comfort food during the pandemic. we know about breakfast
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best start -- 5.4% here to talk about what it could mean for the rest of the year, ryan dietrich, chief strategist at lpl financial they do seem to replay themselves, ryan, but there are other things going on in the world. what's your prognosis, given just the overall levels of the market, whether it was february or some other month, how are you feeling? >> yeah, joe, we're still feeling pretty good. two interesting things going on right now, as you said, it's the best start for february in 30 years. best for small caps. i was on a few weeks ago, usually february is weak, blew that up. also the last three days, virtually nothing has happened s&p has been in 20 basis points where it closed the day before three days in a row. the last fifteen months where we
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saw days that were that boring to pautut a bow on this, the valentine's day indicator, everybody have a good valentine's day by the way, if you're up 4% for the year on valentine's day for the s&p, which we have a real good shot at doing this year, the rest of the year, joe, so the rest of the year, not the whole year, the rest of the year starting on valentine's day is higher over 90% of the time, up 13% average, so a good start to a year once you get to valentine's day, historically does say maybe that momentum can continue. >> past performance, no guarantee of future performance. we hear that a lot in every mutual fund disclosure would you bet on that? i don't know whether that means anything, but i guess it's -- that's the old january indicator. it used to be the first week of january goes, so goes the first month, as the first month goes, so goes the year but i used to hope for the nfc or afc based on that, now it's, let me see, white home jerseys win, and then you got tofigure out, i don't
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know, none of that stuff really works. you know what does work, stimulus, at least for a while. >> yes >> but what worries me is paying the piper someday. a lot of people now that just say don't even think about it. overshoot, throw as much as you can at it, we meet it, you know, we don't have the normal demand, and just go with it. do you think we eventually have to -- there will be some reckoning? we ask that question every day >> yeah, we have been asking that a long time, haven't we eventually there will, and i get it, stimulus is a big part of it now, it's positive, the manufacturing data, the services data, the housing data all the stuff is coming back the employment backdrops the one part that's not coming back, and that's why we likely will have a significant stimulus package coming soon. when you package it all together, the seasonality stuff is fun to talk about
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it's not bearish, with all the other stuff i mentioned, there are signs of overall bull marke is alive and well in our view at lpl research. >> i guess the best thing to look at might be sentiment for looking for maybe an easing of some of the bullishness that may come mid year, or who knows, it could come anytime, and then maybe after you shake out some of the, you know, complacency, because i think you'd have to say there's some complacency we have been drifting higher, as you say, for at least a year now, not quite a year. >> yeah, there's no doubt there's some complacency and optimism you kind of match now with the 2009, 2010 start of the bull market we had a 10% correction early in the year in 2010 mark twain said history doesn't repeat but it often rhymes,
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maybe we could see something like that with a little excitement the other things i listed we would be a buyer of a dip at lpl research we like growth a lot last year as the economy is getting better we have evened up our growth value outlook. there's opportunity in both areas for potentially strong returns for the rest of this year. >> i don't think that was mark twain, i think that was actually william shakespeare, i don't know, i might have my facts wrong. >> twain gets all the quotes, we give him all the credit. >> you know who gets all the quotes, yogi berra my favorite is you come on with a lot of courage because the hardest predictions to make are the ones about the future, and you do that all the time are there sectors that you like within these i mean, stay at home is not going away anytime soon, is it how do you balance the moves already made in all of those
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stocks versus, you know, what is probably a pretty good -- pretty positive future anyway, have they already moved a lot of stocks seem like they have already moved based on reopening, too >> they have, but look at semiconductors, the strong group that went sideways for a while, and they're going up on the growth side, we still like technology, health care over on that side that got us to the party with the earnings growth the other side of things, cyclical, everyone says, cyclical value, banks, financials, they have gone nowhere for 13 years it is in some parts, with the yield curve going higher, ten-year yield obviously going higher, those are tail winds for that group, a very influential group, people can have out performance, this year, into next year, a group we're starting to like a lot. >> do you agree with the fed chair that inflation just, we should get a new word for what it actually is at this point
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it's been quite for so long, now it makes me worry it's never coming back. we are printing and the world is printing. >> you're going to get me in trouble with this one. when we look at the data, we're not seeing inflation yet when i look at the macro, copper at 8 year highs, silver starting to perform, all these industrial metals starting to go higher, and the copper gold ratio, you get a higher yield and a little more inflation inflation is maybe not a 2021 story but as we go into the future, what the industrial metals are saying, the economy is getting stronger, that's a great thing, but maybe you could have a little overheat and inflation. if we can get to 2, 2 1/2% inflation, it's not the end of the world. the mixture is there for a little more inflation, and people expect sitting here one year now >> do you -- would you put anyone in any type of fixed
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income to help, you know, so that they're not so exposed to equity the at this point, and what areas you can't even buy junk anymore without worrying about whether we're topping out in some of these places >> no, you're right, i mean, we're overweight, you know, stocks relative to bonds we think they'll outperform again. having fixed income exposure helps you sleep at night i talked about, we think the yields are going higher, the economy is coming back we like mortgage backed securities, not as impacted by higher yields, higher quality we think makes sense from the fixed income side of things. we're shortening up duration the long-term treasures if rates go up and the economy improves, they're not doing as well. there's always a place for bonds in a portfolio, and i'll tell you what, one wild card, look at energy stocks, they're not bonds, they've got a lot of yo
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yield. maybe a pocket of energy stocks to get a higher yield, look for income in 2021 not a big bet. that's an area looking better all of a sudden here >> i can't believe, so you are a mus k muskateer, and the mba from miami of ohio, is that correct did you grow up in the queen city >> i'm a spfringfield, ohio, boy clark county, went to xavier university. >> that was like going to the big city, going to xu. >> it was. i looked at university of cincinnati, it wasn't a fit, and i went to xavier, glad i did. >> great school, and follow them closely. follow the -- even though there's a new coach. >> that's right. >> all right good job thank you. we will -- >> thanks, joe. >> i still hear a little bit of the twang. i get it especially when i go back there. but good to see you, ryan, we'll see you in a while thank you. >> can you do a twang, andrew? >> i got no twang.
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i got a manhattan twang, a new york city twang. i got nothing. >> becky can. >> i used to say you all broken arrow, i was there for 4th grade to 11th grade. before that i was in houston that was broken arrow, oklahoma, seriously. >> i thought it was binger, that's johnny bench. >> houston before that, but i literally used to say you all, i had a pretty southern thing. >> all y'all i like that. >> when i moved back to indiana, they made fun of me for my twang. >> you guys live in corn fields, you're making fun of me! on the other side of this break, we're going to talk about bumble, they've got a bit of a twang, bumble surging in yesterday's ipo, we're going to run through the numbers. as we head to break, check out the prices of bitcoin, relatively calm, but trading in striking distance of the new high, getting very close to 5000 "sawk box" returns right after
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most of which will be used to pay down debt and buy back shares from its pre-ipo stake holders. another big ipo. another day, another big ipo, right. joe? >> yeah, certainly was i don't know, what's it worth? i don't know you know, blind lemon is a cincinnati band. i wonder if that's why they played it. what's it worth, it's a dating thing? i don't know. >> there's money in dating >> is it a swiper? was that some other one, swipe right, swipe left or whatever. >> there's swiping involved. >> swipe or no swiping, that's what i think of. dora the explorer, when i think of that. >> you know what i realized, though. >> what? >> it's an unfortunate name for the company, bumble, because when the shares do drop, the headline is going to be bumble stumbles. >> you're probably right and we have our producer who's
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on, and had he goes on it, it's bumblr, i think. i used to use that. >> a great day for the company yesterday. >> yeah, unbelievable. back to that question, i mean, this doesn't seem like rocket surgery. why is it worth so much? why does it go 64% once again, is that a reflection of the overall froth or pricing it wrong again or i don't know i don't know expedia, meanwhile. >> i saw a yahoo survey yesterday, real quickly on this note i saw a yahoo survey that said something like 28% of american adults said this year they have spent money or bought a stock, one of these high flier stockers, whether a gamestop or amc or a handful of other companies, and that's kind of phenomenal if that's right it was based on a survey of a thousand people. you start thinking that through, that's millions and unlemillion
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people that bought one of the stocks that moved, one of the reddit stocks. >> i'll tell you, guys -- >> that makes me think of this article, we haven't talked about that, criminal probe into gamestop frenzy. let me ask you this, when ben is making these guys heroes, wow, aren't they amazing, what if eventually there's some criminal activity does that go into the movie? or does the movie end last week, or how does that, we said that all along, we don't know the end of this movie. you know, the other ones you can make them into, i don't know, maybe mark zuckerberg wasn't necessarily a hero in the social network. maybe there will be anti-heroes in the anti-social network is that what it's going to be called >> remember the. >> i thought larry somers was the bad guy. >> the winkel guys got the last laugh.
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>> definitely came back in his next book. >> they did. and they're probably worth a billion dollars at this point. more >> multi multibillion dollars >> so awesome. >> but i imagine just two things, one on gamestop, i imagine there will be -- i manual the quote unquote good guys who are doing this will be the anti-hero who induced the others with some kind of false pretense we'll see how that plays out i just wanted to make one comment about bumble and we keep looking at these ipos and thinking whether they're too inflated or not, i have been talking to ceos about why people are pricing these things where they are, we talked about should they be pricing them higher. many ceos believe the market unto itself is over priced already, and so they're worried if they actually price it too high, yes, they take the money off the table and take advantage of the investor, but they're worried that that would actually undermine the confidence they would have in those investors when and if the price fwgoes do
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which some of them are already expecting. that was the great revelation recently in terms of a number of conversations i have had with ceos planning ipos, thinking about how they're pricing it they all think the market is a little bit euphoric: >> we're going to skip expedia, which is a -- and you know what, becky, i got jumble of the brain, blind melon, that was that song. blind lemon is in cincinnati, but that's like a jumble, right, that's an anogram. >> lemon, melon, yeah. i'm actually the bumbler in this case. >> correcting you bumbling so expedia had a tough go of it, stopped the headlines. bookings down 66% or something, but the stock is reflecting, i guess, the future or something, but what's doing well is it called vrbo, do you know that
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one? >> vrbo. >> that's doing pretty well, i guess. >> vacation rental by owner i think it stands for. >> yeah, you can socially distance in those places bumbler, don't you have a vaccine thing to fill in there, i've got antibodies or something, is that the world we're going to be living in? >> on bumble >> perhaps badge of honor, you know i'm safe that's what we're all waiting for. >> the airlines. >> that's right. >> i'm with cramer, as soon as i can, i want to travel again and get out, big things, you know, i'll go anywhere, movies, restaurants, plane trips, all of those things. >> i was checking on jim this morning to make sure he was tweeting because he got the second. >> second shot two days ago. >> i wanted to make sure. >> under the covers with chills or headaches he seemed okay. >> he seemed fine yesterday. >> yeah, he did.
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>> that's good. when we come back, we're going to talk to the president of kraft heinz u.s. who will join us to talk about the company's earnings and the sale of the planters brand to hormel. let's take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers. ♪ hungry eyes i feel the magic between you and i ♪ ♪ i want to hold you ♪ i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't.
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♪ here comes the weekend ♪ >> good morning, welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. take a look at u.s. equity futures at this hour we're down on this friday morning. looks like we'd open off 61 points on the dow, nasdaq off 23 points, s&p 500 off about 10 points becky. thanks, andrew food maker kraft heinz shares spiking yesterday after the company beat earnings expectations and revenue estimates and also announced a $0.40 quarterly dividend
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the company saying it plans to sell planters and other nut businesses to hormel for $3 billion joining us is carlos abrams rivera, the u.s. president at kraft heinz, first of all, congratulations on the earnings. this was quite a bit stronger than the street was anticipating. >> well, becky, first of all, thank you for having me back yes, it was a great day. it was a great earnings announcement, and as you pointed out, very exciting news overall. >> i think probably the biggest thing the street is still kind of trying to digest is the organic sales growth that was up 6%, and that was up versus just 4 1/2% that the street was anticipating, but it wasn't just this quarter if you look back at the last three quarters before that, organic growth sales was up 6 to 7%, and i think maybe people are starting to think that this is something that could potentially continue i guess i ask the same question of you, i know what's happened during the pandemic, people are eating at home all the time. they're looking for all kinds of
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things, brands they trust, names they know. do you think this continues once people are able to go back out again? >> well, becky, the way i see it, if you look at the data right now, what we are seeing even in q4, we see continued household penetration increases and the repeat of our brands actually is higher than it was a year ago, so even, you know, i think about how we end the year, we actually see and continue to focus on consumers having the same consumption that we saw earlier. as we look at this year in 2021, the way we started the year will suggest there's actually reason to be optimistic about that consumption continuing to be at home i think the consumers are now finding this new ways of working, this new normal in which they are going to be looking for, you know, more brands to have choices to eat at home, because they see the benefits of whether it's cooking, whether it's shopping at home, and kwwe're going to b
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able to be part of those moments now. >> you think this is a little bit of a brand resurgence that consumers have maybe rekindled their love affair with some of these brands that they lost favor with. >> certainly we see this as more durable. i don't think this is a one time and done i think this is something that is structurally going to stay with us for some time. and there are things we are doing at kraft heinz to make sure consumers do stay with us i think consumers are focused on value, which is the reason, for example, why we have renovated, you know, almost 60% of our portfolio by the end of 2021, while we make sure we're improving the quality, make sure to continue on health and wellness and sustainability benefits, so they come to our brand, they see how we have evolved with them too. we know some of the household penetration gains are people in the past are going to see us in a whole new light, and we are providing a great value for them and their family.
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>> what's a specific example of a brand that's changed what did you do to it? >> let me give you a couple of examples first, if you think about our oscar meyer business, we are looking at products that are superior in quality, simplify the ingredients, cleaning ingredients lines. when you look at something like mac and cheese, we just announced that we are actually going to be renovating our products to make sure we bring a ful fully recyclable, microwaveable cup. those are in consumers minds as we read the data, and understand better what they're looking for us is the type of products we are going to continue to renovate as we go forward. >> what about the product on the inside not just the cup on the outside, what's in the mac and cheese, is it organic stuff >> sure. so for example, we do have options that are organic we have actually options that we just launched that are gluten free our focus is we have what consumers are looking for and give them as many choices as
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possible, whether that is a line of simply ketchup under heinz that allows us to have organic, less sugar, same thing with mac and cheese, vegetables, gluten free, but for us it's about providing consumers all the choices as they're continuing to look for our brands in their every day life. >> i mean, carlos, i ask about mac and cheese because that was something, i grew up with the kraft mac and cheese, we used to eat it maybe ten years ago or so, we stopped because i started thinking maybe it's not as healthy, switched over to more organic things what have you done with that brand in particular, is there an option that's not like the deglo orange >> first of all, we want you back, so we do no that there is options as you go into the store, whether it's organic, whether it's new options that it includes things like premium ingredients, all of those things are coming within the mac and cheese family, so i think that, you know, if you haven't tried
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it for a while, give us a try, i think you will enjoy it. >> all right fair enough. one thing i do eat a lot of are those planters peanuts, i saw the sale of this, and i know it's something that people had been anticipating that this was going to go, it's one of many things that you've kind of streamlined and sold off as you've done this restructuring, this big turn around for the entire company is this the final sale first of all, why planters and second of all, are there other sales to come? >> let me address the first, why planters, clearly it's an iconic brand, and we didn't do this lightly. at the same time, it does a strategy for us as we continue to focus our portfolio in things we believe we have more differentiated brands and places that may not be as exposed to commodities, which we do as a result of our plan to sell we continue to stay focused on the strategy we laid out back in
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cem september. planters is part of our overall snacking portfolio, we want to continue staying focused on that if you think about the overall decisions about how to think about our portfolio, we have said we want to be agile in our portfolio, we feel good about where we are right now, and nothing everything is about divestitures, we're looking for options for acquisitions but at the same time we feel at this particular moment it was the right thing to do for the business, and i think ultimately we end up with a much stronger portfolio as we go forward >> back in september when you unveiled those plans you also said that you anticipated adjusted earnings per share would be up by 2 to 3% you said yesterday that things will be better than that what are you seeing that kind of makes you think that >> well, i'm sure that you have many guests here who can give you a much better view of how the economy is going to change over time. what i can tell you is we started the year very well
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we are seeing that trajectory in february we are focused right now on our quarterly number, and we gave some suggestions about how the quarter is going to come out ultimately as we think about the year, we're going to be providing more information as we continue to see how consumers are reacting in this economy so we feel good, optimistic about the year, and we will be able to update it as we learn a little more about all these different things that can affect consumption, whether that is, you know, the stimulus factors that may happen, the different things of how consumers are reacting on unemployment and situations, those are all things that very much affect our brands, but today we feel very good about where we are in the year, and how we're starting >> carlos, it's great to see you today. come back with another update. we really appreciate it. >> becky, anytime, thank you, and please come back >> thank you we will. joe. >> thanks, beck. you know, we should produce things like this, but i didn't,
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and i didn't realize chick had become so mainstream, but you guys probably saw this it's on page 3 of the "new york post." chick corea, i saw this that he had passed it was literally like i got punched. i'm not kidding. i don't usually get affected when things like that happen, but it affected me chick corea was the most accomplished keyboardist, and miles davis, an album called bitchs brew, it was so transformative, that he founded later, not in the first one, but stanley clark, the greatest musicians, lenny white, and from that album in the '60s with miles came wayne shorter, and her bie hancock. i saw chick play an acoustic set with gary burton, i can't believe we got this that quickly, but i literally, when
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my wife got home, i literally said i feel like i got punched in the stomach he was such a huge part of, you know, my early life in the '70s. he was amazing and it was sudden and from a rare form of cancer, but i guess we all have these things from our youth, but amazing amazing. and we will -- it was a shock. and guys, you know, in davos, i went to the russian federation. >> i was going to say al was there in davos >> i went there to get some vodka, and who was the guest playing but the greatest guitar player, acoustic and electric, maybe that i have ever seen, and he looked down when i was watching him, and he said, wow, "squawk box," and he had grown up behind the ec headquarters. he had been in englewood cliffs. so chick corea, he will be missed loved him. just, you know, really an iconic
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individual coming up, what's moving markets this morning after the s&p and nasdaq managed to eke out record highs. take a look at the biggest winners in the s&p so far this week, led by twitter after reporting strong fourth quarter earnings, and then later, don't miss our first on cnbc interview with aurora cannabis ceo, miguel martin after that stock got caught up. we'll be right back.
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♪ what are we going to do now ♪ >> welcome back to "squawk" this morning. the u.k. economy in 2020 recorded its biggest contraption in more than 300 years gdp shrinking 9.9%, the worst decline of any of the g7 advanced economies u.k. has kept restrictions on daily life in the economy, than other countries broadly. it grapples with the more contagious variant of that virus as we know when we come back, a lot more coming up on "squawk." companies preparing to bring workers back to the office as the vaccine rolls out across the country. we're going to talk about the monumental shift in the workplace with adam grant, behavioral psychologist and best
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♪ ♪ welcome back to "squawk box" this morning salesforce recently declared the 9 to 5 workday, they say it is dead it's over. in a statement this week the company's chief people officer saying, quote, an immersive work space is no longer limited to a desk in our towers the 9 to 5 workday is dead and the employee experience is about more than ping pong tables and snacks after it conducted an employee poll, the company rolling out a flexible remote work model joining us to discuss all of
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this and so much more is adam grant, an organizational behavioral psychologist, wharton professor as well. he's the author of a book with a title that is very apropos with where we are it's called "think again, the power of knowing what you don't know." and how much have we had to think again or thought again about where we are, adam great to see you this morning. let's start with the workplace issues because i know it's something you've been thinking again a lot about recently and how we're going to all come back to work. what do you make of what salesforce has done? do you think that becomes the model? what's going to happen here? >> andrew, i think it's mostly good news. the new data are suggesting that anywhere from one to two days a week are going to be remote or flexible for most companies. obviously that doesn't include manufacturing or some kinds of service, but we've known for a long time that that flexibility is a benefit for motivation and productivity and retention even before the pandemic. there was an experiment showing when people are randomly
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assigned to work from home, they were 13.5% more productive and half as unlikely to quit over the next 6 to 9 months that's a lod of got news for people the people working from home despite being productive were less likely to get promoted because they lack face time with management that's a challenge we have to navigate what happens to people who don't necessarily have access to leaders at the top >> that's what i was going to ask you. the whole idea of proximity to power. when people talk about a hybrid workplace or, you know, having flexibility, is it something where you think certain days everybody comes to the office and certain days nobody comes to the office and that creates the equal opportunity, if you will or if you have a completely flexible situation, i imagine if you know the boss is going to be at work that day, you're showing up >> yeah. i think this is going to be a challenge because in an ideal world we would let people all work from home the same days so that we could focus on culture, collaboration on the days when
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we're all in the office. think about the office spacex pens there it's probably not affordable there's a premium on being present when senior people are in the room. how do we set boundaries i think many people are working 2 to 3 hour longer days than they were before a lot of people are having trouble unplugging we know well-being is struggling where people like to keep a strict border between work and the rest of life we need to be a lot more thoughtful about saying we're going to give you permission to unplug and that's how we attract and retain talented people. >> what do you think it does to loyalty? the reason i've said is we've already shifted from being a company man or company woman for your whole life to something much less than that. once people are even more removed physically from that culture and that relationship, do you think it changes even
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more >> i think there's a risk of that, andrew i would say going back even to 2007, a meta analysis, study of studies in telecommuting as long as people were physically together half the week, there were no costs to relationship there were job performance benefits and satisfaction benefits i think we will need critical face time to enhance trust, but i don't think we have to be present all the time to get there. >> do you think it changes trust though in terms of a culture one of the things i think we've seen across the board during this period is people are seeing things inside of these companies. again, everything else
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that we'll have some level of social distancing and mask wearing for the remainder of this year. that's our expectation, but i believe that dr. fauci said earlier today that he hopes that there's vaccines for everyone who wants them by april this year if that happens, that is a game changer and that could accelerate our expectation and give people the confidence that they need to come back to the parks. >> we're going to have a lot more on disney >> a record high for major stock average. investors continue to pour data into the market. they saw $22.9 billion on in flows. that's the most since march 202 2008 we're going to be watching shares of bumble after the successful wall street debut shares jumped 64% yesterday.
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ipo bringing a market value of $13 billion. joe? >> thanks, andrew. cannabis stocks tumbling as the reddit fuel rally loses steam. dom chu is here taking a look at big movers the perfect guy to talk about this dom, good morning. >> so, i mean, joe, losing steam is like putting it mildly, right? this is a massive move lower to the tune of around 50% let's kind of show you the charts about just how big of a drop it was because on an interday basis tilray stock, which is now about $31 and change in the extended hour session, got as high on an interday basis over here you don't really see it on an interday basis, it was $67 per share at the interday. on a pre-market basis, actually got above $75. it's not official here so it's not part of the chart. interday, 67 now it's falling by roughly 57%
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at this point. steam is coming out. pretty much collapsing it's still considered overbought but some measures you're looking at juxtapose that with bitcoin. every time you see a pull back, the pull backs are large on a percentage basis, but not on a relative one you see the pull back for bitcoin. it gets bought again 48,000 and change depending which platform you look at was the high we saw on bitcoin yesterday. we're off almost 1%. 47,000 and change for bitcoin. those prices continue to rachet higher people definitely buy dips there. let's talk about a traditional sector or look it used to be when semiconductors were going to the tune of 67% year over year, that was a big deal it's been a straight line higher ever since the pandemic lows we hit a record high yesterday that's why we were off marginally for the etf becky, marijuana stocks, by the way, i didn't show you some of the etfs to track it
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outsized moves in the etf, ng, alternative harvest etf ticker mj, it was down 27% driven in large part by the till way we'll keep an eye on cannabis. back over to you. >> dom, i was once on an aircraft carrier and they were shooting us off afterwards on the planes, they'd take off, and every time one of the planes takes off, they bear hard to the right or to the left, and i made the mistake of asking one of the guys right before we took off why do they do that? he said, because that was one of the older shifts where it was all steam powered and what happens is if there's not enough steam in it when they shoot you off, you crash if you don't bear off to the right or the left the ship runs you over so losing steam can be a pretty traumatic thing. >> in that case, i know the hydraulics on an aircraft carrier are different. it sure seems like when you're talking about the power in these charts, hydraulic pressure is what you're thinking about,
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especially when it comes to cat a putting planes off an aircraft carrier. >> that's. thanks, dom. >> you bet. >> we'll see you later. the white house meeting virtually with executives from the battered airline industry today to talk about covid and travel-related issues. phil lebeau joins us now he has more on that front. phil, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, becky. this meeting is coming a few days after the transportation secretary said during an interview that they are looking at, simply looking at the possibility of whether or not negative covid-19 tests should be required for people who are flying domestically. now keep in mind that is the requirement for international flights, so today airline executives will be meeting virtually with the white house covid-19 task force obviously talking about what measures are in place right now and should more measures be taken and specifically should there be the requirement of a negative covid-19 test for a domestic flight keep in mind that negative tests are required for those who are flying internationally right
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now. it's a very small number relative to the overall number of people who are flying when you look at the international flights. airline executives are of the opinion and i've talked to them this week, the combination of masks, disinfecting, all are limiting the spread. domestic passenger levels, they're worse right now than many cases than in the fourth quarter. down 60 to 70% depending on the day of the week. the airlines as you take a look at the stocks over the last six months, they're expecting the cash burn for the first quarter to be pretty similar to what they saw in the fourth quarter they are not expecting dramatic improvement until the middle of the year in some cases when you ask airline executives, they sit there and they say, i think may, i think june if not, yeah, we're confident it's may and june. there are increased advanced bookings, guys, but at this point they're to a certain extent hoping that we start to
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see a real falloff in cases and the spread of covid-19 and that is really what they believe will get people flying again. >> hey, phil, i have heard it seems a lot of chatter recently about the airline kind of pushing -- the airlines pushing back on this idea of requiring either a vaccine or a recent covid test that shows a negative test for domestic travel >> that's correct. they are of the opinion, becky, that you have masking in place, the disinfecting when you're on the plane you've got the hepa filters and they are of the opinion that all of these measures make it very unlikely that you are going to contract or spread covid-19 when you are in the airport or when you are on a flight. now the counter argument to that is, yeah, but if you have a guarantee of a negative test, then you know or you feel confident that everybody is negative on the flight though people have made it clear there's no 100% guarantee.
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you may test on wednesday and you're negative and then you're flying the next afternoon? who's to say you don't contract it in the meantime that's the argument from the industry they also believe it's going to force people to say, you know what, i'm scheduled for a trip i don't want to go through the hassle of getting a test i'm not going to do it that's the last thing they want at this point. >> phil, thanks. good to see you. >> you, too. okay a lot more coming up on "squawk box" this morning. president biden announcing a deal for 200 million more covid doses and announcing the military will help administer the doses. you'll get the latest on covid numbers and more after the break. before we hit the break, let's get a check on the markets right now. dow looks like it will open off about 50 points. s&p 500 off 8.5 points nasdaq looking to open off close 'lta0 points wel lk more about it when we come back right here on "squawk.
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ground they are optimistic they can keep coming down daily cases down 60% from the peak in early to mid january hospitalizations down 40% from the peak and deaths now have started to come down as well they are a lagging indicator they trail behind hospitalizations a bit, but down 15% from the peak and everybody hopes that keeps going now the folks we talked with told us there are a couple of factors driving this spread. first, we got through the holiday season and caitlyn rivers at johns hopkins says she does think people took heed of the high case numbers and started staying home and masking more than they had maybe around thanksgiving she also noted there's maybe 25, 30% population immunity across the country. that could be slowing down transmission doctors told us and epidemiologists that vaccinations are picking up. it might be too soon for that really to be driving the numbers down right now we could see that soon now in terms of the risks,
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everybody is saying we are not out of the woods holidays, celebrations, the super bowl, valentine's day coming up, those are still risks for increasing spread. everybody isworried about lifting restrictions too soon. we all feel great the numbers are improving. they say it is not the time to go out and let it rip as dr. fauci likes to say the variants, the b117, u.k. variant now predicted to be the dominant variant across the u.s. next month we are seeing more cases of the south african virus, california and illinois announcing their first cases yesterday. here's caitlyn rivers from johns hopkins about her outlook right now. >> the next few weeks to couple months the vaccination coverage is not widespread enough to meaningfully slow down transmission i know we're all very tired to making these huge changes in our lives but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we need to stay committed. >> that really is the sentiment
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we've heard from everybody people are optimistic and that's weird to hear from people in this community through the pandemic they are warning it is too soon to let up. guys >> i guess it's a combination, meg. the holidays are in the past and, you know, that spike is over people are getting vaccinated. we're 11 million have had both shots and then there's people that have already had it, i guess. the beginnings of what could be herd immunity. do you think it's a combination of all three of those things >> reporter: yeah, that's what i've been hearing about. people are really talking about behaviors changing more people wearing masks. more people social distancing seeing the scary surges over the winter a lot of folks said they do think that makes a difference in people's behavior. you're talking about vaccinations plus maybe 30% of the population already infected. that doesn't reach herd immunity where we stopped transmission.
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if one in three people has immunity, that makes it harder for the virus to keep transmitting at the same pace. that could be helping. >> crazy flu season. just so weird, isn't it? not just here, even in the other parts of the world where we reverse winter and summer. their flu season nonexistent that's so crazy, isn't it? >> yeah. respiratory viruses just take over >> yeah. right. but also the behavioral changes really put an end to the flu season nutty. okay there aren't many silver linings, but that may be one of them thanks, meg. beck. >> i'm never shaking hands again, especially yours, joe joining us right now is dr. cavita patel a primary care physicians, nbc news contributor she formerly served in the obama administration as well doctor, thanks for being with us i have to say we've all been so
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hopeful about the vaccines and what it means and being able to kind of get back to the way life was before, but then i read some guidelines this week from the cdc and it gave me some pause. the updated guidelines say that if you've had your vaccination, you should be okay if you're exposed to someone with covid as long as it's been two weeks since your last shot and as long be as it hasn't been more than three months since your last shot so all of this waiting gives you 2 1/2 months of a grace period, that's it? >> becky, it's a sobering point, isn't it i think the content is where we are at this moment in time a lot of people, including health care professionals and as joe mentioned, 11 million people have received both doses where we know that the optimal start to your immunity begins one to two weeks after your second dose, becky, that you have a lot more security. you're prevented from death with the vaccines we have almost 100% prevention of the
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severe illness across the board pretty very close to incredible numbers, however, what the cdc says is that basically if you have close contact, you don't have to do the quarantine for 14 days i think there's going to be guidance that involves as more and more americans get vaccinated we're in this in between period to meg's point that even though if one in three people have been infected or vaccinated, we still have enough opportunity in the other two people to promote the spread of the virus, particularly of concern for these more transmissible variants the good news is that as the months go on and more people in your household and potentially another household like your parents or your grandparents are vaccinated, that can make smaller gatherings safer that is something to look forward to because we've been holding off now for over a year, some of us, to see elderly parents or relatives with high
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risk >> what should we be doing right now? let's assume you've gotten your vaccination. what does that mean you can go about doing? can you stop wearing a mask? can you do other things? do you still have to kind of assume that you could either pick it up or spread it to somebody else? >> yeah, we are waiting for that data to your point where we do believe that being vaccinated makes it less likely, becky, that you give the virus to someone else, but -- and there's early signs from other countries where they've achieved higher rates of vaccination that that's possible, but until we have more of that data, remember, the manufacturers were not looking at that as a primary end point just so that they could make sure they focused on that around death. if you are vaccinated, i am, i feel i'm not going to get sick
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i'm still wearing a mask we are pretty fatigued from doing until we have more data. because i'm vaccinated and after they get in several weeks after the second dose i am going to feel comfortable talking about any risks because it's not 100% they won't catch the virus, but i am comfortable potentially having a small gathering when we're all vaccinated together. and i'm hoping that means more of us by the summertime will be able to gather safely under those conditions of being vaccinated >> yeah, i hope so, too. let me ask you if you have a child whose at heightened risk
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from a bad outcome of covid and that child is below the ages of the people who are going to be vaccinated soon. you're not looking at below 12 until the end of the year. below 6, who knows >> pfizer has completed a study from 12 to 16. the risk of people being hospitalized and dying is not zero or even children with a heightened risk as you mentioned, becky, or even yourself if you are at heightened risk of being vaccinated you should take precautions when indoors, stay outdoors with people if possible we do need more data to understand what this transmission risk is i do hope people feel there is
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that light at the end of the tunnel but that they think there is a risk. the biggest risk is what your community rates are. as rates are plummeting, becky, that becomes an opportunity to reconsider the safety in all parts of the country, and i'm hoping that around the country we're starting to see rates, double digits continue to drop over the next several weeks. >> let's hope that trend continues. if we do have the vaccine become pretty plentiful in april like we're hearing at this point and it is safer in the summer to be outside doing all of these things, what's next summer and fall going to look like? let's hope >> well, look, it's great news that we will have many more operation warp speed as it was formerly known, had an arrangement with up to 12 manufacturers. we know some of those are not moving forward we have many manufacturers in the pipeline with incredibly promising early signs. we hope by the fall, becky,
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we'll have more of a handle on predicting the variants, tweaking or kind of creating any boosters or vaccines that we might need to deal with the potential set of new variants of the coronavirus and then to joe's point, we're looking forward -- i am telling you personally i will wear a mask for what he's pointing out we're seeing incredibly low flu rates and a lot of that has to do with masking. the fall, christmas time, the holidays, i look forward to having those gatherings. we're going to have a majority of the country vaccinated, including a majority for most children, and becky we'll have a better handle on predicting these variants we have no genomic surveillance. we're doing better, becky, but 1% better. i'm hoping by the fall we'll be able to predict some of this a little bit more than we can now and that you and i will be talking in person and maybe shaking hands. that may go by the way side, but
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i am looking forward to shaking your hand as soon as possible. >> dr. patel, thank you. i look forward to that, too. although i'll tell you, i'm keeping the hand sanitizer around. >> take care >> andrew? >> okay. i'm sticking with the elbow bump elbow bump for me. we'll do it like that. when we come back on the other side of the break. shares of walt disney on the rise smashing disney+'s expectations we'll speak with an analyst bullish on the stock and raising her price target time now for today's aflac trivia question. according to the national retail federation, how much will u.s. adults spend on valentine's day in total the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" contiesnu go aflac!!! what the heck, troy - that's not your kid! the aflac duck is just covering for sophie.
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overnight massive beats on both lines. company posted a profit after two straight quarterly losses. the mouse house signing up 21 new subscribers to disney+ take a look at the reaction in the stock. it's up again this morning 1.5%. joining us to talk more about this, tom rodgers, former nbc cable president, cnbc contributor, founder of this very network also jessica erlich. she just raised her price target $223 from $192 after last night's report let's start, jessica, with you given that you were clearly redoing some of your numbers last night it's a funny thing because you look at the losses, you look at what took place last year and then you have to extrapolate out about what you think the future of this is going to look like this year. >> absolutely. it was a lot of good news in last night's results they beat on the revenue line by
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$490 million but in the operating line by $1.9 billion so it's just an incredible -- there's a lot of leverage in disney's businesses. most apparent at the theme parks followed by film and on the direct to consumer fronts, which is of course what most of us care about right now, they just blew away the disney+ numbers but notably beat on hulu and espn plus as well. i guess the other point as we look out, the consumer demand seems really strong. vaccine rollout is impressive. you're hearing good news on the theme park front but there are price increases coming at the direct to consumer services. there's a lot going on >> jessica, just so i understand in terms of raising your numbers and your expectation, you believe people are back in the theme parks and back in the
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film -- theaters -- watching films in theaters when to make your numbers >> we have gradual increase. we don't really expect anything this year. so most of our numbers are '22 and '23 and our price object tough is based on '23 discounted back to today. '23 being the normal year. >> okay. tom, let's talk about some of the growth numbers in the streaming world. you know, the hulu piece of it's almost as extraordinary, if not more so, than what's happening at disney+ unto itself no >> no, i don't really think so i think the hulu advertising numbers look particularly strong they look like the revenue is up coming out of hulu was very strong the sub numbers not so much. i'm a little more cautious than jessica here look, you've got to give disney a lot of credit for how much
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strength they came out of the box with subs and it looks like they will have created in the course of a couple years, by the end of this year, a direct to consumer business with about 17 billion in revenue, which is really quite a fete. but i think a lot of that is already priced in. we've got to remember that since they've announced streaming, the company's market cap is already up about $130 billion while their whole media network side and movie studio side have clearly lost value so there's a huge amount of value in the direct to consumer streaming business built in already. but the market seems to respond to the headline sub number in a huge way, and that's where i really express some cautiousness not all subs are created equal just going back to a business that jessica and i know very well in terms of the traditional
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cable business, espn and the weather channel both had about 90 million plus subs, but the value of those subs were totally different and the revenue per subis a very different calculation in terms of how you get to ultimate value here we've got to keep in mind 1/3 of these subs that disney is hosting and disney+ are under $1 subs coming from pot star india largely attracting people who are interested in correct. the actual growth in subs may be an even higher percentage of that going to disney+. what you pointed to in terms of hulu, they have a hulu live bundle of everybody's channels that are sold in the home and those are probably about 25% of the total direct to consumer revenue, and that is not a good business, the hulu live business a lot of questions here i think to be cautious about >> jessica, take it on since
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you're more bullish here >> i mean, tom, i love you, but i think that is so backward looking. disney's had a bull's eye on its back for the last year it's a year now that we're in covid with theme parks closed, cruise ships obviously not running, so businesses have been shut down. film and tv have been shut down radically. as we go forward, i think the most important point for disney is that they have incredible leverage across their business, and it's shocking on a largely fixed cost base how big the numbers can be you know, it worked against them in the past year it will work for them in the next several years i think there's a five-year runway now back to goerowth on l of their businesses. disney is unique they have an amazing i.p they created this business from scratch. this new management team, bob jacobs has been there for almost a year, not even quite a year.
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they have challenges across the board and managed extremely well i think they'll come out of this much more efficient, much more profitable with higher margins in most of their businesses and a very robust direct to consumer business which includes disney+, espn plus which is there as consumers transition from linear to digital hulu, of course their general and sustainable version star which is their version of hulu there's a lot going on there i don't think it's priced for perfection >> i think that i agree with jessica, applaud disney for being forward looking and they're putting real shoulder in this and i think they have a better chance than any other legacy media company of transforming themselves and creating value having said that, all this streaming activity is not purely
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additive i think the market is looking at it like this the decline of the traditional business is not only a business that will continue to decline all the more so because of how disney and the other legacy media companies are screaming at consumers to go away from their traditional bundle and take on their streaming services, but the old model is actually a better business. the reason it's a better business is ifyou're espn or you're disney channel, you're getting paid across every single home in the cable and satellite world and even those that never watch you, which is a whole lot of the audience. moreover, the marketing and technology costs of getting into the home and marketing to consumers is picked up today largely by cable and satellite operators, whereas, in the streaming world that all goes against the profitability. and disney is getting 18, $19 per home in the cable satellite
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world, $6.99 or if you take the full bundle $12.99 with lower margins isn't a better business. they can make up for that with taking a page out of the netflix book and creating a national brand as the disney+ numbers suggest, but to do that and really be a player on netflix level, you've got to do it more than off the back of sub 1 $1 homes in india it requires a much bigger footprint. >> tom, if you could own one media stock right now, what would it be? i'll ask the same question they're playing the music out. >> netflix it will be by far the most valuable meaddia company in the world. >> jessica, you can own one stock, what is it going to be? >> i would say disney, comcast, your parent company are the two best positioned media companies today. >> okay. i'll take that answer as an employee
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welcome back to "squawk box. wall street banks getting closer to adopting bitcoin. we have a pressure campaign that's going on here i think we might have just lost hugh he's got a news story out on cnbc i think we just got him back let's see if we can get a little bit of detail on what's happening here >> hey, andrew i hope you can see me. i was receiving a call look, as you know, the big banks have been very reluctant to touch bitcoin because it's been considered too speculative also in the card space, payment sp space. i want to know what was going on at the biggest u.s. banks. what we found out is in the
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reporting there was a semiannual town hall where jpmorgan had to grapple with the demand coming from within from their own traders. truly salivating at the volatility and surge of this this is something they're talking about. he's the head of the biggest investment bank, he said to me signaling some confidence when this -- if and when this becomes a broadly used asset class, they will have no choice but to become involved. specifically he said the demand from clients isn't there yet but, quote, i'm sure it will be at some point. >> so i think the real question is the timing issue.
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from a timing perspective is there something from now and then that will scuttle that? this is the whole point of bitcoin is, quote, inevitable. >> look, i've been talking to daniel pinto for three or four years. every year i asked him this question when i asked him the question this year i was really surprised at the different tone and his confidence that they would actually get there in terms of comfort level. when i specifically asked about regulations, i've asked different things, with daniel pinto said the counterpart is going to be our big institutional clients already vetted, already cleared for kyc aml. on the other hand, we would use exchanges we are familiar with citing coin bits he didn't think it would be that big of a hurdle for them to get involved in bitcoin trading. >> okay. you can read hugh's story.
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it's up right now on cnbc.com. great to see you, hugh great reporting. >> thanks, andrew. >> becky thanks, andrew when we come back, taxes and the pandemic what you need to know before you file your returns. and later, pot stocks looking to bounce back a little bit after the selloff in the sector yesterday we will speak to the ceo of aurora cannabis, about the sector, legalization under biden, and reddit fueled stocks. futures a little bit better. dow futures down by just about 24 points right now. s&p futures off by just under 7. the nasdaq down by about 15. "squawk box" will be right back.
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welcome back tax filing season, it starts today. you may be wondering how the pandemic will be affecting your returns. sharon epperson joins us with what you need to know abbefore u file great to see you. >> great to see you, andrew. people have a lot more questions about their taxes this year than in the past when you consider what many people are uncertain about, it's how the money that they received through the coronavirus relief programs will impact their 2020 returns. whether that's ppp loans, unemployment benefits or stimulus checks. here's what you need to know before you file. for small business owners who received a ppp loan and qualify
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for loan forgiveness, make sure the information you provided to get that relief matches what you're reporting on your tax return you want to make sure that you document your expenses, keep good records of your income and remember that even business expenses covered by the loan can be tax deductible. when it comes to unemployment benefits if you've been laid off or furloughed, that extra 6$600 every week provided relief all of this is taxable and one of the most common questions is whether stimulus checks are taxed well, they're not. that's a tax credit against your 2020 taxes it's not taxable income and if you didn't get the correct amount in your stimulus check or you had a child in 2020 and you now have a dependent, you can claim a recovery rebate credit on your 2020 tax return. that's another good reason to file a return as soon as you can
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and as you mentioned, andrew, you can start filing today >> all right i'll take it sharon, stick around i need to -- oh, man, i need to know quite a bit more. shah niya wilson is ceo. i don't know how long you've been working on this, but is every state different? is there anything standardized that we can glean from this? i think you need to hire someone, don't you >> i do think that individuals should hire someone if they are unsure how their tax situation is handled every state can be different if you are earning income in a different state because you may have moved due to the coronavirus, you want to update your information with your employer to make sure that you also have withholding for that new state as well because different states have different tax rates. to ensure you are not over paying in state taxes, you want to update your state as you move
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>> i think that a lot of us have this problem i don't know where i am, to be honest people realize that probably so i'm in the nasdaq i live in new jersey sometimes i work remotely in new jersey everybody's working remotely do all the states -- they all want to get involved they all want their -- they'd all like to tax us, wouldn't they how can you possibly know? do you have to keep track of when you're in one state or another? >> you definitely should because each state has the amount of thresholds for the amount of date you can stay in that state without being considered a res resident if you are temporarily visiting and working in that state, you should be updating your information to have taxable help for that state, but when it comes down to filing your taxes, you are going to file a non-resident tax return unless you exceed the number of days
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that the state specifies that will trigger you to have to file a resident return for that state. >> i can't imagine that the irs is really in top shape right now to be dealing with this either, are they >> so right now the irs is increasing their staffing and they are like, you know, kind of backed up with stimulus checks and paper filed returns. the irs and state government are two separate the irs will handle your 1040 return while the state handles their state return you filing on time does influence how quickly you can get a response from each entity if you file on time. >> this is way too complicated i'm going to blow the whole thing off. is that an option for me, do you think? no >> it's not an option for you, joe. more importantly, the best option is to file as early as you can because as was just mentioned, you know, we don't
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know how much of a backlog there may be, but there definitely will be a backlog if everyone waits until april 15th that is the tax filing as it always was except for next year. you want to make sure to get it in as early as possible and the other caveat people are talking about in the cpa community is concern about identity theft a way to avoid that is to make sure your return that the irs sees first and not some imposter because they're not going to know who that is if you do the return or that tax return and you want to make sure you get the refund as soon as possible and as i mentioned, that recovery rebate credit. the earlier that's filed, the better for you >> wow wow. shenaya, we have to put you on retainer we're out of time. we need you to come back i don't know, this just opened up more cans of worms. >> yes
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i am here to help for everyone who needs help with tax guidance feel free to, you know, hit me up >> i'm -- you know, let them find me. i'm not doing it forget it. no, i'm kidding. thank you, shenaya thanks, sharon not a good idea. don't anyone out there do that. >> joe, we've got breaking news this morning possibly the biggest -- could be the biggest ipo of the year. south korean company coupang files for an ipo they came and visited us on the set in new york. this is a company that started in 2010. it is the equivalent of amazon, doordash and instacart in one company. it's growing it looks like on the order of 90% a year he dropped out of harvard
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business school to drop this company. it was a groupon style company and then they pivoted. it's been sought after by every major company as an acquisition target for a long time amazon, alibaba and the like, the valuations company is likely somewhere on the order of $50 billion. we're going to have a lot more on this ipo. soft bank, we should note, owns 38% of this company. at a $50 billion valuation they would make $19 billion that's seven times their money so we will go through the filing just crossing right now. joe? >> all right, andrew thank you. coming up, don't miss our first on cnbc interview with aurora cannabis owner after it got caught up in the reddit fueled volatility. they found it. this is the solo on "where have
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welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc is that what you figure? i don't know joe kernen. >> probably. >> becky quick, andrew ross sorkin valentine's day. u.s. equity futures at this hour indicated relatively flat. not a lot going on down 13 points on the dow. s&p down 6 has been a good february we found out good februarys could portend some good things for the rest of the year i don't know how these monthly historical indicators work february, it's a shorter month we've talked about it before, becky. you know how many months have 28 days, right? >> all of them >> just so smart you're just so smart >> no, i just hung out with you forfar too long. i know all of your jokes. >> they're not new if i use them
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every year okay never mind i need to remember that. >> bad jokes bad jokes. >> sara eisen says boomer jokes >> ageism. >> it is it is. it is. you're right >> okay, dad in the meantime, let's get you caught up on some of the stories that investors are going to be talking about today. disney reporting a surprise profit for the latest quarter amid still slumping theme park and movie businesses disney streaming subscriber numbers surged by 21 million to a total of almost 95 million ceo bob chapik talked about the road ahead for disney theme parks on the company's post earnings call. >> we have no doubt that when we reopen up in parks that were closed or increase the capacity, that we'll have some level of social distancing and mask
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wearing for the remainder of this year. that's our expectation, but i believe that dr. fauci said earlier today that he hopes that there's vaccines for everyone who wants them by april this year if that happens, that is a game changer and that could accelerate our expectations and give people the confidence that they need to come back to the parks. >> check out disney shares this morning. you'll see that the stock is up by about 1.6% for a gain of just over $3. wall street banks getting closer to accepting bitcoin as a legitimate asset class cnbc's hugh san reports during virtual jpmorgan town hall meeting,he said he was open minded about the cryptocurrency according to several people with knowledge of that meeting. when contacted by cnbc, pinto said a decision by jpmorgan would be informed by a critical
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mass of whether its clients wanted to be involved. we're learning goldman sachs employees recently talked bitcoin as well. this is hugh san reporting on this he reported that the bank and galaxy digital ceo mike novogratz had a forum for clients last week. the house financial services committee approving airlines another $14 billion for payroll assistance as president biden's covid-19 package that came ahead of a task force and airline executives people on the call are expected to talk about whether passengers should have to take a covid test before a domestic flight the airlines are opposed to this when it comes to domestic flights. joe? >> beck, thanks. let's talk markets major averages tracking for the second straight positive week but seen hardly any change, any
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change in the s&p 500 in the last three days. nbc senior markets commentator mike santoli joins us now. can you look under the hood, mike is that what you want to do here are there things going on? can we glean anything from happening. >> there are messages whether you're listening for them or not. i think you want to look at the key appetite to see if anything has changed in terms of the tone and character. the s&p has cooled off, flattened out, been rather quiet in the last few days it's another one of these phases where it seems like the big cap benchmarks are resting and doing not much of anything whereas excitement, energy, speculation, froth and volatility are happening. here we are. flattened out near the highs very much within this trend that's been in place since october 30th this is maybe don't short a dull market applies right here. on the other hand you're seeing
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some sentiment and technical stuff. these are cyclical indicators, indicators of people basically reaching for a little bit more risk and exposure to the up side for the economy. the semiconductor index we know very powerful. this is the broker dealer index. this is three months over this period of time the s&p is 10% russell 2000, small caps have been the focus of this energy it's not old economy, new economy, it's not growth and value, it's cyclical and the stuff that moves the fastest when the market and economy are bigger right now you've seen them all or some give back. these are the areas i would watch to see if we are going into a mode where we rethink the cyclical market and outlook deal. >> mike, i couldn't help by listening to you if barons was around they would be talking about -- >> if barons were still there?
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>> you're not there. >> it's 100 years old now, actually. >> 4%. how about chicago school board bonds, less than 2%. city of detroit bonds, less than 2% what is barons just kidding >> well, everybody -- >> when you left i stopped reading them. >> that was nice of me >> yeah. >> what do you think you would write about things like that >> i think everybody is looking at the fact that risk spreads have become so compressed there's an implicit bid out there for anything with a yield on it. there's a massive scarcity of yield. high yield spreads are basically where they were a year ago it's just that the treasury yields are that much lower so therefore the absolute yield on things like junk bonds, 4% it was 5% a year or so ago that was nuts. maybe it was here we are. i don't think there's necessarily a way to think around it anymore than people are willing -- people who have a mandate to buy fixed income, you
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know, have to grab yield where they can get it. i do think it's important to note that all other asset classes pretty much get priced off of that, at least to some degree that's why perhaps people are trying to rationalize current equity valuations as well. >> well, just thinking about trillion dollar companies, if that's where you're going to hang your hat, you're hoping to go to 2 trillion that's possible. some of them are just a law of large numbers. i don't know if it ever becomes a factor i guess we'll see. all right. andrew >> thanks, joe meantime it has been a reddit fuelled volatile week for pot stocks one of the names caught up which just reported quarterly results. the company stock is up 74% so far this year. has a market cap of $1.6 billion. a wide 52 week high in low range. short interest that's about 14% of the flow. joining us is aurora ceo miguel
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martin thanks for joining us. we have watched this stock and this entire sector just move around so much especially in the past couple of weeks and we've seen both issues in washington driving it but maybe even more so folks on reddit as somebody running a company that's watching this stock and seeing what's happening online, what are you thinking? >> first and foremost, thanks for having us. you know, when i see this, you know, it's really not core to what we're looking at for the business what's important is the fundamentals of the cannabis business are strong. year over year revenue was up, adjusted ebitda was up cashews was better while there's a lot of volatility in the market and conjecture, i think the macro is strong five states passed comprehensive legislation. there's movement afoot in
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virginia and new york. we're receiving revenue in 13 countries around the world there is a lot of retail investor interest and short squeezes, i think long term that's not the story of cannabis the long-term story is it's a good business economically there's a lot of up side in the u.s. as well as around the world. >> miguel, as a ceo, and a lot of ceos may confront this which is how do you think about your shareholder base, right? a lot would say they're looking for long-term shareholders in this based on fundamentals, based on numbers, based on perhaps even a relationship if you will what you're seeing now is something else a lot of ceos are trying to figure out how to grapple and maneuver around it >> great question. clearly the cannabis stocks have had a long history of the retail base a short percentage of our stock. i think you want to do the best thing you can for shareholders,
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whether they're retail investors or long-term investors we've seen a good movement of institutional investment in the cannabis stocks. it's been two years it's been legal in canada and the medical business is still nascent around the world. all you can do is focus on free cash flow being a positive building a company is sustainable. while there's the volatility in the short term in the long term people will focus on fundamentals. the fundamentals of a company like aurora, science, being successful in other markets gives cause for investors. >> do you see yourself as a ceo spending time in the future with institutional investors or do you imagine yourself taking to twitter, reddit, other places to have a different type of communication? >> so we're clearly doing both we've had increased
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conversations with institutional investors, whether it's the global aspects, we're seeing that in the u.s. and around the world. clearly we have to do more with the retail investors, other investors, whether that's with twitter or other forms of social media. this is important. this is a category moving quickly. getting the news out there about how profitable it can be, how strong the margins are, the innovations we see around the category and medical and rec business is important. you have to take advantage of all of those at the end of the day when you have medical margins in the 60s and the u.s. getting closer, there's a great story here >> speak to that last piece, about what you think is going to happen at the federal level, what the biden administration will want to do and what it can
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do in congress. >> well, i mean, listen, we're getting to a tipping point it's my thought cannabis is an economic and social issue. you see what's happening with state budget, success in states like illinois, colorado, there are significant economic benefits it's my opinion that a federal construct is the one that makes most sense and clearly under that scenario those companies that have experience around compliance and science and regulation which the canadian lps do will have a significant advantage in that. i think the biden administration and comments from schumer and booker will lead us there. we'll have a federal construct that will allow for thought full, economic advantages brought to the u.s i think it's a question more of-
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>> i'm curious about the relationship between your industry and the finance industry the reason i ask we did a segment in the last hour about some of the big banks may actually start to work with bitcoin. again, that was something that nobody was doing basically before now and in some ways it's a similar issue potentially with your business are you finding more and more acceptance with the sort of traditional banking system yet >> we are. obviously, you know, the safe act, which i think we'll see passage of this this year, to be fair, how young this industry is, for the banks, traditionally very conservative had to learn that we have tremendous banking relationships in canada and around the world it's a big global macro environment when it comes to finance. i think that is going to cross over into the u.s. the conversations have been.
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very much comfortable. >> miguel, great to see you. we appreciate you joining us. >> thank you very much a appreciate being on. >> you bet becks. >> thanks, andrew. when we come back, the head of a company on the front line of tracking the coronavirus mutations. i will lumen na will point out why we need a bioforce astrazeneca says it expects to roughly double production of its coronavirus vaccine to 200 million doses a month. the company projecting to hit that target by april billionaire investor taking a stake in bausch health icahn plans to give information
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welcome back to "squawk box. recapping the big ipo news that broke in the last half hour. coupang going public listing on the new york stock exchange under the symbol cpng. i don't know if you remember this company it's a remarkable business it is the equivalent of amazon, doordash and instacart in south korea. he was a harvard school dropout. started a groupon and pivoted the business it makes amazon look like nothing. you can get a delivery there virtually i believe all deliveries are done in the
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equivalent of 7 hours. people go on at nighttime, order stuff and it's literally there in the morning they also do returns now south korea, of course, a very dense country, but sometimes these delivery folks are in these buildings, you know, hundreds of times a day. it's sort of a remarkable business the infrastructure they've built, they've run every other company including amazon out of the country. some of them, including amazon, alibaba and others have tried to buy this business over time. we should mention softbanc is a big investor they would be making about $19 billion on its investment. given the way the ipo market is going today, it would be higher. that would be seven times their money. i spoke to the coo of the company, ban kim back in february of 2018 right around the time of the olympics
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here's what he had to say about what he thinks about coupang's business model. >> our model is let's create a world in which customers ask how did i ever live without coupang. we're not going to create something that's 5% better, 10% better, let's create something that's exponentially better. that customer vision has always been consistent. >> and he is pretty much the jeff bezos of south korea. we'll see how this trades and when it does begin trading it's not trading today the filing just out. we'll start to dig into the numbers to better understand the company, but growing it looks like on a revenue basis at about 90% year over year, joe. >> wow total market cap, that's what they raised, andrew? what's this thing -- >> i think we could be looking at 50 plus billion it's going to be the largest ipo in asia since alibaba likely
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could be higher than that. the journal was reporting $50 billion then you look at bumble or something coming out of the gate and sometimes that price and jumping. i think this is likely to be a big one. were you in south korea for that >> i was in south korea he came. he sat with us on the set about a year or two later. when i was over there for the olympics i went and visited with him because i had been told by every major retailer in the u.s., this is the one company you need to watch. they all look at how that company operates the delivery systems are so much more advanced than even as i said what amazon does here it's something to behold >> yeah. you brought me a gift. i don't know whether he brought you anything, becky. remember the olympics, that coat.
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>> i don't think he did. >> the coat. >> i don't think he did. >> i think i did i thought i brought t-shirts do you remember the t-shirts >> brought me that coat. >> i wear that coat every weekend when i'm out with the dogs because it's so warm. >> do you? >> i do. >> you gave it to me and the zipper was broken and i fixed that i fixed that i think that's why you gave it to me, actually, but i appreciate it. you didn't get anything. becky, you didn't get anything. >> sounds like i owe becky something. >> joe got a coat. and this lousy t-shirt. >> maybe it was rio. i thought when we came back from rio we did t-shirts? >> maybe. >> he gave you something at some point. >> i didn't even get a christmas card. >> he probably has given you a cold in the past >> i'm sure. >> the ceo of the biggest maker of genome sequencing tools real easy things to make they're critical to tracking the new strains of the coronavirus can you imagine, sequencing
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welcome back, everybody. finding and tackling the new variants is a key concern for scientists and governments around the world our own meg tirrell has a special guest who is helping to lead that search meg, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, becky. francis desouza joins us this morning. great to see you i want to talk about your editorial in the ee con mow nist suggesting a bioforce. news from yesterday with earnings and what you're looking at in 2021 i will lumen na's business can be a barometer for the health of research you saw a pickup in the second half even though 2020 was lower overall. what are you seeing for 2021 especially with the focus on more sequencing of the variants? >> what we talked about is we're
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coming into the year with a lot of momentum. when we looked at q4 we saw a strength in our core business. the research community has found a way to get back largely into their insular institutions and start doing sequencing again that was back to pre-pandemic levels in the clinical segments, cancer testing to match patients with therapies working with pregnant parents to assess the health of their babies through non-invasive prenatal testing. there sequencing was ahead so we're entering a lot of momentum we were raising expectations in our forecast in q1 and then we also talked about the fact that we're seeing this growing awareness of the need of sequencing to fight the pandemic, to understand what the variants that are emerging are and to set up a surveillance infrastructure in the future to
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look for new pan dem mix and pathogens. >> reporter: well, tell us that idea that you put forth in the economist that we need a bioforce similar to a space force you're suggesting led by private industry in collaboration with government. it needs to be a global focus. tell us about this idea and whether you think there is momentum behind something like this >> yeah. this idea is one of the experience we at illumina have had in the last year or year and a half we were called into wuhan at the tail end of 2019 identify the source of what was this pneumonia of unknown origin. we worked with the teams in shanghai to sequence that virus and publish the first viral genome of sars cov 2 since then we've been working with cdcs around the world one of the things that was a real awakening, people were
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realizing we had the virus circulating in the u.s. for weeks, months. it was impacting human lives and we still didn't know it was here so one of the things that's come away is people are realizing we need a much better surveillance system that will identify pathogen outbreaks, coronavirus like we have or eighteen a bioterrorist attack. sort of this awareness that we need to put together this global infrastructure watching for pathogen outbreaks it needs to be global, genomic space. and then it's going to need a mix of public and private partnership. you need private companies that do the innovations, the technology like we do in sequencing, but you also need public health systems, cdcs, w.h.o., you need a public/private partnership to make this happen. >> looking at here in the united states where we have been behind
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in our sequencing, you joined us january 22nd you said it's almost certain that the b1351 variant first identified in south africa was here south carolina reported the first two cases here in the u.s. they are expected to be community spread cases because they're not related to each other. that state still hasn't found anymore cases of that variant according to the cdc are we doing enough surveillance for the variants that we know are here now >> the reality is the reason we haven't found more is almost certainly not because there aren't more but because we aren't looking enough. what i mean by that, certain countries have really taken the lead in terms of putting together this genomic spacek tore if you look at countries like the u.k., they have been sequencing 5 and 10% of all cases in the u.k they were very early to identify as the virus was mutating new variants that were emerging and assess the danger of those variants
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here in the u.s. if you think the u.s. -- the u.k. is between 5 to 10% positive, here in the u.s. it was 3% of all positives. we aren't looking good enough. we don't have where they are, how quickly they're expanding so we need to ramp up, you know, the sequencing we do to get that better visibility. >> yeah. it's almost like deja vu feeling a little blind here. francis, we look for more progress on the bio force. thank you, meg >> back to you, becky. >> this important note, too, folks. nbc universal has launched a new service called plan your vaccine.com. it helps you find state by state eligibility for where you can get your vaccination it gives you the closest vaccine location to where you are and plenty of data on the vaccine in your area. plus, it gives you a checklist
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for all of the items you'll need plan your vaccine.com. when we come back, how much money do state and local governments need in covid relief well, it really depends on which state you're talking about after a break we'll talk about it with new hampshire's governor chris sununu stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc stay restless with the icon that does the same. the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2021 rx 350 for $429 a month for thirty six months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.
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pay for fees in bitcoin and allows the city manager to cooperate with the city to be paid for taxes in bitcoin. >> wow, that is stepping out that was the mayor of miami florida in a video posted on twitter. you could pay your taxes that way. if you're an employee, you could ask to be paid that way. just another development in what's been a very big week for the cryptocurrency of course, remember it all began when we learned tesla had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin. that brings us to our next story. state budgets are in bad shape, but not as bad as many had feared that could actually undermine the push for direct relief for state and local governments. ylan mui joins us with more on this ylan, what are you hearing what are you seeing when the numbers are actually out >> reporter: becky, to be clear, the data does show states are struggling tax revenues declined for the
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first time since the great recession, down 1.6% they're projected to fall this fiscal year, down another 4.4% that is not good but it's certainly not the worst case scenario that many states have been bracing for when you look at states individually, it's much more of a mixed bag. 26 states did report declines of tax revenue between march and september and that's according to an analysis by the irving institute. revenues fell more than 3% in fact, 21 states said they saw tax revenues go up some of the factors that are stopping state revenues include a run up of the stock market, the ability to collect online sales tax and the relief they've already received from washington now president biden is proposing another $350 billion in direct aid to cities and states today he'll be meeting with a bipartisan group of governors and mayors to try to build support for that plan. guys, the question that the data raises is whether the price tag really matches the problem back to you.
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>> ylan, am i right to assume that the six states that saw bigger decline than 3% of revenue would be states that were hardest hit, states like new york, new jersey, california >> reporter: so california's actually a state where you saw tax revenue go up and a lot of that is because of the are you up in the stock market, the ipos that we saw and some of the benefits they saw from being able to tax wealthier earners. importantly there are states like nevada, i believe, which did not report any data. so that's one state where you would imagine there being an extreme impact because of theism pact to tourism, to the casino ind industry that's a state where you might see a big decline. there was a variant in the cities and states as well. that's why they're asking for direct aid, to be better able to target the relief to the places in their local jurisdictions that need it the most. >> ylan, thank you good to see you.
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now for a closer look at the push on capitol hill for more aid to states. let's welcome governor chris sununu of new hampshire. governor, thanks for joining us. i think in the current relief bill $1.5 billion is earmarked for new hampshire, state, local and county budgets you'll probably gladly accept that, but your deficit was 50 million projected now. much lower than the 350. what did you -- is there something unique to new hampshire? you're just that amazing at doing this that you're able to get the -- what are the real extenuating factors that allow for that >> you said it, not me yeah, we're very unique here in new hampshire. i can't speak for other states, but i think we just -- when we saw we were going to have a tough year in '20, we managed well, at least at the state money. we made sure the c.a.r.e.s. act
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money went into businesses these businesses are now here to really be part of that by putting a lot of our c.a.r.e.s. act money into nonproperties, they hire people to, businesses, self employment. we just invested in those businesses through their toughest times and made sure that they were there overall, again, people are just coming to new hampshire. they just are for a variety of reasons. they're deurban niezing out of new york, boston, and other states are taxing people at high rates. i'm cutting taxes. i presented a budget where we had tax breaks for everyone. we have an interest and dividends tax phasing that to zero if you're a retiree, senior, come into new hampshire because we're not going to tax you like other people do. that allows things to grow organically. businesses thrive, people get jobs, more people move in. that's sustainable growth and that's what we're banking on. >> you think tax cuts will
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actually pay off in terms of generating revenue if you get 1.5 billion, some people might raise an eyebrow, you're getting 1.5 billion in the relief bill and cutting taxes on people that live in new hampshire. is that -- >> if i could. when i first became governor we cut taxes like this back then and we saw more revenue come in the state. they want to be here you you end up growing so fast in a pro business like new hampshire. that should not be and will not be used to grow government that's going to be used to grow jobs one-time money for spending. if states are using that money to grow government and pay their operations, they're creating a bigger problem for themselves down the road. that's an extraordinary amount
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of money, $1.5 billion we'll spend it smart we have a great reputation of doing so i caution the other 49 governors, you better be careful. that stuff coming in, if you think it's going to replace revenue, you'll create a larger long-term liability on your books. we're not doing that here. we're going to create jobs. >> currently 49 other governors. god only -- we'll see. the hornet's nest of student loans and student loan forgiveness. you're talking about reorganizing the system in new hampshire. number one, it's way too expensive. you ought to be able to go -- this is a great idea to go to a lot of different colleges and seemlessly should be able to get it it's more customer service
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oriented i'm a parent i've got a 15 and 16-year-old. i'm looking at the post secondary education process now. the paradigm has changed from a consumer so the decisions that parents and students are making in terms of what their pathway is going to be, you can't have the same old system and expect them to fit into it. you have to adapt your system around the customer. that's exactly what we're doing. we're putting our community college and university system into one unified organization. one pathway. very seamless for the student. lots of options. they can take a research and development class out of the university it's like school choice. we work hard in this country for school choice for k-12, right? let's let the college kids have the same opportunities that's just being more responsive in doing that, we also have an opportunity to, again, do some student debt repayment you can't start canceling
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student debt across the board like washington is talking about. that would be disastrous for the system what we can do is incentive advise students to stay and work in new hampshire if they stay and work in health care, biotech. it's a combination of systems. that's worked in new hampshire. >> it helps when -- obviously when covid is something that looks like it's being handled well vaccines are important you had issues with the second -- there was some controversy about people not understanding how to get the second dose. have those bugs been ironed out in new hampshire >> yeah. you know, we were using this federal scheduling system. it stinks. it just does so we're going to adapt our own system we had a four or five day hiccup where there was confusion how to get your second dose we said we're not going to live
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with it. we'll challenge ourselves. four to five days earlier people were moving in i think we're going to come out of this faster than most people think. i'm telling folks come memorial day we're going to have a rocket of a summer. start booking big. i think that we're, quote, back to normal. we'll have different guidance and safety protocols, but this summer is going to look a lot different than last summer it will be phenomenal here in new hampshire. we're telling people to plan because, again, we can see the vaccine build. we can see our distribution. no reason to believe we can't be very successful in the short term with covid. >> trying to remember, where did bill murray go. >> how's it going in new york? >> he didn't go there. richard dreyfuss winnipesaukee. >> what about bob?
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it's the best. >> what about bob. >> it's going to be booming. oh, why didn't i think of that, lake winnipesaukee. >> thank you, guys. >> we'll see you that was another good one, andrew. when we come back on the other side of this, we have jim cramer taking a look at the final trading day of the week. check out shares of virgin galactic plunging after the company delayed space flight test expected for this weekend they want more time for technical checks and is working to identify the next flight opportunity. that stock off about 9% right now. watching "squawk" on cnbc. back in a moment nd fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. we see smarter software delivering cleaner power. emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize
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i want to get over to cnbc headquarters where our friend jim kramer is this morning talk about disney earnings we could talk a little bit about spacs. because i see you're active once again on this, i don't want call it the spac attack on twitter but -- >> we have the joy of the adam jonas piece and john la decky's northern star investment corp, popping, there's always a lucid pop and i find it exciting and
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most prurient and can we say it is right up there with trying to figure out what is going to happen today with disney, we're trying to do so, and you guys are doing it unbelievably well. >> the question, i think there are two questions. do you think that investors should be investing at the spac level, meaning right now, look at churchill for a second, or do you think that the better investment is to wait and see what they buy, and then buy on the other side of the de-spac? it seems to me, i will tell you, that buying on the spac is not a terrible idea, and most of those folks have actually made a decent amount of money not like the sponsors of course. on the de-spac side, on a relative basis to an, to an ipo index, they actually underperformed >> andrew, your piece was the best on it i know you also were informed by the excellent michael semblas analysis because you mentioned it in the piece. >> he yes. >> yp morgan. >> yp morguen. >> there's no distance between
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you and me that's exactly what i think. and that was a primer for everybody. an exciting people that you did. so there's no down about it. the earlier the better and as it goes on, it just becomes another investment, it too ully has underperformed other investments, so i think that is very, very important to point out and you did that, and i appreciate it. people should read your piece. >> you want to own disney today? >> yes, still. one of the biggest positions, and mccarthy, the cfo there, she's extraordinary. i mean she's extraordinary their fy 2024, i like, and still a lot to go, i know that tom rogers might say netflix, and i think that disney may be one of the greatest brands ever they make money even when they're closed how do you do that how do you do that, andrew i don't know >> fair enough jim, we will see you and the gang in a couple of minutes. >> have a great weekend. >> hold on, jim. one other thing. >> sure, what's up, buddy. >> two big things that happened this week. you had the birthday,your
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birthday and the shot. how you are feeling. >> i have to say the liberation of the shot versus an hour of fatigue. take it. the birthday, because i was very hurt, the previous, i had a tough accident, it was joyous, and everybody. so people reached out, and i'm so happy to be here. and thank you for your reach-out of course. >> happy birthday, my friend. >> thank you, buddy. thank you. >> we'll see you in a little bit. becky? >> all right, joining us right now to talk about the markets is mona, portfolio manager and u.s. investment strategist at allianz global investors we are looking at the markets, we are at all time high, just off of, just off of all-time highs for all three of the major averages what do you think? you're worried that the market is getting a little complacent here why is that? >> look, i think first of all, thanks for having me, becky, but certainly at the last correction, we really saw in this market was back in october and since then, the s&p has been up nearly 20%, some of the
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sectors have been up more than that, in a straight line so you know, what i would say is that perhaps we are due for a little bit of a pullback here, keep in mind any given year, one to three pullbacks is the norm, 1 to 15% and a true pull back, 20 pull back, and in the economy, covid cases are rolling over and the vaccine is there and this nation seems intent on large stimulus going out and the fed has committed yet again to remaining on the sidelines so overall, it's a really great heading into 2021 and what would make it better is if we had tactical opportunities to get involved to really position in that, i guess, value cyclical, or at least start to layer in more of that value cyclical sector positioning
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>> within that, you mean financials, the industrials, the energy stocks? >> yes, absolutely you know, if you think about it, since really almost one year ago today, february 19th, was the pre-crisis high. when you look at certain sectors, areas like financials, like energy, like industrials, are almost flat, in some cases, slightly down, to that last february high, where as sectors like technology and discretionary, are up nearly 30% already. so already pricing in some of this recovery, where as the financials, the energy, industrial sectors may just be getting started in terms of finally breaking out from last february so it's interesting dichotomy to see these sector performance, since the pre-crisis highs and i think there is a compelling reason to start layering in more of those value sec tors. for us, it is not only the value sectors though it is small cap and notably non-u.s. assets. we think parts of asia and china, could continue to do well
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and certainly could be a compliment to your current u.s. positioning as well. >> we don't talk a lot about commodities, but maybe we should given the runs we're seeing in some of them right now you think that all of this additional industrial pickup could also lead to higher copper prices, right? >> yes, absolutely we always had talked about gold as this, you know, hedge against inflation, and perhaps against low central bank rates what we're really starting to look at now is more industrial metals a metal like copper for example, not only a reopening play in some ways, because it's an industrial metal, but also, a play on the longer term ev story, electrical vehicle story, clean energy story and we're seeing that in areas like copper, like silver, as another example and i know that got some headlines in the last couple of week, the metals that have long-term secular themes behind them as well so we're certainly optimistic that this could be the beginning of stories around commodities as well. >> you're a little concerned about some of the stocks that have done so well, the covid
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plays, like technology, do you think things are priced to perfection here? >> you know, generally, it does feel like, when we talk about frothiness and fear and greed or complacency, some of it is coming from that tech sector however, we're already starting to see a little bit of sideways movement coming out of these sectors. longer-term, of course, when you think about a three, five, even 10-year horizon, some of the secular growth themes are here to stay. ai robotics. cyber security mobile payments for example. all of these are, we think, part of your core portfolio going forward. it's just whenwe look at the next six to 12 months, where the real momentum may be, it may be more biased towards, you know, that value cyclical type we've been talking about so certainly a balanced portfolio always makes sense, but if you haven't yet done so, and you get the tactical opportunity, start thinking about layering in some of that's cyclical story, because it is really starting to build over the next six to 12 month period. certainly that true reopening of
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the economy, that unleashing of pent-up demand, second half of this year, it could come to fruition, in a big way >> mona, thanks for joining us today. >> thank you. >> have a great weekend. we will talk to you soon. >> happy president's day, thanks, becky. >> that does it for us today and for this week. thanks, mona as joe mentioned we have a three-day weekend coming up so we will see you on the other side of that i'm off tuesday and wednesday and i will see you on thursday have a great weekend good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and jim cramer futures are steady as the s&p has had minimal movements for the past three sessions. disney earnings are in focus, nearly 80% of the s&p has now reported, and ten-year yield close to a two-week high the road map begins with disney surprise beat. disney subs, closing in on
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