1-800-flowers order is on the way to you happy valentine's day. >> happy valentine's day, ty-ty, thanks for watching "power lunch," closing bell starts right now. >> to both of you, welcome, everyone, to closing bell, i'm sara. >> shows us up. >> the major average, the dow -- >> showing us up now i have to order some flowers for you very quickly >> right >> you still have time. >> there's still time before valentine's day. >> pulling back. let's look at what is driving the action right now earnings remain in focus disney, weighs on the dow today,

despite a strong quarter for disney plus but the stock is lower. energy is back in the green. what are the strongest sectors in the s&p 500 today and for the week, the energy sectors up about 4%. an early read of consumer sentiment in february came in below estimates and raising concerns about the economy with the jobless claims report. 59 minutes left to go in the session. >> ahead on today's show, we will speak with three ceos whose stocks are moving on the back of earnings restaurant brands ceo will talk to us, to talk results and reopenings and the head of neil brand, everything from cook ware to school supplies and later, go daddy ceo will be with us, as that stock takes a big leg lower on the back of earnings first of all, let's focus on the big story we're watching today mike santelli is taking a look at the equities, and joining us to talk about all of that mohamed el-erian from allianz.

>> we continue to idle here, right around the record highs in the s&p 500. it's been a few days right now, where the indexes are kind of regrouping, and probably got a little bit overbought and taking a breather hard to look under the surface though and see too much that's negative, although we might be getting to one of these points where we stretched to a little bit of a limit to the near term rally potential. so keep pointing out, it is riding the upper end of the line, that's the case for quite some time right now. we have done this a few different times over the course of this 10, 11-montreally where you kind of flatten out and recharge the rally so we'll see if that happens and global markets strong. so it's not just about the u.s look at the shanghai market. especially this past week. a huge little vertical spurt higher it has been a pretty good trend in general but then you did see a little excitement now, just in general, a lot of things are continuing to confirm, the general view out there that there is some kind of global economic acceleration and the reflation trade. and look at the round trip that

u.s. junk bond spreads have made in the last year one year chart crazy panic. liquidation in the march sell sqsellof in equities and credit and 3 1/2 percentage points is the spread between on average and the junk bond index. to treasuries. which tells you, you got 4% or so, a little over that nominal yield. pretty tough to get into a lot of trouble unless that changes and supports equity values even if they don't look cheap objectively. >> that's just what i was going to ask, whether you believe in valuations or not, according to jack brown, they're irrelevant and where does it take us on stock and debt market valuations and more money flowing in? >> everything gets priced to some degree off the cost of credit i think that's why we're able to hold these valuations in the s&p. also important to note that profits are coming in so strong, and the estimates are going up fast enough, that the s&p hasn't become more expensive, on forward earnings than it was let's say last summer so i do think there is a way in which

the market can kind of hold in, profits can rebound, certain sectors raised higher, other ones fall away, where as either you can kind of do okay, without normalizing valuations, all in one bite, so that to me is where we are you know, a year ago, we were saying, the highest valuation since 2000 we as well now, at a little bit of higher level, at about 3 points in terms of the pe. >> thanks, mike. for today on today's, for more on today's marks let's bring in mohamed el-erian. thanks for joining us. my first question is about positioning and inflows. when you look at all of the data there, is it suggesting that things are going to rise further from here? or are we getting a little bit stretched? >> thanks for having me. it's suggesting both so the path of least resistance remains up we just had the highest weekly inflow into the equity market ever so people are putting it to work charles schwab's reported that there's been a massive increase

in account openings. and there's more liquidity on the way. having said that, we are at well elevated prices but this is all about liquidity. you've heard me say this over and over again, it is technical, the path of least resistance is still up over time >> when you see something like tesla, which has been a darling of course of the market, buying bitcoin, which has also been a darling of the market, do you still have to think this is marking the top, or is it a bigger transition that's bullish for both assets? >> so that one has a specific element to it. which is the acceptance of bitcoins and not just tesla that is saying, you can use it as a form of payments, it's others, too, but you could have had in that sentence so many other things and spacs. look at the amount of spac activity we have had and everybody and their brother and sister are opening spacs you could have all sorts of things that indicate that we are frothy but remember, the notion of a

rational bubble, irrational bubble but we are in bubble territory but it's rational because of all of this liquidity. >> and the liquidity keeps flowing, mohamed the latest, secretary janet yellen, in her first call with g-7, finance ministers, and treasury secretaries today, brought the go big message there, that now is the time to do something big on the economy, and yet, they were talking about technicals of expanding the imf fire power through sdrs, but what is the potential for more stimulus, not just from the united states at this time >> so she took the message go big to apply both to national budgets, and where she will have less success, but also apply to the imf as there are issues, which is basically an issuance of currency. if it happen, countries will wake up and find that their deposit account has gone up at the imf and they can spend it so i think she will succeed on the global liquidity element because

most other countries will go along. but she's not going to be able to move other countries very much on their own budgets. the u.s. is going to be way ahead. and if you just do the numbers, it is incredible how much liquidity is likely to be injected in this economy there the big question is will it create an accident, and at one point does a lot of liquidity become too much liquidity? >> with that in mind, mohamed, you are a believer that the dollar will weaken further despite being soft of late and why isn't gold performing better with all of this liquidity out there? >> so first, i'm not a believer that the dollar will weaken a lot from here. i think we've seen most of the weakening. because it is about more than just liquidity it's also, it has to do with vaccine distribution, dominate europe, and it has to do with the dynamics of the economy, and if you add everything up, it doesn't look as bearish for the dollar so that's one.

two, gold, part of gold, part of the attractive iveness of gold has gone to bitcoins and i ex think that explains what happens with bitcoins as well. gold is not seen as the only defensive vehicle now. bitcoins is starting to tract a lot of people who are in there for negative reasons and positive reasons people, who believe it is a global currency that believe it is a form of payment and the negative reason people who are just protecting themselves against all sorts of things >> so wrap it all up, mohamed. what does this ultimately mean liquidity and everything out there, and what the market is telling you, where the economy is going and for how long? are we in the early innings of a multi-year new cycle or what? >> so we have to, we are in the late innings of a massive disconnect the question is, how do you close the disconnect, between very high asset prices, and the slumping economy

today's consumer sentiment numbers suggest that it's not going to be a very smooth recovery we're going to have ups and down, but i think we're looking at a better economic outlook going forward. would it be quick enough to validate the asset prices? i'm not so sure. and the biggest risk really is what happens to the fed? how does the fed react, when nominal gdp, growth, plus inflation, starts being so high, that the yield curve gets very worried. what will they do then if you got that call right, then you know what to do. but if you haven't got that call right, okay, it's a pretty uncertain outlook. >> mohamed, great timing and let's keep the half screen of the yields up next to mohamed because we just hit year to date highs on the 30-year and the 10-year while you're speaking, mohamed, crossing% on the 30 year and 1.2 on the 10-year, and what would you make of those levels, and is it rising to

fast, at the moment, or is this still a steady rise? >> so the initial rise which was the first full week of january, was too fast and that's why the fed intervened this one has been more moderate. if you put up also the yield curve, you will see that the yield curve, the 2.10 and the 2.30s are very compared to where they've been the last two years so i suspect the fed is looking at this. so far, the pace of increase has been moderate, and that's fine but if this was to accelerate, then the fed will have to face a choice, between letting it go, and risking the equity in the market or alternatively, going deep into yield control. and that's a terrible choice for the fed to have to face. >> we'll leave it there on that terrible potential decision. mohamed el-erian, thank you very much always good to talk to you from allianz. >> thank you. after the break, burger

king, parent restaurant brands, volatile on earnings and we will talk to the company's forward on the pandemic and the path forward as new york city resumes indoor dining. you're watching cnbc dow down about 53 points we see smarter software delivering cleaner power. emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize and improve the electric grid. emerson. consider it solved.

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restaurant brands out request the q4 earnings this week the company reported a mixed number with a beat on revenue but a miss on earnings and also saw comparable restaurant sales fall more than expected. joining us now for a cnbc exclusive interview, restaurant brands ceo jose cil. jose, great to see you again thanks for joining us. looks like the same store sales were declining, across burger king, tim horton's, popeyes, what was the problem, is it that people are eating breakfast at home >> hey, sarra, great to see you. thanks for having me actually, we were pretty encouraged with the performance, with some of our business in the fourth quarter sequentially, we saw improvements with each of our brands, popeye's in particular

was comping over the launch of the chicken sandwich in q4 of 2019, where we posted a plus 38%, same store sales look, and we had a great year throughout 2020, with the performance of the chicken sandwich and some of our other great product, great-tasting products at popeye's and tim horton's, we saw really good progress in q4 as well, we had our best performance of the year, in december, and we saw our drive-through business perform much better and so we were encouraged by the progress we made on some of the key initiatives at tim horton's as well and at burger king, we were negative for the quarter but we saw some improvements towards the end of the quarter and made some investments in long-term value proposition, which we think is really critical, to the business, and also in all of our products with the real whopper 100 launch which is a whopper free of any artificial ingredients or flavors, which is a big step forward for our customers. >> a number of banks did cut the price target for your stock.

and the stock was lower. one of the concerns was that it appears, especially burger king, is underperforming, some of the global fast food peers why is that? >> we had a couple of quarters at burger king where we think we had an opportunity to invest long-term in some key initiatives, with key platforms, i think we've been a bit, a bit spotty in terms of our promotional activity, and we wanted to build some platforms that are going to be there for the long term, for the benefit of our customers, value, an every day value proposition with the dollar menu is one key step in that direction, in addition to that we made investments in our core product, like the whopper, as i mentioned earlier. we're looking at a chicken sandwich, we started the process of testing that, in various markets around the country, and we're really excited about the quality of that product, and the impact that it can have on the business long-term we're also investing in breakfast and digital has been a big part of our business it's doubled in, digital business doubled in 2020 at burger king and we're now

testing and beginning the process of growing out a loyalty program which we think will be a best in class program, we'll have an impact on the drive-through, which is one of those areas, service modes, that's critical from a loyalty standpoint and where we're really excited about the long-term prospects and have a lot of work to do with our franchise partners to keep growing and building the business long term. >> jose, i also believe i'm right in saying you have tested accepting bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, in a few burger king stores around the world. can you update us on that? is there a plan to roll that out more broadly, including in the u.s. >> we had some news that came out on that a couple of years ago, out of our russia business, but we haven't, we don't have any plans in the immediate term to go down the path of bitcoin or any other currency. but we're always open to explore those alternatives and we'll continue to look at those. >> what's your expectation for getting back to comparable sales

growth, as economies do reopen, new york, 25% indoor dining, a place that a lot of the rest of the country has been for a while, what do you expect to see in terms of traffic and trends >> we have been investing quite a bit in 2020, even in the face of the pandemic, the challenges that everyone has been dealing with we invested and doubled down in technology we were doing that already prior to the pandemic. and obviously, saw the acceleration of the digital business in 2020 we ramped up our expenses on the g & a front to higher better engineers to help us on that front, and we slew stroou as a key part of our growth with all three brands, with popeye's and burger king across the globe and we crossed 6 billion in digital sales in 2020 and more than doubled our digital business in our home markets in addition to that we are investing in quality foods and continuing to make investments on the growth side with tim's, and on the food quality side at

burger king and popeye's, and we think that's a massive opportunity. we've made big progress in 2020, and are accelerating 2021, on the digital menu board front, outdoor menu board, the drive through experience is very important for our business and investing that and making that a modern and incredibly experience experience is critical for our business and then finally, we're investing in sustainability, we're investing in initiatives that we think long-term customers and our guests really expect from us to be on the forefront of these initiatives, which are the things that are going to help us distinguish our brands, our great brand from others in the same space we're excited about the long term plans and the investments we made on food quality, they're beginning to pay dividends, and tim's, in canada, at the popeye's and burger king, and we're expecting long-term growth, and i think the final piece, we're excited about the growth prospects, restaurant growth, it is important for our business, our franchisees are

excited about that and we have a really optimistic views of our growth of our long term trends in the u.s. and canada and across the globe. >> i wanted to ask about food price inflation. i presume you welcome a little bit of food price inflation. is that right? but at the same time you're a little concerned it's going a bit faster than you would like to see >> yes, pricing has been, an inflation and commodities, and our business, has always been a part of it we are watching it closely we're monitoring it closely. we want to be able to focus on bringing in more guests into our restaurants. we think traffic ultimately is the healthiest measure of performance, in our business, and we continue to focus on driving more people into our restaurants, through our technology, through our drive throughs, through our great-tasting products that are part of our core menus and continue to innovate on all fronts to bring more guests into the restaurants. >> finally, jose, just wanted to ask you about the minimum wage president biden wants to increase it to $15 per hour. i assume you've studied what

that would mean. would you be having to cut stores, and employees, if that were to come into federal law? >> we've been dealing with wage inflation for quite some time, and you know, almost half the country, the states in the country today, in the u.s., have some sort of inflation, or wage increase planned over the coming years, and so our franchisees and our partners around the country and canada as well, they've been managing and working through the challenges of inflation on the wage front ultimately, our focus is on delivering great experiences to our guests, with great teams in the restaurant, and the top line needs to grow, and be accelerating, to grow at a pace faster than wage and commodity inflation. we have a lot of initiatives on the drive-through, through digital as well, to help with productivity and through-put and we're confident that working together withour franchise owners and deliver great experiences will be able to continue to grow profitably, for all three brands in our home

markets and across the globe >> jose, thanks so much for joining us much appreciate it. >> thank you have a great day. up next is, wall street warming up to bitcoin? we've got some new reporting on how america's banking giants are thinks about crypto in light of the furious rally and corporate adoption as we go to break, check out the tickers on cnbc.com. disney to the tops the list today. no gamestop for once despite gamestop gaining today, about a third of 1%. slipped. it was higher. earlier. tilray ndl.suia a couple of the marijuana stocks there. we're back in a couple of minutes.

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getting closer to adopting bitcoin, sources telling cnbc, thanks to internal pressure at big lenders. cnbc.com broke the story and joins us now, hugh, great to see you, great story, and great stuff on jpmorgan this week more broadly. my top question, on this, is jpmorgan considering getting into bitcoin in order to be able to trade it and hold it for their asset management clients or is it a genuine means of exchange and payment across the whole entire bank? >> how you are, by the way, thanks specifically, we're looking at jpmorgan and when i talked to the co-president daniel pinto, it's in the context of trading so it's in the context of, you know, you've got asset management clients, you've got hedge funds, institutional

investors, maybe pensions, who want to own this, and who want to purchase it, and so they're going to match buyers and sellers potentially, sometime down the road. now the trigger for that, according to, you know, daniel, in a conversation with me, is they need enough critical mass for management reasons for buyer, and as you guys know, we've had a huge hedge funds come on air and talk about their case for bitcoin, and you know, you just had a lot of capitulation, in the industry, in terms of people saying, okay, i get it now, i'm interested, this is a hedge against inflation, a hedge against dollar, and increasing inquiries from not just employees but also from clients. >> wasn't jamie dimon one of the biggest vocal critics? i think out there with warren buffett of bitcoin calling it a hoax or a fraud? so does it suggest that they've changed their tune completely? >> so he's called it a fraud that will blow up and warren

buffett as you well, rat poison squared. so this is in the 2017 time frame. and you got to remember, three years in the context of crypto is, you know, a decade in the regular world, and you know, he's personally said he regretted saying that. so we'll get that on the record. but specifically, look, i'll give you an example. jpmorgan has a mobile only bank in the u.k why are they doing that? they're experimenting. they know they cannot afford to be closed minded about innovation they can't be close minded about these new technologies and if clients like it, they're going to say it's not up to us to decide whether or not this is good or bad for jpmorgan if our clients want us to be in this, then we will have to join them on this journey, and that's essentially what pinto has told me >> great stuff thanks for joining us. and don't forget to read hugh's full story, cnbc.com. still ahead, we'll talk more about bitcoin's path to the mainstream,when we're joined b

the chief strategy officer from coin shares. and new plays to play the economic recovery and some under the radar cloud plays and not microsoft and salesforce we'll discuss. and check on bonds again, as we head to break. crossing 1.2% on the 10-year crossing% on the 30-year % on t. . 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.

dow down 33 points time for the daily coronavirus tracker. according to the cdc, the u.s. has now administered a total of 36 million doses of vaccine with 11 million people receiving both doses. the pace of new cases is trending lower, with the total now standing at 27 million meantime, astrazeneca says it is fixing manufacturing problems with its vaccine, and expects to double monthly production to 200 million doses by april and japan's first batch of vaccines have arrived. the country expects to start giving the pfizer shot in the

middle of next week. time for a cnbc news update with courtney reagan >> hi, will. here's what is happening at this hour highway workers finishing the cleanup of the massive pileup in ft. worth, texas, blamed for at least six deaths over 130 vehicles were involved in accidents, only five of the dead have been publicly identified. the head of the world health organization says a preliminary report on the origins of the coronavirus is expected next week he says more analysis is needed before a final report can be issued in the coming weeks. defense lawyer for president, former president trump trying to turn the tables in the impeachment trial they showed video of democrats using the word "fight," in an attempt to convince senators that trump's statements ahead of the capitol hill riot were no more incendiary than comments by top democrats. watch the news with shepard smith tonight, for more analysis of today's proceedings and

what's next in the trial that's thecnbc news update for this hour. back to you. >> thank you, courtney. 27 minutes left of trading shares of newell brands sharply lower despite an earnings beat and up next, we will talk to the company's ceo about the move and what products in the portfolio are winners and losers check out shares of quantumscape and fisker today, soaring today and we will break down what is charging up the e.v. stocks later on closing bell. you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most and $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

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newell brands, maker of household names including paper made, coleman's crock pot and many more announced earnings that beat expectations and saw strength in theed if and commercial units as officers remain closed and americans continue to work from home shares are falling today joining us for an exclusive interview, ravi saligram, newell brands ceo welcome, ravy. good to have you on the show talk us through the portfolio. it felt very covid-related what seems to be working right now for consumers and what doesn't? >> sara, thank you for having me on the show. yes, indeed, it was a great

second half this year, and a great quarter. with our sales up by the second half 6%, in the quarter, 4.9, and a lot of this was we had tremendous growth in our food business the food business is up 25% in calendar 2020. brands like rubber made, ball jars, a lot of this is with covid, with the stay at home, you went from people who started as hygiene related, but now have become home chefs, and they're using our brands, we sold 600,000 food savers, so it's just been terrific our commercial business with the focus on sanitation, on washrooms, sanitizers, we launched rubber made stands, contact-less stands, and washroom, and we put 3.5 million

dispensers out there and created about 30 billion hand washes. so those two businesses have been great the small appliances business has been great in the kitchen. so those were the drivers. we've leveraged the consumer trends and our brands have been gaining market share so we're quite pleased and the team's done a great job. >> why isn't the outdoor section of the portfolio done better i'm surprised with people having to spend so much more time outdoors right now. >> yeah, that's a great question coleman, which is our flag ship brand actually has had a terrific year, after many years of lackluster sales, this year, coleman has really grown, both in the u.s., and internationally, it's also gained share we've been, it's the 120 anniversary, and we put out great innovation on dome tents and the fresh start cooler

business, it has not only grown sales but also gained share. so the coleman part has been great for outdoor equipment. we've had challenges in our, in the same business, we have brands called contigo which are beverage containers which are on the go and people are not on the go as much and technical brand, the marma business, and that struggled because the whole apparel business has been struggling, but our core business, with the predominant brand of coleman has been doing very well and we've just run a campaign for a call to outdoor, and very positive, and the other thing, sara, is that eight million new campers have come in this year, because of covid-19, you had more interest, and coleman's benefitted from that, as a brand that is highly trusted >> robbie, one of the things we were talking about earlier when we were prepping was your candles business, which on one level seems to be suffering quite a lot from the past year,

and why have people ceased buying candles during a pandemic >> well, actually, our candle business, our only issue was the second quarter, where there was a total lockdown in massachusetts, where our factory is and so other than that, so it was, and that's the quarter we actually produced to build up inventory for like the fourth quarter, but candles has actually done very well. they've gained share we're getting distribution in a lot of places. consumption of candles is up quite a bit. we've been getting growth now. and in january, we're seeing tremendous improvements. so because people want serenity, they're lighting up candles, we've got different innovations coming out, both outdoor candles, and indoor ones, and i did fusers, and diffusers and auto, people aren't driving as

much but the core candle business with yankee candle, and our other brands, are really doing well >> i feel like your sales haven't done quite as well robbie, as some of the -- ravi, as some of the other consumers during the pandemic because others seem to have a more discretionary tilt toward the portfolio and i wonder what that mean force the second half and into next year, if we get, say a plus 5% gdp, and a lot of the banks are expecting, what does that do for your business? >> so i think the way to think about it is, look, most, many of our categories, in brands, we actually grew market share and so that's a bit positive but when you have a durable, it's not like laundry detergent, or dishwashing liquid, where there is every week repeat, right? so you have a food saver machine, which is like $100, people are not going to go buy it over again but the amount of

food savers we've sold, there is a consumer group, which is bag, and so we expect a lot of repeat purchase on bags, next year, in 2021 so the one business that is more like a consumable is our writing business, and that has actually, because of the pandemic, because people have been working from home, schools have been closed, so that has had an unfavorable impact and that's one of our biggest businesses, but what we're seeing is, starting in september, our consumption actually started increasing, on our writing business, and it's continued now, as a positive sign importantly, we launched a terrific innovation, this pen, sharpie gel, and sharpie was always in markers but we launched pen, and it has just been an amazing hit. just in the fourth quarter, sharpie s-gel, the sharpie pens, we just doubled our share in the

gel pen market, and the total writing business market share went up about 130 bips in the fourth quarter, and for the year, it's grown a little, so we've made some remarkable progress in pens, and that has been a great area, and that has is a more consumable type so we think as schools reopen next year, this summer, we think it will be more normal back to school year, so i think that is going to be quite good so i think we're kind of a hybrid, in terms of what some parts of the portfolio which are durables and some of which are more consumer consumables, and the important thing though is, where we're in many of our categories, which is not true for, because we're in a turn-around now, because we're actually gaining market share, and that to me is a very positive look. and the food business, every one of our brands, rubber maid

systema, ball, food saver, they all gained share and they are also launching a lot of innovations, and when we expect, we guided today, that we will have low single digit growth, and definitely the first half which we have more visibility to, we think we will have a strong first half, very, we gave good strong guidance for growth, in the first quarter >> ravi, thanks so much for joining us much appreciated >> thank you so much. straight ahead, nvidia slips and ev stocks soar we'll break down the biggest movers when we take you inside the market zone next the s&p is up 0.3% at emerson, our software is shepherding medicines through every step of the cold chain, helping track conditions to keep each dose safe and effective. emerson. consider it solved.

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13 minutes left in the trading day. we are now in the closing bell market zone. all of the options going into the close. the top markets commentator, here to break down the crucial moments of the trading day as always and today we have jim back from morgan stanley wealth management welcome, jim we will kick it off with the broader markets. major averages are on track for weekly gains looks like we are at record closes the dow is under pressure but coming back and a pretty tight range today, mike. what is the thread, the lack of catalyst, it seems like, has meant the market just continues higher, on hope of stimulus and vaccines. >> right, it's gone sideways roughly speaking for three or four days, just up less than a percent from monday's close, but still you would say that there is no selling pressure, there's nobody that seems to be out there actively rethinking the

basic premise for a lot of the market guidance. clearly somebody will, clearly some day we can get an overshoot and maybe not absorb some kind of a surprise headline but right now i ink it's covid cases are on the decline rapidly, you've obviously seen what is going on notice bond market, treasury yield with 11-month highs so everything is kind of rounding into place for this idea that we have this, you know, reopening momentum and whether we just press every market for, it from the moment, you know, at the moment it happens or not, that's been the trend and it's holding so far. >> jim, what level of yields is too high too quickly >> well, it is a very good point because i think the possibility of rates rise too fast, if inflation runs too hot, and rising oil prices, that combination is usually not good for the stock market with overshoots on interest rates and oil prices and the answer to your question, where does it become an issue for the market, i think we start talking

about it at 1.25 on the 10-year treasury and start really talking about it and fretting about it at 1.5% before we get to that point though, the underlying conditions, which is always want to look at first, as an investor, are good i mean when you have stocks trading higher and being confirmed by a rise in interest rates, and confirmed by rising commodity prices, particularly economically sensitive commodity prices like base metals, copper, et cetera, all of these markets are confirming to each other, and we're not having a lot of internal divergences to worry about. so these, i think you point to something that we will need to worry about, and we can talk about valuations, if you want to, but if we get that combination, of rising rates, and rising oil prices, that overshoot it a little bit, and we could, because some of the inflationary pressures are going to be real, rent prices are going up and used car prices and a lot of the measures of inflation, the inputs that we see on the cpi are starting to

flare up so it is definitely something to look out for but rit now, i think we're fine. >> as you can see, oil really ramping as yields have risen late in the session, oil is up 2.3% and energy the best performing sector so far today investors piled into the stock market this week at record levels bank of america saw more than $58 billion of equity inflows the largest ever in one week according to the firm. and a new report finds that stocks are trading at an increasingly rapid pace, and approaching levels not seen the pandemic sell-off in march while the burst of trading activity generally comes with higher volatility, that's not the case now, as the major averages are trading around all-time highs mike, clearly, particularly the inphles, as we look at the -- the inflow, as we look at the data today, the vix has fallen >> yes. >> but it still hasn't broke than 20 level. but it's much closer that it has been for a while. >> well, there's suspense there. we'll see how it closes today. it hasn't been under there since march of last year

but i think what all these things tell you, there's a new buying urgency in this market. it probably is, it's generating a lot of calls and it's a little bit too speculative, whether the huge volumes in stock options and the fact that we are seeing rising share volumes into a rising market, that is totally against the trend that's been in place for many years and it does show you definitely, you know, heavy animal spirit, glowing through this market -- flowing through this market so at some point it feeds into the case that people a are a little overconfident but on the other hand it provides a bid the demand for stocks right now is totally outstripping supply even though supply is driving as well >> jim, i guess the question is, how sustainable is it? >> well, i think it's sustainable, any time you have, you're coming out of a recession, and you have an economic recovery, usually your new bull markets are multi-year bull markets but in the very short term, we have some issues where if we look at that a-day moving average, and -- 50-day moving average and how main

standard deviations we are away from that, overbought in almost every sector and almost every category and sentiment has gotten a little too high and we may get to a point, maybe consolidation, maybe a small pullback, but michael's point, every time they try to sell the market off and they tried to a couple of weeks ago, even this week a couple of times we had lower open, the markets closed pretty strong. and a lot of that is we have new entrants into the stock market the steam, it feels a lot like the late '90s, which may sound off warning bells but there was a very heavy appetite for stocks and because of what happened afterwards, 2000, to 2003 and what happened in 2008, we really haven't seen this kind of enthusiasm for stocks since the late '90s, so it is healthy, i think it probably is multi-year, but in the very short term, we're probably a little stretched, and that is a little high, and we might need a pause or a refresh and i would caution about chasing things

>> nvidia reaving new pushback over the -- receiving new pushback over the plan to buy arm holdings >> big tech pushing back alphabet, google, and microsoft and qualcomm have asked anti-trust officials to intervene according to bloomberg which says the companies are worried that they won't have equal access to arm technology, which remember is everywhere underpinning all sorts of products and devices from smartphones to tablets to pcs, nvidia countering telling cnbc, we're confident that both regulators and customers will see the benefits of our model and ensure a transparent, collaborative relationship with arm's licensees but susquehanna's chris roland says this news presents a challenge and the odds of this deal actually getting done is less than 50-50, having said, he is an nvidia bull and nvidia remains one of best bets for

investors on ai and data use back to you. >> josh, thank you. mike, this is always going to be a question for the nvidia arm deal regulatory approval in the u.s. and in the u.k. and in china does it change anything to hear that google, microsoft and qualcomm are protesting it >> i mean it certainly could prolong the process. maybe it creates new hurdles for when this deal gets completed or under what terms so i don't think the market is panicking and saying the deal is off, of course the market loved the idea of the transaction when it happened for nvidia, the stock was at a high it backed off 2% probably makes sense for the added uncertainty. it's not a matter of betting the company, right a little more than 10% of the market cap reflected in the value of the arm deal. so maybe it is about exactly how they treat the int elect ule property and license can and all the rest of it and which means kmetd tors are concerns with it when it comes to arms ip. >> and what do you make more broadly of this sector, the chip strength >> i think it's one of the really nice, best things for you to watch

first of all, their storage, semiconductors, particularly certain kinds, semiconductor manufacturing, but semiconductors have led this market, and they have not wroeken down, it is one of the best indicators that you can watch. you've got earnings there. and a lot of people, they have been over the last several years, have said, to tech heavy, this market is too tech heavy but the reality is semiconductors are a leading indicator for the economy and the stock market as well and as long as the stocks are hett hitting new highs, i think can feel pretty good about the overall market we had banksand energy stocks. we had a lot of rotation in this market but where did all of that rotation go? and when we see big cap names like the banks type stocks go sideways the semiconductor group is new high ground and it speaks well for the technology and the sector and the mark as well. >> morgan stanley out with a new note on electric vehicles. let's gets to phil lebeau with

more. >> and when adam jonas at morgan stanley talks, people listen and they're listening today. two call, really four calls and let's do with the two that went higher quantumscape and fisker and adam out with the initial and overweight them and the stocks are up more than 20% up, with quantumscape, bullish on the fact that they had great bb&t technology, or the potential for great battery technology and a relationship with volkswagen that could pay off. remember, quantumscape reports its q4 results on tuesday. and then with fisker, adam jonas says the asset light approach, that's pretty attractive rather they're partnering with magna to build their first vehicle and likely more of their vehicles so as you take a look at shares of fisker, you see that fisker also moving higher, and none of these stocks by the way are anywhere close to where they were after they had their spac ipos in the fourth quarter and then on the down side, take a look at lordstown motors and romeo power. both of those are rated

underweight by adam jonas. basically says, look, there's some issues there that people need to take a look at once again, when he speaks, people listen. especially when it comes to electric vehicles. guys, back to you. >> thanks so much for that. mike, take us into the brief mention of the e.v.s and tesla. >> and tesla, we got this big market on close order for a lot of the big, you know, nasdaq names, and down 4% with tesla, there are our o options, and don't have a monopoly you got to watch those relationships. watch it all and the internals actually are basically mixed. we got this little spurt higher in the market. it did turn breadth positive, 1700 versus 1500 declines so that is certainly a net positive taking a look at the sector work i forgot what i asked for here, guys let's see the chart. crude oil. up big and another reflation trade.

and all of this today, we had an inventory drop, this is now at well more than a one-year high, pushing $60 a barrel volatility index, mentioned earlier, skirting that 20 line nothing imagine pick it. except there is a sense out there. we haven't closed here since march of last year, actually haven't traded over there, and there is a sense that some systemic quant strategies will basically increase their equity exposure as volatility recedes below this 20 mark it is sort of another thing that ratifies the market at a high. >> crude oil definitely worth paying attention to, as well as other commodities which are surging. copper is near the highest level since october of 2012. lumber is trading at an all-time high with less than one minute left to go before the close, dow has turned higher. on the session just barely. the s&p 500 also higher. we are looking at a record close for the s&p. and for the nasdaq and there is the dow, and just in the final moments got a little lift. what's driving it? intel's the best performer jpmorgan and goldman sachs are

doing well disney the worst performer despite better numbers on the streaming disney plus. all four major averages closing the session higher on a friday and for the week nasdaq and s&p 500, closing out with a record high, each gaining about half a percent a piece >> record high there for the s&p 500. let's check in on where we finished as sara said, back into the green for all of the major averages down 83 at the low but gaining very nicely, as you can see, in that last hour or so of trade. positive territory close up 30 points only 10 basis points, a percent for the week as a whole. and s&p, up. and nasdaq up half a percent 1.7% for the week as a whole and the russell has been more volatile, but also closing with the biggest gains, 2.5%. and energy the big mover today on 1.4%.

and materials the other sector, and utilities. coming up, a cnbc exclusive with the ceo of go daddy, we will break down the company's earnings report and how the work from home trend could impact his business senior vice president is still with us, and sara malik, chief investment officer, $350 billion global equity division, joins the conversation, and a good afternoon to you, sara mike, i will start with you. broad markets. nice little ramp into the close. ahead of course of a long weekend. and the vix did it at the close just below 20. positive end to the week, no doubt about it. >> no doubt. a positive end to the week and the fact that the market, after a six-day win streak, went sideways, for basically two or three days, and most of the reports showed that there wasn't that much pent-up selling pressure out there it's really thesame story. it's basically, you know, very loose financial conditions, credit market, very, very strong, and everybody seem sees

the trajectory of growth, and steepening yield curve and what is the message the market is trying to send it's a positive one. and honestly, the same thing, we keep saying is the only problem is, once everybody believes it, and bets to hard in that direction, that's the time that probably this rally will have to take a break, whether it's the gr overaggressive flows or the speculative stuff creates instability at the edge of the market as we saw with the gamestop episode. >> the crude oil climb, sara, do you see that, as a cyclical explanation? because the economy is looking up and we're going to get all of this stimulus and that's why energy stocks continue to soar here to the top of the market? >> it's a combination of better supply/demand dynamics as we reopen the economy, and these companies are becoming much more disciplined with supply. but it's also a story of better control and cash generation by some of the winners in the energy sector and these companies that can provide a bridge to renewable fuel so there's a clear winners and

losers in the energy sector like pioneer and eqt which are strong in the permian basin and also strong in bridge technologies to renewable future. >> jim, what energy name does you hold, if any >> i like energy quite a bit and while i agree with what saira had to say, she left out a very important point, and that is federal land, and that could ultimately disrupt supply or at least the amount that we produce here in the united states. who does that hurt probably hurts refiners, probably hurts the service companies. who does it help domestic emp companies that are particularly confined to private lands and don't have a lot of exposure to the public lands so i like many of those companies, as well as the majors, the majors are going to do very well, they have nice dividends, and when you look at a price equivalent basis on energy stocks, you look at the dividend yield on energy stocks, you've got to really, a really compelling story in a market, where a lot of areas have really moved over the last several years, without energy, so you

have this rotation story going on with energy, too. so it's kind of got everything economic recovery. some supply constraints. and the other thing that's happening with the market, and particularly, some of these areas that get hot, when people are trading them, is this is a market that a lot of people are using leverage on. and i expect leverage will be used in this industry, whether it's share buybacks, or leveraged buyouts. so a lot of good things going on in the industry space. particularly for domestic. >> and it doesn't have the esg factor, which is so much in demand, by funds and investors, everywhere right now, and last year, when oil prices were falling, that was just added to one of the concerns, as to why people were taking capital out of these companies so is there, has there been a pivot there or is it just not as important as we thought, jim >> it's kind of like what happens when we have one of these mass shootings and everybody's worried that all of a sudden they're going to outlaw guns and then you start to look

at the stocks of these gun makers and they're just going through the roof so when you limit supply of something that's still going to be in very high demand, it doesn't really matter whether it's esg or not. now, when you look at the makers, sara, you're also looking at a much broader story, than fossil fuels. you're looking at chemical companies, that they own chemical businesses that they own, but the bottom line is, we just can't get to wind and solar providing enough energy to where we don't need these fossil fuels any time soon. and for that matter, you have to use them to build electric cars, you have to use them to power electric cars. so whether it's esg or not, the story is going to be around for fossil fuels for quite some time. >> so what you make of the way in which we saw the vix fall below 20 today, just before the close? is that bullish for equities or do you in fact, think it's just temporary and we're going to see elevated toll violent for

t -- elevated volatility for the year ahead >> i think there is elevated volatility for the year ahead as we look at inflation and is stimulus going to be enough or too much but right now it is earnings that is driving the markets higher, i don't think earnings growth is completely priced into the market you're seeing that with these strong double digit earnings beats across the board the issue though is that earnings growth is a bit back end this year, as the stimulus comes into play and the vaccine rolls out. and there is more volatility as the year goes on but the news right now is overhang and more is behind us and it is zrdrivenb upside rather than valuation. >> and cloud stop has been outperforming the broader market what are your top picks? >> looking at digital, it is going to become much more important as we exit the pandemic and there's going to be three key factors this the winners have one is a competitive advantage due to computational scale second is broad-based

applications that is not just about streaming. it goes to energy exploration. it goes to smart meters and utilities. and finally, strong backlogs we saw that today with hubspot and today up 15% with over 40% customer account growth just two weeks ago, this stock was at 350 today, it's at 500 and there's an opportunity during volatility, with some of these hedge funds bailing out of quality companies, to meet margin requirements, and other companies we like that weren't as strong today, service now, and ana plan, forecasting, strong in forecasting and these are all as we exit the pandemic in crowded cloud sector. >> and mike, what do you make of this inflows, into equities data is that a bear sign? or is it bullish in the short ternal at least? >> the answer is yes because it's bullish in terms of showing that there is broad public sponsorship that there's demand out there. that essentially, people are buying high, and looking to sell

higher or just essentially saying we need to have a greater allocation to play this multiyear perhaps growth cycle but definitely can get overdone, in the short term. and when you do see the real rushes of inflows in the short period of time, you definitely have to start to think how does it build toward a contrarian case that maybe it's going to be a negative so i would look in particular at some of the sectors where the flows are going, and i know tech had a big haul recently, in this past week or so, so that sometimes does show you the ebb and glow of sent meant a little bit too much, you know, of a good thing, right now. >> it ask be a fine line between healthy participation that you'd like to see, in the early part of the cycle, and a bull market, and overheating, and over exuberance in this market where are we right now >> i think we're further from overheating than people may be concerned about. but there is some risk of an inflationary overheating, a taper tantrum similar to what we

saw in 2018 where rates started to increase, but that is probably more likely a 2022 to 2023 problem and the fed s-has been messaging that they let the economy run kind of hot and i think right now what we're seeing with the vix and strong earnings growth, that are the keys to drive markets higher the rest of 2021. as long as these other things like stimulus and the vaccine stay in place, and we don't get too much of risk, from some of these new variants of covid-19, which again could cause the economy to roll over again, if we don't have vaccines in place to zeal with that. >> jim and sara, we'll leave it there. thank you both for joining us. >> thank you. straight ahead, wall street banks could be getting closer to adopting bitcoin but not every ceo is sold on that idea. we'll break down the future of digital banking with the chief strategy officer from coinshares, closing bell, back in 90 seconds. -well, audrey's expecting... -twins! grandparents! we want to put money aside for them, so...change in plans. alright, let's see what we can adjust.

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corporate america may be getting closer to embracing bitcoin. sources tell cnbc that the big banks have been feeling internal pressure to adop the cryptocurrency this becomes a part of tesla, mastercard and bny mellon announced bitcoin and the firm's ceo, on cnbc earlier today. >> first of all, i would like to think, i know there are skeptics so i'm always very careful that said, it is incredible how bitcoin and all of the cryptocurrencies have grown, and

i think at some point, skeptical or not, you have to listen to the market if you have an asset that's very valuable, looking at it, if it becomes an even exchange, that folks want to actually use it to buy their pelotons and use their outdoor items, and people will have to consider it. >> joining us now, metlem demirors, chief strategy officer at coinshare good afternoon thanks for joining us. let's pick up on the final points that max was talking about. how far away are we from bitcoin actually being used to make transactions for products and it becoming a genuine currency exchange >> great to be here. i can't believe it's the end of another week i'm hatchy that markets closed -- i'm happy that markets close. crypto markets don't close so sadly i have a whole weekend of this ahead i think matt's comments are spot on historically a lot of the engagement around bitcoin has been really around the stored value narrative, people buying it as an investment asset, as

opposed to a functional exchange, but that's starting to change and really rapidly. on a daily basis, they're over one million active bitcoin wallets on the bitcoin network now a lot of them are transacting on trading platforms, and other sorts of applications more related to financial cases but with the advent of the lightning network which is a payment network built on top of bitcoin and with the advent of stable coin, or a dollar-pegged currency that are built on top of public block chain networks, we're seeing a lot of activity that is more transactional in nature. and it's changing really, really quickly. >> when you see more corporate stories like we saw this week, mastercard and bny mellon exploring ways to be able to process transactions, tesla going further and buying bitcoin, do you fear in any way that that marks at least a short-term top in the price of bitcoin? >> no, i actually don't feel that way at all. elon musk so famously said in

hindsight, it was inevitable look, at the end of the day, companies are in the business of making money and i think again, what max lefchin said so well, money is to be made here and businesses have to pay attention and one telling market event will be a coin-base ipo in the future and it will be listed, as it is predicted a $70 billion valuation and the seventh largest bank in the united states by market capital lizati. despite the traditional finance space and there is a shift to digital. content is king. and distribution is queen. and she wears the pants. so it is all about distribution channels and at the end of the day the way the financial products are distributed, it is changing rapidly. look at robinhood and the new fin tech platform. and look at amazon an facebook and google and walmart getting into the game and distributing financial services ikea launching a credit card

it's not just limited to financial services but this is about a fundamental shift in the way that products and services are being distributed. and bitcoin and digital currency in my view are a huge part of that story and we're just now in the beginning of this story unfolding. >> when it comes to companies, i feel like we're talking about two different issues, there are those like tesla that are converting cash into bitcoin, and on the balance sheet, and then others, many others, accepting it, as a service which is a difference. i don't understand why a company would do the cash thing. i get the services, they want to participate in the growth and go where the consumer is going and if there's interest, get in on it, like paypal, but why would they actually do that to their cash assets, i mean wouldn't that be a huge risk? >> so look, i was a corporate treasurer at exxonmobil when it was still one of the largest companies in the world, and right now, we're looking at 2.6% real inflation, rates are at

zero, and treasuries, in the portfolio diversifiers that drive return as they're looking at the universe of alternatives, there are a number of options out there. and bitcoin is an attractive one. in addition, i think the question is, what will the multiple creation accretion be for people who people who allocate to bitcoin. in the case of micro strategy, that is a very extreme approach allocating to bitcoin but the multiple is there in that firm and that leadership has benefitted from that move. same thing that we saw with square tesla, their reaction was maybe not quite the same but as we see more and more examples of different firms allocating their treasury assets to bitcoin, their real question for me is, what does that mean does that have an impact on multiples that investors and allocators assign to businesses? and if there is a positive effect there, i would expect that that strategy would be replicated across the entire s&p 500. >> what happens if the price goes down? i mean we saw it climb to record

highs back in 2017 and then it crashed. so what happens to all of this discussion, and the adoption, and all of the things that you are trying to encourage, and really believe in, if we see that kind of volatility again? >> that's such a great question and one that we deal with a lot. i've been in this business for six years. bitcoin share, 4 billion in assets under management. and the cyclical nature of bitcoin has been part of the story for some time. i think part of the conversation is around the sick scalls, sort of volatility -- cyclical, sort of volatility of bitcoin which operates in cycles like we've seen with any other asset but if we look at the secular trend around bitcoin and the supply and demand fundamentals, in an environment where fiat currencies are being debased due to nide, and i think the cyclical trends may be volatile in the short to medium trend but the secular trend which is what we're really looking at here bode very well for bitcoin and gold by the way and other assets that are inherently

deflationary in nature >> thank you for joining us. good luck with that weekend work watching bitcoin >> market 24/7, a new frontier but in the age of all things digital, we are all online all the time and i suspect capital marks will be online all the time soon. >> thank you. nearing a top? mark santoli heads over to the telestrator with a deep dive on a potential sell signal for the market. >> and shares of go daddy are sinking today on the back of earnings but did see record customer ads last year during the pandemic we will discuss it all with the company's ceo in just a bit. and as a reminder, you can always watch or listen to us live on the go, on the cnbc app. we'll be right back. s 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.

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stocks finished theday at record high gaining more than 1% for the week let's go back to mike santoli taking a look at a potential sell signal for the market what is it, mike >> potential is the key word here this is bank of america's bull/bear indicator. it is made up of a composite of market behavioral things actual positioning, flows,

credit spreads, things like that, not just what people say, and you see here, well on the rise, it's just below, as of today, this threshold, where the firm basically says it is time to be on a contrarian basis, looking to sell or reduce risk or expect some kind of correction i think what's significant about it is many other indicators have been in this mode for a while. showing the market to be you fork or overheated this one was not so the strategy group is saying not yet, not yet, not yet. so maybe it is still going to be not yet but we're in the far away i would point out 2018, january of 2018 was the last time you actually crossed above that. it did coincide with a short-term market peak it was down, we had a correction, it did not end the bull market and prior instances, were somewhat similar coming off of these massive rallies and just time to consolidate and break down a little bit and it is really a matter of, let's look at whether risk is growing, because people are already very aggressively positioned or not and i think that's pretty much where we are across the board right now.

>> well, i think the other question, mike, is what do you do if we are about to see a correction, is it a buy, should you buy for the long term, long term investor, should you hold on, and it sounds like consensus, and i think bank of america, in this note, agrees that it's a long-term bull story, that you should buy >> yes and basically, where we are, in terms of the economic cycle, where we are in terms of what the credit markets are saying, where we are in terms of how the fed has postured, all of those things suggest that corrections are probably not the big one they're not going to be the major topic, but remember, we had a market, less than a year ago, and they tend not to sort of pile on themselves, like this, but honestly, if we keep barrelling higher in the same fashion, it'sjust going to raise the risk and it is going to make that eventual correction more severe, more damaging than one that happens sooner. >> looking at the factors that my say this time is different

and it can prolong an extreme bull for longer, what, i guess we've never had any comparable example, where you have stimulus checks, pouring into potentially the market, but either way, into consumers' hands, i mean we talk a lot about the monetary policy, that's been there for a while already, this next stimulus bill, could that extend the extreme bullishness? >> i think so. i think you've got whatever the number is, if it is $6 trillion tote until aggregate, and in terms of a fiscal push by the time this is all done, you have never really seen that you have never seen a market go from, an economy go from late cycle, to early cycle, to recovery, to new highs, this quickly. so i do think that you can argue that we have this sort of, we have to sort of maybe adjust our scales of valuation and behavior that maybe this can carry on for longer but the rules of kind of market physics don't change. human behavior is what it is people get carried away. and it becomes too easy for a

while. and then all of a sudden it becomes hard. >> mike, thanks so much. shares of go daddy shipping on the back of the full year report we will discuss what the company is seeing for e arthye ahead and how work from home could impact the company. the ceo joins us after the break.

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go daddy announcing q4 earnings yesterday beating expectations the company adding 1.4 million users in 2020 yearly double the number added in 2019 for a total

of more than 20 million customers. despite the add, the stock fell more than 7% today joining us now in an exclusive is go daddy ceo, aman bhutani. welcome back to the show great to have you. >> great to be back, thank you >> it looked like a beat across all metrics. this quarter and for guidance. did you hear any concerns from investors? why did the stock fall so sharply today? >> we are coming off a huge week, sara we closed the point acquisition this week, and that means new commerce capabilities for our customers. but here's the earnings release, like you said we beat on the financial metrics, huge drive for us going forward, accelerating bookings growth over the last three quarters and announced a couple of retirements later this year and perhaps a little bit of risk around hat, that we're seeing, but short term in the market, we never know why the stock is moving up or down, but over the medium and long term, we know fundamentals will come back every quarter to deliver

results. >> yes, it does raise questions, whenever i see retirings in a surprise way and the cfo and the chief legal officer. any reason why that is all happening simultaneously >> you know, we have been close confidantes since i joined the company and being at the company for 18 years and wants to go to the next phase of life and retire and a cfo, he wants the next thing for himself, so they talked to me, on a personal level, and you know, they're communicating to the company and committed to their roles and will be with us and help with the transition and help with selecting new people for their roles, we have fantastic internal candidate, we are a great company and we expect great candidates externally, too. it is just natural course. >> and it is as simple as companies that don't have a web site yet, having to do that for the first time >> you know, you see the growth in small businesses, right,

those people are coming online, with stores closed, because of covid, these folks are very creative, they're moving online quickly, and you can see that growth in the primary and secondary market for us on their names, more people coming in, going online, doing more online and that's one of the reasons why it grew very well for us >> and i guess a lot of people would say you are the go to or one of the go to people, if you needed a domain, and you wanted to start setting up a web site are you yet, and when may you be, the go to place for a full service offering, particularly when it comes to e-commerce. i know you are adding those, and the likes of shop fy, have slightly moved ahead and grabbed a lot of share in the last few years. >> yeah, i love the fact that we are the entrant, we are used to the domain business, the web site business, being the big player and here we are in commerce, the person that is disrupting we're creating a seamless intuitive experience that goes across all the commerce needs that our customers have.

you know, we've done service with our customers we have focus groups with them our customers want products, the way we offer them. and we always back them up with guidance and care, the human guidance and care that we provide. so we work with the micro businesses they need the tools. they need them to be simple. and they want human beings to help them. and we do that better than anyone else. >> and which is why some might be surprised you were able to double the customers over the last year during a pandemic. where all the talk has been pain for small businesses, and pressure on small businesses, and they're closing left and right, so talk about where the new growth is coming from. >> sara, our customers are creative, and still finding room to improve in 2020 and where that comes from, these micro businesses, if they see setbacks, because of covid, they have to wake up tomorrow morning, and they do something, and they're creative, they find a different way to do it, they come to go daddy, we help them

get online, it opens new doors for them i can tell you so many stories of customers who have never been online before, that went online, with go daddy in the last year, and that's what you are seeing, in the extremely fast customer growth in 2020 >> how can you further monetize that growth? are you adding more services, adding your overall revenue per user >> our average revenue per user today is about $160, but over 20 million customer, right? but that same customer base, you know, stays with us, if you do the math, at least for seven years. and we're offering more and more for them we started with domains years ago. today we have web sites, over the last year, we've been talking about commerce, and our platform, it is going very, very quickly. just last quarter, we showed the street that we had about $4.5 billion of gmv transacting on two of our main platforms. that number accelerated to 7 billion this quarter over quarter. so customers are finding success

in our platforms and that gives us so much opportunity to improve over the next year. >> aman, what are you seeing in terms of new business formations and new entrepreneurs, because the small business closings do get a lot of attention, and all of the pain that's out there, but you know, you've seen it in a recession, so many new businesses are born. >> yes, huge number of businesses are being born. we all have that data. but one of the things we looked at, is that we compared the 2020 data, to the 2007 data which had similar impacts to small businesses, where we had the recession, lots of businesses were hurting, and what we found is that a lot of businesses were formed in 2007 as well. and then we tracked the bookings from those businesses, over the next ten years and that was a fantastic forward for us and when we look at 2020, it is the best quarter we've ever gotten yes there is pressure on small business yes we want governments to do more yes, we wants all of the

stimulus, or a ton of it to go to small businesses, because they make a difference in their local communities. but the fact is, these folks are resilient and they will come back and they will grow their businesses >> aman, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. we have a news alert on facebook, julia's got it for us. julia? >> well, facebook is reportedly working on a smart watch that it hopes to start selling next year, according to the information that cites source, this watch reportedly would work with a cellular connection, and connect with fitness apps such as pelotons and run on an open source version of google android software and facebook is reportedly working to build its own operating system for future hardware facebook of course moves into hardware with the vr headsets and the portal home devices but with the smart watch, there could be privacy pushback and it gives more insight into facebook saying is apple is its biggest competitor, something it put out there in the battle over the

apple operating system change. that's coming up back to you. >> thank you so much for that. still ahead, robbenhoo makes its way to capitol hill. we'll tell you what to expect from next week's hotly anticipated hearing on the gamestop craze. plus, the sunshine state, a big impact onthe florida real estate market. we will discuss the big names heading down south coming up

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time now for cnbc news update with courtney reagan. hi, courtney. >> here's what is happening at this hour. maryland has become the first state in the country to enact a tax on digital advertising and overrode a veto from governor hogan and the tax is likely to have legal challenges and watched by other states considering similar moves. digital music company spotify says it will let employees work from anywhere after the pandemic that includes home, office, or a combination of both. the company will also allow more flexibility around locations so employees will be able to choose the country and city in which they work. and italy has a new government, former european

central chief mario drogge has techno crates and politicians from across the broad coalition and the new team will be sworn in tomorrow. that is the cnbc news update for this hour. back to you. >> thank you. up next, manhattan venture partners joins us next, with the forecast for the rest of the year and the take on the big booming spacs. we will talk about that in a couple no one likes to choose between safe or sporty. modern or reliable. we want both - we want a hybrid. so do banks. that's why they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach helps them personalize experiences with watson ai while helping keep data secure. ♪ ♪ ♪ from banking to manufacturing, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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still lacking when it comes to the venture capital industry, according to 2018 data from nonprofit organization vc, african-americans made up of 3% of the vc industry and span ins made up 1% and in a survey of 638 firms, and nearly 90% have no black investors one investor working to increase representation in the industry is rashawn williams from manhattan venture partners along with being general partner of the firm's mvp all-star fund, a founding partner of genesburg venture fund which he helped to launch and manage with other parters, and he joins us now very good to see you thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. good to see you. so what is the biggest problem? is it a lack of investors like you? or a lack of target companies and those companies having access to capital when they're starting out >> well, from the top down, the

vc firms are used to recruiting companies from their network so if you're not a part of the stanford network or the silicon valley network, or the san francisco community, you've been largely overlooked and big pockets of african-americans, just don't populate in that area like they do in atlanta, or chicago, or new york but from the bottom up, the real issue, and this is what most people don't understand, is that before you even get to silicon valley, to raise a $5 million seed round, you already put your own money in, you have raised money from family and friends, you've raised money from angel investors, and there's just not a lot of people in the minority communities that have access to people who can write $100,000 check for the startup ipo. so we wind up creating businesses and seek capital at an earlier stage when other founders who have access to capital from the family and friends and angel community already have a business and a team and already have traction and revenue and it is real lay wealth gap issue from the bottom up then it is a community issue from the top down. just recruiting in the

communities that you coincide. >> is that being solved? is capital reach canthose businesses at least. even if there is a valuation issue, where perhaps black entrepreneurs are having to sell stakes in their company earlier and therefore a lower valuation? >> well, i think it's important to put it in context less than 2% of companies get venture capital funding to start with but here's how the problem is getting solved i would say it is kind of three main things. the first thing is, you see crowd funding. so now, minorities can reach out to their extended community and raise capital for these risky startup activities and that wasn't something that was around a decades ago, right so now you can go on social media and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars. and the second thing that is happening is the rise of the micro c. vcs, you're seeing a lot of corporations, a lot of investors ops who want to solve the problem and investing in these 20, $50 million vc funds, consider admire crow vc and

going and bringing the gap between the family and friends and angel investors that people from poorer kmurchts or communes or minority communities don't have access to and i would love to see the activity there and last but not least, i can't overlook this. beats by dre 50 cent vitamin water. the more popular a founder and investor becomes in pop culture, athletes and entertainers, it trickles down in our community, because we overindex in those particular industries. so you're starting to see a lot of venturists and a lot of athletes and entertainers investing in those seed rounds, where vcs won't e, even touch i yet because it is too early. >> like who? who should we keep an eye on >> i will give you my top five, i think these are guys doing the work and setting up their own venture capital funds and super smart. thadeus young of the chicago bulls. he is in every deal, that top tier vc firms want to be in.

and he has his mba while being in the nba for 15 years. number two, malcolm jenkins. he just launch adventure capital fund new orleans saints football player he's very active on the investing side a lot of respect for him guys like derrick morgan, and retired tennessee titan, josh chilldress, stanford grad, former nba player, and my favorite of all time, is actually jamal mashburn, i don't know if you are following him, and what he is doing but just an amazing portfolio of companies that he's invested in and most people don't know about it so i would say those are some of my favorites. >> when it comes to investing the mvp fund you just raised the fourth installment of this, are you finding it harder to find target companies and valuations that have been pushed up quite aggressively in the private market whether that's generally more money coming into the area or spacs, or anything else >>, no i think the narrative is companies are staying private longer so their revenues are growing with their valuation, right? so it's not a revenue valuation

mismatch it's more like companies used to go public after three to five years. and now, they're going public after ten to 15 years. so when we invested in spotify, back in 2017, people said it was overvalued when who he invested in docu-sign, around $16 a share. people said it was overvalued. when we invested in postmates and hotel tonight, and wish and so forth the story keeps continuing i've been hearing that late stage tech is overvalued for so long but if you look at now, the largest companies in america, they're all technology companies. a trillion plus market caps and a huge sea change and i think the people who really dig deep, thael' see that the majority of the revenue and profit growth, the s&p, over the last ten years, it has been in technology companies. so people want a part of that. so now all of the mutual funds are dipping into late stage privates, people who were traditionally public investors, wanting to get in a little earlier, because they have to wait ten to 15 years to get a bite of the apple now. >> i think one of your early

investments, one of your prior investments was in coin base, which is going public, and we've been talking a ton about bitcoin, and i was just wondering how much money is flowing there from the vc world and whether your a he, you're looking at other investments like that. >> we originally invested in coin base in 2013, and the company was at $30 million, and that's around the time when we were starting to get a lot of attention on digital currencies and cryptocurrencies and the block chain. our thesis was, we're not going to bet on a particular currency, we would rather bet on the casino, so we wanted to invest in the marketplace, and billions of other capital came to the company as well. and i think everyone agrees that you want to be in a market leader like a coin base, when you don't know who the winner will be in the individual currencies and some people speculate in the currencies and it is hard without fundamental analysis and it is coin boyce and it has worked well and i think this company will continue to dominate. >> what about robinhood, an

early investor there and this company seems to be pulling ahead with the ipo and do you think it can pull through with a wave of losses or potential regulatory action or at least regulatory scrutiny? >> i do, i do and i'm only laughing because half of my portfolio companies are facing lawsuits, and going through regulatory changes we invested in lyft. we're invested in draft kings. we're in the companies that are trying to change how business is done so i do think in spite of the recent volatility, the business principle is the same. if you look at their user growth if you look at their revenue growth and look at their market share, compared to their competitors. they're just dominating the industry, and they're growing at ten times the rate, as everyone else that they're competing with so we actually love robinhood, we hope that they pull through and they find a way to work with everybody, and we really think this company is going to continue to grow and continue to dominate just like that. >> rashaun williams, thank you to joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> we appreciate it.

up next, fleeing to florida. the pair of billionaires who are getting a lot of buzz today for their moving to the sunshine state. the details when we come back.

it looks like palm beach is

seeing quite the real estate boom with notable billionaires paying hefty prices to live there. robert has more. >> hey the most expensive home ef sold in florida just closed yesterday, price tag, $130 million. the buyer was scott shailer, the head of private equity he declined any comment. this was a property that actually used to be owned 2021 by donald trump. it was listed just last month for $140 million so a quick sale there close to the ask. less than a mile away billionaire investor david teper and his wife nicole woenlt under contract for $73 million unclear whether they will actually move to florida from new jersey the billionaire migration shows no signs of slowing in january, doubling over last year and prices for luxury properties in

palm beach were up 54% in the fourth quarter there are now more than a dozen properties in contract for $20 million. sarah, you could say who cares what a few billionaires are doing? they pay a lot of taxes in new york and new jersey. it starts to add up when these states cannot afford it. >> i was just going to say and trump's back in the neighborhood donald trump back in mar-a-lago. >> that's right. what a boom. up next, the robinhood ceo set to testify before the financial services committee next week we'll preview that event what all of wall street will be watching a big shortened holiday trading next week. everything you ever wanted to know about the consumer, you can find out on "closing bell" next week the ceos of companies as the consumer analyst of new york meeting kicks off. we'll be right back here on "closing bell. ™

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this fall, inspiration4 launches as the first all-civilian mission to space. and you could be on board. ♪ up above the world so high ♪ visit inspiration4.com for your chance to go to space. executives from robinhood, melvin capital and citadel securities set to testify next week kate rooney here with a prove. kate >> hey the hearing will be focused.

robinhood is at the center of that it's decision to limit trading to a few stocks is expected to be picked apart by congress members as well as its revenue model of selling customer trades not to be confused with citadel the hedge fun also started by ken griffin. expect to hear talk of clearinghouses and how long it takes for trades to settle look to shift some of the conversation to what it calls outdated back end systems. back to you. >> oh. sorry, kate. my apologies i thought sarah was picking up my bad thank you very much for that kate rooney. we look forward to the hearings. final minute of the show, s&p up 1.2% it felt like a bigger gain but a

nice ramp into the close showing optimism out there >> the real take-away was that no real sellers emerged to get in the way of this trend bread did battle r falter a bit micro cap stocks have been flying on the good side of that dynamic is you've seen these flareups in the gamestop as well as cannabis and they flame up and flame out and the market manages to absorb it and go its on own way at a certain point, we overshoot. never know where that point is >> what are you going to be watching for in the robinhood trial. >> i'm hoping some illumination happens. in other words, let's examine some of these practices. also what are we solving for right here you had a lot of clients

complaining that robinhood for operational reasons didn't let them by gamestop at $400 a share. now under 50 >> anyway, we -- >> it was a miss speak >> out of time here on "closing bell." "fast money" starts right now. >> i'm melissa lee and this is fast money money steve grasso, jeff mills, brian kelly and pete in a jerian las vegas casinos getting ready to open the doors a little wider. plus not clear for takeoff a second set back sending shares of virgin galactic tumbling. with two days left before valentines day we're taking a look at some of the most loved stocks on wall street. or will it be true love or heartbreak for these names big week for twitter