wanna build a gaming business that breaks the internet? that means working night and day... ...and delegating to an experienced live bookkeeper for peace of mind. your books are all set. so you can finally give john some attention. trusted experts. guaranteed accurate books. intuit quickbooks live. it is 5:00 a.m. in new york, 4:00 a.m. in dallas, texas, and here is your top five at five. stocks looking to build on records in a build way futures are pointing to solid gains. covid cases and hospitalizations falling dramatically all across the country. but a different kind of danger in the mid and southwest millions of families with no power or even no heat. ultra cold temperatures have power companies scrambling to find energy while buying it at huge premiums. bitcoin closing in on

50,000 more big firms getting into the crypto game. the latest prices ahead. now showing, a potential sign of things to come are overseas, the shares of i max china surged amid a record number of moviegoers doing their lunar new year holiday. and pulling back the curtain on warren buffet's big mystery by, what its unnamed investors were last quarter. it's tuesday, february 16th, and this is "worldwide exchange. >> well, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, and welcome from wherever in the world that you may be watching i'm brian sullivan, and it is good to be back here this week thanks for joining us here on "worldwide exchange. all right. there is a lot to get to so let's get right to it. here's how your money and the global markets are setting up their tuesday after the

three-day trading weekend. futures are up big again the dow futures up 2.16. nasdaq futures up 62 this going into a market that's already been red hot the s&p 500 up 5% this year, and 10% in just 90 days. but maybe the markets to watch today are not stocks they are fossil fuels, and maybe the cryptos. first off, let's getoil and gas. they are both surging as record cold or near record cold pommelling much of the nation. we are seeing wti crude, just a tick below 60. it was above 60 last night concerns about production slow downs, and demand increases, as the deep freeze locks up refineries natural gas above 3 bucks for the first time since last october's brief pop. a bigger focus on this and the massive spike in prices in texas, coming up in just a couple of minutes. we also, of course, have to take a look at the cryptos.

does bitcoin hit 50,000 today. it certainly could it's not right now we are seeing bitcoin at 49,282. up about 3 1/2%. ether remains red hot at 18.03 the vaccine rollout across most of europe, unfortunately going very slowly. joumanna bercetche is our london newsroom with a look at the trades and a lot of green on the screen >> that's right. including myself, actually, that wasn't planned by the way. let me just take you to european markets. we are seeing quite a bit of green on the board, i want to take you back to a conversation you and i had at the beginning of the year. we talked about vaccine objectives that the government had set for themselves, and we found out yesterday they have met them they managed to vaccinate or give the first jabs to 15

million citizens in the u.k. that is the top four priority group, so very strong on the vaccine rollout in the u.k. but of course as you mentioned, europe still setback by multiple delays and hurdles that need to be overcome. ftse in italy, just treading below the flat line. a lot of focus today in europe has been on miners, so i want to turn to some of the major stocks we're looking at glen corp., announced they're reinstating their dividends, chp up 7%, posting a monster second half of the year, and reinstating dividends as well the commodity balance is playing into u.k. names here, brian. >> to your point, the vaccine rollout is the only economic data i would say that matters, and the u.k. has done a great job. the u.s. is the most vaccinated big country in the world you are the most vaccinated big country by percentage of population and i think that's going to play a role in the markets.

>> yeah, and keep a close eye on the challenge as well. almost up at 140, again on back of some of the optimism and the fact that for the most part, brexit is out of way, even though brexit issues still linger that's for another time. >> the outfit of the wall matches so much. all i saw was your head floating somewhere over kuala lumpur. >> i had it planned. maybe we're wishing a red backdrop for next time >> keep it green we'll all keep everything green. markets want to go up, thank you very much. let's get a quick hit on three big money stories this morning. story number one look at imax china, soaring overnight in hong kong, following data showing box office revenue for the first five days of the lunar new year holiday hit a record high. yes, they're going to the movies in china

in fact, local officials are giving away free movie tickets, all as a way to keep people traveling over the new year. stock two, tiktok, the company has strapped a deal to sell app to oracle and walmart. bite dance making a move, now that former president trump is out of office. the report says that bite dance believed selling to oracle would have proven a valuable relationship had trump won reelection given founder larry ellison's support for the president, but that's all over now, and story number three, a big name, berkshire hathaway set to reveal the name of it mystery investment from late last year the company will disclose its stock investments when it releases it 13 f report after the bell today, with this quarterly filing in mid november berkshire revealed it had made a confidential filing for certain unnamed investments. writing over the weekend,

speculation has disney, paypal, google, home depot, exxon mobil or chevron as the top potential names, but who knows i guess we'll find out today. let's get back to the markets and your money, and what we just talked about, really with all due respect to everything else, the only story that matters for the world, the vaccine rollout. as we noted, in the states, the rollout has ramped up. we are the most vaccinated large country in the world, and second by population. more than 16% of americans getting one shot, only behind the u.k. for most of europe, though, it has been a very different story. germany, italy, france, all have fewer than 5% of their population with at least one dose in their rollout. how does this play out in the global markets chief strategist at principle global investors, joins us thank you very much. you might be a doctor for all i know who knows, but i know that i'm not. what we can do is look at the

data, and we can look at the numbers, and there does seem to be a correlation between countries that are receiving greater rollouts of the vaccine, u.k., united states, and how investors perceive their economies, and their stock markets. >> yeah, absolutely. as you said, that vaccine rollout is such an important number to be watching. because it's going to give us an indication of when we can expect economies to be able to reopen, and therefore when we can expect to see that recovery that everyone is expecting. as you said, the u.s. and u.k. are doing well europe is lacking, but i have to say we have got some hope that just as we've seen in most country, that you'll start to see an acceleration of the rollout. europe had a slow start because it had struggled to approve quickly logistics that came across a number of supply shortages, but hopefully over time, they should get up to pace >> you know, and you wonder -- i

want to call the vaccine economy. i traveled last week to south carolina i noticed that there were a number of elderly and senior citizens on my flight. i asked one woman who's in a wheelchair i was well masked up don't worry, i said, have you been vaccinated and she nodded is she going to see her family, and i thought, i wonder what this boom in this vaccine rollout is going to be as people feel more free to get out and travel, and that plays into economic growth, and corporate earnings, and hotels and restaurants. it could have this huge ripple effect, could it not >> it could be absolutely huge, as you said. this is the most important thing to watch for this year you know, if we were to get shortage without the vaccine, it puts the whole thing under question in terms of the economic recovery we're anticipating if economies start to reopen in q2 as we are expecting, then you can see a release of all the

pent up demand we have been seeing over the last year start to be released and you get a surge in services all the sectors that have been beaten up, but i think we still have to have an element of caution here because, you know, we're still not going to see herd immunity being achieved until at least late this year, and a number of these advanced economies so the high human-to-human contact -- >> to be fair, we don't know that in fact, i have sort of committed that i'm not going to use the term herd immunity we don't know the denominators we don't know how many asymptomatic cases are there i don't want to get into a medical conversation i'm not qualified to do that but is it tough to make specific time frames based on projections where we don't actually know the math i guess that's my only point >> yeah, absolutely. and that means that there's a huge amount of uncertainty in the outlook, so when we look at the way that the market is reacting at the moment, there's a lot of optimism about what can happen

as you said, there's uncertainty and investor need to maintain a little bit of caution. one of the reasons we have still some defensive sectors in our allocations. >> like what what do you like right now very quickly, what looks still attractive from a valuation. everything seems like it's in a melt up. >> it is and as you said, look, everything is expensive and it will be a spurprise, but we stil like big tech, and the reason is the stay-at-home trade is not going away anytime soon. and a lot of these companies are going to keep on delivering as the years progress, and that's a reason we're maintaining an allocation to big tech. >> seema shaw, principal global investors. the rollout continues on let's hope whatever the word is comes sooner than later, and we'll go out and have dinner and drinks as teams, and groups and shows together some day. best to you. now to washington, as president biden prepares to take his push for a nearly

$2 trillion stimulus package on the road it's the first of several virus related events slated for the president this week. nbc news tracie potts joining us live from washington with more on that. >> hi, brian, he's going to be on the road a couple of times this week, talking about covid and covid relief, while democrats here in washington are still trying it work out the details of that bill that they hope some republicans will support. president biden heads to milwaukee today, his first official trip out of washington since taking office. he'll answer questions at a town hall, sure to focus on the covid pandemic >> i know we'll get through this i know better days are ahead and if we do it together as one people, one nation, one america, we will not fail >> but even with new cases and death rates improving, there are serious challenges new variants of the virus have popped up in 41 states

governors, democrat and republican, are raising concerns about the vaccine rollout. the white house responding last night that they're working to improve data and reporting then there's the covid relief bill. >> we're going to have to talk to each other. compromise is not a dirty word. >> reporter: democrats are writing up their plan for a vote next week hoping to get some republican lawmakers to support it >> it has support of republican mayors, republican governors, but more importantly, it has support of 50% of republicans in this country 46% of trump voters in this country. >> reporter: next up, immigration. democrats announced last night they'll introduce a bill later this week that creates a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, make it easier to apply for asylum before reaching the border and expand benefits for dreamers and the president will be on the

road again later this week, heading to a pfizer plant in michigan on thursday, and then on friday, brian, he's going to be meeting virtually with world leaders at the g7 summit about the pandemic >> tracie potts in d.c., thank you very much. have a great day. we are just getting started here on "worldwide exchange. when we come back, much more on the vaccine rollout in the u.s. and where we really stand in the race to get everyone a dose, the numbers looking better every day. plus, a new strategy to bounce back from natural disaster i diana olick at how home builders are rebuilding better and faster. leslie picker is laying out the potential new chapter in the ongoinbale bweg tteten hedge funds and retail traders a very busy hour still ahead when "worldwide exchange" returns. without breaking my back or breaking the bank. ♪♪

welcome back, and good morning. dow futures are up 208 now to a feature we hope to bring you fairly regularly a realtime date update on how the vaccine rollout is going here are the numbers from the cdc. keep in mind, these are from sunday, yesterday, a federal holiday. we did not get an update overall, more than 70 million doses have been delivered. about 52.3 millionhave been administered roughly 38.3 million people have received one or more doses

14 million have received their second dose. that means about 15% of american adults, those over the age of 18 have received at least one dose. and the pace of vaccinations outside of yesterday's holiday is now at 1.7 million doses per day making the u.s. the second large country in terms of percentage of its population that has been vaccinated israel, far ahead of everybody at 70% bahrain, the uae up there, but behind the u.k., it is just the united states. on deck, the very latest on the very scary deep freeze in texas and parts of the midwest millions without power or heat, power lines, randomly catching fire and power companies facing 1,000% price hike supplies with little electricity there is. today's big numbers, 33% that's approximately how much of

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welcome back hard to believe, but 2020 wasn't just the year of the pandemic. it was also the year that the u.s. saw a record number of hurricanes make landfall and the most active wildfire season in history. the damage, in the multibillions. as diana olick reports, as the

disaster get worse, we are learning from the past about how to rebuild better and faster >> in 2017, the tub fire in northern california burned more than 6,000 homes half of them in santa rosa where richard hicks built his home three decades before. >> my home and all my neighbors's homes were reduced to ashes and we essentially lost everything. >> hicks did not want to leave the community he loved but the enormous task of rebuilding thousands of unique homes was not something santa rosa's construction work force could handle hicks worried that it would be a very long process. as did nearby resident nikki pashay, she saw an opportunity. >> i watched the community around me burning down we assembled a team of friends and family who felt like we needed to find a better way to

get the community back. >> she cofounded home bound, a custom home building company with a large production builder model. the goal, make it possible for a devastated community to put up multiple unique custom homes at the same time and in half the time customs usually takes. >> there were thousands of homes that were lost, and so all of the trades were overwhelmed. >> instead of relying solely on local labor that's available, we have a team that builds a proprietary network in a multihour radius of where we're building. >> home bound helps clients who have never built a home with design, budgeting, choosing the more than 500 finishings required >> what we have built is a platform that allows our homeowners to see at any stage of their project exactly where they are, in terms of the selections they have made to go into the house, in terms of their schedule, their budget. >> home bound is backed by some of silicon valley's biggest venture capitalists.

to be able to move into markets at risk of not just fire but of hurricanes and river flooding. >> the reality of climate change is that we're going to continue to see more natural disaster creating more damage and so we've got to be prepared for how we can respond >> robert hicks moved into his new home bound built home last year far faster than he ever expected. >> bringing the neighborhood back to life, i feel like i'm back home again. >> not only is this company building faster, it's also building more resilient homes in communities. that means more defensible landscaping and managing vegetation, adding exterior materials that prevent fire from getting in venting systems that are more efficient at blocking, flying embers, there are actually a lot of things that can be done to make a home if not fireproof, at least less vulnerable, brian >> it's an important story

we know that the risks here are not going away nobody is going to say they're going away hopefully they won't be as bad as last year, i don't think anything can be on many levels why rebuild communities that might see another major fire in a few years or whatever natural disaster they may face. >> that's a huge debate in the community as well. remember, these folks who lost their homes, they still own their properties they have an investment there. they have also lived in these communities for decades and really want to stay there. you have to ask, is it part of the insurance company problems if insurance companies continue to offer insurance, people will continue to rebuild there. it's a big debate. for now, most people want to stay in these areas even after they're devastated. >> diana olick on an important story there. good to see you. thank you very much. still on deck, another car maker pumping the brakes on reports that it is teaming up

with apple we'll get details on the latest chapter in the autonomous auto sa saga subscribe to our podcast, "worldwide exchange," every day, in audio form as most podcasts are. if you miss us, check us out on psple, spotify or podcasting ap i promise, that picture not included dow futures up 200 we're back after this. i'm made to move. but these days, i'm not getting out as much as i'd like to. that's why i take osteo bi-flex. it helps with occasional joint stiffness, while it nourishes and strengthens my joints for the long term. osteo bi-flex. because i'm made to move. so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot.

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good morning, and welcome back markets look to roll again as the reopen trade remains red hot. covid cases blast around the country. a deep freeze in texas and the midwest, record lows across many states millions without power or heat the power companies pay up to try to buy what little electricity there is and as crypto's keep running, elon musk has a message for all of you point holders out there. kr you're going to want to hear it on tuesday, february 16th. this is "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc well, good tuesday morning, and welcome back, everybody. i'm brian sullivan and good to be back with you this week here's how your money and the global markets are setting up

their day. futures, they are solidly in the green. dow futures up more than 200 points right now nasdaq up about the same, as a percent of the markets of course, have been red hot. the s&p 500 up 5% this year, and up 10% in just the last 90 days. maybe the markets to watch today are not stocks they are the fossil fuels, and they are the cryptos first up, oil and gas. they are both higher record cold pommelling much of america, crude oil, hovering right around 60 bucks a barrel there is concern about production slow downs. as some refineries lock up and, of course you've got demand soaring as everybody tries to get power and crank the heat natural gas, same story. back up of $3 for the first time since october's brief pop, and of course you've got to take a look at the cryptos as well. will today be the day that bony h

-- bitcoin hits and breaks 50 k. bitcoin is at 49, still up 3%. ether up just over 2% as well. speaking of cryptos, elon musk back on the tape saying quote if major coin holders sell most of their coins, it will get his full support tesla's ceo tweeting sunday, too much concentration is the only really issue in my opinion he later added i will pay actual money if they void their accounts a doge dropped 15% on that yesterday. it is down now but not quite that much. in fact, it is basically flat. in the meantime, social network parler is back online. it relaunched its service yesterday, more than a month after amazon kicked it off its cloud computing service, and apple and google removed it from their app stores tech giants said barparler viole terms of service agreements.

parler's internet servers are hosted by sky silk inc app is suspended from the app and will google stores. another chapter in the seemingly ongoing apple car story. nissan, the latest company to come out and say it is not in talks with apple over any kind of autonomous car project. comments follow a report that apple had approached the auto maker in recent months nissan, by the way, down about a percent. now, let's get back to the markets and your money stocks. trading at all time highs, futures up 200 points. joining us now is kkm financial ceo, and cnbc contributor, and our friend jeff kilburg, joining us from what is no doubt a frosty chicago, jeff listen, as cold as it is outside, the markets remain happen, a melt up in nearly every asset class. a liveshot of chicago there, that is rough. stay inside. back to the markets, jeff, honestly, you have been doing

this a long time i'm not going to ask if you've never seen a market like this. it's rare. how long can this go on? >> well, it's amazing to see, and it's interesting that there's still a lot of cash in the market we have talked a lot on "worldwide exchange" about the $5 trillion sitting in cash. but to your point, we actually are seeing the markets move higher we had another new all time high in the s&p 500 the small caps, you bring up a great point about the small caps moving higher. i want to give credit to kari fire stone, she talked about the move higher in small caps. you have to be cognizant of the fact that if you take the top 1,500 of the russell 2000 stocks, combine all the market caps of the 1,500 stocks, they equal barely one microsoft, barely one apple that move higher has been sensational from a year-to-date perspective, but be cognizant that we continue to see the

rotation i'm optimistic but this week is a slower week. only four trading days due to presidents day, the trajectory of the market will continue to move higher as we see the central bank support. >> the rotation may be coming out of microsoft and into the russell 2000, and shout out to kari, and a few others like our friend dan rubak in june and july is that rotation going to continue in the small cap space. to your point, they become less small and the valuation grows. >> short-term, the answer is yes. we look at the matrix, and see relative strength. and the relative strength is telling us small caps will continue to move higher. to your point, you're right. small caps have lagged for years. in the last six months, this movement, they're playing camp up i know we talked about the catch up trade in the large cap equity we have seen tremendous out performance, i think it does

cool off but short-term, the technicals are lining up for small caps to prevail. >> you just said the mustard trade after saying ketchup, and i do not relish you saying that one single bit is there anything in the etf -- see what i did there -- anything in the etf market, technology, anything outside the russell 2000 that you and your team are finding delicious right now. >> let's cut chew it nonetheless, we are seeing semiconductors, to give broad swath exposure, and the housing market let's talk about home construction, itb, a great way to get exposure, the home depots, those stocks continue on all cylinders. we have seen about 400 of the s&p 500 names report we have a nice cross section we're going to see advanced auto parts. later in the week, we're going to see technology. it's a drop box. even a john deere, we're going

to have a good idea. earnings have been more impressive than expected i know there's a location between the real economy and wall street, be some of the earnings, the way they're getting leaner and meaner, it's been impressive. the trajectory overall in the wake of earnings season, things do not move in a straight line understand, there will be a back and fill more caps to the market, but none the less, i'm remaining optimistic on the marketplace, due to the fact there's so much cash sitting on the sidelines. >> on a side note, i have been to or through 15 or so states in the last four months or election road trips i have been outside of the northeast, you know, i popped the day in for chicago i have not been to california, obviously, and i'm just going to say, there are two economies in america right now. there's the northeast, where everybody's sort of, you now, hunched over when you get out of the northeast, and florida, and i'm sure your friends have told you about this it's like life has gone on, except everybody is in a mask, and not making a point other

than that i wondered when i looked around south carolina last week, is the economy on a macro level doing largely a lot better than we actually think it might be from our pcurchase, mostly in the northeast, chicago, and media and market centers. >> i think what you have experienced, and i'm a little upset, you came to chicago and didn't notify me one of the things wyou brought p is the pent up demand. people are looking to fight some form of normalcy i think that's the next move higher in the stock market, when you see the consumer this week, don't forget, we have retail sales, ppi, eli we'll ge better understanding of the consumer it's going to be interesting to see how we find the vaccine, to continue to accelerate we get optimism, that's the global demand. we see crude oil at $60. what we're seeing now is little bit of euphoria. it's time to celebrate just a

touch. >> listen, there's still a long way to go here i'm telling you, man i was in florida recently and south carolina and things are packed i mean, people are going on. people are in school largely a lot of people working from their offices, everybody is masked up. i just thought to myself, i wonder if there's an economy we're missing here either way, it goes into the whole market conversation. the weather looks terrible there. stay warm, buddy it's great to have you thank you very much. by the way, i just looked at the numbers. 74, russell 2000 stocks have more than doubled in the last 12 months 74 wow. coming up. energy prices on rise. a deep freeze shutting down u.s. oil wells, stopping wind turbines, millions without power, heat or even water and electricity companies having to pay thousands of percent markups to buy what little electricity there is we'll talk with an industry expert in tech about what goes on now, and where this goes from

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simply do not have enough electricity to meet soaring demand and the electricity they can find they are paying hundreds or more than a thousand percent premiums to buy. the weather creating dangerous scenes like this one in louisiana. this video out of jefferson parish, by anchor wdsu in new orleans on twitter look at that a fire going back and forth across a power line, hitting a transformer, no doubt mocknockig out power. millions without heat and often without water, joined by tim fox, vice president and research analyst at clear view energy partners who is in texas right now. i'm assuming because you're on camera, tim, that you guys do have power, but looking at the austin power web site, about 40% of austin currently is without power, and often without heat. what's your situation? >> absolutely. thank you for having me. so far we've had power the

entire time we have been down here as you said, it does appear that at any moment we could lose power. >> and we're looking and wondering as americans, we understand if there is a flood or we understand if a tree knocks down a power line in our neighborhood and maybe lose power for a while. it's difficult to understand what's happening now, tim, which is that power companies, the ones we rely on. we probably don't even think about except when we have to pay our monthly bill, suddenly cannot find the electricity they need explain to us in layman's terms what's going on. >> absolutely. well, this is really just comes down to supply and demand. as you said, the severe storm came through, knocked out about 30 gigawatts of generation capacity, while at the same time driving up demand to heat homes, and so there's just not enough supply on the market, and as you said, electricity is very important. perhaps the most ubiquitous but

under appreciated consumer commodity there is, and simply put, we often don't notice its importance until we don't have it >> yeah, there are refineries that we are showing that have been shut in because they're simply too cold or maybe the workers simply can't get there many wind turbines, tim, they have either frozen solid where they can't spin or maybe there's not enough wind to power them because they're cold some combination, pipelines as well, are you hearing these stories that i read over the weekend and talked to people that natural gas, which is at $3 right now on a traded level, is going for 3, 4, or 500 per million btu right now as power companies will pay whatever they can or distributors contractually to buy it? >> that's a great question, and i'm hearing the same thing, although i'm focused more on the electricity prices many generating units across fuel types have been forced offline due to the storm, and

the question we ask now is what does that mean what are the policy changes that may come ahead when the storm is behind us. how will the state's electricity regulator as well as the texas legislature may respond to these outages. we think there's going to be a response >> yeah, and you wonder where the response is going to be. listen, this weather, thankfully, is not something you see very much. this is near records or near record colds for texas and other parts of the country as well thankfully this doesn't happen a lot. when we look at energy mix, renewables are in the mix, and people are going to say the windmills freeze or there's no sun so we have no solar. the pipelines with frozen. when we look at these types of events, this or others, tim, the answer seems to be a mix, that not one thing will work all the time would you say that's a fair statement? >> i think that is a fair statement. it's a good point to make. it was a number of generating

assets across different fuel types, and i think the point to make clear is that instances of energy shortages often are followed by changes in policy, and reforms to market constructs, so we're going to be looking again at the texas legislature to see what type of reforms policy makers may want to look at in response to these outages. >> yeah, and i've got people, tim, on twitter who have said my family and i, it's 5 degrees, haven't had power in nine hours, they're going out to their car to start their car to get warm before they go back in ercot, the electric reliability council of texas, they may want to reevaluate that r, the reliability power. thanks for getting up with us. important story. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> take care and be well. on deck, hedge funds showing their hands, wall street's biggest players required to fuel their latest investments with

regulators by tonight, it's the deadline, but will all that matter to the reddit crowd anyway? by the way, if you haven't already, subscribe to our newish podcast, "worldwide exchange," same as, you know, the show name check it out on apple, spotify or other podcasts. dow futures up 200. we'll be right back. well we have a safety net. we'll be ok right? ♪ we'll be ok right? dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. pd-l1 transformed, revolutionized, immunotherapy. pd-l1 saved my life. saved my life. saved my life. what we do here at dana-faber, changes lives everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere.

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try pure protein shakes. with vitamins and minerals for immune support. for skin that never holds you back don't settle for silver #1 for diabetic dry skin* #1 for psoriasis symptom relief* and #1 for eczema symptom relief* gold bond champion your skin welcome back to "worldwide exchange," and good morning. trolling through hedge funds 13f filings. sound like fun, right. it's how you learn with the biggest hedge fund s are positioning what they're buying, and dumping and has been a pastime of retail investors. the story might be a little bit different this time around leslie picker, this time around, why is it going to be a little bit different this time around this is one of your favorite hobbies. you and i often talk about this is how you spend your time

>> it is and i sense some sarcasm which you said this sounds like fun, but it can be fun, you know, if you just really dig into these filings. to your point, this does happen four times a year every year this is the deadline for hedge funds and other large institutional investors to reveal holdings through s.e.c. filings, known as 13s, the closures are dated and the positions are elemelimited to l calls and puts no short positions retail traders have been scoping occupy filings for clues about where the so called big guys are putting their money. perhaps the more intrepid ones are seeking out vulnerabilities that they can profit from. that was the case, if you recall, with melvin capital when a reddit user posted about the firm's puts on gamestop, the beginning of what turned enintoa

notorious short squeeze on the stocks and silver squeeze was trending on twitter, prominent commenters urged others not to follow suit because hedge funds were long a silver etf and would benefit from that squeeze. some hedge funds already released their 13 apps last friday disclosing sizable stake in intel, and several back holdi holdings today we'll see the bulk of filings that show hedge funds holding as of the end of december after witnessing what happened last month, it's likely that many funds have changed their positions in the six-week sense but some maybe not, brian. >> and you wonder if they're going to care or if the huedge funds are banging lobbyist doors down, change the rules, this is what happens when we have to give our positions up as well. i'm sure some are advocating for change, you broke the markets, we need to fix this. >> i don't have any director

evidence they're lobbying to change the 13 app closures there was a proposal last year under a different administration, the last administration, to raise the type of filer to i think it was a billion dollars. your hedge fund had to hold a billion dollars in assets in order to be required to file 13f, which we cut out a lot of smaller funds. that actually failed, there were a ton of comments and letters to the s.e.c. saying that this is not something that we want it's important for us to know kind of what the concentration looks like in the markets. they do have more value than just how the big guys are positioned. >> that's why you spend your time, watching for those whales on all of those 13 fs. four times a year, just like our favorite holidays. leslie picker, great to have you on thanks for joining us. good story. >> thanks, brian. a little sarcasm just a touch take care.

let's turn now to the broader markets. we are seeing dow futures up 212 points the market melt up at least in the states simply continues. joining us now is global head of fundamental equities and portfolio manager of emerging markets equities at roboco fabiana, thank you for joining us central banks and fiscal stimulus, they're on their way banks remain accommodative is there any reason to believe the equity markets, others like the u.k. will not simply continue to go higher? >> brian, good morning we still like global equities. it is a varied asset class, but you have to watch out where you put your money there are some markets out there that have done very well and probably are valued to perfection the u.s. has kept on making new highs but other markets, other regions have not look at europe it's not even back to where it

was before the pandemic. look at china, not even back to 2007 and just above 2007 levels. so i think there is still a lot that you can find in terms of opportunities and global equity markets. the other thing we have seen in markets has been this headline effect we were just talking earlier about the retail participation in the program of on markets we've just seen a lot of companies, a lot of stocks that have a brand name, that have a very clear story there are others still out there with really interesting fundamentals, and xm valuations and so there's still a lot to pick up from. >> as we noted earlier, the vaccine rollouts, everything the u.s. is going far better than most of continental europe the russell 2000 is up four

times of the german dax in the last 90 days do you expect europe to catch up both in terms of vaccines, that's kind of everything right now, and their markets in other words, is continental europe a better bargain than u.s. equities. >> we think it is. i mean, our top pick in global equities is actually in emerging markets at this time, and particularly in north asia which has done very well with the covid pandemic, but europe is our second top pick. what you see in europe is, yes, they have had some issues with the vaccinations, but eventually those issues will be worked out. there are a lot of cyclicals that are extremely attractive at the moment in terms of valuation. one of the things we also like about europe is that they have a lot of stocks and sustainability, environmental trade, which right now is an area where a lot of fiscal money is going in. a lot of equity money needs to follow we like european stocks.

not a very easy pass in the next few weeks. eventually they're going to get there in valuation definitely more attractive than in the u.s. >> and what about parts of asia? >> you know, north asia has been a top pick since basically covid started. if you look at china, if you look at korea, south korea, if you look at taiwan, those are all economies that have done extremely well with the pandemic, and where it hasn't been even an issue, really, of closing and reopening. it has been extremely resilient. the other thing that you see from north asia is there technology companies are doing extremely well jeff was talking about it earlier. the trade on semiconductors is a shortage you have a lot of ip in that region and i think it will continue to do well. >> fappreciate your view, north

asia, your top pick. welcome back anytime thank you very much. >> thank you, brian. that wraps it up for us on "worldwide exchange. you are very welcome dow futures, up 210. crypto is up, oil is ahead i'll see you tomorrow on "worldwide exchange" tomorrow. "squawk box" is picking up coverage and the scary situation down in texas, next. for nearly a decade, comcast has been helping students get ready. we've connected 4 million low-income students to low- cost, high-speed xfinity internet. we're working with hundreds of school districts across the country to sponsor free internet and laptops.

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good morning, stocks looking to build on those record highs from last week fut futures pointing at strong gains as covid cases, as well as hospitalizations across the u.s. fall dramatically. a flood of news out of washington after the senate voted to acquit former president trump in saturday's impeachment

trial. we've got a live report on what comes next on the stimulus plan. and chaos in the energy industry a deep freeze in the u.s. creating soaring electricity demand, and at the same time limiting supply by shutting down refineries and freezing all the windows. some ofthem. anyway with an update on the rotating blackouts, and skyrocketing prices, it's february 16th it's a tuesday yep, yesterday presidents' day, we weren't here. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning, and welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen. becky quick is off today take a look at u.s. equity futures at this hour on this tuesday morning as joe mentioned, a three-day weekend we