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 looked like we are going to

open higher, 210 points on the dow, nasdaq looks to open higher at 67 points, i'm thinking in like bitcoin terms, joe, s&p 500 up about 20 this morning we'll show you treasury yields in a moment. we'll show you bitcoin as it happens. treasury yields, you're looking at the ten-year note at 1.243, and then bitcoin, you do have to talk about it in the thousands we're going to show you where that stands. right now, we are getting very very close to 50,000 at 48,982 flirting all weekend with that 50,000 price target. well, price target, but somehow, i was on a clubhouse, joe, over the weekend where there was -- it said, is it going to 50,000 or 5,000, so there's differing views, but i imagine it might get to 50,000 before, if it ever is going to 5,000, i think it's going to go higher first

>> when you said 58,000, i thought -- i went, 58,000, oh, no, not quite. but, yeah, nothing -- nothing would surprise me at this point. 5 might surprise me. >> 5 i think is probably a little too low we'll see. >> 5 might surprise me >> could be a hundred thousand at this point. >> do you believe that it's controllable by either governments or regulators? >> probably still is but there's a lot of people that think it's so decentralized that it isn't so, you know, i see -- you see the true zealots i saw one over the weekend wrote like a 40 point, i don't know if you saw it i might send it to you there's all kinds of philosophical things about the move away from big multinationals, away from even

being, you know, really domiciled in one country to where bitcoin just fits in with this whole, it's a little scary. almost like the world is going to be controlled by shocker, corporations, more than governments at some point. some people would say that's already the problem. but you know what, i've given up i've given up on trying to explain a lot of things, his or her -- you have to be careful quoting shakespeares, somebody might call you out on it we're going to get january retail sales and producer prices tomorrow as well as the minutes from the latest fed meeting. and we get jobless claims. housing starts and import prices, we'll get all of those on thursday, and then on the earnings front, we're going to their from auto nation, and cvs health today tomorrow, hilton worldwide and thursday will be busy with reports from walmart, marriott,

hormel, and waste management, and you can see retailers and some of these other companies, what month is it, andrew, it's not march, is it, but we're getting -- we're winding it -- winding down a little bit maybe on the hype. >> i'm very curious to see palantir's earnings. it will be the first time we see the earnings since they went public, and separately, there's a lot of people looking to see whether employees, the lock up for a lot of the employees expires this week. so that's going to be interesting to see that's been a company that's obviously had such a wild ride in terms of if you look at just that stock so we'll be looking for that as well >> you don't want to look directly at palantir's earnings. do you remember mary or pippen did that you might see soren. so when you look at them, you

want to kind of -- sort of look off a little bit to the left as you're checking them out that's just my advice to you on saturday, you know what i'm talking about. palantir was named after that or b in the lord of the rings where when you look at it, you see the dark lord. anyway, never mind i love movies. on saturday, the u.s. senate voted to acquit former president donald trump, on a single count of inciting insurrection at the capitol. seven republican senators joined 50 democrats, falling short of the 67 votes required to convict. although, i don't know if anyone ever thought there were going to be 67. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell voted to acquit the president but his rational had more to do with jurisdiction and being out of office. he wrote a "wall street journal" op-ed that former president trump bears the moral responsibility for the attack on the capitol but didn't believe the senate had jurisdiction over former officials house speaker nancy pelosi said

congress will establish a 9/11 style commission now to investigate the attack on the capitol. relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power. andrew >> let's go straight over to washington, where the stimulus debate looms large on the agenda y ylan mui joins us to tell us where things stand good morning >> good morning, andrew, lawmakers in the house have mostly finished writing each piece of the stimulus package. this week the house budget committee will assemble them all into one single bill, and speaker nancy pelosi says she does believe the house can get this done by the end of the month. over the weekend she got official estimates of how much key provisions will cost for example, sending out $1,400 stimulus checks, that's going to cost $422 billion. that is about $40 billion less than initially expected because those checks will phase out

faster for high income households expanding the child tax credit for one year, that's a price tag of $110 billion, and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will add $54 billion to the deficit over the next decade now, there is at least one revenue raiser tucked into the package that could be important for investors. it repeals the ability of multinational companies to allocate interest on a worldwide basis. that's going to bring in $22 billion over the next ten years. the caveat is that the senate still has to write its own version of the bill, so all of this could change, and that process is expected to be more contentious, though, guys, technically lawmakers are on recess this week back to you. >> okay. thank you, appreciate it very very much. joe. you got a big day today. i think there's -- it feels big. by the way, happy valentine's day a day late or two days late.

>> you too it was a little bit late, but we were -- i felt you thinking about me, and i'm sure you yourself felt me thinking about you to some extent. >> we can tell the audience, we texted each other on valentine's day. we did love is in the air >> not specifically about like valentine's day. we had a, you know, we're colleagues, we need to -- there is some coordination that goes into this crazy thing that we do every day. but we did we did you know, who isn't in touch, anymore? i think we're a little bit too accessible and reachable, aren't we, in terms of work and everything else? i mean, it's just the drop of just ding, ding, ding, you know, we're reachable anytime. i might send something to you right now. not something weird. don't worry. not a picture. i don't do that. >> i'm getting my phone out to

look what's happening here >> all right good coming up we do have bullard, this is big. coming up, first, the latest on the deep freeze in texas and parts of the midwest, millions without power or heat. power companies taking a thousand percent price hike to buy what little electricity is available. this is brian sullivan he knows all about this stuff. he has that story next and then later, a special interview with st. louis fed president jim bullard. stn.'s coming up at 8:00 a.m. eaer "squawk box" is coming right back

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severe winter storms in texas, and creating unprecedented electricity demand brian sullivan joins us with a look at the impact on the energy sector i just saw you on tv, brian, and i'm going to see you again >> you did, joe, i just see you on tv just now thanks for having me on. listen, it is a serious story. it is a scary story. there are millions without power in texas and parts of louisiana, oklahoma, all up and down the spine, if you will, of the midwest. basically here's what's happened this ultra deep freeze, not the

coldest on record, but close to the coldest ever recorded is causing this massive surge in power demand everybody is trying to crank the heat the power companies are trying to crank it up the problem is, there's a lot of shortages in power availability. some of that has been caused by pipeline issues. some of that has been caused by wind turbines, joe, simply freezing and not being able to spin remember, 23% of texas, the wind capital of the united states, 23 of their power is generated by wind, and a large portion of that is not spinning either it's frozen or frozen too tight. there's not enough wind on shore. there's more offshore, that it can rotate you've also got other issues than more traditional supplies we talk about the short squeezes in game stop, that's kind of happening in the electricity market as well because the power distributors and the power suppliers, they're having to go into the open market to buy

electricity. we don't think it works like that, but it does. ive i'll give you examples natural gas, wholesale trading, 3 bucks and change look at that see, there you go. people are buying that gas, joe, at 2, 3 and $400 not 3, because they either are contractually obligated to buy it at any price, we've talked about wholesale electricity prices that have gone up a thousand percent in 24 hours in parts of texas it won't last forever but right now that's causing rolling blackouts, as many as three plus million texans do not have power right now, which means no heat and often no water no heat, when it's 5 degrees outside, guys, is a dangerous and scary situation. >> i'm not sure what type of

conclusions on innuendo or anything else to draw from this. i don't think i'm going to draw any. i'll leave that to a twitter sphere you've seen it seeing all kinds of stuff, green new deal, really, so the windmills freeze, brian? wish someone would have thought of that. >> listen, it's not all falling on that. there's pipeline issues. well, natural gas prices >> look, brian, fossil fuels are the most reliable or nuclear, take your pick one or the other one or the other sun goes away too, right. >> it is, and here's the thing, texas is the quote energy capital of the united states forget about what kind of energy i don't care if it's iguanas on treadmills, it's the energy capital of america, and yet they can't produce or distribute enough electricity to keep rolling blackouts from

happening. 40% of austin, according to austin electric power's web site is currently without power, and whether or not that's the windmill that's frozen, by the way, you're right, engineers should have been, how cold can it be, we should make it spin, whatever the distribution, the grid, the infrastructure, it's the energy capital america and they don't have enough energy to keep power on and people are literally freezing showing video of tractors and trailers and everything, freezing in their own homes. i think there's going to be the lot of questions and hopefully changes coming when this is all over texas is hit by hurricanes, floods. >> brian, you mention pipeline issues, pipeline issues, duh keystone, anyway like i say, i'm not going to -- we're just -- i'm just -- we're just reporting on this i have no opinion one way or another about how this is all being managed and how it's going

to be managed in the future, brian. we will see exactly how green the new deal gets us, and you know, i'm not attributing this to that. but the energy world will be different when we -- we're going to talk to terra nova. we may get off fossil fuels. >> how about this, we get priced out of it. we get priced out of fossil fuels eventually they may be how we finally get out of it, anyway, let's bring in terra nova. >> listen, all of these wells, hold on, all of these wells, they're reopening a bunch of wells over the weekend to try to get more natural gas out of them because they're going to be so profitable one guy in tulsa said he'll make 6 or $700,000 in a week by reopening one well because of that demand. and i think i bring in the other joe but if everybody wants to live in hot climates where you crank air-conditioning all the time or you want to have your iphone in a data center, we're

going to need a lot more power in the next 20 years i don't know where it comes from i'll see you in the 8:00 a.m. hour maybe joe knows about iguanas on the treadmills. >> when it's hot, you need cold, when it's cold you need hot. you need power unless you live somewhere that's perfect all the time i think new jersey when i think perfect all time joe terranova, partners and a cnbc contributor is there a way to, i don't want to be cynical, but we are a money channel, joe what should investors take away from this in terms of investments in the energy sector >> well, i listened to your comments, joe, and this is reminiscent, first of all of th electricity crisis that occurred in the western united states back in 2000 and 2001. so brian is right, you're seeing ercot prices spike to 9,000. that's not sustainable that's not something that's going to be moving forward

the impact on all of this, and i heard you make the statement about higher prices, that's the incentive to move society towards renewable energy and away from fossil fuels the viewers should expect higher oil prices now, the problem with higher oil prices, as crude oil moves higher, you become more dependent upon the actions of opec so the opportunity for energy equities related to oil, joe, i think that's kind of past. the opportunity might be in the high yield market, and i don't think a lot of people are paying attention to that. high yield, the energy sector is 13% of that debt market. so far year to date, we have seen over $13 billion of debt issued in the high yield energy market that's twice as much as any other sector, so you've had in 2020, a significant rise in defaults for high yield energy, near 15% what that does is kind of squeezes out the low quality

companies. you have fallen angels from investment grade, double b's 66% of high yield energy these higher oil prices have really made the high yield energy market itself a much higher quality of investment i would urge investors to look there. more importantly, you have to look at natural gas equities you think about short squeezes, you look at some of these natural gas equity names, range resources, you're talking about short interests there. 15%. cnx, 12%, and i own cnx. eqt, 7%. so there is a very strong short interest in natural gas equities the appalachia region, there has been a very strong initiative to have capacity discipline and strengthen the balance sheets, and when you're looking for equity opportunities, i would look specifically towards natural gas. you'll find them, diversify

north american plays, whether it's denver or eog, or as i mentioned before, cnx, and southwestern energy, eqt, come stock, these are the names that investors should be focusing on because of what we're seeing with ercot in texas. >> what about renewables i'm just trying to figure out what the world looks like. i'm worried that the new administration could -- that this could become more common, maybe, joe are you worried about that with some of the actions we're seeing so far >> it will become more common. this probably, we've witnessed it in california this will extend towards california when you look at the structure of electricity providers in texas, it is not a capacity provider structure what do i mean by that in the eastern united states,

you have capacity providers. joe, they're like insurance companies. they have guaranteed during extreme cold and extreme warm weather that they will provide the needed electricity you don't have that in texas in texas, you have an abundance of electricity provided, and what they're doing right now is they're all scrambling to find the needed electricity, so absolutely this is going to be what the environment is going to look like over the next three to five years. as you said, we're oriented towards what's the investment. the investment needs to be that investors have to give consideration to allocating towards the opportunities that i've suggested, but we're moving towards renewables that is unquestioned that is going to happen. and that's going to lead towards higher pricing >> joe thanks we will, you know, hopefully next time, people won't be

freezing next time we see you, and we can focus on some other things because the market is looking solid again, the overall market, but this was timely today to have you on we'll see you around, thanks, joe. andrew. >> thanks, joe meantime, when we come back, the rise of clubhouse elon musk extending an invitation to vladimir putin to chat on the up and coming social media app. we'll talk about that after the break. as we head to a break, check out some of the reddit hype stocks including amc moving higher this morning. "squawk box" returns right after this it's hard to hope, hard to cope with crisis. so we get to work. we mend, fighting for every person in every neighborhood; we, the coming of the common good. so dare to care, to be hope-sided. we're never divided, when we live to give, we always live united.

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president vladimir putin hasn't ruled out an invitation to chat with billionaire elon musk about the social media app clubhouse. inviting him to the spokesperson said the proposal were interesting. musk interviewed robinhood's cofounder, and said he agreed to do a clubhouse chat with kanye west i jumped on clubhouse a little bit this weekend, a little bit less than i had, joe i don't know if you saw the other piece of news on clubhouse. i'm surprised there's people not going crazy, you know, the idea that elon musk is inviting vladimir putin in any other world, you would think there would be critics running around in circles. i don't know the other thing that was

fascinating over the weekend there was some stanford researchers who put out a report discovering that clubhouse, the back end of clubhouse, they said, was not safe in part because the chinese, there was a chinese company that actually operates one of the companies that operates part of it, they said it was a security problem, and then clubhouse has come back and said they're going to work on it: clubhouse, i don't know if you know, literally when you log on, it takes all your contacts because it's trying to create a social graph. so it takes your contacts, the phone numbers, e-mails, and people agreeing to it, and so that's clearly going into the back ends of their system. >> you know what, andrew, i wouldn't like that, number one i heard there's the facebook or something where you put a bunch of stuff on and people talk and all that i doubt if i'm on clubhouse anytime soon that's not going to --

>> i think you'll be on clubhouse before facebook, at the rate you're going. >> probably. >> and i would go on to just chat and stuff why would i do this? maybe between -- you would go on to listen. knowing you, you would go on to listen, but a lot of people like to hear their own voice. they like to talk. but you would go on to -- >> you don't think i like to hear the sound of my own voice >> i was trying to put it as delicately as i could. >> okay. i'm not on this one. you didn't go on parler, did you? you never did that. >> i haven't made it on parler yet, no. >> all right because you can go back on now it's back online we talk about it a lot it was shut down after tech companies withdrew their services following the deadly attack on the u.s. capitol parler is focusing on restoring

service to existing users this week and allow new sign ups there you go, andrew it will allow new sign ups in the future parler sued amazon over the move to stop providing cloud services the app remains suspended from the apple and the google app stores the company servers are now hosted by sky silk, that's an l.a. area data center. parler is taking the necessary steps of better monitor its platforms. new guidelines posted on the parler site say it wouldn't knowingly allow its platform to be used as a tool for crime or unlawful acts. i defer to you, andrew, when you tell me i absolutely have to do something, that's when i'll do it, the watch or the mood ring or something how were you this morning when you woke up? how was your sleep, good >> i many score today, i'm okay. hold on, i'll give you the --

83, i'm good resting heart rate, it was only 54 i try to get it a little lower if i can i don't know i don't know >> i think you should shoot for 7. i think you should shoot for 7 plus hours of sleep. >> i'm with you! number one >> i don't know. it's amazing that we don't really know for sure whether that's detrimental >> i have a new app called rise sleep, which is actually analyzed all of my sleep and i have very bad news, at least for myself, because we're in the morning tv business. it says that my personal, based on my personal sleeping habits or whatever, that i actually need 8 1/2 hours some people only need 7 or 7 1/2, this thing thinks that based on my heart rate and how i

sleep, i need even more. i don't know what i'm going to do about that. >> 7 1/2 should be your minimum to be -- the minimum you know, you cannot do what other people do. you can't stay up until 11 you can't. >> i don't know. >> unless you're not going to come in. >> all right >> it's hard, you know, you tell your wife, good night, honey, you know, every night. it's difficult she's left with that -- you can't say fat anymore. i'm not going to say it. you know, i'm so worried about any words. everything is -- i don't know what you're allowed to say the full figured guy that's on late night tv, she can't stay up and watch him all day. anyway, coming up, the next covid relief package you let me know. terms who are okay >> i don't know who you're referencing, so it's okay. >> good. >> that's next and as we head to brk,ea i think

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good morning, u.s. equity futures indicating some strength right at the opening bell after a pretty solid week last week. perhaps more records on the horizon for this new week, which begins on tuesday. as we know, after presidents day. and earnings just out from cvs health, the company reporting adjusted earnings per share for $1.30. that's above the $1.24 that analysts have been expecting the company now sees full year adjusted earnings, 7.39 to 7.55. and the current consensus is

7.54, $7.54, and you're starting at this point, we knew it was coming to see benefits from vaccines the pharmacy sales up 4%, and that had to do partly with covid-19 vaccinations and testing, boosting the results at cvs, andrew. >> it is good news, i should tell you for the sorkin family, my son henry is in a fantasy stock league, we haven't talked about this, and the top pick during the pandemic was cvs. this will help henry this morning. >> they seem to be really good at this. i would assume that pilar is pretty good at it then, because they're getting it from somewhere. >> not from me not from me. they're only 10. >> it's a fantasy league, and they have their stocks that they follow henry's top pick was cvs, and of course max had amazon, and you

know how they have diverged. there's some trash talking in the house. but maybe this will help >> that's fun. that's good. meantime, as congress continues to focus on the president's $1.9 trillion relief plan. one part of the deal is causing a lot of debate around the country. minimum wage, and raising it to $15 an hour. joining us right now on this debate is andy putzer, the author of it's time to work again. and a research associate at the national bureau of economic research good morning to both of you. andy, i know you've been critical of the $15 minimum wage the question i would ask you is if not $15, what should it be. >> well, i would say it would depend on which state you're in. even better, it would depend

upon which municipality you're in i would think the closer we get to the economic zones, impacted by the minimum wage, the more effe effectiv targeting it on a more local basis. rather than across the board federally. >> thanks, yeah, so you know, we actually have that system. the federal minimum wage serves as a floor beyond which increasingly states and cities have passed higher minimums. right now, we have 29 states typically higher wage, cost of living states that have gone above the federal standards. we have over 40 cities that have done the same. i think the way to think about it is the federal minimum wage

standard for those 20 or 21 states have actually haven't had a minimum wage increase for about a dozen years. >> but what do you make of the idea, and i know you're of the view and you've done a lot of work on this that suggests it's not going to hurt employment you look at the tbo analysis, and they say there's 1.4 million jobs that hang in the balance. >> yeah, so i think just an important thing to start with is the cbo analysis suggests some job losses and much larger wage gains, leading to people getting pulled out of poverty. i happen to think that the cbo analysis is more pessimistic i conducted a major review for the u.k. treasury. i looked up the evidence, more studies in a more comprehensive way than the cbo did, frankly, and i found that the overall research on jobs impact in u.s., u.k., other advanced industrialized countries suggests fairly limited impact

of minimum wage on unemployment while raising earnings strongly at the bottom. you know, following my review of the u.k. government actually set a course to increase their minimums to about 2/3 of the median wage. that's about what $15 in 2025 would be in the u.s. >> andy, i'm curious about the role of technology in this one of the things people say, if you raise the wage too high, they're not going to use waiters, but ipads at the table. do you think the wage actually matters when it comes to the implementation of technology not to say that we're just -- isn't there an inevitability to the technology piece. >> well, there's some inevitability to it, but you have to keep in mind, the more expensive you make labor, the less expensive you make switching to these other automated alternatives you make them more economically viable because you're making labor more expensive so you find businesses trying to

do that to limit employment, and by the way, i think the cbo's estimate of 1.4 million job losses is very conservative. now, that's a group of economists that rely very heavily on a belief that government can actually impact these matters and really don't look at how it impacts the private sector, and that's why they had to during the obama administration, five times they had to reduce their gdp forecast by $2 trillion buzz they overestimated what government can down i think they overestimated here. i think this will be a lot more job losses than 1.4 million. if you want to reduce poverty, create jobs. look what happened in 2019, 4.1 million people lifted out of poverty, lowest poverty rate in the country, you want to increase wages for low wage workers, create the competition for workers that causes employers to increase wages, as happened in 2019 >> right aaron, final word to you because we got to run. is there a way to design -- we

only have 30 seconds -- a design a system that would raise wages on a local level new york city, we're not talking about $15, that could push it up to 20, but other places maybe it would push it to 12. maybe something like that does make sense i don't know. >> there are different ways of designing successful minimum wage policy. in terms of concerns about raising the minimum wage too fast, one compromise solution is to allow certain states in particular lower wage states like west virginia, so you get to 15r, but it takes longer. that sort of compromise, that flexibility can be built in, even in a system of national minimum wage >> we got to leave the conversation there andy and aaron, appreciate it very much. i know we'll continue this debate, i'm sure, and we look forward to seeing you guys >> thanks, andrew. >> thanks for having me. >> you bet

joe. >> thanks, andrew. coming up, whale watching. no comments, please. among the highlights of today's s.e.c. filings, we're expecting berkshire hathaway to reveal its latest big investment. details next. and a reminder, you can watch or listen to us live anytime on the cnbc app. we're coming right back. we see breakthrough medicines getting to patients in record time. at emerson, our automation software is empowering pharmaceutical companies to accelerate their production of critical vaccinations for the world. emerson. consider it solved.

welcome back to "squawk box. u.s. stock futures pointing to a higher open. up next, social media's role in

the market >> lord knows i love to buy and hold since the pandemic day trading has become super trendy. >> i have been not been on a roller coaster like that since i went to six flags. >> this story is everywhere, and it sort of makes you feel like you should just read wall street and tomorrow be a millionaire. >> that is not true. it is actually extremely risky who needs bravo when you can watch cnbc these days. i mean, this is good reality television >> meet the influencer who wants to teach the world about money right after the break.

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big hearing this week on "the game" stop trading frenzy ceos of robinhood, citadel and keith gill will testify raising

questions about the gamefication of gaming. regulation and power of social media. joining us is kayleigh sax, founder of mrs. dow jones. she talks to millennials gen z about markets and investing. if you can think back about when the frenzy reached its peak, were you at that point thinking this is great or i'm worried about this at that point because i guess you were maybe somewhat torn. a lot of people got involved, but i don't know if that's the right way to do it. >> look, i think that it was a really exciting time it was great for ratings for cnbc, i'm sure, and great for interest in finance, but in the same way, there's a lack of

education. and so it was a bit scary because you saw young people taking risks with their money but not necessarily making sense. >> right because i remember at the time on twit ter you can imagine because people go off on twitter, i made one comment that this is investing, question mark, because it didn't look look investing at that point and that caused all kinds of -- that caused a huge ruckus people saying who are you to decide what investing is, but, you know, to watch a company that -- i don't know what the prospects are. "saturday night live" did a skit on the prospects for gamestop but obviously going from single digits to 4 or 500, i don't know what that is exactly i get this investing, but you see my point i'm not sure that's the way people should be exposed to graham and dodd type building

wealth for retirement in the stock market >> absolutely. and, look, gamefication is when you apply game mechanics into nongame environments, such as the stock market and like with all games, there is always a loser. so you saw day trading explode during the pandemic because people were at home and they were bored in one way it was great because it propelled interest into the markets and into financial literacy, but it was also extremely risky. i mean, you think about a chess match. would you play chess if you didn't know the rules? investing is not a game. >> so how would you -- there's going to be a hearing. what would you like to come out of the hearing in terms of just more education

do you think a stronger touch on regulation would be a positive or a negative for this nascent, you know, reddit fueled sort of education of all of these millennials? >> look, it's up to capitol hill to decide what regulations make sense, but i will say that when there's this crop of young investors should come new regulations and the fcc and finra need to level up for example, when robinhood halted trading, that disrupted the whole market that cannot happen >> right but we now know that they didn't really have much choice based on liquidity, solvency of -- it wasn't -- that wasn't regulation, that was sort of survival for robinhood >> absolutely, but why were they in that position, you know

>> right right. right. what are you telling people since they listen to you right now? are you -- i know that -- i see that amc, gamestop, some of these gamefied stocks are on your watch list. what does that mean they're on your watch list? >> well, i have to keep my eye on them, of course that doesn't mean that i am necessarily investing in them, but at mrs. dow jones my goal is to make finance accessible to everyone and i don't want there to be barriers between people and their money. and so, you know, wall street made a big mistake with young investors. they underestimated them, and they were able to rally the market and they also underestimated me at the beginning. now i'm on "squawk box," so i think that gamestop was a big wake-up call and it's important for me to keep an eye on what's

going on but it's not something that i condone i'm all about buying and holding and long-term strategies i'm in school right now becoming a certified financial planner. >> right all right, haley so you've been -- you watch "squawk box" is this your show of choice? you tell all of your followers to watch >> of course. >> really? >> screaming it from the rooftops this is my favorite show >> it is because then you're going to come back. that was a really good answer. that was a really good answer, haley. thank you. it's been good having you on >> thank you for having me. >> let's do it again because this -- i don't know what chapter we're on, but this story isn't written yet. >> exactly. >> all right thanks what do you think, andrew? we'll take it. >> i think you're going to be on tiktok is what i think, joe.

that's what i think. i think you're going to be on tiktok and instagram because mrs. dow jones is going to promote your accounts and you're going to blow up over there. and then clubhouse. >> in a good way >> in a good way. >> in a good way i don't want to blow up. we already talked about that >> it could be a good way. coming up when we return on the other side of the break, two big interviews you can't afford to miss. bob johnson is going to be joining us with his read on the economy, the pandemic, tackling inequality later st. louis fed president, you don't want to miss this whether he sees a bubble in the markets and what the fed may do about it you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc it has encouraged other people to take the time for each other. ♪ ♪

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welcome back to "squawk. stocks looking to build on record gains this morning. futures are pointing to a higher open as covid cases and hospitalizations fall. the latest on what you need to watch straight ahead bitcoin, straight ahead. talk about the hot car market, the future of electric vehicles and the company's quarterly

results as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. it's music good morning greco. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc it's dangerous when someone has free rein, isn't it? i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin. 7 a.m. and people at home are being subjected to this. they're like what is going on? becky is off i know i know morning show music it ought to be ♪ ♪ sun coming up. classic music. u.s. equity. not that

that comes up on my phone because my kids, we have the same apple account every once in a while it comes up it is like, what is this do you share that with your kids, andrew do they have all of the same -- is all their music on your music? you don't do it that way >> we share on spotify this is a biggie we should talk about that another day, but the idea of explicit music is a big problem. we've tried to keep that from happening but i'm having problems i'm having lots of issues. >> there's that one song, i heard it, it's like -- i'm not going to -- i heard it i was like, i can't even believe this is for real anyway, some of it is totally x-rated. futures up 214, 216 points or so nasdaq strong as well. also the s&p bitcoin closing in on 50,000 it's been kind of between 48 and 50 but, you know, moves all around goes down to 46. i saw it hit 45 at one point

over the three-day weekend back up closing in again on -- maybe, on 50 bloomberg report over the weekend suggested morgan stanley may be the next big firm to consider placing a bet, at least owning the cryptocurrency. they might have a problem placing a bet on that. and storms across the country wreaking havoc deep freeze and power outages across the southwest many refineries in texas to close temporarily. what happened to captain and tonneil, andrew? >> i don't know what we're going to do. january weekend sales and producer prices, that's coming up tomorrow. as well as the minutes from the latest fed meeting jobless, imports we'll be speaking to james bullard about the state of jobs,

economy and so much more conversation you don't want to miss on the earnings front, hearing from so many companies we have autonation and cvs health this morning. tomorrow we have toll kin worldwide. thursday a busy day. walmart, marriott, as well as today the lockup expirations coming up. and in the meantime amid of all of that, we have hedge funds filing 13f reports giving investors a chance to see what they bought and sold these are the filings taking on a new meaning in the reddit era. leslie picker joins us leslie. >> reporter: it happens four times a year quarterly today is the deadline for hedge funds and other large institutional investors to reveal their holdings through sec filings otherwise known as 13f. they aren't dated and they're limited to long calls and puts

no short positions and reveals retail traders have been increasingly scoping out these filings for clues about where the so-called big guys are putting their money. perhaps some more intrepid traders are seeking out the vulnerabilities they can profit from that was the case with melvin capitol the end of last year when a reddit user posted about the puts on gamestop which turned into a notorious short squeeze. it's taken place when silver was trending on twitter. they urged others not to follow suit because too many hedge funds were long silver etfs and would benefit from that sweep. now today we'll see new filings that show funds holding at the end of december after witnessing what happened last month, it's likely that many funds have changed their positions. some, maybe not.

guys >> so what do you think is going to be the other big surprise that we're going to be seeing you very soon with some of the answers here what are you hearing >> yes so we've seen a couple filings come out on friday, and i've been kind of looking through the reddit forms to see how people are talking about them a lot of people are really focused on spac holdings there was a filing that came out on friday. you know, a couple funds do tend to file the friday before the deadline, and they showed a slight tick down in pershing square people were up in arms wondering if they were no longer bullish on that spac others were arguing they're rebalancing their portfolio. a lot of dialogue about spacs in particular dcid is another one people are looking at retail traders to see how the big guys are playing that, see if they're increasing their exposure in advance of a

potential acquisition announcement there puts, of course, are what caught attention during the third quarter filing now it seems like people are really focused on spacs and who's invested in spacs, how they're kind of playing that world. >> leslie, i have a reddit question do investors on reddit understand that most of the institutional money that's in the spacs, before ats quote, unquote, de-spacced. are they not for the de-spaccing? it's effectively a financial engineering play, which is to say they've levered up their money, they're going to clip the coupon along the way and hope that good things happen later but if you were to look at people investing in spacs themselves, on the spac side, that so far at least most of the big guys, you see millennium, it

has very wlilittle to do with te faith or how great the investment is going to be later? >> sure. they've got down side protection they have the ability to redeem if they don't like the investment when a spac goes public the allegation is like any other ipo where the people who are underwriting the spacs give the shares to the prized investors or other clients like you would with a regular ipo there is a lot of debate you asked about the reddit dialogue there is a lot of debate, a lot of conversations about how retail releases into the whole spac world they're really detailed long about kind of how retail should be playing spacs, when they should be getting into spacs no clear consensus but it's certainly a dialogue that takes place daily on those reddit forums. >> leslie, appreciate it very, very much. talk to you soon >> thanks, andrew. coming up when we return,

autonation ceo mike jackson on the quarter. the demand for vehicles and the outlook for the ev market. bob johnson's our guest. before we head to a break, quick check on the markets right now looks like the dow is going to open up 218 points higher. s&p up 23 points and the nasdaq up about 70 points we are back after this we see smarter software delivering cleaner power. emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry

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retailer autonation saying sales revenues up 5% while same-store gross profit up 20% year over year they're opening 20 stores in the next two years stocks are up 2% joining us is mike jackson, ceo and chairman of autonation the progress continues to pace, mike if you had asked me at the beginning of the pandemic where we would be right now, i have to admit i would not have expected this >> andrew, good morning. yes, we had spectacular results in the fourth quarter. best quarter in the history of the company. from the beginning of the

pandemic that is something that is really quite unimaginable but here's what's happening. there is a movement away from density. people want larger, more comfortable homes and they're willing to spend on their homes. they want personal transportation which they control, who they're with and where and how they go. and that independence is resurged that has dramatically increased for automobiles. you then have very attractive interest rates there are certain sectors which really it's heartbreaking to look at. you have a re-allocation or interest in personal transportation that we are benefitting from.

working with a 12% increase in same-store revenue during the qua quarter. one price customer experience, our digital capabilities on new vehicles we have more demand than supply we continue to manage that well. and on the cost side with our digital capabilities, our sg&a is at all-time lows at 64% dramatic decrease from two years ago. you put this together at $2.43, best quarter ever. significantly above what analysts had projected. >> mike, given your insight and ability to see sort of what's selling, tell us what's selling. what's working what's not where are you seeing this? in a way you can help signal the market perhaps on the big automakers themselves. >> well, keep in mind the total

markets preowned, retail new is approaching over 50 million. that's what we're really talking about. in pre-owned we see significant demand from first-time buyers who are saying they do not want to use public transportation they want their own personal transportation so that's been a real opportunity for us, and as i said, we're outperforming the market >> what would be the price point, especially for new buyers that you're seeing on the pre-owned? >> so on pre-owned our average is right around $20,000, but we have demand at 10,000, 7,000, 8,000 that we never had before and these are first-time buyers who simply have come in and said they need to get to work but they don't want to use public transportation my point is the demand we're talking about here starts at a price point of 6, $7,000 and

goes all the way through $400,000 it's across the spectrum when you move into new vehicles where the average price point is approaching $40,000, of course, america's love affair with trucks continue, we are at an inflection point on electrification. we have all the major manufacturers coming with a significant investment in exciting new electric vehicles, all of which we embrace and all of which we will sell, but on the new side there's no question manufacturing has been disrupted by both the pandemic and now with people spending more time at home, the number of micro chips that are available to produce automobiles is reduced so new vehicle production is still very much restrained for the foreseeable future relative to demand that's out there >> mike, on this tipping point of electrification, what are you

seeing in terms of price points there, what are you expecting to happen i know the mustang is now out. you have gm effectively trying to reshape its entire business around evs in the future >> so i think we've passed the point of no return we've crossed the rubicon on electrification and it's here. now the most important thing i can tell you though, this is not like going from the flip phone technology to a smartphone where it's suddenly obsolete everything else. internal combustion engine will be part of personal transportation for decades if i fast forward to 2030, let's say, i think fully 20% of the vehicles sold at that point will be electric, but here's the point, andrew. as far as units in operation in the united states, only 6% will be electrified at that point

you'll still have 280 internal combustion engines on the road of america because they're very cost effective and they're very utilitarian benefit for consumers. this is a decades long journey from the external combustion engine to electrification, but it's here. it's underway. we embrace it. it's exciting. we have great vehicles comin from all of the manufacturers. >> mike, before we go, i have to ask you about what you're seeing on the electrification issue, ev side all of the brands effectively versus tesla the reason i ask the question is tesla has its own charging station, has a massive infrastructure around the country already. none of the other brands do. you effectively have to go to different stations with different payment schemes at each, different charging schemes at each. how much of that do you think is going to be an impediment for those brands and how much running room does that give a

tesla? >> so you have to tip your hat to the brand that tesla has created, the following and its product. however, infrastructure has to be invested in, no question. that's not the issue and that's not how people are using electric vehicles. here's what they like, andrew. they buy an electric car and they tell us, i never have to go to a gas station again they pretty much use the car within a radius of 200, 250 miles. every time when they get home they plug it in for the night. and then, you know, that's it. they're done they come out in the morning it's fully charged come home and plug it in that's their mindset and it's relatively easy to have a home charger installed. you can either use 110 volts, 240 volts if you want to go faster since you're charging it overnight, you can go faster people put a little plug at the

office american ingenuity, they figure out how they live, how they're going to use it and it's not an issue. if you want to drive your electric car across the country, okay, that's another story, but most people who are buying electric cars have an internal combustion engine also in their portfolio of cars and, therefore, for long distance driving they're still using the suburban that will take them anywhere in america. for their daily use around the home and office they're delighted to have an electric vehicle which they just plug in when they get home at night. >> mike, we appreciate it. always great to see you. congratulations on the earnings report stock is up while you've been on the air. looks like it could open up 2% higher this morning. great to see you appreciate it. another earnings report to tell you about right now shares of palintir trading lower. loss of 8 cents a share.

not comparable to estimates. it disappointed the street we're going to dig into this 40% increase in sales during the period topping estimates pal lan tir stock doubled over the past three months. you can see that right there the stock off 5% 5.5% right now there's been an overhang issue as people watch to see some of these expiration lockups end this week for employees. we'll see what kind of impact that has on the other side of the break, the biden relief plan we'll hear from rlj company founder bob johnson. the reddit rebellion forced congress to take notice. they'll be holding a hearing this week including the ceo of re reddit, robinhood, kcitadel. what investors should be looking for coming up after the break. n. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives,

risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

still to come on "squawk box," st. louis federal reserve president james bullard going to join us at 8 a.m. eastern time up next, rlj founder bob johnson

joins us to discuss the biden relief plan and business through covid. plus in celebration of black history month, we've asked some of our cnbc contributors to share the money lessons they've learned growing up and how they're working to close the racial wealth gap and their advice to empower the next generation of black americans. here's bob on how successful people can help close the racial wealth gap the viewers who watch cnbc represent some of the most powerful business people in this country. i urge everyone to look at black opportunity the same way that they looked at opportunities for themselves we're going to give you equal opportunity that we had. we're going to give you access to capitol that we had and we're going to ensure atouth y have a chance and a fair shot at participating in the american dream.

putting the impeachment -- now that congress can put the impeachment behind it, lawmakers will focus on president biden's

$1.9 trillion relief plan. getting money into the hands of those that need it the most is a top concern for business owners. joining us now is bob johnson, founder and chairman of the rlj companies. he's also the founder of b.e.t. and a cnbc contributor bob, good to see you. >> joe, good to see you guys, too. >> we talk about almost the same thing every time, bob, and that is something, it's like a broken record, capital. access to capital for black-owned businesses and, you know, it's black history month. we've got a new administration and stimulus coming. we can distill it down to that with a different backdrop for what's going on. that's still what we need to focus on even in the stimulus package. >> yes

>> joe, same story, different time one thing i want to say about black history month. i'm sure every person appreciates history of the people who came to this country and how they fought for freedom and how they helped build this country, and blacks certainly celebrate the achievements of black people against the odds, but here's a thought, joe. i think it's time that we meld black history with something called black futures because we've told the story over and over again of black achievements against the odds now we need to start talking about what can black people contribute to this country if they had a future as bright economically as the future is for white americans. so i'm suggesting we start

calling february black history/black futures and let black americans talk about what they want to achieve in the future for their countries and their families and let white americans talk about what they're prepared to do and what they're willing to do or what they're doing to make the future brighter for black americans don't deny history, but it's better to know where you're going than to know where you've been. >> part of that, bob, and we'll talk about -- i don't think you've been on since the inaug inauguration in the first 100 days you think biden needs to host a meeting between the business council, business roundtable and black business leaders just to get on the same page of how to move forward. so far is that possible to do that how do you -- is the president amenable to that from what you can tell and what we're seeing in the first 100 days? >> well, the first thing about the so-called first 100 days,

that to me is pretty much a press gimmick and political gimmick. people say -- the president talks about this is what i'm going to do in the first 100 days the first 100 days is not going to decide the future of this nation it's certainly not going to decide the future of black people in this country so i would clearly advocate that the president move as aggressively as he is in signing the executive order, move to bring the black business community into the oval office with the top business leaders from the business council and the business roundtable to say, guys, we have more than 100 days i've got four years, but i'm going to start in this 100 days to figure out a way to put more capital into the hands of black businesses because, joe, as you well know, black businesses tend to hire black people as a whole.

so you create more black businesses, the bounceback is going to be more black jobs. more black jobs mean more black people paying for homeownership, black people paying for retirement, saving for retirement, black people investing and in the end results we make a giant step towards closing the huge wealth gap where black americans at the median have a $17,000 income compared to 170,000 income for white americans. you can't close that gap by wishing it away. you can't close that gap by executive orders away. you've got to bring the people with capital to the people -- together with the people with aspirations, and that's what happened in my life. so if you want to talk black history, my life was a -- is a perfect example of a guy with an aspiration called black entertainment television and a

man called john malone with capital and a strategic interest as a cable owner in having programming targeted to the black audience that kind of combination of aspirations and capital and mutual strategic interests is what this country needs to do to bring black people fully into the economic mainstream. >> you have been on before talking about this, which is -- it's not arcane but not everyone understands how it would help. 401k, auto affordability which is one of your companies would help that happen $181 billion could be saved if you could move in between 401ks. do you want to mention that quickly, bob as one of the things that would help >> it's real quick, joe, because retirement clearinghouse, the company that i spent money on and i was mentioning john

malone john has invested with me in retirement clearinghouse because we both believe that if you could change the economic life of black americans without having to go to congress for a bill or legislation, without having to increase the taxes on other individuals, that to me is the perfect example of how you increase wealth in the black community. you're right, joe, especially if the large corporations in the u.s. and the large record keepers like vanguard and fidelity and life who we're partners with would say, we're going to make a seamless wage for low-wage workers, particularly black and hispanic workers, to not cash out of their retirement, literally $120 billion in a generation would go into these consumers' hands in retirement savings for their family >> right

can we in general, bob -- what do you think president biden needs to focus on right now? >> well, any time you start off your presidency with everything focused on the so-called 100 days pr strategy, ultimately on the 101st day or 201st day, people are saying, okay, what have you done for me lately. and so to me the president, first of all, has to prove himself that he is a better chief executive officer for solving the covid crisis without solving that crisis in terms of getting more vaccines into people's arms and getting more vaccines that can deal with any kind of variant of the covid pandemic, he's going to have problems because he tells himself i'm a better ceo than the other guy and he's got to

show up. the second thing is without money into people's pockets who were suffering from the pandemic, people who lost jobs, people who have to pay rent that they can't afford, people who are seeing their families suffer, we've got to put money into people's hands. and if the stimulus if done right can put money into the people who most need it, i'm not a big fan, joe, of, you know, taking an airplane up in the sky loaded with $15,000 or $1500 and just drop it all over the united states and say, oh, look what we've done, we've given everybody a stimulus some people need it more than others, and i think in the interest of helping the people who need it most, and in that category i unabashedly put black americans, you've got to come up with a strategy to say, let's put more money where it's best needed, you know you know, there's the old saying capital goes where it's best

treated. how about as a public policy we say let's put capital where it's most needed, and that to me -- i can make a case that black americans, because of the wealth gap, because of discrimination, i can make an argument and the president could say because he has the full support of black voters, hey, let's look at black americans and use the stimulus as a way to pump more money into the needs of black americans we do that with other kind of programs we do it with welfare. we do it housing subsidies we do it with all other kinds of programs, why not do it here you know, the stimulus, it can help everybody, but some people need it more than others >> right bob, we're almost out of time. this is totally off topic, but while you were talking we saw bitcoin go over 50,000 $50,000. it's now back a little bit

beneath that that's the first time we've ever seen it. have you dabbled in that have you bought any? do you have an opinion on that and the future of cryptocurrency i don't know whether that can be a useful tool in all of the things they're trying to accomplish as well >> well, no, i haven't dabbled in it, joe i think obviously any form of money that allows you to exchange it for some other goods or for some other service makes a lot of sense the question is how do you control it in terms of the impact on the market or impact on the public interest so, no, my strategy, joe, as you know, i've had the good fortune of starting three publicly traded companies the first was bdc, the first black company to be publicly traded on the new york stock exchange i did a spac that created rlj, a streaming content service and my

hotel rlj trust came public that i created with tom baltimore, who's now the ceo of hilton. to me, i think that the opportunity for wealth in the black community and the wealth for -- opportunity to gain wealth for black entrepreneurs is what i've experienced strategic relationships with large corporations or individuals who run corporations because the learning and the mentoring process that takes place when you have someone who believes in you and is willing to invest in you is an amazing asset to have to become successful in the u.s. economy >> well, you're living proof, that's for sure, bob access to capital, which i call

it a broken record, we can't say it too many times, that's the way to do it and, you know, we'll have you back we'll talk about it some more and see if we're making any progress at that point we appreciate all of your time this morning >> joe, please stay safe and i'll see you again. >> very good we'll see you again. coming up, the ceos of reddit, robinhood, citadel expected to testify on the recent gamestop trading. we'll discuss the possible impact of that hearing in just a bit. as we head to a break, look at some of the reddit -- reddit hyped stocks ts himorning. there's the list we're coming right back. apps are used everywhere... except work. why is that? is it because people love filling out forms?

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welcome back welcome back to "squawk box. we go -- i knew they were going to do that, andrew

did you hear how good that morning mood was going >> good morning to the second hour. >> see here it is >> this is what i was -- 1875, edward gree. >> futures this morning indicated -- indicated up 190. bitcoin. then there's bitcoin i think we need to go back to the -- yes, for bitcoin. immediately -- immediately turned down once it hit it, andrew i guess some people thought, you know, it hit 50. >> but think about this, and we don't know exactly the date that tesla got in, that elon musk got in, but this thing's probably up 40% possibly since he got in >> how about -- >> they might have made $500 million just doing it.

>> we talked about it when it was -- when it was pennies, basically. i mean, we did, or at least, you know, 10 bucks or something. the numbers are mind boggling that we've seen just in the last 12 years, 13 years, whatever it is. >> look, i remember interviewing the winklevoss twins, probably, what, 2011, '12. >> right right. >> if we had been -- i won't say half paying attention but if we had been listening we wouldn't be waking up at these hours, joe. we would be counting our bitcoin. >> possibly. possibly what you consider -- i saw yesterday a list of the price of bitcoin on every valentine's day for the past 12 years and it -- you know, it's kind of interesting because sometimes -- you know, it was half the year later a couple of times. it was half of what it was the previous year but it has been a pretty consistent move just way,

way, way, way up 50,000. >> way, way, way up. >> andrew, i'm supposed to disclose i own some. cramer -- yeah, i have to disclose that i own some i haven't bought any in a couple of years. >> joe, at 50,000 is the next stop 100,000 or is the next stop 30,000 >> i -- me personally? i would -- i'd -- if it went down there, i think that's a time when maybe you put more to work down there. you know what i mean at 30 or -- you know -- 20 i don't know i don't know, andrew. >> i don't know. >> nothing would surprise me nothing would surprise me, but it would be nice to get it at 20 again maybe. >> yup yup. certainly whether i doesn't look like it's headed there any time soon. >> not at this rate.

we should talk to bullard about this i wondered all the free money, how much of that has ended up in bitcoin. >> right >> we're going to talk about a different pre-money story. we're going to break down what investors need to know about it after the break you're going to need to get your popcorn because it's going to be quite the hearing. then at the top of the hour st. louis fed president james bullard, as i just mentioned, is going to join us to discuss the markets and atnvtowh iesrs should expect as 2020 rolls on we're back after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning hedge fund tycoons and robinhood executives will have their business practices examined under a microscope at "the game" stop hearings. good morning to both of you. kate, i'm curious what you think this hearing is going to really focus on given the disparate interests that are going to be at the able. you have everybody from the ceo of robinhood on one side to ken griffin, the ceo of citadel, for example, on the other, and then you have some of the traders involved in the gamestop trade

itself >> yeah, andrew, i'm personally really looking forward to it because i think chair waters greatly recognizes this was sort of a hot mess and there's not even a very good understanding now of what led to all of this beyond some reddit chatter, the use of commissionfree trading apps that have become extreme ri popular like robinhood and then on the side there's some relationship with citadel and also melvin that was short the stock. so if there's any ability to sort of untangle what happened in this sort of basic step-by-step mechanical venture, that will be interesting che chair waters has a tough time here this is tough stuff for the american public to understand. it's sometimes hard for me to understand market structure is arcane and involves sophisticated technology and you have all of

these forces interplaying. to me i'm very curious to see. i have not met him, although his reputation for good money management up until now precedes him. i'm curious to see what he has to say about the debacle about his hedge fund, melvin capital, going into this. >> dan, what i'm curious about is does somebody like roaring kitty get treated as a hero or a villain relative to a plotkin in this scenario? >> depends on who's asking the questions. i do believe the reddit post will be -- i don't know so much heroes i think probably more curiosity. to me the only real thing they're going to maybe determine here in terms of something we

haven't been able to learn yet maybe are more details about the relationship between citadel and robinhood. other than that, i think this is going to be a lot of noise but not a lot of consequence coming out of it. maybe some sec regulations down the road, but that won't be coming from the committee. >> i'll ask this to both of you. on the shorting side and, kate, you've already written about how difficult this situation has made it more broadly to short stocks and what that means that's on one end of it. on the other end of it is the idea of a social media enabled sort of trading frenzy and whether you think there's going to be either new rules of the road need to be implemented or, frankly, enforcement around what it means to quote, unquote manipulate a stock >> you heard in the aftermath of thursday, january 28th, which is when game stock peaked interday close to $5,000 and robinhood

put in trading we know they needed to put up cash for a margin requirement that slowed things down for them but in the aftermath of that you had the likes of aoc on the one hand and ted cruz on the other saying it was an outrageous situation that sort of needed more regulation and yet from everyone i've talked to in the short community, in the legal community, it sounds like the appetite for further curves is low. short selling curtailment on financial names in an effort to boost banks and brokerages was regarded as ineffective in studies afterwards and that just doesn't seem like a solution the other thing that a professional investor versus a less sophisticated investor might notice here is that the sense that the smaller investors bidding up gamestop were wronged, yes and no. i mean, you could argue that we should have free unfunfettered

markets, yes and no. investors may not have the track record and knowledge to get out. if nothing else, the robinhood curve had the effect of lowering and reducing the frost and bringing the stock back to a more earth-like level. >> kate and dan, we've got to leave it there i'm sure we will be talking to you both hopefully a little bit later this week as the story and hearing unfolds. look forward to that conversation joe? >> thank you great. sorry. thanks, andrew don't miss our first on cnbc interview with st. louis fed president james bullard straight ahead on the day bitcoin goes over 50,000. thank you. thank you, james and company anyway, futures this morning as

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good morning bitcoin busting through the $50,000 level. the cryptocurrency continuing an unprecedented run up 70% this year meanwhile, we've got more record highs possibly ahead for stocks today. the trading week starts with futures in the green across the board. then some energy markets, volatility a severe cold snap down south helping to push prices up as millions lose power. the fed, meanwhile, says interest rates are on hold for a while. does that mean a pivot is out of the question we're going to have st. louis fed president james bullard in an exclusive interview the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now.

check this out bitcoin broke through the $50,000 level just a short time ago. now up more than 70% since january 1st. coming off that 50,000 mark. pretty extraordinary run no matter how you look at it. joe? >> i just wish we knew all -- i wish we could see into the future, andrew all you need to do, you take the total global financial system, right? >> yeah. >> figure out what that is and then divide it by 21 million -- well, first take the total

financial system and decide what percentage of that could some day be crypto related or -- >> right. >> -- where crypto could play a role >> right >> orbitcoin related. >> or bitcoin related and divide that by 21 million that's where you get scary numbers. i don't know if they're legit. at the same time you worry about individual countries and governments, you know, that have a huge vested interest, for example, the united states and the dollar remaining the reserve currency what do they do when it becomes clear -- or if it starts to look like you're not having control, which maybe it's already starting to look like that, isn't it what do they do? they can do whatever they want, can't they or can they? >> what's the number at which it gets out of control? is it the number -- the price of bitcoin which is out of control or is it the distribution of bitcoin, meaning it's still held in only a few hands on a

relative basis to the country. so that's to me what you should be looking for you can buy half of bitcoin, 1/10 of bitcoin it's not necessarily the price itself but just how many holders there are. >> right >> i've seen some crazy stuff where people write in it's not a fixed number not 21 million because you can divide each one and that's where you go, okay. you just need to go back to, you know, elementary school level math because i'm not even going to have a conversation because there are 21 million, whether you split them up or not, it's 21 million >> right >> i don't know. if it sticks and it has inherent value, what did novogratz say? 100,000? others might have said half a million. >> i heard half a million, i've heard a million, 200,000

the other question is once it gets to those levels, do a lot of people sell out of it are people going to use it as a currency at some point you say it's made the run and then does it just level out at this sort of -- at some price hard to know >> right right. >> if you call it something like the internet of money or you saw paul tudor jones say apple in the top of the first inning, amazon in the top of the first inning, i don't know i don't know >> we'll see >> it gives us something to look forward to this morning's top stories in addition to what we were just talking about, we're watching crude oil, price of natural gas, a cold snap in texas and much higher power demand forcing that electrical grid to operators to impose some blackouts. this is not good it's one thing to be hot during the summer and dangerous, but,

you know, freezing cold and not having heat, that is a real issue. oil refineries are closed. gas pipeline operators say to put restrictions in place. over the weekend the bad weather knocked out half the state's wind power generating capacity i guess you can make windmills that don't breathe but maybe they cost more than some that are down south where you don't expect the weather fourth quarter results out just a short time ago from business analytics firm palantir revenue came in above estimates. that's not helping the stock this morning as you can see, down about 8%. news out from 3m the industrial giant says it's aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and expects to invest about a billion dollars over the next 20 years towards that end also looking to reduce water

usage by 25% and return higher quality water to the environment after it's used than when it went in in manufacturing meantime, with that backdrop of everything that's going on in the economy, last we heard the federal reserve planning to keep interest rates low for quite some time. it's possible the central bank strategy could change if the economy shows more improvement from the pandemic dolddoldrums steve liesman joins us with what to watch from the fed. >> reporter: public speeches and conversations with the fed shows they are figuring out when to reverse course one feature of all three, most fed officials don't expect any clarity for months or months to come first of all, fed officials have been watching the spread of the virus and distribution rate of the vaccine to figure out when the economy could return to normal the amount and size of the relief will matter for growth but it's not entirely clear the

fed and many wall street economists how much will be spent and saved and how much of a surge to expect either from a bill or return to normal ultimately, the fed will gauge the pace of growth with a watchful eye on how much of the underlying economy has deterred, especially the jobs market fed chair jay powell emphasized repeatedly the complete job market with 10 million jobs lost and the rising number you can see here of permanent job losses that's a sign that while the market and earnings are doing well, the main street market economy has a ways to go fed officials hold out hope with the combination of the vaccine and the relief bill could result in a faster than expected turn around that would push ahead or push back, whatever you want to call it, the turn around. they have been clear they won't be quick to pull the trigger until the extent of permanent damage is clear. what you don't hear them talking much about is when you worry

over inflation or higher bond yields, joe. i don't think they're going to flinch in the face of concern that some have on the street about inflation. >> right about that, steve lots to talk about stick around for this next interview. joining us now is jim bullard, st. louis fed president. mr. bullard, jim, since the last time we saw you, it's been a while. welcome back great to see you >> great to be here. >> just in general, what we've seen lately, and that is kind of a new paradigm almost for inflation expectations, are you comfortable in that new paradigm right now? should we all be comfortable where we are especially given what we may be seeing in terms of asset inflation in so many different sectors of the investment markets >> i think we're in good shape with inflation right now of course, we've missed our

inflation target to the low side really since 2012. now i think you do have some more inflation pressure in the economy. i do think inflation will move up this year you're seeing tips based inflation measures move up pretty smartly the last few months or weeks. and the difference here is that the fed's going to take that on board, i think i certainly am we've been trying to get inflation up to target we'd like to miss on the high side for a while the balance is on the low side that we've had and then we'll better establish the idea that we're actually going to hit the inflation target over the long term and that will cement inflation expectations i hope we can get all of that to play out here. we have a lot going on with the pandemic coming to an end and as you mentioned, lots of action in financial markets.

>> did you kind of deliberately avoid my use of that term asset inflation in that discussion, jim? that's what i'm eluding to >> i'd say equities are highly valued, but i wouldn't say they're -- on the whole i wouldn't say that we're in -- you know, they're probably at the upper end of what you'd like to see if you're dodd and graham type investor. the biggest thing in equities is really these tech firms and how high the value for these guys. they've got great technology they've got great revenue. business models. the sky is the limit so where investors want to value those is driving a big chunk of the market that's just as tough an investment decision as there's ever been. i'm not sure you want to call that part a bubble, that's just normal investing trying to get your head around what those companies are really worth >> yeah, jim i tried to encompass everything

but i'll sell some of it out for you. city of detroit bonds, less than 2% junk bonds under 4% for the first time ever. spacs, ipos, bitcoin, gamestop none of that feels to you like, wow, maybe we're printing too much >> i did say there was a lot of action in markets, and i think you do see, you know, speculative frenzies from time to time in markets and that's part of the -- part of the process. i think you have to understand those that are involved have to understand that, yeah, you can make money but you can also lose a lot of money something like gamestop shooting up to, you know, really high levels and then coming all the way back down, to an economist that just says there was no value created at the end of the day but a lot of money changed

hands. you know, there are winners and losers i suspect that, you know, the winners were more professional traders and the losers were more retail investors, but i don't know >> yeah. >> you don't quite know who are the winners and losers there there's no value created in the sense that, gosh, these guys have a great business model and looks like they're going to be very profitable going forward. >> yeah. i'm just wondering, is it -- do you think that the central bankers can be confident that they'll have time to see the actual writing on the wall for when it's gone too far or will it already be too late that's the biggest worry that i think i have >> the fed's been arguing about the bubble since the irrational exuberant speech which is 1996

so it's a long-running debate and i will say to our credit we have much better radar about the, you know, possible causes of financial upset we've got regular reports and regular monitoring that we didn't have before the financial crisis that's trying to assess more formally than we would before whether we've got bubble conditions that could have all been to financial crisis i would say that financial conditions generally are very good right now financial stress index for the st. louis fed, for instance, is at low levels so we're not in the kind of panic situation that we were last march or april or that we were in 2008 so from the fed's perspective, we're doing well so far and we are monitoring closely to see if

this does get out of control >> yeah, joe, i enjoyed that line of questioning. that was great i want to come at it from the macro stand point, not necessarily the market standpoint jim, how do you balance the two things that are happening in the economy, first, the vaccine is out there and it has the possibility of bringing the economy back to normal the chance of herd immunity. the chart that i put up earlier that nearly 4 million people who are currently unemployed, still the deficit of 10 million jobs relative to february how do you balance these two issues of the possibility of the promise of the vaccine on the one hand and on the other hand the potential for lasting damage to the job market? >> yeah, on the pandemic itself, i think i like this analysis i saw over the weekend from first

trust, brian westberry and his group there because it gave kind of a market view using the cdc data about how fast the pandemic could come to a close here they've got the idea it could be april. you see it coming down precipitously, hospitalizations coming down, fatalities coming down fatalities are trailing. so it does look like the vaccine is doing what it needs to. i understand there are risks there are always risks when we talk to epidemiologists they're right to say that lots of other things could happen here, but from the market point of view you want a market analysis as to how fast can we get confirmed cases down to very low levels how fast do we get hospitalizations down to low levels and eventually fatalities down to low levels once we get to that level you'll start to see the economy really

turn around here and do much better and then you'll see labor markets get much better. i've emphasized that a lot of the unemployed today, 1%, 8% of all of the unemployed last spring said that they were temporarily unemployed those people tend to come back much quicker than those that are permanently unemployed as you say, we have high permanent unemployment those people have a tougher time and we do want to have great conditions for them to adjust, but let's be clear, you know, wall street's thinking the u.s. economy might grow faster than china this year. this is the kind of growth you're talking about potentially coming out of this pandemic, a roaring u.s. economy fueled by fiscal stimulus and monetary policy >> jim, when you think about

those kind of numbers, are you thinking about tapering at this point? >> not really. i think we're in good shape for today. why don't we just wait and see if the scenario i described actually plays out because there are risks. it could go the other way. could get a new strain that's resistant to the vaccines. lots of things could happen. that's not my base case, but those things could happen and then you'd have to reassess at that point so there's no reason to get ahead and let the chair open the discussion. >> jim, i have two questions for you. one related to what you were talking about. we've been having the debate on the program and for weeks given the stimulus bill on hand. what do you think the impact of a federally mandated $15 an hour wage would be on the big picture

as the fed sees it >> i have no reason to doubt the cbo analysis that says you'd lose 1.4 million jobs. that's a lot of jobs those that are still in the labor market would get a raise, but i also think there are medium-term effects. i saw your discussion earlier where firms start to substitute capital for labor. they might not do that immediately, but, you know, you're talking about a lot of industries that have a lot of turnover maybe they don't replace those workers later and instead they decide to invest in newer technologies so i think it's -- you've also got unevenness across the country. different labor markets across the country. i'd like to see adjust mtd for that that's why i like the minimum wage debate. could be a local debate in different parts of the country that adjust to different labor markets. i think that's important also the benefits of the minimum wage, they go to middle class

families with kids so a big chunk of that is not really, you know, helping the poorer segments of society. you're talking about new unemployment for middle class and upper middle class families. there's a lot to talk about minimum wage, debated forever. >> separate topic, bringing it back to bitcoin. i know that seems to be the topic due your these days. how do you see the fed thinking right now about the idea of a digital dollar, a digital coin and whether it's important that the u.s. be on the forefront of cryptocurrency and whether effectively the fed could let bitcoin reach escape velocity? perhaps it's already reached escape velocity. >> yoeah, i don't know.

dollars can be traded vastly over value i'm not sure that's really the issue here the issue is privately issued currency and we've had historically privately issued currency in the united states before the civil war and you had what at the time would have been, you know, something like the equivalent of bank of america dollars and jpmorgan dollars and wells fargo dollars, they were trading around and they traded at different discounts to each other. people did not like it at all. so i think the same thing would occur with bitcoin here. you don't want to go to a nonuniform currency where you're walking into starbucks and maybe i'll pay with a theer yum, maybe i'll pay with ripple, bitcoin, maybe you'll pay with a dollar that's not how we do this. we had a uniform currency come in at the civil war time a dollar is a dollar another thing is there is already currency competition

globally there are hundreds of currencies globally and some of them are privately issued they have to meet all of the same restrictions that all of us do that try to run a currency regime you have to have stability above future supply and it's not at all clear and you have to have stable value against other -- against goods and against other currencies you know, private currencies aren't doing that. there's a lot of them being issued they predicted if you allow private currency issuance, you'll get a lot of them that's exactly what's happened here thousands of coins -- virtual coins have been issued and so this is just part of the normal currency competition that has gone on for centuries. >> hey, jim, do you -- but the rationale that bitcoin is a storer of value in the face of

debasement of currency, do you believe that argument has merit? does it make sense for people and companies that are now building positions in bitcoin? do you believe that has merit? do you yourself -- have you bought any bitcoin >> i don't -- i actually can't invest i only invest in indexes and stuff. currency competitions have gone on forever the british pound in the 19th century was the top dog. it was replaced by the dollar. in the 20th century still the top currency, but it is a currency competition and investors want a safe haven. they want a stable store of values and then they want to conduct their investments in that currency. the yen also very strong euro also very strong. neither of those is going to replace the dollar it would be very hard to get a

private currency that's really more like gold to play that role so i don't think that that's where we're going to see any changes in the future. >> well then you must think $50,000 is an insane value for bitcoin then >> yeah. i mean, the gold price has moved up and down since, you know, since the '70s and '80s. that hasn't affected fed policy as far as i can tell >> i know. would you -- you would characterize bitcoin as -- i guess you said the rationale -- >> characterize it as a rival to gold and that might be a good way to think about it. >> oh, okay. all right. you don't have an opinion whether 50,000 is a bubble for bitcoin? that wasn't the case you were making >> no. i just think, you know, for fed

policy and, you know, it's going to be a dollar economy as far as the eye can see and dollar gold as far as the eye can see and whether the gold price goes up or down or the bitcoin price goes up or down doesn't really affect that. >> okay. all right. great to hear the thoughts of one of our great central bankers today. i know you think about all of these issues a lot we appreciate all the time you gave us today, president bullard. thank you. >> thanks. thanks for having me >> a lot of lessons in what he just said, joe there was a lot in there a lot embedded in there, i think. >> there was still thinking about it. >> we'll have to relisten to it. absolutely when we come back, a live update on the cold snap and the volatile energy prices. expecting to hear a lot about regulating online trading

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welcome back to "squawk box. cold snap sweeping the lower part of the country and wreaking havoc in the energy market brian sullivan joins us with the latest brian? >> reporter: yes tough scene down there, andrew the latest number, 3.8 million people in texas are without power. keep in mind it is 1 degree in dallas and 10 degrees in houston. it is very, very cold. no power means no heat if you're using electric or relying on electric meter for that or water by the way just from a weather perspective, the power situation is very grim this is the energy capital of the united states.

what's happened? these are major storms these are not everyday events. it has been colder but you have ice, you've got wind, you've got the snow we're showing the videos there which have knocked off a lot of power generation capacity, number one you have a lot of pipe lines that are frozen or they're concerned about freezing so the flow has been stopped. number two, you have wind turbines that can't spin because their blades are covered in ice and it disrupts the balance or you have the turbine itself can't turn, not enough wind, whatever that may be wind is about 23% of texas's power generation capacity. so you've got production capacity coming offline, guys, at the same time the demand for power may actually hit a record. normally texas will hit a record sometime in july or august it's 108 degrees in the shade and everybody is cranking their air conditioning well this, because the demand for heat may actually surpass these types of power demand

records, so demand is up you have generation capacity offline. you have 40 some percent of the major utilities, guys, or distributors whose customers do not or have not had power either consistently or at all a lot of people asking when's it going to get better. we have no idea. another storm, by the way, unfortunately, guys, is on the way. last thing i'll say, joe, the spot market just like everything else, you've got to buy it when you need it, contractually, whatever it might be, like a short squeeze if you will for energy has been happening where distributors have to go out and buy power. they're obligated to buy it. the price has gone up 10 fold or even more. developing story scary. very cold. very dangerous the energy capital not exactly producing as much energy as many people need. >> amazing story watching it

play out, brian. thanks for that report let's stay on the energy theme and specifically power in the next generation of cars. general motors wants to re-energize the electric volt with a small suv version phil lebeau joins us with more hey, phil. >> reporter: hey, jolt they call it the bolt euv. they unveiled it over the weekend. extend it out 6 inches longer, 6 inches higher. gives you more depth in terms of capacity for the vehicle starts at just under $34,000 this comes at the same time when they are beefing up the original chevy bolt they said this is pretty utili utilitarian. they've added super cruise much better interior their hope is the bolt and the bolt euv get them to a place where more people will say, yeah, i'm interested in trying an electric vehicle.

>> we're going to deliver that right into main street. >> let's be clear here the bolt and the bolt euv are not part of the altium platform. those will come with the hummer, cadillac lyric, et cetera. this is what gm is chasing what all of the automakers are chasing. look at the rise in electric vehicle sales. keep in mind, however, here in the u.s. last year it was just under 1/4 million results. not expected to at that point a million until 2025 shares of general motors, this is the beginning of what's going to be a big ramp up over the next couple of years pumping $27 billion into the ev portfolio through 2025 stock has been moving higher let's see where it goes from

here joe? >> yeah. okay, phil real sad news. arne sorenson died unexpectedly yesterday. long time friend of mine long time friend of the show such a great guy wonderful man who was battling pancreatic cancer. he passed away on february 15th, which is yesterday on february 2nd marriott had shared the news that arne would temporarily reduce his schedule to ifacilitate more treatment fo the pancreatic cancer. more demanding treatment but they are, andrew, making a point that this was unexpected and i remember we've had him on,

you know, it's been a couple of years that he was diagnosed, as you recall he was always on with us in davos. he looked thin but he was doing well he was doing well last we heard. but you know how difficult pancreatic cancer is and the treatment options aren't always what we wish they were for that. third ceo in marriott's history since 2012 he was the first guy that wasn't a marriott first guy without the marriott surname. he built that with the acquisitions of starwood it's a much bigger company now >> he did a remarkable job it's something to read this headline and see it cross. you know, i think when we first saw that he had pancreatic cancer back in may of 2019 and then, you know, we've seen him since then and he was fighting the good fight he did some remarkable things at

marriott as you said, transforming that company with the acquisition of starwood a decent, genuine and generous person it's a sad day we honor him. >> he became a friend. >> our condolences to his family. >> yeah, we do he became a friend i saw him out at fast results, which was a ritz carlton property had dinner with him recently when they opened up the -- one of the new marriott upscale brands in times square which one is that, andrew? it just opened a year and a half ago, two years, with schrager. >> yeah. >> i forget. it's in time square. i sat with him for dinner. and mrs. sorenson. we send our condolences to mrs. sorenson as well very, very sad what can you say we will be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk. one year before the market hit its peak mike santoli here. >> maybe a little bit surprising given all of the unprecedented events in the last year that the mark jet setup looks similar a year and a half long s&p 500 chart. this 6-month run we've had up 16% in 6 months with the same as a 6-month return into the february 19th, 2020 peak we had this kind of grinding very orderly up friend a little bit of a pull back in late january, early february megacap growth virgin galactic, beyond meat were the stories look at junk bond yields exact round trip to where we were one year ago. obviously a big panic in the middle the volatility index interestingly is at a similar run. importantly, coming from a different direction. we spent the entire past year up

to 20. here we were rising up to it after a very orderly period. that points to one of the differences which is back then it was late cycle, full employment we kind of thought we knew the story. profit supposed to be flat now early cycle, fed very active spring loaded profit story i think that's the direction of difference we have right now, joe. >> thank you, joe. more on markets now as we get set to kick off the trading week james mcdonald, hercules investment ceo and chief investment officer thanks for joining us. solid today, james everything looks for you the environment still looks positive

for equities >> there is a resurgence of energy going on both impacted by the severe climate that we're experiencing in the midwest and in the east. >> the sbroeinterruption of electricity. >> would it be lighting up at this point i think tech is important.

i like the volatility level. for a lot of people that have benefitted from the gains in the tech runup similarly for the vix and s&p. light exposure gives you down side protection. >> what about financials that have under performed at this point. is that something that people should be looking at or should we just admit the fed's been in here for a long time maybe it gets better if rates eventually move up >> well, we talked at the top about over extension small cap russell 2000 which is heavy weighting the financials we think small caps are over bought

if we pivot and look in the small caps, the nasdaq bank interest is up 50% in the last 90 days. this is the area we think is extremely over heated. things are so, so strong coming into this recovery trade as we see the vaccine trade and an economy looking like we're going to reopen. we see unprecedented stocks and gains in the last 90 days or so. we are coming up on renewable energy >> all right james, thanks. good to see you this morning >> thank you >> see you again see you again soon you are welcome. do robinhood and other online trading platforms need to be reined in after "the game" stop

luonin or would new rules be sotis search of a problem that doesn't really exist. don't miss that debate right after a break. "squawk box" coming right back how do we ensure families facing food insecurity get access to their food? we needed to make sure that, if they couldn't get to the food, the food would come to them. we can deliver for food banks and schools. amazon knows how to do that. i helped deliver 12 million meals to families in need. that's the power of having a company like amazon behind me.

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welcome back to "squawk box. some of the characters caught up in the gamestop frenzy will be testifying in congress will congress respond to the reddit rally with regulations? joining us are two congress people good morning to both of you. congressman, i'm going to start with you what are you looking for exactly in terms of regulations? is it about regulating roob bi robinhood and the markets themselves or about regulating the retail investor? >> i think right now the question is robinhood. i've been very proud to see a

company like robinhood emerge. this gives new investors an opportunity to invest. it levels the playing field for the small investors, but i was very disappointed to see when they halted trading. i think that needs to be explained in this hearing. i'm generally against more regulations. every time congress tries to regulate wall street, unintended consequences happen. the dodd frank comes to mind i think that hurt main street. i think it hurt a lot of small businesses and homeowners. i don't want to see congress overreact, but i think robinhood owes an explanation as to why they halted trading. if there was a reasonable explanation where a law and regulation needs to be changed if robinhood acted badly, i think they need to be held accountable and possibly pay a fine as for more regulations, i'm not ready to go in that direction

yet. >> miss edwards, what's your take on this should somebody be held responsible for this >> we don't know yet, i think. what's interesting is robinhood and other apps that have given small investors a window into the market have democratized the market but at the same time we need to make sure there are rules in place that enable robinhood to function so it doesn't destroy the market and so that it protects small investors. what i'm more interested in is the opening that this may be to looking again at the operation of hedge funds and they still remain largely unregulated in the market they are engaged in behaviors that supposedly a set of rules is going to prevent small investors from engaging in and so i want the same rules to

apply whether you're a small investor or you're a professional investor. and we need to make sure that that doesn't cause the kind of volatility in the market that happened in january. >> i want to ask you both this question which is what are we trying to sell for the reason i ask that is it seems to me for better or worse, as fair as we want the markets to be, we want -- we all talk about how we want a level playing field, i'm not sure whether that's something we should be even trying to solve for in certain cases the reason i mention that is by default, the hedge fund with more money, with more resources, with more access today a, is always going to have to some degree or should have an advantage over an individual investor however, obviously we've seen hedge funds that have made terrible bets along the way and we've seen individual investors who have on occasion made tremendous bets.

congressman? >> well, that's part of the investing process. that's part of supply and demand and i don't think that congress needs to step in and overregulate call me skeptical, but i don't have confidence that maxine waters will have the silver bullet solution. i think robinhood needs to be transparent. i don't have sympathy for hedge funds that shorted a bunch of stocks and sustained big losses. we should never go out and bail out congress again it happened before i came to congress, but it's a stain in the history of congress. so i think that this hearing is important for trarns parent si. it will give everyone an opportunity to explain what happened, and then i think we can take the additional steps, if needed, to see this never happens again with respect to suspending trading on a platform >> that's what i'm trying to

understand congressman, i'll go to congresswoman edwards as well as on this. we keep talking about the suspension of trading as if that's the reason gamestop stock is low a lot of people could say it should never have been at $400 to begin with. maybe $50 is fair or not, but it was inevitable it was not going to be $400 >> you're correct. but i don't think you can regulate bubbles in the market i think that's part of investing and that's a risk that everyone should take. i know that robinhood dealt with a lot of new investors that were never prone to excessive risk or bubbles before, but i don't think that's a factor that should be regulated by congress. >> all right >> i mean, but the problem is that it wasn't -- it's that robinhood suspended trading and the small investors, frankly,

played the market in the same way that the big guys do and so why is it that you would -- i would not want to create a set of -- a different set of rules for one group of players versus another group of players, and out of respect to chairwoman waters, what she has said is she doesn't really know or understand what happened. and the purpose of the hearing is to try to figure that out not necessarily to go to new regulat regulations, but if those are needed, if, for example, we need to say robinhood and actors like you, you need to sort of keep more capitol so you can cover the risk, then maybe we need to do that. i don't know what the answers to that question is, but i think it's important for us to find out so that we have a market that can operate whether you're big or small, and obviously even small investors have to be careful about the kind of risk they're willing to take. >> i want to thank both of you

we'll watch this play out. i imagine it's going to become a conversation about market infrastructure which may get in the weeds with people 2 zero versus t 2, but nonetheless, it's an important one and we'll ntuest on. thank you both coming up on the other side of the break, top stocks on the move ahead of the first trading day of the week. squawk returns after this. has no penalties or advisory fee. and we can monitor to see that we're on track. like schwab intelligent income. schwab! introducing schwab intelligent income. a simple, modern way to pay yourself from your portfolio. oh, that's cool... i mean, we don't have that. schwab. a modern approach to wealth management. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it

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hour until the opening bell. we are joined with come soft morning's top stock movers >> good tuesday morning. we're going to kick things off with an earnings mover shares of auto nation on the rise 25,000 shares of premarket volume they posted quarterly results that beat estimates on both profits and revenues auto nation help aid long by demand for new and used cars shares helped up 2%. next up, shares of palantir. lower by roughly 10% the company reported a quarterly loss on better than expected revenues thanks to new contracts. average use for new users up 14% but the expectations were high the stock tripled since the market debut last september. and shares of microstrategy.

higher by 5% the business software maker catches a tail wind because of the investment in bitcoin. as of earlier this month they owned close to 7 2,000 bitcoins. it's now buying more it did something similar last december bitcoin playing in their strategy >> microstrategy turned into macro strategy it looks like we are done, andrew. futures look strong. we hit 50. >> futures are strong. we want to honor arnie swaurnson. a great life a life well-lived. >> he did. we'll miss him yep. >> good news morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and mike an telly.