nothing to be sneezed at the other major indexes moving lower. bond yield 1.29% fairly significant there bitcoin is up. oil is up, morgan. >> that's right and big tech lower which is part of what is bringing the broader averages down as we have seen rates go a little bit higher. we've just talked about gamestop another one to watch, a reddit fan favorite cannabis stocks we have tilray after the bell to keep an eye on that. thanks for joining "power lunch" and "closing bell" starts right now. >> i don't think sara's mic is working. it was for me. welcome to "closing bell." i'm wilfred frost with sara eisen with stocks bouncing around the dow higher and nasdaq s&p, and russell all lower

the fed saying its easy monetary policy is here to stay and saying it will remain accommodative. big beats in the economic data retail sales get a big boost ppi comes in hot and housing data better than expected. warren buffet making an impact berkshire's new stakes in verizon and chevron have those stocks high. nasdaq lower by 0.8% 59 minutes left in the session let's have a look at what is coming up on the show. shopify showing explosive growth harley finkelstein will join us in a few moments the ceo of general mills will join us. we'll ask the maker of cheerios how consumption has changed and what categories they are focusing on going forward. and representative maxine waters will also join us. she is chair of the house financial services committee which is of course holding the gamestop hearing tomorrow. we will get her game plan for that congressional testimony mike santoli is here with us of

course tracking the market action as always mike, come to you first of all what do you focus on today sort of soft week so far and some of the more over priced tech stocks that are struggling most of all. >> exactly kind of listless though i do think we had a couple bounces off morning lows around 3900 level in the s&p 500 and then also a little more of a boost after the fed minutes were released not sure why there was any suspense about what the fed was going to say but nonetheless seemed to clear the way. the weakness we have, the restraint on the s&p 500 is coming from the big growth stocks apple most particularly is down a couple percent tesla coming up from losses, too. really just staying right within that kind of rally channel we've been in for a while. we kind of had a couple lower toward 3900. came into the week over bought came into the week with maybe seasonal headwinds but so far not netting out to a whole lot except some profit taking in the big nasdaq stocks. the retail trader a dominant theme. we look at all of this, kind of

reflected in interactive brokerage price, up 33% in three months market maker, high frequency trader, electronic trader of wholesale securities up 24% in the same time period kind of a comp to citadel which is the citadel market making business and competitor 9% on the s&p 500. a lot of it coming through options. call option volumes really just beyond anything we've seen in recent years you have to go all the way back to the late '90s we are at 2 million average. small trader call option buys to open this is a proxy for retail traders opening up side positions and you see up here about 18 million a day jpmorgan data so this shows you this is going to be a theme in this market for sometime to come, guys >> mike santoli, thank you we are getting embargo testimony ahead of the gamestop hearings tomorrow on capitol hill kate rooney with that. >> reporter: we do have prepared testimony from robin hood's ceo,

so tomorrow tenev does plan to say, he does plan to describe robin hood's story and gets into his own founder's story but says from the outset, any allegation that robin hood acted to help hedge funds or any other special interests to the detriment of our customers is absolutely false and market distorting rhetoric so coming out strong there he also mentions some of the capital requirements we've talked about and some of the reasons behind the scenes that robin hood did have to halt some trading of stocks like gamestop. and we also now have a testimony out from a reddit trader keith gill who is expected to testify as well tomorrow he also goes by the name roaring kitty and says the idea he used social media to promote gamestop to unwitting investors is preposterous he says his channel is meant for educational purposes and highlights he is himself an individual investor. he says he is not a hedge fund his posts about gamestop were entirely his own he also still says that gamestop

in his words is dramatically under valued by the market so gill here still bullish on gamestop back to you guys >> kate rooney, giving us a taste of what we can expect. also coming up we'll talk to interactive brokers chairman thomas peterffy in a first on cnbc interview in just a bit remember his firm also had to restrict some trading on gamestop, amc, and others. in the meantime we'll turn to the fed minutes also just released this afternoon. steve liesman with the big highlights >> thanks, sara. minutes from the fed's january meeting even though they came out about an hour ago looked to have been stale from the get-go. they show the fed saw a moderate pace of economic activity and inflation held down by weak demand and lowering oil prices guess what this morning the government comes out with blow out numbers from the january retail sales and the highest one-month rise in producer price inflation since the start of the current series in 2009 oil prices are at the highest level in 13 months

still, the minutes' guidance on when and how the fed will shift from the easy monetary policies likely remain relevant but that is saying it will communicate any changes to qe the $120 billion a month in fixed assets it's buying, it will do so well in advance and is likely to take sometime to achieve the metric for lowering it which is, quote, substantial further progress it is also important to distinguish between price increases and changes in underlying inflation with the fed aiming for inflation above 2% not likely to flinch o and surge in prices that would come with an economic rebound if it views the hikes as temporary. fed meets again in march and we'll likely see millions more vaccinated and more parts of the economy opening up that is a better test of how easy the fed is with this easy monetary policy. >> quickly on retail sales so strong across the board. >> wow. >> is it seen as a bump from stimulus or could it be lasting?

>> i think it is a bump from stimulus but remember, sara, a lot of the stimulus has been saved. so there is the wherewithal on the part of consumers to keep spending down the road we'll have to watch that there was incredible spending in department stores, all kinds of discretionary items that made me think it was kind of like christmas in january because we have the lack luster numbers in december so people really opened up their wallets in january >> steve liesman, thanks so much for that still to come, shopify has been on a tear the stock up 700% in the last two years and the company just reported huge growth numbers but the outlook for 2020, sorry, 2021 has weighed on shares a bit today down 3%. we'll ask the company's president about that next. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc. we see temperature control software

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shopify out with its earnings before the bell today the e-commerce platform beating on both the top and bottom line

saying it saw gross merchandise volume nearly double during the quarter. however, shares are sharply lower. they're off the low. only down 3.3% after the company says it expects revenue growth toslow in 2021 as countries roll out the covid-19 vaccine joining us for more on a first on cnbc interview is shopify president harley finkelstein great to have you back thanks for joining us. >> always great to be here, sara thanks so much >> it is that question of guidance, the outlook that you gave, which led to some disappointment and we should frame it the stock ran up almost 200% last year up another 30% in today's print. what are you seeing coming next? how slow is your business going to slow as people get vaccinated >> well, let's just be clear if 2020 has taught us anything it's that the world needs more entrepreneurs and, frankly, i think we can both agree the spirit of entrepreneurship is stronger than ever we saw entrepreneurs and small businesses being incredibly

resilient over the last ten months or so and new business applications have hit their highest level on record last year rising 24% since 2019 shopify, we are the entrepreneurship company and we know entrepreneurship is difficult and what we want to do is we want to bend the learning curve. let's talk about the results shop pie shopify thrives on the success of every merchant we empower we now have a majority of merchants who are first time entrepreneurs currently making their very first sale every 28 seconds. on the call this morning i mentioned we have the likes of o'neill surf brand and purina and this has led to revenue nearly doubling year over year for the quarter, q4 to #977 million and gmv a 90% increase year over year shopify is arming the rebels and i think the rebels are winning it is an exciting time for us.

>> it does raise the question, the circumstances are nearly perfect for your business, which is every new business wants to get out there and needs to go online that is obviously leading to explosive growth and it would be hard to see another 86% growth year like we saw in 2020 but what do you expect how much pent up demand do you think there is for going out and shopping in department stores and brick andmortar? we already got a taste in the retail sales number for january and it was pretty strong >> the future of retail as far as we're concerned is retail everywhere it is an on liner off liner on one particular social media platform we are trying to build a retail operating system so a brand can use shopify to sell on places like instagram, facebook, walmart.com on pinterest in store or online all through shopify. we are incredibly optimistic about the retail future of commerce you mentioned direct to consumer we don't think it is going to be a fad that is going to go away we saw consumers for the last ten months more so than ever

before in a disproportionate way vote with their wallets to buy from independent brands and retailers. that is not going away will physical stores reopen? absolutely we are now investing a lot more than ever before in our point of sale product which powers shopify merchants in a physical location but we are optimistic about the future of retail and commerce and certainly about shopify. we want to see more people try their hand at entrepreneurship >> if you are empowering direct to consumer in particular, are online market places not a rival of yours the likes of amazon is that a direct rival or not? >> no we don't compete with any market places but work with most of them because we want to make it easy for our merchants to sell wherever consumers might be the reason you are seeing us announce deals like tiktok and more recently shop pay on facebook and instagram which happened a week ago is because we want to create, give access to all these services to these merchants. in terms of the market place there is a place for the market places but i think consumers are choosing more and more to go

direct to those consumers. you look at the likes of all burn's or beyond yoga. these brands have built massive companies and become the leaders in fact with the director consumer business. there are distinct differences between us and these market places we think we are on the same side of the table as businesses as merchants and we empower merchants to own their relationships with their customers and give them the tools to do so there will be a place for market places we work with most of them. >> maybe you're not competing directly with the likes of amazon as things stand but i'm sure you've seen they recently bought selts do you think they'll compete more directly with you >> you have to understand when you look at the 1.7 million merchants that use shopify these brands and businesses that use us every day the online store is only one component of a much larger product we provide them which includes very importantly cross selling in every major service. i mentioned instagram and facebook but also places like pinterest and finding new

customers on places like tiktok. we help with things like capital and services like balance and installments and so much more. i can't speak to the strategies of other companies nor do i pay attention but we are laser focused on this mission to democratize commerce and both consumers on the demand side and brands on the supply side are choosing to go direct to consumer whenever possible >> so in many ways your fortunes depend on those of your customers and many of them are small business and it is a tough time and new business applications have risen which is great news but, harley, how many of them fail and is that a big risk to your business >> actually, shopify's business model is intended for entrepreneurs to try out their hand at a bunch of different companies. sometimes people join shopify and they may try four or five different stores and figure out the one that is successful that is the one they're going to ride this idea that entrepreneurship is difficult is correct. we are not trying to change physics. what we are trying to do is make the cost of failure as close to zero as possible

for $29 at your mom's kitchen table you can try your hand at starting a business on shopify and may build the next fashion nova or the next jim shark in the next five or six years that wasn't possible even five or six years ago that is happening every day on shopify. to your point not only are business registrations up but as i mentioned earlier every 28 seconds a new entrepreneur gets their first sale on shopify. so not only are we seeing this happen in real time but those businesses are going faster and bigger than ever before. >> you make it so easy, sounds so easy. harley finkelstein, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, sara we've got just about 40 minutes left a little more. 43 minutes left before the bell. look at the major averages the dow is going strong and anything higher would be a record high. it's up about a hundred points we're near the best levels of the session. still, growth is a little bit under pressure, under performing semis selling off the nasdaq down 0.75% and so is the small

cap russell 2000 bitcoin above 51,000 for the first time ever. just today the justice department announcing new charges against north korean crypto hackers the assistant attorney general for national security is with us next as we head to break check out some of today's top search tickers on cnbc.com. the ten-year yield coming in at number one after the huge backup in yields yesterday. pulling off a bit datoy. tesla, apple, verizon. the new berkshire stake. thriving that one. and palantir round off your top five we'll be right back.

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welcome back just under 40 minutes left in the session the s&p just fractionally lower as we speak let's check in on individual market movers. vir biotech jumping today on news its partnership with glaxo will be expanded and the companies will work together to research regarding other diseases like influenza and others the stock is up 18% today. warren buffet's berkshire hathaway buying 8.6 billion in verizon stock and 4.1 billion in oil and gas company chevron according to recent filings those stocks up 5% for verizon and 3% for chevron, sara >> wilfred an update on a story we have been following another kroger owned chain closing two locations after seattle passed a hazard pay mandate for grocery employees. seattle city council passing a

new law requiring an extra $4 in hazard pay for grocery workers remember we did a story last week about how the hero pay ordinances, the one in long beach, california, another law to boost pay during the pandemic resulted in kroger shutting two locations there. now the seattle chain which is called qfc says, quote, when you factor in the increased costs of operating during covid-19, coupled with consistent financial losses at these two locations, and this new extra pay mandate, it becomes impossible to operate a financially sustainable business the nation's largest grocery workers union condemning this calling it retaliation saying, quote, kroger has literally made billions in pandemic profits off the sacrifices of grocery workers in seattle and across the country. kroger is once again trying to intimidate local and national elected leaders. it will not work wilfred, we warned you more groceries would close in this country if we continued to see the hero pay ordinances.

they mean well they want to boost the pay these local lawmakers of the american heroes that were front line workers but these grocery stores as i'm told were already under water and adding 30% cost to labor when they have such slim margins to begin with makes them completely untenable from a profitability perspective t is a tough one. >> a very difficult sort of dance they'll have to do on the pr front in the short term sadly as you said leading to more closures as indeed you did warn us as you said s&p 500 flat, just climbing closer to positive territory the dow is up now 106 points, could be another record close for the dow. the others not in that territory. still to come, interactive brokers chairman thomas peterffy weighs in on tomorrow's hearing on capitol hill and the retail trading frenzy plus we'll gearing up for reports a quick check on bonds

ten year yields sort of plateauing today not rising much further than recently. 1.298 at the moment.

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once heralded as the next steve jobs defamed founder elizabeth holmes now charged with massive fraud after inaccuracies were exposed at her blood testing start up holmes and her attorney are hoping to keep details of her so-called extravagant ceo lifestyle out of the trial, saying the move could risk invoking class prejudice that is irrelevant to her criminal case but the government argues that this lifestyle was fueled by fraud. holmes' trial begins on july 13th if convicted she could face up to 20 years in prison. read much more about it on cnbc.com right now wilfred? >> fascinating for sure. time for your cnbc news update >> hi, everyone. here is your cnbc news update at this hour.

power has been restored to about 400,000 customers in texas but that still leaves nearly 3 million in the dark. houston's mayor says he expects it will be days before power is fully restored thousands of u.s. military personnel are refusing to get vaccinated for covid-19 and some army units about 30% are agreeing to get the shots. commanders are struggling to find ways to address concerns about the vaccine. overseas in myanmar some of the largest protests yet against the military coup there. thousands packed streets in the country's second largest city and that is despite bans on gatherings of more than five people the search for life on mars takes a huge step forward tomorrow when mars' perseverance probe is set to land on the red planet you can see how nasa is preparing for the big day with the news on shepard smith tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern and, wilf, some within nasa have reportedly said it is like trying to land a car on mars no simple feat there

back to you. >> certainly not thanks very much see you again next hour. the justice department announcing new charges against crypto hackers in north korea. the department of justice assistant attorney general for national security joins us now as well as our own >> reporter: thanks wilfred. your title is assistant attorney general for national security. that makes you one of the nation's top spy hunters and, boy, have you guys done some spy hunting here you see the north koreans in this indictment today have been engaged in a year-long, globe-spanning cyber security campaign that targeted up to $1.3 billion in assets around the world. you also say you actually have pictures of the individual north korean hackers allegedly involved in all of this. how did you catch these guys >> well, these are the investigations we do on the cyber side i mean, we catch them both through technical means and

foreign intelligence we work very carefully with our international partners obviously the bureau is the lead for all of this. and, you know, as you say, we can identify them down to the individual we're not saying north korea did this we're not saying the north korean military did this we're saying these three individuals who worked for the north korean military did this we have pictures of them and, yeah they are responsible for trying to steal more than $1.2 billion making north korea today the world's leading bank robber. >> look, north korea has been a bad actor in the world stage for a long time. the new angle is this cryptocurrency piece of the indictment that you guys unsealed today >> right >> walk us through that. because what you are saying in the indictment is that the north koreans actually developed cryptocurrency apps that they distributed throughout the cryptocurrency world. >> right. >> how many people who are buying and selling cryptocurrencies right now are using north korean designed apps that give the north koreans a back door into their bitcoin

wallets and other things >> well, i can't say the number but the worrisome part is there would be no -- it would not be apparent as a user this was a north korean designed app nor would the weakness be apparent to you so you're down loading this app in order to participate in the cryptocurrency market. and lo and behold the north koreans are able to use that app then to take the money out of your wallet. they were also attacking cryptocurrency exchanges directly and in the greater context of attacking banks and atm machines as well so the full gamut of targeting financial institutions in order to satisfy their need for cash. >> how much tracking of cryptocurrency can you guys do in terms of u.s. intelligence around the world and u.s. law enforcement around the world the reputation of cryptocurrency is that bad guys can use it to do their transactions in the dark does u.s. law enforcement and u.s. intelligence actually have the ability to penetrate that and figure out where the bad guys are around the world?

>> yeah. i mean, cryptocurrency is not as opaque as a lot of people think it to be it can be analyzed we can trace cryptocurrency exchanges in the way that money moves around the world so, yes we do have the capability to do that and that is the way in which we were able to see what the north koreans were doing here and in some cases, you know, follow that money around the world as they are trying to steal it and then launder it back into north korea. >> shifting topics on you real quick we did get an update from the white house on the solar winds hack which the white house says is of likely russian origin they haven't pinned it down specifically and certainly haven't given us the pictures of the three people allegedly involved in that my question for you on the solar winds hack, though, ultimately, this is a huge penetration of the u.s. federal government but also the white house said today for the first time that a hundred companies have been

compromised as a result of that hack as well >> right >> we haven't seen anything near a hundred companies come out and confess they've been penetrated by the russians or anybody else in that hack >> right >> how many companies are there out there who have been penetrated and know it and are not telling investors that they've been penetrated do you think? >> well, that is not a question that i have the answer to. but this hack was far greater than just the u.s. government. they targeted about a hundred, maybe even more u.s. companies we're still doing the assessments here in looking at, you know, the scope and the scale of this hack to measure the effects. >> ultimately do you think you'll have an answer in the next weeks, months is this a years' long process? >> not years' long folks are working as fast as they can to get their arms around this. so more in the months category, you know, in terms of the sort

of scope of what's happening here >> john demers, thanks so much for giving us some time. best of luck to you in your efforts. >> thank you >> thank you both very much. much appreciated still to come, a first on cnbc interview with interactive brokers chairman thomas peterffy we'll get his thoughts on the gamestop drama and what he expects to hear from the ceos of reddit and robin hood tomorrow when they testify on capitol hill february is black history month and we are honoring some of our cnbc contributors. here is courtney gibson with her take on closing the racial wealth gap >> reporter: in order to close the racial wealth gap in america that sits around $10 trillion, access has to happen opportunity has to occur people have to sponsor not just mentor our young people to help them to get into position for

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the major players of gamestop trading frenzy set to face capitol hill tomorrow we'll hear from the ceos of robin hood, citadel, marvin capital, reddit, and investor keith gill also known as roaring kitty. gil says the idea he used social media to promote gamestop is preposterous robin hood's ceo saying robin hood did not help hedge funds to customers' detriment joining us now in a first on cnbc interview, thomas peterffy. good to see you and thanks for joining us are you surprised and/or disappointed not to be a part of the hearing tomorrow >> no, i'm neither surprised nor d disappointed this is just fine. >> just fine i can imagine. so what do you think will be the focus? because there are lots of angles here, whether there was insider trading, whether the likes of robin hood hurt their customers, and whether the likes of citadel are abusing their power.

what do you think the key focus and the likely outcome >> what i would like to point out here, that we have come dangerously close to the collapse of the entire system and the public seems to be completely unaware, including congress and the regulators. so let me explain to you here that on january 26th game closed at $7 #please a share. the following day it closed at $148 the following morning on january 28th the stock opened at $355 and traded up to $408. at the same time, game has 50 million registered shares outstanding and the surety interests of 70 million shares in addition, there were about 1.5 million calls which would call for 150 million shares.

when the short -- if the shorts -- sorry, the longs repaid their margin loans and exercised their calls, their brokers would have had to be -- would have been obligated by the rules as they are today to deliver to them 270 million shares by only 50 million shares existed. so when the shorts cannot deliver the shares, the broker representing the loans must, must by their rules of the system go into the market and buy the shares of any price pushing the price into the thousands. so as the price goes higher the surety falls on the brokers. the brokers must now cover themselves which pushes the price further up so the brokers -- you end up with a complete mess that is practically impossible to sort

out. so that's what almost happened to avoid this in the future the sec needs to immediately call for reporting of short interests on a daily basis because they are currently only reported twice a month and i think they should increase margin requirements on shorts by 1% for every short, every person who shorts that would solve the problem this is a gaping hole that we didn't have before because short squeezes are considered market manipulation which is illegal, so therefore nobody did it but with these social platforms people can just chit chat and suddenly it emerges without pointing at any one person who is guilty. >> so, thomas, it's extremely

complicated and they'll have to try to explain all of this market structure in between some of the populist grandstanding from members of congress tomorrow but ultimately who are you saying is to blame if anyone for what happened? >> no, nobody is to blame. there is a hole in the system that we immediately have to stop there is a hole in the system. >> short interest reporting? >> short squeezes. sorry? >> you're saying that is the short interest reporting that's what was happening here that was the problem >> no. the problem was that the -- there is no increased margin requirement on shorts as the short interest increases as a matter of fact, most people don't even know what the short interest is because it is only reported once every -- twice every month. >> what portion, thomas, of your trading is payment for overflow? i know it is a smaller

percentage than some of your rivals >> it is like 3% >> do you think it is something that should eventually be removed from the marketplace or not? >> so if i may tell you, the brokers that sell the order to them, basically say that the order is, that they execute is if you have better prices than shown by the public markets. in addition the brokers get paid for the orders so they can afford to charge zero commissions and therefore the customers are better off a pretty compelling argument and there are only two objections to them that i can think of one is that by diverting nearly 50% of the orders from the public markets, the market becomes much less liquid and the publicly displayed offer becomes

lighter and so they each provide a slight improvement over a public market that they have succeeded in making wider. had they not done so, the public potentially would get even better prices. secondly, due to the -- sorry? >> go ahead. finish your thought. i was just curious ultimately. go ahead >> due to the lack of liquidity in the public markets more and more institutional traders are becoming reluctant to go into the market and show their orders and there by push the prices away from themselves so instead they provide interactive brokers and probably other brokers with private bids and offers that are often much better than the public markets which enables us for example to provide better executions in

spite of us charging the small commission which is less than $2 a trade. >> how is your business impacted by all of this since the january drama have you gained or lost customers >> we are gaining customers very rapidly, but my worry is that due to this squeeze a lot of customers will lose a lot of money and eventually that is not going to be good for the business >> do you think the markets are a bit stretched at the moment and there could be just a broad pullback not just the game stops and amcs of this world but in general are you seeing various frothy signs >> actually there are frothy signs but in the long run as long as we keep printing money the market must go up. >> thomas peterffy, thank you

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[music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. 11 minutesleft in the trading day. we are now in the closing bell market zone. commercial free coverage of all the action going into the close. cnbc senior markets commentator mike santoli is here to break down the crucial moments of the trading day and paul hickey is back from the spoke. welcome, paul. we'll kick it off with the broader market stocks are near session highs with the dow on track for record

close. other major averages still in the red. the s&p is pretty much flat, mike what stands out in the trading action to you? >> mostly it is rotational we did have a couple little feints lower in the morning. market continues to look both resilient and a little tired just because it came into the week somewhat stretched. i think the weakness in things like apple and the big cloud stocks are being absorbed okay at this point so i don't think it is very conclusive as to what the next move is but, clearly, up trend is intact and the market is just trying to digest some of the latest gains >> paul, what do you make of the latest levels, clearly, just a vague pullback so far, well, essentially flat week on the s&p 500. are we getting stretched again in terms of various positioning measures, various bullishness measures >> in the last two weeks the first couple weeks of february we did see a very strong rally in the market so we were as mike was saying over bought coming

into the week. but what has really been amazing about the market over the course of almost the last year now is the rotation we've seen in sectors. in one sector, when it gets stretched, it pulls back, consolidates, and another sector comes in and fills in the void so financials have been doing that the last several days, performing well. and so it is really i think a sign of a really healthy market when you do see this type of rotation so if a group of stocks, we're not just, you know, hanging everything on a handful of stocks if we see one group falter another picks up the slack >> wells fargo shares jumping today after the federal reserve reportedly signaled it will accept the bank's plan to overhaul its governance functions. the fed's approval is seen as a positive first step to eventually removing well fargo's asset cap which was placed on the bank as a penalty for its lax internal controls that led to wells fargo's fake account scandal the initial report from bloomberg today, stock is up 5% off the back of this very hard to confirm on the

record any regulatory story whether talking to the fed or the bank the bank kind of pointing me back to the new cfo's comments of the recent earnings call which said things like there is a significant amount of work to do, a series of steps still required by the consent order suggesting it is not imminent even if progress is being made either way what i find interesting on this story is not so much the story itself as the level of the share price move. a lot of people sort of celebrating the 5% jump. it was up 7% earlier in the session. i would say to most, the most investors probably see that as disappointing if that is the only amount of move related to the story that there is to come. i mean, wells fargo, 0. #the times compared to jpmorgan's 1.8 literally half the valuation and year to date up 21% compared to jpmorgan up 14%. again, if you are saying this is the only move it is going to get, mike, as and when the fed asset cap is lifted then it is quite a disappointing move if it's not really pricing in

the certainty of that at all and many more steps still needed, then i guess it's a nice initial move with more to come >> right i wouldn't say you could automatically conclude this would be it that you emptied the tank on this potential catalyst though you're right. at one time just under that. b of a 1.2 maybe if that is your ultimate case also the story today about how management, new management is struggling to find a lot more cost savings as they also try to meet the regulatory requirements it is definitely more of a turn-around in progress story than it is just a light switch that gets turned on when the fed, if and when the fed makes this decision to clear them. >> let's turn now to the ev boom as ford ramps up spending in the space. phil lebeau has more it's been moving the stocks lately, phil >> reporter: it has, sara. two pieces of important news when it comes to electric vehicles let's start with ford and this stock has had a really nice move over the last several months today the company announcing that it is going to be sinking a

billion dollars into its ev production plants in germany the goal all electric models being sold in europe by 2030. the other piece of electric vehicle news and this one this stock exploded today up more than 25% take a look at shares of quantum scape. yesterday after the bell they reported the q4 results. yeah it was a massive loss but it is what they said about the development of batteries the couple milestones they're hitting. they are still on target for solid state battery production, full production by 2024. here is the ceo of quantum scape talking with us this morning >> i don't want -- there is a lot of work to be done here but i think at the end of the day we feel we have a schedule that is in fact achievable we've got the cash balance, we have the technology valuation, customer support we need to pull it off and we'll do our best to make it happen >> a big day for that spac and really they've only been public for a couple months and they're

up more than 30% today take a look at the spac 50 index. i know we talk about this all the time it continues to move higher. back to you. >> all right or at least hold the gains like today. thank you, phil. paul, how do you invest in the space? do you go to a traditional automaker like ford or gm that is tripling down on electric vehicles now and that's hemmed the outlooks or a hot new sexy one like quantum scape or tesla which is up again today it's kind of stopped going up ever since the bitcoin thing but obviously holding near the highs. >> well, when it comes to the auto makers we're more interested in some of the suppliers here what is pretty puzzling to me about the auto makers here and the battery and ev space as well is every time a company makes an announcement they are going into electric vehicles by this date or that date, the stock has been rallying you're going to come to a point where every single auto maker is doing it so you'll have a lot of

competition in the space eventually so do they really deserve these premium multiples? obviously stock like tesla which has the first mover advantage and there are benefits but if every company is going to be making electric vehicles and we're rallying their stocks because they're supposedly going to be, on the assumption they'll be successful, there will be a lot of competition in the space and that is not really a good environment for margins. so again, i try to focus more on the companies that are supplying the sector rather than the oems themselves >> just quickly on tesla, sarah said it is high in the session but well off the lows which was down a few percent earlier it was kind of testing its 50 day moving average earlier as well is it comfortably bounced off that is that important? >> i would say for now it certainly is it is still, what is it, maybe 12% off its highs. it's definitely been trying to just, you know, kind of metabolize some of the huge gains. it was 400 in november when they said it was going to the s&p

it's doubled since then. it is three months you know, whatever it does from here, you know, it's kind of not necessarily tied to this quarter or next. it is very much about the flows and really the options market is what got the stock here. it is basically people buying in to the upside bets in the options market so i don't know if that reversed because it is so well off the highs and we'll just have to see but it did have a nice bounce intraday along with the rest of the market >> also, mike, it is off the high since they announced the whole bitcoin cash transfer. >> yes. >> when they decided to put bitcoin on the balance sheet even though bitcoin prices are up which is an interesting f thing. after the bell quarterly results. leslie picker with the key metrics to watch in tilray's report

>> tilray shares trading lower today in advance of its fourth quarter numbers expected in about ten minutes or so. here are the numbers that the street is expecting. that tilray needs to beat 15 cents per share in losses and $56 million in revenue the canadian cannabis company found itself at the center of a reddit frenzy just last week with shares doubling in two days before ultimately declining to prior levels in focus though for investors today will be more color about its merger with afria which is expected to close during the second quarter, guys >> thanks so much. we look forward to those numbers after the close. but the close is one minute and 50 seconds away. mike, what are the internals showing you? >> a little soft definitely improved over the course of the day but still more stocks down than up today. it has been another one of these consolidation days the average stock is definitely pulling back a little bit. take a look at energy though obviously a bright spot not just today but also this is on a

month-to-date basis the stock up 18%. the sector up 18%. so, clearly, that's been the crude move as well as just that kind of value and cyclical out performance. the vix still has a bid in it. i think basically people are willing to hedge down side going out into march and april and that is holding up the volatility index above 21 where you might think it would be when we are half a% from all time highs in the s&p, sara >> just about a minute left to go in today's session. dow is higher. verizon and chevron are the leading shocks there thank you berkshire hathaway filings exposure there apple and american express are the biggest losers kind of a mixed bag for technology over all the sector is under performing the semis aren't doing great today. at the top of the market though energy, consumer discretionary, and oil prices continue to rise on the texas power outages and production shutdowns off the cold weather there but as far as technology you've got stocks like microsoft and

amazon higher for the day and of course apple is lower for the day. heading into the close, we are looking at a decline overall for the s&p. more so for the nasdaq but off the session lows and for the russell 2000 index of small caps down 3/4 of 1% we are seeing the dollar a bit stronger and treasury yields after the huge backup all the way to 130 yesterday still trading around that level. there is a little bit of selling and buying in bonds and a little on those yields still trading near the one-year highs. wilfred? xxxx another record close for the dow. welcome to the closing bell. the dow is 0.3% or 917 points. it had surged briefly. just pulled back a fraction. anything positive for the dow was a record s&p down three basis points so essentially -- russell down 0.74%.

energy the best sector technology the worst we are moments away from sun power's earnings report and we'll break down the numbers and get reaction from the ceo when they cross the ceo of general mills joins us to weigh in on consumer shopping trends as well. later a first on cnbc interview with house financial services committee chair maxine waters and what she wants to hear from executives during tomorrow's gamestop hearing on capitol hill paul hickey, co-founder of the spoke investment group still with us and the senior u.s. investment strategist at alliance global investors joins the conversation very good afternoon to you, mona mike, i'll come to you first on the markets. technology the worst performing sector tesla interestingly was almost explaining the story early in the session but rallied to be flat apple kind of stands out as one name that may being hit by the rising yields. >> just the rotation out of the big growth, cash flow names.

apple is down. semis weak today a lot of the kind of high flying cloud stocks gave back some. on the other hand i think you had the net gain in most of the cyclical sectors also at the index level it is the second straight day with an absolutely minimal s&p 500 daily change of less than 1/20th of 1% that is also the fifth in the last six days of less than 0.2%. in other words the s&p 500 is kind of just hanging out there as there is a lot of churn below the surface and reorienting positions away from some areas and into others. i think you'd have to say that it is probably pretty good for the market to kind of stand still near all time highs as opposed to buckling when you do have a lot of cross currents all else being equal >> stand still but, mona, trading off. rotating different sectors which find themselves on top energy again today technology on bottom we've seen strength for a number

of sectors are you rotating the way you are thinking about exposure in the market right now >> generally speaking this market has been tremendously strong and we've seen it all throughout really since march of last year but certainly since the last pullback we got in october of last year the s&p has been up about 20%. the cyclical sectors have probably been up more than that so energy, financials, parts of industrials all up 20% plus. so to mike's point is it okay that we get a little bit of a breather here? i think so i think the sideways movement is welcome. the pullbacks in some of the sectors that were high flyers last year so we're seeing of course technology get a little pressure today and over the last few days, make sense to us as yields are rising and as these are the sectors that have gone well past their pre-covid highs even so areas like tech and discretionary are up 30% plus from last february whereas sectors like energy industrials, financials are still actually flat from last

february so they're almost just getting poised to break out in a meaningful way over the last year or so in our view, yes we continue to, on the margin, when we do get those opportunities, really start to layer it in. we think the story is intact for the back half of the year. we're certainly seeing better vaccine rollouts, covid cases trend better, stimulus still being the focus for this administration and of course we still have the fed that remains supportive. so it is still a good backdrop we still are laying in -- would we like to see better tactical opportunities here yes. absolutely if you do get them, have a position >> paul hickey, clearly rates are rising you've been doing some analysis of a couple names you think stand out as to be often the best performers in that environment. >> yes just in yesterday's trading what we found is that at either end of the spectrum the companies that are the most exposed to rising interest rates were the

best performers yesterday and the companies least correlated were down almost a percent the stocks that will benefit in that environment are primarily financials and industrials they've been the ones that have been the most correlated and within the financials you have berkshire hathaway and bank of america, which are both names we find attractive here and continue to find attractive. berkshire is just a great play on the industrials and you have apple. it is a quarter apple, a quarter cash and half of all its private companies is the other half, the market cap we think there is a great upside potential there. bank america is just a play on the rising rate environment as well while we do tend to be concerned about rising interest rates we just remind as we always do that since the lows in march, 2009,

more than 100% of the gains in the s&p 500 have come when rates were rising not when they're falling. so we're at 1.3 on the ten year yield. that is hardly a level to be worried about. the s&p dividend yield is 1.5% if you gave me the choice between 1.5% yield and the s&p 500 or 1.5% ten year treasury i'd take the s&p 500 any day of the week pretty much it also raises the question about whether rates will continue to rise and at what pace what speed and why they're rising so quickly >> yes absolutely when we look back over the last year or so, keep in mind prior to the crisis last january, february the ten-year was at 1 1/2% so we dropped during the crisis in march about 50 basis points we're only now climbing back to just where we were prior to the crisis, 1.3% could we get to 1 1/2 percent by the year end we think so. we think the range is feasible

here but, you know, as you alluded to earlier this is something -- is this something we would necessarily be concerned about if you look at history i think over time and the precrisis average since the great financial crisis the ten year has averaged close to 3% when you're thinking about a 1.5% ten year relative to history still pretty benign. of course we're really worried about is inflationary pressures rising and that bringing the fed back to potentially thinking about at least reversing its asset purchases orraising rate again. we think the fed, though, is committed at least through 2021 to remain on the sidelines, remain supportive. and barring any real shocks we don't see that trajectory shifting all that much >> mike, berkshire hathaway making some big calls of course as often a bit late to the game obviously looking backwards but, clearly, a bit of a u.s. cyclical value tilt to some of the calls. >> right when berkshire was buying

chevron and verizon in the third and fourth quarters it was definitely qualified as contrarian value and very much, you know, slow moving companies, relatively kind of static in terms of the investment story but i do think you could say as a blended yield with the positions of both those stocks of 5%, you know, warren buffet loves dividends though he has never paid one he's always made a joke about that 600 million bucks a year he can do with what he likes in terms of those two stocks. i think verizon really does fit in with things that he also owns, like the railroads, pipelines, utilities really the whole mobile network, 5g network is another huge piece of infrastructure with exposure to broad economic trends that is about what he can do is get exposure to the big stuff and it does make sense i don't know that this is a cata list for the long term in terms of the two particular stocks but it is not to me a big bet on some, you know, new thesis that

is going to cat lalyze these companies. it is more about the market giving the opportunity to own them at reasonable prices and to paul's point i think the whole basket of berkshire businesses and holdings will do well as the economy does well and it is built to do that >> 5.25% move higher for verizon is big, paul should you follow buffet into these names? chevron and verizon? >> you know, rather than following him like i was saying earlier i would just buy the stock if you want to take that approach because i think when you take the sum of the parts approach to berkshire it is trading very cheap you know, that is a better approach than to try and chase his every move and then find out six weeks after the quarter ends that maybe he sold it already or still owns it. >> paul and mona, thanks for joining us great to see you. >> thank you. >> thank you have a good one. >> sun power's results just crossing the company reporting a

beat on earnings 14 cents per share the estimate was for 7 cents. a miss on revenue 348 million versus a forecast of 355 million so a slight miss joining us now for a cnbc exclusive interview is the sun power ceo. tom, good to see you and thank you so much for joining us. >> great to see you again. >> i guess first place before we get to the quarterly earnings is with the weather front we're seeing and the power outages at the moment particularly in texas does that affect demand for your products for solar panels in general? or is it such a temporary brief hit to people's power exposure it is not really the lasting driver of your demand? >> actually it does impact demand it is yet another factor as people think about wanting to control their own power. we've had wildfires out here in california with similar power shutdowns so it makes people want to buy solar and importantly buy solar with

storage. and since it is getting so much headlines, it's having an impact we think it'll have an impact on demand throughout america. >> when you say that because people want to control their own power supply, are we there yet can your products and the batteries and storage that comes with it, can they fully supply and allow people to control their own power yet? or are we still a few years away from that? >> things are improving really rapidly and the cost of storage is coming down so it is really a transient, sort of we're getting there really fast so you can have more control. there were texts from people we know in texas that were able to run their house for ten more hours than their neighbors were and then the sun came out and recharged their battery. you can make a meaningful difference today and of course costs are coming down so fast that it won't be that long, within a few years, where perhaps you can be autonomous

and a friend to the grid where you are helping export when you are over producing >> as it relates to the results, tom, looks like a revenue miss your stock is not trading on what is happening this past quarter. it's trading on the enthusiasm for federal policy changes in your favor a green energy type bill infrastructure climate type bill from the biden administration. what are your expectations when do you start to build that into your forecast >> well, i'd say two things. one, they're right the federal support is fantastic. the investment tax credit was extended there's work being done on extending it further there's work being done to include storage. so it would be fair that the tail winds of the federal policy are quite favorable. but when you look at sun power, think about this tripling ebitda, adjusted ebitda this year compared to last year

and then today we've guided 40% up in 2022 there aren't many companies that have that kind of margin expansion and profitability growth so we're seeing it built into our business now and it is giving us confidence to talk about 2022 even today. >> when, tom, will your product be more attractive to consumers than the traditional power means without subsidies from the government >> so, i'll answer your question several different ways quickly one is you can get a lease today with the investment tax credit and you save money day one on your energy bill so it's lower than you pay and i should say lease and loan. we're within a few years of not needing the investment tax credit and being able to do the same thing then lastly, storage is coming down at a rate that is actually faster than the cost of storage came down so we're within a few years that you can even store that energy and operate

throughout the day so it is sort of the pace of change things are happening really fast >> my question, tom, is about jobs and whether the jobs that we're seeing lost as a result of canceling the keystone pipeline or pausing federal drilling on federal lands from the biden administration, whether those jobs can be transferred into what you do. can those people become solar panel installers because the biden administration says there will be plenty of jobs when it comes to our new climate policies on some criticism of the energy policies is that true >> yeah. i think there is no question there will be a conversion of conventional jobs. just like other transitions throughout the last few decades. i think it is very realistic that there will be prevailing wage jobs in solar installation, residential, commercial, and large scale. it's happening today that is one of the fastest growing job segments the question is, can it happen

throughout the value chain it clearly is going to happen in the innovation, marketing, research, and development. that is what america is great at then the question will be how much manufacturing will there be in america the answer is yes. a conversion to installation jobs, value added jobs like research and development and sales and marketing. we'll see about manufacturing. >> tom werner, thanks for joining us fresh off those results from sun power we appreciate it >> appreciate your time. when we come back the ceo of general mills weighs in on the changing state of the consumer and the top product leading growth at that company plus we'll talto hsek ou financial services committee chair maxine waters ahead of tomorrow's robin hood hearing on capitol hill closing bell back in 90 seconds.

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general mills outlining its growth strategy at the consumer analyst group of new york conference yesterday focusing on key areas like cereal, pet food, mexican food, and ice cream. general mills ceo joins us now for an exclusive interview it is great to have you. you made a bit of news on this new plan my question is how big of a pivot is it for the company? >> we are really just doing what we've already been doing general mills had seen some momentum before the pandemic and it has only accelerated. it really is sharpening our

focus on the product platforms as you mentioned just now. pet food, ice cream, cereal, and mexican food then the geographies we'll compete in namely north america, uk, france, china, and brazil. really sharpening what we've already done because it's been working. >> the target long term growth for organic revenue growth is 2% to 3%. you've been putting up numbers during the pandemic like some of the other packaged food players of 8% on organic revenue growth. is that saying that you're already starting to see the cooking from home and baking from home and eating all meals from home start to fade? >> no. our revenue growth was up 8% the first half of the year and included 7% in the second quarter which ended in november. we gave analyst guidance yesterday that our third quarter sales growth would be about 7% again so we really haven't seen any fade in our at home consumption here in the u.s. in fact, what we see in some other markets like australia and

china where lockdowns have ended long ago at home consumption remains strong so to this point we haven't seen a lot of diminishing returns. people are still working at home and a lot of millennials have learned to cook and bake for the first time >> do you see it sticking around do you think the market has this wrong? they've not been treated as stay at home darlings analysts and investors think will continue once people get vaccinated and the country opens back up. >> some things will change certainly people will go out to eat more once the vaccine is rolled out and the pandemic starts to wane what i would say is that there are certainly going to be people working from home. not everyone is going back to the office every day and more people have cooked i find it very difficult to believe people are going to go to eating as they did before and in fact they've also discovered they can save a lot of money

if you ask me is it going to stay the same as now i would say no if you ask whether it is going to go back to the way it was before, no we've already seen that in other markets and we think the same here >> all right what about cereal, jeff? you mentioned that as one of your core areas of focus cereal was in such a long-term decline and perked back up i would think the pandemic has certainly helped as people are eating breakfast at home and out. why are you betting on cereal? do young kids these days eat cereal >> they really do. the millennial crowd and kids are our biggest audience for cereal it is important to take us back before the pandemic. the cereal market had declined for a couple years but then it returned to about flat in fact general mills had grown its cereal business in the u.s. and canada and our partners worldwide for three years in a row. we had been growing before the pandemic and that growth has

certainly acceleratedwith the pandemic but it gives us a lot of confidence that we were growing before the pandemic so we have a high degree of confidence we can grow our cereal after the pandemic as well we have some of the most cherished brands in the industry, lucky charms, cheerios, these are brands people really love and love them even more now. >> they are three of our personal favorites here in this household. finally it sounds like acquisitions and divestitures will be a bigger part of the strategy can you talk a little bit more about what you're thinking, where you're looking to add or subtract in the portfolio? >> yeah. what i would say is that before the pandemic one reason we had momentum is we were competing effectively in the current categories we're in and talked about some of those but also we had effectively brought blue buffalo in which has been growing at double digits since we acquired it, last quarter up 18%. that pet food business showed us that not only can we bring in a business effectively, an acquisition, but also run our current business effectively at

the same time. as we look to the future we'll look for areas we can bolt on to our current business areas we think we have unique capabilities and can continue growing. we are excited about the opportunity to add some growth but it also means we need to compete effectively where we are and we've been doing that and have shown we can do that. >> thank you for the update, jeff harmening we appreciate it >> thanks for having me. tilray results are out and the stock is moving. josh lipton with the numbers >> twilio, revenue better than expected up 65% to 548.1 million. street was closer to 455 million. looking at q1 they are seeing a loss between 9 and 12 cents versus expectations of a loss of 2 cents but the top line forecast, 526 to 536 million analysts closer to 491 million

the co-founder and ceo here saying in a statement they are addressing what he calls a generational opportunity, building the leading customer engagement platform to improve every interaction that businesses have with their customers. stock is shooting high in the after hours. heading into this stock was already up 500% from its march low. back to you all. >> very strong performer there josh, thank you. still to come mike santoli will head to the telestrator with a look at economic inequality plus we'll be joined by representative maxine waters ahead of tomorrow's highly anticipated gamestop hearing on capitol hill that interview coming up nt.ex as a reminder you can always watch or listen to us live on the go on the cnbc app we'll be right back.

dow closed at another record high back to mike santoli looking at another way to measure how expensive the market is, mike. >> yes, how expensive stocks are relative to the average wage of american workers so this is a research chart all the way back to the 1960s and shows you things we basically

know in other forms. basically capital has had a lot better time than labor over recent decades valuations of equities are well ahead of where they had been historically wage growth for many years had lagged now you see this 150 hours to, quote, buy one share of the s&p 500 as it approaches 4,000 and also reflects to some degree very low inflation for the past couple decades, which of course kept wages suppressed but also arguably kept valuations higher. we'll see if any of those dynamics maybe shift below the surface. see if you get mean reversion which would be good from the wage side. >> tilray's numbers just crossing leslie has them for us >> the market seems to like what they see tilray shares jumping on these results a beat on both the top and bottom line. bottom line, loss of 2 cents per share while the street expected losses of 15 cents per share so a pretty significant beat there. on the top line $56.6 million.

$55.8 million for the fourth quarter now. the company says that a lot of that revenue growth was driven by international medical and canadian adult use during the fourth quarter and they were also able to reduce costs by $57 million on an annualized basis compared to the same quarter last year as we mentioned last hour, tilray is in the process of combining with afria to create what they call the world's largest global cannabis company based on proforma revenue. they know the transactions expected to close in the second quarter of 2021. as for some color surrounding the cannabis industry, they say the average cannabis net selling price per gram increased to 597 compared to 188 during the fourth quarter of 2019 guys >> leslie, thanks so much for that reddit, robin hood, and a slew of other key players in the

gamestop saga headed to capitol hill tomorrow. up next we'll be joined by representative minwarsaxe te and get her take on what she is hoping to hear from those executives tomorrow. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity. so you're a small business, you need decision tech. or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business.

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california governor gavin newsom is pushing the case for expanding vaccination efforts even as vaccine supplies remain tight. during a visit to a vaccination site he said that more focus is needed on shots for farm workers and other marginalized groups. >> frankly, we haven't done enough we have to own that. we have to recognize that we haven't delivered on equity like we should, like we must, and it is not lost on me. you heard it from every single person that spoke. >> federal agents have seized about 10 million phony n 95 masks in recent weeks and today officials say homeland security agencies hundreds of thousands of fake masks from an east coast warehouse. las vegas is taking another step back toward business as usual. mgm resorts is resuming 24 hours a day seven days a week hotel operations at its three properties on the strip. mgm says increasing consumer demand and declining new covid cases is what drove the decision back to you. >> thank you very much for that.

ceos of robin hood, citadel, melvin capital, reddit, and retail investor keith gil will testify before the house financial services committee tomorrow of the gamestop trading frenzy robin hood's ceo saying, quote, robin hood did not help hedge funds to customers' detriment. reddit, to keith gil says the idea he used social media to promote gamestop is preposterous joining us is congresswoman maxine waters chair of the house financial services committee good afternoon and thanks for joining us. >> i'm delighted to be with you. thank you for inviting me. >> clearly, that is quite a long list of different characters and companies attending your hearing tomorrow let's start with citadel and ken griffin. what is your main question for them >> well, i want citadel to tell us what role they played in what happened i guess january 28th.

i am simply asking for facts i do not come with any preconceived notion that i know everything that went on. and i am asking them not to come with a lot of extraneous material tell me exactly what role did you play in what happened january 28th that led to the volatility and the disruption in the stock market >> do you think there was wrongdoing that took place and which of the people attending do you think were most to blame >> i have not concluded that that's why i'm having this hearing. i want each of them to tell me exactly what role they played and i expect them to tell me exactly what they did, whether it is, you know, robin hood that is testifying or keith gil or, you know, any of them i want them to tell me exactly what did

you do >> who do you think has the most explaining to do, congresswoman? already, a lot of the politicians who have voiced concern over this have raised questions, specifically, at robin hood, for why they restricted trading for some retail investors is that sort of what you're thinking as well >> well, i'm going to see what he's going to do to respond to the way that i have insisted that they be very factual about what role they played. i am not going in with any preconceived notions i've gotten so many calls from so many so-called experts on all sides of this issue. and so we're going to have three hearings this is the first ofthree hearings this hearing is going to ask the key players what role did you play what did you do? we'll have experts in our next hearing that we will have and then on the third one we

probably will have enough information to really determine who really did what and whether or not there was collusion, whether or not there is conflict of interest, whether or not there are things going on in violation of sec rules and we'll be able to make a determination about what kind of legislation we will be involved in so i'm not starting out with preconceived notions at all. i want them to come and tell us exactly what they did. >> where do you stand, congresswoman, on payment for order flow and clearly on one side it is democratized trading and allow people with smaller individual trades to place trades for free but on the flip side their data and information based on those trades is being sold to the highest bidder do you think that should remain in place for the long term >> i don't know.

that is one reason i want citadel there. i want to know the relationship between robin hood and citadel for example. so again, i'm going to listen to what they have to say, and in the final analysis the truth of what each of these players did or the way they were involved will come out. >> there are other characters in this story as well, congresswoman, like dave portnoy the famous retail trader, elon musk got involved. mark cuban do you think they bear any responsibility >> we don't know that is a whole nother issue, dealing with elon musk and bitcoin and all of that. that will not play in these hearings especially tomorrow. what we are going to do is deal with the players that have been clearly identified that were involved in january 28th i want to know exactly what happened with melvin capital

and, you know, if they in fact were the ones who were involved with borrowing the stock, you know, from gamestop and they shorted it i want to know what they did i want to know how long they held it. i want to know what they did in between the time it was borrowed and the time that they had to buy it and so we are going to concentrate strictly on gamestop and big players around what happened on january 28th to contributor to the volatility and disruption in the markets. >> do you think that going forward hedge funds and others should all have to reveal their short positions in the same way they have to reveal long positions? >> think we will get questions from any member of our -- any number of our members about that and let's see how they answer. >> how deep do you intend to go on market structure?

wilfred brought up the paying for order flow issue there is a lot of wall street plumbing here to get through to sort of unpack and understand. and ultimately where do you think that is going to take you? >> well, one of the things we're going to do is this information that they will testify to and about will be the information that will be basically analyzed by the experts that we are going to bring in, and we will get to know whether or not we have to ask more questions, go more deeper, or whether or not we basically know from what they have testified, what they did, and then we can make some determinations in our third hearing about whether or not some corrections need to be made, whether or not our cop on the block who is sec, you know, needs to take some action. we're going to have sec. we're going to have all that we need in order to get to the point of corrections if that is

what needs to happen >> just switching focus to finish up, congresswoman, i wanted to ask about wells fargo, a story reported by bloomberg today that suggested the fed might be getting a little bit closer to lifting the asset cap imposed on wells fargo of course as a punishment in relation to the cross selling scandal you and i have talked about quite a few times. do you think that is fair now if that is the decision that the fed makes, that wells fargo gets that punishment lifted having gone through a lot of changes since the initial wrongdoing >> let me just tell you when janet yellen on her way out, you know, placed the cap on the assets i was very pleased about that because sometimes it is very hard to get, you know, our agency heads to really do very much about our big banks and our financial institutions and so i do know that wells fargo has been indicating that it is doing a lot of things in order to support mvis and cfis

and in order to improve ways by which there can be home ownership, investment in minority communities, all of that my staff is taking a look at all of that. and i do think that the new ceo has been taking some steps in order to clean up the problems that wells fargo has had for so long so we will make a determination about the representations that he will be making to see if in fact these things are being done >> congresswoman maxine waters we hope you'll join us maybe this time tomorrow if the hearing is wrapped up to hear about what you learned thank you for coming on with a preview. >> your a he so welcome and thank you. i think we will be doing a press availability right after the hearing. >> okay. good to know maxine waters. >> you're welcome. up next, baidu out with earnings one of the bigge cnesthise internet companies the stock is rallying a bit

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baidu's results are out. >> reporter: strong results beating on earnings per share coming in at 20.08 versus 16.89 yuan expected. revenue a small beat here too coming at 30.26 billion yuan versus 30.06 expected. revenue guidance also above estimates. strong shares are up about 2.25%. remember, they declined more than 5% in today's session this was really bolstered by a recovery in advertising but also some of the investments baidu has made over the last few years in places like artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicle driving, and cloud the co-founder and ceo robin lee saying our focus on innovation through technology is paying off. that is really the story here. one of a turn-around, successful transformation so far this was the laggard in terms of the

chinese group. baidu has out performed alibaba and this year up more than 40% and over the last 12 months. back over to you >> adding to the gains as we speak. diedre, thank you. up next rebuilding detroit ors t the great real estate stieofhe decade but it turns out there is a group of developers also working toward breaking racial barriers that story straight ahead. online trades are commission free. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter,. its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really

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rebuilding detroit is one of the great real estate stories of the last decade. while we tend to focus on some of the big names involved like quicken's dan gilbert or related's stephen ross another group of developers is battling bigotry to make its mark diana olick reports. >> reporter: he spent two decades on wall street but came home to the streets of detroit, which he calls his best investment yet >> making sure the activity and economic growth that happens here is inclusive and impactful for all detroit residents. >> reporter: he is one of several small black developers going neighborhood to neighborhood, property to property building back the beleaguered city and raising up its residents. >> a hundred feet deep. >> reporter: this will be a mixed use development with retail space and affordable housing. >> this is actually one of the first new construction projects on grand river which is one of our main corridors in over 30 years. >> reporter: his partner is local gallery owner and

developer george n' nandi. >> it is important to have small developers doing things in the community because most of the time the community, they have lived in these communities they know these communities. >> but for these partners and others like them, finding accesa historic problem that emerging developers, african-americans, women, people across the board face and struggle with it does make the projects much more challenging we have to be ten times more creative to find ways to fill capital gaps >> that means leaning on partners like capital impact, invest tldetroit, the city of detroit and local initiative support corps, not the big bangs. >> the redevelopment here is very unique. we have to convince people that don't quite see the vision just yet. we're not an anomaly, we're not

an appberration, we know what we can do you just have to not quit and push through >> so that it makes economic sense, he will attract more developers not just in detroit but all over the country willard? those set to testify in the gamestop drama what ty ll bhewie looking for, when "closing bell" returns. eal. oh do ya? actually it's for both new and existing customers. i feel silly. but i do want the fastest 5g network. oh i want the fastest 5g network.

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quick check on this after afternoon's biggest movers after the bell tilray, twilio, baidu and sunpower went up a percent thehighly anticipated gamestop congressional hearing straight ahead plus the gamestop earnings

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looking ahead to tomorrow, the big event to watch will be the gamestop hearing on capitol hill the ce os of robinhood, reddit

will be there to testify about the gamestop frenzy. guys, i think ultimately what we're watching is for how much substance is there and whether it moves in any kind of direction, mike, toward changes to market regulation, whether it's restrictions on short selling, disclosures around short selling. what else is wall street looking for? >> those things for sure whether, in fact, there is any more scrutiny of payment for order. i'm kind of cringing in advance of all of this, because i think there will be lots of presumptions of what is a good and bad practice, and there is going to be a lot of alarm expressed about routine behaviors thavsht have been out there in the market for a long time are we solving for the fact that robinhood's system was so overloaded and the exposures of gamestop and other stocks was basically going to break down

the system is that what we're sovlving for? or is it something about whether we should tighten the borrow rates for short sellers and make sure everyone has a real borrow and you can't get those excessive short sellers. i think there will be a lot of heat hopefully there's some light as well >> i kind of know exactly what you mean the adage point of this area is so many different players at once at least when you have four big tech ceos, the general gist of what lawmakers take issue with is the same on eachone with this one they have totally different approaches and totally different roles they play in this whole saga. i notice it's continued to ramp up after hours, and for the final few sessions, oil is 2.7% on the day by the end of things, so it will be interesting to see if that run for energy that's dominating continues

>> a huge portion of drillings is just off line right now for whatever reasons certainly the momentum has that going for it right now based on the weather conditions alone in texas and elsewhere. we're out of time here on "closing bell. thanks so much for watching. another record closing on the dow, not so much for others. "fast money" continues the discussion right now i'm alyssa lee and this is "fast money. the retail trading revolution heads to washington. the ceos of robinhood, reddit. this stock is about to see accelerating gains we'll tell you what it is and lay out her case don't forget, we have a special bonus hour coming up at 6:00 p.m "fast money" is looking for investments and how america changes doin