down 10% 10%, at about $5700, on the session, and below $53,000, where is, it i'm trying to see it, i just saw it a second ago, but i saw 9.95%. 52,177. >> we will see you back here tomorrow thank you, joe bye. we will see you tomorrow. >> thanks. >> right now, "squawk on the street." good monday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber will join us in a minute, we're coming off of four straight s&p loss, the longest streak of the year and futures weak, a big week ahead on j&j vaccine, powell on the hill, possible vote in the house on stimulus, road map begins with boeing shares under pressure, the faa orders

inspections of 777 a after the engine failure over colorado. and immelt and the possible future. and looking at ppp and coming to minority owned firms >> jim, it was a long week but we're glad you're back we heard you talk to becky, the thing being built, and the pandemic being over basically by the end of april. >> matthew boss at jpmorgan crystallizes everything, saying it's time. you got to change what you're buying a lot of people come out this morning and talk about travel, and airlines upgraded, we've got hotels upgraded, we've seen a positive reaction to royal caribbean's nonearnings, and i'm getting good rumblings from boeing and i know things are slow, i know what happened is terrible, but at the same time, there's ryan air, wants to start

buying planes again because they feel strongly carl that things are opening and we may get caught short if there is a boom. it is a remarkable mind set and i think it is a positive one and i share it >> so all right, so the degree to which that's going to offset the rise in yields, and sort of cap multiples, you think this story that has been built, i think, it will be incumbent on corporates, too, out-earned the rise in yield, rather than see the multiple go up >> david costin, sitting there on sunday and no real sports and reading about him, and i have some things about the stocks that were disliked but i look at what david is talking about, everybody is it and that is worrisome. and he keeps talking about everybody is already making this investment and yet the analysts are now starting to upgrade. so if anything, what you're seeing is the analysts playing catch-up to the actual owners and buyers, at the same time

obviously, there's this undercurrent that i managed to witness, as i was doing some recuperating, obviously we can't stop talking about reddit and we can't stop talking about the revolution, in part because it's concentrating a couple of names that everybody knows, so there's two threads going on, there's the reopening thread and then there's the thread which just says we're not letting the rich people, the hedge funds back in, we own this market, and everybody's part, but we'll take it >> right, well, we've seen retail become a marginal buyer of the stocks before, and it has lifted the market overall. jim, you mentioned boeing. and we'll talk about this a little bit more as the morning goes on, but of course, that engine failure over the denver suburb, the faa of course ordering some inspections, united grounding some of these planes do you think this is a boeing issue? or a raytheon issue? >> it's raytheon, i believe. 59 active planes, prat and whitney is doing, which is

raytheon, doing the work to try to figure out what is going on, plat blade, we just have to say, this plane was a redundant plane, and able to fly on one engine, we can't forget that, and they inspect this and it will be done by the government and i do think that the plane was, is designed to handle one engine, we can't forget that, and at the same time, the engine is not made by boeing, but it's boeing's responsibility. so bow egg's not shying away -- boeing's not shying awayed from responsibility it matters ultimately whaet happened and how many have to be grounded and not as many as i thought, and this is a contra-current to a stock that would be up big if it weren't for the fact of this because the number of upgrades that we're getting for airline, and the company like southwest, taking advantage of this, taking advantage, moving into chicago, a very competitive route, there are a lot of companies, airlines that are going to be left behind, and some

forward-thinking airlines, we should get gary kelly on, he is the plan who is expanding southwest right now, as others retreat. >> yeah, we mentioned jet blue, adding some service last week, and of course the o'hare move is a typical southwest, you know, typical gary kelly, being offensive when others are a little vulnerable and you mentioned the upgrade out of deutsche and the general point coming out of the pandemic, consumers will have lower credit card debt, 1.5 trillion in excess savings, higher home values, obviously any exposure to stocks is a net gain, and their general point is airlines are going to be at least a partial beneficiary. >> i agree with it, now we don't have the zoom factor we don't know how much business travel is going to drop out. but when it comes to actual travel, i've never seen a balance sheet of americans be this great, and again, we know there are many people who do not have jobs, but people who do have job, particularly in say

they make less than, they make, they might get the stimulus check, the stimulus checks for the younger people are going and i'm sure david can talk about this, they're going to the stock market to a certain degree, and the one thing that is absolutely certain is the balance sheet, the credit, the amount of money that americans have including the wealth from the stock market makes people feel like you know what, where can i go some states, some country, you can't go, but where you can go, wow, try getting on a flight to go to florida. right now. >> right >> i haven't i would look forward to doing so trying to get on a flight as soon as i possibly could you know, but jim, this, what you're talking about, lends itself to this larger narrative slash question, concern, which is how hot are we going to get in the u.s. economy? how much are things going to boom if we do get the 1.9

trillion will there be inflation? will powell and team care? or are they absolutely willing to just hold the line regardless and what's it going to mean for the stock market is there going to be a level of speculation that just continues to increase, the one that we've already identified in certain pockets for some time now. >> i think there is, two proofs that i'm looking and there's not that many stocks involved in them, but cop ser on fire and if you look at john deere, john deere reported a good quarter, it's a good time, and the stock went up 30 points, and carl, when you get these mainstream so-called value stocks like deere up 30 points, isn't that better than owning a company like let's just pick palantir, i mean palantir is a loved company, i say that mostly because i wanted to get some heat-seeking missiles for me on twitter, but you get a company that is selling at a huge amount

of times sales, and then you have a company like deere, which is just a fabulous company, and you say, why do i need the 20 times sales, carl, i don't need that, i got a great american company, and everybody knows, and look at that chart, that chart is a lot better, whoa. >> amazing >> we've been talking about this rotation, to value, for a year, and it's coming in fits and starts >> well, i do think that the one thing that's happened is that when you look at the make skrup of what deere is doing, makeup of what deere is doing, housing, construction, forestry, the housing market is so strong, that it's carrying a lot of companies with it i want to contrast deere with one that i think is, people are saying what happened to this one, facebook. if you look at facebook's stock, you're starting to see, even though, david, you know you can make a case for value, facebook has become the poster boy for why do i need this one why do i need it

i can go buy - >> viacom. >> viacom. i mean look at facebook. facebook trades like deere before the quarter >> yeah, well, listen, and what, 33% top line growth last quarter, and it trades at a multiple below that, right so are you making an argument that facebook is cheap and as it so often has in the past, it will move on, beyond i won't say difficulties but then farther in the market. >> i think it is biding its time and those who have decided to go kinder, gentler, there is a big meeting this week but pinterest and knsnap, you are where the b packaged goods companies are and a lot of companies believe that facebook even though it has done with small business, it ain't so shopify shopify is number two after amazon, after that fabulous quarter. and facebook is tainted. and there are a lot of people

who feel like if i own facebook i am missing the opportunity for a company that's pure. shopify. i like to use that too because they're partners >> i know you noticed that morgan stanley upgraded snap, to overweight, 50 to 80, this was a $7 name last march, and some argue, jim, that it's a ratification of the idea that you don't need network effects to get big and if you have your platform essentially scrubbed of abusive or incorrect information, you can benefit from facebook's pain. >> and people love pictures. that's pictures. and it's fun fun's okay and not everything has to be world war three. so i agree i can't believe, david, you're really coming up no >> who do you have >> jeff immelt there he is. >> old boss. >> yes >> spac? >> no, no, no, new book, jim

new book >> yeah. >> wow >> former ge ceo. >> we will listen to some of that sound, david sits down with immelt and we will get a look at that when we come back from a break. don't go away. we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing.

welcome back, carl mentioned, a chance to sit down with the former chairman and ceo

of ge, jeff immelt, coming out with a new book tomorrow but doing a lot of interviews around it, and he's willing to, well, entertain a lot of questions about his tenure, one of which as we well know, the stock price suffered as along with many long-term investors in ge. we sat down for roughly an hour. we're going to make that available on cnbc.com, hopefully later today, but did want to share at least a brief back and forth. you know, immelt contends and certainly have to admit, he perhaps was not nearly as lucky as his predecessor, jack welch, when it came to all sorts of different events take a listen. >> you do seem to indicate that you were just in many ways unlucky. is this another example of being unlucky? or at some point, do you make your own luck?

or lack of it? >> oh, gosh, i think, david, if you read the book, i'm harder on myself than i am on anybody else and you know, i made my own decisions and i'll take the consequences for that, and let it stand where it might. but i'm very tough on myself as i write this book. i think volatility and market risk and things like that matter, in terms of somebody's tenure, sure, it does, but i am tougher on myself than anybody else, for anybody that reads the book, you're going to see that. >> i read every page and you are, but you also deliver blame in other areas, you certainly, i mean steve boles who ran power, due spare any niceties for him, you don't spare any niceties for him or you should sy there aren't many for him and the worst mistake i ever made was

listening to the board and not firing him so it's not as though, jeff, you just fully take the blame, you're saying there are a lot of other things going on that, and people who failed you, aren't you? >> you know, david, i would start by saying i'm tougher on myself than i am on anybody else but the power in austin's story has been written and rewritten and observed by you and others for four years and i felt like there was a need to have a complete telling of how we did the austin deal, what it has, it has been a really good business in power for a long time, and then, you know, issues we had with execution, so you know, as i say in the book, if i had to do it over again, i wouldn't do the austin deal, but it is a complicated deal, with difficult markets, where we didn't have a team aligned with execution, and i again, own that, as does the board in terms of where we were positioned at that time, so all i tried to do, david, is to tell

a complete story so people can have a complete answer. >> and immelt says trying to add a lot of context to so much of what has been out there and a lot more of that, and jim, we've spent a lot of time talking about mr. immelt, at least we have in the past, and what is fascinating to sit down with him for an hour and go over so many things and i look forward to sharing more from our conversation >> remorse, giving money back to the shareholder, feeling that perhaps, shareholders, feeling that he was overcompensated, didn't understand, i don't think it's luck that you bought oil high, i don't think that you bought infrastructure high, any thought at all about how money should have been thought about >> we certainly talked about, as we have actually in some interviews we did toward the end of his tenure, of, you know, buying high and selling low, and how that can have a dramatically

negative impact over a long period of time, we didn't get into oil and gas as perhaps we should have but spent a lot of time on austin which was the last big deal, one of the largest, and now he certainly depends the deal and said it paid off a great more than it was, than they paid for, it and i do remember us criticizing that deal, way back, that was somewhat early in his tenure, with the deal, selling obviously nbc u to comcast at a much lower valuation than could have been the case and then ge capital, which colors so much of the capital, and to be fair he inherited it 40% of earnings and then the financial crisis hit and it colored the immelt years. >> long term care and how it was not fully disclosed. >> we talked about it. >> wind accounting, and how it was noncommon. >> uh-huh. talked about it. >> nice guy, fun >> yes, all those things.

>> i mean i don't mean that facetiously, i always enjoyed jeff's company, and then when the stock, the projections failed, so badly, david, we all kind of shrugged our shoulders initially but then it was repeated failure to make the numbers, and you went from feeling that jeff is a guy who has a lot of vision, to being a guy who couldn't execute. >> right it's the word success feeder is what's used in some of the books about ge, and you know, we addressed that, to some extent as well. obviously so much to get to, and even an hour not enough time to encompass a 16-plus year, as ceo, 35 years at the company and share what we can from it and encourage people to view it online when we have the full interview, i believe it will be available as well. and the book i read it. pretty good read >> yeah. >> pretty good read. enjoyed it >> i wonder if the people at ge

are working or watching? i betcha they're working >> they're working >> definitely sounds candid, david, i can't wait to hear more david having sat down with immelt earlier this morning. we'll take a break here. plenty to watch. yellen on the tape talking about the potential for a long bond, 100 years, and what the market might look like, and also, as fiscal aid, she says, what she's now calling pocks of misery, and we'll look at some earningou n'goway.s t.

take a look at some of the dow laggards pre-market, boeing

and apple and intel. four sessions down so far, in a row, on the s&p, and we haven't had five in a row down in nearly a year, since the last seven sessions of february of 2020, g t oni bl ewhat happens when weethepengelinight minutes.

at fidelity, you get personalized wealth planning and unmatched overall value. together with a dedicated advisor, you'll make a plan that can adjust as your life changes, with access to tax-smart investing strategies that help you keep more of what you earn. and with brokerage accounts, you see what you'll pay before you trade. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. ♪ more than this ♪

let's get to our mad dash and then an opening bell for this monday. kohl's. >> so john duskin who is no stranger to activism when it comes to retail, with bed bad, is going under kohl's for kron in underperformance, a believer that the company has created no value, a belief that the company has no reason to live, unless they change, and he's got a primer about what they need to do but i think the most, let me cut to the chase, a guy named tom, who worked at kohl's at one point and he bought a company called burlington into one of the greatest offprice companies and it was an also-ran and kingsbury got in and i can't believe he got kingsbri part of the slate and not a personal

attack, and nothing there, that says, michelle goes is worthless, but there is an overall belief, david, that the company is going to be left behind unless it changes, and its amazon return deal doesn't matter that much and a lot of money locked up in real estate, it did a very bad 9% bond during the absolute darkest hours, and you know, david, i got to tell you, i look at kohl's, and i go to kohl's quite a bit, and i say, you know what it is, cash is cash king, and you go to kohl's, because frankly, there might be another store in the mall, and in a shopping center, and it is not a destination store, and i do believe that i should fully disclose, i've known john duskin for 30 years and talked to him about a lot of ideas beforehand and i did not talk to him about kohl's before this was public other than the fact that he said i have a big one coming so i think it will be difficult for kohl's to resist some, because it's true, ten years, nothing,

nothing. david, nothing >> this is not an insignificant challenge, we're talking nine seats, not just a couple so they're looking at basically to take over the board. >> yes >> and what they really want to do is make it so that they monetize the real estate, and they make it so the house wears are better, they make it so the stores themselves have something special. every major brand that they have that is their own brand, according to john, has failed. the idea that they have a loyalty program is good, but it's very hard to work and overall, i think that the, what john is saying, basically, kohl's left to its own device, and this is mine own view of it, could be paying. kohl's has a better balance sheet obviously and they have the support deal and that is fabulous, given the board, they have adrian shapiro, a fantastic analyst at goldman in retail, she's joined the board and it will be very contentious but there is a problem with kohl's and the problem with kohl's is

called amazon. and there isn't anything that kohl's can't get better than amazon, so when you look at the existential crisis that we often talk about and you look at what kohl's has and their prices and you say you know what, amazon's better, and that is really the issue, even though that is an undercurrent of john's work. >> i feel you have gone, you were very negative on kohl's for a while and then not as negative, in a less negative place lately. >> i like the support deal that they took from jcpenney, i like the fact that they were able to switch and do a lot more direct to consumer, i was actually surprised how much they can pick that up, and also i like stores that you can go to a shopping mall, not a shopping center, and have contactless, and kohl's has that advantage, and so does, you know, look, if you're in a shopping center, it is very different than a shopping mall, and shopping center, let's say is, shopping mall, david simon,

doing well, and overall i think kohl's will have to sit down and they say they've been talking to john but the numbers of kohl's are not good they're just -- here's a great thing to say noted a not as bad as they were. "bell ringing ]. >> and b of a, a new street high for target, and in the meantime, there's the opening bell and the s&p 500, at the nysc celebrating the recent listing at nasdaq. and we will talk to the ceo over on squawk alley later. overall, an extremely busy monday not just for your beat on m&a, but for spacs, and ipos, road blocks, looking at that direct listing in march and a whole lot more. >> the spacs continue unabated given the preparation over the weekend and then this morning, with mr. immelt, having spent as much time, but jim, i'm sure you

get hit all the time, it's endless, jeff smith's got a spac and we will bring one on later this morning from a former goldman banker, announcing their deals, and it will just keep going, it's not like it is going to end next week or next month the spac phenomena will continue for quite some time, jim and it is only going to grow i mean you will see changes and sort of a promote and then changes in the way the sponsors are compensated, to some extent, you may even see some changes in structures but this thing is not going anywhere. >> i want to put a positive spin on spacs for a second. >> sure. >> i've gone over a large number of them and it looks like 70 billion devoted to the grid, and to making it so we have a carbon-free environment. that money would not go otherwise, and a lot of these of course we're talking about ev, we're talking about better batteries, maybe even hydrogen, and it's kinds of reminds me, i was going back to someone who likes wind, and i think wind was an unfair culprit in texas, it's

like the railroad, the british provided the money for our railroads, and people, the british lost a fortune, because we put railroads in place, but we had one darn good railroad network, i think this is the way for a lot of these companies to scale, that would have never have scaled so i want to put a little bit more of a positive spin on the ones that are ev and carbon, and then there's just a whole 'nother, we can talk about like a scoreboard, some of these companies are looking for businesses and some of these companies have businesses and so david, don't you find there's they don't mar cation point, where you -- demarcation point, where you get money and go off and find something and you get money and you have something in mind the whole time. >> yes, although there's so much money chasing these deals that it's not clear that you get what you were after when you begin the process and oftentimes you find yourself in an industry that is not quite the industry you thought. it might be adjacent to it in some way, but to your point, listen, jim, it's going to be very interesting, we may lose site of many of these companies

eventually, but so much late stage, not even late, some of it, medium stage to late stage growth capital is now being put into these companies that are going public, they're going public in that period, where they don't have any earnings, many of them, they have a dream, i guess you start with the spac and a dream and then you get your deal and you've got a dream about battery efficiency, or your truck fleet, or any number of other things, your flying car, and then there will be a question about what things really look like in 2025 or 2026, when and if they start to actually commercialize some of these opportunities. >> all right, but let's look at it another way there is a company called toast. goldman is talking about bringing public, a point of sale company. it's valued right now at 20 billion dollars. i know, then there's a company called lightspeed, valued at half of that, point of sale, and when i look at the toast number, you know, it's a tractor-trailer underwriting -- it's a tractor-trailer underwriting, david, i don't know how they will do, but when you look at a spac, carl, the 2027, they have

models, and it's almost as if, it's kind of like you're playing, there was a game called stocks and bonds that my father had when he worked at 3 m, and striker oil had projections to the wa zoo and the s.e.c. doesn't like that, it's like a big game, you can come up with a 2027 valuation, carl, and put numbers together, and say you know what, i'm buying a cheap spac, and you know, then there's toast, which is valued at 20 billion, david, carl, i don't care, they're both ridiculous. the 2027 numbers are ridiculous and the fact that a point of sale company that is basically, i had to deal with every point of sale company at an owner of restaurants that that's worth $20 billion and i don't get it because they don't get the hoopla going and some of these are ridiculously valued but right now we're in a world where people want to own space ships, they want to own lidar, they

want to own batteries that are 15% nor chargeable than tesla, they are unstoppable, they will take everything because it is so exciting and this is apropos to what happened last week, the excitement that we saw over a video game store they love these. and boy, when you criticize them they find you. they find you. >> yeah. it's true. you of course deal with it more than any of us but to your larger point, if you're on the cusp of the big age of innovation, which you can argue we are, people are going to reach, and sometimes be reined in. for example yellen right now in this event with the "new york times" saying bitcoin is extremely inefficient for conducting transactions, and highly speculative asset, trying to see if pay pal or visa or master card respond to any of that commentary, but it's the latest attempt to rein in some of these large expectations we have about the future. >> well, i know an outfit like national carbon, is a very good

company and they're looking at it as an asset, not as a currency, and i don't know how you view it otherwise. david, if you're going to buy something with bitcoin, you're going to buy, you're going to have to be like elon musk, the idea that we're going to be able to do just, you know, square takes it, and someone was saying square is worth $600, part and parcel to the new market, and david, it is too volatile to service that and what you really need is something that does not have this level of volatility, where a tweet from elon musk can take at-from a trillion down to, i don't know, 950 billion, and it doesn't work as anything other than an asset. >> gold doesn't work either. >> i just -- >> why >> it is internationally accepted and you can travel with it. >> you can travel with it? >> it is really heavy. >> you can't travel with gold. >> you can travel with bitcoin because you don't need to, you

know, i'm not traveling with any gold. >> i think if you put gold in your coat on the way out of a particular regime, in the '30s and '40s, you did okay. >> i'm not odd job here. i mean he could handle the gold. he was big. >> he was big. >> yeah. >> but they had that wire, that wire that bond had >> yeah. but look, i like gold. by the way, gold has been eclipsed by bitcoin. i mean look, carl, i spent a huge amount of time looking at bitcoin and i come back and i say if there are people who keep using this $100,000 price tag and they won't be deterred, and they'll look at everything is a buying opportunity with bitcoin, and it is, it's amazing, and it is something that if we don't take, we have to focus on it every day, if only just because a lot of people are correlating it to the stock market, carl i would rather correlate oil i think oil is a better correlater but bitcoin has captured the fancy and you can't deny it.

>> i'm glad you mentioned crude, jim, because goldman does up their target over the weekend, on at least on brent, to $70 in q2, $75 in q3, that is a $10 increase over the prior, as they say, jim, inventories are declining faster than we expected, and whatever the saudis may do, notwithstanding, certainly the episode in texas last week, which i know you were watching, hasn't done much for at least refining capacity, in this country. >> no and exxon remains a big believer that the depletion is going faster, and i don't know how much you can replace, but oil is going to go up. i still look at the five-year curve on west texas, and it hasn't changed, so still $48 but remember, if biden follows through, president biden follows through with a severe, a severe and say gulf of mexico, that's the real scare, then these prices are justified i remain a stead fast believer that pioneer is the great growth

stock of this group if you want it and chevron is the great value stock and i don't particularly like the stocks and people say jim, you don't like the oils but i picked two, one growth, and one value. and chevron demonstrated something that you and i both know, it's called discipline i like that. >> i know you do but underperformed dramatically. and almost 30%. >> i like the yield. >> and exxon, and chevron, in part exxon dealing, as you pointed out with some activist pressure and there are some question, will they have another significant edition to the board, will they commit to further actions when it comes to cap ex and operating expenses as well, jim, i don't know the answers there at this point but still a conversation. >> when does the wave of

revulsion come from pension funds? that say we are not backing carbon, carbon fuels we're going neutral. >> right. >> that's going to happen. >> well, yes, to some extent, every day, listen, we see the announcements from companies that are in a position to at least try to reach carbon neutrality, we got 3m last week, or two weeks ago, and it's going to be years, 2050 i think is when they finally get there the but they are trying to do a lot in the first five. >> the battle ground is 2030 and mary barra at gm is doing incredible things. jim farley is doing incredible things f-150, you can plug everything in with an office in your truck but i think 2030 is something that an exxon will tell you is completely preposterous but you have walmart, interesting meeting that i didn't get to talk about because i thought doug would do some great things and you have outfits like amazon saying listen, we won't tolerate this amount of fossil fuel, you have hydrogen, green hydrogen which is very expensive right

now but good for long haul, and do you have the possibility of some new scanners being developed by president biden, a lot of people are talking about president biden, away from this, just saying, look out, he's looking at what's happening with natural gas and what is the pastiche of our grid and how much can be solar and how much wind. >> and i would love for you to tell me and i believe a lot of people would benefit if you can figure this out, it's unclear you can, who will have the best battery technology we know everybody company claims they have the most efficient batteries, we have quantumscape, with the solid state, we had them on last week talking about the advances they're making in terms of getting closer to a commercial product but everybody claims they have the best battery. >> no, quantumscape. >> the most efficient battery. >> what about lucid? we can take a look at shares of cciv this morning. they haven't announced the deal yet. i think i would have seen it if

it had been announced. >> church hill goes up every day. >> up 15%. that deal appears close. i think they will sell at -- >> up 10 do you have a valuation? >> the overall value for lucid >> 20 million? >> i think they would have started at 15 but then you have to multiply it by five, four or five, enterprise value at 15, and this will be valued at 50, $60 billion, lucid, at least by the market at this point, based on the fact where v. iv is -- where cciv is, jim, and do they have the best technology i don't expect you to have the answer by the way. we're all trying to figure it out. we don't know. >> i had fisker on i look at all of these guys, and i say carl, you know what, only 3% of the market is ebit, only tesla is going to produce something that people are dieing for, 3%, a 220 million car total adjustable market in the united states and you don't think there's room for lucid and fivger, carl, i think there's room for everybody

>> look, i think, yeah, the bullish cases that we make, jim, there's no doubt about that, by the way, speaking of all of this, energy is definitely help can out today, in what is overall pretty rough take, 10-year yield coming in a little bit from 1.39 earlier this morning. let's get to rick. >> hi, carl. looking at the two-day chart here, you're correct, we drifted right into, from friday into today, yields moving a bit higher, and the equity markets getting a bit squishy, and that is taking its toll, as you look at that chart, and if we open up a 30-year bond chart, to january of last year, you can see, we're basically hovering at slightly over one-year highs, 13-month highs in 30-year bond, and one year exactly in ten-year note yields and the major issue on a technical basis for tens, is on the closing basis, you want to pay close attention to the high 130s, those are the double bombs of 2012 and 2016 -- double

bottoms of 2012 and 2016, around intra-day we tested these levels on a closing basis and that is really what counts and the yield curve spread, trading a whivger under 123 and if you open up the chart to four years, we haven't been at that level since early 2017, and if you look at a year to date of the kvw index against tens to 2s, you will see obviously that it correlates, and this is a positive for the banking industry, even though there's so much more to consider outside of just where rates line up like money supply. and potential inflation down the road and the fact we're throwing everything, including everybody's kitchen sink, to try to stem the drop in jobs, just like in 2008 and '09, certainly hope we have better results and finally one and ten-year boons, closed at basically minus 58 this year and today briefly minus 30, that is almost half where they closed just a few months ago carl, jim, david, back to you.

>> we'll see you in a little while, rick, thank you. and financials and energy up, vix a little elevated at 24. tesla below the a-day for the first time since november. and more "squawk on the street" continues in just a moment 5-day first time since november. and more "squawk on the street" continues in just a moment 0-day first time since november. and more "squawk on the street" continues in just a moment hey, dad! hey, son! no dad, it's a video call. you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror?

[ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most and $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today. i knew about the tremors. but when i started seeing things, i didn't know what was happening. so i kept it in. he started believing things that weren't true. i knew something was wrong, but i didn't say a word. during the course of their disease around 50% of people with parkinson's may experience hallucinations or delusions. but now, doctors are prescribing nuplazid. the only fda approved medicine proven to significantly reduce

hallucinations and delusions related to parkinson's. don't take nuplazid if you are allergic to its ingredients. nuplazid can increase the risk of death in elderly people with dementia related psychosis. and is not for treating symptoms unrelated to parkinson's disease. nuplazid can cause changes in heart rhythm and should not be taken if you have certain abnormal heart rhythms or take other drugs that are known to cause changes in heart rhythm. tell your doctor about any changes in medicines you're taking. the most common side effects are swelling of the arms and legs and confusion. we spoke up and it made all the difference. ask your healthcare provider about nuplazid.

let's get to bob pisani shortly after the market opened on this monday, hey, bob. >> carl, good morning, happy monday boeing, microsoft, apple weighing on the dow but a little bit of a problem with tech in general here, take a look at the sectors, carl mentioned, we got banks up, energy up, and industrials, and semis and tech, this is not working and hasn't been working for a couple of weeks now, and look at the mega cap tech names and not just the faang name, apple had a tough time the last few weeks, and amazon as well, microsoft nvidia, all of these tech names to the down side today we want to keep an eye on that

the big debate of course is inflation, how serious is it, and what's going on with that, and can the fed convince the markets it's years away from raising rates and maybe from tapers as well put that up full screen here so how far can you do that what's the inflation story and how far is the reflation trade going to go at this point? it's had quite a run thank heavens for janet yellen, the street loves yellen and they believe the stimulus will work and going to happen, and look at the reflation trade, a long way, energy is up 20%, china trade, banks, copper, all up, russell 2000, the defensive sectors are doing nothing. consumer staples, utilities, health care, if you put those up there, they are stuck doing absolutely nothing, mega cap names are well off of the highs as well here, i mentioned amazon's gone nowhere, the high was back in august, apple's high was a month ago, 10% off of its highs so you see these stocks moving to the down side. and as for what's going on, with jeff immelt and general

electric, and watching david's interview with great interest, those of us who are of a certain age had a lesson to learn from this, and that is don't put too much of your 401(k) money in the company that you own it was the only stock we were allowed to own, of course, we were ge employees back then, many of us were very enthusiastic about that. ge went from $7 $7 in 1993, thii split adjusted, split three times in the '90s, to about $60 in the summer of 2000, and artcarl you see the outperforms of ge in the summer of 2000 by three years later it was $23 or so. w so we learned a painful lesson about investing too much of your own company stock in 401(k)s. >> yeah, as some have over time. thanks bob pisani take a short break here. a lot more to come on a busy monday ahead of a busy week. don't go anywhere.

we made usaa insurance for renters who make the most of their space and money. that's why we make it easy to cover the stuff you love for as little as 33¢ a day. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. u-s-a-a

some s&p gainers this morning, people's united in the lead as m and t buys it for 7.6 billion in stock american airlines not too far down the list as deutsch upgrades the entire airline

sector a lot nor quk t see"sawonhetrt" continues in just a moment don't go away. m "squawk on the " continues in just a moment don't go away. or "squawk on thet continues in just a moment don't go away. e "squawk on the street" continues in just a moment don't go away.

at work summit is an opportunity to think strategically about the future it was one year ago yesterday jim david and i were back in our old set at the new york stock exchange.

covid as definitely on the market's radar, but hadn't yet been established as a pandemic, and the discussion we were having with jim was about the business handshake and what would happen to it take a listen to this. >> i am anxious not to shake people's hand. i have a mask here i have the gloves. >> literally save lives, not shaking hands. wasn't it done to show that you didn't have a weapon we don't have weapons. >> just that it's weird to, like -- >> no arms >> you know, i got guests. all at the guests want to shake my hand at the end ever the interview because it looks like i like them. you know, there is one company i wouldn't shake hands even before the virus, and you know what that is. but i -- >> everybody knows which company you are talking about. >> i am struggling to tsh but i want everyone at home to know, i don't want to shake anybody's hand i just don't. >> what did the three stooges do why don't you do that?

>> jim, i don't think at that point we had established the term social distancing, but we were already on track to think about transmission being the end all and be all. >> yeah, that was kind of a -- people like, geez, cramer is grumpy but i was kind of early on in this and i got to tell you, people thought i was paranoid psychotic. not the first time but, yeah, i didn't shake anybody's hands after that i gave a speak for a georgetown conference and there were like 600 people there and everyone wanted to shake my hand. i am like, hey, how are you doing? i had the purell in my hand. hey, how are you doing we were early on we have been safe. that's what matters. >> yep it's hard to imagine though, carl, isn't it here we are still. it's going to be ary we will not have been together in the same space. hopefully, not much longer it feels like we are really making prog congress who knows when the date is when

we are all back together. >> yes, hug my daughter this weekend because the moderna kicked in. hugged her. >> there you go. >> kind of cool. kind of like what you did for 26 years and then stopped i shook her hand. >> that's what it's all about, that human-to-human contact, guys. >> let's get to "stop trading." >> okay. i want to talk about -- i am going to say something while we are on the personal, my wife lisa thought -- was a complete channel. like the style, the way he handled people he joined the board of actualio when the stock was at 144 in june of 2019 and the stock is at 429. sometimes luck can be the residue of design, david i thought i should say something nice becausemy mom said if you have nice things to say, don't say it, and i say a lot of things that aren't nice. there. i just said something nice. >> jim, what's tonight >> i got a one semiconductor, they have a lot of auto.

i got palo alto networks, i believe is the best cybersecurity pike because it does on prem and cloud and then eli lilly, a lot of things, including alzheimer's, talk about therapeutics. i also am going to talk about migraine they are not doing nearly as much as we thought there we go. i love being back. love it. >> not as much as we love having you back. >> oh, very kind. >> we will see you tonight thank you, guys. >> "mad money" 6:00 p.m. eastern time good monday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and seema mody morgan brennan is off today. a soft take, off the initial loads of dow down 109. rick with l.e.i. >> leading economic indicators which made their debut in february of 1959 so 62 years ago, up half of 1%, up 0.5, a little better than 0.4 we were expecting. it reverses a trend the last

three months, of course, this reverses that and what is, indeed, a positive s s we start with boeing after an engine failed on a united airlines 777 jet phil lebeau joins us on the cnbc news line with the latest on investigation and whether they have pinpointed the issue with that pratt & whitney engine. >> they have not pin pinpointed an exact cause for two fan blades that fractured. what we're looking at right now is the begin stages of an investigation. the ntsb working along with pratt & whitney and boeing and united airlines are all looking at a couple of things in particular one, the damaged engine on the plane after it turned around and landed at denver international airport after having an uncontained engine failure they are also going to be looking at the debris that was strewn over a wide area, a suburb of denver because they have those pieces,

this will allow them to quickly say, okay, what went wrong what do we think went wrong? a part is looking at the flight data recorder which is being analyzed at the ntsb offices in washington you put all of that together and what you have is an investigation that should come to some fairly quick conclusions if you will, at least initially in terms of what caused this uncontained engine failure was it fan blade fatigue was it lack of inspections being done they will be able to zero in on this relatively quickly. the reference that i would make, everybody, to follow is what happened with southwest airlines when it had an uncontained engine failure it didn't take long for them to zero in on what was the problem and that's where we are right now with this incident that happened on saturday in denver. >> and, phil, aviation analysts saying grounding a few planes

not a big deal, about you it is unwelcome publicity for boeing which just got done working with the 737 max, trying to get tback to the air after an 18-month ban, gained the approval of the faa. wh how big of a black eye is this for boeing >> it's not -- i would not call it a major black eye for boeing because of this. this is a pratt & whitney engine issue first and foremost if the investigation shows that there is some causal relationship between the 777 that has hthis engine, it's a bigger issue for boeing. at this point the primary focus is on the pratt & whitney 4,000 engine as you mentioned, there are not a lot in service there are just 24 planes here in the united states all flown by united airlinesthat have this particular engine. the faa putting out an airworthiness directive saying, look, why don't you park these things while we figure out what's going on and do some more

detailed inspection. it's not a grounding of the plane, but it is the beginning of the ntsb saying we need t make sure all of these engines are safe to continue to be in operation. >> yeah, phil, i was going to say, given the limited population of this particular configuration, it's a lot more easy for investigators and the public, i guess, to process versus if it were more of a systemic population wide story in domestic aviation at least. >> correct it's a limited number of planes. just 24 all flown by united airlines and remember the 777 is a long haul aircraft. where do you fly these international routes or, as an example on saturday, you are going from denver to honolulu there are not a lot of these planes that are in service right now. mainly because the international traffic is down because of covid-19 so if there is a time when you want to pull planes out and not see a big impact, this is that

time for united airlines >> phil, thanks. obviously, made sop some remarkable pictures of the weekend. that's our phil lebeau. another share to watch is kohl's this group of activist a combined 9.5% stake nominate directors to the board. >> hi there, good morning. a group of activists that are small individually but have worked together before to push changes at other albeit smaller retailers now have the bigger target with kohl's legion partners and 410 capital have together taken a 9.5% stake in kohl's. today issued a public letter outlining their strategy to unlock value that they see as potential for the retailer now, kohl's tells cnbc it's been working with the group since december and is in fact open to new ideas. but the mid-western retailer points out its stock is up 150%

since it put out the new strategy in october of 2020 and has received search analyst upgrades since the operating margins have declined and there have been inventory missteps with both the level and vininventory itself some exclusive brand launches were not as successful as they had opened one was shuttered only a couple of years after it was launched, pop sugar. now, the activists are looking at shaking up the board, too, as you mentioned, arguing that many of the directors have been in the seats for too long and they have too little retail experience the investor group is proposing a new slate with four women and five men, and including the partner jonathan duskin and former burlington ceo thomas kingsbury. now, michelle gosk consistently talks about the value she sees in her physical stores, that 1,100 or so store base the activists are arguing for a sale lease back strategy to unlock the value

billions of dollars they suggest. this is a move that other activists have, in fact, also suggested for other retailers like macy's in the past. macy's did end up, ultimately, doing some things to unlock the value of their real estate, although not playing exactly to the letter that those activists suggested. kohl's shares are up about 10% this morning for the retailer, maybe some other investors agree some changes could be beneficial david. >> really interesting. i mean, sales lease back, i don't know, i assume their long-term leases that they could sign, maybe some buyers potentially, although it's unclear to me exactly. they are going after nine seats here this is not insignificant. oftentimes activists are not going to win nine seats. if they come close, they will have a central control of that board ever of directors. >> yeah, it's been interesting they have worked with some smaller groups before and they

have had some success. bed bath & beyond is one of the bigger retailers that they have tackled, although i would argue in a much different financial position than kohl's is. and also big lots. and i know they won a seat or so there on that board as well. so they have had some success in at least the board part and in some of the ideas being at least considered by the companies. we know bed bath & beyond went through a very large shake-up, but there was also a lawsuit involved with the activist group there, too so it got a little messy in the end, some changes were, in fact, made. >> yeah. we'll be watching this closely i believe mr. duskin is going to be a guest later on the "halftime report." courtney, thank you. courtney reagan reporting on that as well. more from my sitdown with former ceo of g.e., jeff immelt coming up. there is jonathan duskin he will be joining the "halftime report."

there is jeff immelt as well we'll be getting a lot more. we sat down for about an hour. a lot to talk about. his new book coming out tomorrow called "hot seat." >> i am wholly unhappy about the narrative that has been created around the g.e. team i don't think it's been complete i don't think it's been fair and i think it's hurt a lot of people and i felt like a more complete story should be told i think in addition to that, david, you know, kind of today all leadership is crisis leadership, and i think to a certain extent this team and me, you know, went throu agh lot together that others can learn from, and i wanted to share that as well.

when you've got a business, you don't want to worry about slow internet or confusing cybersecurity. so get comcast business internet with fast, reliable speeds, and add the advanced security of comcast business securityedge. it combines the speed you need with threat protection. plus there's 24/7 support. it's internet and advanced security - made simple. so bounce forward - with comcast business.

get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just $64.90 a month. and ask how to add comcast business securityedge. call today. ridership on amtrak down 75 to 80% as a result of the work-from-home economy the rail operator setting a goal to vaccinate 100% of workers and is providing paid time off to get it done. the ceo, william flynn, joins us great to have you. thank you for the time good to see you. >> good to see you as well thank you. >> i wonder, i was making a list of some of the reopening metrics that we are seeing at least in new york city, indoor dining capacity is up tomorrow you can go to a knicks game, although it's limited capacity at the garden how does that compare to some of the slower progress is f we are seeing of employers bringing workers back into the office >> sure.

well, at amtrak, of course, we are an essential service 70% of our employees have to show up every day to operate our service, whether they are on the train, in the locomotive, in our stations, in our dispatch centers, and working in our engineering groups on track infrastructure or our mechanical shops repairing the locomotives and the cars themselves. so i heard, you know, your opening comments our goal is to get 100% of our employees vaccinated right now in our operation we are selling 50% of the capacity of a train, up to 50%, ensuring proper social distancing among other protocols we have in place. but your earlier statistic is right. we're at about 23%, 24% of normal levels of ridership we are beginning to work through what return to office is going to look like. >> what do you think that number will look like, say, come summer in terms of ridership? >> we think our -- we are on a

fiscal year, of course our fiscal quarter four july through september, we are anticipating a run rate of about 35, 36% of normal ridership. and then, hopefully, growing into fourth quarter and into 2020. >> bill, i had the opportunity to go to your delaware facility about a year ago to view your new trains i am wondering when you expect those high speed trains to come into service >> so, we have two prototypes now which we are running through required testing before they are fully authorized to operate. but we are anticipating we'll start revenue service with a number of the new trains later in the year. november/december timeframe. >> meantime, you are seeing a number of high-speed rail projects take off in different parts of the united states florida. excuse me, florida, you have portland to seattle, san

bernardino in california, but all of these projects are dealing with their own setbacks, whether it's regulation, environmental concerns, budgetary constraints. is high-speed rail ever going to become a reality here in the u.s. when you have trains, you know, across spain and japan that are much faster and more efficient? >> well, i think the larger question is, is there a future for inner city passenger rail. we absolutely believe that there is we think it's an essential part of our country's mobility strategy high speed has different connotations we have speeds capable of 160 miles an hour. i used to live in japan and i road the shinkansen for many years. tokyo to nagoya non-stop achieved a certain speed if you are washington to baltimore to wilmington to philly and new york, our average operating speed is going to be lower. but i'll come back to may earlier point. there is a great future for inner city passenger rail in the united states.

>> yeah. well, that would require a great deal of money, one would expect. we know our current president trump president is a fan of amtr amtrak have you had any conversations about an infrastructure bill and/or an allocation towards high-speed rail or amtrak that might be a part of that? >> sure, we are working with the new administration we have had opportunities to speak with the white house, with the department of transportation, sec tretary buttigieg came on his first outing, came to our washington union station and held a press conference there and focused on the role of inner city rail. but, you know, we have large ridership across the country today. for example, in california, amtrak is operating services, precovid, almost 6 million passengers a year. we had simmer riderships out of illinois or chicago, has a hub,

and ever course our strong northeast corridor and the entire northeast operation there are two sets of investments we need to think abo we need investment in the rolling stock. we are taking our orders for some 87, 83 to 87 train sets after that to replace our 40-year-old am fleet then there is a 15 to 20-year program investment that needs to look at and address century-old infrastructure in terms of bridges and tunnels that estee long the northeast corridor. and there are two separate sets of investments one near-term rolling stock. one fundamental infrastructure that's the discussion that we have to have, but that i think underpins the vision >> yeah, a key tunnel here, of course, and the hudson river, i think a part of that what chances do you put on being able to get the necessary funds to actually build out the plan that you are talking about

>> well, first of all, i believe that the service that is amtrak provides are essential services in our economy you can look at that from many perspective. some -- sorry, 14 million people rode on that corridor between washington and boston pre-covid with routes to new england and connecticut, new york, pennsylvania, for example, and town into vermont. sorry, down into virginia. we are talking about a tunnel that's well over 100 years old, and absolutely needs to be replaced over the next 15 to 20 years along with a number of bridges in the gateway corridor from new jersey into new york, the baltimore potomac tunnel, for example. they are just essential investments that need to be made and infrastructure that served our country well now 100 years, but needs the reinvestment >> i wonder how you think consumers are viewing right now

the relationship between going by rail and going by air, and i wonder, are you worried that as airlines add capacity and more convenience back into their system that that would remain a competitive threat >> that's a really interesting question pre-covid on the route between washington and new york, the amtrak share of passengers relative to the share of moving by air, we had 80% of that market and now we are a 84% of that market with substantially lower ridership. we have grown share 20 points between boston and philadelphia, and we have grown share on a relative basis to air carrier again a good double-digit growth in new york to boston. we have seen share growth chicago to st. louis so i think immediately post-covid-19 riders will evaluate what amtrak can offer and i think they will find it's a great deal

great seats. great leg room wifi all the way competitive pricing. >> and then, finally, i wonder, let's say that workers on the march, there is a population of workers who can continue to work from home from a marketing standpoint do you then try to target leisure rather than commuting traffic in the future? >> so our mix is really leisure and business and not so much commuting. but your point's rate. we are seeing leisure come back and we'll recover more quickly probably by year -- than seeing the recovery in business travel. our mix will change. we were on the northeast corridor 40% business, 60% leisure. i think on the near term that's going to be more 16% to 20% business, the balance being leisure. but we are seeing leisure grow >> we'll be watching closely obviously, huge implications, especially for the corridor we all live in. william, thanks so much. please come back william flynn, ceo of amtrak thank you.

now for our "etf spotlight." we are taking a closer look at the consumer names under xly under a bit of pressure today, around 30% up over the past 12 months one of the names that are outperforming today, look at royal caribbean, up 7%, posting a $1 billion loss for the fourth quarter, but it did point to stronger booking trends for 2022 the cruise industry trying to get back to sea. they haven't seen any guidance from the biden administration but the hope is that it will be sooner rather than later i will be speaking with royal caribbean's ceo richardard fain in a cnbc exclusive at 1:00 p.m. eastern today. resqwkn e re" straight ahead a cnbc exclusive eastern today. more "squawk on the street" straight ahead pbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (kids talking) pnc bank believes that if an app can help you track your pizza... come on cody, where are you buddy? ...then your bank should have the technology to help you track your spending. virtual wallet® for digital banking. one way we're helping to make a difference at pnc bank. (man) so when in doubt, just say, "let me talk to my manager." next, carvana's 100% online shopping experience. oh, man. carvana lets people buy a car-- get this-- from their couch.

oh, how disruptive. no salesman there to help me pick out the car i need. how does anyone find a car on this site without someone like us checking in? she's a beauty, huh? oh, golly! (laughter) i can help you find the color you want. that sounds nice. let me talk to my manager. (vo) buy your next car 100% online. with carvana.

got some wild swings in bitcoin today. down to 47-4 janet yellen at "the new york times" event said it's highly

inefficient for transaction, often used for illicit means it heceras roved to 7% loss. we are back in a moment. - [narrator] grubhub perks give you deals on all the food that makes you boogie. (upbeat music) get the food you love with perks from- - [crowd] grubhub. ♪ ♪ - grub what you love. - [narrator] if you're thinking about going to school online, southern new hampshire university is where you belong. we've been online for more than 25 years and have helped thousands of students reach their goals. as a nonprofit university, we believe access to high quality education should be available to everyone. that's why we offer some of the lowest tuition rates in the nation, and haven't raised tuition in nearly a decade. so no matter where you want to go,

snhu can help you get there. visit snhu.edu today.

♪ welcome back i am rahel solomon here is your cnbc covid update the united states is less than 1,000 deaths away from reporting half a million covid fatalities according to the johns hopkins count. the toll has already topped the population of kansas city, missouri, and is approaching the number of people who live in atlanta. the u.s. has 20% of the world's 2.5 million confirmed deaths. at sunset today president biden will mark the nation's 500,000 milestone with a candlelating ceremony and a moment of silence.

the washington national cathedral will toll its funeral bell 500 times. and preliminary data from a study in scotland shows a dramatic reduction in hospital admissions for people who have received their first dose of the covid vaccine. the astrazeneca shot cut the risk of hospitalization by 94% 85% drop for the pfizer vaccine. the lead researcher says the data has given us great reasons to be optimistic for the future. david, back to you. >> thank you. electric truck maker ex owes going public today the spac next-gen corp values the combined company at $2 billion gentlemen, thanks to you both. dakota, let's start with you and give our viewers a sort of a quick sense here you make trucks, class 5 through 8. meaning there is a lot of classes that you are, obviously, not making

why focus on that part, that sort of last mile, as they call it, for delivery kind of vehicles why is that one the one that you want to be focused on as opposed to the others? >> xos is focused on the fastest growing segment of commercial transportation as you mentioned, that's the last mile. so these are the fleets that are delivering things to your home, delivering packages. it's really been driven by a significant amount of growth in the e-commerce sector, and we knew that that's the area we needed to solve first to make sure we were meeting the needs of our customers and large fleet operators. >> and, george, you have worked through plenty of projections in your long career you are talking about this company, i think, having revenues of about 2.97 billion in 2024. that seems to be what you are valuing or basing our valuation off of why are you confident that this company is going to be able to reach almost $3 billion in revenues three years from now? >> david, first, thanks for having us on obviously, we have had a chance

over these months since we went public to talk with a lot of companies across a number of sectors, including the ev space and are absolutely delighted to found our way to partnering with xos who we believe is a transformational company in the electric vehicle commercial electric vehicle space at a high level our conviction is built on two powerful trends that xos sits in the middle of climate change and continued e-commerce adoption. trucks are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the transportation industry, accounting of three pounds of co2 per mile the last mile delivery back to base is the largest segment. so xos is at the heart of the greenhouse gas problem within transportation we think that's going to drive very strong growth in a category that's growing and with substitution of diesel trucks for electric trucks. they have a proven cost competitive and customer validated product that,

importantly, is on the road today. and so what we have and where we sit is at an inflection point. they have a commercialized product in the hands of customers in operation today, and the growth capital we are going to provide is going to provide the manufacturing capacity to scale the business into the incredible customer demand that we see in the years dom. >> dakota, these are pretty aggressive targets you have got for deliver is you are talking about delivering 33,000 plus vehicles in 2025 is this capital going to get you there? >> absolutely. so the capital that next gen is providing in this transaction will ramp our existing manufacturing facilities much like our automated battery line t that you see behind me this is going to allow us to meet the growing demand from existing customers as well as new customers that are coming into the fold today. the vehicles that we have been delivering thus far are already

operating in large parcel delivery fleets. they are already delivering cash, delivering other food and beverages. when we look at our scale and ramping plans, this capital is really going to help us unlock the production potential and, ultimately, reach those forecasts. >> dakota, we've had really a parade of ceos of companies at least in similar areas to yours telling us their proprietary technology is the best what is it about your technology, your battery system that you believe distinguishes this company from your competitors? >> prior to founding xos we were fleet operators ourselves. when we started the business almost five years ago we really focused on talking to our customers and ensuring that we were building something that was going to be relevant for the market so when we began developing our battery systems right at the start of the company we had conversations with some of the largest fleets in the world making sure we met really two key requirements

durabilty. these fleets want to make sure the vehicles are going to be more reliable and more durable than the existing vehicles and total cost of ownership savings. all fleets, while they are making this transition to zero emissions vehicles, really want to ensure that they are doing it with the best return on investment xos is able to do that with our technology by providing industry-leading tcos and making sure that we are driving value home for the athfleets as they focus on the broader esg goals and transition from diesel to electric. >> george, the people who invested in your spac believe that you would go about doing your due diligence, finding what they believe would be the best give me a sense as to how many companies you considered and whether, given how much capital is now chasing so many private companies, you felt it was perhaps more difficult task, a more difficult task than you might have imagined. >> yeah. so, david, we had an opportunity to review a lot of opportunities over these last five or so

months we have been public we reviewed at a high level hundreds of opportunities. we did pretty in-depth work on 30 and we looked at eight just within the ev and auto technology space we were fortunate enough to meet dakota and his team about three months ago, and have been doing extensive due diligence over that period. talking with customers, talking with suppliers, retaining industry experts around the technology, and so forth and so the process has been rigorous the process of taking the transaction to the market, as you you know, is another level of focus, if you will, and validation and rigor, and we are delighted to have this out public now you know, there is a lot of spacs out there, but what my partner greg and i have been really impressed by over these last few months, and xos is a perfect example of this, is the

number of incredible companies that are out there this has been a pleasant surprise to us earlier stage growth companies that typically would not yet have made it to the public market and there are many of those companies out there. and so it's a real testament, i think, to the strength of innovation in this country and companies like xos a reflection of that. >> a lot of capital is going into these companies, as you know, having been a veteran investment banker for many years. not all can succeed. i mean, some are going to fail. >> you are right there will certainly be winners and losers, as there are in all trees. we like our happened here. but if you believe, as we do, that we are undergoing a transformation and that the idea of a diesel truck driving around the city, some number of years from now, could be like smoking a cigarette on an airplane, a societal change will change, over many years it's going to require far more capital and far

many more participants than we've already seen so we actually think based on our thesis that we are in the early stages of this. >> dakota, who do you believe will be your biggest single customer amazon >> that's a good question question as we lack to building out the customer base we are not centering on one specific customer the industries that we've served already is parcel delivery with fleets like u.p.s. we also supported the cash and transit market, loomis, and others focused on-ramping zero emissions transmission. >> gentlemen, appreciate it and thank you. >> thank you, david. >> thanks. take a look at some big names from the reddit rally last month. kohl's, blackberry and amc moving higher today, as is gamestop, show though still 90% off the january high we will keep a close eye on those stocks more "squawk on the street" straight ahead on your interests

or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

- [narrator] grubhub perks give you deals on all the food that makes you boogie. (upbeat music) get the food you love with perks from- - [crowd] grubhub.

top stocks to play the rally in lumber prices our traders share picks on tradingnation.cnbc.com more "squawk on the street" coming up. 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. jeff immelt, the long time chairman and ceo of g.e. from 2001 and 2017 is out with "hot seat." you see it there it will be out tomorrow. and perhaps unexpectedly some would think, he is discussing what he learned leading a great american company i sat down with him earlier this morning for an interview about his tenure and the book as well. so much of what mr. immelt dealt with involved g.e. capital from his inheriting a unit that was 40% of profits, it grew to become as much as 50% of profits at the company, but almost brought the company to its knees, or actually did during the financial crisis we talked about g.e. capital and a lot of other things.

take a listen. >> the capital, many of the businesses were great. the team was really strong but i think, you know, as we kind of crossed over into 2000 and beyond we had underinvested we needed the cash to help make those investments over the early 2000s. that's ma we did we basically tried to kind of remix the portfolio while at the same time keeping earnings growing, and we made the decision to grow g.e. capital. by the time the global financial crisis hit, that didn't look very smart, right? one of the things i talk about when i reflect back over the 16 years is we had a window after 9/11 where i think it was kind of the end of the power bubble we had a chance to maybe reset the company, really lower

earnings and kind of really emix more aggressively in the early 2000s. we chose not to do that. i decided not to do that, and i look back and say things might have been different had we picked a different path. so by the time we got in the global financial crisis, david, it was just, you know, repositioning the country and i would say, more broadly, you know, just creates boundary conditions when we're in financial services, particularly after the financial crisis that limited some of the strategic flexibility we had >> you know, when you talk about that period after 9/11 and giving you an opportunity, which was, obviously, very early in your tenure, sort of wipe the slate clean, what were the pressures you felt why did you feel like i can't do this was it simply concern about performance. stock price? >> look, i mean, i think the discussions we had at the time really were it's a strong company. it's a strong foundation

there is lots of volatility in the world. let's continue to grow the company because we had faith that we could get there over time and by 2007 it looked like we were right the stock was at 42 bucks. we invested in some good industrial businesses that were growing. so, again, it wasn't that it was done carelessly or foolishly we did it with lots of discussions with our board and investors. but, you know, nonetheless, i think the cities i made was that -- it was more stable for the company to proceed on path that we had been than to do something more radical at that time and that was a decision i made, and again i talk about it and look back and say i would have done it differently. the other thing, david, i would add, you know, honeywell would have fixed some of this and put us on a different industrial capital position we decided not to do that. i was engaged in that decision as well, and that had an impact at the same time.

>> your board of directors, again, many people want to focus on you you were the face of the company for 16 years they want to say you are the blame. as you say, you certainly don't spare criticism for some of the decisions you made but what, to what extent do you think your board deserves criticism for what happened to g.e. did you failure board, or did your board fail you? >> oh, gosh, david, i think for -- i did the job for a long time i think there were moments in time where the board was fantastic. i think during the financial crisis sandy warner and ralph larson and roger penske and shelly las laz ris, we couldn't have made it through the financial crisis without them. i think at the end i had given them too much to work on we had a tough deal. we had a succession process.

we just had a series of things underway inside the company, and it was just a lot for the board and for me to manage so, again, i'm harder on myself than anybody ems it would be unfair for me to blame the board. i think we disagreed in an important way on the leadership of the power business, but, you know, if i had thrown everything down on the table, i probably could have rolled through that it was just a hard time. we were in the middle of succession and i didn't want to be an imperial ceo i wanted the board to be engaged in the slileadership discussions i left the doors open. >> in coming through in our conversation here, this is, obviously, was an incredibly complex company. you got g.e. capital, and i'm talking through your entirety. g.e. capital, which we discussed as, you know, a black box in certain ways, unclear exactly how in parts they were making money or what they were getting in or not and how much risk they

were taking, and then these other companies. was g.e., and does it continue to be, simply too complex for one person to really run and for a board to effectively have oversight of >> you know, david, i think -- i'll leave today's -- to larry to describe. but when you have tailwind, you can manage a broad complicated company. when you are going through things like 9/11 and the financial crisis and the kind of volatility we have lived in for the last 20 years, i think it's challenging. it was really hard to navigate g.e. capital through the financial crisis, and invest in the industrial business, and get nbc prepared for a new administration, et cetera, et cetera so i think there is an argument that can be made for simpler is better, and that's, you know,

again, we were hard at work in making the company simpler i don't think we ever made it simple enough. and, again, that's a particularly challenging thing when things are vl volatile. >> he expects that things will remain quite volatile, that his experience is not one that was unique or at least not for ceos, which is another reason he says he wrote the book. take a look. shares of g.e. up nicely a nice move off the lows his tenure is measured in part by that stock price. when you go back and look from when he began and where it ended, well, we know that story, carl it is interesting to hear him talk specifically about complexity and simplicity and really admit in some ways that perhaps it just was too much to really be able to run effectively, at least for him given he did not have a tailwind he would say. >> exactly, david. fascinating interview. that's a 52-week high on g.e. today. i wonder if he discusses

attempts over the years to smooth out the industrial cycle. one example, you know, going way back, was to own nbc and help alleviate some of the volatility in energy, for example i wonder if that still remains a priority for the company and, in his mind, long term. >> g.e. capital acted as that in so many ways, right. looking back into the '90s, the ability to sort of -- and not fraudulently, but to be able to meet an earnings target as a result of taking a particular gain at a particular time. i mean, g.e. capital did provide that for the company, and that's one reason why they chose not to perhaps, carl, make that move after, you know, in 2 # 01-2002 to lower earnings dramatically but get out of g.e. capital. as you well know, there were things on the book they thought they had gotten rid of that they hadn't long-term care insurance, reinsurance being the key one, costing them $21 billion even now the number seems hard

to imagine we talked a lot about that, as well. >> any words of wisdom that immelt shared with the current ceo larry culp >> i did ask him whether he talks to him he indicated they have spoken a few times, but certainly not regularly. and, no, actually, wishing him the best that's about what he said. and by the way, everybody is going to be able to listen to this interview should they want to it will be available in the entirety on cnbc.com. >> i will be watching that great interview, david interesting to see larry culp, seeing the share price of g.e. double the last six months from $6 a share to $12. well below it's all-time high hit in august of 2000 of $60 a share. still lot of ground to be made up there. all right. let's head over to dom chu with a sector sort. >> good morning. stocks are mostly lower to start the trading week off with some notable declines in the technology and utility sectors

we are seeing some relative outperforms in the energy sector right now. the top performing sector up about 4% now you have names like marathon, also apache energy and devin energy among the leaders in that oil prices due in part to the productivity in texas after the harsh winter storms brought it to a halt. analysts saying this morning they see west texas intermediate or u.s. crude prices hitting $72 a barrel by the third quarter. wti has not traded above $70 a barrel since 2018 and, by the way, the spider ticker is up since the end of october keep it right here

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ these days, it's okay to do some things halfway... but taking prescriptions shouldn't be one of them. so cvs has a proprietary search tool that looks for savings. plus free delivery. get a free prescription savings review at cvs.

welcome back we are watching sharesof royal caribbean skyrocket, up nearly 12% on comments from the ceo on the conference call. talking about seeing conditional

increase in guest bookings in individuals 65 and older and that has actually continued to increase as the weeks have passed management crediting the vaccine rollout and as more people and americans get vaccinate that had is having an impact on travel bookings again, they still need to get the approval of the cdc. future bookings look strong. carl >> remarkable, seema expedia, hilton, live nation and booking holdings all all-time highs today. fascinating. speaking of which leads us to the forecasts for q1 gdp which are going higher as well steve liesman has a wrapup of that >> reporter: good morning, carl. strong consumer spending in january and leftover fiscal stimulus from last year, reopenings and more fiscal stimulus to come forecast a strong growth this quarter and for the rest of the year, but there are growing concerns about

whether the economy could potentially run too hot. the cnbc rapid update showing the average forecast looking for 6% growth this quarter, nearly double what was forecast last month. better growth expected the next two quarters you can see between 7% and 9% before coming down to a still strong 4.3% by year end. most economists are figuring in something like 1.6 trillion of new fiscal relief but growing inflation concerns and criticism about some of the aid including the $1,400 checks will not go to those in need, will not only go to those in need yellen responded to those concerns this morning in an interview. >> of course we don't want those to go to high-income individuals and households who have been less affected but that really helps to make sure that pockets of misery we know exist aren't touched by the more targeted things, that help is provided there as well.

>> on inflation concerns goldman sachs saying in a piece it was less worried than others because the relief is a one-time event and sees imports offsetting pricing pressures in the u.s under goldman's forecast it should be back to its potential by the end of this year. much of this all sure to come up tomorrow in jay powell's testimony this week in congress. carl steve, keeping track of some of these q1 estimates, atlanta fed at 9.5 is that about as high a number as you've seen? >> reporter: hold on, let me look no, you have jeffires at 9.5 steven stanley at 7.5. but, carl, what i was really interested in is they didn't take it away they boosted the first quarter but i got an 11 from barclays for next quarter, a 10 from

oxford, a 9.5 from jpmorgan. and where is goldman they're at 11 for next quarter carl, a lot of growth this quarter, double what we thought, but double digits next quarter as well. >> i'm glad we had time to discuss this a little bit, steve. coming up on "squawk alley" this morning we'll watch facebook down 1.5%, only the third time this year it's been below the 200-day moving average. we'll talk about the feud with australia and now canada in a moment i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing. with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't.

let's take care of business. at&t. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps manage supply chains while predicting demands with ease. from retail to healthcare, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm.

good morning it is 3:00 a.m. tuesday in the australian capital, it's 11:00 a.m. on wall street, and "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ ♪