meanwhile, spreading quickly in new york city since november thursday, february 25th, 2021, and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin, and we're going to start with the markets after another incredible swing for the dow industrials. we're talking about erasing another triple digit loss to end yesterday's session at a record high we are knocking on the door right now. all the way up to 32,000 ended at 31.961. that came after the dough was down by 110 -- dow was down by 110 at the end of the session. the dow in fact has been up for seven out of the last eight sessions and outperforming the

s&p 500 and the nasdaq for the month of february. take a look at the u.s. equity futures this morning you'll see that the dow is indicated up by another 74 points this morning. s&p which closed up by 1.1% is indicated up by 2 points, and the nasdaq which had a positive session yesterday is indicated off by about 34 points this morning in the futures market. the ten-year yield hit its highest level since a year ago, february of 2020 it's sitting at 1.43%. we have watched these yields creep up creep might be the wrong word. it's not huge in terms of the points we're talking about but it is big in terms of percentage terms and how quickly we've made that move. crude oil trading at its highest level since january of 2020. wti is indicated up another $0.14 to $63.33 a barrel

>> thanks, becky meantime, and joe talked about it, gamestop shares soaring after doubling during yesterday's session. the stock was halted during the last half hour of the trading day. closed higher by 104%, sharply higher in the premarket. let's show you where things stand, $144.50, and continues t move cfo jim bell was resigning it wasn't because of any disagreement, but yesterday business insider did report that bell did not leave willingly but was pushed out by ryan cohen, the cofounder of chewy who made an investment in gamestop. bloomberg reported that gamestop's board pushed bell out in order to execute its turn around faster. but guys, i was on the reddit boards trying to understand. dave portnoy yesterday i agree with dave portnoy, who sounds

the bell, who tells everybody when they're supposed to buy how does this happen because you oddly enough on reddit, and i would say most of the social media, you couldn't actually figure out what was going on unless there was a massive group of people doing this outside of the eyes frankly of the public. it was frankly to me very different than what we saw the last time around and the question is it retail, is it institutions you know, who whispered to who to say, you know, game on right now. i still don't get it i don't understand it. >> because we had the news of jim bell, we talked about it yesterday, and it didn't immediately happen that's the rational is that, you know, he wasn't going to be savvy or adept enough to turn it into whateve they think the chewy guy wants to turn it into, which is an online giant in

gaming, i guess. the market cap even after the big move yesterday, it's back where it's not, remember, at the highs it was like, wait a second, but three, four, 5 billion, if you move from brick and mortar, and become much better at online, there's a lot of competition, obviously, but you could make the case if this guy chewy is a total genius, get this guy out of the way. that was the rational later in the day that it was jim bell it happened later. cramer is tweeting about it now that market makers he's got some comments on explaining exactly what happened yesterday, and this morning. because that only went to 90 only 90 yesterday. 100% or more and up another 56%. i don't know >> andrew, the data you were talking about yesterday, remember when you were saying it wasn't the retail investors who

weren't buying or selling when we were looking at that from a few weeks ago. could we get data on that again? how quickly would that come forward and show us some of this >> i think you could get data. i don't remember how quickly that data came out j.p. morgan, i think, had put some of the data together, citadel, you'll see data in the next, i imagine, day or two or three to try to understand, you know, what drove this. it will be very interesing i wonder, though, whether there's -- and it's the one thing you heard hints about online yesterday, that there are groups of people talking to each other, but they're actually not doing it on a wall street reddits forum publicly there are groups of people forming on signal and other kinds of services that are private. i'm curious to see how this plays out. we keep talking about this social media enabled trading and how that works, what was kind of terrific about it the last time was it was very very public in terms of understanding that

there was this big group of people who were making an argument go for it and you saw some of that obviously yesterday afternoon, but in terms of what really started it, obviously the bell news might have helped or clearly helped, but somebody had to ring the bell, so we'll see meantime, we should tell you about some new vaccine data, a large scale study out of israel, the pfizer biontech covid-19 vaccine overwhelmingly effective in preotecting against the virus in real world use. this is great news the study found the vaccine reduced symptomatic cases by 94%. that's a week after the second dose and reversed severe disease by 92% joe. >> thanks, andrew. moderna is planning to launch a clinical trial of a new vaccine designed to combat the south africa variant of the coronavirus, but you can imagine, there are some similar mutations and this is like a

promise, i think, you would think of the messenger rna technology, and how quickly it can be adapted that, you would have to, you know, put on the check mark for good news in the face of all the bad news with these mutations. the company is going to test southeasterly variations of a booster, including one that is variant specific and a potential third dose of the original vaccine, moderna said it shipped enough doses for testing already. the national institute of allergy and infectious disease you remember in the old days before we had all of this technology for sequencing and actually producing these very complex molecules, but got it down it's pretty interesting. researchers say a new form of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading in new york city it contains a similar mutation to the brazil and south africa variants makes it more resistant to vaccines it first appeared in samples as i said at the top of the show, collected back in november, and by the middle of february,

accounted for a fourth of the viral samples that were tested from new york city the cal tech study of the nyc samples also found six cases of the u.k. variant, two of the brazil, and one of the south africa variant and i guess we need experts to tell us how much diversity there is between the variants now. we know that the variants are different from the original, and now i just wonder whether they're all very similar in the same booster you're using for one might be more effective or might be effective on most of the variants it all has to do with the spike proteins we have to wait until gottlieb is on to talk about it. >> i can't say i'm surprised to hear this is here. we've known these strains would be here and circulating. i think the bigger question is

it's amazing how quickly moderna can come up with the booster for it how quickly does it continue, the virus continue to mutate, too. but we know that even for the existing vaccines, they do provide a pretty decent level of immunization, even against some of these new variants when they have been tested too >> maybe takes the worst case scenarios. >> off the table >> off the table once you do that, it's much better much more manageable, it seems like. >> right exactly. guys, there is some pretty interesting comments yesterday from berkshire hathaway, vice chairman, charley monger, sounded the alarm on the spac crazy for the darily journal. he was answering questions via yahoo live stream. he made clear that he is not a fan of all of this spac speculation. >> i don't participate at all, and i think the world would be

better off without them. i think this kind of crazy speculation in enterprise is not even founder picked out yet is a sign of an irritating bubble it's just that the investment banking profession will sell [ bleep joe, the word you use is shih tzu, they'll be selling shih tzu as long as it's sold saying that the momentum driven trading frenzy is in his words, regrettable. >> robinhood trades are not free which you pay for order flow, you're probably charging your customers more in pretending to be free. it's a very dishonorable low grade way to talk, and nobody

should believe that robinhood's trades are free. >> munger also equated commission free trading with what he called disgusting lies what else did he take issue with, bitcoin, as you might imagine, charlie munger is not a crypto buyer >> i do think that a properly run bank is a great contributor to civilization and that the central banks of the world, like controlling their own banking system and their own money supplies, so i don't think bitcoin is going to end up the medium of exchange for the world. it's too volatile to serve well as a medium of exchange. and it's really kind of an artificial substitute for gold and since i never buy any gold, i never buy any bitcoin, and i recommend that other people follow my practice >> in fact, regarding bitcoin,

he quoted oscar wild on fox hunting. he said it's the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable and in terms of what the daily journal will be doing, he said they will not be following tesla into bitcoin probably not a surprise. munger said he really wouldn't have gotten einto this for a log time he called it rat poison a couple of years ago he's 97. his comments, what he sees on wall street, the spacs, what being sold by investment bankers right now, pretty clear spoken, as he always is. charlie says what he thinks and has no problem getting out there. he was really on fire yesterday. watched this for two hours, him taking questions he's quick, he was speaking exactly how he thinks about things, and he was pretty colorful along the way. >> he was. you know, he's very wise >> i love this man. >> he is. >> i get the boomer moniker.

he's the greatest generation. >> he's not, he served in world war ii he's not a boomer. >> that's what i'm saying, but what's before the greatest generation no, i think he's greatest generation so what's after the boomers, then you have the millennials, they want to do a spac for a hover board that they store in their parents' basement, and what's after the millennials. >> i don't know. >> is that z i think it might be z. and i'm not saying -- and i'm not being ageist, but you know, war sand charlie, i don't think embraced, you know, so they didn't embrace any of the new stuff very early that's for sure.

it's not like they're early adopters i wonder, has charlie ever read ten pages on block chain. >> i will bet money he has, actually >> that he differs with guys like andreson, and peter teal, and see the mathematics of how this is put together, and see there might be inherent value. i don't know we'll see. it's early it could all come crashing down. or they could buy it if charlie's 117, maybe he buys it when he's 117, when it's taking over the entire world. >> the question is it gold or is it something else, and if it's gold, he's not going to like it anyway >> that's true he did say that. >> i understand. no income, they've made that case many many times you know, you don't get anything while you're sitting there holding it you just have to pay for storage, i guess

i'd by gold before an etf. when you're trying to bribe the border guards with your statement, look, i own this gold. >> that's what he has said in the past charlie said that's basically why you would buy gold. >> wherever you are. >> my battery is dead. it broke >> coming up on the other side of this break, what to buy at all time highs we're going to talk market strategy next, plus a closer look at the moves in these reddit hype stocks you see gamestop up 56%. koss up 60%, as we head to a break, check out shares of churchill capital, coming off a second straight day of massive losses, closing down 18%, after announcing the deal to make lucid public through a reverse merger stocks trading at $26.78 we're back after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box. tesla temporarily halting production on one of its model three production lines in california that's according to a bloomberg report workers were told their production line would be shut until march 7th. no specific reason was giving. tesla said it was trying to deal with the impact of a global semiconductor shortage i don't know if you saw, elon musk, we got to have elon call into the show. i thought that he was always asleep at this hour. but he seems to be up on twitter talking about judging books. just eight minutes ago i think we should dm him and get us him to tell us what's really going on. >> does he follow you? >> i would have thought that -- i always thought to myself, it's tough to get elon on the show, because he's in california.

if you can get him on, let's go. >> do you have his phone number? >> you have a phone number to text him >> i do. i don't know if the number still works, but i do. >> text him, then. >> we'll see. >> i do not. >> text away >> all right let's talk about the broader markets. they are trying to build on yesterday's gains that saw the dow close at a record level, shares of gamestop also rallying, soaring in a surprise move for no apparent reason we know of right now. at some point into the c suite reshuffling. can the markets keep going gang busters. we're going to ask jeff south. chief investment strategist at capital wealth planning. you have been watching this stuff for a long time.

what do you think of what you're seeing right now >> i'm thinking we're in a secular bull market. in the book, reminiscent of a stock operator, there was a character named mr. partridge, he was the shrewdest stock operator out there investors would ask him what to do, he would contemplate with a wily smile, he would say it's a bull market, you know, that's what we're in. we're in a bul market. and there's not many of us old enough that have seen a secular bull market. i think this thing has years left to run on a short-term trading basis. we have had one heck of a rally, and it's probably a little bit overdue for a pause or attempt at a pull back longer term, i think the market goes substantially higher. >> so my pull back, you'd say, jump right in and buy, and maybe not wait for a pullback if you think this goes higher for years. >> say you've got a million dollars. i think you take 250,000 of it,

and you put it to work today, and then you maybe wait 30 days. and see what the market's doing, and put another 250,000 into the markets, but again, i think the market travels substantially higher from these levels >> jeff, there's been so many questions about what would potentially end this bull market, and rising rates has been one thing people point to we're now looking at the ten-year back above 1.4%, and granted that's, you know, nowhere near the types of levels you would normally expect would really shut things down, but we have seen that yield movekind of rapidly, and it's got people wondering if we get to 2% sooner rather than later. what do you think? >> i have no idea, but i think even at 2%, i don't think it stops the secular bull market. the secular bull market will end when the whatever it is, $5 trillion that's sitting on the sidelines,i mean, if you g out and scratch most individual investors, they're scared to death, and they're sitting on a

ton of cash. i talked to financial advisers and portfolio managers all day long and the average investor is, you know, just a noncombatant in the equity markets >> because things have run so far, and they get nervous about potential warning signs when you look at some of the spacs, when you look at the retail activity. >> that's exactly right. you know, they think it's run too far, too fast, and it's because they haven't seen, you know, what a secular bull market can do i mean, you look at the 1949 to 1966 secular bull market and that's what we're in and it's probably got another five, six, seven, eight years left in it. >> what does, you think, end this bull market >> well, i think if you had a substantial rise in interest rates, that would certainly be a head wind, but i don't think you're going to get that i don't think 2% on a ten-year, i don't think that ends it if you get a, you know, a

geopolitical event would be the thing i would be most worried about. but i don't see that happening so, you know, i just -- i don't see what ends this thing >> jeff,it's really good to talk to you. you always make this seem super easy, so thank you for adding some clarity to what is a pretty muddled time it's good to see you. >> my pleasure my pleasure. >> take care joe. coming up new survey data on consumer spending during the pandemic that's next as we head to break. check out the viacom cbs, beating estimates by $0.02 u.s. streaming subscribers topping 19 million in global scamg bsreinsucribers grew to nearly 30 million. we're coming right back. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly.

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welcome back to "squawk box. fo forcing many, particularly black women to make tough choices. cnbc, sharon epperson has more. >> i had to minimize my hours of working. >> single mom, joann hargrove, a mail carrier in pittsburgh, needed to be at home while her 7-year-old daughter goes to school virtually >> let's get the rhythm of the head, dingdong. >> working weekends instead of full-time makes providing for the two of them tough. >> i didn't realize how much groceries cost, and i didn't realize how much like toiletries and supplies for my house, i didn't really pay attention to how much that stuff cost. >> even with unemployment benefits and two stimulus

payments, expense aren't all covered. >> i am paycheck to paycheck no, i didn't completely deplete my savings, however, my saving is dwindling. >> she's not alone in a new cnbc and acorns invest in you survey, conducted by survey monkey, one-third of americans have touched their savings. 40% of black women have had to take these measures, among the highest of any group the survey found 60% of black women are the soul financial decision makers in their households financial adviser, crystal alfred cooper says when forced to make difficult choices, the first step is having a plan for spending. >> we are asking people to start looking at their expenses, what they can do without, you know, we're going to back to the definition of needs versus wants. >> reporter: for hargrove that means establishing limits and

living in the moment. >> sometimes i have to say no while we're at the store, no, we can't get that right now i try to just live from day-to-day hargrove said more stimulus may help her, according to the survey, more than half of americans are counting on or said they'll need another round of government relief, just to get by compared to whites, asian, and hispanics, a much greater percentage of blacks, 74% are depending on additional stimulus andrew. >> sharon, question for you, the irs says it's issued all first and second round stimulus payments how have people used the money they have received thus far? >> well, hargrove is a new homeowner, and she says she spent each of her stimulus checks on her monthly mortgage the survey shows one-third of people mostly spent their

covid-19 payments every day expenses whites were most likely to save it, where blacks and hispanics were most likely to use on rent or mortgage. >> sharon epperson, good to see you. >> good to see you too. thanks, andrew, when we come back, we are learning more about the biden administration's approach to china and the chip shortage we're going to get more from huawei's chief security officer right after this. as we head to a break, a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers oh, that's wrong. what's wrong? your swing. that's terrible... you gotta put your knees into it, put your knees into it. that's too smooth. too smooth? watch this. ♪♪ you try it. ♪♪

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this semiconductor is smaller than a postage stamp but it has more than 8 billion transistors, 8 billion tra, the chips are a wonder of innovation and design, that powers so much of our country, enables so much

of our modern lives to be gone, not just our cars, but smartphones, television and radios, medical diagnostic equipment and so much more we need to make sure these supply chains are secure and reliable >> that was president biden yesterday addressing the chip shortage and signing an executive order to examine the supply chain joining us now is someone who knows the industry well, andy purdy, a huawei technologies usa chief security officer it's great to see you again, andy and given the chip shortage around the globe, i'm sure huawei would like to have more access and get into the game in the united states. what kind of conversations are happening if they are at all with this administration >> well, it's really too early to even try to initiate conversations with the administration i must say i'm very heartened and encouraged that the biden administration is taking the steps they are regarding semiconductors, the efforts to try to improve supply chain

security and the solar and wind cyber attack, to try to make america safer. all of these things are going to have to happen we hope in good time, the administration will be willing to talk with us, and talk on specific issues that relate directly to us, not talk through the china government. >> well, let me ask you, given, you know, you talked about solar winds and the hacking attacks that are taking place around the world, security is clearly front and center, as a critical component of any kind of supply chain strategy frankly when it comes to these types of chips, or so much of the technology that we're seeing. i mean, i know that you would make the case for huawei, but how do you think, and you're an american as well you're an american citizen, so how do you think the american government and the biden administration should think about this >> well, i think there are marks that the national security council said recently that the effort to work across government

and the private sector to raised bar generally and improve america's defenses our government defenses, our critical infrastructure defenses and worked multilaterally with our allies, because we have to strengthen the supply chain, the cyber security supply chain and make sure there's more transparency we're open to discussions. there's a lot of good things happening in europe on this also. >> that's what i was going to ask you, if you built a 5g chip. we can name the technology do you believe that it is impossible not to slip a back door into something, and not to be able to audit it. meaning, i think there's a lot of folks who say, if this is coming from a particular country, who knows what's inside, what's actually inside the chip, right? >> as one of the companies associated with the u.s. intelligence community, domain 5 has indicated, there is testing that can be done, the former principle deputy to the director

of intelligence annesaid we cant for back doors for air force one, they are made in a special trusted foundry in the united states, but we cannot afford as a nation to have that d done, but it's a combination of the testing of the equipment, the components and the monitoring, and the transparency by government and companies, as well as monitoring of the telecommunication networks, and the combination of the shared responsibility >> but how much is it about being able to track the chips or the technology itself versus what a nation state could ultimately do later. meaning i appreciate the point that maybe there's not something built into it, but at some point, we have talked about it, the u.s. government could call up if they wantedto, intel, in a wartime scenario or microsoft and say please help us and maybe

they would. >> the fact is, and we sold this back in 2014, in a prison situation, that snowden revealed, cisco didn't have to give permission for the u.s. government to hack through their stuff, and do spying around the world. the major nation states do not need permission, and we see that in solar winds the supply chains, they can hack into everybody's networks and systems. we as a global community need to raise the bar to have much great e er security and have third parties monitor the activities of the different companies, of their supply chains. i asked anne nuberger when she was at nsa a year ago would you be open to coming into huawei facilities like nsa and microsoft and others, and give us recommendations about what can we do for greater assurance, and transparency so you have greater confidence because trans transparency is going to be important. >> what is the sense inside china and huawei about how the

biden administration is going to approach china when it comes to some of these trade and national security issues? is there a feeling that the posture is going to be more open, less open? status quo >> well, i think there's some things that we're seeing from a number of different directions, and i hear this from the readings that my colleagues have done in china and around the world that the biden administration is not going to lump everything together in one giant bundle, and then negotiate that geopolitically with china they're going to look at what's national security, what's economic security, and there's a close loop between the two let's focus on what's more important, most important. you see the biden administration doing it with the supply chain and with the semiconductor industry, and let's focus on how to address risk, how to have independent testing, and, but fundamentally, this administration is going to work multilaterally with our allies to try to figure out how do we work all of these things together to make sure we're safer and i'm heartened to see

that the united states is going to not just block companies, they're going to make america more competitive in the industry such as the semiconductor industry, and that's how we're going to maintain and grow our lead over china, in terms of technology, and innovation >> andy, it's always good to see you, i hope we have you back soon to continue this conversation thanks for joining us this morning. >> pleasure. >> joe >> coming up, outlets earnings this morning, we'll break down numbers of the beverage maker's forecast for the year ahead. "squawk box" is coming right back

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australia has passed a new law that requires digital platforms to pay local media outlets to link to their content and news feeds in search results. that's the bill that sparked facebook to shut down the new service in that country. that bill contains last minute amendments that addressed some of facebook and google's concerns about the whole issue microsoft president brad smith weighed in on this decision on twitter calling it a big step forward. he says the law ensures that publishers and journalists get paid a fair share for their work and suggested that democracies around the world can build on those ideas. by the way, microsoft would stand to gain between a falling out between google and australia. microsoft bing at 3.6% when we come back, the cbo of

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we got some breaking news right now from pfizer and meg tirrell joins us with the latest meg. >> good morning, andrew, we are hearing from the vaccine companies, how they plan to keep up with the coronavirus as these new variants emerge. pfizer this morning saying that it's starting a study of a booster dose of its vaccine.

that would be a third dose that recipients would get six months to a year after getting those first two shots. to test the safety and immune response that a booster dose can generate, including against the newly emerging variants of concern. they're going to enroll up to 144 people who participated in their phase one study to look at the safety of as well as the antibody levels that a booster dose can generate. they are also discussing a study with regulators of a very specific vaccine which will be modified to address the b 1351 strain, first identified in south africa, and the one that does look like it could evade the vaccine's protection studies indicate they can provide protection with two doses of the original vaccine. this news comes after last night, moderna saying a very similar hing, announcing an entirely new strategy for addressing the variants, including testing a third dose just like pfizer of its original

vaccine, developing a variant specific vaccine targeted to that same strain, and also combining its original vaccine with the variant specific one to test as a booster dose as well in 30 days, moderna ceo steptel us they set for the original vaccine. both of these companies laying out plans to try to keep up with these variants and indicating they do think this is a virus that's going to stick with us. they want to stay ahead of it and make it something more like the flu. guys. >> so, meg, in terms of timing, how long do we imagine the next set of studies would take? how long would it take to start to manufacture this? then we get into the supply chain issues where are we if we are going to get a third dose let alone the first or second dose, what are we talking about >> reporter: right if it's the original vaccine, it makes it a lot more simple we are in a constrained supply space. it's about figuring out where do

you start boosting people. if it's needing to update to a new strain, moderna said they think they could get there by the third quarter in terms of running the studies, looking at the antibody levels generated by the new vaccine and making sure it checks all of the boxes before they roll that out. and then it's a balancing act where is the variant circulating and how much do you need to make they're bringing on new manufacturing capacity to address the variants where are they circulating and when do you need to pull the trigger on a new version of the vaccine. >> meg tirrell, thanks for bringing that to us. we'll be talking to you soon on all of this. joe. anheuser-busch inbev has better profit. they could face profit margin pressure joining us an hanheuser-busch

inbev ceo, you applaud all of your employees and you're gr gratified with the results it's been tough. what were the highlights in your view in how the company reacted to the pandemic and the latest quarter? >> well, thanks for having me. we're very glad with especially the second half of last year, 2020 in the first half, as you might remember, there were a lot of government-mandated shutdowns. in some countries we were shut down for business in terms of one month, two months, couldn't sell any beer. in the secretary half some of the restrictions were used in the second half we went back to global basis growth the moment consumers could navigate the restrictions that were eased a bit, they found

ways of getting occasions worth in the home and what was amazing is not only were people agile as channels shift but the platforms, the past five years in terms of b2b and b 2 c. social distancing, our customers went through the roof. it is hard to have a strong portfolio and have a digital way to connect customers and consumers. >> it's hard to imagine that ab inbev is a stay-at-home stock, but consumers did adapt in terms of online ordering and staying at home and having beers obviously, but no way to overcome the not having pubs and

bars and restaurants there's no way to make that up, is there, carlos zbl >> no, you're right. total volume, it was down especially the first half. the second half grew again because of restrictions that would ease the day it's different country by country. for example, in the u.s. bars and restaurants saw very small in terms of the overall volume we adapted well. a lot of occasions might bring it to the home the home became the big hub for not just living and working and entertaining we used our in house draft line agency to restream content to consumer homes in terms of entertainment, workouts, music everything we could do to hen our consumers so they wouldn't be too bored by staying home the whole time whenever you do consumer research and you can see that in china because china is ahead of

the other countries in terms of covid and what comes after covid, consumers are really looking forward to a time where they could go again to a sports bowl, a ball game, to the ball games and meet physically their friends to traveling all of those things will be there. i think convenience is something that will remain with their habits they like the fact that during the pandemic they had to adopt digital solutions and we think that will remain. >> carlos, the stock is down do you think that's because of the comments about margin pressure a little bit out of your control in terms of higher commodity prices, higher cost of packaging, things that are consumed at home but, you know, you are also trying to pay down some of the debt that you took on and i know that -- i don't know whether the pandemic has slowed your efforts there. you did a little bit as the debt to ebitda rose in the latest

quarter. >> yeah, that ebitda rose because ebitda came down margins were under pressure in 2020 because of the channel shift. bars and restaurants tend to have better margins in some countries than grocery stores so when everything went to grocery stores and in many countries where returnable bottles and draft beer is important, that whole business was shut down all consumers had to buy was cans in grocery stores and combination of cans in grocery stores are normally where the margins are lower. and because everybody was looking for cans, cans was in short supply and, therefore, more expensive to move around because you have to import to many countries cans from long distances. a uyou all of that put pressure on

2021 the channels will balance out a bit better and the package mix will balance out a bit better. the moment draft beer comes back the moment that returnable bottles connected to the trade of bars, restaurants, pubs are back, that will help >> carlos brito, stella, budweiser, corona. all of these well-known brands now available in mexico's biggest convenience store chain. you took market share from heineken hang in there. i can't marge when you take away half of your channel in terms of bars and pubs, but pretty good numbers. thank you. appreciate it, carlos. >> thank you have a nice day. >> okay. you, too andrew. when we come back on the other side of this break, two big hours ahead. a new strain of the coronavirus spreading throughout new york city dr. scott gottleib is going to weigh in straight ahead. no d.

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stocks back at record highs. it's not just the blue chips reddit's favorite stocks are on the up swing details ahead. berkshire's chairman charlie munger with the stark warning with his comments coming up. the fight against covid. new reassuring headlines today giving investors more reason for

hope dr. scott gottleib will join us as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. u.s. equity futures 2 1/2 hours before the market is going to open the dow would open 17 points higher nasdaq down about 114 points s&p 500 off about 10 points. here's what's making headlines new israeli study, this is important, says the covid-19 vaccine developed by pfizer and biontech equally effective protects 92% against developing symptoms and severe disease in 94%. pfizer announced this morning

that it will study whethera third dose will protect against covid-19 variants. the government received $81 billion in a bid for auction for 5g air waves for verizon they led the way for $45.5 billion. at&t spent 23.3 billion. air waves will allow them to expand their 5g offerings. the reddit rally continues this morning. check out gamestop and other so-called reddit stocks. gamestop up 76%. all of this after keith gill, the investor known as roaring kitty doubled his holdings of gamestop and the cfo was pushed out of the company still lots of questions about how quickly this move has been made and really what's driving it and what's behind it. becks? >> andrew, thank you four minutes and 37 seconds, that's how close texas's power grid came to catastrophic failure. that's what the head of ercot,

texas's primary energy grid operator revealed yesterday. even though that didn't happen, millions of texans have questions and texas sized anger about what really happened brian sullivan is outside houston with more on what he is calling the perfect storm of events brian, this is kind of an unbelievable story >> reporter: yeah, becky i mean, it is unbelievable when i say perfect storm, i actually mean the storm and then everything that followed after that we are here not only to talk about what happened. a lot of people think they know. we're getting to the bottom of it and then talk about the ripple effect, what happens next and will this happen again let's go into the perfect storm idea if we can really kind of a five-step process on what happened many conversations i've had over the last couple of days or the last week or so. the storm itself it's gotten cold in texas before but not for five days. and the length of the cold really is what everybody is

telling us is what whacked it off. then you have generators who went offline you have wind, gas, coal everybody started to drop off the grid then tee manned, because it was so cold, demand crept up a lot of the houses, by the way, use heat, about 60%. they're cranking the heat. generation capacity came off one by one by one. demand goes up some of the power plants then started to be able to come back online but there was a tight gas market they either could not get gas at all or they could not get gas at any kind of a price they might be able to afford. that was kind of the next step as well. that was the perfect storm let's talk about the different types of generation capacity because a lot of finger pointing, guys, what happened. was it wind or was it gas? it was d, all of the above natural gas. it comes back to the same variable which is the weather, water, and freezing. so natural gas

you have what they call freezeoff is what they will say, which is the gauges or the pipeline literally froze they could not get power or gas through the pipe lines or to the power plants what about coal? well, coal requires huge amounts of water the coal plant behind us has a lake next to it. the lake freezes the actual coal stacks, the physical coal, that freezes in place where they can't get the coal up the conveyor into the power plant and then of course wind you had fog when it was warmer before the storm began, then got cold the fog condensed on the turbine blades which froze it all. they had to shut that down as well a nuclear plant also sht down. so it wasn't one type of power generation, becky, that got hit, it was all at the same time and

all, believe it or not, within almost one hour. so that four minutes and 37 seconds yet at a hearing was how far they came to what they call a catastrophic failure where it would not have been just a four-day event, becky, it could have been a 30-day event the cleanup is beginning it's actually going to be 80 degrees here today but the problems and the questions are by no means anywhere near over >> hey, brian, there is a hearing that's going to be taking place in the texas house of representatives coming up in a couple of hours. what do you think plays out? what kind of fireworks will we see? >> reporter: this is a blame game i mean, if you could power the state of texas with the political heat that's going to be at some of these hearings, not just on a state level but also maybe on a federal level. we spoke to a u.s. senator about this, we'll talk about it later today, it is going to be a lot of finger pointing

there's a huge political dynamic. it was all of the above. natural gas the biggest culprit because natural gas is the biggest power producer the power generators, some of them, we don't know which ones, may have made a lot of money because there are people on variable rate plans. a lot of viewers may have fixed rate plans whatever state you're living in where your bill doesn't fluctuate much if you are on a plan where you pay what they play, deregulated market, you could switch power operators every day or week in texas if you wanted to, there are people with thousands of dollars in power bills just for one week of power and so there's going to be a lot of finger pointing was it the jegeneratgenerators was it ercot what exactly caused this, we're here to talk about that. also, becky, the ripple effects

on what happened here trickled as far north as minnesota. we'll tell some of the human stories as well. can you imagine, almost 5 million people without power, of which 60% of that is electric heat, for multiple days. their water gets shut off. i've only been here a short time and i've talked to people that have said, i was in my car every hour trying to get heat with my family, charging my phone. 35 people have lost their lives minimum. some people are bringing their barbecues inside to crank the propane to get some heat which, unfortunately, was incredibly dangerous. you have houses that burned down we're here to talk about it. i'm glad we're coming out of it but it's not over. the energy capital of the world lost energy and that can't happen again >> yeah. there are going to be repercussions from this. brian, we're really glad you're covering this. we'll see you later in the day

thank you. >> sure. coming up, could higher rates spur investors to rotate out of stocks? we'll be discussing the interest rate environment and are rates going up guess who's coming on? kamar. remember him he has been negative on rates, positive on bonds, i guess, for years. what about now you've got to see this best buy just reporting moments ago earnings beat estimates but revenue anco sesd mpal fell short of wall street estimates "squawk box" coming right back

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for change in the system, what we called revolutionary change. ♪♪ people live on rates while the economy and job market recovers. powell appeared to succeed over his two days of testimony. each time he stopped talking looks like yields crept higher peaking at 1.43. dropped during his testimony and today at 1.46.

the highest in a year. bond traders listed this, massive fiscal and monetary stimulus strong growth rebound expected inflation fierce, including the fed aiming for inflation above 2% which makes them think the fed doesn't have its back and the eventual tapering and rate hikes down the road. you don't want to be the last one to the door. global fixed income at morgan stanley believes 1.50 is the high end of the current range. powell said this can be it's not policy-driven expectations driving it powell will make clear he will abide higher yields driven by higher growth. that's a positive for the outlook for stocks the bigger question is if the fed can avoid a jump in rates driven by markets springing forward expectations for policy change and a rush to the exit.

that would present a tougher backdrop for stocks. >> steve, quick question for you. all of this government spending, what impact will that have on the bond market? >> reporter: so you would think it would cause the bond market yields to rise because it would have inflation concerns. you've seen some of that, but there's also this kind of i guess contrarian point of view some of this money that the fiscal side's going to push out into the market may end up in the bond market and that could ultimately cause at least some yields on parts of the spectrum, particularly on the shorter term, could cause yields to drop that's a reason why some of the shorts may be coming off of where they were earlier and thinking, you know what, maybe some of this money ends up driving it down. >> all right investors, meanwhile, are wondering whether the latest moves in the bond market are being driven by optimism of a

recovery or expectations of higher inflation we talked about both wow. look who's here. here to bring that for us, komal kumar. kumar global strategies. sri, do you have something to tell us? do you have something to tell us do you think rates are going up now for the first time in five years? you've changed your tune >> i changed my tune after january 6th, joe immediately after the georgia senate runoff elections. >> that's what did it for you, sri? the minute the georgia election was lost so you were negative on the economy most of the time you were always 1% or lower.

how long were you in that camp that's why i made a big deal out of you changing. was it five years? four years how long was it? >> four to five years i've been looking for lower and lower rates. the markets expected them to go up i think it was, yes -- in answer to your question, yes, it was the georgia election yes, it was january 5th and it is not due to optimism about the forced pandemic recovery, joe. where it comes from, again, different from what steve said a couple of minutes ago, it is pure increase in government spending, which is not good for bond yields because bond needs only to go up, they don't cause it ever to go down so the fiscal stimulus is a big factor we did not have it to this extent before. we have a global inflation scare. look at what is happening. the german ten year bond yield, which is about minus 55 basis

points a month ago, it's now minus 25 even japan, which has been in the 30-year recession, has seen the 10-year yield climb up from near zero levels to positive 13, 14 business points so while mr. powell says that he thinks that it is a shot in the arm, that the market is telling him that the economic outlook is going to be bright, what we see worldwide is concern about inflation. and it concerns me as well that while the european central bank is concerned about it, the bank of england is concerned about yields going up, our own chairman doesn't worry about it but that is the history of the fed. we let it run. we say that nothing is wrong until the thing just falls apart. this is no different >> wow sri, there is -- it's never either/or with the economy, i guess, but in terms of

inflation, i mean, maybe things get a little bit better with the stimulus do you think this is inflation fears are justified inally that's even been longer than what i mentioned for you in terms of looking for lower rates. we've been waiting for inflation for so long and we always bring up japan, but is it finally going to get some traction do you think this time? >> i'm glad you raised the question, joe. as you know in your program repeatedly, i have said inflationary expectations and growth expectations are the two factors driving bond yields. what has changed now is, yes, i expect inflation to pick up and if it doesn't pick up immediately and you do not have economic growth sufficient to please the administration, they are going to spend even more if you do not have a $2,000 check that suffices, we may see another $2,000 check in 3 to 6

months per person and that is going to boost up inflation eventually so the question is, and this is what the market doesn't know, whether the inflation pickup is going to be in two months or three months or whether it's going to be six months i don't know that either all i'm saying is that the bond market has been a very good predictor over the last five years and it is telling me that inflationary expectations are up whether immediately or over a period of time, and i think the fed should take heed they have not so far. >> you even bring up paul volker, which we all remember and he was a hero to a lot of people in that weird period we were in back when rates went up so much, but that seems so far out. eventually such measures may call for another paul volker to stabilize it i'm not sure why you're not more

optimistic about the economy when we re-open. a lot of people, sri, think there's a lot of pent-up everything demand for concerts. demand for restaurants demand for anything people haven't been able to do globally for the past year you could make the case you could see an explosion in demand and, therefore, in the economy. why don't you see that >> absolutely. i see that there is going to be a boost in demand the so-called frustrated consumer now with a lot of 2000 checks is going to be out of the market spending. we saw that in the recent times in terms of industrial production we saw retail spending surge in the month of january those are real factors, joe. the question is how long does it last if you take cash in a helicopter and throw it out, it will cause an increase in spending. it will also cause prices to go

up, but once the money is spent, nothing further happens. >> sri, that's just the stimulus what about the reopening what about the -- so once we reopen the stimulus gets spent and then people don't have any money left and they don't act on all of the -- you don't think we get a bounce back from the pandemic, from being so closed in for a year? >> you get a one-shot pickup but i don't think you get a permanent pickup as a result of the pandemic i would agree with you the pandemic stop the movement on the trend movement and we will be back to trend, but you do not surge further than where you were before justifying your growth expectations. as for the stock market, they have discounted a recovery several times over when the recovery really comes, the stock market you think is going to go up even further when the prices have already gone up those are the issues i think of

the fed. as for paul volker, i was, again, around in the market to know that 1978, '79 we had a fed chairman, a very short-term fed chairman called g. william miller inflation shot up in the carter administration and the only way it had to be brought down with a very tough monetary policy >> i remember. i remember. >> yes, the answer is, joe, i would say you need some form you cannot bring back mr. volker, my hero unfortunately, but you need somebody like him >> all right sri, thank you finally happened 1 3/4 not back under 1 thank you for coming on, explaining things. >> thank you very much >> komal sri-kumar. >> thanks, joe. when we come back, internet giants doing business in australia and canada are being forced to pay for news

should more countries follow suit, including the united states that's the topic of this week's on the other hand with jon fortt. that's coming up next. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question. in the tv series "the office," phyllis maris bob vance who was the owner of this type of company. what is it the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues go aflac!!! what the heck, troy - that's not your kid! the aflac duck is just covering for sophie. same way he got me money to help cover her hospital bill when my health insurance didn't pay for all of it. but this isn't fair! that's exactly what i said! but then i learned health insurance isn't even supposed to cover everything. wait...for real? for real real. luckily i had aflac. aflac!!! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. go aflac! !mm-hm! get to know us at aflac.com. at fidelity, you get personalized wealth planning and unmatched overall value.

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♪ ♪ now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. in the tv series, "the office," phyllis maris bob vance who is the owner of this type of company. what is it the answer, refrigeration. the vance refrigeration company was located on the same floor as the dunder mifflin scranton branch, in suite 210 >> watching "the office" on peacock these days. in the meantime, australia

and canada are pushing internet giants, including facebook and google, to pay for news, not just for hosting it but for linking to it too. should more countries follow suit jon fortt is here to weigh in on "on the other hand." >> this is a fantastic idea. i'm not saying that as someone who could get paid for this. let's start with the baseline truth that accurate information has value. facts have value not just when you click on them. for facebook and google there is significant value being able to display the link and photo to a news story even if people never click. google biden stimulus. there's a reason you see a bunch of links even though you're probably only going to click on one. people want the assurance these platforms have access to real time truth, not just algorithm authority. assigning a link to get the facts is a step in the right direction.

as much as global society has gotten drunk on conspiracy theories, professional news organizations are the area of truth out there. >> so, jon, you think these forced payments from internet giants could save the parts of journalism -- at least parts of the journalism business? >> well, on the other hand, the incentives are completely screwed up here. facts have value, yes, but so does distribution. let's get this part clear. the problem with the news business model isn't that distributors aren't paying for news anymore distributors never did pay for news my friend amanda lockes lays this out well. paper boys and corner stores were footing the bill, advertisers were advertisers were paying for news content, they were paying for attention, the attention of a targeted usually local audience. news is one type of beta long with comics, cross words, tv listings forcing internet platforms to pay for news wouldn't enrich

most news organizations. it will do the opposite. it will incentive advise facebook, google, others to pay a couple of buyers services like a.p. and reuters and promote most of those links. the news links they would pay for would be the ones that represent the most unique reporting or the most tantalizing opinion like contrived debates. >> exactly i saw a really good thought the ore day, wait a second, what's wrong with facebook saying we're not going to link to any local news f. we have to pay for it, we don't want the service. >> you can't force a free market that's either forced or it's a free market. it's a weird situation where in a lot of cases news organizations would pay for featured placement on these social networks more than the other way around it's like the super bowl halftime show issue where now they're not paying the performer. often the performer is paying.

this could swing around and bite people in a really unexpected way. >> do you think other countries will follow suit >> well, i think it's possible because the idea itself, it looks like it's benefitting news but i don't think you can necessarily create a market that way. what really has to happen is the news business has to find some really good things, like maybe just great stories that people are willing to pay for, build up repu reputation, rely on subscription, less on advertising. >> jon, thank you. i think i agree with you good to see you. >> good to see you >> but which side do you agree with that's the question. mea meantime, a couple of earning movers to keep an eye on ab inbev has better than expected profit in the fourth quarter. they're saying the profit margins would be hurt with higher commodity costs

l brands has an earnings beat. that stock is up over 3.5% teladoc losing a little bit. they did see revenues above estimates. that stock, however, down over 6% we're going to talk to teladoc ceo in aexusn clive interview in the next hour. "squawk box" returns right after this

charlie munger, warren buffet's long time business partner issued a warning to retail traders enticed into commission free brokerage apps munger had tough words about robinhood's gamestop drama. >> the frenzy is fed out of this new bunch of gamblers. when things get extreme you have things like that short squeeze

it's not generally noticed by the public, but clearinghouses clear these trades when things get as crazy as they were in the event you were talking about, it gets really dangerous and it's stupid to have a culture that encourages as much gambling in stocks by people who have the mindset of racetrack betters, and of course it's going to create trouble as it did i have a very simple idea on the subject. i think you should try and make money in this world by selling other people things that are good for them. if you're selling them gambling services where you rake profits off the top like many of these new brokers who specializing in lawyering gamblers in, i think it's a dirty way to make money and i think we're crazy to allow

it >> the 97-year-old also added that this gambling mentality he thinks is a dirty way of money guys, that's pretty consistent with what charlie has said about gambling over the years. it's a morality thing. he doesn't think highly of it. munger commented on many things. this was two hours where he took questions from shareholders. he also talked about the oil and gas industry he said it's going to be here for a very long time that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a big business. even if you stop using oil and gas for transportation, you need it for feed stocks, chemicals. he thinks there's no way it's going away any time soon my favorite may have been some of the things he commented on in terms of how to live a happy life 97 years old, pretty happy guy when he was asked how to live a happy life he said the key to a happy life is having low expectations if you have unrealistic expectationsyou're always goin to be miserable. those are words of wisdom.

>> that's charlie happy, okay? >> yeah. >> all right some of us are happy when we're cranky i am happy i'm very happy here's my question because i have a problem with this i think there's a time and place for a fun wager, as you know, and the way he was just talking, does he mean that gambling, if it intersects with investing, is dirty? >> yes i think he's never been a fan of gambling period. >> is he a puritan he said racetracks can we not go to the racetracks, not the kentucky derby. >> i don't think he's worried about you. you're betting five bucks here and there. i think he gets worried when you take it to extremes and when people lose money they can't afford to lose >> there are a lot of dirty people in the country if it's everybody who puts down a wager. >> no, i think it's the idea of

getting people into bets they can't afford to lose >> right right. right. you know, there's a lot of chapters of gamblers' anonymous, that's true. we tried a lot of aa, too. we're certainly not going back to prohibition we're going the opposite way there's psychedelic places around new york city now, mushroom -- we may be headed -- >> legal in new jersey this week >> right right. you hear that, greco he's yelling in my ear to get out and you're giving him great info house democrats ready to vote on the president's stimulus plan tomorrow is there time to get the gop on 'rard? wee going to debate. coming right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box. live shot of the capitol there in washington. democrats planning to vote on the $1.9 trillion relief bill without republican support is there anything that can win over republicans joining us is hailey stevens of michigan and republican

congressman jody arrington of texas. good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> you heard the question i raised it appears this is going to be led by democrats without any republicans support. is there anything that could happen in the next 24 hours that's going to change that dynamic? >> i see no desire on the part of my democratic colleagues. this is the first time in five pieces of legislation prior this is a straight partisan play. we've spent $4 trillion together we have $1 trillion unspent that's working through the system 60 billion in education assistance alone this is so riddled with wasteful spending, barriers to our recovery like paying people more to be on unemployment than to be in their previous job. it's fraught with bailouts like union pension bailouts and

rewarding behavior that pre-existed covid with cities and states fiscally irresponsible. it's not disaster relief for the most part, it's a disaster in and of itself. i can't imagine a single republican voting for this >> stevens, is there an opportunity for any kind of compromise. >> i would say the time to act is now i believe that colleagues on the other side of the aisle when push comes to shove are going to join us and i'm going to tell you why. this is triage we just recognized 500,000 lives lost to this pandemic. we all know we need the funding for the vaccines, the testing. we're long overdue with some of the economic provisions of this bill $1400 stimulus check the monies needed to reopen the schools fully and safely we're talking personnel dollars here take it from the economists and those supporting the bill

outside the chamber. we have the u.s. chamber of commerce supporting the bill, we have the u.s. conference of mayors we have executives to whom who come from both parties saying we need this american rescue plan to stabilize the health of the country. >> congresswoman, how important -- i understand the arguments on both sides. the question i'd ask you is how important early on, especially in the beginning here of the biden administration, is it for there to be any kind of compromise at all? clearly there is no compromise as of now and there are some -- you have to think there is some merit or merry tour yous views on the other side at some level. is there nothing that can happen between now and then it sounds like not this a game of chicken with the idea that maybe you pull a couple over. who do you think is getting pulled over? >> i say, look at where the american people are. the american people are with this legislation over 60% want to see this get

done my constituents are asking me, when are we going to see the next round of stimulus checks? when are we going to have the certainty for our municipalities and schools? we've got to unlock the dollars in michigan to get the testing in place that we still need to do while we're getting the shots in people's arms this can't wait. reconciliation, no doubt about it, it's an expedited process. we know that we saw the other side of the aisle pursue this with a -- you know, a tax scam that contributed 1.5 trillion to our deficit so -- >> i don't want to speak for the congr congressman, i'm sure he can speak to himself do you not look at this at all thinking there will be some wasteful spending at all >> if the american people could sit in the hearings that i was sitting in where we offered common sense amendments to your point of how can you make this bipartisan, we offered amendments like a provision -- a safeguard that says pay people

more on unemployment, enhance that unemployment insurance but they can't make more on unemployment than their previous job because we need them to get off of the unemployment rolls and onto the payroll we said provide more cash assistance to those who are hurting. i agree with that. let's put a provision that says if you haven't been economically harmed by covid, you shouldn't get a cash assistance check. 292 amendments virtually all rejected by the democrats. if the american people knew that this was going to go to bailout union pensions because of union boss sz who were greedy and corporate executives who over promised, granted, we need to solve that problem, but that is unrelated to covid like a lot of things that are stuffed in this turkey that is going to be harmful. it is going to be worse for this country long term not to mention the debt and the tax on the next

generation of americans because we're spending money we don't need 1 trillion is still unspent working through the system. >> look, if i may here i worked on a rescue plan. it was call the american auto rescue one, the taxpayers were paid back i think it's very clear that there is a return on spend for our constituents you want to talk about pension relief and the pension reform that needs to take place in this country, i'm proud that that's in this bill because this is long overdue we're about to blow up the pvgvc. >> congresswoman, congressman, zero forms to the pension benefit program. i have no problem spending some money to solve that problem. it's unrelated to covid and they put zero fixes to make sure that the taxpayers aren't on the hook and we have $600 billion there. >> we're going to have to have both of you come back. >> i love debating jodey >> we appreciate it.

thank you. meantime, we have some news just out crossing coin based cryptocurrency exchange. let's get to leslie picker who's got the details. leslie. >> reporter: hey, andrew yeah they filed their s-1 this morning for a direct listing date tvd some really fascinating details in this filing they showed that revenue in 2020 increased. 6% over $1 billion in revenue. most of that stemming from revenue fees showing $332 million in net income they said they had 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions on the cryptocurrency exchange other details about the transaction they will be debuting with two classes of stocks set to list on the nasdaq the filing has a bunch of kind of fun interesting aspects to

it normally on the front page they'll say they're copying general counsel and others from the company. in this one they had a copy to toshi nakomoto the founder of bitcoin a letter from brian armstrong, the ceo of the company talking about economic freedom and what coin base can offer in people interested in cryptocurrency for those less well versed also, you know, they have some aspects to their risk factors. they mentioned that cryptocurrencies is highly volatile several times in the s-1. that is the number one risk factor in the prospectus the fact that cryptocurrency can be highly volatile regulation will be a key risk

factor. >> you're talking about security as a risk factor i've always thought that especially -- >> reporter: i do believe that -- yeah, cyber security as a risk factor. i do believe they do i'm still going through all of those risk factors now, that's usually pretty standard and pretty much every technology to have a cyber security component to the risk factor. >> thanks. appreciate it. >> reporter: yeah. thank you. >> leslie, leslie, if they're going to be a grownup company, it's going to be expensive, i think, too we'll see. i'm talking about people that answer the phone if you need -- actually need something instead of an email that gets answered -- that might get answered irs-type -- they better generate exactly what happens because the irs wants their money with eye inn. th'rgog to get it. coming up, dr. scott gottleib after the break we'll be right back. strengthening client confidence in you.

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moderna and pfizer tracking variants dr. scott gottleib is here with us scott, this is good news to hear that these boosters are being tested, especially with some of the reports that we've seen that there are definitely some variants that are circulating in new york city and picking up steam in terms of how rapidly they're out there. >> that's right. the company's announced two

things one, they're testing an additional booster of the current vaccine to see if the additional efficacy is confirmed by giving a third dose of the existing vaccine is sufficient there is reason to believe you will get an additional protection from the booster of the new vaccine. the mrna could be fairly protective but we need to test that, we need the experimental evidence and clinical data the second thing they're doing, both of them, formulating new vaccine variants that would cover some of these changes that we've seen in the virus. what you want to do is not necessarily develop a vaccine that is particular against 351, the change in south africa you want protein sequence and it bakes in enough of the changes that we've seen across the world that you'll have a vaccine that will be protective regardless of what the virus manages to do with itself. >> i haven't thought of this before if they're saying a third shot

is one of the potential solutions, will we actually prioritize that and give high risk individuals the third shot or would you wait until everybody gets at least one or two shots of these things before you start going back and trying to reup the people who got the first shots? >> well, look, i think we're going to be in a situation in a couple of months where there will be ample supply of vaccine. the u. is the market will be over supplied. there will be plenty here in the fall they have contracted 600 million doses and you have j&j coming into the markets the novavax vaccine is coming into the market. i don't think we have to rags supply if we want to give people a third booster in the fall. the challenge is thinking whether or not and when you would switch over manufacturing to that vaccine. how much you would produce that's going to be a decision you have to make in advance of the new variant vaccines

probably being authorized. you may not want to switch over all of your manufacturing but some of it that's something the companies have to make a decision around sometime in july or august sometime in the summer you have to make that decision. >> i'm trying to figure out how they do this, scott, with the variants do they -- they don't have to look at the morphology of the actual spike protein and how it's different, this he would just take the sequence of the variant and make the messenger rna match what's coding for the spike protein and then it would make the new spike protein, right? it seems pretty simple >> yeah. >> they could do it fairly easily and quickly which they may need we may need to do this every year or two. >> you could do it very efficiently because we're in the age of driving the vaccines synthetically. you need to figure out a way to piece together sequence changes

that you get a protein that's stable so you need to have a protein that has a confirmation that's stable it's not as simple as splicing together different segments of viral rna that code for different mutations. what you want to do is develop a consensus sequence that codes for a protein that's going to express enough of the new epi attorney-cli topes and you'll have the wuhan strain covered how do you maximize protection of the old and new variants. >> yeah. doable though. doable much better than -- >> doable. >> -- the old way. >> easier than the flu yes. >> dr. gottleib, thanks a lot. >> see you soon. >> maybe next hour come right back. no, don't miss our exclusive interview with david rubin stein.

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good morning the nasdaq under pressure once again. falling in the pre-market. this coming after stocks staging

another dramatic interday turn around speaking of bounces. gamestop shooting higher doubling in the hours before the closing bell yesterday and taking another leg higher this morning. we'll talk about the markets, mean stocks, higher rates and the stimulus bill the democrats are closing in on with carlyle group's david reubenstein as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin u.s. equity futures this morning are mixed. the dow is unchanged up a point it's green though. nasdaq down 132 points right now on the s&p giving back some of

yesterday's gains. flip the averages at new highs treasury is also getting close to 1.5%. you can see 1.466, the highest levels we've seen in one account. in the most recent we've hired, that's about as high as we've seen, andrew i think. did it get to 1.48 i haven't seen 1.5 that's as high as we've seen in this most recent move back to what seemed like more normal levels >> right >> at least we never -- >> been a year since we've been at these levels. >> is this the highest we've been in -- have you seen 1.48? >> i haven't seen it higher, no. >> i think this is where we are. meantime, a couple big stories investors will be talking about this morning coinbase out with the s-1 filing out ahead of the planned filing. revenue more than doubled last year to over $1 billion.

they made $322 million in net income coinbase also said it had 33 million retail users on its platform meantime, pfizer kicking off a booster dose of the covid-19 vaccine dose that would be a third dose, six months to a year after the first ones the study will examine the safety and immune response of the additional dose including emerging variants of the virus news of the moderna vaccine. that company will test a third dose of its shot as well developing a dose that specifically targets the south african strain and combined them to test as a booster shot. and we've heard this before. take a look at gamestop this morning. i mean, i don't even know what to say about this this morning we are up 75% this morning this after shares surged into the close of trading yesterday doubling by the closing bell it's unclear what exactly led to the jump traders may have been cheering the news that gamestop's cfo

will be stepping down next month. that's the only piece of news you can attribute this to. you can't even see -- you can see some traction on reddit and others talking about this, but whoever said go, we need to talk to them. other so-called reddit stocks are on the rise. we'll talk a lot more about all of this at the top of the hour becky? >> thanks, andrew. meantime, in washington house democrats are looking to advance president biden's nearly $2 trillion covid relief bill tomorrow joining us to talk about the potential market and economic impacts and the fight over the minimum wage is david reubenstein. co-founder and co-executive chairman of the carlyle group. great to see you maybe the perfect person to talk to you about all of this, because you're an expert not only in the ways of washington but the ways in the market we'll start with the politics.

your bet that this covid bill gets passed. >> in washington, when you have the votes, you call a vote the democrats have the vote. they don't have the votes yet for the minimum wage increase. we'll talk about that. they have the votes for the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that will go through the house with all democratic votes and the senate with only democratic votes as well. they have the votes to pass that bill and it will go through. >> when it comes to the minimum wage, that's something that joe manchin in the senate has said he's opposed to. krysten sinema too i don't know where that winds up what problem does that create because they need every vote in the senate. >> the president wants to have the increase to the $15 an hour. we haven't had an increase since 2009 really so it's probably overdue. it's not -- doesn't really affect that many workers less than 1% of american workers actually get the minimum wage but it is a symbolic issue for sure and will have other

spillover effects. the president has made it clear he can live without getting the increase he would like to get the increase i suspect there will be a compromise, probably closer to $11 an hour which senator manchin had said he can support. there will be some increase in the minimum wage but not to $15 an hour. >> that is what manchin said the $11 he'd support mitt romney told andrew he'd even support potentially $10 as a minimum wage do you think there are any republicans that vote with this? this is a pure democratic vote down the party line ticket >> i think it's going to be a party line vote because i think the republicans have done a good job in whipping their members into line. that will pass pretty much only with democratic votes for a lot of reasons, but i think the president is very happy to get this bill through. now there has been some criticism that it's too big, it may be bigger than is needed some people like larry somers

and others have said it's not necessary to have a bill at this magnitude. the secretary of the treasury has convinced the president you should over promise and get more than you really need so if there is some inflation that comes about as a result of this, it's not going to be terrible a little inflation is something we can probably tolerate >> are there concerns you have at this point about what we're seeing in the markets, whether things are over heating on the stock side whether you worry about how rapidly the yields look to be rising in treasuries right now >> well, there's no doubt that the bond market is a little worried now. it's indicating that at some point there will be a fed rate increase i don't think that is likely to be any increase in the fed any time soon. i think the fed and treasury are in sync more so than i've ever seen a fed and treasury in sync. they feel if there's a little interest they will keep rates

low this year maybe for a little bit longer i don't think there is speculation that is undue in the stock market some areas where you see speculation not tolerable. it's modest relatively speaking. >> so no big red warning signals as far as you're concerned with this, david? >> well, i'm always worried about something. i suspect there's always something that can go wrong. clearly some areas, some stocks go up quickly. you have to wonder how they go up when you see stocks with multiple billion dollar revenue. you have to wonder if there's a bubble you only know if there's a bubble if it crashes on the whole the biggest problem the president is worried about, the big eggs problem the administration is worried about and the democrats in congress, we still have a very high unemployment rate. the real rate is 10% 10% is affecting people at the bottom of the economic strata. people like you and i are doing

okay people working in blue collar jobs, people laid off, those people are in food lines and have serious needs that's what the president is worried about. the secretary of treasury is a labor economist. she wants to get people back to work and it's declined 4.5%, unemployment rate, right now it's probably about 10%. i think the administration feels we need to move forward with the bill it gets people back to work. that's a good thing. >> david, that would be my question, why not more focus on the people who have been impacted, people who have been laid off and lost their jobs, why not focus on extending unemployment and getting more money to people and sending checks to those rather than those who have not been impacted. >> there's more in the bill. there's a lot of that in the bill there's a general feeling that the mistake that was made in

2008 and 2009, the bill that was passed under president obama wasn't big enough to get the economy going again as strong as it should have been and therefore they're willing to over reach a little bit and get things done. besides, you have to get the votes. they need the votes to get this bill through everything is a patch work kind of thing so this is what they think they need to get all the democratic votes so there's a little bit in there for everybody. >> we heard from charlie munger yesterday. he had some pretty harsh comments for a lot of corners of wall street. especially things like robinhood, promising free trade, and taking in free traders they say it's gambling that's sucking them in. >> charlie munger is a brilliant investor as you know, he's willing, as you have covered him for many years, to say what is on his mind he doesn't hold back i think he has some good points.

it there's no doubt there's some speculation. there's no doubt some people are trading stocks they don't know what they're doing and some are using an excessive margin i don't think. i think on the whole the stock market is the biggest problem. the economy is still weighed down by covid. until we get out of that and where we have more closer to full employment, the economy is not going to be fair to everybody. so i think the biggest problem we should worry about is not from people speculating. young people might be speculating buying stocks they shouldn't be buying. all of the people out of work, we have a real risk we'll have a country of two cities, a tale of two cities where they're a permanent underclass that's the biggest problem for the economy right now. >> two things in terms of what would help that. the first is this covid relief bill that we've been talking about. the other is just what's happening with vaccinations,

that getting rolled out. >> yes. >> maybe covid getting pushed back we have seen caseloads decline rapidly, more rapidly than the rollout of the vaccines. how much of that do you think is playing into this? how much do you bet on just that >> the president has said there are two highest priorities, getting everybody vaccinated or everybody that wants to be vaccinated vaccinated and getting the stimulus bill through. they have done a good job of coordinating this. we have a small percentage of the population relatively speaking vaccinated. it will take until the summer for that to happen it was a brilliant move to get the vaccines produced before they were approved by the fda, we just didn't get enough of them manufactured and as a result we don't have enough

vaccination material to give everyone a vaccine that wanted one. what you cited, it's a good, positive move. we need to get there >> david, thanks for your time today. always good talking to you >> becky, thank you very much. >> coming up, the ceo of teladoc joins us fresh after quarterly results to talk about what his business will look like in a post-pandemic world. plus, much more on the return of the gamestop frenzy. wells fargo's mike mayo on the rally in financials. stayun ted you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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coming up when we return, what happens to tell la health when we go back to face to face? the world after the vaccine. teladoc getting ready for its -- for all of that. the company ceo will join us straight off of the fourth quarter results. next, stay tuned you're watching "squawk" on cnbc

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teladoc reporting a 145% increase in quarterly revenue as more people booked virtual doctor visits. >> reporter: teladoc setting 2021 guidance above analyst estimates. let's talk about the quarter and outlook with jason gorevic

thank you for joining us >> thanks for having me. >> reporter: terrific quarter. terrific growth. you've been a big benefactor of this switch to tetelehealth ant and the acceleration of it one thing investors are sorting out is your guidance on the one hand, you say you have a great opportunity now with the integration to do more cross selling to employers they want a complete package with management of chronic conditions you ended the year with 51.8 million members but you're only forecasting 52 to 54 million for 2021 that seems like really small growth given the opportunity >> well, i think you hit it on the head when you said employers and consumers are looking for a complete solution. we talk about whole person health care and that's really what our vision has been since

the beginning. it's to be able to take care of the whole person, whether they're in the icu or at home, whether they're chronically ill, dealing with an episodic illness, whether it's mental or fiscal health they're looking for. the combination of assets and capabilities uniquely position us to do that. i think when you look at our growth, we've doubled revenue last year and we're forecasting we'll double revenue again this year i think that underscores the strength and how much that vision resonates in the marketplace. >> and yet you're only forecasting growth of up to maybe 7% in terms of paid membership are you just setting the barlow? >> if you look back at last year, we doubled our guidance in terms of our actual membership ads. we added 15 million members, which was more than double our initial guidance when you look at our pipeline

today, it's actually 50% larger than it was at this time last year they're just earlier in the deal stage so we take a very deliberate and i would say conservative view of how we forecast and that's served us well we've net or exceeded our revenue expectations 22 out of 23 quarters as a public company so we're going to stick with that forecasting methodology and i think we have a ton of up side as we look into the back half of this year and very much into '22. >> what's interesting this year is you're seeing a lot of the visits are not just for infection. not just about covid obviously we've had a very slow flu season because so many of us can sort of work from home and shelter in place, but i wonder about that momentum.

they dropped from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. do you expect to see a little bit of a pull back as things open up more people being maybe less reliant on telehealth? >> our paid visits actually increased in the fourth quarter and we expect that to continue for the foreseeable future you're right, we've seen significant growth, just incredible growth in our visit volume we continue to project that next year we're still projecting 12 to 13 million visits next year and that's during, as you say, a situation where the cold and flu season has been nonexistent. social distancing works for the upper respiratory conditions as well as for covid and we've taken that into account in our view of what our visits are going to look like

we've seen mental health visits increase by over 500% last year. we see that continuing as that's really an unmet need virtual care really fills a tremendous gap in the overall delivery system and improves access to care and we see people turning to us for, again, that whole person because, you know, if someone has depression or anxiety and they're untreated, that can be just an incredible exacerbation for things like diabetes and hypertension because of things like binge eating, lack of exercise and we want to take care of the whole person and we think all of that will deliver more value for the consumer because we've gone through the awareness and acceptance phases into where it's now an expectation of the consumer where they'll get all of their needs met virtually. >> speaking of that, you do have

a 360 product you are offering in terms of primary care that is virtual first. this seems to be a really competitive marketplace in that united health has a product, cvs health has a product they're launching as well. how tough is that going to be? is this more direct to consumer or more in the enterprise? >> yeah, so our primary 360 is an incredible product that enables the consumer to get really a longitudinal relationship with a care team, not just an individual physician, but an entire care team for both their physical and mental health care and create that relationship in a longitudinal manner. also connect in other data sources, like their apple health care, their fit bit, you know, a connected blood glucose meter if they're living with diabetes when you put all of that together, it's incredibly

attractive we see that in our pipeline of over 100 opportunities from everything from large fortune 1,000 employers all the way through to the largest health plans in the country we're seeing interest in that, both domestically and internationally. it is more of an enterprise solution at this point we also see health systems and hospitals coming to us asking if we can -- if they can use our technology capabilities to be able to stand up their own virtual primary care offerings and we're working with them to do that. >> that in touch acquisition also paying off as well. thank you so much, jason, for joining us on the back of your earnings becky, back over to you. >> bertha, thanks very much. when we come back we've got some breaking economic data jobless claims, durable goods and a new read on gdp are all mi uin acongp couple of minutes. "squawk box" will be right back. and through to this day,

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the futures are in the red after a record-setting session yesterday. you see the nasdaq is down the most down about 135 points this morning with the dow jones down about 17 and change. we've got the 10-year up 1.47% or 1.46% rick standing by with the numbers. rick >> reporter: good morning, joe yeah, we're up 7, 8 basis points in the 10s and 30s gun's hot and the data is starting to trickle out. initial claims first remember, there's an asterisk here with all the crazy weather across the country, they may be a bit distorted. 730,000 on initial claims. that's a really good number when you consider that i think it was the first week in november the low of the cycle on initial 711,000. so that is about 100,000 better than expected. as we look at continuing claims,

same dynamics at work. 4.419 million. 4.419 million. that's much less than we were expecting. sequentially less and if you look atz of course the cycle low, that is it right there. right there. that is the cycle low. the smallest amount of continuing claims that we've had since covid hit. as i said, there is an asterisk here a little hard to trust the numbers. it's up at 33.4. q4 is going to be very important. it's going to get us closer and closer to the level that we ended on last year which is positive 2.4 especially when we consider how much horsepower may be coming down the economy as we get past covid and we are getting past covid january preliminary subject to many revisions

headline number, like 3.5 times expectations whoa 3.4% expecting a number a little over 1. in the rear-view mirror we doubled up plus the last look on the final read that we had for december, which moved from .5 now to 1.2, these are big revisions. x transportation up 1.4. double expectations. if you look at noncapital goods, it's a proxy for business spending boy, do we need to monitor this. it wasn't doing all that well pre-covid. it's up half of 1% disappointment that's part of the number series you'd rather see healthy we're expecting .8 to be fair, last month's .7 is up 1.5 that gives me some optimism. shipments versus orders up 2.1 last time up .7. if i had to summarize, these are

pretty good numbers. let's dig a little deeper on gdp, joe personal consumption expecting 2.5. very close, 2.4. on pricing, 2.1. not running super hot like many other numbers are. where are treasuries going i'll tell you what, they're looking at this vote tomorrow, joe. i think they call it they probably have the votes, but the real issue is all the need we know is out there, is this money really going to end up there or is it going to end up being a big, big hunk ofdeb on the balance sheet of the government time will tell back to you. >> claims are volatile but, i mean, this is volatile was anyone forecasting what you just reported? >> me. me come on, i told you guys how long ago that the treasury complex was like a spring with a 2-ton baker standing on it as we get ad distribution of virus of course it was going to

happen i think they like to sweep it under the rug. seemed like jay powell was oblivious to what's going on >> right well, he's not the only person in that city thanks, rick steve liesman. steve liesman joins us now with more you probably looked at that number and said -- i mean, it's good news, right, steve? we still have a long way to go with unemployment. >> reporter: yeah. for sure, joe. it's good news but, again, the issue with what happened with the weather over the last week or so is something that is -- economists were definitely putting an asterisk next to their forecast a lot of times after a big storm like this, you get a surge again, getting -- disaggregating what's from the virus and from reopenings and also from the weather is going to be difficult so it could be volatile in the next week. what i do know, joe, what's happened among other things is people are moving over into the extended benefits program. you had in the prior week, week

of february 6th, let me get my glasses and get it right, february 6th you had 1 million increase there you had people coming off of regular claims and going into extended benefits. that's where you're looking. i want to tell you what's happened with total claims which is one of the numbers we look at every week that's up to 19 million from 18.3 for the prior week. that's something we look at. the durable goods enough, that's the manufacturing sector finding its legs again be on a tear very good for the outlook of the economy. meeting some of the new demand business investment, a positive number gdp, one number, core pcve 1.4. that's really the debate, joe. if you think inflation is coming, you may want to get out of the way of the train of what's going to happen in bond yields if you think again the 25 year trend of lower inflation is not

going to happen this time, then you're okay, i guess relatively comfortable in some of your bond fixed income. >> good segue for our next guest, steve here to talk more about gdp and other economic data. we have the former acting secretary for economic policy at the treasury department and current adjunct professor of economics at george washington university diana, before we saw the claims number you thought maybe 8.20 down from 8.61 that's stronger. you were already saying that the numbers we're seeing show that the economy is not fragile and you're worried about inflation, which steve just referenced. >> right things are very strong if we need to look -- we're looking to the future. we should always look to the future as things open up things are going to get stronger because those retail sales numbers are going to go up as people can go out shopping, as people can go to restaurants, as people can go out to barsz and

movie theaters i was speaking to one young person last weekend, she just said i want to go to madison square garden and stand in a throng of thousands and be there for 24 hours that's going to drive the economy. the leisure and hospitality center that's low is going to drive up >> i think you're right. everyone i talked to really suddenly appreciates just the littlest things in life about whether it's a restaurant, whatever it is i don't know how long it lasts, whether there's an initial bump. there certainly is a feeling we all have right now you think the economy is growing at what actual rate do you think right now, diana >> i would say maybe 6 or 7% for this quarter and then for the year as a whole, they're estimating and 6.1% for the year but 2021 he's usually been on

target before. he's all concerned about inflation though, as am i. he thinks it's going to be around 2.1%. i think the fed should be paying more attention to inflation coming down the pike >> when i see janet yellen, i always have to keep having to remind myself, all right, this isn't the fed speaking anymore now you're like a politician almost, but if she was at the fed, do you think she would be saying just go big, go big, go big or is it time to really start looking at the benefit we get from this and the negatives to doing this and what might be an economy that heats up quickly once we reopen >> when she was at the fed, she was always concerned about employment her background is as a labor economist. quite rightly she's concerned be about people who don't get jobs. i think that that's also -- you can see that now in her role as

treasury secretary so i think we need to be really concerned about measures in the stimulus package that might reduce jobs for low wage workers such as this $15 an hour proposed minimum wage which is really going to hit the leisure and hospitality workers just as employers want to get them back on the job it's going to encourage employers to substitute capital for the workers. they're the ones who are really hurting right now and we need to be aware of howwe best can get them back. >> in your view would you have a stimulus bill this large at this point? and do you think that -- i mean, we have oil suddenly at much higher levels and commodity inflation. do you think eventually there's wage inflation that gets the spiral actually going at some point? >> well, definitely, especially with the $15 an hour minimum wage because people who are now paid $15 are going to want to be paid more. so i think we definitely need to

be watching that we need to be watching a potential spiral and i would suggest something around the order of 600 billion for a stimulus package because we do need to help those whoneed help, we just don't need 1.9 trillion, especially since we have not spent what was allocated last year. we haven't spent the amount in the c.a.r.e.s. act and the consolidated appropriations act. we still have funds left over from those. >> very good diane, just looking at sports. you came over. the accent the whole time. >> from the age of 9 i was in washington, d.c. >> all right pretty good team george washington, i don't know

if you watch, pretty good team pretty good hoops. thank you. we'll see you again. an andrew. coming up. gamestop spiking again 100% yesterday. another 60% this morning we're going to try to dig into the renewed appetite banks going on a tear. the always outspoken mike mayo from wells fargo joining us. you're watching "squawk" right here on cnbc even if their shares cost more. at $5 a slice, you could own ten companies for $50 instead of paying thousands. all commission free online. schwab stock slices: an easy way to start investing or to give the gift of stock ownership. schwab. own your tomorrow.

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welcome back to "squawk box. i'm mike santoli the reddit rally gamestop, a lot of factors have come together perhaps to trigger another gain in this stock up to 150 premarket. what's going on here we don't know. the stock was down a ton and kind of stabilized you had the most famous bull doubling his stage, roaring kitty. and the big director and activist shareholder tweets a picture that suggests that the ice cream machine is working again at mcdonald's. what acts as an accelerant is the "options action" in this stock. here you have the stock pre-market at 150. the call options expeer time at a 300 strike so basically the options that give you a right to buy 100 shares at $300 tomorrow

if it doubles are trading at 6 bucks. for context, the intrinsic value is pennies if that facebook, 400 strikes a stock in the 200s is trading at 3 cents for tomorrow this creates a self-feeding mechanism in the short term. this game seems to be on again unclear if there's still the same kind of squeeze potential, andrew if all of the ingleed yents are there. in terms of how the mechanics get executed, that seems to be what's going on today. >> mike, before you go we've all been trying to figure this out who said go? meaning, when do -- we obviously saw the news yesterday. >> yes. >> with the cfo leaving, but i've been following the reddit -- these reddit boards. i didn't see somebody say, okay, game on. >> no, i don't think there was maybe that happened but if we haven't uncovered it, you know, in 15 hours, i'm not sure that that actually did happen all those factors i mentioned, you know, that's the dry tinder.

who knows what lit the spark to get it rolling again we'll see. maybe in retrospect we're going to know if there's anything specific going on that led to the cfo leaving or anything like that >> mike, go ahead and sell the calls. naked. not you. >> no, i know what you're saying that's exactly how you get taken out. >> not you naked but, yeah, go ahead and try that go ahead and try that. 6 bucks. >> whatever you're asking me to do i'm not going to do it but your point is well taken. >> 150 points out of the money, no brainer try it see what happens you could get your -- you could get handed back -- you know, if it went back to 400 or something, your 6 would be 100 you have to buy them back. that's what we're talking about there. 6. that's unbelievable. there's zero -- there's a day's worth of time value left. >> that's it. >> >> zero so far out of the money. that is unbelievable 6 bucks, no kidding, at 300. >> trading the win probability

board in the game. that's what's going. you're betting the deep underdog is going to have the greatest comeback this game is so extreme. >> i wouldn't dare sell those calls even though it seems like the biggest no brainer in the world. i got nervous when you were talking about it, the thought of it, because of naked -- when i was a stock broker we used to do it on s&p. sell the naked, the put and the call and a lot of times you'd start seeing it go and you can really feel what it feels like anyway, thanks, mike andrew >> 150%. i mean, it's unbelievable. speculation not investing, let's just agree there meantime, bank stocks are in rally mode kind of a different story though the biggest names in the sector nicely outperforming the broader markets since the start of the year it's a move that wells fargo analyst mike mayo forecast here on "squawk box." >> banks are on the road again

to the prepandemic returns in valuations that they had a couple years ago >> mike mayo is back with us to talk about the banking sector and what happens next. mike, these stocks are up 20%. i can't get excited about this one. i have gamestop at 150%. it's disappointing disappointing, mike. >> well, look, we expect bank stocks to reach all-time highs in the near future we have more confidence in our forecast given the resiliency banks have shown through the recession, given their road to record efficiency in a few years and more evidence that this is not your parents' banking industry it's night and day versus the financial crisis, instead of credit costs going out of control. banks are releasing it instead of banks issuing equity. banks repurchasing stock instead of business charges and mishaps and banks causing the problems,

banks are part of the solution nowhere do you see this more than bank of america, which i know, andrew, you wrote about during the period of the financial crisis 10,000 years ago was the agricultural revolution. bank of america has had its own version of the agricultural revolution as it's gone from hunter and gatherers to farmers. hunt that mortgage, gather that trade, seize that acquisition, now they're like farmers cultivating and growing relationships, sustainable earnings year in and year out. and this is really just banking -- this is just banking 101 by the way, the call being bullish on the banks. >> let's break it down here. we have a couple of stocks on the screen here. where do you stand on b of a versus citigroup, versus a goldman sachs, versus a jpmorgan >> well, as we said on your show at the start of the year, we like all four of those

almost all of the large bank stocks have outperformed the markets since the start of the year we think that remains the case especially for the four banks. bank of america is our number one pick and if you look at the revenues, they are the biggest bins beneficiary of the steeper yield curve. getting steeper this the largese it comes to cost, credit costs, they derisked for the past decade, andrew, you remember, level three assets, that's not a term we talk about, they were ten times higher at bank of america during the financial crisis, they derisked, and then expenses, they're a leader in technology and digital banking, and fin tech, and they've had over 4,000 paenlts for their technology and they're not getting credit for that. maybe they need to move their headquarters from charlotte to silicon valley to get that. >> that's what i was going to ask you though, we're talking about traditional banks here, you know, if a dollar's fungible would you rather have a dollar in bank of america or a dollar in one of the big fin tech

companies whether pay pal on one side or maybe even one of these companies that have recently come public, whether in a firm or a sofi coming public through the spac, how do you think about that today >> look, the stock market has taken off and it's left the bank stocks behind. the catch-up trade for bank stocks still has a way to go versus a year ago, today, bank stocks have still underperformed by 700 basis points. bank of america in particular, we expect their earnings to grow twice as fast as the s&p over the next three years, yet they still trade at a discount relative to the stock market as a whole. that doesn't add up, except to say that's an opportunity. >> okay. mike, great to see you as always appreciate it. >> my pleasure >> we'll talk to you soon. when we come back on the other side of this break, jim cramer's first take on the trading day ahead, gamestop and everything else that's going on, he's watching it, and boy do i o nt to hear what he's got t say about what's about to happen next you're watching squawk right

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it's finally time, let's get to cnbc headquarters and jim kraimer who joins us now, jim, you got up early this morning, as always, but you are a man with a man with a plan this

morning and you are on fire, you think you can come up with a plan to fix gamestop let's talk about it. >> everyone has to i think that we can accept the fact that perhaps there was a blitz in the half half hour, the money call, as joe talked about, you couldn't really hedge, and then the common stock had to go up, but trying to figure out what to do with gamestop, one of the things that i think we saw square do initially, it seemed ridiculous but okay, paypal, same thing, is you become a deal ner crypto last night on the unbelievably good nvidia call, as a side note they talked about march going to have some actual cards, just for crypto, not going to be important for nvidia, but it could be important for a place like gamestop, that gamestop were to turn it several into a 5,000 store introduction to crypto, make it so that they buy and sell, sell a billion worth of stock, and buy crypto with it and make it so it is an international gaming place where you win bitcoin, i think you can justify the stock price. i have not been able to come up

with anything else, but this works, and it doesn't have to be, we can make it crypto, but turn it into a crypto information palace and you have worldwide games, no wait and see, you play it, and suddenly, ryan cohen, then you start believing, the cfos, they tend not to like to have bitcoin in their balance sheet, perhaps jim bell, that's what he didn't want, ryan cohen is a big thinker, i have a feeling that this isthe way to get this stock higher i can't come up with another way. but meanwhile, just because at one time i worked as a hedge fund everybody hates me and that was 25 years ago, but that's all right. that's the plan. and it's better than any money i've seen. >> 5,000 stores. 5,000 information stores. >> and part of that is information stores, and e-sports, sort of ways for setting things up. >> right. >> i think that is really interesting, too >> and you pay people in bitcoin. worldwide. we challenge the chinese on "fortnite," we know we can do that, nvidia call talked about that i will discuss this with david faber later. this is the way to be able to

make it so you can figure out why anyone would buy gamestop right at the end of the day, juke it up, really crush a lot of people, because it makes sense, it makes sense that the kofz would not wants to do bitcoin, that could be the jim bill departure all of us have to figure out what is going on here, because the retail investors hit it, and we have to protect the retail investor again to what happened previously. >> jim >> yes >> i get the idea, this isn't like a speculation though, for you, you're trying to rationalize what otherwise seems crazy. >> yes, andrew, thank you. that's exactly what i'm trying to be. because otherwise, look at best buy, they talk about supply constraint force gaming and maybe this is a good quarter for gamestop, you had a good conference andrew, and i've got to tell you, i would love to hear, is anyone even talking about regulation of securities because where is that? and is that just something that only hurts the little guy like a lot of people seem to think in my twitter feed? is there any regulation going on right now?

>> apparently not. apparently not but one other question, do you have any idea how this got started? i mean we know the jim bell, the bell piece, and all of that, but i've been living on these reddit boards and i still don't get, i don't get it this time. >> me neither. >> i kind of got it last time and it doesn't make any sense. and we can see the conversation happening. and this i didn't even see nobody saw. >> this is why you can have 5,000 stores introducing us to ethereum, doge coin, and set up world wide contest, prizes done in bitcoin is, this exactly what ryan cohen is doing? we don't know but we know cfos don't like bitcoin, cfo leaves, andrew, it's a -- i'm mixing edgar allen poe with a little melville >> who is that show? >> is that possible? >> nice lineup. >> that's tonight. >> holy cow. >> maybe we should focus on that instead of gamestop. geez >> i think so. >> that is worth watching.

>> you got me. >> see you then. >> thank you that's my plan >> jim, thank you. we'll see you in a few minutes >> dom chu joins us with a look at some of the morning's top stock movers, hey, dom. >> best buy 8% down pre-market 160,000 shares of volume you can see there. the company reported better than expected profits sales though and sales growth at established locations fell shy of expectation, demand during the holiday season eased up, those shares lower right now shares of another consumer focused company, wayfair, active in the premarket volatile, down around 10% at one point and up 4% earnings were a mixed story, but again, this is a stock that is a huge pandemic beneficiary, watch wayfair and another story to watch, domino's pizza, less people perhaps eating pizza, ordering pizza, and you can go to a restaurant in certain situations, that's helping

earnings come in below estimate, same with revenues shares down 7% those are your movers. back to you. >> just in time, dom, just in time to look at the futures. the futures this morning, as you can see down on the nasdaq, but not triple digits, and now up on the dow. make sure you join us tomorrow, "squawk on the street" coming up next good thursday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer and david faber, bonds and equities are going to compete for attention again this morning as the ten year gets close to 1.47. that approaches the s&p dividend yield. high profile earnings on deck, jobless claims, a little bit better, likely some weather distortions there as well. the road map begins with the gamestop trade and focus, shares of the video game retailer surged once again and break down what is driving that rally. >> and viacom cbs is