but the nasdaq there, you see it moving higher today. >> two months down, bring on march. i would just point out, tyler, the weakness we have seen here, not just confined to the u.s we saw it overseas as well the fxi, the large cap index down 4% on the week. emerging markets down 1% today the move in rates higher is the story overseas as well tyler, thank you for having me today on "power lunch. "closing bell" begins right now. >> great to be with you. thanks, cema and tyler and happy friday welcome to "closing bell." i'm sara eisen with wilfred frost. a frenzied february coming to an end with another dizzying day on wall street. the major averages swinging between gains and losses throughout the session testimony dow seeing its biggest decline, down as much as 490 points at the session lows down a few hundred now let's get to what is driving the action yields are retreating following yesterday's big spike.

that is giving a boost to big tech helping push the nasdaq higher by more than 1% force is the worst performer in the dow on the back of last night's soft earnings guidance as we look for clues to the economic recovery, the january pce showing inflation. 59 minutes left to go until we have put february in the books. >> we are just higher an the s&p 500 as we stand. coming up on the show, two great names to help us and a half nate the volatile market. jeff sherman and david zervos will be with us. getting cold feet, shares of foot locker sink after a surprise miss for same store sales down 7%. we will speak with the ceo about the outlook for instore shopping. and aif i were's ceo max l,

vchin will join us to talk about why it is time to launch a new product. mike santoli and jill carey haul joins us. mike let's begin another choppy session, but decent intraday recovery from worrisome lows >> the lows were impressive earlier in the session just went back to the earlier week lows as well. some people thought that was a test but an having cross section of the stocks and bonds it attempted to create this little bit of a floor, again, going back somewhere near january's highs, 3850. we are.chog around the areas at the down 3% from the yule time high area is where the market has so far found support today what's going on is the large cap growth stocks are coming back as bond yields receded. that's helping the indexes even

though the ample stock is to the doing well stocks versus bonds. last day of the month. we talked about a week ago there was a potential to move out of equities into fixed income because of a massive outperformance by stocks over bonds. you see some of it i think today in terms of the bid in long term treasuries and other bonds as well as selling pressure on equities this is still a big gap. fit persists then quarter end in march might be a bigger deal been talk how the dividend yield in the s&p 500 and the ten-year treasury yield are similar the fact that faang stocks have done little in the last several months and they are down 10% and 12%. made me look at facebook and it is about as cheap as it has been ever on this basis high yield corporate debt yield, 4% same low you could either have a growing

business that has free cash flow kicking off it of like facebook or google or you can have more leveraged company debts at this point where the yield is not going to go up not apples and apples. but you are seeing the large cap growth sector being set aside and not look as expensive as it has for years now. >> another point to note with the intraday rebound which perhaps came when european markets closed is how strong the s&p is today up a third of a% relative to national markets, the nikkei done 4% europe and other markets down sharply, too >> right asian markets often trade our yesterday. that's honestliways going on i think it is followthrough to yesterday's weakness overseas. we will see how they trade this weekend when they get up and running but that is correct, it was much more intraday u.s. equity markets got their footing as the day went on >> for more on what to do with this market, thank you, mike,

let's bring in jill carey hall, head of u.s. small and mid cap strategy at bank of america merrill lynch global research. jill, thank you for joining us good to have you you are the queen of small caps and you say it is still time to be in them why? >> yeah. thanks for having me i think even though small caps have had a really great run so far we have gotten bullish on small caps back in october we have seen them continue to outperform by about ten percentage points this year. we think there is more room to run. we are looking for a really positive u.s. economic backdrop. our house view is for 6.5% u.s. gdp growth this year our call on u.s. large company equities isn't that bullish. we are looking for 2800 on the s&p 500 at the end of -- for $3800 on the s&p 500 at the end of this year but we think it will be more about the rotations within the market where small caps are more aligned with the makeup of the

u.s. gopd growth more services oriented where there is pent up demand. that's an area that we see more room to run. i think even though you have seen strong influence recently, this is against a backdrop of multiple years of outflows andnd performance. we think this could be the start of a longer term outperformance cycle for small caps if you look at where valuations are to large, we are trading at multidecade lows it sets you up for a ten year run. >> the thing is, jill, they have already had some nice outperformance if you look at the comeback trs the march lows small caps are up 10%, more than even the nasdaq, from those lows. do you worry that this has already happened >> i think when you look at the magnitude of the outperformance when you look back ate, it is the start of a longer term

outperform for small caps. typically, cycles can be long. they have been lagging large caps since 2013. maybe march was the start of a new outperformance cycle typically the first year is very strong and you could see 40 percentage points of leadership relative to large. kind of similar to what we saw over the past year that second year, typically, the amount of outputs tends to be more minimal call it 10 or 12 percentage points that's on average. that's a little more in line with what we have seen so far this year. again, that's sort of an average level, so it could be much more than that. and as we think out over the next several years, i think there's a lot of multi-year bullish themes for smaller stocks where if you think about a capex cycle in the u.s. there is a lot of drivers for that, not only the cyclical recovery, but if we see a reshoring of u.s. manufacturing, which is a big theme that we have been talking about. if you see potential for infrastructure, small caps are

bigger beneficiaries than u.s. capex cycles than large caps if we do see that return to capex spending i think that's another bullish multinear theme for the segment. >> linked a little bit to sara's question, jill, to what extent are you concerned that a large portion of waiting is energy and banks, both of which have already had a good run in the short-term >> i think in terms of the value and growth story a lot of that rotation we think has more room to run we are positive on value overgrowth in both small and large caps when you typically see -- when you look at our cycle indicators that we track, we just transitioned from what we would consider early cycle recovery to now what our indicators are suggesting is more of a mid cycle where the recovery slows but typically in that phase you still do see value outperforming growth, small caps out approximating large caps

so i think at this point we would still want to tilt towards some of those sectors. we do like financials in both large and small. the rising rates, the value rotation, strong earnings, buybacks of finance. there is a lot of drivers there. energy, industrials -- [ no audio ] >> wee lost jill's connection there. we were running out of time. our thanks to jill carey hall for joining us there. after the break, wartime mobilization, president biden has used battle terms to vib the fight against covid and businesses are stepping up to help with attack we will peay with the head of the national association of manufacturers about those new efforts. we are up .4% on the s&p, gaining. you are watching "closing bell."

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the biden administration today announcing new partnerships with business groups to help with the national covid-19 response. the white house asking these groups to require masking and social distancing, reduce barriers to vaccinations and communicate with customers and educate the public about the benefits of masking and vaccines joining us now in a first on cnbc interview is jay timmons, president of the national association of manufacturers good to see you, jay thank you for joining us. >> pleasure to be here. >> do you think your members are already on board with some of the benefits being talked about? >> i think it is very sensible and we are thrilled to finally have a partner in the white house that is taking covid very seriously, understands that if we don't get this under control we will never get our economy back, we will never get our society back so it is great to have this partnership withthe president, with the administration. yes, our manufacturers have been very serious about this from the

start. the national association of manufacturers have launched about a year ago our creators respond effort and campaign to get people to wear masks and to also distance. and to do all the right things because we knew that we have very unique facilities and we wanted to keep our workers safe, their families safe, their communities safe >> do you think that masks or something that might stay around for longer than just getting over the initial -- not curing the pandemic, but people are kind of more used to wearing them, happy to wear them and may wear them more long term >> i think, wilfred that that may well be what we see. certainly, until we figure out how these variants and mutations are going. we have already heard from our champions the pharmaceutical manufacturers, the heroes, frankly, that will safe us from this pandemic, that we may need some booster shots that we may need some boosters every few

yearser every year of course in addition to wearing masks and social distancing and doingother thing that are proper is everybody should get vaccinated the partnership with the biden administration is designed to did exactly that i was talking to a manufacturer in texas, for instance, they have 650 employees only 150 of those employees were willing to get vaccinated. that means 70% were not. so the purpose of our, this is our shot project at the nam -- you can find that, this is our shot, man.org/this is our shot will allow us to get into the manufacturing communities and get people excited about solving this problem we are going to also launch, by the way a ribbon campaign so people can proudly wear a ribbon showing that they have gotten vaccinated and hopefully convince some of their friends and neighbors and family members to do the same.jay, it's sara.

i wanted to ask you about china. we are seeing contours to the biden administration's policies there. it was reported that the biden administration plans to go through with this sweeping trump era rule that would allow the commerce department to block technology-related business transactions in the name of national security, i think against business requests. this could impact a number of industries could you weigh in on what that would do >> well, look, i think it makes sense to be very cautious and be on guard about serious threats to our national security i think it also makes sense. we've seen over the years, unfortunately we have seen how china does business. we have seen, a, that it is not a level playing field, and b, that china cheats. so, you know, having a strong and focused policy on leveling the playing field and playing by the rules, i actually think is a pretty good idea

the cyber security is a huge issue for manufacturers, as you can imagine, sara. we don't want our members, and we don't want our companies to find themselves willing held up by ransom wear or having their secrets stolen or having all of their systems breached so we are glad to work with the administration to figure out what the rice course forward is. and the president giving him and the administration the tools to protect american business from these threats i think is a reasonable thing but we are going to have to have conversations moving forward about how do we balance our ability to do business not only here and around the world with these national security and economic security implications >> does that include tariffs, jay? because catastrophe rip thai did testify this week in her confirmation hearing, u.s. trade rep guarantee and she said tariffs can work and didn't signal they were going to go

away. >> i have had conversations with catherine, what a great choice by our president to be our u.s. tr we were not fans of the 301 tariffs but we did think that it was an appropriate tool if a president wanted to use that tool i will say this. we have a larger trade deficit than i think anybody anticipated with china, even after those tariffs went into effect so i think there has to be afteraction oz to whether they were effective or whether they weren't. what we do know is many times during the last administration they were inartfully applied, meaning there were times when our own domestic manufacturers were harmed more seriously than, say, an importer of chinese manufactured goods and that doesn't seem to be what the intent should be if we are going to apply tariffs i look forward to a robust discussion about what an appropriate or inappropriate use is of those tariffs. >> jay timmons, thank you for joining us we appreciate it.

>> thank for having me. >> national association of manufacturers. we have got just about 42 minutes of trading dow down 200 points right now. microsoft and apple are on top salesforce on bottom, scrutinized for its outlook. dow, merck, p and g also on the bottom of the list s&p 500, tech communication services and consumer discretion father are the outperformers, the only positive sectors. up next, gamestop seeing another wild week of trading and after getting burned on the last short squeeze hedge funds are looking to play defense in new ways we will explain next night since it is the last day in february here's a look at the top searched tickers on cnbc.com for the entire month gamestop, one, of course tesla is right up there, too so is the ten-year yield, which has caused a lot of angst, apple d c.anam also on the top ten list, till ray, amazon, and palantir. we'll be right back.

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welcome back the gamestop saga returning to the forefront this week after the stock exploded higher just before wednesday's close and after big losses from the last short squeeze, hedge funds are finding new ways to play defense. leslie picker's got that story for us. >> reporter: those hedge funds aren't just looking to use this data to source investment opportunities or do due diligence on names as they have done for years and decades now, increasingly, they are using this data as defense, as a way of really protecting their portfolios

>> these social media conversations, this attention that companies are getting, has potential to be risk it can be risk to the upside, risk to the downside, but i think everyone is roecognizing that it is something they knead to at least start to understand and start to take into account when they are making those investment decisions. >> it was found an increase in mentions on social media was a leading indicator for the gamestop pop earlier this week think nim's cofounder said he has seen a huge outreach from current and prospective clients looking to defend their portfolios the challenge, not all content on the internet is clear-cut a tweet of ice cream is said to be partly responsible for the surge in gamestop this week. it would take a very smart algorithm or human, really, to pick up on that nuance guys. >> the whole point of it is they weren't supposed to have an

edge, these hedge funds. but it was the retail document toization. >> exactly. >> leslie, thank you leslie picker. sticking with the retail frenzy, robinhood is moving closer to settling with regulators over some trading practices and outages last year. kate rooney with the details. >> robinhood is in talks to settle investigations into its options trading practices which have come under fire for being essentially too easy to access for some of those newer traders and those outages we saw in the app in march of last year. this is according to a securities filing we just got out about 20 minutes ago the regulator here is finra. robinhood says it could have to pay a fine for violating finr's rules. this is both robinhood financial and robinhood securities which was at the center of the gamestop saga. in addition to the fine they say they might have to pay some restitution to customers and they might also have to fire an

external compliance consultant as far as the financial hit here, they say probes could lead to losses of at least $26.6 million. and separately, the company is being investigated by the s.e.c. and certain state regulators including new york we reached out to robinhood no further comment on this, guys. back to you. >> kate thank you very much. still to come, it is a critical day for johnons & johnson as an fda advisory panel meets to discuss the company's vaccine candidate. we will speak with dr. scott gottlieb about the prospects of bringing a third vaccine to americans. a quick check on yields. a massive rise in yields of late settling back a little bit today. 1.44 on the ten-year

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wechlkt 31 minutes left of the session. we had a bit of a ramp in the first 20 minutes of the show the last five or ten slipping back again the s&p is now essentially flat. the dow is down 1% the nasdaq is still higher, up

1%, rebounding after a tough couple of days for the week as a whole the nasdaq is still down 4.5%. one big mover today is virgin galactic, under pressure on news of test flight delays, the company says the spaceship two test flight won't happen until may. it also said commercial flights not like lee to begin until 2022 the stock is down 11% on the news. >> time for a cnbc news update with rahel solomon hi, rahel. >> hello here's what's happening at this hour president biden is in houston surveying the winter storm daniel and speaking to emergency response personnel biden is also expected to visit a food bank and speak with volunteers. an fbi official says 2020 was the worst year in decades for vie license by domestic extremists agents are working to prevent a further surge this year. we are also monitoring domestic terror threats ahead of

president biden's address to congress. the justice department has charged more than 300 people with taking part in the deadly capitol hill riots at least 280 have been arrested. an official says that the scale of the investigation is unprecedented. the nasa headquarters in washington has been renamed to honor mary jackson, she's the agency's first female engineers. her contributions were chronicled in the movie "hidden figures" sara and wilf, the book was very popular. that the movie was based on. the movie was very popular hidden no more and very nice to see the recognition they are all getting. >> true. rahel solomon thank you. 30 minutes before the bell s&p lost some gains, nasdaq is still going strong, up about a 1rz. but this is still tracking to be the worst week for the nasdaq in four months. down about 4%.

the dow is the kepgs today, lower by 1% and on the week. the outperformer on the week we got a bit of a switch from what has been happening all week and treasury yields are to thank, after they backed off and cooled off after yesterday's big spike that sent shock waves through the market including technology shares are bouncing back today foot locker declining after a surprise decline in same store sales. up next we will speak with the ceo and whether the stock can turn around in a post pandemic world. you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most and $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

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less than 30 minutes left of trading. what's working today aem, microsoft, home depot leading the dow. those are mopping the biggest losers on the week, having a little bit of a comeback today as yields calm down after yesterday's spike. salesforce is the biggest loser in the dow for the day and for the week it is down 11.4% on the week latest reaction to earnings yesterday. still finding it hard to digest that slack deal. dow, ibm, merck, jp morgan all down there as well p and g down 2%.

shares of foot locker shares sinking today after reporting a revenue miss and decline in same store sales. the ceo dick johnson joins us for a first on cnbc interview. why the surprise same store sales declines when you had been putting up a few beats this the last couple of quarters and that's what wall street was expecting. >> we did have a couple of beats in the last few quarters thanks for having me on today. i think the miss was driven by we had a tremendous number of stores close throughout the quarter. i am not sure that the math work out in the model has the analysts expected. but as we reviewed this morning our european business was really impacted throughout the quarter with door closures we had inventory that backed up in the port on the west coast here in the u.s. i think those two thing together probably delivered less sales than the analysts were expecting. >> more importantly, i guess,

dick, is what you are seeing now, with most of -- i assume most of the u.s. stores are open at this point. new stimulus checks are coming down we just got a personal income number for the month of january that showed 10% growth what kind of trends are you seeing flg we see, yeah, most of the u.s. stores are open, sara, 100% correct we still have 10 or 12% of our fleet closed in western europe and up into canada we are still facing head winds with door closures we know we have a deep engagement and strong relationship with customers, and they shop with us on line but they love to be in the stores. we see head wind but the truth is that we have got great product. heat coming, and the product pipeline is really strong. we know consumers when they have got a stimulus check in their pocket it is good for the whole economy but they love to spend money with us and love to by snookers. >> has the lockdown hurt in the

sense that we are all wearing more comfortable clothes, more sneakers and less concerned about getting the it last newest issue if we are not out and about seeing people? >> it is a good question it is a combination. the confident level is here to stay we have been talking about it in our place for a long time, that people are being more casual i think the lockdown and the covid pandemic has really driven that home for a lot of people. you know, our consumer is still driving by high heat product they want the best they want the latest right now they have got great access to it through our digital sites or our stores. so it is a little bit of a balance. you are spot on with your assessment, that more casual, but our core concern was really after the high heat product. >> dick, i have talked to you about this before, but this trend has only accelerated during covid and that is the big brands that

you sell, like nike, are focused on direct to consumer. and they are even more focused on direct to consumer. and that's where they are spending and that's where they are growing, their own website, their own apps, their own stores i know you are a very important partner for nike and adidas. but how are you combatting that? and how big of a threat does it represent to you. >> i think you have to go back and look at the whole ecosystem. we bring certain customers to the market, cash based customers, customers from neighbor that don't shop as much on line. we have got a secret sauce in our store associates that provide great service. are stores are more than just a place to transact business as we create a more omniphied world and have better connectivity we see the ecosystem, you know, all of us being able to exist in the ecosystem and service the

customers. ultimately, it comes down to the customer trying to find the product in the best place for them that has the least amount of friction. and we have created great digital connectivity we have got a great omnichannel environment with our stores and our digital site and we have really over the years created a good strong relationship with our customers and our vendor partners i think the ecosystem is complete are there competitors? sure, they are our biggest suppliers and we want to figure out how to service more of the customers. >> does the direct to consumer in the digital age that we are in today pose a much bigger threat than it has ever been before clearly, there have been nike stores, reebok stores, but the fact that it can reach people in their hand and they can get updates so regularly, does that

affect you more than it has at any point in your history. >> i think a lot of the things that happened in 2020 accelerated this move to digital. our customers start their shopping experience on their phone. would know that. whether they choose to buy on line or choose to come to one of our stores, it's still a mixed back during the year, 27.4% of our business was done digitally. that was with 100% of our stores closed part of the year. our consumers when the doors opened back up, they want to be in the stores. they want to socialize with their friend telephone use it as an experience. the more spencetial and connected we can make our stores the better our omnichannel environment is for them. it is really why if we look at malls that are deteriorating we figure out how to service customers in local neighborhoods. it is really important that we are close to the community and certainly it accelerated in 2020 but we really believe that it is an omnichannel world not a pure

digital world. we have a number of consumers that have an instant gratification need, they want to walk into the store, immediately grab the product and have a relationship with our associate, et cetera. >> thank you for joining us on the show to talk to the quarter and what you are seeing, dick, we really appreciate it. dick johnson, ceo of foot locker. >> thank you sara. thanks wilf. meantime, breaking news up from the s.e.c bob pisani has it for us hey, bob you >> know, wilf, the s.e.c. is getting more aggressive in monitoring these chat rooms. they just announced suspensions of trading in it looks like 15 companies. they had announced suspensions in other companies in the prior week i want to emphasize, these are all over the counter stocks. these are what we used to call penny stocks they don't trade on the nasdaq or the new york stock exchange they trade over the counter. literally otc ask. they are for the most part literally penny stocks why did they actually do that?

they don't leave much -- they said we monitor for suspicious activity tied to stock promotions on social media suspensions normally last for ten trading days after that, there are some requirements that doesn't amcally mean you can start trading the stocks eng. they can continue the investigation. there are some technical things that have to be followed essentially they are moving in here now the reason they have conthis obviously is they are concerned about things they are seeing in these chat rooms promoting penny stocks peppy stocks have been promoted in chat rooms forever and ever if you think you can move around a stock like gamestop at $7 billion imagine wilf moving around a penny stock that may only be worth a few thousand or

a million dollars. >> it is going to be interesting to see what ultimately comes from this. interesting step to see that early stops in the action are being taken. straight ahead, airbnb's ceo weighs in on the changing travel landscape. and draftkings moves big on a sports betting boom. those stories and many more when we take you insi tdehe "market zone." at the 340e789, we are up .2% on the s&p. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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the trading day. and today we've got vertis investment partners joe terranova with us as well. good afternoon to you joe. let's kick things off with the broader markets. major afternoons moving in different direction. the dow lower while the nasdaq is bouncing back after a massive selloff yesterday and this week. the s&p is up half a percent the dow is only down two thirds of % nasdaq is up 1%. down 4.6% for the week as a whole. mike, interesting that we are seeing a simple reversal of the theme of the week. but that also applies to yields which has been a key part of the story, too. >> it has been a recoil today. a huge rally in treasuries today after yesterday's messy activity a shoot to the upside in yields at least on the short-term basis. allowing the reversion trades to happen growth stocks under pressure along with bonds bounced a little bit i think it all nets to a market

that's trying the figure out if it is going to be a normal pullback zone. everything going on in markets the good and bad is basically about pricing and acceleration and economic growth, what it means for different sectors, what it might mean way down the road for the fed and for inflation. for the near term it is mostly about rotation within the market and seeing if the overall stock market can stay in this uptrend, which it so far is. >> 1.42 on the ten-year. it really is a big rally joe, are you making moves, portfolio moves, based on what the bond market is doing and this adjust men we have seen for higher yields? >> sara, i thought the moves that needed to be made were towards the end of last year when it was very important to avoid the concentration, the bifurcation performance which is now resulting the rotation that michael is talking about you are clearly seeing an environment where the underweights are now becoming the heavyweights and the script for all of this,

sara, it was written in 2016 you go back and study when you had extreme bifurcation in terms of performance in the market in 2015 you had energy down nearly 50% you had construction and machinery down 30% and you had consumer finance down 20% guess what happened in 2016. those underweight, they became the heavyweights oil and gas was up 50% banks are were up 30% and construction and machining up 40%. exactly what's going on in the market quality is going on sale, high beta names right now names that have weak balance sheeted they are where you are seeing the premium being paid. i would liken it -- to use a hockey example, it's like markets have had a five on three power play, a two-man advantage. now that two-player is beginning to look more like a five on four ultimately we are going to

return to five on five play. it doesn't mean that the game isn't winnable it is, it just means it is harder to score goals. i think that's the way we are setting up for one. >> no idea what you are talking about. but i am sure a lot of hockey fans do. >> i am with you, sara >> i hope so it holds together, trust us on that. >> if mike says it is good, it is good. airbnb up 16.3% after its first ever quarterly earnings report the ceo joining "mad money" and discussing why he thinks airbnb will have a leg up on traditional hotels once travel picks back up. >> we found that the travel that people missed the least is business travel. the next travel they missed the least is mass travel, as in getting in double decker bus, going to big tourist districts, waiting in long lines where you are either alone or in line looking at something like behind a flood of selfie sticks i don't think that travel is over, i just don't think that's the travel people miss

what people miss is spending meaningful time with the pulmothey care about that's what we are focused on and that's the travel we think is going to come back in full force. >> revenue down 22%. could have looked a lot worse. the company pointed to improvement. the stock got a number of price target increases from wall street today where does that put its valuation after this big surge now? >> it is still towering. you have to remember that even though it successfully had this ipo and it was a massive pop, it was all about the comeback it was never about what was happening last year. in fact they had to take expensive capital on the private market before they became public $125 billion plus market cap in excess of 30 times sales. all of it is giving the company credit for everything you heard there which is they are well positioned for the world as it goes forward i think that's the story of this market everyone buys and pace up for the model that's going to work,

the better mouse trap and waits, maybe, for the numbers to justify it down the road. shares of draftkings also higher after beating earnings estimates, raising guidance, seeing revenue of $900 million to $1 billion, but draftkings's ceo says they have built in conservativism on the back half of the year. he was on "power lunch" earlier today? potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of consumer spending and other sorts of entertainment and less your categories like trafg and dining out have gone away in those sectors and categories i have to imagine some of that is what has been driving this incredible response and strong activation and revenue on our customer base. that's why we built a bit of conservativism into the back half of this year i should say w the expectation that we will see people starting to get back to some of those other activities. >> do you like the stock in this sector or is it oversaturated? >> i like the stock. i also like penn

you have got bar stool sports along in the franchise with penn but you are talking about a total addressable market that continues to grow, wilf. and the revenue growth, near 40 to 50% for draftkings has been incredibly strong. i think they are pricing in a return to a full schedule for professional and collegiate sports so on that expectation, if there was to be an abbreviation there would be a disappointment. i think it is the right place for investors to be. i don't want to be in a caesar's or mgm where you have got the on premises gaming. it is about the online gaming. whether it is penn or draftkings, these are the two right names to be invested in. let's hit viacom cbs, paramount plus is latest streaming service to debut announcing details of it this week the stock has been doing very well earlier -- it joins a crowded field of streaming options from

apple to at&t, to discovery all piling into the streaming world in an attempt to take on netflix. netflix's khouw-ceo joined cnbc today to discuss whether the new rise in rivals changes their strategy. >> we entered original programming anticipating that this day was coming. i am surprised it took so long but we always anticipated that there would be such thing as a disney direct to consumer product, a warner or hbo direct to consumer product. a paramount direct to consumer product and those folks wouldn't want the make their programming for netflix for too long that's why we got into this at the beginning. we knew people's tastes were willedly diverse and to reach the scales we wanted to reach we had to be equally pleasing >> joe, i will let you take this one on the streaming wars. number five, many questions, how many are we going to subscribe to which stocks do you want the bet

on is netflix going to be dethroned? >> well, viacom is -- first of a all there is a lot of buying activity in viacom understand you still have paramount which acts as a head wind for viacom. i am not excited about the buying we are seeing there the best thing that has happened to disney has been netflix because that has motivated disney to move towards disney+ since november, the outperformance, sara, has clearly been in disney but i believe that there is a place and a portfolio for both netflix and disney these are the two behemoths as it relates to streaming. well over 200 million for netflix. and you are seeing double in terms of the subscription growth for disney towards 146 million the next best players are at&t w 40 million, and comcast with 33. so the right two places to be

are netflix and disney as it relates to netflix, this is a company, sara, they have matured. they grown into the valuation. the balance sheet looks better and can we have said a couple of years ago we would be having a conversation about, guess what, positive free cash flow generation that's remarkable. >> mike, the real outperformer since december is viacom cbs, up 75% or so year to date. >> yeah. >> while they have announced their own streaming platform in the details around it, it's not really for that reason that viacom has finally played some level of catchup to the other valuations out there in its sector >> not specifically for that reason actually it was in the deep value basket of the market it along with discovery have had great runs to go along with it. everybody is having to fall in line and have their own direct to consumer product. viacom management out this week saying they think the average household might have five of

these services i don't think that's unreasonable i think it is kind of core and explore. if netflix is your core service you would have other add ons maybe one network or one series at once and have somebody else bundle it for you. it makes sense but for disney, i think the company was happy to have disney cannibalize itself in a thoughtful way and create the disney+ product not worrying about it because they also are uniquely able to make box office pictures that do $1 billion because of the marvel franchise and things like that not sure you have anything parallel with viacom and discovery even though they have their own franchise and are going to be mining their own libraries for many years to come. >> looking at the s&p. it is slipping between positive and negative nasdaq is firmly positive. the dow is 1% down joe you mentioned you like the losers of last year. that's what is working so far this year. energy, financials, industrials. are those the sectors you leak

lay it out more specifically about where you would want to be in this market that is slipping on the treasury yields. >> sara, it is important right now to understand positioning. a lot of people are paying attention to what positioning is reacting to. i think it's more important to understand how is position reacting we are on the cusp, march into april where you are going to see a dramatic shift from momentum funds. momentum funds are now going to raise in terms of importance and respect and inclusion in portfolios energies and financials, okay they are going to look at technology and consumer discretionary and they are going to lower allocations towards those. so in the near term, investors are clearly looking towards these lower quality names. but i suspect on the other side of that, sara, you are going to get an opportunity to buy quality. and that's why the longer term focus for the investor, i think, should be. >> that's why you have a quality

momentum etf, mike 90 seconds left. what are the internals telling you. >> they have been soft mostly mix new york stock exchange advancers and decliners has been skewed to the negative the mega caps have been supporting to the extent that they have the indexes and the average stock is giving back a little bit out there gold, really looks like a broken trend there. very weak. all week this week now why is that? partially, the yield move has been about real yields going higher not as much about direct inflation expectations that's antithetical to the gold case that's one reason it has been so soft volatility index yesterday remember we popped up toward 30 on this measure. now it is down into the mid 20s again. you do have a lint of a give up of that premium. still a little bit elevated because we have somewhat whippy action here going into the weekend. sara. >> going into the close of trading for the day and the week and the month, we are looking at the dow, down 340 points, still the outperformer of the week

only down 1.2% breaking a three-week win streak looking better than what we have seen from the nasdaq for the week it is higher .6% right now, losing steam into the close. for the week the nasdaq down more than 4% worst week for the tech-heavy index since october. s&p ekes out a gain. loss of moment, down 2.5% for the week and the s&p 500 closes down 17 points, about half a percent, which does make it down almost 2% for the week. second down week in row. wilfred. that's a wrap. >> nasdaq down almost 5% in fact for the week, slipping an extra 20 or 30 basis points into the close. welcome to the "closing bell," i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen and mike santoli, cnbc senior markets commentator. the dow closing down 1.5%, 475 points got close to its own session lows which was down close to 500 with that final gut check as you can see there into the close

the s&p was down half of one%. the nasdaq was up half of one% but down nearly 5% for the week. the week to date performance for the s&p, down 275% dow, down 1.8% all of the major averages higher for the month of february, now in the the books affirm announcing a buy now pay later debit card the ceo will join us to discuss the increasingly pay over time trend and how that could disrupt the credit card industry my question, whether it is a debit card if it has delayed payment. we will discuss that with him. joe terranova from vertis investment partners is still with us. mike santoli, i will come to you first in terms of what a wild week it has been, and wild session. snapshot the s&p for the session, down half a percent, the week down 2.5%, for the

month up 2.5%. volatility back, it has been for a while. >> it has been to a agree we saw the opportunity for this activity coming the second half of february often has a little bit of a choppy feel do it we did think that we were going to see rebalancing, specifically today at month end, out of equities into bonds. that seems like maybe it was going on around the close. inconclusive whether we have done enough to take some of the extended sectors off the boil. a lot of cyclicals were overbought and extended. we are seeing that coming in at the same time that large cap growth hasn't been able to carry the upside consistencally. 3800 in the s&p. down around 3% from an all-time high nothing too significant just yet. i think we would have another several percent down if it was going to pull back further before you could say it is anything more than trying to correct for overheated sentiment and overconfidence and things

like that. i don't think it was the kind of close that makes you think oh, the business that needed to get done got done this week. >> if you had to characterize the reason behind the selling this week you have got to look at the bond market and this rise in treasury yields and what it says about valuations. robert noble joins the conversation, >> sara, good afternoon. thank for having me on i would tell you, it is an exciting time to be an investor in the markets but we think investors have been confused by the recent rapid increase in long term interest rates and also by the rising inflation expectations we are -- we still are comfortable with the stock market and the financial markets in general we think this is just a reflection of growth i mean, we had a solid report this week on gdp, up 4% for the fourth quarter when at times we thought the economy might have been on shaky ground

then with the stimulus in december, retail salts was fantastic at 5% leading to a major increase in expectations for growth this year for the first half and the second half i think we may have a pleasant surprise so what you are seeing is just a reflection of higher growth. and if we get additional stimulus through an infrastructure pack an down the road we will see higher rates. we are not that far off from where we were at this time last year before the pandemic and we wouldn't be concerned at least until we got above 2% using the u.s. ten-year as a benchmark marker we would just stay, stay in the market if you get a downdraft or a decline, we would be considering adding funds corporations, another major point here is -- they are saying our expectations and earnings estimates have been great for the fourth quarter, and they continue to show that the analysts are missing the mark. i mean in 2020, we had a digital transformation of business also, companies are holding the

lean on non-essential expenses so this will continue into '21 and '22 with capital investment and stock buybacks we are comfortable with the market we will hold in here and lead to higher highs over time. >> joe, s&p closed at 3,811. what are the key levels you have been watching of late? >> wilf, you could -- we tested the 50-day moving average. actually, we pierced below it for the second time this week. the 100-day moving average sits about 4.5% lower than what we are here 9.5% below there would be the 200-day moving average i really like resident's comments i think there is economic optimism and that is what the rise in yields is reflecting it's reflationary in its nature. it is not inflationary but it is motivating the positioning to move away from where it was previously, which was defensively oriented, to

more of a high beta low liquidity type of equity holding and i would just urge investors to be very patient here, allow this process to play out and on the other side of it, try and mine for opportunities, whether it's in an adobe, an aem, a walmart, a abbott, an eli lilly. what happened to gm? we are not talking about the move the gm. that pulled back these are the names that i think longer term on other side this you want to be owning. >> it was up today, 1.4% an fda advisory panel is meeting as we speak to discuss whether to grant emergency use authorization for johnson & johnson's coronavirus vaccine. meg tirrell with the latest details. >> we are in the homestretch this 8.5-hour-long public meeting of the outside advisory board on vaccines. the voting could take place any

time in the next hour or hour and a half the committee is currently asking questions fda and johnson & johnson. now, if this is a positive vote and it is relatively straightforward we could see the fda grant emergency use authorization as soon as tomorrow sunday and monday a cdc group of advisors meets to make recommendations about the vaccine. if all goes well, we could see 3 to 4 million doses of this vaccine being shipped out across the united states next week. it is just one shot so that's enough for 3 or 4 million people this is coming as we heard a warn trg the cdc today that the declines in case numbers that are making all of us optimistic started to level off you can see over the past four days cases ticked higher in the u.s. here's the cdc director at the white house briefings. >> cases and hospital admissions in the united states had been coming down since early january and deaths declining in the last week but the latest data suggest these declines may be stalling

potentially leveling off at still a very high number we at cdc consider this a very concerning shift in the trajectory >> guys, the doctor warning that we may be done with the virus, but it is not done with us and we cannot get complacent and saying it is all the more important reroll out vaccines quickly the try to get ahead of this guys >> especially worrisome, the new strains like in new york and california meg, thank you meg tirrell. we will talk to dr. scott got leebl in just a few minutes. mike, is there a scenario where the market could get worried again about covid? it has been on sort of a one way looking forward here toward vaccines and opening up and falling case numbers but we have seen in the past it has been spooked by mutations. >> yeah. >> what sort of risk are you watching >> i think the threshold is relatively high for the market to get really very upset about it you would have to see the trend really reverse even then, the market seems very

confident there is an ability to mitigate these things. that being said i think it is all about the initial position of the markets i think a lot of the cyclical areas and the travel related stocks would aught toly take a hit because they have run ahead thinking it is a done deal that the economy is back to normal in a couple of months joe terranova, thank you for joining us today good to see you. robert nobles, appreciate you being on as well. when we come back, rising rate risk. story of the week. jeff sherman and david zervos on whether more downside is still ahead for stocks as bond yields are reversing in a big way right now. the ten-year yield below 1.40. and telar an exclusive interview with affirm ceo, max lev chin. we will be back, on "closing bell." mercedes-benz suvs were engineered with only one mission in mind. to be the best.

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amazon knows how to do that. i helped deliver 12 million meals to families in need. that's the power of having a company like amazon behind me. major stock market averages closing out the week this the red this as rising treasury yields drive stocks lower the yield on the ten-year note yield topping 1.6 yesterday. it is now pulling back in a big way. let's bring in jeff sherman from doubleline capital and david zervos from jefferies. welcome to both of you jeff on the move right now -- we got as high as 1.61, yesterday on the ten-year. i think we are back at 1.38 right now. the size and speed of these moves does not feel normal jeff, what's happening >> i don't think anybody has been normal the last year on that front we saw yesterday a

very weak seven-year treasury auction. it coincided with the selloff in treasuries as soon as you hit the 1.50 level it seemed like there was massive selloffs there this in the afternoon people were trying to digest what was going on what i heard from some of your guests today i agree with. last year was about pricing inflation. the break even spreads and the bonds pushing yields back up now the bond market and the treasury yield is bleeding into the yield growth story you have seen the reversal today. i mean the bond market has been oversold when i say the bond market i am talking with treasuries. relative strength in those indissees, they have had strong readings for weeks now

i think you are overshooting in both directions here but i think the story continues to be we are in a march higher of yields and nothing moves in a straight line. there is a lot of volatility here people didn't think the ten-year would go above 1.20. the feds committed not to step in here. i think we have a continued rise we see fair value on the ten-year being north of 2.0. it is not going to happen i don't have night not going to happen next month, but it is likely to happen through the course of the year i think the volatility is there, just people are trying to react all of a sudden. and we hadn't seen any volatility really in the treasury market prior to that. >> good explainer there. david, if jeff is rise and we are going to see rising yields up to 2% on the ten-year or even higher which a lot of people think is happening the consensus would say that could be tricky for stocks, especially tech valuations but say not so fast. what's the link? >> sara, you and your guests have talked about i.

higher rates, the textbook story is discounted cash flow models, risk premium models all suggest stocks need to adjust lower to the bond market having been cheaper. one of the things we have highlighted to our customers and clients over the last week or so is this idea that coming off of a zero bound is very different we really took the entire treasury market up to ten years out of the equation. it was 50 basis points or less a year ago or 11 months ago. a lot of portfolios that use equ treasuries to edge had, equity portfolios need to rebalance the bond did nothing for you you had nothing there, there was no protection. now you can get some protection. that's a soothing thing for the bond market because there wasn't

many out there i think coming off the zero is positive for the equity market for bringing in new buyers or should i say old buyers. but jeff is right, this is about real yields going up, expectations that there real growth will be happening in the future that's what a steeper curve tells you, that we are more normal if we had a 70 off 75 basis point ten-year yoet or even zero we would look like japan or germany or one of the other northern european countries. we don't want that we would rather have people expecting normal rate rises are going to be occurring in the future >> so, jeff, yield in your view spiked a little bit too quickly

and may be do a bit of a correction which is perhaps what we experienced today is that a temporary and short lived correction where do you see yields being in six to 12 months's time. where will the dollar be bouncing a bit today but continuing on its downward trend? >> weaver had that view for a while although we have gotten neutral on the dollar after the selloff last year and in order to short the dollar we would need to see it trend down. looking at nominal gdp follows or copper gold, the signals i look at show you should have a two handle today if not something this the mid twos. the market is suggesting if you

go back over the last year we saw a rally in stocks, saw a rally in credit, we saw spreads compress massively and the rates market was holding out yes, we set a low of rates back in march it has been an 11-month climb. but it has been a very boring one. there has been a lot of volatility in the past couple of weeks within the rates market. maybe it is the vaccination, people actually getting dose amgs but you are looking at gdp forecasts that are 5, 6%, on a real basis out there from folks and you slap on inflation you are talking about a very, very pronounced correction if that comes to fruition. even if it doesn't, let's say we grow at a 4.5% nominal rate, some inflation, some growth in there, a 1.40 ten-year doesn't make sense in today's market i agree with dave as well and thinking about risk parity we have been telling folks for a long time that you have to be civil of the duration and the

rates in your portfolio with very low yields. look at the blood bath this the corporate bond rarkt it is due to the rate side it doesn't have to to with spread or default risk, but there is so much risk in the investment graded corporate bonds. they have a record amount of short interest in them today there is investors looking the try to make money on some of these moods. it is not just in rates. it is actually thinking about the corporate component side because it has so much rate risk wilfred, we think we continue the march higher it has been i don't have sold for a while. but i think the most important thing that investors take away here is think about the duration risk, think about what you want your bonds to do in your portfolio. if you don't like the volume it the, you can shorten up. and you can reload at higher level. >> david, worst months since 2016 for gold, just closed down. is there a buying opportunity or

goss gold sliding make send to you here >> it is very consistent with our whole ideas on higher real rates generally starting with real rates of return on capital what i call risky real rates and the risk free structure. it is going to make gold not as attr attractive it's zero real rate investment that's the story of gold when we get to the later stage of the cycle where things start to recover the higher rates on investments and stocks and capital make gold less interest. this was right out of our playbook we started out the year saying higher s&p bit stronger dollar, certainly basing dollar, weaker gold and a steeper curve. this is our playbook this is why we didn't have the recommendation for our clients to be in the fixed income market as well. we thought the ig corporate was off limits you should not touch them. they are one way -- they have one way to go, and that's down

in price and they are not going to give you any benefit if things get worse, if your covid story that you were running before us ticks up and we have another problem, you just weren't going to get that much benefit out of them as you had done in the past when the fed could cut 100 or 200 basis points or really drive those rates even on the back end lower. the fixed income markets are getting interesting. i am close jeff and i might be slight lie different. we are split be hairs. i think around 2% i get very interested in where ten-years and short rate projections in say 2024, 2025 might be. >> you might be splitting hairs but you are also growing plenty of hair. great to have the two healthy beers side by side we missed your three. >> wilfred, join us at any time.

>> i would be put to shame alongside you both we are out of time thank you very much. up next, mike santoli looks at the divergence in the retail industry and whether discounters will remain the bargain buy. and max levchin on when he expects affirm to become profitable check out tesla's price action for the month of february. down 15% for the month down 1% today. one of the worst performers in the month. back in a couple our retirement plan with voya, keeps us moving forward. hey, kevin! hey, guys!

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stocks finished lower for the week let's go facebook mike santoli, looking at discount versus luxury retail. >> sara, this is just another version of the covid beneficiaries versus the reopening beneficiaries trade that we have seen running lieu the entire market. here are a couple of luxury retailers, capri, the old michael kors and nordstrom they have taken off in the last month. wall nart and-- walmart and dol general open during the covid pandemic, on a relative valuation the discounters are

basically as cheap as they have ever been going back more than 20 years it says what is going through the entire market. which is people are paying heavily upfront for the beneficiaries of this reopening and maybe it is creating opportunities on the other side. >> interesting note. up next, affirm's ceo max levchin joins us exclusively to discuss the company's new buy now pay later debit card. plus, eating up the competition. coming up we will tell you which fast-food stock is getting a big upgrade because of a bullish outlook for breakfast. >> as we head to break a look at the nasdaq's biggest winners and losers for the month of february the holidays weren't exactly smooth sledding this year, eh santa? no, but we came through smelling of mistletoe. the now platform lets us identify problems before they became problems. if only it could identify where my ball went. this you? hmm... no, mine had green lights.

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micro loan company affirm announcing plans to lanch a debit card which will have access to the company's pay over time plan with no late fees. it will be launched this year. max levchin joins us now, affirm ceo. >> thank you for having me. >> i was only slightly joking whether this should be called a credit card not a debit card given it will be delaying payment from the consumer? >> no, it should not be called a credit card, for sure, in part because it is sort of the anti-credit card i don't mean to be provocative but the idea of credit cards is

to fundamentally is to get you to spend, get into debt and stay in debt. you will not know when you are done paying. you are not really sure how much interest you are going to pay. and you should expect late fees if you miss payments literally every one of these things are the opposite for affirm's card that is exactly what you are going to pay, exactly with a the schedule for payment is and there will be no late fees under any circumstances. it is the opposite it does serve the same purpose you get to pay for things right now or over time. >> the other thing that jumped to mind that perhaps is the exact opposite to what your company is all about is whether the idea of a card is dated rather than forward thinking like the rest of the business w. that in mine, my question is whether you think this will be a temporary thing you will have to offer until the world slowly but surely transformed to digital payments as the norm. >> i don't know how long the

card as a form factor will be with us. but i think it is extraordinarily elegant andture in the why have line world, and certainly the u.s. transacts with plastic and with chips today. i think it is important to meet the customers where they are millennials and gen zers love to interact with their cards off line we wanted to bring them a card to bring where they are, embedded into their daily every day spend tool it is a metaphor for everyday spend that we are trying to get to. >> max, the theme of the week has been rising treasury yields, rising rates, basically. i am wondering what a change in the lending environment would mean for your business and default rates and interest rates, ultimately? >> you know, it is always hard

to make forward-looking statements now that i am a freshly minted public ceo. can't speculate too much you can see in the last quarterly earnings we have been able to maintain historic growth while keeping low default rates n. terms of interest rates, it is a huge component of what i think about every day because as a non-bank lender, transactor we have to care about such things it is something that we follow carefully. we have lots and lots of leverage to adjust our business in near real time as interest rates go up and down most important is your proprietary underwriting engine. we know how to hedge and fund rates. so i am not too concerned about the interest rates but it is something i keep a careful eye on into when you see rates rise and the economy bounce back, is that something that you think will play into your business model more than traditional ways of spending?

>> you know, within that story, the primary signal that i care about is the return of the country. i think we are all kind of hauting our breath a little bit to see -- you know, vaccines are coming, there is bunch of reopenings, knock on wood everybody starts to come back and look more recall no. it is an incredible amount of opportunity to grow with this product that we have that seems much an option in areas like travel which has been effectively zero growth for the last several quarters because of the pandemic there is going to be a lot of challenges as the country reopens but the dominant thread is the reopening is going to mean more opportunity for this product which we have proven that our customers wants and needs. this debit card will meet them where they are as they come out of their houses and go into restaurants and start traveling

and buying tickets. >> you have been hedged inside the house. 30% of revenue i guess it went down in terms of share to 24% of your revenue last quarter where does that need to be where you fool like you are not maybe too exposed to when people do reopen and will go back to gyms and spend more money on other thing. >> again, i am no seer of the future but i can tell that you the demand for in-home workout equipment is excellent and strong i don't know if -- i apologize for the incredible success that our friends at peloton have seen, but i think they are right to continue betting on then selves we are happy to support them it has been a great partnership. i think the only narrative is that we have growth in other parts of our business that's outstripping, given the incredible growth that peloton has seen i am happy to see what they will do next and we will be there to

help them out with making it easily affordable for etch. >> max, sort of to sara's point, which is the next big driver of your growth is this is it welcoming more merchants rather than welcoming more customers? will customers sort of be less aware of which platform they are using and it is more the case of making sure you are the choice of the seller? >> obviously, merchants are an important half of our distribution strategy and we are very engaged to bring them the best services. we have a fairly powerful -- most important of the two is the bookends of what we stan for as a company the mission that we started this whole thing we never charged a penny in late fees, we don't do deferred interest we are the only ones to staurchlly stick to that and merchants appreciate that.

on the other side of that to do this and run a business that makes financial sense you have to have exceptional technology that won us a lot of merchant success. in particular it won us a lot of platform adoptions we talked about our shutter fly partnership, we have designs on what similar partnerships could look like. bringing our service and inventing new flavors of that service is essential we meet our consumers a the point of sale first. that's important in inventing and reinventing ourselves. still ahead we are awaiting a key decision from an fda advisory panel on johnson & johnson's new vaccine. it could come at any moment. we will discuss with dr. scott gottlieb. plus, next week is a huge week reporting on the consumer.

vee and -- plans to double renuby the ends of 2023.

time now for a cnbc use update with rahel solomon. >> hello sara. the human rights expert is calling on the u.s. to impose sanctions on saudi crown prince salman for his role in the murder of journalist khashoggi in the meantime, he slammed the u.s. report calling it negative false and unacceptable. california governor newsom already laying out plans to administer johnson & johnson's covid-19 vaccine before it is approved for use the state expects 1.3 million doses in the next three weeks. twnba has become the first female player to become an owner and executive of a wnba team. and peter lugar's steak

house now has partnered with madam thustussaud's wax figures. they are only there until march 1st. you have got the act this weekend. >> i think it would be offputting, i think, having a fake person in a table next to you. anyway, there we can >> it makes it feel more full. that's the whole play. >> i can see the angle i am not sure i would go for night so you are not eating in an empty restaurant. up next an fda advisory panel is meeting right now to discuss johnons & johnson's vaccine candidate. the decision could come at any time moment. what a third approved shot will mean for -- [ no audio ]

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thank you for joining us if we do get emergency use authorization over the weekend for the j&j vaccine, is it a game changer for america's prospects in the short-term? >> well, it is going to change the supply equation. it is a good vaccine i suspect it will be authorized by the fda and they will ship between 2 and 4 million doses next week. you already hear governors talking about the additional supply they are bringing on next week and j&j is talking about applying 20 million dose bias the ends of march. if you fact into the 16 million doses they are getting per week, and you think about another 4 million per week fromw this vaccine. we will be able to vaccinate more than 12 million people a month. you add on that about another 50 million americans who can get at lease one dose of vaccine over the next four or five weeks and we are looking at building able

to vaccinate more than 100 million americans before the end of march that is a game changer if you can get that kind of protective immunity that's going to dramatically alter the landscape for risk. >> is the main outstanding issue new variants what do you make of the new york variant? >> i think it is too early to tell what's going on with the new variants people are talking about the variant in california that's become predominant and one in new york it is unclear whether they are more contagious or just founders effect they got into this part of the country and became predominant there has been a uptick in cases. we were seeing a leveling off of the declines we are seeing there is concern whether that could be the new variant taking effect in the last week google mobility

data has spiked up people are starting out to go out again recognizing the revving is going down and recognizing the fact they have been with drawn for about a year i don't think it is a break in the overall trend. i am not sure the new variants explain what's going on. it is too early to tell right now. >> why are they happening, dr. gottlieb we went six or seven months of covid-19 without hearing anything about any carry yants all of a sudden it feels like there is a new one to watch that could be more contagious every week >> they were happening we just weren't doing a good job of detecting them, frankly the new variants were happening all across the world basically through conversion evolution they are popping up because there is so much virus, this virus figured out how to mutate in different ways. it does seem -- [ no audio ] -- sequencing more, so we are starting to detect these new

variants as they crop up >> can you imagine a doomsday scenario where one of these new variants could happen, a mutation, that would be resistant to the vaccine, like other viruses have proven to be? >> i think it's unlikely that this virus is going to change dramatically in a way that's going to fully evade our vaccines the mutation that we are most worried about are the ones that change the receptor like 3.5.1, the south african variant. it seems like it is not going to fully evade the vaccine. some of the vaccines could be effective against that change even still i think if there is doing to be an evolution in this virus it is going to happen over a period of time that we will have the capability to change these vaccines, update the vaccines in ways that we can keep up with it i think it is unlikely to be a situation like you have for flu where within the span of a single season the flu virus can

mutate so dramatically that it can almost fully revaid our vaccines in 2017-2018, the flu vaccine was only 18% effective i think we have the tools to keep up with this. i don't think that's going to happen here and we have sequencing in place to pot emerging variants as they occur. >> do you think we will avoid lockdowns again after this coming summer? and is there a risk as you look at the percentage of population that has been vaccinated in europe, that that won't apply to the mainland european nations? >> i think the europeans are probably going to have a similar the ours we have asked a lot of the american people over the last year and for the most part we have gotten compliance to keep this infection at bay. i think we want the start going out. this summer should be quiescent. the numbers should come down

sharply. this doesn't mean it could be a linear path. it could fire up again maybe in late october you could see a situation in december where we are pulling back, cancelling parties, workplaces are dedense phiing again. fourth quarter board meetings turned into zoom calls, things like that as the virus starts to sped in the late winter of 2021-2022. i think between now and then we should be able to manage through it i think the summer should be quiet with respect to the virus. prevalence is going to come don't. we have to allow people to do the things they want to do as we get into the fall risk is going to increase. i don't think it is going to spike in the fall with this many people immunized by then and having been infected unless there is a new variant that evades prior immunity i think we are going to keep up with this and the vaccines do seem to cover the variants we are seeing. >> how often are we going to have to get booster shots? we are talking about a third one

potentially for the south african one. what sort of time frame are we looking at how many shots are we going to have to have. >> right, pfizer, and moderna are looking at a third booster of their existing vaccines, perhaps receiving that in the fall as a way to provide incread protection against the new variants, looking at whether or not that's going to provide additional protection against the new variants the manufacturers are developing vaccines targeted to those new vaccines, a consensus strain, and r m&a sequence i think it's going to be the case that most people will be receiving some booster this fall and maybe vaccinating a year from them to try to increase immunity headed into the 2022-2023 covid season it's hard to look beyond that. i think this will be an y

annualized vaccine as we get out of this pandemic irks it's joy go to circulate in the winter coronaviruss tend to be late winter viruses this is something we want to protect ourselves with going into the fall and winter season. >> always a pleasure thank you. we learn so much >> thanks a lot. >> up next, getting bullish on breakfast. stephens is betting big on one n.ock they say has more room to ru the details and the name after the break.

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looking ahead to next week, still a lot of earnings. monday, zoom and novavax tuesday we get numbers from fox, target, nordstrom, target, to you on tuesday on thursday, broad com, costco and gap along with kroger. friday, big lots friday will be the employment report for february, which economists are saying could be a little bit softer but don't necessarily factor in all the still la active impact of what we just got, the $900 billion that we just saw we saw it in personal income up think the big question will be what's going to happen with rates, and are they going to throw stocks off course again, especially technology. >> it's interesting.

on a week-to-week base it from last friday, the move was not that dramatic. it was so intense during yesterday and the day before, it really did destabilize a lot of folks. right now, nobody's too concerned about the levels they're definitely concerned about the speed and what it means, i think, for just in general how you value other stuff. right now, what's interesting about next week is the retailers and how they might say about how february is. there is some spending data saying there was a big pickup in the last few weeks maybe there will be some clues before we get the real reopening trade. >> two stocks, tesla and apple both down. >> they came in for some harvesting big index stocks got hit in the mechanical rebalancing from the stock indexes into bonds if there's a silver lining, when

you have an ugly end of month trade, sometimes the first of the money you get a flush of new money and that happened in january and into february as well >> morgan stanley's head of investment management will be here on monday at 3:00 that does it for us today on "closing bell. have a great weekend "fast money" starts now. >> i'm melissa lee and this is "fast money." we are watching shares of j and j. we'll bring you the decision as soon as we have it the chart master's with us he's dpeerg up for march madness. later, making it rain. draftkings hitting the jackpot today. find out if any