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going to take up the president's $1.9 billion covid-19 relief plan, but division among democrats, it remains. it is wednesday, march 3rd, 2021, and you're watching "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc. ♪ and good morning, i am frank holland in for brian sullivan. i hope your day is getting off to a great start wherever in the world you are. here's how stock futures are shaping up on this wednesday morning. take a look, green across the board, the s&p up, the dow up, the nasdaq all up. kind of rebounding from tuesday's losses, and this is after a lower session on wall street yesterday the dow giving back a fraction of monday's massive rally, now checking treasuries, the yield on the ten year, about 1.445, those rates actually rising

after the president's vaccine supply pledge that we just mentioned a second ago let's go worldwide now matt taylor, he's standing by in singapore. joumanna bercetche is live in our london newsroom. m matt, let's begin with you. >> we had a strong day for the markets even though we inherited the negative lead stateside, really buying sentiment across asia today we did have some mixed economic data points as well. south korea, taiwan, japan was a bit of a laggard up by half of 1% it is the china markets that were the stand out performance today. the shanghai gaining, despite the fact that we got a weaker read when it came to services pi, following the manufacturing data we got early on this week the caixin slowed, but we do see

seasonality because of lunar new year break hong kong was a stand out performer, helped by a raft of ipo interest in the city, a number of companies eyeing secondary listings in hong kong, doing a listing around about $5 billion supporting the hong kong market today, take a look at macau gaming stocks. people visiting casinos won't necessarily need to have a negative covid response to be able to go inside. we did see big gains across that sector today frank, back to you. >> matt, thanks a lot. we appreciate it now turning to the early trade in europe. joumanna bercetche is standing by in our london newsroom. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, frank. green is the theme for europe. every single index we have

trading up in positive territory. all eyes today are on the u.k., the ftse 100 we have trading up at 1.1%. in a few hour's time, we get the u.k. budget that's going to be delivered by the chancellor. there have been a lot of previews over the weekend but so far we've seen a very strong reaction in home builders as the government is set to introduce a mortgage guarantee scheme, so that has benefitted that segment of the market. we're also seeing a nice balance in some of the u.k. domestic markets as well. as we're expected to hear of more economic support come through at least for another six months of the year we're all watching out for that in a couple of hours of time we have about 8/10 of a% point higher autos are leading the charge we had results, very positive, first time they released their earnings under the group they have talked about potential for operating margins improving at 2021. so that was taken well by the auto industry. the dax in germany up about 1%, and here we're watching closely for talk of a lock down

extension. there is talk that it may be extended to the end of march there, and of course bear in mind that germany is one of the countries in the euro zone that is actually lagging when it comes to the vaccine deployment. overall, the picture is positive for europe, frank. >> thank you very much. now turning our attention back home. president biden says the u.s. will have enough covid-19 vaccines for all american adults by the end of may. that's two months earlier than he had previously stated this after regulators authorized johnson & johnson's one-shot vaccine, and merck agreed to help produce it. here's j&j ceo alex gorsky talking with jim cramer last night. >> this is a war against covid-19 we have to marshal our vaccines. it's great to see public/private partnerships between johnson & johnson, merck and the united states government. it's great to see not only the fda, the cdc and the nih but

also the defense department involved the more we bring these resources and capabilities and expertise and most importantly, leadership together, that's when we're really going to make strides against this, you know, pandemic >> and as of yesterday, more than 51 million americans received one or more doses of a vaccine with more than 78 million total doses administered, and back here at home, more, the governors of texas and mississippi announcing plans to lift face covering mandates and allow businesses to reopen at full capacity. the decisions come as a decline in new covid-19 cases slows, and federal officials continue to urge states to exercise caution. texas governor greg abbott says the restrictions on capacity will end effective march 12th. and europe is trying to deal with a pile up the of the astrazeneca vaccine. the surplus is built amid public skepticism in the eu, including after the french president made comments earlier this year

suggesting the vaccine was quasi ineffective for people over 65, without providing any evidence in a change, the french government has announced people between the ages of 65 and 74 with comorbidities can receive the astrazeneca vaccine. germany and italy are among the european countries that are restricting older people from getting that particular jab, citing a lack of data about its efficacy in the older age group. >> turning our attention to the u.s. and washington. the is that the set to take up debate over the president's $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. the president working to get democrats all on the same page nbc's tracie potts joins us with much more. good morning, tracie >> walking a bit of a tight rope, frank. good morning, everyone what's happening today is opening debate on whether to move forward with the american rescue plan act which is the president's $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. we'll see some debate and later this afternoon, we're expecting

to see a preliminary vote to move forward that vote could split along party lines, 50/50 democrats and republicans, requiring vice president harris to come in and break the tie. that's the beginning of this the next 20 hours of debate which can take a couple of days will be democrats and republicans putting in and taking out parts of this bill. it includes billions of dollars for schools, the $1,400 payments, state and local governments. that's been a sore spot for republicans who don't think that money is necessary, and for vaccine distribution all of this before a final vote that could come, at least the white house is hoping it will come before march 14th because that's when the federal unemployment benefits run out. a bit of a time line here, that process expected to get underway, frank, with the preliminary vote in the debate before it. >> correct me if i'm wrong, but i heard almost everybody seemed to be a bipartisan call that we

needed more stimulus, at least as early or as late as last year why are so many democrats hesitant to sign on to the president's bill >> so and you bring up a good point. there are democrats, moderate demo democrats who have concerns here, number one, because some democrats are concerned it's too big, 1.9 trillion on top of the trillions of dollars they have set aside to deal with the economy. plus, the targeting of that money specifically to $1,400 payments, is it going to everyone as we saw previously. is it going just to families that are low and moderate income, and what are those income requirements going to be. that's still up for debate >> we have at least 20 hours of that debate to look forward to tracie potts, thank you very much for the latest from washington we appreciate it. when we come back, a wednesday morning market playbook from a top ranked adviser, the names that should be on your radar next. plus, why biotech could be a drop in the ocean, a closer look

at europe's biotech industry and what it could take to scale that up. reddit strikes again, sending the price of one stock surging on no apparent news at a ry ve busy hour ahead when "worldwide exchange" returns stay with us [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. in the romo household

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and welcome back stocks coming off a broadly weaker session as rising rates, they continue to dampen the investor appetite for growth, but this morning those fortunes

may be turning around. joining us now is greg sarion, ceo soft sarion investors at high tower thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me back >> you said brace for volatility, markets up monday, down yesterday, futures up again today. how much do you see that as being tied to bond yields? >> i think that's certainly one of the prime factors that's not going away anytime soon, frank, as we continue to see additional stimulus as your previous guest mentioned, signs of economic recovery, we think these bond yields are going to come up. you mentioned the robinhood trade moving from stocks into crypto and focus is on vaccine distribution and stimulus. we believe by the summer you're going to see tax reform come to surface, and now individuals and corporations think about higher tax rates, i think this is all a recipe for this level of volatility throughout the year. >> we'll have to continue to

watch the vix, greg. a lot of talk about bonds and how they might impact equities, a lot of people concerned about that there are people with fixed income investments as a big part of their portfolio for people that really want to double down or invest more in fixed income, what would you suggest? what's the strategy you should use as we're seeing these bond yields rise? >> it's a really important question, frank, because the last decade, and the last year especially, it's been a rising tide for all income investments, bond funds, corporate taxable, tax free, i think in this period of rising rates, people are seeing it. as of friday, the aggregate bond index was negative year to date. we believe that you should take a satellite approach to your bonds. the bonds are the fixed safe portion of your portfolio. you want to stagger maturities, where your interest, principle payments are guaranteed. especially for those in higher tax brackets, frank, the spread of tax free, taxable debt has been pretty positive over the

last year. we believe that trend continues too. just understand what you own, and we're not suggesting that high yield, look what the fed is doing, investing in mortgage backed securities and corporate debt we think that's proemt make -- appropriate make sure the core bond is in a fixed lateral portfolio. >> you're not just a bond guy. you talk about two different funds, a life care and health sciences fund, etihx, and the spem, tell us with the reopening happening and we're seeing that rotation into materials and industrials, other investors doubling down on that reopening, why are you looking at health care and outside the u.s. when the world's biggest economy looks poised to reopen >> for sure, and we're not suggesting that those cyclical names won't do well in the next six to nine months however, i think it's important to understand what worked really well last year may not work as well going forward and so when you think about disruptive technologies, think

about the largest growing segment of our population, over 65 and above that population is going to need more health care, innovation by growing, biotechnology companies that are developing gene therapy, cell therapies, genomics these are trends we see. look at what we learned in the next scene, delivery in less than 12 months those same efficiencies are being applied now to all of these diseases so there's a burgeoning amount of growth that's happening in these emerging health care sectors that we think warrants investors' consideration. >> greg, some great insight. appreciate having you. fellow philly guy like me. let's hope the eagles rise like bond yields. still on deck, no problem for oscar health as it heads to the new york stock exchange for the first day of public trading, a closer look at what's at stake coming up next today's big number,

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it's been a banner year for the biotech sector, the ibb,

it's up 59%. its european counter part, the next biotek index is up more than 30% more room for growth if european biotech gets more room for sappal sofinnova, a cross over fund dedicated to med tech investments, the managing partner and chairman of sofinnova. nice to have you. >> thanks very having me >> congrats on the news of your fund let's talk about the fund. can you describe the situation in europe when to comes to biotech, and pharma and med tech companies, and why are we seeing not under performance but less of a performance than we're seeing in the u.s. >> europe has grown in the last 20 years we started later than the u.s.,

but we are making good end roads to funding companies, so initially earlier stage companies were able to be funded the gap that we saw was also in the later stages the u.s. has done tremendously, all the crossover funds, late stage, pre-ipo funds coming to the u.s. and funding those companies. what we have done is help to bridge that gap. >> so you're saying there's a gap, but why is there that gap in europe? i mean, besides capital, what are these companies missing that they're not catching up to the u.s. companies >> it's a question of time, and competence you know, those companies were grown in the last 20 years, while you had already biogen, many others in the u.s we started late and had to learn to build the companies that's what the continent is doing, so as i said, earlier stage companies in the early stages of their development

managed to get the cash, but when you get towards, you know, the moment where you're going to enter the public markets, this is where european companies were not at the right level, so they need more money to be able to ultimately reach that gap, and get into the u.s the fund that we have launched among other funds on the platform allows that it prepares companies to be able to ready themselves basically to be nasdaq ready, and raise money where the money is and a lot of it is on nasdaq >> so antoine, let's talk about the deals you're looking to make with that $540 million, how will you describe the companies you're targeting, and how many of these deals do you want to make at the end of the day >> so those companies are the later stage, meaning they're already treating patients with their product. they have not yet reached clinical approval. they have already demonstrated what they are trying to bring. it's not just of course covid

has indicated to everyone how important health care was. this is oncology, cardiovascular disease, those are the companies we fund european and most places, later stage with demonstration that their product could save lives and then we bring the capital to help them, you know, cross over to the u.s. and cross over to the public markets. >> so one last quick question. you cite biontech, pfizer partner in vaccine development as an example of a european biotech that's exceeded. why can't these other companies follow that same path, and if your fund is successful, and you're able to find more companies like a biotech, what's the benefit to the world as far as innovation and what's the benefit for investors? >> the beauty is you know the name biotech, you know moderna, you know biontech, two of the companies that have emerged over the year that tells you europe is on top with what is possible, so you know, if you treat patients, you

save lives, ultimately this is going to be good for investors this is what we preach every day, and we believe backing those companies, early stage or later stage that bring a product to patient, ultimately this translates into financial return and that's why we were oversubscribing our fund people can see that now. the risk profile of those companies might be the same, but the impression of risk is different. and hence, everyone wants to be in biotech. >> congratulations on the fund and thanks for being with us have a good day. >> bye bye. in this morning's top headlines, nbc's phillip mena is in new york with the latest. breaking news out of iraq, where ten rockets vuk al-asad air base, according to u.s. led coalition forces there are no reports of casualties or serious damage we have an update on the investigation into that scary

crash last week involving tiger woods. the los angeles county sheriff's department executed a search warrant for the car's black box. a sheriffs deputy said the warrant was due diligence as part of their investigation but did not consider it part of a criminal investigation the sheriff's department added there was no probable cause to draw tiger woods' blood to determine if he was under the influence at the time of the crash. 32 million americans have gotten one dose of the covid vaccine, including dolly parton. >> ♪ vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, i'm begging of you please don't hesitate ♪ ♪ vaccine vaccine vaccine cause once you're dead then that's a bit too late ♪ >> the country icon got a dose of her own medicine, too, her shot was the moderna vaccine you may remember the research from that she'd helped fund with a $1 million donation. got to love her.

frank, back to you >> definitely putting her money where her shot is, literally we appreciate it. coming up ahead, why our next guest says growth is not dead in 2021, and she has three names in one sector you should be watching in the weeks ahead. if you haven't already subscribed to our podcast, you should if you missed "worldwide exchange," check us out on apple, sti, pofyand other podcast apps we will be right back. stay with us so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down,

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stocks look to get the march rally back on track after giving up games futures are solidly higher johnson & johnson striking a major deal with merck to ramp up production of its covid-19 vaccine as j&j's ceo lays out the path forward for more inoculations and tech stocks looking to rebound amid emerging bond yields could it be a little too late. it is wednesday, march 3rd, 2021, and you're watching "worldwide exchange" right here on cnbc. and welcome back, i'm frank holland in for big papa, brian sullivan let's take a look at how your stock futures are looking halfway through this 5:00 a.m. hour and the futures green across the board, all up more than half a percent. you see the dow looking poised to pop as many as 230 points at the open when it comes to bond, that

ten-year yield, it's been watched closely all week as it's been rising and took a dip yesterday. this morning, up 1 p.445%, if y want to round up a little bit. turning to energy, crude hovering around $59 a barrel, wti coming off the first three-day losing streak since december to other top stories this morning, the senate is set to take up the $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief package approved by the house as soon as today. president biden spoke with the chamber's democrats yesterday in a bid to unify support for the measure which needs all 50 democrats to vote for it the senate is expected to pass a different version of this relief bill sending it back to the house for approval as democrats look to get the measure to president biden before march 14th, when some unemployment aide expires. and shares of oscar health are set to begin trading as the start up goes public the ipo was priced the $39 above

its raised price range the offering gives the insurance start up which was cofounded by josh kushner, and backed by google, a valuation of $7.7 billion it will trade on the new york stock exchange under the ticker oscr and johnson & johnson ceo is pra praising his company's partnership with merck aimed at boosting production of covid-19 vaccine. those stocks up. speaking with jim cramer on "mad money" last night, alex gorsky discussed getting more treatments out to more americans. >> once we have enough supply, that what can happen hopefully is we can lower the age requirements and some of the other guardrails that are currently in place, and understandably so, and then we can get more vaccines. we can go through the stadiums, the high through-put centers, more of the communities, particularly the under served communities, we need to make sure we're reaching out there and doing a better job all right, now turning to

washington, and the development and the push to reform immigration in this country. a group of some of the biggest businesses putting their weight behind the push for a permanent path to citizenship for daca recipients ylan mui joins us with who is behind this endeavor. >> corporate america is mounting a full court press to create that pathway to u.s. citizenship for young undocumented immigrants known as the dreamers we got an early look at the new push from dozens of biggest names, uber and apple, best buy, and target i spoke to ibm's human resources officer, 40 dreamers currently work at the company, one is a technical analyst, another on a leadership team. >> they pay federal, state and local taxes. they teach our children in schools. they serve in the military, and the pac has put even more spotlight on the role that dreamers play in the u.s.

economy. we support dreamers not just because it's the right thing to do but frankly because it's good for business >> today these companies are flooding capitol hill virtually and connecting their workers with lawmakers to try to make their case they're highlighting data that shows that dreamers contribute about $350 billion to the economy and about $90 billion in tax revenue. they're trying to create momentum in congress to finally pass the dream act, which is championed by democratic senator dick durbin, and republican lindsey graham, the business community believes this is an issue they can lead on, and they're hoping lawmakers will follow back to you. >> what's a likelihood that a bill on the dreamers actually getting passed >> there is actually bipartisan support here, something dick durbin and lindsey graham have not been people who have been on the same page over the past four years. one of the questions is whether

the bill passes as a stand alone or if it becomes part of a broader immigration push this is the 20th time that senator durbin has introduced a version of the bill. and senator lindsey graham is realistic in saying he did not thing this could pass on its own. the question for democrats in particular as they get beyond covid relief is what is the political strategy going to be, how do they structure this package, democrats and republicans have been so close before in trying to get this done, a lot of businesses believe this could be the year that it finally happens. >> ylan, thank you very much thanks for the latest out of washington. back to the markets and a closer look at tech. the sector has come under pressure from rising beyond yields, the i share russell seeing a 1% loss yesterday momentum in faang etfs got hit joining me is joanne feeny, adviser capital partner and portfolio manager. good morning. >> good morning, frank >> the nasdaq is about even with

the broader market in 2021, and we're seeing evidence that when investors said they were going to rotate into materials, they're going to do that tech only up about a percent and a half do you see this trend continuing >> it terms on where you go. in terms of the indices, could be the case. that's really where investors have to take care. it's not just those sectors you mentioned, frank it's also energy and finanfinancials and that makes a great deal of sense. we're at the beginning of an economic recovery. when we look for selecting individual stocks, which we hold for our clients, what we want to do is stay exposed to tech but we want to be more careful about it we want to avoid high multiple stocks which can tend to pull back as we saw, pretty sharply when rates rise, and rightly so. those higher rates are higher discount on future earnings, and so therefore, those multiples are likely to contract that's going to be a head wind for some companies

we still find an awful lot of places we can do in tech to make sure we give exposure to growth for our clients, as well as the broader economic reopening play that we are really enthusiastic about this year. >> we're going to get to picks in tech in a minute. i have to ask you a question i think a lot of people on wall street are asking, why don't earning and guidance matter anymore. we saw zoom, they had a great quarter and the stock dipped it's up on premarket, important to note. and logitech, really good earnings and guidance, and the stock has been down since. >> there's a lot of growth built into the stocks already. look what happened last year particularly the companies that were really exposed to the move to stay-at-home trends it's like five years worth of growth were pulled into the ten months since covid started, so i think investors are looking for a bit more when we compare the earnings to expectations, we have to adjust what the investor expectations are, the professional investors,

compared to the sales side analysts on wall street are saying obviously it's the case now that the institutional investors are putting much higher numbers on those earnings expectations than the sales side is doing, and that's actually not uncommon if you look at the data typically sales side analysts are a little bit behind earnings and they like to see them beat by the companies when they report, and so it doesn't surprise us that those so called whisper numbers of the institutional by side are running above the expectations that are printed in the figures that most cite >> let's get to your favorite places to invest you're a big fan of fin tech, you gave us names, stone, encino and pay pal. financials are up big as interest rates have risen. how does the interest rate story play out with the fintech companies? >> there's lots of connection there. one does have to be careful, pick, and choose, but these are

companies that have higher multiples, why do we like them even though rates are rising we think their growth potential is well ahead of where expectations currently sit if you look at fintech, you're asking the question, how important is the move to digital currencies i don't mean bitcoin, i mean the digital transactions that are taking over, particularly since covid started. stone company, for example, is brazil's version of sort of a paypal, and in brazil, it's just beginning to see the transition from cash payments, in-person payments to online ordering and these digital payments so we think there's a lot of growth ahead, and companies typically have a lot of leverage as revenue goes up, earnings go up even more we think these companies, stone, encino, pay pal, can actually stay ahead of the head wind, coming from rising rates >> joanne feeney, we appreciate the insight. have a good morning, thanks. the top stocks on the move, including rocket companies finding itself at the center of

the reddit investing rebellion first, before we head to break, other top stories. microsoft says chinese hackers have been targeting e-mail server software. the tech giant says the group has been trying to steal information from a number of american targets including universities, defense contractors, law firms and infectious disease researchers microsoft said it has released security upgrades to fix those vulnerabilities. real estate title firm doma is set to go public through a spac deal, the company has agreed to combined with capital investment corp. which has seen wild swings in shares on that news. samsung is considering more sights in the u.s. for its $17 billion chip plan. according to reuters, the company is looking at two sites in arizona, and another in new york on top of previously reported candidate, austin, texas. global foundries has announced they will invest $1.4 billion to raise output at three factories in the u.s.,

singapore, and germany amid the global shortage of chips "worldwide exchange" back in a moment

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exceeding $100 million shar shares of nordstrom under pressure, thanks to demand at its rack business: shipping delays are holding up holiday merchandise from getting to store shelves and stock rooms on time inventory levels should rush to normal by the second quarter and shares of rocket company are surging in the premarket after a 70% gain yesterday and a trading haul on no apparent news the online lender is one of the most shorted stocks on wall street with 40% of available shares being sold short, making it a prime target for day traders on reddit's infamous wall street bets company ceo jane farner is speaking at -- jay farner is speaking at a conference we'll see if he has anything to say on the stock action. the index is down in three of the past four sessions and is

about 1% off of its record high, but it's still up more than 8% for the year amid optimism over the reopening of the economy, let's talk more about this now with katherine thompson, ceo of the thompson research group good morning. >> good morning, frank we have to talk about bond yields in a second are those imports in the tr transport at all. >> driving not only the overall economy but also the dow transport, just optimism on the economy reopening. we have vaccines are getting rolled out, covid cases are dropping across the u.s. let's face it, people are ready just to get back to normal even if there is a new normal >> got it. >> the second driver, i would say, frank, to think about is the stimulus plan that biden has working on it's $1.9 trillion covid stimulus plan addresses key priorities for biden, that includes accelerating covid-19

vaccination, getting kids back to school, and putting another precedent in the past, the economy stupid, he's getting back to the economy, and those are the top priorities, helping to fuel this overall run. >> so those are two big factors, obviously, and they're going on right now, but there's also things in the future that investors are looking at, including the president's infrastructure plan. how do you see that impacting transactions going forward >> there has been a lot of talk about it it's a little bit like big foot. a lot of talk, but no one has actually seen a plan that has come to fruition for many years. that said, there definitely seems to be greater support for this but the reality is, this is most likely going to happen in late '21 or early '22 and here's the reason why. congress already passed an extension of the federal highway bill that expires in september '21. so we don't see anything

happening before then. but that said, there also is a band-aid for some help with state departments of transportation, about $10 billion, at the end of 2020 that will help kind of move it along, or at least make up for lost dollars that were lost due to covid so overall, what we can expect from a new infrastructure plan is not going to be just roads, but you're going to see about green alternatives, you're going to see broad band, utilities, anything that supports green initiatives. >> so let's get to some of the companies that you think are going to benefit from these three different trends, especially infrastructure. one of the ones you mentioned is balkan materials corp., explain the play there, where there's an infrastructure plan or a general reopening. >> one thing you need for building pretty much anything, whether it's a wind farm or a road or a refueling station or

heavy materials, one of the largest heavy material producers, along with martin, marietta, and really kind of what you have to have this material, so it's kind of a win-win, whether you're focusing on more traditional infrastructure. >> and you name a few other companies, jacob engineering, tutor parini, and rail car maker. something a lot of people don't talk about rail has been having a strong last few quarters, trm, can you explain the play for them as well >> if we focus on rail cars, you have to move products across the u.s. with the opening of the economy, you're going to have more and more goods and services that flow into the u.s. just was in charlson recently, and the port of charleston, the port of savannah are the busies

they have had in their history part of it is the widening of the panama canal, and the reopening of the economy once you get those, it can't just be a road rails are an important driver of the goods as we get them all across the u.s if you're in south avannah or charleston, rails are an important driver for getting products across the u.s. >> kathryn thompson of thompson research group, we appreciate the insight as always. have a great day. stocks looking to regain march madness. veritex, where he sees opportunities in the market. if you haven't subscribed to our podcast, go ahead and do it. you can check us out on apple, spotify, and many podcast apps and we will be right back. kay to do some things halfway... but taking prescriptions shouldn't be one of them. so cvs has a proprietary search tool that looks for savings. plus free delivery.

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and welcome back to "worldwide exchange. here's a look at what you need to watch in the day ahead. we'll get the latest gauge on the employment picture at 8:15 eastern with the february adp employment report. expectations are for a gain of 225,000 jobs after january's 174,000 rise second, the latest read on u.s. manufacturing with the ism services index the february figure out at 10 eastern, expected to remain unchanged at 58.7. and third, the federal reserve's beige book at 2:00 p.m. eastern, the read on economic conditions comes as a number of fed members speak today. turning back to the markets, stocks looking to regain momentum after giving back some of their sharp gains for monday, and your next guest says he's seeing a number of opportunities in some big names set to ride a further rebound. gregory branch is the managing partner at veritas financial

group. thanks for being here. futures obviously up today after yesterday's slide. what do you make of it, and where are the opportunities in the day ahead? >> sure, frank, so a couple of months ago, the opportunity was pretty obvious and easy to recognize. we had very concentrated market breadth, and we had valuations that were just screaming out to us that this is way too cheap. but since november over the last three months, the valuation ground has largely been made up. so the question is what do we do when the multiples are actually right? and when you look at the bank indexes, for example, they're up 50% since november lots of cyclical sectors are up in similar fashion so when the multiples is just about right, when there's not an easy opportunity in getting back to an average multiple, the challenge is to take out our stock pickers tool kit and look

for, on the other end of that multiple where we see earnings to be underestimated largely, that will often articulate itself in stories, in themes, in multiquarter catalysts that we can articulate and pin our hats on. and ai see a number of those tht are developing on the one hand, you know, you referenced the job reports well, we still have about 11 million jobs to make up. while we have had a heightened savings rate, that's largely been concentrated in the upper socioeconomic groups i i like retailers that are value plays for the consumer, that lend themselves to budget shopping in particular, in that segment, which includes a name like ross, t.j.maxx, walmart, and target, i like those that are also attached to another theme, which is e-retailing so e-retailing has gained a decade worth of share in the last 12 months and two retailers in particular, target and walmart, you've seen the results they have just reported. you have seen they have beat on

a number of metrics. they're actually investing in the e-retail more so than their peers. not only just in terms of their capabilities from the web site, but also their fulfillment is superior their delivery is superior, and they're taking those learnings and implying them back into the store fronts as well >> so greg, i mean, i think investors agree with you consumer discretionary up 41%. one of the best performing, the best performing sector in the s&p. i take that back it is, sorry about that. had to take another look at the numbers. another well performing sector is financials. you're bullish on a number of big banks as well. >> right i'm very discriminating when it comes to that sector the indexes are up 50% since november, so i'm looking for safe haven i'm looking for that earnings underestimation on the part of consensus in the larger platforms and so last time around we came out of the great

financial crisis, it took about ten years for rates to peak above 2% we have had promising signs over the last few days, and the last week, but i'm not sure that's lasting. particularly as it took us last time around ten years for rates to peak. now on the credit side we started provisioning at around 4%, 2008, 2009, and that dipped below 1% we secret to recover than we might see net interest margin, and so that advantages players who can make money outside of those traditional commercial banking activities the traders that have issuance, that have advisory, that have strong capital markets in management, and that naturally favors the j.p. morgans, goldman sachs, morgan stanleys of the world, so i would continue to look to those names, particularly as we've seen, they've started to release their provisioning we still have let yet to see the

pesky ncos, at the same time, we know by their releases, they are well capitalized to what they see as their burden the back half of the year, and i expect that to be a tail wind along with the capital markets activity >> greg, we're almost running out of time. one more question, i have to ask you about wall street bets, the reddit trading revolution, whatever you want to call it what do you make about what you saw with rocket companies yesterday. >> so this is something i don't really have a lot of empathy for either side of the debate, on the professional side, right, you know, we're the professionals, and so to the extent that we're going to cry about market manipulation, you know, we have a choice whether or not we're going to be active in the stocks or markets or whether or not we're going to withdraw and on the retail side, you know, i think we have to know, and i count myself as a retail investor to some extent,

certainly for most of my life, we have to know there's an information disadvantage >> greg, i got to cut you off. the show is almost over. the fact that you laughed about, you're one of the few on wall street >> always a pleasure my friend. >> that does it for us on "worldwide exchange. "squawk box" up next lately, it's been hard to think about the future. but thinking about the future, is human nature. ♪♪ at edward jones, our 19,000 financial advisors listen and work with you to create personalized investment strategies to help you get back to drafting dreams and building your future. edward jones. it is time for investing to feel individual.

good morning, the reopening rally picking up steam president biden announcing the u.s. will now have enough vaccines for every adult in the country two months ahead of schedule meanwhile, texas is lifting its mask mandate, as well as capacity limits on businesses. we're going to talk to the governor of georgia this hour

about the path to reopening. the reddit trade back on this time for, seems appropriate, rocket companies highly shorted stock surge, 70%. 70% yesterday. it's up again this morning it's wednesday, march 3rd, 2021, and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ just keep your eyes on me i said you're holding back ♪ ♪ she said shut up and dance with me this woman is my destiny ♪ >> good morning, everybody, welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. and we've been watching the u.s. equity futures at this hour. things are looking pretty good if you're a bull dow futures indicated up more than 200 points a gain of 213 right now, and this comes after a down day for the markets yesterday. the dow was off yesterday i think it was by about 140 points, give or take some. it was the best performer, though it was only down by less

than