it's 5:00 a.m. in washington, d.c., and here is your top five at five. back in vogue, investors pouring back into tech stocks but one pro says the pain may not be over vote day in d.c., the house getting set to take up the $1.9 trillion spending bill. texas, back to business in a big way. what one restaurateur has to say about the path forward demand drop, new reports that apple may be cutting production of one of its newest phones. and why many see the covid vaccine as their ticket to ride.

we'll tell you about it on this wednesday, march 10th, and this is "worldwide exchange." well, i guess we should have said it's 5:00 a.m. in boston as well good morning, good afternoon, or good evening if you're in boston or wherever in the world you might be watching. thanks for joining us, everybody. i am brian sullivan. let's get right to it and check the markets and your money after they boomed yesterday. the dow has been continuing to move higher, up three sessions in a row, but the nasdaq had been down four or five days, big time reversal yesterday. its best day since november. 90 of the nasdaq 100 my math says that's 90% rose on tuesday, and all the names that had been selling off, tesla, zoom, peloton, you know those names, they were the leaders

yesterday. tesla posting its biggest one day pop in 13 months after a five-day slide up nearly 20%. let's get a check on bonds as well the heels of falling yields. the bond yields have been a big story. ten-year yields at 1.55% of course, how could we not have a crypto check ads well bitcoin inching to get back to the highs of february 2nd. we are seeing bitcoin down just a bit, but still, 55,000 to 54 sticking now with the narcotics and -- markets and your money. with the big move higher yesterday, the tech stock selloff may not be over just yet. let's bring in rbc capital markets managing director and head of derivative strategy, amy woo sullivan great to have you on the program. does you, your team, your model suggest that the selling in the nasdaq, these high growth, high

valuation names, that is over or is there more selling to come? >> well, good morning. yeah, it's quite interesting and this is something we've watched closely, obviously a big question, but, you know, look, we focus on the derivatives markets and so yesterday with the dramatic moves that we saw we were quite interested to see the what options were saying this whole time, and what i thought was really interesting is through the entire rally back in mega cap tech, momentum, whatever you want to call that whole bucket option skew so that imbalance of put-option demand relative to call option stayed very very high it did not come down as everything else rallied and this is a total flip from the rest of the pandemic when call buying had actually spurred a lot of momentum in these names. we did not see that yesterday. it was their sentiment and options all around >> yeah, and of course we've got the stimulus plan, which is likely to be passed which means that $1,400 checks are going to

go out, you know, not to every household but to every person. we could see a lot of that money put into the stock market if the data from the last round is any indication do you think that will be enough, assuming it occurs again, amy, to give the market maybe these type of stocks another leg higher >> yeah, it's great question, you know, and every time i bring this up, i think institutional investors are like, you know, seriously, how is this a thing, but the reality is if you look at the last two rounds of these stimulus payments, they were heavy heavily correlated to people going out and buying call opt options. this is not just a gamestop and rocket it's across the board in beloved names that you're familiar with, amazon or netflix or tesla, and one thing that i think will happen again is what are they going to put their money in? is it going to be back in these names they favored during the pandemic sor is it more of the

recovery names, in the consumer discretionary, energy or financial center if they go to the pandemic favorites, this has heavily influenced the option skew i mentioned earlier, and there are secondary dynamics of that obviously which could drive the momentum back into tech's favor. i think it will be kind of a wait and see until these checks hit too on an incremental rally there. >> i wonder if these bets into some of these reddit favorites, whatever you want to call them, heavily shorted names, do they influence the overall market, amy, or are they kind of their own thing. >> it's become tricky because i remember at the height of kind of the gamestop madness, you know, that wall street that's formed went from a couple million people on the form to i think eight or nine, and so the reality is it's really hard to discern at some point, right, because there are people who are following the form and placing bets because of it, and then there are people who are watching those people place bets and are playing the momentum off

of it, and that's where it becomes a little tricky to say, you know, who exactly is doing what, but i do think at some point it goes past this isolated incident, and obviously that's related to how much short interest is there in some of these names and become something larger i do think at this point, though, that the community of institutional investors as well as dealers has become wiser to these situations if you look at the speed of some of these situations, for example, rocket, you know, it came and went much quicker but, you know, that being said, you know, gamestop is still rallying, and you're still seeing names that are talked about in that forum, creating, you know, momentum i do think that cycle of call buying is something that will probably continue through the end of the year, if not something that's frankly here to stay as something to watch out for when you look at the options market >> amy wu silverman, a pleasure to have you on nice and early at the top of "worldwide exchange,"

amy, have a great day. thank you very much, take care now to some of the top stories this morning outside of the markets. including a white house meeting on vaccines. bertha coombs is here now with those stories and more good morning. >> good morning, brian president biden is meeting with johnson & johnson's ceo alex gorsky and merck ceo kenneth frasier following the announcement that merck is partnering ceo of biontech says his company along with pfizer could increase manufacturing capacity to produce as much as 3 billion doses of their coronavirus vaccine. the pair currently have an order log of 1.3 billion doses and are in talks with the government around the world to boost that by the quote hundreds of millions and alaska yesterday became the first state to make covid

vaccines available to anyone over the age of 16 who works or lives in the state alaska says it has administered more than 290,000 doses so far with at least 119,000 being fully vaccinated that means about 23.6% of alaska's population has received at least one dose. wow. two great things about alaska, they have moose, and you can get a vaccine, brian >> they have moose i've been to 49 state, bertha, alaska is the only one i haven't been to. you told me if i go there, are you guaranteeing a moose >> that's what i hear, everyone i know who's been there has seen one and i'm dying to see one. >> sounds like bertha is guaranteeing moos. it's early, we'll see you in a bit. thank you very much. well, we are just getting started and when we come back, apple reportedly scaling down

production of one of its newest phones, but why? we're going to speak with the team that broke that story plus, why investors say covid is now the last thing on their risk list we'll show you what is at the top. and as everybody's talking about reopening, and rbi, you've got to hear about how some parts of america outside of new york and d.c. are really doing even now. stick around start your day with secret. secret stops sweat 3x more than

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welcome back dow futures up 118 it is time right now for your big money movers three stock stories you need to know about, so, you know, we're going to tell you. stock one, gamestop, jumping again this morning now at more than 125% over the last week. reddit crowd favorite certainly on the move lately, up 15% right now. they announced a key executive will lead a committee focused on its digital transformation. stock two, disney, its espn is reportedly close to a long-term rights deal, for nhl hockey games the "wall street journal" says an agreement could come as early as this week and stock three, conagra grands, reportedly in talks to sell its he brew national hot dog brand to brazil's jbs. the deal could value at 700 million bucks. the sale may also include egg

beaters, and odom's pride tennessee brands there you go. turning now to shares of apple. among those getting a big lift amid that tech rebound yesterday, and now a new report from nikkei revealing the company is planning to slash production of iphones in the first half of the year with one particular model from its latest iteration, big word, of the device in focus. for more, we are joined by ken moriasu, welcome to you and your team breaking that story what can you tell us about likely iphone 12 production? >> right thank you. we have learned that apple has told its suppliers, mainly in china and taiwan that they are cutting their orders by 20% across all iphones compared to last december's outlook, especially iphone 12 mini. it's suffering quite a bit is what we hear

>> yeah, is that just because that phone itself, ken, is not necessarily in demand or is there any kind of a sense of a greater demand drop across the entire platform? >> well, i think there's a little bit of a miscalculation about the iphone 12 mini in that it's small but it couldn't really differentiate with the other models, if you compare the iphone 12 to the iphone 11, they're about the same price the iphone 11 has a bigger screen the consumers naturally tilted to their iphone 12 mini is a 5g phone, but the consumers really couldn't enjoy the benefits of the 5g quite yet because they are still under construction, and also with the pandemic, people are not traveling, so they have more money to spend. if they're going to buy the iphone 12 mini, they might as

well spend buying the actual iphone 12 or iphone pro. >> ken maryausi, coming from japan, it was a pleasure to have you on, that you and your team broke. we appreciate your time. thank you very much. >> thank you very much ♪ still on deck, why investopedia's latest survey said investors are looking well past the pandemic, we'll tell you what they are looking at. plus, stock picker, joanne feeney here with some under the radar names for you in travel, and fintech, so grab a coffee and get your pens and pencils ready, and get ready to mark down some new stocks just for you. dow futures 1up15 we're back after this.

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welcome back, it is time for our daily vaccination check, where we stand right now in the u.s. and around the world, and it is looking better every day, folks. 61 million in the u.s. have had at least one dose. that is 24% of the adult population according to the cdc, 94 million total doses have been administered now states like connecticut, new mexico, south dakota, are leading the distribution and given estimated infection rates, could be getting close to or are already at sort of that 60% natural immunity threshold, numbers to wash. and the u.s. is looking very good on an international level

only the u.k. remains ahead of us in terms of a percentage of population that has been vaccinated every other country, particularly those in europe, are far behind and as i posted last night, eight states now have cases down 90% from their highs of just two to three months ago. they include iowa, california, alabama, and more. i got the full eight states listed on my twitter and linked in check it out, if you are so inclined. and as cases and hospitalizations crash and vaccines surge, investors are also looking past the pandemic that's according to investopedia's latest survey of the 1.5 million daily readers of the news letter, and remain bullish. maybe as bullish as they have been maybe that's a reason to worry joining us now is caleb silver, editor and chief at investopedia listen, i like bullishness you and i both know that when

everybody is on one side of a trade, sometimes it goes the other way. do we need to be nervous that all of your readers are at almost record bullishness? >> yeah, it feels like everyone is tilting toward same side of the boat, and we know what happens when people do that too much they're more bullish than a garth brooks concert right now we have been surveying them all year, and i have been talking to you about it, they have been bullish since this began, after the first sell off, they were squared and fairly bullish they remained consistent through the entire year, up until the election when they got scared because of the uncertainty, now that that's behind us, and as you mentioned, the great vaccine news is happening, they don't see much alternative, they're as bullish as they have been with 45% bullish, which is higher than the 17% who said, you know, they're bearish right now. that's the lowest level we have seen since last april, a optimistic crowd here as usual who favor stocks and think we have bigger gains ahead.

>> do we know why, what's driving the bullishness? >> i think these are stock investors who have seen ta lot f this before. these are folks in 30 to 65 years old, across the country. so i think it's the fact that there are vaccines, the fact that we see economic growth, we're starting to see the turn in the jobs market which has been very slow so far. plus, folks have been sitting on enormous gains for 2020 and 2019, and they think that's going to continue because low interest rates, they see inflation coming, stocks is where they have made their money, and that's where they think they're going to continue to make their money in 2021. >> we talked about the covid risks and who knows where this will ultimately go we could see surges but cases now are down, and hospitalizations, thankfully, and your viewers suggest that more lock downs or whatever are truly the least of their concerns give us the list of what they are worried about right now,

caleb. >> we asked them what their biggest concerns were. that's way down on the list. the biggest concern is political uncertainty in the biden administration, and what might happen the next three or four years. their next concern is sort of a black swan event, or they're concerned about, you know, potential bubbles, and higher inflation, and then they're concerned about a black swan event, something coming out of nowhere like what we had in 2020 they're concerned about that but in terms of covid lock downs, that's far down the list. it's such a surprise turn from what we saw earlier in the year, given the vaccinations that we're out into the clear yet >> not just yet but i think we can see the finish line or at least based on the data, anyway, caleb. cryptos, how can we not talk about cryptos, they're going up every day. your readers are noticing, your readers are more interested 20%

saying they're going to be buying more cryptos this year, and that's up a lot. up from low single digits earlier in the year. they have seen the rise of cryptocurrency, bitcoin with 485% returns in the past year, and they are nibbling at it. at the same time, they're scared that might be where the bubbles are. those are on the list too. not necessarily on high flying ipos, they think the bubble is in bitcoin, then in spacs, and potentially in u.s. residential real estate, so very interesting perception these are very active investors who have sizable portfolios that are very engaged in the market they have been nibbling at bitcoin, though, they think it's a little bit frothy right now. >> and they still like stocks, 53%, some big numbers there, always fascinating insight, caleb silver, investopedia, have a great day, buddy talk to you soon. >> still ahead, when the final frontier is just not enough.

what billionaire businessman richard branson plans to do next. and a reminder, if you missed the show, check it out on our podcast, available on all the primary podcasting platforms as well. picture not included and march is women's history month. we're spotlighting some of our cnbc contributors. here's sand hill global adviser, brenda vangello with her advice on taking risks. >> for most women, we need to spend time investing in ourselves, to find our own voice and give ourselves credit for our own strengths and expertise. i think so often that men will raise their hand or ask for an opportunity, even if it's at the fringe of their ability, while many women choose safety instead of taking a chance like that. but i think for many, it can be very rewarding, personally and professionally to take that chance even though there is some risk of failure.

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will the tech tuesday turn around continue? stocks soaring but some still saying the tech run, yeah, it may be done. put them in the bank, the house ready to sign, seal, and deliver the president's stimulus bill and checks to hundreds of millions of americans are on the way. and as vaccines rollout, everybody wants to hit the road. we'll talk about getting out and unlocking that travel you know you want to take it is wednesday, march 10th. and this is "worldwide

exchange." >> all right welcome back and good morning, it's 5:27 on the east coast, hope you're having a good start to your day. grab a cup of coffee, hit the treadmill, maybe if you're in europe, grab a cup of coffee and hit the treadmill. let's get to your markets and money. the dow has been doing fine, the value trade has been rolling on. it's the technology stocks everybody is focused on: the nasdaq coming off a sharp reversal for its best day since november 90 of the nasdaq 100 names rose on tuesday and the names that were super hot, then super cold, got super hot again. tesla, zoom, peloton, those names, as well as some of the bigger names, apple, facebook, amazon, you know them by now tesla posting its biggest one

day pop in 13 months after a five-day slide, and big tech, you can see doing well it is indicated it might futures, they are higher, also, oil has been a red hot story in 2021 up 35% just this year. we're a little higher right now, but kind of maybe tapered off a bit. wti crude at 64 buck, hitting its highest level since even before the pandemic following a boom in demand, cut in production, the recent attack on the saudi oil port, et cetera, and oil stocks, by the way, they have been hot. well, getting back, though, to what's on everybody's mind, that is technology. the sector's best day in months. the question everybody seems to have is, could yesterday's move, just have been a one and done situation. joining us dvisers, capital portfolio manager, joanne feeney, and cleo's sarah kust.

thank you so much for joining us i know you have interesting individual names but on a macro level, what did you make of yesterday's action >> well, brian, good morning, i think we're likely to see a lot of choppiness in the market, particularly around tech what investors are doing is repositions a bit to make sure they have decent exposure to a bunch of reopening trades, the banks, the energy companies, some industrials a lot of investors got underweight in last year as they saw some of their tech holdings really appreciate, particularly some of those bigger names, and what they're realizing now is some of the high flyers from last year have gotten pretty expensive. they're rebalancing to get exposure to the reopening plays. yesterday, people recognized those selloffs create opportunities for those investors who are underweight, some of that technology area where we're still seeing a lot of good secular growth opportunities, so i think we're going to see a fair bit of

volatility as we see big institutional investors rebalance, and others recognize that they need that exposure to tech in order to get that secular growth into their portfolios alongside of the reopening. >> yeah, and i guess, sarah, you know, the question everybody has is what's going to happen when we all start to get back out there. i know a large part of the country is almost back to normal already. i get this for us in the northeast, 40% of gdp, we're inching out do you think the stay-at-home trade is indeed over there's this huge fight of, well, you go back to the gym or stay on your peloton, nobody really knows what do you think? >> i mean, i think we're seeing that in peloton, right peloton was up again yesterday, but it's nowhere near its peak, and it's interesting that as the pandemic sort of winds down, as people are getting vaccinated,as people can go back to the gym, as the weather is warming up around a lot of the country, and

people can work out outside again, peloton is at a place where the stock isn't performing as well, where the bike deliveries still take a long time, and while apple is really ramping up, you know, their at-home fitness offerings, while google is experimenting with offerings. it is really really hard to know if we're all going to go back to using our at-home gym equipment as an extra closet in a few months >> yeah, what do you think, joanne i mean, that's the story what's going to happen to the economy, to stocks, to earnings? are we just going to ditch the peloton by side of the road. i went to a gym yesterday, honestly, it was mobbed. >> i don't think we're going to ditch the peloton, but i think there's an awful lot of earnings growth that's already built into a lot of those stay-at-home positions. you know, i think what investors will be wanting to do is look a little bit longer term the reopening is happening

it doesn't mean that we need to append in tech by contrast there's an awful lot of really good multiyear drivers that are still out there. look at the 5g cycle, it's just starting right now look at where enterprises are spending who had to take a year after last year to save money. cisco, for example, starting to see their enterprise customers coming back. if you look longer term away from those stay-at-home trades, what you're going to find is the number of technology possibilities that are really trading at attractive multiples. in the 5g space, for example, porvo is an example of a company that has an tracktive well below the market but higher growth expectations other ones are sienna, qualcomm has traded off sharply here, and it has many years ahead of it in terms of 5g because 5g isn't just cell phones anymore 5g is industrials, it's medical equipment, so it's across the

market in a way that a cellular upgrade cycle never had before so, i think, yeah, the stay-at-home trades are seeing pullback as they probably should given how high the multiples have gotten in those stocks. there are still plenty of opportunities in technology and, you know, i think our investors, individual stock investors are wise to pick and choose, look for fwgrowth at a reasonable price, and now there are more opportunities after the pullback we have seen so far this year. >> yeah, and sarah, where is your tfinding opportunities, you and me and joann should get together and start a spac. we're the only three that don't have one at this point are you buying spacs >> there is spac mania right now, and we're seeing is there more and more spacs, they have to go earlier and earlier to find the companies to take public, and so you have companies going public with very low revenues that are popping

to, you know, 11, $2 billion, and there's a huge question about if these companies are anywhere near ready to be public, and i guess we'll find that out in the coming quarters, you know, and that's not the only thing that is sort of going a little bit crazy right now you know, when jack dorsey, ceo of square and twitter is selling an nft, a nonfungible token of his first tweet and the current bid is over $2 million, right, to say that you tech which i own a tweet from 12 years ago, you start to get a sense there's a retail investor that will buy and sell anything they can, in the case, nfts can't get their hands on. >> spac mania, you nailed it on the head we'll see how this plays out i hope the best for everybody. have a great day

good conversation watching names like peloton, and corvo. thank you. let's step out of the markets and get to other stop stories this morning, including the democrats push to get that $1.9 trillion spending bill on biden's desk today bertha coombs has the latest on why that's probably likely going to happen. today could be the day, and the checks go out, bertha. >> i don't know if the checks go out today, brian, house democrats are aiming to approve that plan to allow the president to sign off on it this weekend, before key unemployment aid programs expire on sunday. house majority leader steny hoyer says lawmakers will take procedural steps to september up final approval meantime, road blocks is setting to make its tremendous trade debut. the new york stock exchange setting a reference price of $45 per share for the online game

company. roblox was valued at $30 billion after raising money in january. >> and don't miss the company's ceo on "squawk box" at 8:20 eastern. and he's at it again, a spac backed by richard branson is apparently looking to raise as much as $500 million through an initial public offering, that's according to reuters virgin group acquisition corps plans to sell 60 million according to the report, the firm is looking for potential acquisitions in its core sectors, including travel and leisure, financial services and renewable energy of course he already has one spac, and is bringing public 23 and me through a merger. so very busy, richard branson. >> he is, and like i just said, bertha, well, maybe the four of us, you, me, joanne and sarah, we're the last four who don't have a spac. we have to get on that.

>> or an nft apparently. >> we'll make the spac also a non-fungible token and we'll sell this segment for like 16 billion bitcoin. bertha, thank you. >> yeah. good luck. >> it's interesting times, folks. coming up, an rbi and an interview you can't miss we talk about the media reopening the country. wait until you hear how some states are not only just fully open, but booming. yeah hard to believe, but true. the data, you know, facts, ahead next

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welcome back, it's time for the largely closed states to get back to business according to the cnbc morning consult poll, more than half of those questions say it is very or somewhat safe for the states largely locked down to get back open remember, half the states are pretty much almost back to normal a huge part of that will involve traveling and vaccines will apparently be key to convince many of you to get to the road or take to the skies bertha coombs is back with more on that survey, bertha >> that's right, brian, after a year of pandemic restrictions americans are anxious to hit the road, and many see the covid vaccine as a ticket to safe travel nearly three out of four travelers surveyed by the points

guide travel site say they would be comfortable going to a destination that actually required covid vaccination nearly half say they are somewhat or much more likely to travel to such a destination italy and iceland are among them 26% wouldn't be opposed to it. while one in four are less inclined to travel under a vaccine mandate. flying or taking a cruise, there may not be a choice. >> we have heard from travel p providers, cruise lines, this is a mandatory requirement. this could be the new normal, at least for a while. >> now, according to the survey outdoor vacations remain most popular with 70 percent saying they would feel safe traveling to a national or state parks, half to a public beach or resort only one in five saying they would feel safe going on a cruise older adults who have been

vaccinated have been flying at hi higher rates than younger age groups, but they're not booking hotels as much, they're mostly flying it seems, brian, that traveling to hug your grandchild tops the bucket list right now. >> and it's going to happen. seeing it with my own eyes at the airport, people getting on planes, going to see their families for the first time in a year it's great news. bertha, thank you very much. today brings a major milestone in texas beginning today, the lone star state ending its mandatory mask mandate, and will allow all businesses to reopen at 100% capacity although, governor greg abbott still strongly encouraging face coverings in public, and the city of austin still saying you got to wear it let's talk about the state of business in texas, with benjamin berg, founder and ceo of berg hospitality with nine locations cross the state. somebody we have been checking in with since the pandemic

it's nice and early, we appreciate it. it's an important top ic and my rbi in the next block will talk about business in america. i was just in texas. it's shocking for us in the northeast, you watch the national media and they talk about quote reopening the country. you guys in texas, you're rolling right now. >> yeah, good morning, brian yeah, texas is really seeing, definitely since january and february coming back today is our big day, going up to 100% in all businesses. occupancy, and obviously there's the mask mandates. but business is, i mean, traffic is back here everything really seems to be rolling back around. >> are you surprised by the rapidity of the turn, ben, and what exactly kinds of business trends are you seeing at your shops? >> i mean, we're a little

surprised about kind of how quickly it's coming back we were kind of surprised about the mask mandate being lifted so quickly. but business is definitely trending up. i have stores that are positive over, you know, over last yore, kind of before the pandemic hit in sales and all the stores are just growing right now. and you get this feeling that things are kind of coming back >> yeah, they are, and you know, the mask mandate is out there, and i know that it's a hot topic politically from a public safety perspective, i get it. do you get the sense that most people are still going to have the masks on are you seeing that anecdotally or is it fully just toss it and move on. we're done with it people are still nervous, and when i was just there two weeks ago, i know the mandate was still enforced but i didn't see anybody without a mask on. >> you know, i mean, you don't see masks out in public at all,

out on the streets or in in parks. i would say in my restaurants, everybody has been diligent about wearing masks. i'm sure there's people that are going to take them off we're going to require our employees to be wearing masks. we'd recommend our guests, too, for the time being, however, you know, we believe in responsible, and, you know, we're in the business to say yes. so we don't want to do that. i think people, you know, people got used to it as well >> yeah, and so your employees will still be wearing them as well, and vaccinations, i know, many of your servers, maybe on the younger side, ben, their number or, you know, their list may not be up yet. are you able to get them vaccinated now or a large part of your staff already or ready to get vaccinated? >> yeah, we actually have a large portion of our staff that will probably be getting vaccinated in the next week to two weeks. i mean, for us, what we have

seen here, the vaccinations have been going pretty smoothly obviously our at risk employees, our older employees, they have all been vaccinated and we have been able to help with that. we just hope our younger employees will be able to get vaccinated as soon as possible >> what do you like to see happen from here on out, ben i know we still might have a ways to go cases are crashing, th hospitalizations are crashing. a lot of people are nervous about what might happen in texas because of the mask mandate. iowa dropped the mandate a month ago, and their cases are down 90%. that said, sparsely populated state, i get that. what do you still need from the federal government, the state governments, the local governments, where do you guys stand right now? >> i mean, i'm not sure there's much we need from the government you know, we have been lucky, business has been coming back. we have had a loyal following. from the standpoint of our larger restaurants, like the

steak houses where we rely on corporate spending we need business travel again. we need tohose expense accounts, dinner we need the business entertainment back we don't expect to see that fourth quarter, maybe in october, that will start pushing us over the top of where we need to get back to. >> that's a great point, ben are you starting to get any sort of larger scale corporate catering events, are people starting to poke around about, hey, in july, we want to have an in-person conference anybody poking around? >> i know, you know, some of the la larger energy conventions are looking to start up again in august so that's good news for us if they're really thinking about putting on, you know, like otc, and if those are really coming back in august, that's really positive for us, especially here in houston

so yeah. >> breaking out the corporate card and all the b and bs. we look forward to it. i look forward to seeing you in person we appreciate your time, nice and early, an important topic, ben. thank you very much. >> thank you very much all right. it will happen he's starting to get attention on deck, speaking of this, the rbi you have got to hear i ran these numbers yesterday, couldn't believe them. but they're true and it's about what's happening with some restaurants in texas and other parts of the country and if you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast, if you missed "worldwide exchange," check it out on apple, spotify or any of the other major podcasting apps and be sure to tune in tonight. cnbc's "on the edge" 6:00 p.m. special with scott walker. we're back right after this, dow futures up modern or reliable. we want both - we want a hybrid.

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it is time now for your morning rbi. we continue to focus on vaccine optimism and the light at the end of the tunnel. i know we in the media love to use the term reopen when it comes to the american economy but honestly that's a little bit lazy of us as somebody who has seen a large part of the country, even during the pandemic and lock downs, i went to 15 state, i can assure you how we are living in the northeast is not how many are living in the other states it's not a judgment, it's the truth. case in point, going out to eat. many wonder how fast it might come back, once states open back up like connecticut just did this might bring some struggling restaurant owners, hotel owners, workers, whatever, some comfort. according to the latest open table data, there are three states right now whose reservations are now higher than just before the pandemic hit that's right higher than before everything really went sideways on march

11th i'm looking at march 7th data year over year here they are. texas, reservations, you just heard ben berg talk about it, up 3 1/2% from march 7th of 2020. oklahoma is up 5%. and i predicted every hotel room and booked in vegas will be sold out by labor day i'm going to be wrong. it might be memorial day nevada, restaurant reservations up 19% above pre-lock down levels again, those are only restaurants that use open table. so there's a little caveat there, but that's the data, for comparison, d.c., still down 66% from last year new york, down 56% to be fair, though, those positive comps we just showed also may be a little skewed. around march 7th of last year, there were people starting to get nervous and changing plans, although flying was the same year over year, so the comps may

not be perfect we know that that is incidental the reality is those places are bouncing back in a big way ben berg just talked about it, and hopefully cases and hospitalizations will keep falling and provide much needed hope for the small business owners and employees in this, the hardest hit of industries, hospitality, travel, tourism that data may be giving us a little bit of reason to be optimistic, and that's a good thing. back down to the markets stocks keep looking -- stocks are looking to help keep yesterday's rally going, he said keith learner joining us to talk more about it. it's an emotional subject. we know people that have been affected health wise or business wise, and you know, i'm not trying to be glass half full sullivan, i get it, my twitter posts are a little bit on the optimistic side. i don't think hope to quote shah shank redemption is a bad thing.

it's something we could use a little of now. does the stock market need hope? >> i think the stock market has had hope already i mean, we have the fastest start to a bull market in history, the economy, as you just mentioned is spring loaded. we're seeing a recovery in earnings, and we're seeing interest rates move higher as well in our view, we are in a bull market but we are moving to the next phase of the bull market. the other important point is the stock market rises about 85% of the time when the economy is in expansion, and one of our big thesises o thesis is that earnings are under appreciated. we think earnings have more to go on the up side. the last time we saw economic growth this strong was back in 1984, and most analysts haven't lived through a boom economy like we're going to see later this year. >> so the economy is going to boom i think we all agree on that, if

it's not starting to now where do we put money, where can we make money in the stock market, keith. what's not overvalued? >> this is all a relative game, right, so overall our strategy is we're overweight equities, overweight over the last year. sector strategy has shifted from last year, where we're much more growth oriented. over the last several months, we have shifted towards a cyclical bia bias some of these sectors on a short-term basis have gotten overheated as those areas consolidate, we would look to add more money there. tech's been in the news quite a bit the last week or so. we downgraded tech last month. i will say we just had the biggest under performance on a one-month basis since january of 2002, so i expect a balance there. we would be lightening up on that balance, and rotating toward the other areas, and one last area we would like for some

time where we have been overweight is small cap, a bit overheated, and we would stick with them, and use pull backs in the area based on the business optimism you mentioned in the forefront. >> we like it. optimism is not a bad thing. love the morning notes thank you very much. appreciate it. look to the small caps that does it for us on "worldwide exchange. hope you have a spectacular day ererou are "squawk box" is next see you tomorrow 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.

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good morning tech rec reversal. investors pouring back in as the nasdaq surges higher futures pointing to more gains again today. roblox is going public today

everything you need to know about the online gaming platform plus an interview with the ceo before the first trade plus, positive signs, speaking of trades, for the reopening trade as more states lift restrictions and open up vaccine eligibility. it's wednesday, march 10th, 2021, and "squawk box" begins right now. >> ♪ mr. roboto don't know what we got mr. roboto don't know ♪ >> i think this is for roblox, guys good morning, welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. roblox, a bill day we're going to start with the markets this morning after investors poured back into popular growth names yesterday it was really something to watch. you had to keep this going all day long the nasdaq was up by 464 points. that's a gain of 3.7%. that was the nasdaq's best day sinc