good afternoon, everybody, welcome to "power lunch. it has been one year since the covid outbreak hit the stock market since then, stocks have been on what seems like an unstoppable run and it could all be resting in the hands of fed chair jerome

powell we'll explore that this hour. plus, retail sales slipping a little bit in february but with stimulus checks on the way, the national retail federation says record sales are not far behind later, home builder sentiment cooling just a bit but the stocks are sizzling. that's according to one analyst. he will join us as "power lunch" starts right now thanks, tyler. it's good to be with you here on "power lunch." the s&p 500 hitting a record today and it comes exactly one year after plunging 12% in one of the worst days ever i think many of us remember that one, hard to forget. let's bring in bob pisani for more on the market's battle back good afternoon, bob. >> courtney, i was on the floor that day and it was one to remember, march 16th, 2020, was the day when covid got very real

for market investors everyone realized that the shutdown was going to last a very long time the dow industrials dropped 12.9% on that day one year ago it was the second biggest percentage loss ever for the dow. the s&p 500 dropped 12%, its third biggest loss ever and the nasdaq 12.3% it was the largest percentage loss ever for the nasdaq the s&p 500 would not bottom until a week later on march 23rd from the february 19th, 2020, high to the march 23rd bottom, the s&p would decline about 34%. almost as quickly the market reversed by august the s&p 500 was back to its old highs now, the market has been led back by stocks that have benefited from the reopening, stocks like freeport-mcmoran, l brands, mgm and halliburton. what changed the fed and congress came to the rescue the fed announced rate cuts and

massive asset purchases. congress passed three stimulus packages and one simple package in two months march and april last year totaling $2.8 trillion courtney, rapid losses followed by a rapid recovery, i think the federal reserve learned from 2008 that much more much faster is really better than anything. >> it certainly has been a safety net, bob, thank you it was a crazy trip. and here we are, now less than 24 hours away from the fed's interest rate decision the fed is expected to keep rates unchanged, but the bond market is expected to keep sending yields higher. steve liesman has the results of our cnbc fed survey. hi, steve. >> hey, courtney yeah, respondents say the terrible twos are coming for the 10-year, but they're not immediately concerned. take a look, the 10-year is seen

rising from the current level of 1.6% to around 2% by year end and 2.4% by the end of 2022. you can see the sharp change from the forecast at the end of last year, much of it brought on by the $1.9 trillion relief bill and optimism over the vaccines 70% of the respondents say the 10-year at the current level does not hurt the economy and will not bring in the fed. where is the critical level? the 10-year would have to hit 2.4% before they believe the fed would contact. we need to get to 2.8% before it became a drag on the economy so quite a ways to go here. at the same time, this group thinks the fed will begin to taper its asset purchases in november and a year later the fed would begin hiking rates that's three months earlier than our last survey. >> there's a lot to digest there and i know tomorrow could be a big day.

could the fed at this meeting move up its forecast for rate hikes, steve >> so i checked just before we came on. there's, i think, just one official that has a rate hike in 2022 and four, i'm looking at it now because i didn't want to remember it, five in 2023. some of those could come forward and come to 2022 i don't know that that would change the general consensus or even the median for when the fed expects to hike rates, but there could be some fed officials that become a little bit more hawkish, bringing it toward into 2022 from 2023. >> something we'll all be watching with your help tomorrow, steve. thank you. >> thanks. >> steve, thank you very much. investors anxiously awaiting tomorrow's fed press conference with chair jerome powell last time he spoke, stocks tumbled. will he be able to calm those

growing fears of rising rates and inflation. let's thing in lizann saunders always great to see you. the conversation has been all about inflation and possibly rising interest rates. it seems to be today's worry at least. are you worried? >> i think it's less at the level of yields and more about the mix, obviously inflation being a part of that as long as any move is orderly and not quite what we saw a couple of weeks ago where we had that big spike the day of the seven-year auction, i think if it's mostly because of improving growth expectations and even though real yields are moving up, they're still in negative nar territory, that's not necessarily negative for the stock market it's if we reverse that. there's more inflation on the growth side and i think that's when you would get into trouble on the equity market but a little re-rating on the

most overvalued segments of the market i think that was to be expected. >> i want to come to that point on valuations and so forth in just a moment because you have some interesting things to say there. where is, as best you can judge it, the friction point for equities on the matter of inflation levels and interest rates? where does it start to get sand in the gears >> i'm not again sure that it's a level. i think it's more a sustainability issue i think we're all going to see price shocks driven by supply/demand imbalance as we open things up we've seen that in certain services and products already. then of course within a month we'll roll into the easier year over year comps, relative to the point last year where most traditional measures of the inflation went down. we'll see the same thing with economic data where those comps are going to be expressed in year-over-year terms in quite robust numbers

i think if we start to see that become more embedded and both the bond market and the stock market fears either that the fed does have to step in more formally and ease back policy or financial conditions start tightening on their own, even absent any rhetoric from the fed, then i think it becomes a bigger issue i would expect them to use the word transitory in talking about inflation because it doesn't appear that the kind of back ground or environment that led to the systemic kind of inflation that many remember from the '70s and '80s is a likely outcome with this much slack in the labor market. so i would expect tied to the inflation discussion would be that powell would talk a little bit moreabout the employment component that goes into inflation and the slack that still exists that probably prevents a '70s, '80s style of inflation. >> let's hope not because that was high inflation and that was

accompanied ultimately by volcker raising interest rates. >> basically a forced recession on volcker's part. >> and really the only double-dip recession we've truly had in my lifetime at least. you say something very interesting and it's a subtle point but an important one it seems to me and that is the idea that a lot of the conversation has been on value versus growth. you seem to say that the focus in your stock picking should be on value but look at companies that have value characteristics both within the value sector and within the growth sector would you elaborate on that, tell me what you mean, and give me an example, if you can, i know you don't love to name stocks but just as an example, a stock that would be a growth stock that has value characteristics. >> well, i'm not going to give you a stock example, but i'm going to give you a moment in time example of what i'm talking about with regard to the

distinction between the factors or fundamentals of growth in value and the labels or index constituents of growth and value. so the example is you go back to october of '02 so march of 2000 we see the top in the market. we have an epic bubble burst in the tech sphere that ultimately took the entire market down with it in the case of the s&p, down 57%. nasdaq 100 down more than 80%. you made a ton of money in october of '02, you made it by buying the deeply valued stocks that happened to be the tech stocks that got most obliterated. russell hadn't moved them all into the value indexes, they were still considered growth stocks, but that's where you founding deep value. maybe a more recent example would be utilities we think utilities are fairly expensive right now. that doesn't mean they're going to be moved into the growth indexes. they're still in the value

indexes, they just don't offer a tremendous amount of value so i think the factor, the characteristic, the fundamental, whatever term you want to use, of value will be a winning strategy i just wouldn't put blienders on and say, therefore, your only pool from which to look is in those russell stocks there's value in growth industries and growth stocks. >> you've got to be more discerning than just to say index this, index that courtney wants to ask you a question court. >> sure. >> yeah, liz ann, this is courtney you mentioned bubble in that answer when you were on at the end of january you talked about bubble conditions existing, but more at the microlevel. >> right. >> what are you seeing right now, is that continuing or has that changed >> i think it's continuing, but it has a rotational nature to it we've seen some of these microbubbles maybe not get popped in spectacular fashion but certainly get pricked. when you look at some of the segments in the market where you had tremendous amount of

speculative fervor, momentum chasing. you had a move up in some of those, i won't mention names, but other areas like nonprofitable tech companies, renaissance ipo, you know, you've given back 20%, 25% in some cases so you can have these microbubbles get pricked through a process of rotation, where some of that excess, some of that air comes out through the process of money moving into maybe less speculative, less momentum driven parts of the market that's obviously a benign scenario were it to continue but i don't see an aggregate epic bubble in the overall mark akin to what we had back in 2000. >> always good to see you, liz ann. fantastic. >> you too. home builder sentiment hitting a seven-year low as costs rise, but the stocks are booming. up 200%, 300% from march lows last year.

a top analyst says they are headed higher from her. plus reddit-driven stocks like gamestop, amc all taking a bro breather today we'll have much more on everything in the whole world right after this break

home builder stocks having a massive year, up as much as 180% over the past 12 months.

kb homes and d.r. horton hitting highs today. the housing market saw a massive surge over the last year however, as rates and lumber prices climb, home builder sentiment taking a bit of a hit. wolf research out with a bullish call on the group saying there is more room to run. truman patterson joins us now to discuss further. truman, in general, let's get your overall take as you initiate on these names. lumber prices are higher, mortgage rates are low, still your bullish on the group going forward. tell us why. >> yeah, courtney, thank you for that home prices are up double digits currently. even with lumber inflating we think that's more than enough to offset all the cost inflation going forward. we are bullish on the group. we have an overweight rating on the sector right now really this is based on a multi-year outlook we think that housing starts in the next five years by about

2025 we'll hit about 1.8 to 2 million housing starts to put that into perspective, we only did about 1.4 million last year in 2020, so we think there's a multi-year runway of mid to high single digit demand growth going forward over the next we'll call it five years. >> and so you think that we can do that many housing starts when it doesn't seem to be we have that many available lots, or do we am i not understanding the supply constraints >> right so this is more of a near term phenomenon rather than a long-term phenomenon if you look back to early 2020 during the onset of the pandemic, a lot of these builders stopped acquiring land, they stopped developing land, they stopped getting it approved through the municipal process so right now there's a temporary deficiency of lots that we think is going to be fixed by the end of 2021 and 2022 if you speak

with any private or public builder out there. they are bringing on a very large amount of land going forward. if you think about it, the builders right now, they still have five plus years worth of land it's all about being able to get it vertically developed and pushed through the municipality process. so covid really caused some issues that's really playing out in 2021. but as we go forward in 2022 and beyond, we think a lot of that will get solved. now, another item that we have to solve is the labor pool as well, right? we've seen constraints at various points earlier this cycle where we don't have enough labor to build the homes what we believe is that that labor pool issue really solves itself on two different items. one, we have a new administration that seems to be taking a bit of an easier stance on immigration, so that hopefully will loosen the labor pool over the next three, four years. then on top of it we have the

multi-family sector and the nonresidential sector that quite frankly aren't very healthy. what we've seen at prior points this cycle, when those sectors start to roll over, the labor pool is very transient and it makes its way to the single family market. so we're a little bit more bullish than maybe some are. >> how big an impediment to growth in this sector will affordability be, both the pricing and interest rates that seem to be rising, prices are going up if you look at a lot of towns around metro areas, the price is going up, and also the input costs. not just labor, but lumber and commodities and copper those things are going up a lot. >> yeah, yeah. so one of the biggest impedimpe impediments we think, this path forward is based on a five-year view we don't think the path will be linear in the path that we get

there. we think there are some risks in the back half of the year that we could see negative order comps. but two of the biggest ones we have really is on the pricing front. right now prices are up double digits and then we'll see where interest rates go, right every 50 basis point move in interest rates will generally cut out about 7% to 8% of the buyer pool in a static environment. that's about a 6% delta to a monthly house payment. so you can translate that to every 6% of home prices, it will hit 7% to 8% of the potential buyer pool so it really depends how fast rates move up and how much more home price appreciation we get going forward. now, the other item is, is usually these items will impact the housing market for about we'll call it six months or so, three to six months, after which housing goes the way of the economy, good or bad. >> the truman show we're going to call this the

truman show, man. >> thank you appreciate it. >> who do people say you look a little bit like? >> no idea whare you saying i look like >> i'm thinking a little seth rogen. >> fair enough, fair enough. >> i'm told you're funnier, but whatever truman patterson. >> thank you for having me on. >> hope you're as rich as james patterson. still ahead, with shots in the arms and money in pockets, as president biden said, the reopening revival looks to be taking hold. we'll explain why record retail sales could be just around the corner plus march is women's history month and we are spotlighting some of you are cnbc krrcontributors here is jenny harrington with advice for the next generation. >> the career advice i'd give to women is to take risks early stretch and lead and see what it feels like to succeed and see what it feels like to fail

do that at a time when your failures don't matter, when they're just learning experiences. and get used to sitting in the front row and raising your hand. if your question doesn't get answered, keep your hand up.

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time for today's power movers starting with moderna the company is beginning trials of its covid-19 vaccine in children ages 6 months to 12 years old. the first few participants have received the shot and the company is aiming to enroll thousands more in the study. nikola motors falling today, the company filing to share $100 million of shares. it will use the money for general purposes, possibly to finish its factory in arizona. shares are down 7%. and we end with the check of those reddit stocks. gamestop lower but hanging around $200 a share. amc pulling back today after a rally yesterday when it said it would be reopening more california theaters. amc entertainment down 6.5%, gamestop down more than 4%. as another $1.9 trillion of

stimulus gets pumped into the economy, more people are asking the question how the heck to we pay for it the answer may be by raising taxes but which taxes? janet yellen is working with countries around the globe to reach an agreed upon global minimum tax to avoid a so-called race to the bottom here's what former treasury secretary jack lew said about potential taxation targets >> there's some pretty low-hanging fruit. the top individual tax rate, we know that the economy did just fine before it was reduced the corporate tax rate there was no clamor in the business community to go to 21%. the clamor was to go to 25%. i still think 28% is the right level. >> president biden of course campaigned on raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. according to mr. lew, he doesn't

think that would be a huge problem for corporations you might hear it a little differently in some board rooms, i would guess. >> i was just going to say, and perhaps some shareholders too. we had some of that flight to ireland and other areas of course in the world when corporate taxes were higher so i'm sure it won't be without some rumblings, any reason the corporate tax rate usually gets a lot of attention. well, on to the bond market we go. i know mr. santelli has a big theory on taxes in general, but he's tracking the action at the cme for us right now hi there, rick >> hey, 45 seconds, don't bring up taxes, that would take 45 minutes. if we look at an intraday of 20-year bonds, what you should notice is zoom, zoom, zoom, lots of volatility. the auction was a terrific auction. i gave it an "a. went straight down in yields because everybody bought in. but the notion of dovish fed continues to be a driver for higher rates not lower rates if you open a chart up to the

very beginning of may of 2020 when we first bought out the 20-year and add the kbw index on top, it's almost on top of each other and also shows that both of those are at important highs. how important? let's take that kbw and go back 27 years my charts on my computer go back farther. you won't find a higher high it seems as if the dollar is buying into the rate scenario which is going against some of the tidal wave of policy of the federal reserve. tyler, back to you. >> rick, thank you very much. up next, retail sales falling more than expected in the most recent month. but with stimulus checks on the way, could we see a revival? and still ahead, car lots reporting solid revenue but a deeper loss than analysts expected the stock down more than 5%. we'll talk to the ceo after this

welcome back i'm rahel solomon and here is your cnbc covid update as president biden was leaving the white house in the last hour heading to pennsylvania to promote his covid relief plan, he was asked about sharing america's vaccine supply. >> have you decided when you're able to supply with other countries? is it allies or neighbors first? who will be the first countries to get u.s. vaccines >> i've been talking to several countries already. we'll look at that very shortly. >> ohio vaccination sites like this in cleveland will soon be giving shots to all adults it's the latest state to rapidly open up eligibility for the vaccine. anyone 40 and older can get a shot along with residents suffering from underlying conditions italy's prime minister says he's encouraged by the word from european drug regulators that at least so far there's no evidence

that the astrazeneca vaccine is causing the blood clots in a small number of people after they got the shot. mario draghi spoke with french president emmanuel macron and they're both ready to resume astrazeneca shots quickly if regulators give an all clear on thursday after hearing the results of the investigation you're now up to date. tyler, back to you. >> all right, rahel, thank you very much. market right now, all three indexes are a little bit lower, nothing really to sweat about, but it is a breather for the dow, down 146 points the s&p off about a quarter percent. nasdaq off by a lesser amount in merge terms. the russell is the major slide, off nearly 2%. check out some of the names that nevertheless are hitting new highs today. one would be starbucks, record high there intel notching a fresh 52-week high after a rough run that stock under pressure as big tech giants like apple and microsoft said they're going to do their own chips

dan lobe got involved pushing the company to explore alternatives and that was followed by ceo bob swan being replaced by pat gezlinger. retail sales for february falling by 3% amid bitter cold weather across the country it is, though, the biggest drop since april, but will a new round of stimulus checks and reopening optimism lead to a retail revival this spring so far this year some of the stocks are seeing a big rebound. macy's, l brands, the gap and nordstrom are all surging. matthew shea is president and ceo of the national retail federation matt, i know that the nrf has a pretty rosy outlook for retail stael sales this year. i know we're getting more stimulus but i don't know that all of that money is going to

flood into the arms of retailers. people are saving more, there's debts to pay off we have 10 million folks unemployed that might be using that for something else other than clothes and shoes why are you so optimistic about retail sales growing as much as 8.2% >> courtney, i think one of the reasons and you sort of alluded to it, about things flowing into the arms of one of our big assumptions and you've heard the president talk about this a lot in that last little hit. we've got so much vaccine we're talking about giving it to other cup trees now. lots of vaccinations in arms of americans are the underlying assumption in much of this we know over the course of the last year consumers have been powering through the economy and bob pisani talked at the top of the show about the three massive stimulus bills that were enacted early last year. there was another one at the end of the year. the one that was just signed last week, another $2 trillion so there's plenty to go around in terms of firepower in the economy and consumers are

sitting on a trillion and a half dollars. they paid down half a trillion in debt so i think we're on the cusp of a great human reconnection plenty of that will flow into retail >> you know, the national retail federation of course has members that are very large, but also smaller members, smaller retailers. and small business has really, really been hurt what is your expectation and what are you hearing from the smaller retailers out there about 2021 and their prospects for recovery >> courtney, you're absolutely right. that was one of the great challenges of last year. many, many families, organizations, businesses suffered, but small businesses in particular really suffered and they didn't have the access to the same kinds of resources, they didn't have the same relationships with suppliers, they didn't have the same ability to reach markets outside of their local market and so they did get a lifeline in the form of some of the relief that

was enacted. the paycheck protection program of course especially we and a number of other industry groups here are encouraging the congress and the administration to consider extending the paycheck protection program eligibility later into the year to help those businesses i think they'll benefit similarly. many of us really focused on staying closer to home and supporting those smaller businesses the real key here is reopening the economy. when the economy is reopened, as we see the vaccine do its job, we see more and more americans getting vaccinated every single day, i think that's going to be a real possibility for these businesses to rebound and recover this year. >> there's an awful lot going on in that $1.9 trillion relief package that we just saw the government pass, but i know earlier on in the pandemic the nrf was urging the treasury secretary and others to take a look at the retail industry for some additional relief is that still something that you're pushing for

or are those stimulus checks and the relief that's been enacted so far enough along with the vaccinations >> courtney, as you recall very well as you just said, the beginning of the year last year as we headed into the pandemic we worked very closely with congress, with traders re, with the administration on a number of programs. like the main street lending program, like the emergency disaster recovery loans and of course the ppp but the retail industry is so diverse and there's so many categories and segments, some businesses were doing extraordinarily well and others not as well. so i think the effort to really support consumers and small businesses is the right place to put it it's been an unprecedented level of support over the last year. you alluded to it, there are lots of things in that $1.9 trillion, we'd like to see maybe more of that been directed at supporting small businesses. nevertheless, the relief will be critically important to making a

full recovery and we are looking forward to what we think is going to be a great year. >> i hope you're right about the great year for all retailers big and small as the economy reopens and those vaccinations get in the arms of americans. thank you very much for joining us today. the expected retail revival also leading to hope for the sitdown restaurant stocks. look at these gains in names three, four, 500, 900% 1,000% almost for brinker, the company behind chili's but are the numbers matching the optimism kate rogers is looking at the data kate >> hey, tyler. well, we did get some welcome news for the restaurant industry posting its best traffic and sales numbers since mid-january according to black box intelligence the numbers are still negative but do mark a big improvement. comp sales down 4.9% comp traffic down 11.4%. growth per average check per

guest grew nearly 7% consumers continuing to spend more the group is pointing to better weather, a drop in covid cases as vaccines roll out and the promise of new stimulus checks was on the way we saw a similar spike in january tied to stimulus and the new administration now, the industry still has a very long way to go but we did get welcome news in the latest stimulus package with the creation of the restaurant recovery fund. the $28.6 billion in aid will allow eligible businesses to receive a tax-free federal grant that's equal to the amount of pandemic-related revenue losses the company had. aid is capped at $10 million the fda will prioritize these for small businesses owned by women, vets and the economically disadvantaged. this is in addition to the aid already being distributed via the ppp. back over to you. >> and how much, kate, of the ppp is left? how are restaurants going to benefit? >> well, restaurants can borrow a bit more under the ppp than

other businesses there's still more than $100 billion so quite a bit of aid there left up for grabs. these grants will really be another vehicle for businesses to continue to recover but this fund is really just a fraction of what the national restaurant association and other advocates were calling for they wanted much more money, and believe more money will need to be needed for restaurants around the country. >> kate, thank you very much kate rogers. court. well, pot stocks are pulling back right now the group jumped yesterday on hopes for legalization in new york state as more and more states come online, the cannabis industry has become an area that people are looking for for growth, especially women we'll have that story coming up on "power lunch. plus a check on disney, down nearly 2%, coming off last week's news that disney plus topped 100 million subscribers the ceo will sit down with julia

b bore stin to talk about streaming, parks, sports and u n'wa yodot nt to miss that one. "power lunch" will be right back before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new? -well, audrey's expecting... -twins! grandparents! we want to put money aside for them, so...change in plans. alright, let's see what we can adjust. ♪♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. okay. mom, are you painting again? you could sell these. lemme guess, change in plans? at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. lemme guess, change in plans? i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security?

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industry has created a lot of job opportunities and more women are getting involved, seeking to break that grass ceiling that's a good one, right frank holland is joining us now with more. hi, frank. >> hey there, courtney the cannabis industry added 77,000 new jobs in 2020 and the majority of those hires were women according to a new report. women made up 39% of the industry in 2019 that grew to 42% last year also according to the report, nearly half of all cannabis workers have been in the industry a year or less. now that creates opportunity for female advancement, according to banks, a cannabis staffing service. >> to be able to come and join a company, get equity in the early days and work for a business a couple of years and then be technically considered someone with a lot of experience in

cannabis is great, and a great opportunity for women. >> women buying cannabis, also growing. women are now nearly half of the customers in 2020. we spoke about these trends and being a woman of color in the cannabis business with hope wiseman, a co-owner of a dispensary in maryland. >> it's an advantage right now to be a woman-owned business in the cannabis industry. people definitely look at that as something that's unique and they want to support it and help advance that narrative >> with the growth of cannabis, there's increasing need for professionals like accountants and attorneys for women who want to transition into the industry that way back over to you >> frank, are there cities -- >> frank, are there -- >> i was going ask this question if you don't mind. where the opportunities to advance for women are greater rather than others or is it pretty much the same across the

country? >> you know, tyler, the cannabis business is growing, but as a matter of fact new jersey, the state you're in right now, is one of the best states according to banks, it's going to add 20,000 cannabis jobs over the next five years due to legalization. >> frank holland, thank you very much. we've seen something of a spac-lash recently the once hot spac going cold it's down 20% this year. car lots went public in january via spac that is down and even down today after seemingly strong results we'll talk to the ceabt ato outh next on "power lunch." y. at emerson, we advance the safety and efficiency of the lng industry to meet the world's need for reliable, affordable electricity. emerson. consider it solved.

since the start of the pandemic roughly a year ago, this is a historic day with the stock prices way down. the price of used cars and trucks have risen more than just about any other consumer good. rebounding sharply from a spring trough when they fell 20%. prices peaked in the summer, 15% increase over the pre-covid levels the reason is just as much a demand problem as it is a supply problem. car lots is a used car retailer that looks to capitalize on that

rapid rise in prices but it noted in its earnings call yesterday that it is struggling to balance supply and demand let's talk more about this with michael boor, the co-founder and ceo of car lots. michael, good to have you with us the company had an eps loss of 7 cents a share versus an expectation of a nickel's loss revenue was up, however. that's a good sign you point to an inventory issue. did you take on more cars than you could resell >> thanks for having me on, tyler, appreciate it. yeah, so the last year has been pretty remarkable in the car industry about a year ago we went from executing into the biggest quarter that we've ever seen and virtually from one day to the next the world stopped as we all know we battled through that, but the whole supply chain was disrupted. so as you know, oem factories shut down, they started making

ventilators. there were moratoriums on repossessions so a lot of banks weren't getting their vehicles back, so the whole wholesale side of the car market just shut down and that created, in conjunction with stimulus checks and other stimulus measures at that made demand spike, it created a demand for vehicles without supply to support it and so we saw a lot of changes in vehicle values, as you mentioned. as we saw over the course of the year, our inventories dropped as we were selling more than we could take in. and so around q3, q4, we really ramped up inventory dramatically and what that did is it allowed us to grow very well through q4, through 2020 and, frankly, into this year. we're seeing great demand. we've got a lot of inventory to support it so we're very excited about what that means for us and our growth potential >> but if you were selling more, if you were selling more and

there's great demand in that fourth quarter, what explains the loss that was worse than analysts expected? >> well, there's one analyst that covers us we're brand new on the market. >> so it's a party of one? throw that out, okay, fine >> no, we have outperformed at the top line for where we guided it's a result of the very strong demand we're seeing in the market what's interesting is our business, much like many retailers, auto retailers, it's like a big sink. there's a faucet and that's the vehicles that come in and there's a drain and that's the vehicles we sell and our job, if we want to be great at what we do, we need to match the flow of the foaucet with the flow of the drain if we can do that well, then we'll win, as will other retailers. around the end of last year, we dramatically increased the volumes that we took in. obviously we're a very

operations heavy business. we need all those vehicles to be in tip top shape when they hit the website so people can buy very high quality cars so there was a logjam in processing what that did is slow the vehicles down from hitting the website and getting sold so that created a little bit of a logjam in supply that's all working its way through now and we're seeing great volumes both from the faucet and through the drain. >> so once you get that flow issue taken care of, you would expect then that the stock, that your profits would grow, the stock will recover and on you go obviously you can't tell me what you think the stock is going to do, but i know you would hope it would perform better than it has. let me understand your business model a little bit because it's an interesting one you provide a service to the seller mostly. i come with a used car to you and what, you pay me, the seller, a pricefor that car.

i pay you a fee for selling and fixing up the car to get it ready for sale and then you make money on the resale? how does it work >> so we're the only consignment to retail sales business in the used car market. we do this for consumers and we do it for businesses that have vehicles to sell so, tyler, for you, you would come to us with your vehicle because either you were dissatisfied with the dealer trade-in offer or you were not satisfied with taking it to a service that buys your car with the price that they were going to give you and you didn't want to go through the hassle and potential danger and risk of selling it yourself. so you say please sell my car for me we would evaluate your car and let you know what we think we could sell it for. we fully recondition it, professionally merchandise and market it. we'll sell your vehicle and take a flat fee from the sales price and you'll end up with what we've seen and experienced is a number that is several thousand

dollars above what either the trade-in value or what you could have sold it for privately and so we're essentially providing a service to sell the car for you, net you more cash than you otherwise would get and we do all the work for you and we do this for companies. >> so you pay me back for the price you get on my car and you make your money off of the reconditioning fee and another service fee, right. >> that's correct. and you end up with -- >> go ahead. and you end up with more than you might -- and less hassle that you might have experienced otherwise. >> right. >> michael bor, thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> courtney. >> the dow falling about 100 points that's not bad considering on this day last year it was down nearly 3,000 we'll be right back with more on the markets. and don't forget, you can always watch or listen to us live on the go and on the cnbc app

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well, the markets have turned, court, a little wobbly the industrials off a third of a percent. the s&p 500 after being in the green much of the day, idon't know what we did to it maybe we messed it up, i don't know. >> oh, gosh, i really hope not. >> i hope not too. the nasdaq is also down at this hour >> yeah, exactly the nasdaq is here sitting about session lows

it had been higher for much of the session, but now it is sitting in the red just by about 18 points or so at this point in the session, but getting close to that flat line. >> everybody watching the yield on the 10-year, it's above 1.6 i think it's at 1.63, 1.62 we'll watch tomorrow the results of the fed meeting and chair powell's press conference. court, great to be with you. thanks, everybody, for watch the "power lunch." "closing bell" right now. >> welcome to "the closing bell." i'm wilfred frost along with sara ieisen. the nasdaq had been clinging to gains but also just fell into the red moments ago. let's have a look at what's driving the action faang tech stocks were in the lead but less of a lead. energy is the big decliner today. that sector down over 2% a notable decline in month ly retail sales the xrt down 2% off the back of that industrial production, housing numbers a bit soft as well we're se