mind about selling his tweet about an nft, as an nft, the story keeps getting weirder. march 17th is it st. patrick's day? it is, happy st. paddy's day "worldwide exchange" begins right now! ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. st. patrick's day everybody. we're going to start with the markets. st. patrick's day you got green on, don't you? >> i do. >> or is that purple >> no, i've got green going. it's gray with green lines on it to celebrate >> i could easily done that, i totally forgot >> and i got my socks on >> whoa. >> green socks >> wow those are too close to the

camera, they look like size 13s and i know they're not >> they're not >> got to be careful with that >> you know, i wore an orange tie one year because i'm clueless and i got flak. i don't even know what it means, i don't know people thought i was send something message. what's red am i in trouble for red? can you find me a green tie? >> i don't think so, no -- yeah, there's probably a green tie around there somewhere >> that means -- that means corned beef and cabbage. we usually like that i like the corned beef not the cabbage. the cabbage doesn't like me. >> me too. >> you know what i mean. >> i do. >> i'm really sorry i'm sitting so far away from you this morning. let's get to the major, the dow snapping its longest winning streak since august. it was down by almost 130 points yesterday. the s&p was only down by 6

minutes, and the nasdaq was up by 11 futures. if you're watching u.s. equity futures the dow is in the green. right now, the dow is up by 23 points, s&p down by 3 points, nasdaq off by 42 of course, everybody is waiting to hear what the fed has to say. taking a quick look at the treasury market to see what's on that front, too, because that is the one to watch as we get into that fed meeting ten-year is yielding higher, 1.36%. we got to 1.36% quickly. that's what spooked the market we've been steady here for a little over a week i guess a week and a half. today's big market event, of course, is that key fed decision it's due out at 2:00 p.m. eastern time jay powell has a press conference 30 minutes later. investors looking for any indication that the central bank may change course in the face of that growing u.s. economy and rising inflation anything they have to say at all, anything he indicates, is he worried about this.

you can imagine that the markets will be on edge about that that's probably why, if you want to check out the "squawk" stack this morning, i would suggest, guys, we keep the ten-year right near the top as something we watch very closely today >> yeah. it could be a one-element "squawk" stack today i think. you know, bitcoin is not looking too pretty back on 55 -- crazy to say, under 55,000 it's flexible. we'll see what happens it's only 6:00 a.m is there any st. patrick's day thing we can put in there? we're scouring this place for a green tie, if you can believe that because i don't need the aggravation of forgetting. i remember everything else -- i remember ladies heart disease day. i remember spirit day. i can't believe -- i'm human i forgot i can't believe i forgot i can't believe sorkin remembered and you remember, you know, you did. did someone remind you

how did you remember andrew >> how did i -- i have a calendar >> you must not hear anything i say. becky, did you see that -- he must just be waiting to read or something. are you practicing -- >> he thought you were talking to me, i think i think the leprechaun actually paid a visit to our house this morning. >> what's that >> the hleprechaun actually played a visit to the house. he left green pee in the out and glitter everywhere >> he left what? >> wow, i didn't know about that >> toilet's green. >> he left green pee -- you did say that >> yeah, right >> like asparagus, vitamin deficiency or something. how did you remember, sorkin

>> calendar. >> you looked at the calendar. >> looked at the calendar. i have a google calendar and it shows all of the different holidays and different things, it shows birthdays occasionally >> did you look in the morning >> no i usually look the day before what's going to happen the next day >> i knew it was coming because it's food-related. i knew it was coming i was looking forward to it. we're working on it. >> it's food-related, i like that >> food-related, alcohol dar darn it. >> we'll get you a green tie, we'll see what we can do meantime, we have an uber story right now. after losing a major court battle, uber is reclassifying all of its uk-based drivers as workers. they're not going to be contractors. unthat designation, 70,000 drivers will receive some benefits including minimum wage

and contributions. and writing in the op-ed evening standard, he said the company could have continued to dispute rights to the drivers' protections but decided to turn the page other auto news just months after going public with a spac, lordstown motors will look to respond to allegations of fraud. the short-selling firm hindonberg research accused the truck company of having no sellable products. actually stocks led 16% on that report on monday, lordstown ceo steve burns responded to the claim saying, quote, there's always haters. boy, are there a lot of haters in the spac world. we talked about it, just early in the week, short-sellers looking at these companies in the de-spac raising questions

about them joe, you're about to talk about another of them. >> don't you immediately think if the short-sellers -- what comes after the short-seller response to spacs to load up the shorts on them don't we think the spacs are gamestop at 5 and then all of a sudden, the reverse happens when they get squeezed by the wallstreetbets because the interest won't be high enough quickly or something, right >> it depends how quickly -- first of all, they're not typically making the short bet during the quote/unquote spac process. it's usually after they're de-spac. sand announce a merger with somebody and you're right, they have to get interest in it that way. to me, look, i always thought short-sellers act as a brake on the market act as an auditor of sorts in a good way because they're pointing out things that are problematic. the interesting element here there are a lot of spacs out

they're not going through necessarily the same process, diligence process that a deal would. now you're saying the shorts look at this and say, hmm, maybe there's some questions here. >> right they shorted enron they shorted baldwin united. chenos got -- some the past, the shorts got some of's i don't know, maybe it will come out in the wash eventually but they were ahead of the game in exposing some of those thing. >> it's not to say they're right all the time they've been wrong -- you know, tesla, they've been wrong the whole time >> herbalife threw in the towel. lu lucid, did you see this behind me, lucid motors touring with the electric car, it goes very

fast, zero to 60 in a blink of an eye last night, peter raw lynnson spoke to jim cramer. >> it's a market evs will penetrate and fill that world market for cars. i welcome the competition for a company like apple, ultimately, you know, this is a technology race tesla recognizes that. >> this company going public, with black check company virtual capital 5, looking at that stock since a potential deal with lucid was first reported in early january. the runup back down -- now actually under 30. bec. >> well, you mentioned tesla, and we will, too elon musk is backing out of his nft offer, he initially said he

would sell a song about nonfungible tokens as an nft his song was listed on sale on valuables. and musk tweeted he actually doesn't feel quite right selling this we'll pass betting didn't go high enough? i don't know >> the question is he doesn't like nfts? he doesn't want to take somebody else's money what's the -- everything that he tweets people seem to take the larger view of maybe there's nothing larger to take away from it. >> yeah. >> the biggest irish stocks, johnson controls, i guess johnson controls international -- i'm looking -- i'm looking for something to put up there you know, i'm making amends for my -- >> you work on that. we're going to get you a green tie. we'll go to break. when we come back --

>> got one got one. >> oh, you got one >> yeah, but i got to wait -- >> that costume change, joe, between this commercial and the next commercial. >> yeah, i was going to do it on the break. i was going to do it now, max said wait. >> when we come back, joe in a green tie to celebrate st. patrick's day right. we're going to show you the futures right now. there's a little green on the screen that's okay. dow subpois up 31 points, s&p 5d nasdaq up 32 points. we're going to get you ready for the fed and news conference for chair jay powell will he wear a green tie that's the big qstn.ueio may have to send him one "squawk box" continues after this ♪ ooh la la by cherie ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box. this morning, markets are waiting with baited breath what the chairman powell says about rates. will likely lead markets good morning to both of you, ingrid, let me start with you. are you expecting to hear anything beyond we're not doing anything, but things are maybe a

little better, but we're watching things? i mean, i know everybody is making a lot of this meeting but i don't know how much can really be said >> i hear you. the fed is clearly been accommodative of growth, and our expectation is that it will continue to be accommodative and on the margin, i'm not sure i have the ability to predict what kind of competents will come out that the market will react to but what i can say, the risk of inflation clearly has gone up, which is why we believe at neuberger berman, this is the dime for management. the consumer is healthy. we have $1.9 trillion of stimulus about to come on the market that's driven by valuation expansion supported by central bank policy, where will the next leg of appreciation come from.

on the sustainable equitable team we believe that comes from companies earning free growth. spending a lot of time looking at capital looking at names participating in secular growth. i heard you talking about the electrification of autos dedigitization of the economy. lots out there >> mike, when you talk about it, tell me what you think jay powell is going to say and how concerned are you about runaway growth this year, and the question is whether the runaway growth this year is sustainable next year. and how you think he thinks about that >> so, you know, i think it's an interesting dynamic that we have playing right now. the fed is very happy with the current situation, right the market is kind of doing its job for it when you sit back and you look at what the fed has been able to engineer, it's quite remarkable.

so they've had inflation, break-evens accelerate they've had the froth taken out of spec-tech trade without having to do anything from the monetary perspective at the same time, it real yielded haven't increased. because real yields what expand economic growth. and ultimately at the end of the day jay powell and the rest of the folks are happy to let the economy run hot so that's their end goal they're going to push traders, push the economy, push inflation to the point where, you know, they have to step in they want to get to the point the market is begging them to hike rates and we're not there yet, basically what i think is going to happen is, you know, powell is going to be just as -- as he has been and the committee -- extremely not the long-term projection of that so currently up 2.5% of the

median projection of the neutral rate that is unlikely to change in terms of the economy, and, you know, growth accelerating, certainly in 2021, that's the case -- >> mike, i think we're taking hits on your sound there for a second i'm going back to ingrid we're just taking growth in 2021 goldman sachs, ingrid, is saying they think that growth could get to % by the end of the year. my question is what you think 2022 and beyond looks like and what do you think -- obviously, 7% won't be sustainable but what a base level actually looks like. >> you know, we think we probably return to a more slower growth environment that we were in prepandemic and i think the importance of trying to find secular growth really stands true because you don't want to buy businesses that are just tied to where we are in the macro cycle. given how hard that is to

predict. and if you can find companies that are participating in these large trends, and clearly, a sustainable investors, they're many very highly investable. the electrification of vehicles. and the moving of transportation, the digitization of the economy and using opportunities that we we've seen that the market continually gives us with volatility to buy high-quality businesses >> let me ask you a question, you talk about the electrification of the vehicle market obviously that is a real and meaningful trend, and it's going to move in that direction, no question the question i have is, you add up the valuations of all of the automakers in the world right now, it's at a significantly higher valuation across the board, than historically the entire auto market normally would be i look at this market and say to

myself, isn't this just effectively, one kind of vehicle replacing another kind of vehicle? am i wrong and take the oil market and fuel market out of it for a second. >> yeah, yeah, fair point. but you don't have to own the automakers to participate in electrification. you can own texas instruments, the chip, the analog chipmaker or actv, and the components gaining share of the automobile wa wallet holistically, we look at the macro trends and look at companies that can participate, not necessarily buying high-flying names that everybody associates with electrification. >> final word to mike because we lost your sound. you were talking about growth end of 2021 pushing into 2022 i think is where we might have left you >> yeah, i was i think growth is likely to

accelerate throughout 2021 throughout 2022, and high-flying tech is likely to get hurt you want a short duration portfolio, that mean you want to be underweight treasuries, generally speaking you want to be in higher credit risk-type products like high-yield you want to be in value and small caps and names on the equity side that have generated that are going to show real profit growth, right? we can expect we're going to be in a strong growth environment this year, next year, and quite frankly, probably for the foreseeable future over the next several years. there's no reason to expect that growth isn't going to accelerate rates aren't going to continue to go up and the curve isn't going to steepen over the next five years unless the fed does something silly which i don't see that

happening. >> mike, ingrid, thank you both. hope we can do this as i keep saying in person one of these days nice to see you. >> you, too. >> joe >> thanks, andrew. >> look at that green tie, joseph >> little did we know that this would suddenly i'm all fired up to talk about all of this. you know, the tax -- we're going to put up some of those companies, guys. and there are quite a few. remember, pfizer could not go, remember sorkin but there are plenty over there, accenture and the product on the stack. you know what the court tax rate is, sosrkin >> what is it? >> 12.5. you had the jack lew interview where you can suggesting 80% -- remember, come farley said the

reversions, the inversions would start again, remember what jack lew told you, he said, no, no, no, people will follow us back up that never happened before that. >> remember, jack lew made it harder to pursue an inversion. >> trump did, too. >> what is that? >> i think trump did, too. i was reading here that med product's taxes were going to go up based on some of the stuff the last administration did about the company trying to operate over there >> do you remember, apple had the famous -- >> yeah. >> what is it, the irish twist what's the great tax dodge that apple was doing for years? >> right >> irish -- >> up in the beats, yeah >> i don't want to blame a whole country on a holiday, no less for apple's tax sale

>> right coming up -- anyway -- there i go with my anyway, coming up nba star lebron james taking a stake in a maj srtorpos name those details coming up next ♪ my retirement plan with voya keeps me moving forward... even after paying for this. love you, sweetheart

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lebron james' agent confirming to cnbc that the nba star has taken a minority stake in fenway sports group, owner of the boston red sox the red sox franchise valued at over $3 billion. and the fenway group valued more

than $6 billion. the group also owns the liverpool football club which james bought a stake in 2011 i haven't confirmed, i heard that lebron is a, i think they said, a pretty big yankees fan i don't know how this is going to work, necessarily, because that's a pretty good rivalry but won't be long -- >> baseball. >> yeah, what's that, sorkin, the jacket, is it green? >> you know what, i never got a chance to wear this jacket, ever >> is it green >> it's green, it doesn't come across green enough on the screen i haven't gotten to amortize this blazer anytime in my life it's a green blazer. i've never worn it i thought this is the day. >> any excuse to put the jacket on you just don't like the -- this is a 25-year thing on "squawk box," andrew it's not going to work you're not going to be able to somehow get around that. >> a couple times a year, you

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welcome back to "squawk. coin base, reviseded statements. 159.9 million shares for sales by direct listing.

the prior s1 had not stated the shares to be sold. no exact data when coinbase plans to go public it plans to list on the nasdaq becky. >> thanks, andrew. companies as we all know are preparing to bring employees back to the office according to a new survey of 300 executives, 70% plan to phase workers back in. 77% say it's a hybrid model with a portion in office and a portion at home. and 52% say they do not plan to mandate vaccinations joining us, tom campbell tom, people are saying overwhelmingly this will be a hybrid model what does that mean, one day in the office or four days in the office >> well, most importantly, becky, they're going to be phasing people in. the majority of companies, we're

saying they're going to start one day a week, two days a week, three days a week. and then the hybrid model is really, are they going to have ongoing three days in the office, two days off and what most companies are really trying to figure out if everybody's in for the same day to have that synergy, or if you have it shifted. obviously, if everybody is in on the same day, you can't lower your real estate footprint and those are the challenges that companies are facing right now >> there's a lot of logicistal interests. we mentioned in the beginning most will not require a vaccine coming back? >> over half will not require a vaccine which is an interesting dynamic usually with any sort of violation, you have hipaa violations and what you can or cannot do but with covid and the vaccine, it's up in the air what companies that can mandated the

vaccine and people get to the office there's still this middle ground, not knowing how things are going to pan out from both a legal standpoint and a legislative standpoint >> i guess part of that is that the vaccines are still under emergency use authorization, that's not the same as full-on approval by the fda or anyone else what other sorts of issues -- a lot of times being spent on the logistical issues. you think it's other issues that companies need to think about and haven't yet. what is that >> two of the topics, number one, re-entry and onboarding of employees. getting them from working in a really quiet space, usually, in their home, to now being in a lot of companies where open offices and environments were the norm and number two, there's really books like ceos and heads of hrs that we've been talking to, they came back and said they're very worried about the conflict

between management and staff on what's appropriate to get back as we get to lower unemployment. and companies are hiring more than i've ever seen in my 25 years, is it an employee market, and will employees leave if they're asked to come in too often and what the fear is and the last thing that the survey showed for people in major metropolitan cities, they're afraid of commuting on public transportation. >> so, what's a company supposed to do about that it seems like if you're in new york or san francisco or l.a. or one of those major metropolitan areas like chicago, how do you get around that the entire reason the cities have been set up this way, we have to rely on public transportation. >> well, there's got to be a trust. i think that's what's been lost over the last few years and hopefully, it's starting to come back there has to be a public/private trust between our citizens and the government what will they say they're doing they're actually doing what we're seeing in major

metropolitan companies that we work in, some of the clean areas, but there's fewer people. >> what? when is the last time you were on a new york city subway, tom >> when was the last time anybody was on a new york city subway i think that's the challenge we're talking about, right getting people back on and what we're doing. we're in chicago on st. patrick's day, by the way, happy st. patrick's day, that is usually this place is going crazy. now, there's nothing there's nothing going on those are major issues and we've got to figure out how to get people downtown again and the real challenge facing ceos and corporate teams is it's not always what the employee wants that's best for them and i'm not an anti-employee thing. this is really a new era that we're facing but sometimes, people do want to be today, what do you want me to do if you give everybody the option of eating pizza and having ice cream every night for dinner, most people are going to take

it that doesn't mean that's the right thing to do. what we've got to do is tell the employees you're coming back four days a week, five days a week and get your company doing what the ceo and leadership feels is best for the long-term interest of the company >> i understand that entirely. and i get it and it's probably decisions that will have to be made at the top. but, tom, you're talking about decisions being made by people who never use public transportation the people who are making these decisions have cars that drive them back and forth. they don't have to deal with the same sort of things. how can they be a little more empathetic to those dealing with those things? >> becky our congressional leaders never fought in battle and send people to fight in wars all the time you're talking about leaders telling citizens what to do. >> do what i say, not what i do? >> well -- >> i am not up with that, tom,

especially in an employer's market >> the biggest issue is, if you can get a vaccine and if the vaccines are readily available and when you go into walgreens or costco or wherever and get a shot in your article and do it, we're in a different playing field. we don't know if that's end of april, may or june or july, when anybody who wants a shot can get one. but that's the challenge of what's going on. quite frankly, it's not just kr caos it's not goldman sachs and people getting in limos. there's ceos of $5 million, $50 million companies. i'm not sure i agree with yous we've got to get out of the fortune 500, and get look at the majority of companies where the entrepreneurs are and those people are side by side working with their employees >> right tom, what are you hearing -- it feels like it's just starting to

percolate this conversation now about, oddly enough, testing all over again which is to say, businesses which have clearly made the decision for legal reasons or others -- which, by the way, i think i should say, i think i days agree with not requiring, mandating the vaccine coming back into the office saying, talking to health care leaders saying this fall, this winter, we've heard from people like dr. scott gottlieb, that things may get more complicated actually, come the fall, come the winter, in some ways even with the mass rollout of vaccines you're starting to hear companies say we actually might do meaningful testing if we're going to bring people back to make them feel more comfortable. in part because children, at least through the fall of 2021, into the winter, are unlikely to be vaccinated. which means that you're going to have kids not vaccinated but you'll have adults vaccinated but that means that covid is still going to be part of our

experience what are you hearing about that? >> yeah. the biggest thing that's overarching situation is the child versus parent and where they're going to be going. and what's required. but to directly answer your question on testing, is that what companies are waiting for is how and where and when can they get rapid test results. and if it becomes it's very common for companies to get the 15-minute saliva test, i think those are going to be the game chainger when every company has those stacked up like tissue boxes behind the receptionist desk then we're in a whole new situation. i agree with you, andrew, that companies should be able to mandate vaccines, the same way we do that children are making sure they have their shots answer is religious reasons. that's what the government is going toal allow both from a legal standpoint and what they

legislate. >> hey, tom, thanks for joining us today i think this is going to be happening. we'll continue to watch what happens. we'll have you back to talk about it >> tell joe, go buffs! go buffs this weekend. >> one of the many games you'll be watching. >> i'm not taking them, tom -- is it georgetown >> georgetown. >> yeah, no, i can't >> you can't >> maybe i will do another bracket and put them on another bracket. >> take it >> watching georgetown's run -- >> i agree, one buff to another, we've got to stay behind them. >> you can't bet with your heart, tom i've tried that. we'll see. i may reconsider >> thanks. by the way, folks, be sure to join us for our cnbc at-work summit coming up on march 30th to hear from the world's most influeiavois ntl ces on the futr

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welcome back, everybody. here's a word of warning if you are using bitcoin or ether to buy nfts, those

nonfungible tokens, you better be prepared for a big tax surprise we don't mean a good surprise. robert frank joins us right now. he's got more on the front robert, this comes out of a conversation we were having other morning. >> absolutely. credit to you for raising this question, as it turns out investors buying nfts with bitcoins will face with tax freel but obscure rules around cryptocurrency and the distribution of assets say you bought $100 worth in ether, worth about $1800 if you used that to buy an nft, you would own a sales tax on the gain in the ether as part of the process. as soon as you bought the nft you would owe tax up to $340

the irs considers a crypto asset not a currency and if you explaining for any other asset, you immediately recognize a capital gain or loss most people buying nfts are not aware of the tax most that tell nfts are not reporting to the irs because they don't have the full crypto price history for each buyer now, the tax does not apply to non-american overseas buyers which means that the buyer of that $60 million the at ch christies, he would not owe any tax. what's why big overseas buyers are using nfts as a way to use their gains, transfer them to something else without paying taxes. again, that's only the overseas folks. the americans have to pay the irs. becky. >> i mean, that's the weirdest

thing, robert. the idea that, again, you have to be reminded this is not a currency this is an asset that's treated differently so you can't just do that would it be the same if you were to use some portion of it -- i don't know what if you bought a hot dog or pizza or something. you can't even do that anymore, bitcoin has gotten so valuable >> yeah, if you explaining bit kaine or ether or any crypt so currency for any good or services whether nfts or anything, that counts as a taxable event. and our thing for a lot of these crypto holders, they purchased tranches of their cryptos over multiple periods and multiple months so bigging out the basis and capital gains is hard. now we see the platform that help you track your portfolio and what the average cost base is and again, it's not a currency >> i wondered robert why were you focusing on nfts

we had judy shelton on yesterday that made that point there are nail salons -- i think this happened to be in summit, new jersey, if you get your nails done, you have a capital gain if you use it for any transaction. but it doesn't seem like as big a deal when it was -- you know, if you bought it down last year and it had moved from 7,000 to 8,000 to 8500, you're incurring a ewing capital gain tax anytime you use it for as transaction. she was listing that yesterday as one of the reasons you got to think long and harder whether it's a currency. what a pain. >> and in new jersey, when you have a capital gain, you have to pay ordinary income tax rates on a state basis. you're paying federal capital gains -- >> you do? >> yes, any capital gain, new jersey, new york, california, you pay the federal capital

gains tax and state tax at an older income level, so it's twice the tax. >> thanks, robert. andrew, yesterday, when you were talking a little bit about going to 40% we know it's not 40. you know what it is. becky, aren't you 60 i'm >> above 50. i don't know it's above 50. >> in many states the high end already effectively with state tax gets you close to 60 so that's why to the extent people are working to talk about raise taxes, they would be having conversations at rates high injury than that. >> we're working for uncle sam all the way through august but that's fine. >> nobody pays that because of the loopholes. if that's the case, close the loopholes, don't raise the taxes.

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we have done a few segments on reopening and the rally that we've seen american airlines, nguyen resorts, royal caribbean, marriott, lyft dan ives is here is the reopening already reflected in some of these you're adding lyft to your list of stocks this morning for wed bush best ideas. you've got to pick and choose which ones might move but is it long in the tooth? >> i think we're only halfway through it especially in ride sharing lyft and uber, these were poster child of the trade you are seeing profitable business models. i looked at lyft, this could ultimately be up 30, 40% up the

next 6, 9% i think for investors you have an offensive playbook on tech but then a reopening that's why lyft and uber in terms of playing the trade. >> what else >> yeah. what i love on reopening, especially also some of the auto players. you're going to start to see more and more purchases in terms of the cycle going to next year. i think gm's a name that starts to get rerated not just because of ev but on the reopening side. i think what you're starting to see, at least on tech, more spending more cap ex. that's bullish on names like microsoft and some of these other plays that i think go into that even though many view it as sort of that trade's over. i think it's just beginning in terms of just more and more of a reopening that we're seeing across the tech ecosystem. >> isn't there a flip side to reopening for some companies that benefitted from people

staying at home, therefore, they won't do as well have you thought of the flip side of this >> i think there's a bit of a misnomer zoom got us through the last year those we'll see with moderated growth i think overall in terms of cloud, cyber security and what we're seeing in terms of digital transformation, we're only 1/3 of the way through that. we'll have more of a hybrid model. you look at names like z scale, cyber security, names like palo alto and names like salesforce.com, that's going to continue to be there names like zoom and others will clearly see moderated growth as more of the reopening trades start to take hold. >> macro you're not worried we're going to run too hot with all of the stimulus and with an economy already in gear. macro should we be worried about

growing? >> i can tell you from talking about the checks we're doing we're seeing more and more spending from i.t. budgets that's bullish from tech lyft and uber, we're still in a rerating story in terms of tech. i believe tech stocks, we'll be seeing nasdaq 16,000 by the end of the year in terms of everything that we're starting to see in terms of checks and just better spending. >> dan ives, thanks with the reopening trade. andrew >> big lineup still to come, joe. we've got blackrock's rick rieder on the fed and yields dr. scott gottleib will be with on the ongoing situation in on the ongoing situation in europess, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back?

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countdown to the fed stocks in a holding pattern as they await the latest fed decision insight on rates for inflation we'll talk about what it means for your money straight ahead. are tax hikes coming reports that the president is considering raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations creating a buzz in the markets we'll debate what it could miej for businesses squawking remotely today marks one year since "squawk box" was changed forth last year thanks to the

pandemic we take a look back at how far we've come and what's ahead for the fight against covid. st. patrick's day, everybody, 2021 the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ ♪ good morning happy saint patrick's day. welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc joe's got his green dion andrew ross sorkin, becky quick and joe kernen we have a little bit of green for you on the screen, but only a little bit that's on the dow up 22 points nasdaq looking to open up 71 points the s&p 500 looking to open off about 6 points we do have some news hitting in just thelast 30 minutes. want to talk to you about the coin base. ahead of a planned initial

public offering in the statement. cryptocurrency registering 114.9 million shares per share the prior s1 had not talked of a number of shares to be sold. no word on when it will be listed on the naas dak you have to imagine the valuation keeps going upward joe? >> thanks, andrew. day two of the fmoc meeting. major progress in the covid-19 fight. steve liesman joins us now with more steve, you stole the whole green tie look from me so i'm sure you have plans today. >> reporter: it is true using double reverse psychology. i criticized you for wearing a green tie too much

subsequently i then began to wear the green tie i think that was 6 or 7 years ago. >> exactly. >> you have never allowed me to forget that particular thing. >> right >> i love the way you -- it's great the way you imparted so much intelligence to me that i did that to you. that's really one of the more flattering things you've ever done joe, i'd like to discuss fed chair jay powell who today faces one of his most difficult challenges defending a fed policy that's arguably the most aggressive in history amid a dramatically improved outlook let's look at what's changed here the $1.9 trillion in relief enacted in congress. signed by the president. prompted a surge in growth vaccinations have accelerated. states have started to reopen. bond yields have soared and inflation concerns the fed's rate and policies on qe haven't changed powell and other officials say they're going to keep them in place until the economy regains

most of the 10 million jobs lost from the pandemic and inflation runs above the 2% goal for a time the focus will be on how much more optimistic the fed's own forecasts become and how powell defends. no change in policy. the fed is likely to hike, for example, its growth outlook for this year. it did forecast around 4% and it's 6%. the funds rate in 2022 fed looks for no hikes our cnbc survey nearly two full hikes with a 0.45% funds rate. michelle myer says powell and forecast revisions will seem more upbeat. this will be likely the fed's first step in a less accommodative position barclays says we expect the fed to rein in policy in march with the median dots still showing no liftoff through 2023 despite an

updated outlook. no fed has run as aggressively as this one. no fed has ever had to engineer an exit from it. the question is whether powell can keep yields at bay from now and avoid a temper tantrum, joe, when they hike. >> wow we've got to think now more than ever, steve. we're going to need liesmania hits so 163 where are we today that's the one thing we left on -- >> i saw 164 this morning. >> we left out on the squawk stack, steve, and then we replaced everything else with stocks domiciled in -- that's not squawk stack there it is. almost 165 >> yeah. >> i think we do have -- here's the 10-year. maybe we'll show the squawk stack. we're doing the st. patty's day

squawk stack i don't know irish stocks on there. there it is. all right. i thought we were going to have some other ones on there medtronic, the one i saw that's good. i don't know if you were watching earlier, steve, but we glossed over the whole thing becky said this morning which i almost want to have kids again to be able to put green tea in the toilet have you heard of that, becky? how many times -- >> i didn't do it. the leprechaun did it. >> i understand that i'm only too happy to make it look likesanta ate some cookies. i'll stay up later, i'll handle that. >> you stole santa's cookies >> yes yes. >> no. you need to make it look like he ate some. >> why do you need kids to put green dye in the toilet. you can just go ahead and do it. >> did you use dye, becky?

never mind. >> moi >> yeah. >> i didn't do it. >> what a great idea. >> joseph, joseph, a leprechaun came to her house and santa also came to her house. i don't know what you're talking about, all of these other things about food dye and eating cookies, i've never heard of these things before. max and henry and sydney watch the show and they are very confused >> did the leprechaun visit the sorkin house today >> i have not noticed today. not yet. >> i was wondering if this was a widespread -- if the leprechaun visits happen a lot or whether only certain people have the leprechaun visit grandkids and we can hope for a leprechaun visit anyway -- >> joe, did you want to ask me a

fed question, joe? >> i did about the 1 imp.65 and whether you think -- i don't think anybody at the fed is like, oh, no at 1.65 the market can do some of their work, don't you think, steve >> no, i think that's -- i think that's right by the way, i don't want to act like i don't appreciate your humor on the toilet there, but let me -- the fed would say that what's happening right now is what they would expect, better growth outlook, improving economy. reopening conomy you should have yields go up now the speed is something they've noticed. the speed of the rebound is something they have noticed. this would be in line. our survey yesterday, joe, people don't think that you really start to hurt the economy until you get, i don't know, 2.5% or even 2.8% on the 10-year and the fed wouldn't come in

until around 2.5%. he's getting it from the other side maybe when you get enough from both sides maybe you're in the right place. so far the market seems to have held up amid this surge in bond yields he may take some solace with that. >> i have one more because tomorrow the 18th and 19th are coming and i think the bank of japan actually will make it official on whether they change the zero base, it's got a 40 basis point leeway and one of the stories we did last week was that corona shocked people by saying there's no need to raise that, but then other members of the bank of japan said it's not necessarily the end all be all is it possible they do something tomorrow that surprises people >> it's being -- it's being watched but the more interesting thing here, joe, who moves more widely from green die in the toilet to bank of japan policy

than joe kernen. that i think is an important observation. >> okay. all right. yeah leprechauns, santa i got it i've got to remember that. i was going to talk about yaffit kodo, then i'd give something away in "alien," "midnight run," "live and let die. midnight run he passed. condolences. he was great becky. >> thanks, joe. when we come back, president biden reportedly planning a major tax hike in his next economic plan which could include raising the corporate tax rate and income taxes on certain individuals, wealthy individuals. we're going to debate whether that's the right move and the potential impact on the economy right after this break "squawk box" will be right back. create personalized investment strategies to help you get back to your future.

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welcome back to "squawk box. as president biden embarks on the six day u.s. tour to promote the $1.9 trillion rescue plan, details are starting to emerge on the tax plan. for more we're going to have conversation about that. sarah bianchi who served in the obama and clinton administrations is now a senior managing director at evercori si rohit kamar who was chair of staff of mitch mcconnell

good morning to both of you. let's talk about this and what you think this tax policy is going to look like, both from the corporate and individual side i think some of the details are starting to emerge but where you think the fault lines are going to be with the debate. sarah? >> well, i think the president's going to come in with a plan that really largely mirrors a lot of what he talked in the campaign about, and that's a 28% corporate rate the so-called guilty tax some issues around the global tax that secretary yellen has been speaking about as well as some changes in the capital gains rate for the highest income earners and the so-called stepped up basis however, that's not really necessarily what congress is going to do with this package. i think we're going to see many more twists and turns on this one than we did on the last relief package and i think congress is really only willing to pass a very small fraction of what the president has been talking about.

>> well, that's what i was going to ask rohit, what's your take on what you think the appetite is inside congress to do something like this and how does this relate, if it does at all, to when we're going to get an infrastructure plan and whether you think that a new tax regime and the infrastructure, that both of those things get married up together >> yeah, it's interesting. i think it's possible that they get married up together. look, one thing that we sort of have always known and senator mcconnell reiterated this yesterday, republicans are not likely to vote for a bunch of tax increases, not for infrastructure, not for anything that is sort of currently on the table. i agree with sarah that i think the scale of the tax increase is going to be a fraction of what president biden's campaigned on. he campaigned on $4 trillion of additional taxes i don't think there's a political appetite on anything of that order of magnitude as it relates to infrastructure, if you want to raise taxes to do

infrastructure, you have to do it through a partisan budget reconciliation process the same way the covid bill got done you can't designate specific projects for funding using this fast-track process they tried and it was voted down on the senate floor. my experience on capitol hill is what a lot of members like is i have funding for this bridge, i got funding for this rail line, whatever it is, you can't do that in a partisan way. i think there is a lot of pressure to at least try to make a -- what i would consider a legitimate good faith effort as opposed to a token good faith effort to see if infrastructure can be done in a bipartisan way? >> sarah, what's the realistic version in your mind of where you think the corporate tax rate lands? you talked about 28% which is where biden wants it to be does it end up there does it end up at 25%? what happens to individual tax rates? >> yeah. i think it probably ends up at 25 and i very much agree i think it's challenging

the president's going to propose this as a package, an investment in return for something being paid for, but i do agree that it may be that the best way to do this is to pull some of the infrastructure forward for some of the competitiveness issues and r&d that senator schumer has been talking about, perhaps pull that forward into a bipartisan package and try to do re reconciliation for the rest. there's other priorities the president thinks we could get in there. we'll have to see. he does have to get caught trying the republicans we'll see what the appetite there is the good thing about this president, he is all about getting things done, passed and i think they'll be flexible in the process if he believes there is a real opportunity to work in a bipartisan way if he doesn't see that opportunity, he's going to go ahead and try to get this priority that is so needed in the country finally done >> what's the chance, and just real quick because of the audience that's watching us this

morning when you think about carried interest, is that finished we've been having this carried interest debate now for over a decade does that finally go we've talked a lot, even in the past couple of days, about the possibility of a financial transaction tax. is that something you think will be welcome even among democrats right now? >> i think that the president's most likely to get the corporate rate back to 25 and perhaps the so-called guilty i think certainly we'll propose a range of capital gains, whether it is carried interest, a higher rate for the top rate for people making more than a million and then also stepped up basis. whether or not he's able to get that, my guess is he gets a portion of some of that and perhaps carried interest, as you mentioned. we've been talking about it for about 15 years now so that may be the one that finally goes but, look, all of these are really difficult for everyone. it's not just the joe manchins,

it's senators from different parts of the country so our view is that he gets something in the $500 billion range for taxes including some of the ones that you mentioned but not a lot more. >> rohit, if we have this conversation a year from now, what will be the outcome >> i think pressure on capital gains. i don't think they'll be treated as ordinary rates. that's not the revenue maximizing rate. that's somewhere in the high 20s. i just want to go back to the corporate rate because i hear a lot, i don't necessarily disagree that 25 might be the upper end of what there might be votes for. just as a reminder, even at 25, that's federal we have state and local taxes on top of that. makes the u.s. the second highest taxing jurisdiction in the developed world. portugal is the next highest given all of the economic anxiety around china, sure seems like making the u.s. a less attractive place to invest is

kind of swimming against the global stream and is kind of out of step with where -- as we sort of think about attracting capital, attracting investment, thinking about the rest of the world. there were other places you can invest a dollar if you're a global cfo i understand that political judgment i don't know that i agree but as i just think about over the last couple of weeks the increasing political anxiety we're seeing around china senator schumer is talking about bringing legislation to the floor. senator biden talking about it i'm starting to think more about this. >> real quick, capital gains, what happens >> on capital gains, look, i think there's some pressure to go up. the campaign said ordinary rates for people making more than $1 million. i don't think it goes to ordinary rates because i don't think that's the revenue maximizing number but it could come down below that million dollar threshold to something in the 5, $600,000 range. >> we have to run right now,

what's the revenue maximizing number. >> on capital gains, around 28%. >> 28% >> yeah. >> sarah, rohit, thank you both for the conversation i'm sure we'll be having a lot more of it in the coming days and weeks. >> thanks for having us. thanks coming up, the road to electric vehicles for bmw can be a bumpy one. phil lebeau has that check out the shares of crowdstrike beat estimates by a nickell. quarterly earnings of 13 cents a share. security software company also issued an upbeat outlook "squawk box" coming right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question. where was the first recorded st. patrick's day parade the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues back with steve, who's got two broken arms and one unexpected medical bill. i mean look at this guy, he can barely open his bill! aflac! let's look at the re-pain replay.

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the answer, a spanish colony in what is now known as st. augustine, florida the year was 1601. >> i love st. augustine, but that is a fact that completely catches me by surprise all right, folks just months after going public through a spac, lordstown motors is going to be looking to respond to allegations of fraud in the fourth quarter earnings call short selling firm hiddenberg research accused the electric truck maker of having no sellable product and there by misleading investors the company's stock slid 16% on that report on monday. lordstown ceo steve byrnes responded to the claim saying there's always haters. so we will see what they have to say. this morning stocks down 2 1/4 percent. andrew >> thanks. much of the auto industry is promising an all electric

future, but the road ahead for bmw will be more complicated phil lebeau here to explain. >> reporter: this morning in munich, germany, bmw is laying out the roadmap to get on the road when it comes to electric vehicles here's what the company is pledging because they have not been in the game when it comes to electric vehicles 50 pores 50% will be electric when it comes to 2030. 100% of the mini brands will be all evs by the early 2030s and it will speed out the rollout of the i 4 bmw swung and missed when it comes to the i3. that was the first mass market entry when it comes to electric vehicles it has done nothing. very few sales in 2020 the u.s. sales, which are predominantly the i3, down 73%. they are just 2.6% of the global

ev market. that's what bmw has. put that in some perspective, it is 8 times smaller than the global market leader tesla bmw doesn't want to miss out on what's coming. if you look at the research, almost everybody agrees, where we are right now with ev sales is very low compared to where we are going. by 2030 the research advisers expects global ev sales to top 26 million vehicles. that would be more than 1/3, more than 1/3 of the global sales overall for automobiles so you see the increase that's coming we were just at 2.7 million last year over the last two years no comparison if you were an investor in tesla versus if you were an investor in bmw. tesla easily a far better performance. let's see if bmw can do this guys, they have a very strong brand. no doubt about that. and they have a loyal customer base but that customer base is

looking around and saying, where are the evs? because if you look at california, andrew, california is a great example the 3 series used to be the top selling entry-level luxury sedan, if you will, or entry-level coupe, no longer it is now the model 3. it easily blew away the 3 series out in california. so that's what they are running up against in terms of trying to get in the game when it comes to electric vehicles. >> phil, i have a question that i don't know if it's going to make sense or not. what is the margin, relative margin today versus expected relative margin ten years from now on evs compared to traditional vehicles >> well, they're supposed to have larger margins eventually remember, you've got a lot of capital expenditures that are going into not only the production but ramping up in terms of the battery expenditures so those margins are very tight right now

look, very few automakers are making money, truly making money. tesla is making money, though you will hear the critics saying, they're doing that because of the zev, zero emissions vehicle credits. that's why they've swung to a profit eventually you will see the ev margins as great as what you see for the internal combustion engine models, that's the expectation within the industry. >> phil lebeau, always great to see you. >> you bet. >> becky still to come on "squawk box," today marks the one-year anniversary of "squawk box" going live with all of us from remolt locations we'll take a look back to that day and see where we stand later. plus, the fed wraps up a two day conference ruchir sharma coming up. this is women's history month.

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welcome back to "squawk box. i am dom chu with your market minute it is fed day so they are very key to the investors out there watching the 10-year treasury note yield if you haven't noticed for those not paying close attention, in just the last half hour we have spiked to our session highs. we are currently at 1.662% we got as high as 1.667% on the 10-year treasury note yield. the highest levels going back to february and even at one point in january of last year. keep an eye on the 10-year

treasury note yields spiking ahead. two of the key sectors to watch, financials and technology. we'll start with financials. they are so closely tied to technology year to date basis, sector up 15 to 17% capital one financial up 31% and goldman sachs up 30% as well those particular moves some of the best performing stocks in the s&p 500 so far this year just based on the financial interest rate move and the kind of move higher that we've seen there. also, it's taken a dent in certain technology stocks. semiconductor initially. we've seen a bounce back advanced micro is up 5%. vanek micro semiconductor up 5% as well. over the course of the highs to lows that we've seen, this sector fell by roughly 10 to 15% on certain stocks out there. andrew, financials, technology, sectors impacted by growth expectations and valuations.

sectors affected by possibly better margins also have to watch, andrew i'll send things back over to you. >> thanks for that, dom. appreciate it. when we come back after this, covid-19 one year later. a look back on the day "squawk box" went all remote aninheott gottleib and where we std t battle against the pandemic we're back after this. oh, that's wrong. what's wrong? your swing. that's terrible... you gotta put your knees into it, put your knees into it. that's too smooth. too smooth? watch this. ♪♪ you try it. ♪♪ better. ♪♪ oh, you gotta move your feet.

charles. alright, alright, i'm going. i'm going.

good morning, i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin we're together in spirit but we are now coming to you from separate locations, as you can see at the bottom. casa kernen, casa quick and casa nasdaq which is now casa andrew for the time being. >> that was march 17th, one year ago, and we've had different permutations on where we've been. >> yeah. we've moved around a little bit. >> moved around. i was upstairs on an ipad, downstairs with a camera at home but mostly here at the nasdaq. when i went on vacation a couple of times down to georgia, when i came back i wasn't -- i had to

quarantine for two weeks, went three times. went three times and had to quarantine for two weeks each time it was march, remember i've said this before, at that time we were thinking let's just get through march and move on to april when this thing starts going away and we can get back to normal in april came back here april 20th to the nasdaq and it will be a year of having -- >> yeah. >> which is crazy, of being back here even. you guys, no one knows necessarily where you guys are and i see some guys at night, some friends of mine that work at other networks and i know sometimes they're in florida i just know. i know them and i know where they are but they never say it oh, look, they're right in the studio in new york, and they're not. right? but you guys -- i mean, that's fine you guys look fine where you are. right? the lighting -- >> it's worked i have to say, i've actually

been shocked at how well it's worked i would not have guessed it was possible >> and now we have that capability to -- and sometimes it is good if -- >> works if there's a snowstorm. >> big snowstorm you can stay home the time square reopening indicator which we've looked at a few times, we haven't seen a lot of progress but that's -- that's long ago and that's today. you can tell you it's a little bit better there are people out and about and walking around i've never gone out. i don't know what this guy has out here, mack anything i'm sure i'd like it all i'd like it a little bit too much donuts. >> the guy behind you? >> yeah. there's a guy -- there's some people there right now. >> street vendor. >> yeah, that you can see. there's a car out there today. not usually.

it's a little bit better in times square we've had that discussion. does new york come back? it will. it will, but it's going to take some time, andrew. do you -- have you been -- have you eaten indoors yet, andrew? i've eaten indoors -- >> i'm not an indoor eater yet when i get vaccinated i'll become an indoor eater for now -- i eat outside a lot and happily so. >> ain't no waffle house in virginia different states are different in terms of -- and i tell you, most of the time the restaurants that have done a lot, they have done a lot in terms of no one's near anyone else everyone is wearing masks. we've had that discussion actually i've been out. i think i'd be climbing the walls. becky, you haven't been out yet. you've cooked every meal you're a good cook right now. >> 370 days. relatively speaking to where i was, sure. >> in terms of your -- of how

good you are all right. joining us now is someone who's been with us almost daily for the past year. dr. scott gottleib, former fda commissioner and a cnbc contributor. he also serves on the board of illumina and pfizer. doctor, we can comment on what we were just speaking about. i want to talk obviously about astrazeneca because i think we're moving in the right direction here what is it, 37 cases out of 13 million? nobody likes the 37 cases but i tried to do the math on how many people -- if 13 million were not going to get covid, how many lives do you save versus the 37 that died from the blood clots how many would be expected to die from covid out of 13 million? you can make a case it could be a pretty large number compared to 37, right

>> well, backing up to your earlier discussion i think you might be back in the studio sooner than you think this summer so we'll see look, astrazeneca's -- >> well, because of the vaccines and because of a decline case count although again new york city, if there was two parts of the country that look a little bit concerning, it would be new york city and the upper midwest. astrazeneca has been very particular how they've wanted their data presented and their ceo has as well. i'm going to reserve commenting on their data and just say i think the europeans needed a better approach how they judge overall clinical data and the side effects they're accruing, both with respect to the astrazeneca vaccine but also all of the vaccines. to see country by countries make individual decisions like that and not see the ema step in earlier, the regulatory authority, i think they need a better process in place for how they're going to adjudicate these things. >> over here, you're getting -- you have gotten much more

optimistic just in the last ten days, two weeks, doctor, about here >> well, look, i think it's the same trajectory. i think you're seeing declining cases around the country even in the pace of b.1.1.7. the concern was as b.1.1.7 became the prevalent strain we'd see sort of a fourth wave, people were saying that. i think you're seeing b.1.1.7 become epidemic in florida and california but you're seeing cases decline. what it's suggesting is the combination of prior infection, we're vaccinating aggressively, the fact that we're entering into warming parts of the country is enough to overwhelm b.1.1.7. we might see a plateauing before we continue to see declines, but i think we're going to see declines the two parts that are concerning now are new york and the upper midwest. new york, i've talked about the mutation there, the variant that's circulating that we don't understand, 1526 in california the variant there was upgraded to a variant of

concern by the cdc there are variants in the u.s. cause for concern. i'm particularly worried about the 1526 we don't understand it we don't have a good gauge of what the prevalence is we don't know whether or not that's making it more pathogenic or infectious, but it's in there. that's a cause for concern we know that that personal mutation could pierce prior immunity i don't think that's the reason why new york is sort of plateauing and not seeing the declines in other parts of the country. that could be one reason and we need to understand that better. >> we will be able to manufacture next generation vaccines in years to come to deal with either outbreaks, reoccurrences or some new variants, do you feel? will we be able to make enough supply to forever keep this at a

low level or -- because it won't be new to us then. we've done it before we probably have the technology to upgrade the software, if you will, of the vaccine, but will we ever get caught totally flat footed and have to start from scratch in terms of production of the vaccine do you think we can handle it every year >> well, with respect to the coronavirus, i think the mrna platform turned out to be an optimal platform updating the vaccines using that platform is pretty much plug and play not like getting the flu strain to grow in cell cultures sometimes you can run into problems you should be able to tweak the mrna and protein and both companies have built out substantial manufacturing platforms. there's no guarantee that the next pandemic that might be with some novel strain of bird flu or something unexpected is going to be amenable to an mrna vaccine

we may need a different platform this turned out to be very suitable to a coronavirus. it could be that there's reasons why it's so well-adapted to a coronavirus and it's not going to be as well-adapted to a stray bird flu we don't know. that's why it behooves us to invest in protein vaccines, viral vector vaccines and the old style activated viral vaccines i think we're trying to place a lot of chips to guard against the next pandemic. we want to have capabilities to scale against the next platforms. >> it would be nice to have a tamiflu and i'm wondering viral replication, would you see new mutations. new strains if we do develop a tamiflu like -- that would be fantastic, would it not? where you could basically cut the lethality of the virus right at the knees right at the

beginning if you catch it early enough would mutations get around that as well and future strains >> potentially we see mutations to tamiflu but it's less likely if you can target a conserved part of viral replication. there are a lot of drugs targeting core aspects i think we'll get one. i think we'll get a small molecule replication with those drugs there's concerns about off target effects. you try to target the virus and not have any off target effects. that's what usually holds up that kind of drug development. we'll be able to do there. there are three drugs in late stage development. we'll turn over data cards before the fall. it's possible we'll have a card before the fall. >> time square, new year's eve, will that happen again concerts will that -- watching something the other night and a crowded airport and no one had a mask

on i was even nervous it was on the tv and i was nervous for the people that were there surrounded, you know, in -- >> i'm not longing to be in times square in new year's eve but i think we'll be on the beach on july 4th. >> i'm wondering if we ever get back to where you're packed into a place and not thinking about the person being next to you having germs because we're all in that -- >> were you ever packed into a place not thinking about the person next to you >> i was i was. i've got three dogs. >> okay. >> i don't think about germs, believe me, very much. unfortunately we do now. anyway, scott, thank you i hope you're right. >> thanks a lot. >> all right see ya later becky. becky thinks about germs. >> when we come back, day 2 of the fed meeting. what investors should take away from jay powell's comments this afternoon. check out the futures this hour dow up 22 points after a down day. nasdaq is now down by 151

points worth checking the 10-year when we come back s&p down 14. "squawk box" will be right back.

four, five, turn, kick. we got chased by these wild coyotes! they were following her because she had beef jerky in her pocket. (laughing) (trumpet playing) someone behind me, come on. pick that up, pick that up, right there, right there. as long as you keep making the internet an amazing place to be, we'll keep bringing you a faster, more secure, and more amazing internet. xfinity. the future of awesome. all right, folks welcome back when we went to a break we took a look at the nasdaq futures down sharply they've gotten a steeper of a decline. we have watched the 10-year yield continue to pick up. it's sitting at 1.667%

joining us is ruchir sharma. he's from morgan stanley investment management. ruchir, we've been watching this at 1.67% for the last week, week and a half, it looked like things were more stable. you start to see things pick up this morning what do you anticipate hearing from the fed today and what impact could that have on yields ruchir i'm not sure ruchir is hearing us right now it sounds like we lost our guide with him very quickly, let's take a look at the futures with him. the nasdaq futures have come under increasing pressure this morning. this is the story we've been watching up until the last week where every time the 10-year yield picked up you saunas dak futures under pressure this morning you'll see the nasdaq futures are down by 150 points again, we had been in a rough

patch. 7 days in a row we were down and they started pulling up and doing a little better as yields started to really slow down. joe, part of that goes back to the conversation that you had last week just talking about whether these rates could stay and what tepper thinks about that. >> several months. yeah, several months we were -- that was on a -- that was a week ago friday when the nasdaq at one point was all the way down to 12,200 and it came back but not all the way maybe it came back that day and traded up a little bit it's been problematic. that's where a lot of people think the future net value gets impacted by the slightest even basis point rise in rates. and that was when he made the case that, you know, japan shocked everyone on that friday by not -- by indicating they were tethered at zero. we'll find out tomorrow and friday whether that was the

case i don't know what stable interest rates mean. i think it meant staying below 1 3/4, 1.8, 2% now that we're up there to 1.65, 2 and above, we'll have to wonder whether it does become a big problem for the nasdaq or for certain parts of the market. looks like it is today >> right i think goldman sachs had a note out yesterday saying that they thought the market -- equities market could handle rates going up to maybe 2% we did talk a little bit to mohamed el erian he was not quite as confident in that call. especially the big question is how quickly does it move to 2% if that's where we're headed. >> even 3, slowly. >> even 3. >> in the past big market gains have been made in a period of rising rates because it means things are improving i guess in

the economy. even 3%. jim paulsen's done some work that up to 3 it can be seen -- it has been historically okay for stocks as rates move up. but you don't want it going from 1.2 to 3 in a month and a half probably. >> ight. it's a slow and steady progress would be a different story this is the high wire act that jay powell is going to have to walk today talking about the good things they see in the economy but then explaining why they think yields should be down the treasury yields should be kept down at this point. good luck with that. kind of explaining why they're so loose, why there's so much money floating around. the fed decision comes at 2 p.m. again. 2:30 is when we'll hear from jay powell our apologies to ruchir sharma for the technical difficulties andrew >> thanks, becky when we come back, house

financial services ranking member patrick mchenry joining us on today's gamestop hearing and what investors can expect and later blackrock's chief investment officer rick rieder joins us "squawk box" returns after this.

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good morning, streak snapped. dow's run will end chairman jay powell says, or doesn't say about bond buying and inflation. are we going to be wearing to work that's a question that lost some of its meaning in the work from home era in a couple of minutes. fashion icon dvf she'll give us her thoughts on what the american wardrobe looks like post pandemic happy st. patrick's day. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now

>> i knew this would work, this song i knew it. very good intro. you could use that for almost any day. welcome back i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin are both of us thinking she might not come up with lululemon going back to work, andrew that may not be what dvf comes up with in terms of if we're really cool. we don't care. do you have them on today? >> i do. >> the lululemon abc pants >> me, too u.s. equity futures at this hour are indicated up 22 on the dow check out that number at the bottom there manageable at this point the treasury started moving and

got up to 1.63, 1.64 now 1.67 we immediately saw that reflected in the nasdaq. supposedly noncorrelated crypto bitcoin seems to move at times does seem to be correlated tesla is a good one to have back in the squawk stack. 3.5% on a 6 or $700 stock is a pretty big move as you can see the nasdaq down 1.14%, becky >> right we watched that slide all morning long we'll continue to keep an eye on it let's get you caught up on some stories investors are likely to be talking about today uber losing its final appeal of a case in the u.k. involving driver classifications the company has decided to grant drivers their employment status

that will entitle them to vacation pay and pension contributions. however, uber will not be giving full employee benefits this affects 70,000 drivers. drivers have pushed for some of these things didn't happen in california. voters voted down that decision to see whether they'd be full-time drivers. you have to wonder what it would mean for the company if this would happen in other jurisdictions. that stock is down by 2.4%. in the meantime, the house approving a two-month extension of the paycheck protection plan. the loans convert to grants if the businesses meet certain requirements this bill also includes an extra 30-day period for the small business administration to finish processing loans. coin base has filed a revised s1

statement. in the statement coinbase registered 115 million shares for sale by a direct listing that's planned for the nasdaq though there's still no specific date when coinbase will actually go public. joe? >> thanks, becky gentle later this morning the house financial services committee is going to hold a hearing on the extreme volatility that gripped the shares of game stock much took place in january and early february it continued into recent days. monday and tuesday gamestop jumped 41 and 27%. joining us is patrick mchenry, the ranking member of the house financial services committee we definitely want to talk about this my first question is, are we going to be able to tell the difference between the house and senate if we lose the filibuster, congressman? is that going to happen?

>> no. i think, look, the senate has its own challenges, but we don't want to -- our two chambers of the legislative congress to act the same as a member of the house, i can tell you there's some good and bad. the senate is more like a country club and the house is like a truck stop. you get more out of it. >> truck stops, people are occasionally involved in real life whereas at the country club, not so much. that's what we see it's getting interesting we'll see. a lot of conjecture. cable news is all over that kind of stuff let's talk gamestop. it's still being gamefied. senator pat toomey was on saying you explain the difference

between what tesla was valued at and what gamestop was valued at. you tell me it's completely different. it's tough to make the argument that is a completely different situation. is something going to be done or is this market action we're going to keep an eye on. >> can't you pick out a dozen stocks, two dozen stocks or the whole market and say there's something else at play here? so, look, for us in the house, my committee of democrats have chosen the panel they want today. they've already chosen the conclusion they decided that in the first hearing and their conclusion is you need a financial transaction tax, you need more regulation, you need a slower market, you need less risk taking, you need more generic products that are kind of boring but those boring products don't give you the good economic results that we've had in america over the last century. so they've already come to their conclusion on the regulation

they're driving, the tax policy they're driving and that's what we're seeing out of the house. the bigger question here is why do you see so much action in a few stocks and i think it's because we've narrowed down the investment opportunities people are allowed to participate in and we have greater interest of average everyday investors in playing in the market or being a part of the market, investing in the market and, second, not only have you narrowed out the stocks, you have fewer public companies to invest in i think this is a multi-layered challenge before you even talk about federal reserve policy and fiscal policy that contributed to people having a significant amount of, quote, unquote, savings to put at risk in the market. >> is it different than investment clubs in the past where small amounts of people, small numbers will decide we want to do some now, you can have tens of thousands of members in like an investment club and social media that can

act in a concerted fashion is that innately -- is there something wrong with that? >> i don't think so. the idea that we're going to put technology back in a box doesn't work either. this is like saying we want to roll back the ability for people to communicate real time you can slow it down conceivably. you can regulate it. you can have, you know, something to review, regulators review after the fact but you can't stop the people from communicating. you can't stop people from talking and you can't put technology back in the box that's a dumb outcome no matter what party you are >> congressman, the question that i'm grappling with, i imagine you're grappling with, too, what the role of policy is around the idea of speculation should people have the freedom to speculate, freely, if you will, or not

and so when you look at some of these systems, whether it's robinhood, almost inarguable to say it's gamefied and some of the new products coming on the market, spacs and the like, disclosure issues and it's unclear whether investors, dare i say, fully understand what's happening and understand the risks involved, what the role of government is supposed to be in those instances. >> okay. well, then that's a huge debate and you and i can have a big debate about this. what i think is people should have the power to make decisions with their own money buyer beware what the government needs to be in the business of is ensuring we have proper disclosures so people can make proper decisions and those disclosures are adhered to you don't have people lying in order to trick the market.

but just to simply say that as a government i want to deem people too dumb to invest their own money i don't think is proper. >> no, no, congressman, don't get me wrong my issue is that all too often in this country we end up socializing people's loses and privatizing the gains. this is a question from a policy perspective, how do you avoid it if we get in a question where too many people, quote, unquote, speculate and lose nobody turns around and says, i was to blame nobody does that we lived through the financial crisis we can have debates about who was responsible for that, but in that case we decided we were going to point the fingers at the banks. the government taxpayers were going to come and save everybody. that's what happened i think there's questions given that's what we seem to do, we do

it in a pandemic we saved the shareholders in the airlines how you want to quote, unquote, protect those who may lose because we will protect them again that's what we're seeing over and over >> yes and bad policy begets bad policy and when we have a new normal where you have bailouts as a standard, which i voted against the bailouts back in 2008, i thought it was the wrong app approach, i supported the airlines back in march i think the additional funds we've given them when folks are starting to fly again is ridi ridiculous so i think there's a certain end to government policy i understand your concern, andrew i think it's a sincere concern that we should make sure that people know that there will be no bailout for improper investment decisions that people make what we need though is a greater resilience in the market,

greater deal of access to different financial products so that people can play in a real financial market, not the narrow swath that we're currently permitting retail investors to play in. that's my greater point here that's the narrow swath we can resolve through governmental policies, expand this out and get better results we haven't talked about fed policy we haven't talked about the $2 trillion stimulus bill those things are contributors to this as well they're contributors to folks who instead of going out and going on entertainment or spending money on investing as entertainment or investing for the long term. hard to tell at this point but those things are contributors as well to what's happening in the market. >> congressman, are we going to have an infrastructure bill? will it go through reconciliation will it be across the board

capital gains? marginal rates corporate taxs will that be in an infrastructure bill that you expect president biden and democrats to do that >> this is my prediction i think we'll have two bills one, we'll have all the candy and the other will have all of the greens and so you'll have a tax bill that hikes taxes that the democrats will try to move on their own and they'll try to play a bipartisan -- play bipartisanship at least for once on an infrastructure plan. now in the house it's very different than the debate in the nation when i as a republican am talking about infrastructure, i'm talking about high speed connectivity, i'm thinking roads, bridges, airports i'm thinking asphalt, right? i'm thinking major thoroughfares of our country being expanded so that we can move people and goods to market. what my democrat colleagues hear

is not roads and bridges, they hear green new deal. and so that's going to be a very difficult challenge for the biden administration to resolve, this big difference between the progressive left and wanting to use this as a means to pass the green new deal and what most americans expect, which is roads and bridges. >> we'll be watching we'll have you back to talk it all over, congressman. >> happy st. patrick's day. >> you've been there for a while, i guess 2008 you were there. how long have you been there >> 2004. time flies happy st. patrick's day. >> thank you, sir. may i have another we're not ready to talk about "animal house. you keep asking for more hit me again let me stay in this place. anyway it's your choice every two years. are you nuts congr congressman, thank you >> a little bit. thank you. >> all right andrew. coming up, joe, when we come

back, a very special interview with fashion industry icon diane vonn furstenberg we'll talk about office wear, post pandemic and whether dressing from work will ever be the same from the wrap dress to what they're putting up on statement sleeves. we'll talk all about that plus her new book "own it." and on "squawk alley" you don't want to miss a big interview with disney ceo bob chapek vonn furs stenberg, firstberg, vonn furs stenberg, firstberg, vonn first tenfirst tenberg, fig

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

. up next, what are we going to wear at work when this pandemic is over will we see a return to office attire or will casual be the new normal none other than diane vonn furstenberg will be joining us stay tuned "squawk box" will be back after a quick break. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm.

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning americans may be getting ready to get dressed up again. urban outfitters offering up one of the first signs of life beyond zoom. gap saying there is going to be a peacocking effect as people emerge joining us is a leader in the retail industry fashion icon, friend diane von furstenberg is here she's the author of a new book, called "own it, the secret of life." >> what did you say, dvf. >> the secret to life. very different the secret to life help us here understand.

give us the secret to the future of life in terms of fashion for a second i think we're all trying to figure out what the new normal is going to look like. are we going to go out and peacock or are we going to be wearing sweatpants >> i don't know. it all depends what we do. for sure, because we spend so much time on zoom, you know, people -- what matters is what you wear on top, you know? and two things happen here in this pandemic. on one side we all appreciate nature a lot more and on the other side we belong to the -- we have accelerated to the virtual world. and so we're being pulled between those two. what will we do between? what is the office world going to be like none of us really, really know and how will we dress? well, we want to dress

definitely comfortably i think that more than that, for me i've always put the woman before fashion so it's focusing on what she wants, where she wants to be and giving her fresh, beautiful colors according to your mood so that you don't look the same on zoom. >> you obviously created what is now the iconic wrap dress. people are talking about -- you're talking about statement sleeves. that's the new piece of this, right? >> well, statement sleeves -- you mean there's a lot of sleeve there's a lot of statements, but the truth is, you know, the top is always more important when women dress because i always -- i used to say always to designers, when a woman goes to dinner with a man, she goes to the bathroom, all she sees is between here and here. that's always the most important

thing. what is the most important thing is how she feels, you know the secret of the wrap -- if you look at the wrap dress, doesn't look like much what's this dress? but when a woman puts it on, it immediately awakes her body language and at the end there are certain things you remember about a woman is her eye connection and body language >> so one of the things that was interesting, pre-pandemic retail was struggling i think it's not unfair to say that. >> yes yes. >> even though the economy was getting better part of the view was people were spending more money on experiences. they were more interested in spending money on experiences than clothes themselves. >> right. >> do you think that changes in a post pandemic world or do you think that accelerates >> well, experiences, there was a lot more travel. i mean, travel has slowed down for a while -- for a moment so i think that now people are

decorating their homes anybody that is involved in home decorating has done well because you spend so much time at home fashion is always a reflection of its time and we had grown so much, so much, so much more, new, new, new, more new. i mean, obviously it was bound to happen in any case, and this just accelerated it. i mean, this pandemic that was completely unexpected just, you know, made things happen that would have happened anyway and that's what happens during -- you know, after an earthquake and basically this is like an earthquake. >> what about selling itself, meaning the retail store, which of course fell out of favor for online, then there was the move towards rent a runway kind of thing. i know you got involved in that kind of business for a while

subscription business. what do you think that whole world looks like when this is over >> i think there will still be a little bit of everything i think that my -- you know, what every brand has to do is go back to their core and make sure they focus on what differentiates them. and i think people will not -- won't have the verge of changing, changing, changing all the time that's why you need clothes that are in your closet, that are your friends that you go to because they make you feel better and they make you appear fast and quick so it's a change of society. none of us can predict where society is going to go. >> let's talk about the book for a little bit here. >> can i show it here it is >> there it is you said it was cathartic writing this book and cathartic

doing so in the middle of the crisis what do you mean >> well, first of all, they approached me -- the publisher approached me to do this it's these small books that i like, guide books, very gift oriented and they say, you know, people quote you all the time. would you give us a book of quotes you know, your wisdom, blah, blah, blah and it is true that i have reached the age where it's time for me to use my voice, my experience, my knowledge, my connection in order to help other women, so i had -- when i first started people said what did you want to do when you grow up well, i didn't know what i wanted to do but i knew what kind of woman i wanted to be i wanted to be a woman in charge and then they say, who do you dress? i always dress the woman in charge what does it mean to be in charge well, to be in charge is not aggressive, it's really a commitment to yourself

it's owning who we are you own your imperfections, they become your assets you own your vulnerability, it becomes your strength. so "own it" is really, i realized, especially at the time of pandemic, there's no time to blame, to shame, to complain, we're facing the situation we had to own it so i made this little book, and i started as a prose so it was boring and condescending it was a dictionary. i took 268 words that spoke to me sometimes it's a definition, sometimes it's an anecdote but it all brings us to the fact that the only secret to life is to own it. whatever it is. >> the secret to life. dvf, thank you for joining us. go out and get the book "own it." it's for women and men by the way. >> yes

yes. yes. >> there are a lot of secrets in there. >> that's right. it's great for your employee. >> fair enough great to see you hope to see you in person very soon. >> thank you thank you so much. bye-bye. >> joe thanks coming up, breaking housing data we'll bring you the big number when "squawk box" returns.

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welcome back, everybody. rick santelli is standing by

with breaking economic news. good morning >> yes, good morning we expected starts to be down for a second month january was down big, and we were correct we expected a number around 1.56 million seasonally adjusted annualized units we're way below that 1.421 million seasonally adjusted annualized units. that's down 10%. last time we were at 1.421 was quite a while ago. you'd have to go back to august. permits dropped as well from an expected number somewhere around 1.7, 1.8 million seasonally adjusted annualized units to 1.682. that's a drop from over 10% as well but of course permits have been skating much stronger as of late that only back to just about november of last year. consider this. permits are well above pre-pandemic levels by over 20%. we all know that multi-family was the biggest part of starts we see all of these commodity

prices, lumber, crude, copper. big question today on fed day is that atm wealth effect pulled out 1$150 i think billion last year on mortgages at those price surges that continued many predicted we've seen the bright spot on housing and of course we see interest rates continue to buck anything regarding housing because they're looking right through it 1.67 now these are the highest interday yields for 10-year notes well over 240 in 30-year bonds pattern is the same. 26th of january, last major fed meeting and what we saw there was that was a takeoff point for rates, takeoff point for the dollar index and even equities there's a little bit of something for everybody. becky, back to you. >> rick, thanks. let's bring in steve liesman and diana olick. get some reaction from them. diana, let's start with you on the housing permits. >> reporter: well, you know what i'm going to do is break down

between single family and multi-family that's what's most important multi-family we have a lot of supply and single family we have a record low supply and we need new construction the numbers here are not good at all. when you look at single family the numbers are down 10% still up year over year. what i'm concerned about here is one big red flag in the starts you have starts down in february not just month to month but they are flat year over year. now flat year over year should not be happening right now because we need much more supply in this market mortgage rates are rising slightly but they're still near historic lows. that shouldn't be the problem. what we're hearing from the builders, what we heard in the builders' sentiment numbers is they have a back log they cannot produce. they have land, labor, material. lumber prices up over 200% since last april a lot of the builders, they don't want to be putting up houses when prices for them are this high.

lennar said yesterday they could pass on some of this cost to the buyers they're raising prices but you can't do that that much until they hit the affordability wall and buyers say i'm done. when i see this 0 really flat change year over year in single family housing starts, that's concerning for the health of this market which just needs more houses or else prices are just, forget it. >> steve, what do you have to add to that? >> so i think what's -- i don't want to say this is good, but the housing market had been on an absolute tear you had the rise in mortgage rates. at a time like this, taking a little froth out of the market is not the worst thing in the world, although what diana says is important the idea that there's a tremendous need for housing. i think the big problem is relative to the shifts that have happened amid the pandemic there's this huge demand for single family homes and not so

much a demand for some of the multi-family units we'll see if prices adjust or the replacement prices adjusted, people say maybe it is worth it to go to a multi-family home prices have fallen you have the inflation factor playing a role in terms of higher input prices and we'll see if that eases off in the coming months when you get some of the supply chains back into better working place because some of the disruptions come the pandemic i will say that it's okay broadly, macro economically, if housing falls off a little bit if consumer spending were to pick up, becky we'll be watching this to have this housing activity for the economy, but hopefully it's replaced by others >> something that matters to the broader economy and individuals who are out there looking for homes. steve, diana, thank you both

very much. let's take a look very quickly at the 10-year this is what we've been watching this morning rick, thank you you. you too. the 10-year has been ticking higher 1.673% as that's been happening there's been pressure on the nasdaq. those futures down 150 points below fair value ruchir sharma joins us now glad to see you back >> thanks. >> what do you think as the yield pushes higher on the 10-year, how much can equities kind of withstand those pressures, especially when you look at the growth stocks like the nasdaq >> well, clearly not that much i think that the market is still being too complacent about the effect of high interest rates because i think that you just can't have it both ways. that last year we had this incredible dichotomy where the economy tanked and yet the market did really well and this year if you look and see most

forecasters, they think the economy is going to come back. because of the roaring back economy the market is going to keep doing well. i don't think it works that way. i think the market is much more sensitive to interest rate changes. i think the market is much more sensitive to liquidity changes therefore the thing i've been going on about, 2021 is going to look like a mirror image of 2020 you are going to see higher rates. you're going to see at the long end and the economy may come roaring back but the market's not like that. the exact reverse of what happened in 2020 >> ruchir, that sounds crazy if the market was paying attention to what happened in 2020 when the economy shut down, people lost jobs people weren't spending. people weren't going out now we are coming out the other side and things are starting to open up. you would think that would be great news for the equity markets. >> exactly, but i think this relationship has broken down just because of the incredible

amount of support given to the markets. never before have the markets done so well during economic recession as it did last year in terms of at least the level so therefore i don't think it's that crazy to see them halted in the tracks as the economy opens up and as spending shifts. we know that a lot of the stimulus checks and a lot of the excess savings went into the stock market last year a lot of people sitting at home, idoling at home putting that money into the stock market. this year they put a lot of those stimulus checks back to spending in the real economy this is what's really happened the era where relationships have broken down and the structure of the market is such but it's so dominated by tech and it's so difficult for the other parts in the opening trade to completely counter that >> i mean, it almost sounds like the ultimate case of buy on the

rumor sell on the news everybody bought a year ago on the rumor that things would eventually get better? >> yeah, i think that's true the markets have already foreseen this. the pandemic is a one-off event. you look through it. it's more like a natural disaster rather than a systemic problem in the economy and then i think that, you know, there is this other thing. are the markets so caught up in the narrative that bad news is good news. which is if you get bad news it means more stimulus. good news is good news anyway. good economic news for the market i think this is going to be challenged with this unhinging we're seeing in the long end of the income >> ruchir, it's a lot to think about. some deep thoughts on this we appreciate your happening with us and i'm sorry for the technical difficulties earlier it's good to see you this morning. >> thanks as always. thank you. >> thank you andrew thanks, becky. coming up, blackrock's rick

rieder is going to join us wall street will be listening so closely to fed chair jay powell at 2.m p. eastern time we'll talk about what to expect when we return right here on "squawk. dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. pd-l1 transformed, revolutionized, immunotherapy. pd-l1 saved my life. saved my life. saved my life. what we do here at dana-faber, changes lives everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere.

right now let's get to cnbc headquarters jim cramer joins us. it's been a year since we went remote the story looks like great worries again affecting the nasdaq. >> what's amazing, joe, you and i both know there's just a huge number of companies that have been created and, yes, there are

a lot of people would say, the net stream cash flow is impacted by interest rates, but where are these younger buyers who don't really relate the two? because i think they do play a role the pros come in and sell everything off of rates. the younger investors don't look at things like that. they come in and start buying. let's wait to see before we jump to conclusions that tech is going to be awful today but it sure looks like it is right now. >> i have asked you in the past about the fed, and none of us like talking about the fed really. >> no. >> but they're here. they're here to stay they're doing some stuff they're talking. the market's going to do what it's going to do bond market, i mean, regardless of the fed one word can make a difference are you expecting anything >> it is going to hammer them endlessly. the boom, the boom, the boom if he ever gives in and just says, you know what, i have to think about the boom, that's the end. it's kaboom.

if i were a journalist in there i would be one of 40 who ask him about the boom where he gets worn down and he says, all right, i accept there's a boom then you trash the market. if we play that game, what can i say? it's very powerful unfortunately. they're all going to do it some say i really respect your view there is no boom and no inflation. they can't do that they can't it's like -- it's like, look, going to this thing, do you want to go against gonzaga. listen, that's what they do, gonzaga wins. >> is that what you're doing now that you've gone there >> i'm going illinois. >> me too. >> you are >> me, too how can you not? >> i hear either gonzaga or georgetown how can you not think about illinois isn't it time? >> and the guard what are you going to do with those guys how do you beat those two? and the rest of the team >> they're a destiny team.

>> it seems like a no brainer. we're not going to distinguish ourselves by taking illinois if they win and you don't have illinois, you're never going to win. >> do you take drexel? >> i did not i did not. what about ms -- can you believe michigan state and ucla have to play a game to get in and kentucky, louisville, all of these great teams. duke. >> history history should matter in the select -- look, i was the only person who watched selection sunday i really felt that. >> i did, too. >> it matters for heavens sake it's the most important thing that happens -- all right, the masters. so what mattered >> we need jo line linardy pickm stocks he's 99% right. >> coming up, blackrock's rick rieder joins us on what investors want to hear most from fed chair jerome powell this afternoon.

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the fed concludes a two-day meeting today with a press conference coming from jay powell lots of people are sitting up paying attention and one of them is rick rieder he joins us now. he's the head of blackrock's global allocation team the guys were talking about march madness. you think what's happening today is the real potential for march

madness, right >> i do. i mean, we're going to -- this is one if you're watching the fed, the -- you know, this is one of those things. like for the last few months, it hasn't been that interesting the fed has been on hold we're at the beginning where the fed is going to vol policy they probabl and they probably won't tell us enough today for us to fall off our chair but there will be some interesting data that will come out around the projections for rates in 2022, 2023, the projections for growth, into '23, and listen, i think the markets are better at forecasting than the fed is probably going to tell us today, the markets are building in the growth paradigm and it will be interesting how they address it and how they address the questions and how the chair addresses the questions and the conference after. >> why is this getting so much more interesting just because it is an inflection point? we know something has to change soon >> becky, it is, i mean the growth of the economy, i've talked about this with you a

bunch of times in the last few months, the markets are going to be strong and the markets are building that in and 7% gdp and next year it is interesting to see how the fed projects this but probably see 3.5% growth or higher next year, so you know, the fed has to start tapering down this purchase program i think they will start tapering down the purchases they make in the front end of the yield curve and when they are going to start raising rates but there are so many economic indicators that are better than they were pre-pandemic, and the interest rate dynamic we're sitting at today, and the amount of accommodation for the fed today is too high. the rates are too high and the amount is too high relative to the economic condition and that's why the markets are getting ahead of that and to hear how the fed will be addressing that today will be interesting. >> watching the 10-year, 1.647%. and as we ticked higher throughout the course of the morning, additional pressure on the nasdaq future, right now

down 150 points, and you think we could get to 2% this year how quickly? >> i certainly think we can get there. i think, by the way, we've done a lot of work, including like you say, we're doing this mork and we've done a lot of work and the rates are still too low, negative 60-ish basis points, a little higher than that and you think about that over time, the average over the last two years, positive 1 1/4, about positive 1.27, we have room to go, do we think we will have a 2% 10-year this year? i think there is a reasonable chance given how fast we think the growth will happen and by the way, people say have we hit a 1% 10-year, the market will have a hard tight and 1.50, it's over but i don't think it will have that much of an impact on the near term, it can intermediate, i think when you go two or three months, the equity market will be in decent shape. >> because again, it's rising,

rates are rising for a good reason it looks a lot better so why shouldn't we be. >> totally the top line revenue, yes. >> well, just what, what does the fed do, central banks do, because they have too much riding on trying to keep the rates low, trying to get back to full employment, and by the way, how do we pay for all of the spending that we're doing right now? >> so it's a tricky thing. i mean it's really, you know, how do you engineer a soft landing when you want to keep interest rate, particularly you want to keep long interest rates and not too high and part of why they taper, they will be creative and thoughtful about gosh, we can taper down and drain. so liquidity that's sloshing around the front end, and short on interest rates, but you got to keep making asset purchases longer on the yield curve, because you don't want long rates where companies borrow, where the mortgage market is, you don't want to get rates to

high, when you are trying to see a series of growth, continuing to improvement, employment continuing to improve and ang awful lot of treasuries to fund the debt, to fund the deficit, so this is a tricky thing, but i think that's why the fed needs to be a bit craeative how and when they do it and once have the evolution of the thinking, markets are in better shape. markets hate uncertainty and the reason you're seeing this today, part of the reason you're seeing this today, is the fed isn't going to say a lot and markets don't like guessing and they want to know the plan and markets would like to see the plan. >> rick, i just want to pivot the conversation for a second because i got to get your view on what's going on with this, and it's in the esg space, given blackrock's really been out front on this idea of sustainability the former chief investment officer of sustainability for blackrock wrote an op-ed in "usa

today" and came on cnbc yesterday, i don't know if you saw this, where he effectively says, and i quote, sustainable investing boils down to little more than marketing hype, pr spin, and disingenuous promises from the investment community. what's the reaction inside blackrock about this >> so i mean i didn't see, it however listen, a lot of the investment we're making across different asset classes is in companies that are improving their carbon footprint, that are improving how they run their businesses, generally across a whole series of frameworks whether that, people view that as market, it is the fact that with your the world is going and it is the fact that sustainability is a big part of where the world is moving to, and so investing, keeping your investment portfolio, or moving your investment portfolio, consistent with what that dynamic is in the world, what the environment is going to be, for investing, it is really profound and so i don't think, i don't think a characterization that

says it's marketing 0 or whatever it is, i don't think that's sincere, everybody in the industry are moving our portfolios that are consistent with what is efficient economic conditions and efficient corporate action going forward >> andrew? >> all right, fair enough. i just, i saw it, and i saw the op-ed and i saw him on the air and given that he worked for blackrock and the head of sustainable investing, for him to then come out publicly and literally called it greenwashing, it was head-turning for me. >> like i say, it's pretty clear in terms of if you look at our portfolios, it's pretty clear where we're investing and how we're investing, and the evolution of, and by the way, the companies over the long term, the intermediate to long term, that are performing, are the ones that are consistent with that paradigm so anyway, i think it's pretty clear when you look at how we're investing across the platform. >> hey, rick, just back to the

whole idea that tech stocks, growth stocks, are getting hurt, as yields rise, i know you think that that's a near-term thing, not a medium or long-term thing, does that mean you would be advising people to buy into some of these names when they sell off? >> 100%. you know, i think we're in an environment where no doubt you're going to increase, you're increasing the discount rate, so talk about the multiples on some of the technology companies that, you know, have been trading at very high valuations, there is some, clearly s compression that should take place and that being said, i can't tell you how many hours i'm spending on companies that are driving 20% top line revenue growth, hitting secondaryand tertiary markets to grow their businesses, and i think it requires some work and the markets always like to do this, i've seen this trend and so this should happen but there are some real opportunities out there and we are reorienting our portfolios to cyclical, material, financial, because i do think that is consistent with

the higher growth, higher rate dynamic, but i think it is presenting some real opportunities in places like technology that are super exciting, and you know, semis, afrts official intelligence, clout, it's not like those things are going away, and taking a bigger part of km commerce, but big time multiple, 40, 50 times revenue, no doubt those are going to be a thing of the past. >> rick, thanks. good to see you. >> thanks, becky thanks for having me >> thanks, andrew. >> thanks. meantime, dominic chu will join us with a look at some of the top pre-market movers this morning. give us some ideas of things we should be putting our squawk stack. >> we can put things in the squawk stack as well there, but take a look at some of the things we're looking at, first of all, we have an earnings mover in lands' end, those shares higher after the company came out with better than expected profits and revenues and gave a better than expected forecast for current quarter profits and full-year ones as well so casual apparel doing well at lands' end, the shares

up 2%. also then, check out what is happening with plug power share, down big, roughly 14%, off the pre-market low, the company will restate some of the financial statements it's had over the past few years, as well as some quarterly results more recently. they've had an accounting error. but no malfeasance so those shares off 13 to 14%. plus power on the move and then we end on an analyst upgrade. mcdonald's shares, up by about 1%, decent amount of volume here, after analysts at doichl bank take up their price target on the company to $244 and called it a buy rated stock, a hold before and they say the u.s. momentum continues for mcdonald's and there's an underappreciated opportunity for mcdonald's restaurants internationally that are own and operated by the company itself so those shares up about 1%. andrew, keep an eye on those in the pre-market trade they are on the move i'll send things back over to you. >> i kind of want some mickey d's right now. >> i do. but i want a big mac, not an egg sandwich >> at this hour?

>> yes >> a little early. still a little early >> we're going to take a final check on the marks right now before we go on this st. patrick's day. i hope everybody enjoys it a little bit of green for you. dow up about 62 points, but nasdaq looking to open down about 142 points >> i'm with you, andrew. total virtue signaling i'm with you, that esp stuff, total virtue signaling, me and you, man me and you >> you're right. >> we'll talk about it >> joe, back to you. we'll see you tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. >> bye, guys goos good wednesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber happy st. patrick's day. futures are mixed with the fed with a decision at 2:00 eastern time nasdaq struggling a bit as the 10-year yield approach 1s.68 a 14-month high. and oil is down. and the road map