i appreciate it. thanks and we've got, keep your eye on the nasdaq today, down 2.23, kind of got saved, kind of got bailed out yesterday, with everything else, with jay powell, and what to expect today, andrew, becky, becky, andrew, let's do it again tomorrow make sure you join us. >> "squawk on the street" is next good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber tech is in the cross-hairs yet again as the 10-year crosses 1.75 for the first time since last january 30-year at 2.5 markets watching for more signs of inflation philly fed, 51.8 is the highest in our data set at least our road map begins with recovery and inflation nasdaq and s&p futures moving lower.

we will hear from powell again today at noon. the reopening time line. amc shares are rallying as the movie theater chain looks to get most of its u.s. locations open by this weekend. and tesla's auto pilot safety facing a federal investigation after two crashes over the last week the latest into a parked michigan state police patrol car. carl >> all right, guys, so much to get to, i guess jim, you covered a lot of this a moment ago, with the guys on ""squawk"," 1.75 on the 10-year was not out of the realm of people's expectations but for the likes of b of a, it was a year end target not a march target. >> it's happening very fast and i think this is the bond market saying you don't know what you're doing jay powell. let me tell you something, mr. bond market. you're going to be dead wrong. i've been going over all of the commodities that powell talked about when he said list be it's going to be transitory, he will be right about every single one of them with the exception of copper, because e.v. batteries require so much copper and he doesn't want to be linked like yellen was in 2015 where she saw

commodity prices going up and misinterpreted that as strength in the economy, and the jobless claims, verifying what powell is doing, i'm telling you, david, this is about a guy who doesn't want to make the same mistake that they made in '15-'16. he doesn't want to let the commodity market bully him into doing something that could be short term and wrong. >> what about the bond market bullying him >> he's not going to let it happen. >> it's happening, whether or not he wants it to happen or not. the bond market is making its own decision about inflation right now. >> i'm saying he won't let the short rates going higher and the mortgage rates are okay. and you wouldn't have the lenoir run yesterday if the mortgage rates were out of control. i am saying if he wants to cause the 10-year to go back to 1.5, all he has to do, i'm picking it up regular cycle, we're going to show those inflationista business. >> and tell me why you believe

the commodities are a transient move. >> three reasons one is the saudis could blink on oil. i think they will. and two is this storm could be far worse than any of us are talking about. it is pretty extraordinary and three, the labor inflation that we're seeing, it is not nearly as great as i would have thought by this time and i mean it's always mentioned on the home builders, and what are we talking about, giant home builders but not to the point where anyone is saying it is causing us to raise the cost of what we do so. i think when you get commodity inflation, that's more dependent upon weather and the saudis, you can't do anything about the saudis >> right. >> i'm taking rates up in order to get the saudis to stop their taking oil off the market? no four straight weeks where oil has been above inventory and i think you will surprised, i think oil is peaking right now. >> that's interesting, jim i know retail gas is up 46 straight days, and that's the longest streak in about 16

years, and as far as we have data going back to 2005, and year to date, retail gasoline is up almost 28%, and we've not had a year since 2005, where it's been up more than 20 at this point in the year. but to jim's points, about these things being transitory, it's exactly what powell said, at the presser, take a listen >> we could also see upward pressure on prices, if spending rebounds quickly, as the economy continues to reopen. particularly if supply bottlenecks limit how quickly production can respond in the near term. however, these one-time increases in prices are likely to have only transient effects on inflation >> so jim, there's that. then there's also 3m which comes out yesterday and says that labor, logistics, materials, are rising, and basically doubled their estimates. >> well, look, there is a lot of, there's a lot of demand from china, 3m, very heavy china, that is very, that is strong, i

admit that there are issue where there are certain things, that i've been trying to get to the bottom of the lumber story now for several day, no one can give me good answers about what is happening with lumber. people are giving me i think answers that i think are fatuous. but when i see things like refining where we had one million new barrels this week of which almost all that is coming off is now produced, because they're fixing from what has happened from the winter storm and the winter storm is the underreported story, bigger than any hurricane we've had in decade, it knocked out so much petrochemical and oil, david, why are we not focusing on the fact that a lot of the inflation that we're seeing in autos, in furniture, in home, is related to a storm that it is like no one talks about it it was a one in 100 year storm and people don't realize it happened >> right you've been talking about it the last couple of days. >> endlessly. >> because it was so big.

>> and the impact it's had jim, back to the market itself today, the technology name, and here i'm not just talking about the ones obviously we end up talking about so often, the apples or amazons, both of which are down, down single digits for the year and even tesla which is barely down and netflix, there are other technology names, high growth names that have been shellacked and will continue to be today and you see what the nasdaq is potentially looking like in terms of the open and there does seem to be a debate about possibility of inflation, versus pricing power on the part of these companies to combat it i don't know where that ends up. and you look at a name like spotify, only down about 10% for the year, but from its highs, down about 100 points. and yet they're raising prices and so you know what, again, to your point about transence of commodity prices is, this also transient? is this a moment in time for the technology names to continue to be the leaders and will have the growth kind of numbers to support higher prices in the future >> i think that we're going to have to see a couple of big

disappointments. this is what happened in 2016. had to get to a hideous bottom people forget how bad tech was that year and you will need to see some of the high profile companies that we're talking about say they can't make the numbers and that's how you get a bottom, and none of them have said that yet and all of them are pretty happy about how things are going and we need a major one, a faang name, to say we can't make the numbers and then you will see a bottom. >> why would that happen i mean again, heading into 6% gdp growth, why would you be unable to hit the numbers? >> well, i mean i think that, all right, that's a, i know it's not a rhetorical question but the way i would answer that is to say that what happened back in 2016 was linked in, which was an amazing company, forecasts saying listen, because we see rates going higher, because we see things aren't going the way we thought, we have to cut numbers. we didn't make the numbers and that caused the final leg

down and then of course what happened to linked in bidding war between salesforce and microsoft. so i am waiting for that scenario to play out and it was linked in i thought was doing incredibly well and they looked around and said you know what, maybe things aren't going to be as good. maybe it's going to be one of these companies that's going to do it and i don't know which one. a lot of people think it's going to be apple, david, because a lot of people people feel that iphone orders have been cut. i'm not buying that. but the chatter is apple will miss. >> rates are moving higher because people think things have going to be good and potentially cause inflation which is going to hurt some companies and then you're saying well, maybe things aren't good. >> no, i'm saying one of these companies could break ranks and say listen, we're now uncertain about the future you take petco, which we have later today, they did the opposite, they gave us an actual view, we are going to have a good year. we need one of these tech companies to say it's uncertain

and then that's it that's it. they can't be all clear as lordstown in terms of not doing well >> we'll get to lordstown interview earlier this morning and maybe to the degree that there's something to hang your hat on regarding weaker guidance may be europe. i don't know if you saw the morgan stanley note this morning. we're somewhat skeptical europe can save the summer due to the emergence of new strains and germany had the biggest case rise in two months and france and norway and the the eu have talked about a third wave in the past 48 hours and we talked to santoli earlier in the week to the degree upon which that may put a lid on the rising price environment. >> look, i got to tell you that business is being done, two businesses, in italy, you know, of course, this is anecdotal, but we're done, done and everything is being canceled it's like a shutdown it's like, but it's a shutdown being mandated by their own people, by the people

themselves i think that europe is going to be well below trend. and i think that will affect a lot of the companies and unfortunately, china's so, i shouldn't say unfortunately, we're talking to china right now, the government, but china is still very strong and the hope for a lot of these companies is that china will make a lot of the commodities, and actually bring down the price of say petrochemicals which they have the ability to do, but china's still accelerating, and i think that these talks, carl, that we're doing, another underreported area, that i think has to be more reported, the tenor of these talks, with china, is sounding like it's a lot more serious and tougher, and not one-off, than under the previous administration >> yeah. for sure and now, we got confirmed this week, 98 to 0 vote, and then this back and forth with putin is truly remarkable this morning. and we will get to that in a bit. peek speaking, speaking of recovery, stateside, we are getting some new data on the

ride sharing front we have more on that with dee. >> lyft shares are moving higher, in a block post this morning, thecompany says that yesterday, for the very first time in a year, it saw positive year over year growth in daily ride share volume this comes on the back of the best week since pandemic lockdowns began and it expects that momentum to continue, with positively weekly ride share growth on an annual basis for the rest of 2021, and perhaps, guys, not so surprising, as it is coming off a very weak base here, but some of this momentum was telegraphed a few weeks ago through an 8-k, where lyft also improved its q1 loss outlook, but the blog post today essentially saying that the recovery is here and it's going to get even better just last week, shy note, uber also said that it was seeing improved mobility trends and also improved its first quarter outlook, but of course, that company has pivoted to food delivery, which of course is a business that is expected to see some softening this year

and now, both company stocks have just surged year to date, they were up 30% for lyft and 10% for uber but that run certainly continuing. both of them have more than qua drew drupeled over the last year alone, quadrupled over the last year alone and the title of the lyft post, what a difference a year makes pretty well put. back over to you. >> wow, that's good, thank you very much, dierdre, on lyft. and jim, we were talking about gas prices all part of a piece. >> yes, it is. by the way, congratulations to daniel ives, he comes on a lot, and he made this call yesterday to go buy lyft and it was like wow, why is he saying that, what is that about? he nailed it there's inflation in drivers and that's overseas. and inflation and gasoline, i'm calling a peak on gasoline. >> you are you already did. you seconded your own call >> it's by acclamation then. >> can we table it

>> i'm invoking cloture on you right now unless you have something. >> i want to hear your thoughts on dollar tree i know they're playing the music. you saw they came up with numbers or guidance as well for dg, so that is something to talk about before the opening bell. >> and they are going to buy gamestop and not dollar general. >> i guess not. >> show me the hands, david. >> carl, we'll get to that in a bit as we head to commercial. >> yes, we will get to williams sonoma, an upgrade of carnival, some downgrades of last year's favorite, like kroger and clorox and you can see, tech weakness this morng 'rba ia meniwee ckn mont

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amc's up in the pre-market the theater chain says it plans to have 98% of the u.s. locations open beginning tomorrow, including more than 40 reopenings in california amc expects 99% of its theaters nation waid to be open by march 26th jim and about a month after that, we'll get disneyland >> yeah, things are picking up everywhere and i think one of the things that we're seeing is that people certainly are not going to wait. amc, if you waited, i think you obviously missed a gigantic move, congratulations to adam aaron, who kept the chairs on what people thought was the titanic in place, and it wasn't

titanic at all, it's the sole survivor by the way, they once played at my high school, david, "sole survivor," a group and expressway to your heart forget it. but carl, i really believe in amc being the only movie chain that got through this. >> they got through it though because of the reddit bee bell rebellion, or whatever you want to call it. >> i'm talking about the fact that the stock went up to level, well, you see what it did, that seemed impossible to imagine, given at least fundamental analysis, but enabled them to sell stock, they did it along the way, i mean kudos to adam aaron for taking advantage of what he was given, and being able to keep that company afloat. >> thank you because that's the use of the capital markets the way they're made and royal caribbean has done it. >> the stock sup, great, there you go >> adam aaron, great piece about him and how he survived and won this and the carnival cruise recommended today is upgraded.

i got to tell you, carl, one of the things that is amazing about the reddit crew so to speak, you think they've been picked off when they made their buys, but they're up with their buys that's more than i can say about the hedge fund kings who said hell was coming. >> gme is hanging this there at over $200 a share. >> and something you have been focused on, carl, the theatrical window, so much has changed in the last year in terms of the willingness of the producers of films to take them right to direct to consumer and our parent company, nbc universal, started tightening up that window early on. you saw disney make some decisions in terms of releasing things direct to disney plus and then of course, the wonder woman movie, release without any window, to hbo max, for a certain amount of time for its subscribers, i did mention to john stankey who owns warner, whether we'll ever see the return of the old window, so to speak, in terms of how long you have to get to something to watch something in a movie theater. here's what he said.

>> i don't think we're going to see the return of the window exactly the way it was two or three years ago. i think there is going to be a meaningful theatrical window for content that is relevant to see in a theatrical experience the industry is constructively working through this and it is going to ultimately be a win-win for everybody. >> hoping it is a win-win for everybody, jim. >> well, it's been a win-win for viacom >> the pause did everything. >> it's going to be fascinating, guys, to see how the creatives take this as well. we talked to dom chu last week, a new movie "the height" based on the music by lin noel miranda, and then some of these guys who believe their movies should be seen big, are going to try to position themselves, and maybe even demand that their movies are released in a bigger window. >> it is a different experience,

to be fair you can sit home with the biggest screen you can find and watch on netflix and any other service but it is a different experience, carl, i think we can all relate to that and the economics though, as you point out as well, and we talked about it, they're changing, too, how do you get paid on the back end when there isn't one, right? so it will be interesting to see how they all adjust. >> wow we'll get to some of those calls that we mentioned, that upgrade of carnival and some other reopening stories as well. and got to keep your eye on rates today, as the futures will reflect some nervousness about tech's exposure to a rising rate environment. don't go away. omo household we take things to the max oh yeah! honey, you still in bed? yep! bye! that's why we love skechers max cushioning footwear. they've maxed out the cushion for extreme comfort. it's like walking on clouds! big, comfy ones! oh yeah! ♪♪ in boxing or any other business, one day, you're gonna take a hit you didn't see coming.

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opening bell let's succeed in a "mad dash," williams sonoma you mentioned a couple of times. no details give it to us. >> there's really this dichotomy that's coming, there's the companies that are doing better now that we're opening, retail, okay, and then the companies that were doing fabulously last year and a lot of them, you know what, l is a fabulous one, and staying fabulous and we will talk to dollar stores in a moment, but the one that a lot of people bet against because it did so during the pandemic, it was williams sonoma. they didn't think they could continue because a lot of it is just making your home into a more of an office environment and a lot of outdoor stuff that they did, that was good, because that was the way you were supposed to do things and forget about it, david. the numbers were unbelievable and the forecast is forward to continue and 40% comps for some of these. and laura alber on "mad money" tonight talking about, look, we have been able to develop a different ethos, new modern aesthetics and you usually hear this stuff, you think it's just smoke. no

i mean there's a direct correlation between the good work they are doing and the increasing relevance that they have and i've got to tell you, david, just call me a huge believer >> you're not alone. >> man, this stock is up over 400% >> laura alber sundays >> 400%. >> i understand. >> how about if you raise the dividend like every other week that they do. >> the easter outdoor is doing incredibly well. at the same time, what are they doing? carbon reduction in other words, this is the new way to do things you announce the initiative, and then you talk about lower footprint right in the same paragraph. i love this new world. >> yeah. >> i love it >> man, i would assume they give a lot of stock to their executives i don't know but that's great >> the amazing thing flag ship is back. >> williams sonoma stores. >> and they have these mixers for, alcohol mixers. >> alcohol mixers. >> it's just killer. >> what do you mean killer

>> just to make a smoothy? >> yeah, like an alcohol - >> like a thing now. >> with the mixer. like you make a manhattan, whatever. >> oh, yeah? >> i love all of it. go on out. you can't keep the stuff in stock, david. >> no. >> david, you know what a -- well, i'll show you. >> very heavy. >> i look forward to when you're mixing me a drink soon enry soon. ev sooner than that, we'll get an opening bell. so don't go anywhere

citi's out with an upbeat note about intel and the new leadership there saying quote we believe the new ceo pout gelsinger is taking away both the doomsday scenario of intel taking away shares and the amd gaining share for many years we believe investors and us are becoming more confidence in mr. gelsinger's ability to fix intel's manufacturing either internally or via outsourcing. jim, i'm in the sure you share their confidence. >> no, look, pat gelsinger is terrific and it is great he came

over from vmware, it takes a long time to turn around a ship, i think that part of it is spreading the gospel but look, we haven't lost anybody, everybody loves us and we'll be taking share but what i didn't like about this, this was a strawman piece of research, the blue sky upside scenario of $5 earnings per share it is going to melt away wait a second. i've been the most bullish guy on amd in the world. i never once believed in the blue sky scenario five bucks if you want to create a strawman, david, and then say hey, listen, it's not going to happen, well, that's what happened there, that piece, that piece david, that guy has been wrong about amd for a long time. let's make him wronger, or more wrong. >> or wronger. i always liked that. it's probably more wrong. >> i think it's an incorrect - >> probably sweet. >> what about the idea that they both can benefit is that a possibility in your mind or does one have to benefit -- >> zero sum? >> at the loss of the other?

>> i think if you listen to what lisa su said and perhaps this gentleman did the other day when she spoke, it's multi-year partnerships and they're very hard once you're in to rip out, i'm talking about google, i'm talking about azure, these companies are big, and they're siding with amd. so look, there is room for intel to come back but i think this is another reason to buy amd. and because enough what enough it's the only -- dollar general, down 10. >> that's why i wanted to talk about it, which we are going to in a moment but we'll let carl tell us about the opening bell here. >> i don't have much to add except that is the bell and the s&p. and i want to quickly point out before we get going here, jim, that the banks are clearly going to lead. i think the top 10, 15, maybe 20 s&p leaders are all financial-related. we did have the 2s, 10s spread, get back to the highest since 2015, jim and i'm looking at

philly fed, prices paid, 75.9, on prices paid, philly fed, that's the highest going back to march of 1980. so these pressures may be transient. but they're going to be elevated even if they're transient. >> and what i did like though, there was no moment did the fed chief powell say that this wouldn't occur he said it multiple times. we are going to see inflation go up so i mean i think it's prepped us are these bank stocks ahead of themselves i think they were too cheap. and finally getting some of us, i think they're trying to get a price earnings multiple. i mean remember, david, when goldman was selling at eight times earnings >> i do. no longer the case and below book no longer the case >> goldman's at an all time high jpmorgan at all time high. >> i'm saying those prices were wrong. >> yes. >> these companies had a lot more earnings power. >> okay. >> right >> clearly but a yield curve that makes

more sense to some is helping. >> but also we got algos, you taught me about the algos, they're set, the algorithms are set to buy this group and to sell apple, microsoft, i mean you don't even have to say their names anymore, i think they use some acronym or something, like a faang, what is it? >> yes they do. and they are down. as you just said apple, amazon, netflix, alphabet, all down not dramatically >> you put the k-bosch on n netflix when you said people like to go to the movie theaters >> i don't know netflix will suffer from the idea that people might want to go see a movie once in a while. >> every day, what happens, i have been talking about the stages of grief, we are in the stages of grief for this group, and we are still in the bargaining stage, we're not going to let go. you have to have, you have to have depression, and you get the

bottom, when you have acceptance and we're not in the depression days yet we're still in the bargaining days we're still thinking they can rally. >> i'll tell you what, we'll keep our eye on names like peloton for sure jim and some of these high multiple stocks, they did say, yesterday, on bloomberg, john foley pointed out that bike supply now moving closer to demand, that production capacity is up 7 x a year and working with adidas on apparel. we have seen for example, cathie wood snap up some shares on this medium term dip. >> she caused a bottom on teladoc. she is rather amazing, if you don't know her, google her, but she has become the person who i think her funds are so big, that when there's a major dropoff in a stock that she likes, she does what you should do, which is say, this is my chance, otherwise i would move the stock, so is she right about peloton? all i can say is if you run a

lot of money like she does, you have to buy peloton on a day like yesterday and david, you know we have seen fund managers who run away from declines and i like fund managers who have conviction enough to buy a decline. >> she's one of them as you say teladoc and zillow and butterfly networks >> jonathan rothberg, we've had him on a couple of times for his various spacs and that is butter fly, no longer a spac as well. and she a buyer of that one. and let's get to dollar general. we did mention it but let's give you the news the company did report earnings but it is the guidance that is responsible for the loss of 6% or so of the shares in dg this morning and it is what we might expect and it goes kind of to our initial conversation to some extent in terms of what dollar general is saying, which is that the significant uncertainty continues to exist, and this is again their guidance for the fiscal year 2021, continues to exist, regarding severity and

duration of the covid-19 pandemic, and given this uncertainty, it is difficult to predict specific outcomes, that's kind of where they are right now, in terms of u.s., you know, the consumers a behavior and their business but it's not a good outlook net sales in the range of 2% decline to flat. so the best they're hoping for at this point is flat. same store sales declines of 4 to 6%. and you do see there, they plan to share a repurchase 1.8 billion worth of shares and their cap ex, coming in somewhere between a billion and 1.15 billion, let's call it, jim, but the shares are suffering as a result of that guidance this morning. although off the lows already. >> but it does seem, david, you remember in the first iteration of dollar general, why they went private? >> when they went private. >> when they went private. >> the excuse, and the reason why and they were write, listen, people keep thinking when the economy does really well, people stop going to our stores and when they are the opposite, they come to the stores and that's not true, much more secular and

it's interesting, david, in this coming boom, it looks like people want to trade up to a kohl's they don't want to go to a dollar general they want to trade up to a target now, target gave no guidance so that is hurting the stock but we are really fleeing companies that we thought were going to do okay with the stimulus checks, david, and stimulus checks don't seem to be headed to dollar general >> a little early. they don't seem to think so, i guess, but a little early. >> i would have said, listen, look at, really bullish, carl, you would say this is a great time for us, the economy is opening up, people are getting stimulus check, the last time when they got the stimulus check, they went to us and it's not happening it's not happening >> i would say, b of a has had the opposite view, from a macro standpoint, they've argued that the biden white house is going to focus more on lower income americans rather than say stock market valuations, and that in the end, favors discounters over luxury but it's a great point, jim and a debate that goes on

for a while. >> yeah, i've got tremendous respect for these companies. but there's something to be said for what's been going on with the kohl's, the ross stores, the five belows, the five below, with the remarkable number today, which is just, these are companies that are just cleaning up right now, they're doing great, and they have very positive things to say about the future we're going to be talking to petco, petco gave a very bullish outlook. these companies can't keep a bullish outlook because i just think that wow, you know, what, maybe our time came when there was a lockdown and we have to bring up clorox, here, because clorox numbers will be down very big. it's just really incredible. >> and it is that kind of thing. >> and a lot of cleaning products at dollar general that i'm sure are not doing well. >> well, you mentioned clorox today. downgraded at d.a. a. davidson, they go to neutral because the roi point of sale is negative

year on year same thingwith kroiger at deutsch. short term sell catalyst on comps that have virtually impossible to repeat after the environment we went through last spring. >> right i mean all your comps, i mean your airline traffic is going to look good, your lyft traffic is going to look good and your sale of clorox wipes is going to look bad. >> the numbers from clorox, they're just, i mean the projections are terrible when you go year over year february because people with clorox wipes, in res spect that was important, a handshake was important and now we all learned it is really aerosol, and you didn't use every wipe that you bought you bought more wipes because you hoarded wipes. and additionally, you see the stores doing well. >> i remember the days of wiping down the groceries thankfully that is done. >> leave the box out there. >> there is a lot of things

we're not going to remember fondly from this period. hardly any of it fondly. guy, i got to do this bidding war for coherent we said it before. we are advising a kid coming out of college in the same kay that dustin hoffman was advised during the plastic, during "the graduate," you wouldn't say plastics now, you would say photonics. photonics, son and momentum and two-six wanted to buy the company lumentum came back and then ii-vi share price is off a bit it is 2.20 in cash the rest in the stock there you see. >> it the time line, where did we start we will call it 226. we work our way up, we work our way up, through january, and february, and march, and remember, it was also, there was another bid ner there for a bit, and they're gone now and it brings us right up to the current market so here we, are but lumentum has

until 11:59 pacific time on monday, march 22nd, to respond to the revised offer from ii-vi. each of these companies upon further inspection have found higher synergies, always previously reported but i find that interesting we were able to find more money than we originally thought, jim, so that's good and that will help undergird our higher bid and obviously they both raised money from private equity to help finance their bids as well, also banks as you might expect, given the cash component, it has gotten fairly large, photonics, son. >> it does feel like there is a traffic article today about the celebrity spacs. it does feel like real companies should be able to go get some money. >> yes >> because the people who are listed are getting spacs, getting hundreds of millions, who are just celebrity, well, i got to say, celebrities versus coherent, i would rather give lumentum money than i would some of celebrities

if you're a celebrity, does anyone think that you made all your money because you were a whiz at business i mean you were a whiz at what you did which may not have been business. >> right right. although it is still cash, right? it is still cash flow. it's discount. >> it's still cash. >> there is so much cash around. i mean that is the one thing that i'm sure that -- what >> with the spac, you got two years and then return the money. you got to return the trust, it earns some interest and now you can get a little bit of interest if you put the stuff in treasuries and get your money back if they don't do a deal and you can redeem if you don't like the deal, so that's the benefit of the whole spac phenomenal to some extent and do you think the celebrities will pay off and they're looking for something? >> i'm looking at a real company, by well known celebrities or well known people to buy something that is accretive and that's a spac that i want to see. >> i'm going to spac you not spackle. i'm going to spac you. what do you think, carl.

i'm going to acquire kramer in my own spac. i think it would do very well. >> what's our ticker >> mad >> yeah. >> mad >> mad >> how are you and esg >> how are you on esg? your carbon footprint. >> your esg, you had me in ben hur, one of those -- >> chariots? >> no, in the ships where you're like - >> okay. >> and you would say jim would be the, the beam will continue until the morale improves, that's your motto. >> thank you i will lead with that in our s-1. the beam will continue until the morale improves. carl >> guy, breadth on the ndx, not so good, a moment ago, they were four green ndx components. we will continue to watch. that let's get to rick santelli with the rates still the big story. hey, rick. >> big story they've been the big story and i think one of the main reasons it's a big story,

because how small of at story the fed seems to make. it look at the two-day of 10s and 30s and the high yields in each today, 2.51 was the high yield, in 30s, that was up 9-plus and 1.75 was the high yield intraday for 10s up 11. and they eased back just a bit and still guns hot, if you look at what's going on, on the long term, open the chart up to january 1st, 2020, that's the last time the 10s were closing at this level, and july of 2019, it is the comp for 30s, closing at these lofty yields. and of course, the spread is going to be widening, and indeed, just shy of 1.60, 10s, minus 2s, now at the widest since the fourth of july of 2015, and it doesn't stop there, we keep gaining on overseas markets, like sovereign in europe and boons, and even though rates are going up, for example, minus 26 basis points in boon, but their cycle, high yield, which is a smaller

negative, which is minus 23. why is that important? because they haven't even traded higher in yield than their current cycle high or as treasuries on the long dated side are just flying through them like a hot knife through butter and if you look at 10s, minus boons, they're now separated by almost exactly 200 basis points, or 2% of yield, and of course, that is the widest since january of 2020. we'll call it 13 months. and finally the biggest tell i've seen in a long time, the way the dollar fell out of bed is mr. powell started to speak and that's a good tell and another good tell, it's crossing over the creek, as you see on the two-day chart once it gets back to pre-announcement, powell levels, what that tells me is the dollar is going to be hooked more into the higher interest rate movement carl, jim, david, back to you. >> thank you, rick. we did get a dow record high a moment ago thanks to the banks

in part. let's get to bob pisani. >> carl, a lot of new highs this morning in the bank area the joke going around in the trading desk this morning, we had a vaccine for covid and now we need a vaccine for inflation. some say we need a vaccine for the fed. that's what is going around today. take a look at the sectors, movers, carl is right, banks, a lot of new highs on the new high list for them, industrials, a lot of new highs on the industrials as well here energy is lagging because oil is back down around 63. tech, obviously the laggard today. as yields rise the important thing i think is the new highs in the bank area these are value stocks and this is one of the reasons that value has been outperforming growth so much, we've got a lot of new highs, jpmorgan, pmc, fifth third, morgan stanley, u.s. bancorp, a whole rack of what i call the mid-level companies in the south and midwest, and some of those banks doing really well, the regional banks right now. also dos well, is any of the big global cyclical condition, the deeres, the caterpillar, general

motors, textron, all new highs in the last couple of days and tech obviously has been lagging. we're all down about 2% today. again. but you see the drop in the s&p, 19 points is fairly modest because we're getting the rotation into the value names into the industrials, and banks, and that's offsetting some of this decline that we're seeing in tech stocks so where we r-we right now? the snapshot is pretty simple. inflation and yield worries have replaced covid as the number one market risk that's out there value stocks have become momentum stocks. we haven't seen this in years. and some people are a little bit, trying to catch up, with that kind of trade what's the new trade i keep hearing about quality plus value what's quality quality, stable earnings growth, low debt to equity, high return on equity. that's high quality. and it's generally big cap stocks so let me show you some examples value stocks have become momentum stocks. what does that mean? well, companies like gap, united airline, nucor, general motors, oil stocks like eog, these are

all value name, look at this, they have become market leaders, they have become momentum stocks that's the big story in the stock market this month. meantime, the growth stocks that used to dominate the market have become the laggards overall. and those of course, you see the big names, the apples, microsofts, so far for the month here, and they're basically not doing nearly as much as the rest of the market. high quality plus value, there's i think the key trade that you really want to look at so far. so what does that mean so again, you're looking at companies that have stable earnings growth, low debt to equity, and are considered value stocks you screen that way. this is what a lot of people are looking for now. these are companies like many of oil names like exxon, some of the health care stocks like united health. a few industrials. honeywell falls into this group. and a bunch of consumer names like coca-cola, johnson & johnson, and procter & gamble. i think you can hear a lot more about those mid-tier stocks we talk about, those consumer value names, in the next couple of

weeks, particularly if rates continue to rise carl, back to you. >> all right, bob, thank you for that bob pisani bob's absolutely right we got a bunch of all-time highs in the bank group. jpm, goldman, look at the ndx though, not too many components in the green gm, all-time high today. we're back in a moment ♪ if your money is working toward the same goals, why keep it in different places? sofi is a one-stop shop for your finances-

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♪ never going to give you up never going to let you down never going to run around ♪ ♪ and desert you never going to make you cry never going to say good-bye ♪ ♪ never going to tell a lie and hurt you ♪ >> people love their deep fakes. that's the latest one there with bernanke, yellen and powell, sort of poking fun at the idea that the fed is out there to preserve asset prices. although, jim, you know, there's

an argument out there this morning with the dots moving forward, with some of the commentary that the fed maybe isn't hawkish yet but less dovish than it was at the beginning of the year. >> i don't think that's true i think that the fed, well, jay came to play, and he did double down as steve liesman said i think he was testy when people were saying, look, it's time remember yesterday i said they're going to badger and badger him he made a very good point which is that people of color are doing badly in this country versus others, and that's unacceptable to him. and that there's no need to raise until at least that's changed. david, that was monumental to hear from a fed chief. >> it was. >> and i thought it was fantastic. >> steve's coverage was great, as was everybody's at that time. listening to the analysis. 10 million unemployed seems to be top of mind for him. >> and 9.9% unemployment for african-americans, wrong. >> 10% unemployment on an

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don't take your eyes off the ten-year note yield, highs of the session, it did get to 175.4. obviously a touch below that, and this having impacts on asset classes all across the brdoa more "squawk on the street" continues in just a moment if you're 55 and up, t-mobile has plans built just for you. get 2 unlimited lines for only $70. and now get netflix on us with your plan. and this rate is fixed, you'll pay exactly $70 total. this month and every month. plus, switch today and get a free smartphone for each line. the best value and award-winning customer service. only at t-mobile.

let's get to jim and stop trading. >> signatures, one of the most unheard of turn arounds that i have seen in retail in my whole life is what gina has done since she came into signets she built up the ecommerce, 23% of sales are people still going to the stores wait a second, they had 7% comp stores people were looking for 5% they have tremendous operating cash flow. this is you an amazing story why it isn't talked about more is our bad congratulations. look at that chart, and that is no longer an ulcer in. you may know it as kay, as i'm looking to see which one that david knows.

>> i know them all. >> sales . >> right jared. >> they went to jared. >> not the political jared >> right >> how about tiffany >> that's owned by lvmh now. >> we got to talk about great stories because there's so many bad stories. i'm talking about gina doing a fabulous job. >> and comp guidance, looking for 80% comps. jim, you're going to stick around with us for a couple more blocks good thursday morning, welcome to the "squawk on the treet," i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer as we ask ourselves how much water the banks can carry with rates at these levels. tech is taking it on the chin. lei out a moment ago rick santelli has more on this. >> as rates hover at the high

yield. leading economic indicators expected up 3/10 up 2/10. up 2/10 is the weakest since it was minus 6.4 in april, and this number has been actually trending a little on the soft side we want to continue to pay attention to it, of course much of it is lagging, but for all practical purposes, what we're really going to be continuing to pay attention to is how services throughout the country start to add a lot more horsepower into the economy. morgan, back to you. >> the shift from goods to services rick santelli, thank you. we're going to start with the market action a day after the fed left rates unchanged steve liesman has that for us. hey, steve. >> hey, morgan, thank you very much fed chair jay powell essentially doubling down on his easy money policy even though the facts changed, the fed did not change its policy despite 1.9 trillion in new stimulus. vaccination rates increasing and states reopening powell kept the same policy that

had been in place before, unchanged fund rate through 2023, and no change to the $120 billion in asset purchases. >> we've said that we would continue asset purchases at this pace until we see substantial further progress, actual progress, not forecast process that's a difference from our past approach. >> the fed stuck to its policy, even though it sharply boosted outlook for growth inflation at or above 2% in 2023, but fed chair powell continued to say, this leads to a bulli -- there were changes fr rates suggesting there's something of a rate debate on the committee but not much

here's the december dot plots, where each dot projects the projected fund rate. one official had forecast rate hike of 2022 five saw 2023 rate hikes the new projections show four officials now see 2022 rate hike seven officials forecast hikes in 2023. the median, still for zero hikes. powell declined to say if the fed would step in to tamp down bond yields. he didn't rule it out saying the tools we have is the tools we have that might have been a green light for yields to rise. >> steve liesman, thank you. ten-year yields at 1.7%. yield curves steepening to its highest since 2015 september of 2015. it's a tail wind for financial stocks today: best performing sector in the s&p, given the inverse relationship, momentum growth names back under pressure to steve's point some commentary

about the fed doubling down on dovishness and flying in the face of the rapidly emerging body of data, suggesting a rebound that could run hot the fed said they will let inflation run hotter than they would have in the past on the other, i'm seeing commentary this morning that perhaps the fed is not as dovish now, given the unemployment forecast of 4 1/2% raised economic outlook speaking of fed and economic outlook, i'm going to digress. freight rates, supply chains, snarls, also that is a company that tends to give its own economic outlook that's going to be one to watch. either way, jim, it does seem like it, i know you guys were debating this in the last hour as well. after years of the whole don't fight the fed mantra, that maybe there's a shift away from that ethos. i don't know what do you think? is that something that's materializing here or is it all completely overblown >> they've got to talk about it. one thing that i think is very

true is that jeh powell, graduated from princeton in 1975, he really is what i think is going to be the last of the central bankers who went through the auto eckstein, ken arrow period where you just learned, listen, guns and butter, that's how you create inflation this is stimulus and butter. if you create inflation once you hit the spiral, you got to stop it earlier the people he went to school with and listened are the people to say you better not do what you're doing, and he's breaking o orthodoxy of the great teachers of the era he's the last one. we need to be thinking about a federal reserve chief who says you know what, we have two classes in this country, and we have to help this under class. i've got a lot of blow back on this when i said this yesterday. i used the term that all he's doing is saying you know what, there's a substantial number of people being left behind, and

i'm not going to wait, i'm not going to go appease the people who want the old hard money, the auto eckstein's of the world what i am going to do is say why don't we wait until everyone is vaccinated and get people jobs i don't want to be the reason they don't get jobs. >> and that is the change, steve, i guess yesterday you described it, steve, i think as saying, it used to be the fed would whack the weeds in front of you as you sort of walked the path, and now they're behind you steve. we lost steve! we lost steve. >> we should play that steve of what the fed chief said to steve. he was testy, and he's not a testy person. >> he had it very well prepared exactly what it was he wanted to say in response to it, to again, make the point that steve was making which is very clear they're not going to be proactive. right? >> you mean proactive about trying to get people that were

disenfranchised in our country. >> but not necessarily trying to run ahead in terms of their forecast. >> right >> to act based on their forecast as opposed to what their seeing in reality at that moment. >> don't you mind it ironic that the previous president often chastised jay powell by saying that he was way too tight, that he was hurting the economy, hurting the recovery, where did president trump get that, morgan it's obviously not true. >> until last year, it was a different economic situation going back to the point of the fact that we have these already a huge deficit under the last administration, and now that has just exploded exponentially, it does go back to that, i think, bigger longer term debate about how much, and i realize it's not one of their duel mandates, but how much can the fed raise interest rates without that

having blow back on the economy. >> great point it was a different time then i just do think that we're dealing with a whole new fed, and the fed is saying. >> 100% agree. >> we got to stop with the two classes of people in this country. i think that jay powell is amazing. carl, i think he's amazing. >> still to come this morning, petco first results since returning to the public markets. ceo is going to join us first on cnbc jim is going to stick around for that keep an eye on azn, the regulator in the u.k. says available evidence does not suggest that the company's vaccine causes blood clots and people coshould couldn't to get it y e of the biggest debates as we trto vaccinate planet earth. more "squawk on the street" in a moment indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job

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petco, it's out with its quarterly reports, and i got to tell you, they're pretty darn good, coming in above street expectations, saw its ninth straight quarter of growth please don't judge it by that. we have a lot of things to talk about. petco ceo ron coghlan joins us congratulations. a lot of people say, aren't pets, isn't petco a big beneficiary of what happened during the pandemic and now they're done or is there a reason to own the stock of petco now that the pandemic is hopefully winding down

>> thanks, jim, and it's great to be here i consider us a bit of a unicorn of the two we're a covid beneficiary, and we're seeing lift coming out of covid. the reason is one of the presence of covid is 3 million plus incremental new pets in 2020, and we're seeing elevated pet adoptions, which is fantastic, breeder demand as well as live animal sales into '21. so what happens is all of those new pets are now an annuity for our category and our business. the second thing is just the relationship people have with their pets i would say that pets were a major component of the emotional well being of the country as people brought in new pets and that bond is creating more spend per pet, which historically has grown by 4% a year >> well, you know, ron, a lot of people are crazy about chewy i love chewy, been a client. they do not have a brick and

mortar approach obviously. tell me about the advantage of brick and mortar once you've bought a pet. >> there was a lot of thought that maybe brick and mortar was an albatross for our business, and what's happening is it's the exact opposite, and covid really brought this to light in a powerful way we tripled the number of ship from store locations as soon as covid hit. we launched curbside pickup when covid hit. we launched same-day delivery in december, so right now, 80% of our ecommerce orders are shipped or are delivered via our pet care centers formally known as stores what that means is they're getting to a customer faster, and they're getting there at lower costs than our online competitors who are shipping from distribution centers, and a great example of this is a 40 pound bag of dog food. our online competitors are shipping from a distribution center through a fedex or ups, going across multiple zones.

where we're taking it in the back of a door dasher's car for the same cost as if it was a tennis ball, delivering it the same day at a low cost we believe we have a structural advantage in this case. >> also we have been seeing from the home building companies, they have been saying, look, there's a tremendous wave of people who have left apartments and go into single family homes. that is the strongest part of the whole u.s. economy i imagine there are people, millennials, who couldn't have pets in apartments who are buying homes and there could be a second wave of pet buying to the point where even there's a feel good story here, you know where i'm going, that maybe the euthanasia that we have, the kill centers that we have, those pets will be adopted and that will be even more business for petco. >> i 100% agree with you more homes, and actually migration to rural areas provides for more pets, and actually, that would provide for bigger pets, which is good for

our business more importantly, you know at petco, we're on an absolute mission to eliminate euthanasia. we help 400,000 pets a year to avoid euthanasia the sad truth is there's a million that get euthanized and we are going to get euthanasia eliminated but not quite there yet, but more adoptions means less euthanasia, so i agree with you. >> ron, it's morgan. we're talking about a pet boom i'm waiting for a baby boom. that's another discussion for another day. in terms of the pet boom and this omnichannel approach you have adopted and really rolled out even more aggressively in the midst of a pandemic, what are you seeing in terms of foot traffic into your stores, and how much of that shift to delivery is going to stay versus maybe edge back to people going back out as we do see reopenings happen >> yeah, 39% of customers say

they want to shop omnichannel. that's our customers they want to come in to our pet care centers they want to come in for a groom. they want to come in for veterinarian care. we are the only player in the industry that has this end to end ecosystem. we own or join enture, our own vets we have vet clinics, training, grooming, we have premium foods. we're the only ones that bring all of that together so what that's resulting in to your direct question is higher traffic. higher basket in our pet care centers, and we also have higher traffic, and higher basket in dangeral this omnichannel strategy is really working for us, powered by in end-to-end ecosystem that we uniquely have. >> you know, ron, from the day that we first met and talked about this, you know, i have always felt that your purpose driven performance is fantastic. people criticized me, when are they ever going to make real money, what i'm seeing is not only making real money, but you

put out a real forecast. there's a handful of retailers that did that. what makes you so confident? >> i'm glad you brought that up. net income positive in q2, net income positive in q3. in q4, we extinguished debt, which is good for our business, lowered our debt burden, our debt level and as a result there were some fees associated with that if it weren't for that, it would have been net income positive in q4, and we'll be net income positive in 2021 because of this annuity dynamic with the 3 million incremental new pets in '20, the new pets happening in '21, and the strength we're seeing in our business right now as we navigate q1, we see continued momentum in customer acquisition, and continued n momentum on the top line of our business we felt comfortable providing that guide, and we're committed against our guidance, and every

day makes us more confident in that guidance. >> congratulations on a great quarter, and for doing things with a purpose we must stop euthanasia. that's to me the most important thing. i know we care about money, but we care about pets ron coughlin, the ceo of petco, thank you so much for being on the show. >> thank you very much >> jim, great stuff. before you go, we do want to talk a little bit about lordstown, as you know, the company is facing allegations over fake orders, especially from hindenburg research, a short seller steve burns was on "squawk" earlier this morning, and this is what he told our phil lebeau. . >> we queried them, very robust, they are letters of interest you can't do more than that in this stage, so i don't think anybody thought that we had actual orders, right, that's just not the nature of this business. >> although, jim, this is what he told you on "mad money" late

last year. >> i think our average size is 500 trucks at a time, and you know, as most of them were signed by the ceos of large firms. >> all right jim, so the plot thickens here >> yeah. first, congratulations to phil for just point-blank going there, but second, you know, this is like a law and order i mean, there's the tape it's kind of like the prosecution rests. why don't we just run the tape. >> you think he should have been more specific in answer of your question, letters of intent signed by ceos, instead of orders, which does imply something contractually obligated. >> i was pressing hard on the deal that the orders weren't real, and his push back is the orders were real and that's what made this so damming, and i think that phil

lebeau, i think he wasn't ready for phil saying the tough question, and i wish phil were with us because i would congratulation him he looked at the tape, and other quotes given by this gentle man and called him out i think he disassembled. i am going to say it it's a tough word, carl, but i just can't say it was ill advised or suboptimal. sometimes you got to go there. >> sure. jim, as for tonight, i see william sonoma, 161, we look forward to seeing that tonight. >> stock is up huge. >> app harvest, which is a hill billy elegy that is really good. they're making fister, david, and i know that you have been a big supporter of popping the balloons and evs we're going to talk to mag. >> jim, thanks for hanging

around. >> i love it i would stay forever there are other shows, things to do >> another show at 6:00. we'll see you at 6:00. >> i would like to see this making fun of david a little bit more that sounds entertaining. >> it's only from love i keep telling myself that just love. >> thank you jim, we'll see you later on. take a look at the markets williams sonoma not the only name at 160. j.p. morgan, 160 and 25. back in a minute

welcome back to "squawk on the street," cannabis stock have been on a tear in 2021 with the advisers share, pure ets cannabis, mtts, up 30% since the start of the year. the next guest reporting results that saw a more than 133% increase in revenues year over year green thumb industries ceo ben covler joins us now to break down the quarter. >> we're talking about triple digit revenue growth as you expanded to california, as you started to stand up more operations and newly recreationally legalized new

jersey i realize there's a longer term debate and discussion around federal legalization as we're seeing more states come online in meaningful ways, can you continue to maintain that triple digit revenue growth right now? >> yeah, thanks for the question and yes, there's a tremendous amount of growth that's really led by the consumer demand for cannabis, and if we step back at the results that we're proud of that we reported yesterday on an annual basis we reported a great quarter, let's look at the annual in the past, 2020 556 million in revenue 180 of ebita over 95 million in free cash flow positive net income and that's a real business with real momentum revenue that grew over 150%, and ebita that grew 5x, will it continue at those numbers exactly. no but you're in the middle of an exponential growth curve in u.s. cannabis because the consumers are demanding the product.

and our growth is not driven by california, necessarily, though there's an interesting market there. it's east of the mississippi as consumers across the country are realizing this is a safe, viable alternative for well being. >> so basically you're saying you're more focused on state and local governments and the legalization process that's happening there, and that is at least in the near term where you expect to see meaningful growth. do you not think federal legalization will happen as quickly as say some of your canadian counter parts are suggesting >> everybody talks their book, right, but we are looking east of the mississippi look at governor wolf's tweet today about legalizing cannabis in pennsylvania, and look at what is happening in states like ohio, illinois, pennsylvania, maryland, new jersey, new york, connecticut, rhode island, massachusetts, you know, and more but that's several canadas there. there's tons of people that will

benefit from the product and we're excited toot bring it to them. >> you do really well on the quiz with states. >> i practiced with my daughter. >> let me bring it back to new york city. tough times, a lot of empty store fronts there are those who believe legalizing cannabis in the states and from the city would result in a lot of dispensaries moving in, taking empty space there. is that a real possibility of happening? >> well, stepping back, you got 20 million people in new york. there's going to be a lot of demand for cannabis. they want safe, viable alternative product. the city, the mayor, and other places can decide how to regulate the product you can take a denver like approach, where there's more cannabis stores than starbucks or you can take a different approach, whether it's illinois or florida or maryland or ohio, and what i can say is the country learns as we go. and i expect new york to learn from illinois and to learn from pennsylvania and massachusetts and other places as it unrolls,

and if citizens of new york city don't want a dispensary, there won't be consumers want a lot of product. it has to be an efficient delivery method or otherwise access, drive through or hubs or big places but we see a lot of demand from the consumers in new york, and in five years, we see that supply meeting demand. >> so given this discussion, then, do you see more consolidation, what does that mean for you or for green thumb? >> we spent the last year plus as you can see by the results, investing in the business and producing those. the return on invested capital inside our business is fantastic. we have been putting a lot of money into the business, and we're going to continue to increase that spend into the business that's the biggest tell on the future what's happening in the rest of cannabis, there's a ton of opportunity. there's never been an industry that becomes $80 billion that doesn't have a lot of consolidation. we think that's the future this is the decade we're in here this is going to become an $80 billion space with lots of

cycles and mini cycles inside. there's tons of ways for us to create shareholder value, whether it's in m and a, which we have done in the past, and integrated successfully, and created the business where we are because there's a lot of good opportunity because at the core, like we just talked about, east of the mississippi, these markets are going to go up quite a bit. >> we talk about thc, we talk about cbd, there's still a lot of research and a lot of work being done around all the possibilities around the cannabis plant, and what that could mean in terms of future products, future offerings how do you see it? are there certain areas that maybe haven't emerged on the market that you see as huge opportunities? >> yes we see american investment and innovation just beginning in the category of cannabis it was shut off by president nixon in 1971, and there was no medical research and innovation in the space in the last 15 years, half of the product is no longer smoked.

it's vaped and form factors. there are plenty of other ones that have unique interesting effects around sleep, pain, mood, that could be safe alternatives as we invest as a country, and as a society in figuring out what's going on so we're bullish on all of that. in the meantime, we're going to create safe, consistent branded consumer products for americans to consume, and offer well being. we think the hook is with the brand, whether it's bebo or rhythm or dog walkers or can, we can win. >> ben, thanks for joining us today. >> thank you >> as we go to break, keep your eyes on amc. we talked about some of the reopenings earlier this morning. 14/24, the highs of the session are going to take cyou back to february 1 about a six-week high. we're back in a moment ♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪

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i'm seema mody, and here's your cnbc update at this hour. president biden is set to meet his goal of delivering 100 million covid-19 vaccine doses as early as today, according to administration officials that's 40 days earlier than expected the president is scheduled to make a statement on where we stand on vaccinations later this afternoon there's no guidance on what that could be. britain is expected to receive its first moderna covid-19 vaccines in early april and expects to meet all supply obligations according to a company spokesperson the announcement comes as u.k. officials have warned of a slower vaccine rollout oxford university saying existing covid-19 vaccines could protect against the brazilian variant. it could be less resistant than first feared. germany seeing a jump in covid-19 cases in two months the number of confirmed cases roads by more than 17,500 the

biggest daily rise since january as the country isfacing its third wave of the pandemic carl, back to you. >> all right seema, thank you very much. yesterday, the president said he's planning a small to significant tax hike for those making more than $400,000 a year our next guest says the tax hikes are not part of an economic recovery. carolyn harisris is the u.s. chamber of commerce vice president of economic policy and development. she joins us this morning. thank for your time. it's great to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> i can't say that the administration hasn't primed the environment. they said they were going to take corporate back to 28, can you talk about the pushback they may get. >> i think we worked hard to get reform to get that rate to 21% i think you're going to see a strong pushback. the chamber, we're talking about this in the context of infrastructure spending. we strongly support addressing

america's crumbling infrastructure, and doing so with long-term sustainable funding mechanisms, user fees, muni bonds, existing financing facilities, that provide access to credit. we support all of those. what we don't support is changing that corporate rate from where it is, and harming the ability of american companies to compete globally. >> one of the points you make is that when we went down to 21, it wasn't just a strict cut to 21, there were other measures that business gave up in terms of the way you can deduct r and d expenses, and your point is it's not as simple as moving down and moving back up the scale. >> we accepted base broad eners. this was tax reform. we accepted the on set of less favorable r and d treatment, more limitations to interest deductibility. a repatriation tax payable over a number of years. it wasn't a cut. it was truly reform. >> since 1980 corporate taxes

have averaged 1.7 of gdp, they're currently at 1%. why shouldn't we move higher >> using the 1% metric, the year the u.s. and the global faced a global pandemic is a black swan event. it's probably not the year to use a benchmark. we see in the cbo budget window of ten years, the tax share going up traditionally, we are, you know, in that window going to go back where we have been before. we have relied in that basically level of corporate taxation for 40 years i don't necessarily think that we need to be that concerned about that short-term, that 2020 is the right benchmark, nor do i think that corporate income taxes are going to have the positive impact on growth that we need to get through this recovery. >> the tax bill, you know, a lot of it didn't pay for certain things, but those people in high tax states were no longer able to deduct their state and local

income taxes, and some of the people making up for corporations do you think that should stay in place when we get new tax reform or should that be lifted as well >> i think that's something that blue state democrats have talked about, you know, the salt cap that you're referring to that we cap the deductibility of state and local taxes and tax reform as particularly impactful in states that are high tax expect it to be part of the conversa conversation, but i'm not sure how that plays out. >> i want to go back to, we can talk about corporate tax rate, another round of tax reform or tax hike in the u.s. can't have the discussion without talking about what that means on the world stage as well, right, we talk about sort of this deglobalization era we're in or maybe a post globalization era we're in, but the u.s. still needs to be able to compete against other countries across the world, and at a time when the means may be different but you have another administration in place that says it wants to bolster the

middle class and bring back manufacturing to the u.s., how can you make the case for a higher corporate rate versus other countries. i don't understand how the two align here that's the other argument. >> so i think, look, i mean, i think what we want to do is we want to attract manufacturing to the u.s. you're absolutely right. we had domestic manufacturing incentives before, we support them we don't want to penalize companies that are operating globally we see companies operating in foreign markets. 95% overseas, 90% of what is produced goods and services overseas is sold into the foreign markets. we're all for supporting domestic manufacturing we're supporting globally competitive and countries across the board. we think that's what's good for american workers who benefit for higher wage growth, investors who benefit through higher returns, and customers who benefit through lower prices, so i think that's the way we approach this. >> i have two questions before we let you go, one is there were some headlines this week that treasury secretary yellen may

work with other governments around the world to establish sort of minimum corporate taxes for multinationals i wonder how likely you think that is, and more broadly, you know, we spent all day here talking about this recovery, stocks at record highs, s&p earnings estimates going higher, optically, isn't any resistance to higher corporate taxes a bit of a heavy lift. >> number one, i think we hear secretary yellen talking about a global agreed upon corporate rate i think getting 140 countries to agree to anything is probably an insurmountable challenge i think we have to keep in mind, the oed found corporate income taxes the most harmful to growth, and corporate income taxes, the burden is born by workers, savers and investors, and customers. we really need to think about who we're impacting if we talk about raising the rate the stock market is doing well people are doing well. companies are doing well, the vast number of companies are

hurting because of this economic d downturn you can point to sectors, hospitality, and aviation, who are unquestionably suffering, and raising taxes are not going to get the industries or the economy on a whole on the road to recovery. >> there is a perception that much of the proceeds were for stock buybacks or additional dividends, where do the facts lie on that and how do you respond tho those who say it didn't go to productive uses. >> the most recently bureau of economic analysis data shows that u.s. companies for the first time, headquarters growth is outpacing foreign affiliate growth companies are investing in r and d, they're investing in increased employment, they're investing in capx. i would argue that the u.s. government numbers prove that's not necessarily the case or that it isn't the case. >> it's going to be -- well, actually, you know, it's kind of refreshing to have policy discussions again after a year of talking about covid and

rescues. so we look forward to talking with you about a lot more during the course of the year thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. have a good day. it's great to see you. >> we're going to see how the discussions fit into the market as the year unfolds, too two retailers heading in opposite directions, dollar general, beating on revenue, it's down about 6 1/2%, signet jewelers, on the other hand, shares are higher after reporting strong q4 results with same store sales up 7% 'sp ou8% right now we'll be back after this theo do some things halfway... but taking prescriptions shouldn't be one of them. so cvs has a proprietary search tool that looks for savings. plus free delivery. get a free prescription savings review at cvs.

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ings. all star investor rich bernstein makes a bear irkish cl on tech. more "squawk on the street" straight ahead

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the emissions caused by cryptocurrencies to buy and sell them, reportedly consumed 8.7 megawatt of energy compare that to 10.6 megawatts an average household consumes per year the founder of block chain for climate foundation joseph, i have a hard enough time getting my head around nfts let alone trying to understand the energy use behind them, and your initiative to cut that energy use start wherever you think would be the best place to explain to our viewers what your effort is all about. >> absolutely. my pleasure. and i agree that on its face it's kind of complex we have the good fortune at block chain for climate foundation to have been working in the climate space for a long time, and then going down the block chain rabbit hole a couple of years ago, and working on our initiative to put the paris agreement on the block chain and connect the national carbon accounts of the world to enable cross border collaboration, so

we have actually been building an nft based platform to connect countries through the paris agreement, and this will allow issuance and exchange of tokens, and, you know, as climate professionals we have been engaging with this reality and so when we saw, you know, the rise of interest in nfts and the amazing work that artists are doing to gain back the means of production to be monetizing their work and engaging in a whole new creative way, and at the same time a lot of concern rising around what exactly is the climate impact of this work, we recognized we needed to jump in. >> explain again how that is actually going to work how are you reducing the impact on the electricity grid and everything else as a result of this added activity of people using a theorem, for example, and the block chain there to buy

nfts >> absolutely. so the ethereum block chain is always running it's always with us now, and it is always having a bunch of specialized computers that are running full-time to secure the network, and to close the blocks on the block chain they happen every 15 seconds or so, and right now, all of the transactions on there are full as well. there's a really keen distinction that i was able to make for myself a couple of weeks ago when really digging in hard to this, which is there are emissions from the ethereum network, and other proof of work block chains, but somebody jumping in and making one more nft or a thousand more nfts or purchasing them would rightly be assessed to be part of that carbon footprint if you're using the network, and you're saying say 1000th of 11% -- 1% of it, you're responsible

for 1% of it that's fair if you're taking a bus or rising as a passenger in the car. who else are the emissions going to be allotted to than the end user what's interesting is additional nfts or additional transactions on the block chain don't directly cause anymore emissions because there's a set number of emissions that are happening from the block chain at any time, and so if i hop in with an nft transfer, that's going to bump other transactions to another point and it doesn't change the level of emissions that are happening there is an indirect process where if there's lots of people using the system, it becomes more profitable for ethereum miners to add more capacity, more specialized computers those will use more electricity, and in the indirect pathway increase emissions. >> it's fascinating, and i'm still trying to wrap my head around this, just more broadly stepping back, and looking at

what we're seeing in terms of the bigger crypto craze, nfts, ethere ethereum bitcoin, and just the emissions, electricity usage, are we going to see as this continues to, i guess, take root, a more lock step approach with the adoption of alternative and clean energy sources would you expect to see more actual outright partnerships >> i definitely would expect to see more partnerships, so i have friends that are working on setting up mining systems, mostly in block chain and other systems using clean energy based in british columbia canada, so we have an almost completely clean hydro grid i do see that happening, and there is some argument that people are citing their mining facilities, all of their special computers in locations with low energy costs which in certain circumstances will correlate with cleaner energy. we know now that adding wind to

the grids in a lot of places in america is actually the cheapest power available. so i do see that i also see the work that's being done within the ethereum ecosystem to reduce the demand, reduce the electricity demand of the system and as a carbon market professional, sort of gos rabbit hole around nfts, once we figure out, carbon footprint, yes, and falls to a standard carbon accounting procedure whereas quantify emission reductions reduce where you can and offset the rest. we've explored pathways there as well. . >> end it will for now and try to understand exactly what you told us and look forward to revisiting the topic again thank you. >> thank you. head to break, financials

are leading with a slew of fresh 52-week highs among banks. including bank of america, wells fargo. we'll be right back. stayitus wh .

welcome back pellen tier and others focus on national security. red six, a santa monica company, first to fly an f-22 fighter he actually started red six we're going to play sound. >> red six was born when we discovered an opportunity to make this work outdoor and in dynamic environments technical breakthrough. >> red six is using that tech with the first platform deployed to the air force this year company is small but growing fast investors like lockheed martin and others acquisitions head will roper and retired air force general mike holmes. >> we think the tools are coming together developed largely on the

civilian side and now trying to work them into how they're affect military training and start with flight training i think the opportunities go well beyond that you could do this augmented reality training for ground forces do this augmented training for naval forces. >> roper recently joined a dronemaker board with a strong advocacy to tech sector and sees it an investment in the national security space. >> many areas of emerging tech have regulatory risk they have safety risk. approval risk. the military is good about approving new technologies nor u for use. in the case of red 6 we haven't put this in an airplane or car or anything and safe to operate that looking at an augmented view of reality military is have got at this.

>> could have broader applications as we palantir and spacex they plan to expand into urban aviation and outdoor gaming. a number of these companies, many of them still small but growing, carl. including on the space side we talked about winning a first d.o.d. contract that speaks to perhaps -- talked about it a number of years multiple companies on and growing strongly now speaks to the fact there seems toish a shift, opening, for new entrepreneurs, new invaders to do that government work. that maybe a couple years ago steered clear of by some of those more established tech companies in silicon valley. >> yeah. i wonder how it ties in with antitrust as some of the giants

also get more regulatory ju scrutiny you want to protect your giants bringing technology eventually winding up in places like a coc cockpit. >> absolutely. and i just, i think we'll hear more and more about some of these companies coming out of other parts of the country, but red 6 in particular, keep an eye on love to get to test that technology myself. maybe one day when we guest past this pandemic. >> yeah. not a lot of social distancing in a fighter jet. guys, look at the nasdaq 100. only about seven or eight components are green you see ggds he.laarer "squawk alley" begins in a moment. mom and dad left costa rica, 1971.

and in 1990, they opened irazu. when the pandemic hit, pickup and delivery was still viable. and that kept us afloat. keeping our diners informed on google was so important. the support from our customers, it honestly kept us going. i will always be grateful for that.

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