that's the new call from kathy wood we will show you how the street is reacting and the stock. probably in the "squawk stack. it is monday, march 22nd, 2021 nothing ever makes sense that's why it is called madness. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is off. you saw the dow with the worst performance in two weeks on friday it was a decline of 230 points this morning, it is indicated down again by 89 points.

s&p futures are down 4.5 nasdaq which had been down last week and more than 6% from the all-time high, is indicated up by 61 points we have watched treasury closely. the ten-year treasury goes up and that puts pressure on the nasda nasdaq stocks. back below 1.7%. joe, we were at 1.75% last week. you mentioned the "squawk stack. tesla is up 2.9% we will talk more about that call it will give tesla a market cap well past $3 trillion if it gets past $3,000 a share. >> i'm looking at the low. closed at $13,215.

>> plunging. >> traded higher it is up to date that is rutgers red. i'm sorry. >> they played well. >> houston is a good team. i told your husband that >> houston's a great team. number 6 in the country. >> he said we have a weak number 2 seed i said houston beat cincinnati by 30. you know what? i'm done make it stop please, please, please >> rutgers performed better than your bracket, i'm sure. >> you know who has a bracket with 1,000 out of 3 million? blake. >> you're kidding me >> loyola because of sister jean and syracuse because her group has a chapter in syracuse. not one thing had anything to do with seeds

she even tweeted killing me for a while, i'll tell you what was working. then i'll get to the news. i was betting on the opposite of my bracket picks that was starting to work. that was starting to work. then they figured that out the point spread i started losing because of that the thing i'm most thankful for -- >> they figured it out >> i was betting against myself and i was working. i figured out a system i bet $3 there is no way to make money doing this it is impossible you will be in a world of hurt i had illinois going all the way. they lost to sister jean's team. that bracket busted. did you see it oral roberts >> oral roberts. >> who knew? >> i didn't see the final last night with florida just remind me later we have news we should get to.

i talked to buffett last night warren buffet at berkshire terrible year. >> never happened. you will rise. you will be the second coming of j.c. if anyone ever gets that completely right we'll cure death before that happens. >> if you get the first round right. if you pick 32, they will pay you $1 million they had 31 out of 32. not this year. >> rutgers did a great showing could have gone in that last three-pointer. >> i know. here is the news breaking at 3:00 a.m astrazeneca releasing the efficacy numbers from the u.s. vaccine clinical trial and meg tirrell has been waiting with these numbers. they are good, meg they are not in the 90s. all of the vaccines. give me any of them.

twice. six times. >> reporter: exactly, joe. this would be twice. a two-shot dose from the vaccine. 32,000 people in the trial headline number. 79% efficacy against systemic disease. for people over 65, this was an important group because there was questions of efficacy. 80% efficacy for people 65% and older. they looked at whether there was a risk of blood clots. there were concerns in europe. there were no safety concerns. including clotting this was run in u.s. and chile and peru they are going to continue to

a analyze data they gave the shots four weeks apart. they saw in previous trials when they spaced the doses farther apart, the efficacy number went up it will be interesting to see what the strategy is with the fda and what the dosing strategy turns out to be. 79% efficacy higher than many people expected for the results given what we have seen around the world so far guys, this is a vaccine that can be stored in the fridge for six months there are remaining questions. 100% efficacy against severe disease. we don't know how many cases were in the placebo group. that is further data we will look for in the presence of variants? we don't know what makeup of variants were in the trial positive result for astrazeneca this morning

joe. >> thanks, meg we look forward to the interview back here with you and the president of astrazeneca u.s 6:45 that is the first cnbc interview you will be watching scott gottlieb is on today, too. becky, did you see his article >> i did. >> i'm glad andrew is not here today. >> why >> he is saying maybe six feet, three feet they haven't told us why it is not based on science you know, we have another one of those tough interviews where it is like, oh, my god. >> he was tough on the cdc last week saying they should be watching for these variants instead of coming up with the political science aspect of it which is three feet or six feet to be embroiled in that argument

to me, it raised more questions than answered. were we at six feet needlessly >> a lot we don't know when people say that. >> the science or political science? >> whether they vorciforously point at you >> it will be good to talk to him. talk about astrazeneca and the variants running through new york city. we will look at it a lot >> i was going to tell you one more thing i forgot these are the big issues maybe some of the diversions we get -- oh, laughing at my brackets you know you didn't fill out the thing for tv news. >> i didn't. >> i'm fifth. >> are you really? >> you know who does well every year >> brian steele.

>> on cnbc every year >> brian >> no. steele is a non event. he is way down there non-event. sarah eisen. >> dom does well >> is sarah in first place >> he had illinois we're going nowhere. >> is sarah in first place from cnbc >> she's in fuirst place in general. no, she is in second place top cnbc person. she's from cincinnati. >> you have done all that homework watching those games. >> homework does nothing picking the best looking uniforms is a better technique >> go blake. we will talk more about

march diversion. >> i state up last night late and watched the whole thing. a heartbreaker they played well when we come back, the futures are pointing to a drop for the dow. a gain for the nasdaq. that is the same story we have seen for the last month. we will take a closer look at the dow/nasdaq difficult divergence after this. ♪ touched our way ♪ >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com. bryce matthias, forward. kim kietz, investor. oh, i invested in invesco qqq. a fund that invests in the innovations of the nasdaq-100. like next gen 3d rendering software. you don't have to be an advanced graphics architect to help realize a more vibrant future.

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so jeff, you need all those screens streaming over your xfinity xfi... for your meeting? of critical vaccinations for the world. uhh yes. and your lucky jersey? oh, yeah. lauren, a cooler? it's hot. it's march. and jay, what's with all your screens? just checking in with my team... of colleagues. so you're all streaming on every device in the house, what?!! that was a foul. it's march... ...and you're definitely not watching basketball. no, no. i'm definitely not watching basketball. right... ( horn blaring )

♪ futures right now indicating weakness in the dow. the nasdaq diffiverging and actually higher. a correction dom is not tied with me. he is in eighth place. i'm alone in fifth in terms of cnbc people. sarah has gonzaga, too she could win the whole thing. the person in first place also have gonzaga it depends a closer look at the divergence and the dow and nasdaq over the last month.

joining us is paul hickey. paul, i didn't understand. i looked at your notes you are bragging about not being e enthralled with technology the nasdaq is 30%. you got negative way too soon. >> we started turning on tech. if you look at some of the reopening stocks and small cap stocks we have done better over that time. the point of it was, looking back to last summer coming up with the point that we're going to start seeing above average growth in the economy and interest rates will start to rise that was going to impact some of the high-tech high-growth stocks now we're at this point, the thing to think about is what is next widespread consensus of seeing

stronger growth this year. off the chart. and even stronger growth next year going forward, there seems to be a growing consensus we will have above trend growth going years out. the question is what is the catalyst for once we start to return to a normal baseline to have above average growth going out in the out years that is the question investors have to think about here when you have the mega cap stocks like microsoft which doesn't trade too much richer than the broader market and doesn't have death and broader growth, if that looks more attractive in this environment when the consensus is rates are going up so tech can't do well the correlation between tech and interest rates is the most inverse -- extreme inverse levels right now ask yourself if that will

continue usually it doesn't >> hard to imagine that basis point moves might be program traders and algorithms you know what i mean, paul long term, the prospects for a great tech company at 168 on the ten-year 175 on the ten-year, oh, no. that makes no sense. that is what it is correlated to with tech to continue. my question on the overall environment for stocks seems to all boil down to one thing a lot of stimulus and free spending on one hand and a lot of headwinds in terms of rising rates and rising taxes and more regulation on the other hand when does -- does any of that ever come home to roost? higher taxes and regulation if interest rates go up to 2% or over 2%? doesn't matter how much we

spend. we are not paying for anything we're spending that could end up being a negative instead of a near-term positive which it is right now. >> yeah. there is a lot to unpack there a lot of variables to focus on there. if we start to see rising taxes and start to see more regulation, okay that will have a broader hit to the economy. where is the target of that regulation tech yeah that is negative for tech. it just depends where the regulation is focused and you have to see and react to that environment. the broader perspective here of the economy is that we are going to see stronger growth and cyclical stocks reflected that what is going forward? we have seen a great handoff between the large cap tech under performing since september 2nd

which we called the beginning of the great shift. one of the top five tech stocks up at that point is google s&p is up over 8%. 20% of the s&p on average is down, but s&p is up 8% to 9% we have seen a great rotation here and it has gone through well and the market has handled it in a good manner which makes us more constructive -- positive that the market can keep rallying here. we see the measures continue to show strong markets hitting new highs. i think overall, if the positive -- what you were saying about interest rates a few basis points we had the conversation a couple of weeks ago we were at such low-level long-term interest rates i don't know if the market was pricing in 1% interest rates for years to come in the valuation we could get up to -- we we had

levels of 3% in the bull market and the market held up well. i think in the short-term it is painful and investors get worried about things in the longer run, i think getting to 2% is not the end of the world here sdp >> right you date the market longer a lot of people are saying it is only a year old. secular if you are saying 3% rate paulson says we are one year in the bull market. they usually last longer i'm with you this is a long advance >> i agree with you. the pandemic changed it was a big impact to the economy in the short-term. it didn't change the long-term trajectory of things i have a hard time speaking

here going forward, we can continue to see strong and steady gains the roaring '20s things with ten years of booming markets i don't agree with that. we will see steady returns the 1920s followed a decade of stagnation where the dow was up 10% over the entire prior decade whereas, up 169% over the last decade. >> it has been going on for a while. paul hickey, thank you >> thank you coming up, a new report on tax avoidance. notice, avoidance, by the wealthy americans. avoidance and evasion. how much their income is unreported that's coming up next as we head to break check out this move in the tur t

turkish lira after the country's president ousted the central bank governor on friday. the interest rate hike is an indication that the turkey president doesn't want to maintain high interest rates that may be an indication. he said you're out we would never dtho at here, would we we're coming back. at edward jones, our 19,000 financial advisors create personalized investment strategies to help you get back to your future. edward jones.

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the wealthy 1% of households failed to report 21% of the income according to a study published by the national bureau of economic research. researchers found the americans

know random audits that don't detect businesses passed through partnerships the commissioner of the irs referenced the research in congressional testimony last week he said each additional dollar spent on tax enforcement could yield $5 to $7 instead of raising rates, go after all of the people who are getting around the edges and tighten things up? >> i don't understand what we're really saying here is it legal? >> i don't think so. >> okay. that's not avoidance that's evasion >> yeah. >> that's why i would say -- >> at the best, it is disinn genera genious. >> let's be clear.

it should be clear in the law. if you are breaking the law. >> it is a gray area >> then you are bending the law and people will do that. >> the law should be clearer. >> right the law should be clearer. if you evade taxes, you should go to jail there are penalties where you go to jail if you are deliberately evading taxes. if you are setting up sophisticated tax strategies >> right to try to work around the gray areas of the law where it is not done more clearly. this is something we should make clear. if you are an individual pr pretending to be a corporation, i know people who do this, i can hear the excuses as a result, you are not paying the individual tax rate for the work that you would be doing this w-2 work. crazy. >> then you get into the finger pointing to real estate people or companies that have, you

know, ten-year loss carry forward and you have finger pointing that they are not paying their fair share when it is legal is it evasion or avoidance >> if you need more money, i wish, a, congress would be clearer about the laws and the irs would enforce those laws rather than raising taxes on everybody who is already paying the high rates because we are not avoiding that. tighten up >> the legal strategies that people are perfectly justified in using yeah if it is legal, yeah if you can do it if it is avoidance, it is one thing. avoidance. that supreme court justice hahn said it is patriotic to not pay a penny more we have patriotic millionaires who don't volunteer to pay

they lecture everyone else if it is evasion, go to jail if you are not reporting income that you are supposed to report and that is done all the time. you see people get caught doing that they go to jail. they are in trouble. if it becomes a huge scandal. if you are setting up the intricate? rich people can find really great accountants to set up intricate -- do you think rich people pay estate taxes? they can get around that if it is within the law, i would do it, too >> tighten up the laws >> good idea check out the shares of tesla. ark invests kathy wood out with a new price target on the stock. expecting it to hit $3,000 a share by 2025. that means wood would earn 50%

on year on average between now and 2025 a $3,000 a share price would also give tesla a roughly, get this, $3.6 trillion market cap did you see "the wall street journal? "and did you see that? >> that would be elon. >> elon is the first guy they mention. this isn't new it used to be bill miller and peter lynch and warren buffet. who knows? dave portnoy and warren buffet. different these days speaking of warren buffet.

i mentioned earlier i had information on the bracket challenge. this is something they have been doing five years 360,000 employees. any one of them can sign up for the bracket challenge. if you pick the first round. all 32 games, you get $1 million. if you make it to the sweet 16, you get $1 million a year for life just based on who does the best, whatever employee does the best, they give $100,000 to that employee buffett tweaked the rules. if creighton makes it to the final four, whoever wins, gets $200,000 they already have a winner this year was faster than ever only 50,000 people signed up which he was surprised by. people are at home i guess normally you would have 80,000 signing up. it happens because people are in the office and trash talking and getting excited and building morale with so many people working from

home, a lot of people didn't do it or forgot this was the fastest they ever have seen a winner 11 games there were so many busters there was a guy who works with the insurance company who runs the numbers. he says, if ohio state won, 50 thunde 50,000 would be left in the pool if oral roberts won, it would be 5,000. that was a big bracket buster. he said he never has seen anything like it over by the 11th game. he did not enter himself he would have done miserably if he filled out a bracket. >> you and your husband. you are not doing one? >> it is busy here i meant to do it i picked up kyle fromschool an came home and missed the deadline >> i thought it would be a great

year 90 people. it is half that, i think they are all on there, but they didn't complete their bracket. actually, it has been very big hit. if you are married to your picks and feeling good, watch what happens. it is depressing. >> the best part of march madness. the best part is the game. the other part is watching people who are so confident. >> you got them all the way to the final four and they're dead the first day. the first half the first half they're dead never mind. >> a lot of busters. what happened to illinois? >> ohio state. >> so many texas. >> all of them so many. you have to read >> oh, my tease. we will talk about new challenges for employers that

are rolling out hybrid work models who could predict people working from home on mondays and fridays? that's a tricky one. more on that next. and we dig into the antrazeneca trial data with the compy's u.s. president "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: "executive edge" is sponsored by at&t business. our people and network will help keep you connected let's take care of business. and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need.

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good morning let's check the "squawk stack. we are focusing on the dow, nasdaq and s&p feels left out at times. that is the benchmark average. you see it we don't ignore it lately, we have seen the interplay with the dow and nasdaq it sis a feature tesla on the kathy wood recommendation $3,000 a share price target by 2025 up 3.4% which is a lot for $600

stock. bitcoin back up above $958,000 it got down above 60 you have the ten-year where yields have moderated back down below 1.7% it is still early. that call we were at that day. we went up to 1.76 or 1.77 that would be at this point within what he was talking about. rates were stabilized. it is monday that was a monday from two weeks ago. two weeks later, we are where we were, becky. that is the stabilize he was talking about. >> we should put the turkish lira in and take out bitcoin that is one to watch >> that doesn't happen we would never put the thai bot

in look how quickly we were able to do that. someone knew the symbol for the turkish lira that's scary. >> well done in the meantime, executives are trying to figure out what the office will look like past pandemic it is complicated. especially with hybrid work. joining us to discuss what is at stake is emily glaser. reporter with "the wall street journalist" and sally henderson. emily, let's start with you first. just give us the lay of the land what do things look like from the companies you speak to from the ceos you're talking about? this is a mess to maneuver >> i speak with ceos almost every day. i always hear the word hybrid. it means different things. some companies say you can come in different days and some say one week on and one week off

some say flexibility they have not defined that there are questions still out right now. >> sally, as a leadership coach, what would you be advising these ceos i've tried to think it through and figure out what is fair and what is not and how you lead by doing this what is your advice? >> it is tough my biggest advice is don't be rigid and recognize we are coming out of a time where it has been very unstable and not going to be like this in the same way people had a lot to deal with. it will all calm down. the senior leaders who are rigid and have the idea of bring them all back in to work. this is nice, but we can't continue down that path. i think they will have a tough time because employees have not

only gotten used to the flexibility and more control over their schedules, but they tend to be happier as long as they have not had terrible pandemic related issues. i think they will have a little more bargaining power. here was my productivity during the pandemic i've got to have some headroom >> sally, the one question i have with that and i understand the need for flexibility do you create more problems with the work force and say why do they get to do that and i don't? >> you know what you say then? give it a shot and see how it works for you. i found that the most successful leaders i work with say that somebody comes in and says how come this person is doing that and i'd like to and say give it a shot and see how it works for you. we are at a frontier here.

we are all going to be imp improvising solutions and that's what's going to create what this hybrid looks like. there is just too much in everybody's interests to not go back to a rigid situation where every employee is expected to be at work this many days and here is your vacation you have a few sick days here. you know, maybe one snow day if your kid's school is closed. it is not going back to that we have to remain flexible and open because there is a lot to be gained here. >> emily, what is the biggest problem you hear from ceos my guess is do they require vaccinations or not? your work force is probably split. most ceos i heard is an 80%/20% split. what do you do with that >> it is a great question, becky.

some of this is regional as well as not just about what types of employees want to get what i hear that from a number of ceos they feel like they cannot call anyone back until the population is vaccinated. we are hearing more about the hybrid work model. more adults are getting vaccinated besides the vaccination question is how do you be fair? do you feel you won't get that project or promotion i spoke with the vice chair of pre- prudential they don't have the space right now because they are remodelling. >> emily and sally, thank you both for your time. >> thank you coming up, the new vaccine data that we told you about from e trazeneca. thcompany's u.s. president joins us to breakdown the numbers. we'll be right back. and strengthen client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives,

risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

still to come, breaking news from astrazeneca we'll dig through the trial data esen the company's u.s. pridt. that's next here on "squawk box. mercedes-benz suvs were engineered with only one mission in mind. to be the best. in the category, in the industry... in the world.

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news breaking overnight on the efficacy of the astrazeneca vaccine. meg is joining us now with the special guest. hi, meg. >> joe, that guest is dr. ruud e president and president of astrazeneca u.s. dr. dobber, great to see you 29% efficacy overall what's your expectation for the time of when this dob available in the u.s. and the role this vaccine can play, as there are three others here on the market? >> yeah, thank you so much for having me on your show absolutely, we're thrilled by the results we disclosed 79% efficacy against systemic

covid and 100% against hospitalization. the plan is to file for the first half of sape for emergency use authorization. and of course, it's in the hands of the fda to decide for the approval and assuming that the approval will take place in a fast, fast way. we hope to deliver 30 million doses instantly for americans to get vaccinated it's entirely important is despite the good progress we have seen against all of the vaccine producers there's still a need for more vaccines in the united states, but, clearly, also in the world. so, we are thrilled with those results and hopefully it will help to fight against this terrible pandemic. >> you mentioned that 100% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalization which is of course, what you want to see vaccines do. you can tell us about the strength of that finding how many people in the placebo group were hospitalized or had

severe disease >> yeah, it was a very large trial, over 30,000 participants primarily in the united states but also some participants in peru and chile and what we clearly saw, we had in our vaccinated group, zero cases of severe disease or death. while we had five cases in the nonvaccinated group. it's an instrument analysis, so, we're still accumulating some more events, but we are very comfortable, based also on other trials that the vaccine is 100% protective against severe disease and hospitalization. >> and have you seen, you know, the presence of variants in these data of course, these are interim results, but any sequencing that you've done so far showing efficacy against different variants of the coronavirus? >> yeah, that's an excellent question the short answer is, no. as we speak, we're analyzing the

sequence of the variants, of course, what you observe now in the united states and across the world was different than we saw, let's say, seven or eight months ago, the brazilian variant, the uk variant and in some cases the south african variant. we have already started sequencing of all of the variants in all of the subjects. and that will be clearly part of the package submitted to the fda as well. >> and tell us about the safety analysis here, of course, the blood clot risk in europe causing several countries to suspend the use of the vaccine europe then clearing the vaccine, many countries resuming its use. you specifically look at this in the trial of the independent data safety monitoring board and didn't find that risk. how is astrazeneca looking at that risk and how to communicate about the safety of this vaccine if that's a hurdle to overcome for you? >> as always, as people know,

safety is our number one priority so every signal, we take extremely seriously but, of course, equally, regulators are doing the same, as well as in this case, the data safety monitoring board it's very important to see even with a magnifying glass of the data safety regulatory board doesn't see any variants in the group. and two very important regulators, the ima in europe, and mhak in the uk confirmed the safety and concluded that the efficacy of the vaccine outweighed the safety of the vaccine. we're very comfortable and confident. but it's clearly an area we will look into and if there's any need to do that, we will certainly do that. >> dr. dobber, just to clarify, the efficacy numbers were based

on the trials run when because as mentioned things are changing rapidly in term of the variants, that have been run around here same thing for the other companies. the trials were run seven or eight months ago but how recent and updated is that information and how closely does it look like the situation we're watching in the united states today with the variants? >> yeah, once again, that's absolutely an excellent question we know in the united states as well that the uk variant has grown very fast. so the analysis we're going to do once again is to test and sequence all of the different variants of all of the different subjects which were part of our study, that will give you us insight into how efficacy will hold up against those variants there's a lot of work ongoing, not only in the united states, but of course, the globe, in order to get a feel for the

effectiveness of the vaccine we have good hopes for the uk and brazilian variant that the vaccine is highly effective. and that the jury is out with respect to the south african variants and therefore ongoing to produce potentially a new vaccine which will cover the variance in a more aggressive and better way >> tell us about astrazeneca's ability to meet supply obligations. we understand that in terms of supply in europe, you'll be about 100 million doses short in the first half of this year. i know you have big goals of 3 billion doses for the full year. and what does it look like right now in terms of your ability to supply the world >> yeah, that's another excellent question we do everything, what we can do, in order to beef up our supply it's a very complex process. we knew that we have set ourselves high ambition not only for the developed

market, those for the developing countries in the world, what we all are saying, no one is safe until the whole world is safe. and as we speak, we are supplying multiple countries in the world. but, of course, the effort is massive. when you do supply in a combined way, billions of dollars -- billions of doses across the world. that's not easy. equally, while working hard in order to implement the yields of the manufacturing sites in the u.s., specifically, we're getting a lot of support from the u.s. government. and as i mentioned earlier, we hoped to release, or we will release instantly $30 million in the first week of the eua, and equally, we will have another 20 million that month then you will see every month 50 to 20 million to the u.s. supply chain. once again, equitable

distribution is part of our supply you chain and we will do everything we can. >> rude dobber, thank you for being here becky, back to you >> meg, thank you. when we come back with the reaction from the vaccine news from dr. scott gottlieb but don't his the interview with heather bousey in the 8:00 a.m. hour. u don't, u bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business.

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♪ astrazeneca out with new trial results on its covid vaccine. the details and reaction from dr. scott gottlieb is straight ahead. jack in the box pushing to all-time highs we're going to be hearing from the ceo on the reopening of business and the company's vision and how much work is too much a recent goldman sachs survey sparking interest on wall street about hours spent on the job during the debate. wee begin as "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ ♪ workin' for a livin' ♪

good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm thinking about jack in the box. i'm joe kernen with becky quick and andrew ross sosorkin they're not around here. have you been -- >> it's not an east coast thing. it's a west coast thing. >> stocks high 120 something. do you know what the low was >> 22 -- >> 116 low was 22 and three quarters and it's got like a 9% short interest so there are some people looking at it thinking -- >> look out. >> -- it may make the "squawk" stack one day. probably not today, good symbol, jack but long history i think it used to be called

foodmaker. and then they paid someone -- if it's all jack in the box restaurants, what if we call it jack in the box? i don't know how much that cost, but that was transformative. that is the "squawk" stack dow jones, nasdaq higher, dow coming back, tesla, 675. pretty good return i'm not a mathematician but two times the money. >> 420 times >> not bad there's the turkish lira we talked about a former official firing a fed but it never happened that actually happened with erdogan. against the dow, you can see that the turkish not doing too

well could be notable to watch. and then the ten-year note, that's the one probably the most important thing to look at 1.67 that's what tech has been keen about, don't worry about high rates. they're back to 1.67 results are in from a u.s. study that show astrazeneca covid-19 vaccine is 100% effective against severe disease and hospitalization. it's 79 effective at preventing symptomatic illness and the study also shows no higher risk of blood clots which had been the subject of investigations overseas, the reason they had shut down in several countries in the eu. you can see astrazeneca's shares up by 1.8% royal caribbean is resume something crews in the caribbean starting in june the cruise industry has suspended cruises because of the pandemic guests will need to be vaccinated as will the crew. children under 18 will need to

show proof of a negative covid test obviously, most kids can't get vaccinated there's the pfizer vaccine allowed for anybody over 16. but anybody over the age of 18 will have to get vaccinated to get back on cruises. and the canadian pacific railway, kansas city southern, the deal is worth shares and kansas city up by 19%. the ceo of canadian pacific is joining "squawk on the street" at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. the semiannual nabe economic policy survey is out i didn't know it was going to be today looking at a wide range of fiscal, domestic and economic issues, steve liesman joins us now. it would have been nice to get a

heads-up, steve. >> how did you not know, joe >> becky was surprise td, too >> what are you focused on your brackets. nabe with expert rate hikes and inflation and sees the risk of both rising, 46% responsibilities to the policy survey for the national association of business economics, the fed hikes in 2022 and 20% say 2023 12% think rate hikes will come after 2023 the vast majority of members are at odds at forecasting earlier hikes. behind the calls, more concern about inflation. 61% say inflation risks are greater now than they have been in the past two decades.

compared to 31% who say the risk is not greater but at the moment, you can rest easy because 72% say fed policy just right for now 26% stink it's due to stimulus the split is in future years there's time for alignment to happen on fiscal policy there's a split, 41% saying it's just right. 31% saying too systtimulative and rising and pumping money into the economy leading to believe early rate hikes by the fed. we have powell at 9:00 a.m. today. congressional testimony from powell and yellen tuesday and wednesday and tomorrow right here on "squawk box" you can hear directly and exclusively from dallas fed president robert caplan joe, now you've been today, powell, today and tomorrow and wednesday and caplan

so write it down so you're not surprised. >> you saw that turkish -- what happened to the central bank >> yeah, you lose your currency when you do that >> yeah, tried to raise rates for inflation. now, that's a little bit -- that's really some exercise of political control over monetary policy, is it not? that's worse than the worst nightmare what we saw here, the jaw jawboning, i mean, historically? >> right, but it gives you a direct example of why the independence of the federal reserve is so important. the markets rely on it and the idea that the politicians will directly control the currency or money or interest rates is something that gives all markets around the world concern. you think about it, what is the premium you that get for having an independent central bank. you get a quick look at it when you look at 10% decline in the currency right there

>> yeah. i guess there's not a leader in the world that ever likes to not keep his foot on the pedal of economic growth. and really the best laid intentions of central bankers, sometimes, this runs counter to what the leader of the country wants while he's president, or while he's in charge during this move >> well, you know, joe, that kind of raises a good point about powell here. i think powell's done a very good job getting us to this point but remember he's given everybody pretty much everything they want. this has basically been the easy part for him look, i don't want to say easy, yount staid that because he's taken pretty revolutionary steps in terms of trying to get the economy back up and running but the hard part for him, the hardest part is coming and that's taking this away. we'll see how he navigates that. >> all right, steve. thank you. in for the nabe stuff, we love

that live for it. love it. >> love it. >> yeah. love it. thanks, guys when we come back, jack in the box is seeing business boom during the pandemic. that stock sitting at an all-time high as the company focuses on drivethrough business and relaunching its program. we're going to hear from the ceo right after this break about the reopening of states and the future of business before we go to break, let's get a check of the markets the dow is indicated off by 42 points that comes after a decline we saw on friday as well. nasdaq's hanging in there as the ten-year continues to keep yields at bay. ten years below 1.7% dite tesult, the nasdaq is incahe up by 90. s&p futures up by 2. "squawk box" will be right back. y to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize and improve the electric grid. emerson. consider it solved.

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shares of jack in the box soaring over the past year, the company's drive-through business helps sales during the pandemic. it's now rebranding as restrictions overseas. darin harris joining us, darin, you came on board, i think, midlast year, in the middle of this pandemic that we're seeing. and you certainly have seen a big runup in the shares of the stock. you've actually flourished, it seems like, during the pandemic because of the drive-through

business and is there concern that reopening that we're seeing could actually slow same-store sales growth >> well, you know, it's a great question what we've -- during the pandemic, we made the right changes early by really focusing on making sure is that our guests were safe and our employees were safe. and this enabled us to lean into the off-premise in that drive-through business and product innovation that helped drive sales. it led to the best quarter in over 27 years. and our guests were making more premium online purchases, 12.5% systemwide in q1 and we've seen that performance continue. we've seen guests continue to use the mobile app and focus on digital sales. our digital sales doubled year over year to nearly 7% of sales. >> you know, i almost recused myself because when i lived in los angeles, i used to get tacos at jack in the box i always loved jack in the box,

that sourdough stuff i'm going to go with the interview and try and stay objective. what was the deal with the franchise situation that caused you, basically, for ten years, not you, because you weren't there, but the company had a hiatus, on terms of development for franchise. because i still don't see any back here on the east coast. and, certainly, that's how most fast food chains expand and grow >> yeah, you're correct. we went through a period of time where we were actually taking our company-owned units and refranchising them that was the focus of the organization, is really how do we transition the business model. now, we're in a period where we're focused on growth and expansion nationwide so, we're excited to relaunch our franchise development program following the hiatus you mentioned. over the last year, we proved we can be pandemic-resistant.

we're eager to bring on new franchises that grow in existing markets as well as new ones. and we're also receiving a substantial amount of interest from prospective franchises, with brands or developers. we've had two-thirds of the system raise their hand and say, hey, how can we help you expand nationwide and go into markets in the southeast, continue to expand in our existing markets where today we're in 21 states and we can still add another $1200 locations just in the states we're in today. >> darin, some people point out that the stock could catch the eye of perhaps something on reddit or reddit traders because of the short interests the shorts are still involved even though it's gone from 22 to almost 116 would you welcome that kind of attention? i guess you don't care what makes the stock goes up if it goes up?

>> yeah, we're focused on just staying true to the business strategy and making sure we take care of business and take care of our guests. and if we do that we'll let's the stock take care of itself. >> when we saw, sorry to mention a competitor, i love -- i do, i love all fast food mcdonald's, they had a gentleman that came on that just focused on fresh fresh food, quick service. almost blocking and tackling, you might call it. i think you just mentioned that you had some success there as well in terms of the just the digital orders and delivering it fast through the drive-through but also innovation. what's more important? you have a lot of new products -- the premium products that people come in for. it's really a combination of both of those things, right? getting it fast, but getting new products that people really want >> yeah, i think that's a great point. we focus on how do we be consistent at speed in a time frame that our guests will get the product that they want

as you just mentioned, what's unique about our menu, you can get all things on the menu all day every day. if you want tacos late night or breakfast at lunch, we have it available. that's part of our differentiation. recently, we brought on a new cmo to be clear to guests why we're different and why people would want to come to our restaurant that means our brand strategy has to be clear. it means we have to listen to our guests, understand why they come to us, why they leave and also means being focused around digital we've seen during the pandemic, digital sales continue to increase what we're doing, we're focused on how do we build that one-to-one marketing focusing on loyalty and really increasing usage of the app. >> tiny tacos, wow and the cluck sandwich

the cluck sandwich you got to be careful with, just as a tv person if i want to open one of these in melbourne or summit, new jersey, can i do that? if i say i want a franchise out here, i still can't do it in one of those areas -- i may have to do it myself to get one back here what would i do, darin >> you would contact our franchise team, tim linderman -- >> tim -- i could open one in new jersey right now, if i had the backing? >> we could. we have the ability to, you know, get product to the market. and support franchisees. and we have a nationwide support network. >> i can't believe that. okay i'm interested in those tiny tacos. that caught my -- why are you laughing i am that's a great idea. and it's actually helped, right, that was a big success

>> absolutely. tiny tacos has been incredible to drive incremental sales it's a snackable, cravable item that you can't stop eating it's like eating potato chips >> i'm going to have trouble with an unbiased -- you're right, i'm craving one right now. thanks for coming on >> thank you for the time. >> you're welcome. >> becky, what do you think? are you in >> what's the holdup >> i don't know! >> if you can do this already, what's the holdup? why isn't there one there? >> i don't know why. i know it well i love that, food maker, food maker. why don't we change it to jack in the box and get the symbol they got the good symbol, too, j-a-c-k. when we come back, the ceo of volkswagen group north america will join us to talk about the company's push into

the ev market and much more. right now as we head into break, right now as we head into break, check out shares of chrysler and everyone wakes up every morning to a world that must keep turning. others "squawk box" will be right back. , so neither can we. because the things we make, help make the world go round. they make it cleaner, healthier, and more connected. it's what we build that keeps things moving forward. so with every turn, we'll keep building a world that works.

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volkswagen is making its first big push into the ev market let's get to phil lebeau with a special guest. hey, phil. >> hey, joe, let's bring in scott keogh, ceo of volkswagen of america scott, this is a big week for you guys you're launching the iv-4, the first electric volkswagen in the united states. you're going into the crossover utility vehicle market you're not just going after people who want an ev. you think anybody interested in the crossover will be interested in it. am i right >> phil, you summed it up exactly right. the cars just arrived out of the ports in baltimore a few customers got hold of them friday that's exactly right, if you want to make electric vehicles

happen the trick is not to sell 200,000 cars at 2% of the market share. the trick is to sell it to real americans to may 32,000, 40,000 for a car. we put this vehicle in the heart of it to drive adoption and success, absolutely right. >> your pricing of this started at just under $40,000, that's before the federal tax rebate, if you will, that you get for the federal government, the tax credit so that would bring the price down substantially to the low 30s. and you're building these in chattanooga, am i correct? >> that's correct, phil, these vehicles right now, we're importing but the factory is ramping up in chattanooga. by next year, they'll be coming out of the factory in tennessee. i was down there last week meeting with the workers and they couldn't be more excited to make electric vehicle, really, really cool to bring this to the heart of the south, the heart of america. >> scott, every automaker is

ramping up their ev sales and projections over the next several years. more than one person i talked to in the auto industry said look i'm not really sure we're going to have the raw materials needed for battery production or for some of the key components so we meet the projections do you think we need to temper overall for the industry, the expectation for how quickly ev sales ramp up? >> look, phil, i don't think the question is raw materials at the end of the day at the end of the day it's going to be the american consumer. the american consumer will dictate how quick the rampup is. it was always 1% of the market, 2% of the market then 10%. look, i think we're looking at 20% to 30% of the market relatively quick if you look at it there are giant factors at play. giant factor number one is global government. that's a big factor. giant factor number two is the auto industry is putting $100

billion into it. this is going to massive styling effects and the environment. the environment is important so these massive shifts, phil, aren't going away, the government, the invest, the environment, plus the american consumer i see it happening and i see it happening quicker every year >> scott, real quick, i want to ask you about the chip shortage? how long do you think it lasts for the industry does it ease this summer or do you see it lasting into the fall >> i see it lasting into the fall honestly, it's something that we've been navigating week by week we've handled it by globalization and handling with chips in the cars that we have better margin on it will go into the fall without a doubt from my perspective, phil >> scott keogh, ceo for volkswagen of america joining us this week on the launch of id.4. joe and becky, i had a chance to

drive the id.4 a week and a half ago. it's clearly they're targeting the crossover of the market with the sport utility vehicles they want this to be the type of vehicle if you're looking out there on the market there's no difference tweeb an internal combustion vehicle or an electric vehicle that's really what they're targeting with the id.4. >> how did you like it, phil >> i thought it was good this is one of those vehicles that will do well in terms of converting people into interest in the ev market >> great, phil, thank you. good to see you. >> you bet when we come back, dr. scott gottlieb will join us to talk about the results of astrazeneca's trial out overnight. we're also talking to him about an op-ed concerning three feet versus six feet in the classrooms and the latest guidelines we've seen from the

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welcome back to "squawk box. i'm dominic chu here with your market minute. it's hard to believe that a year ago tomorrow was the anniversary, one year, of the

market lows during the covid pandemic that was the time that the s&p, nasdaq and dow jones all hit the worst levels for the year. over the course of the last one year, just take a look at some of the results we've seen. the nasdaq composite, obviously, the clear outperformer, s&p up 70% and dow just abcout as well. we've seen record highs over the past couple months here. check out what's happening for the small caps and midcaps each of them in the past couple of weeks hit their record highs but they far outperformed the s&p and dow. russell small cap-of-the-is up 105%, the etf is up 110% that's that trade on reopening of america in the midst of the pandemic also check out from a sector perspective over the last year, it has materials now, not energy that's the best performer given the market action of late. energy up neck and neck with it.

utilities, the worst performing sector, up 30% would you be surprised if i told you, joe, over the course of the last 12 months in the s&p 500, the best performing stock was actually not tesla it was viacom css up 20% here. gilead sciences up 12% bio gen a negative performer viacom and tesla the top performing companies back to you. >> did they earn anything in the vaccine race -- gilead trying for vaccines for covid you know what they do make >> what do they make >> tamiflu fortunately, unfortunately, no one got the flu. >> i didn't, i got to tell you it's because i'm washing my

hands 30 times a day and sanitizing them 50 times a day >> 30, you might want to talk to someone. i studied that in psychopathology, i'm not sure what type of defense mechanism you're feeling guilty about but that's a sure sign -- are you feeling guilty of picking brackets. >> i picked illinois >> i did, too. >> i had uconn going to the final four this would be the year, joe, for sports in the age of covid this would totally make sense for an oral roberts or somebody like that to end up winning the entire ncaa tournament >> when you got a 101-year-old nun with a direct line >> up there. >> you know, did you see that she -- i mean, the classic thing about sister jeanne is, she goes, you got to watch that guy especially from the outside. she's a great -- she knows for each team. >> so, joe, i'm not a massive

college basketball fan, but i have been following loyola-chicago, specifically because of sister jeanne, because she always seems to have the inside track >> she's a good coach. >> yes >> she could coach she could coach. she may have a line. here's the thing, dom, and you're right because i've given up obviously. i just have looked at our pool, one person picked georgetown most have gonzaga, if gonzaga doesn't win, all bets are off because nobody has outlier teams. we don't want to go away and think we don't have a chance >> no, no, that's the only thing that will save us, joe, both you and i had illinois weed me gonzaga to beat. weed me baylor to get beaten we need every other top team to get beaten >> got a few manage manages in he

michigans in here. judy woodrow had arizona state how did that happen. thanks, dom. coming up shares of astrazeneca moving higher in premarket after the u.s. trial shows its coronavirus vaccine was 79% effect stive, and 100% effective against severe disease and coming after reports of blood clots of some people an independent safety board found no safety concerns related to the shots we're going to hear from dr. scott gottlieb about this breaking news. that's coming next, coming right back wealth is breaking ground on your biggest project yet. worth is giving the people who build it a solid foundation. wealth is shutting down the office for mike's retirement party. worth is giving the employee who spent half his life with you, the party of a lifetime.

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♪ the good progress we have seen across all vaccine producers there's still a need for more vaccines in the united states, but clearly also in the world. so, we are thrilled with those

results. and hopefully, it will help in order to fight against this terrible pandemic. >> that was the president of astrazeneca u.s. an executive prpd of bio pharmaceuticals earlier on "squawk box. joining us right now is dr. scott gottlieb, he's former fda commissioner and also a cdc contributor and serves on the boards of ill human ma and pfizer scott, this is a big deal for the rest of the globe what this means, right >> right it's a top-line result from a big trial they were doing in the u.s. i think we need to see the data set to fully interpret it. remember, it's a two-dose vaccine, so you can't make apples to apples comparisons between those two-dose vaccines. we talked about the j&j vaccine, it was a single dose i think we need to see the full data set

i've had difficulty myself interpreting the press releases they've put out in the fast. but certainly, 79% effective vaccine as another entrant, not only in the united states but around the world as well >> it's interesting what you're saying, it's two shots so we should be comparing it to the efficacy of both moderna and pfizer is it fair to say that pfizer and moderna completed their trials earlier so it wouldn't necessarily be exposed to some of the variants? or is this a situation 79% isn't good enough if it's two shots versus one shot for j&j having efficacy levels like that? >> well, that is more than just a public health issue. it's also a commercial issue this will be entering the market at the time when there's enough supply in the u.s. market that people are probably going to be able to make a choice between what vaccine they get. when you come into may and june there will probably be enough supply, you can determine what

vaccine you want based on where you get it maybe onsite. i 79% affords a high degree of protection, if in fact the data, when it comes out the full data set supports the top-line release. i do want to make for the data set for an interpretation. i've had difficulty interpreting the press releases in the past from astrazeneca this is still a good result. it's a good result around the world. you're right, there is a different mix of virus right now in the united states than when the earlier trials were done hopefully, they've done the sequencing work so we can differentiate the relative efficacy to determine whether in the u.s. patients got a good response with the vaccine or didn't get as good a response. j&j sequenced everyone in the trial, hopefully astrazeneca has done that. >> this is ais adenovirus vector

again. i don't know the whole idea when you get the t-cell by introducing an adenovirus, unless we don't know long term about lasting immunity, but near term, is seems like the messenger rna is just as good or better than using the adenovirus vector viral vaccines. both j&j and if you would ask haved me seven or eight months ago in terms of the vaccine i would have said 60%. we've cleared pretty impressive thresholds with the vaccines it could be that the mrna vector is suited to combat the coronavirus. and the mrna itself is

stimulating the immune response in a way that's adaptive to getting a robust immune protection from that vaccine >> right >> we don't know really. you're right, we don't know the ability of the protection that the vaccines are going to afford we're starting to get that information but we don't know the full durability of the protection that the different vaccines are going to and. >> scott, let's talk about your op-ed in "the wall street journal. it expands on something you brought up here on "squawk box" on friday. that kids can be sitting three feet apart instead of six feet apart. it's left a lot of us scratching our heads trying to figure out what was the science that went into it in the first place what's the new science vand we been wrong keeping kids six feet apart or are they doing things because it's more

politically available? >> i think when we highlight the coronavirus, we went back to a flu model and it was reasonable to do that because we didn't know a lot about coronavirus we assumed it was going to behave like flu. it has not behaved like flu. that's caused us to underestimate the virus in so many ways. we were wrong in certain respects but did we learn quickly enough and adapt our guidelines and recommendations quickly enough the answer is no because we saw with the contaminated surfaces we overestimated the utility of physical distancing because flus spread dedominantly through droplets we know droplets don't spread more than six feet we underappreciated this was spray through aerosol transmission there are important ways that we overestimated and underestimateded virus so we didn't learn quickly enough. one of the virtues of cdc process, the cdc is able to move

quickly with issuing the recommendations. one of the obligations you have, you have to have an industrialized process to revisit these things the other piece is when the cdc issues recommendations there's different levels of evidence behind those recommendations and different levels of certainty. and when the agency is uncertain or predicating a recommendation on less certain science they should be transparent on that to make a determination how seriously we want to take it they don't usually do that i think they ought to be obligated to do that >> i have to say i'venever see anything like this before where the cdc is basically the cya for every organization out there there's no politician who wants to come down on one side or the other to alienate 40% of voters. politicians won't make decisions. it puts workplaces and schools in the place where the only way they can protect themselves is saying they're following the cdc guidelines it's incredibly important

political policy and science mixed together i've never seen the cdc have to navigate something like this but they're more important than ever >> well, they're always important because their pronouncements are followed by a lot of local businesses and districts. you constantly hear people referencing cdc guidelines these guidelines have more impact on economy than regulation there's no notice of comment there needs to be more transparency about how these things get formulated. >> all right scott, dr. scott gottlieb, thank you for all that >> thank you >> we'll see you again soon. and we'll need you, as we do coming up, how much work is too much work? the issue of the work/life balance is being first year employees at goldman sachs we're going to talk about that it says we're going to debate it i don't want to debate it. i don't feel that strongly

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the issue of work/life balance is being brought up by first year employees at goldman sachs. a small survey conducted in february reveals they often work 100 hours a week to discuss the culture, bill cohen, "vanity fair" correspondent and contributor, kate tine, also a wall street and cnbc contributor are those numbers real

five 16-hour days what's that -- that's 80. you got to work saturday and -- how do you get to 110 hours? do you believe that? what are they doing when they're there? are they screwing around once in a while? are they really -- i mean, do we see the evidence of the fruits of their labor and great analysis what are they really doing they got a stack of papers here and it's got to end up over there? what are they doing? >> they're kind of at the bottom of the hierarchy, joe, they're doing the crunch work that goes into tmt deals of course, you wouldn't see it in the outside world i think they said they're getting four hours of sleep a night. to me what's interesting how much has changed and how much has not changed. these floor 13 san francisco-based young goldman hires who are working from home. even working from home, not having to suit up for the office it still can be very stress.

there's a boundary between work and home when you're getting four hours of sleep a night as they said it's tough no matter where you are. at the same time, this is the nature of entry-level banking. i'm not certain how it's going to change because unlike other firms and financial services these wall street banks hire thousands of young people per year they train them up, typically shoulder to shoulder in the office with mentorship opportunity. after a time, people either say, or they go to hedge funds, private equity, they go to big tech or fintech. but no other part of the industry provides this degree of training >> that's something, bill, what is -- the worst goldman alumni is doing great, is he not? >> i mean, goldman is a wealth-creation factory, joe i think we've known that for a long time, kate is exactly right. i mean, this is nothing new.

trust me, this is nothing new. what's new, the cleverness with which these 13 san francisco first-year analysts at goldman sachs have gotten our attention and put together a clever power point presentation that looks pretty professional and goldman-like and squirreled it around on social media and got a lot of attention it's sort of a predecor, i'm not sure it's going to change what happens at goldman sachs by the way, this isn't just add goldman sachs, believe me. this is just that this group was clever up to get the attention of david sullivan, the ceo of goldman. nothing is going to change it takes a long time to hire and change these individuals and these businesses are flat out busier, making money so these guys are just getting

incredible training, if you want to look at it that way, and working very, very hard. which is something they signed up, obviously something they knew graduating college and they're well paid. >> so, your managers or david ol l solomon sore whomever is not working as hard, going to the bahamas or whatever, as they pointed out. that's not unique when you're paying your dues on the lower rungs? kate >> it's not unique i'm sure david has a home in the bahamas and i'm sure he's working. taking calls and whatnot i reminds me of the piece i went on the schwartzman scholars. who are these masters in klein who started, started by steve schwarzman of blackstone they recently sent this letter,

about 160 out of 600, not an insignificant amount of these scholars sent a letter to steve protesting some of this political donations. i just thought this is so interesting, i don't think this would have happened in my generation but i think in this generation, people are speaking up, they feel like, you know, talent is at a premium in this market. they need to stand up for what's important for them be it political, be it lifestyle. solomon said he's focused on lifestyle. you guys remember he does electronic music on the side that's part of him bringing his whole person to work i agree with bill, it's very canny of these young hires to put together this deck and present it to management that way. >> i think it's nice.way kate phrased that, bill, they want to be heard it's got nothing to do with the entitlement that we see of young people or the -- i don't know, it's well documented at least

the impression that some of us get with some of our younger associates around. they're able to express themselves more. they open up that's a good thing, right, bill >> well, i mean, it's a new thing. i mean, it's not a new thing i mean, we have to deal with it. when i was on wall street for 17 years, you basically had to stifle yourself edict, you know, as once upon of time was said. we all had these thoughts and thought it was unfair. and when steve went to martha's vineyard while we were working our butts off. that's the way it is we didn't say anything >> i betcha there's one job for every 1,000 jobs at goldman. >> harder to get into goldman sachs than harvard >> beck. >> guys, i hope we can get bill

and kate to comment, leon black is quitting apollo completely according to axios and other places you know he's supposed to be stepping down as ceo and taking the role of chairman as of july. now it looks like he's out completely i'm not entirely sure for the change of plan on this i'll leave this up to you, two kate, what do you think? >> becky, i think this is probably -- i'm not up to speed and this is breaking news. i would guess it's the extension between the ties between black and jeffrey epstein which were found more extensive than leon first acknowledged a couple years ago when epstein was in prison you know, that's an interesting story about apollo they recently had some headlines about young hires also fachg quality of life issues and i think they've got an interesting generational dilemma. they do have two executives,

josh harris and mark rowan who are the younger generation than black and who are certainly very active and co-founders of the firm even beyond that, they're needing to think about the next level of leadership. >> we've got to go bill, i'm sorry. kate, bill, thank you. we're going to break happy birthday, bill shatner 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, you're planning for your future. maybe it's for kid number two. or employee number two hundred.

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♪ breaking news this morning, results of a big u.s. trial shows astrazeneca's covid vaccine is 79% effective that company's scientists finding no increased risk of blood clots for those who worry over in europe recently halted the new tesla call from cathie wood. $3,000 a share the ev bowl said the tesla share could hit $4,000 in the best case scenario. and tax breaks in the future of semiconductor to manufacturers to musicians, lots of people are looking for car vals

and it will have to go up. we'll discuss with white house council of economic advisers heather boushey. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning, again. and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is off today but we've been watching the u.s. equity futures on this monday morning you're going to see right now it looks like the dow is still down but it's made improvements it's down 25 points below fair value. s&p futures have picked up a bit, five points above fair value. and the nasdaq is hanging in there. 95 points above fair value which is in part because of what we've seen the treasury yields if you're watching the ten-year, you'll see the yields have been kept at bay below what we were last week.

sitting at 1.88% we got just above 1.885, that's the number above 1.7% when the nasdaq was under pressure. technology stocks as you saw yields push back up. but this morning 1.886%. we'll also show you the "squawk" stack, along with the nasdaq and dow futures we've got a few other things in there, tesla amid kathie wood's operating target that stock is up 4.25% then the turkish lira which we'll be talking about in just a moment the turkish lira is down against the dollar because of a move by president erdogan there to get rid of the central banker who was looking to raise rates he wanted to raise rates, keep inflation at bay erdogan said no thank you. we're going to talk about what this means and the implications

this could have. ten-year just below 1.7% joe. >> here are other stories that investors are talking about today. you saw tesla on the "squawk" stacks, kathie wood projecting that the shares of the electric carmaker will rise to 3,000 by the end of 2025. that would mean they've more than quadrupled from its current level. under its best case scenario, woods' ark invest sees tesla going to about $4,000. the bear case by 2025, just $1500 a share. just speaking of tesla, ceo elon musk says there's a strong innocenti for his company to keep all of its data private knowing it would likely get shut down in places like china. musk made the comments to a chinese forum over the weekend following the statement that

teslas had been banned from chinese manufacturers. and kansas city southern has agreed to a cash and stock deal. the transaction is worth $275 a share. compared to kansas city southern friday closing price $224 a share. the combined company would create the first rail network that would be kind of all across the continent, u.s., mexico and canada, though the deal is expected to face a long regulatory review. they tried, canadian pacific twice, to do something similar in years past. never really made it but they say they've learned from their fast experience. and it might go smoother because kansas city southern is on board. don't miss the first interview with cnbc with the canadian pacific ceo coming up at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. bec, i just glossed over, william shatner, you know how old he is, right >> i forget. he's way older than you think he

is how oldie. >> >> 90. >> last year, he was like on "amazing race. like swimming on a vine across rivers to catch a train in malaysia he's like a freak of nature, really, to be -- >> maybe he could be 70, joe >> i think he found something on one of those travels somebody told him something or gave him something in one of those other worlds that he visited to allow him -- because he looks, literally looks like 60 right now >> probably learned something from spock, you know >> yeah. jim carrey -- i do a good jim carrey intimidating bill shatner -- actually, it's not very good. that's trending. i happened to notice that. you know who else, clint --

clint is still making great movies as an actor and director. he must be close to 90 i think he did turn 90 >> charlie munger, he's 97, and he held that conference, his annual meeting last month, it was phenomenal >> right still and nice and reticent as always sort of really -- you know, cuddly cuddly i think is the world. >> exactly that's why we love him >> yeah. anyway, we're also watching two other big stories at this hour, medicine and the marketing, mike santoli is going to join us in a moment with more on where investors might want to park their money at this critical money with stocks and bonds. we'll start with meg tirrell on the breaking news on astrazeneca vaccine and the new data they have there meg. >> thank you the highly anticipated results from the u.s.-based phase three trial more than 30,000 participants are in. the headline number, 79% efficacy against the two-dose

vaccine against symptomatic covid. 100% efficacy preventing against severe disease and hospitalization. when we interviewed ruud dobber this morning, the president this morning, they have 5% in the trials they say no safety concerns were identified in the trial. dobber telling us they plan to file for emergency use authorization in the first half of april as we look back for the timing of other vaccines in the market for fda application and emergency use authorization it averages out to about three weeks. so looking at three weeks from the first half of april, this could potentially if the fda gives the green light be on the market by the end of april, early may. we asked ruud dobber what role this will play here's what he said.

>> we assume the approval will take place in a fast, fast way we hope to deliver 30 million doses for americans to get vaccinated incredibly important, despite all of the good progress across all vaccine producers that there's still a need for more vaccines in the united states, but clearly, also in the world >> so astrazeneca saying they see a role for this vaccine here and they're going to have quite a lot of supply. 30 million doses upon eua. 20 more following that month 20 million doses monthly going forward in the u.s we'll have to see, guys, how that vaccine is used here in the u.s. and how it fits in with the other three. becky. >> meg, just to point out, we had dr. scott gottlieb on, his point is, it will be hitting right about the time we'll anticipate there will be a little more glut here in the

united states where demand has been met his point is it's not only public health, but commercialization, people can vaccine shop at that point they may want to go for either the higher efficacy ones to date or the one-shot one with j&j so, not a two-shot complication, but it falls in the middle and that makes you wonder whether it will be as popular or as sought after as some of these other vaccines right now, just based on when it's approved. >> yeah. there absolutely seem to be questions how the vaccine will be used in the united states, given that when we hear from the biden administration they expect to have enough vaccines for all american adults by the end of may. dr. gottlieb says we should be able to access vaccines, i haven't gotten my shot yet and i really want it and i'm not eligible yet we'll see how the availability of the vaccines opens up, with

all adults expected to get their shot by may, we'll see when we will actually get our shots. when we have so much supply coming on board of these other vaccines >> stock is up by 2.1% thank you, meg see you soon well, we mentioned it -- we mentioned it earlier it's been about a year since the market saw those lows. here we are, here we are, extravagant amounts from the lows cnbc senior markets commentator mike santoli has been looking at where we are, where we might be. and just to kick things off, mike, so people were more negative at 2400, or 2300 on the s&p, than they are at 3900 on the s&p. >> yeah. >> my question to you is, what pro surprise is or the horizon that we haven't already anticipated to keep this baby going? you tell me, what positive

surprise is out there. >> i mean, i think the main one that i would focus on is just exactly how much upside there could be to 2021 and 2022 estimates, given where gdp forecasts are going i don't think that the frost estimates have nearly kept track with that maybe that's one thing to keep in mind but didn't want to assess this year from an extraordinary, if you look at the s&p 500, at that low march 23rd last year, not only was it the steepest decline in stocks, 34% over five weeks even say traditional 60/40 stock portfolio down only the fourth time since world war ii. at that moment, the prudent path was to rebalance the stocks. it pointed out during those periods that tended to be good ithas happened but now what, i think is the question. i do want to take a look at bonds. if you look at the barclays

aggregate bond interest, surging into that market low, yields collapsing this is the price of bonds if you go from this high, 5%, 6% decline that basically qualifies as a bloodbath for total bond market thing. this annualizes year to doate, 60%. that mean you want to shift money into bonds? it's not clear if that's the call right now, but i did want to point out what has happened to stocks after they've been up 50% over a 12-month period with showed this the other day basically, the lines are every time you've had more than a 50% 12-month return in stocks. it happened in 1997, briefly too. at the end of it, it was not a major market or a peak you got flattening out and usually had a chop, 10%, 15% decline over the last six months then a break before you got further highs.

nine 98 was one of those years 2010, 1983 so, one of the hard moves might be to own some of the neglect tiff parts of the stock market, such as dividend stocks, utility, stable growth, not necessarily playing the swing, but deep cyclical to faang-type growth to this point which has been the market that we've come to know in the last several weeks, joe >> that's another issue we were talking about earlier. the age of this bull market. some people think it's a year old but if you sort of ignore the pandemic, you could say it's secular. so that would be important to know >> yeah. >> the other thing, that was a good answer you gave me, maybe the estimates weren't high you have for the earnings to share once we reopen, but i would counter with, they better be good just to grow into the multiples that are reflected in their share prices >> yes >> they better grow well and those multiples are perhaps going to be under pressure if

rates do rise. my only point is people are scared and negative an panic at the lows >> yes >> that probably makes sense, what you said about even jim paulsen talking about 15%, 20%, maybe you get some type of pullback, some consolidation and resumption of things >> it would sweep away a lot of that enthusiasm that we're see right now which is helpful, usually. >> yeah, yeah. i don't know, a lot of macro headwinds in my view with taxes and regulatory issues and rising interest rates and everything else but we shall see thanks mike san tsantoli. joining us is gramercy adviser and president of queens college-cambridge. mike what do you think, what mike was talking about, are these like times in past that we need time to consolidate and grow into

things? >> we do becky, we're coming into a period where the economic call was hard but the market call was clear because you wanted to ride the liquidity wave and you knew that liquidity wave would continue now, we've got better clarity on economics which makes the policy and therefore, the liquidity wave more uncertain. and that's a really important macro transition and i agree with mike, you've got to look below when the macro transition complicates the outlook for the market you go down a few levels and construct a fportfolio that way that wasn't constructed at the macrolevel >> mohammed, i'll point out, this is different and it's dangerous to say this is different than what we've seen in the past. but in the past, you were talking about bigger problems, not a shutdown of things instan instantaneously, and hopefully an emergence back into the full

economy. it was different from that perspective in that we haven't seen anything like this in 100 years. it's also interesting in perspective to what the different countries are doing and the amount they're willing to spend can we look at the past and necessarily take a lot of lessons out of that? >> i think you can take some lessons but not enough let me explain why we're going through an economic transition that is resulting from a combination of macro economic policy we have not seen before which is fiscal, pedal to the metal in the way we've not seen and we're going through a transition and philosophy of economic policies. joe just mentioned that raises a whole host of questions as to how will the economy reaction inflation, which raises another set of issues which is the liquidity paradigm which investors have benefited from so

much exist so that's why i think interestingly, we can define the complications, but in order to have a clear look at the economy, you need two calls, you need to look at the mind-set of the fed going into the transition and you need to look into the psychology of the market condition by just liquidity. that's why the future is more uncertain. that's why i like the idea of go further down in your assessment, become much more granular at this point >> let's just look at what happened to the turkish lira we think inflation can never come back. turkey is dealing with inflation. the central banker there trying to deal with that inflation by raising rates and the president erdogan said, no, no, the central banker is gone as a result, the lira against the dollar this morning, the lira is under a huge amount of pressure the last we looked, almost 9%,

9.7% move against the lira do you think this has broader implications, the lira itself or other lessons we should take out of that? >> so, that's an example of what happens when the policy science surprises and the democratic psychology changes on thursday night, turkish investors were really happy. why? because the turkish central bank tightened more than they expected it boosted the currency and they were sitting on nice returns come friday, the president fires the central bank governor. and nothing has changed, nothing has changed as yet in the policies and the currency is down 10% what has changed not.new central bank governor has reduced interest rates it's that people's confidence in the policy paradigm has taken a big

shock. and that causes flows to start changing and that causes broker dealers to position ahead of that. so it's just -- i don't think we ever get an extreme like that in the u.s. but it shows you what happens when investors no longer have clarity on the policy side. >> speaking of that, mohamed, so, we saw the bank of japan, we did see what they decided to do. the ban was very small pap it was stabilized but now certain people are saying that they're worried about foreign investment into u.s. treasuries now, because they're worried that powell has lost control given the recent two-day meeting and some of the comments and the way the thing is operating and that that could be a new thing to worry about, ratings may head back up anyway, even if, you know, not based on rates rising in other parts of the world, but just based on foreigners thinking that we've

lost control of the situation here is there any truth to that >> so, we don't have an indication of that yet but it could be consequential if we did. look, it is very, very unusual -- notice how many veries i had -- very unusual for the fed to come in and hike its growth to 6.5% hike its inflation projection to 2.4% and do nothing with policy. that is really unusual and the marketplace, when it sees that, its natural reaction is to push longer dated bonds higher in yield. against that, the u.s. market is really attractive to foreigners both on at-hedge and hedge basis. so that's the tug-of-war so the fed needs foreign money to come in to stabilize the market, if as you postalate, foreigners lose confidence if they lose confidence you

don't have that tug-of-war keep an eye on it and how many foreign participation you get in the bond markets coming up >> mohamed, thank you. really good to see you this morning. >> thank you ♪ all right. coming up many in washington and on wall street expecting an infrastructure package to be the next big push from the biden administration how would the country pay for that we're going to ask council of economic adviser member heather boushey. first, before you head to break, check out the shares of royal caribbean, the cruise line planning to restart caribbean sailings in june after a family-driven year-long hiatus crews and adult guests will have to be vaccinated, though stay tuned, we're watching "squawk box" on cnbc alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools

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uhh yes. and your lucky jersey? oh, yeah. lauren, a cooler? it's hot. it's march. and jay, what's with all your screens? just checking in with my team... of colleagues. so you're all streaming on every device in the house, what?!! that was a foul. it's march... ...and you're definitely not watching basketball. no, no. i'm definitely not watching basketball. right... ( horn blaring ) ♪ coming up, nonfungible tokens are all the rage. can you say $69 million for a piece of art it's digital but there's another group that's involved in this market that may be chi ievasngn en more. we'll tell you who those players are when "squawk box" comes right back strengthening client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com

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the nonfungible token boom creating a lot of wealth for the entrepreneurs. behind the movement, robert frank joins us with more good morning >> nft is a $600 million industry and startups are cashing up and raising a lot of money the big guy, vancouver-based gapper labs, rolling it out, that could send the company up to $2 billion. it's raised $51 million in

several rounds dapper has partnered with the nba for the popular pop shots nfts and opensea is another big nft platform just closing a round of $23 million led by andresen horowitz and mark cuban and mark cuban a backer of mintable and rarable. and nifty gateway has made the winklevoss brothers even wealthier. they bought the company from its founders, nifty gateway estimated to be valued at $1 billion. so another win for the wink winklevoss >> identical twins >> yes, yes. so identical twins sold their

company to the identical winklevoss by the way, both sets of twins were competitive rowers in the blockchain shocking they had a lot in common >> that is interesting very good, robert frank. nfts can you ever see a more ed me meteoric rise >> incredible. zero to 600 million in two months crazy. >> yeah, two months. thanks, robert, see you. bec. which we come back, we're going to talk infrastructure, whether higher taxes are necessary to pay for it. and the rollout of president gden's american rescue plan weot the council of american advisers group heather boushey don't go anywhere. "squawk box" is right back

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♪ there's a lot of talk about the possibility of higher taxes to help pay for a potential multily trillion dollar infrastructure package but businesses across the board

are already pushing to get their own tax breaks ylan mui joins us a higher rate for those people who can't get through it, right? >> that's right, the lobbying to be part of it has begun. manufacturers and tech companies are teaming up to form the r & d coalition it included amazon and it allows companies to keep dispensing all of their r & d costs this year. right now, that benefit is going to expire in 2022. from the startup community the national venture capital is backing that proposal because it's expanding the r & d tax credit to smaller businesses meanwhile, the semiconductor industry could get bipartisan

support for the chip act for domestic investment in equipment and other expenditures of course, because no one wants to be left out, musicians are calling for a carve-out, too the hits act helping independent tracks succeed act. it allows any artist who expensed the cost of producing a record in the united states they can write up to $150,000 on their taxes. joe, this just shows you that infrastructure could end up being a very broad term. back to you. >> i like indy rock. there's a place for that, guys i do, i listen to it a lot maybe i'm for that everyone's going to want that. thanks, ylan to talk about paying for the infrastructure package i love that we're talking about paying for a future package when we're in the middle of spending about $1.9 trillion. might need to consider that, too, heather boushey is a member of the president's economic

advisers we got stuff we're spending on, heather, stuff we may spend on in the future. there's going to be a push probably to raise taxes. what is the best way it do that without having adverse unintended consequences on economic growth? >> well, that's a great place to start the question i mean, i will say that the money that's going out to communities all across the country right now, as a part of the american rescue plan that is addressing first and foremost, the crisis in front of us, continuing the pandemic, making sure that families and businesses and states and local governments have the means that they need to get us through both the pandemic, but also the economic crisis. and, you know, i mean, the next question is, you know, where do we go next i think your questions about when and how we pay for it are really important but i think you got to the crux of it when you asked, you know, what's good for the economy? what we know is that we need a tax system that values work over

wealth that makes sure that everybody pays their fair share. and where incentivizing things g are going to be good for the economy in the short and long term, not just sort of the quick hits >> what will that look like, in your view? in other words, specifically should we look at capital gain should we look at marginal rates? should we do anything with corporate tax rates? should we do anything with estate taxes? should we do anything with people talk about certain stepped-up assets that never are subject to taxation if they're passed along to the -- to someone's heirs instead of themselves are those of those on the table? and some of those are not going to be great theoretically for capital formation or for maybe even economic growth >> well, here's the thing. you know, the president was very clear during the campaign that he supported a wide array of taxes focused at the top

he made clear time and time again that if you make more than -- if you make more than $400,000 a year, that's where we're going to be focused on taxes. not at folks making less than that and making sure that the corporate side, again, is fair everybody pays their fair share. that there aren't incentives to ship profits overseas. that there aren't incentives to outsource jobs because here's the thing. our job is to make sure that the economy is focused on delivering what matters to the american people which is, you know, broadening and strengthening the middle class making sure that there are good jobs available and making sure that, you know, the nation's enormous wealth and resources are focused on that goal >> heather, do you think it's okay, in terms of overall taxation that we should make it even more progressive? do you think 50% or 55% which it is with state taxes for the people that you're talking about, do you think it's okay if that goes up to 70% or 75% for a

certain subgroup of people, when you talk about fairness? is that fair, do you believe >> so, i'm not going to get into specifics here today because all of these plans are still emerging, but here's what i can tell you we live in a country where for decades we've done tax cuts at the top. package after package over the past nearly half century now, and what we've seen is that has not deliberated the kind of robust growth or the stronger middle class that we've been promised i think it's time to take a step back and make sure that our tax system is fair and that the government has the resources to do the things that are important to the american people again, we have to focus on what our bowlgoal here is the goal is to make sure that we're broadening, strengthening the middle class, rewarding work over rewarding wealth. and we're focused on making sure that we have a strong resilient economy across our society so we need to take steps to get from here to there

>> hey, heather, we just heard from ylan talking about all of these companies that are going to be lobbying for carveouts so if the rates go up on corporations overall, they would still be paying a lower rate we had a study earlier this morning that we were talking about that showed that individuals do the same. there's all kinds of things like individuals who create corporate passthroughs so that they don't pay the individual rates on the money they're making i mean, why don't we tighten up the existing law, get rid of a lot of the loopholes that exist that are taken advantage of. and then you can have rates that are fair, where people are actually paying the advertised rates? i mean, the difference between the effective rate and the rate that's there, that to me seems like the inequity, because there are individuals or economies paying those high rates and a whole group of other people who wiggle through on the loopholes. why don't we tighten it up >> that is a great place to start, right

we do need to make sure -- when we talk about loopholes, often what you're talking about, like you said, one part of the economy or the sector saying what i'm doing is valuable to the economy so tax it at a lower rate then over time, these things build up and maybe they're not economically efficient maybe they aren't in the public interest and that is where we need to be focused, right we need to make sure that taxes are fair that everybody pays their fair share. that there aren't all of these loopholes. if and when we decide that somebody should be paying a lesser rate because of what they're doing is in the public good that it's really actually quite important and exceptional. >> unfortunately, as you just mentioned things may start out like that and encompass more and more so then you have a ridiculous tax code where so few people pay the effective rate but the people who pay the effective rate are going to be punished when you raise rates on them or companies doing the same.

that to me seems at the height of unfairness. make sure everybody is paying the rate as advertised >> i think it's a great point. >> that's very much a good point and it gets to the value, right that the way we structure the tax system needs to be fair. and it needs to be focused on the goals that you actually want to achieve so, i'm agreeing with you that that is certainly a good place to start >> we need to define fair. you're using it one way and i'd use it another way if someone does really well and ends up in an 80% bracket because they don't have a lot more than other people who don't have much you would call that fair to tax them at 80% because they have more or been more productive or luckier, whatever it is. you would call 80% fair. if you work for uncle sam until july 1, that's not fair. >> certainly, this is a really important values question. but you have to think about all of the things that all of us benefit from, right? we're talking about what's

coming next. we're thinking about the kinds of infrastructure that our nation needs where we'll be investing in the public goods that benefit us all. things like making sure that school -- schooling infrastructure needs to be where 2 is for all of the children across the country making sure that roads and bridges are good these are things that benefit us all. and then making sure that the tax system says, you know, that those are -- >> sounds you'd look fine with the wealth tax, too, on some of these people who have way too much already >> the president has made clear, that is not his vision >> heather boushey, thank you. we'll be watching closely as we strive for fairness. we appreciate it thanks, bye. >> thank you when we come back, jim t amer is going to join us we'll gehis first take on the trading it day and the week ahead. don't go away. "squawk box" will be right back.

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let's get to cnbc headquarters, jim cramer joins us now jim, i saw one of your tweets, you want someone to let you know how this happens you're still wondering what happens on certain days when things start moving. you want to know, where did they see it reddit or is it somewhere there are certain things that just happen, it's like someone throws a swif and you want to

know where >> yeah. i think it's time. you pick up the journal and it says young investors have taken over the sea and young investors are interested in things, sundial, and riot block chain, and we might be concerned about canadian pacific and i've got to figure out how do they play why do they key it on certain stocks those are the stocks they want information on it is hard to understand riot blockchain every day >> something happened -- there is something behind the scenes, i don't know, jim, maybe you -- you're a boomer. it may not impinge on your senses in the way -- it may look like greek to you. >> yeah. >> can you do code >> i don't know, hall of fame resorts. let's know about hall of fame resorts. i got a company that had no revenue, nothing, but it owns bitcoin. people are saying jim, how could

you not love that stock it owns bitcoin. all right. you want me to know that young investors call the show, they are simply not interested in the stocks we talk about. they're interested in -- i'm not calling them crazy stocks, i'm just saying they're interested in industrial acquisitions, sundial growers. joe, those are companies like the teams that beat illinois and georgetown -- >> god, almighty yep. >> that's what they want >> do you think -- i'm going back to the boring old person stock, do you think this merger finally goes through with the rails? they tried before. it makes economic sense. >> it sure does. and i think the amount of cars that are built down there, i mean i think it would be fantastic for -- we used to call it can-pac it would be great if it went through, it would be a huge,

huge success maybe someone says they want cp to compete no don't act like you can create competition when you can't and you're buying blockchain, come on. >> finally, you might go back and start over again as a young guy at goldman sachs to work less than you work >> well, that's ridiculous >> what you're doing now you could use a break at 100 hours a week >> that's absolutely true. remember, they did sign on for it i don't recall when they went there and felt it was going to be kind of like a camp, you know like that. no, this is not winged foot, for he heaven's sake. like let's go work at winged foot >> your prospects look good. that's why there's another 100,000 people trying to get into that one position

>> it's probably harder to get into wing the ed foot. you have to ask david sol. >> what do they do >> that's it jim >> maybe another killing house. >> and we put a jack in the box, next to kanoo, and we've got a complete setup i know you want to talk about it. >> charging stations another thing, another thing, that would make sense. get the tiny tacos charge your tesla. move on. thanks, jim. >> all right, thank you. >> you're beyond meat. on tacos we'll see you in a couple of minutes. coming up, top stocks, and sectors that you should have on your radar screen. as we get set to kick off another big weekorhe f t markets. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc modern oliable. we want both - we want a hybrid.

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welcome back, everybody. our final guest of the hour, someone who's got his finger on the pulse of the markets, steel making ipos, and spacs and how all of those could fair in a rising rate environment. leon aldaria is the chairman o

the institution group at citi and thanks for joining us today, we have been watching the rates closely and every time you see the 10-year yield go up, we see the tech stocks fall back down you think we will be watching inflation that is stronger sooner than anticipated. what do you see happening? >> it's interesting, becky, first, good morning, nice to see you, and i hope we will be seeing each other in the studio soon it has been a very, very closely watched phenomenon and somewhat surprising, 1.1, to 1.5 to 1.6 and the impact on the tech stocks, i think that this will start to get mit gated over time and people think that 10:00 could get to 2 -- 10-year could get to 2% and it has added to the volatility on the tech side of the equation, i think we will start to see that adjust here, and i think we will start to see an environment here where people will affect that and then go back to the fundamentals i'm a little surprised to see

the impact on the tech stocks. i think this will be mitigated >> we have been spending a lot of the time today talking about how far the market has run and how quicklies that that has happened i guess i would ask you, when you're talking to investors, what do you tell them about how expensive you think the market is or isn't? >> i spend most of my time talking to corporations in the board room and the c-sweet and i think what has happened, the market has started to normalize. last year you had inflated p/es before the earnings started to come down, and earnings have come back up and p/es have normalized and we're at a point where investors and corporations can actually project their business, and that's in turn, as you know, impacted the m&a business, it's impact the ipo business a year ago, people did not know which turn to turn, in terms of projections and now much more comfortable and focused on whether it's reopening stock,

whether it's cyclicals coming back, a much better view about how they want to project their numbers going forward and i think that's going to be the focus with a more normalized p/e although the markets are obviously priced very, very well at this point in time and which i is why i think youare seeing a lot of m&a activity and obviously the ipo market and the spac market are on fire. >> but as you mentioned, if you think markets are priced very well, meaning that stocks are priced pretty highly, even if we are starting to get a little bit of vision back, that we hadn't seen before, a little bit of understanding about where you think the business is headed, that's always a weird thing, if m&a activity is picking up, just when prices look fairly rich, as an investment banker, would you be telling companies to be making purchases with their stock? i mean for an all cash deal, if you're buying in an expensive market, that's not a very good proposition. >> i wouldn't necessarily say expensive, everything is case by case, becky, i think in many case, things have normalized,

and they are fairly priced so as we think about it, on the m&a side, of the equation, let's not forget interest rates, are very, very, where cash is being used significantly in many transactions and some cases people are using equity, especially with a deal with a company, that is very, very similar, but i think we should very focus as we do in the c-suite, on a case by case basis, some things may be expensive, some things may be cheap and a lot of the market is actually reasonable here, presuming no exogenous events that put another scare into the market so based what we know, reasonable at the moment case by case a lot of cash being used in deals. and obviously as i said before, an ipo market that is very robust >> leon, thanks for your insights this morning. good talking to you. >> thanks, becky be well. >> you too >> joe >> thanks, dom chu looks at some

of the biggest pre-market stock movers good morning again. >> good morning. we have a catalyst mix here, we're going to start off with a look at shares of kansas city southern soaring because of that deal, big one, 15% on the upside there, trade a deal, canadian pacific buying, for $26 billion, big north american freight behemoth, connecting canada, the u.s. and mexico, and watch those shares moving in the pre-market trade and by the way canadian pacific is down in the pre-market trade on that deal. the analyst move, and what is happening with pepsico shares, up two thirds of one percent, and they keep the 115 price target with the rating and a relative underperformance as of late and they think they can accelerate top line revenues and the shares up to overweight on the analyst upgrade. and end on royal caribbean, down in the premarket, and the company says it will start some cruises to the caribbean in june, adult passengers will have

to be vaccinated and younger passengers have to show a negative covid test and watch the cruise line operators, becky, over to you. >> dom, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. joe, we've spent a lot of time talking about the men's ncaa tournament, but the women's tournament is on right now, too, it started yesterday, and i wore red for rutgers for the men playing so well over the weekend, but today, rutgers women play i think it's at noon playing byu. and they are very highly ranked. ranked number six. taking on sixth seed a sixth seed taking on an 11th seed we will be watching that today. >> i was checking the good teams on that side of things, i think south carolina is pretty good, too. u-conn just is always good >> always good right. >> yes >> they're perennials. >> but rutgers, all right, well - >> rutgers has been good for a long time, too. >> it gives you hope, you know, for another rutgers team i was going to ask dom whether, would you give, i mean do you

think gonzaga is going to win by 14 points? over oklahoma? would you give 14 points to any of these teams >> draftkings bet instead of the bracket? >> my brackets are, you know, i told you i was betting against my brackets and i was doing well but i just don't know about 14 points i'm going to think about it. >> a lot >> that's a lot. >> how many games have you seen 14 points over the weekend not many. >> very few. >> these teams are so good, this he don't give that many points anymore. it should be a parody by now 14 points. >> we got to run see you tomorrow bye. time for "squawk on the street. street" i'm david faber with jim cramer, carl has the morning off. a look at futures as we get ready to open another week of trading. as you can see, a mixed bag, nasdaq going to look stronger. our road map this morning does begin with a big deal in m&a, it's a rail deal worth