revenue. the history there is not good. >> yeah, ty. one other point toni made, he wasn't as concerned about that chip shortage. intel up 3.75% another stock we want to talk about is tesla, up big as we see those bond yields start to retreat from that 1.7 level that we saw last week. >> all right, frank, thanks very much let's toss it over to "closing bell." wilfred and sara, take it away. welcome to "the closing bell," everyone, i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen. stocks are higher with the nasdaq leading today's gains, up around 1.7%. small caps remain in the red down half a percent. let's have a look at what's driving the action treasury yields falling back and that's giving a boost to tech names. tesla is getting an extra boost on the back of a bullish price target from kathy wood more on that in just a moment. there's mixed headlines on the covid front.

the u.s. is administering 2.5 million vaccine doses per day and there's positive news about astrazeneca's vaccine but cases are rising in 21 states across the country. there's a slew of fed speakers thomas barkin who joined us last week said in new comments today he's hopeful the u.s. is on the brink of completing its recovery 59 minutes left, sara, mostly green across the screen. >> yeah, big surge in the nasdaq ahead on today's show, a rare interview with howard marks. we'll get his outlook for stocks after last week's pullback and his latest thinking on bitcoin's rapid rise, among other things. plus could tesla really quadruple in the next four years? that's what arc's kathy wood things but is there a road that leads to those lofty returns we are watching one hour left of trade.

mike santoli tracking the action, meg tirrell with the vaccine action mike, start us off as we approach one year since the covid bottom. >> tomorrow the anniversary, sara today the index level looks like it's very much on trend and hitting 3950 it's been at or above this level five of the last seven days not including today, so clearly it's spending some time up in this higher range now today there are more stocks down than up this is one of those days yields are backing off. it's flattering the s&p because the mega caps are leading and that's usually been the toggle we've been on for a while now. so, again, with the index level, as long as it's above the mid-3800, it seems like this trend is intact, even if it's had a hard time making a real run up toward that 4,000 level take a look at this comparison of the total return in the 10-year treasury this time around, the last several months, compared to 2013, that was the year of the taper tantrum.

this is from renaissance macro obviously very much point-to-point a similar time move, similar type losses, yields going up. back then from 1.6 up to 3%. this time half a percent up to 1.7. you see it basically reach its lows in terms of bond return right there only at 80 days into that move. what was going on in 2013? the market had a very strong year and it was also benefitting from rotational action at the time i think i came up with the idea, immaculate rotation is what i called it back then it was going from defensive dividend stock into tech and cyclicals it's been mostly about tech and cyclicals trade. year to date basis, benefiting from the fact stocks are doing well people don't really want to own bonds so they're buying other sources of income. obviously in green here is the treasury etf trapped in between are the nasdaq 100 stocks, which are

sort of bond-like but not purely bonds and also don't have the income so we'll see if this remains kind of the rotational pattern for a while right now or if, in fact, we'll break into something new because i think we've been on this treadmill for a little while, guys. >> so on that rotation, today is a growth day over value, which is a bit of a reversal from what we've seen, what's happened to the relative valuation of growth versus value than we were several months ago where growth was the huge winner of 2020? >> growth's premium has come in a fair bit, but the people who are making the case that this is a sustainable move in value and cyclical stocks will point to the fact that value valuations, if you want to look at forward price earning valuations as a percentage of growth stock valuations are still not nearly up to where they were on average over the past couple of decades. now, i could argue the other way and say all that says is that growth stocks got so expensive that my comparison value still

doesn't look like it's fairly valued so that's the argument we have right now can we really expect value to go back to where it used to be. it used to be trading relative to growth because we did see such extreme concentration in such expensive stocks at the highs. >> 55 minutes left of the session. shares of astrazeneca also higher today on the back of encouraging vaccine trial results in the u.s meg tirrell has the latest on what we've learned meg. >> hey, wilf of course this vaccine is available in multiple countries around the world, not here in the united states. we were awaiting the results of this 30,000 person phase three clinical trial they came in today ahead of expectations 79% efficacy for this two-dose vaccine on the top line in terms of preventing symptomatic disease. they say 100% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalization. they saw five cases of severe disease all in the placebo group in this trial. importantly there were no

vaccine-related safety concerns related in the trial and their oversight board specifically looked for the risk of blood clots as that has been a concern over in europe and they did not find them here in the trial. some note that is such a rare event you might not see it even in a 30,000 person trial the company plans to file for emergency use authorization in the u.s. in the first half of april. if it follows the same pattern as we saw for the previous three vaccines, it could be about three weeks before a decision. we talked with astrazeneca's president in the united states about how they could contribute to this pandemic. >> despite the good progress we've seen against all vaccine producers, there's still a need for more vaccines in the united states but also clearly in the world. so we are thrilled with those results and hopefully it will help in order to fight against this terrible pandemic >> in terms of supply, they expect to have 30 million doses immediately ready upon emergency

use authorization, if they're granted that 20 million doses could come later that same month. a rate of 15 to 20 million doses monthly going forward. at this point it could be essentially around pay when this could be entering the market there are already calls from folks like ashish jha at brown saying we should donate the stockpiled astrazeneca vaccine because we'll have so much other three so there will be a debate over how best to use these vaccines. >> meg, this particular vaccine has had quite a few questions thrown at it, whether in europe or here. more hurtdles, i guess, put in front of it before approval is reached. do today's results answer unequivocally all of those questions? does it raise a further question as to why perhaps some of the coverage of this vaccine hasn't been as supportive as some of the others >> that's a lot of really good questions. i think the reason questions were raised about this vaccine

is that the clinical trials were a bit messy. they were hard to interpret. there was a dosing error that led to 62% efficacy for one regimen and 92% for the other. so it's a little hard to interpret this data. this does give that gold standard look at a well controlled large clinical trial that the u.s. fda at least wants to see before considering approval 79% efficacy for these two doses of this vaccine. astrazeneca also notes, wilf, when they space out the doses at a 12-week interval the efficacy goes up. so that 79% for a four-week interval will we see higher if they spaced it further? we'll have to see what the fda says about considering that. >> one has to wonder whether damage has been done to the image of this vaccine in continental europe with various poll results over the weekend coming out but hopefully not in the u.s. or the rest of the world. still to come, bracing for a

pullback, tom mcclellan says he's expecting a scary feeling dip soon and he's got the charts to back it up. he'll discuss what he's expecting after the break. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc.

stocks higher, near session highs as we head into the close. the major averages have had a strong performance with the dow higher by 7% our next guest says the market could soon be in for a rude awakening. joining us with more is tom mcclellan. tom, good to see you you've had your share of really good calls on market timing. you are predicting what you say is a scary feeling dip next week why? what do you see in the charts? >> starting this week and it actually started last week, and i want to say scary feeling as opposed to scary actually.

hopefully we can do just a little bit of damage to prices, but a whole lot of damage to people's confidence and get them all thinking that the sky is falling and we're all going to die so we can get a nice bottom put in in terms of sentiment what i'm seeing, first of all, is a great leading indicator that i have shared with my subscribers for several years based on some really wonky data coming out of the commitment of traders report they look at the net position of the commercial traders of fed funds futures, which is an interest rate product. and these data about what the commercial traders' positioning is as a group tends to give us about a five-month leading indication of what the stock market is going to do. it's like the pig going through the python you can see it making its progress if there's a fluctuation in the banking system that shows up in those fed funds futures, it shows up fivemonths later in the stock market it says that there's a tip coming right now by right now, you should understand these are weekly data so it's not going to tell us exactly to the second.

and lasting into the first part of april we'll probably get all the damage done in the first part of it and then wallow around in the bottom for a while getting everybody upset and discouraged and then it should take off as a scalded dog as april unfolds one thing i'm looking at is some work done by my friend robin hannah he knows that the week after march expiration, which was last week, is down three-quarters of the time, three times out of four so you really have to be fighting hard against seasonal tendencies to get an up week this week. >> so when you talk about the market and make a call like this, tom, are you talking about the s&p 500? because lately it's been a tale of two markets there's the nasdaq and there's the cyclical groups, which you can see in the discrepancy between the dow and the nasdaq, which has already had a correction off these higher rates fears. what are you making a call on some. >> that's very true what you're observing.

lately it's been a lot more different among the major averages you'll get the dow going one way and the nasdaq 100 going the other way and they'll slip roles the next day today the big cap tech is up but the russell is down and breadth is not that great, so it's unusual to see the market getting this differentiated. it's actually a sign of liquidity, the limited amount of money that there is to go chasing cannot chase everything all at once so it goes in very narrow directions. i'm expecting that liquidity to remain until early april, and then it should start roaring back as all of the stimulus goes to work and all of the fed money printing at $150 billion a month continues to go to work. we're just having a normal seasonal interruption. i will note one factor affecting liquidity, as people start going back to work and going to restaurants and shopping malls, that money that they might be spending in the stock market, they have something better to do with it so that's going to create a little liquidity drain,

but only temporarily. >> tom, you've also been looking at rates, where you expect them to go and the relationship between rates and gold >> and it's an interesting relationship people look at them most often coincidentally i realized interest rates get a message from gold. gold seemed to know what's coming well in advance it knows what grain prices are going to do about 15 months in advance. it knows what interest rates are going to do a little more than 20 months in advance i sent you a chart comparing the near month gold futures prices shifted forward by 20 1/2 months to show how the same movements that gold prices sees get echoed in long-term interest rates. that chart is the most recently issued 30-year treasury bond it echos the dance steps in gold

20 months later. gold had a big run-up out of its bottom that interest rates are just now echoing the point is that gold has run a lot further from this point that we're echoing now. we're just now to the point where gold was $1500 an ounce. you may remember gold soomd zoomed up over 2,000 long-term interest rates have a long way to go they're going to peak and take a rest break, bottoming late august and september and start another powerful surge upward. so if you haven't refinanced your mortgage already, i feel bad for you, but there is long-term rate hikes still coming we're going to get a break in may but only temporary. >> it's a really interesting chart. why do you think it operates at such a lag, 20-month lag >> you're asking the natural human question we also want to know how everything works and why it works and what makes it work that's actually not a necessary

question to answer people think correlation is not causation and it's not about causation, it's about indication gold gets the answers first for whatever reason. as long as you can satisfy yourself that it's a working relationship with a long enough track record, which this one has been working for decades, then you can satisfy yourself that it's okay to use without knowing why it works. >> spoken like a true technical analyst. tom, thank you good to talk to you. thanks for sharing the charts. tom mcclellan. when we come back, much more on the market when we speak to howard marks we're going to get his thoughts on how stocks have traded since the bottom one year ago and where he's looking for returns right now. and speaking of big returns, nfts have become the latest buzz on wall street, the art world and beyond apart from artisan athletes, there's a whole ecosystem that stands to gain. as we head to break, check out some of the top surge

tickers. the u.s. 10-year treasury yield has been on top followed by tesla, which is also regularly a part of that list. gamestop, which is down 3.7% ahead of earnings. kansas city southern on big deal news added to that list. we'll be back. the s&p up almost a full percent. ♪ ♪ it's a wishlist on wheels. a choice that requires no explanation. it's where safe and daring seamlessly intersect. it's understated, yet over-delivers. it is truly the mercedes-benz of sports sedans. lease the 2021 c 300 sedan for just $449 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. ♪ ♪

welcome back the dow is up about 170 points we wanted to draw your attention

to some major moves in the turkish market check out the ishares turkey etf trades here down 20% after turk i president erdogan fired his country's top central banker after a brief tenure of less than five months he was the third central bank chief fired in two years the news also sending the turkish lira sharply lower against the u.s. dollar. this country has been in a currency crisis the last few years and it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence when the president continues sacking the head of the central bank it's a classic emerging markets story and very problematic. >> they had seemed to start to emerge from that after the appointment of the most central bank governor but back to the recent norm as you said with the latest moves over the weekend. massive moves there in various turkish assets also coming on a day when the dollar is otherwise weak, making it all the more significant. meanwhile graphic artists are grabbing national attention

after his artwork was sold at ox for nearly $17 million there's another group that stands to score and robert frank has that story for us. >> nft trading sites and platforms are racing to become the ebay of nfts dapper labs outraising money that could value that company up to $2 billion. they of course partner in the nba for those popular top shots video nfts and several nba players are actually among the recent investors. open c is the other big nft platform that round including mark cuban and alexis ohanian and then wearable raising money from a group that includes coin base then there's nifty gateway

they have made the winkelvoss brothers even more nifty gateway now estimated to be valued at over $1 billion so guys, all these companies capitalizing, raising money from their new investors at a time when the nft craze does seem to be a craze and just keeps going. jack dorsey just sold that tweet of his for $2.9 million. >> he did sell it. i was wondering. robert, thank you. it is a gold rush. robert frank we're going to talk more about nfts later in the show we have the ceo of otoy, the graphics company to help create digital art which sold for a cool just about $70 million. we've got a news alert right now on the ftc ylan mui with the details. president biden will be nominating liena khan to serve on the ftc she is a noted and vocal critic

of big tech, also one of the leading academics on antitrust currently she is a law professor at columbia law school previously she served on the house judiciary committee as one of the counsels and chief architects of that scathing antitrust report that they put out around the big tech firms and what should be done in order to curtail what they say is monopoly power she previously worked at the ftc as a legal advisor to the commissioner and she will now face senate confirmation in order to serve as a commissioner at the ftc president biden nominating lina khan and signaling a tough stance against big tech. guys. >> ylan, thanks so much. up next, leon black steps back the apollo chief abruptly leaving his post in an unexpected move. we've got the details after the break. later we'll ask an analyst what he makes of kathy wood's new $3,000 price target on

tesla. that's the pbase case. even the bear case sees the stock price doubling here's a check on bonds. the yields moving lower today. 1.6840 as we stand ♪ ♪ we know it's going to take many forms of energy to meet the world's needs while creating a cleaner future for all. at chevron, we're lowering the carbon emissions intensity of our operations, investing in lower-carbon technologies, and exploring renewable fuels of the future. we work hard to care for the homes we love. but it's only human... to protect the one we share. lately, it's been hard to think about the future. but thinking about the future, foris human nature.ve. at edward jones, our 19,000 financial advisors

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32 minutes left to go. let's check in summon individual market movers. barclay's upgrading pepsico to equal weight the firm saying the snack and beverage company has a multi year stock appreciation story and will accelerate top lined profit delivery long term. that stock up 2.5% it's down about 7% for the years. >> shares of box also jumping after a reuters report saying the company is exploring a sale after pressure from starboard value. that stock up more than 4% time for a cnbc news update with rahel solomon. nevada says mckenzie and company has agreed to pay $45 million for its role in boosting sales of pain killers during the

opioid crisis. nevada says that's several times more than the state would have received if it had accepted a multi-state settlement that was announced last month. jury selection is nearly finished for derek chauvin's trial in the killing of george floyd. 14 jurors have been seated one to two more are needed for the latest on the trial ahead of next week's opening statements, watch the news with shepard smith tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern. in japan, an american father and son have been charged with aiding in the escape of former nissan chairman carlos ghosn to lebanon. they have been questioning the pair since march 2nd when they were extradited from the u.s. >> they were fighting that so hard they knew what was going to happen over there. rahel, thank you apollo global management co-founder leon black stepping down as chairman effective immediately. this comes as apollo has been battling news of black's involvement with the late jeffrey epstein.

we spoke with plaqblack in apri last year and asked him about his ties with epstein. listen to what he said >> i know you sent a companywide email last year following jeffrey epstein's indictment contextualizing your relationship with him. has that had any impact on the firm >> i don't believe that has had an impact on the firm. you know, it was a professional relationship that we had, it never involved apollo. it really never affected any of our investments or any of our investors or any of the new money that's been raised, which was raised at the greatest clip we've raised since then. >> let's get right to leslie picker who has more on that story. interesting to listen to those comments, leslie, from not even a year ago.

>> yes. >> speed up to what's happen dag. >> yes, so much to your point, sara, has happened in a year it's important to note that black had been the face of apollo for the firm's three decades of existence and he's known as one of the founding fathers of the entire private equity industry. so today's announcement means he'll no longer hold any leadership positions former s.e.c. fed jay clayton will replace him and marc rowan will take over as ceo. initially he planned to relinquish on or before late july and stay on as chair. that was tied to the findings of an independent review from a law firm which found that black had paid epstein more than $150 million for business-related services the report found no evidence of wrongdoing on black's part but the uncertainty had been an overhang for both apollo's lps and public market investors. today's news caused gains of more than 4%, guys

>> so what he said there about how it didn't affect apollo's ability to raise money, didn't affect any of the investments, didn't affect the reputation, was that wrong or it was just preliminary because it came before the release of this independent report >> it was preliminary. there was a "new york times" report over the early fall time period which showed how much black had paid to jeffrey epstein for business services. it actually was far less than that report even found out to be i think it was around the tune of $70 million or something like that in that "new york times" report that's really what started to get lps a little nervous surrounding their ties to apollo some of them were on record saying that they were pausing commitments to the firm. there was certainly a little hesitation surrounding the relationship between lps and apollo starting in the second half of the year as more reporting came out, of

course, the actual deckert report shows a much larger number of money paid to epstein, showing their business relationship after that, there was just, you know, a big overhang involving uncertainty with black and his relationship with the lps. >> and, leslie, clearly this is being framed today as very much a decision by leon black one wonders whether there has been pressure on him internally from some of his senior partners though either way it raises the question as to why this two-stage process over the last couple of months i guess we don't have any real firm insight into that. >> yeah. so in the release he said that the reason he's stepping down has to do with, you know, other interests that he has. also he notes that he and his wife have health issues that they want to tend to he wants to spend more time with his family, so that's what he's publicly said on the record. now, there's a bunch of rumors and things behind the scenes of

various co-founders wanting him out sooner rather than later that has yet to really come out into the public forum on the record per se, but certainly it's something that caught at least those who follow apollo closely a bit surprised this morning when that news was announced. >> leslie picker, leslie, thank you. earlier this month on our show, arc's kathy wood teased that her firm would soon be putting out a new forecast for tesla. remember this? >> about to publish, i'm hoping it's within a week or two, our new forecasts. our confidence in tesla has gone up for a number of reasons >> well, the wait is over and the call is creating a big move in the stock today it's up 4.33%. we'll break downthat call with loop's gene munster. the dow is up 113 points

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shares of tesla charging higher at kathy wood said it expects the stock to reach $3,000 a share by 2025 this comes a few weeks after wood told us her confidence in the stock had gone up in spite of its recent moves lower. despite today's pop the stock is down nearly 20% in the last couple of months let's bring in gene munster to discuss it all gene, i'm interested in her base case price target, her bull case but most of all her bear case price target a $1,500 target for the bear case does that concern you that even when someone's bear case suggests so much upside that we're just in crazy territory right now? >> wilfred it doesn't because of the size of the market that

tesla is going after i think that's an important anchoring place to start at loop we are long-term investors. we talk about tesla, we're talking about transformative -- i want to caution that trading transformative tech is going to be up and down investing in transformative tech is wise and that is exactly what kathy is doing she is laying out this long-term road map to answer your question, is it dangerous? i think first and foremost the market is not fully factoring that in. yes, the stock is up a little bit today but there's still a long way to go here. i think the 2x base case that she talks about is really just around electrification that piece alone is a massive piece alone for tesla. i think as you scale that up and think about where they can go, electric cars are a small part, 2% or 3% we all know in the future it will be 100% so i think that there is -- her bear case is, i think, acceptable.

>> to be clear, it's a 2x bear case, not bull or base case. >> right, bear case. >> but do you agree, gene, therefore, that there is no circumstance that could lead this stock to be lower, even on the medium to long term? i get we're not talking about over the next week or month, but by 2025, there is absolutely no case in your book either that this could be lower?definitely e around that. i see your point, wilfred. i think a bear case should factor in something around competition. we have not seen that. we've been waiting for competition for a long time. the best competition is delayed until next year. f-150 is coming out. the existing competition from european and the u.s. has been very high ending that said, we think out two or three years, yes, there is a case that something could fracture this. i think the fracturing, the real fundamental risk to the shares going lower, it's a $650 billion

market cap today the fundamental risk is that eventually competition comes and squeezes margins again, that has been a long and tired road that story has been long and tired. i don't see it coming. but as i step back and think about the gives and takes, our view, yes, this is still a risky company as is all transformative tech there's appropriate upside around that too. >> what about part shortage, gene i don't know if you saw this weekend, tesla filed a legal document with a kentucky court about a supplier, basically asking to take possession of supplier tooling that they deemed critical and mentioned in that report that they had actually loaned money to the supplier, which may be surprising do you worry at a time where we already have a global chip shortage that tesla could face a supply shortage? >> that concern -- i definitely have that concern and that's where we go back to our starting point is transformative tech has

many near-term risks to it in this case it's the supply chain. what's unique of course about tesla is they are vertically integrated they are similar to apple in that they help their suppliers they even do tooling and building of their own parts. and so i think this topic, sara, is something that is a near term negative it can create some bumpiness in musk's 50% growth rate of deliverables we could see some sort of pullback based on this but again, i think most investors, whether there's some parts supply, whether it's what's going on with china and some of the other recent news about government officials playing into that, i think those are more transitory in nature. the world is going electric, the world is going autonomous. if you want to see the future of autonomy and be horrified and inspired at the same time, there

are videos now of tesla's full self-driving beta that are making it into the wild. you can see that on how these cars -- how these tesla's are operating. at the end of the day it's not ready for primetime, but those are the anchoring themes that i think will keep this company and the valuation moving higher over the long term. >> just finally, gene, to go back to my final question, over the long term, 2025, what percentage chance do you assign to the likelihood of tesla share price being lower than it is today? are you saying 0% chance >> no, i wasn't saying that at all. i was saying there is a risk around competition i would say five years, there's a 20% chance that it's lower and an 80% chance that it's higher. >> great stuff, gene, thanks for joining us good to see you thank you. a big deal in the railroad space and volkswagen makes a sh ipunto the u.s. ev market the markets are next

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[ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today. less than 12 minutes left in the trading day. we are now in the "closing bell" market zone. commercial-free action of all the action going into the close. mike santoli is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading today. today we've also peter back as well welcome, peter we'll kick it off with the broader market the dow, s&p 500 and nasdaq all higher today technology is back in the lead the s&p is up three-quarters of 1% we've lost a little bit of steam here, mike is it the fact that bond yields are moving the other way that's

allowing tech to rally did they go too far? >> well, i don't know if they went too far, but they definitely went a short distance in a short period of time. l by a lot of different measures, no surprise you see some moderation, no surprise the knee-jerk surprise is a bid in growth stocks. nothing today that's happening seems too decisive in terms of a change in trends either with bonds or sectors leading or lagging in the markets the overall s&p hovering in this area that we've been for the better part of a couple of weeks. we'll see if it can crack higher i don't think that there's any new theme at work here it's going to run the same pattern until it breaks somehow. >> peter, what's your outlook on yields and inflation from here >> very much agree with mike's assessment for today's action, indecisive longer term, you know, i am concerned about yields creeping higher really there are two dynamics at

work i've been concerned about higher yields since really election time on the deficit spending that was going to occur, so i was concerned about the supply that was going to be needed to fund that. and more recently i have become concerned about a combination of factors influencing inflation, both the demand pull as well as cost push. and i think yields could approach 2% if the history is any guide and we get the two standard deviations above the very long-term secular downtrend, as we did towards the end of 2018. >> investors seeing a $25 billion merger in the railroad industry today frank holland has the story for us. >> canadian pacific shares down 5% after buying competing rail kansas city southern for $25 billion in a cash and stock deal the big headline here, this creates the first rail network that connects the u.s. to mexico and canada the deal values ksc at a 23%

premium and a strong start for rails even before they hit their covid coms container shipping up double digits for both. mixed reaction from u.s. rails on this deal kansas city southern up big on the news up about 11% csx 3% higher. but union pacific, the largest west coast operator, falling more than 2% back over to you. >> frank, thanks for that. mike, how does this stack up and how have those stocks done. >> they're benefitting from the fact that we have high usage of transport capacity in general. the deal obviously makes impeccable industrial logic which puts these two networks together there is a decent discount being applied in terms of the applied value of this deal even with canadian pacific going down.

the final observation, we saw last week this bid for hartford financial, even the regional bank deal and peoples united, it makes sense these sectors where they feel like they have tailwinds in their favor will try to consolidate their advantage with these horizontal mergers. so most likely it's going to be a trend. >> that's interesting. peter, do you see that trend continuing and what do you think it says about where we are in the cycle or broader market theme? >> yeah, you know, i've been favoring cyclicals over technology now for a while i think the cyclical trade does have some room to run. how much more room to run, though, i'm not sure i'm seeing this surge in growth as being inorganic and stimulus driven primarily and when i just look back a year and change ago, it really wasn't this healthy environment that so many seem to be referring to

and so i'm not sure once the stimulus makes its way through the economy that it's gang busters all over again, because i just didn't see the gang busters before that said, deal makers make deals. while there's a window, i would expect that they will continue to do so in cyclical names. >> the dow up 98 points right now. volkswagen making a big push into the u.s. electric vehicle market phil lebeau with the details phil. >> sara, this is an important vehicle for voex wlkswagen primy because it's the fifrs one in the united states and they haven't done much here in the united states in the last 10, 15 years. so they need this vehicle, the id-4, to be successful for them. you might be wondering are they so far behind tesla that they need to catch up they're not that far behind tess -- tesla. look at the market share tesla sold one out of every five around the world

volkswagen was third 11% market share, catching up very quickly in europe the ceo of volkswagen usa says he expects the market for evs to continue to ramp up from here. >> these massive shifts, phil, aren't going to go away. the government, the invest, the environment, plus the american consumer i see it happening and i see it happening quicker every year. >> one other note about volkswagen, we asked him about the chip shortage hitting all the automakers around the world. he said it's not going to end any time soon. he said expect this to last well into the summertime and, guys, that's not surprising given the news we've heard over the last couple of days from various automakers today we heard from ford curbing some of its production at some of its plants. you're going to continue to hear this for several weeks and months. >> it's a thread we're going to follow, phil i saw the volkswagen stock there. clearly there's a ton of enthusiasm in the market about all of these old-school auto companies going huge on evs and

the ev future. which one are they most excited about of all the legacy players? >> of the legacy players, the two that get the most attention right now, general motors and volkswagen they both have something in common they're doing vertical integration. making the battery packs, combining that along with their production and making massive adjustments. both are viewed to have really bright futures when it comes to electric vehicles and that's why both have moved higher over the last six months. >> phil lebeau, thanks for that. mike santoli, both have moved considerably higher but if you did a comparison to tesla on earnings multiples or sales multiples, it would still be a monumental gap between the two. >> yes, and it's tough to apply that math. there was a report from deutsche bank saying if you would apply that tesla-like valuation to volkswagen's ev business, then you get a vastly higher valuation for volkswagen the issue is when volkswagen sells an ev car, they are at

least potentially taking away a sale from their internal combustion engine business it's not a zero sum game but they have something to lose as well as something to gain. that's why the market will most likely not do that one for one but especially because europe is certainly the most receptive market for ev, it makes sense. >> travel stocks under pressure today. seema mody has the details for us hey, seem sa. >> on a day we're seeing value and tech stocks outperform, reopening trades in the travel sector are unwinding this as we keep a very close eye on miami the city declaring a state of emergency over the weekend and a curfew after spring break crowds got out of control that's really raised questions about florida's travel recovery, where we have seen a sharp rise in hotel occupancy over the past few weeks. miami is currently the highest priced u.s. hotel market

$233 a night versus the national average of $102. sara and wilf, it's also raising questions about other tourist hot spots here and overseas in greece and spain how to effectively manage large crowds as restrictions lift and more travelers book vacations for this spring, summer and fall. >> seema, thanks for that. peter, do you think we will see a big unleash of spending from consumers in this sort of area >> indeed i do, wilf i'm pretty constructive on gdp growth for this quarter and next the savings rate around 13%, even higher now, with the new stimulus package i don't think we're revert back to the mean of 6% or so, but it's going to be a tremendous release of savings come spring, come summer. and i do think we'll see a pickup in travel i think we'll see, as i said, the cyclicals will respond to that, at least in the near term.

interestingly enough and counterintuitively, perhaps, that may pull flows out of the equity markets i think as you guys know, i've been somewhat convinced for some time that the rally in the equity markets has been largely a product of that retail bid the work from home gambling mentality may fade a little bit when it's time to go on vacation >> that's a trend we will watch. there's the two-minute mark for the markets. s&p up 0.7 of a percent. we lost a little bit of steam. still it looks like we're going into the close with gains, mike. what do you see in the internals? >> internally the market is a little weaker than it would seem on the surface when it's mega cap tech that leads, often the indexes get most of the benefit. the average stock is not doing well 1400 on the new york stock exchange exceeded by decliners of 1800. we also have a picture of this back and forth rotational activity we've had between cyclicals and secular growth look at software versus

exploration energy, exploration stocks these are two etfs and it's a month-to-date chart s clearly energy is still beating software software has been hit hard but they're not as far apart as a couple of weeks ago. the volatility index has also been helpful came into the week right around 20 it's declined to 19. that's pretty constructive if this gets into a boring springtime market trend, not saying it's going to, but downside for the vix is net bullish at these levels for the stock market. >> just under one minute left in the session. off the session highs but still green for the three major averages the dow is up 109. it was up 180 about 30 minutes ago. the nasdaq leads the charge up 1.2% the russell 2000 is in the red down the best part of a percent so quite a divergence there across those major averages. quite a divergence within the s&p.

tech is up 1.9%. real estate and consumer staples up more than 1% and financials down 1.3%. some of the banks down 2% or even 3%. energy also down the best part of 1%. dollar a little softer today yields slipping a fraction as mike said the vix below 20. gold a little soft as is oil at the bell, sara, up 0.7% on the s&p 500. 0.3% on the dow and 1.2% on the nasdaq breaking a two-day losing streak, ending with gains, both the dow -- all three, smd and nasdaq welcome back to "closing bell. i'm sara eisen along with wilfred frost and mike santoli take a look at how we finished up the day on wall street. tech led the charge higher that helped the dow rally 102 points microsoft had the most positive impact on the dow jones industrial average the final hour of trade we were

up almost 200 points so lost a bit of steam but still closed with a nice gain s&p 500 up 0.7 of 1%, also breaking a two-day losing streak the spy tracking the s&p, apple had the most positive impact the nasdaq had a good day, at least if you're bullish, up 1.25% but a strong run for technology after some weakness that we had seen lately. consumer discretionary, real estate and consumer services were the oar big gainers on the s&p. small caps were the losers down almost 1%. energy was weak today, so were financials bottom performing sector also potentially weighing on small caps we'll talk about it in a moment. coming up, billionaire investor howard marks on how he is investing amid the rising rate concerns and why he is no longer dismissive of bitcoin. first off let's talk markets. peter is still with us marcy mcgregor senior investment strategist at bank of america

joins the conversation first to you, mike, on the action that stood out to you amid the very split market performance again. growth worked over value. >> yeah, bonds got a little bit of a bid, very, very modest. we're not talking about a big decline in yields but they stopped going up and consolidated a little bit. that creates a little bit of buying in the very bond-like stocks in the nasdaq apple and microsoft up like 2.5% on the day to me there's not a whole lot of a macro message coming out of this market today. i do think you wonder if you see the weakness in the small caps and weakness in travel, people are trying to digest how quickly we're going to accelerate fast into this expected boom time or whatever we think is going to happen the rest of the year. the markets well protected with this rotational action but has not shown that fresh burst of energy that's going to get it up to 4,000 on the s&p just yet.

>> marcy, we've been cyclicals perform very well. are they overstretched >> no, our view is this consolidation has been a rotational move, not an indication of a big top or that we're late cycle or anything like that. tech has just been the source of funding. i think we're seeing it bounce back a little bit. i've been thinking a lot about tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the market lows of 2020. how different year one of a bull market is versus year two. we bounced off of the lows of late march of last year when everybody is asking what is the market looking at. is it totally disconnected from the economy. now we're starting year two. year two tends to be a little more frustrating for investors there's consensus on the recovery, but markets don't move in a straight line i think we have to remember that as investors i think this rotation continues by sector, by size, by style and

by geography as markets grind higher over the course of this year, albeit maybe with a bit more volatility. >> pie five, i believe you're a fan of small caps which underperformed today, closing down almost a percent, although they are up the most of all of the four big averages from that march low a year ago, 135% still a buy? >> yeah, so i would still buy weakness on small caps o we're overweight on small right now. the consumer has fuel in their tank, stimulus savings and are not waiting for the economy to reopen despite the weakness in travel stocks today. tsa checkpoint crossings are up, reservations are up. the second one, though, is cap ex that's where you'll see small cap as the beneficiary rising commodity prices.

but don't forget about tech because long-term business spending plans focus on cybersecurity, data, the cloud finally i think you have to remember the yield curve is steepening pointing to an accommodative fed. i think that's positive for a lot of sectors as well financials, materials, energy, but don't forget those semi conductors so i would continue to like small caps, and broadly i'd be buyers on market weakness because i don't think this is the top of the market. >> peter, arguably the last decade has been driven more by momentum than valuations will that be the defining factor of the next decade, do you think? >> well, it's certainly hard to say, wilf, but i think one of the defining factors has been, again, this secular trend in interest rates and yields. it's been three plus decades and, you know, for example right now, the steepening that's

happening in the yield curve, which normally at this point in the cycle would actually be bull steepening, meaning short rates would be falling as the fed continued to cut, the steepening now is happening because long yields are rising. and that means financial conditions are actually tightening and so whereas we would normally see three months to ten-year yields we'd see that spread widen to 300, 350 basis points, i don't think that's going to happen this time i don't think the banks are going to see that kind of steep yield curve tailwind that they normally see and let's stack a few other things alongside that. the fed simply can't cut anymore. we're at the zero bound. so there's some very big differences i think this cycle from any other cycle we've seen, not the least of which is massive stimulus, which again is temporary. it will take some time to make its way through the economy. but once that goes away, i think

the picture is a bit murkier than others do. >> we've got a news alert with industry executives meeting with white house officials. kayla tausche has the details. kayla. >> reporter: sara, we've lenders that the white house is holding a meeting with top executives from the oil, gas and mining sectors. that is happening today, according to attendees at this meeting. we are still awaiting a confirmed list of attendees. the white house declined to comment on exactly who was attending or who was representing the biden administration at this meeting we know that gina mccarthy, the white house's national climate advisor, has been engaging with industry on this issue in advance of the rollout of an expected infrastructure and climate package. at some point in the coming weeks. "the new york times" reports top officials advisor president biden are set to recommend north of $3 trillion in a series of proposals related to infrastructure and climate,

perhaps as soon as this week so we are still waiting word on exactly what is on the table for this discussion and who exactly is attending but based on the information that we obtained about this meeting in advance of it, the attendees were expected to include top executives from bp, chevron, exxon, bhp, total and more so certainly the white house is trying to engage the oil and gas industry, which may start to back some of these measures like a potential tax on carbon emissions as a way to try to quantify and make finite any potential charges on emissions going forward, but we will wait and see exactly how this discussion pans out. but certainly interesting to note ahead of the rollout of this package that the white house is trying to engage oil, gas, and mining executives on these very issues. >> thanks very much for that looking forward to hearing more details as and when they emerge. in the meantime existing

home sales falling sharply last month. diana olick has more on that. >> sales falling just over 6.5% in february compared with january, but it is not for lack of demand, it's all about supply the inventory of homes for sale plummeted 29.5% from a year ago. that is the largest drop on record potential sellers are just not wanting people to come through their homes. of course they're worried they won't find something else for themselves to buy. it pushed the median sale price to $313,000, a record for the month. the reason we know it's not price that's pushing people away, it's sales of homes at the low end priced between $150,000 and $200,000 were down while sales of million dollar plus homes were up over 80% >> diana, thank you very much for that pete, i'll come to you in terms of your outlook. we talked about rates specifically but the impact it can have on the housing market and that supply and demand

dynamic that diana was touching on. >> i think it's also important to note that mortgage applications also fell off significantly on the bump in rates. you know, that's as goes the entire economy, it's very sensitive to the rate environment right now. with a tick up in rates, it's no surprise that mortgage applications fell quite a bit. i think that bifurcation between low end and high end buyers also shows you that short of the income inequality and the wealth inequality that we're seeing is also at play to a large extent whereas wealthier people haven't quite been affected as badly by this pandemic, they can still afford to buy homes at low rates and they were less likely to have lost their jobs than lower wage earners so the housing market is certainly just as complex as the rest of this picture >> peter and marci, we have to leave it there today thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, billionaire

investor howard marks on the risk of rising rates and where he's finding opportunities as yields move higher. plus we'll discuss the red-hot nft market with the ceo of a company that created aur work that recently sold for $17 million at christey's. we're back in 90 seconds so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you 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.

welcome back tomorrow marks one year after the pandemic lows and some wall street firms are growing more bullish on the u.s. economy this

year bank of america and goldman sachs raised their gdp forecast to 6.5 and 6.8% respectively let's talk more with howard marks who joins us now in a first on cnbc interview. howard, great to see you thanks for joining us. >> nice to see you, wilfred. >> having read your most recent note, i guess you're very positive that the economic recovery will be strong but not just this year, that we are in fact at the start of a new economic cycle as opposed to the tail end of the last one >> well, i would take issue with your word positive i'm never positive about anything but, you know, i believe that we expect there will be a recession once in a while. i believe last year's recession was that recession for that cycle and that we have commenced a new cycle. it's not 100% sure of that, but

i believe so and i think things look positive the trends in income are very good people are going back to work and i believe that you'll see strong spending this year, but, you know, savings have been at a very high rate i think that the savings and rising income will buoy us in certainly the few years to come. >> and of course the question that follows is whether markets are already pricing in that economic positivity. you're kind of torn on that overall? >> well, i think they are pricing in the economic positivity it's very unusual to have the market at a high level, and certainly you couldn't say this is at a high level at the same time that a recovery is getting going usually high levels on stocks coincide with high levels on the economy. >> so, howard, it's sara

what sector, if any, what part of the market offers the most opportunity right now? >> i think that the most opportunity is always found in the things that other people are ignoring and i think that what they call -- what they call value, although i differ a little with the terminology, but, you know, out of favor, lower valuations, you know, the sectors that were hurt by the pandemic and where the stocks reflected the pain from the pandemic sometimes to excess if you can find companies that have been penalized for their difficulties in the pandemic and the penalty was overdone and the difficulties are temporary, i think that that's a good sector

right now, although, you know, after being trounce thoroughly by tech last year, so-called value and cyclicals have had something of a rebound already this year. >> yeah, on a related note i was going to ask you, you're known for distressed investing i'm curious what that is right now and whether there is distressed opportunities when everything gets bailed out >> well, you're right to ask it's a tough question to answer. i mean right now -- one way i put it is that any company that has difficulties in this environment deserves to be distressed you know, the bailouts have been generous, the liquidity has been rife, and the default rate in 2020, which was predicted to get into middle teens, didn't even reach half that.

so there are always some people who find it easier to raise capital than others, and those are the ones that we're emphasizing at this time but there's not widespread distress to be sure. >> howard, one of the theories that gets discussed a lot of course of late is that rising rates will hit big cap tech and the highest pe stocks more than others part of the thinking behind that is standard valuation models, discounted cash flow valuation models, though those models haven't been the dominant factor over market performance the last couple of years. is it possible that will be the same going forward and fears over higher rates and rising pe stocks is overdone >> i think the analogy between growth stocks and bonds is appropriate. you know, long bonds react more to a change in interest rates than short bonds and i think that growth stocks

where more of the story is in the distant future will react more strongly to interest rates. but on the other hand, to the extent that the rising rates can note a strong economy with allic w -- all equities, i think that's what's going on. the fear is an overheated economy that produces inflation and thus calls for higher interest rates i think the great tech stocks, the great growth stocks can offset inflation through their growth, but you have to pick the right ones it's not my business we don't invest much in the mainstream equities market, but that would be the goal. >> as you mentioned, there's been so much stimulus flowing into the system, howard. do you worry at all about the

effect of higher taxes, which are likely to come with the next big package that the biden administration is passing, and what that could do, what kinds of an impact it would have on the economy and the markets? >> well, of course it depends on the shape. but i don't think -- you know, look, lower taxes are always more stimulative and conducive to economic growth than high taxes. i don't think that the things under discussion are so draconian as to change the outlook very much. the big increase on the personal side that they're talking to is wealthy taxpayers. wealthy taxpayers have so much excess income that i don't think a couple point rate will change that much. >> howard, i wanted to ask you about bitcoin. it seems from some comments you made relatively recently to a

publication in asia that you're changing your mind on bitcoin. is that fair >> i'm opening my mind on bitcoin, wilfred one of the things that came out of the pandemic is i got to spend several months living with my son, who is also an investor, and of course he's two generations younger than me. you know, we came to the joint conclusion, i had a little help in this regard, that my initial reaction to bitcoin, which was very negative in 2017, was too much the product of my inherent skepticism and conservatism and the successive had in the past with skepticism of innovation and how many times i've seen financial innovations fail to live up to expectations. i think i was, as we said, knee-jerk skeptical.

while bitcoin doesn't have an intrinsic value, the same can be said of the dollar and many, many other things that have value, like paintings and diamonds i've been more sensitized to the supply/demand case, which says that the supply is finite and demand will grow with a positive impact on price. so i haven't reached a conclusion i still don't consider myself informed enough to have an opinion, certainly to express it publicly i would just describe myself as more open-minded, hopefully on many things than i was in the past >> so it sounds like oaktree doesn't have exposure there. >> no. >> do you think it's prudent for a public company like tesla to buy $1.5 billion worth and put it on the balance sheet? >> again, that's yobeyond my

competence certainly oaktree has no involvement. >> i wanted to ask your view on 60/40 or whatever it is of equities and bonds as we look at the five to ten-year outlook ahead, is the traditional process how it might balance out going forward weaker than it's ever been before given where equities and rates are at the moment >> that's a great question, wilfred. most of my clients are institutions, pension funds, endowments, et cetera. defined pension funds and endowments need a certain return and for the most part that's in the region of 6% or 7% in order to make the math work. you know, the old 60/40, 60% equities, 40% bonds, nobody would expect that to expect that

to fulfill that requirement of 6 to 7 bonds may be fairly valued relative to stocks, but with yields of 1%, 2%, 3%, it's hard to justify inclusion in portfolios, i think. nobody thinks they're going to get the returns they need in the institutional realm just from stocks and bonds so again, you would have to add in alternative investments in order to get up to the levels required so that means the 60/40 itself is not enough. the one -- you know, i've always included a passive benchmark like 60/40 or maybe 70/30 where i was on investment committees at nonprofits because it gives you an idea -- i mean it's not a good benchmark for whether you picked the right managers or the right asset class, it just gives you an idea of whether you did better than you could have done in the most passive of portfolios when you look at it after ten years, i think it's very

informative. >> howard marks, always good to get a window into how you're thinking about the world, the markets. thanks for joining us. >> a pleasure, sara. bye-bye. >> bye-bye up next, mike santoli looking at the recent weakness in emerging markets. that index, whether there could be more pain ahead we already spotlighted the turkish lira cratering today. plus, help is on the way that's the message from goldman sachs to its junior bankers who say they have gotten burned out taom massive workload. deils on that latest twist when "closing bell" comes right back

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welcome back news alert now on a big pandemic winner preparing to go public. leslie picker with some details on corsara. >> getting closer setting terms for its ipo just moments ago that starts its road show process where it will engage in discussions with investors and determine a final price. for those discussions, coursera plan to offer 15.7 million shares at $30 to $33 each. doing some math here that

equates to about $519 million for its offering size at the high end of that range, implying a valuation of over $4 billion if it were to price at the high end of the range it plans to market now, interestingly in this prospectus it says that bailey gifford and capital research have agreed to buy $125 million at the ipo price so, therefore, serving as an anchor investor, two anchor investors for this deal coursera plans to list on the nasdaq under the symbol cour >> leslie, thank you let's get up to mike now for a look at emerging markets. >> as a group they actually had been performing very well based on the two-year scale. they just about caught up to the s&p 500 before this quick little setback. a couple of things going on. first of all, a lot of tech exposure in the emerging markets indexes and then obviously rates going up, treasury yields rising, also the dollar

bouncing there's a little bit of a headwind there has been a correlation between rising yields and weakness in emerging markets but it has become a hot trade. take a look at the flows into emerging markets funds globally. this is a cumulative number, so basically it nets out all inflows and utflows. you see here we're back at a peak level of cumulative flows so obviously it's not a monthly flow number but definitely tells you that this was a consensus trade, kind of an arm in the value of cyclical trade. see if it's just a cooling off period or something like more of a setback as we move along, see what yields do, guys. >> i wonder also what vaccine rollout progress will do to these sorts of index also europe versus uk and u.s. and the rest of this year. >> absolutely. that's another one of these toggles that we'll have to watch. clearly global growth estimates are still going up right now it seems that people aren't revising down their gdp outlooks but that certainly could be in

the future if we do have a little bit of fits and starts in terms of that vaccine rollout. >> okay, mike, thanks for that the dollar as mike was saying has been an important factor it's been a bit of a bounce-back year to date for the dollar. it's up 2% or so the broader dxy. we have some breaking news on the federal reserve steve liesman has got it for us. steve? >> wilf, thanks very much. in testimony tomorrow before congress, fed chair jay powell will say the fed will provide support to the economy as long as it takes. he does hope for a return to more normal conditions, quote, later this year. he gets a little optimistic and says economic activity and employment have both turned up recently, echoing some comments that he made last week the recovery is quicker than expected and looks to be strengthening. he said the situation is improved and the worst was avoided by swift and vigorous action from both congress and the federal reserve. he had a lot of praise for the

fiscal policies that have been enacted so far recovery he says, though, is far from complete. the 6.2% unemployment rate underestimates the shortfall in labor markets. so, wilf, there you go, the testimony tomorrow he'll be sitting -- or appearing at the same time as treasury secretary janet yellen for this mandated testimony when it comes to the c.a.r.e.s. act spending. >> and i guess, steve, we'll be watching the reaction in the bond market first and foremost he pretty much answered all the questions on that from you and other reporters in the news conference last week when he said we're not too worried about it and doesn't seem like he's going to do anything is there anything that would change that? what will you be listening for tomorrow >> all of those things that you say. he could change his answers any time he's a little bit more upbeat in this characterization of the economy here i hadn't heard him say, maybe he had, but the idea of returning to normal later this year. any hint at all that things

might be moved up. as you know, sara, the market has moved up its estimate for when the first rate hike comes we had a survey this morning that had a lot of folks 70% or 80% really ahead of where the fed is right now so there is that dissidence. but it is a year out or year and a half out, so there's time for both the fed and the market to align here but the question becomes whether or not this year is the announcement for whether or not they reduce the quantitative easing that's out there right now. so far, i think even barkin said today that he had not seen the preconditions for a taper of the quantitative easing so we'll see if powell agrees with that and doubles down on his comments reporting that. >> steve liesman, thanks so much. $69 million. that's how much this nft artwork recently sold for. the ceo of graphics company otoy which people used to create that piecofrte a on whether the nft

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- [narrator] at southern new hampshire university, we're committed to making college more affordable. that's why we're keeping our tuition the same through the year 2021. - [student] i knew snhu was the place for me when i saw how affordable it was. - [narrator] find your degree at snhu.edu. well, you may recognize this artwork. it's the nft created by the artist fetching nearly $70 million at auction earlier this month. what you might not know about is the technology used to help create the piece otoy is a cloud graphics company and a leading platform used by digital artists to create nfts it's also known for powering the

visual effects behind some of hollywood's biggest movies and shows, including hbo's "west world" and the hit "the crown. joining us is the founder. jules, thanks for joining us explain what you do. >> otoy's background is in digital effects and video games. we've been bringing artists and content creators tools for over a decade whether they're small artists, individual artists that are graduating to motion graphics or the big studios like disney. we've been giving them the tools to make cg and beautiful content at speeds that are 10 to 100 times faster than you could do a decade ago and that has also led to the creation of a lot of art people do a new piece of art every single day with our software posted on instagram and that led to that giant piece of

artwork that sold for $70 million. >> but how is it really worth $70 million? >> i think like all art it's in the eye of the beholder. what you have is a contract between the artist that created the piece and the collector that's buying it the concept of having the artist give you that art is what's valuable and i think there's a generation of collectors and artists that recognize that value i don't think it's going to go away, i think it's only going to get bigger it's easier to show that you own a piece of art than it ever has been in the physical world. >> when you provide these services to people, is it a fee for service that he pays to use your software or do you have a percentage exposure to the pieces of art that he creates? >> we have a pretty simple model. $20 a month, a little like photo

shop and artists get all of hour tools. when they're using their software to render on the blockchain which is part of the way that you authenticate that your nft was created by our tools with the author, that's something we take a 5% transaction fee on for the most part most artists are paying that $20 a month. we've put the entire software suite on the app store and apple featured that. it was the number one app. so we imagine -- we're testing the waters with a free version that would be powered entirely by usage fees and with apple's featuring of our app we've seen a huge influx of artists come onboard our tools just this month. >> forgive me for following up did you get a cut of the $69 million or not >> no. no, no, no that's how it should be. we're providing the tools and software to create it. should feature nfts on the blockchain and these are things

people are working on for months then we would get that 5% fee. we're in the napster days and there's a lot to be done we see our role expanding as this progresses. >> a lot of people think this is a massive bubble fueled by speculation that's going to ending really badly and a lot think this is the future and the early days of the internet how sustainable do you think it is from your vantage point where does this go >> so i think there's a lot of bad stuff that could be happening in the nft space that is just not legitimate we have an artist that was taken from his website and resold. but for people who use our software, there is a huge future that's not going away. so i think as i said there's a

lot of cleaning up to do but i think that will happen quickly and i feel the future is huge for nfts it's going to be big are than anything that happened in the physical world before for art. that's where i see it heading. >> jewels, going back to what your business was founded on and what you did before nfts in terms of graphics and stuff for movie studios and the like, how fast are the advancements being made there such that we could be in a place soon where entire movies and tv shows are produced via software like yours as opposed to filming it. are we about to be defunct in the tv performing business >> no, i'm sure actors will always have a role i think even deep fakes which are a problem, there's something that just doesn't feel real about them so the authentic artistry that goes into a film is important.

we have films and cg that's done in our tools we have disney and hbo as investors. in the case of hbo and warner brothers, we did an entire cg authentic version of the bat cave and animated series which is all surrendered on the blockchain so the future that studios are looking to us for providing is a combination of how do we tap into the nft space, how can we do films a lot cheaper but also provide an authentic piece of media and art. also there's a whole future for ar/vr displays and we're preparing every month for that through our tools. >> jules, we'll have you back on there's so much to talk about here it's really exciting thank you for joining us for now. >> my pleasure, thank you. gamestop has been at the core of the retail trading revolution, and that's helped the stock skyrocket, more than 900% this year we'll take a look at what

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welcome back time for a cnbc news update with rahel solomon. >> hello, everyone the house of representatives holding a hearing on making washington, d.c., the 51st state. outside of capitol hill, demonstrators marched in support of the move. while d.c. statehood has significant support in the house, it would need a 60-vote majority to pass in the senate. arkansas lawmakers have become the latest to approve a ban on transgender girls and women students competing on female sports teams. republicans in 20 states have been pushing for similar bans this year. the nfl plans to have fans at its big draft event scheduled april 29th in cleveland at several locations around the city the specific number of fans to be allowed has yet to be determined and an nba legend of the 1960s has died elgin baylor's revolutionary

jump shots helped transform the game from a ground bounce sport into an air show he was the first person to score more than 70 points in a game. elgin baylor has died at the age of 86. sara, i'll send it back to you. >> rahel, thank you. shares of gamestop have skyrocketed over 900% this year and now the company is gearing up to release its first earnings rertin tpo scehe reddit rally frenzy what every investor needs to be watching, straight ahead

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shares of gamestop surging over 900% this year with a market cap of $13 billion. tomorrow the company will release its first earnings report since the reddit frenzy joining us on the phone is anthony chukumba you've suspended coverage. why? >> to be more specific, i dropped coverage the reason i dropped coverage is partially because, yeah, the fundamental completely disconnected from the stock price. i mean this is a stock that when i drop coverage, my price coverage was $10 so the fact that it's trading at these levels to me is nonsensical, quite frankly >> what are the fundamentals of this business? what do you expect we'll learn

tomorrow >> i think what we're going to hear tomorrow is that sales trends definitely improved in the fourth quarter, as did profitability, but that was totally to be expected, right? we have these new video game consoles, specifically the playstation 5, the xbox series x and f that came november if gamestop could not make money with new consoles coming out, they were never going to make money. but we knew from the holiday sales that the holiday sales were disappointing so we will see some improvement, but it doesn't seem that the core shares are significantly better the trend has not gone anywhere. >> anthony, thanks so much for joining us we appreciate you joining us on the phone. goldman sachs ceo speangki out. the details coming up.

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last week we told you about the bombshell survey from goldman sachs' junior bankers. now the ceo is speaking out for

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tonight crowded facilities for migrant children new photos reveal conditions inside plus, a crackdown on spring break crowds. >> the facts, the truth, the news with sheppard smith last weekend, 13 employees took part in the survey saying they're suffering from burn-out

from 100 workweeks and demand. one analyst said quote, my body physically hurts all the time and mentally i'm in a really dark place, end quote. >> goldman sachs ceo saying management will work harder to give junior bankers saturdays off and shift to the investment bank to help ease the pressure for more, go to cnbc.com guys, really interesting this one has everybody talking in the last week and i would say, despite that very positive and warm response to it, to address the issues from david solomon, which is great to see, and i guess you would expect to see as well, most of the people i have spoken to in the last week and, as i said, this has really got people talking in a way that often our stories don't, i would say the response is pretty universal i'm talking about people my age plus or minus five years, not senior managers at the banks, goldman or other size. and everyone says people should

know what they're getting into this when they go into this. people are getting paid hundreds of thousands of a dollars with a path to millions of dollars. i don't think anyone is saying that money is more important than happiness or mental health but that you have the option to leave and focus on mental health if you'd rather do so than focus on money. >> i would say that's fire yes, this is kind of what you signed up for for these jobs it's always been a grueling kind no matter what time it was but also it could be the case that this massive flow of deals that really has almost accelerated out of nowhere is outstripping the scale of the staffing that these banks have had. so i think you can basically have, yes, everyone is stretched even more thin than usual. but, you know, this is basically the bargain in these professions. >> yeah. i mean, it speaks to the comeback in the capital markets, how strong it's been for ipos and ipa and spacs.

if they're feeling this way even with many of them working from home. >> one quick follow up. >> okay. >> the great change is that everyone is talking about it. >> yes. >> whatever your view on this, 20 years ago as we said last time, i don't think you ever get the bankers, the junior bankers speaking up. and today, 20 years ago, sorry, you might tot see what management is saying in response, which is all of this will be addressed in a positive dialogue way rather than jumping to the extremes of someone deciding to leave or get fired or whatever it might have been. >> yeah. >> yes, for sure i mean, it went completely viral. and the fact that the bank is responding is notable. as we look ahead to tomorrow, one big highlight will be powell and yellen on capitol hill we know that powell is going to reiterate his message that the fed is in it to support the economy as long as needed, something he said last week in the news conference multiple times. he said it in a wall street journal op ed. what else will you be watching

besides the bond market? >> it's mostly been the bond market deciding on how we feel about these things maybe some of the travel issues. i don't think it is a big issue now, but you have to keep one eye on it. >> we are out of time here on req closing bell. i'm melissa lee, and this ""fast money." tonight, back from the brink tomorrow marking one year since the covid bottom we'll take a look at what turned out to be some of the greatest buying opportunities and find out if there is still buys right now. plus, chips and dips, is semis surging today. should you scoop some beaten down names up. later, gearing up for gamestop option traders are making big bets ahead we will break down the action. but we start with a party on wall street. stocks pushing higher to kick off the week with all three