the nasdaq has turned ordaroundd it's positive. that's difference than what we saw in the entire session. maybe that dan niles has some sway maybe although he wasn't that bullish necessarily on the nasdaq. we're going to do it again tomorrow. >> -- four tech names he owns. >> you going do it again tomorrow >> yeah they're going to let me come back. >> join u "squawk on the street" is next. good tuesday morning and welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber along with jim "cramer. carl has the morning off one more time. the nasdaq looks to be right now the lone of the three that will be up at the open. let's get to our road map this morning. it does begin with the markets it is one year since the market bottomed futures as you saw are moving

lower, at least for broader market this morning. plus shares of astrazeneca they are under pressure with one u.s. health agency saying the company may have included outdated information in its covid vaccine trials and later goldman sachs ceo expresses heightened worked lodes for its firms junior bankers. let's start with the markets the numbers are pretty staggering when you look at the year over year, aren't they, jim? the s&p up 76% in this date a year aing. the dow, 86. nasdaq, 186% transplant 111%. and some of the names in the s&p. caesars entertainment. viacom penn national gaming had the ceo on of course once thap did that deal with your buddy. off oth races.

>> port n-- only microsoft was trillion their company lot of downgrades that day but david right then we got the bifurcation. what was screaming higher? zoom docu-sign, teledoc exi, shopify, paypal, square those were going up as people started realizing there were two economies. right then was the bifurcation.

>> and they continued to go up sharply through the summer and then stalled a bit and certainly of i late many have reversed. >> there is even a zoom backlash. >> what does that mean >> you are not supposed to zoom on friday if -- >> that's -- i got a good way for people not have to zooen zoom when they work the same company come into the office that's that. >> do you stay six feet, three feet, wear a mask, get moderna, not get moderna, astrazeneca, what happens there. >> obviously people need to get fully vaccinated before everybody is going to be comfortable but we're getting there. >> -- astrazeneca shots? >> say again >> three astrazeneca shots. >> that right? you need three >> no but can you believe the guts the stuff this morning about

astrazeneca we want them to be more truthful. >> yes. >> okay. let's be for truthful. >> yes. >> how can you be a drug company and not be truthful? versus regeneron today which actually has something that gets you out of the hospital, 70% of the time. >> the keeps you out of hospital. >> when you get it you don't mention how good it is >> what are you talking about? >> the cocktail. >> yes. >> the therapeutic cocktail. >> but that's been available for a while. >> -- 3:00 in the middle of the night. the data now the question is will the fda adopt it the national institutions of health we so many organization right now and they are all speaking in different tongues. the tower of babble down there david. remember that from your biblical studies? >> i do. i think you are right and it is hard to understand what all of it is going to mean. i continue to say there is going

to be a really important role for the anti-viral i've been following that amemerck has in phase 3. let's not forget people are getting vaccinated a as fairly rapid rate and the virus is still with us. and woke up to yields that typically argue for higher stock prices but doesn't seem to be the case in part because of concerns about europe and how much it is going to lag in terms of reopening there given they are not getting the vaccine out as quickly and they are various phases of lockdown in some of the major economies. >> i'm shocked there as five-day lockdown right now in germany that is incredible my daughter teaches flenglish ia madrid high school still not allowed to leave madrid. what europe is very different imagine if you were not allowed to leave imagine if you had to escape from new york snake police kin. >> what? >>liskin.

>> what? >>. >> make pliskin. >> is escape from new york the movie? >> yes >> never watched it. never saw it i think i've made that clear. >> never mind -- >> i haven't made any own escape yet. but some -- >> europe is quite different and i think starting to cause lot of people to believe oil moved too much geopolitical, germany needs china more than ever but our president is counting on something that you have a always felt, david, which is a pan european -- well you have always wanted it to be many countries converging against china. >> yes. >> but right now it looks like the germans may -- because they are -- their economy is so anemic they can't necessarily join us, which is one of the reason, david why the most compelling story is oil is down more than two and a half

dollars. even though goldman sachs upgraded if you had oil in your hands you get upgraded three and one i think get upgraded at goemd. >>ldman. >> 30% of their product by tend of the decade is going to be ev. gm is talking about distributing batteries. don't forget that the f 150 which my wife is going buy as soon as that's electrified that comes out next year chip willing. >> well the chip problem is real we heard reporting about it on "squawk box" this morning. >> plus david i think you have got to comment on some of the spacs are finally releasing shareholders, sellers. your favorite david. there is a qantas -- doing a

deal doing a public offering. >> yes. >> they are doing a big one. >> i don't consider them a spac any longer once they have gone public through the spac and despacced and the vote and everything else they are just another public company. >> you are right and same thing with mp. >> yeah. >> chaz company i'd own last week they are doing a very very big deal what i'm finding david is as the spacs mature into real companies, we are now beginning to see offerings >> right well listen many of them need to raise additional capital we know that when you look through the presentations. interesting is, jim, many of them are not responding any longer to the deals. let alone to when the spac is priced they are very often just hanging right around 10 bucks

and when they are doing their deal and we can take a look at this one, they are not really moving it is actually going to be down. there are just so many out there. it is hard to get the attention of any investors there had been this enthusiasm against the new chort, the one that didn't exist a year ago that you talk so often about.oh that didn't exist a year ago that you talk so often about but retail investors focused on this area. that's waning. >> are you its utz today? 79 goes to 80 -- 87 goldman sachs after state after state. utz brands has a remarkable quarter david as they go regional national with salty snacks. >> there is a look at bit for a and it is down -- over 280, 290.

i don't even know where we are right now in terms of spacs priced many looking for deals and i doesn't seem to be capturing the enthusiasm of the investors inem same way it did. >> will they hold back. >> are we ever going to see a spac that isn't able to get its deal done? the issuance of their own shares are we -- >> -- get done >> -- investor base only talking a 250, 300 million bucks lot of them circle through i'll invest your deal you invest my deal. >> announcer: >> the numbers overwhelming and beginning to hurt the stock market it is not sustainable that you can have celebrity spac after celebrity spac it. really isn't should every talk show host at night have a spac? i don't know. >> why not.

>> colbert could have a spac. >> for sure. it is all based on relationships and knows a lot of people. >> i'm depressed by them. >> don't be depressed. take a few minutes take a deep breath get yourself back. quick commercial break of course we do have an opening bell as well 20 minutes from now. but we got loot more between now and then stay with us i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. oh. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. so it's like my streaming service. well except now you're binge learning. see how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from td ameritrade. visit tdameritrade.com/learn ♪

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goldman sachs ceo david solomon addressing concerns over his junior employees workload. one employee called conditions inhumane i know where you stand on this jim. but what's interesting about the story is it does put in perspective the fine lines some leaders of these organizations have to walk because the world is not the one that you grew up in or frankly even that i grew up in it is different now. so mr. solomon is taking pains at least to address some of their complaints over height and workloads and things of that nature he did have a message to employees after the results of that internal survey came out and these are somewhat unusual working conditions right now even when you are working crazy hours in an office, at least there is camaraderie instead of scything at home alone. >> you know what, david. you said things have changed between your time and my time.

have the customers changed goldman is customer centric. if they are asking for something over the weekend on friday, well then you have to work. the it is the customer that drives a lot of this. >> many of them are working as they said a hundred hours a week that is the big number. >> -- customers -- very successful customer. >> yes. >> wanted something sunday sunday evening. >> right. >> so someone working on that deal doesn't have -- a young person doesn't have the ability to say you know what, i'm not working because that customer is wrong. sol i think a lot of it is customer driven. we're leaving that out i think that's a shame look, yes, i during my year i felt that a lot of it was my -- you know, there were people who like me felt that if we trained people so that when the customer called you would do what they want, then i think you would understand it was really about trying to get people to be ready for a customer who is

insatiable but david the customers haven't changed that much. and if they want business done over the weekend, then it gets done >> and it does and many of these younger people listen that is part of the the job. associate of one of these places you should typically expect your workload is going to be enormous and you are probably only going to get nours, five hourls of sleep most nights. and some nights an all nighter my friends, many of their kids are in these kind of jobs. ao i do hear about it. not just goldman any number and they are all working really hard lot of them not in the office which again is part of the problem here and you see what solomon had to say in terms of remote work and, you know, providing support and saying it is not easy. jane frazier of course the new ceo at city says hey we're going to launch zoom-free fridays for employees. free video calls, at least internally.

>> i think there is a beleaguered group of people who have not worked and don't feel like they are cadre. i think it is very alienating to just be zoom zoom zoom it's been a year science zoom began to take over already started people thought it was a great way to do business but david, it is, if you are a younger person you are trying -- to me i had tremendous -- with my class. >> of course that is where your friendships are made lifelong often times and you are also getting the opportunity to work and learn from your superiors. what i do hear a handful of younger associates probably enjoying wherever it is they have moved but many also want to be back in the office. and the problem is the next up the sort of 40-plus where maybe they haven't been vaccinated and getting those people back in so you actually have your boss there. they are going to get there and we know solomon at goldman has

been fairly outspoken in terms of what he feels is the need to have people return and return quick. i get a bit of a difference sense when when i talk to heads of other firms we know well in terms of willingness to continue to allow their people to work from home or to be more flexible when it comes to time for full reopening which they hope will be through summer and probably by labor day really people back but more flexibility and add on top of that this has been a record year for a lot of these firms. >> yes. >> don't forget that a record year. working from home. >> it is amazing that they have gotten all this done david, i've got to tell you, look at all the spacs. the ai look at the deal -- remember we had a deal this weekend. a gigantic deal. and ksu -- >> -- worked that weekend and the road show, they will never do them that way nobody is ever going on the road for a road show. they have all found it is so much more efficient to do it

this way via zoom to reach as many people as you want. that's over. that's just over and then that gets back to you are o longer conversation about business travel and how much of that will resume jim but for now i'm glad you are not depressed anymore. during this break, think about your mad dash. >> absolutely. >> we'll come back with that after this my retirement plan with voya keeps me moving forward. they guide me with achievable steps that give me confidence. this is my granddaughter...she's cute like her grandpa. voya doesn't just help me get to retirement... ...they're with me all the way through it. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

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they were running escape from new york. >> were they the snake. >> lot of people giving me a

hard time on twitter i get it i don't know i pass by that movie a lot. i never watched it as a lifelong new yorker i didn't want to escape. i was afraid. >> they want you more pop culture oriented david several articles say the president is concerned that j&j is not ready for 20 million. they promised 20 million david i talked to j&j. s all on schedule. they got the 20 million. but this leads me to another point. >> okay. >> there is so much -- i don't want to call it disinformation because that is rude so much indecision and lack of direction coming from the administration right now can you cruise, can you not cruise, if you are vaccinated what does it mean. >> the set of rules in terms of where we are and what you can do once we've been vaccinated ho w.h.o. is at fault there. >> the cdc >> i hate to say this. but dr. rochelle walensky, fda not giving any clarification cdc, not stults of health.

i don't want to blame dr. walensky but everybody is confused. if you are in the cruise ship business you are trying to figure out what the right thing -- what do they want or do they just not want cruises? and lot of people are in these stocks and you see they have been going down of late because people are concerned there is about anything they could do that would allow cruising to -- >> well that's absurd and it is going to change. gonna have to. some point we're going to get to 70% of the population or something being vaccinated. >> it does not matter. some of the cruise lines have proposed to the goth listen, we'll have -- happy to have the crew vaccinated and all the -- >> right. >> but this is group under 16. lot of people sail with their families and they are not being vaccinated and moderna has a vaccine trial. >> it is. >> so many directions. >> there are -- >> -- no shoes, no service, no vaccine? >> you are bringing up points a lot of people are --

>> -- >> is this okay? >> it's fine with me. >> -- no mask? >> you are fully vaccinated. i'm halfway there. >> call me when you are done. >> when we're completely done i don't care where we are. >> but what are we supposed -- we don't have a -- and dr. fauci, as much as i love him not necessarily in sync with other parts of the government. so i -- >> -- johnson and johnson doesn't seem -- >> how can they just put out a story saying they don't have it. if you call j&j like i did you find out they do have it. >> lot more "squawk on the street." don't go anywhere.

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good work little buddy. ♪ ♪ ♪ the opening bell is brought to you by: stocks set to fall at the open as futures overnight hitting their limit down levels once again >> this is one of the first times i think andrew that the

federal reserve has announced something and the market has actually gone up. >> this is an urgent situation for -- we are ready and we are working with the fed to provide unprecedented liquidity. >> we looked like we were going to be down then we looked like we might open much higher as a result of the fed action and now i'm trying to figure out where things are going to stand. >> the selloff is deepening throughout the session the dow is down more than 900 points. >> we're very close to reaching a deal very close and our goal is to reach a deal today. >> we are reacting a little bit to schumer's comment about a deal being close so let's take a look you can see the markets here, still down. >> the dow is down 600 points or thereabouts. 3.3% as the senate fails to advance the stimulus bill for the second time in a procedural vote. >> down now more than 860 points on the dow >> another big volatility. thousand point swing in the dow. hundred points in the s&p 500. >> we closed off the low.

>> what a year its been, jim >> and you want to be sure, the problem i mentioned with the cruises, cdc director rochelle walensky but one of the things lost in the period was public health issue and it was not an issue about business i think everyone struggled with the idea that well, we can do whatever we want we can throw any money at it but j pal has the clearest vision he knew that it was public health and he wanted to make it so there was a bridge so when we had a vaccine. that was his vision. >> here we are. >> and it was right. >> it was. obviously it was not a financial crisis >> right sflo. >> now we had a number of companies that were in potentially very difficult straits as a result of having a lot of debt at that point and we clearly had no idea where we would be six months later let alone a year in terms of the ability to repair balance sheets but the fed to your point came to the rescue so to speak in many swaks the balance sheet has grown

enormously over 7 trillion. we added another 1.9 trillion. we've got the prospect of even more spending jim coming from this administration if they want to pursue infrastructure many businesses are very much supportive of that effort but it has been extraordinary. >> well, i just -- i come back -- i know andrew ross so sorkin wrote a very interesting piece about how the airlines got a bail out but i remember people felt airlines were where you got covid so the industry was done turned out not to be people felt you got covid from surfaces that was one place but it was really aerosol so it was a novel virus. we didn't know what we were doing. >> we didn't but you know what's interesting is you are still talking about there being a lack of clarity in certain types of behaviors now that we are obviously very thankfully getting knockouted and yet there are still those questions. and its been throughout, jim in terms of trying to understand the right behavior and the wrong and obviously very different

perceptions of that throughout the country which contributed to what we're talking over 540,000 people have died >> that's why i like -- >> -- what regeneron came out with, which is a cocktail that is 70% people. >> yes but it for some reason the regeneron drug has been available and doesn't seem to be used as often as you anticipated. >> you needed a big test and this is kind of tut nutty. but i think that the former president hurt regeneron when he said he took a couple -- remember he took some regeneron. >> why hurt? >> because i think it tainted regenuine for no reason what over and then you never saw it again.

the government does not speak in one voice so we don't know what to do. they are still taking people's temperature. that is not even a good tell. >> it is not a tell. blood oximeter but i showed my moderna card and people are looking what does that have to do with the price of eggs. >> different behaviors everywhere people listen. people in new york city still walk around outside with masks everywhere even when they are alone >> i know. i think we're all very confused what's right remember we also don't want a german situation where suddenly. >> no. where there is a resurgence. although to be fair the germans have never had anything like the crisis we had. >> true. >> let's move to stocks. can we >> semis are looking good. >> semis are looking good. you saw the viacom offering. didn't you. >> david, was that ordered by you? >> it wasn't ordered but i think it was cleared of them and we all perhaps have a fairly

keen sense of the obvious so there's no credit to claim here. sure they were perfectly capable of seeing the opportunity to issue as much of $3 billion. two billion in common, another billion preferred for viacom but it is sending the stock down something rarely the case. you want to wait a while to see if this is for real and they did. and hung in there at in the high 90s. why not take the shot. summon fungible. okay they got the nfl contract they are not going to have to start paying even more for it but hey. 3 billion? why not. >> some anomalies here yesterday pepsico wiz upgraded and the upgrade has triggered six points of gain does that say there are people who believe there is a slowdown coming in. monster beverage doing well again. that's slowdown stock. >> anthat make sense to you >> no.

>> that doesn't make sense we understand why growth names perhaps have slowed a bit with the prospect of rising interest rates but really there is a worry about the slowdown you haven't even had the pick up. >> takes a lot of much to move a pepsico that much. adobe quite well ahead of when they were -- can't wait to hear what they have to say. that is the first big cap tech stock that will be reporting during this period of true may laze for tech. >> when you talk tech. we're talking -- any names in particular that you can think of that have been unfairly penalized in this current environment? >> i'm going i say salesforce because they don't like they, the market does not like the acquisition. >> they don't like the slack deal. >> they do not. >> they so po speak.

>> right they don't like it. >> and he has a history of doing deals they don't always get well received by shareholders until they are done. >> and -- turned out to be a total home run tableau david, i cannot tell you how important that deal was. it was a brilliant deal. and slack is necessary to take on microsoft and you know there is a war between these two companies. ever since the linkedin salesforce and the pep 16. linkedin, salesforce one and microsoft big footed it. >> of course and. >> and since adobe shifted to the microsoft side people don't know where service comes out. and slack, you would do slack in order to be able to compete with microsoft ands the not liked and that stock which is a dow stock has been punished because of slack >> also some reports they may be doing a deal for a chat room company called discord >> mr. softy

discord. >> yeah. $10 billion. >> when you try to get an auls bets and want to say something you get sent to diswall street bets and want to say something. you get sent to discord. >> and charge for the opportunity to listen to them give you their stock picks if you follow them on instagram and see they have had a decent track record. >> alexa, tell me whether i should buy service now. >> all something of a new world but apparently microsoft continues to look into these areas that can extend certain franchises for them. >> look at the stock reacting to discord. >> -- really discord response? i don't know $10 billion deal by the way unclear that's reporting of i think it is bloomberg it is not my reporting as all. >> there is a disparate group of stocks going up and it is very hard to figure out is it solar -- etsy is coming back again. etsy last year this time this is

when itsy took over. >> yes it was the time to bought etsy. >> i interviewed the ceo the other day. josh silverman they are on fire >> grown into a very significant company, hasn't it. >> well there was a moment david where you are seeing a lot of masks being bought and they were trying to figure out whether it was people trying to be for halloween. >> from your town, brooklyn. >> right down the block. >> yeah. speaking of town, hartford's got one. called the hartford. >> oh david you got to be all over that. >> well i mean there is not that much at this point to be all over although, well that's unclear. but the news this morning and it hit at about 8:30 is that hartford has rejected that chunk proposal remember, roughly worth let's call it 65 bucks a share as confirmed by chub last week. the board at the consultation with financial legal advisors

unanimously rejects the unsolicited proposal they say. and terminated entering enter discussions would not be in the best interest of shareholders. not a big surprise there as you read what i just read you. >> solid there, david and not much of a premium -- >> right the question will be, unsolicited is one thing there is no window to nominate and again given the regulatory constraints on this industry, can't mount what we would call a true hostile bid but the question is does chub choose toe come back. aggressive ceo mr. greenberg. will they come back at a far higher price because that appears to be what it will take here to even get their interest at all. they seem committed at hartford to following a path they think they are on right now in terms of over time delivering very strong results and, you know, again that's part of their statement here. commitment and resolve in the

continued execution of their business plan. kind of language you do use when you are like please get the heck away. >> david this is good example of what we're talk about in terms of associates and goldman. sodo you think that evan greenberg. yes you called him aggressive. do you think he's willing to say to whatever bank he's doing "take your time, don't worry about it, i want zoom free friday, i want you to not work saturday, i do want the deal done but not if it interrupts family time? do you think that what's what evan greenberg is saying to the bankers? >> i don't and the bankers are working. >> and do you think the hartford guying are saying don't worry about greenberg. what really matters is the march madness. i want you to be sure to watch that illinois game it's not like that. >> on these things everybody is working hard and back to that conversation is proliferation of spacs in part that's kept everybody so incredibly blz because they do acquire a good

amount of work the ipo of the spac and the deal lot of things moving around. >> but never talked about. >> they are working. >> -- solomon. it's not solomon it is trying to meet the customers. >> well -- >> -- lose the business. >> there are some larger questions about solomon i think. >> right. >> i hear it a lot you know number of departures there. is the culture changing? by the way sometimes that can be for the better >> -- yes it does. but no solomon may have a lot the stock price gives him the ability to do certain things that if it was on its butt would be a very different story for -- >> -- i'm a defender i work there but i'm a defender. >> looking at list viacom, hartford, the spac earlier. coherent i know you care about photonics. because that is the focus now. >> more than ever.

>> tell the young people, you want to focus? photonics. momentum came back again getting closer, 287.50 is the latest deal. you will see coherence trading in a large spread. you say why is that? well a couple of reasons whoever buy this is is going to have to get china approval it is going to take some time and you don't know how to set it up you are not sure who the buyer is so you may not have that, remember a lot is going to be stock so you may not skroo arbs totrack the spread in the same way. continues. once a three-way but it's been quite a two-way bidding war. photonics. bob pisani tell us more about this eventful day of today and one year ago bob. >> yeah. it was quite a day and one i'll never forget for sure we were really panicked i can remember that. the traders i was speaking to. i think two things matter for traded today one, treasury is catching a bid second day in a row.

very helpful for the market but notice we're not doing too much. additional lockdowns in europe putting a lived on the enthusiasm for buying things semis are holding up okay. say mega cap tech is flattish today. but look at the reflation trade at the banks the energy, industrials. a little weaker. and this is not just today energy has been on a downward slope two weeks now. remember oil topped at $65 or so that we saw a long time ago two weeks ago. the bottom line is reflation trade is having trouble but if you talk about what's mattered since the market bottom march 23 a year ago pal and yellen are testifying today to give a full throttle defense of go big. and what the market learned from go big is there are very clear beneficiaries. one what we now call the reflation trade. that's small caps like the russell 2000 and cyclicals

transport, minerals and materials and energies that have done well. there is the whole go big plan that yellen and powell represent. the other obvious wilbur here is what's now wouldnner here is what's now would i call the rapid change trade and bets that the idea that the covid epidemic would be transformational in how business is done in the united states the real big movers have been clean energy names online retail. all kathy woods arc funds t lithium battery. the 3-d printing anything that could perceive to be transformational is what the younger buyers have been interested in buying in. not only because they have the means to do it through etfs but it seems to make sense the world is changing fast and let's find what is changing fast and go for it and that is a why kathy wood has

been successful. doesn't seem they are compatible, transformational change and old school, old world reflation trades like industrials do well. for the moment those two trades are co-existing quite comfortably. long-term something's got to give here. lot of people are betting it is the transformational ones that will win long-term but we'll keep an eye on that. as for whole testimony today and biden's build back better infrastructure plan. the infrastructure stocks aren't doing anything today because they have already had a rally. the min ute we saw the stimulus bill looking likely all of these moved up these are old school infrastructure stocks. they are done great for the year because they believe something is coming in some form by and large that rally already happened finally, gamestop, it is earnings day and they are going to have to say something about the price. the simple way to look at this is they reported earnings one year ago their fourth quarter and they basically only make

money in the fourth quarter. they reported a $1.27 a year ago. the stop price was $4. today they are reporting, estimating the numbers are going to be $1.35. there are only six analysts so eight cents more than last year. the stock price is $194. that is very simple way to understand the dilemma for the people over at gamestop. there is a lot of discussion that this would be a great time to announce a secondary. indeed it would. they leave themselves open to a lot of legal issues however and they are going to have to explain why they believe that the company's stock price is here what is it worth and if they issue a secondary they are gonna have to be a little more explanatory about what they feel the company is really worth and their prospects going ahead. so it is going to be very interesting at the end of the day here to hear what they have to say they had some personnel changes again that were announced today so want to keep an eye on all that going to be a very

interesting day for the whole reddit crowd. >> great points bob. we've heard so little from gamestop and of course we've talked often about the possibility of them trying to issue stock to raise much-needed potentially capital. but those scloerz issues continuing to a gating issue >> big difference between $4 and $194. >> certainly is. we talked about viacom this morning as well with that 3 billion. bob thank you. bob pisani and the bond market and rick santelli. >> good morning, thanks david. everybody making a huge deal on the drop in yield and keep in mind if you look at the three day chart, friday was the big day. 175, nice round psychological number

if for intraday yield high and we settled at 172. yesterday settled at 170 gave back a handful here at 165. i would look we're down 7 basis from the high yield close going back to january. it is a start. but man, everybody is making a huge deal that that's pretty much it. i'm not sure i'm there yet one 153is key yield support. we could go down there and easily keep this in place. a day to day start the pattern is not broken. and one of the reasons this is being used and this correction as maybe we're locking in the high yield for a while is because of the march fiscal year end for many pension funds some countries, canada, india, hong kong, japan march is the end and april starts a new fiscal year. so pensions are going to probably come in and swoop down and scoop up treasuries. but yes there is also some issues that the expiring slr program at the end of the month

may also push yields and t bills down in the negative territory so you can go so many different directions ultimately i think you shouldn't be putting in high yields psychologically until we start to have much bigger drops and corrections. look at the two day of the yield in france and germany. i think the best way to understand that would be to think warp speed they are not doing a warp speed job on vaccinating their percentages of those already vaccinated is low and they seem a bit lost germany is gonna have elections soon and i would look for big shakeups there finally the two year note auction. a month to date of two year and what you will see is that 10 is the all time low yield close here we sit at 15. not a huge amount but start to get to 17 basis points and things are going to start to happen the yield curve is in play the supply today is going to be important. interday of the dollar index, over 92. how important that is.

the collar dollar always close to puching interday. a month that day chart we're closing in on the high monthly close around 92.30 earlier in the month and the reason that is so important is that was a four-month high close for the dollar index we'll get momentum especially into the end of the month if we hold these levels above 92 jim and david back to you. >> thank you, rick rick santelli with the bond report and a lot more. as usual let's give you check where we stand about 20 minutes into trading this morning down across all the major averages with the nasdaq down about 0.3% lot more "squawk on the street" after this

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trading? >> there's a note this morning from jpmorgan. they have wells fargo as a hold. i read this piece, and i think they're itching to upgrade there wasn't anything negative charlie scharf is staring the bank toward more private equity, debt capital, doing trading better, investment banking growing. david, want to recommend wells like so many others, because people love what charlie scharf is doing >> does charlie scharf love what he's doing i ask that because i was reviewing ownership shakes of various ceos in their banks. >> yeah. >> i was surprised at how little stock he owns currently. >> he didn't even make a cold shot didn't he buy a huge amount when he got there >> i don't know. he's nowhere near the 1.25 billion that jamie diamond had. not that he has that kind of

money, but it was a surprisingly low number they may call and tell me i'm wrong and i will share that, but the numbers i saw did not indicate -- >> i thought he bought a lot when he came in. tonight, a lot of people want to know what kathy wood does, what she really owns. i have aquabounty on very interesting and then eclipse gmo fish >> gmo fish? >> isn't that what the world wants is gmo fish? >> sure. why wouldn't we? >> like the impossible burger. gmo burger we're going to find what kathy wood loves >> as you need to. jim, it was a great hour >> it was a great hour >> i'm not sure it was as great as you'd hoped >> only because you refused to identify -- >> i know. that won't happen again. you'll see him later on "mad money" if not sooner

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today, more than 100,000 of us are innovating to ensure spaces are more efficient, healthier and safer. abm. making spaces healthier for you. welcome back to "squawk on the street." breaking news. our march read on hichld fed manufacturing index expecting a

number around 16 we improved. 17 sequentially following 14. the best read of the year. you have to go to the end of last year to reach a higher number which was 19. for the february read on new home sales, remember, it's all about jobs, jobs, jobs next quarter we'll have precovid growth levels, not anywhere near it on jobs 775,000, a disappointment. about 100,000 less than expectations and follows 948,000 sequentially this is the weak e level since may and, of course, there's a lot of moving parts here maybe affordability, commodity prices are all going to be key along with the rise in interest rates. stimulus checks, probably not so much but for more detail on this number, of course, let's go to diana. >> rick, you're right. you hit it on the head with affordability. not only was the median price of a newly built home up 5.3% in february year over year, but

remember, the numbers are based on signed contracts. people out shopping during the month of february inking the deal the average 30-year fixed spiked up to the end to 3 .28%. more than 50 basis point jump in the average on the 30-year fixed. cutting into that affordability. so that's a big part of this also i would note this is my favorite part of this particular report it's the number of homes that were sold but haven't been started yet. it's higher than a year ago. that's because the builders are facing higher costs for land, labor, materials they're seeing material shortages and they are stalling on some of the construction because they don't want to build when prices for things like lumber are so high so there's a supply issue. affordability and supply, a huge disappointment could be part of the turning point on the new home market and

existing homes when you see higher costs, material costings, you see higher prices, higher rates, and record low amounts of inventory on the market right now. housing has been one of the strong pockets of the economy in the midst of the recovery. could there be a larger turning point afoot when we look at housing on a daily, weekly basis. >> you're already seeing the turning point. the problem is the builders have not been stepping up on the production housing starts disappointing in february as well there was some talk about it being weather related in the south. that could be a possibility. you need to see the builders put up more houses in order to help that affordability, because when you have so much demand which has not fallen off and so little supply, you can't afford to buy it now go into rental unless we see a ramp up in construction, i think you're going to see housing cool off even in the usually busy spring

season >> okay. we'll keep an eye on that. you'll keep an eye on that for u us this is a pretty narrow trading average. we talked about some of the key data we got this morning obviously we've seen this market surge, and trade near record highs more broadly the rotation we can talk about into cyclicals under the hood of the market what's priced in here? are we priced for perfection or are there some big risks here obviously we keep talking about inflation and the treasury market are there other risks to this recovery we talked about it withhousing >> thanks, morgan. i would say that we're constructive on the equity market i would say there are some downside risks out there, but

there's also up side risks we're looking at expectations for earnings and revenue at the overall index level to be returning to prepandemic levels over the next 12 months. but we're not seeing as much encouragement in terms of expectations for that return to prepandemic levels for some of the more cyclical sectors. we think there's some up side in cyclical areas of the market when you talk about gdp growth in a given year of six, 7 %, these numbers are huge there's a lot of room and margin for error to the up side and downside we think that expectations as the fed laid out for 6.5% gdp growth are probably on the somewhat conservative side given pent up demand, tremendous savings on the consumer, and stimulus that's still making its way into consumer pockets. so we're encouraged. i would say looking out over the next year, there's certainly

risks as it relates to rates specifically the rise in real rates which could have a bit of a tightening effect. and as well we're talking -- the ink is barely dry on the stimulus package that was just passed, and we're already talking about more stimulus this time perhaps to be paid for with tax hikes. i think that's something investors need to keep in mind >> david, i'll put the same thing to you, especially with 6.5% gdp forecast. how sustainable is that when you look at 2020 and beyond? >> one of the things we're looking at is that the --we think the markets are priced in for what earnings dwroet will be this year. it's expecting between 20 and 25% earnings growth. when you look out to 2022, we're looking for 12 % to 15 % earnings growth next year. that brings the p/e ration to between 18.5 and 19. a lot of 2021 is priced in when we think about areas of value in the market, there are

plenty i think there are areas in health care and dividend stocks. and there are even beginning to be areas in technology stocks with sustainable business models i think for investors to look outside the united states, there are incredible values still available in brazil, mexico, the uk and in southeast asia one of the things we're encouraging clients to do, you know, at citi is to move money internationally as the sort of post pandemic period in the global recovery takes hold that's really only going to start over the next three months or so. >> well, give me more on that. why, david, are they cheap particularly in europe where unfortunately we're seeing more lockdowns in the hope of kind of a more regular summer seems to be dashed. >> that's right. i mean, i think that's exactly the reason why some of the markets are cheap. we look at brazil or, for example, the eu. and in terms of the pandemic, they've done a much poorer jobs

in terms of vaccination. that doesn't mean they're going to get policies correct. that allows investors to buy in relatively early secondly, there are many companies in the markets that actually serve international markets and are undervalued simply because of where their listing is we've been able to identify a series of those. i think when investors want to do to add alpha is move in advance of the market and not just move with the market. that's where the opportunity is. >> meghan, we were talking about cyclicals, but obviously the selloff, the broader selloff we've seen it in tech stocks as well i'm looking at your notes. you suggest it's not an either/or scenario >> well, i think what we've seen is an increased negative correlation over the past year between value and growth all that means is when value is working, growth has been really not working. and i would expect over the next year for that to come down a little bit and for there to be

opportunities for value and cyclicals to do well, but also growth to do well, particularly if you have a 12 to 18-month time horizon on your investments. we expect interest rates to move higher, the yield curve to continue to steepen. i expect that will support cyclicals. we're also seeing value appear in areas of the tech and growth space. we think these are part of a multi-year trend investors might be able to find attractive buying opportunities, particularly in some of the larger platform type of tech companies that have great growth potential and high quality earnings >> okay. thank you both for joining us to kick off the hour. meghan and david >> thank you an independent review board questioning astrazeneca vaccine data a day after it was released we're joined for more with meg >> reporter: this is pretty unusual statement coming out from the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases.

just really later in the same day that we got the results from the phase 3 trial in the u.s. of the astrazeneca vaccine. the national institute's of allergy and infectious diseases saying the oversight board seeing the trials expressed concern that astrazeneca may have included outdated information from that trial which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data we don't have more details than this they said they encouraged the company to work with the data safety monitoring board to update that information. astrazeneca saying essentially they had the interim cutoff of the data they presented yesterday, february 17th they're going to work with this board to share the primary analysis of the most up to date data and they intend to issue those within 48 hours. so within two days we should see essentially what led to this situation, guys. but it's very unusual that a national body would need to come

out and make a statement like this rather than sort of work with the company behind the scenes to make sure that the information was updated. a very important note is this pertains to the efficacy finding. it was 79% effective in preventing symptomatic covid in this vaccine trial we saw yesterday with the two doses of the astrazeneca vaccine. there's nothing about the safety of this vaccine. that's very important, of course there were concerns in europe over blood clot risks. they looked at that closely and did not see that in the trial. astrazeneca down there, the stock more than 3% these are just the kinds of communication mishaps or mishandlings that just don't bode well for a vaccine in a public health program like this. it's a real head scratcher i have not seen something like this before. however, we've never been in a pandemic situation before where things are moving so quickly but it's odd guys >> yeah. meg, it's unprecedented. you said it. at least from a communications

standpoint and it's not necessarily a reflection on the safety of the vaccine, but when you take this and you add it to what we saw happen last week, all of those headlines and concerns with some countries halting distribution of the vaccine around blood clots, whether there's reality to it, whether there's truth to it or not, i've got to think that this is not going to bode well in the public sphere of public opinion right now, especially in a place like the u.s. when we have so many other vaccines available how does a company like astrazeneca and the government if they green light it come back from that? >> the good news is in the united states we have a well-proven system with the fda of independently reviewing al of the data in these trials and so we've seen this work for the previous three vaccines very well and you often hear about people complaining, why is it three weeks from when the company

submits the application to the fda for them to hold the meeting about site advisers to review the data and review the decision the fda is looking through all the data, doing it own analysis. the same data the data safety monitoring board looked at and providing it publicly for everyone to read through if they want to. and so we will see that from astrazeneca when they file they said they would do that in the first half of april. but something major must have happened here for the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases to feel they had to issue this public statement saying that astrazeneca needs to work with the data safety monitoring board to update the data disclosures and this was completely focussed on efficacy, but i'm curious in two days to see what the efficacy numbers when they're updated look like. >> meg, will be interested as well knowing they'll bring it to us when we hear about it thank you. >> as we head to break, they

were founded to deliver things such as party supplies to college students and must haves such as toilet paper, milk, cleaning supplies. up next, the co-founders of instant delivery service go puff which has turned the covid pandemic into a growth opportunity worth $9 billion, in fact that's where the company is valued plus, what should you watch to in the testimonies later today of powell and yeenll we'll tell you we'll be right back.

welcome back a group of top business leader answer ceos raising the alarm about a tax hike in new york state and the impact on the work force. robert frank has the story for us robert >> good morning, david 250 ceos and small business owners employing a total of more than 1.5 million people telling new york's politicians that a tax hike would cause workers to move out the letter signers include jamie diamond, larry fink, jane fraser and buorla all saying only 10% of their workers are back and many will move permanently if state taxes go higher. this is simply about our people voting with their feet ultimately, these new taxes may trigger a major loss of economic activity and revenues as companies are pressured to

relocate operations where the talent wants to live and work. new york legislators proposing the largest tax hike and budget history. they say the pandemic has widened the wealth gap and more is needed for education and infrastructure and biden wanting a tax hike on the wealthy. if both state and federal proposals pass here, the top tax rate for higher earners in new york city is over 5 5%, and by the way, that's the highest combined tax rate in new york since the 1970s and, david, we all remember how well that went. >> well, i remember the 70s very well having grown up in the city then there was nobody who wanted to be there just those of us stuck there robert, what are the chances this happens again, you link this with the lack of the ability to deduct

your state and local income taxes and that's even more of a wallop for these high earners. >> exactly the big obstacle in new york state has been the governor. he's in a weakened position right now. now, economically the state's in a fairly good spot they have $12.6 billion in unrestricted funds coming from the federal government from the stimulus, and tax revenues are higher than expected, so it's all political right now. governor cuomo is in a weak position i think there is a big push both in d.c. and albany to reduce inequality through tax policy. >> yeah. oh, boy. >> 12.6 in unrestricted funds and we have continued -- you've followed this ferociously, robert, the migration of new yorkers and new york residents, particularly wealthy residents out of the state to places like florida. i'd think this is a perfect storm that continues to gain

momentum robert affordablfrank, thank you we're looking atticer vde up 30%. energy rebounding. look at marathon petroleum over the last 24 hours falling sharply at the open. it's down about 3% right now so it's coming back a little bit off of those early morning lows. demand concerns are impacting oil prices as a slow vaccine rollout in europe. plus new and in some cases extended lockdown in jegermany weighing on energy prices right now. you see it plays out in crude prices and key technical levels and also the energy stocks we'll be right back after this ♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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- [narrator] grubhub perks give you deals on all the food that makes you boogie. (upbeat music) get the food you love with perks from- - [crowd] grubhub. soft bank backed delivery service go puff has a funding round that brings the valuation to 8.9 billion joining us are the co-founders and co-ceos.

we should mention go puff was a cnbc disrupter last year gentlemen, good to have you. congrats on the latest fundraising round. let me ask, $1.15 billion is a lot. what are you going to do with that money >> we're excited to be on with you. before i tell you about the fundraiser, i want to tell you about go puff for the audience go puff is a critically integrated technology platform where we service over 600 u.s. cities and operate over 600 microfulfillment centers delivering ice cream, baby products and much more in 20 minutes available 20 /7 across the u.s. the benefit of the vertically ind integrated, we're able to control the entire customer experience and deliver quickly to consumers.fundraise,

we're fortunate to bring on world class investors. i'll tell you about myself and raff, we started this business from scratch boot strap to business our c-round was selling office furniture on craigslist. for us, it was let's nail the business model before scaling it right? so we only raised capital year three. so we're excited to bring on these great investors in terms of the capital, number one, we're going to continue our expansion of geographic expansion. right? continue to scale across the entire u.s as well as internationally you know, number two is category expansion. we've come a long way into this category of instant needs and now we offer over 4,000 products we're excited to bring more to our consumers. we also put the customer first and we'll continue to make big

investments into improving the customer experience. >> talk to me about your customer base. many of it, it started perhaps with college kids, but who now is your main customer? who are you servicing with as we just heard all the different products that you can bring to somebody's home in a short amount of time? >> you know, david, one, thank you for having us. it's no secret that go puff started as a college delivery service. we introduced the pet category and the baby category over the counter medication and household items. ultimately today the average age is just over 30 years old. we have people from all walks of life ordering go puff, whether it's a mom that needs diapers or baby products or a pet owner that needs pet foods

it's the fastest year over year rather than the core categories we launched with >> it wasn't long ago you used 1.4 million. now it's 1.15 at a 9 billion we bring on guys doing spacs, raising less money than you at smaller valuations you must have been approached by many spac sponsors to go public. have you been and if so, why aren't you doing that route? >> when you have a business model like go puff that's fully integrated at scale. we monetize our products not people we have options. right? but given how strong our business model is, how strong the growth has been, we believe that raising this private round with these world class investors is the right thing to do for the company at the moment. >> i have to note. i mean, is this intentional you're both wearing black t

shirts is this a company thing? i'm into it. i'm into it. raphael, vertically integrated, 20 minutes of the customer control the customer experience. $1.95 flat delivery fee. it sounds great for the consumer, but oh how are you making money, especially if you expand to something like the suburbs? >> great question. i'll take us back to when we launched the business. eight years ago we had a pretty untraditional start. we are both first generation americans and grew up with values from our parents that you create a business that makes money. we didn't have any seed round or anything like that we started the business by flipping office furniture. we were a profitable business with free cash flow and we were using that money to expand to additional sites we raised more money to make sure we can accelerate our growth on the new market launch.

but what gives us the confidence is 100% of our markets today are profitable so we have a lot of confidence in investing in hundreds of the microfulfillment centers every year we're looking forward to compressing them into more our entire business model is predicated on making margins on products and not making margins on people or the gig economy >> right you guys have a lot of liquor licenses how does that differentiate you from other delivery services >> we've been operating this business eight years and acquiring liquor licenses one by one. when you think about the competitive advantages, right, not only is it a network of 300 plus microfulfillment centers but hundreds of liquor licenses that take a long time to get really excited about offering alcohol plus thousands of other products to consumers. >> yeah. finally, guys, the name.

gopuff where did it come from why? >> you know, as i mentioned earlier we launched this business in college. this name resonated with college students early we're proud of the brand it's become, and for people today, it represents immediate fast magical delivery we have people from all walks of life ordering gopuff we're now a national company with new categories that we expanded into. we're really proud of what has become of the brand. >> yeah. all right. didn't quite answer. guys, it was great to get you on this morning we look forward to following your progress, of course appreciate it. thank you both >> thank you >> i'm glad you asked that question, david. i was curious as well. it's time for a covid news update >> good morning, everybody starting today texas a&m university will begin a mandatory covid-19 testing for

students roughly 40,000 students will have to get the free test and nine separate testing sites have been set up. united kingdom is marking one year since the entire country went into lockdown uk networks earn a series of live events which included a minute of silence. the french president announcing the eligibility age is lower to 70 from 75 beginning this saturday. france eyes 1 .8 million vaccine injections by the end of the week and a town of about 3,000 people located in the mountains of colombia is just one of two counties in the country that has zero reported covid cases. according to officials and local residents, the town has been able to keep the virus away thanks to the discipline behavior of locals apparently they also spray down their money because they don't want it to spread the virus. yeah quite impressive back to you. >> all right thank you. a quick programming note as we head to break new intel ceo pat gelsinger

joining "squawk alley" tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern in his first tv interview since taking over the job last month. you don't want to miss that. "squawk on the street" will be right back - welcome to three brothers bakery. - we have cinnamon, apricot, and raspberry. - we have a location that has experienced four floods, a fire, a hurricane, and obviously now we're in the pandemic. this is during hurricane harvey. the water was like a river. - when you talk about nasdaq, people don't think about insurance or catastrophe risk but that's a product they offer. we have 12 companies that build these models. for example, we have fathom. they are experts in building flood catastrophe models and we get it through our nasdaq platform. so insurers would be able to provide the right guidance to janice and people like her project forwards the risk and actually use that to advise the policy holder where they buy their house or where they buy their next commercial property. - now we have this predictive flood modeling that we can go to and find out if it's gonna flood there

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steve liesman sat down with robert kaplan ahead of fed chairman powell's meeting this morning. he had some interesting comments for you? >> interesting and hawkish comment. disclosing in an exclusive interview he's one of four fed officials forecasting a rate hike next year cap lan saying fed policy needs to react to the new fiscal stimulus adopted by congress >> i, for one, am going to be an advocate of beginning the process of removing some of the extraordinary monetary measures and doing it sooner rather than later, but i need to see outcomes, not just a strong

forecast the same time cap lan said he was not concerned about inflation. he thinks it's going to go up but will be temporary. he does not think they should tamp down bond yields. jay powell and janet yellen appear together for the first time powell will tell congress the recovery is far from complete and the fed will provide support for as long as it takes. he will offer hopeful notes for return to normal conditions later this year. it looks to be strengthening due to unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy actions. yellen, she's going to read from sort of a similar economic textbook as powell noting the improvement but the long road back both the treasury and the fed, they have similar interests in boosting an ailing economy if things get better, next year

the objectives of the former colleagues may not align quite so closely >> all right steve, thank you that's the perfect discussion for us to have with our next guest. the federal reserve dr for more on jay powell and janet yellen's first joint appearance before the house, we bring in a former federal reserve of the bank of philadelphia thank you for being with us today. >> thank you for having me great to be with you >> are you concerned about inflation picking up in a meaningful way i mean, we have heard quite a bit of commentary now that the expectation is we could see a temporary jump but that over a sustained period of time not so much how are you thinking about it? >> well, i think we will see a temporary jump in year over year inflation. i think the underlying inflation will have to see, but i am worried that overall the longer period of time, the next two

years, this year and next year, we might see a pretty significant increase in inflation, particularly if the economy stays healthy in the sense of continued recovery. i think there is some concern out there, because this monetary policy has been different in this system than it was in the financial crisis >> so do you think that that, the federal reserve might need to step in more quickly than expected right now and if so, what would that look like will we talk about yield curve control? something else >> no. hopefully they don't talk anymore about yield curve control. it seems that powell is reluctant to do that i think he's correct that distorting the yield curve is -- letting markets work is not helpful and potentially dangerous, because getting out of the control is proving difficult, and it benefits would be minimal at this point i think the real question for

the fed is it's told us it will keep interest rates at zero until the full inclusive employment or full maximum inclusive employment is reached. what they haven't told us is what they will do with inflation, if it rises and they haven't reached their notion of maximum inclusive employment we don't know what they do, and they refuse to say that's what the markets are really trying to figure out, and they haven't answered that because their forward guidance doesn't afford them or tell us anything about what they were doing in that case >> you mention how different monetary policy has been during the last year at this point versus the financial crisis. do you expect that to continue is different now the norm? >> well, it's been different particularly in a particular

way. that is that during the financial crisis the fed did lots of -- for six or eight years, kept interest rates at zero, but things like the money supply didn't explode. and m-2 didn't grow very fast. in this episode with nearly 3 trillion, almost, of reserves and other things fed into the system what we have is a world where m-2 has exploded so that repercussions may be quite different than they were in 2008 and 2009 the fed should be cautious about that and anticipate that maybe things won't go quite like they did in 2008 and 2009. >> charles, i mean, at least right now, and steve liesman touched on this, the possibility

for a divergence in policy, but right now there's a fed chairman that's lock stop in terms of policy with the treasury secretary who was also his predecessor. there's the policy piece of it there's the optics piece of it in terms of how closely they are working together, and -- but in terms of a possible divergence, how realistic is that when you're talking about an exploding deficit? $1.9 trillion in spend right now. $3 trillion coming down the pipe as a possibility and the stimulus money last year how realistic is it to believe that the fed could actually, indeed, increase rates without doing more harm to the economy i realize this is a longer term question >> it's a longer-term question i think really the question is what does the fed think will cause inflation? they threw out the phillip's curve and said to keep interest

rates at zero until maximum employment i am dubious of that proposition, but -- so they put employment first over inflation. i think the fed needs to be more prepared both in its communication and its thinking about what they will do in the event that inflation does pick up faster than they think, and what they will do about that, whether or not they've reached what they perceive to be maximum employment and by the way, they put a tremendous amount of pressure not to do anything about inflation in those circumstances. and the feds are given forward guidance that it wouldn't. so i think they put themselves in a box in a way. it's going to be creating problems when the time comes to raise rates if they haven't got the political support to raise

rates, even though there will always be people to say the max employment hasn't been reached yet. you've got to do something about women or men or ethnic groups or what have you. so it should be really hard when they've now signalled they don't want to raise rates before that when they're faced with the possibility, which i think is higher than they think that inflation will be higher and expectations will be higher. i think they'd rather -- they created it for themselves in this language. >> yeah. this is a conversation we're going to continue to have. charles, thank you for joining us today we really appreciate your incites. >> as we head to break, you can watch powell and yellen's full testimony on cnbc starting at nine eastern wel rhtac'lbeig bk.

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welcome back to "squawk on the street". stocks have been drifting lower and hitting the lows of the session as you can see in the last few minutes, the communication services sector is a slight outperformer on the day with a couple notable movers on that front first, you have netflix. for one, the top gainer after analysts upgraded that stock to a buy rating but we also want to draw your attention to a notable laggard in that sector, viacom, after announcing a large stock offering last night. to cut this in context, the pullback, the stock has gained about 150 % so far this year and since the pandemic low a year ago, viacomcbs is up more than 700% communications services, traditional media a focus. morgan, back over to you >> dom, thank you. we have space news this morning. yesterday rocket lab launching seven satellites to orbit.

including a spacecraft with the goal of aiding missions to svenu and the moon that's following -- following the launch they have 104 satellites they've launched to orbit. this was the first launch ncsie announcing going public via spac as well. we're back in two.

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after a year of negative sales comparisons plenty of dining restrictions restaurants see sales and traffic turn positive we have the numbers. >> good morning. tracking data for months things are finally starting to turn around. blackbox intelligence shows restaurant comps up 15.3% year on year. traffic up 5.5% for the weekended march 14th last week things began to trend in the right direction as the anticipation of stimulus checks started to boost consumer spending traffic will take time, though, to make a comeback as consumer preferences shifted over the last year favoring delivery, curbside and mobile order and faang.

spending more per order possibly because of that shift with average growth in check up 8.5%. we are, of course, lacking begins of the pandemic when things took a turn within the industry with a very long way to go but welcome news in the latest stimulus package with creation of the restaurant revitalization fund. $26.8 million in aid allowing eligible businesses to receive a tax-free grant equal to amount of pandemic revenue and sba will prioritize the grants for small businesses owned by women and economically disadvantages in addition to the aid distributed via the ppp. also a push to extend the ppp beyond march 31st. looking at the restaurant stocks year to date, an interesting trend emerging many of the casual names doing really well. for the most part best performers, bloomingbrand's, red robin, brinker, darden's in the

green year to day perhaps on expectation pent-up demand back to you. >> yep a lot of potential demand. thank you. a great place to start with our next guest whose restaurants are taking opportunity to hire back staff previously laid off due to the pandemic joining us, famous foods ceo and owner jason wang jason good to have you just tell me where do things stand now for your business in terms of potentially coming back, so to speak? >> sure. thank you for having me, david our business suffered greatly unfortunately through the pandemic in terms of coming back, we were at 14 locations before the pandemic and we shut everything down, and then started reopening now we're at eight locations in new york city and that's almost half of our locations gone so we still have a long way to go in terms of recovery and in terms of sales, our sales are down probably 60%, 70% same

store compared to 2020 and 2019. a long way to recovery as you mentioned with the restaurant relief fund and the ppp, those are our life lines. those are the things that will help us get back on track and we're hopeful, optimistic, but it's a long way to go. >> yeah. give me a sense of your expect igs as for that long way to go at 50%, at least new york at 50% dining capacity up from 25% recently do you see a roadway to sort of having all of your restaurants back open at some point in the future >> yeah. i mean, our restaurants are currently take-out only and a few that are closed now. we are hoping that with higher capacity limits allowed in new york city we'll be able to safely reopen our indoor dining. restaurants are, in the hospitality experience the experience of eating in,

interacting with our staff we're all about that as well to have that we really want 100% indoor dining to feel confident that people, that it's safe to do so. once it's safe to do so we will do it and hopefully able to make up for the losses at that point. hopefully we'll be able to reopen more locations, or open new locations, whatever the circumstances are before us at that point. >> a big fan love the noodles good to have you on the show. >> thank you. >> one of the things we watch closely here at cnbc the weekly jobless claim. a lot of discussion and debate how stush burnley high they've continued to be and certainly one of the things floated out there concept floated out there, as you've seen reopening, closings, reopenings again in some cases those claims are people that were let go, were

fur furloughed, came back to work again. what you've seen with ebbs and flows in new york city, what has that process been like for you and how it is affecting your rehiring efforts currently >> yes unemployment is still a big concern for our society because of the pandemic. for us, we were just unable to hire back -- to offer enough positions. the same number of positions, as we used to have, just because we're down so many stores. you know, unfortunately it's not possible to have that many positions. we just can't afford to. so i think a lot of people are in the same boat at this time. a lot of restaurants unfortunately have to reopen, like you said, and then close down again we will to close down one of our restaurants after reopening and actually probably more to go soon as well, just because unfortunately the economics just don't work and at the same time employees just feel unsafe still and reasonably so. that to come back to work. especially those that are living

with people with pre-existing conditions and the elderly those people are vulnerable and right now it's just unfortunately the state of things that we have to get to a place where we, everyone is vaccinated, and we have herd immunity and at that point is where-of-when we'll be comfortable and employment will fall -- i mean, unemployment will fall. >> gotcha. >> excuse me. >> quickly wrapping this up. food costs, seen prices jumping. how is that affecting you and what does it mean in terms of translation to bills to consumers? >> yes absolutely it's unfortunate the squeeze, right now we have low demand for our products just because there are less people around new york city less people dining out and for us we also have increased food costs for example, just through the roof and among everything else, ox tails not just the price. >> ox tails. >> same time, i say a squeeze

because we also had to raise our prices a little bit. haven't done so in about four years but just did in order to make sure we can still afford to pay our employees the same rate pre-covid, and also to try to cover as many of our costs as possible without owing people too much money it's a squeeze and it's tough. but having a strong brand definitely helps but unfortunately something a lot of restaurants have to face these days. >> jason, thanks and good luck. that does it for "squawk on the street." you're not going to want to miss "squawk alley," though tomorrow new intel ceo pat gelsinger, first interview since taking over the chip giant a first on a cnbc interview. meantime, "squawk alley" starts right after this break.

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shaped by technology and human ingenuity, we can make it work for you and your business. good morning 8:00 at microsoft headquarters, 11:00 a.m. on wall street and "squawk alley" is live. ♪