error. the phase three vaccine trial data less than two days after the initial numbers questioned by u.s. officials. tweaking the numbers just a little bit it makes a difference. meg tirrell will have a breakdown. big tech at capitol hill the heads of facebook and google and twitter testify. it's thursday, march 25th, 2021. this is "squawk box. ♪ the heat is on ♪ the heat is on ♪ good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm rebecca quick along with joe kernen and will frost. >> you have to perform, my man

you have to perform. you have to bring us the international perspective. what is happening? lots of stuff going on you are hearre to bring us the global view. whether it is the suez canal or the europe lockdowns and in the uk there's no banks >> that's the heat >> nice focus on the u.s. trading day. >> i wasn't going to bring that up, will the last six days in a row, we have seen the markets collapse during the last trading hour of the day. we hope you bring more brightness here this morning >> yeah. >> little dour >> i'm delighted to be here. >> oh, my gosh >> somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed. >> i was just fine until i saw you, joe

>> that's not very nice. you are ready? we will do that with hugh. i have a lot of questions of british slang. >> i thought you were going to talk about the banks i am looking forward about the banks chat we have been discussing that every day as you have been, too. >> we can do that today. becky, let's start with the futu fut futures. >> we are seeing a brighter picture. the dow futures indicated up triple digits. a gain of 107 points roight now the dow ended down yesterday by a few points the last hour put pressure on things the nasdaq was down much of the session. things picked up late in the trading day. s&p was down by just over .50% indicated up by 12 opipoints th

morning. nasdaq is up 55 points treasury yields have been in check. this has been three days in a row we have been looking at yields for the ten-year lower. this morning, higher at 1.62%. right in line with the level of the stabl stabilization the other thing that is interesting, will, is watching the volume disappear the trading volume was 80% the 30-daying moving average we have been watching on the nasdaq was 90%. that raised questions about whether the retail investor is still around or whether they've lost interest here sdp. >> mike has been doing analysis on the volume of call options in particular which is what people are pointing to. aside from the point of the six

last trading days in a row the final hour of trading day. we tended to close nearer the lows consistently. the 2% is a stark move on the nasdaq the smaller caps russell week to date is down 7%. astonishing. partly because of the smaller tech names outside the s&p 500 partly a pull back in energy for the week as whole despite the bounce yesterday still down for this week for energy. >> joe -- i don't know if game stock is in the "squawk stack. >> becky, last wednesday or thursday, i don't know i started asking more and more people what's not -- what positive is not in the market right now? and the negatives. you know, rates are eventually going to rise, probably.

taxes will go up regulations will go up sooner or later, we realize $4.9 trillion in the space of two or three months is actually real money. some day that might come to roost. i don't know i think that as i mentioned paulson a lot. maybe 10% up by the end of the year in between now and the end of the year, there could be a 10, 15, 20% pull back. everything got overheated with spac and bitcoin bitcoin is in the stack. let's look at it the "squawk stack. it is not able to be used by closing bell we will steal things from our own show there is the "squawk stack." >> unlikely. >> unlikely. you don't want to be right about anything there's the nasdaq which is, as you can see, .30% this morning bitcoin down 4%. gamestop is up, but the reason

we looked at it, didn't it lose $60 yesterday. >> it was down 33% yesterday the interesting thing on that, the volume stories this is another reason people are asking about retail investors. it was down 33%. i think it was an average volume -- trading volume of 23 million shares that sounds like a lot if you have been following gamestop, it is an average of 34 million shares in the last 30 days the volume for gamestop. it had people asking did the retail investor go away? they were there in full force. volume was strong on friday with the triple witching. monday and tuesday, and then wednesday, volume really disappeared. it had people wondering if retail investors were doing other things were they spooked or betting on march madness or doing something else >> the ten-year was well behaved. on friday, when he bought with

both hands, nasdaq bottomed at 12,100 i'm buying with both hands the nasdaq recovered to well above 13,000 after yesterday, it was a sickening feeling, because it dragged the dow down how much was the dow up at the high yesterday much higher. it closed down >> the threat, really, to the nasdaq has been higher rates we are seeing the nasdaq down 1 1.75% despite yields pulling back the other big move yesterday was viacom cbs is down 28% so far in the week yesterday, 20% plus move partly just something that is massively out performing because they were doing a capital raise which triggered profit taking. also probably a name that is caught up with gamestop. near to the same extent, but a

short squeeze aspect and massive move to the down side. >> dom said that was the biggest s&p gainer we were surprised to hear that it pulled back >> it was from bank of america they were questioning the streaming capabilities or if they keep pace with netflix and disney it is something that discovery pulled back. some of the same questions discovery is a hot high flyer. there is interest from the retail traders, too. >> yeah. rates is weird we talked about that yesterday it has to be goldilocks. it has to be just right. when they start go down and the slower reopening and then it is bad that rates come down astrazeneca releasing more data from its phase three covid vaccine trial. dropping the efficacy rate from

79% to 76% meg tirrell has more on what dr. fauci described this week as an unforced error good morning, meg. >> reporter: good morning, joe this was a seriously weird turn of events for astrazeneca. we got the phase three results from the u.s. trial on monday. 79% efficacy which came in better than expected later that night at midnight, dr. fauci's institute released a statement saying it was out dated data now astrazeneca gave us the updated ruesults now 76% overall efficacy over symptomatic disease. 100% efficacy in severe disease or hospitalization they had a lot more cases to count here 190 as of today's results. ais eight severe cases strength

eveestrengthenin that number. after people have seen these numbers, the vaccine looks good, but the communications are awe you full the tweet, at this point, i'll wait for the fda submission packet to avoid roller coaster rides. a lot of people will look forward to the data when astrazeneca files the first half of april with the fda. three weeks later, we should see the fda analysis of the data we will get to look at it. it is a weird ride made more weird by the fact these updated data did not change that much. guys >> three points. when you talk about 95% for moderna and pfizer then people still want moderna and pfizer, probably 79% and 76% doesn't change much. is this the only unforced error?

we can think of other data points maybe they were not all unforced >> reporter: this has been a program that has gone through more ups than downs. starting with the first late stage clinical trial data and two sets of efficacy one 62% and the other 90%. one of those was in the group with a mistaken dose all of the data have been confusing which is why we were so excited to see this u.s. trial set with which was going to be much better organized. then the snafu happened and the dust-up with the board that the data that astrazeneca put out on monday was out dated or cherry picked cherry picked to represent the three points higher efficacy is a head scratcher and people trying to figure out what happened >> meg, so many question marks over people's trust in the vaccine.

particularly in europe the pressure on both regulators and the company to make sure they absolutely get this submission and decision about it right. it was higher than ever before if this was an intentional attempt to cherry pick, the responsibility for astrazeneca for the unforced error, is enormous if it is an accident, is it an overreaction and people should wait for the final decision and people say it is effective and safe and that's what really matters. it feels like this was an astrazeneca error in a way over the last month perhaps the comments from the european leaders is unfounded on the vaccine? >> reporter: the comment is this is a good vaccine. it is used around the world and seen by the public health vaccine to help the world get through the pandemic they are planning on making 3 million doses. it can be stored in the fridge

there are a lot of good things about the vaccine. for many countries it is the only vaccine they can access it is important it works and it is safe and there is trust in it the criticisms that have been coming this week have been against astrazeneca for the communications here and unforced error that dr. fauci talked about. still, it is not clear what happened in terms of why there was this misunderstanding or disagreement with the oversight board that led to the strange public statement from them >> meg, that is part of the problem. the idea we need to have public trust in the vaccine so it can help the globe get past covid. it is incredibly important i was surprised by the latest miscommunication or lack of openness we had the u.s. representative on this show and i asked him when the trial had taken place for these things he didn't really answer.

that came after the weird way it rolled out, as you mentioned a few months ago, with the different efficacy with the mistake where they accidently gave people the wrong dose and it had a better efficacy with those people the way we found out about that was, again, after someone on the show who didn't really mention any of the things. it is later in the day when the scientist said it was a lucky stroke of circumstances that it rolled out and the story happened that may be the bad feelings with regulators. the company has not been up front with how some of the things happened and you find out after the fact it is not in the press releasor it doesn't come with the initial reports from the company and it is only later that these things come out that doesn't build trust >> reporter: yeah. there was another example where remember astrazeneca's trial here in the u.s. was halted for

seven weeks after a safety issue. it decided it could keep going the safety issue was not identified in the results. the company's ceo on the private investor call gave more information about what happened with that halt in the trial than they gave publicly a lot of those instances and even on monday with the media call with reporters about the phase three data, three reporters had to ask how many cases there were of severe disease in the trial information that ruud dobber gave us on "squawk box" that morning. the company was not giving the details and lack of transparency is leading to more confusion than many would say is the right path for the vaccine sdplchlt tirrel meg tirrell, thanks for that. later, banker backlash at goldman. we have that story coming up we'll be right back. ♪

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sales. rite aid's full results due next month. and other pharmacy names are down a little bit. not 16% like rite aid. look at the sell off and the managing partner is joining us very good to see you, serat. what is your take on this one? do you think we will see more selling as the market opens later? >> i think it is a normal reaction if you look at what is going on with the sector, this was built in it is not a surprise that comps are not that great especially as we go through the new se flu season it was the best flu season for everybody, not the pharmaceutical companies a company like rite aid will benefit as more and more

vaccines are doled out and people can go there and more reopening comes, people go to the front of the store this is the question of the front of the store and if business will pick up. yes, it is, as we go into the next few quarters. as we vaccinate more people, business will grow compared to a year ago stores a year ago whether retail or pharmacies or health care, which is a sector we like, all will have better growth and better comps coming up ahead literally for the last year and the next two quarters, business was minimal. >> kb home shares sliding. revenue fell sort. millennials were the largest segment of buyers in the quarter. sarat, this segment has been hot of late. do you feel it is overheated a

bit? >> i agree with you on that one. take the opposite of what we talked about this is a sector that a year ago caught on fire as you said. it is hot. home builders and home building products so much demand during covid and as we reopen and more people spend time outdoors and start spending time on services and travel, the money spent on home and upgrading your home will now be spent elsewhere that's going to again be seen in companies. whether kb homes or other home building products. i think the opportunity for growth is elsewhere. some stocks have reflected really good earnings for the next few quarters. as an investor, i would look elsewhere wihere earnings will start growing as opposed to peak

earnings. >> sarat, can you weigh in on what we were talking about this morning? the level of interest from the retail investor. if inn vvestors going bored or s gambling on march madness or are we overplaying this? >> i think there is a good part of it, becky it is in the tech sector it is really in companies that, again, go back to a year ago which had great growth or potential for growth there was no opportunity for growth in the large part of the market the companies that we're talking about are from price to sale or top line growth rate now you are talking stocks and software of service or cloud stocks or other stocks that people are speculating gamestop and others.

that area of the market, you will see that come out more money comes into people's pockets, will they look for other opportunities because they are not stuck at home and there are other opportunities in the market i think professional investors are looking for those things all of the companies whose multiples are at market today trading at 22. you have seen it with the nasdaq and some sectors coming down 20% or more because of the volatility and speculation in the areas. we could get another bump in there. i think when we talk six months from now, a lot of retail investors were in that area are no longer so fascinated by the stocks >> sarat, thank you. >> thank you coming up, junior banker backlash at goldman sachs.

other banks are offering perks. and big tech ceos set to testify on citapol hill. we'll tell you what to expect. "squawk box. will be right back >> announcer: this cnbc program is brought to you by sentinel one. you'll get proactive ales for market events before they happen... and insights on every buy and sell decision. with zero-commission online u.s. stock and etf trades. for smarter trading decisions, get decision tech from fidelity. it's game time, let's meet the defending champs. g. hargrave thomas, point guard. bryce matthias, forward. kim kietz, investor. oh, i invested in invesco qqq. a fund that invests in the innovations of the nasdaq-100.

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some banks continuing to try to capitalize on the goldman analyst revolt first jefferys offering peloton bikes. then zoom free fridays now credit suisse.

offers a $20,000 bonus the first to report the perk is hugh had hugh, good to see you. >> happy to be here. >> what's up >> this is an issue. millennial disgruntlement on wall street. not used to working in the basement for 100 hours a week. on wall street, money is the currency of value and worth. the size of the compensation package tells you how well you have done. credit suisse is throwing money at the problem it is easier to fix the problem. people are overworked because the capital markets are on fire. ipos are on fire tech and media and telecomm is

on fire. these are the foot soldiers of the investment banking world >> hugh, we had jim cramer talking about how excited he was to get a job at goldman. he almost sounded like, and i have a little affinity for it. i used to walk to school 20 miles uphill both ways hearing that kind of thing for the goldman guys should be someone wrote a jeffery katzenberg quote if you don't come to work on saturday, don't bother showing up on sunday that's a good line these young whipper snappers will be set for life when they leave goldman. >> the investment bankers who have been through this grind say this is what they tell me. where else in the world can you

as a 22-year-old make $150,000 or $200,000? joe, that is not the real reason they are going tdoing that the reason why they are doing this is at a place like goldman, they have a lotto ticket if they can make it to associate or vp onto partner, they are set and they are making $5 million a year or $10 million a year this is the reason people go through the painful 100-hour workweeks. a shot at making $10 million a year in 10 years. >> not that we can directly compare the stories across companies because the conditions are different. i'm sure people would rather get 20k extra than not doing video calls on a friday. if the 20k bonus is the answer to all of this, it only goes

back to confirm what the whole discussion is which is if you take one of the these jobs, it's a tradeoff of tough hours versus high pay it doesn't give credence to complain about the conditions. it is a tradeoff you can complain about it or leave. the other thing i bring up is the extra 20k bonus point brings in focus all of these complaints coming out after bonus time and you wonder with the original 13 junior bankers and if their bonuses were higher, if any of this would come out in the first place as is the point to the fact this is not about the conditions, but it's just about have they been paid enough this year there is legitimacy. last year was an extraordinarily successful year and the bonuses were only up 50% and they hoped

they would go up higher. it is up to pay many multiples even if the markets warranted that it is a tough thing to put out in the pr sense in a year that was tough for other industries and other parts of banking. >> a couple of good points i will say, you know, there is a constant tug-of-war between executives who want to keep their comp ratio down and others say i want it like it was ten years ago. you eat what you kill. if you have an amazing year, we want the upside income vola volatility you stated this. it is unusual to be getting a bonus in the second quarter of the year you just received a bonus a few weeks ago for 2020 work. you get a bonus and credit suisse with people getting incremental raises on top of

what they worked last year they he arare throwing money at problem. this is not out of the kindness of their hearts, but they need butts in seats they need to retain talent that's what they're doing. >> good to hear. hugh, talk to you soon >> thanks, becky when we come back, big tech ceos in the hot seat on capitol hill tayod we will get you ready for the hearing right after this >> announcer: "executive edge" is sponsored by at&t business. our people and network will help keep you connected let's take care of business. and in an emergency, they need a network that puts them first. that connects them to technology, to each other, and to other agencies. that's why at&t built firstnet with and for first responders the emergency response network authorized by congress.

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welcome back the big tech ceos are getting ready to face another congressional grilling jack dorsey and mark zuckerberg and sundar pachal. we have more on this front is there anything they will agree on with the grilling today? >> reporter: not really, becky they want to focus on finding

s solutions. facebook's mark zuckerberg is proposing to make the industry's liability protections con continuing contingent on companies to take down content key democrats es have denounceds idea anna eshoo called it a distraction. and the chairman is wary mark zuckerberg knows rolling back section 230 will make facebook a dominant social media company. sundar pichai says outlawing 230 could prevent platforms from protecting users twitter is pushing industry

solutions instead like the bird-watch and blue sky initiatives. we will see if facebook ends up with friends when the ceos testify this afternoon back to you. >> clever. thank you, ylan. joining us to talk more about the hearing is joanne litman she is a cnbc contributor. and emily glazer emily, this is not the first time these three are testifying before congress, but the first time since the january 6th insurrection at the capitol. >> it will be intense, becky we saw social media connecting messages ahead of the riots. and we know one of the groups had research which was spreading partisan messages. some of the messages have clamped down

facebook with more groups. mark zuckerberg reduced exposure to political content twitter and google have done more as well i think we might see lawmakers seeing too little too late >> joanne, we talked about the differences on the two sides the democrats see this problem from one perspective the republicans see it from another. i wonder if that means these companies will be able to escape more regulation because congress isn't going to agree on legislation. what do you think? >> i do think there is a major issue here because on the one hand, you have the democrats and republicans who both agree something needs to be done they have a very, very different perspective on why the conservatives believe the platforms are stifling and censuring the free speech. the democrats believe it is enabling the spread of

misinformation becky, there is another point that has become more sharp that i would love to see congress dive into a little bit more. we talk about section 230. in fact, there's some other stuff going on here. i think sometimes it is a bit of a smoke screen mark zuckerberg gets out there and says how are we going to moderate this content? there are billions of posts. we can't do that we shouldn't be libel if things slip through the cracks. there is new research come out that shows for example there were just 12 individuals who were responsible for 60% of the misinformation about vaccines that is out there. >> i saw that. >> there's that thought. why not look at the surgical strike instead of saying let's blowout the ocean, cut the material off at the source. that is 12 people. the other piece is the

recommendation engines of the platforms have been libel. look at the recommendation engines. a lot of the extremists who end up in the conspiracy theory groups in facebook are recommended by facebook. 60% of the people in the extremist groups because facebook recommended it to them. they have a huge issue of people going down the rabbit hole because youtube continues to recommend the content to them. >> that is an excellent point. it is something well worth digging into emily, i'll ask on that front. the other thing is consumers get lost in this thing what about consumer privacy and you want to close an account, how come you can't take that data with you? isn't that a focus for congress? >> i think that congress will ask about privacy and it will also about anti-trust. we have seen in the hearings in

the past they are inflated for a particular topic the tech giants are under other scrutiny and other matters come up the congress members have to show constituents they are doing that we have seen facebook take one stance on privacy and apple take a different one. it is similar to misinformation. they are disagreeing how to handle user privacy in part because google and facebook and not to bring another one in, but amazon is one of the largest advertisers and they make money off consumer data. >> sounds like a big mess. i'll not hold my breath and hope for solutions. i like what you are stating. good to see you both. >> great to see you. >> thanks, becky. still to come, spac news to tell you about after a quick break. later, the latest read on jobless claims due at 8:30 a.m. eastern. "squawk box" back in a couple. ♪

>> announcer: currency check is sponsored by interactive brokers.

well come back. spac news. the spac launched by the msd part partners announced the pricing of the spac of the ipo $5 5$500 million raised. it will start trading on march 25th i can reveal it will target a deal size of $2.5 billion. ideally a lot higher and in that circumstance, they would be keen to invest more of the capital from the investment partners if the size and opportunity presents itself. they are looking for a tmt business growth business in the tech space is a founder led one michael dell is an adviser among the board members are the early facebook investor and

edith cooper the first black female on the goldman sachs management committee. barry mccarthy and john feelin who founded msd. they feel that board and its range from banker to investor to season ceo, et cetera is unique and why they got the spac at a good price last night despite quite a lot of weakness in the spac space in recent weeks we have seen the spac 50 index pull back. they are looking for partners like themselves, they would say, long-term money. not short-term money the final point you expect to hear goldman sachs and morgan stanley will start trading march 25th. they will be pleased they got that away.

coming up, the former co- head of group is running for governor of virginia why he is nng ruinand the proposal for the economy when we return ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ if you're 55 and up, t- mobile has plans built just for you. switch today and get 2 lines of unlimited and 2 free smartphones. plus you'll now get netflix on us. all this for up to 50% off vs. verizon. it's all included. 2 lines of unlimited for only $70 bucks.

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the former co-ceo of the carlyle group is running for virginia governor saying he'll use his experience running a business and creating the job to help the state's economy joining us is glenn youngkin good to see you this morning are you, number one, optimistic you can maybe get the republican nomination and then the prospects in virginia, i don't think a republican has won a statewide race since 2012. is that -- have you seen those stats? i think it's 13 straight >> yeah. so first of all, thank you so much for having me this orning it's great to be with you. this is why i actually stepped

down from carlyle last summer. the virginia economy, i'm a home grown virginia is just so different than it used to be i felt like i really needed to step in and really get virginia's economy moving, get our job engine moving again. yes, a republican hasn't won since 2009 in virginia in a statewide office this was a real opportunity to present a different kind of leader the republican party in virginia has really been sending the same kinds of candidates over and over and over again. we have career politicians, both on the democrat and the republican side. here's a chance for somebody that has a 30 year business career, that has a different set of experience, real world experience in building business and creating jobs to actually provide a different kind of future for virginia. virginia should be the best state in america to live, work and raise a family this is why i jumped in last

summer because we absolutely should be that and we just need a different kind of leadership. >> i haven't looked at any polling or anything at this point, glenn, but is -- and i'm not familiar with senator amanda chase. she has a maga type reputation some people think for virginia isn't going to work. is she going to challenge -- is she a viable challenger for the nomination it's this year is there going to be a primary or convention? you flip back and forth on that in virginia, too, right? >> the republican party of virginia has flip flopped. we're actually having a convention but it will be held on an unassembled basis meaning there are 37 polling locations on may 8th republicans will come to the polls and pick their candidate. their job is to pick the candidate that can win in november joe, i think i'm that candidate. the reason is there's nobody else in this race that has the kinds of real world business experience that i do at this time where the national

economy and particularly the virginia economy has really suffered, virginia's economy was stalling out prior to the pandemic relative to our peer states remember, joe, we have to compete every day. we have tennessee, north carolina, south carolina, even georgia and maryland we have to compete every day our economy has lagged in growth and job creation and our cost of living has gone up oh, by the way, virginia families are moving away from virginia faster than they are moving in. this is the canary in the coal mine this is not the best state to live, work and raise a family anymore. that's why i jumped in i fully expect to be nominated to be the republican nominee and to march into the statewide election and win in november because republicans across virginia and oh, by the way virginians are ready for a whole different plan a different kind of governor.

>> glenn, if you're not going to have northam to criticize. would you if you could what would you do, just criticize generically -- how long have schools been closed? are they still closed? how do you think he's managed through this on the one hand we talk lives versus livelihoods on both counts how has northam done >> sadly, governor northam has i believe mismanaged the entire pandemic situation, particularly keeping our schools closed and keeping our economy closed in an extended way and unnecessarily when we compare ourselves to a state like florida where their schools have been open since august five days a week. today nearly 80% of virginia schools are still closed or partially closed this is so unacceptable for virginia kids. we are falling behind both academically and emotionally families have suffered he's kept an extended lockdown on businesses where he's

restricted businesses from opening and people from gathering. what we're seeing across the country, but again particularly in states like florida, where this can be managed safely you can actually protect lives and livelihoods and virginians are the ones that are suffering for that that's why i'm running for governor i think there's such a different way to actually lead than to actually keep the economy closed unnecessarily. >> we will be following your tref veils, prour progress i think i'm going to take richmond i'm getting points if i take richmond >> thank you again for having me >> you're welcome. you don't know i think i'm going to take them i'm going to take two seeds. it's the n.i.t you're focusing on your -- you're a richmond native. >> you bet. >> take care beck >> thanks, joe when we come back, richard

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cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and wilfred frost in for andrew this morning. check out the squawk stack we have the generic stack this morning. we could -- i thought about oil. if you figure you block the sue z canal, it would be pulling back. >> i don't know why bitcoin is always there >> because bitcoin is down $6,000 in a session. it was at 58 or 59,000 and it has now pulled back, as you can see, it got as low as 51,000 in a lot of markets bitcoin would be -- you know, that would be at least a -- >> i think wti is going to have a bigger -- >> it's a dynamic stack. it can change quickly. >> bring bitcoin -- >> oil is more important for the overall economy. >> it was at 58,000. we're going to watch it. >> but my point would be wti -- >> when elon musk says you can

buy tesla with bitcoin, it becomes part of the zeitgeist. >> tesla was down sharply yesterday. wti based on your information yesterday, the whole reopening, whether or not it's going to happen, that's a more important gauge for things that will be more broadly reflected. >> for the economy, probably everything is more important than bitcoin but for the overall sentiment in spac, if you're looking at froth and everything else, fed on full bore, it's got to place i don't really care. on a day when it's unchanged, that would be one thing. do the math on 4%. it's come back from 51,000 it was from 58 or 59 it was actually at 60 last week. so 60 to 50, 51 in two or three sessions, we may leave it on or change it. anyway, astrazeneca's a big story. >> we have some breaking news this morning on astrazeneca and its covid vaccine.

meg tirrell is here with more on that front meg, good morning again. >> reporter: good morning, becky. astrazeneca presenting updated results on its covid vaccine from its u.s. trial. this after monday putting out the interim results and being criticized by an oversight board for using what they said was outdated data. now we're seeing the updated information. it really didn't change that much 76% efficacy against symptomatic covid-19 now seen in this trial versus 79% we saw monday still reporting 100% efficacy against severe disease, although now there are more cases in the trial to support that finding. 190 total cases, 49 more than they reported on monday, eight severe cases up from five, guys. really these data not changing all that much and dr. has

hashihashish zs h hashish zsha says it looks like a great vaccine but terrible communication. >> it's been baffling recently. news alert on united airlines let's get to phil lebeau with details. phil >> reporter: wilf, we're seeing this from a number of airlines united out with an expansion of services this summer this case, it is going to be targeting vacationers in the midwest. here's what united is announcing as part of the summer expansion. new routes, new service just for the summer to 26 different destinations we're going to call these coastal vacation hot spots a charleston, south carolina pensacola, florida hilton head. at the same time united is also saying that it is going to be back 100% to prepandemic levels when it comes to caribbean and latin american levels. passenger levels are increasing not just for united but for all the airlines

they're down between 40 and 45%. it is hard to see that we have seen an uptick we were seeing passenger levels down 60 to 65%, now it's down 40 to 45% compared to 2019. forget about comparing to last year 13 straight days with more than 1 million passengers in a day being screened by the tsa. more seats in the sky by the airlines they're doing a dramatic increase in the number of seats and capacity up 30% in may. increases by june. by july a 41% increase take a look at the shares of united we saw a nice little run up for the airline stocks, i want to say like two weeks ago since then it's been a bit of a pull back for not just united but all of the airline stocks as people say, okay, we're baking in, wilf, that we're going to see more flying this summer going into the fall. now the question becomes some of

those trickier questions, okay, what are you going to do with your debt levels are you going to be able to get back to sustained profitability, et cetera? >> phil, there's also questions i guess for the airlines, interesting to see this is obviously focused on leisure routes, not business routes. and we had ryan on saying this summer they expected the capacity to be back to 2019 levels but the other point is capacity is not the same as revenue. and it depends where pricing is. >> i know. >> too many airlines are adding on this leisure based capacity for the summer >> reporter: they are getting stronger pricing, wilf it depends on the route, but they are getting stronger pricing. look, if you've gone and checked out a flight for let's say august, the change in prices now compared to a month ago, dramatic and that will continue here over the next several weeks

>> phil, thanks so much. coming up, we're going to talk fed, interest rates and economy with former dallas fed president richard fisher coming right back

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welcome back, everybody. we welcome richard fisfisher, senior advisor to barclays great to have you here. >> thank you, becky. good morning >> good morning. i know that you have been on the advisory board to the governor of the state of texas, also to the dallas mayor about reopening there. i know that you continue to talk to the governor. why don't you just give us an update on where things stand in texas right now and what you see happening around the country when it comes to reopening >> well, come this monday every texan adult above the age of 15, i think, will be getting their vaccine, so that's good. as you know, the economy was open 100%. there was a controversy when the governor announced simultaneously the mask requirement would be removed it was up to individual businesses to decide we're seeing already a huge swing back, for example, in restaurants and in bars.

these are sectors that were hurt horribly so our economy is surging forward and of course it also is encouraged by the amount of movements, becky, that we're seeing of corporations and individuals relocating here. we had 500,000 people move to the state of texas from tristate area and the west coast last year alone so the mood here is good the economy is surging forward and even the dallas fed, their data they put out publicly is we are recovering much faster than we thought we would. things are good, becky the amount of hospitalizations and covid cases is going down. we were at a peak of covid cases positive testing at 17 over almost 18,000 at the peak. we're down to almost 3,800 on a

daily basis. things are improving i wouldn't be surprised to see a double digit increase. >> the fed put out its growth figures for the year much higher gdp growth forecast than they've had up to this point. it's something you're seeing in other places too faster than expected return which brings us to what we're looking at with rates. still below 1.7% on the 10-year. does that make sense to you? >> well, i think rates are taking a bit of a breather the 5-year auction wasn't terribly dramatic. 2.57 is the break-even the option came out around 75 basis points there's still deeply negative years. the 2-year auction here is a yawner, as they say. rates are taking a pause clearly with a surge in economic growth nationally, even up there

in new york, you're our favorite flyover state as we like to say in texas, adults 50 and older getting their vaccines this is going to lead to enormous consumption driven by increased employment where people go back to work demand is high there will be inflationary pressure we heard general mills taking pricing where they can we're hearing that elsewhere to the nature of the business leaders to do that, if they can get away with it, their customers will tolerate it i think there he is a little bit of inflation being imputed here. obviously significant economic growth we're doing better than any other sphere in the world. maybe china will grow as quickly as we do, not the europeans. right now i think we're in a pause period and the 10-year settled down below 1.7 1.6 is enormous change from the beginning of the year and it's

low in historic nominal turns. >> to your point about european growth likely to lag, do you think that will persist for quite a number of years in the same way it did after the last crisis with that in mind, is it possible that u.s. rates will get a bit of a benefit from global rates still remaining much lower and therefore kind of anchoring what level of increase we might see >> of course that differential is important it has implications for the dollar we've seen the dollar bottom out and raise its head and let's face it, europe is weaker than we are the vaccine program has been very poorly administered it's a testimony to what's happening here we're outperforming. i would expect it to be reflected in money wanting to come here. that should hold down rates. at the same time, a surge in growth and these ee norm muss government deficits.

whenever they talk about spending, that puts pressure on the rates. good question. >> richard, let's get back to your question about inflation. is this inflation going to be temporary or not i can see the argument for thinking some of the inflation would be temporary retailers haven't been able to -- haven't had to offer discounts on anything. consumers have been there. they've had a huge amount of demand they have not been able to get the supply chain to get what they needed in the past so there's not as much supply you don't see sales just about anywhere for anything. then when you start hearing general mills, to your point, questioning whether or not to raise the price. if they raise the price for cereal, they're not coming back down they plan to be steady >> i agree they'll take as much pricing as they can that's the nature of business. that's what you try to do. maximize your margins, particularly when you're under

cost pressure. the issue, becky, inflation is a constantly moving target it has to keep increasing over time the fed is basing its decision making right now on an assumption that we're going to have a, quote, transitory inflationary push. the real question is is that going to happen or not my concern with monetary policy is that it acts with a lag on the real economy if you wait to act, if you find it's not transitory, you'll just compound the problem so this will be a real test. i understand their logic and i think they're probably correct in their assumption, but there is a risk that they're not and once you get this dynamic moving, we saw this in 2008 before the legs were pulled out under the table when lehman failed we were running a significant inflationary pressure, 19.2% if you took the monthly and annualized it.

and demand collapsed now demand is surging and that should put pressure on rates that may lead to a dynamic, may, the risk is low, could lead to a dynamic where businesses get used to it and prices more aggressively continuing. how's that for happy -- >> no, i follow your point i get it we had the currents dallas fed president on with us earlier this week, president kaplan, and he's pretty hawkish about things he basically told us that he thinks the fed's going to have to raise rates sooner than anticipated. he must be one of the earlier dots on the dot plot i'm guessing this is what you see. >> no, because my predecessor which is a real dog. kaplan is outstanding. i know that chairman powell

listens to him very carefully. he has a good background in capital markets. he was vice chairman of goldman sachs. i'm proud he was picked as my successor. he understands supply side economics which most economists do not the ones surrounding the masuppy side economy i think he's got an interesting perspective and i would listen to him very carefully. he's a thought full guy, because he's from the dallas fed, of course >> richard, it's great to see you this morning >> he is actually more qualified than i was, becky, to have that job given his background in the markets and it's important to have people that understand the markets at the fed and he's one of the best in my view. >> well, as i said, we always listen to you very carefully, richard. great to have you this morning

we'll see you soon. >> thank you, bevely thank you, wilf. >> much appreciated. thanks for joining us. a few headlines this morning. pandemic related lockdowns have resulted in smaller areas because of the flu rite aid would report a smaller loss due to a 37% of the sale of cold, cough. a containership that's stuck blocking the suez canal. it's blocking transit. rescuers are warning that clearing the blockade could take weeks. disney's disney+ streaming service is raising prices from tomorrow the monthly price will go up $1 to $7.99 a month annual subscription will increase by $10 to $79.99 per year it's growing far quicker than people expected.

digital bank startup greenwood wants to close the racial wealth gap. we'll speak to the company's founder and chairman after the break. time now for today's aflac trivia question. which state has the most mcdonald's locations the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues teve, who's got two broken arms and one unexpected medical bill. i mean look at this guy, he can barely open his bill! aflac! let's look at the re-pain replay. lost the dunk challenge, the use of his arms... and his dignity. aflac? aflac would have been the smart play. they pay cash directly to help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. should we give him a hand? get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. aflac! official partner of march madness. oh, that's wrong. what's wrong? your swing. that's terrible... you gotta put your knees into it, put your knees into it. that's too smooth.

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now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. which state has the most mcdonald's locations the answer, california with 1,252 locations, or 9% of all locations in america welcome back digital bank startup greenwood wants to help close the racial wealth gap it's trying to close the divide between black and latin x. greenwood raised money from

series a bonds joining us now in a "squawk" exclusive is greenwood co-founder and chairman ryan glover who exactly is the target customer clearly with some of those backers, one wonders whether those banks could have done something of this ilk themselves the target customers are people they're not reaching >> right so just to be clear, greenwood is a fintech bank that provides digital banking to the culture the target is the african-american, latin x community and allies this summer we will release our first depository apple android pay, global atm networks, two day early pay, peer-to-peer transfers

so, yes, we're targeting african-american, latin x community along with some of the top financial institutions in the country that have helped us raise series a capital to the tune of $40 million series a funding. >> and why do you think you will be able to connect with those customers better than those big banks that have partly invested in you >> well, you know, to be clear with you, this multi-generational wealth gap problem will take an all hands on deck solution it will take collaboration from the community to advance racial equality and financial empowerment. we're really fortunate to have ventures that led the round along with other banks and financial service providers that joined forces with us to help solve the problem. so we're clear, our mission is

simple, wilf, to create non-predatory lending, to help recirculate capital and to provide banking capital to deserving borrowers. you know as well as i do, the black and latin x has not had access to building capital, building wealth like in other commu communities. >> are you powered by your own tech that you've developed or by that of some of the other banks and other partners that invested in you >> we are powered by our own tech we have dev shops that we are working with as i mentioned, we are launching the debit and spending product this summer. then we will rom into lending products investment products in 2024. >> you've raised $40 million of

equity so far. is na right? how about more capital needed once you fully launch? >> happy to announce we've raised $40 million series a round of funding just so you know, that round of funding represents more than just the amount of money raised. it's truly a testament to the businesses trying to help solve the problem. with this funding we will continue our mission of providing financial empowerment to the under served communities, racial equality and have a greater amount of resources to deliver world class banking services to our customers. we feel we are well capitalized to reach our goals. >> ryan, thanks so much for joining us and very best of luck with it. >> thank you still to come on "squawk box," intel ceo pat gelzinger.

it has manufacturing in an area where it's under performed it's doubling down in a weak area of good idea. that's the topic of this otoh. on the other hand. we did then we'll discuss the president's tax plan and corporate taxes with former chief of staff mick mulvaney and tomorrow swazy we'll be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box. i'm dominic chu with your market minute we're up 75% for the nasdaq composite on a one-year basis. still, the declines over the last couple of months worrying some investors one of the themes brought up so far is the outperformance of certain value oriented services and other parts have been beaten up the energy sector still up 29% on a year to date basis. financials up 13%.

energy a clear outperformer there. the worse performing sector is down 1% on the year to date. one of only three sectors. technology is another sector that's negative on the year as well taking a look at one of the etfs that's become emblematic of the sharp rise in the growth or riff ented stocks and steep falls, a ark innovation brings the total decline down to about 28% or so from the record highs that we saw. again, many names including tesla a big holding in the ark innovation etf then the stock that has been talked about so much because it was the best performing stock in the s&p 500 over the past 12 months is viacomcbs. they have a share sale coming up down another 3%. that brings the total drop here to 31% in just the last few days or so. keep an eye on that, becky i'll send things back over to

you. >> dom, thanks yeah, that and a whole lot of others we're trying to keep an eye on this morning. we'll see you later. when we come back, intel's ceo laying out plans to double down on manufacturing. is it a good idea to put so much energy into a spot that's been a weak spot? jon fortt joins us with on the other hand and corporate tax a focus for president biden and his team what will the number be? "squawk box" will be back after a quick break. a reminder you can watch us live quonhenbap t cc p. "sawk box" will be right back.

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fidelity investment preparing to launch its own bitcoin etf. fd funds a subsidiary filed with the sec to provide financial backing for the wise origin bitcoin trust which would track bitcoin performance. the company wouldn't comment more about the fund as it waits for sec approval last week the sec acknowledged a bitcoin etf proposal from van ek that's a longer term chart

i wish we had different metrics to show. in the last 24 hours it was as high as 57.5 and it traded as low as 51.5. it can correct and doesn't raise an eyebrow. >> i think the -- >> yeah? >> you know, my problem with it being a constant in the squawk stack is we have too many constants. all it is is the dow futures bitcoin, one thing you can move in and out i think we should have the squawk stack be different than the futures. like having viacomcbs would have been good. >> bitcoin is down 10% in the last day and that's a trillion dollar market cap company. it was at 57.5 >> the squawk stack will be the same four things all the time and one thing that comes in and out. >> you said it should be things that are moving. powell and yellen had testimony yesterday that were kind of of dismissive >> then we should explain why it's in there.

see, we got rid of the nasdaq futures. that makes more sense to me. move other stuff around. >> gamestop yesterday was probably something that was huge. >> it was huge that was my argument i was arguing to put gamestop in instead of futures. >> it shouldn't be static. we should have to have an explainer or reason. the dow futures shouldn't be in there. >> no, they shouldn't. >> shouldn't look like the futures board. >> there's times when something as inconsequential as amc can be in there or some crazy spac. >> or tesla. >> yeah, tesla is sort of one of the pillars of all of this stuff, i think. >> agreed. >> intel >> no, i agree i think it should be more -- my problem is we have the same four things and there's only one of those boards that moves and we

should mix it up every single time and explain why everyone's in there it's not just a futures board. it's a very specific squawk stack. >> we don't want the futures bitcoin is going to be there, it's a trillion dollars now. even when we do a segment on it, we do a video. we get 500 thousand views. i'm trying to bring in the millennials like wilf. >> me, hip >> place for the younger viewers. >> sadly the millennials like me missed out on bitcoin. i'm old for that >> well, i must -- anyway, let's go >> all right let's get back to intel. of course it made its name as the chip giant behind the pc era. a series of stumbles have it looking vulnerable pat gelsinger laid out a new turn around that included big investments and massive area where they have slipped up is doubling down on a weak area a good idea?

jon fortt is here to weigh in. what do you think? >> not a good idea a lot of analysts were hoping gelsinger would do the opposite. arm designs cores. doesn't make them. nvidia, no manufacturers qualcomm, amd outsource. they should have reduced the fab focus, not expand it there are lots of other places where the company can go to get its chips made on better processes than it has available today. sustaining the fab legacy isn't cheap. for the full year intel guided between 19 and $20 billion before we get into this dream. i get that gelsinger had to make an impression out of the gate to make a plan. going back to what didn't work, not bold. >> you may not think so, jon but the street thought so. the $20 billion plan to make chips for others is a plot

>> on the other hand, if you're betting against intel, you might as well bet against the future of the u.s. economy. all of this talk about fabs being weak is incredibly shortsighted like steph curry stopping shooting the three after a rough streak this is the semiconductor design and manufacturing both together. what's changed in this cloud and ai era is that customers aren't going to take off the shelf chips from a dominant provider pat gelsinger gets that and betting on that for a new era. that means letting customers order off the menu customize and it means building two fabs there were two choices, incremental and doom intel to death by a thousand cuts or on the future and the best talents to light the way all the other companies that don't make their own chips, that's the point they're going to run on them and get them made somewhere.

might as well be with intel in the u.s. >> that might be the big salvation, the timing on this. the biden administration is considering a lot of plans to allow additional tax writeoffs for companies manufacturing here that might make the difference too. >> it's not a small thing f. you're ever going to have big capital outlay, might as well have it when interest rates are low. geopolitical concern intel has fabs in the u.s., oregon, arizona, places like that also in germany and in israel. these are the very areas where it's possible to expand and where there are a lot of forces that want to see it get done. >> jon, thanks, as always, a convincing argument. >> very impressive. >> convincing argument with himself. >> let's quickly check -- jon fortt, thank you very much let's quickly check in on the markets before heading to break. turning negative on the futures board. the dow down 50 points or so

down 2% on the nasdaq at the close. we are now down on 3 of the averages in the futures market we'll be right back. our univer. seismic or small, it continues. change is all around us. shaped by technology and human ingenuity, we can make it work for you and your business.

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go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. the biden administration wants to hike the corporate tax rate to 28%. analysts say 25% is more likely. robert frank is here to describe why that small difference is a really big deal. good morning >> good morning, becky this is the most important

question for investors right now. will it be 25% or 28%? goldman sachs and other analysts saying 25% is the most likely compromise biden expecting to push for 28 now those three percentage points will make a huge difference to revenue, earnings and jobs study by the tax foundation found 25% corporate rate brings in 522 billion compared with 886 billion for the biden rate so that's a 40% less with the lower rate it reduces gdp by .4%. biden's rate would double that to .8% the drag is 3 times lower with that 25% rate. 3% versus 9% for biden's rate. and similar with incomes and job losses where the hit is almost twice as large with that 28% rate the tax foundation saying

biden's rate would cost about 160,000 jobs the lower rate or the 25% rate would cost about 80,000 jobs bottom line here, a 25% rate would still bring half a trillion in added revenue over time but have about half the impact on the economy and incomes, becky, which is why they're going to fight on both sides for every percentage point of this tax change, whether it's going to be 25 or 28 >> when you say both sides, do you mean both sides of the democratic party because the way you set this up it's going to be 25% or 28% and we'll see what happens i mean, that kind of sets it up for being 25% is a compromise. that's a compromise within the democratic party, right? >> yeah. this just assumes that they do it through reconciliation and they don't try to go bipartisan route. i think republicans have been very clear that at this point in the economy they don't want any

tax increase on companies which would filter down to jobs. this is the moderates versus the more liberal ring of the democratic party and of course the white house. biden since this campaign has been pushing for 28. >> that whole analysis just depressed me that's all it did for me, robert when we're spending 1.9 trillion, 1.4, 2.3, 3 trillion, we're spending it like, hey, what's the big deal? you're talking ten years to get back half a trillion ten years on the 1 so we're spending 3, 4 trillion and, you know, we don't even argue about half a trillion in those numbers but this entire thing would raise 500 over the next ten years that's depressing. we can't even make -- >> we all have to get back to a time when $100 billion -- when $100 billion actually was real money. yeah, because it is.

>> all right let's welcome mick mulvaney who served in the trump administration and was the white house chief of staff and founder of exigis and new york congressman tom swazy. i bet you two gentlemen both agree that, i mean, houston, we have a problem i don't know, it's got to be paid for somehow, mick, right? is your view that we just cut, cut, cut and don't try to raise any revenue? or do you have something you can accept somewhere in terms of raising taxes that will be the least harmful to the economy and what we're trying to accomplish here what's a way to do it? >> good morning, guys. your premise is wrong. your premise is that we have to pay for it washington just doesn't look at it like that you are going to hear people say they're talking about raising taxes for the purpose of paying for something.

that's not right i'm glad you hit on that critical factor that this half a trillion that this tax increase might raise if they get the bins biggest invaes they possibly can is over 10 years on the high end 50 billion a year versus $6 trillion of additional spending over the course of the last year for covid stimulus washington doesn't pay for stuff anymore. taxes are about politics they're about following through on promises made democrats ran on taxing the rich they won good for them. that's how elections work out. you're going to get taxes but it's poor political reasons not economics. economics are detached from this. >> there's a lot of reasons, congressmen, democrats think about taxes. it's not to pay for things sometimes it's what they view as fairness and what probably critics will view as pure income redistribution >> well, i want to make it clear i'm not going to support any

change in the tax code whatsoever, mick will be happy to hear this, unless there's a restoration of the s.a.l.t that's a chip i've laid on the table. we need to hear the president's budget mick will tell you as the former budget director for president trump that you really don't know which way things are going to go until you hear what the president lays out as his plan then we'll eresponsibility to that you heard that from the former chair of the ways and means cumulative committee he was fighting for 25%, obama was at 28% and the trump administration went down to 21%. nobody really saw that coming. it didn't really make any sense. we need to see what the president has to say the bottom line is there's good borrowing and there's bad borrowing. good borrowing is borrowing for

long-term capital improvement. i'm a former cpa when you borrow for some money, you borrow money to pay for a road that's going to last for 40 years, bridge, sewer, water distribution, broadband, schools, hospitals that people are talking about. that's good borrowing. that makes sense to pay for that over a long period of time interest rates, historically the way they've been jay powell has come out and said he's going to keep interest rates down >> congressman, i've got to go back to the s.a.l.t. thing for a second i just -- on the one hand when democrats talk about fairness, they have a totally different notion i think of what fairness is than maybe other people in other words, pay your fair share. someone can be paying 60%, if they have a lot that's not enough but the s.a.l.t., all you're doing is helping the top 10% you're a cpa how much of the s.a.l.t., if you repeal that, how much of that

accrues to people in the top 10%, 95%. >> not 95% but a very high percentage. >> why do you want to do that? >> you define fairness as rich versus poor. it's not fair that you pay taxes on taxes you've already paid it's not fair that the first deduction in the history of the united states of america was the s.a.l.t. deduction it was yanked away from states like mine causing people to leave my state. >> you're an outlier in your party then, congressmen. if you don't define fair the way i defined it mick, that's the way i hear about fair. >> it's not about rich versus poor, it's basic fairness. we've created enormous wealth in the united states of america the dow jones has gotten up to 115% the workers have not gotten it. >> getting rid of s.a.l.t. is not going to help that

that will make it worse, tom that will make income inequality i understand you're representing your constituents. >> progressive states like mine can't be afford to lose the high income, the moderate income people leaving the state leaving the lower income, moderate income behind to hold the bags we're subsidizing south carolina and north carolina and florida and arizona and other states that are building new roads, bridges, new sewers. >> mick -- >> yeah. >> -- republicans are just as bad because this would help all of their constituents. they don't want to do it because they don't want to help the blue states that have spent too much money. >> i was actually trying really hard, joe, to agree with tom i like tom from everybody i've talked to, he's a great democrat to work with you asked a question, he answered it and i didn't

what kind of borrowing can you justify? the best kind of spending, letting people keep their own because that's the most efficient, the next is infrastructure and the worst is the wealth redistribution. if tom is making the point that you should borrow money at low interest rates for long-term capital improvements, i can agree with that. he lost me when he talked about new york subsidizing people. people pay taxes and people receive government benefits. that's the way the democrats wanted it. they're the ones having to deal with it. anyway, a s.a.l.t. deduction is probably going to be changed i think anybody can agree with that now that the democrats are in charge. it will be interesting to see how they do couch that because it benefits the richest americans and how they melded in

with the tax increase for americans. i've heard this a lot. people have heard about reforming s.a.l.t. in order to reform taxes, raise money. changing the s.a.l.t. deduction. giving the s.a.l.t. deduction back to the highest earners will take money out of the treasury and give it back that's fine if that's what you want to do you can't say we're going to raise money. that's not how the math works. >> i'm saying this is about progressive states, blue states like ours that provide tremendous services to people, that have relied on this deduction in a long time when i was born in 1962, i'm 58 years old, new york had 58 members and it's going down and we're losing based on the pandemic, the salt deduction. >> tom just made my case for me. he started with people -- >> mick, let me finish

>> it has very little to do with the pandemic and everything to do with the way your state is run. >> can i finish what i'm saying? >> more competitive. you need to make new york state more competitive now you need to get our fair share of the money that we are sending to the federal government we are the biggest net donor to the federal government in any state. we send more money than we get back than any other state. 150 bhld over the past five years. >> i tried to use my right ear to listen to tom and my left ear to listen -- it didn't work. i didn't hear anything thanks they're playing us out we've got to go. thanks for being with us still to come, big tech ceos testifying before congress again. this time it's centered around stopping the spread of misinformation we'll talk what to expect ahead of today's hearing, coming next. later, the latest read on

jobless claims we're bringing those numbers as soon as they cross futures are slipping a little t. thdow is down about 85 costa rica, 1971.ft and in 1990, they opened lrazu. when the pandemic hit, pickup and delivery was still viable. that kept us afloat. keeping our diners informed on google was so important. the support from our customers, it honestly kept us going. i will always be grateful for that. ♪

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maintaining 100% effective rate against severe illness tech's biggest ceos prepare to get grilled again. they will face lawmakers on the spread of misinformation the huge containership that turned sideways in the suez canal is still stuck we're hearing it could be there for weeks. slow moving ship though coming up as the final hour of "squawk box" begins now. ♪ ♪ good morning oh, you're in the middle that's good. >> who's to the right of me. who's to the left of me. >> i'm jokers. joe kernen i'm here along with becky quick

and wilfred frost. the market in spite of the ten year, the yield has dropped even more that's not working at this point. lower yield has to be about reopening. even though the suez canal is blocked, oil can't get out of its own way. very strange yesterday that was pretty ugly in the nasdaq as the day went on that was not great yesterday either you saw the woods ark etf down almost 30% something is amiss i don't know whether thisis -- they don't ring a bell and usually it starts kind of slow when things roll over. is that what we're seeing? >> you saw the spac from the -- >> spac. >> the spac post merger chart down joe, it gets back to a point you made earlier this week that is that real goldilocks

perspective. you don't want rates to get too high. >> 1.65 to 1.7 if it's not there, we've got problems but there have been. are we really surprised with all of that. we mention spacs, ipos, bitcoin, technology, tesla, gamestop. i mean, how many different -- >> amc, discovery. you can run through a million of these. >> what's his name, bepe, beeple. >> beeple. >> there's money around. i don't know maybe this is the beginning of a little bit of a moderation than you would call it. >> yeah. and maybe the way of looking at that is look how far all of them ran up they're down 30% from the highs but the highs are the numbers that skyrocketed you look at longer term charts five days from the spac post yield. longer-term chart, maybe it's to be expected. when you see a huge run up,

you're going to get a pull back. it's a question of when and how much we'll keep watching this it does make it interesting. the squawk stack, i think the issue with that is you're only looking at real time trading a lot of times the longer charts even if it's only a day or a couple of days show you much more. >> sometimes i've wanted a chart in there, definitely or interday chart to show you what we're -- we can't do that though but can definitely make it flexible i agree with that. i'm just worried about, you know, some of the most speculative parts of the market are definitely showing some -- i don't know whether it's a quake but it seems like a preshock or something. how much of that error or excitement, if you see that come

back to earth -- >> with a straight face >> reporter: this hearing will be the first time we've heard from the ceos of facebook, twitter and alphabet since the riot on the capitol back on january 6th. the three ceos will stress their efforts to remove all types of hate speech and misinformation jack dorsey in his prepared remarks talks about bird watch,

a pilot program. it allows them to tweet things that are false and blue sky's independent team working on open standards on wall street and google is working on authoritative searches they pulled down 12 million pieces of false information about covid vaccines now in contract to dorsey and pichai who want to preserve the section 230 yield, mark zuckerberg will offer changes to 230. platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades the deticketion but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content. we'll also have to see how much

of the conversation today focuses on vaccines. that misinformation was the focus of a letter sent just yesterday by a dozen state attorneys general to facebook and twitter demanding they do more to tamp down on that type of misleading content. becky? >> hey, julia, just the point of what zuckerberg is looking for, i can understand that you don't want to be held liable for every single post but what he's laid out is kind of squishy and hard to see how you would build a law around it. we have to have systems in place but if the systems in place don't work, don't blame us >> what's interesting, this is the first time that he or any of the ceos have made specific recommendations for how to form section 230. zuckerberg said we do need to make changes to this law it needs to be updated what he's basically saying is we need to be held to certain standards about what we put in place. if things sneak through that, if

misinformation or hate speech somehow gets through our systems, as long as we're doing our best, you should judge us on our effort, not on the outcome it's a very complicated thing to judge. >> those vaccines, we were talking earlier. a lot of the vaccine misinformation came from 12 people who had a bunch of their own accounts they were running maybe that doesn't sound as much of a big problem to try and address as they've made it seem. >> i mean, yes and no. there's also been a report that over 59 million followers on facebook, youtube and instagram and twitter saw misinformation about vaccines that's the problem when something goes viral is you can take a piece of information that's false and if you engineer it properly you can spread it to many, many more people that 59 million number was what was cited by the state attorneys general and i think what's crucial about what's happening today, there is an example of misinformation that is happening in the midst of this conversation so i think they

might cite that as one thing to be worried about right now i think we'll really see people like zuckerberg trot out those numbers on how many pieces of misinformation they've pulled down specifically about vaccines and covid to show what an effort they're making to really make sure to get the word out because that's another piece of this how can these platforms be a force for good, not just tamping down misinformation but getting the true information out there. >> especially when 59 people saw the posts because your algorithms were promoting that good luck with that. great to see you we'll talk to you soon. >> let's talk more about online misinformation, section 230 and the content tight rope that social media giants are trying to walk. they say a matter and antimatter ever meet the universe will end. we're very close to this joining us is jonathan greenblatt and kevin o'leary,

chairman of o shares and host of "shark tank. you've done this before and it makes for good discussions jonathan, i'm going to start with you every time i see you i say, have you made any progress? you want the world to be as perfect as it can possibly be and i always point out that's at the risk of really suffocating a lot of free speech and the cancel culture and even promoting it even more are you getting where you need to be yet? on twitter, everybody has been canceled who says anything are you there on facebook? what more needs to be done where you're living in a world where you feel like there's no -- nothing controversial? >> well, you know, it's always a pleasure to see you, joe i think what you've laid out, like this quest for utopia, is really not what we're looking for at all we're simply looking for an effort at decency.

if you want to talk about that for a minute, i think what becky laid out just before when you look at the prevalence of antivaxxer accounts that have been amplified and spread across facebook they don't show up on your network but they show up every day to billions of people because facebook profits from amplifying these voices which are literally killing people so i don't think, you know, freedom of speech necessarily means freedom of reach people have the right to say that they don't want to take the vaccines, they have the right to say there are jewish space lasers, they have the right to say certain kinds of people are bad but the fact of the matter is, facebook and twitter and google also have the right to decide whether they want to elevate those voices, they want to profit off those voices, they want to amplify them for the world to see unfortunately, they continue to make the wrong decision. take just for example what was laid out again just before our segment when they talked about mark bragging having gotten rid

of 1 billion plus accounts or a billion plus posts last quarter. if facebook had any transparency, and we could look at their progress quarter over quarter, but they don't show us that they're unwilling to give us what every other public company does, which is information about their product that you can use as investors or we can use as stakeholders or congress can use as regulators. so all we're saying is -- all we're saying is put people over profits. all we're saying is behave by the same rules that every other business in america abides by. all we're saying is apply a modicum of moral leadership to your $86 billion company >> decency and twitter, i don't know i'm not optimistic kevin, youwant to respond? >> sure. actually, let's take it right from the top freedom of speech means freedom of speech. there is no way to define it any other way. it includes allowing the lunatic

fringe to say what they wish when it comes to the vaccine, you know, i'll tell you something, there's a reason we're only going to get to 2/3 of this population before you hit a brick wall you have to listen to everybody's opinion. for example, the health care worker that gave me my shot was 24 years old i asked her when she took hers to get some information about what it would be like for the first shot by pfizer she said, i'm never taking this. i never had my kids yet. when i discussed it later, i said, what do you tell her he said, what can i tell her we simply don't have the data yet. she has every right to have her opinion. when you add the cohort of women in their 20s and 30s to people that won't take vaccines, that basically gets to 30% of the population they have every right to say no. they have every right to put their voice out there and ask for the data there's no reason we shouldn't have this debate frankly, i want to point something out about bashing tech companies. what you keep doing is end up

like europe. they bashed their companies a long time ago. now they don't have a tech sector the only way to get tax revenue is litigate them including all of the american companies that service countries like france and germany. technology is disruptive it powers productivity now lately the company to bash du jour is facebook. it allowed it to digitize direct to consumer over the last year why is it such a great idea to bash it? frankly, canceling people's voices makes a lot of americans uncomfortable. i find it really difficult to make that decision on a daily basis. i would rather live with the lunatic fringe, shine transparency, give factual information out there and, lastly, if people really didn't like facebook, they could simply turn it off and not use it same with twitter. technology constantly changes. look at ibm.

it's a zombie company. it was the bohemoth 30 years ago. there's going to be something replacing facebook one day too you have to let the market be the market and not try to determine what is right and wrong with it. the consumer does that every day on their own >> definitely a different opinion than yours, john >> it must be -- i've got to say, kevin, it must be a wonderful universe you live in the one i live in, we are still sifting through the rubble of january 6th. if you want to know how that happened, it's because armed militias organized out in the open on facebook in the '80s when j&j had a futile will he noll bottles that were tampered with, they took everyone off the shelf, fixed the product before they put it on the market. and in the '90s odwalla had a child that died because of one

of their juices, they took everyone off the shelf and reformulated the production process. i don't think it's saying too much foran $86 billion company to think they couldn't take their product off the shelf and fix it so it doesn't, i don't know, cause an insurrection in the capitol. let's be clear, i strongly agree with my friend steve hoffman, ceo of reddit. it is okay to be a lunatic fringe, just keep them on the fringe we've talked about this before when you're willing to have a white supremacist come and pitch on your show shark tank, then you can come back to me and tell me how you cherish free speech when you are willing to do that, i'm willing to come on here and tell you how you've shown me i'm wrong. >> i would much prefer the market to be full of information that's factual, of course everybody wants that if tylenol didn't fix their problem, my friend, the company wouldn't exist they did everything in their

power to correct it with the information they had at hand asking one man, a zuckerberg or dorsey to fix society's problems and eliminate all voices is virtually impossible >> this isn't about fixing >> it's not going to happen. i'm very happy that you get to have your opinion. i want you to have your opinion. i want you to cry out what you believe in just as i do and then let people make their own decisions. that's what really makes this economy powerful and this whole democracy work everybody should have the right to speak out and say what they believe. >> everybody has the right the question is whether we amplify and elevate those individuals. look, the -- >> who's going to decide you're going to decide what i get to hear? it's your decision i don't think so, my friend. >> it's not my decision. a law that shields the companies from liability, kevin, allows facebook to do what j&j and

coca-cola and no other company traded on the nasdaq can do. i mean, honestly, this is a crazy conversation you know, we have been fighting for the first amendment at adl since before you and i were born and we will continue to fight for it erociously, but freedom of speech, kevin, is not the freedom to slander and freedom to express your opinion is not the freedom to incite violence but for facebook it is, that needs to change. that's all it's simple. there's nothing wrong with keeping all of us safe from violent white supremacists or hateful people you know, last week we're still recovering and mourning those who were lost in atlanta we released our annual survey of online hate and harassment we saw a huge spike, 50% of harassment directed at asian-americans in the past year despite all of the promises of the companies and scrutiny we have got to do better not only for asian-americans but for all-americans who shouldn't be

subjected to hate and harassment simply because they are on facebook. >> i hope you're not suggesting facebook or any social media platform is responsible for deranged madmen. that's just not the fact this has been a problem long before social media. it's very unfortunate and we constantly keep looking at it, but you can't blame all society's ills on social media i would argue that the benefits it provides and what it did for us during the pandemic far outweighs the concerns you have. nobody wants these things to happen nobody agrees that they're good. but they're part of the society we live in and then trying to fix the 1 or 2% of the lunatic fringe and take down the other 98% is just not going to happen and you're going to have to learn to deal with that. >> you should talk to taylor force's family, the young west point graduate who was stabbed to death in israel by a hamas member, hamas organized to incite violence against jews and

israelis on facebook talk to the people, kevin, who have experienced this stuff. i'm telling you, when you're willing to have hamas and white supremacists on "shark tank," when you're willing to judge them, then i'm willing to be judged by you about these arguments don't work >> gentlemen, it was very compelling on both sides great debate points. thank you both jonathan and kevin o'leary we've got to do it again and we will there's a reason you two guys are on together. still to come, we've got a live update on a huge containership stuck sideways in the suez canal ayuned we'll be back in a couple of minutes. emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize and improve the electric grid. emerson. consider it solved. ♪♪

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wars have been fought over the suez canal it hosts $3 billion in freight every single day about 50 ships move through here it's been 48 hours since it's

been blocked by this ship, which is actually one of the largest container ships in the world now just today we heard from the head of the japanese company that owns the ship there's going to be a dutch and japanese salvage team appointed to work with local authorities to try to get this ship back on the move yesterday we heard some rumblings that the ship had been partially refloated. turns out that's not the case at all. it's still very much blocking the suez canal as far as markets are concerned, the prevailing wind that's buffeting oil indices is still the coronavirus. the lack of demand because of oil because of shutdowns and lockdowns still means that the price of oil is going to be depressed a little bit even though yesterday we saw the price go up just a little bit. it seems as though this hasn't yet really had an effect on oil prices, at least not on a global level. that could change in the coming days

once we hit the weekend, once it becomes clear, if it becomes clear that this is going to be lasting for days or weeks rather than hours, we could actually start to see it have a knock on effects in global markets. >> very good we appreciate that report. we need to widen that canal maybe for starters that might be hard to do let's focus on this. thank you. coming up, who says spacs are all the rage just when you thought blank check mania would take over, regular old ipos are grabbing the spotlight. run down a dozen ask why the sudden log jam stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box"n bc ocn in boxing or any other business, one day, you're gonna take a hit you didn't see coming. do you stay down? or do you get up?

[announcer] and this fight is a long way from over, leonard is coming back. ♪♪ ♪♪ everyone wakes up every morning to a world that must keep turning. the world can't stop, so neither can we. because the things we make, help make the world go round. they make it cleaner, healthier, and more connected. it's what we build that keeps things moving forward. so with every turn, we'll keep building a world that works.

spacs seem to have gotten all of the attention on wall street traditional ipos are making a comeback good morning, leslie. >> reporter: good morning, becky. ipos are back with a vengeance this week. the question is whether anyone actually wants to buy them six debuts today, six tomorrow and others like coursera and compass and robinhood. vizio makes tvs. diversey makes cleaning supplies more businesses are focused on customer hygiene cricut makes crafting machines all three ipos priced at the low end. a rarity in the ipo world. last year only 7% of deals priced towards the bottom of the range or below leonardo drs postponed its ipo

after the italian aerospace company was unable to get the valuation it wanted for the u.s. unit perhaps the recent surge in deal activity is also what has investors spooked. according to renaissance capital, this week was set to be the highest. it was set to make a 15-year high in deal activity although with the postponement of leonardo, that is shy of 2006. the buy side sentiment appears to be unwilling to make that supply glut. investors are being more careful. lots of questions to ask the ceos of today's ipos who will join us on cnbc in a few hours, guys >> leslie, that ipo chart, the ipo etf chart you showed looked an awful lot like the spac post

merger chart we've been watching it seems like there's less interest all the way around. people are more cautious across all fronts >> the two are inextricably linked those are the ones who would be buying shares of new issues like ipos of operating companies as well if you are facing a bit of pain and a similar type of investment, new stock being issued into the market, you may be a little more hesitant to put money to work in ipos of operating companies. >> thanks, leslie. good to see you. we've got a bit of data crossing rick santelli has it for us. hey, rick. >> hi, wilf. indeed last walk around the block on fourth quarter gdps. we end up close to the first quarter. that number actually ramped up pretty good, wilf. expecting it to stay around the originally released 4.1 on the second look. it jumps up to 4.3 let's go back to the initial

jobless claim. we have good news here we finally breach the 700,000 mark 711,000. the lowest level was early november and we all remember 695,000, sort of where we were prior, you know, to the covid experience so we are now at levels precovid. this is wonderful news on continuing claims, we've reached 4 million. 3,870,000. that will be benchmarked against a revised number currently still standing at 4.12 million last week on initial standing at 770,000. my guess is these numbers will trip some revisions soon let's go back to the gdp because the consumption number is very important. that department hit the extra strength that headlined in, 2.3. that loses a tick from 2.4 the pricing index stays stable

at 2%. quarter over quarter, arguably a fed sort of favorite or one of their favorites. that's 1.3 also down .1 to 1.4 revisions are trickling in, gentlemen. it moves up 11,000 and the 4.124 million moves up to 4.13 which makes the drops that much more enjoyable. wilf, back to you. >> wilf, thank you steve liesman is with us as well steve, what's your reaction to this the gdp uptick, is that going to lead us to have more problems in q1 this year >> i don't think so. i do want to say, wilf, i want to be happy about the jobless claims numbers i am happier definitely better news we're under 700,000.

there's going to be a time the economy takes off because of the vaccine or we've opened up or a combination of both. the trouble is i'm still seeing people in the two separate or specific pandemic programs that were created for unemployment assistance, both the pandemic unemployment assistance which is the one for gig workers, self-employed workers that went up in the prior week that's the week of march 6th as well as the pandemic emergency extended benefits. both of those are going up you have something like 18.9 million. rick is right. the trend is good on the front end. what we see when we look in the rear-view mirror are there still issues in the job market that suggest there is softness there and we're not ramping up the way we hope to ramp up, wilf we're putting 1 million, 2 million people a month back to work when we see those kinds of numbers, that's when you can say hey we're really back on the

track of reopening. >> steve, thank you. wait, can i have steve one more second? don't go away. what was the number you said says we're back on track >> we're putting 1 and 2 million a people a month back to work. we did what was it 300 something thousand in the last month you'll see these numbers i think those are what the numbers are going to look like, becky. i don't think that's crazy to see when this economy is reopened when all of the leisure and hospitality places, restaurants, bars when that happens, that's when we're going to be really ramping up there's going to be a time when i look back in this data and say this was the moment that we took off, and we could be there and maybe this going under 700,000 on the front end of claims is the moment. >> that's what i wondered because there are a lot of states that have already reopened or that never really shut down. you think florida, you think texas, you see georgia i mean, there's enough in the

states that have shut down you think that we're going to be seeing adding a million jobs a month plus getting into these snums. >> reporter: that's what i think is going to happen you remember kaplan the other day, it was really interesting we asked him what he thought about texas reopening. he said, hey, the government's doing what the government's doing. the question -- by the way, powell has been big on this from the get-go, becky. this is not just an issue of the government having a lot of closed or open things, it's a matter of consumer confidence to return that consumer confidence issue is an issue of business having the confidence to hire people because consumers have the confidence to come back. it's a bit of a chicken or egg question when that happens, okay, i opened up. i had half my staff. i was over filled. i had the line out the door. next weekend 3/4 of my staff the full staff will come back when the confidence of consumers combines with the reopening from

the government >> thank you, steve. it's going to be something to watch. let's bring in another voice on this. lindsay piazzus, the chief economist at steeple do you agree with steve's assessment there, that this is like turning the lights back on and we're going to be getting a million jobs plus a month coming back in a rush >> i wish i could say yes. i think it's going to be a much slower trickle as we see, to steve's point, confidence. still remain under pressure even with state and local officials to return to business as usual, there will be a lingering hesitancy on the consumer front to return to crowded movie theaters or crowded conference centers. i don't think it's going to be as easy as flipping the switch back on. it will take some time to the point of the data this morning, we are seeing further improvement in the jobless claims gdp steady around 4% this does support the thesis that we are taking sizeable steps in the right direction, but when we look at this on a

nominal basis, unemployment still up over 6%, jobless claims near 700,000 10 million americans still without a position of gainful employment 5 million reliant on federal unemployment assistance, it's very clear that we are far from out of the woods or the recovery is far from being complete and in fact with that growth profile increasingly reliant on federal stimulus, monetary stimulus, returning to a longer run sustainable organic platform i think is going to be increasingly difficult so i would say not only is this not a flip the switch scenario but it's going to be extremely bumpy getting to the sustainable organic platform years from now. >> lindsay, the one thing i'll say, i'll take steve's side on this the idea once people get vaccinated if we don't see a big resurgence in cases, if we don't see these strains take off, i do think there is a huge amount of pent-up consumer demand.

if people get vaccinated and they want to get out there, that's the equivalent of ripping the band aid off once they're back, that's not slow, maybe they're back in full force. >> i think there is pent-up demand there are states that never really shut down and have already begun the reopening process. again, it's going to be less of an entire flip the switch, the country reopens and really pockets of different areas in the country returning to meet that pent-up demand. again, against the backdrop against some lingering hesitancy to return to 100% business as usual. >> we will see how this plays out. lindsay, it's good to see you this morning >> thanks for having me. coming up, much more on the markets as we make our way towards the opening bell futures pointing slightly lower this morning there's some things happening in some of the other things we watch. we'll get a chance to mention it at some point. you're watching "squawk box" on

cnbc

something supposed to be non-correlated before we head back to break, down in the week it is down 13% on the week from

60,000, almost a minute ago it was almost under 50,000 on bitcoin. so certainly not uncorrelated. 13% loss from 60,000 down to 50,000 it does that without even thinking about it, i think, so the case can be made that maybe it's historic value, maybe it's gold tough to use as a currency when it can move 13% in the period of five trading sessions. coming up, details of a fight on twitter over amazon workers' attempts to unionize at a shipping cteenr in alabama we'll bring you the latest when "squawk box" returns

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cnbc headquarters. jim cramer some of the risks and trades are not looking too good today i don't know that's not interesting if you see tesla, jim, i'm wondering. tesla is representative of all of the new age thinking and everything else, but they also did, you know, take a big stake in bitcoin bitcoin is down. is this part of the same thing is it part of the balance sheet? does it hurt the company >> i think there's a malaise involving bitcoin, the excellent fund group involving tesla, involving the spacs where there is money coming out from everywhere involving what i would say is a series of negative statements we get about

the macro every day saying the fed doesn't understand the boom we're having it all comes together with a lot of the younger investors saying, good grief, i've had enough. they do -- i mean, even oil down today. there isn't anything that's working. then you've got the possibility of having companies in america being sacnctioned by the chines foreign ministry there's no place to hide we seem to think it's value versus growth. which companies report bigger earning surprises. those companies are not the ones that younger investors care about. they don't understand even the terminology. they were doing great, joe, for a full year. literally for a full year but now a lot of their things they like are not coming together don't forget, you have to talk about gamestop, but that was an amazing quarter. >> yeah, it sure did went down is an understatement but we do take for granted,

these are a lot of big moves. >> they're huge. >> widely held things that we talk about is it telling us anything? is it -- the thing wavering, jim, in the overall market that's pretty solid? >> i think there is a bit of a giveup going on in part of the market where i think there are a lot of people who felt there would be stimulus checks coming in the market is interesting that right about now robin hood files to become public we discover it's just an app it's precisely when the cohort says, i've had enough. i'm tired of losing money so get me out i think that has to happen this is the five stages of grief. they are in the depressed phase and the acceptance means i've got to go. they're not going to go in and start buying the stock in deere. that doesn't excite them they want quantumscape there's lots of stock being offered. not a lot of demand. joe, tesla is bitcoin which is

nonfungible tokens which is alchemy which is whatever we want to call it. you and i have been around you know what, we see these things we say, well, i hope it isn't sayonara i hope they have some stocks they like, like j&j or something. >> i want that one nft of the big o where he's eight feet off the ground and his legs are totally like this. he has the basketball down i want that nft being from cincinnati >> i looked at the -- put a bid in for this guy dev crypto, single page. it's aethereum i ended up missing by double but all i can tell you, joe, is there is a level of tdespair going on that is not in keeping with the dow jones industrial. >> thanks for stepping all right, beck. now there's some real food for thought. i have to think that through i think he's right

if the retail investors have been so hot and they disappear and don't come back, what does that mean? jim i'm sure will be talking about that in "squawk on the street." in the meantime, a notable argument breaking out on twitter surrounding drive by workers to unionize deidre bosa has the back and forth on that. good morning, deidre. >> reporter: hey, becky. this was rare but not totally unusual public move. dave clark is svp of worldwide operations clapping back in a tweet from bernie sanders who is supporting the unionization drive. i welcome senator sanders to birmingham and appreciate his push for a progressive workplace. i often say that we are the bernie sanders of employers but that's not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace for our constituents he goes on to outline amazon's

$15 minimum wage and benefits that they offer. no small amount of sarcasm then democratic representative hit back with this tweet paying workers $15 an hour doesn't make you a progressive workplace when you workplace, when you yunion bust and make workers -- >> amazon's official twitter handle, you don't believe peaing in bottles is a thing, do you? if that was true, nobody would work for us. and now, guys, there is more, but i will leave it there. with the back and forth. the point is that this unionization drive at alabama's amazon warehouse is heating up vote counting may 30th and we're very unlikely to get a clear decision for some time because of an expected appeal and it is shaping up to be a critical inflection point for amazon and the u.s. labor movement guys >> what you're seeing, the

clapback at this point, that there is ground being staked here de, thanks something to watch last night. i'm sure we will hear more about it see you soon. >> thanks. when we come back, final preview of the market day ahead. labradoodles, cronuts, skorts. (it's a skirt... and shorts) the world loves a hybrid. so do businesses. so, today they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place.

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just a half an hour to the opening bell on wall street, despite the recent churn in the markets our next guest says he is sticking with the tech and consumer sectors blueprint capital advisers should point out the futures have been slipping over the last hour or so, we're down about half a percent as we stand jake, good morning to you. my first question is whether you're concerned by the sort of intra-day action we've seen in the last week or two, particularly that final hour of trade, where we're tending to close at the lows of the day >> sure. i am concerned i think the market has recovered here, in a very, very short period of time when i think about the fact that, you know, it took us less than a year to recover all of the losses from this global pandemic, i have to say to myself that the market is getting tired. and it's struggling nowadays, to

hit new highs, and to stay at those high levels. and that's a sign. that's a sign that investors are starting to get jittery, they're starting to get concerned about the current valuations, they're starting to get concerned about interest rates, but more importantly, they're also missing positive news. right now all of the positive news that we needed to come into the market, to lift it to these new highs is out there we have more than enough vaccines to go around. and those are being disseminated maybe we're not getting the goals that we would like to hit but they're being disseminated we got the stimulus package that we were looking for. and right now, the market is just looking around and saying okay, what's next? i need something else to act as a catalyst to take this market to the next level. and so i don't see that something. and so i think from here out, we're going to struggle, and

we're probably due for what i'll call a benign correction, where some of the excesses get shaken out of the market, and reform the foundation of another leg of the bull market. in the second half of 2021 >> so what level of pullback are you looking for that would get you to be buying the dip, and what sector or stocks are you focused on to do so when that occurs >> sure, i'm still sticking with tech and consumers i still think that those have the most wind at their back, in the middle of this pandemic. and i think that the earnings numbers and the gdp numbers, in the second half of 2021, are going to be very supportive. until then, i think that we could see, you know, somewhere around 20 to 25% correction. we're seeing four or five, six, 7% moves in some of these tech names, on a daily basis, and so i don't think that 20 to 25%

correction is out of the range of expectations. in fact, again, i think that would be absolutely benign for the market from here >> and jake, just finally, the sort of spac complex and the ark university, is that an area you want to stay clear of? >> we've been doing a lot of work on spacs and trying to understand them, they have been around for a very long time but appear to be a new phenomenon as a way of raising capital and as a way of doing acquisitions. for the meantime, i think we're going to stick with good old-fashioned common stocks. and stay away from the spac markets because i don't think the market truly, and i say the market, i mean not just institutional investors, but retail investors, truly understand the economics of how spacs work and so it's another craze. it's another phase and let's see if it's just going to be a fad or if it's here to

stay, but for the time being, we're sticking to common stocks and staying away from spacs. >> jake, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. dom chu here with a look at some of the top stocks on the move in the premarket. what are you seeing this morning? >> we have kind of a plethora of them, and we will kick things off with an earnings mover, darden restaurant, 4% pre-market, 50,000 shares of volume, behind restaurants like the olive garden, long horn steakhouse, capital grill and darden expected a smaller than expected drop in sales growth at the restaurant locations and $500 million stock buyback and the shares up 4.5%. and nike down 6% pre-market over 400,000 shares of volume. the athletic footwear and apparel maker and dow component is taking a hit after becoming the target of criticism on chinese social media platforms

nike issued a statement saying that it was concerned about reports of forced labor conditions in the shinjung period, this is human rights groups alleging repression of ethnic minority uighur muslims in the region, and by the way the greater china region accounted for 23% of nike total brand sales in the most recent quarter and those shares down big. and then end on another dow component, cisco systems higher by 2% pre-market 100,000 shares of volume the computer networking company gets helped by an upgrade from an analyst at goldman stacks, goldman sachs, and 59 from 50. and offices open back up post-covid pandemic. so i will send things back to you. >> thanks, dom i'm laughing because becky, cisco systems, dow component, i know that, i know that, i knew that, i knew that, right, becky? i got it i remember

all right. united health care >> they change a little more frequently than we'd like. >> they do maybe i just, i don't know, i've seen a lot of dow components come and go. i remember when ge was the original. >> they change faster now. >> we got to go. a lot of things are down this will be, if you ever watch closing bell, today would be the day to do it make sure you join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" is next >> thanks. good morning, and welcome to "squawk on the street. i'm david fabe wer jim cramer. carl has the morning off, you heard joe talking about it, today, to watch a lot of what we have going on here because the markets are going to be volatile this morning, and this is after a number of difficult days, at least if you're long, and let's get to that, overall in the market, and of course, our road map where we will be talking about some of the underlying things as well, including of course, dc laying down the spac-down. the s.e.c.