startup backed by amazon, like the name, tanking in its public debut. we'll show you what's going on with the deliveroo ipo, wednesday, march 31st, 2021. this month has 31 days, apparently, "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky skwik along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. let's take a look at the u.s. equity, end of the trading -- end of the month in the quarter, forget about the trading part on that you'll see that the dow futures are down by 54 points. yesterday, the dow was down by triple digits.

there were some declines in the technology names that created the damage, microsoft and apple down each by 1%. but for the month, it's been pretty stunning. the dow is up more than 8% for the quarter to date. i think it's up more than 9% just for this month. so that's something to keep a very close eye on. we know it's not the technology leading the way. the nasdaq has been weaker nasdaq futures up by 41 points it's been those old tried and true industrial names that have led the way over the last month or even longer than that, that's what we'll continue to watch s&p futures indicated down by 55 yesterday, all three of the major averages were weaker if you watch treasury yields, let's take a look at this point right now at least ten-year yielding 1.73%, so those yields don't tick a little higher let's also check out the "squawk" stack this morning. guys, are there any vote for changes, additions, things we should be watching in the "squawk" stack this morning?

>> i was open to the discovery addition thinking about a lot of other things this morning, obviously but that looks pretty good that looks pretty good >> forget about apple's losses yesterday. >> what about our favorite company? this is -- i don't know what kind of pants joe kernen is wearing this morning, but lululemon just had their earnings >> you assume i'm wearing pants in the first place -- which i am -- but you are right. the lululemon -- that's controversial, lululemon for some reason, andrew. >> no, but they had a big upbeat earnings and yet i think the stock is looking to open down about 1.5% this morning >> i think that cramer -- >> you have an unique interest in lululemon >> yeah w do i think i saw cramer on twitter weighing in, it's sort of seen as a reopening -- or a stay-at-home -- >> it's more of a stay-at-home

stock than reopening stock because people have been wearing their joggers and their pants at home when they go to the office, they're going to start to wear fancier clothing >> we'll see we'll see. >> he says it doesn't move positively >> you heard the news -- go ahead. >> no, no, which about lululemon -- abc pants -- >> not the pants i was going to say you heard the news that several companies including salesforce and jpmorgan were giving up some of their office space as an indication that, yeah, maybe not everybody is coming back as quickly as possible. they want key employees back for some of these things but the idea you're going to see more office space let go which on the given that maybe people aren't coming back quite as quickly >> you see, it's not everyone is created equally. like i'm at work and i still have them on sorkin, on the other hand is at home and has them on

>> i'm at work my children think i'm at work. >> i know, but when you do venture out to your big time -- you know, this is a side thing he does in the morning when you're doing all of that other stuff with the gray lady and deal book and hollywood stuff. >> right >> then you like -- >> the point is, you will dress up, andrew >> you are a suit. you are a suit with a thing here you're a suited -- admit it. admit it you are a suit >> i don't think i've ever seen you wear pinstripes. >> i'm -- the little pinstripes. not the big thick ones >> not the big larry kudlow -- >> yeah. that would be a look when you said our favorite company, we were going to add, i thought we were adding comcast >> ooh, we could add comcast that would actually be a fascinating element of the -- because it captures both the

work from home and the return-to-work sort of -- >> to get back to the parks and the streaming play at the same time, and the internet play. >> based on management excellence, i figured we'd have it there, it would just be there. it wouldn't even be -- that third space would be -- if that was the only criteria, you know, just being run really well, happy employees and everything else >> we'll have to get the "squawk" stack one, two and three to have multiple screens >> that's not a bad idea either. we could say, let's flip the board around let's flip the "squawk" stack around and go to another. this is a big deal is this you you, andrew? in new york -- this is an andrew ross sorkin column, is it not or is it? >> i've written about it, but what it is, it's actually a letter that published -- that this -- that this group of

people have written a public letter that appears in today's "the new york times. and i imagine it's going to be appearing all over today elsewhere. new this morning, we should tell you about it, dozens of prominent black business leaders are calling on companies to fight a wave of voting rights bills. it's led by american express ken chenault and merck's ken frazier. we'll talk about that. with the new laws put isn't place in georgia they would say suppresses the rights of black voters and for those companies, the companies across the country, to use their cloud money and lobbyists to sway the debate with lawmakers they called the recent georgia law a wake-up call, introduced stricter voter i.d. requirements or absentee balloting and

limited drop boxes there's lots of debate about what's taking place in georgia for the most part, corporate america has stood relatively silent including some of the biggest companies in georgia itself, delta, coca-cola, home depot and they talk about the juxtaposition of that silence relative to the conversations we were having most the murder of george floyd and how companies came out and said that they really were going to work on essential justice issues they believe this is the ultimate social justice issue. not is so much in georgia unto itself, but we're seeing a state of laws across the country that they believe suppress the vote and they believe of all of the social issues that corporations have gotten involved in over the years, and we've seen that trend, this is the most crucial. and to be honest, they're frustrated that there has not been more discussion by the business community and

involvement by the business community on this issue, on behalf of their employees. so, we're going to talk to both of those gentlemen in the 7:00 hour, around 7:30, about this. they had about 72 signatories, including virtually every major black business leader in america, dick parsons, so many people that we know who have been on our program for a very long time. but it is historic in so far as it's the first time you've seen the black business community effectively call out all of the business community and call on the business community to step up so, we'll have that discussion >> but dealing directly -- especially to a lot of the companies that are known to be atlanta-based companies. even appealing directly to ed bastin to issue a statement. it's very measured so is coca-cola's statement. i don't want to say it's happy talk, necessarily.

they're saying all of the right things, but not going beyond just saying things that everyone would agree with like everybody needs to have access to voting delta actually said they had been involved with the election -- with the legislation and that there had been, with their involvement that there ha been some improvements made to what was the final law and i don't envy the type of statements that these companies have to try to put together at this point >> right >> and that's the story that you're making, how does corporate america respond to this >> but -- and by the way, the particular juxtaposition between how vocal a lot of these companies were over the summer, in the wake of george floyd, that is a particular point of interest it's hard to say this isn't our bailiwick. this isn't what we do, well it is what you've been doing up to this point >> right

but one of the points that ken chenault as made is that a number of large companies have taken very direct positions when it comes to lgbt issues, and the frustration that he has. and many people in the black community have, that in this instance, that it appears that corporations have not taken a -- not just a public stance but i think what they're asking for is to take a direct stance against these laws we'll see. we'll have a conversation about this >> they do polls about should you show voter i.d and people -- i think the majority say, yeah, you should show i.d then you explain things that there are probably 200,000 black voters in atlanta that don't have -- even if you were to ask for -- or it would be -- it would be difficult to produce, whether it's a utility bill or something, that they haven't gotten a state-issued i.d. so that's maybe minus 200,000

that you might point to de facto that might happen. it sounds good in principle. bring an i.d if you don't have a driver's license or a state-issued i.d., those people may not show up at the polls. >> right, right. >> but then, just the law itself sounds reasonable. you have to have an i.d. for a lot of different reasons so, it's -- >> i've never been asked for an i.d. when i voted. >> right >> iition of that, i've never been asked. >> sometimes, i can't verify whether it's my signature. that's the problem my signature is so nondescript that -- yeah i don't -- it's the -- the overall bill, what is it, hr1, what are the chances we get a federal law? a lot of people are looking for federal law. and a lot of people on the other side say that takes away a lot

from what had been in the domain of the states, taken away by that >> right >> and it couldn't pass right now, but it might be able to pass if you got rid of the filibuster so there's talk about whether that's a means to an end as well >> right trying to say these are states' rights going back to voting rights, going back to the '60s and the civil rights voting rights that went through back then >> a hard-fought -- you don't want to revisit that yeah, you don't want to the revisit that but it's amazing, saying, gosh, we follow the stock markets, this is really getting -- you know, this is a difficult subject to delve into, and you really better know what you're talking about, but it involves corporate america. i certainly wouldn't try to explain to ken frazier or ken chenault how they think about this i'm interested to what they have to say, andrew >> i'm looking forward to the

conversation it's the first time the two kens have been on the air together. >> yeah, the two kens. how are you going to do, kenneth and a ken or ken c. or -- >> we'll see, ken c. or ken f., or just their last name, hey frazier, hey chenault. okay deliveroo, i want to order from them just because i want to say i orred from deliveroo it sank in the stock market overnight debut. shares told 30% over 30 minutes of trading the issue price was set at the bottom the company backed by amazon, faces concerns over treatment of its delivery drivers as well as the company's governance in valuation. and we'll talk more about this, shares of lululemon are lower. we discussed this.

company's earnings and estimates beat online sales and guidance for the quarter. four-year better than, with stocks up 5% from a year ago and untarnished by cnbc people, we won't mention any names of our washington titles named eamon, that are not in yoga pants constantly it's obvious to me he hasn't tried them and no one has given him a pair of those. he's strident in his criticism of it. we haven't had the discussion in a while. he tweets about it and everything when sorkin went with the abc pants, that's when you knew it was mainstream, when you got out of -- what were -- yours are like -- zenia -- what is your -- >> my suit of choice, this is like, you know, i love -- you

know i love those purple label ralph lauren suits i do i do guilty as charged. >> those aren't that high end, are that is purple label higher than normal >> they're criminally expensive. >> they are? >> i only get them on sale >> okay. all right. purple label i'm writing that down -- na, that's not going to work for me. i've got these on. i don't have a jacket. i didn't even bring one. >> it's "squawk box," you're not supposed to be in a jacket you're supposed to be in shirt sleeves. let's check out shares of chewy. they've been rising after the company posted a surprise profit of five cents a share. revenue soared 10% from a year ago. a 42% increase from the prior year that stock is up almost 9% this morning, almost 10%, 9.5%.

i don't understand why this is such a big surprise because during the pandemic everybody got a pet. you can't find a dog or cat in any of the shelters these days everybody went out and got a pet, me included i don't know why this came as a surprise i've been using chewy nonstop for months at this point shares of -- >> not all pets are created equal. you have a pet, it's a cat it's a pet >> i was late this morning, somehow, the cat got out i was out -- literally, i was out wandering the neighborhood in my pajamas this morning looking for him. found him. >> that's interesting. i would say andrew has a -- that's three quarters of a pet it doesn't shed. >> that's cute >> cute -- how often does it come out of its little holding area >> all the time, cooper runs around >> does he do his business -- >> he's got a cute name.

he counts. >> he doesn't go in the litter box, does he >> no, he knows -- he -- i would say he knows -- he knows almost what to do we have some issues but getting figured out. >> i know what that means. >> my maltapoo is 16, he could care less where he is. oh, here good by me, fine, pongo, fine, fine it's not that big of a deal. at 16, he's like, look, you should be glad i'm here. clean up after me, just be glad i'm still around, so we do it. >> as with all of our pets we take good care let me mention shares of pvh under pressure as calvin klein

and tommy hilfiger reporting loss stocks down 1.1% coming up with more on "squawk box," we'll take a look at the futures ahead on the market almost 3 1/2 hours away we've got the dow looking to open down, the nasdaq looking to open about 42 points higher. s&p 500, just marginal right now. after the break, we'll have a strategy session, we'll look into some areas including media, reopening stocks and financials. as we head into that break, check out the response 97% said they were planning a trip in the next 12 months "squawk" rur aerhietnsft ts. no one likes to choose between safe or sporty. modern or reliable. we want both - we want a hybrid. so do banks.

that's why they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach helps them personalize experiences with watson ai while helping keep data secure. ♪ ♪ ♪ from banking to manufacturing, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. ♪ ♪ ♪ dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. pd-l1 transformed, revolutionized, immunotherapy. pd-l1 saved my life. saved my life. saved my life. what we do here at dana-faber, changes lives

everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

wanna help kids get their homework done? well, an internet connection's a good start. but kids also need computers. and sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it. so why not hook community centers up with wifi? for kids like us, and all the amazing things we're gonna learn. over the next 10 years, comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning we've got interesting results from our q2 cnbc stock survey. 63% of respondents said they'd rather buy disney than netflix or viacom. joining us with her thoughts tiffany mcgee, ceo and chief financial officer at pivotal advisers what do you make of that >> yeah, i totally agree, disney was one of my picks.

i actually took that survey. taking it back to prepandemic, disney, roughly 30% of their revenue was coming from parks. this is one of these stocks a staple for me i've owned for a very long time they were able to quickly pivot, release titles, direct to consumer, direct on streaming business but now that the world is reopening, especially this year when more people are getting the vaccine and parks are really going to get a boost, i'm really looking for great things from disney so i'm super excited. i'm glad i was validated >> some of these reopening stocks 50% of our survey responded they'd rather buy hilton worldwide than airbnb or live nation what do you think of that?

>> yeah. so, i totally disagree here's my theory on airbnb my pick was airbnb which i would take any day hilton is a little tempting and live nation is a little tempting for me, look at these numbersing right, joe earlier said 97% -- yeah, actually, another survey that people are planning on taking a trip in the next 12 months i think we need to pay attention to the fact that we have this work from anywhere situation right now and things can definitely change. leisure travel is boosting the recovery right now if airbnb were a hotel chain, it would be bigger than the top hotel brands in the world combined i think with all of these opportunities to work from home, or really work from anywhere, people are going to take advantage of that. if you don't believe me, try to book an airbnb right now, out for like the next two months

i tried to do it actually last night, it was super hard to do but i can get a hotel anywhere in five seconds. >> all right let's try financials this is the result from the survey 48% of our respondents said they'd rather buy jpmorgan, goldman sachs or paypal, none of the respondents said they'd buy square where are you at >> yeah, for me jpmorgan and goldman. i those two are a staple in my portfolio. going back to the shut down, j.p., to some extent, goldman, j.p. was able to do well in that first quarter which a lot of regional things were struggling and really throughout the pandemic, with the diversified revenue streams. really like it solid company, solid management. love james any diamond, from the esp perspective, you guys were

talking earlier about major corporations weighing in and weighing in on what's going on in georgia really kind of being activists, that's an esg vertical jpmorgan, their advancing black p path rates have been very, very aggressive in terms diversity, in terms of hiring in emergency room it terms of lg all of these things they've been working on over the past three years, not just in the past year >> tiffany, can i ask, before we go, actually, because you raised the issue in georgia and we're talking to these guys in just a little bit what do you think of companies using their voice. not just putting out statements. effectively being asked to lobby, use pac money, you know, to really use their voice on these issues around voting and this issue of voting suppression and a number of bills that are going to be

coming up throughout the country. what do you think of the role of companies as an investor should they get involved in these issues >> yeah, so, i think we saw this really in may with the response to the murder of george floyd. so, never before have we seen major corporations listed on the s&p 500 on the nasdaq coming out in droves and making statements. and these statements were very, very bold. right? they weren't saying let's just all get along. they were saying black lives matter that was really telling me as an investor we do things through an esg lens we're always looking at all of these metrics, environmental, social and government metrics in order to get a deeper understanding of the management of a company and how a company makes decisions. and there's clearly a direct link to esg metrics, to responsible esg metrics and

performance of a company, we don't have enough time to go into that, but we're seeing companies come out and really have -- and really have measurable data for the app. we've seen the metrics around the e. around the "g," there are measurable things. it's harder pre-2020 to measure a company's social responsibility, right? so, this is another opportunity, another issue for corporations to weigh in on i think -- if i'm a corporation, i need to really pay attention to who my customer are >> right >> and to who is potentially buying my product. >> fair enough tiffany, always good to see you. thanks for your perspective on all of this this morning >> thanks. >> appreciate it becky. >> thanks, andrew. still to come this morning, volkswagen it turns out is not

rebranding for voltswagen, i don't know who fell for this marketing ploy it was a marketing employ for april fools' that they tried to pull off in march. i guess we're falling for it here's a look at the gainers on the s&p 500, leading the way is discovery. that's why it's part of the "squawk" stack, up by 2.4% viacomcbs, up by 1.5%. apple, one of the big decliners yestda gned ery,ai1.6% in premarket.

we see breakthrough medicines getting to patients in record time. at emerson, our automation software is empowering pharmaceutical companies to accelerate their production of critical vaccinations for the world.

emerson. consider it solved. ♪ ♪ (upbeat music) of critical vaccinations for the world. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job

at indeed.com/home. welcome back, everybody. so, it turns out volkswagen will

not be changing its name to voltsw voltswagen that news appeared to leaks on monday and was formally announced in a press release on tuesday. now the company says it was part of an elaborate april fools' joke somebody forgot to tell the company it wasn't aprilyet but when pressed by media outlets, including cnbc, sources reportedly lied to several reporters. volkswagen is expected to explain the market strategy in a follow-up announcement today i don't know when i first saw it on twitter and bounced around i thought it was stupid and not real anyway. i don't know who fell for it apparently, we're in on it, too, because we keep talking about it this morning >> andrew was saying before we went to break, i fell for it you just said, i don't know who is stupid enough to fall for it. did you see andrew cop to it

>> no. >> no, what happened was, the viewers don't know this, we occasionally read a teleprompter >> but not well. >> we do this little segment for taxicabs in new york that we film during the breaks and so, yesterday -- >> oh, yeah, yeah. >> yesterday, during one of the breaks i was filming one of those. in fact, in the teleprompter happened to be the volkswagen/voltswagen news i read it, actually had to redo it i thought was that right i figured, well, it's in the teleprompter, must be right. >> must be right and the creepy thing -- >> you probably saw me saying this >> the creepy thing is -- >> spy cams or not -- >> i do have a spy cam but i wasn't on it >> i went on -- it was like three or four times yesterday. oh, my god, the taxicab thing again. >> i can understand why you

would redo it. but, honestly, the idea that they were lying to reporters about it, that's nuts. good luck to waive re wave repo. >> you can't change the name of volkswagen the field is set you we're going to talk sports gaming with investor jason ader. he opened a lot of stuff to a lot of stuff online. we'll be right back. hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee...

yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need. all the things, all around you where you learn, work, and fly we help make them healthier. we are the people of abm. for more than 100 years, we've been a leader in making spaces cleaner, from the things you touch to the air you breathe. today, more than 100,000 of us are innovating to ensure spaces are more efficient, healthier and safer. abm. making spaces healthier for you.

♪ coming up, a flurry of activity in the sports gaming world, including an acquisition by draftkings. the possibility of legal sports gambling in new york state, ana ander oh, by the way, the final four teams are now set a couple of west coast and east coast teams. investor, jason ader joins us.

and then later, the voting law equality gap and nudge more. "squawk box" coming right back it used to be that brainstorming required a whiteboard and squeaky markers, but when you have devices that let you collaborate in real time from anywhere, the future works better. microsoft surface devices with teams, orchestrated by cdw enable employees to stay productive when working together, with high-quality audio-visual features designed for natural collaboration. so your team always captures every detail. microsoft and it orchestration by cdw. people who get it. 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.

online gaming should continue its ferocious growth, up 100% for more this year springowl asset jason aider

points three three major catalysts. a catalyst and a person, dave portnoy. two, draftkings and fanduel. vegas is brutal. no conventions the 2022 outlook you call bleak in a word. >> good morning, joe good to see you. yes, it's an interesting time with brackets, i was doing so well and then michigan last night. not sure where i go from here. >> big ten nick cronin from the university of cincinnati never got to elite eight. now at ucla and he's in the final four i got to congratulate him on that doing better than the other transplant from louisville okay let's go on. we get all excited about all of the states where we're going to see online eventually. but you say the total

addressable market, people get excited about it but a lot of it you can't participate via public companies so most of these stocks have already made the gains that they deserve to make? >> the online gaming stocks are up a lot it's truly been one of the best performing groups in the entire marketplace. so, you know, there's a couple of things to say i think, number one, las vegas, you know, is just incredibly priced discounting so, if you wanted to go to las vegas over july 4th weekend, you can get a room for under $100. the model doesn't work in las vegas as long as that's sustainable. yes, you're right. there's no meetings. there's no conventions nobody is really going to las vegas, except just on incredibly discounted room blocks and so then, where else is there? macao actually has had a big surge in business. you've seen macao numbers up 100% versus last year.

but they're still down 80% from the peak again, has a long way to go. online gaming this year will be up 100% this year versus last year and the states, every state, you and i both know, every state means a lot of money, a lot of money. and the online gaming industry is providing much more revenue than expected. and care it with cannabis which is another solution. cannabis is doing terribly it's fallen short in terms of revenue in every state that's experimented with it where online gaming certainly has far exceeded expectations. and that's benefits online companies. >> but the move has been made, are you recommending ten, are you recommending draftkings, are you recommending these stocks? the numbers, 780% for penn,

two-year, 500% caesars 9% >> the u.s. companies are trading at incredible valuation relative to growth i would say they're ahead right now of fair value. so i'm not really vested here. i do see an opportunity in europe, europe and uk they're ahead in online gaming than the u.s. we're playing catch-up the valuations of the european gaming companies are about half to less of the u.s. companies. so you're seeing the beginning of cross-border consolidation. you've seen tell already the best value right now o online gaming is the ftse listed companies, 888 being one of them playtec and businesses are very strong, very profitable. draftkings is not profitable and half the valuation

so, i think the theme here is there's just going to be more u.s. companies using their currency to acquire their very discounted peers overseas. >> we were just talked about the products we've got breaking news on pfizer i got to go. we'll have you back. we didn't touch on so many thing different things but there's breaking news. it has to do with 12 to 15-year-olds meg tirrell, meg, what's up? >> well, joe, pfizer has been testing its vaccine down to age 12 and they have the first results from that trial today. in about 2200 12 to 15-year-olds they showed that their covid-19 vaccine was 100% effective in preventing the disease that 100% efficacy is shown 18 kids in the placebo group. and saying this is well

tolerated. the ceo saying, quote, we plan to submit this to the fda as a proposed amendment for authorization in the coming weeks and other regulators around the world with hopes of vaccinating this next group good the start of next school year, guys, this is from the company that dosed the participants to age 5. next week, they plan to start dosing ages 2 to 5, guys starting to move into kids here. potentially a vaccine for back to school in the fall, guys. >> meg, that's great you combine that with the news that -- which i think we all hoped that vaccinated people couldn't spread the disease. but that's still -- as we get more data points on that i mean, if you're not -- you can't get infected and you can't -- the vaccine -- or the virus can't reproduce in your system, it's hard to imagine how you can be contagious but seeing the actual results that that seems to be the case, it just looks like there's some light at the end of this long,

long tunnel that we've been on, meg. >> yeah. the studies have been really good the real world studies are showing these vaccines really work well. and of course, they're running in a study in college students to really get an answer to that question, joe. do these vaccines prevent transmission it's the moderna vaccine but they're running to see can we really stop wearing masks how confident can we be that it doesn't transmit we talked to dr. anthony fauci about it earlier this week he's excited about that study. >> all right andrew comingup, a lot more on th program, we're going to talk about the vaccine news we're going to get dr. sttco gottlieb's take on the latest on the fight against covid coming up

some news breaking in the last few minutes pfizer says its covid vaccine is well tolerated in a trial of 12 to 15-year-olds and showed 100% efficacy dr. scott gottlieb, former fda commissioner, who sits on the board of pfizer and illumina and he is a cnbc contributor i have to say, i'm pretty excited about this because they say they'll be filing in the next few weeks with the fda to extend that coverage all the way down to 12-year-olds that would be much sooner than i would have anticipated how long would something like this take to work its way through the fda? >> well, we probably have it in time for the fall school year, which is what people are focused on this will probably take about a month. the last applications took about

a month for the fda to review. i would expect this data to take the same amount of time that the fda is going to go through it very carefully, bring it before a public advisory committee. they'll go through the same careful process that they've gone through with the datasets for the adult population it puts you in a position of having this available, if everything goes well and the fda review holds up, in position to having it available for the fall there's data coming out of israel, real-world evidence about the vaccines efficacy in that population. one study that came out recently was a study looking at the incidence of infection among 16 and under. once you got the adults vaccinated what they showed is that the infection rates in kids dropped dramatically and basically in line with the infection rate in adults as the infection rate in adults declined so did the infection rate in kids the best way to protect children is to get adults vaccinated. >> that kind of brings you to the question of state-by-state

we have different states that have said, okay, anybody can get the vaccine at this point. you haveother states like new jersey that only as of april 5th, they announced this morning, as of april 5th, you can get it if you're 55 and up age 55 and up. they have been much tighter in controls of who they allow, when you've got states like new york, right next door, saying anybody can get it as of april 6th and probably at least more than a dozen states that have said already anybody who qualifies age 16 and up can get it. >> yeah. i think over the month of april -- and we talk about this eligibility would open up march, end of april certainly as we get into april you'll see eligibility open up consistently across the states this is basically what we've had all along, which is 50 policies on vaccination in this country, because we didn't have a federal direction on who should get vaccinated when. we've left it up to the governors and you've seen different regimes in different states and at times it's felt

unfair because people in different states had access to a vaccine and you didn't. >> still feels unfair. >> it's not an optimal system to have this. >> are some states doing a better job of rolling it out and that's why they're able to open it up to everybody or are some states saying forget it, we're not going to prioritize, figure it out yourselves. just the same amount of vaccines and appointments and it's survival of the fittest. if i live 12 miles that way, i could get it already. >> in some states you see better demand among the older population so it's taking them longer to work through it. some states are doing a better job of distributing their available supplies some states are willing to make the adult population to be vaccinated and tolerate the fact that two, three weeks of that will be messy. once a state opens up

eligibility wide open, a lot of people will complain that they go on the website and can't get an appointment it's going to take time to work that off some governors are more willing to embrace that than others. you have pretty diverse policies across the country that said, this will all converge at some point this month. by the end of the month certainly you'll see pretty uniform eligibility across the country. >> great news on all of this, the real-world studies are showing that the vaccine is effective in prevent ing you frm spreading covid to other people, too, and that's fantastic news. >> right look, it's confirming what we assumed, which is that it's going to reduce the rate of asymptomatic infection, reduce the rate of transmission the open question for a lot of us -- that hasn't been demonstrated where it's in the fda label. fda needs to review that claim the evidence you've seen from

real-world studies is showing a pretty meaningful magnitude to the effect on transmission now you need more definitive studies. it's going to need to work its way into the fda label that's ultimately the next step, but it certainly is encouraging. >> dr. gottlieb, thank you great to see you. >> thanks a lot. when we come back, president biden planning to unveil his $2 trillion infrastructure plan today. national economic director brian deese will join us on that proposal and how the administration plans to pay for it as we head to a break, check out the futures this morning dow futures down by 59 point right now. nasdaq futures have picked up a little more steam. they're up by 75 points and the s&p is positive, too, up by three points "squawk box" will be right back. just over a year ago, i was drowning in credit card debt. sofi helped me pay off twenty-three thousand dollars of credit card debt. they helped me consolidate all of that

into one low monthly payment. they make you feel like it's an honor for them to help you out. i went from sleepless nights to getting my money right. so thank you. ♪ this is hannah - she's a posh virtual receptionist. when you're busy, she answers the phone. thank you for calling the anderson group hannah speaking. when you're in a meeting, ashley can take a message. she's not available, but i'd be happy to take a message. and if you're stuck in court, lisa will let your clients know. thank you, mr. decker will call you back as soon as he's available. when you switch to posh, you could save up to 40% off your current service provider's rates. you can't be in two places at once, let posh answer. posh virtual receptionists.

black executives calling on corporate america over voting laws we'll hear from ken frazier and ken chenault in a first cnbc interview. >> the president wants to fix

roads and build bridges. how much will it cost? we'll hear from brian deese ahead of the president's budget proposals. expect it to be released later today. >> plus, how much would you pay for an nft from your favorite music artist a look at how musicians and artists are cashing in, as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ i can't feel my face when i'm with you but i love it but i love it ♪ ♪ oh, i can't feel my face when i'm with you ♪ good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe. nasdaq is up 153 points. >> thanks, andrew.

the president will be traveling to pittsburgh today. ylan mui joins us with more on that ylan, good morning. >> good morning, becky president biden will roll out an infrastructure package that comes with a $2 trillion price tag, though the white house says it will be eventually fully paid for and create millions of new jobs the administration is framing this as a once-in-a-century capital investment in america. some of the highlights include $621 billion for roads, bridges and highways things we typically think of as infrastructure there's also $300 billion for manufacturing, including money to address the chip shortage, $100 billion for broadband and $180 billion for r & d with funding set aside for labs at historically black colleges. it comes from higher corporate taxes, what biden is calling his made in america tax plan at the center, increase in the

corporate rate to 28%. biden will also propose a 21% minimum tax on foreign income and a 15% minimum tax on book income for large companies he also wants to investment in the irs to ramp up enforcement it is expected to raise enough money to pay off the investment in 15 years. they argue it will reduce the deficit because corporate tax increases are permanent. back to you. >> ylan, thank you. so, what happens to stocks if the corporate tax rate actually goes to 28% that was one of the questions asked in cnbc's quarterly stock report, a survey of contributors, strategists and portfolio managers of those surveyed 53% say stock also go lower. 44% say it won't matter and just 3% say stocks will go higher joe? >> thanks, beck. joining us now, brian deese, director of the president's economic council brian, thanks for joining us

do you call this an opening, is there some wiggle room on the corporate tax rate some are saying 25 is getting it done manchin is on the record saying he's not a big fan of 28 and you're going to need him. >> good morning, guys this is the president's plan will he take some time to outline it today i think it's big and ambitious, but it also is practical it addresses infrastructure challenges that i think we have seen and known for many years. our roads are in disrepair our airports are in disrepair. our ports are clogged and making a capital investment in america over roughly eight years could solve these issues, could address the consumer facing problems where people end up paying more because they're sitting in traffic they're paying more for -- more to get around. so, we could do this as a country. he's going to lay out his plan, where to invest, how to invest he's also going to offer a way to pay for it. he will say and we will say

we're open to conversations, if people have other ideas about how to pay for it, how to structure this that's how the process would be. the president has a pretty clear vision for how to do this and it would be really good for the economy. >> i think you had your ear piece in that there's concern obviously in an economy like this that had to deal with a pandemic, raising taxes, even to do what you are describing is a very worthwhile things that, you still need to stop and think about, you know, unintended consequences of whether it could hurt jobs, whether it could hurt gdp growth, whether it could even hurt corporate profits, because corporate profits have been strong and, you know, it's good when we're competing globally they reinvest it there's innovation there's all kinds of reasons why you hope corporate profits are strong so, those are all considerations, aren't they, brian? >> look, look at the economic

crisis absolutely is a consideration what we need to do here i would say if you look at what we have been through, it reinforces the need to invest in broadband, for example, the electricity of this century. it reinforces the need to invest in our supply chains in manufacturing, in providing support to actually build semi conductors here in the united st states, address the issue of battery and storage shortage in the united states. these are all issues we need to take on as a country this crisis has highlighted it we also need to create better jobs all around the country, and we've seen that here, too. we still have 10 million people out of work. but to the question on corporate taxes, look, our corporate tax system is not working right now and the 2017 law didn't address the core issue, which is that there's still too many incentives for companies to shift profits and production to overseas jurisdictions and we're seeing a race to the bottom that

we think we need to stop if you look at the president's p plan, it is over long term this is a reasonable approach we're talking about bringing corporate revenue as a share of gdp back to its historical average between 2000 and 2017. we think that's a reasonable step and doing so would allow us to make an unprecedented amount of investment in american infrastructure that will grow the economy. >> back to 28 will make it more likely that they move, inversions could begin again brian. this makes no sense to say that this is a way to address companies moving out of the country. if you're globally trying to stop a race to the bottom, by us going back to 28 does not help corporations stay here. >> look, the way that corporations make these decisions is to look at our tax system in the aggregate. a 28% rate prior to 2017, 28 was what a lot of the business community was focused on

it would be a lower rate in the u.s. than any year since world war ii except for the last couple of years. and the question for companies is, do we have an environment that is attractive to invest in? that's about the corporate system as a whole, where we need to address these -- it's not just about the rate. it's about are there incentives to strip profits, move to lower tax jurisdictions? the evidence since 2017 is that's principally been what we have seen. but also can companies invest in the u.s. can they move their goods around is this a competitive place to do business? that's why these infrastructure investments are so important and important for business. >> brian, i'm sorry to interrupt. i know andrew wants to get in. i have to ask you about salt you have to have these conversations. the house is tight in terms of the margin that speaker pelosi has. and we've had two democratic congressmen come on here and say it's a nonstarter without

removing the salt cap for their respective states. one's new york, one's new jersey are you having that discussion what does the president say about salt what is likely to happen there it would benefit the wealthy if you did remove the cap, and it would probably -- obviously it wouldn't raise as much money you would have to find that shortfall somewhere else are you having that discussion with the president about salt? >> these are conversations we are having we're going to have, including with members of congress they've got a lot of ideas, whether it's from salt or from other tax provisions that's part of the process our objective here is to lay out a plan, lay out a vision, try to move this process forward. but, obviously, we're going to be taking input from all sides here i think the bottom line is we are trying to reinforce that there is broad agreement that we need to make these investments, broad agreements we need to

invest infrastructure, manufacturing and r & d if we can agree on that, we can agree on a path forward. the issue of how to pay for it, this is always a challenging topic. the president believes the right thing to do is lay out a vision, lay out his plan, and then move this process forward. >> brian i just want to pivot the conversation with another headline we're seeing this morning, and two guests we'll have in a moment i would love to get your view on this ken chenault and ken frazier are calling on american corporations across the country to actively and directly not just condemn, but push against and fight what they believe are voter suppression laws, not just in georgia, but that are going to be proprosed throughout the country. i'm curious what you think the role of business leaders should be in politics, because the democratic party, for a long time, has actually wanted to curtail, frankly, the role of business in politics but in this instance, given your

former role in terms of esg at blackrock and whatnot, i imagine you may have a different view. >> well, andrew, you spent a lot of time on this, and i have, too. i think one of the things the president has talked about is this idea of shareholder centric, narrow centric capitalism is no longer workable, no longer viable that's clear we see that across corporate america. and the need for companies to look at a broader set of stakeholders, including their employees, the communities in which they operate and what that means is that they've got to listen to the needs of those stake holders if they want to be able to compete over the long term to attract that talent. and i think that means speaking up on issues that are important to the communities that they're operating in. >> but brian, here is the complicated part on this issue, i imagine you might want them to speak up, but i also imagine that the

corporations are going to fight you and use their money and lobbying power on the other side to fight you, for example, on increasing corporate taxes to pay for the infrastructure bill. it becomes this very complicated dance. >> well, look, nothing in politics or economic policy is simple, but i would say this infrastructure has been an area where the business community in general has been, for years, crying out and saying we need to make these investments in america. we are losing our competitive edge we can't operate as a hub of commerce if we don't have roads and bridges and ports if, we don't have broadband, if we don't have water these things are essential to having a competitive business environment. this is a unique opportunity we have a real unique opportunity here to come together and do something big on the infrastructure front and we're hoping that everyone coming into this conversation will put that larger interest in

the conversation here. we're interested in hearing from people there's an opportunity to put our economic interest at the forefront here. >> brian deese, national economic council director. it will be rolled out today. we'll be watching. appreciate it. >> thanks. >> andrew? coming up, that conversation you don't want to miss this morning, we just mentioned, ken chenault, former ceo of american express and ken frazier, ceo of merck, two kens, will join us about fighting the voter suppression laws >> the latest round of funding, and there's news this morning, they just got it from apple. it's a very big deal we'll talk about it. >> speaking of apple, a call this morning from ubs on that stock, upgrading it to a buy and

raising its price target to 142 a share from $115 a share.

when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org. wanna help kids get their homework done? well, an internet connection's a good start. but kids also need computers. and sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it.

so why not hook community centers up with wifi? for kids like us, and all the amazing things we're gonna learn. over the next 10 years, comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are. coming up, how much would you pay for an nft from your

favorite music artist? hitting the stage for artists around the world we'll speak to the ceo of music distribution company united masters about a new round of funding in the latest move by musicians, next. then ken frazier and ken chenault i did not know us to talk about their call for action on georgia's new voting law as well as closing the gap. "squawk box" will be right back. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. the haidomlo cpany is the original name of what company? the answer when "squawk box" continues. what a day of upsets. jill's certainly upset with that unexpected bill from her back surgery. aflac! let's see that one more time. (beep sound) oooh, right in the wallet! ouch! aflac! aflac would have paid jill cash directly to help

with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. hold on, i think she's trying to give us a side-eye... because she can't turn her head! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. aflac! official partner of march madness. keeping your oysters business growing aflac! has you swamped. you need to hire.

i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

the haloid company is the original name of what company? the answer, xerox. today, music distribution company united masters

announcing a new strategic partnership and funding with apple, leading a $50 million series b round with the company. united masters founder and ceo steve stout. it's great to have you here today. this say big move for independent artists, independent musicians. why don't you explain to medium what it is you do? you used to be with the record left foot labels with sony music. now you are somebody who is there, make sugar independent artists have their own voice and get to control the rights to their music while they get promoted how does it work >> it allows artists to go right from their bedrooms through their iphone or android device and get their music distributed on music streaming platforms around the world it makes it very simple. they retain their rights during this entire process.

typically record companyies, you sign to a record company in order to find an audience. an artist finds an audience today on their own before they find a record company and i believe firmly they shouldn't sign away their rights to intellectual company just because they want their record deal. >> it used to be that artists had to do that that was the only way they would get attention this say real business now, more than $1 billion market a lot that have coming probably because of the pandemic t looked like the numbers were up sharply, with revenue up maybe 27% in 2020 for these independent artists and the number of artists up something like 34% last year how much was this fast forward bid the pandemic >> i think the pandemic played a role in accelerating many businesses that were digitally based given the circumstances that we were in and still trying

to find a way out of it was growing steep prior to that independent music is the fastest growing segment in the music business and we now have the backing of apple that allows us to offer promotion, marketing, that can prepare artists it's a gigantic shift taking place in the music industry today. the fact that we're in that shift, we at united masters are very proud to talk about that this morning. >> this investment from apple is more than just money they're giving you there will be a partnership where they're cross promoting your artists, too? >> what happens is typically artists that are independent don't feel like they have the same opportunities as the artists that are signed to legacy labels. this will give every artist the same opportunity democraticize the music business for that matter. so, yes, you'll see a lot of course promotion andmarketing

that comes from apple with united masters artists it now gives us an opportunity to allow our artists to get the same promotion and marketing as artists that are on major labels this will create an option where you can go one route, retain your rights forever through united masters or sign with a legacy record company and sign your rights away can you choose and still have the same level of opportunity. >> that's what i was going to ask. steve, it's andrew here. >> how are you >> i'm great, thanks all these years, you were one of the great promoters and marketers of the careers of some of these artists very early on and this changes that dynamic, because the artist has to do it themselves now, hopefully, in partnership with an apple. obviously, you did that deal, which we had you on when we

talked about ti can. tok, people doing stuff going direct to the consumer what are they going to need to get that push? >> andrew, first of all, great seeing you as well tiktok and instagram are the new mtv. a company like apple, they're the new record store/radio this is the way discovery happens and this is where the promotions happen. artists are using their social media. they're the best at marketing themselves, and whether it's memes or challenges that i hope you're not taking part of, those things coming together promotes an artist and gets a launching pad to get artists known in the hearts and minds of today's youth. the fact of the matter is that they're already doing this marketing promotion. typically, as i said, an artist, a legacy, back in the day, an artist, in order to find his or

her audience had to sign to a record company now they're finding the audience prior to signing to a record company. i never understood why they needed to sign technology has done a lot to change the music experience for the fans. >> steve, you used to be one of the guys who would take their music rights away. how do you make money? that's a sweet deal the legacy music labels had what changed your entire position on this >> look, i was -- the music business as it was was something you grew into. you didn't get to unpack it and understand the differences between what it was and what it could be there was a time in the early '90s when i came up, i was 21 years old working at a record company, you were happy just to get a job. >> yeah. >> as i've gotten older and music went digital, of course, i

can apply the wisdom i've also seen a lot of people suffer as a result of that look up 20 years from now and don't own anything those experiences and the wisdom that i learned from going through those experiences are being applied to now solving that are problem today so, yeah, i definitely worked at a record company i understand it. now we've changed the economics. we have two different models you can subscribe and pay $5i month and own 100% of the royalties or not pay any money monthly and it's 90/10 the artist gets 90% of the refb new and we take 10% of distribution we own nothing they own their rights. when you start talking about nfts and you start talking about the block chain and our ownership and authorship has much more value going forward. this is just the beginning of what's going to take place in the independent economy. i don't care if you're an a

artist, music artist this will have a lot of change whoever is the owner will be able to monetize that ownership with technology and unlocking all the future values of ownership. >> steve, real quick, because we have to run, but nfts, we talk about it every single day on this program a lot of people are trying to get their heads around just the idea unto itself is it different in the context of music compared to a piece of art or is it the same thing in your mind? >> well, it's very similar it enables the owner to put terms and conditions that carry forward on the value of their piece. it makes one authentic known owner of a piece of work therefore, everything else is copies, so that you can actually -- the copies are basically promoting the master known link and it's that smart contract with the block chain that allows

the owner to monetize going forward. yes, for art, photography, music, so the owner is recognized and it can be monetized going forward based on having that ownership. >> right. >> before you guys cut to a very powerful conversation to ken and ken with what they're doing, it's fantastic, i have to tell my mother happy birthday i can't talk about apple and this deal without saying happy birthday i wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. thank you. >> steve, thank you. mrs. stoute, happy birthday. congratulations on the deal with apple. hope to see you in person very, very soon. >> okay, guys. >> attack to you soon. >> when we come back on the other side of this break, we'll talk to ken frazier and ken chenault about their call to action today on corporate america on georgia's new voting

law and others that are being pushed across the country. we'll talk with them in just a moment as we head to break, check out this stock report survey half respondents said they would rather buy hilton than abnirb and livenation "squawk box" returns after this. . and strengthen client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully. new projects means new project managers. for a prospectus containing this information. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. cal: our confident forever plan is possible with a cfp® professional. a cfp® professional can help you build a complete financial plan. visit letsmakeaplan.org to find your cfp® professional. ♪♪

welcome back to "squawk box" breaking news this morning, calcall i ing on corporations to sway the debate of lawmakers. the leaders of this effort, ken and ken, ken frazier, ceo of mechlt rck and ken chenault, former chairman and ceo of american express we are privileged to have both of you on the program this morning with this historic open letter for your peers it

corporate america to take action ken chenault -- i'll have to call you chenault and frazier. you've come together in such a forceful way. >> andrew, this is the first time and i think what's very important is to understand the history of voting rights in america. we all know the right to vote is fundamental, but for african-americans, they had to earn the right to vote they had to demonstrate. and anyone who has followed american history understands that the vote is absolutely crucial. just think if we had the right to vote, blacks had the right to vote after the civil war where

this country would have been just think after the brown v. board of education case, if corporations had stood up and said, we support the integration of schools so what i think is very important here is that we are asking corporations, and this is a call for action. what we have heard from corporations is general statements about their support for voting rights and against voter suppression, but now we're asking, put those words into action and we're asking corporate america to publicly and directly oppose any discriminatory legislation and all measures designed to limit america's ability to vote, americans must

vote, black americans must vote. when it comes to protecting the rights of all americans to vote, there can be no middle ground. we cannot be in the business of creating unjust and undemocratic laws in an attempt to thwart the will of the people so what we're saying is this is fundamentally unamerican and corporations have to stand up there is no middle ground. so, we put together a group starting sunday afternoon, and this has been a source of conversation for the last ten days in the black community and clearly from blacks in corporate america. so i want to emphasize, this is

about all americans having the right to vote, but we need to recognize the special history of the denial of right to vote for black americans, and we will not be silent. >> ken frazier, when you look at corporate america today and you look at the statements that have been made since the murder of george floyd and i'll never forget you coming on our broadcast literally several mornings right after that tragic d day, there has been a silence to some extent, as ken chenault just said, there have been general statements made about it but when it comes to this issue of voter suppression, you've not seen the big companies come out publicly, as aggressively as you are calling on them to do, especially in states like georgia, coca cola, delta, home

depot. what have your conversations been with your peers, not just in this group, but across the country around this topic? >> thank you for having me, andrew i've had some conversations. i think people are trying to get their heads around it. and i think it's important at the outset for people to understand what's wrong with this law, because it's a very long, complicated law. but if you'll just give me a minute i want to explain to your viewers why we feel so strongly about this law and particularly how this law could be a prototype for a lot of bad laws. let me start by talking about some facts about georgia over the past few years the number of registered voters in georgia has gone up by 2 million. roughly half of the registered voters in georgia live in the nine metropolitan county atlanta area we know in the past elections wait lines have been hours, up to five hours in that area that area is much more densely

populated, it tends to lean democratic and happens to be more nonwhite than other areas people who vote in counties that are largely white spend, on average, something like six minutes in line if they come after work if you're in a county that's largely nonwhite, you spend 51 minutes. on average, black voters stand in line about nine times longer than white voters before we make these changes. so now, within two months of a run-off, close run-off election in georgia, we make a number of changes that are actually intended to make it more difficult for people to vote in a convenient reerks liable and secure manner. so let me tell you about a few of them. in georgia, they had secure drop boxes, okay? in fulton county, the most

populous area of atlanta, this law reduces the number of drop boxes from 40 in the county to eight, 80% reduction and those drop boxes are not accessible at all times in terms of hours or days of week they'll be put inside voting places and you have to go inside during voting hours. people thought drop boxes were a good idea or wouldn't have made them available in the first place. now we're restricting access to those secure drop boxes. in fulton county, again, there were holes for people who had to work those people who have to work every day, bus drivers, grocery clerks, a few months ago, we were saying they are our american heroes. those are people who don't get to take off of work. so there were mobile polls we're going to restrict the mobile polls and reduce by half the period for people to request an absentee ballot we're going to drastically reduce the period for early

voting and frankly we're going to make it almost impossible to do it in the context of a run-off after another election importantly, with respect to provisional ballots, if someone moves and votes in another precinct, it used to be that people would then go back to the originalprecinct and if you hadn't voted there -- in other words, if you hadn't voted twice, your vote would actually count. so what we're doing is in a situation where black and nonwhite voters are already being denied the same access, because they have to stand in much longer ines, we're actually making it much harder for people to actually cast their votes. on top of the fact that people are standing in line for ungodly hours, we now make it illegal to give those people water while they're standing in line because, of course, we know from experience only fraudulent voters get thirsty when they're standing in line for a long period of time so if you take collectively all of those changes, what you've

done is you've made it harder for people who live in the most populous areas, largely nonwhite voters, to vote. i'll make this other comment as a prototype, what was the process that was followed here were there legislative hearings? no were there fact-finding commissions? no was there an opportunity for public comment no so, there is no substantiated, compelling evidence of voter fraud to justify these restrictions so what we do is we raise the specter of voter fraud and now we restrict legal voters, eligible voters' ability to cast b ballots. that's what's wrong with this bill because democracy depends on every voter of this country having free and fair access to vote without discrimination and

without undo hindrance this set of changes in this bill, it's a long, complicated bill i think people think they'll get way with it because most people won't read the bill. in totality, these changes will make it much harder for certain voters to vote. >> just one point, andrew, that i would emphasize what we're asking is, i frankly applaud what close to 60 companies did in signing a business statement opposing anti-lgbtq state legislation, stating their clear, clear opposition to this harmful legislation and restricting the access of lgbtq people in society. and what we're saying is fundamentally, we want

corporations to do the same thing here. >> ken, let me ask you about that, ken chenault and ken frazier, but what exactly is it that corporate leaders who are watching this program this morning, some of the big fortune 500companies are watching this program this morning, they're hearing your message and the question i think they're asking is, am i supposed to go state by state effectively to evaluate whatever proposal comes? do i have to do business in that state to actually fight it or not? when you say fight it, is it just putting out a statement publicly is it lobbying is it using pac money? and invariably, one of the issues becomes this idea of a lot of ceos say i can't be a one-issue voter, right i can't just support one side on one issue because maybe there's

a state where the taxes are going to go up and my guy is actually fighting the taxes going up, but maybe they're also fighting on this voter suppression issue. how do you separate all of that? >> here is what i would say. >> let me start. >> this is a moral issue this is a moral issue. and it is absolutely critical to understand that all rights flow from voting rights and all we're asking companies to do is to oppose, and let's be very clear, in every jurisdiction, in every state to take a public position to oppose. >> ken >> yeah, i don't think it's too much to say that the business community has the ability to analyze these laws again, in georgia, i'm not here to say every change that was made in the georgia law was bad.

it wasn't. but collectively, if you look at the things that i outlined, what you're doing is taking a situation -- again, i start with the fact that if you're a nonwhite voter, on average you're already going to stand in a line nine times longer than a white person there's already not equal access what we're saying is that state by state, in the absence of substantiated and compelling evidence of voter fraud, any actions that are taken to restrict the ability of eligible voters to vote should be opposed. we're not being prescriptive about how you oppose it. but these companies should come out and makeit very clear before this playbook, which is run in georgia now, becomes the playbook around the country. in 43 states already, there are similar bills now that are now being introduced after the 2020

elections, to actually restrict the vote we're calling on companies to speak up and say voting is a fundamental right. and, again, in the absence of compelling, substantiated evidence of voter fraud. remember, people went into courts around the country say there was voter fraud and the judges had no time for it because in court you actually have to produce evidence in absence of this evidence, restricting the rights of other people to vote should be opposed by corporate america and it's not, frankly, just a one-issue thing. >> absolutely. what i think is very important, andrew, to your point, both ken and i, after the gorge floyd murder, obviously countless ceos called us for advice of what can we do. fundamentally, if you can't oppose this legislation, that's the lifeblood for black americans, the right to vote

and we can't be silent, and corporate america can't be silent and if they can't speak out on this issue, what can they speak out on >> ken chenault, you said you got tons of calls after the george floyd incident and everything that happened over the summer have you gotten those same calls from ceos on this matter and why do you think it is that the business roundtable and others haven't picked up this situation with the same fervor >> look, i think that people are looking at this in partisan term s, and i think they need to understand this is a fundamental, basic american right. and this is nonpartisan. and people should not be focused

on will it hurt me if i take a stand? with all due respect, many people died for the right to vote and this is one where we're asking corporations to take a moral stand. and if corporations had done this throughout our history, we would be far further along in race relations in this country. >> ken frazier, i think back to coca cola's actions in the past with martin luther king, when he won the nobel prize and there were some white elites in atlanta who did not want to honor him at a dinner. coca cola took a stand and said this will happen is that what you're expecting this time around do you think that's why the pressure is so great on coca

cola, home depot, delta and others in atlanta? >> let me start by saying again, georgia is the leading edge of a movement all around this country to restrict voting access. i don't want to just focus on the atlanta corporations i'm sure those corporations wanted to engage on that behind the scenes i'm not just pointing to those people i will say that what we're saying this morning is that these kinds of bills have to be stopped in their tracks, because, you know, you have to actually spend time reading this bill to understand what it does. and i think corporations ought to take a very strong stand in georgia and every place else, as ken said this is a moral, fundamental issue that goes to the lifeblood of our democracy it's enjoyed by every citizen, unless it's hindered now there's an active campaign to hinder it in some places and

again it's not just a georgia issue. >> ken frazier, can you speak to this, though i appreciate that this is, in your mind -- and i believe a moral issue, no doubt. and i know you don't believe it's a partisan issue, but it just so happens that republicans, for the most part, or entirely, are the ones supporting these laws, which i believe you believe are going to suppress the vote. and so the question that i would ask you, maybe somewhat similar to the one i was asking ken chenault, which is how should business deal not just with this issue, but also with, in part, perhaps republicans who, in many states, control the state, are doing business in the state? how do you think about that? >> first of all, i don't believe that every republican, registered republican in this country is in favor of restricting ballot access.

it seems that at least forsome republican legislators, they've actually made two kinds of capitalists. the first one is if we can just shave off some voters by making them stand in line longer in certain parts of the state -- i go back to my earlier comment. before these changes, the average nonwhite voter in a county that was majority nonwhite was already standing in line almost nine times longer. that shouldn't happen in a democracy. we would go to other countries and say that's unfair. so that's already the case if we allow a party to adopt this, one of its fundamental strategies, voter expression, then i don't think the answer should be, we can't comment on voter suppression, because otherwise we're being partisan free and fair access to the ballot was never a partisan issue. it's a fundamental constitutional right so i would simply say people have to take a stand and say we're not going to accept this from republicans

we're not going to accept it from democrats because you know there have been times when, in terms of gerrymandering we opposed that, too when i was a lawyer i filed a lawsuit against the democrats in new jersey to try to congregate black people into certain districts so they became safe legislative districts for the democrats. this is not a partisan issue if one party has decided to adopt voter suppression in the absence of substantiated evidence of voter fraud, then i think we have to oppose it and not allow people to say now you're just a partisan. >> ken chenault, do you or the group, to the extent you can speak for the group, have a particular view on a federal level in terms of hr-1, for example? >> look, at the end of the day,

we're going to leave all of that to the politicians we obviously support any legislation that will enable people to vote and protects the rights of people to vote what we think is important is for corporations, as we've said, to take a stand. >> okay. >> and we do not believe, and let me be very clear, that the excuse should be we need to wait for legislation to happen to correct the ills of what's happening in a range of states so what is important here is we're coming with goodwill to our colleagues in corporate america, and we're saying as african-american executives in corporate america that this is the most fundamental issue for us

and we need your support. >> ken chenault, ken frazier, thank you for joining us this morning. we hope you'll come back and let us know your progress. i would love to hear the feedback i imagine if you look down at your phones you're getting all sorts of emails and text messages from folks watching you now. we would love to continue to follow this and this story thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you. >> joe >> thank you, andrew thank you to ken chenault, ken frazier. check out the futures. the futures are, as you can see, down 27 points, 25 points. nasdaq has turned positive, now up about 68 points maybe the ten-year is under control. we'll take a quick look he we get back at 8:00, we'll go back all the pertinent stuff, including that 12 to 15-year-olds and the pfizer data we saw for covid vaccines.

beck >> very good news. much more to come on "squawk box" this morning. in fact, take a look at the jets etf, the biggest airlines and aircraft makers. it's up 20% so far this year we'll take a closer look at the sector and have more on that reopening trade next. >> later, mike novogratz joins us to talk bitcoin and much more. also, don't miss cnbc's "race & opportunity in america" special tonight at 8:00 p.m. it will look at the social challenges facing the asian-american community among a rise in violence against it and moving forward "squawk box" will be right back. strengthening client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

♪ i wish that i knew what i know now ♪ ♪ when i was younger ♪ you need a financial plan that fits the way you want to live in retirement. a plan that can help grow and protect your money. now or in the future. with an annuity in your plan to help cover essential expenses, you can live the retirement you want. the right financial professional can show you how. this is what an annuity can do. ♪ ♪

cal: our confident forever plan is possible

with a cfp® professional. a cfp® professional can help you build a complete financial plan. visit letsmakeaplan.org to find your cfp® professional. ♪♪ good morning it is the final day of q1. despite futures, major averages are tracking for quarter gains meantime, they're still peeling back layers of the onion this hour, billionaire investor michael novogratz will join us to weigh in.

and a story of entrepreneurship during the pandemic college player paralyze d on the field. brewing up success with his latest venture you don't want to miss it. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin we look at the squawk stack on the ten-year or something to give us an idea of why the nasdaq might be so much stronger rather than the dow or not why would we do that there we finally go. 172. we were at 177 earlier in the week, as we did seem to be in kind of an upward sort of

momentum on yields but that has subsided a little we'll see throughout the rest of the session what happens the two big $2 trillion infrastructure coming out today as well. we'll see if that has any effect. >> absolutely, joe a lot of stocks are on the move as we begin this hour. let's get over to dom chu, who has been tracking all the action. >> let's start with the overarching theme we've been seeing throughout the rally and that is underperformance of growth stocks versus value stocks overall take a look at the etfs that track some of these moves, russell 1000, up 11%, flat for those growth stocks. in the last week we've seen that widen out as well. value stocks continue to

outperform some of those gross ones that have outperformed the last decade or so. now to our two stacks. infrastructure stack, first of all, guys, for the premarket trade for names like u.s. steel, up about 2.5%, nucor, a steel company, up 2.5% construction aggregate com companies, think gravel, sand, concrete, vulcan materials up 1% and martin marietta up 1% as well those stocks are moving to the upside here. we'll talk about some of the names that have been talked about with regard to the liquidation trades we've been reporting on some of the other, perhaps, ripple effects from there. vip shop on the chinese internet and commerce side of things is up 3%. viacom cbs flat, about 1% gain here and 2% for discovery, credit suisse, lower on the day,

and nomura as well. becky, infrastructure stack. i'll send things back to you. >> dom, thank you so much. airline stocks, meantime, are rebounding and progress is being made as we fight this pandemic as a result, shares of american are up about 3%. jetblue up 31% united up 35%. top ceos are expected to give an update on demand and whether pricing power has returned phil lebeau joins us now prices are going up and going up quickly, phil. >> they are, becky and that's because the demand is there, at least domestically hopper, which tracks air fares and projects this is where air fares are headed if you look at where air fares are for the month of march, $230, the average round-trip air fare for the month of march. april and june it's going to go up 12%

people who are looking to book tickets for the summer are saying, whoa, this is a lot more i was expecting. by june, july, it's expected to top out in the area of $257. that's for the average domestic round-trip air fare. passenger levels are driving all of this. the airlines are adding more capacity to meet that demand and it clearly has increased the average passenger level in march just over 1.2 million people per day that's up 39% compared to february it may not look like a dramatic increase on this chart, but it is moving higher again up almost 40%, march versus february. couple of airline stocks to watch, benefiting from more people flying and greater demand there, raymond james out with a note saying check out jetblue and spirit so many flights have been added to florida the demand is so great, particularly from the northeast

they really target people with at least 25 million in assets under management. >> yeah, i understand. and they probably do seethe demand now analyzing these things and it's taken a while. guys like paul tudor jones, this is -- you know, they are so far behind the curve on this you see my point maybe it's an asset class of 58,000 that's for that, goldman. >> well, joe, they are of the belief we are still at the very, very beginning stages of this new nation asset class you think about it, it's a little more than a decade old. when you look at the investment

banks, they are at the nexus of overlapping regulatory regimes obviously they have a higher threshold, given their role in the last financial crisis. asset classes, so it's easier for hedge fund managers and the like it is, however, more meaningful that a goldman sachs will pierce that barrier and be one of the very first investment banks to say, you know what we legitimize this asset class we think it's not going away there's a future to this we don't know what the future is going to look like but we believe it's going to exist in the future and i think that's the news today. >> hey, hugh, when morgan stanley made this announcement, and i think there was maybe a bit of a misunderstanding publicly about what they were doing, morgan stanley was not allowing the investors to effectively invest directly in bitcoin. you weren't buying actual bitcoins you were buying instruments,

funds, grayscale and the like to get into it. in the case of goldman sachs, are you going to be buying directly in june crypto currencies themselves or instruments which creates a middleman? maybe goldman is creating the instruments themselves >> and morgan stanley, to be more specific on that, andrew, and nice to be with with you, man, more specifically, morgan stanley talked about investing in galaxy digital funds. that's a fair close approximation of owning bitcoin closer than grayscale, which is a trust and the price moves around a lot obviously, there's a gap between the physical and the trust price. now, specifically with goldman, and i encourage people to read the story. but, look, they say there's a full spectrum, and these are in the words of executives i spoke to not just physical bitcoin but also derivatives and traditional fund investments

so i think they're looking at it very holistically. they think still, despite what joe said, they are still early in the game and that, you know, in hindsight this will look like, you know, very, very savvy move on their part. >> they very well might be early. there are people that talk about, you know, divide 21 million into a certain percentage of the global system you get numbers. that's not my point. my point is that they may be early, but they're not as early as so many other people. and you can see today, hugh, it would normally, goldman sachs, endorsement of goldman sachs, bitcoin is down 2% it moved more, i guess, when some others -- on the way up, from 4,000 or 400 to where they are. but this is a jor maevent for gol goldman in an endorsement bank

appreciate that. >> coming up, to a breaking private sector employment data from adp stay tuned come on, come on...yes! hey ava, how's my bracket looking? um, i'm trying to find a nicer word for dumpster fire. um, you're not ava. yeah, this is gary, i invested in invesco qqq. a fund that invests in the innovations of the nasdaq-100. like this artificially intelligent home system. you don't have to be an ai voice architect to help dictate the future. any other questions? yes, when will you be leaving? become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq. ♪

it's moving day. beand while her friends areon doing the heavy lifting, jess is busy moving her xfinity internet and tv services. it only takes about a minute. wait, a minute? but what have you been doing for the last two hours? ...delegating? oh, good one. move your xfinity services without breaking a sweat. xfinity makes moving easy. go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today.

up by 68,000 we could have a big rebound, by the way, on the government side because of education and some other hiring in that sector that is not part of this report manufacturing also strong. that's been a stalwart of the rebound here, up by 89,000 and seeing better things to come with the reopening of the economy and vaccination. so, we'll see, guys. adp has been -- tended to be under the past six months in general, the past three months it's been a little bit closer. it's been understated, andrew. we'll see if that upside surprise where we were talking about, where some guys on the street have a million jobs or more if thatholds on friday. right now, a good number but maybe not as good as the optimist had forecast. >> do you want to give us the steve liesman forecast >> you know what, andrew i've not resumed my forecasting, because in this pandemic, none of the metrics that i use bfd

make any sense right now i was using things like the ism. i do plan to go back and see if they will start to work. i am optimistic, because i do like the high frequency data i think it's done a good job, point together upside surprises or downside surprises in some cases but it's been difficult because it's so new. to pinpoint where the numbers would be, because as we go through different parts of the season, one thing we see right n now, for example, this is not a great quarter year for hiring. we're seeing hiring coming back. the way that works with seasonal adjustments is difficult to pinpoint there is an upside surprise possible for friday where i'll be very happy to be working and reporting the numbers on good friday. >> okay. we will see you friday let's hope it really is a very good friday when it comes to both the numbers and, of course, it is good friday. >> absolutely. >> thank you, drew when we come back, interview

about entrepreneurship in the covid area we'll be speaking with eric legrande, the former rutgers player paralyzed from the neck down in a game ten years ago he will talk to us about what it takes to build a business during the pandemic he knows because he has been doing it stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc this is hannah - she's a posh virtual receptionist. when you're busy, she answers the phone. thank you for calling the anderson group hannah speaking. when you're in a meeting, ashley can take a message. she's not available, but i'd be happy to take a message. and if you're stuck in court, lisa will let your clients know. thank you, mr. decker will call you back as soon as he's available. when you switch to posh, you could save up to 40% off your current service provider's rates. you can't be in two places at once, let posh answer. posh virtual receptionists. i'm searching for info on options trading,

and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. oh. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. so it's like my streaming service. well except now you're binge learning. see how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from td ameritrade. visit tdameritrade.com/learn ♪

welcome back to "squawk box. dozens of black executives are asking corporate america to publicly and directly oppose new laws that would restrict the rights of black voters and use clout, money and lobbyists to do so ken frazier and ken chenault joined us in the last hour. >> when it comes to protecting the rights of all americans to

vote, there can be no middle ground we cannot be in the business of creating unjust and undemocratic laws >> what we do is we raise the specter of voter afraid. and now we restrict legal voters, eligible voters' ability to cast ballots. and that's what's wrong with this bill. >> signed by 72 blk executives, including some "squawk box" regulars, roger ferguson, m mellody hobson, robert smith, ray mcguire and so many others a conversation i imagine we'll be tuning over the next several days and months. becky? >> andrew, thank you we often talk about the american entrepreneurial spirit no one embodies that more than

eric legrand, the owner of a growing coffee business. like other entrepreneurs, his inspiration stems from tragedy over ten years ago he was paralyzed from the neck downplaying football for rutgers university he calls it more than a coffee shop he tells us it's a reminder we can accomplish anything if we set our hearts and minds on a goal so glad to have you with us. i've been following you. you've been a huge inspiration every day over the last more than ten years what you're doing now really takes the cake why don't you talk about this business and how got into it, how it started >> i would love to talk about it with covid-19, it allowed me to start my life back and start reflecting on a lot of things and start getting my entrepreneurship going work ing on how they created nie

and it inspired me to start my own business there's so much going on in this world. people look to me for inspiration. so when i created legrand coffee house, it's something people want and people need every single day our goal is to bring unity to the community with a daily cup of belief. and every time you take a sip of my coffee just a reminder, go out there and attack your goals. don't let anything hold you back try to be an inspiration with every sip you take of legrand coffee. >> i love that snoop dogg was your inspiration how did you pick coffee? you don't even drink coffee, do you? >> august of 2020 was my first cup of coffee. let me tell you, i was missing out on some good stuff this stuff is really good now. i drink it about every other day. and i really enjoy the flavors and all the different types of method of drivenging coffee.

i tell people all the time, i may not be the biggest coffee connoisseur out there, but i want to learn from our customers, things they're interested in. i hired a business adviser out in portland, oregon. i've taken classes and courses and learned as much as i possibly can over the past six, seven months but i am still willing to learn so much more about our customers. >> so the coffee shop is opening soon, but you've been selling direct mail and to anybody ordering online for a while. what does the business look like right now, and how much response have you gotten? >> it's been amazing i can honestly say we wanted to have our brick and mortar opened by the end of summer, beginning the fall of this year, but we wanted to take our brand nationally, and we wanted to get the word out there there's another way to bring in revenue. dealing with these covid-19 times you just doen know we've been able to sell to 49 of

50 states so far our coffee to being able to see the response this is great coffee, eric it's inspiration not just buying this coffee, supporting your business and what wraur all about but sharing this cup of coffee with other people that's what it's about, sharing a cup of coffee. you have no idea what type of ideas can come over a cup of coffee i am happy to be that reminder, live your life to the fullest each and every day. >> entrepreneurship is not an easy task. what have you found has been some of the toughest struggles along the way? >> sometimes you learn people don't have the same vision as you. you know, there's bumps in the road and hard decisions you have to make. in 2 1/2 months of business, i had to deal with some of that unfortunately. life goes on

i learned you have to pivot. just because one bad thing happens doesn't mean the whole thing blows up and everything stops. take a step back look at what happened, form a plan and execute that plan now that's what i've been able to do i have great people around me. i have a great team. so many different learning experiences. i know not everything is going to be smooth sailing through everything who knows what could happen in five months, five years from now i just know that i'm prepared for it i'm willing to adapt and i know how to handle adversity. i'm trying to be the best leader i could possibly be for my team and for the business. >> you said that you're still working on your patience when it comes to your mobility and your health. >> yes. >> is that something that translates into business as well >> it is i've learned, you know, not everything is going to happen tomorrow, you know that instant gratification, all of a sudden it's a full-time, million-dollar company and you're doing this. no

it takes a while you have to build your brand, adjust, adapt. you have to be able to plan out things people will like for the future you can't keep doing the same thing over and over and over you know the world we live in, people are always looking for the next thing, the next thing i can't keep on rolling out new stuff at legrand coffee house throughout the few months and years and can't wait to get that brick and mortar open and show people the vibe they're willing to create, come in there, enjoy yourself it's all about that coffee comfort satisfaction. >> eric, twoont thank you for being with us today. it's really great to see you we love hearing about what you're working on. thank you for your time. >> i appreciate it i hope everyone can go to legrand coffee house, pick up some coffee and be part of our movement. >> got to believe. thank you. >> thank you. >> joe >> thanks, beck. when we return, coming up, market watcher we've been

waiting to talk to about the meltdown, michael novogratz joins us for a first on "squawk box" interview as we get ready to wrap up the first quarter something else in the markets we want to draw your attention to the latest cnbc quarterly stock report is out and the biggest current threat to the market is higher interest rates. 47% of respondents said that another 29% saidnoer ath covid wave and 24% said higher taxes stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc arrrggh! what am i gonna do to you box? let me “break it down” for you... arrgggh! you're going down! down to the recycling center! >>hey, thanks martins! yeah, you're welcome.

geico. switch today and see all the ways you could save.

wanna help kids get their homework done? >>hey, thanks martins! ywell, an internetme. connection's a good start. but kids also need computers. and sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it. so why not hook community centers up with wifi? for kids like us, and all the amazing things we're gonna learn. over the next 10 years, comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are.

jp morgan analysts say banks could face up to $10 billion in trading losses joining us now with his insights, mike novagratz we want to talk to you about

bitcoin, goldman sachs first let's tackle the archegos situation. what was the most leverage you were ever comfortable with in your wildest days, mike in anything even close to this? >> it's interesting. i looked at a bunch of names today and precrash, these guys were trading 75, 80, 120 in a lot of ways it was like you took bitcoin and leveraged it five circumstances times that's the definition of insanity you can have a lot of leverage when you're trading, you know, the euro currency or dollar/yen but when you're trading something that's already 70, 80, 90, putting any leverage on it seems insane. >> a guy that has the -- i mean, you wouldn't have to call it skill and courage and a lot of things to run that whatever it was, run whatever it was up to $15 billion from $200 million,

something like that. that takes skill do you think it was a perfect storm that brought them down and you had the chinese internet situation which started hitting those? you had the viacom stock sale? you had some things sort of converge all at once that kind of threw them for a loop was he on the way up that things could go wrong and absolutely decimate you >> for the life of me, i don't understand how you could have that much leverage on such a volatile portfolio when you have a hedge fund risk manager, there's investors writing monthly reports, looking at leverage, doing due diligence. for hedge funds there's a lot more eyes on you in a family office situation

so, got lazy, hubris, grandiosity. it gets ahead of you. >> is this something we need to be concerned about that needs a closer look by, i don't know, or total return swaps do we need to start looking at those? family businesses? i can't imagine a long-term capital management from a family business but credit suisse looks like they got stuck with long-term capital management. >> they certainly do the swap thing might get looked at in essence it's another way of hiding transparency, you know, from both regulators, companies and the market so it won't surprise me if regulators say hey, maybe we should change the rules around this i think also, listen, new entrance from the prime

brokerage market, they couldn't help themselves. the old grisled guys who have been doing this for so long had dynamic margin ing, been throug the process before and know how to cut quick i think the newer players probably in this prime brokerage business burnt their hand a little more. i don't think there's anything systemic here, right most people will sort these names. what's crazy is after these crashes most of the names are only back to where they were january 1st. >> quickly on goldman getting into crypto more than they have been and maybe even morgan stanley and others, do you give them kudos for being earlier than some? do you think it's indicative of total mainstream when they finally get in after it's up to 58,000 people that were in it were for

pennies. other people, 10 bucks, 100 bucks. you started your own firm. galaxy peter kiel and later entrants we talked about in the last couple of years with paul tudor jones what do we think of goldman? good job or -- >> listen, i think good job. to be fair, up until a year, year and a half ago, bitcoin didn't have the market cap or the daily volumes for giant institutions to really play, right? ray dalia with 100-plus-dollar hedge fund couldn't come into bitcoin when it was an ecosystem. maybe with personal money. it's only now that the system is coming of age. it's fitting of this transformation into a crypto based or block chain based ecosystem. i think goldman heard from their clients, did their own homework and we couldn't be more excited.

we want to work with them. we're trying to work with all these banks. listen, i think one of the reasons bitcoin continues to trade well with gold and silver falling off, there were three tailwinds driving bitcoin. one is the macrostory. the bigger tailwind is the adoption story we're seeing adoption. you're going to see venmo come out and do some stuff. you saw paypal going to start allowing people to buy and sell with crypto. both the tech world and finance world is coming and they're coming fast. because of that, dips are going to continue to be bought the macrostory is a little more muddled. economy is growing back, people are get ting jabs. rates are breaking down. you see other, quote, hard assets not trading as well bitcoin continues to trade well because of adoption. >> mike, in terms of evaluation

on bitcoin at this point, do you have any kind of more -- i mean, at some point, if big banks get involved in this, you want some kind of, quote, unquote, fundamental analysis of what it could be worth i think you're absolutely right that the block chain, you're starting to see the value. even nfts and i know there's debates about that, but the fact that you could attach a nonfungible token to a song and the artist could get paid and we had steve stoute on earlier in the show talking about that. that makes sense to me what's the ultimate value of a bitcoin could be if it doesn't ultimately become a currency >> i don't think it's a currency i think it's an asset. it's gold. you know, at beginning of the year i thought 60,000 was my target because that would have been 10% of gold i told myself, and our listeners, investors, once i get to 10%, we'll say it's going to

20%, then 50 and 100 i think bitcoin is on an inevitable path to have the same market cap as gold it's just how fast adoption happens. adoption is happening faster than i had predicted it's shocking to me how fast people are moving into this system and how short people are. if you're not long, you're short. most people don't have bitcoin in their portfolios yet. they want to at least have something, right we're not telling them to put 500% of their portfolio in bitcoin. 2 to 4% or 1 to 2% by the more conservative places. that's still a really big number $400 trillion in global wealth and there's 1.5 trillion in crypto wealth. we're 30 basis points of global wealth it's easy to see that getting to

1% in the next four months. >> anything that yellen, treasury secretary yellen or jay powell said last week that disturbed you? it certainly wasn't -- it was a long way from an endorsement of a new asset class that we heard. and i don't know whether you attribute the move down to 50,000 on those comments, but do you think that goldman -- it's not an endorsement, i guess. that goldman's involvement makes it less likely that policymakers would decide something absolutely -- something that could really damage crypto are they able to because it's so decentralizing at this point >> the more people it involves in the space, the more big firms, if it's tesla, microstrategy, gmorgan stanley, the harder it is politically to say hey, we don't like this anymore. i think we've already crossed the rubicon. there are 34 million americans

that own bitcoin i think it would be really unpopular to do something that will hurt all that wealth. i also think when we talk to people at treasury, when we talk to people at ftc, the young people completely understand this is coming and they're working really hard to make sure we have smart regulation and we understand it. listen, some of the senior people are still being educated. we're coming out with a paper, a consortium of crypto people coming out with a paper that really addresses a lot of the bad actor, you know, stories around crypto. it isn't really used for list of goods. that story that even janet yellen had said we have to be careful it's not used for bad things it's not a real story. most people at the fbi or cia would rather have criminals use bitcoin because it's so easy to

track. >> you think about the total money laundering per year globally and it's a big number. and then you think about how much of it is bitcoin and it's an -- >> i love it when they say that. i'm like, okay. >> >> aanyway, thank you, mike novagratz. >> ten-year yielding just above 1.72 62% believe the ten-year yield will be above 2% by the end of 2021 38% think it will be below 2% and no one thinks it will be below 1% we'll see. stay tuned you're watching "squawk" on cnbc you can act quickly. that's decision tech, only from fidelity.

♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

cal: we've saved our money, and now we get to spend it our way. val: but we worry if we have enough to last. for retirement planning, investment advice, and more, look for a cfp® professional. cfp® professionals can help you craft a complete financial plan that gives you confidence today and tomorrow. find your cfp® professional at letsmakeaplan.org. cal: our confident forever plan is possible with a cfp® professional. ♪♪

we're back, everybody. time to get over to cnbc headquarters and check in with jim cramer apple was one of the real drags on the dow yesterday you said people should pay more attention to it, be more patient and understand what was happening with story apple was up, gained about 1.5% right now. >> look, there was a piece that came out, u.p.s., it's the evidence lab which we often does good work. don't worry about it

there's no super cycle $14 auto optionality and then this curious some of the parts. no one is breaking up apple any time soon. it's a longer term situation is great, shorter term, i don't see anything that should jump the stock hike this but people are own eager to own the big caps. apple is right there for the picking. >> it is the other thing we've been talking about this morning is how strong the transports have been we talked to phil about the airlines if you look at the other transports, rails are hitting not just 52-week highs but all-time highs transport is taking off on every level. >> you're so right we've seen the transports do amazingly. look no further than union pacific which said that business is not that great right now. stock drops 5, then goes up 15 people want this group

there are just the industrials, they want the transports and that's why i want to see what happens with apple. they tend to not want the big cap tech names maybe the individuals do, but the institutions don't. >> yeah. this is just an amazing story. this is the last trading day not only of the month but of the quarter. watching what's happened with the dow jones industrial average over the last month, the last quarter, has been pretty phenomenal old industrials taking off how long do you think a trade like that will last? >> numbers are still going up, for eaton, someone recommend carrier. same time nasdaq for march on track to be as bad as october. people don't really care whether things are going to get better for some of these companies that are software and some are hardware, tech what they want are companies that are simply seeing really strong growth because of the reopening trade and because of some of the numbers we see coming through this country in gdp. that's what people want. that's what the institutions

want there's this action to call really high priced to sale companies. they're not flying they go romeo on you romeo, wherefor art thou >> you can see, understand, run with it. >> coming with buyback stock, no insider selling. they've been sitting there they're just terrific. >> yeah. agree. jim, thank you we'll see you in a few minutes >> when we come back, a wrap on the first quarter as we get set to wrap up our show. programming note for you, don't miss cnbc's "race in opportunity in america" tonight. and we'll take a look at issues

facing the asian-american community. don't miss it. you are watching "squawk box" on cnbc s clone like he trusts himself. so, in summary, we're going to sell the company. who's in favor?... perfect. but if cloning isn't an option for you, just get posh. virtual receptionists who can answer and transfer your calls, because you can't be in two places at once. these days, we want sophisticated but simple. cutting edge made user friendly. in other words, we want a hybrid. and so do retailers. which is why they're going hybrid, with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach with watson ai helps manage supply chains while predicting demands with ease. from retail to healthcare, businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm.

we see smarter software delivering cleaner power. emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize and improve the electric grid. emerson. consider it solved.

stock report, it's officially out and participants say the most crowded trade right now is bitcoin, 41% said, that 32% said

big tech and that was followed by cyclicals and then some small caps joining us right now with her take, chairman and ceo and co-founder, asset management, cnbc contributor, good morning to you, what do you think is the most overcrowded trade right now? >> well, it's interesting, i would have said that the reopening trade, where we're buying just the names such as casinos, hotels, airlines, was really overcrowded, a couple of weeks ago. that has backed off a little bit. we're seeing a much broader market since the middle of february, andrew, 73.5% of s&p stocks are ahead of the index last year, that was 35%. so the market has brought into names that, broadened into names that are both industrials, reopening, financials, but we are seeing some of the companies that were hot last year, that have fallen, start to show a

little bit of life facebook, for example, facebook and google, they're moving higher, because they're going to benefit from companies advertising to consumers, who are getting stimulus checks. and they're going to spend that money. so you're beginning to see more of the market moving positively as a benefit of what we know is a big number of gdp growth >> let's talk about a couple of stocks that you like, in particular, i'm curious about peloton because i know that's something that you've now invested in, it went on quite a run, it had a pullback, where you at >> we have been watching peloton, we didn't own it last year, we watched it, we had a price target around $100 and it hit it, the stock was down, you know, 35%, and we think that this is a new type of business, that they're a first mover, they

have an advantage, they haven't even touched the addressable market in the world and there's no reason that peloton can't continue to grow and put up very good numbers for the next, you know, five-plus years, so we did the work on it, and we waited, and we bought it, and it was interesting, yesterday, it was a strong stock, yesterday, the names on the top of our list were like peloton, real estate brokerage firm remax and wabtech which makes locomotives and rail cars so that's something we haven't seen in maybe a year, that kind of combination of names up at the top of the leader board >> i don't know if you can see the screen but we have twilio up there, too, that is another stock that went on quite a tear. at this point, do you still feel confident? >> yes, so twilio is a stock we bought last january and we

bought it again in march, we have caught it back four times because of the tremendous growth when you get the little text message to say, you know, you can go into your dentist's office now, that's when twilio used to be uber but they shifted dramatically, so the stock has come down, we think at this level, and it's attractive, these names, the ark holdings that dropped 20 to 40%, some of them are oversold. and that's the type of name we like right here, and we think, you know, it just has an enormous runway. accelerated growth last year but you know, now it's come back so we like it. >> do you have any worry that in the aftermath of the archegos situation that single stock name, especially some of the more popular single stock names will come under pressure because they've been highly leveraged and perhaps some of the prime brokers say some of the funds, hold on for a second here? >> yes, you know, definitely

that's possible, and you know, you watched the drop in these stock, you know, down as i said 25 to 40%, and you know, it's interesting, that companies that sold for more than 14 times sales, 14 times sales, that were over 10 billion market cap, at the beginning of february, that represented $5 trillion of market value 5 trillion so that's dropped about 20%. a trillion but the s&p in the top, it is still at all time highs, so clearly, the market has been able to absorb that, which i think is, you know, very positive i mean if they were to drop another 20%, you know, who knows, but we are impressed that there's been resilience in the market but you have to be very careful about extended names where people buy for an idea, with nothing to do with the price of a stock. you know, obviously, that's a risk to the market definitely >> fair enough karen, thank you

i wanted an nft of the painting behind you at some point, it is a lot of color. >> i told you, these are for sale, we are looking for offers. thank you. >> we'll work on it. >> joe >> positioned there for a reason i like that. i do like that piece i think you do, andrew you can't miss it. dom chu is back with us now with a look at some of the morning's top pre-market stock movers one of the few people who had ucla going to the final four >> you know what, i'm still, i didn't have them web winning so i have a lot of help i need in my bracket. >> you're kidding? you had them go together final four >> they had to pick michigan state to get in. >> i had illinois like you did so i have some work to do. earnings, walgreen's, shares are up 2.5%. 75,000 shares of volume. the drugstore chain, pharmacy benefits manager posted better

than expected profits even though sales fell shy of estimates. now, despite being hurt by weaker sales of cold and flu products this past season, walgreen's raised its full kbreer forecast, that's why the shares are up right now. you have shares of tilray up 3.5% pre-market. 250,000 shares of volume it and other cannabis-related stocks on the move partly because of legislative developments in new york state, lawmakers passed a bill to legalize wreck aerial use of marijuana with expectations that governor cuomo will sign it into law. canopy, aurora cannabis, others as well, those shares up 3.5%. and we will end on shares of apple which are up about 1.5%, over a million shares of volume, after the iphone maker and online services giant got an upgrade at analysts at ubs who say it was a buy, a neutral before and raised their target price to $142. it was $115. they cited among other things a more stable picture for iphone demand, long term with better

than average selling prices and the becky, underpricing of apple's likely entry into the auto market. interesting, that's part of the commentary there. >> that's a weird one to bring up all of the other ones make sense. we'll see what that does stock is up 1.5% dom, good to see you this morning. thank you. well, that just about does it for us this morning joe and andrew, we have wednesday here, thursday here, and then the markets are closed for good friday. but we'll be here for that, too. >> yes. >> we'll see all of you back here tomorrow. right now, it's time for "squawk on the street. good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, david faber has the morning off. final day of q1. a lot of news. pfizer says its vaccine has 100% efficacy for young teens the president rolls out infrastructure this afternoon, and adp, strongest number since september, and our road ma