for the day. >> dom, when you cut your rating but raise your price target, that's kind of an admission that we missed the run to this point? >> right >> it's a mia call.a little bit. but still a buy rated stock so we'll see what happens there. >> by the way, folks, make sure you join us tomorrow, the big jobs report that is happening on "squawk box. we will be here. we hope you are, too right now, time for "squawk on the street." good thursday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, with jim cramer david faber has the morning off. first day of april, and q2, as markets process news on infrastructure, tax policy, some mixed news on vaccines, jobless claims, run a bit hot, ahead of jobs friday tomorrow, when stocks are closed. our road map begins with the new month. stocks are set for a higher open plus pfizer says its vaccine lasts at least six months and

protects against variants. and amc ceo adam aaron joins us exclusively this hour to talk about movie theaters and their reopening. jim, so i guess we'll start with what the president said yesterday about infrastructure i know you've been writing already this morning about semis, and our spending and russia's spending and china and so forth. >> when you take a look at what the president said was one of the biggest challenges was climate change and basically blunting china and when i spoke to the secretary of commerce, she said the same thing, we need to blunt china, we need to get more competitive hence, why they're putting some money toward semiconductors. but this would be just, it's 50 billion, very minor part, versus so much that's dedicated not to highways, but to e.v., to electric vehicles, and a lot of that carl, it is kind of shocking 2% of new cars are e.v 1% of all vehicles we are really behind a lot of

countries and i think that this could -- i was saying to the secretary, don't we have enough companies that are doing spacs in e.v., and it looks like we don't. we're not doing that well. so a lot of the companies that are in cha chart, including quantumscape, which just really had a fantastic milestone with volkswagen, very interesting, romeo power missed the quarter really badly, i'm not going to count on them, nico, and then lordstown, three out of five missed the quarter badly but you know what? >> that's stunning >> but i do think that e.v. is really important because we are very far behind other countries. >> there's some headlines this morning about the white house asking the epa to look into credit policy to see what kind of credits might be generated by some of this and this is what the commerce secretary told jim last night on "mad money." >> this is about outcompeting china. we need to invest in america

invest in american manufacturing capacity invest in american workers and skills get back into the business of investing in basic research, where we have fallen behind. if we act now, we can't dilley dally, let's take action, we will compete with china. >> jim, you mentioned capacity spending on semis. already, taiwan semi's out today saying they're going to spend $100 billion over three years. we know what intel is spending about. 20 samsung, another 100 billion and micron last night talking about a relatively bullish forecast and we'll get to some of the target increases but taiwan semi has been running 100% for about 12 months. >> they have to. my problem is i felt very, let's say circumspect about being able to find more capacity. i know that they're interested in a japanese company that makes nan, makes flash, the first time we heard that flash could be in short supply we know d-ram is in short

supply hence one of the reasons micron's up. and it comes back to lam research and kla tencor and applied materials. we don't have enough companies those are all american companies. we own the i.p the secretary does not want the i.p. to go to china. but i would point out that the president starts out with the interstate highway, and president eisenhower got the interstate highway moving because we needed missiles to go from one place to another because of the russians. and i find it's almost like you can substitute what president eisenhower said and put, about russia, and put in china, i mean this is, there are a lot of people who felt that president trump and peter navarro were tough on china this is much tougher this is basically saying look, we got to be better than china and that's what we're going to be president trump wanted to have more spending here that's not what they're talking about. this is cold war chatter i want to say chatter, not point blank, but right at the same time, you have the ceo of boeing

go to the chamber of commerce and say we need these orders from china so i mean there's, but boy president boyden is -- president biden is very, very tough on china. i thought calhoun was saying we are going down the wrong path here. >> calhoun was pretty outspoken yesterday at the chamber of commerce but speaking of the chamber of commerce, jim, that is just one organization that seems to be dead set in any kind of hike in the corporate tax rate we heard from them and a number of senators who have said this is a means of raising corporate taxes. and putting forward progressive ideas in what mcconnell calls a trojan horse of infrastructure here's what the president said about the corporate tax rate, and the degree to which he's open to new ideas. >> we're going to raise the corporate tax. it was 35% which is too high. we all agree five years ago, it should be down to 28%.

but then reduced it to 21% we raise it back up to 28% no one should be able to complain about that. it's still lower than what that rate was between world war ii and 2017 just doing that one thing will generate $1 trillion in additional revenue over 15 years. >> jim, jpmorgan's morning macro note this morning takes a crack at this. they say tax increases appear to be manageable. but it was interesting to hear the president talk about not just tax rates for companies but specifically amazon, too and said that is one firm that needs to be prepared to pay more >> well how about the fact that he said they're a yoon man and they're voting for a union we're still tabulating, amazon is still tabulating, i was surprised at the republican reaction where was the reagan get the government off the backs of the people where was the outcry about the need for the government to be smaller? it's almost as if they seeded

this i felt they were must more mello. really surprised it is true that president trump busted the budget so maybe they feel it is inconsistent but they were really, they have gone full force, with the republicans, the trojan horse, ir, i expected more from mcconnell and look, we can't reverse what reagan started. this is the government getting really big china becoming 1% of the gdp and i just think that the republicans, they were very, let's say relaxed in their response maybe they feel like they have the votes to stop it i don't know >> that does not seem to be the calculus from what i've read goldman yesterday, and a few others, say look, this is probably going to happen through reconciliation it's probably going to take longer as a result you might go into the late summer, early fall and it's going to depend on

maintaining the support, jim, of a number of centrist democrats who will be highly leveraged to sway the policy in the end >> well, look, i do think that there were enough goodies in there that the democrats can go for it i know that speaker pelosi i think will have no problem obviously in the house but if we had senator manchin on right now from west virginia, i think he would say, we have a huge employment, just before the pandemic, we don't necessarily need this, and let's see what happens, whenever we get to the vaccine. because i would say that remember, pre-pandemic, we were at levels that we hadn't seen since lyndon johnson in terms of jobs i wonder, there's a lot of things in here that i think are incredibly interesting, but the job loss is concentrated in small business, and concentrated in restaurant, retail, and that could be easily remedied once we get the vaccine. so i think that there will be a lot of people saying, can we please wait and see? let's wait and see what the unemployment, i mean if the unemployment rate drops, i don't

know if there are enough people to actually take the jobs. >> right and that's going to be an issue, jim. and then claims were a little bit surprising this morning, but we're going to see what the jobs number brings us tomorrow. a lot of estimates in the 6 a, i think morgan stanley went to 700 k yesterday. you mentioned the vaccine, jim there is so much news regarding that we mentioned pfizer. they say the vaccine is highly effective. 91% for six months not a lot of safety concerns it's better than the 90-day estimate that we've been going with and they say it's protective against the variant out of south africa then there's j&j, jim. this mix-up at the factory in baltimore. a. p.'s got a piece this morning talking about emergent, having sustained multiple citations in production, jim. it's a bit of a setback. >> j&j does have the ability to produce four to five million

vaccines, the vials that are needed, i should say, from the netherlands, but there is 24 million in april, was j&j's goal and you can see how important the emergent bio was and i know that j&j was positive it could be resolved and i know that the situation, if there's multiple problem, we won't let them get away with it, remember this is emergent, there are j&j people going into the emergent factory and you have to hope that maybe the fda now it is run by j&j, it will be better, they do have a lot of vaccines ready, that are fda approved but if you look at the history of even j&j, there's a plant that was, a lot of my friends worked at, in fort washington, p. a., that the fda, they slapped mcneil with --

shuttering the factory in 2011 and it took forever to get it opened i don't know i would love to be as optimistic as j&j but carl, this is a huge part of what this country hoped, one vaccine, boom, and we get it faster i think it will be a setback to the entire process of getting vaccinated >> it's not good >> we do have cvs this morning, they say they administered 10 million doses in the month and they've got capacity for 25 million doses. per month, jim i know i'm going to a cvs tomorrow to get mine i had to laugh because on the tape right now, fauci say, on the morning shows, i'm not sure i would have said impending doom about the pandemic, and then he says that, he says that the j&j issue, he says human errors do happen but we've been talking about walensky's comment earlier in the week. >> i'm glad he said it is human error and i think when the j&j

people get in and they can make a strong case and say it was emergent you know us. we're really good. and i am so glad that fauci said that i just got the new book, the new steven king book "later" and i find that when i hear impending doom, i keep thinking about the stand, that lincoln tunnel scene, which always gave me nightmares, which is trying to hold back impending doom. so it shocks me. and i think you want to say it's your patriotic duty to get your shot and we want to encourage ut you about impending doom, they got to leave that to the novels, holy cow, and watching on twitter, i read almost every single stephen king book, and when you hear impending doom from a government official, let's just say you can't, you can't even hide in maine >> yeah, jim, it kind of reminds me of two bits of news we got yesterday, from companies that

have access to a lot of data, and a lot of intelligence, the first one is amazon, which had a blog post saying they are looking to return people to offices in the coming months a return to what they say is an office-centric culture as our baseline. and then there was google. which was of course we all remember, it was one of the first to send workers to remote working. they will bring some people back to the office starting in the next month we're going to talk to adam aaron in a minute. but certainly, the return to work dynamic is a pretty good tell at least it has been >> i think it's a great tell and i think it is something we have to talk about constantly because it is probably the most important theme right now in our country is when are you going back to work, are you going back to work, meaning the central office, and the ceo of palo alto, he continues to say it is going to be a hybrid office setup, that's what happens, it's hybrid, meaning some days you got to come in and some days due, and he thinks that's

irreversible, that would be incredible when you think about it i remember going in at goldman sachs, trying to get in at 4:00 a.m. and trying to leave at 11:00 p.m. to impress people because i was ridiculous, and the idea was that you live at the office now, the idea with these young, with the millennials is i'll drop by. they hate when i say that, carl. but i think the idea of younger people picking and choosing what day they go to work, which days they stay at home, now, maybe people say listen, they have to go to work at 7:00 a.m., we can just fire up the machines but the zoom calls i think there's people with their eyes closed. and i think they're like that. intolerable. >> it's interview working with those 20-year-olds, i'll outwork any of those 20-year-old, give me a break. >> we'll take a break. and a bunch of names to get to in terms of research including apple, uber, jim mentioned goldman, carnival, netflix and some other, as we kick off the month of april by the way, s&p has not had a

losing april since 2012. 'rba ia nute labradoodles, cronuts, skorts. (it's a skirt... and shorts) the world loves a hybrid. so do businesses. so, today they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place. that's why businesses from retail to banking are going with a smarter hybrid cloud using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. you're clearly someone who takes care of yourself. so why wait to screen for colon cancer? because when caught in early stages, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers even in early stages. tell me more. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur.

ask your prescriber or an online prescriber if cologuard is right for you. i'll do it. good plan. see every delivery... i'll do it. every yikes... and even every awwwwwwww... wait, where was i? introducing self protection from xfinity. designed to put you in control. with real-time notifications and a week of uninterrupted recording. all powered by reliable, secure wifi from xfinity.

gotta respect his determination. it's easy and affordable to get started. get self protection for $10 a month. back in 1999 when i was the ceo at avon, a lot was made of the gender break through, so women in the c-suite, women in the board room, women in the ceo job, there was a lot of focus on that but less so on the fact that i

was the first asian woman, and it really did hit home, i think i was walking through the plant at avon, probably three months after i became the ceo, and it was in china, and i was with the general manager, and the head of operations, and it was a regular senior management factory tour, and i remember that young women were peering around the corner, looking out, as we were walking through, and it really did hit me that, you know, the eight previous ceos of a women's cosmetic company had been white men, and that for them, it was someone that looked like them, and that you could actually start at the bottom and make it all the way to the top >> that's andrea last night talking about race and opportunity in our ongoing series of specials, "race & opportunity in america," jim, what a remarkable set of interviews last night. >> yes, the ceos inspirational, saying look, i would go to companies, and the top people never looked like me and you

hear things like that, geez, it's 2021, how is that possible? and i think that andrea, when she talks about the consumer product companies, true, clorox has a woman at the helm and that's terrific, but i question, who buys most of these products? it's women i really think that, how can you not be thinking, you know what, it's time, and clorox thought it was time, and i think that ms. rendell has a really good handle on what people want. i remember when mr. taylor from procter & gamble talked about how he was going to add women to the board, young women to the board and it's about time, how does it happen, carl, that these things are so late they're just late. >> i think the ceos themselves are asking that same question, this is what was said last night about being a leader, who happens to be a member of a

specific race, take a listen to this >> being at big companies when you look up and see people who, no one in leadership positions looking like you, you realize that, you question yourself, am i playing a rigged game? am i playing something that there's going to be no winner that looks like me and so really breaking out and going straight to the top by starting our own company and starting my own company has been one of the ways i have a shortcut to the top. it's hard work but being at the top, i think it does set that tone >> our thanks to those executives, jim, for being so honest, and candid at least they're in a position now where they can start to ask these kinds of questions as opposed to not being in the c-suite at all. >> yes, and all conversations should have amy chang in it, the woman that dave taylor has said has made a difference at proctor. and stanford and computer scientist, sold a company to chuck robbins at cisco, it's so brilliant, i sit there and learn

from her i have lunch and learn from her. a good friend of my wife and i just say amy, how come she's not running whatever company she wants? i'm sure they will the reason i think about it, i think there is discrimination, i am using the word, there's discrimination and it's to me, it's institutional, it's not against individuals. it's institutional and anything like last night's program, and i'm so proud of, i told everybody, whatever we can do to promote, because it's extraordinary so i love what we did as a network, carl this is what we got to do. >> yes, we're proud of last night's programming and we look forward to people getting a chance to watch what aired last night maybe online take a break here. as we kick off q2. don't go anywhere. diane retired and opened that pottery studio. how did you come up with all these backstories? i got help from a pro. my financial professional explained to me all the ways nationwide can help protect

financial futures in peytonville. nationwide can help the greens get lifetime income because their son kyle is moving back home and could help set up a financial plan for mrs. garcia. and he explained how nationwide can help mr. paisley retire early and spend more time with his pal, peyton. and their new band. exactly! yeah. don't forget the band. i haven't. we may be in a touchless world, but we can still touch people's lives... by staying in touch... and showing you care... because now, each time you order online or tap in-store with your mastercard at restaurants and grocery stores, mastercard will donate to stand up to cancer, one precious cent at a time, up to 5 million dollars. together, we can start something priceless.

we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing.

the optimism obviously, continued reopening and the start of a new quarter leading to strength in future, the final day of a holiday-shortened week. the opening bell in about seven minutes.

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.

let's get "a mad dash" with jim. >> there are so many titan ceos in the semiconductor business, we talked about, i do not talk about sanjay enough. micron is basically, i'm going to use the term allocation, with d-ram, the demand is just extraordinary, as we keep hearing. and by the way, flash, which is kind of a mid link, it is now getting tight, which may be why they're interested in this

japanese company it has nan, worth about 30 billion. but the conference call was just incredible every single part of their lineup, everything they sell into, pcs or data centers, anybody that needs them, micron is basically the building block of all devices, it's just overwhelming them with demand, and this is really the big american fab company now, i would have said at one point it was intel and i got to hand it to these guys. in the conference call, the questions are now beginning subtly, whether there is so much capital equipment money being spent that when we get back to the boom/bust, where there will be a tipping point, where just when micron has the most demand, there's two, you know, you think it would go to the moon, there are so many chips hitting and i'm not worried about that yet, carl, and i can't wait to speak to him tonight this is the golden moment for

semiconductors. >> jim, i want to pin you down on price because today rbc goes to 120. jpm 140. 165. how much of this does the street already know >> great question. i think that the issue here is that we didn't know that nan, that flash is as strong as it is, but i think those price targets, this thing is a juggernaut when it gets going but i would say when the stock was at 35 and they came on "mad money" and said this could be a juggernaut, it will get going, 92, i like it when he made the 35 call, 92, i think that you're going to have a lot of upside, but i don't know if i want to go up 70% i wouldn't make that call. >> yeah, then you got ford, i mean sort of a related story, is going to shut down production on six lines for about two weeks, we heard yesterday, on the key o one deliveries impacted and the

auto industry is dealing with. and we heard gm saying it won't impact their numbers for the year. >> i think that was a possibility, mary barra, a tour de force, but i would say this is actually solvable, i will hear the auto parts, i think it will be solvable by q4 they will get that done. but there's just never-ending demand i wonder when people start coming back to the office, will now longer have to build the home offices, there could be some let-up. but carl, right now, it is just extraordinary to me. extraordinary. >> yeah. there's the s&p 500. and a look at the opening bell on this first day of april at the big board, celebrating an ipo, the real estate brokerage compass. congratulations to them. and over at the nasdaq, it is also an ipo, frontier airlines, jim. as we're starting to see more entrants in the aviation space >> well, phil lebeau has been talking about the strength of the numbers. i know that our guest is going to be on soon, adam aron, a

mutual friend of ours taking a plane this weekend and every single seat, going to florida. every seat it's like it is an extremely filled plane and you can't put your bags anywhere you're starting to hear that same language. and three months ago, you did not hear that. i think that there are many airlines that need more planes, and i think it's going to surprise you i think that people are going to travel like mad. i don't even care about the business traveler. i know that the business traveler flies upfront but when you ask people what they're going to do, when they got their vaccine, they want to go somewhere obviously they want to go to disneyland the numbers were just okay for disney, but i think it's an obsession to travel. obsession. and by the way, i think carl, when europe opens up, and it will open up, i think there will be tourism even though the dollar is very strong. i'm very bullish in tourism. adam aron, from amc, he ran

starwood, he ran vail, and so much to talk about, and a consumer of good time, he'll be a delight as he always is. >> you're not kidding, jim so many things he can address. capital raising. and really quick, before we bring him in, i did notice that united yesterday did say domestic leisure demand in their words has almost entirely recovered from the covid era and calhoun at the chamber of commerce, he said that when he believes vaccines reach 60 to 70% distribution in his view, where things can return to normal. >> obviously, if i were an airline, i would go now with the southwest air price, that's the price you want and kind of that price in what was it, state farm, that's what they're getting. love that ad well, let's bring him in

all right, we got him on, cnbc exclusive, amc entertainment president and ceo adam aron, great to see you on and not just saying it because at one point of the ceo of the sixers done many, many good things >> good morning. good morning >> i got to do the good morning thing. 5 billion in debt. can you solve it can you solve it that's a lot of debt >> i would like to think so. you know, amc has proven quite adept over the past year at raising capital. one of the reasons that we have survived this horrible pandemic so far is we raised $2.8 billion of cash, and got another billion of concessions from lenders and landlords of theaters and that's put us in a position to run our business going forward to some degree of confidence you know, five different times, during the last year, we were close to running out of cash, because our theaters were all

closed and we had no revenues. but we raised money to survive and we're back operating as normal companies operate and let me just tell you, we talked about good morning, let me tell you what good morning means in america these days. the combination of vaccinations and new movie releases, god zill opened last night and our attendance last night was about ten times what it's been all the other wednesdays so far in 2021. we can look ahead. >> but at the same time, your stock is up 380% you know, i don't know, adam, i mean this is a good opportunity to share a couple hundred dread million share, isn't it? >> i want to be careful. >> this is where you do it now it's not the time. it's here.

dilution >> dilution is something we care about but i would also tell you we are formally asking for approval from our shareholders to authorize another 500 million shares that the company could issue if it wishes there are a lot of benefits to our shareholders of having board-authorized shares out in the market we will be sensitive to dilution issues at the same time, though, there's an opportunity to bolster our cash reserves. there's an opportunity to buy back debt at a discount. there might be an opportunity to frame some of our deferred theater rents. with stock instead of cash maybe there's some merger and acquisition opportunity where we could buy other companies inexpensively using our stock as currency, there are a lot of reasons for shareholders to give us the authority to have more shares. >> buying back 6 and 3/.

great piece of paper. >> we are very aware of buyback at a discount and that would be accretive and generate profitability for amc and increase shareholder value for our shareholders >> if you get that money, is it time to play hardball, black widow, cruella, if i can go to amc or if i can go to disney plus, i know disney plus is a lot of fun to watch at home even though i love the popcorn, i love the social distancing, i mean you can, if you get the capital, can't you say to these guys, you know what, look, we're not playing by your rules, we're open, and we want those with a six-week, you know, with a two-month exclusivity. >> well, look, i think one of the biggest benefits of amc being the largest exhibitor in the world is that we have a seat at the table and we're in active discussions with movie studios all the time we consider them our partners in this ecosystem of the release of

movies we've been discussing policies for years. some of those discussions are very easy, some of those discussions are heated, as you say. there was a lot of drama around theatrical win dose starting last april that continued this january. and continues as a base. but as i said, we got a seat at table. we're an important player. and so far, we have been able to reach agreement with studios on mutually agreeable terms, what we think are good terms for the studios but also very importantly good terms for us and for amc shareholders >> adam, i don't want to belabor this point, but jim's question is so key. black widow, among some, was seen as a bit of a large tell about the window, because they held their cards, earlier in the year, and then they finally push it back two months, but as jim says, you can get it at home, and it's, a lot has been written about the fact that disney didn't really do exhibitors any

favors do you agree with that >> well, look, i'd rather not comment publicly about what disney is doing or isn't doing or what their strategy is or what their strategy isn't. i will tell you that disney and amc as two companies have been very close partners for decades, and decades, and i expect to be very close partners with disney for decades and decades to come. i'm not worried about the competition from the home. godzilla was available at home on streaming service, and almost a quarter of a million people were at our theaters last night, just in the united states alone. on a wednesday that's a good omen people, you know, this pandemic if anything, people want to get out of their houses and their apartments, and going to the movie theater is something that people have loved for more than a century and it's a cheap date, a cheap night out and a very nice break from being couped up where you live 24/7.

>> i couldn't agree more, adam to me, it is a date. i mean the dinner, i got a restaurant, but the date is to go to the movies >> talk about partners, you have a very interesting partner in the people who are on reddit, wall street bets and i know you earlier said you find it so appealing, about the reddit phenomenon is the affection and allegiance that americans have across the country and you pointblank say that it is really true that millions and millions of people rallied behind saving amc, so i don't know, i think they could rally behind 500 million shares >> well, look, jim, you know, save amc was a hashtag that was trending on twitter, the single most tweeted hashtag, one of those days in january. look, there are a lot of things going on with the so-called reddit phenomenon. but i think one of them is there are a lot of people out there who have an affection for amc, who did not want to see hedge

funds short our stock, and try to force us into bankruptcy. and they stood by our side and we appreciate that and now, as we go forward, we want to run this company right these people are now our shareholders and we want to do what's best for our shareholders increased long-term shareholder value. as you said, one of the smartest ways we can do that right now is increase the available share count at amc, and then use the shares wisely. in the next week, in the next month, and even in the next year and over the next five weeks and five months and five years ten weeks and ten months and ten years. >> you read my mind. the last question, i thought the shorts were trying to just drive you out of business. i thought the shorts were taking the stock down, creating some level of fear and then making it so the bonds rolled over, making it hard for you to be able to raise money. you hit upon what i think was actual truth about the shorts. >> look, i do. clearly, there were people who

were campaigning to force us to run dry on cash. once you get in this cycle of approaching in solvency, it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy and most companies get in that zone, they wind up having to file by contrast, because of the competence in amc, and our future, by retail investors, because of the confidence, we sold over $800 million worth of stock in december and january alone and we raised a lot of money, we bolstered our cash reserves, and we, as i say in the press statement, in mid january, we took near-term imminent bankruptcy completely off the table. now, with vaccinations at a very brisk pace, with new movie releases coming, with people coming back to theaters in quantity again, as was the case last night with godzill and we

think it will be the case with other new movies released in april and may and june and july. look, we got a brighter future >> i just want to be sure, it's, there's a little ticker that said it was $500 million i thought i heard 500 million shares >> my experience is that jim cramer is never wrong, and you are correct. we have asked our shareholders for approval for 500 million new shares that doesn't mean we'll use all of those shares but it does give the company flexibility and optionality, and when you're navigating these uncharted waters of pandemic are very good things. >> i want to congratulate you. fabulous article in the "new york times." and the one thing, you gave me no churchill how can you give me no churchill, adam. >> i did in the middle of the dire times, when we were tight

on cash, on an earnings call, as you are alluding, i quoted the famous, we'll fight them on the beaches churchill speech saying that amc was in a war-time mentality and we weren't going to let hedge funds or short sellers take us out and we were going to throw everything we had at saving amc, and we think that's exactly what we've done we're not totally out of the woods yet. we still need more vaccinations to come. we need more movies to be released we do need to see a return to normalcy in the united states. but as we look ahead, we think the odds are much better that that will be the outcome. >> i want to thank adam, who has piloted and people should read this "times" profile, a lot of people would have given up, you not only took on the shorts but you just going to be the winner and maybe the last man standing. have a great time this weekend >> thank you, jim.

thank you. >> back to you, carl. >> jim, don't go anywhere, i need you for the rest of the hour as we've been talking to adam aron, a new milestone the s&p, less than two years, jim, since it crossed 3,000, for the first time as we kick off a new month. how much of this do you think is calendar effects >> well, i do think april is historically very strong a lot of money coming in from stimulus checks this week. and i think it's going into the stock market because the stock market is proving to be pretty much of a winner great to see that even after the viacom fiasco, that the money came in, i was so fearful, and jay clayton talked about it, the former s.e.c. chairman was saying, people should have gotten in earlier and they want more education and they know that, and it was a clarion call, good message, and i'm glad that people didn't dessert the stock market, carl there's a lot of money being made >> yes, indeed, jim. the question is whether or not it continuesto revolve around

rotation or whether or not we can ride the same kinds of trades that got us here in the last thousand points or whether it's a mix of the two. >> a little bit of a mix i still want to say the cyclicals will have the best numbers when we see them the spacs have hurt what i think is kind of the great growth cohort i noticed cathie wood getting a lot of money in. and if there's 500 million shares of amc and the stock is only down 50 cents, of course, not to do it all at once, carl, that is a pretty telling sign that the market's got resilience. >> yes great interview. perfect timing to have adam aron on. speaking of data, we will get to pmi numbers here, let's get to rick santelli rick >> yes, this is the first of two pmis, and this is the pmi for market and the ism coming in a bit from the ism people. we have 59.1 which is like exactly what we expected and if you take the 59.0 that was the mid march read, that now

becomes of course 59.1, it is the second highest post-covid number, and beginning of the year, january, we had 59.2 as i said, ism will be coming up at the top of the hour let's look at intra-day chart of 10s. you can clearly see that this morning, that the slight reversal in jobless claim, instead of moving lower, they inched up just a smidge, and the market was very cognizant of that, and do keep in mind if you look at a three-day chart of 10s, being a technician, under the last two day's lows and that is very key. if you open up the chart to early march, you can see that the 160 mark is going to be key. listen, i think that we have an interim top here it might not last long but i think we're going to test lower level, maybe one of the catalysts of course is sometimes appropriating money is good, the stock market seems to like it, but at the end of the day, we're creating an awful lot of debt, and there may be a bit of indigestion, and i think at least with respect to the treasury complex, losing a

little bit of that, they think the economy is going to be going gangbusters, there's no productivity in the infrastructure bill that's coming, no matter it is posted as such. look at japan's infrastructure bills. no productivity ended up there and corporate taxes going up you know, if the reason rates were going up is because of excitement about the u.s. economy, raising corporate taxes has to be the anti-excitement factor thrown in the equation. the dollar index also, remember, rates have been going up, nobody really expected that, dollar has been going up, for sure, not many investors expected that, so if you look at a one week of the dollar, you can see we start to slip and close under 93 even, we're going to lose momentum there, very similar to the ten-year chart if you look at the two-day of the euro versus the dollar, if they start and close above the 11760 level, yesterday's high, and much of the strength in the dollar is weakness in the euro and in my opinion the infrastructure bill puts us at

more equal footing taking away some of the u.s. economic advantage at least in the near term jim and carl, back to you. >> all right, rick, see you in a bit for ism and construction spend at the top of the hour. we'll take a break here as we get s&p, 4k for the tirs time, and if you missed the headline a few moments ago amc, adam aron, not an offer, but asking shareholders to approve an offer of 500 million shares stock is down 5% we're back in a moment

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.

is. there's the s&p map, relatively split this morning. you can see we're a shade below 4 k. first time at 4k, obviously, and we first hit 3k back in july of 2019, not even two years ago re" ntueinusa uawk on the stetcoins jt moment 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. ♪ ♪ ♪

so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this.

we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. let's get to a final stop trading for the week, jim. >> you got the hot one, micron, and i think that sanjay is going to tell a great story, and we have quantum scape, a great deal from from volkswagen.

one of the few evs when you listened to the president last night that you want to talk to, because they have the fastest battery, and that's what people need these cars cost too much, and i think that he's going to be able to make it a statement these cars are coming down in price. just fabulous. i first saw jagdeep, when david interviewed him, that's the guy that's going to make it so evs are cheaper than internal combustion engines >> that is good stuff, jim, as it has been all week long. i did want to get you briefly on goldman because uvs today does cut it to neutral. they talk about volumes obviously being elevated above historical trend, but their broader, point, jim is that fed policy appears to be heating up just marginally on this slr, and that goldman in their words, is very sensitive to regulatory risk, and may go to neutral.

>> let's put it this way, it's been the best, and it doesn't surprise me that someone wants to go neutral because it has been unbelievable. but i recognize that all of these firms have to have something. one would be in a day. the reason i say this is because think about what happened with archegos j.p. morgan knew not to do this. but the guy dumped that extra stock did a pretty good job. >> we didn't get to it yesterday, but there were a bunch of headlines on archegos, wells saying they did not experience losses, and j.p. morgan, hedge funds in general, though it is higher than recent years, their argument was

nowhere near the levels than we saw on ltcm. >> i would say that thaft was a very reckless individual, reckless firm, and that is actually not the norm that i see. by the way, watch, win, cal numbers were extraordinary that stock is not up enough from the cal numbers that came out last night >> yeah, cal up 58% off of all weak comp sgls. >> and how is that going >> have a great weekend, you wllnkoul, tha y. >>e' see you monday. we're back in a minute ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ 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.

let's meet the defending champs. kim kietz, investor. i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovations of the nasdaq-100. like 3d rendering software. become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq. ♪

welcome back to "squawk on the street," breaking news, yes, we have our construction spending february, expecting the number down 1%, a smidge better, but still negative down 8/10 of 1%, sequentially this follows 1.7, although this could potentially be revised but we have pulled much of that forward, weather breaking is going to be an issue to the plus

as we move down the calendar as well ism manufacturing, this is a march number we just saw the market pmi this of course may be the bigger brother. 64.7 64 64.7 that is a much stronger number than we're expecting 61.5 expected and in the rear view mirror, 60.8. 85.6 on prices paid. that of course is a bit hotter, but it's pretty much in line with our last one which is 86 and if we look at new orders, 68.0, a nice jump from 64.8 and finally, considering what week it is, on the employment front, 59.6, just a whisker under 60 in the rear view mirror, 54.4 so these are definitely pretty good numbers, and tomorrow's employment report will tell us how good they really are carl, back to you. >> all right rick, you're absolutely right. what a banner week it has been for data

that's rick santelli good thursday morning, i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan, one reason we got to s&p 4k, hanging out a touch below. the jobs number tomorrow though stocks will be closed will be key to watch. >> so true we're going to be starting with president biden's infrastructure plan, introducing a profound change to the u.s. economy our steve liesman has more on this for us. hey, steve. >> yeah, the 2 1/4 trillion dollars biden spending plan would reverse a four decade long decline in government investment that began in the reagan years and put government more at the forefront of propelling economic growth than it has been. government investment in the economy has fallen steadily from above 1% in the economy to around 7/10 of a percent now only popping briefly, you can see there, with spending bounce after recessions president biden highlighted this decline in his speech yesterday.

>> the rest of the world is closing in and closing in fast we can't allow this to continue. american jobs plan is the biggest increase in our federal development spending on record >> the book commanding heights chronicled the way economic leadership is back and forth between companies and government, told me the frontier between government and the private sector is always shifting biden certainly is pushing out the boundary of government again in relation to the economy because payoffs on government investment take time, the initial impact on gdp and other measures could be negative former head of the congressional budget office says this will be an unprecedented increase in government influence on the economy. at least for the short-term impact on measures of economic growth will be negative. but over a ten-year period, the analyst i talked to at the pen

wharton budget model say the spending will raise the level of wages by 0.2%, and reducing capital spending overall by 0.1% a 2016 study from the congressional budget office estimates you get a 5% return on productive government investment, but there's already considerable pushback from republicans about whether these investments outlined by the biden administration qualify, carl, as productive. >> this is the key debate listening to you and joe talk about it earlier this morning, steve. something we'll wrestle with for a while. that's our steve liesman this morning. steve, thanks. i got a growing number of corporate executives taking a stand against various voting rights bits of legislation around the country after a number of prominent black business executives, penned a letter with an urgent call to action this week. >> crystal clear and unequivocal, this legislation is

unacceptable it is a step backwards, and it does not promote principles we have stood for in georgia. >> this is a call for action we're asking corporate america to publicly and directly oppose any discriminatory legislation and all measures designed to limit america's ability to vote. >> democracy depends on every voter in this country having free and fair access to vote without discrimination and without undue hindrance. >> they don't live here. they don't even know what the laws are in georgia, and quite honestly, our laws are not as restrictive as their own states where they're residing, so perhaps they should focus in other places. >> joining us this morning, the man who drafted the letter and placed the ad, charles phillips is cofounding manage partner at the technology investment firm recognize, formerly of oracle and the cofounder and cochairman

of the black economic alliance charles, it's been a while it's great to talk to you again. thank you for the time today. >> good to see you again. >> i'm curious to know, the coordination and the forcefulness of the way in which these executives have spoken out is pretty remarkable can you give us a sense of how it all came together, and at what point there was the decision to speak out collectively. >> we weren't as focused on this as probably we should have been, and we knew about what was happening in georgia i'm from georgia, went to high school there, parents lived there, brothers, son was born there. we got a call from some of the civil rights organizations, particularly naacp, and in addition, the head of the uncl so you guys need to get focused on this. we need help, and if you're going to speak out on an issue, this is the one to do it on. we got up to speed on it did a lot of research on it, and had some meetings on sunday. over the course of 24 hours, i

guess, and started contacting some of our colleagues, and within a day, we had over 70 executives say you're right, this is something serious. i can understand why some business people may not have been aware of it we were not as aware of it either we have to do something here people fought too long and too hard to win the right to vote, to have it go backwards, you can't just because you lose, change the rules. >> i unctderstand i guess the question now is we heard the sound bite briefly from governor kemp what happens next? we've got various coalitions, i guess you could argue, hollywood is starting to talk about boycotting production in the state. what happens beyond going on television and making your plea or writing a white paper or placing an ad? >> that's a good question, and that's the exact question ceos are asking us. dozens and dozens have called over the last 24 hours, and we're formulating that now,

probably around three things the first is speak up, which you're doing, the second is help people learn to vote they have to reregister and get the i.d. card. take the money you were going to donate to a local legislature and put it to that there is legislation pending, hr 1, which is to standardize the way we vote by mail, automatic voter registration, there are some 43 states now that have pending legislation to further restrict the to vote we can't do this state by state. knowing that, it doesn't make sense to do this one state it's probably going to have to be done federally. >> i want to get your response to governor kemp who was on our air yesterday, the georgia governor he said i would encourage ceos to look at other states they're doing business in and compare what the real facts are to georgia. he lists some of the voting laws in georgia, no excuse absentee balloting, online voting registration, 17 days of early voting with an additional two optional sundays and automatic

voting registration when obtaining a driver's license what's your response to him. >> in other words, it's easier to buy a gun than register to vote is what you're saying we have looked at that it's all in the lawsuit in the naacp filed yesterday, 91 pages and essentially if you look what the georgia has done since 2011, they have reduced the voting time from 45 days to 21 days they have reduced and closed 214 polling locations, the evidence is clear, yes, you still have early voting but you're restricting the time to do it, you're making it hard to do that and register for that. they're fixing a problem that didn't exist there's no evidence of voter fraud. for the last hundred years, we were fine with the signature when it was a white majority, all of a sudden now we need new laws, what happened, what changed. >> i think you would argue it is a nonpartisan issue, it has become partisan. why is it good business for ceos to weigh in on this. >> this is just the right to

vote we're not telling you how to vote we're saying everyone should have access for the right to vote it's the basic principle in the constitution i think businesses are going to get engaged. their employees are going to enforce it businesses don't get to check out anymore. the world has changed. some of the institutions, people turn to their local businesses as they weigh in you have influence, and local politicians doesn't. i don't think we have much choice it's just the way the world works in our country right now >> charles last night, the georgia house, narrowly passed an amendment that would have repealed a jet fuel tax break for delta in the wake of the statement yesterday. it didn't get to the senate. the senate adjourned before taking it up how much do you think corporates based in georgia are prepared for pushback out of the legislature. >> the ceo of delta did a courageous thing, he probably knew he was going to take a hit, and he took that hit but i think there's a limit to what they can do the state legislature there

letting them do that to every company that steps up, and at some point, the employees of the companies start to get annoyed that they're hurting the companies and reducing employment in those states i don't think it's a long-term strategy of what they are doing. i think more companies, if i can gauge by the number of calls we're getting, more companies in georgia are about to speak up. >> wow well, that would add to the list of yesterday alone between microsoft, coke, delta, i saw some blog posts out of citi's cfo and others we're not done talking about it by a long shot i hope you come back. >> there may be more communications by monday and tuesday, we're working on something now as companies are calling us thank you, carl. >> appreciate it very much. >> appreciate it thank you. >> charles phillips. still to come, a closer look at microsoft's $20 billion deal with the u.s. army and watch amc, those shares are sliding with ceo asking shareholders to approve a $500 million share

offering under pressure, down 2 1/2% stay with us. we'll be right back. there's an opportunity to bolster our cash reserves, there's an opportunity to buy back debt at a discount. there might be an opportunity to fray some of our deferred theater rents, settling with stock instead of cash. maybe there's some merger and acquisition opportunity where we could buy other companies inexpensively use our stock as a currency therare e a lot of good reasons for shareholders to give us authority to have more shares in our tool kit in peytonville, there's lots of ways to save on auto insurance. really? yeah. very proud of that. with smartride® from nationwide, they can get discounts for safe driving. does she get one? mrs. carmichael? safest driver in peytonville. takes a lot of work and effort to be the safest driver in peytonville. what about this guy? with nationwide smartmiles®, the less he drives, the less he pays. the list of inspiring stories goes on and on. i bet. i've never seen anyone do more with their retirement...

♪♪ ...than you. i... concur.

welcome back, all state recently signed on to the u.s. chamber of commerce's rally for recovery commitment as part of its continued push to accelerate vaccinations and help communities ultimately defeat the pandemic this includes a vaccine pto paid time off policy for employees. joining us now in a cnbc exclusive is all state ceo tom wilson thanks for being with us. >> good morning, morgan. >> paid time off for employees to get vaccines, how many employees have taken you up on this, and how is it, i guess, as we're starting to think about recovery and reemergence, how is it shaping the plans for people to come back in the office. >> it varies by state because we want our people to pay attention to what the rules are. we don't track, but what we're trying to do, we want you to be safe if you feel like you want a

vaccine, we'll give you time off to do it we are working on the future of work we don't call it return to the office, we call it future work because we think we're going to use a lot less office space in the future. >> interesting so when you say a lot less office space, do you see this becoming something like a hi hybrid model, or do you have some employees that will never come back to the office, are you shedding space, what's that look like >> it's both first thing, is we talked to all of our employees, our managers, and said how is this working at home, is it doing okay, what do you need, and we're finding about 60% of our work will be done permanently from home we have to help people get internet access, chairs and desks and all that we let people know which category the other 40% mostly get -- 38% get choice do you want to be in the office part-time, full-time, we think almost everybody is going to choose part-time the way i say that is commuting is way overrated

people just don't want to drive to the office five days a week, and so as a result of that, we think we'll probably use maybe half the amount of office space we have because we'll start sharing desks, which will be good for employees they have more choice. we find that it's also better for our customers because we spend less money. >> tom, it's so fascinating to listen to executives sort of do the calculus on what it means to have people in the office. amazon yesterday said they're going to go to an office centric culture because in their view, especially when it comes to innovating and working with your coworkers, it's hard to riff with each other in the same way virtually. and i just wonder, given what you have just said, how you respond to viewpoints like that? >> well, it's really important so we've hit 20% of our employees will work from home anyway so call centers, people now we have people who also don't need

to be -- they're more processing people so they don't have to be there. the 40% we do thinkthat being together is important. although we don't think it has to be five days a week when you come to -- what we're really talking about is culture, and what's your culture, and it really starts with saying, what's our purpose, so last year, we redid our purpose, reaffirmed our values on diversity, talked about what behaviors we need, and then you figure out who do you hire, how do you promote them, do performance management, but then there's the part they're talking about, culture oftentimes is maintained in pods, so you can hire people, manage them, and say here's our culture, but then groups of seven, eight, so we do have technology in place that enables people to work in pods, even if they're not in the office together. i think given the choice, hey, let's all go to the office, let's get together we haven't been together in a while, as opposed to, you know, it's wednesday, it's snowing, why am i driving an hour and a half to go to the office >> yeah, i just want to shift

gears a little bit, because it was a year ago, just about a year ago that we spoke, and the country was going into lock down, driving was way down, and you came on and spoke to us because you were really leading the industry in returning a percentage of premiums to insurance customers at the time. what are you seeing now in terms of recovery and people hitting the roads again? >> well, what a year it's been, wow. in terms of not being able to see our friends and family, and we had, you know, ice storms down in texas. we had all of the racial issues we have had. and what we are seeing is things are getting back to more normal in driving we don't think that's going to be the same as prepandemic, though so when you look at total miles driven, it dropped a lot in the period we talked about 40, 50%. total miles driven are now pretty close to where they were pandemic, pre-pandemic, we tracked 23 billion cars a day. what we are seeing, though, is

the traffic is two key parts still reduced the number of auto accidents, one commuting while total traffic volume is up, commuting is still down some, and then late night weekends, where people tend to get in trouble if they have been out having too good a time, so those two things are good for society, but we are seeing miles driven people are getting back to work, going to visit friends we are seeing total miles driven going back up. >> recently said a $4 billion loss in annuity markets exits, as you sell those businesses, you're doubling down on personal property, liability coverage as well what is the longer term vision what is the strategy for all state? why does that double down make the most sense, most compelling right now? >> well, what we're doing, of course the reason we're getting out of the life business, and the loss, really, our shareholders already knew about it it's the result of big decline in interest rates over the last

decade, so all of that business that we wrote when interest rates were high back in the 80s, we still have to pay those customers, which is fair so that's all been reflected in our stock prices so when we announce the sale, it really had no impact on our stock price at all in terms of where we're going in the future, we want to increase our market share and personal property liability autos, homes, cars, you know, boats, all of that kind of stuff. we have been working aggressively to lower our costs because price is really important. the other thing we're trying to do is expand the protection we offer people, so we now offer protection for your phones, your computers, your identity, and we now have grown our all state protection business by i think 50% over the last four years we have walmart, and costco and target, now home depot, appliances, we want to ensure whatever you're worried about breaking because you don't have enough money to fix it, we want to be there to help. >> yeah, i think we have to leave the conversation there,

but i would imagine that there's another conversation for us to have in the future about what this return to a new normal is going to mean in terms of all of those coverages. tom wilson, thank you for joining us today. >> thank you for having me a great discussion time for our etf spotlight today. da taking look at the chip sector, up double digits for the green micron, of course, beating on the top and bottom line. pretty bullish outlook as well, company issues an upbeat forecast amid what we know is elevated demand for semis. we got this report that the company is exploring a deal for a japanese chip maker. shares of micron up about 132% over the past 12 months. ceo is going to be on mad money with jim, 6:00 p.m. eastern time you really can't miss that we're back in a minute yes! hey ava, how's my bracket looking?

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. become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq. ♪

we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you,

instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing. keeping your oysters business growing so when it comes thas 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 microsoft, to build a

version of its headsets, the visual augmentation system has been in development since 2018, and now shifts from prototyping to production with this contract keep in mind, there's actually a flurry of contracts announced yesterday. it was the end of the quart ert. this has been the center piece for future plans by the army to provide more technologies to individual dismounted soldiers the goggle presents a mixed reality view for training, also fighting it uses sensors that provide night vision, thermal or standard daytime optics. it's all enabled, perhaps not surprisingly by microsoft's azure cloud services, and more capabilities are looking at from an army perspective but also test bid the marines and special ops. of course it comes in the midst of that other big tech centric contract, the jedi contract in which we continue to see these

legal twists playing out between microsoft, amazon and the department of defense. carl, i would just note that this speaks to the ever increasing role that big tech companies are taking in scoring some of the defense dollars, most notably companies that are not located in silicon valley, namely in places like the seattle area, and it also comes in a week where we are waiting, that quote unquote skinny budget from the omb today, which is going to show the top line proposed defense spending budget by the biden administration. that's another one to keep an eye on. >> interesting to see the collision between big tech and defense, morgan, we'll keep an eye on that with your help this morning, we got the big e, the best ism manufacturing number in 38 years and of course the jobs number comes tomorrowmentomorrow we're going to talk to january hatzius in a minute about what effect all of this is having on

the state economy in a minute. the world of investment will never be the same. the old guard swept aside by digital clearing and custody and the technology innovators who can't stop asking "why not"? why not direct indexing? or crypto? or fractional shares? there's a place where all these things come to life. a platform where the biggest ideas in fintech are changing the world. so, if you've got the guts to dream, we've got the guts to help you make it real. apex fintech solutions. the guts to change everything.

welcome back, i'm rahel solomon, and here is your cnbc covid update at this hour. pfizer and biontech say continuing trials show the covid vaccine remains 91% effective six months after the second dose the data shows the shot is fully effective against the variant circulating in south africa. dr. anthony fauci tells cbs people should understand the human error that ruined around 15 million doses did not affect shots that have been administered in the u.s. he says the loss of the doses is unfortunate, but the good news is, system of checks discovered the manufacturing problem. and the olympics torch relay continues in japan, but there are thousand some doubts about an upcoming leg two weeks from now through the city of osaka where covid infections are rising the government is putting new controls in place in osaka and neighboring areas as they try to avoid a stringent lock down. the games themselves are scheduled to begin less than four months from now

carl, it will certainly be an olympics to watch. i'll send it back to you. >> we're all crossing our fingers, rahel >> and holding our breath. >> we're about an hour into trading. get a check on the markets here. you can see s&p back above 4k after crossing it for the first time this morning. we're at 4,005 what a weekend it's been for ecodata. ism today, the jobs number tomorrow, adp, consumer confidence, home prices, a big mix today. let's check with gold man's chief economist, jan thank you for joining us. >> good to be on with you. >> let's talk about tomorrow's number, do you think it gets us past the winter drag that we got in february. >> we do think we're in an acceleration phase, we're looking for 775,000 for payrolls we also have a decline in the

unemployment rate to 5.9%. so decent size 3/10, so we do think that we're seeing acceleration in the numbers as the economy reopens, and we can see it in some of the most covid effective sectors, and we're also getting a boost from the tax rebates that went out a couple of weeks ago. so all of that should really give us, i think, the strongest growth rates of the year in maybe not yet in march, but sort of april, may, we think is really the point at which we get the most acceleration. >> right when viewers see alternative data trackers that imply a number, a million or more. should they pay attention or is that -- how much do you discount that >> no, i think alternative data is very important. you look at alternative data there's a range of alternative data out there higher frequency surveys, and

other measures that are based on mobility and cell phone locations and so forth and there's always a range of outcomes some of them, you know, a million that would be an up side surprise we do have an above consensus, knew of what tomorrow's number is going to bring. i don't think you can rule out something, you know, even substantially higher than we have in our forecast, but somewhere in the 750 to $800 range, that's basically our expectation. i would say for this entire last year, alternative data have been extremely helpful in gauging which way the economy was going in the short-term. >> yeah, certainly jan, i'm curious, we're talking about this at the beginning of the show, given what president biden proposed yesterday and the expectation for a second wave of proposals of spending in the coming weeks the shift of the idea of trickle down economics, and government

essentially getting out of the way to what you might call wealth redistribution that is being led by the government. steve liesman mentioned the fact that in some ways this push by the government to basically reimagine infrastructure, what this means from an economic standpoint is unprecedented. how do you model for that? >> the infrastructure package, i mean, i wouldn't say that that's wealth redistribution. that's mainly focused on, you know, making investments in areas that, you know, hopefully are going through pay dividends for the broad economy, for everybody in the economy there's also a stronger redistribution element, of course, in some of the other measures, and you certainly saw that during the crisis because you had this big expansion in unemployment benefits, and of course the tax rebates through lower and middle income earners. basically helping those that

have been affected the most and shoring up their incomes, and will probably see additional moves on a somewhat longer term basis. this package that was unveiled yesterday is not going to be the last one there would be another proposal and we're ultimately going to see what passes. in this package, i would say it wasn't particularly surprising relative to what we put in our forecast it was focused on infrastructure i think relative to the packages that passed in just the end of last year, and then the american rescue plan, what we're going to see now over the next few months is going to have probably less of an impact on the short run ups and downs of the business cycle, year-to-year numbers, and quarter to quarter numbers, just because it has a longer term focus. it's still a very activist approach from the president and his team

>> jan, you mentioned ism this morning, highest since '83 the prices paid number was elevated, again. there's more discussion about demand outstripping supply we see how vulnerable we are in the chip space, the suez story got big. i wonder whether or not your view that core pce tops out in the middle of the year do you feel it's being challenged and do you think you might have to revisit? >> well, we're always ready to revisit any forecast, of course, if there's new information i would say right now we're expecting 2.3% in the april numbers. that's an acceleration of almost a percentage point from the most recent reading in february it's entirely driven by base effects. after that, we do think that we'll probably see stabilization, gradual decline in the year on year rate as we get towards the end of the year.

i think there are some up side risks, and you mentioned the good side of that. i would say in the service sector, there are also some upside risks that's where the reopening of the economy is most pronounced and things like airline tickets, and theme park admissions and other personal services, there probably will be upward pressure we feel the job numbers to a reasonable degree, but risks around that, and i wouldn't rule out that you would stay at this 2.3% number or maybe even edge higher in the remainder of the year the biggest question, especially from a policy perspective, whether what you're seeing in the short-term, whether that disrupts the stability of inflation expectations if that doesn't happen, if inflation expectations stays stable, i wouldn't be that concerned about a few tenths here or there in the shorter term that's our expectation

but obviously always subject to revision >> right >> finally, i know morgan asked you about infrastructure the tax policy debate, that goes along with that is getting pretty interesting i see j.p. morgan said the tax proposal is manageable i wonder, do you think it is manageable, and what do you think of this view, for instance, out of the u.s. chamber that the users who benefit from the changes and improvements in infrastructure should be the ones who pay for it i mean, how parochial is this whole thing going to be? >> i mean, i think user fee is obviously something you have in a number of areas, and that's certainly, i think, reasonable -- a reasonable idea for a number of projects we are project going to see some tax increases both on the corporate side and on the personal side. the personal tax increases weren't included in this

particular package but we would expect some on the corporate side, the proposal here on the corporate income tax is 28%. our expectation, what we have built into our numbers has been 25% because we think there will probably be some resistance among centrist democrats against a 28% rate, but i think it's a fluid situation, and it is an offset to net sltimulus that you get out of this package, and that is also one reason again, why this package is not going to have as much impact as the stimulus and roll out as to the ones we have seen over the past several months >> we love having you on jobs friday, jan, and we're grateful to you for coming on early because we won't be here in the morning. great seeing you thanks a lot. >> thank you so much. up next, hyundai's north

american ceo will talk the company's ev push and ship shortage impact. we'll be right back.

a top strategist delivers her investment approach for the second kwquarter and it largely ignores chte find out at tradingnation.cnbc.com more "squawk on the street" straight ahead

♪ irresistibly delicious. ♪ ♪ pour some almond breeze. ♪ ♪ for the maestros of the creamiest-ever, ♪ ♪ must-have smoothies. ♪ ♪ it's irresistibly delicious. ♪ ♪ more almond breeze, please! ♪ keeping our eye on the auto space. our phil lebeau joins us with a very special guest. >> let's bring in jose munoz, the ceo of hyundai america i want to start with the march in q1 sales you have just announced. march, has sold over 75,000 vehicles best monthly sales ever. q1 sales up 28%. are you yourself, i know you're optimistic by nature, and we have talked over the years, and i know how optimistic you are, but are you yourself a little bit surprised at how strong this market is right now?

>> well, thank you, good morning, phil, thank you for having me. we had a terrific mark all time record, almost unexpectedly, and 150% growth year over year 150% growth from retail, and you didn't mentioned more than 300%, so of course i have to be optimistic however, you know, there are a lot of challenges in the industry as you know but the demand is strong, and then we're having a good momentum, so we're ready for the next steps no doubts about it. >> when we talked with you here on cnbc just a couple of weeks ago, you talked about how hyundai is better positioned than a number of other auto makers, relative to the global shortage of semiconductors because you have stockpiled so many how is that stockpile holding up, and are you still optimistic that you're going to be able to weather this storm when it comes to the chip shortage >> well, listen, this chip shortage is impacting everybody. we're not an exception i think we did a better job

managing this situation. however our plants have been hit, and our plants in the united states as well. so we hope that if in the next, say, four to five months, the situation gets better, perhaps q3, q4, we'll see a recovery for the time being, we have to manage carefully, and try to optimize, and we're doing so so far. >> jose, it's morgan good to speak with you again we have been talking about the port congestion we're seeing particularly on the west coast, has that impacted you in any way? >> everybody is impacted we are impacted as well, so the moment you get a staggered arrival of ships, you get impacted last month it was a little more challenging for us than march. march has been okay. and then we're navigating our logistics company. doing a great job, so yes, impacted, but managing the situation. >> jose, yesterday the president gave a broad outline in terms of

his proposal for the infrastructure build out that he would like to do in this country. spending more than $2 trillion, and a big chunk of that. more than $175 billion would go into ev infrastructure from your perspective, as you're ramping up your ev sales, what do you think is more important to help ev development is it greater incentives for people to switch out from a gasoline powered car to an ev or is it the development of more charging stations, what do you think the best allocation of money would be in that regard? >> well, first and foremost, you know, our company is all about ev, we actually, in march saw a more than 200% increase in our ev saves, which is interesting, and we have made announcements that my 2025, as far as our strategic plan, we're going to sell in the group, 1 million evs, achieving somewhere between 8 to 10% segment share so we've paid a lot of attention

to the biden administration announcement, and then we believe that the development of infrastructure is really the key success factor when we look at the technology of the vehicles, the vehicles are having a great technology. most manufacturers are impacting. we are able to go well beyond the 300 miles epa, and in the future, more than 500 miles. but if we don't have enough infrastructure, we're not going to be able to capitalize it on it we see that the demand is going up definitely we are all in, supportive on the infrastructure project. >> real quick because we're running out of time here, jose where would you say is the best expenditure of funds for the u.s. is it greater incentives for people to buy a vehicle or more for more charging stations, what would you say? >> i think the market is quite good for the time being. i think the american contributors are seeing the benefits of ev, the range is the

right -- at the right place, so we just need more infrastructure that's my opinion. >> jose munoz, the ceo of hyundai north america, i know we had to keep it a short interview today,

♪ 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. ♪ ♪ new projects means new project managers. this is what an annuity can do. 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.

when traders tell us how to make thinkorswim even better, we listen. like jack. he wanted a streamlined version he could access anywhere, no download necessary. and kim. she wanted to execute a pre-set trade strategy in seconds. so we gave 'em thinkorswim web. because platforms this innovative, aren't just made for traders—they're made by them. thinkorswim trading. from td ameritrade.

we may be in a touchless world, but we can still touch people's lives... thinkorswim trading. by staying in touch... and showing you care... because now, each time you order online or tap in-store with your mastercard at restaurants and grocery stores, mastercard will donate to stand up to cancer, one precious cent at a time, up to 5 million dollars. together, we can start something priceless.