we'll get you ready for the new read on inflation. coming up after that report we saw last friday finally. it finally came out. we will see that bitcoin surging to a new high we don't talk yearly highs it is always all-time with bitcoin. that comes ahead of the public listing for coinbase full rundown on that straight ahead. vaccinations hitting a record pace in the u.s the cdc director is urging michigan to shut things down it's tuesday, april 13th, 2021 "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on

cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin with joe kernen becky is off today nasdaq is looking to open higher ten points higher. s&p is looking to open 7 points higher let's check in on treasury yields right now the 10-year is 1.693 check out bitcoin. a record high this morning we may need only one thing in the "squawk stack. $62,918. see if it crosses $63,000. this as wall street is preparing for the direct listing of coinbase that is creating a lot of interest in cryptocurrency we have breaking news this morning. a big spac deal. perhaps the biggest. a company we have been following for some time.

grab is going public via spac. the ride handling company is merging with altimeter the deal values grasp at $39.6 billion. the biggest blank check deal ever after the combination, grasp will trade under the ticker grab grab has ranked as high as number four on the disrupter 50 list this is a huge deal and we should tell you that grab's founder anthony tan is joining us here on the program in just a little bit at 6:30 eastern this is the equivalent of uber and instacart and uber eats and banking. they do everything they own their market in a remarkable way it will be fascinating to see

how this trade and watching the stock up 6% this morning >> reopening trade if you look at uber's latest numbers. incredible when people are totally reopened, how bright is the future for all these things? pretty bright. >> pretty bright for a lot of them quick comment on this particular transaction. you know i've been critical often times of spacs in large part because the sponsors don't stick around credit and kudos to altimeter and the folks who put it together they set it up so they are in the stock, the sponsor, and putting additional money in. $750 million more in and in it for at least three years we talked about the deals and how they are structured and the sponsor is gone after six months or a year.

you are starting to see it i think this is going to become a trend. especially the focus on spacs by the s.e.c. and others to better align the interests. this is, i would argue, one of the better aligned spac transactions so far. >> the context of the transaction is interesting given the s.e.c. looking into the issue of the accounting basis should be counted as liabilities. spacs or de-spac companies trade not well if you look at the draft kings and yesterday's session they felt the pressure of potential s.e.c. overhang which is backing up the pipeline for spacs to come the s.e.c. is telling some people they won't approve any other spac transactions until the warrant issue is vresolved

there is that trouble in spac land this is not just pre-pandemic levels record monthly demand for riders and also monthly bookings for food delivery. so, it looks bright in terms of this particular space. >> it's a pretty incredible thing. you are right. s.e.c. issuing that statement has lots of people concerned that's on the de-spac side the other is the disclosures which so many spacs require because they are unprofitable businesses and have to put out projections two or three years out. we talked about it last week with harvey pitt, the former s.e.c. chairman. the whole space, growing pains, as the asset class, if you will,

evolves. interesting to see grab in the middle of it i think the way it appears to be that they are approaching and we'll talk to anthony tan more about it in a bit. he seems to be on the better side of it should we put grab in the "squawk stack" here? the dow futures and 10-year and bitcoin at record highhighs. >> a couple of bitcoin once coinbase comes out, that can be in "the stack." you put the spac in the "squawk stack. i don't twister. >> put it to music. >> peter piper. >> thank you, again, melissa andrew helps us with the spelling of these. the other day we had the sysmbol

is coin, c-o-i-n faang. >> for the folks on radio. i do it for the folks on radio >> you know why? we mumble. that's why nuance is such a good acquisition. it can pick up the mumbling. we talked about that yesterday melissa, siri hears me say things that would not be said on any planet in the universe. >> maybe that's your excuse. >> my mumbling andrew says nuance is better it can cut through the numb mu. >> my advice is dragon is the best speech recognition program out there. including mumbling

>> we can put it to the test. >> you have to train it. >> of course it is ai. >> it learns which is cool. >> it does. let's move on. inflation will be in focus in the squawk planner we will get the march read at 8:30 a.m economists expect .50% with inflation up .2% yesterday, jim bullard says once the population reaches 75% of the vaccination, it will be possible to talk about the bond buying program here is where vaccinations stand. 22% of americans are vaccinated. nearly 50% of the people over 18 have received one dose vaccine. this is after the record setting weekend in the u.s. with 4.6 million people vaccinated in a single day >> you got to admit that's a

little strange a herd number or vaccine number would be a cue to the federal reserve to start tapering bond purchases. >> i think that makes sense. i wonder why -- >> weird world we're living in taper tantrum a couple of years ago when the -- it makes sense if you connect the dots. it is weird. yesterday, we were going to every break with the latest covid headlines. i want a day where we have no covid headlines. that is wishful thing. in fed language, we wait for whether they say, remove one word or add one word 75%. not 74%. we may start tapiering bond purchase when the vaccination rate gets to 75% that is weird. >> it brings back the dynamic of

good news is bad news with the fed and market good news? herd immunity. bad news, the end of bond buying >> when we hit 10% of above record levels in uber for people riding, we may taper bond purchases. you can do it with any of those things this is covid headlines. here we go cdc director dr. walensky recommending tough measures in michigan to combat the surge in covid. vaccinations alone are not the answer. >> vaccine will have a delayed response the answer to that is to really close things down and go back to our basics and go back to where we were last spring and summer and to shut things down. flatten the curve. decrease contact with one another. to test the extent we have available to contact trace and sometimes you can't do it at the capacity you need.

what we need to do is shut things down in those situations. >> cases in michigan have risen dramatically 7,300 cases per day. approaching the pandemic highs set around thanksgiving. the cdc, the director's comments, came after a plea from michigan's governor to the biden administration to flood her state with vaccines. give a lot of vaccines i don't know if you have seen this i just looked at my twitter feed it says it's your twitter anniversary. celebrate with a special tweet created just for you have you gotten one? >> it was mine yesterday >> i've had that before. >> i don't celebrate my twitter anniversary. it is a day that will live in infamy that is why i would not pay for my first tweet from rip van

winkle that bearded dude. a day that should never have happened if you like a civil society. >> you can quit twitter. you can quit >> i get news. and jokes. should i tweet it? did you tweet it yesterday >> i did why not? >> let me look at it >> when did you join >> can i tell from this? nine years ago oh, my gosh. nine years ago nine years ago >> i scelebrated eight years on twitter. >> it is the best nine years of my life, i would say family wise and everything else. maybe it was twitter. >> you never know. coming up, earning season kicks off this week. we get you ready for the banks reports and the huge lineup. ceo of grab at 6:30 and jared

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it's a huge week for goldman sachs and wells fargo. joining me now is the head of rbc and greg branch. amy, i'll start off with you

in terms of implied moves, what are you noticing with the financial runs leading up to financial season >> typically a large portion of financials reports in the next couple weeks 50% of the sls it is interesting to me in terms of the biden moves, wells fargo is cheap hding into the earnings event we have seen a lot of bullish activity in wells fargo and bank of america >> with that reading unimplied move, amy, that is an indication that wells fargo is up 35% this year and the move has already been made? >> that is true of the other banks. you know there is something specific about that name i would also say that, you know, obviously been general decline in hitting sub 20 levels and

staying there which has been interesting to watch historically the first couple weeks of earnings are a place to own volatility and you are coming into it with volatility sunk like a stone in the last few weeks. >> greg, i want your take on wells fargo. a rough year last year and now a 35% move do you like that bank? >> i look to others. the debt interest margin environment and income environment will contract for the quarter, will improve with the yield curve steep eening. what we will see from those with capital markets which should show a strong quarter and year and those with investment b banking should be up 30% and have a strong year those were able to position aggressively they will benefit from significant releases they also benefit from strong fee income throughout the year

that is something wells fargo cannot lay claim to. the net interest margin environment improving throughout the year helps all i think there are those banks who are structurally positioned. >> such as bank of america and jpmorgan chase and more on the regional side with performance this year. >> right for me, the large diversified you named. bank of america and jpmorgan chase and morgan stanley those are well positioned to capitalize on the liquidity driving the capital markets activity and strong investment banking revenue sdpl >> amy, i thought it was interesting. yesterday was monday and we are coming off a three-day weekend you saw a bid in the vix what do you make of this how unusual is this and what do you glean in terms of the markets and what could be an interesting earnings season

given what companies are saying about margins and inflation and the outlook for the year >> first of all, we are watching hedging activity closely to tell us not really just what the vix is now and what the expectation is for the future. you know, it is important to remember a 20 vix level was unnaturally high it stayed that way through the pandemic because it is such a tale event pre-pandemic levels, we were at 12 or 13 levels. to me, it was interesting we have seen over 200,000 calls and trades on the vix recently there are people saying this vix level is too low and not su susta sustainable. hedging activity and telling you that there is still hedging demand picking up. that could be taking advantage of the vix levels and volatility levels where they are or

expressing there is nervousness about the earnings season and inflation numbers. a lot about what's to come. >> do you have a take on which one it is? >> you know, what i say to clients is obviously the inflation trade is early when you look back to the decade we had momentum win if you want to continue to play that incremental exposure, we do it through calls and call spreads. in something like financial using call spreads or call spreads in the individual names. it is giving you lower level volatility and safety on the down side. >> amy and greg, thank you so much. >> pleasure. >> joe thanks, melissa. i was looking at this. interesting. coming up, "time magazine" is the latest bitcoin adopter throw this out maybe we can make money in bitcoin. we need something.

planning to hold cryptocurrency on its balance sheet at $62,000 okay give it a shot. still to come. the ceo of grab will join us for the first interview after the company announcethd e biggest spac deal ever "squawk box" is coming back. >> announcer: stocks to watch is sponsored by voya financial. be confident through and to retirement they guide me with achievable steps that give me confidence. this is my granddaughter...she's cute like her grandpa. voya doesn't just help me get to retirement... ...they're with me all the way through it. come on, grandpa! later. got grandpa things to do. aw, grandpas are the best! well planned. well invested. well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

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with gray scale for cryptocurrency video series. three weeks ago, "time" posted a listing for a cfo job. one requirement was comfort with cryptocurrency the magazine sold recently three of the covers as nfts. the ceo of grayscale michael sonnenshein will join us at 8:15 eastern. you call it the leading cryptocurrency closing in at $63,000. andrew thanks, joe. some more fallout this morning for georgia following the passage of the controversial voting law will smith and the director are pulling the film production of "emancipation" out of the state.

moving to louisiana instead. the slave-era drama produced by apple. georgia offers generous tax incentives to hollywood and has become a hub for marvel and other industry heavyweights. now lots of questions if other studios will follow suit this is after the voting law was put in place and the mlb vacated the state for the all-star game this summer. a lot to watch there and lots of ceo calls still going on throughout this week we reported when we were talking yesterday about a numberof ceos, hundreds really, in conversation about putting to the a large statement not just about what is taking place in georgia, but the 47 different states proposing similar voting laws with some saying suppressing the vote we will continue to follow that

story. coming up when we return, the biggest blank check deal ever ride hailing firm grab is going public via spac. it was just announced. we will talk to the company's ceo after this break as we head to break, the look at the s&p 500 winners and losers ♪ ♪ >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business our people and network will help keep you connected let's take care of business. . 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...

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♪ good morning welcome back to "squawk box. it's tuesday morning take a look at the "squawk stack. fun stuff going on on this tuesday. if you wonder why, altimeter growth is moving southeast asia's grab is going public via spac. merging with altimeter

corporation. the largest spac to date equity valuation is mnearly $40 bil billion. altimeter is contributing $70 million of the $40 million pipe. a lot of investors in this one all jumping in on the de-spac. blackrock and t. rowe price. anthony tan is here with me. i have known anthony for some time i must just personally con congratulate you this is a milestone and something you have been looking forward to for some time, anthony. let's talk about this and what you will do with the cash and what this company looks like going forward. for you uninitiated, this is a super app. you own the southeast asia economy when it comes to travel and uber-like space for people

who are trying to compare it to the united states. the online mobile banking space and online eat space what does this look like today in the post-pandemic world given we have gotten numbers from uber and other about what is happening? >> good morning, andrew. a pleasure to be here. good morning to all of you just to quickly share. i remember years ago when we were talking investors, some folks didn't know where southeast asia was on the map. today, as we announced what is expected to be the largest u.s. equity offering in southeast asia this is a proud moment it shows this validation validation of the tremendous optioning right here in the region and in the super app strategy works. and andrew, you talked about the super app strategy

would you mind if i give you a quick intro on what it is? >> tell people we don't have a super app in the united states. some people may be unfamiliar. >> andrew, think about it this way. in southeast asia, you booked food and investing in the car with $1. you are buying insurance paying bills all in one app. what is more interesting is actually on a driver side. the driver has a super app the driver is able to toggle between food delivery, grocery delivery and helping with the multiple jobs. so that way, the driver has very little down time when the driver has little down time, it is more fiseffi efficient network. these savings are passed to the consumer moremerchants come on because they want more business.

more merchant selection grows, more consumers come on >> so, speak to this, if you could, in the growth strategy and what that looks like and what the business looks like two or three years out from now. specifically to the extent you can speak to it, when you think this becomes a profitable business >> sure. what will happen over the next three-to-five years -- southeast asia is an exciting option you are looking at the core space where we are right now we are a category leader in ride hailing and food delivery and mobile payments. you are talking about 180 billion market here. when you think about how we have grown, we have really grown and grown sustainably. i'll give you an example in food delivery, we actually entered late

there were many competitions there. over the years, we proven to be number one in food delivery across the region. five out of sixof the markets today are positive you is grow sustainably and grow well. >> in items of deciding to do this as a spac versus a traditional ipo. what was the thinking behind it? >> andrew, we have been thinking about going ipo for a year now we said what is the best way we found this was the better way to ipo specifically bradley, you know at altimeter is a great partner for three reasons. one, they have proved long-term equipment. you wrote in the article, andrew you said are they aligned. they have commitcommitted a thrr

lock up. number two, they committed real money. committed $750 million more than that $1.2 billion then we necesgotiated $750 mill. that shows real equipment. the third is he shares so much value with us. we had so many suitors i remember brad said i believe in your mission. i'll contribute 10% of our promote to the grab for good fund i believe in serving the driver partners and merchant partners in southeast asia. one more thing he has been in the trenches with us, brad and chris, what you have seen is we have been able to secure a world-class day one timetable of all of the

investors you mentioned. >> anthony, speak to the come p competitive environment in southeast asia you crushed the competition in food deliver yiydelivery. the question i ask and investors are asking are others going to come into the space to try to disrupt you at this point? >> first of all, we respect our peers tremendously it is not easy to get here just to state matter of fact, we are a category leader and we are a regional leader in indo-asia in food delivery and ride hailing and bill payments. we have been able to build for asia and across the region we diversified across the region we have been resilient in the toughest times in covid and we

were able to pivot drivers to do other jobs if you look at no one country that makes up more than 35% of the total revenue. having that resilience and diversification has helped us. >> in terms of where this business goes from here, if we had this conversation three years from now, are we talking about the food delivery business or online banking business or just drivers picking people up off the street when you look at the growth engines and where you see the opportunity, which is it >> number one, we are in the process of building and continuing to build. hopefully one day to be most efficient and lowest and best cost delivery on demand platform in the region delivering goods and services for whatever

consumers may need in the region number two, revolutionizing digital payments and financial services and digital banking as you shared it is these two things think about it this way, andrew. we are building the future of virtual roads. the road infrastructure of the digital economy for southeast asia >> anthony, should we always think about you as a player that wants to own the southeast asian market or think about you as somebody who may want to expand into other regions as well >> well, andrew, i see it as where do we have real competitive advantage? we worked well with the governments here we have gone hand-in-hand working with the malaysian government where they wanted to disperse funds through the covid relief fund wallet pay or the ministry of health through covid

vaccination efforts. we helped vaccinate over 25,000 people across indo-asia. that advantage working across the region with all of the governments hand-in-hand that is something we have for the region >> okay. anthony, congratulations it is great to see the success story of a great entrepreneur. we wish you lots of luck come on back we should mention that we have a programming note the ceo of altimeter will join the gang later today another conversation you don't want to miss melissa. coming up, surprising trade numbers from china overnight and kevin mccarthy will lk outhe infrastructure and tax plan "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box. a slightly higher open for the s&p and the dow. the nasdaq is looking to pull back slightly by 9 points at the open new trade numbers from china overnight. exports jumping 30.6% in march. imports jumped 31%. the china economic recovery has been focused on output

joe. melissa, thanks. coming up, the price of bitcoin surging this morning we will talk about that and now talk about the impact from coinbase direct public listing coming soon. we'll do that after the break. stay with us >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com.

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welcome back until now, most of the major direct listings like spotify and slack have been on the new york stock exchange, but coinbase is the nasdaq's first direct listing. it could be the biggest yet. go, nasdaq

leslie picker, i'm just kidding. we love all of our children equally. all of the exchanges good morning, leslie >> reporter: it happens to be where you are. good morning, joe. the debut of the cryptocurrency exchange is a traditional stock exchange coinbase is the first large direct listing this is an increasingly popular way of going public as opposed to the traditional ipo process direct listings have not involved raising capital companies won't set shares at a set ipo price. with the direct listing, the price is all about supply and demand in the market for nasdaq, coinbase would be the largest based on recent trading. coinbase is valued at $90 billion. slack and spotify were a quarter of the size.

roblox was half. layer on top of all the cryptocurrency fan base which is expected to turn out in a big way which could impact the volume of shares traded tomorrow nasdaq needs to execute the coinbase deal flawlessly to stan order to stay competitive on the nyse guys >> very good, leslie thank you. let's talk more about the coin base direct listing and the impact it could have on cryptocurrencies pleased to say we're joined by malcolm demears. i've never asked you for background you were at m.i.t. sloane. were you business or engineering or what? does sloane have engineering >> no, there's actually a sign on campus that says -- it points to the rest of campus that says engineering and math and it has

the direction pointing towards the sloane school that says real people here. i studied at the intersection of math and my experience bitcoin was big at m.i.t. >> right you hear about it, you see how blockchain works, distributed ledger. >> wait. let's be very clear. i saw how bitcoin works. all you have to remember, there was only bitcoin in the beginning. it's like the book of genesis, there was only bitcoin it was really bitcoin. when i interacted with bitcoin, i was like, this is ridiculous i spent my career in it since then i thought i was throwing my career away on a crazy bet here we are, i think the c coin-base ipo is big

in private markets we're looking at 147 billion right now which makes coin base bigger than goldman sachs. that is my target for the end of the week. >> did you buy and hold? did you buy any really early what was the lowest price you paid for bitcoin, malcolm. >> i don't know if the irs is watching i'm kidding. when i got into bitcoin it was around $150. so i wasn't someone getting coins at 10 cents. >> 150. >> 150 not bad. look, here's what's great about it to me, bitcoin has created a lot of wealth for people who weren't part of the traditional financial system, weren't money managers the coin base ipo is going to mint hundreds if not thousands of multi-million billionaires and will take their listing proceeds and continue to encrypt

them this industry isn't just about the assets, it's not about the companies which we've been investing in for almost a decade now. >> coin shares is one and there will be dozens obviously that come from bitcoin and crypto and everything else. we'll try to keep track of all of these things. $100 billion, malcolm, is based on some unbelievable revenue gains that we're seeing, but it's from retail investors mostly who pay a lot to trade bitcoin. >> a lot. >> and i remember what happened in the brokerage business and everything else. 250 basis points, 2 1/2 percent trade is like highway robbery. that's why you have huge margins. why is it worth 100 billion when it will be a race to the bottom. >> look, here's the thing. you nailed it exactly. 9% of coin base revenue still comes from retail trading. retail trading suffers from a very high premium. the margin will be compressed.

here's what's so interesting, right? we're looking at one conflict here, coin base versus the rest of the banking and exchange ecosystem. coin base putting up blockbuster numbers, bigger numbers than all of the other exchanges right now. there is pressure, even in the crypto space there are other companies at the leading edge of innovation, binance has a token on its platform that has a market cap at this moment of 88 billion making it the third largest cryptocurrency and has much lower fees and many more users. again, even within the industry the pace of innovation has been insane to see. what we're looking at is are these numbers sustainable. can they go quickly enough for this week for this moment i certainly think there's still a lot of enthusiasm. this business is very exciting and the sheer reach of the coin base platform and the value of the brand is a lot of what is driving the valuation premium right now. >> can you talk about what it --

what will be disruptive? and i'm talking about -- i mean, i guess everything i was going to just talk about banks and financial institutions. >> right. >> basically, it's everything. what will the banking sector look like ten years from now when -- if this really continues along this trajectory? >> it's really simple, right i think there's two primary trends one is disintermediation and the second is distribution we're seeing this trend, by the way. it's not unique to crypto. it's happening in fintech. on disintermediation we're seeing layers and layers of intermediaries removed what that means on the distribution is instead of going through an asset manager or third party platform, they're going direct to the source and buying the underlying assets directly without a broker, without a financial advisor or

product rep in between them and the underlying asset this is all driven by the fact that we're all online all the time you go on twitter and reddit and you're finding high quality research and access to high quality information. there's always a common sort of trope in the bitcoin space which is if your cab driver is talking about it, it's probably the top. the cab driver and uber driver has access to really high quality information and tons of people around the world are getting educated and they're going direct and getting ways to access assets and investment opportunities including ways like crypto. that's a larger story arc but we're watching it creep into now the retirement space which is one of the largest areas of opportunity which hasn't been disrupted yet. >> i wonder who got the last laugh, uber and cab drivers, jamie dimon, goldman sachs and

all of these guys buying it. >> we can all laugh together we can all laugh together, right? >> you're nice okay finally coming around. there's something here, i think. this may be something. malcolm demears, thank you. >> thank you. >> coin shares chief strategy officer and 2015 grad, mathematics. perfect. math helps, i'll tell you that much thank you. >> thanks, guys. >> andrew. okay a lot more coming up two big hours ahead. huge two big hours ahead including the ceo of pnc we have biden administration advisor jared bernstein is going to join us and mike wilson from morgan snltaey you don't want to police it. so much to discuss we're back after this. a brand-nw way for you to sell your car. whether it's a year old or a few years old. we wanna buy your car. so go to carvana and enter your license plate answer a few questions. and our techno wizardry calculates your car's value

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great idea. ♪ ♪ petco. the health and wellness company. stock futures little changed but the ten year moving higher ahead of a key inflation data expected later this morning. we'll get you up to speed on what to watch. plus, no more overdraft fees the ceo of pnc inancial. president biden meeting with bipartisan lawmakers to discuss infrastructure and jobs plan we'll talk to a member of the white house council of economic advisers on whether or not a deal can be made the second hour of "squawk box"

begins right now good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen and melissa lee. the dow is off 93 points down 99 points that may go down further i have breaking news right now "the new york times" appointing a federal health agencies caused for an immediate pause in the you the use of the j&j sicngle dose vaccine you're looking at that stock, which is just starting to move on that report that just came out literally minutes ago. to give you a little bit more

color, the report is framing this as a recommendation that the federal government is going to make a recommendation to states which will be able to make their own decision about what to do but that the federal government itself will stop administering this vaccine altogether at all federally run vaccination sites. they take that as a strong signal of course, this is raising lots of questions about that vaccine. nearly 7 million people have taken that johnson & johnson vaccine. roughly 9 million more doses are being shipped out to states as we speak it may be considered a setback a major setback in the u.s. vaccination effort. >> you saw the other news with johnson & johnson there was another batch that couldn't be

used the numbers that have been administered are huge, millions and you're talking about 10, 12, 18 clotting incidents that are concerning because it certainly doesn't look like it's just background, but they decided over there that the benefits of not getting covid out weighed the risks. with johnson & johnson you've had a couple of instances, they weren't cloth ting but other incidents and discrete locations stopped administering the johnson & johnson from the allergic anaphylactic situation not an isolated incident this obviously would be the most concerning you're talking -- you said it, andrew, 7 million administered and did you say 6 --

>> already. >> and you said 6 cases of a rare -- is that the -- >> 6 cases of what seems to be a very rare situation. nonetheless, when you start to think about the idea that we're jabbing 3, 4 million people a day and clearly to make the numbers and to get rid of this as quickly as possible and to end this pandemic, taking those vaccines, the johnson & johnson out of circulation of course is going to be a huge setback to those types of numbers and the type of success rates that we were looking for it's also going to put more pressure on the supply chain of pfizer and moderna given that those are going to be now the focus. >> kind of interesting that the new technology, the untested technology that everyone sort of raised eyebrows, what are you using a messenger rna technology that moderna and pfizer pioneered, these other ones,

astrazeneca and johnson & johnson, these are the more established -- >> safer, at least for now >> and the way that people thought and maybe you get a better t cell response with some of those they thought and initially there was -- you know, people were more i think at least questioning the messenger rna delivery system more than some of the classic ways of do it it's weird that some of the problems are with the old ne, if you want to call them problems now the dow, that's amazing. down 160 points. >> just to put a little bit more color on this. all six recipients that had problems were women between the ages of 18 and 48 years old. one woman died and a second woman in nebraska has been hospitalized and it is those cases that have created this concern by federal authorities and that appears to be why at least for now the government is putting the pause button, if not

more than that, on this j&j vaccine. >> as we see, futures are going to session lows. we saw a tick low on futures as we saw johnson & johnson move lower. moderna are higher on the back of this. andrew, as you mentioned, there's a couple of impacts in terms of the vaccine rollout largely in how taking that johnson & johnson out of the mix will impact the speed of the rollout. also, what role this news plays in vaccine hesitancy for the people who were already on the fence about getting vac sin nated. what sort of impact will this have in terms of their decision to get vaccinated or not and could that be a setback for the reopening on any level here. and so we're seeing a little bit of the futures we're looking at the reopening trades cruise lines are trading lower we're watching the airlines and of course the futures as they start to tick lower. >> j&j, such a great reputation. it was a one dose so there were

people that said i'd like to get the -- no one could choose -- >> a lot of people. >> you get whatever you could. i don't know, i think some people would have -- astrazeneca would say, maybe i'll hold off and do a pfizer, moderna, j&j. this is a setback obviously for the whole program but for j&j in particular such a -- an established and all the way back to the way, you know, the company handled previous problems, way back in the past, remember >> right. >> kids in college studied how they handled the tylenol recall. >> we're going to keep our eyes on this story because it is moving markets this morning. we'll have an opportunity to talk to dr. scott gottleib and meg terrell to get more color on this story and what it means want to bring you a couple other headlines at this hour new trade numbers out of china overnight. exports jumped 30.6% in march.

falling short of estimates meantime, imports jumped 38.1%, much higher than the 23% analysts expected. bit coin, cryptocurrency hitting a new high of $62,000 the move coming ahead of what is perhaps the most highly anticipated ipo of the year. coin base is expected to go public tomorrow. credit suisse is cutting bonuses after archegos loss report the magnitude will be likely revealed when they report quarterly results. we'll get that next week joe? >> thanks, andrew. other stocks on the move this morning. we'll get to dom chu hi >> reporter: joe, what we have are some headlines with southeast asia's grab going public via special purpose acquisition company.

this is the uber of southeast asia, if you will. grab is merging with brad gerstner's altimeter corporation. expected equity of $40 billion it will generate $4.5 billion in cash proceeds that are going to grab, the company itself grab ceo anthony tan joined "squawk box" just about a half an hour ago to talk about the deal. >> we've been thinking about going ipo for a year now we said, what is the best way? we found this was a better way to ipo altimeter has been a great partner. they've committed real money they've committed 750 million, committed more than that, 1.2 billion with a 500 million back stop we negotiated and said 750 million. that's more than 15% of our pipe that shows real commitment. >> by the way, altimeter growth shares are up. next up you have shares of fed

ex higher by a share or so thinner premarket volumes. upgrade to overweight. they're citing better and sustainable trends in business to consumer shipping volumes and better macro economic activity those shares on the move shares of gamestop down fractionally down 10% yesterday multiple reports say that the video game retailer is looking to oust ceo george sherman citing people familiar with the matter, that is being led by chewy co-founder ryan cohen. he has been tapped by the board to guide a transformation of sorts at the company we'll send that back over to you guys >> all right very good, comdom. what's happening the fda? >> fda is tweeting about the johnson & johnson vaccine. the fda and the cdc issuing a

statement regarding the johnson & johnson covid-19 vaccine we are recommending what they say is a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution and then goes on to detail so many of the issues that we've just discussed on be the air and of course we're going to keep digging into this to try to understand where it goes i think we're going to hope to reach out to johnson & johnson to get their comments as well. you look at their stock down over 3%. as we've said, major hiccup in the rollout of the covid-19 vaccine now here in the united states melissa? >> you've got to wonder if the fda is thinking what happened to our process, the eua process were too many corners cut in the process? that's what consumers might be thinking in terms of all of these vaccines and treatments that had been sort of rush to the finish line in order to get them out and whether or not we're going to see some ramifications in terms of safety

later on. coming up, never bounce a check again. pnc changing its overdraft policy will other banks follow? we'll speak to the chairman and ceo after the break. council of economic advisers jared bernstein discusses paying for the president's infrastructure plan. "squawk box" will be right back. - grammarly business turned my marketing team into rock stars. (diana strums guitar) maya swears by grammarly business because it keeps her work on brand and error-free. fast and easy. - [announcer] learn more at grammarly.com/business.

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breaking news. the fda and the cdc are recommending calling for an immediate pause in the use of the johnson & johnson single dose vaccine six recipients all women between the ages of, what, 18 -- what was the higher number -- >> 18 and 48. >> 18 and 48 in the u.s. developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination the fda is going to hold a news conference at 10 a.m. eastern and there have been other incidents. none of them earth shatteringly similar with j&j you have to say a pretty unbelievable rollout of pfizer, moderna and astrazeneca lesser so over in europe. a couple of things have happened

with j&j with the bad batch when they outsourced the manufacturing to someone that was caught before any of that was obviously administered. then a couple of facilities shut down after allergic reactions to j&j. this is very early you can see the stocks already the overall averages went from up a little. the dow is up 50 points. it was about 20 when this started hitting. j&j is a dow component still j&j is down -- i think it's recovered slightly from the worst levels. >> still down 1.3% you have to think stocks sitting at record highs so the pricing in of all the good news, a lot of people think has happened so any hiccup in this vaccine rollout as we're seeing here with the j&j news could be a reason to take some profit and so we are seeing that. we're thinking about a world in which vaccine passports could be your ticket to get on a cruise

or a plane, et cetera. we're seeing all of those reopening plays take a step back at this point with the potential pause in the j&j vaccine and the impact it will have on overall he herd immunity. >> at a certain date there were going to be a lot of -- j&j was going to take up part of the -- take on part of the load obviously from moderna and pfizer those continue and we're getting some great progress, great numbers and earlier than i think we thought where you'd go from people begging for it to people having to be convinced to get the vaccine. and that date -- i'm going to call him dr. scottlieb. >> you take these 9 million doses that have been shipped out of service and i believe it was supposed to double every couple of weeks

another 20 -- take the johnson & johnson ones out of the mix and then you start to think about what that supply chain looks like i know we've bought a lot more from pfizer and moderna so maybe it can make up for some of that backlog, but it's definitely going to put a hiccup if not more so in terms of slowing down how quickly this pandemic can come to an end and, therefore, what it means to getting the economy hopefully roaring back we actually have a great guest to talk about the economy roaring back with his own news this morning and we should talk about all of these things together now a majority of big banks charge overdraft fees as so many people know more than $25 generating more than $11 billion for banks alone in 2019. according to the center for american lending this morning pnc is changing its policy it's going to waive the fee and let them adjust through the mobile app to avoid overdrafts

entirely a rare interview, we don't get a chance to talk to him enough bill demcheck, the president and ceo of pnc i want to talk about what you're doing on the overdraft fee issue in just a moment, but if you will indulge me because this curveball of a headline has come out literally just minutes before you've come on the air here, and i know you have your pulse on the economy and how quickly you think things were expecting to recover and maybe shifting as a result of this news how do you see where our economy is today and how related do you think that is at this point to a quick rollout of this vaccine? >> i think the economy is booming. we see it in all of our clients. they can't keep inventory in line demand this high in this roar back that people are talking about, i think it's happening. i was watching your news on the

j&j vaccine. it's going to have an impact at the margin, right, about the mentality and people's willingness and the general slowdown but in the interim between the dollars we've put up for fiscal stimulus and what the fed's done and pent-up demand and the summer coming, you know, things really feel like they're booming. >> i appreciate you contextualizing it in that way because i think there's lots of questions as we're watching the market sell off a bit but not enormously, and perhaps that's because of exactly what you just said >> yeah. i -- we're going to have to see how this plays out i was watching the news they released, right? is this a temporary thing, is it long term, is it stretching out because we have to go solely to pfizer and moderna we don't know the answer to any of those questions my guess is the quick reaction to a negative headline

i think the economy is strong at the moment. >> let me pivot to your news this morning because you're doing something that i imagine may actually change the landscape of banking forever if your fellow peers decide to follow suit, which is you created a product that effectively removes the possibility of overdraft costs on customers, which is a huge issue across the country and for individuals. tell us about it >> you're right. overdraft is easily the number one pain point for our customers. it's easily the number one reason that people become unbanked because they run up overdraft and get charged off and put out of banks we developed a product called low cash mode that doesn't actually do away with overdraft, it simply puts it in control of our consumers. they're in control of their payments you know, we've invested in technology for years and years and we're finally at a point where we can deliver this product of overdraft which has

utility. i'll get to it in a second we can deliver it in a seamless way where they choose to use it. swipe left or swipe right on whether or not you want to make a payment in the moment with real-time information. beyond that we drop fees so you can only get charged for one overdraft fee per day if you choose to overdraft and we eliminated nsf fees. if you choose to return an item because you don't want to pay it, we don't charge you for that, whereas most of the industry does. >> bill, we have more breaking news and i need to apologize to you on this j&j news coming up this morning just right now. i would love to have you back because i do think this is a crucial issue. it's an important one and i do think it's going to change the face of banking. you're giving up $150 million of revenue annually and if that

cascades across the industry, it's going to be very interesting to see what it means. very important piece of news but this j&j news -- new breaking pieces of it i thank you for your indulgence. i hope we can talk to you soon. >> andrew -- >> yes, sir. >> wlrt. let's get back to j&j. on the phone with us, dr. kavita patel. i know it's early, but it's great to have you because you actually are a practicing physician. so the adeno vector that j&j is using has been used on a lot of different vaccines in the past, dr. patel. a lot of people took solace in that that it had been a tried and true method. is this surprising this is happening with this particular covid vaccine? >> it is surprising and i think

that -- the fda issued a brief statement with more details later today. six cases that they're scrutinizing which seem similar in detail looking at further detail to cases that we've seen similar to astrazeneca where it mimics kind of what we call heparin thrombocytopenia i will say this, it's shocking and hard to believe that there is such a strong link of causality that these vaccines cause these clots but, again, the people who have had the j&j vaccine, the only solace i would tell you is the six cases, it appears still trying to work through details, joe, but it appears the clots were seen early and so this is something

that i have patients scheduled today to get the vaccine but obviously we're pausing all around the country it's going to be hard as we see more supplies of pfizer and moderna to walk this back. this is a devastating blow to the j&j vaccine effort in the united states. >> you bring up some interesting points there and we don't want to make too much out of it either. as you say, we don't know about causation and whether there is any link or not. but if the adeno vector is used without this, then you are back to what it is delivering, the spike protein, the epi attorney-cliepitope of covid. the messenger doesn't deliver

it it makes me wonder if it's something in the spike protein there is a clotting risk just from delivering the spike protein. and i hope -- that would make me worry about all the vaccines >> yeah. right. right. and that's exactly where the ema goes into the detailed report that i did on astrazeneca. that was exactly the dialogue and discussion around the mechanism of action or their concerns around the clots. there was actually discussion at the ema level around other kind of viral-based vaccines and how this is not seen and so recall there were several cases in europe around j&j as well and now we have six cases of the fda is citing in its statement around pausing if anybody is listening or viewing and they have appointments for j&j today, i think this would be the time -- most of us who have scheduled

slots are shifting to one or the other two manufacturers as quickly as possible. truly this has been one of the vaccines -- johnson & johnson was incredibly effective and useful for mobile vaccination efforts, places that were hard to reach and you could just do one shot and quickly administer a vaccine. so this is definitely going to cause a ripple effect in our attempt in the united states bringing up all of the issues around how to beat the variant it's going to become more difficult. >> melissa, i know you wanted to get in i know that. go ahead >> thank you, joe. >> you're welcome. >> dr. patel, getting back to johnson & johnson -- the markets are punishing jo ing johnson & specifically is there anything around the

fda eua process? i know there were other blood clots that showed up and so the fda came out weeks later, days later saying that the numbers were relatively small compared to the benefit that the vaccine would have >> you're bringing up a good point. i scrutinized the same documents and the advisory committee to the fda. i would not criticize the process of kind of receiving the eua. the data -- the clots, that's what we're waiting for, the six cases in the united states seem very different from what was in the trial data but, again, i think we need some of the details. however, this is exactly why i think we have a process following an eua where we're supposed to kind of re-evaluate, especially if we're looking at fully licensed products. we've seen this happen before in

history with euas -- even with fda approval you'll think of the cox 2 inhibitors and post market surveillance i would tell you that i think the process is working the fda is putting a pause even after the six cases with -- they're convening an advisory committee meeting at the cdc this week. i think what's causing all of us a lot of concern with joe's point, if we're seeing this with two viral-based vaccines, is there something about the technology of the vaccine that would not have been self-evident in the data and the fda. by the way, we didn't have astrazeneca data to look at at the fda level. now i know the fda, the ema regulators are at least discussing this and the scientists are discussing this i do hope, again, we've had about 8 million doses of johnson

& johnson go out i want to put this back into scope of what we're looking at it's incredibly rare that does not give anyone having this full comfort. i think it's something to think about. >> doctor, a couple of questions for you. one, we should tell you, we were talking about it last week, there was a poll that we talked about with frank lunks that those who wanted to wait said if they were going to do it they were going to do it with the johnson & johnson vaccine. let's talk about what this may or may not do to the idea of vaccine hesitancy across the board? >> yeah. when i saw the kind of news coming across and -- that was exactly my concern i thought, wow, i've been working. we have 24% of americans for different reason that is have said no, thank you, not for me a lot of those who i speak to have said, you know, it's just too much too soon and that was

exactly, andrew, my thought when that came across the wire. i thought, oh, great -- but, again, i am trying to take this all into a bigger picture. hundreds -- >> right >> -- plus million shots into arms have gone out just in the u.s. and i think about worldwide. these are very important these are not trivial cases, however, we still need to look at what's underlying them. to anybody who's hesitant, i would tell you think about the fact that we are still dealing with death, hospitalizations and the effects of even mild cases of covid vaccines have been shown to be effective in all of those situations preventing death is a much better option. >> i don't know if you'll know the answer about supply chain in this regard. 6 million have been put in arms, 9 million more on their way. these are johnson & johnson vaccines

you take the 9 million off plus what is supposed to come on the back end of that what does that look like in terms of how much moderna and how many pfizer vaccines will be available? will that be able to take up some of the slack in the interim? are we going to get to a crunch point? >> you recall recently the fda approved and were able to allow moderna to put 15 doses into a vile that was a pretty big gallon changer. so moderna is able -- both moderna and pfizer are able to kind of pick up some of that slack. it's still going to be -- it will take time the issue is could moderna and pfizer make up for it? they could pfizer had already approved enough doses that could theoretically vaccinate half the country just on pfizer alone that would take until june or july through some of their agreements with additional manufacturers domestically there is possibility to pick up

the slack. it is -- there is no doubt it's going to be a blow though because johnson & johnson will trickle parts in the proximal weeks. in the next one to three weeks you can't substitute it. this will delay our vaccination efforts. now just something to be aware of you'll hear calls and get first shots into arms. it's not an unreasonable thing to do if we push out the second dose of moderna and pfizer one to two weeks this could still help us pick up some of that slack in a faster pace. >> dr. patel, thank you so very much for your perspective in doing it and jumping on the phone with us so quickly we want to jump on the phone right now with cnbc's meg tirrell who has been making her own calls about this situation can you speak to the supply chain issue, meg, in terms of what the next couple of weeks

look like and the idea dr. tirrell raised to trying to use moderna and pfizer for first shots and not seconds shots and what will be a lack, perhaps in states like michigan which are so hard hit? >> reporter: yeah. the federal government has changed its strategyn requiring or even spacing out the second dose for the mrna vaccines we'll see if this causes such a crisis that they decide to do that in terms of supply. already the supplies of johnson & johnson was so spotty because of what was happening at the emergent biosolutions plant which has nothing to do with any of this because nothing that was being made at the emergent plant was released there are millions of doses j&j had planned to use to supply the u.s. hasn't been authorized by the fda. we are not expecting as much johnson & johnson over the last

couple of weeks as they had expected already we saw that cut from 4300 doses the week of the 18th in washington, state, for example, from an expected 41,000. already we were expecting less there will be a lot of moderna and pfizer if they follow through with the expected supply 200 million doses total by the end of may another 200 million following that a couple of months later from each of them guys, i did get a statement from j&j this morning that i should put out there. they note safety and well-being of the people who use our products is our number one priority we share all adverse event reports about individuals receiving our covid-19 vaccine, along with our assessment of these reports. they say they're aware that thrombo embolic events have been reported and at present no clear causal relationship has been

cited. they say they continue to work closely with experts and regu regulators that's what we've got from j&j right now, guys. >> is there any guidance for people who have taken the j&j vaccine in the past two weeks of anything that they should be just watching for? i ask only because what appears to be the case is six women between the ages of 18 and 48 having these problems, one death, once you're past the two-week period, we're talking about very, very small numbers here, are there things viewers should be thinking about here? >> yes the cdc and fda say severe headaches, leg pain, shortness of breath three weeks after vaccination should contact their health care provider and they ask that health care providers report adverse events to the

vaccine adverse event reporting system we are going to get a briefing at 10 a.m. from the cdc and the fda or maybe separately. we'll bring more when we get that it does seem that as the doctor was just saying, all six cases occurred 6 to 13 days after vaccination and so it does seem like it's within a discrete period of time and there are things folks should look out for up to three weeks after vaccination. it was pretty reassuring. >> we'll talk to you again soon. i'm trying to figure out how long we've been using adeno-based vaccines i think back to the '70s even. there have been quite a few, ebola, zika have been tested, human trials tested on malaria it's a widely used vector. i don't know -- do you know whether there have been instances of what dr. patel described, heparin induced

clotting due to an adeno vaccine? >> they're not widely used vaccines, although they are an older technology johnson & johnson has used this technology for a number of different vaccines and so does have a large safety database of hundreds of thousands of people. to my knowledge, this has not been a known risk factor for this approach. what it sounds like is it's the same thing as the astrazeneca vaccine, potentially kind of an immune reaction to something about the vaccine. incredibly rare one. and people are still trying to understand it better. >> yeah. we're actually hoping it might be the adeno and not what it's delivering, the spike protein. then you worry it's early and whether there's any causation, we're stressing that >> joe, we should note how many people have received the mrna vaccines, it's much more. >> many more but even for the johnson & johnson you're still talking 6 out of millions, too, as well.

>> yes. still to come -- thanks, meg. talk to you soon still to come on "squawk box." the futures ardoe wn triple digits "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning joining us is white house council of economic advisers jared bernstein. so much to talk about. i wanted to talk about taxes and infrastructure what i wanted to do at this point is start with this j&j news this morning about this vaccine which the fda and cdc have now officially pressed the pause button on. this will create supply chain issues which are going to become the only vaccines we're going to be relying on for some period of time inside the white house can you tell me what kind of reaction there has been to this news and be what kind of plans are being put in place >> first, i want to be very clear that not being a medical doctor i'm not going to speak to the substance of the case. i can tell you this is breaking news i was listening to on your

station while i was standing here i've already heard that the white house medical team is pouring over these data looking into it taking this extremely seriously but it would be unwise for me to lean any further into that until we hear from them. >> let me ask you one unrelated question to this though which is when you think about economic growth, the boom that's expected in our economy, to the degree that this slows it down, how would you measure that right now or even estimate what the impact could be >> well, i think you have to look at the pace at which people in communities are re-engaging with commerce as the vaccine penetrates the nation. i'm not in any position yet to determine or analyze or forecast the implications of this breaking news. that's for our medical team to inform us about. but there is a clear connection, in fact we've said this from the

beginning, andrew, so has chair powell, between controlling the virus, distributing the vaccine and a robust and lasting economic recovery. >> maybe i can put it in this context. when you look at a calendar and you look at the economic projections being discussed inside the white house right now, before or with the expectation that the j&j vaccine was still going to be used, for example, you thought that a majority of the country would be covered by when? the reason i'm asking that is i think we have to try to recalibrate what that looks like >> well, the president talked about people getting together on july 4th i don't remember precisely at what point the 50% mark was hit. it was certainly within the next few months the thing is, again, i want to be so careful about not leaning into areas of great sensitivity that aren't my forte, especially when we have a team of public

health and medical experts that are literally pouring over this information and will certainly have far more informative things to say about all of these questions than i can right now >> well, let me ask you then this which may be in a different context. do you think this changes the dynamic or the time line for infrastructure planning or some of the tax increases that the administration is looking to pursue given what may be concerns around this vaccine i think there's already questions about whether this is going to create what's called vaccine hesitancy more broadly i think that -- this headline this morning unfortunately creates lots of potential domino effects. >> yeah, i think the important thing in your question for me, again, being very careful not to drive in lanes that i just shouldn't be driving in. this administration, we are very careful to not have, you know, economists play doctors or at least medical doctors and so the

fact that you raised the infrastructure question is an important opening in our discussion look, it is just as important as it was a few hours ago that we make the requisite investments in broadband, in grid, in water, in modernizing our schools and our hospitals and our ports and our airports and our rail. those investments have gone under invested and forfar too long we have a highly progressive set of pay fors in the corporate sectors that get to the level of tax fairness that end the race to the bottom that tax wealth not work and so this plan will continue to be a top priority for our economic team and the president. it's not the only priority you've heard the president lean as far in as he can on the importance of getting the vaccine out there safely but, again, that's going to be an

issue as far as j&j is concerned for others to talk to you about. >> jared, we appreciate you trying to stay in your lane, but at the same time this has an impact of how the reopening is perceived about this that's the point where we start to think about the fed ending qe so it is squarely, you know, in an economist's purview to take a look at how swiftly a vaccine rollout happens or doesn't happen. >> absolutely. >> does this change things in your view in terms of the speed of the u.s. recovery >> it's a totally fair question. the thing i've tried to emphasize in my comments here and elsewhere is that the recovery is very much a function of people feeling and being willing to re-engage with commerce what i can't answer now is the this in your question, which is what is this what is the impact of what we're hearing about on this time line trajectory because i just don't

have that information and it wouldn't be at all useful for me to speculate. >> jared, let me ask maybe a different question do you get asked, i know you are not a medical doctor, but i know there have been -- i wonder whether you are part of the conversation, for example, around whether there's an advantage to letting moderna and pfizer space out the second dose i ask that because there have been doctors that have encouraged the idea if you could get the first jab using those vaccines and delay the second jab, potentially you could get more jabs in arms quicker that would have obviously an economic impact on the other end, i know you can talk about the economic impact i know doctors and officials from the fda will have their own views of that. are you part of those conversations? >> our team gets briefed by the covid team, by some of the very folks that are going to be pouring over this critically

important information so i am a receiver of that kind of information and i haven't received it because it's so fast-breaking. i'm not going to speculate what i will say is that the rescue plan obviously devoted -- the rescue plan i'm talking about, not the jobs plan, it's already been legislated. devoted significant resources and logistic call support to precisely the kinds of distribution and production of the vaccine. and it has been working extremely well if you look at the curve. now this breaking news is exactly that, and we're going to have to get a lot more information before we can understand what that does for the curve, much more the economic relationship you're asking me about. what i will say is it was a top priority of this president, a priority that's been implemented i think quite thoroughly to get this virus behind us and the rescue plan has played a key role in that. >> jared, i want to thank you for coming on and staying on

during this breaking news. we hope to have you back and to continue the conversation about taxes and infrastructure and so much more. i know you now have i imagine an even busier day than you expected. >> thank you very much >> coming up, market reaction to the j&j news there you can see, moderna up almost 7%. pfizer not as much johnson & johnson down 2.5 we'll be right back.

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let's talk about the market reaction this morning. mike wilson is joining us from morgan stanley how do you connect the dots in terms of an impact of a potential pullout of the j&j vaccine from distribution. to the extent it could delay reopening. it could keep bond yields in check. it could strengthen the fed's stance of lower for longer that could be good for tech stocks where do you go with this news >> i think that's exactly right. there are a lot of variables here the good news is that we still have moderna we still have pfizer vaccines which are plentiful. i think there's statistics that suggest we have enough supply there to get everybody vaccinated by july it's a delay, it's not that the reopening isn't going to happen. also in this case particularly,

unfortunately there are six cases, 7 or 8 million have been administered it's early days. i don't think there will be a huge reaction beyond a knee-jerk reaction that we're getting here we think generally we made a ton of progress on this virus. the vaccination programs that are in place are working well. hospitalizations and death counts are going down. we're optimistic we'll be reopened by the second half of the year. >> you're pretty much looking past this news in terms of how it impacts your view of the markets even short term. >> well, like i said, very short term there will be knee-jerk reaction short term, we've talked last week i'm a little more concerned about other things near term this would not -- this doesn't help, but this is not what i am going to be focused on in terms of going into earnings and where are we going to avoid pitfalls

as we do reopen the economy. there are risks that i don't think people are focused on that are coming to light. >> what are some of the wild cards? this is an opportunity for companies to talk about rising costs, for instance, and maybe shrinking margins, margin pressure. >> that's exactly right. we're very focused on this potential cost issue for a lot of companies because, you know, it's a lot harder to open an economy than it is to shut it down and we're already hearing a lot of anecdotal and real evidence that there's supply shortages. there's potentially, you know, higher costs for labor just availability of labor and we think that that's going to affect companies across the board. it won't be one or two different sectors and the opportunity is to really pick stocks, pick companies that can manage through the reopening. there's going to be some execution and risk for sure. the other thing we'll be focused on is the amount of leverage in the system people are optimistic in the

right reason it's a bull market and stocks have done well retail is heavily involved now we've seen a lot of leverage put into the system in other places and, you know, very optimistic there's a chance that earnings are great for the first quarter but it's a little bit of a sell the news event because it is sort of rate of change on a lot of things we've beenocused on that have been bullish. >> mike, thank you for your thoughts mike wilson of morgan stanley. we've been showing you various sectors we've been tracking on the back of the j&j news the stay-at-home trades are trading higher we'll continue to track the market impact of this news throughout the show. coming up, much more on the breaking news this morning the fda and cdc calling on an immediate pause. plus, congressman kevin mccarthy joins us in the next hour. "squawk box" will be right back.

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good morning, welcome back to "squawk box." becky's off today. today's top story, in the last hour or so the cdc and fda calling for a pause in the use of the j&j covid vaccine out o an abundance of caution. the agencies are reviewing data from individuals after receiving a vaccine within two weeks that cdc will hold an advisory committee meeting tomorrow on the issue. the other vaccine makers as you can see are moderna, which is -- makes a competing

the s&p is down ten or so. it's what we do. at that point.

a negative for market participants i don't know whether the converse is true maybe this is a muted response in the markets it means the fed is likely to stay at the punch bowl even longer >> it certainly strengthens their case to remain at zero for much longer. it can also hold treasury yields in check which could be -- get some breathing room to the tech trade. this is early days this is the knee-jerk reaction right now to thenews it's something definitely worth tracking that sort of inverse is good news, good news is bad news on the market. >> andrew, you're going to get to dr. gottleib. if it's six reported cases, are there people that may need to get checked out out of the 7 or 8 million? and is there -- >> that's the question. >> -- somebody taking aspirin,

maybe we -- >> you're asking all the right questions and we've got the guy to answer those. dr. scott gottleib, serves on the boards of pfizer and illumina i think there's three big issues to talk about, dr. gottleib. the first and most important is the health issue unto itself maybe some of the questions joe was just asking and there's the issues of supply chain and rollout in the interim period or at least going forward and then there's the behavioral science question around hesitancy and questions about what this moment may create in terms of challenges going forward let's start with the health issue as you understand it how concerned are you by these six cases and how concerned do you think the viewers who have taken the johnson & johnson vaccine over the last two or three weeks should be? there's been guidance issued by the fda and cdc about things

they should be looking for, in fact >> thanks for having me. andrew, i want to be cautious not to over interpret the report because it is an early report and we don't have details about these six cases. let's start with what the fda didn't do. they didn't revoke the emergency use authorization. they didn't order this off the market this was a requested pause which is an awkward regulatory step. it reflects a level of caution on their part not to appear to act too forcefully here that it becomes hard to unwind the action i think this is a rare side effect we've seen it now potentially with the astrazeneca vaccine there may be a thought inside the fda that it could be causally related perhaps to the vector itself where it seems the most obvious perhaps related to the interaction with the adeno vectors. the concern is they're seeing the severe cases and missing the more mild cases. by taking this action, it's going to illicit more reporting. they want to understand what the

numerator is if it's 6 cases in 7 million, that's what it is and it's not many more cases they're missing. a lot of j&j vaccine was used recently if there are more cases it would accrue in coming weeks you know, it's also a function of the fact that it's a changed landscape. we have many more people vaccinated more supply of the mrna vaccine. i'm on the board of pfizer which makes one of those vaccines. the risk benefit changes in that environment. i still think this could come back with additional restrictions on this target population in the interim while they continue to investigate this that's what other countries do with the az vaccine. they've limited the population -- target population to an older population i'll sort of sum up by saying there are three concerns that i would have right now from a policy standpoint. first, this was being biased to more austere settings, places you couldn't deliver two doses

places like hospitals on discharge were using the j&j vaccine. now you have to focus on how you get the mrna vaccine into those environments two, this will fuel the hesitancy that you talked about even if there isn't a causal relationship, even if this is exceedingly rare, we're going to see that whole conversation now get ignited on social media and, third, this was a global product. this was a vaccine we were looking to put into low and middle income countries because of the preferred storage and handling requirements. it didn't require the same cold chain as the mrna. now we need to figure out how to create the infrastructure into those environments now there's a possibility after they go further we need to make sure that there's not more that we're missing that this vaccine is used again with a little bit of an errant label i don't think this is the final word on this. >> can you speak though to the

supply chain issues in the short term and longer termaround these mrna vaccines? dr. patel was with us in the last hour and reintroduced the idea perhaps of delaying the second dose so that we can create more first doses if you will especially in hard hit states like michigan which are calling for access to more vaccines that will be harder that the j&j vaccine is not available in the short term by the way, these are all first world problems as you discussed. we're going to have a larger conversation longer term about places around the world that need to get access to these vaccines. >> yeah, look, i've said all along i think we were two to three weeks away from an inflection point where it seeks demand and you start to see appointments going and i think we're two or three weeks away from that being more universal not every state, many states you'll see more supplies than

demand this maybe pushes that out a week or two. i don't think this changes the end point. we'll have a lot of vaccine available and fewer willing arms we'll have to do more to coax those people in particularly the age that will become eligible by the ends of this month i don't think this dratically changes the equation my biggest concern about getting people vaccinated isn't necessarily the impact it has on supply, will it make the marginal customer more marginal. people who had vague trepidations, will they be more cautious because they're seeing the headlines? i hope that's not the case it will be the case on the margins, we know that. i hope it's only a small set of people. >> dr. gottleib, if you're taking a look at these cases, what is the context in which you would examine the cases. would it be taking a look at the clinical trial data from johnson & johnson which there were other sorts of blood clots would it be connecting

astrazeneca and the clotting issues that that vaccine had i'm wondering how somebody would think about this issue as a whole. >> yeah, they've probably taken a hard look at any cases in the clinical trial data as well as the dataset with this particular platform i think what they're going to be looking at is having taken a pretty dramatic action, this will elicit reporting and a lot of reporting a lot of that is noise they'll have to investigate those particular cases and get reported to the agency and determine whether or not any of them are blood clots that would previously have been missed. maybe they would have been self-limiting. they wouldn't have resulted in severe consequences that we're seeing in the six cases that this presents for acute care services they're going to look at those cases and see if there are other instances of clotting. that will help them determine what the risk is here. if it's six cases in 7 million administration, that's a vaccine potentially that i think comes

back perhaps with some restrictions if it's many more that they elicit, that changes the equation. >> dr. gottleib, we want you to stay with us meg tirrell is here. we want to bring you here. it's great to have two of the smartest people i know on this topic with us. meg, you got some reaction from johnson & johnson. i was going to ask you, is that standard protocol? there doesn't seem to be an acknowledgment yet that they believe there's a problem. >> no, there doesn't i anticipate we may be hearing sort of an evolving message from them today you know, in touch with them really by the minute to hear how they're thinking about this. as of now, their statement says there is no proven link between these events and the vaccines. we have seen this kind of difference in trying to figure this out in europe as well last week there were press conferences literally at the exact same time from europe and from the u.k. and they looked at

this and came to similar conclusions. in europe they said this was for the astrazeneca vaccine of course that they saw a very rare link between these rare clots and they said this should be listed as a rare risk of getting the astrazeneca vaccine. the risk-benefit in europe still outweighed the -- the benefit of the vaccine out weighed any risk of clots in the u.k. they said we can't prove a link but because of the risk-benefit changing for young people versus older people, they are recommending people under 30 get a different kind of vaccine. so the u.s. is working its way through those kinds of considerations for the johnson & johnson vaccine. they see the six cases of the rare similar kinds of clots among millions of people who have received this vaccine so it's a rare event but as dr. gottleib was saying, still just understanding the situation and no doubt the company is looking into all of its information and will update us today as well

>> hey, dr. gottleib, to that point, when you look at just how regulators across the globe have been looking at these issues, how they've dealt with astrazeneca, for example, do you imagine that they're going to follow the same sort of procedure? i mean, there are differences and even sort of debates as meg just sort of discussed about how to approach these. where do you think the fda will ultimately come down >> i think fda is going to make an independent decision here one of the things that's been unusual and unfortunate will the global situation is the lack of coordination with global regulators the reason you're seeing that is because different countries have different risk tolerance different countries have different things they deploy so you're seeing global regulators decouple here because it's reflecting the different

situation in different countries in terms of what they have accelerated. fda and the u.s. is in the position of knowing that they have almost 120 million people with at least one dose of vaccine. they have ample supply of the mrna vaccines coming online. they are in a different position in terms of risk tolerance right now. >> doctor, i think andrew referenced this, but for people who have gotten the j&j vaccine, would there be any cause for concern in your view, in your gut that either they should maybe get checked out or, i don't know, there are anticlotting -- you can do simple things like taking an aspirin. would you recommend that there's no reason to think there's causation. >> i think it's hard to recommend that based on what we know because this is so ex exceedingly rare people with the vaccine within two weeks of it should be mindful of the reports and stay tuned to the news and media and see if there's information so people can self-identify if there is the 1 in 1 million or

very rare instance. >> how would you know? how would you self-identify if you were worried there is no outward feeling if you need an anti-clotting agent? >> meg summarized some of the symptoms well in terms of people that developed the blood clots i think for most consumers i wouldn't be concerned about this this is very low incidence this is going to be very rare cases and people, you know, who have these conditions usually havesymptoms significant enoug that present to doctors. that's an alert to doctors that's how the fda framed it advise to doctors to be monitoring more closely. it looks exceedingly rare. hopefully it i will llicits more reporting and it continues to be

very rare. >> meg, obviously we've been watching johnson & johnson shares closely they're off session lows down 2.5% what struck me as interesting, meg, the bulls in johnson & johnson stock would say the vaccine did nothing to earnings in terms of being acreditive and we see this hit. if you've talked to analysts, what's the actual hit? is it a liability issue for johnson & johnson? is it a reputational issue have you talked to anybody about this >> i have not talked to anybody about it yet this morning, mel my take and understanding, it could be a reputational issue. johnson & johnson has said it is pursuing this as a not for profit endeavor during the pandemic of course, there had been discussion of whether there would be a market for covid-19 vaccines after the emergency phase of the pandemic and that

could be a huge market if it resembles the flu market or potentially bigger than that that's a market that analysts who look at moderna very closely and even pfizer although it's a much bigger company are trying to model and figure out how big it will be for johnson & johnson, even though that was a potential opportunity, the way i've seen analysts looking at these vaccines, they see the mrna ones as ones that might endure more perhaps after the pandemic although it's early days still we are learning about all of these and how long their protection will last and all sorts of attributes. that is all shaking out. as of now probably similarly as it was for astrazeneca, these kinds of situations just don't look good for a drug company and johnson & johnson is such an incredibly well-known brand name we did a survey with a company called dynada to see if there was brand preference among

people there was a lot of recognition of johnson & johnson name. the fact that it was one shot, people like that this is an important product not because of financially but because they were part of the team seen as helping save the world. >> meg, dr. scott gottleib, we are going to leave the conversation there of course, we appreciate you jumping into this and providing a perspective with this breaking news so quickly and so well. we will talk to both of you very, very soon. joe? >> thanks, andrew. house minority leader kevin mccarthy talk infrastructure, taxes also get his take on this morning's story. the one we've been reporting on for the last hour and a half or so the u.s. is going to pause the use of the johnson & johnson covid vaccine. as we head to break, check out some of the travel stocks. down this morning. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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we also should look in perspective that you're talking about those stocks that are travel and ears that will still be 20 million americans this week who get vaccinated with a pfizer or moderna. we are at that point that i believe america's going to be willing and at that position to be able to be traveling again. you're going to see it more and more this is what america has been able to do with operation warp speed to have more than one vaccine. to have more than two vaccines that's why we're in a different position than other countries in going forward. it is appropriate. we do need to have information on the johnson and johnson and know what's going on with those. we have two others that are going to be used more throughout when it comes to infrastructure, biden's administration is good at naming a bill, it just doesn't carry out what it said it would do. less than 6% of this bill goes to roads, highways or bridges.

that's not an infrastructure bill it raises the corporate rate it doesn't just raise the corporate rate states also added another corporate rate on top of that, on top of that 28% on average more than 4%. in california you're even higher the answer by president biden is to ask other countries to raise their taxes. that's hilarious that that's their evens for america to be competitive. they're making adversaries stronger and america less competitive. >> let's say we decide we want to do infrastructure i'm not saying we double what we call infrastructure. broadband, bolstering the grid, add some of those things and double it. could you make the case now that the economy -- you're making a case the economy is pretty strong, maybe doesn't need a lot more stimulus, then it should be able to handle some increased taxes somewhere if it's not

corporate, somewhere should we raise revenue covered in the 6%, 12, 15%? would a negotiation get you there? >> joe, if it was an in infrastructure bill, we are ready to go at the table unfortunately president biden doesn't believe in talking to any of the republicans i've never spoken to him i've requested meetings with him to talk about the board. he ignores that. i've requested meetings could we do a covid bill like we did in the last administration. bipartisan five of them. no we need to go it alone that sami think america's stron we work together i think america's stronger when we solve problems. the way we solve problems we sit down at a table, identify them, work together. not everyone will get 100% of what we want i promise you this, republicans will be at the table and will

solve the problem with moving forward with better ideas. >> leader, i want to ask you separately about the voting laws in the united states we've now seen the mlb leave georgia. companies including apple production leaving that state and companies across the country, black leaders saying that the 47 different states that are now proposing new voting laws in some cases they believe are racist and suppress the vote mitch mcconnell came out last week and said that business shouldn't get involved in politics and yet some of the biggest companies that have supported you and are the biggest employers in the state of california are signing on to some of these statements what do you think of this? >> i'd be really concerned because if they looked at hr 1, how would these companies feel about having a speech czar that goes against your first amendment rights how would they feel about hr 1 that said taxpayers would fund campaigns 6 to 1 to many of the

people that they probably wouldn't want to support or how would they feel about changing the federal election commission that is bipartisan today and weight it towards one party over the other so now my fear would be they would want to leave america. but why would they judge these states differently if they had not read the bill? why would major league baseball move it that could help small business, minority small businesses out of atlanta, which you almost have 50% there that are owned into denver, which is much smaller or what about -- why is it so wrong that somebody has to show an i.d. that you have ak our ray is in an election? or in a georgia law that you are allowed to have election by mail or vote early? i think that's appropriate i think people should read bills before they make judgments and i think that is what we need to go forward. >> leader, we don't have a lot of time left so i wanted to ask you about this it's totally out of left field but we have a coin base coming

with a direct listing and i looked back when you were on, july of 2019 we were talking about libra and you didn't like libra but you were very positive about bitcoin which subsequently went from 7 or 8,000 to a new high at 63,000 coin base coming public. when a lot of government types -- you're very rare for someone to be positive about this and i don't know if you saw secretary yellen and fed chair powell talking about it. do you think that they have a feeling or a good understanding of digital currencies or bitcoin at this point? do they need a little remedial reading, little reading of the bitcoin standard what would you suggest >> well, i think i was right then and i'm right now they tried to ignore it to make it go away i think jamie dimon will tell you that from the beginning who was wrong. this is moving towards the future they should not ignore it. they should not only learn more about it but the basis is going to continue to grow.

this is something that those who regulate, those who are in government who make policy better start understanding what it means for the future because other countries are moving forward, especially china. i do not want america to fall behind i want the next century to be ours that's why i want to look forward, not backwards and not keep my head in the sand. >> we've got to run. i don't know if you are making much progress with a lot of your peers and a lot of the people that are in charge of these things. >> i think we'll make a lot of progress after the next election because we'll have better policies. >> leader mccarthy, thanks for your time this morning coming up, breaking economic news, inflation data and the market when "squawk box" comes right back (naj) at fisher investments, we do things differently and other money managers don't understand why.

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welcome back to "squawk box. rick santelli here with breaking news our march read on consumer price index. believe me, it's heating up a bit. headline up .6 that's the hottest since june of '09. if you strip off the all important food and energy, it's up .3. that's been the best since july of 2020. year over year up 2.6 on year over year headline that is the highest since august of 2018. and up 1.6 onc core.

1.6 is the best since march of 2020 when it was up 2.1. these numbers are definitely warmer than expected but still we aren't really getting to those year-over-year comps that people are more nervous about. one year ago we're starting to comp to levels a bit on the squeamish side we know they rebounded the problem we have with inflation is you the viewers, listeners on radio, you feel the prices every time you go to the store or every time you pay something but the fed and the measurements for inflation are like acceleration with speed it's only when prices are in movement that you actually are increasing inflation. when they stop no matter how high they are, when they stop, that's basically zero inflation. so we continually are looking at our cost of living going up because we only measure the month over month change. melissa lee, back to you. >> let's get to steve liesman

with his take on the number. steve? >> you know, interesting developments here. not exactly what i expected, melissa. food prices are up 3.5% year over year. the month-on-month moderated to 0.1% food away from home, which i thought restaurant prices, 3.3 year over year but just 0.1 on the month. energy prices did accelerate a lot. energy commodities up. gasoline prices up that happened. we knew that was going to happen expected to see that that's the thing the market needs to make up its mind. whether or not it indeed wants to discount it when i look at what's happening in new vehicles, that's a troublesome area phil lebeau comes on, talks about pricing power out there. also you have this rise in used car and truck prices and that might reflect what's happening in terms of there being a

shortage on the chip side for the new cars people buying more used cars and those prices rising. 9.4% year over year. looking at services. yeah, some service inflation is out there and that's what we're going to be tracking here in terms of the reopening as to whether or not you get this rise in prices for reopening up 0.4%. again, the bottom line here, guys, the story the market is grappling with is we expect this to happen. base effects low numbers from the beginning of the pandemic dropping out you get a base effect that pushes up the year over year rate also you have the reopening, shortages, bottlenecks, supply constraints. then the market has to deal with the issue of whether or not these are temporary and i just want to take a very quick look at what's happening again to the two-year note which is probably the best, easiest indicator. it seems like i have 17 basis points it was up a little bit the last couple of days with some

indication of some concern relatively under control if you take into account how it behaved ahead in the financial crisis and how it's behaving now. just 17 basis points does not speak to a market, guys, that thinks the fed's going to turn around imminently and start hiking rates because of some imminent inflation problem andrew >> okay. steve, thank you for that. we've got a lot more coming up on what has turned out to be a remarkably newsy morning i wish the news wasn't coming the way it was, but nonetheless investor kyle bass is going to join us after break. as we head to break. check out the vaccine stocks right now as news breaks about the fda temporarily halting the use of johnson & johnson covid vaccine due to a rare blood clotting issue moderna up close to 7% pfizer up on that news as well as biontech up 2%. johnson & johnson down 2.75% the markets overall taking some of it in stride but down

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selling off around 7 a.m. this morning following the news that the u.s. is halting administration of the j&j, johnson & johnson covid vaccine. joining us now is kyle bass, hayman capital founder and chief investment officer kyle, you need to watch every single bit of news on a daily basis to try to do what you do what was your reaction when you saw this this morning? >> well, clearly it's unfortunate. i'm no expert in vaccines. i've done my share of reading. typically vaccines take 8 to 10 years to put into place. the global scientific community did this all in a year i think there are going to be some setbacks. when i see the numbers of hospitalizations and new viruses or new contraction numbers, it just seems to me like sometime in may or june we'll have full openness and herd immunity in the u.s. that will roll out worldwide if you look at the futures,

they're flat i don't think it's an event for the market. >> kyle, let's talk about china's reading of the piece this morning we talked china a lot with you it was referencing the lecture that the biden administration basically got from china about we are equals now. you got racial issues there, you've got all kinds of issues in the united states and don't lecture us on human rights and you have your own warts and moles and how you run things now. did you see that piece and commentary on it >> yes, joe. so, number one, let's just look at china for a second. they have a closed -- they have a closed capital account the only reason they can operate the world and settle is because we provide them with dollars their currency is settled in a cross border basis only 1.8% of global transactions. when you look to get 1.8%, it's

almost all entirely with hong kong so they're trading with themselves joe, the big joke is the world gives china the credit that they so desperately want when in reality they rely on the united states and they rely on our rules-based order and currency to operate in the world. that's why their next move on the chess board is the single most important move in the last 20 years for china >> and are we ready -- the biden administration in terms of whether we continue a lot of the policies of the last administration, how important is that are they up to the task of, do you think, facing china and the challenge from china in a way where we can prevail or at least try to keep up >> yeah, i think it's vitally important for secretary blinken, jake sullivan and kirk campbell

to live up to their campaign promises which would be to never trade a human rights issue for a trade deal, which unfortunately trump did. so when you look at what's going on today, joe, i think the bigger question is our state department has labeled the chinese government as a government that's committing genocide and crimes against humanity, so how does wall street, guys like schwartzman, fink, dalio, how do they invest more and more money in a regime that's been labeled and officially designated as agen k -- a genocidal agency we keep operating on let's invest more in china let's look at a chinese ipo. it's too fundamentally opposed rules-based orders between the united states and china. and, joe, i don't know why we

keep pushing it forward with investment >> carl, i know you saw peter thiel's comments, too, about the chinese. they do a lot of bitcoin mining. there is a digital yuan in the works or at least there's plans for things like that is that a challenge to the dollar in terms of global supremacy? and is it -- when i read it i had to laugh that china's debasing our currency. we may have some domestic debasers that we need to talk to about that as well, but is that what you're seeing from china? do we need to be aware of that and get cracking >> yeah. so, joe, this is the single most important move on the global chess board in the last 20 years is how the united states and its allies interfaces or doesn't interface with the chinese central bank digital currency. 80% of central banks around the

world are in some stage of researching or rolling out a new digital currency 35 are in advanced stages and close to roll out. the u.s. isn't close what we must understand is a central bank digital currency isn't a currency it's our adoption of a chinese tech stack it's basically a currency that knows everything about you if you have it. they know who you are. they know how you spend your money. they will export their digital authoritarianism on you, joe if you say anything negative about china and you have some chinese cbdc in your account, they can turn it off they can make it so you can't spend it this is something that we must you say get cracking this is something that we and our allies must realize is the single largest threat to our rules-based order and democracies around the world. >> i ask minority leader mccarthy about some comments from fed chair powell and secretary yellen from a couple of weeks ago that we've

scratched our heads about quite a bit and their take on digital currency and on bitcoin in general. do you think we're in a position to guide us forward with that? i mean, they're both very smart and well-read and, you know, they wouldn't have their positions if they weren't. what's missing in terms of understanding what could be the future and not being ready for it >> again, i think it's this geopolitical threat of the adoption of a chinese tech stack, not just that they're rolling out some sort of digital currency and they've got only 1% of global settlements today. so they have 1% of digital settlements. that's not the case. joe, imagine what china is going to do. you talked about division and how they -- how they talk about don't lecture us about human rights when we have all of the divisions, racial divisions and all the tensions we have here. that's china's m.o they sow divisions with our open authority and information stack.

that's what they do as an operating force. we don't have a global propaganda department in the u.s. when you ask me are yellen and powell ready they're part of the old guard. they're incredibly bright. they know exactly what they're doing in central banking but this is economic war that we're talking about. the bad news is we don't have an economic war department stood up we have a great kinetic war department and cyber department. we don't have an economic war department and we need one. >> so what's going to change to put us in a position where we're better able to face this challenge? and do you expect that to happen >> so the good news is is behind the scenes many of our various important agencies and departments are working night and day on trying to understand what this rollout means. china seems to be moving forward the rollout of their own central bank digital currency. imagine china's first move is going to say anyone that does business with us or invests in

china is going to have to settle on our cbdc. though will make an offer you can't refuse if you are chasing riches in china. literally overnight the amount of currency that settles, trade that settles in chinese central bank digital currency will be mf what it is today and their influence in the world will immediately, almost overnight become so much greater and again that puts them in a position to export their digital authoritarianism we can't allow this to happen. there actually is no way to become partially infected with their new central bank digital currency it is either all or none i believe we should banality i think it should be illegal and let's hope china doesn't get so far ahead of the pal they get it in the system this is going to make private crypt currency an afterthought it is going to be a side show. biscuit or ether or this or that it won't matter.

>> what about a digital dollar have we even -- are we even in the most preliminary stages of even think about that. >> we are. >> welfare. >> we are in the preliminary stages of thinking about our own central bank digital currency. we're far behind because from china's perspective for them to act with the blij rabs they are acting the blij rans in hong kong is already starting to cast a dark shadow over taiwan and if you notice they not only believe they have economic might but they have been really flexing their military muscles and all under this belief that they have a strong economy and they are in a better position than the u.s. and we hear all of this mullerky about the chinese economy being larger and purchasing power parity. and that is seventh being close to being true. as we move forward this is

china's next big step. and it will enable their mall ion activities all around the world to multiply. just something that we as a country is to focus on this and focus on this.to multiply. just something that we as a country is to focus on this and focus on this. all of our agencies, all of our departments region now. >> thank you for your perspective and opinion on this and this is i think going to get a lot of attention after the last ten minutes or so thank you. >> in the meantime check out some of the big tech names faang stocks trading higher on the back of this j&j vaccine news straight to jim cramer for his take on the trading day ahead. seeing the faangs move higher. j&j move higher. pfizer and moderna higher what is your reaction jim >> i think the j&j because of the problems we merging bio isn't nearly as big a deal obviously a big deal for people

who have taken it. not nearly as big a deal for the coming months because j&j was already in the p.enalty box i this moderna and pfizer continue the moment. and i'm not concerned about the reopening of america maybe there will be a halt in vaccine, we had what, 3.2 he va they can get it. and they are happy with the pfizer moderna second day, people are a little nauseous. obviously j&j now paused but i don't think this is going to really impact the market nearly as much as it indicated >> with bill dem czech from pnc who was saying he thinks the economy is firing on all cylinders and maybe this impacts the margin in terms hoff quick the vaccine get out but maybe only by a couple weeks

>> obviously j&j was already just a trickle i think what people are getting are pfizer and moderna those two companies are on their game i don't expect this to impact travel and leisure i think people selling those stocks are mistaken and by midday i think the only thing we're focused on is coin base. >> coin baste, the big offering tomorrow bis bitcoin this week seeing a conversion of interests. how do you see it? >> she believes in crypto. she's a pioneer in writing about this i did not think it could possibly be that big in terms of even my bullish view but i'm rethinking it. i was circumspect at some point. i thought there would be a price you wouldn't want to pay but i do think she's laid out

the -- extraordinary piece she rate. >> do you boy bitcoin or coin baste if you could only by one zpli would by bitcoin. i think you can get a -- coin baste becaubase because th. point blank positive on ethereum. >> and we should tell you he's on tomorrow. so you don't want to miss that we'll see you in just a couple of minutes with the gang on "squawk on the street. coming up later this hour, don't miss the new -- later this morning rather the cnbc new show tech check

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welcome back to "squawk box. a brief recap with the market

ramifications with the johnson and johnson covid pause news the dow down about 170 points when the news broke. also check out what's happening with certain parts of the so called reopening trade those betting on a positive postcovid world. american airlines carnival marriott on the travel and leisure side down on the news. simon property down about a percent. also watch what's happening with some of the stocks more closely associated with the state at hoem or work at hoem trade zoom video up 2% peloton up 3%. docu-sign and fastly up about 1% as well. and one place melissa this is a not feeling as much of an impact on this covid vaccine scare is crude oil. up 1%. that trend higher remains in

techs. melissa back the to you. >> interesting one, dom. thanks so much and also watching bitcoin which set a new record in today's session. lots to watch also we head onto the opening bell here. >> if i beg will you come back tomorrow melissa >> i will come back tomorrow how's that >> we're begging andrew. i'm speaking for both of us. >> see you tomorrow. >> -- tomorrow on "squawk box. in the meantime "squawk on the street" is up next ♪ good tuesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber. the morning trade hits a speed bump the u.s. calling for a pause in the j&j vaccine. regulators hold a press conference if an hour. in the meantime inflation hawks dodge a bullet cpi hot by 1/10 and -- j&j pause. federal health agencies making the recommendation following rare blood clot cases te