financials are the biggest losers when we look at the s&p sectors ahead of that but we'll see what they have to tell us when those earnings cross the tape. >> courtney, always good to be with you thank you for joining us today >> good to be with you. >> "closing bell" starts right about now. sara, wilf, take it away. >> it certainly does welcome to "the closing bell." i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen a mixed picture on the back of key inflation data which came in above expectations the nasdaq around 1% hire higher johnson & johnson is weighing on the dow after the cdc recommended a pause in the administration of the company's vaccine out of an abundance of caution following blood clots in six women who received the jab that's leaving investors weighing the stay at home versus reopening trade. bitcoin hitting arecord high

breaking $63,000 as coinbase will have a direct listing tomorrow 59 minutes left in the trading day, sara. looking at session highs. ahead on today's show, two great guests to help us break down the johnson & johnson vaccine news we'll talk to dr. ofer levy. he's a member of the advisory committee that makes the recommendations on authorizing these shots. we'll also hear from allerganceo. plus is the housing market about to crash that's one of the top searched on google right now. we'll discuss with mega investor and landlord steve witkoff first, let's focus in on the big stories we're watching mike santoli tracking the market action and meg tirrell on what we know about the j&j vaccine. mike, start us off. >> it's resilience through rotation that's been the story for a while.

you have a little hiccup in the reopening or cyclical trades and you have the big nasdaq sector so this is an appear apple, tesla, amazon day. it looks like the market slowed down modestly but this little extra leg has a lot of analyses that says it looks like it should be culminating, it looks like people have stopped hedging. it looks like the risk/reward doesn't look that great. has not happened yet the market action itself is not giving you reason for too much worry right now, although it is a narrower strain. this is the russell 1,000 equal weighted, all stocks weighted the same against the s&p 500 that peaked a few weeks ago and is heading lower it doesn't mean necessarily it's a super narrow rally, but it does mean there's some give-back in the average stock it is much more mega cap and defensively and cautiously

driven take a look at another indication as we talked about the retail speculative bid that has been drained away from this market call option volumes way off their highs. the russell microcap etf, the smallest 1,000 stocks in the russell 2000 small cap interactive brokers, they have been moving in lock-step now, this is a six-month chart so you see it can't be an accident the retail excitement does go into mostly the smallest stocks. both are well outperforming the s&p over six months. it's, again, just a different rhythm to this market and a different feel it's less speculative and much more, okay, i'll buy what seems like it will keep me okay. >> and then there's tesla up almost 8%. best performer on the s&p 500 taking autos to the best performing industry group. what's with that is it a bitcoin move

>> it's an upgrade today the stock couldn't get out of its own way for weeks and months and it did kind of go sideways for a while at or below $700 look, if it's bitcoin related, coinbase related, if the cloud stocks are moving again, you're starting to see some rekindling of some of the growth favorites. maybe that explains it today tesla is the second biggest contributor to the s&p after apple at the moment. >> mike, great stuff, thank you. now to the big covid news of the day. the cdc and fda advising states to pause the j&j vaccine rollout. up to six cases of a rare blood clotting issue meg tirrell has all the latest details for us. >> hey, wilf those six cases we are seeing among 7 million vaccinations with the j&j vaccine officials are emphasizing this is an incredibly rare event and they are recommending this pause out of an abundance of caution

here is what we know about these events they are a specific kind of clot and they are seen in combination with a low platelet count so that is this unique profile that they are seeing of these blood clots. all six cases were women between the ages of 18 and 48. one of the reasons they think it's really important that people know about this is for folks who have had the j&j vaccine to be aware of any potential symptoms of this within three weeks of vaccination, but also for doctors treating this. they wouldn't be treated with the usual blood thinner treatments like heparin because there could be some detrimental effects using that there's going to be a cdc advisory meeting tomorrow and they will discuss all of this in more detail. dr. fauci today at the white house press briefing indicating what could come from that. here's what he said. >> that's the reason why the cdc and the fda want to take a look at this and say are there some

categories now where people outside of that category don't have any of the factors and so it would be okay to go on. >> so, guys, they'll really be digging into whether there was anything similar about these folks and if this they need to change recommendation about the j&j vaccine. there is enough supply of vaccines for every american adult who wants one by the end of may even if you don't factor johnson & johnson into that. we know from pfizer and moderna, each is expected to deliver a total of 200 million doses to the u.s. by the end of may that's enough for 200 million people there are 260 million adults in this country or thereabouts, so that wouldn't quite cover all of them however, by the end of july they're expected to have enough supply for 300 million people so we'll continue to follow this. more news coming from the cdc tomorrow but as of now saying an abundance of caution, this is incredibly rare and should not

affect access to the other vaccines. >> meg, abundance of caution but others following like south africa when it is one in a million or even less than that, what is the risk that we start to lose faith in this vaccine and the kind of consequences what's happened across europe with the astrazeneca one where people wait until they can get a different one. maybe there's enough supply it's not too big of an issue but it's still a shame if the one and done vaccine doesn't get taken up. >> absolutely. there's a lot of criticism and a lot of question about moving here after just six days but seeing regulators move so quickly should actually bolster confidence in the vaccines and after they get through this analysis and if they change their recommendations about the j&j vaccine, that should bolster our confidence in that as well this is an important vaccine for

the world, a single shot and it can be stored in the fridge. they are expected to make a billion doses and so it's important that regulators make sure that there's confidence in it. >> meg tirrell meg, thank you very much. there's clearly a market reaction to all of this, mike. moderna is one of the best performers in the triple qs, up 6.4% right behind it, docu-sign and zoom, classic stay-at-home plays. does that prolong that trade >> i think so. we've been toggling back and forth, depending on the market's assess mment of what the pacings going to be. one of the reasons the move is not more dramatic marketwide is that the pure reopening trade was off its highs already. the hotel, leisure, restaurant sector was 10% or 15% off the recent highs so we've not

necessarily been so far out on a limb assuming everything was going to be perfect very soon. so that calibration happens. yeah, i mentioned earlier, you had this renewed, rekindled bid in some of the growth names that do benefit from work from home i don't think we're talking about a real leadership reversion to those types of stocks necessarily >> but quite encouraging, mike, overall that markets are holding up in light of this news when you think how much they jumped in the first place when any vaccine news got priced in in a positive way in months past. >> sure. arguably, you know, the market has been so strong in a pretty straight line recently that it could have seized on any excuse to pull back and again, i think it would have been an excuse because the market pretty quickly calibrated exactly what the marginal change in the outlook is given the fact that j&j was not the predominant

provider of the vaccines you're right, the fact the market is holding on to gains, the final point is investors collectively love when good things are out on the horizon. even if they remain out there for a long time, even if they get a little more distant, at least good things are on the horizon. that's the case with the reopening, so i think if anything else, it just prolongs this process of everybody being able to say the economy is going to be strengthening soon, if not today. >> great stuff, mike, thank you. up next, bitcoin bouncing to new heights today as coinbase gears up to go public. we'll speak to a partner from volt capital about what the colossal coinbase listing means for the entire crypto space. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc.

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individual market movers all timter -- it is trading up by 9% as we speak. it's one of the original members of cnbc's spac krc index. the index is up a quarter of a percent or so. shares of roblox jumping roblox has surged since its public debut just over a month ago, up 8% today. speaking of public debut, crypto rally showing no sign of showing down bitcoin hitting a record high, surpassing $63,000 this comes ahead of coinbase's listing tomorrow some on wall street are going all in ahead of its debut.

it has a $600 price target today. some firms are expressing caution with new constructs which analyzes ipos saying coinbase's valuation of $100 million remains ridiculous suna, as i understand it, you're not an investor in coinbase but probably a lot of other companies like it. how pivotal of a moment is this ipo for you? >> yeah, absolutely. thanks for having me on, sara. i have been an investor in this space for the last four years and we haven't seen anything like this either listing or ipo in crypto. but frankly, in tech, period, this is one of the largest listings the important thing to remember is that the crypto doesn't end

with coinbase going public this is very much a stake in the ground for crypto companies being built now. so even more important than $100 billion market cap is the next 100 million users. at our firm at volt capital, we're focused on founders that are building for that next 100 million users. there are companies in crypto that are even larger and doing higher revenues that haven't even filed to go public yet. >> one of the risk factors around this listing is actually the competition that you're talking about and potentially investing in the fact that there are a number of other companies doing what coinbase is doing and in fact that could ultimately pressure the margins and the juicy fees that they're getting out of crypto trading do you see that happening like it did with stock trading? >> right so we definitely have seen a target of 96% of revenues coming in from retail trading for

coinbase but the fact of the matter is the stars really align for this direct listing coinbase could not have timed it better looking at the macro vooiew, bitcoin hit an all-time high and gold products have seen tens of billions of outflow and crypto is seeing inflows at an all-time high all of this has been reflected in coinbase's numbers. to start, there's $90 billion in assets on the platform coinbase reported over 56 million users and $1.8 billion in quarterly revenues just in q1 to put this in perspective this means that coinbase is on track to do more in net income and revenues than any u.s. exchange, including nasdaq or cme. >> when you look backwards, soona, over the last three years, let's say, obviously coinbase hasn't been listed yet, but were it to have been would you have made more money by

investing in the platform over the last three years or in bitcoin itself >> right for investors, what they have historically been looking at are the crypto assets and crypto asset class. but what i'm hoping happens with the successful coinbase listing is that they look beyond the crypto asset class to the infrastructure companies that are being built now that are creating trillions of dollars worth in value they are going to be valued at astronomical figures and are eroding the market share of legacy financial institutions today. >> you've heard the skeptical argument and it's really around not just coinbase but the whole crypto/bitcoin surge and that is we are awash in liquidity and stimulus and that's boosting all assets, including stocks in another environment, this would all feel very differently. how do you respond to that >> well, bitcoin itself was

created for this exact reason. we're looking at 0% interest fees the entire thesis of crypto is well positioned to be used and leveraged in an ecosystem like this i truly don't think it's going to get any better. so we're going to see more crypto companies that are building to help on-ramp the next hundred million users into crypto and be exposed to this new financial paradigm >> do you think more mainstream wall street firms will get in on what coinbase does, and is that a threat or does it prove the kind of business model >> there's a huge opportunity. if you look at coinbase's offerings, if you are an investor that's just heard about bitcoin and you'd like to make a purchase, there's the retail offering, there's coinbase pro if you're a more sophisticated trader now more recently if you're an institution or corporate looking

to put bitcoin on the balance sheet, you can use coinbase's custodial and institutional offerings. truthfully i think the pie is so big, we're only in the early innings of what the crypto industry will be we've seen -- at our firm we've seen the startups building around this as well. i do think there's competition and it's only going to grow more fierce over time >> soona, thanks so much for joining us much appreciated. >> thank you for having me i really appreciate it up next, boeing marches higher the company just releasing its monthly sales figures following those 737 max concerns raised last week. later we'll speak with dr. ofer levy who makes recommendations on authorization as we get his take on j&j's news. check out some of the top search tickers on cnbc.com everyone is becoming a fixed

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shares of boeing are higher after the company released its monthly sales figures. phil lebeau has the details. >> boeing posted its second straight month with positive orders when it comes to commercial airplanes march and the first quarter perhaps a bit of a turning point for boeing

the march orders up 40 planes. 69 planes positive in q1 the first positive quarter since q3 of 2019 not a surprise given that we reported on southwest at the end of march ordering 100 737 maxes. that's where you're seeing the change for boeing. united placing an order for 25 in q1, alaska for 23, and a whole host of other leasing companies as well as airlines also placing a number of orders. there are still cancellations out there. the delivery front, it is also improving. in fact boeing posting 77 deliveries for commercial air planes in the first quarter. that is the best quarter since 2019 one other couple of stocks to watch here first of all, boeing and we're showing going all the way back to q3 showing that while the stock has come back substantially over the last year, it's still nowhere close to where it was in q3 of 2019. i think it's down about 35%. also take a look at spirit

aerosystems. they're not going to see a whole lot of growth in terms of f fuselages this year. it will be improving as the production of 737 improves. up next, spotify hits the road the stock getting a nice pop today as it takes its streaming platform into the fast lane. we'll explain next. later we'll speak way venture capitalist who is on the hunt for spacs to take her portfolios public. as we head to break, a check on bonds yields are a bit lower following that cpi inflation data. i think the general headline is it could have been worse we are seeing a little firming in consumer prices, but not nearly as strongly as some of the inflation we were expecting. we'll be right back.

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32 minutes left of trading s&p 500 tracking for a record

close. we are seeing big moves in media stocks right now let's get to julia boorstin with more. >> that's right. take a look at shares of spotify gaining about 6% on the announcement of it's in-car entertainment system now, this is the first time that spotify has called a device called car thing and it's able for free to spotify premium subscribers and it's really designed for people with older cars so it's harder for them to stream normally. angie shares skyrocketing after that company reported stronger than expected revenue growth, particularly in europe where those marketplace revenues increased by over 60%. the partial owner, iac, gaining 7% and vimeo reported 60% revenue growth in growth ball dot dash division saw 47% growth.

wilf. >> julia, thanks for that. now for a cnbc news update. the police officer who shot daunte wright has resigned the police chief of brooklyn center, minnesota, also resigned they hope the moves will help the community heal after two nights of protests watch the news with shepard smith to stay up to date on all the developments. and now a missing person case that's nearly 25 years old. paul flores has been taken into custody in connection with the caps of kristin smart in 1996. he was the prime suspect and the last person seen with smart before she disappeared flores' father was also arrested as an accessory. and democratic congressional leaders calling on their republican colleagues to support legislation into combatting hate crimes, especially those aimed at the asian-american community. senator majority leader chuck schumer said an attack on one

group is an attack on all of us. you're now up to date. wilf, i'll send it back to you. shares of j&j falling today after the fda and cdc called for a pause in the one-dose covid vaccine. this comes after reports of a rare blood clots in six people the j&j has been given to 6.9 million americans. dr. fauci says the pause comes out of an abundance of caution. >> you want to make sure that safety is the important issue here we are totally aware that this is a very rare event we want to get this worked out as quickly as we possibly can and that's why you see the word pause. you want to hold off for a bit and may very well go back to that, maybe with some conditions and maybe not but we want to leave that up to the fda and cdc to investigate this. >> joining us now is dr. ofer levy from boston children's hospital and an fda vaccine

advisory committee voting member thanks for joining us. >> thank you, wilfred, a pleasure >> so is this abundance of caution a slight overreaction that risks doing lasting damage to the way people view this vaccine or the sensible course of action? >> well, thank you for that, wilfred. that is the question of the day, isn't it i actually believe that this is the sensible course of action. this is done, as dr. fauci said, out of an abundance of caution these are rare, rare adverse events that were serious and associated potentially with the vaccine. the pause may only last for a few days so that fda and cdc can investigate more carefully any potential link for these events. but i believe by being so transparent and rapid at responding to safety signals, in the long run we will gain trust with the public around the safety measures around these

vaccines even after we authorize these vaccines and millions of americans get immunized, there is active and passive surveillance for the safety of the vaccines when a signal like this is detected, these were only six individuals, rare events, it's important to investigate them and be transparent about them. >> maybe this is the right course of action, the sensible course, as you say, but do you really believe that these events and the actions being taken are going to increase public confidence in the vaccine? just look at what's happened with the astrazeneca one in certain markets across europe. i don't think it's going to boost confidence, no matter what comes next >> in the short run it will cause concern in the public, but we don't want to panic these are rare events, right for most people who got the j&j vaccine, they're absolutely fine, it's safe, effective but in the long run i believe that transparency is the right course of action because if you have large parts of the

population not trusting that the establishment is being open about potential concerns, that erodes over in the long term erodes confidence in the entire enterprise so it is a complex balance, but on the whole i think this transparency is important and i think that that will give the american people confidence that the authorities care about any potential safety signal. >> dr. levy, we give our kids a lot of vaccines, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, on and on what does the data show in terms of the potential for severe side effects? aren't there serious problems and more than a one in a million chance that happens, and yet we still give our kids a lot of them. >> there's no doubt that other than clean drinking washington, vaccines are the most important medical intervention known to humankind. it's hard to overstate the beneficial impact of vaccines. people used to be afraid to let their kids go to the swimming

pool because they'd get polio. vaccines are victims of their own success. we used to have smallpox around the world killing millions who worries about that anymore what we're dealing with here are new vaccines, new platforms. so when you have a new vaccine, a new platform, vaccines have to be safe, you give them to healthy people, and we need to examine any potential side effect as dr. fauci said, they're going to look into the association if there's a subpopulation that may be at greater risk of this side effect, maybe there's a carve-out and you recommend the other kind of vaccine. i don't want to judge the outcome but it could be an outcome. it's characterized as a pause. it might only be a few days to let the medical system digest the information and have good guidance both to patients and to providers, but i think this is the right course >> dr. levy, is there a coincidence or actually a

causality between the fact these blood clots have arisen from both spike protein vaccines, astrazeneca and j&j? >> well, the challenge here is the phase 3 data were presented to fda, they were made available to the american people this is a transparent process. this was based on studies of 30,000 to 40,000 individuals the safety signal for the j&j vaccine did not manifest in that group. it only came to light once the vaccine was given to millions. that tells you how rare this clotting event is. but now that it's detected, it's a statistical thing. we know if we see an uptick in association with j&j, if the recipients of the j&j vaccine had a higher frequency of clotting than expected in the background population frequency, then it's a statistical

argument. >> so if there is a link, if this edo find a link between the two, then what will they withdraw the vaccine >> not necessarily they may try to see if it's -- for example, and i've only seen preliminary news reports if it was true it was only in women, younger women, maybe people with certain background conditions, they have to examine the medical charts they'll have to see if there's a subgroup that may be at higher risk and have a carve-out. does that group get directed to get a different vaccine, perhaps an mrna vaccine. the j&j vaccine overall is an excellent vaccine. the risk of contracting covid is much higher than anything we're talking about here so we don't want to trivialize it, but we also don't want to say the sky is falling and this vaccine is doomed. this is a pause. let's give them a few days and make that determination. >> but there have been mixed messages from the cdc from the beginning, on masks, on whether this was airborne. obviously the public trust is

fragile here, dr. levy you said they don't want people to panic but it does appear that the cdc panicked >> i wouldn't say they panicked. i think that they looked at the data remember, it's not just the data we have here on j&j. there's data in europe on the astrazeneca vaccine which uses the same platform, appeared also concern for tlhrombotic problems there. maybe they need to dig deeper and find the right way to give this vaccine to the right population. >> dr. levy, thanks for joining us much appreciated. >> always a pleasure >> i, for one, am still delighted i had this particular one and done vaccine. >> you're not a girl age 18 to 48 but it is rare, yes. >> i think it's very, very rare. less than one in a million. we will discuss the housing

market and very much more still to come when we inside the market zone a little bit later steven witkoff coming up shortly. hey, dad! hey, son! no dad, it's a video call. you got to move the phone in front of you like..like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most and $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

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take a look at shares of palantir the stock is the second most discussed on wall street bets today, just behind gamestop. it's trading on below average volume but still on track for its best day since february. it's up 9% we'll keep an eye on that as we head into the close. when we come back, are you ready for it apple officially announcing its next product event when it's taking place and what the company could unveil it is the top performer in the dow right now. that's next in the market zone by making it more affordable, that's why we're keeping our tuition the same through the year 2021. - i knew snhu was the place for me

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14 minutes left in the trading day. we are now in the closing bell market zone, commercial-free coverage of all the action until the close. mike santoli is here to break down the coverage and we have joe terranova back as well s&p 500 on track for a record close. nasdaq is trading less than 2% from its all-time high level mike, wow, what a comeback for the tech sector and for the nasdaq, which was in correction territory a few weeks ago and everybody was wondering if that was the end of the tech trade. >> right and the biggest components of the nasdaq, which are also the biggest components of the s&p 500, had done nothing really since september and that was

widely observed. people say maybe there's relative value there that really has been the happy solution to the overall market which is rotational as opposed to a broad retrenchment in the indexes. it's kind of a flow driven market, it's more of the same. we all have the same expectations it's a matter of whether you want to sell sbinto it or buy it it a lot of sectors are moving in a lot of different directions but it's a net buy market. a lot of indicators are pointing to this idea that we might be nearing a short-term technical completion of the rally type moment it has not mattered at all. >> joe, as for some of those indicators, you've been keeping an eye on the vix. when was the last time we saw it consistently this calm, as it were >> well, wilf, we'll now have

ten consecutive closes below 20. we have not witnessed that, so we're normalizing the vix, since february of 2020 so mike is correct that in the month of march you had established growth kind of find their trough and that lent calm to the overall market environment. there you're seeing the fall on the vix and you're beginning to see some of the emerging growth stocks, like a twilio, like a docusign, like crowdstrike or cloud fair, zoom so emerging growth is participating as well as we head into earnings. >> do you worry, joe, at all that it's the calm before the storm and a sign that we're a little too complacent or not >> wilf, tell me when the size of the federal reserve's balance sheet, which is now $7.7 trillion and is actually

continuing to grow, the federal reserve committed again today over the coming month to buy $80 billion in treasuries. when do we see the taper, when does the size of the balance sheet pull back? when i see that, that's when i'll be concerned. >> we're not even talking about talking about it yet we're getting some breaking news on microsoft eamon javers with the details. >> yeah, that's right. the white house is now warning people who use microsoft exchange servers to patch those systems with two new patches put out by microsoft the white house putting out a statement now from a new official over there, the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technologies, ann newberger. she says microsoft released a set of exchange patches today that are critical. we urge all owners and operators of microsoft exchange servers to apply these latest patches immediately. the u.s. government will lead by example. we are requiring all agencies to immediately patch their exchange servers as well.

should these vulnerabilities evolve into a major incident, we'll manage the incident in partnership with the private sector so the white house warning people who run microsoft exchange to patch their systems. this follow and separate from a breach back in march that was reportedly done by the chinese government this now a warning from the u.s. government the white house telling me a few minutes ago it comes from the national security agency which initially found these vulnerabilities in the systems now the white house wants to get this message out to the private sector to patch these systems and fast because they are vulnerable. >> microsoft exchange servers. is this anyone with microsoft exchange or anyone running a server >> anybody running microsoft exchange and using those servers needs to patch that now. this is fascinating, right, because there's been this question in the u.s. government about u.s. intelligence agencies and what their role should be

vis-a-vis the private sector should the national security agency, which is reportedly and by reputation the best in the world at hacking and detecting hacks, should they be involved in dealing with the defensive side of cybersecurity and warning american companies here we see an example that appears to be just that, something slightly new here or more aggressive posture anyway from the national security agency going through the white house now and putting out this warning to companies saying microsoft is now releasing these patches as a result of what the u.s. government told it about vulnerabilities in its software. those patches are out there now for your i.t. teams to download and apply per the instructions but this is the u.s. government warning the private sector that there is a weakness here and fix it fast. airline stocks getting hit hard after the fda asked states to stop giving j&j's covid vaccine. phil lebeau has the details.

>> the airline stocks have come back along with the rest of the market in the last hour. a couple of stocks are getting a fair amount of attention as you look at alaska, united, delta and southwest. they have made a bit of a comeback here in the last hour or so. let's look specifically at american airlines. the company putting out its q1 guidance a little earlier today and they are expecting a loss a little greater than consensus, which is the reason the stock has been under pressure most of the day. revenues will come in down 62% for the first quarter. their guidance was between 60% and 65% drop in revenue, so roughly in line with that. thursday is when we hear from delta, the first airline financials coming out that morning. we'll hear from delta ceo ed bastion about where the company is as they are cash low positive and trying to build momentum in the second quarter and the rest of the year. guys, back to you. >> phil lebeau, thanks for that. joe, are you in any of these

airline travel names >> wilf, i sold out of alaska last wednesday i think recreational travel and the recovery that you're going to witness, i think that's priced in already. corporate travel, international travel, that's going to come back very slowly i think as it relates to transportation, i want to stick with logistics, i want to stick with the rails i'm personally long old dominion you look at fedex, u.p.s., xpo, it's about the transportation of goods not so much people. >> it's been such a hot trade. >> stay with it. >> got it. apple announcing it will hold an event next week that could mean new products that stock moving on the details. josh lipton with the details. >> sara, circle your calendar. we have a date for the next big apple event. it's going to take place on april 20th starting at 10:00 a.m. pacific it will be streamed online we don't know what apple has

planned here but maybe the company could use this event to showcase new ipads reports do suggest that new ipad pros are on the way with the newest, fastest processor. the ipad has certainly been a bright spot for apple. in its last reported quarter, ipad revenue surging 41% other possible new products, perhaps refreshed imacs or airpods. >> mike, interesting to see the stock move higher on this news, especially if it's ipad. hasn't the big mover been the big 5g cycle >> it has. i think the stock reaction is more about people looking for some catch-up trades in tech with yields down a lot of things coming together. yes, the announcement absolutely seems like a very short-term catalyst but we had apple up a couple percent the other day on no news. i think of the huge cap nasdaq

stocks, it's probably the farthest from its all-time high, still 6%, 7% below that's also filtering into what people are handicapping here so we have no real clues about what it might mean financially, this announcement for apple. >> joe, what's your favorite name of the mega cap tech names? >> alphabet. that's clearly the mega cap technology name that has the most potential upside. really the capital allocation strategy, they're borrowing it from apple and getting aggressive in that nature. you're witnessing an outperformance there personally i am long apple, i am long microsoft and a newly established position in 2021 is alphabet and that's the one i'm most excited about. >> bitcoin hitting a record high as coinbase gets set to go public tomorrow through a direct listing. its reference price expected after the close today. leslie picker has a preview. hey, leslie. >> that's right.

we're expecting that reference price to come in in just a few hours from now remember, the reference price is not one where shares are actually exchanged for cash but rather it's a ballpark, kind of arbitrary figure to begin for the direct listing usually the price tag is built from a variety of inputs, notably where the shares have been trading in the private markets. for coinbase that figure was about $344 per share during the first quarter, implying a valuation of about $90 billion on a fully diluted basis that would make coin base the largest direct listing by market cap and it would be the nasdaq's first direct listing, guys >> leslie, thanks so much for that mike, you've been having to think about this and comparing it to some other listings back in the late '90s and it just might mark the top in terms of margins for the business. >> yeah, i think that's been commonly noted, that in fact they have very, very fat margins

on their spreads that they collect from retail trading. it seems like now they display it for the world everyone is impressed by the financials of coinbase it reminds me when lebranch went public in 1999 everyone was excited about the volumes and share prices going up of stocks and now the same thing with crypto. it doesn't mean the business is going to completely be squeezed immediately but it's something to keep in mind in general definitely a crescendo of excitement surrounding this direct listing and surrounding the idea that this can be some kind of enduring buildout of this infrastructure. so i don't think it's the top, but it's clear to me that it's also spilling into these emerging tech stocks that joe was just mentioning. i think palantir goes up, people excited about bitcoin breaking to a new high, all of that is together. >> we've got about two minutes left in the trading day. what are you seeing in the market internals.

>> not bad they have improved throughout the day but still a very mixed picture in terms of number of stocks and the amount of volume going up versus going down so it's still a relatively selective market and the big caps are doing most of the work. if you look at the new york stock exchange, split between advancing and declining stocks it was pronounced on the negative side earlier, it's much more even now. it's basically a 50-50 split still a little more on the smaller stocks pulling that lower. we've been talking about the nasdaq perhaps approaching the old high see what the chart looks like on a six-month basis appearnd it's close. 14,000, 14,095 to get to that old high so it's clear that parts have been rebuilding and of course the s&p 500 have been going to new highs. was that just a stealth correction for the broad market, is that a refresh or in fact are we going to have an issue finding buyers up at these high

prices big question for the general trajectory of things and the volatility index, in a pronounced downturn, pretty solidly under 17 it does look like normalization. it does seem like this market with a lot of rotation and very calm index moves is probably going to zap this. the dream scenario is a 2017 or 2013-type upward grind that doesn't have pronounced pullbacks and stays kind of boring through the summer, guys. >> mike, thanks so much for that just under one minute left of the session. so nearly positive, the three major averages, but the dow still down 0.2 of a percent, down 63 points or so, much nearer to its session highs, which was touching the flat line as you can see about half an hour ago and its lows down 200 points the s&p 500 up a third of 1%, sitting at 4,142, which should be enough for a record close the nasdaq is leading the charge of the major averages, up a full

percent. up a nice 0.7% so far this week. russell 2000 down slightly both the russell and the dow down 0.2 nasdaq up over 1%. utilities and consumer discretion are the two sectors up more than 1%. the worst performer, financials on the eves of their earnings reports tomorrow, banks just pulling back a little bit, sara. >> that will do it, enough for a record close another record high on the s&p 500, despite that pause for j&j's vaccine. welcome back to "closing bell. if you are just joining us, i'm sara eisen along with wilfred frost and mike santoli take a look at how we finished up across the board. the dow was lower about 65 points thanks in part to ibm that was the biggest drag. nike, goldman sachs, j&j, jpmorgan all big losers on the dow. boeing was the biggest winner. as far as the s&p 500, closing at a new high. utilities were the best performing sector. we did have lower interest

rates. 1.62 your yield on your 10-year. that helped technology rise to the top of the market. the nasdaq up 1% the nasdaq 100 closing at a record high. the nasdaq composite not too far off itself and the small caps a little weaker that this in part to what we saw in financials and industrials, materials as well we've got a weaker dollar, stronger bitcoin and lower treasury yields. johnson & johnson, one of the biggest drags in the dow after the fda asked states to stop giving the covid vaccine over blood clotting concerns. we'll get reaction from brent saunders and discuss the potential fallout for j&j and its reputation. we are waiting coinbase's reference price ahead of its highly anticipated direct listing tomorrow we'll bring that to you as soon as that happens, helping propel bitcoin higher than $63,000 today. joe terranova is still with us, david ellison joins the

conversation first to you, mike, on what drove the market today you might have thought with the concerns around j&j's vaccine and that pause this morning that we'd pull back and yet here we are and another record. >> yeah, the market quickly sequestered those concerns and said, okay, fine, it will be a nasdaq-led day if we have to tweak our estimates of reopening pace or anything like that also, by the way, we were talking about the potential for that consumer price inflation number to be a market mover. it seemed there was a little bit of hesitation ahead of it. it seemed relatively benign, at least relative to fears if not published forecast and we were also able to put that aside. it's a pretty unflappable market i think that sort of turns two different ways it shows you there is an underlying bid, there has been enough broad strength or kind of alternating strength in the market to keep it supported. on the other hand, it's probably lending to a general tone of complacency and maybe people are

thinking it's a little too calm and easy we'll see how that shakes itself out. a lot of indicators are saying risk/reward doesn't look so great tactically but longer term it shows you this is a pretty strong bull market. >> focus turns to the earnings of banks >> i think most people -- most of the analysts will be correct. not a lot has happened in the last three months. the best trend is going to be credit, and that's obviously been helped by what the government has done, what the fed has done and they'll have some reserve releases. the worst trend is loan growth there is not a lot of loan growth and most of these companies will show negative loan growth year over year i think when you put it together, it's going to tell the market that the economy is fine, the banks are fine and we don't need to worry about liquidity or credit or the banks creating a

problem like 2008 so i think it will be a positive for the market. >> i'm looking at your positions, joe bac, so you have bank of america. anything else? >> goldman sachs, morgan stanley. >> sorry, that was to joe terranova. sorry, dave, we'll get back to you on your positions. >> yeah, sara. so i've had morgan stanley and goldman sachs for quite some time they have been some of the better positions, bank of america as well. i don't think the activity of the last couple of days should cloud the view of what evening will be a very favorable one for the banks. the setup is an interesting one. the 10-year treasury began the quarter pricing at 90 basis points we're now pricing about 70 to 75 basis points higher there. there's going to be a lot of fee income that was generated on mortgage refinancing let's not forget all the underwriting that occurred with the introduction of all these new spacs. so i agree with david. i think the capital reserve

release is going to be very strong, on a strong economic, optimistic feeling so that's going to ultimately lead to buy-backs as we move forward into 2022. i think the view for the financials is going to come back into play very strong over the coming days. >> david, are buybacks still the best use of their capital when they do have the ability to dp deploy it more or should it be dividends or m & a share prices have run up quite a bit. >> i've never been a big fan of buybacks i think jpmorgan is now 260 a book i'm just picking one number that i know off the top of my head. but for them to be buying back stock at two and a half times book makes no sense. they should spend a lot of time on trying to figure out how to

compete in this coinbase technology world that we're entering in financials that's their biggest threat to the company long term and i think they should be addressing it they make billions and billions of dollars a year. they have plenty of money to do something and i'm not sure what they're waiting for. >> let's pivot now to the latest on the blood clotting concerns surrounding the johnson & johnson covid vaccine. meg tirrell has the latest for us hi, meg. >> hi, wilf. just a reminder to folks, they have seen six cases of these rare but severe blood clots in more than 6.9 million people who have been vaccinated with the j&j vaccine but the fda and cdc recommending that we pause vaccinations with this vaccine as they investigate these cases. now, there were a few similarities among people who got this vaccine add had this extremely rare side effect they were all women between the ages of 18 and 48. and they note that alternative

treatment to how you normally treat blood clots is required, so they are issuing this to let doctors know of this extremely rare risk, also just to take time to look into it but the administration is emphasizing that this is not going to impact the pace of vaccinations here's the president, asked about this earlier today >> i made sure we have 600 million doses of the mr -- not of either johnson & johnson and/or astrazeneca so there is enough vaccine, basically 100% unquestionable for every single solitary american >> so, guys, the message there from the white house is that there will be enough supply of pfizer and moderna however, they are still investigating this johnson & johnson question we'll hear from the cdc tomorrow about how they're looking at this risk and any recommendations they might make about this vaccine going

forward. >> a quick question i was wondering. you cover a lot of these clinical trials for vaccines how unusual is it that you would get symptoms and problems like this outside of clinical trials when vaccines are put into the real world >> you know, it does happen sometimes, not just for vaccines but for any drugs. as they get to get used in more people than in the clinical trials, you can observe some things the challenge is always figuring out is it linked, what is the risk does the risk/benefit balance tip in favor of still using the drug if the disease is severe now. those are all things the regulators will be considering here and it's often not as black and white as we would like it to be but we'll hear more from the cdc's group of advisers tomorrow it should shed a lot more light on how they're thinking about it and how we should think about it. >> meg, thank you so much for that. pivoting back to the broader markets, joe, within the banks, which banks do you like most of

all, and is this a top call for you or just something in fact -- joe is frozen, i believe mike, with the banks tomorrow we just talked about this setup and what we're focused on. i guess we'll also get some guidance as well as capital markets bullishness. >> yeah, for sure. it's probably a benefit that the stocks have come off their highs. in fact right around march 15th you saw the peak in regional banks as well as airlines as well as the kind of pure reopening trades so they have kind of calmed down a little bit not as much evident in the huge cap banks, but i do think that people generally have very high expectations but those little plug the holes in the earnings model in terms of what they can tell you about their expectations on depositive flows that have been so huge >> david, your top big cap call in the bank space?

>> i still think bank of america and wells fargo have been on your program a number of times those are the two ones that provide not only upside in earnings but valuation upside, so i think those are my two favorite names >> david, thanks for joining us. our thanks also to joe, albeit his screen is frozen so he can't hear us. up next, brent saunders on the potential hit to j&j's bottom line and reputation from the fallout of the covid vaccine. plus front managers want companies to rp amup cap ex, and how that can hit the market. we're back in 90 seconds

welcome back shares of johnson & johnson down 1.3% as the fda and cdc recommend pausing the vaccine because of rare blood clots. joining us is brent saunders >> thanks for having me. good to see you. >> as a former ceo that dealt with the fda all the time, what are the next steps now for johnson & johnson? >> look, i think this is really not in johnson & johnson's hands. this was real world evidence that was discovered in the normal course of administering vaccines to close to 7 million people the fda and cdc are investigating, but really i think this is not anything in

j&j's hands. they have done an excellent job of getting this vaccine out and out to the public. they committed a lot of resources to doing transparencye has been excellent. >> we've talked about how rare it is. six cases out of 7 million shots that have been administered. was this a prudent step, do you think, by the cdc to take a pause? >> yeah, i think this was an overreaction by the cdc and fda. look, the odds of getting covid and dying of covid are higher. there was only one fatality. there was one critical case out of these situations. so this is not -- you know, you're talking about one in millions of odds the odds of dying in a car crash are incredibly higher on your way home today medicines do have side effects all medicines have side effects. i think making doctors and consumers aware of the issues, being able to manage if you're

starting to feel these things and report them are all important so the transparency is terrific but i think pausing this vaccine will only cause more harm over the long term as we have so much vaccine hesitancy in this country. >> and, brent, i guess it's asking the same question in a slightly different way, but have this level of data, the one in a million aspect, come out during a more normal, less rushed kind of test process for this vaccine if we weren't rushing to get them out there, would this have been enough to stop it from being authorized in the first place? >> no, i really don't think so all medicines, including these, even under emergency authorization, are a risk/benefit analysis. the risk of covid are much higher than the risks of getting cvst here. we still have one american dying

every two minutes from covid these vaccines, including the j&j accine, are 100% effective against death and serious illness for covid so we have to keep that part of the equation in balance versus this very, very rare side effect. frankly, now that we know about this side effect, we need to talk about it, doctors need to be aware of it, consumers need to know the side effects because it's very treatable for most patients. >> what do you think ultimately will be the impact on confidence in this country around vaccines in general >> unfortunately, i think what the fda and cdc should have done is issue a warning and a bulletin to doctors. by withdrawing it, i think they have created a sense of panic around already a situation people are nervous as you know, about 30% of americans are hesitant to get vaccinated we need all americans to get vaccinated i've been vaccinated i would take the j&j vaccine if that's your next question tomorrow if it were offered to me that being said, i think feeding

this monster of hesitancy is a really public health negative and probably far outweighs what could have been done here by issuing a bulletin and dear doctor letter and training and education around the side effects and potential treatments of a very, very rare side effect. >> so, brent, looking forward, do you think it is now sadly likely that the j&j vaccine won't prove to be a big percentage of u.s. vaccinations in the same way that i guess astrazeneca is going to be almost zero. will j&j be scared off the shelves a little bit now >> gosh, i hope that isn't the case but i think we run that risk there is already this competition for what vaccine you've got among people getting vaccinated everybody wants -- up till now everybody wanted pfizer, then moderna. j&j was considered a bit second tier given some of the data although it was considering one shot versus two shots in

efficacy so this pecking order of vaccines is a bit silly. you know, the j&j vaccine offers a ton of benefits in that it's not a cold storage, it's a once and done shot and it's easily administered without having to track people in for a second dose that is so important in terms of getting this vaccine out to so many people. and so creating this pecking order or this competition for better quality vaccines when they all are 100% effective against death or serious injury, which is what you want a vaccine to do i think is really a negative from a public health perspective. no one is looking at this from a totality of the situation in my humble opinion from the government, and that's sad this is -- this is an amazing accomplishment by j&j, they have done a great job we'll continue to learn about all these vaccines in the real world and there's going to be ups and downs and twists and turns. that's true of all medicine. i've never seen a drug dwomd or medicine developed that doesn't

have this kind of situation. so let's take this in context, be transparent but to overreact is a disservice. >> it's something i brought up in the last conversation when it comes to the cdc there have been criticisms about the mixed messages on masks, about what they have told us about covid being airborne the latest warning about the impending doom from the cdc director what do you think is going on here do you think it's a communication problem with the government do you think there's political motiv motivations? >> my guess, i'm only guessing, sara, it's some combination of all those things i think they are not thinking through a really comprehensive strategy around communication. there's probably some political influence here as well you know, i think they're just -- they're afraid of what they don't know. unfortunately, science and medicine is the world of unknown. what we try to do is be transparent and straightforward and inform professionals,

doctors and nurses, about the conditions in this case the public i think should be made aware as well then we do our best to manage through it, but it's always a risk/benefit analysis. the benefit clearly outweighs the risk based on everything we know today on friday we knew about four of these cases. here we are on wednesday with two more cases and now we've paused the entire vaccination program? that seems a real overreaction. >> well, we hope we don't learn about any more i just want to mention albert borla, the ceo of pfizer saying pfizer can deliver 10% more doses by the end of may than previously agreed and supply the full 300 million agreed on for the end of july, two weeks early in the fight against covid-19. brent, this is going to put a lot more pressure on the mrna producers to supply the u.s. and potentially the entire world can they do that >> yeah, i agree look, albert is a great ceo,

he's done an amazing job as has moderna. i'm glad he made that statement today. look, we need j&j. we need some of the traditional vaccine makers get involved. there's a lot of people around the world. there are a lot of poor countries that can't deal with cold chain storage or follow-up visits we need these one-dose vaccines, so we've got to keep j&j in the game nothing i've seen based on these cases is a reason to pull this off the market we'll continue to learn more about it we'll continue to learn more about pfizer and moderna as well things will happen, it's inevitable when you treat this many people, what do we have, 800 million people vaccinated around the world? you're going to see other findings things are going to happen, it always does. there's no free pass when you take a medicine or a drug. that being said, risk/benefit. benefit clearly, clearly outweighing risk here. >> yeah, you've made the point great perspective. thank you. go ahead, wilfred.

>> double thanks such a good interview. let's get over now to mike santoli for a look at fund manager priorities mike. >> fund managers' priorities fo the companies that they invest in this is part of the bank of america global fund survey every month. investors are very bullish about the economy and risk assets but they always ask what would you prefer companies do with their cash increase capital spending just surged above improved balance sheets the majority are saying it's time to invest more in capex the last time it surged above improve balance sheet was 2010 a lot of things right now very much resemble 2010, such as the comeback from an earnings downturn it also happened back in 2002 and 2003 when this spikes, it means capital is scarce and expensive and you have to work to survive. that's the time if you ever see

it spike up there to start buying stocks because it's always at the lows for the market what's interesting is you don't get what you ask for here. nobody is saying we want a returning of cash to shareholders you're going to get a lot more buybacks this year because not all the same companies with the capital investment opportunities are the ones with the spare cash flow and they're probably going to be buying back a whole lot more stock, sara. famed real estate investor steven witkoff on whether he's seeing any cracks in the red-hot housing market. plus why that free vaccine could come at the cost of uryo personal data privacy. that's coming up on "closing bell."

manhattan real estate making a big comeback march residential sales hitting its highest level in 14 years. joining us is steven witkoff who's led the financing, reconstruction of more than 100 properties in the u.s. and abroad it's great to have you again welcome back. >> thank you, sara thanks for having me. >> so do you think all this demand is pent-up demand from the pandemic or do you see a real sustainable recovery lasting here >> in new york city?

>> yes >> i think much of it has to do with price correction. so there's been some probably, i would say, in the neighborhood of 20% to 25% discounted price correction in the marketplace. i think that in part with the opening of new york city is leading to a surge in sales. and then of course cheap mortgage rates. >> so as a developer, is it an exciting time to build and do new projects in a place like new york city or not >> no, no, unfortunately and i say it sadly because, you know, i was born in the bronx and i spent my entire life in new york but, no, i don't think the risk/reward is on the side of development today in new york city >> what, steven, would you say was the peak-to-trough price decline in prime new york city, and has it bottomed now?

>> you know, wilfred, i would say it's at least 25%. and in some projects -- at our project at 111, it was probably in the neighborhood of 20% we really build great project, fisher brothers, it was solid product. but, you know, the demand just wasn't there so i would say, yeah, it's probably discounted in the best buildings as much as 25% and in other buildings where they didn't have a good selling strategy, i think it's been even more impaired. >> so why the negative view on new york is it a tax budget, crime, covid? there have been all sorts of reasons listed lately. >> no, it's not covid. no, covid affected everybody and was a horrible event for everybody. no, it's taxes it's the way the government is

run. it's the fact that there used to be a public and private compact for the betterment of the city it's the fact that people of every socioeconomic strata are being driven out of the city it's the fact that there's a 16% estate tax and so you've got older people who are being pushed out after working for a lifetime in the state. it's subway crime. it's all those things. new york is a great city and can in my opinion be recalibrated. look, if you talk to many people on both sides of the aisle, some may not want to admit what i'm about to say but there was no need for increased taxes in new york i think the government would tell you that. there was a bailout from at the federal level and they didn't need to push it any further, and yet they have. add to that rental regulation. there is a perceived anti-business climate in new york today whether it's the amazon deal or

the industry -- people have this feeling that business people are not welcome there. and whether that's a misperception or a misimpression, it still is a perception and an impression by many >> two-part follow-up to that, steven what portion of that is because of the removal of the s.a.l.t. deduction and if it returned would that solve pretty much all of the problems? and secondly, how pressing is this issue how quickly could it get out of hand for new york and the damage be permanent and long term and too many of the wealthy people have left? >> i think the damage is permanent already. look at what's happening in florida. in the beginning, you could rationalize it because it was a hot rental market. now it's a hot buying market which means people are permanently making moves i happen to live in florida so

i'm witnessing it here, but i would imagine that's the same situation in states like florida where there's migration coming out of states like new york. real buying activity that tells you only one thing, it generally not coming back now the leasing activity is starting even in a world where we're talking about zooming and remotely working, people are now beginning to take office space in florida in a big way. so i just -- i just don't believe that you can recalibrate all of that soon and if we have an election in new york and you shift even harder left, it will get appreciably worse. and by the way, this is not just about wealthy people leaving, the rent regulation that occurred out there has basically created a situation where banks don't want to finance rental property anymore that is incredibly pernicious for the rent stabilized stock in new york city and for the

investment environment i say it all the time, a guy like me who started with nothing. i started with nothing, a $20,000 loan from my father. i could never start my business today in new york renovating properties as i did with my then partner, i could never start it today and that is a really sad thing. >> well, steven, thank you for sharing the perspectives with us today, albeit not particularly upbeat but thanks nonetheless steven witkoff. some breaking news on moderna. meg tirrell has those details for us hey, meg >> hey, wilf moderna, ahead of a big vaccine r & d day tomorrow putting out a lot of data about its vaccine, including a six-month follow-up to its phase 3 trial this is similar to what we saw from pfizer very recently. they're saying after six months after the second dose of the trial, 900 plus cases have been

seen of covid. again, severe disease it's 95% providing updates on the next steps for the vaccine, both in trials in kids and teens as well as what they're doing in terms of variants. in terms of kids, they fully enrolled kids 12 to 17 so we should get data for them and kids down to age six months, they're currently enrolling that trial so those data will come later. they also have early data from mice looking at these updated vaccines targeting variants and the b 151 variant from south africa they have both developed a new vaccine targeting that variant and also have a vaccine which includes the older original strain and the updated b 151 targeted strain and they say the animal studies at least for those are promising as of now. finally from moderna, an update on supply.

they say they have delivered 117 million doses to the u.s. government to date they're on track for 200 million by the end of may. 300 million total by the end of july guys, of course we just heard on twitter from pfizer's ceo albert borla that they're ahead of schedule delivering their vaccine to the u.s bourla saying they will deliver ten% more of the vaccine by the end of may so that's 220 million doses by then and they're speeding up delivery of the full 300 million now two weeks early, we should see that mid-july. this coming as we are hearing about the j&j vaccine pause, that there will be enough from these two companies to cover adults by the end of may, certainly by the end of july guys, we should also mention we have moderna's ceo joining us tomorrow morning ahead of that vaccines day on "squawk box" at 7:00 a.m guys. >> meg tirrell, thank you very much. we've got a news alert on stitchfix. the company announcing that the

founder and ceo will now be transitioning from the ceo role to executive chairperson on august 1st this year with current president elizabeth spaulding stepping into the ceo position spaulding will join the company's board of directors stitchfix saying katrina lake will focus more on the company's sustainability efforts spaulding has been at the company for the last 18 months the company has grown tremendously, added more people -- users in the last two quarters than all of 2020 so she is handing this over at a very strong time for the business stitchfix down a little bit, down 2.3% after hours but they have been strong winners as people have had to stay at home and not done shopping and getting personal styling and tips like that from their home this company has capitalized in a big way. i think 4 million active client count right now. >> down a couple of percent but

news of the new c eeo august 1s. still ahead, ann berry with more and find out what jprgan, goldman sachs kick off earnings tomorrow we're back in a couple of minutes. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home.

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taking a break from the derek chauvin trial to stand with the family of daunte wright. they spoke out against police shootings that killed members of both of their families. >> it's a time for change and that time is now minneapolis, you all can't sweep this under the rug anymore we're here, and we will fight for justice for this family just like we're fighting for our brother. >> irs commissioner charles reddick says tax cheats cost the federal government about $1 trillion that's more than twice previous estimates from several years ago. he said that cryptocurrencies are making his job harder and could push illegal tax avoidance far higher. and disney making a big step to includein cluesivity. disney is adding more inclusive products like costumes for people who use wheelchairs

ride-hailing company grab announcing it will go public through a record-breaking spac merger up next, ann berry on whether that deal will help reverse signs of the spac sldo 'lbeight back. at fidelity, you get personalized wealth planning and unmatched overall value. together with a dedicated advisor, you'll make a plan that can adjust as your life changes, with access to tax-smart investing strategies that help you keep more of what you earn. and with brokerage accounts, you see what you'll pay before you trade. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. ♪ more than this ♪ stay restless with the icon that does the same. the rx crafted by lexus. lease the 2021 rx 350 for $439 a month for 36 months.

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listen up. microsoft may soon be the king of audio that's according to our next guest who says the company's recent acquisition of nuance isn't really a health care play but an audio power move that could shake up social media's biggest players. ann berry joins us to discuss this further ann, thanks for joining us i guess the key first question is that you think the announcement that this is all around the health care space is a bit of spin from microsoft and it's really focused on other areas? >> well, i think it's a very smart move for helping microsoft expand into the enterprise ai space but the market aside, if

you take the ai speech recognition capabilities of nuance, if you marry it with a number of conversations that microsoft teams can listen to and then think about where microsoft could go if it's successful in some of its pursuit of buying social media platforms. it went after tiktok, it's going after discord, i think it's not beyond the realm of possibility that going after clubhouse with a much more highly educated speech-to-transcript talk could definitely be in the cards >> is this going to put microsoft in the midst of a data privacy kind of question mark that they may regret going forward? >> i think it could absolutely put microsoft into the middle of that conversation but i don't know if it's necessarily one that would be regrettable. i think microsoft as we know has had to navigate antitrust in the past i'm sure with those lessons behind it, it will definitely find a way to navigate this in a

more sophisticated way as it moves forward. >> ann, i had a very about spacs. i know you and brent montgomery with his background focus on entertainment and celebrities and where that comes together with finance what do you think of all these celebrity spacs? shaq, steph curry, serena williams, a-rod. would you be investing in them t >> i think because there's a select attached doesn't mean we shouldn't invest there one of the things that has been so interesting is the fact that celebrities creators influences have found appear ability to tune into finding products and solutions that solve consumer needs. jessica alba is clearly on the cutting edge with clean products honest going public is a sign of that serena williams and her venture capital fund is leaning into providing funds to women and

diverse founders who are otherwise struggling to find capital. so i think celebrity can really be married with substance and they're proving that in lots of different asset classes right now. >> ann, what did you make of the $40 billion price tag for grab >> yeah, i think the air is a little thin up there i really like grab i think the market is impressive and there's a massive ride-hailing space across southeast asia when you unpack the numbers, that $40 billion is roughly 25 tis net revenue in 2020. so i think it's a very attractive business. i think it's a good spac team that's done good diligence but i'd say this is pretty fully priced while i love that now you have a u.s. retailer with access to that geography, i would watch the valuation as it moves forward. >> what about spacs in general, do you think we've seen the peak do you think it will cool off? we've seen the post-ipo drops go

completely down to zero. >> i think it's important to try to unpack who the different spac players are. they're not created equal. you've got some in the spac market with very long track records. folks like john ledecky who have done this for a very long time and as folks try to pick and choose which ones to back, i think one thing that could be coming and put a little crack in the spac market is the s.e.c. now watching how warrants are going to be treated. if we see a lot of spacs having to treat those as liabilities. it could cause volatilities in the ways these businesses have to report their earnings that's important together with interest rates that may put a little bit of a pause into amazing momentum. >> ann berry, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. up next on the show, your covid vaccine may be free, but is the cost actually your data

critics raising the red flag on drugstore chains that are collecting a slew of personal information from people getting vaccinated at their pharmacies we'll break down the risks when "closing bell" comes right back.

take a look at shares of discovery. the stock down a little bit more than 4% in the extended session after our own david faber just tweeted out that credit suisse is selling 19 million discovery class a shares and 2 million

class c shares it comes as the bank continues to unwind its involvement with archegos capital last week it said it would lose $5 billion i thinkdown. the real news is it is still sell, they're not out yet, hence the move in 12discovery share. >> a big unwind. critics warn large drug store chain are collecting personal data for people who sign up to get the covid-19 in their stores what's at stake, amon? >> the privacy advocacy are worried about all of the data you hand over to get a vaccine at a drug store and now lawmakers have introduced a bill to block companies for using the data they're collecting for anything other than public health and would mandate that they have strong data protections to protect people from the threat of hackers now the big drug chains say

they're taking all of the appropriate precautions in a statement cvs told us all information collected during the vaccine registration process is considered protected health information under hiipa and does not require patients to create a cvs.com to get a vaccine at walgreens they do require that, saying it helps to reduce in-line and in-store wait times, could be a bi-product of collecting the information at the counter so a trade off of privacy versus health. cvs as of last week has administered 10 million covid vaccine doses, i got mine at the government site in washington, d.c. but a lot of people are going to the drug stores to get the shot, guys. >> thanks so much for that something for 3e78 -- people to keep in mind breaking news on coin base, we got the pricing, leslie?

>> we have the reference price which is $250 a share. the reference price is important to keep in mind this not a price by which shares are exchanged for cash for the company this is merely a ballpark figure so the orders have a sense of where to start coming in tomorrow the implied valuation is about $65 billion. that's based on 261 million shares outstanding on fully diluted basis. relative to where coinbase share had been trading in the market this is somewhat lower, the volume weighted average price per share first quarter of 2021 through march 15 was 343.58 per share so 250 is somewhat lower not too surprising though. the referenced price usually pulls in a variety of inputs including where the company shares e69 had most recently been trading in the private markets.

very interesting to see this number come out. it will be even more interesting to see where this beginning trading tomorrow still at $65 billion implied valuation here largest direct lifting that we have -- listing that we've seen so far back over to you >> so off the hundred billion but not bad at 65. leslie, thank you. up next, three of the biggest u.s. lenders gearing up to report earnings tomorrow key themes to look out for, that's next.

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banks earnings kick off tomorrow and the outlook is vastly better than this time last year and considerably better than this time last quarter, since whether the economic data outperform expectation another $1.9 trillion of fiscal stimulus has been signed into law and covid-19 vaccine roll outs have been better than expected, this will likely lead to significant release of loans of bad loans that built up aggressively last year but not released last quarter. capital market revenues should be better than originally thought, the bump of 2020 extended in that regard and will focus on outlook for net interest margins given the rate move in the quarter. other focus capital return plays, shift from buy backs given be dividend strong

performance. and we'll look for any commentary on archegos time for final thoughts. >> nailed it mic? >> congrats for pulling that off. that's all i got. >> that's all we got, looking forward to tomorrow. that does it for us, "fast money" begins now. >> i'm melissa lee, this is "fast money. tonight's trade deadline, guy adami, tim seymour, jeff mills we begin with big news on discovery, sharing dropping after hours on news with david who is on the news line, what's the latest >> we thought the sale of the blowup of archegos the family office had been completed and we all know already the losses taken by prime broker led by credit suisse at $4.7 billion more at $2 billion and to my surprise discovery as well