stabilized, three months that the 10-year has stabilized and the question is, is it stable because it is transitory inflation or stable because the fed is buying all of it? we'll know some day. guy, happy monday. tomorrow is tuesday. and next monday is memorial day. so we have a three-day weekend coming up. i'm already thinking about that. make sure you join us tomorrow "squawk on the street" is next good monday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street" i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and dave faber sell side conferences and fed speak and bank testimony, dow coming off two straight weekly losses our road map begins with the crypto rollercoaster bitcoin rebounding after a wild weekend that took it back down to 32 k. my exclusive interview with

liberty media john malone about the discovery/warner media deal and what it means for future consolidation in the broadly speaking media industry. and remembering and honoring our friend and cnbc icon mark haines his historic market call at depths of the great recession now auctioned as an nft to benefit charity of course. carl >> we're going to talk a lot more about that worthy cause, david, in the meantime, bitcoin volatility, jim, definitely does not take the weekend off we've had several days in a row now, many of them with double digit either drops or gains. >> it is incredible. when you're trying to, i'm a gardner, and i come back after planting my tomatoes and it's like, what, down 11% what happened? and that's what the issue is what happened? and i've got to tell you, as someone who owns both, well, i own bitcoin and i own ethereum, i'm getting 5% to own them now, how they're able to pay me

that i don't know david, how am i able to get -- >> you keep asking me and i don't know the answer. i don't know that i want to crypto but i would love to get 5%. >> i don't understand the point. why can you get such a good rate and it is down so much. >> where are you getting this rate you keep talking about it and i think you're making it up. >> i would love, would you like me to join me? >> i would love to take your crypto. >> you're not taking my crypto i told you i bought the farm with crypto. and you have to understand, david, the money to be made in crypto is so great, that it's just, by the way, carl, i got to tell you, the actual commissions that i pay are so minimal, cash, block fee, that's my firm, i love block fee, whoever they are, they give me 8.6% on my cash, okay on bitcoin, i earn 5% and ethereum i earn 4.5%

i guess the fed funds rate must be 5 how do they do it otherwise? isn't that jpmorgan, block fee, jamie dimon? no bank of america? >> whatever the answer is, we're going to get closer to it this week coin base has their consensus 2021 conference kicking off today, and mark cuban over the weekend arguing that this is essentially what he called a great re-wind in crypto. and then michael saylore on friday, talking about what he says is a rebirth. take a listen to this. >> bitcoin's coming to life. it's an institutional grade safe haven asset and although there's volatility, the volatility is the price you pay for it to be 10 x outperforming the s&p index over a decade and be outperforming nasdaq and s&p by a factor of eight in the last 12 months >> all right, jim, that's the price you pay. >> well, look, microstrategy has always been looking for kind of

a macrostrategy. and david, you know that microstrategy has been around forever. it's interesting that they're able to -- remember, they had that period, remember that period, david, in 1999, when they went from 118 to 3,140? >> i remember that period. this is an interesting period as well the stock sup 340, 400%, something along those lines. >> they are in business with software. >> and they're really about how much bitcoin they own. >> and that was a fascinating interview with mr. saylor. followed closely extraordinarily smart when you listen to the detailed understanding that he has and his strong belief that bitcoin is not just the future but the present. >> why do these firms decide not to take it >> and doesn't shy away from the fact that we do all of these other things but really, our company is about ownership of bitcoin. >> blockchain. >> i asked him, isn't he taking a great deal of risk he has to admit that and he just talked about how he's such a believer

by the way, 740,000 times that exchange was re-tweeted? i mean that just shows you the interest in him, and in this - >> it's not stopping >> this asset class. >> carl, i weigh it every minute, how much should we talk about it because when i talk to younger people, it's the only thing they want to talk about and i often say, well, can we talk about ge? or how about we talk about amazon carl, no one is interested the younger people don't know what faang is. they're not interested it's fuddy duddy they often call me a fuddy duddy because i'm interested in things like facebook and apple and netflix. what are you doing, david? >> earnings. you're interesting in earnings per share. >> but this is something that should be important. >> yes >> i just think that, i remember when, i remember mister, i used to call it mister, micro strategy, 21 years ago, i called it mister, carl, we can dust off mister, why not?

i mean david has a relevant interview with some guy, t-com-a, right, david? >> pti. >> it doesn't mean, carl, where we do things, that we have to focus on them, but we also have to, i mean they're the same thing as cathie wood, okay they're the same thing as amc. they're the same thing as wallstreetbets they're all one thing, carl. and to the moon with virgin galactic that's part of it. and after a while, carl, i find it's like what kind of research are we doing here? microstrategy. >> even as you're talking, jim, steve writes in and says how about talking about some real investments instead of crypto all the time there's a balance. it brings to mind, the question that santoli brought over the weekend, and that is we have the re-rating in crypto, we've seen it in spacs and meme stocks and to what degree is that sort of landing body blows on the overall market, or is it a sign

that it can outlast some of these re-ratings and in the end, demonstrate signs of health? >> i actually think that it's going to get to a level where people are going to come back in people who missed it at the 12,000, the 50,000, bitcoin, i think they're going to come back i think it's going to be one more cathartic decline and come back and come back because i think that people genuinely believe this is a nice return. and i had, would you give me a break, gold is hard to find, not a lot of gold left, gold never lost its store-hold of value when i look at gold, again, i think of, it's like grandparents >> yes, antiquated >> antiquated. >> yes. >> and yes at the same time, i would take the gold coins and sew them in my jacket if i had to make a mad dash >> wouldn't you want to have a

digital currency that you could access from anywhere whenever you want, with it >> i don't know. >> pay ransomware. >> and we had a piece earlier today about ransomware, some companies are taking it in bitcoin. >> gold is really heavy. you can't carry a lot of it around it weighs. >> a store-hold of value foreign corrupt practice, i think the u.s. government should prosecute anyone who pays a foreign government to get rid of - >> you know how much the north koreans, they're stealing bitcoin? i mean - >> you should be prosecuting - >> a billion and a half a year they're just stealing it outright and once you own it, once you got it, you got it. there's no -- you can't trace it back. >> once you got it, you got it. >> you're filled with circular reason today >> you got a good laugh out of carl on that one. >> i don't know, i was hoping to see something about john malone but i'm happy to keep going. would very to mention doge coin. >> let's move on to john malone.

>> okay. >> the man of course in part one of the key architects of this deal that we talk so much about, a week ago, and we watched last week, as it reverberated through the media industry, we're talking about at&t's decision to spin off the warner media unit, 77% owned by 77% shareholders merging it with discovery and malone had been one of the significant control shareholders of discovery, but he chose to give up that control and you know, i asked him why he chose to do that and what about this deal appealed to him. take a listen. >> we had speculated on whether or not a transaction with time-warner was going to be feasible i had that decision, you know, over the last couple of years, really, with investment bankers. i had that same discussion with your boss, brian roberts, so it

was interesting when john stankey approached david, and said, you know, i think we should have a serious discussion, david called me up and said, what do you think? i said, well, what's he got in mind and it was effectively a spin merge, and he said, but john thinks this is going to be above -- a big public company, he thinks it would be inappropriate if there were any governance provisions other than plain vanilla. and my reaction was fine, that i thought that the alphabet suit that we have, and you know, had served its purpose, it protected the company, and given it a long view, for a number of years, and it was time, when its usefulness was coming to an end so i was fine with that. >> what encourages you about it?

you know, what is it that you feel that is going to be able to deliver that gives you a sense that this is the way that you should go? >> primarily i think we've got a great management team. i think david zaslav is an exce exceptionally talented executive, particularly in the software content space number two, you may remember, maybe it was up to two years ago, you asked me the question about hbo max and i said i thought they were going to struggle with getting the kind of subscriber growth in the u.s. that they were hoping for. and you know, i think in fact, that's true. for me, the problem with hbo max is it has no ability to go international at the time. and the combination with discovery, given discovery's existing presence, large presence, in 200 countries around the world, with a great brand, to me, that's the big

upside >> interesting to hear from malone, of course, which we will continue, throughout the morning, discovery shares did not do well last week. at&t shares of course, jim, we talked so often about, during the course of last week, in part because of your criticism, and the cutting of the dividend that will take place once this deal closes investors i have spoken to in terms of discovery, listen, it is going to be five times leverage at the outset of the deal, an enormous amount of debt on the balance sheet, and still largely in the business, and by getting larger in it, which is obviously owning cable networks that was in decline so that there was concern about that, as is there is some question about the $3 billion cost synergy number that the company has committed to realizing, and realizing in fairly short order. so that is some of the skept six here and you can see malone doesn't share that skepticism and we talked about the cost synergy number and the confidence in it and talked about the leverage the company will have and a lot of other things although moffett nathanson says

this morning, they think the opportunity for discovery and hbo max to scale outside the u.s. is significant, and malone has been saying, and questioning whether the two services will be incremental and the key will be expanding one of the services and discovery plus, to include turner sports rights and other orjss with cnn to broaden its reach as you - >> you can't agree with both men. >> yes. >> because if you recall your excellent interview last time with malone, after discovery - >> remember, going all the way down, because of the scripts deal, and he said buy it. >> and that was two interviews again, i think. >> it was brilliant. >> it was in the low 20s and one of the greatest -- it had fallen moffett nathanson is predicting a similar trajtd trajectory added to the fact that many of the people who are getting this wanted the yield and they'll sell so it was an excellent piece about what's going to happen shorter term malone, what is going to happen longer term. there will be a time to buy it

that was very insightful as always. >> carl, a lot more from malone as we move along this morning. >> yes, we'll talk more about the moffett call, it is pretty interesting. some other big calls today, guys, on beyond meat, coinbase, goldman going to a buy initiation, hb, and we'll talk about this nft that we're auctioning off this morning, of mark haines, former colleague, on his market call from 2009, as we remember him, on the 10th anniversary of his passing we're back in a moment retirement income is complicated. as your broker, i've solved it. that's great, carl. but we need something better. that's easily adjustable has no penalties or advisory fee. and we can monitor to see that we're on track.

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ten years ago today, we lost our dear colleague and friend mark haines, a fixture at cnbc, from the network's launch until the day he passed away, remembered for a lot of things but certainly the haynes bottom, when i called the s&p 500 on march 10, 2009 >> i'm waiting for this. >> i think we're at a bottom i really do. >> and in honor of mark, we're now auctioning an nft of that famous call from 9:00, we're also selling a set amount of tokens for anyone who doesn't want to participate in the auction, all online now at mintable.app/cnbc. it ends at 10:30 a.m. eastern time wednesday morning all proceeds go to autism

speaks a favorite charity of mark's the council for economic education which focuses on financial literacy, go to mintable.app/cnbc. a carbon neutral event purchasing some offset credits from a firm called aerial to make sure we have no negative impact on the environment. and jim, it sort of reminds us of the question, what would mark have made, of all these novel notions and concepts, nfts, but even meme stocks, and crypto, as a real asset class, it's kind of a fun game to think about, what he would have made of it. >> i think one of the things that mark liked to do is confront maybe he would have confronted, found some way to confront ryan cohen at gamestop, maybe he would find some way to really put adam aron, ceo of amc, to the fire, something that i've not been able to do, but i think mark was unbelievable at that. you remember david, we get people on, who you would be surprised, bookers would help him, and then he was perfectly

willing to eviscerate, right in front of you, if he felt that the person was a gasbagger, or was a disassembler. >> i can remember any one of those moments. one in particular about a report from the nasdaq where mark had gone home and read every single bit of it, many years ago, and just crushed somebody who came on air to try to defend it i mean just eviscerated them and still fresh in my mind, when he had been a lawyer as well, he was brutal >> yes. >> brutal. >> when he was on cross-examination. >> and i absolutely loved that because he was not owned carl, when i say not owned, we would like to say not owned, when i say not owned, he was afraid of nothing. and it is really a great thing to see someone who, and it wasn't when you got nothing, you had nothing to lose, a lot of things outside, but he just kind of felt it was his job to give anyone who he felt was blowing smoke a hard time. and carl, i think a lot of the stuff you just mentioned seemed

very, let's say, smoke-ish, how about that smoke-ish. >> yes, that's a good point. we're going to be reminding our viewers about the nft today, and into the deadline on wednesday we hope you'll think about it. in the meantime, take a quick break. futures look pretty good here ahead of a lot of news headed our way over the coming sessions don't go anywhere. this is how you become the best! [wrestling bell rings] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] ♪ try to be best 'cause you're only a man ♪

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reopening play why? because they've got this very big service business it is -- >> a reopening play? >> yes, i know the ceo once said to me, once service opens up again, there are many, many places that will have beyond meat at the cafe >> oh, i see. >> and i also think that the restaurants, i mean i rarely get to a restaurant that doesn't have some sort of beyond meat burger they have beyond meat 3.0. so they're always one step ahead. remember nongmo. and many people say impossible tastes better and who cares about gmo and the answer is many people many people. >> the stock is down 10% for the year. >> sub optimal. >> we can remember the great run not long after it became public. >> and a heavily shorted stock but theoretically it should be a meme stock and gm, gamestop, and amc were

adopted very early and why don't they adopt beyond meat so it is a little more interesting. >> the largest shareholder getting out. silver lake got out. made money that they never expected to see. >> isn't it incredible >> amazing >> but anyway, i like the story, because ethan, i think he's cut the price many times at the supermarket and now he's got a very good service story. by the way, i'm told that it's block fi -- >> like semper fi. >> like semper fi? >> i'm using potato, you say potato, does anybody care? let's call t wleheho thing off. >> we have opening bell. we're not calling that off stay with us

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opening bell in a couple of moments. we covered a couple of call, the discovery call, beyond meat, and a ton of corporate news, airbnb business update tonight. tons of sellside conferences as we mentioned earnings from the likes of salesforce and others. >> we have a big week.

nvidia salesforce a lot of the companies that are now regarded as senior growth incredibly will report this week and they are all ticking up. i don't like that. i don't like nvidia up six right now. salesforce up a buck and a half. let's temper our enthusiasm. and those have not been the stocks to be in lately, so to me, until the nvidia deal closes with arm, or they walk away from arm, then what happens is every time it goes up past 600, people sell so david, it's more in your hands than in mine and i don't see anything that tells me that deal gets done >> right except for nvidia keeps saying that it's going to they seem to be the lone voice but not a voice to ignore. they need, chinese anti-trust approval of course, and the u.k. has already signaled its opposition to the deal >> appeal in the u.k.? >> what happens in the u.k.? appeal to who? to a court >> you know, it's a good question, jim. i'll get an answer for you i don't know specifically. >> i know --

>> the anti-trust rules are different and even different levels or different ways they go about things so let me try and find out. >> we have williams sonoma, carl, which is some people say is the ultimate open up story. why? because they are now great outdoors, people have discovered them, and then there are other people who say, no, every single room is redone, you don't need them i think the former, i think they blow out the numbers i think they're amazing. i would not bet against the stock. i know a lot of people are betting against it. >> you mentioned the reopening, jim. covid cases down 90% from the peak in january. gottlieb on squawk this morning saying we could get down to one per 100,000 a day. a level at which the cdc would say that's very low transmission nine states have vaccinated 70%. the late show on cbs, jim, going to have a full audience, starting in june so that's all good news. and you mentioned chips, we are going to get some micron news, as now the chip shortage clearly

has the eye of congress and we'll talk to sanjay, this afternoon, on the closing bell. >> that will sob good, sanjay will be meeting with the secretary of commerce. i do know applied materials is saying to me that that business is going to grow very much i want to make that clear. i have felt it wasn't clear from the conference call. obviously, the semiconductor, capital equipment stocks david, they can ignite again if there is a belief that taiwan semi comes in and buys even more than they have. taiwan semi is the most, arguably the most important company in the world right now. >> certainly may be. and no shortage of concern about china and taiwan and what would happen if china became more aggressive, what the u.s. response would be. that's geopolitics but it's not something that doesn't get paid attention to. >> and the story with the european, would they ever say you know what, that's a real story? and we're no longer as beholden to the chinese you know the europeans, 25% of

their product goes there. >> when you say the wuhan story -- >> talking about more and more - >> probably was, it came out of a lab, that was working of course, on gaining a function for the sars virus, unintentional. >> unintentional >> that's not the proper safety protocols. there's some good journalism that's been on this for some time and dr. gottlieb actually - >> to me, he is the guy, i find dr. gottlieb, i'm riveted when he comes on "squawk. riveted. in his own quiet way, he has defined what needs to happen, and he can be optimistic, today he smiled, carl. >> he doesn't seem to do that too often. >> i must have missed that part, jim. dy hear him argue that the theory that it was lab grown has certainly gotten more credence, even as the theory that it was animal born has basically stayed stagnant, but there's a lot we don't know and probably never will know.

jim, i got to point out, breadth is pretty good here. almost all dow stocks, green to, start the day. >> look, there are so many people who correlate it with bitcoin. i refuse to do that. i correlate it with earnings, and with europe, and the tame nature of bond, david, i just am not going to do there, that this market is completely be holden to what happens with ethereum and bitcoin. >> no, but you have been a believer in the transitory nature of inflation. >> i sure have. >> and you think that is being reflected in the rally we've seen in the last few sessions? >> you have to go over places, you have to go over footlocker there's a moment with footlocker that they said port congestion is getting better. and deere, commodity prices doubled but could be in the stock and the stock did not get hit on that. we know that aluminum and steel and lumber are all controlled by the president, they can change

that, you can change it when they want to. >> you talked about tariffs in canadian lumber, for example, although lumber prices have come down, they are still very high. >> very high historically. >> but down from the highs >> and i think in your call, when you speak to ag-co which is their big competitor, you get the sense when farmers buy like mad and when farmers buy like mad, they plant like dad and so when a few months, furs trade down and i'm not going to go into the cathie wood where deflation is an issue and i can't get my arms around that and perhaps you can, maybe you can try to defend that position. >> i will not try to defend that position and i will sit here day after day and question your belief and so many others do, will it be transitory or not and a lot is riding on that and we know where fed chair powell is and a lot depends on it. including the 10-year and the broader market.

>> and the once that it seems intractable, it is frart afreigh and if foot locker is right and there is an easing and in the foot locker conference call, very early on, if there is an easing in port trouble, and they claim there definitely is, you will see a decline in what we thought it was an intractable portion of commerce so i was quite bullish on the foot locker call and people should read through it it was a very positive call. >> you mentioned deere credit suisse goes to 427. jeffreys to 450. jpm to 330 stifel to 430. pretty good numbers. i imagine you covered this on friday with the earnings >> yes, i mean i would say that there are people who want to cycle out of, some analysts want to cycle out of it i think if you go over the conference call, you'll see that this is a cycle. and this cycle has more legs and versus typical cycles and i am all in, believing that this

cycle, where it's an even higher stock price, david, you know these ag cycles, and i'm not calling them a super cycle but when they get going, it's very hard to stop them until there is a massive amount of planting maybe the best ag cycle. >> so you want 0 own dear here at 360 >> yes. >> do you? >> yes. >> and cat >> yes, definitely what you are talking about >> just asking the question. >> it's like do you want to own an armani suit. >> yes, usually, that's right. >> that's how i feel about cat, usually. >> jim is doing a remarkable job. carl, when you look at the caterpillar conference call, there wasn't a single line that was bad. this is caterpillar, for heaven's sake, by this point, they've hugely screwed up. not under rumpleby, he's a business person, he's not a guy who makes trucks and earth movers, he's a business person. >> we talked about the mining numbers coming out of the print.

the construction numbers especially in north america. jim, it doesn't sound like republicans will bite on this new lower bid on infrastructure, down to 1.7 from 2.3 >> no. >> we had buttigieg on "squawk" this morning but it sounds like after memorial day, it will be more of a fisher cut bait kind of story. >> i will speak to martin marietta material, the biggest road builder and the biggest beneficiary, they built a really big outfit in california, a couple of billion, and if there is, they are closer to it, and i'm not banking on it, but i'm not banking on anything big at all. >> no, as you probably shouldn't. >> it's uncler whether they can come to any sort of any sort of bipartisan agreement given how part away they are in numbers and then you have a reconciliation where it still becomes something of a question mark, not to mention the tax increases on corporations that are supposed to go along with that plan, and the resistance in many parts to that

so yes, we'll see. if we get anything on infrastructure even though there is virtual agreement, there is agreement across the aisle, and across the country that we need something and that's why we need a lot of money to improve our infrastructure. >> and that's why nucor is the number one stock, carl, in the s&p 500, fantastic company, they have a steel cycle, that means that you're still in early innings if you want to buy the stock. cleveland has come down dramatically that sells at four times earnings that might be an, that usually means that next year is going to be a terrible year that's the steel, before it collapsed but i think nucor is still a buy if you believe in all at infrastructure but most people are not captivated. david, you know what, i am beating a drum on nucor and people say no, stick with eneerm. >> not all of them someone is buying it >> i know, but do you want me to stick with amc why does jim talk about nucor when he can talk about gamestop, for heaven's sake. >> yes. >> why does he talk about

gamestop i don't know, i'm listen to strauss saying that telling me that gamestop is dead but i don't want to go over that. >> oh, no, you got to be careful. those wall street bets people. >> if you say that gamestop is dead - >> you may have one of the few of the many homes and i won't disclose them. >> and gamestop -- >> i think gamestop is still, it's still in -- >> exxonmobil i wanted to mention briefly because we're two days away from the meeting, and the vote, and engine one, along with calpers, they've made a more robust showing than originally and will they win any directors? we'll see. but i think three of those, or four, and exxonmobil out this morning, with a shareholder letter and i noted in it, one thing in particular, because it is new, exxonmobil says that it will nominate two new board of directors in the next year, over the next 12 months, the language says, we will work with the board to secure two new

directors, one with energy industry experience and one with climate experience and in some ways that does seem to be addressing the concerns of engine one there's a look at that very impressive board of directors, but they have an issue with it, and maybe exxon is taking this a bit more seriously now as they are two days away from the vote. >> the most liberal board. i mean it's an awesome board but it also is a board that i think, it defines why darren woods comes on our network and says things that make him sound very sierra club-ish, but not -- i don't think he is greenpeace not there yet. >> not there. >> shouldn't make fun. my daughter was a big greenpeace person >> all right, guys, i want to talk a bit more about, and share some of my thoughts, knew not my thoughts, share some of john malone's thoughts from our interview, we did tape it late on friday, that's why i don't have a tie on as you'll see. and of course, last week, we did

just spend time talking about the deal itself between at&t and discovery, but we talked a lot about at&t and my colleague here, of course, had very little to say about his thoughts about at&t and john stankey and randall stephenson, i kid, he had a lot to say about the future of that company, the decision to cut the dividend as you might imagine, john malone sees things a bit differently. take a listen. >> john stankey showed a hell of a lot of courage in making this decision at this time. because he found himself really chasing two capital intensive, very competitive rabbits and i think his idea, his idea to refocus at&t on their primary traditional business, and allowing other management to pursue with a different balance sheet the direct consumer opportunity, was a brave

decision and i think they have great positioning to be able to duke it out with the other two leaders, for leadership in the connectivity space okay >> yeah. >> wireless and wired. i mean they're a formidable force, and he took, john stankey had the fortitude to cut the dividend, and refocus the company on competing and growing. >> it's a bold move. >> connectivity. >> it's a mold move. >> it's a bold move. >> yes. >> it's a bold move. >> but it doesn't always, you know, bold doesn't always mean right and i said that to him, but you seem to think it's kichbz ofkind of the only move e has at this point given what is going on in the connectivity business. >> i think it's the prudent move, to do it, and do it quickly, i remember i had these

discussions with the guys at verizon, that i was fairly close to, remember at one point they floated the idea of acquiring charter, but you know, they decided to stick to their knitting, and focus really on their core, which was advanced wireless, and the market has rewarded them with higher valuation, because of the focus that they have, so i think that's an important message. especially in the content space. content, creativity is so inconsistent with engineering. in terms of a mind set that i'm not entirely sure that they belong together >> engineering

wireless raising the same question that so many had initially when at&t first acquired time warner >> i never hear anything about randall stephenson and the huge package he got on the way out. obviously, john malone was completely discredited, what he had done, putting these together and i don't hear about how, that stankey seemed to be very satisfied with the model and came on and telling everyone, this is a really good plan, and never indicated that the dividend might be at stake the release itself, i felt, was a way to be able to hide that the dividend was at stake and he had to have people kind of parse it so i don't know, carl, my take is, is that john malone's very wealthy, he can afford to take a look at what this has happened here and not be judged harshly, but, not judge harshly and with at&t, and the dividend, i think two conclusion, one is john stankey gave a false sense of assurance and the other is randall stephenson was ill-advised in the way he

handled the company. >> echoing some of your comments from last week >> i'm not going away from them. >> we have almost every sector green. energy is roughly flat vix below 20 let's get to bob pisani. good morning, bob. >> happy monday. four to one advancing to declining stocks and despite all of these concerns we're only less than 2% from an historic high on the s&p, take a look at the sectors for the month, reopening stocks but tech is leading today, great 2% moves up in some of the semiconductors, all the leader board, materials, industrials, modest gains, banks, energies flattish, slightly down, slightly up, in and out. the important thing is not a lot of new highs, financials, morgan stanley, citi had new highs but by and large about the eopenin in may as we get into the last week here. energy, materials, banks, industrials, there's the reopening sector, tech has been lagging, as you see, it was up today, trying to make a bit of a comeback and the good news the

fed has begun the tapering conversation starting last week and the question of course is can they actually get across to the other side, hold the market's hands and the bears have been saying this is it, peak everything, peak economy, earnings, reopening. the bulls are saying the fed might be able to successfully communicate what they're tapering and rate hike moves are throughout the summer. if they can do that, you get to the other side, you don't have a taper tantrum. maybe. we'll see. it's very early. the big thing is q2 and q3 earnings keep going up, just like q4 and q1 went up look at these numbers. keep going um in the second quarter a few weeks ago, up 54% for the second quarter, from the second quarter last year, it was the bottom, so we will have big numbers again, for the second quarter. and now up 62% in a few weeks and q3 is the same thing, was up 19%, beginning of april and now up 23 and the fourth quarter, same thing, they are raising the numbers because the analysts have been embarrassed by how badly and misunderstood the opening and reopening theme here just want to point out finally

that the important numbers here, that we've been seeing with some of these schematic ftech companies, clean energy, computing, cloud computing, ark funds, off the 52-week highs, and we have been noting it for a couple of weeks and the outflows have been very modest and most have seen 5% or so outflows so when you have a 30% decline, and only 5% outflows, that's pretty modest and a sign that a lot of holders in these funds may be a little stickier than people have thought. yes, probably a third of these funds are held by retail people, who are very, very weak hand who got out very quickly when the momentum moved against them, but at least, at least half of them i would say are longer term institutional holders and i think that's a very good sign for these companies and the main reason we're not seeing major outflows if there were big outflows, then you start seeing panic with the fund holders i don't see it right here.

and i think that's a source of a lot of encouragement guys, back to you. >> all right bob, thanks for that, bob pisani. >> a fairly light week for data this week but a lot of fed speak. let's get to rick santelli yes, you know, fed speak is going to be important. you heard bob. many believe that the notion of a taper is just going to be announced and the market will say we're cool with that i personally don't think that is the way it's going to happen and i think that we're always going to have some form of a taper tantrum. once the word is out of when, the actual when the taper begins, there's going to be a move and i think that no amount of preparation or guidance is going to alter that fact how do the treasuries look today? look at an intra-day we were testing at 1.60 level. getting close. it moved away from it just a bit. and if you open the chart up, basically the 1.60 level is below last monday and it continues to be what many traders and technicians would

call the pivot if we keep suddenly doing most of the work on the north side of 1.60, rates will be a bit firmer, and they may slip a bit if we start to close under that level. you know, but the best hedge is for a stock market that gets a little dicey to the down side, well, historically, it used to be long treasuries but there's a lot of question marks at this point in time, whether there is any hedge left anymore, for the equity markets, considering how much involvement, let's use that word, we've had in central banks on interest rates. look at a year to date, of the inspect's against 10s, and certainly looks like an inverse relationship, lately, to me, and that's not exactly what you want, if you're going to be looking to buy treasuries, if stock prices move lower. finally let's go to foecreign exchange it seems as though all of the easy money has been poured in the u.s. economy we could argue as to whether it was done appropriately or not, but from an investor standpoint,

maybe the easy trade is over it seems like europe is getting a lot more interest by investors. look at the currency here year to date. it is basically at the highest levels of the year since early january against the dollar but little looked at it is how it is doing against the japanese yen. the euro is at the best levels in over three years. carl, jim, david, back to you. >> rick, thank you rick santelli. so as of this moment, we are positive once again for the month on the s&p semis are up more than 1%. nasdaq still got about 2.5% to go to get green for may back in a moment

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let's get to jim and start trading. >> carl, if you believe that

secretary from congress are going to be talking about a way to build more foundries, the one to buy i think is lam research, lax is down 40 from its high tim archer is incredible that's the great growth engine in the semiconductor, they have divisions not semiconductor capital equipment. this thing is 100% devoted to it i know a lot of stuff is sold out. they have been a great performer and they're going to continue to be a great performer because it's the best. it's one of america's greatest manufacturers, but we don't talk about it enough. >> interesting, jim, the picture is cloudy on supply but we're hoping it will clear up in the near future. what's tonight. >> that's a big acquisition, they're remember deeply involved if there is an infrastructure bill, and with a name like uts, it's got to be good. did not have a great quarter, by the way. we want to find out what happened there. >> we did get some downgrades of

campbells and dollar general some of the consumer names are not feeling the love today. >> these are not all in with the great reopening. you don't want to go to those places and have soup the great reopening is making a lot of people sell a lot of stocks and buy others, including target target may be the single best beneficiary. >> all time highs for several days in a row. jim we'll see you tonight, "mad money" 6:00 p.m. eastern more "squawk on the street" in a moment reflies. don't worry about me. i'm fine. you can't beat turkey hill memories. municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free, now is an excellent time to consider municipal bonds from hennion & walsh.

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good monday morning, welcome to another hour of "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla with david faber and morgan brennan nasdaq is up 1%. s&p goes green for the month of may. once again on this final trading week of the month. morgan >> we're 30 minutes into the trading session. here are the three big movers that we are watching this morning. bitcoin rebounding this morning, after a topsy tvi weekend still on pace for the best gain in months, you can see there

37,654 is the level for bitcoin. beyond beat getting a boost. the analysts out perform based on a expected recovery and finally, to the moon or well, to the edge of space, at least, virgin galactic shares continuing their climb higher after successful crude test flight this weekend. it's first in more than two years. we're going to be breaking that down further, and speaking to the ceo, michael coglazier later today. >> the s&p up 8% our senior markets commentator, mike santoli is going to break down the latest moves. what are you following this morning, mike? >> one of the key take aways is that the market as a whole has bent but not broken, even as you see a lot of these kind of isolated speculative unwinds

happen obviously the drama in crypto. we had a purge of leverage, a lot of liquidation happening, and adjacent stocks got hit but not to net damage. if you take a look at sub sectors that have fallen apart since february that's block chain related stocks there blok, obviously arc invest, and hyper growth names, as well as spacs. they have fallen apart,whether it was frothy because of those reasons, and the overall s&p has rotated away from the immediate danger i think one of the key things that has happened, though, as we get these little scares has been it resets market sentiment, and positioning, and has kept the market despite great earnings and expectations of a boom from getting really over enthusiastic for a long period of time. it has kept the risk appetite in checkmen check. i think the question is can this continue or is this essentially weakening the overall market by having these rolling

corrections. so far, it seems as if we're kind of, you know, range bound near the highs as we kind of sort through all of these things, you know, after having a 90% move off the lows last year. it's probably time to have some digestion, but it's interesting that all of these things that people thought would be acute risk for the market, they have blown up and overall, we have been able to withstand it. >> it is interesting, mike, and you have been focused on that for obvious reasons. it's funny, some names haven't benefitted that you might have thought would have we're going to talk about apple and its fight with epic. i mentioned as a stock to you. the the biggest, of course, i don't know what it compromises at $2.1 trillion, but it's down almost 5% for the year. >> it is, and that actually goes back to the prior complaint about the excess of this market, which goes back 10 months, 11 months, when it was five or six stocks, everyonecomplained wer too big, the only things going up and if they stopped going up,

the overall market was at risk labor day last year, they stopped going up, and they have essentially gone sideways or worse. it was a matter of being overowned, not particularly dazzling growth expectations for this year, compared to the overall market, even though they're doing just fine. yeah, it's very interesting, you see the nasdaq outperforming today. we have had these periods where it lags for a certain period of time and then has a catch up move we might be in the midst of one of those now >> when we talk about rolling pull backs or areas of the market where we have seen these moments, i guess you could call them since the start of the year, whether it's everything that was tied to, you know, reddit and game stop, et cetera, earlier in the year, whether it's boitcoin to a certain extent there's a lot of institutional activity playing a part in terms of cryptocurrencies, with no more direct checks coming to pe people's accounts, with people going out into the world doing more stuff, as we see reopenings continue, what are some of the

expectations around the day trading activities we have seen. >> they have definitely come in off the highs from january, february, march. so we've moderated the options volume that's where where you saw it most directly, the small options buys, every day juicing stocks, but i don't think it's gone away, and i don't think we're going back to pre-march 2020 levels i think there's a new energy there that's probably going to continue you see it flare up once in a while. i don't think it's the key driver overall, but there was some interesting stuff from j.p. morgan, talking about how overall retail flows into etfs have picked up after pull backs in the market. there has been a little bit of a buy the dip pattern in here, maybe that muscle memory continues, even if it's not as aggressive and risks seeking as it was a few months ago. >> mike, maybe we'll talk some mystery broker a little bit later on mike santoli, our senior markets

commentator. epic's battle with apple is ending today after high profile testimony. our josh lipton has got that hey, josh. >> carl, today, closing arguments at that courthouse in california, lawyers from both sides getting ready to field questions from the judge here. remember, fortnight maker epic calling experting and executives like ceo tim sweeny to the stand, arguing that the app store is a monopoly, its payment system is anti-competitive, and apple's 30% fee passes costs on to consumers, but apple execs taking the stand too, like phil shiler, iphone maker arguing people can play fortnite, and as for the 30% commission, apple is saying it's in line with what other digital platforms charge too. closing arguments followed tim cook's argument last week when he emphasized the competition his company faces in mobile

devices and operating systems and touted the economic benefits of his storm the judge peppered cook with tough questions at the end there about the app store business model. she questioned whether it's in-app payment system faces enough competition apple investors we know paying close attention to this battle because of their focus on the app store. apple doesn't break out the store's performance, but analysts estimate that it now represents about 3% of total services revenue the judge saying she hopes to have a decision here by mid august back to you all. >> josh, thank you josh lipton, we'll be waiting for that decision a few months from now it's a week since we got that historic deal announced between at&t and discovery to create a new company comprised of at&t's media business it will be taking on a good deal of debt, paying $43 billion over to at&t and putting it on its balance sheet as debt, will be

about five time levered. one of the key people is john malone, the man who is a long time holder of discovery, of course, in an economic position of size, but also a controlled position, which he actually gave up for the deal. in an interview that we taped late last friday, i did ask malone for his perspective on why at&t felt that this was something it needed to do at this very moment >> unfortunately, at&t found themselves, i think, in a competitive environment where they just couldn't pivot faths enough and they were also facing increased competition on the traditional at&t business of 5g, and they were seeing opportunity in broad band, but didn't have the resources to aggressively pursue broadband so i think this makes all kinds of industrial logic here >> at&t shares, though, continue a down trend, up only 4% for the

year, and down fractionally this morning. we're going to take a look at our road map for the rest of the hour, and that does include a lot more from that exclusive conversation with liberty media chairman john malone also next, we'll decode crypto's latest swings amid new comments from elon musk. the china crack downs, the market volatility. >> and finally, virgin galactic shares after the latest successful test flight virgin ceo will join us, we have got a packed hour ahead, so stay with us.

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it's been another volatile weekend of crypto trading of course, bitcoin down from 40% of the all time high in april some investors defending the asset class, here on the heels of his new book, the promise of bitcoin is bali ceo, bobby >> thank you for having me. >> our viewers should understand you support about 90 coins so you have been an advocate for a long time. you don't seem to be bothered much by the volatility we have had historical volatility some thought it was getting smoothed out either way, it doesn't seem to be raising doubts in your mind >> not at all. i have been with bitcoin for ten years, and i have seen many bull cycles, and every bull cycle

like it is this year in 2021, we do see occasion pullbacks and so this is pretty standard par for the course. >> has it done anything in your mind to alter the notion that it would be a stable payment mechanism? the question remains today, how are you going to use it to buy stuff if you don't know if it's going to be up, down, 10, 20% in the next 24 hours? >> yeah, so bitcoin prices are very very volatile, this is what i have written in my book, the promise of bitcoin, it's a misnomer that it has to have a stable price we're still in tinfanty. it's 12 years old. it has survived for 12 years the grand scheme of human inventions, 12 years is a drop in the bucket. until it gets to a more mature age, 20 years, 30 years, it's going to be volatile in the meantime, it's not as a payment mechanism, it should be

seen as investment asset class. >> bobby, it's morgan, i'm curious what you think about the regulatory headlines we have been getting whether it's ongoing or renewed crack down in china which seems to have moved bitcoin and other cryptos last week or some of the headlines out of the u.s., whether it's the s.e.c. or even the treasury, looking to potentially crack down from a tax standpoint >> since this is a bull market year, the joke is the chinese regulators have done a great job in cracking down, and allowing people who want to invest to buy bitcoin at a good price. what's happened in the last few days is the chinese regulators have indeed announced the same thing they have announced in 2017, which is that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin is not to be used in the local economy and supported by businesses and banks so in fact, the recent announcement, there's actually nothing new per se, there's no new enforcement. there's no new rules it's just a repeat and a rehash of the same sort of statements from 2017. and the only difference is now i

think they're going to look more into the mining sector, the mining of cryptocurrency, and maybe they're going to try to stop that. >> and i mean, in terms of more regulation, at least here in the u.s., for example, and i realize all the devil is in the details, but if you were to see more guide posts put in place where cryptocurrencies are concerned, will that actually help decrease the volatility >> i think that's going to help decrease the volatile is when bitcoin gets to a higher valuation. we hit the all time high at about $63,000 which was bringing the value to a trillion dollars. when it goes up another ten times, 100 times, that's when we're dgoing to see maturity in prices going from 0 to the trillions is going to take a long time. >> yeah, you know, paul did a piece in the times last week and he referenced the 12-year life

span that we're talking about. his argument, though, was that in the age of tech innovation, 12 years is actually a long time, that you might expect bitcoin to have established itself as part of normal economic activity by this point. isn't waiting another 10 or 20 years, that sounds like a long time for people to wait to use this to buy stuff. >> i don't think 12 years is a long time. look at 12 years after the internet look at 12 years after amazon.com i mean, only today is ecommerce really pervasive in society. so 12 years is a short time in the scale of human inventions and scale of society so, you know, for a company 12 years is a long time before technology and invention, 12 years is a very short time. technically he's not a teenager yet if crow you look at it from human perspective. >> that's right. keeping us on our toes as we're trying to figure out where it's going to fit in the overall scheme of the global economy,

bobby. we hope you'll come back great tho talk to you, thanks. >> speaking of things as we figure out how they fit in as we head to break, cnbc's first nft is up for grabs. we're high llighting the haines bottom, he of course died ten years ago to the day the auction is open until 10:30 a.m. on wednesday. and if you don't want to participate in the auction, we also have a set number of nfts going at a fixed price this might be a good way to explore this new investment that we have been talking about all proceeds go to autism speaks that was a favorite charity, and the counsel for economic communication, which focuses on financial literacy it is all up now at minimal.app/cnbc st wh ayitus

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averages, we're checking on the vanguard communications etf, ticker vox it's up almost 50% for the year. it's up about 1 1/2% right now core holdings, amc entertainment moving this morning after news that its largest shareholder sold most of its stake, 30 million shares for $425 million. amc is up about 7 1/2%, up triple digits just since december well, after the break, don't miss my interview with liberty media's john malone. that's coming up next. stay with us you packed a record 1.1 trillion transistors into this chip i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq 100 like you become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

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welcome back, we're almost an hour into the trading session, currently at session highs for the major averages as everything is green to start the week the nasdaq 100 is out

performing, up 1 p.7%. we're still on track for the worst month since cement, down about 1.6% in terms of what's leading the nasdaq 100, it's a lot of semiconductor names, applied materials, lam research, and nvidia among them. in terms of what's lagging and under performing on the nasdaq 100, it is some chinese tech names, for example, jd.com, also netease, peloton is the worst performer in the ndx, down 2 1/2%. >> it hasn't been the best week for shares of at&t and discovery, a week after the two companies announced the intent for at&t to combine its warner media with discovery a lot of questions obviously at&t shares have suffered in part because of the significant pivot the company is making away from media, cutting its dividend and positioning itself for what its ceo john stankey says will be growth in the wireless business and a

commensurate amount to fuel that growth they say there will be $3 billion in cost synergies from the deal. they talk about over $20 billion in content spending and don't forget there will be five times levered in what is still a declining business in terms of at least the overall viewership of cable networks via traditional cable. i asked john malone, a man behind this deal and one who chose to give up his voting control in discovery about all of that, including of course, whether 20 billion will even be enough you talk about the combined content spend of this company, which will be large. it will be over $20 billion as david has said as well will it have to be larger, will it have to go up substantially from there to compete in the way you're describing? >> well, it really depends on the margin, what spend in that incremental content dollar can generate in terms of either

marketing positioning or consumer satisfaction, and that's why i think that we're going to end up with an ensemble of services. i don't think it's going to be one size fits all. either domestically or internationally. i believe that people with a lesser budget are going to be inclined to want some adverti advertising subsidy and to take a subset or perhaps a delay in availability of the best stuff okay >> right >> the people who want premiere service and no advertising, you know, will be paying for it. >> right does that increase marketing costs, though, without having it sort of be a unified service or not? >> okay. well, here's one of the real benefits of the tie in between discovery and time warner.

discovery already has a massive video presence around the world. >> right >> so the ability to promote and advertise and introduce a new product or service from time warner internationally is going to get a huge leg up by the cross promotion capabilities that exist in this combination with discover. >> so you think there are revenue synergies is what it sounds like. >> i think there's enormous revenue synergies, particularly international. >> so far beyond the 3 billion in cost synergies. revenue synergies are hard to quantify, you don't know them until, i guess, you see them, right? >> exactly so, and it's hard to predict, but, you know, all you have to do is look at the revenue growth in discovery in the first quarter just from the launching of d plus, which, you know, is not block buster

it's personality it's great entertainment, but it's not the kind of acquisition type content that time warner can bring to the table so you have to look at this game both from getting people to reach in their wallet and pull out their credit card point of view, the marketing point of view, but you also have to look at the churn and the satisfaction of the consumer discovery does very well on the customer satisfaction, but it doesn't have the wonder woman type of big event content that will get you an acquisition program where you can add, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of consumers in one campaign >> you know, speaking of wonder woman, john, and back to the 3 billion cost synergy numbers, running the studios, which obviously david hasn't done is

pretty expensive you've got unions. you've got, you know, agencies, lawyers, producers, i mean, a lot of people taking a bite at the apple. you're still confident that they can cut costs there or that there are enough costs to be cut in other places to reach that $3 billion number, despite what, again, our studio is being very expensive to run >> well, that's a great question for david, and i don't want to step on david, but i don't believe he's looking at cutting costs there at all >> okay. he's looking for efficiencies elsewhere in the distribution of the platform you know, overhead, administrative the fact that discovery already exists in every corner of the planet, and therefore you don't have to duplicate that. >> right >> so that there's a lot of other -- i don't think david is

naive about the cost of producing big ticket block buster events. we tend, however, to see those more as customer acquisition tools, okay, and you amortize those across the growth that you get as you use them that way and i think it's this blend of packaging and pricing and promotion with high revenue advertising interspersed in a nonobjectionable way that we're learning, and in fact, i think this is what you're really seeing in your own company with peacock. >> right >> where you're seeing a combination of free ad supported, and premiums with and without ads but with light adds, and what kind of revenue potential and entertainment and stickiness that represents for

content owners to exploit, to monetize. >> well, it's funny you mentioned peacock, john, because of course you mentioned brian roberts at the very outset of our conversation it's clear, it has been to me in my reporting, nbc universal might have treasured, maybe in the form of figuring out how to do a double reverse trust or something along those lines, and maybe finding a buyer for cnn. you know, what do you think? is he -- i know you talk to him all the time i know you guys go way back. you know, what is brian thinking about right now in terms of the assets he has, whether they're good enough to compete in the world you're describing? >> well, you know, my comment to brian was that this was the pickle out of the jar. there was now going to be a public company that time warner was going to be 71% of, and it

was not going to be controlled by anybody it was going to be a public company with one class of stock, and if the regulatory environment permitted down the road, all kinds of relationships could be contemplated between this enterprise that we're creating and brian's enterprise. and i think there were many opportunities for this discovery time warner enterprise to work with nbc universal to develop successful businesses. >> do you imagine a time, then, down the road? i guess it depends on how successful this entity is where nbc universal could become a part of it >> i don't see -- i mean, this is a regulatory issue, i think there's no question that brian

would have loved to acquire time warner. >> right >> and at this point in time, assessing the regulatory environment and the competitive environment, and people's requirements for control, i believe that at&t made the judgment that they were better off at this point in history, working with discovery than with other potential spinoff partners but i'm sure that nbc universal was very much in their minds as an alternative >> i mean, john, you and i have been talking for the last few years during our annual interview, of course, about the slow but steady decline of the old business, so to speak, and the rise of the new, and we have talked about these -- power of these platforms, the direct to consumer

i think you've said, obviously netflix and probably disney plus, certainly are going to be or have the scale to compete globally, and i would assume you now feel like this combination of warner discovery is going to be the third such platform >> yes, i think we are not only going to be the third such platform, but i think we'll be very competitive with the other two in terms of being able to satisfy the entertainment and curiosity and information needs of the world, basically, of a worldwide platform. >> in the brief time we have left, you know, you and i have had a long going conversation about sort of end game consolidation and the growth of direct to consumer, and i wonder, are we there now is this the last real deal that can be done? what happens to the viacoms or the sonys or obviously the huge players, amazon and apple that

haven't really fully participated yet i just wonder, what are your thoughts now on what's left and what's left to be done >> i mean, there are some pretty obvious combinations out there that could take place. i noticed the lion's gate stock has been running lately on the theory that either brian or sherry would show an interest in merging those companies, that company in because of sirynergy we're in an evolution of the creative side of the business. and whether you can be small and creative and be a supplier or whether you got to be part of a vertically owned and integrated structure. my guess is there's no clear answer on that one. >> but i wonder, john, if they're going to be judged on the performance of the stock and garner subscribers for peacock and are certainly for paramount plus, the same way we look at

disney plus as the key metric. if they aren't in a position to grow those as much as they need to be because they don't have much content, doesn't that put them in a difficult position. >> the ability to create something unique and differentiate will continue to have enormous value, and if you put the global scale behind it, those values only get multiplied, so i think it's good news for the creative community, the truly creative community that there will be competition for and a lot of demand for their output how it's configured, who owns it, you know, what the ownership structure, what the market capitalization is, i think, remains to be seen but we're clearly, you know, headed in that direction > >> always good news to hear that in the creative community. shares of discovery are up a

half a percent, despite the downgrade from nathanson, in terms of the platforms, hbo, max and discovery plus, how they're going to be run. international, the synergies, all of those kinds of things it was a rough week last week, but as you can see, the stock had been higher in part because of archegos. >> they make the point of the backdrop of paid tv as you said is a lot different now, david, than it was even a few years ago putting even more emphasis on the new frontier which he obviously got to speak with malone about quite eloquently. >> it's a conversation, morgan, we have been having for years, malone and i, of course as we have watched this universe of homes continue o sto shrink, and the key question is will it continue to at this rate or increase the rate of decline, and that's going to be a question investors have for

discovery when it is a new company run by zaslov, to continue to make their direct-to-consumer, the robust thing malone says it will be. >> a couple of years ago we heard the vertical integration was going to create a competitive advantage for a beefed up at&t, and the roll out of 5g, that has not necessarily been the case. inv investors have shown it's not the case through the performance of stocks as well. leaner and meaner is an interesting one to follow. >> it will >> great interview, by the way, david. >> thank you >> it's time for our news update, and we turn to rahel solomon. >> here is your cnbc news update at this hour secretary of state an tony --

the state department says that the main goals of the trip are two-fold to make sure that the cease fire holds and getting humanitarian aid to palestinians in gaza, and in a tweet this morning, president biden called an increase in anti-semitic attacks in the u.s. despicable european leaders are calling for more sanctions on belarus and some airlines are avoiding the country's airspace after the forced landing of ryanair jet, so that a journalist on board could be arrested. india's covid death toll has passed 300,000, the infection rate is falling but more than 4,000 people are dying each day with a fatal fungal infection affecting some patients. brighter news in the u.s., another sign of recovery this fall, students will be inside new york city classrooms with no remote learning options. you're now up to date, carl, it has been a long time coming. i'll send it back to you. >> indeed. thank you. a quick programming note this year, more than 1,500 start

ups applied for the chance to be called a cnbc disrupter, who made the cut, you're going to find out tomorrow when we reveal our 9th annual disrupter 50 list in the meantime, as we go to break, virgin galactic ceo is coming up, going to join "squawk on the street," talking about the successful space flight over the weekend. we're back in a moment do you struggle with occasional nerve aches, weakness or discomfort in your hands or feet? introducing nervive nerve relief from the world's number 1 selling nerve care company. as we age, natural changes to our nerves occur

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wealth management. welcome back, virgin galactic took a step closer after successfully conducting it first space flight in more than two years, and the first from new mexico the company's mothership released its spaceship vss unity which fired its rocket engine and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound to an altitude of 55 1/2 miles

above earth before landing back safely on a space port american runway 90 minutes after takeoff. virgin galactic shares perhaps not surprisingly soaring today up 15% on the heels of the successful test flight joining us now is ceo michael coglazier. thank you for joining us. >> it's great to be here today. >> this was your first test flight since becoming the ceo last summer, the trip itself, the early analysis of the data, how would you surmise the outcome of the flight? >> this was my first test flight as you mentioned and i knew it was coming everybody told me. i had seen the videos but being there in person was just incredible it was beautiful to watch, and the words were different than i expected elegant. and as you can kind of see in this piece, as we went up to space, it was grateful so, you know, i think it just defines grace in space for us,

and that was kind of the take away when i called back home to share it with my family, and we hit every point we were looking to hit we had three big things we were trying to do we had a new digital flight control system and the pilot said it was just fantastic they went straight up. we resolved this electro magnetic interference issue and collected the data we needed to give over to the faa, and they will be evaluating that, and hopefully clearing our commercial license. >> now that this test flight is conducted, it's done, and i realize i say that after some hiccups, because of some of those technical difficulties you just referenced dating back to december how quickly can you service vss unity and get it flying again. >> as we do, we are analyzing all the data that comes off the ship and that won't take us too long, a few weeks, if that, but in talking to the pilots and watching it from the ground, everything went just as we had hoped and expected

we have said we're going to do the next two space flights, first with a full crew in the back, and next with sir richard branson following this summer, and things look great for that >> so what are your planned dates or i guess general timing that you're anticipating, then, through the rest of this year, and i ask that because certainly investors are eagerly watching to see you get through those next three flights for a commercial service to start, and for ticket sales to open back up. >> so, we want to make sure we get through all the data, we get through all of the inspections as we always do, but like i said, everything right now looks really good, we usually do these on intervals if you look at the next two flights in the summer, and we're going to follow with the third italian air force, and demonstrate how we use our space force for micro gravity resource and will be completed late summer or early fall, and then following that, we will go through a period of kind of upgrades and enhancements that should let us turn the ships

even faster, and we will then come back early in 2022 for commercial servicement i think we'll have a good turn around, the engineers, maintenance teams, pilots were really thrilled with what we saw yesterday. i was pretty thrilled too, and i think we'll see a good turn on this one. >> we have been talking about the competition, the possibility of competition in sub orbital space tours. your most director competitor, blue origin is auctions off a seat current highest bid is $2.8 million so far. analysts say there's a first of its kind premium that's likely associated with that specific sale but overall as we do get those outcomes next month, how does the result there help inform demand for the broader space tourism market and your own future pricing. >> i think the response that blue is getting is a reaffirmation that this is going to be a business that's supply

constrained for a while. obviously this is the first one and very exciting. i think they're doing an auction bid for it we're excited. the more people that go to space, the more this gets normalized in the market, and the wider the audience will go that will be a great proof point on volume and demand we haven't released pricing on our own yet. we plan to do that following these upcoming test flights. however, we are seeing in our micro gravity research markets, about 600,000 equivalent for the research side of the flights >> interesting well, bernstein put out a note, and they listed a couple of risks, one of them, that terminal value is unclear as it's hard to assess how far the value proposition will extend in terms of ticket sales, what are you estimating a total addressable market for sub orbital space tourism to be? >> we think it's a really large market it's not been a normal thing, and mostly not expected in people's life times that going space is something to be

considered, and so this is really the launch of this industry as it goes out. so far, there are only six places in the world that have taken humans to space. virgin galactic has been at two of those it shows our system is so flexible, we can take it to multiple parts in the world. we're going to start at space port america in new mexico this was, by the way, the first trip to space from humans from new mexico, makes them the third state in the nation to do it, gorgeous looking down upon that great state, and as we maximize out space port america, we think there are other places in the world that are going to be equally wonderful to go from we see this as a long runway, and just the start of what will be an emerging business. >> stocks up today after rallying into the end of last week i mean, it's been a bit of a topsyturvy go of it. we're done something like 70% from the highs hit for virgin galactic earlier in the year i realize insider sales helped

exasperate that slide that we're seeing, and we're likely to see that on hold given the fact that insiders are basically locked up until october 2021 that being said, whether it's kathy woods arc x, space exploration or etf o >> well, we are building a company that's going to last for decades and we're in the flight test program doing something incredibly hard. right? taking humans to space given them a view of the planet bringing them back down safely, returning and repeating and doing it again and again it's years in development of that we're on the cusp of completing a test flight program and where we've kept the company focused where my focus has been. we're doing plans now to ramp up commercial operations, get back into commercial sales and ensure the experience is going to be as transformational as we've promised everyone, and that's where our focus is and should be what yesterday's flight was, or

saturday's flight, was taste oft to expect from us. i am in place, there are about 600 folks that signed up before i came to the happy and wouldn't be happy if i jumped the line. i locked myself in at 601. >> thanks for joining us congratulations on a successful test flight. >> thank you. and check in on shares of hp inc. getting a boost, this after citi took the stock to buy saying it expects strong results from the company when it reports earnings that is later this week. as we head to break, may is asian-american and pacific islanders heritage month all month long spotlighting cnbc contributors business leaders and our own on-air anchors and reporters. here's cnbc's seema mody. >> i think everyone and their

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welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm dominic chu. stocks higher to start off the week near session highs with every sector in positive territory led by technology and communications services. you can see behind me here, neck and neck with each other within that technology trade chip stocks making notable gains after a few weeks of lackluster performance. material, land reserb and indnvidia. that stock could boost sentiment as stock makes excitement does. and onning verge of turning positive month of may. keep the chip stocks in mind, carl send things back to you folks. >> dom, thanks dom chu. coming up on "techcheck"

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elon's enthusiastic about bitcoin and just as enthusiastic as i am. he's also enthusiastic about renewable energy and making the environment green and he would like to about part of that solution like for the bitcoin community to work with him so i think everybody in bitcoin has the same objectives. a little bit of skittishness in the market because this thing trades 24/7, 365 on tweets, and sosometimes you get volatility but at the end of the day, i think we've got a good plan, and everybody's aligned on that plan >> yeah. as michael sayler from microstrategy, which is a business intelligence software company, but does have billions of dollars on its balance sheet. held in its treasury, in bitcoin. because of that, david, i mean, he's become sort of one of those, like it or not, spokespeople in terms of, i

guess bitcoin believers. bullish on this, continued to buy. microstrategy continued to buy even what you've seen over the past week. >> today up sharply as you see and so is the broader market s&p up over 1% the nasdaq rarely does this. outperforming. focused on that on "techcheck," which starts right now. ♪ good monday morning. welcome to "techcheck. i'm deirdre bosa with carl quintanilla and jon fortt. today mixed messages on crypto a rebound following a drop over the weekend as volatility ramps up who's really calling the shots here then closingen