saw, i had it contained. to your question -- >> yeah. >> there are going to be a lot of people going into space, and this is good. >> yes. >> not just the government programs, but commercial programs. this is what we need to do -- >> and i'm sorry to cut you off. we are at the end of the show. we do hope you're come back and join us to speak more about nasa's priorities. that's going to do it for us on "squawk on the street." >> thanks so much. >> "techcheck" starts now. ♪ good thursday morning, and welcome to "techcheck. i'm deirdre bosa with carl quintanilla and jon fortt. today another volatile session for amc as the company sells more shares and warns investors they may lose everything then twitter launches its new

subscription service what's included in twitter blue? and what is it later, endeavors ari emanuel, the company reporting first earnings since going public. jon? >> also this hour, thinking outside the box and dropbox joins box feeling outside activist pressure. later we discuss apple's return to work plan and whether 30 years ago apple might have been a meme stock and take two get an upgrade. plus, also watching grow tech teams like splunk, doordash and others all having a rough start today with the nasdaq underperforming the rest of the market again in what has been a busy morning for tech. carl >> yeah. although dow erased a 200-point decline from earlier today, jon. start with amc de said another volatile session down pre-market high 77 sellings at about 11.5 million

shares in an a.k. warning investors saying be prepared to incur the risk of losing all or a substantial part of your investment dropped about $5 million on this trade in just a day and many still in it. nearly 18% of available shares sold short a lot of investors, interesting, may be in amc without even knowing it, as it along with gamestop, jon, are the two biggest holdings and i loved your mention earlier in the morning the way they interact in this constituency is double edged. >> certainly it. people should thaunderstand tha companies are saying what they're saying not necessarily for the investor or customers all the time you know, i also find what amc ceo adam aaron is doing so important, turning this stock pop into capital that the company can use to potentially

transform the business, and isn't that what this is all about when it comes down to it it's that anybody who's investing in this company or trading this company at these levels has to believe that there is a chance, de, they can do something here different from what they've done in the past? i would think that that would go for blackberry too a tech company with its ups, certainly its downs put that that meme stock basket you wonder can they turn the pop they've seen into capital and buy something, make something else >> yeah. i mean, this surge is unprecedented, but the model isn't entirely unprecedented think about tesla. some might call it the og meme stock, white wall street couldn't believe the valuation it got even just over a year ago, but it turned its fan base into investors continued to raise money expanding the business maybe some wore argue with this valuation right now, but at least justify a higher

valuation. so perhaps -- i know we'll talk about this -- a scenario in which amc is able to use the capital its using more m & a have more pricing power perhaps for a monopoly carl, you spoke to be the ceo saying they're not for sale. i wonder there's always a price isn't there? what could amc do with this money to at least go some ways in justifying this valuation >> yeah, yeah. also making a point they have known each other an awfully long time speaking of valuations on amc, pleased to bring in nyu school of business professor at the dean evaluation talking about what it might actually be. welcome back great to see you >> good to see you, too. >> so lots of people are running all kinds of numbers for the time when fundamentals matter again which is obviously not right now. but you're talking about, you know, depending on your forecasts for box office, maybe $4 billion in revenue.

it would be selling at ten times earlier in the week. what is a fair price >> i think that at the moment there is a feedback from the price going up, and amc i think is playing this game a lot better than gamestop is. i think that taking advantage of what might be an opportunistic moment of raising capital, because they're in a business in transition look at amazon buying mgm for $9 billion. you see at&t selling the business clearly the business is ripe for change and amc own as niche of this business less critical than it used to be but still a critical cog in the wheel no way to get to a $30 billion markets cap the old amc business it my perspective, raising capital, getting ready for the transition that's ahead. >> do you think they can effectively gather enough capital in this crazy window,

and then deploy it in ways that, i guess what brings revenue back to pre-covid levels and then some or does the whole model need to be re-invented kind of the way gamestop signalled it has to >> i think even before covid, amc was a subscription model essentially trying to get people to buy into a monthly subscription model i think you'll see more movement in that direction and made amc clearly the strongest player in the business look at the competition. they don't have the access to capital amc right now. i think it's the first step in a process. i'd love to see the company fill in the detail where is they want to go with this money, because that's what we don't know right now. >> so i wonder what, then, you would tell retail investors that may be getting in at ever higher levels can this kind of valuation be sustained by meme status and hype alone >> know what

the first thing that happened is value transfer you buy the stock at 45 and other people have bought the stock at 10. transferring value to the old stockholders and might be okay with it. when you buy the company in a $30 million market cap you've built in magical things will happen and if they don't you'll be disappointed. i think the people that win are clearly got that 10, 5 billion market caps. not the 30 billion, you're asking for the moon and hoping it gets delivered. >> aswath, also what occurs to me, the fans of the stock drivin driving it higher in a sense want to turn it into business but as the company does that, they end up diluting the shareholders at that level in a sense making a bet on the company, and the company sort of, at least technically, at least in the near-term, is going hurt you right? you have to understand that if

you believe in this company it's going to be a long haul? >> those are the health fans there are fans out there primary motive seems to be the hedge funds. investing with the intent of hurting somebody else has never worked out well in the past. so the -- those investors that really want amc to turn the corner have to recognize this is now a loaded bet and why it's so tricky rai raising capital when the price is high without destroying momentum in the process is a really tough thing to do you saw it already this morning when the company announced it's going to raise more capital. you saw the stock take a hit. >> pressure-wise, outside of what the company is going is going to affect the valuation here should investors be thinking about the ten year should they be thinking about interest rates in general? or you know, the movement of other stocks as affecting what

kind of a valuation amc is going to get over the next couple years? >> i think the most immediate thing they should be watching, what happens to the entertainment business i think you're seeing consolidation and shifting that we haven't seen before because amc is going to benefit from that restructuring, if it can get in the right place at the right time i mean, clearly, macro can affect all of us, overall market a tailspin, amc affected amc needs space and time for the plan to work out and probably, if you're in amc management you're probably praying and hoping the market stays afloat over the summer because you need time as your ally. >> while speaking to your investor, you said amc is doing a better job than gme by raising capital. do other companies and

industries, could they use a similar formula? what, perhaps, could be right for this kind of strategy? >> we live in a world where spacs can raise money without an end game why is it in you're about established company you're not able to take advantage of the process? i think more and more companies, especially ones look at the price and say, my god. never expected to trade at this price. they're probably looking to what amc is doing and saying maybe we should do it, too. which will create consequences a real risk in the process where companies raise capital for things they haven't thought about yet, because we've had governance issues come out of this, and you saw it in the late '90s you have to worry about. i think you'll see other companies raise capital when they feel the price is right. and we need some governance mechanisms in place to make sure that that capital doesn't get wasted in bad investments, bad acquisitions, because management, a lot of cash, may be tempted to do stupid things.

>> hmm finally, professor, we were interviewing the ceo of imax this morning about the valuation, and i think he was trying to be a little polite but basically suggested, look. i don't understand the valuation but i have an open mind maybe models are changing over time. i wonder whether or not you think the things we've lived by for decades, revenue multiples, earnings multiples, enterprise value, equity value. are they eroding on the margin in terms of relevance? or is this just a silly season >> i know people that aren't going to take this kindly, but i think old-time value investing was lazy a pe ri ratio on expect to get rewarded those days of done think about it creatively. not just what did you make last year what's the existing business model? be open to the fact business models are shifting. there are companies that might not look good on a traditional value metric but are still good

value investments's if nothing else, it's a message to all of us we can't depend on old metrics and get away with it because the world is shifting under us. >> must be a fascinating time in your classroom, and the students who are having to absorb all of this, in addition to the legacy stuff we all learned professor, thanks so much. great to see you again >> thank you. >> wow yep. things are changing. before the break, let's get a reality check on apple ceo tim cook sending a company-wide email wednesday asking employees to return to the office in early september. majority are going to come in mondays, tuesdays and thursdays with the option of working remotely wednesdays and fridays. cook also said all apple employeeless have the option working remotely up to two week as year. you might remember google said a fifth of-the-workforce could work from home permanently that is with apple having just pretty recently built a massive new campus in cupertino, google

planning billions only a campus in san jose. you couldn't have thought people are going to work from home willy-nilly. something tells me the i toan teatoan -- iphone team won't be working from home two day as week. >> that's right, jon add dropbox to that list as well an example of a company undone plans. planned a fanty new headquarters in san francisco, ended up leasing it out you hear this from a lot of tech ceos we talk to, carl, if you don't allow a level of flexibility you'll lose out. have to eventually backtrack something we saw a little bit from google. >> yeah. i mean, i would point out, and jon i'm sure would agree, apple's flpresent in their reta stores reopened when things look the pretty good. i love, de, the stories about employers saying, yeah, take a days off a week but not a monday

and not a friday destroying that whole arbitrage of trying to build long weekends all the time. >> yeah. which means you can't go you know, move somewhere else. right? trying to keep you close anyways, guys, still a big show coming up there's twitter blue ari emanuel, and thinking outside the boxes. a big hour of "techcheck" is just getting started. so it's another day. yeah- that's what most people think. but in business it's never just another day. every day is the day. there's the day your store has its biggest sale.

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a second take. 30% upside expecting a wave of new video game content to boost growth take 2 announcing 24 new titles to be released in the comes years. >> carl, look at endeavor group delivering slim first quarter profit thanks in large part to momentum and you see in other sports companies went public in

april, $24 a share and joining us endeavor ceo ari emanuel. ari, good morning to you and -- >> good morning. >> -- you're moving? are you on a treadmill >> i can walk and talk the only thing i'm not doing is chewing gum. i'm on my treadmill. >> board member elon musk? telling you, put you up to this? be more creative as a ceo? >> no, no. i have a treadmill desk. i walk every morning here on the desk so i thought i would do it with you. >> why not exercise and be on tv. so let's start talk about the quarter start with the broader media landscape where we have seen major consolidation during your first quarter as a public market ceo. how can that kind of consolidation, the big, getting bigger, be good for a company like endeavor that makes this money through talent and streaming and broadcast rights >> listen, you know, warner, discovery, amazon, mgm, in our

opinions, just further proof that content in all forms, tv, movies, live sports, is in high demand and short supply. you know, the tech leaders, the incumbent media companies, have the power asvoz and others and expand channels, more demand and a finite number that create i.p. we represent sports, own sports. puts us in great position for growth. >> right, but it doesn't change the fact that you are still seeing fewer and bigger players doing more content so how does that along with the trends we're seeing like shorter theatrical windows, how does that not shift the bargaining power out of your favor and into theirs >> you have seven big players in the media space, plus the linear players having to build sbots.

content is more important than ever a finite number that create content, all vying for premium content. prices are going up across the board. the window issue is a different conversation we haven't hit the bottom yet of what the windowing situation is. if you see this past weekend disney did day and date with sbot service and theatrical. paramount went directly to it. we'll figure out what the bottom is on that with regard to the windowing, but the economics for talent is going up as all of these guys bid for premium content to drive eyeballs to their services. >> so, railari, will he continuo see more consolidation, continue to be good for your business or a point you would lose bargaining power >> i don't think we'll lose some of the bargaining power. we're biggest in the space

whether it's content movies, television, podcast, sports rights we own or represent on both sides of the transaction i don't think we're going to lose any of our -- i think we're actually just gaining power from the origins of this company, distribution would be expanding. still is expanding, even with this little consolidation in the sbot services. when i starteds the business it was four networks and a couple dozen cable channels it's only expanded it's going to continue to expand that means -- and there's a finite number of people that create content and i.t. rights. so i only think that those prices are going to be going up for the content creators and the i.p. owners. >> we will see i do want to talk about usc. strikes me endeavor has been young, active, enthusiastic, the fan base in the usc. i wonder how closely are you watching what adam aaron is doing over at amc? have you thought to yourself

what if you could turn ufc fans into investors what that would do for not just the stock price, shorter term but the business long-term if you could raise capital on the back of it >> i have to say we've had long-term investors throughout our business, whether ccp, dell, et cetera. we're a long-term player if you thid media and growth in media is a long-term bet, which we do. we think we're well positioned whether they're short-term investors -- if there's fans of the ufc that want to be investors and long-term player, great. short-term -- i'm not going to comment on that. we are here for the long term and think the media space is a great bet for growth, and we think we're in every growth sector in the media space, and the ufc for sure is a great growth company. and business. >> right and ari, i mentioned at the top, you do have elon musk on your

board, and he was sort of the pioneer of the meme stock phenomenon really used that to tesla's advantage. are you talking to him about perhaps capitalizing on the retail investors as you said, if you can tern them into longer term investors? >> i haven't discussed that with elon at all. no. >> okay. well, ari, we'll see how it shakes out congratulations on your first quarter as a public market ceo hope to talk to you again soon ari emanuel, endeavor. >> we'll walk with you next time in the morning. >> from the treadmill. >> yes, exactly. talk to you later. >> i'm impressed. all right. i think that's a first, guys we do have breaking news on taxes and infrastructure it's helped turn the market around in the last few minutes we have more.

>> reporter: the "washington post" says this is part of evolving negotiations between the president and republicans in the senate over whether or not they can reach a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure deal and the ways to raise revenue to pay for that republicans have said increasing corporate rates of 28% is a red line perhaps creating a floor for what corporations would have to pay could be a way around that hard line they've drawn in the sand now, i have reached out to the white house and to lawmakers on capitol hill to try to get more detail around this, but i will point out that treasury secretary janet yellen and the biden administration more broadly already has called for establishing a 15% local minimum corporate tax rate in fact, treasury secretary yellen will discuss this very issue with g7 counter parts in the uk over the weekend. they are expected to come out in favor of this kind of agreement. so we will see how this all plays into the domestic negotiations as well but, again, the white house

reporting -- sorry, "washington post" reporting the white house is considering creating a 15% minimum corporate tax rate back to you guys. >> yeah. i think reuters is matching that headline quoting a source. two questions. one is, obviously looking to g7 finance ministers this weekend to see whether this can migrate to the broader g7 and last few days, the transportation secretary and energy secretary talked about sort of fishing or cutting bait wonder if this might extend that timeline for discussion before the conversation turns truly partisan >> reporter: yeah. i -- we'll have to see, carl what this actually means my assumption is that if this is part of those broader g7 negotiations, it is going to take a long time for those to play out the expectation is a final agreement may not be reached until sometime in july, between oecd countries, then congress and the governments and legislatures of all the other countries that have to implement it as well

there is pushback amongst republicans on capitol hill as well around this idea of a minimum corporate tax rate senator toomey, part of that negotiating group on infrastructure already came out with the idea against a minimum rate saying it's not binding, likely to fail not just in the u.s., but in other countries as well it's unclear if this is a viable path forward and whether or not it will extend that deadline >> yeah. nice little wrinkle here, though, and it does raise eyebrows ahead of maybe another counter tomorrow we will have to wait and find out. thank you. ylan mui in washington on this news and helped the dow to green after a 200-point loss at the open. and how much would you pay for an undo bug ji the latest next. plus, stephens goes bullish on the company's dit ittal end to end value change. d eche" bk after a quick break. ves fast...

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resetting bottom of the hour welcome to "techcheck. i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt, deirdre bosa and julia boorstin, who's going to bring us up to speed on twitter blue in a couple moments and whether this is the revenue stream twitter investors have, in fact, been waiting for s&p right at 4,200 pap news update with rahel solomon. >> good morning. adding nearly a million jobs in may led by leisure and hospitality industries and hitting another pandemic low of 385,000 general motors is ramping up production of pick-ups to meet rising demand. the company expects results for the second half of the year to be "significantly better than earlier forecasts. and suv sales in may said ford best in 18 years overall may sales up more than 4 percent. the company announcing a compact pick-up called the maverick. details on that released next week. and the world's largest meat

producing company hit by a cyber attack plants expected to be running full capacity today. meanwhile, new york's mass transit system, mta breached by hackers but not sensitive data stolen and operations not disrupted. you're up to date. jon, back to you. >> rahel, thanks. twitter, meanwhile, recently unveiling a premium subscription service called twitter blue. let's get to julia boorstin to break it down. julia, we keep calling this undue but it's not really. like a 30-second hold button, like an, are you sure button, gives you a second chance to look at it after you press "tweet"? >> yes the undo button is something twitter users asked for for a long time and this feature in twitter blue is a piece of that. a couple things in addition to that sort of un-do button. reader mode making easier to follow threads on twitter.

sometimes i find that a little challenging. also folders to organize to save tweets and other perks if you care about the background themes, using in your app, giving you features there. i think the big question, jon, is how many people will be willing to pay for it? it is rolling out starting today in australia and canada for roughly $3 u.s. dollars a month. see how big the audience is for that and also don't know when it will launch here in the u.s. >> seems to me, julia, like, for companies, this is almost like insurance. like, if somebody tweets that awkward wording or that misspelling by accident, of course, you know, it's worth a couple bucks a month to be able to pull that back, but have you seen any expectations, perhaps, from analysts on what percentage of the user base needs to adopt this for it to be good for twit jer i imagine, yeah. i mean, subscription revenue is gr gravy. if hardly anyone takes the bait, that's going to look back. >> i haven't seen analysts

responses yet. we've been checking. hopefully will get analysis from analysts soon. a niche service designed for power users. i think one thing that's interesting is as they continue to add new features, maybe it becomes more valuable, or maybe they introduce it sat a lower price point here in the u.s. i think the key thing here, jon is that this is not going to be the only subscription service. twitter talked in the past wanting to do more commerce. another potential revenue stream if they have this capability built in they could charge for other things like more premium, additional content or access from some big twitter creators or even as they have things like spaces that is their version of clubhouse, able to ticket that to get into it the idea getting people comfortable with the idea of paying for something from twitter might have more implications down the line than just getting them to pay for this one specific thing. >> good point. speaking of commerce

facebook's f8 developer conference going on and one of the things from yesterday that caught my eye is the messenger api for instagram now being broadly available. seems to me that this allows companies, shops, sellers to really tie that communication through instagram with the user base into the experience will this also help with attribution? make it easier for facebook and instagram to make the case you made that sale because of our advertising and, therefore, hey. pay us more? >> well, look. that's a good reason that facebook really wants to have commerce happen on its platform. it's not because it's going to necessarily be getting a big cut of revenue from each transaction. that's not it at all much more important is the advertising that can be driven from this idea that, if you advertise, can you get to someone to transact right away within facebook or instagram and now this idea investing in messaging compacts

up to now facebook allowed businesses to work on messaging with their consumers on both whatsapp and messenger, expanding it broadly to instagram they want people to conduct business customer service all happening within their platforms and now instagram is a big piece of that jon, not only about selling things also about driving that ad revenue, of course. >> right julia, as we talk about, you know, greater scrutiny for these social media platforms, and how they might diversify outside of ad revenue it is interesting that twitter is looking to gain more from subscription-based do you think this could be, viewed positively by regulators and lawmakers so we could see facebook follow suit or them, you know, target this kind of revenue in a bigger way? >> well, look. i think it's a good thing for twitter from an investor standpoint to the see them diversify revenue streams. seems like over the past year twitter talked more about

generating revenue from different areas that investors reacted positively to that i think facebook does have some of these other revenue streams and have been experimenting with them such as facebook workplace. the sort of linkedin, slack-type tool that is for workers, that enterprises pay for. enterprise software tool effec effectively. facebook has been working to move into different areas, but i don't know if it's as much as regulators just trying to take advantage of the opportunities that come from various areas of software strength. >> right that makes sense wonder, though, if regulation and that sort of softer p.r. could be a goebone bonus there >> yeah. d de, just going to say -- >> no. >> just going to say, de, could be a challenge if you see some of these companies like facebook using strength in one area and then trying to push into other areas. that's something that has strong

antitrust scrutiny i think that the reality is facebook's not going to give up any of its dominance of the ad market part of the digital dye duopoly with google. also something regulators are watching. >> a great point so many issues on so many sides that it's careful where they -- got to be careful where they shift to julia, thank you so much for breaking that down. up next, when growth stocks don't grow as much as investors would like why both dropbox and box are in the hot seat. plus, what to expect from the netflix shareholder meeting tonight. a lot more "techcheck," still ahead. stay with us. do you struggle with occasional nerve aches, weakness or discomfort in your hands or feet? introducing nervive nerve relief

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dopbox and boxes once considered top perhaps you remember these magazine covers. that a is drew and aaron on the front of them. we're some ways from them. both companies underperformed other high-growth clouds and taking a 100% drop in

dropbox. meanwhile, box sparring with starboard in a two-year long battle as activist investor makes its latest push in a bid for steenson jon and carl, we've talked about this these stocks are lagging we saw go the other way, go private, but, do an "on the other hand," jon on the other hand look at a company like square, sort of muddled along for a while after its ipo, and over the last year or two has really shot up, and -- like the graphic, guys -- proves earlier naysayers wrong. >> yeah. you know, i think when you think about square today, and why people are investing in it, you don't think of the dongle that pushes into it l how do these companies evolve? both dropbox and box tried to push into enterprise and go beyond that premium, hey, we have storage for you in the

cloud model, but i think the argument at least these activists are making, they haven't been aggressive enough about that also i wall put in this category of, you know, transformation what we see fireeye doing. right? fireeye is spinning out, selling off fireeye to private equity. renaming itself mannedian, cast itself as a software company with $237 million in recurring revenue from here. today investors not loving that. it's down 15%, but we just had kevin on last week and asking him about, do investors really know how to value these security companies? and give them, you know, the benefit of, maybe, software or growth possibilities maybe this is the way he's trying to do that, carl? >> yeah. you know, jon, sort of reminded what jon chambers said a few years ago about the eventual shakeout that would come to

enterprise, software in particular that's maybe where we are. sort of this mid-cycle, past the era of hypergrowth, looking for inefficiencies, clearly where activists come in and look for improvements and some lag. i want to say on the other hand, just to roll the graphic, i guess co-opted your franchise, jon. >> you know, we can share with "squawk box. we can you know there's enough to go around, and certainly enough arguments, enough different sides of these stories to examine them all as we will continue to do and i would point out with all of these stories, the mega scale of cloud players are really putting pressure on the so-called best of breed. you know both dropbox and box said they will be fine we can make it look at their stock. it's been a rough go so far. all right. docusign, reporting tonight. joining us tomorrow here on "techcheck." meanwhile, bitcoin in a vol atil

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fell off a cliff after an r rerr earnings report. am looked lie a depressed company to many. a lot of people thought they'd run their course the cube computer flopping you mentioned before, apple decided to launch 25 retail stores in midst of a dotcom crush. of course, the public, not everybody could see steve jobs' vision just yet. the ipod, itunes store, iphones still just a dream so 20 years ago, you'd have had to be a fanatic to believe apple could be bigger than dell let alow growing more than 33,000% to one of the most valuable companies on the planet. apple didn't spike in a meme stock frenzy, carl, but if it had, people would have say, oh, that's nuts. the company will never be worth that much. the question is does add an

aaron have steve jobs'-sized vision we'll see. >> i guess my immediate response, jon, would be apple built its behemoth self on the back of wireless services in the advent of gps and certainly social media i guess what is the equivalent that the movie theater business could build a foundation upon, de >> perhaps i would argue tesla is a better comparison a lot of those bulls comparing elon musk to steve jobs. can only be one or at least a few. what tesla is doing beyond evs, batteries and energy storage and autonomous vehicles and software, guys an interesting comparison and i go back to the 1984 commercial how that sort of went viral at the time as much as it could during that period and now how it's being co-opted, carl, by apple and meme. "fortnight." apple games throwing back in

apple the face would will continue come out on top? >> a question remains to be answered. and nvidia meets at 2:00 headlines off that we'll watch and reporting a greater than expected loss in q1 and we have big names after the bell "thcckisacin meneche" bk aomt. what happens when we welcome change? we can make emergency medicine possible at 40,000 feet. instead of burning our past for power,

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some hedges still shaking after amc went 2x yesterday. some call it a short squeeze, but senior markets commentator mike santoli at nyc today says it might be more complicated than that. mike. >> reporter: yeah, carl. at least it is bigger than that. it is certainly not only a short squeeze because it could not come close to explaining the trajectory and amount of activity in amc shares you look at year-to-date charter right here obviously we thought this was sort of extreme in january, february, when it was trailing along with the game stop mania right now it is obviously created an even huger spike on this chart, and part of the narrative around it is that it is a short squeeze now, let's have the fabts. at last report there were about 95 million shares of amc sold short. that could have changed since the official report. maybe there's been some net covering, maybe there hasn't 95 million shares. a little less than 20% of all shares outstanding over the last two days so yesterday and so far today, a

billion shares haveturned over in this stock. obviously a lot of that is just kind of systematic trading machines, pinballing it back and forth. it is not necessarily all covered. but the point being, there's more than ample opportunity for anybody short this stock to have covered, and if it was not a squeeze up until now and if that short position still remains out there, it shows you that that wasn't a necessary factor in it except to the degree it motivates those people who are still piling in, still want to chase it and still want to have a story line to grab on to that is something more than, hey, people might go to movies this summer, guys. >> mike, if it is not a short squeeze, is there a term for it? is it a feeding frenzy if it is not motivated by people trying to avoid pain, is it people trying to sate their hunger >> i think so, jon i have been calling it a stampede i mean it is kind of loosely coordinated, and once the momentum is triggered and once you have the follow-on buying and people willing to pay up

massive premiums to face value for options on this stock that expire tomorrow at $70, that's what has been going on for the last couple of days. it does are a short-term self-fulfilling effect at some point it gets spent. at some point the rally itself becomes unstable at these angles it doesn't mean it is over it just means basically there's a collective belief and it will run until it runs out of fuel as opposed to until people who are there to be victimized on the short side have kind of surrendered. i don't know if some of that has been going on, probably has. it has been hard to borrow so presumably people are trying to reshort it at these levels i think you have to get away from the idea that's all that's going on, not just with amc but others blackberry, for example, not a particularly heavy shorted stock. you could still borrow some of the shares it seems you have to sort of look and point and stare and, you know, wonder at the momentum but not really assume that somebody is explicitly being

cornered here on the short side. >> right, mike that's good perspective. a lot more to the story. thank you. and as we head to break, mike mentioned the volume. take a look at the most active trades on the new york stock exchange no surprise, blackberry and amc seeing huge trading volumes. by the way, amc has been as high as $62 and as low as $37 you also see ford and nokia up there as well. "techcheck" will be right back keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

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g two tech executives taking in record pay packages last year, both palantir and doordash awarding their ceos special stock awards worth hundreds of million dollars. alex karp raked in a whopping $1.1 billion more than any other ceo last year. tony xu was rewarded with restricted shares initially valued at $400 million he made $415 million in 2020 keep in mind, of course, guys, neither of these companies are profitable yet, but it has not stopped investors from pushing

shares well above their listing prices guys >> one more thing. that is a spate of spacs for palihapitiya he is filing four new ones to focus on biotech he is trying to merge two of his original six spacs he completed mergers for sofi, clover, opendoor and virgin galactic all of this goes to show there's money out there if you can get it >> yep we'll see. it would be fascinating, dee, if we got a bounce in spac volume the way virgin galactic bounced from 17 to 33. >> you know, there's money out there, but are there enough companies, right i won'ter how he will raise money, if he has to sell his existing holdings, carl, which has been a touchy subject. >> yes we look forward to maybe hearing

from him directly in the coming days it will be an eventful 24 hours in the market. not only do we have dock yu sign and lulu tonight, but tomorrow others will join us to talk about earnings in addition to the jobs numbers tomorrow which, of course, has big macro implications see you then in the meantime let's get to "the half" carl, thanks welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner front and center this hour, theater of the absurd or masterpiece theater? amc shares, other so-called meme-stocks in the spotlight yet again. what the amazing moves are saying about the market at large and your money we'll debate it with our investment committee joining me for the hour today, jenny harrington, ceo of gilman hill asset management. josh brown, steve weiss, jon najarian here as well. nice to see everybody. go to the wall stocks sloshing around again today. the dow is positive, everything else though. negative ten-year yield, 1.62. there is much focus again on meme-stock, amc,