transaction. so that in and of itself kind of made it unique, required a little bit of creativity to actually do something that would satisfy its spac agreement. >> leslie picker, thank you. s&p 500 right now session highs, up 0.9 of a percent 4229 on pace to finish the week higher again that's going to do it for "power lunch. have a great weekend "closing bell" starts right now. >> welcome i'm wilfred frost along with sara eisen stocks higher. major averages all pacing for weekly gains let's have a look at what is driving the action the may jobs report showing solid gains but falling short of estimates. what some are calling a goldilocks number. not too hot to push the fed's timeline meme stocks infocus after a wild week of trading amc still on pace to finish around 100% higher from where it started. and tech is bouncing back with

docusign leading the nasdaq 100. tesla gaining back some ground as well. 59 minutes left to go in the trading week and we are on record close watch for the dow and the s&p. the s&p only a couple of points away, sara. coming up on today's show the ceo of one company that's been caught up in the meme trade. we'll talk to the head of gaming platform skillz and news of the company's first acquisition. plus, hspot stocks getting n upgrade this week. we'll ask the ceo of aurora cannabis whether this is a broader acceptance of cannabis mike santoli is tracking all the market action. joining us to talk about today's jobs report is michael feroli. but michaeke santoli, start us f

>> as you mentioned, the jobs number was enough to reassure people across the board based on whether you were worried about overheating or a shortfall in growth also when that big known catalyst gets out of the way, the market trend could reassert itself it had been sturdy below the service. more stocks up than down here we are, 4232 is the closing high we'll see if we nudge up against it it's still not decisive because you're still going to look at that and say until proven otherwise, maybe we're in a trading range. nasdaq 100 the outperformer today but is in a little bit of a different position it's still below the prior peak from the spring but right there with that february peak. that mid-february high was when you had peak excitement for hypergrowth stocks, the spacs, the ipos, risk appetites in a lot of the growthy areas did peak then.

we'll see if this can make progress against this looking like it might be a continued chart with some malaise pulling it down. up 1.8%. things like apple and amazon finally participating as well. on the small cap side of things, there's fun interplay between the russell small cap and the s&p 600. when the russell 2000 is outperforming, there's more stocks in them but also more unprofitable companies in them and some of the more heavily weighted speculative stuff you saw that raced up, was outperforming into february. you see more recently the s&p small cap has pulled ahead by a little bit over the last year and so it shows you that the market still wants risk in the way of small cap but more the profit cycle, at least at the moment, as opposed to just basically spreading their bets wide on everything that moves fast and has high leverage to not just the economy but the speculative parts of the market. >> mike, fascinating stuff

s&p is up 36 points and needs to be up 39.40 to have a record close. stick around, we want to hit this amc stuff a number of new developments on that amc saga. the stock is on pace to finish the week higher by 100%. last night the ceo adam aron speak to retail traders on the you tube channel and talked abou another plan to issue more shares. >> if you arm us with the tool to go find value creating opportunities, we can do that. if we're not armed with this tool, then you're tying our hands behind our back and you'll make it just that much harder for us to land some of these attractive opportunities that benefit us all. >> the latest post to issue stock comes after amc told 20 million shares in two offerings this week. one yesterday and 8.5 million

shares to mudrick capital which the firm flipped mudrick no longer owns any debt or equity in amc the meme stock has presented a challenge. webbush upping its price target on amc to $7.50 saying they don't recommend buying shares right now based on volatility. bank of america removed its rating on another meme stock, bed, bath & beyond they also terminated coverage of gamestop as for amc, trey collins from trey's trades told cnbc earlier the stock's fundamental value is somewhere in the $20 to $25 range but there's money to be made on momentum i thought it was a really interesting interview earlier on "squawk box," mike the key takeaway for me, even though he didn't bite on the question as to whether this is gambling versus investing, he

did say he was willing to lose all of his initial investment when he does something like amc and that's his mindset which shows that it's not traditional long only investment where retirees, for example, will hope not only to keep all of their initial investment but slowly but surely grind it higher. >> it's not about margin of safety or necessarily knitting what you're paying to some concrete estimate of fair value, it's basically buying into a story, yes momentum, yes, emotion, but also what the market will bear at any given moment i did think it represented at least from his perspective, we don't know if this is broadly applicable to everybody, but eyes are open. he doesn't really think -- he actually said the money is not real he assumes it's not real until he would sell it and actually has cash i doubt everybody has that posture. i think a lot of stories are sprouting up about what really

is behind this move and people are trying to retrofit a rationale to what the stock has done they're just maximizing how much cash they can take in from this cohort of investors in the meantime it's rescued the company at this point and they're going to try to keep going until i guess the market says no >> well, the other interesting feature about this particular example and this time versus gamestop back in january, mike, has been the ceo really welcoming the meme traders, accepting them, i would say attracting them, offering them free popcorn, engaging with them he went on the youtube channel instead of coming on "closing bell" where he usually goes to talk to the fan base you wonder if that's a brilliant move or if this ends in tears if it turns out to be playing with fire. >> first of all, it comes out of necessity to a large degree. if you dial back several months, debt was trading at massive

discount to face value they are saying we're not sure this company can stay out of bankruptcy which means the ceo's job was basically to cater to the creditors. the creditors were in line to maybe own this company big institutional investors, not necessarily willing to take on huge new equity issuance themselves so there was a ready market here because the stock seemed to get into this world and started to breathe this oxygen of the meme traders. and so that's why he kind of needs to cater to them yes, without a doubt, also willing to be kind of the face of this company and be very overt about it and not be squeamish about just going directly to social media to raise equity >> mike, stay there, we're going to turn to the economy we've got to talk jobs u.s. job creation accelerating in may, but still coming in below expectations nonfarm payrolls increasing by 559,000. the expectation was around 671,000. however, the unemployment rate did come in better than expected, falling to 5.8

estimates were around 5.9% let's bring in michael feroli from jpmorgan. was this a good report, michael, or not given where we are at this stage of recovery >> it wasn't a great report but better than last month if we go back a few months, many forecasters were expecting that in the spring and summer months we would be adding about a million jobs a month so against those expectations this is clearly a disappointment, but i think expectations have gotten reset after that april number. i would say this is -- you know, it's not what you'd want but it is progress, as you mentioned. the unemployment rate came down. we did create over a half million jobs we would like to see that pace pick up, but there were other good things. we saw wages pick up, which is good for employees at least and you did have a big move down in people who are permanently unemployed, so that was another favorable feature in what was otherwise a so-so report, i think. >> still more than 7 million

jobs in the whole since the covid pandemic you mentioned a pickup in wages of half a percent, better than expected what does that go in the inflation debate about whether this rise in prices now trickling into wages could be more lasting and could prompt a move from the fed? >> well, i think it certainly muddies the waters a little bit insofar as the transitory narrative that the fed has been applying to consumer price inflation. arguably now applies to wage inflation because some of the factors that may be pushing up wages or limiting labor supply are probably transitory in nature those are the expanded unemployment benefits which expire in september, child care responsibilities which may normalize in the fall and fears amongst some job seekers, ongoing fears about the pandemic all three of those factors should ease over time, but it does add some more noise to what is otherwise a pretty noisy

picture of the economy and a noisy picture of the inflation outlook. so i think it's yet another reason why we'll have to reserve judgment for a few months on where price and wage inflation are ultimately heading. >> do you think, michael, that the fed will be changing its expectations at all or does it change the timeline of when you think in comments and interviews or in fed meetings that they will meaningfully change expectations of when tapering will begin >> right i think it's important to remember that after that april number, which is only half as strong as the may number, we had several senior fed officials talking about tapering at upcoming meetings so i think having this number in hand doesn't really change that i would still expect at the june meeting, which is in less than two weeks time that they will begin the conversation that said, given that we are, as you mentioned, still over 7 million jobs in the hole, that conversation is just getting started and i don't think it will lead to a hasty move toward

tapering but they have got to start somewhere. given the comments we had before today's number, i would think that's consistent with that conversation starting in june. >> michael feroli, thanks for joining us, good to see you. after the break, shares of skillz are up 20% as the company announced an acquisition and got caught up in the meme frenzy we'll speak with ceo andrew paradise next. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc.

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mobile gaming platform skillz announcing their first acquisition this week. they are buying aarki for $150 million to create the first integrated e-sports advertising platform shares of the company up 20% on the week and up 100% on the year but up 50% from its highs after

short sellers questioned the company's reporting and nfl partnership. joining us now is the ceo andrew paradise andrew, good to see you. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> talk us through the rationale for this aarki acquisition >> sure. so aarki is a dsp or demand side platform or ad network by acquiring aarki, skillz is using their proven bidding technology so you have the best of machine learning algorithms for dsps combined with a unique data set that means we can provide better impressions to consumers all the way through their end consumption of individeo games. >> will you require them to work exclusively for you now or the other way around, will other gaming clients want to use different ad sales platforms in the future >> no. aarki will operate as its own independent business unit inside of skillz.

we'll continue to service the existing customer base and grow it but by using our first-party data, we can inform the bidding engine and overall technology to create a better value proposition to the existing customers as well as new customers for the business unit. >> so, andrew, how does it fit in with the overall strategy of what you're trying to do, which is get more people paying for bigger gaming hits on your platform >> sure. so to remind everyone, skillz is a company focused on building the future of competition on the internet we see this as building the gamification of things or g.o.t. when we think about the investment in our business and where we're growing, we're investing in four different areas. in content, in distribution, international expansion and brand integration. by making the aarki acquisition,

we'll be able to accelerate our ability to help all of our developer partners distribute their content better than ever, actually. >> andrew, we're having some debate about this over the last couple of days but how do you see the balance short term and long term by mon advertising your products by advertising versus subscription. offering alternatives to those who want zero commercials but are happy to pay >> we've talked a few times about our interest in building out brand-sponsored competition. if you look at skillz p & l for 2020, we had $1.6 billion in g.o.t. or gross. we spent $3.5 billion on prize pools. we think that can be increased down to help the take rate for the platform the integration of aarki into

skillz will help us accelerate our work with the brands out there that are interested in en engaging with the consumer wher they are, which is really on mobile >> andrew, your stock has been a roller coaster ride. when i was digging into this name before the show, there's still so much skepticism out there about what you're trying to do, whether it's on the reopening and the fact that people are leaving and are not going to be gaming as much to questions about the cfo leaving so soon after becoming a public company to how much hits you can actually have. is there a disconnect? do you think there's something that wall street is not understanding about your stock which is making it such a battleba battl battleground >> yeah, i think there's been a bit of a spac craze. we were early on partnering with a spac to go public as a nontraditional route i think we've been caught up in that to some extent. if you look at the performance of our stock since ipo, we're up

over 100% as a stock in the past year since we announced our intention to go public so for all of our holders, it's actually been a really good outcome. it has been a bit of a roller coaster admittedly, particularly earlier in q1 when we announced our deal with nfl. we can't control sentiment around the stock, but i can tell you that we've been really pleased with the response of the retail and research analyst community. we have some of the smartest institutional investors in the world partnered into our business we're a long-term oriented company. we're growing over what we repeatedly talked about, a 100-year vision for the future of competition so if you zoom out to 10 years or 100 years, i think the blips over this past quarter will truly be that, just blips. >> andrew, thank you for coming on and talking about it. it's always good to talk to you, from skillz. >> good to see you guys. thank you. up next, facebook making a

major policy change surrounding posts from politicians we'll tell you what it means and what it means for the ban of former president donald trump. the top search tickers, amc tops the list. 10-year yields up there straight again although yields are lower today, 1.56 on the back of a little weaker jobs report. tesla, ford and blackberry a mix en the meme stocks and what's be working lately. ford at a six-year high. we'll be right back. wealth is saving a little extra. worth is knowing it's never too late to start - or too early. ♪ ♪ wealth helps you retire. worth is khy. ♪ ♪ principal. for all it's worth.

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welcome back facebook reversing its policy surrounding politicians and harmful speech and outlining how long former president trump will end up lasting eamon javers with the latest >> it will end up lasting two years. here's the word from facebook. they said they're going to continue that ban for two years. but at that point they will reconsider that is in two years from january 7th. they'll assess going to experts whether or not the risk to public safety from trump's comments has receded there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if president trump is allowed back on the platform and commits further violations in the future you remember that it was the facebook oversight board that stepped in, a quasiappointed

body they said facebook wasn't exactly right in its decision to suspend trump indefinitely facebook needs to tell him how long he's suspended for and under what terms he can come back so this is facebook responding to that oversight board decision earlier in the year the former president had a reaction to this and here's what he said in a statement he posted a short time ago he said they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing and ultimately we will win our country can't take this abuse anymore. so there is the reaction from the former guy as the current guy would call him, sara >> eamon, it's full worth reading the full blog post and the recent article on this topic. there's a few issues i have with it one line that says we know today's decision will be criticized by many people on opposing sides of the political divide, end quote. but it shouldn't be a political issue. they claim not to be a publisher

in other areas, but they're kind of making themselves a publisher in this instance so i think that bringing the politics to this themselves rather than being able to blame those who have issue with it in either direction as being the ones that are taking a political view i take issue with the other line of his blog that stands out is this quote of course this penalty only applies to our services. mr. trump is and will remain free to express himself publicly by other means that completely ignores the fact that facebook and other social media platforms are now the most powerful communication tools in the world. it would be like holding a tv debate in the '60s or '70s and muting the microphone of one of the candidates and saying, well, that's our decision, it's our tv channel and i think we're on a totally different playing field. so i get that they're putting this huge blog post out and saying they're being transparent but i think it ignores some key truths or facts which is taking away the gloss of fame and them being transparent. >> awfully good of facebook to

acknowledge that the world exists outside of facebook, though, right? so often it seems like these tech giants don't know that. but look, you're right the debate goes to this question of is facebook a publisher or not. are they doing journalism or not. a television news network would see news value in what the former president or current president was saying even if it was incendiary and would cover it but facebook is sort of saying here, you know, we're not a news organization we may be a publishing organization and we are going to exercise some discretion about what appears on our platform, but basically we're a platform that wants to be about people getting in touch with their old high school friends who they haven't seen in 20 years, or 10 years in your case and that's sort of the line that they're taking, right? we want to be about friendly interaction, we don't want to be about that toxic stuff that's a private company making a private business decision and that also is protected under the

first amendment. >> 18 years since high school for me, alas, getting old, eamon. in defense of course of nick clegg's blog post, there is lack of legislation, he writes in the absence of frameworks agreed upon by democratically accountable lawmakers, the board's model of independent and thoughtful deliberation is a strong one and shows that important decisions are made the oversight board is not a replacement for regulation and we continue to call for regulation in this space fair point on that no clear rules and regulations from lawmakers. >> well, this whole thing about the facebook oversight board is so strange it's sort of facebook pretendsing that there is a supreme court for facebook things you know, appointing all the people and financing it. that's not true independence, right? independence would be an independent regulator that was run by the government. but do you want that in this country? do you want the government regulating who can speak and how

much they can speak and where they can speak that seems like a thorny path to go down. so facebook has sort of set up this be twixt and between thing that pretends to be a supreme court that's not really in the absence of the actual supreme court of the actual united states getting involved and deciding all these issues. >> eamon javers, thanks so much for that. after the break we'll be talking to art cashin about all of the crazy market action and the fact that we're so close to a record close on the s&p. before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new? -well, audrey's expecting... -twins!

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a half hour left of trading. the dow is up 160. time for a cnbc news update with rahel solomon. >> here's what's happening at this hour. chicago's police department announcing major changes to try to improve relations with the

neighborhoods they patrol. officers are being appointed to be liaison's with the city's lgbtq, homeless, immigrant and police communities the moves are intend to reduce crime. >> the police department this morning is taking a big swing at community policing, community engagement and building trust. arguably this will be the most significant commitment of effort, resources and leadership to building trust in chicago pd's history >> olympic champion sprinter brianna mcneal has been banned five years for an anti-doping violation. mcneal is appealing the ban. and in germany a leading cardinal and good friend of pope francis is offering to resign. the cardinal citing his guilt over remaining silent over the catholic church's mishandling of

sexual abuse cases by clergy the pope said that he's still deciding whether to accept the resignation letter you are now up to date wilf, back to you. coming up, meme mania hitting the markets this week. shares of amc up more than 100%. blackberry and workhorse also significantly higher we'll break down the moves with a man who's seen just about everything in the market ubs director of operations art cashin we're looking forward to seeing him and hearing his view on all the craziness in the past week the craziness in the past week we'll be right back. yeah...uh... doug? sorry about that. umm... what...its...um... you alright? [sigh] [ding] never settle with power e*trade. it has powerful, easy-to-use tools to help you find opportunities, 24/7 support when you need answers plus some of the lowest options and futures contract prices around. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

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street equivalent of a chain letter you know, the chat room gets everybody excited. put $5 in an envelope, mail it out and in a week you'll get an envelope with $1,000 in it that's pretty much what's happening. these chat rooms are nothing new. i've seen there was a stock called iomega and they had iomega options and theyran in much the same wild and ill liquid fashion that we're seeing amc ove. i've been doing this well over 60 years forgive me if i don't have all the details correct between the alcohol and the alzheimer's, i'm getting a little slow. but over 60 years ago, there was a company, i believe, called something like southeastern aviation it was doing nothing everybody was getting involved in a different kind of technology at the time, so they changed their name from southeastern aviation to a

aero geo astro and the stock doubled overnight. you build up some excitement, look like you're part of a trend and people climb in. unfortunately, it doesn't usually end well. >> you're not seeming so, alrt, it's so good to have you on. what do you look out for as a catalyst to when people go back to basing share prices on fundamentals if that indeed is what we'll pivot back towards? >> well, it will eventually. the timing is always very difficult, wilfred the first thing you notice is when the stock begins to trade actively on the chart it turns parabolic. in other words, it goes up in a straight line. that's usually an early warning sign that we're getting near at least a temporary end of things. now remember, we went with these

chat room stocks separately from short squeezes to promotional ideas coming out of the chat rooms so that will eventually wear out i am stunned that the company was not only able to sell millions of additional shares without the stock cracking but to imply that they're thinking about registering to sell even more somewhere the apple is going to fall on newton's head here and things will change so you can go through one, two, even three of these kinds of cycles and then reality does come home. people -- i'm interested, you know, obviously an avid fan of your channel i'm hearing college professors saying, oh, no, no, this may be a brand new type of valueating

securities every time they tell you this time is different, it's not different. human nature is the same >> you've seen it before, art. it's so good to see you. it's sara. do you think it says something more broadly about the liquidity environment we're in i wonder if the clock is ticking with the fed starting to start talking about tapering and the potential for higher interest rates as inflation starts to heat up? >> sara, it's an excellent point. with no disrespect, i will tell you a lot of these bubbles get help and aid from the fed. the dotcom craziness in the year 2000, that i would suggest to you was in fact the y2k curse. now, you two folks are much too young to recall, but as we were

approaching the year 2000, everybody was terrified. the computers would all go dead. no computer would function properly. >> oh, i remember that. >> after the year 2000 well, the fed was so worried that you were going to lose your bank account and whatever, that, gee, sara is going to worry she's going to lose her bank account so she's going to take all her money out and keep it all at home. that's what the fed thought and the fed started pumping money into the system. we got very, very liquid what did people do with the money? they went out and bought new computers to be prepared for the changeover because they'd have one that worked. so eventually as the turn of the century came up, the fed called the banks and said how bad is the hoarding did sara take all her money out? they said no, she's still got plenty of money here what money she's taken out, she's using it to buy computers. and now she's using it to buy

computer stocks. so i would tell you that the dotcom craziness was simply the curse of y2k aided and abetted by the fed i've seen it time and time again over six decades >> and that is why it's so valuable to get your take, art cashin thank you very much. it's good to talk to you i probably was buying a computer in the year 2000 always a pleasure. have a great weekend >> you were probably asking your parents' permission but yeah, it's okay. >> probably, probably. we have got just about 16 or so minutes before the close. straight ahead, must tweets and bitcoin tumbles. what people are saying about it when we take you to the world's nfen hpengentocurrcy coerceapni in miami. we are live there next in the market zone.

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♪♪ with 14 minutes left in the trading day, we are now in the "closing bell" market zone commercial-free coverage of all the action going into the close. mike santoli is here to break down the crucial moments of the trading today. today we've got delano from new straight advisers back as well welcome back to you. the s&p 500 within striking distance of a record close the dow and s&p higher for the second week in a row the nasdaq on track for a three-week win streak. and the nasdaq 100 at a one-month high powered by the likes of apple and microsoft mike, you hear the word "goldilocks" being thrown around off a jobs number like this. it's good enough to so the

economic recovery is continuing and progressing but not good enough to move the fed from its patient stance on tapering and interest rates is that just a recipe to buy stocks and bonds >> well, it was in the late '90s when alan greenspan pretty much cited that as the not too hot, not too cold, just right back then he was talking about how productivity growth was dampening the inflationary forces in the economy. right now it's much more, i think, you had traders leaning a little bit in the direction of wondering if it was going to be a hot catch-up type jobs number after we got a really good adp number when we didn't get it, nothing to disagree too much with in the fundamentals of the number, right? it does show half a million jobs in a month is a decent showing relative to forecasts, maybe not that great but it's not going to inflame the overheating taper debate more than it was otherwise. also just in the last month, may 7th, a month ago monday was the

peak for the s&p 500 the cyclical stocks have outperformed since then. most stocks are up since then so there's been some firming under this as well. >> delano, do you welcome the slight rebound in yields today >> 100%, wilf. it's good news for growth investors. if your allocation is heavier on the growth side, this is a good indication and the market saw its opportunity to buy, especially in the high growth names. a couple of those factors you mentioned, there was no signaling from the fed of changing their strategy. with that number coming in slightly soft, it was an opportunity for investors to buy with yields going down so another opportunity for investors looking at the growth side of the thing is there are companies that are showing still strong, right? if you believe with that strategy, docusign had a huge jump they had an impressive top line growth this is just an opportunity for investors to say, hey, we believe in the strategy going

forward for a lot of these companies. it's not just going to be a pandemic trade there are some companies that have longevity past that and that pull forward for the revenue is something that can continue. >> a wild week for amc shares are trading at the moment close to the flat line today a source telling david faber that investmentfirm mudrick capital no longer owns any stock in amc they had sold 8.5 million shares to the firm and 5.1 million shares yesterday adam aron was on last night. >> no question this does not fit into the traditional valuation box. this morning adam said that this morning. however, it's a new world which i don't pretend to understand. myself on my own investment side

i've missed a lot of the trends because of my older ways of thinking about these things. >> obviously that was the wrong sound bite he was giving mr. aron some credit for the actions he's taken. mike, i said essentially flat, it's down 5% but 5% is not a big move for it. frankly, to see it move less than 10% in either direction is quite impressive you feel like from here it needs to be rallying further aggressively or pulling back. >> and it might do either one of those. it's very difficult to handicap. there was a tremendous amount of buildup of exposure at various price points along the spectrum that it might suppress volatility a little bit. that really is the tail that has wagged the dog in the very short term is this piling in at certain strikes. that's one aspect of it.

but really it's been very difficult to have an edge one way or the other there was a report that wall street banks are limiting hedge funds' ability to go further really people are wary of the volatility and want to stay out of the way unless they're directly trading it. >> delano, any sense of the institutional buyers in this stock, the hedge funds that are just chasing these retail traders and making a lot of money with it? it can't just be retail traders driving this up. >> yeah, sara, i'm not sure on the institutional side i will say from the class that ideal with, there are a lot of clients that formerly had no interest in checking accounts or the stock market themselves but they really wanted to get invested or inquire about some of these meme stock names. what that tells me is this is based more than on momentum. i think the original concepts are still around, which is original concepts from the original entrance and people that got in at lower prices. they were looking at something

that was undervalued i actually want to double back with the great interview you guys had with mr. cashin i think it's interesting where there's something going on there are more intelligent investors in the situation people understand the risks. there are people that fully understand they may lose money a lot of the investors that lost money on the gamestop trade in january are probably the same people that are coming into this opportunity here with amc. so i think it's a different aspect where we're seeing investors that are more intuitive and okay with the risk in this situation. >> bitcoin tumbling today after yet another tweet from elon musk this time suggesting that he's over the cryptocurrency. musk tweeting a meme, of course, of a couple breaking up over the male partner quoting lincoln park songs along with the hash tag bitcoin and a broken heart emoji. his latest tweet comes as thousands of investors meet in miami for a cryptocurrency conference today twitter and jack dorsey among

those in attendance. >> considering building a noncustodial hardware wallet the thing we want to do is make it completely in the open. so from all of our software to all of our hardware design would be open source we don't want to compete with hardware wallets out there we just want to take it to the next level and get to 100 more million people who have noncustodial solutions and we're likely to do it sometime very soon >> let's bring in cnbc digital tech reporter mckenzie for more color on the bitcoin conference in miami. you're there with all the believers and the diehards what can you tell us what have you learned? >> reporter: so 50,000 people have descended on miami and only 12,000 of them have tickets. it just speaks to the fact that so many people wanting to be here there's so many side effects happening. i spent eight hours last night going from event to event.

a gallery opening to gatherings about bit cloud. now, what's going on today is an event that's focused purely on bitcoin. so it's not necessarily a cryptocurrency event the people here really believe that bitcoin and not necessarily other cryptocurrencies are the future of finance. so i haven't really run into any dogecoin fans yet since arriving >> mike, the thing that i was going to bring up on the back of this is the decline we're seeing today. of course that's linked to a tweet from elon musk but it brings back the debate as to how lasting this asset's value is as a store value. if it's moved by little one-off tweets like this. >> you can actually draw a circle around. so a tweet from elon musk on twitter founded by jack dorsey, who is now the obvious kind of huge pied piper of bitcoin and

crypto in general, clearly this is just influencers locking horns a little bit or the at least just testing their relative influence i think that i would step back from it and say, look, bitcoin cracked hard it was cut in half this chart needs time to rehabilitate it's not surprising it's going to be choppy and very subject to a lot of these emotional moves in the short term. what's fascinating is there was a story about all this gathering down in miami. bullish and bearish cases about it one is it will stoke a lot of excitement the other is the whales will be down there and they're not actually going to be buying more so it's a fascinating psychological experiment >> mackenzie, any animosity toward elon musk >> yes he's very present even though he's not physically here two of the main stage events, michael saylor, an early mover when it came to adding bitcoin to a company's balance sheet when they moved into that space

last year, both he and jack dorsey seem to refer to elon musk's comments a few weeks ago where elon musk brought up bitcoin's environmental impact michael saylor said bitcoin was the most energy efficient asset in the history of the planet meanwhile jack dorsey pointed to the fact that bitcoin incentivizes renewables which is good for the environment both seem to be direct responses to elon musk's comments a few weeks back >> mackenzie, thank you. have fun down there in miami meantime, hedge funds billionaire bill ackman's spac deal is nearing a deal with universal music group. leslie picker has all the details of the non-spac spac deal, leslie. >> yeah, nondeal part of this spac pershing square tontine out with a tweet saying discussions to

get 10% of universal music it values it at $42 billion. now this transaction is actually structured as a stock purchase, not a merger that means pershing square tontine is not taking umg public, it's listing in amsterdam any way later this year the complexity of it all, the target being universal music group, was met with mixed emotions on reddit however, the prevailing voice of the market indicates dissatisfaction with shares of psth declining today although up from its lows. important to know this deal is not yet final and it's actually possible that the definitive agreement will look entirely different from what was laid out today or may not happen at all, guys. >> leslie, thank you leslie picker. we're at the two-minute mark, two minutes to go in the trading day for the week as well mike, what are you seeing in the

internals? >> it started off weak but has improved throughout the day. the new york stock exchange is 2-1 advancers to decliners it was basically 50-50 a few hours ago so this has been a quiet build on the upside. look at the u.s. dollar index. a little battleground. it held its multi-year lows, it bounced and now is coming off again as the softer jobs number took some of the taper discussion away. the volatility index is down in the 16s. we had the catalyst of the jobs report out of the way. all contributing to downside pressure on the vix. also probably the calmdown in some of the meme stocks doesn't hurt to get the volatility index down a bit >> with just 50 seconds left, we are sadly three points, three and a half points from a record close on the s&p 500 the dow is up half a percent and the nasdaq is up 1.5%. tech very much the top performing sector today followed

by communication services. those are the two sectors that are up more than 1%. only one in the red, that's utilities down 0.2%. a couple of big week-to-date gainers. energy up 6.6% on the week and real estate up 3.5% on the week, outperforming the other sectors. at the close, we are up bby 0.9% on the s&p 500 just two or three points away from a record closing high, two-thirds of a percent on the dow and 1.5% on the nasdaq a very strong close but not quite at a record. we were on record watch for dow and s&p. welcome back, everyone if you're just joining us, i'm sara eisen here with wilfred frost and mike santoli take a look at how be finished up the day on wall street. the dow did close higher by 180 points 34,777 would have been a record close. for the week the dow is up 0.7

of a percent s&p 500 up 0.9 of a percent, just shy of a record close for the week also up about 0.6 of 1%. by the way, this s&p finish the best day since may 24th. nasdaq also having a very good day. t technology was the leader in the market today the best day since may 20th or so also a third week in a row of gains. growth has come back over recent weeks. the russell 2000 has underperformed today still closed up about a third of one percent and almost a full percent on the woke. coming up this hour an interview with the ceo of aurora cannabis and amazon's new drug test policy which helped propel the pot stocks delano saporo is still with us ed clifford also joins the conversation mike, on a strong day in particular for tech, and i know

you're watching these key levels on stocks like apple and microsoft and amazon, which had been weak yesterday, really coming back nicely today. >> they have, yeah so the nasdaq did manage to nose above where it was in february, so it's sort of constructive in thesense that you had this massive slug of value and now it's for a day participating as yields came back i think in general incredibly calm action intraday look at that intraday calm of the nasdaq it's been the story for weeks in the overall indexes as well, about seven weeks. i've been saying it feels more like traction than slippage under the surface and that probably still remains the case, but of course we park it at the all-time highs to create a little suspense as to whether this is the top end of the rage and one of these jobs day culmination of a move.

>> ed, when you see what happened today does it alter whether you want cyclical or growth exposure for the rest of the year >> i don't think one day will change the trend as far as our sector exposure. the big story here is probably more about earnings growth earnings growth will come from the cyclical sectors so those are the areas we like for now. interest rates would be an added tailwind if we get a steeper yield curve so that's probably more symptomatic of why you'd want to be in the cyclicals rather than the reason for being in them. >> but delano, you were saying last hour growth looks good if you think the fed is going t stay on hold if we keep getting jobs numbers that are underwhelming like this. >> yes, sara, that's exactly right. if you believe the fed will stick with their mandate and we'll see no job numbers that are not fully showing recovery or showing where the fed would like to see, you would want to

stick with some of the growth names who have been beaten down year to date they have kind of had some traction the last couple of weeks. ironically they have had some great value. so you want to be adding to your growth names that you believe in and sticking them out. as we look, there's some great, great value in some of these growth names. >> mike, vix pulling back today, showing some calmness because of the meme stocks calming down but it helps as we approach record closes again. >> yes, it definitely confirms what's going on with the market. i would also point out that people who watch kind of the anticipated level of the vix -- vix itself is just a statistic, it's not something you own but the futures are shaped in a certain way where basically it shows you the market is in a pretty good relatively comfortable position not a lot of stress building up. that's all to the net positive even though 16.5 would arguably be lower than that given the

fact that we've been near or at highs for months >> ed, you said you were sticking with the cyclical groups and looking forward improvement in earnings. which sectors in particular? >> three are probably the most promising here, industrials, materials and energy i'd throw in financials as well. i think there's another aspect too when you talk about growth versus value i think over the last year when we say value, we're really thinking about the cyclical value sectors. there's a whole group of defensive value sectors like utilities that have really been lost here and they do very poorly during the first year of a bull market because they're low beta if the pace of gains slows then those value sectors may do well in a second year what we could see would be another segment of value starting to help rather than being a hindrance to that broad growth versus value story. >> chip stocks ran today

let's get to josh lipton for more on that move. >> the smh, the etf that tracks the semis posting its third straight weekly gain here. its longest streak since early april. it's up about 15% so far this year less than 3% now, by the way, from it's all-time february high digging into the movers, nvidia your best mover, up 20%. maxim and novelle also outperforming. from a demand point of view, semis still look strong, meaning end markets from pc to auto appear solid next year he says it's a tougher call with concerns about the sustainability of demand and double ordering. stacy says he likes semi cap names so that would include applied materials, lam research and broadcom too back to you all. >> josh, thanks so much for that delano, what's your view of this

space? >> the space is great. i think my exposure is relatively small for clients it's an area we're looking to increase, if you look at the way we're having chipgs and everything we do and the shortage earlier, that's an area i want exposure to there's a lot more growth to come we're looking at it from the automobile space and the home consumer spatce and it's something that i think is a great value right now. >> ed, how do we read the move in chips usually it's very bullish cyclically and it's a good tell on the economy but with all the shortages going on and the stindividual stories within that sector, is that still the case >> well, i think that's very indicative of what we're going to see in the economy. if you looked at the expansions, they're very broad and uniform this is anything but so you're going to find pockets like semis even though they're technically in a sector we don't like in information technology,

but they could actually do pretty well because of the supply and demand in that sector so i think we really need to think less about the broad economy and more about different sectors where the supply/demand balances are in your favor i think that's going to be around for a while and it's a little bit different than what we've been thinking about the last few expansions. >> ed, would you welcome a bit more calm u.s. dollar? would that help u.s. equities or is that associated with a slightly softening economic outlook? >> i think the dollar is really about the fed. so if the dollar is pretty stable, that means probably the fed is not going to be moving too quickly to taper, which is probably pretty good for the economy and pretty good for the markets. >> mike, final word to you after a jobs report which sort of, as mike feroli said, muddied the waters on the inflation debate, clearly it was positive for the equity market, this idea

that the federal reserve isn't in any hurry to move on the taper question, but what about that inflation question which has been the primary factor dictating market direction and certainly bonds the last few weeks? >> yeah, to a degree it's been the main preoccupation it seems like you had a real kind of flare-up of concern. it was in a hurry. people decided it was going to be the thing to worry about. that's mostly dissipated if you just look at the bonding market, it doesn't really seem like it's building in a lot of expectation. when it does build in expectation for inflation, it can look like it's near term and not longer term. so today's number is relatively comforting we also got relief on things like -- the home builder stocks are up more than 1% today. they had been a little weak coming off their highs today it was let's not fight this market too hard it seems like the scary overheating story and the bond yields going to the moon is not

an immediate threat, at least not today. >> delano and ed, thank you very much for joining us. much appreciate it. up next, mercedes bent says there's a formula that ties meme stocks together. later, corporations and cannabis the ceo of aurora shares his thoughts on amazon's new policy of drug testing and whetheitr 's the start of a workplace trend "closing bell" back in 90 seconds. what happens when we welcome change? we can transform our workforce overnight out of convenience, or necessity. we can explore uncharted waters, and not only make new discoveries, but get there faster, with better outcomes.

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amc entertainment, plaque berry and workhorse the biggest winners after volatile swings. how long can the hype around meme mania really last. joining us now mercedes bent clearly it's been a crazy week on the amc and meme stock front. less positive on the bitcoin front, though. >> yes, and thank you for having me i think what we're seeing this week is kinds of a flip between the meme stocks and the meme coins with dogecoin going down, or it's been down a bit over the last few weeks and amc, gme and a couple of others rising. the shift back and forth is interesting to see happening i should note i'm actually a doge investor myself.

>> does that undermine the valuations for both of these different sets of assets if it's just a simple trade-off between the two? it raises the question that they'll both be propped up until there's a new fad. >> quite possibly. i think this is what's been really interesting to see over the past couple of weeks and months is how retail investors are approaching these meme stocks i think retail investors who are investing in these know, they know what trend setters have always known, that hype itself is a partial ingredient for success. is a sufficient, sustainable ingredient for success no but it's about finding arbitrage opportunities. and the hype around these does create a short-term dislocation that investors can capitalize on. >> so you said you were in doge, mercedes how else are you playing this? you've been coming on this show talking about the rise of retail trading for a while and looking

at some ways to take advantage, whether private companies or you actually own stock themselves. >> yes as an investor at lightspeed, my daytime role is to invest in really early stage startups that are helping power the economy. so i've invested in retail investing startups and personally i also invest in some of these ike when i came on the show a couple of months ago in january at the height of the amc, gme saga, what i was saying is this is really the investment mindset taking over all retail investors and brands are going to need to be tapping into this investment mindset more just a few days ago we saw amc release their new product, the amc investor connect, a platform for them to go directly to their 3 million retail investors so it seems like a lot of this momentum is continuing to play out. i'm not sure it's going to stop

any time soon. >> you've also been doing some work on gen z and the likelihood of their work habits being the same of previous generations what have been the key takeaways? >> so gen z, we've seen some really interesting things happening with how they are joining the workforce. the workforce of gen z's, 50% of them were free lancing last year the free lancers union released a survey saying they think the u.s. workforce will be majority free lance by 2027 so this is a huge shift in how we think about the future of workers and where people are going to find jobs if they find them at a company at all there are so many interesting things happening here. a venture investor that create our economy is just on fire right now. whether it's outschool, which is a company in our portfolio that's focused on education and teachers as creators or a fin

tech like willa that is focused on the finances creators or palla that's allowing creators to monetize their own platform through job referrals. there's so many different avenues now for creators to earn money. and it's not just post an ad on social media, it's bleeding into many, many different sectors of work >> hmm, really good color. mercedes, thank you. good to talkto you mercedes bent. >> good to talk to you and speaking of jobs, let's go back to mike santoli at the telestrator who is taking a closer look at the labor market. mike, what aspect? >> first of all, take a look at the share prices of two big staffing firms, kelly services and manpower pretty much getting the tailwind of a stronger, strengthening labor market over the last year but you do see this plateau effect that's that moment when it was

seeing peak acceleration for the rebound, peak reopening dynamics and we've held the high but not made net progress. from a dallas fed survey that's asking people who were not currently employed, would they go back to their former job with the same terms, the same hours and the same pay dating back to last july, we've actually seen the number of people that say no, they would not go back to their old jobs increase so this top line is those who would say no they would not return under the same terms here was the latest number and then the unsure. only half a people would say this one is people don't feel the urgency whether it's been because they have been backstopped by some of the government support measures or because they have higher wage demands because the market itself has tightened up or the appeal of some low pay, low mobility jobs is not what it was once people have stepped back considering child care and all the rest of it

it is one explanation for why in fact there's been slightly slower return to the labor force than we might otherwise have anticipated, guys. >> you know, it's such a weird labor market, mike, because on one hand you have the number of quit rates, which sort of jives with what you're talking about the highest level we've seen in years. we have a record number of job openings we have more than 7 million people out of work since covid, and yet we're getting sort of lackluster jobs reports when it comes to the headline numbers when really we should be getting a million plus if you believe the economists first it's a strange sort of supply/demand mismatch it seems like. >> there is. it could just be a transition period where employers, either they have to raise their offering wage, and that's a process that happens, or people have to see what happens through the summer and kids will go back to school. i have heard some talk that if you've given some people some rent abatements and the fact

that they got direct cash payments and if you can just pay down some debts that you had sitting around, the pressure comes off to go back to any old job and it puts the leverage more with the unemployed worker than it does with the employer >> mike, great stuff thanks so much. meantime we've got a news alert on lordstown motors. phil lebeau has it for us. >> wilf, take a look at shares of lordstown motors. under a little pressure after the company announcing in a press release that it has received a notification from the nasdaq that it needs to file its first quarter 10q report, which it has not filed yet otherwise the company is at risk of being delisted. we should point out that it is not saying that delisting is imminent the company still has time to file the 10q but this is them saying that they have been notified by the nasdaq that you need to file this report again, that's the reason you're seeing some pressure on lordstown motors right now >> not a great look. phil, thank you.

keep us posted on that phil lebeau. when we come back, weighing covid risks. new variants being confirmed in countries around the world former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb joins us next on his take of whether that could derail the reopening you can always watch or listen to us live on thgoe on the cnbc app. we'll be right back on "closing bell."

the seven-day average of new covid cases in the u.s. is approximately 15,000 that is down 34% from a week ago and the lowest level since we have seen since the end of march 2020 the seven-day average for hospitalizations near 19,000 deaths at 400. there was a jump in that number in late may but that's due to a number of states working through backlogs of death certificates or reclassifying fatalities. more than 50% of the u.s. population has now received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the cdc joining us to discuss all of this is dr. scott gottlieb who is a cnbc contributor. so the numbers clearly, dr. gottlieb, are moving in the right direction. that's led to this resurgence in the economy, the reopening trade in the stock market. but there are still some questions. as more and more people get

vaccinated, what do we know about those that have been vaccinated, whether they still get sick or even hospitalized with covid-19, is there more data >> well, the data that's coming out is very encouraging. both the data out of the u.s. and out of israel. it shows a sharp reduction in severe disease consistent with what we saw in the clinical trials but also a reduction in transmission the data coming out of israel and the data coming out of the u.s., people fully vaccinated are much less likely to transmit the infection, even if they become asymptomatically infected that was the basis for the cdc's recommendation that people who were fully vaccinated no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors it was the realization that even if they are asymptomatically infected, they are less likely to transmit the infection to others so it's encouraging i think the gains that we're seeing are secured for the summer i think you're going to see prevalence levels continue to decline. i'm watching hospitalizations, those have been steadily declining. it's a lagging indicator of the overall morbidity of the disease

in the population but we're seeing it come down and i would expect that to accelerate. >> if that's true, why then do we still need to wear masks on cruise ships and airplanes and in doctors' offices? it seems a little bit arbitrary if we don't need them in restaurants and gyms, where many more infections and spreads have been traced to during the course of the disease >> yeah, they are deemed to be higher risk settings, especially in a medical environment where you have people who are vulnerable i suspect they'll be required in medical environments for a protracted period of time. i think you'll see the mask requirements get pulled away from a lot of these settings they'll be maintained in certain settings like cruise ships in part because that's going to be the cdc requirement in those kinds of settings. i think you'll see masks less common as prevalence declines going into the summer. people still wear masks going into stores even if they have been fully vaccinated. i've done it myself. i think it's a part of social

etiquette right now. i think as people become less concerned about coronavirus more generally during the summertime, you're going to start to see mask mandates and utilization, not mandates but utilization really decline the risk will be quite low even for individuals unvaccinated, although i think people should get vaccinated but if the virus isn't circulating at very high levels, the risk will be low to most individuals. >> dr. gottlieb, would you say as we stand today that there's almost no case for us to consider going back into lockdown later in the year or at any point going forward given that we've kind of gone through that process, the benefits might be lower and there's got to be a time limit as to whether those types of actions are the right path forward when you consider the trade-offs >> well, look, i think that there's going to be a readjudication of nonpharmaceutical mitigations. not to take that out of the playbook should we face another pandemic in the future but to

rethink the strategies and look at what was effective and what was less effective in the context of sars-cov-2. barring something unexpected with this virus, i don't think that we're going to be in a situation where we have to go back to broad-based mitigation you might see selected mitigation in certain cities if we have epidemics in the winter or selected school closures, but it's going to be reactive. it's going to be where there are dense epidemics but nothing on the scale of what we have experienced. look, we'll continue to chip away at the vaccination rates. right now we're at about 62% of adults vaccinated. we'll probably get close to 70% by july 4th which was the president's goal there will probably be a dropoff as we get into june and july -- july and august, excuse me it will pick back up as people kaunt late going back to work, back to work in the -- back to school in the fall. >> there's this crazy aggressive

variant from nepal which is a mix of the indian and south african variants that could have been brauought by mt. everest climbers if we do get a variant, is there a public policy plan for such a thing happening? >> look, we need to reformulate the vaccines to target a new variant if one does pierce the existing vaccines. using these fully synthetic manufacturing processes both pfizer and moderna are using, you can scale up production of a new vaccine than we could have for the process we used for influenza. remember, the virus is trying to mutate the spike protein that it uses to attach to the lining of our respiratory tract in a way that it evades the antibodies we've developed so it needs to

change so our systems no longer use that protein so it can't change it so much that it no longer binds to our cells. so it's trying to thread a very careful needle here. a lot of people think that the genetic diversity that it's likely to undergo, we've seen a lot of it. that doesn't mean there aren't going to be new mutations that emerge that have new characteristics, but it's probably mutated very rapidly in a short period of time, reached a new fitness level and perhaps it's going to slow down in its rate of mutation. >> you talk of the virus there as if it's a conscious being, dr. gottlieb, which i know you're not implying. >> it's trying to be. >> exactly could make a movie out of it, perhaps based on your new book i want to move on to the debate about the origins of the virus which of course has picked up steam this week as you know only too well when you do take a step back and look at some people's fury at how suggestions last year at the peak of the virus that this possibly was a china virus, that

it possibly did come from a china lab, how those stories were shot down, do you have sympathy with people that have fury towards that today or if you were thrown back six months, thrown back 12 months, would you come to the same conclusions this people came to a year or so ago based on the information we knew then? >> well, look, i think we should have kept an open mind all the way through and explored both possibilities and not trusted the chinese government necessarily to be open about what the origins of this were. but initially when we looked at the virus, when the virologists looked at the virus, the genetic diversity they saw in this virus while highly novel could have been derived from nature from that they drew a conclusion that the most likely origin was a zoonotic source and animal source and that was a reasonable conclusion to draw at the outset over time as we have been unable to establish that origin, as more circumstantial evidence has come forward implicating it and

the chinese government's behavior in terms of information they won't make available, we need to look more carefully at the potential lab leak theory. so we should have been open from the outset i see why a lot of scientists felt that the balance of the evidence tipped heavily in favor of a zoonottic source. statistically that's the highest probability source even now. but given that a year and a half has passed and we've accumulated other evidence and the behavior of the chinese government has to be a piece of evidence in terms of what they have deliberately withheld i think it's tipping more in the direction of potentially a lab leak >> wow what is that evidence? what is the new evidence that points to the lab leak that we didn't know before >> well, look, the circumstantial evidence that's been made public so far is that there were illnesses in the wuhan institute of viralology right around the time the virus made its first entry into the

region also that that institute was doing experimentation with coronaviruses. it made it more likely that it would evolve in a way to infect humans the fact that the chinese government has withheld the blood samples of people that worked in that lab, the fact that they withheld the source strains of the virus, the fact that they haven't made available samples from the patient population early on so we could see the evolution of the virus, these are all facts. the facts that we've looked exhaustively for the so-called animal host and have not found it and fully disproven, even the chinese government concedes the market was not the source of the outbreak, those are all pieces of evidence that have emerged over time. you know, what is the additional evidence that proves that this came from an animal source there is none other than the fact that when you look at the sequence, the genetic diversity in the virus could have been derived from nature. >> dr. gottlieb, just finally,

where are we on the gottlieb restaurant tracker last weekend it was one dinner out. are we up to a dinner and a brunch out, or what now? >> we're doing dinners you know, last week when i was at that restaurant, unfortunately there was only one other couple in the restaurant so it wasn't well attended but probably my next go-around hopefully will be a busy restaurant. >> or maybe fortunately because it was safer if it was your first outing >> there was one other couple and there was an air purifier in between us so the restaurant was taking precautions. >> either you're taking precautions or you're out of touch in terms of what's trendy in restaurants. >> that too. >> dr. gottlieb, thanks for joining us good to see you as always. meanwhile shares of aurora cannabis are down more than 35% in the last year will a shift in corporate attitudes towards pot turn things around? and laterwhat do financial advisers really think about crypto we've got new data on how many

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assaulting or interfering with police officers. 40 others accused of using dangerous weapons. bail now set at half a million bucks for a woman charged in connection with the disappearance of a 5-year-old boy named samuel olson theresa balboa arrested after searchers found a child's body in a texas motel while the body has not yet been positively identified, officials say they do believe it's the child's. balboa so far charged only with tampering with evidence. and after years of waiting, the house judiciary committee is finally getting to question the former white house counsel, don mcgahn he was subpoenaed back in april of 2019 to answer questions about possible trump campaign ties to russia one congressman says mcgahn was cooperative but difficult. tonight, what did lawmakers learn, and where could the new testimony lead we'll break it all down on the news, 7:00 eastern, cnbc sara, back to you. >> all right, shep, thank you.

see you then. after the break here on "closing bell" some pot stocks getting a pop this week after amazon said it would stop testing job seekers for marijuana. we'll talk to the ceo of aurora cannabis and get his take on the policy change, next. in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities.

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amazon announcing plans this week to support federal legislation to decriminalize marijuana. the company also said it will no longer test certain workers for cannabis that news initially sparked a rally in pot stocks but only tilray and sun dial finished the week higher. one company that could benefit from the support is aurora cannabis the stock finishing lower today but has rallied 25% in the last three weeks. joining us is the ceo, miguel martin miguel, how significant is it what amazon did when it comes to changing its policy testing workers for marijuana? >> i think it's really significant. if you look at the mainstreaming of cannabis and not only the support that amazon put behind their workers but also their support of the moore act, it's really important in alaska cannabis legislation

got more votes than any other politician and the steady drumbeat of passing recreational policies in the u.s. and around the world, it's consistent but a critical component to mainstreaming of cannabis around the world. >> what do you think amazon is up to in supporting that federal legislation, which passed the house but is not likely to pass the senate with the filibuster >> i think, you know, it's hard for me to say. i'd say it's a recognition of exactly where this issue is going. they have announced a significant amount of employees will be in virginia. and the legalization of cannabis so i just think it's getting ahead of what we're seeing nationally i just don't think there's any chance that we're not talking about if, we're talking about when it's a great issue both sides of the aisle, both political and social, and it's not just the u.s. you look at canada where it really is a core component of the municipal market we happen to be the number one medical cannabis company in

canada but also key european markets such as germany. new announcements we're seeing in france and progression in the uk it's definitely a global phenomenon >> so the question then is back to your company and other canadian companies that, as you say, you're the leader in medical cannabis but you've struggled and some of the others have as well in the canadian market lately. can a canadian leader become a u.s. leader as the u.s. does open up legally for marijuana? >> there's no question if you look at what it takes to be successful in the u.s., you want regulatory compliance, you want innovation, you want experience the same regulatory pathway, which is incredibly difficult to navigate in canada, germany, france and all around the world, that experience clearly sets us up to be successful in the u.s the same companies like aurora being successful in country after country after country, and there's just not a scenario where that's not going to add value in the u.s i strongly believe there will be a federal framework for

cannabis president biden has been very consistent about decriminalization for the start in medical for companies like aurora i expect the fda to find a role in regulating this category and there's a strong correlation between what you'd see in canada, manufacturing, packaging, sales and marketing the way you see in the u.s we're one of the few companies that have demonstrated that regulatory adherence and compliance around the world. >> so what's your play how have you been planning and gearing up for some of these moves in the u.s. and taking some of the learnings and some of the struggles from canada with you >> well, right now given our place on the nasdaq, i mentioned it's a big world so we've demonstrated a lot of different areas but particularly around science and innovation. we were excited to announce our biosynthesis so we've invested there, added

key talent to our canadian business i mentioned earlier we operate in over 12 countries around the world, and so the evolution of connecting with consumers, innovation, regulatory compliance and key products in all of those key markets benefits us at a time in which we can participate in the u.s. i expect that to be very soon and there's no doubt that lps will have a big role to play in the u.s. cannabis business. >> it's been a bumpy ride for shareholders, miguel the stock is well off of its highs that we saw a few years ago. questions about profitability. what do you think is the key there for getting investors to see the potential that you're talking about? >> well, i think they want to see a plan to demonstrate you can be profitable. the margins are very good from a medical standpoint they're around 60. we announced an initiative about 60 to $80 million a year to be positive without any revenue growth and there's tailwinds if you look at key markets

including the u.s. and around the world, i think there's a lot to like about a strong, diversified cannabis company like aurora that has leadership in science, innovation, medical and recreation so i would tell investors to keep looking for those data points and i fully expect aurora to be one of those companies that will be successful globally if you're bullish on cannabis, you should be bullish on a diversified company like aurora. >> some of the meme reddit traders of picked up on your competitors like tilray and sundial. we've got to leave it there. thank you for joining us. >> thank you so much for having us earlier today microstrategy ceo michael saylor spoke at a bitcoin conference in miami and explained what pushed him to become a big believer in cryptocurrency. >> i guess i lost faith in all of my traditional investment strategies >> now it seems like a lot of financial advisers might agree with that philosophy

we'll g todiin a new crypto survey and the results might surprise you surprise you "closing bell" back in a couple. the physical seam of a digital world, traded with a touch. my strongest and closest asset. the gold standard, so to speak ;) people call my future uncertain. but there's one thing i am sure of...

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are starting to play catchup >> clients are doing it away from you, you just don't know. so what you're starting to see is with the run-up, with a lot of wealth and money that is being made in this stuff, they're now coming to the advisers saying, wait, i put $50,000 in this, now it's x. it's x >> about 49% of the advisers say clients have asked about cryptocurrencies in the past six months threefold increase since last according to a new report. 26% plan to increase how much they use and recommend cryptocurrencies in the next 12 months and 14% are using or recommending crypto, right now up from less than 1% in 2019 and 2020 financial planner ivy johnson, said advisers are trying to help clients understand how crypto fits into their overall portfolio. >> traditional strategies that we would with any other asset

class, what's the time horizon what's the tolerance for risk? that will determine how much of of the bitcoin do you put into the portfolio? >> he iso he said he is starting to add bitcoin for the portfolio of clients as a store of value in what he saw as an increasingly inflationary environment. sarah. >> it's surprising, sharon the numbers high are than i would have thought on the advisers talking to clients about it. thank you very much sharon epperson. still ahead, the countdown on monday as the administration self-imposed deadline for the infrastructure deal. the latest on where the negotiations stand next. and june is pride month. and we're spotlighting cnbc contributors, business leaders and our own cnbc anchors and producers. here is cnbc's chris dillela. >> i learned 42% of lgbtq youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year that statistic was shocking.

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the clock's ticking towards the deadline for progress on an infrastructure deal. elon mui with a look on where things stand elon. >> they are still talking at least. president biden and sheli moore captain ov spoke over the phone this afternoon they agreed to connect again on monday, which is the date the administration had set for getting clear direction in the negotiations also worth noting though, president biden spoke with democratic congressman peter did he fast owe with the, the chairman of the house transportation committee, just

released a $547 billion-dollar plan for fixing roads, bridges, highway. the white house still keeping all options for now. back over to you. >> investors will be watching that closely, elan thank you very much. had mike, we won't get a lot of fed speak because it's blackout period ahead of the meeting the week after but we will get the cpi report for may which will be important, market moving. we certainly saw the power of a hot inflation report that month around what else will you be watching. >> we did. although, again, i think we might be too early in the process of seeing this kind of surge in statistical inflation to settle the debate as to whether it's sticking around a while. but yeah, no doubt we can move on that news in terms of what else we're watching, i do think it's still remaining about whether we have genuine follow-through we've kind of been in the holding pattern, a benign holding pattern seven weeks right now as the meme stocks go crazy. the core of the market take a

nap. today was a sign that maybe it wants to break to the upside see if it has follow-through. >> keep an eye on bitcoin there's been bumpy weekends of late a lot of bitcoin buyers might be liquid eighting to spend on drinks perhaps extra bumpy. all of that to come over the weekend and next week. before that you have the excellent "fast money," starting right now. live from the nasdaq market site overlook new york city's time square. i'm melissa lie. karen finerman, steve grasso guy adami and sim teerm. tonight on fast heading for a record stock staging a health rally over the past month and not even the disappointing jobs report did he rails it we bring you the trades. and building a legacy old school stocks have been leaching disrupters in the dust this year do you stick with the og or jump to the next again. we debate. did elon break up with bitcoin by tweet, the crypto post that sent prices dropping show