those catalysts could come at any point in time. people are looking for china let's not wait for that. >> weiss over to you >> yeah, josh strap in because this is going to be a second shock of the show. facebook looking for the breakout trade to a new all-time high i think it keeps going and it's a cheap stock relative to the market given their growth. >> josh, last word >> shake shack up 12% today. big china expansion plans. rock and roll. >> that's it for "halftime." "the exchange" begins right now. thank you, frank holland hi, everybody. i'm kelly evans. on top of that infrastructure news that's just breaking, we'll catch you up on all the fed speak today. the hawks seem to be taking on the doffves. we'll look at who will win out on the timeline over tightening and how markets are expected to react. plus, we'll also talk about some drug deal making in the pharma sector that's expected to reach a record high total this

year of over $300 billion in deals. we've got the names that could be ripe for a takeover and bitcoin, should you respond? we'll explore the battle taking place in cities across the country between innovation and energy usage on the other. we start with today's markets. mr. chu has those numbers. >> high energy for the markets overall. we're green across the screen. bulls wing out dow industrials up 34,192 the s&p, 0.5%. 26 points there. the nasdaq, 14373. 100-point there. i get to draw the yellow golden stars next to these. the nasdaq and s&p because they both hit record intraday highs today. also looking at the big internet stocks if you look at the white line, that's the first trust dow jones internet ticker and the invesco qqq. that tracks the nasdaq 100 it's been outperforming numerous

times and even more so since the market's recent lows back in the middle part of may since then, by the way, this particular large cap internet megacap internet etf is up 17%, 18% since mid-may versus a respectable 11% gain for the nasdaq 100 overall. yes, it's those megacap names like facebook, alphabet, amazon doing a lot of the heavy lifting now. and check out this stock of the day. restaurant side of things we've been talking about the reopening trade for months now quarters at this stage darden restaurants kelly, you are an olive garden-type gal, i can tell this if you look at darden restaurants up 3.5% today. a doubling over the last year. why? because their restaurant deals are almost where they were prepandemic back in 2019 and it's not olive garden that's driving the biggest growth there. guess which chain it is. >> red lobster >> no, because they sold that off. remember that. it was private equity.

but it's longhorn steakhouse 13.5% sales growth established restaurant locations comped back to 2019. so prepandemic they're almost there darden restaurants getting a bid today. >> still miss the cheddar biscuits a developing story in washington we apparently have a deal on infrastructure, evidently with a $1 trillion price. let's get to more from ylan. >> the president apparently made that announcement to reporters just after meeting with the bipartisan group of senators at the white house for roughly an hour or so biden said he had to make compromises on investing in human capital and the care economy but they did end up coming to an agreement now we know that the rough price tag for this framework is about a trillion dollars that includes about $559 billion in new spending and we are hoping to get more details soon. but all eyes now are going to be

on the senate because today, several progressive democrats made it clear they will not vote for a smaller bipartisan package unless there's also an agreement to move forward on the rest of president biden's $4 trillion agenda without republican support. and senate majority leader chuck schumer said that it can't be just one or the other. bipartisan or budget reconciliation it has to be both. so we will await further details of this package, but again, president biden saying that they do have a deal on a bipartisan framework. kelly? >> why do people keep calling this a trillion-dollar package if only half is new spending and how is it being paid for >> well, that's one thing we don't know how it's going to be paid for senator rob portman said after that meeting that there will be no new taxes i can tell you that at least part of the money will be repurposed funding for broadband. that was in one of the covid relief packages. that will be used to pay for some of the broadband spending in the bill.

the rest of it we just don't know yet hoping to find out soon. as for the price tag, math can be fuzzing in washington some of the money is money that might have been spent anyways because of ongoing appropriations, but the key figure i think is how much in new spending are they going to come to have up with because that's where you'll have to find the pay-fors >> half a trillion in new spending portman said there would be no new taxes? what are the other options to pay for it >> the democrats have been talking about enhanced irs enforcement. some of that money coming from closing the tax gap. republicans have been talking about repurposing covid funding. they are also talking about some sort of infrastructure financing bank, public/private partnerships so we'll see what they're able to cobble together to pay for this, but that has been the sticking point all along, and we'll see whether or not republicans and democrats, the rest of them in the caucus are going to be on board with this

as well. >> is the s.a.l.t. deduction in this >> my understanding it's not involved in this particular discussion but what i can tell you, according to a source familiar is that it is part of the discussion around that budget reconciliation process that would be sort of the rest of the agenda. democrats are looking at setting aside $120 billion for either lifting the s.a.l.t. cap or removing it altogether for about five years that's part of the discussion on the rest of it which would have to be done without republican support. >> yeah. ylan, a lot of news this afternoon. thank you. ylan mui bringing us up to speed. the president who said we have a deal will be speaking about this issue some time this afternoon we'll bring you that when it does happen. in the meantime, we've had a lot of fed speak today the fed is looking at what's going to happen on the fiscal piece of things. the hawks versus the doves caplan and bullard are set to

speak this hour as their battle heats up and grows more intense between the hawks and doves. representing the hawks is atlanta fed president bostick. on the dovish side, john williams says it's too early to start talks. and she's not yet thinking about adjusting monetary policy. chair powell himself sticks with his earlier forecast and his belief that inflation is transitory so where does this all leave investors? joining me now is david, the chief market strategist at jeffrey's. unapologetically bullish always got the merch to back up the investment calls i know the blues aren't part of the story right now, but let's just focus on the investment applications here in light of what ylan just said about the infrastructure bill. what are the implications here for markets? >> so, you know, kelly, i think we've all been expecting

something from what i can tell from what you said, it sounds a little bit smaller than many had expected so i don't expect it moves much of the needle. the fed debate as you touched it a number of presidents trying to stake rather aggressive real estate claims on the fringes they're typically the ones that do that or have been doing that. jim is a little bit of a surprise but he's tended to flip flop a lot over the last decade. so i don't see any great surprises, and i think powell stayed the course the whole time, whether it was a press conference or recent testimony i think he's giving you exactly the road map of where they are and a lot will depend on data. a lot will depend on this employment data and a bit on inflation, but inflation is a lagging indicator. >> people talk about the strength of the economy. they fall on the camp of it's so strong it's going to be inflationary or not that strong and deflation is the concern i feel like you're in the middle for a lot of people trying to figure out, they see the price hikes, they understand some of

it is a one-time pandemic effect but other parts of this could be more sticky. the amount of -- if monetary velocity were to pick up tomorrow, this could be a very different story. where are we and the inflation/deflation debate right now? >> the velocity of money has continuously collapsed now for decades. so this idea that monetary agrigates portend anything for inflation still remains an elusive idea further, kelly, this whole phillip's curve concept seems to keep coming back something we've tried to beat down at jefferies for many, many years now. this idea that somehow strong growth and strong employment growth are correlated with lots of inflation didn't work it didn't work in the '90s and 2000s. and february of 2020, we were three handles on unemployment rates and we were still missing our target by 50, 60 basis points on the down side in inflation. why is it now all of a sudden, after covid, that the phillips

curve is going to resurface and bring this inflation that everybody is getting worried about? you have great stories for why there's temporary inflation. great stories. bottle necks you have nothing that tells you that there's some permanent change >> but you see wages going up. and i think that's the piece of this that was missing for much of the last expansion. people are just saying is this going to be a one-time effect or should we expect to see nice wage gains for the foreseeable future i guess more broadly speaking, is this an economy so strong that any fed support is absurd and ridiculous on its face and needs to go away immediately or is this so weak that if the fed hints like it did last week at tapering, the 10-year slides back under 1.5%? >> i don't understand how you can talk about a labor market that's overheating when we have 7.5 million less people working than we did in february of 2020. that's not an overheating labor market by any stretch of the

imagination. let's take a million out for early retirement let's throw a little more even if you want. or some people who are going to have to say they got detached in a more permanent way it baffles me. and i understand the wage story is interesting we got rid of a lot of highly labor intensive business with lower labor costs associated with them. we'll bring those back slowly and probably at a lower level than we had them before and that's going to drag back down the wage story but productivity numbers look off the charts 5%, 6% businesses have figured out how to do a lot of things with less labor. more gdp with 7.5 million less people so again, i'm struggling tosee why the hawks -- they jump from financial instability risks to wages to some phantom phillip's curve. i think there's just not a story there. it's great headlines to be out there, be hawkish and stake your

claim and be the first person that starts talking about it and rattle the bond market and stock market >> when do you think they're going to start talking about and then start actually doing the taper? >> i'm a believer that jackson hole is too early. we'll probably get something in the very beginning of next year and honestly, i think jay's swan song before he leaves the position because i think there will be a new chair next year, his term is up in february, is to -- whoever the next fed chair is maybe that's january or a little earlier. >> you see clear sailing for the stock market from this point of view as well it's counterintuitive and goes against the conventional grain david, good to see you >> always a pleasure >> david zervos of jefferies downtown los angeles, the newest apple store there opening moments ago and the ceo tim

cook, you can see him -- that's the head of retail as well that we just spoke to yesterday here on the network she and tim cook, apple's ceo, making their -- is it a surprise appearance he shows up every time shaking hands, taking pictures it's amazing the store openings can still garner this much excitement more than a decade into that. coming up, bitcoin miners are looking for a new home beijing cracks down crypto they could be heading to texas despite all the concerns about the fragile energy grid. >> we're here in rockdale, texas. you can feel the heat and wind these supercomputers making new bitcoin. we'll tell you after the break why miners say they're not a risk for the texas energy grid

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welcome back as states like texas and florida court bitcoin miners, let's get to a cautionary tale that illustrates the process and peril of miner they flocked to new york for the cheap energy but their consumption caused a host of problems tha problems what happened after this

experiment began >> well it forced us to use a lot of the quota for the cheap energy we get from the river and it caused our constituents to be in an uproar because of the much higher electricity costs that they incurred. >> is this a unique situation in plattsburg that you had one cheap energy use that you used up for mining? >> 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour and once that quota was used up, we had to foot the bill across the entire city for the difference >> could other cities be better off or, are you uniquely sort of positioned that way or is this the way it works pretty much across the country >> somewhat. if you think about it, there's only a fixed amount of electricity to go around and if you start using 10%, 15% of your supply like we were diverting to bitcoin, very quickly it increases the rates everywhere for everybody and puts a lot of pressure on the grid as well

>> i wonder if people can look to your experiment, why they think theirs might end differently this time. >> hopefully they can learn from some of the things we had to endure we put in a whole set of building and safety codes and a code that requires the bitcoin operators to convert that excess heat to actually heating buildings and structures, et cetera, to do so in a sustainable way. maybe they can avoid with good planning some of the problems that we had to work out for ourselves. >> fascinating to think about how that heat could be redeployed i lived outside syracuse many, many years i know what it's like out there. could use the eatheat over the winter you went so far as to ban crypto mining >> just a moratorium until we could get all the protections in place and then opened it up again and required them to realize the building code safety measures and recycling just a portion of the heat and no longer any bitcoin people interested before that we were having a

number of applicants every single week trying to beat down our door to get in >> do you suspect that places who want bitcoin mining don't care what happened in your case? that they might say, whatever, it will be good for us for a short period of time, and by the time it becomes a problem we'll let them move on >> in a short period of time, i think is the operational term because we don't know how long this phenomenon is going to last until we move to a proof of state kind of model as well. counties and cities are in place by all these promises of job creation which, when you look into it, and i have, they just don't materialize. we had one of the biggest bit coin operators in the world operating here and generated only a handful of jobs >> i'm curious what your own viewpoint, if you -- the extent you've had one on crypto, how that's evolved as you had a front-row seat to this experiment offever the last few years. >> i'm a fan of crypto and digital currency

they are the wave of the future. we'll see nations and central banks getting into it, certainly. but it just needs to be done right. it's not if we should do it but how we should do it well we're not implementing it very well yet >> the final takeaway is, if you want bitcoin mining you have to do it in a way almost disconnected from the local electric grid. any cheap -- we think you mentioned niagara river. think about niagara falls. a lot of people in the community want to use renewable sources of energy if somebody did this at scale, how big a scale are we talking in terms of the financial investment or natural resources they'd need to pull this off >> oh, it's absolutely huge. we are up to 10% or 15% of the electricity for the entire facility just going to that one industry basically almost only one provider alone and you might say, well, they bought the -- there's a case in maine where they purchased a dam good on them but that's diverting power that could be used in more socially responsible ways at the same

time we need to come to grips with how we're going to generate the safety in this industry and do so in a sustainable manner rather than this wealth approach we've been doing up until now. >> colin, thanks for joining us and providing this needed context. >> colin reed was the former mayor of plattsburg, new york. let's go to texas where they're embarking on this experiment kate rooney is here with more for us kate >> kelly, bitcoin mining facilities like the one near rockdale, texas, take a lot of energy you can see these supercomputers behind me. they're stacked about 20 feet in the air. the hallway is about 3 to 4 football fields long a lot of people in texas are wondering a little bit worried here about what this means for the already fragile energy grid. miners, though, say they shouldn't be worried energy here in texas is among the cheapest in the country. texas operates its own power grid it's deregulated but it has been proven to be pretty fragile during peak

demand the state saw rolling blackouts in the winter and sees the same during heat waves. miners say they shut down operations at times like that. we saw it here yesterday and because they buy energy on a long-term contract at stable prices they can often sell it back into the market at a premium when the prices spike. they say they are not competing with folks at home trying to run their air conditioning miners get a notification from the power grid operator known as ercot. they can flip off a switch and turn off these mines in seconds. it's been roughly 98 degrees here we saw it happen a couple of times. this means they are also losing out on a key source of income. of course, new bitcoin it's up to the miners to make that call. they push back on the idea that some might try to get around this system. >> anybody that enters into this business as you can see because of the infrastructure behind us, it's capital intense bad actors, typically, aren't

spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build these facilities so you're wanting a to receive the best incentives, the most benefits from the city, the state and the counties and to do that, you have to hire, behave properly and be actually just be a good citizen >> miners say that in more normal times they actually help balance the power grid by adding demand to places like rockdale and more rural areas versus cities like dallas or houston. back to you. >> we'll see if this goes the way of plattsburg, new york. kate rooney in texas today coming up, "the wall street journal report"ing that our parent company comcast considered merge with viacomcbs. comcast calls the report pure speculation. where could the next megamedia merger be? plus, teamsters are voting on a plan to unionize amazon workers.

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the infrastructure deal was just apparently finalized thinking through the implications of what part of it is new funding and what portion could contribute to have pay-fors in corporate taxes and other things that's all to be discussed when we get more details from the president. we're keeping a close eye on the sectors powering this rally. financials and tech back in the leadership financials up more than 1% in terms of the individual movers, fedex is moving higher and "the wall street journal" is reporting it suspended service for 1400 of its freight customers this month in an effort to ease congestion on its shipping sumed some services playboy's parent company is up after stifel initiated the stock with a buy rating at a $52 price target they expect the company to use their strong balance sheet to make some moves. playboy shares up 6.5% let's get to rahel solomon for a cnbc news update >> let's begin in florida where

in the last 30 minutes, the governor told reporters that rescuers are hopeful of bring something survivors out of the rubble after a 12-story beachside condo collapsed overnight near miami >> right now, we have the fire rescue they are in search and rescue mode they are trying to identify survivors. i know they have made contact with some. and they are doing everything they can to save lives and that is ongoing. and they're not going to rest. >> the justice department is urging state and local courts to delay tenant evictions before they ask for the court's permission to carry out an eviction pending cases could be delayed for up to 60 days to give landlords time to apply for that assistance the cdc does not expect to extend the pandemic eviction plan past july and a town in chile would like to find a new home for some

300 sea lions that have taken over its beaches local authorities think they may be onshore to avoid killer whales or orcha orcas in the war there may not be a lot the town can do because there's a ten-year ban on removing sea lions from their natural habitat. they're also asking people to avoid and not feed the sea lions. >> makes for great photos in the meantime a robert redstone rumor, the nfl's media moves. that and much more is in today's rapid fire right after this quick break.

let's catch you up on a couple of stories that should be on your radar. joining me to break down the headlines, bob pisani, sarah fisher and ed lee of the "new york times." big media theme here today great to have you with us. we're going to begin with a streaming land grab after the bombshell discovery and time warner spinoff last month. all eyes on the media giants to see where the next megamerger might occur. "the wall street journal report"ing comcast's ceo says he doesn't feel the need to seek a

merger but hasn't ruled out targets like roku or viacom. in a statement, comcast called that report, quote, pure speculation. the shares down on the report, about half a percent higher today. and they are the parent company of cnbc and nbc universal. ed lee, who do you believe >> look, i think there's a state of play in the media landscape right now where everything is always for sale anyway whether or not brian roberts is actively seeking out acquisitions i'm more inclined to believe what he's saying in a statement. that they're not really looking immediately. at the same time, you know, viacomcbs is a definite target in this space. so it's -- it would be ridiculous to suggest no one is not thinking about it, but i don't think it's as active as the journal story makes it out to be, largely because of antitrust concerns if you oar if that deal were to happen you'd have paramount joining with universal you'd have cbs joining with nbc.

so there is a lot of authority of regulatory issues with a deal like that. i don't know that's a route that brian roberts wants to take. >> sarah, i see you nodding along with that point about antitrust. but the landscape has changed so much in a way they're all up against big tech >> yeah, but you still can't own two broadcast networks that's 100% going to be addressed if they were to go after viacom they'd have to probably divest one of them and then ask yourself, what's valuable about viacomcbs without potentially cbs? and then how much regulatory scrutiny is already on something like comcast, which just a few years ago you'll remember bought sky. they're already touching so many things the regulatory concerns are paramount here, no pun intended. i think of that report, the sexier option would be an acquisition of roku. i agree with ed lee. i don't think they're actively pursuing it right now but comcast has made interesting plays in distribution.

xfinity x1 is really smart roku seems like the better option here. expand your distribution footprint as opposed to really going on the content side. >> bob, this gets into the business models of the likes of comcast. has investors thinking through what model they want that to be going forward. >> yeah, i can tell you what model i want i love being part of comcast i was with general electric when nbc was there. we were sort of flapping appendage at the end i think this synergy works here. comcast, nbc, broadband. i think it works very well people say at&t and time warner didn't work. well, maybe comcast has better management maybe it manages the properties better i'm just saying. what everybody wants here is global, international distribution that's an issue. have to figure out a way to do that and get better distribution for peacock. buy roku for $75 billion how are they going to integrate that brian roberts, you can build out a streaming service of your own, i know you can, and i want to

stay with you. just my own opinion. >> sara, last quick word here. >> yeah, no, i agree it's a pricey acquisition if you were to go into something like roku but i don't know that comcast can build that out look at the players existing between amazon's fire tv, google chromecast and roku. not a lot of wiggle room to inch your way in there. it may be easier to buy his way in >> that's a way to think about it roku shares a few years ago might have looked more attractive than today. topic two today is what your spac deal says buzzfeed announced its decision to go public via spac. but here's what the ceo had to say early or "tech check" when asked about that >> i would say there was definitely a high period for digital media when a lot of companies were growing quickly but didn't have strong, sustainable businesses we've seen growth reaccelerate last year and into this year and

it's very exciting time right now where digital media is maturing and hitting the period where it's real businesses can be built with real defensiblity, scalablity, profitability and growth s. it too late for buzzfeed? >> it's not too late but i take issue with his sense of this idea of growth yes, the ad market has come roaring back to life especially in digital. especially during the pandemic and sort of premium placements like buzzfeed have benefited from that. at the same time, it seems his growth strategy is to acquire things, right? so as part of this spac announcement, they'll acquire complex networks and he's now talking about doing more acquisitions. so, i mean, it sort of suggests they can't quite grow enough organically so, therefore, they need to keep buying up other things that may be a smart bet but at the same time, what does it say about the underlying business that's what he has to keep doing

to get growth. >> bob >> well, i agree with ed two problems number one, the spac model in general i have problems with it's a tough situation when you have to give up the way most spac models are, 20% of the company to the sponsor that's a really tough thing to give up in my opinion. they're doing that you look at the competition. some of the other companies out there, group 9, vice media it seems to me it's pretty intensifying in terms of the competition. and this is indeed a vehicle for either acquiring or itself getting acquired >> totally feels like a roll-up. let's talk about google which announced it's delayed its plan to end third party cookies until 2023 google is trying to increase privacy but ending cookie support has huge implications for the advertising industry some big ad tech names are soaring on this news trade desk is up almost 14%. the others moving higher as

well as alphabet pulls more than 80% of ad revenue from the digital ads will this hurt their bottom line tell us what the story is all about. >> i think google is going to win here no matter what because the proposals it's seeking to phase out third party cookies, the biggest ones they're getting people to coalesce around are theirs they'll figure out a way to win. the big winner today are those other ad tech firms you just talked about their businesses are built on tracking cookies you think about criteo or the trade desk they need to scramble to find a replacement. we thought they were going away in 2022. everyone was scrambling to figure out what to do. now they have another year and a half to breathe and figure this out, kelly it's a huge, huge advantage for them but ultimately what does this mean for the digital ad market dollars are not going to shift away from digital. they're going to migrate into different places and ultimately we're going to see that tracking is going to be

very different you'll not see as many ads creeping up on you on the internet that's hopefully a good thing for consumers, if we can get it right. >> they could keepic ca kicking can down the road which has this ad campaign about how private the iphone is, raising the ire of apps like facebook all over again. so where is this all heading if it's getting more private, won't ads be less effective? >> so i think we have to sort of redefine private a little bit. i think the solutions -- they are kicking the can down the road is true but the solutions here looking forward to replace these cookies are cookie-like. in some ways you'll still be tracked even though it won't be tracked in the way that had it done before, advertisers still want to sort of get that targeting. so they're going to get it through sort of other types of systems and sara reported on that it was a very good story or they'll do first party cookies. and that's actually something that i think is something -- is

an area yet to be fully explored google and facebook have some first party data marketers like nike and proctor & gamble have their own first party data they'll marry their first party data at the back end and still track you that way since you sort of willingly have guiven u your information on the first party end of it. it gets trickier that way. they'll still find a way to maximize that targeting, just not in the way they're doing now. it will look similar in the future is what i think >> would you agree with that bottom line on this? >> totally agree and the last thing i'll say is we've got a bunch of proposals for national privacy laws here people are eyeing that so for google to get ahead of this is strategic and smart before they have a law that forces their hand anyway >> that old play, fair enough. finally today, the national football league is enlisting goldman to explore the possibility of selling stakes in some of its media assets the most profitable professional sports league is looking at restructuring ownership in things like the nfl network,

redzone and digital platforms without selling them completely. jerry jones said we are not selling. we are looking for investment partners we're going to be talking about this as well in our interview next hour. we've been speaking about scale in every story in rapid fire today. talking about what kind of scale we need for the traditional television business. what scale if you're in the digital media business what scale if you are the nfl which ultimately is basically an entertainment product. >> right so that's exactly right. so the nfl, it turns out, has the same problems as everybody else in the media business same problem as the cord cutting business which is how do you get as broad a distribution as possible they see that what they've got they've taken nfl league, the nfl franchise business on television as far as they possibly can now they are looking to have other big media partners to expand the distribution. same thing we were talking about with comcast so you're right. here's an interesting question

nfl is really owned by the team owners is the nfl -- are the team owners going to acquiesce if nbc becomes a 10% part in that and they are fractious enough just among the teams. imagine having nfl or abc or espn sitting there next to you >> ed, what would you add? >> i think that's a great point. the issue the nfl has had, as rich as the league is, they are still like a national u.s. sport. i think they really want to be international, right they are looking at the premier league in the uk and all these other football leagues in europe that have international exposure and get those dollars. and that's something that they have yet to crack. the investment dollars they are looking for is really a way to go more international and just find that bigger footprint they need to get bigger despite how big they already are >> sara, it feels like we're past peak. redzone is a great product

i love scott hanson. he does a great job. that's a niche product are they looking for bigger markets for some of these verticals? >> yes, bigger markets, younger markets and more digital think about all of the opportunities around sports right now. you think about things like fantasy and betting and esports. you have to have digital reach the nfl understands that hence their exclusive deal with amazon on thursdays. but they're so far from becoming a digital first knproperty also digitally to younger audiences. >> we'll see if they can pull it off. guys, thanks to all of you still ahead -- the teamsters are taking on amazon, pushing an effort to unionize and claiming it's not just for their own good but for workers across industries as they take on, quote, the existential threat that is amazon can they succeed we have the details, next.

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welcome back, everybody. a major victory for america's most powerful labor organization as they take on amazon diedre bosa here with the details. >> per jeff bezos' final shareholder letter as ceo, he wants amazon to be the best employer now teamsters want to hold him and andy jassey accountable. the nationwide union just passed a resolution creating a special amazon division. the goal here is to aid amazon workers through strikes and, quote, action in the streets amazon's hiring spree last year added 500,000 workers and cemented its position as the second largest employer in the country. one known for what some call its ruthless efficiency. the teamsters see the company's reputation as an existential threat to the standards that it has accomplished with other employers across different industries one member who spoke at the

convention said, quote, i keep hearing amazon is looking to cross over into new industries they're not satisfied with just dom nating logistics what will our communities look like if they continue their monopoly tactics and that, kelly, taps into another pressure point for amazon and that is the building antitrust scrutiny into its business practices that we know lawmakers are looking into and acting on. still, though, the teamsters resolution is one step in what's most likely to be an uphill battle to unionize amazon's workforce. just a few months ago, we covered the failed effort to unionize at a alabama warehouse where workers voted overwhelmingly in amazon's favor against organizing so getting the teamsters' treatment, that raises this battle's profile but it's probably too early to say whether they will have much success here >> any other precedents as to how this can play out? >> the teamsters has been trying to unionize walmart for years

with very little success there and also we know that these labor pressures on amazon, they're nothing new. amazon has been sort of battling them for many years and union efforts haven't had much success. it's a long road and just because you have the teamsters' support doesn't mean that things are going to happen instantly and this is going to be a long, tough slog. >> dierdre bosa, thank you we appreciate it still ahead -- pwc predicting this will be a record for deals in the pharma sector up next, three beaten-down biotech names one strategist ysreipe for a takeover we're back in a moment

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welcome back huge dealmaking is expected in pharma and biotech this year pwc saying m & a will hid a record -- and my next guest says buy them anyway, and joining me is kevin mahn. you know, not an area usually ripe with excitement so why all the excitement for pharma deals

>> covid-19 served as a very painful reminder of solutions in our society, and even beyond there are many rare diseases that still need effective treatments and potentially cures. generally they come from the smaller-tech biocap names. we see the opportunity as it represents to the m & a po temple alternate that have these inovasive healthcare solution that are currently in the approval pipeline. is it atara? >> and of course the first two are smaller-cap names. and sarepta is more of a big-cap name all three, though, represents this type of innovative healthcare treatments that society needs, using t-cell

immunotherapies, such as gene therapies, gene editing to help combat afflictions like cancer, and even multiple sclerosis. >> so tell me just about the valuation of these stocks, if they have therapies that could be a strategic fit for larger businesseses is that already priced in? >> we don't necessarily thing so we're trying to identify the companies that have one drug in like clinical stage 2 or clinical stage 3 trials. that's when those companies are most attractive to the larger-cap pharmaceutical companies that need to acquire these biotech companies to replace potential. >> that's a good point, too.

so final question, pwc is warning about regulatory pushback what kind of concerns are for the regulators here? >> i think it becomes all about the pace of that approval process. we saw in the last four to five years that approval process picking up if it starts to slow down and we see a lot of them stuck between level 2 and level 3 approval status, that could pick up the pace of the acquisition trade. once then get approve, they want to bike they prior to that large premium they may have to buy as we look at the large-cap pharma companies, who would potential be the airr acquirers? we were speaking about the media space earlier and could they all become potential players who in particular doing think has the most urgency

>> of course you always hear about j&j and pfizer look to go enhance their potential, but look at the field that was announced back in february, when jazz pharmaceuticals announced they were going to acquire gw fpharmac pharmaceuticals. that's another example of the type of m & a activity we are experiencing and we think will continue through the remader of 2021 up to potential $275 billion in deal activity anticipated. >> an interesting side effect if you want to call it that thanks for bringing this to us and talking us through it. that does it for "the exchange" today.

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bangs in focus of this hour, ahead of the fed stress test results. it comes as the agency faces new threats. food prices up shipping prices soaring, and california pizza kitchen is caught in the middle the ceo talks with us. and energy still the hottest sector so far this year. there is still time to buy more say some of the experts. we're awaiting president biden, who is set to speak on the infrastructure deal that was just announced about an hour or so ago "power lunch" starts