by him >> the poster and the video puts it over the top for me i don't know about you, robert >> yeah, there you go. >> that definitely gets it over $5 million >> listen, as collectibles go, not the worst one. we talked about how the nft market, the volume had come down and now it's back. thanks for watching "power lunch. "closing bell" starts right now. good afternoon welcome to "closing bell." i'm wilfred frost. the dow looking to close out strong first-half of the year with a bang up triple digits and sitting near session highs the s&p 500 and nasdaq are lagging as we head into the final hour of trade. >> i'm sara eisen. let's look at what's driving the action in this final hour. energy stocks are leading. they've been strong all year long the sector is up 42% so far in 2021 the biggest winner it's a big day for ipos. three key names hitting the public market today. didi, i.d. verification company clear and cybersecurity firm

centinal one more on all of those in just a bit. intel is the worst performer on the dow after delaying production of a new chip but other semi stocks are higher ahead of micron's earnings which come out this afternoon right after the bell 59 minutes left to go in the month, the quarter, the day and the first half of the year coming up -- cashing in on the metaverse. we'll speak with former amazon executive matthew ball about his brand-new etf that tracks names that could benefit from the metaverse. what is the metaverse? plus, our exclusive interview with world bank president david malpass as the organization announces a big ramp up in covid funding. let's focus on the big stories. mike santoli tracking the action dierdre bosa has a look at rideshare didi's first day and now the outperformance of the dow which is a little bit of a reversal

>> we have been flopping back and forth between nasdaq led or dow and small cap led markets. in general, though, the overall market being held in place as measured by the s&p 500 the last couple of days not unusual activity for the end of a quarter for some mechanical reasons, a lot of rebalancings that go on here some suppression and volatility at the end of the quarter. it's been the pattern. and since the march 2020 low, the first few days of a new quarter you've seen a little burst higher on average. 2.2% gain in the first five days if you want to go back and this goes back just to one year so this is june of last year first few days of july actually. so it's basically been this little bit of a pattern. we have gained in the last ten days of this quarter so who knows if that is front loaded some of it is effective. if i've noticed it and tabulated it then people who matter and do this stuff have obviously figured it out that's the backdrop. 14% gain year to date. not too bad for half a year.

look at treasury yields. the curve is flattening just a little bit ten-year yield down below 1.45 what is interesting here, it's not quite giving up that up trend. i keep pointing out we've had very -- there was very little action in this area of below 1.41, let's say is the low from a couple of months ago and so it's not clear exactly if -- where the trend lies what is it interesting is almost the entire decline from mid-may in the yield has been about inflation expectations coming down if you looked at the inflation adjusted yields, they've actually not come down as much so that suggests it was just a passing of the inflation panic, not necessarily a real reassessment of the growth outlook that's necessarily gone on with treasuries take a look at semis micron numbers later tentative breakout in the semiconductor index. that tends to be a bullish thing for the market as a whole. i wanted to pull it apart.

nvidia is almost 10% of the semiconductor index. you see what's gone on here. it's carried all the weight for the sector in this last little run. it's half a trillion dollars vastly bigger than any other stock in that index. intel, done nothing. micron has performed in line with the index etf it's hard to know if this is as much of a macro, bellwether or technology growth bellwether as it used to be when it is largely about nvidia pulling all the weight >> such diverse performance there, mike. thank you. chinese ride-hailing giant didi making its debut today. diedre bosa has a closer look. >> they popped nearly 20% on their debut. close to $14 a share that's where didi was priced, which was already conservative its current market cap of around $70 billion is well below the $100 billion it was reportedly looking at just a few months ago. the combo of losses and

regulatory risk in the ride-sharing sector as a whole has not proved attractive to investors. uber and lyft underperforming the broader markets since their own ipos a few years ago didi facing a similar outlook. and the chinese complexity on top of it. its dominance in its home market was once seen as an advantage. that's under scrutiny. its american counterparts uber and lyft have been selling off their autonomous driving units didi is pushing into other expensive businesses from autonomous driving to food delivery we'll see where it closes today, but somewhat of a disappointing debut. >> well, it's higher at least. i guess disappointing relative to a few hours ago what's the valuation multiple for the stock relative to uber and lift those complexities with it being

a chinese listing but quite a big gap. >> its market cap falls between uber and lyft but it was thought to maybe go public at nearly $100 billion valuation market cap just as recently as a few months ago its top line is growing slower than uber's, faster than lyft's. it had a one profitable quarter leading up to the ipo but mostly due to selling off one of its units. so there are some questions. it does have that dominant position in the chinese market space but it's an area that's proved to be very expensive for the company because it competes against uber there and again, all of these other businesses that it is in yes, that's diversification but something like food delivery is a totally different gamble in china. that market is already very saturated by other companies didi trying to get a threshold there is seen as very difficult, wil.

so it's a little disappointing on the valuation standpoint compared to what some investors -- where some investors thought it might be at a few months ago >> interesting, too, that uber is a shareholder here. dierdre, thanks for laying it out for us a new way to play the metaverse. you may remember that term when video game company roblox went public now investor and former amazon executive matthew ball is creating an etf to cash in on the emerging trend we'll join us next to tell us what's in it the dow is higher up 189 well, geico's 85 years isn't just about time, you know.

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a new etf is taking investors into the metaverse the virtual world that investors may remember when roblox went launched under meta. it tracks companies like nvidia, tencent and roblox joining us in a first on cnbc interview, matthew ball from epyllionco and the list of things the etf will track. first question, matthew, sum up as briefly as you can what the metaverse is and the types of companies in this etf. >> sure. well, first of all, thank you for having me today. the best way tond the metaverse

is to see it as a kwausy successor state to the mobile internet at large in many of the same ways in which the mobile internet succeeded the fixed line internet of the '90s and early 2000s. rather than taking the internet from our pcs in our living room to our pockets and mobile phones, it's connecting it in a virtual regard virtual worlds, augmented reality. persistent spaces where most of our purchases, much of our time is not about buying things for the real world through the internet but buying the unreal or nonreal things within these virtual spaces for the most part it's expected to transform everything from fitness to wellness, how we entertain, socialize, how we date and to that extent it has become the newest obsession of all of the biggest tech companies in the world >> we're showing something from one of your blogs, if we can put it back up again, in terms of the types of subsectors that you will include hardware, computing power,

networking, payments, content services, et cetera. we mentioned some of the companies. tencent, nvidia. it's not wildly different from just buying the qqq, is it >> you would think of it in some ways but the question is what's the vector of growth there are many companies within qqq that are still strongly represented here, but the question is, what elements of growth are going to drive and be overindexed to this portfolio? there's a number of different companies that provide networking and computer and infrastructure, but the companies that are going to benefit in particular from the emergence of the metaverse are far more curated at the present, it is less about the big faang companies insofar the companies building the infrastructure of this next gen internet >> what do you think of gaming companies, often, when it comes to the metaverse is there a leader in this space? >> certainly when you look at where most people globally are spending their times in virtual worlds, it's your minecraft,

roblox, fortnite creative mode we expect this to expand in much the same way you could have identified three or four games in the earliay '90s or 2000s. but that basket gross considerably over time more broadly, it's important to understand how we are right now talking about consumer focused virtual worlds but at the same time we see significant efforts being made to light up what people call virtual twins or mirror world. which is the idea that many of the places you touch step into or see or don't see will also be present in this virtual world. amazon go, the retail stores in which you're tracked using machine learning, myriad cameras to identify who you are down to the gate that's a great example of what we don't think of as a game but it's fundamentally going to be tethered to this exact same experience >> what is the average p/e or price to sales of this selection of stocks? >> so right now i believe the

p/e is about 28. we're still trying to sort that out right now. i'm -- i don't have that off hand the expectation right now is that most of these companies are going to see very significant growth we take a look at some of the early leaders in gaming, in virtual communities right now. apple oven being a great example of that. these are companies primarily being led by the number of users and the amount of time within their ecosystem in some the same way you look at a company like facebook hit a trillion two days ago. there was a joke in which you'd say a million isn't cool a billion dollars is cool. now we're looking at the idea these companies transcend to a trillion dollars the core focus of the metaverse index is really to access the companies that are laying down the infrastructure, the cabling for which we expect hundreds of millions in the coming years ultimately billions of different people to access on a day-to-day basis. those companies that support it range as high as fastly with

extraordinary valuations relative to revenue and ebitda but the expectations to build what's needed tomorrow and so forth. >> i'm going through some of the use cases you laid out i find the brand interaction with the metaverse interesting especially fashion brands. i've seen some nike launches for instance where does this go >> so that's a great way of thinking exactly how the forefront of reaching young consumers in particular changes. when we go back ten years ago, there was a clear playbook for how to disrupt legacy media brands growth hacking, social referral codes. at this point in time, none of us are going to create a new d to c brand or differentiate through a mailing list, through a newsletter, through the idea you would now buy our mattress without going into a store that instead has transcended to a new medium which is reaching audiences through these virtual worlds, interacting with them in a way never before possible and right now we see everyone from

prada tago gucci trying to finda way to participate >> mathu thanks for joining us >> my pleasure cheers we have just -- 43 minutes left of the session. at the moment, the dow is leading the charge up about 200. s&p having a nice half an hour taking it into positive territory as well. albeit just slightly the nasdaq slightly lower. after the break, a record find for rob berobinhood. we'll bring you the details, next as we go to break, check out some of the top searched tickers on cnbc.com. the 10-year yield on top di di, apple, tesla and amd rounding out the top five.

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dow is up 200 points training app robinhood hit with a $70 million fine from fnra it's the largest penalty ever from the organization. kate rooney with a look at what

is behind it >> the settlement had to do with a few different issues over at robinhood spanning the past few years. most recently it had to do with the startup trading outages back in march of 2020 also approval of certain customers for options trading and finra says robinhood used misleading communication for certain trading practices. robinhood neither admitted nor denied these charges the fine itself was $57 million. finra ordered them to pay almost $13 million in restitution to thousands of clients they highlighted widespread and significant harm suffered by those customers and says the size of this fine reflects the scope and seriousness of robinhood's violations in a statement, a robinhood spokesman highlighting some of the changes they've made and talked about those changes to the business saying, quote, the startup has invested heavily in improving platform stability, enhancing our educational resources and building out our

customer support and legal as well as compliant teams. they are glad to put this matter behind us. guys, this is not robinhood's first fine robinhood settled with the s.e.c. back in december for $65 million. and one important nugget here from the finra documents robinhood now has 18 million funded accounts. so those who connected their bank account to the app, in total 31 million customers ahead of its ipo back to you p. i was going to ask about the ipo and whether any of this alters the timeline or expectations around it. just another fine here for bad behavior >> yeah, i'm told this was not a road block more of a coincidence that it happened come right before we are expecting an s1 in a couple of weeks the timeline does seem to be changing as far as the actual calendar but it's supposed to come this summer there's definitely a lot of interest in this s1 in particular this had been seen as an

overhang to the company ahead of an s1. instead of outstanding litigation they can say that we celted with finra versus finra is investigating the company same with the s.e.c. they've gotten those two things out of the way this covered a lot of different topics, but, yes, it's seen as it's out of the way. i'm sure the company is relieved to have this kind of behind them as they go to publish the s1 imminently like i said, moving target >> overall, was finra's issue with robinhood here, the actions they took initially or the communication around those actions which were then misleading for customers >> both. so communication was the big part here. options trading, the way that they marketed options trading in certain behavior and then the act of approving certain customers. so there's one example in the finra documents about a customer going on saying, you know, they had a certain risk tolerance in a normal circumstance they likely would not have been

approved ro robinhood approved a customer took on a ton of leverage and ended up taking his own life which we covered and robinhood feels awful about it that was really a massive event for the company. i think brought a lot of attention to options trading in particular and then you had also completely unrelated topics like trading outages in march which they've gone through a couple of different times. so it really, really was a broad depth of just different topics here and spanned multiple years. the company itself has said, though, since then, they've made a ton of different hires, changes. they brought on former s.e.c. former regulators so the company sort of framing this as we've moved on from that that was the old robinhood even within a year they've made a ton of hours a anires and chas the robinhood penalty, we're

going to be joined by the head of enforcement, jessica hopper, next hour on "closing bell." whether they're satisfied with what robinhood has done. also coming up, world bank president david malpass will join us with big news sur surrounding funding for global covid vaccine. and eric jackson with some picks he likes here's a check on bonds. yields moving lower on the final day of the quarter 10-year around 1.44. we'll be right back. my parents worked long hours and i helped raise my younger brother. when college felt out of reach, the kpmg future leaders program was there for me.

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32 minutes left to go. near session highs dow up 205 points. s&p also higher by 0.1%. nasdaq still negative. just barely. small caps up a quarter of 1%. let's check in on individual market movers. general mills. the food company posting a beat on earnings and revenue. it's warning of rising food costs and expects to see a decline in the at-home food trend. sales are falling already on that but the stock is up 1% wells fargo out with a new note on gap where it reiterated its overweight rating. they are bullish on the collaboration with yeezy and kanye west thinks it could add 50 cents in earnings and $1.50 by fiscal year 2026. really quantifying that, gap shares up more than 3% my favorite part of the note is when they talk about what's not in the numbers which is the

potential halo effect that yeezy could create for all of gap and not just the yeezy line within gap. we saw that from adidas in 2015. i remember putting kanye's face on the stock chart and it led to a remarkable turn around in the stock and the business and gap is potentially in for that i tailwind as well >> classic other products that they have. always my go-to anyway >> there's the wilfred frost effect and the kanye effect. >> it still attracts e >> it will stop being cool when you start wearing it rahel solomon has the update >> bill cosby, the big news today, has been released from prison it comes just hours after a pennsylvania supreme court overturned his sexual assault conviction a state prosecutor says that cosby is going free on a procedural issue that he says is irrelevant to the facts of the crime that led a jury to find

cosby guilty the gates foundation is donating $2.1 billion to pronote gender global equality she also pledged another $1.4 billion for women's sexual health and preproductive rights. dozens of deaths may be tied to the record-breaking heat wave that's scorched the northwest. officials in washington and oregon state are investigating numerous deaths that have occurred since the heat wave began. and police in vancouver, canada responded to 65 sudden deaths since friday of course, we here on the east coast are dealing with our own heat wave that's hopefully supposed to break tonight. back to you. >> brutal. rahel, thank you 29 minutes left to go before the bell here's where we stand in the markets. session highs for the dow up 217. up about 192 right now and it's kind of a fitting end to the first half of the year where you did get groups like industrials and energy and financials outperforming

tech is lagging. nasdaq is up nasdaq is down 0.1%. when we come back, world bank president david malpass joins us with news of a big boost in its funding for covid vaccines we'll talk to him about that effort and the impact the virus is having on the global economy. plus, legal, zoom, sentinelone, clear, didi, all adg ng their first day of trintoday. we'll take a closer look things will pick up by q3. 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.

welcome back as the delta covid variant raises concerns about the global pandemic recovery, the world bank is stepping in with a major new push to fund vaccines. announcing just this afternoon that the organization will boost

vaccine financing to $20 billion over the next 18 months. that's up from its previous target of $12 billion. the group also saying it has already allocated $4 billion of that funding reaching more than 50 countries joining us now in a "closing bell" exclusive interview is world bank president david malpass. welcome to the show. >> hi, sara. good to be on. >> a good announcement i don't have to tell you how desperately the world needs this how fast will this get vaccines into arms and where will it go how does it work >> there are multiple things going on one is the boosting of supplies. so we announced today an investment in aspen pharmacom which is in south africa and we'll be able to boost this supply of johnson & johnson doses which are very woelcome i the developing world because they are a single dose 6 million euros of an investment that we spread with other --

with other investors notably the -- and the u.s. and others so that gets -- that boosts the supply and then on the demand side, we have reached an agreement with an african union entity that we'll be able to deliver 400 million doses to africans -- to african countries and africans which is single shot dose. that means 400 million people vaccinated and those can start, we hope, within, i want to say, one month and two months the production is already under way off those vaccines so that's welcome. and one thing that's happening is the recognition of more countries that they need the financing. you know, there was hesitancy in some countries that they need the financing and that there will be supply available as the

u.s. releases excess doses and so, therefore, we wanted to put forward more financing and that can be used almost month by month by the countries to buy vaccines and deploy them >> it really is a stark reminder of just how unequal it is right now. the vaccination picture globally give us a sense of where these inequities lie and how fast we can close the gap. >> it's a huge problem most of the growth in the world is coming from the advanced economy and china. a lot of it the u.s. and china if you look in the rest of the world, oftentimes there's 1% growth or 2% growth. you know, a bit of a rebound from the deep dive last year but it means that gdp is an 8%, 9%, 10% below where it was last year that's devastating and the inequality goes to the vaccines

you know, they're just not available in a lot of the countries. we're trying to fix that and also it goes to the debt payments that are coming out of the countries. you know, the creditors hold most of the cards, even for relative to poor countries, the creditors can enforce their rights and they write really tight contracts. so that's a big part of the challenge. and the biggest one is simply the growth is not equal in the world. so people are just out of work in a lot of the developing countries. they want to work, but there's not the job. so that's what we're up against. >> who are the most unreasonable creditors? which countries? >> yeah, you know, there are asset managers, but there's also what are sometimes called vulture creditors. they buy up the debt and enforce the rights through litigation. and so a challenge for the

poorer countries is finding a way out. you know, there's a conflict of interest if you are the president of a country, you are willing to sign or you're the prime minister or you're the autocrat, you are willing to sign a contract and then someone else pays the consequences of that years later. and that, i think, is an unfairness in the international system there's no bankruptcy process for countries, for sovereigns. and so they get into contracts that aren't good contracts and there's no way out under the current system i'm looking for more avenues for the countries, the people of the countries to be relieved of their debt burden. >> i guess my main question president malpass is why has this taken so long to gather these resources and this financing for these vaccines which many of them were approved in the u.s. late last year

i realize we had to wait for the production to get going, but for millions of people in low and middle income countries, this is coming too late. we got an early start on it, approving the vaccine last year, before the vaccines were even invented so i'm happy with that the slowness has been that the vaccines that were being manufactured were taken up by the advanced economies they had a lock in terms of the options. and so it's been very slow to get them to release the vaccines to other countries so even though our financing has been available ever since, really, october of 2020, the countries have been unable to get contracts for supply and the international system just hasn't worked in terms of matching the type of vaccine with the countries that use that particular type of vaccine

so we're trying to expedite that i shchaired a task force today with other international institutions to try to accelerate that process of matching the available vaccines with the countries that can use those vaccines world bank has financing available but what has been unavailable so far is the export of the vaccines from the advanced economies we've been pushing on that i'm just disappointed that it's been so slow >> david, stepping away a little bit from vaccines and covid, how confident are you in emerging market growth in the next couple of years and its ability to perform on its own right as opposed to being tied to whatever is happening in the u.s. in particular, if we see tightening policy and a stronger dollar >> this is a big challenge i think there will be different performance in various emerging markets. those close to china or those

close to the u.s. may do better because those markets are growing so quickly countries that export commodities are probably able to do well enough over the next year or two, but the challenge still is covid is -- you know, we're in a third -- some countries are in a third wave. that's a big problem and the bar isn't very high. you know with world interest rates at near zero, then you need to do better than that, but i'm afraid that a lot of the countries will only have 2% growth and that's not enough even to keep up with the population growth >> my question is, on the economic fallout and damage being done currently by the delta variant which is reported in 85 countries. we're seeing lockdown goes back into place in parts of the world, how much of a setback do you see this variant spreading as for the global growth

picture? >> i think it is a setback, but the good news is people with good vaccinations are -- appear to be withstanding the variant so that means some part of the world can continue growing and then as long as the production of vaccine can be freed up the u.s. has -- there are really two miracles going on. one was the invention of the vaccine so quickly, but then the other is the manufacturing of those in quantity. especially out of the u.s. so that creates opportunities for growth in a lot of the world if we can just match the brand of vaccine with the countries and allow the export to occur from the u.s. primarily. >> keep us posted on the progress david malpass, thank you for joining us to talk about it. president of the world bank. straight ahead, the ceo of

bed, bath & beyond weighs in on the company's quarter and we'll preview what to expect from micron's results we're at session hhsn e w, up 205.

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well the final day of the first half of the year. boy, what a strong first half it's been. the dow up 216 points. session highs here a little tick higher into the close. s&p 500 is higher as well. and the nasdaq is kind of hovering nasdaq flat. mike, what's the story today it's sort of the story of the first half of the year but not so much what's been going on in recent sessions. >> to a degree, very, very narrow range for two days. the market has been pinned in place at month end, quarter end. that's kind of maybe natural mechanical dynamics. yes, you've been able to complain not a lot of stocks pulling their weight in this move. but also just no real give in the market we've been in a quarter percent range for two days clearly the underlying supports have still been there. credit markets, fast gdp growth. earnings estimates going up. how much of a reckoning do we have to have with the cyclical groups that maybe got ahead of themselves and have been

retreating it a little bit but have not let go of their up trends >> do we expect rebalancing? >> yeah, various types of rebalancing. big funds that have, you know, they hedge themselves. rehedge into the new quarter and then you see a little bit of drift out of equities into bonds maybe. but i doubt that's all left to the close today. >> energy is strong again today, josh and it's had quite a first half of the year. industrials, consumer staples, financials what do you make of the rotation and rerotation and -- >> the fact you're bringing josh in, they're going to cheer that. >> there's a cheer here because there's so many people i haven't seen this many people on the floor of the stock exchange ipos you're missing the party, josh >> i do feel like it coincided with you saying my name so we'll stay with that 46% of s&p 500 stocks right now are above their 50-day, which is not great. means more than half of stocks in the index are below a short-term moving average. more than 85% of the index is

above its 200-day. this is a fairly rare occurrence that's been pointed out by several technicians that i follow that we really haven't seen in an environment like this you have to go back to the fall of 2009. but that actually makes a lot of sense because the fall of 2009 was another period where we had a massive short-term rally that the markets had to digest. so i'm choosing to look at this breadth divergence as being a moment of digestion and probably ends up being noise. pick 50 charts at random 50 stocks that you've heard of it's very hard to find stocks that you know of that don't look really good right now. apple looks so good right now. that's the most important stock in the market. running yet again. new highs for costco new highs for target looks incredible home builders are bouncing industrials are bouncing fedex, u.p.s., the arc stocks are not giving anything back after a huge run it's really hard to find

important quote/unquote important stocks that don't look good i concede, though, there's a lot of weakness in some of the lesser known small cap names some of the lesser known material stocks. but they've all had huge runs. so take all this divergence talk with a grain of salt at no point in the last ten years has it actually mattered that the s&p equal weight didn't make a new high on the same day as the s&p 500 did that has never mattered. so i know a lot of people look at it. i talk about it, too i'm guilty it's not the big picture the big picture is big, important stocks look phenomenal and we stick with that >> a big day for the ipo market. chinese ride-sharing company didi opening at $16.65 a share compared to its offering price of $14 a share the stock is losing steam as we head into the close. it's only higher by 2% now sentinelone also seeing strong demand opening at $46 a share compared to its ipo price of

$35. that stock higher by 22% and clear rounding out the company -- the group with shares rallying 32% mike, clearly there's a lot of action here in the capital markets. q1 going back to the more traditional methods. good for the investment banks and shows us some momentum here. >> right so you want to see a bull market be open to new ideas new deals. both good and bad. you just don't want too many of the bad ones a lot of things can be true at once ipos as a group tend not to perform well over long periods of time but you want a market that's receptive to, you know, letting these companies come out. raising capital and refresh the set of ideas out there and also people talk about 80 billion raised in half a year. it's a lot it's more than it was raised all of last year and all of 1999 the overall market size was less

than one-third of what it is it's not really a great comparison it's about what it probably should be given how high the market is, how strong it's been for this long and how large we are in aggregate market. >> so there's enthusiasm and there are deals happening, josh. i'm looking at the renesas ipo what does that say about where we are in ipo land >> sarah, that's a function of that fund's construction they don't just have an ipo and sell it after 30 days. they actually will hold these stocks for 18 months and still call them ipos so airbnb is in there. when was that an ipo in the fall? so i think we want to -- i think we want to not always use that ipo etf as a perfect proxy for the risk appetite for these deals. michael hit on the good point. you want there to be an appetite for companies. not stocks right? like when didi comes out and

it's a huge market opportunity the reception wasn't great but the fact we could list a chinese ipo of that size on the new york stock exchange, i think it's a positive sentinelone has an incredible pedigree dan lobe is in that. the tiger cubs are in that you want to see the good company comes along and raise capital. that being said, there's just too much money out there, period speaking of the rebalance, there's a u.s. stock market has gone from $30 trillion total to $48 trillion over the last couple of -- over the last 14 months that's an incredible amount of capital in the markets i saw kodak black, the rapper, take $100,000, allegedly, and throw it off a boat in the atlantic ocean last night on instagram. this is the kind of thing that goes on when there's just too much money out there and we have to balance those two ideas in our mind

simultaneously >> you doing the same in your pool today not quite? >> no, dude, and then he woke up and took another $1,000 and tried to flush it down the toilet i don't know what's going on and i don't want to take that one anecdote and say that's a market top, but come on. you know how many people $100,000 feeds why are we throwing money into the ocean. i hope it was fake money, but this is the environment. >> i think we're all with you on that >> the dow up about 244 points so building on those highs and really surging into the close. the nasdaq is still negative even with this buying we're seeing into the close. shares of bed, bath & beyond surging. courtney regan spoke to the retailer's ceo and joins us with the highlights is this the company fundamentals >> i think it may be a little of both revenue and comparable sales growth did top expectations, earnings missed by 3 cents as the cost of this turn

around weighed on the bottom line increased marketing spend to message the changing retailer to the consumer was part of that. though the launch of these three owned brands did help offset some of the margin pressure with more brands to debut in coming months and the ceo saw more than 30 private brand launches during his time at target there's a lot of hope for what's to come at this retailer shares up almost 12% they were up as much as 19% in heavy volume sara, bed, bath & beyond has been part of the meme stock craze and has about 20% of its shares held short. >> we look at that share price over a number of days as people digest the story but we do credit to, you know, a consistent sequential performance. four quarters of growth after years of decline growth in sales. growth in margin growth in shares we're feeling really strong about this quarter and how it steps us into our three-year

transformational plan which began in q1 of 2021. >> bed, bath & beyond did increase its full-year revenue outlook ahead of its key back-to college and back to school season as the moving market continues. that's a tail wind triton says for his business >> courtny reagan, thank you i asked about the meme traders doesn't it doesn't necessarily coincide with the fundamental story in the turn around in bed bath >> it's both things. a little crowded short that allows retail traders to think they're running a short squeeze but there's growing fundamentals here. it's not out of whack in terms of price to sales ratio over time it can be both at once >> what do you see in the internals? >> it's still mixed. definitely tilting to the positive side. if you look at new york stock exchange advancers and decliners on the day, they have stayed positive most of the day looks like, whoa, 4300, round number on the s&p. we'll close the quarter there. that's kind of what happens in these markets. but you have 1.5 to 1, positive

to negative breadth. josh mentioned the equal weighted s&p has not kept pace take a look at that. that is true it tells you it's maybe more of a megacapdriven market selective market you can have all kinds and it can still work look at the vix. it's really not moved up down below 16. a jobs number coming it's at the bottom of the range. we'll see if it gives way or if we get sticky at these levels given that we have the catalyst on friday before a three-day weekend when the vix should probably then fall apart >> just under one minute left. we do have a decline for the nasdaq just 10 basis points about 0.7% of gains for the dow. when you look at it week to date or month to date with the dow in the red just slightly for the month whilst the nasdaq up 5.5% for june s&p 500 up 0.2%. it has been a busy day and it's a noisy close here on

the stock exchange [ closing bell ] >> [ inaudible ] that's a lively bunch. we haven't had a crowd like this at the new york stock exchange welcome back, everyone to "closing bell. i'm sara eisen along with wilfred frost and mike santoli cheers themselves on it's a winning first half of the year we just wrapped up for stocks the dow's best first half since 2019 closing at the highs of the session up more than 200 points.

s&p 500 closing the day up 0.1%. and marking another strong month. 2.3% gain for the month of june. fifth month in a row of gains. and for the year, it's now up more than 14%. the nasdaq actually falling today, breaking a two-day win streak but still up 5.6% for the month. up about 10% so far for the quarter. the russell 2000 closing the day flat but having a winning first half of the year up 2% for the month. 4% for the quarter a lot to go through here with the analysis technology, though, we want to zoom in on it's been on a tear, outperforming the broader market during the second quarter. tech investor eric jackson on whether the sector will continue to rally in the second half of this year and which stocks look most attractive, including this burst of ipos we have to talk about happening today. plus, we'll be joined by finra's head of enforcement on today's record $70 million

settlement with investing app robinhood. that's also coming up this hour. first on the markets, josh brown is still with us leah bennett from westwood wealth management joins the conversation welcome, leah. and mike, i'll send it to you on just a day where if you are bullish, it's quite an amazing start to the year. the s&p closing at a record high i think 33rd or 34th so far of 2021 >> 15% total return for the first half which, obviously, is better than most expectations. we've already surpassed most of the early year ahead targets by most of the strategists. usually if the almanac matters it leads to better gains three quarters of the time that's been the tendency more recently we've held the gains. the s&p 500 has been kind of pinned in place for a little while. it's slowed down there has been a little bit of retracement, wear and tear below the surface. not really to me about macro

it's definitely showing that we've gone away from the overheating accelerating economy type theme but not as if we're really rethinking the underpinnings of the earnings growth just yet as we get into july >> leah, do you feel the market is overheated or is the second half going to be as good as the first half >> i still like equities quite a bit. you're right there's these really interesting violent rotations you're seeing going on underneath. you saw value outperform growth by the largest margin we've seen in history in january. and then you've seen growth outperform value significantly since mid-march. but i do think there's a couple of big themes happening that are still under appreciated by investors. one being improving profit margins because companies have really had to remake themselves during covid so i think there's lots of opportunities. >> josh, if you look at the year to date gains. for the s&p 500, 14.4% higher. for the nasdaq, it's 12.5% higher as leah alluded to, that gap is

closing. growth played a lot of catch-up. is there more of that to do here entering the second half >> it's possible i think one of the most -- to me, one of the most encouraging parts of the first half is how much participation you had from sectors that it's really been awhile since investors have had to trouble themselves and learn the names in these stocks. materials, obviously, comes to mind the thing is, though, those are still very small, even energy. it's doubled, but it's still down substantially from 2014, 2015 and still small so my point is, if we're going to see a continuation of this rally in the sendincond half yol still need some participation from the big guys on the nasdaq, like the nvidias and apple and amazon together are 12% of the s&p. so if you are going to see a continuation, it's not that

participation isn't important. i think it's great but you're really still going to need great results on the earnings front and on the sentiment front in the big stocks i think you can get it you may not get it to the same degree you've had in the last six months but i think it will be essential >> mike, how much are people going to be focused on the dollar and is it reacting because of expectations of hawkish commentary from the fed over the summer, and is that a problem? >> it's been reacting to that in a measured way that's at least a direction of surprise was toward a little bit more of a hawkish interpretation i still don't think we're necessarily saying it's out of the range it's been in yet so it seems like it's -- it fits with this flattening of the treasury yield curve this idea like maybe we've got a little bit ahead of ourselves in terms of just exactly how hot this thing was going to run for a while and how maybe inflation was going to be allowed to flair up but i think things are right in the middle right heire

>> it's a global growth slowdown we've seen it in treasury yields and the dollar seems to be reacting to that because the u.s. is outgrowing a lot of countries. most countries we're better on our vaccination rates. and along with cyclical stocks >> yes, but it's more just taking back a little bit of the overshooty on those fronts than it is, okay, game over back to a 2% world and we have to just go to the disinflationary type plays i don't think we're quite there. it's an in-between moment. a lot of the people out there behind the value are out defending it now and saying this is an opportunity. transports down 9% home builders down 8% or 9%. it's a little moment of truth to say is it a reversal or just a correction >> let's move on to micron's earnings just crossing julia boorstin >> micron beating across the board. the company reporting stronger than anticipated earnings. and revenue. also stronger than anticipated

earnings coming in at adjusted $1.88 per share versus $1.72 estimate estimated revenue of $7.42 billion versus $7.24 billion q4, fiscal q4 earnings and revenue guidance beating expectations the company reported adjusted gross majors of 42.9%. that also above estimates. the company saying in its prepared remarks that micron set product and revenue markets. the new chips represent a meaningful proportion and it's in the best portion ever to capitalize on long-term demand trends across data center and user devices as well guys, back over to you >> julia, thanks for that. mike, you were pointing out this has tracked so far good performance, just not nvidia performance >> don't know if this will be the lasting reaction to the numbers because you have a quick sell to the response on this

unless it's a blowout number and the memory area where micron focuses is different than what's going on with nvidia so it seems like it's not too far away from what people were expecting. and i guess maybe just getting more granular on the outlook and pricing down the road. it's probably going to be what matters for the enduring response >> just where the supply and demand equation falls down here, l leah and the drop off in pc demand at the same time we're seeing a ramp up in 5g demand for instance and what that's going to do for pricing. what do you do with micron >> i like micron quite a bit i was really looking forward to what the quarter looked like but this is a stock that we've been buying it's well positioned moving forward. hasn't appreciated as much as some of the others in the sector definitely a stock that i think there's opportunities in >> josh, you still focused on

nvidia >> i am. the stock is at new all-time high machine now it's in the 800s really seems unstoppable it's so much more than a chip play almost disingenuous to just mention it in the context of semiconductors it's a software platform that literally is what the entirety of the ai revolution is going to be built on. standardized on, in fact in such a dominant way that i can't believe more people aren't focused on it. so nvidia is my favorite pick in the space. i know it's up a lot you could have said that during any year over the last seven years and it's still managed to find ways to continue to growth, make the right acquisitions and go higher. >> biggest winners, leah in the first half of the year for year to date marathon oil up 100% the s&p 500 diamond back energy. these names were so beaten down coming into this year. do you think there's still more upside

devin energy >> where i see the most opportunity in the second half of the year, really in these industries that have the -- that came under pressure during covid. you had companies that really had to rethink their business model. utilize technology in different ways oil and gas certainly fits in that category. also looking at restaurants, hotels, retail those type of areas. and i do look towards the second quarter earnings to see what profit margins look like in these companies and to see how big the earnings leverage is a company that i definitely like a lot is weight watchers a little different than oil and gas but i talk about during covid, people fall into one of two camps. they were either a peloton person or weight watchers person and weight watchers is a great example of a company that's rethought their business model they've become digitized utilizing james corbyn, allowing them to attract younger people

as well as men onto their platform and a digital subscriber has about 80% margins versus a nondigital subscriber with profit margins around 40%. those type of companies are going to do really well in the back half of the year and they are really under appreciated by investors at this point. >> josh, are you peloton or weight watchers person >> say that again? >> are you -- which of the two camps do you fall into, weight watchers or peloton? >> oh, i think you need a little bit of both. if you want to look like this at least. >> peloton is killing my knees so i'm going to switch >> i've said this before on the show never in the history of wall street has there been a successful fitness or nutrition related company long term. they are great trades, but for whatever reason, mcdonald's continues to win out so i'm not a big investor there from the long-term perspective

although i do like lululemon here >> josh, thank you and leah for joining us >> thank you so much up next -- we'll get more reaction to micron's earnings when we're joined by an analyst who has a $150 price targ et on the stock. plus, mike santoli looks at what it's saying about the broader market

micron now is a little bit higher after reporting earnings, beating expectations across the board with decent guidance as well for the quarter ahead the earnings just minutes away mehdi, thanks for joining us reading your preview, you were confident it would beat so congrats on that front is this broadly what you're expecting? >> yes by the way, thanks for the opportunity. i think micron delivered what we were expecting, but for the

stock to continue to move towards a price target, investors have to be convinced that margin expansion is going to remain intact in 2022 in the difference call in 20 minutes hopefully they'll address this it's a margin expansionist story. we have still 10 points on up side on margins from here. >> what's that driven by, falling costs? >> it's falling costs, which is very -- which is embedded in micron or memory manufacturing once you get unit volume to certain level, then the drop is going to be enormous what's interesting is investors in every up cycle forget about this fact that at a certain point the margin expansion is going to take off and this is going to drive the stock towards $150 so in that context, yes, margin expansion was delivered for the

quarter. their margin is also encouraging. but i think investors have to be convinced that this is going to continue, especially into next year >> what's happening with dram pricing. >> so that's a very good point i think one of the reasons micron's stock has underperformed over the past two weeks is increased noise that d-ram prices are going to flatten out this year. but i think what is missed here is price decline is not going to flatten out. price decline is going to accelerate into next year. on top of that, we see that a big end market demand is going to strengthen into next year so despite a flattening in d-ram prices into late this year, i think memory prices will rebound and margin expansion will continue >> you mentioned smartphones what's the other key top line driver for them.

cloud? >> obviously, cloud infrastructure that has become a big driver for d-ram. but it's already understood. i guess perhaps investors have to be convinced that strength is going to sustain into next year. but i want to emphasize that i think a smartphone which has been kind of going through a correction is going to be that juice. is going to be that incremental demand driver which, combined with cloud, with the cost down is going to get us at least $15 off annualized earning next year >> last time we had sanjay on the show, he was meeting with president biden or at least engaged in the conversation around the semiconductor shortage and just what the u.s. is going to do about it in the long term as far as national security concerns. where does micron fit in with

the supply constraints that we're seeing and how fast is it addressing it? >> i think the geopolitics are positive in terms of headline. but when it comes to micron, it's underlying fundamental demand drivers it's not on cloud infrastructure when it comes to made in usa, it's more applicable to intel bringing some of the leading edge larger manufacturing to u.s. that is going to be a factor when it comes to memory, i think it's great that there is support from washington and politicians but it's all about demand drivers. i'm not sure if that's going to have a material impact into that $15 earning power mixture. >> the stock is now lower. it's been all over the map here after earnings mehdi with the $150 price target thanks for joining us with your first quick reaction >> thank you let's send it back to mike santoli who is looking at valuations and earnings

expectations mike, what do you see? >> sara, some extremes here on a multiyear basis. this is the forward earnings p/e of the s&p 500 going back five years. around '19 was the peak, early 2018, almost to 20 right before the covid crash and then earnings collapsed the market surged and market pricing in a huge rebound in earnings that's where you got these expensive levels toward the mid-20s. but look what's happened this calendar year. even though the s&p is up 15% or so, since the beginning of the year the forward earnings forecast has gone down because earnings expectations are up so much. look at how extreme the forecast for individual s&p 500 companies earnings is at this point. this is the median company in the s&p. the one year forward earnings growth estimate is now almost -- basically off the charts if you go back to 1986. when it's above that line, when it's that fast, it's pretty

negative for forward s&p 500 returns while it remains up there, outright negative annualized returns while that number remains above that band the best times to buy stocks are when they are plunging to a negative level that's just your typical pendulum swinging back and forth in the market, but it does show you how extreme right now the earnings growth forecasts are and the big question, just how much have we priced that in even as we sit here at 21 times forward earnings is that fair or baking in all this good news already, guys >> mike seeing a gap in expectations between large cap stocks that have a lot of international exposure, the multinationals that are much more exposed to the lockdowns and the delta variants slowing slowing economies versus the russell 2000 small caps domestic with the u.s. and just much better shape right now on vaccines and on the virus. >> i think that's only maybe starting to filter in right now. i don't think you've seen it in the revisions but it's what's going to happen.

some of the most global companies are tech and energy really so i do think that there's still kind of feeding off of their own domestics. but we're going to have to look at in terms of the outlooks for second quarter earnings into the third quarter to see whether we'll see this uneven performance around the world and by sector. >> the commentary is so key. mike, thanks still ahead -- robinhood reaching a record $70 million settlement with finra o over outages and misleading investors. we'll hear from the head of finra. and the krispy kreme ipo and the biggest winners and losers during the first half of the year retirement income is complicated. as your broker, i've solved it. that's great, carl. but we need something better.

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finra hitting robinhood with a $70 million penalty today. finra says the penalty regards robinhood's outages and system failures in march 2020, as well as the lack of due diligence before approving customers to place options trades and

providing customers misleading information. robinhood neither admitting nor denying the charges according to finra's release. joining us in a first on cnbc interview is finra's head of enforcement, jessica hopper. welcome. thank you for being here >> thank you for having me >> it is a record fine for finra, one that you say reflects the scope and the severity of the issues give us a sense of how bad the behavior was that you looked at from robinhood >> the settlement addresses some very serious and egregious violations by robinhood. those include misrepresentations to customers and, like you said, system outages and those violations harmed investors. significantly harmed investors part of what finra does is recover restitution to those customers and we're proud to have returned -- not just have gotten $57 million fine, our largest ever but returned $13 million -- >> so robinhood says this all happened years ago and since

then it has invested a lot in compliance and has fixed all the issues are you confident that it has? >> i am happy that we have settled this action with them. i'm happy that they have agreed to fix issues that have already fixed some it describes in our settlement document not all issues are resolved and that's part of our settlement to include an order to hire a third party independent consultant the remaining outstanding is issues, to see they are fixed and resolved >> when you say their behavior was egregious, how does that tally up with the fact that they haven't had to formally admit wrongdoing in this settlement. >> it is a settlement. and part of the benefit of a settlement is being able to move to closure quickly part of our settlement is paying restitution back to customers. without a signed settlement

agreement we wouldn't be able to get to that point or to a point where we could clearly describe the violations and that benefits not just investors but also the industry. to understand what misconduct to avoid. all of this benefit of settlement can only be attained with -- for us, or can be more quickly attained with a neither admit nor deny we feel it gets us to the place we want to protect investors and to ensure the market remains fair >> i'm interested, you mentioned because it gives clear indication of what was right what was wrong and hopefully sets an example. have they been made somewhat unfairly an example of because they were so in the crosshairs of media speculation, of talking points in the last year? is it possible some of the same actions you're punishing them for have been -- have been seen in some of their rivals who are not getting this sort of fine because there is no admission of wrongdoing >> finra treats all of our

member firms in the same way we are tough, but fair we want to protect investors and the market and to do that, we look at all of our firms whether they are big or small whether they are new business models, existing business models in the same way. and our goal is to identify misconduct at the earliest possible moment to limit and avoid any customer harm as quickly as possible. and we did that here as i said, we are tough, but fair and we really treat all member firms in the same way, no matter what the press coverage is >> so let's say we see another huge run up in a game stopper, another company like that or cryptocurrency which is increasingly growing or just major volatility in the markets. can robinhood handle it? can they keep the trades for their customers to avoid what happened >> we do know that we identified those issues with the outages. we identified the issues that

were beholden to the technology that underlies all of robin hood's critical issues and we are happy to report that while they fixed some, we are confident that we will be there with the third party independent consultant to ensure they're able to do their business in a way that is compliant and protects investors and the markets. >> what about the timing, jessica, of this announcement? was this necessary to settle with finra before robinhood filed an s1 to go public which as kate rooney said, we're expecting in weeks >> the disciplinary action that we undertook today has nothing to do with the initial public offering and actually ipos go through s.e.c. it's a whole separate function we look at the misconduct that we've identified and move quickly to the disciplinary action without regard for any other event happening in robinhood. >> in terms of broader regulation and broader actions and what we've seen over the last couple of years, are there

any conversations you're having, any recommendations you have to some of your fellow regulatory bodies of what you'd like to see in this space to make sure that all retail investors are kind of fully educated or acting in the right sort of way for their own interests? >> we use our disciplinary actions as a means of communicating the type of conduct that we see that is not in compliance. that violates the rules that are designed to protect investors. so we really focus on our registered members and registered representatives and try to send the message that way. we communicate closely, of course, with the s.e.c you'd have to speak to them about any actions that they are taking >> we know gary gensler is looking into this issue of payment for order flow do you guys have an opinion there? it's obviously a huge issue around robin hood. can the industry function without it >> i can't speak for gary

gensler and the s.e.c. i do know that they are looking into that. i know that's an issue that we are also looking into. at this point, what we do know is that this disciplinary action today really focus not on that but on the broader system issues to ensure that robinhood has the technology they need and the supervisory systems to make sure what they do do is compliant >> we certainly appreciate you joining us on that topic big story today. jessica hopper, thank you. >> thank you my pleasure. >> head of enforcement at finra. we should include robinhood's statement on the settlement roib has invested heavily in improving platform stability, enhance think educational resources and bltding out our customer support and legal and compliance teams we're glad to put this matter behind us and look forward to continuing to focus on our customers and democratizing finance for all. still ahead -- tech investoinvestor

eric jackson gives us his top picks and whether the sector will continue to take off. plus a look at the extraordinary measures commercial real estate owners in new york city are taking to lure back tenants here's a look at some of the biggest s&p 500 winners and losers in the first half of the year this is cynthia suarez, cfo of go-go foodco., an online food delivery service. business was steady, until... gogo-foodco. go check it out. whaatt?! overnight, users tripled. which meant hiring 20 new employees and buying 20 new laptops. so she used her american express business card, which gives her more membership rewards points on her business purchases. somebody ordered some laptops? cynthia suarez. cfo. mvp. get the card built for business. by american express.

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time for a cnbc news update with shepard smith >> donald rumsfeld has died today at 88. rumsfeld served as defense secretary under george w. bush and was the main architect of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. his six decades in public service included time as chief of staff and defense secretary for president ford his life and legacy tonight on the news

bill cosby set free. the pennsylvania supreme court vacated his sexual assault conviction he was released from prison about two hours or mid-afternoon, i should say. cosby served more than two years of his three to 10-year sentence and charges against the trump organization and its cfo are expected to be announced tomorrow nbc news reports the charges appear to be for tax-related crimes involving benefits given to executives, including school tuition and the use of cars and apartments tonight, the chances of more charges to come and whether trump's firm is getting prosecuted for things most companies do without punishment. on the news right after jim cramer, 7:00 eastern, cnbc sara, back to you. >> shep, thank you up next, on "closing bell," investor eric jackson on the outlook for the market in the second half of the year. the two stocks he thinks can deliver big returns. a check for you on the

biggest nasdaq 100 leaders and losers in this first half of the year

the major averages closing out a strong first half of the year with the s&p 500 setting another record closing high. where can investors find opportunity in the second half let's bring in eric jackson, founder and president of emj

capital. always good to see you i wanted to start with didi because it was the big ipo of the day. chinese ride-sharing company you've been interested in food delivery and uber before are you a buyer of didi, and what do you make of the lackluster debut relative to expectations >> well, i think didi is a preeminent brand in china. it's going to stay that way. there for a long haul. they have a dominant share in china. i do not own it. i think it's very reasonably priced when you compare it to uber and lyft. at this price now, $67 billion market cap, today's close, that's about 3x trailing revenues you're paying 9x for lift, 8x for uber so although people can wring their hands about the chinese government so forth, i mean, that's what you are getting the discount for basically and people that say that didi doesn't have room to grow, i don't agree with that.

basically if you are investing in didi, you are making a bet on the continued rise of the chinese middle class, tier 2 and tier 3 cities and they'll benefit from all of that in years to come. >> so it sounds like a pretty good case. why don't you own it >> i'll wait and see over the next little while. buying it on the first day here, i'd rather let it settle in. see where it's trading three, four months from now but phenomenal company great president. >> just by listening to this, are uber and lyft major sells in your view? >> i don't think they are major sells. i think we're in this environment where the economy is still reopening. there's still, i think, a lot of opportunity ahead for an uber and lyft but it's not one of the most compelling tech or growth stocks that i see out there today >> we want to get onto a couple of your individual picks for the second half of the year. for the market and tech stocks

in particular, which obviously react a lot to this factor, do you think the fed risks derailing equity markets and valuations in the second half of the year >> i don't think so. i think we have gotten past the kind of time where people were most gnashing their teeth and fearful what the fed would do. a month removed from the grips of runaway train inflation fears, you know, those have been put on the side. we know the fed is on hold but they are still conscientious which puts them in line with the central banks around the world ten-year has abated. growth stocks, which are really one of the few areas in the first half of the year that haven't worked i think now have corrected and are looking attractive for the second half of the year. i'm particularly interested in that sector. and when i was on with you a month or so ago, i said that names like the faang stocks and salesforce had been corrected to

multiples lower prepandemic. i thought they were compelling and you pointed out the nasdaq 100 was coming off a fantastic last month >> that was a good call. upstart was also a good call one of your top picks in january. and it's up 213% year to date. not as good zillow, which is down 6%, which was another top pick what are you choosing for the second half of the year? >> i still like both, and i think there's a lot of upside ahead for upstart, but one name that i have mentioned before which i want to point out is a company could bombardier they were a big diversified company. they made all the subway cars in new york and recreational snowmobiles. they'ved so them off and now they are just a pure play private aircraft maker what's interesting about private aircraft is that for people that flew private before, you are basically two years on from when a lot of those aircraft have been replaced.

people put everything on pause, obviously, during the pandemic so a need to go out and buy new aircraft but the big thing is that during the pandemic, a lot of business travelers were forced to fly private, liked it and will stick with it in the years to come in bombardier, you are getting a company that has about a 30% market share in that space they have arguably the most luxurious, biggest, longest range aircraft in the 7500 it reminds me of the casinos coming out of the great financial crisis it has a lot of debt which makes it risky people were pricing it as if it was going to go out of business. i don't think it will. they've repriced a lot of that debt and the casinos, obviously, had a huge bounce back post-financial crisis. i think bombardier could do the same it's a dollar stock today but in two or three years if they hit their ebitda targets, it could be a $20 stock down the road >> wow that's a -- >> that's a call >> a 20 bagger

we'll see about that one and lightspeed as well >> lightspeed you have the ceo on the show several times. it's basically a mini shopify. but in lightspeed you are buying a $10 billion market cap company versus shopify they are also canadian like lightspeed their play has been to focus on the smbs themselves. like restaurants, in-dining restaurants, takeout dining, some other verticals in the space and sell them a point of sell solution. a cloud-based solution which they need but it's a bridge to get them -- offer e-commerce services so that when things were shut down over the last year, they were able to get online and still do delivery and takeout or open a shop front and sell their stuff now make something interesting acquisitions which are broadening the appeal more directly putting it in competition with shopify. but their play is helping the

offline shops get online as opposed to catering to people that just want to start an online shop from the beginning so they have made a bunch of interesting acquisitions as well, which haven't really been built into the models for the company. it's not a 20-bagger it's something that two or 3x over the next two or three years. >> eric, still a pretty good return hope you're right. >> good to be with you guys. coming up -- breathing new life into the big apple. landlords are upping the ante as they try to lure tenantses back to new york city with some surprising new tactics we'll have that story next here's a check on the biggest sector winners in the cosend half of the year. we're back in a couple

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new york city landlords are pulling out all the stops to keep their commercial tenants, as some office spaces remain vacant in the wake of the pandemic that's according to "the new york times" which reports along with lower rents, office landlords are reconfiguring spaces to retain and attract tenants. let's bring in one of the reporters behind that story, kate kelly thanks for joining us. >> thank you wilfred

i appreciate it. >> there's a number of takeaways i had. the first is that commercial property they mot have taken the bulk of its pandemic related hit yet because of the sort of shape and tenure of some of those agreements >> yeah, if you think about it, only about 20%, 21% of the pre-pandemic occupant level is now in new york city offices according to castle systems. so you've really got only got a fifth of the new york city work force back in the office, even though as i'm sure we've all seen, goldman sachs, jp morgan, morgan stanley and others are mandating that people come back to the office either recently or soon so you're starting to see some of the big corporations asking people to come back, but you still have an absence of workers around the city. availability of office property is at an all-time high right now since records have been kept you also want to figure the average office lease is probably

anywhere from 7 to 10 years, so people i talked to estimated about an eighth of any given set of office tenants has their lease coming up for renewal every given year so if you think about last year, a year of tumult, this year continued tumult, next year you're probably thinking if you're a lessor that needs that rolloff. is to we've had sort of plans changing about whether to come back to an office of the same size, so probably offices will be up for grabs soon >> you capitalized on the capital ideas for rents to keep coming in. bars or music? i kind of like that. >> i visited the levi steritt

building, and that's where they have the bar that will largely be available for tenants and their clients. they talked about special events, fashion week, art installations in a public space that's for rent. at the same time they're building a kind of leading edge food hall that will have a variety of cuisines, they'll have a speakeasy, but it's also available for tenants. other buildings i'm thinking of, like 2740 broadway, in the mid-50s not far from central park south they're sort of remodeling the lobby level to have a private club there are pictures of people doing yoga, sitting in kind of this state of the art tenants' club that looks a little bit like an airport lounge you have working, meeting, laptops, a barista

there seems to be an operative thesis that workers want community, they want to engage if they're going to come back to the office, they want to sit with their colleagues at the water cooler at the very least and maybe the speakeasy at the very most and talk shop and relax. they want to bring their clients there. the landlords are trying to enhance these buildings as an interesting and fun place to be, not just a place to do your work >> besides speakeasies what are they doing to try to get some of them back? what kind of a hit are the developers and the owners taking >> one of the biggest city landlords said the concessions they were having to make were, quote, unquote, brutal pretty much every lease renewal discussion right now involves two things one is rent concessions, so whether they're throwing in three free months of rent in,

say, a 7-month lease or nine months of rent where they're actually reducing rent, or they're working with tenants who want to cut their space in half or two-thirds, those things are going on people are also asking for what's known in the industry as t.i., which is tenant improvement. that's remodeling, reshaping of the space, sometimes gratis. another thing i saw in addition to this community terrace i was talking about with the gym and so on, is the office space has to be flexible instead of having large conference meetings with multiple people sitting chair by chair by chair, you're going to have a chair that's empty between people, you're going to have a zoom almost at all times, even if it's largely an in-person meeting, you may have one or two people that are zooming in, so conference rooms are being fitted for more

sophisticated videoconferencing. one i saw is modular, desks that can swing around, have more flexible materials that can be handled by a single technician because the feeling is if a conference room is going to be underutilized, let's scrap it. let's turn it into a zoom room or a couple private offices or another water cooler >> kate, very, very quickly because we're up against the clock. is it fair thoos in your article you imply some of those banks you mentioned earlier, j.p. morgan, morgan stanley, that they're trying to push them back into the building to make use of this asset >> i do wonder how much, broadly speaking, is going on that's philosophical? i.e., this is a business, we need to have people in the office, or how much of this is a

real estate ploy we need to pay the mortgage, we need to have people in seats, let's make the most of what we've got. i think it's a combination of both, probably i do think there is a widespread need for facetime, to teach young analysts and associates, thousands of whom start on wall street every single year, but i do also think there is a reality. those companies you mentioned own their buildings. they're very expensive buildings. goldman's was only built in the last decade or so, so they'll want to make sure they're making use of them, even as goldman takes space in florida and considers expanding its footprint in dallas, has expanded its footprint in dallas and salt lake city the last few years. you see a trend going on here, but banks are hanging on to their headquarters and saying they're going to be anchors now and in the future. >> kate kelly, thanks for j

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