we're seeing caesars off, and penn down as well. >> contessa brewer, thank you. stocks broadly lower, treasury yields lower, crude lower, dollar weaker, the vic is spiking. that does it for us, leslie. thanks for being with us tech check starts now. we are seeing a major sell off to end the week. good friday morning. i am deirdre best. carla and john have the morning off. red on the screen. new covid variant sends stocks tumbling travel names, airlines, cruises, hotels are getting crushed this

morning. but are there opportunities to buy the dip? the other side of the trade, vaccine makers, work from home stocks get a boost, julia. >> and the new variant is where we'll start. meg has the latest. >> julia, we're waiting to hear from world health organization as a special committee meets to determine whether to give this a greek letter variant name, which would mean it is a variant of interest or concern. this after researchers in south africa raised their level of concern about the variant, they've seen increased spread of cases in that country. what's particularly concerning about this variant, it has more than 30 mutations on the spike protein, some of which are known and have been associated with increased transmissibility and potential to evade protection from vaccine or prior infection. they call it unusual constellation of mutations

still, some mutations aren't known yet, so their effect isn't understood whether that confers to more or less severe disease is just not known at this point. we've been checking in with vaccine makers, moderna and biontech and pfizer say they're already looking at this very closely, told us they can update vaccines very quickly if they need to, within two weeks biontech expects lab data to tell us whether this is an escape variant, one that can evade protections of the vaccines what we have seen with concerning variants like beta, the vaccines can be less effective, still provide some protection there's also worry about the antibody drugs, particularly regeneron and eli lilly, some are thought to p that will need more confirmation finally, antiviral drugs going through the fda process from

merck and pfizer, the fda suggesting it looks like it will clear the drug and needs input how widely to clear it, for which groups these antivirals are not thought effective by variants, but still need more data on that as well it is really early days now. there's concern, but we need more information guys >> yeah. you bring up the oral antivirals, it does seem to indicate how important they conceivably will be when they get to market, which we hope or many do perhaps by end of the year merck would get emergency approval. >> yeah, with the advisory committee meeting next week on tuesday, we expect them to vote on it. we have to see how quickly the fda will act after getting that recommendation to issue emergency use authorization. we expect pfizer is likely a few weeks behind given timing of the

data, a month later than merck's data should see them work their way through. and it is up to identify covid cases and get drugs to the right patients to allow them to make a big difference. >> and meg, still so much we don't know, is there a sense they're able to identify the new variations faster? is there any positive take away from that? >> yeah. absolutely the fact that the south african researchers flagged this so early, when you're not seeing a giant spike in cases in south africa now, you're seeing cases rise and that's concerning, but it is very early that they were able to identify this. one of the reasons is because this variant shows up in pcr testing because of a quirk in how it shows up in the test. they've been able to track it closely through doing that pcr, then can do the genome sequencing to confirm that this is something that should be able to be tracked that way

pretty closely >> meg, thanks meg terrell. what we have been talking about led to significant selloff in the market despite as meg told us, we know so little as yet about the variant. mike santoli, it is as though investors hit the covid trade button when you see a day like today. >> absolutely, david it is not a lot of nuance in the market, you don't necessarily have to comb, squint, see what the themes are themes are those groups that were benefitting in recent weeks from the expectation that the global economy was reaccelerating, higher bond yields and interest rates coming, banks were strong going into this as well as energy. so i do think it makes sense the will to sell and to perhaps get out of the way of a threat is always stronger than the courage to step in the way of that impulse on a short term basis. we are seeing the market under kind of a steady beat of pressure going through the day

so far only been an hour and a half, but there were some s&p 500 areas that didn't really quite hold up to the initial buying impulse, 30 or 40 points up from where we are now this takes us back in the broad market to where we were in very early november so still up about 100 points from early october low, so we're kind of working with handing back winnings as opposed to deficit situation market wide. clearly the pandemic winners which have been beaten down are now being rediscovered i would be cautious to say that somehow we have decided this is the new mode for the market because basically everybody flying without a lot of information here and therefore we're reducing bets on both sides. let's not bet too hard against covid beneficiaries, peloton and

zooms, consumer behavior resulting from all this very early detection of a new threat. >> some of the bigger moves could be more knee jerk reaction mike, what's going on with mega cap tech, they have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of the covid trade in the last 18 months, they're selling off as well with the exception of netflix. >> yes amazon holding up relatively well in the grand scheme of things they're outperforming, the least negative way to put it they remain a relative source of strength when you have bond yields coming down, people not all that excited about near term economic growth. amazon down a percent and a half, netflix up a bit adobe was stronger some software names. i don't think there's individual strands of story line being brought to bear on those stocks, it really is about taking 2% off the top of the overall market and getting caught up in the

index flows. to me, it is more areas that were completely abandoned, like the popular shorts like peloton, zoom and other niche software makers, where people let them go arch funds were green. areas that have been out of favor are rediscovered as people reduced bets on both side of the trade. >> mike, you know, it is black friday we haven't talked much about retail today you mention amazon, shares down 1.5%, but what are you seeing more broadly in terms of the retail players and what's the sense of how the latest new variant of the covid virus could impact retail giants that have been so focused on supply chain constraint issues when it comes to stocks recently. >> they have, julia. i think it is almost happening too late to really change the trajectory of things for

spending expectations now. i did notice earlier the kind of hypermarket stocks, costco, walmart, target, holding up pretty well. that shows you basically going for heft and stability in this environment makes sense even from investment or consumer perspective. retail was hit or miss, we saw blow ups in specialty retail chains last week when it was like if you couldn't capitalize on the strong spending environment, people getting back out there, best buy, gap, nordstrom, investors have no confidence you'll figure it out the next few months. it is a winners keep on winning type environment in retail. >> thanks for putting that in context. the dow down 900 points. we're bringing in two contributors, peter and the ceo of new street advisers good morning to you. peter, start with you.

put today's selloff into further context. we heard from mike this is a steep drop off, yes, but shortened trading day in a holiday week major averages aren't far from record highs. >> i think it proves that the scars of covid are still there we have to wait two weeks to know the effectiveness of the current vaccines to this if it is proven they're highly effective, in a way today will be forgotten, we'll be back to discussing what's the fed going to do and where inflation will go yes. shortened trading day. having that vacuum of information in response to this, and a market up 25% doesn't leave much cushion for what we're seeing >> we don't know how concerning the variant may be but as peter says, a reminder covid will be with us a long time to come does that mean stocks like zoom,

peloton that have seen major selloffs of the last few weeks and months are perhaps oversold, that they may continue to do well if we're living in an environment where new variants, we don't know how serious or not serious, are going to arise regardless. >> 100%. biggest thing, looking for those that perform well in that environment. we're going to see this story play out for the next several years, more than likely. we have to understand it is still new information for the new variant, how does it effect the stock play as far as the stay at home move. those areas of the stock market will continue to see the kind of jump when you hear something of this nature, but also have to caution, you have to understand underlying business and if they're well positioned to perform well in a work flex environment. >> those are two different pieces here. there's a question what the future of work is and also the question of health of the

consumer where do you see consumer spending, how do you see enterprise spending continuing in the new landscape >> i think consumer spending is still strong i think that was the biggest thing with consumer discretionary sectors performing well in the past couple months outside of the pull back today consumers are still strong, there's flush cash and willingness to spend now with the variant scare, that may be looking at possible slowdown in growth might possibly see travel and leisure stocks pull back that theme will play out this possibly could have been where we see the knee jerk reaction from the market as we try to understand how the variant plays out further for consumers. the consumer in my mind is still strong and this is the only deterrent in the near term >> peter, i want your reaction on this. where do you see consumer spending, do you think

enterprise spending can keep pace with where it has been the past couple quarters >> i think consumer spending is somewhat bifurcated because of the inflation story. higher end consumer is much more immune to inflation that we're seeing while the lower income or middle income family seeing inflation running higher than wages or decline of real wages, they're seeing a more challenging environment. savings rates are up because a lot of government transfer payments in the past year and a half, i think it is a two lane retail spending score. in terms of enterprise spending, also two way one hand, there's limited visibility because of supply chain problems, lack of labor, what that means for visibility which then inhibits capital spending on the other hand, companies need to continue to invest in the business, particularly in software and other areas of tech, in order to become more efficient, to better absorb cost

pressures. >> yeah. peter, some of the moves, moderna shares up 27%, oil down 10, 11%. peter, read your notes i think you take the fed's to task for being too dovish. anything that can result from what this strain will mean that could change your sense in terms of threat from inflation and the fed not moving fast enough >> well, i think this will be a reminder that the fed is very quick to ease and very much take theirtime when it comes to tightening i think the overhang of covid will just reinforce that while they still want to tighten, they're not going to speed it up and while the market pulled forward the possibility of rate hikes as early as may, i think we have to take it one step at a time to see if they get through the taper without having to halt that for some reason like covid. >> and delano, we made the point

many times, we know very little at this point in terms of what impact will be, if any significant impact, from the latest variant is there anything that you watched today that you see as on sale, as an opportunity for you to sort of do some buying? >> what sticks out initially when you look at the market move, been up 25% almost year to date, let's pull back, something might be a knee jerk reaction to shortened trading day. average positions, you have the barbell set already, investors can wait and let the dust settle and look for opportunities that may have sold off more that could prove to valuation that might be entertaining, especially travel, leisure stocks that sold off, bank stocks that sold off, a position we may see rising yields later on those are things i look for next couple of days, want the dust to settle a little to make those moves. >> peter, same question to you is there opportunity in the selling, what are you looking at to determine that in the next

few days >> i think anything that further inhibits the supply side from somewhat normalizing will continue to extend out the inflationary trends. oil in particular, i would be buying energy stocks on the pull back with other commodities. i think what we have seen the past 20 months, we're thrown a lot with covid, somehow we'll work through this. somehow the vaccines provide a level of protection and whenever things hit us short term, we'll plow through by inflation rated trades on the pull back. >> thanks for being with us this friday morning, seeing the markets sell off dow down nearly a thousand points at this point worst performers on the nasdaq 100 will be on the screen in a moment we will be all over the selloff all day on cnbc. equity trading ends at 1:00 p.m.

eastern today, a holiday shortened trading day. we have coverage well into the afternoon. one name dropping today, shares of chinese ride hailing company. chinese regulators asked the executives to delist it from new york stock exchange, highlighting concerns on data security, plans for delisting include privatization or listing on hong kong stock exchange. that stock down 45% since it went public in june, down another 6.6% didi investors are feeling the pain softbank in tokyo and ten cent uber feeling it as well. david, as i look at chinese avrs, they're down nearly 20%. the idea that china has zero tolerance policy towards the virus is hitting a lot of

internet names, including alibaba down 4%. >> a lot of different cross currents that anybody invested in chinese stocks traded here or there had to deal with this year also, implosion of a number of companies in the real estate industry or concern about that as well. didi, you can remember going back to the day after it went public when we heard about all of the concerns of chinese regulator, people wondered why didn't we hear about that prior to the company going public, did the underwriters know at that point perhaps given that this may not be a public much longer. >> it unravelled so quickly. i remember talking about it ipo day, do you know the risk of getting into the chinese market and then the headlines hit a lot of shareholders were not aware there was pressure to hold off on the offering. they rushed through the road show as david said, a lot of cross currents here. one of the worst hit groups of

today's session and didi continues to feel that pressure. >> yeah. meantime, shifting gears to crypto, crypto not sitting out this sellout bitcoin down 8%, ether down 11%. kate rooney has more. >> the crypto selloff is similar to what's hitting tech, knee jerk reaction away from higher growth riskier assets. all of this is stemming from macro news of the covid variant. bitcoin tends to suffer when investors want to reduce relatively higher risk liquid positions, move into safe haven assets bitcoin is seen as a riskier asset. inflation and safe haven on bitcoin, not taking off quite yet. the largest crypto currency dropping $53,000 this morning, lowest level since october bitcoin off by 20% from an all-time high of 69,000 it hit in november.

today, hitting bear market territory. since january, still up 80%. bitcoin is holding up better than some other coins. ether, in the red. also a flight from some so-called alt coins into bitcoin. analysts point to bitcoin becoming more mainstream as a result, more al dgorithms, and leverage, and finally $2.8 billion options expiration can feel some of the volatility as well. >> i heard leslie talk about bitcoin discussion at the thanksgiving dinner table. ours wasn't immune from that either probably many around the country. any indication of what's driving the selloff today? we talked about whales versus retail investors

do you think there's more retail interest out of the holiday where families talk and is this driven by larger scale institutional investors? >> there were more short term buyers, holding bitcoin for less than a few months. short term buyers are ones driving the activity there's data out there about where they got it. $57,000 is average cost basis for newer investors. some are underwater at this point. tend to be less committed or haven't proven commitment over the long term. if you bought in at $57,000, they're closely watching the price moves. that's cited as one of the factors in terms of people looking to sell some retail moves and longer term investors have been net sellers in november not necessarily getting out entirely, but taking profits right around the all-time high >> thank you kate rooney on crypto. as for the markets, they're down

2% 2.3% now on the s&p 500 and nasdaq we're abouttwo hours into trading. remember, we close early today, only an hour and a half or so left next guest on how to evaluate stocks, mark mahaney, head of internet research. mark, anything you like that you see on sale today, so to speak, given there's very little we know in terms of potential impact from this new strain. >> i will divide up stocks i look at, consumer tech and three areas, covid winners, recovery plays, and stocks that i think are long term structural winners as opposed to temporary winners from covid you're seeing netflix, peloton, chewy, stocks that did well in the first covid cycle, those are outperforming, then those that are recovery stocks, anything that's travel related, mobility related, ridesharing companies,

performances are dramatically different and you would expect that on a day like today leads to a third basket of stocks that long term investors should stick with, they're structural winners from covid and gooden during tech assets, amazon and facebook. that's how i divide them up. >> talk about uber i assume uber eats is not enough to offset if there's reduction in traffic for uber itself if the variant proves unfortunately, if that is the case to be something that causes people to perhaps change behavior >> you're right. you look at door dash today. they're modestly outperforming, down but people remember we had a surge spike. probably a structural winner that's perhaps half uber's business if you look at one sector that

was most impacted by the covid crisis, has been most impacted, it is ridesharing. it is 40% off precovid levels and travel is 10 to 20%. ridesharing is waiting for people to commute back to work and business travel to pick up and more of the covid stories we get, the longer the day of return is. i think it will be there, some point we're beyond this. you should be, long term investors should be stepping in on an asset like uber where the valuation is compelling, i think the multiple can double. i don't know when covid lets up, but when it does, here's a great recovery play, one that took advantage of one of the few advantages of covid, stripped down costs and got positive cash flow on 40% less volume. that's impressive. should tell you there's a lot of profits from uber when the recovery occurs. >> the dow is down 2.9%, off

well over a thousand points. as we look at that move lower, i want your thoughts on meta, formerly known as facebook one of the structural picks that you have it faces head winds. i wonder what you see facebook meta doing when it comes to social commerce and using e-commerce to navigate around apple operating system changes >> yeah. julia, a bunch of issues you raised are important for meta. keep calling it facebook a little while longer. social commerce, we all spike up social media ousage and spiked u shopping facebook should be a long term beneficiary from that. is the meta versa great investing play, i don't think so i think it is going to be an investable piece three to five years out. i don't think it moves facebook

stock like way mow didn't move google meta is option value for facebook shareholders. i like the stock valuation is compelling, there are overhangs that you know related to regulation and esg concerns i think a lot of that is priced in it is trading 25% discount to google with similar growth profile which tells you that if facebook can address any of the concerns, and maybe they won't, but if they can, there's a lot of multiple expansion you could see out of facebook. i think it is a cheap stock if you strip out some of the investments and cash they have i think it trades at a discount to the market and offers one of the best growth profiles in tech just does. highly profitable. i like facebook. meta >> and mark, you mentioned some travel stocks, but you cover expedia, booking holdings,

airbnb is there an opportunity in any of these plays as you look further out? >> yeah, there is. you get spiking covid cases, the stocks will trade down you have to know that. you know that if you own stocks. of the three, booking was starting to break out and all of these trading above precovid levels the market priced optimism in it as soon as you get negative covid news, stocks go down booking gives exposure to cross border and international travel, last leg of travel that's coming back, that's 50% below precovid levels, i don't know when that recovers not recovering on a day like today. airbnb showed up as the most defensive, online travel companies, it recovered fastest back to precovid booking levels because they came up with easy drive to alternative accommodations, safer places if you want to play travel, play

airbnb >> it is holding up better than other names, but valuation is richer than some of the others airbnb has actually seen this trend towards longer stays do you think that's even more of a better bet now given headlines, especially when you say return to work, you see companies push it back that enables their employees to take longer trips. are they better positioned than expedia or booking >> i think so. unfortunately there's not enough disclosure from expedia or booking to answer that conclusively there's disclosure from airbnb, up 20% of bookings that are 28 days or longer and by the way, the economics of that are wonderful with one booking, they get 28 days of revenue. that's good for airbnb and expands their tam, total adjustable market. the question is whether that's the case three to five years

from now anything that expands that long stay market is a benefit for airbnb, probably for all three, but clearest in airbnb financials >> more broadly, when you think about return to work plans, apple pushed back the date, it is not calling it return to work, calling it hybrid work plan do you think other work plans outside of tech will follow given this morning's headlines or still too early to tell >> probably too early to tell. i'm out here in san francisco. most tech companies are going remote hard to visit any of these companies. i zoom with all of them. i don't know whether that's harbinger for the rest of the country or not i know big tech, bay area tech is going remote and they're happy to stay, comfortable staying remote for a long period of time, may be permanent hybrid i don't know if that's good or bad long term. i am skeptical about that. but that's clearly what the norm is now in the bay area

>> mark, i think one thing we can bet on, nobody is coming to the office friday except maybe us an interesting experiment to continue to watch. thank you. let's get a news update, for that, we go to contessa brewer >> david, hi here is what's happening now no word yet from world health organization on the new covid variant that's behind today's market selloff advisers are meeting to assess the new variant. it is identified in south africa early analysis indicates a large number of mutations that could make it more dangerous a w.h.o. spokesperson warns countries not to overreact fed funds futures indicate traders are modestly reducing expectation that the federal reserve will start a cycle of rate hikes in may. trading is thin and makes it difficult to draw firm

conclusions. our economics correspondent steve liesman notes the fed view is that each new wave of covid infections had less economic impact than the previous one fda scientists concluded merck's anti-covid pill treats the disease but found potential risks for pregnant women they'll be evaluated when outside advisers meet to assess safety and efficacy. >> thanks for that. turning back to the selloff which we haven't gotten away from, dow down a thousand points, dom chu has more. >> we are seeing the dow down over a thousand points certain accelerations to the down side with regard to technology, media, telecommunications trade we want to highlight mega cap spots. these five stocks makeup 23, 24% of the overall s&p 500 apple shares, apple stock, most valuable company again in the world topping microsoft

narrowly, down 2.75% 2% decline for microsoft alphabet down 2.5% amazon, outperformer, only down 1 and a third percent. e-commerce helping buoy that trade. tesla down 2% as well. these five stocks makeup a large part of the overall s&p 500 and nasdaq the tech sector overall, the pull back from highs we have seen recently is still modest. if you look at one of the etfs, xlk, that move puts you 4% below record highs we have seen in the last couple weeks to put that in perspective now. also, if you want to look at what's working versus what's not working, there's been an interesting move in certain parts of the market that have shown signs of life versus

others that have not if you look at some stocks in the news today so far base of trades we have seen, look at names that have done well, beneficiaries of the lockdown we saw last year during the covid pandemic zoom video, now up 7%. that's off session highs docu sign up 2.5%. teladoc health, up 5%. etsy is down 1% now, and peloton, big underperformer when it comes to connective fitness, up 3.5%. those stocks that benefitted the most during the pandemic recovery, ones that have seen some real up side moves because people are getting better, feeling better about the economy overall. norwegian cruise line, a proxy for travel and leisure, down

15%. occidental petroleum, down 11% fears of a slowdown. simon property group, massive owner of physical malls and retail real estate, down 6%. jpmorgan chase down 4% interest rates going lower, not helping that narrative and peloton for home fitness, planet fitness has been a beneficiary since lockdown lifted, but now down 7%. people fear more the notion that gyms may still be on the same trajectory physically speaking this is an interesting development with regard to how we see the market play out, whether or not it is exacerbated the next couple days today is a thinly traded day we'll see if it sticks that way. back to you. >> the fact we see classic stay at home plays so much in the green, rare stocks in the green today, the tech megacaps are all

in the red, yes, amazon down a little less than the others, is there any sense that some of these tech megacaps could be perfect positioned going forward considering how much they benefit from the hybrid world and another wave of covid? >> great point that you bring up here when it comes to outperformance that we have seen in many ways during rougher parts of the pandemic, it was those technology megacap names that tended to outperform others. if you look at the way it plays out, early days with regard to new south african covid variant, one of the things driving that megacap technology and telecommunications trade in the last 6 to 12 months is the overall interest rate picture. you've seen market weakness for megacap names has been when interest rates have gone higher or threatened to go higher that's when you start to see growth valuations come into real focus, and you punish those

megacap technology names what's curious about the trade today is we have been showing you that long term interest rates are actually coming down because people are bidding up the safety of treasury bonds if interest rates come down further, it might provide some of a buy thesis. it is a great observation. this is a tug of war now, push and pull behind some pandemic themes versus some things that have been driving the megacap tech trade, namely interest rates in the course of the last 6 to 9 months, guys. >> thank you, dom. the dow is down more than a thousand points. what's in the green today? dom mentioned, work from home play, pandemic stocks like zoom, peloton. bring in james fish from piper sandler. james, start off with zoom this is the classic stay at home

play stock was up in the pandemic, the stock plummeted on earnings results slowing growth what do you see for this stock >> good morning, thanks for having me. happy belated thanksgiving zoom, you know, has gone through a roller coaster ride as we talked about mark put it well you have these pandemic plays and then recovery plays. we talked about kind of normalization of the world, zooms of the world have taken a little on the chin over the last 9 to 11 months for zoom, what we have going on is really a question about what's the sustainable growth, especially as you think about that early indication for fiscal '23 and calendar '22 is what i am talking about there. what it gets down to is how is that turn of smb business, business that was starting to

see elevated churn over the summertime and really what ended up happening is we got a little stability this past quarter. it is a question of how much stability is there, especially with all of the different variants, do we have a new normal where zoom now is part of that environment for enterprise out there that you just need zoom meetings takes away the cost of an airplane ticket one trip definitely worth it for a guy like me on the road than we currently are, and you're seeing that show up in results. whether it is phone, room, events, webinar that they're trying to do now. >> with that in mind, we have zoom up 7.5%, off highs earlier today. what are some other plays, other

stocks that might be on sale on this black friday. >> yeah. names we are bullish on, you think about communication software, evolution of consumer engagement in the space. really 459 is not just a takeout candidate given what happened with zoom over the summer, that transformation, omni channel, ai, it is more than call routing we thought of as old and the transition to cloud based systems there that are driving that work from anywhere agent and they have a great mouse trap being able to engage with the world. >> i am not sure if you heard the earlier conversation with mark mahaney, he was skeptical companies outside the bay area will embrace work from home for a long time into the future.

timelines, return to work timelines keep getting pushed into the future. feels like the threshold to do so has been lowered. do you think new variants, not just this one, there's so much unknown, the idea of new variants, make it more likely we live in a hybrid corporate world for longer >> let's face it, we were talking about when do we return to the office in the middle of 2020 that got pushed into wait for '21, now a question what point in 2022 do you get back. we are hearing from the investment community themselves two, three days a week, and so forth. i don't think you have a complete return to the office at this point five days a week. i think we have all established that productivity is holding up nicely when you look at the average worker across different verticals. you end up with a case by case scenario

overall, hearing two, three days a week at some point, but each of the variants will push out the time frame for when you get back to travel, when you get back to in office work let's face it, zooms of the world have shown productivity can be slightly better in a hybrid work environment. >> yeah. plenty of senior managers are trying to assess other metrics that may be harder to compile, lack of innovation or lack of cultural attachment you don't get from zoom. i have a question on the stock itself this could end up being a one day phenomena, right last earnings report, growth is decelerating at a faster rate than they've seen. you mention 59, they were unable to do what was an important acquisition because of performance of their own stock nobody questions growth for this company but at what multiple is the key question what do you assign as appropriate multiple

>> it is an interesting take what you brought up with innovation as well not lost on us there either. in terms of answering your question directly, this is a name you start to talk about as free cash flow multiple where when you look at what i call the cloud big brothers and sales force service now workday where they went through big periods of growth and matured into more free cash flow multiples, zoom you're looking at 30 to 35 times free cash flow whereas during the pandemic, we talked about 30 to 40 revenue story. it is a question of how much free cash is coming from that s&p business if that's stable, at this cash flow level it is a compelling story and we can use that as a base to work off of from there our 299 price target gets you to roughly 35, 36 times free cash flow i believe, and overall

valuation is becoming compelling at these levels, we did have obviously down about 20% day, thought that was good entry point for those on the sidelines. last year when we talked about the delta variant in india, the stock had a little reaction but not too much the story is much more than just different variants for the pandemic it is evolving into a multi product story. >> fascinating time for those stay at home stocks, the rare stocks in the green today, james. thanks so much >> thank you. you heard a lot about broken supply chain already, but will that supply chain hold up for the holidays frank holland crunches the

numbers. frank? >> happy holidays, julia surveys show 75% of shoppers are worried what they want to buy this season will be sold out that's why i grabbed this playstation controller when i got in the door. we are in best buy we have seen a steady stream of in store shopping. this holiday season, online shopping is forecast to increase by 16% in store shopping by as much as 50%. retailers are doing everything they can to keep products on shelves and meet that holiday demand major retailers, including best buy, walmart, target increased inventory this season year over year compared to last holiday season according to cnbc data, they're selling goods faster than last holiday season as they continue to meet the holiday demand this year best buy says there's good inventory of computers if you shop for those, put if you look for other popular consumer

goods, the time to buy is now. >> we expect to have shipments through holiday and will we know we will. we will replenish. gaming consoles, shortages, phones, bluetooth speakers, another example. >> according to sales force, first two weeks of november saw 10% increase in early holiday shopping boosted by return of in store shopping you're seeing a lot of people behind us. we spoke to a lot of people in the store. they heard the news about the covid variant, and if the reports continue, they feel concerned about safety, they'll do the rest of the shopping online back to you. >> fair enough still pretty early into this thing. thank you so much. buy now, pay later taking over the holiday season, young shoppers are moving away from interest to alternative payment platforms. they're giving 3 million customers more flexible. thanks for being with us this

morning. we are seeing amid selloff another buy now pay later firm perform. these payments or fin tech names outperformed throughout the pandemic do you think there's a bull case if we do see this continue, see another variant rise >> i definitely think that's the case we saw that happen the last time covid came around, first time it came around. that push is likely to continue with covid back. >> but explain how buy now pay later takes advantage of that or is a beneficiary versus a credit card >> yeah. we generally focus in the ecom space. we are present on 44,000 merchant websites. not sezzle, but the industry in general is focused on e-commerce as that push back into that

occurs, we benefit from that. >> talk about this space broadly and all the competition. you have amazon, partnered with affirm, paypal getting rid of pi now pay later fees how do you compete in a space with so many competitors and deep pocketed competitors. >> it is focusing on stakeholders, merchants, focus on consumers we stand on the high road for the consumer we are the only player that focuses on credit building which is unique. we love it, our consumers love it, merchant partners love it. i think by focusing on their needs, the consumer needs, doing right by them and merchants, you have a chance to do a strong job within the sector. >> so what is your growth opportunity, is it more partnering with small business, doing more partnerships like the one with target? how are you going to be able to carve out space against the

amazon, affirm, paypals of the world? >> with smb, we have been growing with wild fire we expect that to continue we're doing a great job. merchants love us. it is viral in that space. for us now, the push is into enterprise, target, bass pro shops are two examples of that for us. the reason we do that, the consumer wants to shop with us everywhere, we have to be everywhere we have to be with mid market and enterprise if you look at the enterprise players, they want a brand they can believe in that's where you have sezzle helping them build up the credit score, being a partnership player that sets us apart >> charlie, buy now pay later has become more available. what have you seen in terms of overall average order value of a consumer, has it been going up

if so, how much do you expect it to go up from here >> it has been relatively stable, around $100 per order. the only reason it is tracking up for us, we have been expanding services we started with pure pay in over six weeks interest free. that's where we tracked around $100 as we add long term into the mix, we're tracking upwards. order values on a 12 month order or installment plan, those track towards a thousand dollars we feel it will stay stable. it is just when you have mix shift, that creates change for sezzle. >> last time we had a firm on, he said credit cards are power tools with no safety you can get yourself into real trouble. do you agree with that statement and do you think a younger generation of shoppers feels the same way, and that's one of the major driving forces behind buy now, pay later. >> i think it is spot on consumers love the product, it represents purchasing power but

budgeting for them they feel safe like with a debit card we are driving a new wedge in payments between credit and debit. i call it creditization of a debit card fair to say because of the safety element we give element e to the consumer. >> charlie, thanks for being with us today. >> thanks for having me. >> let's stick with the sell-off retail stocks getting hit hard on what's supposed to be one of the biggest days of the year for the sector let's bring in our courtney reagan again there is expected to be a spike in in-store shopping this year for black friday my question is whether that in-store activity and even online activity is getting impacted by these headlines about the new covid variant. >> julia that's a big question we're all asking today so far it doesn't seem that many of the shoppers that have been spoken to by a number of these data firms, the forecasters and the analysts i've spoken to seem to be too worried.

they're not letting them curtail their plans to shop in-store or online, the online shopping day for thanksgiving day when many of those retailers were closed your primary mode of shopping was online and that was lower than what adobe had originally forecast i'm wondering because more shoppers did intend to go in-store today as was originally forecast and we're seeing the spending or is there something else going on? we also know how much early shopping has been done when you look at pictures frommal around the country it's hard to tell about the foot traffic right now. many are saying it's definitely higher from 2020 and not quite at 2019 levels and we'll hit those expectations of 108 million shoppers and i think we'll have to wait to see. >> well, courtney, there are so many factors at play

you have people shopping early because of supply chain concerns and you have the gradual shift to online shopping and now there is this hope that people will be moving back interest stores. is there a sense that paying attention to the headlines can add to the amount that people are willing to spend overall >> i think that is certainly an issue. that's why you're seeing a lot of these stocks sell off today wall street is less confident that retail can withstand another big breakout if that means shoppers decide to retreat back home and if they decide to change their spending habits because of this resurgence that we've seen in the third quarter and that we're counting on for this holiday season many expectations are saying holiday sales could be up 8%, 10% this year. that's a record season, and while consumer sentiment has sort of been mixed recently and we know inflation is also an issue. stockout and availability of

product is an issue. in general, consumers are feeling pretty strong. wages are higher andincentives to get a new job are higher and people want to get back to normal with their lives and their traditions around the holiday and spending and things that maybe they missed out on last year. if all of that is thought to be in jeopardy that's probably part of the reason why we're seeing this retail sell-off today we don't normally see retail stocks move that much on black friday typically this is unusual for today as far as the stock moves are concerned in particular. >> courtney, thank you >> courtney reagan, back at hq let's get more on the new south african covid variant and it's triggering the market sell-off and with us is the dean of public university of health, dr. ashish jha how do you see it and what would you be waiting for to make a

more informed decision as to the threat that this poses >> yes good morning thanks for having me back. there is a positive information. every month we hear about a new v variant that cannot be ignored and it is reason it is much more contagious, we don't know for sure and the big concern is how much immune evasion it has and how it impacts vaccines. we will get good laboratory data on those questions i expect in the next few days to at most the next few weeks so we'll know a lot more we just have to hold right down and see what the data tell us. >> right what is the main thing that triggers your concern? is it the number of mutations? is it the very small amount of information that we have that indicates a quick spike in cases? >> the number of mutations doesn't bother me. where the mutations are concerning some experience with mutations in those areas and you can see more immune evasion.

the other part is how quickly it has taken off in south africa and elsewhere. that in the context of a country and the world that's got delta already, we haven't seen another variant outcompete delta this effectively and that concerns me so more coming bei, but those a the concerns >> the punishing effect for countries that come out early and have variants are met with travel bans and with less insensitives and what does that mean for the trajectory of the virus and future variants. >> one of the things we should all be grateful for this morning is that those in south africa identify the variant south africa does a great job sequencing viruses and that's why they identified it if we start punishing countries that identify variants and making it public, the incentives

will go in all the wrong direction. so we should be thoughtful about the next steps and not punish countries that are open and transparent about these things >> so what do you think the next steps should be other than accelerating the rollout of vaccines and boosters if it's not about blocking travel, what thi is should it be right now? >> travel restrictions slow down the spread of the virus by a couple of weeks. if we do a travel ban on south africa and other countries that have it identified it may delay the arrival of the virus by a week or two. the virus may be here, the variant. we don't know, but it's not alone from solution because we're a global world, right? and the virus will find its way into our country so right now what we need to be doing is the clinical data to figure out how the deal is it and we should be talking to the companies that build vaccines,

moderna, pfizer, j&j, and would we need to build new vaccines? i don't think we will, but those conversations start now. we should ramp up testing and looking for this variant in america, so if it's here we can identify it early. there's a lot we can be doing that get ready that almost surely, no matter what we do, will arrive in the united states >> yes certainly. i know there is a lot of anxiety about this question of whether or not people get more sick or less sick which we don't know yet. talk to us about the therapeutics there has been so much optimism about the efficacy of these therapeutics how do you see them working against this new variant >> that's a really good question in my mind there are two therapeutics and the monoclonal antibodies and merck and pfizer. i am worried about how they'll work against the laboratory, and

obviously, that takes a little bit of time. i have no reasons to think that the oral pills from merck and pfizer will work any less effective. it should work quite well against this new variant and we have to ramp up production and we have to get those into the marketplace as quickly as possible >> we'll have 10 million courses available. the panel is meeting next week, dr. jha. do you see them, the oral antivials, assuming they do get approved in terms of dealing with whatever variant is coming our way? i do we have to produce enough of these pills and the merck data does not look as good as the pfizer data. that's the pill they think will have a bigger impact and we just don't know about production of pfizer and that's one issue. the second is for these pills to work you have to take them really early in the disease course and that means that you

have to get testing widely available and the mechanisms to make sure people get tested when they have symptoms and take the pill if we can do all of that, yes, it can make an enormous difference. >> dr. jha, i certainly appreciate your insight with the markets down sharply on this news which we still know not that much. dr. ashish jha from brown university. >> we have to check on markets and we do see indexes, the dow down 900 points and the nasdaq composite is holding relatively better down 2% and what's helping is those state home names that are catching a bit in the current market >> yeah. absolutely we see netflix up 1.6% and roku up 1.5% and the vid why gamemakers in the green and electronic artses up 1% and don't forget those vaccine makers and those stocks rocketing when moderna shares up over 23%, dee.

>> it is a shortened trading day so some of these moves may be exasperated by smaller volumes and it is a holiday weekend and that will do it for "tech check. it is time for a special edition of "closing bell." sarah? mike >> deidre, thank you welcome to a special three-hour edition of "closing bell" program i'm sara eisen at the new york stock exchange. it is red friday for stocks on wall street. stocks getting slammed on fear was a new covid var yiant the session low is down. >> i am mike santoli in for wilfried frost its emergence sending a chill across global markets and airlineses, cruises are getting pummeled while some stay at home plays like zoo