good morning, the omicron variant spreading, now confirmed in at least a dozen countries, including canada breaking overnight, new travel restrictions in the u.s. and abroad israel and japan announcing a ban on entry for all foreigners. and stocks in asia falling after the black friday selloff in the u.s. but futures pointing to a rebound this morning, up about 240, 250 nice move in the nasdaq. it's monday, november 29, 2021 "squawk box" begins right now.

good morning, welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. and yeah, we -- it's a monday, we're going to see what's happening this morning, last week was a rough one you saw what happened on black friday with the dow down 2.5%, a loss of 900 points but there is a bit of a rebound this morning dow futures up by 250 points the s&p is indicated up by about 44 points and then the nasdaq which was under pressure too, down on friday, now indicated up by almost 200 points this morning. watching treasury yields, so much activity on friday, so many huge moves you saw, the ten year was one of those the ten year yield was down 15 basis points to 1.49%. right now it's rebounded a little bit, too. the yield is now at 1.533% and the two-year which saw a

dramatic move now yielding 0.541% if you look at the squawk stack on friday you know what it was, the travel stocks were under pressure, the airlines, hotels, just about everything saw significant moves. the industrials were under pressure, too. the dow jones industrial had the worst day since october of 2020, so did the transports, t down by about 3.6% volatility index took off, event up to 28.8, highest level since march 8th. this morning 24.56 wti up 5% this morning after being down 12% for the futures on friday, too we fell below $70 at one point, too, broke below that. you'll see crude is back up at $71.58 but steep declienes from earlier in the week last week. bitcoin is rebounding too. it was down 7 or 8% at this point on friday morning now back above 57,000

guys, all of the cryptocurrencies rebounding too. because on friday the other cryptocurrencies were under more pressure than bitcoin. they're all rebounding across that spectrum, too. >> let's get to the latest news on omicron and the ripple effects really taking place across the world. dom chu will update us on the markets, phil lebeau has the travel and brian sullivan has oil. but we start with the latest from meg tirrell. >> good morning, not a lot of clarity over the weekend the w.h.o. saying the risk to the world is considered high, but saying it's going to be a few weeks until we know the key answers to some of the most important questions, one is whether it's more transmissible, but they're watching that closely in the data,

particularly from south africa and also other places. they note in terms of the severity that hospitalizations are increasing in south africa but not clear if it's due to increased severity or cases are going up we heard the reports that most of the cases are mild but experts are warning against us taking solace from that because it's early days, many of the cases have been in young erpeople the world health organization noting this may carry a risk of reinfection. the question is how does this affect the protection we get from vaccines and from medicines like the antibody drugs. we heard that multiple countries have confirmed or suspected cases, about a dozen more added to the list over the weekend you can see where omicron has now been detected. not yet here in the united states according to the cdc but we know the networks are looking very closely for it. it would not be surprising experts say to hear about that sometime soon in the u.s

it comes against the backdrop of issues here in the u.s. with the delta variant, the new york governor declaring a state of emergency, noting this state is having transmission rates that we haven't seen since spring of 2020 and the governor noting that the rate of new hospital admissions has increased to 300 more or a day. taking that action to be able to free up hospital capacity this before we've seen the variant come to the state or the country. guys, back to you. >> meg we'll speak with you a lot more throughout the program. two big interviews coming up that you are going to be leading, the ceo of moderna joining us at 7:00 a.m. and the ceo of pfizer joining us at 8:00 a.m., two folks you would want to hear from right now. we want to get to dom chu with reactions in the market after the black friday selloff. >> we didn't think it was going to be quite so dramatic black friday, but to becky's points,

the numbers to watch today, we lost 905 points for the dow on friday, 106 for the s&p 500 and 353 for the nasdaq composite so as you look at the tickers below on your screen, those are the numbers you have to make up to get back to where we were pre-friday on black friday's selloff. if you look at the global markets right now. it's not just what happened in the u.s. on friday but a catch up trade that happened in asia as well. i will know it's generally red, nikkei off 1.5% almost the hang seng down 1%. and the shanghai relatively flat for some of these indices around the greater china region or within china they closed well off session lows so you saw a bounce late in the session in asia as well let's spin to what's happening in europe. trading is not that far into the

trading day so far but you can see generally green, the ftse 100 up nearly 1% the dax almost 1%. and crack up over 1% and 1% for the spain ibex as well we haven't gotten back to where we were, of course, on friday's trade, though. take a look at some of the energy stocks in the united states as well those are a big focus. we mentioned a drop in oil prices many companies took a hit and trading this morning within the overall market, the exxon shares up nearly 2% 1.75% for chevron. marathon oil up 3% devon energy 2%. so some of the exploration companies up higher. except for diamond back energy down.6%. the vaccine makers, generally still positive, positive friday as well. moderna up nearly 10%.

pfizer up 1% biontech up about 5% and novavax up about 4% as well. and i'll send it to phil lebeau with the latest on the travel restrictions and impacts there >> good morning, the airline stocks in the u.s. and europe indicating higher, moving higher, not the same in asia, but let's talk about where things stand in terms of the flight, travel restrictions whether it's a ban or restriction on the people who can come in from south africa as well as those seven other countries. this is just for south africa and the seven countries in southern africa. uk and some european countries are banning actual flights out the u.s. at this point, strictly restricting passengers and that starts today in terms of the u.s. airlines that have flights in africa to stand out, the two that do have service, talking about delta, it

will continue its flights from at lan to johannesburg through the december united is also serving south africa, it has 87 flights into the country. and united say over the weekend, it is not change plans when it comes to expansion of flights and additional flights into africa the united expansion into africa, which they outlined a number of months ago, newark to cape town start on wednesday they are not changing the plans to have the service start, newark to johannesburg continues. and d.c. to lagos, those flights start today. the airline index, it is at a 52 week low, not surprising given the movement we saw with the airlines and the concern we will see international lockdowns and that's the biggest concern here, it's not the domestic traffic even though you look at the

domestic airlines they took a hit on friday as well. nobody is expecting to see a fall back in domestic flights here, it's the international lockdown if we see that spread and more countries say we'll further restrict who can come and go, that's going to push out the anticipated return of international traffic that has really fuelled some of the larger airlines. talking about united, delta and american, as well as some of the european and asian international carriers back to you, guys. >> interesting, phil, a lot of people making a lot of plans for a lot of things. totally up in the air at this point. let's get to brian sullivan with a look at the move in oil prices brian, november's been tough for crude anyway almost down, you know, what was it, 80, 85 at one point. it was almost in a bear market as of friday, was it not

>> yeah we're getting close. the number from the exact sort of intraday high to the intraday low on friday, joe, i don't have it on the top of my head but i think you are right, we could get close to that 20% number if we had to. of course, we fell 13% on friday, that was the fifth biggest drop in futures since the brent crude future was created all the way back in 1988 you think about that, now oil stocks hit them a few moments ago, they didn't fall as much, they were down big 5 or 6% but not 13% as well. there was a lot of underlying things happening, a lot of traders maybe on the wrong side in the options market, you had contracts that rolled over as well as always with commodity futures, it is not always cut and dry. there's positioning underlying that it can exacerbate moves in either way what do we know? we know that gasoline demand is still very strong. gas buddy reporting, joe, that

last week, the four days from wednesday to sunday was the most demand for gasoline in american history. period also rbc saying that the price drop on friday represents about 120 million barrel swing to their supply balance, just the way they calculate dollars versus barrels a lot of fear in the oil markets about a lockdown of, quote, germany. it appears clear there is not going to be a national lockdown in germany maybe some regional lockdowns. austria is locked down, but a austria is 0.3% of demand. from an opec perspective, let's see what happens, they're supposed to have their technical meeting today and tomorrow, joe. they have pushed that back by two days

the official meeting of opec plus is still scheduled for now on thursday they do have a provision in their deal where they can delay their production increases by three months. it would be politically fraught if they did so it would increase already high tensions with the biden administration but opec is going to do what's best for opec. either way oil prices rebounding almost 5% right now, joe >> can the spr take that oil back we probably can't do that, right? we'll keep it for now. you're a little cynical at the time, i know maybe we should be buying it i know -- >> you're making a good -- >> i know it's not done yet. >> but what if prices go up and they have to refill the spr at higher prices. >> good time to do it next fr friday. >> next year >> thank you to brian sullivan, great to see you coming up more on the market

move following the black friday selloff. the futures right now, pretty solid. normally we say that's a good start, but just a little bit of a rebound from friday. check out some of the reopening stocks, which maybe a looking a little bit better some 2% gains there in a couple of the airlines you're watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square.

♪ ♪ cases of anxiety in young adults are rising as experts warn of the effects on well-being caused by the pandemic. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ this black friday, do you want a tv? or do you want. the place on the tv? when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. or do you want. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org.

mom, hurry! our show's gonna start soon! i promised i wouldn't miss the show and mommy always keeps her promises. oh, no! seriously? hmm! it's not the same if she's not here. oh. -what the. oh my goodness! i don't suppose you can sing, can you? ♪ the snow's comin' down ♪ -mommy? ♪ i'm watching it fall ♪ watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2

futures rights now are in the green. 265 points on the dow, nasdaq 190, s&p 500 up about 45 it was tough, carnage across the board on friday, shortened trading section. the broader markets sold off on concerns about the new covid variant. was it an overreaction and maybe a buying opportunity let's bring in alicia lavene, and silvia jablonski asking you two ladies to make determinations about what to do when we know so very little is problematic. and even goldman sachs, which said at this point we're not changing forecasts, but they point out the range of possible outcomes is substantially -- or unusually wide

so not only do we not know the epidemiology of the variant, we don't know about antibody drugs we don't know about moderna, pfizer, astrazeneca, we don't know anything at this point. so do you -- either one of you want to take a shot at what to do with the stock portfolio? alicia >> that's what we get paid for, joe. so yes, the playbook is pretty clear. you get a knee jerk reaction and now this is about our third or fourth really bad covid scare in the last two years what to do moving forward i'll say this, if the omicron turns out to be something of concern, you're going to deepen the fundamentals that are already in place, which is higher inflation in the short term followed by a slowing later on in the year and so our playbook looks pretty much the same, which is position your portfolio a little bit of head winds from the inflationary

front, the opportunity for a policy mistake coming from the fed, because this is a very difficult period, but then ultimately on the other side you're going to roll over some isms, some pmis in the middle of the year we like tech here, we think that's the playbook you go through the next few weeks and also look to reopening because we'll get there. >> i've seen both sides on what it means for the fed and alicia just mentioned it. but if there's now more supply chain issues around the world, theoretically, because of this, inflation stays bad and the fed doesn't -- it doesn't get a respite from tapering, but it actually increases tapering or is that flawed thinking? >> so i think this -- >> in my mind -- yeah, in my mind i think that the fed now

has an excuse or reason to sort of stay on course with the tapering and go slow and steady and push off rate hikes. inflation is an issue. i think supply chain issues will start to ease up in the second half of next year perhaps they slowed down a little bit now because of the travel restrictions if anything it goes back to the original reason why the fed took their time on this, that's the jobs and economy getting back on track. if we have slower gdp because people aren't going out and traveling and things likes that, and this impacts the jobs numbers and people have to stay home because of the demand restricted by covid and the lockdowns and potential changes in behavior, then i think fed has a reason to slow it down likely, i think this is a bit of a anyknee jerk reaction the news we're getting from the drug makers is there's a light at the end of the tunnel and currently the positive

vaccines we have and the boosters do work so i expect today to be another buying opportunity because of that. >> that's one of the promises of the new technology, the new mess mess messenger mrna vaccine it can be adjusted quickly i think that's a good thing here on out go quarterly. let me alicia get back to the market and talk about dip buying until we know that that's over, that that's the right move, i think there's a lot of reasons for it, because we were in a great reopening scenario, the economy looked really great after what we have been through for the past couple of years, we're going to reopen, things are going to get back to normal we thought and we had the low interest rates how could you not buy stocks low interest rates in a

reopening economy. is that what we're seeing or a threat we deserve the low interest rates because we're going to have a slower growth globally than we thought. >> we deserve the lower rates because globally the world is not recovering like the u.s. europe is an indication of that. europe could have a triple dip here in terms of the recovery if we see the reaction to covid deepen from what we've heard last week. if their bond market stays negative on yields, it's going to affect our bond market as well rates stay low, u.s. growth out of it, maybe a delay of a month or two, but we are better positioned in the u.s. from a company point of view and the reopening, we would still look ahead to the deeper reopening in the surveiervices in the spring summer, that's still our playbook here. if it gets delayed we think in

the short term inflation will be higher because of the supply chain issues not quite getting worked out just yet if there is a reluctance to engage in services in the short term but you have to invest for the long term. and so this was a gift wrapped in a bow. >> do you agree with that, silvia the pure reopening stocks. take the most vulnerable one, the airlines and the hotels, and, you know, take your pick. are they on sale now with great potential for the future or are those, do you think who would buy those not knowing about omicron, what happened >> great question. so there's sort of two ways too look at it number one is i think behaviorally we've all become to instant grfatifications we're looking for stocks that pop and have double digit returns next quarter that's great but in terms of asset diversification, you have access

to those stocks. they pulled off friday, but i think they're sort of deeply valued stocks now that are onsale so if international borders are closed, a lot of the airlines there, like united and delta that have 50% or more of exposure to national travel aren't doing a lot this year the domestic flights are picking up, so they turned out to be a decent investment opportunity. i think if you look at the chart and see a 1,000 rise, that's what the travel stocks could look like a decade for now but it's a patience trade, you have to hold it. if you want instant gratification, maybe it's tech, maybe it's semiconductors, cryptocurrency but airlines and cruises are good to have in your portfolio.

>> we'll hold it there i want to thank you both joe we looked at the bitcoin at the top of the hour the rebounding crypto prices across the board you'll see gains of 3, 4% for most of these cryptos. right now ripple up by about 5%. again, these were the ones that suffered the most on friday. bitcoin was only down by about 7 or 8% at this point on friday. at this point on friday all the other coins were down by 10, 11, 12%. so you're seeing rebounds but not nearly as much on a percentage basis as you had seen in terms of what they're getting back bitcoin above 57,000 at the bottom of the hour we'll talk to an investor about what he sees happening here "squawk box" will be right back.

what's strong with me? i know when i'm ready for a rest day. ...so i can be ready for anything... tomorrow. find out what's strong with you with fitbit sense and daily readiness. ♪ ♪ well would you look at that? ♪ ♪ jerry, you've got to see this. seen it. trust me, after 15 walks ...it gets a little old. ugh. i really should be retired by now. wish i'd invested when i had the chance... to the moon! [thud] [clunk] ugh... unbelievable. unbelievable. [ding]

welcome back, everybody. a programming note for you we have two big interviews that could shape the way we think about omicron, that variant, first up at 7:00 a.m. eastern time we'll speak with the ceo of moderna. the company's chief medical officer said it could roll out a reformulated vaccine against the omicron variant early next year. it's not known how the current vaccines will react to the new variant and the other questions are what's happens with authorities and when they can get approval

we'll get a chance to talk to him about that at 7:00 a.m and at 8:00 a.m. we'll speak with pfizer's ceo about all of the same questions, how effective they think the vaccine is, this omicron variant is different, remember, because it has about 30 variations at least on the spike protein, that's where the vaccines work and why there's so many questions about what this may mean. >> and not just about the vaccine itself but also the new antivirals and therapies that are coming out and whether those will be effective. there seems to be a distinction maybe the pills will work, the vaccine won't role out. >> pfizer has one of those pills. so we'll get the chance to ask about that as well >> there's slight variations, i don't know what it does in terms of the way the virus is able to infect human cells, i don't know

if it improves it or symptoms. but my question is, we'll ask stephan, the proof of concept of messenger mrna, and you change a couple of base pairs what cons consists of the -- >> you have to go through the testing, which means, what six months to a year after that? >> you're stimulating the immune system again and again, it works great we've been using vaccines for a long time but you can't assume if you change a couple of things in the message to adapt it to omicron, you can't assume the safety profile is the same. >> we do it with the flu vaccine every year we have new variants. >> but it's done differently >> maybe we can then >> every year we try to pick out the ones we think will be the

likely variants. >> we assume -- >> not that those are mrna vaccines. >> we'll ask people who know instead of conjecturing. but be nice to think that it would be like the flu. the proof of concept, if we can do it and it's so easy to just upgrade the software of the vaccine itself and do it and then all of a sudden you're -- but it does sort of usher in that -- what gottlieb has talked about, that is the endemic nature perhaps of covid. it's like a flu. it's like a flu that is going to be around forever that we have to deal with seasonal. >> perhaps but i think this goes to when these bills are available, how much of a game changer that ultimately becomes. >> the therapeutics. >> the therapeutics may be -- we talked about it two years ago

how he thought therapeutics may be the answer that may still be the answer do you do testing? how do you deal with it? there's been a debate around the world about distribution of vaccines but, you know, what do we do about manufacturing for these -- clearly we have to do it en masse. and that's part of the reason we may be here. >> gottlieb was on the airwaves yesterday, scott gottlieb, the former fda commissioner, who's on the board of pfizer, and he was talking about how five of the eight african countries -- >> they weren't taking them. >> they weren't taking additional delivers of the vaccines because they can't get them distributed properly or there's not demand for them. i think we need to hear more from all of these ceos this morning about that about what's happening because the immediate pushback was this is what happens when you don't share your vaccines. is that the case or is there not

enough out there or is there not the distribution or the demand for the vaccines in certain places you see it here in the united states. >> therapeutics are different. they're not -- their site of action is not the spike protein. that's where all the mutations are in the spike protein but if you're the inhibitor or whatever it is that -- >> right can slow down. >> innards of the virus you have something that works against those it shouldn't matter if the spike protein mutates. if you get a mutation in one of those that's a problem that's why that pfizer -- we'll talk about that. you see the merck therapeutic is not as effective as thought. >> 34 versus 48. >> so the pfizer is looking -- we don't know. better and better. good we have both of those -- i don't know who else we would

want on, god maybe. >> couldn't ask for more, for better interviews this morning we'll do all of that plus so much more this morning we'll talk about wall street firms putting out notes on the variant. what it could mean for your money. plus the president planning to brief the nation on that new variant. we'll take you live to uagtinon sqwk returns to all of it in just a moment. hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this. your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee and get the best deals on every smart phone.

♪♪ care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care.

good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box. live from the nasdaq market site in times square. checking the futures again, where they were. the dow is up 260 points or so, nasdaq up 190. s&p up 44 points or so meanwhile, we are -- got our ear and our fingers up in the air for these wall street firms putting out notes on the potential market impact of the omicron variant. dom chu joins us with more i know you've been monitoring that, and i know, dom we're not going to dwell on it like we normally would but there were a few sporting events since last time we spoke on wednesday but let's -- or on tuesday i think it was but let's keep it on this, i guess we have to. >> i will do it, but i think that we can come back and talk

about it some other day -- >> maybe 2023. >> including ohio state, michigan, that's a big one for sure. >> oh my god, that was unbelievable >> i know. >> unbelievable. and the snow, it was so cool to watch. >> yeah. >> that was football >> good for michigan fans out there. >> unbelievable. >> let's go through the stuff that joe was talking about mentioned taking the temperature, the pulse here, wall street is out with a spectrum of views on omicron, for good reason because we don't know there are more questions than answers at this stage. so as investors and analysts and experts parse through what we know with each passing day, this is kind of how things stand right now. first of all, let's check out what's happening with the implications of omicron on the markets in the global financial situation. analysts at j.p. morgan came out and laid out the health risks to clients that went into the market risk picture overall.

the expectation is the medium term outlook is okay, j.p. morgan wrote that central banks have showed a willingness to unleash liquidity. then you have a jeffries note that painted the picture with more fear out there. analysts at jeffries saying that the new variant will keep market volatility elevated through the year end on fear of potential shutdowns if cases spread too fast again, more questions than answers. what's the transmissibility, how severe are the symptoms? then there's svb and the analysts there this is an investmentment firm that specializes in the health care industry. it said, the news from south africa is quite alarming and likely to trigger global concerns about another covid shutdown in economic activity. that's the fear.

analysts continue saying this variant has the hallmarks of our worst fears for further evolution of covid's adaptations to its host. now svb also hedged by saying this could be a storm in a teacup if the pattern of illness is milder than delta or alpha that came before it. the firm said vaccine antibody makers will be the benefit and we saw it on friday and in the trade this morning so far we are seeing premarket moves that are generally positive for the vaccine makers as well so many of these themes developing that's a sampling but gives you an idea of how wide the spectrum of views is because we don't know at this early stage joe. >> it is

scary-ant. i don't know how many we're looking at over the next five years. you can't help but worry about one that's more contagious but say it's more lethal i don't know the prospects, dom, but this seems like it's out of the wherever, the wet lab, wherever it came from, and it's not going back and it's something none of us factored into the rest of our lives. >> no. >> and we're starting to >> to be honest, i'm not an anti-vakser, i'm not a pro-vaxxer, i get the shots because it's a standard operating procedure. but i think i've resolved myself, joe, to this notion that for certain of these types of diseases it'll be like a flu shot that i get every season. >> did i say wet lab i'm conflating both. >> i think we -- i understood

what you were trying to say. >> i'm covering my bases as quickly as i can. >> just like wall street analysts. >> yeah. just like wall street analysts all right, dom chu i thought ohio state was -- i really -- that was really shocking to me. >> same. >> harbaugh -- >> the streak had to end at some point, right. >> they were moving those guys out of the way that was the bottom line the guys in blue were moving the guys in white right out of the way. nothing was going to end well for them at that point it's hard to pass in the snow. >> you have to run the ball effectively. >> exactly. >> you have to run it pretty well >> thanks, dom chu. >> all right we need some escapism occasionally, don't we becky >> we do except i was going for ohio state, my cousin goes there. >> stupid ohio state. >> it's not -- >> i'm unhappy with that now they blew it they're not going to be, i don't

think, in the final four, right? >> i guess -- >> two losses no way. >> yeah, two losses. lost to a number five, probably not. let's get to kayleigh teusche, she has the white house reaction to omicron. this is not something anybody was prepared for what does the white house have to say >> reporter: becky, good morning, the white house is monitoring the situation, president biden is getting briefed regularly including just yesterday by top officials where he's told it's about two weeks before there's definitive information on the transmissibility, severity and other characteristics of the variant. but on the sunday shows dr. anthony fauci said the initial real-time information that the u.s. is getting from the south african counter parts he described as troubling. >> clearly giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly that's the thing causing us now to be concerned but also to put

the pressure on ourselves now to do something about our preparation for this >> so beginning today, the u.s. will not allow travelers from south africa and seven southern african nations as it moves to limit the incoming cases that ban will be in effect until the president terminates it. the travel industry asked the country to look at the bans arguing it doesn't keep the variants out white house officials have acknowledged there's a clear correlation between case counts of covid and gdp growth but also acackn acknowledge a potential silver lining inflation could be tamped down for price of goods, especially the price of gas at the pump president biden is expected to address the nation at 11:45 today on the omicron variant he'll give another speech on thursday after a visit to the

national institutes of health. but clearly the white house and administration are watching this closely, especially because the president's poll numbers have been closely tied to covid as well. >> right the questions -- there's so many questions that are going to take a week or two for us to get answers to, too. how do they deal with that in the meantime, as you await the answers, is it a week before we know more? >> sounds like it's that clear two-week time frame. the fact that the administration put that time frame out tells you they don't expect anything definitive in the interim. there were some messages in the last 24 hours about not panicking we don't know information and it was still several months before the delta variant became something that was pervasive here in the united states, even after it was a variant of concern at the world health organization. so they understood that it could materialize quickly here or not

at all and they don't know until this two-week period passes exactly what the level of concern here should be as i mentioned, there is a clear correlation between covid and economic growth. that was something we saw over the course of the third quarter and so there is an acknowledgement by white house officials that you could see some slippage as we go into the holiday season if the variant takes hold but for now they're in a wait and see mode. >> let's get to the travel sector airline shares fell on friday amid concerns of the new covid variant. joining us more to talk about it is helene becker we watched some significant hits to the a airline stocks on friday would you be a buyer here? >> hi, becky thanks, good to see you again. >> you too. >> yeah, i think that this is going to be pretty endemic i know i said last year you

can't turn the world off and it turned out you could but i think that over time people will get used to the idea that when we go inside, the variants peak -- or at least turn up. and what we've been seeing over the last six or nine months is that when the variants peak, there's a dip in bookings, but then the time between when the bookings start to increase again is shortening, getting shorter -- i think i said that wrong. is getting shorter so people are getting more used to the idea that these variants are around but they're traveling anyway we saw -- we thought we would see between november 19th and november 30th, 23 million people travel and it looks like we're on track for about 24, 25 million. so clearly people feel comfortable getting on planes again and the demand from international travelers since the u.s. opened on november 8th has been huge. airlines are reporting 90% plus

load factors on a lot of the flights and we haven't seen that change >> helane i doubt we'll see the united states go into a lockdown again. i don't know that there is a political appetite for that, a public appetite for that at this point, but we are seeing shutdowns taking place know the appetite for that but we are seeing an international shut down others saying that puts the weight on the big carriers united, delta, american. those companies get 50% income or more from international flights. would you bet on those stocks at this point or think that return

for those properties will get pushed down the road for this? >> we have an outperform on united and market perform on delta and america. the idea was that united would have more international. thinking they'll have a good summer i still think they'll have a good summer. i think people want to travel and get out there. bookings have turned up. we'll see whether that continues or not i'm supposed to have a bobbing with someone flying here from ireland. it is hard to close the borders as these variants become known they are probably already here anyway

i heard your discussion earlier, i think we just do what we have to do to stay safe we keep going on with our lives. to your earlier point, we can't keep shutting down it is too psychologically damaging to people at this point. they are not going to do what we need to do if they keep with the scare mongering. meantime, let's talk crypto. broader markets sold off things have moved up about 4,000 actually we are at $57,118. joining us now, crypto investor. the founder of the pomp

investors. you have held in there at the same time, people always thought this was supposed to be an inflation health. >> thanks for having me on i think we started talking about bitcoin, it was around $3,000. it was fluctuating in prices i think what people feed to understand this year in 2021, it has already driven down if you look at the drawibility, that draw down would have a 20, 24%

is equal to about 3.5% of the s&p. the other point is that bitcoin is really the only last remaining free market, honest market bitcoin sold off before equity markets. trading 24/7, 365 by millions and services as a price indicator for how people are feeling. >> there seems to be some kind of i don't know if it is a floor or resist ans. curious how you think and what you think about a ceiling in terms of directionally where we are right now. there was a bit of bearishness even beyond the variant. >> there's a couple of different

ways to look at floor prices or that lower band. one of the big things is the realized price of bitcoin. when bitcoin trades hands, what was the price that trades at if you look at how many people own bitcoin, what that price was compared to now. so 89 to 90% of people are in profit we have a bit of margin on the down side. you've got that asset the world is waking up to while we have monetary and fiscal policy i'm not selling my bitcoin and millions of others that aren't we saw that invesco is going to launch the u.s. dollar has to pick up over time to accommodate

everyone >> how do you think bitcoin is compared to ether and others we saw bigger moves >> i think bitcoin is by far the king when it moves, other things move with it. you see some rotation going on i think the big things to remember is there is still market structure at play here. and bull markets come back to bear market. it is similar to stocks or any other market >> there is a crypto called

omicron. it was up to like 87% in the past two days. >> i'm surprised it wasn't up more see you later. >> and a very large advertising firm with lots of units. omicron. is that different? what a name. what a name. >> you think of martin sorell in the old days we've got these two guys nothing is shocking to me anymore.

this is hannah, she's a posh virtual receptionist at the ready 24-7 to answer your calls and assist your clients. you can't be in two places at once. let posh answer. posh virtual receptionists. well, would ya look at that! it was an accident. i was— speaking of accidents, we accidentally left you off the insurance policy during enrollment, and you're not covered. not even a little bit? mm-mmm. no insurance. no. when employees can't enter and manage their own benefits enrollment information, it can be a real pain. not even— nope! with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in a single, easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com and schedule a demo today.

markets look to rebound after friday's massive selloff in the country's rush to try to slow the latest covid variant

and the ceo joining us to discuss omicron and more the second hour of "squawk box" begins now. good morning welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc big morning and some big interviews let's show you u.s. equity futures. looking at some green. things getting a little better the dow up 230 after a tough day on friday. nasdaq up 172 and s&p 500 up about 39 points. we have the latest news on the covid variant and the ripple effects. looking at retail and brian sullivan looking at oil and

steve liesman looking at more. >> a lot tied to this variant. looking at places that are front and center, it has to be in the so-called reopening trade. stocks that have done the best in the remerging, some of those names united airlines, expedia, n norwegian cruise, marriott, live nation live nation down about half a percent still on some of these interesting fears on whether or not there could be any kind of shut down or slow down of the economy overall.

some of the gas and oil stocks doing well exxon, chevron both hit hard yesterday. occidental petroleum, devon energy as well if you take a look at one other place, it has been on the move in interest rates overall. we saw that big move at 1.5% that tends to hit banking stocks it did in a big way on friday. we are making up for it this morning. jp morgan chase up about half a percent. bank of america up almost 1% citigroup up, goldman up as well banks, oil and trade central to the move this morning. we'll see if it sticks, joe. back to you guys

thank you for being with us this morning let's start with the level of alarm or concern you feel about this variant given when we know about it right now >> good morning, meg let me start to tell you what we think we know about the virus. a lot of mutations have been reported to remind people, there are very few muations on the spike. i don't believe many people would have predicted such a big jump in one variant. we know it is taking over delta in south africa very quickly

it took about four months for delta to take over beta. it seems to be just a few weeks for this variant to take over. we know it is in several countries already. we believe this virus is highly infectious, more than delta. i think what happened, coming from south africa over the weekend. i believe most with direct flights from south africa within the last 7 to 10 days already have cases in their country they may not be aware of. two key things one is the vaccine efficacy.

it is highly possibility that efficacy is going down we need to wait know if this is true and how many it is going down the second piece we need to keep an open mind is the virus and the disease. this will take 2 to 6 weeks to really know. it could be more virelent or less i don't believe what is going to happen in the next week or twos that because if you think about it, you have less population and not a lot of comorbidity

going back to that question about vaccines, we saw from the beta variant there was what doctor fauci likes to call the diminution it seems they could provide protection from the severe disease. what diminution based on those things we would have understood and the effects of severe disease. >> if you look at the new virus, it has the delta, beta and many more up to 32 mutations we anticipation there will be a loss of vaccine efficacy to prevent disease. what is important to remember is that with antibody treatment,

vaccines provide not one or two but super antibodies they can be protective even with a mutation what we did in the last few days to analyze and in doing 3d modelling. are we going to lose 5 x or 8 x. this will be patient we've seen data scientists working through the week and through the weekend. because we know everything matters. what is important to know is that moderna has a free line of defense strategy we have so many tools to help and respond. other variants is higher as you know, we've lowered the dose of the booster. we have a lot of safety data

that's the first line of defense right away >> just kicking around a couple of things maybe you can clear up for us when you are designing your messenger rna vaccine, are surface proteins enough. is there any way you could use messenger rna to code for some other part of the virus? something more conserved or does it have to be something the antibody sees on the surface right away is that the only target you can use? >> that's a great question in the past, you look for several targets and the spike is the one that has always given us

the best response of the efficacy of vaccine protection it is true it is muations but we believe it is the best target to provide protection >> the other question i have is in terms of safety you get these small changes random, it appears in the spike protein and maybe it makes it more infectious, maybe it doesn't. is there a risk in just assuming that since we've been through the safety trials for the original messenger rna vaccine is there slight changes? could it make it more dangerous to the immune system in terms of long-term side effects or can we assume in the studies we already did that you change a few things to adapt and its

going to be the same or do we have to go all the way back through the safety regimens again? >> there are two sides what do we believe already and what do we need to see >> we believe we use the same chemical, same machine i would be very comfortable having my loved ones getting vaccinated by just changing a few things what we will require and what is happening in the community or risk, i could see a world where var viralience is less and allowing us to go straight to the con instruct. >> quickly, i want to go back to something.

you said you think countries that have had flights that came from south africa, and i'm assuming, you think any of those eight south african countries, you think likely already has this new variant and they haven't effected it yet. if that's the case, how effective on these lockdowns to rye to catch it? >> exactly i did say any country with direct flights in and out of south africa within the last 7 to 10 days i think the measure being taken can slow down the progress of the virus when we figure out the vaccine impact, that will save a lot of lives down the road

>> just to follow up quickly if you have a lockdown you have israel and japan doing total lockdowns. others saying you can't come unless you are a citizen of that country? >> the piece is testing, testing, testing what holland did in testing all those people on the plane was the right thing to do. those people that have arrived you had 10 percent of the claim. that's why we need to be very cautious >> one of the great critiques of the world of pharmaceuticals right now and those making vaccines is that we are not getting enough to folks as quickly as we should part of the issue in south africa is there wasn't enough up take if you were king for the day and

you had unlimited funds. if the u.s. said they would send you $100 billion how quickly if a new vaccine needs to be reproduced, manufactured and distributed how you would do it and how you would do it differently? manufacturing is what takes time looking at just the players on track together to make around $7 billion doses. we could increase that if required if we look at the number of people who don't want the vaccine on the planet. most people want a vaccine with a single dose booster and what

do you make as soon as we have the data in the next week or two. then presumably you've got that ready to go. targeting those with a poe den actual up tick which one of those do you think would be the right solution. >> those have different time lines when that would be

actionable when we learn that in a week or two, we learn how much that would be dropped the higher risk, the elderly in the meantime as those are impacted we have to use one they might just come one after another. >> i wonder what you are thinking on the people that have seen the entire virus, in other words, covid the antibodies were generated. the anti-again was the virus itself not just the spike protein

would they have an advantage in terms of omicron or because it is a different spike protein is their body seeing something entirely new as well and they'd be defenseless or maybe that the omicron can get around the natural immunity the question is, when they were infected naturally. as you say, the people who get infected naturally it is entirely possible but we don't know >> just thinking about the

solutions. there have been calls from south africa there have been calls to priorities those to stem the problem at its source. is that possible to do we've heard from dr. scott gottlieb yesterday saying there is a resistance to accepting more vaccines because of the difficulty to distribute, the uptake is low. >> we have right now between 50 to 70 million doses in our warehouse, unfortunately, ready to ship. that's either custom issues or countries have too many vaccines or not enough people who want to get vaccinated or not enough medical workers to distribute.

i really believe there is too much vaccine which is good for our planet the issue is there >> thank you for being with us to understand how you are thinking we hope to stay in touch as you learn more >> thank you >> thank you, meg. programming note, pfizer ceo albert bourla will be with us at 8:00 a.m. eastern. we'll have a lot of the same questions. remember pfizer has the therapeutic potentially to talk about. another arrow in our quiver. looks like we need a lot >> could be a big sign of hope up next, we'll get a check on retail following the big shopping weekend and fanatics ceo michael rubin

futures indicated higher down [voya mnemonic] my retirement plan with voya keeps me moving forward... even after paying for this. love you, sweetheart they guide me with achievable steps that give me confidence. this is my granddaughter... she's cute like her grandpa. voya doesn't just help me get to retirement they're with me all the way through it. come on, grandpa! later. got grandpa things to do. aw, grandpas are the best! well planned. well invested. well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement.

xfinity rewards are our way of thanking you well planned. well invested. well protected. just for being with us. enjoy rewards like movie night specials,

xfinity mobile benefits, and the chance to win tickets to see watch what happens live. hey, it's me. plus, get holiday gifts for everyone on your list with great deals on fan favorites from today. join over a million members by signing up for free on the xfinity app. our thanks. your rewards.

. courtney reagan joins us with what happened more on the shopping and online picture too. >> black friday really took a different turn than we thought it's the final day now in the thanksgiving weekend shopping stretch. headlines about a new covid variant didn't seem to affect in-store shoppers. shopper traffic surged on black friday up 46 and 61%. compared to pre-pandemic, black friday store sales were down 28% and 23%.

but black friday sales were down 5% from 2019 up 46% from 2020 this is in store online, the first time adobe said digital sales on thanksgiving day sales expected to grow 6% but came in flat and black friday online sales fell 1%. it's unclear if earlier buying, in-store shopping or cautiousness drove that. it does make today more important. estimated to still be the biggest online day of the year with growth expected up to 4%. let's see if we can do it and top those big numbers from 2020 when we were all almost exclusively shopping online. >> now how to impact his holiday

season, supply chain michael rubin. i have to think cyber monday for you is more exciting than a black friday >> we like cyber monday. we are trying to figure out how to make it happen 365 of the year during this pandemic, it is like a uniform. comfortable clothes are the order of the day not telling you anything you

don't already know i'm sure things have been going out the doorquickly. the business is up very strong i do hear more about others but those have been flat backwards we are up 20% in 2021 against 2020 and up 50% against 2019 black friday for us was the biggest black friday in the history of the company i think every company is having global supply chain issues or planning on how to best service

their customer for that. think about the complexity who would have thought the braves would have been the third best championship in the history of our company that was in the midst of a global supply chain issue. mack jones didn't play in the nfl last year. we have this vertical supply chain made to handle the change in sports. every company, we have supply chain issues we hired people and put our fan first. today it has worked really well. >> thinking about the converge yens of all your businesses with what we do game gambling for you online has increased the interest of sports franchise and selling into that with fanatics has to be a sbweet

spot for you too >> we spent the first 10 years in focus now building a leading digital platform we think the opportunity to bring a fan in through cyber monday or black friday is a great opportunity. a big opportunity for fanatics and overall. i think the gambling in the u.s., it has a lot of near term

i think all the near-term will create opportunities and business over the next decade. >> it has helped it with everyone back in watching your sixers and in all the stadiums >> we were certainly a beneficiary of covid if you look at most digital companies. from safety 101. from a business perspective, covid has been an 5:0 sell rant

to that. this is not something we worry about from a business perspective but to help serve employees and families and the world at home. >> good luck joel is back that hurt. how many games did he miss >> i think most of our team is out on covid this year joel came back although we had a bad out come i think 42 points, double overtime heartbreaking loss at the end it just helps

he really does unbelievable to watch the empire he's built brian sullivan has more of what is at stake. >> crude oil took a 13% hit. the fifth drop of all time going all the way back to 1988 we are recovering and crude oil is up about 19%. maybe they were shot on the down side positive stuff about demand comingout.

remember that fuel used on a few flights per day is irrelevant. that question of any demand could change coming into last week about lockdowns for germany. looks like that would happen that is pretty much it bottom line, have not red or seen anything as of yet. that could change. you were talking about the michigan, ohio state game. there were 109,000 at the big

house on saturday as of saturday morning. globally, there were a lot of things happening particularly this week. you've got opec plus meeting the question is, will it continue its path of adding 400,000 barrels a day scaling up or decide to pause because demand is uncertain. we'll see. with those headlines today and sort of the passing comment where he is, quote, calm and not a concern. also lost, talks on reviving the 2015 iran nuclear deal kicked off today. it's unknown if those will turn out. if they turn out well, it could bring iran back to the global market on the u.s. side and dollars that could add more demand or supply not expecting to see that.

nuclear talks if we see something else weave into the story. >> the question, will they get a pass from the pass >> the white house has already put so much pressure, how would they react to that >> that's a really interesting question i'll say what many don't want to hear i don't know if opec pauses, that could increase the tension that bill

from back in the day created by then senator joe biden giving a move to pause and say, well it is covid you've got to remember, joez he have joe r. biden urged then president clinton to sue opec at the time will be interesting assuming the meeting is not delayed the market trying to figure out the variant and the reaction of the federal reserve

steve leiesman with more on that front. we feel like maybe we know the fed's playbook at this point as the fed will likely not make such a move in the face of the current. writing over the weekend, it a clearer and reasonably positive picture has not emerged by the time of the meeting, the fed will likely delay the decision to accelerate the pace of tapering this turns the con ken sustain on its head. days ago, there was a new consensus. the fed was worried about inflation that it would speed up the taper.

now three scenarios and what looks to be the new base case. awa awaiting information the fed would revisit the idea of a faster taper in january and possible rate hikes in likely early summer requiring a reset of immunizations around the world. lockdown in place and the lockdown in place. a 41% probability. dialing back and not completely dialing out the faster taper giving the fed some leeway dealing with inflation for now >> steve, thank you. still to come, dr. gottlieb will be here and pfizer albert

bourla will give us an update. stay tuned to "squawk box" on cnbc firefighter maggie gronewald knows how to handle dry weather... ...and dry, cracked skin. new gold bond advanced healing ointment. restore healthy skin, with no sticky feeling. gold bond. champion your skin. this black friday, do you want a tv? or do you want. the place on the tv?

your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire this is ashley. matc she's a posh virtualtion. receptionist. she'll make sure you never miss a call or an opportunity to grow your business. you can't be in two places at once, let posh answer. posh virtual receptionists.

the new covid variant omicron appearing in south africa with a slew of countries now banning travelers. we spoke to the ceo of moderna earlier. >> it is highly possible the efficacy of all of the vaccines will go down joining us now to talk more with dr. scott gottlieb scott, i will say, he said a lot of things that caught me off guard saying he thinks this is

taking over in a matter of weeks from delta rather than what took months from beta and he thinks any flights from south africa in the past few days already have it out there you've been looking through the data and you see a little bit of what you called funkiness in the data >> the key question is whether or not this escapes immunity and whether that is contributing to the perceived rapid spread and whether or not the vaccines were effective and how big the risk is here in the united states you look at the data, there is a presumption this is coming on the scene. they'll update the analysis.

r right now, this would be the emerging looking at the sequence that they oversampled an initial early cluster. they are seeing less genetic diversity. they are presuming this is very new when in fact this might have been circulating for some time if it has been, it would suggest it is far more pervasive and already broken out it also suggests maybe this was circulating against the back drop of declining cases overall. the best data point we have sadly right now is that plane that went into amsterdam with 13 of the 61 cases were this new variant. the other 48 were presumed to be delta. looking at the sequencing, they

started to have a big spike and completely switched over to sequencing to those cases with the a gene drop out so they are no longer sequencing other cases. there is a delta surge in the back drop of we don't know if some of the recent up tick is also delta on the plane, 20% were this new variant. the others were delta. is that the pref lengths of delta over omicron, we don't know on september 23, they started to include those tests we are presuming it was this variant. they were starting to bake in to totals positive antigen tests. that is also part of what they

are seeing the question is when did they start circulating it is a distinct possibility, which means it is already here in the united states and we'll start to see it this week. >> the thing is, the symptoms are milder from what we've seen in the past. can we take solace in that >> i think we'll determine this week, if it is highly prevalent

and haven't seen a spike that might be rea shuring. there is an up tick in hospitalizations where this is being identified i think they are experiencing the surge as well. they had a rapid decline and reopened like the uk, they are seeing an uptick in delta cases. this would be the omicron variant. >> wanting to understand the distinction between the vaccines and the therapeutics coming out in terms of these pills and how you think they will work or not work in the future >> the orally available drug shouldn't be affected. the antibody drugs on the

market, it appears the astrazeneca and the others shouldn't be affected. some question on the others. i don't think we'll lose our therapeutics there is a reasonable degree of confidence at least three doses, a fully boosted patient will have fairly good protection. the question is how protected is the prior variant of delta that is concerning that will tick more in favor if that could spread here in the united states. we have a pretty good tool box it looks like the major antigen test will be sensitive at detecting this new variant

>> the think i want to understand is that if the vaccines are not as perceptive as you want them to be, what is the ramp up. you've talked about it as a spring event given what we are seeing right now, could that be scaled up even faster? >> you could put the question to the ceo or board members of fiez ever he could speak to what the estimates are. those factors are being scaled up putting heft behind the manufacturing scale. other things equally or more important is trying to buy the factories back to the az or the

antibodies if we find those aren't as effective to this variant, we should try to turnover the manufacturing capacity to those drugs that are effective they could be a bring that could be used as a vaccine prophylactically those are very important >> i'll ask you to put on your hat as the former spokesperson for the fda. we spoke to the head of moderna. the question is it is up to the regulators of what they would require. is it a change to a couple of things would that be something where they would say, okay, we warcht to allow that or would you need to go through the entire testing

regime once again. with the ideas of a threat at that point, how dangerous would you consider that to be? >> they are in a position to move quickly the manufacturing has been ib inspected, the risk benefits to elicit antibodies, this new variant. that could be done very quickly. i don't think they would look at clinical outcomes data they may want to see some patient data to build a new safety database. this could move very fast. fda has moved toward a flu-like paradigm when it comes to the approved mrna flu vaccines against covid. that's how they improve. they look at in vitro data they don't look at human data testing because they understand the platform so well i think they're in a position

where they understand the platform reasonably well. >> dr. gottlieb, thank you very much. >> thanks a lot. coming up at the top of the hour, dr. albert bourla will be joining us not only about the vaccines but the pill that pfizer has as well. meantime we're going to have a little conversation about stocks zoom, docusign, netflix, and peleton all gaining some action. good morning to you, gene. lots of folks are trying to understand what if marthe marke mean in light of the new variant. many are saying you should try to look past it. but those who are looking past it aren't looking past the stay-at-home stocks. you do think peloton is worth it at these prices or zoom is worth it at these prices >> andrew, the simple takeaway

is you can't look at all stay-at-home stocks evenly peloton, with the surge they've had, doesn't necessarily mean they'll continue to surge. before i answer your question, i want to remind people, over the last month, both zoom and peleton, those stocks blew up as we, quote, return to normal. but to answer your question, as between zoom and peloton, i would take zoom over peloton the reason is that some things are not going to change and that hybrid work environment piece will be with us despite any sort of variance, and that obviously benefits zoom and docusign peloton has quite an incredible product. it has retention rates that would probably flatter any drug dealer at the end of the day, the 92% retention rates don't change the reality that people are lazy they would rather be on tiktok rather than invest in working out. we saw that in the september

quarterly results. they did not reveal an uptick in new users, which i would have anticipated. it is a reminder, peloton, great product, but i don't think this is a long-term winner from the pandemic, but i do think zoom and docusign are. >> but then you see stocks like netflix move higher. by the way, you haven't seen amc or some of the theater chains get hurt like you would have imagined what do you think about those two? >> netflix is obviously of some benefit here, but at the end of the day, this is a hit-driven business netflix has done an incredible job of playing to -- continuing drive their title releases, and you see it their stock is just off of all-time highs of the stay-at-home it's only down 4%. peloton and zoom are down 60% from their highs so to answer your question, i think the fabric that is running

through the whole conversation is that the variant is -- i think investors generally anticipate this will not cause -- as it stands tore, will not cause further lockdowns in the u.s. that's why you don't see some of those other entertainment stocks hit as much. you don't see netflix having that same lift netflix, i understand why it anticipates in a day like friday, but i think it should be judiciously put off to the side and thought of as a hit-driven business rather than as a stay-at-home company. let me throw another one at you. we had it on the screen earlier. shopify. what do you think? >> i wouldn't put it as a direct stay-at-home i think e-commerce is still early. when we start going down that road, i think it's an appropriate road to go down, but you have to look at other companies like apple, for example. we think about some of the tooling around hybrid work environmental. apple benefits from it, shopify.

e-commerce still shockingly just 15% of what was bought online in the u.s. the number is going to be greater than 50. don't put it in the stay-at-home category just a great tailwind. >> is there any stock you think that's gotten crushed that now should be reconsidered. >> i -- zoom really intrigues me again, down 60% from its highs most people don't -- aren't flattered by the product, but it is kind of this fabric around how we work in the environment and you kind of come back to the theme, people are lazy zoom is a nice tool to make your day more efficient zoom intrigues me. i haven't been a buyer yet, but it does intrigue me. just a bread and butter-staples name as apple is going to benefit from all the things we're talking about tournd.

>> gene munster with the quote of the day people are lazy. nice to see you, sir. >> nice to see you. when we come back, pfizer ceo albert bourla will join us to talk about only omicron our clients come to us with complicated situations that occur in their lives. for them it's the biggest milestone, the biggest accomplishment, the sale of a business, or an important event for their family. for them, it's the first and only time. we have seen this literally thousands of times, in thousands of iterations. ♪ ♪ i am vince lumia, head of field management at morgan stanley. whether that's retirement, paying for their children's college education,

or their son or daughter getting married, our financial advisors need to make sure that they are making objective decisions, every step along the way. every time you hit a milestone, an anniversary, a life event, the emotions will run high. making sure that you have somebody, a team of individuals that have seen it before, have seen every circumstance and seen every challenge, and have your back when you need it most, is one of the most valuable things a financial advisor could provide to a family. i am vince lumia and we are morgan stanley. hey, angie! you forgot your phone! cohey lou! angie forgetly. her phone again? yep. lou! mom said she could save up to $400 on her wireless bill by switching to xfinity internet and mobile.

with nationwide 5g at no extra cost. and lou! on the most reliable network, lou! smart kid, bill. oh oh so true. and now, the moon christmas special. gotta go! take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes switching fast and easy this holiday season. breaking news, futures

oil, airlines, crypto all pointing higher this morning and friday's losses were driven by fears of the omicron covid variant. and the ceo thinks it's spread to more countries. in just moments we'll speak with the ceo of pfizer on the understanding of the new variant and how vaccines can be modified if need be the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen

we're seeing a reversal in most of the major markets nasdaq is up treasury yields, which we saw bonds rally and the yield curve. we saw rates drop. today we're back at 1.54 once again that move on the ten-year from 2% has been put on hold i don't know for how long. energy bouncing back a little bit. remember, oil started coming down really at the beginning of the month after being above $80. it was down a lot on friday. up 5% today. crypto is a risk-on/risk-off trade. we heard from giga stacker for people who buy whenever they can. bouncing up today about 4%. >> let's go a little deeper into the market action this morning for that we turn to our own mike

santoli who joins us with more on what's happened mike, it was a really significant move on friday it. was also very lightly trade. maybe today you see some of the un-knee-jerk reaction. >> yeah, becky selling in terms of recoiling from the unknown and the information on friday morning into a somewhat liquid market. it did raise the possibility that it was going to be an exaggerated move a little bit of an overshoot we did recommend that at the time this is where it leaves the s&p 500. about 3% from its highs, but a lot more damaging corrections. you look on a short-term basis at the premarket levels, we're kind of bouncing up to this 4630 era. that's kind of your first stop often the case you get back a third to a half of a big selloff move so nothing has really too much

happened to disturb the overall trend for the market, but obviously we've been unsettled it seems as if people were caught very much off balance take a look at the 30-year note yield. this does not look like an uptrend. the 10-year yield looks like it's holding to an uptrend we're bouncing off of that it says a couple of things one, maybe we don't have to superintense flight-to-safety type of response here, but also that longer term, the market is not that concerned that much about inflation. all about the next few years when inflation might stay higher the volatility index, you talk about exaggerated moves, this was an outside response. people were bidding for outside protection it inflates the vix here this is going to be a spike. typically when you see a rush into the high 20s and then too

much of a similar response in the credit markets, it usually means that the market is going to find more stable footing here, and that's what we seem to be in for at the open, becky. >> hey, mike a lot of the commentary points to the idea that, look, even if this is something that putted off the opening to some extent or the return to normalcy by a matter of months, this is like nothing we've seen in the past because we have therapeutics, vaccines that can be tweaked even if they're not as effective this time around, and we know the playbook of what the fed might and might not do. >> absolutely. i would agree with that. the question is what have the markets been price in in terms of a fully normalized economy next year. maybe it's like the aftershocks of the global financial crisis remember dubai and cyprus,

right? they were these false alarms that caused one-day responses. we did have the tools and cushions in place. that's probably the most plausible thing. nothing has come to invalidate the idea that you might have a bias year end which typically happens after you've had a strong return in october through november. >> thanks, mike. good to see you. >> meantime we want to get over to our own meg tirrell because she joins us with a very special guest to talk about the new covid variant. you're the person we've wanted to talk to all morning. >> berts albert bourla joins us i learned this morning you guys now anticipate you can make 80 million courses up from the projected 50 million you'd expected just a few weeks ago. tell us about that ability to increase that manufacturing and your expectation of how well

this should hold up against omicron. >> yeah, thank you yes. we are right now able to meet 80 million doses. it is thanks to -- you have seen our manufacturing machine, really, at work, and the adjustments they can make. i'm very, very pleased we're in this situation now now, when it comes to omicron and how long the treatment should last, first let me take a step back. omicron is of concern for several reasons. there are many unknowns right now. keep in mind, we've been prepared for something like that for months what is the playbook the playbook is understanding it better within weeks we'll know most of the information that needs to be known, but every day we learn more, first to protect and then to treat and to understand the virus, i think we need -- the key

questions are the questions you've been discussing all day is it more severe? is it less is it going to be spreading faster the second are the vaccines going to protect, again, against this new virus this is where we're working. the third are the treatments, what are they going to be. on the front, it remains to be seen it was designed with that in mind designed with the fact that most mutations are coming in the spikes or measures, it's not related with the spike so that gives me a very, very high level of confidence, but the treatment will not be affected by this virus when it comes to the vaccine, it remains to be seen i don't think the result will be -- the vaccines don't protect. i think the results could be --

we don't know yet, but the vaccines protect less, which means if the vaccines protect less, it is that if we need to create a new vaccine, already we started friday friday we made our first dna template, which is the first possible inflection of the development process of the new vaccine. we have made multiple times. clear that we'll be able to have a vaccine. in fact, we have already two vaccines we build one for delta because the current vaccine is very effective, and we built one for another. we will build one for omicron that will be used only in case we need it if we see the current one doesn't work. >> so you say on friday you started building one for omicron if needed. tell me the tests your

scientists and other partners are running to understand how the current covid vaccine will hold up both with the two-dose series and also with the booster. >> yes we are going to test this new vi virus. either with two doses or with a t three doses of the current vaccine or with vaccines that we have made from delta or beta then based on information from that, we will see what is needed to be done in terms of developing or not the new vaccine. also we have a very high surveillance system, keep in mind both in south africa they are likely a health care authority that has the most data right now, and you're going to see it in real time what will happen keep in mind i'm quite confident because we got the dose right with our vaccine

we -- from the first moment, right? so we have 30 micrograms where the two doses were very good, and we even had to reduce the dose for the third one so it's full dose, but we are giving it for the booster. so that should provide very high protection levels. but as i said, i don't think -- i don't know if it will be equally effective at 95% effective against onmicron fit's low enough, we'll have a new one. keep in mind -- >> what is your expectation -- >> it's not the same situation it's not the same situation when you have a treatment that instead of ten people going to hospital, only one will go to hospital instead of people dying, basically no one dies. it's a very, very different story now. >> because of the anti-viral

treatment. are you getting more incoming inquiries than you were about the anti-viral drug because of the fears around omicron >> i think it's not against the fears of omicron basically there's no government that didn't call after the results were announced with 90% eff efficacy, and they're all right now -- >> the anti-viral pill,. so many have looked at this as a great beacon of hope, especially those immunocompromised. you want to make sure you can take this if the vaccine is not working. i have someone who i love is dealing with cancer and i know this is the same for a lot of our viewers too. those are the people we've been so worried about and protective of and trying to make sure they don't get it

i read something that paxlovid can have a reaction. if you're going through cancer treatment, because it's a prototase inhibit eric it could cause reactions. is that the case, and could you tell us something about that >> frankly, it's the first time i'm hearing it. >> i just read it in stat, but if you haven't heard of it, that makes me feel better too. >> i don't exclude that this is the case, but i haven't heard it before. >> okay, thanks. >> albert, is there anything we don't know for some type of target that would go into some type of cocktail we're talking about the protase inhibitor. i'm wondering how quickly you could see a mutation around that there's no reason to think that this new variant -- that that

protease inhibitor would be any different than the one in delta or the original covid. but are you -- at this point, do you have other targets you're working on that you haven't told us about at this point that might be used in combination with what looks to be very promising already? >> that's a very, very good question as i said, we designed the current one with that in mind, so that will be able not to develop resistance when the virus mutates. as you know, all of the mutations so far we have seen are in the spikend and this anti-viral has nothing to do with the spike it works very different. this protease is very vital.

it's difficult to work with something that doesn't mean this i'm very, very confident that this works with all mutations including omicron. we are working on it drugs for the eventual case where maybe resistance is in development. >> are there other things, other targets? i mean i don't know. it's a very, very small genome obviously there's not a lot of different proteins that are there. but there would be something else, i figure you could use for some type of cocktail. is there anything else that you're not telling us about that fietzer researchers are working on, albert. >> nothing that would be coming out next week, but we are already working with -- this is a standard practice. already we are working on second and third generation. >>

>> albert, i wanted to ask you could you see pricing come down? would you consider rethinking the pricing because as we know, a vaccine might be $20, $30, the anti-viral pills could be more than ten times that. i think we're talking $600, $700. >> yes, you're right but we went out with the price based on the government's price the spike has very, very high efficacy it's almost the price of what the antibodies are even the hospitalizations that would be avoided

keep in mind we wave it compcom completely for low-income variants >> so, albert, if you do sort of adapt your vaccine and we can do it quickly and you're able to do that sort of in a flu vaccine-type fax to the new variants from covid, do you foresee that this -- would you call it a booster? would we get another booster every year or it would be a modified booster that would provide a better antigenic response than a vaccine? do you see this every year that you would get a boost ore f the same vaccine or a slightly different vaccine every year to deal with what we're seeing with these mutations? is that what you foresee it's almost like a -- for

pfizer, you would be selling these things every year, not that you'd want to do that i'm sure you're not hoping for that, but it would almost be like an annuity. >> i did make a projection the most likely scenario is you would need a third dose. i know that we need it for multiple reasons, because of the immunity that's waiving and the virus that will be moving around the world for years to come and also because of the need for variants that would ee american. i'm more confident right now that this will be the case than it was when i met the projection i don't know what we're going to call it, but it will be a manual revaccination, but that should enable us to keep really safe. >> albert, just trying to take a step back and a big picture view of things, as you learned about this variant emerging and the information that exists as

limited as it is, what is your concern at this point? >> with omicron, you mean. >> yes. >> look. i'm concern ed we have to look at treatments. if we can't provide treatment, which i don'tthink will be the case, we have a treatment that will work against this virus that can be taken at home. you don't need to go to the hospital that's one secondly, we have done it twice. we were able to create in 95 days a new vaccine tailor-made we started making one for this one. if the current dose, which is very likely that three doses from the current vaccine will keep us well protected i repeat

three doses will keep us well protected from the vaccine if we find out this is not enough before the virus starts emerging in those places, we should be able to have one developed. the third, manufacturing we have been working for that with that in mind. this is the playbook how can we sweep manufacturing with a new vaccine so we will not lose vacuum capacity we have reached the level almost overnight. we'll be able to sweep our capacity with the line we produced before. within two days we'll start producing the new vaccine with no lost of volume. and i repeat we have reached the capacity of a billion doses third quarter. already this quarter next year it is almost in the

pocket 4 billion doses we can make. if there's a need for a new one, we'll make almost 4 billion doses of the new one with that in mind, ability will not be an issue. the efficacy is very high. there are treatmented around no, i'm optimistic we're preparing for that, and we're going to win this battle as well. >> all right some optimism is what we need, albert thanks so much for being with us we hope to have you back as we get more information about the vaccines thanks again. >> stay well. all right. we're trying we're trying, believe me coming up, inside the market's reaction this morning and last we week also the view of consumer with spending

it's up a quarter on the dow you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc what the world needs now... is people. people who see energy a little bit differently. where a switch to cleaner power means a more resilient grid... ...with renewables and gas power providing energy whenever it's needed. because seeing a more sustainable world isn't far in the future. we're building it... now. ge. building a world that works. this black friday, do you want a tv? or do you want. the place on the tv?

. welcome back to "squawk box. airlines are working to respond

to travel restrictions that seem to be changing by the minute we want to get straight over to phil lebeau who joins us now phil. >> andrew, when you look at it, it's not surprising they're rebounding people are looking at the restrictions put in place and say, okay, let's get perspective how much of the global market might be impacted by these yes, in parts of the uk and eu, they have banned some of the flights going from south africa to other countries, but in the u.s., it's restricting passengers that starts today. overall that's a very small percentage of the global flights impacted two flights fly directly from the u.s. into south africa delta is continuing its service into johannesburg from atlanta they have a total of 87 flights in the month of december going between the u.s. and south africa united airlines is the other direct airline service another two flights are scheduled to go from the ugs into south africa.

as of right now, the company is keeping with its plan to begin service into cape town from newark starting on wednesday nonetheless, when you look at the airline index, the reason we're seeing such an impact is because people are fearful this could lead to mass lockdowns similar to what we saw six months, nine months, a year ago where you couldn't get flight in a year ago let's take a look at american and jetblue. remember, it was just three weeks ago they said, if you're a european, you can come into the u.s. there are not going to be the restrictions there were before the real concern is will they have to put those restrictions back in place as we learn more about omicron. finally take a look at what we call the domestic oriented airlines alaska, southwest, spirit, as well as frontier they got hit on friday as well, even though, guys, we had 2.4 million people flying on sunday,

yesterday. the most since before the pandemic clearly domestic travel has rebounded. not quite to 2019 levels but they're pretty darn close to numbers we're seeing nevertheless, we'll keep an eye. back to you. >> talking about the economic effects of the new virus variant, joining us is mohamed el-erian you're like big time you're still worried about inflation probably more than you're worried about the variant or at least until you nknow mor about the variant, it's a fed policy mistake.

>> yes they won a game and i thought that's where we were going go. i almost put my jets jersey on i'm glad we didn't go there. look, we're dealing with two distinct issues that have a wide ranging potential outcome. one is about the variant itself. i must say i feel much better after listening to albert on the show thank you for having him on. there's a second set of excuse and phil covered them. the government rgs reacting in different way. we have governments shutting down the border in reaction to this so the market is going to have to navigate not just the uncertainty with the variant but also the uncertainty with governments. governments are all over the place, and that's going to be an issue that we have to navigate through. now, in the meantime it will make inflation worse because

inflation is not a demand problem. it's a supply problem. when you have countries with zero covid policies, zye china and other parts of asia, we can expect them to shut down again and that's going to have an impact on supply chance unfortunately. >> the pandemic has been front and center, and i think some of our enemies might at times be using it to maybe further err some of those goals. our eye is kind of off the ball, mohammed is there anything that's coming from either russia or china that we're not gainched the risk of a bad outcome enough because i see troop buildups and rumblings about this, rumblings about that we all wonder about variants and

scar scariants, but what about other things >> we're doing better. look, this is a really difficult time for governments around the world. you're dealing with so many moves pieces that are uncertain and create an enormous amount of distraction. look at this, the fact that we haven't vaccinated or made available to africa vaccines is now coming back to haunt us. so it does matter what it's like and this thing is not going to get solved quickly i'm more optimistic. i don't think we're going to get a shutdown i think we're learning to liv with covid, but we have to be really agile governments are not waiting. as you see how things are moving across europe and the middle east, they're not waiting. they assume they have to take actions now to buy time until they know more about this

variant. >> they are. you would have to think you've got to push back international travel rebounds, don't you people would be -- you'd be afraid go somewhere where you're not going to be allowed to come back because it could change in three days. >> if you come and visit me in the uk today, you have to take a prc test within two days you have to self-isolate until you get the results some of that rules out all short trips a beyond run the risk of having to self-isolate for another ten days if you caught something on the way over you're going to think twice. already we're seeing things cancel yes, there's going to be a short term effect on travel and hospitality, but i'm confident that impact on the economy as a whole is not going to be as bad as many people worry unless we shoot ourselves in the foot. that's the one thing we have to

worry about. >> we've got slow interest rates and a solid recovery under way at least in the united states. that default trade you've talked about so much looks like it's going to happen to some extent today. >> yeah. the biggest threat to the market right now is inflation because if inflation persists and we continue to have the 5% to 6% range if not above, the fed will find it very difficult to not signifi significantly taper. if i'm investing in markets right now, the inflation call and the fed call is even more critical if it turns out the fed is going to be incredibly patient as it has been, then the dip will continue so keep an eye on inflation and be clear what you're assuming about fed policy. >> okay. all right, mohamed el-erian.

i saw glimmers for the new guy he looks like he's 12. so do you. but he looks like he's 12. that's what i -- i can't get past that. >> did you see the interception. >> i saw most of what was going on i had the jets, but i had the over, damnit, and that did not happen i always think i know -- when i make the bets, i'm sure i'm right, and i should start realizing you probably aren't. >> ding, ding, ding. >> it keeps happening and happening and happening. >> whatever you want to do, do the opposite. >> we love that about you. >> again, i had pittsburgh i can't believe that i'm a non-believer after the way i saw the jets see you later. thanks. >> thanks, joe. when we come back, a special interview with amazon's world wide consumer ceo david clarke

everything from holiday sales so far and potential impact of omicron. we've got an interview you don't xthemio ss ne wn "squawk box" comes right back

your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire [crowd cheering] i'm not a coach, but i invested in invesco qqq. which gives me access to next-gen statistical analysis software.

become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq.

welcome back to "squawk box. we want to get to our own rick santelli also steve liesman is with us. guys, i don't know if you saw, but bill ackman just put out a tweet overnight and this morning. he actually thinks this is going to be great for equities, bad for bonds, and might slow the fed down in terms of that tapering what do you think? >> i'm not sure i agree with that there was sentiment above-the-radar-screen-type traders. when you look at the variant and how little we know and how far we've moved, interest rates are up, equities are up.

we haven't recouped everything we lost on the holiday shortened session on friday, but it goes a long way to demonstrate to us that knee-jerk reactions aren't necessarily something you want to put all of your eggs in that basket and with regard to the inflation issue that mohamed el-erian and others, including myself, have noted along the way here, it's only going to be combatted with interest rate increases. the tapered and want day active easing aren't going to address the stickiness and rising issues of prices, so really there is very little choice here but to continue to follow the current stencil of what the fed and other centralbanks like new zealand are doing, and i don't think that the variants at least in its current form with respect to what we know and how much we don't know is goinggoing to impact it at this juncture yet. >> steve, what do you think jay

powell is doing this weekend >> i think he's reading all of the information that's out there on the variant a lot of economists were playing epidemiologist over the weekend and they kind of picked up on what rick was talking about. i wonder if he read what some of the folks did. they did not in their -- in their initial read of the data, they did not see reason for panic. i have to say i've been sort of impressed with how orderly things have been you have the possibility of the new variant, everybody is scared the market sold off. what i liked what the fixe income markets did, they dialed back but didn't dial out the possibility of a faster taper. i think powell almost certainly because he's cautious, the fed in general is cautious amid the uncertainty, will not speed up the taper. i don't think it's off the table. i think they'll come back in january. i think there are people on the fed who have the idea they're not helping the situation of

su supply shortages they're in better shape if they get in position to raise rates sooner rather than later i don't think any of that is off the table, but all of it is pending more information on this new variant. >> rick, how you do think about this if, in fact, the variant causes continued and increased supply issues on one side but employment issues on the other, how you do think the fed reacts to that because that's effectively what has to be weighed at this point. >> you know, i think that the fed is going to -- or at least they ought to be monitoring the output side of the equation. they should be looking at how many jobs we're creating they should be looking at how the markets are assessing the situation because in many ways i think the markets are going to be a less emotional vehicle for them to monitor. so i think it's going to be more the fundamentals than it is going to be anything else, and i

would caution that when it comes to policy, whether it's policy regarding omicron or any of the new variants or policies regarding monetary or economic issues, the knee-jerk reaction, understandably, is always going to be overreaction and most likely not accurate. that's the single view we need to have and should be the single thing we've learned along the way, especially if you look at how everything has changed how the science is changed, and how little science can give us at this point regarding some of the variants outside of the overarching comments that were made by that past ceo that many of these variants like other flus, influenza, the vaccines most likely will have some efficacy and until we know what that curve s we'll pay more attention to the markets than people. >> okay.

rick santelli, steve liesman, always good to see both of you i'm going to hand it over to becky who's got a great guest. >> it's cyber monday and a big week online and in-store shopping wraps up today what we know is digital sales failed to grow year over year could e-commerce be in for another surge? joining us right now from the amazon hub in texas is david clarke he's consumer ceo. david, i heard the numbers from adobe today and i wasn't sure i believed them. have you seen a flattening in the online sales picture >> good morning. a pleasure to be with you today. what we saw on black friday is a record day for us, particularly in the u.s we're off to a really good start today. a lot of day in front of us stishlgs bewe're feeling good

about where we started. >> i'm a little surprised too. i know activity in my household, online activity is not going away for sure. in terms of the demand picture you've got to put that up against what's happening with the supply issues. amazon has really changed the metric with trying to deal with the supply chain issues. where do you stand are you able to get everything you need to the consumers at this point >> yeah. i think consumers should feel good about shopping on amazon this holiday season both from pricing, selection, and availability standpoint. they've done a good job with managing around the roadblocks the past few months, expanding to use other ports other than the southern california ports, whether it be air cargo or using our own ships. we've been able to use a lot of that it helps that half of our volume is small business. it's also helping get the small businesses into play by getting

their freight into the fulfillment centers in time for this holiday season. so we feel good about it where we sit today and we think customers are going to find what they're looking for this holiday season. >> you sound pretty calm, cool, and collected. it's not that easy what did it take to get those extraordinary measures put into place? what did you all do. >> they don't happen overnight they don't get fixed overnight we've been building it for two decades now, and so we walked into the pandemic in a really good place both from a wage standpoint, already paying $15 plus, from a logistics standpoint being well into our expansion. we've built another of our air hubs we've had oush trucking fleet growing. we've doubled down over the last 21 months. we have an incredible group of people around the world who have done, frankly, heroic action as

far as i'm concerned about putting as much concrete and steel on the ground and rub err in that they have in the last two years. that's shut us up in a place where we were able to work around this, we were able to create room for sellers to get their inventory in, and we were able to work around a lot of the challenges that have been in press the last few months. >> i'm not sure everyone realizes the air hub where you're in in dallas, that basically looks like a fedex or u.p.s. place you've basically got your own plains describe how it works. >> we do over the last year we've worked out a plan you've seen amazon trucks driving around your neighborhood we have places that sort packages and air hubs to fly packages to get faster speed

unique items to get them to other parts of the country we expect to be one of the largest carriers in the world, and we'll be the largest package carrier in the u.s. if not by the end of the year, maybe in 2022 we build an infrastructure that's going to power supply and business for amazon for decades to come. >> david, none of this comes cheap, and while you've been spending over the last couple of years, every retailer has been pressured by extremes in the supply chain over the past essentially months the company has warned this is going to cost another $4 billion to do all these things i have read trucks will be half full to get things out on time is it fair to say you're going to put the customer first before investors? >> i've been with the company for 22 1/2 years one thing that's consistent, we

always put the consumer first. we're trying to absorb as much of the transitory inflation as we can as we bridge through what we think is -- particularly in the freight and transport sector especially when it comes to oil is more transitory pieces so we can keep costs low for customers so people can enjoy their holiday season, so they don't feel as much of the inflationary impact we think it pays dividends over the long term for companies and for shareholders. >> even with all these extraordinary measures, it's not always enough to deal with all the lodgist cal supply issues and make sure you're dealing with the high demand i had read recently talking about how on amazon, if you look at the items on stock, there are about 15% to 20% of the items on amazon marketplace -- it's

numbers run by a guy who used to work at amazon retail for five years. that number seems awfully high as someone who uses amazon pretty frequently. what is the situation? how many items are out of stock, and what can consumers anticipate when we get close to the holiday season when doid 'do you really need to have your orders in to get things by christmas? >> it's a good question. stocks are right about where they were precovid now, there are specific items. you know, there are chip shortages. there are things that i think everybody's seen shortages of. i know when i went to get some of my kids electronics, you know, some of those specialized video games and things were a little harder to come by that's an overall supply chain issue, but broadly, if it's

available, we have it. i feel good. customers are going to be able to order with us, dpeblds on where you're at. depending on where you're at in new york, you'll be ordering as late as the 24th hopefully you aren't hopefully you're an earlier shopper. >> i think i'm your dream kmerks early and frequent i'll be ordering right up to the end. hey, david, thanks for a look inside air hub we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> thank you all right. coming up, we'll get to jim cramer, get his first take of the markets, and the omicron variant impact on stocks don't nogo anywhere, not now, anyway "squawk" boxx box" is going toe right back

♪ ♪ well would you look at that? ♪ ♪ jerry, you've got to see this. seen it. trust me, after 15 walks ...it gets a little old. ugh. i really should be retired by now. wish i'd invested when i had the chance...

to the moon! [thud] [clunk] ugh... unbelievable. unbelievable. [ding]

treatment, it was designed with that in mind it was designed with the fact that most mutations are coming on the spikes or the mechanisms they are coming is not related with the spike that gives me a very, very high level of confidence. but treatmented will not be affected -- our treatment with not be affected by this virus. >> that was pfizer's ceo albert bourla on "squawk box" earlier this hour. let's get to jim cramer.

we were talking about the variant itself there is a lot that we don't know but then i was thinking, you can't control the actions of people around the world, policy makers that might jump the gun on some of the actions, and well-intentioned because of what we saw with delta if you don't move quickly even if it is not a really horrific variant, it doesn't mean the economy doesn't slow a little bit or may not reopen as quickly because they may shoot first and ask questions later, thut down travel, and that's doing to affect the economy even if we don't know whether it is a horrific variant >> first, none of the information i heard on this, including meg's reporting are

something to panic on. i think that what i heard the morning was if you got vaccinated, it's not so bad. we are getting similar from south africa i thought bourla was a little cagey there. but it does seem like they have the pill -- which they have the pill which makes it so if you got it you would get better so i think you are going to feel pretty good. >> but as i was saying, cast a little bit of a pal on international travel. >> definitely. as soon as you start hearing quarantine when you get there, you don't go you just don't that's going to be the chief cancellations. i also feel our country is getting a little onuie about

this the selloff on friday was really overdone as it was in oil oil went back down to 70 i think there could be a bounceback in the commodities and in the airlines but not so far as when we get all the way back because they are going to have cance cancellations. the cancellations are going to be related to going overseas where you are blocked by countries that make it that you have to quarantine the whole time you were going to be on vacation when you look at oil, people tonight want a shutdown, and won't tolerate a shuttown. i think that's a positive sign. >> not all countries have the same issues, jim, or the same percentage vaccinated. so there are things that other countries might be completely appropriate for the steps that they are taking that other countries probably should not take so maybe global growth gets a

little bit hit and therefore, the bond market -- you know, yields don't immediately go back to 1.7, but maybe our stock market recovers quicker than yields go back up that's how i was trying to explain it we have mostly domestic -- i mean we have exposure internationally but maybe stocks come back before yields come back up. >> if that's the case, it is american express that stock has come down so much that if you want to decide, listen, i want to make a stand on something that's a financial, stand on something that's come down a lot, something that's travel, leisure that could make a snapback it has had great success i am with them hair. i think they are doing a terrific job it is my number one pick if you had the bounce. >> up 2.5% we want to remind but the cnbc investing club sign up, find out about it

more at cnbc.com/investment club or just opponent your phone at the code ride there on the screen it will take you there >> meantime, hedge fund manager bill ackman weighing in. tweeting last unite, well, a thought, while it is too early to have definitive data early reported data suggest that the omicron virus causes mild to moderate symptoms, less severity and is more transmissible. if this turns out to be true, this is bullish, not bearish, for markets. he followed that up with, i should have said bullish for the equity market, bearish for the bond market. joining us, liz young and anastasia moroso good morning to both of you. i don't know who wants to take it first i will go to liz do you agree with ackman >> i do. i am not a doctor or an

epidemiologist i am not going to opine on how strong this is going to be i still say we are going to see we are going to see volatility here in the united states. you this look this isn't the verse variant. it's not going to be the last. plus, the strength we had coming into this issue was better than the last 18 months we have apry pro cycle callity tilt >> anastasia, are you buying what are you buying? you saw stay-at-home stocks move on friday. the question is, should they, if, in fact, thing maybe really are better than the greatest worriers have. >> that's a great question, what are you buying i am not buying the broader market i agree, if we shake off some fears yes, i think the rally can continue

there is two challenges for the broad market one, i don't think we have hit an oversold condition for the s&p 500. two, even if omicron ends up being a non-event there is still the hawkish fed that's behind it and the potential for a hawkish pivot in the december fmoc for those reasons i am not buying the broad market. but i think there are two opportunities in the market right now. biotech. the covid vaccine names and covid treatments broadly, that is here to stay. i think the realization the market is coming to is this is not a one-off, not a 2021-2022 issue but it might be with us to stay, which means demand for boosters is likely to be higher than expected. again, it is not going to end in 2022 i like the biotech names that lagged recently and now will be bouncing back. and what i do think is oversold on frye was oil.

as a result we are pricing in 4 million barrels a day lower demand for the next three months i don't think that's likely to be the case. opec is this week. i think they may do something on production, not increase it over the next three months. >> liz, i think i am losing my audio, but i wanted to ask you what you think of travel it's the conversation that joe and jim were just having, given the possibility that we could have, you know, more quarantining and the like. what does that do? do people look through that or not? >> i think there is two different ways to look at it the first one is the international travel, which is likely going to suffer and is already suffering. we are getting a nice little bounceback in airlines today i think it is going to be brief and there is not a ton more upside until we actually can travel internationally without bounds again which i don't think is happening any time soon now, if you look at what the buys opportunities that you got on friday were, some of them were in the industrial space

but i would say industrials, x airlines looking at cyclicals going forward where you are looking for buying opportunities is industries, consumer discretionary, x stay-at-home, i think that play is over. >> an trashia, do you want in on airlines right now >> i would probably old off. i like the recovery trade, and i like the optionality for airlines for international travel and also for the resumption of business travel. that is still the base case, my base case for 2022 but we need to be a little bit humble when it comes to this virus. there are certain things we know about it, there are certain things we are going the find out in the next couple of weeks. i might miss a little bit of upside here by not stepping if right now. but i would rather know that this is not going to be a severe virus and that the vaccines are still going to be effective against it before jumping into some of the airlines i would stick with oil this

week. >> anastasia and liz thank you both appreciate night thank you. >> thank you. >> what a morning it has been. many big interviews, trying to help us all understand what is happening ahead of the final -- as we kick it over i want to get a check on the markets right now. you are looking at green arrows across the board, guys so we will see whether that holds up pie the end of the day. >> a pick up >> it has. make sure you join us tomorrow, "squawk on the street" begins right now. >> good monday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm jim lebenthal. david faber and jim cramer >> scientists around the world scrumible for more data about the omicron variant. our road map begins with the omicron volatility investors reassessin