i'm sorry. welcome to jobs friday stocks are relatively muted after yesterday's 600 point rebound for the dow. we'll show you what's moving and the omicron variant has arrived in new york. the state confirming five cases in the nyc area. one in manhattan as well we'll bring you the latest, but there's probably more than five. plus shares of docusign plunging more than 30% after forecasting a rapid slow down in growth. it's friday, did i say that, december 3, 2021 and "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, welcome to "squawk box. this is cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen, and andrew ross sorkin,

y yeah, it's friday. a big day for the market. >> did we mention that >> once or two, we've said it three times. yesterday was a big day for the markets. you saw the dow up by 618 points, that was a gain of 1.8%. s&p up by about 1.4% for a gain of 64 points and the nasdaq up by 27 points for a gain of .8% you add it together from where we've been a week ago, the chaos that kicked off on black friday, at this point you are talking about some declines from the all-time highs for the dow down 5.75% from the high, the nasdaq closer to 5.1%. and the s&p only 3% from the all-time high. so even with the volatility we've seen the big down days a few days we're upside too and that brings us down to 5%. if you're watching treasury yields you'll see the ten year yielding 1.431%.

jobs friday today, that's what everybody is watching for, to see what the fed might be taking out of some of these numbers, too. forecasters expect the number we're getting for the economy they added 573,000 jobs last month that would be up from 531,000 in october the unemployment rate is expected to tick down to 4.6%. i think it's the participation rate the fed is watching closely if people are getting out and looking for jobs because the fed is clearly more tuned in to inflation at this point than the jobs picture and that part of it, the participation rate will tell you about wage inflation, how much more employers have to pay to get people to come out. >> adp was good. >> yeah, it was. >> we will see meantime, while all of that is happening, congress now passing a bill to fund the government, avoiding a shutdown, the house passed that bill by 221 to 212

margin and chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell moved that bill through the senate quickly where it passed. a trio of senators tried to delay the bill but the amendment targeted at defunding vaccine mandates failed, 50 to 48 in a partisan vote so a little bit of drama yesterday. the state of new york confirming five cases of the omicron variant of covid yesterday. bringing the number of states with cases of the new variant to 12 meg tirrell joins us with more. >> reporter: good morning. last night we heard about two cases in los angeles and hawaii. hawaii says it's a case of community transmission because the person did not have travel history. in new york we're still learning more information about the five cases. overall the picture we know so far the cases are all described

as mild. we know the vaccination status of some of the folks some were fully vaccinated one person had a booster that's the person who travelled from new york city to minnesota from a conference. so there is likely community trance mission going on in new york these five cases not clear if it's related to that conference or to one another. internally, at least six additional countries identified cases of omicron yesterday bringing the total to at least 35 countries so this is spreading fairly widely at this point, although it is concentrated in south africa still the cases there have really gone vertical in terms of the spike that we're seeing. and yesterday researchers put out a paper saying that the reinfection risk is three-fold higher with omicron compared with previous variants so people who already had covid are getting reinfected at higher

rates than with beta or delta. we spoke with an epidemiologist yesterday who said it looks like it's spreading faster than the delta variant in terms of severity, it looks similar to delta at this point. we've been hearing a lot of mild cases. but he said it's too soon to tell they do have people in the hospital, including children but he didn't think it was necessarily hitting kids harder, he thinks a lot of people are getting infected at once so you're seeing more people go to the hospital at once. >> a lot of things to think about to try to decide what we're really seeing, meg some positives and negatives even if people that have mild cases are vaccinated and have had the full regiment or two shots and not the booster, because it's a mild case, perhaps that says that the existing vaccines are at least effective in staving off really

bad cases. i would like to know about an unvaccinated person at maybe 70 and then you could decide if that's a mild case, that would be great if it's the same as beta and delta, that would be a piece of knowledge you'd like to know and you'd also like to know if it's actually worse. and it's so early in the cycle where we are right now, that none of those questions are answered so i don't know if we can just sit back and say, wow, all the cases are mild but because they're with vaccinated people doesn't mean that's a bad thing either because they're mild maybe you're seeing some efficacy from the existing vaccines >> reporter: certainly the news is better that the cases have all been mild so far but epidemiologists and public health experts say you cannot draw conclusions from the 10

cases we have in the united states so far. the epidemiologist in south africa i was speaking with last night said he thinks vaccines will help prevent severe disease but he thinks this is the variant that triggers updating the vaccines like we do for the flu every year he warned about equitable distribution, he said it was the opposite way to do it and the world has a chance to get it right this time. whether or not we see it play out that way is the question >> i saw we could have it quickly, the omicron customized vaccine, but just increasing the dosage of the booster that moderna has been administering that even that would be probably something to consider, instead of the half -- you know, instead of the half dose go with a full third dose and maybe that would

give you enough antibodies to deal with this one i don't know. >> absolutely. the hope is by boosting antibody levels high enough, that's the argument for the booster in general, the pfizer booster is the same as the first two shots you'll be able to provide some level of protection. so that would be a quick thing you'd be able to do because pharmacists right now are drawing up half the dose for the booster, so it would be easy to switch to a full dose if needed. that, of course, would affect supply. >> on the supply issue and the idea of equitable distribution, sort of a do over on how we would do it. how do you think that might take place because that would have huge business implications for the pfizers of the world and the modernas and others? >> reporter: yeah. so it's going to be really interesting to watch this happen if it needs to happen. of course, there are a lot of orders that already exist from

countries with these drug makers so they have their list, they have the order in which they need to deliver them and some of the orders may have different stipulations like can it be an updated vaccine and if so, who's first in line for that and so how does it work. this epidemiologist i was talking with was saying we should not leave it up to the drug companies to make the decisions. the drug companies themselves said that, it would be easier if there was one purchaser of all of this. we have seen when moderna delivered to africa before the united states, moderna had to cut its overall forecast for the year because those doses were priced lower so it does have real implications for the companis' bottom lines, of course, they're making billions of dollars anyway. >> meg tirrell always good to

see you and get your perspective. chinese ride hailing giant didi saying last night it's going to start delisting from the new york stock exchange and list in hong kong. it comes six m months after the i.p.o. in june the stock fell sharply last week after the reports said the chinese regulators asked the company's executives to delist they're concerned about leakage of sensitive data. soft bank and uber which combined owned more than 30% of didi we've had lots of conversations over the last six months whether they should continue to hold the stake or not, given where things are right now, i'm sure there's conversations going on inside about that, joe. the. >> coming up we'll talk about the biggest catalyst for the markets. is it the omicron variant? or does it all come back to the fed? we've been talking about that for the last couple of days.

plus we'll tell you why docusign shares are tanking right now wow, 74 points it had a big run up, but that is a real fall back to earth, is it not? a little bit of an air pocket there. down almost 33%. almost a third then later draft king's ceo jason robins will join us to talk about the news it broke yesterday on cnbc atim en is shorting the company you're watching can, "squawk box" live from times square. if you wake up thinking about the market and want to make the right moves fast... get decision tech from fidelity. [ cellphone vibrates ] you'll get proactive alerts for market events before they happen... and insights on every buy and sell decision.

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docusign shares as we just showed you and we're showing you again are sharply lower down 74 points, almost 32% the developer of the esignature software provided a forecast short for the fourth quarter of a growth target around 30%, is significantly less than the blistering pace we saw from the company in the first half of last year. ceo dan springer acknowledged the disappointment saying the company had expected a stepdown from the levels of growth achieved at the height of the pandemic, but the environment had shifted more quickly than

anticipated. the disappointing forecast overshadowed third quarter earnings better than expected, also revenue better than expected for a check on what's motivating investors and moving markets let's bring in larry mcdonald, founder at the bear trap reports we've been asking larry whether -- if we were optimistic and we just assume -- let's say we just for arguments sake we assume that omicron isn't, you know -- that it's no worse than maybe what we saw with delta, which was awfully bad but say there's a more favorable outcome. does that put the market back on track for the performance we saw in the last 18 months or has recent comments from the tfed an just the overall monetary environment mean that's less likely we did see a nice dip, that did return yesterday, dip buying

will that continue we're still down from the high. >> the power of the dip buying has been -- it's pretty -- that pattern is pretty powerful over the last three, four years so you'll have the dip buyers but at the bear traps report, we run a live chat with about 600 institutional investors and it's one of the largest platforms so we're constantly engaging them on a daily basis if you talk to institutional investors, traders, you know, cios, they clearly think this action over the last week is fed driven they think that covid is backward looking i know a lot of the media -- not necessarily you guys, but the media wants to keep covid, it's a health issue, a national security issue so it's important. but at the end of the day, institutional investors are looking forward and i think we're setting up for 2018-type shock where the -- it's fed against the beast in the market.

>> larry, we had a conversation with steve liesman yesterday about the terminal interest rate that is now expected from the fed is lower than many people would have thought, and maybe that's bullish maybe we don't need to go back to some of those levels that we saw before i've had other people tell me that after a splurge or after a party, party like it's 1999, after what we've seen the fed orchestrate over the past 7, 8 years that has caused what some people think are very large asset bubbles that we've seen this movie before. when that pops the growth the next couple of years could be dampened and inflation could remain low, no one is thinking that look what happened to japan after the roaring '20s do you think there's anything to that we're in this roach motel we're not going to be able to get out

of fiscally we're not exactly tightening our belt? >> keep in mind, joe, the fed uses the street. so your viewers, we're constantly being -- i think the street is like a pawn. so if the fed needs to move the street expectations up, they'll leak -- if you notice last week they leaked to goldman sachs, someone at the fed, about a more aggressive posture, potentially doubling the speed of the taper, three hikes next year instead of two and powell comes on on tuesday and says that. so it's strange that an investmental bank knew that almost more than a week in advance. so powell is trying to give himself some dry powder incase he needs more dry powder next year but at the end of the day, joe, think about this, three rate hikes next year plus a full taper, plus at least a trillion

dollar fiscal drag out of washington this year we did the 3 trillion, and you have the manchins out there and maybe next year the deficit is 2 trillion. so if you add it up, it's a hit to the economy and to your point, asset prices are so high they can't take it we're probably going to go down, 20, 30% here maybe until january until the fed backs away as they did. remember in 2018, joe, this is so important 2018, in the fourth quarter, the fed convinced goldman sachs they were going to hike rates four times in 2019. four times they convinced wall street in 2019 they had to back away and actually cut rates twice so they didn't hike four times they cut twice so they use the street like pawns and we have to be aware of

that >> it's hard to figure out how -- we're used to talking how much money printing is going on from central bankers and that inflates assets this is what we're talking about that could eventually pop when do we see, if we're going to have slower growth when the asset bubble pops, when do we see the money printing come home to roost in terms of hyper inflation? does that come first and then there's a slow down in economic growth japan never had hyper inflation even after an asset bubble i don't understand how -- it doesn't seem you can jibe both sides, slower growth because you inflated assets so much and then a long period of deinflation or dis-inflation. >> exactly the debate on inflation is so powerful, bulls and bears. and at the end of the day, when inflation spikes as much as it has, it's very deflationary. that's why the 30 year has

rolled down to 1.8 so essentially the fed is already -- because inflation we've already inflicted some rate hikes into the market in other words, the demand destruction of inflation has slowed down the economy dramatically relative to where we were six months ago. >> it's not simultaneous they give a nobel prize out -- not really but it's kind of a nobel prize for economics, you said hyperinflation is so deflation nar, it becomes inflationary. >> think about oil, natural gas. >> it's self-correcting. >> yes, it's a tax increase on consumers. >> all right larry. go ahead >> just in closing, i say this tax loss here, i don't want to come out as a super bear, this tax loss year is going to be

incredible because you have the s&p up so much and investors are looking for tax losses look at stocks like intel, at&t, some phenomenal tax loss selling buys so you have a group of investors out there looking for tax losses and because the s&p is up so much, that tax loss selling is much more concentrated we have a report coming out and i think this could be the hall of fame tax loss buying year for the fourth quarter >> all right thanks, larry. larry mcdonald. >> thank you. >> see you later i want to read that report that's fascinating because there are stocks hit for the losses when we come back, a lot more on squawk the omicron variant throwing a big curve ball to companies planning to bring workers back into the office. we'll talk about the companies delaying plans next. as we head to a break, check out the market's biggest winners

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into strategies ♪ i had a dream that someday ♪ ♪ i would just fly, fly away ♪ welcome back to "squawk box" this morning google delaying its plans to bring workers back to the office on jan 10th, this according to a new email sent to employees. this determines when workers can return to, quote, a stable long-term working environment.

the company encourages employees coming in when conditions allow. the email said so far the company has opened 90% of the u.s. offices and in recent weeks nearly 40% of employees came into the office. it's not as if folks aren't going to the office at all, but a full return to work clearly not in the offing. and the question, of course, is directional, whether it continues a pace or goes the other direction, becky. >> there are so many companies that are planning for workers to come back right now just as this new variant is hitting although, you know, again the early reports are most of the cases have been not bad symptoms, so we'll continue to watch it and see what happens. google kind of the first of those companies making that news in the meantime, berkshire hathaway's vice chair speaking in australia overnight, saying he considers this an era in the markets that's crazier than the.com era.

said said he wishes cryptocurrencies didn't exist. he said he can't stand participating in these insane booms one way or the other guys, that plays in to what you were just hearing from the last market guest who has concerns about what happens to valuations with these things. charlie is never accused of someone who chases fads and investing and tries to get rich quick. he said it's delayed gratification that builds wealth he's 97, going to be turning 98 in less than a month when we come back, moves in the chip sector. >> as we head to a break, let's look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers

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good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site in times square checks futures after a good day yesterday we are giving back a little we're in the red, down 57 points as you can see the nasdaq down 32. the s&p down 9 i guess the other question is, does a blockbuster jobs report, does that -- would that take precedence over our covid concerns >> it's backwards. it's totally backwards. >> we're omicron focused >> no, but would a blockbuster jobs report put more pressure on the fed or give them cover for what they want to do. >> we're back to the fed again. >> it's two stories, omicron and the fed. >> we have a deadly virus quadrupling in south africa by the hour and we're still talking about the fed. something is wrong with the

picture. >> except we've seen the shades of different covid variants before, we think we're better prepared this time around. we think we have more tools. we hope we can react better and we also hope it's no more deadly than what we've dealt with to this point and the tools we have will work. if you look at the difference we haven't worked with a fed this moved about things -- andrew, i'm sorry, go ahead. >> i think looking at the jobs picture, i don't want to say this is irrelevant what we're going to see today, because there's going to be some relevancy. i think over the next month, six weeks we'll know one way or the other what this new variant means but also how or if it's going to change people's behavior maybe it does or doesn't if it does change people's behavior, it's going to make a huge difference. i wonder, i think at some level it may, especially because so many people have been vaccinated and even though they've been

vaccinated, if everybody thinks they can still get it, even if it's a mild case, i don't know if everybody jumps in the pool some people will, some won't, how that changes travel and everything else -- >> i think the fatigue has affected so many people. we're doing a homecoming next week for our reopening >> i don't need to jump back in the pool at my health club a couple times i looked around, the day after thanksgiving, shocker people go to the gym but there was so many -- i got a little -- i haven't been uncomfortable. i wasn't wearing a mask and nobody else is -- a couple people but there were a lot of people in that gym and i finally said, let's go over to, you know, eddie, dready, the guy i hate that trains me, that's the first time i felt a little bit uncomfortable.

l.a. times had a piece that maybe the south africa thing happened because of the huge immuno suppressed population there and it might have been in one person that had covid for 160 days and it was unable to deal with the infection and the infection just runs wild. >> that's what len told us the other day, the ceo of regeron. >> we heard dr. scott gottlieb say it was identified a year and a half ago where was it that area that think it was a lab based accident, there's that one area the genome that doesn't usually mutate and this one supposedly has a lot of things happening right in that area, too. so we're back to asking -- we need to know the genesis originally to be able to deal with this. and we still don't and probably never will. it's not fair. another reason to get mad at china. >> for not allowing things to be

investigated properly. >> exactly. >> here's one question i have. if you were convinced it came from the wuhan lab, i'm not discounting that, could be what happened if you think this was weaponized by the chinese, if that's the case, why wouldn't you take the vaccine that america and its allies have put forth to kind of battle that? >> i don't -- that's another -- that's another couple of bridges about whether it was weaponized. >> if you think this is something cooked up in a lab in china -- >> it may have escaped. >> maybe they didn't send it out and weaponize it and put it out on purpose but you think this is something they were playing with as a potential weapon and it accidentally escaped take the vaccine, you're more comfortable with what you think was cooked up in a chinese lab coming to get you than the vaccine to fight that? the logic doesn't follow it. >> i don't think they were necessarily looking for a weapon

either opinion i think research is trying to figure out knowing a future pandemic and what you can know about the coronaviruses. i'm not ascribing ill intent to the research done. >> the things i've heard from people who don't want to get the vaccine, i'll take my chances with the virus but a lot of them think the virus was cooked up in a lab. >> and they're happy to take their chances with the medicines they're going to have to take when they get covid. so the whole thing is crazy. i haven't found somebody who hasn't taken the vaccine and said no please don't give me remdesivir either. >> i can guarantee, if you want to hurt your heart get covid >> when we come back we'll go lye to beijing

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time now for an update over the controversy of a chinese tennis player who accused a top official of sexual assault the women's tennis association has suspended all tournaments in china over concerns for her safety eunice yoon joins us with more

good morning -- or good evening there. >> reporter: good morning, becky. the chinese government as well as the world of women's tennis are at a stand still over peng they're suspending all the tom tournaments in china peng has had limited interaction with the outside world, apparently or seemingly under beijing's instruction. she was last seen in videos and photos on twitter in the accounts of chinese state media. but otherwise the wta has said that she's not reachable the wta's tough stance is being closely watched by the international business community as a potential inflection point in their relationship and how to engage with beijing, including on the beijing olympics. the tactic of the chinese right now appears to be to drum up

support for beijing's position by arguing a popular international view that politics shouldn't mix with sport and that athletes are the only ones who go punished. they're also pressuring the u.s. business community to push back, including the u.s. china business council and this would include a boycott of the olympics and finally they've been enlisting the help of the ioc to reassure the tennis world, as well as others that peng sua is fine the ioc again doubled down to align itself with beijing saying that they have spoken to her for a second time over a video call and they have agreed that the two would be meeting in person in january becky. >> thank you very much eunice joon. joining us for more on all of this is jeff signenfelled.

i know you have pretty strong feelings abilout this, what do o think of the move of the women's tennis association and what do you think of the olympics in contrast >> yes becky, thanks. there really is some precedent here i think that the ioc has a long, tainted history. this is the -- thomas bach is the latest in a stream of -- just between us, quizliing weak leaders that have kowtowed to abusive governments. we go to the concessions made on russian doping for the entirety of thomas bach's reign, been there eight years. despite internal findings of manipulation of testing by the ioc themselves, bach has fought doing the right thing. his predecessor, it's not

inflammatory name calling to identify him as a fascist, he was much of his career he was and the concessions and the scandals on the bid rigging of contracts. for the ioc to come out and make a statement is hardly cleansing. it's disiappointing that we dont see a transcript or video of this and for comthomas bach to y we'll see her in january or next year, that's crazy tennis has been bold taking a lonely stance, kind of ken frazier, we're wondering where's the stampede of others to follow. i'm not saying there needs to be a mass boycott of athletes or of even advertisers, although some advertisers might consider, i think it's very important that

nbc continue their coverage for a lot of reasons but a diplomatic boycott makes a lot of sense. >> what you're talking about is something that i think people are clamoring for in some arenas, but it gets back to the point of if you push the olympics to pull out or say forget it or boycott, a diplomatic boycott it gets you to the point you don't know how that escalates and where things go. and china is now in a position where, you know, they have been testing hypersonic missile tests. they're in a position they have nuclear warheads, a potential for all of these things. the question becomes if you can't meet on something like an olympic grounds, what -- where does that leave you in terms of any diplomacy? i guess the return answer is, our efforts at this have not worked at this point but you are talking about big issues with some pretty important heft it's the most important

relationship in the world. how do we proceed? >> i'm really glad you went to the third rail about talking about global peace and national security issues. because a lot of ceos wisely don't want to talk about that. i don't encourage them good for you to raise it but just so we have in the background of context where ceos if they can avoid it, shouldn't go we shouldn't be talking about the saber rattling in taiwan, the south china sea looking at the nuclear warheads, the control of the congo rare minerals or things like that, that china has is that xi jinping when he took control, many were happy because the predecessor didn't have control of the disparate parts of the party thinking we have a unified

party to deal with but we have an emperor now, and the risk of this emperor life is they always feel threatened. i don't think he's a reckless person even though he's concentrating power to historic proportions. if this were russia we'd say don't poke the bear. in this case, don't push the panda. but looking at what advertisers can do together, there are companies, nike, gap, adidas, h&m, these folks this year this spring, this summer, banded together and refused to take from the province any of the cotton, and it's high quality cotton coming from the oppressed uyghurs those forced to produce this, to work. some companies haven't signed

up if people care about boycotting -- >> jeff, but if they were -- jeff, if they were able to do that, then i would ask you, why are so many business executives who do business in china so unwilling to speak out we've seen -- you know, look, this week, ray dalio made the comments on our program, mitt romney went after him for the comments jamie dimon retracted his comments about china from a week ago. there are lots of people who seem to be unwilling to make the sort of outspoken case you're making yet you're saying there are other ceos somehow doing it behind the scenes. what's going on here >> well, you know, andrew, we closed off last week on this topic by you saying we wish we had more time. you probably meant it politely

but the producers tortured you getting right back into it with the more time. i do think adam silver of the nba has cleaverly threaded the needle here, where the fortification of the american values is the american brand we should never surrender america's brand in the interest of commerce. we had 180 companies pull out of south africa, you might sa market it isn't the size of the market. south africa then and now really has a tremendous control over rare minerals. then it was 75% of the diamond and gold production. we still had u.s. companies, especially general motors came out with the sullivan principles the guideline on how to operate in south africa. and when the south african government wouldn't let

companies comply, 180 companies pulled out and there also was sanctions from the united states government which in fact came through when ronald reagan was president then, he refused to sign them. he didn't believe in economic boycotts but mitch mcconnell did and bob dole said we need to stand for american values. republicans, democrats joined together 78 senators overrode reagan's veto on this to enact those kind of sanctions so as to jamie's comment, i don't want to sidestep it. if you don't need to get into a fight, don't step into it. he stepped into it unwisely. >> they're playing us out and i apologize. it never seems like we have enough time. but they're playing us out and we will have you back very soon to continue this conversation. great to see you. >> thanks a lot. >> thank you >> i promise you becky is not just being polite. we will do this more.

coming up, stocks under pressure we'll take a look at the sector right after this

time now for a check on gaming stocks. contessa brewer joins us now with more. hi, contessa. >> hi, joe yes, sports betting stocks taking it on the chin this year. draftkings off more than 32% year to date penn shares are down more than 42%. and the round hill sports betting and it gaming etf is off 15% this year, 23% just the last month. oppenheimer points out there are some near-term hurdles the move away from high growth into value plays, an abysmal hold rate in october because nfl matchup with favorite teams winning, the high tax rates like new york is at 51% that really worries investors. and then there's this huge spend on marketing sbc's sports betting conference, the head of the american gaming

association defended the wall-to-wall advertising for now. >> there's a lot of advertising in this area and it is because they're acquiring customers. and importantly, and often acquiring customers from the illegal marketplace. we think that's a good thing. >> that's the reason jim chanos is sport draftkings. he suggested a hypothetical scenario where draftkings would quadruple revenue. listen to this. >> you take their marketing spend, which is currentlyover 100% of revenues, you take it to 10% of revenues, which is their target and you keep the overhead at today's level. you don't add anything draftkings would still be losing $200 million a quarter or $800 million a year that is completely and totally insane >> draftkings ceo jason robbins is not happy with that

he was pushing back on twitter, accusing chanos of forgetting how to do math jason robbins will join us on "squawk box" in an exclusive interview next hour, joe we're looking around to that. >> we have a lot of questions for jason. if draftkings isn't doing as well, i think you might have a good idea why, contessa. i showed you my betting slips. you saw i'm killing it i am killing it. and their margins -- >> i was shocked by how little you actually bet as much as you talk about it, i thought that you were a high roller >> that hurts. you see that when you bet $4 on a three-way parlay, if you hit it you can make $35. i'm on the same $150 that i started the year with and i'm at $160, so just put that in your pipe and smoke it. >> wow. >> i'm up, all right i am up. you know, i can't wait for the

oregon/utah game tonight you said it. it makes it so much more engaging that that trend will not continue regardless of what chanos says. thank you, contessa. coming up, jason robins joins us for an exclusive interview to respond to jim chanos sport call on the stock we'll be right back. what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

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it is jobs friday. the futures are flat ahead of the numbers. markets waiting to see what happens. we'll get a preview of what investors can expect when those numbers hit at 8:30 a.m. eastern time new york officials confirming five cases of the omicron variant bringing the number of states with the new variant to five. we've got the details straight ahead. plus, draftkings ceo jason robins joins us to talk about the fierce competition in the online gambling space and jim chanos announcement that he is short the stock. this is all happening now. the second hour of "squawk box" happens now. ♪ good morning and welcome

back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc on this friday morning jobs friday. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. let's show you u.s. equity futures ahead of those numbers all of this could move around but we've been debating how significant these numbers are now that we're thinking about potentially tapering on the fed side but also this issue of omicron and what it means. the dow looks like it would open up slightly in the green it was in red just a second ago. the nasdaq down about 6 1/2 points the s&p 500 down about a point the big developing story this morning on the omicron covid variant, new york state now confirming at least five cases of the new variant hours after cases were detected in minnesota and colorado the majority of those cases were detected inside new york city itself and surrounding boroughs, this according to the governor minnesota's confirmed cases were or confirmed case was found in a resident who recently returned from new york city at the top of the 8:00 hour,

we're going to get more on all of this from dr. scott gottlieb who's going to help walk us through where things stand, becky. in the meantime google is delaying its plans to bring workers back to the office on january 10th according to an email sent to employees viewed by cnbc, the company plans to wait until the new year to assess when u.s. offices can safely return to what they call a stable, long-term working environment. the company still encourages employees to continue coming in to reconnect with colleagues in person the email said the company has opened 90% of its u.s. offices and in recent weeks nearly 40% of u.s. employees did come into the office. it is jobs friday. steve liesman joins us now with a preview of what investors should be expecting today. hey, steve >> hey, joe, good morning. another strong jobs report is expected with some indication from the high frequency data that it might top expectations but the big story you guys have

been talking about, whether americans that dropped out of the workforce are returning. we're looking at 573 versus 531 in october unemployment rate seen ticking down by one tenth to 4.5%. wages up 0.4%. the software company ukg, they see a 1.4% growth in employment in november. that's the kind of level that has led to upside surprises in the past several months. david gilbertson, vice president at ukg, writing, quote, we believe the return to work incentives being offered by a number of companies are beginning to entice hourly employees back to work as child care schedules are becoming more predictable and covid booster shots more prevalent even as job growth has been strong, millions of workers who dropped out of the workforce in the wake of covid remain on the sidelines. participation rate has remained flat you can see right there, just not coming back. if labor force participation does not step up in november and

it becomes apparent that omicron will suppress participation in the first half of 2022 as well, then we would need to resist our rate forecast again. that is three next year versus two. well, they have suppressed the count of labor force growth could help us this month and next but we'll need to see a sustained return to work and a fed that might have to address it with more rate hikes next year right now the market is on the fence, a 51% chance of a third rate hike now being priced in. >> steve, i didn't get to talk to you yesterday about the terminal rate discussion after i got -- >> i know! >> some smart guys were saying it was totally explainable if you look at history after big asset bubble run-ups by central bankers.

that for years growth can be affected from the overspending in the 1930s japan after the huge sf bubble but then i started thinking if all we talk about is that we've printed so much that the dollar is worthless and so inflation is going up, how does that turn into 20 years of disinflation? why would the result of all that central bank accommodation, why would you endi up getting above 2% maybe that's demographics in japan. you can't look at things in a vacuum or, steve, then i thought maybe inflation comes first andwe have to put the brakes on and it's self-correcting because consumers have less to spend and then we go into that slowdown. i don't know have you figured out why they're lowering the -- i mean i never

thought -- remember jimmy rogers he said that the bond would never go below 6%. he would have bet -- i don't know how much money he has i think he's living off that soros money. he said it would never go below 5 or 6%. it's muni bonds. i don't think he's made a trade in 25 years. what do you think? >> i think you're asking some really smart questions and you probably would be more profitable for you to take those considerable smart questions and brain of yours and put it more towards betting more on a routine basis rather than these $4 bets. i think those are big questions -- >> you think that's different than betting what we do every day here, steve? >> well, you know, joe, we can't really bet i think the issue is you have your outlet through your account there as best you can. look, i think what you're -- first of all, i want to explain to you what terminal rate is as you know, we have a lot more people watching who haven't been

part of the conversation for the past ten years so i want to make sure they understand the terminal rate is the rate that the market thinks the fed will end up at and that's really important because once the fed starts hiking, the market starts having this debate and pricing in the terminal rate and why the fed is doing all the stuff it can to make sure that the market does not price in the terminal rate because it doesn't think the economy can handle that terminal rate right now, it wants it to be gradual that's why the debate is so incor important. joe and i have been talking about this for years look at the 10-year. 1.43 suggests there is a very low expectation for a terminal rate we went into this crisis with a 1.75, 2% fed funds rate. that is not the market bet right now so a couple of things could be on the table. one the market is betting there's going to be a mistake by the fed. it's going to hike too much and possibly really bring the economy down into a recession over time. i think the second thing, and

joe, i think you alluded to this too which i think is fascinating. the old powell had this back in august in jackson hole was that, look, there are these deflationary forces out there. some of them are demographic, some are technological once we get through finding a new equilibrium level for prices and wages, those disinflationary or deflationary forces in the global economy could reassert themselves. >> i think it's the singularity. that's still coming. it's going to be disinflationary when we all live forever, i think, which i'm looking forward to >> the digital revolution, joe, precedes a pace. we have not stoppedin innovati. >> and i will say the stupid thing about a port backed up with ships i don't mean it's stupid, it's tragic and painful and hurtful for the economy. we're going to figure that out

are you kidding me we're going to figure out how to unload ships. >> thanks, steve becky, you're going to go somewhere. >> this is actually pretty important. >> if we alluded to the weather, you'd need full testing. >> it sounds like there is a way to expedite it there's news at the top of the hour, "the wall street journal" is reporting that the fda is preparing guidelines for a quick review of omicron targeted vaccines and drugs that would expedite the response for the variant. for vaccines, companies would not have to conduct large, lengthy trials that enroll thousands of subjects and take months and months to do but just study the immune response in a few hundred subjects drug makers would need three months to develop and test these new vaccines and it's expected that it would take the fda just one to two weeks to make a decision about emergency use this is what we talked about at the beginning of the week when you had pfizer and moderna both say they could cook these things up, they were working on it and could have something ready by early next year. if it had to be tested like it was the first time around with the mrna vaccines, you would be

talking about probably at least three to six months at least before you would have something that was approved and taken on by the fda. >> becky, are they talking -- in this instance they're talking about three months as a minimum no matter what. >> that's just for them to cook it up and manufacture that because these are not new vaccines for the flu vaccine, you don't have to go through the trials every year they look at the most likely variants out there and prepare for it using that. maybe we've reached that point it sounds like the fda is acknowledging because this is a desperate time and they need to move more quickly on these things, they're going to do it. >> we said if the proof of concept of this new technology mrna technology which is so attractive and exciting because it can be adapted so quickly, if the proof of concept that it works once, if you just change a few of the base pairs do you need to go back to -- you know, to the very beginning? it doesn't look like you have to i wouldn't think so with

monoclonals either make a new monoclonal that is more targeted to this antigen, to omicron, and get that out on the market too that shouldn't be that hard too. it's hard to make it not hard -- >> and distribute it. >> when do you shift but when do you shift? when do you shift from delta to omicron? this is the big question that they're all facing. >> i'd say kind of mix it all. >> get an omicron booster like a flu shot >> no, no, but from a manufacturing perspective they need to -- at some point to get enough of it, they have to effectively say we're no longer doing delta, we're doing this. and making that decision -- >> i don't know the answer is there a way to cover for all the variants in it like in the flu shot, i get the quad flu shot that deals with at least four variants. >> they are working on a broad spectrum kind of thing that they could do in the future but my understanding is at least this round they have to actually make the call

we can talk to meg tirrell more about this but making that call will be a big decision. >> the dow is up 80 points this did hit -- it seems like it coincided with a better tone in the markets. >> speedy recovery you know, speedy way to use the tools that we have and refine those tools. when we come back, calling telecom investors, cutthroat competition and muted prospects for revenue growth have names like at&t, verizon and smaller rival, t-mobile, either at or new their lowest levels in a decade we'll break down what's going on in the sector right after this break. another check on the futures as we head to break. the dow futures turned positive. they're now up 15. s&p futures up just fractionally the nasdaq down by less than two points of course we've got big numbers coming up at 8:30, the jobs report a lot could turn oth an ats well "squawk box" will be right back.

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and present, can continue to get the tools they need to build a future of unlimited possibilities. welcome back telecom shares are continuing to face massive lows on the market today. at&t is at its lowest point in over 12 years since 2008 while shares of rival verizon near their post-covid lows. all of this as the broader

markets hover around all-time highs so what exactly is going on here? joining us to discuss is walter picheck and sarah fisher good morning to both of you. walt, what's the explanation did 5g not pan out the way we thought? >> i think certainly there's been some disappointment in the applications that should drive growth for 5g. i think even yesterday there was some discussion on the type of sales apple is going to see. that's the same thing for the operators. the rates are up but maybe not up as dramatic some people were talking about this super cycle that was going to occur but clearly did not occur. but also with these wireless carriers, it's been a huge subscriber growth year normally they add about 6 million subscribers and this year they're going to add about 9 million, post paid phone subscribers. so there's some investor apprehension about what happens next year if that reverts to a post-covid more normal range of

subscriber growth and who is going to give up that subscriber growth >> hey, sarah, at&t obviously in the process of disposing or, rather, spinning off the warner media piece. it looks like all of these telecom companies effectively become clean companies when this is over. my question to you is whether you think that you're going to have some others revert thinking they need to buy something else? >> i think the thing that they're going to continue to focus on buying is maybe spectrum this is going to continue to be a spectrum war as it becomes more competitive, it makes investors nervous, especially if you're verizon and at&t t-mobile with its merger with sprinting has come to take the lead in terms of broad coverage of 5g. andrew, i'm glad that you brought up some of those divestitures because i think some of that is weighing on the stock. at&t continues to say it's going to cut the dividend to some of those institutional investors once it closes that deal and spin out warner media with discovery. of course that's going to have

investors nervous. >> walt, we were talking to larry mcdonald and he made the observation that given the losses i imagine at&t, maybe verizon and other shareholders may be taking that they may be doing selling effectively as a tax loss strategy. >> it definitely could be. and to sara's point, in at&t, it's a more unique situation because the investors may get shares of discovery. we don't know how they're going to execute on that transaction does an at&t shareholder that's getting a dividend want to own discovery? so there's complications there and to your point from a tax loss selling standpoint, that can certainly be a driver when there's concerns of inflation and a lot of the things that have been driving these stocks have been dividend yields and what is the attraction of a dividend yield in a more inflationary market. >> walt, among the stocks on the screen right now, which one do you like the most if you're

going to own one >> we like at&t right now just because -- it's really getting beat up in a variety of ways when the stocks are down, t-mobile has been down more than at&t over the last three months but the headlines are at&t is at its 10-year low. everyone hated the transaction with time warner and now the new ceo sankey is getting out of it and there's negative things said about the company. so at a 13% free cash flow yield and a dividend yield even after they cut the dividend, the dividend yield at 8% and they're growing faster than t-mobile today, to us that seems like the obvious relative trade and frankly, it's worked out so far in terms of like it just hasn't gone down as much as t-mobile so when you look at '22, to us if there's a recovery in these stocks, you're going to see the bigger bounce in at&t. >> sara, final question to you we've been talking about this variant all morning and what that means to the stay-at-home trade, the return-to-work trade,

whatever trade you think that's supposed to be you would think that the telecom companies would actually be a favorable place to be. >> it's complicated. what happened during the pandemic is a bunch of people rushed home to sign up for broadband. last quarter was the first time we saw it stall out and that's because we reached the point of saturation most people have added broadband plans and are not retracting those plans. you would think omicron would have people rush to sign up more but it's the streaming stocks and people already have them so there's not a lot of room to grow i think to walt's point when it comes to omicron and covid, the other thing to watch is the prepaid phone plans. they have been doing really well i expect them to continue to do well the only thing that might impact that is apple and manufacturing of phones. >> sara and walt, i want to thank you on this jobs friday. great to see you i'm sure we'll be talking a lot more about this. coming up, "the wall street

journal" reports as we just said the fda is preparing some guidelines for a quick review of omicron vaccines and drugs meg tirrell joins us next with more. and later the ceo of draftkings on the fierce competition in online sports betting. the company's stock plummeting in november along with other online sports gambling stocks. ceo jason robins will be our guest on "squawk box." we'll be right back. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. what consumer electronics company was branded "sound of music" but changed its name in 1983 the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues but that aflac blue feels so right. when you feel right, you coach right. i know that's right! prime never believed in double coverage, but health insurance and aflac...is money. ♪ must be the money ♪ and i know how coach prime feels about money.

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"the wall street journal" reporting that the fda is laying the groundwork for the rapid review of omicron-targeted vaccines and drugs if they turn out to be needed meg tirrell joins us now with more on this meg, this is a quick response from the fda >> yeah. but it's not totally surprising, becky. we had been expecting that it could look like this essentially what "the wall street journal" is reporting citing sources familiar with the thinking at the agency is that the agency is likely to clear vaccines that are updated similarly to how they cleared the booster shot so using antibody data from a few hundred subjects, not having to do these broad multi-thousand people efficacy trials "the journal" also reports the agency will make a decision in one to two weeks after the companies seek authorization so a pretty quick turn-around time there. "the journal" also reports that it's not yet clear from the fda or any guidelines how much the protection from the vaccines will have to diminish to actually pull the trigger to

make an omicron-specific vaccine. that's some reporting i've been doing as well and i've heard the same thing from authorities. there has not yet been a threshold, whether it's based on the antibody data or real world observational data on declining efficacy against this variant. we have not yet seen any of that and we should get some of the first lab data toward the end of next week. but it does look like it will be similar to how we clear boosters this is the situation we have with flu shots we understand the protection and how high the antibody levels need to be to protect against flu. we don't have that with sars-cov-2 but there is enough understanding to be to clear updated shots if needed. >> meg, we were just trying to figure out if you have this omicron variant vaccine, would you be able to combine it with other vaccines too or is this something you would get as a booster shot on top of the other ones it's hard to imagine that it

would be the only variant that's out there in a few months. >> that's a great question and i think something that the drug makers are trying to parse through now. does it make sense to just update this with the omicron spike, for example, or to try to broaden the potential protection from these vaccines by designing some kind of hybrid vaccine that could cover against a lot of different mutations or variants. and then if they need to do that, how will it be decided what the construct of the vaccine should be. is there a different one for moderna, a different for pfizer/biontech. so all of this is kind of up in the air at this point. toward the end of next week as we get the first data on how well the vaccines are holding up, we should start getting some of those questions start to be answered. >> meg, in terms of manufacturing, one thing others have talked about is you do have to make the decision about when you're going to effectively switch from the prior delta vaccine to manufacturing this

new one, whether it's strictly something that is focused on omicron or somehow a broader spectrum, if you will. when would that choice be made who makes that choice? >> that's another really good question so if they decide they need to update the vaccines, all of those answers need to be decided upon in terms of what the vaccine looks like and then at what point you can switch the manufacturing. i suppose if you've decided you need a new vaccine and that is the one that's going to be deployed by the time it is ready to start being manufactured that's when you make the switch. thatshould not take too long i doesn't sound like we heard from the pfizer ceo that they can switch over to i think a few days to switch over but it takes time to actually get enough doses who makes that decision, it sounds like the journal is reporting the fda is in consultation with the world health organization and other authorities around the world to decide should we use new vaccines and then of course when

>> meg, let's just switch to monoclonals. you remember that both the lily and regeneron were already sort of a composite they were epitopes of different areas of the spike protein, right? do those need to be modified as well or do we need to test to see if they work as well on the variant? and how long does it take to make those are they much more difficult than -- monoclonals must be a little more difficult than vaccines. >> it sounds like from modeling work that's been done that both the regeneron and lily antibody cocktails will need to be updated. we haven't seen the actual lab studies done yet so we will see that regeneron of course has a library of antibodies, already some in the clinic human testing where they could update this and

we'll have to see how well those neutralize omicron that manufacturing process takes time because these are grown in chinese hamster owe sster ovar it does take time and there's more steps along the ay. >> who thought the first time to use some chinese hamster ovary let's try some chinese hamster ovary cells. of course henrietta lack, there's a movie made about her, remember >> she's not a chinese hamster but there's a lawsuit over helicells right now. >> who is the first person who thought to eat rocky mountain oysters? i don't know. still to come this morning, our exclusive interview with draftkings ceo jason robins. that's next. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc.

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning a little china news here global ride-hailing company didi saying it will delist less than

six months after going public. they have been under a lot of pressure since the ipo in june and eunice yoon joins us now with more. >> thanks, andrew. didi looks as though it's shifting its listing to hong kong the company didn't cite any specific reasons but the company has been under pressure from chinese regulators who have expressed their concern that didi could be a national security risk because of its combination of its treasure trove of data and its exposure to u.s. authorities. now, for u.s. investors, didi says that it will ensure its shares are convertible into freely tradeable shares on another internationally recognized stock exchange. it will hold a shareholder meeting for a vote and immediately pursue a listing in hong kong. now, what's unclear is whether or not the hong kong stock exchange would accept didi the hong kong stock exchange is known to have a very strict regulations when it comes to ipos and also the speculation

has been that didi didn't pursue an ipo in hong kong and rather went to new york because it couldn't meet the requirements of the hong kong stock exchange when it came to certain permits and other paperwork. now, the speculation at this point is that didi is going to pursue a dual primary listing in hong kong over the next three months and that by june, it's hoping to delist from new york guys >> eunice, i'm confused. they couldn't meet the requirements to originally list in haong kong, that's why so we have lesser requirements in the united states, that's what happened, and now they're flipping the script? >> yeah. actually there are a lot of chinese companies that go to the united states because they say that the regulations there are much looser than they are for hong kong. and same for shanghai, where in shanghai for a very long time, they required that companies make a profit, prove they can

make a profit. in the u.s., you don't have to prove you can make a profit, you can list there and that's not a problem. so because of that, there is some -- a big question mark that didi might not actually meet the requirements in hong kong. >> okay. eunice yoon in china i want to talk to you about so many things. i wish we had more time. i'm sure we will do that more next week. thanks when we come back, draftkings ceo jason robins on the online sports betting landscape and news of jim chanos revealing a short position in the company. he'll join us after the break. check out the futures right now. dow futures indicated up by 23, the s&p up 2.5 and the nasdaq up 15 we are getting closer to the jobs report at 8:30 eastern time a lot riding on that as well we'll be right back.

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if you wake up thinking about the market and want to make the right moves fast... get decision tech. for insights on when to buy and sell. and proactive alerts on market events. that's decision tech. only from fidelity. you take their marketing spend, which is currently over 100% of ref venues you take it to 10% of revenues, which is their target, and you keep the overhead at today's level. you don't add anything draftkings would still be losing $200 million a quarter or $800 million a year that is completely and totally

insane >> that, of course, jim chanos, short seller, on why he's short draftkings right now let's get to contessa brewer who joins us now with a special guest. hi, contessa. >> hi, joe those were fighting words for jason robins who joins me now, the ceo of draftkings. jason, good to see you this morning. let me just ask you, i know you tweeted out that jim chanos has forgotten how to do math what are your problems with his take on the numbers. >> good morning, contessa and joe. i mean he said it himself, it's totally insane, the math makes no sense obviously if we quadruple gross profit, cut marketing to 10% of revenue and kept overhead flat we would not be losing $200 million a quarter. we also are not trading anywhere near 30 times revenue, less than half of that so i'm not sure what he's doing other than -- you know, jim's a smart guy, i'm sure he knows better we all have to get up in the

morning and look in the mirror and some people will say anything to make a buck. but we're focused on the people who are believers and our goal every day is to build a great company over the long term so we prove them right and deliver tremendous value to our shareholders obviously it's annoying when people come and make stuff up and do that at their own service, but not much you can do about it >> well, i mean you did take to twitter and had some pretty harsh words there. i want to ask you about the marketing spend, though, because it comes up on your earnings calls, it comes up in investor meetings, that it seems like the markets are losing patience for a return here and to see profitability happen tell me a little bit about how you're seeing the investment in marketing pay off. take arizona, for instance what have you seen about what happens when you spend big >> well, arizona is a great example, i'm glad you brought that up. we reached 100,000 customers in arizona in 17 days it was over 100 in new jersey,

over 200 in indiana, over 300 in pennsylvania so that just shows you how quickly -- and that was the only state of those four where we didn't have daily fantasy sports we had no database until 12 days before we launched sports betting. the reason is because it's working. we were seeing customer acquisition efficiency and we manage everything on a horizontal basis so if it's performing, then we think spending more makes sense. we've been very consistent since the day we went public a two to three-year path to profitability in every state so far the only state that has gotten to that is new jersey and we did reach profitability on the lower end of that, closer to two rather than three years. we'll have an update on some of the states coming up on a little over two years early next year once we have a complete year of data for 2021. we've been very consistent and haven't changed our story. yes, the markets are fickle. in the short term they'll decide

one day something is great and the next day they don't have patience for it. if you're consistent, you execute a strategy that works which we believe we're doing i think over time that's what delivers value and the shareholders who are long in the stock who are patient, they get rewarded for that. >> joe >> thanks, contessa. we were talking about this a little bit earlier off camera, jason. i'm just wondering, the offerings on draftkings, and you know i should say that i use draftkings every day, just to make small bets on college basketball or football or nba or nfl or soccer or ladies hoops. but do you know, are the offerings that you give me and the little special deals, is that the same on everyone's draftkings account, or do you know what i'm really bad at and try to suck me in to a parlay

that i never win is it customized to me, jason, through ai i no longer have monday night blackjack specials that i get to play anymore and i always beat you on those i always got $5 in free credits and made money so i think you knew that i always ended up ahead after those and you no longer offer those anymore am i paranoid? >> joe, first of all, thank you for playing. you know, it's not -- we actually have to look at that because if you were playing, we should put those back. it's not meant to be what you're good or bad at it's more personalized based on what you did. so we have machine learning -- >> a likely story. a likely story >> it's the true story that's what we try to do i think we're looking to make you happy and engaged. that's the point if you engage, you play more. >> oh, i'm engaged. >> yeah. well, then it must be working. >> so jason, joe brings up an interesting point, though.

what the research shows, in fact pay save put out a survey that the bettors are chasing promotions i know the operators are hoping their marketing spend will pay off with brand loyalty but right now that doesn't appear to be the case instead, they're going after who will give them the biggest credits in their account or the most insurance if they lose their money. so at what point does that become just a bad bet? i know you said just recently you're not really interested in those gamblers who are deal shopping because they're not that profitable. >> yeah. i think what i said a little bit taken out of context, although that point is true you know, we want people to win. we don't want professionals, which i think is what any sports book would say but we definitely want people to win. that's part of what makes it fun, being able to win so as far as the question on promotions, i think this is really a great time for customers because it's the customer acquisition phase new states are opening up, it's still super early in the

industry and i think that's why you're seeing so many promotipromotions out there. >> caesars says we get the most profitable sports gamblers from our database those are the ones that cost us the least because they're already our customers and they spending the most. where are your most profitable customers coming from? >> we also have a pretty substantial database of daily fantasy sports players we've been operating daily fantasy sports for almost a decade now in most states. i think other than that, we have very optimized marketing we know based on different offerings, based on different channels where the most profitable players come from so it's a lot of different sources. most of it is based on machine learning and things that we built into the platform. >> clearly there's a lot of enthusiasm nevada just passed a billion dollars in handle for the first time for october, so it's a big deal thank you so much for joining us, jason robins. >> thanks, contessa.

thanks, joe. >> andrew? >> thanks for that interview coming up, what is working in the markets we'll get some investment idea right after the break. take a look at the futures ahead of the jobs report coming up in just a little over an hour or so actually less than an hour, 45 minutes from now s&p 500 up about 5 points, dow up about 35 points, the nasdaq up about 27 points "squawk" returns after this. 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.

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all right. welcome back for a check on what's moving in the markets this morning, we're going to bring in stephanie link, chief investment strategist at hightower, and i want to talk about some of the stocks on the move this morning. we have talked a little bit already about duocusign. that stock down by 30% this morning. in this era when we're talking about travel stocks that have come under pressure, the reopening stocks out there, but same time, those stocks that did so well during the pandemic really doing more, this is a huge surprise. they did okay for the third quarter, but it was the guidance on the fourth quarter and maybe the end of the huge run of growth they have seen. what do you do with the stock now? >> good morning. becky, this one is a hard one to own here at 124 times earnings and even 23 times price to sales. and this stock trades on billings that's really what the big number is. and they missed on billings in threeq

they came in at $565 million, and to your point on guide, they guided lower on billings for 4q on only 21% to 23% this is a company that was seeing 40%, 50%, 60% growth in the heyday last year, and really was disappointing. tough comparison, slower demand, and also execution problems. i think it takes a while to fix execution, quite frankly, specifically sales and how you're going to compensate these people to get motivated. so i think it's a hard one you know me, i like to look at things that fall pretty substantially, but i can't get my arms around this. >> it went from $233 to $159 that's still something you say, yeah, no thanks. a big drop i guess too many unknowns. >> i think it will take time just like when we talked about peloton a couple weeks ago it takes time when you have such a massive change in a story.

to the point of execution, that takes a lot of time. and then it's a show-me stock. so that's the whole problem. at some point, it might be worth looking at at some point, peloton might be worth looking at, but you have at least until the end of this year i don't think anyone is going to step in between noun and the end of the year in terms of performance and what people are looking to do, but maybe some time in the second half of next year >> the ftc throwing a wrench into the plans of nvidia to buy the arm, the $40 billion deal, the biggest deal we were going to see in the semi-conductor space. this is a different ftc. what deyou do at this point? >> well, i think people were very skeptical this deal was going to get done anyway, and they didn't necessarily need this company it would have been nice, certainly. they would have had more size and scale, but nvidia is doing just fine on its own the only problem with nvidia is the valuation, and it has had such a nice run, but they're in

so many important parts of the end markets that are growing substantially, they'll be just fine, and i think in a way, becky, i'm kind of relieved. let's just get this over with, it was kind of an overhang on the stock. >> i know you wanted to talk about apple today. apple had been hanging in there when so many other big tech stocks got pressured earlier this week. where do you kind of line things up at this point still looking at apple at this point at $163.75 still looking at the ten-year treasury at 1.4% and change. what's your longer term call for apple? >> i like it for the long term we all know about the product story, and i think the iphones are going to be just fine for the holiday season they did overorder so there's a little sloppiness there, but i like it very much, and the service is a real part of the story, too, especially for the margins. i worry a little bit about the app store because we have been seeing some weakness, but the real reason i added to the position last friday, and i

owned it forever, but i added to it when it fell slightly, i was hoping it would fall more, but they're buying back $90 billion worth of stock they already bought back $85.5 billion to date and they have more to go they could buy back 3% to 4% of their shares outstanding for the next several years, and i like that as a defense mechanism, if you will, in addition to the product cycle and the service story. >> stephanie, sorry for not giving you any advance notice on this, but we heard from the draftkings ceo he said jim chanos who is shorting the stock got his math wrong, but jim brought up good points, even if you cut the marketing spend down to 10% of what they're spending now and leave the existing infrastructure in space, if you don't see much higher revenue, that's a problem can they really grow revenue by ten times while cutting marketing down to 10%? >> that's a challenge. and chanos is very smart, knows his numbers. i think the total addressable

market, though, becky, in this area, in this industry is so substantial. my only issue is, there's a lot of competition everybody is going after this. so it's -- we'll have to see, but they certainly have kind of first mover advantage, if you will, so we'll have to see if they can execute >> do you own that stock or any of the competitors, fanduel or any of them? >> i don't the closest thing i own is wynn, and they -- wynn bets, but i don't. but quite frankly, i missed the group. that's why i like what wynn is doing. at least they're entering the marketplace, too, but it's very competitive. we have to keep our eye out for that >> stephanie, great to see you, and i love your christmas tree it's beautiful >> thank you >> we'll see you soon. >> i need a full shot. i wasn't looking

we got ours. i can't believe how much it drinks i fill it up every day tons of water. that's a good sign, i think. >> coming up, dr. scott gottlieb gives us the latest on the spread of the omicron variant and the push for vaccination >> plus, the november jobs report is out in the next hour going to bring you the numbers as soon as they cross. >> futures ahead of the data has turned positive now. maybe on what could beexpedite access to maybe a variant vaccine. stay tuned "squawk box" will be right back. with directv stream i can get live tv and on demand anywhere. look, serena williams... matrix... serena... matrix... serena... matrix...

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good morning we are now just 30 minutes away from the number all of wall street is waiting for, the november jobs report we have an all-star panel waiting in the wings to bring you commentary and analysis. >> ahead of the data, futures are calm yesterday, major averages rebounded from their midweek sell-off, and the dow had its best day since march >> and five cases of the omicron covid variant have been found in new york we're also seeing reporting that the government may move faster

to approve new drugs and vaccines in the future in just minutes, we're going to ask former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb what all of thiamines. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning. and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and ross sorkin. we reached the halfway point we're rounding third now, we're probably halfway like down the line almost, and we're going to be safe, i think, at home on this u.s. equity futures at this hour, don't you love fridays too close to mondays, as we always point out, but we have

turned positive, up 36 on the d dow. nasdaq up 2874, and the s&p 500 up 5 and change. treasury yields are still below where anyone thought we would be at this point, all the way down at below 1.45, 1.42, and wti crude is higher this morning, but close to going negative for the week if it finishes that way, it would put crude on its longest weekly losing streak in three years. and check out natural gas on pace for its worst week in almost 25 years. before we do as eamon javers says, tweet out weekend, we have a big jobs number coming up. >> we do wall street anxiously awaiting that number. in the meantime, we also have breaking news on the debt ceiling. ylan mui joins us with more on that front >> becky, the bipartisan policy center just released its latest

forecast for when treasury will actually run out of money. and it puts the date between december 21st and january 28th now, treasury has set the deadline even earlier at december 15th. secretary yellen has said she cannot guarantee the nation's bills will get paid after that there's a big transfer due to the highway trust fund on that day and a lot depends on how much revenue will come in from corporate tax payments treasury is moving deeper into the yellow zone with only $247 billion left in cash in extraordinary measures unless congress intervenes. now, we are seeing there is a bipartisan push to end all of this debt limit drama. it comes from representative scott peters and jody arrington. their bill would automatically suspend the debt ceiling for one year if congress passes a budget that reduces the debt to gdp ratio by 5% over the next decade if congress doesn't act, the president would be able to raise the debt limit but would still have to come up with a long-term

plan to deal with the nation's debt this is unlikely to be the solution this time around, but there is hope that it can help break the vicious cycle of debt limit drama. >> the idea of being able to bring down the debt to gdp by 5% over a decade, that would be a pretty complicated, complex structure to try to work out you would think it would be easier to just negotiate the debt ceiling >> yeah, and that would certainly still be a path for congress to take lawmakers, republicans and democrats, could come together to simply raise or suspend the debt ceiling if congress got its fiscal house in order and was able to sorpt of make those long-term plans, that would automatically spin off the debt ceiling increase, so they're trying to create basically off-ramps so there's not this level of brinksmanship each time and that the president can sort of step in and intervene if congress, as we have seen over and over again, sort of dithers around to the last minute. >> just the idea of coming up

with that, as a last-minute off-ramp, seems crazy. you would have to come up with a simpson/bowles type of agreement that takes a lot of planning and committee hearings and agreement on both sides to get to a plan where you could see that happening unless you just made up a bunch of numbers. >> yeah, so what we're told is this bill does have -- has been discussed among key leadership on both sides of the aisle it's also been discussed with the administration as well, so there is some momentum around it it's going to take time for folks to work through the details. it's complicated i'm sure it's also ripe for gaming as well we see a lot of fuzzy math when it comes to the budget at least the conversation is beginning and there are multiple sort of avenues for raising the debt limit rather than just having this be what do republicans want to do, what do democrats want to do there has to be a third way in order for some of this heated rhetoric to die down >> it seems like a great idea. i would love to see both sides come together and agree they

would each agree to cut back on some of their expectations and desires in order to lower the debt limit again, that seems like a more complicated thing to kind of work out great if people are onboard for this, but let me just say i'm skeptical of using that as a quick fix. >> unfortunately, becky, sometimes the simplest policy answer is the hardest political answer so you end up with these sort of complicated policy solutions to get around the fact that no one wants to make the obvious choice >> it's a great idea, just get to it. let's see some work done thank you. good to see you. let's get back to the broader markets. they have been volatile ever since last friday when we started to hear about the new covid variant. yesterday, we swung higher the dow had its best day since march. mike santoli joins us mnow with more, and we turn around from relative weakness this morning, mike, and we're now up across

the board. >> yeah, holding yesterday's gains, that's the first step you had five sessions in a row where you had at least a 1% move in the s&p 500, up or down last time that happened, late october, early november of 2020 when the market was thrashing around after a correction and ultimately did eventually recover from there the market, i think one of the steps it has to take for the s&p is to make a new high that's higher than the prior day. we haven't done that in a little while. that's just tactics now. i think the jobs number matters a lot, perhaps as it informs the current fear on the fed front. take a look, though, at what's happened to commodity based inflation recently maybe a silver lining of the new growth scare is that if you look at this dbc, the broad commodity index, really has given back most of its gains. we're back to where we were in the earlier part of this year before you got a lot of intense concern about run away inflation. maybe there's help on that front just as the fed decides they have to signal they're more attentive to inflation

talked about the volatility, look at the cboe, vix, the volatility index it's pretty elevated we got a nice drop yesterday of more than three points it has a hard time staying up in this zone above 25 unless the underlying market itself really gets jumpier so this should kind of settle down if we get past the jobs number and the marbt itself doesn't really panic about it. that would mean that it sort of self-re-enforcing in the short term the vix is both a product of how much people want to protect themselves against the downside and also used as a signal by a lot of systematic investors who will only raise their equity exposure once the vix settles down it tends to go in these pendulum swings we're waiting for a swing lower now, joe >> all right, mike santoli, we are -- you know it's friday, too. did you see that -- >> i heard about that. >> did you see what a cool date yesterday was in terms of

anagrams, palindromes. even upside down, it all came out the same supposedly, it was a very lucky day. we saw that, i think, reflected in some of the averages. you didn't mention that. >> as good an splexplanation as any. >> probably better coming up -- i feel backwards every day, joe but coming up, the november jobs report looking for a gain of 573,000 positions last month, but next, former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb is going to join us on the omicron covid variant. it's been more than a week since the world first learned of it. confirmed cases in new york and other parts of the country we'll take you through the latest news and what we know and don't know ua rur aerhi sqwketnsft ts.

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immune response in just hundreds of people. one source telling the journal the vaccine makers would need about three months to develop and test new shots and then the fda would then take one to two weeks to review it all joining us is dr. scott gottlieb, cnbc contributor, and he also serves on the board of pfizer this sounds a lot like what you have been talking about on the program over the past couple weeks in terms of what you were hoping the government and fda may do to try to speed this up my question to you is, if three months is still in the offing, how quickly in truth could we see new updated vaccines in market >> three months. i think the manufacturers would start making them at risk, so you would have supply ready to go when you get regulatory approval and fda is following a model like the one they used for the boosters where they look at a subset of patients they're going toesh pose a subset of patients to the actual vaccine, and then look at what we call immunogenicity, data on

the antibody production. i would expect if in fact we do pivot over to an omicron vaccine, which i think is a big if, it's very speculative at this point, it would only be for a subset of the population you would want to stick with the old vaccine as long as possible. what we have seen in the past when we fashioned vaccines against specific variants is those vaccines might work better against the specific variant, but they seem to work less well against the full complement of variants in the market previously it seems like the vaccine against the ancestral strain has the broadest immunity against the widest complement of variants if we have a omicron specific vaccine, you might first use it in a high risk population who need that very specific immunity against the predominant variant. for everyone else, the old vaccine properly boosted will be good enough. i do believe thatwill be the case i believe the vaccines boosted will be protective enough for most people that they're going

to afford a reasonably high degree of assurance. >> scott, we have been talking all morning about when the drug makers would decide to make the pivot. is it a full pivot it sounds to me you're suggesting it may not be a full pivot. you would still continue to manufacture the current vaccine and then manufacture some of this new vaccine and also, and this is really a question that becky raised in the past hour, could you capture both in the same vaccine meaning could you have the equivalent of something that goes after delta and omicron in the same shot? >> yeah, look, i think the question of whether or not you make a full pivot is going to be determined within the next couple months. i think before you really have a sense of how these vaccines are performing in the market, you don't want to do that, so there's going to be an effort made to manufacture some of these new vaccines but not make a full pivot until you actually have the clinical data there's a lot of the existing vaccine in the supply chain. even if you bias the

manufacturing over to the new vaccine, there's a time frame in which it takes to produce that vaccine. you want to work off the supply you have, if it's still effective. again, i think there's going to be a reluctance in the scientific community to do that sort of full pivot until you really understand how well these vaccines are working if you look at what's happening in south africa right now, the cases are among the younger population that we presume is largely unvaccinated it seems to be reinfecting people who previously had delta. we don't know how well it's performing against the vaccines. >> the question i was going to ask you is this idea of whether we're trying to avoid hospitalization and death but we're fine with quote/unquote infection. or we're trying to avoid infection. and you see different countries approaching this in different ways israel, for example, appears to have gone at this and said, we don't want anyone to get infected if we can avoid it. and so they have been very, very aggressive the u.s. has been a lot less aggressive in that regard. >> right, so what happens if we

find, and this is just speculation, what happens if we find that a properly boosted vaccine is 40% effective against an infection, 60% against symptomatic infection, and 90% against severe disease a lot of public health officials would say that's a very good vaccine. that would change the expectations consumers have about what the vaccines are delivering because they expect the vaccines to prevent them from being infected, but i would also say what i laid out, the 40, 60, 90, is the measure of protection that most people who are vaccinated with only two doses, more than six orr seven months ago, probably have against delta right now. that's actually the measure of protection that's probably being afforded an individual who hasn't been boosted and was vaccinated a long time ago against the delta variant. that would still be a very good vaccine if you have that kind of outcome, and there's reason to believe you could have something like that where the vaccines will still be protective against symptomatic and severe disease, less protective against any infection at all what we're measuring in south

africa right now is infection. we really don't have good data on what the outcomes are we see hospitalizations ticking up, but that data is very unreliable because they report hospitalizations sometimes two weeks late, so you don't know what's really happening. you have to watch a couple weeks of data to make a determination there. >> given the spread and potential for infection, you have talked a lot also about testing. becky, joe, and i were all at least planning to or expecting to go to davos in january. made a mention of it a couple times. they plan to have a very aggressive testing program i'm supposed to go to an event next week where they sent out an email saying they were going to run an intensive testing program ahead of the event then, i'm scheduled to do something else next week with a lot of people indoors, but they'll technically be vaccinated i'm curious how you're thinking about though types of things these days and whether any of this is changing your behavior >> not right now

the risk right now is delta. i think the risk for the future is that states that are relying on a lot of delta infection to provide immunity to their populations and saw their prevalence levels come down because they had huge delta waves like the south, states like florida, louisiana, mississippi, they could be more susceptible to this new variant. states that have high vaccination rates may be less susceptible. there's tragic a lot of people who get delta infection going forward because they're unvaccinated and they're going to turn around and find perhaps the immunity from the delta isn't protective against the new variant and they're going to get reinfected by it what we have seen so far based on the evidence we're getting, it's still early, is that the paem who are getting reinfected seem to be people who got delta but were not vaccinated. just by looking at the demographic of who's getting infected and knowing where the vaccines were distributed in south africa the biggest risk is in those states this isn't spreading widely in

the community right now, but if it's spreading at any appreciable level, we would be detecting it the risk of contracting that right now is low that could change over the next month depending on how quickly it spreads in our population, and it might behave differently in the u.s. than in south africa >> doctor, always good to see you. thank you for helping us break this down on friday. have a great weekend we'll talk to you soon >> thanks a lot. coming up, the latest jobs report then next hour, don't miss commerce secretary gina raimondo going through all the numbers with our friends on "squawk on the street." as we head to break, it is a follow-up, we heard draftkings' response last hour jim chanos' version. and the short version, he doesn't believe in chanos' math. he responded in a tweet, let's

see if we quadruple the 3q profit, and we'll get $85 million and $168 million and they would have a quarterly operating loss of $202 million stay tuned, i haven't checked that math. okay, it's clear "squawk box" will be right back.

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or live chat at calhope.org today. welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc we're a few minutes away from the government's november employment report. let's brin in our jobs panel austan goolsbee is here, he's also university of chicago booth school of business professor netta esa is assistant deputy treasury for policy under george w. bush and a georgetown university associate professor javier is president and ceo of the u.s. hispanic business council. liz young is head of investment strategy at sofi karen kim bro is chief economist at linkedin, and steve liesman

is here. give me your number as we go around the horn. >> 08. >> okay. looking for a number that's up there. netta, how about you >> closer to 550 >> 550 javier, you're back with us at this point let's see what your number is. what's your expectation? are you looking for a hot number here >> we are. we're north of 500,000 for sure. >> liz, how about you? >> i'm going to say 600,000. >> okay. karen. >> we're in the 600,000 as well. >> everybody is looking pretty hot here steve, how about your number >> 650 >> and rick. >> just for the record, i'm going to go 490 and 4.4. >> wow okay playing by the price is right rules. rick is going to be in pole position to win. i want to ask quickly, liz, you had a good point about this. you think the number was going to be hot and the fed was kind of expecting that. that's why you think we got the message we got this week >> i do think the fed is

expecting a good jobs report today. i think there's a few reasons for that number one, we hit a post pandemic low on initial claims in november. both initial claims and continuing claims trended down throughout the month some of the things that have been holding us back are services employment and when you look at local government jobs, that had been causing the misses in recent months too i don't think either of those are a drag this time around. i think the fed was expecting it and knows the market can handle it if we start to think about a faster taper into 2022 >> austan, you were shocked by what jay powell said this week >> yeah, it really seemed like reversal of the average inflation target type approach i hope that's not right. but if he's talking about phasing down tapering more rapidly, i understand that if he's talking about let's tighten the interest rate, let's raise interest rates in the face of a supply shock, that seemed like a real change of tact

>> let's take a look quickly at the futures and maybe pull up treasuries as well the dow is up indicated 68 points ahead of this s&p indicated by 9, the nasdaq indicated by 44. if you look at the treasury market right now, ten-year right now yielding 1.432%. that adp number was a strong number this week, and that has the market expecting big things. rick santelli has the number rick, take it away >> yeah, our november jobs report is coming out 210,000 on nonfarm pay rolls a huge miss. 235,000 on private pay rolls and if we look at what's going on with regard to the change in manufacturing, 31,000. that's also a bit of a miss. now, let's get to the meat of this, and here is some good news the unemployment rate, 4.2 4.2. keep in mind, if you go

prepandemic, we're at 3.5 in february of '20 and 4.4 in march of '20 arguably, we're testing those levels .3 is your month over month hourly earnings, on the light side, and 4.8 year over year hourly earnings also on the light side but historically very strong if we look at work week, 34.8 is the average hours. and that definitely ticked up about .1 and another very important number, labor force participation rate we did see a tick up 61.8. 61.8, a post-covid high. pre-covid, in february, we were at 63.3. and finally, you six are underemployment rate, moving big time from 8.3 to 7.8 that's also a post-pandemic low. jobs light, a lot of the other metrics came in about as expected some of them were a little

stronger like the drop in the unemployment rate. we see interest rates haven't moved that much. you see the curve actually wiggling a bit you see more of a drop in yields in two-year, at least for the moment, than you do in tens and 30s. maybe we'll take out some of that flatness, but flat is the word on the yield curve. back to the gang >> thanks. let's bring in the rest of the panel. steve, i want to start with you because so much to dig through in the numbers you heard the headline number of 210,000. that's a big miss, but looking at the unemployment rate, down to 4.2%, below what we were sitting at in march of 2020. how do you read those two numbers and mesh them up >> becky, in the 25 years of doing this times 12 months or however many long i have been doing it, i havenever said thi before i don't believe the top line number we have had a consistent situation of the bls underreporting the pay roll number, and ithas been revised up i'll tell you right now, i

haven't done the math. looks like 102,000 added to the prior two months they have consistently revised up this number and i'm just not a believer here that job growth in the month of november was that weak i'm very encouraged that we did see on the separate household report, which is not one that is massively revised over time, we did see people come back to the workforce, and that big decline in the unemployment rate i think i am not going to fall for it again when i did it back in august and september. and a video of me saying it was weak went viral. but the video of me saying there had been massive revisions to that weak number did not go viral. so i'm not falling for it. i'm reserving judgment here. i do not believe job growth was weak, and i have almost never sided with the house over the pay roll report, but i'm going to do thattoday. >> liz, i want to ask you as our markets expert here today, watching the market tick up on this do you think it's because of what steve is saying, the market

doesn't believe am weak number or the market is looking at the great unemployment number, the weak headline number, and saying okay, maybe the fed wouldn't move quite as aggressively >> i think it's the latter, becky. i think there's a mixed message here, and it gives the fed a little more to think about, and we're not necessarily positive they're going to hike rates so quickly. i think the market is trying to work through those numbers the fed is looking at the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate, and both of those came in positively so i actually think this gives the fed room to say, we're still going to taper faster. and rate hikes are certainly not out of the question. summer or fall of next year. >> javier, let's talk to you as our expert and the person in the real world seeing what's happening on the business level with these things, too what do you hear from the companies that you represent what's the biggest issues they're facing right now does it have to do with finding people to do jobs, is it supply chain? >> well, it's both actually. but thank you, becky, first of all, for having me here. i think these numbers, and

everybody's positive about what's about to happen and what's going to be announced i think that these job numbers indicate that despite everything, global pandemic, you know, inflation, you know, everything that we're hearing about, america small business community is staying the course. we're the ones driving these numbers. at the end of the day, two-thirds of all new jobs in this country are created by the small and medium sized companies, not the conglomerates. it's our constituency that are creating these new jobs. and we're going to stick it through. it is great to have this at the end of the year. i think it gives us a boost for a strong 2022. and we're looking forward, and we're going to keep pushing and doing what we have always done, staying the course, creating the jobs, paying the taxes, and driving the american economy >> karen, as linkedin's chief comkest, you look closely at the

workers' perspective do these numbers make sense with what you're hearing from your constituents too >> not at all. this is the strongest single month we have had in the recovery to date, literally. and we're seeing hiring on our platform almost 6% above where it was pre-covid so i'm in the camp of i think these are going to get revised i also don't think that the fed knew what the number was, but i think they were very much hoping it was strong, and this is going to be a little bit more of a headwind for them to try to figure out how to navigate forward. they do want to be responsive to inflation, but thejobs number is not helping >> austan, should i put you in the camp with steve and karen, the ones who don't believe the headline number, or what deyou think? >> i would say i have a theory which is, if you start your own company, you show up in the household survey as employed but you do not show up in the establishment survey because you don't have any track record,

you're not in the tax records. so as you come out of recessions, a lot of times if you got a lot of new business formation, you'll see big revisions and you'll see a divergence in the jobs being created, they say in the household survey, above what's in establishment this great resignation, i think, is in large measure the great i'm not working for somebody else anymore, i'm starting my own thing. we have seen record levels of business formation, and i think that's why these two surveys are splitting. >> what is the fed going to do with this mixed set of data? >> i think the fed should be paying attention to what's real, and so if in the household survey that's what's real, that's what they should pay attention to, the unemployment rate and jobs there, but it just raises the degree of difficulty for the fed to explain what it's doing if people say, wait a minute, we're getting misses on the jobs numbers, why are you acting the way you are >> let's take a shot of everybody in the wall right now because i can see rick shaking his head a little bit.

i saw you shaking your head with this, and rick, i'm curious what you're thinking. go ahead tell us. >> i definitely think picking and choosing reports at this time, to me, sounds a little crazy, to be honest with you yes, we had the household survey, this survey. we all know there are seasonable adjustment issues. if you look at the two-month revision, it was only 82,000 for the two months i understand steve, we always get the big february revision, and i understand austin, it's called the model, whether it's going into recession, out of recession, but to take it all on the surface, i think we have trained people not to work more than we have in the past, and i agree, a lot of people stayed home and did different things, trying to sell things on ebay, whatever it is, but that's going to run its course. that's what we're seeing now that isn't the new way that's the old way that worked for a while, just like the stay-at-home trade, and all that hasn't changed that's why the numbers are

light. >> just to add to that, look, you have a lot of women who were staying home to take care of kids once you change things like that, it's hard to go back if you have been thinking about doing that, i would think that's part of it, too, karen >> definitely, we're seeing jobs that are remote as the most interesting jobs to anybody looking, so people are 2 1/2 times more likely to look at a remote job and apply for one we're definitely seeing women in particular looking for that flexibility. so people got used to being remote they got used to having no commute and they like it, and i don't think they want to go back i will say to austan's point, we're seeing an explosion in entrepreneurial activity a lot of people starting their own thing, striking it out on their own. i think there might be something in his theory. >> steve, you have numbers you have been looking through, too >> yeah, i'm about to do the final calculation here but i just want to respond to rick, who i think in a very sweet way, called me crazy, which is okay because i have been called worse.

>> no, no, no, not at all. >> no, no. you have overwhelming evidence from a whole bunch of series you have the adp number, we have the high frequency data i have been following, jobless claims coming down. i think that 199 was overstated by seasonals, but you're back in a sort of normal jobless claims number you have a whole bunch, all of these employers saying they can't get workers. huge amounts of job openings, and on top of that, you have a series that has been revised repeatedly over time, and you say, what do you side with i just think it's logical to say, you know what, let's give it some time here to come back and i'm just now calculating, becky, the average revision, and it's been 112, 148, 250, 185 those are some of the upward revisions in thousands that you have had to this number over time i don't know exactly what's happening. austan has a piece of it there, but the problem is inside the pay roll report. i'm just saying the idea that

you had some 500,000 or 600,000, 594,000 people coming back to the work force, that's a big part of this story it gives the fed some leeway i think it's still on track to hike next year, but i think it's an idea you have people coming back and you also have the lengthening work week, which i think is important too >> netta, you said the participation rate, people coming back into the workforce, was going to be really important. what do you take from these numbers? >> i expected a decline in the labor force participation rate because we have been seeing high quit rates in august and september. but this is encouraging. i think the fact that people are coming back into the labor force is an encouraging sign and i think that speaks to the strength of the labor market i think one of the issues has always been how do we get people back in the labor market the longer they're out of the labor market, the harder to come back in. i think it's a good sign that we're seeing more people come back into the labor force.

we still have a ways to go and i do worry that we might end up with a permanently lower labor force given kind of the trends with older workers leaving the labor force in higher numbers so we'll see how it develops but at this point, it looks good >> like jay powell, you're concerned about inflation at this point you say those inflation expectations once they start to get baked in are hard to shut down what do you think happens next >> exactly, so i think we have to take this seriously, we're seeing that small businesses are reporting that they expect to raise prices in the next three months surveys say people -- consumers expect inflation of about 5% in the next year. once that starts to hold, it could end up causing a drag on the economy, so i think the fed is in a bit of a bind, but i think the balance should be towards inflation at this point. the labor market looks

relatively healthy >> javier, on that point, what do you hear from the small businesses that you represent just in terms of what their expectations are for having to pay wages to get workers to show up and what their expectations are in terms of price hikes they think they can pass on to consumers? >> clearly, finding people and qualified people has been a challenge across the board but we're finding them and we're moving forward you know, passing on price increases, i think is something we're grappling with. we want to stay competitive, but we have very few choices left. we have to continue to invest in our businesses the number one challenge i'm hearing, bar none, is finding the right people at the right time but there are some bright spots. i can speak specifically to maustic. i sit on the board it is the nation's largest hispanic owned business.

we employ some 22,000 americans. we're an infrastructure company. we see opportunity looking forward. and we added some 5,279 jobs throughout this year in anticipation of the work that comes ahead. seeing this infrastructure bill get passed is indicative of the kind of things we want to see. we want to see stability we want to see our elected officials working across the aisle to pass legislation and bills that make sense for the american people. and for the american economy so we remain hopeful we're seeing some positive signs. it is a difficult time for all businesses, and certainly for america's small business community, but we remain hopeful, and we're continuing to face the challenges that are being thrown in front of us. getting people back to work and getting the right people, bar none, is the number one challenge we have. >> understood. austan, in terms of those

inflation expectations, what it means for potential for higher wages, i know the average hourly earnings came in a little lower than had been anticipated, but that's something people are watching closely because that is the key once it gets wrapped into that flywheel, how to unwind inflation what happens >> becky, look, i agree with you, but i want us to always keep adding, but what about productivity, when we say that sentence because we have had obvious increases in productivity. gdp is back higher than it was before the pandemic. the labor force is not back. so the output per worker has to be up. and if you have productivity growth, you can get wage growth, even robust wage growth, without inflation. so everybody keep an eye on what's happening on productativity before they conclude we're in a wage price spiral >> rick, we watched the futures kind of pick up on all of this news and come back to right where we were before we got any of this news maybe that goes back to the

headline point that what really matters here is going to be what happens with the new coronavirus variant. >> i think that's right. right now, if i gave you a quick assessment, the short data treasury yields are pretty much in line. we're right around 62 base points in a two-year, about a basis point higher in tens, 30s are about unchanged. market is taking it in stride, and probably for exactly those reasons, that the omicron variant is the uncertainty here in the equation. and even though it's a horrible thing, all of this pandemic is a horrible thing, it really gave jay powell a free pass, so to speak, to be more aggressive on inflation and be more honest, i think, with the american public because the american public knows, they know what going on how many times a week or a month do you fill your car up? you know how many times do you get the bill for your kids' school, whether it's private or college? you know i just had a furnace go out.

i was shocked. i was shocked at how much some of this stuff has gone up in the last couple years. so yes, i think it's all about omicron, and it's happening in a time where if it comes in as an easier to deal with variant, it's going to give a backwind to the economy that will help and kind of overshadow some of the issues that the fed raised this week >> steve, i'm seeing you have your hand up too >> just real quick, i want people to understand the dynamic of what happened, add least on the household side of the survey 594,000 people come back to the workforce. that's the largest we have had in quite a while i can go back, but what's interesting here is that you had a decline of 540,000 in unemployed people. so we -- a lot of people came back, and a lot of them went to work you could have had people come back into the workforce and not being put to work, so you could have had an increase in the unemployment rate, which would

have been okay in that context what happened is people came back in and found jobs i will tell you this, whatever you want to take away from this, the dynamic told of the job market from the two surveys could not be more difficult, where people came back into the workforce in the hundreds of thousands and found jobs in the hundreds of thousands. that's the household side. the pay roll side, you had this trickle in and they went to work >> steve, if i have to pick which story i believe out of those two, it has to be anybody who came back into the job market finds a job, right? because everywhere i look -- >> you would >> there are for hire signs. >> if folks at home want to twitter that i'm a hypocrite, it would be fair because i have sided with the pay roll survey for decades. and this is the one time i'm making that, just write hypocrite, whatever you want to write. go ahead >> yeah. >> austan, what do we make with this the participation rate i think is going to be key that's the secret to just about everything coming back because

inflation and higher wages will be tied to how difficult it is to find employees coming back into the market but it also ties back to the new coronavirus variant and how comfortable people feel. when do you think we'll get a decent read on this? >> as soon as we get a sense of what's the medical, epidemiological impact of the omicron virus. it can make our entire discussion here moot if it's extremely dangerous and has a rate of spread, you know, an r naught value of 7, we're not going to talk about big jobs numbers. we'll talk about oh, my goodness, now it's going to be like last fall, and if it comes in and it's milder than what people fear, i think rick is right, it's going to give us a backwind and we're going to be talking about strength in this thing, the household survey has a jobs estimate each month. we don't talk about it because

it tends to be more variable than the establishment survey, but it's usually a good idea to at least put a, let's call it a 15% weight on what's in the household survey, and in a moment where people are going out and starting their own businesses, i really think it deserves a little more attention. >> i want to thank think it deserves more attention. austan, -- the unemployment ra dropped to 4.2%, better than anticipated and below of mar of 2020 where this whole pandemic started. thanks, everybody, for your time today. andrew in the meantime we're going to get down to the new york stock exchange and get jim cramer's view on all of this how much do you look at the jobs number there's the good version of it

there's the bad version of it, and then there's the variant. >> i always look at job numbers, because it is the biggest and most determinant for stock prices jay powell -- i hate to say this, i don't mean to be too critical, but this is one of the things that don't jibe with what jay said the other day whether it's oil coming down, whether it's job creation, other commodities going down, if you're basing your investment decision on tapering like that, i think you're fine. i think if you're worried about the variant, what i would say is that where are all the people who got sick on the dutch plane? i don't hear about them. where are all the people who have gotten sick who are vaccinated i'm more sanguine about this, because i think a lot of people are vaccinated. >> if you're sanguine about it,

should the market be ripping in the ways it isn't? >> it went pretty hard yet i think yesterday was a good example. i think there are people who say there could be something bad over the weekend, so i want to wait or take some profits. also, we have this new fda i don't want to call it a morass, but they put dr. fauci out. he seems to agree or disagree with others. i wish the government would speak softly and give everybody tests, so we can find out where we are when we get the antiviral from pfizer, the conversation will be totally different. i think we're going to say, all we care about is whether the hospitals are are too full or not and will bring us into a new world that's better than where we are you think the pfizer drug, you

think that's a march, april, may event? >> i've been saying pfizer 1, government 0 more or less an unsung hero. i feel as positive about him as i feel negative about all the people who are at the cdc, fda and nih. >> jim cramer, we'll see you in just a couple minutes. have a great weekend if i don't get to talk to you before then. and as always, check out the cnbc investing club. will many in real time, it ends up in my inbox point your phone at the screen to get it. "squawk box" returns right after this

the jobs report for november showing a gain of just 210,000 jobs futures are modestly higher, a bit higher maybe than the prior number let's bring in sarah malick for

nuveen's equity division are you disappointed how do you explain the miss that everyone, you know, was much higher. >> yeah, we're surprised by the lower payroll growth we are happy to see the participation rate increase, but the main drivers of volatility have been this new covid variant and the fed announcing a faster tapering and what we're watching are the omicron variant. what we are looking at is each wave has had less of an impact on -- but watching inflation, what the fed did is walk away from what is catching up to what the market already knew. if the end tapering around the first quarter of 2022, that gives them breathing room to watch inflation. those numbers should look better in the second quarter next year.

we're already seeing a shift of spending this gives the fed the ability to not raise rates as fast as the market expects this year if you look at the two last pertains of significant rate increases, it took with 19 and 14 rate increases before the s&p 500 peaked so we don't see the bull market ending in 2022, even if we do get two or three interest rate interestings next year >> is it moderating the bull, so we end higher by the end of next year is it back to reverting to the mean of 7% to 8% gains, which would be even saying that is pretty good, given everything we have seen in the last couple years? >> the key driver for 2022 should be earnings growth rather than valuations. earnings should grow at about double-digit rates that would equate to high single-digit market returns.

it's the earnings growth, which is key and the companies doing well will have better pricing power, so where there's been a handful of rogue stocks outperforming recently, a broader market, also industry of tight cycles we're energy bulls going forward. because of the variant, with you is seasonally weak, but we see a buying opportunity in energy demands should rebound, and most importantly energy producers are being disciplined going forward, more focused onreturning cash to shareholders, so that's a positive to the sector. >> is it a good thing that the fed has breathing room, or should they be much more wary of what these need to do to nip inflation in the bud >> each water will have less of a long-term impact i think it's a good thing for them to have more breathing room, to give some ability to

not raise rates as the market expects, also, that helps to dampen inflation, that is positive for the fed, because that's key of what they're worried about. >> saira malick, thank you and have a great weekend it's that time, ladies and germs, make sure you join us next week. "squawk on the street" is next good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." futures are up on the jobs number that is a miss at 210,000, but the best labor force participation of the year, positive revisions for the seventh straight month, and average earnings that are a touch light. implications for the fed and the market that we'll get into slower hiring, but renewed covid uncertainties, risks to the economic