new job if they want one. >> at a heighter rate. to your point about gift cards, up 43% that is stunning when to people traditionally spend their gift cards, the first week of january or do they stretch it out as long as they can. >> they spend them all in the first 60 days. they spend a huge proportion of them in the next 30 days but the biggest redemptions will come in the next two weeks. >> that does it for "the exchange." great news, i hope, i will be sticking around for "power lunch," leslie picker joins us for the entire next hour as well it is going to be another big hour as markets continue to make record highs, the s&p on pace for its 69th closing record high of the year. ♪ >> welcome to "power lunch," i'm brian sullivan, i was tossed to

by brian sullivan. i will be joined by leslie picker in just a moment. here's what's coming up. stocks looking for another day of gains, the s&p 500 hitting an all-time high. does this many that the santa claus rally is finally upon us plus, questions on valuations? underperformance in the year end, and potential regulation. what will the ipo landscape look like in 2022 that is different from this, one if the, if not the best years of all time and omicron and weather causing chaos for airlines thousands of flights canceled, tens of thousands of passengers left stranded. we have a travel update ahead. leslie picker joins us for the hour good see you >> good to see you, brian. thank you. let's take a look at the markets right now. a sea of green, markets looking to stretch their winning streak to four days the s&p 500 up nearly 5% over

that winning streak, hitting a record high -- another record high the nasdaq, though, leading the way today, up 1.2% right now chip stocks the best performers in tech with the semietf hitting an all-time high amd and nvidia the best performers also seeing big moves for oil and energy names, betting on the omicron variant not hitting demand as much as initially thought. while workers continue to shake off omicron fears economists are not as optimistic. steve liesman joins us with an update on the omicron outlook for the year. >> forecasters are changing their outlooks as fast as the news is coming in and the virus is spreading forecasters sending estimates for our cnbc wrap it update but warn there could be changes to come fourth quarter growth still holding up well, gdp still

expected to be up near 7%. it has been marked down a bit. the general trend being they are pushing the growth into the second quarter an analyst from rsm writes, despite risks to the outbreak the omicron variant and inflation, the american economy will push right through those impediment on the back of rising employment and solid income gains. headline inflation is seen peaking this quarter at 6% and gradually coming down over the next several quarters dropping to 2.5% by the third quarter of next year. the trouble with inflation is with forecasts right now the virus surge could prompt people to spend more on goods than services and hurting the supply chain once again >> how do economists account for the flight and other cancellations associated with this outbreak? do they have any data at this point in time? >> floss data but you have to kind of model human behavior think about like a trip home by the -- you know, to go see your

family for the holidays. you had the week off you probably are not going to re -- that's a dead loss there, that is gone, that opportunity a concert, though, can be rescheduled for another time that's why you push some growth into another quarter some growth of course goes away forever. it leaves money in people's pockets to do something else with it. so it potentially gets spent out there. while the markets have largely taken a rather unfaze tds view ofityh covid's latest wave, sectors that can show sustainable demand growth with and without increased restrictions greg joins us now.

is there a safety sector right now. >> to me, the safety zone is the secretary and the companies that will show sustainable growth, that are experiencing a secular tail wind that retrenchments and mandates and increased caution and spread of omicron really won't affect it. we saw those sectors perform in 2020 i mean by that, sectors like enterprise software, like the cloud, the some ayes, especially those levered to the data center as inindividual de and amd are secondly, you find those companies with secular tail winds what it largely means is they are somewhat insulated from the inflationary pressures we are seeing and i expect to continue into next quarter be that because they have pricing power or because they aren't hiring at the levels where we are seeing the wage pressure because they don't have the component needs from other

enterprises so they are not subject to the cost inflation. we are looking for secular sale winds, looking for growths that sustainable whatever the macro is going to bring us, we are looking for ins solution from the inflationary pressures and pricing power. >> you are looking for a lot with some of these names everybody we talk to says, yeah, they have got it, they are going continue to have it next year. let's talk about bound yields. we talk about them all the time on cnbc. i am willing to bet our watchers and listeners do not trade bonds for a living they might care about mortgages and car loan rates what cares about bond yields banks. you are bullish on the bank. could they do well even if yields don't rise that much? >> i do think that they can. or at least some of them can back when we first started talking about this, year, year and a half ago, it was different

trade. they were trading at what i would call catastrophe multiples. now the multiples normalized buy we have seen we can continue to get performance through growth drivers in the business. the growth drivers have been the capital markets, the advisory fee, the trading, the institutional side of the business and only some of the banks have that we are talking about the large conglomerates, jp morgan, bank of america, morgan stanley, goldman. the other key growth driver for the banks is the net interest buyer environment. that's more advantageous when rates are rising i think what we will hear when we hear from them in january, lucky for us they are some of the first to report. but i think they will be giddy about the prospect of more advantageous net interest rates and their other growth driver so they can perform not on multiple expansion but on earnings growth. >> another sector that have had giddy executives recently have been big tech.

that's one of your safety plays but there are analysts out there concerned about the breadth that's drying the rally higher, namely that it is driven by five big tech stocks. do you continue to see it as a safety play given the convergence between the large cap and smaller cap names? >> normally it would we would like to have some certainty to that base in the market here it actually doesn't in fact i am probably a big advocate in narrowing my own breadth because at the end of the day there will be sectors and there will be companies that will be more highly impacted by inflationary pressures, more highly impacted by retrenchments and close yours as omicron affects them it is not transmissibility and immunoelusiveness because we are going to see more entrenchments.

that's going to affect some sectors more than others i am going to stay away from those sectors who i believe will be more highly impacted and that we can get cheaper afterwards? well see what 2022 brings. thank you for joining us today. always my pleasure. coming up on "power lunch," it was a huge year for ipos with a record amount of capital raised we will look at what dwoo could bring with three focuses, recent regulations, ipos and fundamentals hope kept a lot of fundamentals going this year. can it keep them going or will investors start looking for actual revenue here are some of today's outperformers. "power lunch" is back in two

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how not to be a hero: because that's the last thing they need you to be. you don't have to save the day. you just have to navigate the world so that a foster child isn't doing it solo. you just have to stand up for a kid who isn't fluent in bureaucracy, or maybe not in their own emotions. so show up, however you can, for the foster kids who need it most— at helpfosterchildren.com welcome back to "power lunch. 2021 was a record year for ipos, with companies and spacs raising $318 billion, the largest figure ever, while investors were esentive to new listings on average, their debuts popped 22%. since then, though, the market has shunned them the mean performance for ipos this year, not including spacs

is negative 11%. only 22% of new list prosecution prof profitable so the market sold them off as a shift in fed policy that could mean higher interest rates overtook the market. a basket of ipos, produced a basket of negative 3.7% in a year when the naktsds nasdaq is up 23% will this hurt the appetite for ipos in 2022 with us is maureen it has been a remarkable year for ipos i have to ask you, you know, do you think institutional investors will be licking their wounds from this year's returns next year or will they be shrugging off this grudge and say ownerships worked in the past, why should 2022 be

different. >> i think the short answer, leslie, is that, yes, i think they are going to be much more wary, both institutional and retail investors we have seen retail investors race into so many of these stocks and i think it was really -- we started 2021, if you remember, after airbnb and jordache soared to their highst. roblox waited. there was a sense of how high can these things go, and now investors as you said have been burned in a lot of them, especially the hottest biggest named ipos i think there is going to be a lot more wariness. >> it seems like ancient history when the biggest problem was too much of a pop on the first

trading day. the retail investors drove these stock prices higher on their die abuse. do you think the retail investors will be as big a player in 2022 as well >> i think they will still be t there. i think we will continue to see volatility i don't think the reddit crowds are going away but in the ipo, i think there is wariness i think we have seen the retail investors driving up these stocks, and pullbacks have been so much more pronounced because of that. >> that's a good point >> so -- yeah. >> and retail of course played he havely in the spac world, special purpose acquisition companies as well as in some of the chinese companies listing in the u.s. both areas are facing significant regulatory head winds heading into the new year. do you think they will play as big of a role as they have in the last year or two with regard to the ipo market? >> the spacs and the chinese

listings >> yes. >> specifically? >> yes the spacs -- we will still see i think they will be -- a lot just haven't materialized. and there was so much interest, but a lot have never happened. they have been voted down. we have seen pullbacks in spacs. so i don't think they will be as big of a force and chinese listings, i don't think we are going to see very many of them at all. especially -- didi was the biggest since alibaba. it was one of the biggest disasters. didi is the uber of china. i don't think we are going to see very many. i think that will occur actual some of the ipo activity, both spacs and the chinese listings. >> historically, the private markets have been a lagging indicator following the market in terms of how those names are valued in the private markets. but lately it hasn't been the

case, there is dry powder in the venture capital and private equity areas, that it has kept valuations higher in the private market do you think it catches up, or is it able to stay steady until they go public and then we will see what those valuations are? >> to your question, the private -- there is so much capital inflating valuation, it is not going away. i think it is just going to keep some companies this year on the sidelines. it is going to be interesting to see what happens with it but every day we see a new fund in the private markets raising the biggest fund every, tiger global, or sequoia the private equity is raising into these companies i think those valuations for a while at least will stay pretty high then the question is, where does it go when it goes to the public

markets? and how will that all shake out? >> for all the invention and creativity surrounding new processes to take companies public, direct listings or spacs, at the end of the day, companies will still sit on the soidlines if they can find a cheaper source of capital from the private market good point thank you maureen farrell from the "new york times. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. leslie, thank you very much. coming up, this year was a year of hope for ev investors, hoping for deliveries, hoping for profits, hoping for market share. will 2022 prove to be the same or will investorsfinally be saying show me the money on evs. it has been a disturb leapt year for travel names. we will look at the names that handle the ups and downs a former continental ceo will join us with how bad or good the airports may get coming into the

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my total expenses. i needed a worker's comp policy that wasn't going to strangle my business. when we got the quote back from pie, it was a sigh of relief. we did it online, and it was done very quickly. we saved about 30% when we switched to pie. working with pie was extremely easy. i can grow my company while not breaking the bank. ask your agent, or get a quote at easyaspie.com. welcome back i'm rahel solomon. here's your cnbc news update at this hour. after weeks of heavy rain, two dams gave way in 23450e69ern

br brazil it impacted 40 cities and displaced over 30,000 people according to local authorities, at least 18 are dead and hundreds of people are injured. a post christmas blizzard shut down almost all of north dakota over the weekend. local crews now pushing to reopen roads and highways as more snow could be on the way. areas between north dakota and minnesota saw snow accumulations up to a and wind gusts over 50 miles per hour. the los angeles police department warning of an ondoing wave of violent and dangerous crimes a recent trend of violent crimes resulted in calls for increased police funding however, compared to 2019 levels, robbery, burglary, and theft are down. two more college fobl bowl games were canceled. the university of miami will not be traveling to texas to play the sun bowl on friday meanwhile, boston college will not be able to field enough players to take on east

carolina and the military bowl that was originally scheduled for monday afternoon. my eyes are focused on the big four bowl games, big two, i should say with the big four teams. i hope that cancellations don't occur for the national title. tesla shares are up more than 50%, and could have been up even more if it wasn't for elon musk tax selling but tesla makes a lot of cars, you see them all over your roads in your neighborhood that is in contrast to lucid, whose stock soared but have you ever seen a lucid air on the road no deliveries just began. same are rivian, drawing huge attention for its ipo. winning motor trend's truck of the year still not making a whole lot of trucks will those companies deliver literally and figuratively next year

ari, there is a lot of hope, there is a lot of hype do these companies need a lot of help >> brian, as you say, next year is going to be the year to see if they can actually make cars and deliver cars elon musk has said many times that the easy part of building a car company is getting the company up and running the hard part is actually building cars at scale, keeping manufacturing running through all the problems that you encounter. and now we are in a market where there are all sorts of supply chain persons and labor market concerns so it will be a fascinating time to see if these promises can turn into reality at some point in the next year or so. >> nobody cares but my five predictions are coming out this week one of them is that ev sales are going to boom. but there is a problem with that, where i am nervous about my prediction is the raw ti materials. when you look at what it takes to build an electric car, the

battery, you need rare ertz, copper, workers, you need supply chains to work how much risk is there on that side of it rivian already bringing down -- they just started -- bringing town their production estimates? >> yeah. huge risks if you look at the scaling car companies, the legacy makers, whether nissan or chevy, even porsche with its tican, they are all building their own evs, and they have much bigger balance sheets where they can weather some of the loss or some of the concerns as you say around raw materials, labor if the only thing you are doing is building electric cars, if you have yet to start doing that or getting into deliver reese, those are massive risks. the goal is to start getting cars out the door and keys into consumers hands by mid next year. >> the big companies, too. let's not forget you maeentioned porsche

the rivians and the lucids cars are amazing, sexy, expensive if you watched football over the weekend you saw ads for audi, car companies that have made cars for 50 to 100 years, ford getting into the space how are the little guys or not so little guys -- x tesla, going to compete against the vws of the world with their id 4? >> i think fortunately for them at this point demand doesn't appear to be the issue they have thick order books. rivian and lucid have more orders than they will be able to manufacture in the near term currently, demand is not the issue. as we are expecting this explosion in ev sales and ev demand, you know, they can be right there with some of the bigger companies, certainly at the higher end of the market you know, the issue will be, as cars start rolling off lines and

consumers start driving them, what are the reviews like? are they having issues and are they able to actually meet some of the early demand? or are we going to start to see huge supply issues getting i the way? you know, we should start to get clarity over that in the next couple of quarters currently i would say competition will always be a risk in this market. that is not the thing that is top of mine for them at the moment. >> ari f they build it, does that necessarily mean consumers will come? the reason i ask is because the punting of the build back better bill, it had some credits in there that could incentivize consumers to actual three purchase electric vehicles but there is no guarantee just because all of these vehicles are delivered that there will be demand for them, right >> sure. no guarantee for -- many of the -- many of the preorders, those are refundable deposits. so how much of that will actually -- how much of those will turn into real cars, real

orders, is a question. again, kpcurrently, it doesn't look like demand is the issue for the short-term once we start the see how these cars perform, whether they have problems, whether they have recalls. recalls could be disastrous for any of these companies then i think we start to get a clearer picture of future demand the ev credits could be an issue. it is just that -- the view is that the long-term trend is toward the ev anyway, with or without the credits. it is matter of do they buy a rivian or lucid or are they going to be down market in a chevy bolt or a nissan bolt. >> great 350es read ari's piece on cnbc.com. ahead, travel troubles staffing shortages, bad weather, and omicron caution thousands of flight cancellations this

weekend. we will speak with a former continental ceo about how airlines can recover from this and what it will mean for their bottom line. stocks are hitting all-time highs today. looks like investors have an an tight for fast-food. domino's, mcdonald's and yum brands after all that christmas dining, maybe you want to take on a little fast-food we are back after this

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all right. there is just 90 minutes left in the trading day. hi, everybody. happy almost new year. it is kind of a happy new year because you are making more money today. stocks and most commodities are higher stocks right now are at session highs. you are welcome, america the major averages are on pace for four days of gains the s&p 500 on pace for its 69th highest finish of the year the dow higher as well on the flip side, some of the stay-at-home stocks, they are sagging. peloton and zoom, they are lower. oddly, vaccine makers like persona and novavax are down as

well i am kind of blocking it with my christmas goose. there you are, some of the names. let's go to the bond market. rick santelli is watching the 1.5% level trying to wonder if we will end the year under 175% on the ten-year >> it is possible. i think we could creep up a little bit just to put a face on it we settled at the ends of last year at .91. we are basically up 58 basis points in a ten-year note. but, of course, many expected, as brian has been pointing out, that yields would be even higher than that. they have moderated. that's for sure. let's look at intraday of two-year notes we auctioned 56 billion of those today. what's interesting here is you can see at 1:00 eastern we spiked a little bit. but there is a lot of sideways activity in treasuries at the moment and right now pending where it closes, it certainly looks as though that two-year note as you see on this chart will have its

highest yield close, 70 basis points or higher since covid hit in march of 2020 if we look overseas -- this is key. bund yields right now are trading minus 23 they closed last year at minus 57 so they are less than half of what they were but they haven't been above zero since may of 2019. finally, tens minus bunds. the distance is narrowing because wund yields have really risen quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. the narrowest it has been since early november the dollar index has sideways action going on the last three weeks but that sideways action is at levels we haven't seen since july of 2020 up over 7% on the year brian back to you. now let's move on to oil it reversed course midday and no now higher as investors continue to guess how much covid if at all is going to dent demand. pippa stevens has more on the

oil trade. >> good to see you oil staged a mid-morning turnaround and is now solidly in green. also coming off a second positive week this the last three. ity traders betting here that demand concerns around the omicron variant will be less than initially thought and short lifld. u.s. oil, a gain of 2.5% the highest level in a month as the contract continues to climb back to the $80 level it traded at before the omicron variant emerged. brent crude is up to $78.60. bill baruch at blue line futures saying that strength has been building for a couple of sessions with today's turn around it was on expectation has the uk will not impose new restrictions. he added a technical break above $73 is forcing some short covering nat gas, up nearly 9% here on cold weather forecasts >> oil whack above $75 gas prices no doubt are going to

be moving higher as well. now to a sector that's having a difficult day in an up market may have i rent you the airline stocks they continue to go down following a holiday weekend that saw thousands of airline cancellations. spirit down. united, delta, jet blue down just about a percent or a little bit more let's bring in cnbc contributor gordon bettany i was at newark airport just a couple of days ago i can tell you this. i have never see newark more crowded. i have never seen longer lines, i have never seen more frustrated people, i have never seen more full planes. when does this get fixed does this get fixed? >> some of it is pent up demand manifesting itself now so the crowds size have something to do with who didn't get to go last year. number two, obviously we hav

omicron which is taking people out of the business that would normally be here the shakeup around christmastime is usually the weather which throws everything upside down. now we have a virus which has a ten-day quarantine period which wipes out your crews you are not ever exempting that. there is also a touch that the federal air government only allows a pilot to apply 1,000 hours a year this part of the year is about the time they start running out. you have less and less people who can step in and take the place of an omicron victim all of that comes out to a tough weekend. it has been a tough stwhun do you see it getting better in the next couple of weeks, gordon >> oh, youia. >> it is a busy travel time, new year's eve. >> the january schedule kicks in people are on a new bid. hopefully -- let's say hopefully, you can help, get the government to back the

quarantine back to five days which i think under this milder form of covid may be warranted i am not a doctor but i read a lot. let's hope if they can back up it to five i think they can make it through they have the reserves, the people, and as you said, the demand is definitely there. >> what about the tsa side as well they are facing the same issues. people have to quarantine because swunl close tested positive or they have tested positive as well last week, the line to get through security -- if i said it was 1,000 people long i don't think i am exaggerating. not hyperbole, gordon. >> yeah in we are either going the need to staff up or start changing gate times. didn't want to minimize the ground people. dispatchers, gate agencies, and baggage handlers, they didn't show up because they weren't allowed to either, or koonlt that's a double whammy on a christmas season that had -- we missed last christmas, frankly,

because people haven't traveled in the last two years. so everyone was looking to -- and the economy, frankly, sales run. it is dynamic. it was a very, very busy period. unfortunately, this omicron has really stopped a lot of people from being able to go home it is really sad i am curious if you agree with dr. fauci who said this morning on msnbc that the u.s. should consider a domestic travel vaccination mandate for those who fly on the airlines, of course most of the crew and pilots are all vaccinated at this point in time but for those who intend the fly. do you think that would help the situation at all >> i want to be a good cnbc contributor but i don't listen to dr. fauci anymore it is too much misinformation. if he flew the airplane the way dr. fauci manages this crisis i think we would all be dead i think you need to listen and do the reasonable things but tend to -- i thought a chicken little response to this omicron to start with, the sty is falling, we overreacted

i thought they were getting back to the center line and getting normal but the ten-day covid quarantine really takes the reserve pilot out of the picture if he's got it, he's locked up, can't come in. the reserve flight attendant, the reserve dispatcher, reserve mechanics and gate agents. never before -- we have not had this at least to my knowledge ever before. >> your message loud and clear, gordon, is that policy makers they have got to reduce the quarantine time. we hear you on that. reduce that quarantine time, you can do it safely, you can do it smartly. by the way a lot of other nations aren't doing any of this stuff. we are kind of on our own. anyhow, i want to ask you this -- your answer might be united only because they were your former company, and continental. is there one airline that you can point to, large or mid-sized, that you think is better equipped to handle all of this >> i have got give united management top credit.

scott kirby is one of the best ceos in the business he has been a head of the group on a lot of policy issues that are certainly olympicible and helpful. i see them with a good fleet, a good route network, good employees. and quite frankly, i would give them the best. parochially as it may be but i don't want to undermine the people at southwest. i mean, they are very, very professional people. i don't see that being a fault in this pickup we have had operational problems in the past. obviously, everybody does. this is not an operational problem. this is kind of a vaccination pandemic problem that they are facing the best they can. >> let's hope it eases up here in the next couple of week gordon bethune, always a pleasure to get your views thank you for joining us >> happy new year. we are two years into this pandemic and we are still wait forth the travel stocks to

recover. airline air, delta, royal caribbean and carnival are still all down 30% over the two years. are there better ways to play sit in that's next on "power lunch. ♪ ♪ ♪ digital transformation has failed to take off. because it hasn't removed the endless mundane work we all hate. ♪ ♪ ♪ automation can solve that by taking on repetitive tasks for us. unleash your potential. uipath. reboot work.

twoerk plumpl. online travel stocks getting a boost in the last week despite waves of airline cancellations and rising omicron cases expedia up more than 13%, but it maybe a mixed picked for the sector with book asking trip lagging expedia. trip negative on the year after a big run in march what's in store for the travel stocks in 2022 joining me now is tom white, senior analyst at d.a. davidson. thank you for being here the picture for travel is not necessarily flattering right now. there is the risk of getting sick, the risk of getting quarantined, getting a flight or two canceled but it seems like people are still traveling. they are willing to do that. how do you trade this sector right now? >> first off, thanks for having me and happy holidays. look, i think for investors and to get this group right in 2022, there is a couple of answers

that -- questions folks have to narrow in on one, this is the hardest, how will consumer behavior and travel booking preferences change here over the next few months in the face of this new variant? will we see as sustained a change in booking preferences as we did say during the alpha wave or the delta wave where folks passed and went for urban high volume population urban centers in favor of vacation rentas and alternative accommodations or because this virus looks to be more transmissible and people are so eager to get out that people will revert back to kind of more traditional travel behavior if that happens, sides like booking.com and expedia, which were levered to traditional hotel inventory will fare better if folks prefer to switch

towards more alternative accommodation, driving distance, more domestic travel, we think that plays to the strengths of a company like airbnb. >> interesting is it fair to extrapolate what we have seen so far with regard to the holiday season for what we can expect during the first quarter of the year given that christmas a lot of people missed hanging out with their loved ones during the 2020 season. so there was all this pent up demand obviously, it has to be during christmas that they travel whereas in the first quarter maybe people have vacations they feel they can push do you think we could see that as people become more flexible with their plans >> look, this is where i wish i had a crystal ball the reality is it is going to be dictated i think by what is happening with the virus so far, it seems like while this is obviously maybe a lot more transmissible than earlier varntsz, it seems to be more mild i think also you can't underscore kind of the pent up demand of folks to want to get traveling again.

so, you know, we were looking at the tsa data this morning, you mentioned that with the prior guest. i think so it was interesting, christmas eve and christmas day, only about 60% or so of 2019 levels here on the 26th, yesterday, you were up over 80% in terms of the traffic that went through tsa relative to 2019 levels. that's despite bad weather, despite the variant, despite the labor shortages that you touched on i think leisure demand, demand for leisure travel is going to be powerful. >> i did want to travel, then brian reminded me what newark airport looks like this time of year tom white thanks for being here. >> thank you sorry to dash your dreams, leslie give it at few weeks. coming up, we are checking in on some of the biggest movers of the day, including go daddy getting some activist interest. and this biotech losing more than two thirds of its value ouch ow lchn ocks and more next o

"perun" as the markets cross to record highs. stick around

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adding 40 points to the index and a quiet high flier this year home depot up more than 50%. nice run qhealth also up today. they told you about this last week on "power lunch." benefiting from the need for covid-19 tests and making a big marketing push over the holiday weekend with testing services for the nba. shares of bridge bio pharma, oh, ugly down 70% company's hard drug failed late stage trial. patients taking the doctoring not able to walk as far as patients who got the placebo and then going over to alnylam pharma they have a similar drug a day to forget. >> go daddy stocks surging, as well revealing today that it

purchased 6.5% of the company and saying it believes the shares are undervalued and in the future may engage with discussions. we reached out for comment and haven't heard back star board pushed for board seats at box and lost in a proxy fight. it's unclear if they have other demands in mind or believes the stock price should go higher the disclosure of the stock nearly erased the stock's losses for the year up about 7.7% today. brian? thank you. coming up. one key number that might mean this was a very metta christmas for mark zuckerberg. details next on "power lunch."

welcome back for many it was a very metta christmas. because oculus, facebook's app for the met verse number one on the app store after christmas day and people must have bought the virtual reality headsets the meta christmas, what it tell us about the development

what can we discern from the app downloads, steve >> yeah. this is a really fun thing to do on christmas morning is boot up the app store and see what apps are trending it gives you an idea it was meta, formally facebook, virtual reality headset. more people are experimenting on it for the first time and metta pivots to this virtual universe. >> yeah. i know some people have purchased the headset just they try to figure out what it is going to be. we talked about earlier is hype right now. where exactly is the metaverse you buy these. how much is there to do right now? >> not a lot right now it is mostly focused on gaming and not a ton of

experiences beyond that. social networking things and fitness things this is the beginning of itvirta reality and people have the headsets thanks to christmas and now facebook has that data it can kind of see what people graph tate toward to be hooked on the headset. >> how much can we glean from this being to impact the metta bo bottom line? >> yeah. leslie, one good christmas doesn't gauarantee future success. fit bit was at the top of the app store. and they sold it for a fire sale to google. so just because you have one hot

christmas doesn't mean it's hot forever but it is a good start for facebook focusing on the metta verse. >> the headsets have been around gatherin gathering dust at the local best buy. >> it can do more and what they do now is really making it so before you had to be tethered to an expensive $1,000 pc but now it's built in the headset. you don't need the hardware for that premium experience facebook was pitching and improved and so far from what the zuckerberg vision is. it will beself years. >> i wonder if it's ready player one. >> that's 100% what it is.

>> that's it columbus, ohio, biggest city by 2045 the oasis. would you be leslie picker 2 exactly the same vr? >> no. >> impossible. >> i don't have the power of a perfect memory. >> i remember that. >> sleep less. you would like that, too. >> impossible. thank you. thank you all for watching "power lunch." "closing bell" begins right now. ♪ it does. thank you. welcome to "closing bell." i'm wilfred frost at new york stock exchange major averages rising. gaining steam throughout the session. on record close watch for the s&p 500. >> for the 69th time of 2021 welcome, everyone. i'm sara eisen consumer discretionary stocks up today as new data showed the strongest pace of holiday sales growth in 17