we mentioned we certainly come off the highs in the s&p's case which is going for its 70th record close of the year it had dipped into negative territory. it is still sitting there. it is a fractional move, down four points. the nasdaq is under more pressure today, down about 76 or so the dow hanging on to a 79 point gain at this hour. that does it for us. see you tomorrow "the exchange" starts now. ♪ yes, it does thank you, scott i am brian in once again for kelly. here is what is ahead on "the exchange". another day, other record for stocks i mean at least it was if we end higher, the s&p 500 will post its 70th record closing high of the year tech, not so much. up next, the best places for your money in the new year president biden not leaving it just to the fed to try to fight inflation. the other regulators he is calling on to try to fight soaring prices everywhere and whether that strategy will work. plus, less bark, more bite

for the dogs the dow next year may be it is 2020 overall over again for apple, and is it fit or flop for peloton in the new year? man, the wheels have really come off the bike on that stock all of that and more coming up in today's edition of rapid fire we have got a lot to do, but why don't we begin with our friend bob pisani and everything that is happening in the stock market today. bob. >> brian, let's take a look at the major averages the good news is we started really strong, a new high on the s&p 500. 4807 that was just after the open then around noon we had a classic sell program go through, and i mean a classic one where everything dropped all of the sectors sort of sold off very quickly, lost about 15 points in the dow -- in the s&p, as you can see down a little bit on the s&p right now. the same thing with the dow jones industrial average the nasdaq still hasn't hit a new high yet very defensive tone, even at the open so what does that mean it means things like utilities and consumer staples led the market cyclical stocks like industrials

kind of flattish to slightly up. tech has been all over the place today. essentially though down right now. part of the problem is semiconductors remember something, these semiconductors had an amazing run in the last weeks, really in the last four or five. you can see some taking profit with micron, nvidia, teradyne, xilinx we are at a new high on the s&p 500. it is mostly defensive name, classic deep defensive names, companies like united health care, proctor & gamble, exelon on there, cvs set a new high and mcdonald's at a new high it is the defensive stocks pushing the market forward at the highest today we were up close to 5% in five days the bottom line is a santa claus rally, i know it started yesterday but it has come a

little early to broad and wall we will see if we can end near the highs toward the end of the week brian, back to you >> it would be nice to get that 70th, that nice big -- we like nice, round numbers in the media, bob thank you very much. with the markets hitting new highs again, at least earlier today to bob's point, more investors are asking a very simple but a very important question are stocks overall getting too expensive? your next guest says no. joining us is alan boomer. he is chief investment officer at momentum advisors alan, welcome back you have some incredible names for us, individual stocks. before we do that, however, let's talk about is macro market make the case for why even with these gains we are not overpriced >> great thanks for having me happy holidays some everyone out there. there's a big thing that i don't know if folks are paying attention to like the market has been on fire 30% gains in the s&p 500 this year, but we've actually had earnings growth this year in a major way. in fact, i would argue that the

market has gotten cheaper this year because multiples have not expanded in fact, multiples have contracted and you have had really, really strong earnings growth i think even though, you know, you look at a market that's making new highs, you think about all of the bad stuff happening in the world with inflation and what not, you might be tempted to say, let's go to cash buff i actually think stocks are a really great buy here. >> okay. overall now, let's get a little more, i don't know, let's say microscopic and look at microsoft. you see what i did there, allan. it is terrible it is a dad joke >> i like it >> it is a dad joke. all right. microsoft has been one of the great success stories of the last five years under satya nadella. analyst stock prices 20 or 30 bucks above where it is now. make the case for microsoft. >> i love microsoft. you know, microsoft is one of the businesses that i think is insulated from a lot of what is happening in the world today that's bad folks are worrying about, you know, a labor shortage

microsoft makes about a million dollars on average on every employee that they employ, over 180,000 people, almost 180 billion in terms of annual revenue. so i like that they've got a really low ratio of sales to employees. clearly there's not a big labor shortage that's impacting microsoft. that's number one. number two, they've got incredible pricing power they've just announced in december that they're raising prices 20%, and the market has not blinked. in fact, you know, they're predicted to double some of their businesses the majority of where microsoft is generating its revenue is business consumers again, they're not really so concerned about that inflation i think microsoft has the ability to raise prices. they've got pricing power. they've got a really low ratio of employees-to-sales. i think microsoft has a lot of great things working >> okay. microsoft, of course, is a name that everybody here knows. the other two stocks you brought us today, maybe ones that are a little bit off the headlines

talk to us about equitable holdings are you owning this, holding this for the dividend, or do you think it is a growth story, allan? >> yes, so i like it as a valuation play and also just a thematic play. so equitable is a life insurance company primarily. they're in retirement. they're in variable annuities. but if you think about inflation, right, inflation is going to mean that if i owe a death benefit in the future -- let's say i owe a million dollar death benefit when john doe passes away in ten years, if there's a lot of inflation the value of that death benefit today is actually a lot lower because that dollar in the future is getting eroded because of inflation so that's number one i think inflation is a good thing for life insurers. number two, this particular life insurer i think is very, very well run they've done a really great job of positioning their assets. they've got really good, predictable cash flow. the dividend is not bad. it has a 2% dividend that i think will grow.

they've been one of the few companies that's been growing their dividend over time i like the insurers generally and i think equitable is a really great name to own >> this last one here is a name where you probably don't know the name, realty income, but you might live in one of their homes or their apartments. they're big in retail, they're big in commercial, but, man, this is one of these quiet giants maybe we should do a series of companies like this, names you don't think about, man, when you dig in this is a huge company. >> absolutely. we love realty income. this is one of the few reads or this company in general over the last 25 years they've raised their dividend every single year that income, i mean that dividend is funded by income you know, you look at them and they've got a big exposure to retailers, and i think a lot of folks are really bearish on retailers generally. but if you look at who they've rented to, they really have a lot of really high-credit tenants and a lot of defensive

industries, and this is a stock that you could buy that pays about a 4% dividend and that dividend is growing every year the thing i love about real estate in an environment of high inflation is that every one of those leases has inflation built into it. every year those leases get more and more expensive and it is helping you to keep up with inflation. realty itself is also a single lay credit, so i won't say it is like buying a bond, but certainly you are buying a really, really strong dividend that's going to grow over time >> realty income, stock up 13% in three months. new names for us including microsoft, equitable holdings and realty holding thanks for joining us, allan take care. >> you as well thank you. be sure to catch our special "your money 2022." that's tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern. for the top picks heading into

next year, you literally cannot afford to miss that. if you are into stocks that pay you cash back to own them, differ dividends, and who wouldn't be, these can be dividend darlings christina p. is here to name names. >> that's right, brian i want to start with decent news looking at the sector on a year-to-date basis it is not the biggest loser but it has trailed the broader market and it has been a choppy year for the sector thanks to, of course, inflation and things like the infrastructure bill but, like you mentioned, we want to take a look at some of the names within the sector that could provide income for investors. we screened a group of names that have positive year-to-date performance and a dividend yield that's greater than 1.5%, because you want to fill the pockets, right here is with we found. beginning with dow, while the stock has not been a huge winner in 2021, up just about 2% this year, it does boast one of the largest dividendness the sector

at almost 5% then we have a smattering of names in the 2% range, all of which are up double dig i hads in 2021. international flavors and fragrances outperformed the sector and broader s&p, up 35% this year, and will end on the sector's best performance this year, new core that stock has gained more than 100% in 2021 and has a dividend just under 2%. brian, i guess did i help, you know, for making money in the future >> yeah, i mean these are companies, christina p., we talk about infrastructure bills, we talk about roads, bridges and building stuff and actually making things. they're not nearly as sexy as the iphone or microsoft or snapchat, but these are companies whose growth is steady and they're paying that money back out to investors. >> and not only you mentioned the infrastructure, building stuff, but there's fertilizer companies, the chemical companies that fall under this category that have done very well because fertilizer prices are through the roof >> i saw you out in texas. cf industries, mosaic and we're

going to talk about fertilizer right now. >> perfect segue >> it is we are just getting started. are antitrust policies the answer to fighting inflation the white house wants you to think so, but your guest coming up says that's just wrong. plus, when it comes to batteries size matters up next, why the battery names are booming maybe on some news from rivian. as we head to break, take a look at the dow heat map you have disney leading the way. you heard john saying he is buying disney calls. "the exchange" is back on a tuesday right after this

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all right. welcome back to "the exchange. we certainly talk a lot about how the federal reserve can try to fight inflation, but the biden administration is trying to flex its muscles to hit rising prices in a different way, antitrust regulation from the ftc to the federal maritime commission the administration has been pushing regulators to go after what they consider corporate monopolies that are jacking higher inflation, but is this the right place to really look joining us is kneel o'bradley, chief policy officer at the u.s. chamber of commerce. neil, welcome back is this the right strategy are big corporations, a couple of companies controlling meat or fertilizer or oil? is they the problem? >> no, not at all.

thanks for having me back, brian. the administration wants you to believe we have had decades and decades of extreme concentration across the industries you just mentioned, but over the same period of time we had low to know inflation at all. all of a sudden inflation occurs in 2021 and that's the root cause of it. you know, larry summers, who has been sounding the alarm for inflation, when the white house should have been listening last spring got it right when he called it science denial >> okay. so make the case why it is not if you have a couple of companies that are controlling the beef market, the pork market, which, by the way, they are. the fertilizer market. how are they, which, by the way, they're making more money now. we all know that that's provably correct. how are they not to blame? >> well, i think first you have to look back and say, did we have concentration in those same industries before we had these rapid price increases. if you believe that the concentration in those industries is so severe that it

is allowing the market players to manipulate prices above what they would already be, then why didn't any of that occur prior to 2021? that's why i think larry summers means when he calls it science denial i think the other key point to remember here is we have lots of mechanisms to fight over concentration and monopolies these aren't monopolies. we have lots of industries where we have concentration but still have extreme competition and more choices and lower prices for consumers, which at the end of the day is what we all want, lower prices for consumers >> you know, you just heard christina and i talking about fertilizer, and in a different life i used to trade this stuff as a commodities trader. that was a long time ago it is a very different market now. buff i do know this. it is a global market relying on natural gas prices china and europe are buying up all of the liquified gas from american they can. that spiked their price, that shut down fertilizer there the reason i bring it up, neil,

is because it is going to spike prices for everybody including us the last i'm told, fertilizer is important for wheat, for corn and coffee and even feed stock that you feed to cattle and pork this is not somebody's problem this is a global issue >> it is a global, and look at input prices this is exactly what you are talking about, brian in that particular case the input price of natural gas has gone up, which drives up fertilizer prices which then drives up prices for feed stock which then ends up higher prices on the butcher's shelf the same is true across a lot of other industries as well, whether it was the chip shortage for carmakers that drove up the prices of used vehicles last year to record levels or the worker shortage crisis that is causing wages to go up and prices to go up across a host of industries there are root causes of this. the administration is ignoring the root causes, as is congress, and if, instead, they focus on competition and they try to use the government powers here to manipulate the market, what we're going to end up with is

fewer items on shelves and higher prices. that's a proven fact every time the government tries to intervene in markets this way. >> yeah, but they've got to do something. i mean, neil, you are in d.c., you know this. president biden is politically savvy, he knows this, that inflation is a killer. it killed jimmy carter's second term this is a major story. do you think that anybody, whether it is republican or democrat, libertarian, independent, green, communist, whatever, does any political party have the ability to bring down prices? >> well, they have the ability not to add fuel to the fire. for example, this build back better bill pending in the senate right now which joe manchin has at least for now put on hold, it will actually boost consumer demand, raising prices higher by injecting $150 billion in transfer payments and tax rebates into the economy next year you mentioned natural gas prices we ought to be expanding exploration. we ought to be doing more things to get u.s. natural gas into the market to help meet that demand.

doing those things will lessen these inflationary pressures that we have so there are good things that we can do like lowering energy costs and there are bad things washington could do like the so-called build back better bill making the right policy choices here will at the margins help or hurt depending on what washington does. >> neil bradley, u.s. chamber of commerce a good discussion on literally -- literally a hot topic because inflation is hot neil, happy new year thank you very much. >> happy new year, brian >> all right thank you. still ahead, ai in aisle five we will speak with the head of one company using artificial intelligence to streamline the supply chain i want you to think cameras, cameras everywhere it is is back after this

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welcome back to "the exchange," everybody first, let's get to the overall markets and then we will get to a few stocks on the move. you are looking at the board and saying, there's not much going on not true the dow is up 225 points the s&p was up, that means another record high. if we close up even by point 0001% that will be a new record, the 70th closing high. there's drama inside right now dow is up 89, s&p and nasdaq is down a bit let's not forget about the small cap. just because they're small, you have to focus on them. the russell 2000 on pace to snap the first four-day win streak since october, although it is still 8% from the all-time high. a lot of people, by the way, bullish on small caps next year. speaking of all-time highs, materials. we just talked about them. consumer staples, real estate, all on pace for record close it is something that we have got to head into and watch in our final two hours of trading on

this tuesday also, watch the airlines united, southwest, american airlines, they're all higher right now. they are rebounding from yesterday's moves lower. all you got to do is watch any local news channel to see there are stories about how many people are at the airports right now. oh, by the way, airfares are also up. roku, maybe you will sit home, you want to watch tv, that's fine roku is higher today it is trying to hold on to a slight monthly gain of 3% and break roku's five-month losing streak roku still down 52% its all-time high back now to christina parts pap partsinevelos. she has a cnbc update. >> thank you, brian. the uk setting another record for covid cases officials reporting nearly 130,000 new infections today, and that figure does not include scotland and northern ireland. just a week ago the record for a single day was less than

100,000. on the news, getting ready to travel in 2022 and where the demand will be that will be tonight at 7:00 eastern. the congressional panel investigating the january 6th riot on capitol hill has agreed to shield some documents from the trump administration the move is in response to concerns raised by the biden white house that releasing all trump documents could compromise national security and executive privilege. and in new york times square people giving a fiery farewell to 2021. it is the 15th annual good riddance day people are invited to turn, toss, shred and burn memories of to 21 and make 2022 a clean slate. i feel like you may have something to add to the pile >> i have lots to burn, but it is fire. be careful by the way, because if you are playing with fire you are going to get burned. fire marshal bill. up next, will the dogs of

the dow bite back next year? why the wheels have come off peloton stock and what to do about it and regulations from both sides. what should you do if you own any of the woe begotten chinese internet stocks? all of these questions answered in today's rapid fire. that's coming up stick around (inspiring music) - [narrator] at southern new hampshire university, you can finish your degree faster, and for less money. transfer up to 90 college credits toward your bachelor's degree. - i was able to transfer a lot of my credits and it made it easier for me knowing that i don't have to start all over again. - definitely lowered the cost by being able to transfer those credits in. - [narrator] get more transfer credits, pay less tuition. now that's something to celebrate.

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♪ the dogs of the dow, the world's first $3 trillion company, and what the heck has happened to peloton? with that line-up it could only be rapid fire line let us dive in with three brave souls ready to tackle it our own bob pisani, deidre bosa and matt maley, our own strategist first up, we are days away from 2022, and that means it is time to look back at the dogs of the dow. now, this is the decades-old

strategy of taking the names, ten or so, with the highest dividend yields and betting they're going to outperform in the new year the 2022 dogs are looking like, well, dow of the dow ibm, verizon, chevron and walgreen's, 3m, coca-cola and intel. the strategy has not paid off well recently, but did predict a big winner this year, cisco. it managed to get off the dog's list with a 40% gain bob pisani, tackle this. is there another cisco on next year's list? >> well, sure there is, but we don't know what it is. that's part of the problem look, i am not big on mechanical systems, but owning high-dividend stocks in this environment makes sense to me. it is largely a value play if you look at it you have companies like chevron on there, merck for example, these are value plays and for good reason. think of what you are getting on the s&p if you are a dividend person what, 1.3%

the average yield, i'll bet you, on these dogs of the dow is probably 3.5%. that's close to what you are getting for a high-yield fund today. so it makes some sense to me to be interested in getting some -- buying into yield if you are of that type. this is a sensible strategy if you are actually looking for yield, but don't expect anybody to actually pick what the winner is necessarily going to be >> that's why we have matt maley. i feel like, matt, the dogs of the dow are like your patriots they stunk it up last year and suddenly they rebounded this year are there any stocks you would compare to your boy mac jones and bill belichick for next year >> well, after what they did with the bills this weekend, i don't know if i would compare them with anybody. but they're still making a nice comeback, which is nice. but the thing is, it is kind of interesting, if you asked me a month ago there were a couple of the stocks i would be looking at but we've seen big runs. like ibm is up 15% in a month so it is getting over bought and you know how much i like to look at technicals. the stock i'm looking at, i

don't think any of the names, especially the one i'm going to pick, dow chemical dow inc. is what it is called now, combined with dupont. but the stock is not going to be up 40%, the chances of that are very low with the fed tightening, there will be headwinds next year in the market and they're paying a dividend of almost 5%. they're really paying you to wait as bob said that could be really good in this kind of marketplace, plus the stock is very inexpensive, less than seven times earnings it is more of a safe play, but one that's also going to pay you to wait. so that's really why i'm picking this one because i think 2022 is going to be a tougher year for the market >> okay. there you go next up, it is apple now, apple is about $3 a share away from the vaunted $3 trillion market cap, but they just announced the closure of 12 of its new york city stores due to the spread of, you guessed it, covid. shares up 35% this year, but could these store closure concerns spoil results in 2022

de deirdre bosa, you are out there in san francisco you guys have your own problems. what is the hot take on apple and $3 trillion? >> we all have that level memorized, 182.36. that's when we hit it. we were watching it like an eagle during "tech check" this morning. but apple is one of the companies, we were just talking about companies, dogs of the dow. apple, yes, issues dividends, but a lot of the tech companies are about innovation, investing money back into the business that's what apple has done so well while issuing a dividend and sustaining a giant cash pile investors are willing to look beyond store closures, things like the chip shortage we've beentalking about all year, to continue to bet on this company that even given its size has proven it still can innovate and have a popular product globally. >> i have this giant screen here, bob, and i can see your big brain moving around inside that finely coifed hair. how important is apple

as it gets bigger, it becomes this like 800-pound gorilla of the markets. >> right it is very important the problem is you are in the process of a valuation -- a revaluation of valuations in big cap tech that's the concern that i have there's nothing wrong with what apple is doing, it is fabulous, but it is trading for about 30 times 2022 numbers historically that's high you go back prior to 2019, it was usually in the low 20s forward. so what happened was apple became the ultimate work-from-home store in 2020 the stock doubled in price because everyone thought it would be the great winner, and it was but it drove the valuations up this year, by the way, the earnings have been great i think the earnings are up 75% in 2021 for apple. think about that the biggest company in the world, their earnings are up 75%. it is amazing. but it is expensive right now. so there's nothing wrong with the company. it is just are investors can go

to continue to pay relatively on the high side of valuations for the company. i don't have an answer for that, but it is a tough environment for high-multiple stocks to go into in 2022 with the fed raising rates. >> all right let's talk about another one, but a very, very different story. that is topic three and that is peloton. man, it has been a rough year. it started off with a voluntary recall of its treadmills after one caused the death of a kid. then gyms reopened, then they closed and reopened, closed and reopened, and folks ventured out of their houses and it finished the year and just like that mr. big controversy. shares down more than 70% this year after quadrupling last year so, matt maley, can peloton get back in shape or do we just avoid it because it is either going to stop going down or start going up >> you know, it is one of those things where a lot of people tried to catch the falling apple the last couple of months and it hasn't worked. it has been more than dead

money. it continues to go down as you say. it is just at some point you have to say, hey, i'm not going to try to catch the exact bottom i don't mind missing the first 10% or 5% to 10% move in the stock. i will get it after i'm sure it is going to move back up i think that will be very important for this one i mean it is funny because just three weeks ago we did have signs of cap i.t. lags the stock was down a lot it was really oversold on its weekly relative strength index chart, the isr chart volume picked up significantly in the last three weeks. again, it is a sign of a washout in the stock yet the stock keeps going down what i'm looking for now, actually the last two weeks the high, the intra week high was $43. if we can get back above 43 i will feel more comfortable it has finally hit the bottom >> deidre, it is a thing when the pandemic, when the lockdowns hit, there wasn't much you could do in certain parts of the country. peloton, if you were lucky enough to have one, was one. now there's a lot of

competition. you have this for treadmill with nordic track you have club row if you are a rower by any chance. you see what i did there >> i do. >> point is, there's a lot of competition for that dollar, that eyeball and that butt in the chair. >> you know, brian, you mentioned mr. big. so for those of our audience who may not get the audience, i have been dying to quote my good friend laura foreman from the "wall street journal." she wrote a piece yesterday that said peloton stock has been trading lately on the fate of a character who used his bike on a fictional television show. perhaps enough said there. some might say it is an ipad on a bike the question is i think this is what you were getting to, brian, is their proprietary technology there. i'm not sure i mean it has a subscription service revenue, which is great, which investors like, but can that sustain past the pandemic, i'm not sure i still use it i still love mine. but, again, the ipad, not necessarily the equipment. >> yeah, once you have it --

>> brian >> go ahead, bob quickly. >> the greatest work-from-home story handed to anybody, ever, and it still loses money i mean has not the golden moment passed here? we are all moving on at this point. you mention it the competition you think apple -- apple has got some great workout fitness stuff going on there >> yeah. >> you think it is not going to be a serious issue you mentioned it, brian. come on. >> fair enough but as a peloton user, once you have it, once you bought the bike, once you pay the $39 a month, you can sit at home even on a beautiful day, watch "tech check" at 11:00 a.m. eastern time while you are on the bike we are going back to deidre on this one. finally, china's uncertain future on wall street. it has been an absolute terrible name for stocks like jd.com, alibaba, and tencent music is down by 70%. it is the peloton of china the drop came as china hammered companies across from tutoring to ride hailing with strict

regulations. now they're trying to work out china's new ipo rules proposed last night what does it mean for chinese stock. deidre, you covered what was getting delisted here is my beef. i don't care how great a company may be, if you wake up one day and xi jinping decides that company deserves not to be in business or the ceo goes on vacation for four months suddenly, why would you own these stocks >> that's exactly it not only have i covered the growth for a long time but i lived in china for a number of years, and i don't think even being on the ground you get a better view of what beijing and the communist party is going to do so you can be extremely bullish on the chinese consumer and the growing middle class, but i think you can still have no idea what the leadership in beijing is going to do next. so, you know, i heard a discussion earlier on cnbc about the right time and the long-term prospect of a company like adidi and alibaba but you never know which billionaire or ceo is on

the wrong part of the communist party, so a good opportunity but you need a risk appetite >> i don't know what your clients think, but are they willing to take flyers on this thing? this is gambling at this point because nobody in the world knows what the chinese government is going to do day to day. >> exactly, brian. what has happened really in the last year is they did the boy that cried wolf. they came back several times saying we're going to do clamp downs, do this and that, and then a month later they come out and hammer a different sector. they have gone from, you know, four or five different sectors they clamped down on but more recently, i mean they flat-out said they're still going to be -- they're still at the early innings of enforcement of these monopolistic companies. if they're just in the early innings of that, we still have a lot of uncertainty out there it is not worth it >> matt maley having trouble with the word monopoly

bob pisani, last word to you, do we care about these companies? >> yes, wedo listen, the country is growing it is a significant part of the world market capitalization. there are two camps here, brian. the first camp is the value camp they don't care at all about the political stuff we keep talking about. if the china stocks are 14 times forward earnings or below that, they buy because historically they will make money on it they don't care about the politics the other cares about the politics a lot the global investment community is debating whether chinese stocks are fundamentally a different asset class than the rest of the world. this was never on the table two years ago. that's what is really hard to figure out at this point >> yeah. >> but i can tell you, the regulators this year, they crossed the mark and now it is an active part of the whole global investment discussion >> well, off camera i'll ask deidre bosa what the chinese term for not smart would be, because some of the value investors certainly may be burned bob, deidre, matt, we will see you all on the pelotons. you can send me your peloton

names after the show coming up, forget living on tulsa time it has been tesla time once again. shares are surging, but does this mean the battery stocks are set to keep rising as well hexcng bk t "t ehae"acinwo

♪ all right. welcome back ev stocks like tesla, you might have heard of them, and rivian seeing massive gains over the last week. to make an electric car you need batteries, a lot of them, and big ones rivian this morning announced it will prioritize deliveries next year for customers who ordered the trucks with the larger battery packs. could it be good news for battery makers mip au pippa stevens joining us with a look at this >> there's been so much hype around ev companies like tesla, rivian and losing, but we

haven't seen it around batteries themselves that could be about to change. goldman said the great battery race is here while morgan stanley said batteries are the new oil with a total addressable market topping $500 billion by 2040 two funds top the list both are up for the week and they have gained in names like livent corporations, sqm and albemarle although all four are in the red for the month others are among the winners while quantumscape has led registered a loss. it is said in many ways it is easier to own an automaker like rivian rather than digging into the chain. he said the lithium miners offer

the most upside given how much will be required to power the ev fleets as the market better understands these dynamics, there could be gains on the horizon for these upstream players brian, back to you >> all right pippa stevens, a lot more to do there. pippa, thank you very much all right. still ahead, forget giant ships. could signie little cameras be the key to fixing america's terrible supply chain problems hexcngn talk about that next o "t ehae.

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o-o-t, out of stock experience how exactly does it work >> well, thank you very much for having me. i'm excited to be on the show, i'm excited to announce this series b so, yeah, i mean just as cameras and ai are now able to digitize our roads and drive cars automatically, foerkal os digitizes the entire store and runs stores automatically. what does it mean? we deploy small cameras, as you said, detects lows, outs, spoiled bananas, and we direct labor, order the products, schedule the labor you know, anything you would have to do to run a traditional grocery store and mass merch store. >> steve liesman, our colleague here, has a joke he says the warehouse of the future will have three things in it a robot, a dog and a man the robot to do the work, the dog to make sure the robots don't get stolen and the man to feed the dog is that kind of where we're going with retail? >> i don't think so.

i think that, you know, grocery stores have stood the test of time mass merch has stood the test of time i think e-con has a role we are not going to sit in our beds with our vr head sets for our entire lives and have amazon feed us or something like that we will go to grocery to grocery stores but i think it's going to look very different today, how many grocery stores in america, there's 35,000, maybe half are still walking around with clipboards and pen and paper today. that needs to change >> how much could this help the overall supply chain it obviously may solve the problem for the store making sure they've got the stuff they need to sell to our viewers. where does it fit into the bigger piece of the puzzle >> it's very surprising to me, running this company and deploying now 40,000 of these cameras throughout the world 40%, 50% of the problem is the last 20 feet not even the last mile the, if you go into the bathroom

of a grocery store today or any one of these stores, you're going to see boxes up to the rafters. okay the problem is not getting half the problem is not getting the product to the grocery store, to the walmart. the problem is getting it out of the back room and out on to the sales floor. one, they don't know it's out there. two, they don't know it's on the sales floor. the cameras do it for them we're scanning the back room every hour or the sales floor. >> focal systems trying to do their part to make sure stuff is on the store shelves using technology and ai. thanks for coming on up next, big moves in oil over the past month. opec staying positive despite covid concerns earlier, but as cases surge, will they strike a different tone in ne wk'xtees meeting? we'll talk about that, next. here. aspercreme arthritis.

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check out west texas crude it's back above its 50-day moving average crude is quietly on pace for its best year since 2009 that said, it's no surprise the oil boom is benefitting energy names. devin, marathon, diamond back. they've all more than doubled since the beginning of the year and the xle etf is on pace for its best year ever going back to its conception in 1998 joining us now is john, a cnbc contributor. you know how much i hate to talk oil with you it's great to have you on. whatever happened to this spr release? doesn't seem to matter to the market >> it did a little bit then it's been ignored i mean, look, brian. it's all about omicron oil took it on the chin hard when that news first broke over

thanksgiving then the immediate flight bans to the south african nations. here we go again another round of lockdowns another lost jet fuel demand and it's a nightmare scenario, but now as omicron has proved to be somewhat, something we can potentially live with, let's keep our fingers crossed, oil is back on the upswing again. the spr math was a little tricky i still applaud the administration to do something about the high prices. but yeah, we're back in a strong demand mode with omicron potentially behind us, getting behind us, and that's going to help push prices back up >> the other issue again with the spr release, it's simple math it's more of a swap than a sale. so you can take the oil out now, but somebody's going to have to put it back in later, which means you're just going to pull forward that demand plus you've got, if seasonal trends of covid

continue, the spring should be a boom time. the summer as well hopefully that will be the end of it, but my point is demand should spike right as we're thinking about refilling the spr. >> that's true that's true. of course, you could prefer the refilling and i would just point out that you can splice that math on the spr any number of ways, but for me, it was as if they were putting a million barrels on the market for 60 days if they did that, the market would have a connection. so that's sort of what we've got. so the omicron release one-two punch did the damage, but you're right. here we go again let's see what next year brings in terms of economic activity, opec supply designs. not to mention our own u.s. production which continues to creep back higher and higher >> i don't want to get too much into the opec weeds, but there's something our viewers have to

understand about opec. they're an easy target president biden has been dealing with opec since he was a senator in the mid 1970s there's nothing new for him with opec, but under this new production deal that opec made a couple of years ago, they have their quotas per country if one country can't meet it then they've got to adjust our change or basically kill the deal to do it. something they have not been willing necessarily to do. opec may not be able to add more barrels to the market, correct because some countries inside of opec don't have the ability to do it. which means under their deal, they contractually can't do it >> right just this week, we lost some production out of nigeria, ecuador. and libya. which is you know, it's sort of the little rally that we're getting here right now look, they pay for and gloss over a lot of the hiccups in the organization and steam they put together

if they wanted to put oil on the market, they can for sure. the russians desperately want to to the extent the saudis want to keep the tax, they're not going to go stepping out on a limb or trying to undercut their partners done a pretty good job sticking together i have to give it to them for once on this whole thing so you're right. but i do think that to the extent prices get hairy again, above 80 bucks for wti, for example, the pressure will be on for them to put more back on the market and i believe they will >> quickly, i'm told it's almost 2022 what do you foresee happening? are we going to be in that 65 to 85 spot for oil? do you think there's a chance? maybe even for a cup of coffee, we touch 100 bucks >> there will be a price fever, let's call it that i think if we get cold weather next month like we're supposed to now, that could do it particularly if we continue with this high demand now for jet fuel in particular

so there's a chance for it, but i think the fireworks will come early to the high prices then we'll have to worry about whether or not the market gets sloppy as we get deeper into the year, but it will be a fun, wide range yet fagain for us with a lot of unknowns that we're going to have to deal with >> the unknowns and knowns and known unknowns happy new year, my friend. that does it for us on the exchange i will join rahel solomon for "power lunch," which by the way, begins now welcome to "power lunch. as stocks look to close out 2021 at record highs, are there still cheap stocks out there that you can pick up at a discount? plus, a strong year for the healthcare sector. we're going to dig into the names that can continue their stak