ukraine. it's wednesday, march 9th, 2022. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is out today. let's take a look at futures you'll see right now things are looking up and pretty smartly, dow futures by 423 points. s&p up by 62 and nasdaq by 246 you never know what the day will bring. there was a course during the day yesterday. it started out in positive territory, went down quite a bit, came up quite a bit, and then down by 184 points yesterday. these are some wild swings we've seen through the course of these

days it's definitely something to keep a look at it's worth taking a look at. you see right now the dow industrials down by 10.2% year to date. s&p 500 off by 12.5% and the nasdaq is down 18% the nasdaq is off by 21% from its all-time high. you're talking about a bear market still for the nasdaq with correction territory for the dow and s&p 500. crude oil prices continued to climb yesterday as joe was mentioning the president talked about that ban on russian oil, and even though it was indicated, it sent up russian oil prices by 3.1%. wti at 121.27 a barrel if you look at what's happening it looks like the ten-year is up to 1.903%. that's a big swing because we saw the swing earlier this week, 1.88% this week. a big swing in all of these markets. >> for bitcoin, it's almost like the bid and the ask.

the bid is 36 and the ask is 44. it's like a trade. it's moving at 42, 43 because the treasury department published and removed comments on an upcoming executive order on cryptocurrenccryptocurrencies prices jumped on that release, and the details of the national executive order are out. you can remove it a lot. it's like when i remove a tweet, think better of something. someone's got it already it's too late. once you've done it, you've done it i saw the executive order. exactly like you would have thought. we want to make it safe for investors, lead in innovation, but we want to make sure we have the kind of regulation that protects people. we want to protect the environmental, all the normal things not very specific about how you're going to do all that. >> right what they're saying is this is responsible innovation president biden will sign this

executive order today calling for just that in the crypto induh i industry they're looking at a focus of benefits focused a list of key priorities they're consumer/investor protection, financial stability, illicit finance, u.s. competitiveness, equity and inclusion, privacy, security, and climate. treasury is tasks with developing policy recommendations and reports on payment systems. the commerce department would take the lead on creating a framework for the best ways to use the technology, and the administration is encouragieing regulators to provide sufficient oversight. this order calls to order how cryptocurrency might work urgent but an official said the foreign

cbdc does not poet se a threat o the dollar the white house in industry meetings is calling it crypto sundays. we'll see if that sentiment holds. >> it seems like we've got a panel that's going to consider creating a study to study events on how to do this with crypto. here's the things we want to do, but it's short on specifics, but it seemed friendly though. >> right it didn't have to go this way. i think you're right this doesn't have a whole lot of teeth. it punts on the controversial question of who regulates what and how. so there's a lot of turf battles happening within the federal government but when you look at something like a year ago the executive order on competition, you know, that clearly started with the theory that corporate consolidation was, you know,

harming consumers and that the administration needed to take action on it so it didn't have to come as a sort of neutral tone the administration has clearly shown it's willing to use executive orders in this case i think the industry can view it as a win. as you mentioned, they're pretty open to tin ovation and benefits of technology, but recognizing that there are concerns as well. look at the stablecoin report that came out, which was really focused on the financial stability risk that one also had a fairly negative tone. this is a lot more neutral. >> that's what i thought right from the very beginning. it's like we accept it's here. it was 14 billion and now 3 trillion it's like they're miles apart. when trump would say something, mnuchin would say something, it was totally hostile. we've come a long way, baby.

i think of the virginia slims ad if u.s. were to do something digital, if it's based on the dollar, it makes no sense to me. you can print as many as you want would they ever create a crypto asset with a finite system i don't know how they do it. >> what would back it is also something that's under contention and under study as well but, joe, this is exactly why the crypto industry has increased their lobbying like 100% since their last year they want to be part of the conversation, part of the game maybe that's why you're seeing change in tone. >> okay, ylan, thank you. four iconic american companies are pulling out of russia after facing increasing pressure from consumers, politicians, and rivals. pepsico, coca-cola, mcdonald's, and starbucks are pulling their

businesses there pepsi will continue selling baby food, baby milk. mcdonald's will close its restaurants. this is a big deal these are some of the holdouts because it means more to the companies' bottom leans. for pepsi, it's 4% of its business in russia coca-cola makes up 1% to 2%. there's 850 mcdonald's restaurants in russia, and most are company owned rather than franchisees. you had other companies that were franchisees, they're not taking as big of a hit these were some of the holdouts. >> the expression, dragged kicking and screaming comes to mind you had to call them out i don't like the expression that the united states will finally do the right thing after it's exhausted everything else. >> winston churchill.

>> but i was also reminded of that do the right thing. >> it's been 14 days since russia invaded ukraine. >> then i think, you know, the russian people, i don't know they signed on for all this. they've got this autocrat. so now they can't -- >> creptocrat. >> mcdonald's, that seems harsh. nor pepsi or cola. russian brands, blegh, spiked with vodka. >> we had ron freeman on who said no two countries who had mcdonald's have ever attacked each other, been to war. it's capitalism t golden arches. that has never happened. that's going to be an undoing. we'll have tom friedman on later today. for more on our story, you can check out our podcast.

today contains a bonus on the closing of mcdonald's. you can find that "squawk" pod wherever you hear. let's head over to steve liesman covering currency in russia. this is an important story, one we've followed so closely, and one you've lived. >> yeah, becomy. i used to do this all the time the russian ruble opening for change it's sharply lower $630 billion in reserves seem to leave it with limited ammunition to defend the currency here's the trade right now 127 last i looked. there it is again, 127 that's about a 40% depreciation since february 10th. unclear if they're operating in the market we don't know that how thin the trade is and what if any would come in to defend,

it does appear they're not getting a whole lot of help. the u.s. dollar down 43% the euro off 41% look at the yuan there it looks like they could come in with very little money and defend the exchange rates, but it's not doing so at the moment. western allies froze money the central bank is limited to what reserves it has on hand and whaeb's coming in to prop up the ruble. it's implemented capital controls internally to conserve what cash is there for example, exporters are required to sell 80% of the foreign currency to central bank there's a 10k limit on russian money withdrawals over six months a russian cannot bail out a foreigner.

whatever the current level of the ruble, it's artificial now because the russian stockmarkets closed it would come urjds more scrutiny as they open and they try to exist from russian stocks to foreign currency. it seems like russia was counting on those reserves during this war. like a lot of other things, it looks to have miscalculated. >> we've talked about how these sanctions are more extreme than just about anything we've seen in the past. russia is now the most sanctioned country in the planet on top of that, you have this self- kind of exile that corporations are putting on citizens as well what does that mean in terms of real life? >> well, i mean, i want to say it's been a while since i've been there, a decade since i've been back, but russia's always had these two different societies if you could one society was the younger

population, the urban population that looked west and really counted on these western imports and goods and the ability to travel abroad. and the other was sort of a lower or moderate income, folks that were just sort of inside of russia so for them it will mean less. i mean obviously there'll be inflation, rates are up. they did have a noesen mortgage market there it's going hit russians hard if you're buying russian bread and russian rubles, there's not a lot of impact. i think the bigger impact, becky, comes on the russian industry, which relied on a lot of imports of tools and machine tools. right now that's not going to be a big de the longer it goes on, the further behind russia gets when i got there in the 1990s, russian industry was like 40 years behind the west or 30 years behind the west. right now it seems it's caught

up, and over time the gap will widen if these controls are made in place. >> steve, you know what you get if you add a "b" to ruble. you get bruble you get rubble well, you get bruble. >> depends where you put the "b." >> it's not far off. i don't know where that stockmarket would be either. >> right. >> i hesitate to think. >> i'm just -- i'm just looking at my notes here, joe. what's interesting is up until recently, this was not teen worst evaluation the russians had experienced. they had big evaluations in 2008 they had it again with the sanctions around crimea. they had it again around the pandemic they had additional sanctions. russians get slapped like this all the time

and probably the most important factor there, which i think has not changed is that its leadership does not care much about the welfare of its people. >> you figure out that putin's trillion is now worth, what, $600 billion that he's got socked away illicitly, right >> except it's probably in dollars, joe there may be no change at all. >> it doesn't matter or it might be in bitcoin. >> right they're fine they're fine. >> right thanks, steve. coming up, crude prices pulling back from 14-year highs, but gasoline prices continue to soar we'll talk energy. later, minority house leader kevin mccarthy, all of you who wrote in about ted cruz, set your dvrs. we'll talk about the war in ukraine, inflation, and a lot more you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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oil prices this morning as you see is dournwn, wti is we talk about russia and ukraine and the ban announced yesterday on russian imports all of these things are driving the price of crude

we get 3% here from russia, so not a big effect there i think most of it was shut in kind of already because no one wants it, and that's not necessarily what's happening what will be the near term influence on oil now that we've done the russia ban? >> i mean the ban itself was very symbol uc, ic, right? people were self-sanctioning so most people weren't touching russian oil. russian crude oil goes mainly to the southwest. what's not talked about is russia imported a bunch of feed stock, to vgo, fuel oil.

these are essentially oil components that refiners would use to run -- to make gasoline i think that's the thing that is probably under the radar and misund misunderstood the most you can see gasoline prices rising and the markets tightening up because of the loss of the particular feed stock tear from russia. >> amerita, the president asked what he can do about the gas prices rising. he sanlt i can't do anything right now. and then banning rush oil, i think he solution wasn't to drill domestically this actually means we should hasten our transition to renewables could he use the bully pulpit to ramp up production in the united states or does it take too long or do you need market forces to do that? it's been politicized. what's your view

>> no, absolutely it has been politicized. market forces are doing the work $130 or $125 wti oil companies are making more than enough money to return to shareholders, pay down debt, and drill, right that's not the issue over here the issue over here is these longer term incentives because governments are ultimately still telling every oil company and the oil industry that we don't actually need you in five, ten, years, 20 years time we only need you right here, right now. where is the incentive for these companies to invest for the median term? this is something we've been talking about for a long time is this disconnect in the government thinking around how quickly we can get rid of oil and gas because demand hasn't shifted. yes, ultimately everybody wants greener and cleaner solutions, but it's not going to happen overnight. >> do you expect there to be any change in attitude in washington

for example, there's a rule in the labor department where they're proposing they consider the climate impact of their investments. we've nominated sarah bloom raskin, the president has, and she has stated a kind of a goal, a top priority, to use bank regulation to try to redirect capital from fossil fuels. we're still sort of in that mindset. we saw in germany that's exactly why they're in a pickle over there. do you expect that to change at all? >> absolutely. >> you do? >> no, i don't this is the challenge. i don't expect the mind-set to change every time soon, but here's the thing germany said by 2035 we're going to change power, and, by the way, we're going to extend coal.

when it comes to reality of people not having heat for the winter or paying sky-high prices, if the masses and the population react to that, that's when politicians change. western governments have prioritized the transition that's the price we're all paying for it right now. in the east, you've seen the opposite you saw china come out and say we're not going to export gasoline and diesel because we need to look after our people. energy security is going to go at the top of the agenda, and i think in some ways that's the challenge for the west in terms of what is energy security is it renewables or a mix of cleaner energy oil and gas can be done responsibly and in a clean way. >> right lng. even lng, i'm not sure it's tough to do that. >> yeah. >> and we've dragged our feet. >> absolutely.

>> thanks, amerita we'll see you soon. when we come back, u.s. officials are probing options trade before the microsoft/activation trade by darryn don dylon wti is down about 2.8% it's still above $120 a barrel soybeans up again. wheat that's been on such a tear, down by 6% you're still talking $1,209 and change gold minus 1%. "squawk box" will be right back. 80% get genetically meaningful health info from their 23andme dna reports.

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federal prosecutors are looking at the most/ microsoft/activision david geoff enand barry diller and alexander von furstenberg traded days before the department is investigating whether it violated insider trading laws they're looking at it. diller told "the journal" none of the men had any neverings on the microsoft/activism deal and said it was a coincidence. they're longtime friends

they've been very up friend. allen von furstenberg had been buying activism prior to that and thought it would be acquired because they had undergone so much headlines the friends, it wouldn't surprise me to see them jump in and put something on the line with this. >> i can't believe they're playing the options market when they already have so much money. there's no way they would act on inside information it's so obvious they understand that and would never do it and then you also think, wow, people would never think we would act on inside information because we know we can't. >> it's like berkshire

buffet's friends with bill gates, as if there's some information. it turns out buffet had been buying in activism. >> he sits on the board with bobby co-dic and bought it three days before. certainly you'd think, we've got to look into this. they can't say, oh, no, barry would never -- >> no. they would look into it and that's exactly what they're doing. >> 60 million. he's got a yacht gas money? >> for a month. >> for a month those big yachts have 90, 100 -- >> the russian oligarchs one you're talking 500-foot yachts in those situations. >> you could do upstairs, downstairs on that you could do a reality show. coming up, as the u.s. -- >> maybe recoup some of the money? >> right as the u.s. cuts off russian

oil, china is looking to buy it at a discount. we'll get a live report from beijing. that's next. as we head to break, here's a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners an losers. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business, keeping your business connected. our best deals on every iphone - including the iphone 13 pro with 5g. that's the one with the amazing camera? yep! every business deserves it... like one's that re-opened! hi, we have an appointment. and every new business that just opened! like aromatherapy rugs! i'll take one in blue please! it's not complicated. at&t is giving new and existing business customers our best deals on every iphone. ♪ ♪

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good morning and welcome back to "squawk box. live from the nasdaq market in times square looking at volatile sessions one after another. nasdaq had a big selloff the other day, one of the biggest we've seen it's down significantly from market territory all the other averages haven't done that but reached correction territory. crude prices have backed off after a couple of sharply higher prices we're down $4. 120 on wti

and as the u.s. and uk move away from importing russian oil china is looking to buy it at a discount a couple of things to toss to you, eunice yoon, yesterday i saw one of our department officials saying china is aware of possible reputational damage from being so close to russia. number two, china should learn about watching russia, that it's not as easy. if you're going to go after taiwan, you'd better think long and hard about it and maybe it makes it less likely i don't know how you feel on either one of these things. >> i mean there is a lot of speculation about china potentially changing its stance. but currently it looks as though they're still tap dancing around the whole issue on still not wanting to call the russian

attack an invasion still very much wanting to at least appear neutral in terms of any types of efforts to mediate. but in terms of their relationship, the oil relationship between china and russia, china imports 15% of its oil from russia, and it could end up paying lower prices or at least negotiate lower prices if demand from the u.s. and uk dries up the focus at a legislative session that's ongoing right now among policy makers is that energy securities is key in fact, an official with the state planner today stressed that ensuring supplies and strengthening china's reserve really need to be the focus. now, the state planner has reportedly been instructing state firms to hunt for more supplies in the global market, drive hard bargains with besty russia, and explore investments in russian energy companies and assets a state refiner didn't respond

for comment but one said there are reasons that exploratory discussions won't go very far. he said russian companies have a reputation for being notoriously difficult to manage, also that the sanctions are only starting to hit the russian economy now, so a lot of those assets could be cheaper in a year and finally he said chinese companies are hypersensitive right now about the eu and u.s. sanctions and those sanctions could eventually hit them. so the foreign ministry today actually specifically criticized the u.s. and uk oil ban, and then, joe, you were mentioning, president xi he had a virtual summit with the leaders -- with macron, the leader of france, as well as germany, and the focus there was his criticism of the sanctions, which he said could drag down the world economy.

>> crazy we've got to think about that. that was the initial reticence, cut after your nose to spite your face. we're in deep doo-doo because of the actions we've taken. i wonder if there's con jeck activeover the work we did yesterday. it still doesn't get at the core of cutting off russia. they're going to find ways it's fungible. they're going to find ways for revenue to continue to come in from the oil. >> yeah. i mean it is -- from a chinese perspective of china, it looks as though where they can, they're going to be helping on the margins. obviously they're very sensitive about breaking u.s. or european sanctions because at the end of

the day, the chinese companies want to make sure they're made whole, they're going to be okay. they're helping on the margins, but longer term, it looks like a lot of effort is being made for oil to then be sent here to china instead of the west. so we're definitely seeing a recalibration going on around the world. >> strange, eunice i guess people would say when we were in afghanistan and iraq we caused damage and the u.s. doesn't care, but see stg comc -- seeing the complete -- i don't think russia cares one iota. they're still trying to instill terror in the human population you see the pictures i wonder -- in our view it's like china doesn't care about that either. they're so ruthless. i'm sure they just turned you off in china

but they're so ruthless -- >> not yet. >> -- in the end trying to justify the means and they don't care either. i don't think the united states is like that i think there are fundamental differences in the way we view that and the way it's viewed by russia and china. >> well, i think -- obviously there are a lot of people here who do care, but fro a government perspective, they're looking at things on a long-term basis. so the government -- and i think right now it looks as though the long-term bet is, you know, that it benefits china's overarching goals to have national rejuvenation over the course of decades to have russia there and putin there. >> putin could say the same thing. >> as an ally against western influence. >> putin could say the same thing. what are a few ukrainian civilians when i'm rebuilding

the soviet empire. it's a dangerous slope, i sthi, y think, eunice. >> i think it is dangerous you're seeing some tap-dancing at the end of the day, china doesn't know who is going to win and wants to be on the side of the winner that's why we're seeing this push and pull and discussions of mediation but not really mediating. it's kind of all over the place and trying to position itself so it double have to commit any which way until the winner is announced. >> well, we appreciate it, eunice i don't know how -- talking about someone that needs to tap dance, i don't know how she does it every day she's honest, says things. >> she's in a place where they're monitoring every word. >> we hear about management if they ever watch and the stuff they say, but that's certainly not the same thing as whatshe does every single day in terms of -- >> she does it with grace.

>> she never punts >> answers it with grace, answers forthrightly eunice, thank you. markets with another whiplash trading yesterday, fal falling, soaring, and falling again before closing it fell 10% below its all-time high the s&p 500 fell into correction territory, down 13% from its record-high. the nasdaq lost ground as well it dropped deeper into bear market territory, ending 21% below its all-time high. let's talk about picks that may look attractive with amy woo silverman, also greg branch who's managing partner at veritas and a cnbc contributor you think there's potentially more to come, even though we're down from all-time highs you don't think it's over.

why is that? >> i don't think it's anywhere near over, and despite futures seeing some comfort, from zelenskyy seeming to be more compromising on his view with nato, independent territories and ukraine territory, there's no easy off ramp here. i think this is binary in putin's mind, and there's only one acceptable outcome that means there's going to be an escalation, that means there's going to be further sanctions, further retaliatory tactics, and i think we're going to see the commodity price move higher, even though we might not get european sanction and abandonment, actions are taking an companies, refiners, shippers are refusing russian cargos. although it's not happening officially, it's happening behind the scenes. it will continue to put commodity price sectors say into the system which will continue to dry inflationary pressures.

even that the energy will be felt over in europe, it will result in a reduction in consumer demand. you'll feel the pain at the pump when you combine it with the existing challenges we saw this year, omicron-related, some liquid city entrenchment with fed rising and the balance sheet, i think we'll see top and bottom line pressures more intense than i had intentionally foresaw. we're left with an environmental that's increased by rates and significantly incorporating earnings growth. it's hard to get multiple expansion in that environment, and, in fact, any one of those factors leads to multiple contraction. >> amy, we're talking about a much more volatile environment it's not particularly great for returns, but you do have some

strategies you like. what would you be telling people >> good morning, guys. i would say, look, it's been very volatile. that's good for options markets and being tactical i'll point to one name, tesla. it's a fan favorite. you see a pretty wide differentiation with funds degrossing right now when you look at the options, it's flipped it used to be tesla calls were the highest volatility that's totally flipped to the downside look, if you can tactically say i want to bounce back, looking at tesla is quite interesting because you almost never get the tesla calls for sale that's what's happening now because of the overarching environmental. >> other things besides hedging? what would you tell people to do

right now? >> this may sound counterintuitive, but if you have to be in the market, if you have to be long, hold certain core positions, you should actually look at selling calls the reason, you're collecting a very high premium on the very high volatility right now, even in a world where i know yield is potentially going to rise, that's going to be very slow, and still the absolute level is quite low. if you sell that call and get a rich vol did in the market that's potentially limited with the headwinds we've been talking about, it's a good way to collect the premiums right now. >> greg, i know you have several areas you like one is parcel delivery that's interesting given the spike in oil prices. means their fuel costs will go up, but you still like the area. >> i do. i philosophically agree with amy that there are things do here and there are things we will be doing when prices get down to a level where we think we're kind

of bottoming parcel delivery is one of those areas. what i'm looking for is search and earnings growth that is somewhat immune to the inflationary factors where we have pricing power that helps us pass on some of the higher fuel costs or others, rise in wages where it is intense. we pass that on and where we see margin expansion if we're not getting multiple expansion, we can still get performance from earnings growth it's possibly one of those sectors where you have the secular tale wind where the industry sunday capacity and the industry is growing at about 10%. and even with the announced $5 billion and $4 billion u.p.s. and fedex put up and amazon expansion, it's still under capacity capacity is going to grow at 5%. they're shifting to a more discriminatory stance with what they're sending through the network,ed a they're taking pricing. large cap software is another

example where we're seeing resilient toplines despite the financial. i'm less positive on banks than i probably was a year ago because i don't know about this net interest environment particularly as the curve is starting to flatten again. we don't know even though they have limited balance sheet exposure what their secondary exposures are to some of these company abandonments. >> greg, amy, thank you both. >> you did it again. you say at the end of the day, and i twitch but you really mean at the end of the day you're allowed -- you do that on purpose. >> i do it. >> you do. you do it to turn me and it's like, no, you're entitled to say that. >> and you couldn't say anything at the end of the day, the market was -- >> that's right. you're not using that entire clip. >> at the end of the day. coming up, two big stock movers to tell you about stitch fix is tumbling

and bumble, these young people eyovto date and go out. >> these young whippersnappers. >> yeah. they love to date other people and go out. >> announcer: "squawk" picks is sponsored by wisdom ttree, the alpha pioneer.

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shares of bumble are surging, up 22%. the revenue was up quite a year,

over year 26%. total paying users rose 10.6% to 3 million. pulling its apps from the app stores in russia and belarus after the ininvasion of ukraine. but even with today's gain the stock is still down more than 50% from its ipo just over a year ago, but a company that does what bumble does would have a hard time given the last couple of years, yeah. you would think. but then it'd seem like you have a big rebound and for the roaring 20s that were coming until we, you know -- until world war 3 perhaps was beginning. let's hope not >> also check out the rise of stitch fix the company stock is plunging sending its market cap below a billion dollars. stitch fix issued weak guidance for revenue for the third

quarter saying it continues to experience issues with onboarding and conversion of clients. they're having a tough time getting clients, they're having a tough time keeping clients, i guess. in terms of its peak in january 2021 the stock was trading at $113 a share giving a market cap of about 11 billion, so that is a significant decline. when we come back we're going to talk energy strategy with crude prices near $120 a barrel and gasoline prices at record highs i think we said $4.25 a gallon today. up from $4.17 yesterday. someone pointed out if you were to do inflation it was actually higher in 2008, 2009, but this came up very quickly, and it's that rise, a doubling of prices in a year that really catches consumers off, too wti down about 3% but still

sitting at 120$120 a barrel. "squawk box" will be right back.

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oil prices jumped to session highs yesterday after president biden announced a u.s. ban on russian energy imports and warned that gas prices will continue to rise for a look at what's ahead for u.s. energy let's welcome heidi heitkamp, senator of north dakota and a cnbccontributor and also ron christy, who was assistant to president george w. bush and a fellow with the uva miller center on presidential studies. welcome to both of you heidi, i want to start with this you are in a state that provides an awful lot of oil production we've seen oil production clps, part of that is because market prices went haywire and went negative actually during covid part of that is because companies got burned, don't want to invest more, and they've got

esg investors telling them not to invest more on drilling in this country and then you've got the administration which has sent signals it doesn't like to see the drilling now, those signals have changed pretty drastically over what we've seen the last couple of weeks, but how quickly can oil production in this country change there's a lot of hurdles we have to get through what do you think how quickly we can get back to american independence >> i actually think you could see a production ramp up pretty quickly. the challenge is that we have is transportation of oil, a pipeline, the challenge we have putting oil on the rails so i think there's a lot of known reserves out there there's a real opportunity to move those rigs in like we did during the balkan explosion and actually develop the oil i think our challenge will be moving them. but, becky, you said the most important thing, which is there's got to be a sustainable commitment to this pivot if

you're going to get investment and that -- no one wants to be out there with stranded investment, and that's the challenge right now. is this transitory, or are we going to see a permanent pivot where we recognize that we have to produce more fossil fuel whether it's natural gas or whether it's oil and other kinds of dissolets in this country >> what would it take in terms of guidance from the administration or long-term promises >> morning, becky. i largely agree with the senator on this. it's not just flipping a switch. it is providing a sense of confidence in the market yes, you can have investments, yes you need capital, but we need regulatory relief from this administration where's the confidence that the american government is going to

be there for these companies they should feel confident in investing thatkeeptle? to move forward i think in a very bipartisan way we can find an american solution rather than a partisan solution to the energy access today. >> president biden walked right up to the line yesterday he didn't say drill, baby, drill, but he was hinting and tiptoeing around that. what's that mean for the far left of his party, the environmental part of his party and what's the fire storm going to come as a result? >> i think you have to get rid of this notion you can't address climate and still basically produce the kind of energy we need in this country and i hope that as we have those conversations out of an emergency situation we're going to be there especially with the more extreme part of our party, but i want to talk about keystone xl pipeline because it's just like fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

the first thing that donald trump did was authorize the pipeline the people who have this idea to build the pipeline have four years to do it, and now people are complaining it didn't happen in a year in the biden administration it didn't happen as you know, becky, because it wasn't economical for that pipeline to be built at the time so we will see what happens on transportation they're having a heck of a time siding pipelines even in canada where they produce the energy. so let's just put the rhetoric aside on it's somebody else's fault. let's talk about what it's going to take to have a sustained and meaningful and solid energy policy in this country that is agnostic about fuel source but very proenvironment. i think the energy industry, oil and gas stands ready to do that. >> heidi, as pointed out a lot of places, it's not just the leases, you have to get regulatory approval for the pipelines, and it's much harder

under the biden administration and the reason xl wasn't economically feasible because of all the -- we had to go do another, there were like another five or six environmental assays about going over certain areas and it was in one of the dakotas, i think so when you stop blaming -- you've got sarah bloom raskin who wants to make sure that funding is cut off to the fossil fuel industry. so how do you walk the line? how do say we can make the transition and do fossil fuels when they're deliberately trying to make sure we don't bring oil out of the ground, which has been a stated intention of the left >> well, and as i have said there are many people in my party who do not believe that that's the right strategy, that we need to be more moderate, that we can do both things at one time but i want to say this about keystone you know, when you look at it,

keystone was being considered when oil prices were basically in the negative. so let's not overexaggerate what keystone would have meant for energy independence in this country. yes, joe, i agree with you, we need to talk about what we're going to do to build infrastructure in this country to move energy from the sources like north dakota to where it's needed in this country what are we going to do to build refining capacity? what are we going to do to make sure we have base load power that's going to augment and support our renewable resources? and when we get adults in the room instead of let's pick on this side or that side, let's talk about what we can do together to achieve both goals, a climate goal and an energy security goal for america. when we do that, we will be doing what the vast majority of people in this country want us to do with energy. >> ron, you get the last quick word on this it is striking to see if the president is going to decide if

he's going to go to saudi arabia and go on bended knee to ask them to produce more >> this is sheer lunacy. going to saudi arabia, going to venezuela, going outside of our shores i suggest we-going to california and texas and look at american sources of oil. it makes no sense to me we're going to go on bended knee to look even weaker before the world community when we have the opportunity to invest and drill and have energy here in the united states. >> ron, heidi, thank you both. this is a conversation we're going to continue. we'll have you both back soon. >> good to see you both. it is just after 7:00 on the east coast, and you are watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is off today. we've got a big line up in the next two hours the ceo of xpo logistics will join us to talk about splitting the company in two also have white house economic advisor jared bernstein, "the

new york times" columnist tom friedman if you watch the futures right now there are some big gains this morning if you've been watching in recent days we've seen ups and downs. right now the dow futures are indicated up joe? >> let's get to dom chu who's looking at this morning's premarket movers i may know the story on a couple of these do. what have you got? >> what's working right now in the premarket trade has been something along the lines of the crypto currency side of things the big stock moves we're seeing are even bigger in crypto currencies right now bitcoin prices right now are north of 42,000. rippal, solana, many also catching a bid as president

biden is going to sign an executive order today that will at least look at some aspects of the crypto industry and researching and going through and developing some policies around how you would tackle some of the explosive growth in these. they're going to look at national security interests. they're going to look at things like financial stability in the wake of what's going on here with russia and ukraine. also this notion the federal reserve may want to look into the idea of a u.s. dollar digital currency, that side of thing. many traders of crypto currency are viewing this particular set of rules coming as bogue much less onerous than previous versions that may have been conceived in the past. as for what's been working this week amidst all the volatility, we mentioned a lot about gold prices we know they hit north of

$2,078 all of these things here have been up in price over the course of the last week given the geopolitical tensions, so gold mining stocks you can throw that in the mix there, and also big minors in the world also catching a bid you have to take a look at some of the stocks tied to solar energy over the past of this week up anywhere from 12 to 25% as a lot more focus on the world goes towards what you should do about energy independence. you guys had a great conversation a few moments ago about u.s. output. solar energy right now is a very much a huge focus for a lot of folks out there to say this is the better alternative to energy independence because the sun is free, joe. >> yeah, for now the sun is free. hopefully it keeps burning for a while. the big east tournament starts today. you know, i had boston college

yesterday, but they're not in the big east but that starts. do you have -- who do you think is number one? you watch, i mean you're local so you know the good teams, right? you know providence? >> yeah, i would say that it's tough. for me if you take first of all the big east is a lot different now, right, than it was ten years ago, 15 years ago. but providence always seems to come out during tournament time. they do. and those dominicans, they do play basketball pretty well. >> villanova, titans -- >> i think every one of those teams you just reeled off could have a legitimate shot at advancing far in the tournament in the ncaa not just the big east >> i'll see your name on the tv

news bracket >> i've only won it once, though >> you won it? wow. >> yeah, it was a year i was the only person who picked yucon to win. after a terrible big east tournament, by the way, that year, joe, just to put things in perspective. >> i like that humble brag technique, i've only one once. >> it really reeks of humble brag it's a nice transition thanks, dom. >> you got it, guys. some news just out from pfizer meg terrell joins us with more good morning what do you have >> hey, becky. pfizer announcing it started testing its covid anti-viral pill paxlovid in kids. currently the pill is approved for or authorized for people 12 and older based on their weight, so they're going to be testing it in the same setting that they've approved it in adults.

in kids who are symptomatic with covid, not hospitalized but who are at high risk of severe disease. they hope to see results by the end of this year, at least initial results. also developing a formulation for even younger children. remember, guys, this is the covid pill that can reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% if given early for people with covid at high risk. we understand a million courses will be available in the u.s. this month, dulling next month worldwide this is what pfizer says the capacity is, 30 million courses in the first half of the year, up to 90 million in the second half, a total of 100 million courses this year. this is a drug people have called a game changer. it has not been so widely available and easy to get it really has changed the game so far, but we've been hearing about these test to treat

programs coming from clinics although testing is in children, though, it will be time before we see those results >> thingvise quieted down. we don't see the covid cases they've dropped dramatically in this country what are the plans for the fall if there's a resurgence? are the pharmaceutical companies ready to ramp things up quickly? >> the pharmaceutical companies are. they're in this position now where we're still waiting to find out what does the vaccine look like in the fall? does it need to target omicron or some combination of variants? we've not heard answers from that from any public health authorities around the world although they're all looking at that right now we also know from moderna the u.s. government has not placed an order from the fall in terms of boosters. we're waiting to see what the plan will be, who boosters will be recommended for many health experts expect some groups at least will need booster shots in the fall.

maybe it's just older people and people with vulnerabilities because of their health, so we're going to have to see all of that. the companies are ready. we have not seen the orders get placed and haven't seen what things are going to look like in terms of the vaccine >> meg, thank you. we'll see you later. coming up, shares of xpo are sharply higher this morning after the company announced plans to split into two public companies. ceo brad jacobs is going to join us next. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire dad, we got this. we got this.

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xpo logistics planning to become a true trucking company, spinning off its truck brokerage business into a separate publicly traded company. frank collins joins us now with a special guest. >> the spin-off will be xpo's second spin-off in the last year brad jacobs joins us now to talk a lot more about this deal good morning, brad >> good morning, frank >> in the premarket we're seeing shares at one point up 14%, now up about 11% obviously the market is excited about the deal, but i have to ask you where did you see the value in separating these into two separate companies and selling off other assets after coming off record revenue last quarter? >> sure. so there's really two ways that we're excelling by doing this spin one is operationally the two companies will be more

focused, more fit for purpose, more agile, more flexible, more nimble, more customer centric, and from a shareholder perspective we're going to eliminate the conglomerate discount if you look at our most comparable peers they're trading about 15 times, we're trading about 3.5 times. there are investors that want either an ltl industrial play or nonasset tech brokerage enabled play and there's not many investors who want both. >> let's talk about xpo's new core business. once the spin-off and other sales completed you're going to be in the truckload space where multiple customers put a load into the same truck. where do you see growth opportunities going forward? >> well, we have one of the largest ltl less than truckload carriers in the countries. we're one of the only ones

that's a true national network and we cover 99% of all zip codes in north america we have the second best operating ratio which is our margin last year we've tripled since we bought the company in 2015. and you're over $3 billion in net cash over the last five years. we've got a lot of growth ahead of us in terms of continuing to grow the margin but growing the top line by investing in our real estate. and we have proprietary driver schools, 135 driver schools that helps to solve the driver crisis >> xpo was built on mna, you built by acquiring companies now you're going to sell your european business or divest from it, either sell or list on a european exchange and also spin-off a truck brokerage and sell-off some other assets if you can. is this a complete departure or potential for more in the

future a lot of your competitors are actually buying assets >> those are two great competitors, and we respect both of them quite a bit. it's not a change in our basic strategy our basic strategy is to create shareholder value, and that's why that focus on creating shareholder value made us the seventh best performing stock of a the fortune 500 in the last decade sometimes we've bought companies, but sometimes we've sold off parts of companies we bought last year we spun off gxo and we learned from the spin that when a management team is focused solely on one thing in the case of gso logistics, they do a better job we're going to divide the company up in two and do a better job for customers in ltl and tech enabled truck brokerage platform >> just a quick question for you. what's the biggest issue you're facing right now or that the trucking industry is facing right now?

is it finding truckers, people to actually drive these things is the the higher gas prices or do you put both in those categories and how does the industry deal with it? >>ates it's labor, the availability of labor. we have over 135 driver schools so we doubled the amount of capacity we have for creating drivers and next year we'll have twice as many drivers graduate than last year and the beauty of that is the drivers that go through our schools stay with us longer and their safety records tend to be better >> brad jacobs, chairman and ceo of xpo logistics, thank you for joining us today when we come council of economic advisor member jared bernstein will join us to talk ukraine, inflation and the president's executive order on digital currencies and then "the new york times" columnist and author tom

friedman will join us. before we head to a break, though, let's get a check on the markets this morning dow futures are up about 500 points s&p futures up by 70 the nasdaq indicated up by 280 points this comes after four sessions in a row of down days for all quk x"jor averages "sawbo will be right back.

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now to the latest on ukraine. vice president harris set to depart for europe where she's going to be meeting with leaders in poland and romania on the next steps in the west's response to russia's invasion of ukraine. this is coming as sicilian casualties continue to mount as russia intensifies its attacks on city centers. this morning ukraine announcing fresh evacuation plans saying routes out of several cities have been agreed upon with russia and the red cross nbc's molly hunter joins us right now from lviv in western ukraine, and you have been watching this every step of the way. where do things stand right now? what's the feeling you get on the ground >> reporter: becky, good morning. that's right this is day five of a potential cease-fire in many of these eastern cities wave been watching so closely. so we know that yesterday there was a partially successful cease-fire, a partially successful humanitarian corridor, certainly not nearly the scale a lot of humanitarian organizations want to see, but

we know 5,000 people got out of sumy today there are six new routes out of five different cities including sumy, mariupol in the southeast including five suburbs that go into kyiv. that is the sixth evacuation route. we've been focusing heavily on sumy we've not heard any confirmation about civilians getting out this morning. we were hoping that number is larger than 5,000. i want to take you to the city of mariupol that for days now has been attempting a cease-fire the first attempt was saturday failed saturday, failed sunday, monday, tuesday. and we're watching this morning. as of yesterday the understanding we had from the icrc, the international committee of the red cross, was 30 buses and 8 trucks of humanitarian aid was going to go into the city, survival goods for the people there and civilians were going to load those same vehicles and head out. we have not seen any evidence civilians have loaded those

vehicles today the situation in mariupol is dire according to the icrc more than 200,000 people have to get out they do not have heat, electricity. according to the mayor, though, that number is even higher becky, when you look at a map at the cities we're talking about for evacuation it is no surprise russia wants the civilians out so they can start their tr strategic assault. >> this is two weeks today now the invasion began and i don't think vladimir putin or a lot of other people thought they'd still be continuing at this sort of pace two weeks later. how has the resolve built, changed? how has the feeling there kind of changed over the course of time obviously a much more desperate situation for the civilians who are there. what can you say about what else you hear from the troops

fighting >> reporter: yeah, much more desperate situation for the civilians still trapped in those eastern cities my colleague richard engel is in kyiv and he reports that the russian assault on the capital city is now trying to get at the capital city from a third access, really closing in. but certainly in central kyiv there have not been russian kind of tanks there's not been a huge russian presence in the center of the capital. we've been talking about that convoy, becky, that 40-mile long convoy it's still 15 miles from the capital. but it's interesting i'm in the west of the country so the people that are fleeing from the east are coming here. as we know many people want to leave the country. according to the u.n. more than 2 million people have already left the country the interesting people we've been talking to here are people who are idps, who want to stay, who believe in their country, willing to wait it out, doing everything they can to either get supplies to the front line, young men going to the east to fight, who have never had any

fighting experience or women and children who for the safety of their children want to leave but are so torn because they can stay right here in the west of the country and help their country get through this but certainly day 14 much longer than any people thought this would go >> molly hunter from nbc who's been giving us these updates throughout, and we'll continue to check in. thank you. coming up we're going to talk a lot of corporate stories on the docket today. and then white house council of economic advisor member jared bernstein will join us to discuss the ban on russian oil, red hot inflation and the president's executive order, the new one on crypto. as we head to break here is today's aflac trivia question. it's i'm sure you're aware it's national barbie day. how much was the first barbie doll sold for back in 1959

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. here's the answer to today's aflac trivia question. how much was the barbie dole first sold for in 1959 >> $3. i thought it might be $2.68. >> you were trying to win on 1961 >> his hair looks more natural than mine that's the weird thing. >> the ken doll. >> yeah, it's plastic, right it's not really fair because i think barbie had actual hair -- >> what is this blindfold? >> i think ken was injection molded, wasn't it, his head? >> i don't know. a little more than i know about the production of barbie dolls >> still popular >> what was with the blind folds? eyes wide shut

>> yeah. bring that up. >> among the stories making headlines this morning tesla ceo elon musk is asking a judge to throw outhis 2018 settlement with the sec that deal required some of his tweets be pre-approved but musk says the oversight policy has become unworkable when it comes to his tweeting. netflix has no current plans to start an ad supported version of its streaming service. cfo spencer newman made that comment following the support of ad service however declined to rule out a move for netflix in the future and the senate has approved a $50 billion financial bill for relief for the u.s. postal service. yay. that follows approvals from the house last month among other measures the bill repeals the requirement to prefund health retirement

benefits have you noticed how much longer it takes to get mail in some of these cases? i have it's substantially longer. and now if i have a bill to get paid in the next five to six days, i don't mail it. >> i don't handle those aspects of the family business >> of course the house judiciary committee is asking the justice department to probe amazon and some of its executives for possible criminal obstruction of congress. "the wall street journal" cites a letter to the panel. tat issue is whether the tech giant withheld information during an anti-trust probe you can see amazon shares up about 2% still to come this morning president biden signing an executive order today on crypto currencies we're going to talk to jared bernstein for the latest also tom friedman will join us to talk about russia and the broader impact of the rest of the world. what this means, what we can expect from china. stay tuned u'atin"sawbox,"

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president biden will sign an executive order today on crypto currencies addressing a possible risk of digital assets joining us now white house council of economic advisors

member jared bernstein who is like a total renaissance man and i don't know whether you're -- you had an evolving view of cryptos, jared i can imagine you probably might have been somewhat of an early adopter. were you ever totally anti-crypto like we've seen a lot of politicians say 5, 8 years ago because this seems pretty friendly almost like admitting, look, it's something here to stay, we've got to make it safe for investors and not for money laundderring >> yeah. that's definitely a fair take. i mean financial innovation in digital assets offers great potential, but as you just suggested great risks as well. now, you and i know the u.s. has always been a leader in this area, and with this executive order we intend to maintain that lead, but history has been unequivocally clear, and this is

the last part of what you said absent adequate guardrails, preces, safe guards, unchecked financial innovation can introduce deep and systemic risk, and there are many examples throughout history. we've talked about them on this show that can show how badly that ends. now, we've seen that movie in reruns too many times, and this executive order is intended to ensure that doesn't happen with digital assets >> yeah. we don't need to go back that far when innovative -- tried to regulate them i think too back then, but we didn't do the kind of job we needed to. some things slipped through the cracks in 2007 and 2008. >> i tcorrect. sometimes when you say financial in vagds you want to put square quotes around it is unexpected while there are clear benefits for technological advance, for

innovation, there are also clear risks. now, what the executive order does is outline a series of interagency and the including working with our regulatory agencies and federal reserve, ambitious investigation into the best way forward to elevate the benefits and control the risks there are a series of reports that will come out of this executive order, first pretty quickly coordinated action against illicit finance which is very much in the news regarding digital assets, payment systems, central bank digital currency, consumer protections, energy use, climate the executive order instructs the financial stability oversight council, the fsoc to look into the risks. again, unchecked financial innovation is the great risk here and this is the first all of

government effort to control that >> do you have thoughts on how if the u.s. government were to get involved with the stable coin how you would do it if it was based on the dollar i don't know how good it would be. it defeats the purpose of having a fixed amount of something. >> i think important opponent about stable coins, which is amplified in some of our statements and fact check sheets and the eo today is that there is much like with any money market product like you just suggest, the -- there's a risk of run risk here so, again, we're aware of the innovative potential, but when it comes to stable we already had a release from our treasury department very of course active and top partner in this work that suggested stable coins be issued and backed by some sort of issued depository

institution. one concern i have about stable is the fact while the peg is certainly an advertising point as alleged, i think investors don't have the visibility into that peg to ensure that it's there, and that also enhances the potential for run risk >> jared, what do you and the other people in the administration, what's your messaging going to be on inflation? and i saw some of your messaging it's not -- don't look at it as the only thing happening in the economy. and obviously you talk about the job growth the way i wanted to approach is we had neala richardson, and she's not a partisan at all, adp chief economist. you say this is a record amount of jobs. she says the united states hasn't produced any new jobs since 2019 it's an important point, not one single job from the 2019 high-water mark because we lost 22 million jobs i think.

so when you're saying don't pay attention to inflation, look at these great job numbers, if you're going to say inflation is a result of the reopening. >> wait, you're having my debate for me over here >> i am. if you're going to say inflation is due to the pandemic and that's what caused the supply chain, why don't you acknowledge the reopening part of the big economy. >> i don't think anyone's suggested the rebound in jobs is somehow disconnected from the reopening of the economy in fact they're intimately connected. the first thing he talked about was the virus, the pandemic and economy are intimately connected. and he recognized that the rescue plan was going to have to get shots in arms and checks in pockets quickly to make sure

that families and businesses could bounce back the way they have i think the point we've made, and here i stand in starong contrast to some of what you're just reporting is the jobs have been in good shape whether you look at employment up over 7 million since the president took office, whether you look at the employment rate which is very clearly a "v" related to past slushes and you also made a good point i want to underscore, inflation is not the ornl variable in the economy. you also have to talk about this backdrop of very strong economy, strong household balance sheets, but inflation is hugely important to this president because he recognizes what challenge it makes to family budgets, and so both are highly elevated in our thinking, of course, and in the actions we're trying to take >> so, jared, as it always is, the criticism of some of the

things that the president said recently was instead of, you know, hat in hand for venezuela or iran, go back to the domestic producers of energy and tell them we're going to shift, we're going to change. would you say that germany at least rushed that transition to -- to different types of energy too quickly and that that's a problem, and we that we may have started down that same path and that's why we're kind of in the soup right now do you at least acknowledge that >> i think the problem that i will acknowledge and the one that i hear many europeans including german ministers acknowledging is that, "a," we have reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. and "b," europe in particular needs to reduce its dependence on energy from russia. i mean, that could be more clear, and we're hearing european finance ministers including those from all the eu

countries make that case we think we have to -- this is very much a walk and chew gum moment we have to make sure we do everything we can so that the american consumer faces the challenge of -- of what the president very explicitly talked about, energy pressures from taking actions against this brutal, unprovoked action by russia and vladimir putin. but at the same time it underscores the need for our renewable agenda, our climate agenda to move away from fossil fuel dependency much more to a climate and a green oriented -- >> some things are mutually exclusive there, and there are things being done, and someone actually tweeted to me the executive order from january 2020 on shifting on the different things that were regulatory things put into play. and you know, the national labor relations board wants all 401k

plans to consider climate in considering, you know, whether an investment is suitable. sarah bloom raskin prior to this, prior to the most recent issue with the invasion of ukraine was almost out in saying that, yeah, we want to cut off financing to the fossil fuel industry to keep this stuff in the ground you can't say you're doing both, jared. it's going to be -- don't you think the transition -- >> no, i don't agree with that i think we have to transition to a more green energy sector but, look, i think the key -- hold on, joe, i think the key is that as we make that transition we have to bring the american consumer, the american middle class along with us. and if you listen to the president, i personally think he makes very clear we can do both of these in fact, the transition that leaves out the consumer and the

fact wpeople have to go to the pump and fill up their cars was going to be one much less likely to succeed so that's why you see the kind of investments that the president is talking about making electric vehicles and charging stations so we can move to that much more cleaner and much less dependent on -- on foreign sources of oil but at the same time -- at the same time you're also hearing the president talk about releasing oil from the strategic reserves now, you couldn't be more clear about a policy that helps ensure a smoother transition to where everybody, i believe, in this sector knows we have to go including, by the way, the oil companies themselves many of whom are recognizing, you know, that transition is coming. so this is above a moment, joe >> all right the best laid plans and russia invades some country

and -- >> well, that is definitely true, and that's one of the reasons why we're focusing so much right now on trying to help the american consumer. at the same time the president as i said has been very explicit about the cost this will incur, but those are costs in the name of protecting a country who has been brutally -- a sovereign country brutally invaded by an authoritarian leader >> yes or no would you cut the gas tax? but it also means you're not going to have much in the trust fund for infrastructure. yes or no? >> yeah. this came up a few weeks ago nothing came out of the white house on it. we've consistently said, you know, every good idea is on the table. right now we're thinking a lot about what we can do to quickly get supply to the market, to the consumer, folks at the pump, and that takes you right to the slow release that's been discussed. >> jared, thank you very much. we'll talk to you soon

we still have a lot to get to this morning including tom friedman of "the new york times," and house minority leader kevin mccarthy. in the meantime, though, check out the futures before the opening bell because it's been a big prelude to the opening this morning. dow futures end indicated up around 500 points, the nasdaq up by 272 "squawk box" will rhtac beig bk. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

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four iconic american companies are pulling out of russia after facing pressure from consumers, politicians and rival companies. pepsico, coca-cola, mcdonald's and starbucks each said yesterday that they're suspending business in russia. pepsi will suspend capital investments, advertisements and sales of its soft drink brands but continue selling essential items like baby formula and baby food starbucks says it's suspending all activity in russia and check out our podcast. today's episode includes bonus material about the closing of mcdonald's and russia and the experience of our own steve liesman and diana oleck in moskow when mcdonald's and fast

food was new you can find squawk pod wherever 'lu listen to podcasts wel be back with tom friedman to talk russia and u.s. sanctions.

as a small business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving with comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network. with no line activation fees or term contracts. saving you up to $500 a year. so boost your bottom line by switching today. get the new samsung galaxy s22 series on comcast business mobile and for a limited time save up to $750 on a new samsung device with eligible trade-in. as russia's invasion of ukraine hits its 14th day, the impact spreads through russia, europe and the rest of the world. joining us right now is tom friedman, "the new york times" foreign affairs columnist. in his latest column today he says putin has no good way out and that really scares me.

tom, add the rest of us to that list if putin can't find a way out that's let's him save any face what do you think happens next >> well, becky, you think if he can't he'll double down and that's my fear he'll keep doubling down until my fear is he reaches for something really crazy like a tactical nuclear weapon. i'm not predicting that, but that is the danger becky, i said putin can't win because his going in strategy was completely offensable. he believed two basic things one is that ukraine was a country dominated by some tiny quote-unquote nazi elite, and then if you just decapitated that elite ukraine with open arms would rush back into the bosom of mother russia he was wrong on so many things it would take me the rest of the show to articulate them. but he was wrong ukrainians

wanted to run to the arms of mother russia, wrong about his own army he was wrong about the ability of the biden administration to galvanize the biggest and best global coalitions and george h.w. bush in 1991 against saddam hussein when you're that wrong about so many things you're going to lose the only question is whether you lose early or small or late and big. and unless there's some kind of negotiation here real soon, i fear he's going to lose late and big. and the danger here is there's only one thing more dangerous than a small putin's russia and that's a weak putin's russia that starts to fracture inside so it's still a very unstable and dangerous situation. >> you point out that russia has a long history of not looking kindly on leaders that go into these incursions, start wars and then lose. >> yeah, i mean, just go back

to -- gorbachev at the end of the loss of the cold war after the cuban missile crisis, and goes back to the crimea war in the 1850s so putin knows that. he's not in a system that allows you to retire peacefully with your stolen billions to a -- so he's a very desperately cornered, humiliated animal here very, very soon, and i'm concerned about that it's not that i want to lift my foot off the pressure on him >> one of the things we've been talking about is russia being able to count to this point at least on china and president xi. that was one of the things he may have calculated correctly, but how much pressure does china have here? we talked to eunice eun, our

correspondent earlier and she said look china wants to come down the winner of both sides at this point what do you anticipate china would do, and what would it mean if china were to pull its support away from putin? >> i wrote about this earlier in the week, becky. i begin with the fact from putin's point of view if china is your only friend, you have no friends because china has no friends. it has vassals and customers so in the short-term if putin is depending on china, the first thing they're going to do is squeeze him for better prices on oil and gas. in the long-term, though, you know, china is clearly flummoxed, i would say they want to be connected and disconnected at the same time. they want to insulate themselves from these pressures and the world economy, and they're happy to see america get a bloody nose, west get a bloody nose and be weakened and putin get a bloody nose, too

there was a long dispute going back to the 1960s when russia took a bite out of northern china. so i think he's very vulnerable. but if i were xi jinping, if i were the chinese in general i'd be paying attention, becky, to three things right now what you're seeing with putin, i'm pretty sure, is what happens whenyou have a long time leader, stayed in office too long, completely isolated. he can make some grotesque mistakes china got into huge trouble, communist china because it had a leader for life. and so he instituted this idea of constant rotations. well, xi jinping is now trying to reverse that and become emperor for life in effect himself. if i were the chinese i'd worry about that they could have a putin problem very soon. how much information does he get? are people just telling him everything he wants to know?

second xi has to look at the fact the united states globealized of the equivalent of a nu an economic nuclear bomb on russia secondly what xi i think did not understand at all is my princess diana -- princess diana once complained there are three people in her marriage guess what, mr. xi there's three people in your marriage what we saw in russia now was first these government sanctions and then just a whole bunch of companies, individuals, amplifying those sanctions on their own, which you can do in a flat world a lot more people can play now and i think what xi also should pay attention to is that news that the predictions that the west was dead may be premature

the west is railing here in defense of democracy, freedom and to support freedom loving nations, and if i were xi, i'd be studying this situation very, very closely it's not a slam dunk for china >> tom, i always thought the soviet union collapsed under its own weight because in this day and age there's no such thing as what they were selling and doing, and i don't know see how in this day and age you can possibly think you're going to reconstitute it, because you're going to have zero friends forever. and i don't know if china stays a friend i wonder that wasn't the case in world war ii my father was at the battle. so i thought things different. i thought nuclear arsenals make everything possible to calculate at that point because that wasn't hanging over our head back during world war ii and it is now and he has that capability even with the world totally against

him. i don't know, it's worrisome >> it's really what i wrote today. my mom was in the navy in world war ii, and the nuclear weapon was actually innovation that came out of world war ii that proved to be instigs so i'm very afraid that a cornered, humiliated putin isolated within his own team and the country, he could do anything and i'm just not taking anything off the table. >> tom, as always we appreciate your time and your thoughts this morning. and we'll continue to watch this closely and be in touch with you. >> take care thanks, becky. it is just after 8:00 a.m. in times square, and you are watching "squawk box" live from the nasdaq market site i'm becky quick along with joe kernen andrew is off today. futures have been sharply higher this morning dow futures now up by 570

points, so those gains continue to climb s&p futures up by about # 0. nasdaq indicated up by almost 320 points, and keeping a close eye on oil once again this morning. today we've seen some red arrows for the first time in quite a while. crude is still trading at 19180 an ounce dom, these gains are picking up as we continue through the morning. >> certain parts of the market are catching even more of a bid. we'll start with an earnings mover in thor industries this is a big rv maker behind big brands a lot of that reactional use was highlighted during the pandemic but been a bit lower here over the course of a near medium term

here but it's up 7.5% right now in the premarket trade. thor industries comes out with better than expected profit and revenues it was also cutting back on some of the tis count it did this past quarter so there's a bit of optimism there. still, though, on a year to year basis it's lost about 12% of its values, and by the way from the highs from the last year down about 45%. so something to keep in mind in regard to the context with thor industries in the 7.5% gains so far. also we talked about those lower oil prices today that might be part of the thesis why so many travel and leisure stocks are doing well today specific lael airlines and cruise line operators. united airlines up about 5% in the premarket trade. nor weaken cruise lines up about 5% and some of the economic concerns perhaps easing just a hair given what's happening with ukraine and russia so if that travel and leisure

trade holds up there, that's going to be one to watch in the regular session. and then as we do often here in this third hour of squawk a check on our most popular tickers from yesterday's full session. and i want to point this out because, joe, becky, this is interesting. this is the first time i can remember the number one most searched ticker on our web sooitd for an entire full day was actually wti crude among the single stock tickers apple, tesla and stitch fix in the mix there. stitch fix with that earnings report gold prices, by the way, in the top ten, becky and joe, as well. i'll send things back over to you. >> thanks, dom house speaker nancy pelosi and senate majority leader chuck schumer announcing a government funding deal earlier this hour we can now put some final

numbers in all of that increased spending and they are pretty significant. there'll be $13.6 billion in aid too ukraine covering humanitarian and economic relief there's 15.6 billion for covid and that emergency spending comes on top of the $1.5 trillion to fund the government for the fiscal year nondefense spending will go up by 6.7%, the biggest boost in four years according to democrats, defense spending will go up 5.6% including money for border security. now, the text of this bill is nearly 3,000 pages and it dropped in the middle of the night, but the house is still planning to vote on it today then it needs to go to the senate, and the government runs out of money on friday so lawmakers are also passing a bill to move that deadline to march 15th one final wrinkle, guys, the bill to ban russian oil that was supposed to pass in the house

yesterday, that's now happening today after republicans and even some democrats were upset that the president moved on his own and ended up side lining what had been a bipartisan effort to impose an even tougher sanctions package. guys, back to you. >> thanks. coming up, we have house minority leader kevin mccarthy giving us the latest out of washington on the russian invasion and the response to the president's moves. plus the nasdaq sitting more than 20% now from its highs. we're going to talk to tech investor dan niles on where he sees opportunity in the tech sector futures right now are solid. stay tuned "squawk box" will be right back.

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mccarthy kind of interesting and a lot of people on your side of the aisle later just didn't hear what they wanted to hear from the president in terms of domestic production instead of talking to venezuela or iran or other non-domestic producers, talk to the oil industry, oil and gasistry here and say, please, do as much as you can but we didn't hear that. than we heard the president ask someone what he can do about higher gas prices and he goes nothing right now. >> exactly, which why would you take billions of dollars from putin and give it to another dictator the president said at the "state of the union" buy america. he's done nothing but first day he's gone into office to try to reduce the production of american energy, and that's why the gas prices have been rising week after week. and now that we find we have this problem, we could be energy independent, but we could be energy dominant where not only

we could supply all the energy for america, but we could supply it for the world that would make america stronger and the world safer. >> we pointed out that irony before that it used to be something that -- that they wear right on they sleeve, the democrats and the left yeah we are doing things to try to keep fossil fuels in the ground, to hasten the transition to renewable energy, and they totally cop to it and admitted it now it's a problem it's like no, no, these are the oil companies that have 9,000 leases the free market has after the pandemic prices were so low they decided it wasn't economically -- they did all this on their own. someone sent me the executive order from january 27, 2021. executive order on tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad if i were -- it's multi-page

said you probably are familiar with it >> oh, yes >> one thing after another would hamper the ability for domestic producers. it's all just -- it's right here in black and white that the primary goal of this government taking a government-wide approach to the climate crisis is front and center, but now it's as if that never happened >> joe, it's in his budget to reduce it goes in all the way to who they appoint to the fed or the sec and all about reducing they go after -- if you watch the hearings that democrats have the majority, they ask those oil company executives would they promise to reduce production in the next year. ro khanna, that was his number one question to all of them to try to intimidate. this isn't just with joe bide. it goes throughout the democrats. take the example of california when given newsom came in executive order after executive

order. he's reduced the production in california by california oil by 20%, but he's increased importing russian crude to about 50,000 barrels a day why wouldn't you want more american jobs? and if you care about the environment american natural gas is 41% cleaner than russian natural gas. so why wouldn't we want to supply that to america and to europe why would we want to continue to fund putin when this president knew ahead of time he had the intel putin wanted to invade ukraine? to the ukrainian people they have never asked for american troops to be on the ground all they've asked is supply us the weapons so we can fight and defend ourselves instead of fighting with sticks versus tanks. >> we always point out when we talk about who supplied ukraine,

nobody's really supplied them to the extent they should have been i'm not sure he voted to supply him during the trump administration people immediately pointed out that the last president, he got impeached for trying to with hold $400 million worth of weapons to ukraine so they think it's totally disingenuous go ahead >> joe, a number of years ago i took a group of members, republicans and democrats in one of the countries into ukraine. we came back and went to the situation room and at that time the vice president was joe biden. we sat and had a bipartisan meeting joe biden asking that they would supply the ukrainians with javelins so they can defend themselves against the russian tanks coming in. that administration said no, and then he got when he became president, he had the intel to know that putin was going to invade what did he do he supplied them with a pipeline he showed the weakness of coming

out of afghanistan and then on november 10th he signed a strategic partnership with ukraine that welcomed them, that would encourage them to go into nato. so he -- he had a window now -- putin understanding that this was the time to inkrad and what did he do with the information? he gave it to china to provide to russia instead of providing them the weapons they need to defend themselves. now we're in a situation that could be like 1939 >> leader mccarthy, i'm a little more interested in what we do from here than what happened before at this point joe biden has managed to bring together a pretty strong coalition between the european union, the united states what we've put forth at this point has been pretty crippling economically, but what do we do now? what happens what can we say as a country is there a bipartisan front

where there is agreement what needs to come next >> becky, with all due respect it wasn't joe biden who brought people together. it was putin invading ukraine. what we do now is you don't say no to the migs if you can't have a no-fly zone why don't you allow the ukrainians to develop their own no-fly zone, where they can have a cease-fire with russia -- yeah, if poland is going to supply the migs, provide them to ukraine, those are the jets they fly, those are the ones they are trained on >> doesn't that bring nato into it >> well, supplying javelins today, does that bring -- >> no, the polish -- >> poland says they'll only do it if we replace them with very strong jets right now. so by extension the united states would be involved with that right now >> if you ask the question what the president should do, he should sell weapons not just to

poland but to taiwan, too. he should speed it up. because you know what happens in that situation, we won't have another ukraine. it deters those like china and russia from entering other countries when they can defend themselves and with all due respect why would biden if he had this intel, if these sanctions were so dangerous, wii wouldn't he have invoked them prior to entering because what putin understood was nothing deterred elhim from going in his plan was wrong he thought kyiv would fall in three days he does not understand. >> we're not sure if he's a rational or logical person at this point >> if he's not -- if he's not rational or logical today he's not to tomorrow either so i don't think it's fair to sit and watch innocent people murdered when they want to defend themselves. i think we should allow them to defend themselves. i don't believe that gets us into other situation i believe it would also save thousands of people who want to

escape but would also deter putin from trying to go further. >> what did you -- you sent a letter to gavin newsom >> yes, i sent to gavin newsom simply -- >> what do you want him to do? >> i want him to lift his executive orders against oil and gas from the permitting, from the hidroacting, because this would allow us in california to replace the 50,000 barrels we get every day from russia with californian. wouldn't it be nice if you had companies like chevron and others that cared about an environment instead of buying it from putin and i don't think we should replace it with iranian or v venezuelan oil and paying other dictators. let's create california jobs let's help america become energy dependent. let's do it in an a more environmentally sound way. let's make america stronger and the world safer. >> do you think anything's going to change in terms of wrash for example, sarah bloom raskin,

will she eventually be seated on the fed? >> i think that would be -- i think that would be a fatal mistake for america. should we not learn from our past i would like to make sure we don't repeat the mistakes. and if we warned in advance think about what europe wants to do now they would like to reverse what they had done for the last couple of years where they are now taking natural gas from russia instead of providing it themselves they put themselves in this situation that they're nervous about going to the future, but they were warned they didn't fund their military, what they were warned about. and now they're in a weaker position, and weakness puts you in this when you could be stronger why don't we make our own strength and think of this one question if now the sanctions go in to stop nord stream 2 pipeline because somehow that will weaken the economy of russia, what about the xl pipe hine wouldn't that make america

stronger instead of saying no to that >> it's hard to get permits for any pipeline >> it's not just the permits for the pipelines. there are six permits sitting at the secretary of energy's office and it has for a long time to allow the natural gas from america, lng, to we exported to other countries. they've been holding this by administration for no other reasons. these are the games they have played that put the world in a weaker position and america in a weaker position. >> so what's your forecast on -- on november? >> onnovember i think there's going to be a rude awakening >> 32 retired, 33, something like that? >> 31 have retired, the highest since 1992 if republicans are able to win 19 seats i want to make sure we win so we stop this inflation, we bring safety and security and stop

this crime we secure our borders, and more importantly we become energy independent. >> all right, kevin mccarthy, minority leader at this point. so you're thinking speaker you think you're going to be speaker? >> i think the most important thing is that we change the course of history, and nancy pelosi has to give up that gap >> all right leader mccarthy, thank you good to have you on. let's take a quick look what's been happening in the treasury market this year. the two year is now trading at the highest since we've seen in november of 2019 right now two years yielding 1.647% we'll continue to watch this ozif you're looking at the two year-ten year spread that's always a point of interest, too. if you're looking at this spread right now, it's sitting up about 5.8% ten year has been quite a bit higher today with its yield, especially from where we were earlier this week. when we come back, top tech investor dan niles will join us

on how he thinks the sector is going to weather the latest round of market volatility as we head to a break, let's get a few of this morning's top business headlines pfizer says it has started testing its covid anti-viral pill in children that trial will include children as young as the age of 6, and pfizer hopes to see results by the end of the year. and the house judiciary committee is asking the justice department to look into amazon for potential criminal obstruction of congress. that's according to "the wall street journal." a letter from committee members seen by the paper accuses amazon of failing to provide information related to investigation of the company's competitive practices. stay tuned you're watching quk x, d this is cnbc (vo) verizon is going ultra! and so is manny! event planning with our best business unlimited plan ever! with 5g ultra wideband now in many more cities and up to 10 times the speed at no extra cost, the downloads are flying fast! verizon is going ultra, so your business can too.

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. the futures this morning have been sharply higher throughout the morning. in fact, we've picked from the gains we had about 2 1/2 hours ago. the s&p futures are up by 78 points and the nasdaq up by 315 points these are pretty significant the nasdaq is the biggest in

percentage terms crypto continue has been sharply higher, too. up 9% right now, $42,000 and change up across the boardon that government paper that was posted and then removed in the meantime elon musk wants his full voice back. the tesla ceo asked a federal judge to put an end to a 2018 agreement with the sec in which some of his lawyers have to vet some of his tweets before sending them out this all follows a new sec probe into the trading of tesla shares by musk and his brother. those shares this morning up by about 3% >> musk and the sec, this is -- >> around and around and around. the sec was the -- >> i think you can't say it, can you? >> there's one dirty word but i

forget which word it is. >> yeah, words we never say either on-air or off them. coming up what tech investors should be watching as the markets swing wildly on geopolitical concerns. dan niles will join us, and make sure to check out our podcast. today's episode has bonus material about the closing of mcdonald's in russia and the experiences of cnbc's own steve liesman. steve liesman in moskow. i don't think we'll get too personal hopefully on his experiences over there he's single. and diana oleck in moskow when fast food was new. you can find squawk pod wherever you listen to podcasts we'll be right back. sion 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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welcome back to "squawk box. the futures right now, wow, 600 down those are the highest levels of the day for the dow. nasdaq indicated up a strong 331 points, and the s&p rebounding from some recent weakness at put it well into correction territory, up about 83, 82 points this morning. some of the biggest names in technology are down at least 40% so far this year prompting the question is now the time to get in paypal, netflix, meta and zoom are just some of the industry giants feeling the pain. joining us right now is dan

niles. he's the founder and senior portfolio manager at satori fund and what do you think? is this the time is there enough pain to make you think, okay, these levels i would try sph. >> sure. i think it's a combination answer so i think number one our big picture still remains the s&p is down 20% at least this year, and we're not there yet. they haven't started raising rates, started working on their balance sheet, and quite honestly we haven't seen estimates come lower based on what's happened recently with the russia escalation and ukraine. having said that i think if you're willing to trade around names as well as have shorts onto protect yourself to the ultimate down side, i think it's actually a pretty interesting time over the last two weeks on this latest move down the market, we did in fact step into some of those names.

some are down 60% to 80% in the fin tech space, for example, where we bought names like square we're taking a hard look at paypal, for example, in the payments area. don't forget a lot of those names down a lot are down a lot because they're pandemic beneficiaries like paypal or zoom or e-commerce where these snakes are getting crushed because they were up a lot based on the pandemic and people staying at home and zooming and sitting on their peloton bikes and streaming things on netflix. but each one of these is a little different and so i think you have to go through them one by one. but, yes, i do think you should start looking at the better names in the group hat are gaining share, growing quickly like in payments, for example, or online lending and start picking away at that we've also bought some solar related name said over this last week as well in electric vehicle

because we think, you know, europe said they're going to try to get away from dependence on energy it's going to be a lot of investment in that space so we've started rightly or wrongly picking away at it, but you need shorts to protect yourself as you go and market rips higher. >> how do you short it that's a complicated strategy and a little much for some retail investors >> well, exactly and i think it really comes down to what you're comfortable doing. so for us, you know, we tweet about this a lot and we put in before, the notes we sent you last night we said on there very clearly we think the next 3 to 5% move is higher or at least now in the futures it looks like we're going to get a bit of a surge, but that's because you're sitting at oversold levels nickel was up over 60% in the day. the prior highest move was 20% >> i'm glad you brought that up, though, dan, because i was just thinking about nickel, too

before a retail investor gets into a position where they're saying we're going to go long but we'll protect ourselves by hedging with these shorts, remember what can happen to shorts there's no limit to the amount of money you can lose in a situation like that, and with this volatility and seeing moves like nickel which moved 250% in two days, you can lose everything i would just think with this volatility, you have to be very careful before you start shorting anything. >> absolutely, becky if you don't have to time to manage this or stomach to deal with this on a day-to-day basis, we talked about this before it's my favorite position for the retail investor. >> what's your percentage in cash right now >> we have well over 25% sitting in cash. and so the well we do it is we add shorts when the market gets to levels we think are too high. then we tweet about this before we've got about 17 different

metrics we look at when the market is getting oversold, so we cover those shorts which raises the cash level, and then we have sort of a core group of longs that we're always using around depending on what's happening. obviously, you know, russia changes a lot of things, and that's how we manage it. if you don't want to deal with all that, our view is down 20% at least in the s&p, just stay in cash. wait for the fed to raise rates. we think it's going to take over a year to play out if you're more nimble then you can start looking at some of these name down 60% to 80%, wait for the market to go up a lot. if you're going to short to your point, becky -- >> don't short it makes me so nervous to hear this, dan, because when you short you can lose your short. "the wall street journal" has this company that faces billions of dollars of trading in losses after nickel the other day these are not people that don't

know what they're doing. these are pros supposedly who could lose things like this. i feel if you're a retail i investor and you're a long-term investor maybe it is an okay time to step into these things without trying to do fancy strategies like hedging and using shorts >> yeah, i think if you're shorting what i tell people you should be focused on things like a russell or the s&p or the nasdaq it's not going to be up 66% in a day like nickel. if you're going up in single stock positions like in oil or nickel or even single stock names, yeah you can get absolutely destroyed like people did in being short game stop or amc. the average retail investor don't be in the market, sit on cash, wait for this to play through because don't forget we're sitting at unemployment

below 4% the fed is still expanding their balance sheet. they haven't actually started letting that runoff yet, shrinking it, selling securities, raising rates. you've got valuations sitting near record highs. i think if you think this is over right now and this is the bottom, you know, i find that very hard to believe do i think it is a short-term bottom as i wrote about last night? yeah, i do but i think it's up 3% to 5%, then you're going to get crushed again. it was 27% over 21 months, there were about seven declines for 11% during that period of time, but there were six rallies of 8%, each one where people thought it was the bottom on the way of losing 27% of your money. so that's the long-term.

it's going to take a year to two years for this to finally find an ultimate bottom >> dan, 25% in cash, that's very unusual for you, right what would your normal cash allocation be? >> normally we're sitting at about 120% growth. so we're borrowing 20% roughly and having a mixture of longs and shorts to get us to that gross. yeah, so we're very negative from a longer term basis and i think that's where you need to be when you go back to december 28th when we were on cnbc and we said the reason we're picking as an investment we're worried about russia going into ukraine and china with taiwan. we haven't seen china with taiwan yet and so there's a lot of geopolitical risks out there. valuations are high and starting to cut numbers because of inflation. there's a lot to come here >> the only thing i would say is

you point out inflation at 40-year highs. that's also a situation that makes it a little dangerous to sit with too much cash on hand especially if you're a retail investor not watching every tick of the tape because the money you have in cash is worth 7% less annually as you watch that inflation tick up 8%, whatever it may be. so if you're truly a long-term investor, if you're somebody who's not watching every tick, if you've got some additional cash it might be worth putting it in at lower levels even if it's not the bottom. >> i know what you're saying, becky. 99% of the time having cash in a high inflation environment is tough. back to our earlier discussion around shorts, et cetera, if you really think which i do that the market could go down 20% to 50 wers and valuations go below average levels, which is where they typically are when they have inflation, you're better off losing 7% than losing 20% to

50% if you're in the market. and so from my perspective this sort of goes back to what's your ability to manage your money daily. i think it's actually a lot safer than going into some of these name if you go back to 2000, for example, right, amazon's growth was like 230% or so at the beginning of 1999. by 2001 when you'd entered a recession the growth rate i think by september 2001 was zero, 0% growth. and the stock went from 106 to 6. they were one of the ones that survived so i think, you know, you need to be very careful thinking this is the bottom because you haven't had the estimates cut yet on a lot of these companies as the economy is slowing down and i do think there's a very high probability of a recession

starting next year you need to think through that, i think, if you're a retail investor >> dan, thank you. >> thank you all right, coming up, the west doing its best to isolate russia economically, but the country may still have some financial lifelines. we're going to tell you what they are next. and a reminder you can join us tomorrow for cnbc's equity and opportunity forum where you'll learn from leaders who are paving the way to create meaningful change not only for their workplace but for society as a whole for more information and to register scan the code on your screen stay tuned "squawk box" will be right back.

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the u.s., europe and japan enacting some of the most severe sanctions against russia that have ever been placed on a country, but there's a big hole, china. steve liesman is here with more on the possible china exception. hi, steve. >> hey, good morning, joe. yeah, china, if it wants can throw russia a major financial lifeline, support the ruble, buy russian commodities or buy technology and other critical imports. in early february presidents xi and putin declared their friendship had no limits, well,

it looks like there may be some limits so far as it doesn't look like beiji beijing hasn't thrown moskow that lifeline. julia friedlander says china doesn't like to implement this but they do implement sanctions because they rely on access to the dollar and access to the western markets. commerce secretary regina romano telling "the new york times" yesterday the u.s. would take, quote, devastating actions against chinese companies. she said the u.s. would essentially shutoff access to china of u.s. technology they look at the ruble versus various currencies they don't see china stepping in to help the russian central bank here. remember the russian central bank had funds frozen and still off 36% against the dollar and a

big number against the yuan still. china may be concerned of drawing not just u.s. anger but beijing also china may do deals on a government to government level, but those take time and china is going to demand a pretty steep discount china rather than behaving as the exception so far is following the sanctions rule joe, notice when we talk about china helping, hthey're just not hurting. >> 22 tons of geld, is there any sign from china helping russia monetize those reserves? >> i must have talked to a dozen bankers and they can't figure out a way china can monetize that gold in size in a way that wouldn't violate sanctions i talked to one guy interested in iranian sanctions and all

kind of stuff over time. he said these countries go into their crises with big troves of gold, and it doesn't really help them you've got to monetize it. you've got to turn them into dollars, but that's nut easy right now, and it's going to be really hard to do something meaningful under the radar of the global financial system. >> we promised viewers we were going to hear about some of your experiences in moskow. >> that's on the podcast >> were you single what are we talking about here >> no, i was married then, joe >> we were talking mcdonald's. and steve, i was telling joe a story you told me a long time ago when you were there the difference in the russian versus american mentality when we go to the grocery store we look for the best produce you said the russians would go they'd take one good one and maybe two bad ones to make sure they share the collective of taking some good, some bad >> yes, exactly. you know the old story, joe,

this is the soviet times that if an american has a cow and his neighbor has two cows, the american works hard to get the second cow if the american has a cow and the soviet -- the soviet has a cow and the soviet neighbor has two cows, the soviet would bono said something like that in ireland. >> i have a lot of jokes like that. >> i want to get that guy. >> yeah. thanks, steve. steve -- >> listen to the podcast, it's pretty cool. the commerce secretary catch her this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. eastern on "closing bell" "squawkbox" will be right back

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futures up 533 on the dow. joining us now is jason trennert previous yogi owe political events may have encompassed so much, i think, jason it does -- is it different than the first gulf war or second gulf war i don't know don't you need to have an idea of what you are -- of what to expect to make financial decisions right now? it affects all it would inflation and the fed overall it could just be a horrific, you know, war that could last theoretically months or years, i guess. >> yeah, joe i think this is pretty

different. this is pretty out there it's largely because tom freedman and others told us that the countries that have mcdonalds don't go war to one another. i think a lot of this, frankly, this nonsense is being -- the lie is being put to this view of the world. i think globalization, i adopt want to say it's over but it's changed. at least for my lifetime i think globalization was a major impetus for lower inflation, disinflation. i'm not quite sure we'll go back to where we were before. i think that's very different. i think, of course, we don't know they said there's two types of economists those that don't know and those that don't know they don't know. i know i don't know. thing is pretty different. it's efficiently different so that investors need to hold for cash, they need to think more carefully about their

investments, about what they're actually getting for what they're paying i think all of those things are going to be with us for quite some time. >> if you've got heirs like jeremy grantham saying it's the super bubble of all bubbles, you know, with credit being a global phenomena, too much of it. and he was saying that before this throw in a war that is a super bubble and it could be, in his view and then conjures up some scary scenarios. >> right i have to say, i'm not quite as concerned about the super bubble i would leave it at this i think earnings multiples are probably going to go down another multiple point or two from here. i think we're likely going

lower. >> we have to worry about the heat, too. >> yeah. you say globalization is over and inflation is way above what we thought it would be and fed is in the process of tightening. all those things that might not be multiple it might be slowing growth and stagflation. >> it's possible and i will say, though, joe, there is the money illusion and inflation, ironically, will probably lift earnings i know there's other things that will land to demand destruction, but there's also inflation itself, as it was in the '70s that actually tends to support earnings but, listen, i don't disagree with anything you said i think the fed, in particular, is going to have to tighten regardless of what is happening in russia and ukraine. i think there's a sense out

there that why should the fed need to tighten? you have all the drags on the economy and the future the fed burned that chance last year they took the chance and tried to look through inflation. they do not have that lucky this year either politically or a sense of practicality cpi is running at 7.2. their preferred measure is running at 5.2 and the fed funds rate is zero and so, you know, you have a long way to go it seems to me before they get back to neutral for the fed. >> all right, jason. we're going to end the show early today. we're leaving early? we got a deal. >> yeah. >> two and a half minutes. that's it for "squawkbox" this morning. make sure to join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" is coming up right now ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪♪ making friends again, billy? i like to keep my enemies close. guys, excuse me. i didn't quite get that. i'm hard of hearing. ♪♪ oh hey, don't forget about the tense music too. would you say tense? i'd say suspenseful. aren't they the same thing? can we move on guys, please? alexa, turn on the subtitles. and dim the lights. ok, dimming the lights. competition beat us again. how? they have a better finance system than we do. i feel like they might have a better finance system than we do. workday. how do they make better decisions faster? workday. it's got to be something

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good wednesday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'll carl quintanilla, mike santolli, and david faber. jim has the morning off. european gas at the lows of the week ahead of tomorrow's first meeting between ukraine and russia's foreign ministers road map begins with renewed hopes for russia/u