president biden is going to speak to china's president xi later this morning about the russian invasion of ukraine. we will get you ready for the call. chaos in the ncaa tournament where to now, saint peter's? maybe to 16? maybe to 8 knocking off 2 seed kentucky the tenth time in history a 15 seed pulled off the upset. and georgia state played gonzaga tough. that's never happened. gonzaga pulled away at the end it is friday, march 18th, 2022 "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on

cnbc live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm joe kernen along with brian sullivan we got you here for march madness. becky is out today andrew is out today. brian, it is good to have you here i don't think you finished your bracket. i almost texted you and said what's the problem i like it when i see your name there. did you finish your bracket? >> there are three entries for me somehow i don't know what happened i did finish my bracket. it is not good the one that is finished is horrible i'm out already. i got every game wrong yesterday. not kidding. i was 27-3 in public bets coming in to yesterday. i got my hat handed to me. a lesson in humility it's great basketball. >> i had iowa going to the final four we'll talk later

let's get this u.s. equity. this is what we do u.s. equity futures that the hour are indicated down 103 points you see80 points off in the morning session or pre-market on the nasdaq s&p indicated down 27. treasuries are above 2 mortgage rates rising. in a period of 2.15% of rising rates. crude on either side of par. we're up $1.31 at $104.29. at least this partly explains why so much productivity is lost i looked at what is trending on twitter. it is all the attornetournament we have other things that are serious that we need to talk about. >> we he c certainly do.

ukraine and the effect on the global markets which are dislocated let's talk about what is lawhats happening in the markets rosanna lockwood is in the london newsroom. rosanna. >> good morning, brian let's give you a look at european markets the stoxx 600 heading toward the highest level since november of 2020 i'm not seeing more evidence of that today in the red cac and dax down .765% ftse in london under the flat line now .75% let's give you a look at the sectors and how it is shaping up basic resources is the out performer today. .6%. it had trouble with the ukraine invasion with the beijing stimulus coming in, that is steadying the market you are seeing oil and gas off .50% let's get to the story

nickel it is fascinating. opening today and down 12% you might remember they introduced the limit on wednesday and thursday and now 12% today. we see the trade each time hit the lower limit. now trading under $37,000 a ton. you might remember this trade contract was suspended for over a week on the london metals exchange after the prices shot through $1,000 a ton based on supply concerns. russia exports 10% of the nickel output it is used in steel and electric vehicle batteries. we have the short squeeze playing out with the massive china trade. the lme came in and intervened and set prices up and down limits every day what we are seeing now is it is hitting the lower limit. some are saying it won't stop until it hits what we see on the shanghai futures exchange at $34,000 a ton at the moment.

the lme is beset by glitches 1 145-year-old change. the last open trading floor in europe you have cme and new york stock exchange it is a lot of glitches. >> one of the last, rosanna, in the world. nickel what a ride. it has to be causing havoc with the ev battery companies tesla raised prices by $2,000. rosanna lockwood, thank you very much to ukraine the u.s. department said there was a 24-hour period with little activity and no observed shells in ukraine good news. this morning, the mayor of lviv said several missiles hit an airplane maintenance plant destroying the building. new explosions in the capital of

kyiv no reports of casualties yet joe. here in the u.s., president biden is expected to turn up the pressure on china over any potential support of russia. the president and chinese president xi jinping are set to speak at 9:00 a.m. eastern secretary of state blinken said the president is stating that china will bear actions it takes to support the russian aggression we will have a live report at 6:30 from beijing. brian. meantime, moderna is seeking fda emergency authorization for a second booster of the covid vaccine for all adults that is a broader request than the one pfizer filed this week for the 65 and older the request covered all adults so the cdc and health care providers can determine appropriate use for the second booster. coming up, index on pace for

a winning week so far as oil as fallen until today. what the nasdaq is seeing with a 6% gain since monday coming up, we talk to the best plays for your portfolio ahead you are watching "squawk" here on cnbc. it is friday we are just getting going. we are back ghafr isrit teth this is the new world of work. each day looks different than the last. but whatever work becomes,

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start to the year since all the way back in 1927 that according to the note from jpmorgan chase actionable advice. karen cavanaugh at the wealth management and nancy ten tenger investments. nancy, you don't know what will happen with ukraine and russia hopefully it ends quickly and soon it may not inflation is not going anywhere. 11 million open jobs in the country. the fed raising rates. wow. what a time to do what you do. how do you see the world right now from investing is it better safe than risk and be sorry or now the time to take more risks >> good to see you, brian. this is the most complex investing environment of my career 13 geopolitical events since pearl harbor

i have invested in seven of them they always feel like this despair. you can't see through to the other side now is the time, i think, to begin to add risk back into the portfolio. on average, of those seven i have been investing in, the market is up 14.2% 12 months later. we are in late mid cycle the pmis are rolling over. i think you want to look for -- you will expect earnings revisions revised negative you want to look at reliable growers not trading at ridiculous multiples the large cap tech names in the software space on a real basis up 12% last quarter. there is a lot of opportunity and many stocks have gotten hammered >> it has been tough karen, in your industry, i would say probably anecdotally, 30% t

40% have not invested in this environment. we have never seen a fed balance sheet like this. the historical models maybe don't go out the window, but pull the shades. what is your best advice for viewers on what to do? >> we definitely are getting hit with the full scale whammy and investors are nervous about that i always tell investors a lot of unknowns stick to what you do know. a lot of companies have good earnings look for the companies that are still earning and look for companies that pay dividends if we are worried about growth and growth in the future and discounting at a higher rate, a lot of companies are paying dividends and raising dividends. that is cash now there is nothing wrong actually, some of the large tech companies are paying dividends you are getting your cake and

you get to eat it, too >> well, we're showing energy names here because they have been hot to start the year the only group, karyn. dividend payers. the dow which is big and bothboring because you get paid rather than making everybody money in the last five years which is high growth tech names? >> you have to have a balance of both that is the beauty of diversi diversi diversification. last year, growth stocks were great. in times like this, with high inflation and growth scare and geopolitical risk, those dividend payers are the ones you want on your team. that's why we always tell investors be diversified >> yeah. nancy, let's talk about the fed. the former ceo of goldman sachs

said yesterday that the fed can get more aggressive. real interest rates still remained negative. we forget that we look at normalizer. normal interest rates, he said then real interest rates, which is interest rates adjusted for inflation. at least on that basis, are stocks still looking like a good bet because literally you are losing money to own many government bonds >> it is still too early, brian, to get in bonds. we argued when the treasury, the ten-year, at 50 basis points, in august of 2020 that is the case we are not ready to dip our toe back in. we have put clients in commodities and convertible. i do think that you have to remember when you and i got in this business, we were told stocks were the best hedge

against inflation. to karyn's point, dividends have been robust based on long-term sustainable. american express dividend increased 20 faang, 20. home depot, 20%. that tells you they are optimistic about the future. to answer your question, brian, your kelly evans wrote a good piece on the three month versus ten year with the fed in the mix, the ten year would be 3.5% to your point, interest rates are negative for a long time fed is behind the curve. we know that and it will take them years to catch up inflation is with us for quite some time. that's good for stocks. >> karyn, last word to you fed behind the curve or do they

screw it up? do they end up sending us into a recession in mid 2023? >> the fed right now is optimistic i'll be optimistic he will be able to thread the needle. it will not be easy to do this slow down growth without recession. let's hope jay powell can thread the needle to have a soft landing. >> karyn and nancy, thank you for your views have a great weekend take care. >> you, too, brian coming up, march madness is here sports grid president lou malone will join us to talk the big business of betting and what he is seeing. and don't miss the inn it interview with fed reserve governor christopher waller.

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a rough start to the ncaa tournament for draft kings the app experienced server issues in the first day of the games. the issue happened after the promotion on the gonzaga game. it was resolved 20 minutes after the serve r error. i bet on the promotion it went from minus $10,000 you could imagine -- let's talk to lou the update on the tournament kentucky out saint peter's becoming the tenth ever 15 seed to knock off a 2

seed in the ncaa tournament. the dangerous day to be a 5 seed iowa lost to richmond. spiders and uconn lost to new mexico state st. mary's survived against indiana. houston and uab face-off today joining us is the founder of sports grid. draft kings, 20 minutes, is not a big deal lou, if you have a bet on gonzaga at even money, that's what happened. everybody tried to do it and the server couldn't handle it. >> listen, 20 minutes is 20 minutes. again, that shows the power of the people and those promotions. they really work the amount of people that hit that server at the same time is unbelievable it doesn't happen much with draft kings. it shows how many people are betting this year. >> how many are betting this

year we had more states legalize things what is the split between b bookies and legalized betting? >> i think it will be over $3 billion. that is a good number. i'm hoping upward of $3.5 billion. you have about 45 million people playing each tournament. you have half playing the brackets half playing with the book makers 45 million people, not bad i like to see that up to 47 million this year. the handle will be important last night, a monster night for the book makers. they started off well. people chasing, obviously, their busted brackets. dead tickets parlays and teasers. this is one of the biggest we have ever seen not just because of the states coming on, but because of the interest and of the teams.

i'm excited to see how it plays out. >> is it because there -- what happens when teams are more even is there for parity? it is hard every year to pick the eventual winner. even to pick the final four. i could have picked the final 15 >> joe, you understand the industry you understand the teams the parity was never there in the beginning. we have 12 beating 5 we always see that you expected that. at the end of the day, the parity is there because they are older. these kids are older sticking with the clubs and universities you are seeing a lot of seniors and juniors. except for clubs like michigan a team like michigan, again, they're looking pretty good here. >> lou, the problem for the individual companies that we're talking about is the promotion

you mentioned. the gonzaga promotion. i thought georgia state hung tough. do they know something that is a give away. go up to $50 it was a $50 give away that immediately goes into margins for draft kings. profit margins are difficult these companies are having trouble making money to acquire people or make sure there is no churn when somebody else offers promotion. there are places to go plenty of books. how does it play out too many right now >> you see, the promotions are there for many reasons acquisition costs are through the roof everybody is going for market share right now because it is the early stages you understand they are growth. they will lose money draft kings and you see what they are doing a very smart move. you know, jason has been incredible at leading. at the end of the day, it is

about bringing everybody into the tent you look at fanatics they are getting into the industry why? they have an 88 to 100 million data base to push people around and push through the funnel. tickets or hats or memorabilia those are the companies that are going to be new companies. especially if fanatics goes public fan duel and pushing with the media company. next is they go public you will watch and see the growth story unfold here just think about the nft and cryptocurrency market. seeing people bet peer-to-peer i think jason robbins and draft kings has an incredible team they will win in the end you know, right now, it is like getting the acquisition costs down sports grid is a great place to

do it. our numbers, joe, are through the roof 52 million viewers on sports grid we have the uptick we have higher highs and lower lows we are seeing 18 to 34 come in at the peak moments. super bowl, march madness. those numbers tell me this industry is still in the third or fourth inning >> lou, it is brian sullivan this may be in left field. we're financial news we had nancy and karyn on. if you want to recommend a stock on cnbc, you have to have a couple of licenses and give disc disclosures. i could not go on right now. i have my opinions and say buy this stock i can't do it. i'll leave that to cramer. i can go on twitter and say i like the bengals plus 4.5. paid off very nicely, by the

way. do you find it weird that anybody in america can go on a radio show and say put real money down on the game with a binary outcome you cannot go on financial news and talk about buying a stock that will not go to zero does the equity market need to become more like the sports gaming market? money is money whether it is betting on the zips of akron or on ball corporation. >> i know. that is a great point. the equity markets are going to have to change with the times. i think the way we report on news in the financial markets will change with the times i think, again, crypto and block chain will change the way we see buying tickets i look at folks like dave p portnoy with a huge following. he says i'm not a stock jockey don't follow me. it does bother me that folks

with big followings can go out and give the type of advice. listen, we all went to school. we all have been in the business i worked at deutsche bank and creditsuisse that's where i come from saw it on the internet with the boom 95% of the internet companies went bust. you will have consolidation in the gambling markets and 98% of the nfts crash and some companies will evolve. there has to be movement on the financial industry like i would love to give out stocks. you have to be careful until they change that, we have to just grin and bare it for now. i hear your point. >> lou, every media company in the world -- the rights to broadcast this stuff is going up

because of the gambling. i'm watching more sports than i ever imagined. teams i never heard of i wonder what the teams are worth. guys like wes edin all of the prices look ridiculous given how pop ular this content is. fanatics >> $37 billion $37 billion. i watched ruben. >> sunday night football you name it. it is all doubling lou, michael ruben visionary. thank you. we will talk later brian, as long as one team, one day you watch and every three-pointer goes in. do you ever wonder it is weird.

from night to night. how does that happen that is the beauty of sport. >> i'm hoping it happens at 4:30 today when the hokies when the second best three pointer team drains threes on the texas longhorns. >> i have texas. >> i'm not advising betting on the hokies bet with your heart. >> you just did. >> i want them to win. i'm not putting money on the game i'll lose either way joe, thanks. coming up, president biden and chinese president xi jinping are set to speak later on this morning. we will have an update live from beijing on how that conversation may go. senator elizabeth warren calling for more regulation this on cryptocurrency what it might mean for you and as we head to break, the look at the s&p winners and losers in the fifth worst start to the year for index since

1927 ouch we're back after this. each day looks different than the last. but whatever work becomes, the world works with servicenow.

good morning welcome back to "squawk box.

here now down 200 points on the dow. nasdaq down just under 100 s&p indicated down roughly 30 points brian. meantime, joe, president biden and chinese president xi jinping are set to speak at 9:00 a.m. eastern time today. let's point out how the conversation is going to go. eunice yoon is live in beijing eunice, what is expected outside russia and ukraine anything else on the agenda? >> reporter: u.s. officials say the two sides will discuss the competition between the two countries. the expectation is that the main focus is going to be on ukraine and china's relationship with russia u.s. officials said president biden is preparing a strong

message for president xi that support for russia that goes beyond words comes with its consequences state media, though, are starting to indicate that china has a stern message of its own the state media have been quoting an unnamed chinese official president xi's message to president biden is china will never accept u.s. coercion it will retaliate against any u.s. action, including on companies that china will demand the u.s. recognize the u.s.'s role in the initiator in the ukraine crisis and he will press president biden to honor his word the u.s. does not support the independence of taiwan island that beijing claims as its own. the foreign ministry again today

continuing to insist that china is a neutral, objective and fair party. this comes, though, as one of its own diplomats met with the russian ambassador here to discuss cooperating on what they described as anti-terrorist tactics. also comes as state media is amplifying the state talking points including the bio-labs they say is u.s. is managing in ukraine joe, i thought of you when i read this in state media one of the bio-labs, supposedly, includes research on bat coronavirus. obviously, the u.s. has already been denying this saying that these bio-labs or these allegations of bio-labs is meant as a way to justify -- for russia to justify, perhaps later

action on ukraine. we are seeing this alliance even between russia and china even if they are not saying they have alliance. >> i would like to say, well, the united states would never deny something if it wasn't true then i look at some of the history of fauci and gain of function research and the way that initially might have been coming out and it didn't come out. some sicientists flipped and we're still in the middle of that i like to say i believe us i have no problems i don't think the track record given the last incident is that -- i don't know i wish i wouldn't say that, eunice it's not that clear cut. >> reporter: i think that china likes to play into that. that's one of the criticisms of china. it likes to play into information that would be

beneficial for itself. you know, there is so much going on right now between the two i think the main point is that this conversation between president biden and president xi is going to be a tough one >> we're going to find out get headlines from the meeting around ukraine and russia and maybe are they still buying oil from russia? a lot to do. eunice yoon, thank you very much for more on president biden's meeting or call with chinese president xi and see what is at stake welcome in dewardric mcneal. if you were advising president biden ahead of the call, what is your one or two key pieces of advice or counsel to the president ahead of it? >> good question, brian.

good morning to focus on sharpening the choices for china, it is absolutely important that china comes away from the meeting with a clear and sincere understanding of the costs of associated rounds with the deci decisions. whether or not it has aid to russia and the sanctions what is the cost if they decide to resupply the russian military machine and executing the war in ukraine. cutting through the rhetoric and making sure the choices are sharpened so xi goes away and understands there are serious repercussions. >> what leverage, dewardric, do we have for china? they have their own economy. they buy some stuff from us. mostly scrap metal and things like that. they have their own intranet at this point

what real leverage do we have? >> well, at the moment, we have a fairly large coalition of people who and countries backing ukraine and backing the u.s. leadership of the effort with respect to the economy, brian, you raise an interesting point. i suspect china will be making clear if the u.s. decides to go too far with secondary sanctions, they will experience what i call mutual economic construction they can hurt u.s. companies and investors and consumers. this will be a chance to really sharpen the focus on the cost. there will be costs to both sides. ultimately this will come down to a test of wills who is serious about really doing the things they discussed in the meeting what side will be better prepared over the long term to sustain what it is they say they

will do. as eunice said, this will not be easy and this will not be pretty this is necessary diplomacy, brian. i'm glad this meeting is taking place. we don't want to stumble into a situation. we want clear heads understanding the cost >> the key thing, dewardric, they are talking as long as you are talking, to your point, the first step the issue of taiwan is one we know is extremely sensitive. you can't call it taiwan, obviously, to them it is part of their country. operating semi independently at this point the world, most of it, has a different view do you broach the subject of taiwan or stick to russia or will they keep buying russia oil? they will, et cetera do you avoid the issue of taiwan

all together >> listen, i think the people sitting around the table with the president and the president knows they won't have to bring it up. china will it is not going to be a situation where the chinese will not find an opportunity to talk about what they hate about our engagement with taiwan it will come up. i don't believe the biden administration will bring it up. they are clear that the chinese will on this issue again, taiwan is for at least china and the u.s., a concern. i don't think it is the immediate concern. it is always on the agenda when the u.s. and china meet. >> so when the phones hang up or zoom or webex, whatever it is. how do you find a win or positive outcome on the call mean to you? >> that is a good question there will not be conclusive answers after the meeting. what we hope happens is both

sides are clear and sober minded about the cost there will be cost to everyone not just the u.s. and china, but countries all around the world corporations all around the world. we hope that when this call ends, both sides understand that there are going to be significant costs if these two countries can't figure out how to move forward in a way that at least contains some of the rivalry competition. we hope help in the near-term solves the crisis in ukraine that's the hope. >> yeah. china pays a key role. they have the ear of vladimir putin. dewardric mcneal, thank you very much >> thank you, brian. coming up, alcohol sales set to return to the not so friendly skies. squawk booze news is next. and later, dr. scott gottlieb is talking about the next covid spike from the new

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welcome back to "squawk box. i'm brian sullivan time for the executive edge. disney is still under heat for the response to the florida

don't say gay bill sources tells cnbc that some leaders in the studio are expressing frustration over the handling by the ceo. they are taking issue at the reluctance of taking a stance against the legislation. some employees organized a walk-out joe. squawk booze news. we have a segment called that. american airlines will resume sales of alcohol on short flights next month the target date is april 18th. the day the mask mandate expires. you have probably flown and seen you might get sham champagne ora beer america is the holdout the last carrier to bring back the sale of beer and wine and spirit spirits. it would resume a year ago, but delayed because of the surge of unruly passengers and attacks on

crew members you saw the video. coming up, crypto prices are back above $40,000 for bitcoin good and solid this week as risk on came back good week for stocks we will talk about the potential regulation and the impact of the russian invasion of ukraine on crypto can they get around sanctions on that we'll be right back. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business keeping your business connected. you rve something epic! so we're giving every business, 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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russians know how to do

this we know that the north koreans and others have been able to evade sanctions by using crypto currency, so it's important that we, in effect, patch a hole in the bucket and make sure that there's not leakage through crypto, that we don't have, you know, these oligarchs who just move around a few hundred million dollars and keep it out of the formal banking system >> that was massachusetts senator elizabeth warren earlier this week discussing her concern with crypto currency use in russia and her call for more government regulation. joining us now is the chairman of the digital commerce founder and president. it's good to see you and really i think the two things you hear most about crypto or bitcoin in particular, one you hear the -- i coin a word i guess is a word it's use frd fufarious purposes whether it's money laundering or in this

case used for nefarty and the other the use in climate change and that as well is two tropes you always hear posited by bears. should we be concerned about the use of bitcoin for things we don't want to happen >> like senator warren stated yesterday in the senate banking hearing, that she was surprised by the fact she learned talking to the technologists providing analytic and forensic data to law enforcement. here are the facts there's zero evidence or data suggesting that crypto currency are being widely used to evade sanctions. both the fbi and the white house have issued statements just in the past couple of weeks saying that crypto currencies are a pull tool for sanctions evasion.

from the trashtry department have also said they're not seeing crypto currency use to evade sanctions at a wide scale. i think this is a nonissue, and i don't think some of our members of congress are listening to their own administration and look, joe, the most frustrating thing about this is that the story we should be focused on is how crypto currency has played a key, a very significant role in ukraine being able to defend itself against russia and deploy lifesaving aid on the ground in ukraine. people have donated over $100 million in crypto currency to ukraine. look, the team that launched the official crypto fund of ukraine, they testified in senate banking yesterday, and they stated that it took them ten minutes to setup the infrastructure to create that fund t ten minutes. and the administrative defense was able to purchase and deploy

critical supplies on a 24-hour turn around. this is amazing. this is history being unfolded in front of us on how crypto is changing the way we interact and transact around the world. wave got to be able to distinguish the facts and fears. and these knee jerk reactions to want to regulate crypto currency could have significant unintended consequences that could undermine the national security of our allies >> it's a tool, crypto and depending on the user, the tool, it can go either way there are major selling points to crypto. and some of those major selling points are anonymity and decentralization, and all these things that would be attractive to people that don't want to be detected or want to do things if they can escape scrutiny theoretically. but at the same time you bring up how those -- how those characteristics of crypto can be

very powerful when used for good so it's not the crypto itself is either moral or immoral. it's the way it's being used by the players. i can understand you'd want to not induce people with bad intent to have an easier way of doing it, so are there ways to do it without hurting the other which is so positive >> the law has ways to track and trace virtual currency transactions, and there's no evidence -- >> it's attractive, though if it's not it probably will be. but as i pointed out once to the former treasury secretary, in the 2,000 years of money laundering that we've seen and drug trafficking, 99.9% of that was done with currency, with dollars or other currency. so it gets done either way to just say you can't have

crypto or need to outlaw bitcoin, it's absurd because it could be attractive -- i see the argument but it's a small percentage of it right now how did you like that eo we saw right now, the executive order, did that help? >> it's a long time coming at the chamber of digital commerce we called for a long plan launching in 2019 as you may know we have a very fragmented approach to regulation of virtual currency and digital assets in the united states between the sec and cftc and fenton, irs and treasury congress is weighing in helveally. there's no strategy, and the executive order lays out a path forward for the federal government to be able to coordinate, and hopefully we'll see a lot of that red tape in bureaucracy be cleared out through the process. there's still a lot of work to

do, and further we've taken an enforcement first posture towards this ecosystem so i thought it was a huge validation for the administration to put out this executive order that states that block chain technology is one of the most important technologies of the 21st century, and the u.s. must be a leader of this ecosystem. so we're very supportive of that and really hopes this sets up a process to get regulatory clarity for businesses that are building block chaps in the united states. >> the great unbanked in the world, this offers hope for those people as well or for people working hard and ravaged by inflation in this country -- no, not in this country. it's not so bad yet, but think of other countries, south america or -- >> -- that putin's opposition potentially is or may be relying

on crypto currencies for every day transactions so, again, we need to be very careful about knee jerk reactions based on fear. >> it's still too volatile bears and people that don't like it, they still say it's still too volatile to be used as a currency, and it's more like a nasdaq stock >> yeah, treasury regulates virtual currency by function, and they it either needs to be a medium of exchange, a story of value or a unit of account it doesn't have to meet all three of those prongs. are we using it as a medium of exchange today well, ukraine is, and they're having significant success with that but that volatility will level out as we reach main stream adoption we're only 13 years into this technology ecosystem, so give it some time. it has tremendous promise. don't regulate is out of existence because we're afraid of what we don't understand. you think half a million dollars

for coin novagratz says that. you don't think he's lost his marbles? >> in the long-term, i do. in the long-term these valuation models that galaxy and others use, they don't work in the short-term so we're thinking, five, ten, 20 year time frames >> i don't know about the crypto side of things but i think he may have lost his marbles at some point, but not about the bitcoin forecast mari, anne, thank you. just after 7:00, mike santoli on the east coast. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc i hope i didn't -- i had placed an emergency call to mike santoli this morning and you answered the call. >> it's half true. i did get an emergency -- >> it just wasn't from me. i'm joe kernen along with brian sullivan and mike santoli.

becky and andrew are out today i told you my brackets are busted what can i do? maybe try to make some in game bets once the teams i pick are already down futures right now are down about 230 points it's been a good week for the s&p. these are all the facts you know >> very good week, three days, s&p up 6%. obviously had a big tension release, and what's interesting and obviously we're backing off a little bit today, probably to be expected after that ramp over three days we did get the index right up to the level, if this is a sell the rips market, and everybody seemed to gather around that idea as we kind of started to slide lower in january, this is exactly where you would see people say, okay, i think i can sell something here, i think i can reshort because it's still in a bit of a downturn, but i have to say you shouldn't really dismiss the kind of return where

it's 2% upturn, a little bit follow through or maybe the fed essentially just caught up to where the market was i think that's the other possibility out there. >> mike, being a market historian and around forever and one of the founders of bears, i think. >> in 1921 >> okay, so you're not quite a founder but i think you as a founder. does this serious backdrop of a potential nuclear incident or world war 3, is this just the same to market players for previous things like this that are buying opportunities or is it something different >> i don't think it's outright a buying opportunity to the point you say if that was the only thing going on and you know the history of geopolitical events and the fact that, you know, for half a century we lived under

the shadow of a nuclear threat and the market did well over point to point, i do feel like it's mostly a complication of an already tricky environment but, you know, it's exacerbating all the things we were worried about coming in, supply chain stuff, oil, we know that >> the fed half of people coming in they view the war in ukraine as a prism to analyze what jay powell may or may not do. it's warped but it is what happens. >> what i will say, though, it's one of those things it's absolutely widened out the range of potential outcomes. we came into this year, u.s. economy going 11% nominal that's real plus inflation it's just a lot of activity and a lot of momentum going in, and now we have this interruption in that whole thing oil becoming less a sign of recovery and more a friction

point in the world so in general geopolitical events don't have staying power. 1962, wasn't there, it was a 20% decline. >> you had to point that out and look at me when you said that. yes, i was there >> well, i don't know if you were trading or betting basketball at the time >> yeah, i was a sevante >> these things they rise to some degree. >> okay. good to have you with us and brian, thank you for being there for me >> i'm always there you, joe, you know that whether it's basketball or ukraine, whatever you want to talk about i am here for you. i hope to be in the studio with you, by the way, very soon all right, time now for an update on yukraine. the am u.s. department of defense last night said there

was thankfully a 24 hour period with little activity and no observed shelling in ukraine that's the good news unfortunately, now, this morning the mayor now said lviv had several missiles hit an airplane maintenance building and destroyed it there are new reports of explosions and smoke in northern parts of the capital of kyiv no reports, though, of casualties meantime, the price of nickel falling again, hitting its new trading limit, falling by 12% on the london metal exchange earlier this morning remember trading was suspended march 8th after the price was doubled in a matter of hours it was quickly shutdown after a systems error. and then that limit was expanded 8% down in yesterday's session and 10% today. they raised the limit down and still broken and went limit down again. nickel, quite the wild ride. the key ingredient, by the way,

making steel as well as things like electric car batteries. we've got things from the federal reserve. let's get to steve liesman steve? >> thanks very much, brian jim bullered the st. louis fed president who disented at the meeting out with an explanation of his dissent, and it's pretty interesting. obviously he says he wachbts the 50 basis point hike rather than 25 and he also wanted the fed to begin right then and there balance sheet reduction. most interestingly, bullard saying that the policy rate this year should be above 3% in order to bring inflation under control. he said the economy has proven to be resilient, and the committee has a mandate. the currency rate is far too low, and he points out policy husband unwittingly eased further, and the reason he said that is because as inflation increased the policy rate remains the same the extent to which the real

rate is negative is providing further stimulus to the economy. he says it'll have to move quickly or risk losing credibility. in his dissent he points out the period of '94, '95 when the federal reserve hiked quickly and did get inflation under control. it was a bit of a shock then markets we have more speakers coming up today. bowman, evans, kashkari and barkin we don't have, guys, the fed funds chart right away, but right now the december 23 contract trading at 2.5, which is actually underneath where the median fed forecast is so the market and the fed -- the market actually is more dovish than your median fed official right now. and of course we the fed governor coming up at 8:45 today. brian? >> june, steve, not just a month but a month for a potential rate hike and i'm hearing more rumblings

about 50 basis points or better yet 1.5% is there any indication that the fed could go bigger in june? >> allow me to put a number on your rumbler, okay i am seeing the june contract trade with a 36% chance of a 50 basis point hike it's interesting, a lot of these contracts in the future are indeed trading with a 30 to 40%, or 25 to 40% possibility of a 50 basis point hike it is out there. i don't think it's off the table. it certainly is a possibility. again, i think the key right here is that powell is moving slowly in part for a couple of reasons. the market is giving the fed the tightening it's after. you've seen what's happened to the two-year and the other thing is the

uncertainty of war and then he might speed things up especially after the march cpi, brian maybe after that if he sees it continues into april then he might ratchet up the pace of tightening >> look at you coming at with facts and data as opposed to wild hyperbole opinions. >> rumblings is right. >> you heard my stomach through the mike stone, steve. thanks very much >> so annoying all those facts and data comingp . sc udrott gottlieb on the spike in covid cases and what it could mean for the u.s we're coming right back.

covid cases and hospitalizations ticking higher in europe and the u.k. is this is a harbinger for what the u.s. is in for >> of course it's been a

harbinger in the past. graphs like this one showing upticks in countries like austria, france, the u.k., germany. experts say this is being driven by essentially three potential factors. one is waning immunity the second, of course, is the lifting of precautions like masking and social distancing, and the third is this omicron subvariant known as ba.2 which is 30% more transmissible than omicron. and people are asking are hospitalizations rising and they are in some countries. what does this mean for the united states? will we see a rise in cases and hospitalizations we have all the same factors contributing to what's happening here in the u.s. as well, and one thing that counts dpuagainss is our booster rate is lower

than some of the european countries. but ba.2, that more contagious subvariant has been gaining in prevalence in the u.s., up to about a quarter of cases last week according to the cdc, and that differs regionally. about 40% of cases are caused by ba.2 in the northeast, and this is starting to take over whether this leads to a surge now is the question. you've all heard of wastewater data rising in some parts of the country, the level of virus they're seeing however, there's been some questions how much we should read into that this is a model from columbia university that we could start to see them rise nationally through april. of course, guys, this is a model. there's a lot of uncertainty to it, but unfortunately we could be at the trough of cases at about 30,000 and starting to

rise again what that will lead to, of course, is the big question everyone has got >> joining us now dr. scott gottlieb, also serves on the boards of pfizer and alumina if we were to get another round, if you will, another surge, would it be ba.2 doctor >> yeah, it would be ba.2 at this point probably ba.2 represents about 50% of all cases in many parts of this country right now. the cdc data is lagging. we already have a high prevalence of ba.2 we're starting to see some uptick in cases if you look at the wastewater data as meg alluded to and we'll see that flow through in terms of diagnosed cases and some hospitalizations. we're probably going to go up from here before we contain our declines it's true europe is seeing a wave of infection right now. we're about three weeks behind europe, but we also have the

benefit. could we get to 60,000 cases a day or somewhere around there, it's possible we get back to those levels before we start to decline again. but as we have this bump where it's going to be some kind of mini surge we should start it see cases come down again. it's going to be a lot like last spring where we saw this bump up and we continued declines and had very low levels in june and july >> the most important question of, you know, thank you for all that information, but where i was going to go after that was what do we know about the pathology of ba.2 in vaccinated individuals, in unvaccinated individuals and in individuals that have already had natural immunity or omicron? how dangerous is ba.2? is it getting progressively less pathogenic and if it is, when do we start

moving into that next mind-set you've predicted all along that it's going to be endemic and not much different than seasonal flu or not as bad? and if we are, are we going to make too much of this just because they count as covid cases? if there's no hospitalizations even in unvaccinated people, and if there's no serious disease or in people that have had one or the other, delta or omicron, shouldn't we be playing it up as much as we are >> yeah, i think that's the key point. we probably shouldn't see a big spike in hospitalizations because a lot of people hospitalized during the omicron wave were people unvaccinated, and many people unvaccinated have already had omicron and what we know is the immunity you get, they're similar enough there was a study out of i think it was dubai showed 92%

protection from infection. the data out of the u.k. suggests ba.2 is no more pathogenic than ba.1 it's not making people seriously ill. the vaccine seems equally protective against ba.2 if not a little wit more protective there's no reason to believe the contours should be any different than what we experienced in ba.1, and probably less so because we have so much omicron immunity in the population at least 50 to 60% have had it at this point and many who have had are those unvaccinated so it's going to persist 90 days or upwards of six months that's gog to provide them protection against getting seriously ill with ba.2. >> it's brian sullivan i feel frustrated with the media sometimes because we have a weird fascination with cases even though the most serious

people like you in the business have said very clearly we've got to stop focusing on cases, focus on outcomes, yet we're still focused on outcomes stuff. we look at hospitalizations in the u.k. and people hear the story cases are on the rise in u.k. and sets off kinds of panic. hospitalizations in the u.k. since november 1st have fallen by 74 or beds in hospitals by 74%, indicating the cases that are in the hospital either, "a," may not be that serious. there's hospitalizations, but mechanical ventilation beds have gone opposite. we're learning and we learn the hard way that we failed to differentiate between people who went to the hospital for a broken leg or a car wreck and then tested positive with those who went because they had serious covid-related symptoms do you think once again we are missing that key critical point,

ooh, hospitalizations are up, but we have no idea how many of those people are actually there for covid? and ventilation beds are down 47% indicating if they are perhaps those cases are not as serious. >> look, you're right, we should be focusing on the impact from covid, and we are starting to do that the new cdc database they put out looking at the impact of covid is focusing more on hospitalizations rather than cases. previously cases have been a good predictor, a good proxy for what the impact of the what the disease was going to be. that started to be coupled dramatically during omicron in part because we had a lot of immunity in vaccination and infection, in part omicron was a less virulent strain overall i think you're starting to see public health officials start to transition away from just looking at cases it arguably is a slow

transition, but it's happening in terms of people being hospitalized with covid rather than from covid that was a result of omicron. many people getting hospitalized are getting infected in the hospital or have an incidental omicron infection either in an orthopedic procedure >> the new wave over there being met with a giant yawn they're not taking any -- they're removing all restrictions and lock downs and everything else even though cases are rising they have a lot of people vaccinated more than us, i think. but over here and to brian's point so dr. fauci emerged from i don't know where an undisclosed secret location, but he emerged enough to say we could face more lockdowns, face more covid lockdowns if these cases tick up again. that's ten hours ago that i'm

reading that news article. that doesn't sound like what you're saying. >> yeah, look, i don't believe we will. i don't think we're going to go backwards this spring on masks or mitigation. you're right, it's not going to flow through in a big surge so the impact will be lessened. i don't think this changes the narrative. we've said all along that we thought there was going to be a bump in cases as ba.2 gained prevalence and mitigation was lifted now we're seeing it. if south korea and hong kong are really a tale of two cities and show the impact. over the month of march hong kong experienced 300,000 infections and 3,000 deaths. south korea had 5,000 infections and a comparable number of deaths >> am i getting the fourth pfizer booster or not, doc i don't know >> are you over 65

>> do i look over 65 do i look over 65? i don't think so >> i won't answer that >> thanks. thank you, doctor. and thank you for not answering. we'll see you next time, scott >> thanks a lot. all right, coming up, what will it take to get the u.s. up and running when it comes to energy independence? we're going to speak to the executive director for the center inliquefied natural gas, before we head to break get a check on your markets. what's been a pretty good week for stocks in a big year dow futures off 229. nasdaq futures off higher on a percentage basis, so maybe going up like a lamb in what has been ki ondf a lion week. we'll be back right after this ♪♪ making friends again, billy? i like to keep my enemies close.

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the department of energy is authorizing lng facilities on the gulf coast to ship additional products around the world. our next guest is building in the u.s. as the first center of transition charlie, i imagine you've got some strong opinions on this given what you do for a living, but would an objective person say if not one of main ways to make this transition, one of the main energy renewables -- not a renewable but what are the things we're going to be using to make this transition, it's either the primary one or one of the top ones would be -- is there any denying it's going to be natural gas >> i don't think so. i think this is absolutely one of the critical building blocks we'll see going forward for the foreseeable future

lng is going to play a critical role in that, not only here domestically with the build out of additional exports, but also what we're seeing with the crisis unfolding with russia invading ukraine europe also now looking to make long-term plays for natural gas and mostly coming from lng so i think lng is here for the foreseeable future and wanting to play a critical part. >> would you say that that notion is gotten a lot more interest or -- more people would say that is the case in the last three months, and if that's true, have we dropped the ball and not -- not done enough prior to the war in ukraine not building out this cleaner type of energy? >> well, our facilities, right now we currently have seven operating, six currently exporting and the seventh is starting with cargoes commissioning out of that

facility and we're sending almost all our lng we're currently producing to europe so last month we voted 25 cargoes and of those 35 cargoes 21 to europe and the others because of that price split. there's more we can be doing, right? the department of energy just approved those two facilities. earlier this week there are four more and those would send strong snls to the rest of the world the united states is stepping up commitments the united states has been suggesting we're going to be exporting more lng and there are more projects. >> has it been in the top three energy alternatives for the climate lobby? lng one of the top three >> i think absolutely. i think we have to be in that space. >> has it been with the climate lobby? let me ask you in a different way.

when do you find natural gas are you drilling for hydrocarbons when you're finding natural gas? and we're trying to leave fossil fuels in the ground, you're not going to get natural gas, are you? >> i think that sort of underscores the critical importance we continue to keep producing natural gas, that it's going to be there, and we do have the resources here domestically to keep producing >> i feel like i have to lead you to say some -- i'm not going to lead you into it, but you see where i'm getting or not is it not clear to you, just a nice guy you're a lobbyist or you're trying to tow the fine line we have not been promoting fossil fuel discovery. we've been doing the opposite of promoting that we had an executive order at the beginning of this administration that said climate change is the primary thing we're going to focus on

if we need natural gas to power the grid for all these clean evs, aren't we going to need natural gas and don't we need a complete mind-set change to continue to find and produce hydrocarbons >> without question we're going to need to continue to find and produce hydrocarbons i think the administration is finding that the reality not only here but nationally >> which administration, the biden administration >> absolutely. we're seeing the comments coming out of the administration they're supporting exports >> there you go, a seat change but it's new in the last three months >> yeah, absolutely. absolutely, we're seeing that shift. >> all right, charlie. i want you to -- you're representing lng, get out there. there's no doubt, the wind stops blowing, the sun stops shining people need -- you know, we don't want to freeze

europe is going to freeze because of going down that path too quickly to transition through these virtuous renewables >> well, the reality is exactly that if europe doesn't start to reflengs their storage this summer, the idea that this large amounts of lng we've been sending from the united states isn't guaranteed so we need europeans to also step up on their side of this. >> thank you, charlie. thank you. >> appreciate it >> i'm available if you need to -- i'll go out on some of these calls with you >> we'd love to have you all right, mike, do you think i need like a commentary flasher at the bottom at times >> i think it's implicit still to come nasa administrator bill nelson talks to push to get people back on the moon, plus stocks on pace for a winning week take a look at futures right now. they are backing off from gains

and now giving back about 200 in the premarket, s&p is down 30 and nasdaq off 112 at this hour. stay tuned "squawk box" will be right back.

nasa's massive new moon rocket making its debut. margen brennen joins us now with more on this historic moment and a special guest. >> good morning, mike. more than a decade in the making the world's most powerful rocket, the space launch system has for the first time ever rolled out to its launchpad an 11-hour slow moving journey overnight where the boeing made rocket and the lockheed martin made ryan capsule on top of it will now undergo several weeks test before a maiden launch as soon as may. it's taller than the statue of liberty. sls is a system that under the artemis program will fly americans back to the moon bill nelson live from the kennedy space center administrator nelson, thanks for being with us this morning and i know you're right near this rocket or in your background i should say. major milestone. we're entering a new era, one in which americans are now poised to return to the moon, this time

to stay, to enable more deep space exploration, but in some ways is this also the final chapter of another era, one in which nasa actually owns its own rocket >> well, first of all, morgan, i've got to apologize for the # weather. you can't see the rocket back over my shoulder out there on the launchpad. no, we are going -- getting nasa out of low earth orbit we're going to explore the heavens and this rocket, a government rocket is going back to the moon. we're going to hitch up with the commercial marketplace in this case the first lander, spacex. it will lunar orbit. the crew will transfer from the

orion capsule into the lander, go down to the surface, and this is just the beginning of about one crew a year that will go to the moon and we will build infrastructure on the moon, build a habitat, you'll learn how to exist in a very hostile environment for a long period of time in preparation to go to mars >> yeah, and we have several missions scheduled this first one as soon as may and hopefully if all goes according to plan, the first human boots are american boots back on the lunar surface as soon as 2025. is it really going to cost $4 billion per launch as inspector general of nasa has suggested? >> you get to flooiing one a year, the answer is no, the cost will come down you put into that a lot of other costs to get started, and of

course when you build something this big, this tech logically superior, this defying the laws of gravity going to a hostile environment, there's a lot of research and development that goes into that >> yeah. i need to shift gears here russia very much in focus given the invasion of ukraine. it has really thrown the future of the civil space partnership between the u.s. and russia into question how are you navigating that? and what is the longer term plan moving forward now >> it hasn't thrown it into question at all. the astronauts are getting along as usual today marks a significant event because three cosmonauts will launch from the caosmodrome in

causic stan. and the cooperation in civil space as opposed to military space, that cooperation continues, and we expect it to continue >> so just to put a fine point on that, then, russia is committed to the international space station until 2030, and more near-term because there's been a lot of speculation and i know nasa put out a statement earlier this week, but mark the american who just broke the record for the longest consecutive spaceflight by a u.s. astronaut is actually going to be returning back to earth via russia next week >> he is returning with two russian cosmonauts and the significance of today' launch is that the russians are still committed to the international space station by virtue of the fact they're going to liftoff

>> we just got the 2022 budget finally appropriated we're expecting any day now the 2023 budget proposal as well how quickly can you field commercial space stations, which i know you've begun to fund development of, to eventually replace the iss? >> there are funds in this '23 budget that's coming that starts the process of encouraging the commercial sector to build a replacement space station. we're going to keep the international space station going until 2030, and then it's nasa's intent we're going to turn this over to the commercial sector we will have maybe several commercial space stations at that point but nasa wants to get out of low earth orbit and get on up as we

explore the cosmos >> administrator nelson, thank you so much for joining us this morning. and congratulations on this major milestone for the sls rocket, which has been so many years in the making. >> it's a big deal thank you so much. >> joe >> all right, morgan, thanks coming up despite the futures being lower the s&p 500 is still on track for its best week since 2020 we're going to talk markets and what investors need to watch after the break. a reminder you can always watch us live on the go on the cnbc app. not when you're driving, though. we'll be right back. (vo) for me, one of the best things about life is that we keep moving forward. we discover exciting new technologies. redefine who we are and how we want to lead our lives. basically, choose what we want our future to look like.

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let's talk markets now joining us for that is global chief investment officer for equity at global investors great to speak with you this morning. want to know initially what your read is on market come back. there's been a big risk flow into assets after correction do you think the pull back has run its course or is it just a bounce >> no, i think we're still in for some fair level of volatility, but clearly as markets have adjusted a lot and some of the valuations are becoming more attractive, you have those bounce periods which

you want when you see some pressure coming off the gold environment. and of course we had some talks with ukraine and russia as well as some of the other issues such as more clarification on the fed, you know, tightening, the u.k. tightening. anything that doesn't get worse but clarifies can help the market but that can be very short-term. >> is clarity or greater clarity on what central banks are up to enough do you think the markets can understand what's shaping up as a global tightening cycle? >> if you think of the environment we're in currently there's three really important ones one of course is a geopolitical picture, and we are witnessing a shifting world, and i call it fragmentation in the global

village, and it is going in tandem with this third phase of china's role in the global geopolitical world, and that's very important, right? the second one of course is the economic landscape and the economic landscape we knew we would have a post covid slow down, and we had some post covid inflation, but of course this bout of inflation around commodities is if you want stabilizing the markets in the short-term, and of course the third factor is monetary policy normalization. the concern is the uncertainty around the duration of the commodities market volatility with europe and ukraine and russia prices and how far will rates have to go to rein in that normal inflation if you want and the bond market is clearly telling that to us >> what are the practical

implications as an investor of this and perhaps the related persistence of inflation if that is one of the results? >> well, so inflation let me tackle the second one first. inflation is going to be a very interesting concept to watch because if in fact the ukraine-russian situation could be resolved quite quickly, you still have from an oil standpoint the equation of the green calibration to be resolved and you are seeing in light of the events, recent events, a lot of focus particularly in europe on energy becoming a question of national security, acceleration of -- of a renewable potentially and also if you look at the recent plan put forward by the international energy agency to try to lower consumption of oil over the next four months by

$2.7 million barrels a day there's a lot of initiatives beyond that you still have a world that is technology driven and still deflationary if you want growing in a much more sustainable way, but in a world i call where you have that comp titian and that's going to be very important and you have budgets inflationary in order to be part of that safe cyber world, if you want >> appreciate your thoughts this morning. thank you very much. >> thank you all right, coming up, the problems at the ports persist but appear to be getting a little better. coming up, the head of one of america's biggest ports, executive director of the port of los angeles is here to let you know that the supply chain lows are really getting better and then, federal reserve governor christopher waller will

talk inflation pressure, the economy and everything in between. that's coming up in a big interview at 8:45 a.m. eastern it's 7:53 in the morning here on a friday we're back on squawk right after this 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 ♪ (jazz music) ♪ (thank you, have a nice day.) ♪ (trumpet solo) ♪ (bell dings) (pages slipping) ♪ ♪ ♪ (trumpet solo) ♪ ♪ ♪ (typing) (bell dings) ♪ ♪ (cheering

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on comcast business mobile and for a limited time save up to $750 on a new samsung device with eligible trade-in. an adjusted 459 per share in the latest quarter that mised analyst forecasts by about 5

cents per share. take a look and the stock has actually backed off just a little bit in the after hours. >> that's -- that's mack's fault because mack is upstairs doing something. i think we have a guest upstairs so he would normally cue you >> i'll take it. >> you will? are you going to get fined or something? i think you're fined what, brian? >> well, i talk with my hands, joe, so i don't even need the microphone, you know that. so dialled in to look like the mets schedule just caught off-guard. just watching it it was magic. >> you know they're playing

already exhibition games can retailers absorb another inflationary pressure point? courtney reagan joins us now with more. >> the supply chain issues were so 2021? and guess what they're also so 2022 the russian invasion of ukraine, subsequent higher energy prices and new covid cases in china are further adding more time and costs to the already clogged global supply chain. adidas, children's place, gap and underarmor are among those names that have used more air freight than typical now air cargo is already much more expensive than normal times, and this is far from normal times a booking platform says the same shipment causes $1,000 per air versus $100,000 by sea

right now the cost to ship goods from ags tew the west coast and air freight from ags tew the u.s. east coast is up 241% in a year air cargo rates from shanghai to europe are up 31% just this year from march that's $8.37 per kilogram now than $2.39 per kilogram pre-pandemicch some car krriersr grounded and others are taking longer of 190 consumer companies that reported fourth quarter results, 182 of them called out supply chain issues, and while retailers saw nearly 49% earnings growth for the fourth quarter, earnings growth is expected to drop to 1% in the current quarter, i should say should be a 1% and particularly

at department stores, mall stores, apparel and specialty retail >> courtney reagan, thank you very much. joining us with his perspective on this with everything else going on in the world is one of america's biggest ports and one of the biggest ports in the world. the port of los angeles executive director and we welcome him back in. you heard kaurtny talk about it. you know the backlog of old containers because that fee has not been implemented and so that's working, but still when i look at the maps see a lot of ships either offshore or down in mexico waiting to come up. how much better if at all has the port backlog really gotten over the last couple of weeks and months >> good morning, brian it is great to be back in the studio you're right, the metrics that we look at very closely are improving. the cargo ships that have left asia traversing the pacific but

not yet here into the port complex, that number is down from a peak of 109 vessels to 43 as of last night in more normal times the port of los angeles has about 30 services that call on a weekly basis. if you add the new entrance to the trade and one time charter hires by some of the retailers you're almost in that weekly service slot we've got to focus now as an industry getting those ships back onto a fixed weekly service schedule that deliver certainty into the market. >> yeah, the backlog seems to have gotten better in part because of slow steaming ships are literally slowing down as they come from china, move some there to mexico and i know your crews are going to be working around the clock and now we've got this new pseudolock

downs in china if we get another lockdown in shenzhen and one of these ports, what's going to happen >> i think we're going to see a short-term lull with shutdowns of factories which we're watching most closely. you can move ships around from terminal to terminal and port to port but if a factory shuts down, that's it. hopefully it's for a short period of time, and that will be met with a pretty quick return to catch up on purchase orders and get back into the groove on moving the cargo off the factory floor and into containers. on the ground in los angeles as an example of the last 30 days cargo moving out into the domestic economy here in the u.s. is up 16% versus where we were back in the fourth quarter of last year so what you rightly said about those aging containers, we worked those down. there's still much more to do in that area, but we're starting to see real push on the domestic

side >> i think honestly the biggest underreported story in america right now with regard to supply chain may be your contract negotiations that contract expires july 21st. i know you've been looking at. >> i don't speak for the union or the employers association, but here are my views. the contract expires on june 30th both sides will have seasoned negotiators at the table and each know what's at stake here for the u.s. economy the 29 west coast ports make up about 12% of our nation's gdp. the contract will not be signed before then. they'll sit down first in may to begin negotiations both sides have planned out their contract priorities and they'll run into the summertime. the dna of both is they want to get the best deal for their members. what we have seen record

breaking profits, terminal operators and the long shore folks need to be paid what they're worth. i the administration in washington needs to keep oversight on this but they'll need to let the esh experts negotiate in a fair bargaining manner >> i think the contract combined with the specific maritime may be july 21st, but whatever the date is this is maybe the single biggest economic negotiation since 1971 i think i believe it was so good luck to both sides, gene, because the american supply chain is counting on it it's literally counting on it. otherwise it's going to make covid lock downs look small. thank you. good to have you back in the studio wish i was all right, it is just after 8:00 a.m. in new york and you are watching "squawk box." becky and andrew off today so i'm not either one of them. i am brian sullivan along with

joe kernen who's a regular on the show and michael santoli hi, guys futures right now are down across the board we've had a strong week so far coming into the day, in fact one of the rare good weeks of the year now futures down 218, nasdaq futures off on a higher basis. i'm sure you know this, i didn't know it until i read it this morning from jp morgan we have the fifth worst start to a year for the s&p 500 since 1927 i knew it was rough, mike. even with the good gains we had this week, i didn't realize it was that bad >> yeah, '09s is on that list, i would imagine, 1935. i did see some work, though, when it's been this bad this fast in a new year there's been a turn and it didn't actually end that badly although '09 was no fun along the way. >> did you -- i almost said

welcome back to "squawkbox" chip and dales edition is that overstating it >> no, it's like that australian thunder show you see advertised in las vegas we're the back ups >> since chip and dales is kind of an '80s thing >> i saw it on a sam elliot quote with something, oh, yeah, power of the dog >> it's on my list >> all right, guys, we're going to move on hold on, we should screenshot this vote now who has the best tie? meantime, here are the stories making headlines this morning outside of our cravats,

moderna is asking the fda to authorize a second booster shot. moderna's application is for all adults 18 and older. the pfizer application only asking for approval for those 65 and older. american airlines plans to resume alcohol sales on flights next month those sales will resume april 18th, the same day a federal mask mandate for airline flights and airports, thankfully, is about to expire. american is the last of the major airlines to announce a restoration of those sales and burger king is running into difficulties in trying to pull out of its business in russia. here's why parent company says it's not been able to close the 800 or so burger kings in russia because the independent operator of those is refusing to do so the company says it would need the help of the russian government to close those,

something it's not expecting to happen as well mike >> all right, some members of congress may apparently be looking to make a profit off the war in ukraine prior to russia's invasion some elected officials snatched up stocks that could benefit from the conflict. >> good morning, mike. the crisis in ukraine has rattled investors on wall street and in washington as well. our cnbc analysis of financial disclosures from members of congress found that more than a dozen reported trades, either their own or by their spouse or child, in sectors that were directly affected by the war in ukraine. we estimate that those trades totaled $7.7 million since february 1st almost all of that was in energy and utility stocks, 7.4 million in names like exxon, petroleum more cyber security stocks like cloud strike, 220,000 followed by defense including lockheed

martin as well as raytheon gop representative marjorie taylor greene purchased shares of lockheed along with chevron and next era energy two days before the russian invasion. on the day of the attack she tweeted this, quote, war is big business to our leaders. now, a spokesman says all her trades are conducted by an investment advisor and she didn't even know about them until they got reported in the media. however, all of the members who responded to our questions said that their portfolios are handled by third parties and they are not personally or actively trading but they and their families do get the benefit if these bets pay off, and that's why there's been so much pressure from the public and within congress' own ranks to tighten the rules back to you. >> all right, thank you very much coming up, much more on markets this morning as stocks aim for a winning week futures right now going to give back some of the three-day gains.

s&p set to open up about 30 points, nasdaq off by 117. plus federal reserve governor christopher waller will talk inflation pressure and the economy. "squawk x"ilbeig bk.bo wl rhtac

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approaches the 3,800 level joining us now is sam stoval sam, does this in any way -- are your targets affected by what's happening in russia and ukraine, or is it a general market call based on fed or the inflation, the outlook for inflation or just technicals? >> actually it's a combination of all those items if you look to what's been going on with the federal reserve, looking at ukraine, looking at inflation levels, et cetera, basically an awful lot of challenges continue to lie ahead, and we have yet to see a capitulation day so if you look to the fact that we would probably hit an inflation peak in march or april at about an 8.6% level, if we look to oil prices that are likely to remain above $100 and we're looking at pe ratios right

now close to back 20 times 12-month earnings i think there is still the possibility we have a bit of a shakedown before this decline is finally over. >> you talked about the geopolitical situation in light of oil prices, so you don't think it's an existential-type threat to the market, world war 3, for example >> well, i think there's more to just looking at oil prices because when you're dealing with a leader that could end up out of frustration issue the use of chemical warfare, et cetera, who knows what is likely to happen we don't believe that china will enter and provide assistance to russia, but that could certainly increase the likelihood of supply disruptions around the globe, et cetera my impression is we could still

end the year at a new all-time high let's face it, we have had four times since world war ii that bear markets ended up getting back to break even in seven months or fewer. so even if we do touch that 20% decline threshold, we still have an awful lot of time to make that up and to get back to break even and beyond. >> so the correction you're seeing if it's 20 that's actually, i guess a bear market, but what you're seeing all the work that's already been done in certain sectors of the market on the down side, even before the war in ukraine, does that mean we're closer to the end of this downward cycle that had already started at that point? and does that set us up for a more long lasting move higher afterwards >> yes i think because we have seen the nasdaq already fall into bear market territory along with the

russell 2000 because the dow and s&p are in correction territory, you know, we are part of the way there. but when you look to the percentage of stocks that are trading above their ten-week and 13-week moving averages we recently saw a 52-week low when looking at the 30-week moving average. and neither of these indicators have hit oversold or even semioversold levels. so there's an awful lot of damage that needs to be prepare, and usually you do have a retest of the prior low and i think the 4,200 level found on march 8th of the s&p 500 will be challenged and could possibly end up being eclipsed to the down side i believe investors should tread carefully longer term, still bullish. but in the near term i think volatility is likely to be elevated >> right, we're seeing that for

sure and we've got the fed involved as well. sam stoval, appreciate your time happy friday see you again soon >> thanks, joe coming up at the end of a big week for the federal reserve we'll hear exclusively christopher waller and chinese tech stocks volatile mitch green will help us make some sense of the moves. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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welcome back to "squawk box. take a look at the futures right now. s&p 500 comes into today up almost 5% for the week about to give back about three quarters of a percent of that at the outset dow jones industrial average down about 300 points. >> mike, thanks. meantime a likely boom for ukrainians who have endured weeks of war paypal says its citizens and refugees will be able to receive payments from overseas that would make it easier for people to support friends andm family in and around ukraine in a letter paypal's ceo told the ukrainian prime minister that ukrainians would also be allowed to transfer funds to some credit and debit cards. one senior ukrainian official at

the international monetary fund told reuters this would make, quote, a huge difference for his people president biden at this time and chinese president xi jinping set to speak at 9:00 a.m. eastern. eunice yoon joins us from beijing with more. good to see you again, eunice. good morning >> morning, joe. so u.s. officials say that president biden is going to be preparing a tough message for president xi, that any support for russia that goes beyond words would come with copsequences well, china is planning a stern warning of its own state media has been quoting an unnamed chinese official as saying president xi will have a solemn message that china will never accept u.s. coercion, it will retaliate against any u.s. action that china would demand the u.s. recognize its role as a

so-called initiator in the ukraine crisis the chinese president is also expected to press president biden to honor his word that the u.s. is not seeking a cold war, a conflict or chinese regime change and that the u.s. does not support the independence of taiwan, an island that beijing claims asits own the foreign ministry continues to insist china is a neutral and objective player on ukraine. this is coming even as one of its diplomats met with the russian ambassador here to discuss what the state media has described as anti-terrorism activities in coordination of it also comes as state media has been amplifying russian talking points and so so far what we're seeing, brian, is really china's game plan to support russia, to nurture the anti-west partnership, but at the same time appear neutral enough to maintain economic ties with the u.s. and europe. i think the question, though, is

whether or not china can maintain that without risking a hard break from the u.s. and its allies brian? >> yeah, and it's unlikely we're going to get any major developing headlines out of it, but at least as we said earlier, eunice, the two sides are talking, we are engaging we may not see eye to eye but at least that conversation is being had. eunice yoon in beijing, thank you very much. coming up, back to the markets and ooh, game stop, ouch, shares diving in the premarket, down about 7% after fourth quarter results how far, though, can nfts, if at all to lift the fortunes of game stop inwe're going to dig into enk is the original meme stoc wh squawk returns. futures they're down, oil is up. and we're back right after this. t than the last. but whatever work becomes, the world works with servicenow.

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all right, welcome back. gamestop slammed right now the stock down more than 7% to 81 and change. keep in mind this was a $300 stock just nine months ago video game retailer shocking investors with an unexpected loss last quarter and said it will not provide any financial guidance maybe there's a bit of hope for all the diamond hands holders out there because gamestop says it is looking for new ways to make money including launching an nft marketplace by the end of the second quarter

cnbc tech correspondent steve covack joining us now. i've got a lot of questions. i'll start with this genius question, what the heck happened >> well, they posted a loss and they largely blamed supply chain issues and omicron like we've been hearing from so many retailers. you've got to keep in mind, brian, gamestop, forget the nfts we were talking about. they sell collectibles and physical video games and the latest generation of consoles, the play stations and x boxes that came out a year and a half ago, you can't find them. there's no supply, they come out in little bursts and they can sellout immediately online, and that's pretty much what hit them last quarter >> all right, so let's think about going for it, because the stock has gotten crushed 300 down to 81 and there's a lot of people that believe in this company. they're using all the right buzz words, we're going to be esg next quarter, and web 3.0,

nonfungible. they're using all the right language do people actually buy into this bet? >> it's really hard because the call yesterday only lasted 11 minutes, brian, no question. there's an interesting earnings call, too. there's no one pressing this, how's this going to work nfts aren't really popular among gamers, they feel if they have to bid against each other for some unique digital item to play the game better or have an advantage in the game they feel like they're being nickelled and dimed. and the gamers are revolting at that, so maybe they sell nf it is, maybe they can convince some of the developers to get onto their platform and, you know, sell little nfts or super mario or something like that, but that's going to be chair challenge convincing people come to this platform and develop for it i don't see gaming companies

>> they're not going after the gamer right but the investor gamestop severs the gamer but they're trying to get the investor to buy the stock. >> but they're not telling the full story about this nft platform, which is how it's going to work, what developers are onboard. and there'll be content in their divide, but as far as the core of them, gamestop gaming they don't have those game developers really working on this nft platform >> and the stock has fallen now down 7%. it's off huge the last nine months steve covack, thanks very much mike coming up an exclusive conversation with federal reserve governor christopher waller mitch green joins us to talk about a head spinning week for chinese tech stocks and where the biggest mes ulnacod go from here stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc ? hey... it's our former broker carl.

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a volatile week for chinese tech stocks. covid restrictions, china's ties to russia and ongoing regulatory crack down and fears over possible u.s. delistings

combining to put pressure on some of the names investors know best we did see a bounce back midweek after china's vice premier signaled support for markets joining us flow to talk about where he sees support for markets, mitchell green. mitch, great to talk to you. i mean, we just went through the list of influences on this area of the market, on chinese tech stocks you think you're just buying a good company serving the market like alibaba, and you have to worry about all these other forces you do uh-uh proach it right now? jp morgan said in an uninvestable area. due agree with that? >> i think they came with it tuesday and the stock jumped 35%. you've always got to be skeptical of the sale side i don't know, it's really hard right now. alibaba i think now is trading at like ten times extras earnings and 10 cents like maybe mid-teens next year's earnings

they're certainly cheap. you know, i think before the bump, too, take a third off those stock prices revised ops seven times earnings, what the heck do i know i'm not a macro -- everything i don't know but they sure are cheap from a risk adjustable reward if you're a long punter, i think. >> what about the -- this goes back to the very beginning from alibaba's ipo. you kind of own a piece of an ent tethat sort of owns a claim on the earnings of the mainland company. does that concern you or how do you navigate around that >> yeah, the structure of all these things and these offshore entities, no, i'm not worried about that at all. it's not only alibaba but

chinese listed personally on the fund both, you could own them in hong kong or own them in -- and it's remarkably easy to convert your adr shares into hong kong shares and most of these companies right now -- >> that seems like the relatively easy part of the work around there you're invested just in general, too, though in a lot of the fast growing tech you had that area on the outs for going on a year now, and pretty deep, people comparing it to the bust after the 2,000 nasdaq peak. how do you see it heading out from here? >> yeah, we spend a lot of time on the private side and the public side focused on software companies as well.

and we have private investors in lots of companies. i like to joke before the ipo we'd invested about 35 million several years ago. taking about 170 off trade still at 67, now trading at like $19 a share that i think is like 13.5 times gross profit which is cheap given how fast it and it should probably be somewhere between, you know, mid to high 30s is probably like the most rational pricing. and i think that's the case for a lot of software companies. there's tons of companies. i think a lot of software valuations as of last fall have gotten way ahead of themselves, but things tend to get too expensive and then too cheap like we love companies right

now. we like a company called yaks within the last week buying at 1.5 times and that's just absurd everbridge makes crisis software, grows nicely i think it trades at like four times, you know, next 12 months revenue right now. we think it's like a next generation western union that doesn't like to fleece consumers. we think there's a lot of interesting value out there right now. you've got to be patient, but tech is -- at least earlier this week tech was massively oversold and hated. and when you tend to buy things oversold and hated you tend to make money in the long run >> we'll see how things play out from here. appreciate it. >> absolutely. thanks again coming up next we'll get

jim's take on the markets on what's been a pretty good start to the week, but futures they're done, plus we're counting you down to our exclusive interview with christopher waller. dow futures down, oil's up, glad you're uwi up ths, and we're back right after this. ♪ ["fly me to the moon"] ♪ ♪ ♪ imagine a community where millions share ideas and trade stocks, crypto and beyond. to the moon? in other words... etoro.the power of social investing. ♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations,

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down to the new york stock exchange jim cramer jones us now. jim, the dow is down

boeing is up nicely, and i don't know whether you have any insight on this, but there is a report from reuters that the company is going to get a huge order, is in talks for a huge order with delta, which would be the first in ten years from delta. the last carrier that hasn't ordered the 737 max for 100 of these babies that would be a big deal, wouldn't it, for boeing? >> yeah, but it's not confirmed. i think boeing likes its chances in getting a deal. it would obviously be incredibly important for the company. absolutely cannot confirm that >> no, it is a people familiar with the matter, a reuters exclusive that all they're willing to say is boeing is edging towards a landmark order for delta airline. >> edging. that's the same as like our chances, i guess, edging >> why was the relationship for

delta so frayed over the past years, jim >> everyone has been a little afraid for boeing. boeing can give you some good deals. they have a lot of planes. i'd love to confirm it all i can say is the chances -- delta's momentum would be incredible it would be really, really important for boeing and, look, i've got it tell you boeing has been a drag on the dow for ages, and it's also been the drag on ge it is her honey well it absolutely must come true >> let's move on so you keep tweeting about amc

>> there's like four of them left look, they were always nice people except when they attacked midi i don't want anyone to lose money, but i think their attitude of like if we can destroy people on the other side of our trade, that's a zero-sum. >> gamestop, those are both, we mentioned them do we remember -- i mean they stay high for so long, we kind of forgot they might have been storied meme stocks, right >> there's losing some good money. they have some long-term debt to france, the french government, so that's not bad. they did lose more money than we thought they would the revenues has been the same it's been in the last two years, and i had jayne goodall on the show we actually talked about trees,

but jane goodall is very pro >> these are different than the board apes these are the angry apes that you -- >> i think jane goodall is the head of research and they're terrific and i really wish them well in their next endeavor. i think they tried to get on draft kings last night after the big win to get the money, and they couldn't do that either i think they're sensational people >> i know you do all right, jim, we'll see you in a couple of minutes. i want to remind everyone about your new cnbc investing. sign-up and find out more about it at cnbc.com/join the club or point your phone we are going to be back with sullivan and magic mike, yes, santoli from the movie we'll be right back.

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all right, welcome back to squawk this was of course the week that the federal reserve finally pulled the trigger on raising interest rates and now they're one of the people behind that decision. steve liesman joining us now with a special guest

steve? >> brian, thanks very hutch. we're pleased to be joined by federal reserve governor christopher waller governor waller, thanks for joining us >> hey, steve, nice to be on the show this morning, and you can just call me chris you don't have to call me governor >> okay, want to showerment as is needed here so, chris, you had advocated going in for a 15 point basis rate hike but you voted going further for a 20 point basis rate hike. can you explain your reason for that >> the data is screaming at us to go 50 but the geopolitical events were telling you to go forward with caution, so those two factors combined pushed me off of advocating for a 50-basis point hike at this medium and sporing a 25-point hike that we enacted. so going forward that will be an issue, whether to think about going 50 in the next couple of meetings or not, but the data

certainly seemed to suggest that we move in that direction. >> what are you going to be looking for in terms of the impact what's happening geopolitically to make that determination? >> we'll have to see other than oil prices we'll have to see if it's starting to create further problems down the line the u.s. economy directly is not that exposed to russia and ukraine except through food and commodity prices, but our trading partner such as europe they're going to feel things much more. you know, i kind of think this is probably going to knock off, you know, a half a percent off growth this year, but the u.s. economy is still going to be growing at a healthy pace this year even with this. so despite the stuff in ukraine, we still have to keep our eye on the ball here in the u.s. and worry about getting our own house in order >> you know you said it earlier 50 at the next couple of

meetings, and i guess i need to kind of parse that are you saying that the fed ought to do a series of successive 50 base point rate hikes? >> as i said before i really favor front loading our rate hikes, that we need to do more n now if we want to have an impact on inflation this year and next year in that sense, the way to front load it is pull rate hikes for forward. i just think it's better of a strategy of just do it on the rate hikes rather than just promising. >> where would you like to see the federal funds rate at the end of this year >> i would like to do the fed be much closer to what we think of as neutral by the end of the year or sooner i think we need to get rates up to where they should by any kind of policy rule you can think of

would tell you we should be much higher than we are right now i think we can do that with some aggressive rate hikes earlier in the year, and pull back the second half of the year. then if we need to continue, we'll just keep going. that's my view, to get the rates closer to neutral. >> chris, we have a chart, that just went down, that showed the y year-end forecast is -- is neutral 2.5% sorry, but i would love to put a number on that. >> my personal is 2.25 or so my own projection is to be above that by the end of the year. >> what about the balance sheet? the statement itself said that you'll be reducing the balance

sheet at coming meetings when should the fed begin reducing the balance sheet and by how much of a pace earlier? >> i advocated before the july meeting, so that would be in the next meeting or two. i've laid this out before in previous statements, you know, we're in a different place than we were before first, we have a much bigger balance sheet. the economy is in a much different position, inflation is raging, so we're in a position where we can draw down more, without doing much damage. we might, again, proceed a little more cautiously because of the ukraine thing and worrying about markets, but at the same time we still have the room to go much faster, much sooner and much faster than last time >> are you concerned at all about -- i don't know how to put

this, in a way -- but putting a lot of rate hikes down that that creates a systemic risk issue are you concerned about the impact of faster rate hikes? and also the idea that you have an inflation problem that could be related to the rebound tro the covid and supply chain issues that could resolve themselves could fast rate hikes put the fed on on the other way and create a recession that doesn't need to happen >> first, the markets have already priced in over 100 basis points of hikes. part of that isvalid dating those hikes now. we have learned, as long as we're clear in our community indication that the markets adjust pretty quickly. there hasn't been a lot of market turmoil since we made an abrupt pivot by fed statistics,

so i think we can do that with the rate hikes as far as a recession, i don't think there should be a great concern on this. i mean, we're talking about mainly getting to neutral or slightly above it by the end of the year that shouldn't be any cause for concern. we're coming at zero we're not talking about 250, taking it to 4 we have a huge deup and down shortages of goods and services. you can pull back that demand without having any effect on the quantities, or very minor effects on the quantities. >> chris, i asked this question of chair powell, and i would love your answer to it as well when i look at the median forecast for the fed, they see the funds rate going -- and yet

inflation over that time period, '23 and '24, remains above the target rate of above 2%. is the fed in the medium forecast that it's going to remain behind the curve for several years to come? and why is the fed willing to settle for that. >> from my view, i would like to front load a lot more hikes 7 that should start putting downward pressure on demand. i still think that supply chain issues will start to resoft themselves by the end of this year, beginning of next year the stimulative effects from last year at some point have to wane. they have to stop. so i think these temporary factors, which is not so temporary anymore, at some point

they do have to resolve themselves this would be a massive new theory of inflation of one-time supply shocks, one-time demand shocks, so i do think we'll see some pull back in inflation next year by keeping rates above neutral through '23, we'll have the downward pressure on inflation getting closer to target >> chris, my rudimentary knowledge of monetary policy is that you have two principal channels in the real economic you can work through house sergeant one, autos is another. both seem to be dancing to their own tune housing has a huge supply problem that goes back maybe a decade autos are running maybe 4 million units or so below where it should be is it a concern that two sectors look like they'll remain hot, despite what the fed does? >> yeah, trust me.

i'm looking for housing in d.c. right now. i know all about a hot housing market [ laughter ] the think of policy affects demand for autos, and demand for housing, and right now those prices are exceedingly high. we can put downward pressure on prices through tightening monetary policies and raising rates. yeah, we can't produce any more houses, but we can certainly try to lower demand and lower of prices that feed through into our price objectives >> chris, we have about a minute left the fed called inflation transitory it didn't react when the fiscal side the biden administration initiated a $1.9 trillion of fiscal stimulus. does it have a credibility problem with wall street and with main street when it comes to predicting and fighting inflation? >> i would be more concerned with that if i saw inflation

expectations two years out, becoming an anchor i mean, everybody has high inflation expectations for the next year. that's valid, given what we are seeing in the data, but if you look at inflation expectations two years out, they're not that high clearly the markets and households trust us to do our job and get inflation down over the next 12 to 18 months that's what we're going to do. chris waller, governor waller, governor chris waller, thank you very much. >> all right thank, steve nice talking to you. the story we've been following all week, nickel plunging again, remember, trading was suspended on march 8th after the price more than doubled in a matter of hours, then it locked the limit up, and now it's been locked limit down, the reopen wednesday was quickly

shut down after a systems error allowed trades to go through the limit, below the limit down. that limit was expanded, as they do, in commodities in yesterday's session. now it can go down as much as 12%. we'll take a quick look at the markets now, a final check on things, the dow jones now down 180 points that's where we've been down most for the most, but up for the week, s&p up for the weeks. >> actually firmed up the market data as we had the interview there. it was relatively hawkish in terms of frontlfrontloading the hikes. >> the ten-year, 2 and change. >> i loved his comments on housing. >> and oil, brian, are you done for the day?

>> i hope so [ laughter ] all right. there's that chippen dale shot >> i'm around in third and headed for home, with a baseball analogy. that was joe nuxall, one of the youngest pitchers ever join us next week. "squawk on the street" is next good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm david faber with jim cramer. carl quintanilla is finishes a week off you can see what we are set up for a lower open our road map does start with the futures pointing to that lower open, but the dow and s&p still on pace for what would be one of the best weeks since november of