read a couple weeks ago, a third of all global commercial real estate debt is floating. you just got to wonder if you've even begun to tip the iceberg in that sector. >> we shall see. perhaps, an area of concern, but not a lot of concerns right now. we're ripping in the market. that will do it for "squawk on the street." "techcheck" starts right now good thursday morning. welcome to "techcheck," i'm carl quintanilla. a 20% pop for meta as mark zuckerberg pivots to efficiency. best day since 2013. the nasdaq surged 2% yesterday another 2% today all ahead of three major earnings reports tonight apple, amazon, and alphabet coming this afternoon, dee. >> it will be a big one. welcome to "techcheck. we'll cover it all mixed day on the street.

the dow is falling but the nasdaq ripping it certainly is. better than expected results from meta. improved sentiment around tech shares the nasdaq is up nearly 3% on the s&p 500 up about 1.5%. the dow industrials under water by a little bit. that move higher coming on the back of the fed-fueled rally yesterday as the fed started to acknowledge inflation is slowing. nasdaq is up 4.5% this week. consumer discretionary, those are the sectors leading. energy and materials are lagging. >> we'll start with the efficiency mep talty at meta today. some people make new year's resolutions every january claiming this is their year but meta seems to mean it this time. stock surging, on pace for best day in a decade. the year ago the stock saw its worst day, falling 26% today we've seen a bunch of upgrades, b of a, piper,

rosenblatt reality lab division did lose $13 billion last year. let's bring in julia boorstin to break down the number. people saying going into the print it was mostly a hedge fund stock, that maybe mutual funds turn to it next, which would mean further upside. >> it's so interesting looking at how this company has transitioned away from being all about growth at any cost now really thinking about how to be efficient interestingly, mark zuckerberg, he said especially emphasizing this towards the end of the call, that just because they'll be focused on efficiency and cutting costs doesn't mean that will work in opposition to them being a better tech company. he talked about how those constraints could make them a better tech company. i think part of that was trying to address concerns about these long-term investments in the metaverse. this is a company whose revenue is still down 4% compared to last year. want be down as much as expected one source of strength here,

carl, is engagement continues to increase record engagement across the apps that obviously helps on a number of fronts. it also helps address some concerns about competition from tiktok both on the engagement front and also on the monetization front with making more money from reels than tiktok competitor facebook has made progress here. irnd say, meta has made progress. >> a lot of talk about the efficiency mentality boy, the stock is up 24%, i think, at this hour. yet, how efficient is meta compared to where it was three years ago? is it going back to what it was doing before is it more efficient than before they certainly haven't gone down to head count levels they are still spending just as much as they were on the metaverse, but they have said they're going to scale back on capital spending, right? >> yes you make some very good points here, jon. in terms of the head count cuts,

those still have not gone back to where meta was three years ago. so, a lot of these tech companies have not even brought back their head count to the pre-pandemic levels. they hired so aggressively in the early days of the pandemic and in terms of spending on the metaverse, those losses are going to continue to increase this year. this is a company that's going to spend even more in the reality labs division this year than it did last year. having said that, their ad delivery has gotten more efficient. some very popular parts of the platform, such as reels, have actually become more efficient in terms of generating revenue i think a key thing to point out is that reels has been a drag on the business the fact that people are spending more time watching reels than they are in their news feed has actually hurt meta's profitability over the past several years but there's some good news here as well. i think investors were interested in this on the call last night they said reels will no longer be a headwind as of the end of this year or early next year that's when they'll be revenue

neutral and then accretive that's a key transition point. i would point out the opportunity to click to message. the opportunity to integrate facebook or instagram platform with messenger they say this is a huge, massive growth opportunity just in terms of the number here, those click-to-message ads reached a $10 billion run rate last year and continue to grow another opportunity to generate revenue from something that was low-hanging fruit in the past couple of years. >> and the street loving everything they're hearing we're at session highs, just touching 25% give us the bear case, though. there's been so much case about what is going right, but there are still fundamental questions about the business, about growth right now. and so we've seen athese outsized moves from companies reporting. he's meta's results were good. example, microsoft weren't that great. that stock is at a higher point.

what should investors still be worried about here >> well, look, the key thing to watch here, and i would say this is true for google, alphabet as well as for meta and also for pinterest, which we'll hear from on monday, is the question about the macro environment for advertising. we've heard how advertisers are concerned, hitting pause and meta was insulated more than snap was because snap has more direct response advertising. there is a concern about how much advertisers will be spending going forward and if the economic situation continues to derear rate, spending is a place they could quickly click a button and be spending less. there's less of a predictability around the macro environment and how that will impact spending. as with tv advertising, those ads are bought months and months in advance i would be watching the macro here also remember, the metaverse bet is a big bet it's a long time before it's

going to really come to fruition i think zuckerberg is trying to say, we're doing things incrementally near term that will be part of that value, but it's still a big bet, dee. >> big, big morning for meta shares now up more than 25% we'll see you in just a bit. our next guest running with the numbers, raising his eps and price target for meta after yesterday's results. joining us, bernstein lead analyst. i've been thinking for a while this was overdone about facebook being washed up and instagram being washed up and tiktok taking over the world. it looks like they are, indeed, figuring out the core business how efficient are they getting really compared to where they've been is this just a return? is it even yet a return to pre-pandemic measures? >> yeah. i think that was the outstanding point of the bear case you know, because even last quarter, they were making steady

progress against tiktok. revenues were doing okay they were working through those apple id changes since then, we've had the layoffs and we've had -- now the year of efficiency announcement. they're taking costs out if you look at ex-restructuring on core, you're back at 45% operating margin on that core business, prior to everything we were looking at 50 they're moving in the right direction. the question i've got is this just a one-year blip or is this a new-found religion the company has on being a lot more efficient on how they run their business >> mark, i've never heard of a company spending $13.7 billion on a completely unproven market and then say we're going to do it again next year it will be -- i'm not saying they're going to succeed or fail in the metaverse, but it's not yet clear the consumer wants it. the same time we're having this meta move this morning, up almost 26%, carvana is also up

more than 26%. affirm is up more than 20% so, what do you think is really going on here with investor sentiment and how does that play in what we're seeing happen with meta >> yeah, look, i think part of what's driving investor sentiment, it's not just meta, it's much of the tech sector has found religion on nonexpenses and investment cadence to your point, yes, reality labs investment is a high number. there are plans to start moderating it from these levels. at least meta has a there there and we'll see how that trends as we go throughout the year. but if i'm amazon and google and i'm looking at what meta said last night and the number of times they used words like, you know, efficiency, i'm making sure that's the message investors want to hear these days and i'm figuring out a way to communicate that as

effectively as possible. >> we have more reports to look forward to this evening. big ones, too. for meta, what we've been talking about, it's clear what the street wanted and zuckerberg delivered new session highs. for alphabet and amazon, they want similar things, cost cutting, greater efficiencies. each company cut 6% of its workforce. we still don't know how much that will help the bottom line is that enough a bigger question, how resilient are their core businesses? google adds they are more resilient than social media ads. while everyone may be talking about the future, chatgpt threat, another battle playing out with tiktok over ai on youtube and short-form video competition. amazon is expected to deliver its first unprofitable year since 2014 and revenue growth slowed to the single digits, online sales have actually declined if you think aws could save the day, just remember back to amy hood's comments about a week ago on the microsoft quarter it is tough out there for cloud

computing and only expected to get tough ever both stocks down about 30% over the last 12 months they have been participating in this huge rally so far this year, today included meta is ratcheting up those expectations and optimism. at the end of the day, the fundamentals are still deteriorating, carl, as i said, we haven't seen a loss from amazon since 2014. and the one from 2022 could actually rival its biggest loss ever after the dot-com bust in 2000. >> slowest growth in decades, for sure apple is the other big story, jon, with negative year-on-year. it seems to come back to meta being the tip of the spear on those early notes about weakening macro, early notes about being aggressive on head count reduction. obviously you have the metaverse investment now this framework of

efficiency maybe that will drive all faang. we'll see. >> i think when it comes to alphabet and android here, it's an entirely different story for meta completely different businesses. they don't have this metaverse bet. the capex they spend is in a different context because they have their own platform. when look at amazon, same thing. they already have aws and cloud versus their core business they're not stuck in the same position, dee, that meta is with trying to get out from under other platform players. >> they have new prop engines, like amazon's advertising business mark, you heard the conversation what are you expecting this afternoon? these companies are in very different positions. you think about meta which cut 11% of its workforce amazon and alphabet cut about 6% each is that going to be enough is the market getting ahead of itself today these stocks are up nearly 7%

each >> i think if we think about the top line for these companies, just like meta, it wasn't anything special to speak of meta revenue declined 4% and i think the expectations on google and amazon are also quite soft across the board then it becomes, how do they communicate? meta guides explicitly with hard quants we don't get that at places like google what can they say to show investors they're moving in the same direction and perhaps allow us to size the impact of the efficiencies take their head count for reductions all they did is offset the number of folks they hired last quarter. commentary around a hard hiring freeze could go a long way commentary around cloud moving towards profitability. when do we get there i think these are the data point says investors will be looking for. >> so, meta has the big

metaverse ambitions, reality labs it's pouring money into do you think microsoft makes hard choices we know some investors have been asking for that. >> i think we've heard news flow coming out of their other bets, divisions around layoffs, head count reduction there. i do expect some commentary on potential further discipline on continued investment level on some of these other bet style initiatives. don't forget, even in their core business, there's still a lot of stuff they're working on within core you would almost deem as, perhaps, less important and less critical color there, i think, would be helpful there. the way i viewed it is amazon, google, meta, they have their own metaverse initiatives. they've just done a better job of burying in there and delivering strong core performance that negates

pressure on that business. >> mark, coming off the meta print, the two big questions i'm reading are, what do people sell in order to move in on meta shares the other is, who has liability if, in fact, not only if they trim their capex, but if they underpromise on the new capex guide? i wonder which of the two questions you think is more interesting? >> i'll leave the first one alone. it's out of my purview of what you sell in terms of capital efficiency, meta gave us some hints on the call on one front where they started to combine their technical infrastructure of some of the more intensive gpu, ai initiatives and that more core computer processing cpu initiatives. some integrations are certainly driving initiatives on their own capital investment taking a look at the i.t. stack would be a place i'd look at to see how that works one other core key datapoint on the call is they said the word

efficiency 13 times, but they also said ai 30 times. so, clearly they're still going to be spending on some of those ai, more gpu type initiatives. i imagine that's consistent across the board, especially as google has to figure out a solution to some of the chatgpt narrative. >> yeah. investors certainly prefer to hear ai over metaverse, that much is clear. that's probably the case on the alphabet call as well. let's finally touch on amazon. has the company lost its discipline over the last few years? i remember in 2014-2015 when it started achieving sustainable profitability. the street thought, okay, here's now a profitable amazon. this is kind of reverting back to the amazon where it poured money back into the business for new innovation, yes, but do they find that discipline again this year do you buy into that, that they're going to return huge profit, return to that this year >> i do. i think it's a when, not an if i don't know when that is. we certainly have gone through a challenged year where they overhired, they overbuilt, they

overpaid, when there was no attrition to some of their higher paid talent they got hit with fuel inflation surcharges so, seemingly everywhere you look, there were these headwinds that occurred to the business. some were self-inflicted back to my comment on everyone has a metaverse, there's probably somewhere in the neighborhood $12 billion plus in amazon's core business spent on more discretionary businesses. i do expect commentary from management to call out what that may look like and some of the efforts they're taking to lean out or to rationalize and drive efficiency you know, in some of those more discretionary projects we've seen some of that with reducing the size of the alexa team, for example. i think it's coming. i just don't know exactly when that will be. >> all those details around their cost-cutting and efficiency is going to be important for amazon and alphabet and apple tonight as well thank you for talking to us.

still to come on "techcheck," the nasdaq rallying again today after meta delivers and fed chair powell noted the disinflationary process has started at least in some areas we'll have more on what this latest rate hike means for tech stocks. plus, we talked amazon and alphabet we also have apple earnings after the bell and qualcomm. we'll break down what to expect and rologic shares, we'll speak to the ceo

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fed-fueled rally after policymakers slowed tightening to a quarter point raise hike. during the news conference, the fed chair said, cutting rates would be inappropriate he did not push back on market pricing for monetary pricing, citing disinflation 13 times barclay's joins us to talk about the fed presser yesterday. this violent rotation we've got not just this week but for most of 2023 so far

is it too much >> i think so. i think the market has been hanging on to what we termed as a hope trade for a while now, cl clinging to a rally. i think we had a situation where even though fundamentally at a macro level, our equity, earnings level, things are quite unclear as of yet, the market is choosing to ignore and go ahead. so, big picture, our view is i think equities right now are mispricing growth risks quite significantly. >> growth risks that stem from what earnings slowing or capex undercutting activity in the quarters to come where do you think weakness comes from >> the weakness comes from earnings, which is obviously linked broadly to economic growths. to give you perspective, in each

of the scenarios we considered a bear case, bull case and best case, which varies between whether we have a soft landing or shallow recession or normal recession. we see earnings declining in every scenario so, that is a problem. and i think that is not being captured into the reality of how they are behaving right now. the second issue is just multiples. we are right now in higher inflationary environment if you were to take today's levels of inflation rates and growth as we see it, beating, for example, the fair value for the multiple for s&p should be 15, 15.5 times and the market is already trading over 18. if you were to use our best case investment, we go to 20. i think there's a little disconnect, certainly on the earnings front, which we think

will be weaker just as we have seen 40% of s&p already having reported and numbers are not that great they are lackluster, at best >> two questions to finish one is do the markets have it recently of rewarding stocks in the wake of an earnings miss, does that trend come to an end let's just do that one since we're limited on time. >> yeah. i think, like i said, it's all linked to the hope the hope is data rallies or short squeezes, is that the worst is over. i think that is a problem. the worst is not over yet. certainly on the earnings front. we have a lot more way to go before we get more clarity and the bottom is hit. i think until such time, you cannot ignore that risk and move on >> good gut check, especially in the wake of the year-to-date

activity good to see you. >> thank you you're welcome. and it's not just tech stocks rallying after fed chair powell's comments. bitcoin is seeing a nice pop on the heels of those comments. digital currency up 40% year-to-date is this rally here to stay we will discuss that next. as we head to break, take a look at shares of pinterest, they are moving higher as they announce a second round of layoffs affecting 150 jobs

because every individual wants -- what do they want they want to secure their buying power, if you want to save now, if you put it in bitcoin, it goes like this. who knows what happens >> that was ray dalio on "squawk box" talking about bitcoin's volatility bitcoin is up nearly 40% year-to-date, on pace for fourth straight week of gains the question is, will

investors -- will that momentum continue wall street thinks so. noting bitcoin has reclaimed level above 50 and 200-day moving averages and a multiple close above that floor has set the resistance level to just above $26,000. that's 10% of where it trades today. close to $24,000 so, that would indicate a pretty significant rally. wolf agrees in the long run but is warning of what they call a break, pointing out the coin is still trading deepest overbought condition in two years and saying the recent run-up may take a quick breather in the near term. the bottom line, is the bottom, it seems bitcoin out of trading in the teens and looking to mid and high 20s as next inflection point, according to the street jon, it's been pacifrt of this risk-on rally. $24,000, it's not $64,000 where we were not that long ago. >> i don't know about

comfortably out of anything or anything about a bottom. what i do know is affirm is up 27% -- 28% right now for the day, right we know what that stock has been about. i know tesla back on january 3rd was at $108 a share. now it's at $193 so, yeah, risk on. coming up, apple earnings are after the bell with many calling this the company's lost quarter. we'll talk about how to trade the stock.

a couple hours into the trading day. you can see the markets, s&p, 4178 haven't been above 4200 since last august. a five-month high on the s&p as meta fuels a big tech rally today. some big movers, align technology authorizing a $1 billion buyback. that stock is up 100%. disney is moving higher. activist trian sends a letter to shareholders to elect nelson peltz to, quote, restore the magic at disney. hains brands tanking as guidance comes in weaker than expected. the company does ee liminate the dividend

honeywell, growth liar than expected a lot of movers amid massive rotations. let's get a news update with contessa brewer. eli lilly shares off the low of the day, down 6%. earnings topped estimates but sales of the latest diabetes treatment was light. merck is down 3% q4 results were strong but they gave light guidance for sales in 2023 as covid sales are to drop. weekly jobless claims have dipped to their lowest level since april, indicating businesses are holding onto their workers. meanwhile, layoffs across the u.s. spike to a two-year high driven by near record layoffs in the tech sector. long-time cryptocurrency critic is calling for sweeping measures to protect investors. berkshire hathaway vice president charlie munger says the u.s. should follow china's lead and ban cryptocurrencies all together he says they're more like gambling contracts than

securities, or currencies. of course, even gambling is regulated. jon? >> contessa, thank you apple shares, meanwhile, moving higher ahead of earnings this afternoon although we're expecting the first revenue decline since 2019 for the tech giant our steve kovach joins us from cupertino with more. steve, you think we're going to get revenue guidance this time >> reporter: we haven't gotten revenue guidance, jon, or any formal guidance from apple since the pandemic began you are right. guidance is going to be important, at least some form of outlook. we know last week -- last quarter, jon, they had such production problems for the iphone in china, which caused them not to be able to hit demand for that important holiday quarter where they typically sell the most phones analyst expectations are all over the map, but expecting up to 10 million fewer iphones sold than originally expected at the high end of that and the real question going into this is, like you said, outlook,

is demand going to carry through as protection has caught up in china, is demand still there in this recessionary environment and amid the collapse in pc sales and other consumer electronics? by the way, pc sales, mac sales are supposed to be down. then we're talking services, of course there are some major headwinds there. not just foreign exchange and the strong dollar, which is still an issue, but also the fall in advertising, which we've seen across some other tech companies that have reported so far. and then also the fall in mobile gaming we got a big whiff of that from electronic arts earlier this week saying mobile gaming fell and caused them to cancel some games. all of that hurts the services revenue you. a lot of headwinds, expectations, like you said, are very muted even for the entire year, jon, it's not expected -- or sales are expected to grow in a significant way. >> now, steve, meta, zuckerberg says this is a year of efficiency arguably, that's every year at tim cook's apple should investors expect to hear

anything or much anyway, about cuts >> reporter: yeah, that's going to be the number one question on top of any kind of guidance or outlook is, are there going to be cost cuts are there going to be layoffs? apple is the only company in this big mega cap tech among its peers that haven't had significant layoffs. what we do know is what tim cook told me when i was out here last quarter saying, look, we're slowing down hiring. we'll be deliberate in the way we hire, but they've been like that throughout the entire pandemic they did not overhire in the way we saw at meta and amazon. right now the thought is, maybe they don't need to have those kind of cuts of course, as everyone's been more cost conscious, it will be interesting to see if there are any updates to that, if they are going to cut costs more, jon. >> up 3% ahead of earnings on apple so far today steve, thanks. we'll stick with this topic, bring in cowen's chris,

predicting an iphone slowdown ahead. we know there were production issues in china, covid-related during the quarter that will affect certainly how many they were able to get out the door now do we have, perhaps, an oversupply issue like we do throughout consumer electronics, or is apple going to be able to keep that under control? >> jon, thanks for having me like you mentioned, i think iphone estimates have been revised downward as december progress we started out in the 80 million unit range we are now at 74 million for december and then march were seasonally slow, but they took down that number to around 59 million. i think to your point, december quarter is marked more by production delays, covid-related issues in china, some issues in the foxconn factory. i think march quarter you'll see demand-related stuff, not supply

but demand related we're definitely seeing some softening. the question is that, you know, unfortunately, it's more how the year progresses for the iphone and is there more weakness ahead. i would say that december was supply-related >> good morning. i like what jon just said, it's arguably year is every year at tim cook's apple i wonder, is there room for more cost-cutting, greater efficiency when it didn't ramp up like some big tech peers did what do you think of the geopolitical piece of this it's calmed down in china at iphone city, guangzhou, but apple has plans to ship more manufacturing to india what will that cost the company in production and capex in years ahead? >> on the first question, i'm sure, like any large company has more efficiency that can be

extracted, like apple and not overhire quite honestly, at the end of the day, whether they do more cost cuts is not the question. it's more demand related for apple, both the iphone and services, versus extracting more efficiency the second part, they have been diversifying their outgrowth they have been selling more from the foxconn india factory. they are doing it outside of india. foxconn have a more broader, you know, set of supply chain issues at the end of the day, i think these things take a long time. it's not an overnight transaction. >> right >> it will take time but they're on the right path. >> what really matters for apple this year? i mean, we talk sometimes about this ar vr headset those things tend to take

significant years to scale into apple's business, even if you're talking about the phone or airpods. they're just about at the point where they have all of their macs on their own chips, except for the high-end pro model so, at wwdc this year, this summer, are we going to see some next step from apple and what they can build software wise on top of that vertically integrated hardware? is that something that matters from a margin perspective? >> sure, jon you know, i think at the end of the day, in the short term, like you mentioned, it's the guidance we'll see how the year-over-year trend is key ar vr, people are excited. i don't think it will be material to the numbers this year it's probably more interesting to see how the new product is versus impact on revenue and eps. i think as the year progresses, i think number one is still iphone because it's a big driver of revenue and earnings. number two is services but it always seems like

services is one which is very hard to forecast given so many different buckets within it. and the flip side is, iphone is a more easier one to grasp your hands around given what is happening with macro, where consumer spending is heading i think iphone is number one services, number two ar vr, good to have, not necessarily material to numbers. >> thank you krish, thank you. speaking of apple, take a look at one of their chip suppliers. qorvo is plunging. coming up, as more and more states take action to ban tiktok, the social media company is launching back and launching a new pr campaign to show content moderation guidelines. we're back in a moment

big question in tech right now, is time running out for tiktok as they face increased regulatory scrutiny. it's taking new actions to fight back julia boorstin has more on that. good morning >> good morning again to you, carl yes, yet another call to crack down on tiktok this one coming from democratic senator michael bennett just this morning he's asking google and apple to remove tiktok from their app stores he's saying, quote, no company is subject to the chinese communist party dictates should have the power to accumulate such extensive data on the

american people. tiktok responding, telling us, quote, unfortunately, senator bennet's letter relies almost exclusively on misleading reporting about tiktok tiktok also saying the senator ignores the plan that it says it has negotiated with the treasuries committee for foreign investment in the u.s. to transfer data to the u.s., which it says it's done in partnership with oracle to assure the security of user data on tiktok and the platform meanwhile, this all comes as tiktok ramps up a pr campaign. this week it unveiled the transparency and accountability center at its los angeles headquarters we took a look there now this headquarters does -- this particular center does not include any employees. it was designed to showcase for regulators, policymakers and, yes, the media, how it moderates and recommends content on the platform today tiktok also announcing updates to more stringently

enforce its guidelines, including a strike system for repeat offenders and new tools for users to better control what they see on the app. jon? >> how do you have a transparency and accountability center with no employees >> well, look, this is where they're showcasing all the -- and being transparent about the tools that they have and what they're giving to consumers to better control their experience. but it's interesting, jon, because back in the day, after facebook struggled with some of their -- some of the election security issues, they put together a war room. they invited journalist, such as myself to come and check it out. to me this is similar. they're trying to show there's a place. >> there were people working there. it wasn't just a place also, you know, bytedance employees accessed u.s. data we found that out a few months ago, right, that, you know, at least in these reports, that there were people in china who could see stuff. now, they're claiming that since 2019 that hasn't been the case,

but is there an audit trail? is there any way of proving that >> well, look, i think there are a couple of different things here first, the concern about whether or not the chinese have access to data about u.s. consumers, whether they're influencing the algorithm of what u.s. consumers and users of tiktok see and what they're doing on the platform. separately, there's this question of whether consumers are getting fed videos that are maybe not so great for them. you know, there have been a lot of concerns about impact on teens and kids of spending so much time on tiktok. and what this particular transparency and accountability center is about is giving consumers a little bit more control over their experience on the platform and indicating, look, we are transparent here's how it works. they're not showing people, you know, writing code because that seems like that would, perhaps, give away some of their trade secrets, if you will i think the idea here is they wanted to invite people into their offices to show they're making a big effort.

>> okay. even though nobody works there julia, thanks. coming up next, we'll speak with the ceo of hologic on the back of earnings that stock hitting a 52-week high after beating one -- well, after raising guidance we're back in a moment inner voice: (kombucha brewer): when i started my new kombucha business... ... i thought there would be a lot more kombucha... ...and a lot less business. inner voice (graphic designer): as a new small business owner... ...i've learned that trying to be the “cool” boss... ...is a lot harder when you're actually the “stressed” boss. inner voice (furniture maker): i know everything about my new furniture business. well, everything except... ...the whole “business” part. not anymore. with quickbooks, you can confidently manage your business. new business? no problem. yeah. success starts with intuit quickbooks.

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now check out shares of hologic outperforming the broader market over the past year up around 15% and adding to those gains this morning after a bead across-the-board in their latest earnings results while raising guidance stock at a 52-week high joining us on set hologic ceo steve macmillan. wonderful to have you in person. >> thank you for having us >> what does life after covid look like with so many of the companies, especially the ones we cover on "tech check" we saw a boom and then a fade your revenue stock up. you approached the covid boom a lot more balanced, in a lot more balanced way >> we did. we shifted all of our molecular production to covid tests to help the world when they needed us the magic for us, though, we

placed a whole bunch of panthers, which are instruments. and because we were helping out customers both in the u.s. and around the world, they all effectively said, hey, when covid finishes, we're going to adopt more of your base business and so what we tried to do both with wall street as well, don't value us on covid. this is unsustainable and, frankly, for the world, we want it to go back down the value on our base business and, in fact, our base business has come out so much stronger because we placed all these panther instruments which run our molecular panels around the world. >> you are more balanced but at the same time you are starting to see that business, panther, the machines and these are highly automated machines that do the covid tests, used for different reasons. at one point investors thought they would be mothballed after covid because they were primarily doing covid tests. what kind of tests are they doing now? what's the opportunity >> we have been the world leader for sexually transmitted infections, all standard tests

that women need especially and so what happened those went down early in the pandemic but those are now all coming back very strongly and we've placed all these additional panthers and have been able to get our base business would go down. customers would stop running those, run covid people thought our base business was getting weaker when it was getting stronger now that's becoming clear as covid is going down. >> so that's the short-term opportunity. i wonder if you think further out covid led a lot of people to pay more attention to their health how does that translate longer term beyond women's health or the tests you're doing now, for your business and the health care industry at large >> it's funny for you to have us on "tech check" because technology is key to be able to transform. you think about two big things, one is image quality the earlier we can detect cancers, the cheaper it is for

the health care system to treat, the far better it is for the patient. and if you think about breast and cervical cancer, people should not be dying. there can be a world some day women are not dying of breast or cervical cancer because you detected it early and through better imaging and through ai, so all of the stuff -- you hear about ai and you see it clearly in the meta and all the other companies, but it's also profoundly still in the early stages of health care where it's going to be able to -- it's image detection. so much of ai is about image detection, and that's what we can do instead of people looking through microscopes, able to digitize it and look at it that way. there's so much stuff. early detection is cheaper and better for everyone. >> that pattern recognition and certainly health care is one of the most interesting spaces for ai remember watson health, but some really interesting stuff happening right now including on your front

stephen, thank you for being with us. we'll have to see you again soon >> great thank you. coming up, qualcomm will be in focus ahead of earnings this afternoon. we'll talk about what to expect for the stock after getting some very different results between intel and amd when "tech check" is back. we all work differently now. so cdw helped us deploy mac, supercharged by apple silicon. ♪♪ built-in security protects me from malware and forgotten passwords. i've got enough battery life to get me halfway around the globe. and lower overall costs leave more money in our budget. for more practical furniture? this was supposed to be hip. no. can you help me up? with mac, configured by cdw, a solution that works for everyone isn't just possible, it's powerful.

one more thing before we go and that's a look ahead to qualcomm which reports after the bell, a few tech stocks not up this morning intel and amd providing conflicting outlooks about future demand. watch the smartphone guide to start the year ibc saying 2022 ships hit their lowest level since 2013. commentary about the relationships with apple and samsung will be important, apple finding it difficult to quit qualcomm chips and samsung will help drive growth in coming quarters as qualcomm has won the business in flagship devices we'll have to see if qualcomm's

segment weathers the slow down >> so many cross currents in chips right now as we all know one more check on meta before we go bofa said the last time they mentioned efficiency was late 2014 and they went on to outperform the s&p by 60% the following year we'll see if history continues to the judge thank you very much. welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner the countdown of the biggest earnings night of the season, apple, amazon and alphabet all reporting along with some other big names, too we debate what all of it means to the tech trade running again thanks to that meta blow-out super investors brad gerstner joining me and the committee joining me for the hour, brynn talkington, rob sechan, steve weiss and josh brown it's a nasdaq kind of day today. look at