good thursday morning. setting the agenda today it's not just about tech anymore. under the surface this market is looking better, at least at far as breadth goes. but can that last? we'll ask charles schwab chief investment officer liz ann sonders. an orange haze putting the east coast under smoke we'll talk to frontier ceo barry biffle. and synovus regional bank ceo with us, kre up 20% from the lows we're watching that closely as

we're getting signs maybe the worst of the regionals may be behind us. take a look at stoods at this hour. dow, s&p 500 higher. the nasdaq, too. tech leading the charge. it's consumer discretionary the highest, best performing sector today thanks to amazon amazon is making a move. i wanted to highlight that because it hasn't been the poster child for ai but it is in the last few days getting a lot of analyst love around the topic. ubs taking the price target to 150 saying they expect ai to show up in aws in the coming quarters wells fargo initiating with 30% upside we talked to the bernstein analyst yesterday who had some ideas for the company but ultimately sees a lot of value there. the stock is making a move 3%. that's enough to support a move higher in nasdaq and s&p. >> meanwhile, the russell, by the way, which was the most overbought on a 50-day moving average ever, nearly four standard deviations above, giving some back today

you know when you're a little kid, riding your bike, you lose control and steering wildly back and forth, that's what it feels like tech and small caps have been doing for the past couple of weeks. >> and it's been either/or since june maybe it's a sign we can avoid a harder landing. >> claims, 261 is the highest in 19, 20 months. that gives yields and one month below 5% gives you concern - >> yesterday the story on to-year was the highest since march. canada's surprise hike, weaker jobs the big number to watch is on tuesday when we get cpi and the fed decision out the next day. >> we'll see if our own central bank gives us a surprise there's the two-year at 4.5. topping the tape for us, the market breadth, as we said, finally beginning to broaden

out. for weeks tech had dominated the gains. now the conversation is moving beyond the magnificent seven or the elite eight. the percentage of stocks above the 50-day for the s&p 500, nasdaq, russell moving higher through yesterday's close. the small caps especially did see that big jump. joining us charles schwab chief investment strategist liz ann sonders with us. good to see you. >> you, too. >> b of a, the desk says, is this the great breadthening, and they argue yes do you agree >> i think it's too soon to judge. i think we'll be at the mercy of the economic data, as sara pointed out. i think the initial move to a broader market behavior and lift in small caps was better than expected jobs number and you're seeing the same thing in terms of expectations around both the june and the july fed meeting. with regard to that, you then get the worse than expected claims number this morning and you see expectations shoot

up in terms of the likelihood of a pause or what i guess we're now calling a step so, i think we'll continue to probably see some jumping around within the market in terms of leadership very much driven by the short-term trend that we're seeing in economic data. >> right meanwhile, we're paying attention to some of the bull/bear surveys today. and the underperformance of a lot of funds that didn't double down on tech at the beginning of the year i wonder, what do you think the chances are of a chase, so to speak, in the second half? >> so, i think probably the pain trade is still higher. and, you know, inevitably you're going to get fomo type behavior, especially when it's in a lot of household, large -- it's not all tech i've heard of techie names because among the -- as you said, among the magnificent seven, super eight, subset you want to talk about, it does span in tech, communication services,

consumer discretionary if you look at the top ten stocks, you even move into health care and energy so, it's more than just tech, but it's enticing for a lot of investors. i think the caution, of course, is you get reversion to the mean periods, whether it's a couple of days or something longer than that you have to be really careful about not letting your portfolio get similarly concentrated in terms of what we've seen in terms of performance because the inevitable other side of that can be painful. >> on the fed, which dominates the market conversation, liz ann, so the expectation now in the market is a skip, as you say. pause in june, hike in july. then what? what's the expectation from the market if we get a hawkish message next week, is that already priced in? you think the market's going to be okay with that or is there downside risk? >> the market has mostly priced out rate cuts, although it still looks like there's about one cut by year end priced in. i think that continues to have

to get priced out. in fact, you know, what's interesting is many times when i hear the really bullish thesis for the market, it's been predicated on what had been an expectation of rate cuts in the second half of the year. always in my head was, boy, be careful what you wish for because the conditions that would give the green light to the fed to not just pause, but to actually do a 180 and start cutting rates after the most aggressive hiking cycle would be relatively calamatous in terms of the back drop i think the market is coming to grips with what the fed has been trying to shove in everybody's faces, which is once we get to the terminal rate, we're going to stay there for a while. i think there's a little more that needs to come out from a market perspective in terms of the timing associated with that pivot. i think this is more of a higher for longer kind of environment certainly what the fed has been telling us. >> there's actually been work

done today the degree to which central banks like to surprise or, rather, not surprise markets. on a week where we did get australia and canada, i wonder if you think -- if they were going to hike in june, wouldn't they have to start laying the groundwork pretty much now >> yeah. and i do think it's the m.o. of the powell fed not to go against expectations, whether it's -- if you're looking a via tool like the cme fed watch tool that can jump around a lot it jumped around a lot today between pre-claims reports and post-claim reports whatever expectations are, however you measure them going into the june meeting, yeah, my guess is the fed is not going to buck that. key will be what they say and start to telegraph about a july meeting, about the september meeting. they're unlikely to be precise that's also been the m.o. of powell but i think that's where we'll get better color on july and september. but in the meantime, you're seeing these probabilities jump all over the place

so, looking at it right now and saying, no, the fed wouldn't surprise markets by going against expectations, though expectations can change a lot even in a week's time. >> well, yeah, tuesday cpi, i think, is going to be a cliffhanger a little bit for that reason. have you changed the advice you're giving clients at all, liz ann? i know you've been a big proponent of quality stocks and cautious macro environment anything that's changed in terms of - >> not really. we're still sector neutral i think you want to take more of a factor approach. you're right in pointing out that it's really represented by a quality wrapper. but its factors, we've been emphasizing span both in the realm of the growth area and the value area so, look for strong earnings revisions and strong earnings surprise, strength of balance sheet, self-funding companies that have the cash flow to continue to operate their businesses, if it's a dividend payer, look for dividend growers, not just a high dividend yield i think this is -- there will be

a time, i think, where you can maybe go down the quality spectrum where the leverage is to that cyclical turn-up in the economy. we're just not there yet for now we continue to have that emphasis on quality. >> it's a good setup for the rest of the week next week is where all the action comes liz ann, thanks. good to see you. liz ann sonders. after the break, this is important for the fed, too rebound in regionals the kre regional bank index at its highest level since mid-april. we'll talk to the ceo of synovus. health officials issuing warning about air quality, major airports grounding flights the ceo of frontier airline is with us later after "squawk on the street" is back in a moment. what do you see on the horizon?

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tesla up more than 30% in the last ten months and that has helped the ark innovation and stopped the backstop of holdings in coin. adding 21 million of coin after it fell following that lawsuit from the s.e.c by the way, don't miss cathie wood tomorrow on "squawk." that interview will happen at 7:30 a.m. eastern time as for tesla, we know what a huge weighting it is that shares at 232 going to take you back to october. >> march higher, seemingly people stopped worrying about the price cuts that's what was weighing on the stock. we haven't had much news on

that and the message from elon musk continues to be bullish. let's turn to the regional banks. kre up around 10% over the past week despite giving back some gains this morning in terms of what's coming next for the sector, our next guest predicts the end of the fed's tightening cycle will stabilize the environment even more. joining us is siynovus ceo kevin blair. >> thanks for having me back on. >> how is it going last time we talked to you it was much close to the march 9th failure of svb when it was terminal for regional banks. what have you seen since then? >> we've seen prices improve this past week and taken some of the fears we've seen in the marketplace off the table. liquidity has been strong and i think regional banks have shown that despite some of the challenges that existed back in march, we've been able to not only keep our deposits but actually grow in many situations i think the second question that

people had was what was the cost of the deposits going to do over time as we've gotten closer to the end of this cycle, i think we're starting to see some of the increases month on month of deposit price start to stabilize. hopefully as we get to the end of the cycle, you'll see the betas hit their terminal levels and abate. the third question was around the regulatory environment, given what happened with these other institutions how would that impact banks? as we saw at the end of april with vice chairman barr's report, it looks likely the tailoring rules will be reversed and banks over $100 billion will have to include things like aoci back into their capital ratios and comply with things like lcr. some of those rules, even though we're a $62 billion bank, will trickle down into our space as it relates to stress testing and interest rate management and some of the liquidity environment testing we'll have to do. ultimately as some of those

fears abate, you can see some investors think there's tremendous value based on where the regional banks were trading. >> absolutely. a lot of those sort of existential fears have abated, kevin, but there still is a lot of concern about earnings growth in this sector you see that by the fact the stocks are still down 20% to 30% year to date how do you grow earnings in this environment when there are so many headwinds >> there are a lot of headwinds because we're still looking at what could be a recession, which, as you saw today with the jobless claims increase, that maybe some of the actions we're taking are starting to have an effect in the economy. so, we're next looking at credit cost to understand what those are going to do. as i've said in the past, i think synovus is well situated in the southeast wherever whatever recession we go through we'll be more insulated given the population growth and the economic development we continue to see in the southeast where we're focused is with our core clients how do you price loans, how do

you generate fee income, how do you cross-sell into those relationships to ensure you're maximizing your profitability. if the economy's not growing at 3% to 5%, then you have to rely on those existing clients you have how do you deepen your wallet share? i was looking at some numbers we have our treasury side on a year-to-date basis about 72% of our sales that we've had have been with existing clients so, when the things around you are not growing at a similar pace, you have to really look at your existing relationships and use the value that we create to generate higher levels of productivity and profitability with those clients >> kevin, interesting to hear yellen on our air yesterday say there's motivation to see some consolidation and it wouldn't surprise me to see some of that going forward. i wonder if you think regulators are maybe going to elongate the leash a little bit if they do, if you're going to e >> carl, i think it's likely -- we're likely to see additional m & a activity it gets back to what i was

referencing earlier. if there are additional capital requirements placed on banks, if funding costs are at traditionally high levels, it's going to put pressure on overall returns. and when you translate that back into high levels of profitability, you have to do something in order to offset those additional headwinds so, i think what you'll see banks go out and conduct more m&a activity to offset that by cutting costs. and so the easiest way to offset the reduction in returns is to get some cost savings. and i think the banking industry has been pretty prudent in the last several years at improving efficiency ratios. the quickest way to do that is with m&a that will come back into favor to your point, i believe the regulators, you heard janet say that, they'll be a little more open to having that happen for synovus, we're focused on ourselves. we believe we have a organic growth story and we have in position to take market share from some of our competitors long term m&a may come back on

the table, but short term we're focused on getting through the next cycle and coming out the other side organically. >> you mentioned the headwind facing the economy and said it's, in part, what we're all doing. i'm curious what's happening with loans and how much credit standards have tightened because that was the big fear after the failures that we would see some severe credit crunch it doesn't feel like we've seen that yet it is coming is it happening? what are you doing >> we saw in the senior loan officer survey several weeks ago that credit standards continue to tighten i think the other part of that that people missed was that borrowers are less likely to come and ask for new capital so, we've seen this internally where our pipelines are off roughly 90% on the commercial real estate side and we've seen on the commercial industrial side they're off 25%. i think that's showing a

slowdown in the underlying economy. and banks are being prudent. i think we're looking at certain loan policies where we felt like there may be stress moving forward. but i would tell you where banks are more focused today is on profitability. if we're going to provide capital to an institution, we're likely to ask for liquidity and return we've really eliminated these what we call loan-only relationships where we're not getting a full share of the clients' wallet. i think that's starting to slow down some of the lending activity that's going on but we're still seeing lending activity in many of our markets. i think that's being missed. in light of some of the economic data, you know, we have many businesses and markets that continue to grow they're continuing to come to us for capital. but overall, we're starting to see some of the impacts of all of the actions that the fed's taken as well as, you know, you can see the job market that things are slowing down a little bit. i think that's, as i said, a two-way street it's not just about banks tightening credit policies it's really less demand from our

clients. >> and that was the whole -- that was one of the aims of the fed policy, to tighten and slow things down. kevin, thank you appreciate the color really good to have you. >> great to be with you, sara. >> kevin blair. later this hour, the dollar's dominance the house services committee holding a hearing on preserving the greenback status in the currency markets you know we're going to dive into that dollar debate with one of the experts who testified at the hearing. we're watching gamestop plummeting after the firing of its ceo again. ryan cohen now executive cirha t, he's the owner of petsworth vetworld. business was steady, but then an influx of new four-legged friends changed everything. dr. petsworth welcomed these new patients. the only problem? more appointments meant he needed more space. that's when dr. petsworth turned to his american express business card, which offers flexible spending limits that adapt with his business. he used his card to furnish a new exam room, and everyone was happy. built for dr. petsworth business.

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european markets set to close in a money the eurozone did enter a recession in q1. the story abroad this morning is actually in japan. where the opposite is true revising their q1 gdp higher thanks to a significant bump in

corporate investment this has been one of the surprise stories of the year we've hit it a number of times on this show that is, the resilience in the japanese economy they have inflation that's higher but nothing like the levels we're dealing with in the u.s. and europe. and they're super dovish and easy all of that has added up to a market that has stunned and beat the rest of the world. the nikkei, 14% this quarter it's up 22% this year. it's the highest level in 33 years. >> it's actually really exciting that in an amazing part of long-term psych wrl you flip the mentality of the consumer and they have to change the way they think about money, period, to keep up with this new inflationary picture that's going to mean a lot more activity and circulation and equity actions that's why you can see it's one of the most favored market in the world. >> animal spirits, corporate investment in that gdp rising 1.4% that's what led the growth while private consumption only grew 0.50%, you're right, there's this mentality shift

starting in corporate america and making japan very attractive for foreign investors. >> we'll continue to talk about ways how to play japan even from here. meantime,the smoke conditions in the northeast causing ground stops and delays across airports. we'll check in with the ceo on frontier airlines. plus, june is pride month. cnbc is celebrating all month long and sharing stories of corporate leaders with you here's equinox group chief people officer >> being gay is not a liability. it's the creativity, the resilience, the empathy you bring to the table that is so valued in any team, any workplace. don't settle for anything less pick people to work with and places to work at, not that they will just tolerate you but celebrate for who you are and what you bring to the table.

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smoke from canadian wildfires engulfing the east coast. wild scenes here in new york city airlines grounding flights, public officials issuing health warnings over the deteriorating air quality. nbc's lindsey reiser is atop 30 rock with the latest >> reporter: good to be with

you. people in this area, they feel scratchy throats, itchy eyes, coughing a lot it's definitely something you cannot miss when you're walking outside. just the haze, not being able to see the buildings clearly. certainly not quite as bad as it was yesterday afternoon when people were describing it as other-worldly, straight up apocalyptic. this has had far-reaching effects. we've had public schools, entire systems shut down like in elizabeth, new jersey and yonkers. we also saw broadway shows were canceled some of the stars were unable to perform. google told employees in the northeast, work from home today. grubhub told workers, we're not going to penalize you for delivering in certain areas. we saw sports games that were also postponed or canceled altogether the air quality index right now is around 200. governor kathy hochul says usually in the new york area it's 50. it's four times what it should

be levels yesterday afternoon, some of the images you're watching on your screen and that orange haze were around 400. i talked to some tourists out and about. they said yesterday from about 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. eastern time they hunkered down in their hotel room they were disappointed because their "hamilton" show had been canceled also. other people i talked to said they're dealing with it. they realize this is something that places around the world deal with also from time to time so, right now forecasts looking a little grim still for today. we still have some haze in the air. we're watching to see what happens this afternoon as well hopefully by friday or the weekend those winds will push wildfire smoke away from the region carl, back to you. >> appreciate that important information. not just for new york but the rest of the country as well. lindsey atop 30 rock today as we said, that wildfire smoke and the ground stops we're seeing at major airports across the airport mark a rough start to the summer vacation season.

joining us with some of the trends he's following is the ceo of frontier airlines, barry biffle we had the new york city climate commissioner on this morning arguing none of the models predicted this being as bad as it became on wednesday did the industry see this coming >> you know, i think the wind shifted and it pushed it into the area i don't think they quite expected that. just as it pushed it in, it looks like the forecast will push it back out hopefully within the next 24 to 72 hours it will be clearing up. >> what does it do to the network and your ability to move things around? are these ground stops material? >> the ground stops are a challenge for the industry you know, i think from a safety perspective, i mean, travelers should just know we can operate just like if there are clouds. it's not as big an impact on the visibility as it is for visual flights. but it is a challenge when you have the ground delay programs this is exacerbating challenges

with air traffic control again, it looks like it's going to be behind us in the next day or two >> do you think about climate change, these wildfire issues, we've had more hurricanes, so many disruptions now is there any way for you to model that into your future planning and how you think about business because it has been so disruptive over the recent years? >> i don't think that this is a new one, the wildfires being this big of a challenge. we've had issues with volcanic ash. we have had some wildfire issues in colorado last year, as an example, but it's not that big of a challenge as far as climate change goes, though, i think we're probably the leaders here we burn less fuel per seat than any other airline in the united states in fact, our newest aircraft get 120 miles per gallon per seat compared to airlines in the 60s, some of the big airlines are in the 60 mile per gallon range we think about it a lot. >> barry, question on demand obviously it's been boom times for airlines like yours as

people prioritize travel, but we're continue to monitor softer macro economic data, including today's jobless claims numbers, s signet is talking about a softening. are you seeing that? >> we have not seen that we have lots of summer demand. fuel prices have started to normalize and come down and that savings has been passed onto consumers in the form of lore fares. there's still lots of demand and i think the lower prices keep people traveling. >> reminds me of a call made on the street last week, a 90-day positive catalyst watch on frontier because when oil and fuel goes down, it tends to benefit those that have a cheaper operating structure. i wonder if you think that is going to be truly material for you guys >> well, look, we're looking for fuel to come down. there's still a significant premium in there people see it at the pump.

we see it as well. i think there's more room for it to go down, especially if you see these macro economic conditions the other thing is we have a widening cost gap not just in the fuel side but in the ex-fuel side we're seeing frontier's cost advantage widening to more than it was even before the pandemic. so, we're excited about the future >> do you think the industry -- you know, so many of the story the last, say, 18 months, two years has been industry constraints, capacity constraints, growth constraints. we haven't reallyseen carriers like yourselves act like they historically would, enter into new market, steal share out of a new city when do you think we get back to those days >> we're continuing to grow. we're actually larger than we were in 2019 in fact, in the first quarter we were up 40% versus '19, more growth than anyone else. most of the carriers in the united states are at or still below 2019 levels. we are growing we're adding new routes and investing a lot in atlanta and dallas/fort worth, phoenix and

puerto rico. we're continuing to grow, but i think the industry, it's going to be a while because the capacity is going to be constrained due to manufacturing and supply constraints as well as the pilot supply. >> what's the latest on the pilot shortage, staffing levels for you and broader for the industry, air traffic control? where are we on some of those issues >> i can't speak to air traffic control. i know they're working hard at the government to solve that i think the good news on the pilot shortage is we finally stabilized we're seeing pilot starts or new pilots and student pilots starting to exceed the shortage on any given month or hiring on any given month. we still have that depth we built up i think it's still going to take another year or two to get back to normal levels. >> and you mentioned the growth. i just wanted to ask you specifically about new york, not just because of the smoke and the issues here, but you're expanding, right jetblue had to divest some laguardia slots and you'll pick that up. how do you build awareness what's the opportunity like? >> well, the good news is people

seek out low fares our brand continues to get stronger and stronger. we're in laguardia today in a small way. we have a small operation at islip. we'll spend a lot of time making sure people know about our low fares and they'll sell themselves, i suspect. >> barry, appreciate that. covered a lot of ground there. nice live shot, by the way, of that view out west >> look at that clean air. so jealous >> come to colorado. we've got great, clean air. >> barry, thank you. good to see you. it is that time of year when the networks across nbc news shine a lot on people who are inspiring america. this coming weekend, people like lebron james, aif ra longoria and others will be featured in a network special airing on saturday and sunday. all this week cnbc will showcase business leaders who inspire today we hear from damon john, the people's shark as he shares his journey from the streets to founding a global clothing empire >> as i was growing up in the

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is the u.s. dollar's reserve currency in jeopardy our next guest thinks so saying current policies could spark a bond market failure. joining us now, dean's professor of finance at the robert h. smith school of business at university of maryland, michael. it's great to have you on. can you tell us, professor, about the hearing that went down yesterday, what sparked it and how sort of pessimistic it was about the dollar's role? >> sure. great to be with you

the hearing was looking at how do we maintain the dollar, the world's reserve currency the consensus among panelists is while there's not really an immediate threat of anybody else replacing us, if for no other reason that nobody else has the market depth and the trust of international investors, there are some long-term concerns. and i'd say they can have three different categories the first is what i focused on in my testimony is we need to get our fiscal house in order to the extent foreign investors, to the extent reserve banks want to hold dollars to reserve currency, they need to restore value. claims to strong economy going forward which means we need to keep policies in place that are low inflation and high growth, and that means getting our fiscal house in order. second, we need to continually updating the regulatory environment such that firms can upgrade the payment system we have so we don't see an outsourcing of payment systems to other countries that are

getting ahead of us in financial technology third, we need to be prud ent in our sanctions. a lot of focus on discussions of sanctions being multi-lateral and prudent in their usage so that they're not overused and encouraging countries to find alternatives >> i think we should just say, you were in the treasury department in the trump administration president trump recently has been talking about a dollar crisis and the end of the dollar's reserve status and pointing to some policies by president biden. are you saying that, especially when republicans talk about it now, it's just bluster it's not realistic it's not happening right now >> it's not going to happen in the next five to ten years if for no other reason there's nothing to replace it. there's not trust in the chinese yuan as an alternative not only that, you have capital

controls in and out of china that are going to make it difficult to serve as the world's currency as much as we have forecasted economic and fiscal difficulties here in the united states, so does europe. and there's nobody else that is of sufficient -- in order to compete. >> professor, do you think -- i mean, sort of gaming it out, if there is someone who can at least present a competitive threat, is it a state actor or -- more of petro dollar or crypto related in an area of tech that is still under innovation >> one of the discussions we had about crypto dollars, for instance, is you're still going to need a state actor who is going to ensure conversion it's only good to have a petro dollar if when there's a crisis you're able to enforce conversion into the underlying commodity. and that usually is going to require a state actor. if not, who can you trust that's going to be there to do that

conversion and that's why there's concern that's why i don't think china will be a credible offer of such a thing because is it really the case that if there were geopolitical conflict, china would actually turn over petroleum reserves or gold, whatever they choose to back their asset-backed currency with, instead of hoarding that in order to emerge from whatever geopolitical tranche there is. you have to trust conversion will not be suspended. i think there are very few out there that financial markets would trust to do that. >> but you do warn about a bond market failure if we continue our existing fiscal policies that was obviously very front and center, the debt of our country and this current debt ceiling debate it's kind of a vicious cycle, though, professor because as long as we have the reserve currency, we can fund those giant debts better than anyone else where do you see this all going? >> that's right. so, you know, one of the things i mentioned in my testimony is

my first week at treasury i worked on the u.s. financial report, the financial report of the u.s. government. and if you look at the current version of that report, at the end of the forecast horizon we have debt at 566% of gross domestic product that is not sustainable. that will jeopardize the willingness of other countries and other investors to purchase our currencies we have to get our fiscal situation under control. the status quo is not sustainable. that said, it's not going to happen five years from now, but it is important we address the long-term fiscal challenges facing us and address unsustainable mandatory spending >> professor, thank you for joining us really interesting and the fact they even held this i find interesting in congress appreciate it. by the way, you know who has thoughts on this bridgewater founder ray dalio. on that programming note he'll join us during this hour on monday he made a bold call today saying the u.s. is at the beginning of a large big cycle debt crisis.

obviously, had thoughts on where the dollar's reserve status goes from here. ray dalio on "squawk on the street" monday >> that's evolution of his long-standing thesis. meantime, google cracking down on office attendance and asking fully remote workers to reconsider their work status that story after the break. we're watching signet jewelers q2 below estimates the ceo telling us in the last hour that increasing macro pressures on consumers add more price points and deeper discounting are weighing on the quarter and the outlook. but she sees some bright spots toward the end of the year, for instance, when engagements should pick up again wh on "squawk on the street." dow is holding onto a 70-point gain an online food delivery service. business was steady, until... gogo-foodco. go check it out. whaatt?! overnight, users tripled. which meant hiring 20 new employees — and buying 20 new laptops. so she used her american express business card,

which gives her more membership rewards points on her business purchases. somebody ordered some laptops? cynthia suarez. cfo. mvp. built for cynthia's business. built for your business. amex business.

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haven't been going into the office at least consistently that's the focus of today's tech check. >> jen, you broken so much news on google over the last year, plus it's interesting at this moment because i still remember when google was the first to send their employees home they even talked about the advantages of remote work. this has more to do with return to office. google is an interesting place in terms of profitability, the ai race. why do you think now they're demanding people come back >> i think they've been

expecting employees to come back it's still somewhat competitive in the telemarket. folks have been able to win extra remote work. the company has tried to be pretty nice and walk a tightrope. they're saying we're going to tie these to performance reviews and trying to be a little more strict i think they've faced a lot of responsibility to fill out office, too. >> a carrot-and-stick approach last year they were using lizzo concerts, and today threatening performance reviews. you say it's competitive you think that may be changing and that's why google is saying come back or it's going to hurt you? >> i think so. we've seen with lay-offs, including google and the other tech companies there's still a little fear there where i think folks feel more motivated to make that face time with their managers i think it's definitely shifting a little bit. >> this puts google and a lot of other big tech companies, their

business gains when people work remotely, you think about google trying to build its cloud business, a lot of tools to help people work from home. >> right, right. i think also you see how they are in competition with ai right now. they've also had product leaks happen, so that's reached competitors. there's been a lot more pressure to keep people in-house. part of that, their solution is bringing people closer to them. >> google is not alone amazon is trying to get workers back to the office even salesforce, and you have benioff talking about all the benefits of remote work. at the same time you're seeing pausing on campuses. you've got amazon in arlington, virginia, pausing construction on four buildings. net-net how does this shape out? >> it's going to be an

interesting several months they've paused construction around the campuses and yet asking everyone to come back in. it might be tight quarters we know they've offset a bunch of real estate i don't know it will be interesting maybe we'll see some tension with employees complaining about why am i coming in the i don't have a desk. >> and if we're not building these other campuses you have your finger on the pulse of how employees are feeling. the ones you've talked to in the last 24 hours by the chief saying get back in >> folks are just poking fun at the fact that they are trying to be a little bit more strict and stri stringent. there's this inherent opposition of anything like we're trying to control you type things. google has been very open in terms of employees, what they're able to do, how they're able to

talk, flexibility. i think this is starting to rub them kind of the wrong way. >> this is not the google way, to use the stick it's usually the carrot. >> maybe a broader indication of what else will happen in big tech sara, i'll hand it back over to you. big tech is doing this with large campuses already built out. the occupancy rates in san francisco still pretty dismal, 29%. you're not seeing people come back in a big way if the space isn't. >> reporter: there. >> thank you, deirdre. wall street is buzzing about taylor swift and how big an impact her concertare s having plus, messi making headlines in miami. those stories coming up. don't go away. >> announcer: tech check is sponsored by comcast business. pouring possibilities. st business...it is. is it possible to help keep our online platform

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wall street is buzzing about the superstar effect how taylor swift and messi are impacting certain economies. bank of america noting in chicago down 2.3% in the first five days of the week and jumped

16.5% when taylor swift was in town citing comments in the nyu hospitality conference from the ceo of the hotel company saying i think taylor swift is going to increase rev par in the u.s and then lionel messi pushing up tickets for the games to $450 and new york red bull games to $355 prices were near $40 prior to the announcement the soccer star can get a cut of the revenue from new subscribers. last year apple signed a ten-year, $2.5 billion deal with the league there's obviously big money. the fact he turned down the saudis also is interesting when you have superstars like that, they drive whole new economics for industries taylor swift is the most important person in america. >> certainly in the maramerican

economy. meantime, keep your eye on oil today, down nearly 4%. back below $7.0 a barrel could there be an interim agreement between the iranians and the u.s. it was a dramatic fall-off in the last 30 minutes or so. >> also watching the ten-year yield. that's been a barometer for the economy and where expectations are. the data point of today is jobless claims went above $260,000 a sign that lay-offs are picking up we'll wait to see confirmation in the coming weeks. obviously there's concern there that if the labor market cracks, we rethink the whole notion of the soft landing and recession, but also keep the fed on pause. >> in april jpmorgan had a notion 250 and above is where you've got to start thinking

about the potential for rece recession. >> it's been mixed messages. manufacturing weak, housing has been better lately the consumer mixed depending on where you are. still thinking of sig net, showing the slowdown in jewelries. >> let's get to the judge and the half >> carl, thanks so much. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner the nasdaq on track to break its longest weekly winning streak. we'll ask the investment committee whether the trade has reached a near-term top. joining me, josh brown, jenny harrington, steve weiss. the nasdaq up by just about 1% mu muted somewhat for the dow weiss, i want to go with