2024 and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning, everybody. happy black friday, we hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday. welcome to "squawk box," right here on cnbc, we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with robert frank and steve liesman. joe and andrew are off today. we've got everything under control here in the house, and i'm really glad to see both of you guys this morning. >> good to be here. happy black friday. >> i hope you had a black fridays. >> i'm sort to of feeling the f the next day. >> things are off and running, if you take a look at the u.s. equity futures, you're going to

board. the s&p was breaking a seven-day winning streak. if you're looking for the month today it has been a good one so far. dow has been up about 7% over that course of time. the s&p has been up by 5%, and the nasdaq is up by about 5.3%. then if you take a look at treasury yields, steve was checking this out, looking at things, and yields are lower. >> it's flat again. >> 4.21 is where the ten-year stands, two-year is at 4.19 and change. flattening out the curve on all of these issues. lower treasury yields than we have seen in recent weeks too. that's happened ever since we heard about scott bessent being named as treasury secretary. there's a lot of factors at play, but the market is coming in to trying to figure out how

all of these policies are going to add up. >> it's curious too. overall consensus seems to be higher for longer now in terms of rates. i don't know if you know what futures are looking at in terms of the ten-year, and interest rate cuts. it's curious to see that as more and more strategic analysts are saying, look, fewer cuts next year. we're looking for them to stay because they're looking at if not a resurgence of inflation, at least it's going to hang around at the 2 1/2 to 3 level . >> and the economy is in pretty good shape too, the economic numbers. >> steve, what do you make of that? >> one interpretation of a flattening yield curve, we're thinking about the fed making a mistake here. >> by cutting again or pausing? >> by not cutting. you peg the two-year to what you think the fed is going to do near term, and you make a bet on the future of the economy based upon in the ten-year, and if the ten-year is not going higher, then you say, all right, maybe we're going to have weakness down the road because of the

mistake or what the fed is going to do up front. the tariff story, the incoming fiscal story has created a lot of uncertainty around the federal reserve and what's going to happen there. and the timing of this makes it very difficult to game out. the first thing you have is you say, okay, when are the policies going to be implemented, when are they going to hit the economy, and when will the fed react. that's a three-step dance, you don't know how to game out. what's happened is, yes, becky's doing the three-step dance in her seat right there. what's happened is you've had this situation where we were pegged to cutting in december, we were going to take a break in january, come again in march. that march cut is now down. i did not have time to do the probability charts for you here. but i can actually give you an eyeball on it. >> december is still on, though, pretty unlikely they're not going to cut in december. >> we had discussions and comments from fed officials that said they were still on in the

recalibration process. you're cutting and not paying that much attention to the vis visitudes of the data you have a 17% chance of a cut in january. 48% in march, and then you get up in the 60s for may. so that's what's happened. they pushed it ahead, and then one other little factoid i will give you here by calling up the november 2025 contract, i've got to change to december because we're getting close. it's 3.84. let's do the math, 4.62 now, there's 80 basis points of cuts built in over the next year. take 25 in december, then another 50. >> and 3.8 is still above the consensus terminal rate, right? or is it 3.5, 3.4. >> call that the terminal. that's what people think the fed

will settle down eventually. it's going to take time. what you're talking about then once you get past this cut, two more. that's what's priced in right now. this is volatile, it moves up and down, but that's the pricing at the moment. this next story is really pretty important, i think. came as a bit of a surprise, the timing. >> i guess i'm supposed to read it then. >> we are watching shares of microsoft this morning after world that the ftc is launching an antitrust investigation into the company over the weekend. this surprising, thanksgiving, what do you call it, microsoft ftc raid, no, it's not a raid yet. >> a thanksgiving surprise. a source confirming to cnbc late wednesday just before the holiday that the ftc is opening a wide ranging probe into microsoft looking at whether the company is violating antitrust laws in a number of different aspects.

its software licensing, cloud computing, cyber security programs and ai. one focus is whether it uses licensing terms and market power to keep customers locked into the azure cloud service. shares down 1/2% since wednesday's close. the ftc has been looking informally into microsoft for more than a year. they have sent the company a detailed request for information. that's why we're learning about it now. this comes just a couple of months before ftc chair lina khan is almost certainly out of office, making this a swan song or parting shot for her as she caps off her term that has been so focused on big tech. we don't know yet who trump will want to lead that agency, and while there are some populist tendencies in common between trump and khan and j.d. vance, it's not clear what happens to the investigation when trump takes office in january, and lots of questions and lots to

watch as the case moves forward. >> i have so many questions, megan, but first of all, i'm having deja vu all over again. didn't we do this once a decade ago. >> in the '90s. >> when did we last say microsoft was using its licensing power, do you remember, megan, you don't remember because you're too young. when did this last happen? >> i don't remember it. it was 25 years ago, not quite ten years ago, but 25 years ago that they last looked into microsoft. there are suggestions that that investigation is what allowed google and others to grow bigger since it was so long ago. in recent years, microsoft has been left out as the ftc and others have gone after big tech companies until about two years ago, we saw the european commission do this this summer looking into microsoft and azure cloud at that point, and because

microsoft has had some security breaches in the last few months that paved the way for probes to move forward. >> the security breaches, it's a huge deal because it affected the government in lots of ways and kicked things up and stirred things up there. i would guess some of the open ai and ai issues stirred things up too. if you go back a year ago with all the ts that happened with open ai, that stirred up a lot of questions too. microsoft has been phenomenal in this century in the last 24 years in how it's worked with washington. if you think of brad smith and how he goes down to washington. they learned from what happened in the 1990s that they did not want to, you know, give the heisman, basically, to the government because that gets you in a lot of trouble. you're never going to win when the government wants information. they have been very cooperative in all of these things since then. the big question is what happens under a trump administration but a trump administration is what

started lots of these investigations into the big tech companies to begin with. just because the trump administration is going to be more antiregulatory, looking at ways to strip down regulatory actions, i don't know if that holds when it comes to some of the big tech companies. what do you think, megan? >> that's exactly right. there's sort of some strange bed fellows here, the trump white house in the first term, and we expect it to be tough on big tech. you were at the headline of mark zuckerberg being down in mar-a-lago. a lot of ceos recognize that and are trying to get ahead of it, and trying to do what they can. you're right that brad smith is here all the time, and having that savviness of going to the white house, to go to the hill, putting yourself and your executives in front of policy makers goes a really long way. i think it will be really interesting to see who goes atop the ftc. remember in the brief period when matt gaetz was the attorney general nominee. the pro lina khan crowd was

pleased. he had been supportive of her. the khan conservative discussion, and the fact that we don't know the same about pam bondi. it raises questions about who gets the ftc nod. >> i'm interested in this idea that microsoft in doing what is best for the consumer, for me personally, bundling f together so everything works seamlessly, if i'm reading this right, i may be reading this wrong. it sounded like it's the idea of putting all of that together to work seamlessly, as a consumer of tech, and i'm a major consumer of tech, the fact that all of this stuff works together helps me but this is what gets you into trouble with the government. >> unless the cyber security stuff is weak and they think you should have a stronger offering. >> that's not a reason to break it up. >> it's part of the reason the government's investigation kicked into high gear. >> i don't know, megan, if you have a comment on that. is that right that it's the bundling of these things

together that is the government's concern here? >> very likely. we don't have that many tea leaves to read yet. we're going to have to wait to hear more from the ftc. we know what happened in europe, it was about bundling. microsoft teams was coming alongside microsoft outlook and office and all of their other programs and competitors like slack for example or maybe zoom couldn't compete as well because they were all coming together just like you say, steve. it is difficult to know, one of the things that companies love so much about microsoft is the integration there and so is the bundling then also worth something that's worth breaking up. that's a big part of what this investigation is likely to hinge on. >> thank you very much, great reporting. sorry it ruined your holiday. >> also worth noting that stock is only down .49% this morning. it's up 14% on the year. either investors aren't concerned about it. they think the new trump

administration is going to emil rate this. from an investor point of view. >> it's early. they are seeking information and coming at it. we don't know if they bring something, what happens with this stuff, and it is at this transition period. >> i know we have to move on, but one of the theories of the case here is that some of the pricing and inflation we had as a result of monopolies that were out there or a lack of competition in pricing, and that has been a what do you call it, a modus operandi of the biden administration, and what is the theory of the case of the trump administration. >> the trump administration, tech folks, elon musk, peter teal who has a lot of influence through his surrogates, j.d. vance, they are small tech. they are anti big tech. >> elon musk is anti-open ai. >> they're antimicrosoft, antigoogle, antiamazon, it's hard to say pro business because

even within tech you're looking at this split. >> and by the way, i don't know if you saw the video, elon musk and may musk at least were at the table with donald trump, baron trump and melania trump at thant mar-a-lago. >> they lock you in with fees for software. back in the day, you would just buy $90 for whatever. now you get these credit card announcements that they billed you for $3 a month forever. >> that's more profitable in perpetuity. separately, the ftc looking into whether uber violated consumer protection laws with its uber one subscription services, giving discounts on rides and delivery services in exchange for an annual fee. the ftc is investigating the enrollment and cancellation process of the program. it has recently brought lawsuits against companies including amazon and adobe for allegedly making it too difficult as steve just mentioned to cancel those subscriptions. in a statement to cnbc, uber

said the uber one cancellation process followings -- follows the letter and spirit of the law. the majority of cancellations take 20 seconds or less, for you, dara. we will continue to answer any questions the ftc may have about our cancellations policies. the ftc probes do not always lead to enforcement action. >> you know what happened in the last couple of weeks, my credit card, there was some fraud activity on it, canceled it, the best benefit of it, it's a pain to go back to all the subscriptions i didn't realize i had or wanted to realize i couldn't. they're contacting me. >> now companies basically showing your prescriptions. now there's the business showing the subscriptions, and that's a subscription business too. >> cancel your credit card and everything falls by the wayside. >> the last several years has

been the dumb economy, all the subscriptions we have that we don't use, and i think that's part of the business plan. anyway, speaking of some of the smartest people out there, we have retail guru, i think i have been interviewing her on this day for years now. we're going to talk about potential winners and losers on this black friday. that is next, and later a run down of the big political developments from axios fodecounr, mike allen. "squawk box" is coming right back. tax smart investing today, helps to build a stronger tomorrow. at pgim custom harvest, our unique direct indexing approach seeks to help investors achieve better after-tax outcomes. pgim investments. shaping tomorrow, today

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you are looking at a live shot of the tanger outlets in deer park, new york, people are lining up. while the shopping season started before today, our next guest says she expects sales to be around 3 to 5%, versus 4 to 6% last year. joining us with her holiday outlook, a "squawk box" prediction, dana telsi, is this going to be a cheery holiday for retailers? >> i think it's going to be a resilient holiday for retailers. i think it's decent, stable. i don't think it's anything great. you take a look at what happened with all the pull forward of discounts earlier in the season, and now we have a compressed season with five fewer days, it makes a difference. i think the consumer is selective in what they spend,

and therefore, 3 to 3 1/2% is my number. >> do we know how much shopping is done in october. >> a bigger percentage, look what you had with amazon prime day, target circle, walmart, and a ton of specialty retailers. let's not forget the entrance into holiday and gifting. tjx, their gift giving is bigger and stronger than ever. >> i started shopping in october, which is crazy. i knew it was going to be a crunch time between thanksgiving and christmas, and not enough days left to do things. panic set in. >> exactly. >> why don't we start in august while we're at it? >> because we've got back-to-school. second biggest time of the year. back-to-school this year, it was warm for a long time. that warm weather hurt the ability to sell cold weather goods. if you're going to get deals right now, if you need a coat. >> that's what we were talking about in the commercial break ahead of time. there are deals. probably the best news you have seen for consumers in six or seven years. >> you're getting 30 off today,

overall, when i did my walks yesterday looking at signage, and i'll be hitting the stores today obviously. 30 off seems to be the going way. some have up to 50 off. you're going to get a deal this week. >> we have to serve the consumers who are buying, but the investors who are assessing and analyzing, so the question becomes at 30 to 50% off, what's happening to margins? >> ingmar begins are holding pretty good. you look at the inventories, the third quarter earnings reports have come out. they have been decent and in good shape. you're not seeing a degradation of the margin, even with some of the promotions. >> because margins are relatively high. we went into the season with high margins. they did well through the inflation process where they were able to keep their margins up, even with the increased labor costs that were out there. that's one of my air charts i did right there. >> there's more certainty in margins than sales. retailers have a harder prediction of where the sales growth is than they do with the margins because they can control the controllables.

what's going up this year in terms of margins and expenses, marketing. everyone's used differentiated social marketing in order to capture the mom, the son, the daughter and the dad. >> this is a big deal. this is a new thing because i talked to courtney, and i talked to julia boorstin. there's this influence thing going on on social media. >> steve discovered influencers. >> i am generally five to ten years behind the trend. i get there, but eventually. >> you can get there faster by capturing, look at the feed, look at the pictures. picture is worth a thousand words. >> people come on and essentially run a qvc network type of thing on twitter or bluesky or one of these other things. >> they'll wear it, and you want it, and you'll buy it. >> companies are saying buy now before the tariffs take over and increase prices, which is interesting, might be more marketing than reality, but what do you expect, especially for investors on tariffs and potential impact on the margins?

>> it's a big concern. you can't say tariffs is not a concern. overall when you think of where goods are produced and everyone's work to diversify their sourcing away from china to avoid the impact of tariffs but there's no china like china. >> are they pulling forward inventory, bringing stuff to the country? >> haven't seen much of that yet. inventory is still lean. the only pull forward you saw of inventory was what target did with the port strike. everyone else, pretty clean, and whether it is south america, it's hard to make goods in the u.s. labor pool, just the components of goods would change the labor structure. do we have the labor for that? >> let's go back to your praise here, there's no china like china. what does that mean? >> years ago i did this trip to china to see sourcing, the components, the stitching, the expertise, the speed. the labor is the other item. >> you can't bring it to vietnam. >> very hard. because they have to be trained.

they certainly have the labor pool. the length of time it would take to train them, that's the issue. the expertise of the sewing, the manufacturing, the putting together of items. >> how long does that take, two, three years. >> two or three years. you're looking for some to do it speedily to diversify from china, steve madden trying to do it the fastest. the end game, higher prices to the consumer. >> dana, comment on the trump administration's theory of the case. we put 20% tariffs on foreign goods, andt sparks u.s. production. can we bring the apparel business back to the united states? >> do we have the labor force to do that, who's going to want to stitch, sew? certainly we don't have the amount of talent here, and also just the distribution centers all put together in the manufacturing facilities to do that. and what would that mean in the end game and the length of time it would take in order to be able to do that. that's why they have gone to other countries to manufacture.

>> it's a 20% tariff on everything, then escaping out of china doesn't help you sfl . >> going to india, going to south america. >> if they're going to put 20% tariffs on mexico and canada, they're putting them on india too. >> that's a problem. and how long will it take to get goods. will we be in a permanent inventory reduction mode. >> and they're talking about 10% across the board and china would be 60. >> that 10% across the board, i think that's out the window now. if it's 25% on canada and mexico sfl we . >> we can talk about it later. >> it has to do with fentanyl and issues at the border, and you see them negotiating before trump has taken office. >> let's see what the real number is. >> right. exactly. >> we have to do this all over again. didn't we do this like eight years ago. >> four years. >> the randomness. before you go, we have been

looking at charts, circling them through. companies have performed well like target or costco, stocks reflect that. you have others like kohl's or target that haven't and their stocks are down. as a stock picker, which do you like, the stocks highly priced for companies doing well or stocks under pressure for companies that have not performed as well. >> those that have a competitive mote and can scale is what i like. i think the off prices are going to continue to win with tj. i think some of the specialty retailers, abercrombie, keeping on, birkenstock, ralph lauren, bath and body works. kohl's is not winning. >> what about best buy? >> there's work to be done. there are holiday season sales for november up 5% already. >> dana, it is a real pleasure to have you come in. >> thank you for having me, a great holiday. disney's moana 2 settling a

run for a thanksgiving release. we've got the numbers. we'll talk about them next. former fda commissioner, dr. scott gottlieb will join us. we'll talk about president trump's picks to lead health agencies. otgolied the fda in the last trump administration. "squawk box" will be right back.

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well, at the box office, disney's moana 2 dominated in its wednesday's debut, racking up 57 1/2 million dollars in north american ticket sales. it's projected to bring in at least $175 million over its first five days in the theaters. that would make it the biggest thanksgiving haul of all time,

overtaking "frozen 2's" record of $125 million. saw a bad review in variety. that's not going to stop a single family from going to see this with kids who are looking for new content. in the meantime, universal's "wicked" brought in $24 million. and gladiator 2, brought in $6.6 million on wednesday, and is tracking for a five-day haul of $40 million. >> are we going back to the theaters? >> i've got tickets to gladiator today, moana 2 on saturday, "wicked on" on sunday. >> glicked. >> are you going back to the theater? >> it's interesting how much we talk about movies. there was an interesting stat. movies this year will be about $10 billion. video games will be about $100 billion. >> that's a fair point. >> these are great movies.

i would love to see all of them. it's a shrinking and small part of the economy. >> there's only so many hours in the day. >> i have personally enjoyed going to the theater by myself and having the theater almost completely empty. that has been something that has been a phenomenon. >> do you go in the mornings? >> like the middle of the week or something. >> i'm on assignment. >> exactly. >> just to get out of the house. >> doesn't matter what's playing. >> exactly. we're going to dig into charitable giving among some of the world's richest people. that's next. and as we head to break, a look at wednesday's s&p 500's winners and losers. >> you better not go to an animated movie by yourself. deadline in five! finished and sent. [sending swoosh] we have tight turnarounds. at&t business helps us deliver. okay! client wants his head bigger.

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good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box." we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square, and if you take a look at the futures on this black friday, you're going to see they're in the green. dow futures up by about 140 points. s&p futures up by 16, the nasdaq

indicated up by about 75. robert frank is with us on set today, and robert, you've been taking a closer look at charitable giving by some of the world's richest people. what are you find something. >> this started with that letter that you read earlier in the week from warren buffett, and that was because he was announcing that he's giving another 1.1 billion to his family foundations. he's already given away $60 billion, which according to forbes makes him the biggest giver in dollar terms of all time. and he's just getting started. his plan is to give away all of his berkshire shares to his two sons and daughter to distribute to charity. he has given away more than half of his shares since 2006. if warren buffett had never given any shares to charity, he would today be the richest man in the world worth over $335 billion. that would top elon musk by about $10 billion. by the way, if bill gates hadn't sold or given away a share of microsoft after the ipo, he would be the world's first

trillion trillionaire today, worth $1.4 trillion. buffet saying, in no way did i or anyone else deem of the fortunes that have been attainable in america during the last few decades. it has been mind blowing yoond the imaginations of ford, carnegie, morgan or rockefeller. the challenge will be in disbursing the money, $150 billion during their lifetimes. for more on how the wealthy are giving, investing and spending their money, check out my news letter, inside wealth, that's cnbc.com/insidewealth, or that qr code, and i have what i said were the four rules of giving from that buffet letter, which interestingly he said, parents should read their will to their children while the parents are still alive. and i talked to a lot of wealth management firms and private banks that said clients, a lot of wealthy clients saw that buffet letter and are calling

their advisers saying should we do this. it is a very good idea to do it. maybe not everything in the will all at once. maybe a longer conversation over years in which you dribble out some of it. >> i think he's also said he did this with his adult children, didn't start when they were young. it's not something you do when they're younger. you don't want to leave this for them to be surprised when you're gone, and then have resentments or not understand or have anyone be able to explain to them why you're doing these things. >> we have seen the movies, and it's true where the attorney reads the will and one sibling is upset, why did dad or mom give it to them. his point is he has done this with his children as they were adults and he's made changes to his will as a result of that. it's helped both ways. it was a wise piece of advice that's already making a huge impact, as he always does, on wealthy. and we're looking at $84 trillion that's going to pass from older generations to younger generations.

this is a huge deal, among the wealthy. the number one issue is not how much money am i going to make, it's how do i transfer to my kids, raise my kids in a way that's not going to make them spoiled and warren buffett has contributed to the debate by, look, tell your kids about the will and have the discussion while you're alive. don't save it for later. >> and did not give a whole lot of money, relatively speaking, to his kids with this. his late wife, susan buffet had given each of them $10 million when she passed away. that was the first large sum of money they got. and they are giving away $150 billion they're going to be responsible for that, but his point was, when they were younger, he and susie buffet thought they wanted to give their kids enough. >> they could do anything, not so much that they could do nothing. which is such a great phrase and a great way of living. and so he appointed three other

trustees who are younger than his kids. this money may well out live them. >> the law of compounding interest. he's given away 60 billion, and so it keeps going. >> it's growing too fast. > i want to have these problems. mike allen from axios will join us with a look at the big political stories to watch this morning, and a reminder for you, you can get the best of "squawk box" in our daily podcast. just follow "squawk" pod on your favoriteodst pca app, and you can listen anytime. we will be right back. ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell. ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance... ♪ ♪ ...at each day's start. ♪ ♪ as time went on, it was easy to see. ♪ ♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪ and for adults with type 2 diabetes... ...and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. serious side effects include increased ketones in blood or urine, which can be fatal. stop jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, tiredness,

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when i was a kid, my mom would always put harry & david pears in our stockings. and if you got that gold one, it was like you had won christmas. my grandmother started it and now it's a tradition that i get to pass on to my kids. and that means a lot.

president-elect trump held a call with mexico's president, claudia claudia, and both leaders described the call as positive. trump says sheinbaum agreed to

stop immigration through mexico. she said she told trump that mexico is already taking care of migrant caravans. in an address she clarified that she remembers not -- did not ag to shut down the border. she interrupted a reporter saying there will be no tariff war. joining us on the latest trump transition. mike allen, axios cofounder. where is mike today. you were at an airport last week. then you had palm trees. now i'm trying to figure out, what state are you in, see some trees behind you. first of all, where are you, mike? >> robert, you are so good. so i'm coming to you live from chilly, raleigh, north carolina, where my brother scott and his wife sherry hosted me, feed me yesterday on thanksgiving. >> it's also where most if not all of the christmas trees that

we get here in the northeast come from, so that's an appropriate spot, mike. let's talk a little bit about this tariff war because we all remember in 2019 there was a similar reference where there was a lot of migrants coming across the border. trump said we're going to impose tariffs on mexico. they reached an agreement, where mexico said we're going to hold them here, and the tariff disappeared at this point. people said that's what's going to happen again. which trump are we going to get with regard to tariffs this time around. are we going to get the trump that basically there was a lot of sound and fury, and a negotiation that didn't result in much change, but gave him the ability to say there was change, or are we really going to get tariffs? >> those two trumps are not mutually exclusive. with trump, everything is a negotiation. i took his truth social post as the beginning of a negotiation. but taking your viewers behind the scenes of the transition.

i came here from palm beach, and the transition is definitely feeling aggressive, vindicated, validated. so these are not bluffs. these are real. and i think another place that we're going to see that is with tech. at the top of the show, you touched on one of the biggest stories in the transition and one of the biggest stories in business, and that is these tech ceos, these tech moguls getting savvier about interacting with the government in waiting. so thanksgiving eve, wednesday night, you saw mark zuckerberg, meta ceo, having thanksgiving eve dinner with president-elect trump and a little "squawk" scoop for you at that dinner. mark zuckerberg showed the president-elect the meta, ray bans smart glasses, and they were a big hit around the table.

he met with the senior staff. earlier, the commerce secretary designate howard lutnick stopped by the dinner. so robert, i think you're going to see a lot more of that in the weeks ahead. business, every sector, making the pilgrimage to palm beach, and interacting with the government. >> it's a signal to business here that their future and therefore the future of their shareholders depends on their personal relationship with donald trump? >> was ever thus. you have covered it yourself. vital with this president, and i'm told that he is just drinking in the communications that are coming in from every sector. and the way that one person said it to me is like, this is a very different donald trump than when he won in a surprise in 2016. the way one top transition insider said it to me is he

feels like he has this under control. and the way they said it is a lot of people in business are acting like he's already the president. so you saw scott bessent, the winner of the knife fight for treasury, that has been one of the best received of all of the president-elect's nomination announcements. definitely well received on wall street. that's buying him some goodwill with business, which was worried, skeptical, but knows washington is open for business. lots of business inputs to this government, and they expect an extremely business friendly agenda coming out. >> mike, it's not the only place, business isn't the only place that's almost treating him like the president. we're just reporting on the president of mexico, and the interactions back and forth, you can say the same with trudeau, the prime minister in canada. there are negotiations taking place on tariffs and policy to come before he's ever taken the oath of office.

it feels a little unusual. obviously there's a lame duck president right now, but i think probably because of his experience in the past, because he's coming in, you never see a president who takes four years off or at least in our lifetime, and comes back and is ready to go. he's coming in with plans that we -- i've never seen in my lifetime. and the ability to kind of move and act on those things. >> no, that's a very smart insight, and you have the combination of what you're pointing to there, that he knows how to work government. he feels confident about his choices, the way that it's been said to me by a transition insider, these are people who get him, who understand him. like last time, there were a lot of people who either didn't understand the vision or didn't buy into the vision. this time it's all trump. you combine that with he knows what he wants to do, acting aggressively, he has elon musk

sitting next to him, urging him to go big, and you have these personnel employees to make it possible. add to that, the point that we made earlier about how personal relationships are so vital with trump. and so -- >> i'm sorry, mike, i need to interrupt on this question, which is it seems like it had been tradition and for perhaps a reason not to be running a parallel foreign policy in the united states. is there a danger -- >> we had the congressman who is nominated as nsa. he has been speaking with jake sullivan. they have been ing. >> if they're coordinating, that's fine. is there a danger of running a foreign policy while there's still two months left of the current administration. >> spoiler, this president-elect doesn't do anything traditional i will. you make a great point. it's absolutely true. so what your viewers can watch for that continues with this

aggressive government witting as you all rightly point out, going ahead of what we're used to with the presidential transition. now we're going to start with the tier 2, tier 3 appointments, and a lot of them steer a lot of government money. i can tell you there's a lot of people in business that i talked to. they're more concerned about who's going to be the deputy. who's going to be in charge of acquisition than they are at the very top. one big job. another scoop for your "squawk" viewers, another big job that we're still waiting for is we expect president-elect trump to name a new fbi director, and for a top fbi or doj job, we're told that he still plans to appoint his ultra loyalist kash patel. i would say the deputy fbi director is probably most likely not done, but in the pole position for fbi director.

the top job is the missouri attorney general andrew bailey, and we're told that if kash patel doesn't get that one or two at the fbi, that he's likely to get some other appointed investigative role within doj. >> the only thing i will add is we had amos hawkstein on wednesday, talking about the peace they tried to broker between lebanon and israel. >> hezbollah. >> well, and lebanon, really, too, to engage on some of these things, but he said that they have coordinated with the incoming administration as well. there is channels of communication. >> some. >> some channels of communication in terms of how they view these things. and the incoming nsa, congressman waltz, the message that he wants to send is they are very much working hand in hand. there's no way for foreign enemies to try and make hay between two different administrations that they are working hand in glove.

>> becky, that's a great point, and one more data point on that for you, boll stering your poin even though there's been a delay in the formal transition machinery as the trump team signed their documents with the u.s. government, president-elect trump has been getting intelligence briefings from the biden administration. that's another example, becky, of what you're point to go. >> mike allen live from north carolina. mike, thank you so much for joining us this morning. great to see you. >> we'll talk retail trends with january niffen, and bill imon joins us, "squawk box" will be right back.

virtual meeting on oil protection curbs until thursday. the group says it's pushing back the meeting because several ministers are attending the meeting of the gulf cooperation on thursday. in the past, opec has delayed meeting dates when member countries need more time to reach a deal on production levels. we will see. it looks like wti is at 68.37. certainly it's come down over the last month and a half or so. and even more so last week. when we come back, retail expert, jan kniffen will join us with his expectations for the holiday shopping season. get to it. it's black friday. are you out there yet? "squawk box" will be right back.

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it is 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. and you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with steve liesman and robert flank. it is the final trading day of november. and investors have a lot to be thankful for. the dow sup by 7%. it's on track for its best performance in a year. the s&p and nasdaq gaining 5% with the s&p on pace for its best month since february, and the small caps are leading the pack. you've got the russell 2000 up more than 10%. that could be its best month since last december. >> so we got the broadening that everybody was talking about. >> there it is.

493 stocks in the s&p 500 is what we keep hearing, but especially the small caps. a source confirming to cnbc that the federal trade commission has opened a broad antitrust probe into microsoft. likely the last major action before president-elect trump takes office in january. the agency is reportedly looking into allegations that microsoft is abusing its market dominance and productivity software. that includes imposing strict licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its azure cloud service to the competition. and consumers were shopping from their sofas on thanksgiving. salesforce says that online sales were up about 4% through yesterday afternoon. that compares to a 2% rise last year. a fresh sign shoppers are snapping up steep discounts from retailers. let's take a look at the futures this morning. they have been building through the morning. dow futures up by about 160 points. s&p futures are up by 16.

nasdaq up by 70. the best dressed man at cnbc today, dom chu looking at this morning's premarket movers. let's see that sweater again. there it is. >> you're the best dressed guy out there. you and steve got the actual jackets and ties on. >> they didn't call you until you put a tie on. >> they saw your outfit and had sweater envy this morning. >> we all want to be not be wearing a tie today. >> i got sign off from mary. >> we're talking about mary duffy, ladies and gentlemen, who runs the network quietly. >> like the puppeteer with the strings behind the scenes. i got the sign off to wear a jacket and a sweater, and sport shirt. by the way, robert, i got nice dark jeans on, which you can't tell are not jeans because they look like slacks. anyway, thank you very much for the introduction on this black friday. we're going to start with shares of applied therapeutics. they are losing 73% of their value. this is the day after the fda late on wednesday declined to

approve its drug to treat a rare genetic metabolic disease. that was set to be the company's first actual commercial product. they have shared gains through the course of the year period. watch applied therapeutics, down 73%. you've got uber shares moving in the opposite direction. up fractionally, 2/3 of 1%. consumer protection probe in effect from that regulatory agency. they're looking at the uber one subscription service, under this particular company, looking into the enrollment and cancellation process. a probe does not guarantee a lawsuit be brought. the ride share giant says it's cooperating with the inquiry from the federal trade commission. watch those shares. bitcoin on the climb again, below the key $100,000 level. the volatile asset, peaked around 99,800 before going back

below 91,000 earlier this week. it's still up massively, about 40% since president-elect trump won that election. so we're keeping on bitcoin, and by the way, just for reference, robert, because i know you like those large numbers on the wealth side of things, at current levels, according to coin market cap, you're talking about bitcoin's total market value being about roughly $1.92 trillion with a t, so keep an eye on that 100,000, i'll send things back over to you guys. >> one last question on the sweater. becky and i had this debate. is that a sweater vest or is it the full sleeve sweater. >> full sleeve sweater. >> i was watching that thinking it's got to be a vest because three layers is way too hot to be under the lights for that time. >> it is. but you, robert and steve know this, here in englewood cliffs, it is generally very cold, and many of the females that we have in our newsroom complain about it constantly. >> a lot of blankets. >> what people may not know,

dom, is dom chu doesn't sweat. >> that's true. >> not when it's that cold. it's like a meat locker in here. >> seconds to deadline, he does not sweat. >> never let them see you sweat, let alone bleed guys. >> thank you, dom. international man of mystery. from walmart to ralph lauren, our next guest is weighing in on this holiday shopping season's winners, and what's ahead for 2025. joining us is jan kniffen, the ceo of j. rogers kniffen worldwide. it's great to have you here on this important day for the retailers. how was your thanksgiving? >> it was great. i'm not wearing jeans. dom and i are not in the same boat here. >> you are wearing pants? >> yes, i'm wearing the full gear, and i will be out in the stores right after i get off of this bit. >> the shoppers are out? >> clearly they are.

they have been out all week. we had a strong week leading up right through wednesday. and it's been the best period since november started. and i think that's going to continue today. and i think it will run right through the weekend and cyber monday. this is going to be a strong finish here. remember, we're already six days closer to christmas than we were last year on black friday. so everybody is going to be out. >> jan, you and i have had kind of a running conversation off air since the election. we just showed how many of the major averages, the stock market averages have had their best month in a year, some even longer. we have been talking about crypto up 40% since bitcoin, since the election of president trump. i have been trying to figure out if that enthusiasm that you see from investors has played out in consumer confidence, and that means stronger sales. what's your take on this?

>> every four years during the presidential election period, we get a lull before the presidential election and retail sales, and after, we get the post election bounce, and i didn't know if that would happen because the lull wasn't very deep. yes, we got the post election bounce, and it has continued and now it's strengthening as we head into the holiday. i think half of the people are glad, and the other have are relieved the election is over. it's happened every four years, and i think it's going to continue right through holiday now because we don't have any inflation and goods, and goods are what people buy for holiday. we're still seeing inflation in services, and the consumer, loo at it, and they're smart enough to go the sweater that dom is wearing is a better deal this year than experiences. and they're buying stuff. and that's a technical retail term of course. and we're seeing that continue. and i believe we're going to see a gradual shift here towards discretionary retail goods. and that's going to propel right

into 2025. i'm feeling pretty good about discretionary retail right now, and in the beginning of next year. >> tim, i thought you were e-mailing only with me. it turns out you were also e-mailing with becky as well at the same time. but i have been publicly right over the last several years because of help from you in thinking broadly about the consumer because not only do you look at a single product on the shelves and the price. you also have this fantastic macro view of the consumer, and where you have guided me over the last several years is in not believing that the consumer was about to give it up. which is what everybody was saying in the post pandemic period. so give us your view now, jan, publicly here, not in a private e-mail, about where the consumer is, how their balance sheets are, their savings. you looked right through this notion that the consumer was out

of savings in the post pandemic period, and we kept believing that there was not going to be a recession. i want to thank you for that publicly, but also get your take on where things are going. >> we have the benefit of not being an economist. i'm just an old retailer, and i have been watching the retail consumer for 50 years, and the retail consumer is not that hard to figure out. if the consumer has a job, they think they'll keep their job, and they believe if they lost their job, they could get one paying just as much or more, they keep spending unless something stops them. debt can stop them, but the consumer's ability to pie ay ba is fine. we haven't seen change there. they're loaded up on debt, but not enough to stop them. that won't keep them from buying, unless they're fearful they can't pay it back, that's when they get job concerns. we're not seeing any of that. and we haven't seen that for the consumer even right at the

beginning of course of the pandemic we did, but not after that. the consumer's in really good shape. unemployment a little low, higher than it was, but still low. continuing claims aren't that high, they did cross through 1.9 million. they have been hanging in the 1.8, 1.9 range. the consumer is not that fearful. they don't look quite as strong on the data as they did on things like unemployment and continued claims. they look fine, and pretty much everybody that wants to work is working when you're looking at a 4% unemployment rate. i feel really good about my consumer. i do feel pretty bad about the lower end consumer. they're still really struggling with the impact that inflation caused over the last three careers. you're looking at the hundred thousand dollar annual household income or the 200,000, and that's a huge chunk of what we get for christmas spending. they're doing very very well. the $200,000 a year consumers told us they're going to spend 20% more than last year for holiday. that helps a lot when you're getting your numbers.

>> jan, we want to thank you. we really appreciate talking to you. both on air and off. so thank you for joining us on air today, and happy hunting out there today. >> hey, it's a pleasure, and i'm sure it's going to be fun out there told. i happen to be in pittsburgh. i'll be at ross. >> we'll see you there. >> happy holidays. a contrarian call on inflation, and what that could mean for investors. millions of americans are going to venture out to buy a live christmas tree this weekend, though growers are facing historic challenges to get them to the lots. we'll tell you why you'll be paying more this holiday season for that christmas tree. "squawk box" coming right back. ♪

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welcome back to "squawk box." take a look. we have a festive fair value futures market right now. a little red and green, mostly green. s&p up 15. dow jones up over 140 and the nasdaq up 64. markets fell ahead of thanksgiving holiday after the latest pce inflation data showed inflation inched higher in october. the broader averages are still each more than 5% higher for the month. our next guest has a contrarian call on inflation, saying headline cpi bottomed out in september at 2.4%, and investors that prepare for higher inflation, and higher interest rates will be rewarded. michael landsbury at landsbury bennett private wealth management. good to see you. tell us about this contrarian

inflation call. we're seeing changes in the bond market. steve was talking this morning, we're seeing a flattened curve right now. what do you make of what's happening, particularly with the ten-year, right now, right at 4.2. that's come down quite a bit over the past few weeks, and then therefore how does that fit into your view of what's going to happen with ralts tes and inflation? >> part of the reason it's come down is the bond market likes what they saw with this recent appointment in scott bessent, a market participant. people like somebody who has credibility in the market. the fed cut interest rates 75 basis points, and yields jumped 65 to 75 basis points on different maturities. i think the bond market ultimately is like, i'm not sure we're believing what we're hearing from the fed. you know, a year ago, i remember, you know, being on the show, and people talked about seven interest rate cuts. i was saying at the time, we might see three. i think people are overestimating what we're going to see in 2025.

and i think it's because of inflation. i think inflation is coming back. you're seeing that with, you know, coffee, cocoa, beef, hogs, things are starting to tick back up. i don't think we're getting back to 9%. i think at the same point, the fact that the fed, and a lot of people think we're going lower is wrong. >> that's interesting. you feel that inflation bottomed out at 2.4% in september. you think it's going to go, what, to 3, to 3.2% next year? is that going to be a first quarter or you talking the end of next year, and you mentioned copper, coffee, these aren't huge contributors to the economy, what are the components that you think are going to be really driving us back over 3%? >> i only really look at the next six months. i expect to be 3.2 in the next six months. when they talked about transitory a few years back, my models were looking at saying, we're going to have six months in a row of increasing

inflation, and i'm similar in this circumstance. i don't see it going quite as high. when they talked about inflation, we looked at our data and said shelter prices are too high. a lot of food stuffs are now starting to head higher, and again, i don't think it's going to be back to the 9% numbers. we've got it going by the end of the first quarter of 2025. i've got six months in a row of headline inflation moving higher. we move headlines because it models better than pce. pce may have that tweak as well. we're looking at that saying that's going to be an area where we've got to look at it. inflation is heading higher, you know, the rest of the street is going lower. what does that look like from an investment standpoint, in an environment where inflation is moving higher. >> if you look at rates higher for longer, that would normally not be great for stocks. you seem to be, correct me if i'm wrong, fairly bullish on stocks for the next six months, what's your expectation for the

stock market and then where do you see the best sectors within the stock market at least for the next six months? >> we're bullish because earnings have been great. s&p earnings, i think, are up 8% year over year. nasdaq is up over 20. i'm not really a big fan of small cap, you know, still negative for year over year. small cap made an all time high a week ago. it's barely up in the last three years. you made no money in three years. we avoid small cap. we look for sectors, utilities, energy, that will do well in the environment. i think insurance stocks for a pricing standpoint. you'll build inflation and margins. i think those are the areas that are going to do well. health care is not going to do well, given where we are in terms of miles an hour begins, and also you're having a different kind of atmosphere, if you will, in washington. as to who might be in charge of what's going on with health care. >> do you think the fed should not continue to cut here, and if that's the case, is that your

case against small business or, i'm sorry, yeah, small and medium-sized business sz es tha they're not going to get relief on the interest rate front. >> i think you get one in december. i look at it from the standpoint if rates go higher, the biggest companies in the world are not going to have that problem. a lot of tech companies don't have a lot of debt, so they're not going to have a problem getting credit. small companies are tough there. and again, that's on the balance. i say the small companies. there's a lot of great small companies in the country. it's a stock picker's company. the russell 2000, made no money for three years, and think that's a good place to be. you want to stay with the large cap sector-wise. we do favor, like i said, utilities, energy and industrials. >> this is a dissonance with the russell 2000. if we're not going to get the interest rate relief, are we going to get the earnings growth we're expecting? i don't know the answer to that,

whether or not the valuations are there. >> mike, thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. up next, we will head to the mall, just like everybody else to get a feel for what retailers are expecting for this black friday. >> look at that already. wow. >> and thinking about heading out to find the perfect christmas tree. you may be paying more. we're going to talk about why christmas tree inflation could be sticky this year. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question. the detroit lions played the first thanksgiving day game in tm? against whichea the answer when "squawk box" returns. ve some free time. uh huh! gives you a chance to reflect on the important things. aflac! like how aflac pays people money for the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. aflac! health insurance does leave a gap. but aflac gives people money to help close that gap. aflac! oh! coach prime got one on the line too baby! uh huh! see that's how you hold up a trophy. trust me.

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and now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. the detroit lions played the first thanksgiving day game in 1934 against which team? the answer, the chicago bears. the defending back-to-back world champion bears beat the lions 19-16. all right. let's head to the mall, find out what's expected to be the biggest retail day of the year for in-store shoppers. courtney reagan joins us from

paramis, new jersey, this morning. we were talking about what a big day this is. it's changed. it used to be at 6:00 a.m., we would watch the crowds rush in as the stores opened. that's not really the case anymore. >> reporter: that is very true. you're not seeing sort of the stampedes. this mall did just open. we have seen some short lines forming. actually, the longest line that i noticed at this mall anyway was at lululemon, and black friday does look different than the days of predawn lines and the store stampedes, but the national retail federation predict that 72% will shop in store or online. for stores, though, it's still expected to be the biggest day of the year, according to sensormatic, followed by what's considered super saturday, the last saturday before christmas, also the second biggest of the year. retail next predicts that stores will see a slight traffic growth this year on black friday versus last year, even though overall

foot traffic is down about 3% so far this year for retail. the conversion rate, interestingly though, might be lower, compared to the s leading up to christmas. you have higher browsing, when time runs out, you see purchasing go up. adobe analytics suggests 70% of shoppers plan to shop online today, spending almost 10% more than last year to $11 billion. the expected biggest growth rate of the cyber 5 days will be today. sales data from hundreds of thousands of shopify merchants shows 9:00 p.m. was the peak online sales hour for thanksgiving day. the average cart value checking out, 164 bucks, t-shirts, skin care, vitamins, so far, the top categories for the shopify merchants, and as of 2:00 p.m. on thanksgiving day, total, u.s. online sales were up 4%, according to salesforce. again, that didn't capture peak time, though. and it's hard to know exactly

how a day like today will shake out for retailers. when it comes to stock performance on the light volume day, thanks to a stock screen, chewy has the best black friday share performance since 2019, up an average of 1.65% on black fridays, while polaris is the worst performer, down slightly more than 2% on black friday since 2019. the xrt retail eft an average of 0.3%. compared to the s&p 500 down an average of 0.4% on black friday. if you're shopping for stocks today. back to you. >> what kind of discounts have you seen? dana thinks 30% off is par for the course these days. >> reporter: i think that sounds about right, and early data i'm seeing online put the average online sales price discounted about 27% in the united states, so obviously average you're

going to see higher or lower based on that, but, you know, i think it's always a very traditionally promotional day, and i think you might get some good deals on apparel, most especially because of that warm weather we have been seeing. a lot of retailers need to move some of that stuff faster. today is a good day to do it. >> thank you, court. grab a coffee, i'm sure we're going to see a lot of you today. >> i will. coming up, vaynerx chairman, gary vaynerchuk, social media trends and more. and we head to the farm in the search for a perfect christmas tree. "squawk box" will be right back from the woods.

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. welcome back, everybody. social media shopping is booming this black friday with millions on social media, buying new products and brands, and now live shopping events are drawing realtime sales and exclusive deals. joining us right now is gary vaynerchuk, and gary, welcome, it's great to see you this

morning. >> great to see you. >> what's a live event? is this different than qvc shopping? >> not really. next year, this is going to be a huge topic for everybody who watches this program, and you'll be talking about this. it really is qvc on social, other than the way the algorithms work in social now whrks , when a person or company goes live, they're going find audiences. qvc home shopping in the 80s, the consumer had to click and go there. the fact that i'm going to be in my feed, and there's a live shopping event, and the algo knows i like shopping or beauty, that's a big factor. >> you're going to have to sell me on the live events. i buy a lot of stuff on instagram where it's a pretty effective ad, it's flashy, it shows me how it works. the video makes me think, yeah, i want this. i don't know if i want somebody talking at me, saying hey, buy this product. you've got this much time. sell me on this. why do i need something more than what's already selling me on instagram? >> i don't want to sell you.

it's been sold. meaning there are unbelievable amounts of people making over a million dollars a month already on tiktok live shopping. so it's not about, you know, convincing. it's about the conviction. >> those are vendors. those are essentially companies. you're saying influencers are making a million dollars a month. >> yes and yes. >> they have a product? >> yes. as well to that. >> and hawking a product? >> to that as well. this is going to be massive. again, this is such a global platform, this has been going on for a decade in china. i've literally been -- >> i've watched the stuff in china. >> i have been waiting for ten years for this. like there's videos of me in 2015 saying this is coming. >> it seems . >> you're talking about a print ad. >> video. >> because it usually shows me something about the product i want. >> that's video. that's a commercial.

if it's an image, that's print. and all this is qvc. it works. i can speak for myself. i have a brand called v friends. i'm doing seven hours today about it. >> you're going on for seven hours. >> on 12:00 to 7:00 on whatnot, which is one of the platforms emerging. and three mondays ago, we sold $40,000 worth of t-shirts in two hours, if i did my best social media advertising, we would have sold $300,000 worth. >> i'm convinced by numbers like that. >> you did a shot from the mall in paramis, not a whole lot of people there. is this why? >> it's 7:30 in the morning. that's a solid amount of people. >> i have been doing this for a long time. it used to be openings at 6:00 a.m. >> is there an investor play on this? is there a way -- >> yes. >> this is changing retail, but is this taking away from target. is it taking away from walmart? >> i'm glad you brought this up.

the reason i'm excited to be here is every retail, every cpg, this is going to be over the next decade. >> a consumer package good. if you're proctor, pepsico, this is going to be a major deal. don't forget, we have major channel conflict wars between the package good companies and the retailers and the amazons and walmarts are taking media dollars away from social. the overall impact to consumable products and to retail of this dynamic and social shopping, and now the social network is taking an 8% rake on every transaction. >> six in some cases. >> 8% and then a 3% process fee. this is also going to hit main street. if you're a normal store in a small town in jersey or california. on wednesday at 3:00 p.m., there's nothing going on. to your oint, the retail traffic is changing. the fact that you can turn your boutique into a studio and go live shopping. >> entrepreneurs, can do this too. if you're a small business

owner, you can get out there. >> ten years ago, i used to go on the program and others, influencers can make money, and i got a little huh, and now it's a multibillion dollar economy. >> does it undermine that? >> i would argue that live social shopping is the only potential thinking that amazon should be worrying about in their domination. that's how big this could be. >> that's amazing, and i guess who this is disrupting is traditional media who might have been pitching you these ads before. >> it's going disrupt retail. don't forget, attention ultimately is the ultimate asset. these social platforms have the attention. we're going to now shop in that environment? that's going to affect media. that's going to affect retail, and that's going to affect the product services. >> do the social media companies make money on this? >> again, 8%. >> good for twitter, and maybe some of these other companies. >> there's no not, i can't wait to come back in six months when this happens, there's no shot that meta, tiktok, you tube, and

google are not going to be yelling and screaming about this. this is too big, it's that happened. >> who's the best at it so far? >> tiktok, and it's not even close. >> tell us the name of an influencer or two that you think have made a ton of money from this or are leading this. >> and what do they do to be so in front? >> what i'm paying attention to more is the brand. so mary ruth organics, is a brand that's really doing well. >> what is it? >> they're selling their vitamins, a modern vitamin company. mona and dustin in back, the top three things selling, t-shirts, and vitamins and beauty, all three categories that are crushing right now on live social shopping. abercrombie & fitch, they're getting a reboot. there's also, i think you covered this on, i don't know specifically you, but chili's the restaurant company, there was one tiktok. this is social. one tiktok went viral that represented 40% of its q3 growth.

one tiktok that went viral. >> what was it? >> it was a triple cheese quesadilla, it wasn't even a limited time offer. again, mango gummies, from walgreens, the ocean spray thing that was well covered. >> we have to go, but i have to make a point. >> please. >> one of the postmortems on the election was that the trump administration understood tiktok in the way that biden didn't, and i think what you're talking about now is investors need to understand it. >> the battleground on social will impact every single, every single stock on the market. >> gary, really fascinating, thank you for coming in today. great to see you. >> thank you. coming up, how president-elect trump's tariffs plan will impact prices and growth in the u.s. but up next, we head to the farm in search of the perfect christmas tree. contessa brewer has a preview. where are you? >> reporter: i am in upstate new york, and let me tell you you wish you had smell-a-vision, 25

to 30 million trees expected to be sold in the united states this year, and this is the biggest shopping day of all. but the inflation worries are real, and tariffs aren't helping. we get into it all ahead on "squawk box." w with a speaker in it! that's right craig. pulling in the perfect team to get the job done. i'm just here for the internets. at&t, it's super-fast! you locked us out?! and when thrown a curveball... arrggghh! ahhhh! [crashing sounds] we had everything we needed. is the internet out? don't worry, we have at&t internet back-up. the next level network for small business. ♪♪ i sold a pillow! growing your business is easy once you know the moves. with godaddy websites plus marketing, you can quickly create a website, and ai will customize it for you. get your business out there and get more customers in here. no sweat... for you anyway. create a beautiful website in minutes with godaddy.

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welcome back. tis the season to pick out the perfect christmas tree. are tree farmers feeling the pinch with all the headlines and drought and hurricane damages? shortages and, yes, inflation. contessa brewer joins us from upstate new york, separating the forest from the trees. tell us, contessa. >> reporter: first of all, the industry says, yes, supply is tight. it has been since 2016, especially in places like new york city, you know, where there are a lot of shoppers for christmas trees. look, you go two hours north, i'm surrounded by trees. there's lots. in spite of those struggling headlines that you mentioned, steve, the impact of the northeast drought. a local tree farmer talked me through it. he goes, look, the seedlings were affected. the mature trees ready for market have deeper roots and can withstand the drought.

the fraser firs are in north carolina, and that got slammed by hurricane helene. the christmas tree industry is worth an estimated $250 million, and there was pockets of deep damage. one family farm lost 60,000 trees. the industry says as a whole, the bigger headache was getting roads and bridges repaired to get the trees to market. that happened. the white house is intent on highlighting north carolina's tree industry, choosing its official tree from the state of north carolina, and the national christmas tree association which is part of usda surveyed growers who said this year their biggest concerns are labor. most of the workers come through on h1a visas. trees are an especially labor intensive crop because they have to be pruned every year by hand. it's expensive. and 60% said they are holding wholesale prices firm this year. that's because the number one concern is consumers pulling back on their spending.

now, christmas trees are grown in all 50 states, including, i was shocked to learn this, hawaii, which has more farms than alaska does. it says last year, nearly 22 million trees were sold nationwide. 14% of consumers that the association surveyed bought a real tree. medium price, $75. here at fair acres farms, the prices are holding steady. they're not going to change that. that could change next year. if the trump tariffs on canadian imports hold. 20% of these trees come from canada, and those trees pay no additional duties. if that changes next year, if there's 25% price hike on them, we'll see what happens to the price of all trees. also, artificial trees mostly come from china, and guys, you know this already. they are now facing even steeper tariffs. a top concern for balsam hill, which is one of the leading providers of pre-lit artificial trees as well. >> contessa, you're in olster

county which is where i grew up. i'm surprised 20% of the trees come from canada, and what is the average of those trees you're looking at? >> reporter: these, for instance, are from nova scotia, and adam says they're typically more expensive anyway. here you're seeing, premium fraser firs, you can get a balsam tree for 14 bucks, if this is like the charlie brown tree or things like that. you want to get a beautiful big tree to fill up gh cathedral, $400. the prices vary. that's going to happen across the nation. you can still get the tree tops, and what i have read from a lot of the farmers in north carolina is if they had tree damage, they're trying to sheer off the top 4 feet of the tree. it was an 8 foot tree. they could have commanded top premium price for fraser firs, and instead they're having a little treetop tree that they

might get 20 or 30 bucks for. >> contessa, stay warm. >> reporter: thank you. you too. coming up, how president-elect trump's tariff plan will impact prices in the u.s. "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back, this black friday, some retailers are urging customers to buy now before president-elect trump's proposed tariffs take effect. joining us is carl wineberg, chief economist. thank you for joining us this morning. >> happy thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving. i want you to puzzle through the math on this. there are three offsets i can think of to the tariffs. one is that the producer eats some of it, the retailer in america seats some of it, and some is offset by currencies. does all of that work to seriously offset, somewhat offset or not offset to any

great degree the economy impact of tariffs? >> you're right on all three counts, steve. what we don't know anything about is we don't know anything about what the currency is going to do. it could go up, go down. economists aren't good at predicting that and the impact of a tariff is an especially complicated case. i think before we talk about who eats the cost of it, we want to go back to 2018, and just talk about those tariffs because there was no impact on consumer prices at all that we can see at high frequency economics out of that round of tariffs, and what happened back then, which is very different from what's happening right now is that tariffs were placed on selected goods, none of which were consumer goods. they were all intermediate goods. there was no cpi impact, if the reasoning is the tariffs are going to do the same thing now than they did then, just more of that. that's wrong. these will affect the prices of consumer goods coming across the border, there will be a price

increase. >> more importantly, you said in your notes, i didn't realize this, that the '18 tariffs were specifically crafted not to include anything in the cpi? >> well, either they were specifically crafted or it was an enormous coincidence that they missed almost all consumer goods, but shoppers at target didn't see the prices of stuff go up at target, the toys and consumer goods and small things, and electronic goods, apple phones and all that stuf didn't go up in price, but things that went up were things like capital equipment, machinery, parts, cars, parts for cars, things like that, chemicals, other things, intermediate products that affected companies, but remember, steve, for companies, the cost of capital goods, and the cost of input materials, they're only about maybe 15% of the total cost of producing everything. 80% of the cost of producing everything on average across the economy is labor, and that's unaffected by tariffs. however, this time, consumer

goods are going to get hit. >> okay. do one more piece of math for me in our e con 101 thanksgiving black friday day. what is -- why does the dollar strengthen when president-elect trump threatens tariffs? >> i don't know. i don't have a strong theory. i think in the markets, people are believing that there are going to be some inflationary impacts from the broad scope of policy proposals. that's maybe right. probably not as right as people think it is because things like tariffs don't really cause inflation. they cause a one-time change in prices, which could become inflation. >> but i think the reason might be, carl, is because you're going to have fewer dollars circulating in the global economy, and so the shortage of dollars, people would pay up for them because there's less trade as a result of the tariffs,

that's why the currency was strained. >> we applaud your thinking like an economist, supply and demand for currency. every time the price of oil goes up $10 or down $10, a lot more world trade is affected than by tariffs and that doesn't seem to knock the dollar either. every once in a while supply and demand of dollars affects the value of the currency, and a lot of times it doesn't. same thing with interest rates, which i think is what the market is thinking about now. i think the market is thinking that the fed is going to have to pause cutting right now because there is a risk of inflationary policy, and while they can't act on that risk of inflation, they can pause to wait to see how it plays out and this is what chair powell has been telling us. he has been saying, we've got room to pause. we don't have to be in the rush to ease because the economy is so strong. i'm suspecting that the fed is going take advantage of the scope that it has to take its time cutting rates, to not let rates get too low, in case they

have to reverse course, and in the meantime, the economy is doing just fine and doesn't really need an immediate rate cut to keep on going. i think there's a big question mark over that december rate cut that the market is pricing in, and that could be a basis for people buying the dollar right now. because right now, this week, it looks like rates might be on hold for the fed, and that generally is considered to be a positive for the dollar, whether there is or not doesn't matter. people believe it, and i think that might be what's driving it. >> robert. >> carl, in your math, how do you account for or do you account for retaliatory tariffs. we saw an interview with christine lagarde, and she was urging to buy more u.s. agricultural, defense and other goods. did we see an impact from retaliatory tariffs in 2018, 2019, and do you expect that this time around? and how does that filter through? >> yes, so in 2018, 2019, we saw tit for tat tariffs, so the

things that they tariffed that we export were things that also were intermediate goods and not necessarily consumer goods, so the impact worldwide of this tariff increase was very muted back then, but that's different from across the board tariffs. now, the real question, which i can't answer because i'm just a simple economist, right, is why is trump asserting that he's going to do this? is he actually going to do this? or is this a negotiating tool? right? it's stated as he declared it on his posts that what he wants, really wants to do, he doesn't want to put tariffs on these countries at these rates, he wants to slow the drugs across the boarder and compel canada and mexico to do something about it. let's see how this all plays out. the presidents of mexico, the prime minister of canada have already been on the phone with trump. his people haven't even gotten to their offices yet. i think this could very well turn out to be a negotiating ploy. >> thank you so much, carl.

we have to go. guys, thanks for indulging me. this was a conversation i was going to have with carl. he's one of the guys i go to on this stuff. >> that's really interesting. >> why not have the whole conversation on air. that was me reporting right there. >> that was good. up next, a list of hot must have tech gifts for the holiday season. "wall street journal" tech columnist joanna stern will join us. i'll tell you, of the things she's looking at, i want two of them, i have one of them. >> it's not the page turner, is it? >> it's not one i'm ever, ever getting. we'll be right back, by the way, check out the futures on this holiday shortened trading day, up across the board.

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it's 8:00 a.m. on the east coast. you are watching "squawk box." joe and andrew with both off today. the federal trade commission launching a broad antitrust investigation into microsoft. looking at whether the company is violating antilaw solutions. the ftc has reportedly opened a

probe into uber subscription service. the agency is looking into allegations that the company automatically signed people up for uber one, making it hard to cancel. black friday shoppers are coming out early searching for bargains. the doors just opening at the mall of america. that is the nation's largest shopping center in bloomington, minnesota, just outside minneapolis. the national retail federation predicts nearly 132 million people, or 72% of americans, will shop today in store and/or online. >> but there's no stampeding and no trampling -- >> they stopped that for a while. it used to be walmart. >> there were tvs -- >> there were big problems. it was stampeding issues we had problems with and then it was the issue of not wanting to make your workers work on thanksgiving and come through. that was something during the covid pandemic that they really reached out to the workers on the front lines all the time when everybody else was working

from home. that's when things changed. >> now you have a nation of disappointed tv producers right now that are looking for the video. no video. come on, people. >> there are some people piling in here. let's take a look at the futures. we've been in the green all morning long. looks like the dow futures are up by 120 points. s&p futures are up by 11. the nasdaq indicated up by 40 points. and let's get right down to mike santoli, he's standing by at the nyse. mike, we saw a pullback on wednesday, but right back at it this morning. >> absolutely. even with that pullback, becky, i think the majority of stocks were up on the day. it's been upward drift has been the rule. that's what history says to expect around the thanksgiving holiday. the s&p 500 year to date was up 21% into the election. it's tackeded on 4% since then. inflation has continued to come

down, earnings broadening out. here's where it sits, up 25% year to date. sometimes a little pullback in early december, if you care about the seasonal patterns. generally a stronger than flat finish typically. take a look at consumer discretionary sector broadly defined. the equal weighted etf for consumer discretionary. it's not just retail. retail, if you take out walmart, costco, that's been the bulk of the strength in the retail sector with some individual chains doing well around that. but this really includes travel, restaurants, obviously autos but also home related, home building. that's for over a two-year basis has maintained a lead over the equal weighted s&p. you can question about whether the consumer is getting spent out or getting a little bit squeezed. the performance of this sector suggests the consumer, broadly speaking, remains in healthy shape with wage growth and relatively low unemployment.

take a look at the u.s. versus the rest of the world. a little changed story here over the last couple of months, actually. acwx is the etf for all stocks in the world outside of the united states. so, this is the s&p 500 u.s. you see, you know, it was outperforming because of our tech stocks the rest of the world, but basically in a similar trajectory and cadence until we get to september, s&p up, rest of the world down. fed cut around that point. maybe it said the u.s. is definitely going to sidestep an economic slowdown and then you had the election push coming thereafter. so, an interesting little bit of a divergence here between world markets. we'll see if that can last. it is now a con sen sensus trad u.s. should outperform. >> mike, i want to take for a moment, can we put four of us in a box. you have four former print

journalists. my favorite publication from pint publications, there is an a.i. granny that these guys put together an a.i.-generated granny that a telephone company in britain is using her to go after scammers. when the scammers call and they get the a.i. granny, she tells you all about her cat named fluffy, she tells you about the bird she's looking at out the window, she tells you about how she would love to help you with what you're telling her about but she doesn't understand this internet thing and can you explain it again. they had one scammer she kept them on the line for an hour trying to help her put www into the internet so she could give the money where he was saying to give it. they are driving the scammers crazy by using this a.i.-generated granny to waste their time. >> it's genius jujitsu because they often target the elderly because they love the elderly to talk to so this is using that tendency to the reverse.

>> it's my favorite story i've read today. >> the next is the a.i. scammer that can figure out the real or fake. >> she has a fluffy named cat -- >> or the scammer -- >> it's my favorite story. i figured this panel, in particular, might appreciate that. >> i'm surprised there's something a.i. can be used for that's good right now. >> it's awesome. >> rather than making things worse. >> there's a lot of good. >> a lot of good. >> thank you. we'll see you later. >> my voice mail is, like -- >> hello? >> 40 seconds long -- >> can you pick up -- >> no, it says that in order to -- >> you have to call it? >> 40 seconds. our next guest says he expects the fed to pause rates in the first half of next year and ten-year treasuries to yield 4.25 to 4.5% at that time before falling before 4% by the end of next year. let's bring in head of u.s. rate

strategies, td securities. good morning and happy thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving. thanks for having me. >> we're here at an interesting time because maybe you can explain to us, we went home on wednesday afternoon. we had a two-ten yield spread of five, call it and now we come in and it's one. what's going on? why are we flattening on the curve this morning? >> well, today's a little bit of a strange day. early close, we have month-end. there's a lot of extension flows, a lot of buying that typically happens around end of the month. i would be cautious reading too much into today's price action. the rates have moved off the highs. >> we have the cut hanging in but still 65% or so. and then you have to go to may. what is your expectation? does the market have this right? >> i think so.

we expect one more cut in december. the fed is going to make up its behind. by the time you get into january, they're going to pause. they are already sending signals they're going to slow down. i think between the desire to pause because of the macro data and the desire to pause around the tariffs, we expect basically a pause in the first half of next year. and a resumption in the second half. >> let's pretend we're around the thanksgiving table here and your relatives aren't making fun of what you do, which is what happened to me all day yesterday when they ragged on me about economic stuff and things like that. and let's pretend they were interested in what you do for a living. and you had to advise them on how and what to buy in terms of fixed income. what would you be telling them right now?

>> this is a good time for the long haul. you have fixed income in the highest levels in decades. you have real rates quite high. so, you know, be very cautious, but buy u.s. treasuries and wait for the long haul because i think these are great levels here. >> when you say long haul, would you tell them to buy ten-year treasuries, two-year treasuries? everybody's been doing the two-year and rolling it over. i try to explain rollover risks and they yawn and go on to the pumpkin pie. >> that's always a difficult one to explain. i think five to ten-year space. the curve is quite flat. you're not really picking up a ton to go a further out of the curve but you're not losing a ton either. that's the long risk. if you look at the last 15 years oar so, rates looked extremely attractive. if you look at the last 20 to 30 years, real rates look extremely attractive. i think this is a good place to lock some of those in and extend

some of that duration. >> do you extend it all out in terms of risk, say, the corporate bond market or those places you were advising clients, or let's say your relatives over turkey? >> definitely try not to advise relatives over turkey. i do think that ig credit is extremely tight so you want to be cautious there. that's the tightest level in 30 years. you want to be careful about what you do here. the all--in yields on treasury and credits are engs treemly attractive. in my mind it makes a lot more sense to buy five to ten-year treasuries and not risk that tight credit. >> thanks for joining us this morning and happy holiday. >> happy holiday. >> coming up, our next guest has a list of top gifts in tech. she's eyeing this black friday. "the wall street journal" senior personal tech columnist joanna stern joins us now. great to see you. i'm really interested in the fitness stuff that you have here

because that's my thing. you have garminimum, the pixel watch, oura. what is your favorite of those and why? >> i'm an apple watch wearer but i'm considering this oura ring this year. pitts the oura 4. it's built this huge cult following. mostly because you don't have a screen on you. this is a wearable that just exists but it doesn't really look like a wearable. and so they've improved this version with better tracking, better sleep tracking. costs $350 but we're seeing this big movement throughout the tech industry so look at rings. we're seeing samsung, we're hearing apple. get your ring. >> one ring to rule them all. somebody had to say that. >> i was surprised your list didn't include a lot of a.i.-driven things. i thought we would see a.i. drones, dog robots, a.i.-enabled everything on this list.

is there anything -- any reason for this or in i guess on the list that, to you, does stand out as sort of the a.i. play on tech gifts this christmas? >> i'll put on my glasses here because the meta glasses. i love you ask this. a.i. gadgets have been complete hype. a lot of startups trying things and it's not worth it. the only a.i. gadget worth it right now are these glasses because the main focus is not a.i. i have cameras, can take photos, videos, put that on my phone and quickly share with friends and family. they also have meta a.i. build in -- i'm not going to say it on air but i could say, meta, tell me about cnbc "squawk box" and it will tell me right now. this is cool. this is a passive a.i. experience but the best a.i. gadget experience you can get right now. mike allen from axios told us

zuckerberg brought those to mar-a-lago. he was selling them hard. do you have to tell people you're wearing those when you're talking to them, if they're being recorded? how does that work? >> it's not on right now. if i press this button i say, meta, start recording, and a little light shows up. you know that it does it. >> there are some privacy questions. you could say the same thing about phones in general. >> you have to hold it up to them. >> well, you can video -- i mean, you can audio record anything even if your phone is not up right now. >> this is one of my biggest criticisms of the product. i told meta this. they made that light larger and pulsates when it's recording so they have done a lot to make progress. these are a couple more in. people are more familiar with

them. this is going to be the wave of the future. ed. >> cia has been recording you guys for years. >> i want to highlight an item on your list i couldn't believe existed. it reminds me of "wall-e," the movie. the datafied page turner. why is that on your list and what does it do? >> i think this is hilarious. if you don't want to turn the page on your kindle while you're sleeping, because your hands could get cold, i guess. look, life is hard. so you get this little remote that connects to the kindle on the stand and you can turn the page while under your covers. >> when we're too lazy to even turn the page on our e-reader. >> i love a bunch of the things you have. i have the meta glasses.

i want the oura ring and the new version of the ear buds. >> the noise canceling. >> not just noise canceling. the ones you can use as a hearing aid. that sounds incredibly useful. the one thing you had on there i thought, no way, no how, never was the $1,000 garbage can. what gives. >> car badge cans smells. >> the mill. >> if you want to get rid of that garbage smell, it's going to cost you $1,000. this is clever. it's meant for those that want to be more green and ecofriendly. you put the garbage in here, overnight it warms it, pill pulverizes it so it comes out as coffee grinds. it removes the smell. you can use that as a fertilizer in your garden, can send it back

to the company. $1,000 for your garbage smell. >> the composting thing didn't work because we didn't do all the things for composting. this does it for you. it might be the right thing. >> it's $1,000. >> it's too expensive. >> does it really work right, that's going to be a smelly mess. >> you want to hear your garbage can is broken? it ran out of power? it's 2024. >> joanna stern, thank you for joining us. happy thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving, guys. when we come back, will it be a deep discount shopping season for retailers as we watch the shoppers hit the malls and outlets this morning. we'll get a forecast from former walmart u.s. ceo bill simon. that's next. coming up at 8:30 a.m., former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb will join us. we'll discuss everything from trump's health team to anti-obesity drugs on this morning after thanksgiving when all of us feel like we could use it.

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it's black friday. adobe is out with data on shopping. consumers spent $6 billion online on thanksgiving day. that's up about 9% from last year. shoppers finding some pretty great deals when it comes to things like toys with discounts peaking at just over 27%. for a look right now what's in store for retail holiday season, is former walmart u.s. president and ceo, bill simon. bill, thanks for being here. those numbers from adobe pretty strong. you think that carries over into in-store shopping as well? >> good morning, becky. yeah, i do. i'm expecting a very good selling season. you know, i think the consumer is breathing a sigh of relief the election is over and all the noise from the election is quieting down, whatever side you ended up on. i think there's just a general kind of consumer relief. we're moving forward. you know, it's been -- it's been

extended over several days. it's happening online. you've got a situation where margins have been pretty healthy in retail. some succeeding. walmart reported traffic up and sales up. target had decent margins but traffic and sales down. i think it's going to be an aggressively promoted holiday selling season and the consumer will benefit from that. >> meaning there are goods in the stores and they have to move them and prices will come down starting now? >> it's competitive. this is time to make the number for the year. most retailers have had pretty decent margins throughout year so they could ak set margin for sales volume. >> you said categories like apparel and home. you expect to see a little more momentum. those categories have been soft for a couple of years now. >> yeah, they've been close to dead for several years, flat to

down. walmart reported in their last quarter the first positive same store sales in those categories. i think in 11 quarters. if that trend carries through, that will be a nice tailwind for some of the department stores, macy's, kohl's. >> one thing jan niffin said consumers are maybe moving back in more force into goods. consumers have looked around and realized when it comes to services, there's more inflationary pressure. prices are up there. when you look at things look a sweater, a pair of pants, you think that's a better deal because the inflation hasn't hit as hard there. >> i think inflation and service by definition is labor driven, right? you're buying a service. labor rates have gone up -- inflated at a higher rate in some cases than products and goods. i think once we've sort of probed the complete extent of

all the services available, you sort of go back to, well, that was a wonderful experience but i don't really own anything. i think you'll start to see that as well. especially in categories that have been beat down, really beat down and retailers that work in those areas, i think, will stand to benefit from that. >> black & decker saying it may get ahead of some of these looming tariffs by raising prices. do you expect to see that in other places, in other words, would the lesser relative inflation we've seen in goods, you expect that to turn around because of potential tariffs? >> i'm not really concerned about tariffs at this point. mostly it's noise at this stage. there's a threat of a tariff and threat of etaliatory tariff. where the tariffs end up is one thing and there's a ripple effects. so there's a tariff on tequila. i won't drink a margarita, i'll drink a mojito. the consumer impact isn't carried through until the second, third or fourth ripple.

i think anybody who is pricing in potential tariffs at this point is doing so because they're trying to grab margin while they can. >> becky, i need to do reporting with you. from that adobe data, i got concerned about it not being seasonably adjusted. we are 27 days from christmas, if i'm not mistaken. last thanksgiving was 32 days. how much of a difference does that make and how much spending might have happened on thanksgiving day? i don't know if bill wants to weigh in on that, too. >> it does make a very large difference. with the shorter selling season, it's much more compressed. i don't know if the math equates to the 9% adobe is reporting or not, but it does make a lot of difference. i think that's why you'll have a real intense period between now and christmas. >> which you want to be careful in some of the comps out there in terms of comparing what you're seeing in the day-to-day or whatever. >> adobe data was simply for

money spent online on thanksgiving day versus last year but this is closer to christmas than it was last year. by five days. but we'll see, they have a full report that comes out at 8:30 so we can dig deeper into it then. we have the headline numbers. bill, thank you. it's great talking to you. >> thanks. >> see you later. coming up, the snow economy. we hit the slopes. the ceo of kelly resort. we'll get his forecast for snow and snowboarding season under way in vermont. the oprsshpe are getting early bargains. you're looking at pictures from the westfield mall in new jersey.

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our next guest can give us his outlook on the ski season, the state consumer and this

year's world cup. this welcome the ceo of the largest ski and snowboard destination in the northeast. killington holds the cup for the eighth season. vermonters will be rooting for their hometown favorite, mikaela shiffrin expected to win 100th world cup victory. it airs on nbc and peacock. i see snow behind you. is that natural or made? >> it's a mix of both. we've been making snow for a couple of weeks for the world cup race behind us. we got a couple feet of snow in the last day or two and it's snowing now so everything is lining up for us. >> very exciting to see that cup going on this weekend. what does business broadly look like now? what do you see in terms of demand, sales and season passes? this weekend coming up is typically the start of the ski

and snowboard season for a lot of people. what does demand look like? >> business is really strong. the last couple of years have been great for the resort. preliminary sales for the year are great. for us, the most important thing is good, cold temperatures and good snow. i think that trumps everything else. the economy, everything else. for us, business continues to look really bright. >> i started snowboarding way back in the late 1980s, vermont, stratton, killington, and back then a daily lift pass was around $35. i'm looking at your website. it's $150 going through december, january. how has inflation affected that and why has it gone up so much to ski and snowboard right now? >> definitely lifts and snow making is an intensive capital business. that's a challenge for us. there's a lot of great value out there. we have a pass that allows

people to ski, mountain bike, golf for $140 a month. we have some great deals out there and most people aren't buying the window ticket. >> mike, how did you guys do this? for a 20-something kid, getting the yearly ski pass is just something you do every, what is it, summer or fall, they go in. you have made this to be something everybody gets every year now. >> we've trying to become a year-round resort. we're expanding mountain biking and we've had golf for a long time. that's been continuing to grow. it's great for killington for people to come to the state on a year-round basis. >> you were recently sold -- this summer there was a deal to sell the company from powder, your previous owners to a group

of investors who are long-time killington customers. tell us about that new ownership and how does that affect your investment. what can people expect from the mountain going forward based on these new owners and what does it mean? >> bucking the trend and the industry. a lot of ski resorts have been getting consolidated. we were part of the larger groups and began being sold to say group of local families. most of these families have had homes in killing ton for decades. they just really care about the mountains. not much is going to change. we'll continue continue to deliver great products for our guests but we can invest more cash flew the business. that's the main goal. we announced next year $30 capital investment. the lift behind me is going to be replaced and we have two gondolas and one is going to be

replaced. a lot of investment, people will notice all the improvements at the mountain. >> we'll be excited to watch the world cup this weekend. thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. happy friday. >> thanks. come visit us. thank you. when we come back, dr. scott gottlieb on everythingro fm antiobesity drugs to the big health challenges facing president-elect trump and his second term and team. llow the le of a loan from origination right through its pricing in the capital markets, our data science capabilities can provide a deep level of insight. at ice we have extensive data sets, especially around three pillars. the property, the mortgage and mortgage performance. this trifecta of data and its history is a bit of a data scientist's holy grail. ♪♪

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welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. looking at futures. down a little weaker than we had been. up 65 on the dow, 18 on the nasdaq, 6 on the s&p. becky was reading bigger numbers before. they're down a little bit now. trufr treasuries are flattening. 4.398 on the 30-year. looking at bitcoin, one of our major metrics, up 2.2%. just 2100 bucks to nearly 97. do we top 100? we were there interday one day, weren't we? >> yeah. shares of applied

therapeutics are plunging after the fda approved a rare metabolic disease. it was to be the company's first commercial product. the letter to the fda said the marketing application for the drug could not be approved in its current form due to certain deficiencies. applied therapeutics is reviewing that feedback and plans to immediately request a meeting to discuss requirements for resubmission. there have been a lot of big news in health care over the last few days. president joe biden proposes expanding medicare and medicaid to cover obesity drugs. meantime, president-elect donald trump has made all of his picks for the health-related team. joining us to talk about all of this and what it means to the sector, dr. scott gottlieb. he's the former fda commissioner under the last trump administration. he's also a cnbc contributor. you're still a board member at pfizer as well? >> that's right. >> let's jump into this. why don't we start with the incoming administration's

choices because there's been a lot of consternation, a lot of people said, wait a second with rfk jr. heading things up, what do you say, as somebody who served in the last trump administration? >> i have deep concerns about rolling back core health protections, including childhood vaccines. he's brought in a lot of lawyers from his anti-vacc organization. i think they're deadly serious and serious about their intentions. sometimes you have to take people at their word. to level set where we are right now, we had 5,000 cases of pertussis last year. if you look at vaccination rates for mmr, there are states at the tipping point in terps of reduced vaccination rates. if you look at idaho, it's at 79%. you look atlas lass and wisconsin, 84%.

minnesota, 87%. florida, colorado, oklahoma, georgia and utah at 88%. when i was at fda in 2018 and 2019, all those states were in the low 90s. if we lose another 5%, we'll be in a position of having distributed outbreaks of measles. >> pertussis is whooping cough? >> whooping cough. >> you're a physician. what do you worry about? >> i'm worried we'll see epidemics of diseases that is have long been van vanquished. the measles vaccination rates are at a tipping point. another 5% down and we'll be there. >> you're saying people are going to die because of this? >> you warned about this. when you were at the fda, you said because of vacc'ing hesitancy, the covid vaccine,

you worried about what that would mean for the other related diseases and vaccines we have. what vaccines should we be getting? if you look at what rfk said in 2013, how he said vaccinating children and covering up any problems, he likened it to covering up abuse by the catholic church. he's talked about jailing vaccine scientists in the past. now he sounds a little less try -- strident in his comments. >> this is a post-covid virus. i was against the mandates. i was against the covid vaccine mandates because i worried it would breed vaccine hesitancy. i think you see people coming into the political spectre preying on that. rfk has committed decades of his life to this. they could disband the advisory

committee to the cdc and issue new recommendations that are nonbinding to states, giving states cover to move away from the childhood immunization schedule. they could frustrate vaccine for children's fund. for example, tying states that want to use that money to vaccinate kids to certain reporting requirements like reporting on immigration status or religious status for children. those are easy things they could do administratively and it would make it hard for states to take the money. i'm not laying out their road map. they know their road map and this is their road map. i've been in policy and i know what the agencies can do and intend to do. these are very serious people. he is smart and his team is capable around him. >> who have you spoken with in the trump administration at this point or in the incoming administration. you are somebody that served in a trump administration. what have you had to say to them? >> they know my views. i've been clear about them. i talked to president trump about vaccines in my first term.

i don't think these policy efforts reflect his views as well. i don't think the president wants to see a resurgence of measles, wants to see a resurgence of whooping cough in this country, god forbid we have cases of polio in this country. he does not want to see that. i think he understood the importance of the childhood immunization schedule. i'm not so sure people understand how kennedy's intentions will translate into policy. and how serious he is. there is an article recently where one of his confidantes, who will probably be brought into hhs said, he didn't get inside the castle to forego his long-held beliefs. they're going to follow through on these. >> what do you think about jim o'neil appointed to hhs? >> i don't know jim well. i think marty is a good pick. >> marty mccarry? >> i have confidence in him. i think oz can be a transformative pick at centers for medicaid/medicare services. if you think about senior

citizens, they grew up watching him. >> what will he do? >> i don't think he's going to sit over meetings all day figuring out part b, injectable drug conversion. i think he'll play more of an outside game trying to lead health and wellness for american seniors. i think he could be good at that. there are qualified, very capable picks. >> dr. oz and mccarry are practicing physicians who are both -- i know people they have both treated in their past position. >> i know marty and he's a good position and a -- >> dr. gottlieb, rfblg has to be confirmed, right? are you urging republican senators to not confirm him? >> i think there's skepticism in the republican caucus. more than i think the press is reporting right now. there is going to be ag state senators concerned about his impact on food prices. there's going to be a number of public health-minded senators

who have deep concerns about his position on vaccines. >> if you were talking to a republican senator, would you say the appointment of rfk could cost lives in this country? >> if he follows through on his intentions, and i believe he can and will, it will cost lives. you'll see measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates go down. if we lose another 5%, which could happen in the next year or two, we'll see large measles outbreaks. for every 1,000 measles in a child, you have one death. 30% of the kids in ohio were hospitalized. the outbreak in minnesota, 20% were hospitalized because we don't diagnose it quickly because -- >> we lost the ability to do it? >> we lost the ability to diagnose it because doctors aren't accustomed to seeing it. >> if you have a new child, that child can't get vaccinated until age 2? >> that's right. and they're very vulnerable. maternal transmission of measles, congenital measles,

causes serious consequences in pregnancy. so, adults in women have to think about, do i get a booster? pertussis is something people need to think about now. there is outbreaks in multiple states and that's only going to get worse. >> i worry about measles with my infants because they're not immune for a while. if you have older kids in the schools, if there's an outbreak or anything that happens there. you can't protect these children, even if you're staying at home with them. >> the cdc appointee is someone who is a very committed anti-vaccer. he was a congressman when i was at fda in the early 2000s. he sponsored multiple bills to withdrawal the current mmr vaccine. he sponsored bills to do away with the liability protection. he forced fda to reformulate the existing mmr vaccine to take some of the preservatives out we use, which ultimately led to an increase in cost of accines.

he's committed to this. >> people will look at this and say, of course, that's what gottlieb says because he's on the board of pfizer and they're a big vaccine machine. >> we don't make pediatric vaccines so pfizer is not in that market. this is glaxosmithkline, murphy and other companies. >> you mentioned president trump doesn't support a lot of these policies. what are the guardrails, whether it's congress, other cabinet members that could prevent all of these happening to the degree that, let's say, rfk jr. does? >> i don't think there are guardrails. i don't want to speak for the president. i think i understand his ethos and he has a strong public effort and the people around him. i don't think they fully understand how kennedy will translate his action into policy. i think some in congress think they kl manage this through things like appropriation riders. that's not going to be successful. like i said, rfk can go in with

a stroke of pen, reconstitute it, issue a whole bunch of new recommendations, he can frustrate the ability to take money from the vaccine children's fund which would impede states to vaccinate children. there's a lot of thing they could do day one, administratively and i don't think there's a thing congress can do. that's dependent on congress getting bills through on appropriation bills that would tie the hands of cdc and kennedy. i'm not sure the will in congress is there to do that. >> have you spoken with individual senators about this? >> i've had conversations and i've raised concerns and i'll continue to raise my concerns. >> thank you for being here. we'll talk to you again soon. >> coming up, big government versus big tech. the ftc launching a broad investigation into the tech giant covering everything from the cloud to a.i. what this could mean for the stock and the rest of the tech sector. that comes up next on "squawk box" when we come back on this holiday day.

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welcome back. the federal trade commission has launched a new antitrust investigation into microsoft, scrutinizing the company's practice across cloud computing software, licensing, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. joining us, gene munster. good morning. tell us how seriously to take this threat. >> steve, on a scale of one to ten, i would put the threat at about a two or three. you framed in what the investigation is about. it is worth noting that microsoft is one of the mega caps that have been spared from the department of justice and ftc over the past -- largely over the past few years. it's been 25 years since any kind of investigation has taken place. that's the state it's in right now. steve, it's an investigative state. they're probing into, as you mentioned, kind of bundling products. sounds very similar to what

happened with explorer 20 plus years ago. but the reason why i think this is a two out of a ten, i think there are a couple things motivating this. number one is a shot clock that is going to soon go off with -- with khan's term. there's a scrambling. and second i think this investigation is around -- won't hold weight. i think there are some bigger issues that the ftc is focusing on. i think it simply doesn't pass the threshold. >> can we come back to the substance in a minute. i want to talk about the politics of it real quickly. if you were confident the trump administration would not continue this, it wouldn't be a two, it would be a zero. but are you confident that it will be dismissed or not taken up by the trump administration? >> so, it's -- the simple answer is it depends on who is going to

succeed khan and ultimately is the messesage from the trump administration has been somewhat mixed on the topic of big tech. there's been times when some of these companies have been -- like facebook, for example, meta, the enemy of the people. recent comments earlier this year from trump. there's also this general belief from administration there should be a free hand and that these regulatory features just don't serve business well and the economy well. so, my sense is, steve, ultimately i think that's why it's still a one or two. there is some evidence that just for political gain, you could make a statement against one of these big tech companies. >> so, uncertainty over the politics of it, keeps it a positive integer. >> absolutely. >> we were talking in the last hour or so about this notion, as a consumer, i like the fact some

stuff works together. it's all integrated and i can go seamlessly from one part of an app to another. i don't know if ironic is the right word to use here but the very thing a tech company might do to make something more valuable to the consumer could get it in trouble with the government for monopoly practices. >> there is a standard of care that you're getting to, which is what are the purposes, what are the reasons that the department of justice, the ftc, this antitrust initiative, what's the purpose of it? and, of course, it has historically been to serve the consumer well, to look out for pricing and relative to freedom for choice, for consumers, all of that. you're exactly right. consumers have, over time, over the last decade, have chosen this integrated approach. just look no further than just the emergence of the mag 7. that is evidence of this.

ultimately i think that that's another piece to this, that these companies are going to be fined. i think consumers will generally be more than benefitted if some of these pieces are pulled apart. >> i think we're out of time but thanks for joining us. >> thank you. areat>>ppcie it. coming up next, more stocks on the move this black friday morning. "squawk box" is coming right back. i can't believe you corporate types are still calling each other rock stars. you're a rock star. we're all rock stars. oooo look look at my data driven insights, i'm a rock star.

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we are going to start with a check on micro strategies. for the half percent after taking a tailspin. the analytics company is a huge holder and it is seen as a proxy play. those shares have gained 780 -- 70%. keep an eye on micro strategy. next up shares of semi conductor stock like applied materials, land research and others. this is all after a bloomberg report that the biden administration is considering sanctions. the new regulations may not be

as strict as previous proposals had laid out. that report creating some moves. we are going to end with a check on the big retailers after things really get going ernest this black friday. shares of amazon up fractionally. walmart, target, costco, even xrt. we will see whether or not that consumer while is as wide- open as some retailers hope. i will send things back over to you. >> if you are seeing a 6% increase on the online shopping that we saw from adobe that matters something like 300 basis points or something. he said that it still a big deal and it does look very strong. thank you. let's take a final check of the markets. we have cut our gains in half.

right now the dow futures are up. the s&p futures up five points. the nasdaq by about 15. honestly early, but it is a holiday shortened trading day. for the month of november it has been pretty phenomenal for the markets overall. we want to thank you both for being here. we've been listening to some songs here. thank you, everybody. that doesn't for us today. make sure you join us again next week. right now it is time for squawk on the street. good friday morning. welcome to squawk on the street. futures are fairly steady on this final trading day of november. shortened session. speaking of bonds, the roa