know, trade down a little bit. it's a cheap way to play in terms of fees, than some of the others like grayscale, bitcoin trusts. >> we still watch for the 100 k watch. >> still going to get through it. >> j.t. >> very powerful intraday reversal in crowdstrike today. pay attention to that. i think the stock is positioned to trade to a new all time high. >> thank you very much. i'll see you on the bell. thank you very much, scott. and "the exchange" starts now. i'm kelly evans. pat gelsinger is out at intel. it's the head line of the day. the move was a surprise to the analyst community questioning the timing and lack of clear sequence of events and whoever takes the helm next will be leading a company much smaller and more challenged than ever before. can it be done? one of our guest says some radical change needed. here's got an idea of what that would look like and what to do

with the stock. cyber monday, remember that? it's underway. our analysts see clear winners this oliday season. we'll bring you the names and the up side. this stock has doubled this year, up 50% since the election. it's not a private prison. here's your clue, that investors are giving it an a plus, and if certain trump campaign promises become policies, it could be well positioned from here. we'll have the full reveal ahead. we had closing eyes on friday, right, dom? >> new highs, that's the headline from a broader macro market perspective. two of the major indices have hit record intraday levelings.s. the s&p 500 up 13 points, one quarter of 1% advance. it is a record high for the s&p 500 here is at 6,050. we are not far from there. again, tilting towards those levels, we are up 18 points at the highs of the session.

up 3 points at the low. there's your star for the s&p 500. the nasdaq composite, it took a while. we got there. record intraday high for the nasdaq. up about 1%. 182 points, that's 19,400 level at the composite. the dow jones did hit an intraday hit last week. didn't hit that today. down about 1/3 of 1%. 44,753. s&p and nasdaq, new record highs. one of the big things we're watching, you mentioned cyber monday. some of the retailers, huge amount in focus. gap stores up 7% on an analyst upgrade over jpmorgan to overweight. norwegian cruise line. truist, those stairs up 5%. two of the better performers. toast is down roughly 3%, due to a downgrade at goldman sachs for the restaurant software company, so a consumer focus to a neutral rating. massive run up in shares.

american eeg agle and lululemon both stocks are up ahead of their earnings reports. wednesday for american eagle. thursday for lululemon. keep an eye on retail. let's end with the by far and away, biggest gainer in fact s&p 500 today. super micro computer up about 29% this after the company says an external independent review found no irregularities, and it's also on the hunt for a new chief financial officer. all of that boosting those shares up about 30%. a lot of short interest in and around the this particular name, driving some of the downside, and then, again, some of the up side here. super micro computer, up 29%, kelly. back over to you. >> all of the chat groups are filled with people who love the stock or hate it. 309% pop is adding more fuel. >> that's where the traders make the money, ups and downs. >> let's start with the big headline. pat gelsinger, stepping down as intel's ceo. the cfo and intel product cfo

will be taking over in the interim. the news has shares up 4% right now. around $25 right now. what will it mean for the turn around efforts more broadly and the u.s. interest in it as well. for more, we turn to our very own jon fortt, on set with minimum and truist analyst, jill stein. great to have you in the house. it's my understanding when they brought pat in, it was a bit of cajoling to get him in place and a sense that he needed to lead the massive turn around for the company. what happened and why did that fizzle out? >> four years ago, intel's board reached out to get him to join the board. he was looking at that, got clearance from michael dell, the ceo of vm ware, which is under dell, and then they asked him would you be ceo. he laid out his plan, if i'm going to do this, here's how i'm going to do it. the board said okay. if we look four years later, a lot of that plan was

directionally correct. we do need leading edge domestic semiconductor manufacturing. the big ai boom. intel invested so much in it and the foundry strategy, the billions upon billions of dollars in capital commitments while that main design business was, you know, ding in on itself because of competition from nvidia and amv. nvidia hadn't prepared for the ai revolution. they didn't have enough in the bank account to pay for all of the capital projects? >> if you had to boil it down, what would you say gelsinger's pitch was, his core plan. >> he was trying to bring back intel as it was. maybe that just wasn't possible based on current conditions. nvidia urged ahead way faster than a lot of people, even at nvidia. do you continue with the plan? it seems likely they don't continue exactly with the plan.

can they figure out a way to fund that outside of intel's core business and the core business is still really important to pc chips and to data centers. you got to have that, too. how do you work it all out? >> i think that's exactly right. will, we turn to you and say, i'm trying to think of a company that wouldn't matter as much to the american public. the reason we care is because if all of the semiconductors, critical to everything we're doing on the technological leading edge are manufactured in taiwan or involve taiwan companies are not fully owned and operated by the u.s. we can understand the risks in the supply chain, especially with covid and the rest of it. what do we do with a company that can't quite live up to the needs to meet those goals, and what options are there really for intel at this point? >> yeah, i think one of the more obvious ways to address this is to say, well, you, intel, don't need to necessarily be the one to do this anymore. >> right. >> there are significant problems at this company. they're not rooted in the ceo.

and, you know, they're long standing. this is not the first ceo to have delivered results for intel that were underwhelming, relative to either semis or the s&p for that matter. all five of the last five ceos did that. so i don't think that stands out in that way. there are ways that the company could potentially split into two, and have a products business on the one hand. and have a manufacturing and/or let's call it a foundry business on the other hand. this is not simple. this has lots of risks, but that's the general direction that many investors have discussed over the last few years, and what we think some employees have advocated in the past that sort of lost out in that argument. >> couple of questions, will. what was the significance of this announcement last week that the intel was going to receive less than initially thought from the u.s. government.

it was 500, $600 billion. >> i'm doing the math wrong, so yet it seems to tell us something significant. what was that telling us a week ahead of his departure and why was this poorly thought out? maybe it was not poorly thought out but there's not an obvious sense of this is weeks in the making a clear succession plan and a direction from the company. from the analyst community, a lot of people seem to say this was not that smooth. all things considered. >> well, clearly when they announce on december 2nd that as of december 1st, the ceo is gone, you know, happened pretty abruptly, and perhaps in a way that wasn't really planned, so let's start with that. you know, what could have happened or caused it? was it the smaller funding from the c.h.i.p.s act? perhaps. i really don't know. but certainly what i would suggest is that there is a lack of conviction certainly among

customers that intel is going to be successful in foundry. that lack of conviction is maybe less pronounced today than it was a couple of years ago. back then, i think it was more of a joke than a reality. today we're closer to reality, but we're still not there. and one might look at, you know, a smaller funding from the c.h.i.p.s act and conclude that perhaps even the government doesn't think that, you know, they can do what they want to do. >> sure. >> which would be a fairly damming assessment. >> two quick final questions for each of you, and, jon, first to you. the questions about what to do with foundry, the essence of intel, if they were to say, well, we're just going to do really good, what would they be left with? >> they're good at both things. with all the mistakes that intel has made, traveling home from thanksgiving and you should have

taken the local roads because of a big accident, but you stay on the main road. they didn't do eve when they should have. still, when it comes to domestic manufacturing of a really important product, they're really good. >> it's still a really important product or something that? >> i mean, the kind of hips that go into desk top computers and data centers but not the most cutting edge data centers? >> they do cutting edge chip design. they fell a bit behind on that. i don't think the question is can they be pretty good. it's clear at this point they can be pretty good. the question is can they be the best and where are the tens of billions of dollars that they need to do that going to come from when that core business isn't in position to fund that. can they get it from customers. can they get it from the government? doesn't look as likely. where is that money going to come from and the core business of designing chips, they're good at that too. most of the computers getting used are still working with

intel chips. so in the balance somewhere, you have to figure out how patient you're going to be. is there money willing to come in and fund that. >> what would be the quickest way to get the stock to $50? >> well, the quickest way would be, you know, some outside action, like a buyout by another company, either a private equity or a strategic buyer. i don't think either of those is very likely. but that would be the quickest way. i think more likely, you know, these two companies are likely to split and i want to tip my hat to an investor who suggested what i think is a great idea, but sort of out of intel's, at least out of their full control, which is a path forward for this foundry business that could stand alone without the commitment of just intel would be to have a consortium of western device companies commit both capital and orders to this

as a foundry. that would be, i think, the best thing they could potentially achieve. >> i mean, still, consortiums, it all makes me a bit nervous. i take your point that at least it would be a coming together. a capital commitment and a client commitment. >> they're spending on ai infrastructure as it is anyway, the question is, do they want to protect from this geopolitical situation and do it that way? it's not out of the realm of possibility. >> we have seen john trying to open factories so more of that production is here. i don't know if that allays concerns on the level that we need this manufacturing in the u.s. >> it depends on how the trump administration and feels about the foreign ownership of the domestic assets. >> you and i got the same cold last week, battling through. jon fortt and will stein, appreciate you joining us from truist today. still got a hold on the stock. my next guest is a value investor.

intel has too many to love as a value stock. he's turning to google, calling it a growth stock. it's trading like a value stock. here to make his case is chris crisanti, i appreciate off the cuff thoughts about this intel situation? >> this is superficially a natural for a value investor. we have done a lot of work on it. we think the transition from the cpu, which is intel's bread and butter to the gpu, the graphic processer, which is nvidia's bread and butter is profound, almost like the internal combustion engine to the electric car. i don't think it's realistic to expect the companies that led the internal combustion revolution to lead the next revolution. that's what's happening with intel. we didn't see in our research a way for them to claim back the ascendancy they had lost. i think that's becoming further and further in the rear view mirror, and the analyst had a

good idea of breaking the company into the foundry part and the chip design part, and i think that's probably the way they'll have to go, but no longer the inent semiconductor company. >> turn back the clock to january 1st. >> or reverse split. >> right. good answer. let's move along to google, then, which is catching your attention these days, why? >> this is the rodney dangererfield of stocks, it gets no respect. they're hitting their earnings numbers. i was on with you the day they reported. since then, the antitrust news has come out where the government has asked to break up the company. i would ask investors to take a deep breath. i'm old enough to remember microsoft in the late 90, having their six-year battle with the antitrust authorities where they ask the government to break up microsoft. they lost the first round and then microsoft eventually prevailed on appeal. during that time that stock

tripled. now, i think there's lots of reasons why you might like google. you might not. i would urge investors to look through the antitrust stuff. it's going to take, i would say, at least a half a decade. >> right. >> and use this as an opportunity to do the numbers. it's selling at the lowest pe relative to the market of all time. it's about 80% of the market pe. in an intensive market, this is the one mag 7 stock that i really like that can do well if it hits its earnings numbers. it's not terribly expensive. it's a nice way to play even if you're scared of the evaluations. >> it's kind of ironic, and google highlights this situation we have by some metrics, the most expensive market we have had with maybe one or two exceptions, dates you don't want to have comparisons with, and a lot of people are concerned we're overdue for a correction here, and yet you point to a stock like google, one of the mag 7 who's treating it cheaper than the market.

so what's going on here? >> i think there's a bifurcation here. another group we really like, even if this expensive market is health care. they're now the worst performing group in the s&p. they typically do poorly in an election year when they get beat up by both parties, and then they typically come back the following year. in addition, this nomination of rfk jr. has really put a damper on the stocks. we don't think he's antivaccine as so much as pro freedom, he will push against mandates. i don't think he'll discourage vaccine research and the profits from selling vaccines. we'll see about that. these stocks have really sold off, and you get a tale of two markets. you have the value market, pfizer, for example, is at eight times earnings with a 7% yield in investment grade company, and then you have the nvidias which are 50 times. great company, but we can argue whether that's too high a price to pay. >> these are value investor stocks.

no one wants to hear about health care. you recommended verizon 18 months ago over tesla, that trade did work out great. leave us with a party, and i'm not going to bring up hershey. i'm kind. >> fair enough. >> leave us with a parting thought for equity performance in 2025, just the near term, you know. >> well, it's somewhat problematic, and i mean, i don't see any immediate clouds in the sky, but looking at the valuation, which is, you know, 28 times trailing earnings, even though earnings went up 8% this year, the pe went from 23 to 28, because the market went up. that bill is going to come due. we're not going to stay at 28 times earnings for years and years, we're going to go back towards the average of 16 or 17 times. and when that happens, the ones that are going to get hit the most are the ones that have the furthest to fall. that's why i'm gravitating, sailing closer to shore, liking health care, liking google so you can blame technology, at a below market multiple.

i think it's time not to try to out perform. i think it's time to try to look toward more reasonable exactlyuations. >> -- valuations. >> some of my strategists, time to go into health care stocks, you would have gotten creamed. i've given up on market timing. >> absolutely. i'm not young enough to know everything is the old saying. so when you see enough times that valuation is a bad indicator but it's not a good timing indicator, but you want to play the statistical averages, and if i can find cash flow, again, the pfizer, the worst case is it's going to be dead money, and i'm collect my 7% dividend each year. that's not a bad worst-case scenario. >> chris, as always, appreciate your time. really good to see you this afternoon. >> you too, chris, grisanti. cnbc pro talks about strategists about what they think about the market next year. get the full story by scanning

the qr code or head to cnbc.com/propick. cyber monday is in full swing. we'll bring the latest realtime spending numbers. a look at the trends and stocks to watch this holiday season. and the retail etf had its best november in four years. a c suite view on the state of housing. it's the country's fifth largest builder, specializing in single family homes. we'll get their take on rates, affordable and what to expect with the new administration. "the exchange" is back right after this. >> this is "the exchange" on cnbc.

♪ ♪ ♪ something has changed within me ♪ ♪ it's time to try defying gravity ♪ ♪ ♪

welcome back, as you might now realize, this year features the fewest number of days between thanksgiving and christmas, the shortest possible holiday shopping season. 22 days left until christmas. while black friday is behind us, cyber monday is here, well underway, and it actually still holds the crown as the biggest online shopping day of the year. prime day, forget that. we've got every angled covered, courtney reagan is at a distribution center. d.a. david's michael baker brings top picks in the space for the season and justin post is tracking the growing number of retail using ai assistance, chat bots in the hopes of boosting sales. welcome to all of you. courtney, what's going on behind you there? >> reporter: you may not think

of a home improvement retailer like home depot as a big beneficiary on cyber monday. home depot is the fifth largest online retailer in the country, today is most likely going to be one of the biggest day of the year. >> we have been really pleased with how it started. it is such a big time in our business for interior projects, for major appliances. it's the best time of the year to buy a major appliance. >> reporter: salesforce data does indeed show that appliances, dining and home furnishings is a category seeing the biggest growth on black friday, and adobe also does show that the appliances are among the higher ticket items that shoppers are buying earlier in the season. so between november 1st and december 1st, adobe, though, overall does forecast another record day for cyber monday here in the united states. estimating $13.2 billion will be spent. that's 6% more than last year, if this comes to fruition. peak expected to be between 8 and 10:00 p.m.

it's different than when this first started and we needed access to our work computers for high speed internet. we have it all the time in our hand and pocket. that's why we're going to work, and then we're going to shop for most people later tonight. the national retail eration expects 72 million people will shop today. second behind black friday for the biggest day of this five-day stretch. we'll see what we got. so far it looks like appliances are a hot seller in this category. apparel is hot. gift cards are a trending category according to realtime data from rakuten. >> i'm surprised that cyber monday is a big online shopping day. i feel like every day is cyber monday now. >> reporter: it does seem like that, right, or it seems like some of the earlier events, like you mentioned, amazon's prime day they are holding in october, and many other retailers are globing on, and they are big days, and i think that does pull some holiday sales forward or shifts it around a little bit. it's still event shopping, when you're talking about a black friday or a cyber monday, and where it falls in the calendar. people know to wait for things

like electronics today. adobe thinks that electronics are going to have the best discount of the year potentially today. that doesn't mean necessarily at other times of the year you won't get good prices or an equivalent prices. >> courtney reagan. home depot is among my next guest's top retail bikes. a buy rate, 466 price target. it's one of the safest to own around this time of year and has done well between black friday and the end of the calendar year. mike baker and d.a. analyst. >> happy to be here. >> a t of people don't have conviction on home depot, we see the housing market in this frozen state. >> we like it for 2025 because we do think that rates are going to come down. and home depot does well in that kind of environment. we think housing is bouncing along the bottoms, and should

get better. we also like it in the short-term. one of our calls is that retail typically does not do well this time of the year. in fact, in ten of the last fourteen years, the xrt has under performed the market from black friday to year end. it's too much risk this time of year. there are names that do well this time of year in our group, and it's the ones that have the least holiday exposure. that might sound counter intuitive, the less risk you have, the better the stock does this time of year. that's home depot and lowe's, and track supply, names that hold up well this time of year. >> so brilliant, perfect sense. i'm glad you pointed that out. of course there's headline risks. all of us turn into mini retail analysts, the mastercard up 3.1%, what could this be, it just creates this. maybe volatility is good for certain traders. for investors, drives them crazy. i did channel checks at the mall

last week. what are your take aways? >> that's why we call it facility season. analysts say i went to best buy, it looked less crowded than last year at the one store, and all of a sudden, everybody panics. the less risk you have this holiday season, the better the stock does. we did go to best buy and the traffic was heavy. best buy is always the most crowded store we go to on black friday. everyone loves consumer electronics, big destination this time of year. not surprisingly, they were crowded. walmart was crowded as well. particularly, again, the consumer electronics area and the toy area in walmart as well. >> i didn't realize that build a bear was public. i went in there, and i was a little underwhelmed. >> not only the public, it's up 65%, year to date. >> wow. >> we think it's a really good stock, under followed, under appreciated, despite the fact that the stock has been up 65%. it's still low valuation, in other words, most of that year-to-date stock performance

has come from increased earnings, rather than multiple expansions, so a name worth looking at. >> give me, who's going to be the next build-a-bear going into 2025? >> another small cap name that we like is love sack. that stock is up about 45%. they'll do an analyst day in december. december 17th, i believe, in new york city. they're going to unveil their recliner carry, more products coming next year. we think that's another smaller cap name to own. that's among our favorite small cap names. again, on the big cap side, home depot, and dick's we have called dick's a best idea now, two years in a row in both years it's outperformed. still only 14 times earnings as one of the previous guests said, market is trading at 28 times. dick's has been a strong stock and only 14 times earnings. we think there's a lot of room to go on that one as well. >> so surprising. michael, this is why we love talking with you. thank you for coming on. appreciate it. >> michael baker, d.a. davidson, and another trend this holiday season is an increased use of ai

chat bots. bank of america has research out quantifying it. salesforce use up 31% year over year. joining us is the author behind the pooes, justin post, research analyst at bank of america. the stuff really kind of works, justin, welcome. >> thanks for having me on. i appreciate it. >> where in particular do you think they're successful? >> sure. i think they really help people find values. people are looking for a value this holiday. not a lot of chatbottom usage last year. the numbers are up strong year over year. the sites that really ingrated with ai and integrated data with i are seeing a nice up tick in traffic this year. when people go on the site and say where can i buy the best product at the lowest price, ai chat bottoms are driving that traffic to retailers right now. >> can you give me some -- i have had zero experience with that. in other words, are you saying people are going to, like, open ai and asking for deals or are

these chat bots that exist on a web site that they have to visit or n an app they have to find? >> could be general use with google or ai overviews or some of the sites have ingrated ai technology where you can ask questions while on the site. it's driving traffic to retailers t. retailers. it's a double impact for the site that have ai technology. >> again, we had a fun package where i used nibble on i think it was a mattress site, maybe a beauty site, to try to get a deal. my experience was mixed and it wasn't clear that it was driving deals in the first place. again, i'm sure there are people out there really refining their use of these things, right? >> absolutely. i think you get better at using them as you use them more, and google did point that out with ai overviews. those that use them more are growing at a faster rate than those who haven't tried it.

it's habit, and people get better at it over time. >> what would be your kind of stock plays kind of stemming from all of this, if this is going to continue. as we know with new technology, we're going to see more and more adoption. >> sure. i think amazon, which has a whole cloud division is going to be really strong with usage of ai. we were encouraged with black friday data sales growth at or above expectations for the holiday season, despite the earlier promotions in october. so someone like amazon is going to be very strong, integrating ai into their retail site, and we think a key beneficiary, and appear to be having a pretty good holiday so far. there's a stock we like. other stocks that use ai are on the media sidelike meta that has pretty good integration with ai, and i think you'll see new things from them next year that's quite interesting. >> a couple of other stockings, rh chewy, do these have overlap

with our discussion? >> i think rh is more of a play on housing. i know we were talking about that with home depot, but certainly expect them to benefit from lower rates and the housing recovery. on the smaller cap side, there's a stock we like that's done well this year. the housing cycle, we think is just starting. it's been depressed for two years. for that reason, we think restoration hardware is interesting here. >> thank you for joining us. appreciate your time. justin post with bank of america. still to come, lest take a look at our mystery chart, the stock covering at its highest level since 2010, more than doubled since january, up sharply since the election, no one has guessed it yet. the ceo will join us next to explain.

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possession of a high capacity magazine. closing arguments set to begin today in the trial over the 2023 stabbing of cashapp founder bob lee. san francisco prosecutors argue that nima momeni stabbed lee over a rage in the treatment of his sister. the defense said it was an act of self-defense after lee turned violent. and the coast guard said it's searching for five people who went missing after a fishing boat capsized in alaska. the crew aboard the fishing boat sent a may day call saying it was overturning. good samaritans have joined the military branch in its search. we wish them well. back to you. >> tyler mathisen. coming up, mortgage rates are hovering just below 7%. how much lower do they have to go to jump start the housing market. our analysts were bullish on the building side. building side. but the ceo of

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exchange" it's a building beat. construction spending better than expected, climbing 1 1/2% since last month to $2 billion in october. a 5% increase from the previous year we found out from commerce this morning. the home builder stocks getting a list. meritage, toll, and up 4% in the past month. joining me to discuss is philippe lord, the ceo of meritage homes. thank you for being here, welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> a lot of people are waiting for an inflection point in the housing marketment you're in the new build category, a little bit better. in the existing homes, it's been absolutely frozen. who would have thought mortgage rates would still be this high? >> i think most people did. rates moved down earlier this year, but then they went back up, even with the fed cutting rates, mortgage rates really don't move off of that as much as they do off the ten-year. so rates are going to stay higher for longer. we expected that. really as a new home builder, we

have a unique opportunity within that environment. as you know, we have been able to buy rates down for our customers, which is allowing us to perform better despite the existing home market, really being locked in with all of these folks sitting on a rate below 5%, when rates are this high. they have no motivation to move at this point, and that's created an opportunity for us as new home builders to step in and fill that void. >> you guys are really active in the sun belt, kind of in the southwest and southeast. those are areas we have been hearing about excess inventory, maybe on the rental portion of the market. the things have cooled overall. do you think that's true? >> yeah, inventory is definitely up across all the markets, both existing home, inventory is slowly coming back, and then new home construction is definitely up as well. that's really intentional by all of us. we still see an opportunity to sort of fill that void by providing move-in ready inventory for all of these customers that can't find that inventory in the existing home market, which is traditionally

where they shop. so a lot of new home builders are building more speculative inventory to where will fill that void, and we're all expecting a strong spring selling season, based on what we're seeing today. >> 20 years ago is when the spec inventory was a problem as the housing crisis hit. how much can you buy down mortgage rates before you're not profitable on your home sales? >> it just really depends on other factors, despite what rates are. but i think what we're seeing today is folks want something below 5%. and with rates in the high 6s or the 7s, we're able to do that in a profitable way. if they were to go higher than that, i would expect people to be okay with something more in the 6s. i think people's expectations set over time as rates continue to stay elevated or elevate over time. but right now as they're hovering within that high 6, low 7 range, we're able to really

buy people down into something below %, which really is the key to unlocking affordability for most of our customers, which are first time home buyers. >> we could get there for mortgages. the ten-year yield has been retracing somewhat lately as i'm sure you know. friday saw 417. i don't know if that was a kind of light trading day kind of print. if you do that and then shrink the spread between, you know, kind o.f the ten-year, seven-year, the mortgage rate, five irk on a national average, wouldn't that be nice, i don't know if you view that as a real head wind, though? >> i think that's nothing but good. i think anytime rates go down, it allows more people to afford a home. that's a good thing. there are a number of folks out there that need a home right now that simply can't afford a home at these higher rates. i also think unlocking the existing home market is also good. there are a number of folks living in hair home right now, and actually really need to moouch. move. they have had a life change

event and they are looking for something different in their home. they can't move right now because it doesn't make economic sense right now. i think lower rates are nothing but good for housing across the board. >> we had one builder analyst suggest they should write stimulus checks to people for selling their homes in order to get that supply on to the market. maybe, you know, give them the incentive as well. the number would have to be quite large to move the needle. what about with the new administration, whether it's from lumber tariffs to catalysts like the one i mentioned if they were to do something on the supply side for housing, anything you expect? >> well, i'm optimistic because i think a strong economy, low unemployment, and a strong consumer are the keys to a strong housing market. that being said, the fourth leg of the stool is affordability. anything that the new administration does to impact affordability both positive or negative is really critical to our business. if things get more expensive and we can't bring supply to the market in an affordable way, you know, that's not a good thing.

i think this administration is focused on deregulating certain things, and possibly allowing us to bring more supply to the market, which is really the key to unlocking affordability. there's just more demand than supply today. and that's why prices are staying where they are. >> and finally, is it true that u yo you guys are doing a stock split. the shares are under 200 right now? >> it's true. we announced last week, really it's part of our shareholder return strategy, whether you look back over the last couple of years, we have implemented a dividend, we have been buying shares back, and now we're doing a stock flick. it's all about returns to our investors and creating more opportunity down the road for them. >> thank you so much for joining us to talk about it. really appreciate it today. >> thank you so much for having me. >> ceo of meritage homes, you got it. the discretionary sector hitting a fresh high. it's not the retailers though, it's cruise lines. truist hiking their targets on carnival, norwegian, they tried

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welcome back to the exchange. new highs for the s&p and the nasdaq, that we're hitting in the session, even though the dow is slightly negative and the russell barely positive. the dow, s&p and russell 2000 are coming off the best month of the year. the s&p is on pace for back-to-back annual gains of more than 20%. this is the first time that's happened since the late 90s. and here are some of the names hitting all time highs today, app apple, walmart, visa and royal caribbean as well. a republican senator putting one of president-elect trump's campaign promises into action, introducing a bill last week

that aims to end the department of education and send funds for schooling directly to the states. we'll dig into that and the impact it cod haulve on skills based education with the ceo of universal technical institute next. the mortgage market and follow the life 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 "the exchange," mike rounds has introduced a bill to eliminate the department of education, something donald trump promised to do on the campaign trail, allocating funds for k-12 education, have treasury overseas student loan programs and shift career, technical and adult ed programs to the department of labor. my next guest says if the new administration creates an environment where education is graded by results like graduation rates and job placements, that will give skilled trade programs a boost. his stock seeing a boost since the election. shares of universal technical institute up 53% since trump won. that was our mystery chart at the top of the show. joining me now is the ceo, jerome grant. great to have you back. welcome. >> great to see you again, thanks for having me on the show. >> are you caught off guard by a 53% stock surge? what do you do with that? can you buy something? do you split? what do you do? >> it's been a good run the last couple of months, first, a bit

of a lift off the election, and then we put out some very good results for the end of the year, and so we're happy the trajectory that it's going, and you know, one of the things say to our investors, tlgs here lot of up side, jobs in the market, and our quest is to get as many filled as we possibly can. >> what do you think investors, exactly, are guessing is about to happen under the new administration with respect to enrollment, maybe funds allocation, and that kind of thing for your school and for others? >> you've got to separate it into two categories. one is sort of the oversight of the sector, and i think what people are looking forward to is balanced playing field. playing field that's not necessarily legislated by your tax status but by your outcomes, how many students you're putting out into the market, your industry relations, job placements and all the rest of that. we're looking forward to that as well. on the funding side, i think, you know, the proposal is to put

pell grants and federally-backed loans into the department of treasury. that should have very little effect on student funding sources going forward. and so, you know, we're going to keep focused on what we have been focused on, which is getting our message out to as many students as possible and prospects, and, you know, forming those industry relations that, you know, really give the outcomes that we get. >> you've got kind of two divisions. you've got, you know, the institute itself which does a lot in automotive, welding and so forth. you've got concord which does a lot in nursing and health care. geez, if that isn't an area where there might be disruption. sounds like it's not the kind of disruption that would affect long-term demand for those services. >> no, i mean, the demand in health care is off the charts. that's the reason we acquired concord two years ago now, was that we wanted to participate in one of the largest segments of the skills-based area, you know, this -- and that would be health care and concord's very focused on allied health and in the

dental areas, and, you know, we think there's a lot of up side and therefore our plan, as we put out for the next five years is to, you know, prudently open as many campuses as we can to serve more neighborhoods and more cities around the country as well as expand our program offerings to make sure that we're, you know, we're trying to solve this big problem out there . >> have you having any problem with placement, or what are you hearing from employers? what are they engaging with you? you have all of these partners you work with. what would they like from your graduates? >> well, i have to say, we're proud of our employer statistics. over 95% of our employers give us ratings of 97% or higher in terms of satisfaction. we're very industry aligned and that's something that we have been a proud heritage of uti for a long time. one of the things we also say is on our transportation skilled trades and energy side, there are three to four jobs for every one of our graduates, and that's actually going to grow. on the health care side, it's

eight to ten jobs for graduates, and so we really think about the growth trajectory in partnership with our employer partners. >> and remind me, how long does it typically take to complete a program like this? how much might it cost? >> so a program like auto would take about 51 weeks and cost about $35,000. and, you know, the longest program on the health care side would be our dental hygiene program, which is about 24 months, and costs in the range of $80,000. >> do your students get aid in any form? i mean, that's still a big number. >> yeah, we are completely federal certified, so therefore pell grants and federal loans are available to all of our students. most of our students, 70% are fully pel eligible, which avais them to grant money as well as loans. an interesting fact in ours is our employer connection point is really focused on having the employers give back, and so, you

know, we have something in the neighborhood of 13,000 employers, and most of them have tuition reimbursement programs, which pay students loan off when they finish the program. >> sounds good. i'll get online and enroll. jerome, thank you so much for joining us. appreciate you checking in. jerome grant with uti. that does it for "the exchange." i'll see you on "power lunch" in just a minute. (♪♪) everyone has goals and dreams. and everyone deserves a way to get there. wherever you're going, getting there starts here. state street invest in your future with dia, the only etf that tracks the dow. (♪♪) ♪♪ i joined sofi because they've helped millions of members earn more money, save more money, borrow better, and invest for their ambitions. ♪♪ join a generational player. sofi. get your money right.

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