we'd we'd appreciate those egg laying chickens so much. >> they do so much for us. >> they really do. it's wednesday, february 26th. >> 2025 and squawk box. >> begins right now. >> good morning everybody. >> welcome to. squawk box right here. >> on. >> cnbc live from the nasdaq. >> market site in times square. >> you can't do it. >> squawk squawk squawk. >> oh. >> i can't do that no. >> i can. >> i'm. >> your time will come. >> i'm not even going. >> to try. your time will come. >> try it, try. >> it. >> try it. >> i'm. >> becky quick. >> along with joe kernan and andrew. ross sorkin. >> let's take a look at the us equity futures. >> at this hour. >> some green. >> arrows across the board. >> in fact the.

>> dow looks like it. >> is up by triple digits. >> a gain of about 110. >> nasdaq is up by. >> 173 points. >> s&p futures up. >> by close to 30. >> treasury yields. >> have continued. >> to fall. >> check this out. >> you're now. >> looking. >> at the. >> ten. year at 4.31. >> the two. >> year at just 412. >> that's down. >> about 50. >> basis points. >> from where we were. >> just. >> a few days ago. so we've. >> come down pretty precipitously. >> we'll continue to watch. >> it, but it has. >> helped. >> out a little bit with the futures. >> this morning. we did see both. the s&p. >> and the. >> nasdaq down for the. >> fourth day. >> in a row. yesterday the dow was. >> up. >> but for the month all. >> three of the major. >> averages are down. >> by anywhere from 1 to 3%. >> we'll continue. >> to watch it. and then bitcoin which yesterday had been down. >> yeah. >> now it's still below. >> $90,000 at. >> 89,001 74. >> so we'll. >> keep an. >> eye on that. >> as well. >> meantime reports. >> now saying that the us and ukraine have reached. a deal over access to ukraine's deposits of rare earth. >> minerals. >> i should say the financial times saying that the. >> draft deal. >> would see the two countries jointly developing ukraine's mineral resources. >> including oil and.

>> gas, and that the top and that the. us in some ways would be dropping demands. for a right to $500 billion in potential revenue from the deal. meanwhile. >> sources telling. >> nbc news that russia's proposed potential agreement under which the us would gain ownership of rare. earth minerals in parts of ukraine that. >> are currently. >> controlled by the russian military. >> so a twist of sorts. and all of. >> this, the $500. million demand for $1 billion demand goes. >> away, right. >> a fund. >> of some sort. >> is established. >> there's some kind. >> of joint ownership. over the fund. rare earth minerals that have already been sort of excavated or tapped are. >> or. >> are separated. so that's not part of companies. >> that are. >> doing that. >> aren't part of the deal. >> there's also no. >> like there's a peacekeeping force of some sort. >> but there would have. >> to be. right. >> but not necessarily. >> in europe. in. >> in words. >> sort of larger plan. >> explicit security. >> and security. >> but there. is implicit.

>> by the idea that we would have. >> skin in. >> the game. >> i guess. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> it's so bizarre. >> that that it actually. >> makes sense again somehow. but it is a resource rich country. so we're how much bigger than ukraine? we're so much bigger than ukraine. we got 1% of the rare earth minerals in this country. they got 5% of the global. so it's five times as much on a much smaller country. and you know, for people that say we're abandoning ukraine or appeasing russia and putin, it sort of implies that we have a financial interest there that we would protect, which would then translate almost to security. >> but the question. for the question is. >> you got you. >> got to. >> like this. i don't want you to say anything. i don't want. you to say, but i don't want you to say. >> but but go ahead. >> two interesting questions to me about. >> about all of this. >> one is there. >> was a i don't know if you want to call the financial interests, but we have a general. interest in democracy. we think. >> that that's. >> actually good.

>> for the world, therefore good for us. >> but i. >> don't know that. >> you believe that. no, i think that's by the way, that's what most. >> republicans have talked about. >> yeah, but we're not forever. it's true. >> but then again, it's you got to be you got to live in a real world where russia's not going away and where ukraine is not going to win this war. >> okay. there's a second. >> secondary issue, which is now that we have. this deal and even the i think the proposal of the $500 billion. >> deal by. >> default. next time there is some kind of. >> problem in the. world and an ally. >> whether like a. >> ukraine has to. >> think about whether they want to ask us for help or not. right. >> what is. >> your definition of democracy? ukraine wins. this war, and we and. >> we i don't know, i vanquish putin. >> i don't know what the answer is. >> that was never. >> that was never going to be possible. and what is your what is your, i guess, concern this leads to if we don't stop him, do you think this is neville chamberlain and world war two

and the dominoes fall and poland's next and europe. >> is at risk? >> i think that's. >> absolutely possibility. i know you don't think so. >> then you're getting into opinion and philosophical discussions, and i don't know whether it is or not. you may be right or you may be wrong. >> and we'll never know. >> well. hopefully we'll. >> never know. this might be a losing streak. you're just. >> losing your. >> yeah. >> i hear what you're saying. but in a practical. >> pragmatic way, i think you'd have to say, wow, if the war were to end. >> if we. >> don't want to come back in two years and say, i want another half. >> no. >> but it would. >> be exactly. it would. >> be nice. >> to. >> see us. the us have. their blind positions. >> with ukraine to make sure. >> that. >> you know, the. >> financial interest helps. >> on. >> that, to make. >> sure that. >> we're on the same. >> side that there is. >> and what didn't happen with iraq, where we got no oil revenue, we didn't get all we got is heartache, really, and misery and, you know, terrible casualties and everything else. but and i'm not saying that

financial takes care of any of that or, you know, is a salve. >> all i'm saying is that the next time that there's some kind. of aggression by another country, maybe. >> even on a nato member or something like. >> that. >> there's going to be a there's going to be a change in the relationship. >> which. >> is that those countries. >> we're already. >> there are going to say to themselves. >> do i. >> even want to. >> call on the us to help me? because guess what? they are going to call me back afterwards and say that they want. >> half my country or they. >> want 500 billion? >> i think. >> they are already saying it's the. >> whole thing already there. >> that nation building didn't work. we learned our lesson meddling in the middle of afghanistan, afghanistan, and you know, they're different what happened in iraq and afghanistan. but we're already less i think, our adventurism around the world to try to put in governments that we like, that's already is not something we're going to do anymore. but and i think if push came to shove and there, you know, was just you remember what happened

in kuwait when i mean, we're going to do something if that happens. but, you know, we're not we're not a bunch of neocons anymore. neocons are are a thing. they're dinosaurs in this part. in the current republican party. >> were you. >> not were you not one of them then? >> yes, >> probably i believe. >> colin powell. >> i thought. >> that that saddam hussein was a walking, breathing weapon of mass destruction was what he did to the kurds and everything else. but now we know you break it and you own it. and that's what happened. and we don't need i don't know. >> well. >> it's a conversation. >> that we. >> will continue. in the meantime. >> the. >> house narrowly. adopting president trump's multi-trillion dollar budget blueprint. >> emily wilkins. >> joins us. >> right now with more. >> this was a close. >> call last. >> night, but. >> they did get the vote. >> emily. >> good morning becky. yeah they did. it was a real nail biter. but house republicans, they did get the votes. they took that major step forward in moving

trump's agenda last night. and remember, this is, of course, the vote on spending levels and cuts. and of course the next step is policy. now, trump was ultimately responsible for changing the minds of several of the holdouts. that includes congressman tim burchett. he told me yesterday morning that he didn't think the cuts went far enough, and wasn't sure if he'd be able to support the bill. but listen, what he told reporters last night right after the vote. >> there are. >> legitimate cuts. >> and it's. >> the right direction to go. it's not everything. >> i. >> wanted, but. >> in this game, you're. >> either at the. >> table or on the menu. >> and it's time to get it to the table. >> the house and senate are now going to have to hash out the differences between their two proposals. the one the house passed last night, the one the senate passed last week. one of the biggest areas of dispute is how to address the tax package. the house bill allocates 4.5 trillion. that is enough to extend that 2017 tax package for a couple of years. but it is not enough to make it permanent. and that's just not good enough for the senate's top tax writer,

mike crapo, as well as senate majority leader john thune. both of them want to see things like tax credits for research and development and tax credits for small businesses extended indefinitely. complicating matters, of course, is how to tally the spending on that. the senate and house have competing plans for how to measure the cost, and that could ultimately wind up pitting trump's agenda against deficit hawks. becky. >> so how long does this process take? >> what are we. >> kind of considering at. >> this point? >> if it's got to go through the senate changes there, then be voted on again by the house? >> what what's. >> the timeframe. >> we're thinking? >> that's a great question, becky. i mean, you talked to republicans up there and they say they want this done as soon as possible. but of course they are going to have to get to agreement. they can't move on to that next step of taking this blueprint and inserting all the policy until the house and the senate actually agree. and i think one of the interesting things to watch here is going to be president trump. it seems

like he is good taking a hands off approach until he sees a plan forming. and at that point he is willing to kind of get on the phone, talk to people, massage things through and get to a yes. so definitely we'll be keeping an eye on what happens with the tax package, as well as, of course, other portions of the bill dealing with energy, border security and defense funding. >> yeah. >> and if it takes. >> the president actually. >> making calls. >> to get this. >> over the finish. >> line. >> then i guess the question of time really does play into it, too. >> he's probably. >> incredibly strong right now. you always see presidents weaken as they get closer to the next election. cycle for the house, whatever that may be. >> so i guess the. >> time may be of the essence in terms of. >> how. >> much strength. >> they. >> have to push. >> this over. >> especially with the, you know, the government funding due in just a couple of weeks with that fiscal cliff that's looming there in a few months. i mean, becky, certainly they are on the clock to get this done. >> okay, emily. >> thank you. >> emily wilkins.

>> whom? >> lo's out with. results, earnings coming in. it's up $6. looks pretty good. dollar 99. the estimate was $1.84. revenue was 18.55 billion. estimates 18.29 billion. comparable store sales edged up 0.2%. but that was better because the street was looking for a decline of 1.8% for the full year. lo sees earnings in a range of 12.5 to 1240, but that may have already been a little bit higher than the street because or it may have already been the 1246 that the street was looking for, may have been a little suspect because that's not hurting, even though that forecast is just a couple of cents below on the high end. it's not hurting the stock revenue between 83.5 and 84.5 billion. the street is looking for the midpoint of that range. >> coming up. >> we got a lot more going on.

>> on squawk this morning. >> market technician katie stockton. >> she's going. >> to join us. >> on some of the key. signals that she is watching. >> and what. >> we need to be watching. >> for as well. >> and later this hour, i check in on the state of the consumer. we're going to speak with the ceo of restaurant. chain cava. stay tuned. >> a big. >> show coming up on squawk box goes on. >> this cnbc program is >> this cnbc program is sponsored by when i started walton goggins goggle glasses, i had no idea what i was doing. but godaddy airo does. using ai to build a logo, website and social content. so i can let the world know, if your goggles ain't goggins, they don't belong on your noggins! and i asked a couple buddies. i said, how do i lose this weight? and the guy goes, life. md got on the computer immediately and probably the easiest thing i've ever done. the medication comes

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ground. >> welcome back to squawk box. >> president trump floating the. >> possibility of a $5 million gold. >> card as a pathway to. >> american citizenship. the president telling reporters he wants to. >> replace the eb five immigrant investor visa program, which allows people from. overseas to become u.s. permanent residents if they invest significantly to create. >> or preserve american jobs. it's a gold card. it's somewhat like. >> a green card, but at. >> a higher level. >> of sophistication. >> it's a road to citizenship. >> for people and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where. >> people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in. >> meaning companies. >> will pay. >> for people to get in and to have long, long. >> term. >> status in the country. >> so i thought this was fascinating in its own way. i don't know how you do it. >> sort of. >> we sort of do it, i thought, but usually it's involving investment in the country, not

just a straight check. a couple of things that i. >> just wonder about. >> one is he talked about selling. >> a million. >> of these cards to create $5 trillion worth of value, which then he could use to pay down the deficit. >> i went. >> online just to see how many people in the world have. >> that have. >> $5 million of. discretionary income on. >> the planet. >> and depending on which. >> search engine you use and or ai system you use. >> you get to about 1.5. >> 1.6 million people. >> it's all come fully. >> so i don't know if that number is right. >> or wrong. >> but i couldn't. >> find a. >> better number and i was looking. the other thing that i was reflecting on was he was asked, well, you know, would like a russian oligarch. >> be on that list? >> and he was. >> like, yes. >> i think they would. and so it's very interesting the kind of people who are going to want

to spend the money are a. different kind of person. i mean, yes, you're trying to jump the. >> line. >> i get to jump the line. so they're going to be some hopefully great people who want to jump the line. but we also have a system where you can get a visa for free if you actually. >> are the. >> right person. right. and so here we're basically selling it to the wrong people. is that what we're doing? i don't know the whole. >> thing people. but if they can get get one anyway, i'd like to get the 5 million. i think that'd be good. i this is never going to be able to be sold pr wise because it's so anti-egalitarian. and, you know, people. >> are. >> not even worried. i'm not even talking about that. >> i mean, instead. >> of like, not even on. >> we. >> need we. >> list. >> we need workers of all kind. and i understand all humans are, you know, i understand where you come from on a lot of this stuff. and we're all, can we all just get along? and we're all humans and we're all equal and all that stuff. but to bring in entrepreneurs. >> but i'm not saying that. >> okay. >> but to bring in entrepreneurs and investors and i mean, i

think if they want to come to the united states, they got that much to be able to contribute and then hopefully contribute even more once they're here, then i think it's a good thing. and i can. >> think of somebody like the. >> beatles. >> remember when i came over? >> i can, you know, i know you, i'm very woke most of the time. right? but i can, i can, you know, just briefly suspend my incredibly woke instincts and say, this would be good. i can get beyond the egalitarian. >> i don't even. >> like it. >> when people. >> pay a disney. >> to do well, that's what i mean. that's what i mean. but we. >> already have. >> but i'm not even on to the egalitarian thing. >> i'm saying. >> we give we give the visas. >> away for free, immediately. >> think that it's going to be a bunch of drug dealers and arms arms dealers and russian oligarchs and nasty people that are involved in organized crime. why couldn't it be really successful chinese entrepreneurs? >> what if it were. >> h-1b visa. >> types that, you know, these are like super. >> talented people, right? no. >> you want the super talented people who need to.

>> raise the money from all their backers and come. >> over. >> take. >> them over. >> instead of. >> instead of the. >> argument against the. >> h-1b. >> be nice to. >> get 5 trillion. >> yeah. >> the argument against. >> the h-1b visas is that. >> you're bringing over. people who. >> are just taking good american jobs at. >> lower paying wages. if you've got a $5 million entry fee, you're. >> not bringing over someone. >> you're going to pay a lower wages to. >> you're bringing. over someone who's truly. >> and that look on the there's two things. >> going on. >> we've all talked about how we would like to staple. i think if you if you go to wharton or you go to harvard, we'd like to staple onto your diploma a green card. we've talked about that forever. right. >> if we're going to educate. >> you here. >> we'd like to. right. so now we're so now we're saying that that's not really in the cards. it sounds like we're saying if you're really great coming out of wharton. he actually talked about kids coming out of wharton. he now wants to charge you $5 million for the privilege. anyway, it's a very interesting thing i don't know. >> i guess we don't know. >> enough. >> of. the details. >> does it replace the visa programs that are already in place? >> the. no. it's a supplement to that. and it's like an. >> easy pass.

>> it's like a fast pass. and so it may work, but it also, i think, is going to the kind of people who have $5 million. it's a limited group of people. and the idea that companies are going to pay, they may. but i don't believe he's saying it's not like apple if you. got if you got 50. >> 50 or 100,000, it's still a big number. yeah. so and these are the people that. >> i. >> don't. >> think you're. >> going to relax the rules on drug dealers. >> right. and that would be that's the question. >> right? i mean, i am sure you've been through so many velvet ropes. and then once you even get in the place, there's an even better velvet rope that you're in all the time, all. >> you've never. >> even seen the room you don't even know the i don't even know it exists. >> the ones. >> you don't even know. >> the rooms where you get, oh. >> my god, where are you getting the crystal? >> if you knew. >> what was going on in those rooms. >> the multiple. >> rooms behind the room. behind the room. >> i've never been there. i don't want to go there. >> like a. >> russian doll. >> right? right. yeah. it's hard for me to go there when i have to be in bed by 830. the price of bitcoin coming off a three month low, it slid below 86,000 at one point yesterday. and

right now we're going to take a look. we're not going to start with that though. let's find out what the charts are saying about bitcoin. but i'm actually more interested in actually the s&p and in especially interest rates. katie. and you follow all of those. founder and managing partner at fairlead strategies s&p four straight days. the resistance was around 6000. if are we below i'm sorry it's the support. are we below that support. and looking at 5783 your next number. are we there yet. >> well we did break the 50 day moving average. so that was the initial support for the s&p 500 after what looked like a breakout to new highs above that 6100 resistance area. so the pullback. >> to me is. >> it's a little tenuous. >> we actually think. >> that with an intraday. >> oversold. and also with nvidia reporting today we could get a little brief snapback. >> and that might. >> be an opportunity for investors to put hedges back on. if not already. and that we do

believe that there is risk down to that 57 to 83 gap based support. >> what is all that. the i think the bottom line, though, i don't know if you alluded to it there i was looking at something is that we're still kind of in an upward phase. you're not convinced that this is all of a sudden looking at something worse? ten, 15, 20% down? >> you know, there's. >> about. >> i think, 4% downside at this stage to that support area. so we don't feel like this is a major correction underway as of yet. >> our indicators. >> do mostly point lower from an intermediate term perspective. so we're, you know, expecting it probably to get worse before it gets much better this year to us is going to be likely a more of a consolidation sort of choppier year. in a way. we're watching the secular bull trend. >> but it. >> needs to take. >> a pause at times. and we think that. >> 2025 will be a pause year.

for the market. and as frustrating as it might be, especially when you're trying to start a directional bias beyond the very short. >> term. >> it will be constructive. >> probably longer term. >> to. >> refresh that secular bull trend. >> and we were in a new range on the ten year, i think you would say 5 to 5 or 5 to 5, 4 to 4 and a half, and we may not even hold four and a quarter at this point. you think four is a possibility? i don't know what that says. >> but yeah, you know, it's interesting we saw a short term breakdown in yields that we didn't expect. we are now looking at about four and a quarter as next support very close by for ten year yields. and we are still looking at this as a counter-trend move though. >> within the context. >> of what was a secular shift higher. ultimately we're looking for yields to climb towards that five and five and a quarter resistance area. but for now they do look lower long side the dollar, both of which have lost that intermediate term upside momentum. so we are looking for

more of the same from yields. >> so you had support on bitcoin at just over 90,000. that hasn't been breached at this point. is 90,700 still support or have we moved through that. and we got to go to a lower support which i mean you've talked about 70,000 but i think next is 81 five or so. >> yeah. so the report you're reading there is from monday. so that support has been taken out. and today it's likely to be a confirmed breakdown. it's just a short term breakdown within the context of another secular bull trend for bitcoin. but if you look at the chart, it does have that kind of eerie shape of a double top formation. so we feel that this corrective phase will persist. it might not persist in such dramatic fashion as yesterday, hopefully. but there is downside initially to that 200 day moving average, which is roughly 81.5. and below that, the next support is just shy of 74,000 for bitcoin. i wouldn't rule that out as sort of a worst

case scenario for this pullback or corrective phase. just noting those double tops do tend to take time to work themselves out. >> but you you talk about it still being overbought and still being kind of in a it's still has a bullish pattern overall. >> right long term. so you have to look at the monthly bar charts to kind of step back from all this noise. and you'll see it as overbought. but it should be overbought because it's had positive long term momentum. so we want to respect the uptrend until that shows any signs of deterioration. and at this time we don't have that. we do have it in a lot of the altcoins including ether. ether is in more of like a long term triangle formation, more of a neutral pattern, longer term. and within that context, it's. >> lost. >> nearly half of its value from, i think, december to the low this month. so really remarkable volatility within the context of that range. >> yeah you got ether in there. we don't we don't. do you have you looked at the chart pattern

of the sorkin coin. do you. >> no not not yet. >> it went up up up up up. and then went down. >> big retracement. >> and then it. stopped i think. >> stopped. >> on down. >> because support is actually somewhere below zero. somehow i don't even know how that it's. >> just like open. >> it still. >> is still worth a couple hundred grand. >> my support on my coin would be actually somewhere i don't know, i would owe money. katie. thank you. of course. could you check out. you know, if you haven't looked at it, just check it out for next time. what's it called? sorkin coin. >> let's not, let's not. >> let's not. we did. we already did. that might be too late to not. >> it's. yeah. it's down. >> it is. >> it is down. >> it's. >> how much money have i. lost a. >> lot because it's worth about 72,000 bucks now. >> damn. all right. >> and i think we were talking it was tens of millions of dollars. >> no, it wasn't really. that's when i bought it. i'm sorry, i don't. >> know. >> i didn't. that's people don't

think i did when i say that, do they. they know they don't ever assume anything about some people. you know that. >> all right. when we come back, mcdonald's saying. >> no to egg based price hikes, even as some other. >> well-known restaurant. >> chains have. >> instituted them. we've got the details. >> right after the break. >> and. >> when a cyber thief transfers the title of your home out of your name, it's a race against time to stop the theft of your hard earned equity. many people don't know this has happened until long after it's done. >> you as a homeowner think you still. >> own a house. >> three months later, you start getting foreclosure notices and

you realize you've got four mortgages on. >> your house. >> that you. >> didn't even know existed. >> so when's the last time you checked on the title to your checked on the title to your ♪♪ my husband dean has always worried about his diabetes. he was afraid that once he reached retirement he wouldn't be able to enjoy it. but getting dexcom g7 has put dean in control of his health. wherever we go... he can easily manage his sugar levels and make sure he is staying in range. dexcom g7 has given us confidence in the future... wherever it takes us. where to next? ♪♪ are so many legendary investors quietly ignoring. >> that. >> advice and instead. >> selling the stock hand over fist? >> every billionaire. >> on your screen has. >> recently sold nvidia. >> some have offloaded. millions of shares. and mark.

>> my words, this. >> is bigger than nvidia. hedge funds are quietly. >> selling all of their tech stocks. >> at the fastest. >> rate we've seen. >> since 2016. >> it begs. >> the question. >> what do they know that you don't? >> my name is mark chaikin. >> i help build three. >> indices for the nasdaq during my. >> 50 years. >> on wall street. >> that means i know how. >> to recognize. >> these. signals from the tech market and exactly. >> what they. >> mean for you and your money. i explain everything in. >> my. >> new market. >> briefing, including the truth. >> of what's. >> going on with nvidia. >> today and the specific stock i recommend you buy. instead, i'll. >> give. >> you its name and ticker when you visit the website below. nvidia has been the most talked about stock in the market, and for. >> good reason. >> it's led. >> the ai. >> revolution that has taken the us stock. >> market by. >> storm since they. >> announced their ai powered computer chip in 2023, nvidia stock has been on a history

making tear, officially surpassing microsoft to become. >> the world's. >> most valuable company. today, however, many investors are worried the tide is changing. nvidia's day in the sun may soon be coming to a dramatic end, and as a result, i. >> predict a. >> different under the radar. stock is primed for big potential gains from this moment. >> on. >> to get its name and ticker 100% free, simply visit the website below. >> to. every day i'm. >> reading extensively. >> i'm checking. >> the markets. >> throughout the trading session. >> working the. >> phones. >> talking to sources, and. >> doing my own reporting. >> to share insights, information. >> and all of the details that. >> you need to be able to make money. >> breaking news from gm this morning i want to get straight

over to our man, phil lebeau, who joins us with the latest. phil, what's going on? >> hey, andrew. >> a couple of moves by general motors when it comes to the financials of the company. the company initiating a $6 billion stock buyback. it's actually two pieces here, a $4 billion traditional stock buyback that the company will be initiating. also, $2 billion will be put towards buying back and retiring gm shares. that's expected to be completed in the second quarter. so total altogether $6 billion. at the same time, the company is raising its quarterly dividend dividend by 25%, going from $0.12 a share up to $0.15 a share. take a look at shares of general motors over the last year. stocks moving a little bit higher this morning. guys back to you. >> okay phil thank you for that report. we'll keep our eyes on that stock. meantime joe. >> you got some egg. >> cellent on your face. no. what do you got? >> i don't have egg on my face. but i do have our segment,

which, you know what it's called? the executive edge. right? >> executive. >> the executive edge. some good news for mcdonald's fans and jesus, an executive at the restaurant chain vowing to reject an extra charge on menu items with eggs, even as prices have skyrocketed over bird flu fears. we have. we've offed a lot of chickens in the last couple of years, a couple couple hundred thousand, right? we have. on monday, denny's became the latest chain to institute an egg surcharge waffle house. it previously tacked on an extra fee, but. extra fee. god, yeah, it. there's a lot of opportunity. >> an excellent. >> opportunity, excellent opportunities. it's coming up. >> can i just very quickly back to this gold visa program. yeah. robert frank who knows about everything taxes. >> visas. >> you name it. >> he says it. >> replaces the eb five program.

that's been riddled with fraud and abuse and is mainly a subsidy for real estate developers. so this. >> is like an. >> improvement potentially for what you. >> see out of that. >> we're not the only country that does this. the eb. >> five program. >> already does this. but the gold visa programs include countries like greece and hungary and others, where if you put an investment. >> the programs. yeah, i mean, a whole number of them, all the golden passports used to be able to buy in europe. they, they, they ended those programs in part because of some of these issues. >> i just think it's a big leap to think that to immediately go to like the, the villains in mi5 with tom cruise as the first person that's the arms dealer oligarch from russia, as the first person that's going to come, why not people that look at the united states as a shining city on the hill have money. i want to go there and participate in the american dream. why not? >> them can get visas. >> why not? okay, but why not them? why jump to the arms dealer oligarch in russia? >> because one person can get a visa for free. the other person

can't get the visa. so maybe. >> why would. >> they immediately, if he had money, why would he have to be something that would be a negative for, for us? >> well, because. >> the arms dealer has money. >> no. >> i know it. right. i know, but i just but they're definitely just the normal dreamer is much more virtuous than this horrible $5 million person. >> the drug dealer you're saying? >> no, i'm just. i just think. >> it's a weird. the drug. >> dealer is better than the dreamer. >> no, i'm saying that you can't assume. i'm saying you can't assume that the dreamer is better than someone who can afford to come here with $5 million. >> well, it depends how they have to get their $5 million. >> yeah, exactly. >> so why assume that they got it through through a drug dealer or something? >> because the. >> guy who. >> got. it the right way likely. >> could get the visa for free. >> okay. >> coming up. >> i almost said it. >> i know you almost did. the latest results from the home improvement giant lowe's shares. following their report. we're going to show you what's going

on with that stock in just a moment. but it is up about 2% this morning. we're coming right back. >> executive edge is sponsored by at&t business. next level by at&t business. next level moments need the n it all started with a small business idea. it's a pillow 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! i can't believe you corporate types are still at it. just stop calling each other rock stars. and using workday to put finance and h.r. on one platform. tim, you are a rock star. using responsible ai doesn't make you a rock star. it kinda does.

you are not rock stars. (clears throat) okay. most of you are not rock stars. oooh. data driven insights, and large language models. oh, that's so rock roll. it is, right. he gets it. yeah. designed to help them outperform the markets. meet them at interactive brokers investors marketplace for advisors. advisors at. >> interactive brokers. >> keep all they earn on our low cost platform with no ticket fees or custody charges. >> low. >> margin rates, and high interest earned on idle cash to get better results, get a better platform. the best informed investors choose interactive brokers. >> a cnbc special report in video reports earnings and john ford interviews ceo jensen huang. ai strategy, chip demand plus post interview analysis a

plus post interview analysis a cnbc spe [dramatic music] [engine starting] ♪ [car crashing]

sand and oil every year, you want low maintenance, go with timbertech. >> perhaps the. marquee name of earnings. >> season set to. report tonight after the bell. >> nvidia will be sharing. >> its fourth quarter numbers. >> analysts expect. $38 billion. >> in sales for the period. which would represent a 72%. >> year over year gain. >> nvidia shares are about 15% off of their early january high. they got slammed last month to the tune of nearly $600 billion in lost market value in. >> one day. >> following the announcement of an ai breakthrough from chinese startup deep sea. the performance of deep. sea ai models suggested that nvidia's top of the line. >> chips may not. >> be needed to train and use cutting edge ai. the market's rethought that a lot. since then, the stock has come back to a huge extent, but so much is riding on this because so much is expected. with great greatness comes.

>> great responsibility. >> i guess in the spider-man parlance of. >> how. >> this goes. socrates no, actually. >> spider-man. >> yeah, it's what's his uncle's name. >> uncle ben? >> uncle ben yeah. yeah, exactly. oh, we don't want to go there because. right, right. remember that one other time? yeah. we're talking about the rice. the rice, talking about uncle ben, cliff robertson, spider-man. cliff robertson. yes. the late, great cliff robertson, who played the uncle. >> all right. so nvidia shares this morning up by about 2.5%. wall street watches this so closely because the expectations are high. but the whisper expectations are always a little. higher than that. >> for the two months. >> the stock is down only by about 7.25%. now we're going to keep an eye on this. watch this. we'll be waiting all through the day for this. and don't miss a cnbc special report tonight jon fortt interviewing nvidia ceo jensen huang. you can catch that at 7 p.m. eastern time. that's going to be a biggie. >> it is. >> yeah. >> it's one to watch. and you know who said no one gives you power. you have to take it.

>> that would be ewing. >> jock ewing. yeah. jim davis. >> yeah. dallas. >> we think these are really high, mind you could claim that it was some, like, plato or something, but it wasn't coming up. the ceo of mediterranean restaurant chain cava joins us following earnings. you knew that one because we talked about it. >> we have. >> many times we'll get a check >> many times we'll get a check on the state of the consumer. at morgan stanley, old school hard work meets bold new thinking. to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real. when i started walton goggins goggle glasses, i didn't know how to turn all this fancy pretty-ness into a classy-lookin' logo. but godaddy airo does,

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created one place for it all. one place where you can invest in almost everything like stocks, options, bonds and crypto. you can even lock in a 6% or higher yield, because it's the one place where you can build your portfolio the way you want. all your investing in one place. get up to $10,000 when you transfer an account to public.com. >> okay. >> so my kitchen was more than just retro. i dreamed of a new kitchen, but a full remodel. >> it's pricey. >> and a pain. then i found enhance and it. >> was super. >> friendly to the old wallet. >> we'll take. >> it. >> from here. >> guess what? in just one week, enhance. completely transform my kitchen. my kitchen went from drab to fab. >> we got. >> a whole. >> new style with new door. and drawer fronts, new organizers. and now i have a place for everything. >> i mean. >> look at. >> this place. >> it's the best decision i've ever made. >> cibc live ambitiously.

>> i started the club to help you feel confident to invest yourself. >> pre-market morning news, afternoon meetings and his show mad money. jim cramer gives you much more than you would ever get from any advisor. >> jim cramer is an excellent teacher for someone that wants to learn how to manage their own money. he teaches how to invest. versus just what trades to make. >> we teach club members how to invest the right way. >> get invested. join the club today. go to cnbc.com. jim. >> welcome back to. >> squawk box. shares are moving higher this morning. earnings of $0.05 per share missed estimates by a penny. but revenue and same store sales beating expectations for the full year. the company expecting comp sales growth of 6 to 8%. more analysts were closer to the top end of that range. joining us right now is brett schulman. he's the co-founder and ceo of kava. you got a lot of high expectations now on you like everything every quarter you got to hit the number right. that's that's the hardest part. well we're.

>> focused. on the long. >> term aaron andrew we're we're focused on the. >> next. >> decade, not the next quarter. and we were excited that we were able to actually meet. or exceed our guidance for the. >> full year in. >> 2024, whether that was. adjusted ebitda, whether that was revenue. >> or whether it. >> was restaurant level margins, certainly beat on the same restaurant sales side, with 15.6% traffic in the quarter and 8.7% traffic for the year, which was a testament to the exceptional. work of our team. >> how quickly are you opening new stores at this point? >> well, last year. >> was about an 18.8%. >> compound annual growth rate. this year. given the strength of our pipeline, we've. >> committed to. >> at least 17% growth. >> so that. >> translates to. >> the 62 to 66 restaurant count guidance of new restaurant openings this year. >> and when you think about same store sales, what can you do at this point? i mean, by the way, there's now lines in these places. so i just i wonder i go to your restaurants and i think to myself, you know, there's only so much capacity. >> well, we've. >> certainly. >> got capacity in some

restaurants, but the best thing we can do is open restaurants, you know, adjacent to those restaurants in markets 3 to. >> 5. >> miles away. >> or in the city a few blocks away, take some of the pressure. >> off, like a starbucks situation where all of a sudden every corner is going to have a. >> it speaks. >> to the massive. >> whitespace opportunity and the growing interest in mediterranean cuisine. mediterranean diet ranked number one again for eight years running. so we see this increasing interest in our cuisine, this unique cuisine where taste and health unites. >> what about the cost of food? >> yeah. >> so we've. >> kind. >> of we've talked about low single digit. cogs inflation this year. so fairly benign. we feel good. about how that's positioned. and so we only. took a 1.7%. >> menu price adjustment. >> in january. and we don't plan to take any further price for the remainder of the year. >> and when. >> you look back historically, in recent. >> years. >> from the end. of 19 to now, the end of 24. >> and. >> now that we finished. >> the year, we've taken price in aggregate 15%. >> cpi is. >> up about. >> 23% and fast. >> food traditional. >> qsr has been up in the mid 30s. so we've raised prices less

than half of that. >> how much of your food is either coming from mexico or canada? >> yeah. >> good question. not a lot. we feel like we are pretty well positioned to absorb any impact from the tariffs. we source most of our products domestically and our basket's pretty diverse. so we've got 25% produce, 25% proteins, 25% grocery. >> which is. >> like dry. >> goods, oils. >> and spices and then 25% others. >> so not are. >> you shifting though? are you shifting any ingredients in terms of, well, we're. >> always trying to build redundancy. in the supply chain and have multiple suppliers, whether. domestic or international, to make sure. >> so what's at risk? we always talk about the avocado. what's what's. >> at risk. are in our basket. >> but you know there's avocados in peru not just mexico. so we do. have alternative avenues of supply. >> what time does it open. i mean, would it be impossible to get it here the next time you come on. >> to get kava? >> yeah. we would love to bring it here. >> for you. covid for breakfast. how would you do it, though? is it? or what time do you open? >> we open at 1030.

>> but seriously, is. >> it. >> simply a lunch or would you ever expand? you know, like some restaurants have gone into the business of doing breakfast just to make sure that they're getting used to the store the whole way through. is that an option for you guys? >> yeah, we're not. >> focused on. >> breakfast right now, but we do have a really. >> balanced daypart mix. >> we're about. >> 46% at dinner. >> 54% at lunch. >> so we're a very intuitive. >> choice at. >> dinner, not just lunch, which gives us. >> that strength. >> across the country, in the suburbs. >> and the. >> cities, and. >> then certainly gives us that strong comp. >> growth. >> from two. >> dayparts back to work movement. will that help you? is it i mean, if people are back to the office, i guess. >> yeah. >> we're. >> kind of. >> agnostic on that because of our diverse footprint. >> you think we succeed in. >> the city? we love. >> to serve our. >> office workers. >> lunch. >> but we have a great suburban presence. >> where we'll get. >> families or. >> couples or high school or college students for dinner as. >> well as lunch. so we're pretty well diversified. >> when you look at our. portfolio across the country, which gets us excited for this whitespace opportunity because we. >> have a lot. >> of ways to. >> win. >> whether that's geographically, whether it's the

type of trade area, urban. suburban or even small. >> town and exurban. >> how do you feel about airports? >> yeah, so we're at reagan national. >> we've been there actually. >> for. >> about ten years. we're at dulles. >> we recently opened in lax. we'll have a few other airports. >> a lot of stores love to get in, even if you're losing money. and i don't know if you're making money or losing money in the airport. but a lot of people like the airport because it's almost like a marketing opportunity. >> it's a great marketing opportunity. >> and our customers really. >> love it because it's. >> a health oasis. >> and a food desert typically. >> so it's a great brand awareness drive. >> for you. but is it is it is there margin there or. no. >> well. >> those are so we own all of. >> our restaurants or corporate. >> owned. no franchise restaurants. >> but our. >> airport restaurants are licensed restaurants. so we get. >> the. >> license fees. >> from those. same with union station down in d.c. that's where i had. is it still there? which union station? yes, in d.c. >> that's corporate owned. >> we own union. >> yeah. >> that we run that restaurant. >> still. >> there are a lot of choices i had. i chose cava. >> well, that's. >> the. >> idea, you know? >> why are you coming. >> by the. >> three places? >> i don't know, and i had that sandwich. and i wish you brought

one in this morning. that craveable. yeah. >> that harissa. >> honey chicken. >> is that what it was? >> yeah. >> i think it was. >> it's addictive. brett. thank you this morning. appreciate it. thanks for having me. >> i looked around when you walked in here. it's like nobody's back there. someone's there. but you don't have any food, do you? >> promise? got it. got to include the. >> pita chips, too. >> brett. >> thank you for coming in. >> we appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> when we come back, shares of super microcomputer shooting up in the premarket. the company getting a last minute reprieve from a possible delisting. and a programing note for you don't miss john ford's extended first on cnbc interview with amazon ceo andy jassy. that is today at 1 p.m. on the exchange. squawk box will be right back and john's going to be busy today. >> on this cnbc program is >> on this cnbc program is sponsored (♪♪)

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>> that's my secret. >> to better odor control everywhere. >> shares of super micro computer surging in in the premarket. you can see up almost $10. company reporting delayed financial results late yesterday, just in time to avoid a possible delisting by the nasdaq. the stock's been under pressure since late last year, when the company disclosed it had lost its auditor following months of disagreement with ernst and young over governance and board independence. and yesterday's filing, the company said it had identified material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting, including it issues, and it's hiring additional accounting employees now and upgrading its it systems. >> coming up, top analyst joining us on some of the big earnings movers of the morning.

and specifically this one. you're looking at it lowe's right there on the screen. the stock up about 2%. we'll talk about what it means for the larger economy right after this. >> opportunities can be hard to find like. >> catching lightning in. a bottle. in uncertain times. >> it's tempting to. >> retreat or simply wait and see. >> at cme. >> group. >> we. >> empower those who act. >> we deliver. >> tools to help manage risk. >> and capture. >> opportunities in every market, across every major asset class. >> to seize. >> each possibility at. >> precisely the right moment. cme group. >> opportunity is everywhere. >> public.com is the one place where you can invest in almost everything stocks, options, bonds, crypto. you can even lock in a 6% or higher yield. all your investing in one place. get up to $10,000 when you transfer an account to public.com. the most challenging engineering

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immunotherapy platform to treat sepsis and osteoarthritis and other inflammatory diseases, both billion dollar market opportunities that could revolutionize the way we treat these diseases and live stock symbol inlb. tomorrow, investors and fast money fans join melissa lee and the team of traders live and on air for an all access fusion of trades, trends and tips. fast money live tomorrow five eastern cnbc. >> all right, welcome back everybody. shares of lowe's are actually moving higher right now. the company reported better than expected profit and revenue. its outlook pointed to potential business improvement in the year ahead. that stock right now up by about 2.3%. joining us right now is michael baker. he is senior research analyst at d.a. davidson. and michael, what in the report was the most important? was it the traffic trends that are here? is it what they're seeing about the potential for growth in the year

ahead? >> i think it's simply that the same store sales in the fourth quarter, home depot comp. positively yesterday. that was their first. >> positive comp in about two and a half years. >> that put the. >> pressure on lowe's to do. >> the same. and they did. the bar. >> was. >> elevated and they cleared it. the 0.2%. >> comp. >> their first positive. comp in two and a half years. it shows that the home center space is really bottomed. >> margins were. >> good. >> outlook was good. >> all all all those were very helpful. >> but they needed to hit that. >> comp number after what home depot did yesterday. >> and they did. >> yeah. the home. >> depot instant reaction was that the stock was lower. now i know it traded higher later in the day, but what's the difference between what we initially saw in the home depot report yesterday and what we see with lowe's. or was it just taking time for the street to really think through what home depot was saying and maybe listen in on the conference call? >> well, that was. >> a little bit about. >> the outlook. >> for 2025. >> home depot did. >> give what looks. >> like a conservative. >> outlook on.

>> the. >> call from home. >> depot yesterday. >> it was pretty clear that business is. >> going pretty well right. >> now, but they're setting. >> a low bar. >> so in a way. >> you know, lowe's doing something similar. their guidance. >> is a. little bit below the street as well. but because home depot already told us that yesterday it makes it not look as bad. so i think that's. >> a difference. they have the benefit of reporting after because they see. lowe's sees 2025 comparable store sales flat to up 1%. i think the street's expectations were that comps would be up 1.1% for the year. so again, it's a very similar tone to what we heard from home depot yesterday. >> exactly. and not just. >> home depot, by the way. >> throughout earnings. >> season, what we've. >> seen. >> is most. >> of the. >> retailers, the big box retailers that we. cover have. >> beat on the top line. >> in fact, about 80%. >> who beat on. >> the top. >> line zero have guided. to numbers for 2025. >> above consensus. everybody's either in line. >> or even below. >> that's what we've been seeing. i think the idea is why. >> set a high bar? >> why put. >> the pressure on yourselves? set makeable beatable numbers we

saw from walmart last week. they called. >> their guidance starting point prudent, measured. there's a. >> lot of policy concerns. >> out there, policy rifts as we're calling them. that's our acronym. so it makes sense. just to guide a little bit more conservatively. >> so was the walmart sell off last week overdone? >> i think so, yeah. it's a name we like. the sell. >> off was. entirely because of the guidance. >> and if you listen to the call again, the. >> words they use. >> were prudent, measured. >> a starting point. that one interpretation was the consumer is falling apart. >> that's not. >> at all what what what walmart was saying. in fact, january. >> was their best. >> month of the quarter. >> their business. >> is fine. they just setting a low bar. >> okay, so the overall trend after hearing from several of these companies is they may be cautious, but you're not you're not as cautious on this. you think the environment is pretty good, the consumer is pretty good. and you would stick with these names. >> i would the fourth. >> quarter sales. >> were the best sales trend of the year.

>> in 2024. >> so we're seeing the consumer spending again. there are some risks. >> on the horizon. >> we call them risks. that's rates that's inflation. that's fx. that's tariffs. >> so there's. >> a. >> lot of uncertainty. so it. >> makes. >> sense to be a little bit cautious. >> and the truth is we have seen a little bit of a slowdown earlier in the year after a really strong holiday. but in. >> general retail sales. >> have been pretty good. >> so we're more. >> positive than not on the consumer right now. >> okay michael, thanks a lot. great talking to you this morning. >> thank you. >> it's 7 a.m. on the east coast. you're watching squawk box right here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen and becky quick on today's top stories. the house narrowly adopting a multi-trillion dollar budget blueprint last night, 217 republicans banding together to pass that measure against all democrats in the lone gop holdout, kentucky representative thomas massie. meantime, officials in ukraine confirming they reached a deal with the u.s. over access to ukraine's deposits of rare earth minerals. now they're saying that the plan

would involve the creation of a joint investment fund and is directly connected to security guarantees for ukraine. the agreement could be finalized and ready to sign later today. we'll keep our eyes, of course, on that very, very big story. and the board of general motors approving a 25% dividend hike to $0.15 per share. it's also authorized $6 billion in share repurchases. $2 billion worth of those shares will be retired. and you're looking at that stock up on the back of that news a little over 4% right now. meantime, take a quick look at the futures 125 points higher on the dow. you're looking at the nasdaq up 130 840 points there. the s&p 500 up about 25 points. i want to get straight over to frank holland with a look at this morning's three markets. >> we wanted you to do. >> our egg names. >> yeah becky. >> quick bag. >> quick yolk. >> kernan yolk kernan. >> andrew ross sorkin. and we're now going to turn it to frank hollandaise. >> oh. >> what did. >> you expect that. >> i was not. that's a good one

though i like that one by the way. happy nvidia day guys. huge day for the markets today. taking a look at nvidia right now nvidia higher in the premarket up just about 2% right now ahead of its blockbuster earnings report after the close. analysts polled by factset. they expect $38 billion in sales for the quarter. that would be a 72% increase from last year. the stock's had a bit of a sluggish start to 2025. you're seeing some of the drops and kind of moving sideways since then. it's about falling about 3% year to date. also about 15% off of its all time high. again nvidia shares are up just about 2%. and tonight, make sure you tune in to a cnbc special report at 7 p.m. eastern, where our john ford is going to break down the quarter with the man himself, ceo jensen huang. all right. moving on. another earnings mover this morning. anheuser busch higher by about 7% right now. up just almost 7.5% after topping expectations with its fourth quarter revenue. despite an annual decline in volumes. the ceo telling cnbc that drop was due to weak demand in china, which is actually the world's biggest beer market, and argentina. the maker of brands including bud light, budweiser and michelob ultra, has seen its

shares climb almost 18% this year, a bit of a turnaround from the action that we saw last year from the stock. all right. moving on looking at shares of supermicro. they're soaring this morning. take a look at this chart right here. shares up over 24% after the chipmaker filed its delayed quarterly and annual reports with the sec just in time to meet the nasdaq listing deadline. this restores it to compliance with financial reporting requirements. it also removes a major overhang from supermicro, whose auditor resigned last fall, saying it just couldn't rely on management's representation of the company's results. again, shares of supermicro are up over 24% right now year to date. huge run up. you see, it's mostly in recent days shares up just about 86%. andrew, back over to you. >> okay. thank you sir. frank hollandaise i guess. >> hollandaise coming up rockefeller international was ruchir sharma on why he's bullish on investing in china. then later, congressman ro khanna joins us to talk about the passing of the gop budget plan, the impact of doge, and much more. stay tuned. you're watching squawk box and this is

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amazing and is something that we get to use every day. >> there's a futures this morning. not too bad, but 127 points now on the dow. let's talk markets with monica dicenzo, head of the global investment opportunities group at jp morgan private bank. i don't know, monica. you're just really not that excited about this market, are you? >> it's hard to be very enthusiastic given some of the headline risk and volatility. >> you've been you've been risk on for two years. you don't you done well. yeah there's some headwinds. there's just they're apparent to everyone. that could be good though. >> i think could be very good. >> many of my. clients still have too much cash. so for those

people this is great. but there are. also people who probably have a little too much risk on. they owned a lot of tech. they did really well. they owned a lot of private equity. there haven't been exits. they need to think about rebalancing and just making sure your portfolio is ready for a different volatility environment, right. >> so they don't stay at the party too long. but don't you don't. >> i learned. >> that lesson in college. >> call the uber. but yeah right. but don't leave yet. >> no. >> you never want to completely obviously sell down and de-risk your entire portfolio. >> if you did that. >> during covid, for example, you saw how quickly things can turn around. but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have some portfolio protection on. many clients i work with still don't own enough fixed. >> income. >> because. for so long it didn't make sense. even though we're worried about inflation and fixed income still makes sense in a portfolio. now rates are higher. >> do you think the odds are better than 50% that in the next six months we get a 10% pullback? >> oh. >> i think so. and by the way. >> i'd be okay with. >> that because i think that would. >> be healthy. >> what you need to see is a

rotation. and people start to reposition portfolios again out of these 1 or 2 areas that did really well and start looking at other parts of the market, and you're seeing that. that's why the equal weighted s&p has been outperforming. >> so rangebound but positive. yet we're just under six. you're looking for 6400 at single digits. >> that's our base case. >> for year end. that assumes you're like low double digit earnings growth but multiple contraction. >> so i'm uncomfortable. i don't have any tech. but let's say i did have some tech i'm uncomfortable. so what what so half go. go where. what do i do. >> so i'd want to look at it in context. >> of your portfolio. >> and the answer may be sell none. but if you have a lot of cash, do you buy some fixed income and bonds to balance that? do you think about adding portfolio protection? do you look at uncorrelated assets, infrastructure, real assets? gold? that's what we want to make sure people have that balance. people probably got a little too overweight growth in their portfolios the last few years because again it was the right trade. >> would you like the fed to cut a couple of times this year? and would it mean you'd have to give up some economic growth? you'd

have to acknowledge the economy is slowing to get the cuts. >> yeah. >> i mean. >> that's still our. >> expectation is for two. i think the risk clearly feels like like less than that. and that's what the. market is. i think that's what the market's starting to prepare for that you could see i mean tariff question is a big one right. if you worry about inflation then that's the. >> other side. >> are you worried about inflation or are you worried about the consumer in a possible labor market weakening or slowdown? >> the big question for me. >> is labor. >> as long as people have jobs, they're okay. if that changes, then that changes our outlook. but on the inflation side, again i think about where do people have risk in portfolios, where do my clients have risk. and many haven't necessarily positioned for world where perhaps the tail event is that you have inflation and rates moving higher again. and so that's what we're trying to prepare people for, whether it's trying to manage their floating rate exposure or again, looking at assets that would perform well in an inflationary environment. >> the biden years, the market did pretty well with what was perceived to be a very high regulatory environment. if you

dismantle that regulatory environment, but at 22 times earnings. i mean, is it still will it be a positive? >> i think it's. >> a positive for some sectors. i mean, you think about. where we've been waiting to see more m&a. so healthcare actually been waiting to see m&a in general. so that's by. >> the way. >> didn't happen. andrew pointed that out. >> didn't happen. >> good sectors. >> still hasn't really picked up. but the. >> pipeline is really strong. so i think companies are ready if the environment gets a little bit. >> more exits. >> you said for private. >> equity many exits. but by the way if that changes that's the reason we like financials. it's good for banks to obviously participate. >> in the. >> m&a cycle. and it would be good for private equity. so i've seen a lot of people look at secondaries. on the private equity side. people need liquidity. there haven't been exits. and so if you can offer someone liquidity you can get things at a discount. that's a great trade. >> interest rates are not, you know, prohibitively high prohibitively high for m&a. i just don't see what. so you think it just it's in the works.

>> well it is in the works from every investor. >> what do people. >> tell you? >> and they're all your friends, right. >> they say in the works. >> yeah they do. selling or buying? both. because there has to be on both sides. >> like a spigot where you turn it on and look. >> the flip side is think about what. think about what steve cohen saying. go straight to steve cohen. do you think steve cohen is one of the smartest investors in america? >> others have echoed similar things, supposedly too. >> right. he's in the he's in a very negative camp. >> griffin. yeah. >> he thinks the market's moved, and now we're going to be in some kind of rut for some period of time between tariffs, between taxes, between investment, between doge even i mean he's he's got a on a temporary basis. maybe he's got a longer term view that it could it could work out on the other side. i don't know. but i'm saying right now he. >> does agree. >> with that. >> i do because if you're running a company, how do you plan when you don't have visibility? and that makes it really hard? again, i don't think we're not calling for 1,020% drawdown by year end, but for the next few months, it

makes it the market feels opaque and that's challenging. >> okay, great. thanks, monica. >> thank you. all right. when we come back, we're going to talk about investing in china. ruchir sharma joins us on why it may be attractive. why? maybe david tepper was right. plus a close call at a chicago airport. this is kind of terrifying. i don't know if you've seen this video yet. if you haven't, you are going to want to hear the details on it. squawk box will be right back. >> time now for today's aflac trivia question. what was the original name of dell computer corporation? the answer when corporation? the answer when squawk ♪ (action music) ♪ woah! i can't do it! agh! cut! this gap! it's just too big. bring on the double! aflac! after my hospital stay, aflac helped close the gap by paying me cash for expenses health insurance didn't cover. nothing covers gaps better than the aflac duck. aflaaaaac!

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damon offers versatile solutions for both personal and business needs. damon, pushing the charge in personal mobility. jensen huang ai strategy, chip demand. plus post-interview analysis a cnbc special report tonight, 7 p.m. eastern, cnbc. and now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. what was the original. name of. >> dell computer corporation? >> the answer pcs limited. founded in 1984 by michael dell. the company. was rebranded. >> to dell computers. >> in 1988. >> a southwest airlines plane narrowly avoided a collision with a smaller business jet at chicago's midway airport yesterday. the faa said that the

business jet entered the runway without authorization. in fact, i believe there's audio from the air traffic control telling that jet not to enter the runway. the southwest flight crew performed a so-called go around, but this was pretty heroic. they pulled up seconds before landing. they were just about to touch down when they saw the business jet that was entering their space. that flight later landed without incident, so kudos to the pilots on board there. the faa and the ntsb are each investigating. >> flexjet. flexjet. right. >> i think i don't know the. details on business jet. >> yeah. >> but it's just like. >> it just. >> look, the thing that i can't figure out is how do we make this system better? i mean, this goes. maybe it's a technology story. no, you can do better. >> if the pilot ignores what air traffic controllers told him to do, i don't know. >> sure. but i think one of the things that's happened is these airports are so congested right now with. >> so many business. >> jets, you know, and we're landing so many planes so quickly that the opportunity for

disaster is much closer. but if you're landing planes every, every 60s, when the. >> i think you have to have two minutes in between. >> but when there's no way for ten years. >> sure. i'm just. >> suggesting nothing's happened. so this is a cluster that probably. and once again, you would not. well, well, you would not get into a car if you just do the numbers and compare compare the risk associated. you would never get in another car, especially not some uber from somebody you don't even know how they drive. you would never get in a car. and so just i mean, you can be you can just say, oh my god, the sky. >> is falling. oh my god, i'm just. >> in number, in probability and risk. i'm not. i'm suggesting. >> hopefully the risk is good. i don't understand what you're saying then. >> i'm saying that i think that we have to have a we have to rethink the system. what do we do with the with cars? >> if it's 100 times more likely to die in a car wreck, what do you want to do with that? let's focus on that problem first. if it's 100 times more likely to die that way.

>> i don't think we've come up with a solution for that one. i think i think it's actually a lot easier to solve this than it is that because there's a lot less of them? >> we were just talking. i don't want to get t-boned when someone runs up the runs a light. i don't those are, you know, a lot of people consider stop signs and red lights optional. >> yeah. >> well, that's why you. >> have to be. and then you throw in the, you know, the, you know, pot's legal. great. >> coming up rockefeller international is ruchir sharma joining us to talk investing in china and how the landscape has changed under the trump administration. squawk box returns right after this. >> know if it's 100 times. >> for the fourth consecutive year. interactive brokers is one of the fastest growing prime brokers and is now number five in preqin's ranking of top prime brokers. interactive brokers serves both organizations and individual investors to get better results, get a better platform. the best informed

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better than expected fourth quarter sales, despite a year over year decline in volumes. total volume fell by 1.9% in the quarter and by 1.4% over the full year, which the company largely attributed to weak demand in china and argentina. the company's ceo spoke to our colleagues in europe overnight about the potential impact of tariffs. >> we don't think that. >> we're going to have big topics. >> to discuss. >> during this year in. >> terms of tariffs. >> there is always. >> like. >> secondary impacts. but we are. >> watching this, what the. >> development is. >> and we are prepared to use other levers that we have to offset costs if we have any. >> that stock is up i think about 8% this morning. yes, and about 17% just since the start of the year. make that 18% for the year to date. >> coming up, we're going to talk to fanatics ceo michael rubin for all things sports betting collectibles and this year's fanatics fest. as we head to a break, take a look at shares of lowe's. profits and

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face of internal and external challenges, signaling that the country may take a measured approach in dealing with u.s. tariffs. that's according to reports out of beijing. joining us right now is ruchir sharma, rockefeller international's chairman and breakout capital founder and ceo, cio. his latest piece for the financial times is titled is china investable again? and lay out your case for this. >> well, my answer. >> becky, is that. >> it's always been investable. it's just that what's happened. >> now. >> is that there's been a big shift in sentiment. the big shift in sentiment. >> really started. >> with the deep sea announcement, because that sort of showed that china. >> is still. >> very. much in the. >> innovation game. and then the other thing, which. >> i pointed out when we last. >> spoke about the top trends of the year, is that the market had become really very cheap because after trump's election, there was almost a fire sale with a lot of pension funds in the us. saying that this. country is uninvestable. trump's going to come. he's going to

excommunicate china from the rest. >> of. >> the world. >> and at. >> least the us listings. you know, there was a lot of negative narrative on china. and the chinese market was trading at nearly half the valuation of the us market. so my point. >> here is. >> that there's been. >> a big shift. >> in sentiment. now, of course, i don't think the fundamentals have changed. i still feel the chinese economy. >> is likely. >> to keep slowing. >> its growth rate. >> is likely. >> to be, you know, 2 or 3% on average over the next decade in real terms. but i do feel that the market had become too cheap. and i think that as we look now for more international opportunities, china should very much be in that mix. >> you know, i can't help but think back to david tepper, who joined us at the end of september on squawk box and said that he was buying everything china. was he just very early on this? did he see this before everybody else? >> well, i can't speak and tell you what the i mean like obviously like a great gut instinct for able to do that. but i would say this though, that let's also be clear what this chinese rally is about,

which is that the original argument for buying china in september was that they were going to stimulate very heavily, and that's going to end up in terms of lifting the market. that didn't really happen. even now that's not happened. the rally is still very much concentrated in china's tech sector. if you take out the chinese tech sector, the rest of the chinese market is really not doing much. even in a strong year like this, the market is virtually flat. the domestic market, which doesn't have many of the tech stocks listed, is virtually flat. so i think that it's a case of being right, maybe for the wrong reason, which is the fact that people were expecting the stimulus to do a lot. instead, all that's happened is that there's a big sentiment shift triggered by deep sea and the fact that people are seeing value, but it's very concentrated as yet in the chinese tech stocks. now, i think that should broaden out, because xi jinping, i think, is very aware that he needs the private sector to help grow. he's facing the headwinds from the us, the uncertainty with the tariffs. so he needs the private

sector now. so he's trying to make the private sector more of an ally, rather than the hostile attitude that he adopted a few years ago. so that's a change. but so far the rally has nothing to do with the stimulus. it is very much a sentiment shift triggered by low valuations and the fact that the moment has shifted the perception on china's tech prowess. >> just in terms of the risks that are still at play here. i mean, we think or you think i should say, that things are going to be okay with the tariffs and other things that come along. what's what's the potential for this to get out of hand? >> yeah, i think there's a lot of fear in the marketplace and even in the us in particular, that how is trump going to be with china? but everything that i've seen out of trump, you know, like suggests that, yeah, you know, there will be some tightening of investment rules or so. but generally he's been softer on china than even mexico or canada or somewhere else. that's the revealed preference. and the one irony of this moment

is that if you look at trump's first term, the best performing market in the world in his first term was msci china. and of course, there are other reasons there. but you know, and trump did do tariffs and stuff. but overall there are other factors at play here. so i think people are too obsessed with how trump is going to be with china and trying to base investment decisions in general on that. we don't know what trump's exact mind on china is, but so far the revealed preference is that he's been softer on china than i think that most people would have expected at the outset. >> one of the things you wrote about that really surprised me is that you say china now has more than 250 companies with a market capitalization of over $1 billion in free cash flow, free cash flow yield of more than 10%. so 250 in china versus fewer than 150 of those similar companies in the united states. that kind of caught me off guard. >> exactly. so i think that's the kind of reason, you know,

which in fact even caught me off guard, to be honest, becky, because i didn't expect china to have so many such companies, which just tells you there's a lot of value creation. and some of these chinese tech companies, you know, the tencent, alibaba, a lot of these companies are throwing out a lot of cash flow now. now of course, the difference in china, as i also write in the piece that in some ways the market is more competitive than the us than if you look at the various industries there, the concentration is a lot less. the competition is a lot more intense. when the us, the big companies tend to dominate across sectors, particularly tech. so that is the irony there, which is not that great. maybe for some investors who are looking for moats and stuff. but in general, yeah, that just tells you how much value there is. so again, just going back to, you know, i spoken about this last time as well that i think that my favorite trade of the year is, you know, long, short tesla. i mean, i just feel that that's just telling you about what the valuation gap is. one, even after the rally this

year, trades at less than one fifth the valuation of tesla, which is bid and sells twice more than twice as many cars as tesla does. it is growing very fast in many markets. so i think that there are those kind of relative value opportunities to be had there. and of course, i don't think that we should bet our entire fortune on china, you know, like in terms of that. but i do feel it needs to be part of the mix, particularly in a year where the international markets are, you know, finding favor. again, in general, international investing has been dead for 10 to 15 years. it's finding some favor again with people. and so i think china needs to be in the mix at this stage. of course, i think emerging markets outside of china offer even better value after the rally we have had in china. but this entire approach that i think some pension funds, you know, and other people in the us have taken or even some large institutions around the world, the china's uninvestable, we can't put any money to work there. i just feel that for the second largest market in the

world, that's just too sweeping an approach, and it needs to be much more nuanced than that. >> thanks for joining. us today. >> thank you. >> coming up, all things sports fanatics ceo michael rubin is going to join us in an interview going to join us in an interview that you don't discovering innovation today, helps drive growth tomorrow. as a leading global asset manager, pgim has established a track record of helping investors capitalize on growth opportunities. pgim investments. shaping tomorrow, today. how to get a better price on their meds, i tell them about single care. it's a free app accepted at pharmacies nationwide. >> before i pick up my prescription. >> i always check the single care price. >> it's quick, easy, and totally free to use. >> single care can literally beat my insurance copay. >> you just search for your prescription and show your single care coupon at the pharmacy. >> so i just show. >> the coupon and get.

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amazing and is something that we get to use every day. >> i know. >> new jersey governor phil murphy is proposing an increase in the state tax on online sports gambling to 25% from a current maximum of 13%. online casino gaming would also be taxed at 25% under the plan, up from 15%. murphy said the proposed online gaming tax rate would bring in an additional $400 million for fiscal 2026. meanwhile, the philadelphia eagles super bowl win driving record merchandise sales. a sports fanatic still riding, that fanatic still riding that

momentum momentum with its commerce betting. collectibles business. fanatics has a valuation of $17 billion, according to forbes global. joining us now, fanatics ceo michael rubin. is that about right? no, that's what. >> i thought. it's not the first time i've heard something. >> wrong before. no. >> fanatics is i saw much higher than that. yeah. >> it trades. >> at about 25 billion today, and it's been pretty consistent over the last couple months. there's been a fair amount of trade trading there. that must be probably one of the businesses. i'm guessing it's probably the collectibles business, not the entire business. yeah. >> forge global, we specifically was talking about one of not not the entire entity. >> yeah. >> that's right. okay. as far as the super bowl went there, there was only one other event that sold more merchandise. what was it? >> chicago cubs nfl. so the eagles had the absolute record for most hot ticket sales of an nfl for a super bowl. but if you look in the history of our company, cubs was the biggest hot market ever. those fans had not won for 100 ish years, and

they had a lot of pent up demand. but eagles fans, philly fans, they're incredible. and they showed up in a really big way. >> they did. you have done a lot of. acquisitions. how are you feeling now? are you feeling like you're still digesting some or you're ready to go? >> no. >> it's. >> a it's a great question. i think. >> when we. >> reinvented the company in 2020 21, i think the first two years were really about setting the strategy, doing the m&a deals to enable some of the strategy, doing some of. >> the business. >> development deals. so i'd say 21 and 22 are really about enabling deals to kind of bring our our, you know, vision to light. and that we took a lot on during 21 and 22. i'd say the last year and a half have really just been about laser focused execution. and that's why the business has been so good. when you take a lot on, you've got to absorb it. so probably the most interesting stat is i think in 21 or 22, i think we spent a billion, a half or $2 billion in m&a. i think in the last year

and a half, we spent less than $100. >> million. >> in m&a, and we don't really have things that we need to buy now. i think we have all the assets we need to build, all the assets we need in place today to build a company that can, you know, be a 5 to $10 billion ebitda business long term. >> what is the vision of the company now? what you know, versus what it was versus what it is? >> yeah. so when i started coming on here i was thinking about this. i think i've been coming on here for probably 20 plus years. it was really about building the best and most fan friendly. you know, what we call commerce business, our, you know, really everything around fan gear. and then in 20 2021, we really reinvented the company into a digital sports platform. so today we have three businesses the original busines, finance, commerce that that this year will be close to $7 billion. commerce division really focused 100% on fan gear. we have the collectibles business that when we came up with the idea in 2000 and late 2020, and then we bought topps january 1st, 2022, it was a $500

million business. that was a billion. six last year would be over 2 billion this year. and when all the rights kick in from the nfl, the nba and the english premier league over the next year, that will be approaching a $3 billion business next year. and then we have the betting and gaming business, which we only launched 16 months ago. we were at 6.5% of the market in the sports betting business. so and by the way, joe, we're going to do a check. we're gonna do a check on your phone. if the fanatic sports book app is not there, i'm going to have to go to, like. >> you're bullying me. >> we're gonna have to go to, like, cramer's show, or we're either that i'm going to throw you out of here. i'm only going to work with. you can make money on my $5 bets. yeah. you still want me? >> absolutely. >> 6.5% market share is. >> pretty big. >> look, i'll. >> tell you. >> realistically, we're doing better than everyone expected, and we expect it ourselves. so we went out there with a bold vision saying, look, we want to be in these three businesses. we want to be in the fan gear business. we want to be the collectibles business, and we want to be in the betting and gaming business and obviously in the gear business and the collectibles business. we're the

market leader in the betting and gaming business. we're the underdog and we love being the underdog. and i'll tell you, draftkings and fanduel, they're really good companies. so for us to go from essentially no market share to 6.5%. >> i mean, it's. >> 16 months. what are. >> you excited? what are your customer acquisition costs? because they're pretty high for those two other companies? >> yeah. >> much less. >> we're acquiring customers for today in the 9 or 10 month range, which is substantially less than fanduel, draftkings. the reason is because fanatics as a brand is a well-known company. we have 115 million customers in our database that have bought merchandise from us. we touch, you know, we had 23 million unique customers buy from us just online last year in the stores that we own. we probably had another 10 million customers buy buy from us. so we touch so many customers in so many different touch points. and so that's been a real advantage for us. but i mean, look, i think today we're already in december. we were the third largest player in the online sports market, kind of tied with mgm. and again, if you would have asked people two years ago,

they'd say, michael's nuts. he has no chance. this isn't going to work and take people saying they got the third best ranked product and they're the third largest from a marketing perspective, but a distant third to fanduel and draftkings, who we have a lot of respect for. >> can i pivot to just a slightly different topic, which is you made a big bet on baseball generally, major league baseball, obviously, baseball cards, the whole thing. mlb not making a deal with espn because espn was not willing to pay more than they used to. what does that say about the state of baseball in america? yeah, so. baseball for us. >> is doing great. not good. okay, okay. the rule changes they've made have been really well accepted. and a lot of when you change things and do something new for the first time, a lot of times people don't like that. they don't accept that. i think the rule changes have been universally positive for the sport. i mean, i can't go through one by one, but i think they've been universally positive. i can tell you in the trading card business, baseball, when we started in january of 22, was the third player was a $370

million business, a distant third to the nba and to the nfl. today, baseball is number one by a mile. they did $850 million last year in baseball trading cards. and you know nba and nfl are still in that same range that they were. so a lot of momentum in the sport. >> but why is that happening on one side. and espn is saying no mas. we can't pay this money anymore. and there's all sorts of new questions about the valuations of baseball. >> it's a great question. let me just tell you one more data point. our fan group business in baseball also doing really well. so we see momentum across the entire consumer products business. what i tell you is i obviously have a front seat to a lot of these media deals, not just in baseball, but across all of the sports. and a lot of times you see one person says this isn't worth that. and then two streamers show up and pay three times that. i would tell you, if i were a betting person today, i think the value of the baseball rights will be meaningfully greater. >> do you think manfred's going to get more when this is over? that's what i've been. what he

then what he said. >> i've heard from two people who want the rights that they think the rights are worth meaningfully more. >> so this. >> is and you saw it, by the way, you saw the same thing. >> you know, this is when fox came in and the nba and cbs, i'm sorry, the nfl. >> and the nfl. yeah. look i'm thinking back to like, you know thursday night football and how much amazon value did you think about the package that you know look at look at the way nfl has done such a beautiful job finding all these partners. look at netflix they just brought in for christmas football. right okay. and what a. great job they. >> did with the nfl's. they sort of. >> look nobody's better in media than the nfl. but i will tell you, you asked me a question. do i think baseball will get more for their media rights than what espn? >> let me. >> ask. >> you this. do you think the answer. >> is. >> alienate the fans by doing that because they can't find you and figure out where you are when you have so many games that are on so many different places. >> yeah, i think that's a universal problem in sports overall. like for me, i can tell you as a fan. >> it ticks me off. >> by the way. it aggravates me all the time that we actually just talked about designing a product within our app. just

where do i find the game? right? it sounds so simple, but like you need that a lot. like you can't find games. >> that i've always thought that you could be in the end if you weren't a media company. unto yourself is a packager, meaning there was obviously this venue experiment that didn't go anywhere. yeah, but if you were given, you have the gambling piece already and you have so many people on your on your site, i've always thought that you should be going to, you know, warner going to nbc, going to everybody and saying we will package it ourselves as sort of a true third party. yeah. so it's a great point. you could be the switzerland. so take a step. >> back for a second. we were three years ago, four years ago in one business. we've now, you know, kind of reinvented the company into a digital sports platform to three businesses were in had $8.1 billion in revenue last year. and we think those three businesses alone, you know, five in the next decade, could be a $30 billion plus business that generates, you know, 5 to $10 billion of ebit. is that kind of, you know, opportunity of growth. so what we want to make sure we don't do

is do too much too quickly. that said, when you talk about packaging things, we like those ideas because what we don't want to do, we don't want to be in the media business today. we don't want to be in the ticketing business today. >> no, i know that we. have great opportunity. >> we have a great opportunity in the three businesses we're in. >> like the cable operator. >> but there's no question that we need to like, look, the fanatics app today, which we are laser focused on. you know, if you look at the amount of daily users coming into it today versus a year ago, it's exciting. same thing with the sports betting app. same thing with fanatics live app. okay, so i think it's our responsibility to wrap a lot of things together. >> does it end up in one app? super app. so no super app. >> so i think right now i think we're going to have three key apps. one will be the overall fanatics app, which won't have betting because you have people under 21 in the app. okay. the second will be the fanatics sports betting app, and the third will be kind of our finance collect app, which will really be something special for collectors. >> i think. can't wall off the betting inside the same app. >> i think you want to make sure you don't put. sometimes you can have too much in the app and you can kind of overkill, but i can

tell you that the biggest thing we look at, i was actually talking to somebody from uber a couple weeks ago, and they had a great line for me. they said, you know, michael, the problem with with uber rides is people don't use it that much, like they only use it like, you know, once a week. they like versus like uber eats. they use it every day. and my daughter's the exact case study that she uses rides once or twice a week. and she uses eats multiple times a day. okay. we want to figure out what are all the things we can do to have sports fans using our app multiple times a day. so we have a free to play game. people use it like crazy and we keep adding more things to the app, but it doesn't mean we always need to build them ourselves to the point that you made. it okay. >> you miss owning the 70 sixers and the devils? >> definitely not. >> look. >> if i'm being quite look, sports ownership is a thrill for most people. i was obviously disappointed we never got a championship while i was in bob. so the way i look at it is we failed. if you just look at it, that simply. but the opportunity of building fanatics is so much bigger than any one sports team.

and i think we have an opportunity to create one of the most important consumer brands in the world to create, you know, something that touches billions of sports fans globally. and today probably is the most exciting. i feel like we're a startup. we have 22,000 employees. we have more than $9 billion of revenue this year, and i'm 52 and feel like i'm going to do this till i die. so i and we can we should be the brand that every sports fan digitally works with in the world. and so i'm 150% focused on that. also, you keep it real. it's won't be a fun time to be the sixers owner right now either. yeah. >> thanks, michael. >> i feel like we're in kind of a lull right now sports wise. i mean, i'm doing college hoops. do you know how hard college hoops are to bet on? >> yes, for sure. but i'll tell you like our when i look at the betting business and the projections versus what we've done in the last two months, we've been like meaningfully ahead. so the betting business is very good overall. you're going to see this in draftkings numbers and fanduel numbers. they will have very good first quarters. if the trajectory that's happened in the first two

months stays in the next one. it's been very strong. >> two four way parlays last night. guess how many i actually got right? >> total 001. yeah. well, i'm gonna say one thing. you did that on draftkings, correct? >> i'm sorry, i did. >> yeah. >> so we will. >> that would have been good. i just i just want i just want to declare this right now. >> i know you won't be coming back. my exclusivity is. >> with the two of you. i don't actually speak to joe anymore. >> yeah? >> you what? >> i'm not. all right, i'll do it. he's not on. he's not gambling. >> with you. >> i show up at at fan fest. >> this guy came to fanatics fest. >> and you. >> he demoralized himself in front of hundreds of thousands. >> of people. >> he sent me the video. i showed. he had a ball. he had a ball hit him in the chest four times from tom brady, and somehow his hands couldn't keep it there. well, because becky supports everything. >> when the man throws the ball. >> even even though. >> they totally deflated. did not share it. >> yeah, not. >> why is it like a. >> rock if there's no air in the footballs? he's throwing. >> it away. fanatics fest. >> these were fanatics balls. >> fanatics fest coming this year, june 20th to 22nd.

>> earlier. why earlier? >> because you couldn't get active nfl players invite. >> me to fanatics fest. >> yeah. you're out. i don't speak to you anymore. it's over for us. fanatic. this this is it for us. >> i don't even know if i was. >> invited to that. so what's really exciting about fanatics fest now that we're doing it june 20th and 22nd, we're gonna have all the current nfl players. so i just look like jayden daniels is coming this year. cj stroud, caleb williams you're going to have. so there's going to be 100. you know current nfl players. so june is the only. time is. >> the. >> collectibles business. >> you go to his white party too. ii0 so he goes he gets invited to that. >> different places. >> he gets real real speak anymore. i've given you fair warning a few times. you expect we expect loyalty to. >> the fanatic because of the betting. >> that's right. okay. >> thank you. i'll see you, sir. >> honored to be with. >> you guys. >> oh. >> oh. >> we're coming right back aft icy hot. ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last. feel the power of contrast therapy.

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>> introducing our icons peter milan. luxury meet performance tomorrow, investors and fast money fans join melissa lee and the team of traders live and on air for an all access fusion of trades, trends and tips. fast money live tomorrow 5:00 eastern. cnbc. >> welcome back to squawk box. tesla shares right now. take a look. we're at $306. the ev maker stock losing more than 8% yesterday its market cap falling below $1 trillion. joining us right now to discuss what's going on john murphy senior auto analyst at bofa securities. good morning to you. great, i don't

know. i mean, we see elon in the headlines every single day these days, more for doge and everything else than tesla. but now this is this is here. how much do you think they're related? >> so. >> you know, i think they're certainly. >> piling on. >> but when we. >> look. at sort of the fundamentals of the company, it's got product. >> that is pretty. >> pretty old at this point. when you look at the three and the y, the three is. >> eight. >> years old, the y is five years old. you think of standard, you know, product cycles. >> in the in the industry. they're 5 to 6 years. so these things are getting these things are very old. and when you look at sort of the chinese competition, they're. >> 2 to. >> 3 years cycles. >> so i think there's a real. >> issue with the product cadence. and we need. >> a lot of. >> new product to come, which is supposedly around the corner. >> but do. >> you think it is around the corner? >> well, i. >> mean, you know. >> the question. >> the claim is this. >> entry level vehicle at $30,000. >> is going to happen in the first half of this year. we haven't seen any pictures. >> of it yet. >> right. so i mean, that's. >> a that's a little bit odd not to have a prototype out. >> if we've got a product coming in the next few months, but you can't deny that some of the, some of. >> the political commentary. >> which is. >> a little bit polarizing.

depending on which side. >> of the aisle you think that's changing the number of people buying and selling teslas right now. you know, i think the. consideration set is probably. >> is probably. >> going gone down on that. so if you think about the funnel of people that. consider your product, i definitely think that. >> probably you think it's gone down. you don't think that it's been matched on the other side by people who, you know, love president trump. >> you know, most of those folks are are. >> truck buyers. >> and ice. >> vehicle buyers. so, i. >> mean, i don't. >> think there's a one there's a one for one replacement. >> certainly not in europe either. >> and how much do you think you should think about the valuation of this company as a car company versus something else? because even i mean, even at this valuation, you can't really say it's a car company. so. >> you know, i think. >> as. >> we look. >> at our price objective, 50%. >> of it is composed. >> of. >> robotaxi and fsd. so i mean, i think as you're. looking at. >> it, the vehicles. >> are the hardware necessary to get out. >> there, right, to, to. >> deploy the software. but ultimately this is really an fsd and. >> robotaxi story. and you. okay. so to match that valuation that we are looking at right now, you have to believe, i think that fsd not just comes to tesla but actually ultimately gets sold or licensed to ford

and toyota and everybody else. no. >> i think. >> there's a possibility that. >> that's a component of it. but i think that there's a extreme lack. of understanding in the industry as to the utility of what they deliver to consumers, and it's to get from a to b quickly. right. and if fsd really works on an autonomous basis or even a semi-autonomous. basis and means that vehicles can't hit things. the reality is speed limits could go up. and i think there's sort of a real lack of understanding that your. >> your, your core function is to get people from a to b quickly. >> and if you can do that, you know. >> faster. >> you actually. >> you create real value. >> and we've done this. in the past. we did it with. >> the. >> model t in the early 1900s. it's actually happened in the past. so i think there could. >> be. >> potential value. >> creation that goes beyond fsd and robo. >> there's a question about that though, because i've heard i've heard this concept, this theory of the case that somehow speed limits are going to move up materially as a function of full self driving. that would require, i would think, a

generational change of effectively getting vehicles that do not have full self driving off the road, because as long as there's a human behind the wheel, it seems to me that they can make errors that maybe the computer can't. and so the computer's effectively playing against the human, which is even harder. >> so in the in the near term, you'd have to focus on highways and have dedicated lanes like we do hov. so we have precedent for this happening before, you know, before, you know, actually, right now. the reality is, you know, you could. >> have sort of the. >> auto industry taking market share from planes and trains, you know, over time, going to new york, to boston and new york, to detroit and new york to miami, you know, all of a sudden you could plug into. >> your pod. >> and go, you know, in your car as opposed to being sort of molested at tsa and getting through and, you know, getting through and dealing with all the cumbersome of getting on a plane. so i think. >> there are real. >> opportunities in the near term. >> when you say near term. well, most people don't think that you're going to be able to go from new york to boston totally hands free for maybe another

five years. >> that's not too far off. >> right now. >> some of you know, in fsd and some of the other the other programs that are out there for automakers, that's that's actually not that far off. doing it at a high speed might be far off. and that's where having elon involved with the government potentially getting. >> these horrible. >> you know, networks that we all drive on that are 100 plus years old, that are black. >> you know. >> blacked up yellow lines and green, you know, yellow and red, you know, stoplights which are bizarrely, you know. >> old everything i've ever read about the sort of super fast hov lane situation would actually require literally building a barrier between the rest of the vehicles, because the idea is that right now, if you were going to have cars driving at 75, 85, 90 miles an hour down one lane, even with a double yellow line, if there's a human being that decides that they are making an error in getting in that lane, all of a sudden you have a big problem. and we certainly have that with these jersey barriers that we. >> kind of looked at right out here on the street. that's not that hard.

>> to do. >> i mean, like that's i mean putting up, you know, putting up the, you know, the barrier in the lane. that's that's not it. what you probably really need is a smart road network. so 5g connectivity. >> so the vehicle is essentially. >> tethered to the road. right. so you have these super high speed. computer and vehicle connected to a road. >> but also that's not that complicated either. >> it's a question of do you want to win in this industry. and i think the us really needs to look at this and take a step back and say, listen, china is competing the living hell out of us around the rest of the world. how do we innovate and win? and it's going to be on the tech side. and this high speed travel is really sort of the core. and what the sort of the utility of the industry needs to deliver to folks. and it is how you get gdp growth. i mean, we could get into. >> a whole discussion here. it's how you get. >> gdp growth out of this. >> 2 to 4%. >> you know, band in this discussion, we keep getting. >> stuck. in i mean, when china. >> was doing 7 to 8%, it was because they were getting people. in cars and they were getting out. >> of. >> you know, two wheelers and bikes and moving farther and faster. so i think this is a real important thing, not just for the auto industry, but for society at large, that you get people moving farther and

faster. >> and i. >> think fsd is one of the keys, you know, for society and for. >> tesla for. >> unlocking that. >> i think. >> i think it is too, just on a much longer term basis than you may think. it is. correct. the idea that it's going to happen in the next four years to me. >> but i think we have an administration and somebody involved in the administration that that might be focused in one of the sort of the few people that actually would advance the ball on something like this. >> john. thank you. appreciate it. >> it is 8 a.m. on the east coast, and you're watching squawk box right here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernan and andrew ross sorkin. among today's top stories. the house narrowly adopting a multi-trillion dollar budget blueprint last night, shortly after it looked like the vote would be canceled, 217 republicans banded together to pass the measure against all democrats and the lone gop holdout, who was kentucky representative thomas massie. ukraine has agreed to a mineral rights deal with the united states that could be finalized as soon as friday at a white house meeting between president trump and ukrainian president

volodymyr zelensky. that deal includes rare earths in exchange for continued military and economic support, and close out with quarterly results. this morning, those earnings coming in at $1.93 a share. that was better than the 184 the street was expecting, comes on revenue of 18.55 billion, versus estimates of 18.29 billion. comp store sales were up by 0.2%, but that was much better than expectations for a 1.8% decline. you can see that stock this morning up by about three and a third percent. >> and tj maxx parent tjx out with quarterly results. dollar 23 a share versus expectations of $1.16. revenue of 16.35 billion was also better than expectations. comp store sales grew 5%, expectations were just 3.1%. and for the full year, tjx sees earnings in the range of 87 to $0.89 a share. that's below estimates of $0.98 a share, and guidance for comps of 2 to 3%

missed estimates of 3.4. but for a lot of these companies, it seems like even though there's some tempered guidance, there's just a relief that it wasn't worth worse. it looks like because the stock's up nicely. the futures this morning are across the board are in the green. as you can see 139 points on the nasdaq. let's get to mike santoli at the new york stock. egg change egg eggs eggs eggs change. yeah i heard a lot about eggs today mike. >> where the real value is. yeah joe i mean pretty unusual setup for the s&p 500 making an all time high last week. and then spend the next four days dropping 3%. that's what we have here. one of the results yesterday is s&p kind of tests the lower end of this range we've been in since let's say earnings season started in mid january right around 2900. so you can see it kind of creates this little box in there. still a couple percent before you'd have to say that really this little mini uptrend over the

last couple of months has been sacrificed. what's been going on under the surface, though, is a lot of conviction about the cyclical strength of the economy has been waning a little bit. economic surprise has been on the downside, and more defensive stocks have taken up some of the slack a lot, a lot of selling in high momentum nasdaq names as well. so here's the low volatility stocks. the more stable ones defensive ones in the s&p 500 on a year to date basis up 36%. and this is high beta. that's the most aggressive volatile stocks down by 8/10 of a percent. and that's just on you know seven weeks into this year. so it shows you that essentially this this shift toward areas that are not as exposed cyclically or to the kind of high growth parts of the market have managed to hold things together for now. so the question is whether, in fact, you've kind of absorbed this selling storm, flushed out some of the more aggressive positioning. that's the question. take a look at the ten year treasury yield. kind of interesting action. obviously the bond market also suggesting there might be downside risk to growth for three. the range for

the year has been three 6 to 4 eight right or thereabouts. so four two is right in the middle. we're not that far from it over here. rates got up above 4.5% after a strong first quarter last year. it created a bit of a growth scare that created that trough. and now i'm not saying we're in an outright growth scare, but we have this question as to whether this high bout of rates has been slowing the economy more than was expected. that's where we are right now. but these levels are pretty benign in general in terms of taking some of the pressure off things like housing stocks yesterday. >> yeah pretty amazing. mike i don't see how it means anything other than we are seeing at least expectations for slower growth. yeah. ahead. is that fair or it's not that. yeah. >> and it doesn't mean that people are correct to be worried about it or that it's really going to be an outright downturn. it does feel as if, though there's been a little bit of a pause, a little bit of a stutter step in, in, in growth and whether it's just a consumer hangover in january and february

or something more. you know, it's funny because the consumer confidence number yesterday was a downside surprise, as was the university of michigan consumer sentiment on friday. and the market seemed to seize on that where it doesn't always right. and sometimes it just kind of says, well, you know, people are in a bad mood. it doesn't necessarily change behavior. so i think that has to be reconciled at some point in the next few weeks. >> okay. all right. thanks, mike. andrew. >> coming up from tiktok to doge, a wide ranging interview with congressman ro khanna. we're going to ask him about that and last night's budget blueprint vote. and then later, a preview of tonight's big earnings report coming up from nvidia. squawk box returns after this.

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swivel my hips and i sink down to the ground. >> the house passing a multi-trillion dollar budget blueprint last night. and while this is a big step for president trump's agenda, there are still plenty of challenges ahead. joining us right now to talk about the budget doge and much more is congressman ro khanna, whose district is in the heart of silicon valley. ro, thank you very much for being here. why

don't we talk first of all about what happened last night, this procedural vote in the house for budget approval. it was a close one, but the republicans were able to push it over the finish line. what comes next? >> well. >> it. >> was. >> a. >> close vote. >> they did a late night maneuver. >> all the. democrats opposed it. and the reason we opposed. >> it is. >> they have $2 trillion. >> of medicaid cuts by their own admission, and they want to have tax. breaks for. >> very. >> very wealthy folks. democrats just don't believe in that. now we'll see what. they get. through in the senate. and if they actually go through with this. >> yeah, i guess there were republicans who weren't in favor. the president was able to call and kind of wrangle most of those votes. everyone save one vote. many of them wanted to see additional cuts that that this didn't go far enough for them. so i guess what i wonder what the democrats next move is if this goes to the senate, what happens next and what what will

the democrats do to kind of put their opposition forward? >> well, the democrats. >> will. >> keep talking about the facts that what this. >> is. >> going to mean is $2 trillion. >> of cuts. >> in medicaid. what does that mean practically? it means many. states will no longer be able to. offer medicaid insurance to a number of individuals. it will mean the closure of hospitals. by the. >> way, donald. >> trump won voters under 100,000. so a lot of the people who are going to be most. impacted by these medicaid cuts are his voters. >> and they. also have cuts. >> to food. >> stamps, all. >> to fund. >> tax breaks. >> for very, very wealthy individuals. look, we. >> don't have. >> the votes to stop this. they can, through reconciliation, get this through the senate and the house. and then it's for the american people to see whether they really. want these drastic cuts. >> you know, ro, i that's a populist message that that we keep hearing when people come on that that i don't think is

entirely accurate. i think it's kind of disingenuous because the 2017 tax and job cuts, i mean, marginal rates went to 37 from 39.6. that affects a lot of people. the standard deduction change the child tax credit would then drop from 2000 to 1000. and it says right here approximately 91% of taxpayers would face higher taxes, with the majority being or middle income families being particularly affected. most affected anyone making 80,000. a family of four would see a $1,700 increase in taxes. 91% of americans would get a tax hike. and then you're also talking about corporate rates going back up. so just to just continuously say that it's billionaires that are benefiting is totally false. it's totally disingenuous. and you're also conflating corporations with the wealthy or

with billionaires because of the corporate tax cut. why not be honest. and democrats could i think they could could earn some goodwill with people if they were actually honest about what this means. what the i don't know about the medicaid stuff, you know, i don't know whether republicans have settled on on that or not, but just the tax cuts themselves benefited everyone across the board. if some people pay more taxes than their marginal rate goes down and they're wealthy, it's true that the actual benefit is a bigger number. but everyone benefited, and 91% of people will get a tax hike. >> joe. >> first of. >> all, i. didn't say it. just is. >> going to. >> benefit billionaires, but. >> it disproportionately last. >> time benefited those. >> in the top 1%. >> as you acknowledge. >> that who pays. >> the taxes? ro but that's who pays. of course it's going to. they're going to save more if you lower the marginal rate because they're paying so much more. sure. >> and it. >> disproportionately benefited.

they benefited the top 10%. now we can in my view, if you. >> want. >> to preserve the. >> tax breaks. >> for the middle class and the working class and work with the. democrats on doing that, there would be an openness to it. but at this point, we're working class. americans are struggling. we're 90%. >> of the. >> stock market is owned by 10% of americans. i just don't think we need more breaks. tax breaks for the very wealthy, and especially if it's going to come at the expense of funding for medicaid and for funding of food stamps. and this is the philosophical debate. >> i mean, do you. >> cut medicaid insurance, have rural hospitals shut down, have health centers, behavioral health services shut down. >> to further. >> these tax cuts. for you, disproportionately. benefiting the top? >> do you do. >> you do you raise corporate taxes from or let them go back to where they were on small

businesses, on the job creators of the entire country who pay the taxes for all the things that you want to do, including medicare. that all comes from the private sector. are you sure it makes sense to let that go back into the where would that what's it go to 30% or so. where does where would corporate tax go? tax rates go if you just let them expire. a goes back to like. >> there's one place where we may agree, which is why do we have a corporate tax rate in mexico and in in canada. and if you go overseas that is 10%. whereas if you're a company investing in the united states, you pay 21%. how about we raise the tax rate on the offshore earnings for all these companies that are offshoring our jobs and raise. >> that to 21 or 28%? >> that would be one place we would get american investment. now, i believe i don't think the corporate rate has to go all the way up. >> to 35. >> but we could figure out a

compromise position. it doesn't. >> have to stay where. >> it is today, but i would certainly level it. but between the united states and going overseas. >> congressman, let me ask you about doge, because back in december, you had kind of talked about working with elon musk and with doge, and you've changed your tune pretty substantially. i think at this point, you think that they are breaking the law. what what happened? you changed your mind on this? >> well, i he. didn't come to congress and he is. approaching the firing of some of these workers without any rational plan. look, we had 15 people, many of them trump. >> voters. >> talk about how they were fired, people who were veterans who serve this country in iraq and afghanistan. they called it the valentine's day massacre. they all got an email on valentine's day. many of them had been good performers. they had been top performers, and they just told that their jobs were eliminated. some were told they were poor performers when they were actually good performers. so there's been no rational plan, and people's

lives are being hurt. and many of the cuts, they're not even coming to congress to discuss them. >> so that's the that's your problem with it mostly that you think that cuts could and should be there, but you think congress should be the ones deciding that? >> no. >> my main thing is it's not being done in a way that is rational. it's just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. not looking at people's performance, not looking at what their functions are, not having any conversation with them. and secondly, it's not going after the big ticket items, which are the subsidies to big fossil fuel companies, which is the breaks that we're giving pharma in terms of the, the, the buying of medicines. it's the pentagon, the. >> big. >> five prime contractors. so they're not tackling that. they haven't come to congress and they're doing it in a way that is haphazard. that is the way private equity may do it, or the way elon may have done it with twitter. but that's not. >> what you can do with the. >> federal government. have a one year plan, discuss it with

people, have stakeholders do it. bill clinton actually did that in his reinventing government, where the workforce fell by 351,000 people. but congress. was consulted and there was a rational plan for it. hey, congressman, i wanted to also get your thoughts on the idea of a gold card for immigrants who want to immigrate to the united states and are wealthy enough or prepared to spend $5 million to do it? well, it's certainly a glimpse at president trump's assessment of value. you know, he looks at things from investment. i guess i just say to him this i don't think sergey brin, who founded google. or satya nadella or sundar pichai, had $5 million in their bank accounts when they came. in fact, i know they did. and yet they built trillion dollar companies. even if your goal is the maximization of american industry, productivity, wealth, it doesn't seem to me that just

evaluating people based on how much wealth they're going to bring in initially is the right metric, as opposed to their ambition, their industry, their creativity, their productivity. so does that mean you're against this? and do you believe that it requires congress to pass any kind of law? or do you think this is all, you know, all these executive orders? do you think that's those are fine? well, i do think it requires congress. on the face of it, i haven't seen any proposal, but i'm against it. i also don't understand what this green card plus means. i mean, we have. >> a system where. >> if you invest 500,000, you. can get a green card. you're in line for a green card. so what does green card plus mean? does it mean they go to the front of the line if they have more money versus someone who has been here and working hard and been here for years? i certainly wouldn't be for that. i don't think you should be able to pay money just to get to the front of the line, so we don't have any of the details. it seems like marketing. but and it requires congress. but that's not the

type of comprehensive immigration that we need. >> congressman. thank you. >> thank you mike. >> up next, amazon's. alexa is getting an ai makeover. details after the break. and a programing note. don't miss john ford's extended first on cnbc interview with amazon ceo andy jassy today at 1 p.m. on the egg eggs chain. we'll be right back. so many times. >> thank you. >> for calling. >> please hold. >> when you talk. >> to your custodian. >> does it feel like. >> you're not. >> being heard? >> thank you for calling. >> please hold. now that's better. >> trey palmer doesn't have a massive call center. >> instead. >> your calls are answered by

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>> my first ambition. >> in. >> life certainly. >> was to be a pro athlete. i come from humble. >> beginnings. >> born to teenage. parents from baltimore, maryland. >> so for me. like like many kids, you. aspire to change your. >> family's life. and a. >> lot of that is through sports. >> the locker room is one of the most. >> diverse places that you could find, striving toward one goal. >> 100% of my leadership. >> skills came. >> from. >> my time on the field. >> as a quarterback. >> i first person nfl vr game allows fans to see what it's like to be their favorite athletes. being able to see an idea turn into a company is one of the most fulfilling things that you ever could experience. >> amazon's alexa alexa, getting getting an upgrade. kate rooney joins us now with details. it happened one other time. >> yeah. turn up the volume. >> yeah exactly guys. well, it's great to see you in person. we do expect amazon to unveil a smarter, more useful alexa. >> built with. >> modern ai. and despite amazon being an early leader in machine

learning and ai. >> about a decade. >> ago, alexa hasn't been able to keep up in this new chatgpt era of ai. >> it's still. >> as we were just talking about, largely. >> used as. >> a. kitchen timer for a lot of people. i'm told that's something that has. >> frustrated ceo andy jassy. >> things like. >> it can't give. >> you live sports. >> scores. >> for example. we are expecting something. >> a lot more. >> conversational, and we're going to be watching for. >> what's under. >> the hood here. >> is it all amazon technology or did they rely on anthropic. >> the startup. >> which they've. >> been a major. >> investor in? >> we're going to find. >> out if it. >> also is going to be able to run on those 500 million existing. >> alexa devices. >> or if this is only going to be for. >> new hardware. i have been. >> told by sources that amazon does plan to charge for this souped up version, and subscriptions. >> could help monetize. >> what has. >> historically been a money losing business. >> within amazon. >> the bar is high here. >> alexa was really a passion project under founder jeff bezos, and any sort of mistakes hallucinations that tend to come with ai could. >> undermine credibility and trust. >> for these devices. the launch. >> date has. >> reportedly been delayed. >> multiple times. >> the washington post reporting

alexa might not. go live until even. >> a month from now. >> despite this. showcase in. lower manhattan. today we are going to be sitting down with panos panay as well, the head of amazon devices. he's a big hire from microsoft and has been. >> kind. >> of the one leading this charge. guys. >> what what do they have to do? what what do they have to prove? >> they have to prove that they can kind of strike. >> this balance where alexa. >> is much smarter. you think if you've ever used voice mode for chatgpt or any of these, it's kind of got to be able to do that, have this back and forth conversation, be a lot smarter, but also not mess up the blocking and tackling of being able to set the kitchen timer. i think a lot of people are happy with alexa, use it frequently, and they don't want it to kind of get in the way of the easy stuff, which has been. >> that's a that's a tough thing. i mean, for amazon to be the one that might be disrupted by this is a new position for them to be in. they've always been the disruptor. >> and a decade. >> ago. >> i mean, they were really first movers here with the first alexa, which jeff bezos and i said it a passion project, but he was the one driving this and it was mind blowing. i remember you guys had one on set a decade ago, and people couldn't believe

what it was capable of. now, i mean, same thing with siri. it just has not kept up, right? you talk to chatgpt. i think people. >> roll their eyes. >> now. >> at alexa. >> and siri, and we'll see if they can kind of change that perception, at least today. so we'll see. >> that's that's a lot. thanks, kate. very good to see you. good to see. >> you in person. >> thanks. >> all right. still to come this morning, tony james, the chairman of big box retailer costco and former blackstone ceo will join us. we're going to talk markets, the trump economy and inflation. plus nvidia is reporting after the bell tonight. we've got a preview of what investors can expect that's coming up. that stock right now up by about 3% ahead of the earnings report. and a programing note for you tonight after nvidia's earnings release a market reaction. you can catch a cnbc special report with jon fortt interviewing nvidia ceo jensen huang. that is coming at 7 p.m. tonight. john ford is very busy today. he's got a lot very busy today. he's got a lot going on. stick (grunting)

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[inner monologue] this is going to sound crazy. but i know these attack vectors. oh, had a little upgrade have we? ♪♪ okay, so that's how you want to play. ♪♪ video reports earnings and jon fortt interviews ceo jensen huang ai strategy, chip demand plus post interview analysis a cnbc special

get started at wonder ads.com. >> welcome back to squawk box. from the state of the stock market to major companies rolling back dei policies. there's so much going on in our next guest says concerns loom for business leaders because many fear losing access,

influence and potentially attracting retribution. i want to talk about all of these things, to discuss everything that's going on in our economy, what it means to be a ceo today. former blackstone president ceo tony james. also, we should mention the chairman of retailer costco, and we can get a pulse on what's going on with the state of the consumer as well. good morning to you. good morning andrew okay. so i'm i'm just curious your sort of sense of confidence in today's economy relative to what we're seeing in the stock market. what is what's your sort of gut on what's happening here? >> i think the economy is weakening. it didn't. >> have a lot. >> of. >> momentum, but it was okay. but it's definitely starting. >> to turn down. >> i think the consumer there's several warning signs. confidence was down. obviously the base. >> of consumers. >> that are driving spending is narrowed to affluent defaults. delinquencies are rising. meme stocks are down. there's a lot of things to say. the consumer is starting to buckle a little bit. at the same time, i think

the uncertainty coming out of washington is causing businesses to slow down. what's my supply chain going to cost? i don't know, can i export? are they going to be reciprocal duties? i don't know, should i. >> build another plant? >> let's wait and see. >> okay. so just help me with this because there feels like there's a disconnect. we've had so many business leaders come on our air. i would say over the last 2 or 3 months and say, oh my goodness, we're going to become unshackled by regulations that are just going to disappear. we are excited about, you know, taxes, all sorts of things. right? i mean, you've heard that over and over again. so explain that with the perspective that you're offering right now. >> well. >> there's certainly been an. >> ambulance about my republican friends who are business leaders. i agree, one of the greatest errors of american history is going to unleash the deals business and so on and so forth. i don't see it happening. i mean. >> on the. >> ground. i actually think we are slowing. >> and for all the. >> reasons i mentioned, i think

business leaders are very reluctant to stick their head up right now and start start complaining. >> hey, tony, just what we've heard over the last week from a lot of the retailers that have been reporting their earnings, is that they're cautious about this next year that's coming up. but the results they saw in december and even in january have been stronger than they had anticipated. the consumers have been doing better. what do you see? maybe through costco, maybe through other places, that makes you think that the consumer is actually already starting to turn down? >> i don't think i see it at costco, honestly, but i'd say they generally target a. >> more affluent consumer. >> the average costco consumer has about two times the national median average of wages, and those results are holding up. are they exceeding expectations like you said, becky? no. >> but they're. >> holding home depot and lowe's in the last two days, have both said that they've exceeded their own expectations on some of these things. and january was pretty strong for walmart. >> january was butt. walmart also blew a caution whistle on the future. >> yeah. >> i'd say costco is hanging in

there, but that's not where we that's not where we where we see the slowdown. it's in confidence. ironically, something like as simple as egg prices seem to have a lot of correlation with the economy and consumer attitudes. and obviously, you know where those are going. >> well, that's we know why they're there. it's a total one off. but do you think that we were overregulated the economy in business during the biden administration? you think only republican business people are optimistic about a more friendly regulatory environment for business? you don't think there's anything to that? >> no. i totally agree with you. i think all business executives felt we were overregulated, honestly. and i think there's both republicans and democrats. there's a lot of good things that they like about the directions that president trump is going, okay. however, there's also a lot of uncertainty, tariffs and a lot of variability. and it's very hard if you're a business to plan. right now, we own a fertilizer company that's that sells a lot

into canada. we were going to build a new plant. now we're holding off. we don't if there's duties on canada and the reciprocal duties coming back, we don't know what that does to us. similarly, a lot of our companies, the supply chains are completely up in the air. what's what's the cost of goods and how. >> that's all tariff related is where a lot of these. >> related some of that we have we have plenty of health care companies that are looking at much lower regulatory approvals with doge and everything. so if you had if you're a if you're a biotech company and you had one year's worth of runway in your cash, now maybe you have to slow things down, stretch it out. so you have two years. >> they already are assuming that cuts at the fda are going to make. >> we have. >> to put advisory panels, or they. >> have to assume that because running out of money is death. >> the cuts. have there been cuts already at the fda that would cause clinical trials to be delayed? >> not i don't. >> know, actually, but that's not really the concern. no one's

going to count the cuts. it's the chaos down there. it's the it's the reduced. >> you see any positives to trying to rein in government waste? >> 100%. >> you do. >> every one of the last five presidents. both parties have said government is too big. i'll cut it back. and they failed. and i think this is a lot like elon's approach to say, tesla cut maybe over cut, cut radically. and then if you cut too much, you can add it back. and that's the only way you make significant cost. >> and so do you think he's right about that. and i ask because the other thing is he said, and i don't know whether voters listen to this or not. he explicitly said before the election that there was going to be pain. there was going to be now. he suggested it was a temporary pain because he thinks it on the other side. it's going to be better. but the question is whether, you know, we are going to, quote unquote, suffer for six months or a year and that there's, you know, a rainbow on the other side. >> well, there's a lot of stuff thrown in here together. so

let's just separate it out a little bit. there's certainly the business community is certainly, i think, 100% for less regulation. it's less government waste. tariffs. if tariffs can have a very good effect, if they're used as a bargaining chip to get other deals, and if they're used to lower barriers from other countries, if it triggers a trade war, that's a different thing. so the tariffs is a little hard to know which way it goes. is it beneficial? is it not. however, all those things, if your business executive right now, you don't know the path of the future. so that causes you to hold back on things temporarily. so i threw the business in there. i think the consumer is suffering. confidence is coming down, but business is not providing a counterbalance by by surging forward. they're watching, keeping their heads down right now. >> how much of an impact do does the rate have on all of this. because with yields down pretty

substantially over the last week or two, maybe the market is helping out just in terms of confidence. i would think it would help both consumer and business confidence if those rates do come down. >> well, rates are down a. little bit. but at the same time the fed's saying we're going to pause further cuts. so i think psychologically that's probably a net negative okay. and then when you look at mortgage rates the things that affect building they're not really down. yeah. and then you look at you look at treasuries. they went up. they're off a little bit. i think there's a lot of reasons to think longer term rates are headed higher. >> can you speak to what's happening in the world of financials, maybe even private equity, your former firm, there was the sense there was going to be all sorts of deal making. i think what you're suggesting is right now there's not because nobody knows what's about to happen. do you foresee that to be a long term over the next 3 or 4 years thing, or do you say this tariff thing is going to get resolved in 3 or 4 months? the tax thing will hopefully get resolved at the end of the year,

and then you're off to the races. or maybe you're not i don't know. >> i think, well, all the industry participants are saying it's going to be a big year for deals and their pipelines are growing and i believe them, i'm not sure that choppy stock market or a soft economy is so bad for that, honestly. and there's plenty. there is capital available and the rates are affordable from a private equity standpoint. so i think you could well have a deal. boom. there's a big backlog of companies that need to be sold in all their portfolios. you know, they're not going public. they need to. >> be sold. >> and there's a huge boom in what's called continuation vehicles. >> by the way, should we worry about continuation vehicles? i mean that that's just a euphemism for, if i dare i say, for businesses, it's like a hot potato that they can't really be sold to another strategic or somebody else. and so they're basically kept inside this sort of system so that the valuation, i would argue, can never fully

be exposed. but you may have a different view of what these continuation vehicles are about. >> i think the risk is almost on the other side of. >> that one. okay. >> the implication of what you were saying was that the sponsors are trying to sell their dogs a little bit. i actually think they're incentivized to hang on to their best companies, and they're also incentivized the way the economics works to do that at a pretty good price for the new money coming in. maybe it's not the optimal exit for the old money that needs needs out. so if. >> they're the same people. sometimes meaning coming in and out, right? >> sometimes your existing lps can exit, but it's generally new money and some of them can roll. but you need a new pricer to come in and put new money into the deal to set the market price. >> how about carried interest you? you can be okay with that. >> that i mean not. paying higher taxes. >> i mean, do you think it's okay is that i don't we've had certain pe guys that that will unabashedly defend david and

others. i don't know where you come down on that, do you. have you felt bad the entire time when you were? no. >> i haven't felt bad. and it's not just self-serving. carried interest is actually a piece of actual is a piece of a carried a capital gain. and i'm. >> going to turn it over to my colleagues. >> and i don't. >> know how it's philosophically different than bill gates getting free stock when he starts microsoft. >> interesting. okay. >> so i don't know if we want to go down that rabbit hole. >> no. >> i want you to with andrew. >> i'll go very. >> we could do a whole segment another time. >> i'll go very i'll go very quickly with you, which is if you want to be a founder of a company, god bless. and if you want to get those shares at the absolute very beginning. so we can have that discussion. otherwise, if you're basically using other people's capital to invest and pretending it's your own, you should not be getting a different tax treatment than anybody else. >> is that a question. >> i'm just making? i'm

suggesting that that's that's the argument and what i'm saying. well, okay, there's a venture capitalists who say that they got. >> so becky wants to start a restaurant. >> correct. >> and she comes to you and says, i don't have enough money. will you lend me? will you give me the money? will you put some money into this restaurant? >> correct. >> and you put in you put in $1 million and i'll give you 80%. so her her 20%. you're. you're okay with that? because. because what? because she's working in the restaurant. yeah. now you go and you say to your to your buddy, i think this becky's a brilliant chef. this is going to be a great restaurant, but i don't have a million. if you give me half of that. >> right. >> i'll take 60% of the equity. you take 40%. now you've charged him a carried interest. >> correct. but i'm going to tell you two things. there's a fallacy to what you just said, okay? okay. most private equity deals are not at the founders. not not not not the founders. venture capital. this is later on. so if you want to be a series a, round a, we can have that conversation. everything

else, let's not even discuss because it is absolutely a lie, i'm sorry to say it that way. because no, because people in the private equity industry oftentimes use this founding thing. and i say it sounds. >> like venture capital. >> i say, when's the last time that you invested in a founding of anything? usually not. so i just don't understand that argument. >> yeah, i hear what you're saying, but i think i think it's not black and white like that. a lot of times, private equity fundamentally transforms a company, right? it's not. >> just do you think you're a special? do you think that your labor is somehow special compared to everybody else's labor in the entire country, because it's the only industry that has this tax break? well, the only industry. >> if private equity doesn't take that share of the gain, where does it go? >> what do you mean? >> if private equity doesn't take 20% of the gains on a realization, where does that. >> that's a fee. and you can pay tax that doesn't. >> charge that. where does it go? >> hopefully back into the business. >> no, it goes to the other investors. correct. the investors in the fund.

>> sure. okay. >> okay. and if they're tax exempt, does it raise any taxes. >> no. by the way. and that's that's the other thing. so actually tax exempt. >> so i would argue that it raises more taxes. >> you argue it raises more taxes okay. >> right. because the steve schwarzman of the world. >> they don't think you could still charge 20% and pay taxes on them. a tax on that money. i don't understand that. you technically could still charge a 20%. >> put your hand up and pay more taxes. sure. >> no, no, no, i'm saying you could you could get the 20% still and then pay that as a fee, as opposed to pretending it's not a fee. >> so i think we ought to move on. but do you think. >> this reminds me? >> is this a moral. >> thing, or. >> is this reminds me of david rubenstein? >> is this a moral thing or is this a revenue thing you're trying. >> to do? no more moral, only moral only has nothing to do with raising revenue. i completely agree that it's a de minimis, but given that. >> it's interesting. >> like. >> david uber liberal, you're uber liberal, you guys can still somehow come and be super

republicans when it comes to that. you twist yourself into a pretzel to get to this point. i love it. i love that you, i mean, rubenstein, aren't you amazed at how no one's. ever called. >> me uber liberal before? >> right? okay, well. >> there you go. i'm a i'm a centrist democrat, but i don't know that that. >> that's that's. >> an accident. i have a separate question on a completely other topic, which is die. obviously, it's swept the country in one way and is now sweeping the country in another way, in large part because of president trump. costco obviously is ending its dei programs in large part. no, i mean, you're keeping some, but not not completely. >> we haven't changed our dei. >> at all. >> no. >> oh, then i'm mistaken. so there was a. >> there were headlines to that effect. i saw them. >> no, there were headlines saying signaling costco out as the company that's not. >> not costco. i thought i was thinking you said blackstone even or. >> black rock, rock rock. >> rock rock rock rock certainly retreated. yeah. yes. costco has gotten a lot of visibility, more

than we ever wanted or needed because it's standing behind its current policies and procedures, and none of them are illegal. we've had every legal lawyer look at it, and none of them are new. none of them are post-george floyd. these things go back literally to the founding. we had our first we took an executive vice president from operations and made him our first diversity officer. over 20 years ago. we think of this as not so much for the social good, although i think it is. we think of this as part of a meritocracy. if we attract a broader talent pool, we have 300,000 employees, we attract a broader talent pool, and we work with them all individually, given their different backgrounds, to be the best professionals they can be. we have a better employee base to choose from, and i think it it enhances our ability to be a meritocracy. costco is the

highest torque retailer in the world. we do the biggest volume per building, the biggest volume per square foot on the smallest margins. we have to execute flawlessly every single day. we can't have anything that's not based on merit. >> so but how scared are you that the fact that you then have this program and you're willing to come talk about it on tv, that your company is not going to be targeted by this administration in some way? isn't that why every other company in america has tried to get rid of this? not just the administration, by the way, but also the idea of boycotts and other things that people like robby starbuck and others are, are trying to build. >> look, obviously it's unwanted attention because we're not a political company. we just want to do run a good business. this is core to the business. it's core to the way we always run the business. so it's unwanted attention and it brings unnecessary risk. absolutely. but at the same time, it's core values and it's and we're not doing anything with quotas. we're not doing anything with preferences or anything like that. we have nothing that could

be remotely deemed illegal under the new interpretation, either supreme court or administration. >> so it's almost reminds me that a, a well run company has had esg in their blood long before someone even put letters it could to run a company effectively for consumers, shareholders, citizens, people that you live near, you have to mind all your p's and q's for esg in the first place. you don't need to be told if you're really good at running a business, all those things follow, right? >> that's true, that's true. >> but you want to have you want to say you're doing it. >> there became it became popular. say you're doing it at the point to all the things you're doing right. you know, for all companies, virtue signaling was a thing, right? we got i got. >> what do you and steve talk about? sports. i mean, i don't i want to be a fly on the wall or you you covered the whole gamut. there's no one left out between you and schwarzman. it's like. right. it's the entire world.

>> you mean politically. >> steve and i. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> we agreed on almost everything when it came to business. okay. you know, but that's what made us great partners. we came at it differently. we've got different personalities. he's been on here plenty. yeah, but at the end of the day, we always agreed on the right course for blackstone. >> and carried interest. >> got it. >> tony, i want to thank you for coming in. i want you to thank you for engaging in this crazy conversation and debate, which is a perennial conversation you can have any morning, anytime you come back and have that discussion, we can do it. >> sign them up now. >> next time let's come in. we'll we'll actually marshall this and we'll focus on this and we'll really nail it okay. because i actually think i can convince you that it's got some merit. >> okay. i'd love that. all right. >> let's bring rubenstein in here, too. >> we got a deal. >> you against them? >> we're coming back on squawk after this. after this. >> thanks, guys. ♪♪ amazing. jerry, you've got to see this. i've seen it.

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constellation research founder and chairman and any company ray it's good to see you. any other

company that could put up metrics like this would be mind boggling that both in the sheer size and in the year over year growth, can you just give us what you are expecting? what would be a surprise on better than expected and what would be disappointing tonight? what do you expect then? go revenues and everything. earnings per share. all that. >> you got it. >> the bottom. line is. >> that they can beat. >> $38 billion in. >> sales for. >> the quarter. >> it's going to. >> be. >> a great quarter. >> that would. >> be up. >> to 72%. >> year. >> over year. >> and if they're doubling sales and that's what people are. looking for. but the most important metric is really trying to figure out is. >> demand outstripping supply. >> the blackwell. >> 100 h 100 growth seems to be still there. >> we've done checks. >> and it looks like that. and the. >> other piece is really the ai infrastructure demand. >> really it's. >> six companies. >> that's really buying it from nvidia. >> that data center demand. >> from the hyperscalers. >> is driving a lot of this growth. you've got. >> microsoft saying. >> we've got 80 billion

committed. everybody's got about. >> 80 to. >> $100 billion committed. >> meta just planned 200. >> billion in new. >> data center projects. >> and typically. >> about half or more. goes to nvidia. >> and that's what people are looking at. and so. >> that's really what. >> people are. >> trying to. figure out. is are they going to beat those numbers. and if they don't the entire. >> tech sector takes a hit. and that's. >> why everyone's. >> on their. >> knees on the edge. >> of. >> their seats, trying to figure out what's going to happen. >> i mean, 38 billion is a big number, but but the year over year growth is even more amazing. that's got to start moderating now. what will the outlook matter? what will they tell us. >> well. >> that's the question. >> is sovereign ai going to pick up. and other countries. >> are going to double down. >> because they're behind. >> and they're. >> not able to deliver. >> ai to their citizens? >> or will people start pulling. >> back because of. >> tariffs or will tariffs actually help them? and i think people are waiting to see are these. >> headwinds there. there's a. >> little issue around deep sea. >> where customers. >> were trying to figure out. >> hey, is. >> you know, general artificial

intelligence. >> going to go away. are people worried. >> about that? >> but the. >> bottom line is there's still going to be investing. and so. >> the top. players are. >> still going to be investing in nvidia's gpus. >> and that's. >> going to go for. >> the next 2 to. >> 3 years until we shift. >> from training to inference. and that's. >> really the big shift. in about. >> two years, we're going to see. >> a lot more. >> chips being used. >> for inference as opposed. >> to training. and that's going to actually change the. mix because you don't need to use. >> nvidia gpus as. >> much for inference. >> okay. really, i mean, we got a minute left. greco. what's you got something? all right. ray, thank you. i was going to ask you if there's anything we could see about whether deep seek was making inroads or whether there was any, you know, anything in the, you know, any small. but i'm told that i don't know, the world's going to end or something. well, we got deep. >> was the napster moment. >> yeah. >> deep secrets. >> the napster. >> moment that took our. >> technology and gave it away for free. >> but that was only. >> for a. >> small set. >> of language models.

>> so that wasn't that wasn't going to make that much of an impact. >> but take care. >> all right. thanks, you two. make sure you join us tomorrow. squawk on the street is next. >> good wednesday morning. >> welcome to squawk on the street. >> i'm carl quintanilla. >> with. jim cramer. >> david faber at post nine. >> of the new. >> york stock exchange. s&p is trying to reverse that first four day loss of the year. and futures do suggest. >> some optimism about. >> nvidia and salesforce earnings. >> tonight house budget. >> resolution narrowly passes. got a cabinet meeting today. ten year near 4.25 hour roadmap begins with tech watch, though nvidia shares with some traction ahead of the earnings later this evening. >> and tesla. >> seeking a rebound after its market cap tumbled below a trillion. >> plus, meta's. >> latest ai. >> play reportedly talking. >> about a. $200 billion. >> ai data. >> center project. >> sorry, i'm just telling you. >> forget what. i just said. >> no, no, ben righteous just came out and said, this is being denied. >> we're still. >> going. >> to talk ou