officers do ever single day. well, that's it for us this week. be sure to follow me on twitter, facebook and instagram, and i'll be back with more in-depth interviews right here on "the wall street journal" at large. thank youngngngngngngngngngngng. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ jackie: welcome to bare ron's roundtable where we get behind the headlines and prepare you for the week ahead. the ceo of biotechnology on the development of a cutting edge covid-19 antibody treatment, and later the panel tackles whether the tech stock bubble is about to burst. but we begin with what we i think are the three most important things investors should be thinking about right now. investors are georgia tating to out of fair areas, what to look for in the week ahead. with the release of tenet and the start of the nfl season,

more americans are venturing out. will the gradual recovery from covid-19 hurt stay at home stocks? and a wild ride this week for nikola motors after announcing a $2 billion partnership with gm, the focus of a negative report by a short-selling firm: what's next for the deal. on the round table, ben levisohn, carlton english and jack howe. guys, it's great to see your smiling faces again. had a little hiccup at the end of august with a bike accident, but i'm back in the saddle. ben, what goes up must come down was the story in the nasdaq market this past week. >> yeah. i mean, it was a bad week for the market, but it was a really bad week for the nasdaq and tech stocks. with the dow finishing the week down 1.7%, but the nasdaq off 4%. and it wasn't really bad news out there to really knock them down. good earnings from the tech companies that reported from the most part. there was a little fear that stimulus wouldn't

happen but nothing that really causeed it to go down other than the it seemed they were overcrowded and people were a little bit afraid. looking awe heed, earnings from adobe, we're going to have an apple announcement, probably a new iphone and a fed e meeting, but right now those seem like things that could possibly disappoint. jack: one thing we've all been looking for is whether we're going to finally see this rotation to other a areas of the mark, value stocks and so forth. are you seeing any hints of that yet, or is this just people that decidedded that maybe up 74% was a little much for tesla? [laughter] >> we're definitely seeing some, a bit of a rotation the, especially on friday. materials have gone up, utilities have gone up where tech has gone down. and you're also seeing a rotation within sectors. within tech marley, you saw -- particularly, you saw ibm, hp and oracling do quite well even as the high fliers had gotten

hit. so there is this rowation going on, it's just a question of whether it's going to last. jack: carlton, i want to talk about something very exciting that happened this past week which was the chiefs and the texans played an actual game of nfl football, and in the stands instead of cardboard cutouts, there were real fans cheering -- and booing, occasionally. a blockbuster movie opening, is this a return to normal? am i going out on a limb by suggesting that? >> you're not going out on a limb, but we have a ways to go. so people are wondering if some of these stay at home and work from home stocks are going to run i out of gas, and we're finding that might not be the case. goldman sachs has been tracking this reopening on a 10-point scale, and this week we moved to a 5 after movie theaters reopened. for reference, a 10 would be back in early february, a 1 would be in late march. for some of these stay at home companies like zoom and peloton the, this bodes pretty well

while the pace of growth may slow down, there definitely is still some growth for them. prime example would be you look at peloton against the backdrop of judgements reopening, and it's not going to be too much of a challenge because gyms are operating at a reduced capacity, and people have learned to work out at home. they're able to mostly replicate that experience. some typeses of workouts like yoga, why head to a gym if you don't have to. jack: why get on a bicycle might be a good lesson for me. what about covid-19 victim stocks that might do a little bit better? do you see any hope there? >> yeah. so this is an area where all want to be definitely careful and definitely patient, but you would look at names like macy's and gap. a lot of the retailers that have survived, they are right-sizing their physical footprint. so, you know, the retailers that are left, they could be in a position, in a good position

down the line. jack: gotcha. so, jack, we saw nikola and gm maybe flirting a little bit, a little bit of a hook-up there, and it's kind of interesting because gm desperately needs something that nikola has which is cool, and they need something that gm has which is an actual building to build cars and be a real company. >> gm is looking for that spritz of the e, -- eau detesla. you say to yourself, what's the big deal? nikola wants to make these zero emission big rig trucks, but it doesn't have any vehicles in production, probably won't for a couple of years. there's been some discussion in the media about just how far along it is on the technology. so this deal was kind of the validation maybe that shower holders were looking for -- shareholders were looking for. i spoke with their founder about

it. the problem is just after that deal we had a report from a short seller that really attacked the company and its technology. it erased all of those stock gains and more. i don't want to sound like a fuddy-duddy here, i'm not going to suggest something as radical as, like, investors waiting for profits, but maybe given the controversy you want to wait for vehicles in production and revenues in this case. jack: yeah. we had hum on the show, trevor, and he responded to this idea that he's more business plan than business by promising this cool pickup, the badger, by promising these big rigs, but i think it is kind of a show-me stock at this point. >> yeah. he says the stock is still undervalued, and he believes that it's going to be, as he puts it, one of the funnest rides of your life. i don't know how much fun you're looking for. i've got enough fun. [laughter] jack: i think so too.

we should note that nikola issued a press release in response, they called the allegations inaccurate and said it's exploring legal recourse. coming up, an antibody treatment for covid-19 patients that would neutralize the virus. ceo george again goes is next.

♪ ♪ jack: as a pharma companies a race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, vir biotechnology is in the testing face of an antibody injection. ceo george scangos joins me now. george, i know conditions are pretty tough with the fires in san francisco. i hope you and your family are safe. thanks for taking time out to be with us right now. i want to start with kind of a

big picture. of most firms seem to focus on oncology or genetic conditions, but your company took a different approach which is to look at infectious diseases. wade you do that? >> yeah. well, we started about end of '16, beginning of '17, and we saw both an amazing need and a great opportunity. the need is obvious. infectious diseases are one of the leading killers of people around the world. flu, hepatitis b, her piece virus, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the need is huge both in the developed world and the developing world. at the same time, pharmaceutical companies were pulling back from working in infectious diseases. some of them had eliminated their efforts entirely. within the biotech industry, there were a few companies working on this many, but they were narrowly focused, underfunded. jack: your timing turned out to

be pretty good with what happened this year, of course. so can you gu us an update on your partnership with glaxosmithkline to develop an antibody for covid-19. >> sure. look, i think it's clear we're not going to be able to get out of this mess that we're in until there are vaccines to prevent or reduce the rate of transmission and to make drugs to prevent and treat them. there are several classes of drugs. i think the most promising are the antibodies. antibodies are proteins that your body makes in response to a disease when you get a vaccine or get infected, your body makes antibodies. in the case of a vaccine, that's what prevents you from getting infected and if you get infected, to get other it. our scientists have to go to patients who have recovered from a disease, screen a lot of patients to identify those who have had a particularly effective response, and from those people isolate the most

interesting and most effective antibodies. now, not all a antibodies are the same. they're different from each other. all of the antibodies being developed for covid potently neutralize the virus, block its ability to get into cells and replicate. some antibodies, not all, have an additional property which is that they are able to recruit cells in the immune system to kill cells that are already infected. so our antibodies are especially potent and not characteristic. thirdly, viruses are clever x they escape and mutate and become different, and they look different to the immune system. some antibodies that were effective at the beginning of a pandemic lose their poe tenty because the virus has figureed out how to escape from that. so our antibodies, i think, are more resistant to the development of resis dance by viruses than many others. and then we have engineered our antibodies to last longer in the

serum. is so we think that they can provide months of protection, potentially up to six months of protection. so i think we have antibodies that are differentiated. we have, we are pretty excited about them. in a phase 2-3 study right now where we are dosing patients, and we should have data by the end of the year to know whether and to what, e tent they're helping. jack: i know it's not your business, but viewers are wondering how quickly do you think we'll get an effective vaccine out to the public? >> yeah, look, i -- when we're going to have a vaccine the most common question. i just want to take a moment here, because i think there are other questions that are more important than that. how well will the vaccine work? will it reduce infections by 50%, by 70%, by 90%? will it work equally well in all segments of the population? will it work in the elderly people who need it the most? how long will the protection

last? three months, six months, a year, many years? how safe is it? and so we're going to want to know the answers to those questions. we're going to want reliable data on those questions so that patients and their physicians can make the right decisions for themselves. so more important to answer those questions carefully than it is to rush the vaccine to the market a couple months earlier. jack: that certainly makes sense. i know everyone is rooting for you and your industry to this problem. thanks very much for stopping by. >> okay. thank you. jack: coming up, is the tech stock bubble about to burst? the it's been 75 years since your ancestors served in world war two. many of their stories remain untold. find and honor the veterans in your family. their stories live on at ancestry.

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♪ ♪ jack: it can stocks have been on a tear unlike anything we've seen since the dot.com craze of 1999, but is this a bubble?

that's the subject of this week's barron's cover story. ben, i'm not going to keep the audience in suspension. the first hine of your story is make no mistake, this is a stock market bubble. >> it is. i mean, i hate the term because it's usually thrown around by people who have missed the trade to the upside -- [laughter] and are looking for an excuse. but when you look at the valuations, how has outperformed value, how the s&p has lacked the nasdaq and the metrics are starting to look a lot like 1999, it's clear we're in a bubble. sorry, go on, jack. jack: you reminded me in the early 2000s there was a bumper sticker, please, god, give me one more bubble. i want to ask you what caused that one to burst, and, yeah, valuations can get out of control, but you don't actually see the our coming out until earnings really disappoint. and to investors this time around, again, have to sniff out

some bad quarter withs before they start really selling these things in earnest? >> i mean, i think that's a possibility. right now earnings are fantastic, and it's easy to keep believing this idea that growth can go on, you know, just forever in a lot of these stocks. we've seen zoom quadruple sales, you know, perhaps they could keep doing that. but you also have to remember that a lot of the time they just stop going up. i think that was also the case in 2000. you can look back and say that this was, that, you know, there were earnings problems or whatever. we had our famous cover calling it. but really it just comes down to investor, they stop believing. and then the market starts coming down. jack: so you in your story point out that a short-term investor should have -- or speculator really -- should have a very different strategy than a long-term investor in this environment. can you explain that for viewers? >> sure. i mean, i think if you're someone who's trying to capture the next move in the market that we're getting to a point where

buying these high-flying tech stocks is going to be a good thing. you're going to see a next leg up. but if you're looking out a few years, three years from now, it's time to start making a shift from growth into these stocks that have been kind of left behind. covid is going to get solved at some point. life will start looking something more like normal at some point. and those stocks will start to outperform again, at some point. jack: so, carlton, one of the things that's driven these stocks higher has apparently been the options market. softbank had some huge bullish positions in tech stock options, and retail investors, robin hood and ore others, really jumping into the options mark. how does that affect a bubble? >> the retail aspect is really fascinating. we spoke to a trader who described the past few weeks as a roller coaster, retail trader, who described it as a roller coaster. apple and amazon ran up in

august, and we now know there was an 8ing 0% increase in options trading value volume during that time. and we also have evidence that a lot of those contracts were smaller contracts, indicating it was probably retail investors. now, there's nothing wrong with options trading. it's a good strategy to use as a hedge against other investments, be i some of these plays have been very speculative, short-term, all or nothing bets, and that's what becomes worrying. jack: yeah. they don't understand, i think they might mistake skill for luck or luck for skill. you can literally lose everything if it turns against you, usually not the case in a stock. jack, you have said that you think that actually in contrast to nikola, falling earnings are knot -- not the only thing that could hurt a bubble. >> earnings are going to be terrible this year, the stock

market doesn't care. we're hitting record highs what's the only thing that threatened to derail this bull market over the past decade? when the fed was raising rates a little, little butt toward the end of 2018. the stock market threw an angry toddler tantrum, and the fed had to get the bottle and come with a diaper change and reverse course on rates. i think stocks keep rising, you know, for the foreseeable future for as long as rates stay this low, and they do until we have inflation. i don't know a lot of people who are calling for much higher inflation. i spoke with jeremy siegel from warden this past week, he thinks we could have 3%, 4%, even 5% inflation over the next couple year, but he's super duper bullish. he thinks the stock market will keep running. jack: very quickly, jack, if we do get that inflation, what does that mean for people who hold bonds? >> it means they get trashed.

i don't know, you know, if i'm going to -- [laughter] on bonds right now, i've got to start with why bother. you know, you're not getting income, right? what are you trying to do? you're trying to preserve your capital. if you want to preserve your capital and make no money, they have these things called bank accounts which will do just fine and have a lot more lu quid few. forget about bonds, look at dave end-paying stocks. that's a little too out there on the rusk spectrum for me, but i think you have to look for alternatives. jack: yeah. bank accounts will pay more than a 10-year bond. up next, round table members give looks like they picked the wrong getaway driver. they're going to be paying for this for a long time. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident, even if it's your fault. cut! sonny. was that good? line! the desert never lies. isn't that what i said? no you were talking about allstate and insurance.

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♪ ♪ jack: jack, you sat down with the ceo and founder of netflix,

reed hastings, to talk about radical candor. >> yeah. he pretended to not mind being interviewed in order to promote the book, and i pretended to be interested in the book in order to get ther interview. that's part of the radical candor that he endorses in chapter two of the book, so i was paying attention. [laughter] i learned a few things from my chat with him. he views hbo max and streaming as really the nearest, the most similar competitor, not disney plus. he also views companies like tiktok and the video game fortnite as competitors. he thinks movie theaters can survive long term but they don't need these exclusive windows for movies, that people will just go to them because they're unique venues. i've got more of his thoughts in my street wise column this week, barron's magazine. jack: and you've been concerned about netflix taking on so much debt to build that library of

content, but they seem to be doing okay. >> this year, actually, the spending has been cut down by the pandemic, so it's kind of helping the free cash flow. jack: interesting. listen, we wouldn't be bare ron's if we didn't get actionable ideas. carlton, you've got a stock idea. >> sure. we're taking a look at citigroup. the bank is trading well below book value, but it's recently gotten some analyst support, and it named a new ceo, jane fraser, who'll be the first woman to lead are a wall street bank, and this could be the beginning of that comeback that investors have been hoping for. jack: and if jeremy siegel is right about interest rates, we'll see better rates from the bank. >> sherwin williams went higher this week. people are painting their houses, they're buying new houses that need paint, and they make pretty good paint. jack: and it's a heck of a company. its advantage over competitors

is actually growing. great ideas, thank you for that. to read more, check out this week's edition at barrons.com. wear your masks, and we'll be (announcer) the following is a sponsored program for prostagenix, furnished by prostatereport.com. (upbeat music) ♪ hi, this is larry king. over 30 million men in america have prostrate problems. i know, i was one of them. and all these natural prostate supplements like the ones i have here in front of me are everywhere. drugstores, health food stores, on the internet, and all over tv, selling millions of bottles every year.