hello. here we go. the nasdaq not at a record. [closing bell rings] it fumbled all of it is gains. dow better by 51. oil kissing, piercing topping $55 a barrel. stay tuned. time for "after the bell." connell: we were fighting for the record books today. strong tech results driving market higher as we lose steam heading into the close. as we look at numbers as we close things out, dow, s&p 500, nasdaq will close today in the green. at least the first two for the third straight day, nasdaq a few minutes ago, we've been looking to see if nasdaq would close at a record high. we need ad 23 point gain. we're giving back all the gains last few minutes of trade. looks like it will settle lower down by two points. the other number we want to highlight here is oil. oil hitting a one-year high after surprise inventory draw.

you nearly have 56-dollars oil right now. i'm connell mcshane. always great to be who you here on "after the bell." time for the news happen act this hour. our fox business team coverage. jackie deangelis in the newsroom in new york following those market back and forth or market action we looked at. blake burman at the white house on latest on covid relief. jackie, we start with you. reporter: another great day, connell. the markets are rebounding from recent volatility we've seen. they're betting on vaccines a recovery as well as more stimulus to hold us up in the meantime. look where we closed today as you mentioned. records and record territory, that is really the big story when it comes to the market. big tech of course continues to be the driver here. uninvestors buying dip from microsoft, google, amazon. here we are. speaking of amazon, a changing of the guard with jeff bezos

stepping down and andy jassy coming in but bezos isn't going too far. that is why the stock is up today because of these earnings too. he will become the executive chairman of the amazon board. he says he wants to focus on new products and early initiatives. this is like a strategy play for him going forward. andy jassy, he has been there more than 20 years working on amazon web services which is a key driver when it comes to the company profit. that company reported a billion dollars in revenues last quarter. that was a new record. jassy's contribution was 28% revenue growth in the aws division. a lot to look forward, connell. investors not deterred by the drops we saw in the market last week. connell: not at all. it was literally this time yesterday, headline crossed me by surprise, that jeff bezos will step down as ceo. a lot caught us by surprise, jackie, reddit stocks, people

stocks, how about the performance there for those stocks? reporter: performance is back in positive territory. it was like nothing what it was last week. when we were watching really volatile swings to the upside in big clips. the winner today was amc. that seems to be one of the names reddit investors as a group are rotating into. gamestop was back over 100. it was in positive territory as well. you have restrictions easing from the platforms like robinhood, allowing some buying not to the extent that we saw. what it shows you that investor, whether it is an institution or is the little retail guy he is here to stay. there is appetite for these names, regardless of restrictions being put on these investors, connell. connell: yep. not done yet this story. thank you, jackie. let's go to blake burman standing by on the north lawn with new developments on the push from the white house on the covid relief bill. what is going on, blake? reporter: connell, you remember monday evening there was a big

meeting between president biden and senate republican opinions here at the white house. this morning the democrats got their turn. it was clear coming out of this where democrats intend on take this process, listen. >> there is agreement, universal agreement, we must go big and boiled. the picture of franklin roosevelt was hovering over all of us we're very much aware of that. it was alluded to a whole bunch of times. we hope our republican colleagues will join us in that, in that big, bold, program. reporter: still though a very large gap between what democrats are talking about, $1.9 trillion around one 10 senate republicans have proposed, a third of that $600 billion. connell, as you heard there from chuck schumer, democrats are not willing to walk too far off the $1.9 trillion figure. connell. connell: what about the direct payments? president hat 1400.

any movement on that the? reporter: there was a little movement on that, connell. has to do directly with the income threshold. direct payments, president bide, some democrats and republicans might well. who might get the money. bringing the income threshold potentially lower. watch. >> the bill he proposed he did a prime time address on two weeks ago, that may not look exactly like the bill that comes out and he knows that. that is part of the legislative process. so further targeting means not the size of the check. it means the income level of people who received the check. that is something that has been under discussion. reporter: the key phrase there, quote, being further targeting. when you look at the possibility of these checks, connell what democrats are proposing income levels, $75,000 for an individual. $150,000 for couples before the phaseout begins. senate republicans group of 10

are talking about 50,000 and 100,000. so maybe that could be moving somewhat closer to what republicans have put forth. whie for us. i want to move now to what some say might be the best stimulus at all for the economy. ramp up in the vaccine rollout. we know some pharmacies across the country are preparing to receive vaccine shipments directly next week. less's bring brandon daniels in. he joins us throughout the pandemic to talk about the logistics rolling out these vaccines. how significant is it that the pharmacies, we learn from the white house might get vaccines directly. will this have impact? >> high, connell, thank you for having me on. i think it will have an impact. the ability to distribute, to a greater volume of people and to open up higher volume of avenues for people to get the vaccine is

always a good thing. one thing to remember though is that the state has have been most successful in their vaccination programs are the state has have kept it simple, right? so they have distributed through hub hospitals. they have made it very clear who those hub hospitals or who those clinicians are that have the vaccine available. so there is always a careful balance that you have to walk between distributing more and creating more complexity in the system and making sure that people have clear guidelines how to get a vaccine. connell: what about the split between people who live in crowded or urban or suburban areas versus people spread out in rural areas? if you live in crowded suburb, you might have a cvs or walgreen's on every other corner but some areas you don't, so will that create a challenge

when you deliver challenge through pharmacies? >> i think that will create somewhat of a challenge but i think there are enough outreach programs that are being, that either exist or have, started, getting out to those people in the rural communities. most of the hub hospitals as an example have been proactively outreaching, proactive completing outreach to those patients that they have seen that fit the criteria. that is, you know, that is eligible for the vaccine at this point. like, you know, south dakota is one of the places that's had a fantastic vaccination program. west virginia is another place that has seen a fantastic vaccination program and those are two areas that have large rural, disparate communities, right? so again it is not just about getting it out to more sites.

it is simplicity, efficacy of the outreach that also contributes to the ability to get the population vaccinated. and there are three other things that i would say, connell are really important here. one, we are constantly tracking to all eligible adults getting the vaccine but, by the end of this quarter, pfizer and moderna have committed to getting out enough vaccine to cover legitimately the at-risk population which is the population that creates the greatest strain on our hospitals, our economy, on our society. the second thing is i would remember is that you know, the administration made a big purchase into the summer. so that is going to continue to drive momentum and ramp up in production. then finally one thing i'm looking for is better:first quarter shun guidance on those people that sit between severe

and asymptomatic. connell: so are you overall to put this kind of together confident that we get to where we need to get to? i mentioned at the top, this is the best stimulus of them all a economy could have. when the president talks about 100 million shots in 100 days well, then some, we need to do even better than that. how much better do we need to do? and from the issues you talked about are we on the right pace yet? >> you asked me the same question, last summer, will we get a vaccine before the end of the year, and will it be effective? i said yes, that i believed that would happen. i think right now the 100 vaccines, 100 million vaccines in 100 days is, it's not the effective goal. the goal is to ramp up and continue the production momentum we have coming into the summer.

i think it is very likely that we will be able to contain the disease in the at-risk population in the spring that is the best stimulus of all. into the summer connell, because of the invests the federal government has made into those 200 million additional doses, i think we will then see broad vaccination in the summer. that is going to explode our economic growth. connell: okay. those are very good observations, very optimistic ones i think as well. brandon, thank you. especially at-risk by the spring which you don't hear a lot of people talking about. so, so important. brandon daniels. thank you for that. we'll keep following the stories. pandemic highlighted industry divide as well. the big restaurant chains have been expanding but mom-and-pop owned businesses are still struggling. we will get their perspective next. prioritizing vaccinations, unions across the u.s. fighting for teachers to get bumped up in

the line. we'll have a report on that. we'll talk about the pet industry as you know seen quite the spike amid the pandemic. a lot of people going out to buy dogs, or cats. one sector getting hit by what we're calling ruff times. we'll talk about that. stick around. much more to come. for $349 a month for thirty six months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. for $349 a month for thirty six months. living with metastatic breast cancer means being relentless. because every day matters. and having more of them is possible with verzenio, the only one of its kind proven to help you live significantly longer when taken with fulvestrant, regardless of menopause. verzenio + fulvestrant is for hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer that has progressed after hormone therapy. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at the first sign, call your doctor,

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♪. connell: off the chain. big restaurant chains have been adapting, even expanding during the pandemic as small independently owned establishments struggle to stay open at all. fox's alex hogan is at a shake shack location. shake shack, they're opening up twice as many stores this year as last, right, alex? reporter: hi, connell. that's right. a lot of big expansions are as more people are dining out, getting fast-food during the pandemic, forcing a lot of big companies to have conversations about what the future of dining will really look like. >> are we going to have to get rid of the fast-food places with playgrounds on the front? are restaurants going to continue to being able to offer cocktails to go? is take-out and delivery going to remain the staple for many restaurants that it is right now? reporter: the yum! brands,

including taco bell, kfc, rolling outduel drive through and contactless pickup. shake shack plans to unveil prototype of walkup windows. the company will open up twice as many restaurants this year as last. most small businesses are hard hit in this industry and they cannot redesign. blair around her husband opened jimmy's, which is a family diner in brooklyn as they started a family of their own. the pandemic restrictions eventually forcing that couple to hand over keys back to the landlord. >> making the decision to close it was not a easy one. not only i laid off my staff that worked with me over a decade, but i took a place my kids had known as their second home. reporter: that story, unfortunately, connell is all too common as a lot of these restaurant owners are forcing

themselves how long can i simply hold on? connell: well, that's the thing. we've been talking to the restaurant owners now almost a year, that these lockdowns and other restrictions have been in place. so i mean the economic toll, it is tough to even calculate on some of them. reporter: it is. we know as of december, just about two months ago now, 110,000 restaurants and bars had closed. we're talking about the economic toll what this means for a lot of those business workers, those employees that is up to eight million people who were furloughed or laid off. again the economic toll here, $240 billion. that's how much less was made in this industry than what the restaurant association predicted. 16% of the restaurants shut down have been open for at least 30 years. that number, connell, really proves it is not just the newer businesses being hard hit. it is ones well-established in the community. we should also note when we're talking about chain restaurants, there are a lot of franchises

independently owned. so businesses really across the board, regardless of their ownership are needing to find new ways to navigate this storm. connell? connell: yeah. the ones that have adapted and survived and some just can't. alex, thank you good report, alex hogan. putting teachers first, many districts are fighting to put teachers higher on the vaccine eligibility list. in oregon governor kate brown is looking to priority of vaccinating teachers for the sake of their students. we have more from correspondent dan springer in seattle. reporter: hi, connell, a push to reopen the schools taken a turn in the northwest. two states, oregon, idaho are vaccinating ahead of senior citizens not in group settings. in hood river, ore gone, teaches rolled up their sleeves at a drive-in vaccination center. people 80 years old and owner

had to wait until this week. or gonians over 65 weren't be eligible to the end of february. governor kate brown is using every single tool at their disposal to get kids back in the classroom this school year. >> for every teacher back in the classroom, they help, 20, 30, 35 students get their life back on track. reporter: now only 13% of oregon schoolkids have been in a classroom since last march. nationally, 40% of k-12 students are inside of schools, leaving 20 million kids getting all their instruction remotely. studies show they have significant learning loss, suffer more anxiety and depression. a suicide prevention expert told me based on calls and texts to crisis hotlines the number of kids with emotional distress is up 30 to 60%. teachers say they're suffering from ice race. 80% of all covid deaths are people over 65. they're hearing in oregon there is no guarranty teachers will go

back to the classroom seen getting vaccinated ahead of them. the teachers union said it will be up to individual members if they feel safe enough. >> when seniors are affected by this they have lots of underlying conditions and they're more prone to dying. so i think that's, that's the concern. reporter: in idaho in-person teaching is already happening. still they're protecting those front line workers but if oregon vaccinates teachers ahead of the elderly and they still don't go back to the classroom, that will be a major outcry. connell? connell: yeah, sure there will be. thank you, dan springer in seattle for us. a note now on the olympics, officials revealed new set of rules for this year's tokyo games. hugs, high-fives, handshakes all banned. face masks must be worn at all times. athletes will not be allowed to visit venues aspect tatetores this is also interesting. the organizers have said vaccines will not be mandatory

for the athletes, officials either. now they are encouraging individual countries to try to get all their athletes vaccinated prior to arrivals but they're not going to make that mandatory. we'll be back. ♪.

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♪. connell: president biden has been pushing for millions of clean energy jobs but his plan us facing increasing number of obstacles, most recently there has been data to suggest that green jobs might not pay as well as some other jobs. something grady trimble has been looking into. he joins us from a solar farm today in albuquerque, new mexico. grady. reporter: connell, two of the fastest growing jobs in the country now are solar panel installers and wind turbine tech technicians. they say in the next five years

the number of jobs will be relatively small compared to other industries. you mentioned pay. that is another roadblock the biden administration will face. they want 10 million clean energy jobs under biden's climate job. look at pay difference tweens those who install so lear panels and those who work in oil fields as extraction workers. they require the same amount of education. oil workers can make as much as 10,000-dollars more per year than those that install sole lear panels. as you see out here, these are short-livedded construction jobs in green energy field. they build the solar farmings. then they're on their way. you don't see anybody here with regular jobs on daily basis. there are some challenges with the renewable energy jobs, saying we're not there yet with how much energy these types of facilities can produce. as an example, today it is pretty cloudy. so this solar farm is not

producing a whole lot of energy but the biden administration is full speed ahead on the renewal energy push even if that is to the debttry meant of those in the oil and gas industry. connell. connell: when we were talking about the market frenzy the other day we did a whole segment on silver t was off to the races. the price of silver since come back to earth i guess but a lot of silver in those panels too, right? reporter: yeah. a lot of people don't realize silver is really good conductor of electricity. so there is a lot of silver in these panels. in fact about 10% of global silver demand is for companies that make these solar panels. so when you saw that price skyrocket to an eight-year high earlier in the week, if it stayed at those levels it would have jacked up prices for companies that made solar panels. potentially they would have to pass on the costs to the customers. but since then of course the silver prices as you mentioned

have come back down to earth. so that is not as. of a concern but i guess the bigger concern is those people investors because pick silver again to target and bring it back up. it would be a whole new game for the commodities market just like it has been in the stock market. connell: yeah. it has been, another way to bet on this i guess, if solar something you believed in. if that much of the market. grady, good story, covering all angles in new mexico for us. going on the offense against big tech today, one governor unveiled a series of proposals would include punishments on user privacy or censorship. how far that bill could to, what it could mean for you. we'll have that next. pet adoptions on the rise during the pandemic. small brick-and-mortar pet stores they're facing a growing threat to their survival in the midst of all of this. how about lowe's? lowe's putting its own twist on valentine's day, offering 50

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♪. connell: "after the bell," here are the headlines for you. netflix once again just dominating the golden globes this year. 42 nominations.

david fincher citizen "citizen kane" origin story. leading the pack. taking aim at the country's largest tech companies over censorship concerns. >> over the years however these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives. big tech has come to look more like big brother with each passing day but this is 2021, not 1984. this is real life, not george orwell's fiction. connell: governor ron desantis proposing daily 100,000-dollar fine for big tech firms that remove accounts of political candidates. on a short leash, republican senator josh hawley called on

congress to place a ban on mergers and acquisitions by some of the big tech firms. the quote from senator hawley, big tech robber-barons at companies like amazon and google have taken advantage of crippling restrictions placed on their smaller competitors to consol date their power further. here to talk about all these headlines with us, our own robber baron, jonathan hoenig, capitalist pig hedge fund founder. fox news contributor. when i saw senator hawley i thought this would not go anywhere, i was reading about it, some democrats proposed many almost the exact same legislation in the fall. maybe they will go after the big tech firms and acquisitions they can make what do you think of it? >> yeah. connell big tech is public enemy number one not just for democrats and republicans as well. josh hawley, ron dedan sis. we're talking about potential fines on stonings for a big tech

company, $100,000 a day. this is worrisome from a tech perspective. big tech companies, even if you're not on twitter or facebook, these are major parts of economy, major part of stock indices, we could dediscouragement of investment, potential of lawsuit, not from user but from the government itself. reminds me of the early 2000s when antitrust suit against microsoft led to that become underperformer for a decade. this could be big impact for neck couple years if this continues, no way to know for sure. our stop story during the hour, jeff bezos stepping down ceo of amazons. you wonder if he said i don't want to put up with this nonsense, testifying all the time, all the nonsense comes along with it, and. >> facebook has been public enemy number one, despite the stock turned 250,000% since the

ipo. the productivity increased. think of how amazon changed last 20 years. almost unrecognizable. the productivity keeps going up. costs keep going down by and large. that is worry for investors, the same way government regulations make investing in regulation and industry technology has always been a low regulated part of the economy. a lot of worries from the nasdaq just missing out from all-time high. connell: bezos can concentrate going to space and not worry about this necessarily. jonathan, stick right where you are. we will come back to you in a moment. i want to move to the idea of democratizing stock trading. we've been talking about, the week-long battle between reddit traders, wall street hedge funds underscoring a important role of new generation of trading apps such as robinhood play in young investors trading activities. hard lessons for traders when trades were shut down and limits

placed on stocks they could buy. we have the ceo and cofounder of paxos company, about to be introduced a new way for trades to be cleared. that was the issue as you know with robinhood. if you had your system out would things be different and if so in the last week or so? >> connell, thanks for having me. we're all being distracted a little bit from the real issue and i think what gamestop, lehman brothers, the next financial crisis all have in common we're relying on an outdated, monopolistic, centralized too big to fail intermediary sits in middle of all trades. there are comments this is about the retail investor, this is about hedge funds or about brokers but it is actually about the infrastructure. i think there is a better way forward and i think it is the results of two issues with this infrastructure. it is running old technology. the trades settle in two days.

connell: so the robinhood ceo came out and said you know they endorsed the idea what you would call real time settlement, rather than you make a trade, to your point, it takes two days to settle. what exactly is it that your platform would provide. >> we use blockchain technology. we tokennize shares. we're alive today operating under no action letter from the sec we clients like credit suisse, socgen, know mora. you can settle in different time frames. you can settle immediately. you know where the shares r that is a significant improvement the reality way it works today the technology is running on cobalmain frames from the 1970s. settling in two days is anachronism. why should you be able to get toilet paper to your house faster than you can settle shares of equities? that is not the way it should be anymore. maybe 50 years that made sense. what it is doing right now creating a lot of systemic risk.

it is little-known, not well-understood because it is in the background but we should have a better infrastructure. we should have a better system. when it rains, the streets flood, we realize what the problem is but when times are normal it kind of feels like everything is okay. it shouldn't be that way. we need a 21st century infrastructure for our financial markets. that is what we're building. using blockchain technology you can really use the latest way to move information to move shares, in a safe and responsive way. connell: let me ask you one thing about it. your company, company was or is crypto services provider. you're expanding, moving into other areas like this. i read a quote from you, well, when i read it raised a red flag in my mind. i want you to explain it. you said we built this clearing platform in aim to be transparent to the market. all that is great. while we reduce the capital requirements and that -- well do we really want to do that? isn't that taking on more risk

if we reduce the capital requirements? so what's the idea there? >> if you think about why there is so much capital, what was so difficult to understand about what happened in the last week is that you're settling in two days, time squalls risk. and when it gets really volatile you have to put up more capital because there is more risk, it is more volatility. but really what you should be doing is shrinking the settlement time frame. that actually creates more safety because you can understand for instance, using a blockchain transparently where all the risk is. secondly the time exists between the trade and the settlement shrinks and that lowers risks. the more you shrink that time the more the risk gets lowered. if you do that enough you can actually begin to release capital, yet have a safer, more transparent market. that's what's important. in the case of for instance of gamestop, you had 140% of the shares short. that is partly because you don't know where all the shares are. if you have a blockchain you

could know it. you could create safer and fairer markets and ones where it is more capital efficient. that is what we're looking for, how do we move forward from a market just was about creating more liquidity to a market that is about creating liquidity and clear ownership and a really safe and fair marketplace? that is what we're trying to do. i think that is possible to do all of those. we can use modern technology. not old mainframes that take days to make the settlement happen. connell: tell you what, charles. come back. keep us updated how this goes. so much more attention on this area than there was just a week ago or so. >> thanks for having me on. connell: paxos is the company. i said jonathan hoenig would stand by. the reason you've been in the market a long time. the thoughts on using new technologies and blockchain technology maybe or does this raise new issues for you? >> no. it is transforming finance and for the better, connell. it is part of an ongoing transformation that has been

going on since deregulation of the 1970s. as late as 1980s were you were paying $40 a trade. trades are free and instantaneous. in the '60s they used to shut wall street once a week to catch up on the paperwork. some of this technology being described whether blockchain, certainly revolutionize wall street. but even now, connell, with all this angst about gamestop and promises of new investigations from everyone from ted cruz to elizabeth warren the fact there has never been a better time to be an individual investor. the types of products, trades overnight, trading for free. this is great time, potentially profitable time to be an individual investor. connell: so you don't thinkey of that is rolling back? no-free trading is here to stay? what we were talking about settlements will be more immediate, that we'll get real time settlements? you say it will get easier rather than more difficult? you don't think washington will get in the way there? >> only thing that will roll it back will be government. it makes me think, for example,

after the credit crisis lindsey graham and a lot of other democratic congress people enacting rules on credit card companies made credit availability more difficult. we should be frightened when legislators on both sides of the aisle winding up to regulate wall street. it is unregulated wall street made trading so acceptable, so easy, so widely available for so many americans now more than ever. connell: all right. we've all learned a lot, if nothing else about either new risks in the markets, how markets should work or should change and that's valuable true over the last week. thank you, jonathan hoenig as always. they're bringing in the mop up man over in italy. the president tapped of all people, former european central bank president mario draghi to lead the interim government after the last one collapsed after the party withdrew after collapse after economic package. the lawmakers must still approve

mario draghi. we'll be back with much more. ♪. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is hard. you get advice like: try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey. kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette

♪. connell: now to investing in women and minority business owners. after successfully raising more

than $600,000 to fund her own education from a bachelor's degree all the way up to a phd, she wanted to give women of color a chance to open new businesses, to take on new projects which many times tend to be kind of underinvested. she started up this platform called, enrich her. trying to rewrite the narrative. thankthank you for coming on. before i get to this platform, how it works, who you are helping, i don't want to skip over the first part of the story, that you raised 600 grand. first of all we could get how much education costs in this country which is ridiculous, but more importantly, more impressively, how did you do it? how did you raise all that money? >> great question. what i did was i wrote 200 letters to organizations, telling them my story, how i wanted to change the world through engineering and finance, how much education meant to

i asked them to give me a chance to apply for whatever they had. i would do whatever it took to make them proud. i sent out letters while i was in high school to 200 organizations. everyone from the elks club of hawaii, san diego teachers union and to my sorority, many of them funded me. at the end of my freshman here i wrote thank-you letters to everyone, because of their support, i had 4.9 gpa at the end of my freshman year. i was able to get a second round of funding from those providers. connell: did you say 4.9? >> i meant 3.9. connell: i knew you were smart. >> talking about college, but i almost had a perfect gpa undergrad. connell: i said, boy, i will not

be able to keep up in this interview, 4.9 i will be in trouble. i should have wrote to the elks club of san diego. you have tremendous education. you raised money for it. and you, to do a lot of things with that. you can get tons of different jobs. instead you start the platform called enrich her. how does this actually work? you're connecting people who want to start businesses with people who have capital? what role do you play and how does it work? >> enrichher go to foundations, corporate giving departments, we make it easy to distribute fund you have allocated to women of color and minority communities. we make them easy to access capital. less than 4% of capital goes to companies with women as leaders. we are a solution to that problem. so we just make it easier. we are the tech solution that

enables these communities, specifically of companies led by women and people of color to get the capital that they need to sustain and grow their businesses. connell: how is it going? how much money are you raising? how many companies have you been able to help? >> we helped 153 companies thus far, connect with over $14 million. my goal in the next couple years is to increase this to $100 million. so i'm hoping that there are a lot of foundations and impact funds who want to partner with us today so that we can reach this number. connell: good for you. again, keep us updated on this as well. we'll check back on it but it is, it is a great project. you know, 3.9, that is still impressive. 4.9 really scared me. >> thank you. connell: enrich her is the name of the platform. the other thing we mentioned this earlier, the pet industry during this pandemic has been soaring. turns out only one part of the workforce is reaping most of the

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connell: rough times, you know, the businesses who serve our furry friends have, for the most part, been booming since pet ownership has been increasing in a big way. but it's the digital retailers apparently reaping the benefit, not so much the brick and mortar stores. gerri willis is live in westchester county, new york, at a pet groomer. >> reporter: that's right. we're at primp my paw for the story about the pet industry which is growing, it's on fire. $100 billion in sales, really parts of it 9% gains.

but there is a part of it not doing so well, and you mentioned it before. that's mom and pop stores that just are suffering. i want you to hear from kim, this woman right here, about how she's doing. listen. >> living with their animals, they're seeing them more, they're taking them out more, and i think it's just a way to maintain some kind of normalcy. when you're so restricted ask you can't go anywhere else and the groomer's open, oh, let me get fluffy cleaned. >> reporter: of course, not everybody is having that much luck. in fact, a lot of mom and pops are suffering. the share, the market share for small pet stores is now 4% compared to 8% of the total industry in 2015, and it is online vendors particularly now during the pandemic and also this brick and mortar national chains that are really stealing the thunder of some of these locally-owned stores. congress? connell: i hate to say it, we've been using chewy all the time,

amazon. i feel bad now. we should be going to the local stores as well. look at that. that's a cute picture. by the way, we did get a pandemic puppy. i'm going to show you charlie for a moment. she was out playing in the snow yesterday. that's our australian shepherd. she looks pensive almost. so many people are getting them, and, you know, we go to the dog park or whatever, i think you bring us a good story. we should remember the mom and pop stores when we're getting stuff for the pets. >> reporter: that's what wilson told me. [laughter] connell: that's very good. he does look like he said that. you hold that microphone up. one of your best interviews, some of your best work, gerri. jerry wilson. thank you, very well done. that does wrap it up. charlie's glad she made it on

tv. that does wrap it up for us on "after the bell." thankings for watching us today and every day. we will see you back here at the same time tomorrow. the dow ends up higher by 36 points. we fell a little bit short of record highs for the nasdaq. have a great day, everybody. ♪ ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. the mob of radical dems in full control of the senate as of today's agreement reached with senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, and that clears the way for the unconstitutional and fraudulent impeachment trial again of former president donald trump to begin with the full complicity of the rino gop leadership. in what will be the concluding episode in all likelihood of the most disgraceful political scandal in our nation's history, it's set to begin in one