folk, governor cuomo speaking right now, addressing that nursing home scandal for the nurse time and the discrepancy in the numbers. he says the new york department of health has reported all the deaths, he also adds that new york is 34th out of 50 states in nursing home deaths. i'm not sure that's going to get him through this scandal. we'll see. meanwhile, my friend and colleague, ashley webster, is in for liz claman. ashley, over to you. ashley: thank you very much, charles. appreciate that. wall street may be closed this prime ministers' day, but we've -- presidents day, but bitcoin pushing near $50,000 and oil topping $60 per barrel. our analysts will tell us if there's still room for the bulls to run. amazon's founder, jeff bezos, taking a step back as he turns over the reins to a new ceo. we've got the former amazon exec who worked closely with them both as he launched prime video, amazon studios and amazon music.

bill carr will be here to break down the c suite changes at the online retail giant. interesting stuff. and president joe biden expected to i arrive at joint base andrews any minute, but where does his first 100 days' agenda go now that the impeachment trial of president trump is over? we'll go straight to the white house for the details. and hi, everybody. well, as you know, stocks not trading today, but bitcoin, wow -- [laughter] still the on the move. the cryptocurrency, as you can see, up a mere $832 at $48,748. it nearly hit the $50,000 mark over the weekend, fueled by big backers like elon musk and big banks who are moving closer, it a appears to acceptance of the virtual currency. here to break it all down and give us a glimpse, if you like, of the future is michael

gronager. great to see you. is that the issue here? is this about acceptance, we hear names like elon musk, bank of new york mellon, mastercard, these are the companies that perhaps give it more mainstream likability. is that what the surge is behind? >> yeah, i think that's a very good way, of course, big names just push in that direction, but i think it's also important to look about what bitcoin is about and where it has moved from. so it's 11 years old now if, bitcoin, so it's been around for a long time. and i think when i spoke to some of the names that you mention, and that is a year ago, they've the all -- this is not a bubble. this is something that's been around for more than ten years, so it's been proven by time. and at the same time, it has viscosity that shows that this could basically prove equal to

gold. there's only 21 million bitcoins in irk islation, about -- long holders of crypto, some of this -- and that means there's only about 3.5 million bitcoins that are in circulation are today. ashley: right. >> and that's basically because they're being scoop up by the people you mentioned before, the companies, yeah. ashley: well, look, the price has more than quadrupled last year, the institutional investors are getting in on this now. perhaps looking at it as a store of value, as you say, like gold. but then on the other side of the argument you have the bears who say this is an historic bubble, and it will burst. what do you say to those people who say, wait a minute, this is tattoo good to be true? too good to be true?

>> well, we've seen bitcoin grow at a very high pace over the last many years. few companies have been able to grow as fast or even faster than the value, so we always bench. marked other -- since basically 2015 where we had our first valuation in that time. so just saying that, like, it's not -- it doesn't mean it's a bubble just because it grows fast. it's the fact that this actually has an underlying value. it is showing the shifts from, i would say, brick and mortar and the physical world and more and more into the digital and the virtual world. and i would say that we've seen the value of that the last year. we all lived it. we all lived the value of online has grown a lot. and i think cryptocurrencies in general basically entails that in the financial form. so i would not say this is a bubble. again, i shouldn't say this is not investment advice,s but of

course you'll see good fluctuat. we've seen that in the past as well. ashley: so what's the next big hurdle for a cryptocurrency like bitcoin? we're seeing more acceptance from these big companies, but how far away are we from people being paid in bitcoin? i foe some businesses now -- i know some businesses now are selling themselves with regular currency, dollars, or you can buy with bitcoin. where's that inflection point? >> so i think right now, i'm a firm believer that every company in the world will be a crypto company at some point. in the '90s every company became an internet company. and what does it mean? that basically means a crypto company over the last couple of weeks x why are not more company doing that today. there's a lot of hurdles that we still see. there's, of course, a little bit of regulatory uncertainty and more like curiosity, how should

it actually be treated. first of all, like, how do you account for cryptoon your balance sheet, if you pay someone in crypto crypto , we ak to the same problems that are hard to solve. and at the same time the there's been, i would say, an understream of -- around is it used for nefarious purposes and so on. and that's basically that one of the things that has been helping a lot with mapping out and working with law enforcement many in more than 40 countries worldwide to basically help them clean up the industry, as it were, like seven years. ashley: okay. michael, let me ask you this, finally. i buy a car from someone today and e give them, i don't know, i give them a bitcoin. right now it's worth $48,000, but it's a very volatile, you know, asset. so when they go to put that money, say it's dropped $3,000

per bitcoin or $5,000. how does that work? how does the value -- how do you account for the fluctuations in the value of the bitcoin? >> so it's like often times the payment providers in crypto, they provide a quote of the price at the teem of the purchase if -- at the time of the purchase, and you pay that amount. and they are able to actually settle that trade instantaneously. you can basically do it at the same time. so at the time you press buy, you can insure that trade has gone through, and of course -- ashley: pay that price. >> but it's really not a problem in terms of payment that way. ashley: now i understand. it's not easy to make me understand. michael, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about the amazing, meteoric rise of bitcoin. we're going to be talking about it for many more years to come, i'm sure.

michael, thank you very much, appreciate it. okay, some breaking news. air force one just touching down at joint base andrews after president joe biden -- there you go -- this is after president joe biden spent his weekend in maryland. he's coming back with president trump's impeachment trial now complete, is mr. biden's first 100 days' agenda back on track? blake are berman at the white house. >> reporter: you saw the president enroute, he'll be back here shortly. president biden, ashley, largely ignored everything that was going on up on capitol hill over the weekend and the days leading up to it with the impeachment process and trial of his predecessor. instead the white house say the president was dialed in on the two big crises, as they view it, at this time, covid-19 and the economy. to that end, they say the president is going to be getting out on the road for the very first time in his presidential capacity this week.

a couple different trips. one to wisconsin tomorrow and then on thursday he will be visiting a pfizer manufacturing plant in the state of michigan. much of the focus coming up here for president biden is going to be, of course, on this $1.9 trillion stimulus package that democrats here in washington are trying to roll out over the next few weeks, into the next month, march 14th being the time they believe they can get it done by. and over the weekend we heard from dr. anthony fauci sort of talk up the need about why he believes this package should happen so that schools, he said, can safely reopen. listen. >> i think that the schools really do need more resources, and that's the reason why the national relief act that we're talking about getting passed, we need that. the schools need more resources. >> reporter: 130 billion for schools, and you'll hear a lot more of that. by the way, we will also see and hear the administration's

changes later this week as it relates to asylum. one of the first acts that president biden made in office was revoking the remain in mexico policy as it was known from the previous administration. the first group of asylum seekers on the southern border will have their processes take place starting on friday, a change in immigration policy shortly. ashley? ashley: yes. all right, blake, thank you so much. a lot on the agenda, for sure. blake, thank you very much. getting schools open, critical, of course. will amazon's ceo changeover be more action-packed than jack ryan, say? we asked asked that question to the executive who helped build amazon prime video from the ground up, and he's coming up next. "the claman countdown" is coming right back. ♪ there are. ♪ ♪

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cloud services division since its inception, and that has hollywood kind of wondering about amazon prime's future in streaming. now, the latest nielsen numbers finding that amazon, it's in the middle of the pack, taking the 5th and 7th spot with one night in miami, which is terrific the, and catch me if you can, which is a classic. so, question is, can amazon catch netflix? well, bill carr was a former vice president of digital media at amazon, and he's also co-author of the book "working backwards: inside stories and secrets from inside amazon." i want to know what goes on behind the curtain at amazon. to working backwards llc co-founder bill carr joins us now. great to see you. first question, what's amazon going to be like with its, you know, founder and chief executive for so long, he created this beast internally and in the public eye, where do you think amazon goes now?

>> well, i think that, in fact, there'll be substantial continuity for several reasons. one is that jeff has been mindful really going all the way back to early 2000s about how to build a company that would endure for decades. and he went about -- everyone knows about all the amazing products and services that amazon has built, but jeff has been just as deliberate in building a set of processes, systems, culture, management team that would entour for decades. endure for decades. so that combined with the fact that jeff as actually been quite involved with spending moses of his day-to-day -- most of his day-to-day time focused on the new initiatives that the company drives, everything from amazon prime video to new devices, to aws for many, many years that i think -- and, by the way, it's not going away. he's going to executive chairman

role. ashley: right. >> he's still going to stay involved, so i think you'll continue to see amazon move ahead in a very similar direction. ashley: bi, as you've been talking, we're seeing bigtures from joint base andrews. by the way, he's jumping in the limo. i guess it's the beast or a version thereof. because of the weather, he's not going to take marine one back to the white house, so that's why he's jumping in the car. bill, i want to carry on. we do know that jeff bezos loves to rub elbows, you know, with the hollywood elite. he loved the red carpet, he loved the industry. what about mr. jassy? hollywood's bond -- wondering whether that part of amazon kind of goes away a little bit. what to you say? >> well, i would never seek for andy jassy, but knowing andy and knowing how important prime membership is, i'd be very

surprised to see amazon work in a different direction. i think that the investments the company has made in amazon studios, in producing its own movie and tv shows, these are investments that are going to pay off for years and decades to come. and there wouldn't really be any good business reasons for andy jassy to want to change that direction. ashley: with regard to amazon prime, bill, where does it stand right now? what does it have to do to catch up with netflix? it takes so much money to create content. where do you see amazon prime, where is it headed, and how can it become one of the top, top contenders? >> yeah. so, i mean, prime video certainly already is one of the top contenders because it's part of the larger subscription service, the amazon prime service that includes everything from fast free shipping to, you know, songs and albums that are part of amazon music and prime video.

and so it already reaches into more than 100 million homes around the world. and, you know, it's not a winner-take-all category. so just as we look into the past that people tuned in to all kinds of different tv the channels and watch all kinds of different movies, that's going to continue forward here in the 21st century too. so it's not really about, you know, catching netflix, it's about being one of those top three destinations for movies and tv shows. and amon is clearly in -- amazon is clearly in that group. ashley: i guess, what advice would you give, andy jassy, with your long-term experience with amazon? if what would you tell him, bill? >> well, i don't think andy needs much advice if me. [laughter] -- from me. he's an extremelial talented executive, and he's been at amazon even more year than i have. i think that andy, you know, faces some interesting new challenges, things that the company hasn't faced. the company is now such a large

public institution, it's come under, you know, substantial scrutiny. there are these regulatory issues that have come up. these are new challenges for the company to take on. furthermore, although amazon has an amazing, innovative culture and really jeff has built what he called and what we call in our book, "working backwards," an invention machine, keeping that going when your revenue's approaching half a trillion dollars is going to be a real challenge too. but i think andy's up for those challenges. he's an amazing executive, and i'm rooting for him. ashley: well, some big shoes to fill, for sure. all right, bill carr, we're out of time, but thank you so much for joining us and sharing your insight into amazon. fascinating stuff. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. ashley: okay. thank you. restaurants, guess what? getting fed up. what owners are doing now to fight back as the cold of winter stings outdoor dining. we're coming right back.

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ashley: fox business alert, one of the biggest deals of 2020 now looking doa. in today's pop stocks, the south china post reporting that tiktok owner bye dance has walked away from a deal to sell the social media platform u.s. operations to oracle and walmart. bye dance is also reported to be exploring other options underred president biden. the new administration has also put president trump's threatened ban against tiktok on the back burner. another company hitting the brakes on apple i car rumors, first hyundai, kia and now nissan saying it is not in talks with the tech titan for work on an apple-branded autonomous electric vehicle.

responding toen comments apple had held discussions with the leaf maker. call of duty winning the gaming battle, act vition's latest installment of the franchise now the top selling game for a third straight months. video game sales overall in january up 42 the % year-over-year to record $71 billion. it's a huge -- 7.1 billion. while nintendo switch saw the most sales in january, the largest amount of sales dollars went to sony's playstation 5 which costs a mere $499. with over 50 million covid vaccines already administered, an end to the coronavirus pandemic could be closer to reality, but not everyone is feeling optimistic. restaurants across the country are still facing potential closure with dining restrictions, of course, still in place. grady trimble is on the ground

in westmont, illinois, where restaurant owners are fighting for survival. they're fed up. grady. >> reporter: and, ash, here in illinois the number of cases has gone down, the percent positivity has gone down in since the vaccine has gotten out to more than 10% of the population here, and yet restaurants feel like they've been hung out to dry because they're still at 25% capacity. we're at neat kitchen and bar in westmont, chicago suburb. matt is the owner here, and 25's just not sustainable for you. >> it really isn't. it's not enough to make it happen. >> reporter: we've seen sort of an increase in demand. you mentioned valentine's day weekend was actually really good for you guys, to the point you had to turn people away to stay at the capacity list. >> that's correct. valentine's weekend is typically a very busy weekend in the restaurant the business and, yes, we were turning people away because of the restrictions imposed. >> reporter: and it's not just the chicago area and illinois, it's 25% in new york, 25% in detroit.

you can feel the pain of restaurant openers in those cities as well -- owners as well. and especially for your staff who have suffered because of this. >> yes, yes. operating at only 25% capacity reduces the amount of income they have the opportunity to make. we can only put so many people through here, and the thing is that it really impacts them. >> reporter: you heard it there. ash, the people have spoken. they want to eat out again indoors, especially where it's snowing outside. the illinois restaurant association is asking the governor, please, give us 40, maybe 50% indoor capacity. we can still space people out that way and help keep restaurants afloat. ashley: yeah. 25% just doesn't cut it. grady trimble chicago, thank you so much. coming up, charlie will break it with a former obama and bloomberg official who's also shaking up a crowded mayoral race in the big apple. interesting stuff.

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lemme guess, change in plans? at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. ♪ ♪ ashley: as some of new york's wealthiest residents have fled to tax havens with a beach access, the race for nyc mayor is heating up as candidates duke it out with promises to restore and revitalize the city. it's a first on fox business, new york city mayoral candidate shaun donovan joins us now with our very own charlie gasparino for an interview. charlie, take it away. >> thank you, ashley. mr. donovan, thanks for joining us. really appreciate it. you saw the intro. it speaks for itself, the top 3% of new yorkers -- 1% of new yorkers pay most of the taxes. without them, you cannot, it's

hard to feed people in soup kitchens if you don't have them, hard to keep the trains running on time. they're leaving the city in droves, and they're worried about two things primarily. they're worried about higher taxes, the tax rate is already high andnd -- it could go up, and they're worried about escalating crimes. will you raise taxes if you become mayor, what will you to address the crime issue? >> well, first of all, let me just say no one in this race has the experience in moments of crisis that i do. finish nobody else has managed a $4 trillion budget. nobody else has sat side by side with dr. fauci in the situation room to get a pandemic under control like this. and i am the only candidate in this race, i believe, who can get in quickly, make sure that we are rebuilding our economy because we are focused on making this city safe again, welcoming new yorkers back, welcoming people from around the world.

and we're going to need to do that to rebuild our economy. and so i think i'm a unique candidate to be able to repair and rebuild the city's economy. and i agree with you, we need to make sure that we're focused on quality of life. we need to make sure that we're focused on this city the being affordable. including with our taxes. look, i grew up in the 1970s and '80s in the city. i saw what the alternative looks like. when quality of life was destroyed, almost 800,000 new yorkers left during the 1970s. so no one has the experience or the focus that i do. and i'm happy to talk about the specifics of how we to that. >> well, i will say i've been speaking to people that you've been speaking to mainly at the banks. they are impressed with you, they are impressed with your knowledge of the city. you remember how bad things were, and things got better because we addressed the crime issue and because we addressed economic issues.

i need to push you a little bit on this. the top 1% be socked with higher taxes if you are mayor? >> well, here's my perspective on this. i do think we need to make sure that we're bringing revenues to the city to be able to rebuild, and, first, we need to be looking to washington, d.c. to get the help that we deserve. every year new york sends $23 billion more to d.c. than we get back in return. we absolutely should be looking first to make sure we get our fair share of help. i don't believe we're going to tax our way out of this pandemic, and we're not going to tax our way to recovery. i think there may be short-term ways that we can bring in revenues that are innovative around shall capture and other things that we pursued during the bloomberg administration to raise revenues. i certainly am a fan of congestion pricing. my relationship with president

biden and vice president harris, i believe we could get that done to bring in revenues. and we need to make sure that we're looking everywhere to balance the budget as well as controlling costs in city government. and, again, no one's managed a $4 trillion federal budget like i have. you should -- it's hard to remember now given the budget challenges we see after president trump, but we had the biggest budget deficit since world war ii when president obama came into office. we reduced that budget deficit dramatically and still invested in key things like health care, infrastructure that grew our economy. so i think i'm a unique candidate to be able to understand how to balance our budgets, how to bring folks back without just looking at taxes as the alternative. like so many of my competitors are. >> we should point out that your background was in the obama administration working with joe biden and president obama as their top housing official, so that's where you ran the budget. just wanted our viewers to know

that. i guess on crime, you know, with something is happening here in new york right now. it seem like it's existential with crime, and it seems like the mayor, the current mayor, is doing nothing about it. the current power base is doing nothing about it. can you give us any idea how you might change? i mean, it's one thing to stop p stop and frisk, it's another thing to allow the lawlessness that we're having now. where do you come in? do you come in in the middle there? try and explain a little bit of that. >> yeah, so let's be clear here that we need a mayor who actually has experience in being able to work effectively to keep people safe but also make sure we have respect, particularly for communities that too often have not been respected by the police. and, again, what's unique about me is this is not theory to me.

i've actually walked the walk on this. i was part of president obama's 21st century policing task force, i've worked with mayors across the cup, i worked with -- across the country, i worked with police leaders like chuck ramsey in philadelphia who's able to implement real reforms while bringing crime down dramatically. and i think the key here is we need to be focused, yes, on transparency, yes, on making sure that a we hold police accountable, but also on making sure that we're really focusing the prison on the things new yorkers are concerned about. i do think one of the challenges is that we've asked police to do so many different things in our city. we've asked them to be experts on mental health with our homeless when we know that we can solve homelessness in other ways. we've asked them to be focused on our schools. let me give you an example. i was up in the bronx the other day looking at what we call an open streets, 75% just keeping barricades up are the

responsibility of our police. if we really focused them on guns, getting guns off our streets, reducing violent crime, reducing the kinds of things that new yorkers are concerned about -- >> quality of life. >> -- we could actually solve these problems. and i'm the only one -- to do that. >> so how do you get the homeless off the street? would you stop putting them in hotels? >> absolutely. this is, for me as someone who's worked on homelessness throughout my whole career, i led the strategy for president obama, we dramatically reduced homelessness across this country. think about this, in 80 cities and states we actually ended homelessness for veterans. not reduced it, but ended it. and how did we do that? >> all right. >> because instead of the current strategy focused on shelter and hotels, we focused on housing, and we focused on making sure that we understood -- homelessness isn't just a housing problem.

it's a mental health problem -- >> it's a drug problem. i'm getting the -- >> it's a substance abuse problem. and so what we did, every time somebody left liker's, a mental health wing of a hospital, we had a discharge plan that connected them to housing and got them the services they needed rather than being on the streets. and here's the -- >> i got, i'm getting a hard wrap, so i want to ask you one quick question, and i think you answered that question quite, quite well. the question i have for you right now is how would you grade mayor de blasio's eight years? >> it would have to be an f, unfortunately. and, look, one of the things i have done whether it was being outing secretary in the midst of the worst housing crisis of our lifetime, being asked by president obama to lead the recovery after sandy, being asked to be budget director and oversee the $4 trillion federal

budget, i understand what it means to lead through crisis. i sat side by side with dr. fauci, and unfortunately what new yorkers want is a public servant, not a politician. politics always comes first for mayor de blasio. that's not who i am. i've always been a public servant. and i would make sure we're focused on people, not politics. >> all right. well, good luck to you, mr. donovan. ashley, back to you. ashley: thank you very much. is there an f -? [laughter] charlie, thank you very much. of course, while shaun donovan focuses on the big apple, other states and local governments are choosing to tax big tech to help reduce their deficits. they are the source of huge wealth, are they not? maryland is the first state to set its sights on silicon valley for new revenue streams. sounds like the europeans. susan li is in the newsroom with

the story. >> yeah, first of its kind, a dox attack when it comes to online advertising, so that means a portion of companies like amazon, facebook and google will go to state coffers. maryland says it should raise a quart of a billion -- quarter of a billion dollars. however, the tech giants along with other business groups in the state says it's only going to hurt the little guys. >> in reality, these taxes are going to fall on the people, you know, in their own districts. it's going to fall eventually on consumers. you know, the senate president here in maryland, bill ferguson, he likes to say he's hitting big out of state company, but in reality he's swinging and missing and hitting his to his own constituents. and that's exactly what's going to happen in every other state. >> now, it's not just maryland, but there are currently 17 bills in 10 states that propose taxing big tech including a bill in kansas that hopes to raise around $97 million taxing

streaming companies like hulu and netflixment washington state is looking to tax companies that sell users' personal data arguing internet companies benefit, and they should pay the price as well as profiting off users' data. and they can certainly afford it since we saw a ridiculous last three months and the year, a record $125 billion in sales at amazon, big quarters as well for facebook and google. and they say they will use this funding, this money that comes in from these taxes, for schooling, infrastructure and it's not going into effect just yet. you can expect multiple rates to fight this, so it won't be implemented just yet, the big tech tax. but if maryland does it, that could go elsewhere. ashley: it will be like a gold rush. all right, susan li, interesting stuffment thank you very much. coming up next, oil topping $60 per barrel, and that is

driving gas prices higher. one of the nation's top oil analysts will be here to tell us, are gas prices going to go higher? are they here to stay? we'll find out. "the claman countdown" is coming right back. ♪ i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth.

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♪ ♪ ashley: from robinhood to russia, elon musk getting into a new social media controversy. the tesla ceo tagging the accounts of russia's kremlin, asking if vladimir putin would like to join him for a conversation on audio chat room app clubhouse. musk saying, quote: would be a great honor to speak with you in a follow-up message written in russian. the kremlin's spoke person has called the invite, quote, very interesting.

elon musk's conversation earlier this month with vladimir tenev also sparked a surge in demand for the invitation-only social media service. it is the musk effect, i guess. winter weather, we know it's hitting a large area of the united states including places, well, that don't normally see a lot of snow and ice, in the south. and that is threatening oil and gas production in some key states. that is dallas/fort worth. austin, are you kidding me? oil prices hitting their highest level since january, closing above $60 a barrel for the first time, by the way, since the early days of covid. and with more harsh winter weather expected, can we see or expect to see oil prices continue to rise? let's bring in andy lipow. you're in houston. it never snows in houston, but it's a pretty winter wonderland. what is this doing for the oil

and gas as far as production? >> well, it's not good news for the oil and gas production. we're seeing in the permian basin about a 15% or nearly a million of barrels a day production is offline, but more importantly, about 40-50% of the natural gas production has gotten frozen in. and, of course, that natural gas is used for power generation. and this is happening at the same time that the wind turbines in west texas have been frozen due to the cold weather, further impacting electricity demand -- supply. you put all that together, and now we've got refining problems because refineries certainly don't like the cold weather, and we have about 7% of the nation's oil refineries now offline due to the cold weatherment and all this adds up to higher gas prices. ashley: a big jump in prices, andy, or just a continued slow moving up? >> well, i think this is going to be a continued slow moving

up. we saw today in the futures market gasoline prices were up about 5 cents a gallon on the back of this weather. but we do have a significant amount of inventory available for the upcoming summer driving season which should temper any further increases, or big increases, i should say. finish. ashley: and if we can just change the conversation to policy coming out of the white house now with the biden administration with regards to pipelines, you say that the battle to keep fossil fuels in the ground has moved from fracking to pipelines. the fact that the keystone got shut down and others may be to follow, what does that do to the price of oil? does it have any impact on the consumer? >> well, eventually it does because the united states is connected to the rest of the world as far as oil demand goes. and whether canada gets its oil out of the ground and ships it to the u.s. or the u.s. buys

from some other place -- most notably the middle east -- the demand is still there. if we look at what's known as the dakota access pipeline where the judge has ruled the army corps of engineers needs to get an environmental impact statement, the market worried that that pipeline might shut down, shutting in about half of north dakota's oil production. and that the, of course, was impact prices throughout the midwest. ashley: it would, indeed. we'll have to leave it there, but the message, i think, from andy is that prices are going up, so get used to it. by the way, that white stuff out the front door is called snow, andy. it's kind of fun unless you have to criewf on it. -- drive on it. thank you so much, appreciate it. details of jack ma's whereabouts taking alibaba's shares on an adventure. but buy baba anyway.

we explain why next. and by the way, do not miss tomorrow's debut episode of kudlow. larry kudlow is joining the fox business family at 4 p.m. eastern, the former national economic council director, day one tomorrow. don't miss kudlow coming up at 4 p.m. only on fox business. ♪ i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq 100 like you become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

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of about 28 different companies but china is the largest. >> yeah. >> this story is really about, there are billions of people in emerging markets. 90% of the world's people under the age of 30. 85% of the world's people, period. those people are moving on up and they want stuff. they are becoming consumers. they want more of everything, food, clothing, appliances et cetera. that is the real story. but those people are encountering two other, you know, so-called megatrends. first the computer in form of a smartphone and the second the internet. because these people lack traditional consumption infrastructure, they're leapfrogging to digital consumption. i am pretty sure it is the fastest growing sector in the world, not just today, but ever. ashley: we have your picks on the screen, kevin.

he like alibaba. you have the amazon of africa. why do you like this one? >> yes. jumia is so-called amazon of africa. it's a nigerian company that trades on the new york stock exchange and the reality is all of the things we've experienced here for the last decade as the smartphone has sort of taken over our lives, the way we consume, all of those things are happening all over the world but, they're a decade behind us. so, africa is many ways the last frontier. the penetration rates are low. ashley: yeah. >> the growth rates are high. jumia best we can tell the best pure play on that. ashley: you got 10 seconds to tell me about stone company. that is a brazilian company, right? >> yeah. so the fintech story is the fastest sub segment of the emerging market story. it starts with payments. once you get payments on the

phone there are all sorts of financial services to offer people and stone has a brilliant ceo have that figured out. >> all right. all right. we'll have to leave it there, kevin. you got it in. that will do it for "the claman countdown." connell mcshane picks it up, "after the bell." connell: ashley, thank you my friend. economy front and center in our nation's capital today. law make remembers turning to relief for millions of americans as democrats, they plan to go it alone on stimulus. so we have that. we also have this storm for the record books. a large part of the country getting absolutely blasted with massive amounts of snow. that is leaving behind dangerous icy conditions. we're reporting on that at this hour, speaking out as some members of his own party are calling to strip his emergency powers we have new york governor andrew cuomo's defense in the nursing home scandal. we'll bring that to you. i'm connell mcshane. welcome to "after the bell."