coins don't have enough information, but i think it's going to happen i'd be a buyer around 200-220. charles: eddie you buying any of them? >> disney. i like disney it's a great setup as we go into this travel time period. looks good. charles: everybody loves the mouse house. all right, well everything is falling into place for them for sure. just like this market as i hand it over to liz claman. you've got momentum going into the closing bell, liz. liz: [laughter] do you know what song "manic monday" i'm calling this manic thursday, charles. charles: yeah. liz: absolutely nuts. wall street aiming now to snap its three-day losing streak as markets definitely recover from steep losses earlier this week. look at the dow, high of the session be a gain of 554 we're up 506, s&p jumping 1 1/3% a nice move of 56 points and nasdac up 104 points, but bitcoin going in the opposite direction after billionaire

visionary elon musk does a backflip on bitcoin. tesla will no longer accept the cryptocurrency for purchase of its vehicles. musk blaming the bitcoin mining process, and its impact on the environment. bitcoin marathon digital has seen a huge spike in its stock over the past year, as it works to build the biggest bitcoin mining operation in the u.s.. here in a fox business exclusive , marathon digital ceo is going to defend the process and give instant reaction to musk's move. from crypto to nft's it's kind of a cousin of cryptocurrency in a way. playboy turning the page of its famous history as hugh heffner's publishing company goes digital and is already having huge monetary success selling non-fun gible tokens and he's here on how he's taking a business bunny hop in a whole new direction but we're looking at a market right now dow is up

549 points but the bitcoin bulls at this hour are in a pitched battle that has the crypto world taking sides at this hour, and the digital currency is struggl ing as it heads back down to session lows. right now, it's down about 11%, or at 48, 300. it's not alone, ethererum and litecoin you can see right here on the screen have also dropped, due to the fact that they got triggered last night, when a little over three months after tesla had announced it be accepting bitcoin as a form of payment, ceo elon musk pulled a 180 tweeting this bombshell. tesla's putting a bitcoin project on pause until the process of mining the tokens , which requires a huge amount of electricity, until it becomes less dependent on fossil fuels and more environmentally responsible. the reaction was swift across the business world. billionaire mark cuban jumping into defend the crypto on twitter posting with a link to a new york times article, outlines

the disastrous effect not of bitcoin mining but of gold and metal mining on the environment. how harmful is the process of bitcoin mining on the planet? right? marathon digital holdings is a pure play bitcoin miner that churns out about 45 new bitcoin per day while getting a pounding at this hour down 16% at the hope enter the stock is up 2,550 plus percent over the past year. here in a fox business exclusive let's get marathon side of the story, from ceo fred teal. fred talk about baptism by fire. pretty new ceo joining in the last couple of weeks. if elon musk were in front of you right now, fred, what would your response be to his reasoning behind no longer accepting bitcoin until the min ing process depends more on sustainable energy. >> well it's really interesting because elon musk, better than most people, should know that a lot of the bitcoin mining is done today using renewable

energy, and ark invest recently published a report stating by their calculations, 76% of bitcoins mined are done using renewable energy. coin shares did a similar report a little while before, with a number in the 73% range, and you know, at the end of the day, you've got to realize that elon musk is incentivized by selling products around renewable energy , and i think a large portion of the profit of tesla is actually the sale of energy credits, so if you take those off his p & l i think the results of tesla be rather different so he has an incentive with this discussion and by the way there's nothing wrong with talking about renewable energy. i think it's very important, and if you look at our specific plans and i think many of our peers in the industry in north america, we're very focused on moving towards green models. we're very focused on achieving carbon new fatality in our bitcoin mining and this is a real focus going forward in the

future. the key thing though is that when you really look at the energy consumed by bitcoin today , it's less than banking today, it's much less than gold today and i'm talking just energy consumption, not environmental impact as you mentioned in the quote in the tweet from mark cuban. so i think he gets a little blown out of proportion. liz: i do want to just illuminate our viewers, who may not know how bitcoin is mined. this is not digging into the ground. this involves energy computers that perform computational math problems that are very very specific and complicated, and then, if you're able to solve those problems somehow, you then , are able to extract from the system new bitcoins. so can you just run us through in sort of the postage stamp size explanation for people who really don't understand this and why it's a thing? >> sure, so if you think about bitcoin mining, it's really the process of verifying blocks on the blockchain.

so it's a security function of the blockchain, so as transactions happen, they are queued up in a type of buffer, if you would, and as those transactions appear on the blockchain, miners then assemble them into blocks and try and solve this cryptographic problem that will validate a block. the first person to validate a block receives a reward in the form of bitcoin and on it goes and that process churns and churns and there are millions of miners mining who really fulfill the function of verifying transactions on the blockchain and making the blockchain the record that it is and providing the security of the transactions that are on the blockchain. liz: fred, you know, i saw the cambridge study that had come out relatively recently that said 76% of bitcoin miners are now turning two sustainable energy and renewables because they are looking for the cheapest form of electricity. to me, i'm looking at the other side of this as well, india, for example, is going to institute or at least it's going to

propose fines against people who bitcoin mine, because they already have problems with black outs in that country and they are also heavily dependent on coal, which as we know, is certainly a bad fossil fuel. can you just speak to maybe what elon musk probably heard from his green customers? i agree with you. he didn't know this before, sure he did, but he must have heard from customers who said what are you doing supporting bitcoin when it really is an energy-gulp ing option. >> it's a great question, so, most institutional investors and tesla has very many institutional investors, are very focused on esg, rightly so. so, i'm a big believer in esg as well and i think that companies need to be focused on the environment, and doing so for good. the thing with bitcoin mining, it has a really unique function in that it is driving very rapid iteration and deployment of renewable energy. if you look at the amount of renewable energy that came

online inq 4 of last year, it increased by 45%. now people maybe don't have a frame of reference for that, but renewable energy now represents almost 300 gigawatts of power and growing, and it's growing at a very very rapid rate. the challenge, however, with renewable energy is you can't store it today, and so it goes to waste, if you don't have a place to consume it, and as more and more renewable comes online, it needs to be consumed, so the bitcoin mining industry is the perfect outlet for that excess energy. that's why you'll see it's bitcoin miners are going to drive the cost reduction of renewable energy and actually, create an incentive for people to deploy much more renewable energy and accelerate that process. liz: fred, i understand and i do believe, because i've covered cryptocurrencies for several years now, and i do see it as a certainly a game changer and it is here to stay, because it is evolution when it comes to

payment and currency; however, this example, where a company, tesla, puts out a statement. the bitcoin price tanks completely, you know, a couple of jokes on saturday night live. the price is so incredibly volatile, this gives ammo to the haters and the non--believers. we just heard from jamie dimon last week. he was speaking to the wall street journal. i want you to listen to what he said, specifically about why he really doesn't support bitcoin at all and then you can comment. >> the people have to remember, a currency is supported by the taxing authority of a country, the military authority, rule of law, a central bank, which meant not to debase it. it's not the same thing as somebody that has no asset back so i'm not a bitcoin supporter. i don't care about bitcoin. i know i'm going to get tons of e-mails about this. i have no interest in it. liz: that said, he is putting together products because he says his clients want it. my final question to you, elon is right in front of

you. what do you say to him about what he said last night? >> i would ask him, hey, elon when are you coming out with bitcoin mining equipment that has zero energy impact, and when do your products start servicing the needs of bitcoin miners, because there's nobody better at battery storage than elon and he really should be focused on helping the crypto industry become much more energy- conscience and greener, so i would love to have elon in front of me and i'd love to have a conversation with him and say elon let's partner, let's figure out how we really take on this challenge, and how we totally green bitcoin mining. liz: huh, okay, let's see if we can get that to happen. i'd be happy to cover the conversation, fred thiel, great to have you on the program thank you so much and we do want to just quickly check bitcoin at the moment yet it is pretty much struggling here. remember it was about $54,000 yesterday, per coin. right now i'm looking at it around 48,000. well the broader market is definitely coming back and we've

got this on the ticker, you're welcome. we can see it any time here the dow is up 543 points a nice percentage jump here, an individual name out there that has been a real momentum has been getting hammered, bumble now trading below its ipo price despite higher-than-expected sales numbers for the first quarter. wall street rejecting a hookup with the shares of the dating app after finding its forward revenue guidance to be too conservative. bumble dropping 14.8% right now. that frantic search for used cars really showed up in yesterday's april consumer price index report on inflation. prices for pre-owns spiked 10%, and vroom is bearing that out. the online car dealer reported a smaller than expected loss for the first quarter, revenue also beat, the stock is up 2% right now, vroom said total gross profit nearly doubled year-over-year and you can see some of the other names here , sonic automotive, auto nation, group automotive, all moving higher at the moment with

carvana, well let's just call that down half a percent. from used cars to used clothes online consignment retailer posh mark is plunging after a better-than-expected quarterly report, losing 23% at the moment investors concerned about marketing costs impacting the bottom line. other secondhand apparel companies are getting caught in the downdraft, thread up losing 13%, the real real down 5%. and the red hot silver screen movie theatre chain is also the crowd favorite amc is jumping 31% at this hour, after an equity raise. the movie theatre chain says it sold 43 million shares to raise $428 million. amc clearly cashing in on the trading frenzy and the stock is up a jaw dropping 519% year-to-date. sonos making its voice heard loud and clear after posting a

surprise second quarter profit and a 90% jump in revenue. the home audio company also raising its full year revenue guidance. investors pumping up the volume on shares in this final hour up 5.7%. by the way, market down, sonos ceo patrick spence joins the "claman countdown" tomorrow in this hour , up next, wall street in rally mode erasing yesterday 's losses peter shift and sarg are commanding the floor show, how alarmed are they about rising inflation, what defensive trades are they making and wait until you see how many hot names over the past year are pulling back by more than 10% this month alone, we're going to show you that and more. we're coming right back. obsession has many names, this is ours. the lexus is.

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bounce forward, with comcast business. liz: well, look at this. we got markets going gangbusters in this final hour, rebounding after three days of pretty significant losses, especially in the aggregate but a win for the bulls was not a sure thing this morning, when yet another inflation gauge spiked in april. the producer price index, this gives us inflation

indications at the manufacturing level, jumped 6.2% year-over-year, that's the largest increase since the bureau of labor statistics, started tracking the data, but they only started tracking it in , that can't be right, i've been talking about the ppi for 100 years but anyway it's a big move but we also saw better-than-expected weekly jobless claims which fell to a new pandemic low of 473,000 last week, so let's bring in our market experts. is this selling done? we got euro pacific capital ceo and president peter schiff and s arg guilfoil. there seems to be a glaring sign , inflation is here, it's climbing and feds not taking it pretty seriously at least saying it's going to be temporary. tell me what investors should be doing now as we have seen a lot of very hot stocks become extraordinarily cheap, or certainly down anywhere from 10 % to a loss of 45% over the last month alone and as we cycle through some of those

names, give me your sense of whether the bulk selling is done. >> no, i think you've got a lot of selling yet to come in these momentum high pe or no earnings type stocks that did really well when people didn't expect inflation and thought the fed be able to keep rates at zero indefinitely, but as they've been surprised by inflation they are starting to sell-off those type of momentum stocks and rotate into value, but you know, a lot of the people who did not anticipate all this inflation are now making another mistake in assuming the fed is going to successfully fight inflation. it's not. the fed says it has the tools to fight inflation, but if your only tool to cure a headache is a handgun, you're not going to pull the trigger. the fed is bluffing, there is no fight. inflation is going to win by default and so you have to buy the stocks and do the best in an inflationary environment, that's value stocks, that's going to be the emerging markets

, and in particular, the commodities and gold and silver mining stocks that's where the biggest gains are going to be made in the stagflationary environment that we're now in. liz: sarg, i agree with peter we definitely have inflation and i think it's going to last a lot longer than the fed says it will ; however, is the bulk selling for the moment over and when you look through etsy, and marathon, and cloud flare, they are all well off, we picked out one month lows but many are off their one year highs and so to me, i'm wondering where you see an opportunity in names. >> well, i just spent about a week and a half making the biggest structural changes to my portfolio that i have made in a long time, so i've gotten myself out of pretty much every tech stock that doesn't have a positive net income. i'm looking right now at anything that produces

manufactures or transports either raw materials or finished goods and does so profitably, i'll make peter happy. i love gold right now, both physical and paper. i'm taking my allocation, recommended allocation for gold up to 10% it was at 7.5% and basically, i love the materials. i no longer like those high priced tech stocks. i've reduced amazon. i've reduced apple, i've reduced service now, and i'm out of all of the ones i wouldn't even want to tell you i was in. liz: [laughter] but peter, if sarg is jumping on your bandwagon slightly and we're looking at say for example , barret gold which had a very nice one-month trade, are there particular names that you know so well, because you've been the gold bug for so long, that our viewers might not know and you say this is a good opportunity. >> well, obviously you're mentioning some of the bigger names in both of those stocks, i own in client accounts we own them in our mutual funds.

the key is when you understand an inflationary environment, you want to buy stocks that actually have earnings now, not stocks that might have earnings in the future, and that can pay good dividends and the gold stocks are particularly well positioned at least the seniors to not only pay good dividends but to increase their dividends as the price of the gold they're mining continues to go up but more importantly, you want to own stocks that earn their revenue outside the united states, because the dollar has got a long way to fall and that means that companies that are earning revenue in currencies that are not the dollar are going to have more earnings to return to their shareholders, so you want to be in the multinationals and of course, the gold stocks are selling gold globally so they can benefit from the weakness of the dollar. liz: sarg, i want our viewers to really absorb this. you're into stocks now or you sold all of the tech stocks that don't have positive income. i mean, i can't believe you were buying the ones that didn't any

way. i mean -- >> well, on a day-to-day basis, sure, i'll tell you exactly, my most recent purchases have been in freeport mcmarohan, southern copper, alcoa, union pacific, exxon, british petroleum, united parcel service, fedex, those are my most recent purchases and i'm leaving my semiconductor stocks alone, i'm leaving the nvidia, micron, all alone because i do believe them going forward they are going to semiconductors are going to be a commodity. they aren't part of tech anymore liz: great to have you both, smart discussion here, we always love to put you guys together. thanks so much. crude reality, median gas prices speaking above $3 per gallon yesterday. we're starting to see gasoline pullback but the colonial

pipeline, yeah, it is coming back online, but why still the lines? we're going to take you live to the colonial terminal end, the end of that huge pipeline, it's in new jersey and we'll find out right there when to expect the crude to be flowing at full capacity again closing bell ringing in 36 minutes the dow charging ahead by 517 points. the s&p stronger by 1.5% at this hour, or 57 points, don't go away. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of,

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liz: well, look at this. we now have the wholesale price of gasoline, we call this rbob down 3.2% because yes , the colonial pipeline is now back up and running after being hit by terrible ransomware , and bloomberg's reporting they paid the ransom. $5 million but gasoline stations

across the east coast are still feeling the impact of the gas crunch take a look at this. the latest numbers from gas buddy show that gas stations are struggling to keep their tanks full. 73% of stations in d.c., out of gas. 68% in north carolina and pretty much half of all the stations in south carolina, virginia, and georgia are empty. lydia hu is, and we put her here because this is really fascinating. she's at the end of the colonial pipeline. it goes from the south all the way up to woodbridge new jersey. lydia, the president is stress ing this will take time. how long for things to be back to normal once again? reporter: hi, liz. colonial pipeline says it should get more normal at the pump bias early as this weekend but analysts are being more skeptical and cautious saying it depends on where you live. if you live in these regions more hard-hit like georgia or north carolina it could be a week or longer before it feels

like it's totally back to normal at your local pump. there are some encouraging signs already, you mentioned a moment ago gas buddy statistics. north carolina reporting that there are about 68% of gas stations in north carolina reporting outages, most recently , but just indicate that it is down from earlier this morning already when 71% were reporting outages in that state. well, the question is why is it taking so long to bring them all back asco loan colonial pipeline restored the pipeline and fuel travels very slowly through the pipeline moving only between three, four, five miles per hour , so any fuel that left texas even just yesterday, it could take two weeks or longer to reach the end of the line here in new jersey. listen to this. >> it maybe a couple of weeks before things really start to feel normal. that is you don't have to put in a lot of effort to find gas so this is something that still could be a factor, a headache up until memorial day weekend, and

it should really ease after that reporter: now, during this outage, the national average price for a gallon of gas has ticked up according to triple a, reaching today, $3.03, just about. that's up $0.02 from yesterday, up $0.09 from just last week and analysts are saying it's normal to see that type of increase this time of year especially ahead of the memorial day weekend we see a demand to hit the road for vacation travel but certainly it won't be surprising if they see some small price increases in these hard-hit regions related to possibly this outage in the coming days until it's totally resolved and back to normal. liz? liz: yeah, you know what? we really should show some of the stocks of the colonial pipeline investors because we do have a lot of these names and we're talking about pipeline stocks themselves, they're in the green right now, kinder morgan is down and they pay really good dividends but we are watching the

investors, bp, con conoco phillips, down, kkr moving higher, lydia hu thank you very much. >> hugh heffner's playboy empire undergoing a magical transformation in the digital age, up next, ceo ben cohen is here to reveal the next bunny he plans to pull out of the playboy top hat. closing bell ringing in 29 minutes we've just hit a new high on the dow we're up 569 points, don't go away. did you know that geico's whole 15 minutes thing... that came from me. really. my first idea was “in one quarter of an hour, your savings will tower... over you. figuratively speaking." but that's not catchy, is it? that's not going to swim about in your brain. so i thought, what about... 15 minutes. 15 percent. serendipity.

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♪ ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ liz: not exactly your dad's playboy anymore, the parent of the iconic nude magazine publisher playboy, playboy group plby yes, it's trading down today, at least in the final couple minutes of trade, but it has seen a gain of

294% year-to-date. it just reported first quarter earnings, the company known for its iconic buggy logo returned via spac in february and has pivoted from the male- focused magazine business founded by hugh hefner to a global consumer product start up currently selling $3 billion worth of playboy- branded items globally. it's now making a big bet on non-fungible tokens but let's bring in ceo and president ben cone. these quarterly numbers look really strong and i really want to know exactly what the biggest driver was for you, ben. >> liz thanks for having me back on fox. the biggest driver in our first quarter year-over-year was our direct to consumer business growing over 114% year-over-year , and it really speaks to the power of this brandon a global basis that drives over $3 billion of consumer spend and so what we're doing is we're changing our business model from that of a legacy media and licensing business to that of a fast- growing consumer product

company where we own the relationship with the consumer. liz: well tell me exactly what you're doing in the non-fungible token world because one thing i know for sure and i want our viewers to understand is you tipped your toe into this with six original pieces of playboy art for the nft market and you brought in seven figures? does this mean that you're going to continue on this path? >> yeah, the nft market is really interesting for us and it goes so much further beyond nft 's. it's about enabling or put being blockchain technology into everything we do so yes the first drop on six original pieces those didn't exist the day before, in partnership with artist slime sunday generated almost seven figures there's been 4 55,000 dollars in secondary sales in which we participate as well on that, but we have a 10 million-piece archive, we have a 5,000-piece art collection and when we think about the long term potential of this as a significant revenue

driver, it even goes beyond that archive. we think about the full experiences, you know, around halloween where not only can you participate in a playboy party in a virtual world but you can also participate in a live playboy party and then we can also outfit your avatar with playboy merchandise, that $3 billion of global consumer spend, all of this has no inventory cost, no capital cost against it, so for us, long term , it's a perfect blend of digital with physical goods. liz: i mean, this is a whole new world, and the whole pixilated phenomenon, that's a different story but when you look at the one cover that hauled in 250,000, this was the playboy cover that you had as an original nft, that does make some people ask, is this a very frothy mocker" that maybe is close to hitting the top? >> look, i don't think it is.

i think we're just in the first inning. i think there's a fundamental shift happening on how people view collectibles, so what's hanging on your wall is now hanging in your digital wallet, and i think that is something that's happening in the gaming environment, so when you look at the skin market and you look at other collectibles in the digital era, i have two kids and i look at how my kids live their life and what they value. i think this is a much larger shift that is happening, but again, i think we're really in sort of like the dial-up era of internet right now, and i'm very excited about the future. liz: china is a huge market and i'm talking an actual retail market. 36 million apparel pieces sold online in the country. this has got to be a huge runway for you. how do you develop that and capitalize on it? >> it is. we've been in china for 25 years last we're we did over $1 billion of e-commerce revenue alone not including the off line

revenue and that's what we know about versus what is actually being sold in the country. today, we're largely in men's fashion brand. we just took back our grooming rights so we have a long way to go in men's grooming and skincare, and we launched women 's apparel in november of last year on 11-11 to great success so really excited about rolling out women's apparel. if you look at the first quarter in the united states on their b2c platforms women accounted for 55% of our sales and just think of a brand global ly, india, china and other places, we think china is a market that can more than double where we are today. liz: we can't leave without showing what you're slapping the playboy brand logo on. is it an airplane? is it a plane, a bird? this is incredible. you're obviously leveraging this brand as you look forward. >> yeah, look. we're bringing back the big bunny obviously one of the most famous planes ever outside of air force one.

this is really part of our strategy moving forward, this is not a corporate aircraft. this is an aircraft that we use to engage influencers and celebrities around the world who are already participating in the brand, and so we're really excited, it's a fine billboard at the end of the day. liz: okay, i love it. i mean i think it's adorable, and many years ago, i got invited to the playboy mansion, and hef was very lovely came down in his silk pajamas as always. ben great to see you thank you very much as we look at that long time brand moving ahead into the new age. ben kohn, up playboy group. >> thanks, liz. liz: the spac craze, particularly the celebrity-backed spacs are getting a lot of attention as of late, but not necessarily in a good way. charlie gasparino breaks the story for us, next. and speaking of a great story, how about the story behind the sugar rush, fired from a corporate job one day, whipping

up a recipe for her own business , literally that same night. my latest ever episode of everyone talks to liz focuses on founder and ceo of mini cupcake sensation "baked by melissa" she reveals how she picked herself up off the floor the very day she was canned and began building what is today a wildly successful global cupcake empire listen to the story on spotify, apple, google wherever you get your podcasts we have more than 100 episodes of everyone talks to liz. we're at session highs down up 580 points don't move you've got to see how this one ends. experience capability, crafted by lexus.

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liz: two mega stocks report quarterly numbers in about 13

minutes when the bell rings, after the bell, we will find out about the reopening of the u.s. economy and whether it's taking effect through two particular prisms. number one, disney. investors are closely watching whether streaming service disney plus is faterring when walt disney reports second quarter earnings shortly. disney is expected to report revenue of $15.7 billion on earnings per share of $0.27 and we'll also be looking at the theme parks, with covid-19 restrictions easing, investors want to see whether we'll see a tailwind for domestic travel, and that, of course we look at disney cruise lines but also airbnb. airbnb reports after the bell, the alternative accommodation booking company, rent out your own home is expected to report a loss of $1.19 on revenue of $714 million during the first quarter. airbnb at the moment, we look at it, it's down 21% this month, it's down 28% this quarter.

there was the spac craze and then there was the celebrity- driven spac craze. slap a celebrity's name on, well it's the latter that's raising a few regulatory eyebrows at this hour, charlie gasparino breaks this story. what's going on on this one, charlie? charlie: one of the things that gary gensler is going to look at as the new sec chair is spac and whether investors are being enticed to go into risky spac, because there's a celebrity on the name, and so what we're hear ing now from the securities and exchange commission, at least people close to them are telling the fox business network and those are some of the celebrities. we got a-rod, shaq, serena, i guess we got a lot more coming as well, but we are hearing now is that they maybe looking very deeply at the celebrity spacs including disclosures of relevant business and investing experience. funny, liz, someone just tweeted

at me a guy named contrarian short says a- rod was on shark tank a few times, does that count? i don't think so. i don't think the sec cares too much about that. what's interesting about this is that the sec is very weary about these celebrities that aren't great investors lending their names to this and people start rushing in, and they maybe requiring a lot more disclosure. for example, what does shaq know about investing? you know, -- liz: a lot, hold on. charlie: maybe he knows but they have to disclaim. is he a big time investor? here is something that john coffee said, you know, john is our friend, the columbia law professor. liz: columbia. charlie: one of the smartest guys around. merely the fact that it might take longer to get through a registration with the sec be a factor, and a disincentive and that they could, meaning the sec , could require brutally-

direct disclosures, that celebrities have no relevant business experience and cannot read a balance sheet. [laughter] could you imagine if they have to put in there, alex rodriguez a test he could read a balance sheet. i could see where the sec is going on this , you know, listen , people have a lot of money, they have stimulus checks , interest rates are low they could borrow and if you're looking for places to go and some celebrities puts their name on a spac, you know, you could see how this could get out of hand, and i think the sec and gensler is very worried about this and gensler is going to make his mark on a couple of things a lot of people think he makes his mark on spacs and reigning in the excesses in spac s, and if you are talking about excesses i'm not saying i believe this , this is what a lot of regulators, people at the sec believe, some securities lawyers, some of the excesses involve spacs like the liz claman spac, or the neil cavuto spac. those , i be very suspect, putting my money in, and i could

-- liz: hey, i resemble that remark charlie: [laughter] well, could you imagine? alex rodriguez does have some business experience, he's done real estate investing, but you know, this is different. this is like investing like a mutual fund investing. this is real life wall street stuff. where is steve kohn we know does investing for a living. what does shaq do for a living? plays basketball, he's a very good -- liz: no he does not, oh, my god! charlie: i know he's a businessman. liz: shaq invests, he's invest ing in the blaze pizza, i mean that's been a huge winner. charlie: okay but that's different than this. you know, it's like whose the guy? liz: it's not different. charlie: who was the guy touting wework so much that celebrity. what was his name on that 70's show, i can't remember. i can remember who he was. liz: oh, yeah.

hello? director, could somebody, he's married to the thing and the thing and the girl. charlie: yes, ashton kucher was out there saying he's a big time investor, what does he know about investing other than he's got millions of dollars and he puts it in different products some broker probably tells him to put it in. i'm just saying these celebrit ies, i just, you know? i could see why the sec is worried about this and you know what happens next at wework by the way. [laughter] liz: yeah, yeah, all right, great to see you, charlie thank you very much. charlie: liz claman. liz: charlie gasparino coming in i'm thinking about it. inflation just one of the many potholes investors have to dodge right now, but, today's countdown closer has four others he says you need to keep an eye on, along the road to profits. closing bell ringing in six and a half minutes, the dow is up 505, remember, it lost 681

yesterday, so we haven't erased that yet. before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new? -audrey's expecting... -twins! ♪♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan.

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♪. liz: green on the screen in a big way. markets set for a three-day losing streak, summer almost upon us, before you get too excited there are not one or two things you need to be watching, inflation, selloffs, et cetera. five things you need to be watching. f5, for this fifth month of the year. cornerstone managing partner jeff corp is here. what is the five, jeff. >> inflation, dominant risk out here, certainly see it this week, a little bit after selloff but it has been pretty orderlily, interest rates, certainly the big one that we'll

see what the fed does. it has been pretty much a fed or fiscally induced rally. interest rates are low. so when the fed starts tapering will be the first point. we'll see start raising, watch for interest rate movements way off. watch valuations. valuations are certainly high, especially with the reopening trade. so maybe some good time to take some of those high beta stocks off. the watch for earnings. we had pretty strong earnings season, 90% of the way through. 85% of the companies beat their earnings. showing some good numbers in q1. q2 could be a lot better. again the fed is in the goldilocks situation. we have to be came of letting the market over heat. but, we can't be too aggressive in that, manipulating, raising rates too quickly and because what happens typically when you see it in every prior market crash when they tighten too

quickly, the markets don't like it. they -- pretty hard. message something key. liz: got a taper tantrum. 40 seconds left. what do you buy then after you outlayed this heat sis here? >> great question. i got a good answer for you. of consumer desconsideration nary trade. a lot of money to be made. regional banks. materials, industrials, saw really strong earnings and think they will continue. may not be a bad time to take a little bit after, little bit risk off, some utilities again as i mentioned, industrials back on. let's see what happens in the summer months now that we're a little bit after slower time coming. pretty good time to bar belt portfolio -- barbell your

portfolio. liz: cornerstone jeff carbone. airbnb, doordash, disney up on desk for earnings after the bell. a nice gain here. 445 points for the dow. keep in mind, we lost 681 yesterday. [closebell rings] we have not yet erased that. s&p, up 50. nasdaq up 94. "kudlow" is next. ♪. larry: welcome to "kudlow," i'm larry kudlow. we'll go right to president biden who has a surprise press conference, something else. take a listen. >> roll out the vaccine, boost to our economy. as i said in my joint address to the congress this vaccination effort has been historic logistical achievement for the united states of america. over the past 114 days our vaccination program has l