maria: a big thank you to dagen mcdowell and nancy tengler, ladies great to see you this morning. dagen: great to see you. maria: have a great day everyone here is ashley webster in for stu this morning, ashley take it away. ashley: thank you very much, maria, good morning to you, good morning, everyone indeed, i'm ashley webster in today for stuary varney. we are back, stuart said memorial day weekend will be a turning point for this country and guess what? he was right. the tsa screened 7.1 million people at the airports from thursday through sunday, friday, by the way, was the highest single travel day since march of 2020 what a comeback. now, take a look at the markets

as we kickoff a new month. we have have a nice gain shaping up in the pre-market at least the dow up 256 points, the s&p and nasdac also up around half a percent and then, let's take a look at some of those so-called meme stocks surging again this morning, amc entertainment up nearly 20%, blackberry up 10% , game stop up 5%. are they here to stay? we'll talk about it, but it's not exactly the same story for bitcoin, down more than 35% last month, its second-worst monthly performance so where does it go from here well apparently on june 1 we're looking for a gain of about 1% but we'll talk all about bitcoin and now this , uk intelligence is now reversing its position on covid's origin. the country now reportedly believes the deadly virus may indeed have come from the wuhan lab. we've got the details on that, plus, take a look at this shirt. just take a look. yes, you are reading that right.

it says blue lives murder, and its been sold on amazon. now in the past, amazon has pulled down racist anti-semetic and sexist items that have caused controversy, so the question is, why is this shirt still up there? we'll deal with that story, straight ahead. we've got a big lineup for you today, larry kudlow, ronna mc daniel, ric grenell and tiki barber just to name a view. it is tuesday, june 1, "varney" & company is about to begin. >> ♪ ♪ ♪ ashley: "good vibrations" we do have some good vibrations a love ly gorgeous morning in new york city, and here comes june. now, typically, a weak month for

the market is june, but we'll wait and see looks like we're starting it on the right foot. look at that green across the screen, let's bring in luke lloyd, luke george to you. >> good morning, ashley. ashley: i guess the question is i'll ask you is, good morning, will we see the rocket ship economy hit the pause button as we head towards summer? >> ashley, i'm sure you've heard this song "wake me up when september ends" by green day. they could have been talking about the stock market in that song since june through september is weak with light volume. here is the thing, june, july and august could be weaker than usual this year. there's so much pent-up demand to go out and do things. we all had a tough 2020 with being locked down all summer long last year. this year, everything is opening back up, heading into summer. that means there will be a lot of retail and institutional investors hitting up the golf course traveling around enjoying the weather. the big thing to keep an eye on this summer is the tone from the federal reserve about inflation as people have a shopping spree with their money. there's a serious game of chicken going on between the fed and the markets. the bond markets sitting the fed

should raise rates sooner rather than later to hunt could erin population but the fed continues to use terms like transitory to describe inflation. the big question is whether inflation is, in fact, transitory. we all know democrats in washington love to spend money. what's stopping washington from printing more stimulus and funding inefficient government programs over the next three years? as we open backup, we're going to see the hottest economy of our life because overstimulated already. i think the fed knows that but is okay if the economy runs a little hot but if pot titians add more fuel to the fire, the fed will have no choice but to hike interest rates. ashley: they will be under pressure and we'll hear from them in mid-june and a lot of investors in the markets will be interested to see what the fed has to say but that pressure on them to do something with rates could certainly be cranking up. stay right there if you could, luke. i want to get to bitcoin, wrap ping up its second-worst performing month hovering around 36,000 it's up 295, let's bring in susan li good morning, susan.

the drop, we believe, in bitcoin , has been caused perhaps by all the calls for plans to regulate it, is that right? >> yeah, we also heard from the newcomb p troller here in the u.s. with the currency and the biden administration, he just told the financial times that there should be a regulatory perimeter when it comes to cryptocurrency concerns over changes and financial payments he says reminds him of the years leading into 2008 with unregulated markets, so you had bitcoin trading lower over the weekend, i mean, at 36,000, we're trading higher than the 34,000 lows that we saw on saturday morning, so we're actually on a two-day winning streak price volatility has come down and the lowest since the start of the year if you look at the difference in high and low prices for bitcoin in a single session and some say with volatility narrowing might be a bullish signal if you bounced off the lows of the weekend as well. ashley: that's interesting let's bring back in luke. luke do you think bitcoin can re bound, is it kind of shaken

out all the weak hands as they say? >> ashley, bitcoin doesn't have fundamental earnings like stocks , so the bitcoin cycle realized solely on supply and demand. once there are large gains on the table people tend to cash out to go somewhere else that's what we're seeing right now with bitcoin and then you get people panic selling would bought in at high prices which causes the sell-off to become more extreme and this happened multiple times in bitcoin's existence all of which proved to be buying opportunities in the long term. bitcoin is speculative and it's going to be volatile. 80% corrections top to bottom aren't uncommon for bitcoin and it's really a trader's dream. volatility provides opportunities. strategy, discipline, and patience are so important when investing in speculative assets. i'm patiently waiting and lick ing my chops to pick bitcoin up around $25,000. ashley: wow, 25,000, it has to go down at least another 10 or 11,000. do you think that will happen? >> i do, absolutely think that

will happen. listen bitcoin and cryptocurrencies trade heavily on technical analysis. the technicals right now are pointing towards a break below $30,000, once that support is broken we're heading down to $24,000, where we broke out first time around. listen the breakout from 24,000 to $40,000 was very very quick, so i think that we head back down the test the breakout areas. bitcoin is always retested the breakout areas in history in the past. ashley: that's interesting. do you like the digital register play, something like what is it coinbase or something like that , maybe doge, or is it bitcoin that you like? >> you got to stick to the big dogs when it comes to the derivative plays like coinbase the broker business has been going out of business for a while that's why all these brokers went to commission-free and coinbase essentially is the old broker in history so i wouldn't want to own coinbase, i'd rather own bitcoin directly. bitcoin is going to $1 million a coin, i think it's to 1 million.

ashley: so just to sum this all up, luke, i think you're bullish on the markets overall? >> i'm absolutely bullish in the long term. i just think since it's supply and demand is such a heavy mover for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies there's still a lot more supply, a lot of people who bought high who were panicking i think 24- $25,000 is in the table in the short-term and i'm a trader i want to pick it up and ride the wave in long term. ashley: very interesting. we'll see how that plays out, luke lloyd, thank you for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. thank you very much. all right, let me take a look at amc. it's surging to kickoff the month as you can see , is this still riding a high, it's a meme stock as we call it, susan but up 20% in pre-market? >> that's the typical ride we get in amc entertainment shares these days, so they had some pretty positive news this morning, they are raising a quarter billion dollars selling shares at above the friday close

at $27 and change this morning and that's a premium and that's encouraging especially when you have the reddit wall street bets crowd piling in and amc more than tripled in may, one single month up 400% and reddit we saw 100% plus gains last week and also there are some fundamentals at play here the biggest box office weekend since covid started $100 million intake over four days over the weekend with the quiet place 2 winning out, i'm not a huge fan of horror movies but a lot of people went to watch it and cinemark is also up on the news as well so i like this reopening and this recovery play we're seeing with a lot of the cinema plays. ashley: yeah, absolutely. people just want to get out and go to the movies, they haven't done it for a while, susan, thank you. let's take a look at moderna if we can they just applied for four fda approvals for their vaccine, moderna is already, by the way, administered over 100 million jabs, they are the second company behind pfizer to apply for full approval

that's essentially flat in pre- market though taking a look at the futures looks like we'll start off the month in fine fashion, june 1 the dow up 250 points, s&p up 21 nasdac up 52. some in the media are finally admitting, have you seen this , that it was a mistake to dismiss the wuhan lab leak theory. roll the tape. >> we need to know how it started, and yes, i think a lot of people have egg on their face some things maybe true even if donald trump said them. ashley: uh-huh. egg on their face. the media refusing to cover it back then as you remember, but now, the uk is joining the u.s. by calling for a second investigation into the origins of the virus. and get ready for tax increases if president biden's $6 trillion budget is passed, 29 tax hikes to be exact. that's what grover norquist says will happen, he explains it,

next. >> ♪ nobody builds 5g like verizon builds 5g because we're the engineers who built the most reliable network in america. thousands of smarter towers, with the 5g coverage you need. broader spectrum for faster 5g speeds. next-generation servers with superior network reliability. because the more you do with 5g, the more your network matters.

it's us...pushing us. it's verizon...vs verizon. and who wins? you. seeing blood when you brush or floss can be a sign of early gum damage. new parodontax active gum repair kills plaque bacteria at the gum line to help keep the gum seal tight. new parodontax active gum repair toothpaste. [typing sounds] [music fades in] [voice of female] my husband ben and i opened ben's chili bowl the very same year that we were married. that's 1958. [voice of male] the chili bowl really has never closed in our history. when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot. and it's been really helpful to keep people updated on google. we wouldn't be here without our

wonderful customers. we're really thankful for all of them. [female voices soulfully singing “come on in”] bigg digital assets, a cryptocurrency sector leader, has established two exciting companies. netcoins, the most

trusted way to trade cryptocurrency in canada, and the blockchain intelligence group, with products to stamp out crypto crime. bigg digital assets. ♪ ♪ look, if your wireless carrier was a guy you'd leave him tomorrow. not very flexible. not great at saving. you deserve better... xfinity mobile. now they have unlimited for just $30 a month... $30. and they're number one in customer satisfaction. his number... delete it. i'm deleting it. so, break free from the big three. xfinity internet customers, switch to xfinity mobile and get unlimited with 5g included for $30 on the nations fastest, most reliable network.

>> ♪ old time of rock and roll, the kind of music just soothes the soul ♪ ashley: bob seger as we look at the statue of liberty in new york harbor on a beautiful morning. take a look at the futures for you the dow up some 253 points, as we are about 15 minutes from the opening on wall street, the s&p and nasdac also up about half a percent. all right, let's get to this story, president biden has released his $6 trillion budget, which would increase federal funding to its highest level

since all the way back to world war ii. this , as the group americans for tax reform found 29 tax increases in biden's plan with a net increase of $3.6 trillion. good time to bring in the group 's president grover norquist. grover, good morning to you. i guess the first question is what does all of this mean for the economy and our wallets? >> not good news for the economy, not good news for your wallets, not good news for middle class taxpayers, or small businesses. 29 tax increases, $3.6 trillion in higher taxes, 87,000 new irs agents with something to do to look over your personal economic privacy. this raises taxes on small businesses, on large businesses. the corporate income tax increase will increase the utilities of all-american, utility bills that americans get you don't have to be rich to pay

a gas tax, to pay a tax on your gas, on your electricity. why? because utilities pass on, legally all federal taxes straight through to consumers, so when biden looks you in the eye and says he's only going to tax rich people, and corporations, his corporate income tax on utilities will be paid by you and every small business that uses energy will see your prices go up, your cost go up, the cost of energy go up, because taxes are a cost of doing business or selling anything. ashley: so as we recover from covid we're seeing travel number s over this memorial day weekend just bursting out. what does it do to the economy, why are we at this stage of full recovery or at least getting towards full recovery? >> well, i think you're going to see some very good news at the blue states open up. you've seen the red states have significantly lower unemployment because they've opened up when the blue states realize that covid is in the rear view mirror , and they open up, we

should see some serious growth. what we won't see , unfortunately, as these taxes go in, the capital gains tax that they're almost doubling it's going to be twice as high as chinas, the corporate income tax is going to be higher than europe, higher than china. when we get ready to compete, thinking we're going back to the 2019 strong economy, which that year, the median income for a family increased by 6.8%, median income, $4,400. not a check, an increase in your income, the media, not rich people, not poor people, the median, that means tens of millions of people saw similar increases. that was huge. we don't necessarily go back to that kind of growth, because tax increases and the inflation coming from higher spending, and none of this is indexed. all of this talk about i'm only going to tax certain people, you and your children and your grandchildren are going to be much higher tax brackets because

inflation. ashley: you know, it's interesting because the wealthy and the big corporations they have a lot of resources a lot of fancy tax experts and always find a way around things, but it's always the middle class, is it not, that's left handing the or handling the bag. my question to you is, you mentioned that the cost of everything going up, the price of everything being the cost being passed on to the consumer. is that where the middle class gets hit hardest under this biden tax plan? >> that's a big problem, they get hit hardest because of the lower wages you get. the corporate income tax is largely paid, more than half of it's paid by lower wages and less employment, and some people think that it's as high as 70%, other 50%, but they're looking at a $2 trillion increase in taxes on businesses, and a trillion of that is coming out of the pockets of people with lower pay. why do we know that? it's not just theory, because when we cut the corporate income tax with the republican tax cut,

you saw the median income raise again, $4,400 a year, 6.8% increase. that flowed from lower corporate income taxes, reverse engineer that, raise the corporate income tax. that is paid largely, mostly by workers getting paid less, because you don't have as much capital per-worker they can't be as productive, they don't get paid as much. ashley: all right, on that happy note, grover norquist, we have to leave it right there but it's very sobering 29 tax increases, as always, the middle class getting hit hard, all right, grover thank you very much. >> thank you. ashley: now this , the white house says time is running out for republicans to reach a deal on that $1.7 trillion infrastructure bill, whatever you think infrastructure is. susan, when is the deadline? >> it looks like june 7 according to the transport secretary pete buttigieg over the weekend and that's when congress comes back from recess and that's also when they need to clear and clarify direction on what they're voting in so the

white house and president biden are pushing for that $1.7 trillion spending bill, senate gops are counter offering a $900 billion proposal with more being allocated for traditional infrastructure like roads, bridges and airports but apparently we've missed the biden deadline for an actual deal. meantime we are hearing that the senator will be meeting with mr. biden tomorrow at the white house to discuss maybe the gop offer and whether or not that $900 billion has some wiggle room, bid en says he does want a bipartisan deal on spending so hopefully they will get agreement across both sides. ashley: we hope. compromise is a dirty word in washington these days, susan li, it is hard to come by, you're right. now, this. one city was the biggest winner for big tech migration during the pandemic. let me think, susan, which city? >> not hard to guess. austin, texas, according to linkedin data so no surprise there given the numerous big tech companies either relocating to austin or building huge campus like apple.

we know tesla is building their cyber truck there, elon musk has also moved to the city, oracle is going to be based in the future, and out of the 10,000 workers, more move to austin than anywhere else, according to linkedin survey, national, charlotte, jacksonville and denver rounding out the top five so where are workers leaving? again not surprising san francisco, by far the number one place losing tech workers, boston, chicago, cincinnati, and then new york came in fifth which i found was interesting, because i didn't know there was that many tech workers in cincinnati to lose, but apparently, so. ohio. ashley: very interesting. well, what's interesting too is probably the lost liberal town in texas as well. >> no taxes. ashley: that makes a huge difference, absolutely right. thank you very much, susan. take a look at the futures as we get ready to open on wall street in about seven minutes, or thereabouts from now. the dow up 257 points, s&p and nasdac also up half a percent.

all right, it is the question everyone is asking will president trump throw his hat into the ring in 2024? well who knows what could happen but there's also speculation building around nine, i said nine other republicans who may run as well. i'll ask rnc chairwoman ronna mc done yell about that she's up in the next hour. >> ♪ ymca ♪ (vo) conventional thinking doesn't disrupt the status quo. which is why t-mobile for business uses unconventional thinking to help your business realize new possibilities. only one 5g partner offers unmatched network, support, and value-without any trade offs.

before nexium 24hr, anna could only imagine a comfortable night's sleep without frequent heartburn waking her up. now, that dream... . ...is her reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts, for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? for all-day, all-night protection. 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, start an anti-diarrheal, and drink fluids. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor about any fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. life-threatening lung inflammation can occur. tell your doctor about any new or worsening trouble breathing, cough, or chest pain. serious liver problems can happen. symptoms include fatigue, appetite loss,

stomach pain, and bleeding or bruising. blood clots that can lead to death have occurred. tell your doctor if you have pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain and rapid breathing or heart rate, or if you are nursing, pregnant, or plan to be. every day matters. and i want more of them. ask your doctor about verzenio.

ashley: all right, let's take a look at these markets on the up for the first day of june as we're about three minutes or just under from the opening on wall street let's bring in jason katz. good morning to you, jason. you say the focus this quarter will be on crypto volatility, inflation, and rates, so does that mean our booming economy is about to slow down? >> well, ashley, i would really brace for boring, not so much for the economy, but for the market. ashley: [laughter] >> last quarter, we far-exceed ed expectations, and that was an already pretty high bar. we're entering into this earnings vacuum, so the attention is going to, of

course, divert to the volatility of crypto and if, in fact, this inflation is persistent, and the direction of interest rates. that said, there's growing evidence that the economy and the recovery is broadening. we are looking for a blistering quarter next quarter as far as earnings are concerned. far-exceeding expectations. for the year we think earnings could be as high as 40% higher. ashley: blistering, i like the sound of that. with regard to inflation, jason, is it good inflation created by a roaring economy or is it bad inflation caused by mismanagement of monetary policy by the fed or perhaps a little bit of both? >> well the jury is still out on that but we're in the camp that in fact and i hate to use this term because it's overused but in fact, is transitory. so we have seen a pickup of course in prices across-the-board, mostly as a result of idiosyncrasies in supply chains but we're starting

to see the boom come off the rose as far as inflation in prices like lumber and other commodities so i think you're going to see inflation run hotter next quarter but earnings far in excess of that and i think the market will digest that and the collective wisdom of the market is already suggesting that it's transitory. ashley: but you say also this is perhaps a more difficult complex time for investors maybe you should hire a pro to help figure out the maneuverings day by day. >> well granted i'm talking by book but the fact of the matter is you don't want to mistake a bull market for brains and it has been very easy. we have clearly borrowed from the future with respect to stock performance and we are pulling a lot of business forward, so selectivity, doing your research , and not just blindly buying, which is hard to accept when you see meme stocks like a mc go parabolic for no good reason, but eventually what happens? earnings, you know, follow or

rather stock prices follow earnings, which in turn follow the economy, and so the low hanging fruit, ash, has come and gone. ashley: come and gone. all right, jason we'll have to leave it there. thank you very much. you can go ahead and talk your own book, you speak a lot of good sense, jason katz. >> [opening bell ringing] ashley: they are ringing the bell, giving us the thumbs up sign, everyone is happy at the first day of june and we are expecting a positive start. here we go, we are off and running in a new month and let's have a look at that board on the dow, lots of green, sales force, the only one in the red right now, boeing, amgen , chevron all leading the pack in the very early going the dow up 263 points in a very early going take a look at the s&p if we can both the s&p and dow by the way could be again approaching record all-time highs for this nice start to the new month. the s&p up .6 of a percent up 42.31 good for a 27-point gain and let's take a look at the

nasdac, we always look at the nasdac with the tech-heavy index as it is. also up 50.56%, half a percent the nasdac at 13, 824. let's take a look at some of those meme stocks very volatile up and down but today they are up, especially amc, a good weekend for business. the selling shares as well taking advantage of their stock surge, that stock up 19, well just over 19% for amc, blackberry up 9%, game stop also up nearly 4%. let's take a look at cloudara, that's a software firm, carl icahn is one of the largest shareholders that doesn't hurt but they are about to be taken private isn't that right, susan? >> you're right that's why you're looking at the stock surging up today by 23% so this is an analytics cloud- based company, and yes, it looks like kkr will be buying it for about $16 a share, so we're very close to that off a price which means that wall street

thinks this deal will go through it's about a $4.7 billion deal in total, and that's pretty much the premium, the two fridays closing price of 24% that's why the stock is doing what it's doing right now. ashley: not bad, 24%, we'll say. china's rivals to trading at robinhood, guess what? they're looking to get into the crypto craze. what are they doing susan? >> i don't blame them so they are looking to get into the u.s. and global markets, and talking about brokers so yes there's a lot more competition coming down the pipeline and both have applied for licenses to operate right here in america and also in singapore so this will allow local customers including american ones to trade cryptocurrencies on these chinese platforms, and that's despite the fact that beijing has increased their efforts to try to limit trading at least in the chinese market and over-the-counter which was important why we saw that sell-off in bitcoin prices, but you already have a chinese invested in chinese majority- owned operating system and trading platform here called we bull but it looks like if you

look at the international player s, they see the money here that's looking to invest into cryptos and say we want a slice of that as well. ashley: of course they do. all right >> and i think, coinbase sorry just to mention that to be looking over their shoulders. ashley: very good. it make sense. and also, susan, the coffin tell reiterating his warning on the global chip shortage it's doing damage in a lot of different sectors. how long does he think this shortage will last? >> i think stu would say a couple of years, i mean, what's taking them so long? but yeah, that's what intel ceo says that the work and study- from-home trend during covid has led to a cycle of explosive growth in semiconductors, and that demand has placed a huge strain on global supply chains so it's not over in just a few months it's going to take years and that's why it's going to cost global carmakers over $60 billion in sales, also you've heard from

the giants in technology, apple, hp, dell among the names warning that the global chip shortage will impact their device sales, and, you know, intel has been an underperformer in the chip space because of this , because they don't have enough supply and they don't have enough innovation in the right spaces, so they are losing the crown to nvidia and a md. ashley: chip shortage, years it's going to go on and on. we've got to talk about tesla. >> always. ashley: we always do. elon musk, by the way, raising the prices of vehicles, is that because of a supply chain issue, susan? >> yeah, so you know, we talked about elon musk each and every day, and we look at his tweets every each and everyday as well so i know stu's point of view but i'm curious to hear yours as well, here is elon musk saying raw materials in particular, according to this tweet, saying prices increasing due to major supply chain price pressure industry- wide raw materials especially, he says, impacting the cost of his cars, and he was responding to an unverified

twitter account which said i really don't like the direction that tesla is going and raising their prices of their cars, and that includes removing the features like lumbar for the model y, so in may we saw tesla increasing their month model y, and model 3 prices for the fifth time in a same number of months not a lot, a few thousand dollars but still the fact you're on a five-month streak of raising your prices on the cars that's obviously going to hurt demand and maybe the bottom line. ashley: yeah, we'll have to wait and see how those deliveries, react. interesting, susan, thank you. let's take a look at the dow winners if we can, in the very early going just a five minutes after the opening bell, check out boeing getting an upgrade from one of the analysts, that's helping up 3% in the energy sector, chevron up nearly 3%, goldman sachs, american express and dow all doing very well above 1% in the early going take a look at the s&p 500 winners if we can. we have devon energy, apache corp., another energy play look

at all of the energy plays here, marathon oil, occidental diamondback ener gy all of those stocks up 4, 6, 7, 11% for devo nfl energy and let's take a look at the nasdac winners, amd up 2%, marriott also up nearly 2%, and lam research. yeah, you're looking into some of the other movers as well, susan. let's take a look at neo. it's always an interesting play. >> yeah, so citigroup says that neo, which is the tesla competitor in china, it's worth a buy, very specific here, with their price target of $58.30. i haven't seen anything that specific in a long time, but that represents 50% upside for the stock, and this is after neo nearly doubled the number of car deliveries, in the month of may from a year ago , but then you know, you saw expung, which is another china tesla competitor as well delivering six times more cars in may from 2020, so tesla is dominating that market right now but the local

competition is catching up fast and with their own technology. and boeing getting an upgrade this morning from cowen to out perform so it's worth 290 and this is because people are flying once again, you saw 2 million tsa number of fliers over the memorial day weekend, so that recovery, that reopening is happening, and then cannabis, you know, you've covered this sector right, you've actually went up? ashley: i have. >> to look at growth and canopy , you know, they cut pair losses, and they say that they will be profitable this fiscal year. you also have the democrats and the house reintroducing the federal bill to legalize marijuana, and of course, wall street bets and reddits and the entire social media crowd loves these names as you can imagine. ashley: they certainly do. that canopy operation is in an old chocolate factory. they just repurposed it to grow pot. so there you go. chocolate-to-pot. susan thank you very much.

the reopening was in full source this memorial day weekend as stu predicted but were businesses able to keep up despite a major worker shortage? we'll have a live report on that story in just a moment. the economy, as we know, added a lackluster 26 6,000 jobs in april, even as states eased their covid restrictions, on friday, we'll get a new jobs report, we'll talk about that, and what does larry kudlow expect to see , well guess what? i'm going to ask him, next.

in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities.

welcome to allstate. ♪ ♪ you already pay for car insurance, why not take your home along for the ride? allstate. here, better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands. click or call to bundle today. you're in good hands. click or call to bundle today. labradoodles, cronuts, skorts. (it's a skirt... and shorts) the world is going hybrid. so, why not your cloud? a hybrid cloud with ibm helps bring all your clouds together. that means you can access all your data, modernize without rebuilding, and help keep things both open and secure. that's why businesses from retail to banking are going hybrid with the technology and expertise of ibm.

new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home.

ashley: and now this. americans hit the road in full force over memorial day weekend as covid restrictions begin to

ease. edward lawrence is in annapolis, maryland. edward i guess the question is, were businesses able to keep up with that demand with the worker shortage? reporter: yeah, and the short answer in that in general is no. it did affect some businesses across the country, especially in maybe the dining experience, if you're going to a restaurant or whatnot. i can tell you the u.s. chamber of commerce says there are 8.1 million job openings across the united states, but the chamber is saying that there are less than half of the amount of workers needed to fill those jobs. the chamber also reporting that across the country, local and state chambers of commerce say that 90% of their members are reporting that it's the worker shortage that is holding businesses back. now as you said, i'm in annapolis, maryland here. this has been a big weekend for them you have memorial day weekend both of the commencement for the naval academy so this is a huge weekend for restaurants and bars in this area, right now , i'm in dry 85, a very popular bar and restaurant in the downtown part of annapolis.

now, the real problem, according to the owner of this establishment, is that the unemployment insurance, the extra unemployment insurance , has really held some of the workers back from coming into and taking those jobs. >> they're paying $430 for a week for unemployment plus the $300 federal bonus. that $300 federal bonus makes this an $18.25 an hour job. they're getting paid $35,000 essentially the equivalent, a year, through september to take the summer off so guess what people are going to do? they are going to take the summer off and we have jobs and people say we'll pay more. we have jobs that pay that that are not being filled we have jobs that pay much more than that that are not being filled. reporter: and so far 24 states got rid of that extra unemployment insurance, indeed, that website says that in those states, the searches for jobs spiked. maryland is not one of those states. back to you. ashley: yeah, paying to keep

people at home. all right, edward. thank you very much. let's bring in larry kudlow, our good friend, president biden's $6 trillion budget, larry, likely, will not help those worker shortages, or calm down inflation fears, what's your take? larry: you know, ashley, it's a lovely day today, tuesday, nice memorial day weekend, the economy is booming. i think there's a little too many complaints going on. i mean, really? let's be grateful that we're out of this pandemic, or very nearly so, and the economy is roaring back. i mean, look. 24 states have taken off the federal unemployment plus-up and i guess more will do the same thing, so over a period of time, i think that issue, and it is a real issue, no question about it, outside of the really blue states like new york and jersey, and illinois, and

lifornialiforniai thinkhihi ey,, thiss-ups notng to be an go come bac bac b wor wor high wagess they shooo get 's the way laborarkets work. 6.1%.he unemploymen ad iously,iously, we'll new number number in f hink i thit' g to to b a umbe numbe ink it'snk it' goi be be a teumrrbeifumr. thi outhght last mon mth'sumrswt dd onenee thing.ng asey, tooany nsernsvatibe fbeor political reasons. growth doesn't cause inflation. can i repeat that? more people working, more growth , more prosperity, does not cause inflation, okay? now, i know there's a lot of one

-off increases in commodities and goods and so forth and so on , from the very deep and terrible terrible pandemic con contraction, ashley, i get that, but they may turn out to be one- off, they may not turn out to be permanent. in the bond market, the break evens are predicting a slight rise of inflation, maybe 2.5% over the next several years that's not a catastrophe by any means. now, let me end up with your idea on the budget. this budget, and the infrastructure talks contain the seeds of higher inflation and lower growth, i'll admit that. if you're going to jack up taxes on everything, under the sun, okay? companies, businesses, capital gains, everything, estates, and so forth, that's going to choke off the recovery next year and,

as the fed keeps pouring in lots of free money, that could monetize and lick we friday all these price spikes, so i'm just saying, the best thing to do here is first of all, stop complaining we're in a boom, it's fabulous and the stock market is in a boom, that's fabulous and number two, let us defeat all of these massive tax hikes and excessive spending programs, how about that? ashley: right. i think that's great, do you know what, larry kudlow, you are the perfect guest. i had four minutes to talk to you i asked one question and you filled the four minutes. how about that! larry: [laughter] just ask me a follow-up, ashley. ask me a follow-up. [laughter] ashley: did you have a nice memorial day weekend, larry? larry: i had a lovely memorial day weekend holiday off. i played tennis three times in seven days. i'm a happy camper, and i'm rar

ing to go tonight at 4:00 p.m. i am raring to go. ashley: good. we're glad to hear it thanks again larry kudlow, you are the perfect guest. larry kudlow, everyone. thank you, joining this afternoon and still let's check these four stocks hitting all-time highs, we have honeywell, jpmorgan, goldman sachs, and american express all doing very well, thank you very much, american express up more than 1.5%. did you catch this in president biden's budget? he wants to send $861 million to central american countries so that their people won't invade the border. say what! that money is going to go straight to someone's pocket but the migrants are still going to come that's my opinion. the return to normalcy is back, millions, yes you heard that right, millions hit the roads and skies this memorial day weekend. does that mean covid is behind us? well guess what?

i'll ask doc siegel about it, next. ♪ with voltaren arthritis pain gel my husband would have been on the sidelines. but not anymore. ♪ an alternative to pills, voltaren is the first full prescription strength, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gel to target pain directly at the source. for powerful arthritis pain relief. voltaren. the joy of movement.

(announcer) do you want to reduce stress?

shed pounds? do you want to flatten your stomach? do all that and more in just 10 minutes a day with aerotrainer, the total body fitness solution that uses its revolutionary ergonomic design to help you to maintain comfortable, correct form. that means better results in less time. you can do an uncomfortable, old-fashioned crunch or an aerotrainer super crunch. turn regular planks into turbo planks without getting down on the floor. and there are over 20 exercises to choose from. incredible for improving flexibility and perfect for enhancing yoga and pilates. and safe for all fitness levels. get gym results at home in just 10 minutes a day. no expensive machines, no expensive memberships. get off the floor with aerotrainer. go to aerotrainer.com to get yours now.

it's time for sleep number's memorial day sale on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it's the most comfortable, body-sensing, automatically-responding, energy-building, dually-adjustable, dad-powering, wellness-boosting, foot-warming, temperature-balancing, recovery-assisting, effortlessly life-changing... proven quality night sleep we've ever made. during our memorial day sale, save $1,000 on the new sleep number 360 special edition smart bed, now $1,799. only for a limited time.

ashley: now, this. the united states reported nearly 12,000 new covid cases on saturday, that, by the way, the lowest since march 23 of last year. this , as the tsa, saw the highest number of travelers since the pandemic began with over 7 million people taking to the skies over the memorial day weekend. dr. marc siegel joins us now,doc , good morning to you. can we say that the pandemic is over? >> almost. we're just about out of the woods with this , less than 6,000 new cases yesterday, by the way. we'll see if those numbers hold but we are definitely going down well over 50% of all americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine. that's helped a lot. people getting over covid presenting natural immunity, that's helped a lot. the warm weather has helped a lot. ashley here is one you're going to love. i've been checking with emergency rooms around the

country. in california and new york and elsewhere, they say when we see somebody with respiratory symptoms now, covid isn't even number one on our list anymore. we're seeing way less admissions to hospitals right now. it's really really encouraging. ashley: very good news. i wanted to ask you this too, do c. the uk says covid lab leak theory is feasible, backing up what president trump said back when this first happened last year. >> the trouble with what the uk is saying though, ashley, is they're talking about the w. h. o., and my sources tell me that w. h. o. is really compromised and that never put this on the table at the beginning. they were one of the original problems. you know, we were reporting this a year ago. we were saying wait a minute. wuhan lab, 20 miles from wuhan that's where the virus is coming and the mainstream media was mocking us? but the w. h. o. played a role here because they were basically

an emissary for china in this situation and i don't think they are the go-to in terms of trying to get to the bottom of this. ashley: yeah, their credibility, frankly is shot. we're already out of time. sorry it was so quick, doc siegel but the news you have is encouraging thank you so much. still ahead on the show, ronna mcdaniel will be along, rob smith, ric grenell and tiki barber, the second hour of ""varney"" is next. >> ♪ ♪ . .

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. (vo) nobody builds 5g like verizon builds 5g. thousands of engineers taking peak performance to a new level. that's why in parts of many major cities where people can use massive capacity we added verizon 5g ultra wideband, the fastest 5g in the world. nice. it isn't just a step forward, it's a leap forward. because the more you do with 5g, the more your network matters. it's us pushing us. it's verizon vs. verizon. and who wins? you.

do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. call coventry direct to learn more. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. our friends sold their policy to help pay for their medical bills and that got me thinking. maybe selling our policy could help with our retirement. i'm skeptical, so i did some research and called coventry direct. they explained life insurance is a valuable asset that can be sold. we learned that we can sell all of our policy or keep part of it with no future payments, who knew? we sold our policy. now we can relax and enjoy our retirement as we had planned. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

♪. ashley: little bit of grand funk railroad. we're an american band. new york city, the empire state building, glorious in its stature there, i always love that picture. good morning, i'm ashley webster in for stuart varney. it is 10:00 eastern time. let's get straight to your money. starting off june with a nice rally. dow off sessions highs. s&p, nasdaq, also up a third of a percent. and guess what? the reddit brigade back this

morning, the meme stocks led by amc surging 16% at this hour. blackberry up 6%. gamestop, another volatile name is up more than 3% what about bitcoin? whoever verying around $36,000 and 37,000, after the second worst performing month. it is up now $1300. so a gain for bitcoin. by the way let's get economic data. we have the latest on ism pmi for may,. susan: good and bad for the reads. nice beat at 61.2. economists were looking for a read of 60.9. this is again higher than what economists forecast for the month of may. don't forget we're coming off a really strong spring. the march read of 64.7, the fastest pace of expansion in more than 37 years. anything over 50 a demarch line,

that is expansion on factory floors. ashley: what about construction spending only .2% where economists were looking for a read of .5%. that is what we saw in march. things are not declining. they're leveling out and stablizing. ashley: exactly. thank you very much, susan, look at the markets nicely in the green. let's bring in our good friend scott shellady. morning to you, scott. more people are traveling. mask mandates lifted, covid restrictions eased. i assume in your opinion the economy is officially making a strong comeback, right? >> absolutely. and it was great to see everybody out and about this weekend. we have 8.1 million jobs waiting to be filled but we're paying

people $37,000 a year to stay at home. the government is small businesses biggest competition, when it comes to hiring their people and trying to get back in the swing of things. that will be government probably will get in the way after full-throated recovery. i like larry kudlow's blistering comments are great. but my issue is this, we have to be careful about these taxes. we have to be careful a little bit what they may be throwing at economy as far as money. now i'm in the camp, i don't have a lot of friend in this camp but i know we've seen commodities that have spiked and which do have a little bit after supply issue. we don't have as much as we thought about with corn and soybeans those things, but you know there is a lot of other things looking like they're slowly but surely coming off the boil. last week we had housing numbers not quite as good we thought we would get with construction spending. not going down but coming off the boil. if they're coming off the boil this is my concern, i don't want

the fed to act hastily to slow down the economy. we have to remind ourselves, ashley, nobody on this planet seen a 29 trillion-dollar economy start from zero. when you say things best in 37 years, it better year because we were closed. we were zero. we've come from nowhere. if this economy is not ripping your face off you should be worried. that's my problem. so i like to see things getting better. i like to see people getting out but this is my problem, everybody is saying everything is fantastic, right? it is roaring ahead and i think that's good but i don't remember over the pandemic did we create a new technology or invent something i don't know about because this can't be better than it was in december of 2019 or january of 2020. so slow your roll. everybody getting excited and out and about. everything suddenly coming off the boil, then we worry about the tax hikes.

ashley: scott shellady says slow your roll. don't get too ahead of yourself. don't get too over your skis. scott, as we head into the summer doldrums do we move up, depends what the fed decides to do and to your point it could cave with inflation pressure if rates continue to rise, but overall are you bullish is what i'm trying to say? >> i'm ambivalent. i think we could see it go sideways. what i'm watching, larry, that was a good interview with larry, i'm watching the 10-year-year-old. ashley: the 10-year yield is not telling me they're really, really scared of rampant inflation. so i will watch the 10-year-year-old and that will be my key what the stocks are going to be doing. you've seen what they have done to the tech sector when you see the yield rise quickly. keep an eye, everybody should watch the 10 year over the summer. that will give you the temperature of the monday market what they think will happen to inflation that will portend, show you what the equity market

is going to do. ashley: meantime, scott shellady, we'll slow our roll. that will be the expression of the day. terrific stuff. slow your roll. scott shellady, thank you so much. now this, get into some politics, the rnc released a new ad calling out president biden's failed and divisive policies. roll that tape. >> a president who promised to bring us together should not be pushing agendas that tear us apart. our best future will not come from washington's schemes or socialist dreams, it will come from you, the american people. we are not adversaries. we are family. i'm confident that our finest hour has yet to come. ashley: all right. there you have it. food time to bring in rnc chairwoman, ron ma mcdaniel, good morning to you. you say americans are suffering

under the biden administration. so i guess the question is, how will republicans bring the nation back together? >> what you're seeing that at the state level, ashley. seeing states like florida, texas, south dakota, with governors who led through covid, followed the science, but kept their economy coming, kept the kid in school, but really governed at a level i think the country is recognizing. republicans ledbetter through this pandemic and democrats like cuomo and whitmer and newsome have failed. that is something. ashley: that being said, you're making an investment in this campaign in an off year. the question is why not wait until next year? >> well, when the airwaves are cluttered and it is all political ads sometimes your message doesn't break through

and we came into this administration with biden saying i will bring america together. we'll have unity. we'll work across the aisle but it has been anything but. we have border crisis, a energy crisis, a jobs crisis because the government is competing with small businesses as you heard. this message with tim scott really resonates republicans are interested in bringing this country together and democrats are dividing under the leadership of joe biden, nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. ashley: ronna, speculation is building about nine high-profile republicans who may run for the white house. they're waiting on former president trump's decision whether he will launch a third presidential bid. ronna, who do you think will run, or is it too early to predict? >> i'm going to use a phrase from your previous guest. slow your roll. we don't want to talk about that.

we're talking 2022 right now. i'm not talking 2024. that is too early. ashley: i know. >> if any candidate looking at 2024 better be on the field helping news 2022. let's win back the house and senate. so any candidate serious about 2024 be an mvp in 2022. ashley: all right. again i'm going to slow my roll. getting ahead of myself. ronna mcdaniel, leave it there. slowing my roll. heading into the tumor. a good time to slow my roll. ronna, appreciate it. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: thank you for your time. markets still in the green perhaps off a little of the early surge out of the gate. susan you're looking at some of the movers. watching nokia. susan: a lot of roll talk just then. nokia, apparently, look at the stock, we're seeing it higher in premarket because they will collect licensing fees from daimler, mercedes maker.

the patents ends a legal dispute between the two companies. no specific dib puts how much daimler will pay but nokia will add to 1.7 billion of charges it earns from those licenses. jessica alba's natural product company, honest co, getting a positive from jpmorgan and morgan stanley outperform from the banks. they talk about honest co and ambassador power why they think the stock is going higher from here. over two million travelers over the memorial day weekend according to tsa numbers according to the airports that is obviously a bullish sign. then johnson & johnson, they have to be pay $1.2 billion in the talcum powder lawsuit which has been reaffirmed by the supreme court which rejected j&j's appeal. that is a big loss there. ashley: it is, might even take a bigger hit there. anyway, look at amc, we've been

talking about this, surging to kick off the month up 14%. is it still riding the meme stock high, susan. susan: it was up 20% premarket. 14% in one single session. we're just about what, 40 minutes into this tuesday morning? yeah, i think it's still doing pretty he will. they raising a quarter of a billion dollars selling shares at 20 bucks and change a premium to the friday close. am ctrip pilled so far in the month of may. tripled. they were doubling last week. doubled 100%. the reddit wall street bets are back. you had the biggest box office weekend since covid started there are fundamentals for you. $100 million in the box office take for days. a quiet place 2 winning out. and cinemark and regal. they will osteite acquisition possibles and investment in amc

theaters, and buy the arclight theaters that have shut down. ashley: right. we can't let you go without talking about bitcoin. just had the second worst performing month. is this because u.s. regulators are turning up the heat, susan? susan: it pretty much is baked in. it should be expected. new u.s. comptroller of the currency in the biden administration saying ft there should be a perimeter for crypto there are concerns with the financial changes in the markets he says reminds him of 2008 with unregulated markets. bitcoin, i would say 37,000, we're traying higher than 34,000 lows we saw on saturday morning a two-day winning streak we're on. price volatility has calmed down, which is pretty good. price volatility between the highs of the day and the lows of the day. that has narrowed in the last few sessions. some say that is bitcoin bounced

off the lows we could go higher from here. biggest ever cryptocurrency conference taking place in miami. i will see you from the sunny shores. ashley: yes, lucky you. i'm sure you're running it susan, you know. susan: that's right. give me a chance to enjoy the florida heat and the sunshine. ashley: [laughter] i'm guilty. i cannot respond to that, susan. you're absolutely right. thank you, susan. amazon facing backlash for allowing the sales of blue lives murder merchandise like this t-shirt on the platform. we'll tell you how amazon is trying to defend it that is straight ahead. it is the wokest waterfront of the country. take you to the new 700 million-dollar park designed to quote, fight existing systemic racism in seattle. but first, smugglers on the border, desperate to get migrants into this country at any cost. we'll take you down to the texas border to see it first-hand

after this. ♪. some say this is my greatest challenge ever. but i've seen centuries of this. with a companion that powers a digital world, traded with a touch. the gold standard, so to speak ;) seeing blood when you brush or floss can be a sign of early gum damage. new parodontax active gum repair kills plaque bacteria at the gum line to help keep the gum seal tight. new parodontax active gum repair toothpaste.

(vo) ideas exist inside you, electrify you. they grow from our imagination, but they can't be held back. they want to be set free. to make the world more responsible, and even more incredible. ideas start the future, just like that.

keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities.

♪. ashley: welcome back, everyone. look at the markets. you may have noticed the nasdaq slipped into negative territory, down just a quarter of a percent. the s&p also essentially flat and the dow too up less than 100 points. we've certainly seen the wind coming out of the sales of the surge at the beginning of the session. the dow winners though, take a look. we have chevron up nearly 3%.

boeing on an upgrade up 2.25%, dow, caterpillar up more than 1%. show me hewlett-packard and zoom if we can. they are reporting after the bell today and we should ask susan what is susan of these two stocks, hewlett-packard and zoom. susan: information technology services arm, not the printer business just reported last week. and said that chips hurt printer sales. we're looking for pretty good numbers. a big recovery in sales and the bottom line profits since business is picking up once again. of course remote work means that people need more of these ip services and reopening of the economy. i think zoom will probably be the most likely to get the most attention obviously, zoom will be estimates. people are expecting a huge number for the ninth time for the zoom maker. this is now part of our everyday vocabulary thanks to covid. 200 million daily meeting

participants. we'll see if the trend continues as people go back into the offices. looks like they are going back into the classrooms. i also want to note for you, we're up 12% for the dow so far this year. 11% for the s&p and nasdaq up 6% and corporations, the zooms, hewlett-packards and like are just a bun. of the big names that have done really, really went despite covid in the first three months of this year. ashley: susan, thank you. take a look at carnival cruise lines. they got the green light from the cdc to begin sailing from three u.s. ports finally after all this time. the fleet will begin hitting waters from texas and florida this summer. carnival shares up more than 3%. meanwhile american airlines is joining southwest in extending the suspension of alcohol sales following an assault against the flight attendant last week. the airline suspended alcohol sales until at least september the 14th. the move comes as more americans

are indeed returning to the skies as travel industry recovers. all right. let's switch gears now. i want to talk about the border between the u.s. and mexico. i want to bring in the mayor of yuma, arizona. i lived there, sir, for three years. i throughly enjoyed my time there. douglas nichols joins us, you're the mayor of a border town. fema money is supposed to be flowing your way to help deal with the border problem or crisis. have you seen any changes? >> well we've seen some of the fema money as was promised but changes really don't come by dollars, really. this isn't a problem you can't throw a bunch of money at. it is about people, it is about policy, it is about approach for immigration, what is right for our country and what is right for the world. ashley: has the administration been in touch with you? >> i have had a couple conversations with the administration. they provided some access to

some people, some personnel as far as making sure we had fema connections, direct conversations with people in dhs. that has been pretty much it so far. it is an ongoing thing we do have some continuing dialogue. i do press the situation in a lot of different ways, primarily that local governments and small communities along the border really should not be receiving releases. the releases if they're necessary need to happen in communities with large resources, a lot of infrastructure and that can absorb those kind of releases into their community, not small communities along the border. ashley: your attorney general is calling for vice president harris to be removed from her border role. do you agree with that? >> well i would say that is probably very prudent to do. we have not seen anything from her or her office. i have been very vocal.

i have not had any sort of engagement with her. i think if she can't find time to make it to the border maybe we need to find someone who does have the time to make it to the border. ashley: i think there are many who agree with that. another one for you, you say you're seeing more minors flooding across the border and you call it a new dynamic. so in what way is that new and what is going on? >> historically, for instance, like in 2019 when we had the immigration crisis very few people coming across the border were unaccompanied minors. now i believe the number is well over 2,000 that have happened since the beginning of the year, beginning of the crisis. that changes some things. so the dynamic that it changes when a unaccompanied minor comes across it takes more resources from border patrol and from the government to address that single, that single minor coming across. if you look at this from a cartel business standpoint, the more border patrol is tied up

with, with a young child coming across the border unaccompanied, the more opportunity they have to move other drugs, other nefarious people through the border system. so it is kind of this create a diversion in one spot and get resources to go over there while they do the others. it is also an indication there is probably a lot more what we refer to as child recycling where children are essentially rented to people who are not their family. they know as they come across the border there is some issues. the border patrol handles them differently. can usually get separated. that is just a condition that we should not find acceptable for young children, regardless of their country of origin. ashley: just horrible, the stories coming out of this. mayor first quarter coals, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us and we hope we can stay in touch with you to follow the progress. >> sounds great. thank you, stu.

ashley: my pleasure. coming up actress, former new york gubernatorial candidate cynthia nixon says shoplifters shouldn't be prosecuted since when is stealing okay? she says don't prosecute them. plus support growing off and on the support after tennis star naomi osaka announces she is taking a break from the sport next. ♪.

♪ ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high you know how i feel ♪ ♪ breeze drifting on by you know how i feel ♪ [man: coughing] ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day... ♪ no matter how you got copd it's time to make a stand. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it.

do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. it's time to start a new day. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. and save at trelegy.com. [typing sounds] [music fades in] [voice of female] my husband ben and i ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy. opened ben's chili bowl the very same year that we were married. that's 1958. [voice of male] the chili bowl really has never closed in our history. when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot. and it's been really helpful to keep people updated on google. we wouldn't be here without our wonderful customers. we're really thankful for all of them. [female voices soulfully singing “come on in”] nobody builds 5g like verizon builds 5g because we're the engineers who built the most reliable network in america. thousands of smarter towers, with the 5g coverage you need. broader spectrum for faster 5g speeds.

next-generation servers with superior network reliability. because the more you do with 5g, the more your network matters. it's us...pushing us. it's verizon...vs verizon. and who wins? you.

♪. ashley: all right. as we take a look at the white house there's a reason for that because "axios" is reporting that white house employees will return to fully in-person work next month. there you have it. that is why we're showing the white house. also in line with president biden's get back to normal by the 4th of july. so there you have it. that is the news out of the white house. let's take a look at the markets and bring in our friend greg smith. good morning to you, greg. >> good morning, ashley, good morning to you. you say a summer rally is underway. tell me what's going to lead or

who is going to lead the rally? >> well, ashley, what a difference a month makes? the past week i had the pleasure of going to to a comedy club. i had a disappointing game with the yankees and went to see a the friends show. which is homage to the show. a month ago i shared with you my silly theory on may 17th, tax day, the day retail investors would understand how much money they had left to invest and almost right on queue, we saw meme stocks, take off. right now i think you look around. we have the nasdaq, russell 2000 trade above the 50-day moving

average last week. we're seeing breadth in the market, a shift back to growth stocks. i think growth stocks are going to lead this summer rally. it will not be a sell in may go away year. we'll probably see a little bit of a rotation out of value into growth and i think we're getting back to a risk-on environment. so i think the market heads higher. i wouldn't chase names. i would love to see a bit of a pullback. if we could see the russell and nasdaq retest those 50 day moving averages, i think that is probably a good place to pick up and buy for the long term. ashley: do you worry about the fed being pressurized to do something with rates if we continue to see inflation start to bite? >> i do. inflation is going in one direction. rates are being kept artificially low. measured inflation is really not real. we all look around, we see companies are being forced to raise prices to their customers. their prices are being raised. that is all being passed on and we as the consumer, we see it,

whether we're trying to get rental cars, book hotel rooms, buy tickets or do things, things will cost more and prices will be going up. so you know, the fed has kept rates artificially low. i believe they will continue to work higher but putting that aside we're seeing terrific performance amongst companies. companies are doing very well as we get back to work and come the fall i think it will be business as usual. we'll feel like we're back in pre-covid. ashley: quickly, there one particular stock you like? >> look, picking stocks is all so very hard. i tell friends, i talked about it here a year ago on the show, just buy the etf, tna, it's a small cap etf. i probably shared it here last summer 25, 26. now trading around 95. i put my kids money in it. i have my money in it. buy it. forget about it. if you believe equities going higher for the long term, don't look at independent. it's a good place to be, try not

to trade stocks. ashley: set it aside, put it on the backburner, done very well. greg, thank you very much. appreciate it. now this house lawmakers reintroduce a bill to federally legalize marijuana. susan give us the details. susan: i like the way you say it, marijuana. we're looking at house judiciary chair jerry nadler reintroducing what he calls a social justice focus, marijuana legalization bill. he is hoping that a democratic white house and also congress could result in possibly the legislation passage. they tried this before during the trump era. they failed to get it through the gop controlled senate. still it us going to be tough this needs over 60 votes in the senate to right now split with the 50-50. 16 states legalize the cannabis. they have that. businesses are pushing for legalization, that includes ice cream maker ben and jerries. they're looking to sell cbd-infused ice cream once it

gets legalized federally. cannabis stocks are favorite of the wall street bets and reddit as well. ashley: i wonder what that tastes like, cdb. susan: i will help you with that one. ashley: i would imagine. naomi osaka withdrew from the french open. susan what is going on in this story? susan: this is probably the most talked about story over the weekend. osaka says she has been suffering from depression since late 2018. she is an introvert by nature. press conferences make her nervous and anxious. to prioritize her mental health and well-being she wanted to skip the press conferences after her french open matches but that goes against the rules. osaka was fined $15,000 for the first round skipping pressers. but she has a lot of backers including serena williams who is on her side. >> everyone is different and everyone handles things differently. so you know you have to let her handle it the way she wants to,

the best way she thinks she can. susan: yeah. so osaka, the number two ranked player at the french open, highest paid female athlete on the planet, she won four grand slams. some say is forcing the issue in a good way. she is prioritizing her mental health above trophies which in many ways you have to applaud. ashley: you do. do what is best for you. susan: correct, you do you. ashley: yep. after more than a year of learning from home in isolation kids and parents are ready to get back to normal. education expert naomi schaefer riley will be here next with how parents can use this summer to get their kids back on track. plus, yep, it is the wokest waterfront in the country. we'll take you to the new 700 million-dollar park designed to, quote, fight existing systemic racism in seattle after this.

♪. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice.

now no fruit is forbidden. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

♪. ashley: the markets have been open now just over an hour. we lost some momentum. the dow is still up 103 points. good for .3 of a gain. nasdaq slightly turned negative, down a 10th of a percent. s&p up a 10th of a percent. we'll call that flat. we lost a lot of that forward momentum during the last hour of the session. let's change gears. let's bring in naomi schaefer riley now. great to see you this morning. you have an op-ed out on the summer of the free range parent and you say, quote, after being cooped up during the worst days of the covid-19 pandemic kids need a long leash to roam and explore. i don't think anyone would

disagree with that. naomi, what is your advice for parents this morning? >> thanks, ashley. this is the unofficial start of summer i think parents need to take a intentional view how kids have been treated this summer. we've been following them around with sanitizer, wipes, masks, giving them screens to keep them busy so they don't miss their friends. now is the time to let the doors open. you know, obviously they're at camp, i think in most places are open. get kids outdoors, exercising, let them see friends as much as possible. also give them some independence. let them roam around the neighborhood. let them see other people. let them to into stores by themselves, pick their other than food, help prepare it. these are all the things we've been really missing in the last year, just that independence. ashley: what of possibly some of the effects that we don't really know yet on kids who have been coupe cooped up for a year,

stuck in front of computer screens not engaging socially as much as they normally would, is there long term impacts from that? i guess we'll find out but i got to believe there will be some sort of an impact? >> we're already finding out. we're hearing from hospitals across the country. you have seen rises in suicide attempts among adolescents. an enormous amount of mental health crises going around among this 12 to 15 set and among younger kids too. a loss of social and emotional skills they need in order to relate to other people. i mean some of this stuff obviously i think kids can catch up with. they are adaptable in some ways but i think for the older kid the loss of this year has had an enormous impact. i think it will have long-term effects frankly. we need to start dealing with those as soon as possible. ashley: exactly. also, naomi, schools across the country opening back up in the fall. that is the good news. what the new role of online education come september first? >> well i hope it will be a very

minimal one. new york city already announced they're not having a remote option for kids. i think that is a good move frankly. schools are safe. we know that we need to be sending parents the message that schools are safe. i think what we've learned this year online learning can be convenient and can be helpful when you have a, maybe an older kid who is motivated or even an adult who is motivated but for young kids there is no substitute for in-person learning and we really need to get kids back face-to-face with teachers and face-to-face with their peers as soon as possible. ashley: you think, quickly, naomi this year-long exposure to online learning have more students than not fallen line do you think? >> oh, absolutely. i think there is no question about the academic loss that happened this year. some schools systems are trying to institute summer school over the summer. i'm not sure that is such a hot idea, i do think kids need to

get outside, get more independent. but i think school systems are already seeing the consequences of this. teachers really haven't been there, but even when the teachers are there, you know, unless you had a parent who was watching carefully and making sure say an 8-year-old who is staring at the screen all day it would be hard to insure the same level of learning as in person. ashley: okay. great stuff as always, naomi, thank you for being with us this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: now this, seattle is shelling out $700 million to build what is being called the wokest waterfront in the country. organizers say the park is designed to fight existing systemic racism in seattle. our dan springer is there and joins us live. good morning to you, dan. are people worried that the park could turn into a giant homeless camp? reporter: good morning, ashley.

seattle already has as you know a big homeless problem with thousands of people already in the downtown area who are homeless. when you create 26 blocks of additional open space there is that concern but the worry goes beyond that here at pier 62, already done, the first new phase of this waterfront park you will be hit with a lot of negativity about the past and future. you will be told this land was essentially taken from the dumish people. another sense sign details discrimination against the waterfront workforce. there are little signs on the railing featuring hand-picked artists. one photographer said his pictures reflect the ongoing history of interactions between the colonizer and the colonized. another artist sees future fortified by the grief and loss of our natural world. a man who represents minority owned businesses is not a fan. >> it's a place where people would feel intimidated, expected to be guilty of something they have no control over, and it

just creates a negative environment. reporter: the renders actually make this look pretty cool. open space, some grass and viewing platform where for decades there was an ugly viaduct but the non-profit in charge is all about wokeness. on its website is says friends of waterfront seattle okay knowledges and historic racism is embedded in the city. the company is hiring, all jobs will quote engage in regular conversations about race and equity through all staff meetings, trainings and dei book club. >> i think most of us know seattle is test pilot for marxism. we see that everywhere. sadly downtown seattle is shadow of its former self. reporter: now a full 35% of all the programing that will take place in this park is supposed

to be geared towards underserved communities and we'll find out exactly what that means when this whole park opens in 2024. ashley? ashley: great report, dan, thank you. the waterfront may be woke but that scenery is beautiful behind you. dan, thank you very much. one nba team telling its fans you can't come to the playoff game unless you're vaccinated. will it motivate them to get the jab? we got a report on that next. plus what do a majority of the states recovering fastest economically from covid have in common? guess what? they're all run by republicans. cabot phillips will be here what they're doing right after this. ♪. i became a sofi member because i needed to consolidate my credit card debt. i needed just one simple way to pay it all off.

it was an easy decision to apply with sofi loans, just based on the interest rate and how much i would be saving. there was only one that stood out and one that actually made sense and that was sofi personal loans. it felt so freeing. i felt like i was finally out of this neverending trap of interest and payments and debt. ♪♪ ♪ na na na na ♪ na na na na... ♪ hey hey hey. ♪ goodbye. ♪ na na na na... ♪ hey hey hey. ♪ goodbye. ♪ na na na na ♪ na na na na... the world's first six-function multipro tailgate. available on the gmc sierra. new projects means new project managers. the world's first six-function you need to hire.. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed

you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. wanna help kids get their homework done? well, an internet connection's a good start. but kids also need computers. and sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it. so why not hook community centers up with wifi? for kids like us, and all the amazing things we're gonna learn. over the next 10 years, comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are.

[ sigh ] not gonna happen. that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath. excellent! happy to help. huh? hold one moment please... [ finger snaps ] hmm. ♪ ♪ the kohler walk-in bath features an extra-wide opening and a low step-in at three inches, which is 25 to 60% lower than some leading competitors. the bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. are you seeing this? the kohler walk-in bath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohler-certified installer. and it's made by kohler- america's leading plumbing brand. we need this bath. yes. yes you do. a kohler walk-in bath provides independence with peace of mind. call... to receive fifty percent off installation.

and take advantage of our special offer of no payments for eighteen months. ♪. ashley: welcome back, everybody. take a look at the market. we're certainly off of our session highs which is basically when the markets opened at 9:30. the dow now still up by just 81 points. the nasdaq turning negative, down .4 of a percent. the s&p slightly negative down just 1 1/2 points. meantime moderna applying

for full fda approval of its covid vaccine. they have already administered over 100 million jabs. they're the second company by the way behind pfizer to apply for full approval but as you can see, not doing anything for the stock. moderna down 1 1/2%. so with the economy opening back up more businesses are both incentivizing and mandating the vaccine. united airlines is giving out a year of free travel. doctor. vs offering money in a trip to the super bowl. lydia hu joins me now from new york. lydia are the incentives working? are more people getting vaccinated? reporter: ashley, there is some evidence to suggest incentives are encouraging some to get vaccines after the state of ohio announced a 1 million-dollar lottery, the vaccination rate there spiked by 45% but overall the national vaccination rate is still downs declining. kaiser family poll shows friday,

the percent of people who say they will not get the vaccine is holding steady at 13% over the past few months even as we've seen these incentives and mandates roll out. another 7% say they will get the vaccine if required and still 12% say, they will wait and see. some businesses incentives are seemingly small and simple. krispy kreme free doughnut, shake shack free fries. concert promoter person is selling concert tickets $18 but charging unvaccinated people 1000. united airlines offers a chance to get free flights for a year. with the carrot there is also a stick. some companies are mandating workers get the vaccine. some like delta for new hires. broadway production hamilton and like several hospital systems like houston methodist hospital and the university of pennsylvania health system. despite the federal guidance

issued by the equal employment opportunity commission these employer mandates are generally okay, some workers are pushing back. a lawsuit has been filed in texas by more than 100 workers of houston methodist hospital over the employer mandate. now stars what will be most effective and convincing for those who have not gotten the shot, ashley, that kaiser poll i mentioned, full fda approval of the vaccines would make the most difference. currently shots available have emergency authorization. according to that poll a third of the people have not gotten the shots say they will be more likely once they are fully approved. back to you. ashley: free doughnut will always motivate me to do anything, lydia and that is a fact. all right. thank you very much. now this, red states are recovering faster from the pandemic than blue states according to the data from the labor department. 17 out of the top 20 states that have recovered the best

financially, guess what? they're run by republican governors. good time to bring in our friend cabot phillips. cabot, does this surprise you? i have a feeling it does not? >> is absolutely does not surprise me the numbers get worse the more you dig into them of the 12 states that recovered the quickest, all 12 are republican. of the 10 states now with the highest unemployment states, all 10 are democrat. democrat states right now have a 46% higher unemployment rate compared to republican states. it is because of the fact that they are still continuing to offer extra benefits for unemployed people right now under the covid regulations. there is an extra $300 a week in democrat states for folks. they're saying i'm unemployed. i can make more money staying at home to collect unemployment benefits. republican states say it is safe to get back to work. we'll not keep giving you the unemployment benefits that were in place when the economy was fully locked down. of the 23 states that rolled

back unemployment benefits all 23 are republican. mo mystery why republican states are recovering. some democrats leaders and media say it is harsh to take away benefits. you know what is harsh? harsh to think people they can't go back to work and harsh to keep people in in depend send sy and that is what the democratic goes are doing. ashley: cabot, you said it all perfectly. we've run out of time. you got it all in. another big hour coming up. ric grenell. tiki barber, rob smith. so much more. we'll be right back after this. ...

once-weekly trulicity lowers your a1c by helping your body release the insulin it's already making. most people reached an a1c under 7%. plus, trulicity can lower your risk of cardiovascular events. it can also help you lose up to 10 pounds. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in children. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, changes in vision, or diabetic retinopathy. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with sulfonylurea or insulin raises low blood sugar risk. side effects include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration, and may worsen kidney problems. show your world what's truly inside. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. [ footsteps] [ suspenseful music ]

♪♪ hey, you wanna get out of here? ah ha. we've got you. during expedia travel week, save 20% or more on thousands of hotels. just book between june 8th and 12th to plan your escape with expedia. expedia. it matters who you travel with. municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free, now is an excellent time to consider municipal bonds from hennion & walsh. if you have at least 10,000 dollars to invest, call and talk with one of our bond specialists at 1-800-763-2763. we'll send you our exclusive bond guide, free. with details about how bonds can be an important part of your portfolio. hennion & walsh has specialized in fixed income and growth solutions for 30 years,

and offers high-quality municipal bonds from across the country. they provide the potential for regular income...are federally tax-free... and have historically low risk. call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-763-2763. that's 1-800-763-2763 (vo) ideas exist inside you, electrify you. they grow from our imagination, but they can't be held back. they want to be set free. to make the world more responsible, and even more incredible. ideas start the future, just like that.

>> june, july and august could be even weaker than usual this year. >> all of this talk about i'm only going to tax certain people , you and your children and your grandchildren are going to be much higher tax brackets because inflation. >> there's growing evidence that the economy and the recovery is broadening. we are looking for a blistering quarter next quarter. larry: i think people are going to come back to work and i think they're going to get higher wages. >> we're just about out of the woods with this less than 6,000 new cases yesterday, by the way, and we'll see if those numbers hold but we are definitely going down. >> republicans have led better through this pandemic and democrats like cuomo and whitmer and newsom have failed. >> ♪ ♪

ashley: flow rida, good feeling, good morning, everyone it's the first day of june, the summer officially begins in about three weeks but its got that summery feel even though it's cloudy in new york city it's 11 a.m. on the east coast i'm ashley webster in today for stuary varney let's get straight to the markets we came out of the gates at a bolt ing pace, just flying out of the gates but we've lost the momentum a little bit the dow still up more than 100 points but as you can see the s&p and the nasdac turning negative just about an hour and a half since we got going. taking a look at big tech if we can. most of those stocks down marginally so, microsoft down three-quarters of a percent but apple, facebook and amazon also down slightly, alphabet/google on the upside but only by a ten th of a percent and let's take a look at the 10 year treasury yield market watcher

scott shell add it says he's keeping his eye on this summer the 10 year treasury yield to tell us what to get a sense of inflation, that yield is up 5.5 basis points of 1.639% on the 10 year which does tend to hurt the big tech stocks take a look at this. amazon, allowing the sale of blue lives murder merchandise. isn't that lovely? even on a face mask. come in rob smith to talk about this. rob, there is a whole line of anti-police clothing on amazon apparently so my question why isn't there more outrage about this? >> well, there's no more outrage about it, because this sort of anti-cop, cop- hating, anti-police rhetoric is actually very popular on the left, you have to understand that the left controls media, the left controls entertainment, the left controls everything, so if there's no outrage coming from them, there's not going to be any outrage, period, thank god that they are a conservative

ly leaning people that are speaking up about this and talking about how awful this really is. i county this is necessarily an amazon problem, you know, amazon as much as i'm loathed to complement amazon, but these are people that they have millions of sellers on there, but this is something that is indicative of the conversation that's going on the left, you have to understand that as there is this anti-of rhetoric violent crime is rising in pretty much every major city in the country violent crime importantly is up 800%, in cities like new york and cities like philadelphia and cities like detroit. it's up double-digits, so i'm not entirely sure who this anti- cop rhetoric helps, it certainly does not help the people in these communities that are being overrun by violence right now. ashley: yeah it's just ridiculous. you scream of protests, defund the police and guess what happens. violent crime goes up and then they start complaining. anyway, we'll have to move on to another subject if we can, rob.

in texas governor greg abbott threatening to withhold pay for state democrats who staged a walk-out yesterday. those were democrats, there they are, refused to stay for a vote on texas' new voting laws, calling them racist. what say you? >> first of all when you talk about these new election integrity laws the one that came out, the one that was just i believe signed into law here in florida the one they are talking about in texas got a lot of these laws, a lot of people pretty much agree with things when you poll people agree with things like, you know, id for voting people agree with these things and i think that the texas governor is well within his rights to play hard ball to these leftist democrats who say they are not going to show up to work. look you don't show up to work. you do not get paid with taxpayer money, and i think that the right to take them up on this , and i think he's right to play a little hard ball right here, but i'm telling you what we're seeing in texas right now, we're going to be seeing in

every major state that tries to put forth some election integrity measures and call it racist, white supremacist and call it all of these little buzzwords that when in actuality , most voters agree with these election security efforts, so i think that governor abbott should stay strong on this. ashley: so the assumption from those who criticized it, rob, is that these laws are essentially being designed by republicans to , you know, not enable minorities and those minority voters by making it harder to actually cast their ballot. is that the general sense of criticism? >> well, that's what the left is trying to push it as , yes, but now look you talk to any african americans voter, getting a voter id is not hard. you know, they were so hard against this election integrity law in georgia, when actually, they give free id's for the

purpose of voting, so the left, instead of saying hey, we want to get more people id for the purpose of voting they are going to call these election integrity measures racist and look this is not about iranian voters and i've set this in the past the only one with the national platform is saying this this is not about black voters. democrats don't have a problem getting african american voters they get upwards of 90% of the african american vote. this is all about greasing the wheels so at some point we can have the illegal immigrants that are flooding across the borders given the right to vote, and not have to show id to do it ashley: you are absolutely right we'll have to leave it there, rob thanks so much for joining us this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: thank you, all right let's get back to your money good time to bring in mike murphy. murph, great to see you this morning, mike. okay, where do we, the question on the prompter says where do we find the next trillion dollar stock? no pressure, just tell us.

>> that's an easy one, ash, it's great to see you. ashley: good to see you. >> i think you've seen so many companies gone public recently through the traditional ipo process through direct listings and through spac, which one is going to be the one that we're talking about when you say big tech in a year, or three years, where you're adding whether it's peloton or whether it's airbnb or coinbase which is going to be the next company to get up there with the facebook and apple and amazons and googles of the world. i think that's what a lot of investors want to know and that's what they're looking for. ashley: i thought you were going to tell us who it is. >> well, you know, so here it is. what i think is when you look at the companies that have come public recently, what i would look for is a very large market share, so a company that has a big total addressable market, or tam, and also one that's fragmented that doesn't have one

or two major leaders out there. so when i look at a company like draft king, legalized gambling, i think there's a lot of upside. the valuation is currently around 20 billion. i don't know if it's going, when it gets to a trillion dollars but i think there's a lot of upside for a company like that. then i'll throw out there peloton. peloton is one that i think is under a lot of pressure here recently but the fitness craze is here to stay, home fitness is here to stay and i think peloton has a lot more levers they can pull so once they get past this recall and the tragic death of the infant, i think there's a lot of upside for peloton. they could be the first ones to get up there. ashley: very quickly, mike. amc, we've been talking about it this morning, it's surging. are you buying this? are you interested at all in amc >> i'm not, ashley. so amc, gme, game stop, these companies being moved by the

reddit maffia, more power to them. i want all the traders to make money. it's not for me. i'm looking more for fundamental s. i'm not as active to get in and out of these things, so i would just caution anyone watching at home, stocks that can move up 25 or 30% in a day can also move down that same amount, so tread lightly, and, you know, use caution. ashley: all right, good stuff, great advice as always, mike murphy, thanks for joining us, mike, we'll see you next time, thank you very much. staying on let's talk about crypto if we can. bitcoin taking another major dive, although right now, it's up 1.5% but what's going on here , susan? reporter: we're looking at possibly more government regulations. sweden this morning bitcoin is unlikely to escape regulation in their view and then the new u.s. comptroller of the currency and the biden administration also telling the ft there should be a regulatory perimeter for crypto so you know it's coming. now, bitcoin, i would say at

36,000 trading higher than what we saw and the lows over the weekend when it was poised to breakthrough 34,000 on saturday morning, so this is a two-day winning streak we're on and that price volatility has really come down which in a lot of people's view might be a bull ish signal that we could go higher from here so we talk about price volatility. it's a difference between the highs and the lows and a single session and that's really come down and calmed down a lot. now, robinhood competitors in china though might be looking at some competition and robinhood might be looking at competition, i'll start with coinbase as well , so the chinese futu and tiger brokers now applied for licenses in america, and also singapore that will allow local customers around the world and also right here in america to possibly trade cryptocurrenc ies now we know that beijing has increased their efforts to limit trading on the market which is really taken down crypto prices but you already have a lot of choice competition that are already operating in the u.s. and that's china invested as well.

binance does not accept u.s. investor dollars, so that's for now, at least. ashley: right, and as i just mentioned with mike murphy, looking at some of the movers today, beginning with amc that's been on a terror although its come down a little bit, but what's going on there? >> we seen some reversal so far this session if you look at the high-tech high growth names a lot of them have come back down in this session, and amc, we were trading up 20% now up 12%, still not bad, and this is on the i would say a fundamentally positive news that they raised $230 million this morning, for acquisitions to buy new theaters and that includes the ones that were occupied by cinemas over on the west coast, and now they're selling the stocks and amc, this is a fundamental positive, bullish news this morning, but the stock has doubled last week. it's up over 1,000% this year, and by the way, i mean this might be an inflection point, he is back on twitter.

tweeting for the first time in six weeks, we seen reddit wall street crowd now back and forth in the market, and amc, also by the way, boosted by the fact that you have the box office best weekend since covid, $100 million over memorial day long weekend cinemark also up on that news as well and check in on boeing. boeing is on an upgrade from cowen to outperform and it's worth $290 in their view, and this is because we've seen more travelers this weekend, and i think we have to throw this in because cloudera is up something ridiculous like 24% and this is backed by carl icahn and it is going private with kkr, it's a $4 billion-plus deal. ashley: whoa you got through a lot there, susan, thank you very much. people, by the way, this weekend , certainly flocking to the jersey shore as summer un officially begins but restaurants, they're struggling to keep up because they can't find enough people to work. we'll talk to a business owner about how she plans to bring

those workers back. but first, british intelligence reportedly says the theory that covid leaked from a wuhan lab is feasible after initially dismissing it, but the bigger question is, if it is true, will anyone hold china accountable? we're going to ask ric grenell what he makes of that and much more, coming up, next. >> ♪ ♪ you've got the looks ♪ ♪ let's make lots of money ♪ ♪ you've got the brawn ♪ ♪ i've got the brains... ♪ with allstate, drivers who switched saved over $700 click or call to switch seeing blood when you brush or floss can be a sign of early gum damage. new parodontax active gum repair kills plaque bacteria at the gum line to help keep the gum seal tight. new parodontax

active gum repair toothpaste. nobody builds 5g like verizon builds 5g. thousands of engineers taking business to a whole new level. employees are empowered. customers are engaged. near real time data for fast decision making. this is business at the speed of 5g. because the more businesses do with 5g, the more your network matters. it's us pushing us. it's verizon vs verizon.

keeping your oysters business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

ashley: china is updating its two-child policy. susan come in on this story. couples now apparently can have three children. >> that's right. now the question is will they? so this is a major policy shift

after china first scrapped the one-child policy back in 2016, and this is because they are looking at a sharp declining birth rate in the world's most populated country, china's population grew at the slowest rate in more than 70 years last year, and fertility rate at just 1.3 per woman in 2020 you know that's on par with aging societies like japan and italy so yeah, beijing is really worried because the working population to pay for the elderly is falling fast and in order to support the new three-child policy they will also include other measures to get people to have more children and that includes lowering educational costs for families, helpful tax, and housing support , and reducing the sky- high, i didn't know that existed still in china but apparently they do and also offering education on marriage and love, i'm not sure what that includes, but that's a supplemental service that they are offering. ashley: that's fascinating stuff , all right, susan thank you very much.

now this , the uk says that the covid lab leak theory is " feasible" and they dismissed it at one point let's bring in ric grenell former acting director of national intelligence. great to see you, ric. what's your take on this? >> well look, if you go to the dni website, right now, there is a statement from april 2020, let me repeat that, april 2020, last year, more than a year ago, where the intelligence community, the u.s. intelligence community, issued a very rare statement of an ic-wide, intelligence community-wide statement and in that statement, there are three major points. actually, four. one, is that covid-19 started in china. that is what the u.s. intelligence agencies all believe. two, is that it either started at the wuhan lab or three, it started in animal-to-human

transmission, so the intelligence community said it's one of two places. either the lab or a wet market, and lastly, their point, was we don't need to be told to look at the intelligence or do reviews. we do this all of the time. the intelligence community last year wanted to make it clear to the public, and at the time, let's be honest, they wanted to make it clear to president trump we don't need to be instructed to do our job. we do our job every single day by looking at intelligence and we have come to these conclusions. now, back then, there were a whole bunch of attacks on donald trump for trying to tell the intelligence community what to do when they already do it. i don't hear those attacks right now as joe biden orders a 90-day review. if joe biden needs a 90-day review of the intelligence, then he's the last one that's been

briefed because the intelligence community has been gathering this information and briefing the rest of the u.s. officials. the big question is why does joe biden feel like he hasn't gotten any intelligence and needs a 90- day review. ashley: the other question, ric, and i think everybody feels this way. even if you could find in disputable proof that china covered it all up, it was a lab leak, will they ever truly be held accountable? >> well, you would think that if we had some world organization where all of the nation's came together, say on the upper east side of new york, or somewhere, where we all came together and sat in a room and maybe we would do something about it, i would think that that be a good idea. the problem is that the united nations, which we do have, is totally controlled by the chinese communist party for a long time. just look at the last story that

you just did where the communist government of china is telling families how many kids to have. that's what we're dealing with. ashley: i want to get to this issue before we run out of time, ric. russia telling us to expect uncomfortable signals ahead of president biden's summit with president putin that's scheduled for june 16. i mean, i kind of laughed when i read this although it's probably inappropriate but what the heck does that mean, do you think? >> well i think it's going to just mean that what the chinese are already doing and now the russians are starting to do, which is deliver the democrats talking points back to them. some democrats, for the last four years, have been telling americans that they're racist and sexist and homophobic and that our system, our u.s. system supports racism, sexism and homophobia. this is exactly what some democrats have been saying. i don't think anyone should be

surprised that now russia and china are repeating those democratic talking points. ashley: what kind of outcome do you expect between this first meeting between president biden and mr. putin? >> well i don't think we've got very good relations that have been established. i don't think there's a lot of respect. you'll just look at what the russians have done by moving troops to the border and ukraine , by winning nord stream 2 pipeline into germany which was the entire senate was against that, it seemed like but certainly the trump adminitration and now biden has caved. i think that all of our world leaders are looking at joe biden and saying he's really weak, he doesn't know what he's doing and so we're going to challenge him. that's what i fully expect in this first meeting. ashley: right. all right, we'll have to leave it there, the great stuff as always, ric grenell thank you

so much for joining us today. >> thanks. ashley: thank you. speaking of president putin he has a supporter from hollywood in the pro-kremlin party, can you believe? susan who is it? >> we're talking about steven siegel, not exactly the a-list er he used to be but he's joining the pro-kremlin party just called the "just russia patriots for truth" party and we know he's held russian citizenship since 2016, also a long time admirer of putin, he's been very vocal about that and he's also called for a crackdown on businesses that harm the environment in his welcome speech to the party and his membership so his last role, he hasn't had many as you can imagine in the last 30 years it was a straight-to-video film he just did in 2019 but he's also been accused in numerous sexual harassment allegations in hollywood and that includes one from ellyn degeneres's wife, so he hasn't gotten a lot of film roles as of late. ashley: oh, boy what an

interesting path his life has taken, all right, susan thank you very much. quickly take a look at the market if we can. we've certainly come off the session highs which were right at the opening of the market. the dow still up 113 points, the s&p up a tenth of a percent but the nasdac still down very slightly. goldman sachs, boeing, caterpillar and chevron accounting for all of the dow's gain today, so those four stocks pulling their weight today. meantime, the new york knicks are fighting to make it to the second round of the nba playoffs but if they advance, only one group of fans will be allowed to purchase tickets. we'll tell you who, coming up. >> plus, senator bernie sanders is introducing a new bill. he wants college athletes to be able to unionize, but should congress be the one to decide whether players should get paid? we'll have a live report on that , next. >> ♪ it's a party in the usa ♪

[typing sounds] [music fades in] [voice of female] my husband ben and i opened ben's chili bowl the very same year that we were married. that's 1958. [voice of male] the chili bowl really has never closed in our history. when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot. and it's been really helpful to keep people updated on google. we wouldn't be here without our wonderful customers. we're really thankful for all of them. [female voices soulfully singing “come on in”]

do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy, even a term policy, for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized that we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have one hundred thousand dollars or more of life insurance you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit conventrydirect.com to find out if you policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance.

ashley: get ready for this , you're looking at coors field in denver, colorado that's where of course the colorado rockies play , that's where a pop fly can

go out for a grand slam, the air is so thin it is currently 57 degrees on a beautiful sunny morning in denver, colorado. now, to college sports. senator bernie sanders wants to let athletes unionize. hillary vaughn is in maryland at montgomery college. hillary good morning to you. you've been talking to both coaches and athletes what the are they saying? reporter: good morning, ashley. that's right. athletes and coaches both think that there should be some representation and there should be some ability and leniency for athletes to be able to make some money while they are in school, but how that's done is up for debate. right now, college athletes are not paid. many of them get scholarships but they cannot make money on the side selling their name, image and likeness. the national collegiate athletic association has those rules to keep players eligible for amateur sports and to prevent it from becoming

professional, but a former tennis player at university of massachusetts tells me the restrictions on name, image and likeness, nil are too strict >> nil goes so beyond just doing sponsored posts for instagram. for instance, when i was in college, i couldn't teach tennis in the summertime that's against nil, but i could make money doing that and that doesn't require me to have tons of instagram followers. reporter: the ncaa says they're open to reforming those rules, but don't think unions are the way to go. a former assistant wrestling coach at ohio university tells me there is a better option, without going full-blown union for athletes. >> if all we said there needs to be a representative association, it doesn't have to be a union, i do think we need to walk before we can run, and again, if you ask me today, i would rather not see college

athletes become paid employees of the university. reporter: and ashley, there is a larger concern about corruption when you involve big brands and give them the ability to essentially pay athletes thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. there is concern that they be ultimately the ones recruiting these players from high school, trying to win them over by offering a lot of these lucrative deals and that would totally cut out colleges from being at the negotiating table with these high school athletes before they go to college. ashley? ashley: right. a lot of concerns about that very issue, hillary thank you very much. well, let's bring in our good friend tiki barber, former running back of course for the new york giants. great to see you this morning. what do you make of unionizing student athletes, where do you stand on that issue? >> i think it's very interesting, ashley. good to see you this morning as well. we saw this a few years ago with

the northwestern football team trying to unionize, obviously it got shutdown by the national labor relations board, and this act, this college athlete right to organize act is interesting only in that it could allow student athletes to be protected with health-wise, physically. we know we go through a lot of damage playing sports, not just the football and baseball and basketball, but the olympic sports as well, track and field and sometimes there are lasting issues, so organizing to protect the health and safety of college athletes is one thing but to ask universities to now collectively bargain rights as it pertains to salaries is something that i think goes beyond what colleges are equipped for , and a lot of that is because of the structure of the ncaa, ash. we know that the ncaa gets a lot of criticism here but the ncaa is just the enforcement arm of the division i,ii, and iii councils. that's the chancellors and the presidents. they're the ones deciding what's

best for their collective or respective colleges and university. the ncaa just enforces it so now , what this puts into play is so many different players. we have the ncaa, we have the division i ii and iii counc il, the universities themselves and now we have congress putting their two cents into this and it's just making it very muddled and complicated. ashley: tick it, i've got 30 seconds that was a great answer by the way, you covered a lot of ground but should the players be allowed to benefit financially in some way, based on their name , their likeness, their image? >> absolutely. absolutely, ashley. on july 1, name, image and like ness is likely to become law and we're going to see a lot of different ways, compliance is the most important thing though, when there is some out there helping with this teamworks as one, there are some others that display that allow athletes to do this with accounting associated, so i think it's important, but they got to do it

right. ashley: tiki, we're already out of time but i'm so glad we got you in today. thank you so much as always for joining us. >> see you soon, ash, be well. ashley: all right, you too. the great tiki barber. staying with sports the new york knicks say they will only sell tickets to fully-vaccinated individuals, the new policy will begin if they make it to the second round, tomorrow night's game five that will be at madison square garden already sold out, with 16,000 tickets that's good to hear, is it not? and watch this. the chicago cubs game an excited fan trying to catch a home run ball with his beer. and -- boom! he almost made it. unfortunately, he lost his beer, and dropped the ball at the same time, and he dropped that beer and will meyers got a little extra for his efforts right there. look at this other crazy fan story this was at yesterday's nba game between the 76ers and washington wizards, a man rushed

there was tackled after running on to the court. that man now facing criminal charges, and rightly so, should not be charging on to the court like that. crazy day in sports and susan, what's this about the mlb entering the nft space , fyi? >> [laughter] a lot of acronyms there but it's a booming nft market more than 2 billion already sold in the first quarter of this year and counting and there are twice as many buyers as there are sellers so you can imagine that prices only go up so major league baseball is getting in on this trend teaming up with candy digital and a multi-year licensing deal and the first mlt nft will be the exclusive also very famous non-fungible folk en his famous fourth of july speech, where he says today, today, today, i consider myself the luckiest man on the earth. we'll see how much of that goes for but iconic, obviously, and that works with nft. ashley: there you go,

interesting susan, thanks. well, we've talked about the biden administration going after fossil fuels, we've done that a lot, but they are trying to please the green crowd of course but oil & gas remain in high demand, so what's that going to do to the industry? good question we've got a live report from an oil refinery coming up, but first, a new jersey restaurant owner says she needs workers so badly, that if they showed up today she'd hire them on the spot. that owner, amy rousseau is here, next. >> ♪ (vo) conventional thinking doesn't disrupt the status quo. which is why t-mobile for business uses unconventional thinking to help your business

realize new possibilities. only one 5g partner offers unmatched network, support, and value-without any trade offs. in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: just stop. get a hobby. you should meditate. eat crunchy foods. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon.

are you kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette oh, i've traveled all over the country. talking about saving with geico. but that's the important bit, innit? showing up, saying “hello! fancy a nice chat?”

then we talk like two old friends about sticky buns and all the savings you could get by bundling your home and car insurance. but here's the real secret. eye contact. you feel that? we just had a moment. [chuckles] who would've thought it? geico. save even more when you bundle home and car insurance.

>> ♪ ♪ ashley: a little bit of summer love from just in justin timberlake a live look at ocean city, new jersey doesn't that look great on the boardwalk people enjoying themselves it's

currently 68 degrees there, and sunny. aren't they lucky folks to be out there right now? well we know tourists may be returning to popular spots like that one, we can see it live, but apparently, the workers are not. let's bring in amy rousseau, the owner of toast in asbury park, new jersey amy thanks for joining us this morning. you say you are under staffed by eight to 12 people is that right >> yeah, that's right. that's just in one location. i could probably hire about two dozen if not more today if they walk in the door. ashley: so are people showing up for interviews and are you offer ing any incentives? >> we are offering an incentive to make about $30 an hour including tips so that's pretty incentivizing unto itself, but we also can't throw, you know, good money after bad here. we just lost our shirts last year and now we're going to lose more money because of the labor crisis. there's only so much you can

sustain. ashley: do you blame the government and the extended benefits that means that many people would rather just be paid to sit at home, is that the big problem? >> yeah, i mean that's certainly coming into play for sure, and anybody that says it doesn't is just lying. obviously, there's unemployment, there's also just a shift in cultural mentality, it seems like. people just want to take the summer off because they think that they deserve it after the year that we've all had. meanwhile that's good for hospitality in some ways so get ready for , you know, higher prices of coffee and pancakes and a three hour wait rather than an hour and a half. ashley: right that's a good point and i guess the question is because you're so short staffed you just had the memorial day weekend. were you able to keep up with demand? >> barely. i'll be honest with you, i was really happy that it rained to be honest, because if it was a 75 and sunny weekend, we would

have been in trouble. we were able to do it because then we only have our indoor availability. if we had both outdoor and indoor we would have gotten crushed and we would not have been able to handle it. ashley: i'm really interested, so you advertise for these jobs. do you get any responses and what do the people tell you when they show up? >> so we advertise for all of them and we almost get zero applicants in asbury park for especially any of the kitchen jobs. there's so many restaurants, not a huge population, so we don't get any applicants for that. we are slowly getting some of the college kids back. if you're a young 20, early teenager, you can make bank this summer in this industry. you can really write your own ticket there's so much money to be made. ashley: well, that's a good message to get out there. let's hope someone is listening. amy, thank you so much for taking the time to join us and we wish you the best of luck >> thanks for having me. ashley: thank you. now, this by the way. instacart is looking to replace most of its gig workers with

robots. sad is it not? the company says making that move will significantly lower costs; however, they've yet to start production on those robots and have nowhere to put them yet either, but that's not a good sign when they start replacing humans with robots but it is happening. let's take a look at oil if we can. susan, that's the highest price, we're up to $67.78 the highest price since 2018 what's behind the surge? >> well the world's largest oil cartel, opec plus, they have agreed to increase their oil production next month in july but the problem is demand is skyrocketing thanks to economies and countries reopening after covid, the demand is higher than supply and that's why prices are at the levels and then you factor in stalling international efforts to get iran back to the table, and these nuclear discussions and that means less supply coming from iran, which is one of the largest oil producers in the world so as a result we're looking at the highest oil prices in two and a half years and then that

translates also to gas prices and we know that it's trading above $3 a gallon and has the highest pump prices that americans are paying in seven years for the unofficial start to the summer driving season, this memorial day weekend. ashley: yikes. pain at the pump, susan, thank you. staying on energy, despite the biden administration's push to go green. some big energy companies are still betting big, jeff flock is at a refinery in illinois. jeff, are they concerned about the push by the administration to go green? reporter: oh, i think it's fair to say they're big time concerned but i'll tell you there's a lot of pressure on big oil now and i'm at the exxon-mobile refinery here outside chicago, as you see the output of the refinery. this of course is the problem, with the green crowd and the administration right now. this refinery, by the way, just had to pay a $1.5 million fine to the epa and agree to spend $10 million on new pollution controls, even at exxon-mobile

shareholders saying they need to transition away from oil. oil that shell hasn't had the dutch government come down on them saying they've got to reduce emissions even natural gas under fire with some cities saying they want to ban natural gas or discourage it because it's a fossil fuel. you know, talking about oil, just looking into this , i think this will surprise some people. most people think that most of the oil and a barrel of oil goes for gasoline, and electric cars will solve the problem. take a look at these numbers. less than half of a barrel of oil actually is refined into gasoline, another third goes to diesel and eating oil, jet fuel another 7% and then there's petro chemicals. petrochemicals, well, they're pretty much in everything that we utilize. 6,000 different products use petrochemicals, and everything from clothes to silk to plastic to tires to basketballs, i could go on, and that's the reason for some optimism, i think,

ashley, and that is that, you know, oil is in a lot of different stuff. how do you replace that? i think you and i will belong dead before oil goes away. don't you think? ashley: [laughter] i think, i do, i couldn't degree more, jeff and that list of items is just a small part of it , a giant list of how much we rely on these products for our everyday items jeff flock, as always, great stuff from illinois. thank you very much, jeff. you know, let's turn to politics voters in new mexico are heading to the polls today. it's for a special election for interior secretary's old seat and we'll talk about why experts say this very well could foreshadow the 2022 mid-terms, we'll have that story beings next. >> ♪ ♪

keeping your oyster business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

ashley: welcome back everyone. taking a quick look at the markets well the dow is starting to come back up again up is 133 points the nasdac is down slightly and s&p also just up slightly about essentially flat. now this. there is a special election in new mexico's first congressional district today.

it's to of course fill interior secretary deb harlan's old seat. mark meredith is in washington d.c. with this. mark, what insight will this election give us into next year's mid-terms, if any? >> ashley it'll certainly give us a crystal ball into what voters minds are thinking about but as you mentioned voters in the congressional district which includes a big chunk of albuquerque are back at the poll s today and the results could have an impact beyond just the southwestl are multiple candidates in this race but we're watching the two front runners including the state representative democrat melanie stansbury, as well as state senator mark moors whose accusing stansbury of backing a far left agenda to defund the police and campaign heavily to beef up law enforcement tackling the rising crime in the area and he had a chance to speak with fox news about his message as early voting was underway. >> this is such a critical race , because the democrats have gone so far left that they've

nominated just in credible radical that would fit into the aoc wing of the party. >> now, in stansbury rejects those claims she's receiving a lot of support from the mainstream democratic establishment including president biden offered his endorsement and she's held campaign events with the high profile democrats including the first lady and second gentleman but one top democrat says this race could set the tone for the rest of this cycle and early voting suggests that democrats came in today with a major advantage because of turnout, but upset, ashley, of course still possible ashley? ashley: yeah, mark, very quickly , i know this is somewhat of a democrat stronghold seat as you say it's about 75% of albuquerque included in it, but if the republican contender can at least keep it relatively close, could that be considered a put bit of a win? >> i think it would certainly give the republicans more of an insight about what issues seemed to have stuck can voters even in a district like albuquerque that runs so heavily democratic.

ashley: and defund the police is certainly a big issue, one that we could probably expect to see another mid-term elections next year, i would imagine, on a regular basis. >> absolutely i know the democratic candidate has tried to say this now what she's trying to do but in politics no matter what it's the message that may sell. ashley: very true, mark meredith in d.c., mark thank you very much good stuff. okay now it's time for tuesday's trivia question. not that easy, what is the circumference of the earth in miles? you have your choices. take a look. the answer, when we come back. nobody builds 5g like verizon builds 5g. thousands of engineers taking business to a whole new level. employees are empowered.

customers are engaged. near real time data for fast decision making. this is business at the speed of 5g. because the more businesses do with 5g, the more your network matters. it's us pushing us. it's verizon vs verizon. before nexium 24hr, anna could only imagine a comfortable night's sleep without frequent heartburn waking her up. . .

ashley: okay, everybody, we asked you before the break, what is the circumference of the earth in miles? i thought it was around 22,000 miles t wasn't even on the board. the answer is, bing, bing, bing, 24,900 miles. that is when you america sure the earth right around the equator, right around the middle, however you have not a perfect circle. if you measure it from pole to pole it who does that, it is 40 miles short err because of the flattening of poles. that is usely information to pull out at a cocktail party. look at the markets if we can. stuart will be back with us tomorrow. he decided to tack on an extra day to the memorial day weekend. good for him. the dow gaining more upward

movement. up 143 points. the nasdaq slightly lower. the s&p slightly higher. i think we have some real momentum for the reopening economy which we saw over the memorial day weekend the thing really capping those gains is the 10-year treasury yield moving up 1.62% or thereabouts, which does tend to hurt the tech stocks. my time is up. neil cavuto. it be yours. neil: ashley, thank you very, very much, my friend. great job as always. we're following the same market forces here. in fact interest rates in and around that 1.6% in the 10-year note. again the concern seems to be, this is a battle royale always in the markets, right, improving economy, strengthening economy, ism numbers out showing a continuing manufacturing surge. a short supply of everything. that pushes up or the fear that will continue pushing up prices. what will the federal reserve do with that?