banks will be higher as rates rise. charles: all right, because we don't want to have another replay of the first quarter, amazing results and stocks mostly yawn. if you're lucky they yawn, if you weren't lucky you lost 10% keith, david thank you both very much, because my head has been spinning this week. all right, ashley webster, i've got to tell you it feels like a coiled spring can't wait for this last hour of trading. ashley: yup, no kidding, and as for head spinning everybody's head is spinning right now charles thank you very much. let's take a look at the nasdaq, charles and his panel talking about the tech stocks, the dow is essentially flat but look at this , s&p down half a percent, nasdaq down nearly 1%. it has been a choppy day for stocks, and as you can see , the dow and s&p getting caught up a little bit in the push and pull of economic uncertainty, we'll get into that, but could the crypto craze be part of the markets tug of war? jay powell coming out swinging in round two of his testimony on

capitol hill, what the fed chair had to say about digital currencies and what it means for your investment in both cryptos and stocks, plus, record high heat threatening the nation 's food supply, but could indoor farming be the answer to mother nature's wrath? fascinating stuff we'll get into that. meanwhile, is germany playing both sides of the u.s. china battle? a high stakes meeting is going on right now at the white house, what it could all mean for future dealings with china, and the 2021 ipo parade bringing out the biggest in investing we have the state of play on today 's all-star street debuts yes that is mark wahlberg, but, let's get to these markets, meantime the latest data showing the number of americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a 16-month low last week, despite that, fed chair jerome powell says the u.s. job market is still a

ways off before the panel turns hawkish, despite signs of rising inflation, we talk about it all the time. he also says the markets feel a little frothy but as powell plays down taper talk, gold investors aren't waiting around. the commodities hitting a four- week high yesterday, and today as you can see , dropping, well, up slightly up a quarter of a percent at 1,829 as more money going into gold. also, what about the other so-called inflation hedge, bitcoin, well that's fallen in recent weeks, after peaking mid- april at more than $65,000 per coin, way off of that, but besides cryptos, meme stocks have taken a tumble as well. well, it had been predicted so what does that mean for all these hyper growth sectors that are now cooling off? let's get right to the floor show, joining us right now, our good friend stephen guilfoyle, we call him sarge, great to see

you if not in person at least in a little box on my monitor, great to see you. look, let's get this going. let's talk about the overall markets. charles payne was saying his head is spinning right now. he got some mixed earnings, you got inflation that the fed continues to maintain, is just transitory. some are saying that the rebound has peaked and of course, inflation is just going to eat away at future earnings, so much to consider oh, and by the way china's gdp disappointed in the second quarter just to throw that in the pot and mix it all up. what's your take on all of this , sarge? >> well, okay, you think that growth is probably past peak, even here in the u.s. , i think inflation might be past peak, believe it or not, but it's going to be a gradual coming off of that peak, so we're going to have to deal with this for a little while. monetary stimulus remains peak, fiscal stimulus, who knows. you would think what we already have had be peak, but it maybe pre-peak because what the

democrats come up with is gigantic so who knows what happens there. i think the stock market right now is a beautiful home on the best block of the neighborhood but built on match sticks. i really am starting to take some cash out of the market. i've been getting out of my energy names and not out but reducing my exposure to energy names. we threw some of the exposure to some of my favorite tech stocks because they became over valued and i'm setting up bearish options trading next week say for netflix which reports on tuesday, because i don't leave in that stock anymore, so, the worm has turned at least in the way i'm thinking. ashley: interesting stuff, there's so much to take in but it's interesting, sarge, that you're taking some cash right now. we have chris robinson with us, he's going to join us by phone. chris, we just heard from sarge. he said going to take some money out of his high flying stocks, certainly out of energy, maybe some of those high flying tech stocks but as i said to sarge,

chris, this is a tough environment for investors. it's a bit of a head scratcher. how are you playing it? >> well i actually agree with sarge. i think that what do you do when the market has doubled in one year? we are at 2,174 on the s&p we've more than doubled from that low in march of 2020. you need to take profits off the table or at least make sure that you're protecting those profits, and you know, we're overdue, at some point we're going to have a correction , to try and pick one that's going to happen and it'll happen when nobody expects it but yeah, you don't want to see good profits drift away. also, we talk about it a lot on the show. have your shopping list ready. if there's a stock that you want to buy all year, have that order working, because when the market breaks, it's going to be very difficult to call somebody up or hit the buy button. have it working before the break so you step in there, if you're disciplined about it, i think they are going to be good

opportunities but i agree with sarge. the market feels toppy, we're heading into the summertime, and we've had a tremendous rally so i think it's time for some defense. ashley: interesting, sarge so you take the money off and forgive me if you said this but where is that money going to go to work? are you just going to hang on to it? >> well, i was down to about 10 % cash which is a little low for me so some of it's going to stay in cash. i already have holdings in gold and silver, which i like, and i probably will expand on but i don't want to go too high and stay around 10% on that. basically, i just i want to stay away from the most dangerous, most speculative things that are out there. i'm not going to touch cryptos okay? i know you mentioned cryptos a few minutes ago. there were four types of people, people who need to move wealth across borders, terrorists, drug dealers and cyber criminals. i don't think there's any other legitimate purpose, they aren't a store of value and certainly not on medium of exchange,

unless you're one of those guys so i really think regulation is coming, it's coming in a big way and these people who are heavily invested are going to hurt. ashley: you know what, chris, i read your notes. you say look crypto isn't even a currency in your mind. you think it trades your like a commodity. >> it does and a very thinly- traded commodity and there's an old axe olympics out there. the market this thing had a $62,000 trading range since 2018 , and we're sitting right in the middle of it and we've been right in the middle of it for the last nine weeks and i think sarge is right. people are worried about what is china going to do when it comes to crypto. what is the u.s. going to do when it comes to crypto scott market literally is hanging fire if you want to get indiana the mid-point i'd just say this , you're trading something that is akin when it comes down to it, etherial, and like everything else if you're looking for movement that's great but it can be very dangerous if you're not

disciplined, but that being said , people like to buy dips, so this is a dip, this is a half way back dip, we've been sitting here for nine weeks but i'd just say this , be careful. i'm a character of a bull or a bear, what you're going to do if your decision was wrong. >> you know what the cryptos of tomorrow are going to be, guys? the cryptos of tomorrow are going to be the u.s. dollar, the euro, and the question. ashley: very quickly, sarge, very quickly, the u.s. dollar really worried about it, with all of this spending, you have to pay the piper, and it's going to really hit the u.s. dollar i think at some point here, it has to. >> well, i mean, it depends what the other central banks do, like we already owe canada and new zealand a policy a little bit but the big players are japan, the pboc, the ecb, it depends what they do. if everybody eases together, well, then everything remains the same relative, but you know, you're right. it could be a slippery slope.

ashley: all right, well we'll have to leave it there on a slippery slope. sarge, thank you so much, chris robinson, on the phone, great stuff as always, thank you both. all right, now, reports say treasury secretary janet yellen has no plans to ressurect economic talks with china, after being suspended in 2017 by the trump adminitration, but, the receipt rhetoric is starting to heat up as the biden administration takes a stronger stance on chinese imports and business practices, even warning about hong kong, and it's the issue of china taking center stage at the white house today, as president biden meets with his german counterpart, chancellor angela merkel. all right, let's get straight to the white house with the very latest from edward lawrence. edward? reporter: yeah, hey, ashley they are talking about a number of different issues but this is one of them, china where the u.s. and the germans do not see eye to eye. now originally, angela merkel, the german chancellor, was going to let huawei, specifically, add

their equipment to the 5g network around the united states , and there you see today, them in the oval office, meaning the u.s. sees huawei specifically as a national security risk and a spokesperson for the bureau of industry and security within the commerce department tells me communications equipment made by untrusted vendors is a threat to u.s. security and our allies. we will ensure that american telecommunications networks do not use equipment from untrusted vendors and we will work with our allies to secure their telecommunications networks. now, the statement adds that huawei's ties to china's military, human rights abuses, and theft of intellectual property are a source of deep concern, and the u.s. government is committed to take regulatory action to ensure our policies reflect that concern. now the german chancellor eventually lost her battle in politically internally and germany is moving back towards the western countries and blocking huawei still as biden rolls out the red carpet, merkel has worked over the past 18 months or year or so to deepen

the ties with the chinese and they have an investment agreement with the chinese between germany and china done late last year, so this could be , she could be one of the few western leaders standing in the way of this coalition that the president wants to build to put together to go one voice against china, as you said the u.s. has made some moves. germany has been a little bit washy on their opposition for the chinese. back to you. ashley: all right, interesting stuff, edward lawrence at the white house. edward thank you very much. all right, coming up, the surprising reason you could soon be paying more for your next slice of pizza, say it ain't so. plus, the small business with a very big idea to help protect america's heartland from record crop-killing heat. all right, as we head to the break the dow up slightly 19 points, or thereabouts the claman "claman countdown" coming right back.

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year's wheat crop to be the smallest in years, 33 to be exact according to the usda, and a shortage in wheat is driving up prices for pizza makers across the country, who are already dealing with rising costs and worker shortages. grady trimble is at a pizza in chicago we know what he had for lunch today. grady will prices be going up? reporter: unfortunately, it's looking likely, ashley, we're at lou malnati's an iconic deep dish pizza joint you can see how much dough they go through here and because of that they are watching closely as they're see ing that the price of wheat is going up. wheat is going to cost them more dough. let me show you spring wheat futures. they have gone up 32% since april, and that's because as you said, this year's spring wheat harvest is expected to be the lowest its been since 1988 down 41% from just last year, all because of the drought

and the extremely hot temperatures in the northern plains. i talked to the coo and they tell us the wheat alone isn't forcing them to pass along higher prices to customers, not just yet, anyway. >> we don't tend to move based on one item moving, although wheat and mozzarella choice are the two biggest items that have a big impact on our business, specifically. reporter: but they are having to raise prices and that's cause well, everything else is costing them more, so they are institut ing unfortunately a 3% price hike on all menu items, later this month, and a lot of restaurants are dealing with that, ashley. the cost of food is going up. the cost of even packaging for to go orders is going up. the cost of labor is going up and unfortunately, that's one of the reasons we're seeing pizza costing more, but deep dish is so popular here at lou malnati's

people are willing to pay more for it. ashley: when it comes to pizza you're right, especially deep dish, grady trimble, thank you so much. more dough for dough and it's getting expensive, all right the drought issues facing farmer s is making an even bigger case for indoor farming, and our next guest says hey, i've got the solution, in a fox business exclusive, we welcome i ngo mueller. ingo, i guess my first question is could your company step in and help these farmers who are being devastated by these hot drought conditions? >> ashley, i think the answer is absolutely. i think there's certainly as we look at climate change and the impact on farming generally, water consumption is a massive issue, and now, with controlled environment agriculture solutions and technology, we have ways to reduce water consumption by

factors of 10 or more. ashley: so you basically, you have a hydroponic indoor farming system but some of these fields out there, i mean, they are huge does that mean giant warehouses, how does your system work? >> well, it is a farm of hydrop onic, although we have a proprietary pending system which is really what we call the fourth way of growing and it's a unique facility design that actually even improves the efficiency and sustainability of hydroponic systems so it's not like a warehouse or indoor. it's not like a greenhouse, although you could assimilate it for a greenhouse so we look to develop more efficiencies to reduce impact. ashley: fascinating. can you get the same crop yield? i mean, how efficient is it? >> it's actually extremely

efficient. we believe that we have the highest yield per square foot based on existing technologies. we really looked at what we would consider the deficiencies of legacy systems and if you look at the industry most of the attitudes have been around if it isn't broken, don't fix it , so we looked at it and said okay what are the things that are going to improve both yield, both sustainability and efficiencies, reduce costs, and ultimately, provide a better product. ashley: how hard is it going to be politico persuade farmers who have done it the same way for generations to buy into this and how much is it going to cost to make that transformation >> well our business model is a little different in that we provide the ip the facility, everything for the farmer. they lease that from us, so we try to tok reduce the barriers of entry and we then provide the systems and know how to help

them. obviously there's always challenges, i'm sorry, there's always challenges in anything new, but we believe it's so compelling and the need for it is so compelling that, you know, we'll get some degree of adoption quite quickly. ashley: we nearly lost you there but i'm glad we didn't. your company went public this week, ingo, but why did you decide to go public, and which direction is this company heading? is does it got any partnerships, is it expanding? >> yeah, we decided to go public because we're now at the point of commercialization. we spent three years and million s of dollars in engineering and development. we're now at the point where we're acquiring customers, and we're also looking at other vendors, companies in particular , out of europe, where agricultural ip has existed for quite a long time since the 40s, actually even earlier, but there are a lot of companies that have unique inputs or

elements of solutions that we believe are valuable in producing the next generation of agricultural solutions, so part of it is to have that currency to go and acquire those sorts of companies, and really continue to innovate and improve available solutions. ashley: fascinating stuff. thank you so much for being here , ingo mueller, we wish you the best of luck we'll check back in and see how you're doing but we do appreciate you taking time out for us, thank you. >> thank you. ashley: talk about buyers and sellers markets in housing but what about the used car business coming up next, we're going to find out is it a good time to sell or buy a used vehicle? meantime, prices and demand for building materials are still soaring, still ahead we're going to talk with the ceo of the hill man group that just went public about the construction business and what the future holds. the closing bell rings in 27 minutes.

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ashley: fox business alert, moderna getting a shot in the arm in today's pop stocks. moderna climbing to the top of the nasdaq, which of course is down today, but check that out, up 5%, jefferies raising its price target to a street high, $250, also boosting its full year estimates on moderna's covid vaccine sales just yesterday moderna's market cap touched $100 billion mark, hitting an all-time high earlier today, moderna as i say right now, up nearly 5%. elon musk charging up his twitter followers, the tesla ceo says the companies upcoming cyber truck could flop. why? because it's "so unlike anything else." but, mr. musk says he doesn't care because he just loves it so much. investors probably caring a little more than that, tesla

right now down 1%, you don't want your ceo saying it could be a flop, but hey, that's elon musk. the athleisure sector feeling the sting of competition, the wall street journal reporting kate hudson's fabletic s is preparing for a potential 5 billion ipo, gap taking the biggest hit on that news, the gap down 4% and talking competition, citi says netflix is into gaming to be a major threat to video game developers, but the streamer sinking today as ubs says investors may have to wait until later this year, or even next to see an up-tick in subscriber growth netflix as you can see down just over 1% all right, talking about inflation, used car prices have sky rocketed this year, as the global chip shortage has sparked demand for , well, pre- owned vehicles. new data out this week shows that the used car and truck prices have spiked more than 45%

since last year, so, what should consumers know before making their next car purchase? gerri willis joins us with the very latest on that issue, hey, gerri. gerri: hey, ash. that's right. well, you know it's a well-known fact that simply driving a car, off a dealer lot in normal times a new one drops its value by 5- 10%, a car that's a-year-old is typically worth 25% less in the marketplace than what the owner paid for it, but do you know what? this is not a normal year. shortages of semiconductors and heavy discounts at the beginning of the covid-19 crisis are driving used car prices through the roof. check out our list of lightly- used cars, a year or so old, that are valued the same or more as this brand spanking new version of the same make and model and some of the ones that you see on here especially the camaro are worth more because they're collectors items and the camaro famous for

featuring a mid-vehicle engine for the first time but most of the vehicles on this list like the trucks and the vans, well they're simply vehicles heavily promoted or as i said experienced chip shortages. even used conventional commuter cars like the toyota camry are drawing shockingly high prices after a year on the road, in this case, 92% of the new version price tags. >> the role completely reversed , instead of you saying i want to buy this car from 20 people or 10 people or three people now you're taking your car and you're doing the same to them. it's like it's completely flipped on its head. gerri: and he says creative consumers with car leases may find they can sell their vehicle for more than the buy-out price, or could consider returning it to the dealer for a bonus. ash we're even hearing about some dealerships that are contacting customers to say hey, bring that car back, we need some inventory, but of course, if you do, where are you going

to get a car you can afford to replace it? back to you, ash. ashley: that's right. it's almost identical, gerri to the housing market, people getting calls saying hey would you like to sell your house, we have no inventory just in the vehicle sense i guess, interesting stuff, gerri thank you very much. fascinating. all right, well, from the pandemic diy boom to the public markets we talked to the ceo of the business of houston rockets owner thought was such a slam dunk and he helped to write a $2 billion-plus blank check to bring to the street and he clearly believes in it the ceo of hardware supply hillman is here next, plus, why the post- covid construction boom could be demolished by the worker shortage. there you go, we found some workers, the dow, s&p, and nasdaq, well, we have the dow up right now, but certainly the nasdaq is down and the s&p somewhere in the middle, down a third of a percent. we're coming right back.

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ashley: actor and celebrity investor mark wahlberg flexing on the new york stock exchange floor this morning as the fitness company, there he is, he backs f-45 training, it made its training debut and they was there to give it a nice push , right now that stock, as you can see , basically where it was at the start, right around $16 a share and another all-star company began trading today, construction materials supply, the hillman group debut ing on the nasdaq but for more than a $2.5 billion spac merger and hillman group ceo doug cahill joins us live from the nasdaq. congratulations to you, sir. i'm fascinated to know how did

this merger, this spac deal come about? because tillman is linked with sports gaming, entertainment, not exactly your things. no, that's true and tillman understands the customer and has run a bunch of businesses like rich handler, so as soon as they saw watt we've been able to do over the last 56 years, to quote tillman, you can buy the stock and put it away for 10 years and in 10 years say wow it's a really interesting company and they've been very supportive. ashley: explain to our viewers exactly what the company is. you're in the building business and you provide supplies. what kind of supplies? >> yeah if you think about nuts and bolts and screws and we duplicate 116-120 million keys a year, of you get a pet tag engraved that's us, picture hanging, anything that you would go into a lowe's, home depot, tractor supply or ace, you

pull that drawer out looking for that thing that's us. we have 112,000 different products. ashley: how's business right now the story we get out of the housing industry is theres tremendous demand, just not enough supply of houses. how does that impact your company? >> yeah, so we've had growth 55 out of the last 56 years and the only year we were down was 2009 and we were only down 5% so we're tied to remodel and and repair, not new housing so our business has been very solid and fortunately for us, you know the home has been redetermined from what it used to be, eat and sleep and watch tv to today we're doing business, we're doing school, we're doing entertainment and recreation, so lots of projects and that's good for us. ashley: yes it's good for you indeed. times are good. we talk a lot about inflation, doug. has that hurt your, have you senior costs go up and in what area in particular?

>> every area, to be honest. we've seen, to get on a ship, to get in the port, to get to our stores that we service, obviously things like steel, but it's the kind of thing that if it goes up a little, you might have margin pressure but this kind of increase is being passed on to the consumer, unfortunately, there's no option what we've seen with lumber going from 400 to over 1,600 now back to under $700 this week is a good thing, because that was starting to impact some of our wood screw business and some of the things that we do around wood but i think it's coming back to earth now. ashley: you mentioned how the trends, doug, have really helped your business because the home has become so many more things than just a home, but do you worry that the momentum will start to fade as the economy recovers and more people, perhaps, go back to more traditional work spaces? >> yeah, i think you'll see some of that because it was

heated up in the may, june, july , timeframe last year but if you talk to a pro, either at low e's or depot today, they are still nine months backed up on project so there's a lot of pent-up demand for people who want to do projects, they just haven't been able to get the professional work to get it done and last year was tough for the pro because they couldn't get into the homes like the diy and we really focus on both the pro and the diy'er. ashley: it's a good time to be in your business i think that's true. congratulations, again, on your big day today, going public. doug cahill, thank you so much. >> thank you. ashley: thank you. all right, well, while construction materials are certainly at a premium these days, you might not be able to find enough construction workers to actually complete the job. it's an ongoing problem in many areas, including construction. lydia hu is live in livingston, new jersey, with another example of how a shortage of workers is slowing down the recovery.

i love the hat, lidia. what's the story? reporter: oh, hey there, ashley. yeah, you know, the growth in residential building is being felt across the construction industry because it's pulling from the same labor pool, the construction workers. it's getting harder and harder to find workers like these gentlemen behind me that are working to excavate this area. this is not a residential work site this is actually a commercial work site going to eventually be turned into a senior living community, but it's hard to find workers to get the job done. the associated builders and contractors estimates that the industry needs 430,000 workers through the end of the year to keep up with demand, a million to be hired over the next two years. we are here with connor evans who is the executive project lead on this particular site and we've been talking about the labor shortage here. the jobs report last month actuy lost workers rather than added them. why do you think that is, and

why is it hard to find workers for construction? >> sure, i think it's a complicated issue as we spoke throughout the day lidia, which again thank you so much for being here. it's complicated and there are many contributing factors. cyclicality of the industry, shortage of training, and frankly, it's a tough job, but at the same time, with any major problem, is a major opportunity. reporter: you're really passionate about it and you say there are a lot of good reasons to get into construction. >> absolutely love construction , my wife, family, co-workers love to joke and saying connor loves to build and i do. reporter: that's why you're so committed to recruiting out of high school, college, to find young people because retention is one of the ways that construction believe the future of the construction industry is going to be built. >> wholsen construction is so committed to our development, the growth, the opportunities we provide and it's the ultimate team sport. it really is, between designers

and architects, contractors. reporter: thank you so much, con or, so ashley the problem is when you don't have enough workers getting a project done on time and on budget becomes more difficult is what we're learning, we know that jobless claims fell to the lowest level during the pandemic and the most recent report out today. we'll have to see if any of the jobs were added back to the construction industry. ashley: yes hopefully so and they are good paying jobs as well, lidia thank you very much. appreciate that. coming up, the story that never ends. is viacom cbs up for sale and who would they merge with? well guess what charlie breaks it when the "claman countdown" comes right back as we head to the break the dow just barely above positive, but it's there. it's up 13 points we'll be right back.

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ashley: beyond meat beefing up j. d..com the chinese online giant getting a boost as beyond meat opens a new e-commerce shop on its platform. the faux meat makers digital for ey also marking the launch of its beyond pork product specifically created for its china customers beyond meat currently sells its plant-based beef substitutes in four chinese cities including beijing and shanghai ultimately hopes to expand to 300 cities across the world's second largest economy, seems like a good idea and beyond meat and jd both on the upside today, up nearly 2%. all right, from fake meat to seafood, when you're a small fish in a very big pond, sometimes it's better to join forces with the bigger fish. well is that where viacom cbs is heading? joining us now, on the latest

chapter of this never-ending novel, charlie gasparino. what do you say, charlie? charlie: beyond meat, could you imagine making meatballs with beyond meat? it sounds so gross. ashley: no. charlie: i've tried it. i've had an open mind. i tried it. it doesn't work for me, and by the way the fat content is insane but let's guest back to fish, small fish. ashley: now that we've trashed beyond meat. charlie: listen i'm sure there's health benefits here but i'm just telling you, my opinion. do they advertise with us by the way? [laughter] ashley: not now. charlie: can we throw up the chart to tell you why bankers are now highly highly speculating, hotly speculating about why shari redstone is looking to sell viacom? it's a great chart and there you go, now look, they are supposed to be big, right? but look at the relative size here, 27 billion compared to comcast, 238 for netflix, that fluctuates daily, but you know, it's where they are today and

look at amazon which for all in tense and purposes is a media content player right now they just bought mgm $1.8 trillion, listen in media, size and scale matters, you get more bang for your buck, businesser advertising, you could charge more for streaming and ads with streaming services all that matters, and that's why the media, that's why media bankers are now buzzing about viacom cbs we should also point out that shari redstone was making the rounds in sun valley last week reports about her chat ting up with brian roberts at comcast. i've learned she was speaking with david zaslov, the new warner media discovery combination. i'm going to say this , those two deals seemed like probably a bridge too far. comcast because of the overlap, remember, comcast owns nbc, cbs is at viacom you'll have to get rid of one of them to meet anti-trust concerns.

the other one zaslov is in the middle of a merger it's going to be very hard for him to buy them. that said there's a lot of other properties out there, does amazon buy them? does government allow amazon to buy them? i guess is one of the questions, and i think that's the big thing here, with viacom. the players that are out there, the big tech companies are under the microscope for with the biden administration regulators so amazon be a natural place to put viacom cbs because there's no real overlap but you know, the lina khan of the ftc hates amazon and its size so even though the media world is talking big, making big noise about merging here, it's not, it's going to be a tough one in the near term. long term comcast could be out there, people are talking about zaslov coming back making a deal at some point. it's all out there and it's

clear that shari redstone knows that being a big fish, being a little fish in a big pond is very difficult. you need size and scale. ashley: yes it is. charlie: that's why there's lots of talk about her talking to people and doing mergers. back to you and enjoy your meatballs this weekend of beyond meat. ashley: hang on, hang on. beyond meat is on the phone, charlie. yes, yes, all right, i've given them your number so expect a call in about two minutes charlie gasparino, interesting stuff as always, charlie, thank you very much. go beyond meat. all right, the grand reopening creating very real opportunity in one of the economies key sectors, randy anderson will give us the top plays for post- pandemic portfolio success, not easy to say, that's next. the closing bell rings in about seven and a half minutes we'll be back.

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♪. ashley: all right, welcome back. take a look at these markets. the dow holding on to its green arrows valiantly. only up 1/10 of a percent, up 34 points. the s&p and nasdaq at record highs, off 108 points, down 3/4 of a percent. obviously money out of the growth stocks into value. it bangs back and forth with each passing day. we've had a lot for markets to consider. we had fed chair jerome powell saying interest rates are not going up anytime soon. he talked about the markets perhaps a little frothy, talking about digital currencies and spacs all of that. so it is interesting to see how these markets and the, certainly investors as charles payne said earlier today it makes their

head spin. we had mixed earnings up to now you could say on corporate earnings. inflation levels. the fed maintains they are indeed transitory but, we'll have to wait and see. but so much. all right, so much for the markets but let's get the word from an expert. randy anderson, griffith capital management. he joins me now. and i did, great to have you aboard. you like real estate, particularly reits, real estate investment trusts. explain your thinking and what reits do you like? >> last year real estate nobody liked them. if you listen to the newscast, nobody will pay the rent, nobody will go back to the office. nobody will shot. all people wanted was peloton and zoom. the truth was on the ground values went up. occupancies were there. last year reits were the only major sector were down, lost to

utilities, down 2% to 5% depending what index you looked at. the s&p 500 was up 18%. they were 20% worse than the overall markets even the earnings were strong and fundamentals were strong. year-to-date going into the value play you talked about we gained 10% of that back with reits up 10.22%. we have a long way to go. prices look really attractive looking at yield to bbb spreads and other income vehicles. ashley: very good. what about biosciences, biotechs, you like that area as well? certainly with the onset of covid, this has been very much in the news. >> you know i would like to say beforehand i think intersection of biology and technology is one of the best investing opportunity. if you can be a landlord to that you will get outsized rents. small markets like west san francisco where there is a

hot tech market, hospitals, universities, the cambridge market, you can get great tenants. i tell you what the pandemic did nothing but accelerate that kind of demand. ashley: i want to talk about inflation if we can, randy, very quickly. it is affecting, everything the cost of living. how does it impact the real estate market. funny, real estate does really well with inflation. anytime you get economic growth. you get gdp growth. get job growth, demand for real estate. with inflation it makes it hard tore deals to pencil out, price of land, price of labor, price of materials to go up, it really limits that supply. when you don't have a lot of supply, burgeoning, new demand and strong increases in pricing. we'll see that you saw that in earlier segment, the single family segment, industrial, life science, across the board with the exception after couple sectors still in the eye of the storm. ashley: all right. we'll have to leave it right

there. randy anderson, great stuff. you got a lot in, in a short amount of time. thank you so much, randy, do appreciate it. as we hear them clapping down on wall street we can show you the latest market. [closing bell rings] we limped a little bit. the s&p off a third of a percent, nasdaq down 104. that will do it for "the claman countdown." "kudlow" is next. ♪. larry: hello, everyone. welcome to "kudlow," i'm larry kudlow. so yesterday we were all disappointed that neither president biden nor madam psaki were willing to slam cuban communism but we're americans together. here's what i suggested last night. some free advice for president biden, sir, it is okay to come out against communism. it's all right. well today, i'm very proud of madam psaki and