it into great riches, but i don't think it's changing unless we, the people, vote it out at the booth and to me like i said it's the same as term limits i don't think they happen. charles: jim, when in front of the sub-zero with $8 i sickle pop, you know, on a $400,000 a year salary, you just go something ain't right. see you soon, my friend. we're getting a little bit of effect as i hand it over to my colleague, liz claman, we could have a strong close, liz. liz: well yeah, a durable action that we're looking at right now, charles, the two day bull run is , yeah, jogging at a slightly slower pace as we head into the final hour of trade but we do have green on the screen, news breaking from london to wall street though that the omicron variant is starting to have some impact. nonetheless the dow just turned positive it's up 11 points the s&p is up 10, the nasdaq up 85, and we should mention apple on track for its third record close in a row. now, in the last hour, united kingdom's prime minister boris johnson has instituted a

work-from-home order ahead of anticipated covid case increases he is calling it plan b, and urging more boosters into more arms. this as pfizer says three doses of its covid vaccine can neutralize omicron. we do have pfizer down just half a percent, biontech its partner down 2.5%. the need for cleanliness and sterilization booming during the pandemic and now the company builds as the amazon of natural products is teaming up with one of the world's top entrepreneurs and most innovative minds. billionaire sir richard branson about to join us live with the co-founder and ceo of grove collaborative about how branson picked grove to take public in his latest spac deal. could it be the youtube killer? free speech video platform rumble inking a spac deal of its own with wall street giant cantor fitzgerald chairman and ceo howard lutnick, who joins us in just moments on that and

president biden taking his infrastructure road show to the show me state today, we'll keep our eyes on his visit to the kansas city area transportation authority. but first, to fox business alert markets right now are holding on to gains which shows real resilience in light of the united kingdom implementing that major covid mandate across the country, and we've also got developing headlines out of two giant wall street firms at this hour. number one, wells fargo saying in the last half hour, there are no firm-wide celebrations that will be planned this holiday season in light of rising covid-19 cases. all employees will be required to continue wearing face cover ings, regardless of vaccination status, wells is down about 1.5% at the moment. the wells news comes just two hours after asset manager jeffrey's financial group announced effective today, all companies social events and client functions are canceled until january 3, as are most business travel plans. this after jefferies said it has

counted 40 new cases of covid in just the past seven days. jefferies asking employees to work-from-home if possible, it is also reimposing a mask mandate in all of its offices as is wells. so, is this sort of a canary in the coal mine and how impressive is it that the markets are holding on at least at the moment to gains, we already know google has delayed its return to work date. if other firms follow suits, what does that mean for the nice entertainment economic recovery? and what about the federal reserve? it was just last week the fed chair jay powell made it very clear he will speed up the tapering process and before the jefferies news, former new york fedaries bill dudley came out swinging with what he says the fomc should do next week at its policy meeting. the aim is to complete the tapering program, says dudle y, in time to be able to start raising short-term interest rates as soon as march, should that prove necessary. well, at this moment exactly a week from today, we will know what the fed is thinking, when it comes to tapering and maybe

more importantly, interest rate policy. let's bring in our floor show trader, teddy, we've just thrown a lot of news at our viewers but the markets are holding on to green. if you're trying to sort of span the gamut between betting on stay-at-home stocks and reopening picks where do you go here just to cover both bases? >> yeah, i know. it's really hard, liz. we know what the obvious plays are, you know? the stocks that get beat up the most, leisure, travel, hotels, airlines, you know, when the covid news gets bad and of course when it gets really bad it seems they become a great buying opportunity, but i think the trick is to find stocks in sectors that will be sort of immune and benefit from the overall covid landscape whether it be good or bad, and one area, in particular, i think are the exchange stocks. if you will, the financial casinos, because all the volatility that is generated

because of the good news/bad news when it comes to covid and the news is can be very disturb ing and can be very good and the markets react according ly, but the exchange stocks no matter what will benefit and in particular, a stock that we've owned for a long time, and it's a legacy hold-over of our stock exchange seats is ice, intercontinental exchange for one, but there are others. there's cme cboe, nasdaq, ice is not the only one. liz: right. >> or perhaps a company like c ushman cwk, which will benefit eventually from the return to normalcy when we get beyond covid and the return to the offices and commercial real estate sector, so i mean, there are clearly plays but i think the exchange stocks in particular are solid and it's a good place to be, because they will benefit from all the volatility that's created by all the noise surrounding covid. liz: they are the toll roads, you know, they make money either

way no matter which way people are betting on stocks. scott bauer, again i mentioned apple because it's now something like $2.8 trillion in its market cap, and this be the third record close of the year, so that's impressive. so you've got that, plus you broaden the aperture the dow is still up about 13 points at the low, it had been down about 116, even in light of these wells and jefferies headlines, you know, how do you look at the headlines and say okay, omicron maybe a bigger thing, at least when it comes to dinging the economy if people start canceling big events just as jefferies says we're not going to have client events or holiday parties, and then by the same token, there's still a reopening trade because we don't have a shutdown here in the united states. >> they're absolutely is, liz and this last scare over the last week or so from omicron has proven that that really is front and center what is driving this market, because before that came out, market was

running well, the economy was running well, hot, yes, but had accepted the fact that the tapering is going to be accelerating and that interest rates are going to be rising sooner rather than later, so it's really, you know, as teddy said, you have to be very careful, and i think what is really important here is to have a portfolio of a little bit of reopening and a little bit of shutdown, but the ones that are shutdown are not the ones, you know, maybe some of the high fliers, the real big high fliers there's two in particular i'm looking at, liz, that i think even after a full reopening which we all hope and pray this is sooner rather than later , dash and zoom. so doordash, it's definitely more expensive than its peers but it is already profitable, and it has the largest market share in the u.s. food delivery market. it's looking to expand really quickly in new categories, and overseas. as far as zoom and you mentioned apple, zoom is now a household

name. it's not just a product, it's a brand. so regardless of the type of at- home meetings that people are conducting and i believe will continue to conduct even after we reopen, they're going to call it a zoom conference whether they use zoom or a different platform. now, the stock has had kind of a natural split from 600 down to 200, terrible, now, to me, great time to get back in it. i really love the upside in zoom liz: people are still using it, even as they go back to work because of the convenience. teddy, scott, thank you very much. i do just want to mention the vix is really reflective of the fact that there isn't too much fear in the markets. in fact it's falling about 7% at last check so we are continuing to watch that and all of the markets here. we've got this fox business alert, roku had a rough time of it, down more than 30% over the past year, but today, the stock is jumping after the connected tv company announced it has resolved a dispute with google over youtube streaming on its platform.

the firms signing a multiyear extension deal, roku popping 18% now, in case you don't remember, roku had accused youtube parent alphabet of anti-competitive behavior as it bid to keep the service on its platform. a stich in time cannot save stich fix, at least during this session. it's hitting a 52 week low falling nearly 23%, after the digital personal shopping site reported disappointing guidance for the fiscal second quarter and the full year, it also missed estimates for its fiscal first quarter active customers. elite tech analyst wedbush dan i ves calling apple and microsoft his top tech picks for 2022, and we did just get this. a u.s. appeals court has paused the enforcement of an injunction against apple that could obtain the method with the app store and $3 trillion

market cap, and a new record today, as it goes microsoft down two-thirds of a percent and by the way, a crackdown on chinese tech stocks such as alibaba and didi will prove to be a tailwind for american technology sitting very close to the bottom of the s&p right now, as a price target cut to $33 a share by guggenheim, hovering just above that 33.41 and the firm saying that the food company, which of course has heinz ketchup behind it and craft macaroni and cheese lacks pricing power, which will hurt its top and bottom line growth. kraft heinz will combine its canadian and u.s. businesses to create the north american zone as part of its growth plans. rival campbell soup jumping higher after it hiked product prices which helped beat profit estimates current quarter gm gross margins will be under pressure due to higher labor and

raw material costs the stock is down 13% year-to-date, but up 2.25% and yes the mushroom soup is that must-have ingredient fortune a casserole that i grew up eating. rocket ships, jetliner, hyperloops and now hand soap? sir richard branson, yes, the entrepreneur star inking a deal with grove collaborative to bring the all-natural consumer products company to the public market. virgin group founder sir richard branson and grove co-founder and ceo are here, live, next to tell us how their spac deal came together and what their plan is to clean the clocks of their fast-growing rivals. closing bell ringing in 49 minutes, the dow gaining about 18 points right now, a lot of news breaking, stay with us the "clayman countdown" is coming right back.

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know what news comes out of that >> in the meantime, move over rocket ships and jumbo jets. entrepreneur king sir richard branson has a new venture. ecofriendly household and beauty products company, sir richard branson spac virgin group acquisition revealed it will take grove collaborative public via a $1.5 billion reverse merger. now, grove, you may know, is the national consumer products company that manufactures its own line of sustainable products and also sells third party names like the hand soap, so popular, house guests steal it from other people's bathrooms. can this green clean deal investors make lots of green for investors? here to make the case, virgin group founder and chairman sir richard branson and co-founder and ceo stu landisburg. not that i have ever stolen meyers soap from a host house that i visited of course i would never do that but i'll start with you, sir richard. what was it about the all

natural consumer space and grove collaborative in particular that won the position as your spac target? >> the fact that stu said that they be plastic-free by 2025. i have on my sink lots of wonderful products that i use abdomen i know that my wife has the same and now, 10 days, you're throwing them away, and when i talk to stu, their business was absolutely the kind of business that virgin loves to invest in. it's a great business, its got brilliant management team headed up by stu, it's completely aligned with virgin purpose, it can grow and it can innovate quickly, and it already has access to millions of customers, so and it's going to change business for the good and i think if you only live once you might as well try to invest in

companies that have a purpose and disrupt, and that's exactly what it's doing. liz: stu how did the deal come together? did you approach sir richard and the spac or was it the other way around? give us a window into this. >> yeah, glad to be here with you both. grove's vision has always been about changing the consumer products category, which as richard mentioned, is it almost every home around the world, hand soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, bath tissue. these are products that all of us use and with a track record for the impact on human environmental health is not great. our goal is to transform this category, to be better for people on the planet so as we went to go public, we looked for the avenue that would help us accelerate our vision, help us bring better for you and better for the environment products to more people, and there is truly no better partner than richard and the virgin group, who understand the

importance of setting seemingly impossible goals, like taking the plastic out of cpg business that's almost $1 trillion globally and almost 100% wrapped in single-use plastic today. a partner who understands the importance of that ambition and can support a mission-driven business that believes by changing the category, we will do well for our shareholders, for all stakeholders and for the environment. liz: well he started an airline from scratch, i mean, this guy does aim very high. sir richard you've jumped into the spac space head-first. this is not your first rodeo here, in fact just recently in june, you launched 23 and me, you helped it go public via reverse merger. it's having a good week up about 9% although it struggled just a bit. talk to me about what you look for in a target. >> well, it's interesting. the other person whose invested in grove is paul pullman who

used to run unilever, and i think the two of us look for companies that we can be proud of investing in, and that will make a real difference in this world. obviously, they've got to be financially successful and got to have great management and that's that under stu and you obviously can see from interview ing stu, he's a formida ble force and he started this from scratch, so it had the right ingredients. the product has the right ingredients too, and to have that product soon being in plastic-free containers is wonderful. i mean, unilever when paul was there running it, it was a tough job for a big corporation like that to do everything that he would like it to have done. now he's left unilever and he

can put his attention into a smaller company as can i and make sure that we can help stu deliver what he's promising. liz: sure, and the help comes in the form of a big cash infusion once you go public, stu, so tell me what you're going to do with that money. you guys are collaborative who has shown real growth over the years, obviously, that's why sir richard says you know what? you've proven yourself but what do you do with the money? >> so we're in a huge market here. the market for home and personal care products in the u.s. is $180 billion, and as i said nearly $1 trillion globally. we've grown at a 54% cagr from 2018-2021 but we are just scratching the surface. it is manifest destiny that all of the products that we use around our homes transform into products that are truly sustainable. the environmental crisis around climate change and plastic waste , they necessitate that and we have the leading brands today in zero plastic and zero waste,

so we will use the money and part of the reason that we're going public is to make sure that we can continue to innovate and continue to lead what i see as a huge transition and one that's incredibly important in such a massive sector and so we'll invest these funds in growing our product portfolio, in continuing to innovate against zero plastic and zero waste products, and to grow the consumer base, so that we can expand our impact and ultimately drive bigger change in the category. liz: sir richard speaking of sustainability and obviously, you are really walking the walk and talking the talk, not just one or the other, united airlines just became the first airline in history to launch a flight with passengers on it using sustainable green fuel. i remember, let's take a trip down memory lane, 2008 you and i were just down the street at the west side highway, where you were talking about one day being able to run a virgin airways flight on sustainable fuel.

in fact you talked about coconut s and coconut oil. let's spin that forward to of course virgin galactic. jet fuel is a lot of not clean fuel, and as you really look forward to growing virgin galactic, is there any plan to make sure that you somehow figure out a way to make your space tourism company cleaner and greener? >> it's a very fair question. we're not going to be able to kick the box with everything that we do at virgin but we will do our best to. at virgin galactic, we've already brought the environmental cost of sending somebody to space to a tiny fraction of what its been in the past, and that's because we've got an air launch system. we can send somebody into space for roughly the same environmental footprint as flying somebody to new york from london and back, and but i think we can do better, and the

team there are do everything they can to see if we can improve on that and i'm sure they will, and i can go on for each individual virgin company but i can assure you that it's top of the list, it should be top of the list for every company head to be thinking this way, and i assure you it's top of our list. liz: well, we look forward, richard and stu, to the day that you go public. we want to have you back on that day to see how the launch goes. sir richard branson and stu land esberg, thank you both very much. >> good to see you again after all this time. liz: the s&p at session highs we are coming right back.

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manufactures the semiconductors and where. according to the semiconductor industry association, 12% of the world's microchips were made in the u.s. last year, that's down from 37% back in 1990, one state is stepping into the gap, texas, the lone star state, vowing to become america's chip making hub. lydia hu is outside the technologies plant in austin , where she got an exclusive look. reporter: hi there, liz it is a 24/7 operation here at infinion technologies to produce these. these are wafers that contain hundreds, sometimes thousands of semiconductor chips and the process is underway just through these doors right here. this is where the workers at this fabrication plant enter the facility to start making the chips in a completely sterile environment, they say, it's more sanitary than even an operating room. now we got our exclusive tour yesterday and we had to follow

the rules just like everyone else, gowning up, not wearing any makeup, not even hair spray was allowed. those precautions are in place to protect the chips from dust or debris, they say even a tiny particle like an eye lash landing on a wafer can ruin the chips. now, like nearly all industries, chip making is also impacted by the supply chain slowdown, and is particularly frustrating given the global need for chips. >> it all comes down to how fast can you ramp up production, and as i said earlier, it takes two to two and a half years to open up a new semiconductor factory, so i think that with all the investment that's going on right now in the industry, we're still looking well into 2022 where we're going to have tight supply. reporter: they were not made this year because of the lack of chips and another 3.3 million are at risk, consumer electronics, liz, are also suffering, as sony announces the

company will produce 1 million fewer ps-5 gaming unit s and apple forced to pullback on the production of ipads, that's partly why, liz, eyes are on texas for the future of chipmaking governor greg abbott wants to be the capitol of semiconductor chip manufacturing and drawing on the rich history of the lone star state with texas instruments infineon being here and now on the heels that samsung is going to invest $15 billion to build a chip manufacturing plant outside of austin. liz? liz: yeah they are expensive, lydia hu live from austin thank you very much. canadian video sharing company throwing down the gloves in an attempt to disrupt youtube. rumble has found its partner in its bid to go public. cantor fitz their adler chairman and ceo howard lutnick is here to talk about his new spac deal with the up and coming all

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gold. your strategic advantage. liz: breaking news, facebook now meta under fire instagram head adam mcfarry is in the hot seat right now at a senate hear ing regarding the impact of social media on chains, while lawmakers drill the leaders of the unit on the addictive nature of social media, they are pushing back saying that the claims are false and that there is "no research proving instagram is addictive" but just as instagram, along with parent facebook and twitter have all kind of been forced to make moves to clamp down on misinformation and hate speech, one of the gutsiest guys on wall street is ready to bet on a different platform that promises you can say whatever you want,

cantor fitzgerald spac cf acquisition is set to merge with online video platform rumble which just struck a partnership to provide distribution for former president donald trump's future social media platform. cfbi stock is on the move right now up about 1% at the moment howard lutnick ceo joins us live howard, you're a wall street high finance guy, what got you targeting an online video platform? >> well what's amazing is all the giant tech companies have all, they built their businesses in the middle. youtube in the middle, twitter, and since then, they've all pivoted hard to one side. they've all chosen that they're so successful and so rich they are just going to be on the left and so that leads a wide path of people who were just to rumble, is going to take the middle. take conservative views, take

left views, take right views, take the former president, the 45th president's views happy to take obama's views if obama wanted to put them on. basically, it be down the middle and think about this. in one year, they went from 1.6 million active users to 36 million in one year, imagine that. liz: that's huge. >> unbelievable. liz: well, you know, we're stuck in this really crazy woke era where adults are getting fired from their jobs for things they tweeted back in high school so i think this is really something that will be welcomed, but you know, you've gotta explain to us a couple of things. you say that you will be un monitored totally free, freedom of speech rather, so will there be no red lines on anything that is said on this platform? >> well, no. they are going to obviously can't be terrorism, can't be hate speech, you have to be against anti-semitism and anti-

muslim, you gotta be against hate speech for sure, but opinions are different. let people have their opinions. that's what america is built on, free speech. you've gotta get back to free speech and, you know, you can't just throw people up because you don't like their ideology or their censor, and so rumble has its own platform, its own video platform, it's not on aws, it's not on azure, it's not on everybody who has its own platform, and therefore, it's immune to that cancel culture and therefore, it can say if you've got opinions, if you're a gamer, and you just talk while you're gaming and you say the wrong thing, youtube doesn't like you, rumble, as long as not shouting hate speech or something horrible, your opinions are welcome. liz: well that is really, i think, an important business point, and investors should be very interested in what's going on. to me, the fact that other platforms that claim that they were totally free speech, parler

was stuck depending on amazon and aws, so when they got kicked off and kicked out of the app store that basically really hurt them dramatically. you are self-contained in a way. tell me about the deal with president trump's social media plan, and how do you foresee that sort of puddle-jumping to other companies and could it end up being sort of a subscription basis where you get a lot of other businesses that need you almost as a hoster? >> yeah, so cfbi is the name of the spac and then four months when this transaction closes it'll then be called rumble but if people want to trade it now it's cfvi. liz: one second, howard. when we started this interview it was up what was it, melanie up about a percent? it's up 4.5%, right now, as you've been on fox business, anyway, go ahead. >> so, you know, what happens is if you think about it, what's the distribution, what's the

hardest thing to distribute? video, right? you got youtube on google, azure has xbox, which you guys were just talking about, right? amazon has got twitch, aws has twitch so rumble is a video distribution system, so if you can distribute the average users per month were 80 billion minutes a month, up 44 times in a year, so if you can distribute video, think about how easy it is to do a tweet or what the 45th president calls a truth that's easy stuff. liz: easy. >> so they are going to offer that, the ability to distribute it and you be the technology underpinning to help distribute his true social, but you can imagine if other people who were tired of being censored were going to come to rumble and ask, hey will you do our distribution service? an example, religious schools, religious universities, they don't want to be censored so they want to come and have a

free speech american style let's distribute it correctly. liz: you've already used it yourself to get the message out to your 12,000 employees worldwide that you have non- hodgkin's lymphoma and you use that platform and you've put out the message and on top of everything else, you're fighting it and you are doing great, and we are pulling for you, howard. in fact and you also posted video of your kids shaving your head because you were heading into chemotherapy and i looked at this and as a long time friend of you and your family, i thought it was amazing. i really do, howard. we wish you the very best but i do have to ask you one quick market question. >> sure. liz: the federal reserve, jay powell, has been very clear that he needs to speed up the tapering. when do you predict we will see the first interest rate hikes? >> i would say summer 2022 you're going to see it hike you've gotta see a hike because

they're tapering, they got it done buying, but, but, just remember this. the deficit is 29 trillion. we're running deficits this year of almost 3 trillion, last year 3 trillion, so if you were government, where would you keep interest rates? i think the government is going to keep interest rates unbelievably low, no matter how much we talk about inflation, they're borrowing $30 trillion, they are going to keep rates low so federal government rates low, inflation probably high, and that's a weird spin but i just always want to remind people if you are borrowing $30 trillion, and you could set the interest rate, liz, where would you set the rate? liz: well, yeah, i get it but we worry about bubbles and bubbleic ious behavior, either way, acquisition corp. stock is up 8.6% as you have been talking to us here on the "clayman countdown." >> well being on your show is the best. it's the best. liz: [laughter] couldn't agree with you more.

howard lutnick, of cantor fitzgerald and bgc, thank you so much we're coming right back. don't go away. flexshares are carefully constructed. to go beyond ordinary etfs. and strengthen client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire to run a growing business, is to be on a journey. and along the ride, you'll have many questions. challenges. and a few surprises. ♪ but wherever you are on your journey.

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liz: fall-out from saule omarova 's nomination withdrawal of the controller of the currency now spilling over to the fcc hopeful ghighi song. charlie gasparino has this. charlie: it's an mazing story because it's not like the communications world. it's actually conservative media , the big, well i guess small, i don't know, they are prominent conservative network, and initially through its president, charles herring came out and supported her and now that seems odd but oan is essentially saying she's for diversity in the media maybe

they can get on more cable boxes they were being kept out by comcast at least that's the theory. literally, like two days after that, the founder of oan and his father, robert herring came out and said, my son is wrong. he didn't do it. he doesn't speak for this network. we are not supporting her and had some pretty critical things to say about ghighi. she's very progressive. just full disclosure i've butted heads with her in the past, i actually find her to be really smart. she has some very stride entertainment views, some views that are just, you know, if you're worried about the first amendment, it's pretty crazy she's come out taking shots at fox saying that maybe sinclair raised the issue that sinclair should have its broadcast license removed, you know? for all of the stuff that's out there, worried about the fact that there are a couple outliers like fox and sinclair where

there's a few people at these networks expousing right of center thought or conservative thought is like that's not the problem that the fcc should take on and i think that's why her nomination is in peril. now the biden administration is telling us, they are fully supporting her, but we do know that they are worried. they are worried that she has so much baggage through these past statements on these very controversial subjects, that she might be forced to recuse herself from just about every major issue, because she's not going to, the theory will be, if you go before her, with an issue involving, you know, whatever, she already -- liz: the president supports her. charlie: he is supporting her at least as of now. they think they can get through. there's one person who holds the keys here and now this is on the commerce committee, it's kyrsten sinema the moderate democrat from arizona whose not said one word. if she doesn't vote for her, because none of the republicans are going to vote for her, she doesn't come out of committee,

it can't even go down to the floor. if she does vote for her, she has a better chance then the question is does joe manchin vote for her because no republican will support her based on her prior statements. liz: i have to ask you about what's going on on the past two hour on wall street, citigroup, wells fargo and jefferies have all made headlines regarding omicron, a couple of them, jefferies and wells fargo, are reinstituting full time masks in the office and all three of them are halting holiday parties. well the third is a reuters report that citi will not be sponsoring holiday parties. charlie: i'm not a scientist and these folks have a responsibility to -- liz: jefferies had 40 people testing positive over the past seven days. charlie: yeah, i believe you should just live your life now, if you're fully vaccinated. that's me, you know? i think jamie dimon is in that category. i bet you james gorman is in that category at morgan stanley and so is david solemon. at some point, you know -- liz: living your life but

separate from companies who have a responsibility. charlie: but i mean, you have to have some degree of caution for people that have pre- existing conditions but the rest of us are at the point now, we just want to live our lives and we get triple vaccinated and, you know, the n anny state stuff is grading and by the way, is this new variant anymore dangerous than delta? liz: its been mild, but the response is mild, but it's breakthrough. charlie: by the way, if you, did they cancel christmas parties in the past because people might get a bad flu? liz: i think there was a lockdown. charlie: i know, but -- liz: the flu i'm sorry. charlie: but we're not in 2020 right now. we're now, virus, with vaccines, and treatments, and -- liz: interesting that the three wall street firms are making it. charlie: they are citigroup is like basically an addendum of the democratic party to begin with. it's absolutely true. i've been covering this for

years because that's where they come out on these things. they come out on these things they are very very very nanny state-ish. liz: but that is only a report from reuters. jefferies is coming out and saying we're worried. charlie: but don't you think we should be living our lives again we've taken all the precautions. how much more do we need? i mean, i get it, listen, i'm not a denier. my brother works on this stuff. liz: okay. you're going to get cutoff because we have to go go to commercial break charlie thank you very much we're coming right back. i promise - as an independent advisor - to put the financial well-being of you and your family first. i promise to serve, not sell. i promise our relationship will be one of partnership and trust. i am a fiduciary, not just some of the time, . . ple achieve their financial goals. visit findyourindependentadvisor.com

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♪. liz: with the closing bell ringing in four minutes we're looking at new record close for the s&p 500. we need to see a gain of 1.7 points. we're not there yet. are we? yes. 17.29 at the moment. oh, god, it will be a really

close one. right now the s&p stands at 4704.7. we need a teeny bit more. omicron variant fears sent energy into a freefall last week. but we're seeing a significant recovery in brent, west texas intermediate and natural gas, with nat-gas up 3%. today's "countdown" closer says do not fear energy. he says three names will turn black gold into cold heart cash. infrastructure management ceo, jay hatfield joins us now. give the viewers the names and why you feel they are the ones in the space. >> first, hi, liz, thanks for having me on. what we believe is there is a number of very strong tailwinds for energy, specifically in europe. natural gas is trading at equivalent of $200 a barrel. we think that energy prices will be relatively strong and so, and

also inflation -- [inaudible] we think the pipeline sector makes a lot of sense but it is important if you're going to invest in energy to be conservative. so the three picks that we mentioned are all the largest, most diversified companies in the sector. so our attitude is, also have very attractive yields f you're going to take risk in energy do it with large caps and with substantial dividend yields. liz: obviously the european story is very important right now with so much tension between russia and ukraine and there is germany, saying wait a minute, we're not sure about the nord stream 2 pipeline, whether we will sign off on that relationship russia building out the pipeline. as you look at refiners though, they are very much in the red. do you worry at some point you've got president biden in kansas city, missouri, pushing green energy, green buses? we've got, sir richard branson

on just a few minutes ago saying he is really pushing for sustainability. where does that square with your picks? >> well, i've been doing, i founded some of the percent renewable companies 30 years ago. i know the sector well and i'm a environmentalist but if you look at the physics and economics we need hydrocarbons, particular non-coal hydrocarbons the next 30 years. the low hanging fruit is coal. that is what we are focused on and we need cap-and-trade. these pledges by companies are nice and sound great, when china is adding 40 gigawatts of coal every year they're not material. there is need for coal, natural gas, most people don't know is the cleanest fuel. with four hydrogen atoms, and

one carbon. the most efficient way to transport hydrogen. liz: i like this. you are educated on both sides. you made it very clear why you're picking these names. jay hatfield, thank you very much. [closing bell rings] there is the closing bell. too close to call. the s&p and nasdaq make it three straight wins. that will do it for us. "kudlow" is next. ♪. larry: hello, everyone, welcome to "kudlow," i'm larry kudlow. save america, kill the bill. that's my opening thought this evening. after listening to joe manchin at "the wall street journal" ceo conference yesterday, i believe more than ever the bill is going to be paused and paused, and then killed next year. now in just a moment we're going to talk to foreign policy expert senator lindsey graham. we'll talk about the russian crisis. so many unanswered q