working in trading and nft space, there's real money to be made here but the pride of ownership that's the other side. >> were running out of time but it was great to see you, will have you back on and talk more about it in the meantime were looking at this market on fire today the dow up less than 300 points, 275 in the s&p up more than 50. lawrence and o'malley emperor liz claman, hunted overview. >> i hope you had a merry christmas and i think investors are saying we've been through this before we've had a little bit worse. investors having a jolly good dan wall street today. as a santa claus rally kicks off following the three day christmas weekend. the s&p 500 aiming for a record close of markets looking for straight wins, for in a row the rise of the reddit rebels market

trend of 2021 the wall street says crowds as gamestop, amc and robinhood got held by diamond hands but what will 2022 bring, will talk trading transfer the new year of the ceo and just a little bit. the electric vehicle revolution dominated by tesla may finally go mainstream as more automakers shifting to high gear ceo of lithium here to give us his easy outlook for the new year. the christmas travel nightmare far from over unfortunately as omicron variant causes massive flight cancellations and delays at the nation's airports. will go live to new york laguardia for an up-to-the-minute look at the situation. i feel so bad for those folks. i'm lauren simonetti and for liz claman. we'll take a look at the shares of the airline and other travel related companies getting

slammed is weather related problems for the flight cancellations and rising omicron cases trigger fear of tougher restrictions. overshadowing that today is a really strong retail sales report underscoring the u.s. economy, mastercard reports retail sales rose 8.5% during the holiday season. november december powered by an e-commerce boom with clothing and jewelry sales helped out, it's kind of disappointing because for the second year in a row i bought the kids christmas outfit that they did not get away. the s&p 500 on track for a record closing high. if you're keeping track and i'm sure you are 69th this year today marks the first day of the official santa claus rally typically the last five trading days of december. this week the final week of the year in the first two trading days of the new year. according to c rfa research, since 1975 the s&p 500 has been

positive in that stretch, three quarters of the time. now we have the wild spreading omicron variant playing grinch, could it be real the traditional santa claus rally and then why let's get straight to the floor show to tom hayes, good to see both of you, kenny merry christmas happy everything that we begin their, let's say we get to the santa claus rally, what happens more importantly in the new year as january goes. >> it's great to be with you and merry christmas to you it appears today were getting the santa claus rally people should understand that in this last week there's a lot of players away from the desk so volumes are lower which makes it exaggerated move. a market is a market is moving higher and it is what it is called this a santa claus rally and we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

but what i'll tell you get ready for next year because once we wipe this cleaning january everything gets reset to 0 and asset managers will have to perform in a new year that will see lots of challenges from the fed, economic policy, interest rates and inflation where i think there will be a fair amount of turbulence in the first six months of the year. lauren: i want to get into the turbulence and what you see for 2022, most people would agree, i think this is part of the euphoria that were seen right now even though as you know volume is very low j.p. morgan we do not expect omicron to impact the growth outlook significantly. it will accelerate the end of the pandemic. is that one reason why stocks are higher, would you agree with that? >> it is one reason and we mentioned last week there would be no grinch and siana would be coming to town. the other thing that i think you see the south african cases are

down 85% in the last 15 days people are hopeful that it will follow another markets met and managers were underway look at the national association of active investment managers going to christmas they read 52% equity exposure they moved up to 67% but they're still underweight, if you take a breather in the next day or so i think over the next week to two weeks this can push higher and grind higher as managers are underweight in the context you meant to the retail sales data update half% of 10.7% of prepaid debit from 2019 as well and earnings for next year will be over 9%. it's a very constructive environment in the short term but volatility will pick up a bit in 2022. >> absolutely, you brought us inflation as a headwind earlier the consumers are strong for

now, no one expects inflations to subside at least not in the first half of next year. how big of a problem is inflation and the feds response to it. >> is a christmas point asset managers are underway, you could argue there underway because they're concerned about the next point, inflation the pace of them inflation and the pace that the fed will react are they going to be half-point moves, that is still up in the air because conversations going both ways. the market is prepared for 325 basis point moves, it's good to be very surprised if we get a 50 basis point move sooner than expected that could explain why some asset managers may be more cautious there waiting for that move to happen we know that cannot happen it could go the other way than the play catch up my sense is also the turbulence in the oc pressure on the market in the first six months. lauren: i'm looking at the

markets this year it's up 27% of my eyes do not fail me it'll be hard to repeat that especially when you look at the big tech names that are a big part of the overall market, goldman had 70% this year, tesla up 50%, facebook, apple they're all up, gangbusters, does that continue or do we have nutrients to talk about. >> new trends there's the old song don't fear the reverb, everyone is worried about rate rises. history tells us since 1955, the first 12 month after the first rate hike which would be march or may the s&p is up 7.7%, that said will see a rotation and rising rate environment to outperform. it favors value, small cap, we like industrials industrials are

expected to grow earnings 36% next year relative to the s&p 500 growing earnings at 9% and in the context we like raytheon at 16.5% and we like ge we think it's greater than the whole and the three-part breakup that will take place over the next 12 - 24 months. lauren: is because of the bipartisan infrastructure or the like and for other reasons? >> i like industrials just generally, the supply chain issue, aviation's going to come back in a major way when you look at raytheon and boeing, there's a lot of pent-up demand and headwinds with the supply chain that will be over come in the pent-up demand is going to be phenomenal for 2022 and money tends to flow into those areas the cyclical areas when rates are rising when rates are low people look for the long-duration like tech and they get what they want current earnings like industrials. lauren: kenny i'm going to let you type this out for us.

this is my question for you were talking about infrastructure the social infrastructure in the build back better installed we don't have more stimulus and we don't have the consumer spending a lot next year, they have less money and inflation is superhot, what happens. >> that's economic story that will see the slowdown of the economy instantly backward to go negative in the pace that we've had in part of the pace has been fueled exactly by the fed is not only sent out to people and simulating the system and were in for a tough time and i agree we should be looking in industrials, let's not think that were going to have a repeat of the last three years using double-digit gains in the nasdaq was up 40% last year is up

another 20% on future performance i'm looking for the market to return to a normal if you can find it as that is a ten or 12% return. lauren: were selfish i like those thinkings. thank you for the time, have a good day. a lot of younger investors are only custom to that. president joe biden pledging full support to state struggling with omicron he met with the nation's governors saying there is no federal solution here. this gets solved at the state level reiterating his promise to send 500 million rapid covid-19 test americans next month, gerri willis joins us to discuss the presidents meetings as well as the breakthroughs in the therapeutics that were not seen.

>> you got that right president biden on a call with governors monday, he says he agrees with two top gop state executives that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to mitigating covid-19, this as his administration is pushing major federal solutions to the pandemic now nearly two years old, were seen a spike in omicron cases for the unvaccinated and the vaccinated, demands for test is reaching and driving hours long testing lines across the country. this is putting the need for strong covid-19 therapeutics center stage, check it out. the latest breakthrough by merck and pfizer for emergency use by the fda and experts are calling these again change or. our biggest advancement in treating those infected with the covid-19 virus, the pills can be taken at home by someone

infected with covid-19 but the first of a kind this as opposed to giving the drug intravenously at a hospital therefore these drugs reduce the burden on already stretched hospitals across the country. as of yesterday the 70 average for hospitalizations just over 64000 as we've been talking about for some time right now. divided the administration already has the commitment to purchase 10 million treatment courses for 5.3 billion from private sources but will only have 265,000 about a quarter million available next month and reach 10 million number in six months. doctor anthony fauci saying the federal government is working to ramp up supply, listen. >> we are going to do everything that we can including defense production act to see if we can actually get this at a higher level. were not sure what we can do and how much time we can cut off on that but certainly it needs to

be done. it is a highly effective therapy. >> as cases rising fully vaccinated are contracting the covid-19 virus, these therapeutics become more important than ever in managing outbreak and protecting the people who need it the most, the most vulnerable at risk of illness. lauren, back to you. lauren: gerri willis thank you very much. coming up elon musk became the electric vehicle but will increasing competition knocked the crown off of tesla's head read will take it up with the ceo of lithium in just a moment. let's check the big board the dow is 70 points from the high of the session as all three major averages up for four days in a row on this official start of the santa claus rally, "the claman countdown" coming right back.

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the sheer investor money poured into investor makers hitting the public market as a combined value of $150 billion and they have no cars on the market with otto ford and gm they've had a lot of cars on the market jumping into the mix and ramping up their production 2022 is expected to be even bigger, how big, we will find out now. can supply keep up with demand who better to ask than ev supplier lithium ceo keith phillips, thank you so much for joining us. >> it is a major problem, i think lithium electric vehicle demand has been very strong ev sales are up over 100% this year globally, over 10% ev penetration globally now which means 10% or more, 11% for 2021 a vehicle sold are electric,

huge move from 5% a year ago to present two or three years ago, demand is growing strongly and that will continue and i think everybody will want an electric car once they understand the benefits of ownership i am electric car driver that's all i've ever owned. the reality it'll take a long time for the lithium supply chain to keep up, catch up. lithium projects take a long time to bring online they're not turnkey projects they take eight to ten years to get the concept to production. that'll be a drag on growth realistically. lauren: is the white house ignoring the elephant in the room. you say electric vehicle the best car you've ever driven a huge push by the administration to go green to get ev and charging stations but if you need lithium for the battery that goes into the electric car and you say it takes up to ten years to get more lithium, do we have a major problem on her

hands? >> we do have a problem in the issue china supplied 90% of the world lithium chemicals today, lithium hydroxide, the chinese move pretty quickly not just the government but the chinese private companies move pretty quickly to build lithium capacity they don't have much of their own resource so they need to get that from other part of the world most of it from australia and australia lithium supply is coming online and that will take time. half a dozen interesting projects of the united states including ours and north carolina, all of been under development for five plus years were a year or two or three away from commercial production. a lot of u.s. apply to come in a difficult time keeping up with demand that if our perspective were looking forward to a frothy market, the ev business will boom in the u.s. in the 2020s. every car company is going to want to get domestic battery supply and domestic lithium

supply that they can we think the market will need 40 times more domestic lithium by 2030 if we want to be fully self-sufficient 40 times in the next eight or nine years that's a tall order and will be difficult, anyone who can do it should benefit and be able to become a really boring supplier for the u.s. car companies. lauren: why can't we move as fast as china. >> it's interesting that car companies can move fast, the battery companies can move fast, but building a car plant takes a year or two years and if you or anyone else's seems building a battery plant similarly only the minimal project is 6 - 8, ten years if you're lucky that take time were to be rapid of where we are there's local permit and approval challenges for any project not only in the u.s., it'll take time to bring those

on. lauren: java deal with tesla and is the deal on track i know some of their factories are stalled if you look at berlin and austin. >> we don't speak about our individual contracts with customers we have a good relationship with them we deal with them a little over a a year ago. andrew moving forward with relationships with a lot of our companies. tesla is a dominant player in the ev business we have immense respect for them, everyone else is trying to get an aggressively at the big incumbent and people like rivian and lucid. a lot of them will be very successful it'll be an interesting race, from our perspective the more the merrier the more vehicles that are available, we have three people on her team who drove a ford f150 therefore to guys and they want to drive ford pickup trucks there should be one in the next year or two people who drive

that vehicle will wanted in similar with other vehicle manufacturers as well. it'll be interesting to see these cars become electric. lauren: to support ability become an issue. were dealing with potential shortages and that we don't build back better which included generous incentives for those who drive electric vehicles in the bigger incentive came from those companies that unionized workforces. >> affordability is something that is misunderstood with electric vehicles, a couple of examples, number one a lot of material prices so if lithium prices double like they did last year that my ad five, six, $700 to the cost of the vehicle is not a small amount of money but it's not a dealbreaker certainly in a ford f150 or tesla model s, the manufacturing cost to produce electric vehicles or falling dramatically, battery

manufacturing aside from raw materials is falling because the first time at an all-time people are producing batteries at a scale the first real factory was tesla's in nevada a couple years ago over 100 on the drawing board manufacturing costs for batteries are stalling even with raw material prices rising and with tvs ford, gm and tesla and others the more that they make the cheaper they become in the operating cost of an ev dramatically lower i've owned my tesla over three years and i've never had to have a service there's no maintenance in the fueling cost is half of what gas cost typically across the country there far cheaper to operate in people to own the cars learn that and enjoy that. lauren: it balances out, thank you for joining us. >> thank you lauren, happy holidays.

lauren: go daddy under pressure as a major activist investor wants to see more profit from all of the urls. details on that in today's pop stocks coming at you in time for a market check strong start to the final week of 2021 the dow up 268 points, the rest of the market rallying one plus percent. "the claman countdown" coming right back. ♪

lauren: fox business alert take a look shares of go daddy jumping after they disclosed the steak in the website services company said it may purge for changes to improve the stocks performance the hedge fund said it held the 6.5% stake in go daddy shares of go daddy are flat year to date but up a present right now. let's take a look at the stock,

that stock is gamestop under pressure after the videogame retailer price target up to $23 a share the brokers is gamestop software sales have been about flat despite very strong videogame industry sales this year and says rising digital concerns to end growth going forward gamestop shares are down 3%. period abbott laboratories are having a nice year. that stock is up 1.5% hitting a record after raymond james boosted to 150 about $9 from where it is now the drugmaker with standing and benefiting from covid-19 pressures. the firm said abbott has a strong position and diagnostic testing and at home covid test are in short supply while demand has quite clearly increased drastically. in the financial times is

reporting that dd global is stopping current and former employees from selling shares in the company. as a result that stock is down 4.8%. they had a lockup. expiring today and apparently that is not going to be the case, they are reporting that the chinese ride healing giant does not want shareholders to sell. it will delist from the new york stock exchange and relist in hong kong. we have one more the chinese government, they are imposing tighter regulations. all right we will have more "countdown to he closing bell" right after this. ♪

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lauren: the rapidly spreading omicron variant putting a damper not just on the country's new year's eve plans but the travel plans as well the u.s. airlines canceled a dozen flights today thanks to a combination of staff shortages, covid infection about whether parts of the country. meanwhile doctor anthony fauci doubling down on his call for vaccine passport which would bar unvaccinated americans from boarding domestic flights as new covid cases have jumped 55% the past week. let's get a quick check of the airline stocks all down just a bit today while united is down over 1% as investors brace for the possibility of more travel restrictions. let's go to madison who is in the thick of it all and the cancellations and delays and the

angry passengers at laguardia airport in new york. madison what are people telling you, what is it like? >> people are really upset it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year but for travelers it is nonstop headaches, thousands of flight canceled over the weekend and into today, let's take a look at what were currently seen, for today looking over a thousand cancellations were getting closer to yesterday's cancellation record at 1500 flights, delta telling fox business, the spreadable pecan is creating staff issues and leading to the cancellations. 200 of their over 4000 scheduled flights today will be canceled, united has said 115 flights today will be canceled of their 4000 that are scheduled in the travelers that i spoke to today are nervous that they don't want to be added to the list of cancellations. >> it's not been canceled but were crossing our fingers. >> this trip is been delayed a

bit. were used to being flexible and thankful that we can continue to do some work from where were traveling close to new year's. >> it's good to have the work from home flexibility. a lot of itineraries have been changed. as you mentioned dr. fauci has used this to say here is why we need a vaccine mandate when it comes to travel. others are saying that's going to add more staffing issues if people decide not to get the shot and not show up for work. all of this happening why holiday travel is still going strong. for now passengers are being told to arrive extra relief are united in domestic flights they want you to arrive three hours ahead of time. lauren: thank you very much we appreciate it. new york city's private sector vaccine mandate goes into effect today requiring on-site workers at all city businesses with one

dose of the covid-19 vaccine, meanwhile on wall street goldman sachs will require staffers to get tested more frequently and receive booster shots if they wish to come into the office. let's go to david lee miller who is ivo the priest east side of manhattan. >> this is a day like no other for roughly 184,000 businesses in new york city, new vaccine mandate arguably the strictest in the country went into effect for the private sector. whether it was a large law firm or a mom-and-pop storefront all employees had to have one dose of vaccines, medical and religious exemptions could be requested but testing is not an alternative, workers have 45 days to get fully vaccinated this is vaccination records could start at find that $1000 some employees for the mandate is an unnecessary burden and refusing to comply.

>> i'm not forced any of my workers to vaccinate and i will not. most of them are vaccinated on their own. i was forced to vaccinate because of these mandates and i'll never forget that i've been forced to vaccinate. more than 80% of new yorkers are partially vaccinated 1.9 million booster shots have been administered the mayor credits a high vaccination rate saving the city's economy. >> it keeps going and the reason we are open when other places are shut down is because of her focus on vaccination because we use mandates and we have to double down. in four days eric adams takes office he suggested that

mandates requirements for small businesses in the city might change, meanwhile other cities to varying degrees they will soon have their own vaccine mandates chicago, new orleans and philadelphia. according to john hopkins, 62% of all americans are currently fully vaccinated. the u.s. death toll caused by the virus now stands at more than 817,000 lives. lauren: that is sad, thank you very much. one of the top trends of 2021, but will environmental, social and government investing next to 2022 we'll talk about that trend did more with the ceo and just a moment. but first let's check the big board the dow jones industrial is up almost 300 points, 284 to be exact, "the claman countdown" coming right back. superpowera spider bite?

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lauren: one of the original crypto's remains one of the most dominant crypto's, bitcoin experiencing massive growth in the past 52 weeks even outperforming other assets such as gold as more companies embrace crypto and bitcoin has risen more than 72% this year. reaching an all-time high as 69044, just last month with a total crypto currency market cap reaching an all-time high of $3 trillion. worries about further crypto regulation analyst do believe that bitcoin will rise further in the new year, let's take a look at crypto except for litecoin all are higher with bitcoin trading at $51035.

mean stock mania exploding this year along with crypto with the red army rocketing amc in gamestop into the headlines in the mean pioneer snowballed with amc 1200% in gamestop spiking more than 600% so far this year. social media platform for investors and traders was fueled by the storm and saw the network grow by 50% to 6 million users this year alone. we have a fox business exclusive ceo joins us now, congratulations. >> thank you lauren and thank you for having me on. lauren: what is 2022 look like when were talking about the popular mean stocks like amc in gamestop. it can't really rise anymore, or can they. >> i can't tell you if they can rise anymore. i think the interest will remain

in the engagement ring with the individual investing and trading community. amc i've been really impressed all year that it had legs and you could argue the individual investor saved amc in a lot of ways. i think the interest and engagement will be there. i think the other areas of individual interest could be interesting given how they're coming up and expiring in starting in q4 of next year which means they have to do deals in q1 and q2 if they don't want to lose her sponsor dollars. lauren: what about an fts. >> were really bullish on an fts, were looking to invest heavily in 2022 in the form of bringing more information and data. it is really early if crypto is still on the first or second inning and fts then were at the start of the game and it's extremely early for individuals to have exposure to it.

we think with the big brands coming on to be an interesting on-ramp for people's first introduction to the world of crypto and block chain and getting their first wallets set up. you have adidas and nike and one announcing partnership we think it'll be a good sustained rise in the interest in an fts not to say anything about the prices of various nft projects, obviously there's a lot going on. but we will be investing heavily that's an area where we think there is real value to add to the community individual investor. lauren: it must be so exciting to be at the forefront the ground-level of the new and exciting trends. the mean stocks with the trend of 2021, i think you would agree, what do you think the risk is for investors often newer investors that might be

overleveraged and if those stocks start to come down because they're so volatile, those investors could get really hurt. >> 100% agree that is where our philosophy is learning with the community and learning with your tribe. i think individual investors especially if you knew you have to absolutely be careful and smart about it options are a risky play. if you really do want to become more active in those ways, finding people to learn from whether it's your peers or time community based on what you are looking to achieve and accomplish in the style of investing that you're looking to do. learn i strongly believe that investing is an apprenticeship type game. you can read all the books that you want but until you start doing and engaging it is very hard to truly get the lessons and that is what it's about, how

can we help you find the community and the learn along the way. lauren: let's do the whole part of the week where we look back what were the most popular mean stocks of 2021? >> no surprise in the world of equity amc was king for us but amc, gamestop, i know you are talking about the ev movements, tesla, lucid, and i owe those are all very popular over the course of 2021 in the land of crypto no surprise dogecoin was king across the board amongst the most activity and most viewed and added to the stocks. but that claim into ethereum were around as well in the world crypto sheba and the other ones like kardon no were quite

popular in 2021 across the board. but on the equity side we saw all the themes touched upon the mean stocks like i said in bio and pharma and big companies were pretty active and popular in 2021 with the covid vaccine rumors and whatnot. as well as big tech, amazon was up there, palantir was a player and 2021. , the individual community was represented across all the themes that we saw in the course of 2021. lauren: thank you for the roundup we appreciated. good luck in the new year. black gold sunday big bucks to your portfolio according to the countdown closure find out which stocks he said new energy. ahead of that we expect the big board the dow is sharply higher up 5% in the past four days of

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lauren: closing bell rings in four minutes. we're near session highs. the s&p 500 looking at the record straight close and this santa claus rally starts. it has a few more days left. apple is the first company with 3 trillion-dollar market cap. very close now. they are set to wrap up at new record high at $180. they need 183.86 to have a 3 trillion-dollars valuation. oil and nat-gas gushing in the green today, rising above the cancellations and omicron fears. our "countdown" closer has two energy plays to beat the

turbulence if you will. josh, welcome, what names do you like in the energy space? >> good to be with you, lauren. we would highlight two of the names in our hennessey gas utility fund. southern company as well as sempra energy. lauren: why do you like them. >> southern company, largely a regulated utility throughout the southeast. strong yield, so the markets yield is 14. southern company is twice that. about a market multiple. i think, as they go into the new year very large increase in capital spending so utilities largely on return on that spending. the regulatory regime is such that they can earn a return on that. i would talk about sempra energy. you mentioned the price of natural gas. it certainly has been volatile and in this country and abroad. the difference between spot prices in the u.s. and abroad, key factor what would drive lng

importation. countries like sempra have been able to take advantage of that. sempra operate as regulated utility in the western part of the country. i think those two names are interesting and i would quickly highlight the market is up 30% on the year on a total return basis. utilities are up about half that. so i, as you move into the new year, look at utilities. i think they don't get enough attention. lauren: are you worried about demand changing the story though? with this new variant maybe another one, you know, then you have the demand situation get crushed and that hurts these energy names? >> well you know, we're talking really utilities. more electricity in the home and in businesses so you know, i think that i think a lot of the uncertainty and demand and consumption is baked into these names. they created higher on the year

but not nearly market rate. so i think that that you know is really not a concern. i think more mine share and investors looking around the corner towards something a little bit cheaper, a little higher quality. lauren: okay. what is your biggest concern for the new year for investors? >> well i mean my concern certainly isn't valuation or the fed or anything like that. i think what could tank the markets lower would be exogenous events. what would that be? cyberattacks or geopolitical worries that might be you know, russia and the ukraine, things of that nature. i don't think the market you know, on fundamental basis is anything that people should be terribly concerned about. i say that knowing the market has had an amazing year here. all-time highs. lauren: josh wine is not concerned about the fed and inflation and covid-19 as he is

on an event we can't predict or geopolitics. thanks for the advice. thank you for your time. markets wrap up a 4-day winning streaks as s&p 500 closes at the second straight all-time high. [closing bell rings] it is unbelievable how far the markets have come in this crazy year. that will do it for "the claman countdown" filling in for today and this week. "kudlow" is next. ♪. david, hello, everyone, welcome to "kudlow". i'm david asman in for kudlow. president biden with governors and early covid response team to discuss plans how to deal with the rapid spread of omicron variant as americans are scrambling to find covid tests meantime florida's focus on monoclonal antibodies treatments appears to be paying off with a lower covid death rate than new york or california.