leslie picker is here with more on what we know and what we don't.> reporter: good morning, brian. this story gets bigger nomura is facing $2 billion in losses credit suisse said a default on margin calls could be significant and material archegos faced a forced liquidation of several positions. wong managed tiger asia which was spun off from tiger management he pled guilty to wire fraud in 2021 with insider trading. archegos did not answer the question for our comment shares of viacom and discovery on friday. gsx and baidu and tencent plummeted as well. one source described the size of the scale of a once in a decade event. brian, archegos holds positions through swaps. the nature of the derivatives is causing investors to assess exposure wong may have had and brace for the volatility in those names and others today as for what triggered this thing? it is not clear. many industry watchers believe the news of the s.e.c. is looking to step up reviews of audits of overseas companies with the risk of kicked off u.s. exchanges for any non compliance that

of people want to know more than that hopefully, they'll come out and be a little more visible leslie pickeru very much >>> let's bring in "the new york times'" kate kelly, also a cnbc contributor out with her own take on the situation with a published piece last night leslie is still with us. as banks faced billions in losses and viacomcbs and stocks goh away kate, great to so you. it's amazing, like old times in old times, we'd be actually be in the office together saying hi and having cold tater tots. that aside, kate, i think the question is how does a firm amass such big positions synthetically. and i'll give you an extra order of tater tots if you throw in contracts for difference and/or indifference for swaps in your answer. >> when i was at cnbc, they taught us not to overcomplicated things on the air. i'll say, the concept here was archegos wanted to take large positions. i guess because we haven't spoken to them, one on anonymity of a total swap. effectively, what would happen is, the prime brokers, the banks that led money to archegos would go out and buy shares of the stocks that

let's get back to leslie picker. >> hey, melissa.real estate brokerage platform disclosing the s1 today they said they had filed confidentially back in january but now we have several hundred page document that we can look at to get a better sense of how this company is fairing. top line quite good in 2020. $3.7 billion in revenue. up 56% year over year. they say that in 2020 they assisted home sellers and buyers to transact approximately $152 billion in residential real estate or 4% of the u.s. market. notably they did have losses, 270 million on the bottom line as far as risk factors go, it's what you might expect for a company that's exposed to the housing market, things like recession, weakening housing markets, things of na nature, raising mortgage rate pricing. the company plans to list on the nyse under ticker symbol comp. they are being managed by goldman sachs, barclays. >> leslie picker on the compass ipo. karen, i'll go to you quickly. what do you think of the timing of this? >> well, i think it might have been in the work

u-s-a-a >>> we have a news alert right now on robinhood leslie picker has the details. several sources that robinhood has selected nasdaq for its public listing. that is an indication that it's inching closer to that listing as select of an he can change is usually toward the end of that process. i am told they have not yet confidentially filed but they are getting closer to that point in time. it is unclear if they have decided to pursue a direct listing or a traditional ipo at this stage but of course that s-1 gets filed regardless of the method the nasdaq and robinhood have both declined to comment on this back over to you, morgan. >> we know it is not a spac. leslie thank you. >>> the nasdaq capacity making a v-shaped recovery. down 2.5% at the low of e dathy. right now up more than 1%. we will be back with more on the markets, coming up sales are down from last quarter but we are hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... doug? sorry about that. umm... what...its...um... you alright? [sigh] [ding] never settle with power e*trade. it has powerful, easy-to-use to

let's bring in leslie picker, who's been following the action.ket company is the parent company of rocket mortgage, as ceo jay farnor was asked about the recent volatility. >> the stock yesterday and the last few days really interesting to see obviously we had an incredible 2020, and had our earnings call last week, where we talked about the results in 2020. we talked about the fourth quarter, and so a lot of this, for me, is really the recognition of the rocket company's plat much. >> last thursday rocket reported fourth quarter earnings fueled by what they called explosive growth, concurrent with earning, rocket also announced a special different, which seemed to spur the momentum in the stock even further. rocket has been a target of short sellers largely due to its valuation is inns its ipo six months ago, it's been trading well above its peers there's a lot that the prospect of raising interest regard could shall wart demand for mortgages. nearly half of the float is sold short, make it a prime target for the squeeze-obsessed traders. it doe

. >>> for more on what caused the firm to blow up let's bring in leslie picker. risky business here. >> hey, yeah risky business is the name of the story really bill wong was practically an unknown entity up until this weekend and now the towering risk tolerance has caught the ire of regulators and maybe partially responsible for billions of dollars of losses at very large banks he is the face behind archegos capital. when the market turned against him he faced a multitude of margin calls causing the banks to sell his assets wong has-- hwang has not return my calls he worked with at least six prime brokers, none of whom had a full picture of his exposure according to people with knowledge of the matter. credit suisse and nomura said they face material losses. others has been telling investors it sold $15 billion worth of blocks in the last few days and no more blocks and not incured significant losses as a result of the transactions according to a person with knowledge of the matter, guys. >> leslie, i think the question is are there more banks, more institutions

leslie picker. we are showing the cnbc spac 50.ortant new question surrounding astrazeneca's vaccine amid the push to get that treatment into america's arm. where we stand right now with the variants >>> if you haven't already subscribed to our podcast, go ahead. it's called "worldwide exchange." we're back after this. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/now and never go to the post office again. don't settle for products that give you a sort of white smile. try new crest whitening emulsions a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale for 100% whiter teeth. its highly active peroxide droplets swipe on in seconds. better. faster. 100% whiter teeth. crestwhitesmile.com >>> welcome back t

proving smart ones can dumb it down for the rest of us, here's cnbc's leslie picker. >> reporter: if've been watching cnbc lately, you've probably heard the word "spac". >> spac, spac, spac, spac. >> everybody needs to have a spac. >> reporter: out of nowhere, spacs are everywhere. ♪ if you win the spac game, you know what i'm talking about ♪ >> reporter: so mainstream, they've even got a rap spacs have raised $70 billion in just the first two months of the year and are already set to break 2020's record level of funding. but where's all that money coming from, and where's it going? and why does a new celebrity spac seem to pop up every day? let's take a step back spac stands for special purpose acquisition company. but in reality, a spac is not a company at all it's a pile of cash. anyone can contribute to that pile of cash by buying shares in the spac, which is listed on the stock market those shares may go up or down depending on what the spac winds up buying. the person who manages the spac, whether it be a-rod, former house speaker paul ryan or grammy winner ciara, is tasked wit

leslie picker is making some calls down 9%, and what are you hearing?s is rare, and the minority of the ipos do trade lower, and especially when you have a deal like this one that had priced above a boosted range and increased the shares that planned to offer to investors that it is sold to investors known as the upside deal, and down 9% right now, and what happens is that it is a little bit tricky to tell at this point in time, and for one, it is not the best market backdrop for pricing the ipo and especially the growth ipo like this one that you have seen. it is clearly an indication that the banks have gotten too aggressive here in terms of the pricing and assessing the demand up from the buy side for this deal. but you also, it is difficult, because they are kind of coming out of the period, in a period after this black box of ipos and if you are recalling, we haven't seen much in the way of operating ipos, and that is because the companies going public don't like to go mid-end of february, because they have the financials that are a little bit stal

les, thank you leslie picker -- >> go ahead. >> i was going to mention rocket ship one of the spacs wased by jamal palihapitiya and virgin galactic spurred this whole thing and it was almost a full circle type thing and his spacs are selling off in this broader reckoning that's going on right now. >> exactly right good stuff, les. thank you. everyone is so negative on spacs on the desk today. degas, a bubble waiting to happen >> weiss, ludicrous. it's all coming home to roost. pete, these are a mirage just to give you a flavor. we've got to bounce, but we'll come back. we'll do unusual activity with pete before the break, check the s&p sector and the dow is up better than 200 and the nasdaq as well is knocking on the door. we'll show you where it is on the other side of this break apricot, and raspberry.nna, - we have a location that has experienced four floods, a fire, a hurricane, and obviously now we're in the pandemic. this is during hurricane harvey. the water was like a river. - when you talk about nasdaq, people don't think about insurance or catastrophe risk but that's a product

let's get straight to leslie picker >> this is a story that for many on wall street are those who watch it closely, well they say it defied logic. before friday most people have never heard of archegos managed by bill wong he made headlines after paying a multimillion-dollar fine to settle a insider trading case, but other than that wong flew under the radar so you could imagine the shocks that revealed his fund was going through the liquidation amounts to tens of billions of dollars. he faced a multitude of margin calls that caused forced selling in the media and technology names as well as the chinese internet names that you mentioned earlier. the financial times is reporting that he was able to amass positions with eight to one times leverage and in some trades that ratio skyrocketed to 20 to 1. now the people familiar with wong's agreements that, type of leverage is practically unheard. it it is multiples higher than even the riskiest of funds out there and it means that even a small move downward could force significant pressure in this case, once in a decade event as a source call

. >> let's get right to leslie picker who has more on that story. to listen to those comments, leslie, from not even a year ago. >> yes. >> speed up to what's happen dag. >> yes, so much to your point, sara, has happened in a year it's important to note that black had been the face of apollo for the firm's three decades of existence and he's known as one of the founding fathers of the entire private equity industry. so today's announcement means he'll no longer hold any leadership positions former s.e.c. fed jay clayton will replace him and marc rowan will take over as ceo. initially he planned to relinquish on or before late july and stay on as chair. that was tied to the findings of an independent review from a law firm which found that black had paid epstein more than $150 million for business-related services the report found no evidence of wrongdoing on black's part but the uncertainty had been an overhang for both apollo's lps and public market investors. today's news caused gains of more than 4%, guys >> so what he said there about how it didn

leslie picker has the details on what happened last week and wilfred has a closer look on the banks themselves but, leslie, let's set the scene with you. >> hey, morgan, that's right the postmortem is still being written. there's a lot of unanswered questions but it all started back on friday morning when goldman sachs in a note to clients offering black trades and several chinese internet names at steep discounts but throughout the day, the stock sales kept coming from across wall street discovery, farfetched, gxs, viacom, all offered at steep discounts. quickly traders scrambled to figure out what exactly was going on ultimately signs pointed to a little known firm called arcegos capital management the firm faced a forced liquidation on several overlevered positions. archegos did not respond to our request seeking comments but some of his trading was done given swaps giving him the capacity to be more levered without the need to disclose what he holds. he worked with at least six prime brokers, none of whom had a full picture of his exposure we're told the ft citing sources familiar said a n

>> jon, that stock blasting off today cratering this morning leslie picker has the latest leslie, i didn't was our brilliant producers who also have those rocket effects at the start of the show >> that's what i love about this show is it speaks to my pun-filled heart this morning. those are some great metaphors rocket companies, the parent of rocket mortgage by quicken loans, is the latest stock to be caught up in this meme trade the ceo speaking at a conference last hour where he was asked first thing about the recent volatility >> the stock yesterday and the last few days are really interesting to see for us. obviously we had an incredible 2020, and we had our earnings call last week where we talked about the results in 2020. we talked about the fourth quarter. and so a lot of this, for me, is really the recognition of the rocket company's platform. >> it certainly took a couple days post earnings for this to really take off. last thursday rocket reporting fourth quarter earnings fueled by explosive growth. that's the direct quote that the company called it, concurring with earnings roc

leslie picker er and dom chu ae following the story.s >> he's caught the ire of counter-parties and may be responsible for billions of loss it's a family office, not a hedge fun, but one that's been taken to an exorbitant amount of risk when the mask turned against him, he faced a multital of margin calls causing banks to celt his assets he has not returned my calls seeking comments some of the trading was via swaps which gave him the capacity to be even more levered without the need to disclose what he's holding. he worked with at least six prime brokers, none of whom had had a full picture credit suite and others, and others appear to be in better shape. morgan stanley i've learned has been telling investors it sold $15 billion in blocks, and the firm has not incurred significant losses, according to a person with knowledge of the matter mel? >> so hwang worked with six prime brokers and none had a full picture of the risk, so basically do you think he didn't divulge it to them in order for each of them to extend that sort of leverage

leslie picker is live on broadway tonight. >> you know the famous line, "i'm not throwing away my shoton will have more than one meaning. they plan to build a dedicated wreaks venue for theater workers here in times square it will be for eligible theater workers and will be staffed by those in the community who need employment they also plan to build pop-up testing sites near theaters look like this one and planning to manage crowds before and after show shows the details are kind of scarce at this point, but it's welcome news for an industry in the dark for about a year now they have pushing the city for a plan. >> sometimes it can feel like screaming into a fan you don't know if anybody is hearing or did i justing oor implementing anything, and finally something happens that makes it clear that people have been listening >> reporter: by one measure, broadway contributes $15 billion annually to the local economy. those jobs and that economic benefit disappeared when broadway went dark significant hurdle remain. tourism. also safety protocols like updates hvac systems, and capacity res

our leslie picker has all the details. good morning, leslie. >> hey, good morning, carl one source described a size and scale of friday's sales as a once in a decade event it all started first thing friday morning when goldman sachs in a note out to clients offering block trades in several chinese internet names at steep discounts, baidu, tencent music, and throughout the day, stock sales kept coming. discovery, farfetched, gsx, all into the market. traders scrambled to find out whafrs going on here -- what was going on here, and what was driving this, and signs pointed to the a family office managed by bill wong cnbc reported over the weekend that the firm faced a for forced liquidation the "wall street journal" reported that they run a concentrated highly levered book, and holds some positions through swap these aren't disclosed so traders are trying to figure out where else wong was exposed. many are bracing for potential volatility as a result today the situation is also raising broader questions about risk in the syste

leslie picker. >> sara, slightly different picture for kb home.margin improvement housing gross profit margin increased to 21.1 fundraise largely do you to just the pace of orders, price and starts and their ability to optimize assets n. particular, the millennial demographic which is engaging in a lot of first-time home buying and they are looking for homes with maybe lower prices, smaller square footage but they still saw an average selling price increase 2% to $397,000 during the quarter. they also note that their backlog value, very strong 74% year over year increase here still, nonetheless, shares down nearly 4% in the after-hours trading. guys >> leslie, thanks so much. >>> up next, mike santoli will have a look at whether value stocks are still vuaalble after stocks are still vuaalble after significantly talk about the rik and potential profit and loss. could've used that before i hired my interior decorator. voila! growth growth w our trade desk.couple.rategy m ♪♪ flexshares etfs are built with advanced modeling. (a1. to fily prtg n streng

exchange to have at least two diverse directors, but now the commission is delaying the action leslie picker that's right. it was initially hailed as this progressive bold move by the nasdaq the recommended objective for each of its listed companies to have at least two diverse directors on their boards. if not, the companies just had to explain why the rule garnered support from facebook's coo sheryl sandberg, mull dehobson, kewsong lee and a group of democrats and more. they argued corporate boards should be more diverse but there were detractors as well including republican senators on the senate banking committee who argued that the nasdaq was operating out of its scope and the rule would interfere with a board's fiduciary duty to shareholders arthur leavitt argued a similar case in a recent "wall street journal" op-ed in response to the criticism the nasdaq last month watered down the rule a little bit. it also means the proposal won't be sailing through the s.e.c. with the agency deciding to take a few more months to review its implications, guys. >> leslie, it's just a recommendation,

leslie pickering is here with the news. >> yes, the first as you mentioned apollo agreed to buy the operatingthe venetian for $2.5 billion and they are purchasing the land and the assets underneath the venetian and apollo signed the long-term deal with vechi with that deal, and it was a key part of the transformation away from, well, las vegas, and towards asia in the lease, ceo robert goldstein said that it is in the center of the the attention and apollo also taking michael's companies private. the retailer has been a huge beneficiary and you can see the stock price there of to do-it-yourself mentality of the pandemic, and the stock prices surging 500% over the last year. that didn't scare off the normally valued oriented apollo who made an unsolicited offer, and agreed to buy it for $22 a share, and whopping 47% premium from the stock price from last friday before the reports surfaced that a deal was in the works. michaels shareholders are applauding this deal sending the stock to above $22/share deal, and perhaps the notion that there is a higher deal that they go shop vision to allow mic

leslie picker joins us with william wang. >> thank you for joining us on a very important day for yourmember covering your first attempt at an ipo in 2015. ultimately signed a deal to sell the company and fell through over regulatory concerns needless to say a long road to today. only to find a down sized deal at the end i'm curious. what is this next chapter looking like for vizio and how would you characterize the process thus far of going public >> yeah. first of all, i'm very excited to be here today you know, i started the company back in 2002 with the second mortgage on my house. we've come certainly a long way in the last 18, 19 years built a great company with great people and we sold over 80 million devices. and five years ago, when we tried to go public, the company tried to buy us and since then we're boog executing our vision. on tv, streaming on to the tv and also bring additional value to our tv, which we're so well-known for so so excited to be here today >> can you give us a sense of what the future looks like for video? i want to ask that question in the prism of who y

that's a 58% increase from its open let's bring in leslie picker for much more. >> frank, that's rightt meet the metaverse. roblox built a $40 billion business off the metaverse that largely means gaming. roblox users generate the content and share revenue with the company through a freemium model. >> on the monetization, it's free for most people but people who want to and who are interested can use our virtual economy. that virtual economy has been scaling with our user and engagement growth. >> roblox a huge beneficiary of kids being stuck at home during the pandemic the company saw users surge 85% in 2020. that helped grow the top line to nearly $1 billion last year the big question for skept ticss what happens once the pandemic ends and kids can resume an in-person social life and go back to school roblox switched to a direct listing from a trump administ traditional ipo they opened at 64.50, now trading at 71.07 up about 10% from that opening trade. guys >> thank you very much for more on roblox's big debut, our next guest is an early roblox investor. an observer on the board of

squeeze in january new numbers suggest things might be looking up for gabe plotnik's firm our leslie pickers. >> there's no doubt it's been a rough 2021 for melvin capital. the firm at the center of the gamestop saga is starting to turn things around in february we have learned from four sources familiar with the matter that melvin posted returns of 21.7% in february. those double digit games came after lossesof 53% in january on some wrong way short bets my sources were unwilling to disclose the specifics of what actually caused the turn around in february. the firm declined to comment on performance but melvin has said previously it closed out its gamestop short position in january. that was initially what caught the ire of the reddit crowd, put positions disclosed toward the end of 2020, making melvin and its found dave plotkin, an enemy. he found himself snarled in the web of gamestop, even appearing before congress a few weeks ago as lawmakers sought to really unpack what led to the volatility in certain stocks plotkin said at the time that he had been short gamestop since the firm was

leslie picker. lebenthal, viacom, you're in it >> yes melissa before any of us heard the name bill huang, i was an investor in the company in late 2019 unfortunately rode it down last year but stayed with it. sold it earlier this year, about five weeks or so ago at $60 a share. had a nice little profit on it and was willing to walk away from it. i saw it shoot up. couldn't really figure out what was going on so last friday, you know, we're sort of getting to the end of the day, it is down at about $45 a share. that's 25% lower than where i sold it just last month. i've decided to build a position again. now, look, again, having nothing to do with bill huang, this company is actually doing well and not getting credit for it. almost 20 million subscribers in its flagship streaming service, over 40 million subscribers for pollu pluto tv, has cbs sports and cbs news, a ton of shows in the library. this is an undersung hero in the streaming wars. >> all of that, plus they raised a lot of money as karen a

leslie picker has the state of director diversity what is the problem, leslie? as a progressive and bold move by the nasdaq recommended objective to have two directors on the boardboards if not, the companies had to explain why. it faced praise from sheryl sandberg and mellody hobson and kewsong it lee on the flip side, the detractors included the members of the banking senate committee arguing it is moving out of the scope and it would interfere with shareholder fiduciary duties in response to the criticism, nasdaq watered down the rule a bit and the ongoing controversy means the proposal is not sailing through the s.e.c. with the agency announcing it will take a few more months to review the implications guys >> it seems odd. you think the nasdaq, if they want to set limitations and the companies don't like them, they can go elsewhere good to the nyc and still have the opportunity to trade it is odd they are concerned about that >> reporter: well, it is more than the s.e.c. they need approval from. they received a lot of positive support for the proposal they

decline, the cnbc spac 50 index is negative for the year and down more than 17% over the last week leslie pickersthing to see. what's up. >> reporter: yeah. that's right, becky. it's kind of a reckoning here. the cnbc 50 index holds the largest 50 spacs to announce a deal they're kind of in that wait and see period among the biggest decliners are those with the biggest market star power chamath palihapitiya's spac. gary cohn's specific trading back around its ipo price. some of the skittishness surrounds from the fact there's so much capital chasing so much deals which can lead to higher prices paid and shoddy due diligence. in the first two months. year alone nearly $70 billion has been raised to over 200 spacs. that equates to more than five spacs a day. if that pace were to continue for the rest of the year, it would be five times the level of last year's way record-breaking year perhaps the breaking point from the market standpoint and sentiment may have been ten days ago when a spac managed by banker michael klein had an electric vehicle maker tieup with lucid motors. the market hated the te

but a controversial figure, leslie picker, not you, but mr.t i think it's fair to say he's certainly the center of this archegos capital, the center of the morning. which one source described the size and scale of friday's four sales as a once in a decade event. it all started first thing friday morning when goldman sachs sent a note to clients offering block trades in steep discounts this inbuded b i du, tencent and victimshop, there were other names throughout the day, discovery, ghs, viacomcbs, and traders struggled to find out what was going on and it came to that capital management firm of archegos managed by bill hwang. and several leveraged positions, archegos did not respond to our request seeking comment. but still, "the wall street journal" says that archegos holds a highly controversial book and runs positions due to swap and now trying to find out where else hwang was exposed many are bracing for potential volatility today as a result of that uncertainty now, the situation has been raising broader questions and you guys have been c

part of the downfall was the inve or the's high risk appetite something leslie picker than watching this> bill wong flew a little too close to the sun here. he seems to have had an insatiable appetite for risk he grove his capital management into an investing whale in quick order, but when several positions turned against him, it didn't take much to tip his firm into turmoil, causing tens of billions of dollars worth of forced selling now, the risk levels he ran defied logic i spoke with several hedge fund managers who said they could not fathom that type of tolerance. banks were lending at ratios as high as 8 to 1 are, citing people familiar with the matter added in some trades ratios were as high as 20 to 1 that means for each share purchased, he was able to borrow money to buy 20 more eve an small move down can force significant pressure on the positions. wong also reportedly ran a heavily concentrated book with names like viacom, cbs, discovery, a group of others across the six or so prime brokers he was working with, wong was able to amass a huge portion of stock in many of his hold

. >>> let's get to our leslie picker for more on the decline in spacs, something we were talking a greatntinue to watch many of these names suffer >> yeah. it appears to be at least a short-term reckoning for spacs take a look at the cnbc spac 50 index of the largest spacs that have yet to announce a deal. they are in the wait and see period that benchmark lower again today. down about 1.5% after declines of more than 2.5% yesterday, putting it in negative territory for 2021 just over the last two weeks, the gauge is down nearly 18% as there really is this sort of risk off sentiment in the markets. among the biggest decliners some with the biggest market star power, bill ackman's square down today even after an 11% slide yesterday, and gary cohn's spac around its ipo price now, the reason sell-off has largely impacted those spacs that had seen prices soar on excitement over their managers and the prospect for signing a deal in the near future, some of the skittishness surrounding spacs these days though stems from that concern that there is so much capital chasing so few deals, which cou

under the ticker dsey, our leslie picker joins us now she has the ceo and it's a cnbc exclusive. u so much for joining us on the day of your big debut i first want to get into your reasons behind going public. pricing came in a bit weaker than expected. $15 below the 18 to $21 range. your competitor, e colab traded reasonably well over the course of your road show. can you gif us a sense of what went on in discussions between yourself and your investors. what happened here, why go public now >> hi, look, we're, you know wewe think this is a great time for us to go public. we've got a great story. we're in a market that's growing really strongly over 3%. we're taking market share. we have a great range of plans to grow our margins, and it's a really fragmented market that means we can do a lot of m and a as well. we think we've got a great story. and, you know, therefore it's a good time for us to come we looked around at other options. the ipo seemed like the best one for us it's just fantastic to be in the market today we've got a great range of new shareholders we feel really go

it working toward that open when asked if the company could enter the public market meantime, leslie pickerted robinhood has chosen to lift on the nasdaq when they go public i guess the question is whether reddit and robinhood when they go public bm the ultimate meme public stock >> i hope they go public on the same day everything coming together it will be interesting to watch, particularly the robinhood one, because it has raised so much capital already. probably lower the amount of capital they need the raise. but opening the doors to further raisings goings forward will be fun to watch. >>> still to come, we will speak with amc's adam aron and ask about movie theaters reopening in new york and whether he feels the company benefitted from being short squeezed temporarily. plus, liz ann sonders will join us in just a moment. here's a look at bonds ten-year did hit 1762 earlier. but pulled back and is in fact 1.55 basically flat on the session now. >>> dow up 533 points, session high was up 560 points today's move takes us positive for the week, both on the dow and the s&p. nasdaq still do

leslie picker has more on the risky strategy. >> bill hwang flew a little too close to the sun he grewnagement into an investing whale, one nobody had heard of until last week. but when several positions turned against him, it didn't take much to tip his firm into turmoil causing tens of billions of dollars in forced selling now, the risk levels he ran defied logic several hedge managers said they could not fathom that type of tolerance. banks were lending to archegos at ratios as high as 8-1, citing people familiar with the matter. the ft added that in some trades, ratios were as high to 20-1 that means it would take a very, very small move downward in a name to wipe out the whole position his book was heavily concern trade and liquid a spokeswoman for the firm telling cnbc this is a challenging time for the family office of archegos capital management, our partners and empl employees. all plans are being discussed as we determine the best path forward. it's not in the business of managing money for outside institutions like pension funds, endowments and the like like a hedge fund wou

saga involving softbank and founder eric newman, the company is ready to hit the market again leslie pickerfeel like i've aged a decade since they filed that s-1. it's only been 600 days but they finally founding their way into public markets the first time investors shunned the company's billions of dollars in losses and quirky structure. adam newman settled his legal problems with the company. a spac agreed to buy it for about $9 billion about one-fifth of the value wework had ahead of its failed ipo in 2019. the ceo said on "squawk box" this morning that the timing is just right >> we thought it was a good time to raise additional liquidity and derisk the balance sheet and to make sure that we had a path to profitability so sometimes the path picks you, you don't pick the path. >> the merger could capitalize in a return-to-work environment. that sent bowx up more than 10% today. guys. >>> thank you very much for that summary. let's discuss it further cameron and reeves wideman both join us right now. thank you to you both and good afternoon. reeves, my first question is whether the curre

a nice rebound in february leslie picker has that story for us. >> there is little doubt it's been abut the firm at the center of that gamestop saga is starting to turn things around in february. we've learned from four sources familiar with the matter that mall vin posted returns of 21.7% in the month of february those double-digit gains came after losses of 53% in january on some wrong-way short bets the performance and some inflows brought assets under management from 8 billion at the end of january to nearly 11 billion by march 1st. a source close to melvin tells me that there hasn't been really any massive changes to strategy. they are focused on ensuring they have ample liquidity so they don't get stuck in the event of a squeeze they will have more but smaller short positions which limits their exposure to certain names. their long side remains unchanged i am told. the firm declined to comment on performance. melvin said previously though that it closed out its gamestop short position in january. that holding, of course, is what caught the ire of the reddit crowd, put positions

leslie picker's been looking at this hi, leslie. >> reporter: hey, becky.p with spac merger financing, the next opportunity experts say are to capitalize on the spac boom. here's the playbook. when a spac takes a company public it will include financial projections. traditional ipos rarely do this because they have greater liability risks if those projections go awry. in other words, they lack safe harbor spacs because they involve a merger and not an ipo, financial projections can be a key attribute because they have greater protection in this latest round of spacs, they're nascent businesses any missteps, you can bet activists will pounce and look to shuffle management and the board. we spoke with ethan clingsburg he is at the law firm fresh fields he's already advising clients if and when they sell to a spac, to restructure their companies in a way that would defend them against potential activist attention including creating a second asset of stock and boards to stagger when directors are up for election becky. >> leslie, i'm trying to figure out the ti

new etf trying to cash in on the reddit trading frenzy is getting a lot of buzz on wall street leslie pickeret to take flight tomorrow. known as the social sentiment etf. this tracks an index that uses analytics models to find 75 large cap u.s. stocks they believe have the most positive investor sentiment dave portnoy of bar stool sports throwing marketing muscle behind this etf tweeting his support to his 2.4 million followers yesterday. the catch is buzz only rebalances once a month so is likely to miss the quick shifts of the socially driven stocks and additionally only invests in companies with market caps over $5 billion, guys >> leslie, thanks so much for that mike, is this a sign of, well, we pointed to many and have been wrong. sort of marking the top. but is this a type of activity something that you would typically point to in that regard >> well, i don't know about marking the top of anything in particular the etf industry is going to try these somewhat gimmicky or at least buzzy sounding strategies for some dramatic approach, something that seems one step ahead. i think there is

he joining russ on "squawk box" last week rocket mortgage is a stock that soared 70% yesterday leslie pickerle or no news and the momentum takes hold yesterday, stock du jour, the parent company of quicken loans soared on the stocks nearly half of the company is sold short making it a prime target for squeezed sourced traders. last week it was fueled by explosive growth as the company called it concurrent with earnings rocket announced a special dividend worth 111 per share. special dividends are a return to shareholders but some lenders will receive borrowed shares to receive the dividend according to the dividend itself and it appears that traders behind some of this activity, it's not exactly clear why they're the driving force. while rocket became the most actively traded stock on fidelity's plaid foplatform yesterday. this morning, rbc downgrading the stock down to 6.5% this morning. guys >> leslie, thank you >> andrew, over to you >> thanks, becky joining us on this topic and so much more, an expert on all things internet gary vevaynerchk is here. you have a pulse on this that frankly

leslie picker confirms it is his account. he coals this a deep dive.e says that i've been doing a deep dive into crypto lately it's a real test of being intellectually open to new and controversial ideas. culturally i compare bridging the crypto world with the old as akin to finding a portal between two distinct worlds in the multi-verse. okay then also maintaining healthy skepticism while also deepening one's understanding requires one to engage in what steve jobs, and of course fitzgerald before him, described as requisite for superior intellect to maintain two opposed ideas in one's mind and retain the ability to function goes on to say, then another conflict to overcome is the idea that being late to the crypto party will inevitably lead to one taking the sucker seat at a high stakes poker table versus still being early days and what is now being adopted in the mainstream so it just sounds like i feel kind of bad because it just sounds like some -- maybe better late than never but, you know, after you watch it go from $8 to $48,000 and maybe resist