good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. here we go it's friday. u.s. equities this morning are looking up in fact, the dow is up by 150 points this is seven days in a row that we have seen gains for the dow s&p 500 is indicated up by 21. nasdaq up close to 100 points. this comes after gains for all three of the averages yesterday. treasury market will be in close focus this morning 4.45 is where the ten-year yield. people on edge looking for anything to figure out what the fed will do next the senate passing a bill

yesterday to re-authorize federal aviation programs and would enact safety protections for passengers the senate passed a short-term extension to prevent the current bill from lapsing later today and the house will take up the full legislation the house is expected to vote on it next week. we are learning more about the probe by the s.e.c. into boeing reviewing statements over the safety practices after a panel blew off the alaska air flight back in january. we talked a lot about it investigators focused on the comments made by the company executives may have misled investors in violation of s.e.c. rules. we will hear headlines about this for some time. in fed speak, san francisco fed president mary daly said interest rates are currently restraining the economy, but it may take more time to return inflation to the central bank's

goals. it sounds like higher for longer pitch. it echos remarks from the fed chair jay powell last month where daly said the uptick in price data shows you cannot declare victory yet. we will hear more about that on "power lunch oim" with kashkari goolsbee >> we're calling them that >> kashkari and goolsbee like hall and oates or martin and lewis. they will be on at 2:00. kashkari and goolsbee. it has a ring, does it not >> not really. >> like simon and garfunkel. >> he knows --

>> i don't know what happened to art. he was in the studio once. art garfunkel. that is when ron was still here. he said that guy was so mean to me >> garfunkel >> yeah. he blew him off. >> maybe he was just shy >> he was a really nice guy. he was a graduate of columbia university he graduated with my husband's father >> who knew? >> he befriended a blind guy there who wrote a book about what a good guy he was and helped him around campus. >> it could have been a sign i'm kidding. in the meantime, the uk economy has emerged from recession. the gdp rose 0.6% in the first quarter. the economy entered recession in

the second quarter the services sector grew for the first time in a year and driven by transport services. in a post on x, rishi sunak said the economy has turned a corner. the plan is working and we must stick to it. meantime, a federal judge in san francisco seems unlikely to grant the elon musk request in the investigation of the purchase of twitter. musk said the agency is harassing him and he shouldn't devote more time to the meetings in a hearing yesterday, the judge asked are you saying that mr. musk, because he is a very important and busy person that the s.e.c. cannot investigate him? later accused musk of gamesmanship with two days of notice back in september after he suggested for four months he would cooperate. likely there will be more questions. in corporate news, shares a.

the guidance for the current quarter was weaker than expected the shares are now down more than 20% year to date. shares of u.s. cellular jumping by 30% in yesterday's session after the wall street journal reported that t-mobile and verizon are in talks to carve up the company this sends shares of telephone and data systems higher by 30% it began exploring alternatives for u.s. cellular back in august of last year the report says that t-mobile is close to a deal for a piece of the company worth $2 billion verizon's talks are expected to take longer. apple taking an unusual step of apologizing for an advertising video promoting the ipad pro tablet. tim cook posting this on tuesday

showing creative tool was guitars and pianos being crushed by a hydrolic table. this caused backlash from content creators an apple marketing executive said the company missed the mark with the video and they're sorry. apple decided not to run the ad on tv. >> i don't know what the big deal is about. how many times have you seen a musician get up on stage and smash his guitar >> the idea of the whole thing was compacting something into something so thin, but it was about crushing all of the creative tools and all of these things that are part of our world. >> people get really worked up over this stuff. i saw it and said whatever >> it was a good ad, but i understood the backlash. i could see it >> people have way too many

things to worry about. >> it is not that we don't need musicians or instruments >> i don't think that is what they were trying to say. that's the impact of the video i don't think it was just about musicians or creative people it was crushing everything >> that's what i mean. ask for not whom the bell tolls. you better not do that teleprompters. >> they did. >> now we're screwed target is planning to cut lgbtq themed merchandise in june that is according to the bloomberg report that responded to the backlash over sales last year there is an assortment of merchandise available online, but target will decide which physical locations will carry the products

target was forced to remove some of the collection including transgender swim suits with confrontations with customers in stores the spokesperson said the collection would be kcurated based on guest insights. >> i guess i would have retweeted that babylon if i thought it was retweetable the one i sent you about target. >> oh, that one from yesterday >> if if retweet i thought it wo retweet, i sent it to you. it is not okay to mention it now. i'm not going to mention it. >> you just did. >> i didn't. i didn't mention which one i'm not mentioning which one i don't think anything about what's happening in the middle east is funny. i guess it's too soon.

not too soon it is never funny. it is so serious i was going to talk about something else i wished i worked for espn that's where the news is the games tonight. the knicks and nuggets down 2-0. big piece of anthony edwards was kyle talking about p him? >> yes he is a huge fan collector of the cards coming up -- it has nothing to do with anything. it doesn't just interesting on a friday the dow on the seven-day winning streak we will talk about technicals as we head to break here is a look at the stocks as we head into break on the positive side, chili's

parent brinker and chipotle and papa johns then kate rogers will take a look at consumer trade downs in restaurant stocks. i didn't want to get out of this before 6:10. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. visit bairddifference.com. ♪ (alarm sound) ♪ amelia, turn off alarm. amelia, weather. 70 degrees and sunny today. amelia, unlock the door. i'm afraid i can't do that, jen. ♪ (suspenseful music) ♪ why not? did you forget something? ♪ (suspenseful music) ♪ my protein shake. the future isn't scary. not investing in it is. you're so dramatic amelia.

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♪ dow on the longest winning streak since december and now approaching 40,000 let's take a closer look at the chart. joining us is mark newton from technical strategy you have a couple of jobs and claims numbers that go up and our cuts is causing it i know it is technical you are not a fundamental guy. the attitude changed back again to a possible cutting scenario >> i think that's right, joe the narrative has changed to some extent. we see the bad news as good news for the stock market anything that causes rates to pull back a little bit or the u.s. dollar is seen as very good

for rfkisk assets we saw the jobless claims hit the highest level since last august and lower jobs number last time. the combination of those caused treasuries to finally rally. that's a very good sign at a time when people are worried that rates were going up above 5% on the ten-year yield and inflation was here to stay the key here for the economic standpoint is cpi to really see if there's evidence that can start to pull back technically, the market is in good shape here. we see about 70% over the 200-day moving average which is a good sign. it hasn't been technology. we have seen other sectors start to participate you see financials and instrumentals and materials which is why that sector is

moving it has been more broad based that gives me comfort this can continue and we are in a sweet spot at a time when the economy is chugging along. there are few signs it may start to put back and tear off a little bit it is not dramatic >> is there any reason that growth or a slowdown in labor in what we see on the first friday of every month, will that translate into cooler inflation numbers? if not, it doesn't mean it has to be that way, does it? >> look, i think it is all very difficult to take economic data and try to, you know, pinpoint what the market will do. i would say the labor market is seeing evidence of the starting of cooling we don't see rapid unemployment. i think the market knows that and that's certainly a good thing. the recent data has confirmed

powell's dovishness. i think the market is still on good footing technically, we're in very good shape. you have to look at the sector rotation and what is happening technology, although it pulled back a little bit, but we're not seeing a massive decline in most tech stocks like apple have started to breakout. that is important for the s&p and qqq. >> how is the sentiment? bullish or bearish and as far as election years, we're up 9% at this point so far. what does that indicate for the remainder of the year going into november >> you know, historically, we see five straight months of gains and april was down means it was very good for the balance of the year. the average gain is 16% from april to the end of the year april was down 4%. that usually is very good. we still have two wars and a lot of contentiousness and the

climate is very poor right now with the election year people are unhappy and in general, that type of negativity is very, very good for the market sentiment has contracted we saw the three weeks of declines in the market from late march into april which caused a lot of the polls to go neutral to bullish levels. there are a lot of people on the sidelines and a lot of institutions going fully into the market and simply because tech is not working well you know, there are a lot of other parts of the market doing well >> we had someone on yesterday saying a lot of the gains in the magnificent seven and we heard that a lot and that was one of the reasons that maybe this is questionable you said the breadth is much better when did it start improving and what's the metric underneath

that >> the breadth was starting to be good at the tail end of last year we saw the rally from october into the end of the year we saw a pretty broad-based rally. it is much different heading into 2024 than it was heading into last year we see, you know, a lot greater stocks above their longer moving averages when i say breadth, i say more than three quarters of the market moving above the 30-day moving average having technology participate is important, but when it doesn't and then see other groups like financials and healthcare and he healthcare is now showing evidence of bottoming out. you can see new measures with the breadth. we are looking at longer-term

gauges of how to look at the market >> do you use some technicals on the ten-year yield what is that indicating to you >> my allotment of cycles suggest the yields will start to pull back dramatically between now and august the next few months, i suspect yields can get down well under 4% which would be a surprise to many people. i think it also means the recent trend of economic softening might continue we'll see. to me, it doesn't matter of how many cuts. that is irrelevant the ten-year yield gets 4.45 we are getting close to a time where yields will pull back sharply. the dollar should follow suit. it will be a good time for emerging markets

signs of china bottoming and rallying off the lows. honestly, i'm very optimistic over the next six months it won't always be the case into next year, but for now, i'm bullish this year. i think we're in a sweet spot. small caps have started to make a little bit of progress off the lows it will take a bit for those to really participate to the extent we like. it is moving in the right direction. >> we've had other people say the yield curve will steepen and not necessarily be because of cuts it will be on the long end you think below 4% by the end of the year that will be at the same time inflation was coming in with better numbers softer numbers for inflation for the bond market to fall below 4% >> i think there is an interesting way they calculate

we can't see car insurance go up 3% to 4% a month there is definite areas that can start to soften that were anomalies that we sawin januar and february you know, my thinking is that crude oil, obviously energy is important, as we fell from $90 to the high 70s. that will have a greater effect as well in how we look at things. >> mark, thanks. fundstrat global head of global strategies. openai could reveal a new search product as soon as monday details right after the break. speaking of artificial intelligence, check out shares of eaton getting an a.i. bump managing power for data centers the stock hitting an all-time high in yesterday's session. "squawk box" returns after this.

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welcome back to "squawk box. openai announcing the artificial intelligence search product on monday according to the report from reuters openai has been working on the search product ato compete with google the tech giant specs to unveil a slew of a.i. products at the tech conference. we will see if they get ahead of go google. and sam altman has won investor approval by the spac of

oklo this is the acquisition report and debut as soon as today on the new york stock exchange. it will develop next generation to produce cleaner energy and the first reactor in the u.s. before the end of the deck ade. if sam altman is successful with the processing power, he will need the power behind it >> yes a huge issue much more demand for it than had been anticipated a year ago. it is a problem a lot of people are trying to tackle right now. when we come back, $1 billion test for the art market. robert frank will join us with that story next. as we head to break, take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers

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welcome back to "squawk box. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. so far so good for the bulls this morning dow is up again after being up for seven sessions in a row. indicated up 140 points. s&p up 20 and nasdaq up 80. shares of sinclair jumping after the report that the owner is looking to sell 30% of the footprint. sources telling cnbc that sinclair identified 60 stations in the u.s. it would be willing to sell. minneapolis and pittsburgh and portland and austin, texas could be up for sale we will watch this with the media chess pieces sinclair lost 70% of the market value in the last five years as millions canceled pay tv

we talk about it all the time. shares of yelp falling with earnings above estimates and the guidance is strong in the home services category with a challenging area in restaurants. shares down 17% before today's date a business test in the high-end art market. robert frank is joining us with more >> the biggest sale of the year in the art market. $1 billion of art is headed to auction next week. that is down 17% from last year and that's if things go well auction sales fell 18% in the first quarter. contemporary art is the big money maker. that plunged 48% in the first quarter. dealers and collectors say the market is stalled over price buyers want a 20% discount and

sellers want prices back to the peak in 2022 >> the market is often defined by the supply that's available we're seeing what people perceive as perhaps a smaller offering this season >> one of the stars of the week is this francis bacon portrait that could go for $30 million to $50 million. christie's has "event" estimated at $30 million to $50 million. that oartist passed away last year and then at sotheby's has one that sold for $2.7 million 14 years ago. this one is called the "italian version of popeye with no pork in his diet. that is estimated at $30 million. for more on the art market and where the wealthy are investing,

check out our inside wealth newsletter at cnbc.com/insidewealth. >> i'm reading this. this is well done. >> i appreciate that >> how many people are working with you on that >> it is all him >> i love it it's great this week, we have a more detailed look at the art market and the private market which is what you don't see that market is really strong the question is why is the auction market so weak and private so strong? you need to read the newsletter. >> another story further down. >> how hard it is to buy a f ferrari. >> put up the qr code. it is worth it >> thank you >> i'll thank you, too brice martin never heard of him the francis bacon. wasn't there a triptik a couple of years ago that went for $100 the million?

>> that was steve wynn's wife. he put his elbow through the picasso. he loved the series of triptiks. this is the series of ten he did with the monumental portraits that you can buy >> fill me in on george dyer. >> his lover for years who killed himself a tragedy in his life. the great love of francis bacon's life those are important arti artistically tragic story as you know, joe, they have tragic stories. >> tortured. >> he wasn't a tortured poor artist he came from a wealthy family. >> not from the bacon magnate. probably not brice? how would i recognize him?

>> he is a colorist. >> i saw that. >> really beautiful. ribbons of color abstract expressionist you cannot do the colors justice on the screen. he produced not a lot, but before he passed away, his art was selling $12 million. he is not making -- these are giant. you talk about wall power. if you have a mansion in palm beach and put it on the big white wall, it is a brice martin people know it and it's beautiful colors. >> if you have a mansion in palm beach, you don't need to know what it costs. >> robert, you are a renaissance man. >> my mom was an artist and my dad was a painter. i love the world of art.

>> you have no idea. you have no idea you have been to hunt studio it's crazy yeah it's everywhere. you can't walk around the living room everywhere >> it's a gift >> is it >> yes >> thanks, robert. >> i'll look at it that way. when we come back, we will look at private equity as they look to gain a foothold into a wider sector. if you miss us, follow us on "squawk pod" and listen to us any time we'll be right back.

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it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. wooooo! welcome back, everybody. private equity ownership has crept into the market. guggenheim is exploring a buyout of macy's and could gain 30% of

nfl teams. we have dan with axios dan, this is a fascinating story. there's not enough money to go around when it comes to individuals to allow ownership levels at the nfl to allow prices to keep going higher, so the nfl is doing what anyone would do look around and see where the money is located and who do we let in next? >> it is last sports league to do that. others have done it. it is a twofold problem. look at the nfl teams. walmart and david tepper you have the secondary thing which is the next generation or kids of owners who are retiring or possibly died end up with a massive tax bill that they may not be able to handle on their

own. >> you look at the panel they will be discussing this a private equity firm could own up to 30%. you have names we know well like robert kraft and arthur blank on this panel discussing this issue. the other question i have is do you think there is a point where they would consider ownership from, you know, an investment fund from saudi arabia, let's say? >> they may. it is hard to say at this point. you have seen foreign money go into other leagues i would think they would start with the u.s. private equity market because it is an enormous private equity market. allow europe in. the british premier league in soccer u.s. investors own a number of that they will go with the nba model and what the nba does allows minority stakes and they have a certain number of firms quote pre-approved to do deals they have a rigorous process others are allowed to do on a

one-off. other transactions with the owners still having to approve them the majority owners can knock somebody out >> dan, is this good for the business or bad for the business this is the question that robert kraft and some of the owners will have about the long-term viability as a league. if you are a private equity fund, you have to have an exit you have to have an exit, call it, ten years or 12 years. you will not be froin it for 20 30 years do they want these to trade more frequently >> acndrew, these teams throw of enormous cash. rather than looking at this as a traditional investment and we gave you money and now we want the money back in the exit or ipo, you may get a significant dividend over the five or six

years. you may be willing to let that ride longer. secondly, if a large enough market grows up around this, you get a secondary market which is what you have in other private equity for example, there are funds created to buy pieces of private equity firms privately held private equity firms. those stakes trade around a bit. that's what we would see in the nfl. >> dan, let's switch to macy's guggenheim is looking around what is the interest with the private equity with macy's >> guggenheim is raising debt for the art world. the private equity is not that strong we think of private equity going back ten years with the big box stores linens and things and toys r us. they don't do it anymore not because they can't find good opportunities as policy, but they will do consumer products,

but not retail the number of buyers for macy's is relatively low. there is a real estate component to it. when you talk about major retailers, it has fallen off a cliff. >> there are rumors of private equity around peloton and everything that is happening with paramount the deal that would include private equity firm with the offer for paramount. the difference is they would break it up and spinning off a lot of sections of it. >> on the peloton side, i think that is bankers trying to drum up interest. private equity kicked that around for a while the market cap is down to $1.4 billion. i have a soft spot for that product. i don't know how private equity firms which want cash flow and peloton doesn't create that. on paramount, that is the breakup which is the key i had jeffery katzenberg on

stage earlier this week. he could not see the broad license for cbs. sony cannot get it. >> it is a foreign entity. >> right the tricky part is does shari redstone want to sell it off if it is broken up? she never wanted that. there is a conflict to that bid. if they are willing to up it a bit, everyone will hold their nose and see what happens. >> i don't know why they couldn't just sell off the pieces themselves if that is going to happen. >> correct. >> greater than the sum of the parts. dan primak, thank you. when we come back, more ipo news zeekr pricing at the top end of the range. we will talk about it later. and we will have bill rudin joining us on the set when "squawk box" comes right back.

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chinese makers zeekr prices ipo at $21 a share they will begin trading on the new york stock exchange today under the symbol zk. the company revealed 2023 revenue of $7.3 billion, but a net loss of just over a billion. the company delivered 16,000 vehicles in april. not a small number gili is the owner, i guess they go 001, 002, introduced the sedan, first sedan, the 007. >> i was going to say, i'm with the 007. >> the 007 it's -- supposedly the first

model 3 killer because of what is possible, 15-minute charging for 80%. 30,000 if you got a high end, it probably would be 40,000 or 50,000 i don't know what you get with the starting model but is that where -- is that where tesla really starts getting some competition -- >> i don't know if he's worried about it himself i think the people truly worried about this is not musk, general motors and ford, anybody trying to be in this business. >> they have raised concerns about it. >> the founders, what are the swedish ones, polestar and there is another one i don't know what this looks like in ten years, i really don't, with the whole -- is it still tesla? i don't think. they got such a -- >> on evs, i would be less

worried about tesla. the worry shouldn't be about tesla. the worry should be -- >> is it going to be a tesla-dominated world. >> by everybody else who can't make evs >> unless he's vice president. >> he might be president >> unlikely. >> president or vice president. >> neither or neither shares of u.s. cellular jumped -- by the way, would make very interesting vice president, but -- >> he could tweet just like trump. the same kind of -- athet ump yesterday on a repor th tre are talks to carve it up we'll dig into the story next. e, tailor-made for trader minds. go deeper with thinkorswim: our award-wining trading platforms. unlock support from the schwab trade desk, our team of passionate traders who live and breathe trading. and sharpen your skills with an immersive online education

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"wall street journal"ing that t-mobile and verizon are in talks to carve up us cellular. joining us for more is walter pichek help us understand how you think this plays out i'm also curious whether you think regulators are going to allow all this to take place >> these transactions, second question first, andrew, these transactions typically take a long time. t-mobile was just trying to buy an mbno. that's not anyone that owns spectrum this is the radio frequencies the government really controls that took a very long time to get approved the current administration was not a fan of the t-mobile acquisition of sprint. however, we do have an election coming up. so the length of this process will probably take it into 2025 and then the determination is going to be, you know, whoever happens to be in the administration at that point and in terms of the deal itself -- i'm sorry, go ahead, andrew. >> no, go ahead, talk about the deal itself.

>> this is a company that stuck around because the carlson family, the owners, hadn't wanted to sell at a price anyone wanted to buy at it has been sitting out there for a long time. it is very small it has 1% or 2% impact on t-mobile, even if t-mobile bought the whole thing, this article is not even talking about them buying the whole thing, that doesn't mean that the current administration, no matter how small it is, approves any deal as we have seen, in countless deals that have been proposed over the past year or so >> when you think about this deal, is there -- is there anybody else who wants to play in this at all in terms of a potential buyer? how much does u.s. cellular go for in the end now to 4605 >> the headline of the article, you know, by the journal, was saying this was going to get split up by verizon. that's really, you know, it has to because u.s. cellular has a joint venture with verizon in some markets that verizon has the ability to purchase. i don't think there can be a

transfer of control. i could be wrong on that verizon has to be involved at least in a portion of this transaction. and they may not be willing to purchase at whatever u.s. cellular wants to sell at. the transaction size talked about, 2 billion, shouldn't be enough to buy the remaining operations that are left there is one or two things happening here either the article fell short in describing that they're also going to assume the debt of u.s. cellular, or they're going to only buy a portion of u.s. cellular's assets, which means u.s. cellular would still remain as a company unless they could figure out if at&t or verizon could come up with a price to buy the remainder of the operations. >> walter, go broader with me for a second of the cellular providers, cable providers, what do you like these days what do you not like >> connectivity is very difficult right now across the board. you're talking about a 2% to 3% growth business, even the fastest growing company like t-mobile and wireless is 4%. they're facing the challenges of

government subsidy program, acp, that they're fighting trying to get funding for, adding it on as -- into this faa act. it is difficult to find attractive names in this space we don't recommend anything in connectivity >> nothing >> nothing nothing. look, the endgame here, andrew, globally, is consolidation clearly not under the biden administration, but you look around the world, we're going to buy our communications services, our home broadband and our wireless from one provider in the future at&t at least executing on a strategy to build fiber to do that t-mobile is starting to do that. they announced they're investing a couple billion dollars with lumen to build fiber that's the endgame if the administration changes, and they're more willing to have larger acquisitions, maybe we'll see that happen. >> where do you put the cable providers? charter, comcast and the like

into this mix? >> the home broadband market is under attack, they're building fiber, and they're getting attacked on the fixed wireless side of things so, that is their remaining growth engine. they basically look and, you know, sound like a telco and now trade like a telco consolidation may be its own way out at this point. look at the leverage and the amount of stock they're buying back as opposed it deleveraging the company. at least comcast has some diversity in their assets and their wireless business might have a little bit more strategic approach to how they're approaching the market. >> okay. walt, great to see you this morning, have a great weekend. appreciate you bringing us what is a little bit of down news if you're in this business. meantime, it is 7:00 a.m. on the east coast you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin with joe kernen and becky quick we got a lot going on this friday top story, we're learning more about the s.e.c.'s probe now into boeing. bloomberg reporting the agency is scrutinizing statements that boeing made about its safety

practices, this after a panel blew off that alaska air flight back in january. investigators focusing on whether comments by the company or its executives misled investors. in washington, the senate passing a bill yesterday to reauthorize federal aviation programs for the next five years, the bill would also max new safety measures and consumer protections, we talked about some of the protections, for passengers now heads to the house the uk economy has emerged from recession, that's the official word here. the country's gdp rising .6% in first quarter, that beat expectations uk entering a shallow recession in the second half of 2023 persistent inflation continued to hurt that economy and chinese president xi jinping will finish up his first trip to europe it has been five years, he'll finish it up today, aimed at boosting ties with the eu. eunice yoon joins us now with more >> reporter: president xi

jinping is visiting a europe that is much more hostile to him as well as to china than his last trip mainly because of his partnership with russian president vladimir putin as well as his support for putin's war on ukraine now, on this trip, he visited france as well as serbia, and hungary. he went to countries that were, for the most part, generally assuring him of a more friendly reception. the most important meeting was in france, with french president emmanuel macron. the two had a friendly exchange, and with president xi asking ma cro cron to help avoid a new third war. president xi highlighted the 25th anniversary of the bombing, the u.s. bombing of the chinese embassy in belgrade, saying that

china would never forget now, for investors, a key takeaway is that china's -- that the chinese president didn't offer any real change in policy in order to try to repair relations. for example, while he was in paris, he met with the european commission chief, who was complaining about china's overcapacity he said that there is no such thing as china's overcapacity. and on russia, well, president xi is going to be welcoming president putin here in beijing next week. guys >> there's no -- i think that is a pretty good friendship that we are now seeing, and i don't know if it is worth it for china, china needs to obviously needs europe, needs the united states, i'm not sure what the benefit to china is to be so close to putin at this point.

>> reporter: well, i think that president xi really sees his relationship with president putin in a longer term time frame, which is that he's hoping to have a change of the u.s.-led world order. however, in so doing, i think one of the interesting side effects of his relationship with president putin is that it really has driven a wedge -- or has really been able to not drive a wedge, but narrow the differences between the u.s. and chi europe, because in the past it looked like china was making progress in dividing the u.s. and europe europe was much more soft on the idea of having a relationship with china, but once president xi had solidified that relationship with president putin, everything changed. >> seeing the pictures with xi and macron together just made me start thinking about how awkward potentially this olympics is going to be with all these

countries. what have you heard about that in advance, eunice, just in terms of who will be there, who won't? >> reporter: well, in terms of who's going to be there and who won't, i don't have any insight in that. but at the same time, both macron, you can tell macron was trying to cozy up to president xi in some respects in saying they both had agreed that the olympics -- they wanted to have the olympic games become a bit of a truce on all war. so, you know, the relationship between president xi and president macron is really one that is very interesting, because a year ago, macron was here and sparked a lot of outrage when he made some comments about taiwan that the other european leaders didn't really like. so, i think that president xi views president macron as maybe one who is friendlier among the european leaders compared to

everybody else >> germany, i guess. we don't know who is going to be there. all we know is we're going to be there. the three of us. we do know that. god willing. eunice, thank you. let's look at the futures again. you are seeing the dow futures up by about 125 points this morning on this friday the dow has been up seven sessions in a row. if it maintains this -- these gains it would be up for eight sessions in a row. s&p is indicated up by 18. the nasdaq up by 82. let's get over to dom chu, he has a look at this morning's premarket movers. >> good friday morning, becky, joe. let's kick things off, right, with a big check on an earnings mover in technology and that's akamai technologies. those shares are bucking the trend, down 10% premarket, around 8,000 shares of volume. this is the cloud computing cybersecurity solutions company. it reported mixed results, profits came in better than estimates on slightly weaker than expected revenues in what has been the case for many earnings reports this

season, especially those in the last couple of weeks, it is all about the outlook. and investors were sharply disappointed with weaker than expected current quarter and full year guidance akamai did also announce the addition of a new $2 billion share buyback program, but on balance, you can see the shares down roughly 10% or so now a couple notable analyst calls out this morning, first up, media shares of warner bros. discovery, higher by a percent or so, roughly about 40,000 shares of volume this is the parent company that's namesakes is getting upgraded by key bank capital markets to overrweight rating. it is getting an $11 price target on the heels of the earnings report yesterday, citing a bottoming out in estimates and optimism about the trajectory of its direct to consumer business. those shares are up as well. and then we're going to end with a check on shares of 3m, up by 1.5%, 15,000 shares of volume. the newly split up industrial

conglomerate is getting help from hsbc. to a buy rating from a hold the target price up to $115. it was 91 bucks and change prior. they're citing expectations for better growth after the spin-off of its healthcare business, and attractive current valuations. so, keep an eye on that. by the way, for more on those stories and others, head over to cnbc.com/pro, subscribers there get full access to all that analysis, andrew back over to you >> dom, thank you for that. more coming up this morning on this friday managing politics in the workplace ahead of the november presidential election hits hard. and a lot of folks are trying to figure it out. also aol co-founder and ceo revolution steve case will talk to us about a.i. investments, chips act and regulation coming in the industry. "squawk box" returns after this.

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we got some breaking news now on novavax, surging more than 100% in premarket trading after announcing a $1.2 billion licensing deal with sanofi for covid-19 vaccines. the current market value is $630 million. and that is a stock on the move in a very big way. how often do you see that? >> not very. that's a big deal. let's look at the futures, they have been up all morning. the dow now up by over 125 points s&p 500 futures up by 18. the nasdaq up by 80. i think already this week we have seen gains of better than 1.8% for that index. joining us right now is sam

stovall, chief investment strategist at cfra and, sam, you're feeling a little better about the markets i think joustust over the last k or so. you're raising your 12-month price target for the s&p 500 by more than 8% i think now you're looking for 12-month price target of 56.10, up from 52.50. what gives you that confidence >> good morning, becky first off, people might think of the 56.10 number and say, gee, which mushrooms has he been chewing on but actually as you said, it really represents about an 8% advance and i think what is encouraging is we are continuing to see earnings come in better than expected, not only for 2024, but also now in a near 15% projected advance for 2025, we're seeing the economy be -- show trends that we could be seeing inflation come down a bit further. and also i think this relief rally has been continuing triggered by fed chair powell's

comments that a rate hike is highly unlikely. so, i think this bull market is maintaining its upward trajectory and will do so over the coming 12 months. >> okay. what would change your mind? if we saw an increase in inflation or something that picked up again because we have been seeing some percolating signs, wages 3% to 4% is what ceos are anticipating playing. there is an expectation that you could see rent prices pick up again. if you did see increases in inflation levels either cpi, ppi, somewhere along the way, would that change your mind on this or earnings are strong enough to recover from any of that >> well, our expectation right now is that we are going to continue to see inflation post downward moves over the next several quarters certainly we could end up seeing some backing and filling along the way, because we are going to be dealing with tougher comparisons on a year over year basis. but we think as we move into

2025, certainly inflation will be sliding much closer to the fed target certainly if our assumptions change, then so too will the expectation for this bull market move i like to look at target prices more as a weather vane than a laser beam, rather than attempting to hit the exact concluding point >> a few weeks ago, we were looking at a pullback of better than 5% for the major averages at that point were you thinking, okaying it is fair to be quite a bit lower at 52 and change >> absolutely. absolutely >> this could switch pretty quickly on a dime if the market changes its mind there has been some disappointment, i think, with some of the guidance given in these earnings calls and some of the stocks reflected that. >> well, this is likely to be the 48th quarter over the last 50 in which actual results succeeded end of quarter estimates. i would say in general with 10

of the 11 sectors now posting better than anticipated results that on the whole, the earnings have come in better than anticipated. yes, i originally thought that we probably could challenge the 4800 level on the s&p. we posted our 11th strongest first quarter gain since world war ii this year and traditionally we see declines of about 8 plus percent following an advance like that because we're down only 5.5% and history would say we're likely to advance another 5 to 10% after recuperating all that we lost in this sell-off. we probably could experience another 5 plus percent decline sometime this year but history says if we record that low before july 31, in all cases we have posted a positive year and the average gain has been in the upper teens. so, i'm going with a probabilities offered by history. >> so, sam, 56.10 is your

12-month price target. where do you think it stands at the end of the year? >> you could say 54 ha.40. just looking at a simple linear month end number, it would be about the 54.30, 54.40 level so, about a 4% gain from where we are right now, which really is not expecting very much >> sam, thank you. >> my pleasure >> okay, still to come, executive guide to politics in the workplace. why employers and employees are concerned. we'll tell you all about what's happening. "squawk box" returns after this. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. in the movie "willie wonka and the chocolate factory" what was the message found on each golden ticket the answer when "squawk box" returns. see that? that's like the gap in my health insurance. gap in your health insurance? yeah, it didn't cover everything when i got hurt. good thing i had aflac. hmmm the cash i got from aflac

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you don't share it with anyone. >> chocolate >> just one little thing as the country gets ready for a trump versus biden rematch, a recent survey from the employment law firm littler asked more than 400 executives about managing divisive political views among employees. over half of those polled said they were concerned about rising political tensions in the workplace. joining us now, heidi brooks, senior lecturer in organizational behavior at the yale school of management. heidi, good to see you it seems like a couple of years ago, at the dawn of stakeholder capitalism, companies were willing to go all in it almost seems like it has shifted a little bit with each of the -- well known situations that we have seen to where now i think some companies are maybe hesitant to get too involved i guess it is still a continuum. you jump all in or don't get

involved at all. what does the survey say >> well, the survey shows that 87% of -- >> okay, we had -- i think we're -- your zoom is freezing, heidi. let's try it again or maybe we'll try and -- still frozen we're going to try and get that fixed. i was really wanting to hear the answer to that hopefully we'll be able to take a quick break and come right back and get back with heidi brooks coming up this morning, steve case talking a.i. regulation, microsoft's a.i. investment in wisconsin and more bill rudin will be our guest, we're going to hear how he sees things here, rhtig now "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back, everybody.

our next guest is going to be sharing his take on the state of commercial real estate new york city's post covid recovery, and much more. want to welcome bill rudin, he is co-chair of the new york city-based real estate development firm rudin good to see you this morning. >> thank you for having me back. and happy mother's day >> thank you. >> let's go, knicks and rangers. >> there you go. >> you got some big teams that are doing very well in the playoffs these days. how is new york city doing commercial real estate here, we keep getting differing views on these things what does it look like from your per spective >> everybody is a little sleepy because the rangers games keep going into overtime. looking forward to the knicks. i think the city in general is doing very, very well. we're seeing significant leasing activity on the commercial side. year to date, 10 million square feet of lease have been signed

including bloomberg lp signed a renew on lexington avenue, palantir took space downtown, major league soccer a few blocks south here of the penn station area there is activity. april's numbers were like 2.7 million, so, it is healthy, but what is happening is it is the flight to quality. and we'll talk about the debt markets too. but tenants are gravitating to buildings that have great amenities, have the understanding that the owner can either has the debt already or can refinance the debt and be able to fund the tenant improvements there is this tremendous flight to quality park avenue has about below 10% vacancy. we're seeing tremendous activity in that area because jpmorgan's new headquarters can open up next year. we just announced with the mayor

and citadel a brand-new building that is going to be built on 52nd and park avenue for citadel securities and citadel company, ken griffin is the lead partner. and it is 1.7 million square foot building. we started the regulatory approvals to go through the zoning and get the building approved by the city, which will take about a year and a half, and then we'll start building sometime in '26. it is designed by norman foster. it is all electric and environment haal friendly a citadel is committed to 800,000 feet of the building that's a very exciting component and reaffirms new york city, citadel's new york headquarters, but it will reaffirm new york as the financial capital of the world. >> we had bruce retner on and he's a former new york city real estate developer he's got a little more dour

view and it could be the difference between the a buildings and beyond let's listen to what he had to say a couple of weeks ago. >> commercial real estate is in terrible trouble you'll hear people say it is bottomed out it is not going to bottom out. when you have vacancy rates in the city up 25% and occupancy rates of almost 50% or less than 50%, it can't recover. and that's because our whole nature of our work has changed. >> what do you think about what he's describing, what he's saying >> there is significant vacancies, particularly in the class b buildings. the overall average vacancy rate is about 21% but certain segments on, like, 3rd avenue have a 30% vacancy. but in what we think is going to happen, the legislature and the mayor and the governor passed a couple of weeks ago in albany a conversion bill allowing office to residential conversions and you are starting to see

companies, owners like sl green has a building on 3rd avenue looking at possibly converting their buildings to residential does that solve the problem? definitely not do we have a nationwide issue in terms of debt? there is about a trillion dollars of debt coming due in 2024 then in '25 and '26, another trillion dollars so, again, it is the flight to quality, the buildings that have good leases will be able to get refinanced, albeit at higher cost owners may have to put some equity into the buildings and then you have the distressed buildings and that's going to have to go through the cycle of, you know, foreclosure, and then there is price discovery now, right up the block here at 15 -- on broadway, upper broadway, building just traded for around $300 a foot. lower manhattan, 222 broadway -- >> that's down from what >> $600, $700 a foot.

>> you're talking about 50%. >> some have been more i've seen deals in california at 67 cents on the dollar you'll see that in the city too. there is an opportunity at the right price. there is capital out there there are opportunistic people who see value. the people that bought the building on broadway, yellowstone, not mr. costner and co., it is a unique opportunity that this company was able to take advantage of. >> the fed keeping rates higher for longer, the idea of these fed cuts coming off, is that putting pressure on people to finally get to price discovery >> no question about it. i was very optimistic to hear your previous guest talking about getting down to below 4% interest rates about an hour ago. i was giving him the thumb's up. or below -- or below 4.50 now.

when i was on the show in september of last year, we were talking about, you know, four, five, six rate cuts, that conversation has changed but speaking to our lenders, and i just got an email this morning from one of them, he said, we're active, we're busy, people are stepping into the market, and tryin ing to lock in their loans >> price discovery was not something you were going to see as long as it looked like the fed was going to imminently cut rates. that offers a lifeline to people if you wind up with no rate cuts for this year, that forces some action. >> yes, but you're seeing -- i just read in goldman sachs portfolio, residential portfolio in san francisco about $600 million of debt, they're handing the keys back. you're going to see that i don't think it is going to be a dramatic one-time hit, it is going to be rolling over the next year or two and as interest rates go down, there is obviously opportunities

for people to be able to restructure their loans. they're going to -- you're going to see people restructure their loans, you're going to see loans get defaulted and see people step in at the right price to take advantage of the opportunity. >> given the price discovery issues you're raising, one of the big issues in the marketplace right now are funds like the blackstone fund and some other semiliquid funds and how they value these funds, given that they are appraised and they're basically taking carry fee annually on the appraisal. do you think that the appraised fees these days are accurate >> it is not my area of expect tease. i would never bet against blackstone and they're one of our major tenants and i think the redemptions have slowed down significantly. but i'm not an expert on whether those appraisals are accurate or not. i think they have to obviously mark to market at the appropriate time, so i don't know >> there were some questions raised by barry sternlicht,

recently on cnbc, and was raising questions about whether there would be bank failures he thinks there will be bank failures because of how much commercial real estate is on the books if rates don't come down you think there is enough private money on the sidelines to step in and stop that from being a big problem? there will be people who lose money -- >> i don't think -- it is hard to say what is going to happen there definitely is going to be significant amount of defaults the federal government and the federal reserve have to keep giving the banks flexibility to be able to restructure some of the loans. that's what happened in '23. it slowed down a little bit because of the higher interest rates. hopefully that will continue to happen but the federal government can also help in terms of the city and the state have done their part in terms of conversions, the federal government should be able to come up with legislation to help incentivize owners to convert obsolete office buildings to residential the federal government should be getting their employees back into the office space.

the president of the real estate roundtable had an interview in front of congress, testifying, and he brought up these issues so there is issues, you know, that will impact banks the major money banks are strong it is the regional banks that will -- >> we had druckenmiller on, he thinks the concern about residual inflation and maybe rates should not only stay where they are, but maybe go up. we get guys like you, real estate, sternlicht, real estate, you're ready to take rates down to 2%, no matter what. not worried about -- you remind me of trump. i think bill would like trump to be sitting on the fed if he was president. and calling the shots for the -- did you see that report? is that -- would that make sense for real estate guys would you all want that? >> i think it has to be balanced there is inflation >> you want to go below 4% right

now? are you -- >> i didn't predict that that was your previous guest >> real estate guys take low rates no matter what, right? >> there is an acceptance and understanding that we're at 3.5%, 4%, that's the historical rates. i've been in the business long enough to know i saw 18% interest rates, not pretty. >> did you like zero >> like zero in moderation because, you know, what happened when things go too far on either side, that's when trouble happens. so, you don't want to see zero, you want to see 2%, 3% and -- the other issue is liquidity it is very, very hard unless you have the aaa asset with a good long-term lease, it is very hard to get that -- >> barry wanted to go to zero a year ago >> well, i have a lot of good friends -- >> what about inflation? >> i know. >> he's been counting the table.

>> i think you have to -- everything has to be put in context. and when rates went to zero, what happens there was too much borrowing and so if you have moderate and you have offer underwriting standards, we're very conservative about how we finance our buildings and how we look at our underwriting, and i think that's the memo that everybody has gotten right now, you can't overleverage, you can't underwrite a crazy inflation, rents going up 10% a year that's not reality >> right we want to thank you for coming in. >> always my pleasure. happy mother's day again. >> thank you >> go, knicks and rangers. coming up next on "squawk box," we're going to talk to steve case about a.i. regulation and so much more "squawk bo rur aerhix"etnsft ts. ? dad: i'm gonna clean the fence. daughter: it's a lot of fence. dad: you wanna help me? dad: aim at the wall, but get closer. daughter: (gasps) what the?! daughter: alright. dad: side to side.

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welcome back to "squawk box. president biden and brad smith announcing microsoft's $3 billion investment in wisconsin this week. joining us with more steve case, co-founder of aol and chairman

ceo of revolution and chairman of the case foundation good morning to you. >> good morning. >> this is another example of trying to do what i think you've been trying to do for a very long time, however, it has been tried in wisconsin before as you know with foxconn. i'm curious what you thought about news >> i think it is very positive we started the effort ten years ago when we were first in detroit, back there in a few weeks to celebrate what happened over the last ten years and we're seeing this around the country, including wisconsin, we're there six, seven years ago, microsoft working with the green bay packers broke ground and built the facility of a hub for startups in wisconsin and this announcement of a $3 billion commitment from microsoft to build out an a.i. facility in wisconsin. it is important to recognize we're seeing a transition from a.i. being really about the big horizontal platforms, the large long model centered in silicon valley to now more vertical a.i., which creates an opportunity all around the

country. how does a.i. impact manufacturing, the focus in wisconsin or how does it impact agriculture, ag tech or health tech we're seeing more and more companies including some we backed at revolution that are focused on vertical a.i. it is not just the generalized platforms. it is more specific ways, different industries can be reimagined and be more productive because of a.i. and that creates the opportunity for more regional innovation >> before we dive in fully to the a.i. story, i have one other question that relates to just the rise of the rest and sort of distributing, if you will, the success and wealth of silicon valley to the rest of the country, which is to say we had conversations during the pandemic and after the pandemic about this idea of zoom cities and the idea there was going to be talent all over the country, used in very different ways because people were not going to be working at the office they were going to live all over the country and the headquarters might be on a coast or what not, but didn't matter, and now there has been this complete shift, it

feels like, back to everybody into an office place and how you think that's changed maybe how you think about that >> i don't think it has changed too much a lot of them have been in person all along even during the pandemic so it is really more of the big cities, the new yorks, the san franciscos, that tended to be more focused on remote work. and these startups as they start scaling are still benefiting from being able to tap into expertise in other places, particularly around hypergrowth. that was a challenge sometimes some of the startups sold out too early because they didn't really have access to either the capital or the talent to scale those companies they are still tapping into that, using remote workers i think we're moving from a world where five years ago everybody was in the office to three years ago, essentially everybody was working remotely to now more hybrid concept and different companies depending on where they are in their life

cycle, scale, challenges they have, some have a bias toward being more in the office, some are more remote, it does open up a permanent opportunity for more regional dispersion of talent. >> let me ask you about the regional dispersion of talent. if a.i. is successful as we think it is going to be and create the productivity gains that we're talking about, that you may need a lot less people to actually be doing these jobs. you may need more robots, but the idea of having engineers, which is what we told all of our kids they were supposed to study in college, they were going to be programming these things and programming them in the middle of america, you know, openai might do it for you. >> well, i think there is some of that. i've always said when i wrote the book, the third wave, seven, eight years ago, not everybody should focus on coding, some other skills around communication, collaboration, creativity, are going to be more important and you're right, a.i. is going to be doing some of the basic work, including the basic work in coding, which will make the coders a little less valuable and the people

understand the core business problem in specific industries, whether it be healthcare, agriculture, other things, much more important i think that does again tie into the possibility of more regional dispersion we can't just have a.i. be big tech getting bigger, we can't just have a.i. being silicon valley continuing to be dominant we need to figure out a way to have a more dispersed innovation economy, that follows with what made america great we need to make sure that philosophy that has driven our success over the last 250 years continues as we move into the a.i. revolution. >> you have an eye for talent. i'll start hanging out with you. the guy you brought on the show, that, you know, was kind of your partner in these efforts to expand the prosperity, are you surprised at the rapid ascension of jd vance. he went from palling around with you to a possible vice presidential candidate are you surprised and is it -- i

mean, when you look at jd, is he someone that you would see in that position some day >> well, i think we work well together probably goes back five years or so ago that he started his own venture firm, i haven't been in touch with him, i see him occasionally in washington, d.c. i knew he was interested in politics i knew he was interested in serving. the fact he jumped into the race and ended up becoming a senator happened a little faster than i might have anticipated i think he has a voice around some of these issues around technology, certainly a voice around the importance of regional dispersion. >> right but, you're not going out on the road, stumping for him >> no, as you know, i stayed out of politics for my entire life, trying to focus more on policy, bring people together, whether it be the jobs act, ten years ago or some of the focus on tech hubs, i'll continue to remain on the sidelines politically and try to work with both parties to make sure america continues to

lead and we do it in a more inclusive way. >> before we let you go, talking about the chips act, some of the work that is being done, talking about politics, how concerned are you right now about some of the tariff ideas that are being raised by the biden administration and by potential former president trump if he becomes the president? >> i haven't felt focused as much on tariffs to be honest most of the startup economy issues don't deal with that as much as some of the really big companies. i do think the core issue is making sure that we are making as a country the investments in r&d. as a percentage of our economy, it is much lower than it historically has been. we have called for with our national entrepreneurship put out a couple months ago at white house, called for an investment there. we need to look at our policies around immigration so we continue to attract and retain the brightest talent we need to make sure we're making investments in tech hubs which is part of the chips and science act, so fully funding

the tech hubs i think is important. those are some of the areas i've been mostly focused on, trying to make sure america continues to lead. we do it in a more inclusive way, not just a few people and few places doing well and others feeling left out and left behind we need to make sure the next wave is more inclusive that's why the announcement in wisconsin is a big step forward. >> steve, great to see you we appreciate it have a great weekend. >> thank you you too. coming up, workers at an apple store in new jersey trying to unionize, it is the latest in a number of stores that have unionized, despite pushback from apple. that sry a me rahttondorstig ahead, coming right back something amazing is happening here. the next era of ai has arrived. cdw data engineers are helping organizations harness the power of ai with intel core ultra processors. the power to run workloads faster means greater performance. giving your team a better shot at success. make amazing happen.

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welcome back to "squawk box. we've got stocks to watch this morning. first up, calpers, largest u.s. public pension fund is considering a vote against exxon mobil's ceo darren woods' re-election to the company's board of directors

in comments to the "financial times," the pension plan says its deeply concerned about the twin lawsuits challenging shareholder discontent against its greenhouse gas emissions and exxon has gone well beyond any other company in terms of suing shareholders you may remember, there are shareholders back in january wanted to come up with a proxy addition they wanted a vote to take a look at what would happen to exon mobil to try and change its emissions from the products that it sells in response, exxon actually filed a lawsuit against those two shareholder groups one was arjuma capital, the other, follow this saying defendants are asking exxon mobile to change thi everyday business eliminating certain of its products it sells. it's said they don't consider them investors the most part doing this sew beability vists to try to very calculatedly, he

said, become shareholders simply with the goal of trying to agitate on climate change and put the company in a position where it can't do the main business lines it's involved in. >> i think the issue for calpers, what i understand about the story, i don't know how much you've studied is, is that those two shareholders actually backed down on their scope for requests and exxon continued with the lawsuit. i think the bigger sense about it, and it's a question mark, is whether it's effectively -- by continuing the lawsuit, it's a way of actually shutting down future efforts by other shareholders, and i think if you are a shareholder in america today and a company is using its resources to effectively shut down these things basically send a message, saying, do not come to us trying to push things. that's the question. i think that's the question. >> look, look further back, the same groups that brought shareholder proposals year after year. >> sure. >> exxon says, look, it's a waste of our corporate time and

attention to deal with these things, and darren woods just on in the last week and a half on for earningance we asked about this he said, yes, continuing the lawsuit because we want a ruling from the courts what is right and what is not. remember, just the change in proxy voting rules it's something jamie dimon was very concerned about a few years ago when we talked to him at davos, it would bring all kinds of suits -- sorry, progress proposals. not lawsuits i think darren woods, actually said on our air that they would like a ruling on this so that there is clear guidance that is given on it. >> the issue, i think, put it in context, the reason by calpers would be willing to sue -- not sue over this, but effectively send a big message to that board is that it also potentially could impact larger investors, and their ability to actually bring forth proposals. >> a lot of questions put out

there because of the change in the proxy rules. a lot easier to bring proxy questions up for consideration by companies i think companies managements have been thinking, this is a waste of our time and energy i think they would like clarity around it and that's why i think they're pushing it we'll see what happens yeah calpers pushbacksaying they're going to hold votes on darren woods, as we saw. >> interesting to see if they do whether other shareholders do as well. meantime, when we come back, another apple store trying to unionize this time a group of 104 employees in new jersey. bring you details about that after the break. adg y tures ahead of this final trindaof the week. we're coming right back. me assee at the click of a button. others can deflate with a single policy change. savvy investors know that gold has stood the test of time as a reliable real asset. so how do you invest in gold? sandstorm gold royalties is a publicly traded company

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning another apple store trying to unionize, this time 104 employees in shore hills, new jersey, leading the charge is joe kernen >> of course >> this is your store. i know you'll be out there picketing with them. >> that's where -- no. where i buy my chargers. >> i got a better charger recommend for you. >> not one in, like -- >> don't buy the apple ones.

>> talk about this. >> steve kovach is here. >> and bought by joe kernen voted saturday night whether to become the third retail location to unionize. a while since we've seen a vote there. that happened about two years ago but a store hasn't voted since the one in oklahoma did in september of '22 plenty of labor organization activity as apple regardless of that including several complaints of unfair labor practices to the nlrb and one this week concerning the world trade center store in inform city where the nlrb set apple illegally stopped employees distributing union flyers while apple still delivers messaging about organizing of its own. more than 30 unfair labor suits against apple processed or about to be heard by nlrb judges tomorrow the store, first to unionize in 2022, will vote whether or not to authorize a

strike as negotiations with apple have stalled back when all of this organizing started at apple over two years ago apple raised the starting retail wage from $20 to $22 an hour, though said at the time the increase was part of its annual performance review. you'll remember when inflation was heating up and the labor market extra tight the next test of this will happen on saturday, guys. >> and you have to help him every time he's come in to buy the chargers. >> it's always crowded >> right. >> everybody's always happy. i don't -- >> well, here's the thing. talk about happiness when it started a store in atlanta trying to organize as well and ended up not happening. i talked to an employee there who told me how much she loves her job. it was just, at the top. remember, this was 2022, still talking about transitory inflation, when people really started to feel inflation, and felt they were being -- even apple store employees felt underpaid. >> and well-run. so many ways to pay.

done in like five seconds. okay ready to go. really good at it. the weird thing, there's always a car parked right outside like illucit >> in new jersey. >> i love that greatest place to live and i love, shore hills mall, the best mall what i may be there i'm not going to be a scab but i don't know if i'm going to actually have a sign maybe i will go there. >> fight for those guys! >> $22 an hour sounds okay they seem happy when i'm there maybe they're happy to see me, andrew >> maybe you could, then, you could quell the whole thing. >> that store, managers at stores like that easily make six figures. >> yes, yes! so clean and modern.

apple is a great -- sorry the stock hasn't been doing as well. thank you, steve >> 8:00 a.m. >> past 8:00 you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin there's no gates no gates in my community you know you don't need to use a card to get in it's none of those things. you've been out there. it's nice out there. >> yeah. >> parking spaces. >> and the rover and ill loucid i know. >> the distinction between that and customers. >> among today's top stories, chatgpt, openai planning to announce a search product on monday according to reuters. likely amp up competition with search leader google several puts president biden ready to announce new tariffs on china as soon as next week. focusing on electric vehicles as

well as other areas. and shares of vaccine maker novavax doubling in the pre-market the company striking a licensing deal with french drug maker santa fe, and novavax a growing concern notice in place of -- >> over to mike santoli at the nyse and taking a look at the markets. mike, ends of the week, and been a pretty good week woo especially for the dow. >> actually has been a very quietly strong week, becky not a ton of macro news, but the market's been able to feed on a little momentum in the rebound important, within 1% of highs from late march. the s&p over the last year, a sense how we got here. end of march riding a streak five straight positive months in the s&p 500? up 28% from the lows market getting a little overheated widely embracing software scenario, rate cuts. challenged along the way

good reporting season and round-tripped where we were third week of march, as i said per 1% of highs. march 20th, fed meeting. also said, hey, still think woe cwoe -- we can get three rate cuts in recovered. a broad rally as well. one thing people are keeping in mind, this right here. a 5% pullback. thought we rebounded back in august into the fall. then did end up having that further correction once yields went higher. important story. inflation numbers next week. take a look. everybody, suddenly, is paying attention to utilities this is utilities versus transports not the dow versions but the s&p versions over the last six months utilities have a huge ramp important to note, though, that it's coming from really deep washed out levels of utilities very abandoned the market is going towards underowned areas, less crowded yes, an a.i. story, power generation story attached to it. to me much more about the

rotation within the market, and then transports had a tough time specifically railcar and trucking has been a little bit choppy here as people worry whether the economy is slowing goldman sachs, new highs kpl check it out against the s&p usually market's in decent shape when goldman's doing well. >> thanks, mike. all right. joining us now is scott sperling, co-sheo of thl partners good to see you, as always i kind of get the feeling this is going to be, like, druckenmiller 2.0. 2 you see stan the other day >> i did. >> were you nodding a lot? >> concerns he expressed are reasonable concerns that we all need to be thinking about, and the scarier part of it is obviously the long-term set of issuing we're dealing with i think how that affects particularly your thoughts abstainable interest rate levels has a big impact on all of us as

investors. >> and bring up some of the same things, and i'm just -- you can explain it after i just mentioned a couple things. sticky inflation big bond issuances, which can affect interest rates. it's supply and demand, too. a lot of reasons why rates probably shouldn't come down now. what's the fed talking about >> let's put it in perspective rates today are not ridiculously high rates today in terms of a long-term picture are not unreasonable and people can do business and there's lots of financing for private equity available and it makes sense it has to do with how does that impact your entry price and what's the right assumption about exit multiple when buying a business for us it's buying a whole business and looking at it for the stock market what do you think the multiples should be on a sustainable basis longer term? for a given stream of cap flows.

may be optimistic about earnings streams, but it will be impacted by the value, obviously, impacted what you think the longer-term rate situation is. i think the, one of the big fears is, as you look at that supply and demand, you look at the fact that we will be approaching 130, then 150, then 190% of gdp on the current path we're on over the course of the next few decades that's a lot of treasurys that need financed and where's that money coming from? right now, japan, one of the biggest buyers of treasurys. the way exchange rates are working, it makes it difficult for them to be an active participant. issues a dhin in a, wchina, no n longer term and the fed. can they effectively ease through being an aggressive purchaser, that's an open question one of a series of things to be

concern about, in the context in the term of, near term, the economy's probably better than many thought at this point. >> what people think -- >> but probably when you, you know, again, skin-deep thing you dig down a little below you have to be concerned with some of the credit ratios you're seeing out there the amount of pressure on consumers. the aggregate or cumulative effect of very significant inflation over time. >> uh-huh. >> then from a business perspective, we're in a very difficult regulatory environment that some things may be good some things may not be good and in other context, it all adds costs. in the midst of energy transition that may be a good thing longer term, but let's not underestimate the very significant cost it has, and then on the labor side, there are shortages of very key, skilled employees. so it may be that you're looking at a, overall unemployment rate that may go up a bit, and you

think that's easy, but in so many key industries, take health care the block of technicians, the people who provide a lot of the more skilled services. i mean, that's a big issue and that leads to significant inflation in an industry without offsetting revenue increases you have to manage that. >> a lot of pressures -- >> one thing that makes me want to, you know have a good weekend. >> okay. >> a good weekend -- if you want toic ta the end view of it, the market has migrated over the course of a decade to better business levels. more recurring revenue models. arguably in many cases lower capital intensity, although if you look at one of the better opportunities in senny conductors, obviously that's a capital-intense, incredibly capital-intense business, but the nature of the demand there is something that will continue to grow. so there are areas, there are

pockets, i think, that -- >> corporate -- cost structures are going to be higher, and maybe the economy is going to be not as good as people think? >> we have to continue to be aggressive in how we manage those cost structures in light of things that you can't fully control. so i think wage inflation will continue to be well above the 2% overall inflation target range you know, the election could have an impact in terms of the nlrb makeup, but, you know, we've been in a very aggressive environment for that, but, again -- >> it's crazy. >> there are other force, at work there. >> any cuts this year? which do we get to 2% inflation? when do we get to 2% that's what scares me. >> i don't think we're getting to a sustainable 2%. may go down. >> to when

ever they got to move the goal posts. >> the hard. again, when you think about other societal needs or wants, again, energy, transition, the -- the ability to supply people with living wage, better wages, those are really strong forces that work to counter other elements of productivity that might drive us towards -- >> higher, that might increase productivity expensive. energy's expensive and everything else. >> look at the investment in servers, datacenters, energy you know, as we move towards more electric "everything," nobody has yet explained how we're going to get that capacity. >> pay for that. >> pay for that capacity. >> how to pay for it. >> you know, ideal od logicallyt has to be this

people who don't like new players and people say natural gas is not really -- >> we might have to continue to spend money on defense i have a feeling. >> you know, it is clear we're in a world dramatically different than we imagined 20 years ago, when we decided that, you know, we should cut defense spending and break down a lot of the production capacity of our defense industry. >> all right. you know -- >> you happy >> thanks to you no it all -- good points. very similar to what we heard over this week, but, thank you. >> you're welcome. coming up on the other side, this is 2024 the year a.i. really begins to affect the workplace what do we know how many employees are already using it after the break, linkedin's chief economist with data what's actually going on. stay tuned you're watching "squawk" and this is cnbc.

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welcome back to "squawk box. dow's up again started yesterday down ended up with a great session, and that is in a row, how many seven or eight >> hold on to it today we are getting some new insights around a.i. at work according to the 2024 annual work trend index from microsoft and linkedin, the use of generative a.i. at work has nearly doubled in the last six months more than 70% of people say they would rather hire a less experienced candidate with a.i. skills than a more experienced candidate who lacks them joining us, chief commitment for linkedin, karin kimbrough. that last part a younger inexperienced person who knows how to use a.i. may speak

volumes for what employers are looking for? >> tells us not so much about the age but tells us employers are looking for someone who's got a willing inside to learn, willing to get into technology and if i could say, power users. people using generative a.i. a couple times a week at at least move from boomers to gen zmplt a bunch of different folks using a.i. now at work. >> one of the fascinating things from the study is that employees want this even more than the employers do at this point you've got people who are sneaking in their own a.i. in the workplace. if the employer's not offering it. >> that's right. what we're seeing especially amongst creatives. people doing writing, design, content creation. they're all bringing it themselves nearly eight out of ten of these folks using it are bringing their own a.i. to work, if you will, and what it speaks to is

the fact employees are leading employers in this adoption cycle that actually is probably a little faster than any other tech adoption cycle we've seen in the near, you know, past or the far past. >> it's shocking i don't know if we can call that screen up again. i would have thought much higher numbers in the younger cohorts even gen x, 76% bringing it in boomers 73% bringing it in this is something that is truly multigenerational. any age is getting into it what are the problems if somebody brings their own a.i. to work, potentially >> i think the reason we're seeing employers maybe lag workers, professionals in this space, is because they're not sure of the rules of the road. they're not sure how to integrate it with their own business processes they just -- just are not sure so they're hesitating, but as they hesitate they're not helping their employeeswho are clearly, they've embraced it the ones who do, nine of ten say

it makes my work more enjoyable, more time to focus on the cognitively interesting work as opposed to the routine tanks 75% of the knowledge workers bringing genai to work suggests employers need to kind of get with it and bridge back out. >> although, if the employees are bringing it in themselves, it's the cheap way for the employer to take advantage of it other than, like, signing a licensing deal that might cost a lot of money to have them using it >> well, i think the other thing they're worried about is the fact that -- i don't know if you saw the stat, but employees are kind of reluctant to admit they're using it a question as well as, does it make me look like somehow i'm cheating or i'm not value about if i'm actually using this tool? the argument i would make as an economist, intimately more productive, anything saving you as much as say 30 minutes a day, by the way, that's ten hours in

a month, is something that employers are probably looking for. so i think the hesitation, embrace this technology. >> thinking of another reason. employee freed up a half hour of my day i don't want my employer to know that, they give me another half hour of work. i find a way to make myself more productive, that gives me more time as well. >> that's fair. >> get ahead you'll give me more work and more dull work for me to deal with over time, and less time for myself as an economist, that's interesting to figure out how much productivity it's going to create and who is the beneficiary of that productivity. >> well, that's, that is exactly the million dollar question, is the like, when will we see and believe a lot of productivity

gains show up in the data. we know from the '90s, it took quite some time to see productivity in the data even if people were already putting desktops in offices and using them in this case if i tell you seeing people say it saves me time getting back ten hours a month, whatever they're doing with it, they're actually spending less time in the email. for example, we know from our data with microsoft that people read four emails for every one they send. and it's just -- wake up, a digital -- >> who's sending all the stupid emails telemarketers, other than them >> you get them? >> i do. thousands and thousands and thousands of unread emails my solution, just don't read them at all. >> 3,293 unread emails in my inbox right now. >> well, know what copilot can help you i used it last week to summarize a bunch of emails i wasn't going to read. >> 19?

you have ocd. >> i do. >> said that beginning microsoft, funded by microsoft and linkedin what i will say is, if somebody's, if we're reading four for every one, somebody else is sending them my guess either a bot or telemarketing, stuff in there. what a lot of mine is. >> sometimes not your friends sending you all of these emails. that's true. sometimes you need to summarize a really long email even from a colleague. that's where a lot of these generative a.i. tools can help you solve a problem with a blank page, summarizing content, and frankly, if you can get back 30 minutes of your time to do something more interesting like problem-solving, brainstorming, even talking to colleagues in the office, that's probably a win. >> yeah. i don't want employers to get this stuff let us keep our own time thank you. >> thanks a lot. coming up, statements boeing made after that door plug blew

out in one of their jets the first of the year. we'll speak with a former fcc official stay tuned you are watching "squawk box" on cnbc. e and h.r. on one platform. tim, you are a rock star. using responsible ai doesn't make you a rock star. it kinda does. you are not rock stars. (clears throat) okay. most of you are not rock stars. oooh. data driven insights, and large language models. oh, that's so rock roll. it is, right. he gets it. yeah. did i read this? did i get eggs? where are my keys? memory and thinking issues keep piling up? it may be due to a buildup of amyloid plaques in the brain. visit morethannormalaging.com

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it's like -- twice as much, i think. i guess -- >> tariffs and everything else a huge part. meantime, investigating safety practices on a panel blowout of a boeing flight, alaska airlines early in january. the probe focusing whether boeing misled investors. boeing didn't comment when contacted and s.e.c. says doesn't comment on existence or non-existence of possibly investigations joining us, former s.e.c. joshua mays now a partner at robbins firm what do you think about in the middle of something like this, to disclose certain component parts of this story? and what happened behind the scenes some of what may be alleged. we don't know fully what this investigation entailed, has to do with things that came out of, frankly, a lot of media reports over the month or two after this blowout occurred

>> yeah. thanks for having me you know, the general obligation that boeing's going to have is to be truth million with investors and disclose things that are material. what you're likely to see is the s.e.c. looking through past statements that boeing has made to see whether those statements are, you know, true, half truths, or, you know, something that was intentionally covered up one of the key places the s.e.c. will look for that in filings, obviously. statements made by executives to analysts on calls, and, you know, one of the troubles that the s.e.c. will have in that context, a lot of times those statements are very high level you're talking about very specific safety problems that, you know, products that have had problems in recent times from boeing, and what you need to focus on is, are those things, were those things, known by

people who were making statements to the markets, and if so, did they have reason to know that what they were saying would be false or misleading that's a -- >> a very big task. >> a big task to undertake. >> i was going to ask. say filings say i'm sure bo boilerplates, risk in flying and then they say we are, you know, have the best safety standards in the business, and we you know, work very hard to, you know, meet all the faa guidelines. >> right. >> all that kind of language feels sort of boiler plate what you expect out of a company. can they be used against them if, in fact, there was an email same day that the ceo said that we think we have the best practices in the business, email from an engineer saying we think everything's inside the company is awful >> devils in the detail there's. that engineer, maybe four, five, six levels down from the ceo,

the engineer, got to remember, you've got the, that engineer sees one small piece of a puzzle so the statements, you know, being made at a very high level are telling about the company as a whole. and any one group or -- boeing has over 150,000 employees you have employees all throughout the organization who, if you'd say, boeing safety practices are like a puzzle, and you take and you dump 100 puzzle pieces on to the floor and throw away the box, if you give 20 different people 5 of those puzzle pieces, none will see what the puzzle is, what the picture is you're seeing layered on top of that, that engineer is reporting up to a supervisor who's reporting to a supervisor who's reporting to a supervisor, you're layering the fact you have a very incomplete piece of the picture with a phone game problem. >> joshua, you get to choose you can either be the lawyer for

boeing or you could be the lawyer for the s.e.c which would you prefer to be >> way rather be the lawyer for boeing because i'm getting paid by the hour. this is going to be a very expensive burdensome investigation for boeing, regardless whether they've actually done anything wrong a case like this, the s.e.c. is going to, an investigation like this, the s.e.c. is going to staff and put a lot of resources into, they're going to send subpoenas and collect millions of documents they're going to take testimony from the top executives, the midlevel executives, to really try to get to the bottom of what's going on and -- >> i'm asking -- who ultimately will have the better case? pre-jumping the thing from the get-go. >> sure. >> if s.e.c. is going to put the amount of resources that you just described against a case like this, an investigation like this, you don't do that unless you think that on the other side there is some kind of

enforcement action coming? >> yeah. and in that sense the government has a ton of leverage, but a big company like boeing, public companies do not like to go to war with the s.e.c. in court so you've got a lot of times what may start out as a fraud investigation. did boeing intentionally align the stereotypical greedy corporate executives are hiding safety problems and risking lives for money. that happens very rarely you much more often have, you know, kind of no one's seeing the picture, or half truths. in which case the agency will oftentimes end up walking away with a, you know, your reporting channels weren't well enough designed, or your internal controls weren't good enough, and so you agree to fix them and you agree to pay us a whole lot of money so, you know, very often that will be the result ifs not an actual fraud egregious type of fraud case.

>> joshua, appreciate your time, perspective on this, and i can see that you like the hourly fee. we do this for free, and the guests have to um can on not paid by the hour but -- well -- you know, we -- >> feels like that. >> does it >> no. well paid but -- undercompensated. >> yeah. coming up, former pennsylvania senator pat toomey joins us to talk about the fed, ukraine and israel funding and the current state of the gop a programming note don't miss cnbc interview this afternoon on "power lunch" with dynamic duo. minneapolis fed president neel kashkari, and chicago fed president austen goolsbee. quite a smackdown. i don't know if it's a cage match. i don't know you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc.

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our next guest says president biden's threat to withhold certain weapons from israel, if it invades rafah, is misguided foreign policy decision, perhaps by president biden's most egregious opponent to talk about that, fed, state

of the gop i think you saw speaker johnson's interview as well. former republican u.s. senator pat toomey senator -- >> good morning, joe. >> good to see you been a while one thing that occurred to kme when i was reading "the journal" israeli officials saying biden's warning appeared to be a political message that in the short term really wouldn't affect israel's ability to fight the war. that made sense to me. lip service to a part of his constituency, but really not going to follow through on it? is that possible or is it really dangerous if he actually, this becomes policy? >> well, i think both can be true at once right? in the short term i do believe the idf has the military capability, the resources, materiels, weapon systems they need to do what they need to do in rafah however, it is very damaging for the president to indicate to the world that the united states is

not willing to stand by israel, in this exercise, really, to preserve their very existence. this, in my mind, is a continuation of the squandering of what message does it send to hamas when president biden indicates that his support, is contingent on israel not finishing this job there are four battalions of hamas terrorists in rafah. of course, they want to survive, regroup, retake control of gaza. so that they can launch more attacks on israel. of course israel has to prevent that but when hamas hears maybe the u.s. won't stand by israel, it obviously emboldens them to hold out more, demand more in any kind of cease-fire and the message it sends around the world is that the united states is not necessarily a reliable ally so i think this is very, very dangerous and in sort of the bigger picture in the medium term. >> and as speaker johnson pointed out, you know, it wasn't

easy for him to get israel passed and that's what the administration and democrats and a lot of republicans wanted. he did it, and then now this kind of a -- >> it's worse. yeah. >> something i didn't realize, senator, back in 1981, i guess i was asleep at the switch, but president reagan delayed delivery of f-16 warplanes to israel because he didn't like what was happening with the way they were bombing beirut this would not be totally unprecedented? >> joe, in all fairness, i have to say, i don't remember the circumstances well enough to know whether that's a really -- valid parallel exactly maybe that was a mistake then. i just don't know, but i'm -- this is a part of a pattern. remember, with ukraine, president biden has systematically denied ukrainian the weapons systems they needed

to prevail including the patriot missile defense system, abrams tank, short short-range. very intimidated obviously by putin. desperate lily trying to get ba into a deal with iran. repeatedly made bad decisions undermining our deterrence. >> i've heard former secretary of state pompeo make that point. more potent weapons, how they got them given impression of the last six months or so reticence to help ukraine not coming from the biden administration in delaware it's coming from republicans. >> it's both, joe. president biden has certainly asked for aid of certain forms and still wants to deny ukrainians the weapons they actually need and then republicans embarrassed themselves terribly, i think, in

the house. eventually passing legislation that really should have been passed six months ago. i don't fault speaker johnson for that, certainly not entirely dealt a very difficult set of cards that have been dealt and i wish he'd gotten to this point sooner, but at least he finally did, but the republican conference is an awfully hard conference to lead these days. >> senator, just looking at mike johnson and what he may owe hakeem jeffries at this point. he may need to be saved again from the republican conference, in marjorie taylor greene or somebody else brings something up down the road especially a deal that has to be cut in the fall. what is the back and forth more likelihood of bipartisanship coming out of this what's the give and take >> it's hard to say. i think the house actually has a relatively short list of items to do here by end of the year. they want an faa reauthorization

done, have to do ndaa, the national defense authorization and fund the government. beyond that they're not going to be very ambitious. i think the republican conference as a whole has to acknowledge that the political culture has changed, and rules need to change accordingly for instance, it's completely unsustainable for the speaker of the house not to control the rules committee. the rules committee determines whether or not a bill goes on the floor and under what terms that bill goes on the floor. such as whether or not amendments are allowed and which amendments the rules committee has always been controlled by the speaker, regardless of party, because that's the only way you can actually control the floor right now mike johnson doesn't control the rules committee. i think the republican conference, a large majority of republican house members are coming to realize they're in a situation where they can't govern, given the sort of performative politics of some members not interested in legislative accomplishments and so they have to change the rules

so that the leadership actually has control. majority of the conference should be able to fire the speaker, but a single member being able to gum up the works as badly as they have, this is not sustainable. >> senator, you have called former president trump badly flawed you can't vote for him can't support him. >> right. >> i know you won't endorse him. do you have a preference for who prevails in -- in this election that's coming up would you rather have president trump win or would you rather have president biden win >> joe, look, it's a terrible question, because it's so hard. >> a -- you see regulatory environment what the ftc and a lot of the agencies -- >> no question >> you can't pick one? neither one? you don't know >> i'm probably going to write in a candidate >> that candidate's not going to

be president so -- in a binary situation, you can't find one scintilla too to vote for president biden or vote for president trump? you can't distinguish between those two choices as an american >> i'm going to choose not to make that choice, joe. i've said i would, what president trump did after the election in an ongoing concerted effort to overturn the results he knew occurred so he could stay in power, that is completely beyond the pale and completely unacceptable. joe biden has been a terrible president, has made us less secure, has damaged our economic prospects, and he'll do more of that if he gets a second term. so -- >> do you think -- senator -- >> a terrific chances running a very smart well-financed, disciplined campaign pennsylvania is a very, very narrowly divided state i like his chances a lot, david carr, and i think republicans are very likely to take control of the senate.

and it's really a question of how big is the margin, and that gives me a lot of comfort. >> and where else pick up seats? in montana >> i think ohio and montana are very good opportunities. states that donald trump's going to carry, and montana buy a very large margin ohio a substantial margin. and democrats i thought had advantage in the house i'm not so sure. some redistricting wet better than they watt it would. when the generic ballot is even republicans take majority. president trump is probably the front-runner against joe biden, if he is winning at top of the ticket then republicans probably take the house also. >> if we sign you as a contributor do you want to be paid in bitcoin? >> i'm okay with being paid in bitcoin. that would be fine.

>> usually vote for consistency. says one thing and does one thing! come on! there's not enough of this in america. >> well, i'm sure you are live what he said. >> i know -- >> you love every never-trump, don't you? >> it's character! >> thank you >> sure that means a lot anyway, thank you, senator. he's gone. when we come back, signs of stress in the resilient american consumer we're going to hear which brands are flagging and which are holding up despite higher prices "squawk box" will be right back. s of our legacy. where excellence, comfort, and electricity... are forever in bloom. welcome to beyond. the mercedes-maybach eqs suv.

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matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire it's a beautiful... matching your job description. ...day to fly. wooooo! showing some signs of cracking kate rogers joins us now with details on that story.

hey, kate. >> becky, good morning seeing a lot more restrain in how consumers spend their time and mrn. particularly in the restaurant sector this earning cycle a big emphasis on value as brands from mcdonald's to wendy's and dave & busters noted low-income consumers are spending less. starbucks note add pullback in its occasional customer with ceo laxman narasimhan telling analysts, "in this environment, many customers have been more exacting about where and how they choose to spend their money. according to bank of america, the number of mentions of the low-income consumer are at their highest levels in two years in this earnings cycle as companies see more price sensitivity but there have been some exceptions in the restaurant sector chipotle, wing stop, dutch bros, all posting strong same-store sales numbers. chipotle is noting it was seeing growth in all income cohorts, which is a rarity in this environment. outside of the restaurants, customers are also still spending on experiences. airbnb noted travelers booked many trips to see the solar

eclipse, and amc saw people spending at the box office in march. again, they're kind of picking and choosing when they want to treat themselves and what's worth it to spend on in this environment. >> okay, so, outside of the chipotles and those brands who are really hanging in there, how are the brands that are cracking responding to this perceived cracking what are they doing? >> so, as i mentioned, a lot of emphasis on value in this environment, and you're seeing brands really look to digital ordering and their apps because there's so much valuable sk consumer data there. they can target customers with specific offerings at certain points in the day, sometimes menu items that may be only available on the app mcdonald's, we got a copy of an internal memo, and we were able to see that mcdonald's going to start shifting more spending to its digital advertising, and that's all about the loyalty app. there's a lot of competing to get customers in your system and keep them there on the app so you can target them with those particular ads and hopefully get them coming in your doors more than your competitors' >> thanks, kate. >> thank you coming up next, some top

stocks to watch ahead of the opening bell and then, what to watch once the bell rings on wall street. that's going to be hard to figure out stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc it's all the things that keep this world turning. it's the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. trust. hang out. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. powering more businesses than anyone. powering possibilities. at pgim, finding opportunity in fixed income today, helps secure tomorrow. our time-tested fixed income suite, backed by over 145 years of risk experience, helps investors meet their goals. pgim investments. shaping tomorrow today.

well, a little more than a half hour to go until the opening bell on wall street. dom chu joins us right now he's got a look at what's been moving in today's premarket. what you seeing today, dom >> becky, joe, andrew, one of the most, if not the most active stock in the premarket so far ahead of the opening bell is vaccine-maker novavax, which has more than doubled in value today, 113% gained, and this is on the heels of its signing a licensing deal for its vaccine and vaccine technology with drug jienlt sanofi, shares up fractionally on that trade so, that particular agreement has led to a massive move higher in shares of novavax, and just to put things in context, novavax has been an un underperformer in terms of the vaccine makers, especially tied to covid if you look at a one-year chart of novavax, over the course of the past year, well, if i was going to show you a chart, it would have showed that, but

novavax shares -- look at where they've come down from just in the last, maybe, hour and a half, two hours or so. we're putting us right back to the highs we've seen for the year after an underperforming chart for the year watch novavax. also, a couple of analyst moves to kind of highlight right now, industrial giant 3m shares, higher by 1%, due in part to analysts at hsbc they've taken the industrial conglomerate up to a buy rating from a neutral they think post spinoff of the health care product, they could see growth accelerating for other parts of the business. 3m is up on that bit, helping the dow out. another one to watch is a massive selloff in shares of roblox yesterday, stabilizing a bit today. it's still up about 1% after a massive move lower this morning, analysts at moffett nathanson have upgraded this stock, roblox, to a neutral rating from a sell, saying the selloff has been overdone. we'll see what happens with roblox, trying to find some stability there with the selloff, andrew. >> thanks, dom

for more now on the markets on this final day of the week, the dow now on its seven-day winning streak, carol, chief investment officer at bmo family office, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> what do you think what do you think? the dow has been on a nice little run does the run continue? it's sort of been on a run despite earning misses and guidance it's been weak and sort of hard to understand what's happening here >> we really think that the markets are adjusting to a lot of different events going on it's a broadening in leadership and a turnover of leadership it's a -- hopefully a little bit less intense focus on the fed, if you will, and more on overall the health of the economy, and we're seeing things stabilize in a nice way the jobs market has come from the rapid boil down to a nicer simmer, and things look pretty sustainable, and you've also got people, despite the fact that we wish they'd quit intensively focusing just on the fed and monetary policy, you've got

people starting to discount that maybe, just maybe, we'll get a cut or two back into this year from earlier expectations of pushing them out next year >> you think that's what's really pushing all the markets higher at the moment >> well, we definitely think there's a lot of volatility underneath, but it's really important to remember, too, that we've got a secular trend going on here, unlike anything we've seen in a very long time in terms of all the various acts, the chips act and the inflation reduction act and the infrastructure act that are putting substantial amounts of money and teeing up substantial construction projects and infrastructure projects back in the united states. we've also got artificial intelligence already starting to improve margins on some, and it's impacting others negatively as they spend to put those datacenters in, but when you zoom out and look at this from the next couple of year basis, we are teeing up the economy for some really strong, solid

baseline structural growth >> so, what's the play there for? >> i think the play is to look at those broadening industries you've got industrials you've got some financials that have been beaten up and coming back, although you do, as you mentioned in the earlier segment, have some cracks in consumer, so there's things to watch there. the play is definitely a u.s.-centric sort of play. it's reshoring it's looking at taking our manufacturing from such a small percentage of our economy back up more. it's playing those second and third generation companies that can lean into the artificial intelligence, and it's also looking into those who own the data sets to train that artificial intelligence. >> carol, i want to thank you for joining us this morning on this friday. >> thank you >> ahead of -- i wish it was a long weekend it's not going to be a long weekend. just ahead of the weekend. let's take a quick final check on the markets to show you where things stand right now the dow up about 110 points, the nasdaq up about 46 points, the

s&p same up about 12, 13 points. we'll show you treasury yields right before we hand it over the ten-year note sitting at 4.488% the two-year at 4.836% how about your friends at bitcoin, joe >> 62. i want to know whether you want the knicks or the pacers >> oh, come on >> pacers. >> see >> i'm in pain i'm in pain >> i'm a sixers fan. >> we got to go. go knicks. join us next week. "squawk on the street" begins right now. ♪ friday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, and david faber at post nine of the new york stock exchange. the s&p takes aim at all-time highs once again 5,254 is the record close to watch as the bulls whisper whether cpi will come in friendly next week our road map begins with the markets. dow aims for eight straight days of gains, and the s&p is at a five-week high also