in three years it's monday, may 13th, 2024 and "squawk box" begins right now. 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. on this monday morning, we are looking at u.s. equities up slightly this is a big deal the dow has closed up eight days in a row this morning, it is indicated up 37 points. s&p futures up 5 the nasdaq up 32 this comes after the best week of the year for the dow. it was up by more than 2%. s&p was 1.81% last week. the nasdaq up 1% for the year to date, the dow is up 4.8%. the s&p is up 9.5%

you have the nasdaq up by almost 9% treasury yields are a little weaker t ten-year yield at 4.814%. and openai will have a product conference announcement today. sam altman said they will not launch a search engine, but working hard on new stuff they think people will love and feels like magic to me according to people close to the information. this technology rolls image recognition into one product for advanced voice assistant and separately or maybe not separately, you will see how things are coming together apple nearing agreement to use openai and its technology on the

next generation iphone to allow apple to offer the chatbot as part of the features that are coming next month. the big issue there, by the way, to understand all of this, openai is now processing all of its queries in the cloud apple, for privacy reasons, is to query all with siri and on the device processed on device. the question is going to be is there a clever way with some of the openai technology ends up being done on device if they can figure that out, that would be a neat manager >> we are expecting to hear about this in the next month >> and the other piece of this is we'll hear about that at the development conference in june and the other piece of it is

does google, which has the search engine or button right now on safari stay there do they use gemini there were reports about gemini. maybe apple will do a mix and match system with google stuff here and using some openai stuff here maybe that is the benefit for apple. they don't need to do it all themselves >> how does microsoft feel about this microsoft with the big chunk of openai that it owns -- >> they should feel great about it -- >> because apple has to use their product? >> they get the benefit of it. they want bing or anybody to use that service having said that, they are not in control of openai >> they are not supposed to be >> openai is supposed to be a

third-party independent company. this is how the third-party independent company acts if microsoft doesn't control it there may be products or services not offered. >> that are unique to microsoft? microsoft has done so well because of what it can do with a.i. i guess it would be great to be the platform supplying it to apple. you start to wonder. >> i don't know. we'll see. we should tell you in some other sam altman news, shares of the oklo company started trading on friday yes, like every spac in the world, they plunged 54%. they went public with altman's spac and this is based on comm commercializing which could power advanced data centers. he is targeting 2027 for the

first plant to come online like so many of the ambitious spacs, if you will, you could say virgin galactic was a spac it will work or not work we don't know. >> you're favorite is working? >> which one >> 51? >> that's a different -- i don't put that -- that's not in the same category. i didn't think about that because it is not the same category. >> one of the spacs. $7 billion workers at an apple store in short hills in new jersey have voted against unionization my apple place are there really chargers that i can get cheap? >> steve kovach was telling you. >> i can't imagine you plug it in and says do not use this. >> start a fire.

>> exactly union organizers filed complaints they blame the defeat on the company behavior apple denied wrongdoing. meanwhile, workers in towson, maryland, who voted to unionize now authorized the strike. they said apple has refused to fairly negotiate apple will continue to engage with the union representing the workers in good faith. overnight, softbank reported a $4.6 billion gain for the vision fund in the fiscal year ending in march. the performance of the vision fund helps softbank swing to a quarterly profit with bytedance and u.s. food firm doordash. the biggest gains of the year was the ipo of chip designer arm holdings

s softbank has a 90% stake in arm. that stock up 1.5% right now speaking of arm holdings, a report from nikkei asia says the company is planning to launch artificial intelligence by next year it will set up an a.i. chip unit to build a prototype by next spring softbank is in talks with manufacturers including taiwan semiconductor to produce the chips and arm holdings are up 2.5%. shares of gamestop are soaring this morning and one of the prominent backer is back keith gill made the social media post on x, the first in three years. this helped spark the meme craze in 2021. it was an image appearing to state he sitting up and paying attention. that's what we got. >> that's all it takes >> apparently. protests erupted at duke

un university's graduation ceremony as jerry seinfeld was due to give his address seinfeld has been supportive of israel he delivered his speech uninterrupted. 30 students walked out it did make headlineses. protests disrupted other ceremonies, including one at uc berkeley in los angeles, protesters clashed with police outside of p pomona college ken griffin said this was the product of the culture revolution in u.s. education griffin is a harvard alum and

has given more than $500 million to the university. he said, the narrative on some of the college campuses has deinvolv devolved that the system is unfair in january, griffin called harvard students whiney snowflakes and he was pausing donations over the anti-semitic comments on campus which he blamed on the dei agenda >> it did not all start on october 7th. he is right. here's a novel idea for harvard. embrace western values. coming up, key inflation data due this week we will get you ready after the break. later, eric rosengren will tell you what he expect from the cpi. "squawk box" will be right back. ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last.

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the cpi and retail earnings take center stage this week. stephanie link is joining us from hightower advisers. we're not done with earnings, obviously, stephanie, we have home depot tomorrow and walmart. there is an interesting piece and lead story in "the journal," which is different than your

take you like the overall results "the journal" points out if you are disappointed, you got hurt if you exceeded expectations, did you not get the bang for your buck in previous quarters to me, that sounds like multiples with perhaps no interest rate cuts and multiples will have a hard time expanding further from where they are. if you meet expectations, you get a bounce and if you don't, you go down with the earnings or staying down >> if you don't have multiple expansion, but earnings going higher, that will be enough, joe, i think i always call earnings season silly season you know that because you have the absurd reactions if you miss, some stocks being down 10% to 15% to 20% and that gives you an opportunity if you

have conviction in the idea. if it doesn't go up that much, but they actually do beat, that is also an opportunity stocks follow profits on the way up and on the way down the names in the sectors seeing earnings revisions higher, obviously, the stocks should go higher over time. >> home depot has been uncharacteristically uncharacteristically, as least as far as the results, it hasn't been the stalwart it has been in recent years the stock, for a while, had a really sharp comeback although the fundamentals were not sharp. it emerges right where the stock peaked and inflation doesn't help home depot usually. >> well, higher lumber prices will help, actually, joe, for this quarter alumber is up 13% home depot, if you step back,

they were a beneficiary during covid. we were buying everything for our homes because that's where we were living 24/7. they benefitted in covid you had that post-covid hangover and you have had five negative quarters of same-store sales i think you are coming to an end of the negative comps. you have a little bit higher commodity price. they are focusing on pro they made the acquisition of srs. now pro is 50% of the total revenue as opposed to lowe's which is 25% i think pro will hold up better than do it yourself. that is why the stock is poised to do better higher interest rates is the concern and overall concerns about housing. i'm a bull on housing. i think we are 5 million homes short in this country. if you talk to any of the home builders, they underproduced for 14 straight years. it is cheaper to buy back stock

than to buy land i think housing over the long haul is going to be favorable. maybe this year you have ups and downs and volatility i like the home play through home depot >> comps are going to be another down quarter this is not where you think things are bottoming, but not in this quarter with year over year gains? >> i don't think you will see that great of a result it is not going to be negative if we look at scot's miracle gro and the read through is record shipments to retail partners home depot is a 29% customer i think this is also a se seasonally strong time for the home improvement companies and housing stocks look at dr horton, they have 59% growth in the quarter. you have puts and takes. i think you are on your way to a

nice recovery. >> maybe flat same-store sales or slightly higher >> yeah, i think flat or flat-to-slightly higher. i don't think negative after five straight quarters of negative comps, it will show improvement. they have the easy comparisons throughout the year. i think we should see a better setup. the stock has done nothing, by the way, joe >> it's gone down. >> yeah. >> the housing is tough right now. supply and everything else this is a housing proxy. there are times it does better if people can't buy new houses you can always make an excuse why home depot is doing well or not doing well people aren't moving, then they are improving. if the housing is strong, they are doing well for the professional builders. we will see what happens you like other ones? energy >> i do. i think one of the most powerful

themes that i heard throughout the quarter that is starting to come to fruition is the energy transition super cycle we have been talking about this for a long time. we will spend about $4 trillion on anything that's tied to green clean power. grid or data center or also a.i. this past quarter, we started to see it you guys were talking about utility stocks last week and how well they have done. that's because earnings for utilities were up 30%. cap ex is going higher because of all of the initiatives. if you look at companies like ea eatothe eaton, up 37%. ge was up 24%. they are looking to build in electrification being 2.2 times. we are starting to see this come together that's why it is really a powerful theme i own all three of those names i would be buying any of them on

weakness >> you had the jobs number which started to become sharply higher you had the claims number which was a big surprise being higher. that helped the markets. that helped yields we're starting to think you are seeing a slowdown and you come back with focusing on the atlanta fed at 4.2% growth now you are telling me there's no slowdown in sight whatsoever. which is it? >> i don't know. i don't know i don't think we're going to grow gdp at 4.2% like the atlanta fed tracker is now i think we are growing above trend. is that 2% or 2.5% is that 3% the whole point is we are running above trend. all of this fiscal and monetary policy and stimulus we put in place from covid until now is

actually doing its job i think the better growth is the reason why we're seeing that last piece of inflation really challenged to come down. we're going to get the core cpi this week and it is 3.6% give or take a tenth or two or whatever the number is, we have made progress from 9.1% to this 3% area we are not going to get to 2% if we are growing above trend so, to me, i'll take faster growth and a little bit higher inflation any day from an investment point of view because that means earnings can continue to go higher >> 9.1% is where it was when joe biden took office. actually 1.6 who's counting stephanie, thank you it is headed in the right direction. thanks. >> thanks. when we come back, the northern lights on display in some pretty unusual places over the weekend.

that solar storm also disrupting one of elon musk's businesses. we have details after thfris. a programming note, cnbc's fast and growing startups is back for the 12th year the 2024 cnbc disruptor 50 list will be revealed tomorrow on air and online at cnbc.co cnbc.com/disruptor we'll be right back.

over the weekend, a geo magnetic storm was driven by solar flares from the sun and

resulted in the display of the northern lights in locations that don't usually see them. you probably saw pictures of this if you did not see it yourself the sky lit up pink, green and purple the hues in alabama and mississippi. the northern lights stretching far south. on saturday, elon musk's spacex warned of the storm and sat satellites were holding up well. i bet you have seen wonderful pictures. >> were you in iceland >> i have been in iceland, but not the northern lights. i had a friend who had been flying during and took a picture from the airplane. it was cool. coming up on the other side,

openai will live stream a product event later today. we will tell you what to expect next. and tomorrow, we have an interview with boaz weinstein on his campaign against blackrock we will talk abouthat en twh we talk to him tomorrow on "squawk box. >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business next level moments need the next level network. ed an idea. it's a pillow with a speaker in it! that's right craig. a team that's highly competent. i'm just here for the internets. at&t it's super-fast. reliable. you locked us out?! arrggghh! ahhhh! solution-oriented. [jenna screams] and most importantly... is the internet out? don't worry, we have at&t internet back-up. the next level network. i sold a pillow! ♪(voya)♪

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good morning welcome back to "squawk box. we're live from the nasdaq market site in times square. futures are in the green this morning. dow futures up 40. the nasdaq up 39. openai is expected to make a big announcement later today we have steve kovach at the table with us for more on what is a fierce a.i. tomcompetitionn big tech >> i think the timing is the most interesting part. today is at 1:00 p.m. eastern

with the openai announcement which is reported to be a supercharged siri-like ass assistant. then the developer's conference and then a week after that is apple. it is getting head the big tech companies would not be doing this without openai openai forced them to reorient their business with artificial intelligence it is interesting they are going first in this and it will look like appearance wise, they are following the big guys. >> what is the take that there is an agreement with openai and apple and what do you think that portends for what that product could like likor what deal they could have in place with gemini being in talks with apple and google stock surged.

>> google stock went down a bit. >> we were talking about the on chip and off chip and how google is implementingthis structure. >> let's say it does happen. this is great for microsoft cloud because openai runs on the azure cloud. the more stuff happening on openai, the more money microsoft makes from the cloud products. if it is trstructured that way siri and stuff is running on timers or if you ask a question, that goes to the internet. that is not a new paradigm, but if that is running in microsoft's cloud, that is hug news for microsoft it depends what does it look like your colleagues reported on friday with a supercharged siri. they will finally make siri this

really smart agent to help you out with everything. >> what does this mean to google >> the gemini thing? >> right. >> it depends where the money is going. google is paying apple enormous amounts of money to be the default search engine. what is that relationship if it is the default a.i. search engine or with the doj case, does that doj case impact the relationship or is it backward looking? google benefits from that, i think, from having exposure to all of those users even if they pay a significant amount of money to apple to do it. >> what is the chance that openai runs on azure for most of the stuff? i believe you can put it elsewhere if you like. >> they have smaller models. >> my question is, is it possible this is running on the apple service? >> that is super interesting

i'm dying to know what that deal is going to look like here. >> this was going back to becky's question of the microsoft piece of it. do we think microsoft has a major influence over openai? are they acting like a third party? >> technically no. spiri spiritually, yes >> what would microsoft want in this world do they want to have openai features unique to them and control because it helps the stock or would they like to be the engine powering everybody else's a.i.? >> i feel it is the latter we have not seen microsoft really prove to the consumer facing a.i. -- >> nobody has. >> they have had copilot we have no idea if it is selling well we are getting great azure numbers from the a.i. activity the more people are glomming on,

the more apple uses it, heads i win and tails you lose they are doing smart investment all over the world to make sure this continues and benefit from artificial intelligence activity going on azure they announced investment in france after the global data centers. that's why they're doing it. satya nadella looks smart. he laid the ground work a decade ago and it is paying off. >> final piece on the apple piece of it. speculation of the apple deal. how deep do you think ultimately the a.i. assistant, if it is powered by openai, could ultimately work inside an apple phone if it is not apple's i mean, what you want to be able

to do is say, uber, get me a ca this second. not just get me the song on spotify in a sophisticated way and go deep into the app with siri, you cannot go deep into the app >> that is interesting this the idea of the a.i. agent. bill gates has written about it decades ago. who needs an app it is all voice and all yourself that could be a threat to apple and the app store model. apple enabled their a.i. system to tap into that with a phone you described. >> joe and becky and i are having lunch tomorrow and wednesday. it makes the reservation and sends joe and becky the invite email. it figures out you are across

town >> it is shocked you would sit down for lunch with joe. >> it would do all these things at one time, but it has to get deep into the phone. >> i don't want a table near the restroom >> back to the wall. >> or back to the wall >> you never know what is happening. >> you want the openai the agent would know your preferences. >> that is the only thing i have to say for when i make a reservation for my family. >> not near the bathroom >> not for me. somebody else. that is the issue. >> i don't like sitting by the bathroom on a plane. >> i understand it >> it's gross. >> is it >> most bathrooms are tucked away we have gone from a.i. to bathrooms. >> i want a waiter >> you want a waiter >> i like a table near a waiter.

always a good thing. take my wife, please. coming up this morning, crude prices holding below $80 a barrel we will dig into the moves in energy prices and in copper prices, too, right after this break. you can get the best of "squawk box" with "squawk pod" on your app and listen anytime we'll be right back. -surprise! -for you, mama. ...can help you open those doors. by proactively reviewing your entire portfolio. with an eye on taxes and risk. doors were meant to be opened. the future is not just going to happen. you have to make it. and if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future. a future where you grew a dream into a reality. it's waiting for you. mere minutes away. the future is nothing but power and it's all yours.

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welcome back, everybody. energy prices fell on fears of higher for longer rates would hurt future demand joining us is don stroybeck from goldman sachs. >> good morning.

>> we know oil prices might struggle th a bit if prices are higher for longer. the higher rates would hurt the situation. what is the demand situation what is the supply situation like right now >> great on the demand side, i would state it as solid especially in england and u.s. we are seeing misses in china. it has to do with the relatively high oil prices compared to natural gas is natchinese trucks switching from oil to gas. last year, with the supply growth outside of opec is strong last year, the u.s. was surprising to the upupside this year is guyana. >> let's go back for a moment to the demand picture if you think the weakened demand

is china switching to evs, that's something that sdticks around that is not a one-off. that is demand that's gone >> we are seeing switching from gasoline to evs, but it is a gradual process subtracting 150 k on an annual basis the other switch i was referring to is switching interest oil to natural gas. trucks to use lng. gas prices globally are light. >> when you are switching, whether evs or natural gas, that is demand that's gone. that doesn't come back >> on the ev side, we don't have the history of drives moving back to traditional cars it's true on the natural gas price side we look for markets in european

and asian gas prices from 2025 until the end of the decade because we are expecting so much additional global energy from the u.s., which is bullish, and u.s. gas prices in 2025. >> you are not talking just about supply, but production at large? >> we are seeing negative spillover from the bear markets in natural gas to demand for oil. if natural gas is cheaper, you know, that reduces the demand for oil and increases the demanded for natural gas taking a step back, outside of the switching, global oil demand continues to rise at a solid pace at 1.5 million barrels per day. >> are you surprised oil has stayed below $$80 a barrel >> we highlighted $90 for brent is likely a ceiling.

there is a lot of spare capacity more than 6% of the global oil markets is in spare capacity the second reason why is 85 and 90 is a ceiling is if you look at global stock data, they have been roughly flat to slightly higher over the last year. in fact, over the last few months, we have seen meaningful increases in data and oil market >> let's talk copper it is the highest level we have seen in years. what happens next? >> after the 20% price movement, we will enter a consolidation phase for a few months we think at the next leg of the multi-year boom market will continue start in the middle of the year with copper rising to $12,000. another 12% upside from here by year end. >> that is mostly demand >> a combination of strong demand the overall macro is mixed

we saw 7% demand growth in china for copper in the first quarter. the economy is greener and on the supply side, we are seeing a very significant supply shock with panama which is no longer operating we expect global copper mine to peak in 2025 in the area where demand should grow at a solid pace. >> don, thanks for coming in. coming up, competing messages on taxes from the biden administration and former president trump setting up a key campaign issue in the race for the white house. at cinupext. wered by ameritrade, giving traders even more ways to sharpen their skills with tailored education. get an expanding library filled with new online videos, webcasts, articles, courses, and more - all crafted just for traders. and with guided learning paths stacked with content curated to fit your unique goals, you can spend less time searching

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taxes were in focus for the race for the white house in the speech on friday, joe biden's economic adviser lael brainard said we need to end the 2017 tax breaks the 2017 tax breaks for the ultra wealthy and scale back the costly permanent tax breaks then on saturday at a campaign rally in new jersey trump, former president trump pledged to double down on tax cuts if he wins a second term he said instead of a biden tax cut i'll give you a trump, middle class, upper class, lower class, business class tax cut. that law will expire next year it was quite a rally, and it was new jersey it was wildwood. and even it wasn't like the inauguration where he made it

up they said 80,000 to 100,000 people, which drew comparisons to something that happened in see gert in 1932, fdr had 100,000 people every single deplorable in the state of new jersey had to be at this thing trump says new jersey is in play my expert on this is scotty. he said nfw 2020, 16 points. 2016, 14 points, trump lost by new jersey will never be -- the last time you know the last time they voted for a republican? it wasn't that long ago. h.w. >> it's been considered a purple state for a long time. >> no, no, it's deeply blue. >> if you look back at the last 25 years. >> in the last 25 years it's been deeply blue h.w. won in 1988 but a republican hasn't won since then it probably won't be 16 points this time, but if it was

single-digits, that would be earth shattering yeah trump shutting down an "axios" report that nikki haley was being considered to be his running mate in a post on truth social, trump said nikki haley is not under consideration for the vp slot, but i wish her well. haley suspended her campaign in march but is still racking up votes in primaries she won nearly 22% of the vote in indiana's gop primary last week despite taking herself out of the race a while ago. >> he kind of said it's doug burgum he teases a lot, and he's, you know, going to wait a while probably, but he was saying doug burgum i looked up doug burgum. i do like him. i guess he took the family farmland and mortgaged it and invested in great plains software and eventually became the president of great plains software and sold it to

microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2000 and i forget when then he started a bunch of other companies. he's a really good entrepreneur. serious eyeborows dude, he look like he's brooding all the time. >> nikki haley there were a lot of questions over the weekend. what she would do. she's still not endorsed. >> that's the journal's lead editorial today. please picnk nikki. >> her showing in indiana is impressive indiana's primary is an open one where democrats or independents can vote too almost 22% of the vote there. >> he needs haley voters they make an impassioned plea not to go maga, and they're talking about tulsi gabbard. he would never pick tulsi gabbard. i have two words for you, sarah palin. >> coming up on the other side of this, the talk about the

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welcome back to "squawk box. tesla's stock down now more than 30% this year driven by declining revenues shrinking margins and some of elon musk's comments his latest column is the man whose musings fuel elon musk's nightmares tim, why don't you tell us about it >> okay. >> what is fueling his nightmares >> good morning. for years elon has been worried about planetary destruction, so he's had spacex to kind of make sure humanity had other planets to be on and tesla was about

protecting against global warming, and recent years we've heard these other concerns he's talked about killer ai, and now more recently the woke mind virus, that kind of his shorthand for progressive liberal politically over correct ideas. we've seen him interact a lot with a canadian professor whose book the parasitic mind, he kind of helps fuel some of those worries. and even elon says this book gives him nightmares. >> and how should investors -- maybe investors should go read this book? what would be the takeaway if they did >> it helps kind of explain some of the world view that elon has started leaning towards in the last years he's very much active on x, concerned about some of these immigration issues, dei issues, you know, generally things that are overly politically correct he kind of pushes back, and you know, for years he probably

didn't necessarily bother people because tesla's stock was doing relatively well, but in recent months as you point out, it hasn't been doing as well, and there's just kind of general concern that maybe these bigger ideas and acts are being a distraction for him, right >> how much do you think people talk about how in the united states ev ownership and buyers, it's become political meaning blue states you can see materially different buying patterns than you can see even red states, and how much do you think he has stoked that >> absolutely. he's probably brought in republicans to tesla, but maybe not because of his politics but because of just tesla vehicles performance over the years, but you look at the data about consumers at the end of last year when he was very much politically having these political outbursts, and you could see democrats kind of walking away from the brand, not stomaching some of that talk, and that's a harmful thing for the company at a time when democrats really are the biggest cohort of electric car buyers generally in the u.s

you need to keep those if you're tesla, and that kind of turned them off to the idea of owning a tesla. >> tim, at the same time, i would say that he has been right about a lot of this, both technologically and even culturally and socially. i think there's an increasing understanding, even on the left about some of the issues that he was trying to vocalize a year or two ago about where we are with some of these issues that -- where the pendulum is swinging back i was even mentioning your paper today has a piece called suddenly there aren't enough babies, the whole world is alarmed. that's an issue that he has been talking about for years. >> absolutely. it's one of the interesting things about him you know, it's not black or white. there's some gray when he's talking here, and you can't necessarily dismiss some of these things that might appear at the beginning to be fringe. he does have this ability to kind of pull at strings that become more interesting over time go back 20 years, electric cars

did not seem like a thing that people were going to be interested in. he had an idea and an understanding of how to make it popular. it's very similar with some of these social issues that sometimes he has his fingers on the pulse of what's occurring underneath kind of the surface that people are now more willing to talk about. he even talks about how he's expanding the overton window the idea of what's acceptable to communicate and talk about in general society. he thinks that's important that's part of the reason why he bought x is to have greater debate, more robust debate to ensure that not just one or two ideas are conventional wisdom. >> tim, i'm sure we'll continue t that debate. we appreciate seeing you this morning, folks you go out and read that column, it's an insightful one on how elon musk is thinking these days it's just after 7:00 a.m. on the east coast you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc

i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. chips, the biden administration giving its latest chips about award to polar semiconductors. the company will receiving $120 million from federal grants to build a factory in bloomington, minnesota the price tag there $525 million and apple reportedly closing in on a deal to put open ai's artificial intelligence tech on the iphone, according to multiple reports, the twosides have been finalizing terms of a deal for apple's upcoming mobile ios 18 we imagine we'll hear more about this in june and open ai having a presentation later today on some of its new tech we'll see that as well also a report from nikkei asia saying arm holdings planning to launch artificial intelligence chips itself next year it will set up an ai chip to build prototype next year.

softbank is in contract with taiwan semiproduct tor to produce those chips. after a couple of years of not feeling like we heard anything about chips does it feel like every week there's more money getting handed out to some company or another. >> that's the whole program. that's the plan. >> polar semi? i'm not familiar with them it wasn't a lot of money >> no, but last week it was microsoft. remember the white house made that announcement that it wasn't chips related. we've had intel, other companies along the way. so it does feel like that money is coming. it makes you wonder what that does to liquid it out -- liquidy out there. the dow is up another 36 points. s&p futures up over 7 points the nasdaq up by 45. let's get over to dom chu. he's got a look at this morning's premarket movers.

>> good morning, becky, joe, andrew our monday morning mover starts with notable calls on the analyst front. the airlines ones, that's thanks in part to the team at hbc each with buy ratings you can see each of these is up a half a percent in the premarket trade. they say delta is their topic in the universe it's all about sustained recovery and business travel, stronger international demand and better capacity trends for delta its competitive conditioning at its free club. the target price for delta is $72.80 u un united at $69.20 it applies decent upside we're watching shares of nvidia. they're up fractionally, around 115,000 shares of volume they're getting help from jeffries analysts there have assumed coverage of the broader semi industry with a bullish long-term view, and they've

upped their target price specifically in nvidia to 1,200 bucks a share. it was 780 prior they keep the buy rating, the stock remains their top pick in semis overall when it comes to capitalizing on the ai boom. for more on those calls and other top analyst calls of the day head to cnbc.com/pro subscribers get more detail in analysis of those calls. we'll end on a check of one of, if not the original meme stock that's gamestop. those shares are up 26% in the premarket. a million and a half shares of volume this is trader keith gill, some folks know him as roaring kitty on social media and internet messaging board circles. one of the original people most associated with that volatile trade for meme stocks back in the day. he posted on x for the first time in nearly three years just yesterday, and it showed what some are interpreting as an image that he was taking notice of gamestop's stock. you can kind of check that post out for yourself you can see the stock has been

hammered over last year but has rallied sharply by about 75% in the course of the last couple of months here. watch what happens off those recent lows, gamestop, og, memes, i'll send things back over to you. >> we showed the image earlier, and it does, it looks like he's sitting up and taking knows. people are anticipating -- there's the image again. looks like he's paying closer attention to something whether it's gamestop shares or not, but it's kind of amazing that that's all it takes to get that move in the stock, and when you first arro wrote that it was up 21%, now as you mentioned 26, and 27%. that is a big mover. >> i don't know, becky what's in his hand on that image might be a remote control or some people are saying it's a game console it's a controller. i don't know exactly what it means. there is this broader interpretation on places like reddit right now, on x, which has now been engaged with quite a bit on this particular image

that kind of implies or is trying to tell people it's maybe about gamestop nothing definitive in that image as you said. it is enough to drive a stock like gamestop up 27% it was already up massively, kind of the near-term trend. it's been getting a lot more traffic these days this is kind of like maybe that -- i don't know if it's the gravy or the icing on the cake for some people out there. it's been a decent down trend over the course of the last year >> we'll see you a little later. >> every couple of days, i swear that i won't post on x again for three years, for another three years. >> what'd you do uh-oh. >> because if youwrestle with pigs you both get dirty: and the babylon b comes out with something. did you see what it said about terry seinfeld the organizer of the walkout against jerry seinfeld revealed, and then they had a picture of newman. >> that's pretty ood. >> you remember newman >> of course. >> that is pretty good

>> we used to do that. we used to talk to newman all the time when we had wework. the economy shrugs off the usual indicators leslie picker joins us now with more good morning s spl. >> hey, good morning, joe. the usual playbook is that the fed raises rates, banks pull back on lending, demand for lending plummets and then a recession follows. those precursors happened towards the end of 2022, and yet, afterward gdp growth has been pretty stable jeffries constructed an index that measures the percentage of banks tightening credit standards based on data from the fed senior loan officer opinion survey the research shows over the last 30 years, every recession has coincided with the index rising above 30 the scale is inverted in that chart you see on your screen here you can see that correlation during the pandemic and in the

financial crisis, and in the dot com bust as bank lending standards declined during the fed's more recent rate hike, the economy has continued basically chugging along: so why is this time different? well, jeffries notes this will be the subject of a, quote, host of future doctoral dissertations because it's not exactly clear one theory from the report is that even though new debt is more expensive, large companies, especially mega tech ones are still experiencing high nominal growth and locked in funding at low rates. so they're actually earning more interest on their cash than they're paying on their debt meta and alphabet have even announced dividends, for example. so to be sure, not all companies are meta and alphabet, and there are smaller, highly levered companies feeling more of a pinch, but so far it hasn't been meaningful enough just for any sort of recession. those who believe the soft landing narrative don't think they they ever will, guys. >> it's a bizarre world because

normally this would not be the normal correlation, but i don't -- >> yeah. >> nothing seems typical about this environment that we're in right now, and this is just another example. >> yeah, i think kiwi is in part to blame obviously theb banks have excess reserves, and that's playing a role if you think back to a year and a half ago, everybody went into 2023 expecting some sort of recession, and i think it's because they were looking at historical indicators like these and saying this is how the playbook has always operated or at least it's operated in kind of modern times, so why would this time be any different, but it has a lot to do with qe i think also private credit has a role here as well. there's such unconventional financing taking place, and because of the rise of private credit in recent years, that may also have kind of a blunting impact on the tighter lending standards we're seeing at the traditional banks as well.

>> and we thought, you know, a steeper yield curve, but interest rates go up you don't even necessarily get a steeper yield curve if it's inverted is this helping or hurting the banks, do you think, the stocks themselves >> yeah, the bank stocks, well, i think kind of going back if we can a year and a half ago when everyone was expecting this recession, that was harmful for the banks, and it also coincided with these new capital rules which would tighten their ability to lend as well: now we're seeing the potential for those rules getting watered back that proposal getting watered back that's kind of the expectation at this point in time for bank stock investors, plus the fact that there isn't a recession you're seeing the kbe bank stock index at its highest levels in a year because of the fact that it looks like we could be potentially avoiding a recession and banks don't have to kind of pour as much capital they can be lending out more given kind of the changes that are expected to these rules. it's definitely a double

tailwind for these banks. >> thanks, leslie. when we come back, investors will be focused on inflation data this week after the dow notched its best week of the year katie stockton is going to join us to talk market technicals right after this break we have seen some momentum we'll see what she thinks about it all "squawk box" will be right back.

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♪ a quick news alert right now on intel "the wall street journal" reporting that the chip maker is in advanced talks with apollo global management for an $11 billion deal to help intel build a new chip factory in ireland. shares of intel this morning up

by about 1.1%. just they're supposed to build them here, aren't they we just gave them a bunch of money to build stuff here. let's talk technicals with katie stockton, fairly strategy's founder as well as a cnbc contributor. what is it, it's four weeks in a row. is that the dow and the s&p, and the best week since december and this was even after we're thinking higher for longer and maybe even -- maybe even a, you know, some people say no, but i think a cut or a hike could be in the cards not as 0% chance, katie. so what happened momentum-wise >> well, there is short-term upside momentum on the pullback, right, so we saw about 6% downdraft for the s&p 500 and now a 6% or so rebound, and that puts us back to square one

the market is at a proving ground in terms of the short-term resistance. for the s&p 500 the level is about 5260 and we are looking for one more downdraft before we see newhighs logged. we could see maybe a brief new high what we're looking for this rally to fail and give way to one more downdraft before the corrective phase ends. so we're seeing that sometimes corrections unfold in this a, b, c fashion, and we see that april wave as the a wave this current wave as the b wave, and we're still awaiting the c wave the intermediate term momentum is still to the downside even though we've had this strong bounce i think, joe, what you're alluding to is that sentiment could be getting a little bit complacent some measures show it, others don't. we're watching the vix in particular because the vix is really quite oversold as you can imagine right now, and very close to strong support on the chart, and no resistance until about 21, and we've seen momentum behind the vix, which

is sort of an ekg for the market in a way we see momentum shift, the degree that we could be getting into more highly volatile environment going forward. >> so who's calling the shots right now? the generals or the troops has there been enough of a broadening to where, you know, we don't need to watch apple every day or, i don't know, any of the magnificent 7 it's still them, isn't it? >> you know, i went back and looked at the year-to-date winners on the sector front just today, and we have communication services up there, even utilities, energy, and then technology so it's not been all about the mega cap complex this time around we do have good brass behind the market, and that's something that does support the bull cycle beyond this corrective phase that we're anticipating. we do think that yields are really the driving force here yet again with ten-year yields they look poised to bounce, and

that could instill that next down move for the s&p 500, but we'll be primed and ready to buy into that weakness we're just waiting for those intermediate term metrics. these are things for the techn technicians, the weekly oscillator we want those things to look better before we can feel confident adding back to take advantage of that stronger breath >> you don't do -- you can't chart cpi or core cpi, can you >> it would be so slow moving. it wouldn't be probably worthwhile -- >> that's what will inform the next move in rates probably. so you think yields look like they're ready to rally, in other words bonds look like they could sell off more. that could bring the next b wave you called it for the s&p. so what does it indicate what's the terminal yield on the ten-year it indicates? >> you know, we expect a

fleeting bounce for yields and certainly the ppi data could instill that, right? just a brief knee jerk reaction higher, and that's when we'd actually be adding fixed income exposure because we have in ten-year yields still that loss of long-term upside momentum, so we've been calling for a lower or high of course versus 5%. we don't think we're going to see 5% again this year we're not terribly convinced that that lower high is already in place we want to see this last sort of ditch effort from yields, and that should get us to maybe a place of better capitulation for equities >> so it's in the 460 where we just were, 465 >> i don't have conviction as to where it could go. honestly there's no strong resistance for yields between here and 5%. 5% seems way too aggraggressive 4.8 maybe, but there's no real resistance between here and there. >> has gold stalled out at this

point? >> it is stalled, but that's okay it really hasn't impacted the intermediate term metrics. we have uptrends in place across really the metals complex, and these follow long-term breakouts, so long-term trading range breakouts for gold, for silver we actually are really on board with having that exposure and even more broadly commodity exposure in general because we believe that we've gone into this more sort of broad commodity bull cycle with turn arounds and floating in agricultural commodities we have even signs of life in nat gas, which has been a down trending commodity for a long time here. >> we've got to go, i know, i just want to ask, so 60 looks like a pretty on bitcoin, 60 looks like it's becoming a pretty significant support level. it keeps testing, and that's bo bounced back again today almost 2%. >> i think we can trust that bitcoin and other all coins can see one more downdraft alongside

equities, that they'll have sort of an in step maybe not terribly correlated but at the same time showing that risk on is still going to suffer during the next down draft so for bitcoin, we think there is downside risk into the low 50s and -- >> low 50s >> wow >> she's looking for a little bit of a pullback in the s&p, which with bitcoin correlates to like 52, which is -- that's unbelievable okay all right, katie, thank you. >> of course coming up, we are going to talk about the health of the housing market and why loan balances are ticking up. that is next we're coming right back. i came to the u.s. as an immigrant, i started here in college as an undergrad and then came to work at morningstar right out of college, and i worked my way up the firm and i think the best lesson is that a combination of hard work,

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♪ welcome back, everybody. a new report from property data provider adam shows that about 1 in 37 homes were what they called seriously under water the first quarter. but while that number is ticking up, it remains much lower than before the pandemic when this ratio was closer to 1 in 15. joining us right now for more on the health of the housing market is an analyst at housing wire. logan, the number on a national level ticking higher, obviously not a major concern. that report did go to point out that there are some southern states where the number is significantly higher what's happening >> yes, there's actually a certain small percentage of homes that are the values are 125% for a few years now, but in general we have the least amount

of under water homes ever in history. now, there's pockets of america where assuming that you bought at the very peak in 2022, boise, austin, seattle, technically you could be under water, but in scale terms the underwater issue is not a problem i think it becomes more of a problem if we did have a job loss recessions. home prices fell, then that percentage would gradually rise all across the country for those that bought at the very end of the economic cycle. >> that makes sense that it's not a problem unless somebody loses their job or they need to move those are the only two situations where i guess it becomes a huge issue why is it a bigger deal in some of these southern states, southern cities? >> there are pockets of this country where home prices really didn't appreciate, and if anybody did have a very low down payment, then you're going to have a small percentage of those

house. but we also have to remember 40% of homes in america don't have a mortgage, and the loan to value is generally terms are the l lowest levels ever there are going to be pockets. that's why i highlight seattle, austin, and boise, those homes could be down 10%, those homes are only 3% down you're technically under water. it's not just a short sale or foreclosure risk it's a supply suppression and the lack of ability to move unless you bring cash into the closing of the transaction so you can sell your house and move. >> it is the spring selling season what are we seeing at this point? are there more houses that are going on the market? is there more supply is there building that's being done >> yes, this housing market this year is much better than last year inventory is growing year-over-year, new listings data is growing year-over-year, it's not a lot it's about 150,000 homes from last year at this point, but it's still a positive. last year wasn't a positive for

the housing market we were at record low levels of sale inventory didn't grow, prices rose, which made housing less affordable this year even with mortgage rates elevated we are growing inventory year-over-year, new listings data is growing year-over-year, but context is key. 2023 was the lowest levels ever recorded in history. we're still trending at the l lowest levels ever in new listings or active listings. much more positive this year than it was last year, and price cut percentages are slowly rising. >> that's the chart we were just looking at it's a little counterintuitive these are the number of homes that have to have a price reduction. when you see that going up, it's signaling that maybe houses are staying longer on the market, buyers have to offer -- or sellers have to offer a discount to get a buyer in? >> yes, as inventory grows and rates stay elevated, prietce cut percentages should grow. as you can see in the chart, the slope of the curve was very

fast, mortgage rates from 3% to 7%, the slope went up. here it's a much more slower slope. it is a much more healthier market this year that active inventory is growing and new listings growing most sellers are buyers so you get a little bit more demand as more people sell their homes but again, realistically we're at record low levels of sales. if mortgage rates were trending towards 6% and stayed there, we could have definitely the sales levels start to pick up and hold, but lately we have rates fall down, demand picks up rates go up, much healthier this year that we have more sellers in the marketplace >> logan, thanks for the update. >> pleasure. kocpalantir cofounder joe lonsdale is going to join us the futures right now are flattish the dow off a little bit i'd say up for faivae r lu anyway

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coming up, joe lonsdale is going to join us on set to talking everything from investing in india to college campus protests. and later, the uaw facing a

key test on an upcoming vote, a mercedes plant in alabama. phil lebeau is going to join us in just a little b tito bring us those details. you don't want to go anywhere, we're coming right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box. joining us to discuss the college campus wars, defense tech, his recent trip to india, joe lonsdale is here, cofounder of palantir. it's great to see you this morning. imma i want to start with the controversial issue of what's happening on campus. we saw what happened with jerry seinfeld's commencement speech, dozens of folks protesting that. but i think you're a unique person to talk to about this because you've also started your own school, university, or i should say college i don't know what the distinction is between a college and university in us austin. >> university. >> and what you are seeing right now. >> it's really sad but it's really showing the rot at a lot of these places. i didn't agree, you know, ten or so years ago when they decided anyone who questions the self-understood identity of somebody or refuses to affirm it is in big trouble. that's the rule at these places, and it's very clear now that these people are questioning this and it turns out the rules

of some identities, others are not, it's anti-semitic it shows how messed up this- i think it's a religion these people are following it's like some kind of calvinist predestination where some things are you're destined to be a good person, neoracist thing, and it's terrible. >> i think there's something that's been spreading in our society for the last ten years it's really interesting. you can quantify the fact that women on average are more religious than men, on average, it's a thing for 400 years we've known. that's not true anymore amongst women in the last eight years in the younger generations, and i think the reason is their new religion doesn't identify as a religion i think it's a very terrible weird religion where there's no forgiveness and they have this mix of values. they see the world through a framework that's unhealthy this is a broken thing it's not right i'm here in new york with you guys, people go into the board of dalton, they're taking first

graders weird sex ed stuff this is a weird religion they're spreading in the blue cities, we've got to stop it. >> joe, it's not a coincidence, i don't know what numbers are like for whether you think america's a good place or whether you're proud to be here, whether you think capitalism is -- but there are bad ratings, so like you said it's been a rot of like ten years j it's been going down for ten years it's not just about anti-semitism. obviously i'm jewish, i care about anti-semitism, but i'm american and i care more about america itself if you see the problem with corrupt ngos doing weird things at the border, all the stuff that's broken. it's tied back to this weird antidemocratic if you speak out against it, you are controversial. i am now the controversial joe lonsdale for calling this out. we all need to call it out because it's broken. >> let me ask you a separate question. >> what is "it"? is it -- >> it's social justice fundamentalism it's maybe wokeness. there's all sorts of words for it

it's a new religion. it's seeing the world through oppressor, oppressed frameworks. it's this new way of approaching the world that is frankly broken and comes from a bad set of philosophi philosophies. >> so many of the protests we're seeing around the country have to do with the approach that israel has taken, if you will, in gaza, and the question is if you believe that there is a way to have -- there's a way to think about this -- is there any distinction maybe is the better way to say it between having a prot protest about the approach israel is taking from a policy perspective versus the question of whether there is ultimately anti-semitism underneath that feeling? >> for sure. so i think good people can argue and disagree about israeli policy, and that's a very fair thing. the problem with these protest ss a few things. you get a lot of anti-u.s. sentiment, a lot of pro-violence sentiment, and second of all it goes back to the core of this

broken religion, you're not allowed to discuss and debate things there's no such thing as gang together with humility and having a conversation saying i agree with this. i disagree with this you are on the oppressor side. you are evil and there's no questions asked. that's the framework right now. >> let me ask you a separate question you've invested in a lot of defense companies. we showed some tape with an interview i did with general milley last week one of the things he talked about and eric schmidt talked about was the idea of the future of the war is going to be more lethal than it has been in the past in large part because it's going to happen in very dense cities, and gaza may be a dress rehearsal for what that looks like and that the both morality of that but more importantly the politics of that are going to become more and more complicated especially since everyone has an iphone and is going to be able to take video of this. so the ability to quote, unquote either defend yourself or, you know, some people think that, you know, the only good defense

is offense well, but the politics of offense may become more complicated. >> you know, you saw u.n. revise down by half, their guess about how many civilians died. it's too many civilians. it's less civilians than an armed conflict, but it's still horrible, and it is a very, very tough thing. war is a terrible thing, and you know -- >> do you think that technology -- and by the way, we deba debate thd last week do you think technology is going o'to be able to change that part of it? i will say the group was very mixed on that. it wasn't clear that somehow ai was ging to change that. >> i'd love it if robots could fight each other and determine the outcome. we are working on amazing defense technologies you've seen new videos where they can turn off the swarm of drones from far away with electronic shields there are things like this the best defense still is offense and wa r is still going to be terrible in a social media age, war is

going to be even tougher that's true j. >> you just got back from india. there are a lot of tech folks who have been making dare i say pilgrimage to india in the past year or two that seem to be very bullish on india folks have been bullish before these pilgrimages have happened before over the last decade and are for whatever reason it has not moved the needle the way the expectations is this time different >> india has been an important player in tech for a long time there's millions of programmers there from top i.t. services companies. what we used to send our very well ke find -- i have teams of hundreds of people, mulltiple companies, what you're seeing if you have people solving our hardest problems here in the u.s., they're also going to be able to solve problems in their own countries. starting to write checks there i'm very bullish on india. >> the rot you talk about, do

you point fingers at the left for this do you see trump's rally do you think that politically that this is going to cause a shift in -- i mean, do we ever -- we turned to one all the time, reagan, it was very similar, you weren't around. >> i was a kid. >> yeah, you were a kid. i never thought things would turn around. >> i'm on the ronald reagan presidential library i admire some of what he's done there. asking what's going on in the u.s., you guys are crazy, and some of them saw it as neo colonialism. like microsoft forces you to use your pronouns, you're trying to force this craziness on us i don't think it's that hard to stop i think it requires the courage for a small number of us to speak up you go to thesecolleges, to columbia, maybe 10% of the people there are the fundame fundamentalists. everyone else is afraid to speak up dwagainst them

>> you need to speak up against the far ends of both sides, but the far left -- >> that's what i mean. do you go right or does it mean you just reject the left. >> this is the biggest problem that happens in society, when you get a crazy far left, you get a crazy far right. you don't want a far right, you want a coherent moderate response where you stand up and say why it's wrong >> i mean, at this point, it seems like the administration is held hostage by the left >> whatsapp hundreds of ceos and founders, they agree this is wrong. they've woken up. >> you're watching a change in business where google said you can't protest here. >> thank you, joe, you've been speaking about this for years. i didn't realize how bad it was. i totally agree with you they're still a little bit afraid. >> that's the thing, most ceos, you know, you run your own firm. it's a whole different operation. alex karp lives in his own

universe you know, there are people who are elevated to a special place or that they are either the founders of their own company or they're considered, jamie dimon can say what he wants to say most ceos in america do not feel super comfortable saying what they want to say. >> most of them got there by being risk averse, and climbing ranks. founders, it's very different than ceos. i think they are waking up to this the problem is our big institutions are still totally captured by this our schools, our ngos are still captured. >> if they're waking up to this, are they woke? >> it's a better form of it. >> good to see you. >> when we come back, mercedes benz workers in alabama will vote on uaw membership we've got the details next. and then the ceos of warby parker will join us to talk about the eye wear business and their hopes of opening more stores dave galboa and neil blumenthal

will join us to talk all about this "squawk box" will be right back.

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begin to vote on whether to join the uaw. phil lebeau joins us on the squawk newsline with more. i'm going to take your word for it that it's really you. >> it is me. it is not ai it is not a robot. this is an important vote, joe, because just a couple of weeks ago you had thevote. a few weeks ago workers in chattanooga, tennessee, to join the uaw. first south of the mason dixon land saying we want to join the uaw. what's going to happen in alabama. 5,100 workers at two plants near tuscaloosa voting between today and thursday the significance of this is, if this is the next domino, if you will, in the foreign automaker plants in the south that's going to call. about two-thirds of the vehicles built at this plant from mercedes are exported but it's a big plant. annual production 295,000 vehicles if the uaw were able to organize

this plant, this would be another significant step towards reversing the decline in membership we've talked about this. talked about it when they were going through the big three negotiations last year look at this chart a steady decline, or has been a steady decline in uaw membership going back a couple decades now. the question is, can they reverse this through the plants in the south if they are successful at the mercedes-benz plant in alabama, then take a look at hyundai and toyota two plants where the uaw said we believe we can organize those plants the next target we would see picked out by the uaw. again, votes are today, goes through thursday we'll have results on friday. >> is this south -- for example, alabama. is it less likely they, they're pro-union, phil, or what can you -- >> in the past they have been, joe, but if you are a line worker at the mercedes plant in

alabama, even after getting a raise, which most foreign automakers did, once the uaw contracts were approved, they saw writing on the wall and gave workers a raise. still, if you're a worker looking at the dishes between when you're making and they're making at a big three plant, you're saying, wait a second why shouldn't i be paid what they're paid that's made a huge difference in the appeal of essentially joining the uaw. >> great all right, phil. very good. thank you. i recognize that view. ip think it was you. thanks. coming up, ceos of warby parker on state of the consumer and eyewear maker. a preview of the new inflation data and where rates may be headed get your glasses on, folks warby parker, after the break. ♪♪ drive the new 2024 nissan rogue. get 0% financing for 36 months on the 2024

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if you think about it. energy fuels, a leading american uranium producer, is ramping up production to supply expanding nuclear markets and diversifying into rare earth elements, key ingredients in many clean energy and defense technologies. energy fuels. welcome back to "squawk box. warby parker made its mark disrupting the eyewear industry with online to direct consumer model. now the company expanding brick and mortar strategy adding 41 new stores over the last year, more to come and it's working. look at the stock. joining us now, warby parker's

ceo and eric rosengren. >> good morning. >> we first met many, many, many, many moons ago, the whole idea, do this online the most capital-light business ever the whole concept. then it appears what's actually making this whole thing work, really work, is actually brick and mortar, but very old school. how do you -- i think it's been directionally this way for a long time, but clearly seems to have sort of accelerated recently >> old-fashioned is the new fashion, so to speak, but when we launched in 2010, also a period before any of the social media networks had monetized so it was very inexpensive to acquire customers online also, we would have expected this to expand faster than it has. as you grow, you end up taking on more and more of the

characteristics of the existing compan industry, most want to go into a store, buy glasses and buy them in-person and that's why we're opening so many for the. on the path opening over 900 stores over 49,000 optical shops in the u.s., believe it or not. >> what is coming brick and mortar versus online >> two-thirds of our sales come from physical stores we have around 250 stores in the u.s. and canada. a third of our business is still online it's still massively overpenetrated relative to the rest of the category, but we are seeing majority of our growth coming from stores. >> when did you think you realized this and did you say to yourself "did i make a mistake?" i ask, people online, how people do it. you've done cool things with the app. you can see what the glasses

look like. do your own eye test and the computer and everything else a moment like. >> mike: -- maybe it's brick and mor mortar. >> we think all customers to choose whether they get a new prescription, shop for glasses, buy contacts they can choose any part of that journey to take place online and in any part to take place in stores the only retailer brand in our category that offers that choice for yoomers. >> lenscrafters, then, finding most coming through the stores >> we find that people prefer experiencing sort of both digital and physical. >> once therapy a customer they tend to use more online? >> or start the juny online first and try on glasses using our virtual try-on glasses before coming to the store

prepared for the visit having a seamless journey, sosht sosh -- sort of booking your eye exam and we can tailor the in-store experience to you, which we find is radically different than you see at some of our larger scale sort of competitors. we also found this was incredibly helpful whenever there's disruptions, during covid. when all the categories shut down we were still able to serve customers. >> hope that doesn't happen again anytime soon. >> us, too >> true. >> you try to talk me out of contacts just like me -- >> they sell contacts. >> you'll be fine with me if i come in and get a prescription and order contacts not fashionable. i can't look like you guys you won't try to talk me out of it honestly >> we won't. we want to do what's best for you and we see that in our sales retention rate so we've had very consistent sales retention rates.

our customers spend over 100% with us within four years, and that's because we want to do what's best for our customers and patients so you come in, you want contacts, great. >> and strength of the consumer in terms of which products are selling? are they stepping down in terms of going from a -- you know, most lenses are -- still $95 >> yes. >> once you put the lenses in, prices go up and up and up have you seen a shift in terms of what consumers are doing right now? >> there's no question many consumers are feeling stretched. we feel fortunate to sell products people need to see regardless of economical cycles median income of our base is over $100,000 and seen more strength than some other retailers in brands and seeing actually a very strong uptick around our, some of our highest-price point products and recently introduced a lens calls precision progressives which is really innovative lens that

offers a wider field of view and better vision, and so highest price point product we've been ever introduced but seeing a very strong updick, because we're still offering much better value relative to our competitors. >> going to be a, may seem like a curveball. what do you make of the meta ray bans that have effectively cameras in them, tech in them? there was a period of time, rumored or doing it, you guys were focused on trying to figure out whether you could get, become the next google glass >> yeah. we think that, wearables are interesting. some of the existing products probably not enough functionality, that most people don't want to wear them all day. that's going to change and we think we have an important role to play there. >> why do that partner with somebody else working on anything like that? do you think we're still many,

many, many years away from making this work and not worth the time and money what's the thought >> it's going to be a while before we have wearables, wearing them 24/7. sunglasses taking them on and off for certain moments but prescription glasses you're wearing all day. what is required from a weight perspective is vastly different. but we stay in close touch with some of the folks spending a lot of money investing in technologies here. we have, you know, very robust technology team differentiating us from others in our category you'll see us continue to sort of make decisions on what do customers actually want? what are they going to wear? >> final question. are you now too big for actually being bought always the questions in the beginning. just try to take you -- why not? now i wonder whether regulators would even allow that given your size and scale >> so we're building our business in a way that we don't

need to be acquired. we're really excited about the path ahead and want warby parker to be one mp the most impactful brands 100 years ago and feel we're well-positioned. >> a period of time you guys thought of other "stuff" >> we think sort of -- those brands that are most focused and they tend to win we want to help people see our mission is vision for all. that's what we're focused on. >> focus thank you. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. it's 8:00, actually past 8:00, but we know a lot more about all of this stuff and worth it, i think. we're on the east coast. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin among the day the top stories, openai planning to announce updates to its cha the gbt product.

sam altman tweeted the new features feel like magic to him and tempered expectations saying it was not about to release chatgpt 5. and square space announcing it will go private in a deal private equity firm. stockholders you see, $44 a share in cash. that make it is a $6.6 billion transaction just on an equity basis. and the biden administration awarding $120 million to polar semiconductor to help build out a factory in minnesota this grant designed to help increase so-called power in krcensor chips used in household appliances, cars and weapons systems. a look at futures this morning. can't see them from here but i think they're in the green. >> put some glasses on. >> there we go dow up futures, 75

nasdaq 61. s&p up by 12 and treasurys look at that. you will see, ten year's yielding 448 two year's at 444. more on foreign markets over to senior markets commentator mike santoli. >> becky, s&p 500 not far away from completing a round trip back to where we were six weeks ago. one-year chart six weeks ago riding five straight up months 28% from october lows looking stretched to the upside based on technical in inives cooled off 5% pullback. earnings came through fine see how inflation data comes out this week. you see here we are about a half percent getting to that old high one thing keep's in mind, a little nagging thought traders have is what happened back here last summer. we did have a very similar rally, what we had before the pullback 5% down. came back above the 50-day average as we have right here. rolls over again

why? hot inflation numbers and bond yields higher. that to me is the swing factor with inflation data. a little hodgepodge of leadership look at industrials versus consumer discretionary you see they moved together for most of the last couple of years with occasional out performance by industrials you have now industrials racing ahead. consumer discretionary not doing a lot. this isn't just tesla look at equal weighted it's also the case a nagging doubt the consumer can stay resilient embedded in the market maybe setting us up for relief along the way worth keep an eye on how it's a little more of a defensive posture. look at the volatility index not a lot of concern being registered here. last week one of the lowest volume, lowest volatility weeks we had in a bull market no news it good news stocks back up around a floor although bump

around that floor a while. what it says to hedge funds and you have a bend in the market. >> mike, thanks a lot. beginning of the week you've got the cpi on wednesday what's the expectation for volatility around that >> ppi also before that. the one that feeds into the fed's inflation gauge. i think expectation is could be a clearing event starting to see a lot more chatter from the cell side saying maybe in fact resume disinflation or get a clue from that see if it is people leaning lower and get a rally in bonds some arguments thrown out there for the indicator. that's up to everybody. >> mike, see you later. when we come back, evercore's roger altman joins us for a wide-ranging conversation. don't go anywhere. "squawk box" will be right back.

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our next guest says the markets seem to be enjoying a goldilocks macro environment and a soft landing for the economy is at hand for more on the markets, the economy and much more, we want to bring in roger altman the founder and senior chairman of evercore. roger, we're very near all-time highs. you think the market deserves these valuations >> i do, because we're seeing evidence of the economy starting to slow. you see the first quarter growth was down a bit job growth was down a bit. quits, vacancies weaker, after hourly earnings a little weaker, and that should pave the way for down ticks on inflation and then allow the fed a little later to finally turn to ease. i personally think they'll be a rate cut in september. i don't know if they'll be more

than that this year, but i think markets are responding to the positive, to the positivity of the slowing. the prospects for lower inflation, prospects for monetary ease, and that's why both equities and the fixed-income markets rallied strongly. >> i think the big question is, how long that process takes for inflation to come down. >> right. >> we get other hints or readings with ppi and cpi both out. if those numbers turn out to be hotter than expected, would you take your idea at a rate cut in september off the table? >> probably. because the fed has to see proof that inflation is improving, and we have a cpi number this week market expects i think 3.6% annualized rate. a little better than the last print. but if it were to go the other way i think markets would be quite negative seeing prospect for a rate cut are more distant, talk a little about tariffs. this is the news this morning. the idea that biden's looking at

raising tariffs, which we knew was coming, for things like evs and solar panels i didn't realize medical items would be on that list, too, and i didn't realize the number that's now being floated out there. tariffs for evs something like 102% which is significant that's fourfold increase where where we stand now at 25%. has to be symbolic to some extent even at 25% you're not getting a lot of these cars into the market. >> i think what biden is doing here, assuming that this rolls out as we expect, is, trying to protect u.s. manufacturing, which he's obviously focused on reviving, and trying to protect the supply chain, especially as relates to clean energy products. and, also, china is falling back on an old, i would say, tired strategy, which is to heavily subsidize manufacturing, expand manufacturing production way

beyond positive chinese domestic consumption, and flood the united states and flood europe with heavy-subsidized exports. and when it comes to clean energy, where we need our own production, for example, solar panels, i think that's what biden is trying to push back on. >> and the reaction you think will be, what? from the american manufacturers, from the markets -- >> well, there's an ideological debate about tariffs for example, donald trump wants to impose a 10% tariff on all imported goods one of his cardinal approaches, and trump was a tariff guy during his first term. >> he was. >> there's a big debate about how helpful are tariffs, really, because the margin they're inflationary, but we're in an era where we're trying to rebuild american manufacturing, and we're trying, for example,

with semiconductors to avoid the obvious taiwan risk of being totally dependent on tsmc for advanced semiconductors, and you have to have steps like this if you really want to do that. >> roger, the first hot inflation number that we got in january, february. it's a outlier seasonal, inventories, blah, blah, blah, then got another and another -- were you surprised by what we saw? have you had this sort of, i guess, dovish view on inflation all along, and has your view been shaken? just wondering i'd like to believe you, that we're going to see you know, cooler numbers for inflation, but that means that we've had, like, a series of outliers, and when does that become, when do you say, i was wrong maybe inflation is headed back to 4%? >> first of all, i'm not certain, joe i could certainly be wrong. >> you said a higher number. >> step back a minute. this inflation was caused, at

least in my view, entirely by the pandemic i think there's a lot of evidence on that and so it's taking -- >> that's open to discussion. >> it is we could debate that, but that's my own view. >> right. >> and -- it's taking a long time to work its way out of the system now, we're down to mid-3s, or mid-to high 3s on cpi. a little below 3 on core pce so headed in the right direction but not much doubt if the economy slows like we just discussed -- >> roger, you spent time at the white house last wednesday with the president. >> right. >> along with a whole bunch of other ceos. >> right. >> what was he telling you about what he thinks the economy is going to look like over the next year, and what were you guys telling him? >> well, the purpose of that meeting was really for biden to hear from a series of ceos as to

what they're seeing. >> okay. >> and -- it was interesting that a couple of, i'm not going to mention names, but a couple really leading ceos talked about their inability to get enough workers, and in big numbers. really big numbers. and i think that's really significant. at a lot of levels. >> it doesn't suggest a slowing job market, though or an economy that would come with that? >> well -- i mean -- the job market is hopefully not going to slow dramatically, but it -- we all saw the last month's number was lower. and i think it probably is going to get a little lower, because it does correlate to growth, but in a lot of quadrants of the economy we have, or sectors, we have a labor shortage, and that's a real problem. listen, biden obviously is not doing as well in terms of voter attitudes towards the economy as

he would like. there are a little less than six months to go in my own sue, whether he starts to do better on that measure will depend a lot on inflation, because i think what he's carrying around is a burden, legacy of this inflation, which americans really don't like. >> what was the second piece of that sounded like you were starting to say, talk about jobs and -- something? >> well, most of the ceos in that meeting were very positive on the economy how could they not be? i mean, we have, as i said in the beginning, a rather goldilocks scenario, growth steady, maybe slowing a bit. equities and fixed incomes, markets at a very strong level. >> right. >> they're other share prices right around all-time highs. how could they not be positive on the economy >> actually a good question. how could they not be positive on the economy, and yet if you have a lot of them come around this table they would somehow find a way to say they're not happy with what's going on >> well -- ceos always want

perfection they should. during my tour, two tours of duty in the treasury, always wanted something different improvement here or a change there. that's natural, but they can -- and some of them unhappy about antitrust policy yes. some unhappy about, say, the climate reduction legislation, regulations? yes. but they can see the condition of the economy, as we just discussed, and they can see their own share prices, and they know conditions are pretty good. is business ever going to say, wow! things are awesome thank you very much. of course not -- >> and any finger pointing >> sorry >> that's just for -- for public -- disposition. >> to answer your question -- >> he does that a lot. in fact, inflation,

trickflation a lot of finger pointing doesn't do that when he has the ceos right in front of him, i'm not there every day. >> but he didn't in your meeting. >> no. >> next time on a longer discussion about other things that could lead to inflation, like government spending's we talk every day about the chips act and what we're butting into that could keep inflation higher longer. >> and u.s. fiscal policy is not on the right track my view, it's a matter of time before there is a reckoning. a long time. as you know, markets often ignore something forever until they suddenly don't. >> right. >> but it's not on the right track. no you, and this is going to have to be some, at some point, pact spending restrained, taxes increased. at the moment you say that looks like 1,000 years from now, but then markets change. prices happen and change is finally the result

fiscal policy on the right track, no, it isn't. >> thank you for coming in. >> thank you. and talking about apple analyst, going to join us talking about numbers and the big head looilines surrounding tech giant pls retail division to open a.i. you're watch be "squawk box" and this is cnbc. u.s. secretar

antony blinken delivering tough public criticism of israel as that country tries to eliminate hamas from gaza following its october 7th terror attack. blinken appeared on nbc's "meet the press. >> is it fair to say that president biden and prime minister netanyahu are not seeing eye to eye right now? >> two things. one is that, as the president said and as we said in many

conversations over the last couple of months, there has to be a credible plan for civilians. >> have you seen a plan? >> we have not. >> second, there's something else that's important. we also haven't seen a plan for what happens the day after this war in gaza ends because right now the trajectory that israel is on, even if it goes in and takes heavy action in rafah, there will still be thousands of hamas left. >> joining us now to talk about the israel-hamas war and implications for the u.s., director of foreign and defense policy studies at the american enterprise institute it's good to see you we talked about this last week and we mentioned that in the near-term, president biden's decision on arms to israel won't have an immediate effect and it might never really have an

effect it may be part of a political calculus at this point or do you think it actually is going to sort of curtail israel's ability to do what it needs to do? >> no. i think you're right, that it's performative the restrictions aren't significant operationally, but they are sufficient to enrage or make israelis feel betrayed, given the breadth of president biden's prior statements about support to israel at this time i also think it's significant enough to make american allies and security partners really nervous that there is no commitment from the united states that once political pressure begins to mount, a president won't walk back from we saw that with assistance to saudi arabia and the uae in their war against the houthi, which we are reaping

difficulties of internationally. we saw it in afghanistan and now we're seeing it in israel and we also saw it in ukraine with restrictions on range usage of u.s. weapons so i think it's not significant for israel's campaign in gaza, but it is significant both for the u.s./israeli relationship and for concerns that americans friends and allies are going to have about our staying power. >> what is the difference, how do you parse what israel's doing right now in rafah for example, the "journal" says israel pushes farther into rafah, but this is not a full-fledge -- israel has still not done what the biden administration warned it not to do they're pushing into rafah, but not to the extent that it's an all-out end are, trying to end hamas completely that hasn't happened yet. >> well, i think, you know, what

the israelis are trying to do is extraordinarily difficult, and nobody's good at urban warfare it seems to me possible they're trying to be responsive to biden administration concerns, but it's also possible that they're trying to figure out a very difficult military equation, and we're not being particularly helpful. for example, secretary blinken's comments about israel has no plan for the post-war period we're also not providing that vision for them. and that's what friends do. >> is this going, i don't like to use the term "whack a mole. i don't know what else to say. in northern gaza you're seeing militants coming back, reestablishing themselves. so what does a -- did we really -- is isis completely gone did we destroy isis completely

can you destroy hamas completely if it just re-emerges, even if they go into rafah full force? >> i do think having said that as the objective of the operations is a very high standard, and you're right to question whether it's ever achievable israel's strategy has been described as mowing the grass. right? you see a problem, "whack a mole" is another way to say it, but it's very difficult, unless you change the attitudes of the public that is providing support and protection, or even out of fear are not assisting in identifying hamas operatives and hamas soldiers in their midst. >> and that is the key question. because the -- the p.r. war, very early on, started being -- at the colleges, the universities and everything else i don't know how it goes -- i don't know how it's not going to

turn to the point where israel loses support at this point. you can sort of see the writing on the wall. can't you? >> well, yes, because the administration isn't making the affirmative case for how difficult what israel is trying to do is how difficult it would be for any military to do what israel is trying to do. they're not providing the protection to israel to buy them time and international support, and they're caving to domestic concern in the united states. >> kori, schoke. and coming up, steve liesman joins us with new data then speak with former boston fed president eric rosengren as gearing's for this week's consumer price number. stay tedun you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc. things

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it's time to get away. northern california's premier casino resort is the perfect place... ...to do as much -or as little- as you want. cache in at cache creek casino resort. welcome back, everybody. we've been watching credit delinquencies for months senior economics reporter steve liesman joins us with new data on this front. steve, what did you learn? >> we have april read from equifax. just got that data it shows credit delinquencies on consumer credit ticking up to highest level since may 2020

should be worried? hold on. made below the pre-pandemic average and well below 2009. combination of low delinquencies on real estate and student loans offsets the other loans. all areas up compared to a year ago. see that on the left side. autos and bank cards above the pre-pandemic levels. not much but a bit mark zandi says lower income households are under financial stress, worse at hand. inflation peaking. credit standards tightened not as many loose loans as we had in prior years data shows delinquency rates are highest from lending in 2022 the 2023 class experiencing fewer delinquency issues wells fargo tracked delinquencies reported by th banks. running 20% above 2019 levels and you can see minus 7 over

there, discovery delinquencies faring worse rate of increase looks to have slowed talked to a fed man, covers this telling meese second derivative is turns delinquency pressures easing jobs keep everything together, and we're just not seeing a lot of corporate layoffs therefore, not widespread delinquencies and then points to climbing year over year delinquency at capital one and citi trending down there. evidence to him the cycle is peaking and value in the names he covers because trading in anticipation of worse delinquent outcomes there so as suggested, all bets are off, unemployment rises sharply. and unexpectedly second cleanup further to go it will matter a lot to low-income debtors raising the question if the fed will initiate rate cuts before there really is a widespread credit problem, becky

i guess the fed can have a credit problem if it wants one or make a change and maybe avoid one. >> really weird. you would think they would wait until they see it in the data before they actually act on such things, not anticipating problems like that could come. steve, it matches data we looked at earlier this morning that just shows houses, mortgages, that are under water rising, but still level at pandemic levels and same story there real estate expect we spoke with said it's okay, unless you deal with an unemployment situation that rises then you've got a much bigger problem. >> exactly. >> if people are out of jobs they can't pay for these things. doesn't seem it would be at panic levels yet when it's still well below what it was in 2019 >> there's two metrics i hope viewers walk away smarter from this segment. you have reporters breathlessless coming on saying, know what? delinquencies are rising yes, but not rising above yet

overall 2019 levels with some problem areas in auto, problem areas in bank cards. it's not a 2019, not a 2009 cycle we're well below that. two things relative of to the pre-pandemic. also relative to what banks are expecting. banks are getting better results than they had previously expected so, therefore, there's not going to be a problem inside the financial system when it comes to here. plus, they tightened up credit in 2023. so they're not going to have the bad results they had in 2022 and the question becomes whether or not the consumers are the ones who feel it through higher credit cards or get relief from the fed. >> okay. thanks, steve. >> pleasure. for more on the fed's inflation fight and rate path ahead for the new inflation data we get this week, former fed president eric rosengren i don't know if you heard what steve was talking about. do you want to comment on that first? >> so i agree with what steve was saying, that by and large,

as long as the unemployment rate doesn't rise you don't have a really significant problem, but i would highlight for lower income individuals, many of whom i have bought new or used cars at relatively high rates, there is stress on those individuals credit card and auto delinquencies are two are the larger bills a lot of low-income households have to pay. so frequently it takes an unemployment increase to have significant problems but nonethele nonetheless, it is a sign 3. % unemployment, seeing delinquencies for lower-income titles. >> when you think about changing the path start with this. what's your expectations for rest of the year at this point in the ball game >> for inflation >> yeah. inflation, also fed cuts or fed hikes even >> started with inflation.

i think the general trend is down a little uncertain is how quickly that trend will be re-established. so one of the concerns that we've had over the last three months has been that both the cpi and pce core levels have been levelling off so in order to get the fed to actually ease this year we need to see that trend going down so the fed tends to focus on core pce that's at 2.8% i do expect by end of the year that it's likely to be closer to 2.5% but when that trend starts reestablishing itself and starts to go down, and when we're talking about tenths of a percent, small changes in various components can mean that it's delayed before that trend is re-established. so i am expecting that trend to re-establish a slow decline in inflation first towards 2.5% this year and towards 2% next

year that would be consistent with one to two, 25 basis point easings, depending when there's enough data that the trend towards lower inflation shows up. >> do you think -- we talked to roger altman, just here earlier. talked about potentially easing in september always say gets complicated near an election. do you think it gets complicated near an election, knowing what you know >> i think that there's uncertainty around any election. and that's true about this election it looks like it's going to be a close election, and they're going to be following presumably pretty different economic policies so uncentery is not particularly good for the economy people delay decisions until they have more certainty what the election outcome's going to be it wouldn't surprise me if we see some slowing in the second half of the year to the extent we have slowing and inflation trends down, i think the fed at

that point would think it was appropriate to lower interest rates. >> so that's interesting, though if we sort of take -- take it at face value that right ahead of an election things slow down generally. is that considered when the fed thinks about this? actually maybe things pick up in a couple months? two, three months? actually nothing we need to do artificially >> so different -- election's not close. there's not much impact of an election on economic data. if the election's close, and people are, and the two candidates, or three candidates, in this case, potentially, are following very different policies, that uncertainty actually could slow down the economy a bit as we get into the second half of the year. as people wait to see what the outcome of the election's going to be. it doesn't occur around all elections. it occurs around close elections where the policies are likely to be quite different.

>> are you surprised at just the strength of the job market thus far? talking to roger altman, he was at the white house last week and one of the things that came up in the conversation with president biden by so many of the ceos was this idea they can't find enough people >> yeah. the u.s. economy has been very resilient. i think that actually the fiscal policy actions of this administration are part of the reason so normally at this point in the cycle, we would have expected, for example, construction jobs to slow down and that's because both interest rates are high and commercial real estate is troubled. the reason we haven't actually seen that is because -- for many of these construction jobs, they've been helped by the fiscal policies. so the chip acts mean a lot of manufacturing, building new chip factories around the country in part to bring some of those activities from abroad into the united states. there have been actions for

green energy that has meant there's been more spending on those kinds of projects, and highway projects have been way up in part because of the infrastructure bill. so some of the fiscal policies are direct government transfers, but many of the government policies work through the private sector and that's what we're seeing in some of the construction data. so i think one reason we haven't seen it in construction is that the fiscal policies have been promoting a fair amount of construction, and that's likely to continue through this year. >> eric, thank you for joining us this morning. great to see you >> good to see you as well thank you. when we come back, we're going to ask this question -- is apple ready to beef up its artificial intelligence game find out ar the break. toni sacconaghi joins us heading to the break tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. eastern time, a rare and exclusive interview coming up with boaz weinstein

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on tech giant apple bloomberg reporting putting chatgpt features from openai on its next operating system. apple expected to showcase new a.i. capabilities at an event next month separately two labor-related stories. first work is at a maryland store voting to authorize a strike second, bloomberg says that employees at the short hills mall, in new jersey area, hit that apple store, voted against unionizing joining us now on all the headlines, toni sacconaghi, bernstein senior research analyst. you positive on the stock right now, toni?

>> good morning, joe yes. we are positive on the stock we upgraded or rating a couple weeks ago and think risk/reward on the name iis attractive at current levels. >> and is this, compared to what queer talking about and other stuff we'll touch on much more important or something to watch? >> i think labor is relatively de doug de minimis it happening at apple stores less than 10% on a global basis and certainly less than that in the u.s. clearly there could be incremental costs associated if union activity was organized over time but it's not material in the grand scheme of things for apple. >> tell me about apple and a.i.? almost reminds me of musical chairs who are the frenemies?

how is it you all going to play out? what do you think the strategy will eventually be orcan anyon know at this point >> well, i think the important thing to recognize about apple is, it doesn't have to do this itself there's been sort of this criticism by investors that apple is not spending enough on a.i. or it's behind in a.i i think it's really important to know that there may be some elements of a.i. that apple will undertake itself and there will be some elements of a.i. that apple will look to partner with, and i think we can see that today with apple in the sense that it drives a signi significant percent of its profits probably 25% or more from profits providing access to search for google and google being the default search engine and from its app store in both countries google is doing and creating the search engine in the app store the millions of app developers putting their

blood, wet and tears in, and apple collects effectively a tool for access to its customer base it's incredibly lucrative. the same thing could happen in a.i. >> toni, that's the question do you imagine that when we hear a deal, if there is one struck, between openai you hear about that, that openai is paying apple as opposed to apple paying them >> it's a great question ai models today are just starting to figure out how to monetize, much like search initially was looking for ways to monetize itself over time certainly, if apple is providing access to 1.12 billion iphone users as a default or partner with someone and they're paying significant money, they'll be paying apple some kind of revenue share. initially that may not be the case. >> do you imagine that openai

that currently runs on azure that effectively, this deal, if there is a deal to be done, that openai's technology will run literally physically on device i don't think it can run on device if it doesn't run on device, is it going to run on an apple server somewhere or microsoft server somewhere, in which indication microsoft is going to be collecting revenue somehow? >> we don't know the specifics i think we do know in all likelihood if there is a partnership, a lot of the search will be running off a device it will have to go through data centers, whether that's through a microsoft data center. it's certainly plausible that could be the case going forward. so, yes, that is a possibility. >> and then how do you -- i think one of the things we're all trying to figure out,s if there's a deal with openai, does that mean there's not a deal with google or google's gemini or somebody else, or do you

think that's a mix-and-match patchwork? >> i don't think that's the case what we believe apple has been working on in part is improving the front into siri. siri is the access point to openai engines apple is working to make siri more intel jnlt. and they could say, this kind of query is going to open iowa. this kind of querrey will go to a voice to image or voice to video, general ai going forward. certainly there could be a front end in place that decides where a user querrey should go to, which ai engine or app going forward. it's certainly possible apple could have deals with more than one partner. >> you think it's back in the

weak hands i wouldn't call warren buffett weak hands do you think anything that would be done to wring out complacency has gone onward and upward with apple? >> apple has gone up year to date there's been a weak cycle, so part of the attractiveness of apple is that it's trading below its three- and five-year averages, and so that provides a more attractive entry point. our belief is apple is a really powerful franchise and now you have a more attractive price to buy it at. i think ai could certainly be a catalyst for the name over the next three or four months in the introduction of the iphone 16. but a lot of this is we have a really good company. it's underperformed year to date, and investors have an opportunity to buy it at a lower price. >> i don't know. if you see 165 again, that might be a good place, or even here. anyway, toni, thank you. >> thanks for having me.

>> you're welcome. coming up, the risky move among retail investors we're going to tell you about the trade some are making as seasonable bearishness is moving in stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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individual investors appear to be ramping up risks in their port portfolios kate rooney is here. >> especially if you look at the most volatile quarter of that. zero days to expire options among the popularity of average everyday investors they're one-day vets not only for outsized returns before outsized risks. last week retail activity and zero d.t. options are at the biggest weekly sales since the beginning of the year. that's according to jpmorgan according to spotgama. those are single spx options short dated vurms is short meanwhile there's been buying

for safer proxies. there had been an influence of rates. they say all of this new risk appetite is a function of chasing some of the bryce risk-accessed prices and tax-related peak retail bearishness is in the rearview mirror and has been rotating aggressively jpmorgan says they were the most bearish within the mag 7ful that u were selling nvidia and buying apple. they were also overwhelmingly selling markets in like netflix. plus energy and food stocks, guys. >> riskier types of bets, some people might call it gambling. and while we're on it, we've been watching this morning shares of gamestop, which i think are up more than 40%

they were up 10% when we started talking about this now 40% simply because keith gill who's better known as roaring kittsy, the person who was so involved posted on twitter for the first time in three years and some are saying, oh, he's sitting up and paying attention more closely, they thought, maybe to gamestop shares what's going on? >> it's like the ryan cohen situation where he tweeted out a picture of an ice cream cone and people tried to trade on it. it is sort of this momentum. one of the dynamics in game stock after that whole even said in 2021, there's almost no shortage people do not want to get caught short in gamestop. you have this dynamic, very thinly traded. if you look at it, it's around 17 bucks so 40% rally is massive on a daily basis, but nowhere near

the height of 2021, guys. >> yeah. it just makes me feel like there are definitely people looking at this as kind of las vegas with some of the trades, kate thank you very much. it's good to see you this morning. folks, that does it for us today. we'll be right back with you tomorrow make sure to join us then. right now it's time for "squawk on the street. good monday morning. welcome to squa"squawk on the street." premarket is steady as we brace for a week that has something for everyone you have google, i.o. conference that's where our roadmap begins. the dow's coming off the best week of the year and the s&p awfully close to some fresh records. plus the ai arms r