happy friday 5:00 a.m. on cnbc. here is the top five at 5:00 back in the record books as the the american economy takes off the dow above 34,000 for the first time ever. you ain't seen nothing yet. china's economy growing 20% to begin the year. the fastest ever as all of us americans shopped online. and president biden sending a message to vladimir putin.

putting our diplomatic cards on the table. thomas pickering is here to weigh in. and one major tech investor. the near rbi to show you how big the crypto boom really is. and get ready for retail roaring '20s what one is telling us about the future of the mall it is friday, april 16th this is "worldwide exchange. ♪ ♪ good morning, good afternoon or good evening and good friday. welcome from wherever in the world you may be watching. i'm brian sullivan thank you for joining us a check on the friday money and see if we can end our week with a bang or a whip mper dow futures just turning green

no big overall trend right now, but certainly this week and this month. overall, stocks largely keep booming. the dow is on pace for its fourth up week in a row for the first time, well, since january. it is doing it and crossing 34,000 yesterday for the first time in history. the index needing 20 sessions from 33,000 to 34,000. what is jaw dropping and this could be the rbi, it's not we have a different one. the dow crossed four 1,000 point milestones so far this year. that is the most since 2017 when we had five. it's only mid-april and we've almost already broken that record of course, we know it is easier when the numbers get bigger. still random, but interesting. not just the dow a number of indexes hitting all-time highs s&p 500, nasdaq 100 and the russell 3000

so, what can we take away from this it's a very broad based rally. here is also what's interesting. buyers are coming back into bonds as well. in fact, if you haven't noticed and this is why stocks have taken off again. bond yields ticked back down nearly not quite below 1.5%. below 1.6. the markets, stocks and bonds, may be saying two different things although stocks, tech and other growth stocks, tend to go up when bond yields tend to go down something to watch. let's go around the world. it is green across the board in asia after the huge gdp number from china in europe, just getting the friday trading day started and, wow. vive la france not because they are higher acro across the board right now it is not just us in the united states

i know we are being jingle-istic a bunch of international stock markets have caught fire as well hitting all-time or multi-year highs. sitting at new highs the france cac 40 and greece athex and ftse 100 and helsinki all-time highs speaking of, let's get back to the top economic story this morning. that is china's economy. you may not believe it china's gdp jumped 18.3% in the first quarter. look at that chart now that is the strongest since 1992 that's when official records began. yes, this does come off pandemic slowdowns in their first quarter year over year remember, china wasn't locked down for very long

big cities tight for very short period of time rebound led by exports basically, in a technical term, selling us and european consumers a bunch of stuff as factories race to fill orders overseas one reason we have shown you the ships stuck offshore in california and the shortage of shipping containers. they're making we're taking also today, robinhood rescotore crypto trading after an outage last night that issue coming on huge demand for dogecoin which traded near 30 cents it was below a penny to begin a year it started breaking higher after conagra mentioned the crypto currency on the earnings call. the ceo of american eagle expects malls to boom once the

country gets past the pandemic he was on "mad money" with jim last night he expects traffic to rebound and the next decade to boom for business as people emerge from covid with confidence. >> the mall's not dead the mall is still alive. it is just right now that people are still going and shopping people have to be careful. we are very excited about the future of the mall and we think that when things get better and the pandemic goes away, you know, we could look at the roaring '20s >> american eagle reporting this week that business is already exceeding expectation as americans get out and spend their stimulus check that stock up 20%. the dow closing above 34,000 for the first time yesterday markets are booming. are we seeing a different story with the bond markets and stock

markets? joining us now to talk about it is the cio and president erin gibbs. erin, i need help. gosh, stock markets here are up. europe is up china is up. bond market is up. every commodity is up. nftsare up art is up. shoes are up is there any value left anywhere what is going on >> it is tough as a value focused investor, brian, it is hard to find anything what you call a value these days across the board and asset classes. one thing we have to take a look at for april is a lot of this bull run happened at the beginning of april the s&p is up 5% just in two weeks. a lot of it has come off pretty anemic volume. within the markets, we have seen

a lot less trading with the coinbase ipo we brought the trading value back a little bit as investors get interested in the market it feels like people are taking a bit of a pause from their trading obsession. they are perhaps getting out as vaccinations and economies reopen so, i think we do have to take some of what we are seeing in april with a pinch of salt until we see the volumes go back to normal or what we call considered normal levels even within the value companies, it is tough. there's a lot of overvalued options out there. >> yeah. well said. i'm beginning to wonder. we know and to your point, 1.5 million people getting on a plane every day. malls are packed new hampshire dropping the mask mandate yesterday. people are living almost 99% normal lives in the northeast, it is slower

forget that stuff, erin. the only question that matters is how much of that quote reopen -- i hate that term how much of that is already baked in is it all baked in is it still a little to go or is it overcooked? >> there are some areas within the reopening cyclical trade where we're talking about really looking at gdp growth where it is overbought. you look at the materials and manufacturing companies. the valuations are hitting all new highs. you can't find value the banks are doing pretty well with financials particularly as interest rates have dropped. financials are one area that looks semi reasonably priced you are seeing a lot of peaks. in the commodity space, that is

one area that is showing just how hot the economy is running that's when you look at lumber lumber, copper, iron, cotton just every single commodity is near the 52-week peak. when you look at the fautures, they are all trading flat. if you go three months out, they are not pricing at declines. i think we're going to see this type of very high valuation and just going into all these types of stocks. value and growth for at least another three months >> money doesn't grow on trees, but as we said, erin, maybe money is trees lumber up. are you buying >> i'm still buying banks. >> all right they had blowout numbers this week goldman, bank of america, morgan stanley due out later that erin gibbs, go plant a tree and

in 20 years it will make you a lot of money thank you very much. lumber up 57% in 90 days good grief when we come back, spac on defense. after one research shop calls that a pump and dump stock who is that? we will show you plus, two days as a publicly traded company and coinbase has a new bestie we will talk about who is doing big-time buying. later on, president biden putting pressure on china and russia will it work or will they test us former u.s. ambassador thomas pickering is here to weigh in. 'rba aer ts.

welcome back time for the big three stock market stories right now stock one, quantumscape. calling them a pump and dump spac it dropped more than 12% in the regular session. it did regain the losses that is a battle to watch. stock number two ppg paint. the company popping after blowout guidance guidance was good as everybody is fixing up home and painting them stock number they is coinbase. of course.

the first days of the public market kathy wood says $350 million was snapped up valuing the crypto about 43% lower than the $112 billion it was worth at the peak of the debut. $112 billion all right. still an don deck on a serious . the state of ed inducation in america. what states are doing when it comes to getting kids back to the classroom. the new jersey school official up next onow wma he y have failed our kids. ♪ i wish that i knew what i know now ♪

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a battery that charges fast. runs long. it fits everyone. nobody will be left out. and that, changes everything. ♪ ♪ welcome back time now for the daily covid vaccination update we are trying to bring you good news and reasons to be optimistic among the scary headlines. nearly 2 million doses have been administered in arms according to the cdc more than 75 million people now fully vaccinated now the majority of the at-risk population, over 65, well more than 50% maine, new hampshire, massachusetts, connecticut and new mexico with more than 45% of the total populations with at least one dose of the covid

vaccine and almost a majority or nearly all or all of the people who want it over 65 have been able to get at least one shot. some very good news on the vaccination front as well. very quickly before we move on something i posted on social media last night i want to bring you. i spoke to a contact in louisiana last night that state and maybe others, may be hitting peak demand as well our louisiana contact saying they are not seeing anymore demand for vaccines in much of the state. it is now becoming ordered like a commercial product meaning, if you need it, you get it louisiana has a low vaccination uptake rate. we may see peak demand in louisiana and other states now that more and more vaccines are being distributed, schools around the country which have been closed for in-person learning are getting a chance to

reopen how much damage has already been done to our kids and our students our next gust tried to address that in the research "time" op-ed. blue states are failing their students by not reopening schools. he joins us now. ceo and founder and the former superintendent of schools in camden, new jersey payman, thank you you for coming on i read your piece. we never met i thought it was fascinating i didn't want to make it political. as you note, sadly any debate, over our kids or flying or anything, has just become this kind of gross, for lack of a better term, political fight, has it not >> absolutely. it is as much it is political p. we all had this and i was guilty of it at first

the knee jerk reaction when covid hit. identify as a progressive. trump came out and did certain things that progressives did not like without getting into details. it is when he demanded schools reopen, that was the beginning of the end the democrats at that point adopted a simple stake if trump is for it, we must be against it and we never rehe co recovered. >> that's it i'm not blaming the previous administration or the current administration to your point on the macro level, the way we had and the macho attitude around covid hurt us in the beginning. to your point, if they want to reopen, there is no way we can because we care about our children and grandmothers and teachers more than they do it is they and us. >> absolutely.

as we tend to do as a country, unfortunately, my personal opinion is we stink at complex social change. we have a hard time centering the pendulum and meeting in the messy middle to figure out solutions to complex problems. that is what happened here it is still happening. majority of students and progressive states like california are still not in-person full-time. that's a tragedy >> it is a tragedy listen, we want to keep the teachers safe. school administrators and parents safe we get that. i could find you a study that says schools are dangerous you could find me a study that says schools are safe. everything we know -- this is not last year. this is a year and a month into it, paymon

j johns hopkins states connecticut, nearly 9 0% of the state's kids are in school what have we learned about schools and covid? what would you do? >> as you mentioned, you have to put the safety of teachers and students at the top of the list. we know masking and proper ventilation and testing do you those three things and you can mitigate the risk of covid in schools even with community spread that's the thing we had the list. we have known that basically since this past summer there hasn't been a solution or a plan in most districts and most progressive as i argue in most progressive states and cities >> paymon, this is a personal issue. i'm a product of the los angeles

public school district my bromother dropped out of high school she got her g.e.d. mom, i'm proud of what you've done i'm a product of the los angeles public schools it was a long time ago a different time when you think about the educational loss -- we always talk in the media. i'll blame the media cases. cases. cases. you know what we don't know? we don't know how many of the million kids are going to suffer their lives learning loss. not able to read at the same rate as wealthier kids suffer from greater problems down the line. do we need to stop looking at covid like a zero sum game and flashing the cases on the screen and realize it is an awful pandemic there is also a tradeoff we have to consider about these

kids 10 and 20 years from now who are losing -- a buddy of my is a principal at the new jersey middle school. he says 30% of the kids vanished these are poor and low income kids how do they make that up >> you nailed it you know, i really believe that public policy is about tradeoffs. for the reasons we discussed earlier, because it all became political, it is if we are trying to softball covid must go to zero before we open schools that's what it felt like at times. as a result, here we are still trying to open up schools. you know, one. most significant priorities when i was superintendent in camden, new jersey, a lower income city, was trauma informed care the reality of our students, pre-covid, deal with significant toxic stress and trauma. that manifests itself in profound ways. health and mental health and all

sorts of issues that manifest in classrooms this is a trauma that young people are experiencing right now. >> very quickly and i know we're over time. it is a hugely important topic with all due respect, political, right? have we placed too much emphasis on the cdc these are little known government agencies, as you wrote, a narrow, but important purpose. now school districts can point to states who point to this and point to cdc who says we can't do it. i now this is now fear of lawsuits over fear of covid. >> i agree with you. it goes back to the beginning of this and trump was asking to reopen schools when i look back on it, it is a bizarre thing that happened where anthony fauci became the

bastian of truth and science god only knows he is just trying to do his job. i think what happened is we sort of defied him and the nih and the cdc have a narrow set of priorities we have to juxtapose them or weigh them against other priorities and take into account the devastating toll to education and the economy and we just never really took stock of all that >> yeah. millions of people out of the work force setting women back in some cases 20 years because largely they have the brunt of the work force to stay home to care for kids. in some cases, teachers lives are on the line. paymon, it is not a zero sum game great op-ed. i'm sure you got a lot of feedback thank you. >> thanks for having me, brian. all right. i'll repost that today if you want to read it. we're back after this.

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34,000 and beyond. will we hit more records today in defense of america. president biden laying out his stance on russia after a series of sanctions >> russia seeks to violate the interests of the united states we will respond.

>> former u.s. ambassador thomas pickering is here to weigh in. it is friday, april 16th, 2021 this is the "worldwide exchange." ♪ welcome back good morning thanks for joining us. i'm sulbrian sullivan let's jump in. we are halfway through the 5:00 a.m. hour. the dow is mixed overall we are watching the dow. the pros don't watch the dow why are you? the dow is the number we see in the general media. 34,000 we like round numbers in the media. 34,000 was hit for the first time ever yesterday. it took just 20 trading sessions to do it here is an rbi we crossed four 1,000-point thresholds on the dow this year. that's the most since 2017 when

they did five. that was all year. it is only mid-april it seems logical we'll break the record home depot and microsoft are the big gainers in the latest 1,000-point move not just the dow a broad based rally. 88 s&p 500 stocks hitting new all-time or multi-year highs on thursday we mentioned microsoft they have been red hot nvidia and o'reilly and wells fargo. a scandal every year wells fargo with a 52-week high. 96.4% of stocks on the s&p 500 closed above the 200-day moving average yesterday. the highest percentage on record going back to data which goes back to 2002 it may have been higher at some point. who knows? that is really high, by the way. we are not saying touting the

market be careful craig johnson yesterday said technically, some things are looking too hot on a macro level. you know what else has been hot? banks. surprising analysts and investors alike. every company reported far better than expected results not just better, but way better. morgan stanley and bny mellon reporting later today. let's bring in our analyst at rbc capital marketmarkets. gerard, what is giving them these numbers? >> brian, thank you for having me on. you are right. we are anticipating they will post good numbers. these are better than good to your point in the reason they are strong, there are two driving factors.

the good investment numbers from jpmorgan chase and goldman and bank of america. second, the reserve releases you might recall, brian, the banks had to set aside hundreds of billions of dollars in anticipated credit losses due to the recession. those credit losses have not materialized banks are bringing that money set aside back into earnings and that's the reason for the blowout earnings. >> you think it is a one quarter phenomenon based on the yield? >> it is a good question we're expecting the earnings to remain strong this year. we're increasing our earnings estimates based on what we saw this week. i think what you will see is continued good earnings. probably not at the record-breaking pace that you are seeing this week so the investment banking

results will quiet down after the first quarter numbers. you know the ipo market has been red hot particularly with the special purpose acquisition corporations >> i get the goldman sachs numbers. it always wins doesn't matter which way the market goes. they tonedend to come out on top wells fargo. very quietly with a new multiyear high fake account scandal and management changes they have a heap of problems how have they come back? are the problems really behind wells? >> i think what is happening here as i like to say with the bank stocks, rising tide lifts all ships. the ben fefit of the stronger economy, lifts jpmorgan chase,

italso lifts wells fargo the big point at wells fargo, they are working to put the scandals from 2016 behind them there is an anticipation now that the asset capital, part of the restrictions that was laid on them in 2018, as part of the see cease and desist order, should be lifted this summer. should that be the case, that is why wells is hitting new 52-week highs as well. >> wow we will watch that maybe the investors buying now for that gerard, thank you. we appreciate you getting up early for us gerard cassidy, thank you. >> you're welcome. thank you, brian thank you. coming up, two big geopolitical stories that all of you -- all of you should be watching today. president biden imposing new sanctions on russia and meeting

with the japan prime minister. china is on the agenda we'll talk about both with former u.s. ambassador to russia thomas pickering. as we head to break, cruise line ceos meeting with the white house covid response team yesterday. the executives pushed for sales t sailing this summer. and robinhood responding to the attempts to revoke state license in the state of massachusetts. the nfl signing sponsorship deals with draft kings and fan duel is a huge week for the league and huge for sports betting. we are back after this our univ.

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." president biden reestablishing the u.s. on the world stage this week yesterday, unleashing several sanctions on russian individuals and entities linked to the 2020 election interference. today, sitting down with the japanese prime minister suga at the white house and the attempt to tackle the china influence around the world we have kayla tausche with more

on that. >> reporter: good morning, brian. a return to personal diplomacy under the biden administration the first foreign leader is the japanese prime minister suga the two are expected to talk about the host of issues and cooperation. expressing support for the tokyo olympics just about 100 days away although the indiadministrn says it is too early to say if it will endorse that the countries are expected to issue a joint statement on climate, vaccines and technology policy with japan expected to announce a $2 billion initiative to diversify supply chains and expand a 5g buildout beyond huawai that is an issue of how china will loom in the conversations the biden administration

arriving in taiwan this week and condemning china's decision to hold a series of military drills just off the southwest coast of ta taiwan concurrent with the visit. the administration says the exercises and the beijing decision to fly into the air space are moves to threaten peace and stability. expect a formal statement to condemn china's actions. the countries want to send a clear message to beijing, but japan must walk a carreful course because of the ties to beijing, neither country is seeking to raise tensions or provoke china. the pentagon is currently undergoing a wholesale military review of the posture toward china. that is expected to take three or four months there could be redirection of

the troops withdrawn from afghanistan in the coming months the administration wants to refocus efforts there. resources on the ground and the focus of leaders as they try to turn views toward threats in the words of the president have metastisized brian. >> we are also dealing with iran nuclear talks. there is a trifecta of really important, high level geo political issues pushed on the biden administration right now >> reporter: that's been a question from the beginning, brian. this has been a very well oiled and coordinated administration from the policy stand point because so many appointees have come from the obama administration now there is a view that there will be external challenges from the administration how will they handle the issue

especially visiting the leaders. you see the president step out and visit. they are trying to touch gloves with ally allies it is difficult during a pandemic you will expect to see a lot of the personal engagement ramp up in the coming months >> they are flying on their own planes maybe they can meet outside. it does seem possible. kayla tausche, thank you very much today's summit with japan comes one day after the white house unveiled sweeping sanctions against russia for the solar winds hack and meddling in the 2020 election. listen >> i was clearly with president putin. we could have gone further i chose not to do so i chose to be proportionate.

the united states is not looking to kick off an escalation with russia we want a stable and predictable relationship if russia continues to interfere, i'm prepared to respond with further action. >> president leaving the door open for more in-person talks with putin in europe this summer for more on this and the policy playbook let's check in with thomas pickering. ambassador pickering, thank you for joining us do you think the white house and president biden did the appropriate response was it, as he said, measured and calculated based on the perceived russia problem with the solar winds hacking and election interference? was it proportionate >> i think, brian, it was. the question is if the prop proportionate policy issue will win the day here

that, in itself, is part of what the president has to face in the days and months ahead. it is an opening of the policy one could call iron fist and velvet glove some is an issue with china as you said the president is ready to push back and push back harder. he spent time talking about the summit and talking about the invitation or possible invitation to get together opening the door to putin to say this is time we calm things. this is time we look for common interests. this is a time when we can work together whether that will work or not, most of us have our doubts, certainly right away putin is not responsive generally to that kind of approach although the president may have

an indication from his talk on tuesday that that could be the case we have to wait and see how that develops in the meantime, this policy, if not very carefully handled, could end up in a situation where the president has taken steps and putin has taken steps and nobody has backed down the only two alternatives are to walk away from this policy on the one hand or go to military activity on the other. god forbid we should ever get into that situation. it appears the president is very much conscious of that and that is significant as well as we look at it down the road >> well said, ambassador i think a lot of this and one of the reasons i like to talk about the oil and energy markets is the geopolitical russia building a new pipeline that will give europe 30% to 40% of their natural gas

particularly germany the trump administration hated it largely opposed it as well is that vladimir putin's ultimate goal? what does he want other than us to layoff trying to sell natural gas into china and europe >> in simple terms, brian. putin wants to stay in power whatever keeps him in power, will in one way or another, be important to him staying in power relies heavily on his being a big international player russia back. russia, a major power. russia, controlling things or at least influencing things in their part of the world in a way that benefits russia the president will have to deal with this. whether we can find a common interest in this, i do not know. there are some that are out there. we still cooperate on space. we still cooperate to some extent on afghanistan at the

moment dwindling as that now seems. let's look at that prime minister suga of japan is an important ally. we should not forget the fact that we at the moment have both allies and the capacity to collect back, if i can put it that way, allies who have in one way or another, gone off a bit because of the way in which the trump administration seemed to disdain them and handle them and treat them roughly and demand money from them. >> it is well said we will see how that goes. ambassador thomas pickering. we appreciate your time. we will get you back on soon china is menacing taiwan with as many as 25 fighter jets the other day. we will get you back on to talk about that have a wonderful weekend thank you. >> thank you on deck, back to the markets and your money they have been red hot

keri firestone is here with pick names and if they keep hitting all-time highs happy friday the dow is up 60 we're back after this. did you know that petco, is now a health and wellness company? their groomers work wonders for my confidence.

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let's get back down to the markets and your money your next guest says the s&p was up 80% last month. stocks need more than expansion to keep the rally going. let's keep it going with keri firestone. cnbc contributor we'll say it, keri, the halftime star thanks for joining us. keri, they need more than multiple expansion what do they need? what is the more >> the more is more earnings we know that this is going to be a good year. gdp growth expected to be

between 6% and 7%. enormous year for economic growth in the u.s. that's built in to stocks. we know the market has gone wild since the low last march for equities to move higher, we need to be discerning and pick earnings growth to be good as well as better than expected we saw something interest with united health care they reported a better quarter than expected than they raised that stock was strong yesterday. that is the type of response that we will see from companies that beat expectations and ones that just meet may have trouble moving higher here that means multiple expansion and the market is not trading at a low multiple it is pretty good. >> i mean, there is the

challenge, karen how do we know who will be able to turn in the a plus earnings maybe the bs are easy. united health is a name you like yesterday, craig johnson recommended schwab on a technical level. maybe this could get an a plus for earnings as well >> we also own schwab. assets up 9% integration of usaa and ameritrade the commissions have come down the commission and price for options has not come down. that is a strong boost for business interest rates higher means we think schwab earnings will continue to grow it is probably a stock we expect to hit $100 over the next 12 months we like that one again, it has been on a tear it is an interesting examination. we did a study of the 25 stocks

across all of the u.s. that had the most earnest -- excuse me. analyst increase and estimates over the past few months analysts took the numbers higher or took numbers lower. for the first two and a half months of this year, it did not matter stocks went up if they were reopening stocks electric vehicle stocks. ones on the reddit, you know, hot list right now, what we're seeing since martha there's a big impact on if earnings are going higher those stocks respond well. if they are going down, if estimates are going down, those stocks have been off 10% that's what you can look and see if they are moving up or down. if you feel when you look at the stock that the price does not justify where it is because earnings are just negligent for

example. you have to be careful with companies that are not earning today. >> you will not bring up a quantumscape jim cramer talking about the spacs. karen, i have been poking around on vacations hotels and air fares are expensive this summer. i'm thinking amex will benefit bigly? >> yeah. the payment company like american express and visa and paypal get the benefit of more trans transactions consumers have more money. stimulus checks. people working the employment numbers were good interest rates going up. all of the travel is going up for american express it did not have travel for a year no one traveling anyone for a year we think that is an inexpensive

stock here we think the in next two years they will beat the numbers and the stock will move higher. >> yeah. the in-person conferencing karen firestone. have a great day see you later. take care. >> you, too, brian thank you. just like that, it's over. futures are higher on pace for a great start to april. "squawk" and the gang will keep on rolling i'll see you on monday have a spectacular weekend wherever in the world you may be

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good morning stocks in record territory dow closed in record territory dow closed above 34,000 for the

first time we'll show you what's moving this morning right now. some of the biggest movers are cryptocurrency bitcoin is plunging, but dogecoin is soaring. don't ask me why it is not called doggie coin tweets from elon musk and bizarre mention of a ceo on a conference call to spur trading. $35 million market tab. start thinking of your third vaccine shot the ceo of pfizer said a couple of weeks ago an annual booster will probably be needed. it is friday, april 16th, 2021 "squawk box" begins right now.