Transcripts For CNBC Closing Bell 20171208

Wallet hacks all of that isle coming up and more. See how we have to quote two different bitcoins because they trade in multiple places. Next, critics said truckers would not want an electric semi. Weve seen a number of new corporat corporate orders for teslas semitrucks a deeper dive on whats behind those buys. Thats a coo l story. Major biotech conference kicking off this weekend which companies could be big movers come monday after their data released. First to our top story, the november jobs report come inninn better than expected Steve Liesman joins us to break down the numbers. Michelle, this is a good number but o bit of a mystery when it comes to the jobs market the job market never gets tight. Take a look at the numbers, up 228,000. Overall impression from economists we should be slowing down job growth to better equal average hourly wages did not tick up, the Unemployment Rate did not change, neither did the Labor Force Participation right. Heres what ubs said, showed above trend payroll gains stronger than expected but no real indications of further tightening in the overall labor market as unemployment and rates were unchanged on the lack of wage growth, also has the attention of top people at the white house. Were still not growing wages in this country. We do believe that tax reform will help us drive real wage growth in the united states, which is something really important to the administration. Heres where the jobs, education, health services, manufacturing, up 31,000 thats a big number. Construction up 24,000 leisure, hos pi tapitality up 1. Information, 4,000 that shows you jobs growth was widespread economists adding up all the numbers, find the report is slykely l likely to keep the fed on track to its pretty low whats the chances we get a three handle on unemployment, when is the last time that happened essenti it was the early 70s or late 60s, michelle. Wow. There are a lot of people who think its gage oing to happen were at a 17year low if you back back fufurther a people think its not hard for the market to tighten more the interesting question is, michelle, you dont have inflation going along with it yet, you really have very lackluster or modest wage growth. Yeah. By the way, steve, im curious, how is Holiday Hiring going . Actually, pretty good what we looked at, we looked at the numbers from last october and november, to today, and its up 100,000 especially in retail so i see that as a pretty good oman for Holiday Season shopping, because, you know, if youre the retailer, youre going to hire people commensurate with what you expect shoppers to be doing coming in the door, the number of shoppers. At least it shows theyre confident. Thats a pretty good oman for Holiday Season shopping, up 100,000 over the last two months last year. Especially . Some of those jobs can become permanent as well. Steve, thanks very much. Sure. If it means Better Service at the stores. We yeah, we can only hope. Lets get to our closing bell exchange, money signs across the board today pretty good gain for the dow, as a matter of fact, up 91 points keith blitz, senior vice preside president , at post 9 sam, chief investment strategist at sfra, also at post 9. Rick santelli checks in from the cme in chicago keith, volatile week, last couple of weeks no the so much but, you know, weve had tech, tax policy wrangling this market, geopolitics. Next the possibility of a Government Shutdown next week at the fed meeting. I mean, a lot of things for the markets to think about right now. Well, they take those things and like weve seen the last few months they tend to shrug them off. Yes, the Government Shutdown, market goes higher any kind of event around the world, the market goes higher. And i think thats just going to be the direction that were certainly going to have for the last three weeks of the year and into 2018. I think the markets set up very well, the macro data has been very supportive. Again, weve come off a very good earnings week were in unchartered territory when it comes to looking at Technical Analysis and trying to decipher where were going from there. We have no overhead resistance to speak of. As long as things continue to be accommodative, as long as the narrative inside of washington continues to move the right way, youre going to see this needle point higher i would not be surprised at all if we see dow approach 25,000 by the end of the year. Wow, sam, what do you think about that, and is there a risk . Weve been so focused on the tax plan, market has been waiting for it for so long is it possible that we actually sell off only the news when its finally done thats a very good point, you know, the old adage being buy on rumor, sell on fact. I think investors are going to be asking themselves whats the next catalyst, what is it thats going to drive earnings so we see a 15 , 20 increase, rather than the current 11 anticipated by the street . But i think certainly with tax cuts probably behind us by the end of the year, that the focus will go toward information spending, something, again, that the president had campaigned on. And that could end up continuing to support optimism. Rick, youre almost at 94 on the dollar index yields going up. You got the fed meeting next week what are you watching here well, youre right, i mean, the dollar index is up over a penny, but it stopped intraday right at that 94 area, and its backed away a bit. I dont think were going to get the right close. Nonetheless, it was a solid week on interest rates, yeah, theyre up, but not much the 10s and 30s, 10s up two basis points on the week, 30s up one basis point on the week. The short end is down a little bit on the week. That isnt the short end im paying attention to. Shots, closed at minus 70 last week, minus 75 this week boy, i tell you what, thats a tough steepening trade wednesday it has to be accomplished by trading minus 75, and i would continue to Pay Attention to that i thought the data was good. Not only was the jobs data pretty good, but if you look at the nonseasonally adjusted, there was some powerfulnumbers there as well. I tried to cover it all. And in terms of next week, boy, inflation data, retail sales, the fed. But main thing, we have two options on monday, 3s and 10s, tuesdays we have 30s next week is the big hoorah, not only for the event of the fed, but lots of important data and i think how we end up next week will give us many clues as to what type of volatility were going to have for the end of the year real quickly, remember last week, general flynn, everything was going terrible, yesterday a shakeup by the fbi with regard to the investigation none of this none of this seems to have any lasting effect in the marketplace. No key point exactly. Everybody, stay right there bitcoin giving back some of its gains after exploding past dr 19,000 yesterday. This weekend we could see more price swings because Bitcoin Futures will begin trading on the cboe lets bring in bob pisani, he has more details about how this is going to work. Its a big step toward improving the regulation a of bitcoin, which is unregulated right now. Lets take a look whats going on, whats important number one, its going to be three monthly futures contracts, likely january, february and march. Now, probably be very close to the cash price initially for january. It will be cash settled. Thats very important. You dont need to own bitcoin to do this. You can go in, put up the margin requirement which is 30 , youll do all right questions for the future, questions everyones been asking, who are the sellers . Well, we dont know. Likely its going to be bitcoin miners and maybe people who are hedging, people who are long bit koichb but want to sell futures against it maybe some institutional traders. How many firms will participate . We dont know. A lot of the big guys, jf morgans and citis say initially theyre not going to be trading or allowing it to be traded for their clients. Goldman will have limited trading. Sol some of the other guys like retail trades, ameritrade, seem to be sitting it out at least initially. If things go smoothly, i a sure you a lot of people are going to jump in. Historical historically, when you bring in futures contracts with commodities long terming it reduces volatility who knows with bitcoin the bigger issue is the whole regulatory structure because its not really fully regulated. Okay, we have a futures business now that the cftc regulates but the cash markets completely unregulated and the s. E. C. Specifically denied bitcoin etfs on the grounds there was not enough regulation. We dont know if that will be enough for the s. E. C. To let bitcoin etfs go forward. Those intermediaries, all those people who hold the wallets between everybody who owns bitcoin and the actual bitcoin exchanges, themselves, well, theyre another gray area. Heres the bottom line, guys, i dont know if this is going to make it more respectable or not. Its a big step toward getting some kind of regulation over parts of the bitcoin market, and overall, its a big step toward making bitcoin a little more transparent. Or at least parts of it and for that reason, alone, i think its a very important step. Guys, back to you. Bob, you mentione requirements, are they higher for bitcoin compared to other sectors of the market because of the uncertainty you stalked about . Yes some argue it should be higher Thomas Petterfy was on our air yesterday. To trade on his exchange, he wants a 50 margin requirement. Wow. You cant blame him we dont know where this is going to go. If its moving 1 is,000,000 a n hour, margin requirements can get away from you very, very easily prices can get away from you easily. Bob, thanks see you on the close lets ask our panel about this rick, im curious some of the big banks are going to take a wait and see attitude. They want to see how this thing opens and what it does before they participate either as to be Market Makers or otherwise how do you think its going to go you know, a couple of observations, first of all, i traded a lot of corn futures, never really touched a lot of real physical corn so whether you have bitcoin or not, really doesnt matter in terms of shorting it, whos going to short it . Speculators are going to short it theyre champing at the bit. People never owned bitcoin ive talked to are looking to short it as far as regulative versus unregulated, correct me if im wrong, but i dont think Foreign Exchange trading is regulated. And its some of the biggest in the world. But yet theres regulated futures contracts that trade Foreign Exchange so i dont see a problem here. And mr. Petterfy is right, when i was in the brokerage business, if our clients wanted to trade something we tlauthought was rii put them on double or triple margins. Thats the prerogative i think nobody better than the cme understand margin. I dont see a problem there, either rick, a lot of our viewers may not know, you traded gold at some of the most volatile times in golds history during the iran hostage crisis, 7 hurn00 s in a single day. What do you think when people talk about the potential volatility in bitcoin, are they too worried about it, not worried enough you can never worry too much, but listen, back then when you traded gold, it had limits started out at 5, ended up at 50 and there were many times where the cash market was way ahead of where the futures were locked on a limit move because the exchange has control they stopped their trade, they get the money right and the span system at the cme will adjust. The margin to volatility i really dont see an issue. And gold didnt even have options. So gold might have been at 500, but the futures were locked at 450 but yet the system still worked. There was just gap moves where they wsht allerent allowed to participate. The exchanges always got the margin money. Im curious, keith, sam, anybody have an opinion from the equity side here h keith, what do you think well, i was going to say, i was going to agree with rick on all of his points. Ill tick through them quickly let me say this, bit coin and other cryptoconceurrencies are e to stay, becoming a median of Exchange People like to use them. Because theres no intermediaries in between. You simply pay your bitcoin to the person selling you a good or service, nobody clipping a fee in between thats why its there. Its a libertarian type of analysis and response to whats going on with currencies coinbase, by the way, is the most popular app on the apple and google store and theyre opening 300,000 accounts a day you can say thats speculation i think its acceptance of whats happening on the retail side of things heres why i think the futures market is an important first step in what they happen to the cryptocurrencies the big problem gocht governmene now is because its not regulated and fx markets are not regulated as well but the currencies underlying the derivative are in a sense because theyre controlled by the governments. The governments currently dont have any control over bitcoin. This is going to be a real Inflection Point on how the futures of the cbo and cme then translate into potential regulation of the commodity, itself. But, again, i think this is an explosive market were getting dozens of calls daily about how people can participate it its here to stay and will get huge quickly sam, what do you think . Well, i spent the last two weeks preaching the gospel of cfra and the question i constantly got was whats going to happen to bitcoin when you have a chart thats parabolic in nature sooner or later its going to come back down, whats that going to do to the overall market i remind them this is not the tech bubble of 1999 where the technology represented a third of the s p 500s weighting or financials which represented 20 . So i think that when we do have the increased volatility, it will probably end up being much more of a headline event than a bottomline event unless, of course, we find out some masters of the universe like longterm Capital Management ended up getting a little bit too speculative. Always the master of the turn of the phrase. Its more of a headline event than a bottomline evented. I love that. Thank you, all have a great weekend. Okay, you, too. My pleasure. See you later. So back to the equity market the good oldfashioned equity market here. 45 minutes left in the trading session and, again, were going out with positive numbers this week the dow up about 90 points right now. Up next, elon musk promised teslas electric semitruck would be mindblowing, and just weeks after it was unveiled, it appears some minds have, indeed, been blown well bring you up to speed on new orders for musks trucks from some surprising customers. Plus were going to head out to california, get the latest on the massive wildfires that are raging around los angeles and get an update on how costly the destruction has already been and we want to hear from you, you can reach out to the show on twitter, facebook or send us an email, there on screen, you can see all the addresses. Youre watching cnbc, were first in business worldwide. Is the monolithic view of emerging markets obsolete . At pgim, we see alpa in the trends, driving specific sectors of out performance. Where a rising middle class powers a booming auto industry. A leap into the digital era draws youthful populations to mobile banking and ecommerce. Trade and travel surge between emerging markets. Everyday our 1,100 investment professionals around the world search out opportunities for alpha. Partner with pgim, the Global Investment management businesses of prudential. What we do every night is like something out of a strange dream. Except that the next morning. It all makes sense. Fedex powers Global Commerce with vast, farreaching networks. Deep knowledge of industries. And, yes. Maybe a little magic. Anheuserbusch and cisco the latest companies to place orders for teslas electric semitruck ordering 40 and 50 trucks respectively this adding to the growing list of companies preordering including walmart and trucking company, jb hunt yeah, the trucks actually dont go into production until 2019, so can tesla deliver joining us, fred lampert, editor in chief of electrek. Good to see you. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. What do you think, have you seen the prototype they put out there . Yes, i was at the tesla event last month i did see the prototype, and elon musks presentation of the tesla semi and like everyone else, i was pretty much impressed by what this does to offer right now whats so impressive about it why would those companies be ordering this truck so far in advance when its unproven well, right now, fleet operator, they can buy a truck just from a spreadsheet, theyre looking at the economics of the latest semi right now, and based on what the release, does make sense. Now the question is can this actually deliver on those promises so what were seeing right now is a lot of companies betting that they will deliver on it what are the promises does it go faster . Is it more fuel efficient . I mean, what how would it help their bottom line well, the specs right now are mainly what people are interested in is the range, so tesla is promising a 500 mile range on the truck, which would cover about 80 of the routes in the u. S. So most companies are pretty happy with that. But, yes, took advantage of the electric propulsion of the vehicles and leveraged that into the tesla semi to get also pretty impressive performance in term of speed, in term of acceleration and so forth. I dont thinkorder right now theyre looking at the economics. Tesla is promising a 20 , 30 lower cost of operation and even with a much higher price tag, between 150,000 and 200,000 right now, theyre still looking at very good cost savings over the lifetime of the vehicle right now. You know, we all know elon musk is given to hyperbole and with this truck, he says this is the future of trucking is it . It might be if youre to believe everything that he said, its for sure it can be the future of the trucking now right now the big question is can tesla deliver it and deliver it within the timeline of 2019 . And you think they can . Actually, i might be going against the grain here, but i think tesla has a good chance to deliver the tesla semi on time i think people are quick to assume that because historically tesla hasnt delivered a Vehicle Program on time, that future program wont be delivered on time, and to a certain degree, i think its fair, but if you go back and look at the reason why those program werent delivered on time, there are always different reason, if we go back to the roadster or the mobile x or teslas difficulties ramping up production for the model 3, those are all Different Reasons to assume the same reason will apply to the semi, is not good log logic, in my opinion, and i will also note that gulien is the Program Director at tesla right now for the semi and was the model s Program Director and if you look at all of teslas programs, the model s was actually one that was pretty much on time or okay. At least was on time for the tenure as the program you certainly know your production history, quite a lot. Fred, let me ask you this, oftentimes when a product is new, the producer will, to incentivize early orders, get a lot of publicity, maybe the list price isnt actually whats being charged to the firstround buyers is there any chance that thats whats happening here when we see this, i dont want to call it an avalanche of orders but a lot of orders from bigname companies, are they actually putting down the deposits that are required or do you think maybe this is part of teslas marketing to try to prove its going to be a stuck successful c launch well, i think they already proved that already, whats coming in in terms of orders you mentioned the cost of the deposit to put down, have a reservation. At first, tesla was talking about 5,000 per trucks and out of the blue they changed that, increased it to 20,000. So we dont know exactly which companies have to pay which price because some companies have confirmed their orders right after the unveiling and others are just right now still coming in. But if we speculate, it does look like they feel confident enough to increase the the truck right now, that they increased the price of the deposit, yeah. Okay. Fred lambert, thank you, appreciate your insights thank you. On that new cool tesla truck. It does look cool. I wish it would fit in my garage its very cool all right. We got 37 minutes before the closing bell the Dow Jones Industrial average right now is higher by about 85 points still ahead, look out spotify and pandora, youtube is reportedly eyeing a jump in the music streaming business as well in just the next few months. Going to tell you why youtube could be considering the move into the crowded battle for your earbuds. Later, big developments across the pond and it has nothing to do with todays season two premiere of the crown. Well bring you up to speed on the brexit negotiations and the impact it could have on your money. Stay tuned theres so many opinions out there, its hard to make sense of it all. Well, victor, do you have something for him . Check this out. Td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. That way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. Huh. Feel better . Much better. Yeah, me too. Wow, you really did a number on this thing. Sorry about that. Thats alright. I got a box of em. Thousands of opinions. One estimate. The earnings tool from td ameritrade. Look at what its doing today, weaker after months after deadlo deadlock, britain and the European Union truck a lastminute agreement that will allow them to continue negotiations on brexit the agreement says there will be no hard border which would have meant border checks being reintroduced to monitor movement between Northern Ireland and the republic of ireland. A contentious issue that could have made it difficult to reach a final divorce by march of 2019 eus chief brexit goenegotiator says the progress achieved today is sufficient to move on to the next phase of talks about the british exit from the eu the british pound trading at 1. 33, 1. 34 right now. I think the eu blinked bigtime the talk has long been they were going to play hardball with the uk on this because they didnt want to set a precedent for other countries that might consider exiting at the same someti time thi they wanted it make it so onerous for them to leave that other countries would think twice about that the hard border was going to be a deal breaker, yes, but theyre giving on that and the rights of eu citizens in the uk, and uk citizens in the eu theyre protecting their rights as well. Which i find another blink on the part of the eu. It could have it may have to do with british politics and theresa may having a fragile government here at this point, and them being worried about what would happen destabilization. If they had to do another round of elections and what that would mean. Well, still, though, i think its very Interesting Development there. Back here in the u. S. , lets turn to Southern California, wildfire s continue to rage fro los angeles to san diego cnbcs aditi roy is live near the thomas fire in ventura, california aditi, whats the latest reporter hi there, michelle, thats right, were in Ventura County which is an hour northwest of los angeles its really born the brunt of the biggest wildfire in the neighborhood a lot of homes look like this, reduced to rubble. A lot of cars here that are complete just shells right now right now theres six wildfires raging throughout the state 28,000 homes are threatened. 500 structures destroyed and as those damage estimates are coming in, so are reconstruction estimates core lodger coming out with numbers today saying 86,000 h e homes in Southern California are at risk for the wildfires, combined reconstruction cost value of nearly 28 billion. This as some local businesses are also try ing to marn ing tie wake of evacuations. We dont have that business right now, but we do have the business of people coming in that need that spot. So are we making as much money probably not reporter she was an owner of assistant manager at a local bar and they say that their business has really been affected that their staff has been cut in half because most of them are displaced, themselves. All of this as there are some new numbers coming out from the california Insurance Commissioners office. Just this week, they came out with the totals of insurance claims that have been filed so far in the wine country fires from just a couple of months ago. Those totals right now are 9. 5 billion. So a big number and who knows what these estimates will turn out to be. Back to you guys yeah, bigger. Aditi, thank you see you later. Were on the half hour time for a cnbc news update with sue herera hashl hey, sue. Hello, bill, hello, michelle. Heres whats happening at this hour Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton says hell announce his choice to fill Al Frankens Senate seat within days. He didnt tip his hand to reporters, though, saying there are a number of good candidates. Im in the process, i said before, i wont have any comments to make on it until i have an announcement to make which will be a couple of days so were moving through it thats where im going to leave it for now. Sexual harassment allegations swirl against Hedge Fund Titan sam isley, eaton vance is reviewing its relationship with the fund hes the founder of orbimed advisers hes denied allegations brought by six former employees. Japanese baseball jar otani agreed to sign with the Los Angeles Angels agent confirming the 23yearold will play in l. A. As both a pitcher and hitter during his five years in pro ball in japan, he won 42 games while hitting 48 home runs its a big one for l. A thats the news update this hour michelle, bill, ill send it back downtown to you. All right thank you very much, sue were here on the floor with kenny of oneal securities before we get to the last half hour or trade, sunday night, going to be locked into the computer to see how bitcoin 2350u67s are trade i futures are trading . I think you to. I have no skin in the game, other than watching what happens. Good for bitcoin, bad for bitcoin, eases volatility, any thought thoughts im not so sure it eases or creates volatility in the stock market at all. I think it will create volatility in the stock market if all of a sudden it starts to collapse and you get big margin calls which i think potentially could be an issue, would create volatility in the stock market i do think theres money moving out of maybe gold and maybe some of the other assets. People all of a sudden have this fear of missing out. If it starts to clapollapse, yor going to see it turn quickly might create some volatility in the market but in and of itself, no. All right what about the last half hour here, what do you think . Its a little bit to sell at moment theres not a whole lot of pressure on the market look, were up ten points. Everyones very happy about kind of the negotiationi ingoing on tax and ability to continue to deduct state taxes in blue states where were getting hit hard thats a very positive development. So i think the market feels like as we move into the end of the year the santa claus rally is going to continue a. M. Lthough i think were at the top, not going to go much higher from here going to trade and close right near the highs of the year right about where we are unemployment number didnt seem too no, but it didnt, but i got to tell you, the end of the year, veveryone kind of expecte it, expected the number to be better i think the reaction was all about d. C. Happy friday, kenny. And to you. Bill, back to you. All right, guys, thank you. Still ahead, shares of Biotech Company Sage Therapeutics getting another boost today after climbing 70 yesterday during the session still ahead, well tell you what the ceo just said on cnbc about his companys breakout move. And well take a look at big biotech catalyst coming up next week as well. Plus the nasdaq is up for its Third Straight day helped along we strength in technology. After that same group saw a big dip earlier in the week. Should you stick with tech into the end of theea yr . A debate still ahead on closing bell. music plays throughout we are the driven. The dedicated. The overachievers. We know our best investment is in ourselves. We dont take no for an answer. We fight for what we want. Even for the things that were once a given. Going to college. Buying a home. And not being in debt for it for the rest of our lives. But were only as strong as our community. Who inspires and pushes us to go further than we could ever go alone. Sofi. Get there sooner. Theres the heat map of the dow. The dow is up about 83 points. At the very top, microsoft doing quite well the very worst, down at the right looks like coca cola. I was going to say my glasses, i need my glasses. I have good distance sight, i just cant see up close. Lower by 1. 5 microsoft, unh, verizon and merck at the top of the chain right now. Meantime, youtube is reportedly going to announce a new subscription Music Service in march the new service which internally is referred to as remix would include spotifylike ondemand streaming and it would also incorporate elements like youtubelike video clips reports say that warner music has already signed on and youtube is in talks with sony, universal music group, and merlin about the service as well kind of late dont you think . So youve already provided it free, so to get people to pay is pretty tough to make that transition they already have youtube music. I dont quite get the differentiation. Maybe it will become apparent once they launch im not convinced. So many choices out there. A very smart person, if she thinks its a good idea, well see if he can work out there. 23 minutes left in the trading session here as we head to the close the dow finishing the week positive up 87 points right now a major biotech conference kicks off this weekend well tell you which stocks to watch for on that. And still ahead, the first wall street analyst to cover bitcoin more than four years ago hi ts us to discuss whats bendhe current bitcoin blitz. And respond 60 times faster. It lets you know where your data lives, down to the very server. It keeps your insights from prying eyes, so theyre used by no one else but you. It. Is. The cloud. The ibm cloud. The cloud thats designed for your data. Ai ready. Secure to the core. The ibm cloud is the cloud for business. Yours. Right in the heart of the was in his financial crisis, and saw his portfolio drop by double digits. It really scared him out of the markets. His advisor ran the numbers and showed that he wouldnt be able to retire until he was 68. The client realized, i need to get back into the markets i need to get back on track with my plan. The Financial Advisor was able to work with this client. Hes now on track to retire when hes 65. Having someone coach you through it is really the value of a Financial Advisor. Some moments can change everything. You cant always predict them, but you can game plan for them. For 150 years, generations of families have chosen pacific life for retirement and Life Insurance solutions to help them reach their goals. Being ready for wherever life leads. Thats the power of pacific. Ask a Financial Advisor about pacific life. Your bbut as you get older,ing. It naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. Thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. The secret is an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Markets higher going out for the close this week with a gain of 84 points on the dow. Lets see. And im trying to see who has the best gain percentage wise. The s p does up almost 11 points now at 2,647 good jobs number helped things this morning as well. Alexion pharmaceuticals higher, the New York Times report that elliot management is looking for a change, elliot built a stake in alexion and could end up initiating a proxy fight if the Company Fails to offer more aggressive guidance or considers Strategic Alternatives such as a sale. That stock as you can see up almost 7 right now. Shares of Sage Therapeutics, theyre up again today remember, they had a monster move yesterday now higher by another 6 cnbcs meg tirrell spoke with the companys ceo earlier this afternoon about this big drug data that they had. Thats right, michelle, sage soared 70 yesterday on positive data for its experimental drug for depression you asked yesterday about how the drug makes patients feel, what does it mean to have a dramatic drop in depression scores heres how sages ceo dr. Jeff jonas answered the question today. Is trained psychopharmacologist i dont think ive ever seen date to this dramatic in a midstage trial. So the hope for this is a rapidly acting drug that gets patients better, where you can tell theyre Getting Better within a day or two then you see a remission in nearly twothirds wall streets excitement over that drugs potential is fueling other biotechs as well notably a large ipo this morning of denali therapeutics, raising 250 million to fund its work on brain diseases amassing a market value of 1. 7 billion. Making it the largest biotech ipo of this year and investors are hoping that momentum will continue into this weekend for the American Society of hematology conference happening down in atlanta. Theres a lot of excitement about gene therapies, seeking to potentially cure blood diseases with just one treatment. Keep an eye on Spark Therapeutics, biomarin and bluebird bio in that space new form of immunotherapy, investors will be watching novartis, gilead and juneau therapeutics well have many of the Companies Ceos on monday including on closing bell, Spark Therapeutics Jeff Marrazzo i can imagine on the Sage Therapeutics drug youre going to have to take that forever were not talking about a cure that you take then youre cured of depression and you dont have to take it anymore, right . Thats a really good question, bill, of course its yet to be seen this is a short trial in 89 patients jeff jonas, the ceo, is talking about potentially the ability to take it for a short period of time. Wow. Like an antibiotic he was quoted in one story today, if patients depression comes back, they can start taking it again all the questions will have to be answered in larger and longer clinical trials. Thats amazing. Wow you think of current antidepressant treatments, you have to be on them forever. Exactly its a chemical imbalance theyre adjusting at that point. Thats amazing. Cool stuff, meg, thanks. Thanks, meg see you monday then. Coming in march, by the way, cnbc will host its inaugural healthy returns conference, special event featuring top ceos, newsmakers, investors and entrepreneurs about the business of health care for more information and tickets, go to cnbc. Com healt cnbc. Com healthyreturns. All right. We have 16 minutes before the closing bell Dow Jones Industrial average higher by 88 points. The s p 500 higher by about 11 1 2. Tough times for tech the last few weeks with that sector seeing big declines across the board before a bit of a rebound just the raft few days here. A bull bear debate on tech on whether you should be buying whether you should be buying that sector into real estate such as ecommerce warehouses. And private debt to finance transportation and infrastructure. Building blocks of strategies to pursue consistent returns over time from over 120 billion dollars in real assets. Partner with pgim. The Global Investment management businesses of prudential. Your new brotherinlaw. You like him. Hes one of those guys who always smells good. His 5 oclock shadow is always at 5 oclock. You like him. Your mom says hes done really well for himself. He has stocks and bonds. Your dad wants to go fishing with him. Your dad doesnt even like fishing. You like your brotherinlaw. But youd like him better if you made more money than he does. Dont get mad at your brotherinlaw. Get e trade. As we mentioned, tech has had a tough few weeks as you probably know. Down about 1. 5 in the last month or so. Some say the sector could be the least likely to benefit from anticipated tax reform that would be one of the reasons why. As tech tries to get back on solid ground, should investors stick to growth names or not joining us now to discuss, Chris Johnson from Johnson Research group, and max wolf from Disruptive Technology advisers max, weigh in here, what would you do right now with this sector yes, so i would be running toward tech. I do think the Tech Companies, their employees, Balance Sheets are all located in the higher tax states were waiting to see how much relief comes there with federal versus state were also seeing a situation here where some of the provisions of the new bill are not super friendly to the universities which are very, very important to the Tech Infrastructure additionally, these companies have had some trouble in the markets the last week or two had fabulous years, up 40 or more i dont see the need to run toward them. I think theres more risk and reward plus a lot of folks are Holding Winners because they want that lower tax regime for 2018 okay. So were calling you our bear. Chris, youre our bull in this segment. Why . Well, i look at the seasonality right now, bill, when you look at december, month of december over the last 20 years, nasdaq 100s only beat the Dow Jones Industrial average 30 of the time and when it does, its basically flat. I mean, its 0. 0 return when you look forward to january, 68 of the time the nasdaq 100 beats the s p 500 and the dow by more than 2 . This is a seasonality effect right now on stocks. A lot of people looking at it and trying to compare it with the tax situation. But the bottom line is you got a lot of stocks here that are up 50 to 100 in the case of nvidia and some other companies, profit taking right now. You got Portfolio Managers taking money, putting it into lower volatility stocks, trying to wait until the yearend print of those statements. Youre going to see money flow back into technology after the 1st of the year. It max, a lot of folks were talking about the tax bill and the Tech Companies because they have so much cash overseas, theres going to be a one time much lower rate on that money. They dont even have to physically repatriate it theyre going to m pay it once, the money can stay wherever it is if we go to a territorial system those are huge numbers for Companies Like microsoft, apple, et cetera. A lot of people think they cowell do big transformative deals once that money is, quote, you know, unlocked its unambiguous to give to them to be able to repatriate money and do it at a rate thats not too likely to dent the Balance Sheet assumption that said, theyve been doing offerly well borrowing most will anticipate greater growth offshore. Some are nervous about the temporary versus permanent and corporate alternative minimum tax provisions as well as shifts in tax law globally. So while they can do it, its not so clear to us that they will do it, that theyll do it in a way thats really meaningfully constructive in the short term i do think this year is a little different given the size of the tax revamp we expect and the near certainty that we get some kind of major alteration to the rules of the road coming right after the heels there on new years eve. And chris, along those lines, the repatriation tax aside, you know, a lot of people feel like the Silicon Valley will be a region that doesnt benefit from tax reform as much as other industries would and thats another reason why theyve been selling off here. What do you think . No, i think its going to go the other way right now, bill. Theres a huge question around the taxes. I think what we really need to look at when youre looking at fundamentals and taxes and such, look at whats going on right now . The industries especially the Semiconductor Stocks theres a lot of innovation right now, bill. If we get to repat rriate a lotf the money, youre going to see companies reinvesting it into those innovations now. Forget about the fact theres going to be this skepticism if they do repatriate that money and dont reinvest it, theres going to be a huge outcry if that loophole kind of opens up youre going to see a lot of Companies Take advantage of it, if anything, just to look good right now in the eyes of the united states. But theyre really going to put that money to work i think youll see Silicon Valley in these other areas benefit from it. All right Chris Johnson, max wolf, always good to see you both thank you for joining us. Thank you. See you later. Thanks. We have a news alert on broadcoms takeover attempt of cnbc. Coms Technology Reporter alex sherman just broke this story. Joins us with details. Alex breaking news, google and microsoft had a private conversation or series of conversations with qualcomm expressing concerns with a broadcom takeover. Couple reasons here, number one, broadcom pretty tight with apple. Of course, anything good for apple may be not so good for both microsoft and google. So some concern there. Secondly, broadcom has a reputation for cutting costs more than investing in chips or at least many people on wall street certainly agree with that expectation. So a lot of concern with both microsoft and google from that point. Just because they want qualcomm to be an indent company, pumping investment money into, 5g technology both of these companies not the biggest clients, customers of qualcomm or broadcom, for that matter, but obviously Major Players in the Technology Industry yeah, ive read a couple of blog posts from deep techies online who are worried about the future of innovation in qualcomm under a takeover that they feel like this Company Really has done tremendous things, and that maybe some of the r d money will be stripped away yeah, i think its a major concern. Its obviously well see what happens here over the next few weeks between apple and broadcom, if, in fact, that relationship is so tight, will be interesting to see if something is put forward saying from broadcoms standpoint saying they reached maybe some sort of tentative deal with apple, if, in fact, they were to go forward and acquire qualcomm. Interesting to note here, though, qualcomm actually told microsoft and google dont say anything publicly yet, wait for us to tell you to go forward and Say Something publicly why are they doing that . Well, they dont want to close the door all together on a broadcom deal if, in fact, broadcom comes out and really boosts its offer. Yep well, too late alex, thanks thank you. Cnbc. Coms alex sherman with that breaking news the dow is up 97 points were coming down with the closing countdown in a moment. After the bell, Bitcoin Futures are going to launch this weekend. Many on wall street now warning of a bubble in bitcoin really . Yeah. I could barely spit it out coming up, were going to talk about what other Digital Currencies could be next eprit here youre watching cnbc, were first in business worldwide. I think we should do that meeting tomorrow. Well wait. What did you think about her . Its definitely a new idea, but theres no business track record. Well, have you seen her work . No. Is it good . Good . At cognizant, were helping todays leading banks make better lending decisions with new sources of data so, multiply that by her followers, speaking engagements, work experience. Credit history. That more accurately assess a business chances of success. This is a good investment. Shes a good investment. Get ready, because were helping leading companies see it and see it throughwith digital. Show of hands. Lets get started. Who wants customizable options chains . Ones that make it fast and easy to analyze and take action . How about some of the lowest options fees . Are you raising your hand . Good then its time for power e trade the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. Alright one quick game of rock, paper, scissors. 1, 2, 3, go. E trade. The original place to invest online. About three minutes left in the trading session here, looks like were going to come out on the highs of the day or just about there on the dow on ending what has been a pretty volatile week but all in all, pretty positive week for the markets we started the week with a lot of volatility on the passage of the senates tax bill, now the negotiations seem to be progressing with the house so that seems to be okay there will be no Government Shutdown at least for the next two weeks. So they can relax and exhale about that next week is the fed meeting we think we got that figured out. Theres going to be a quarterpoint hike by the fed next week. All these things, we think we have figured out so were going out positive with a gain of about 99 points. Big gainer for the week, Sage Therapeutics weve been talking about that for the past couple of days now with the really positive results so far on that depression drug up another 7 today. But for the week, 76 gain for Sage Therapeutics. Mattel, one of the big decliners down about 13 for the week. The twoyear note, the yield keeps going up here. As we get ready for that fed meeting next week, and were going out with the yield around 1. 79 . Wti oil now that opec thinks theyre going to keep the production cuts in place until the end of next year, volatility continues because of the inventory numbers and the amount that the u. S. Producers are still bringing out, but were at 5,738 on wti Rick Santelli keeps pointing out, bob pisani, the dollar index, hes watching that like a hawk this week, a stairstep rise. Were almost to 94 which is the number hes watching as an Inflection Point for the dollar index. The dollar has been weaker recently so were going out, looks like a new high for the s p, 2,647 was the old high another historic high. A lot of things have gone right this week. We got better than expected japan gdp data, goty great chine data china numbers, China Economy holding in there progress on the brexit talks. Right. We had decent numbers today on the jobs numbers. And fair wage Growth Numbers overall. The bottom line is our story, you and i keep talking about, the slow expansion of the global economy. That story very much intact today. We saw Global Markets up around the world on this kind of economic news. So here we are again of course, next week well find out what the Federal Reserve is going to be doing. As if we didnt know. As if it we didnt know but the markets, look, the market wants two rate hikes next year and heaven knows if they can handle four. I think its a very legitimate question if anything can stop the market, its a sudden aggressive fed thats the one thing people really fear. Going out with plus signs across the board for the major averages to finish up this week a lot to get to, to talk about for next week. What about those Bitcoin Futures that start trading sunday night . Well talk about that coming up here welcome to the closing bell, im Michelle Carusocabrera in for kelly evans. Bill is coming back to the desk. Heres how were finishing the day on wall street Dow Jones Industrial average, s p and nasdaq all in positive territory along with the russell 2000 dow at 24,329. S p 500 at 2,651, thats a new alltime closing high. The last one was 2,647 the nasdaq also in positive territory. 6,840. The russell 2000 at 1,521. Bitcoin coming back down to earth today trading at now, we got a were showing the u. S. Dollar bit stamp already. It was at 19,000 yesterday coming up, one of the first strategists on the street to take note of the cryptocurrency, we mean, like, four years ago is going to join us to discuss the launch of the cboes Bitcoin Futures that start this sunday night. Discuss whether or not bitcoin is a buy or a bubble joining us today, cnbc senior markets commentator mike santoli. And also cnbc contributor evan newmark. Hi, guys showed the folks who the biggest winners for the week were. Boeing had a stellar year, also having a strong week biggest loser was intel. Boeing higher by another 5 this week intel lower by a little more than 2 . As for the s p 500, devita led the week remember, theyre getting taken over mattel trailed behind. Behind 10 , 11 , davita. What do you make of the market moves this week, mr. Santelli . The years trends kind of reasserted themselves over the course of the week that one monday stomachen, we thought it was going to be of a consequence. Open en the opened up with a sugar h on monday. Now it inched its way back it seems as if just the seasonal strength maybe is going to donn monday is going to be overall, as you guys were talking about, bill, the general backdrop remains undisturbed in terms of the fundamentals and also just the resilience of the tape we think we got everything figured at right now, havent taxes making progress all good which usually means its going to end up bad i would say the only thing that does concern me is something we talked about for weeks now, santoli wrote a very good piece, i would advise those of you to go to the cnbc website to read it. Wow, you want something. Well, its the flat yield curve and mike told me, again, if you read it, not to worry about that so you shouldnt worry about not yet. Not yet so thats the only thing that can i consider a cause for concern is the fact that if everything is going so well in the world, like it appears to be, then the yield curve should be steeper than it is but its not. But mikes told me not to worry about it im not going to worry anymore. Theres demand for longterm debt, right . This is what we hear, Pension Funds all over the world want to match their liabilities. Theyre willing to suck up those awful, awful yields. It doesnt convince me they can ever pay their premiums or retirement promises they plamade but they buy the stuff. Yields are awful overseas right exactly. I understand the arguments and, again, i read mikes piece very carefully. How much of a gap is there supposed to be between our government and a german government, its already twofold percentage points. I understand. Just as an individual investor if you say to me, evan, you can have a two year piece of paper or two to three years where youre getting almost 2 or go out 30 years and get 2. 6 or 2. 7 to me i go why would i want to go out that long what are people afraid of is what i always ask, right why wouldnt you buy the stock that the underlying asset can appreciate more, especially if the yield i think thats the whole point, you mentioned the Pension Funds, the Insurance Companies who essentially theres a scarcity of, quote, safe yield in the world and price incentive buyers and the argument is, therefore, theres a little bit li less information content in the 10 year, 30 year bond yield than there might otherwise be because you have this steady bid. To that point, the jobs numbers today, the fact that wage growth has basically been muted for several years now, i think if you think theres going to be a resurgence in inflation, it aint coming from wages or doesnt appear that way. Once again, newmark jumps the gun because sorry about that. I was suppose td to mentin the november jobs data, unemployment, 4. 1 , nonfarm payrolls showed a gain of 228,000 for the month. Wage growth was less than expected or hoped for, i guess we can say and thats the last jobs report for the year and before next weeks fed meeting as well and theres no reason to believe that its going to derail the expected rate increase next year. No, stays on autopilot, you dont have to kind of grab the control the . You if youre the fed at this point. In terms of what people thought might be possible with another 200,000plus jobs. But 2. 5 wage growth, average Hourly Earnings year over year, its not great but its not nothing. Its slightly ahead, believe it or not, of measured consumer inflation. Therefore, you know, slightly, you know, ahead of the cost i think were wringing our hands over nothing on that you know, can you imagine a decade ago even 20 years ago a fed worrying about low inflation . They want higher inflation i think theres some element to that, but if you look at i dont want to be jumping ahead no, no, youre fine whatever you want to say here. If you rook at tlook at tax underlying idea behind tax reform is supposed to be job and wage growth. Job growth doesnt seem to be a problem. Its totally unclear how you ge wage growth with the underlying tax package. So its a conundrum i dont think is going to be solved by the tax reform the argument is that unemployment is so low, if you give this big boost to the bottom line, if some of it its going to buybacks, some of it is going to investment, youre also going to compete for workers thats been the same argument for the last two years, weve seen no real wage growth. But we have all these people coming back into the labor market because the Participation Rate has been so low. The longer and hotter you run the economy, the more effect is likely to have an wages ultimately its not like its never going to kick in just a matter of whether thats the appropriate thing for this point in the cycle all right microsoft, the big tech standout, evercore isi out with a note saying the tech giant could reach a 1 trillion market cap by 2020 or sooner. Citing the growth of Microsofts Office business. The analysts raising their price target to 106 a share from 93. Microsofts current market cap is 650 billion. Only trading at 84 bucks we all debate who, what company is going to be the first trillion dollar market cap. That one or amazon, right or apple. Or both. Or alphabet, for that matter. Right. Its funny, its tough to see a world where microsoft goes up more than 50 in 3 years and those other companies are left behind entirely. So if you really cared about the race to 1 trillion, you might think that one of the other ones might have a better regular like alba fbet, frankly, if not apple its a fun little gamg game. The problem i have with the the analyst note analysts come up with the 1 trillion number like analysts come up with these bitcoin numbers because they grab the viewers you were talking about 1 trillion for microsoft. He threw is out there. I dont think he probably believes im sure he did very deep analysis, spreadsheet. Its not a heroic rate of annual return. Its nice but its not its a red herring, the 1 trillion number. I do think theres maybe a number. Its right. On the other hand its a much higher number than where it is now, right . You have this company that defines mature tech, right yes. Its been public for over 30 years. It was started 40 years ago. We watched it be could still be the first thats interesting on that level. That would be poetic justice if it becomes the first one, right . Meantime, honeywell announced an 8 billion share buyback. This adds to the growing list of other companies that have been announcing buybacks this week b of a, home depot, United Health care, anthem and msg. But new data says buybacks are down 10 compared to last year, so are we imagining this just seems like theyre all rushirush ing before the end of the year or before tax reform passes or something. Were getting another a spate of buybacks. Part of it is seasonal. Part of it is this is what Big Companies do now theres always an allocation to buybacks i would seize on home depot right there. Home depot in the last 12 years has bought back, shrunk the number of shares by a billion. Okay its now so essentially they really bought in, like, 40 of the company. Others have just skibd kind of g to keep up with the issuance of stock i think its just the way Mature Companies deal with their capital structure right now. And so i dont know that its a matter of a rush before tax reform but if you actually think youre going to have money coming back unencumbered from overseas, sure, that goes into the pot. What is going to get a company to create jobs or build a factory or, you know, do something with the money other than buyback whats going to change i think you raise an important point that im sure well talk about later on tax reform its the incentive for most ceos right now is going to be to raise their eps by buying back shares its not clear unless theres underlying demand growth, underlying wage growth, theres underlying Good Business conditions that youre going to get what you want from the tax reform now no, no which comes first if you build it, will they come . Access to capital has not been a problem for americas large corporations over the last five years it just hasnt been. Right. Its the tax reform is solving something that has not been a problem for large u. S. Companies. Just hasnt been. The expensing could help, but, you know. All right key member of trumps president Trumps National Security Team is leaving eamon javers is at the white house. Hes got the latest details. Eamon . Reporter yeah, its deputy National Security adviser dina powell whos going to be stepping out of the Administration Come january, say white house officials. They say this was a longplanned maneuver they say she will be here until about the oneyear mark. Heres the statement from sarah sanders. The White House Press secretary just out within the hour saying, dina powell has been a key trusted adviser in this administration shes always planned to serve one year before returning home to new york where she will continue to support the president s agenda and work on middle east policy she will serve in the administration until early next year. We talked to an Administration Official here a little while ago who said not to expect dina powell to be replaced sort of on a oneforone basis. Her position was for her unique skill set, they say, particul particularly her relationship with the trump family. We might not get a person put in exactly that slot. Another person told medina powell did, in fact, support the president s decision on jerusalem yesterday, pushing back on speculation around town maybe she disagreed with the president on jerusalem and the announcement came today she was leaving. They say she, in fact, supported the president and the two things are entirely unkeblgconnected. Back over to you. Okay. Thanks, eamon. Reporter yep. Thanks, eamon oneyear mark, you often see a lot of turnover. Is there something bigger here its proebl to otential to be expected this is an administration full of people that are wealthy, have other job prospects, not career politicians. Once tax reform goes, i have no particular insight, there will be other people who will leave, gary cohn. That was their Mission Going in to achieve that. Well, you know, i think for a lot of people, especially who are not of a political bent, they go into it, see how it is a year from now, do you really, you know you can put on your there for a little over a year, you can move on. Nobody wants to hang around for the midterm elections if theres nothing special. The whole story about sticking around for a year so you can claimant the t the tax thats not true. A news alert on apple. Josh lipton has the details. Josh michelle, news on apples johnny ive, companys chief design officer, jony ive responsible for all design in apple, hardware, user interface. Hes going to be taking back daytoday management of that design team. You recall he stepped back from that kind of daytoday role in 2015 in part so that he could focus his time and effort on apples new corporate campus, apple port now apples telling cnbc in a statement with the completion of apple park, apples design leaders and teams are again reporting directly to jony ive who remains focused purely on design. This news means that as well apples two vps of design, who had been reporting to ceo tim cook, theyll now report directly to sir jony ive guys, back to you. Lefs busines he was busy wore buildings. He couldnt focus on products its a big office building. Its a campus. I get that, but, i mean, you never want to hear that your customerfacing guy is working on the internal building. Thats why my batterys doing so poorly. No, no, thats not design. Revolution now, not evolution from apple maybe were just overthinking it. Maybe as you know, bitcoin has been on fire he said stating the obvious. The cryptocurrency up nearly 2,000 this year when we come back, the first wall street analyst to cover bitcoin tells us why the futures launch this weekend could actually draw more hackers to digital wallets. Plus, congress is trying to work on a tax reform compromise, send a bill to President Trumps desk coming up, were going to hear from the ceo of one Energy Company whos been a big republican donor but is less than happy with the gops current legislative plans. [ click ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. Talwifiso if you cantsee why welive without it. T it. Re. Why arent you using this guy . It makes your wifi awesomely fast. No. Still nope. Now were talking it gets you wifi here, here, and here. It even lets you take a time out. No no yes yes, indeed. Amazing speed, coverage and control. All with an xfi gateway. Find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. Bitcoin has had quite the week up almost 40 the huge run coming ahead of the futures launch this sunday in chicago. And as investors continue to pile in, the skeptics do remain. Jac jamie dimon has not changed h his view on the cryptocurrency during an exclusive today, he told our wilfred frost, look, everyone has a personal opinion about bitcoin said jamie dimon and i remain highly skeptical of it. As i said previously, im open minded to uses of cryptocurrencies if properly controlled and regulated. Remember back on september 12th, when bitcoin was below 4,200, jamie dimon called it a fraud. A month later on october 13th, the price around 1,5,600, he reiterated if youre stupid enough to buy, youll pay the price one day. Governments, this is not a technological statement, governments are going to crush it one day good to have you here. Thank you the big event this weekend, futures, starting to trade on sunday, we talk the about whether that adds legitimacy, is it going to increase volatility in bitcoin, reduce it, what are your thoughts about this moment . Is it important . It is really important. Why its important because obviously it does add legitimacy having a big exchange recognize it as an asset to trade. Thats great on the downside, theres never been an easy way to short bitcoin. So most of the hacks that youve seen over the years, wallets, exchanges, whatever, have been to push bitcoins price down temp raoraril temporarily, buy some of them profit on the rebound. You have a Sustainable Way to short it my worry is over the next week or two, were going to see a lot more attention from hackers on all these wallets and exchanges. The bitcoin ecosystem. That will put some worry into holders of the asset. Theyre going to try to hack these places because they want to drive the price down, they want to drive uncertainty into the quality of the underlying asset. Thats right. Because theyre going to be playing within the futures market and trying to make money there . Yep that is the danger of attaching a very established asset type like futures to the wild west which is the bit coin ecosystem. That i think is what a lot of market observers, particularly in the futures market, are really worried about and rightly so. Nick, i wonder what you think about the kind of multiple nature of bitcoin, right as a sort of transactional currency, potentially, but also as an at these prices, its mostly an asset, in fact, youre hearing people dont want to actually spend it because its too valuable to hold and the wait times for settlements and the cost of a transaction are up so does that undermine it and does it get undermined by if we hear that the north korean regime is profiting from it . I mean, im trying to wonder how the story might get some holes in it. Yeah, look, to me, the central comp to bitcoin is 100 bills. Theres 1. 1 trillion worth of 100 bills in the world. Theres only about 250 billion of bitcoin they serve a lot of the same function as you said, a store of value, and ways for people who dont live in developed economies to put money aside that their bank, their government, their regime, cant touch. Just like 100 bills and based on that comp, bitcoin probably has a long way to go because it leaves a very wide gap. Nick, its evan let me ask about this notion of the crypto in the cryptocurrency if you take out money laundering, tax evasion, if you take out the crypto, from the currency, does the currency have any value . It does because the crypto part of it is what keeps it secure lets go back to the 100 bill example. How many forged counterfeit 100 bills are there . Probably as many as legitimate ones theres never been a counterfeited bitcoin and probably never will be because of that crypto feature you talked about. Jamie dimon says governments will eventually crush bitcoin. Would that are they going to try and regulate it at some point . Should they, and if they did, what would lap there already is regulation, for example, in the states if youd like to buy bitcoin in the states, you have to go through a wallet which is in most states is a money agent by regulation so, for example, coinbase here in new york is allowed to operate because its registered as vr as a regulated entity. The funny thing about bitcoin, its truly global. Youd have to have one coordinated regulatory body for the entire world if that happened, what would happen then you probably dont have much of an asset left because that regulation would push down the price because it would lose some of its allure. My understanding is theres going to be thousands of scric t cryptocurren cryptocurrencies if youre going to ease transactions with your customers, youre going to have your own Blockchain Technology there there are going are going of blockchains, isnt that dilutive to the underlying value of bitcoin, isnt this the first iteration i mean, theres no control on the supply. Why should i buy that one when theres going to be so many more yes, its a fascinating question it comes back down to how much does first mover advantage give a Technology Depends on a bunch of fundamental factors. Its clear in the case of bitcoin so far, it has given it a really significant first mover advantage. Both in terms of adoption and obviously in terms of the price increase over time, no doubt youll see other similar assets also rise in value see, i think it would be just the opposite because technology leapfrogs, right the First Technology is not the best technology. Youre always waiting for the next best thing. But there is also the Network Effect in terms of first mover technologies so the Network Effect can help you bridge some of that, but youre absolutely right. Like facebook. Exactly you get the next level of growth and next level of technology and the next cryptocurrency might be the one that really wins. Wait, myspace is it myspace or facebook that is a great question. Nick of data tech research, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it very much. Coming up next, were going to head live to california for the latest on the fires dech sta devastating Southern California and potential Economic Impact theyre having. Jack in the box on the verge of selling qdoba mexican change to apollo. Well have details and look at what apollo might have in store for the chipotle rival when we come back. What are the ingredients of a life well lived . Is it the places you go . The things you own . Or the people that fill it with meaning . For 150 years, generations of families have chosen pacific life for retirement and Life Insurance solutions. Protecting whats most important to you. Thats the power of pacific. Ask a Financial Advisor about pacific life. Their leadership is instinctive. Theyre experts in things you havent heard of researchers of technologies that one day, you will. Some call them the best of the best. Some call them veterans. We call them our team. Ronoh really . Gs going on at schwab. Thank you clients . Well jd power did just rank them highest in Investor Satisfaction with full Service Brokerage firms. Again. And online equity trades are only 4. 95. I mean you cant have low cost and be full service. Its impossible. Its like having your cake and eating it too. Ask your broker if they offer awardwinning full service and low costs. How am i going to explain this . If you dont like their answer, ask again at schwab. Schwab, a modern approach to Wealth Management. Firefighters continue to battle those blazes near los angeles which are causing enormous damage throughout Southern California. Aditi roy following the fires still as she joins us from ventura with the latest. Adi aditi . Reporter hi there, bill. We have spent the entire day here since early in the morning in this Ventura County neighborhood that was so impacted by it one of the things that really strikes us is how there are homes like this one that are virtually untouched by the fire, and yet right next door to it, look at this one, just turned to rubble you cant even make out the fact theres a home right next door to here. Thats what were seeing its really struck by that this as heading into the weekend the fires are still raging on. Six of them total throughout the state right now. 28,000 homes will affected are threatened right now 500 structures destroyed and 190,000 people are evacuated we want to give you some perspective of what this neighborhood looks like. In a big picture level so we took a drive around and captured what we saw again, we noticed entire blocks of homes that were burned down, then there will be one standing. The flames were really surgical as they tore through we also noticed great data thats coming out thats showing the real Economic Impact to some of these neighborhoods that are affected by the wildfire zillow just came out with some new data that shows this according to zillow, nearly 10. 5 billion worth of Residential Real Estate and more than 14,000 homes are in the evacuation zone of the thomas fire and in los angeles county, the skirball fire threatened megamansions nearly 6. 5 billion worth of homes are in that evacuation zone and thats where an estate belonging to Rupert Murdoch also is and learned wine stick tape magazine reporting, the winery had damage to one of the buildings there. The wine maker is quoted as saying his best guess is the current release, reds, all of them are completely destroyed. Bill and michelle, back to you obviously firstworld problems there when you think about the destruction here in these communities. Right wow. Pricey land, too, for a viney d vineyard aditi, thank you. Reporter exactly. See you later. Time for a cnbc news update with sue herera. Bill, thanks so much. Heres whats happening at this hour, everyone representative trent franks announce he will resign from Congress Today instead of the january 31st date he had previously set it follows the announcement of a probe into accusation of Sexual Harassment his wife was admitted to a hospital today in washington, d. C. , due to an ongoing ailment. Michigans Governor Rick Snyder says the state will hold a special election on november 6th of 2018 to replace representative john conyers who resigned last week amid accusations of Sexual Misconduct snyder said the primary will be in april. New details emerging regarding that deadly High School Shooting in new mexico. The gunman has been identified as 21yearold William Atchison who disguised himself as a student to get into the school 18yearold Francisco Fernandez and 17yearold casey jordan marquez, who you see there, were both killed eed by him before turned the gun on himself and killed himself. Heavy snowfall in atlanta. 2 inches in that city with 4 inches further north Georgia Power reporting nearly 30,000 customers are without electricity. Delta chancing 125 flights through its hub in the citys airport. Cities just not equipped for know. No, they are not. I was out there four, five years ago for snowmageddon. Do they have deicing equipment . They do not. Its a mess. I dont know if they bought some in the meantime. Actually, i talked to somebody from that area, they still have not because they dont get it every year. Its a big investment. There you go. All right just a couple days a year. Thank you yeah. Theyre not ready like we would be anyway. Stay home. We have another news alert, this one is on apple josh lipton has the details. Josh more news for you, michelle, on apple so it looks like the company could be close to acquiring shazam, the app that lets you identify songs by listening to an audio clip. This is according to a new report here from tech crunch which says at least one source is pegging the sales price here at around 400 million shazam raised, itself, more than 143 million from a range of investors including cliner perkins and sony apple declined to comment on this report to cnbc. S shazam did not respond to requests for comments. Apple put a lot of time, money and effort into its music efforts. Apple music now has some 30 million subscribers as it looks to compete with spotify in this space. Guys, back to you. All right, thanks very much, josh. I will never forget it, we were at Universal Studios in los angeles, we were walking along and i hear this song over a p. A. I turned to my son,t this was in 2010 i remember when this was even. I said what song is that he took out his iphone and holds it up then he says its such and such i magic. How did you do that you know, thats and apparently, you couldnt train siri to do this. Right . They had to buy the company. They had to buy the company. Carlos slim was a big investor in shazam, 20 million he put in back there 2013. Wow. Depends the price he put it in at. You dont know what price they raised it at. Right. A news alert this time on pepsi. Meg tirrell with details. Hey, bill, pepsico is ploomog its Stock Exchange listing from the nasdaq to going to take effect after the market closes december 19th. It will maintain its ticker pep. They say they plan to do this because they think the move is going to provide them with greater cost effectiveness and access to knanasdaqs tools and services to connect with investors more the pepsi is moving to the nasd nasdaq back over to you. Thats going to be a blow to the nyse. Raises eyebrows here. One of the bigger ones that would have made that move. Thats interesting. A discrepancy in listing fee. Cheaper to list at the nasdaq pepsis side, you wouldnt think that would move the needle much. Well see lets take a look how we finished the day on wall street if youre just joining us. Plus signs across the board. Dow up 117 that was the high for the session. S p up 14 1 2. Thats a new alltime high nasdaq up 27 the russell up a fraction on the day. Up next, the rapid recap. Lets get to some of the other big stories today in the rapid recap. The uk has reached a firststage agreement with the eu on the crucial issues of divorce payments, Citizens Rights and the irish border. November nonfarm payrolls increased by 228,000 jobs. The Unemployment Rate is 4. 1 . People are starting to pull the trigger because they see a much lower tax burden on all manner of business, large, small, repatriation coming home, expensing. In other words, i think we are on the cusp of an investment boom. Were still not growing wages in this country. We do believe the tax reform will help us drive real wage growth in the united states, which is something really important to the administration. Its been a volatile week for bitcoin as the cboe prepares to unveil the first ever futures market for the cryptocurrency. I think the short selling is going to just annihilate people when you can start trading it. Annihilate. The president a few moments ago tweeting about wells fargo, writing, fines and penalties against Wells Fargo Bank for their bad acts against customers and others will not be dropped as has incorrectly been reported but will be pursued and if anything substantially increased. Oh, yeah, im sure they love seeing that tweet. Yep. Jack in the box shares are higher on news it is close to selling its qdoba unit less lie picker confirmed those details and joins us with the latest. Hey, michelle, thats right, jack in the box announced in may it was exploring Strategic Options for its qdoba unit and appears that exploration is almost over. We learned apollo is near a deal to acquire qdoba and could be announced as soon as today we independently confirmed the details after the New York Post reported them earlier. The prospect of a qdoba sale brought several new hedge funds into the stock earlier in the quarter with jana partners, starboard capital, eminence capital, maverick capital, all taking stakes, new stakes in jack in the box during the third quarter. We learned that through the 13f filings. Food in general has been an area thats been ripe for private equity recently. Roark capital, owner of arbys, inked a deal to buy Buffalo Wild Wings last week. A few months ago oak hill agreed to buy checkers. Danny myer formed a new private equity fund called enlightened hospitality investments to invest in restaurants particularly in the fast food world. Buyout funds have had a harder time deploying capital in recent years as equity valuations continue to rise higher, but they do continue to bring in the money. Apollo announced this summer it raised almost 25 billion for a new Global Buyout Fund the biggest ever so we have not heard back from those guys in terms of a comment, jack in the box yet, but, you know, hopefully well get some more details about this deal in the next few days or so. If its actually happening. J. A. B. Holdings has been on the buying binge buying panera, got petes and they do have petes. Petes. Kuerig. Other companies. Bought other actual store whats going on i think when itle comes to the restaurant side of things, look, its real estate involved, if youre a private equity firm, there are a lot of financial levers as you mentioned, big deals. These are all kind of in the midsized area. Exactly. Also buying divisions of Bigger Companies often a ripe hunting ground. Exactly, when you look at the size of the actual buyout funds being raised, the deal were talking about with qdoba would be about 300 million. Not going to move a needle on a 25 million buyout fund. Its really hard for these traditional buyout funds that like to buy at more disstressed values to actually find opportunities in the market right now. And so theyre tending to gear toward middlesized opportunities at, you know, because there isnt anything really bigger to buy. They got to look elsewhere. Exactly thank you, leslie. Thank you. Moving on, hes been a very big republican donor in the past, but our next guest is cutting off the party and promising to help vote out the establishment unless congress is able to get a deal on tax reform heiljo uestop prioriti wl ins when we come back f we could keep more of what we earn . Trillions of dollars going back to taxpayers. Who could possibly be against that . Well, the National Debt is 20 trillion. As we keep adding to it, guess who pays the bill . Him. And her. And her. Congress, we should grow the economy. Not the debt. Its time for your business of the week. For amber blonigan, the super exotic and ultimate in luxury are what fuel her passion. Find out how she jumped from the world of finance to start her company, gi automotive, that now services some of l. A. s hottest cars for more, watch your business weekend mornings at 7 30 on msnbc. Another day of work. Why do you do it . Its not just a pay check, you actually like what you do. Even love it. And today, you can do things you never could before. Youre developing ai applications on the cloud. Finding insights hidden in decades of medical documents. And securing millions of iot sensors. So get back to it. And do the best work of your life. We are the driven. And do the best work of your life. The dedicated. The overachievers. We know our best investment is in ourselves. We dont take no for an answer. We fight for what we want. Even for the things that were once a given. Going to college. Buying a home. And not being in debt for it for the rest of our lives. But were only as strong as our community. Who inspires and pushes us to go further than we could ever go alone. Sofi. Get there sooner. We have a news alert on macys meg tirrell has the details. Chairman Terry Lungren is set to retire from the board of directors at the end of the january. The board appointed ceo jeff genet as next chairman effective january 31st completing a planned transition announced in june 2016 Terry Lungren is retiring at the end of january from macys, guys back over to you, bill. Well take a break, come back, the ceo of one of the Largest Oil Field Services Companies and big republican donor, by the way, explains why hes upset with the gops elective agenda, when we come back [vo] when it comes to investing, looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. It can provide what we call an unlock a realization that often reveals a better path forward. At wells fargo, its our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and Wealth Management firms in the country. Discover how we can help find your unlock. The market. Redict but through good times and bad. At t. Rowe price. Weve helped our investors stay confident for over 75 years. Call us or your advisor. T. Rowe price. Invest with confidence. The house and the senate are in conference trying to work out the differences between their tax reform bills and the work will likely keep them busy this weekend. Ylan mui is in the Nations Capital with the latest. Ylan reporter bill, republicans are working with a slim margin and shaky support from two key senators, marco rubio, hes still pushing for the bigger Child Tax Credit and tweeted toe that if it shrinks in the final bill, or if the corporate rate goes up and the credit isnt expanded, theres going to be some big problems. The other question mark here, susan collins. Shes telling a local news station that she would flip her vote if proposals for deductions for medical expenses or property taxes go away. Its also uncertain whether two Health Care Bills that were crucial to winning her support will actually pass before the end of the year. Meanwhile, republicans are under new pressure to keep the corporate rate at 20 . More than two dozen conservatives called it, quote, the primary reason for their enthusiastic support and a Business Coalition urged lawmakers to hold steadfast. Today on cnbc, white house economic adviser gary cohn was asked directly if President Trump is willing to go up to 22 and he knowleddodged the questi. This is going to be a big weekend for the Conference Committee. Theyre spending the weekend working on taxes and i think well see enormous amount of progress over the weekend. Reporter that is very different from just two months ago when he said there was no room to negotiate on that number so, guys, the tax bills Conference Committee will meet on wednesday and hopefully get more answers by then back over to you. Well be watching for that. Thank you, ylan. As Congress Pushes to pass tax legislation, some gop supporters say they have reached the breaking point with the partys actions. Joining us with more is dan eberhart, ceo of canary a big gop donor who disagrees with the republicans plans. Thanksing thanksing thanking f is thank you for having me. You stopped fundraising and donating to the gop because youre upset with them what is your beef . Just to be clear, im mahapp with the rnc, happy with speaker ryan in the house. Im frustrated with the senate my beef is its time to do something, its time to accomplish something lets get tax reform done. I think the time is now. Give us a for instance. I mean, what does the corporate rate need to be at 20 , period . Or yeah, no, i think it needs to be is that an example yeah, i think it needs to be at 20 i think that we need to use the majority which we havent really done very much at all this year. I think we need to use the majority to pass progrowth, you know, economic measures so we can move the country forward and people can get higher incomes and businesses can invest and we can have something to run on a lot of people are concerned about what this will do to the deficit. Are you concerned about that i mean, i think thats something you ought to take into consideration. I think the primary motive here and primary driving force should be whats going to create more Economic Growth . And i think thats cutting the Corporate Tax rate and i think thats lowering thetax rate fo middle income americans. On that point, mr. Eberhart, explain to me how this impacts middle class americans specifically lets assume, just take the tax bill in and of itself, lets go lets assume it doesnt create this 4 or 5 Economic Growth in gdp terms that President Trump thinks lets assume that it bumps up growth a little bit. How does this create prosperity for middleclass americans well, two ways. Number one, i think youre going to have lower rates and youre going to have less deductions and increase in the standard deduction so its going to be simpler and lower and thats going to be easier and more money in peoples pocket the other way is, you know, with Companies Like mine, if we can expense with the 100 expensing provision in the new tax bill, were going to spend more money which means were going to need to hire people and increase our labor force which is also going to indirectly put more money in peoples pockets were kind of there, arent we were on the verge of tax reform how big a threat is this really . Yeah, well, i just i think its i think were i think we are there i think were on the cusp of an investment boom as larry kudlow has said i think if we dont do it, i think this tax cut is priced into the market and if we dont do it, i think the markets fall and i think it leads to lower investment, lower Capital Investment in fiscal 2018. Go ahead. I was going to say the source of your frustration seemingly the senate clearly, they are with one ear, at least, listening to various constituencies, concerns about perhaps the implications or maybe the unpopularity of the bill do you think that those political concerns are going to be overcome . Do you think theyre legitimate in the first place well, i mean, i do think theyre legitimate tax reform affects everybody it impacts more people than Anything Congress has done in the past five or ten years i think that this is important but i also think its important to show the American People that the republicans are going to use the majority to pass, you know, progrowth, proEconomic Growth measures and i think that we need to do that to show, you know, why we should be able to stay in the majority moving forward. You know, one of the preseps of the whole deal is by putting more money in the pockets of the corporations is theyll create more jobs but theyve got a lot of cash on the Balance Sheets as it is and what youre thing doing is buy bbacks. Increasing dividends, not increasing jobs. What is it about the tax reform bill that will get them to create jobs or build more factories . Again, i think it all works together i think if they repatriate, if they could repatriate the foreign earnings, thats going to be an incentive for the very large multinationals that are based in the u. S. To spend money here as opposed to building that factory overseas i also think that, you know, the Companies Running a more optimized Balance Sheet where they give money back to shareholders via buybacks or other measures is going to lead to money being returned to investors who are then going to invest in other things in addition, i think the expensing provision and the increase in the deductibility of the passthroughs is going to lead to Small Businesses and mediumsized businesses investing sized businesses investing in plant and equipment and buildings. You mentioned youre unhappy with the senate. How unhappy . Are you like steve bannon, do you hate Mitch Mcconnell i dont know that i would go so far as to say i hate Mitch Mcconnell at all i think what he did with gorsuch was brilliant, that was a high stakes game he won im ready for another win. I think the time is now. I think we need to get tax reform done and then focus on an omnibus bill or a cr so we can keep the government funded and then push all these other measures like daca and the defense hawks wanting more money and the House Freedom caucus warranting lower spending to push that stuff into 2018. Got it. Thank you, dan, thanks for joining us ceo of canary, an Oil Field Services company new data suggests Virtual Reality would be a booming business in a few years. When we come back, well look at where the bsjo are in that field now and who is hiring. Keyboard clacking ] [ mouse clicks, keyboard clacking ] [ mouse clicking ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ mouse clicking ] [ keyboard clacking ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. Revenues for the augmented and Virtual Reality market are forecasted to hit 215 billion by 2021. Coming up, what colleges are doing hp toelstudents prepare to meet this demand in this booming business music plays throughout traders theyre always looking for advantages. The smart ones look to fidelity to find them. We give you research and datavisualization tools to help identify potential opportunities. So, you can do it this way. Or get everything you need to help capture investment ideas and make smarter trading decisions with fidelity for just 4. 95 per online u. S. Equity trade. Fidelity. Open an account today. Worldwide revenues in the augmented and Virtual Reality market expected to hit 215 billion by 2021. Kate rogers joins us with a look at what kind of job market thats creating and whos hiring reporter hi, michelle, thats right the u. S. Is on track to spend 3 billion on vr and Ar Technology this year alone. Now workers are needed to fill the roles for companies that are creating and using this technology after working in broadcasting and architecture, tina chang was ready for a change shes training at Lehman College in new york for a new career in augmented reality. The opportunities are huge. It takes a lot of creativity and understanding of how you can take this new technology so that it can benefit existing industries reporter this is the programs inaugural year, with 20 students training for 11 months coursework includes coding, animation, 3d graphics and web design her classmates currently work on creating tutorials in Virtual Reality. Skills i like applying are my research skills, timing, dealing with sound, imagery, writing the script, and also trying to make all the elements Work Together so that we have concise and fun applications reporter Prior Experience in Computer Science or coding isnt necessary to succeed theres a tremendous opportunity for people who are entrepreneurial. The most important thing is passion and creativity, because you can learn these skills reporter starting salaries range from between 60 to 80,000 a year depending on your role and location and Lehman College is actually working with the city of new york and mayor de blasio to open up a second Training Facility at the Brooklyn Navy yard so even more students can have access to these opportunities in the future kate, thats not a real aquarium behind you, right do you have flipper there behind you reporter this is not real. Isnt that cool . This is all simulated and the students in this class can code this model to do Different Things its really neat super cool, love it were not actually at the new york Stock Exchange. [ laughter ] thanks, cakate you can get one of those for your living room, guys have you tried the Virtual Reality . If you have a little vertigo like i do, its not good its like sitting too close to a movie theater, film, it makes you crazy in the head. But im sure it will be great going forward. What are you guys looking for . The Bitcoin Futures i didnt mean the debut of the crown season 2 thats important that aside from that, an interesting laboratory of trading sentiment, fcc votes on Net Neutrality we may get merger deals announced. And star wars at the end of the week tax reform too. I think the tax reform is going to be interesting, largely because i think so much of it is priced in. I think it goes ahead but if anything goes wrong, you could have a shaky end of year i doubt it i dont think anything going on wrong means it will never happen i think you can kind of push it forward. You wont please everybody, somebody will be ticked off. Definitely not residents of new york, connecticut, new jersey california. California. Were already bracing for the worst any. Star wars on friday night, thats exciting. That will be exciting thank you,guys, have a lovely weekend happy friday, pleasure to be here, thanks for having me kellys back on monday, as a matter of fact thats it for closing bell. Thanks for joining us. Fast money begins right now. Have a good weekend. Fast money starts right now. Live from the Nasdaq Market site overlooking new york citys times square im melissa lee. Tonight honoron fast, the bule getting more bullish john stoltus will be here to tell us how high he thinks stocks are going plus wall street braces for the launch of Bitcoin Futures over the weekend well tell you everything you need to get ready. Biotech having its best day since august a major event this weekend could send the group even hier