Fmr. SEC Chmn. on Hack and Bitcoin ETFs, HPE CEO on $14B Juniper Deal, Boeing CEO and the "Mistake" 01/10/24

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Carl Quintanilla (0:16)

Market moving insight and analysis. Join Jim Cramer, David Faber and me, Carl Quintanilla on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the Street.

Good Wednesday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Sara Eisen at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Faber's at HQ.

Cramer's on assignment. Future's a bit soggy here as investors await CPI tomorrow and a 10-year note auction this afternoon. Oil's been elevated on a new round of Huthy attacks in the Red Sea. 10 years below four. A roadmap begins with watching tech. RBC downgrading the sector and one Apple analyst sees quote, little room for upside. Also Nvidia notching its best two-day gain since last March.

David Faber (0:53)

Plus, approved or not approved, the SEC is investigating a fake post on its ex-account as investors await the fate of Bitcoin ETFs.

Sara Eisen (1:02)

And HPE acquiring Juniper Networks for $14 billion. CEO Antonio Neri joins us later this hour.

Carl Quintanilla (1:09)

Let's begin with the markets this morning. We're sort of in a bit of a lull where the elements from conference season are beginning to fade. JP Morgan Healthcare, of course, CES, ICR, awaiting CPI tomorrow in the banks on Friday.

The chatter, Sara, is largely about whether or not CPI nudges up a bit, takes us back to three, three year on year as far as consensus sees it.

Sara Eisen (1:30)

We know it's very important when you get the scenario analysis from the trading notes on Wall Street and that's out right now.

As long as CPI stays in line, which is 0.2 to 0.3% say on the headline of an increase. And I think the details matter here as well because we know the Fed is watching core CPI and that strips out food and energy, which is more volatile. And we want to see that year over year number below 4%. 4% is this sort of sticky double of the Fed's inflation target 2%, David.

Look, there are some reasons to be optimistic. Used vehicles continue to decline. Hotel and airfare, some of those services, sector components, communication services should continue to decline. But there are also parts of it that are sticky like shelter and rent, which have been slower to moderate in terms of prices. We've also seen medical care costs, insurance costs continue to rise and that affects the core of the CPI as well. So that's the big market mover, comes out on Thursday. Otherwise, we'll hear this afternoon, 3.15 from New York Fed President Williams and there'll be a lot of positioning ahead of this inflation report.

David Faber (2:40)

Yeah, you know, in listening to Double Line Capital's Jeffrey Gundlach, I felt like he was channeling you, Sara. I mean, yesterday you were talking about that, that, you know, the curve de-inverting, highly suggestive of a recession. He even wanted to talk about the dollar. I don't know if we have it or with a quote from him, but we can take a listen as he sort of, again, he's always worth the listen, doesn't mean he's always right.

But it was, you know, him saying basically, it's highly suggestive of a recession. I think dollar's gonna have big problems in the next recession as a consequence of the policies that we run to try to deal with what could be a very, again, painful, there's that word again, Sara, recession.

Sara Eisen (3:19)

So the question is, is he late? Cause he's been calling for recession since early last year.

Or is he wrong? Because the consensus now does not expect a recession, expects the economy to get away with the soft landing. But you're right, he's looking at the signals that the recession camp is looking at, the inversion of the yield curve, which has been inverted now for a really long time and has been steepening, which could signal recession, the leading economic indicators, which at these levels predict recession, the lags in monetary policy. There's still a case for that. And I think that when you're focused on the bond market, look, he manages $100 billion in assets and is a fixed income investor, you've got to pay attention to things like that.

It would be a correction for the equity markets, which have been resilient mostly on this idea, Carl, that the economy is looking good. Even fourth quarter GDP, Atlanta Fed, I mean, they took it down a little bit, but it's still printing above 2% growth at this level.