In the meantime, lets talk about the price of bitcoin. It has been volatile. Shot up yesterday in a big way and pulled back after blackrock denied the report, becky. Coin telegraph saying u. S. Regulators approved the application for the spot etf. Everybody cheered and went crazy. Coin telegraph later retracted the story and conducting an internal investigation into the inaccurate report. Blackrock reported the application is still under review. Crypto markets have been waiting news for spot coin etfs which are expected to drive investment in the sector if approved. If because we still dont know. Just because blackrock and fidelity are asking for it, doesnt mean the s. E. C. Has to give it. Do i think there is momentum . Sure. It doesnt lead to the situation. The company that put out the story is now conducting an internal investigation which makes you wonder if they suspect somebody was doing this and making trades based on the story. It wasnt how it happened. Was somebody feeding them the information and trying to do something illicit on the other end . Obviously, this is a market that is waiting for. This. You saw the move. You saw it come back down. And Congress Member jim jordans bid for House Speaker is gaining momentum. He won the support of skeptics who opposed him last week. That includes mike rogers of alabama and ann wagner of missouri. He is only afford to lose four republicans and still win the gavel. The survey by nbc news show there is are several supporting him. A vote is expected at noon today in the house. A lot of options over what would happen if that did not pass. There is talk of other republicans coming into it or giving more powers to Patrick Mchenry who is the existing speaker in residence. The pro tem speaker. He does not have a lot of powers at this point. They cannot get legislation passed at this point. Lets talk about what is going on every night in israel. This comes as President Biden announced he will travel to israel tomorrow. Nbcs jay gray is joining us from tel aviv this morning. Reporter good morning and good midday here in tel aviv. We are in the area with a lot of businesses and cafes and residential areas. Normally packed at lunchtime and which you can see there are not as many people here on a week day. It has been that way since the tension with the iron dome tested overnight and during the day for the ground assault in the next few days. That is something that has been talked about as you know regularly and has not happened to this point. When you talk to those who are out, most are pleased that President Biden is on the way here showing support of the United States not only to the people of israel, but to the world. It is a big deal to a lot of people that he would make this trip during a time of war and show that the u. S. Has the back of the israeli people. He will walk a fine line. He will talk and the white house said this is part of the stated mission about getting some supplies, muchneeded basics into those innocent civilians caught in the fight. Medicine and food is muchneeded. That is the humanitarian aid that he wants to speak to as he makes this trip. You have two ends to gaza. The equipment and preparing for the land assault and that is something that they have been training for and you have up at the other end with the rafah Border Crossing with thousands who have gathered. 600 foreign nationals looking for a way out. All of those humanitarian aid supplies looking for a way in. Right now, neither endof the strip is budging at this point. A lot of people are anxious to see what is going to give next. Jay gray, we appreciate it. Before you go, i was going to note behind you and you commented on this at the top. It seems so it looks like things are moving more normally than before. Is that even possible . Reporter yeah. I think people have the shock which has worn off. Things are moving a bit more like you expect. Nowhere near or close to the volume. A lot of the businesses are just closed. They are not open for business. As you move into different pockets and different parts of the city, you find that to be more apparent. Buses are running. Cabs are out. You dont see a lot of as the bus passes by with awe few peop inside. Jay gray, thank you for the report. Stay safe. We will talkin to you soon. We are watching shares of merck this morning. The fda approves expanded use of the keytruda for lung cancer in patients. Andrew, this has been happening over the years. Keytruda approved for more and more cancers. It is something that is seen as the top quality of going after it and approving it for more things along the way. Thats a good thing. More than a good thing. A great thing. Shares this morning are up 88 cents. And nelson peltz has built a stake in an insurance company. This time at allstate. The report shows allstate has hired Investment Bankers to see how to handle peltz. Allstate has not raised premiums fast enough to cover losses by paying out on natural disasters like wildfires and inflation has made it harder to replace costs. Carl icahn did not publicly push for board seats or other changes two years ago. What nelson will do next is a big question. He is keeping the Investment Banking business in business at the moment. When we come back, we have earnings alerts for you. We will hear from Johnson Johnson and bank of america and Goldman Sachs. These are all happening this morning. We have other names out there, too. After the Johnson Johnson report, we have a first on cnbc interview with the cfo joe wolk. You are wahisqwk b tcng uaox and this is cnbc. Announcer this cnbc program is sponsored by baird. Visit bairddifference. Com. What do you see on the horizon . Uncertainty . Or opportunity. Whatever you see, at pgim we can help you rise to the challenges of today, when active investing and disciplined Risk Management are needed most. Drawing on deep expertise across the worlds public and private markets in pursuit of longterm returns. Pgim. Our investments shape tomorrow today. Earnings season rolls on. We have more big names set to report today. Including the big banks. Netflix and tesla are on the docket for tomorrow. I want to bring in kari firestone. The chairman and ceo of areaus management. Kari, talk through what is happening in the economy right now. I think you are more outspoken on this than most people i hear from. A lot of people are waiting for the recession. You dont think it will happen any time soon like the last year or so. Hi, becky. With unemployment as low as it is and under 4 at 3. 8 , it is very hard to go into recession. There are too many people working. They are earning money and spending the money. That has been true for a year now. We also see that while there are some places of soft necness, wi hou housing, it is not the demand has gotten lower, but the costs are increasing. It is not as we are on the brink of recession because things are cracking. That hasnt happened yet. Something could happen. It is more business as usual. If we keep moving inflation down, theres no reason for the fed to raise rates more than once. That seems unlikely. We are most of the way there on the Interest Rate front. People are working and still spending money sdp. Having said that, i want your take on the big banks we heard from so far. I think you have been thinking the muted response to the banks earnings is better than expected is probably the right response. Most people would say if we dont like the banks, it is because we worry we are headed into recession and that will mean a lot more bad loans for the banks to come as part of this. You dont think recession is here, but not impressed with the big banks. Lay out why that is. The banks trade for long multiples. Between six and ten times earnings. One would say these are attractively priced. That has been true for years. What is difficult is bigger is not necessarily better. It looked for a while last march when the Smaller Banks were failing that they would be the beneficiary of the Banking System and people would flock to which they did, but loans have not picked up as Interest Rates have gone higher. The demand for credit has gone down. Theres lots of private Credit Opportunities that all kinds of borrowers can go to. The banking business on the ipo side has been weak. Those are two big businesses. Lending is weak. When you talk about the i po market, it hasn nt been there. Where is the business coming from . They dont get more deposits. The depositors are asking for higher Interest Rates. Thats a problem across the landscape in banking. They cant give people very little money on the deposits. They are demanding more interest. That hurts earnings. You wouldnt be a buyer of any of the banks or you must be watching to hear what they have to say today . Yes, of course, were listening. They are a bellwether of how the economy is doing. You can learn a lot from the last ratios and how much of the Balance Sheets seems particularly stable. We think Charles Schwab is attractive. That is a stock that has really suffered the last year or so because people shifted their money out of low Interest Rates into higher Interest Rates. Of course, they do with that cash sorting which is a problem for Charles Schwab. We think we are at the end of that. That is growing its asset base. Kari, Brian Sullivan laid out an interesting stat. You know he does the rbi with the random but interesting fact is if you took out the magnificent seven out of the s p, you would be looking at s p flad flat for the year. Those seven have had impressive gains. I know your three big are in the magnificent seven. Microsoft, google and the other one . Amazon. Those are three of the biggest positions in stocks. Are you sticking with that as you think Technology Continues or do you think the other 493 stocks continue . I guess it is 491 with the two tra tracking stocks in the 500. Do you feel they play catch up or does Technology Continue to out perform . It is a very interesting statement. 85 of the s p return is contributing to the seven. Alphabet is the largest holding. It trades at market multiple. A. I. Is helping them. If you look at the 492 other names and average stock is up 1 to 2 this year, theres opportunity in the multiples if the names are lower. Yesterday was an interesting day. I think 92 or 93 of stocks in the p s p were up. Thats the first time it happened since june. We need more participation for the market to move higher. If we are not going into recession, and the fed pauses, then we continue to show growth for the Fourth Quarter and into next year and that means there could be more participation and stocks moving up. You cannot own an entire p portfolio with the fix or six names. They represent a number of our portfolio. We are underunderweight alpha. It crowds out everything else. It is not a reflection of you not liking those stocks. You cant have that much exposure to those few names. Correct. What with do you like outsid that . We are positive there is growth in other parts of the economy. Healthcare and financials this year. Healthcare has opportunities. Is protected. Some stocks trade at low multiples. All of the midcap names and smallcap names have been hammered. If you look the index, it trades at 13 times index or less. We think there are opportunities and investors should start to look further below those top names. What do you like specifically . Just for example on oreilly auto which is a name we have been positive on. This is a stock with samestore growth. You know theres difficulty buying new cars with Interest Rates and oreilly does a great business with the parts business and auto repair. Salesforce is a name we like because it is a largecap name, but had a tough 2021 and 2022. It is starting to perform better as they seem to recognize they need to cut cost and focus business. The Software Business is starting to come back for them. It was really weak for a year and a half. We like a name such as ftv. That is an industrial. It is a company that has a variety of applications for technology and engineering in healthcare and industrial. You see that as positive. There is a range across the spectrum. Perfect. Kari, thank you. Well talk to you soon. Thank you, becky. Coming up on the other side of the break, data from the Census Bureau showing work from home rates have fallen to the postpandemic low. We will have details about that coming up. Later, an an in interview w anchrtal swaz on m a and more as squawk box rolls on. With gold bond. 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We need to rethink. Next level moments, need the next level network. [speaker continues in the background] the network with 24 7 builtin security. Chip . At t business. Announcer executive edge is sponsored by at t business. Next level moments need the next level network. Welcome back. Johnson johnson just reporting earnings. The stock is now up 1. 5 after they came in with earnings on adjusted basis of 2 2. 66 a shar. That is 14 cents better than the street was expecting. Revenue was up 6. 81 to 21. 35 billion. That is ahead of expectation. If you look at the guidance that the company is offering, this may be the biggest reason for the jump you are seeing in the stock price. The guidance is higher than they had been given before. They are saying because of strong and growing demand for the Cancer Treatment and drugs like carvital and because of the stronger demand for the Cancer Treatments, they are looking at additional expectations for profit. The full year is adjusted profit of 10. 07 to 10. 13. That is compared to 10 to 10. 10 a share. If you look at the street expectations, they were 10. 03. This is a bit higher than they had been expecting for the year. The stock is up 2 . We will breakdown the quarter with Johnson Johnson cfo joe wolk. That is coming up later this hour. Andrew, Strong Demand for the drugs and new breakdown with the new Johnson Johnson. We will look at what is happening. We will go overall of it with joe wolk with all of it. Absolutely. We will have executive edge and come back. Take a look at this. I dont know if this is surprising or not. May be surprising if you are thinking about this two years ago. The push to get back to the office is working. The data is showing fewer than 26 of u. S. Households have someone working remotely one day a week. That is down 37 from early 2021. The census data showing that workers are seeking remote jobs at a higher rate than companies offering. Washington, d. C. And seattle the and boston and San Francisco all had rates near or above 40 t. 40 . It is a total shift. The idea of zoom cities during the pandemic and people thinking the population would live in park city, utah or live in different partsmoremotely. That appears not to be the case. Remote working is in certain cities like seattle or San Francisco. I guess that makes some sense especially companies brought people back may expect you to be there once or twice a week. If you go in more than once a quarter you have to live there. Which exacerbates the issue of an 2ffordable housing. The home builder said it was great to move to the locations with more homes built. If you are living nearby, it is not helping with the additional cases. This is what steve was trying to do to set up towntowns. They had success. No question. This was supposed to cat pucatat more. Now more workers want remote work than is available. Who wants a commute . If you are young and want to meet people, that is one thing. You need to number the city. If you have kids and you have a couple hours commute, that is difficult. If you are a parent, you are a chauffeur to get kids everywhere. Work life balance. I get it. We will talk about the escalation in the israel and hamas war. As we head to break, lets look at yesterdays s p 500 winners and losers. Announcer winners and losers is sponsored by state street global adivisorse bigges. Inspir. 30 years ago, state street created an etf that inspired the world to invest differently. It still does. What can you do with spy . This is american infrastructure, a prime target for cyberattacks. But the same aipowered security that protects all of google also defends these services for everyone who lives here. Good morning. Welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc. We are live on the Nasdaq Market site in times square. We have red on the screen right now. Dow off 91. 5 points. Nasdaq looking to open down 41 points. S p 500 off 13 points. Lets talk about the middle east right now. Fears of escalation rise in the middle east and President Biden is set to visit israel today for the sign of unity. We will bring i