I'm Carl Kintanilla. You're listening to CNBC's Tech Check. Our show is live weekdays at 11 a.m. Eastern. Listen in.

Good Monday morning. Welcome to Tech Check. I'm Carl Kintania with John Ford. Dirdre is off today.

Fed Chair Powell gets tapped for a second term. What that means for big tech and growth names as they lead the NASDAQ higher this morning.

Then we're going to break down how rates relate to a few high-flying pandemic stocks

that have come down to Earth, just a few hours now from Zoom's results tonight.

And then finally a twist in the case against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

She takes the stand today, and we are live at the courthouse, John.

Yeah, so let's get started with the Fed and the connection between

interest rates, inflation, and the valuation of tech stocks right now. Who better than Mike Santoli?

To look at that for us, hey, Mike? Hey, John, you know this standard idea that higher yields, especially

higher real yields, are kind of punishing to tech stocks? It's really being tested right now,

because right now nothing as a group is holding back tech. In fact, take a look over the last two years

at the S&P tech sector against the 10-year treasury yield. So the conventional wisdom is somewhat

that these are moving in opposite directions, that they're kind of inversely correlated. Well, that's

not really true. In fact, if you talk about the lows right here towards zero in the yield, now we're kind of inversely correlated. Well, that's not really true.

In fact, if you talk about the lows right here towards zero in the yield, now we're up to 1.6,

obviously, it's coincided with very strong results intact. Now, I do get that sometimes you have better results in the secular growth stocks when you do have yields that are tame or inflation-adjusted yields that are negative. But it seems to me

that it hasn't yet really manifest itself in any ongoing way. There is an academic argument that these

long-term cash flows represented by big tech stocks, somehow get discounted back at a higher rate if, in fact,

you have yields that are elevated. I think we're not in a zone right now,

though, where that reckoning will take place because we still are talking about 1.6% on the 10-year,

half a percent on the two years. So obviously the Fed can kill bull markets if it goes too far.

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