and what's going on. and there's your theme, folks, stocks resilient here. bouncing back from initial tech weakness particularly in microsoft and a few of the other stocks. but the bulls have got a budden. they have to show two with this big advance. they've got toe shot market's resilie resilient, that it can come back from disappointment. and it has. number two they've got to show if tech falls off there's new leadership out there and it's done that as well here. this has tremendously frustrated the bears. i've been getting angry e-mails from the bears. certainly that's understandable because they believe p of these gains are illusory. here's a case in point. take a look at conway the big trucking company. earnings came out, they were down 40% year over year. good heavens, that's terrible, but they had a huge earnings beat because their cost structure is so much more efficient than it was a year ago that even though the top line is down earnings are up dramatically because of that improved cost structure here. so here's the bull argument. and this is a good example of why the bull argument has been vindicated. they're arguing that very small increases in the top line will

very effectively lead to a big earnings boost, and they've been able to show this with several companies even without big, big top line growth here. jpmorgan upgraded conway today because they argued when you have an expanding earnings multiple -- or earnings situation you should have an expanding price. there's conway. great day for them. up 14%. notice some of the other big stocks in the trucking group aren't really up that much. one thing that helped con-way is they're gaining some market share over other truckers. that's an independent factor. that's helping con-way. elsewhere remember we talked about leadership. you've got to show other kinds of leadership that's out there. well, it was. health care is showing some gains. and yes it's over the fact partly that some of the issues surrounding health care reform are a little iffy but two days in a row nice move for them. same situation with energy stocks. they've lagged recently but those stocks also are doing much better today. tradertalk.cnbc.com. team covering the rest of the markets here. nasdaq, nymex and the floor of the cme. let's go to mike huckman standing by at the nasdaq. >> thanks, bob. and i'm still looking for jason to see if he's going to bring us

a friday the 13-day win streak on the nasdaq because we haven't had one that long here at the nasdaq since before the ninth installment of "friday the 13th" came out. thank you very much, imdb.com, for that. the real horror here at the nasdaq is shares of microsoft, down 8 1/2%. that stock trying to avoid what would be only its second double-digit percentage loss this year. the other one occurring back in january. the news of a possible hookup between microsoft and yahoo on a search project of some kind isn't doing anything for those shares. it's up a whole nickel. and then amazon.com, investors are also slashing those shares, down 8% with concerns the kindle might be eating sales of real books at amazon, but also there could be a lot of profit taking going on here given the strong run-up in both of those stocks in recent weeks and months. because there's so much focus on what's not working here today, i wanted to point out some good stuff. fifth third bancorp continuing its rally on the back of its

earnings yesterday. up more than 5%. really a standout in the regional bank sector here at the nasdaq today. and then finally the centers for disease control, with talk today about the ongoing threat of h1n1 in the anti-viral space. biocrist up 10%. chrisell 1%. and a very small cap novavax up 10%. >> the unemployment rate is still at 9 1/2%. but when you look at some of the earnings reports we got this week you see the rise in the dow and s&p 500. then you understand that yes, we are seeing this rally in stocks and it is being mirrors here at the nymex with the rise in oil prices. closing in back on that $70 mark. rising above $68 a barrel today. as the dow went over 9,000 again. again, this is the first time since january that this has happened and the second day in a row that we are seeing this happen. oil's up about 13% over the last eight trading sessions.

up about 7% so far this week. and if you look at the correlation between not only the dow but the s&p 500 to oil we are looking at a 70% correlation. the real winners, though, here in the petroleum complex were the refined fuels, heating oil and gasoline leading the way here, as we've seen refinery runs cut over the last week or so. and natural gas really having a rather flat week. the ung etf saying in a regulatory filing that it has not had anything to do with the price volatility there. next week look for some of the big oil earnings to be watched very closely by wall street and by the traders here. we have bp, shell, and exxonmobil all reporting next week. also the cftc on position limits next tuesday and wednesday. and rick, you know a lot of the traders here are going to be  fixed on that hearing. >> absolutely. we've had plenty of hearings. and there's been a lot of interesting things to try to trade on. and one of those issues of course today mr. bernanke reiterated a story that actually was out earlier. and that is that the taf is

going to wind down in terms of the monetary dimensions moving  forward. is this the very first signs of some type of shadow exit strategy? the markets early this morning didn't move much on it but when it was reiterated by mr. bernanke during regulatory testimony it indeed was a positive endeavor, pushing s&ps up a bit because it paints a little optimism that if he can pull some of those funds things must be getting a little better. let's look at the one-week charts. you look at the dollar index, everybody's talking about how the dollar hasn't done much with all this wild volatility in credit markets and positive equity moves. however, from the one-week chart even though we're down a third of a cent today, we're down about half a cent on the week and we're only a third of a cent away from the lows of the year on the dollar index. if you look at a one-week of ten-year note yields and 3.67, it's kind of a push on the week even though there's been a huge amount of volatility outside of where it's going to close. supply next week. maria, back to you. >> all right, rick, thanks very much. rick santelli. we break down the day's action

right now and what's ahead with steven wood, chief market strategist with russell investments, along with david darst, chief investment strategist with morgan stanley smith barney. gentlemen, always great to see you. thanks so much for being here. so i guess my first question is sure, we've got a quiet day today but the market has been very, very strong, as you both obviously are well aware. what's behind this most recent strength and do you think it continues into the second half? steve. >> i think it's going to be choppy but i think it does continue into the end of this year. i think what we've seen is a year and a half ago the market was priced to absolute perfection. six months ago it was priced to armageddon. and we've reverted to something in between. and i think right now the lack of bad news overwhelming. and i take comfort in the fact that we're actually talking about earnings. specific companies, specific performance in this environment. and that's ultimately what we get paid to do, is worry about companies' earnings and how that reflects in their prices. so i think that's a good tone for the market to be taking. >> you know, one of the issues, though, that i've been having with this better than expected earnings story is we're getting to the better-than-expected

earnings because of cost-cutting efforts. so it's not necessarily end demand, what we're seeing. so i guess my question would be when do you see the story turning from one of cost cutting to a story of revenue growth and actually end market demand? >> i think that's absolutely the critical issue. right now we've seen the cost cutting. we've seen profits come in. but what we want to see is some top line movement right now. and i think this is going to be a battle of inches. three yards and a cloud of dust going into next year. companies are going to do better than rivals that can take market share. they can take competition away from their peers. so i think it's not going to be a rising tide lifting all boats going into 2010. it's going to be an active management environment. so i think that's the question we have, who can drive that top line. >> what do you think, david? >> maria, the second half is going to be when the stimulus kicks in, fiscal stimulus. everybody said it was back end loaded. so you're going to get a very powerful backwind, tailwind there pushing the market up. you're going to get the monetary stimulus blowing through, the low interest rates, banks' margins. so i think there's a repair

going on, the restoration of confidence going on. i think one of the biggest things this week was the derailment of the regulatory juggernaut. and juggernaut, as you know from your study of hindu, comes from jaga, which means world, and naut, which means lord. lord of the world which can crush anything. and this regulatory juggernaut has been slowed this past week. i think that's very important. >> you mean the health care? >> the health care. also all kinds of cap and trade. energy is just being done more deliberately. that i think coming into the second half better earnings. i think management. you've had constructive by caterpillar, by ibm, by intel. okay? you've had 3m yesterday. and you've had some, as stephen said, american express, mieshlth. these are -- >> amazon. >> have been a little more -- >> weaker. >> restrained. that's right. so i think china is up 86%. you've got to watch out that there's no bubble there.

as we go into the second half, i think the dollar will become increasingly the story. august 11th is a tuesday. first day of a two-day fed meeting. that's also national elections in japan. we could have an opposition win over there. it looks like it in the polls now. and they have already stated mr. nakagawa who's their shadow finance minister that he'd like to diversify out of their trillion dollars of dollar holdings. so you're going to see that come through august. the dollar will play a role in possibly slowing down this juggernaut, positive juggernaut. >> do you think the stock market is higher than where it is right now by the end of the year? >> our view is it could be 1050 to 1100 in our best case. bull case would be 1100 or higher. and the bear case would be lower. >> stephen, let me ask you about investing then. if you are expecting to participate in this rally that you think the market's going to be higher by the year end, what are the groups i need to own, then? >> i still think technology there's a lot of opportunity there that they've got very uncharacteristic characteristics now. not a lot of debt carry.

i think they're going to be more sensitive, more nimble. i think you also want to look into financials very cautiously. that's something that you could get some opportunity but you really need to proceed with caution. but certain areas at the lower end of the consumer, the consumer's not dead, but he is damaged. sought lower end there. and i think you also want to look at not integrated oil but some of the exploration companies that are part of that long-term capital outlay. so i think there are opportunities. i do believe the market will be higher six to twelve months from now. but i would be surprised if there is some -- the economy is going to be stimulus driven for a while. and you're right, we want to see revenue and we want to see real demand and real growth drive a lot of these. >> that's the thing. because people question the rally. you really haven't seen that substantial a change in fundamentals when you look at earnings, it's really a cost-cutting story. and when you look at even the housing market, yes, we've gone three good months of existing home sales, but you don't have dramatic shift in a very, very tough recession. >> it reminds me of '73-74, maria. it reminds me of '81-82.

it was a very slow climb. it was not a one-way street. we had this big move up. it would have been amaze field goal if the market had kept rising. june 11th to july 11th a break where it sold off 7%, 8%. we would look for some further choppiness, further consolidation after this big run-up. we're up over 40% in a very, very short while, since m. the 9th -- >> do you agree with stephen in the sectors you need to own? >> technology has 52% of its sales from abroad. i'd say that's definitely one. i'd say medical technology, which is below the screen of healthcare reform, that is baxter, abbott, beckwith dickinson. and they also have a big international proukt flow. as does j&j. we would want to have diversified health care, medical technology within healthcare. also your big multinationals. sow want some of the big american giants that generate a lot of point currency, not only developed market but emerging

market currency earnings and sales. so we would be there. i think you could look at energy with the energy prices. we just raised our forecast to $85 for next year. 2010. >> did you want to add something? >> i think the cost of capital is very low and i think the fed is on the sidelines for the foreseeable future. cost of cap is going to remain low. that tsunami of stimulus, over 700 stimulative programs globally. the federal reserve sex panneding its balance sheet. that is going to be a stimulative effect. don't bet against the fed. that's a good way to get washed away. >> we're going to see you guys in a little bit, talk to you later in the program. thanks very much, stephen wood and david darst. bob, over to you. >> 45 minutes before the closing billion. stocks showing resiliency. we were down 60 points. many big names like microsoft weak on some disappointment over tech earnings. we are set to break, though, that nasdaq winning streak. maria?

>> up next, an exclusive interview with labor secretary hilda solis. we will discuss whether the latest minimum wage increase will help workers or whether it will actually force employers to cut more jobs. she joins us in a cnbc exclusive. >> and after the bell despite the recent rally there's still more than $4 trillion sitting on the sidelines. could hedge funds end up taking this market higher? answers today, 4:00 p.m. eastern time. >> but first, here's where the action is on the street today. the most heavily traded stocks at the nyse, led once again by citigroup and b of a. cit also on the list, up today. back in a moment. announcer: the perfect hotwire getaway--

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we're here at the new york stock exchange. we are the 42nd infantry division band of the new york army national guard. it's great to be here playing for the folks of manhattan today. and we've got a lot of music and a patriotic set coming up on the second half. so we look forward to the rest of the afternoon. >> yeah, there is a lot going on today outside the new york stock exchange. and we'll be bringing you some

of the sights and sounds on friday afternoon on wall street throughout the hour. welcome back, everybody. beginning today, 3 to 5 million american workers are aerng higher hourly pay as the third and final increase in the federal minimum wage takes effect. but it comes at a time when businesses are fighting to save every penny that they can. joining us in a cnbc exclusive interview right now and her first time on the closing bell, we welcome to the program labor secretary hilda solis. miss secretary, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, maria. >> it's good to see you. this is the third and last increase of the federal minimum wage increase that was passed by congress long before the economic troubles the country finds itself in. was there any consideration about this increase in terms of delaying this final increase and what it may mean in terms of more pressure on business? >> well, no. you have to understand that the

bill was passed two years ago and signed into law by former president bush. and this is the last increment of that legislation that will allow for the final increase here. and you have to keep in mind it took the congress ten years just to pass the bill to get it into law to allow for that growth in the minimum wage. you know, you have to understand as well that there were many, many people making the minimum wage salary, and many of them are people over the age of 20, and i would say a good 2/3 of them are women with children. so we're not talking about the old adage of these being just high school or college students. we're talking about people who have really had to make ends meet, just getting the minimum wage. so they really deserve this increase. and i know that there are many businesses that have already made plans for this. so i don't think that the impact that you may be hearing from certain groups is as widespread as you would imagine. and i say that because one thing is that we want to stimulate the economy. the minimum wage does that. the projections are that about

$5 million -- billion, not million. billion will be again reintegrated into our communities. that'll help small businesses, retail. it'll help moms who will meet costs for new school items for their children, clothing. also gasoline. i mean purchasing those items they need to get to work. and also pay utility bills and hopefully put a little down payment on that credit card. all of this helps retail sales and industry. and it will have a positive impact. we've seen that historically in past areas where we've seen an increase in the minimum wage. and again, just to underscore, this is still at federal poverty level. when you make minimum wage salary, you're still making about $15,000 a year. and if you're raising a family of three, that is still not significant. >> yes. absolutely. i understand and hear you loud and clear. the increase in the federal minimum wage will impact an estimated 4.5 million american workers, according to the economic policy institute. can you give us a sense, miss

secretary, of exactly what sectors are going to be feeling the increase most? you mentioned retail. can you go through the spectrum of other sectors that actually people are impacted? >> well, probably you'll see it in hotel and also in areas where you have people that are in the tourism industry. and some of the very, very -- you know, food service industry, hotels, restaurants obviously. also farm workers, people who are working out in the field. and i would say people who are part-timers as well. but i would say again to you the majority of people affected, keep in mind, is typically a woman, and she may have children, and she's over the age of 20. and sometimes they have to hold down two jobs just to make ends meet. >> miss secretary, can you give us a sense of the employment picture right now? where are the jobs today? we recognize that the unemployment rate is at 9.4%. and many people believe that that unemployment rate is actually even worse than that, something like 15% or 16% of the

country, because it doesn't count those people who didn't necessarily register and apply for a new job yet. so where are the jobs today in your view? >> well, what we are doing here in the department of labor, we have issued some competitive grants that have already been out for solicitation. so for example, in the renewable energy area, wind power, solar power, biofuels, all of these industries can use i would think a good workforce that's ready and trained to help in these new industries. it's going to be the new 21st century workforce. and i think that looking also in the healthcare industry and i.t., those are areas that we see significant numbers of people that will potentially get into new careers. in fact, the bureau of labor statistics says that we can potentially see upwards of 3 billion people getting into the healthcare arena. and you'd be surprised how many people who've lost their jobs, and i've met some workers, auto workers who told me they were now make the transition into the allied health careers, because

it's more stability and better competitive wages. >> right. and also we should mention construction jobs, right? as construction is such a big part of the president's stimulus package, i assume. construction is also -- and weatherization. the president has touted and talked a lot about the stimulus plan and his policies and the administration's policies, obviously, saving or creating 3.5 million jobs. can you give us a sense of how many jobs have been saved or created so far? is that measurable? >> well, i think -- i can just tell you that as early as may we started issuing out our solicitations for the summer youth employment program. and already we've projected that by the end of the summer, late august, early september, about 200,000 people from the ages of 14 to 24 will be employed. and already we've seen about a halfway mark there. so i'm anticipating more of

that. and in addition i will say that the people that you're finding that kept their jobs, that's, for example, law enforcement officers, teachers, and others, for example, administering and running their health programs, in federally qualified clinics, all those services remained open. thank goodness. because if they didn't you'd see a higher rate of unemployment. >> right. well, is it fair to say, though, that that 9.4% rate doesn't necessarily tell the story? >> i think that it's one -- it's in flux. and we're still in for some other bumps in the road. but i will tell you that beginning in january we saw over 700,000 people that showed up on our charts, right? that's when this administration started. now this last month it went down to 467,000. now, that's not good enough. but i'm just telling you, there is a difference and we are seeing some contraction occurring in the economy. so i'm hopeful that the recovery

program will begin to have a full effect once we get closer into the last quarter because that's when you see the construction projects really coming about full force and also the investment that the department of energy is making in renewable energies. and also the capital that will be released and the credit that will help to establish and expand these new entrepreneurs that want to get into renewable energy and again the health care area that continues to grow, continues to grow. >> you make great points. we will see things really take effect toward the end of the year. miss secretary, we so appreciate your precious time today. >> thank you, maria. have a good weekend. >> thank you. we'll see you soon. have a wonderful weekend. labor secretary hilda solis joining us from washington today. 30 minutes before the closing bell sounds. nasdaq composite under some selling pressure, bob, on the heels of those earnings from amazon and microsoft. >> indeed, maria. up next the cnbc investor network. find out if low trading volume should be a concern and where

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focusing on financials and technologies have been leaders. there's definitely money being put to work. >> the market -- bulls -- look, where were we like one week ago? we were at 880 i think two weeks ago, tim, now we're the 980 on the s&p 500. you do the math, we're up 11% in two weeks here. there's a powerful advance going on here, but don't the bulls have to show the market is continually resilient and that it's rotating into other sectors if something weakens like tech? do you think the market is showing signs that it could continue to advance? >> absolutely.

i think what you've seen is look, everybody was focusing on this reverse head and shoulders formation of a couple of weeks ago that candidly rick bensignor, our technician, thought was flawed to begin with. so when everybody -- when that failed, everybody had to come plowing in. we've obviously seen a lot of money into the technology sector, into the financial sector. we've seen rotation in and out of energy sector, as i mentioned. now we're starting to see some money being put into other sectors as well. we've seen money going into the industrial sector. we see a second wave of money going into the commodity and energy sectors. so we've got this rotation that we've actually been seeing. and as i mentioned earlier, every sector within these spiders has been trading higher. so that shows resiliency in and of itself. >> can you make an argument for the bears at this point? what worries you? is there anything else even on a technical or fundamental basis that would cause to you say wait a minute, this advance is way too fast? >> well, if you want to look at it on a technical level, we've traded into the resistance levels now.

we're into that 68-986 band that we've identified as the resilience. we're right smack in the middle of that. without punching through that and making a move toward 1,000 on the s&p, you can make a case that the market's going to back and fill. but the bears are talking about the market selling off 100 s&p points ago. so now if we have a sell-off on the s&p the tests support because we've come up so quickly the support levels are probably down around the 930 level. that's still 50 points above where the bears were calling for the sell-off. so we're in a much healthier position. on the fundamental side let's face it, we're not out of the woods. on the economy or on the recovery or any of the sectors or any of the economic data and economic news we're going to have to work through. it's still going to take time. >> tim smalls, thank you so much. pleasure to see you. dow industrial average holding on to the flat line, but folks, we were down 60 points earlier. microsoft a real drag. nasdaq off the lows but still can't get into positive

territory. and the dow overcoming earlier weakness, but does the rally really have more momentum left? we'll be back in a moment to talk about that. welcome to the now network. population: 49 million. right now 1.2 million people are on sprint mobile broadband. 31 are streaming a sales conference from the road. eight are wearing bathrobes. two... less. 154 people are tracking shipments on a train. 33 are i.m.'ing on a ferry. and 1300 are secretly checking email on vacation. that's happening now. america's most dependable 3g network. bringing you the first and only wireless 4g network. sprint. the now network. deaf, hard-of-hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com.

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fractional moves on wall street today. we once again bring back our guests. stepwood is chief market strategist with russell investments. and david darst is chief investment strategist with morgan stanley smith barney. gentlemen, one thing you both mentioned earlier is the idea that you want to be looking -- i guess someone else said to me fish where the fishes are. in other words, look at some of the international markets where you have huge populations. and when you mentioned china, i thought, does he mean that we should be investing in china or do you want to be invested in companies that actually have the exposure to that huge population? >> maria, i think a little bit of each is appropriate. there are china etfs that people can get exposure, make it much easier, lower cost, more transparent than it used to be, more liquid than it used to be.

at the same time you want to own some of these big multinational u.s. companies as well as some of your australian companies that sell raw materials. that's been a great beneficiary. i think taiwan also has -- beginning march 22nd of 2008 we elected president ma, who's a friend of china, mainland china-n taiwan. and taiwan likes him. taiwan has 40 billion invested in china in plant and equipment and 3 million of the 27 million taiwanese live in mainland china, china not the other way. so i think taiwan is another place to look to get exposure. as you mentioned. china is trying to improve their rule of law, trying to improve their accounting, trying to improve their disclosure, and i think all of these things will come in time. one quick thing, maria. yesterday it was a perfect game in the national baseball league. >> is that right? >> yes. it was only one of 18. and the guy, mark buehrle for

chicago, we've got to give him a shout out. and the guy who saved the game, dwayne wise, center fielder. you've got to watch it on youtube. >> big shout out there. stephen, the international markets, do you want to have exposure there or are these economies slowing down? maybe the u.s. comes out of the recession first, you want to be domestic. >> it's going to be a chim erickal cyclical recovery. china bottomed somewhere in december, january, and the butts i fourth quarter this year. and europe's going to lag -- i would look more globally not just u.s. the rest of the world. you need to think of it less in terms of country. when i look at brazil i see a chinese growth story more than i see a latin economy. so i think if you want to invest in emerging markets make sure the money you're spending comes from your high beta money and maybe the exposure to china with you're more i've got to have it money. it depends what kind of risk you want to spend, but i think a globally diversified portfolio is going to be increasingly

where investors are going to need to go. the growth is not going to come from the united states and europe. most of the new growth is going to come emerging markets. >> what about the comments that david just made as far as raw materials are concerned? i'm calling it's inflation trade. but it's really not necessarily inflationary. you look at copper, up 70% year to date. do i need to be exposed to some of these raw materials that are obviously in some of these resource-rich countries? >> you're right. look at dr. copper. he's going to give us a good indicator where the global economy's going to be going, infrastructure play. i think you want to be exposed to commodities to the extent this global growth story makes sense, and it does longer term. if you're looking at an inflation hedge, i'm not convinced that's really necessary route now. if you're looking at commodities the dollar, we're kind of average. nothing spectacular. the united states uses half as much oil in gdp as it did 25 years ago. it's not as big a deal as you would expect. and i think the way we're chewing up capital the fed even in a quantitative aegz profieas

profile, it's going to be a long time before this money causes significant inflation. that's a couple years out before it becomes a significant risk. disinflation or deflation shorter term is a much larger risk. or a double dip recession -- >> but don't you think when the economies around the world start growing again we're going to see that insatiable demand once again for all sorts of stuff, not just copper, you've got iron ore, steel -- >> maria, you've got four parts of the commodities play. precious metals, base metals, agriculturals, and energy. and you want to be diversified within the complex called commodities. don't just put it on only energy or only on base metals. you need a package here. i'm with you and jim rogers. i've watched many of your saturday interviews with jim rogers where he says this is a 20-year bull market -- >> he says sell your mercedes and get a tractor. >> you want to have a blend of agriculturals, of base metals, of precious metals. we've increased, as you know, since our last meeting, we've increased by 2% our exposure to commodities and precious metals up to 6% from 4%. >> do you do that direct through

the commodities or do i want to be owning an etf or is it through the producers, the equities? >> our view has been using etfs, they're low cost, liquid, relatively transparent. you want to go that way. at the same time building on what stephen said, you want to have globalization to all your asset classes. for example, inflation-protected securities we've talked about on the show before. you want to have global inflation-protected securities, non-dollar ones. there are etfs for that now. you want to have globalized real estate investment trusts, maria, not just reits here. >> not just domestic. >> yes. >> but also in terms of that global portfolio what we -- i remember being in hong kong in september 2006 giving a very unpopular perspective. i thought decoupling was at best over blown. i thought it was a myth. there's no way you could explain to me how if your best customer goes into recession it has to affect your sales. and the canaries in the coalmine of the global economy have been the asian markets. and they really rolled over in the fourth quarter -- excuse me, first quarter and fourth quarter. so we need to put it in the

context of those economies are going to do well to the extent the developed world can stabilize their economies. so i wouldn't be so quick to disaggregate the two from each other. it's a little more complex than that. >> china is export driven. 30% of their economy is exports. 30% is foreign direct investment. and only 40% is consumption. whereas we're 70%, maria. >> well, they need to transition to a consumption economy. and when they do -- when they do, the chinese consumer will need a consumer to attract. >> the japanese were incapable of that transition. >> right now the u.s. consumer is that attractive consumer. gentlemen, thank you. great conversation. appreciate it. david darst, stephen wood. have a fantastic weekend. we'll see you soon. >> thank you very much. >> bob, over to you. >> the "fast money" final call. investors are rotating in defensive names like healthcare and utilities today. but should you be playing defen defense right now? >> and then after the bell, being fast on wall street can be very profitable. but is high frequency trading giving awn fair advantage to

some traders? we'll have the answer. but first we'll let you listen to the 42nd infantry division band of the new york national guard. back in a minute. ♪

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welcome back. let's take a look at some of today's under the radar stocks. lbk solar one of the day's big winners. the chinese solar energy company raising its second quarter revenue and shipment forecast. it says it will take a writedown of up to $160 million to reflect the falling value of its inventories. and r.w. baird upgrading search and consulting firm heidrick to neutral from underperform. and trucking company saia losing money because of weak volume and falling prices. time for the "fast money" final call. despite the market rally today's "fast money" trader thinks it's time to get defensive.

with more on this i'm joined by director of t.j.m. institutional services and a "fast money" contributor. jim, it's true we've seen health care moving up here today, but is is that really an argument for getting defensive? related to the fact healthcare reform is on the ropes right now. >> let's put that aside and see what else we've learned over the last 24 hours. microsoft showed us that the road is bumpy, right? it seems like we get gleeful in these couple-week periods and then all of a sudden we need a slap in the face. microsoft was probably that. you look at the two sectors up the most, it's utilities and health care. so it's easy to make the argument that we kind of want to shift from things we want to things we need. the cherry on top of my argument was going to be this morning with those big bearish plays on tiffany's. i love the notion of tiffany's down utilities up. but tiffany's has claude its way back and is actually positive on the day. soif to throw that out. but every day when i evaluate the stuff i have i get to the stock like aep, american electric, and that's the one i feel the most comfortable with. they're paying a nice dividend. if the consumer continues this

10% savings rate that they have going, that's the one you're going to want. consumer cyclicals have done fairly well today too. nothing's an easy argument. i don't really get that very well. but i still think you want to be -- you want to have some technology, of course, but you want to have some defensive stocks. things like general mills, things like utilities. you probably want to have some foreign exposure. those guys were talking about brazil and asia. they forgot about canada. i think canada's a solid place to be too. but i think defensive is where your major money should be. >> the point i agree with you on is defensive is the key name here. the market has shown when tech is the leadership group pulls back a little bit other names tend to move forward. i think you're big on healthcare and utilities is your defensive play but energy is doing a bit better here today. some of the consumer names are doing a little bit better as well here. i'm not sure you can make a huge argument that the market is looking to maintain a defensive posture here. >> i'm not trying to make a huge argument for this. i'm just saying there's going to be a rotation and when the rotation starts if tech begins a little bit of a pullback just

because it had such a tremendous run for the next week or so i think people are going to be piling into the utilities more, thinking the way i'm thinking. i don't think this is an everything thrown out the window. i like this rally. we did break through the highs from a month and a half ago in the market overall, and i think it's a decent rally. i just think we're going to see a little bit of rotation and those are going to do better in the next couple weeks. >> jim-g to talk to you as always. coming up on "fast money" a "first on cnbc" interview with the ceo of hyundai motors america. what does he see for the future of the auto industry? plus after today's big tech sell-off fast talks to the ceo of juniper networks about the state of the industry which by the way at a new high for the year today. melissa and the traders are all live at 5:00. just about ten minutes to go before the closing bell. we are just off of the -- well, we're moving up here. the dow is down 60 points at one point. it's up 75 oft lows here. nasdaq not quite in positive territory. up next we'll recap this week's earnings scorecard and tell you which big names will report next week. fidelity, traders learn from the pros.

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welcome back to be "the closing bell." from federal hall outside the nyse today on wall street. it's been a big week for earnings. the pace of reports is not about to slow down anytime soon. next week is another big one. cnbc's mary thompson right now at the nerve center of earnings central with a scorecard at headquarters. mary? >> hey there, maria. next week certainly is a key one for this earnings season with reports from 146 snm members including dow, four dow components out. it's also a big week for telecom as well as insurance firms. first before we look ahead to next week we want to look at where we stand now. thompson reuters, blended earnings growth for the second quarter, this means actual earnings reported along with analysts' estimates. down 31%. actual earnings reported down 23% from last year's second quarter. the number of companies reporting above estimates, earnings that came in above analysts' forecasts, 77%. in line, 9%. below, 14%. again, that's all for s&p 500 companies. now take a look, we want to just take a look at the dow components, see how the blue

chips have fared so far. all but one of the dow 30 that have reported coming in with earnings that were in line or better than expectations. mcdonald's in line and then microsoft actually below expectations. microsoft the outlier there. let's turn to where revenues stand. couple of misses here. actually several misses as you can see on the revenue estimates. a number of them coming in below estimates. really this earnings season has been a lot about cost cutting for these companies with top line sales moving -- top line numbers moving lower. next week four dow components report. on thursday we're going to get exxonmobil and travelers before the opening bell and then disney reports after the bell. and verizon will kick things off on monday. the telecom giant's profits are forecast to fall 7% to 63 cents a share from 67 cents last year. revenue is forecast to increase 11% to over $26 billion. strength in its wireless business helped by the recent acquisition of alltel seen driving revenue at the company. exxonmobil's second quarter profits will reflect the slide in oil prices that we have seen from last year's second quarter. keep in mind last year for all

of 2008 exxonmobil reported record profits of $45 billion. in this year's second quarter, though, earnings are forecast to fall 55% to $1.03 a share. revenue forecast to climb 47% to $73 billion. now, primarily a property and casualty insurer for small and mid-size businesses, travelers' earnings estimated to be down about 15% last year to $1.28. revenue is forecast to be down 2% to $6.2 billion. and disney's the last of the dow components to report next week. weakness at theme parks is expected to be a factor here. the expected decline in earnings 18% per share profits of 51 cents down from 62 cents last year expected. as disney's revenue is forecast to fall 4% to $8.8 billion. at the end of next week, maria, 2/3 of the s&p 500 will have reported. and of course we'll have it all here at earnings central. back to you. >> and that'll give us certainly a good sense of where corporations are today in this economic slowdown. mary, thank you. up next, the closing countdown,

right after this short break, and then we'll be back. bob. >> and after the break, maria, the president of intercontinental hotels america tells us if he's seeing any signs of recovery in the business and leisure travel market. it's an exclusive interview and it's only here on cnbc at 4:00 based on the deal they get. - others buy the car of their dreams. - ( beeps ) during the lexus golden opportunity sales event, you can do both. it's an opportunity today. it's a lexus forever. special lease offers now available on the 2009 es 350.

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bob pisani down at the new york stock exchange, ending another terrific week. right now dow jones industrial average up about 4%. still waiting for the final numbers here. nasdaq up 4.1%. but it's going to break its multiweek win streak here. but don't kid yourself. just because the dow has been looking up only 30 points you think not a lot's going on. this is a big victory for the bulls. we were down 75 points earlier in the day, roughly 75 points. we moved almost 100 points off of the lows. remember the key battleground here. got to show a little bit of resiliency, got to showed a little bit of sector rotation. we showed both of that today. tech slowed down because microsoft and amazon was a disappointment, but folks, we saw energy move up, we saw healthcare move up, we saw utilities move up. you can't just argue it was a defensive play here. it was a little more than that. tradertalk.cnbc.com. another big week for earnings coming up. there's the "closing bell." you know who's next. maria bartiromo.

and it is 4:00 on wall street. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody. welcome back to "the closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. today coming to you from federal hall in lower manhattan. the site of george washington taking the oath of office, our first president of our great country. our summer on the street special. every friday afternoon during the summertime. take a look at what we're following at the close tonight. it was a quiet day on wall street, but by all accounts a victory for the bulls. once again, stocks zig-zagging but ending on the up side. certainly for the dow jones industrial average. all day negative and positive territory. we had strength in defensive sectors like health care and utilities offsetting a sell-off in technology. the tone was set last night when you heard the numbers here on "the closing bell" from amazon.com and niermicrosoft.

two weak spots. that's helping bring the nasdaq's 12-day winning streak to a close. today that snapped largely because of those numbers. microsoft's disappointing fourth quarter earnings really set the tone for tech. consumer sentiment, meanwhile, fell in july for the first time in five months because of the rising unemployment rate. we'll get into all of that coming up. in the meantime take a look at how we finished the day on wall street, with the dow jones industrial average today getting a pretty good boost at the close. final few minutes of trading pushing the dow industrials to now 9,093. kissing up to 9,100. the dow up 24 points, about a quarter of a percent today. nasdaq close but no cigar. down 7 2/3 points, fractional loss off the worst levels of the afternoon. 1965 is where the nasdaq finished tonight. and the s&p 500 up about three points. fractional move there at 979. we get all the action right now from bob pisani, our eye on the floor of the nyse. bob? >> dow was up almost 100 points from its low to its high. and we closed not far off the highs. very simple theme today. and that is the resiliency of