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call fidelity at... for details about guaranteed income for life. america's cashing in clunkers. the tally so far, 16,351 clunker owners have traded in their old gas guzzlers. the government's kicked in $68.9 million and $3500 and $4500 incentive deals. remember what you heard on this show earlier this week from the transportation secretary. those are for 250,000 cars to be traded in. time now to see if the rally lasts. it's "the closing bell." >> announcer: this is cnbc.com "news now." two senators have introduced a bill that would give the fdic the authority to wind down bank holding companies. that would be an interim step until congress approves broad financial regulatory reform. new york attorney general andrew

cuomo says bonuses paid to executives at tarp recipient companies last year exceeded company net income in some cases. dow component walt disney is among the companies that will release quarterly earnings after today's closing bell. that's cnbc.com "news now." i'm julia boorstin. and tlhere's a live picture of the floor of the new york stock exchange as we enter the final stretch on wall street. a powerful rally under way. stocks hitting the highest levels of the year today. hi, everybody, welcome to "the closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo along with scott wapner. nice rally under way. back to fundamentals. better than expected earnings driving things today. >> and even earnings that weren't better than expected. exxon like we were talking about energy stocks up after two down days. the parent of our network, general electric, certainly having a little bit to do with this rally, maria. there are so many good numbers to talk about today. the dow fray percentage standpoint is on pace for its best july since 1939. >> that's true.

these are really great stats. and ge really the leadership stock here on the up side. goldman sachs upgrades the stock. talking about the fact that it's probably not going to spin out the ge capital arm and that's going to continue to add to earnings in a big, significant way. mentioned exxon. all the oils are high. oil once again higher above $67 a barrel. that has the oil stocks higher despite weaker than expected numbers or a decline, actually, big decline in earnings from exxonmobil. exxon of course a dow component. there's the nasdaq up in the double digits. 28 points. 1 1/2%. technology also getting the bid. that's certainly been the leadership group of the year. 1996 on the nasdaq. s&p 500 up 18 points. >> and our team that's covering the markets, the nyse, ntds and nymex but first to our bob pisani who's had a front row seat to this powerful rally today, bob. >> thanks very much there, scott. yes indeed. china helps, weaker dollar helps, commodities are helping here. the weekly jobs report also in line with expectations. in the middle of the day pretty good seven-year auction. bottom line is this.

powerful forces at work here. let's take a look what's going on. let's say the rally resumed after a few days of kind of moving sideways there. there are a lot of factors at work here. the most important thing is the markets were overbought a few days ago. traders came in and tried to short the market because they believed the market was overbought. but it didn't drop. they got their head handed to them. talk about frustrating. you add now today you get real buying because you've got some positive events here, particularly the china rally and some other positive comments there. take a look at the fact they didn't drop here. that's important. and now we've got up side event risk for the bears because we've got the second quarter gdp coming out tomorrow, and if there's any kind of positive news here in the gdp we're expecting it to be down 1 1/2%. if it's down 1% the bears have got problems. the market doesn't go down on bad news and it goes up on good news. good heavens if that's not a little bit of a warning. fed president dudley yesterday, the new york fed, mr. dudley said it's premature to talk about when we're going to exit from this period of unusual policy combination. there's a little signal.

not going to raise rates anytime soon here. take a look at some of the big stocks here today. again, not going down here at all. there's the spider, spy. this is what the professionals use for the s&p 500 to go in and out. the intraday. you saw up throughout the day then weakening in the middle of the day. 1:00 comes out that seven-year auction. b-plus as rick santelli gave it. that stabilized stocks. that's good news for stocks. moving sideways just off the highs. folks, we are not far from 1,000 on the s&p 500. first time that would happen since november 5th of 2008. take a look at the big materials names here. important thing is now that the dollar's weakened, china rally has resumed, all the big materials have done well. even though dow chemical didn't have a lot of positive things to say, stocks are up. same thing wen ji. not a lot of positive comments for examp from exxon, royal dutch shell or bp. refining margins are generally weaker. and the big names generally are not dropping despite the tough news.

warning sign for shorts. tradertalk.cnbc.com. how are we looking at the nasdaq? >> bob, we're looking a little better right now, watching to see if we can break back up over 2,000. if the nasdaq closes at that level, it would be the first time it's done that since late october of last year, and barring a major meltdown tomorrow looks like the nasdaq could have its best july in 12 years and its first five-month winning streak in almost six years. but perhaps keeping things below the 2,000 mark are yahoo. the street does not like the yahoo side of that microsoft-yahoo ad and search hookup announced yesterday. down big yesterday. down another 3% today. microsoft, on the other hand, up almost 1% again today. sticking with tech, shares of the web traffic company akamai taking about a 20% hit today after that company missed earnings estimates. so that is the bad stuff. here is all of the good stuff. all of these companies beat the

street. some of them raised their guidance as well. express scripts, mylan, they beat and boosted. expedia is at a new high today. it beat the street. wynn resorts had an unexpected profit. the street thought it was going to lose a penny. it made money instead. that stock's up 15%. and then steve madden shoes also beat the street, and that stock is trading at a new two-year high. after the closing bell, by the way, the ceo of mylan, or rather is ringing the closing bell here at the nasdaq, and after the closing bell we're going to get earnings out of first solar, but clearly investors are optimistic about that, bidding that stock up 4%. let's go over to rebecca jarvis at the nymex. rebecca? >> thank you so much, mike. and oil prices today soaring almost four bucks a barrel. we are back around that $67 a barrel level, essentially erasing all of yesterday's losses with today's gains. ray carbone of paramount options says fundamentally very little in the picture has changed. supplies are still high. demand is still weak.

however, oil as well as a number of other commodities are following on the heels of a stronger stock picture, also a weaker picture as far as the dollar is concerned. and gasoline, it's an important contract to follow. today also into tomorrow. tomorrow is the expiration of the future contract. we roll over into the new positions, and we tend to see more activity in these contracts around the time of expiration. hence a lot of that activity today. lastly i want to talk about a contract that we spend less time talking about, but is an important one and has been so over the last handful of days. it's soybeans. soybeans over the last four days have surged. today on the session as you can see up almost 7% on the day's session. what's behind the move? well, there's oil pulling things higher. but where oil is a weak issue on the supply side, in fact we have more than enough supplies on the oil front, soy is a very different supply picture. in fact, we are looking at a

potential in august to see supplies at 32-year lows. and maria, the country that's consuming all of it is china. back over to you. >> absolutely, rebecca. thanks so much. that china story is wrong. everybody's talking about the chinese consumer really bailing them out of this global recession. rebecca makes the right point. let's talk more about investing in this environment. should you have your money in china, by the way? rob morgan is with me, claremont wealth strategies market strategist. also alex young, standard & poor's market strategist. do you look at investing that way in do you look at -- somebody said to me the other day you have to fish where the fishes are, which is what i wrote on the blog, because it was an interesting point. that's where the people are. 1.3 billion people. do you want to be buying companies that are actually exposed to the chinese economy in a way that will drive groelth? >> we probably wouldn't go company specific, maria. we'd probably stick with etfs that would go more in the country or region. but we would overweight international investing, and that's one of our favorite areas. >> real momentum in this market, alex. what's behind it?

>> increasingly we keep climbing this wall of worry. there's plenty of things to worry about. but i think the key is expectations are still very low for the economy, for earnings, and corporate america's able to exceed those. economic numbers able to exceed those. and you're getting a lot of short covering. there seems to be much more risk in being out of this market right now than in it. i think maybe later in the fall as the expectation bar goes up on earnings and the economy, maybe we'll get a little more chop then. but as far as the rest of the sirm think you'll stay long this market. >> if you're not in the market now and you've seen the market go up as much as it has, have you missed the boat? >> i think that's one of the reasons the slightest pullbacks draw heavy buying. so many people have missed it at the first sign of weakness, 2%, 3% pullback they pile in and on days like today the shorts just get killed. >> rob, s&p 1000 how psychological is that if we're able to close above that level? >> i think it's very important. and as alec was alluding, to we're going upward from here. you know, for the first time in two years, earnings revisions

were positive. that's big. still a lot of cash on the sidelines. that's just going to continue to fuel through the summer. >> so what do you do now, then? as an investor who wants to be in this market, you're saying growth versus value. you're saying large cap versus small. you've said technology in the past is the way to play this. and obviously, you've been right. what do i need to own to participate if this in fact continues throughout the end of summer? >> well, we probably agree on technology and energy. those are two places you need to be. we also like materials. so those are -- >> i think you're right. because that's the inflation trade. and that has not stopped. that's the coppers of the world. iron ore, steel. >> i think as the market continues to grind higher throughout the month of august, which i think it will, you want to be long the risk trade. so i think small, mid-cap, emerging markets. the higher beta trades are going to -- as long as markets are rising, they're probably going to rise more. similarly, when you get profit taking they're going to get hit harder. but if your assumption is an up market which ours is, i think

you want to be long the risk trade. that means small caps, mid caps. higher beta areas. higher risk areas. >> because small caps largely missed a lot of this big move higher, right? do we think there's going to be room for small caps, specifically the russell 2000 to move higher? >> sure. i think they've done pretty well off the bottom. they haven't been big slouches. mid caps are leading both small and large here to date. i definitely think there's room in an up market to get a little bit of leverage on the 500 by going a little smaller in terms of size. and i would agree that you want to go with growth over value. >> what about the emerging markets you just mentioned? do you do etfs like rob was saying? >> i would definitely agree with that. it's volatile enough as it is when you own a diversified basket based on a broad index like you get with a fund or an etf. you don't need to go country specific to make very good returns here. we're up close to 50% year to date on a lot of the headline emerging market indices. when you can do that well with a diversified approach there's less incentive i think to

make -- >> you see oil moving higher. is oil going to 60 or 80 first and what is it going to mean for stocks? >> our analysts do think oil is going to continue to move higher over the next 12 months and that's one of the reasons we like the energy stocks. their earnings are weak this year but we see a big earnings rebound next year. we think demand gradually improves with the global economy. and supply may be a little bit tight because a lot of people stopped investing and exploration since prices collapsed last year. we're looking for areas that have good predictability for profits. energy can be choppy day to day. we think if you look out a year you're going to be rewarded there. >> that's also the way to play the emerging markets. you can get an etf that wants to invest in the chinese you want or an etf that's looking at earnings coming out of brazil. so that's one way to play the emerging markets. >> we'd probably be a little broader than that, though. that's almost like buying a stock. >> very select.

>> bringing it back to the broader point-f oil does go up, that does disproportionately benefit emerging markets. about a third of that asset class is -- >> we would underweight utilities and consumer staples. kind of the flip side of the risk trade. those are the defensive sectors. so you want to lighten up there. >> those people who say we're overbought, we're overbought, but yet the market keeps going higher, do you think there's going to be a pullback of some sort? and by how much? >> i don't think you'll see anything meaningful until the fall. it will be fundamentally driven, maybe some seasonals too, but i'm more of a fundamental guy. i think it's going to be a matter of the expectations for the economy and corporate america being much higher and maybe companies have a tougher time meeting those expectations. but as long as the expectations are low, there's a lot of cash on the sidelines, a lot of people have missed the move. there's a potential for short covering. i think these bears are early. they may be right but if they're

a month early they could miss 5% or 6% on the up side. >> the fall is going to be when the rubber hits the road because then we're going to need evidence of real recovery in terms of earnings, not just earnings but revenue growth. >> right. that's the difference between the earnings reports this quarter and what we're going to have later. >> are you taking any comfort in the fact that sequential revenue growth is improving? i know year over year stinks and it's still down. but you have to go somewhere. >> that's part of what's driving this rally. revenue for the s&p 500 was down 16% in the first quarter. only 10% this quarter. it fits in with this gradual improvement, less bad scenario. right now it seems all it needs to propel stocks higher. >> the issue is there are all these sort of red flags on the horizon. clearly -- >> wall of worry. >> yeah, wall of worry. you're right, rob. there are some catalysts in a couple of months that i just want to get your temperature on, and that is the back to school. back to school selling probably the second most important retail time of the year after the holidays. is it going to be a slump this

year? is that going to be one -- >> the consumer's going to struggle. i mean, we're underweight staples. we're not overweight discretionary. so -- >> probably. >> i think, you know, intuitively, given all the pressures facing the consumer with housing and jobs, there's a lot of people who are worried about that. one thing that gives me a bit of a bullish take on it is the fact that everybody's worrying about it. in other words-f the consumer's kind of a washout, you know, it's not a big surprise. so it will be interesting to see. >> gentlemen, great conversation as always. we appreciate it. rob morgan, thank you very much. alec young, we'll see you later. >> good to see you guys. maria-b 45 minutes to go before the closing bell. we talked about this powerful rally. the dow is up 150, the nasdaq as i said up 45% alone in the last five months alone. >> best levels since 1939, you said, on the dow. great july, that's for sure. take a break. when we come right back after this break, we're going to talk with the ceo of goldcorp.

we're going to once again take a look at some of that inflation trade. where is the demand for gold and other commodities? gold right now at an all-time high. by the end of the year is basically what the prediction is coming out of goldcorp. we'll have more from that bullish call when he joins us. >> and we will look forward to that. after the bell former council of economic advisers chairman glenn hubbard says president obama's proposal to expand the federal reserve's powers don't go far enough. he'll explain why and tell us if he thinks social security could be on the verge of a bailout. good but first, here's where the action is on the street today. the most heavily tladed stocks on the nyse. once again citigroup leads the list, followed by b of a and ge, with that big move up better than a dollar a share. back in a moment.

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i'm matt nesto with the "closing bell" realtime flash. s far as earnings after the close, disney is the big dog today but las vegas sands is the hot dog. and i'm saying that because if you take a look at what the stock has done not only today but over the past three weeks or

month, it's up 65%, folks, since the second push in this rally began on the 13th of july. it's in the top five performers of the russell 1000. it's not in the s&p 500. 7 billion market cap give or r take. it's expected to lose a penny on just about a billion in revenue. but the range of estimates could be positive. and if they actually go break even or positive, that will snap five consecutive quarters of losses. so las vegas sands, the hot dog, after the close pl maria? >> the hot dog for sure, but it was the cold dog for a long time. >> oh, no doubt. >> very, very weak in a short period of time. >> it was $150 a share in november of '07, i believe, something like that. so we're now at 11. >> it's come all the way down. matt, thanks so much. meanwhile the price of gold hovering around $930 but the ceo of goldcorp, the world's second largest gold miner, is expecting gold prices to hit all-time highs by the year end. 1,0-0 1,050 he says by the end of the

year. reported a second quarter loss mainly due to foreign exchange charges. join meg now that i first on cnbc interview is charles jeannes, the cref goldcorp. welcome back to "closing bell." >> thanks for having me on. >> the company reported a loss, but it was a foreign exchange you can really attribute to that loss for the quarter. can you characterize the quarter for aus way from that currency change? >> yeah. the loss was entirely attributable to a non-cash adjustment on our future income tax liabilities based on foreign exchange rates. on an operating basis and an adjusted earnings basis we had an outstanding quarter. very simply, each one of our mines performs and continues to at or above expectations both on a production basis and a cost basis for the year. so we've reaffirmed guidance, and in fact we're tracking better than our guidance on the cost side. >> let me ask you about production. a lot of people talking about

production. it was production of gold up 5.6%. where is the production? and tell me about the supply-demand situation right now for gold. >> well, for goldcorp we have kind of a dual story in that we're a strong producer today, producing 2.3 million ounces this year at a very low cash cost. at $299 an ounce for the first six months of the year. and then going forward we've got a strong suite of growth projects that are under way that will add to 50% growth over the next five years, up to 3.5 million ounces. but that is very unique in the gold business. as an industry worldwide gold production has dropped each of the last five years, and most observers, including myself, fully expect that to continue for several years to come, particularly if we remain at this kind of gold price. at $900 gold there just aren't that many high-quality new

projects worldwide that can draw the capital investment necessary to bring them into production. >> so what's behind your prediction that gold prices will end the year at a high and continue rallying? >> well, part of it is seasonal. we've always had strength, if you go back and look in i think 10 of the last 13 years, the strongest part of the year has been in the late august through fall time period. and so i would expect a normal rally. you get a lot of increased demand for jewelry buying in advance of the holiday season. but on a more general basis i guess i'm one of those who would believe in a bit of a w recovery. and i think we have a little more pain to see through the latter part of this year before the economic recovery fully takes hold. and gold has been a very strong performer in that kind of an environment when as a safe haven investment. and i would expect to see that again.

longer term -- >> what do you see -- sorry. >> i was just going to say longer term i think the long-term supply and demand fundamentals make me even more bullish as we get out a few years. >> well, let me ask you about that. because in addition to gold, we want to get your thoughts on copper. you're a miner of copper, large player in the space. where specifically is the demand coming from around the world for copper and gold right now? >> well, copper for the most part has been increasing on the back of demand from asia and primarily china. and the thesis there today, or in the industry today is we're now at some point going to start seeing a restocking, if you will, of supplies in the western world as the u.s. and europe get out of the financial crisis, that -- or the situation that we've been in. and so that's the basis, i believe, for the strong copper has been demand from asia with an expectation of increased

demand from the west. on the gold standpoint jewelry demand has been down year over year, but it's been well more than offset by much stronger investment demand, both as a safe haven investment and as people start to see the end of the recession and the economy starting to grow as a hedge against inflation. we're kind of seeing the benefit in the gold market of both sides of the economy. >> we will leave it there. mr. jeannes, good to have you on the program. thanks so much. we appreciate it. >> thanks so much. >> and maria, we have about 35 minutes to go before the closing bell. we've been mentioning that this run in the dow over the month of july up 9% has the dow on track for its best percentage gain since 1939 for the month of july, and let's not forget that the nasdaq has had quite a run as well. >> yeah. it's up 23% in 2009. up next, ariel investments chairman and ceo john rogers weighs in.

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cautionary comments from a number of key stocks. that tells traders there's real event risk because the market just kind of wants to either move sideways or go up. that means tomorrow's second quarter gdp is a real problem for the bears. if it's in line, unlikely for the markets to drop. if it is a little better than anticipated we're looking for down 1 1/2%, markets could move to the up side and easily pass 1,000. back to you. >> the national urban league's business pioneer award was bestowed upon john rogers, a man who wears many hats at ariel investments, including founder, chairman, and ceo with 4.4 billion in assets under management. it is the fourth largest black-owned asset manager according to "black enterprise" magazine. our sharon epperson is in chicago with the evening's special honoree. sharon, take it away. >> well, scott, here at the national urban league conference there are about 4,000 people attending, and many business leaders and corporate leaders as

well as government leaders here. john rogers just received the business pioneer award after 26 years having started ariel capital management. now ariel investments that long ago. and as you're looking now at the landscape, wall street still a lack of diversity there, you say where are the young leaders today in the business community, in the african-american business community? >> well, i think some of the up-and-coming leaders, the number one person i think about is don thompson. he's the president of mcdonald's usa, in charge of all the mcdonald's in the united states. i'm fortunate to be on the board of directors, and i've watched him closely and see that he has an enormous potential, a dynamic leader, and he's bringing along a lot of other leaders. mcdonald's has this great culture of bringing in great diverse leaders. >> let's talk a little about the markets as well. and you are a chicago bull at heart, and you're bullish on the markets. what are you looking at right now in a good day today? what are you focused on? what sectors are you focused on right now? >> we're continuing to believe the media sector's going to be a great place for us. we think that corporate advertising's going to come back

at the end of '09 and into '10 and i think that's going to continue to drieflt advertising stocks, media names, newspapers, television companies, the cable companies. we think it's going to be the best place to be-s in the media sector. >> scott? >> hey, john, it's scott wapner back here. it's funny that you're a chicago bull because our viewers are going to look at some interesting video of you actually going one on one with michael jordan. you're one of the few people i guess who could say they've beaten michael jordan going one on one. i want to ask you, what's easier, going head to head with m.j. or head to head with the stock market? >> the stock market is really the most difficult game in the world to play. it's the most humbling game in the world to play. at least in basketball every once in a while you can get fortunate and like i did get a lucky shot over michael at the last second. but this business can surprise you in so many different ways, that it's a much tougher game. >> i don't know about luck. you look like you had some skills there. i'm interested, though, in the fact you say you like the media

sector, one of the sectors that's been most beleaguered through this economic downturn. >> well, we're naturally contrarians. and because it's been so beleaguered, so many of the media stocks are selling at bargain prices. you know, historically low p/e multiples, companies like gannett that have been selling at three and four times earnings, levels that you never dreamed could be possible. and that's where the opportunity comes, to be able to buy these big companies at bargain prices. >> you have a stake in gannett? >> yes. it's one of our largest holdings, one that we've been building up on weakness. we bought it too soon. but we continue to add as the price got lower and lower. we think it's going to be a great long-term winner for us. >> okay. excuse me there, sharon. go ahead, please. >> bank of america ceo ken lewis spoke right before you received your award. he talked a little about his views on the recession and the fact he thinks it may end by the end of the year, although of course unemployment continues to be high through 2010. what is your outlook here, and what does that mean for the market? >> i think ken is right.

i think the economy will recover in the second half of '09 into early '10. i think the market typically anticipates what's going to happen to the economy six months or so in advance. so i think it's going to be higher prices from here in anticipation of a recovering economy. and i would say not only with the media names, also in terms of the real estate names and the heavily cyclical types of stocks that will do very, very well as the economy recovers. >> i have to ask you, one of the things i spoke to secretary of education arnie beckett about this earlier today, that i know you're focused on is financial education and the key to economic -- that's a very important part of this path to power conference. what are you doing with the urban league in terms of financial education? >> well, we've been working with the urban league on financial literacy issues, and they've been supportive of our local ariel community academy public school, where we're teaching kids to invest in the stock market with real money, and they can watch their stocks go up and down and work with our analysts on a regular basis on how to pick stocks and how to do research. they go to the mcdonald's annual

meeting every year. so we think we can immerse kids with the stock market at a young age and they'll get great habits and hopefully it will encourage other financial services companies to partner with inner city public schools thway >> thank you so much. john rogers, ceo of ariel investments, joining with me here at the national urban league conference. scott, back to you. >> sharon, mr. rogers, thanks so much. he's a little humble, i guess, but the guy was captain of the basketball team at princeton. he can clearly play some basketball. >> and it's cool to watch him play with m.j. >> absolutely. not many people can say they've beaten him one on one. dow up 145 here. the nasdaq having a strong go of it as well. we've got about 30 minutes before the closing bell on wall street. >> i'm looking at my screen, i don't see a lot of red. pretty much money moving into a lot of sectors across the board. technology looks good. exxon and citigroup two standouts on the down side. up next, the yut looutlook of e prices. ceo of apache joining us. hear how he's positioning the company.

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got about 30 minutes left until the closing bell, and here's how the markets are shaping up, off the best levels of the day. we had some really key areas today. 9200 we crossed on the dow but the dow now has backed off that just a bit. still up by 114 points. the s&p 500 backed up just a little bit as well as it tries to get to 1,000. and then of course the nasdaq, which has been red hot, is up as well, maria. >> scott, independent oil and natural gags producer apache reporting a 69% decline in second quarter earnings but the stock today is trading higher, going into the close, because the company also reported increased production in the quarter. stock is up 5.75%. we take you inside the numbers right now with apache ceo steve farris. >> thank you very much for having me. >> can you characterize the quarter for us? what drove business? >> well, i think more than anything what you're seeing is the benefit of our geologic and geographic diversity. half our production is outside north america and we're seeing some benefit from international gas prices plus we also have

about 50% of our production is oil. we saw quite a bing crease from the first quarter to the second quarter on the oil price and then of course we had 7% increase in production. we're an emt company. costs are down, production up, we're going to have a good quarter. that's what we turned in this quarter. >> production was up 7% in the quarter. more than 7%. and your operations are spread around the world. where are you seeing much of that production? >> well, we have a big operation in the western desert of egypt. we had two gas plants come on in egypt that added about 110 million cubic feet of gas a day. we had a development in the gulf of mexico, a deep water gas discovery, that came on, is producing a little over 100 million a day. we pride ourselves in believing in a portfolio balance, and i think that's shown through very well this quarter. >> let me ask you about what congress has been looking into and get your thoughts on it. we see congress looking into the role of speculators in the oil

mark market, talking about that constraints should be put in place so we don't have speculators driving the price. do you think that's what's behind some of the moves in oil? >> the current boom in oil, i think -- i can't judge month to month or week to week. but if you look at the insatiable need of the world for crude oil, whether it's this year or next year, we're going to continue to see rising prices on the crude side. >> so you think that prices continue going higher because of fundamentals? >> i think there is no doubt over the next five years we're going to see higher oil prices. >> what kind of a move are you expecting? when you say higher oil prices. do you think we go back to the highs of 147? >> no. we believe in anomalies. and i will tell you, the anomaly at $70 or $65 is not the anomaly. the anomaly was $147.

>> what's driving, do you think, the oil markets in terms of the demand around the world? where are you seeing the demand mostly for crude as well as natural gas? >> well, i think for crude oil -- and if you look at the numbers, both india and china have accounted i think for about 60% of the demand increase over the last three years. and i don't see that abating at all. certainly the united states's demand has gone down some. but i think our economy is recovering, and i think you're going to start seeing that flatten out in this country. in natural gas i think we -- producers haven't been able to get their story across. there's a sea change that's happened in natural gas. you know, in 37 years i've been in this business what's happened in the shale plates over the last five years, we've gone from a nine-year reserve life on natural gas to over a 100-year reserve life. and it really is a time when

this country ought to switch as much as they can to the use of natural gas because i really don't see natural gas taking off and having the volatility that it's had in the past. >> i see. now, the company recently acquired that oil field from marathon oil for $181 million. can you characterize the input on the company's bottom line? what kind of production is expected from that field? and how important will it be? >> that's what we call a tactical acquisition, maria. that was about $187 million. it added about 3,500 barrels of oil and equivalent natural gas. we produce 587,000 barrels a day. so in terms of a major magnitude on our production. but it was a nice piece of business. the company was getting out of the firmian basin. we're large in the firmian basin. and it fit us very well. >> we'll leave it there. mr. farris, thank you for being on the program. we appreciate your time today.

>> thanks for having me. >> steve farris is the ceo of apache corporation. scott? >> >> >> maria, 20 minutes to go. ge, the parent of this network, certainly playing a role in why the nasdaq is hot. 8% alone. you can pick almost any tech besides dell. >> since march the lows of the market, the market capitalization of the s&p 500 has increased by $2.7 trillion in value to some 8.6 trillion. richard peterson from standard & poor's sending me that fact. he says, now, that is a stimulus. it sure is. up next, the final call. s&p 500 hitting the highest levels of the year. can the summer rally last second half? we'll see what kind of options market is impacted in the market. >> yeah. so many good stats today. after the bell online travel bookings far outpacing the rest of the travel industry this year. so what is expedia doing to stay ahead of its rivals in this highly competitive space? the company's ceo will tell us in a "first on cnbc" interview today at 4:00 p.m. eastern. >

check out some of the stocks that are under the radar today. cabelas a big winner today. the hunting and fishing camping gear retailer reporting an increase in company profits. strong firearm sales. yes, people are buying guns. the company also raised its full-year revenue outlook. newell up. the company increasing its full-year profit guidance. and engine maker cummins second quarter profit plummeted 84% to $56 million because of stalling orders. but excluding a charge related to the job cuts, that beats wall street estimates because of lower expenses, scott. >> and maria, take a look at the s&p 500 over the past month. it's posting a pretty good rally, to say the least, up more

than 7%. but is it sustainable? that's the real question. brian stutland, president of stutland equities, here for the "fast money" final call to tell us what the options market is saying about the rally. tell us, brian, is it sustainable? we've just seen the market up, up, up and away even though everybody says it's overbought. >> yeah, you know, it is definitely technically on a technical basis overbought a little bit. but you know, i do have to say earlier in the week we saw big customers, particularly from barclays, coming in, selling 20,000 puts. so what does that mean? they were willing to get long the market, the august 9 60 put, they were willing to get he long the market below 960 on the s&p 500 of almost $1 billion of notional value down there. they were true believers in this theory. they didn't come out and buy calls and think the market was gapping higher p. they thought a slow move higher was the right way to play it and they've been right so far. i think that's what we'll probably see. we've seen the market move up close to 2% today and back off. we're still in this bullish trend. i think we push toward 1,000. but i think there's going to be some resistance coming up and i

think we're going to gradually go higher to there, not gap higher. >> you're looking at 1050, 1100 on the s&p, that kind of a level? >> yeah, i think that's where the resistance comes in. 1050, 1100, right there in that range is probably where we go. we've seen a lot of people coming in trying to buy some protection in the vix, the volatility index either bidding up vix futures or buying premiums in the options market to protect against any kind of pullback. to me that's a bullish sign because when they get pullback they have the protection they don't need to run and hide and sell out of their stock position. we'll continue to trend higher i just think we'll run into some resistance once we get above 1,000 on the s&p because valuations will starred to extend themselves at that point and maybe get i little overdone. >> i'm glad we're looking at vix root now which is down 36% or so year to date. but you think volatility is going to ping a little bit as a little bit of fear comes into the market as we again keep going higher. >> certainly that's what the vix futures plays are saying. vix futures in september, october, november, those guys are bidding the futures up almost close to $30 yesterday. now it's backed off a little bit today, but they're betting that

maybe some volatility may come back in this marketplace. i think maybe it's a little bit overdone. and i'm using that as an optimistic sign that people are buying overprotection in this market so that any kind of pullback they can get back in and get long again. >> what are you seeing in tefrmtz dollar? and where do you think the dollar's going, especially in its relationship with oil, which today as we've noted here is higher by three bucks? >> right. the dollar certainly -- we saw it move higher the last few days, but we didn't see a conviction in that. we didn't see a big volatile move to the up side where there was some strength in this bottoming process to the dollar. i'm a little wary of it, and even yesterday we saw an options trader come in and synthetically short 500,000 shares of uup. that's the u.s. dollar etf. so they were basically getting short, that taking a negative bet on the dollar. so i think you could see that trend lower. we also did see -- you know, you spoke of oil. oil we saw a call buyer, 100,000 uso calls traded in january. the january 55 strike. someone paying a quarter, betting that oil could possibly

double by the beginning of next year. to me that only happens if the dollar gets weaker because the demand picture isn't quite there to push oil to quite that high. >> good to see you, man. thanks a lot. >> yep. >> and coming up on "fast money," the best players on the street tell you how to ride this reignited summer rally. plus former new york governor eliot spitzer joins the "fast money" gang to talk wall street, politics, and he why, the stock market as well. guest host erin burnett joins the "fast money" traders. that is tonight at 5:00. >> ten minutes before the close. the market's up 100 points on the dow industrials. talking about the best july since 1939. >> pretty impressive. both autos and building products have all seen a big drop-off in business. so why are stocks in those industries much higher recently? mr. nesto is going to break it all down when we come right back.

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welcome back. time for the day's research calls. the latest upgrades and downgrades. morgan stanley cuts its rating on mcdonald's today to an equal weight from an overweight on the belief that the fast food company has little room left to improve margins. instead the analyst tells clients he likes yum brands, the owner of taco bell, pizza hut, and kfc. upgrades that one to an overweight from an equal weight. and as you can see, that stock is up. suntrust robinson humphrey downgrades visa to a neutral

from a buy citing valuation, the likelihood of operating margin expansion will begin to slow down. the stock, visa shares up more than 50% since late january. so that, scott, is the valuation concern. >> all right, maria. declining sales, huge losses, weak demand. it sounds like a recipe for financial disaster. and yet it's proving to be stock market gold. cnbc's matt nesto has a look at the rally of the hated. hey, matt. >> the rally of the hated? this i have to hear. >> the hated. it sounds like either a punk band or this whole out of favor thing is really polite talk on wall street. but man, we're talking about companies and sectors, industries that are just -- you know, you can't see them making money, and they're naughty. we take a look at their results here and some of these groups are aum facing falling sales. double digits. 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% revenue declines. i'll give you the names and details in a second. visibility, even the best and biggest of the blue chips don't dare look out more than six months, let alone three months.

sought smaller -- some of these smaller hated stocks certainly aren't able to do that. a lot of them are in the big ticket business or in the discretionary sector. and then they're also helpless to really fix the problem, which is just a weak economy and weak demand. they've done all they can to cut costs and to streamline and to weather the storm as much as they can. but ultimately you've got to get demand. so exhibit a, i'll show you, is calaway golf. the stock is flying. up 26% this month. up 12% here today. the company was out with an 83% decline in their earnings per share on a 17% decline in sales. the ceo says you know what, it would be short-sighted to overechlside the short term, golf will recover. stock is going higher here today. exhibit b, for brunswick. they make boats. you think there's a lot of boats for sale out there right now? you think? yeah. 26% higher today.

56% higher in the month. they're out there saying we have cut back our production below the sales pace that our dealers are even selling at, which is already down. their revenues were down 52%. but their dealer inventories are at a ten-year low. so just to give you the list of the hated, hate them if you want to, this is toby keith, shout out to him, but love me if you can. teneco, they make auto parts. armstrong, wynn resorts. i talked about vegas. expedia, and gannett. that's enough to hate for everybody. >> all right, matt. thank you. >> you hater. >> matt nesto. this rally is losing a little steam. up still 80 points but certainly way off best levels. got the closing countdown right after the break. >> and after the bell cnbc is your home for earnings analysis. disney results coming up minutes away.

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