a little bit of disappoint. they made the right noises, saying the declines we saw in first half of year now over. then used the magic word business conditions to show signs of stabilization. thee three months ago had they used this language, the stock would have moved up notably. the bottom line is this, you're not getting the same little umph you get, you have to use the word growth. rick santelli, the stabilization isn't going to get the magic effect and not if they use that or any company in the third quarter. >> i couldn't agree more with that analogy. that application worked for so many areas like jobs, 371,000 lost is not anything to celebrate, but yet there's still a bit of celebration going on. less bad, we've heard enough of that, like a pop commercial.

the index has gone hot. we're making new lows, moving again. hey, do you see crude oil now back in positive territory? the foreign exchange effect, even in lieu of their supply, all of fundamentals it takes hold. supply, supply, supply next week, august refunding 75 billion. 23 billion in tens and 15 billion in 30 years. this is going to be interesting, it's a record size 4 billion more than the last refunding. for next refunding we'll probably sell 30-year tips. wherever supply needs look to be in inflation weary economy, we'll fill the hole with more. >> brian, on your side of things, midtown, you're looking at research in motion? >> listen, we're weak here, down

1.3%, almost twice as weak as the others, but should having a little bit from the microsoft details of the search deal. the reports out there that they have the cheapest blackberry ever coming out. it's going to be in wal-mart for $48, it's called the gemny. if this takes off, it shows you they can get into the consumer market and two analysts came out with positive news, susquehanna and they did the checks and said they are doing well in this quarter and keeping the price target of 90 and saying it's a nonperformer. in the face of major losses, rim is a bright spot. >> now you're interview with mary shapiro. we started with the news everybody is talking about. i asked ms. shapiro how important high frequency trade

sg for the sec? >> i think they go to this whole issue -- concern about whether we're developing a two-tiered market where some people have access to more information than others do. and that's a concern obviously. so with respect to flash orders we're looking at whether they should be continued to be permitted. on high frequency trading, dark pools, some of the other issues related, we'll take a thoughtful approach and try to surface all of issues, particularly the ones that go to fairness to investors from some of these strategies and decide what kind of rule making or other action might be appropriate for us to take. i would agree, they have caught people's imaginations very quickly. >> they have. senator charles schumer yesterday went so far as to say that a been by you of a flash trading was imminent. you haven't done it yet, did you

have a conversation with the senator where you indicated you're moving in that direction? should we expect a ban? >> i have talked to the senator but i've also talked to the major market participants and investors all interested in this issue. we're going to look very carefully at how to deal with the inequity created by flash order and widespread call from others as well, even markets engage in flash trading have called -- >> nasdaq i know -- >> exactly. my personal view is we're headed in that direction, the commission will have to vote to take that position. has to be done by rule making, we're moving quite decidedly in that direction. >> in high frequency trading, we've seen numbers half to 2/3 is quote unquote high frequency. just because people are trading quickly or with high frequency doesn't necessarily mean that

it's fraudulent or in some way inappropriate, right? >> you're right about that. in fact, there's a very good argument that it's brought tremendous liquidity to the marketplace and narrowed spreads which is very much of a benefit to all investors, we have to balance the good and bad here and do that in a very thoughtful way. this is an enormous part of the marketplace today. we want to make sure we're guarding against real inequity to detail other investors, we want to be conscious of the fact the liquidity that can be brought to the marketplace say benefit. >> dark pools another issue, they are linked because some people with information that others don't. as a concept have been growing, i mean many banks have their own exchanges not linked to stock exchanges in any way. some hedge fund managers say there is a place for dark pools, when they have a massive position in a stock, i'll make one up, citigroup and want to

unload it, it's hard to do so because everyone knows where they stand. i don't know if that makes sense to you or not. is there a plate at all for a dark pool that not everybody has access too. >> i think the jury is out. that's part of the analysis we're going through right now. i do think we have to be conscious of the fact there are very large trade that's have to be accomplished in the marketplace. akin to the old lock desks in investment banks, we need to think about that and how that translates into this new very tech no logically empower trading market. we want to think about the market structure and be eliminating inequities to the greatist extent we can. we also understand there is a need for a.m. anyone ninty in

the marketplace. these should be displayed publicly so everyone has access. >> maybe changes in how they operate but it sounds like you, at least -- you at least recognize there could be a role for them. >> i think that's right. questions come up, should they be linked? what kind of transparency should there be post trade so people know where transactions are happening? as i said, the jury is very much out on these and we'll look at the full range of issues and see what we think is appropriate. our guidepost in all of this will be investor protection. >> and last fall there were a lot of things that got folk u. a list of stock banks that people were not allowed to short because the prices kept going down. a whole lot of discussion about the uptick rule and whether that was causing the market to go down. now the market has come back up

and we're not hearing anything about the uptick rule or new restrictions. are both of those still on the table. >> they are and we're still hearing from investors in particular about reinstating the old uptick rule, we range from circuit breakers that apply to individual stocks to something akin to the old uptick rule that applies across the market that would slow down short saling. those went out for comment. we got 4,000 i think comment letters that we're working our way through and haven't decided how we're going to go forward on that. i hope we'll do that in the near future. >> by the end of the year, you have a lot of goals of things you want to have resolved. what are the other things. >> short selling, as part of the short selling review, absolutely. we've done some new rules to provide shareholders ability to nominate directors to corporate

boards, those are out for comment. we would like to move ahead with that. better disclosure on executive and other compensation practices and public companies and how that's related to risk taking and we think that's really important information for investors, we have money market reform rules that are out to try to make money market funds more resilient and avoid the potential for another one to break the buck. then we have new rules that deal with the sanktity and safety for those held by investment providers. >> you investigated three times as many ponzi schemes. bernard madoff comes to mind. are all of those people unveiled, are they going to jail? >> lots of them will go to jail. stan ford is in jail now awaiting trial. we try to do as many of these

fraud cases with the criminal authorities as we can. while we might be the first mover, sometimes they are the first mover, we are often linked with the criminal authorities because we can't put anyone to jail. we're a civil enforcement agency. they can, that's the most powerful deterrent of all. >> what about in the cases of companies, tlchs a while we weren't hearing that. our parent ge paid a fine on accounting fraud, k-mart and bank of america on misleading investors. will we see headlines like that, will you work with criminal authorities in those sorts of cases? >> we will work with criminal authorities in those cases as well. we have aggressive new enforcement director it sec who made a priority for us to be strategic in our cases much faster in our cases and seen

that in the last couple of weeks, i think. and bringing the case that's have the biggest impact, the highest likelihood of protecting investor and stopping ongoing fraud and problems. and that's the path we're on. >> we've seen the stories of the meeting you were at, timothy geithner, ben bernanke, were all there. are you going to all get to the same place on whether the fed will be the ultimate top dog or everybody at the table, the council of regulators is there going to be a united front here soon. >> at the end of the day it's congress's call what the legislation looks like. there's far more agreement than there is disagreement among the federal regulators, absolute commitment across the board to improving the financial regulatory system, making it much more robust and much more resilience jent to crises.

whether it's going to be a stronger or less strong counsel, the fed as the systemic regulator or fed coupled with the council, i think the differences are pretty minor. i think we'll be able to work through those. >> why would a group, the council, would that be better than having it reside at the fed? >> the sec's position has been that there should be a much more empowered council and be a systemic regulator, second set of eyes, it certainly could be the fed, looking over the shoulder of the primary regulators to make sure for the really systemic important institutions and payment systems and so forth, that everything is being done as well as it possibly can be. so that while the primary regulator would set maybe capital liquidity, standards leveraged limitations, that you could have a council or systemic

regulator raise that level. we favor council and systemic regulator in addition to the primary regulators with their specific areas of authority. >> she said more things as well. we'll share those with you and next on the show we have a panel ready for instant analysis on our interview. plus, is the housing market on the mend? we'll go to the front lines with ab exclusive interview with owens corning, one of the biggest makers of wind. and we'll tackle the issue of whether china is number one. we'll be right back.

you just heard from mary shapiro and whether the sec should ban flash trading and everything else she had to say. let's start off with the high frequency trading issue that has gotten so much press since the first story in "the new york times." bob pisani and michelle caruso-cabrera and steven pearlsteen from the "washington post" who wrote an op-ed concerned about high frequency trading. let me go to you first, steve pearlstein. you talked about the surge in volume that was due to high frequency trading and said this

seems like you likened it to this could be the next big thing, as in big problem. she seemed to say high frequency trade sg not necessarily a bad thing. >> she did. you know, with the exception on those variations on it like flash, which obviously are unfair. i don't know that it's a terrible thing. these are the sorts of things where a red flag seems to me is presented. we've seen them before. it's not just accelerating what otherwise was already going on. not making it faster. it's making it so much fatter and having so much volume that it induces its own volume. i do high frequency trading and the next guy and everyone is doing it. we have much higher volumes and it changes the kinds of trading not just the speed of trading. i guess the question i would ask, the incremental increase

worth the incremental increase in volatility that it brings to the market because it does bring volatility. fz a lot of momentum trading, as you know. the question is, is that a good trade off at the margin. do you think we could run an advanced economy in the 21st century and not have it -- >> then what do you do? you have to wait one second or two seconds. go back to when my grandfather drove his model t to buy the stock and wait to see what he paid in the paper the next day. >> that's a good question. do we need to allow it, do we need to read the article in the quts wall street journal, people investing $5 million in a new facility to do it. we have an arms race, if goldman does it, then bank of america does it, hedge funds do it, they

want to have the co-located high speed computers next to the exchange computer. >> momentum trading is always about an arms race, look at these devices down here they were brought in 20 years ago to get orders down on the floor, the new york stock exchange -- that's what technology is all about. i don't have a problem with high frequently trading. i don't see a problem. i agree with you, michelle. the principle is this, they said orders to be executed at the best price. if there's any situations where orders are being exposed unfairly inside exchanges to keep business there and high frequently traders are getting a look at that. if that's happening, that's unfair. >> that she made it pretty clear. you heard her, what she said. >> the hedge funds are terrified. the minute we brought on the guy

that wrote the original white paper, the phone calls i got from secretive huj funds trader that's never wanted to be known, they are terrified. there's a lot of money being made doing this. and they don't want -- >> particularly on flash. >> but the rebates with the flash -- >> can i get in a point here? you have to ask the question, if you allow this to go so fast and be so computerized, if you take care of flash, do you just ip vit the next abuse and set up a system that invites abuse and step back and maybe do it slower and make it easier for humans to see what's going on. >> it's going to be impossible. i work down here. this is difficult for any normal person to compete against the computers. the important thing is work on first principle.

first is orders should all be executed at the best price. and anything that gives anybody an exchange keeping orders in an exchange so people can see them is unfair. that should be moved against. the problem i had with flash trading, if gives that appearance. >> michelle and steven weigh in. anni an explosive area of growth, she did answer it and said they actually right now exchange traded funds regulated under the investment management unit and would like to consider putting in a separate unit and devote more resources. she had some concern whether they are being potentially missold. >> here's the issue, the problem is investors aren't always clear what they are buying, they get significant tracking over time particularly as is volatility. if you think you're buying a

bank index that gets you twice the leverage of the bank index, you're up 10%, one quarter, that's not going to be that way. and people may not understand what they are buying, sec needs to be very aggressive to make sure that the funds are selling these in the proper way. if you look at the wording, these funds are getting a lot clearer in explaining what type of returns. i don't have anything against them. people need to understand what kinds of leverage they are getting. >> thanks to all three of you. i know this high uently trading issue is one that ignites a lot of passion. always amazing how something we never heard of a few weeks ago and boom, it explodes. thanks to all three of you. jim cramer will weigh in on our interview with the head of the sec coming up. find out what he heard and also something else he's hearing about the chief of one of wall street's biggest banks. who's better to give us the real deal on housing and also the

state on the green race between the u.s. and china, the ceo of owings corning. so i've come to this ring to see who's faster... on the internet. i'll be using the 3g at&t laptopconnect card. he won't. so i can browse the web faster, email business plans faster. all on the go. i'm bill kurtis and i'm faster than floyd mayweather. (announcer) switch to the nation's fastest 3g network and get the at&t laptopconnect card for free.

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better than expected. now keep in mind, this company makes building supplies, things like insulation, you may have heard of the binge panther, what they were known for. largest maker of light weight glass fiber composite. what are those? they are a crucial part of wind turbine blades. let's start off with the earnings story. ceo and chairman joins us now. better than expected. i know it was down. i guess we have to come out with it. you're in the insulation business and directly linked to residential housing in the united states. are things getting better? >> thanks for having me on. we're very pleased with the report that we were offering to the market today, we have very strong operating results and cash flow performance. we were able to even upgrade the cash flow outlook. we think our execution has been good. we've been very focused on capital expenditure reductions

and cost reductions and taking advantage of the market where market offers this opportunity. we think we've done a good job but not seeing a strong recovery in the marketplace. >> strong recovery we may not be seeing, are we seeing stability. when we look at shiller as an examining, year on year prices falling but month on month therapeutthey were up for first time in 36 months. which of the headlines tells us where we are now the increase or double digit drop? >> i think the slight increase is a positive sign. we probably watch house prices as being the most leading indicator of the housing market. if you buy a house still falling in value, it's a very expensive investment. until housing prices bottom out, we would be reluctant to see we're going to see meaningful recovery in housing. now that they may be recovering

a bit over the last month, we would see as an early indicator getting ready to see the bottom and recovery in housing. i know everyone must ask the question. are we looking way out in 2010 are much sooner. >> there's a question of when and scale. it seems to us like we should begin to see some recovery probably in the second half of this year and going into 2010. we don't think we'll see the kind of recovery that creates meaningful and positive growth until beyond 2010. >> michael, we had representative of the head of the wind energy association when they said for first time ever china topped america in terms of wind technology and ceo of america's super conductor said america is too late for america to get that top rank back in wind. you obviously manufacturer crucial component of wind

turbines, where do you stand? >> what we're seeing this year is the overall installation of winds on a global basis is about flat. which is quite a bit slower than what we've seen in recent years, it had been growing in the high teens, certainly the place we're seeing this year is in china. we believe china is going to install more wind this year than any country in the world. our footprint in the business is global. we benefit by seeing growth all around the world. we think the u.s. markets will continue to be a very good market as will western europe. we'll see an aggressive growth in china. >> get ready to stop trading, jim is here and been e-mailing fast and furious, he'll talk about our sitdown with the chief as well and he is 7'2" tall and

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welcome back to "street signs." oil prices look like they'll close under $72 a barrel. when did oil turn positive? as the dollar weakened we saw oil turn positive today. you can see that on a chart looking at both of those trades. keep in mind, we're looking at natural gas tomorrow, that will be in focus as we get the report. we did have a fire explosion on a platform on the gulf of mexico. didn't have as much of an effect today. we'll also get the hurricane forecast for the government tomorrow morning. that could also have an impact on the natural gas trade. back to you? >> we capping headlines from our interview with the chairwoman of

the sec, mary shapiro. >> great interview. >> that is going away. >> they never adopted flash trading, a great job there. >> did you see nasdaq -- wrote a letter saying he was in favor of getting rid of it too? >> better late than never. but duncan got it right. >> all of that she wants dealt with by the end of year. >> i think she changed the organization. it is back. good for her. good interview. >> one thing she said when we talk about etfs for regular people, so many people are trading them, institutions use them for everything. there is real concern over -- where. >> people need protection from them. when you have everett d. jones protecting them, that's saying listen we're worried. >> you have a whole lot of names

to talk about today. >> there's so much going on. mike is the real deal with owings corning. god bless him. how much do we like him? did a great job. it's been the toughest market in the world for him. >> would you buy owings corning? >> it is not my style. but made a major come back and both big green stocks, one for recycled bottles and the other for insulation. could be the first quart are for many, he's right. these are good companies, i'm so proud of him. stuck with it. it's a great company. >> a whole bunch of names, you e-mailed me something courtesy -- frantically we're going to credit him. >> in real money.com. he always has this calm like chris matthews, he says john mac's responsibility will be cut back at morgan stanley. known to have great sources, this realmoney.com came out a

little while ago. that would be news. it's big. >> he said he heard he was pulling back responsibilities but didn't necessarily say who or what. >> we need more. >> we solicit more. >> we need more. >> outside that venue, transit. >> i told people they should buy this. i went over the conference and talked to a lot of people, a lot of one-time problems, i think the stock should be bought. i think people are dead wrong to sell this one down. the problems are going to be solved. i don't think oil is going down. i am positive about the drillers, i think that people have gotten this incorrectly today by setting it's down three. i like what i saw. >> what about devon. >> this is one where like xtl and like apache, the growth is monumental, people want growth. these companies are drilling like mad and natural gas took

out four-year and you heard sharon and devon is not done going up. we take out four, maybe going to five on natural gas. apache, you've had a lot of these executives on. >> i'm not saying i've run the numbers, but you've got the forecast out for a relatively mild hurricane season. it seems like a lot of people -- >> on the earnings. >> complacency in the marketplace. >> these guys have huge leverage. if this is what type of money they can make with natural gas, what can they make at five? he's right, talking about chesapeake, just kidding aubry, paid himself a lot. i still love him. what the heck. >> you've come around again. for a while you were torn. >> i know, i know. but he makes it easy to be torn on. >> you've come around on aubry. >> great interview. i know her for too long.

>> she was -- i heard good things about her. in person, and for viewers who don't, she was very personable and comes off as incredibly genuine. >> she's tough, don't want to be in the cross hairs, she'll be a subpoena woman. >> in no way would that be interpreted as -- >> we should do more on shapiro, tell you something. cramer tonight at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. hillary clinton is in africa pressing leaders about corruption and human rights and talking about trade. what if anything can be done to stop another generation of suffering in frankly what might be the most dangerous place on earth? we're going to ask a man trying to help putting his own money on the land. dikembe is coming up. >> cash for -- how are we doing on that?

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all right, taking a look at the winners, garmin, polo, whole foods. you would be doing well on the back of those numbers. let's check in with peter. it looks like we've seen a little bit of a comeback. what do you see looking at the internals? >> yes, internals we are seeing a comeback. i'm looking at the bigger picture. this is the kind of thing i'll beat the drum about. i think we'll be in a tight trading range for a good two weeks to possibly a month of trading within 150 points on the s&p in either direction, not in either direction. i'm saying probably around 950 to 1020, 1030 on the s&p, i don't see a lot of range, we're very range bound right now. i know that's not what everybody wants to hear but we've made

this move up. we're going to solidify at this level and a lot of people are looking towards the end of the third quarter fourth quarter. i don't think it's going to be as great as everybody thinks it will be. i'm getting more cautious. i was very bullish for a while. i'm getting more cautious and getting that cautious feeling. >> and any sectors in particular when talking about getting the cautious feeling or just a gut? >> it's a gut. i mean a lot of what i do is on a gut basis. i'm not afraid of the natural gas stocks. i think jim mention that's before about devon energy. there are certain groups that even though i have been into the health care, i'm kind of looking at it as i don't see a lot of appreciate depreciation in those stocks. it's going to be a very tough market for next month, i think. we can revisit in a couple of weeks. unless something monumental comes out of washington or china, i don't see a lot of movement in either direction.

>> i want to share this headline, deutsche bank, they are predicting 41% of conforming u.s. mortgages will be under water by the first quarter of 2011. 41%. right now we're at 16 %. >> you know what, i don't know -- give me a break about that. are you kidding me. >> that's almost half the mortgages in the u.s. >> yes. >> you know, if unemployment goes to 15%, i could see that happening, i don't see unemployment going to 15 prosecuti15%. we're at the top of the unemployment level. i mean -- >> will it make you feel better, they say 69% of subprime mortgages will be under water by then? we're already at half of those. >> that makes more sense. talking about regular mortgages in this country, i don't see that at all. i'm not a genius but let me tell you, that seems, that's

horrible, i think they are totally offbase. >> when i saw it, i thought, all right, i want to make sure i get your reaction. >> you got it. >> by the end of the day, anything specifically that you're focused on. next hour and a half, what are you focused on? >> focused on the fact that there may be pushing to the positive side for the end of the day. if you're a day trader, you might want to get into market again, it started rallying a little bit. there's a good possibility we might end on the plus side. it's been drifting all day. started drifting back a little bit, you know programs do kick in. there was some short covering in a couple of stocks we saw. aig being one of them. if that's possible that that -- i don't see that being real impetus on the upside but we might have a little draft back to the positive side. like i said, a very narrow

trading range, we'll see it for a while. it's boring, i could make up stuff and talk about the yankees. >> i'm going to end on one positive note. american express, first signs of improvement since the recession began. i think that's important, i interviewed ken chenault and he was careful to say stability but not yet improving. it seems the consumer confidence may have translated into spending more on cars. he wouldn't say he's seeing improvement lightly. >> no, that's not a man who's going to give you anything -- he's not an over -- doesn't overextend what he says. very, very cautious about everything. if he's -- if he thinks things are starting to get a little better, that's okay. i don't mind hearing a guy like him say that. a hell of a lot better than what the people at deutsche bank said. >> that was a pretty grim thing. you either believe this or

believe that. thanks peter. >> way to beat big storms with big computers, given we're coming into hurricane season, it caught our eye. we'll be back. welcome to the now network. right now five co-workers are working from the road using a mifi, a mobile hotspot that provides up to five shared wifi connections. two are downloading the final final revised final presentation. - one just got an e-mail. - what?! - huh? - it's being revised again. the co-pilot is on mapquest. - ( rock music playing ) - and tom is streaming meeting psych-up music from meltedmetal.com.

that's happening now with the new mifi from sprint, the mobile hotspot that fits in your pocket. sprint. the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com.

coming out from the faa we believe related to that crash with continental express. rebecca? >> it is, erin. we have also -- you know, you know that right now it is on the table in both houses of congress to look into this issue of airline safety. speaking at an airline safety conference, the faa chief randy babbit is saying he vows a major rewrite of fatigue rules industrywide. the headlines that are coming out of that are also saying to expect big changes in commuter scheduling rules coming. and lastly, the administrator, babbit, is calling on major airlines to help boost commuter safety, erin. so as you mentioned, obviously that continental flight raised a lot of eyebrows. the connection flight 3407 in clarence in february raised a lot of eyebrows about what's going on in terms of how we're protected, how passengers are protected on airlines when the folks on board of that airline, operating it, running it may be

tired. that raised a lot of eyebrows. and this is part of what's going to be addressing it. back over to you. >> all right. thank you very much. and two months into the atlantic season so far, we're talking about hurricanes. so far so good. but often it comes at the end of august when you see storms. the news so far has been so positive that forecasters are scaling back their predictions of how many named storms we may get this season. dr. steve lyons, our tropical weather expert-s at the weather channel and here with more. >> how are you doing? >> what are you seeing? >> well, as we're seeing nothing out in the atlantic right now, which is great news for those on the coast. >> and in terms of the forecast, i know that some people have -- what was it, the noaa and colorado state, i believe, that does a lot of the forecasting? >> that's correct. >> have they -- are they still expecting a below average season this year? >> well, let me show you the numbers here. you can see the storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes. and of course this is the average. colorado state's most recent numbers are pretty close to

average. actually a little below average. and noaa's forecast is always in ranges. and they're going to release a new forecast here coming up in just another 24 to 36 hours or so. so the numbers are going down. they're low. but let me remind you of one thing. in 1983 we only had four named storms. three of those struck the united states. and one of them was a major hurricane in houston. 1992 we had only six named storms for the entire season. six named storms. we had three landfalls and two of them were by one storm, a cat 5 and a cat 3. that was hurricane andrew. so the busyness of the season in the u.s. is measured by where they hit and how many they think the, not how many are out in the atlantic. >> all right. thank you very much. and as you talk about the forecast, well, maybe it seems tame, but as we all know, weather can be highly unpredictable, and that can lead to many troubles for the insurance industry. what would be the value of a technology that brings some stability to a volatile business in it's today's tech effect, and rebecca filed this report.

>> reporter: in the insurance industry the name of the game is risk management. big names like allstate, metlife, and prudential are playing it. as well as smaller companies hoping to minimize risks and maximize profits with the help of high-performance computing. >> high performance computing is a method of running very fast computers in parallel. it just means that many more computations can get processed through the system a lot faster than it could in traditional means of computing. >> reporter: along with microsoft, ibm and hewlett-packard are some of the other companies bringing affordable, high-performance computing to the mainstream. paul vandermark works with risk management solutions, a company serving the insurance and reinsurance industry. he says high-performance computing has enabled his clients to make better business moves. >> with those performance improvements our clients can then run the models much more frequent liu. so instead of running their portfolio twice a year, say, or

quarterly, they can move to running their portfolio monthly, reanalyzing it, weekly, even daily. and as a result making more timely decisions about risk. >> reporter: decisions that could have helped in the aftermath of the tragedy that was hurricane katrina on the gulf coast in 2005. >> you can use high performance computing to track the path of a hurricane and do some modeling about where it's likely to strike. they can also assess where they have properties insured in that area, where they have cars or people insured in that area, and start to give you advice on preparing for the hurricane, minimizing the damage. >> reporter: technology not only helping businesses but helping people by protecting their lives and their livelihoods. rebecca jarvis, cnbc business news. all right. we've got a final check on the markets coming your way in just a moment. we are back down, but well off the lows of the session. what's causing the comeback? is it fatigue that peter costa referred to? something you used to be afraid of. we'll be back with the final check. so, katy kicked off the conference call...

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liquidateors are all on that list as we go to the final hour of trade. and also our apologies. dikembe mutombo. i know a lot of people wanted to see him. atlanta traffic apparently is a horrible thing. we're going to get him back and do that segment we promise. in the meantime have a wonderful afternoon. and it is time now for "the closing bell." gm, ford, and chrysler have been awarded more than $600 million for the development of advanced battery technology for hybrids and electric cars. toyota's north american chief, jim lents, says the company's best-selling prius is down to a six to seven-day supply about half of what it was before the cash for clunkers program began. and corporate defaults reached a

9.4% rate in july compared to 2.5% during the same time last year. that's cnbc.com "news now." and i'm mike huckman. stocks locked in a tight trading range. the nasdaq dipping below 2,000 but the s&p still over 1,000. we enter the final, most important hour of the trading day right now. good afternoon, everybody. welcome back to "the closing bell." i'm bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. hello, melissa. >> hey, bob, i'm melissa francis in for maria bartiromo at cnbc global headquarters. in the markets right now we're seeing some selling pressure on wall street. stocks are showing modest losses as we head into the home stretch of today's session. taking a look at the major averages, right now you can see the dow there trading down 22 points. about a quarter of a percentage point. the nasdaq right now, take a look at how it is trading. we'll show it to you. also trading to the down side by about .8%. below that 2,000 level we were so proud of a couple days ago. the s&p 500, though, is hanging

above 1,000. 1,004. down a little more than .1%. bob, how's it going down there this afternoon? >> well, on the surface it looks kind of quiet, melissa. but in fact, there are a number of different sectors that are moving, including financials and stocks that are sort of controlled by the government at this point. take a look at the three big government-owned stocks. i'm talking aig, fannie mae, and freddie mac. look at these numbers, these percentage increases up here. over 50%, 30%, 30%. what's going on? the volume has been huge all day. there's a lot of speculation. there's some speculation around aig might be preparing a detect swap with the u.s. government, might lighten their interest expense, but there's no confirmation of that. others note we had a great bond auction, that may have helped freddie mac as well. at any rate, stheekz haven't seen this kind of action in a long time. i'm particularly watching the volume there. financials also strong again. remember citigroup, it's got big volume today because they're being rebalanced on the s&p 500. we saw that on the russell here. that's important. jpmorgan's up nicely here. here's somet