bob, over to you. >> take a look at what happened here. maria's right. most of the move up 10:00 eastern time and that's when we got two events happening. number one, mr. bernanke did come out and say the economy is on the verge of recovery. yes, he was very cautious in his later commentary but those were the headlines. existing home sales up. important thing -- let's go to the nasdaq. i don't know what's going on here. scott, what's happening over at the nasdaq? >> thanks so much. sounds like we're just having a little bit of a problem with the audio there. so let me pick it up here because it is a good day for technology stocks. certainly one of the leadership groups on this day. up 1 1/3% right now. and as you look across the big cap technology space today you've got nice gains across the board. i've been talking about apple throughout the day today. up 1.5%. thomas weisel raising the estimates there after a meeting with management. confidence in the company's long-term outlook. but the gains don't stop there. rim up 2%. ebay 2 3/4%.

microsoft has picked up steam g throughout this trading day. it's up 2 1/2%. google is up just about 1%. and the chip stocks, not to be outdone as well, take a look at the semiconductor index, for example, because it is up by better than 1%. you've got a lot of names such as intel, for example, all trading to the up side today. if there's an upset story, if you will -- there's a look at the semiconductor index, by the way. if there's an upset story from the tech space today, it's clearly intuit, down 7 1/2%. it was downgraded over at credit suisse. they gave a really tepid outlook for 2010, and the shares are getting hammered as a result of that. solar stocks another area that i've been watching closely throughout the day today because they have been under considerable pressure and that is from the get-go. first solar down 5 1/2%. evergreen solar down 3 1/2%. energy conversion, sun power, all these names under pressure because jefferies not only downgraded many of these stocks, they took the price target down as well. there are significant pricing concerns when it comes to solar.

and also significant demand issues as well. where are we going from here? all right. rebecca jarvis, over to you at the nymex. >> thank you, scott. it was a big day at the nymex. oil price surged to new year to date highs, failing to settle at those levels, however. 73.89 was the settle here, shy of making brand new year to date highs. but still higher on the week. it was a big week here. in fact, the biggest since the middle of may as far as prices are concerned. they did spend, as i said, much of the day in that record territory and chris petroni of heritage energy says there were a ton of sellers he saw around the $74.95 a barrel level. so that was an important one he was watching, and he says that could mean that the technicals aren't going to take us much higher from here and that you could see some selling pressure come monday. still, the bull thesis remains. as the buck burns, things priced in dollars continue to reflate. we're seeing that also play out in the overall stock market side. on the fundamental side of the

thesis, demand looks like it could potentially be improving. remember, earlier this week we got that very bullish inventory report, and john kilduff of mf global says that he's seeing some strength in the markets with stocks moving higher and also with the idea that perhaps really this is a genuine demand turnaround, that we are seeing some genuine strength in the markets. where we're not seeing strength is in natural gas. that is still on the weak side, rick, and it's more of a u.s.-centric story. natural gas versus oil. natural gas is u.s. oil, more world. back over to you in chicago, rick. >> well, thank you, rebecca. and it has been an unreal world in terms of treasuries this week. first of all, volume's been somewhat light. a lot of europeans, of course, on vacation. and if you're looking at what's going on in general, let's look at charts. start out with the dollar. the dollar really having a tough week. it's down on the day, down on the week, and very close to those same august lows we were looking at about three weeks ago. if you look at a one-week of

ten-years, you'll see what i mean. we changed it all after the good data today. yields went up, virtually unchanged on the 10, after being down a good 12 to 14 baasis points on the week prior. and the 30-year is the only maturity that actually still is down on yield on the week, which means higher price. why? the highest yield you put it together investors seem a bit enamored with 30-year bonds. next year we have supply in twos, fives, and sevens. now let's go back to bob pisani. >> thank you, rickster. both rick and rebecca's market are impacting us. i'll just summarize what's going on. mr. bernanke making positive comments earlier on. then of course we had those housing numbers, existing hole sales up for four straight months, although bear in mind here the inventory levels still very high. commodity stocks have been impacted the last four days on the dollar weakness. you saw rick put up that chart there, and energy stocks have been up on the oil breakout. just take a look at the s&p 500. we are at new highs for the year. in fact, the highest level since october. that slow grind up throughout the middle of the year. and then the last month it's

been almost straight up here. take a look at the oil service stocks. one of the best weeks in a while. they've been held back by the poor natural gas environment we've been seeing and the poor fundamentals. but this week all about oil. and they, believe it or not, are the leading sector for the s&p 500. finally, on the retailers it's sort of more of the same here. ann taylor and gap reporting earnings a bit ahead of expectations. they're lean and mean. they've got low inventories. that's great news. but there's no real sales growth. the exception is aeropostale, look at that, one of the few retailers to actually report stronger same-store sales growth year over year. the stock is up almost 10% today. maria, back to you. >> all right, bob, thanks very much. and joining us now to talk more about the markets, breaking down the action today and what's ahead, dan greenhaus is with me, chief economist -- chief economic strategist she tried to say. miller tabak & company along with dean kernan, macro risk advisers president. always nice to have you on the program. let's talk about the macro environment and what you do with your money in terms of strategy here. had a really great rally in terms of the broad market.

do you think we've missed much of the move or is there still time to put money to work? >> i think there's two different ways of looking at it. one is the immediate term, which is a market that's coming up on some technical levels that are of concern to the market. and in addition a 50% rally off the lows. and the question becomes do i want to put new money to work right now. then there's the second way of looking at it, which is is the market going to be higher six months from now? in the short term obviously a lot of nervousness, a lot of people looking for a pullback. but in the medium term i think there's a case to be made that some sectors and and stocks have fusht appreciation and further gain to be realized. >> where are those sectors you think are still poised for growth? >> i've always liked the materials sectors. i've been a corporate bond fan. and i'm going to piggyback on our semiconductor analyst brendan furlong, who thinks some of the industrial semiconductor names like app net and exile inks stand to benefit fray turn in the industrial cycle, a turn which was krop corroborated by abi's earnings report the other day. there are certainly areas in which you can invest, but at the same time you have to do so in a

sort of a specific fashion because much of the gains that have been realized already to some degree in my opinion arepr. >> dean, do you agree with that? we had ben bernanke talking about at some point we will see growth return to this economy. how do you participate in that growth and try to make money on it? >> sure. i think we also look at a short-term view and, you know, kind of contrast it to a medium or longer-term view. the short-term view for us is we think the momentum in the market's actually quite significant. folks are getting chased out of cash assets. they're making no money. and your fear of missing the rally is i think strong enough to continue to lead the market a little bit higher. it feels like it's running out of steam, but you know, it's been very powerful. you know, kind of medium term, longer term, i think the concern really is we haven't really done much to address the tsunami of defaults that's coming in commercial rell real estate. there were 360,000 new foreclosure filings in july, and there's 3.6 million homes that

are seriously delinquent or in some state of foreclosure. it's a tremendous overhang on asset prices. and you know, coupled with what we think is just a weak end demand story for the consumer, we just don't think corporate profits ultimately will hold up. we think that's more of kind of a mid third quarter sort of recognition from the market standpoint. >> so it sounds like you feel like we haven't participated yet, you've probably missed much of the move because we are facing some headwinds ahead, in particular commercial real estate. >> that's right. >> and the commercial real estate possibility of a blowup or an upset, dan, what about that? what are the implications of that? there's a real debate about that. do you agree wa that? do you think that's going to impact the banking sector negatively? >> i think certainly if you get the wave of commercial real estate defaults that a lot of people expect and foresee and certainly a lot of the regional and local banks are going to bear the brunt of the damage, and that's to a large degree what you've seen each friday when the fdic takes over three,

four, five banks, they tend to be associated with inefficient loans that are related to the commercial real estate market. >> how do you invest in this environment, dean? what are you doing? what are you telling clients in terms of overall broad strategy? >> sure. i think shorter term we're kind of still playing the momentum game slightly. that's a little bit of a fear of missing out. we're not long-term committed to the market, but we think kind of using short dated call spreads is a good way. we've been long those. locker-term we're buyers of puts and we're especially avoiding the consumer discretionary space. it seems the space has had a tremendous run but we just don't see how the consumer and specifically retailers who sell to the consumer can make profits when incomes are so stagnant and job losses are still mounting. >> so you want to keep away from the retailers, you want to maybe sell the retailers. how much cash, then, do you want to have in this environment? you're looking at trade. is oil a trade? i mean, oil also has been rallying. >> right. we think there's sort of an industrial commodities trade out

there. we think that china is kind of in a bit of a bubble formation with respect to how much liquidity they're throwing at the economy. but they're using stuff, building stuff. they're using copper and iron and nickel and oil. so we think there's more to go there, and just an anti-dollar trade, we like that trade. >> what about you? >> i tend to agree with that. i think certainly with respect to china they are the marginal consumer of commodities right now and we still have their most recent import/export data that as a general rule their imports of commodities held up. certainly oil, which believe reached a new high in terms of million tons of oil imported although there was a slowdown in copper. but i think the amount of money that china has injected into the global economy and certainly into their own economy bodes well for commodity prices in the short term. the question becomes what economic damage is china doing to its any in the form of perhaps bad loans and questionable actions of the banking sector? >> we'll leave it there. gentlemen, great conversation. we appreciate you spending the time, particularly on such a hot day out here on this summer friday.

thanks, guys. have a nice weekend. bob, we are into this final stretch here. >> maria, it's a commodity-led rally. energy, commodities, industrials. all the cyclical names are up here today. dollar weakness really helping out. maria? >> for sure. dean just talked about retail. up next we're going to go inside one of the nation's number one clothing company, actually, the number one clothing chain in the country. we'll talk to the gap north american president about the state of the consumer right now and the all-important back to school season. that's a "first on cnbc" interview coming up next. after the bell the long and short view on stock investing. stay with us for this one. we'll be talking with noted market watcher about some names that could be good buys down the road. >> but first take a look at the most active stocks on the new york stock exchange. and remember, it's a law, citigroup always the most active. these days, wouldn't it be great

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net income coming in at $228 million. it was 33 cents a share. on the back of that gap received

two upgrades. sbr and key bank capital markets raised the stock rating to an outperform. the stock is trading higher today, as you can see there, better than 3% higher. and the outlook continues to be challenging, but we will talk more about that. gap is working through this tough economic environment. it is also trying to regain ground on rivals by revitalizing the brand. >> they need to be more aggressive to try to get the consumer to try the product. the advertising, i believe, suggests that they are feeling about their merchandise assortment and better about the overall presentation. but again, the underlying consumer trends have been challenging, and i do think it's going to be a difficult back to school and holiday selling season. >> and joining me now in a "first on cnbc" interview as gap celebrates its 40th anniversary is robert fisher, board member and founding family member of the gap. also marka hansen, president of gap north america joining us. nice to have you both with us. congratulations to you both on 40 years. how exciting. >> thank you.

>> thanks, maria. >> mr. fisher, let me kick this off with you. it has been quite a day. i've been looking at traders throughout the stock exchange wearing gap jeans. you've outfitted everybody. is this a first for the exchange? why this campaign? >> well, this is -- i'll let marka talk about the campaign actually, but this is the first time the new york stock exchange has ever dressed in denim, and we're thrilled to be able to do that for you. >> -- started the company in 1969. >> 40 years of -- 40 years of history is an incredible thing. the business was started by my parents today, actually, 40 years ago in san francisco. they had a simple idea, which is to sell jeans to america. and here we are 40 years later with over 3,000 stores, 15 billion in sales, 22 countries for franchise. it's a very exciting day for us. >> it sure is. marka, let me ask you about

business today. we all know that it's been a very tough environment for the retail sector in general and certainly for the broad economy. how would you characterize business today? >> well, business is challenging in this economic environment. but i think that's what's so wonderful about gap, is we're perfectly poised to take our fair share. when you think about what we just did with denim, offering premium jeans, amazing quality and great fits, which i hope everybody is enjoying today, but those great fits at 59.50 and 54.50, it's definitely our time to take back market share. >> so what do you need to do to continue raising the bar and taking back that market share? tell me what the sentiment and the mentality of the consumer is today, marka. are they looking specifically for value? obviously, they're shopping less. but how are you going to capture those dollars when in fact they are -- those people are ready to spend? >> i think for us it's about relevance and letting people know we're here. i think we've done a phenomenal

job with the ad campaign that we just launched, getting lots of people in our stores to try the jeans is the most important thing we can do because as we all know it's about telling your friends where you got something and everybody then comes to follow. so for us it's just about upping the ante and letting people know we're back and come on into the store and shop. >> bob, you've held various roles within the company. chairman as well as interim president and ceo. how would you characterize the current environment right now? >> well, it's obviously a very challenging environment. i think that things have probably bottomed out. again, we're quite optimistic. we hold our own destiny in our hands. the consumer obviously will buy or not buy. but there are a lot of things you can do to encourage that. i think the relaunch of the 1969 jean and the great fits that we've got, the marketing that we've got for it i think should really help us over the next several months. >> bob, let me ask you something a little more broader and sort of really looking at the success

of the company as a brand, as a retailer, one of america's great companies. 40 years in business your parents had this idea and started the company, or one of the founding people. to what do you attribute this company's success really at the heart of it? >> well, i think we've been very consistent in focusing on the customer, and then we've held some very important values close to us. innovation is a key component of something that's been with the company the whole time that we -- since we started. serving the customer well, caring about our employees and the customers. and then building a quality product with great style and at a good price, a good value price. style is an incredibly important part of what we do, and we try to do it every day. >> and where would you like to see this brand in 40 years? >> that's a great question. certainly i have a lot of optimism about this brand, about

the management team that's leading the brand with marka and with glenn murphy. i think this brand will continue to grow both online as well as internationally. now we're in 22 different countries with franchise. we're in canada, the uk, france, japan. and so i think there's a lot of international opportunity. in the u.s. we need to continue to focus on the customer and really deliver the right product to them. and i think the 1969 jeans are -- there's a major relaunch for us. and i'm really hopeful both as a director, as a consumer, and as a founding family member. >> yeah, they look beautiful. so marka, let me get your sense on back to school. what are you seeing as far as back to school season? >> well, it's a little early for us to be able to call the shots on what's going to happen with back to school. but for us what we're doing whether it's been our kids' business in denim or adult business in denim, they just tell a great compelling story and get the customers in the

store. we'll see. that will be told in a couple months or so. >> the company is trying to return to comp growth after six years of sales declines. can you tell us what specific strategies you have on the horizon to capture that person when they are going for back to school or what that customer's looking for right now in terms of back to school? >> well, we know that the customer is looking for great value. that's certainly clear across all the sectors of our businesses. so i think for us it's about telling a compelling story about why gap. and once they get in there, we have a phenomenal store team that's ready to make sure that the customer is well served and very satisfied before they leave. so i think that's best we can do. >> marka hansen, robert fisher, congratulations again. thanks for joining us. very interesting story. and we'll be watching that back to store -- back to school season. we'll see you soon. thanks very much to you both. >> thanks. >> thanks, maria. >> and maria, the important thing here -- by the way, gap, $19.40. that's trading back at its prelehman levels right now.

it outperformed all the other retailers in the last year here. right now 37 minutes to go before the closing bell. 4-1 advancing to declining stocks, led by big industrial names like caterpillar as well as some of the energy names like exxonmobil. coming up, the options trade. we hear what traders are saying in light of today's options expiration and where they see the most activity right now. um bill-- why is dick butkus here? i hired him to speak. a lot of fortune 500 companies use him. but-- i'm your only employee. we're gonna start using fedex to ship globally-- that means billions of potential customers. we're gonna be huge. good morning! you know business is a lot like football... i just don't understand... i'm sorry dick butkus. (announcer) we understand. you want to grow internationally. fedex express

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pfizer not doing bad. earlier in the week it was really a drug story. now it's not so much. this later part of the week at&t and verizon also doing pretty well. for another take on the market let's get straight to the "fast money" final call. joining me now john iuorio, he's the director of tjm institutional services and an "options action" contributor. john, i think the important thing here is to take a look at the s&p 500 because we always see a lot of action on an options expiration day around the nearest strike, which guess would be 1,000 here on the s&p. john, i guess the important thing is -- jim, excuse me.

>> it's okay. >> we moved above 1,000 yesterday. and essentially here that's the story here, we moved out and the dealers who were short this had to cover. >> no question about it. and i think that exacerbates the move today because it's expiration. there was a tremendous amount of open interest as you said in the spy, the etf, they call it the 100 strike, the same as the 1,000 strike you said. what would normally happen on a day is that would act like a magnet because everyone who holds a big position in institution woz try to protect that strike but now when the market on its own pushes through it, in this case up, as the market keeps going higher, the people who are short those calls get more and more short, a position they really didn't want to have. so they're forced to cover. and we're seeing that not just in the spy but i'm sure it happens in issued all across the equity world. >> and traders don't -- viewers don't understand this sometimes. there are traders out there who are long the call. as a result the people who are on the other side of that trade are short the calls, and as we

go through the strike price those market traders, participants have to cover their short position and that can lead to a move on the up side. >> if you're long the call you're not nearly as apt to feel the sweat. we call it being caught in the drag ons jaws when all of a sudden you have a short position it starts to fly against you and you didn't want that in the beginning. if you're long it you sit back and watch but if you're short it you have to get out. that's what's pushing this move too. >> we're seeing the dollar weaken again here. the dollar bears are again having their way. this is helping the commodities market and commodity stocks. but where is it going to stop here? is there any technical lows that are going to help us out? >> what's interesting is although the dollar is weakening it did not break out on the down side against the euro currency and against the dollar index. so to me i think the move in the basic materials and energy are probably overdone because i think it's kind of anticipatory. right after the numbers came out today the dollar started moving lower and everyone jumped into those names and then the dollar stabilized and it was kind of rejected from those levels. now it's in the middle of its range. i personally think the s&p broke out. technically you buy the s&p as a whole you but things like xle the energy etf, maybe those are

a little bit of a sell because the dollar didn't break out to the -- >> it's been a bizarre week in energy because we saw natural gas at seven-year lows and oil hit new highs for the year. obviously, there's fundamentals working against natural gas, huge supply and weaker demand here but we saw this battle between oil service names, some of which are heavy in gas, some of which are in energy. we're seeing it break out because it's oil that's moving the market, not the weakness in natural gas thing. >> first the natural gas thing, i got caught on that trade. i recommended it about a month ago it didn't work out so well. i finally got out of my natural gas. but the oil trade, remember, too is everyone's on board now but it's always a combination of intrinsic demand, particularly from china probably, the weak dollar, and then all the speculators start to jump in. and of all the trades that get crowded as we say, that one always seems to be the most. as soon as demand drops off a little bit, it seems like everyone heads for the exits at the same time. that hasn't happened yet. some people are saying 75 or 80. i think 75 is about the level where demand drops off and then we see a flushout again. >> why is oil holding up so

well? the fundamentals of oil are not completely divorced from the fundamentals of natural gas. there is weak industrial demand in natural gas, but we see weak demand for oil around the world as well. >> that's why it has to be just people speculating. it starts out as just a little disconnect between the two markets, and then it gains steam, and everyone's just piling into the oil trade. that'sy believe it gets crowded at certain levels. but that's a great point. i don't think there's a fundamental reason for that huge disparity between the two. >> jim iuorio, always a pleasure. thanks for talking to us. coming up on "fast money" can the rally continue? the traders give you their best plays heading into next week. plus, is america falling behind as the world's top economic powerhouse? carlos gutierrez shares his take with "fast money" five, melissa and the traders, they're live at 5:00. right now the dow jones industrial average at the highs for the day here. we're up nicely on the week, over 2%. nasdaq up as well. just about, oh, half an hour ago before the closing bell. and coming up, goldman's bonus dilemma. how does the firm reward its traders for bringing in record profits without drawing fire from main street? charlie gasparino on the story

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market rally under way as that summer rally rolls on. we had better than expected news on the housing front once again today, and we are at the highest levels of the afternoon. financials, technology, retail, all among the big winners today-k and we're back above 9,500 on the blue chip average. up 163 points, nearly 2%, 1 3/4%. technology also on the move. 31 points higher on the nasdaq. back above 2,o'-020. 2,021 last trade on the nasdaq. and the s&p 500 at 1,027 with a decline of 20 points, better than 1%. bob, over to you. >> thanks, maria. charlie gasparino's been writing about a problem at goldman sachs. the problem was too much money, bonus money, and what to do about that. charlie, listen, goldman made a nice pile of change for the u.s. government. their success is the u.s. government and the taxpayer's success. why is goldman's success a problem with anybody? >> i don't know. talk to "rolling stone" magazine. i mean, listen, that is an

interesting question, and it's a question, bob, that at goldman they're trying to grapple with. there's envy here. i mean, these guys are kind of like the -- what is it, the 27 yankees? there is some truth to some of the criticism. let's face it. they were bailed out, you know, by the federal government. they have extremely favorable borrowing terms to take risk right now, and that i think is a legitimate problem. the whole concept, though, that goldman sachs is this evil empire, they have all these sort of -- they do have a lot of goldman sachs people in government, secretaries, as you know, throughout government, not just in treasury, chief of staff of president bush josh bolten worked at goldman sachs. but the concept that this is some sort of evil empire that is manipulating the entire system to its benefit is way over the top. some people at goldman sachs believe it's anti-semitic, there's an undercurrent here. whether it is or isn't, the problem is they have an image to fix, and that's what they're grappling with right now.

it's an image that they're looking for a brand manager to fix. they have constant discussions. i mean, lloyd blank fein, the ceo, is constantly in discussions about this image issue and they know it's potentially going to get worse because they've got this bonus thing coming up. and i'll tell you, bob, if the markets stay the way they are, and i don't think there's a lot of evidence that the credit markets are going to once again seize up. but if you basically have what you have now for the rest of the year, goldman sachs is going to be sitting on a lot of bonuses, and what do you do with that money and how do you spin the bonus? because they've got to pay people to keep them in the best possible way to admit the damage that is going to come because people are going to criticize them. there's a couple of options they have. and this to me is the most interesting one. i'm getting this from people inside goldman, that -- not this one. it's the third one. first, one option obviously is to pay the vast majority in stocks, smaller bonuses, larger salaries. and here's the interesting thing, bob. forgo the bonuses, or much of them, and buy back stock in a major way because so many of the partners are holding goldman sachs stocks and there's a wealth effect that occurs and,

you know, you kind of skip the whole thing about -- the story about lloyd blankfein making $60 million at the end of this year after he gets bailed out. and that's the interesting thing, that last one, is really what i think has kind of put a little pop in the stock today. it's fascinating. i think there's a good chance they're going to do it. >> that's politically the most feasible way. whether they'll take it or not is not clear. secretary geithner, by the way, said the treasury acted appropriately. >> there's a shock that he might say that. can you imagine that? he said oh, no, no, me and hank paulson -- can you imagine geithner getting up there saying hank paulson, we conspired to give goldman sachs every break in the book because we wanted to sell them and hank has got his stock in goldman sachs. you know, some of this is laughable. but i will say this. for conspiracy theorists think of it this way. let's just say that they did go out of their way to bail out goldman sachs. can you imagine after lehman went under, morgan stanley goes, that's what was happening, that crazy week, and then goldman, toast. what would have that done to the

financial system? goldman had a balance sheet of over a trillion dollars. it was, you know, over twice as much as lehman's. what would have that done? redefined -- in my view it would have redefined systemic risk, bob. >> did you see ubs this morning? citigroup. they came out with a note that said citigroup's conversion from preferred into common shares netted profits of $10 billion, charlie, for the taxpayer. we've got to go, charlie -- >> for the class warfare guys out there, capitalism works sometimes. >> charlie, we've got some breaking news with michelle caruso-cabrera. michelle, what's going on? >> bob, listen to this. the dow jones industrial average is for sale. dow jones is shopping the index business. that means somebody else, if they buy it, can rename it. it's like a naming opportunity. can you believe this? you who work down there at the new york stock exchange, when you've talked about the dow jones industrial average nearly every day of your life. dow jones industrial average is for sale. >> so we could name it after an orange juice company if we wanted to or something like

that. >> we could buy it and call it the cnbc industrial average. >> how would you value the -- now, there's a great -- >> oh, here's a good one. guess who's conducting the sale. one guess. >> goldman sachs. >> there you go. >> that was a complete guess. honestly. and charlie didn't even say any sarcastic remarks to me. that was totally a complete guess. >> yep. this is unbelievable. this is from the "wall street journal." the move shows that news corporation, which purchased the publisher in late 2007 for 5.7 billion, is willing to shuffle its dow jones assets. there you go. >> why wouldn't they call it the news corp. index? it's one of the greatest brand names in the world. i don't understand why it would even want to sell something like that. it would be hard to value. but the brand name is worth a lot of money, i would think. >> i would think so as well. but apparently, it's for sale. the pisani industrial average? have you got the money? >> i don't think that's got quite the cachet. but we'll talk about it later. there's 20 minutes to go before

the closing bell. dow's being led by industrials as well as some commodity names. at the highs for the week. nasdaq also doing pretty well, maria. >> bob, i think probably the motivation in terms of selling the index business is because the index has done so well, of course triggering a whole host of other businesses, exchange traded funds, et cetera. the valuation is there. commodity etfs, meanwhile, taking center stage today. we'll tell you about some new concerns having to do with commodity etfs and why regulatory developments could have a big impact on a popular investment vehicle. >> and after the bell the ceo of cardinal health tells maria how his firm is preparing for all the potential changes in our health care system. we'll look at the ripple effects of obama care on the industry and patients alike today, 4:00 p.m. eastern time. psps some people buy a car based on the deal they get. others by the car of their dreams. during the lexus golden opportunity sales event,

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welcome back. it feels like it's about to come down here on wall street, breaking this heat. hurricane bill may have weakened over the past 24 hours, but it is still a category 2 hurricane. for more on that right now the weather channel's kevin robinson joins us from atlanta with the very latest on the hurricane.

kevin? >> hey, good afternoon, maria. we can expect that basically over the next 24 to 48 hours. expect some fluctuations in hurricane bill's intensity. right now it's a 110-mile-an-hour storm, making it a category 2. now, we're still watching it move on that projected path between bermuda and the east coast of the united states. that's pretty much on target right now. and you can see we're expecting it to continue moving north and then eventually a cold front will give it the final kick that it needs to turn northeast. the winds are going to continue to come down before it impacts any land area. but what we will notice here on the east coast is a tremendous rise or tremendous wave action along the coast. i can't emphasize enough the dangers this weekend, if you're venturing into the water, please just don't do it. there will be rip currents. there will be very high surf. sow want to stay off any of the exposed jetties. and there may somebody water rise along the coast. but what you'll notice the most, maria, will be the heavy rain in the northeast, which has nothing to do with bill at all, but

there could be some flooding due to that, though. >> thanks very much. >> thank you so much. >> and several commodity etfs and etns have announced that they're not issuing new shares, which means the only shares that will exist are the ones that exist now. as a result several funds are trading at a premium to their underlying indexes. how did this happen, and is this the death of commodity etfs? joining us now, dave nordic, he's the director of research at index publications. scott burns is director of etf analysis at morningstar. gentlemen, thanks for joining us.ñ scott, could you give us 20 ñ seconds, explain how did this mess happen?ñ >> well, the cftc right now is investigating excessive speculation in the commodity ñ markets. and the etf providers are concerned that they've got a giant target on their back and that they're going to be forcedñ to face position limits, which would really inhibit their ability to operate as normal. >> so the funds are spooked that the cftc is going to be essentially investigating them for somehow being involved in excessive speculation or something like that? >> something to that effect.

that's the concern. >> let me talk to you, dave. let me put up the united states natural gas fund because something very interesting happened and this was the first one to actually announce it. last week they came out and said they wouldn't be issuing new shares. i understand they are trying to figure out a way to do swap contracts right now. but essentially what's happened here is that this fund is now trading at a premium to the underlying natural gas contract. so now you've got this strange situation, dave, where they're essentially acting like closed end funds rather than like open-ended funds. what can happen here? what's the problem if you're an investor? >> what's happened is -- >> and the disparity -- sorry, go ahead. >> these went from being great products they were giving investors access to asset classes they couldn't get anywhere else to now essentially being bets on the popularity of the products themselves. something like ung or some of the other etns that have had problems here, these are the only ways that a small investor can get access to these markets at all. and you know, with the specter

of position limits coming in it makes it hard for them to function. in ung's case they say they've had success in putting on swap contracts so they don't have to go into the futures market. but that's really a band-aid on these products. >> the problem here is simply in the case of ung, for example, you're not really -- you have significant trading risks now. you're not buying natural gas. you're buying natural gas plus the scarcity value of the natural gas fund. that's a whole other level of risk that's involved, right? >> right. and it's actually there's even another level because you're not actually buying natural gas. you're buying a one-month rolling futures contract of ñ natural gas, and now you have a premium to deal with.ñ so the level of complexity ñ around this fund, you know, ñ natural gas could go from $3 up to $6 and this fund could even ñ lose money.ñ it's very possible.ñ you could have the premium collapse. you could have the roll yield stay this contango. right now this fund is very dangerous for individual

investors. >> the point is if you buy this fund now and suddenly the cftc announces by the way, etfs we're not doing that at all, that premium will collapse and you'll have losses. >> right. and that's a real possibility. >> what you'll have is you'll have -- if the funds simply can't go into the market to buy the futures it needs, it's going to have to return cash to shareholders. there's no other way to do it. >> dave, isn't this silly? seriously, shouldn't -- why are they trying to kill a perfectly good industry at this point? is there a way -- what needs to happen right now? what should be done right now to clear this up? >> well, the cftc has said that they're trying to get rid of what they're calling non-economic activity in the futures market, which to my mind means why don't you just get rid of all cash-settled futures? that's really what they're talking about here. and this is just the canary in the coal mine on a whole kind of trading that they object to, which is frankly individual investors taking positions in

these things without actually owning natural gas wells. >> this is not going to be cleared up. but let's hope that the cftc does something rationally fairly soon. thanks for joining us. maria, over to you. >> bob, thanks very much. and we are in the home stretch here, just about seven minutes before the closing bell sounds on wall street. that's ten minutes. and we've got the market higher off the best levels of the afternoon. still up almost 160 points or so. the market climbing in spite of mixed economic news. is it time for investors to be playing it safe or should you still get in at these levels at 9503 on the dow? we'll tell you why you should be thinking about cashing in, at least some markets when we come right back. stay with us. with the dow up 1 2/3%. you're watching "the closing bell." well, do they know this malibu offers an epa estimated 33 mpg highway? they never heard that. which is better than a comparable toyota camry or honda accord? they're stunned.

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welcome back. we count down to the close here, and as we do so let's take a look at how the market is performing. up 160 on the dow industrials. would've our cnbc investor network fired up now. a web cam connection straight today from san diego. john glasmann with me, managing

director at pacific american securities standing by. john, how do you see this market as we approach the close? >> hi, maria. seeing the market with a little bit of exuberance, shall we say. i've kind of termed this rally as a bit of a seller's remorse rally. we're trading this rally with quite a bit of throttle control while we do still have a momentum trading discipline. we've dialed back a bit on our aggressive nature for long positioning. >> so you've dialed back. does that mean you want to start selling some areas? where do you think the shorts or the biggest sort of vulnerable areas are right here? >> i would still be real cautious on the short side of things. vulnerability, it's a pretty broad market term, and i'm certainly not ready to call a short because we saw what happened to the shorts this week when they stayed on the tracks a little too long. i still have a long side bias if

here, but you certainly want to be taking a little bit off the table because the market does seem to the 1100, 1200 level on the s&p, and what i'm paying attention to is the seasonality of the markets with the september, october time frame coming up which are seasonally historically very weak periods for the market, and not the least of which congress comes back from their august recess which we're going to get the political machine going again. sought investors in washington will once again come into focus. >> so you want to be selling some of the areas that have risen the most? you want to take some money off the table in financials or technology or broad-based etfs or what? >> absolutely. financials i think you take a little money off the table. i don't know if you caught the whitney comments earlier. bank failures are going to continue to escalate. banks are still having an issue with loaning money to consumer. there are still yet signs of any

consumer recovery in this economy. and that really is the driver that we're missing in this big component. >> great to talk with you, john. the closing countdown right after this short break. we are just moments away from the closing bell. >> and after the bell, maria, rethinking your portfolio. we'll break down a few good long and short-term plays that may be worth buying down the road. we'll be right back. introducing the all new chevy equinox. with an epa estimated 32 miles per gallon. and up to 600 miles between fill ups. it's the most fuel efficient crossover on the highway. better than honda cr-v, toyota rav4 and even the ford escape hybrid. the all new chevy equinox. but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network,

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bob pisani down here on the floor of the new york stock exchange. it's been a very strange week. we had a big down week in the beginning. monday was a big down day. health care stocks really moved up. and then for the rest of the week most of the health care stocks kind of went in the background a little and cyclical stocks moved up. the dow swung in a 400-point range this week. that's one of the more volatile weeks that we have had this summer. the big movers here late in the week, thanks to the weakness in the dollar and to some positive economic news, somewhat positive economic news, we saw cyclicals move up. we saw energy stocks have a great week as oil hit new highs for the year. even though natural gas was weak. we saw some of the other big international cyclical names move to the front. caterpillar had a very good week. for example, united technologies also had a very good week. next week we'll get more retail

news. we'll get chico's as well as some other big retailers. by and large, though, they have been reporting earnings above expectations. there's the final closing bell for the week. 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 outside the new york stock exchange. hot summer friday on wall street, and we've got a hot rally under way to tell you about. here's what we're following at the close this afternoon. friday afternoon. stocks getting a lift all day today, endinar the highs of the afternoon with the s&p 500 closing at the highest level this year. the dow industrials also up in the triple digits. as you can see, a broad-based move with money moving into financials. technology, retail, and the oils as oil continues. a bull market as well. the dow industrials up nearly 2% on the session. equities rallying following a

surprising increase in july existing home sales. that report out this morning. also out today, positive comments from the federal reserve chairman ben bernanke. out in wyoming, jackson hole, at the economist conference today, saying that we should see growth in the economy sometime soon. it seems better, and it certainly feels better for the economic landscape. bernanke also giving his clearest signal yet that a recovery is at hand for the u.s. economy. more on that story coming up as we continue on "the closing bell" this afternoon. the wall street wall street reporting just about 20 minutes or so ago that the dow jones is putting its index up for sale. the index business, in fact, on the block for an undisclosed sum. word of any potential price or word of any potential buyer uncertain right now. but the move does leave the door open for a name change for the dow jones industrial average. let's take a look at that average tonight as we tell you what we did for the day and the week.