make it fly." they won't tell me how much money they're willing to spend to buy ad time for this, except that it's "significant." >> you wonder if you could put her in an ad and have her fly. >> reporter: or have her wear the winkers jeans. >> her and the winkers jeans. jane, i just want to say when i looked at the pictures of the winkers jeans, i know you were not the one in white. >> reporter: thank you. thank you. i wasn't actually in any of them. i did kind of like the one that said action, had a little action sign. that wasn't me either. i bet if you were wearing the winkers jeans, they would not wink. >> you're wrong about that, but thank you very much for the compliment. oh, there's so many things to say here, jane, and i know we're tired at the end of the week, for once i'm trying to shut my mouth. jane wells, thank you very much. have a wonderful weekend. go to her blog, funny business on the cnbc website.

we tried to keep our mouth shut on that ad. as we go into the final hour of trade before the closing bell on this afternoon, it is the anniversary of september 11th, the market has ended higher. the average gain is one-half of 1%. final hour of trade on this friday coming your way from the new york stock exchange with maria bartiromo. there's a picture of the new york stock exchange. friday afternoon on wall street. we enter the final stretch for the day. stocks bouncing from the lows. still certainly down on the session with a decline of about 30 points. hi, everybody, welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the new york stock exchange. fractional move here, very much a mixed market. let me bring in scott wapner. what are the cat a lists you're watching today? >> we're looking for six in a row today. oil prices started to come down

midday, the market started to pull down as well. that's where we'll really begin today. you can see that when you look at the major averages here, maria. >> we had a six-day winning streak for the s&p 500. and right now, we are looking at the oil stocks really among the weight. given the fact that oil has broken $70 a barrel. >> similar story we've been talking about. weak dollar weakening. and then that gold story, really continuing as gold right now sitting above $1,000 an ounce. let's talk about that energy story. that's really what brought this market down midday. oil prices dropped, take a look at exxon. it's a really good place to look. you see that move in exxon to the down side later in the afternoon. that's when the market pulled down as well. i mentioned with maria, the dollar index, in fact, hitting a new 52-week low. really every day for the past six days. that remains a story that's being talked about down hoor on the floor. gold stocks today, where are they going? to the plus side obviously.

gold sitting at $1,000. and a move by ten bucks to the upside. gold stocks higher today. gold fields and harmony gold all trading higher today. the fedex news right before the begin of trading today was significant. fedex coming out and saying first quarter earnings would exceed expectations. they also raised their outlook for the second quarter. fedex considered a bellweather for the economy giving a lift to the shippers. obviously u.s.p. getting a bump. financials, a look there. goldman sachs is one to look at. also the earnings estimates there, thanks to the recent run in the market. they bumped the price target up to $2.15 up from $175. aig to the down side. wells fargo downgraded that stock to underperform. and morgan stanley with john mack stepping down as the ceo. we obviously want to look at the move in the stock there. up about eight-tepts of 1%. cam bells soup, earnings beat

expectations on gross margins. finally, topping expectations as well for tech. the team is covering the markets here in new york. up in chicago. and of course at the nasdaq. that's where we find our bertha coombs. >> thank you very much, scott. a lot of the earnings news, particularly when it comes to semi conductors, has been positive. we've had a number of companies in the last few days starting with texas instruments, asml, all saying that they're seeing a bit more demand and raising their forecasts. but today, the semis are getting hit. we've got a number of analysts today raising their ratings on chip stocks, including intel. intel getting up over at roth capital partners. the chips overall are chip resting today. quite a bit of profit taking in that area of tech because it's been one of the strong performers over the last few days as the nasdaq has risen. interesting this week, we've

spent a lot of time talking about apple with steve jobs coming back and making the performance. but take a look at yahoo!. one of the strongest performers as far as the big caps on the nasdaq. the big tech caps, earning upgrade this week. some chipper comments from carol barts yesterday on squawk box. the stock is up 7%. winn resort is one of the biggest winners on the week on the nasdaq 100, in part because of a report it looks like they're going to get clearance for $1 billion ipo in hong kong. that's offering a big stake in their mccow holdings there, so they can build a second casino. and oracle, all this week, has been logging new highs. oracle set to report next week, expected earnings of 30 cents on the bottom line, with revenues of about $5.25 billion. sharon has been down at the ninex all week. >> it's been a wild one. it's a somber one at the moment to memorialize those victims of

9/11. but as we look at the end of the day's close here, in the oil markets, the fact that oil, below $70 a barrel, that was significant. it was largely due to some technical trading. we did see oil trying to break above the $73 mark throughout the morning but unable to do so. then we saw the selling ensue. keep in mind we're looking at weakness in some of the products as well that has pressured oil prices. we are looking at bills in inventories of gasoline, heating oil. in particular, at a level we haven't seen since 1983. so that is pressured some of the cracks. and that has also pressured oil prices. keep in mind, natural gas has had a volatile week. surging 15% yesterday. down 8% today. we did find out about a big find from venezuela. that didn't affect the market. it is something to follow. in the week ahead, those inventories, both from oil and from natural gas, will be key as we look at where oil prices will be headed. rick santelli, to you in chicago

where the dollar was a major factor in the commodity markets today. >> it really is. you know what, it's been such a one-way type trade, even though it has had a flight path that certainly isn't nosediving. it's very cumulative in its nature. let's look at how the rest of the curve is responding. interest rates are doing similar things, especially in the long end around the globe. let's look at our short maturity over the week. two-year yield, down. so we see that the curve indeed is flattened. if you take the real flattening metric, last week, 250 this week, this week 245. flat and five basis points. on the week, down a penny and a half. that isn't huge. but it's substantial. and it goes along with the flight path argument. what you really want to pay attention to, in my opinion, is the 90 level of the dollar versus the yen, we're hovering slightly above it at this point.

the lowest since february. let's go back to scott and maria. >> rick, thanks very much. you know, big move in the dollar. i mean, he said it's only down, rick mentioning fractionally on the week. if you look at the trend what's going on with the dollar, really quite significant. david dar, chief vesmt strategist. and gentlemen, good to have you on the program. thanks very much. let's talk a little about this market. this dollar a big story. commodities a big story today. how do you want to be investing in the second half of the year? what are you feeling after this huge runup, bob? >> i think the markets have gone from cheap to expensive, whether you're talking about stocks or credit. i think the stock market was moderately cheap at the lows. it's gone up to be quite expensive relative to credit. and credit, of course, the spreads have been depressed by two-thirds. some of that juice has been squeezed out of that orange. >> would you be putting money

into inflation type trades right now? >> yes. yes. i think inflation will come sooner. and bigger than people expect. what we have is a debt induced financial crisis the last couple of years. and we're trying to cure it with more debt. it's like somebody with ten credit cards all maxed out saying, well, let me get five more credit cards. that doesn't fix the problem. >> not very smart. >> the inflation that we're talking about, that plays into the move that we've seen in gold, right? >> yes, it does. we've talked about it before, scott. the gold move up is a reflection, i think you've got the september 24th, 25th in pittsburgh, the meeting of the g-20. i think people will continue to be talking about the dollar and needing to be replaced long term as a monetary reserve currency by something that the u.s. can't print at will. and i think that's one of the things that's driving this slow weakness in the dollar. and slow rise in gold. i would be remiss if today i did not remember the fallen heroes

on 9/11 and also together with all of the massive legion of fans across this country, if we did not wish maria bartiromo oh a happy birthday. i'm sorry, 29 years old. maria, you're doing so well for 29. >> thank you very much. >> this is a question of when, not if. i knew it was coming. >> i'm sorry. >> thank you very much. >> let's talk about gold, though. do you like the trade here? gold sitting at $1,000. >> no, robert ar knot has more knowledge in his little finger than i have in my whole body. however, we like gold longer term. we are worried about inflation longer term. on a short-term basis, it's moved up very, very smartly this year. it's up 9%, 10%. if you look at it since 2003, it's up from $250 to $1,000 now. so it's quadrupled. so it is a little bit ahead of itself. >> you wouldn't buy it today? >> i think they could make it much easier to make people buy gold. but that's led to an overbuying by individuals. that's where we think it is right now. it's become popular.

super bowl ad, gold for cash, you saw that ad at halftime. >> too many times. >> you are now at really an amazing collection of financial advisers, brokers, morgan stanley smith barney, you're the chief strategist there. how have things changed in terms of the flow? you've got access to an amazing amount of flow. what do you see in terms of the mentality of the investor today? >> maria, many strategists love to broadcast and they don't listen. the thing i've noticed from being on your show for years is the way you treat the people who work around you, and you're basically looking for information to come to you. i feel we have 18, 500 folks out there monitoring the housing situation in phoenix. talking to people, business people in sacramento. getting a lay of the land. >> what's the feeling? >> the feeling right now, we talked about this a few minutes ago, the consumer is still in hibernation. and we need to see that consumer come to the party. we're 80% bullish, 20% think

will go back and test the old stuff. that's all based on the consumer, corporate cap in spending, plus corporate profits. >> but does the consumer have to arrive at the party at the beginning? can't the consumer arrive fashionably late and -- >> you can see through the picture window there's no one out in the car getting ready to come to the party. that means confidence coming back up. retail sales not being negative year over year. you would want to see some of these big chain stores talking about the future positively constructively. >> break it down for us. how do i invest in this environment right now? am i putting new money to work right here? >> i would put new money to work right here, but not in stocks. and especially not in growth stocks. inflation like bonds are marvelous. i think leveraged loans are kind of interesting. i think defensive assets, like investment grade bonds are pretty interesting. i think deep value, even after

the huge run we've had in the past six months, is pretty darn interesting. >> we like the global trade, maria. we also like small caps. we like emerging markets. this is high beta. high yield. that having been said, you want to start to trade your vw for a mercedes. buy your coke a could las, johnson & johnson, your novartis, nestle. >> it's all going to be about wheat and commodities and the like. gentlemen, thank you very much. appreciate it. and david, thank you so much. we appreciate it. have a nice weekend, gentlemen. we're in the final stretch. coming up next, one-on-one coming your way with duncan niederauer. how is life going forward and what he sees in terms of new issues. larry mcdonald tells us what

he thinks of the financial sector right now, and what lessons he thinks still need to be learned from the collapse of lehman nearly a year ago. also ahead, we've got the most heavily traded stocks at the nyse. here's the action on the street here today. you're watching the "closing bell" on a friday.

welcome back. let's take a look at some of the day's research calls. consumer products maker colgate-palmolive, upgraded with an $85 price target of gross margin improvements. allstate downgraded because of valuation and risk of losing shares in auto insurance. up more than 80% over the past six months. garmin underperformed by bank of america, which is also raising its price target to $45 in $30 because of improving trends in the auto market. stocks today struggling to stay in positive territory after

five days of gains. since the lows of march 9th, the s&p 500 and the dow industrials are up almost 50%. really extraordinary move. for answers on this, and a lot more, i'm joined by duncan niederauer. i'm not going to ask you if this market is going to definitely necessarily go higher from here. i want to cover a lot of things. you have such a fantastic sort of feel for the markets, because you're seeing the volume. you're seeing the demand. ipos. first you had some news this week, nyse announcing plans to sell an equity stake in the options market to liquidity providers. what was behind that and tell me why you're doing this? >> i think what we're trying to figure out in some of these businesses that are very competitive and a little more xhotdized, we don't want to go back to the neutralized era. we're not sure in some of these businesses that the right answer is the structure we have right

now where the key to liquidity providers don't own any of the equity. call it a semi mutualized approach. you're going to see it take some of the other businesses. this was the old amex option. it's higher than when we bought it. we thought if we're really going to be a player in the options base, it was time to try and experiment. and share the wealth with some of the key liquidity providers in the market. >> what do you leave on the table by selling the stake? >> 50% of the upside. i think our general view was, we've been holding our own, and the market shares have been hanging in there at 11% as well. we've got 20% or not quite overall. we thought the only way we were realistically to get higher is share it. >> what is going on with reform on the table, whether it's the cftc and the s.e.c. hearings last week. do you feel that we're moving in the right direction, or should

we be hearing a different tone? >> i think ultimately you're going to want to hear a different tone. i think for now, having a joint hearing was a good start. i'm not sure what's going to come out of it yet. you and i have talked about this before. contemplating a merger seems like it would take a really long time. i'm not sure what we would get out of it. we're encouraging them to be more focused on ar monizing the rules, figure out where the gaps in regulation are and filling them. figuring out where the overlapse are and dividing and conquering. if we could start there, that's a lot of progress. >> these markets obviously have been trading very well. a lot of business managers come on the show, they say, look, i think the market's actually trading ahead of itself. when you run a business, you're not necessarily seeing the kind of optimism that the market is suggesting. you're seeing what's in the pipeline in terms of ipos, in terms of investor demand. >> pipeline is healthier than it's been in a while. i think you'll see deals big and small balance this year, and i think we'll leave this year

feeling the market absorbed a lot of supply. not only on the primary side, but also on the secondary side earlier in the year. i think secondarily, if we had a 50% runup in the market since march, as you talked about, that was after a pretty steep decline, but every business leader i've talked to says the same thing, you just quoted. the economy's not keeping up with the market right now. so right now i think we're all hoping that the market is the leading indicator it's been before, and maybe we can look forward to a pretty good 2010. >> what are you excited about in terms of ipo? i guess a market trading the way this one has encourages people to want to list. >> right. volatility's come in. it's a generally upward trending market. the deals that we've gotten done have been priced well. they've been set up. for the most part they've traded well. the question is, is the market now ready to take on more supply. i don't see a lot more secondary issuance coming. i think you'll see more ipos between now and the end of the year.

>> the institutions out there, would you say that the demand -- >> put it to work. they've got money to put to work. >> money still on the sidelines. >> all the ipo candidates i talked to, no trouble if they want to go on the road, getting a meeting with all the high quality investors they want to meet with. there's money to put to work i would say. >> is that a global story? is there money to put to work around the world or money typically chasing the u.s. stories? >> too early to tell. i was in brazil three weeks ago. i got the feeling plenty of money there. i'll be in tokyo most of next week. i'll come back and see later this month and we'll compare notes on that. >> recently you were in los angeles with the bill and melinda gates foundation. you were at viacom launching the get schools awareness campaign. why did you get onboard with this campaign? >> this came about when we talked a lot about financial literacy publicly. that got viacom's attention. they were working with the gates foundation for a while now. it really struck us as the right

approach. a great long-term commitment. the right partners. you can add at&t and capital one to that mix as well. we had a great kickoff in l.a. of everyone going back to school. really great publicity around it. and a really long-term multi-year commitment that we wanted to be a part of. >> it's really unbelievable that we are watching the education part of our broad economic story sort of lag behind so many others. why is it? what's the problem in your view? >> i can't put my finger on it. one of the things we talked about on tuesday was so much wealth creation from the mid-'80s to the early 21st century. maybe people have gotten less patient. they're not as willing to invest in an education. but if i shared with you the numbers in the urban areas for high school dropout rates, you would be staggered. it's more than 50%. it's 70% among minorities. we've got to get these kids to believe in an education is relevant again. and get them to invest for the long term in themselves. and the other thing is, look,

we're not -- the school system one could argue is not keeping up with getting kids ready for the work force that they're going to be entering and the kind of jobs they're going to need to be qualified to do in today's work lace. 50 years ago we were keeping up, now we're not. >> we really need more adaptability as we obviously see things change to quickly. obviously the nyse doing a lot of expansion over the next couple of years. do you still see holes in terms of expanding financially globally? >> there will always be holes. but is it more exchange con sal days or is there too much national fervor around these assets and is that the right trade going forward, or do more incremental acquisitions. like the steel we did in the options space. and a few more we'll be announcing later this month hopefully. >> let me get your thoughts on the day. it is obviously september 11th, eight years ago the attacks, we all were witness to at the world trade center.

describe how you're feeling today. what are you hearing on the floor from some of the people who were here as well as all of us? >> we rang the bell this morning with the september concert foundation. we'll have tuesday's children here at the closing bell. it's obviously a day we take very seriously, and it's always going to be etched in the history of this place. i think one of the most important moments in the nyse's history was reopening after 9/11. i think the people running the place at the time deserve a tremendous amount of credit for pulling it together. it's going to be one of those things, i'm sure you remember where you were. i remember where i was. i was at 120 broadway. just up the street, with the folks from spear leads. it's those days that you don't forget. but for me, my sadness is a little bit magnified by the fact that it's still a big hole in the ground. and i think if there's anything we can be collectively disappointed in, it's that we haven't made as much progress as i think everyone wishes we would. we've got to honor and respect the people who lost their lives that day. i'm not sure we're doing them

justice by having argued for so long about what it needs to be. it looks like they're finally making progress, but we've got to make a lot more progress there. that's the way to make the statement. >> duncan, great to have you on the program. thank you very much for sharing your insights on this day. scott, over to you. >> maria, thanks. we mentioned how oil pulling back was weighing on the market today. oil right now down 256 a barrel. below 70 bucks. retail stocks a drag today. up next, matt nesto tells us what's behind the sudden chill in retail.

with back-to-school season behind us, it looks like investors are turning their backs on retailers themselves. matt, certainly a case today as retailers one of the drag on the major averages today. >> only underperformed, or out-underperformed by the semi conductor industry, the second worst of the 24. i want to show you an interesting chart. it will really show you when the weakness kicked in. late yesterday afternoon, you can see the hash mark down at the start of trade today. clearly weak today. but really we started to get weak before the close yesterday. and that was when the market was looking good. because maybe this is pointing to a change, a decoupling, if

you will, retail stocks longer term have been big, big outperformers. a head scratcher in many circles. many people are saying, geez, i really wonder if this makes sense. there you go, the year-to-date picture, far outpacing what the s&p 500 has been able to do year-to-date. if you take a look at the stocks that have gotten real cold real fast, hand me a sweater crew, interesting. radio shack could not have been hotter yesterday. the first upgrade it had from morgan stanley in over six years. the stock was up 8% or 9%. it's given back half of that today following comments from the ceo saying that he thinks people are going to be disappointed on the pace of the recovery that they're hoping for. best buy with an upgrade and a downgrade. the downgrade speaks louder over at open heimer today. they think the stock is at peak valuations, and that really the upside is limited here. you're seeing that one give back 4% as well.

nordstrom, just a high-end giveback as well. so i'm just trying to paint a picture here in terms of what isn't working in retail. it's a lot of things. what is working, well, there's the three as of retail. eagle, abercrombie and ann taylor. i could have done amazon. but they're all working today. eagle up at 20%, if you will, month-to-date. and an taylor added an 11-month high, up 20% in successions. >> matt, thanks so much. we're going inside the auto industry with the ceo of mercedes-benz usa. hear how his company is trying to jump-start sales in the luxury segment of the auto market when thelosing bell" comes right back.

it is a friday on wall street. got about 25 minutes to go before we close it up. here's how the major averages stand right now. six in a row, a little bit of work to do. the dow jones industrial average

is right now down about 15 points. so it's cut some of its losses here. retail stocks, though, a bit of a weight today. oil has moved lower. it has weighed on the major averages. down by about three points or so, standing right now at 2080. down by three points. the s&p 500 is off as well today by about less than a point as well. we're possibly moving back to the flatline, maria. maybe we'll close positive. >> i'm telling you, we've come all the way back here. luxury automakers faced by the lower cost counterpart sales. we're down 21% last year. 2009 has also brought pressure, as consumers are cutting back. mercedes-benz is banking on redesigned models and fuel-efficient vehicles to reignite sales. we're joined by mercedes-benz usa ceo, ernst lieb.

how would you characterize business right now? >> actually, it was very tough at the be gij of the year. i would say the first six months, very rough. continuously down every month. but in the last two months a little bit of an uptick. it's the first time we were actually getting close to the number and have a one-digit decline. overall maybe there's a bit of an uptick, change in the behaviors of our customers. >> do you think people are beginning like they're under less pressure, they're coming out and wanting to buy? or is it the product that's more in demand? >> i think first of all, last month there was definitely a bit of a mind-set change. the cash for clunkers, people were encouraged to come in. traffic increased overall. we didn't have very many models which fell under the program, but we could see clearly the traffic increase and willingness of people to spend money and buy a new car. the second thing is, what has

actually worked well is our new models. we have the glk, we introduced that a small suv. we are about 35% in there, very well with the car. just introduced the new e-class, the ninth generation e-class, which is our bread and butter. >> beautiful car. >> beautiful car. four-door sedan and sedan coup. was up 74% august over last year's august. so very good. we have a new s-class, a hybrid. that's a complete new technology for us. so overall, you can clearly say in the market, it's selling and giving momentum. >> it really is the new product that is luring people. >> yes. >> what are people looking for in -- >> value. you can clear see it on the used car side. we had last year tremendous increases in used cars. nearly everybody in the industry. that's not any forecast, doesn't come in under any statistics.

but we can see that very clearly. this year, at the end of august, we have an increase in used cars. people are drifting away from new cars and maybe looking at a slightly used two-year, three-year-old car, covered by a good warranty. why not get a car like this, a better price position than on a new car. >> the pre-owned mercedes is actually a market you're making money on? >> absolutely. it's a good source for our deals. our network in these times, with being down 25%, is hurting. so they're looking at every source where they can generate revenue. pre-owned has proven to be a very good source for that. for everybody in the industry. and i think it's also a good indication that the market didn't disappear totally. we didn't go down from $16 million, $17 million down to $10 million in terms of transactions. we've actually -- we're probably somewhere in between by $12 million, $12.5 million. the difference is made up by used cars. that's a good sign. >> the issue for people is that

they want their value to not drop so much over the years. and you see certain cars, you buy a car and then five years later, three years later, you can't possibly get what you paid for it. but the value stays much more with the mercedes on the high end. >> that's true. you see that also in the behavior, the way they're buying their cars. there's a lot of leasing going on and financing. so when they lease a car, they don't really have the risk of the falling value of the car. that's obviously a big part of our business. some of our competitors have financial restrictions where they could get the funds to do -- continue this business while with our finance arm, we're still continuing doing it. since the recession has started. and that's a big part of our business today. and it's going to continue that way. >> look at the market and the landscape for us. who impresses you right now? you've got the government owning 80% of general motors. ford seems to be holding its own right now. chrysler getting together with fiat. how would you measure up? >> the guys who impress me are the guys who stay on the course.

don't change the world. this is going to go by. it's going to blow over at one point. there will be light at the end of the tunnel again. i think it's deadly for our customers if we don't stay the course and try to deliver the same proposition we had in the past. when we had -- you know, deals these days, for the last few months, the message was always -- my message was back to basics. we stay the course. we might delay things, adjust a little, but let's not ignore what's happening in the marketplace. but let's try to keep the same proposition to the customer and make sure they experience the same. some of our colleagues do that very well. others are going completely different route. and they're upsetting the network. they're upsetting their customers. >> changing it all around. >> when this thing is over, the truth will come out. >> you want stability. let me ask you about oil prices. what a wild ride. now we're back on oil, under $70 a barrel. but of course, we've been all the way up to $147. what kind of an impact has the movement of oil had on your business? >> the last time we experienced

that not too long ago, it had a tremendous impact on the size of the engine. immediately, if that stays and fuel prices go up, immediately you see the move down to smaller engines. v-8s go down to v-6s. and a shift also in the diesel engines, you know, which obviously depends on the price again. >> right. >> clearly behavior from the customer changes as soon as the price goes up at the gas station. >> how easy is financing right now? people are still wondering if they can get access to credit. >> we have our own finance company. we do very well with it. we obviously also had to look at some of the checks the companies are performing to do the right thing here. but overall we're still running at about 45%, 50%, which is not different from what we've seen in the past. >> real quick, your expectations for 2010? you think -- >> i think we're going to see a little bit of an uptick. certainly not to what we had in the early years. but i think it will be better than '09, for sure. >> appreciate it. >> great to be here.

thank you very much. >> ernst lieb for mercedes-benz. a sign that transports are a good buy right now? we'll take a look. after the bell, we're getting insight into the state of both the american and global consumer from the founder and chairman of the italian footwear designer who will join us.

it is time now for the "fast money" "final call," fedex raising first quarter earnings forecast on better than expected international shipments. is this the time to place your bets on the delivery company. brian stuckland is president and trader at stutland equities. thanks for being here. >> thanks, scott. >> new money today to work on fed? >> i was looking at fedex today. i was looking at the option activity here. what you've seen is option traders taking bets maybe that you're going to see the stock a little range-bound the next few months. as i see the stock pull back toward that $75 level, that's probably where i start to get in

on fedex. certainly this move is any indication they've made could be an indication the stock and transports themselves start to move higher going forward. >> how do you compare fedex to u.s.p.? do you like one better than the other and why? >> we've been advising my clients to stay in u.p.s. i like that a little bit better. it's a warren buffett favorite. the fundamentals are a little stronger. one caution placed today is 12,000 puts to the 55 strike were bet on. a buyer coming in today, maybe taking a protection to the down side that u.p.s. may not have the same strong earnings as fedex. but us u.p.s. is still the play i like over fedex. >> let me point out we're moving toward positive territory. the dow only down about 4.5 points right now. >> we've had a nice strong run. you're seeing the transports participating here. we're going to have a real rally here, real economic growth going forward, it's going to have to come from the transports where people are actually moving goods around. economic activity is being

created. that's what you want to see in a full bore rally rather than the funny money print money and get us to move higher that way. this rally has to be maintained and move toward 1150 in the s&p. you'll see the transports participate in that rally. >> transports are also ahead by 81 points today. pretty good deal there. brian, thanks. >> thank you. coming up on "fast money," the top story this week, mack's departure from morgan. reaction from former morgan ceo and chief brad hintz. and your best fall plays in the biotech space. melissa and the traders are alive at 5:00. about 15 minutes to go before the closing bell. i think we have something -- oh, look what this is. >> thank you, scott. >> earlier at the top of the show, of course, we heard it was somebody's birthday today. >> i had no idea. thank you very much. appreciate it. thank you very much. that's very kind of you. thank you very much. >> we could sing through the break. >> i have --

>> you're turning a little red here. >> thank you very much. >> almost matches the color of your jacket there. >> you're so sweet to do that, scott. thank you very much. we'll be right back, everybody. we're going to talk about natural gas prices having plunged this year. we'll be right back. stay with us.

okay. as we count down to the close of the week, let's take a look at where the markets stand with our cnbc investor network weapon cam connection straight from san diego, california. john glassman, at pacific american securities standing by. nice to see you on this friday afternoon. >> nice to see you. thanks for having me, scott. >> what do you think of the market at this level? >> the market at this level seems to be doing the sideways grind higher. clearly having priced the worst in. it looks like we're in for a jobless recovery, anything below 10% is good news. as long as we don't see any macro economic indicators come in below expectations, i see no reason this market is going to sell off.

part of that is everybody's looking for a sell-off is exactly why we're not getting one. >> the dollar has really kept commodities higher, keeping gold as well. gold right now, let me point out, because it's such a story right now, $1,007 an ounce. >> yeah. very strange with the dollar being, you had two schools of thought on the dollar. one, that it's going to be devalued completely. i think that's what you see with the runup in gold. but then you also see strength in the treasury markets. so there is still a bit of a risk aversion going on. in the dollar. but anything that you can trade dollars for, i think as you go forward, are going to be good areas to be long, specifically commodities. not only domestic demand picture, it's now a global demand picture in commodities. >> what about the whole nat gas deal. the dichotomy that exists between oil moving higher and we've seen natural gas move lower. nat gas at the end of the day

yesterday spikes higher. and then today it's down another 8%. what do you think of nat gas both as a commodity itself or then stocks? >> as a commodity itself, i think we've had an explosion of natural gas reserves here domestically with a lot of the shale plays and the bar net and hansville and marshella sales. our reserves have gone through the roof. production went up very high. storages are at near capacity. 3 something trillion feet cuban storage capacity. we do have a lot in supply. but what i did notice is when we hit the seven-year low in nat gas last week, a lot of the producers held in, and i think we're getting to the point where you are going to see shut-ins, and the oversupply situation is quickly going to rectify itself. and there are quite a few things with nat gas that do make it one of the most attractive carbon-based energy sources, and that is one that's abundantly

available domestically. you have improving extraction methods. you have an existing delivery infrastructure. you have multiple and expanding applications. you have economy of scale. it's cleaner burning. not to mention the political support on a couple of house of representatives bills that are going to bring nat gas into play and become the favored energy source for this country. >> john, thank you very much. let me point out for our viewers, i know we had your pics on the screen. range resources, the ticker symbol there. john, have a great weekend. you know, scott, one year ago this week, we were feeling very differently. a lot of things to remember today. of course, being september 11th. but also the week ahead. we all remember one year ago, the sense of urgency, the sense of panic. the uncertainty as rumors circulated. lehman was looking for a white knight. could lehman file for bankruptcy. would it team up with bank of america. or would merrill lynch team up with bank of america. what was going to happen with

citi and all the rest. all of this happening so fast. that was probably the one thing i heard from so many people. the speed with which everything was happening one year ago in that weekend when merrill was sold to b of a and lehman declared bankruptcy and when the government took 80% of aig. regulators and executives needed to get news out that weekend before the asia markets opened for trading that sunday night. this week, i sat down with a number of leaders on wall street, john told me the following. >> the impact to me was really, you know, how bad, or not how bad, how do you contain this contagion. is there a way that you could build a buffer that it stops with lehman, and clearly it didn't. >> finding a exclusion for lehman was important for confidence in the financial markets. and that we've got to do everything we can to ensure confidence remains. because ultimately it's confidence that drives liquidity

and capital for all the banks. >> of course, one year later, we can look back and clearly see who saw the opportunities in the wreckage. for one, jamie diamond comes out a winner, ceo of jpmorgan, having acquired bear stearns. black rock's barry comes out a winner. regardless, everybody involved was fielding phone calls all weekend, all day long, to ensure their own survival. >> going into the first part of this year, we just went from bad to worse, worse to worse, to worse. and the marketplace was so frightened, that people put so much of their free money into cash, and had a store of their wealth in something that was earning zero. >> it was stressful. it was emotional. we knew we were playing for big stakes.

so on one hand, we knew that if lehman went into bankruptcy, there would be huge implications in the markets. on the other hand, we wanted to look at whether or not there was a transaction that made sense both for barclays as well as for the markets. >> of course, there was a transaction and it did make sense to barclays, that's for sure. we visited the barclays trading floor this week which, of course, was the old lehman brothers trading floor. it sold its investor global business, barclays global investor to blackrock. that's expected to close december 1st. now blackrock becomes the largest manager of assets with $3 trillion under management. we also talk about going forward. how are these guys investing now. where are the opportunities. certainly the playing field looks very different today. bigger government, less risk, less leverage. we'll talk about what change is going forward. don't miss our special presentation sunday night at 10:00 p.m. eastern time.

on cnbc. we've got the closing countdown right after this short break.