and you'll talk about it. >> all right. before you go, here's a look at the day on wall street. it was a good one for the bulls. the dow charging higher, helped in part by our parent, ge. up about 1.1%. it's a triple-digit gain, 108 points. the nasdaq charging higher by about a percent. and the s&p kind of the star of the day there, looking for a close above 1,060 and we got it p up a percent and a half. the s&p the best gain on the day in four weeks. oracle vague tough day, probably the soft spot in the group. number three software maker posted lower than xpd quarterly earnings. that's it for "the closing bell." "fast money" is coming up next. thanks for watching. i'm melissa francis in today for maria bartiromo. have a great night. "fast money" coming up next. oracle shares dropped 4% after the software giant reported revenues and new licenses fell short of expectations. earnings in line with estimates, though, at 30 cents a share. chrysler is getting back

into the leasing game. starting tomorrow, the car company will offer leases on all 2010 model chrysler, jeep, and dodge vehicles. that is cnbc.com "news now." news now. first in business worldwide. i'm scott cohn. "fast money" with melissa lee and the "fast money" traders starts right now. live from the nasdaq marketsite, this is "fast money." i'm melissa lee. the stock market continues to defy all critics. these traders have got your winning plays. also tonight gold at a record high. we've got a new way to play it. plus pete najarian with the trade behind the next boom on wall street. but first let's get to the word on the street. on the nyse the most -- new high since october 2007. guy, you have been a critic all the way up. every point high yer -- >> i'll say it again tonight and i'm r-o-n-g wrong.

where were you today for lunch? >> for lunch? >> please say it quick. >> i was at the cable facts awards luncheon. >> where you were nominated for? >> best host news for "options action." >> somebody should bring that up. thank you. >> mr. dan rather. i had the privilege of being in the same category as mr. dan rather, and he took that award, and he deserved it. >> well, good for you, though, mel. way to go. >> thank you. >> back to the market. >> back to the market. if you believe it, finally, when are you going to -- >> i will say it. i've been wrong. and you can't get in the way of this. the market clearly wants to go higher. joe says it, tim says, it pete says it all the time. i'm scared. there's nothing out there that shows me any different. we'll talk about oracle in a second. the oracle earnings to me in a nutshell is what's going on with corporate america right now. but that being said, the market wants to go higher, impossible to fight the tape. >> what else is going on, we had a nice move in financials, had a nice move in industrials. again, general electric, powering higher. so we're having this new leadership group.

these new stocks coming and participating in this rally finally. >> when you get industrial production printing .8%, people expecting .6%, you're getting actually now sequential growth in some of these numbers. month to month we're actually seeing these things improve. off capacity utilization, good numbers yesterday. the bulls have a lot of ammunition here, and it's going into earnings season that they say actually we'll beat on the top line. we've become operationally more efficient. companies were going to beat on the top line, and we've said it all six weeks of this rally, that people are sitting on the sidelines. there are those who have -- are just grinding their teeth saying i've got to get back into this market. >> that scares the pants off me. >> if you were sitting on the declines, what you were looking for was a correction in the market, and seasonally the weak period generally is from labor day until the world series, which this year will have the yankees in it, by the way. that was the period where you look for the correction. right now i think we have caught everyone completely off guard because you have seen eight out of the nine days a strong

performance. and right now if you look at the market, melissa, there's only one number that matters. economic numbers don't matter right now, but what matters is the percent change year to date in the s&p because that's what everyone's following and that's what everyone's chasing. >> this money just continues to sit on the sidelines, and slowly it weaves its way back in. then you get a guy like the oracle from omaha talking about how he's starting to see valuations and he's putting money to work. as he puts money to work, you know the rest of the world is sitting up and mag attention and starting to listen. now, we've got volumes that have absolutely gone and told us that they are committed. at least on the options side. we talked about it yesterday, talking 17 million contracts. we traded 12 million contracts by noon today. we finished at 22 million. so the volumes are there. people are excited. you look at the stroilt index, it's not necessarily saying that there's no fear in the marketplace. it's saying they are expecting movement, they are expecting movement to continue, and it's exactly what we're getting right now. >> in fact, take a look at that chart of the day to show you

that move in the vix that we have seen, lowest levels since september of 2008. not quite a one-year closing low but we are darn close to it. >> and when you get it at 23, what it tells you is expect 15, 17-point moves. it's exactly what we're getting. late in the day the volatility index spiked. everybody's probably wondering why did the volatility index go up from 2280 back up toward 2370? the reason it ds did is because the markets are giving that ind koof movement right now, people are buying up side, there's a little bit of fear probably on the up side, and they've got the protection in place, we talked about it yesterday. the sellers just run out of gas. there's nothing to sell because the sellers are holding their hands because they've got the put protection, they don't have to sell. >> right. we should keep in mind, though, for the volatility index we're talking about this, it's down about 40% so far this year. it is actually a reversion to the mean we're seeing because the 19-year average on the vix is just about 20 or so. >> right. >> it's just going back it normal. >> yeah, we're just returning a bit to normalcy, and that's exactly -- up 30 cents today. everybody's going to scratch their head because too many people call it the fear index. it's not. if the volatility index is telling you what to expect, and

it's giving you exactly that. >> and the other side of that trade with the vix being so cheap it actually adds fuel to the fire. it allows you to get short cheaply, and that's actually a problem. those puts right now if you look at them they expire on friday, they look real cheap and a lot of the high beta names. so you have investors going-n buying them, and they're wrong. so it's adding more buying that has to come in once you realize that the position you put on is actually wrong. >> just so i understand what you're saying, basically people can go and buy the markets and feel a little more comfortable -- >> the puts -- >> you can buy protection to the down side cheaply. >> stepping into the market from the short side, actually going out and selling shares, you can actually go into the market and buy up and snatch up real cheap puts. it's real easy to put that trade on. it's almost a sucker's play right now. it's kind of like on sunday when they give you the three-team teaser. it's a cheap trade right now, easy way to get short but it's the wrong trade. >> and i think it is the sucker's play right now because you really want to do these options against a position. this is not the time to be speculating on the down side. the sellers don't have the momentum to be able to push the market down.

>> they're buying cheap down side protection -- >> so they can buy. exactly. stay in this market. >> i give this market a better foundation to move higher because people -- >> more confidence. >> can jump in with conviction. >> and it continues to roll off. anybody who's been in names like apple, freeport-mcmoran, goldman sachs, that keep hitting 52-week highs, you want to roll up that protection. as they roll it up, i tell you what, it keeps those stocks elevated much higher. >> you know which stock's up nicely? the parent of our network. >> i knew nap another takedown for me. i was r-o-n-g on that one. oracle shares are moving sharply lower. remember during the session they were down by about 2%. after hours they are also moving lower, right now down by about 6% total, i believe is the move on the session. we had earnings coming out. eps was in line. sales were light. and really the tell, guy, as you've been pointing out, the licensing refunds came in at just about a billion dollars. and now it's a little bit weak compared to what analysts -- >> gap operating margins up 590 basis points to 34%. non-gaap operating margins 570

basis points, so 46%. they're running the business better. a lot of companies are unrunning the business better. that's the good news. the bad news, new software licenses down 17% year over year. so corporate america, the great news is they're running more efficiently. the gap stores, we see it with them, we see it with a number of different companies. but at the end of the day you can't make people buy things if they don't, a, have the money to do it or don't have the will to do it. and to a certain extent i think that's what you saw with oracle. >> this is interesting because these guys always beat and the last couple numbers the two days they reported in march and june the stock waupz 8% and 9%. the earnings growth per share with these guys it had been outstripping s.a.p. and microsoft, maybe under question here, they definitely came out way sharp on this. >> yesterday before the close an magz amount of the 23 strikes. in september. they're expiring in three days. they didn't care about the three days. they were looking for today. they got the move today. the move going into it signaled what we're seeing right now, but don't go looking too far on this

whole thing. two quarters ago this stock's up 40%. look at it outpacing microsoft. we've been on microsoft saying hey, this is a great rally. microsoft's back to 25. forget about it for a moment and look at oracle. look at the performance you're seeing from those march lows. it was due for a pullback. this makes sense. and this is the time to start looking at it. probably a name i'm going to be looking at tomorrow. >> if you look at software spending here domestically in the u.s. it was okay. it was the european sales that actually were struggling. so if you look and the argument being made that the u.s. is not going to recover, europe is going to lead, i don't know if that's necessarily true if you look inside oracle's numbers. >> we should note also if you're concerned about oracle and the impact it will have on the tech trade tomorrow, the qs are trading just about flat right now. so far not much of an impact overall. why are you laughing? >> well, you said that -- >> because the qs -- if you say qs people might not understand what i'm saying. it tracks the nasdaq. let's move on. popping the tape today, financials leading the rally. jpmorgan, morgan stanley, deutsche bank closing up about 4% apiece.

certainly nice moves here. we have some comments out of wells fargo's ceo david stump early on in the session from a conference he was at saying the company has 21% of credit for losses tied to the bad loans it acquired from wachovia and apparently that was enough to make it a little more bullish on wells fargo. >> 7.3 billion they've used the 40 billion that was essentially priced in. barclays has sold 12.3 billion of their riskiest credit assets to a u.s. hedge fund. they're getting the stuff off the books or things aren't as bad. so npls are contained. they're not in great shares, but that's what people are looking for, so going forward people can -- >> on a different -- no, i'm not laughing. i would never laugh at you unless you made a joke, and that was not a joke. but when you're talking about loans -- i don't think that was a joke. if you take a look on any other market day you would read the comments from stump saying non-performing loans, he didn't say they bottomed. the regions financial ceo said yesterday the second quarter was likely the peak for that, and stump did not.

on any other market day the market would have taken that and would have gone lower. >> i think the quote was in the ballpark for the yankee fans that joe talks about in the world series and jorge pose dah, who guy was very proud of last night in his actions. but the bottom line is this company is going to show better earnings and what he's also saying is their cross-selling allows this company who is more diversified than a number of other guys in the space to actually be making money faster than everyone else. they do think they're going to pay back the tarp faster. it remains to be seen. >> and look at the npl. look at the regional bank performance. look at the kre, we talked about that, the regional bank etf, up 6% this year. so it clearly was a broad financial rally with all of the names participating. also take a look at the cme. that's been an underperformer. today that came to play as well. cre, kme. everything -- >> when you talk about financials, one of the names people used to talk about all the time before the hull bah lao of the last year and a half or so was the dividends. mike cavanaugh today the cfo from jpmorgan talked about they might start putting that

dividend back. 20 cents now, they said they might add 75 cents to a dollar overt next couple of months. keep an eye on that name that's one reason i think you saw jpmorgan start to move to the up side, the idea maybe some of these dividends are coming back from the firms that have already paid back the tarp. that could be big for these financials. >> we're going to have whitt on the show in a few minutes. >> i'd be interested to hear -- he's getting ready. >> you call him whitt these days? >> i'm sure his friends call him whitt. but i want to hear what he has to say about wells fargo. i'm very interested. >> i am as well. that will be the first question we ask the whitt. >> i don't know if he's going by whit these days. >> regardless, if we call him that, that's what it is. well, i mean on the show it is. commodities continuing their run higher on hopes of an economic recovery. got exxon back above $70 a share. wow. alcoa climbing 3%. another nice run on alcoa. yesterday we had a nice raise as well. can we -- >> i think we're getting most of our rally from the dollar

weakness. the dxy at a one-year low. one of the things he has said because you posted the exxon chart there, oil company integrateds are doing better than the underlying commodity itself. there's a couple other pieces of news. . anadarko has a new discovery in sierra leonee. chevron also to find oil in south america. repsol. the upstream play for some of these guys is impress pf. >> downstream play works as well. walter industries. bring if up today. i keep saying walter industries. it's not walter industries anymore. walter energy. old-timers say walter industries. >> old habits are hard to break. >> natural gas continues to rally. if you also look at copper, copper's about to have a 3 handle back on it. the argument's being made if you look at oil and the consumer what is the relationship there? the products, distillates, reformulate gasoline, both look very strong today. so you kind of dismiss the argument. the energy sector. the one commodity sector where there's not strength is the grain market.

keep your eye on that. that affects the ag names. and you've got to look at what's going on in coal. pete will talk about this a little bit. there is clear demand right now in coal. >> you talk about production coming back up in some of these steel names. we talked about it last night. everybody looked at nucor. don't forget about that. look back to cliffs, steel dynamics, what some of these guys are talking about. arcelon mattel talking about it. but those mining machinery makers, keep an eye on joy global, we talked about it yesterday, heavy call activity at the sep 44s, again, expiring in three days, those things have absolutely screamed to the up side along with the stock. arch coal today, they were coming after just about every strike you could look at in october from the 22s to the 24s, 25s, the 30s were the most active. they were coming after just about anything they could get their hands on. and if you look september 1st, $16 stock. today just under 24. giddy-up for these -- >> the chart on the thing says 26 no problem. and once it broekz through 18 i said this yesterday, it's got 26

and 30 all over it. >> and joe talked about staying away from ung was spot on but apache he yeerks look what that stock's done. breaking out. i think it closed 94 1/2 today. that stock looks like it wants to continue higher as well. >> let's talk about the gold rush of 2009. another new high on the comex closing at 10.18 this as the dollar hits a new low against the euro for the year. timmy, what's interesting is when you are bearish the dollar you're bullish, say, the euro. can we be that -- >> well, not necessarily. the you're e. o''s about 60% of the dollar basket. so there's a handful of other currencies in there. but yes, i think you can make the argument that people are betting on central bank policy in europe being more fiscally restrained than that in the united states. it's not really a question of growth because i do think that europe's growth prospects are as challenging as the united states. but back to gold, it's very simple. it is about the dollar. it is about inflation. a name i really like if you want to get the nix yur of both gold

and copper exposure, bbn down in peru, buenoventura, this is one of the best interesting producing and mining plays in the space. >> couple plays on gold,ry main long gold. futures, there's a seasonal play here. it plays right into gold moving higher. if you look at gold right now, you could actually see 15% to 20% more up side here as we move forward towards december. but guy can tell you this. the interesting thing, and it's very uncharacteristic about the goeltd gold market, if you're long right now it's been easy to stay long gold right now. there hasn't been the volatile shakeout you usually get in gold. and again, guy could tell you all about that. so if you're long right now, it's very, very easy to stay in the game. that's why the trade's working. >> i still like of the other natural resources if you're looking at gold take a look at the performance. we talk about copper, coal, steel, some of the rest of these names. the performance there is just as great and the gold bugs have us all on fire talking about gold going to 1,000. look at some of the rest of the performance, the natural resources is the place to be,

that's the currency replacing the dollar. >> you know who we'll have on later on? the head of the latest gold etf. yes, there is an eighth gold etf out there because there just aren't enough. seven not enough. so we will have him on. it is the physical swiss gold etf. huge vomit in the first few days of trading. that should be an interesting conversation. yun one year ago this week lehman brothers collapsed and the credit crisis hit hard on wall street. one "fast money" friend warned of the trouble months before the depth of the destruction were revealed. here's what noted value investor whitney tilson had to say back in march of 2008. >> we're short across the financial sector. we're not buying this latest bounce viewed as a dead cat bounce. we're still short the bond insurers. we're short mortgage insurers, pmi and radian. we've reshorted lehman, for example. we've reshorted bear down here. so we think there are a lot more shoes to drop. >> whitney tiltson joins us on set. otherwise known as the whit. >> whit.

>> whitney, what are you doing with wells fargo these days? >> we've trimmed most of our position. whats left we're sort of hedging short. a little b of a, some of the regional banks. we're very worried investors are getting overenthusiastic. they see a couple months of sequential month to month home price increases. we think it's mostly seasonal. we saw the exact same thing a year ago and we're warning people don't get faked out by the seasonality here. we think home prices still have another year to go before they bottom and that's going to impact any stock that's got exposure to the housing sector. >> are you concerned even your forecast of a bottom in housing prices in 2010 is sort of maybe off the mark simply because we have these sort of artificial factors in there now, we have government stimulus, they might extend it, now is the talk, and that sent home builders higher today. i mean, how confident are you in your forecast given these ex-trains factors? >> not very just because there's so many variables. what happens to unemployment, what happens to interest rates, and what happens to underwater homeowners. do they walk from their homes if

it's underwater? if it's economically rational do they do that or not? but right now the supply, the pipeline of homes and foreclosure, which is going to translate to pressure on home prices has never been bigger than right now. it's hard to reconcile that with a bottom in home prices today. >> so whitney, you're trimming long positions. you did great with all of them. >> yep. >> at what point, though, what do you need to see the shorts -- >> i don't think we'd ever go short that again. such an incredible company. minting money right now and really it's a horse race they have all sorts of toxic stuff on their books and they're making so much money. that's why we're so long a little bit of it. we are -- what we're looking for, for example, in the regional banks, where they have 50% of their assets in commercial real estate, which is just starting to tip over. they've been weakened by residential, commercial's the knockout blow. there's still a lot of pressure. but we're interested in shorting the weaker players, not the

premier players. >> such as? >> regions financial or zions -- >> even though they had some very bullish comments at yesterday's conference. >> what do you expect him to say? >> he could be more like the wells fargo ceo and say npls are increasing still. he didn't have to sate peak was -- >> the stronger banks are in a position to be a little more honest because you know, they know they're minting money, right? our experience is weaker, distressed companies out there trying to prop things up and you have to be a little more skeptical of the story if there's weakness. >> okay. and one last question, whitney. what's your best idea right now in terms of going wrong a stock? >> you know, i always -- our largest position today is berkshire hathaway. and i've said it before, and i hate to be a broken record, but look, it's 25% undervalued and it's the kind of bulletproof balance sheet blue chip you want to own if stocks start taking a dive. >> you owned it a while back -- >> it's larger than a 10% position. of course we're not putting new

money to work, but it's cheap, let's face, it rapidly growing. and now we're playing defense. five months ago when i was last here we were playing offense. >> interesting shift. whitney tilson, thanks for your time. don't go anywhere. lots more rapid-fire word on the street trades on the way. including a new way to trade gold. and a stock moving after hours. you're watching "fast money" on cnbc, first in worldwide. ♪ he's a magic man they don't call him the man with the crystal balls for nothing. he saw the economy tanking while wall street kept the good times rolling. with stocks climbing to new highs, has rosenberg turned rosy? and we're putting a sizzle back in after-hours action. we talk the after-hours earnings with the ceo of cke restaurants and trade it live on-air when america's post-market show continues.

welcome back to "fast money." we're live at the nasdaq marketsite in new york city. restaurant stocks have been breaking out recently with names like domino and is dineequity enjoying double-digit runs over the past few days. tonight the owner of carl's jr. and hardee's, cke restaurants reporting earnings of 22 cents, the stock trading lower in the

after-hours. the company's ceo, andy presder joins us on the fast line for a "first on cnbc" interview. nice to talk to you. >> hey, karen, good to talk to you. >> how are the burger wars against mcdonald's? >> burger wars are going great. we're having incredible success with our big carl at carl's jr. and our big hardee at hardee's, which we advertise as bigger, better, and less expensive than mcdonald's big mac. so it's meeting with a really positive reception. >> how many are you selling and how many rebates have you given out? because that's one of your big promos, if you're not satisfied you're going to give people their money back. >> well, i haven't heard of any rebates yet. so there may be one or two out there. but nothing's gotten back to me on it yet. but we're selling -- we're selling well over 100 a day in our stores, and we even hit a record one day of about 160. it's going very well. >> mr. pusder, it's joe. i heard that you opened your first carl's jr. in shanghai, china. congratulations. at the beginning of the month.

what's the international plan? what's the stamp going to be on the chinese market? how long is it going to take to get you there? >> well, our plan is -- we've got about 333 international restaurants right now, which is about 10% of our outstanding units. within the next four o'five years we expect that to be well over 20% and over 700 restaurants. we've got a commitment over the next eight years in beiging and shanghai from our licensee over there to build 100 restaurants. the first one's doing very well. so if it continues as it's going right now, they could well exceed that. our ultimate plan for china, we'd like to see 1,000 restaurants in china. we're also opening up our first restaurant in pakistan in november. we've got kazakhstan coming online. international is very exciting for our company. >> and related to that, how do you maintain quality control in different countries where you may not have the same logistics on the ground and obviously you have a strong brand image and quality to protect? >> we have a very, very strong international department. we have right now, for example,

200 restaurants in the middle east, where you have real supply chain problems and qa issues. and we've got people on the ground. it's very important to us, probably the most important thing when you're dealing with licensees overseas, just to make sure they have the right quality and the right suppliers and the right distribution. so that's a huge focus for us. >> mr. puzder, i want to ask you one last question on health care, certainly a hot issue in congress these days. there's a concern if employers are mandated to provide employees with health insurance that that will in fact for the restaurant industry at least result in higher prices. what are you telling congress? how are you working with them in order to make sure your irnths are heard and that consumers don't have to pay higher prices during a time when they may not have the money to do so? >> well, i actually have been to washington three times already this year to talk to legislators on this very subject. and the reality is that this -- what they're talking about now, which is 8% of payroll going for medical care, if that in fact is what they do, for our company that would increase our payments

for medical insurance by more than 100%. and the only place that we could get that money from is the money we're using now to build new restaurants and create new jobs. there's really only two things you can do. one is you can continue on like we are and will continue to create jobs. our company -- we and our franchisees employ about 72,000 people, and we're not the largest fast food chain. >> right. >> so as we grow and create more jobs, i think we really benefit the economy. >> sure. >> if we have to pay this health care cost, the one place that's coming from, if it doesn't come from increased prices, is our development dollars, and that will quell one of the only industries that's creating jobs right now in the country. >> andy, great to have you with us. thank you so much for your time. andy puzder of cke restaurants. that's a staggering figure. >> huge figure. >> of the impact on these restaurants. >> i think we know politically where andy lines up. what we didn't ask him, by the way, is if he thinks the king is kind of creepy. >> that's true. >> i know pete does. i know pete's concerned about

the king. >> we didn't ask him about paris. >> that's true. because apparently he's going to be in the next commercial. they had paris, padma, and now puzder. i mean-e looks like a good-looking man, but he's not paris hilton. with all due respect. >> how about the coffee? we talk about mccafe, all the rest of that stuff. we have a lot of questions for him next time, mr. puzder. >> anybody a buyer of cke -- >> we've had him on a few times now and the stock seems to be the same price every time we have him on frankly. i'd still rather to go to yum and jim skinner of mcdonald's is still the man. mcd, yum, and then you know, andy and the boys distant third. >> talk about a technical trader, mcds definitely a technical trader. we talked about it dipping on the halftime report a few weeks ago, bounced and look at that thing now, starting to perform once again. >> let's head to our prop desk now, if you think bailouts are the only thing that's been propelling bank shares higher since march, well, think again. underwriting activity has been booming as stock issuance jumped

to $105 billion in the second quarter. a whole lot of dough for these banks out there. banks like goldman sachs, morgan stanley, citi. >> and it's a huge driver. and the margins are phenomenal. you look at the m&a and then you look at some of these secondaries and the rash of secondaries that are coming out every single day. jenworth today, great example, $2 stock, runs to $12, they get out there and they're able to issue 48 million shares at 11.75. successfully. you've got to like the direction this is going. and how this was feeding into the banks right now. all of the various names whether it's bank of america, jpmorgan, morgan stanley, goldman sachs and -- i think you still have to go with sxhft best in breed there but if you want to come down a little bit one of guy's favorite names, jefferies, guy's favorite name, along with lazard. all these boutique -- >> jefferies looks unbelievable, looks like it wants to go back up to 29. and greenhill was up big today, the highest level we've sneen ghl since april i think. and it still has a big short

interest they're all going to get squeezed and that heads to -- >> and if you look internationally the guys that have survived in even a better position than they have in the united states are people like deutsche bank and actually ubs despite what's broken down with other parts of their business model. they are leading domestically the m&a activity. it's a big part of their growth model. >> let's move on to the next trade here. gold, the breakout continues, closing above 1018 an ounce today. a new way to invest in the metal was introduced just last week with the launch of etf securities swiss gold shares. the new fund doing much better than expected as it sees investors continuing to place bets on the bullion. tremendous volume there. fred judd, etf securities managing director joins us from san francisco. great to have you with us. >> thanks, melissa. good to be here. >> obviously there's a lot of talk these days especially with gold hitting a new high in the comex about gold being a momentum trade and one reason for that, one reason for these i want to say accusations but this thesis is the rise of the gold etfs. i read somewhere that 54.2 million ounces of gold were held by etfs alone and that is close

to elast year's world total output of gold. do you think that gold etfs are causing this to be a momentum play, that there's some price distortion because of the role of these etfs? >> well, i think there's a general interest in etfs in terms of gaining exposure to asset classes. we launched sgol our new gold etf last week. and it's trading very well. it trade north of 250,000 shares on the first trading day. and just eight days into the market we've already reached about 70 million. and i think that's really in light of investors trying to diversify -- >> there is appetite. but in terms of the role of pricing of gold, i mean, 1,018 an ounce, how much of a role do you think etfs are playing in this? i mean, your etf is new, but certainly you've seen tremendous volume, and certainly that has an impact on price because you are actually buying the physical metal and storing it in a vault in switzerland. >> yes. the gold is feel stored in switzerland.

in terms of a macro view of gold prices, we think that, you know, today gold hit about $1,020. the breakout really is at the 1,033 mark. we still haven't reached that yet. traders were expecting to reach that mark today. we'll have to see in the next few days as to whether prices will exceed that. if it does exceed that, we're expecting gold to continually grow. and as part of that gaining that exposure, etfs is a vehicle to gain that gold exposure. >> are you concerned, though, that if there's a massive outflow in gold there are a lot of investors out there who want out, that there aren't natural buyers of gold the commodity for you to actually give people their money back? >> no, not really. i think etfs, that's the beauty of etfs and especially a dwoeld etf that's physically backed, it gives investors a vehicle to get in easily as well as come out if their views change. so we're very positive about the mechanics of an etf gold -- >> all right, fred, thank you very much for your time. we appreciate it. >> be careful, by the way. i mean, liquidity on this is very different than the gld. he talked about 250,000. the gld trades 16 1/2 million.

this is a $70 million etf versus a $35 billion. i realize they're new, but you can't trade this right now the same -- >> and the first-day volume was the highest volume that it's had of any day. >> right. i mean, the question also, i mean-e didn't answer whether or not -- >> i know what you asked. could he sell his physical ksh -- >> could he sell his physical gold if there is a run on the bank? >> and the answer's no. because who's left to buy it? the producers have bought back 100 million ounces. who's left? it ain't me. >> i'm glad we were able to answer that -- >> 54.2 million ounces of gold. >> running out of chairs. >> the only major wall street economist who saut collapse coming returns to "fast money." you're going to want to hear what he's saying because he's saying that this bull market may be b.s. stay tuned. carol, when you replaced casual friday with nordic tuesday,

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welcome back to "fast money." here's what we've got coming for you in the second half of the program. bud is back. tim will tell you if you should refill on anheuser-busch now you that don't have to go all the way to belgium to buy those shares. and the dotcom ceos who made more than a half billion dollars

today alone. not bad. plus one of "fast money's" fastest use cat-like trading reflexes in options to make money while in a market meltdown. how he did it coming up. but first oracle down about 3%. moving lower in the after-hours session. in-line etf sales wray bit light, licensing revenues on software a bit light turning a little bit higher but still lower overall. keep in mind we saw some put activity yesterday. so there are some inklings in the market that perhaps oracle would miss or trade lower today. take a check on the impact of the futures because right now so far so good. we're not seeing too much of an impact on the nasdaq. that's a positive sign for the tech trade in tomorrow's session. >> and oracle didn't have much effect all day. oracle was struggling all day long. it's out of the gate it was struggling and the rest of the technology just kept on powering higher. >> okay. let's move on here. time to get some lessons from lehman. from one of the few who saw it coming in early 2008. he was one of the few economists at a major wall street firm willing to forecast a nasty financial hurricane ahead. take a listen.

>> i think by the end of the year we're going to see triple-digit declines in non-farm payrolls and unemployment's going to break above 6% and there's going to be a negative feedback loop to credit and housing. the bottom line is the economy is fundamentally weak i think it's going to get even weaker. >> when the cycle's low interest rates are going to be extremely low and the wield curve as steep as it was in 1993 and 2003. >> we're not sure if this is just a misprint by a canadian newspaper. >> what does that say in. >> it says -- the newspaper says "the man with the crystal balls." the man with the crystal balls is back with us. he is david rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at gluskin & sheff. david, of course we had to replay that because it's kind of fun. and you did seem to have a crystal ball in both of those clips we did play. what do you see ahead for the u.s. economy by the end of the year or the end of next year for that matter? where are we in all of this? >> well, we're still in this

post-bubble credit collapse environment. and it's been a real roller coaster ride of the year. we hit the lows in march and everybody is lamenting why am i in the equity market and then almost 60% later everybody's wondering how come i'm not in the equity market? the truth is probably somewhere in between. but you know, on the economy lots of stimulus. the cash for clunkers. we have the auto production coming back for the third quarter. third quarter gdp probably at least 3 1/2%. fourth quarter, you know, i was of the view that we could see a relapse in the fourth quarter, especially in the consumer, but there seems to be enough strength in exports, capital spending, and even underlying tone in the housing market that we're going to get a slowdown in the fourth quarter but it might not be as much as i thought previously. so i think that for the next couple of months i think there's a floor on the economy. i don't know if anyone has a

clue as to what 2010 was going to look like. we know there's going to be all sorts of government spending on infrastructure. how that filters through on a quarterly gdp is anybody's guess. but a lot of the tax stimulus falls out. and the big question's going to be, what does the consumer do that's 70% of the economy? i still believe we're in the balance sheet rebuilding process. i think everything the government has done has basically been to sort of smooth the transition as we go into this transition phase to the next cycle. >> david, hey, it's tim. you have a challenging job because you're an economist but you also play a strategist. where do these conflict? because obviously, we are up 60% off the lows. nobody's gotten 60% off the lows, but a lot of people have been along for the ride for a big part of this. where do you break up? and in fact, where do you begin to tell people don't look at the sustainable growth, get back into this market? >> well, we have this unbelievable situation. by the way, we're up 50%. we've never been up 50% from a

low this quickly before. not even in the 1930s. this is unprecedented. >> did we ever go down that fast, though? >> well, we went down -- we went down 60%, but then again, profits went down 50%. so this view that the stock market is something abnormal, bottom line is stock prices followed profits. like if you're going to convince me we're up 60% from the lows and we're going to get a 60% increase in profits over the next yeah, i'm happy to take the other side of that bet. look, you want to call it a liquidity-driven rally, that's fine. you want to call it a moment momentum-driven rally, that's fine. you want to call it a technical-driven rally, that's fine. but let's get a little bit of a grip here. you have a lot of growth priced into the equity market. at the lows you had 2 1/2 gloeth priced in. maybe that was a bit too much. but we have 4% real growth priced into equities right now and for me that's a little too much for the next 12 months. >> david, thank you so much for joining us. once again, david rosenberg of gluskin & sheff. the economist and strategist there. coming up next, 'nah, fortune

brands-x b.j.'s wholesale all getting analyst upgrades today. we'll tell you if you should follow the street's advice and buy in "pops and drops." bls ps

time for "pops and drops." we kick it off with a pop for bj's wholesale. up 4%. joe. >> this one lines up nicely. 35, 20, that's your stop to be long. for an attempt to take out this year's high of 39.59. >> fortune brands popping 8%. guy. >> what was that song? things that make you go hmm. well, this morning it's upgraded at goldman sachs. two hours later fortune brands reaffirms 2009 earnings. nice call by goldman. but things that make you go hmm there in terms of -- >> i'm surprised you know that song. >> i don't. i had to look it up. >> it wasn't from the '70s. pop here for anadarko, up 9%. >> the venus c-1 well off the coast of sierra leone, yes, that well has anywhere from 150 million to a billion barrels. up 9%. i'd be careful about this. i think it's an overreaction. >> drop for w systems. >> the earnings weren't too bad, the revenues are off from last year but the revenues beat on what was expected. but the 1.8 billion they pulled

out of there drilling deep down in sierra leone to buy omniture, that cost them a little bit today. >> we've got a pop for the snuggie cat -- new york fashion week brings out all the top designers and hot fashions including none other than the snuggie. the popular half blanket, half coat. made its runway debut yesterday. featuring a new urban jungle line of animal prints. and snuggies for pets and children because who doesn't need a blanket with sleeves. i can't think of anybody, actually. >> this has got to be the -- >> it's got pockets for remote controls, i think, for some of them. drop for verizon. joe? >> i actually like cablevision a little more here but if you want to own verizon understand you could be owning it as a hedge against the lower market. a little staycation activity. that's your play if you want to own verizon. >> schlumberger was up 4%. guy. >> schlumberger. downgraded on monday by miller tabak. interesting. big valuation. 23 times forward earnings. june 11th.

it made a-of 63.78. closed above there. breaks down, you can probably short against it, though. >> pop for barclays up 3%. tim. >> no better example of the survivor of the financial crisis. up 160% this year. more risky assets up their books and more profitable than ever. >> aetna was popping today up 4%. pete. >> another one of these goldman sachs just happened to like this stock today as a matter of fact they raised the price target and all the negative seems to be built in right now. nice pop for the entire industry but aetna real nice problem. >> and pop for "america's got talent." pete's favorite show. tonight the much-anticipated finale of "america's got talent." the fourth season has plenty of talent to choose from, from comedian grandma lee. no relation. to opera singer barbara padilla. the finale's got it all, including a special performance from susan boyle. >> guy, you're watching? >> that was the funniest line ever. no relation? that was brilliant. >> that's the obvious question. you know, there are some schools

of thought that all lees are in fact related somehow, that you can trace your ancestry back all the way. >> aren't we all related somehow? i mean, come on. seriously. >> can't we all just get along? >> that was a beautiful comment. >> my money's on barbara padilla. yeah. the four tenors are good, but she's really got something going on. >> we'll check it out tomorrow. coming up next, hear how one of the fastest traders ever to grace this desk weaves his way through the lehman collapse. wur watching cnbc, we're first in business worldwide. could someone toss me an eleven sixteenths wrench over here? here you go. eleven sixteenths... (announcer) from designing some of the world's cleanest and most fuel-efficient jet engines... to building more wind turbines than anyone in the country... the people of ge are working together... creating innovation today for america's tomorrow. thanks! no problem!

aig has been hit by a wave of credit rating agency downgrades -- >> crisis of our own making. >> how far have we come -- only traders with the quickest reflexes can survive a market meltdown like the one we saw last year after the collapse of lehman. tonight, one of "fast money's" fastest, jon najarian, explains how he navigated the storm. >> we had a sharp sell-off in stocks on wall street today. all on the heels of dramatic developments. today lehman brothers declares bankruptcy. >> the world had changed when lehman brothers went down. i knew that the financial world wouldn't be the same. i'm not sure if i really feared my own future. i feared the future.

luckily, there wasn't a lot of panic in our office, but there was certainly a lot of stress. this was a situation that was pretty much telegraphed like somebody winding up like this getting ready to hit you. my first instinct was to sell because unfortunately lehman was so intertwined with everything else that was going on. >> everybody that you ever slept with, if you're one of these financial institutions, you have all the disease that they have from anybody that they slept with. every firm that had ever done a trade with lehman, which was everybody, let's face it, was going to be affected by this. so our first instinct was to follow that "fast money" trade. and that was to buy puts on all of those other financials. i'm sure overall in my portfolio i had losses that week. i know the trades i made were very profitable trades. but like everybody else, in my 401(k) and so forth i'm sure i didn't cover enough. so unfortunately, i'm a victim like everybody else is of being

a little too greedy. >> dr. j joins us now. dr. j, just to spin it forward, you navigated so well back then. what are you doing right now in terms of the financials? >> well, i still don't, unfortunately, trust the regulators. i think that was one of the problems. and i think that continues to be a problem. we'll continue to watch and see exactly how much reform happens, melissa. i don't think an awful lot actually is going to happen. and i think the biggest question you always want to ask yourself is how much money can i lose, not how much money can i make? if lehman brothers, if dick fuld and the people that ran lehman brothers thought that way, i think they would have survived, and i think if investors think that way, how much can i lose on this trade, not how much can i make, i think they'll be smarter investors. >> sage advice. dr. j, thanks so much. always a pleasure ee you. final trade right after this.

final trade just ahead. but first, this quick programming note. do not miss the kudlow report tomorrow night. larry will be joined by a special guest, former ebay ceo and california gub torial candidate meg whitman. that is tomorrow night 7:00 p.m. eastern. you can also watch tonight, i'm sure larry couldn't mind. tim, final trade.

>> bud is back. you've got to own it. so do a lot of people. >> guy. >> apache. >> joe. >> got to love the performance from amazon. >> pete. >> getting a big pullback tonight in oracle. tomorrow morning it's a buy. giddy-up. >> i'm melissa lee. thanks so much for watching. see you at 12:45 for the halftime report. back here tomorrow 5:00 p.m. eastern time for more "fast money" on cnbc. we're first in business worldwide. >> announcer: tomorrow, get a little after-hours action. pete's putting the moves on one of 2009's hottest mobiles. and he saw it coming. why he thinks it's not over yet. trading the collapse for "fast money." 5:00 eastern tomorrow on cnbc. first in business worldwide. a side-- yours. n we're fighting to guarantee that you'll never be denied coverage because of your health or age. to prevent anyone from coming between you and your doctor. and to make sure patients don't take a backseat to insurance companies. because at aarp, we believe your health is worth fighting for. learn more at aarp.org.

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