general electric, and it moved higher. intraday it traded above $17. a couple times last week. but it has yet to close above that level. it would be the highest level since january. it is the parent of this network. >> we're in a very tight range here. up 0.3%. i want to start with google. got up to $501.99. we'll see if it can hold $500. price target was lifted to $560. for another month bing is adding market share. up 1.7%. amazon getting close to a 52-week high. up 3%. about another $1 or so to go. what is not working? yahoo!, dell, cisco, carol bartz, the ceo of yahoo! was taking questions. she didn't say no to all the rumors about selling all their smaller businesses. dell, the analyst community not

so sure if they overpaid for perot systems. intel, 5%. paul otellini basically saying pc sales could be flat or slightly up for '09. and tell labs down 2% and wynn, 5.3%. you know that from mr. cramer. >> thank you very much, brian shactman. well, lots happened over the past 12 months, but one thing remains the same. every day banks are in the headlines, although you know i'm trying to think of where citigroup was a year ago. remember when it broke the buck. now it's much better than that, but singapore's government today selling part of its stake in citi. bank of america seems to be on a collision course with the fcc over events of the last year. what should investors do with those stocks now that citi is trading at the lofty levels of just shy of $5. let's ask antoine.

great to have you. >> pleasure, as always. >> lots of headlines today. let's start with this one because this is sort of one of those potentially political headlines. citigroup, singapore sells its stake. they say it's just a technical thing and we had to convert this and then our stake can't be more than 5%. is it really just that or are they making a statement boo citi? >> i don't think it's a statement. i think certainly the stock has been very liquid. now it's a stock. they invested in a fixed income instrument in the first place. i really think it's logical for them to do that. certainly they do want to get below the 5% stake because there's some control issues at stake here. >> you buy that. >> i buy it. >> as an investor, we look at citi at $4.66. is that a screaming buy or do you say no, not even now? >> well, i think if you have time on your hands, it is a buy. certainly a lot of us are sitting back saying if the government is going to bring some stock, we'd like to buy it, but maybe the government is going to bring it at $4 or

$4.25. certainly some rumblings now. i think the market would absorb that stock really well. i think it would be a strong signal. a lot of funds are so underinvested in financials, they would love the opportunity. >> do you think the government will come out and unload that stake soon? >> i think it's a terrific idea. let's get the government out of citi. i think the government books a really nice profit on it and i think that's great. a lot of criticisms of t.a.r.p., but the government is making a lot of nice money on it whether it's from warrants or conversions or interest. i think that's a big win for the government and i think it's a win for capitalism again to get the government out of some of these companies. >> it's worth noting the weighted return on all the t.a.r.p. investments so far is 18%. citigroup i'm not sure, might be more than that. but 18% on a weighted basis. so antoine, the other big story of the day, the fdic, and they're running out of money and we all know that. we're going from two bank failures a week to maybe six or seven. that means money and the money has to come from somewhere. they're saying we're going to

potentially healthy banks will pay a little more to fill up the trough again. is this going -- how do banks really complain? they say this is going to kill them. is this something you would sell a bank because you're worried fees are going up? >> no, because we all know it's coming. it's not a big deal. are there ways they could do it better? if they borrow the money from the healthy banks rather than hit them with a charge, capital would grow a little better. from an accounting perspective i'd rather see it happen that way. it's inevitable they will pay for it one way or another. >> and it's priced in. >> you look at some of the models out there, it's pretty clear some people are anticipating a hefty assessment of the banks. >> here is one thing that's not priced in. a tax on trading. >> right. >> it's not priced in. i know you sort of roll your eyes, but you got sarkozy saying it's a good idea, britain has done it. it's getting talked about. what if it happens? how big of a hit will it be for some of these big banks? >> well, i think it becomes a volume issue. people do less trading. they will trade for bigger

incremen increments. i think you want transactions to take place. this is a free market. i don't think we need to emulate anything sarkozy does or france for that matter. >> you're sitting in haines chair for a reason. >> i guess so. >> you're sort of adopting the personality of haines vis-a-vis la france. >> my best idea is to continue to buy companies with too much capital. i also like companies that are buying distressed assets. i think there's a lot of opportunity. >> examples? >> i like invesco, ivr, that's actually got wilbur ross involved as well. we'll see a dividend announcement out of them soon. i own comara. very healthy, doing very, very well. i think not only are companies throwing up hefty dividends, the assets they own are appreciating as well. >> two creative ideas from

antoine and you have his views. our traders mostly agree with you. thank you very much. with your trade on the top headlines of the day. let's talk more about the issue that's so inflaming many of you because it may seem silly to some. british prime minister gordon brown joining nicolas sarkozy in support of a tax that could work like this. 0.1% tax on every trade you do. you heard the unions on this show saying they thought that could raise $100 billion a year. should the u.s. support the tobin tax? we have the associate director for markets policy at the center for american policy. good to have both of you with us. >> david, 0.1% sounds small but $100 billion sounds big. is it a good idea. >> i will say obviously it's going to be -- it's hard to talk about a proposal that doesn't have details, of course, but we

are talking about i think the basis of the proposal is an extremely small tax. as your earlier viewer said, we're talking about something that really would affect volume. so i think the impact of it would basically be to limit speculation and given that we have an s.e.c. proposed ban on flash trading, we have inquiries into whether short selling manipulated markets, we have inquiries across the country into derivatives and what role they played, i think there's a legitimate debate going on right now over whether and to what extent speculation is appropriate in our financial markets. i think this type of tax would help to limit that. it would help to align the markets incentives with longer term profits as opposed to short-term gains. i think it might raise some cash. i don't know if it would raise $100 billion. that assumes it wouldn't reduce any volume. >> right. >> that's an open question. again, it's hard to comment without details, but i think it's at least something worth looking into. >> mark, he does raise an interesting point on speculation and short termism.

if this was something that curbed that, it might be helpful. do you see any merit in those arguments? >> i disagree with that. the problem with speculation is not speculation in and of itself. it's who bears the losses from the speculation. i found the speculation in our housing market to be far more troubling than the speculation in our stock market recently. yet, you can walk away from your mortgage and stick the downside of your speculation to the lender, why not? so you need to make sure that the upside and the downside is aligned with the same person. i think it's also important to keep in mind, it's not the regulators that found enron or found lots of other scandals. it's the short sellers. you need to be able to encourage speculation as a way of price discovery, a way of finding information. the thing that bothers me most of all is it's just a distraction. it does nothing to reduce the leverage in our financial system. it does nothing to reduce maturity mismatch. once again i point back to the housing market. we have all sorts of taxes, transfer toxs in the housing

market, yet we still had a housing bubble. my preference would be our so-called leaders focus their attention on fixing the things that got us into this financial crisis rather than just trying to distract the public anger away from themselves. >> david, let me help you out here just because i know the side our viewers are on, mark. we already tax -- pay for our regulators by a small tax on transactions in this country, small but we do it. if you're taxing 5 cents on every $1,000 transaction, is that going to kill anybody? >> are you asking me? >> i'm helping you out. >> i don't think it's going to kill anyone. to mark's point, obviously we have to address a lot of the issues. there are a ton of issues that this financial crisis exposed. i think that the transfer tax though is something first of all that, as mark points out, is consistent with ou we tax things in other areas, houses, cars. we get small taxes or big taxes as it were on all of these. i think a small transfer tax on

financial transactions isn't the worst thing in the world. if it serves to serve the purposes of social utility, i think that's helpful. i raise the point that speculation obviously to some extent we want price discovery. to some extent we went liquidity. i think you would want a financial transfer tax to have perhaps exemptions for marketmakers and other sorts of productive liquidity. but too much liquidity can lead to wealth destruction. that's what we saw happen in the last crisis. finally, i point out that if you have a tax like this, you can help to pay for some of the costs we just incurred as well as some of the costs we may incur going forward from future financial crisis which seem to be the norm now that we have deregulation as a background. >> mark, one thing it seems like it would do is encourage people to hold stocks for longer periods of time. >> i'm not necessarily sure. why is it necessarily a holding period for a long time?

i don't see the problem with people needing to get out of something. for instance, if you look at the institutions we basically own now, aig, should the taxpayer get hit with having to pay a transaction every time we want to unwind some bad trade. >> that would be $5 on $1,000. the normal investor wouldn't feel that at all. it's the large day traders, and i know that makes up a good portion of the audience obviously, but -- >> it's not the large -- it's not the day traders that got us into this mess. i would actually say arguing to exempt the marketmakers, it is the goldmans that got us into the mess, not the little day traders. so to the extent that we -- you exempted the marketmakers, you would have more concentration in our financial system. you probably would end up with more too big to fail. i don't remember any deregulation over the last several years. >> david and mark, thanks for playing, both of you. we appreciate it. i hope our viewers like that,

too. we know you all care deeply about this one, and let us know what you think about the trading tax. "street signs" ath cnbc.com. >> google is sitting on $20 billion in cash. we have some ideas on how sergei and larry should spend that. those names coming your way. can the world stop iran from going nuclear. >> we'll ask queen noir of jordan. she has a plan and that's exclusively here on "street signs."

this is a new era, a new day on wall street. this morning the chatter on the street was all about how this market just won't quit, and, of course, our talk here has been on the trader tax and how it might come up at the g-20. let's talk with a trader with sutland equities and bernie mcsherry. both with us this morning and now both back. bernie, this tax on trade, you know, the idea, who knows

whether it's really going to happen, but it is gathering some steam. >> yeah. i think it's a recognition there's a certain segment of high frequency traders that have been profiting due to changes in the system over the last few years. i think rather than go ahead and tax these folks, it's probably time to reassess the current state of our market structure. we've seen a lot of automation in the market, a lot of rules have been altered, but we're having these little problems creeping and you popping up. i think rather than fixes the problem through taxation let's look at the whole system. >> what do you say, dan? if there were to be a trade and let's just say it was 0.1%, would it really hurt anybody? >> well, actually, erin, i think that it would. from an options trading standpoint, we operate really on such razor thin margins on the opss floor. and at high volume. when you're talking about even a 0.1% tax can cuts into our bottom line and the ability to make markets down here.

especially during this period in time where i think the exchanges over the last year really functioned and did the job they were supposed to do. the otc and some of the unregulated market its is wheree problems really came to a head. as far as what we're trying to accomplish down here and trying to get, you know, people more active in options, i think really over the last year people have become more knowledgeable throw the shows like "options action" and your network that people are getting aggressive with how to use options at a time they should be used that way. >> all right. bernie, top story of the day, we were talking about still remains this citi story. do you buy that this singapore decision was really just sort of a technical one and not a statement about the stock price? >> yeah, it's hard to tell. you know, i suspect they're going to lighten up on that position. you know, i can remember sitting over in the crowd behind us about 18 years ago when the stock was trading around the

same level and the saudi prince stepped in and started buying it. he held it for a long time, made out very well. i suspect there are other buyers in the wings. >> he took it on a round trip. >> he sure did. >> dan, going into the final hour today, any name or specific story stand out for you for people to watch? >> the story we're following down here closely is the vix, the volatility index. it's trading down now to 23. i think the low close for the year is 2309. we keep bounces off the 23 level. it's a floor for the market but we're seeing volatility under pressure again throughout the day if the market holds up and defies gravity. we see a break below 23, it could signal northwesteanother n the vix. >> ghooogle is back over $500 a share. there's plenty of money in the bank. what should google do with it? and good news from a travel company.

will there be more good news from that sector. we're back with that and with our exclusive interview with her imagine industry, the queen of jordan. could someone toss me

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on "power lunch" jim goldman sat down with paul otellini at the company's developer forum in san francisco. they talked about an improvement in sales. >> technology went into this business cycle probably sooner and deeper than other industries. it seems to be coming out of it faster and steeper than other industries. in the keynote this morning i showed some data on pc unit sales that i think actually will be at a point in 2009 where the unit sales in pcs are probably equal to or slightly up from last year. >> shares of intel today are trading up at $19.62. google has $20 billion in cash to spend. so if there's optimism in technology it might mean spending and google would be the buyer. they have been doing some

buying. they announced plans to buy in august and september. that was a sly under the radar buy. they won't even tell us how much they paid. who should they buy next? here to give us the three best companies for google to buy is james. let's save that one to start with. which one do you want to start with. >> erin, first off, i think google would love to get out of -- they're only source of revenue is ad. >> all search and putting ads on different websites. i think they want to get into enterprise, health care, and education. clearly they want to get into enterprise. they started google docs. why not buy open text, otex. already the leader in enterprise search. combine the open text products which include vignette.

>> is it just big company search needs? >> e-mail, desktop, a lot more complicated than regular consumer search. >> they need to mine all the internal information. like a law firm. >> very hard space to get into. >> how much would it cost them? >> cost them about $2.5 billion. >> oh, all right. >> nothing for google. google is $150 billion market share. >> i'm at $17.5 billion in cash. it's burning a hole in my pocket. what do i buy? >> in the education space google has been trying to develop products for a collaboration between students and teachers. how about just buy blackboard, bbbb. buy the leaders in the space. over 5,000 educational institutions for customers. >> i have $16.5 billion in my pocket. what do i buy? >> no problem. google also been trying to get into the health care space with google health, which is in beta.

why not buy web md. would cost them about $2 billion. the leader in the health care online information space. wbmd also is one of the only companies in this environment to increase ad revenues other the last quarter. people like the health care space. you have an aging baby boomer population. google would love to get into the space. >> the cost? >> it would be about 2 b$2 bill. >> our bonus is not going to cost $14.5 billion. >> four 4% of the company, they can buy all three of the companies i just mentioned. it's nothing for google. they would be the leader all over the place. the fourth company, "the new york times." two reasons, one is about.com is still a good growing site. >> everyone has to pick their jaws up off the floor. >> here is the other interesting reason, google doesn't have enough lobbyists to deal with their needs in d.c. they're confronting d.c. all over the place with -- >> you're thinking employ journalists. >> nothing hurts if you want to

own one of the largest media organizations. ge did it with nbc. so a lot of media companies do that actually. buy a news organization, get clout in d.c. "new york times." >> and by the way, we should distinguish clout from prefer ren chal covshall coverage. >> exactly. >> what price do you put on "the new york times"? >> i don't even know that one. i don't know where -- >> don't want to touch that one. thank you very much. we appreciate it. managing director of formula capital with his ideas for who google should buy. let us know what you think about that and about his bonus one. next, jim cramer going to weigh in on those ideas and tell us what he's looking at today and our exclusive interview with queen noir of jordan. she's one of the middle east's most famous faces and lending her considerable prestige to the fight against nuclear terrorism. "street signs" is back with all that in a moment. whoooa, heyyy ! see, the terms require that you keep the bike within this pre-determined space.

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welcome back to "street signs." rick santelli here. looking at an intraday. you can see it's been all about negative territory. but the one week chart is very revealing because the last couple days, well, they haven't

amounted to any stash of a bounce because here we are still at fresh one-year lows. something to monitor. we had an auction today. i grade on demand, and investors aren't demanding yet. this demand was good for a two-year. it's evident by how the market accepted the post 1:00 news. look at a ten-year chart. yields moving slower. there's definitely a love affair with the supply side. now believe it's a domestic love affair. a lot of money going into banks and made by banks might be ending up in treasuries along with foreign counterparts. back to you. >> thank you. it is time to stop trading, same time, same place every day. mr. cramer. how are you, jim? >> erin, i'm telling you, james shared some interesting ideas. >> he really did. >> and that blackboard, recommended that a couple years ago. he's dead on about google. it's too cheap. >> and it was amazing when you look at the $20 billion and you add each of those up, he said at a point you'll be number one in markets they care about and you're only going to spend about

a quarter of your stash. >> and i also want to point out, i know there's a lot of chatter that bing picked up a lot of share. can we admit that bing should be after all the money microsoft put in bigger than it is right now? i think google is in great shape. it's a cyclical and secular gainer coming into the fourth quarter. >> so i know you think google is cheap. >> $30 a share. >> so where do you think google goes and just linked into what james said, if they were to do some of those acquisitions would that change your view at all? >> no. google is going to go from a 21% grower to a 23% grower. i'm using a street high 30 number. i would put a 20 multiple on it. that gets to 600. i think that's very reasonable. 20 multiple on a 23% grower with a fabulous balance sheet. the main thing is that the average old line media is down about 25% year-over-year. the ad agencies are afraid to send that business over there. they're going right to google. james is right. there's a fabulous ad neatwotwo.

google is inexpensive right here based on my $30 a share number. street high before me is 2624. i'm going above that guy. he's the citigroup guy until i just moved. >> 30 bucks a share for cramer and 60 owe -- >> i'm giving it a 20 multiple. that seems reasonable to me. >> okay. so there's your google trade which is a buy. let's talk a little bit about -- i'm just picking which one. let's talk about cat. >> you know, the other day cat reported a miserable monthly number. i saw the shorts come in. they were flying in, position limit puts, putting the name out. no, no. cat, joy global, hey, you get the picture? these are global recovery plays. coal, global recovery play. i love that carbon capture. they've been trying to capture carbon for about 75 years. good luck. go put some plants up.

i think the key thing here is when you look at cat, you got to recognize that the weak dollar -- earlier today my friend larry kudlow, they were talking about how bad is the weak dollar for the stokck markets. hello, it's good. caterpillar earnings could explode here. remember the chinese bear market we were in about three weeks? >> we were in a bear market in china in august. >> we were close to 72 hours in that bear. that's a long time. wow, if you blinked, whoa, you missed that bear market. >> all right. time for one more, and it's palm. >> okay. i mentioned palm yesterday. shorts were killing me. they said cramer, you big liar, you hoser. how could you recommend? i was saying goldman said there's room for more. i don't like research in motion as much as palm. palm, people were heavily shorted hoping to get coverage, hoping to get stock on the secondary. the secondary is tight as a

drum. i think they're pricing it in the hole. this is the internet mobile tsunami. wake up or get swept away. >> jim, you're going so well today they're giving you an extra ten seconds. so you may pick which of the other two names -- >> i thought this macy's recommendation sounds real good. i want to remind people that ralph lauren and martha stewart are the ways to play macy's on the derivative. bumped into ralph lauren the other day, he's looking better than ever. i'm not kidding. i actually did bump into him. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> more of jim tonight right here on cnbc. coming up, an exclusive interview with queen noir of jordan. can she help keep iran's ahmadinejad from going nuclear? that's next. and a quick reminder, all the recommendations expressed by jim cramer are solely his and are not the opinions of cnbc and may have previously been disseminated by him. before acting on a recommendation, consider its suitability for your

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the president is taking center stage this week at the u.n., and then at the g-20. chief washington correspondent john harwood joins us now. john, obviously the president has a very busy schedule and it began this weekend with his sunday shows and then letterman and now the u.n. and then pittsburgh. what's the most important thing for him? >> well, there's a bunch on the g-20 agenda. for example, you're going to hear a lot of talk about financial regulation. europe wants the united states to go further than president obama wants to go on regulating executive compensation, that sort of thing. you will hear talk about the success and the need for continued government intervention with the economy, and, of course, today the president was talking at the u.n. climate change event. i really think climate change is the issue that's most going to drive his agenda, he and

president hu jintao talked to a summit. the president is going to be going to china and then they're both going to copenhagen for a climate summit. they really need to make some headway on this issue, and i think that's the one that is likely to be the take away from the week, whether it's in the headlines or not. >> and what about the g-20? briefly before we go, any potential pitfalls. sometimes at the g-20 it's a lot easier to make a mistake than to hit a home run. >> they're not looking for big new financial commitments. they're basically going to praise what they did in april. i do expect the president may get some flack over his decision on china tires to implement those tariffs. people think that sort of cuts against the free trade rhetoric he used earlier this year. the irony is that it helps him domestically, especially with labor audiences, even if it hurts him a little internationally. >> john harwood, thanks very much. as we talk about so much globally this week with the u.n. and the g-20, our next guest is

perhaps the best person to hit all of the issues. she's a world peace advocate, best-selling author, and pioneer in numerous humanitarian causes. she's here in new york to do something about what could be the biggest threat to peace and security in the middle east and the rest of the world and that's the spread of nuclear weapons. we're honor to have queen noir with us. thank you for being with us, your majesty. you have tackled many causes throughout your career. when we talk about nonproliferation, lately all we hear about are more troops potentially going to afghanistan, a war that doesn't seem to end in iraq, and iran that's determined to go nuclear. have we made any progress in cutting back on nuclear weapons? >> actually, yes. since the cold war there's been cutbacks from about 60,000 to about 40,000 actually to the current 23,000 give or take today. so that is a significant in those 20 years, 40,000 have been

eliminated. why couldn't we eliminate the next 20-odd thousand in the coming period and global zero has put together a four-phase plan that would -- is a framework for eliminating the weapons we have today and preventing new weapons programs from developing in the coming 21 years. >> so i guess let's tackle each of those, where the weapons are now and who might end up building them. right now it still seems you have the u.s. and russia with the largest source. >> 96% approximately of that 23,000. >> 96%. so are they -- do you feel confident with this new administration that's going to come down? >> it's not just this administration. it's the united states and russia together since april have made commitments on the highest levels to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. on more than one occasion, and the president, the first time ever a u.s. president will chair a u.n. security council meeting

on thursday. called it for discussion of proliferation and elimination of nuclear weapons. so that is going to be a critical moment when the other nuclear states and nonnuclear states who are also members of the security council representing the broader world community of nations can come on board and we hope support a resolution that will be put forward on the elimination of nuclear weapons. >> what about the next places? i mean, you know, some people say, well india and pakistan both have them and in a sense that balances each other out. is there any positive there? >> well, actually there's no positive in nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, and, in fact, the reason that global zero, our leadership is comprised of former heads of state, national security visors, foreign ministers, 20 military commanders from around the world. thea investiga-- the architects

cases. they have come to realize the proliferation poses far greater threat than any security could be achieved. for india and pakistan, it is as anywhere else in the world, a lose/lose proposition. if one of those states uses nuclear weapons the other state and possibly third-party states will also use nuclear weapons and what you have is images of hiroshima and nagasaki multiplied many times over. i have seen the graphs that show what the impacts would be of these weapons on a city in the united states or in asia or anywhere in the world, and the figures are staggering. the impact would be so destructive whether a terrorist got their hands on nuclear materials and were able to make a weapon because the more that we allow proliferation to spread, the more likely terrorism will become nuclear, and if we don't begin now to pull back from the nuclear

tipping point, then we're only -- the next generation, my children, your children, goring to -- are going to face a future that looks bleak inside. >> sources in the middle east were telling me, you don't understand. iran is a lot further ahead than america realizes, at least publicly. you have contacts and have your feet in both worlds in terms of the middle east and the u.s. how close really is iran? >> i hardly have my feet in iranian nuclear, you know, weapons facilities, but generally what i hear from experts and not just in the region but international experts and here as well is that they do not have those weapons today, and that is why now is the moment to engage in dialogue. >> you think there's still time to prevent it. >> the point is if you look at iran, you have to look at the region at large, and you have to

look at regional insecurities that are driving proliferation. you have to look at israel's nuclear program as much as you have to look at iran's ambitions and those of other states in the larger asian region. you cannot isolate one state out when its programs are driven by insecurities that are compounded by the insecurities of another nation in the region that has a nuclear program and that has not made it transparent to the international community. there should be no double standards, no exception. global zero is calling for that kind of framework, and i believe the russian and u.s. presidents are as well calling for all nations to come together, phase verifiable and strengthen sa safeguar safeguards. >> jordan is a bridge between the u.s. and the middle east and israel, between all those players. there's been a lot of talk

recently and israel has not been specific about whether they would actually go in and take action against iran because they were worried they would get some sort of a bomb. if that were to happen, you know, and this is just sort of your hat over your entire life, what would be the implications? is that something we could handle? it would be okay for -- >> there is a general consensus except amongst very narrow group of hardliners that that would be catastrophic, that that would be catastrophic for israel's security, that would be catastrophic for the region as a whole and for friends and allies of countries in the region as well to have to deal with the fallout from such a strike. and it's debatable whether any strike could be successful, and the environmental implications, let alone the humanitarian, let alone the security implications for the future are very, very

worrying. more than worrying, they're actually terrifying. >> are you supportive -- there's this other push on the vim environmental side, but let's have more nuclear power. the united arab emirates -- >> 13 states within our region declared within an 18-month period they were all going to go through to civilian nuclear power. >> are you concerned about that? >> i think the most important issues facing us are climate change and proliferation of nuclear weapons. i, not as a global zero founding leader, but i personally as an environmentalist am deeply concerned about the fact that we haven't resolved waste disposal yet and we have seen accidents take place in the most developed countries with the greatest number of safeguards in the past, so i think civilian nuclear power still poses some enormous challenges, let alone the cost. so i simply advocate for allocating the greatest of possible amount of resources

into alternative alternative renewable energy sources and not a disproportionate amount into civilian nuclear energies when you might be able to find cheaper, safer, cleaner alternatives. >> your majesty, thank you for being with us today. that is majesty queen noor of jordan. as the economy recovers, will it be hurt by swine flu or h1n1 as it is called. this is "street signs" and we'll be right back. (announcer) when you buy a car

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carnival cruise control steaming ahead. jane wells has a whole lot more. jane. >> hi, erin. in travel and leisure people are coming back, but only far

bargain. carnal beat the street by an ocean liner $1.33 a share of more than $4 billion in revenue, better than expected. the stock was up 9% earlier, now 6%. the company says bookings for the end of this year and the first half of next are up 19%. bookings may be up but people are spending less. it is like las vegas. onboard spending is down 16%. fuel kos fell 49%. fuel prices are on the rise and will impact the current quarter. there is the question mark of h1n1 on the horizon. it impacted the last quarter. for the second time since march karen shall raised guidance, projecting to $2.16 to $2.20 a share. cruising in particular is a leading indicator.

>> tend to book three to six months out for cruise lines which is much further in advance than other kinds of travel. there is nice visibility. you can see what q1 and q2 looks like more than other sectors. >> royal caribbean stock up, but pulling back. royal has been more aggressive in its guidance and had to lower it twice since march. royal has lowered guidance, kar carnival raised. the senate marking up the health care bill. health care stocks lower. united, wellpoint and coventry

are a few.

breakfast at tiffanies may get a little bit cheaper. rents are down 8% on fifth avenue the world's most expensive shopping street. rents $1,700 a square foot. that is not so bad. the company tracks 274 top shopping strips on earth and

found the average rent was down 23%. the biggest loser was dublin's grafton street, down 23%, the biggest gainer, sorry to the german speakers, munich kafinkerstrasser. abcnews.com reporting moammar qaddafi's tent is being pitched in new york. we will see if the libyan leader's tent is in bedford, new york. time for "closing bell." 3,000 laid off gm workers will go back to work as the company adds shifts. "the wall street journal" say

authors will ask for a delay. random house sold 2 million copies in its first week. i'm mike huckman. there is a live picture of the floor of the new york stock exchange. we have a rally underway. the market once again back in action on the upside. stocks approaching one-year highs. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. we have a rally underway led by financials, energy and technology. oil back above $71 a barrel. the highs of the afternoon as we bring in scott whop next r. >> dollar weak, commodities higher. oil is higher as well.

you said technology is performing well. google especially. price target better to 560 bucks today. >> back to $500 a share on google. amazing. microsoft doing well, although the nasdaq is not as much of a leadership group as the financial index. >> absolutely. we were watching aig, citi, bank of america, they raised the price target there. take a look at what is happening. dollar weak and commodities are higher. take a look across the spectrum, the miners, oil stocks as well. freeport-mcmoran and u.s. steel and murphy oil. aig heavy volume after a government watchdog group says it is stabilizing. citi is higher. bank of america