unless the chinese and japanese buy our bonds. we've seen what's happening to the dollar. i think it's at the lowest point of the year right now, and i think it's tragic that we've let ourselves be put in this position by our leadership who seems afraid to tell the people that we have problems, that we've got to quit spending, cut back, start saving, and scale backward, and until that happens, i don't think we're anywhere near out of the woods. >> some of the optimists out there say, well, the savings rate has gone up and we had an increase actually in income in this country. now that was due in part to the increase in the stock market, and maybe even though we fell off a cliff, we're actually going to come back and we're

going to be okay. and it sounds like you think that that optimistic scenario is missing something pretty crucial. >> well, i think that it's almost armageddon if the chinese and japanese don't buy our debt. i don't know where we could get the money. i think we've let ourselves get in a terrible situation, and i think we ought to try to get out of it. >> do you think we can grow our way out of it? >> i think we can grow and save our way out of it, and i think that's the only way we're going to have that threat removed. i wonder what some of the congressmen who have been so upset about financial leaders, i wonder what they think of the leadership of the country that's

permitted these very speculative policies? i mean, it's amazing, and we're totally dependent now on the chinese and japanese. >> what is a bigger risk right now, inflation or deflation? >> i think we can't deflate too much. i mean, our interest rates aren't terribly high, and so i think inflation is very high -- i mean i think that risk is much worse. >> so one of your biggest bets when we spoke last was betting on inflation going higher and bill gross was on with you, and he said, well, maybe we could go to 6% or 7%, and you said that would be conservative. what do you think now? >> well, i think if the chinese and japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see 15% to 20%, and i think that there

are people -- where is the money going to come from? it's not a question of the economy. it's a question of who will lend us the money if they don't? imagine us getting ourselves in the situation where we totally depended on those two countries. it's crazy. >> do you think there's a real risk -- some people say if china stops and the u.s. fails, they fail, too, so it's this -- >> that is the general feeling. i think that is exactly the general feeling, and i don't think that the chinese do want to stop buying our bonds, but i do think there are circumstances that could cause them to have to. >> so if you had to say that the most important thing the united states could do to either stop borrowing or pay it back more quickly or just some way to get out of this, what do you see? >> i think that my solution does

cause some temporary pain in america, and i think that the only way we're going to get that is for the american people to be masochistic enough to ask for that because we can be sure that the politicians are not going to ask that of us. we don't seem to be willing to ask sacrifices of really anybody here except our military, and i think that's sort of tragic. >> and how much longer could the pain last? i mean you had mentioned at one point that if we don't get it right, it could be ten or 15 years. >> well, i think that the chinese, japanese not buying our bonds really could be a terrible -- i mean really, and i

mean let's look at japan. they are probably entering their 19th recessionary year in a row. it's even conceivable -- i don't think the chinese would do this, but the japanese suffer from some of the same problems we have. they may be forced to sell some of their long-term bonds. >> so not even a political statement. just forced to do it. >> forced to do it, and if they sell them, i mean, that's much worse than not buying. >> so i'm sure you have thought of every scenario. they buy as much as they're buying now, they buy a little bit less, they start selling. there's all sorts of different things that could happen. what do you think is the most realistic one? we've seen some of the recent data, china hasn't been buying as much. >> the other thing is they're buying almost exclusively short-term debt, and that's what we're offering because we can't sell the long-term debt, i

think. and, you know, the history has been that people who borrow short term really get burned. that's the beginning kind of the end. so i think that's very serious. >> in terms of where we go from here, what are the odds? >> we still haven't attacked the problem. unless we attack the problem, we're not going to get out of it. and the problem is stimulating, stimulating, stimulating which is another way of saying spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow to pay for the spend, spend, spend, and we can't get out of it unless we stop. >> do you think we're moving in the right direction of stopping? even if you're skeptical about savings rates, let's say they've

gone up to 5% to 6% -- >> they've gone up to about 12% i think. they've really gone up. i mean, there's no question. and that has, you know, ameliorated the situation. >> but you think we need more and we need to not be borrowing so much -- >> if -- what i'm talking about, if the chinese are taken out of the equation, it would overwhelm our savings. then you'd have to have more savings, and if you took it up to 20% and 25%, that would probably, you know, hurt the economy because it would be not much disposable income to get rid of. >> so he says the chinese won't stop buying our bonds, but you could still see interest rates surge. we'll get to the bottom of this. is he right? are rates going up to 20%. we're going to chew on that and have more of our exclusive interview with julian robertson, what he's buying, and his single biggest trade right now.

it really surprised me. from far and wide, leaders of the top 20 world economies are landing in pittsburgh. we'll tell you what's on their agenda and as some arrive, we have some pretty fun trivia we'll share with you as the chiefs of state arrive.

isjulian robertson right? will rates go to 20% to 25%? let's bring in our guests to respond to the first part of our interview. zane brown, and mark zandi. wonderful to have all three of you with us. let's get straight to this issue of the forecast on potentially on rates, mark zandi, and aside from the magnitude that he's saying they could go as high as 15% to 20% if they just stop buying, one thing i found fascinating about his point was he's saying really essentially, right, china could just start to buy different sorts of u.s. treasuries. go on the shorter end of the yield curve and all of a sudden long-term rates could go up without china even selling a dime. >> i didn't catch all the interview, but what i heard,

that depressed me. i'm usually a guy who depresses me, but he actually depressed me. that's a scenario, but a very, very unlikely one. we've got our problems. we've been through a very wrenching period and interest rates are going to move higher 3.5% ten-year treasury yield is not something that's going to be around for a long time. 15%, 20%, you know, i just don't see t i think we're making progress on our problems. the saving rate is up. corporate savings is higher, and i think we'll make progress with our fiscal problems at least to the degree we won't get to that kind of situation. >> david, what stood out to you. may not necessarily have been the forecast on interest rates, but what stood out to you from his world view? >> you know, the idea that really nobody aside from china and japan will be there to support treasuries which took me by surprise. china increased their holdings by 45% over the last year, going

from about $550 billion to $800 billion. we've been getting data saying from the beginning of march bond mutual funds have received net inflows of over $200 billion. we still have trillions of dollars sitting theoretically on the sideline and a lot of money that's trying to chase yield. if the chinese stop buying our bonds and rates start moving higher, it feels like there's going to be the demand there coming from either retail institutional investors to offset that. as the previous guest just noted, ten-year yields are at four-month lows. that just shows the demand that's out there for treasuries, even though they're not yielding very much historically. >> zane, i guess what the question might be is if you started -- one of the greatest secrets out there, steve lease man and i were talking about this earlier, no one know what is china owns. they own u.s. treasuries, but it's almost impossible to know how much they own of short-term treasuries versus longer term because they don't tell us. you kind of have to divine

through the data. could they be making shifts there that affect our rates? >> they have not historically been large buyers of ten and 30-year securities, so most of those bids have been by other participants. most of what they like to own is five years and under. keep in mind their primary reason for doing this is they don't want the dollar to weaken. they want to hold the dollars that they have. they don't want it to weaken because their objective isn't as much earning a lot of money as much as it is maintaining an ability to export, keep jobs, and grow their economy. and that's what's really their driving force. >> all right. so you're not as concerned, any of you, about rates going that high today. but mark zandi, let me ask you, where do you think rates are going to go? if you think 3.5% where we are on the ten is low. you think julian's estimate is perhaps too high. what do you think is reasonable over the intermediate to longer term of the next few years?

>> good question. and i think in the long run it's tracking from the ups and downs in the cycle. it be somewhere between 4.5% and 5%. if you told me when the economy is fully in gear and private credit demands are picking up and the government is still borrowing a lot of money, then at this point if you said ten-years were as high as 6% or 7%, that sounds about right to me. in the long run i think 4.5% to 5%. >> one of the concerns, i got an e-mail from robert albertson on this, he was saying everyone assumes china has to buy u.s. treasuries because it's a liquid market and there's really no way they're going to stop. his view is they do have a way. that is they're going to continue to invest in their own economy, whether it's infrastructure, whatever it might be. you could siphon off half a trillion dollars in that regard over not a long period of time. they did last year, and then they have less money they need

to put in treasuries. >> that's true, but they have the dollars. they have the dollars because they're ex poverporting to us. they can't afford to just dump those dollars on the market. not only does it undermine their positions, but it also undermines their ability to continue to export to us. so, yes, they can invest more in their economy. long-term they want move of their economy to be driven domestically, but they're still going to export a lot, and they don't want to cheapen the dollar relative to the yen. they want to keep the yen relatively week so they can continue to export. >> mark zandi, go ahead. >> i was going to say one other point, the chinese have a lot of dollars now because they have a large trade surplus with us. but a few years down the road they will have a smaller trade surplus with us. they're going to continue to allow their currency to appreciate and our trade deficit is going to continue to narrow. they're not going to be playing the same role in our treasury market or with respect to any of

our other asset markets three, five years down the road. they want that, we want that, and i think -- >> but that's my question. can you make that adjustment on the track we're on? according to the white house numbers, we're going to be spending more than we take in in income taxes through the year 2019. we have to borrow the difference from somewhere, don't we? >> that's another point. that's about our larger budget deficit, and that is a problem, and if we don't make changes to our fiscal outlook, we don't reform health care properly, if we don't do tax reform properly, if we don't address energy policy, yes, we are going to have a very serious issue, but i think, this is the optimistic view, i think a reasonable one, that we are now debating these things, we're discussing them. we'll end up with a policy that none of us would like but collectively i think we'll come up with something that will change that trajectory and we won't have those deficits we now expect in the long run. >> which is an interesting point. i guess we are having these conversations. maybe julian's point is if we

don't, we could end up in his scenario. zane, what about this brings us to another point julian made which is it's going to require temporary pain and politicians don't seem to want to stand up and say you can't have all these things. sounds like mark zandi is saying we have to have those conversations, too. we have to be masochistic enough as julian said to ask for it. do you think we will? >> i think we're already enjoying some of that pain right now. we have higher levels of unemployment. we have a financial system that is much more -- much less aggressive in what they're going to be allowed to pursue. there's going to be less profitability, and generally we're all expecting not a resumption of 4% growth or higher, but more along the lines of 2% or 3%. i think that's a much more tolerable level of pain for us to live with over coming years. it will take us longer to get out of it, but i think that is living with the pain, although maybe not as severe as julian robertson would like us to have. >> mark zandi, what about this

other issue? we have the housing -- credit for new home buyers that might be extended and that could cost i have heard numbers from $50 billion to $100 billion depending how big you make it. you have unemployment benefits. that's another big chunk of change. we're not counting that because we're used to another $787 billion. we are still spending money we don't have. >> yeah. here, we have to make a distinction about the things we're doing now to try to get us out of this recession into a self-sustaining economic expansion. >> right. >> i think it's entirely appropriate for the federal government to be very aggressive and do things like the tax cuts, temporary tax cuts to really get us out of this mess and get us going. now, once we're through this and the economy is expanding in a very consistent way, then we have to look very hard at our long-term fiscal situation and change that. let me say one other thing, you know, in one respect i agree with mr. robertson in the sense that we may need to see interest rates spike at some point to a level that really makes us nervous to give us the political will to make the hard changes

that we're going to have to make. so i don't think it takes 15%, 20%, but if we got 8%, 9%, 10%. >> that would shock people in this country. >> i think it would. >> we'd be back down into a recession if not a depression if we shot up to those levels anytime soon t wou. it would kill housing all over again as well as consumption and any intent on business to invest. >> but mark raises a good point. you get that shock and then you say, we have to make hard choices. thank you to all three of you. really appreciate you for coming on. three of our best. copping coming up next, where julian robertson is putting his money. and then life on the farm. we'll find out if farmers are spending from the home depot of the farm. we'll be back. ♪ look at this man ♪ so blessed with inspiration ♪ ♪ i don't know much

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and there's the dow. down about 75 points. right near the low of the session. we did open higher. 10:00 is where you see the demarcation between up and down. that's when we had a disappointing drop in home sales. well, the world's most powerful leaders are arriving in pittsburgh this hour. it's one of the most important

g-20 meetings in a very long time. at this moment the entourage of russians is arriving. my understanding is it is the entourage arriving right now. there they are. they came off a plane. we do not yet have the actual main russian play coming in but we're monitoring several heads of state as they come. let's check in with our chief washington correspondent john harwood who is in pittsburgh. john, what do you think we'll find out? >> reporter: well, first of all, erin, my entourage has arrived here. we got here last night, and we're ready to go. look, i think the biggest thing that we're going to tackle here is the question of what is balanced and sustainable growth? what can the united states and china in particular, the two leading players, do to make that happen. will china agree to a framework that will cause them to stimulate domestic demand? will the united states move to a long-term economic foundation built on savings much more than consumer spending which has been

responsible for some of the bubbles that we have had in the past? i think they're going to have a communique that's probably at a high level of jen generality. >> where are you? what is that room? it looks like nasa or central command. >> reporter: this is the press filing room inside the convention center. >> oh, my gosh. >> the delegates are going to be meeting somewhere else. there are a lot of reporters here. >> thousands of seats it looks like. >> reporter: yes, yes. almost as many reporters as there are police officers on the street, and, you know, we are waiting for the action to get under way. there's going to be a leaders dinner tonight with president obama, but the real action -- obama will also make a statement when he lands this afternoon. that may set the table a little bit for the discussions to come but the real action will be tomorrow. >> john harwood, thank you very much. by the way, i like how you have those nice little lights at your desks. not bad. >> reporter: pretty good, huh? >> not that bad.

better than what we got in tripoli. thank you, john harwood. >> thank our producer. >> weep be checking in with john as we get more. we're awaiting arrivals for people like the chancellor of germany should be arriving this hour, prime minister of the netherlands, silvio berlusconi. i wonder who is in his entourage. get ready to stop trading. you will want to hear julian robertson's stock ideas and jim cramer's stock ideas today. that's a special "street signs" two-fer. we'll be back in just a moment.

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welcome back to "street signs." boy, this interview that you have, erin, with julian the man, the tiger himself, mesmerizinme. people on the floor having one huge response. that is his wisdom and his comments about inflation, the japanese and the chinese, it certainly isn't conventional wisdom but everything is statistical probabilitieprobabi especially people who trade options. even if his outcome is a 5% probability, then the question

is is a 5% probability tolerable to totally ignore out of hand the way our leaders are? he's a smart guy. this is a huge situation. the equity markets have a technical breakout to the downside which could be putting a bottom in the dollar for a while. dollar doing better. interest rates, you heard julian's comments, but in the here and now, while participants are showing up for for auctions, the $112 billion is out the door smoothly, but there's always another chapter of supply every other week. back to you. >> thank you very much, rick santelli. i appreciate it. rick, i want to tell you -- is rick still there? >> yes. >> we have a little thing i was going to put on the bottom of the screen called auctions speak louder than words. >> i love that. >> right now people are buying right now, right? for now. they're buying. >> that's the whole point. you know, nobody expected subprime to turn out the way it did. most of the major crises in history went against conventional wisdom and were small statistical probability.

they cannot be ignored. >> thank you, rick. very much appreciate it. now we want to give you a little bit more of a what julian had to say. then jim cramer will be on the other side. here is where julian is investing right now including his single biggest bet. >> well, right now we actually own a lot of the ones i think i gave you last year. unfortunately, we did not ke keep -- i think i gave you mastercard and visa and apple. we're still in those. as you can tell, i'm not that bezerk over owning stocks as them shorting bonds. >> do you think that the market -- that we're in a bull market and it's going to keep going higher? >> i think we're going to have to pay the piper, and i don't know when that is, but i would

almost say we are going to pay the piper and it's when, not if. >> meaning stocks are going to go down. >> well, meaning that interest rates are going to go up and i would think what would go along with that if you'd had my kind of interest rate scenario, that that would put the brakes on the economy, earnings would go down like crazy, but, you know, if we have 20% interest rates and 20% inflation and the market goes up 5%, that's not a really good scenario. >> your one short you did share with me last year was copper, which was a miss. you shorted it, and it went up 67%, but i guess this fits into the broader view which is you think that we do have this maybe you wouldn't even call it a double dip, but there is another

sharp leg to come down for the economy. that's what that was. >> i have fortunately got a little bit lucky on copper and got out, but i am looking at the red metal once again. >> as a short. >> i'm looking at it. i haven't done anything. >> so in terms of your best ideas right now. you talk about it's the curve cap, that's the new name. >> the curve cap. >> you come up with new names for things. you were very excited about this. you're out of this trade now. when -- how much did you make -- >> we have gone to refinement of that called a curve cap. the curve steepner was a measurement of the differential between short and long-term rates, and we figured short-term

rates would go down and long-term rates would go up. well, we didn't do well on the long-term part, but the short-term part worked out so well that we actually made a little money on the trade. but now there's no real reason -- no real way short term rates are nothing so they can't go below nothing, so we've shifted the curve cap which as i say basically long term puts on long term bonds. >> so where do you think -- >> entirely leveraged and they're like puts in that you know what your risk is. i mean, it's measured by what you pay for the put. >> and you talked about the dollar and you talked about inflation. if you had to say someone is sitting here, i hear what julian robertson has to say, i'm

worried. what currency would you put your money? >> easy. norway. richest country in the world. great company with great -- great country with great companies. only 4 million people. easy to manage that. the oil reserves are there in terms of cash they're invested. norway. >> norwegian kroner, huh? >> yeah. >> he has a big bet on the norwegian kroner. it's time to stop trading. jim cramer is here. i wanted to keep it a surprise from you. obviously jim and i know some people in norway. norway is his beloved norway. >> yes, we do. yes, we do. we have herb and nordic american tanker which is a conservative company, conservative country. cleanest balance sheet in the

industry. i have also been recommending stat oil aggressively because that is the oil company of growth in europe, and a lot of the reasons are exactly what mr. robertson said. fantastic reserves. mr. robertson is one of the few people in the country where you've got to listen and if your viewpoint is way away from his, you have to recalibrate because he is that good. >> so let me ask you about his big point of view here. actually, just in terms of rates. he's giving a scenariscenario, skas scecase scenario. mark zandi said i don't think it's going to go as high as julian thinks, but i think it will require a spike for this country to realize there are behavioral changes required. >> i have been saying and larry kudlow has been saying and he's been running my sound bite, the most dangerous piece of paper in the world is the 30-year treasury. rick santelli, we are in totally

agreement about mr. robertson. he also correctly points out the auction says the seven-year said i'm wrong on that, but i'm not making a bet day to day. i'm totally with mr. rabbitsoob. there's no way rates should be this low. that's why i'm recommending those people in that paper should be in cds. much better place for safety. >> government insured. and one other thing on julian's point because some people this morning were e-mailing and saying there's to way china will ever stop buying and maybe they're right but i think it's worth emphasizing, julian's point of view was they don't need to stop buying. in a sense they could almost just shift what they're buying, they could just buy really, really, really short term and you might actually still see rates on the longer term move a lot. >> i remember when everything laughed at the chinese who kept buying bonds. they have one of the biggest greatest gains ever. if they decide to take the gain, we're obviously in trouble. october 1st is going to be the

60th anniversary of the founding of communist china, and, you know, sometimes i wish that the -- some people would say we have come mists in congress. unfortunately, they are really communists and the communists in china are capitalists. >> this is one of the scariest things he said. this other people's money issue that's going on in washington. >> i know. >> it's a little frightening. >> my issues with nancy pelosi, it's not with the executive branch. it's with the nancy pelosi, waxman, rangel rob which i think is plain anti-business and anti-you and anti-me, meaning people who own stocks. they have another constituency. it's not the stockholder. they're very anti-shareholder. they're very anti-the prospects and profits of business. and i don't think they would even disagree with that, frankly. i think they would say, yeah. >> wear it with a badge of honor. >> i think jim would say that's right, jim got it.

i don't feel that way about the executive branch or the treasury secretary. i think there's an antipathy towards business in congress that makes me feel like they don't -- they should all go sit and listen to mr. robertson for a half hour. just for a half hour. maybe they'd get it. >> if you are listening to what he's saying and you're on the other side in recalibrating or fully agree with him, you were saying what would you do right now? >> i'm calling for a correction on my show. i started that yesterday. i felt that i did not -- there was another guest of yours who said -- "fast money" guys, the ast the last half hour i thought was very significant. there's no reason to own stocks right here -- i mean to buy stocks right here. you can own some, but i would trim back. i said it last night. once we come back, you can go to, of course, a stock he didn't mention. i happen to like apple. i have been probably the biggest supporter of apple and i brought visa after mr. robertson recommended it. i feel i have owned it for that long. i think he's dead right. that's a great play on transactions and on paper going to plastic. so i mean, visa and apple are

two i would buy more of on the way down. again, now, you can say jim you're just me tooing mr. robertson, and i would say you bet i am. >> i want to put up his name. it was funny he said i'm not as bezerk stocks as i am shorting bonds. that's what he's doing. >> we feel exactly the same. honestly, the 30-year treasury, i don't care how well these seven-year auctions are doing. you got to sell that if you're in it for safety. you're getting no yield. it's a dangerous piece of paper, and there are cds. and a cd gives you almost 2%. and then we can look at it 18 months from now. we don't have to make the bet mr. robertson is making rtion but we have to adhere to the principle that that fretreasury a really dangerous piece of paper. >> so a year ago we had visa buy, apple, google.

mastercard. the worst of them is up 43%. >> i still like google. i think that's a great cyclical turn. >> you liked apple, mastercard, and visa. >> i'm more mr. robertson a year ago. i like those stocks and, again, i want to urge our viewers, this is a man that -- and all the people who work there, frankly, if any one of them called me and said you're way out of line, what i would immediately do is say i have to relook and re-examine. i wouldn't say okay i'm just going to throw it out, but i would say these people have such gravitas, you better pay attention. mr. robertson a very respectful man of other people's view, but his view demands and deserves respect. >> thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> and much more of jim tonight on "mad money" at 6:00 and 11:00 eastern right here on cnbc. and landing right now, i promised you we would bring this to you, germany, chancellor angela merkel is landing in pittsburgh at the g-20. a couple of statistics about the

german economy we wanted to share with you. it's the world's biggest exporter, was last year, largest exporter in the world. october 4th is under way. 6 million liters of beer will be drunk. one analyst called that retailer guy heaven. we'll find out what kind of toys all those boys are buying. that's coming up in a moment. 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 dissemin e disseminated by him. before acting on a recommendation, consider its suitable for your circumstances and consider seeking advice from your own financial adviser. ♪ ♪

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in a long line of amazing performance machines. this is the new e-coupe. this is mercedes-benz. if you work on a farm or ranch you probably shop at tractor supply company. it's the home depot for farms with all the supplies they need. and sales are up 5.4% over the past year. that's a 4% increase over the past year. does that mean news from the farm is different from everywhere else. hear from the ceo of tractor

supply. we appreciate you taking the time. when you say business is up from a year ago, is it up just post-crisis, kind of this month compared to a year ago or overall? >> we are up, erin, year-to-date. we have had terrific response with customer traffic. our business has changed. we anticipated that change and the team has done a great job to prepare new business in this new normal. >> so what are people buying? >> erin, when we saw the economy begin to slip in january of 2008, we made a strategic shift to begin featuring a group of products that we call a consumable, usable, and edible products, large animal feed, pet feed, other disposable products. we reinvested in inventory, ad space, and as a result our business in those categories has been doing quite well. >> well, cows have to eat, right? those are things you know you're going to do turnover on.

obviously if you shift it to more things that people let's just call them farm consumer, things you're required to have, what about tractors and large purchases? did you -- have you at all increased that this year at this point or are you still keeping it low? >> erin, the first thing we noticed are consumers back in january of 2008 began to slow down their purchases of big ticket products. this included lawn mowers or anything selling over $350. those categories have been down now for almost 20 months, and we expect a slow recovery once we come out of the at the session in large ticket goods. >> so you expect a slow recovery. have you seen it yet in that area, that north of $350 ticket price? >> no, we have not, not at this time. >> not at this time. so when you take that, your personal store information and you compare it to all the optimism out there about the

economy, do you think people are too optimistic? >> well, i think there's two separate issues. one, when will the recession end and when does the economy improve. and secondary to that, when does the consumer come back and begin to spend money on discretionary purchases. i think there will be a significant decoupling between the official end of the recession, and the ultimate return to the consumer. >> and so do you have any business outside the united states as one final point? i know we've seen a big difference, agco saying it was a lot weaker in europe. do you have any sense of that? >> no, all of our business in 44 states within the continental united states. >> thank you very much, sir. we appreciate it. you heard what he had to say, no improvement in the area of weakness, which is tickets over $350. that's a data point to focus on. next on the show, russia's richest man buying a basketball team that's trying to move to brooklyn. should the nba say yes?

their own country may be crashing, but they're spending money here. we'll have that, and more in a moment. xwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxwxww

for years european soccer clubs have been purchased by foreigners. but american sports leagues for the most part have been, well, very, very domestic. the times are changing. the big four names now in line to be owner of the new jersey nets, from a country everybody says was down and out, but maybe not so much, darren.

>> not some guys. maybe this guy who cashed out a bit. a chinese investor agreed to purchase the cleveland cavaliers. yesterday you were referencing, this man made his money and agreed to pay $200 million to further finance the nets new arena in brooklyn in exchange for an 80% ownership of the team. why the for invasion? the primary business of these owners has declined so there are more teams for sale in general. with the credit markets tighter than before the recession, financing huge team transactions are harder. the solution? take money from a worldwide pool. while it looks like current owner bruce ratner will be saved by the new owner here, one insider told me there are more sports teams for sale, either on the market or available for the right price than any time in recent history. fans used to complain they didn't want out-of-town owners, now they just want owners that have money. that's why in the last 24 hours

the reaction has been so positive to this. even though prokorav lives in siberia. by the way, the only backlash seems to be happening in russia. there's a story that this move is being called unpatriotic, because he is not investing money in russian sports leagues. erin? >> interesting. hmm. thank you very much, darren. next we're going to tell you what else julian robertson is doing with his money. this one unexpected.

last time i spoke to julian robertson, he was spending a lot of time on his philanthropic activities. he was mostly raising awareness about groebl warming, now he's focused on a new issue. >> i think stem cells are just a terrific thing. it's a pretty wild, wonderful area which i don't understand at all, but which i'm realizing the value of it. so i'm a stem cell nut now from a global warming nut. >> that means advertising campaigns, or things to encourage more stem cell research?

>> yeah, more and more of it. i think it's terrific. >> very interesting personal story on that front. julian also, of course, is a loyal new zealander. looking forward to hosting the kiwi challenge, a government tournament in new zealand played november 14th and 15th with the best under-30 golfers. yes, it will be broadcast on the best network in the world, and that, of course, is nbc. we're down about 38 points for the dow jones industrial average. thanks so much for watching our special program. and we'll hand it off now to the final hour of trade and the "closing bell." federal reserve general council skol alvarez says the allowing broader audits could hurt. ba rof ski said his office will examine in deciding which dealers to cut from their ranks. stocks are moving lower with the average of raising an early rally following an unexpected

drop in existing home sales. that's cnbc news now, i'm sharon epperson. the picture of the floor of the new york stock exchange. the mart falling for a second straight day, following an unexpected decline in existing home sales out today. financials, the leadership group on the downside. we're also seeing a sharp drop-off in the price of oil. a pickup in treasuries. we enter the final most important hour of the trading day right now. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo coming to you live from the lobby of the sheraton in new york city, the location of this year's clinton global initiative. many of the participants joining us in the hour ahead. take a look at the markets right now as we see weakness once again on wall street. we're looking at a double-digit decline. it's been stagnant for a little while here. the laggards on the day, financials, caterpillar, under

selling pressure, oil also weak today on the heels of another decline in the price of oil. nasdaq also weaker, 24 points lower. i hear better than 1%. check the s&p 500 here where we do have some leadership coming into the retail sector. and a handful of technology names. the s&p 500 still in the red. down by about nin points at 1,051. joining me all hour, bob pisani, the action behind those numbers. bob, what do you know? >> hello, maria g to see you again. important thing here today, the dollar, moving stocks around. look what's happening in the last hour of trading on this thursday. again beholding to the dollar. the meeting came out, the results, statement and we saw the dollar rally dramatically. that's happening again today on the existing home sales numbers. dollar strength simply means stock weakness in this particular environment. kotd miss and financials notably weaker here today. on the existing home sale numbers, as we got them