i've been calling around today. i keep hearing sales have held up pretty well in the last two weeks. remember, this is what's going to be the easter sale. they should get a nice boost here. some big retailers, macy's, jcpenney on the upside. the other nice group hurt badly in the first quarter, natural gas stock, simon. look better today. moved up and big names that got clobbered in the first quarter all are looking better. rick santelli, tomorrow is going to be a big day, at least your market's going to be open for a good part of it. >> you know, i'm telling you, bob, i am really kind of excited about tomorrow. not excited that the markets are going to be able to define the information accurately with so few markets open, so few hour, but nonetheless, i'm going to be here. you know, you'll have the ability to trade the s&ps via the electronic, currencies and bonds have people and electronics for shortened sessions but wild. everybody needs to tune in.

having said that, something else wild is going to happen. draw a circle around april 10th. why? on april 10th we're probably going to learn china will have its first trade deficit in six years. why dough i bring that up? two things caught my eye in the report. 75 prices paid highest level since 8 of 08. export index, 61 and change, highest in 21 years. are these two stories relatesed? especially at a time when we're poking sticks at each other politically, very interesting. you need to keep up on it. yields up a bit, still not through the important range, at 375 -- excuse me. 475 to 480 in the 30-year. 3 9 and we'll watch those. back to you. >> busy day four tomorrow. we'll watch it all. thank you very much. as we count you down to tomorrow's important report, two napshots of the labor market to the digest right now.

jeff is manpower's chairman and ceo and al is founder and ceo of angrasomy's turnaround. a survey of people's expectations, small or medium sized private player sectors, expectations of job growth and it's looking good. no? >> yes, simon. this survey i do on a monthly basis, my partner to lunar research shows people, small businesses expectations are better, and they're viewing the economy as better. however, they're not prepared to act yet on hiring and pull the trigger and hire full time employees. >> why is that? inl >> i believe because their business model changed. small business owners think about cash, not the stock market and the things we see on cnbc every day. they think about their cash position. right now their cash position is hampered. they're look at more taxes from health care, state and local taxes, federal taxes. they're looking at less credit.

the credit markets are still challenged, and number three, they don't have any pricing power in think model. more inclined to hire temporary labor and look for nor productivity gains before they pull the trigger on full time employees. >> just to highlight that, the number that are concerned about the stability of their business is actually having declined in the first two moss of the year. now it ticked slightly higher? >> correct, simon. >> just because i know you are former adviser to reagan. i should try and balance and check we're on the right track here. is there a learning process that needs to be gone through specifically on how health care will affect those businesses with ten or less em ploeps? i'm reminded by keith boykin a cnbc contributor, receiving a 35% tax credit if they have fewer than ten employees for their health care, and that tax credit will increase to 50% in 2014. to you think we in learn that they'llen less concerned?

>> certainly the very small companies will, but the companies that drive most of the job growth are companies with, you know, under 100 -- from 100 to 150. sorry. from 50 to 100 employees. from 50 to 500 employee, and those companies are going to see their bill go up. i think it's a mixed bag and we're going to have to walk our way through it and let people figure it out as we move on. >> jeff, your survav you've done at manpower. basically a q2 outlook surjay. >> correct. >> run me through. >> started to see a little change. 16% of the well over 25,000 companies we survey saying we're going to start increasing hiring. also saw decreasing. what is very interesting is 73% of the companies said we're going to hold right where we are. going back to the uncertainty. goes back it i know i have demand but i'm not quite sure if it's enough demand or sustainable enough for me to jump into and start taking risks

of bringing on additional people. >> of course, you can also offer insight as a result of your day-to-day business activities as a temporary employers. what are you revealing there? >> no doubt. the first to feel it on the way up. you can see that in the bls numbers since november. november up to, we'll see what tomorrow is. seeing 40,000 to 52,000 added in the industry. some of the data you get on an independent basis would say it's declined beyond that. our anticipation of tomorrow is you're going to see the temporary help number actually grow on a little more of a substantial basis and that you've seen in the past. because there is demand, things are happening out there, but uncertainty and companies are looking at being more project based in order to move forward in this economy. >> i don't want to harm your business but would love to see the people move from temporary work currently on your books to permanent work. what do you they will take anecdotically? >> a six to nine-month lag. individuals may not want to see

it. an interesting. . some of the individuals like to work in a project-based environment. 41% in normal times move from our rolls on into the term nent rolls a six to nine month lag time in the economy. we think it will be stretched out longer because the kornted uncertainty. >> al does that feel about flight terms of time scale? >> i agree with that and think the characterization i put on this, it's not going to be a job less recovery. a job challenge recovery, and jeff's got it right. i might move that curve out further, because we did an analysis of how all of these costs are going to be kicking in from the new taxes, from the state municipal taxes, all of way into the expiration of the bush tax cuts. that's going to impact the cash of these small businesses in the back half of 2010 and early 2011. >> and to echo, sorry. to echo, i agree. traditionally you saw six to nine months. because of uncertainties and rolloffs we think permanent

hiring will get pushed out further than what you typically see. i'm very much in cons cert with the data talked about saying, you know what? demand is there but uncertainty is there. you get both put together you get actually more kind of non-traditional ways of getting work done. >> is it not also true, al, that ceos, for fear of -- seem to be unpatriotic in the good times used bad times to make structural adjustments to the fact being undercut elsewhere on the world on top of the simple cyclical downturn? it's a double whammy? isn't it? >> absolutely, simon. i had this xofrgs six monconver months ago. a secular recession and recovery. that means not only dl they cut out all expenses they wanted to get out of their system, but as the recovery happens, a lot of those jobs and those expenses are not coming back the way they came back before. they're going to come back as, your gefrt and i are saying, in the form of more temporary i don't productivity gains through

i.t. and a lot of jobs lost if cut aren't coming back again, simon. sorry to say. >> gentlemen, have a good weekend. thank you for joining us. tomorrow we will be live on "squawk box" for many it is a hole day to bring thaw holiday report in full with reaction. the program will run from 6:00 to 9:30 eastern. right. time for the "pick and play." we pick three headlines this thursday and ask one of our traders to give us what he thinks should be the plays ever the back-to-back. and let's start with ryan air, of course an irish low-cost carrier built on the southwest model which after a lot of recent difficulties came through with good firg figures. >> it has, but then i'm not going with that. stape away from ryan air. reason being, they lost 169 million euros over the last 12 monthset debt rinzen by 500

euros below equity, over 90% debt to equity. i keep talking euros. probably a few people but think as our economy improves and we get higher interest rates, the dollar will strengthen or at least stabilize hurting this, these foreign companies in euros. what i would do, play with a company atlas worldwide to keep you up in the world. doing air cargo and outsourcing for aircraft. trading at 13.5 times earnings. urn equity only at 10% and the debt to equity 64%, and they're earning 16.3% year over year. that's a company i'd rather play with. >> jetblue up earlier. let's move on. talk about research in motion. the likes of goldman today downgrading it to a sell, oos result of the figures we'd got and the belief customer, taking market share. are you contrarian on that, too? >> april fool's here, simon. i think that is a good company.

i know they lost a little market share. look at the company. year over year, earnings up 27%. $1.6 billion in cash and short-term einvestments and not sitting around waiting saying nothing's happening here. our phones aren't popular anymore. they spent $900 million on research and development opposed to apple, which spent $1.4 billion. keep in mind, research in motion only has a phone. so a lot of things can go on. i think next year or so you could see something good come from rimm and under 70, i like this company. trades at 13.6 earnings. >> the company with this space, we see it time and time again. okay. most of the market commoditizes then a polarization. those that are best in class tend to pull away. on the others left behind, thinking of palm in particular, left way behind. >> that's why it's so important for people to look at how much the company spends on r & d. not spending money there, you

will be left behind. you've got to keep looking forward. i always look at companies. how many are they spending on r & d. >> talking about used cars, and carmax came throughway strong report. we have the fourth quarter earnings more than doubling. >> yeah. and carmax has done a great job. 466% year over year, a great job. things look good. our concern this company is overpriced or fully valued, traded 24times earnings. 22 times for earnings. i think the stock has little upside potential, because of everything's priced in the stock already. i'd rather look at a company and play with auto nation, which their earnings are up 120%, not quite as high but pretty good growth. debt equity, 48% and only paying 11.4 times for the forward earnings. much better buy. target price probably 40% more on the upside with auto nation versus the kpar max. >> thanks for the tips. have a great weekend. next on "street signs," the

billionaire boys club. the world's top hedge fund managers raking in ten-figure paychecks. some of them, are they worth it? more importantly what can the rest of us learn about ensuring that they tip us off about things goinging on. plus, get in line for the ipad. the apple hype machine is in overdrive and cnbc is there. the view, out. new details on what you'll actually get on saturday if you're lucky fluff to open up the white box, will it be the death the laptop? stay with us. with fidelity, you can take your trading around the world, because now you can trade u.s. and foreign stocks online, in 12 markets, 24 hours a day, all from the same account, and settle in u.s. dollars or the local currency. plus, we'll guide you with international research and realtime quotes,

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seems like old times in the financing market, behind leverage companies dated favor. details to share. david? >> thanks, simon. we haven't seen a deal that proves it, but all signs are that in the financing market for lbos it is back to the future. this week we learned that the junk bond market set a record for volume in march at $38 billion, surpassing the november 2006 record of $36 billion. yes, november of '06. remember that day? both days? we saw the first clo deal in more than a year at the same time that leverage loan market hit a 21-month high. meanwhile, the inclusion of some

dubious financing practices started to creep back into the market. a $ 25 million bond deal for the leverage gun maker freedom group included a pay in kind provision allowing the borrowing to pay interest by issues more debt. picking to, they're called, something we often saw back in the '05 through '07 period. we also saw a lot of covenant light and bridge equity back then. one wondered whether they can't be too far behind now. so much for long memories. even if the financial markets are showing signs of froth, the deals themselves are not here. at least not yet. while bankers tell me they can do a financing of as much as $10 billion for an lbo, private equity principles tell me they would prefer to keep it smaller and saner. here's scott sperling of thl partners. >> the high yield market is better than it's ever been in history. we've now set records in each of the last three months globally

in the united states for the high yield raised and set a record for the quarter relative to the next best quarter, which was in late '06. so the financing markets have come back strongly led by high yield. now the bank market is there. i think the thing we need 20 be careful about is not to make the mistake that we as an industry made in '07, which is we used better financing in order to pay more for companies beyond their inherent fundamental values. >> easy to say. always harder to do when the bankers and the market are willing to give you billions and billions of dollars to go out there and spend money. none of this, though, is to say we will return to the crazy ways of 2007. for every private equity firm that is now in a position to at least contemplate a deal, keep in mind, there is a strategic buyer with an even lower cost of capital that is waging and waiting. simon, back to you. >> $1 trillion on the -- on the books of the s&p 500. an awful lot of money.

>> exactly. >> can i ask you, before we leave you. >> sure. >> about the hedge fund story, when i know that you've talked about a lot today in the wake of the "new york times" article. >> yes. >> the top 25 players may have earned $25 billion during the course of the last year. now that the dust has settle and that, what's your take away? >> you know, simon, i can't help even after all of these years of just being stunned by the numbers themselves. they're so outsized. yet the market is the market. people are going with their eyes open in terms of paying two and 207b or 2 and 30 or 2 and 40, but the numbers are staggering. you know, what occurs to me is a few things. so mitch has to do with asset gathering. if you have a $30 billion hedge fund running at 2% management fee, the day you put your feet on the desk january 1 you've already brought in $ 00 million. also, 600 million. some of these guys went into markets when others were not there and really succeeded. david tepper certainly key amongst them buying banks as they dand so much of the capital

structure a year ago when few would go to that point. so kood d so kudos to him. i wonder about the sim ymmetry investors. over a five, six time period, investors way relatively paltry return but the managers are taking home sums that are truly hard to imagine. >> david, thank you very much for that. back at headquarters. leer on the floor of the new york stock exchange, ken pozner is with me, for 15 years was research analyst, just writing a book "stalking the black swan." good afternoon. thank you for coming in. >> thank you. >> in essence, you're look at, as a man who played, watched, analyzed volatility for a long time, you're look at strategies people can develop to master that? >> absolutely. the premise of the book, we live in a world of black swans. the idea that popularized. surprises that catch us all

unaware. but there are things decision-makers can do. this book tries to take off, in providing concrete suggestions for decision-makers. how to treect new information. how to anti-where possible black swans might be forming. it's a multidisciplinary approach. different from the quad approach you've seen so much of wall street spend time o. talking about the hedge funds and people making great profits. i don't think it's any of our business, it's in the private sector. but do you regard hedge funds as efficient players with the market? do you think they speed signals? are you a big fan of the hedge fund industry? >> well, i'm not in a position to tell what you parts of the global financial markets are nor more or less important, but i think some people in the hedge fund initially are applying the techniques i talk about in the book. the research of analysis, reaction to information, anticipation, and when they're right and make a lot of money, hey, this is america. if you're right, you're entitled

to compensation nap doesn't mean that there isn't a role for regulation. wrmp a firm is large enough to pose systemic issues. >> as we saw with ltc. >> absolutely. >> turn it around 180 degrees. it's apparent there were teams of people from the sec and the new york federal reserve in lehmans when it was operating repo 105, whatever it was, behind the balance sheets, and long concern we don't attract -- because it's so much money, we don't attract the brightest and best into the regulators. is there possibly, hypothetically, a way to send these guys in on their own rate, own money, and have a transparency you can be led by them and analyze the positions they've gotten and see if that can feed back and raise red flags for those regulators? or is that just nonsense? >> absolutely. the regulators i know are very smart and competent and the professional, but there's only so many of them. they have limited power. >> subprime, that's the issue.

>> some did and many didn't. that's true for the whole world. wasn't it? i have other ideas, because i think the key to dealing with black swans is speed. speed of reaction. true for a trader and true for regulators, too. here's an idea floating around. you know, requires systemically important firms to have a kind of contingent debt that automatically converts to equity in a crisis. take out the year it would take a financial struggling to try and recapitalize itself get the recap happening immediately. for example, cit, remember, they just emempged from bankruptcy. took at least year to exhaust all the other options before they finally pilled the plug and went into bankruptcy loonchts would trigger that, trigger that jopgs a legal process waiting to be had. isn't it? >> build it into the security. if ratios fall below standards, security converts, e recapitalize the company instantly and speed through the crisis like a shock absorber. >> ken, got to thieve there. nice to talk to you.

i'll attempt the book. thank you very much. just ahead on "street signs," the government going the extra mile to save you money at the gas pump, but there's a catch. you'll end up paying for it in the end. find out what i'm talking about after the break on "street signs" on cnbc. to the all-american meal. french fries, and our national passion for them, are legendary. classic. iconic. but times change and people want better foods. so cargill helped a restaurant chain create... a zero trans fat cooking oil for their french fries... canola plants... and innovative processing techniques... while preserving their famous taste. because no one wants to give up a classic. this is how cargill works with customers. ♪

we have just a few minutes left of the day's trade. will oil close above $85 a barrel? the question here on the floor of the nynex. a high of 25 intraday. the big question when you look what's happened today is, was it jut a bullish momentum and money flows or did it have something more to do with the weakening of the dollar and from manufacturing data, the fact remains above $85 a barrel, look for $93, $94 as the next level say a lot of traders here. keep your eye on what's going on between heating oil and gasoline. looks like we might be looking perhaps as a diesel-led recovery here. heating oil far outpacing the gains in gasoline this week. prices at the pump now, $2.80 a gallon. down actually about a penny from the day before. simon, back to you. >> a big week for all. sharon, thank you, sharon

epperson at the nynex. 92 minutes left to trade leer on the floor at the new york stock exchange. what else is in the news this thursday -- cars and trucks on american roads will have to get an average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 pap new standard by the government. increase of about ten miles per gallon over current standards. that adds an estimated $900 to the cost of each vehicle by 2016, but the government says that will be more than offset by fuel savings. a subscription price war is breaking out between two of america's best known newspapers. the "wall street journal" is cutting new subscription price bice as much as 80% in some cases, as it prepares to do battle with the "new york times" by unveiling a new new york city edition. the "journal" mailed "time"

subscribers offers that gives them home delivery for just $10 a mop. speaking of the "time"s, sold its spot in the red sox. another partner bought for an undisclosed sum. reduces the players stake in the firm from 17.34%. up next on "street signs," the ipad can marine a new chapter for book publishers. certainly contact providers falling all over themselves to get in on the act. has will it mean for kindle and sn it the death of the laptop? "street signs" will be back in a moment. d# 1-800-345-2550 if it was up to me? tdd# 1-800-345-2550 investment firms wouldn't even dream of overcharging people. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 in fact, they'd spend all of their time dreaming up ways tdd# 1-800-345-2550 to give us more for our money. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i guess i'd just like to see a little more give tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and a little less take, you know? tdd# 1-800-345-2550 if it was up to me, they'd spend a lot more time

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this is a live shot of the apple store on fifth avenue opposite central park opens 24 hour as day. no cues yet you can see for the i topp launch tomorrow. be sure they will be beamed live around the world as soon as we have them. most media types on the east coast a large and huge opportunity for publishers and media companies elsewhere. cnbc's julia boorstin joins the

hype. >> reporter: the media industry is hoping the ipad will perform a new platform for growth and rave reviews about the ereader promising for the industry, struggling with declining sales. five of the six publish es on board for the new book store. a fix price. apple taking 30%. higher margins for publishers than they get from amazon. it could grow book sales for amazon and barnes & noble, dwelling ipod aps although they sell competing ereaders. comparisons are just the beginning selling books on itunes opens huge potential. >> you have 100 million people or more that have itunes installed on their computer or use it to power their iphones or ipod touches, and being able to buy an e-book through itunes is the really big news here. >> and even without the itunes

pipeline, the ipad should generate incremental revenue. streaming tv shows with ads to the ipad adopting websites with aps for the device. and shows from abc, incomes and fox to the ipad. coming up on closing bell, the story on why magazines hope the ipad will be the holy grail of dual rebel screens, it's not just the kindle that needs to worry about the ipad way docking station, comes with a keyboard, will it kip the laptop? joining us, noah kravitz, editor and chief. you believe it will kill the laptop? >> i don't know if i'm sure it will kill the laptop but it's something laptop makers are definitely standing up and taking notice of. >> why? >> well, you know, back in 2001, no other than bill gates predicted with five years we'd all be using tablet computers

instead of laptopso desktops. might have been five years off or so, up to now, hp, dell, dinovo, big laptop makers tried to make this. none have taken off. apple made a living out of taking the computer experience and making it fun, consumer friendly. they did it with the imac, with the ipod. did it with the eye fone, turned the smartphone market on its ear and now trying to do it with the computer. edit video, rangel, large chunks of information, financial spread sheets that sort of thing, but a lot of people out there, consumers or people when they're at home instead at the workplace that just want to surf the web, communicate, maybe consume music, video or photos, and that's what apple's trying to to with ipod. take that that and using touch and using a sexy, light form factor to make it fun. >> yeah. i'm sure that everybody on the east coast is licking their lips

with glee at the idea, because they can afford one, but the truth is, you can get a laptop for much less money with all the kicks. can you not? >> you can. except the one thing that apple's banking that you can't get is the experience. you know, there's a cliche in kverring ap the products. you have to touch it 0 understand it. the iphone a couple years ago, a naysayer until i tried one. same thing with ipad. early users saying, you start using it and that layer of technology that gets in the way, it evaporated and you're focused, immersed in what you're doing. what's what apple a banksing on. >> i find myself involved in a hype of a product by one single company, but that's exactly thousand should be, in your view? this is a breakthrough that is beyond just a simple news story? this is a lifestyle event for everyone? >> again, that's what -- that's the story apple is spinning. the early reviews, you know,

hold up to that, although notoriously early apple reviews are favorable. we'll see come saturday, as you said. we'll see how long the cues are at the store in manhattan. see what happens when the device hits the east coast and west coast where i am and people get their hands on it, but i do think there's something happening here where apple is trying to create a new category and even a little bit of a paradigm shift in the way we interact with our technology. there were tons of touch screen smartphones before iphone came along, yet they dominated the marketplace with one device. so it's hard to bet against them. >> do you want to mention the kindle? or is it just off the radar now? >> no. you know, i'm not -- i'm not one of those people who's convinced that the kindle or ipad will be the holy grail that saves print media. i see a lot of people using kindles, and they love them. you know, they love the battery life. the ipad, apple's claiming ten hours of battery life.

i've heard even more, kindle goes two weeks on a charge. >> they're much, much lighter. the kindle. >> the kindle's lighter. the kindle uses e-ink technology made for reading. remains to be seen, again, over the long haul. easy to do the short review. after a few week, a month of people reading books on them, we'll see. >> sorry. didn't mean to interrupt you. >> sorry. i was going to say there are publishers very excited about their electronic versions of newspapers and magazines that are being developed for ipad. another category. >> and whn do you think finally you'll get your hands on an ipad? have you got one already? >> no. saturday morning, just like everybody else. my u.p.s. shipment apparently got stuck between china and louisville, kentucky, like everyone else's. >> i hope you're at made up by the end as you want to be. noah, have a great weekend. >> thanks, simon. you, too. coming up, an automotive

makering less than 200 cars in two months. good news. how is that possible? if you have six figure sticker prices, that's the answer. we'll talk to the president on bentley motors. how they are nav gafting the market. gecko: uh, you wanted to see me sir?

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well, we kicked off the second quarter withalmosta triple digit gain at open, a seven-digit figure. the market is falling back. still up 17% since the market low. what does it feel like to be with the finance services at the area? the ceo-of-canteder fitzgerald and joins us. mr. matthews, good afternoon. >> it is a good time. certainly we've seen flows go down a little over the last four or five month, but it's still a very good time to be in the marketplace. there are a lot of opportunities out there for a firm such as ours, cantor fitzgerald and we continue to grow our franchise. >> what areas are e growing into? have you looked at the vulcan

rule and thought, hell's bells, this is massive for us? >> absolutely. larger institutions it's starting to come into play, where the opportunity will be for us. smaller firms won't have the economies of scale. larger firms regulatory issues. a great opportunity to continue to build our franchise. core comp nancy trading adding investment banks and going to continue to be the best firm right below the bracket. >> what do you do? build that up organically, will you? >> absolutely. we're looking at opportunities out there. it's always difficult to buy financial services firms. if you want a rose or an opportunity is throughout we look at it. certainly we're looking at it as the opportunity to grow organically, slowly, methodically and intelligently. >> and internationally? >> correct. i think the best opportunity actually outside the u.s. at this point in time. we're looking to probably add 100 or 200 people in europe in the continent as well as in

asia. >> you've had a presence in europe for some time notably. an operation that attracted a lot of attention. talk me through how that area in particular will change and how investors back here will be able to profit from that. >> we are looking at the opportunity overseas as one that encompasses many different areas. so in looking at our spread betting, it's one opportunity among a massive subset. there are different regulatory aspects over there. cfds, et cetera, an interesting play for us. we're looking at the traditional banking business as being a massive growth area for us. >> what do you think of the market at the moment? when you sit around add dinner parties what do you say? what do people tell you in the privacy of that environment? >> i think the, the biggest concern right now is you have a liquidity induced rally where spread product has come in substantially over the last year or so. liquidity has gone into the

equity markets. so everyone is waiting to see how much liquidity the fed is going to take out over the next 6 to 12 months. certainly a lot of the programs that have been in place have been taken away. now the real question is when the fed funds start going up? >> as that conversation continues at the dinner party, do you then turn to how big the correction will be, and would you put a figure on that? from what you're saying, it's a one-sided fear? >> i think that the, the equity markets actually are in reasonably good shape at this point in time. probably fairly valued. when i'm looking at corrections i'm actually looking at absolute levels and rates. certainly when the short end of the market starts going up that could put pressure on the entire credit curve, because the fed's real goal was to credit environment where the credit curve flattened out. if you look over the last year and a half, the amazing how much the curve has flattened add they've done their job. when they take away liquidity

and raise fed funds it actually steepen pg out again. >> thank you for joining us. the ceo of cantor fitzgerald and company. up next on "street signs," what stocks to watch as toyota's troubles mean big surprises for the rest of the auto companies. figures are revealed. whwhwhwhwhh

with the notable exception of chrysler, all four top auto makers saw their sales snap back. matt nesto has the numbers. >> thank you very much. i guess if there was one big surprise out there, it was general motors. the humble giant saul not only its march u.s. sales grow by a better than expected 38%, but the first-quarter tally of 477,000 have left it in the top spot. now that it's shed saab, pontian, hummer, well, they are free to vie for those orphaned domestic buyers. as for the other big four, a 79%

spike in the sales of you new ford fusion, the car of the year, saw ford's march sales grow 34%. toyota narrowed out gm, thanks to record incentives for the sold 35% cars more this march than they did last march, and nearly 90% more than they did in february before they pulled over to the breakdown lane. finally, there's chrysler, and their nearly 12% drop in march pushed them into sixth place. honda tucking comfortably into the fourth spot, even nissan elbowing in its way. it's all about ford, still up 82%. the silver medalist is nissan, coming on strong. there's hmc honda and toyota with about a 4% gain over that period of time. this all in a year that's tagged

to see roughly 12 million light vehicles sold. 12 million figure is back. back to you. >> thank you very much for that update there on the big four. well, if you're in the market to buy a car, bear in mind that bentley motors is showcasing one of its new models at the new york auto show. it can be yours for the bargain price of $280,000 apiece. christophe georges is the president and chief operating officer of bentley motors new york are north america and thanks for joining us. this is your fastest drop-top ever, yes? >> yes, we are launching our super sport convertible in the new york motor show. it's our fastest conversable ever, and have to say it's the fastest four-seater convertible in the world. >> and you've been moving toward greater fuel efficiency, i

understand. what point have you reached now? >> yes, in 2008, we have declared our commitment in term of green strategy, which is basically in three points. we have said in 2008 that by 2012 we were going to gain a 15% fuel efficiency, certainly all our cars will be flex fuel compatible by the end of 2012, and thirdly we are going to introduce a new plant increasing or level of efficiency by 40% by 2012. and as it is today, we have introduced super sports last year the most extreme car, the fastest bentley, the first one being flex fuel compatible, and from 2011 model year, which is being produced from june, and will be flex fuel compatible.

so we are totally consistent with the goals we set to ourselves and the commitments we have made to the market. as everybody says -- sorry? >> we should mention your parent company is voex wagon. under that you're under that embrela you're doing a lot of work. what sort of demands are you getting for the model at the moment in the united states? >> everybody enjoys the market segment, including luxury, and of course nobody has been immune, and the luxury market has been affected more than the volume market, simply because our products can be considered sometimes as being discretionary purchase, so it does not answer to an image of practical need, and this kind of purchase is postponed. in the last two years we've had financial -- and the first quarter of this year is over about 20% in america.

>> mr. georges, is the luxury car market safe, do you think? or do you think there might be a temptation for a large slice of it to move away, to be less bling, to go down, do you see it at all as a dynamic? >> we don't see it. our customer base is extremely loyal. they just defer their purchases. some people might not be in the right mood, this is not the right time to reward yourself with a great car, but what we can say also is you do not forget about your dreams, you do not forget about your aspirations. you want to make your dreams concrete, and we expect the customers to be back, yeah? >> i hear you. you're a good salesman. christophe, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. a final check on the market in a moment, but first your "trend of the day."

let's get back to matt nesto

for an update on what else we're learning. >> it's interesting, because we talked about what was involved in trying to sell those cars, especially with toyota, with the big sharp cutback that they were able to put together for the month of march. you had munds.com came out with research on incentives, specifically the average u.s. car carried a $2,742 incentive for the month of march. that is down 13%, or about $400 from a year ago, up $100 on a month on month basis. now, toyota which paren yael has not had to do a whole lot to move their cars, they're at a record level of $2,256, up, about a $700 sweetener for toyota, and up about 20% on a month-on-month basis. what also caught my eye, the tightest in terms of the

incentives, the korean makers only at about $1,300 per vehicle. >> thank you, matt. that brings us to the end of "street signs" today. the market losing ground. we were up triple digits on some data that came through from asia. okay. that's it for the show. have a great long weekend -- i beg your pardon. closing bell takes to the air with maria bartiromo. will the tortoise rally continue? or are red flags starting to emer emerge? live from the new york stock exchange, which is the final and most important hour of the trading day. >> i'm at the new york stock exchange, the second quarter kicking off on a choppy note

today on wall street. this the final day of the week, stocks giving up earlier gains, and then adding to the gains late in the session ahead of tomorrow's release of the key march jobs report. we have a double-digit move way off the highs, we are zeroing in on the jobs report, what might that data be? we will get to that. in the meantime, here is a look at the markets as we approach this final stretch on wall street, the dow jones industrial average up 26 points. a quarter of a percent lower on the nasdaq, turning negative as rimm pressures things, leading things on the down side. s&p 500 higher by a fraction. let's get you our "closing bell exchange." joining me, my co-host for the hour, bob pisani, bertha coombs is at the nasdaq, sharon epperson, rick san teller in chicago. ahead, team, how are you?

big name retailers on the move today, bob. what can you tell us? >> everybody's all salivating and arguing about the jobs