the day, the one all the traders want to know is, what happened to the guy who lost the apple prototype? you heard this story, people? apple developer left a prototype for the new apple iphone coming out in june in a bar and it was found and gizmodo bought it from the guy who found it, we now know what it's going to look like. apparently there's going to be a camera on the front, for video conferencing which is a great idea. so a lot of people are now out saying, on the blogs, erin, don't buy the existing iphone, wait for the new one to come out because of the new advancements we can see are in it. what happened to that guy? back to you. >> i don't know. maybe he took a -- you know, by choice leave of absence like the fabulous fab. >> hiding under the desk. becoming the fabulous fab, exactly. all right. thank you very much, bob. despite a temporary blip last week, thanks in part to the charges against goldman sachs, stock market is still up 7% so far this year. lots of investor money is still sitting on the sidelines.

trillions of dollars of it. so, what would happen if it came in the market? and when will it come in? joining us scott black president and founder of dellfy management and david tice, bear market strategist for fed deteriorated. scott black, jim paulson was on our show talking about $7 trillion, trillion, that's more than half the size of the entire american economy, which is still the world's biggest by a factor of something. is sitting there waiting to come into the market, near a record. will it come in? >> i don't think all of it will and i think you to look at the money market data first. slightly under $3 trillion and it's hard to gauge the savings account, liquids, probably another 1 to $2 trillion, that represents about $5 trillion in buying power and yesterday the s&p 500 closed at $10.8 trillion. obviously from a liquidity factor, it represents a huge amount. but let's be up front. one, many of the dollars will find it ways into fixed income when people need yield.

secondly, people are still scared, even though the market has rallied dramatically off the s&p 666, many people think stocks are very much fairly overvalued and there's a fear factor still in the marketplace. even if only 10 or 20% came in, i think that would be buoyant for this market. >> if all of it came in you get a 50% jump. only 10 or 20% how much higher would that take the stock market? >> right now we're about a 17 based on my figures but individually there are many cheap stocks especially in the tech sector. i think the market has another 5 or 10% upside this year based on the fact that, one, the feds accommodative, two, very good earnings momentum, up probably 37% year over year and interestingly enough most of the economic indicators that i've followed both the wholesale side, industry economy, and consumer economy are trending upwards nicely for the first time in 18 months. >> what's your perspective on

this, david? i must say scott makes a big case, but he's still only looking for 5 to 10% more upside which still means people would miss the big run since the bottom a year ago. you disagree on whether we'll even be higher in 12 months? >> we're certainly in the midst of a rally here. it's been painful for being short. however we think this could end in time. as you said 5 to 10% upside versus 40 to 60% downside, i don't like that risk/reward. in terms of cash the numbers we have show money market cash as a percentage of ets plus mutual funds are now at 27%. at the low, they were at 41%. and at the high they were at 21%. so we are much closer to a high than we are the low. >> okay. and in terms -- if we are lower, david tice, in a year, how much lower do you think we'll be? >> i believe that the s&p could fall to 400. it's a long way down.

we believe -- >> wow. >> the market is going to get below book value at the end of this massive credit bubble. there's a lot of pain ahead, unfortunately. we've just resurrected a government finance bubble to offset the housing bubble where we now have private sector de-leveraging. >> all right. so that's a veritable crash compared to where we are right now at 1205. scott black, any cans in your mind that comes -- any chance that comes to fruition? >> no. firstly i think we have a smart person, ben bernanke, running the fed and i don't foresee it. corporate earnings will be up this year, they'll grow next year, albeit at a slower rate and i don't think the economy goes for double-dip recession. valuations aren't so far out of line. i'm conservative, using $70 in earnings this year for the s&p. some people are at the high end of $78. i do foresee over $80 in earning power next year. i don't see how you get down to a 400. that would be a five multile.

given the nominal interest rates are low, not high as they were in the bottom of the '82 market, it's just not feasible to have a kind of crash that mr. tice predicts. >> thanks very much to both of you. two very different perspectives on the market. let us know which one you describe to, streetsigns at cnbc.com. let's talk about the big news on the way. technology. we have two giant names coming out with earnings after the bell, yahoo! and apple. apple, obviously, one of the most anticipated reports of the season. apple is sort of maybe more of a colt kind of a religion thing than stock. here with a preview of what investors should be looking for is gene monster with piper jar fri. it may be fair to describe apple as a religion at this point, gene? >> it definitely is a cult not only amongst the users but in talking to investors we've seen that same fanaticness with investors as well. >> we see it in our e-mail box. if you're looking within the apple numbers today, what are you going to pull out?

>> you know, the big first number is going to be the iphone number. that's the most profitable part of their business. it's growing the fastest. the 7.2 million. if they do better than that, that's going to be viewed as a positive. better than 7.2 represents an increase in the year over year growth rate versus the december quarter. that's going to be really the critical number. obviously the mac is important, 2.9 is what most investors are thinking. no one really cares about the ipod anymore, 10 million units are what people are thinking. the last very important -- >> sorry. >> i was going to say the guide is important as well. and typically they guide down and they're kind of the bogey number if they guide above or below 233 is going to be the magic number in earnings for the june quarter. above 233, investors should read that as a less conservative guidance or more 079s -- optimistic and that will be viewed as positive. >> what about the ipad and what bob pisani was talking about, which is that some maybe former

apple employee was out drinking at a bar and left a prototype for the successor and now people can see it so now don't buy this one because a better one is coming. anything in there on that you think? >> anybody who's seen this stuff has known that's been the rumored functions on it. i don't think that's any surprise. it's really hard for people who want an iphone to wait that long. you could see maybe more of a dip a month before. but you're probably not going to see it. ultimately if they're going to wait they're going to buy the phone who cares what quarter it comes into. >> bottom line, yahoo! in a nutshell what are you looking for? >> street is at 9 cents. we think they're going to do 10 cents. the street at 1.17 million in revenue we think it's going to be in line with that. in line or slight upside should be positive for the stock. >> thank you very much. good to see you, gene. >> thank you. >> next on the show is goldman's golden child losing its shine? lloyd blankfein faces the

ultimate test. coming up next, ash, the ash detector, the technology that nobody wanted until now. we're going to talk to the man who predicted the volcano crisis and had the product that could make it safe to fly. he's going to weigh in on whether you should be getting in the sky today. we'll be back.

half of europe's scheduled

flights are back in the air today. iceland air meantime has kept flying throughout the ash crisis and now they're preparing their european flights for takeoff, they've been flying one way but not the other. interesting when the volcano is in your country get the wind on one side and clear on the other. joining us, i knew they would put the name in there and i must admit i don't know how to say it. this man will tell me. the ceo of iceland air. thank you very much for being with us. i know you're standing right near the volcano, but that is snow on your jacket, not ash? >> yeah. that is snow. the volcano is behind us and we have the first day of summer in iceland is in two days hopefully it will change. >> i just want to make sure we cleared up what was there. thank you very much for going all the way to our cameras there. i know nbc's chris jansing has been there and we have the shot by the volcano. it was quite a drive for you. let me ask you the situation in terms of your flights.

you've been flying the routes not affected by the ash, the entire time. are you now opening up all the rest of the flights since technically air controllers say it's okay? >> basically, the situation with us has been rather great. we have been able to operate the past five day to the u.s. and we have also been able to operate to northern scandinavia. we in total we have been able to operate all of our flights. >> has there been any difficulty -- anything that's shown up in terms of your engines or concern about safety? >> no, nothing at all. we have been very careful and we have, of course, listened to our experts and we to lo what the controller has -- we follow what the control has sent out and we have been flying to oslo and stockholm and scotland this morning and we expect to fly to copenhagen tonight and hopefully continental europe tomorrow.

>> and you've been losing, what, half a million dollars a day when you weren't able to operate those routes? >> yeah. we are estimating it's about $400,000, $500,000 a day, but we have been lucky with that, that we've been able to operate 50%, 60% of our flights until now. >> so so far no difficulties. final question to you, sir. what's it like there at that volcano? what's your impression? how close were you able to get? >> it is rather chilly, but the view is not that great because it's cloudy, but it looks good. it is always very interesting to see how the nature works and to be here close to it. >> well, it is the youngest country in the world in terms of just age of land. thank you so much for being with us. you heard the ceo of iceland air say no issues and so far it's safe to put his planes back in the air. the ash crisis is new to many of

us. it was a surprise to all these airlines. one scientist has been studying it for decades. we've been calling him the ash detector because his technology can warn pilots of an ash emergency before it's too late. that's because they frankly cannot see the ash in the air until the engines often stop running. why isn't the airline industry using this technology? joining us on the phone, fred prada, senior scientist at the norwegian institute. we appreciate your taking the time. you started this technology, what, a couple decades ago. i know eric moody the pilot in the plane where all four engines should shut down because of an indonesia volcano said you had this technology 20, 30 years ago? >> that's right. i was working in perth, in west australia, and that aircraft was due to come in and of course it was all in the newspapers then and a big problem. i started looking at satellite data, the kind of images you've

probably been seeing there in the news reports, and i figured out a way to discriminate the ash from normal meteorological clouds, ice and water clouds. so that turned out to be quite a useful breakthrough and i wrote a few papers. but not many people paid much attention. then there was another incident in 1989, a klm, 747 300 flew into an ash cloud, and that brought a lot more attention and then people started using my algorithms and we thought, well, wouldn't it be good if we had this on an aircraft. so we designed an instrument to look forward from an aircraft and see the ash cloud, just like a radar would work. but it's been difficult to get acceptance. >> and why is that? i mean if you look at the statistics here, nearly 500 airports on this planet are within 100 kilometers, what's that, 60 miles or something, of volcanos that are either erupting right now, putting ash in the air, or could erupt at

any moment? >> yeah. you're giving my talk. it's also true that any one time there's a volcano erupting somewhere around the world, about once a week there's some ash in the atmosphere which is affecting aviation. but we've not anything as significant as this and in one of the dens parts of the world where there's aviation. people will take notice now, i think. >> so, what's the overall cost of this device and wait, which i know mr. moody has said might have been an issue for the airlines? >> i don't know why eric moody said that, actually. it's just a few kilograms. it's not particularly heavy. aircraft can easily carry such instruments. so i don't know. i mean we had an early prototype which looked a bit chunky. maybe he was thinking of that. these cameras can sit in the palm of your hand so it really is -- that's not really an issue. >> they're small. >> right. so they're small. they don't weigh a lot. how quickly could you make them and what would you sell them for? >> okay.

well i don't know about price. they're not expensive. but the problem is, of course, they have to go into a commercial jet airliner. they have to look forward. so there must be a window. it's like a camera looking out of a window. and it's using infrared radiation so it can be working during the day or the night. but it needs a special kind of window to look at, not just glass. so you then have to sertify it for say flying. this takes many hours. and then we have to look at false detections. has to be integrated with the cockpit instruments. training for the pilots. there will be maintenance issues. it's not just a matter we'll strap it on to the aircraft and away we go. >> bottom line, dr. prata, you don't think it's safe right now to fly over europe? >> i wouldn't do it. i'm not doing it. i'm driving down the coast road to los angeles. my flight is canceled so i will just wait. >> thank you very much. we appreciate it. be interesting to see if the airlines start doing this now

that this has certainly put ash on the proverbial radar. just ahead, it's been a tough week for lloyd blankfein. will the sec's case overshadow his leadership or is this just a hiccup for mr. blankfein? in today's market the smart money is in 4 x.

big earn report of the day is goldman sachs. looking at these headlines here, lots of surging across the board. the net nearly doubled to $3.3 billion on a per share basis, that's $5.59. the target on wall street, $4.01. safe to say they blew past those numbers. stock has been down slightly on the the new revenue was up 35% and about $2 billion ahead of expectations. so, will the sec's fraud charges against goldman be the ultimate test of lloyd blankfein's leadership in here to discuss, susan craig who covers goldman sachs for "the wall street journal". glad to have you with us. what's your perspective on how he's coming through this so far? is he gaining support or losing it? >> i think it depends in what --

where you look for that. i think internally and among the constituents be it his board and employees, i think they're sort of rallying inside. i think publicly this has been a very devastating blow to goldman. i think it sort of depends on where you look. >> interesting, when -- from goldman's side, they try to make the case of hey, during all of this, prior to this fraud case, obviously they were a lot of other issues for goldman's reputation and they say, look, we grew profits, came through this with flying colors, we haven't lost market share. is that bought by the board, bought internally and does that reflect on lloyd's leadership or not? >> yeah. i mean i think shareholders care a lot about the share value and so does the board and it's been going up. i think the question for goldman and mr. blankfein in the coming weeks is sort of at a certain point the public relations issue can sort of surpass other issues going on and the question is how much of a distraction is it and do we need to make a change, do we need to send a change to the marketplace? right now i think he's safe but wall street as we learned during

the credit crisis, a day is a long time and i think you have to sort of take it day by day. >> right. and a lot of people -- susan, of course, have likened this to the frontrunning of the 30-year treasury going out of existence and how someone at goldman went to jail, took the fall for that. will it be fabrice tourre who was relatively junior and wasn't making the calls here or someone higher up? >> we don't have criminal charges. who knows. it's a long way away in terms of will this go to court, wills they they settle? it's hard to say if the scapegoat will be lower. usually when they get out of control someone higher up has to leave. i don't think we're at that point right now. >> what about everyone else. lloyd has the backing. what about david vinner and mr. cohn, anyone losing support from your reporting? >> no. i think what you're seeing is typical when an institution is under attack like when a family is under attack people rally. you're not seeing a lot of sort

of division in terms of internally. i think there's always questions about how things are handled and maybe an overall strategy about all the -- from the pundits. internally you're not seeing that yet. >> all right. thank you very much, susan craig. we appreciate it. against the backdrop of goldman sachs, the sec case, and yesterday's big earnings report from citi, citi is doing a day two and that's a shareholder meeting which one could argue is more important than the earnings. mary thompson is at the meeting in new york. >> hey there. citi's first-quarter profit that the bank reported yesterday, small comfort to the thousand or so shareholders who showed up today. chairman dick parsons did tell them citi has turned a corner. they remain angry about the losses they've sustained and angry at legacy directors, including parsons, who they hold accountable for all of sit ti's troubles. here's a small sampling of what investor grievances we heard at the annual meeting today. >> we need new blood in citi

bang boa bank board and a change of the present chairman. >> i feel strongly that they're trying to do the right thing, but is it too late to do anything that will bring about quick success or increase value of a stock? >> reporter: all that anger, not resulting in any changes today. all 15 of citi's directors were elected to the board. six shareholder proposals defeated. seven management-backed proposals were approved including one on say and pay and another that gives the board the option to conduct a reverse stock split if necessary. ceo vikram pandit tells investors he feels a lot better than last year, though challenges remain for the bank. building on citi's footprint, controlling expenses and cutting credit costs are key to a better citi. with all the questions swirling about wall street's integrity these days, he listed his principles for a responsible financial firm.

>> first, we will contribute to the economic recovery. two, we will promote customer choice and control. and three, we will advocate change that is in the interest of customers. >> reporter: still, erin, a lot of investors expressing their discouragement today that their interests haven't been served. the company stock is down about 80% over the last two years. back to you. >> thanks very much to you, mary. and on thursday we want everyone to know, president obama will be following up on all of this, the sec fraud case against goldman, the earnings from goldman, citi, jp morgan. he'll be in new york speaking about financial regulation and he will speak to john harwood exclusively. we will have that here on "street signs" tomorrow. i wonder if there's any psychological importance that john harwood's face is bigger on that screen than barack obama's? next on the show, get ready to stop trading. we will get cramer's take on

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welcome back to "street signs." rick santelli here. i will tell you that the canadian central bank today, even though they didn't raise rates, but the way they alluded to the notion of potentially next meeting will be a rate changer to the upside, has affected the yield curve in pretty much every major industrialized economy. if you look at the chart of the currency you can see we haven't seen the green back on the nonsunny side of parody or 1.000

in about two years. as you look at entry of our two-year note you can see its rates elevated. i can show you a two year security in canada, i can tell you it was up 18 basis points after that announcement, closed slightly over 2%. we haven't seen a 2% handle on a canadian two-year since october of '08 and a lot of flattening of yield curves around the globe was caused, catalyst was canada. even in the u.s. here, i see the fed funds pit was going a bit crazy early and still going crazy. is this going to push our central bank to tighten quicker? many don't think so, but the trading community at least for today is trading in that style. erin, back to you. >> wow. bossed around by canada. wonder how big ben would feel about that. jim cramer, what do you think? he's going to get pressured by canada? >> i don't know. canada, australia. these countries are fiscally sound and they've got great natural resources. >> they avoided the crisis, both of them. >> they have conservative

banking rules. you would never want to bet against those bank because they actually had skin in the game. i just think canada's remarkable place to invest and just wish when i was up there when it was at 60 and tried to buy land in prince edward island they said no -- >> you would have to be a fan to be able to do that. >> that's what we were there to visit. >> that's right. because you have daughters. so you do know what that means. >> that's what we were there to see. all right. and with the red pig tails. so, jim, canada does one other thing that the u.s. does not appear to be copying. and that is requiring its banks to have a 20% reserves. >> right. look one of the things that canadian banks, the canadian banks did right, was that they are -- they're very transparent companies. i mean it really -- it's a different culture up there. they don't like -- they're not about to juice the earnings. they're about growth, about expanding around the globe. our banks have all been in retreat with the exception of citigroup, our banks don't -- go to a latin american country all

you see is bank of nova scotia. they were about growth, buying commerce bank in new jersey. they were never about trying to stimulate growth through the use of riskier practices. i think it's a great lesson to be learned. >> all right. jim let's get to a bunch of names today. first of all, goldman, it's down a little bit. would you really do anything with goldman? you already own it for your charitable -- not like you're -- >> my goal is a battle ground. you can waste a huge amount of energy trying to understand goldman and what's going to happen or go find illinois tool works. goldman's too hard. sometimes i used to say this at my hedge fund, throw my hands up, i don't have to figure out everything in the world. i'm seeding this one. let someone else smarter than i am try to figure it out. >> illinois tool works has been not just them, snap-on, parker hannifin, all of these guys? >> eaten down a little today after a great quarter. it's not hard to figure out

what's going on with those companies. they fired a lot of people, but the revenue stayed the same. the earnings are exploding. who knows what will happen now that the world gets better and they're not being sued by the sec, three out of ten -- five commissioners and they're not having to like not answer questions on a call because all they want to talk about is how great aerospace is. you know what, this is -- goldman is hard money right now, it's hard to make money in. take it off the screen. you want growth? go by citigroup. vikram pandit. >> growth, go by citigroup. some would say i never heard the day that would come out of anybody's mouth. >> this is the best quarter we've had. >> when that conference quarter went on you have david viniar and greg palm, the general council sitting there, does lloyd sit in the room and make wild motions on mute or force him to go into another room? i'm just wondering. >> i think david viniar is fabulous but they'll probably put me in the jurms of jail for saying that. he's a great guy, honest and

terrific. you dpee fend these guys these days and someone says cramer is on the take. even i get beleaguered. i'm like a nonstop machine. i am beleaguered by it. >> beleaguered. >> goldman, catch me a couple months, i'll give you the complete skinny. it's too hard. everybody who is playing. i saw the protection the insurance and the puts, they're out of control. there's analyst who is want to make their career bringing down goldman and the reporters who want to make their career bringing down goldman. me, what i say, i say give me old parker hannifin, will you? >> look at it, jim, just getting out of the -- it's uncharacteristic and not attractive of you, don't get out of the fray. you can on this one, but you know, really -- >> thank you. >> let's get a few more names. oil drillers trade today. >> halliburton was an amazing conference call. they said things are getting better all over. even in natural gas, under $4, drilling like mad. when you see china putting money into these countries they are not going to be idle. the catch with china, drill,

drill, drill. that's why we're going to hear from them later this week looks good. amusing to see this group, like transocean, now really breaking out. this is all about the chinese needing oil, not about the oil futures, oil inventory. we can keep reading about the international, you know, energy association saying there's less demand. nonsense. a country like china is a smart country that needs to be thinking all the time about where its oil is going to come from in 2020. it doesn't care about the west texas crude and it doesn't care about the iea. what it cares about is having gasoline in its country. >> right. which doesn't require a lot of foresight or thinking about 2020. >> they're like smart guys, bunch of smart communists sitting around. communists on mute and got the phone mute, guys that like to invest. i love investing with the chinese communists because you know what, they've got to figure it out on a year basis. they're not thinking about the next quarter. you have to admire that.

they are worried about long-term oil demand. that is why all of these drillers are rallying. >> all right. mr. cramer, thank you. >> goldman, let me go back on mute, goldman. >> decide whether you want to be in or out of the fray. i've never seen you avoid a bar fight. >> i'm about to ruin my career. i actually like lloyd blankfein. i'm finished. they took my mike away. am i still on? >> no. this is welcome to hell, jim. more of jim tonight, 6:00 and 11:00 eastern on cnbc. next is housing ready for the biggest comeback in 60 years? are we heading towards more trouble? what are the best trades right now? goldman and mr. paulson may not have wanted to tell anybody their position, but not everybody is so afraid. we'll have the trades next. >> and a quick reminder, all the recommendations expressed by jim cramer are solely his and not the opinions of cnbc. and may have been previously disseminated by him. before acting on a

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welcome back to "street signs." with your daily reality check. first-time home buyers accounted for nearly 50% of home sales in march. that's a new record according to campbell surveys. it surpasses the high last october when buyers expected the tax credit to expire, the credit extension expires in ten days. the survey shows over 50% of homes for sale were either short sales or foreclosures. 62% of homeowners say they will renovate in 2010. american express did the survey and cite the homes appearance and value as the number one and two motivators. they expect to spend an average $6200 to enhance their properties and while 47% will hire a contractor, 14% will do it themselves. the nation's largest mortgage insurer reported its 11th straight loss.

it will sell $1 billion in stocks and notes to repay debt maturing next year. check back with the reality check up next tomorrow at 11:350. erin? >> thanks very much to you. now what is the real estate trade? one of the top analysts for 15 years, took advantage of the global property bubble in 2008 to go to form his own hedge fund got the trade right and joining us now is the former read analyst at citi, ceo of land and buildings, jonathan lit. good to see you again. >> thank you for having me on. >> diana was reporting about half of the sales for new homes in march, the numbers she got today, were because of the first-time home buyer tax credit which we believe is really going away this time. what does that say to you? is that concerning it's half of the market? >> i think you can't really take the current housing statistics too seriously. the government has been doing everything they can to support the housing market whether it's the easing of the tax credit or

loser fha rules. it's the test of what happens in may, june, july i like the statistics, although i think we're getting a false sense of what the real demand is. >> that brings me to the former chief economist at goldman sachs, lot of buzz on the show last week or ten days ago and said he thinks we could have the strongest housing recover since 1946 and multi family home construction could triple by 2012. >> i hope he's right. from his mouth to god's ears. we would love to see that happen and that means the economy is in great shape and growing demand, et cetera. i'm hopefulle the economy will make it through once the government stimulus comes off. the concern now is that we still have a lot of inventory to get through. we have 2, 3 million homes that are vacant, more than we would normally have. we have 600,000 new homes being built. so i think we still have some time before we're going to have demand catching up and absorbing all that supply. >> so we -- because everyone keeps saying just because of demographics, people moving in,

forming homes we're going to have this pent up demand. you're saying there's still so much supply in the wings. >> demand side, is quite good. we need a million plus new homes a year. >> right. >> we lost households of 2 million during the downturn. so there is some pent up demand. we need probably 1.5 million, 2 million in new households, new homes that will be transacted. we have to eat through the supply. i think housing prices will be kind of lack luster the next couple years and will make it more difficult. >> so we'll make it simple here, unlike the folks at goldman sachs, what are you betting is going to go up and down? so within residential housing, what stocks do you think will go higher? >> we prefer the apartments right now. we think that the individual, that's just coming off the bottom, is looking about where they want to live, getting out of their parents' house, out of a roommate. they're probably not going to take on a mortgage. first thing is they're going to rent an apartment. we think the apartment owners, an equity residential are the place to be positioned for very good growth over the next several years. >> that's ess and eqr as the top

two names. within housing, what stocks, what housing stocks might go up and which ones do you think have further downside? >> more downside than upside. these stocks ran hard, ran hard on improving housing statistics. we would want to be short names which have exposure to the entry-level home buyer. kb homes, 80% of their sales are to the entry-level buyer, being the most stimulated by the government activities and when the housing tax credit goes away, if you go on the kb website there's a clock and says you have ten days, four hours, 32 minutes, 15 seconds and whatever milli seconds. they are banking on this. sales are going to fall off. stocks are a little rich in here. probably pull back a bit. once this -- that stabilizes and gets flushed out might be an interesting stock. near term i think it's going to be difficult. >> the short kb home and dr horton. >> would be the other name. about 50% of their exposure to the entry-level home buyer. >> is there any residential home

stock that you think goes up? you say i'm just going to keep -- >> on the margin i think the mid-priced homes will do better. a toll brothers or a name where they're more focused on at the non-entry level end of the spectrum. >> all right. jonathan lit, thank you very much. we appreciate it. giving us names we can take some action on. and not hiding what he was short. thanks so much. we appreciate it. jonathan lit from land and buildings and for many years, the top ranked analyst by institutional investor while he was at citigroup, before that, sol he mon, smith barney. next on the show, revenue, is the new black. why it is the only thing that matters this earnings season. we'll be right back. dow up about 33, 11,124. we'll be right back. >> you're watching "street signs," navigating the business of wall street, washington, and the world.

the big focus this earnings season isn't on earnings, it's on revenue.

but question remains will profits be driven by sales and revenue growth, not just more cost-cutting? bertha coombs at earnings central with a revenue rundown. revenue not so much or at least not usually. >> reporter: exactly, about 14% of the s&p, reporting, as of this morning the blended revenue growth rate is projected to be up about 11% for the first quarter. that's about the same as where we started quarter. looking at results in from 69 companies now, actual revenue growth is up right now about 5%. that's where we are. the surprise factor, they're beating by about 4%. 65% have been beating in the overall s&p 500 by 4%, but financials have really been the standout here. take a look at the difference here. we've had 15 companies reporting so far. that's about 20% of the financials. and goldman sachs' results this

morning, certainly, really had a major impact. blended revenue growth for the group is now projected to be up about 5%. that's up from 3% just yesterday. that's up from 1% just a couple of weeks ago before the start of earnings season, and while fewer companies have beaten, only about 40% have beaten on revenues, the interesting thing is they have beaten by a big 12% with all of those circles there, i'll take them out. and that, of course, is because of that big billion dollar beat on the top line by goldman sachs. nonetheless, we are still very early in the game, erin, and coming up on the "closing bell," we're going to take a look at rest the scorecard of the bottom line ahead of yahoo! and apple's numbers due out after the close. >> thank you very much, bertha. we're going to take a brief break and then we'll be talking about a drug, but first your "trend of the day." they've served for decades as a golden, tasty sidekick...

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it's 420, and cnbc is honoring this very special day by rolling out a brand-new report on the business of pop, whoever wrote this knows much, much too much about it. cnbc's trish regan has this scoop on the pot. hey, trish. >> reporter: the way that you rolled off 420 off of your tongue, erin -- >> right. >> -- let's back up real quick and let our viewers know because not everyone knows what 420 is.

it's a counterkumture holiday that started in the 1980s. so just kind of like you have the 5:00 is the time to drink, well for marijuana enthusiasts 420 p.m. around the world is the time to light up a joint and most especially on april 20th at 420. so with that in mind we have a huge special report today on marijuana, an in-depth special on the economic, the politics of marijuana in america. and it shows that despite efforts for legalization of recreational pot used in california and the majority of americans are still opposed to legalization for any purpose though they support it for medicinal reasons. now according to our poll results on cnbc.com, 55% of americans oppose legalization for any purpose, but the one-third of the country is in favor. soap you can see right there, 33%, about one-third of the country actually thinks that this could be something that could be done and something pretty interesting, of those that were against legalization

for any purpose, some softened when they considered taxing it. in fact 14% of them turned their vote in favor, provided the tax revenue would go to state programs and services. so it's showing you here that economic incentives here do matter a little bit anyway. moving on, we want to talk about whether or not legalize, were to be legalized, most that were polled believes state government should tax the sale of it by how much is up for debate over one-third said a 5% tax would be too low, almost half say 25% is too high. of course economists say that you've got to get the tax rate just right because otherwise you would drive production back underground if those taxes were too high. and as for who should sell pot if actually made legal this is interesting, our poll found americans want to keep pot private. more than half of those surveyed say they would prefer marijuana to be sold by a private business. so that's a pretty interesting commentary.

they're not trusting the government to get it right when it comes to the drug. and finally, i want to talk about one of the major problems with marijuana. the fact that it is an underground industry, it opens the doors to enormous crime because it's so profitable. the most profitable drug in the world, in fact. americans seem to know this, a majority say legalization would reduce crime or at least crime would stay the same, should it be legalized. you know i have an article on these enormous pot profits along with an upcoming excerpt on the website it's at marijuana.cnbc.com. we also have the documentary running again tonight. so a whole lot of pot for 4/20, erin. >> that is a lot. and by the i way will admit because i wouldn't say the producer's name because by the way i wouldn't want to embarrass her and she knows 4/20 and she doesn't care, andrea doesn't care. she knew all about it. >> good for you, andrea. >> for those who may not have known -- trish, all right. one other headline we wanted to update you on since this is a

story that we've obviously been following closely over the past year, pirates apparently notice five or more accused pirates will be accused here in the united states. we'll follow that one for you. time now for the "closing bell." earnings news sparking around on wall street, and now investors are setting their sights on a pair of key technology results. apple and yahoo! -- set to report after the bell. will this be the next lift that investors are looking for? live from the new york stock exchange, this is the final and most important hour of the trading day. >> and good afternoon. live at the floor of the new york stock exchange. hi, everybody. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo here at the big board. stocks up modestly higher once again in the homestretch here, some positive earnings results today. earlier in the day helping to carry the bulls once again. we are seeing a sharp drop, though in volatility. volume on the light side as

well. later on the "closing bell," we're taking a look on what investors are zeroing on and whether or not the risk play are back on wall street. are now getting set for those key earnings after the bell on apple an yahoo!. we've got instant an alsis and give you the preview momentarily. where we stand right now in the market. we're close to the high in the afternoon, which of course, was hit at about 12:30 p.m. or so today. up 40 points on the industrial average. one-third of 1%. 11132 on the blue chip average. nasdaq looks like this with a gain of 20 points right at 2500 on the nasdaq ahead of those key technology earnings. s&p 500 looks like this with a gain on the session as well, nearly 1% higher once again. 12 points at 1207. back above 1200 on the standard & poor's. to talk about the themes that they're seeing in today's action, my co-host for the hour. simon hobbs. scott wapner's over at nasdaq. sharon epperson at the nymex. rick santelli at the