"street signs" begins right now. and be sure to check out "power lunch"'s new friends page. it's up now from what i understand guys. thank you. today we're learning how to say fear in portuguese. greece is so 2011. portugal the new bad boy of europe. stocks hitting the brakes on a four-week rally. we'll break down what stocks need to break out. and more original content courtesy of the "street signs" team. we're on the prowl for big cheap tech. our stock screener digging up tech names with low valuations and paying a dividend. five stocks made the cut. that list ahead. somebody call kitten play because it's house party time. the builders are booming this year. the folks who provide the guts powering them with higher valuations, we're going to look at some of the under the radar names getting a housing bump. and does blackberry have a second act in its future? the new ceo was in the cnbc

house last night. impressive new hardware. we'll take you inside the meetding where things got a little heated. that's all coming up. we have to get to the big breaking news right now. "the wall street journal" reporting facebook will be filing for a long-awaited ipo next wednesday. kayla tausche has more. >> brian, my sources tell me that the company is eyeing the valuation between $75 billion and $100 billion which just last hour we were saying makes sense. my sources were telling me earlier this week that something in the $80 billion range, low 80s, high 80s, makes sense based on where the company was trading on the private markets. the last trade valued at just below $75 billion. that $100 billion valuation, that price unfortunately stuck. i think the company wants to shy away from that. that number came into play this summer when obviously the ipo markets were on a tear. money was cheap. that's not the case right now. and that valuation will have to come down. so we are following the journal headlines as they come out. we're also making our own calls. we'll have more for you as it develops.

we are expecting it to be lower than $100 billion. >> before we let you go, talk to us about morgan stanley for a second. morgan stanley stock is not even at the highs of the day. the market not giving it any facebook ipo bump. i heard you talking earlier that maybe they were going to hammer down the price. so maybe not a windfall of profit for the banks on this deal. >> yeah. they're definitely going to hammer down the price on this. if you were facebook, you would too. if you could get something that's a record low for a corporate issuer, i'm sure you would. goldman stock is moving a lot. haven't seen other news out there involving goldman, but the journal headlines saying goldman likely to play a large role. they had a few mishaps earlier last year when they had a few flubs during the private placement that they did with dst. the company not happy about the negative press by not being able to place their facebook shares with u.s. clients. it will be interesting to see if morgan stanley does get that so-called lead left position. but the price is going to be low. it's not going to be a huge

windfall, just for the pride. >> kayla tausche, thank you very much. we'll have much more on facebook throughout the day on cnbc. let's talk market cap for a second, herb. you heard kayla talk about $75 billion to $100 billion as a possible market cap once this thing is done. so i thought where would that put facebook if it was in the s&p 500. look at that. facebook if it had a market cap between $75 billion and $100 billion, it would be about the same size as bank of america, qualcomm and close, herb, to mcdonald's. mcdonald's does $27 billion a year in sales. you think facebook should deserve a $100 billion valuation? >> well, i don't know. i haven't seen the numbers and neither have you. >> you think they're doing $27 billion in sales? >> as we always talk about here on "street signs," stock prices. this price and this valuation is based on what the stock is trading for on the second market. remember, stocks are supposed to be based discounting the future. we don't know. there's so much we don't know. and how many times have we seen

this? in fact, let's go back to zynga. zynga's a great example of people getting very excited until they saw the numbers. this is a little different business and this business doing based on what we see from users doing a pretty good job. >> 800 million users around the world including yourself. you have google plus, google and facebook, maybe their relationship is not the best. you wonder what they're making in revenue, right? that's the key. bankers have looked through the books. somebody out there has to have a suspicion about what the valuation should be. what equity valuation would you put? 40 times premium? but when you already have 800 million users, what's your growth rate left? the law of large numbers will kick into facebook at some point. >> at some point. you also want to see the trend and you want to see the growth trends and you mentioned revenues. in this case are we also talking earnings? i don't know. there's a lot we just don't know. so i keep saying that, but we get all excited and all everybody wants to do now is get

their hands on the documents. >> here's what i want you to do, this is your homework, you going to get on a greyhound and head to silicon valley and get their books and report back what you find. >> i don't take orders from you. >> the markets unable to shake off eurosis. started the week around 1317 and unfortunately right now looks like going to have our first down week in a month. let's look a little longer term. this is a chart of the s&p 500 going back to 2006, basically pre-facebook almost. a six-year chart of the s&p 500. the reason we're going into this way back machine is because technicians telling us that the 1300 mark right there is going to be key as support should we fall to that level. you can see 1300 has played a role a few times in the last few years. so how strong is that support? and maybe more important for you the investor, what's it going to take for us to break out past that? go to the april highs and maybe move back up to that 14 u mark?

let's join now by dan, the director of technical research at jany capital markets. thank you for rescuing us from facebook. i'm all aflutter. do you see the market testing 1300? and if so, do you see it holding? >> yeah. certainly this year we see the market testing 1300. in fact, at some point this year we see the s&p as breaking 1300 this year. we're still really in a multiyear basing effort as far as u.s. equity markets go. our thesis remains the same that you're in the tail end of a deflationary bear market cycle. this comes post banking crisis here in the u.s., which means the markets are stabilizing against some pretty fierce macro headwinds. what that means is investors really should expect more range-bound behavior from the markets as we build this big base and get ready for the next secular bull market or next secular expansion. 1300 is not a big deal to me as

a trader. i think you break it this year. >> okay. we break below it. so how low do we go? where's the next support? and how long are we going to be there? three very simple questions, dan. >> sure. sure. there's a pretty simple answer. but the answer is patience. like i said, in a basing effort, this can take several years. i don't think we break to new lows past what we hit in 2009. i mean, that would be below 665. history has shown us once you move past the banking crisis lows, your market will stabilize and start to build higher lows. again, we're gearing up for the next secular expansion in this country. so where would be a low this year? we would look to maybe mid-1100s possibly down to mid 1,000 range on the s&p. i think at that point it would be a pretty major flush out in terms of sentiment. and that would be a great buying opportunity for another cyclical run higher in the markets. >> last question, we just looked at some of your three key measures, right. and you had demographic cycle

upturn. most people look at demographics, hundreds of people turning 60 every hour we're ageing, they're going to extract money from the market rather than put it in. is there a positive demographic play here? >> absolutely. when you look at the history of the stock market, there's three drivers every time for every secular expansion. and that's an up trend or trough in valuations. an up trend or trough in the credit deleveraging cycle. we've never had a secular bull market against a credit contraction. and the third one is exactly demographics. in this country there's a boom bust cycle. and i think it's incorrect for people to focus on the ageing baby boomers as being an extraction of wealth. if you look behind them, the mill len yals are the next baby boom in this country. right now the fat tail within that cohort between the ages of 18 and 24, we have it pegged and the status from the u.s. census as of 2010, we have it pegged that this demographic's actually larger than the baby boomers.

when they come online, they're going to have huge impact not only to our economy and society but the stock markets as well. >> dan, great to have you on. thanks for your technical take. we'll see you again on "street signs." >> thank you. >> that's the technical take. now let's hit the fundamentals and bring in rich weiss, senior portfolio manager at american century investments and cio at huntington assets. i'm going off script here just a bit. we're talking facebook. i know you haven't seen the books, nobody probably has except facebook board and bankers maybe. i want to ask you a couple questions first to you, rich. can facebook be a catalyst for this market? this is not zynga, this is not groupon. this is facebook. everybody knows the company. if it goes off well, could that potentially lift all boats? or will it just suck money away from other investments? >> no. i think it's former. it's very possible facebook ipo is a positive for the market if not fundamentally, psychologically. and i think that's where the input comes from. it's hard to envision one company as big as it is moving

or turning the markets, but i think it's a very positive psychological impact. and i look forward to it. >> all right. randy, do you agree with that? and would you buy -- it's a stretch because you don't know the numbers, but would you buy facebook? >> i'm not sure we'd buy facebook. and i'm not sure this is going to be the turn of a new 1990s technological boom. and we'll see those taking off. but what we do know is we're seeing all of a sudden a great deal more of the ipos as well as takeovers. this past week we've seen a number in the technology area, in the health care area and in materials area. and those are all pretty exciting, i think. we have two or so trillion sitting on the sideline on corporate books. corporate america is pretty strong right now. i think they're going to use that to make acquisitions. i think it only makes sense. this could be another period where we'll see some market strength simply because of all that cash that's flowing around out there. >> randy, sorry to interrupt and

i hate to go back to facebook, but it is the big story that's sort of developing and breaking right now. rich thought it would maybe lift all boats. you know, it's going to be on the cover of sort of general news publications. it's not just a cnbc thing, right? do you think facebook is good for equities overall? >> oh, absolutely. i think there's no question. >> okay. we have skeptical herb here shaking his head and grunting under his breath. what's your problem? >> the only reason i'm grunting under my breath is because we're saying it's going to be fabulous before we know what it is. >> who said it's going to be fabulous? >> you just said it's going to be fabulous for the stock market. >> that was a question. rich, was that not a question? save me. >> it could be a question and an answer. >> let me tell you somebody pointed out to me the yield on the 10-year notes fell the moment this news started to come out. i don't know what that means but it's one of those sort of like the market is all around just taking this as -- >> and somewhere a bird died. what are you dpoing to throw more random stuff? >> no. i think they're all interesting things the way the market participants are now looking for

something to hold their hat on. they're really jumping at this thing. >> all right. guys, i want to bring up gsv capital. rich and randy, sit tight. we're not done. i apologize, we're kind of flying by the seat of herb's pleated pants here. look at that stock on the move. got a roll in facebook, a stake apparently on the secondary market. either way gsv capital a name out there. randy, i want to go back to you and talk more about the ipo phenomena. a lot of the ipos this year have not been stars. the chinese ipos bust, social media ipos bust, do you ever venture into that realm at all? i mean, is that a world you would play in general social media? >> not necessarily. i think it's obviously a phenomena that's taking place and taking hold. we'd like to see proven management flows and what the debt is on the balance sheets. it's difficult to do that in many ipos. we would rather go with proven

management and proven names. there's a lot of good names and value out there. >> can you throw a couple out at us, randy? >> okay. look at farm income. came up 28% this past year. last year up 28%. we think the farmers are going to really benefit from that. we've already seen the big moves in cat and deere. but if you look deeper and look at something like cabela's, a lot of farm income might be going to discretionary spending. and if you look at terra nitrogen which we really love has a lot of potential to grow in the farm area and 8.25% yield on the sidelines. >> that's the real farmville you just described there. three related names. before we let you go and i apologize for floating around here because of the facebook news breaking in. we're going off script. tell us some of the areas you like and leave facebook behind if you like. >> 2011 if it showed us anything there's a great despairty across the market either a bull or bear

dependsing on where you were heavily alcoa kated. this year we're looking towards utilities, technology and reits. state investment trusts and diversified play in stocks, utilities provide a base and high dividend and relatively safe defensive sector if things go sour in europe. technology great earnings surprises there still. and last but not least, a look around the corner of the economic cycle, real estate investment, trust there are some bright spots on the home building side. so that's a play on the turn in this sickle if not earlier this year, hopefully later this year. >> yeah. we're going to be talking about some of the related names like the owens cornings on that world on housing resurfacing last few months later in the show. rich and randy, thanks for coming on. thanks for being good sports on the breaking facebook news. see you again on "street signs." on deck with many tech stocks rocking recently, valuations have started to get maybe a little rich. us cheapskates in search of

value schemes. got to be u.s. company, market cap more than $2 billion. mighty mites out. god to have a forward p/e of less than 10 and you have to pay a dividend, believe it or not only five names made that cut. and we're going to have those names and analysis coming up for you later on. plus, rim down 75% over the last year. the new ceo is in the house at cnbc last night. and he made us, some, maybe believe better days are really ahead for the company. we'll show you some of our exclusive video and talk about some of the products they talked about. more on facebook suddenly a busy friday and we're back after this. i'm consolidating my assets. i'm not paying hidden fees or high commissions. i'm making the most of my money. and seven-dollar trades are just the start. i'm with scottrade. i'm with scottrade. i'm with scottrade. and i'm loving every minute of it. [ rodger riney ] at scottrade, we give you commission-free etfs, no-fee iras and more. come see why more investors are saying...

i'm with scottrade. tspark card from capital one... spark cash gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. it's hard for my crew to keep up with 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. 2% cash back. that's setting the bar pretty high. thanks to spark, owning my own business has never been more rewarding. [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? this guy's amazing.

wow. look at river bed technology. rvbd, shares drying up. guidance the issue. the company said over 19 to 21 cents a share this quarter, current estimates stand at a quarter. coming in below wall street. the stock getting whacked down almost 18%. now, river bed is a forward p/e of 20, a trailing p/e of 60. maybe, herb, a sign of a high valuation risk when you disappoint. so given that, we went on a tech hunt, right. we ran a stock screener for you. always trying to bring more original content on "street signs." here are the metrics, got to be based in the u.s., got to be a tech or i.t. company, a market cap of more than $2 billion. must have a forward p/e in the single digits, less than 10. and kind of rare for tech, you have to pay a dividend. and now the names. computer sciences corp.,

lexmark, the printer maker, maybe older school tech, but they made the cut and listed as tech. corning making glass for lcds, xerox as well. and harris corporation. those are the five names that met our stock screener. let's dig in a little deeper. as herb always says, it's just a jumping off point. those are not recommendations, they're just digging through names for you. let's dig a little more into harris corp. doesn't get a lot of media attention, but our next guest has a strong buy on the stock. and he's a new face to cnbc. chris, analyst at raymond james. thanks very much for joining us. why do you have a strong buy on harris corp.? >> i'll give you three reasons. first, it's a cheap stock trading at seven times about a third discount to its peer group. we're seeing accelerated earnings with a billion dollar buyback. number two, traditionally seen as a defense company, they actually operate their most important business unit on a commercial business model which has allowed them to gain significant advantage over their prime contractor competitors.

and, third, that commercial mindset has allowed the company to do something most defense companies can't do which they're successfully diversifying out into health care, energy market and even a new secure cloud computing capability. >> you talked maybe the keyword, right. defense. the defense budget is getting whacked. leon panetta talking about that. do you think -- harris stock is down over the last year, do you think the market is lumping harris corp. in as just the defense budget is down, sell things that are defense budget-exposed. >> that certainly happened. and the defense stock's generally holding up reasonably well today on the news with some very specific program cancellations. i think when you actually see -- sort through the weed from the chaff, the important thing is there are some areas that are going to grow in the defense budget. one of those specifically called out in the document released yesterday is in the areas of electronic countermeasures and communications. and as a note here, harris' tag

line is assured communications. they play about every area of defense communications that's important. we see that as an opportunity for future growth. >> all right. chris, we're going to leave it there. a strong buy on harris corp. with a price target about $19 higher than it is right now. thanks for coming on "street signs." see you again. >> thank you. >> all right, just ahead. why al green just got a whole lot of money. plus, herb's buyback blues and why they maybe don't work. and later on from bolts to rugs to windows, pretty much everything you need to build a house is doing well recently. we'll give you some of the names behind the housing runup story and i will try to decipher a note that herb just passed to me onset. stick around. what's that say? take the privileged investing tools of wall street and make them simple, intuitive, and available to all. distill all that data. make information instinctual, visual. introducing trade architect, td ameritrade's empowering web-based trading platform.

take control of your portfolio today. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up $600 when you open an account. laces? really? slip-on's the way to go. more people do that, security would be like -- there's no charge for the bag. thanks. i know a quiet little place where we can get some work done. there's a three-prong plug. i have club passes. [ male announcer ] now there's a mileage card that offers special perks on united, like a free checked bag, united club passes, and priority boarding. thanks. ♪ okay. what's your secret? ♪ [ male announcer ] the new united mileageplus explorer card. get it and you're in. align can help.

only align has bifantis, a pantented probiotic that naturally helps maintain your digestive balance. ♪ ooh baby, (what) can i do for you today? ♪ try align today.

i'm so in love with you. [ cheers and applause ] >> crooner and chief is a hit. rendition of al green's hit sparked sales of the classic song hit. in fact sales of the tune up nearly 500%. by the way, let's stay together, number one on the charts back in 1972. >> that's like us. >> i was going to say, you know what else was classic back in

'72? you were. you celebrated your 20th anniversary in this business -- i'm kidding. we're just kidding, folks. herb's beefed up on buybacks. you sent me some chicken scratch you wanted to jump into the tech thing. let's get your point in there. >> facts sent out this interesting thing and basically pointed out so far in the earnings season ex-apple and the information technology sector, the actual earnings growth, blended earnings growth, down 2.3% or 2.9%. i think that's just kind of interesting. >> all right. now, let's get back to buybacks. we know you've been a very vocal critic of them. not just for the reason that companies can say they're going to buy back stock and under no legal obligation to purchase one stinking share, right? but what's your new beef? >> lots of my smart friends, including doug kasz, tell me i'm wrong every single time i dare question the wisdom of stock buybacks. now a new study suggests i am not entirely nuts.

thompson reuters says research shows as of the third quarter companies in the s&p 500 tended to be terrible at timing purchases with prices generally lower within a year after buying. now, we're talking about companies like ford, exxon mobil and fed ex which thompson reuters says have really bad track records over the past years with their buybacks. on the other hand st. jude medical and jc penney actually have a history of genuinely adding value with well-timed purchases. but they are in the minority. then there's netflix. from 2007 to 2009 the company bought shares at really at lows looking pretty smart, but here's where it made the mistake. it continued buying shares from 2010 to 2011 as shares skyrocketed to all-time highs around $300 a share spending several hundred million dollars in the process. netflix having to use so much cash for buybacks, the company had to raise $400 million for expansion. purchases of the shares in the

last go round was not necessarily money, my friend, well-spent. >> thank you very much. up next on "street signs," the new ceo of rim has some of us feeling bullish. is a second act in the cards? this one or this one. two or three. when the fed speaks, wall street listens. but which fed head moves the market the most? here's a hint, it's actually not ben bernanke. steve liesman has that answer coming up next. forty years ago, he wasn't looking for financial advice.

back then he had something more important to do. he wasn't focused on his future. but fortunately, somebody else was. at usaa we provide retirement planning for our military, veterans and their families. now more than ever, it's important to get financial advice from people who share your military values. for our free usaa retirement guide, call 877-242-usaa. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪

all right. it's street talk time. catching you up on some of the day's big headlines. what's bigger than this? breaking news the past hour that facebook could file for its long-awaited ipo as early as wednesday. "the wall street journal" reporting morgan stanley leading the battle to be the lead underwriter on the ipo. goldman sachs would have a stake in the ipo. remember, goldman sachs owns a stake of facebook, they were a private investor in the company a couple years ago. as we have about 90 minutes to go to the end of the trading week, stocks are mixed. the dow down double digits poised to snap weekly winning streak of four straight higher weeks. and chevron taking a beating today after reporting earnings miss. the oil giant saying it's refining business struggled to pass on higher crude costs. so there you go.

and, herb, let's talk more now about that facebook ipo news. i'm going to walk back just because i like you so much and sit down next to you. >> i like you too, sully. >> hug it out a bit. let's talk about facebook. something i tweeted out microsoft, a lot of people forget in 2007 microsoft put $240 million into facebook, reports they were trying to buy the company. they didn't. so they nvrsed $240 million. steve balmer takes a lot of flak, okay. people show videos of him dancing around. that is a dog on smart investment by microsoft. they're going to win big on this. >> it appears right now that that was a dog on smart investment. again, there's a lot i don't know. we also have to remember a lot of people have already sold out of that company. a lot of employees already sold some of their shares into the secondary markets. i always think that's important. something new here. >> yeah. thanks to our kayla tausche's been doing excellent reporting on this. gsv capital by the way publicly traded, they did a private placement in facebook last year.

if we can bring up gsv, this is an investment company that has a stake in the private market of facebook. so they put an investment in. so that stock is getting a big win. who else might get a big win here? goldman sachs. a lot of people saying goldman may not become the lead underwriter, guess what? they invested what is it $500 million back in december of 2010? >> think about that. gsv was able to get in, they have this investment in the ipo before in the company before it's public. it's all this -- this is all interesting stuff going on with the second markets. >> yep. >> i know we've been talking about it creates more liquidity, lets some people get out so they can cash out a little bit, get a little cash in, make some -- >> and not forget about peter teal. i've spoken with peter a couple times. not only one of the best tech investors, an early investor in paypal he was the first in facebook back in december of 2003. and his stake, i mean, peter's already successful and rich guy, he's going to absolutely boom. the guy that's going to boom is

mark zuckerberg. if it gets the $100 billion valuation, look where zuckerberg is likely to fall. he's likely to become the 23rd wealthiest human being on this planet. >> boy, there's a lot to live up to there. everybody's just going to want to dig into this thing. this is going to have every element of intrigue for an ipo. >> zynga might get a pop from this. all the attention from the people that may not be on facebook, there's actually some of them out there, maybe they'll start to sniff around. >> there's a lot of -- >> some people think it is up 5%. >> it's all a matter of how well they've monetized all of us who use it. >> really? is that true? our producer just in my ear with this little nugget. mark zuckerberg would be richer than larry of google fame. >> really? >> and guess what also? we should get jane wells to silicon valley stat because remember you and i were talking about home prices being --

literally a two-bedroom shack a million bucks. if you're a realtor in silicon valley right now, take the rest of the day off, go to dinner, buy your wife, buy your husband a nice bottle of wine because things are going to get very interesting in silicon real estate. do you agree? >> i do. this has been the great island because technology has certainly been good to the real estate -- >> too bad facebook can't move its headquarters to warren, ohio, youngstown, lift all boats. anyway, head back down to the nyse to get more on today's market. anything other than facebook on your radar to close the week, mary? >> i had to tell you brian, gives us something to talk about other than europe. what i do want to talk about is something plaguing the markets for quite some time, that being low volume. even today we're seeing fairly weak volume consolidated volume about $2.4 billion below a four-week average there. what you have to do is take a look at what's happening with mutual funds. we've seen outflows at least in domestic equity funds in four out of the last five weeks and

kind of supported today by leg mason's reports. they were hurt by two things. first of all the company's going through a restructuring. but also saw lower asset management fees. i've been speaking to traders on the floor bemoaning the fact there hasn't been a lot of activity and they think to great extent etfs are really having this huge impact on mutual funds starting to take away the volume and causing things to be a little quieter down here. >> mary, this is herb. that's excellent on the etfs and mutual funds, you're going to look at expense ratios and that's where the etfs will win out at this point which is certainly going to -- is increasing their impact on the markets in general. >> i think investors feel they have a little more upside with an etf than some of the mutual funds, which in general don't tend to outperform the market at all. i think some investors feel it's a better way to play it. >> you know, mary, we got to leave it there. i'll tell you what, it's all about facebook today.

>> yes. >> that fight between the nasdaq and where you are for facebook for the listing, boy, that's going to be interesting to watch. >> it's going to be. as you said, brian, an interesting couple of months. >> certainly is. mary thompson, we like that. thank you. let's go back now to the chevron miss. interesting after blaming refineries because oil trading around $100 a barrel you think they're going to make more profit. that's not the case. john joining us now founding partner at gain capital and cnbc contributor. $100 a barrel oil people scream big oil's making all this big money. chevron disappointing. i assume it's because input costs are also rising and they can't pass it on. >> that's right, brian. sort of the bane of the integrated model. you sort of hope to make it up in the different segments. they were hoping to make it up on oil production as you say but they've had problems most notably in brazil. that also impacts refinery operations, profits get squeezed because they haven't been able to pass along necessarily the higher costs of diesel and gasoline to us as quickly as

they'd like because, a, gasoline demand is down, and there's been resistance at the pump. >> and they've been shutting down some refineries. some are trying to be sold. some are just shuttered. where do you see this thing going here? are they going to be able to -- i assume they're trying to drive the price of gasoline higher. do you think they're going to be able to do that? >> very much so. i think this is going to become a big issue here in the spring and summer. u.s. refineries running about 82% of capacity. it's been that way through most of the year last year. it's continuing. and it could be a case where if the refineries that are right now closed or up for sale get closed, we only have two refineries operating in the east coast area, in the northeast. and in the west coast a similar situation. we will be horrifically vulnerable to any kind of malfunction in any of these plants then around the country, brian. >> john, thank you very much for joining us. appreciate it. >> yep. >> all right. big ben out in front of the fed news conference this week. but does he wield the most influence among central bank

policymakers? it's this guy. our in-house economy watcher steve liesman who played all the parts this week, the hawk, dove and fed chairman in his made-for-tv fed drama. all kidding aside, who is the most influential policymaker if not big ben? >> that's a really good question, brian. let me tell you 17 fed folks talking, speeches, statements, press conferences, how do you know as an investor what to listen to? who to listen to? macro economic advisors every year assesses how much these guys move the market in 2011. if you come in here i want to show you speeches tend to be hawkish. this is the effect on the two-year yield. this is the overall number and statements tend to be negative. later on when you see ben bernanke down in the ranks of individual movers, i think that's because he tends to move the market through the fed policy statement. now let's give the first award here last year chairman ben bernanke won the i move markets award, not this year. this is the i move markets

award. nice trophy we have here. st. louis fed president. he moved the markets most this year. and i want to show you the total here. 17 basis points in total changing the two-year. followed by fisher of dallas. ben bernanke appearing fourth on the list. and then down here. now the next award we want to give is the power player of the year award. the most movement per speech and that was, drum roll, charles placer, philly fed president. just barely edging out bull ard. .92 versus .91. all the way down here is where you find bernanke. well below the others. the other thing you see here is a lot of the hawks do the talking. evans is the first real dove to appear right there in market movement per speech. finally, one of the most interesting parts here, guys, the market neutrality award. don't take this the wrong way. this is not because they're

boring, it's because they are likely to move the two-year up as down. last year was fed president from boston but the market neutrality award this year goes to dennis lockhart of atlanta. it's interesting to follow this person because he often could be on the side of where policy is going. bull ard, plosser and fisher these are the hawks tend to move the two-year yield higher and down here the doves tend to move it lower. lockhart with all pluses and minuses ends up at zero and wins the market neutrality award. this will change as the year goes by who to listen to. those are some keys for who to listen to in 2012. >> that's great stuff. it's no berbie, but it's great stuff. steve liesman, thank you. who is benefitting as home building picks back up? up next we are going to deconstruct the house. we're going to look at it as the sum of its part and which parts of the companies might benefit. names that are off the radar in housing but have seen some nice pops coming straight up.

stick around. ♪ ♪ you and me and the big old tree ♪ ♪ side by side, one, two, three ♪ ♪ count the birds in the big old tree ♪ ♪ la la la [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. ♪ ♪ you and me and the big old tree side by side ♪ but if you take away the faces on the trees... take away the pixie dust.

take away the singing animals, and the charming outfits. take away the sprites, and the storybook narrator... [ man ] you're left with more electric trucks. more recycled shipping materials... and a growing number of lower emissions planes... which still makes for a pretty enchanted tale. ♪ la la la whoops, forgot one... [ male announcer ] sustainable solutions. fedex. solutions that matter. we believe the more you know, the better you trade. so we have ongoing webinars and interactive learning, plus, in-branch seminars at over 500 locations, where our dedicated support teams help you know more so your money can do more. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. our teams have the information you want when you need it. it's another reason more investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade.

y my journey continues across the golden state, where everyone has been unbelievably nice. mornin'. i guess i'm helping them save hundreds on car insurance. it probably also doesn't hurt that i'm a world-famous advertising icon. cheers! i mean, who wouldn't want a piece of that? geico. ah... fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent oh dear... or more on car insurance.

home builder ryland building new highs. new orders up by 24%. ryland closed at a 52-week high yesterday. one of many home builders doing great lately. your next guest says the stars will align for a better housing market over the next 12 to 24 months. and it's not just the home building stocks that may benefit. they're the names that provide the guts that may benefit as well. managing director and senior equity research analyst at bbnt analyst joining us from richmond, virginia. we were looking for some of these names, the owens cornings

of the world. you even like eagle products. tell me why. >> these are the companies that supply the guts of the house. owen cornings supplies insulation in the walls of the house and floors. armstrong supplies some of the flooring materials like wood flooring. and of course eagle materials supplies dry wall or wallboard for inside the house. so variety of these companies have seen obviously tough business conditions for a number of years since the peak of the housing market. looks like we might be coming out of it. and there are some glimmers of hope here. and there could be some very good top line growth opportunities. >> are there areas of the guts, if you will, that are better than others to invest in now, whether it be dry wall, whether it be flooring, roofing? >> well, in general if the housing market improves, you would expect all these companies to get a lift. i think the whole sector has been depressed for quite some time. so i wouldn't be surprised to see them all move in tandem to some degree.

there are areas that structurally are maybe a little better off in terms of supply/demand situation. there are still some pretty significant excess capacity in places like wallboard, but in the insulation market, for example, there's been a fair amount of capacity closures and rationalization. >> hey, john, quickly, i see masco is one that benefits from all of this and moving pretty aggressively. do you buy it here or just not buy it -- touch it anymore? >> well, i don't cover it so i don't have an official rating on that one. with regard to the run in some of these stocks that you guys referred to, i think even if you're bullish on the housing market or more positive, which i certainly am, not every number every month is going to be very good. you would expect some backing and filling so to speak in the marketplace. there's still some challenges out there in the housing market. i would be looking at opportunities to buy some of these stocks on a pullback if some of these numbers aren't as great as people maybe expect in

the coming month or two. >> just real quick, one or two of your best bets. who do you like in this space still right now? >> right now we like owens corning, the insulation business. they're the leader. they're levered in new home construction. a lot of operating leverage in that business. it's losing money right now, but there's a lot of upside in that business if the housing market continues to improve. >> john, won a number of awards for his analysis on this space. we appreciate you coming on the show. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, the exchange battle for facebook's ipo hits the web. the nyse and nasdaq being a little unsocial. and the new ceo of research in motion came here yesterday. he gave us a sneak peek at the rim road map. things got a little testy in that. we'll take you inside that meeting show you some of the cool new stuff they have coming out and talk about it. stick around. let me tell you what's coming up on "closing bell" a little later on. we too will have the very latest on what's happening with davos.

and we'll get three big hitters, heavy hitters, coming through from davos with maria to talk about europe. the former head of the ecb, jean-claude trichet, the german finance minister and vice president of the european commission. "street signs" is back in two.

the new york stock exchange and the nasdaq taking their fight to snag the facebook ipo to the social media. we're expecting over 120 new ipo transactions, while the companies see our value, we see our future friends follow us. the nasdaq making its pitch on facebook, running a trivia contest, asking you to like the nasdaq page and enter. who's winning the war of influence in the social media space. nasdaq got 27,000 facebook fans, 193,000 twitter followers. listen, as we're here, herb knows, you can't judge a man by the number of twitter followers. if that was the case, herb has more twitter followers than me. john, i want to talk about r.i.m. and the conversation we had with the ceo last night. but we've got to talk about facebook right now.

we knew it was coming. what is your reaction to the newer headlines we were seeing? >> i thought you were going to ask me if herb was five times the man you were. this is tremendously important for facebook and for tech. look, the narrative on facebook changes, we're not talking about it being the biggest social network. we talk about ad revenues and transactions happening on the network. zuckerburg trying to hold off as long as possible, because he wants to keep the engineers focused on the product. >> absolutely. that is the point, jon. when you get beneath it all, everyone's going to be digging through that thing. remember what happened when group-on came out. we saw the ceo try to sort of portray the company, and the numbers, not for what they were. it will be interesting to see how these guys try to twist it, if they do try to twist it. >> 800 million users plus.

what they've done in the past is almost irrelevant. they've got half the internet to play with in terms of how to make money in the future. >> we talked about it, steve balmer, some people said he was nuts. looks like a pretty smart move right now. >> very smart. but hey, in terms of microsoft's size, it's a nice blip up. >> it certainly is. let's talk r.i.m. you were on the conference call last night. the new ceo of r.i.m. was in the house giving demos. i know you couldn't see as much as you'd like, but you're probably more dialed in on this stuff more than the rest of us anyway, jon, but what do you think of r.i.m. coming down the pike? >> i got to take a look at it, but here's the fundamental challenge he's got. i tried to press him on the global expansion question. he faux about how well r.i.m.'s doing outside of north america. but they sell the lower end devices, or tend to outside the u.s. he said what they're trying to do is build their footprint,

grow share globally. but the challenge is, what apple has done successful is grow in north america first and then make this aspirational device, the 2-year-old, 3-year-old iphones are selling well outside. he thinks he'll get people to come in with entry level phones and trade up. >> he was big on the global story. guys, we could rerun the video, because it was basically a pool game, but it was an app that was running native android apps. he was showing us the speed of the performance, of the playbook, running other applications, sort of on top of an droud platform. that was maybe the biggest thing i got out of that. >> he tried to talk about speed speed. he's got the fastest browser. people don't realize he has the faster browser. they'll try to get the

blackberry 7s out to people as fast as they can. they're pulling out all stops to try to make people realize they've got good stuff. >> that's a good story. but one things he didn't mention that in order to get the android apps to work on the blackberry, developers are going to have to do a little bit of work. but that's not insignificant. also, the version that they'll be able to emulate is a couple of generations old. soilts so it's not a slam dunk like everything android can do, blackberry can do, too. >> i'm sure you'll be busy tonight with facebook. talk to you later. today's sunshine stocks, shining like the northern lights on the heels of the facebook news. we'll give you that name, and cool video -- oh, there it is. aurora borealis. i love it. icy sky at night as they say in the song "pocahontas."

sunshine stock has to be gse capital. they did a private placement into facebook, so investors say, hey, facebook's going to boom, gsv capital stock is up nearly 16%. just a reminder, folks, the facebook ipo, "wall street journal" saying could come on wednesday. valuations talked up to $75 to $120. microsoft $200 million stake they put back in facebook in

2007. goldman sachs in 2010. is it just a blip and maybe a nice headline, or do you see any real benefit for any of the strefrs? >> i'll say what i've been saying all along, benefit for the investors if the numbers are going to be great. otherwise we've got a zing on our hands. >> do you think face beek is a zinga? >> i don't know. it's got a ton of facebook users. that is the story. >> i hadn't seen this. we were scrolling around in commercial break, 800 million users. values each user about $125. if you're on facebook, you will worth $125 to wall street. >> to wall street. >> that's $125 more than me. but cheap for you. it's been a nice week. manny's back next week, thank goodness. thanks for watching "street signs," everybody. the "closing bell," and