the s&p 500 still up over 6%. though on low volume. you can question what that means. >> all right. have a great weekend. you have a great weekend. that does it for us on "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins right now. all right. welcome to "street signs." if you haven't figured it out by now, greece is powering stocks in the red today. they're rioting in athens and threatening to arrest officials. it's all put a hit on the dow. even with that hit, is now time to add more risk to your portfolio? we're going to find out if boring big caps are more risky than some of the mighty mights. and it's a chart fight. two technicians here to duke it out. one says we are headed for potentially huge downturn, mandy. >> hi, everybody. s&p downgrading 34 of the 37 italian banks that it rates. s&p cites banking industry

trouble and economic risk for that downgrade. elsewhere, president obama announcing a tweet to the controversial birth control rule. access to birth control for their employees free of charge. the amended rule now states that insurance companies will be required to reach out to employees and offer coverage directly. and apple giving up gains moving away from $500 trading down for the first time since this morning. let's take a closer look at apple in the second half of the show. brian, over to you. >> mandy, thank you very much. we're going to lead this hour with a little bit of greece formula. we're not in the black. we're in the red. today could actually bring our first 1% drop this year. and you can blame what's going on in greece for everything, right? too many headlines to count. but we tried to pluck out the ones that matter the most. and so here they are with a little extra video thrown in because it is television, not radio. riots, union striking, basically civil unrest galore in athens, greece, today. you've got some police unions

there threatening to arrest imf or eurozone officials basically for some rule about violating sovereignty, whatever it might be. sort of a hollow threat, but a threat nonetheless. when you have the union saying we're going to arrest you imf if you come into our country, that's probably not a good thing. the deputy foreign minister quitting as well as some other government officials. that's not good. and the eurozone demanding a vote for the greek parliament to politicians stand on austerity issues. a vote might happen this weekend. it might happen on monday. it might not happen at all. and that's where we stand right now. a lot of still we don't knows in this market. and because of all the back and forth, the markets are acting like teenagers today. they're confused. they're frustrated. and their volatile. so let's take a look here. we have the dow jones industrial average down 132 points. could be the first 1% move down this year if we end right now. 10-year treasury yielding 1.95%. little bit up, not high. but still up euro/dollar seeing

strength today. no surprise there. and vix above 20. not a great amount of move in the vix, but we are seeing a move nonetheless. so all that adds up to a lot of fear for these markets. joining us bgc market analyst and. begin with you. do you care about greece? >> i'm exhausted by greece. i have to say. markets are like teenagers, i kind of think the thing you missed out was moody. because i look at these financial markets and think they're in the mood for love. here we are a few days before valentine's day and actually the headlines on greece have been terrible, terrible, for weeks. and yet equities and credit, to be fair, have both rallied significantly. and today is really the first kind of negative day we've seen. so i actually think like a petulant teenager, maybe we're swinging from a mood to love to a little less love because we

finally noticed that greece could be about to unravel really quite quickly. >> do you agree that greece could be about to unravel really quite quickly, peter? >> absolutely. i mean, clearly the stage is set for a showdown for all intents and purposes. the second tranche of support from the imf is supposed to be coming in next month. and this weekend it looks like really all hands are on deck. this has got to be resolved inned very, very near-term. if it isn't, this could have a very dramatic effect. equities, debt, you name it. clearly you're getting credit downgrades for italy. that is setting the table for a significant confrontation on greece. and it needs to be resolved. >> hang on just for a second to both of you, when you think that greece could be about to unravel, and the market has been expecting for some time now that no matter what happens at the 11th hour some deal will come through and greece will be saved. it will not be allowed to go into a disorderly default.

so why is the market taking a different stance on this, louise? >> i think the market's been taking this wrong for some weeks to be honest. if you look at the rhetoric, i love the quotes. i like to look at what the key players are actually saying in the quotes. and the quotes have changed dramatical dramatically. you've got a german minister talking about criticizing greece for constantly missing their targets. we've got a quote today from the greek np talking about they don't want the german boot over them telling them what to do. and you have jean-claude saying that the greek economy's in real trouble. look at what the players are saying. and if you look at the quotes, they have been pretty worrying for some weeks. it's just the markets have ignored them. >> peter, i want to follow-up on kind of what mandy was suggestisugges suggesting, right? we hear all this stuff. we see the rioting video. we understand the sort of intracountry frustration, germany, greece, whatever.

why is the dax up 13% this year. why is the ftse up 8% this year? why aren't we down huge today? >> well, two reasons why. first of all, brian, i think a lot of what we're seeing in terms of equity performance year-to-date has been the markets giving greece the benefit of the doubt. buying into the concept that the outcome other than solving this credit -- this debt crisis, is so horrific they'll be forced to come to the table with some sort of terms and make some sort of long-term structural agreement. now, that's what the market's been betting on. and we've seen that in the fact that yesterday we had the 7-month high in the s&p for example. now, internals have been starting to get a little weak over the last week or two. yesterday they were weak again on the nasdaq. and today we're seeing a little bit of that rollover. not to say we're heading lower necessarily for the long-term, but right now the market is looking at risk off. the support for the equities we've seen here in the united states has come from

improvements in the employment number, solid earnings, guidance forward being quite constructive. so there's a fundamental and technical support for the market. the question now is what role is greece going to play in that perfect sort of equity scenario. >> is it too wild to suggest, louise, that maybe the best outcome for the markets say once you get over the short-term pain and look at the long-term gain the best thing to be would be to cut greece off and let them default? >> i think for the greeks it's probably the best thing to do. i think at the moment we've got death by a thousand cuts. and what we need -- what i think the greeks need is to be able to devalue and get on with trying to rebuild their economy. >> yes. >> the other problem though for greece is that it's ungovern able country. the political costs are not capable of running their country. they promised a 50 billion euro repayment plan. are there any investment bankers

piling through the accounts? goldman sachs bankers going through the port and say, oh, yes, i think this company would like to buy it. i don't see it. >> seven greek ministers have resigned just in the last 24 hours. feels like the caretaker government is completely unraveling. i guess the bottom line from an investment point of view to both of you, peter, how do you invest right now? how do investors prepare for the scenarios you've been painting? >> first of all, greece is the poster boy for dysfunction. politically, economically, it's dysfunctional to the extreme. that having been said, if you're playing the market from the long side, you've got to head yourself with the vix. which you indicated earlier had actually performed better -- it's up, what? 10% to 15% in the last couple weeks. >> yeah. >> it was a great point because that is what you're seeing the market do. effectively hedging long positions by buying volatility. that's definitely the play. >> can i just say, i think the

oxford english dictionary has to come up with a new definition of deadline. >> it doesn't really stick. >> that's what it's done. we'll try to do it, but if we can't, never mind, get another cup of coffee. to be fair that's the greek state of mind, so i can say it. >> just a thought off of what mandy suggested. if i'm buying dollar general or monroe muffler or any of these companies, do i care -- they don't care about greece. >> you're absolutely right, brian. you don't care about greece. that's why you're seeing the retail space outperform the market. that is exactly the point. especially the domestic retailers whether you're talking about tire stores or discount retailers, they're going to perform just fine. and that's why there are sectors where there's opportunity. and you have to pay attention to those sectors. but in a macro picture, you have to just hedge your overall portfolio with whatever risk greece is presenting. >> i mean, you're right.

it makes all of the problems that we're facing here just kind of pale by comparison. >> yes. >> thank you to both of you. have a great weekend. >> my pleasure. >> and as one of our sharp eyed viewers, a guy i know well, the greek stock market is up 19% this year. and our "street signs" loyal viewers know if you believe -- we'll get to the promo in a second. if you believe greece will default and buy the eurozone, you want to buy the greek stock market. history says if a country -- if they have to leave the euro -- exactly. every time a country defaults and devalues currency, the stock market doubles in two years if not more. coming up on "closing bell," a big interview with this guy, mario monti. italy's prime minister. maria's going to talk to him about the news, s&p downgrade of nearly all of the banks. that's today at 4:00 p.m. eastern time. big interview.

>> okay, let's get to the trading floors. bob and rick are standing by. bob, i want to start with you. sure, okay today, it's down. but we've been kind of spoiled, haven't we? it's been a really good year. we haven't exactly had a down day to the tune of 1% or more for a long time. >> we haven't. and i think the big problem here is people are kind of shocked to see the markets this weak. i think it's about time. and we've been waiting for this day for a while. i think the reaction is certainly justifiable. i want to comment on the volume. again, today, even though we're getting a big down day, we're not getting a huge volume day. i think the key point here is several reasons why we're not doing anything. low volatility we've seen up until today means high frequency traders are less active. these prop desks are getting dismantled. and institutional traders are less active and retail traders. there's a very good reason more than one why we're not seeing very good volume. january 17% lower volume than january last year, mandy. >> rick, let's talk about the

bond market. kind of to our points with the stock focus guest that we just had on, if we believe that disaster is around the corner in greece, why aren't we seeing 10-year yields lower than they are? why aren't we seeing more action in the treasury market? is it the thought of maybe qe-3, ecb coming into some other market which capital flows here, what is it? >> it's all of those. it's an election year in the u.s. and a lot of strange things are going to happen. there's elections coming up in france. the head of the imf is obviously a french female, lagarde, she does a great job. but all these things make investors scratch their heads. i'll challenge you a bit. bond yields didn't move a lot higher concerning when the news was good. i think it's been fairly symmetric. stocks is what i'm going to argue with. a week ago today we had what was perceived as a good jobs report. we've had what has been perceived as good data. even with today's net change, take today off the board.

i think we settled yesterday close to what? 12890 in the dow? what i'm getting at is you really didn't have a big up move after last week's data even considering today's downdraft. so in my opinion, bob nailed it. if you multiply the volume effects to get it where it should be, that's going to give you more volatility and bring it all in. >> rick, i hate to cap your conversation, but we've got some breaking news now on mf global. let's get to sue herera. >> thank you very much, mandy. we have some new news coming out as it pertains to the mf global situation. the trustee that is handling that particular situation says that they believe there is currently at least a $1.6 billion gap between the value of the trustee's estimates potentially allow bl commodities claims and the assets currently under the trustees control. in addition to that, they also say that that is going to change over time as they continue their

investigation. they also say the early estim e estimates of the analysis of those claims shows 40% of the u.s. commodity claims came from just five states, california, florida, illinois, new york and texas. 91% of all of those claims seek less than $100,000. so you're up to date on mf global. back to you guys. >> sue, thank you very much. do appreciate that. we'll get more as that story develops. right now more into the stocks. herb on the street time. you're following what people are talking about, tweeting about, sending pigeons around about. >> we have two i want to mention. motorola mobility hit the chatter sphere just a little bit ago because of news that the eu is likely to approve the deal to sell the company to google. also, back in the news, diamond foods. people are talking about it. the stock is up. why? who knows. but, i've been out raising red flags on that again and again and again. it's out there, people talking. that's all we need to say. >> it's out of the chatter

sphere. we'll have to completely revise the oxford dictionary. >> i love that show on bbc, what was that called? >> yeah. it was very much -- >> that was horrible. >> it was really bad. time for a little rest on the weekend. come back funnier on monday. >> all right. black hatter time. up next on "street signs," need a longer vacation? you might have to move. we'll show you the countries with the most number of vacation days and maybe what it says about us. >> and also our safe stocks. the new risk, why it might be time to break away from the herd, be courageous when it comes to your portfolio. >> it's true. and sure there may be a little fear and loathing when it comes to the market, but makes us think the rest of america is feeling better. a little too good in some ways. >> it's an ox si moron. >> we'll show you. the mcmansion is back. it's th. the etrade pro platform. fast. beautiful. totally customizable. finds top performing stocks -- in three clicks.

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hey, guys. check out whole foods. stock is actually in the red today even after last night's very good earnings and results. but of course you have a day like today when it's hard for anything but really blowout earnings to get a stock to really pop. it's certainly been another one of those that's been in the chattersphere. >> not as healthy as normal. >> sorry about that. well, earlier this week we showed you the most widely held stocks in the biggest 401k plans. google, home depot, oracle, ibm

and microsoft and three out of the four had apple as their single top holding. wonder why it's where it is? there you go. this got us thinking with so many people piling into a few big name costs, another way to put it would be this, is safe the new risky? president of chase investment council and portfolio manager of the five star chase mid cap growth fund joining us now. peter, if i look at p/e ratios, they look moderate. then look at home depot, 18 times forward earnings, are some of the big names maybe apple or others getting a little too rich for good? >> brian, maybe some of the other names are. i don't consider apple at 11 times earnings extremely overvalued especially with that cash. overall i think market's still reasonably valued. >> is it too oversimplifying to say it's kind of like small versus large when it comes to safe versus risky, peter? >> yes. mandy, that's an excellent point. if you look at the nasdaq 100,

you know, the hundred largest nasdaq stocks, that's up 12.6% this year. whereas if you look at the russell 2000, a much broader index, it's up about 12.1%. there is some truth in what brian's saying about small and risky in general outperforming large. >> the reason we came up with this segment, peter, is we looked at the most defensive of all, which is some utility companies looking at 17 or 18 times forward earnings because everybody piled into them because they were "safe." but when i look at slow growth utility 18 times forward earnings, you start to wonder is it too rich and should i be going into riskier stocks which actually might be less risky, if that made any sense. >> you should be going into maybe higher beta stocks that are selling for a more attractive p/e versus their growth rate. there are plenty out there selling for one times their growth rate. the apples of the world, the emcs of the world.

maybe avoiding the utility selling for low yields and very high p/es relative to their average is a good thing right now. >> what kind of names should we be looking at, peter? >> oh, you know, largest five largest holdings in our large cap fund are cummins, emc, apple and national oil well. all companies with good growth prospects going forward. all selling for reasonable p/es. companies like that and the large cap area and our mid-cap fund we've been buying smaller companies, you know, sky works, solar winds, tera data, western digital, we just sold coinstar -- >> sorry to interrupt, peter. that's a name we've talked about extensively. our buddy, herb greenberg, has talked about coinstar. why did you sell it? >> we had bought it several months ago in the $45 range. and with the earnings and the announcement of the streaming arrangement with verizon last

week, it reached the $60 level, which is basically our target price. we kind of thought it was a gift horse and time to move onto something else. >> good to have you on the show, peter. thank you very much. just ahead on "street signs," [ inaudible ] >> rubber baby buggy bumpers. >> say that 20 times really fast. when he was talking about trouble brewing for nuance, why he says the voice recognition company is lost in translation. >> and buckle up, kids. we are getting technical. and it's not looking pretty. we're going to show you a chart that has one technician saying get ready, we could be looking at another nasty recession. kind of a roller coaster ride, which explains the video. 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.

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"it's why more investors with i.r.a.s are saying.." "i'm with scottrade." ♪ [music] well, we're down by over half a percent. just not used to it. on a day like today it's not hard to fiepd a disaster du jour. but, herb, you have found one. nuance. >> we talked about it a number of times.

we mentioned earnings not where people were expecting guidance. not what they were expecting. before we get into the sunshine, i must say i just blew it a few minutes ago when i mentioned whole foods reported yesterday. no, they didn't. i'm sorry. the days are starting to blur. mandy, onto your sunshine. >> my tongue at the moment. everyone needs a little sunshine. check out them? the stock up 14%. the company reported it returned a profit last year. that's its first since 2006. the stock however is still down 50% over the last year. but today at least it's getting a pop to the tune of now about 13%. also coming up next, the return of the mcmansion. despite the housing crisis, why america once again thinks bigger is better. >> and we told you so. microsoft getting a little more respect on the street. analysts upping its price target. we're going to find out why. might help microsoft today. we'll talk more about it.

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here's what the street is talking about with just 90 minutes of trading left this week, it's a bad day for stocks, guys. i didn't want to tell you that

the dow, s&p and nasdaq taking big tumbles after three days of gains. lower on greek uncertainty and weak chinese trade data. on track to be the worst trading day of the year so far. meantime fed chairman ben bernanke is talking today about housing at the big home builders conference in orlando. he says the housing market is stalling the overall recovery and that foreclosures are likely to continue. thanks for the bad news. also apple headed to $500 a share with rumors that the ipad 3 is going to be released next month fueling those gains. up now worth more than microsoft and google combined. we've kevin, market strategist. kevin, i wish i had a dollar, preferably an australian dollar for every time in the last week or two people have been saying we're due for a pullback. is this the pullback that we've been expecting? >> i think so. we've had five very good weeks. we now have some anxiety about sunday's vote in greece. we have a whole bunch of data

that's going to be coming out next week in different events. we're going to start with sunday night, the greek vote. monday you're going to get obama's budget for 2013. tuesday starts european finance minister's meeting that's going to go on into wednesday. so markets going to be watching that very closely. and then of course wednesday we're going to get the fomc minutes from the last meeting. so there's all kinds of stuff coming up this weekend and weeks and days ahead and traders are positioning themselves around that, taking some profit given the very good run we've had so far this year. >> yeah. and we've had a good run despite all the stuff you just talked about with greece. i mean, is it just goes back to don't fight the fed? whatever you do, if you throw a couple trillion at a problem, asset prices are going to increase. >> well, there's a few things here as it relates to greece. number one, you have to have have the european union to come together. that's what sunday's about. you have to make sure the

liquidity is there. and that's the nearly $2 trillion worth of funding has been put in place for by the ecb, the european financial stability fund, et cetera. ultimately this will come down to politics and political union, which will be the more dicey thing. >> but to follow-up on what brian was just saying, are we back to perhaps talking about the bernanke put that essentially no matter what bad news is thrown at the market becaused the market is expecting some qe-3 that social security goi it's going to backstop it? >> what's been obvious to me in the last couple months is the data that's been falling off so dramatically in terms of the economy, talking about jobs, order rates in the manufacturing sector and data outside of our country as it relates to manufacturing, retail sales, auto sales, et cetera, all that has begun to bottom out in november and december and now gotten better through january. i think if we get through this problem over the weekend in terms of greece and in terms of greece in europe, then there is

a chance that we could have a real sustainable recovery here, believe it or not, even without qe-3. >> kevin, thank you very much for joining us. enjoy your friday afternoon. >> thank you. >> all right, america, it's what you've been waiting for. we know. the return of the mcmansion. some new data out of the home builder conference saying for the first time in years new houses are getting bigger again. diana olick, you have the heavy stats. >> yes, i do. the surprisingly heady stats which is that actually the size of a home in 2011 reached a record level. 2,522 square feet. that's after years of downsizing. 42% of homes built in 2011 had four bedrooms up 30% from the year before. 28% three bathrooms also up. 30% had finished basements and 18% with three-car garages up 16% from the year before. now, before you start saying mcmansion, first of all 2,500 square feet does not a mcmansion make. but you have to remember it's

not necessarily the size of the home. it's who's living in the home. and we've been doing an awful lot of stories, i know you've watched them all, on multigenerational living. the builders have been reacting to multiple generations building bigger homes for bigger families. >> what about this being renter nation? has that been put to bed? >> yeah. renter nation is a lot of people who can't buy homes moving into rentals and apartments and also into these foreclosed homes. we're talking here about what the builders are building, the newer homes. the reason some of these are bigger houses than we've seen in the past is because it's coming from such a small pool that's being assessed. remember, this was the worst year for sales and volumes on record for home builders in 2011. that means there's a lot of boutique building on the higher end, which may have skewed the numbers up because when you talk to anybody at the big public builders, they will tell you they are downsizing, downsizing, downsizing to make the homes cheaper to compete with the rentals, as you just said. >> diana, this is herb.

glad you clarifiy eied mcmansio. 2,500 square feet is not a mansion. that would have had me out of my seat. >> when you think about the mcmansions we've talked about before, you're talking not four bedrooms but eight bedrooms, four-car garages, media rooms, indoor pools. that's what we talked about in the mcmansion era. >> they're minimcmansions. >> they're the sliders. >> the mcnuggets. the mchousing nuggets. >> okay. >> thank you very much for joining us. just my little two cents worth, maybe one cent worth or half a cent worth. americans have housing too big. >> too big for what? >> too big for an average family. seriously, you have to have 15 children to fit into most of those houses. >> you want to have different rooms? seriously, why is -- what's a too big home? >> i don't know. american houses are just huge. >> you've obviously not been to

some of the homes in california where the secondary bedrooms are so small even in the new homes. it's just really -- classic california. they make up for it in the master bedrooms. >> why are they holding you back in australia so much? >> i know. we have the space. maybe we're more practical. >> or cheap. >> take your pick. glad we're moving onto a different topic. apple dancing near the milestone of $500 a share. it may soon be facing new competition. google plans to take android from mobile devices into people's living rooms. google developing a home entertainment device that will stream wirelessly. so whether or not it's that much of a threat to apple. >> nope. >> why not? >> not at all. >> why not? >> couple reasons microsoft tried this a few years ago and didn't go anywhere. apple's the only one that's done it so far successfully. i use apple wirelessly around the house. once you're into the apple ecosystem, you're in it. you're not going to go out and get a google -- so they may have

their own market. i'm not saying it won't be successful, but i don't see it eating into apple because if you've already got a mac, you're going to keep the apple ecosystem. >> yeah. i think you make a great point there. i wouldn't necessarily bet against what google does. remember with motorola mobility you don't know what they can produce. i just, you know -- i just want to take the other side of your argument. >> just like you always do. a quick mention of microsoft. we talked earlier this week about how the stock gets no respect. somebody's listening. barclays analyst raised the price target today to $33. here's his reasons. i got the note, if you're listening, thanks to sending it to me. potential launch of office 15 in the first quarter of 2013, windows 8 launch and a multiple expansion as people become more optimistic about the name. not up today but does see about another $2.50 upside on microsoft. >> i would like to get to john harwood now with breaking news on the budget. what have you found? >> mandy, i hate to break the

suspense that everybody has for the administration's budget release for monday, but i have confirmation from the white house that the "the wall street journal" reported the white house will project a $1.3 trillion deficit for the year 2012. $901 billion deficit for the year 2013. the first was about 8.5% of gdp. the second 5.5%. so it's coming down. not as rapidly in these numbers as we've been hearing from the congressional budget office. that's because the economic analysis used to generate this budget was before the recent upturn in economic activity. so it's likely there will be some upside good news later on. the budget will also propose as we've expected $1.5 trillion in new revenue largely from the expiration of those top end bush tax cuts. will have half a billion dollars in new infrastructure, transportation, road-related spending as well as a significant increase in spending on research and development in

general. nondefense programs also for manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, mandy. so this is the administration's attempt to lay out its priorities for the election year. we know congress doesn't share many of those priorities, but the administration's telegraphed where it's going and now we have confirmation. >> thank you very much for that, john harwood. okay, let's get back to regular programming. herb, take us to the mattresses. >> this is more of an update on a company i've talked a lot about here with the notable exception of today, price action, tempur-pedic stock has been flying since reporting earnings a few weeks ago that beat the street. but this was another in a growing string of low-quality beats that we've seen this earnings season. like so many this go round, it was a beat largely on a lower tax rate and lower share cut. but the company also offered up strong guidance. as you might expect, several things caught my attention. tpx is rolling out a low price mattress. about half the price of its current mattresses. also starting to offer

promotional incentives to dealers and increasing advertising by 40%. this is not what you would expect typically when you see a growth company firing on all cylinders. which means this bull-bear tug of war is about to get good. i'll keep you up on it. >> about to get good. coming up, the case for the great recession part two. i'm not sure i want to hear this, but nonetheless from a leading chart watcher. >> and taking a european vacation. we're going to look at countries with the most and least time off work. where does america fall into this? you probably have an idea. but you might be surprised at some of the others. look at that, rusty? looking out over rome.

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greece lately. the average greek gets 37 days off. look at the nations with the fewest days off. >> okay. america is just behind hong kong with only 25 days off. wow, check out canada with just 19 days off. who would have knew -- who would have known. a minimum number of vacation days. i was surprised with canada being up there with only 19. >> i'm surprised usa's 25. i haven't had 25 days off combined since i started working. >> only because you love work so much that you don't take your vacation days. >> no, because i have a deep seeded fear of being fired. [ laughter ] >> of course i'm just too terrified to leave the set. >> you never leave the chair. well, our next two guests -- are here, they're working. they're not taking any time off. in fact, they're chatting the markets right now. we're on track to have our biggest single day loss of 2012. and the loss really, folks, isn't that bad. nonetheless, the road ahead doesn't necessarily look so

pretty. bring in katy stockton, chief market strategist and abigail doolittle. abigail, start with you first. long-term monthly charts point to a serious correction within the next 3 to 12 months. a serious correction. what are we talking here and why? >> we could really be talking about a 50% correction. >> 50%? >> yes. it's amazing. when we look at the long-term chart of the s&p 500, it's showing a failed double top. those peaks reflect an outrageous borrowing binge over the last 30 years. the failure reflects the liquidity efforts of the central banks starting in 2007 right through today. now, there is a shot that the s&p 500 could continue to be inflated up toward the old peaks of about 1550 for triple peak but more likely the s&p 500 appears to be in a relatively small topping pattern that could take it down into a long-term descending trend channel. >> define long-term, abigail?

>> we're talking 20 years. 20 years monthly charts so really over the long-term. in terms of borrowing ban, really the cause of the financial collapse and probably the cause of what is likely to be a coming recession as well based on these charts -- >> coming recession here in the united states? >> probably so. if you look at a long-term chart of gdp growth, it's in a descending trend channel. >> you are brave. >> katie, is abigail wrong? >> not necessarily. i look at the charts from more of a short and intermediate-term perspective. my look is quite bullish for this year. we've seen a lot of breakouts in the major indices. the dow industrials reached a new 52-week high testing their 2011 resistance this week. and also we're seeing the nasdaq composite index already exceed those 2007 highs. i think that bodes well for the entire market. what i learn from the market in 2008 is that you really have to be respectful of support and resistance levels this time of course it's resistance levels

we're paying attention to. and we have seen a lot of stocks break out above the october highs above their 200-day moving arches. and now in some cases to new 52-week highs. for me, the work is pretty constructive. >> it sounds like at least this year the market's ignoring greece because technically the charts have already built in the available news or the expectation. they don't care the path of least resistance is higher, is bha you're saying, katie? >> that's what it seems to be. may 2008 highs is the next on the charts. i wonder sometimes if the market's memory is even that long beyond that for the s&p and for the dow industrials we're looking at the 2007 highs which of course for the dow is about 11% higher. >> i don't disagree with you katie. when i look at the longer term charts of the s&p 500 it appears we could crest up higher from here. do you think it's possible without some sort of continued intervention from the government -- because when i look at the "risk rally" and the cyclical bull market march 2009

is supportive of the reserve. i think bernanke's done a great job supporting the markets making sure we haven't gone into a financial collapse. but without support from the fed and doesn't work quite as well as it has been working, can we really continue to move up in that manner? >> i can't really comment on the government's actions, but it does look like we need some consolidation here in order to extend the uptrend. i'm bullish from an intermediate term perspective, i think the market's vulnerable to a pullback. i say that in part because some of my short-term indicators have reached possible inflection points. >> really good conversation. so nice to break up that testosterone a little here on the set. >> absolutely. >> still ahead. ceo of linkedin answers a pressing questions for investors in a cnbc exclusive. >> if it's halftime in america as clint eastwood pclaimed in

that super bowl ad, what about stocks? first, bill, what's ahead for us on "closing bell"? >> mandy, did you know dun dreen shares have doubled this year? what do you do with that? buy more, hope it goes higher or time to bail? and then we are very pleased to welcome italian prime minister mario monti to the new york stock exchange. does he ultimately think the eurozone can survive? we'll ask him all of that in our exclusive interview coming up on "closing bell" here at the new york stock exchange. looking forward to seeing you at the top of the hour. in the meantime, "street signs" is back after this. you have to dig a little. fidelity's etf market tracker shows you the big picture on how different asset classes are performing, and it lets you go in for a closer look at areas within a class or sector that may be bucking a larger trend. i'm stephen hett of fidelity investments. the etf market tracker is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity.

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your parents always tell you, when you don't have a dollar in your pocket, you don't spend $2. and that's a basic philosophy of life. but some people think you can just put it off. and if you put it off, they print money, that means the money in your pocket becomes devalued. and it's not worth as much. and eventually it comes down to zero. >> scary thought, clint eastwood

on "squawk box" this morning talking about his halftime in america super bowl commercial. that has inspired us to look at second half stocks. big winners since the bottom. consider this, some 80% of the stocks in the s&p 500 are up more than 50% or more since the march 9th lows back in 2009. today's losses aside, the index itself has nearly doubled since then. seema mody to run through some of these names. seema? >> brian, if you take a look at what's behind me, you may think we're talking about the super bowl halftime show where madonna brought the house down. but that's not the case, we're looking at the halftime in america. if you look at the stocks in the s&p 500, 80% of stocks are up. i know what you're thinking, what about greece, the european debt crisis? our markets no doubt have had a volatile ride. but if we step back, these stocks are actually up, not just marginally.

chipotle, wind resorts, coach, among others, these are consumer-driven stocks showing a lot of strength as we recover from the recession lows. up better than 500%. another interesting stat, thanks to the research team here at cnbc, 285 companies in the s&p are up more than 400% from their march 2009 low. but the question is, halfway through the recession, can we make our way out of it. and more importantly, do these stocks, we've seen monster moves, and can the momentum ride through going forward, and are these a good bet for the second half. >> thank you very much. seema mody. shared of linkedin topping expectations since last year. in an exclusive on "fast money"

ha halftime report. >> we have 55,000 shares coming to the end of february, about 48 million of those shares are held by reed hoffman, the founding director. so all five of the constituents have been thus far to date long term and committed shareholders. >> the company went public last may. and on its first day of trade, the stock doubled to more than $45 a share. there were bumps in the road, however, since then. year-to-date it's been up, up and away, 40% higher so far in 2012. what do you think about this, herb? >> i think you're seeing social media is not all created equally. i'm one of those who pays for linkedin. there's a business there. there's not just a business in people like me paying. >> what about the hype about facebook driving this sector? >> that's the opportunity and

problem, depending on how you view the markets. >> the tide that lifts all boats. >> we've seen it already. >> next, you won't believe what some traders are doing to run with the alpha dogs on wall street. you have to stick around to find out.

we're currently down by 1% for the dow. but we haven't really had a day

down about 1% or more in a very long time. the markets are up more than 20% since october of last year. you know, i guess the greek uncertainty is making people lose faith in these markets today. but, you know, we'll see what comes on monday, of course, after the weekend. big weekend for europe and the decisions on that front. >> i think this is a story you should probably read. >> all right. i will take the honors. our favorite story of the day, courtesy of the financial "times." we already know testosterone runs rampant on wall street. more and more executives and traders are getting testosterone shots to give themselves a competitive edge. the de mapped is so high, a medical treatment who offers treatment is opening up near the nyse next month. i guess you can go down in the middle of your lunch break, or before you head off to work. ready to