>> look at the russell 2000. outperforming big today. >> all right. that will do it for "power lunch" for this day. thanks for watching. >> "street signs" is beginning right now. and i'll be back on "closing bell" as well. >> it's weird for you to say that. >> really, really weird, yeah. and welcome to "street signs," everybody. i am brian sullivan. $107 oil and a lot of fear out there that $5 gas will stall the rally. but is that worry overdone? we are going to show you what the markets did the last time we hit this mark and see if you can spot the trend. is america losing its mojo? some of america's best and brightest think so. we'll have the scary stats from a new survey about how the u.s. may be at risk of falling behind. and don't say that "street signs" doesn't listen. we took a lot of heat yesterday about our etf segment. so today we are bringing you the other side. we are going to show you the worst single stocks in that basket of etfs.

courtney. >> thanks, brian. i'm courtney reagan. here's what else we're watching at this hour. dow component proctor & gamble tells investor conference it plans to cut $10 billion in costs by fiscal 2016. cut 5700 non-manufacturing jobs, slash overhead and reduce cost of materials. 4,100 of those job cuts will come in fiscal 2013. investors checking out shares of safeway. stock down 7% as higher fuel prices, brian talked about those, profits and margins shrink. and first time claims for jobless benefits held steady last week. continuing claims also at nearly four-year lows. brian, back to you. >> courtney, thanks. as you know, loyal viewer, we had hopium, we had eurosis, we still do, now we need a tums. just when we touch 13,000 the threat of $5 gasoline has everybody seemingly worried. should you be worried about stocks in the face of $5 gas? we have no way to know what's going to happen, but we can look back at what did happen the last

few times oil hit $100. and try to gauge what sectors may be most at risk. all right. the first time we saw oil really boom, the super spike, 2008 -- specifically march of 2008 through the end of july. here's what worked. and here's what didn't. technology in that little run of a couple of months actually up nearly 2%. utilities, didn't do that badly either, up 1.78%. as you might have expected, the laggards, industrials, telecom services, people cutting back on their cell phone bill as they pay more at the pump, and consumer discretionary. the single worst performer on top of financials. financials, remember, right as we were headed toward the big financial meltdown kind of take them out of it perhaps. industrial, telecom and consumer discretionary the worst performers when we had the super spike for oil. let's move on. back in march of last year we saw oil spike again above $100. well, take a look at some of the names. i'm walking all over the place here. health care up nearly 12%. telecom which had been one of the worst in '08, one of the

best consumer staples, utilities, even consumer discretionary was higher. financials stunk, again, they've got their own issues. now, to this oil run, which really began last november. here's the sector performance since then. industrials, tech, financials, consumer discretionary energy, health care consumer staples, telecom and utilities all up and i'm being told i'm blocking the wall. it's all green. that's all you need to know. everything is up. not one major sector is down. even the transports -- not on this wall, are up nearly 3% this year. so the trend is clear. in the face of higher oil and the stock market, there is no trend. let's talk more about this. ceo and cio of brian hamilton co-founder and ceo of sage works. you know, the point we're trying to look at, dan, was in looking back it seems like there's that oil's higher sell everything

mentality. that historically is completely wrong. >> well, that's right, brian. i think what happens is everybody gets very panicked. obviously people feel very bad about it. you go to the gas station and it costs $80 to fill up your car and you don't feel good. the fact of the matter is it really has not had that much effect in the short run. clearly when we look ate for every $10 that oil increases and increases the price of gasoline about 25 cents and takes about a quarter or 1% off gdp. what we have to understand is i think right now that what that means is that the employment data was coming in good, economic data was coming in good, we were really inching up from what was probably a 2% to 2.5% gdp. if this stabilizes here take off that one quarter, 1%? probably. we're still looking at gdp growth of a positive of about 2%. earnings are very strong. the trend line now is about 10%. so well-above what they expected to see for 2012. so with the p/es where we are now even though we've had a full, you know, one-multiple

expansion of p/e since the fourth quarter, you still have some room to run. so i think people are seeing that. they want to be in equities because, frankly rksz they don't have a lot of alternatives. the market with the run we have had so far this year the earnings motor is back in neutral temporarily and we're going to drift a little bit. the latter part of the year holds promise. >> there is an economic hit to higher gas prices. certainly especially for those on the lower end of the spectrum it's a very aggressive tax for sorts for them, dan. but the point we were trying to do is find a trend. the fact we didn't find a trend to me was actually more of the story. we said should we cancel the segment? i said, no, that's what makes it interesting. there is no trend that we can go higher even with $100 oil. >> well, i think that that's correct. and i think, again, when you look back the risk to the consumer and consumer confidence is probably more of that. it's a risk to confidence. when you look at the actual effect of oil going up even 50 cents a gallon, the average person driving 15,000 miles a

year, getting 20 miles to a gallon, that's about $375. about $30 a month. do you feel bad about it? yes, is it going to radically change your purchases? no. if it's slow and progressive, people build it in. you drive through it. you don't see the negative trend everybody's afraid of. >> last one here as we showed our viewers what people do and say is very different. we've seen consumer confidence numbers tank even as retail numbers climb. do you as an investment manager care about confidence? it's only what people are saying. it has been shown it's not always what they do. >> well, i think you're looking at the confidence number as a leading indicator and then you're looking for confirmation. but i think you're exactly right is to say those numbers, which, again, people have to realize whenever they take those statistics in many cases they do have a lot of validity but a very small part of the population. when you look at retail sales numbers and general consumption patterns and seeing employment

picture improving, those things are going to vie for having a stronger consumer as you start to look out for 12 months. that's what we're concerned about. i'm not concerned about the next 12 days or 12 weeks. it's the next 12 months and i think that will drive through it. >> dan, thank you very much. appreciate it. now let's get to brian hamilton of sage works. brian, you see gas go up to $4, maybe hit $5 this summer and you see the covers on the local papers. gas stations gouge consumers once again. you've dug in as only you guys can and you've broken out the real winners are when oil prices rise. it is not the local gas station, is it? >> yeah. absolutely. don't be mad at your local gas provider. absolutely no question of every dollar of price increase, brian, they're only getting about 2 cents. and, remember, their margins are very thin between the 1% and 2%. so they're definitely not making tons of money. no question about it. by the way, going to your intro, a great point. here's what's really happening. there's a washing effect, right? the economy's growing.

we've got 27 million privately held companies, they're growing. sales are up. profits are up. margins are up. and that's sort of washing away, i think you're right, the effects of price increases. >> yeah. and before we get deeper into that, i want to talk about who does win, right? i tweeted out the question, is it the refiners, the oil providers -- the producers -- >> bingo. >> there you go. it's the oil producer, bottom line. >> bingo. it's the people who have the oil and the people who refine it. it's simple. for every dollar of increase in price, the producers are making about 61 cents. and refiners are making about 15 cents. so they're the winners. not the local guys. >> okay. i want to pick your brain kind of what we just talked about from the retail side. i know you're here to talk about oil and gas, but i know you know your stuff front and i'm going to put you on the spot. when you see prices go up, have you noticed any real macro drop on the consumer spending?

do people cut back, really? >> well, right now, again, look at the big picture. we have an expansion economy, we have 27 million companies out there producing goods and services for people who are buying. you're right. they're buying. confidence is important, we should look at it. but people are buying. so there's a washing effect. we have not seen that in our private company data provifile. >> well-said. always a pleasure. see you again. good lesson there, folks. don't blame the gas station. stocks seem to be okay, right? but america's auto dealers might be freaking out right now. they remember what happened the last time oil and gas prices went up. let's bring in philip lebeau. phil, is it different this time for the dealers? >> it's a lot different, brian. in fact, if you look at what we're seeing in february so far, people have not been scared from going in and buying a new car. certainly moving towards the lower end with the 4 and 6 cylinder, but j.d. power came out and said we expect the sales pace for february to be about 14 million vehicles. that's pretty darn strong. and they've increased estimate for the full year from 13.8 up

to 14 million. and they further expect auto sales to hit a pace of 16 million by 2014. anyway you look at this, brian, most people believe you're not going to see real resistance in terms of auto sales until you get well over $4 a gallon. but at $3.61, people might be complaining, but they're not stopping in terms of buying. >> okay. i'll take the other side as far as the car companies, ford and gm and chrysler go, if i'm alan at ford, i want to sell more f-150s than fiestas. i make more money on the trucks. is this going to hurt profitability for the car companies? >> the mix changes. that's going to hurt the bottom line to a certain extent whenever you have people moving towards cars versus trucks and suvs. look at car statistics. we'll talk about ford and gm in just a bit. but the used cars statistics show since november people are rotating into compact cars moving away from suvs. on the new car side, brian, bottom line is this. people who want to buy an f-series, they're going with a 6

cylinder with ecoboost engine, turbo charger. better fuel efficiency and has the performance to match what they used to get with an eight cylinder. what we're seeing now is the rotation into smaller engines in the vehicles. >> all right. philip lebeau, well-said as always, sir, see you again. >> you bet. >> we want to know, america, how high are your gas prices in your area? be sure to include your city and state so we know where you are. and if you can send a photo of the price too. we'll put some on air later in the show. all right. let's get our first check with mr. herb greenberg. what is trending on your screens at this hour, herb? >> you know, it's interesting. we talk a lot about gas -- >> i hope because if you said it's not interesting, we would just go to commercial break. >> you know it's interesting, we talk about united states gasoline front -- this tracks the futures on unleaded gasoline been up about 23% over the past three months. not doing so much today. but that's one -- >> we'll call that the bulldog.

i'll name that the bulldog. that's the gasoline etf. >> next we go to ibm. people are really talking about -- do you realize today ibm was at all-time highs almost hit $200 a share. and as people on stocktwits likes to say, it was sort of like -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> it saw its shadow. and you talked about etfs yesterday and talked about good performing. look at ibm versus morgan stanley technology fund. the green is the mtk. ibm just really knocking it out of the park. it will be interesting to see what people do with the mtk when they see how much it's been lagging if they want to play that etf, which i don't want to go there. and, finally, today a lot of people talking about crm salesforce.com reports after the close. i think what you want to watch here is you want to watch the margins because they've been getting some big orders at the end of the quarter. but as mark from bernstein's been pointing out he knows those have been done at big discounts.

>> i would imagine look at the asp, average selling price, see if that's coming down. >> you might see interesting dynamics. might see backlog, deferred revenues, how much are they making on those sales? >> good point. your etf point was a nice segue. >> just for you. >> well-done, sir. many of you were outraged yesterday after we showed how we chose single stocks over etfs and how the single stocks just surged and how you might be costing yourself returns. you said you're not being fair. got to show the worst. so, guess what? we will. show you the worst performers. and how bad is america's tax code crushing our competitiveness? a new survey has scary stats. that is coming up. "for starters, it didn't cost me anything." "and i got a one-hundred dollar cash bonus for rolling over by april 16th." "i like bonuses." "plus at scottrade, there are thousands of commission-free investments." "and if i need help, i can find it online, by phone or at one of over five-hundred scottrade locations."

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this is scary. italy's bank down more than 6%. um r nicredit now down more than 40% year-to-date and nearly 80% over the past 52 weeks. we know the pain to european banks, but what's scary about this is unicredit is one down this year. most of the other banks in europe are actually up year-to-date. unicredit down 40%. watch this space. i'm sure we'll have more on as the days and weeks progress. while europe certainly has problems with debt and austerity, america might have it worse long-term.

a new survey shows harvard business school grads are not convinced america can remain competitive. the scariest stat of all, 71% of respondents expect u.s. competitiveness to deteriorate over the years. let's bring in one of the lead authors. professor porter, thank you for joining us. this is scary stuff. do we know why some of the best and brightest in america are so down on our prospect ssprospect? >> brian, we asked them to dig into the reason why they thought american competitiveness was eroding. we need to get into what we mean by competitiveness. we mean that american companies can compete successfully in international markets, but while also maintaining and improving living standards for americans. so competitiveness is combining those two things. companies competing, but workers and employees doing better. you know, republicans tend to worry about companies competing,

democrats tend to worry about workers and improving their standard of living. the real challenge is we have to put the two together. and that's where we're failing. we're not creating enough of a productive environment in the u.s. in order to achieve this fundamental goal. one of the key reasons, ironically, the single biggest weakness identified was the tax code. the complexity of the tax code in america. not as much the rate in any cases, but the complexity. the cost of dealing with the tax code compared to other countries. other issues had to do with a legal system that was very burdensome and costly. a regulatory process that was inflicting a lot of cost on business. a lack of skill. there's a whole series of reasons why our alumni feel things are not getting better right now. >> and yesterday the president rolled out a framework of corporate tax reform. making sure there's a minimum tax on offshore profits. and i'm looking at your survey

saying make repatriotization a process. >> to give the president credit, the bringing down of the rate and simplifying loopholes is a step in the right direction. unfortunately, this proposal also includes special rates for manufacturing, which, again, go back to the problem that we got into, which is too many special breaks. i think the repay tree rate, i took the proposal as this continued debate we're having about, you know, making companies pay taxes on the earnings they make overseas. this is a complex issue. there's a lot of thoughtful proposals about how to do this well, unfortunately, we have not risen to that level yet. >> we have to leave it here. professor, is there a place our viewers can go to that they can look at this? i think it merits a closer look because i hope washington is listening. >> yes, thank you.

we have this posted prominently on the harvard business school website. we are out engaging our business community around the country on this issue. we're going on the road to talk about this. and we think business needs to step up here and start taking some leadership and talking about and defining this issue. >> well-said. professor michael porter, thank you. >> thanks, brian. >> let's stay on this theme of competitiveness. because biotech and fpharma, on of the areas in the world america can say, yeah, we are the leaders in this. but the high taxes and cost of regulation may be putting our lead at risk. listen to what mylan ceo told us yesterday about the cost of fda compliance. >> we have an unlevel playing field. it's anti-competitive and the fact governed by a 1938 law saying i shouldn't grow jobs in the united states but i'm incentivized to take my manufacturing jobs elsewhere. >> let's bring in the ceo of the

generic pharmaceutical association joining us now from their annual meeting in orlando. ralph, listen, nobody's saying eliminate the fda. we have to have safe drugs, but if other countries, to heather's point, don't have the regs and cost of compliance and the drugs become commoditize as many do, how does america remain competitive? >> well, the good news, of course, is that we've got the safest drug supply in the world. further good news is that heather and all of us in the generic industry have been working with the fda on the generic drug user fee act which will provide $1.5 billion from the generics to fda so that we get our drugs approved faster. but very importantly that we have just as many inspections across the world and other facilities as we do here in the united states. so heather has been one of the leaders trying to level the playing field and have every

country have to have the standards that we do in the united states. >> yeah. i mean, let's just say a u.s. generic company sells a drug for $50. but an indian company can sell it for $25. as we age and insurance companies continue to get squeezed and look for profitability, they might say it's safe enough, right? we're going to go for the $25 drug. >> well, safe enough is not the buyer that we want to meet. we want to have the safest drugs everywhere in the world. there is globalization going on. we hope the entire world will duplicate what we've done in the united states after 1984 just in the past ten years the generic industry has saved almost $1 trillion for american families. $931 billion -- $157 billion last year alone. that's $3 billion per week that we save here in the united states. we want to replicate that around the world. and having the same high

standards that we have here in the united states. >> all right. let's quickly talk about shortages of critical drugs. this is a scary topic. how do we prevent that? how do we make sure that if you've got the need for a drug and you've got the ability to pay for it that it can get to you on time to help save lives? >> brian and herb, this is a serious issue. there's a crisis -- there will be a crisis if just one person involved, but it's a crisis that has many causes. and what we've done, the generic pharmaceutical association is saying, listen, we have to have a multi-stakeholder collaboration, an unprecedented one where you have the manufactures, generic and brand, distributors, wholesalers, everybody in the supply chain, everybody has to communicate, coordinate. we have to meet often with fda. we've had two 90-minute meetings now with the commissioner figuring out how do we get the kind of coordination, the collaboration, the

communication. there's not enough information flowing between fda and the manufacturers and among the people in the supply chain. this is going to change rapidly. i'm telling you right now we're in a very positive trend in resolving this. >> let hope so. ralph, thank you. take care. >> thank you very much. >> all right. look at vivus. >> yeah. >> where's butthead? sorry. the fda backing its weight loss drug, qnexa, on its way to be the first approved prescription drug in a decade. connecti qnexa will have $3 billion that's what happens when you have a favorable ruling on a drug. >> this was an original battleground stock in the '90s. it was known for an erectile dysfunction drug, a pellet, actually, yes. but that was something.

and they're moving along and doing a lot of other actually interesting developments. >> anti-obesity, it's a growing market. it is a growing market. >> yes. >> time for us to take a snack break. after it we're going to head to israel for an inside look at a stock that leaves herb feeling a little flat. and "street signs" hears you. we took a lot of heat yesterday about our etf segment versus single stocks. we only showed you the winners. we're going to show you the worst performers in the same basket of etfs. we don't just listen, but we listen. >> yes, we do. i'm freaking out man. why? i thought jill was your soul mate. no, no it's her dad. the general's your soul mate? dude what? no, no, no. he's, he's on my back about providing for his little girl.

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you know that the things that you do in your life, matter. if i did have an opportunity to meet a cancer survivor, i'm sure i could take something positive away from that. [ jocelyn ] my name is jocelyn, and i'm a cancer survivor. [ mimi ] i had cancer. i have no evidence of disease now. [ erica ] i would love to meet the people that made the machines. i had such an amazing group of doctors and nurses, it would just make such a complete picture of why i'm sitting here today. ♪ [ herb ] from the moment we walked in the front door, just to see me -- not as a cancer patient, but as a person that had been helped by their work. i was just blown away. life's been good to me. i feel like one of the luckiest guys in the world. ♪

all right. seems like a good time now to hit our disaster du jour. if you are a fan and viewer of this program, you will know we've talked about polypore before. >> stock getting hit yesterday on earnings. have to give credit to jordan at

axium. stock's down 32% since then. he came out and said right at the time he said we don't believe the hype in this around electric vehicles. so, anyway, it is one. >> all right. let's dial up a little sunshine, shall we? metro pcs is up big today on earnings thanks to pretty decent subscriber numbers. if you're a metropcs shareholder you're not celebrating because over the last year the stock is down about $5 or $6. still today, it's up. up next on "street signs," it's back to the future for sears. plus, get your tweets in. how high are gas prices in your area? tell us where you are. send a photo if you can. already got a few in. thank you. we're going to air them. and you can find out how high gas prices are around america. but first. >> i'm michelle caruso-cabrera at one of the largest factories in israel. coming up, herb greenberg may be bearish on this company, but they are bullish. that's next on "street signs."

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time now for street talk. well, today will be the day that the dow closes above 13,000? we're in positive territory. bob pisani is at the nyse.

rick santelli at the cme, where else. bob, we are a whisper away from dow 13,000. can we do it today? don't the markets know you weren't there when it happened? >> i know. it came back down again. that's really frustrating. the answer is yeah. there seems to be this underlying bid to the market. a lot of traders have been talking about it. which is killing europe. have you noticed? in the last few days -- put up how well we've been doing. europe's getting killed here. they've been down three days in a row. and all of the sectors that were worrisome before, the transports and the banks and materials i have been talking about this in the last few days looking very toppy. they're all quietly moving to the upside today. so all those worrisome groups are like the materials and bank stocks doing a little better. brian, you were mentioning unicredit. i want to mention you brought it up, all the italian banks are weak today and there's a very good reason. the ban on short selling of the italian banks ends tomorrow morning. so these stocks can now again be short -- remember, there's been a ban out there for months.

i think that's the reason. there's heavy volume in all of them today in europe. >> thanks, bob. now over to brian quickly. >> bob pisani, thank you very much for that because i did notice it was a big worry. all right. let's talk about the seven-year note auction, right? we had one today. rick, you gave the -- first off, i understand you gave the auction an a plus, but you'll forgive me because i just can't see professor rick santelli giving anything an a plus. >> hey, i call it the way i see it. that was a burn burner auction without a doubt. the old jackie gleeson phrase how sweet it was. if you look at a seven-year intraday note chart you can clearly see a half a dozen basis points vaporize around 1:00 eastern. slipped half a dozen basis points here at 197. more importantly, look at the dollar index, when did it make its lows? right after that auction. flip it around. when did the euros touch the

high of the day? right after the auction. so a lot of markets paying attention as well they should. >> rick, thank you very much. well, sodastream as you know one of our favorite talking subjects here on "street signs." who could forget the great taste challenge we did last summer? you may not know this company is based in israel. now we're getting our first look inside the company. cnbc's chief international correspondent, michelle caruso-cabrera, is in israel where she slammed herb greenberg earlier in her tease. [ laughter ] >> slammed is such a strong word. i did love that taste test. it was a wonderful moment in cnbc history. sodastream makes these cool countertop appliances so you can make soda pop at home. who knew they were located here in israel? israel is known all over the world for its high-tech biotech and medical device industries. but this country is also home to one of the hottest products in

kitchens all over the world. sodastream. >> we manufacture three million soda makers in the last year. in 2006 we did about 400,000. we do 400,000 in a month now. so something's going on. there's a revolution happening in the beverage world. >> what makes sodastream unique is its location just outside of jerusalem in one of the disputed areas. the company has several assembly plants throughout the world, but it's biggest is in israel. and it is the largest employer of palestinians in the country. one of them told us he's worked in other companies for 15 years. but after being here just one year, he had enough money to buy a house for his family. there are more than 700 employees at this factory. it's one of the largest in israel. and they're producing this brand new sodastream product available at target just this month. this is the diet cranberry. pretty delicious.

guys, you got to hear these people talk about the future of sodastream. forget those little machines, they envision a world where the house of the future has a sink that has hot water, cold water and carbonated water. a refrigerator with a water dispenser, an ice dispenser and a sodastream dispenser. they're trying to think big to match that stock price. back to you guys. >> you know, michelle, i want to ask you because obviously all kidding aside and you did your little taste test there which is fantastic, we're showing video of ours now where herb got crushed, by the way. i want to ask you, your reporting has been excellent. i heard this morning you went to a company on the syria border. not to be serious for a moment, but is iran -- is that something people talk about every day? or do people just get up, go to work and sort of try to ignore the headlines when they can? >> i think it's both. if you're running a company -- and we've asked every single ceo and they said, you know what, business as usual. you have to. you've got to just keep going.

and they feel very used to being under threat. so at the same time though it's in the papers nearly every day. we talked to the largest asset manager in the country, and they are seeing pension funds very much shift away from israel, diversifying their assets because they're worried, a, about the situation here. and many believe that perhaps the united states is the best place to invest right now because there's been a shift in the world economy. it's an absolutely valid question. it's why we came here. and you can see, the question of israel pervades everything. talking about palestinians working for this company, it's just an every single thing that happens in this country. >> business brings people together. as always, great reporting. great taste test, michelle. have you back in the studio for another one. thank you. all right. we have to go to eamon javers with breaking news from washington, d.c. eamon, what do you got? >> just within the past couple of minutes google is confirming for me a report that was in politico a few minutes ago that they have hired the former republican congresswoman from

new york as their new representative in the washington office here. it's a big move for google. she will replace alan davidson, a long-time figure at google who left there earlier last year. but susan molinari is a well-known washington insider. a veteran of the united states congress. she will now head up google's washington office in addition to other duties with the company. and the company gave us a statement here from david drum saying i'm excited about susan joining google. her enthusiasm will be a real asset to our team in the americas. and, guys, this is really a sign of google beefing up its lobbying operations here. they have spent more money in recent months than they have spent in the past. and, of course, they're one of the first issues that molinari will have to address is this issue of privacy which has been so hot and controversial here in the nation's capitol. back to you guys. >> eamon javers, thank you. it is herb on the street time. today we're talking about what

else? sears holdings, huge miss. and yet another strategic plan. how many can we go through since the deal between k-mart and sears closed in 2005 in. >> this is like back to the future. here we are eight years later and back to the break-up of sears story. and actually it's happening at least right now. but my talks with industry insider, there's some subtleties to the story. make no mistake about it. to people in the industry sears is now looking more like an orderly liquidation. but in the process the message it would appear they attempted to send today in their conference call, the first one they've held since 2004, was a big one to vendors that we've got enough assets to cover our bills. in fact, in the prepared comments by executives, i counted the use of the word asset 29 times. those assets, still unclear what they're really worth. they're selling off 11 stores to

general growth for an average price of $25 million a piece. that is a huge number. now, does that mean these are the best of the bunch? and what's the market for big boxes -- big box stores like those? certainly not better than eight years ago. but bottom line to all of this is talking to competitors, this much is more than clear, they see $40 billion of sales up for grabs. and they're like sharks smelling blood in the water going after this. before we chat about this, reminder, if you have questions for me, today is your day. at 4:30 p.m. i'll be hosting at cnbc's google plus page. come over. first time we've done it live here at the headquarters. be interesting to see how i flub that one up. >> i still think this whole internet thing is a fab. i've been wrong. >> big time. >> in fact, i've got -- you guys killed me on twitter yesterday on our segment about picking the best stock in the basket versus buying an entire etf.

so we'll flip the scrip. i will issue a mea culpa. teetering leaders of the arab spring. cnbc celebrates black history month. willy t.ribbs, pioneer with a passion for speed. after graduating high school he took his talent to europe competing and winning in many classes of auto racing. when he returned to the states, ribbs was the first african-american to compete in the nascar winston cup series and the first to qualify for the famed indianapolis 500 in a formula one style car. >> driving fast is freedom. you're free to go as hard and fast as you want. nal here? aren't you getting a little industrial? okay, there's enough energy right here in america. yeah, over 100 years worth. okay, so you mean you just ignore the environment. actually, it's cleaner. and, it provides jobs. and it helps our economy. okay, i'm listening.

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because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. you can even take a full-size or above. and still pay the mid-size price. i deserve this. [ male announcer ] you do, business pro. you do. go national. go like a pro. all right. time for a bit of a mea culpa. yesterday we did a segment on "street signs" that got you fired up. it was a discussion on playing etfs versus single stock picking. we ran five-year returns on some of the most popular etfs and then looked at the best performing single stock in each fund to show you how much money you'd left on the table if you'd picked the single stock over the

etf. here they are again. absolutely destroying the etfs they are members of. many of you thought it was a one-side conversation, that we were etf bashing, that we didn't show the worst performer in each of these funds. in other words, they stunk. here are some tweets, while the range is striking, you would see the same range for losers. individual pickers can be as bad as they can be good. another viewer tweeted this, please put the worst stock in the etf as well. only fair that way to make an assessment. and you have got to be kidding me, who writes your scripts? you're really anti-etf. i write the scripts, so yell at me. anyway, we listen to you, dear viewer. we ran the numbers and found the worst performers in the same etf. so to get the other side of the etf coin, here you go. in the oil services index, nabors industry over five years down 28%, but still far under the performance of fmc technology on a percentage basis. forest labs, this equals out a little more.

you're down 42%. and in the ishares transportation etf you have fed ex down 25%. in the end, every stock will balance out on the etf. that's the way it works. at the same point, notice if you bought the best and worst, i mean, if you got lucky that way, you still would have done better than buying the etf, in some cases. all right. now turning to cnbc's investigations inc. and the $1.5 trillion money trail of global construction. our scott cohn has been racking up the frequent flier miles and joins us with a sneak peek of tonight's special report on the filthy rich. >> lots of miles and lots of time, brian. we've been working on this program for actually more than a year. what really got us going on it was arab spring, which of course started just a little bit over a year ago. tunisia's opposed president still was buying homes in paris as his people protested. egypt's mubarak.

and libya's gadhafi with publishing, banking and auto industry. and as authorities clamp down on the assets of another arab regime under siege of sorts, u.s. officials have drawn praise in speed of funds but some critics are unimpressed. >> in some ways it's sort of laundering their own reputation by saying we'll clamp down on this very quickly as soon as someone comes and complains, but we're happy to accept the money in the first place. >> arab spring has awakened the world to the -- what the people we're calling filthy rich. tonight we will show you what's gotten some authorities to finally start cracking down and how some are still getting away with it. "filthy rich" here on cnbc at 9:00 p.m. >> they take the cash that belongs to the people. but you said the first guy was buying homes in paris. do they know who they're selling to? they're just as culpable.

a holding company behind a holding company behind a holding company. >> that's the issue. there's an issue of transparency where the systems both in france and the u.s. in particular allow these things to happen. you can set up a shell company in the u.s., get your attorney to do it, not say who's behind it. and it's perfectly legal. but the law enforcement community is saying that we need to have legislation, senator put forth a bill opposed because some people want secrecy and legitimately need it. >> when i drive in here every day i think i pass a house that used to be owned by gadhafi. >> that's exactly right. >> that's where you begin your investigation. >> pretty much is. >> can't wait to see it. 9:00 p.m. eastern time right here. should be fascinating. apple nation in california. we are going to take you there live. jon fortt with the inspiring and insightful words from the new ceo tim cook. it is the first since the passing of steve jobs.

before we do that though, bill, what is ahead on "closing bell"? >> we have plenty of ceos coming your way on "closing bell." a trio of them as a matter of fact. we'll talk with the ceo of aig just moments after the results are of the hour 4:00 eastern. plus, we'll get the outlook for consumer spending when we speak with the heads of clorox and darden restaurants. they, of course, own olive garden and red lobster gardens. brian and the gang and "street signs" are back right after signs" are back right after this.

do check out shares of apple. again marching toward an all-time high. $514.98. call me when it gets to $517. over the $500 a share mark. the run in apple just keeps going. i mean, apple is not just a company anymore. it is a way of life. it is a thing unto itself and it has created what we're calling the iconomy. jon, what are the hot topics? >> well, no new news on a dividend. though it did come up.

tim cook all but ruled out a stock split. there were lots of questions about a number of topics. the labor stuff, the china labor stuff and fox con did not come up. and tim cook didn't volunteer any comments about that. interestingly enough, new products were an item of discussion. one of the things that i thought was interesting is cook talked a bit about how apple thinks about media. continues to say apple is looking to make money off of media sales. doesn't see an ala carte type of system that they're trying to push. they're not trying to be netflix. also, that they're not going to do anything drastically different than they have, to take on the cable companies. it looks like they're setting up for potentially an apple tv that has perhaps more dvr functionality. they didn't say anything specific about that, though. >> all right. so nothing on the dividend, and we tease it as sort of an inspiring message, right? i think tomorrow is actually steve jobs' birthday.

what did tim cook say that was so inspiring? how was he received? what was the feeling there? >> well, i'll tell you, the most inspirational thing that tim cook could do is just read off the numbers they've done in the most recent quarters. and that certainly got a bit of applause and smiles from the hair sholders, pointing out that the growth in revenue last year, about $43 billion worth of growth to $108 billion was more growth than you got out of nokia, r.i.m., htc, hp, dell, combined. he also had a very different tone than we've seen from steve jobs in the past. he was very nice in the way he answered even more prickly questions. >> i know there's a lot more to go. you never know what could happen this krafr noon, given that you're three hours earlier. jon, thank you so much. a new twist in the boston/new york baseball rivalry. the red sox built kind of a mini

fenway. they sold it to jetblue and called it jetblue park. well, jetblue park.com was not registered by the team or the airlines. so enter a cubs fan who bought the domain for 8 bucks. and as a joke, if you go right now to jetblue.com it takes you to the new york yankees website, which makes no sense, given that the guy's a cubs fan. either way, you get the point. folks, register your domain names. what the tooth fairy might be telling us about the stock market, coming up next. we wish there was a gas pump fairy. the highest gas prices around your area, we'll show them to you coming up in two minutes.

we wrap it up with this. apparently the tooth fairy is feeling the pinch, he or she left an average gift of $2.10 last year. and that was down 42 cents from the year before. the most common gift for a tooth under the pillow is still a buck. miss tooth fairy is a good gauge of the economy. here you go. we asked you to tweet us some of the highest gas prices in the area. here you go. ethan in l.a., thanks much, ethan. past sunday, up 20 cents. over 4 bucks a gallon in l.a. i love the fact there's a prius in the front. check out this pick.