growth and jobs. these things matter but on a shorter-term basis, if you have a financial crisis -- >> different from '80, '82 it came back. >> that's just a wrong-headed comparison. >> great. i needed to ask that. thank you. i hope to see you again. >> sure. >> and, steve, thank you for being with us here today. >> which opening is your favorite, white or black? >> well, it's better to be white if you move first, you have a big advantage. >> i hope i can remember that. make sure you join us on monday. "squawk on the street" is next. ♪ i got work to do ♪ i got work baby good morning and welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm melissa lee with jim cramer and brian sullivan live from the new york stock exchange, karl and david are on assignment. february jobs report showing nonfarm payrolls up to 227,000 and the unemployment rate at 8.3%. let's look at how futures are setting up and see whether or not this bounce that we're seeing in the premarket will

actually hold for the rest of the session. as for europe, we've got mostly green arrows, mixed markets de spite as what some view as a successful bond swap in greece. all of this happening on the third anniversary of the market bottom when the dow closed at, get this, 6547. wow. what a level. since then the bull has been on a tear. the dow posting a 97% gain, both the s&p 500 and nasdaq have more than doubled, with that said let's get started with this roadmap for the end of the week. no surprise it starts with the jobs number. another sign of a strengthening recovery, the first time since 2011 that payrolls have grown for more than 200,000 3 months in a row, we'll talk with labor secretary and presidential candidate ron paul for their take. gree greece pulls it off, 83.5% of the bondholders said it will agree to the selloff. the credit event could force the payoff of billions of cdfs. and roasted green mountain coffeemws shares are sinking

premarket with nuews that starbucks will have its own home brewing machine. it is a three-year birthday of the bull market and of the market calls made by our dear friend the late mark haines. we've got the biggest winners and losers on deck. we've got to start off with the number beating expectations, nonfarm payle r le rl payrolls 227,000, and the unemployment rate at 8.3%, a three-year low, but the question is will the data support the bounce in the premarket to actually hold on for the rest of the session? because the numbers over time has told us that it doesn't last. it just doesn't last. >> look, i think that one of the things that we saw this week in the bounceback from the 200-point day was an expectation that greece would get done and we'd have a blowout number, better than expected. the way the things work so you know it at home, we were looking for 200, but the secret number

was 220, we get 220, it's not a reason to buy. i was talking to brian sullivan before we started about the meaninglessness in the terms of trading stocks off this number. >> it's the last, i don't know, year and half, the jobs numbers, we haven't seen a big volatility inside the jobs number day. obviously we know it and everybody will set up ahead of that time. when the number's come out we haven't seen a 0.4 percent of a move in the dow in a year and a half. not taking awae ing awaif the i of the jobs. it was more important before the great recession, right? because we lost so many jobs, everybody knows we're going to slowly dig our way out of it but by no means are we out of the woods. 14-plus million unemployed and millions more underemployed and those people looking for full-time jobs. clawing, clawing. >> there's always the question, too, whether the 8.3% measures the picture of the economy. ron paul will probably come on and say it doesn't, it only

measures the people actively looking for jobs and it's not the full picture. on the other hand, also, improving economy and where does it leave qe-3, is it completely off the table on the one hand a strengthening economy is great for the markets, but on the other hand, what happens when that monitor policy is pulled? >> i think that one of the things that ben bernanke has done and does not get enough credit for candidly to say we have your back, if the numbers turn badly. let's say that oil goes up. let's say that oil goes to $140 or gasoline goes to $4.25, he sees it and understands it. i think he's preemptive so, so often because i like, because he's living in the era of 1939. >> who am i to disagree with you? >> i don't know. >> but i will say this gas prices to going up to let's say five bucks this year will not mean as much as gas prices going up to five bucks a couple years ago because we have the payroll tax cut and when you look at the numbers and dig in the average family of 50 bucks a month, right?

$600 a year, more they'll spend on gas, the average income family will get more of that back from the 2% payroll tax cut so it's not completely analogous on the prior move in gasoline. >> but i care about earnings per share. earnings per share gets cut for a pepsi on this number. and they have to take a truck! >> oh, on the gas number. >> right. >> because they shrunk the packaging as much as they can, they've done the joe lilogisticy did the easy things the last few years and now what will they do? >> we must never forget in the end what drives stocks is texas instruments saying the wrong thing. >> cypress. >> cypress. what happens is we may be able to say the retail sales may not go down as much, kohl's adding people, but i worry about earnings per share and i need them to be beaten. >> why isn't anybody more worried about the banks here, okay, melissa, at the top you talked about the psi participation rate. it's clear to anybody with a

pulse, right, that the cacs will be enforced. that is -- bill gross came out this morning and said this is a credit event. >> pimco is only one member of the issa. >> but there's 15 members. five buy side, five sell side. that's understood. there's 68 billion in swaps written but most are hedged. only 3.3 billion are unhedged. it's not a small number. and the hedges may not work. i think if they determine it's a credit event, i think it's clear to most people it is, what banks will have to pay out. >> why is it clear to most people -- yes, i agree that's probably the consensus, but if you take a look at the members of isda, there's more that bought more cds than they bought. they stand to lose big time. >> isda will say, and if we get the guy, i've talked to him extensively, there's 3.3 billion nonhedge but is it a perfect match? >> we've got to step back. you mentioned psi, and now you understand. i'm in my late 50s, that's something i don't worry about, a

prostate exam. ive with we've got to be careful. you've got to care about the futures. will greece default again? these are the kind of things that i absolutely care about. i care about the future, not about which banks are going to be in trouble. am i worried about the banks? united states banks are the strongest i've ever see them, because tim geithner put a gun to every bank in this country. >> and earnings estimates starrting to come up. >> jpmorgan are too low. >> everybody was worried about the greek default, with the cac there's some mention of a credit view. >> they said no. they said no. >> that's right. because they didn't have the cac. the cac as you know is just jamming it down their throat. >> oh, come on! you are selling those bonds, you are brain dead or -- >> somebody owns -- maybe the ecb owns it. i don't know. >> they will make a decision this morning. and we will see. the question is, brian, you know, if you said that everybody with a pulse knows that this is a default, then everybody with a

pulse are the market participants and it's already priced in. if it's that obvious, it's priced in. >> what does it have to the prices of mars? we have to put it into the context of people owning stocks -- >> all i said is greece is so important for a year and a half and here's the d-day and it's like, final. >> it's death by a thousand paper cuts. >> wow. >> that sounds nasty. >> it's the last paper cut on our body, do you feel it? not after a thousand. >> you're leaving me cold. i own green mountain coffee. let's get more on greece, let's go to michelle ka rules so cabrera, he's in athens with the latest on the greece bond swap and whether or not using the collective action clauses could actually trigger a default, michelle? >> it's widely expected that is absolutely what will happen. everyone involved in the process here, the parliamentarians in the building behind me that

imposed it, understood when it was imposed would trigger cds, everybody in the process told me that they believe it will trigger a credit default swap, you have to have the deal executed and isda presumably after that will announce. if they don't, it means hara-kiri for the credit default market, because obviously it's some kind of default and you don't get paid off and insurance will be a problem. we'll see. we're waiting for that once the deal is executed. now, jim, you asked some really great questions about the future of greece and whether or not there's going to be another default. so, even though these new greek bonds don't exist, proxies for them are already trading. the liquidity is thin. but the yields are extremely high, in fact, the greek yield curve is inverted at this point. the 11-year bond is yielding 22%, the 30-year bond is yielding 20% and the market is clearly suggesting that there are concerns about greece's ability to even pay back these new bonds.

it shouldn't be that surprising because, remember, even though this deal reduced their debt by 100 billion euros, for the private sector they get 130 billion new euros of loans from the public sector, so it doesn't do a whole lot to shift their debt burden. the profile gets a little easier, right? the payment terms are easier. back to you, jim, yes. >> you're telling the story, because i keep thinking and a lot of people think, well, this is back in the box, we're done with this. it's just the opposite. i mean, once again, this continent has not been able to deal with its problems in a way that makes it so we don't have to focus on it. >> yep, yep. and, michelle, i have a feeling, you know this better than i do, you'll be moving west soon, because portugal is hanging out there, you got spain hanging out there. they are looking at the deal, the numbers get bigger going to italy and spain, i don't think the european situation is over. >> the yields today in portugal went higher interestingly. >> when you want to solve -- when you want to solve this crisis, when you want to solve

this crisis, there are two things you really have to achieve. have you moved the country to a position of solvency? that didn't happen with greece. and have you created conditions in which private capital wants to return to the market? they haven't done that yet. >> you do it with growth and not anybody over there's talking about growth. they're still talking about austerity. the germans get to win. their industrial production number's up. yesterday they were talking about time to start tightening over there. are they insane? >> you can't tighten. >> yeah. >> no economy's ever grown under austerity. ken rogoff the earlier guest -- >> they have started talking about growth. they have finally started talking about reforms that might actually makeé6h"ilp the econom instead of just talking about raising taxes and cutting salaries. they're talking about labor reforms, finally. can they get them done? super hard to do. that's why they just raised taxes instead, because believe it or not, that's easier rather than telling a population that's

is controlled by unions that that's not going to happen anymore. it's really difficult to do. >> right, next stop lisbon? got some great restaurants and hotels there. >> yes, absolutely. i think that's -- yes. >> it's very hot there. >> do you know that language? >> a little portuguese. >> dropping some portuguese on you this morning. >> you probably went where they got the great portuguese restaurant. >> no, i actually went to portugal. not just the portuguese section of newark. >> you are probably the tallest guy there. don pappi's is good. >> thank you, michelle. we got to talk about starbucks shaking up the single serve coffee market by introducing its own at-home system will which compete with green mountain's keurig machine, green mountain shares tumbling in the premarket, but starbucks say it will make the k-cups that fit into the green mountain machines, they say the espresso machine will be complementary,

but how many machines do you have? >> come on. herb greenberg has documented this lock, stock, and barrel. he's been amazing at this. this is howard schultz being brilliant, the ceo of starbucks. he's basically created something neat in our time, and what's really going on is this is i think not a chink in green mountain, but perhaps the shive in the back of green mountain, the shive! >> why do we think starbucks will be successful in making the machines, that the margins will be high enough, the people that buy the starbucks machines are a subsector of the starbucks customer. it's a smaller percentage. you have to like starbucks to buy the machine. i'm wondering can they achieve the scale to make the machines in a profitable way? >> i do believe this is a razor blade model. i believe procter & gamble lives through howard schultz and it

will work. i think if you are green mountain, you will question it. i used my keurig this morning, it's part of my routine. >> go back to what you said, it's a knife in the back of green mountain. how bad do you think it is for green mountain? knife in the back is not a gentle term, jim. £otç i could do it in the head, like in "psycho." people have been reiterating, reiterating, reiterating green mountain coffee as if it didn't happen. >> starbucks enters the exact same territory, it's no big deal. >> no big deal? no big deal? somebody thinks it's a big deal. >> why they have to reiterate their buy? to me it's, like, well, nothing happened, starbucks is a powerful, powerful force. >> take a look at the run starbucks has had, do you see a lot of this thing? is it at a point to do no wrong? >> do i want to it be up this

much? i don't know. you can make a case that the chinese initiatives -- >> hold on. i have something to show you. >> what the heck you got for me? >> i have something to show you. can we bring up the picture? do we have the amsterdam thing for starbucks? the new concept store in amsterdam. >> that's amsterdam? >> we shot for coffee, not the other coffee shot. that's the new starbucks. we could be looking at a complete reinvention of the brand by starbucks if that store works which is expensive, though. >> exactly. that means spending and this machine means marketing spend. it's all expensive. expensive, expensive. >> we thought you were a manufacturer of a comodtized -- >> of a device made in china. >> is dot-com building it? >> it goes up a dollar or two, it's a craze worldwide. look at starbucks, how many cities? you've been to china, there's one starbucks for every 2

million people there. >> craze is not what i want in a stock. that implies euphoria that goes away. can crave be sustained? >> at $18 i came out, had them on the show, listen, he's back, he's bigger than ever, kind of like "gandhi ii" if they ever make that movie. >> "gandhi ii"? do you know how "gandhi i" ended? >> yes. let's move on. move on. all right, we got to take a break actually. >> yes, we do. >> coming up first reaction from the obama administration to the unemployment report, we'll talk to hilda solis, and ahead republican presidential candidate ron paul with his perspective on the jobs numbers. and taking a look at futures and how we're setting up this morning, it looks like we'll see a bounce. the dow looking at 29 in the open. more from "squawk on the street" on the way. i look at her, and i just want to give her everything.

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coming out with the numbers, first quarter eps of two cents a share, but the big story on carnival is the huge earnings cut, fiscal eps of 140 to 160, the consensus had been 255 to

285, 40% cut of earnings per share expectations for fiscal 2012. carnival has the "costa concordia" disaster and had another boat that lost power and floating in the indian ocean. >> they can't. >> the fuel costs went up 30%, and that was a huge problem also. >> looking at the "usa today" seeing "nightly news" the picture of the boat on its side. how many people are canceling. >> they are saying that for mid-january through february 26th, bookings have shown improving trends but are still running behind high single digits in the prior year, so improvement has been there. >> this stock has held 30 for -- i mean, this is the ultimate trend line. if this thing doesn't hold 30, it can really get hammered. let's watch that level. that is the level that held even during both criscrises, both sh i'm looking at. >> we are seeing rcl trading slightly lower in the premarket. in the meantime it's been an

eventful trip for the markets when they closed 6907, and that number represents the haines bottom, and mark haneines calle it on "squawk on the street" three years ago. >> i will step out on a limb here. >> hold on, everyone. >> i think we're at a bottom. i really do. i think we'll have a rally. >> there we go, man unafraid to make a call. let me tell you this -- >> in other words, i think today this is for real. >> wow. do we miss mark haines? since then the bull market has been on a tear. check out the biggest winner since the march 2009 bottom led by wyndham worldwide, up a whopping 1,300%, genworth is up there. these are staggering returns. >> go back to mark. mark never did anything idle, okay? you know, i'm only on tv because of mark. i used to shoot mark e-mails, you think you are so good, come on tv.

wow. and what haines did is isolate the moment. we see people saying this is it. this is it. you hear this all the time. if mark said this is it when the dot-comes, he said this is too high for dot-comes. he made a fantastic call then, he made this call. the greatness of mark haines is he limited his calls to when they mattered and that's why this call was such a wake-up! i mean, i'm listening, identify just say, i think haines just said it's done. it's done. he let it come 6,000 points down before he did it and that was because he had -- he understood the way this medium worked better than anyone i've ever seen. >> that goes to brian's point of calling the jobs number, the all-important, the all-important, the all-important, what was magical about mark was that he knew when to actually call it. >> and it mattered. >> and it marry ttered, and tha why it mattered. >> i miss him a lot. >> we miss him every day, especially as we move into it.

coming up "cramer's mad dash." how long will it last? coming up at 9:30 a.m. eastern time. the equity summary score consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. introducing gold choice. the freedom you can only get from hertz to keep the car you reserved or simply choose another. and it's free. ya know, for whoever you are that day. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz.

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♪ 4 1/2 minutes until the bell rings on wall street, and "cramer's mad dash," and the home builders have been on fire. the tracks of the home builders

has been close to 52-week highs. >> the credit suisse call is interesting because it's based on what a lot of people are talking about, a strong traffic spring selling season. one of the things that toll brothers has taught me, bob toll, the great master of this era, stuart miller terrific at lenar, if you want to know how things are really going, go to the different developments and see where there's a lot of traffic. apparently it's very good. that leads to buys, of course, it's still hard to get a loan, but maybe it's easier than you think. but the banks are loaning. >> i spoke with the ceo of toll brothers on "fast" he said he felt good about the spring selling season andétñq the hig percentage of their loans if i can recall 80% of their loans are given by the toll brothers financing arm, so they're not relying necessarily on the banks. >> yearly's great. bob toll is great. and they hated the market when it was right to hate, it's important to point out it's a positive when it's right. got much more ahead. want to toss it to brian.

>> hi, melissa, thank you very much, we appreciate it, obviously. a big peruvian presence, the finance machinester is in the house. we'll speak to him about the growth in latin america. we'll go to a quick break. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles,

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♪ it's peru day at the nyse. >> and the peru finance minister will be here. nasdaq, invest atlanta, the economic development authority for the city of atlanta which i think i got to tell you the housing numbers there are not good. that's been the weak part of the u.s. economy and that's been ground zero for it, not phoenix, not las vegas anymore. >> but we're watching in addition to the housing call, jim, you are watching oil. surprisingly not moving too much. ti we're up at 106.76. >> 126. the wti spread will be cured by

embridge by the sea wave pipeline reversal, it will be six months from now. exxon, i was incredibly disappointed by what they had to say yesterday not just because they're against using natural gas which is produced in this country, first surface fuel, but also because the production numbers are very weak there versus, say, most of the independents and versus the anadarko, versus a mobil, they are drilling and taking advantage of the high price of crude. exxon is saying we're sitting back. why are you sitting back for, for heaven sake? they are more like a bank than an oil company. >> it is the time for oil companies. take a look at texas instruments, it's down by three-quarters of a percent right now. of course, it took down estimates for revenues and eps, this is not the first time that they've done this, they've cut profit and revenue forecasts three times, three times in the last year! >> but playmaker doesn't make the call. >> why every time? >> how about the fourth question of the conference call which

was, hey, it was a second, you cut every single time in and then you beat the actual. he is playing -- he is the genuine master of underpromising, overdeliver, also known as upod. >> except when it's predictable, it just becomes modus operandi. >> it's the cell phone weakness. altera came in with the communication weakness. is texas instruments losing its ability to be able to predict which is another thing they talked about. i think they have a problem with their chipsets not as good as others. >> oh, yeah, the call on texas instruments, too, when they reported the last quarter they said the fourth quarter probably marked a bottom. do you remember when they said that and we got excited, oh, it's the bottom, it's the bottom. here we are, they take down their guidance so what's going on here? >> maybe it's shakespeares and a julius caesar there the fault is themselves and not the darn

stars. because qualcomm and broadcom are hitting it out of the park. >> do you like nokia, probably not. >> that's a river in finland as far as i'm concerned. >> one third of texas' sales is from nokia, specifically for the chipsets used in the simbian handsets. we're watching texas instruments and altera which did pretty much the same in the aftermarket session. it's actually higher. >> altera was the most predictable. that is a telco spend problem and when is at&t going to start spending? i think the problem was everyone was on hold. >> what about the demand for 4g? >> i think that's why qualcomm goes higher. ability going to wo in ain't going to work. >> let's send it over to brian. >> we've got the payroll numbers and the greek situation and the china the focus. what is on your radar? >> people are saying why is the stock market up so much -- >> bob, why is the stock market

up so much this year? >> thank you, brian. it's simple, there are three pillars upon which things are moving and all three are getting a little bit of support this morning. number one is the u.s. economy, it's slowly improving. we saw that with the jobs numbers this morning and morimportantly, i think you pointed out the january revisions were particularly strong. people were worried it would be revised downward, it was revised upwards. good news. soft landing in china, i know everybody went into a tizzy this week when china reduced growth targets to 7.5%, it's unlikely it will be that low. it will likely be higher. look at the numbers, we got a lot of numbers from china, factory output up 11.4% and retail sales up 14.7% we'd kill for these numbers and they were below expectations. but, brian, my point is -- >> do you believe the numbers? okay, that's the whole different issue, i understand. >> it's all baloney and let's not believe anything. >> i'm just saying. >> this is a soft landing, this is not a hard landing.

most importantly china inflation numbers 3.2%, a 20-month low, which means of the chinese authorities can tell the banks to reduce their cash reserves, that means they'll go out and do more lending. this is a very good number. >> they'll have to start easy. >> economic numbers, a tad below expectations and inflation under control. that means the chinese authorities are going to step ig more. the soft landing in china. let's get to the whole greek thing. good news and bad news. the first thing -- look, the greek psi deal is not the engine, jim has been talking about this. but the bottom line is systemic risk to the euro zone has been reduced because of this. i did not say eliminated, but it's greatly reduced. the bailout package is approved. debt interest payments will go into an escrow account, they'll be paid off the private bondholders, yes, greece has to implement the reforms and

they'll be held to the fire and required to implement these reforms and there could be risk there. but my point is all of this action has reduced systemic risk to the euro zone. break-up of the euro zone, it's less likely as a result of this. >> as we learned with t.a.r.p. if you throw a few hundred billion -- >> that's right. >> -- printed or borrowed dollars at something, you better hope you get something back with it, but the can is -- is it further down that way? >> kicking the scan. it's not an unsuccessful strategy. people should acknowledge this. as far as i can see, there's about 3.2 billion outstanding. >> that's the number. >> half of it is covered. it seems to me that's a small number. >> if they are perfectly hedged, 3.3 billion outstanding with no hedges according to isda, we've got to find out who wrote the swaps. i've got more to come with isda. >> watch out for the greek gdp,

7.5% down in the fourth quarter. it's a little less than expected and that will make it harder to meet the targets. >> melissa? >> brian, thank you. the jobs report for february showing solid gains. nonfarm payrolls rising 220,000 with the unemployment steady at 8.3%, and here with us is hilda solis, the labor secretary. pleasure to speak to you again. >> thank you. >> it's the first time that the payrolls have grown more than 200,000 three months in a row, how confident are you that this is the start of a lasting trend? >> well, i'm not going to get into particulars, but i will say that i am confident that we're on the right path, and we continue to see gains in areas like manufacturing, leisure hospitality, professions andb4 business and also in health care. those are the four sectors that continue to be pushed out and that's why the president today is out talking about manufacturing investments, because nevertheless we lost

many, many jobs there and we need to continue to focus in on creating opportunities that pay well-paying jobs. and so manufacturing today the president will talk about creating sectors there about 15 different sectors that if we're going to make investments and with our educational institutions and manufacturers both small and large and make sure we are actually investing and insourcing the jobs back at home. >> madam secretary, 284,000 jobs created in january, 227,000 jobs just announced. i see a decline there. how do you put that decline in perspective, please? >> well, what i would say to you is that we still have a long way to go. we still have to make more investments and defer and to give economic incentives so that we see more businesses confident and expanding out and hiring more people. we still have a large number, 12.8 million people that are still looking for unemployment. and a good number of those people have been out of work for six months. so, it is helpful that we passed the ui extension benefits and

also the payroll tax, because that's also going to help to spur more job growth and more consumer demand. >> all right, madam secretary, seems pretty clear, oil and gas is the fastest creator of jobs in this country, the employment is up 15% year over year, and yet the president seems to be willing to cut back the tax breaks that have helped oil and gas. is that the right thing to do when oil and gas is the hiring engine of this country? >> you know, the president will be looking at all alternatives and they will include also the cleanup of many of these refineries and conservation, but also making sure that what we do build upon refineries, that they're environmentally safe and sound that we are also looking at alternative energies in renewables and hybrid that's why we're looking at the manufacturing area as another area to help create job growth so we can create cleaner energy systems to put in place. >> in your view, madam secretary, in jim cramer's point, is the oil and gas sector as important as the alternative

energy sector, all jobs are equal, a job is a job is a job, right? >> they're all very important. we need to focus in on making sure we're putting in a good infrastructure so we can hopefully wean ourselves off of fossil fuel from the middle east and other countries. >> you know, i'm listening, madam secretary, and i totally understand the perspective of oil and gas, your perspective. but at what point do you say, okay, look, green is good, but green can also hurt the creation of jobs? where's the trade-off here? >> do you know what i would tell you is, look at the evidence that's pretty clear right now. you see in mining, in those industries where job growth is actually been pretty stable, and i -- as i said before, a job is a job. these are good-paying jobs. we want to continue to look at that. so, the president is still looking forward to seeing those kinds of industries prosper, absolutely, because we've got hard-hit areas in west virginia, in ohio, in other places that we

still haven't seen full recovery. so, we need to balance that approach. but we also need to look at renewable resources and we're doing it. look at the automobile industry. we're creating new vehicles that are using less fossil fuel, petroleum, and we're developing hybrid vehicles that will be sold all over the world. >> and according to your projections, madam secretary, let's say by november, where will the unemployment rate be, will it be higher or lower than where we are right now? >> well, my hope is that we'll continue to see an expansion of our economy. and i can only look back at what we've seen in terms of improvement. 3.9 million private sector jobs in the last 24 months. we still have a ways to go. and that's why we're going to keep our[÷gr=k focus on job cre and in manufacturing, small business, and help make sure that people get the right, appropriate skills and that's why we're investing so much in community colleges and education and training. >> you don't want to go out on a limb and say whether we're higher or lower than 8.3%?

>> that's not my job, right now my job is to talk about the jobs. >> thank you very much, hilda solis. when it comes down to it you are talking about oil and gas being the creator of jobs. >> and you look at the keystone pipeline. >> 50,000 jobs created, surface fuels, natural gas. >> not even including the ancillary jobs because of the retail, the hole tellhotels nee to create the pipeline. >> i love solar, i love the sierra club, but solar is not the job creator. when it comes to the nonfarm payroll figure, did you nail the number? all week long we've been asking you to tweet the prediction, our crack staff has the winner of the tote bag autographed by the "squawk on the street," and winner, check your tweets. we're trying to get ahold of you so you can call into the show.

we'd love to talk to you. >> there's the bag. winner take all. loser gets none. >> it's even more stunning in person. take my word for it. more stunning in person. >> about me, too. i know what you are talking about. >> all right. we look forward to talking to you. let's ship the bonds and rick santelli is in the cme group in chicago. what's shaking? >> i tell you, jim, it's interesting half the e-mails i get from fixed income traders, is the delivery mechanism disto distorted, if it is, draw your own conclusions look at intradays of fives, 20s, and 30s, and yields spiked. traders were a bit nervous but they want a down side there's been a huge skew in the options of the fix income. the treasury skewed toward puts. but it tame right back off after the number. i think we're still within the range that can't take these

treasuries out of these four-month ranges. something else. the bank of india, who also like our fed has a meeting next week. decided early to do something unusual. they eased banking reserves. because they want to free up some cash. that's a form of accommodation before a meeting that's worth paying attention to. sully? it's all yours. >> all right, rick santelli, thank you very much. it is peru day here, we've got a number of officials talking about peru, their economy and growth and the investment opportunities there and we're proud to be joined by the finance minister of peru, miguel castillo, thank you for joining us. labor secretary hilda solis talked about mining, it's the most important for your country. newmont mining trades over there. there have been anti-mining protests in your country. do you think you have them solved, will it resuscitate the economy and help newmont? >> i think mining is an important sector in our economy. obviously there are conflicts to

be resolved. thank god the government is making all this effort to be able to have a responsible mining policies, responsible for the environment, for the community. we -- 60% of our exports are mining-represented commodities. so for us investment in mining is critical. >> newmont had a work stoppage at one of the mines they're trying to put in your country, as an investor with a stock that trades here, an american-based company, you don't want to hear that there are protests stopping your mine work. >> obviously, we don't want to hear it, too. but it's important for the mining to have -- the mine company to have a good relationship with the community. these are mines that are going to be there for 30, 40 years. and there's discussions about water supply. and we're trying to work out a working relationship between the community, between the mining company. we're in the middle of a peer review process of the feasibility studies and hopefully that should be -- we should have recommendations soon. it should get resolved.

>> that is good news for newmont mining investors and others you are an export-led economy, you've got a good pulse on europe and china, because if they slow down imports of your goods, we can get a sense that things are slof iwing globally. >> we reached a peak of exports, 50 billion last year. and i think the way that things are going, we're going to still have exports booming in our economy. in terms of trade, down a little bit, but still gold prices are up, so that helps our economy and hopefully the recovery or insippent recovery in the world economy should help with that. >> thank you very much. finance minlstister, enjoy your time in new york. let's say you and me tonight. peruvian in manhattan. >> thank you very much. >> all right. president obama's labor secretary, what does a

republican candidate for president think about the jobs numbers? we'll talk live with congressman ron paul. as we head to break take a look at the early movers on wall street, led by monster worldwide.

♪ ♪ i feel like busting loose metals are under pressure as, of course, the jobs report today the strength in the dollar one of the factors and traders looking ahead to next week's fomc decision likely to show stronger or improving economic growth, that's something that will continue to pressure prices traders say perhaps over the next few sessions. we are looking at prices that are looking at that key level of support around 1663 for gold, last week's low, and silver taking a bit more of the losses due to the more volatility in that market. in terms of oil prices, melissa,

we are looking at oil prices that haven't moved as much, geopolitics on one side, the stronger dollar on the other, those are the two factors that oil traders have to contend with in this session. back to you. >> thank you very much, sharon epperson. here are the things we're talking about. dr horton and lenar hitting 52-week highs. and starbucks hitting new highs because of its new in-homebrewing kit. and game software sales were down 23% from the same month a year ago, worse than expected but it was an improvement from january's 38% drop. the trading day is young. much more "squawk on the street" ahead. coming up, it's jobs friday. and cramer has won to do. six stocks in 60 seconds. stay tuned, and see how it all comes together. let's talk about fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 there are atm fees.

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time now for six in 60, six stocks, 60 seconds, we kick it off with sirius. >> the traded stock on a daily basis. here's one where i believe a buyback is in store.

stop caring about it. >> carnival cruise lines in the news for taking down its estimates. fuel prices huge. >> 30 dollar level held, short squeeze beckges, not as bad. >> also salon cosmetics, the price target was raised days ago, the cfo stepped down. >> a good number, but we had the ceo on, and i think the reaction is ahead it ran ahead of time. >> herbal life, buy at barclays. >> it's got a good model and well run. higher. >> nike price target lifted at citi. >> the lone junior growth stock still working. >> and you spoke to mr. suki? >> down today i think because the sierra club is teaming up with the chemical industry to stop the import of natural gas. >> what a motley collection of groups. >> it is a curious mixture and bed fellow. >> for more on these stocks go to cnbc.com. in terms of this effort to ban the export of natural gas, what other companies?

because lng already has permission, so -- >> not all the way. >> not all the way. >> not all the way. dominion is counting on this. natural gas access but has the pipe to export. dominion must be able to do this to become the high-growth utility that i think it should be. >> we have to watch the battle. >> it's difficult, this administration does not seem to be committed to creating jobs in the oil and gas industry. not necessarily keystone because it's bringing dirty oil from canada, dirty i should put quotes on. 30,000 jobs from lng if they get c9játíg7) out of the company. >> let's put the chart up that tracks the home builders. hxb is hitting a fresh 52-week high. the caveat is the two biggest components are actually mattress makers. >> isn't it ridiculous? >> amazing. >> lenar doing great.

toll brothers is just a remarkable growth engine that also has a fabulous balance sheet and stuart miller at lennar taking after his late dad who i really respect mr. miller has done a fantastic jock. >> what's on "mad" tonight? >> look, these are hot. we have high-yielding natural oil and gas. here's the deal. this is a 9% yielder. i got to find out if that 9% is safe. if it is, wow. you got a really good story going. >> right. >> it's hard to find. >> brian, over to you. all right, melissa, and jim, thank you. we've got another big hour of "squawk on the street" ahead. check this out. representative ron paul is going to be with us. obviously we'll talk about his presidential bid, but qe-3, is it possible, jpmorgan's tom lee has one stat that to him is probably the most bullish stat for the s&p 500 that i've heard and maybe he's heard in a while. we'll find out what that is and john rogers with a new stock pick and here's your hit, tweets, you can tweet me and see if you can guess it, the ticker

symbol is the same as a food additive you generally do not want in your dinner. see if you can figure that one out. big hour of "squawk on the street" straight ahead after this. because the network finds it and tailors it across all the right points, automating all the right actions... [ beeping ] ...to bring all the right results. it's the at&t network -- doing more with data to help business do more for customers. ♪ ♪

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we have january wholesale inventories expected to be up about a half of one percent. they were close up 0.4 of 1%, the extra tenth they lopped it on the revision last month. december moves up 1% to now up 1.1%. hey, we saw labor force participation rate move up and create jobs. more people in the labor force. pretty good, you know, "c" plus number for employment, but we saw a 3 1/2 year high on the trade deficit, so that will negatively affect gdp, and treasury are a bit higher on the week and the day, and the dollar index is really benefiting today from the drop in the euro currency, back to melissa lee. >> thank you very much, we'll get to the roadmap on "squawk on the street." today mark x ts the three-year anniversary of the bull market, and we'll talk more about the job recovery with john rogers.

and the race for the gop crown heats up, we'll sit down with ron paul about his take on the economy. and call it a change of heart, starbucks announcing its decision to provide its own single serve coffee brewer. did howard schultz take green mountain out to woodshed? we've got your employment industry covered from blue collar to white collar, we'll talk to the ceos and vice presidents from two major staffing companies on the february jobs report. the february jobs report came in better than expected, thomas lee is u.s. equity strategist at jpmorgan, this is exactly what we were looking for. >> yes, that's right. a great jobs numbers. as you said, look, this is the start of the fourth year of a bull market. you know, it's the only eighth market in the history of the dow that actually lasts this long and there's actually good news. you know, half of the bull markets actually posted 25% plus years in the fourth year. >> what are sort of the wild cards still to your forecast at this point? is the economy taken off the table entirely, or is it still a

question mark? >> well, i think in the u.s., you know, the story's transformed. i think it's really about this labor market breaking out. it looks like it's a 3 million jobs year. we've added 250,000 jobs the first month. the weak number is china, and i think it's more -- at least inflation is easing so they have more room to ease, and europe, i think europe's financial crisis is easing and i think it's a story of expansion now. >> more people working means more people spending, more people shopping. >> absolutely. >> does that merit multiple expansion on the s&p 500? >> yes. we put out a piece today, we've got a conference call later with investors but the high yield market has led equities, the high yield p/e is 14 times. it's historically a seven p/e discount to the market and the s&p is trading at 12 1/2. if you got the s&p to trade at the high yield mark of p/e wore at 1,500 on the s&p. >> i teased that out, i said the bullish stat, the high yield p/e is better, and why do you have

to assume the subpoe&p is too l? >> there's enormous fundamentals supporting the high yield. 15 billion, that's more than all of last year. equal to an s&p equity to a 500 billion. default rates are under 2%, it's allowing companies to issue. so it's all very bullish. >> at the same time you said it should trade up to 1,500, your target is 1430. you don't believe it will trade up to that valuation. >> i think 15 is probably where the real number should be. you know, the thing is, you know, when we put our 1430, which was early december, it was -- it was really the second highest target. i think -- i think the data has supported a much higher target. i think it's a matter of time before we think about the reasons and are a tyi articulat target. >> you talked about the bull

market and said go silcyclical. >> you buy what is cheap, techs and security and energy. and it favors last year's laggers. you got to buy the financials, theters, the industrials. >> you think tech is cheap, cypress and altera, the semiconductor side, texas instruments, disappointing numbers. >> that's right. in semis, it is kind of a -- that's one segment, so i think that there are some visibility issues. >> when you say tech looks cheap, is it software? >> it's hardware and software. in hardware, there's a huge number in that in the etech and hardware space, but tech is gaining, a great maintenance revenue stream and it got hit hard last year and it's a pretty defensive faspace in general. >> the laggers have been this year's top performers, and at what point do you say that they are fully valued? what's your valuation for that group? >> if history's a guide, it's sort of potentially a 30%, 40% year for financials, one that

rerates back to price at back and par. the regulatory is diminishing and republicans potentially gaining congress and housing is a huge lever for them, and housing look like it not only bottomed but recovering this year. >> this goes off melissa's first question for you, now that greece is sort of least kicked down the road, it's off the front page, will be anyway, what's the single next big thing that you're worried about or watching for? >> i think it really is middle east and its transition to oil prices. >> iran is real. that's your number one fear right now. >> correct. yes. >> cramer said that all the time. >> right. at what price, though, does it become dangerous? at what point do you start think about rachetcheting down your s target, oil? >> the households are back to '06 levels and it takes 15% for gasoline to get to '07 burden, roughly a 10%, 20% rise in oil from here. so, the 140-ish level is kind of where we have to start worrying

about it. >> on wti. >> yeah. >> tom, great seeing you. >> great seeing you. >> tom lee of jpmorgan. all right and we've got a very special guest joining us this morning by phone with reaction to the jobs report, here now in the first on cnbc interview texas congressman and republican presidential candidate, ron paul, representative paul, it's brian sullivan. thank you very much for joining us. with this jobs numbers and the revision to january do you feel there is zero chance, i know there would be zero chance if you were in charge, but zero chance of quantitative easing three from your friends at the feds? >> no, there will be plenty of that. when you interest rates at zero percent, isn't that quantitative easing? the whole concept is wrong. there's a lot of credit out there but it's being allocated by congress and the federal reserve and it completely distorts the market when you should be getting capital from savings and allocation of credit from the private sector.

so, this is not going to save the economy. this is a temporary reprieve, but i think we're going to continue on this course of unemployment. we essentially haven't created in any jobs. >> congressman, you are not encouraged at all by the revision of january at 227,000 jobs created in february? >> ah, sure, a little bit. i see these -- i see these as blips. you know, wall street got excited and they're excited right now because the stock market's back up to 13,000. well, in april of '07, it was 13,000, and it would have to be at 14,300 to break even. so, wall street does final in trading, but what about the personal that wants to save and take care of their future? there's no incentive there. >> there is no incentive. >> this is not real. we've got to be realistic. >> do you see the federal reserve tightening throwing a 50-basis point bone by at least trying to inflate interest rates so the savers can get at least a little something for their money? >> no way. i've asked both greenspan and

bernanke this question constantly, why do you make the elderly suffer when they want to save and they want to be frugal, they say, well, that's the price we have to pay. we have to deal with the big picture of seeing how to stimulate the finance markets and they've given meef the same answer every time. they will not do that. the only thing they know is inflating the currency and it's further distortion, yeah, we thought they were wrong and i just don't believe it. >> you are not a favor of qe-3 and there's a reasonable i am asking these questions, then, what i would ask you, right, if you are not in fave of qe, we know that, you don't think the fed is raising interest rates, you would do that. what would you do, congressman paul? >> i would stop all the bailouts. i would let the markets set interest rates. i would get people to start saving money again. i would not let the fed monetize debt, and all of a sudden the congress would have to live within their means. the only way you can lower interest rates if the congrels got out of the business of

borrowing so much money, my proposal is to cut a trillion dollars out of the budget a's a starter. >> it sounds like you are in favor of ripping the band-aid off, and it sounds good on paper, but at the same time that would probably provoke a severe market reaction. are you saying that that market reaction is worth it down the road? i mean, that immediate-term pain will be worth it to the financial markets? >> i think you have to look at the option of continuing to do what we're doing. we have a bond bubble. and eventually that will collapse. and the market, no matter what the fed does, it will push interest rates up, so what you want to do is save a crisis like what greece is doing. >> a bond bubble? >> i would say keeping this on is a disaster. >> bond bubble, are you saying that treasury securities, u.s. government issued securities are in a bubble right now? >> absolutely. they cost so much to get so little. who would invest other than, you know, the insiders and the bankers and the traders? who would invest in a 20-year government bond or 30-year

government bond? there's no value in that. so, the price is way too high. just as the value of those greek bonds were way too high and that's why they're worthless now and nobody wants them and nobody wants to let them default. you have to liquidate the debt and you got to get rid of the debt if you ever want growth ywñ again. >> it'sals refresh i always ref hear from you, because you give a perspective that not many people bring to the table. and what you bring and what you demand of the other candidates, a lot of people are already writing you off, and i know that you have vowed to stay in the race adsg1i leak06hm for now. but what would be your greatest legacy? what is the issue that you would most like to look back on and say, do you know what, i had an impact on the republican nominee on this issue? >> well, i think the main thing is change the course of where we've been going for, you know, especially the last 40 years,

maybe 100 years, and say that freedom is the issue, not big government. and that's what has to happen. that's what my campaign is all about. but the next generation, i win you at election of the people between 18 and 30 because they know what they're getting. they're getting a bad deal. they know about it. they know about the fed. they're sick and tired of the wars. and they're just tired of it all and they don't like the intrusion on their personal liberties. >> right. >> reininstitutionalizing the love of liberty that we need and that's why we get the support we do. >> and you've always appealed to the youth voter, but more recently and i'm thinking of super tuesday it doesn't appear to be the case that you've actually drawn those people in. according to a tufts study that was released this week, in five super tuesday states, you attracted no more of the youth vote than rick santorum. what is happening to yourbation? i know your advisers are saying that the outpour in the rallies and the support among the youth vote is not translating at the

polls. >> well, you have to read all the stories about how they count the votes, too, to be fair. because there's a lot of things going on. we can put 4,000 people in the precinct and come up with 2,000 votes and we actually know where our votes are. so, we have a lot of things to contend with, not only the philosophy and the challenge to the status quo, but we also have to challenge the system that can't bear the thought that we would get a lot of credit for what we're doing. >> congressman paul, listen, it's been a very serious interview. i want to leave you with good news on a friday, i don't know if you read this, congressman, there's a giant asteroid headed our way, 2040, it could be here, so all this stuff we may not have to worry about it. >> there you go. i don't worry about tomorrow, you know, tomorrow will take care of itself. but if we continue to do what we're doing, we better worry about the asteroid. >> fair enough, congressman paul. try to get a little levity in there. but it is true about the asteroid, melissa, i'm already making preparations.

i hope to have my own a & e show. "bunker builders"? >> you only watch nbc network. this week has been fascinating in terms of all the events, the full moon, the solar flare and you are talking about this asteroid. >> i'm just saying, do you know what i mean? i had hair coming out of the tops of my hands last night anyway. ron paul, 20-year bond bubble, what do you think about that? you're getting nothing for your money. >> yes. true. >> he wants to help you. he's on team lee. >> but i think for a lot of people ripping the band aid off is terrifying. >> because the band-aid is about a mile wide. >> exactly. and we don't know what is going to come out. but we want to check on the euro, it's trading at the lows of the session, 131.14 on news that fitch has cut greece's rating to restricted default over the debt swap, this is sort a of a pile-on.

this is the one year anniversary of the japan tsunami, and one year later has the supply chain been fully restored? we're taking the pulse of the japanese auto industry next. still to come, the jobs number is out. did you nail the number? find out if you're the lucky winner of our autographed tote bag. but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. ...which meant she continued to have the means to live on... ...even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. forty years ago, he wasn't looking for financial advice.

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♪ all right, here we are now, entertainer, let's do it. stocks to watch about 45 minutes into trading. number one, dick sporting goods initiated by argus research. $55 price target. williams-sonoma downgraded from outperform at wells fargo, down fractionally and cigna upgraded to positive from neutral, that stock is up about a buck. we've been telling all week about our big nail the number contest, we asked you guys out there to guess the nonfarm payroll number, the last time the winner won an awesome, really awesome, autographed mug from the whole gang here. >> awesome was it? >> it was so awesome. but do you know what, do you know what's even more awesome than an autographed mug, an autographed tote bag, yes, we're

giving it away complete with everyone's john hancock once again, stick around, we'll announce the winner in just a bit. this is the height. >> that's fabulous. it is missing my signature, but i'm simply a bench player today, so it is fine. i'm a fill-in as they say in the business. japan's massive tsunami last year triggering auto parts shortages and production shutdowns across the board, how is the industry faring right now? phil lebeau standing by live with more. phil? >> reporter: melissa, last year at this time a lot of people were wondering how much the japanese automakers would be hurt and could they rebound, we've got the numbers and some of the details might surprise you a bit. that story is next. they're all like, "hey, brother, doesn't it bother you that no one notices you?" and i'm like, "doesn't it bother you you're not reliable?" and they say, "shut up!" and i'm like, "you shut up." in business, it's all about reliability. 'cause these guys aren't just hitting "print." they're hitting "dream." so that's what i do. i print dreams, baby. [whispering] big dreams.

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this sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the tsunami in japan, as the country recovers both emotionally and economically, our phil lebeau is looking at the progress made in the auto industry, phil? >> reporter: when you look at

the japanese automakers because they were hit the hardest where the tsunami and earthquake had the greatest devastation in japan, look at the market share in the united states a year later. it was really low late summer but it's come back, although all three of them still showing they have lost a bit of market share compared to a year ago. for the most part, however, auto production has rebounded to the levels that were expected to be at. one year later, japanese auto production basically back to normal in japan. but you look at each of the automake automakers, start with toyota, it has shifted production outside of japan. we were at a toyota plant opening in mississippi. the prius sales are expected to rebound this year because they were hit hard by them stopping production last year. nissan actually weathered the tsunami, post-tsunami period, better than its competitors because it's factories were not hit as hard. its sales held up due to jawn-japan plant production, it's more diversified around the world. and we talk a little bit about honda, but take a look at the

american automakers, general motors and ford, both of them came close to seeing production stop because of components that were built in japan. both of those companies, those stocks are down in the last year. they've picked up some market share, guys, because of the problems for the japanese automakers. but a year later if you talk to people in detroit, all of them will say same thing, post-tsunami period is over, we can no longer count of nef gains because of the earthquake. now everything has been reset. >> and, phil, i want to ask you about the market share gains. let's say somebody might want to buy a toyota. they've always owned, say, japanese cars but they couldn't for the first time they purchased a chevy cruise. do you believe in your reporting and talking to people that the buyers who may have bought american for the first time and there are plenty of those people out there will now stay with the american manufacturers, that is a permanent market share gain? >> much better chance that they will stay with the american a o automakers if they've switched. because the cars are more competitive and people who are now looking for a small, fuel

efficient vehicle, they have more choice. five years ago, you stayed and you waited for the japanese to come out with a new model. not the case anymore. >> and, phil, quickly, in terms of the9zv  auto suppliers, hav seen a shift out of the asian reason, not the tsunami but the thai flooding? >> they have become more diversified and more nimble in terms of if there's a disaster in one part of the world, they are better prepared to shift production of certain components to other areas. they're not completely redundant, but they are better balanced, better positioned. >> phil lebeau, thank you for that report. coming up on "power lunch," jon fortt looks at whether u.s. technology companies have solved their disruptions caused by the fukushima power meltdown, that's particular p.m. eastern on cnbc. starbucks has announced plans to sell single serving coffee machines, what does it

mean for green mountain coffee roasters? we'll break that down in a moment. still to come, it's the job market, stupid. and we've got it covered. dhr international joins us with their shots on today's jobs number. in the meantime, we've learned there's a private held retailer in illinois looking for a cfo. salary starts at $700,000. stay tuned for all the details. and it's free. ya know, for whoever you are that day. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. weight loss programs can be expensive. so to save some money, i just got the popular girls from the local middle school to follow me around. ew. seriously? so gross. ew. seriously? that is so gross.

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about one hour into trading day, here are the stories we're talking about. fitch is downgraded greece's credit rating over the country's debt swap deal. and wholesale inventories up in january by a smaller-than-expected 0.4 percent, sales experiencing a surprise drop down 0.10 of a percent. the dow jones average is up, and better-than-expected jobs number, but not a big pop. still up 44 points. the nasdaq up as well and the s&p 500 up six. let's take a look at how the breadth of the market looks, advancers outpacing the decliners. 143 stocks very lazy unchanged. nasdaq up 1,600. a little over 600 down, 156 unchanged. as melissa said we are one hour into trading, let's head now to

chicago for more on the market's latest news, and let's go to the cme group right now and, allen, why are we not seeing more of a pop not on the february number but the january revision? >> the revisions are the biggest part. 60,000, this is the largest three-month growth that we've seen since 2006. the market kind of anticipated this. what i view more importantly is the reaction that we've seen from the selloff on tuesday that we've more than recouped that and now we're, you know, pressing the highs at 1370. so, there were no real surprises, no bump in the road and now we need some sort of catalyst to keep us moving along, but the trend remains very, very strong. >> you know, we talked about how when greece is sort of, quote, over that things will be a little more clear. look -- >> right. >> -- whatever the whole thing works out with the swaps, the reality is greece will get its money and they'll move on so greece is sort of i guess technically over. why aren't we seeing more of a pop, or is the last couple of months the pop that we just had before the news itself? >> right.

i think you're correct in that assumption. the greece thing has been drawn out over the last three years. at every selloff on a renewed concern has been more shallow, i think it's then put on the back burner and i think it's finally behind us for now. now, you know, there are going to be risks obviously after a 15% up move that, you know, that we're going to see some unwinding. i don't know what's going to, you know, be the news that's going to drive that, but it's hard to be a buyer here after the market has rallied. obviously, i'm still very bullish. but you have to be extra cautious, because the easy money's been made. you know, what's going to be that issue that comes out that causes people to take profits. i think the trend is solid. i'm still looking for 15,000 in the dow, and looking for 1475 in the s&p, but how we get there i. >> 15,000 on the dow and you like gold as well. if i had to choose the dow, a diamond, or a basket of stocks, or gold, which would you buy?

>> i would look at gold after the selloff. gold is now out of favor. i think, you know, we've been trading sideways between 1,800 and $1,600 an ounce roughly for the last month. and the 1700 level is important to stabilize over the next couple of weeks but longer term option plays there, look for the dollar to continue unwind, it's had a little bit of a bounce here today, but i think the dollar unwinding will add real value to a lot of commodities and i think gold is a good opportunity at the $1,700 level. >> thank you very much, allen. >> thanks for having me. let's continue our discussion with the jobs number that was, by the way, out this all right, steve, anything in this number that is negative? that will throw water on this friday? >> brian, i'll get to those. there are a few negatives, but everybody knows the main numbers, the 8.3% unemployment rate, the 227,000 jobs created in february. what i want to share with you are the real details of the data

that gives them hope for the future, call this jobs report inside edition. temporary help up 45,000, that's the best number since november of 2009. a good leading indicator of future job growth. this 1 million number of people leaving their jobs is a good sign. why? because people don't leave their jobs without another job if they really think the job market's terrible. household employment has been running ahead of the payroll number at 428. half a million more jobs created this year through this survey than the other one and, of course, the revisions you talked about, 61,000. the 284 number that brian keeps emphasizing. even though the number came up a bit of expectations, the economists think the jobs number and the economy is on solid footing. here's the commentary, and most of this is positive. this is the first time in this business that you see the economy operating at satisfactory levels.

credit stwu credit suisse, and then in addition, rdq says the gain in hours worked, this is really interesting, in the first two months of the year puts the first quarter on track to be the strongest thus far in the recovery but we haven't seen that yet from the demand side of the question. and the drag on gdp growth and local government spending cuts is almost over. on the negative news i want to leave you with a good news/bad news chart, this is the total amount of slack in the labor force here. you can see it's come down quite sharply recently, but still remains, guys, ridiculously high, about 14.9% of the labor force is either unemployed or underemployed or discouraged. so, as much progress as we've made the last several months, melissa, that chart tells you, there's still a very long way to go. >> all right, steve. a little more positive than negative, but as always, you dug in. thank you, sir. appreciate it. starbucks plans to roll out

their very own coffee machines is in direct competition with green mountain coffee and their coffee machine, and green mountain coffee took a big hit, it's down double digits, down 14%. jeff bernstein is an analyst with barclays and he covers starbucks. jeff, great to have you with us. >> good morning. >> the starbucks reaction in the stock is very sharp, very pronounced, new 52-week high, why do we think starbucks can enter the market and make a coffee brewer and make money off of this? who is going to buy this? >> yeah, i think you have to give starbucks the benefit of the doubt, you know, they talk about this being the biggest prize in what they view as the billion dollar single cup category, so espresso represents more than half of that and that's the opportunity to pursue it through their announcement yesterday. the question is, who buys that. obviously it's an awkward situation because it probably does compete with green mountain product which starbucks is also

a partner with. that remains to be seen whether people will carry both machines or whether they will shift over to the new product and hopefully don't buy as many of the keurig machines. >> have you tried to work out the math in terms of what they could sell the machine for if they sold at a loss, in terms of the coffeepot that they will sell for the verismo machine it will have to be competitive with what the starbucks k-cups sell for? >> yes. in fact, the new machine we expect they'll sell it at a higher price than green mountain's keurig, but more importantly it's less about what they sell the machine for than the pods which is the recurring revenue theme. and they'll price those at about a dollar a cup. >> they'll make money off of this venture? >> they should make money off of this venture. i wouldn't expect it any other way. >> all right. and then is there any sense of whether or not this will cannibalize their via business? >> it's meant more for on the road, on the go, don't have a

chance traveling-type more of annian i instant coffee-type experience. it's more the k-cup with the green mountain because the new verismo machine does not only the high pressure espresso but it does the low pressure brewed machine, it's a duplicative product in terms of the keurig and the brewed product. >> i know you cover starbucks specifically, but starbucks winning would entail capture the customers who might replace their keurig machine with a verismo. >> over time you would think if the verismo machine doesn't get rolled out into the fall, if it can make brewed coffee as well as espresso, you would think it won't be helpful for the green mountain product. ultimately whether it works and how much share they take, only time will tell. >> jeff, thank you for your thoughts. the starbucks new single cup coffee system mean for the other

guy, green mountain coffee roasters? my man, herb greenberg join us now, this is your time to shine, because you talked about this on a show called "street signs" 2:00 p.m. eastern time on cnbc. >> i do recall that, brian. as i write on cnbc.com, i do think this does spell the end to green mountain's momentum. just look at a yearlong stock chart. this is a stock that was tradechitrading at $110. and it fell to $40 with bad guidance and it pulled up, and it's currently trading at $53. if it trades below $55.10 or $55.12, it would be bearish. despite the bullish analysis defending the company in the face of starbucks news, this much is clear, the market does not buy it. first, the new machine comes out just as green mountain is rolling out a new premium version of its existing machine, that's called the vue. second, the new starbucks

machine will be introduced later this year. that means it will front run an espresso machine green mountain has been saying it will produce at some point. and third while starbucks remains committed to green mountain, green mountain's patents expire later this year, suggesting that the brewers from starbucks and others will fell. and they began selling a stake that they held in two years or so in green mountain, it cited global economic conditions, i asked on the conference call yesterday whether green mountain knew about this, and howard schultz said i want to underscore the relationship with green mountain is transparent. not sure -- not sure what that transparent means, but given the sale, i just wanted to put it out there and i should point out on the conference call, shultz said it's very important, it's about controlling our destiny with what we think we need to do and that's where green mountain and others should be concerned. >> quickly, though, ken accord

defending green mountain, it's different, one is brued coffee, one is more coffees and espressos and defending green mountain saying they are not directly competitors unless it's a small sliver. do you believe that? >> no, it's a competitor machine, and they are out with the new patented v-cup. >> isn't it only a threat if you believe that people only want to brew starbucks? if i want to brew starbucks plus other coffees, i'll buy a keurig? >> starbucks is a large company out there. the biggest coffee company out there in a sense, and i think you have a lot of choices now when it comes to the k-cups. remember, we're moving to the v-cup and starbucks is going to sell their machine at high-end specialty stores in addition to where they're starting at starbucks. this is a moving -- this industry is starting to evolve. single serve is here. it's not a fad. let's also not forget starbucks is really trying to go after

espresso which is owned by nestle, there's a lot going on. i think in the end it's a two horse race when it gets to the higher end between nspresso and starbucks. >> seabiscuit and man-o-war, that was nothing compared to this epic battle in the coffee space, herb, i know you had 17 single cups already this morning. >> at least. >> and i brewed them in my pasquini. >> you can blink now. thanks. >> thanks, herb. today marks the three-year full market anniversary with the s&p 500 rallying over 100% since its closing lows on march 9th. we'll talk about the market meltup/mñhm-ii the economy withn rogers. stick around, "squawk on the street," bach in two. "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."

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stock to watch over an hour into trading. smith and wesson surging this morning. the stock getting upgraded to outperform from neutral, citing improved execution and valuation. interesting language. sprint up more than 8% on a wells fargo note out yesterday saying sprint is gaining market share at the expense of at&t and t-mobile. and cliffs natural resources upgraded to outperform from neutral at mcquarry research. it has been three years since the march 9th bottom and a rally it has been, the s&p 500 is up more than 100%, a doubling if you will of the s&p 500. >> 100%, is that a doubling? >> will this rally hold, john rogers is the chairman and ceo of aerial investments and he's the chair of the president's advisory council on financial capability. it's a pleasure to speak to you. >> good to be back. >> are we on a trend, it's been three years? >> i think so. all the companies we're talking to these days seem very optimistic about the economic

recovery and we're very, very excited. >> at the same time if there was one caveat that you would throw out, what would that be? >> i think like everybody you hope that there's no kind of middle east confrontation whether it ends up having a military action that forces oil prices substantially higher. that would be a worry. >> you are on the boards of many different kinds of companies, so you have a unique insight in to how these companies would be impacted by higher oil prices. at what price is the level that's being thrown around in the corporate worlds, when companies start getting concerned? >> i think the $5 a barrel, you know -- >> a gallon, $5 a gallon. >> yes, $5 a gallon, thank you. that starts to get worrisome and i do think that it is a sort of psychological barrier. i think as the year goes on, we'll do better than people anticipate. >> john, it's brian sullivan, i hear you about $5 gasoline and that could impact about people's money to go to sporting events, didn't you just add a big share

of madison square garden? >> yes, we've been buying it aggressively. we think it's a terrific franchise. there's only one madison square garden, they have the huge amount of real estate in manhattan. worth a lot of money. and all the media, you know, things that they own. it's a terrific, terrific company. >> so, is it a real estate play, then, or is it a jeremy lin play? >> it's partly a real estate play. play. >> you know, john, you're a basketball aficionado, you know lin will cool off. >> i think you're right. it's already starting to happen. he's kind of small. he's not as big and strong as a lot of the guys in the nba today. it will be tougher for him, but i still eve that the franchise is intact and the knicks have great teams and great players. so, i'm looking forward to the madison square garden doing very, very well. >> among your other portfolio changes recently, you sold out of your position in tiffany's and you say it was because of valuation. what do you see as a headwind for tiffany as it goes higher and did you replace it with another sort of luxury-end stock

that may be more fairly valued? >> well, we found that tiffany's was very, very expensive. there's so much good news there. they've been doing so well all around the world, and they just got all the good news baked into the price of the stock. what we've been trying to do is work on those areas where there's still value, so companies like gannett in media sectors and only six, seven times earnings. they just raised their dividends. announced another big stock buyback, we think it's a wonderful franchise and also a company like lozar in the financial services area. financial stocks got hit over the last year, they have the great investment banking franchise and emerging market franchise ask a great restructuring business, those are some of the bigger businesses and some of the favorites that helped us recently. >> wow, lozar is not a name we talk about much. thanks for bringing it to us. we appreciate it. we'll look at madison square garden. we've heard of it here, thank you, john rogers. boy, straight ahead this morning, we'll talk out the "squawk on the street" scalpel and we'll dissect the jobs

number with not one but two different staffing companies, we've got your blue and white collar employment picture covered in just a moment. but, first, rick santelli, what are you working on for the next hour of "squawk on the street"? >> well, i think, sully, we'll pick up where we left off yesterday, talk a little bit about natural gas, but we'll talk about it more like the big craze in the '40s and '50s when people were scooping up cars and it was the average guy in his average. of course, we'll talk a little bit about jobs. we'll talk a bit about the trade deficit. when is all this going to happen? how about top of the hour? tellie because the network finds it and tailors it across all the right points, automating all the right actions... [ beeping ] ...to bring all the right results. it's the at&t network -- doing more with data to help business do more for customers.

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jeff jeras is the company's ceo. in terms of the numbers does it match up with the front lines? >> it does, in fact. when you look at the numbers this morning, it really was like this is what we're feeling. in fact, if you look over the last five, six months there's a good correlation between what you hear from clients and the numbers we're seeing come out p in the bls. >> you're actually seeing people wants to hire according to

specific skills. they're much more specific about the kind of talent they need. what does that tell you about where we are p in this recovery? >> well, for one, that point is aa very important point, and it's probably something we see well beyond the recovery. we'd like to match it up to the recovery. when you look at job specificity. they're going to hire and get this person as productive as possible, there's much more p precision in hiring. i still think there's picking, choosing, efficiency and productivity and all those decisions pulled into the hiring process. >> which sector and skill set are in most demand at this point? >> that's what nice about these labor numbers, and when we look at our book of business, we have some coming from the industrial, light industrial, durable manufacturing numbers were up good, about 31,000. our industry at 45,000. our business is about half kind

of industrial and half rile high end engineering and its spread across the country. it's not one stimulus program that created one kind of job. this is pretty widespread, and that's a good sign for us to see. >> it it sousounds like you're a little cautious at the same time. what makes you hold back a little bit in terms of saying we've seen the worst? >> yes. i think it's far too triflizing with the complexities around the world to say we've seen the worst. what we're seeing is we're dealt the kind of blows that we are dealt that we have been in the last six months, which are minor blows from around the world, minor disruptions, we're going to be able to work through that. if there's a bigger disruption, companies are ready to be agile, very different than previous times. they can hit that index finger and turn hiring off in 36 hours. we wouldn't have seen that in 2008 and wouldn't have seen that prior to that as well. >> all right. jeff, good to speak with you.

jeff jeras from manpower. >> from the cubicle to the corner office. let's talk about the c level job market. he special lieses in this area. joe, thank you very much for joining us. we talk about the skills gap on the manufacturing and job level. is there a skills gap in the management level? >> oh, absolutely. i mean, there's such a gap between your entry level employee and your ceo, and within industrial manufacturing companies you have a talent gap. lots of people are retiring. ed the market is very dynamic. it's a growth market all at the same time. >> and it's new. i met some folks last night and said what are you doing here? they said it's a cso convention. it's chief security officer. i never heard of the position. the pay is outrageous and can't find enough people and all i.t. >> absolutely. >> literally an industry that didn't exist five years ago. >> there were lots of c level

jobs out there today, but coos, cfos, organizations are always in high demand for chief financial officers. when you look at middle market companies, typically the fco is the first place, ceo, coo. it's a very demanding environment right now. still very cautious in europe. >> you have to pay up to get the best people. >> absolutely. >> a lot of people argue that pay has got a lot of control. >> you know, most of the people in the market today, they're evaluating a number of different opportunities, whereas, two years ago they were not evaluating any. >> multiple offers. >> multiple offers, higher pay, they're gainfully employed. >> bottom line things are getting better in your market and c level job market? >> absolutely. we've been on an incremental recovery since fourth quarter 2009. >> dhl will give you a package and a job. have a good weekend.

>> jim paulson reiterating his case for owning stocks as consumer confidence is clawing back. we have an exclusive with paulsen in just a moment. [ hermann ] there's always something that's going to have to be done by a certain date. you always have homework, okay? i don't have homework today. it's what's right here is what is most important to me. it's beautiful. ♪ ♪ are you still sleeping?

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all week long we've been asking you to tweet us your prediction. he or she is the recipient of a fabulous, and i will emphasize tab lus tote bag signed by all of us on "squawk on the street." winner, check your tweets because it could be you. stay tuned to find out if you have won. third hour of "squawk on the street" starts right now. welcome to hour three of "squawk on the street." here's what's happening so far.

>> we're seeing more structurive than maybe people then, so whether it's slightly less than that, it doesn't change what you have to do now. >> it's likely to remain uneven, volatile. there will be some ups and downs. i think we are on a trajectory towards a slow recovery. >> february, non-farm payrolls increased by 227,000 jobs. the unemployment rate is 8.3%. >> you have to care about the future, right? these are the kind of things i absolutely care about. i care about the future, not about which banks are going to be in trouble. am i worried about the banks? the united states banks are stronger than everything i've seen. >> i am confident that we're on the right path, and we continue to see gains in areas like manufacturing, leisure,

hospitality and professions in business and also health care. those four sectors continue to be pushed out. >> what would you do, congressman paul? >> i would stop all the bailouts and let the market set interest rates and i would get people to start saving money again. i would not let the fed moneyize debt, and the congress would have to live within their means. >> good morning, everybody. also, of course the greek debt swap is a success as well. look the individual indices. dow is up and the nasdaq is up almost 20. home builderses are getting a boost today after credit suisse upgraded all three stocks to outperform today. executives at fannie mae and freddie mac are getting a big pay cut. the fha will reduce top executive pay for 25% and establishing a new target at

$500,000. despiting receiving billions in taxpayer bailouts, top leaders still took home seven-figure salaries. it's all about jobs for the market today. we'll talk to kay bailey hutchinson and get her response to the number. he manages more than $300 billion. jim paulsen is here. then after greece's successful bond swap, the iif continues efforts to stabilize the euro zone. charles will join us live to tell used ceo of smash burger is here to talk about the expansion and hiring practices. the unemployment holding at 8.3% after a solid but not monumental jobs number this morning. kelly evans is here with more insight on the big data point. kelly. >> i've been digging through the report.

it's my favorite one. there's lots of good nuggets and often the headline doesn't tell you the story. pretty much good news still kind of speaking to the headline strength we saw. i want to throw out a couple of stats that may not have got as much press yet. look at the people that are job leavers, that's up to 8%. more people in that unemployed pool are new entrants, and they point towards workers gaining more confidence in their ability to find jobs. that's what we heard in a consumer confidence survey in the last couple of months. more people saying job market conditions are improving and to this point the number of people who are unemployed because they lost a job is down to about 55% from 60% a year ago. so some good signs. >> kelly, does it mean necessarily the data from here on out is also going to beat expectations, gdp, retail sales, consumer spend sng can we

extrapolate strength in those numbers from today's jobs numbers in. >> not as much. it isn't like manufacturing, industrial production or consumer spending where you can tweak the gdp forecasts. the trade numbers this morning, that actually could weigh on gdp growth a little bit. if anything it tells us hopefully the growth we've seen now that isn't all that great but may be sustainable. i do, though, carl, want to draw attention to facts in the report that are a little less encouraging. it speaks to what's happening with people unemployed, and what's interesting is people are not aware of this. the average length of jobless spells is actually higher now than it was a year ago. the share of people unemployed 27 weeks or more, still 42.5%. before 2007 that figure on average was about 13%. so we've still got real problems here. >> got to get these people who have been out of work for a long time back to work as soon as possible. kelly, we'll come back to you later today. thanks a lot.

let's get to the cme group in morning. rick santelli with the santelli exchange. there's a lot to talk about today, rick. >> there is. we want to pick off where we left off yesterday talking about natural gas, and i think it's ironic what up happened to the keystone pipeline. for me it's not about politics. it's about enthusiasts. expressed natural gas, that's the way many people think you need to go to really bring natural gas to the masses. i know you have people, of course, on the heavy truck side, on the commercial side like boone pickens. i called a lot of guyed that sell kits on ali baba. whether you look at the cal custom craze in the '50s, many times it's the enthusiasts, the do it yourselfers that give you a glimpse of what lies ahead. what i found is you can find conversion kits to to convert a car to compress natural gas from anywhere to 1200 to about

$2,000. okay? then you need a tank. this is where it's weird. tanks are about $1,000. you have epa and regulators that cut the red tape on you and different kinds of vehicles have different class tanks. i'm simplifying. the most expensive apparatus if we don't get infrastructure going to fill it up is a contraption to hook up to the gasolines at home and many houses in the midwest have natural gas and that's $4,000 to $5,000. it's not cheap, but these are fractions of the costs. if you talk it to some of the auto guys about what these numbers may be. so my notion is think enthusiast, think calculators. this comes down, and next week i have the president of one of these companies that offers these kits and we dig down. today in terms of jobs, you just heard kelly. believe me, if i was to grade this like an auction, it's a c plus.

i'll take a c plus. we don't want to spend any more dough in my programs and create more doubt because u.s. economy is unbelievably resilient and doing the heavy lifting and the trend is our friend when it comes to jobs. we need to create more of them and over time hopefully we will. back to you. >> rick, that's a good point. rick santelli in chicago. speaking of jobs, joining us with the republican reaction senator kay bailey hutchinson of texas. good to see you again. good morning. >> thank you, carl. >> three straight months of 1,000 or more. what's the republican response to that? >> it's good news when we have more people going back to work. that is absolutely good news. carl, of course, we know that we've been above 8% unemployment for over three years now. so that means we've still got a lot of work to do. we need to pass the jobs bill in the senate that just passed the house that the president supports to open the markets for small business.

that should be the goal. >> do you think it's a matter of time at this point, or do you think we actually could be adding jobs at a pace higher than the one we're doing right now? we've jumped to the 200,000 range. we were only at the 100,000 range last year. there's some acceleration, but is it enough? >> carl, that's hard to tell. you don't know if there is an inventory of rebuilding that is going on here and that it will or won't last. i think it's a good trend. there's no doubt about it. i do think that we need to open the markets more to small businesses. i hear complaints from small businesspeople all the time about not being able to get capital, not being able to borrow from banks. frankly, the community banks are trying to lend, and they feel stifled. so i think that we can open capital markets, open these community banks by adding shareholders, and we can do a

lot more with almost 15 million unemployed, we still have a long way to go. >> we know about your background in the oil and gas industry. you're on the congressional oil and gas caucus. everybody is talking about gas prices, senator. this is the after the amendment that gave a new life to keystone and it was obviously blocked by democrats. do you see us going to new highs on crude, and what is the future for gas prices in this country? >> what's so horrible about this, carl, is that we have the capability to lower gas prices through increased supply with the keystone pipeline, and we couldn't get the 60-vote threshold because the democrats blocked it. the president has been blocking it. it's defies description that we would be actually flat to lowering in construction jobs. we have the keystone pipeline ready to push right now. we could have private sector

construction jobs. we could have lower costs of energy if we just supply with our own resources, our own natural resources. it just doesn't make sense for the president to continue to stall on using our own resources, letting us drill more in the gulf of mexico and off the coast of alaska. energy prices are what could put the blanket on this increase in employment. it could put a blanket on the modest increases that we're seeing in our economy. it's something that we can solve. you know, it's not unsolvable and it's frustrating. >> it's a big topic on the presidential campaign, and pressure is building on newt gingrich or rick santorum to drop out and make this a two-man or one-man race. where is the party in pressuring gingrich to do just that? >> well, i don't know who is pressuring mr. gingrich.

i think that this certainly has been a long primary. i think that our candidates have become stronger for it. i think that it -- i'm hoping that it comes to a conclusion where republicans can get behind our candidate and go forward, because these economic issues are so important, and the gas prices, as you mentioned, going up, unemployment really still 8%. that's just not acceptable. we have candidates with ideas about job creation. we need to move on, hopefully, and i'm not asking anyone to drop out, because i think it's been a strong competition. i know that all of our candidates are better on the economy than president obama. >> senator, always good to talk to you. thanks for your time today. >> thank you, carl. >> kay bailey hutchinson joining us from dallas. this morning, jim paulsen helps manage $340 billion. we'll see how he plans to navigate this market after this jobs number today. where is he putting more money?

back in just a moment. still to come, the jobs number is out. did you nail the number? find out if you're the lucky winner of our autographed tote bag later on "squawk on the street." ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] offering four distinct driving modes and lexus' dynamic handling, the next generation of lexus will not be contained. the all-new 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. ♪ like in a special ops mission? you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collateral damage. but rather than neutralizing enemies in their sleep, you'd be targeting stocks to trade. well, that's what trade architect's heat maps do.

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jim paulsen is chief investment strategist with wells capital management from

minneapolis. good to see you again. >> good to be here, carl. >> you call it fantastic. why that kind of superlative? >> we've had a good little string here in recent months. the biggest thing, carl, it's really good over 200,000 people got a job last month, but the really good thing this continues to do is raise the confidence of those that have had a job all along. of all those companies out there. in other words, the leg impacts of this is greater confidence that may allow consumers to step up some of those purchases they postpone here now that they have the confidence that comes from the headlines from this number and other ones that we get recently. i think that this year's been about raising confidence, and it's running through the stock market so far. i think that will improve as the year progresses. >> you see it as a confidence that boosts not only

participation rates and reentrance to the work force, but also people's willingness to spend, so we should look for better gdp and consumer spending? >> i think so. i think we'll grow north of 3% this year in real gdp. part is because some of these pent-up demands on the 92% with a job throughout are going to start to exercise on those. how many people have been waiting to buy a car because they're so scared by the headlines? how many people are looking at the record-setting affordability of housing, but they don't want to be the stupid idiot that buys the house. if we decide the housing is done going down, there's a lot of people to step up and buy. >> wouldn't the better trend to be to have a blow-out number, a 300 or higher number with the rate also going up? is that what you think will happen in the months to come? >> well, i think that we could get to those levels where we get a month or several months of 300-plus at some point.

it's good to have this steady progression, carl, where we have a steady decline in unemployment rate, sort of several months, as much as six months now where we average over 200k a month. i think that is more impactal on confidence. it's no coincidence they're breaking out to the highest levels of recovery. >> how does it alter your view of the market, u.s. equities, and emerging markets? >> inevitably we'll get a correction some time this year. i don't know if that comes now at 1500 to 1550. i don't know. i assume focus on longer term. there's a lot of good things going on here that makes this a longer cycle. however the path is we get there. i would encourage investors to look at altering their allocation among sectors a little bit based on relative values and stay away from getting more defensive to call a correction. three things i'd mention, carl.

i think it's a good time maybe to take a little out of consumer discretionary and technology that did really well this year and redeploy them into two areas that i think have trailed. one is emerging markets. i think there's a lot of concern there, but with the easing of policy officials in the region, i think the story in the second half of the year is a reacceleration of the merging world economies. now is the time to look at those. secondly is financials. if this is the first time we see rehabilitation of confidence, i think financial industry is the most sensitive to confidence. you don't loan money without confidence, you don't borrow it. you don't do a merger or acquisition without confidence. if that comes back, that benefits the industry more than any other. >> good stuff. jim, let me cut you off there if you don't mind. we'll pay attention to the points. when we come back, the new

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the february jobs numbers showing signs of a strengthening recovery, but na isn't the case for one group whose unemployment rate is nearly double the national rate. there are more than 1 million unemployed veterans. ann curry joins us to tell us what the "today" show is doing to help get our heroes hired. joining us for the first time down here. >> we've worked in different incarnatio incarnations. i hope you're not sick of seeing my face. the numbers are worse than that, carl, because the numbers are absolutely right. if you look at people under the age of 24, veterans under the age of 24, the unemployment rate is 30%. so it really says a lot about

what isn't being done. i think especially given that after world war ii, returning veterans were the juice that powered this economy, our economy, and allowed them enabled by the g.i. bill and other things to be the greatest generation. the question is, are we missing the boat in creating a new greatest generation at a time when our economy needs them? >> "today" show is partnering with a bunch of companies. the program is called "hiring our heroes." we're pairing major corporations as well as veterans together over the internet at today.com/veterans. also we're going to have a jobs fair on the u.s. intrep bid on e 28th of march. the "today" show is organizing this. we have prudential, capital one. nobody can come without jobs in hand.

we give them an opportunity to meet these young men and women. these are people, listen, when their boss said to them, you know, when their commander said run towards the gunfire, put your life on the line, they're the ask no questions, get it done, can do, go for it kind of people. they did that, and now they're returning not with overwhelming ptsd. that's anothers in nome misnom. people think of them as being wounded warriors, and there are, there's tremendous suffering. 9 out of 10 returning veterans have not been diagnosed with ptsd ptsd. there's an enormous number of highly skilled and trained people who have great things to offer, can give the fighting spirit to our u.s. companies and our economy. we should not miss this boat. >> the job fair on the intrepid, what if you don't happen to live near the intrepid? >> we have a huge thing online,

because what we do on the 28th, we hook up with ft. hood, a jobs fair there at ramstein. we're working with the u.s. chamber of commerce, which is creating jobs for us all across the country. p if you're a company that wants to hook up with veterans and use this resource, if you go to tod today.com/veterans, you'll be able to find -- announce the availability of these jobs and connect with great veterans and allow yourself this opportunity. >> it's an amazing opportunity. we know about the post-war boom fueled by veterans, and we hope for another one of those. >> think about what these people can give you. when i'm working with people and asked to work overtime and how we go, i really don't want to work. when the guy who has done with what these people have done, they'll say i'll work saturday and sunday. you bet. that's what they do. they follow orders and they work together. as that -- as a point in that

company, i'll have to do that, too. they are leaders, and i think -- i think it's a great thing. so we're -- obviously, i'm 100% behind this and maybe it's too passionate about it. thank you for letting me talk about it. >> ann curry is joining us here. the bell is about to sound in europe. we'll get the close in just a minute. rotect the house. right. but... home security systems can be really expensive. so to save money, we actually just adopted a rescue panther.

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we already know what a big day it was for the european markets. the trading week there coming to an end, and what a week it has been. the market digesting the debt swap deal in greece and the jobs number here as well and a bunch of data from the eu nations. >> the european markets are closing now. >> overall, a little bit of red and green. mixed picture for stocks, london, paris, and italy hurt by weak sfril data as well. the athens composite closing down today. after two strong days of gains italian banks are pulling back. it's been a roller coaster day for the italian ten-year yield. it's close to the lows of last june. today the yield is ticking up a bit at 4825. yields on on the spanish ten-year hovering a hair above 5%. the euro giving back yesterday's gains against the dollar. what a day it's turning out to be for the dollar. there's a look at the euro just

about 1.31. >> you got it right. it's the dollar story today. remember our thesis here of the bulls, the u.s. economy gradually improving, europe manageable and china not a hard landing. that's all happening today. at least that thesis. put up carl's point about the dollar. look at this. that's what happens when you get the jobs report coming out. the dollar goes up. normally when the dollar goes up, material stocks get affected. that didn't happen today. look at what happened to big material names today. they're off 3%. the dollar is strong and materials are up. u.s. economic growth as well as a china soft landing trumps the concerns about a higher dollar. that's all good news. did you hear about the china story today? factory output is up 11% and retail sales up 14% and that's below expectations. still that's a soft landing and inflation is low.

the bottom line is the chinese go out and try to stimulate the economy by making more loans available. these cynical e-mails, carl. how come the stock market's not up more? take a close look at this. the s&p 500 is almost in a straight line to the upside here. folks, it's up 9% for the year. this is one of the best starts we've had in decades. what do you mean the stock market is not up? it's terrific so far. another big story. home building. is it turning around? look what happened today. this is interesting. credit suisse had a report earlier in the week. at that a close look at this. credit suisse said sharply higher traffic from a close watched survey of traffic. highest levels since the survey began in 2005. this is what we're waiting for. do we get a good spring home buying season or not? they're expecting overall orders up 18% in 2012.

that's a decent number. what do you get as a result of these numbers? new highs on a number of them. take a look. there's horton, toll brothers and lenar, all at new highs. we get some indication, we don't have the numbers in. the orders are what's important. that's the bottom line. the early indications are we're getting a good home buying season. >> as a real estate reporter in a previous life, you know how warm weather can hit the market. can we divorce the numbers from how warm the winter has been? >> it's tough, and i will attribute it to the weather. people are out building and more people employed in the construction industry and more are looking whether its interest rates are low and the jobs are better or because there's more warm weather, i'll take it. >> bob, thanks a lot. talk to you later. as we mentioned, greece completing that successful debt swap with an overwhelming 83.5% participation. the euro zone is far from being

stable. we want to go out to michelle caruso-cabrera live in greece with a guest. good morning, michelle. >> thank you very much. joining us is charles dallara. he represented the private sector when it came to the negotiations with the greek government for this big debt reduction deal. thanks so much for joining us. because the transmission delays i'll go straight into the first question. you heard carl say successful, all the headlines say successful. is that the right word right now? how do you characterize? how do you feel about what happens happened here in the last 24 hours as we look at the largest debt restructuring in history? >> well, first let me say it's good to be with you, michelle. i do think the right word is successful. i feel quite pleased with the outcome. this has been an extraordinarily difficult, arduous, and at times sinuous negotiating process. to see so many bondholders

voluntarily deliver bonds into this exchange is quite remarkable, and i think it speaks to not only the quality of the deal that we were finally able to strike, but for the desire of investors as well as the leaders of the euro zone and greece to move on and turn a page in the whole evolution of the european sovereign debt problem. >> speaking of the evolution of the european sovereign debt problem, a lot of investors have asked the following question. now that greece has gotten debt forgiveness why wouldn't be portugal want it and ireland want it? are those the next countries to be engulfed in this, and are they going to demand debt forgiveness as well? >> well, michelle, you spent a lot of times in athens as i have over the last few months, and i think the answer to that question is quite straightforward. why wouldn't they want it? it's extraordinarily painful for the citizens and leaders of greece and for the entire euro

zone. it cast a cloud over the euro zone that has hung there for months and months and it has prevented the rebuilding the confidence, which is so crucial. i would strongly discourage other governments, other peoples in europe from going this route. it characterizing the debt of the distortions in the greek economy and the enormous debt burden that required us to eliminate. it will be done by the end of business on monday if everything goes smoothly and i expect it will. greece's debt is reduced by 100 billion euros, nearly half of the gdp. yes, it will produce eventual and positive benefits for greece, but i don't think this is necessary, neither portugal, spain, italy, ireland, none of them have quite of same extraordinarily high levels of debt and deficits and none have quite the same distortions in the economic structure, michelle. i would say the countries are on

the right path and maintain the path of reform, supported i hope by some greater buoyancy in the overall outlook for europe which will help us get back to job creation sooner rather than later. >> when investors look at the process that happened here, they see the rules have changed on them retro actively with the greece government changing the laws looking backward. which message should bondholders take from this process about whether or not it is safe to invest in europe and whether or not they're going to be treated according to the letter of the law? >> well, michelle, you pointed to one of the you unfortunate dimensions of what is developing here. he we, however, have emphasized all along and continue to emphasize the voluntary negotiated nature of this deem. 85% of the bondholders of the greek government, greek law, greek government bonds, 83.5% of the total universe, which includes the uk bonds have come

into in deal voluntarily. it is unfortunate that in the case of the existing -- the prior greek bonds that these collective action clauses were not inserted at the time of issuance. today increasingly you see collective action clauses snerlted in sovereign bond issues when they hit the market. that's the way to do this. this is an unfortunate dimension of this. it has posed legal questions and uncertainties for the government of greece. we're not involved in the decision to activate the collective action clauses, and i think going forward the issue isn't just legal risk for investors, it's one of doing better credit risk nalganalysis urngd these are no longer carry trades when you invest in european sovereign debt. i think the governments of europe are under way and making headway in strengthening that underlying credit risk.

>> yes, we've all certainly learned a lesson that sovereign debt is not risk-free. thank you so much for joining us. it is much appreciated. i know you had an extremely busy couple of weeks. >> it's a pleasure to be with you again, michelle. >> thank you very much. straight ahead, after two cruise disaster this year, carnival is seeing substantial losses in the stock price. there's a look at the chart today. can the company turn things around? first, a look at winners and losers from europe's trading day. [ horn honks ]

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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. next on the halftime report what does the greek deal and jobs report mean for gold and stocks now. texas instruments cuts it's forecast, so how do you trade it now? a top analyst weighs in. a great run for the home builders is not over so says credit suisse. it's our call of the day. that's next on the halftime report. back to carl on "squawk on the street." carnival is reporting a first quarter loss cutting the profit largely because of january's disasters involving a ship. carnival is wraps up the conference call, and rachel rothman is an analyst and has a

neutral on carnival and a $29 price target. rachel, good to see you this morning. thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having us, carl. >> some of the general take is the downside was not as bad as the market feared is that how you see if? >> i think the estimates were obviously coming into the quarter about $2.02 for the full year. since the first quarter is 10% of the earnings, they don't focus on the full quarter. the company is guiding to $1.40 to $1.70, which is 1$1.55 at th m midpoint. that's a disappointment. people thought this might be the bottom and only cut we would see for the balance of the year. when we got into -- >> with a price target of 29, you're worried about yield. i don't know if it's in the coming quarter as a result of costa or maybe other factors like fuel and so forth?

>> what we saw as the conference call began is a stock reverse course. it was up nearly 4% and now down about 1%. what people got was additional color on the conference call that it could take the costa brand about a year or two for demands to recover. we see in our own surveys that price cuts have been coming through not just in the near-end bookings for the second quarter but they're aggressively cutting price in the third and fourth quarter as well at this point. costa said on the call they would hold their own price. at somt point all of these cruises are substitute goods and it's difficult to hold price if peers continue to cut. >> any ancillary effect that is come as a result of costa? are they limited to carnival, or do you worry about other names in the sector, too? >> we see price cuts across all brands from celebrity to princess to royal to carnival throughout the mediterranean and europe. we see price cuts.

they are substitute goods. costa is taking the tactic of sacrificing occupancy for price, which we understand because it makes it easier to raise prizes in the out years. ultimately if its peers cut,ing it it will follow suit. >> final rachel, one of the unfortunate side effects of going through chemo is you lose your hair. we're all rooting for you and wishing you the best. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> rachel rothman joining us. when we come back, the newest smash in the burger market. coming up, is your stomach growing? ours, too. we'll take a bite out of smash burger when the ceo joins us next. "squawk on the street" will be right back. then don't get nickle and dimed by high cost investments and annoying account fees. at e-trade, our free easy-to-use online tools and experienced retirement specialists can help you build a personalized plan.

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jobs number out this morning painting a brighter picture on the economy. it's the fourth consecutive month na nonforeign payrolls were above 400,000. one company is expanding and creating over 1200 jobs. smash burger plans to open 50 to 70 stores this year. the ceo joins us from new jersey. you ended 2011 with 143 restaurants. adding 50 to 70 is what i would call torrid growth. where does that confidence in the economy come from?

>> yeah, good morning or afternoon, carl. well there's tremendous confidence. part is from the consumer demand for our product. we see a big shift in the way people eat, and there's really broad-based support for smash burger. we're $8 to $10 for a cook-to-order product. it's given us a lot of confidence. >> each location would need about 20 workers, so let's say you open 60 stories. that's about 1200 jobs. what is it like putting that out there these days? what kind of response do you get to a notion like that? >> it's so overwhelming and gratifying. between the restaurants and the crew members, but the managers that we're hiring, people in social media, it's a big job to get everyone hired. people want to join a fast-growing brand. we're giving people lots of opportunity. in fact, we have teams in kuwait today and canada. people are seeing parts of the world they've never seen before. it's been a lot of fun to grow

smashburger. >> we follow fast casual from a stock perspective and it's a concern because of gas prices that have risen and how it takes money out of people's discretionary income. describe your level of worry on that front. >> look, i think you're always worried when you see gas prices go up and restaurants in general are tied to that. we see a number of people that are willing to pay a dollar extra or so for premium products and things fresh-made. i'd hate to see gas go up too much further, but i think people are figuring out how to cope. >> in the hiring market it's a buyer's market because of the level of unemployment and long-term unemployed, you can pay wages lower than you could in the past. how do you balance that with paying people a wage to get them to stay when times turn good again? >> i'm proud of our philosophy on that. we're a up top payer at smashburger. while we have all ranges, people move up very, very quickly here.

we're about letting people make a lot more than than what we can hire them at, and it's fueling our growth. >> what do wages typically look like at smashburger? >> in stores the people are a dollar or two higher than minimum, but they can earn incentives. if we get our burgers out in six minutes or less, the back of the house can make an extra 50 cents an hour. managers are in the 40s and 50s and on up in terms of depending what department you're in. we're paying at the top of the pay range for the restaurant industry. >> you're looking for new franchise partners in the u.s. and internationally, as you said. you guys finding local community banks willing to lend? what is the market like these days for a potential franchisee? >> the lending market is not so hot, carl. our franchise partners are really well healed, probably $5 million and up net worths and run a lot of other franchise concepts, and we require people to build out of cash. that's one soft spot in the economy right now.

there's not a lot of lending available. >> hopefully that will change with time. that's one of the hurdles the economy has to get over. thanks for your time. >> thanks, carl. good to be with you. >> when we come back this morning, the moment you've all been waiting for. we reveal the winner of on our second nail the number contest and find out who will win that amazing tote bag in a minute. ♪

[ kareem ] i was fascinated by balsa wood airplanes since i was a kid. [ mike ] i always wondered how did an airplane get in the air. at ge aviation, we build jet engines. we lift people up off the ground to 35 thousand feet. these engines are built by hand with very precise assembly techniques. [ mike ] it's gonna fly people around the world. safely and better than it's ever done before. it would be a real treat to hear this monster fire up. [ jaronda ] i think a lot of people, when they look at a jet engine, they see a big hunk of metal. but when i look at it, i see seth, mark, tom, and people like that who work on engines every day. [ tom ] i would love to see this thing fly. [ kareem ] it's a dream, honestly. there it is. oh, wow. that's so cool!

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it's finally time. you're spending in the tweets all week with the jobs number today. the winner gets this beautiful tote bag signed by cramer and santelli and myself and signed by malisse elissa tweet. ernest mussa from john's creek, georgia, and he joins us on the phone. ernest, good to talk to you.

good morning. >> good morning. >> we got about 400 responses, but you were the first out of three people who guessed exactly 227. you probably knew consensus was somewhere right above 200. what was your thinking? how did you get to this number? >> i looked at the annual job growth over the last 12 months and basically did a little math with the numbers and subtracted. >> very nice. did you have other guesses as well as on the unemployment rate or average hourly earnings or things like that? was this the only number you cared about? >> this was the only number i cared about since i have a theory in job growth and profit growth in the economy. >> you do invest and trade. what's your view going into the rest of 2012? >> i think 2012 we're already see year-over-year profit growth declining in a rapid fashion. today we're down to around 10% year-over-year profit growth.

i think things are going more towards the negative side. >> you're worried about margins as a result of rising costs or input costs or weakening demand. on which side do you think margins will be squeezed the most? >> i'm not exactly sure which way. i'm looking at historical profits and they're declining. that's an indicator to look forward. things are getting tough for american business. >> would you say your net long or short right now when it comes to u.s. stocks? >> i'm looking to take profits out of stocks that have appreciated over the last 12 months and going to reallocate that when the opportunities arise. >> what are you going to do -- the most important question is what do you do with this incredible tote bag that we're going to send you? >> i am probably going to hang it in my office. i'm a big fan of rick santelli and i look forward to his signature as well as everyone else's. >> his signature it right above

the peacock and cnbc logo. congratulations, enjoy it. >> thank you very much. >> nailed the number, 227 ahead of the payroll number today. rick santelli, did you hear what he said? >> i did. you know, i'm flattered. i tell you what, i think we have some of the smartest listeners and viewers of any of the channels on tv, and i think that's a testament to the job the team does. you're the leader of that team, carl. listen, i think today is noteworthy in a number of ways. i think it's good news we're creating jobs. it's music to my ears to have an uptick in the labor force participation rate. i like grading auctions. i grad it this as c plus, and we'll take it. we have a long, long way to go, and i think we need to consider the global aspects. today i was very distressed by the industrial production drops in italy, the industrial production drops in the uk. i was heartened, though, that

the german economy bounced back. their export number went from negative to positive. europe isn't only exports. it's about the whole global metric, and it's very hard to quantify. our balloon is floating higher, but it's within a global balloon and i think we'll put more weight in that basket in the months ahead. >> it's one thing to be the best house in the neighborhood, but overall the neighborhood has to stay somewhat intact. you mention some of these emerging markets. i think about brazil cutting rates to sing the digits and then india overnight cutting reserve requirements. india concerned about liquidity is not something we're used to talking about. >> the meeting is on the 15th. for them to do it before the meeting, i think, speaks volumes that there's a lot of liquidity issues and those get confused with solvency issues. >> rick, have a great weekend. we'll talk to you next week. rick santelli in chicago. look at starbucks. now s&p is out. raising their opinion on starbucks, taking