perfection because of earnings reports. that's the "street signs" crew. they'll be back in a second. we'll leave it at that, shall we? mcdonald's unchanged. >> it's true, they are priced for perfection. the u.s. doing okay, what's the rest of the world doing is sort of what that story tells. >> that's the question. >> that's it for "power lunch." have a great weekend. >> thanks for joining me. see you later. "street signs" begins right now. the mark haines bottom, one great american. and he called it three years ago today. art hogan was there then, he is here now with where we go from here. jobs came in strong. 2012 so far's been a pretty good one for new hires. we are going to dig in to where the jobs are growing right now. and pcs, are they dead? the rise of the ipad some saying the age of the cpu is a goner. others say that's bunk. we'll find out the truth. >> that's what we do here. we have the tiger mom and she's

got a new article out about the rise of billionaire women in china. it's really interesting. that's also coming up. now to the markets, let's take a look at the stocks as they close out the week with a third straight rally. the dow is currently to the upside about .03%. s&p in the black and home builders for the sektd straight day are among the best performers. the nasdaq meantime inching closer to 3,000. it has not closed above that mark since back in december 2000. here, guys, is your stat of the day. the dow is up about 9% away from its all-time closing high of 14,164. that was set back on october 9, 2007. the s&p 500 meantime is about 12% away. well, our bob pisani is standing by on the floor of the nyse. you know, bob, after we got those better than expected jobs numbers, i would imagine there are a lot of people saying to you, bob, if the economy's doing better, why aren't we seeing stocks move to the upside even more? what would you say to them? >> we are. put up the s&p 500.

mandy, we're at a new high. what do you need to get to a new high on the s&p 500? just put it up here. 1374.09. folks, where are we? 1374.20. we close right here, this is a new multi-year high in the s&p. we've been going essentially straight up here. for a while now. look at that. this is a four-year chart, essentially, that we're looking at the s&p 500. we have had a rally this year up 9%. mandy, you've had a great point about the home builders. we're still not clear on how strong the home buying season is for the spring, but the evidence so far is that it's at least as good as expected. and in some cases might be a little better. look at that. sharply higher. buyer traffic from credit suisse, order growth up 20% to 30%. incentives down, prices stable to slightly down. those foreclosures and financing are the main risk. we have a bunch of home builders at new highs on this. we're not out of the woods yet. still a lot of problems, mandy. so far at least things are looking pretty good.

new highs on all the homeowne builders. >> you tell them, bob. put it in perspective. >> three years ago today a moment began. a moment known here on cnbc affectionately as the mark haines bottom. >> i'm going to step out here on a limb here. >> this is the big -- we've been waiting for this. >> i think we're at the bottom. i think we're going to have a rally. >> there we go. man unafraid to make a call. >> in other words, i think today, this is for real. >> and he got it. and what a rally it has been since then. check out the s&p 500. it closed on march 9, 2009 at 676. since then it's doubled. here's another staggering stat. over that time 401 of the s&p 500 stocks are up more than 50% from their lows only 17 in the entire index are down since then. >> so is it the haines bottom or hogan bottom? art is here for that. and what's next for the eurozone? we want to know the answer to

that long and drawn out saga. louise cooper is on standby as well. it was your bottom the trading day before mark made his bold call. art, where do we go from here? >> well, mandy, thank you very much. and i think it's great to see mark and remember that call that he made which was impressive and amazing and an amazing time. i think that as we look at what's changed since then and where we really are now in the process, we've repaired a lot. certainly domestically we've repaired a lot. think about what we were concerned with back then, it was much more of what u.s. banks were going under the waves and what was the next step and how much contagion there was going to be domestically. obviously our problem -- the problems we face today are much more international. we're concerned about china, european sovereign debt issues. but much less about double dip recession that was montra for a good chunk of that last three years since the markets hit the bottom. i think we're in a much different place. and i think we have more room to go on the upside.

>> how much more room? >> i think it's interesting as we look at the valuations and as we sort of flirt with some of the round numbers, the dow 13,000 would come to us at 14 multiple. last time we saw it in 2008 we had a 17 multiple on that. if you look at -- for example if you look at the nasdaq 3,000 the last time we saw that in 2000 the multiple at that time was 22.5. the market is more reasonably valued. i think we're pricing in exactly what we have, which is anywhere between 2% and 3% gdp growth rates and improving economy across the board whether it's in jobs numbers. so i think the upside for the market would probably be an easy two-multiple turns which would get us north of 15% on this year. >> louise, we talk about multiple expansion a lot lately because everyone saying we need multiple expansion, little more risk in the market to move

higher. earnings growth is certainly slowing down. do you see that happening for the s&p 500? >> if i look at u.s. corporate profitability, it's at very high levels. it's a bit the same here in europe, actually. operating margins, profit margins at high levels thanks to reduction in capital expenditure, reluctance to hire, especially here in europe. i'm not sure how much longer that can go on for. i think always the concern is how sustainable is the e. so you look at apple. the only reason why it's trading at a p/e so cheap is because the e -- there were questions marks about the sustainability of the e. so that, i think, i would be more concerned about that. in my 20 years experience of investing, it's always about never bet against the u.s. economic model. >> louise, i know that europe is really your specialty. are we done with greece? i mean, can we say lucky that one's over and the u.s. market can move on and focus on the next problem?

or is this going to come back and haunt us? >> i love that. are we done with greece? well, nicholas sarkozy, the french president thinks we're done with greece. i think he's a little optimistic to be honest. no. the new greek bonds, the new shiny wonderful greek bonds start trading on monday. and they've been trading today on a sort of when issued gray market basis. and that would indicate that the yields they're going to trade on a monday will be something like 15% to 20%. 15% to 20% yield is a junk yield. that's a sop investment grade yield. that indicates that those investors with the new shiny greek bonds still think that greece will need a bailout in the future. its debt is still unsustainable even after the biggest sovereign write down ever. and the investors who accepted the bonds are going to see even large losses on monday when they start trading. >> art, last word to you. clearly greece will come up again in a few years, weeks

whatever it is. but in the nearer term, forget about greece. what's the next big concern for you? is it china, iran? something else? >> energy prices. iran has a piece of that problem. energy prices is going to be the only thing to stall us in the near-term. keep a close eye on that. if we work our way through the summer and below 125 and $5. i think we'll be in much better shape to continue this rally. >> exxon mobil ceo said he doesn't see gas prices hitting $5. art, louise, thank you so much for joining us. enjoy your weekend. >> as we have been talking about greece clearing maybe the last major hurdle in the race to avoid bankruptcy, they've persuaded enough debt holders to sign up for the biggest bond swap in history. what's life in greece going to look like? when will growth there start growing again? for that we are headed to athens. the founder of investment holding company and ypo chief executive and a guy i had the pleasure of meeting and speaking

with in singapore recently. wish it was under better circumstances for your home country. is your home country out of the woods in the near-term? >> i'd say that in the near-term, yes. it is a necessary step, but not necessarily a sufficient step. >> your economy is contracting at a rapid pace. every model that we look at about debt to gdp assumes a certain level of growth. you not only have growth, you've got a contraction. when can the greece economy start to grow again? and what's it going to take to get it to grow again? >> i think we're going to start seeing that as soon as structural reforms really start becoming implementing -- implemented. what we've seen so far is the government take action in voting several measures, but the real key question that people are asking here is when do we start

implementing? psi's out of the way. there is probably an election coming up within the next couple of months. and i guess people here are eager to say let's leave that behind and let's get down to working. business has to grow. business needs to grow. that's what we need. >> as you and i spoke about in singapore, there is a liquidity crunch of epic proportions in greece. is you wanted to start a company today, it would be next to impossible. government sector jobs, which had been a growth sector, are contracting if not just completely going away. so where in the heck is the growth, any growth, going to come from? >> well, quite frankly, as we had this discussion, the only place this can originate from is the private sector. the private sector needs to be allowed to work on its own. and there is a key opportunity for greece coming up this summer, which is the tourist industry. and by that time we need to be able to allow the tourist ministry to work and flourish.

otherwise unless this happens, i agree with you. the situation is going to prove unsustainable in the future. and greece is going to be in the headlines again. >> is portugal, spain or italy next? will we see a similar type of haircut in one, two or three of those countries? or none? >> i think everybody wants to avoid that. to be terribly honest, i do not think we can afford to have the same situation happening in these countries. the bigger the country, the more you are facing a systemic risk for europe as a whole. so the answer is is no. and what europe has tried to do is fence it, isolate it and make sure that we can now focus on moving forward. >> have a good evening there. we'll chat with you soon hopefully under better circumstances. thank you. up next, another month and

another shot of hopium for the jobs market. and another expert set to tell us if this is for real. >> and tim cook unveiled a new ipad and announced that the pc is dead. is he dead wrong? a new report says yes. the details and debate coming up when "street signs" returns. [ female announcer ] it's time for the annual shareholders meeting. ♪ there'll be the usual presentations on research. and development. some new members of the team will be introduced. the chairman emeritus will distribute his usual wisdom.

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the big february employment report, the jobless rate holding steady at a three-year low of 8.3%. the government also reporting that u.s. employers added

227,000 jobs last month. and revised january up by about 50,000 jobs. it is the first time since early last year that non-farm payrolls up more than 200,000 for three straight months. so, is the steady unemployment rate good news for the president's re-election chances? our own lawrence kudlow joining us for his take. is this what obama needs to win? >> there's no question the faster pace of job creation is going to help the guy. any president would take credit for it. i want to make two quick points on the numbers to set the stage. job creation's picking up. that's great. particularly -- i don't know if you cover this, the household survey, which is the small businesses, 480 -- almost 500,000 per month. that's a leading indicator. i like that very much. on the other hand, obama and the rest of the country, we have too many people unemployed in this country. the unemployment rate is too high. the impaired unemployment rate is too high.

there's about 12 million, 13 million people unemployed. if you count discouraged workers, there's about 19 million. so we're not really denting the unemployment problem near enough. >> and 19 million is nearly the entire population of australia, by the way. >> i forgot where i was for a moment. that's it. you got it. >> it other thing that felt disappointing was the continued underperformance of hourly earnings. earnings aren't going up, but we all go to the grocery store and we see that prices are going up. we go to the pump and see gas prices going up. it feels like at the end of the day people might have a job but don't have as much money in their pocket. >> i'm a little less pessimistic on that because hours worked are surging. by the way, manufacturing hours worked are off the charts, which is great. but if you want to do the income thing right for consumers, you got to take your hourly earnings, multiply that by hours worked. what you come up with is about a 5% increase -- annual increase. >> and as i said on "squawk on

the street" this morning say we get $5 gas this summer. you can't compare it to $5 gas a couple years ago because this year we have a 2% payroll tax cut. and that compensates, won't help the economy on a net basis -- but it does compensate. >> $5 at the pump is a big number. i would not want to test that to tell you the truth. $5 is a big number. >> do you think we're going to get there? >> rex knows a whole lot more about it than i do, but when you're staring down the throat at $4 and you have parts ot country that are approaching $5, i wouldn't kick my heels up. that's not a good thing. >> that's a good point. we're talking national average because we know some places are much more expensive than others. great to have you with us. joining us is the ceo of the deco group. >> we have three months in a row plus 200,000. certainly that's a good trend. it's nowhere near 300, 400,000

jobs a month. that's what we'd like to see to make a dent. >> could you make a stab in the dark and give us a time frame on when you think we could get to that level of job creation? >> there are a million of different economic forecasts around what it would take to do that. i think the other good thing in the report is we saw 45,000 temporary jobs added. that's my business, as you know, that's a leading indicator to the job market overall. when we see temps growing, that means there's real demand. and companies will then make those temporary positions full-time positions. >> i agree with that. i like that. i think there's substance to the movement in the last three or four months. but i fret about the unemployed. and i think that drags down the animal spirits. i also fret businesses are uncertain about what's going to happen -- i'm not just talking about the election horse race, which itself is significant. you've got a gigantic, humongous tax hike built-in january 1, 2013. you also have big regulatory

issues and taxes with regard to the health care plan, the obama health care plan. you've got these energy uncertainties that we just been talking about. nobody can really predict that. so i worry that business is still not opening up the throttle near enough to get the 300,000 or 400,000 per month and i agree with you to really dent unemployment. we need 300,000 a month. >> is government doing enough? i notice in your findings here that only -- >> doing too much. >> only 4% of the americans think the u.s. government is doing exactly what they should be doing. maybe they're doing a lot, but it's not the right thing. >> we do a quarterly workplace inside survey. what we see is 60% of the people have confidence that jobs are getting better. they see more jobs in 2012 than in 2011. only 4% think the government's doing enough to help in the jobs. >> i'll bet you 79% -- i'm just going to pick that number -- wait a second. 79.5% would vote for free market capitalism across the board.

more private sector. more free enterprise. more animal spirits. the path to prosperity. i just think i have to work that? >> you're making a serious point. the labor secretary was on "squawk on the street" this morning and she said, you know, we're still working to promote jobs in clean energy, clean energy, solar, clean energy. it's like they're talking over here, and yet all the jobs are being created in fossil fuels, north dakota $120,000 a year to basically be a welder. and you've got the administration talking about clean jobs. support drilling. >> i'm for all the above. and that includes drilling support. and i really, really was annoyed when the keystone vote was stopped. >> oh, yes. >> i really think the president was a great error, political mistake, energy mistake and a jobs mistake by stopping the keystone pipeline. just as a symbol he shouldn't have stopped it much less the potential job creation. >> if you look at supply and demand, the number of people unemployed, there are only two narrow areas in engineering and

in some i.t. skill categories where the candidates are now have some power in the employment process. where they have a second job offer at the same time. where they're able to ask for more money to take that opportunity. that's only two very small -- >> you know better than i do, but i'll bet people that know how to drill well heads and understand things like that, they've got to be in demand as well. >> nuclear engineers, engineers in the oil field, absolutely. the engineering positions, absolutely. >> but these energy jobs, we used to call this rous abouts. nowadays because there is a technical composition to it these are $100,000 a year jobs. these are $100,000 a year jobs. and we can create 150,000, 200,000. i just hated that keystone thing. that's the kind of thing you want to see to get the animal spirits going. and send a message to business that we're going to leave you alone to create jobs. we're not going to crush you down with tax and regulatory burden. >> fantastic round table.

larry, tig, thank you so much for joining in today. >> and tonight on larry's show, who really should take the credit for better jobs numbers? the president or american business? what about "street signs"? no. find out tonight at 7:00. should be a good one. >> thank you for having me. >> just ahead on "street signs," disaster du jour. and that means herb is back. he's got a full k-cup full of i told you so for the green mountain bulls. >> it's been a beautiful stock to have in your portfolio up nearly 56% in six months, up nearly 2,000% over the past few years. will ulta continue to shine? we'll ask the ceo. er-acting for. zero-to-sixty in less time than a porsche panamera s. the 429 horsepower genesis r-spec.

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call or click today and join for free. test easy. dude, check out shares of coca-cola and pepsi. the companies' making changes to the production of a key ingredient to their colas to avoid a cancer warning label. >> oy. >> yeah. no change in taste is expected. keep the cancer out. keep the taste. there's your marketing slogan. >> herb, it is disaster du jour time. and you are looking at none other than green mountain coffee. it's your baby. >> it's one i've been following. an interesting story as we see what's going on a little debate

in the analytical community about whether it deserves to be a disaster du jour, but certainly getting a lot of competition now from starbucks on the upscale part of this business. i want to point out stock's downright now about 15%, 16%. keith tweeted earlier that from a technical level if it closes below 55.12, that would be bearish. again, that's a technical call. >> and there are analysts out defending it. you and i talked about it. investors are overreacting that the overlap between the new starbucks machine and the k-cup is small. this is more latte espresso-type product. there are analysts defending green mountain today. >> there always are. >> there will always be analysts until -- yes. >> think of all the little plastic k-cups making huge big mountains somewhere like manila. >> you would think about that. >> i would think about that. doesn't stop me from drinking it

though. there you go. our sunshine stock is part of what we called yesterday the baba booey trade. shares of sirius xm over 2% today and year-to-date up nearly 30%. cramer interviewed the ceo last night. that's getting some of the credit for the gains. also talk about a possible acquisition by liberty media. today is the 10-year anniversary, by the way, of satellite radio. love throwing in those factoids. >> i love throwing compact fluorescent lightbulbs around everywhere. throwing them around and running off. it's my hobby. >> it's a great hobby. maybe take up ping-pong. up next, a pulse check on the trading action with only 90 minutes left in the trading week. >> it's been nearly a year since the deadly earthquake and tsunami in japan. the human toll was horrific to say the least. but it also took a toll on business. we're going to find out if things are finally getting a bit back to normal. before the break, sad news about a long-time friend of cnbc. a well-known oil analyst, great guy, knew him for years, he's

died at the age of 56. there you go. well-known cnbc viewers, founding president of cameron hanover, passed away at 56. certainly from all of us here at cnbc, we send out condolences to his family and always a appreciated his insight and his whit and intellect. carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey. this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. looking for a better place to put your cash? here's one you may not have thought of: fidelity. now you don't have to go to a bank to get the things you want from a bank. like no-fee atms -- all over the world. free checkwriting and mobile deposits. now, depositing a check is as easy as taking a picture. free online bill payments. a highly acclaimed credit card with 2% cash back into your fidelity account.

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welcome back to "street signs." happy friday everybody. and happy birthday bull market. our dear late friend, mark haines, he called the market bottom three years ago today. and look how far we've come. we've got some stats for you. the dow is up 97% since then. and we are just 9% away from the all-time high back then. as for the nasdaq, we've gained 134% in just three years, the biggest winners here sirius, fossil, seagate and baidu. now we're at the new york stock exchange. you're a guy who's pretty much seen it all. there aren't out there with as much history of the markets. where do you feel is where we go from here? >> well, we seem to have gotten

over the greek hurdle. now, whether we can build on that is going to be something completely different. next week is going to be very interesting. we got the fomc and then bernanke will be talking the next day about community banking. so maybe we'll get a little hint if they are planning any kind of qe-3 or operation twist or whatever. the real problem for them, mandy, is this is an election year. >> right. >> so they think they need help, they're going to have to act now rather than wait for a month or two before the election. >> earlier on we had a question tom brown asked a good question. that is, okay, we've supposedly got greece out of the way. what is the market going to focus on? it always focuses on the next thing to worry about. what do you think that could be? is it the election? >> well, i think we will begin to shift into it. i think we had some good news on the employment front. but there's a feeling down here that that may begin to flatten out. we had a pattern like this last year. the other thing is to finally

get over the greek problem, we have to find out about the credit default swaps. if that doesn't git resolved candidly, that could freeze up the market one more time. >> it's not around energy prices for you then? >> that's right. >> thank you so much. >> my pleasure, have a great weekend. thank you. >> all right. salon cosmetics retailer, ulta beauty, out with strong earnings. it's stock a little flat today. but, listen, folks, it's had an amazing run. it's up more than 36% this year. up nearly 2,000% in a couple years. they plan to open, what, about 1,000 stores or get to 1,000 stores and hire 2,000 workers this year. a lot of good stories around ulta cosmetics. does this mean the consumer is back? let's ask the ceo. chuck, welcome back. you were on this program back on, i think it was september 9, 2011. since that time your stock is up nearly 50%. are you even surprised by the level of interest in your

equity? [ technical difficulties ] >> oh, there you go. we lost your audio. can you say something so we can see if we can hear you? >> do you have me back? >> now we can hear you. sounded like you heard my question. so tell us if you're even in shock and awe. >> i heard your question. i pay more attention to our business. and i think that investors are looking for companies that have a great business and lots of runway ahead. and that's really what ulta beauty is. our business actually has improved dramatically also since september. we just finished our fiscal year with total sales up over 20%. and comp store sales up double digits. i think that's what investors are really paying attention to. what our focus is for all of our 14,000 people is putting a great offering out for our customer and a great environment and really being so that she gets what she wants in the beauty industry. >> chuck, as brian was saying in the introduction, you're hiring, you're opening stores.

how else are you going to grow? are you looking to expand internationally? >> there's lots of growth opportunities out there for ulta. that's what's so exciting about the company. clearly our biggest opportunity is here in the u.s. to continue to open stores in the u.s. we only have less than 500 stores. we know we can build at least 1,000 stores here in the u.s. when you add on top of that the digital space and opportunity we have there to grow our digital sales, it's significant. international is also interesting. but there are so many things here in the united states that we're focused on that i think that will be our focus for the near-term. >> you know, you look at the jobs you guys are creating, good for you. you're building a distribution center in pennsylvania. it is jobs day, right? >> yep. it is. >> what can, if anything, chuck, can the government do to help companies like ulta create -- is there anything? are you going to do it on your own? do we need government intervention? i don't think so. you're the ceo, you tell me. >> i'm the ceo. i'm not a politician. so clearly -- >> thank goodness.

>> clearly i believe in capitalism and i believe that business -- a business like ulta, which has our customer first and foremost and our associates high on our priority list. i think there are always opportunities for companies like ulta to expand. we're focused on the current environment, the economic environment, the political environment we do business in. we're focused on doing the best job that we can. and we'll let the politicians take care of the other parts of the economy. >> well, we certainly don't need anymore politicians. chuck, thank you so much for joining us. chuck rubin. >> thank you very much. >> if congress was a stock, it would be down about 82% and heavily shorted. it is tax season. but as millions of americans rush to file, into it attempting to stay on top by moving to online and platforms. can the platforms work as part of tax prep software? that's part of today's innovate or else. >> innovation comes directly from the consumer.

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a year ago this sunday, japan's supply chain came to a grinding halt following a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. one of the hardest hit sectors, auto. a year later as the world's third biggest economy been able to restart its manufacturing engines, phil lebeau has been following that story and joins us with more. have they been able to get back? >> they're pretty close. in fact, brian, when you look at the market share for japanese automakers versus domestic automakers, over the last year there was naturally a dip for the japanese automakers. they're the bottom line there. in the months immediately after the earthquake is tsunami. but they have started to inch back closer to where they were before the tsunami. so when you take a look at what's happened over there, not only focus on the automakers but the parts suppliers because they were so focused in the region that was impacted, they took a big hit. now, what we've seen is a number of them have diversified their plants outside of japan moving production elsewhere in asia. as for the automakers, toyota's

a perfect example of what some of the automakers over there have done. the japanese automakers, they have shifted some of their production to other markets including the united states. remember in november we were down in mississippi where toyota opened a new plant. that's bringing in some production in the corolla. that's part of moving away from japan. not only because of what happened after the earthquake and tsunami, but look at the strength of the yen. it has started to improve just a little bit in the last six weeks or so, dramatically we should say. for the most part, the strong yen still hurts the japanese automakers. how about domestic automakers? how much have they benefitted? and can they hang onto that? post tsunami are having more success. gm sales up 8% compared to a year ago. ford car sels up 11.4% when you look at something like the fi s fies fiesta. they have benefitted post tsunami and a year later you are seeing people really taking a look at the domestic autos now and saying i was holding out for the japanese but now i'm willing

to take a look at a new model. >> that's something you and i talked about how u.s. cars gained market share and maybe people would say i never thought about a ford. i like it and going to stay with it. the earthquake as devastating as it was also did something for the u.s. auto industry to expose more people to their cars. but do you believe in general, phil, i know you're close to ford and gm as well, but are they the same now? gm and ford, are they 100% caught up with the quality of toyota and honda? >> it's hard to say that they are exactly on the same level, but they're really darn close. you're splitting hairs now. it's not like it was five years ago. >> we're not talking pontiac aztec anymore. >> correct. when you look at the quality surveys, is toyota marginally ahead? yes, but there's not a huge gap like there used to be. >> phil, thank you. >> you bet. >> now no new plants have been built in 30 years, ten states rely heavily on nuclear power. brian shactman looks at the state of the nuclear industry coming up next on "closing bell."

march is women's history month. here on cnbc we're celebrating the milestones and the achievements women have made worldwide. today we're looking at the rise of a new financial powerhouse, china's billionaire women. amy wrote about this in the latest edition of "news wooek." fantastic to have you with us today. what struck me is the statistic that china has more self-made female billionaires than any country in the world. why is this so? >> that's what surprised me too. you think of china as such an authoritarian scary place. america is supposed to be the land of opportunity. but in fact china now has more self-made women billionaires. and the women that i interviewed, i don't think they're necessarily typical, but i think their secret for sure was finding a way to combine the sort of dynamism and creativity and innovation of the west with incredible hard work and endurance. i mean, two of these women had horrible -- actually, they all had horrible childhoods.

one was a factory worker. actually, all of her childhood. and another slept between a pig sty and a chicken coop. somehow managed to make it to the west. learned a lot here and brought it back home. >> i think you brought up a good point when you talk about their experience with the west. because all the people you interviewed, correct me if i'm wrong, did spend a portion of their early adulthood in the west. so i guess that really begs the question do you have to have the international experience to make it big in china these days? >> i think there are a couple routes to enormous success in china. one, sadly, is connections. shadier roots. those billionaires didn't want to be interviewed by many. >> for obvious reasons. >> yeah. so people that want to tell their stories who are proud actually a very strong portion of them are very westernized. i don't know if it's a necessity, but i've noticed even, you know, robin lee, head of china's google, same thing.

a lot of east and western mixture. it's an interesting combination. >> how much as well is due to the fact these are very strong women with very strong sense of their own self worth and the feeling they are equal because at least in theory under communism and certainly a lot of these women would have been born during the cultural revolution, men and women are equal, right? >> this really surprised me. they said communism, terrible in a million ways. one good thing it did is it really instilled the sense men and women are equal. women hold up half the sky. a second thing that stunned me is all four of these women thought it was actually easier to be a working woman in china than in the united states. and they have all these u.s. friends. and part of the reason is the social structure. a lot of these very hip modernized women still have their parents live with them and take care of their kids. so it's a built-in domestic help situation. >> certainly the traditions live on strong in china. it's a great article. thank you very much for sharing

that information with us. amy, chua, you can catch it in the "newsweek" article. >> thanks, mandy. we have breaking news. there is a default on greek debt. headlines right now as we talked about, is the determinations committee the 15 members have decided that indeed there was a "credit event with regards to the debt swap" and that it is a default. what does this mean? okay. here's what it means. all the swaps that were written, basically the insurance on debt, are likely now going to have to be paid out. what does that mean? there are just under 70 billion in outstanding swaps. that's a big number. but here's the thing. about 66.7 billion of those are hedged out. the last word we had was there was about 3.3 billion in unhedged outstanding notional value swaps. those are going to be paid out. here's the concern that i've got. we're waiting to get michelle caruso-cabrera on the phone in

athens. we should probably also talk to a bank analyst at some point soon because there are a lot of banks that have written these insurance swaps. if they've hedged them all out, it's fine. they'll pay out. they'll get paid on the other side. but 3.3 billion not a tiny number. and we're going to have to find out now what banks wrote those swaps because they are likely going to have to pay them out. and if the bank is unhedged or if the numbers don't add up, it could be a big dent to some banks' balance sheets. again, folks, breaking news, international swaps and derivatives association has a 15-member committee. they got together. they decided, yep, it's a credit event. greece has officially defaulted on part of its debt. i tweeted it out i don't know late '09 that this was going to happen. not tooting the own horn, but i think everybody out there knew this was going to happen. michelle caruso-cabrera is on the telephone, i believe, with us from athens. i know a lot of people expected this to happen. some people said it wouldn't, michelle, here we go.

we got a greek default. >> yeah. as expected. and i have to tell you, brian, a lot of people didn't think it would happen back in 2009. remember all the european leaders who said there will be no default in the eurozone? you're absolutely right. the moment has come. it is a exactly right, the time has come, it is a new low point for the european union. this was expected. one thing to keep in mind, the way credit default swaps work, they get paid out over time. so a lot of this may be already in the market. for example, one emerging market credit manager said he bought credit swaps more than a year ago. he's gotten paid 9.5 million euros. he's only waiting for another half a million euros to come through on this particular deal. the rush to have to pay credit default swaps that we saw in the week of lehman brothers, and the concerns about aig, those were so rapid.

this time we've had roughly two years for the credit default swap to start slowly paying out over time. so that may be why we see less of a ripple effect this time around, even though it's a big event. >> it is a big event. i think we should update the markets. we're not expecting to see the dow tank on this news, because as you've said, as we've said, as everybody's said, most of this stuff is hedged out. i think, michelle, the issue now is going to be, what banks wrote what swaps. if you read boomerang by michael lewis, he talks about the swaps out there. some of these were purchased from morgan stanley at $1,100 a contract that will pay out $700,000 per contract. not sure if those contracts are still outstanding. we're going to find out which banks are going to start paying up. >> yeah. but remember, morgan stanley on that particular contract has probably paid a lot of that $700,000 already. >> and you're right, there's a carrying cost for these swaps. they're getting collateral on

the back end. good point. it's not a pure payout because they're getting paid collateral every month on these contracts. >> absolutely. or think of it, it's -- not to get too wonky, but it's something called reverse margin. in the old days before the collapse of lehman brothers, if you had a profit on these contracts, you were willing to keep them as a paper profit. because you weren't worried about the bank that wrote them collapsing. after lehman brothers collapsed, a lot of people saw their money caught up in the profits they thought they had, that were sucked in a bankruptcy proceeding. behavior changed across wall street. every time there was money to extract, they didn't keep it as a paper profit, they actually took the physical money out. so that money has been distributed over time. because nobody wanted to be caught without having gotten their money already. probably of it already has been paid out. >> that's a great point. not a pure payout. but i think, too, michelle, and again, let's talk about this a little bit without getting into the numbers and cat claws and

all the other stuff, which is really this. this is a sovereign default. that, to me, is the headline. greece has defaulted a number of times over the last century. a number of countries have defaulted, argentina, a number of times, russia, indonesia has defaulted. but this is a eurozone nation that has by the one committee that determines itself defaulted. that is a huge headline. even if it doesn't necessarily trigger massive financial problems, it is a headline. it is a theme. >> absolutely. it is the first advanced economy in more than 60 years to default. and it is not because of war. and frankly, no matter what this is, brian, you and i know that if you only get paid 47 1/2 cents when you're owed 100, it's a default. but restructuring by any other name hurts as badly for everyone

involved, whether it's the greek government, the european union, the banks, the pension funds, the people on the ground. >> michelle caruso-cabrera, fantastic reporting. at this stage, the nasdaq, s&p and the dow, just taking a look at the numbers here, have not moved particularly on this news. >> i think it's more of the theme, as we just said. it's the idea, as michelle says. we'll take a break and come back and talk more about this. the debt, greece has officially defaulted on its sovereign debt. that's a headline. an investment opportunity you didn't see before. fidelity's next generation ipad app lets you see what's trending around the world, as well as what over a million fidelity customers are trading throughout the day. and advanced charting lets you customize your views and set up your own comparisons. our ipad app can help refine your strategy or even find a new one. i'm velia carboni, and i helped create fidelity's next generation ipad app. it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades and explore your next investing idea.

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welcome back, everybody. of course, we've been talking about the fact that the restructuring greece has triggered a credit event. it essentially means we're seeing a sovereign default. rick santelli, we have pared our equity market gains. what is the reaction in terms of bonds, do you think, here? it was largely expected, let's be honest. >> i think there's a lot of things we could say are expected, mandy. but i think yesterday that the number on the participation, the psi, exactly 24 hours ago, that i was operating on, that was given to me by the floor was around 84%. it proved to be very accurate.

and without hitting 90%, most participants that i know of fully expected it to turn out the way it did. having said that, you almost couldn't see a yield move. you saw a futures move. you saw maybe a two or three 30-second rally that hardly translated into a full basis point. the equity markets definitely are giving up ground. and you can see that. that makes sense. but it is a weekend. i think that this is more of an issue that is going to be for the books that are going to be written. and maybe future notions of how the default is going to play in realtime, and given their economy. but the actual notion of the cdss being triggered seems to be pretty much baked in the cake, as nasty as it may seem. >> the dow is flatlining here. we've given up the day's gains. steve liesman, you were in russia when it defaulted, weren't you. >> in the wintertime we thought russia had escaped the crisis.

by august it was done and defaulted. didn't happen -- it happened very, very fast. there was no time for people to get out of the way. you were talking about how this is largely expected. the hope is, the expectation is, especially when it comes to u.s. banks, plenty of time to pare exposure there. the question is, were they counting on this credit event. you have to think the fed told them, look, get out of the way of this with your exposure. >> rick was saying in europe when everybody in europe comes back to work monday morning -- >> i think there is the media event, and then do i start to put this on other countries. think of the default in portugal and spain. but for the moment, no big news here. >> to mandy's point, here's the thing. i love italy, i love spain, great people, great food, great times. the euro and ecb is germany with a little side order of france, that's it. that's going to dominate the