tv Street Signs CNBC March 12, 2012 2:00pm-3:00pm EDT
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emerging markets, bill. >> may they find it. look at the time. i have to go. >> bill can get there at 3:00 sharp. >> see you later. that's "power lunch." "street signs" begins right now. it can be done, bill. it can be done. hello, and welcome to "street signs." i'm mandy drury. the averaging are having an average day but lots of big names making big moves, ibm, costco, and more. can you still make money buying these high flyers? we're going to debate that. while everyone is focus odd sky high oil prices, he we asked can you find a wave of products in water? a top analyst breaks it down and names names as you hunt for liquid assets. a reality check. is 2012 a year that the home
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buyers make a big comeback, or will the red hot rental market drive the market. new details are coming your way. in the meantime let's check on the markets for you. the dow with the plus side with two hours left in the trading day. exxon, coke and walmart leading the way. the s&p is hovering around the flat line, harley davidson and h & r block hovering there. one positive note there, folks. the nasdaq is on track for the biggest percentage gain since the third quarter of 2009. let's get right to the trading floors. bob at the nyc and semi. it's a tight trading range and very light volume. what gives? >> what you want to see here is the global market leadership move forward. we don't see it today. look at tmarket leadership here. it's true we're in positive territory, but throughout the most of the day the names leading us have been the walmarts of the world, the cokes of the world, procter & gamble,
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pes merck, for example. throughout the day it's the defensive names. look at sectors here that matter. the big risk on names. that's not happening either. they went down throughout the day. they were lower earlier in the day. when you get this leadership, it's hard for the market to show a lot of energy. finally speaking of energy i want to show you what the energy names are doing. this is china's trade deficit higher than examine examined or wider than expected i should say. when you see that, you get big, big energy names moving to the downside and concerns about slower global growth. part of our gold special tonight, we asked you earlier to try to guess the total weight -- i can barely pick it up -- of this 400-ounce gold bar here. 1:30 was the closing of trading. wee asked you to guess that. i'll reveal the win at 2:45 p.m. eastern time. this is part of the gold special
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airing tonight. >> is the prize that bar gold, bob? >> not quite. something out of the closet from cnbc. it will be something nice. >> in 45 minutes time from nowell reveal that winner. why is the nasdaq dragging its feet today? >> we're in teg active territory, but we're off the lows only down four points. it is a mixed session for tech stocks. there are a couple of standouts i want to bring your attention to. there's no shortage of demand for the new ipad. we have preorders for the popular tablet already sold out. let's bring to your attention to a couple of deals that were announced today. we have two chinese internet video jinlts announcing a merger. look at tudo, better than 148%. as you pointed out, there are a couple of stocks moving to the downside. look at oracle. they're cutting it hold from buy. the reason is kesed challenges to growth that he wrote in his
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note this morning. look at first solar right here down 6%. investors continue to hit the sell button on this. as the price of natural gas gets cheaper, mandy, renewable energy firms like first solar continue to get hit. >> thank you very much for that. where are the opportunities for investors hungry to put they are money to work in this market. let's ask, chief investment strategist. scott also with us a friend of cnbc and a cnbc contributor. let me start with you. we have just said happy birthday, the third birthday to the bull market in equities. the s&p and dow is doubling, down 135% over those three years. now we're in year four. what's it going to look like? >> i don't think we're likely to see the do i understand of gains that we saw last year replicated in this year. i think they'll be better than that. we face some serious head wines towards the second half of the year, but perhaps that's not something for today's discussion
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as much as equities look attractive. as much as they've risen in a comensurate-like fashion. equity evaluations are undemanding on an absolute basis. when compared to cash or bonds which offer little until the way of competition to stocks, i think you can find great value in the equity markets like energy, technology and even financial services area, namely regional banks. >> do you agree with what mark said? if we asked for equities on a relative basis, why is the market in the process of dropping out? >> that was global qe. i think for in our its taking a pause with the ecb. the bank of england alluded to the end of the qe soon, and the fed is on hold forced by sticky inflation. that is what is going to create
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this topping process we're in the middle of that will see a decline over the next couple of months. qe is still in the ball game, so i'm not expecting a big decline, but in the short term this market is topping out. we see apple go into pair ball lick fashion. the opportunity to see right now is the opportunity to lighten up and not to add. >> if we see a pull-back, mark, what would you want to load up on specifically? >> i would welcome that. i've been looking for the same, and i've been frustrated as to the deferment it seems at this juncture. something that's relatively shallow would provide an opportunity to step in areas like, again, energy, cheap valuations relative to the market names offer a decent yield and halliburton and oil services company. technology, so we like stocks like microsoft and intel. >> we were just mentioning in the opening sequence that ibm is
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at an all-time high. a number of by tech have incredible runs year to date. tech still looks like good value to you, mark? >> it does, mandy. valuations are still at about one half of their trailing 15-year price-to-earnings ratio with the growth rate expected to be the over all aggregate p.e. that remains about 1, which is still compelling p in our practice. >> in terms of investment strategy for you, peter, you said that now is the time to take money off the table, not adding new money in. what would make you put new money? >> well, we will get another round of global qe, but that comes after the sharpdown tu do that shakes everybody up. the global economy is slowing down. it is slowing down. that's going to lead us to another round of global qe but with markets lower from here.
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when that happens, you want to load up on the reflation trade again, gold, agriculture and other commodity-type areas but not before a slowdown and sell-off. >> what's going on with gold, though. i don't know how it wants to trade gold anymore. >> is it a risk on? is it a risk off? it seems like it's trading like a risk asset these days, peter. >> right now it's consolidating a phenomenal move. part of it is the belief na short term qe ends. but we know all this money that's been created is still out there, and they keep creating more via the central banks. so gold in my opinion is the asset class to own on any pull backs and we see the consolidation. >> what do you think on gold, mark? >> i think largely the same. we're back down to about the 200-day moving average. i think oil prices continue to move higher on the back of continuing easing. even though the fed has paused
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for the moments, others are still liquefying their respective countries' balance sheets. as a consequence, this bodes well for goad prices. >> mark and peter, thank you so much for joining us. we've been up now for four straight weeks. where are the big guns putting they are noen in you see where institutional investors are investing, where they're putting their money and taking it out from. steve leisman is at orlando at the common fund forum. tell us about the kind of people you meet down there. >> last night at dinner i salt next to a guy with i $4 billion fund eyre chicago hospital. next to him say guy with i $60 million fund for the small school up near pittsburgh. the most interesting guy is a guy to manages a $200 million fund from a guy in delaware that was a boatsman and moved to the south during the civil war and
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ran cat fon for want confederate army and make made a big for fun and ended up behe kwooeting that land to catholic xharts. 80% stft money goes to catholic charities in southwest texas. >> what's the big money doing? >> okay. there's a lot of talk about emerging markets. the big problem is how do you hit an 8% target? why 8%? you do 5% for private foundations. they're required by law to to put that out. endowments want to do that anyway. they have a 3% inflation that they have to get over. they're looking for 8% in a 4% world or 3% world. p if you look where they increase exposure, there was a poll taken of the common fund participants down here about a quarter of a trillion dollars under management for those who answer the survey. they do emerging markets and they're a little less in the japanese. i don't know if we have the full screens from earlier. there we go.
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natural resources, venture capital, private equity looking for alternative investments and real estate and commodities. when i look at where they decrease exposure, the last line is u.s. equities. they're about even on that, about 18% are decreasing, about 21% are increasing. they're trying to get out of u.s. treasuries. that's where endowments used to put a lot of money. at a 2% ten-year yield, there's no way to make that 78% nut with a 2% yield. >> i know it well. interesting how they're looking at emerging market. the ugly stepsister last year looks like cinderella. up next on "street signs," not dead yet. microsoft and dell surging this year, so is apple really killing the pc? we're going to debate that. hold on to your hoodie mark zukerburg, why they're calling them the modern barrons. that's also coming your way. ( there's nothing wo
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yahoo! is searching for gains today. come score says it trails google and microsoft. it's sixth consecutive monthly decline in market share for yahoo!. when apple ceo tim cook announced the new ipad last week, he talked about a post-pc world. yet today ibm is trading at an all-time high and dell and
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microsoft surging this year as well. are the reports a bit premature. joining us to evaluate the pcs, senior research analyst at cowan and company. great to have you on the show. todd, sths a case of the pc is not dead yet? >> absolutely not. there's no way it's dead yet, and i think it's a lot of people sort of drinking this apple kool-aid, the post-pc era. they're great at marketing. 92 million pcs were sold last year, and ipad, 15 million of those. when you compare those figures and take away the moniker, you have a different story here. >> when you look at growth numbers, last year was a flattish and a lackluster year for pcs. you expect 2012 to be another flattish year. isn't this a matter of time? >> i think todd may have had
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quarterly numbers up there and the not annual. with 50 million ipads out of the market last year, the pc side of the equation really all the growth was that 50 million ipads. you came into the year looking for 15% growth. they didn't the uptake of the ipad into the equation. >> todd, i don't know about you. i love having a typeable key pardon. it's hard to type on an iphone and ipad and whatever. what are the arguments for the pc to stick around? >> here's a perfect example. say your i.t. guy gives an ipad. you need a computer to do your work. i don't think the ipad is there yet. we'll see a convergence between the devices, but the ipad 3 was an evolutionary step for apple. there's no way it's killing the pc right now. >> is there a way of playing this, matt. >> we believe windows is the big
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cycle for the back half of the year and investigators want exz pose you're there. qualcomm is making chips for the windows market. it's going to be coming in the back half the year. it's incremental business for them and that's a top pick in the space. >> who loses out of this long, slow, drawn-out death of the pc you're predicting, matt? >> the company that will be taking market share from will be intel. that's quite controversial and i think that stock was a strong performer last year. we'll see how it behaves this year since he it's exposure is strong right now. windows is a big cycle for the qualcomms of the world. >> real quick from the investment side. do you think that the microsofts and the dells of the world -- we've seen eastman kodak not adapt fast enough for the
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fast-changing environment. do you think over time the pc is not used as much, the big names in that space adapt and diversify, matt? >> if you look at x-86, want current architecture for i knti tell, that excuses too much heat and power to be a global technology and compete head-to-head. look for intel to narrow the gap with arm. maybe they do it in the next shrink. we'll see. it's an important thing in technology. they look to have the advantage in this necessary rev of windows. >> thank you very much for joining us today. from old tech it to the new tech titans. silicon valley has zil john nares. don't be fooled. these are no-nonsense bullies but that's what they're saying. why do you call them bullies? >> i wanted to take a look and we wrote this fees for
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""newsweek" the" it this week. you take this billionaires. if you look at mark zukerburg's letter to shareholders, they follow in the tradition of the magna carte letter which was the google letter to shareholders in 2004. they want companies that don't focus on profit maximumization but really about changing the world. the more you peel back the onion and look at this, there are so many infractions that really speak more of a like business is usually than don't be evil. we started to look at it. it's amazing if you look at the rap sheet against silicon valley's saintly ones. >> are they worse than any other ceos in any other sector of corporate america? >> they say they are not. that's what their words suggest. their actions are they're the best of corporate america wall street.
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in some cases in certain areas you could argue they're worse. a lot of people have taken aim at apple's exploitive manufacturing in china or google's adventures in the world of privacy violations. this is unchartered territory by the way. we never had companies whose sole business was trafficking in your personal information. we don't know how bad it will be. >> what's the best way to rectify this image? throw more money at the problem, or is it deeper than this? >> i think it's deeper. the whole moral exceptionalness of silicon valley is nonsensual stuff. are you really not doing evil. so stop and take a clear view of the businesses you're in. you have to recognize a company like google has 33 n,000
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employees. their corporations are like people in one way. they all take sthohortcuts. you can change something in the privacy code, cutting costs, whatever it might be, which can lead you to do something that might be viewed as evil. you see there is going to be regulation. this is a sort of largely self-raeg lated industry, and that's going to change. that's going to be the most interesting thing to watch in the next year or so. >> it certainly will change. rob, thank you very much for joining us. next ahead on "street signs," slippery when wet stocks. we have just the thing for thirsty investors. does this mean drama for disney investors. that's right back after this? carfirmation.
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i've always gotten through some pretty rough stuff without falling to pieces. ♪ ♪ let's check on the market for you. the dow is let's check on the market for you. the dow is moving marginally higher and the nasdaq is lower. because you see on the board the decliners are outnumbers the advancers and changed would be 144 names. the new highs on the nyc, we're hitting 92 of them today
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includes ibm. disney's newest big screen adventure "john carter" turn into a mor horror show. she spent 250 million to make the movie plus as much as $100 million on marketing. investors don't seem to care yet. is this flop an epic fail for disney? what's going on there. >> mandy, "john carter" won't make the $600 million it needs to be profitable. even just a week and a half ago when disney's ceo spoke to cnbc he was standing by his big bet on this movie. >> we're hopeful for that movie. we have a invested in it, and we've got a great creator and director, and we believe in him and the movie he's made. >> now a disaster yus opening
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weekend means disney has to take a quarterly write-down estimated between 100 million and 165 million depending on john carter's performance overseas. barclays and bmo capital lowered revenue and earnings projections for disney's current quarter and the full year because of the movie's disappointment. the bomb was expected, so it didn't damage the stock. plus, the studio chief that green-lit it and the marketing executive have already been fired. some analysts remain bullish. standard & poor's reiterated the strong buy saying that this failure will focus disney more on branded films and janne upgraded disney today. interestingly, mandy, reviews of "john carter" haven't been that terrible. reviews were about 50%. i expected to be much worse
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based on mow it performed. >> i thought it looked quite good whether i saw the trailer. i know tomorrow is disney's shareholder meeting. what are we expecting? >> with disney they have different issues about the ni y nitty-gritty things here. the big issue is about ceo bob iger named chairman and he had a big payday. does it make sense for him to be chairman? is the board diverse enough, and did he get paid too much? that's the big question. >> some good questions there. thanks very much. hope we get answers. up next on "street signs," the rent is too high. will the rental boom push people back into homes? is there a feeding frenzy. water, how you can trade it next. for their clients' futures. never taking a bailout. helping generations achieve dreams.
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very narrow trading range of very light volume, is anyone making any money and where? >> absolutely. i think the same stocks stand out here. right now ibm and apple keep going higher at 52-week highs every day. people funnel their money in the same fashion. one thing that concerns me is we get narrower and narrower on stocks you can buy. volume is light, too. that concerns me as well. >> is this a case of people lacking creativity? they're sticking with what has been working, and they're not looking elsewhere? >> why go too far? if things aren't works keep playing them and riding that train as long as you can. you have to look out forward here and get creative. maybe natural gas is something people look at. some of the energy related plays people mention all day today might be somewhere. you find value and make long-term investments. >> what's lagging that you think does warrant a look? >> i think natural gas stands out.
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a company likes exxon today is up a buck. it's bucking energy here on the play. normally i don't pick stocks like that, so i can't go on that. natural gas is somewhere that i would actually be looking. >> apart from natural gas, where's the next big kick come from in the terms of the broader market or even the next big stock to look at? >> i'd be more concerned about the downside here. that's what i'm looking for. i'm looking for a good dip where i get back and play. i'm not so sure i buy technology at this level here. the banks -- the regional bank is a better play for me than the bigger banks. i would look more for a pull-back not the minor 200-point correction. >> percentagewise what kind of dip are we looking at? >> i would look for a 5% move to the downside before i looked it to load up. 1% or 2% doesn't excite me on the downside.
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we need something big to keep us going. we have to get interested in buying the upside. >> understood. look for a better opportunity for entry. matt, thanks very much. big year for the bug. volkswagen reporting record sales for 2011 and expecting the same for 2012. gm outsold vw last year, but why was vw far more profitable? >> it's where they were selling and what they were selling mandy. if you look at the gm profit pablt versus volkswagen, volkswagen ended up net profit-wise being three times more profitable than general motors. people say they're both strong in china. where is the difference? if you look at europe, particularly germany, they're stronger there and in south america. you take some of the outliers around the world as well and put that together with the audi brand, which is incredibly
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powerful last year, that's where you see the strength for volkswag volkswagen. >> is audi the secret to their success? zoo >> it's the most powerful brand. it's the 16th best seller brand in the world in 2011. brought in $6.9 billion and compare it with cadillac. it's the 52nd best sell r brand. there's no comparison. vw with audi selling 1.3 million audis and about 200,000 caddies for general motors. those are the more profitable cars, mandy. >> that begs the question. do you think there's a point in time in the next year or two that vw can catch gm to become the number one? >> they have a good shot at it. this next year is tough for them in terms of a few things are slowing down, particularly europe is going to be tough. there are coming on strong, though, here in the united states. will they make up all the ground they need to with gm in the next year here in the u.s.?
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no. if they continue to be as strong in china, they have an outside shot within a couple of years maybe catching general motors. >> we are watching. thanks very much for that. oil is just about to wrap up the final oil trades coming in right now. let's get down to sharon with the close. hey there, sharon. >> hey there, mand yir. we're looking at oil prices down more than a $1 right now but above $106 a barrel here. keep in mind there are concerns about the export growth out of china that have weighs on the energy sector all session long, and the relative slip in the dollar helped to put pressure on energy prices. gasoline futures have held up remarkably well in the session. even though we saw a decline, the first one in four sessions, it's not a big one. about a quarter of a percent here. we're looking at bullish bets for gasoline futures and options at record levels. when you look at the managed money that has flown into this market both for crude oil but
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especially for gasoline, that's part of the reason why we're looking at prices right now. $3.80 a gallon at the pump for the national average up a nickel, over the weekend up 30 cents in a month's time. on to another part of the energy equation. that's natural gas at a ten-year low around that 223 mark was the low of the session. a lot of traders talking about what happens to gas, when will it get back on to $3 or go below $2. barclays looks as the conservative downsize rage around that $2 level, mandy. >> i'm not going to let you know yet. everyone wants to know whether or not the nationshtional avera crack 5 bucks this year? >> many of the traders and analysts say it's mother like 4.25 a gallon for the national average. that's the landlocked lower prices in the middle of the country, and there we look at wti prices or the cash wholesale
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prices below $100 a barrel. that keeps a lid on prices even though we look at higher prices in california, new york and on the coasts. >> okay. thank you very much. there we go. we will settled down by over a buck. 106.34, a barrel of the black stuff. from oil to water. shares of zilum, ticker xxl, and today mario said he's a buyer. we thought what was is xylem and is there really money to be made in water? david, he's looking at this company. should we be as well? >> we think so. >> why? >> well, we think this is one of the pure plays in water. xylum has a broad offering of water offerings for the pump water treatment and analytic instruments. it's benefitting from long-term drivers in water led by up population growth and growth in emerging markets. >> if you want to be in the
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water space, is xylum is best play for it? >> i think so. xylum offers upside and downside protection. about 40% of their business is in repair and replacement. you have in a sense a recurring stream of revenues where you're levered to the upside in growth and emerging markets and higher growth in markets such as energy and mining. >> what about the risks for water space in general? if we talk about the u.s. alone, the first thing that came to my mind is where is the investment for water infrastructure coming from when you have weak, municipal markets? >> that's a great question. ij ij a lot of people focus on the municipal side. we look at water on the holistic basis. you have the industrial market that represents 38% of the business. even on the municipal side you have a strong repair and replace driven by their wastewater, which is different from the potable side. the wastewater market is very strong led by epa decrees that
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force municipalities to spend. the money it's coming from increases in tariffs. >> thank you very much for joining us. xylum has a target of 32. up ahead is gold's dip reason to buy? bob is guarding that secret at the nyc. you're really under armed guard. >> i have two new friends, angel and sylvester. they watch me all day because i have $1.4 million between two gold bars here. we'll tell you the winner of guess the value of the gold bar competition when "street signs" continues. don't go away. now that greece has gotten debt forgiveness daishg none >> none have the high levels of levels of deficits. greece's debt is reduced by
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100,000 you're roes. >> portugal will require debt restructuring and maybe eventually exit like greece. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles, 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. they make you a trading assassin. trade architect. td ameritrade's empowering web-based trading platform.
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equ fax is up 3.6% today. it's an upgrade. today we're shining a big spotlight on gold. traditionally investors turn to gold in times of uncertainty and recently we have seen quite a bit of that. over the past three years gold is up over 80%, but off its 2011 highs of more than $1900 a troy ounce. major gold stocks under some pressure today. as you can see on the board there, all dot downside. bob joins us with a sneak peek at his special report on gold premiering tonight. you've been all over the world in your reporting. how many more upside is there to the price of gold according to the people you've spoken to? >> that's all over the place here. >> i did speak with hedge fund investors kyle bass who has been bull on gold for a long time. he thinks gold has further to run. he's been buying gold because he
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believes the central banksks around the world continue to print money, and that gold is a hedge against the printing and inflation. you can see parts of my interview at gold.cnbc.com. >> tonight you have access to the never before seen largest private gold reserve in the world. what was it like being surrounded by all that silver and gold, bob? >> we're talking about, and i saw the gold reserve there. actually, they're vaults in london. the important thing is this is the gold reserve not just for the gld but for the other clients as well as hpc and they hold silver, too. mandy, when you walk in and cecsee silver stacked 10 feet high to the ceiling and gold, 60 billion in gld and i don't know how much from other clients there.
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there were other clients' gold stash there. after so many hours, it's kind of normal. these are all about 25, 27 pounds a piece you're looking at. those are london good delivery bars, like two standing here. >> don't get too used to it bob. you went 2.2 miles beneath the surface. twhafs like? >> 100 degrees, over 100 degrees with 100% humidity. i have more respect for everyone in the gold mining industry. rocks are everywhere. they're still scooping out the rocks. get a third of an ounce of gold per ton. everybody you can fall down and injure yourself. when you're that deep down little seismic disturbances in the rock produce rockfalls as well. i had to sign a document going in saying if you don't come out, don't blame us. it was something. >> you wouldn't want to be claustrophobic. this is the moment we've been
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waiting for. the viewers have been guessing the value of those gold bars all day. how much is the gold bar in your hand worth? >> this is a london good delivery bar. this is the international gold standard uses, and based on today's close at 1:30 p.m. eastern time -- that's the april futures contract -- the winner is willie kirk who tweeted the value, $679,920. that was at 1:24 p.m. today. goat the number exactly right. >> that is incredible. >> so you're looking at essentially $700,000 per gold bar here, about $1.4 million i have in both hands. >> congratulations willie cook. thank you very much, bob. we'll watch your special tonight on gold. bob gets exclusive access inside the largest gold reserve in the world. no tv camera has been inside until now.
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again 9:00 p.m. eastern/pacific. from gold let's serve up some sunshine to midd. it's up 6% today at an all-time high level. they make restaurant equipment like deep fryers and rangers. up next is it time to take profits from the red hot home builders? are we becoming a nation of renters? the late est on a new index tracking the price. is it a good or bad sign for the spring selling season. we'll find some answers when "street signs co" comes back.
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home build home build pers a megayear so far, dr hortden a nice game of 24%, i will take t invest ers do seem to be betting on higher home prices but a new survey from zillow.com showing prices for rentals are the real rising star. wither going to debate that in a minute with the chief economist from zillow. first of all, diana olick takes us inside the numbers. diana? >> reporter: the numbers are pretty stunning, especially when
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you compare these rising rents with still falling home prices. usually when home prices drop and represents rise, represents turn to buyers. as we know, these are unusual times in housing. take a look. represents are up 3% nationwide in january year-over-year while home prices are down 4.6%. take it locally, chicago, represents up over 9%, home values down 10%. minneapolis, much the same story, san francisco, st. louis and detroit, represents are up as much as home values are down. now, while investors are rushing to get in on bargain price foreclosures and turn them into rentals, regular home buyers and those representing now are still largely not looking to buy. why is that? tough mortgage standards, still high unemployment and generally weak consumer confidence are all keeping buyers on the sidelines and rental demand high. the question now of course is how long can this dynamic last and when it turns, will rent and rental investment come crack down? asking that on the blog, realty
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check.cnbc.com. >> let's bring in zillow chief economist stan humphrey. you said the rental market is the silver lining to the nation's housing downturn. how so? >> as diana diagnosed, seeing robust growth in rentals, 3% nationally, while home values are falling. the foreclosure epidemic is a giant engine converting owner-occupied households to renters and increasing demand and that is driving up prices in the rent space. >> what is the tipping point here? >> i'm sorry? >> what is the tipping point? when will it start turning the other way, see people, for example, consumer sentiment shift more toward actually owning a house instead of representing, especially when you have got rents rising some and you have got record housing affordability? >> we expect 2012 to be a positive year for home sales and new housing starts as well. so we think the buyers are going to get off the fence in 2012 but definitely, the rental market is
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way ahead of that. and invest verse been pull nothing that market all year for the past, for 2011 and we expect them to do even more in 2012. in terms of a tipping point, we are a ways from that i think consume hearse a reset during the housing recession, they were burped on buying and i think they are slowly going to come back to buying but right now, definitely a preference for representing. of course, than die nam sic the seeds for the turn around, as represents rise, look really quite high relative to equivalent mortgage rates, people will come back and start to buy again. >> come on, diana. >> stan, i want to ask, we talk about so many of these investors coming into buying, a government program now looking to sell foreclosed properties from fannie and freddie in bulk, 2500 in just the pilot program but could be millions more. if you get all these rental properties, isn't that gonna give so much more supply and then as demand starts to come off as people start to go back toward home buying and we are seeing lot of energy this spring, are you concerned that all this investment in rental housing is going to come crashing down, given that you
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have so much supply potentially coming into the folks of rental supply? >> right to be concerned about forming a bubble in the rental market. i don't think we are there yet, a fair way from that but long term, in ex-two to three years, a real source of concern if there is any market prone to asset bubbles and booms and busts, real estate is one of them because you have long cycle time, a relatively long time to put the asset in place and then went asset comes online, the market dynamics have changed. i don't think we are there yet but particularly the multifamily side, a lot of capital put in that market to deploy units for the rental side. two to three years now -- two to three years from now that market can look quite a bit different. >> where have we seen rents rise the most? >> really strong rental increases in places like chicago where represents are up more than 9%. other markets are l.a., new york seemed robust rental rates. places we have not seen robust rental growth, for example,
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atlanta seen very marginal rental growth and interesting because atlanta has seen extremely large home value decline, while home values are falling, a lot of markets home values are falling a lot, rents are rising a lot. atlanta is showing a market where represents are fa s ars s are rising. >> thank you. look at the major apartment rates while on the topic. avalon bay up today by about 1%. equity residential also moving higher with udi gaining by just over 1%. let's check out the markets for you and take a look. of course, mixed all day the nasdaq dragging its fee. s a p not done anything, light volume, tight trading range at the start of the week. the s & p flat lining there. looks as if there is marginally more decliners than advancers. equifacts is the biggest gainer, 3.5% to the upside. the battle of the big screens, find out who is laying claim to that title.
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you, val spar, sherwin-williams, lowe's, equifax and harley davidson hog at the top of the s & p and apple around $551 right now this is the kind of company that just keeps on hitting all-time high after all-time high. in the meantime, thank you very much for watching street since. i will be back same time tomorrow. brian is off all week as he is on a much-earned vacation. closing bell is coming up next. hi, everybody, welcome to the closing bell, i'm maria bartiromo with the new york stock exchange. greet see you, bill. >> i'm bill griffeth. here is the first thing i looked for when i came back. you go on vacation, i don't know about you, you probably have your blackberry in both hands at all times. >> i do >> i don't. i don't pay much attention to the markets. i got back, i wanted to get a
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