tv Power Lunch CNBC March 15, 2012 1:00pm-2:00pm EDT
1:00 pm
>> cortes. >> sell apple. >> b.k. >> sell the swedish krona. fxs is your etf. >> that does it for us. don't forget to catch more fast at 5:00. "power lunch" begins right now. three hours to go in the trading day and big numbers for the s&p and for apple. apple breaks through $600 a share. more hikes to the price target, 30 billion in apple shares traded yesterday. the new ipad hits stores tomorrow. hold on, is it time to lighten up on this stock? you just heard one person say so. michelle. >> markets moving on reports that the u.s. may or may not release emergency oil reserves. we'll have reaction from the nymex and new york stock exchange. >> and miami madness. the miami condo market is booming again just a few years after a monumental crash. big money pouring back into the market. is it different this time?
1:01 pm
or deja vu all over again? >> i'm michelle caruso-cabrera with tyler mathisen. "power lunch" begins right now. >> good afternoon. i'm seema mody at the realtime exchange. jobless claims match a four-year low, inflation tame, and mixed data on the manufacturing front. here is where we stand right now. a big number on the s&p 500, breaking 1,400. the first time since 2008. take a look at the dow trading higher by 40 points. and the nasdaq above 3,000. the pulse of the markets, oil reacting to conflicting reports that the u.s. and britain will release emergency stocks of crude. sharon will have more of that in just a minute. the dollar giving up some of yesterday's gains. and the yield on the 10-year coming off overnight highs yield of 2.27%. our midday movers for today, let's start with advanced
1:02 pm
microdevices. moving higher on an upgrade from jaffray. take a look at csx, up better than 7% moving higher on bullish comments from their cfo conference. and then a look at guess. getting hit hard. q-4 earnings fell. and guess is pointing to weak results in europe. tyler. >> seema, thank you very much. let's get to the market action. there is action today aplenty. oil, apple and the s&p 500 all on the move. we've got full team coverage and we're going to kick it off as we usually do with bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. a big number crossed for the s&p thanks in part to apple, of course. >> it did. i just want to mention before i get to the s&p over 1400, british prime minister david cameron now in the building. he's meeting for what is being described as a private meeting. but mr. prime minister come on the floor. the guys want to shake your hands, talk to you and we want to talk to you too about oil and global politics. s&p 500, that's what tyler's talking about. crossing 1400 here. put it up and we did that just a
1:03 pm
little while ago. there you see now at 1,401. but that happened about 40 minutes or so ago. there's your intraday chart. we haven't been over 1400 in a while. look at a broader chart here. june 6, 2008, was the last time the s&p 500 was over 1400. all the way back right about there. that's the last ear reports fr reuters that there might be release from strategic petroleum reserve. look at exxon, now that's being denied by the white house. we had a brief move down in the oil stocks like exxon. you can see climb back up. that's when we started getting reports there that the earlier reports were not true. so let's move on and show you what happened to material stocks. we've had an interesting day because the dollar started kind of on the flat side. now it's been reversing and moving to the downside. many of these material names that we watch very carefully
1:04 pm
have all been moving on the upside. one thing that's been strong all day has been the financial stocks. another good day, and even for a company like goldman sachs still suffering from the fallout of the stinging editorial from the resigned employee, there's west texas crude, put up financials. there's goldman sachs. sharon, even if this report about the spr release is not true, why is oil over $100 for west texas intramediate? is it all about the iran-israeli conflict? >> fst it's all about the embargo in place in july. but it was the report about perhaps the release of the emergency reserves that caused such a flutter in the oil market. the $2 move to the downside in wti. $3 move in brent. gasoline futures down 2% and now appears to have recovered to
1:05 pm
where it was trading before. i'm joined by tom rilely, who's a trader here on the floor. what was it like? panic buying you were saying. >> yeah. we had a lot of people scrambling for puts. april crude options added to the up and down moan e moan yum. crazy five or seven minutes and then after people saw what was in the report, things calmed down. we're probably going to end up higher on the day now just like last year when they made the announcement of spr. >> there you have it from tom on the floor. now from more at the white house, to my colleague in washington. >> sharon, frankly the underscoring not only the market impact but the importance of in essence knocking down that earlier report that an agreement in fact had been reached is dominating the white house briefing from press secretary carney today. he cannot say enough times that that report any kind of agreement was reached was in fact inaccurate. here's one of the ways he went
1:06 pm
to extinguishing the efforts to knock down the earlier report. >> it is inaccurate as was reported today that any kind of agreement was reached on a course of action or that in kind of timetable associated with a course of action was agreed to. those reports are wrong. they're false. >> tyler, back over to you. we've seen first the market reaction and now the rebound based on that report getting knocked down by the white house in no uncertain terms. >> sounds like carefully chosen terms as well, hampton, thank you very much. let's go meanwhile in this week of round numbers to bertha at the nasdaq. and the round number passed there earlier this week is 3,000 and nasdaq is still above that. >> well above that. and part of the reason is our good friend apple today. right at the open today with a brand new record-high. $601 was the trade.
1:07 pm
it's certainly been knocked down since then as you can see back and forth, but with that valuation today even at this price, apple is near $550 billion. take a look at the road map as it's moved here. back in 2007 when the s&p was on its march to its all-time high, apple crossed $100 billion mark in may. it would take them three years to cross $200 billion, but the last couple of years you can see these milestones have been getting knocked off pace. microsoft still holds the top market cap valuation back in 1999 $604 billion at this pace apple is on track. and its influence on the s&p continues to be outsized. if you look at the move in the s&p since that peak in october 2007 from 1565, it's still down. s&p tech is up because of apple, it would be down ex-apple. apple itself up 200%. it's not the first time it's had historic influence in the s&p.
1:08 pm
in 1982 ibm had a better than 6% weighting in the s&p. its earnings were at a p/e ratio of 15 compared to the s&p's 11 or so. take a look at apple today. it has a 4.3% weighting within the s&p 500, but it's horribly trading at a multiple to the s&p in terms of p/e at all. and that is historic, tyler, when you get to these outsized numbers. >> very interesting. very interesting indeed. of course, the history of those companys that have that kind of outsized valuations is not all that flattering. we'll see if this one is dimpt. let's go to the "power lunch" power surge and drill down on some of the stories driving the news today. bertha just broke down those remarkable apple statistics. and they come ahead of tomorrow's big release of the new ipad. and our jon fortt is one of the lucky few to get his hands on one before they hit the stores. hard to overstate, jon, how important this device is for
1:09 pm
apple and not just because it's the latest of the launch -- the first launch post-steve jobs. >> that's right, tyler. let me try to put that in context. apple sold 15.4 million units of the ipad last quarter. that's the older ipad for $9.2 billion in sales overall. it made up almost 20% of apple's overall revenue for the holiday quarter. and that revenue grew 111% year-over-year. question is how much can apple keep up that momentum now that the numbers are getting pretty large? the key to seeing whether they can do that is going to be this right here. this is the new ipad. apple decided not to call it the ipad 3. that's a picture of my mom and youngest son. i put it through paces over the past week as i've been playing with it. some people say this isn't a revolutionary device, after some experience playing with this a bit and i've got some experience doing reviews in my life as a newspaper reporter, got to disagree with that. this product could be as key for
1:10 pm
apple as the iphone 4 was. in this sense, as soon as you turn it on looking at the screen, you can tell this is a different sort of product. so people who have previous versions of the ipad will know that theirs is not the latest. there will be a temptation to buy it, tyler. >> all right. let's talk a little about cisco. they've done a deal apparently $5 billion to buy a video software company called nbs. there's been a conference call. what can you tell us about that? and what do they intend to do with nbs? >> tyler, ahead of that conference call i got on the phone with a couple cisco executives and asked a few pointed questions about what exactly this acquisition is about. they're buying it for $5 billion, has about 5300 employees mostly based in london. gross margin about 82%. that's good for cisco, but growth under 10% year over year. so questions about the multiple. what they tell me is they expect they're going to be able to grow nbs's share of wallet because had been focused on a few
1:11 pm
customers mostly satellite providers. they think they can expand that way. and cisco believes they can sell more of their equipment into those people who already rely on nds technology. two opportunities for growth there. that's what they believe will justify the multiple. >> jon, thank you very much. >> so jpmorgan ceo weighing in on the scathing piece by a goldman sachs executive that made news yesterday. but dimon told his staff "i want to be clear, i don't want anyone here to seek advantage from a competitor's alleged issues or hearsay, ever, it's not the way we do business." more now from john carney. how's that playing over? >> i love how they call this internal memo from jamie dimon. >> yet we've all managed to read it. >> yeah. the king of wall street strikes again. he admitted to very generous, he's not taking advantage while getting himself great publicity.
1:12 pm
and at goldman there was actually some laughter about dimon's statement. >> you're suggesting that he is not magnanimous in his ways? i'm shocked, john. goldman got whacked yesterday. are they losing business from this? that's the ultimate question. >> so far from what i'm told, clients have asked about it, how is goldman going to react, but nobody's saying they're going to pull their business. goldman's clients are very sophisticated people. they know goldman is on the other side of the trades they're doing. they know goldman is a tough player on wall street. a lot of them that's why they do business with it. but i will tell you there is a little bit of fear inside goldman sachs that this kind of thing can be demoralizing. it can make the people who are working for you say, you know, this is kind of becoming a difficult place to work. every day -- or every couple weeks something comes out that makes goldman look bad. you show up at cocktail parties, go home for the holidays, you have to tell people, you know, i work for goldman and we're not bad guys. nobody likes that.
1:13 pm
>> i know. obviously not. john carney, thank you so much. >> to housing now, which has been a bad guy of the economy for much of the past decade or at least since 2005-2006, looks like some of the hardest hit areas seeing some light, miami one of them. and big bets are being made there again. our diana olick is in florida speaking with developers and investors. diana. >> well, tyler, this may sound slightly insane, but there are actually 25 new condo towers scheduled to go up this year in the greater miami area when there is still 4,000 leftover unsold units from the condo crash. i know. this is the one that started it all. it's from the mellow group, arj teen yan developers. they started last august. other developers we spoke to, like one in hollywood, florida, are still rushing suddenly to get in. the trouble is the banks all think they're nuts too. so they're having to get creative with the financing. >> they only wanted to give us
1:14 pm
50% of what the cost was. and put up collateral as well. so the terms of the construction loan that we have spoken to were a little to onerous for us. >> so developer, martin, decided instead to take out a personal loan and put up his multimillion dollar art collection as collateral. now, while the real estate market was tanking, apparently the art market was soaring. he says he's not worried as he's making his buyers put down 30% on these $1 million to $4 million condo units. he's been sitting on this prime piece of land for five years waiting to strike. and with foreign buyers and developers now flooding this market, he says that time is now. >> this is the moment because we're going to be delivering this property next year. so by that time there will be
1:15 pm
good demand. there is good demand now. >> but that demand is all foreign cash. and that's what's making this condo boom different from the boom we saw back in 2004 and 2005, which was all based on easy u.s. credit. again, much of this is on the high-end though. we're going to talk about that coming up in "street signs." got plenty more of this though on the blog. tyler. >> diana, thanks very much. pick me up one while you're down there. straight ahead, the s&p breaks through the 1400 level. money pouring out of bonds. will it go into stocks? and everyone but everyone is talking about apple blasting through $600 a share. time to pull back? time to buy more? >> and here's one of our all-time favorite charts. this is the -- wow, don't you wish you had bought this? ten years of apple up over 4500%. back in two.
1:18 pm
welcome back to "power lunch." rick santelli back on the floor of the cme group. well, what a time it's been. interest rates are all the rage trying to handicap how much is a lot. and are we going to revert back to a range? the markets are giving us some guidance in that regard. look at an intraday of tens. you can clearly see at one point we were at a 2.35 yield. now we're back down at -- we just went down one basis point. we settle at 2.27. here we are at 2.26. if you open the chart up,
1:19 pm
clearly still comp the end of october. but the leader on the selloff, the 30-year bond, if you look at its intraday, it was close to 3.50. a whisker shy. now it's also under settlement of 3.40. and just about one basis point away from that 3.833 that we saw yesterday in terms of the auction 3.83. and if you look at the long-term chart, briefly it comped all the way back to the beginning of september back to october. looks as though the market's giving us a clue as to the new top of the range. michelle, back to you. >> thank you. i can see it right there. money moving out of bonds brutally over the last couple days. is it going to go into stocks though? what about apple? a good bet for investors considering equities right now? joining us portfolio manager and chief investment strategist. keith, i'm going to start with you. you just sold apple, right? why? >> just this morning.
1:20 pm
that's right. >> blas fe a my. >> we've been using $600 price target for the stock. so a lot is driven by price. it will still be one of our largest holdings. as the price goes up, the stock is catching up with expectations. we're reaching a point now where you can find a risk/reward trade-off more attractive than apple elsewhere in the markets. >> it's still close to one of your largest holdings even after selling. >> number two after this morning. >> so clearly you still see some value there. >> that's right. it was our single largest by a wide margin. so we took it down a bit. >> i want to talk about dividend paying stocks. a lot of people say they're the new bonds chlts maybe they're the new apple because everybody seems to be piling into them. are you concerned about that? >> to some extent. i think what you're going to see here is the broadening of the rally. the first stage is typically kind of a cessation of fear.
1:21 pm
i think you've seen that. the next stage in the market you're going to begin to capitalize on the extreme undervaluation exists in equities. the stock market relative to interest rates is more attractive than any time in the last 50 years. in fact, if you go back to last year, you'll see bonds outperform stocks by 35 percentage points. whenever that's happened in the past, the stock market has gone up 23 percentage points over the next 12 months. there's like an 85% probability that will happen. so stocks are extremely undervalued. >> where should i shovel my money? what kinds of stocks? what sector sns. >> i think you're going to see this rally broadening out. clearly it's going to be in the technology sector. you're going to see a broader base move. m&a activity is just at the cusp of reaccelerating. that's going to implement many of the technology sectors as well as the health care sector. cash positions are extremely high. corporate profits are record positions. companies are selling at huge discounts to replacement value. and i think that's what makes
1:22 pm
this cycle unique. >> keith, do you agree with that assessment? you said you're reallocating money out of that apple trade, so to where? >> nokia and microsoft. believe it or not, we actually have pretty high hopes for windows 8 for mobile and for the partnership between those two companies. and the reason why is because there's a chunk of market share up for grabs right now from blackberry. certainly it's possible that blackberry will retain it and get back on a growth path, but the enterprise space is a different market for smartphones and tablets. and apple dominates the consumer space, but the business application world is still up for grabs. and don't forget the three most common business software platforms are word, excel and power point. and those are microsoft products. so if they get a few points of market share, nokia can triple. >> we forget that in this apple mania. thank you. >> nokia can triple. there's a call for you. >> yeah. >> not 4500%, but i would take a triple. >> 300% will do.
1:23 pm
sure. coming up next, as jon fortt mentioned cisco buying nds for $5 billion. they make software securely delivers video content to tv set top boxes. >> so after years of trimming costs, are we seeing a new cisco or just a new version of the old cisco kid? and is cisco stock set for a surge or not? we're going to get answers on that in two minutes.
1:24 pm
1:25 pm
[ male announcer ] ducati knows it's better for xerox to manage their global publications. so they can focus on building amazing bikes. with xerox, you're ready for real business. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. but my nose is still runny. [ male announcer ] truth is, dayquil doesn't treat that. really? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your runny nose. [ deep breath ] awesome. [ male announcer ] yes, it is. that's the cold truth!
1:26 pm
banks for the memories. there you see five of the biggest ones including goldman sachs all higher. goldman by $3.07 a share at $123.44. better than 2.5% move. the biggest move in percentage terms being turned in by bank of america up 40 cents to $9.23 a share. scott wapner's watching his radar. what's on it, scott? >> ross stores today. i'm looking at the stock. yes, it's down a little bit today, but year-to-date up 19%. since last summer up almost 60%. the company was out with earnings. and they were good. margins good as well. it's had a big run. that's part of the story today. dana on the "fast money" report, she still likes the stock. a number of companies have come out and raised the price target on ross stores today. that's why it's on my radar. and that's what wapner's watching. enough said. >> said elmur fudd.
1:27 pm
buying nds group, $5 billion is the cost. cisco shares trading lower on the news. the acquisition, is it a sign of the new or old cisco? next guest says this is the super duper older cisco. mark, good to see you. >> good to see you. >> when i saw this, i thought this reminds me of the old, old cisco. the serial acquirer. buy up all the companies all the time in an effort to grow or methodology for growth. is that what we're seeing again? >> it's also what you buy. when you acquire the right technology, you can create a multiplier effect. you can accelerate revenues and spur innovation and serve as a catalyst for growth. i'm not sure that's what cisco got by spending $5 billion for nds. nds is a company that's been around for quite some time. it's a mature company in its own respect although steady revenues, but it was public. it went private. it wanted to go public again. kind of a steady eddie company. i'm not sure cisco got exactly the innovation it was looking for. >> so cisco is known for the
1:28 pm
pipes that move, all the stuff that make the internet happen. this is a company that makes software that helps you deliver content to a set top box. i hear echoes of this supposed intel deal when intel was perhaps talking to all these content companies about creating some system for delivering content. is there any similarity there? >> i think there's going to be a big battle for the room in the future. on the one hand you have companies such as intel and the other google and cisco in between. everyone always dominates -- >> microsoft x box. >> sure. sony as well. everyone has a different view. remains to be seen who's going to win. it's going to be very competitive, we think. acquiring assets help in the near-term, but it's also about the right strategy and how you put that together. >> are you telling people to buy the stock or not? >> i think for large cap tech stocks, you want really good growth, you want very good margins and a catalyst. for cisco right now we think it's a steady eddy stock, but we think you can make more money in
1:29 pm
other stocks at the moment. >> that would be a no. thanks, mark, so much. >> nice way of saying make more elsewhere. >> yes. >> gold coming back after hitting new lows. are they a buy after being beaten down, or should you stay away? >> and i have two words for you. march madness. the amazing numbers behind this billion dollar business. and i thought it was a sport. t power is back in two. 3q we always hear about jobs leaving america. here's a chance to create jobs in america. oil sands projects, like kearl, and the keystone pipeline
1:30 pm
will provide secure and reliable energy to the united states. over the coming years, projects like these could create more than half a million jobs in the us alone. from the canadian border, through the mid west, to the gulf coast. benefiting hundreds of thousands of families throughout the country. this is just what our economy needs right now. but we couldn't simply repeat history. we had to create it. introducing the 2013 lexus gs, with leading-edge safety technology, like available blind spot monitor... [ tires screech ] ...night view... and heads-up display. [ engine revving ] the all-new 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back.
1:32 pm
welcome back to "power lunch." seema mody here. let's reset the markets. we're seeing money flow out of treasuries and into equities. all three major indices in the green. dow above 13,000. the s&p above 1400 and the nasdaq above 3,000. what a historic day and week. markets picking up in the last 20 minutes. we also had the volatility index down by 1.1% and the yield on the 10-year note at 2.26%. taking a look at some of our s&p winners and gainers, we have industrials and financials leading the way. take a look at bank of america and jpmorgan. they continue to rise higher after the announcement on tuesday that both banks passed the federal reserve stress test. also a mixed session for some of our technology stocks.
1:33 pm
amd higher on an upgrade. cisco as we said before trading lower after that acquisition of nds for just $5 billion. but on that note let's take a look at commodities. gold and other metal prices getting ready to close right now. sharon epperson has all the latest. >> hi, seema. gold prices are closing higher at this moment. we are looking at gold just under the 1660 level. and after three days, a sharp slide in gold prices, maybe we're seeing a little recovery here. some skeptical about it but we are looking at gold that has still dropped over $60 from friday's close. keep in mind though that this stock sharp drop we've seen biggest one-week slide we've seen in three months has encouraged perhaps some physical demand. some buying out of india. meanwhile, we are looking at the long-term strength in the gold market being held by those long-term investors in etfs, holdings there are at record levels. tyler, back to you. >> sharon, thank you very much. gold stocks as sharon pointed out are ticking a bit higher right now taking a hit in the
1:34 pm
past year down about 15% overall. so is now the time to go in on the miners? patrick is senior mining analyst with hsbc global research and bob pisani with us as well. patrick, let me begin with you. you think now is a good time to buy these stocks. and you've got several on your buy list. make the case for them. >> yeah, well, we think the whole sector is attractive right now. gold prices have been quite strong although we're seeing gold prices actually come down off recent highs, 1660 an ounce, 1650 an ounce is still a fairly good price, actually. and these gold companies can make decent money at this sort of price level. now, we're forecasting higher prices. we forecast 1850 an ounce. we're bullish on the stock with leverage on the gold price in general. and we see earnings continuing to increase. and there's been significant earnings increases in the last
1:35 pm
couple of years in these companies. >> gold has blown off the top there a little bit. and i think of gold in a big rise partly attributed to a variety of things. but among them was the sense that people were seeking gold as a haven in a very fearful time in 2011. this does not feel quite as fearful right now as it did a year ago. doesn't that put a cap or limit the price gains involved? >> there's two things to consider here. firstly, i'd say that this week maybe it doesn't feel that bad, but who knows what it's going to be like in three month's time. i think it's too early to call, you know, the economy all back to normal and back to goldilocks again. i think obviously we've been printing a lot of money here and also in europe. and therefore you are going to see -- we have been seeing devaluation of currencies versus gold.
1:36 pm
so gold's been going up in all currencies, it's just sometimes it tends to be the anti-dollar. and that's something at the moment we're seeing. >> bob, jump in here and tell me what you're hearing and observing. >> i will tell you, patrick, my question is simple. gold is not far off the highs since last december, how do you explain the disparity? >> that's a good point. one way of explaining it several reasons put forward. one is that the companies have been experiencing rising costs. but on the other hand some of that cost, i think, has been deliberate, if you like. because the companies been mining lower grade material and making the most of their resources. they have been expanding their margins rapidly over the last sort of year, year and a half. returns on equity of some of the bigger producers beating the market in 20%, 25% returns in equity now. seeing with some of these major producers like barrick.
1:37 pm
it's not really that explainable why they should have underperformed. the only other thing i would say is they have been locked in with maybe some other cyclical stock which is have been suffering because of the fears of the future. >> you just made a very good point. production risk. this is an age old debate here. tyler will tell you about owning gold stocks versus gold. the problem with gold stocks is the additional risk associated, the commercial risk of the strikes and disasters, the political risk of governments honing in on your business and wanting more of it, the hedging risk and the production risk. can you make a case why you should own gold stocks over gold? >> well, there are several reasons that you could make here. one is that gold stocks now are particularly some of the bigger more established players paying very strong dividends. and you can look at companies like newmont mining good as or better than the market. and secondly every year they've been replacing their reserves.
1:38 pm
so if you like, you're generating dividends and cash flow through the year. and then you end up with the same gold in the ground. so when you're buying a gold stock, you're buying gold reserve. plus you're getting a return. >> very quickly, patrick, your three top picks are barrick, randgold, pick one and which would be it by and why? quickly. >> right now i think rangold is a good pick because it's coming into a year in which we should see costs coming down. there have been high grade deposits put into production right now. and i think that's a good trend when you see costs coming down. high quality reserves as well. >> patrick, thank you very much. bob pisani, thank you again. >> march madness is underway. but you already knew that. what you probably didn't know is all the big numbers when it comes to the business behind it. that's why we have a sports business reporter, darren rovell, looking at all those numbers. darren. >> yes, i am working and watching at the same time, of
1:39 pm
course. i'm going to start you off with zero. that's the dollars that the players earn, of course. they are amateur. zero dollars up top right there. then i'm going to get you to number eight. eight is the number of consecutive champions who had the color blue in their uniform though 2003 syracuse had a little bit of blue. you might be able to extend that a little bit further. $10,000. that's what current vermont coach made when five years ago he accepted the job as director of basketball operations. he now makes $170,000 as head coach and won last night to get in the field of 54. this is a crazy number. $253,731, that's the price cbs and turner play every in-game minute. and then $27.8 million, that's the disparity in the revenue between duke and lehigh who are
1:40 pm
will play each other in the first round. back to you. >> how many of these teams are actually profitable? >> well, we know about 45% -- 44% or 45% are not making any money. and there's then probably that same amount that are making a negligible amount of money like mur ri state and then you have the dukes and louisvilles in the world that make $15 million to $25 million. a lot of these teams, schools, whatever they get, they spend. >> all right. >> equals to zero. >> thanks very much. up next on "power lunch," the days of the big investment firms like goldman over? we'll speak with the head of one small boutique firm about that and where he's making money today. as a chef we are always committed to our suppliers...
1:42 pm
you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen... for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. coming up next on "street signs" at the top of the hour, a five-star stock stud who's got trash on his mind. then, how about that couch
1:43 pm
you're sitting on? maybe it could make you some money. and march madness in miami. forget basketball, it's housing that's bouncing back big time and a full court press of profits just minutes from now. that's only on "street signs" at 2:00 p.m. now back to tyler and michelle on "power lunch." >> thank you so much, mandy. today's power player is christopher williams, chairman and ceo and founder of the boutique investment bank williams capital group. also a member of the young president's organization and director at walmart and cesar's. what do you make of the goldman sachs situation? if you were blankfein, you opened that and read that? >> obviously any organization would be unhappy to find someone publicly maligning. i can understand in that certain type of circumstance where
1:44 pm
someone is accusing someone of greed when i think back 12 years ago in our business, 12 to 13 years ago, we had a large international equity trade that came across from a client. we happened to be short staffed that night. and so i stepped in, other senior members of our firm stepped in to help. and we asked a new employee to come in and help out. and so we ended up leaving the office about 4:00 a.m. and the next day the person ended upcoming to me and quit. he said i can't believe this greed that you must have to work until 4:00 a.m. on the trade. so i said, well, wait, on one hand one person's view of customer service is someone else's view of greed. so he was obviously not the right person to have in the firm. and he obviously left the firm. but things like that, i really think -- i don't know what the agenda was of the gentleman who wrote the article, but it's -- >> i'm sure you've never called anybody a muppet. let me go to a question. in a smaller firm, i assume it
1:45 pm
is somewhat easier to maintain a cohesive corporate culture. in a big company, and i think it's not just indemic to t ii i it's changed. in the media business it's different. publishing business, it's different. i can't imagine there are many companies where the corporate culture hasn't changed. >> it is extremely difficult to maintain the corporate culture and all the good things in a corporate culture you want to maintain as you have turnover and employees and expand business and bring on new people. i find even at a small firm when we bring on new people, they don't have the same time of interaction with me than maybe some of my colleagues had when we first started the firm. therefore, some of the newer employees i have to make sure they understand what my expectations are, what my work ethics is, what my business
1:46 pm
ethic is. and i think that's important because they do need to understand to bein dock ri nated into a firm because i think the best defense against a problem whether it be a rogue trader or someone acting in a manner that's not in the best interests of the firm, the best defense against that is having other colleagues who do understand the culture who pull them aside and say that doesn't work. or let some other manager know that that person's a problem. >> all right. let's make some money. how are you telling people to make money? >> what we're doing -- we're in the investment banking area more so -- >> right. you're not going to be telling me which stocks to buy. >> right. what we do general philosophy first what i try to do is i look at where all the large firms are providing a service. and identify where is there an existing demand that it's either not practical or economically reasonable for the large firms to try to serve that demand. that's what we try to serve the demand. so when it comes to smaller firms who may be smaller than the largest ones that are the
1:47 pm
top clients of a large firm, they often benefit from the market insights that we can provide, the access to investment products that we can provide. that's often very important. >> how's business? and will you be leading the facebook ipo? >> we won't be leading the facebook ipo. >> darn. >> how's business overall? >> is this rally going to get some bosses to actually sign on the dotted line and do some ds l the dotted line and do some dom deals? >> we are feeling good about a growing calendar of transactions. i tell everyone, i'm a little cautious when it comes to being too optimistic about the market. if you asked me the first six months of 2011 how's business? i would have said it's roaring. doing extremely well. and then we saw how the financial issues in europe really put a halt to the market's progress. i'm cautious, but i'm cautiously
1:48 pm
optimistic. we're seeing a growing calendar with the ipo market and activity in the debt markets as well. >> thanks for coming in. >> thank you very much. >> michelle, if this investment banking doesn't work out for him -- >> he could be a tv anchor, right? amazing. >> if it doesn't work out, give us a call. >> thank you so much. >> coming up next on "power lunch," apple shares top $600 for the first time. investors getting ready for the new ipad tomorrow. >> we're going to fell you how one company's cashing in on the apple ieconomy coming up next.
1:51 pm
let's look at shares of scholastic. raises outlook of sales of hunger game books. they are soaring ahead of the movie release. julia boorstin in los angeles with the latest. this will be a big movie, julia, isn't it? >> i think it absolutely will. and call it hunger gains for them. earlier today shares were up as much as 25% which was a nine-year high for the children's book publisher. the company says excitement about the movie based on the first book in the trilogy which lions gate opens a week from friday spiked sales last quarter
1:52 pm
as the book crossed over from young adults to a broader audience. they raised revenue in earnings projections for the full fiscal year this morning. and the better the movie does, the more books they are expected to sell continuing to boost the bottom line. also publishes the harry potter series here in the u.s. so they know a thing or two about the kind of book bump you can see when a movie opens. back to you. >> thank you so much, julia. apple's new ipad is hitting stores tomorrow. earlier in the show jon fortt got his hands on one. he gave us a close up view. but it's not just apple fans awaiting eagerly for this product. a lot of companies are also lining up to make money on it. cnbc contributor natalie morris is here. ieconomy we call it. >> that's right. new york tech surge is the largest independent apple retailer and service provider in the country. the company offers pretty much the same services you find at any apple store but even with five official apple stores in
1:53 pm
new york city, tech serve still averages more than 2,000 customers per day. when new products launch like an ipad or iphone, tech serve usually sells out in the first day. >> we'll take whatever we can get. the demand is always there. >> retail wasn't always their main business. tech serve started as a service provider helping customers fix broken apple products and recover lost data. even sex in the city paid a visit to tech serve. >> got you a computer. could be bad ram. we'll keep it for a couple days and run some tests. i'll call you if we find anything? >> if? >> i dropped it and the whole thing shattered. >> i had a hard drive crash. so i'm here to get it fixed. >> for the particularly heartbreaking cases like lost photos or documents not backed up, the service desk is ready with a box of tissues for the most unfortunate cases. >> you would be amazed at how many people do not back up their data. less than 10% to 15% of people
1:54 pm
ever religiously back up their data. >> individual customers are only a fraction of the company's bottom line as more corporations adapt to apple products, companies like tech serve are in high demand to distribute, install and service those computers, a service apple does not provide. >> we're seeing people just move directly away from the larger more desk laden devices. >> as the number of apple products in consumers' hands grows, the need to fix also mushrooms. tech serve has seen it all when it comes to creative ways to break or abuse an apple product. >> toilets are popular with iphones. they seem to be iphone magnets. >> it's a heartbreak, right? i asked tech serve how intertwined their success is with apple's especially around a big product launch like the new ipad. they say they're gearing up like every other apple store anticipating long lines and expecting to sell out quickly. >> all right. they're an official apple partner, right? >> right.
1:55 pm
>> do they get advanced notice -- or do they get inside information or early information about products, things like that? >> you would think, right? but they assure us they do not. they just say they have a standing order for as many as they can get for any product. they don't care what it is. they know they'll sell out. and they stick it in a back room in case some kind of rogue employee snaps a picture for a blog. they don't want that happening. >> have you ever lost data? have you ever had that terrible -- >> well, i'm very prudent about backing up my data. >> you better be. >> it costs me a thousand bucks to get it back. it was horrendous. >> is that right? >> it was brutal. >> did you use this company? >> no. i used a different company, but now i have the white machine that apple makes to back it up automatically. >> right. >> everything goes to the cloud, this may be less of a problem. >> i did ask about this. they suggest three different types of backup. backup to a cloud, backup to a hard drive and then keep it of course on your own computer hard drive. but the computer hard drive in and of itself is never enough because of the toilet.
1:56 pm
>> all right. thanks. >> let's go over our charts of the trading day. we've got our charts of the day. you missed this, didn't you? we'll be back in two. wgg ♪ when your chain of supply goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, that's logistics. ♪ monarch of marketing analysis. with the ability to improve roi through seo all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...
1:57 pm
and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro. oh! [ baby crying ] ♪ what started as a whisper ♪ every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. ♪ slowly turned to a scream ♪ there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? ♪ amen, omen hey, it's sandra -- from accounting. peter. i can see that you're busy... but you were gonna help us crunch the numbers for accounts receivable today. i mean i know that this is important. well, both are important. let's be clear.
1:58 pm
they are but this is important too. [ man ] the receivables. [ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about the cookie-cutter retirement advice ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 you get at some places. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 they say you have to do this, have that, invest here ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 you know what? ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 you can't create a retirement plan based on ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 a predetermined script. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, we actually take the time to listen - ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 to understand you and your goals... ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...so together we can find real-life answers for your ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 real-life retirement. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 talk to chuck ttd#: 1-800-345-2550 and let's write a script based on your life story. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550
1:59 pm
i want you to look at the s&p 500. dow industrials solidly above 13,000. nasdaq solidly above 3,000 up seven points. >> guest earlier talking about gold. he liked randgold. let's look at the gld over the past year because it will tell you a very interesting story as you see. it is up today by 1.17% at 161. there's the spdr gold trust. that's a lot of way people are playing gold these days. >> yes. it's efficient. i think this is em bblememblemm. a number of people telling us they were going to short it or sell it, the run has been incredible. >> it absolutely has. it going down is probably what pulled the s&p back below 1300. >> absolutely. all this volatility, a lot of
127 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CNBC Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on