tv Power Lunch CNBC March 20, 2012 1:00pm-2:00pm EDT
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>> josh? >> we are adding dem here. emerging market etf with very little china. >> pete? >> long citi. long citi calls. >> that does it for us. don't forget to catch more "fast money" 5:00 p.m. tonight. "power lunch" begins right now. >> thanks, michelle. we have three hours to go in the trading day. sell it if you've got it. the market's down across the board. oil is lower. the metals getting hit. on the first day of spring, how do you protect your portfolio. ty? >> sue, is this early warm weather this first day of spring going to cool off housing? could it get any cooler? we're going to crunch the home sales data out today and look at whether the spring season may end with a fizzle. game on. it's not just angry birds. mobile gaming is the exploding sector of the video game industry. find out which companies may be set to deliver the next big thing. i'm sue herera with tyler mathisen. "power lunch" begins right now.
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at the realtime exchange we're seeing a lot of red going on. concern over china, not so hot housing data, both weighing down on the markets. dow down 68. s&p 500 down six. the tech heavy nasdaq town 19. taking our pulse of the markets, we have oil trading lower today after the saudis vow to keep up oil supplies to offset tension with iran. that's wti crude for you. we're also keeping our eye out on gold falling. it's flirting with its key support levels on the downside. lastly, take a look at the vix. up 1.7%. that fear is back in the game. midday movers for today, look at tiffany's. actually trading higher today. one of our outperformers. missed on earnings but strength in the guidance. caterpillar one of the industrials getting hit on the china growth concerns. then right here we have u.p.s. after announcing its acquisition, it made a big deal yesterday but downgraded today by stifel. for more on the markets and
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today's selloff, let's go over to tyler. >> stocks taking a hit on oil. it's down as the saudis try to calm supply fears. we have live team coverage from the nymex and the nyse. we'll begin with bob pisani at the big board. bob? >> not just saudi arabia impacting the market but this executive over at bhp billiton overnight making some comments that iron ore imports into china this year would slow into single digits which is not news and not surprising. apparently the rest of the world thought it was rather surprising. we've seen globally stocks generally on the downside. here in the united states, predictably here, energy stocks, industrials, technology, materials, all your risk on trade, all naturally to the downside. now, you could say this is an overreaction. i personally think it is. but apparently a lot of people are using this as a bit of an excuse. remember, we've had a huge move up this year. these material names up 11%. industrials up 11% this year. energy up about 7%. so an excuse here to take some profits. meantime, where does everybody put your money?
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you know, the boring old consumer names. pepsi and colgate, coke up to the upside. volume not particularly strong in any of these stocks. one other thing playing into global stock prices today is what's going on elsewhere in china. chinese authorities are raised gas prices again. remember, this is government controlled. second time this year. that's not good news for the chinese consumer. that may also be weighing on stocks as well. you'd think this would be helping these chinese oil companies because they've been losing money in their refining operations. but, again, pressure and concerns about the consumer in china is really what's moving these stocks today in all of the chinese stocks. sharon, of course, saudi arabia was in the markets today as well on oil. >> of course, the promise of supply is part of the reason why we are looking at oil prices lower here. wti futures down $2 right now. keep in mind, it is the fact that the saudis have come out and offered more transparency than we've seen in quite some time about what they intend to do in terms of boosting supply down the road. they say that the current oil
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prices are driven by an unjustified supply of fear. why? they haven't about 10 million barrels in storage they have access to outside of saudi arabia. and they can pump up to 12.5 million barrels of oil. they have spare capacity of about 2.5 million barrels there, they're saying. so that is one of the reasons why they think this may be overblown in terms of the supply fear that is out there. again, many analysts are saying even if opec and saudis are able to make up for the spare capacity due to the loss of exports from iran, it will mean that there will be basically no spare capacity left. so that is a concern longer term for the oil market. sue, back to you. >> thank you so much, sharon. let's switch on the power lunch power surge, drill down on the stories driving the day. ben bernanke back to school. but not as the fed chief but as a professor bernanke. he's giving a series of lectures to undergraduates at george washington university about the fed's role in today's economy. our steve liesman got an exclusive one on one with mr. bernanke ahead of his class. here's his take on the economy.
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>> if a student raises his hand and asked how is the world going to be different for me, the economy going to be different for me when i fwraj wait what are you going to tell him? >> the economy is still very challenging. unemployment is still high. that makes -- creates problems for everybody, obviously, you know. that's -- that's the honest answer. but i think the -- the longer-term prospects for the country are very good. and ultimately things will normalize. but in the short run, of course, we're still dealing with important challenges. >> and steve also asked the chairman about the recent jump in interest rates and whether that might force the fed's hand to boost rates before 2014. he would only say that the fed continues to watch the economy closely. steve is now in class with mr. bernanke and he'll have much more coming up on "street signs" at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. >> sitting up there in the front row, i'm sure. >> i'm sure he is. to politics now. voters in president obama's home
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state get to pick which republican candidate they want to see face him in the elections. our chief washington correspondent john harwood is in chicago with the latest on the primary and a rare look inside of obama's hometown headquarters. john? >> reporter: tyler, i'm not in kla class. but i've been doing my homework on illinois. what we're seeing is the deeper we get into this primary season the greater the pressure on these candidates. rick santorum has got to find a place to breakthrough against mitt romney. illinois is the test today. but for mitt romney, if he could turn back that challenge as he did in michigan and ohio, he could strengthen his grip on that republican nomination and get some momentum. look at these polls. he's got a ten-point lead in the real clear politics.com average. that suggests that he's been making headway at the end. he's outspending santorum. if he could get a win like that, then when we go south into louisiana where rick santorum's lead, you can see this also, is only four points, romney could get some momentum.
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if he can win in louisiana, he could get that away game victory that would help him shut this race down, guys, and begin the process of squaring off against obama, who i hung out at his campaign's headquarters yesterday. they're gearing up. 300 staffers working on voter targeting, building organizations at the state level. they're going to be formidable. mitt romney if he's the nominee needs to get to the task of confronts him. >> thank you. mixed news today on the still struggling housing market. housing starts dropped, but a key indicator of future construction soars to the highest level since the financial crisis. diana olick is putting it all into perspective for us. she's live in washington. hi, diana. >> reporter: hi, sue. you're right. housing starts really surprised to the downside with a big split between multifamily starts and single family. take a look if you will. overall starts were down 1.1% overall, month to month. single family down nearly 10% while multifamily was up nearly
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29%. that shows you where the demand is builders are seeing. single family had been rising for several months. taking a breather in february despite these warm temperatures. building permits jumped 5%, single family, to the highest level in nearly two years. that's a great indicator of future demand. the chairman of the home builders association says, though, builders are reporting increased buyer interest and are expecting demand from new homes to improve in the coming months. but continue to exercise caution regarding new products until the interest translates into more signed sales contracts. now, these numbers are going to be dicy for a while. starts are up 18% from the trough. but, sue, we've got a long way to go. >> meanwhile, diana, that's a beautiful shot behind you with the trees in bloom. spring is in the air. it's the first day of spring. but with the cherry blossoms blooming in washington, d.c., you've got to wonder whether the mild winter that we've been having, you know, is it pulls forward the spring selling season? have we already seen the bump that many people thought would last over these next few weeks?
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>> reporter: yeah. i mean, look, the cherry blossoms are almost gone in washington in this neighborhood. you can't blame everything on the weather here. but you can certainly make a strong case when it comes to housing. take a look at every region in the country experiencing favorable or higher than average temperatures during the winter. that's in contrast to the winter of 2011. precipitation was comparable except in the sun belt. again, it came in the form of rain, not snow. that's a big difference. that's led a lot of analysts to be talking about that. one at the isi says we believe job growth is the primary driver of renewed housing activity. but they say we believe some demand was pulled forward from the later spring months. implying the first quarter could be above investor expectations while the second quarter could be below. analysts at goldman sachs call the weather story overhyped. but they add as well that warm weather has pulled activity forward. now, that may be bad news for existing home sales which have been rising through the winter. perhaps some demand pulled forward for spring. but housing starts not really
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following as we said we saw the starts drop down 9% in multifamily games. since the single family permits rose nearly 5% to the highest level, that's a better indicator of the buyer demand going forward. so not much weather effect there. when it comes right down to it, we're not going to know what the effects of the warm winter was and if it pulled forward some of that demand from spring until the spring is over. because that's how we figure everything out, sue. >> there's nothing more awe inspiring than washington, d.c., in the spring with all those beautiful cherry blossoms. thanks, diana. speaking of warm, there's a developing controversy over apple's new ipad. call it the mysterious case of the hot pads. jon fortt is all over it. >> tyler, yeah. the new ipad we learned is selling like hot cakes. some users report it feels like hot cakes, too. i promise that's my last corny ipad joke this hour. let's put this in context. dutch website tweakers.com says its test shows the new ipad runs about ten degrees hotter than the previous version. apple's response is the ipad
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operates within our thermal threshold. if you have a problem call us or bring it in. many complaints seem to be from people using the ipad for an hour at a time or more. at full brightness which is what a lot of gamers will do. this new ipad uses a lot more power thus the bigger battery. that tends to translate into more heat generation in electronics products. on the unit i've had for a couple weeks i haven't seen the issue. could this be iphone 4 antennagate all over again? apple sold a lot of those anyway. might not be the worst thing. back to you. >> all right. keep you warm while you do your work. >> that's right. >> jon, thank you very much. up next, as we've mentioned, it is a beautiful first day of spring. for much of the country, anyway, it's gorgeous. with the huge rally in stocks this year, though, is it time to sell your winter winners? who will be the summer sizzlers? with prices plunging it has been a race to the bottom for solar panel makers. we'll show you the one bright spot in the sector. and do you like angry birds? you're not alone. how do you make money in mobile gaming? it's expected to be a $17
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a 2-day chart clearly shows where the resistance is in the high 2.30s. open it up to the day before the 13th fed meeting you can clearly see if you wanted to keep it simple, rates popped out of the range right around the fed meeting. look at the way it popped out of the range going back to november. remember, we are in a 30-basis point range for four months from basically 1.80 to 2.10. take those 30 basis points. tack them on to 2.10. maybe the new range is 2.10 to 2.40. it would make sense as traders continue to look at the numbers like todays starts in permits and handicap how much of the rise in rates is due to a better outlook for europe versus u.s. growth. well, hard to find cause and effect. but we do seem to have found a top to the market. back to you, tyler. >> all right, rick, thank you very much. that's the bond report for this tuesday. today is the first day of spring. is it time to do a little cleaning in your portfolio? trimming your winners from the winter and adding some summer sizzlers? how does the slowdown in china impact investing?
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yoining us to discuss it all, stuart freeman, chief equity stratist at wells fargo. steven wood, chief market strategist at russell investments. stewart, let me start on the china question. you know, a 7.5% soft landing in the united states would be a vertical takeoff. how worried, if at all, do i need to be as a generally u.s.-oriented investor in what's going on in china? >> right now 7.5% there is slower than they've been growing. but they've also reduced reserve requirements there a couple times, which is a positive. they've shown an interest in supporting some individuals who aren't working. for them, 7.5% is getting quite slow. it's still a slow landing, a soft landing. >> do i need to worry about it? >> i think it's going to cause a lot of attention. a lot more attention on the numbers over there. maybe more volatility. i don't think it's a big factor
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for our market at this time. >> steven, if i'm a long-term investor in this market, do you take some profits in companies that maybe over this winter were good performers, or are we in the next leg of what is a longer-term bull market and do i risk missing significant moves if i do that? >> well, if i can go back to the beginning of that question b i think unfortunately a lot of retail investors have missed the runup that we've seen since fall of last year. missing the upside is a constant risk for a lot of individual investors out there. i think rebalancing portfolios is an ongoing process. so trimming some of the winners and looking globally for a lot of those high quality candidates is just part of that disciplined multiasset strategy you need to engage in for extended periods of time. seasonality, i don't know if i'd use one specific day to be the delineation. but looking at rebalancing is constantly, i think, in your long-term interest. and using the odds to your benefit. so rebalancing, yeah.
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i think there's -- over many years there's room for this market to reward actively managed portfolios that are better constructed. >> stuart, rebalancing can mean trimming as stephen suggests. it can also mean redeploying into areas of the market that still have some room to run, still represent values. what would you buy at these levels that maybe either still looks good or has not so far participated in the rally? >> well, what we do, and, of course, many of the quality sickly kls have come down. they've moved up aggressively. on any weakness or volatility we'd still look at the industrial area, the materials area. you know, our work suggests this recovery can continue into 2014, maybe beyond 2014. >> boy, that's a long call. it's consistent with the idea that interest rates are going to stay low that long. >> yeah. >> that would be long. when you say quality cyclicals, i know your stock in trade is not to name names. as examples, what are we talking
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about there in materials and industrials? what would be representative of that class? >> well, i think if you look at specialty chemical companies, you look at industrial machinery companies at this point, i think those are all companies that will benefit as a second portion of this recovery continues. i think a lot of investors concerned that we've already seen all the recovery. from our point of view, there's several years of recovery left. that probably means the portion where consumer confidence comes up, multiples come up in general. and that means higher the highs for stocks when we get up to 2013. >> all right. we've got to leave it there, gentlemen. stuart, stephen, thank you very much. time for 3 in 30. bertha coombs is tracking apple at the nasdaq. >> we're going to do all apple in 30, sue. we are awaiting that report from consumer reports on the complaints that apple's new ipad may be a little too hot to handle because of the processor in part of the back of the ipad.
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take a look at apple shares. closed at 601 yesterday. retreated from there this morning. we traded down about $10 or so. now not only off the lows, but back flirting with 600. a lot of traders say at this point this seems to be the psychological resistance level. not any sort of technical level. but that's where folks seem to be staking out and getting a little nervous as we move up to their. "street signs" is going to have a lot more. if you take a look at that one-week chart, we've done it every time we've gone to 600. we retreat and come back. "street signs" will have more on that ipad too hot to handle story coming right up here after "power lunch." back to you guys in the studio. there's some big earnings reports out today. tiffany missed despite my efforts. before the bell this morning. but jefferies did beat. next on "power lunch" we're going to take a closer look at that jefferies report and see what it may tell us about the heavyweights morgan stanley and goldman sachs. a bit later, the new cars
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that are so hot right now car buyers are having a devil of a time getting a deal. phil lebeau will name some names a bit later on in "power lunch." [ male announcer ] any technology not moving forward is moving backward. [ engine turns over, tires squeal ] introducing the lexus enform app suite -- available now on the all-new 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. see your lexus dealer. on december 21st, polar shifts will reverse the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space, which would render retirement planning unnecessary. but say the sun rises on december 22nd and you still need to retire, td ameritrade's investment consultants can help you build a plan that fits your life. we'll even throw in up to $600 when you open a new account or roll over an old 401(k). so who's in control now, mayans?
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struck $2.5 billion in deals to expand its natural gas business. ty? one of the largest solar shows under way in the heart of silicon valley's green tech hub not far from the empty solyndra plant. jane look agent the bright spot in the pekter. >> p.b. america west. i want to start with breaking news. we are hearing from the lead plaintiff, lead solar company which was asking that tariffs be slapped on chinese panel makers that, in fact, the commerce department is going to slap preliminary tariffs on them. what we're hearing from reports, those tariffs may be below 5%, much lower than what the u.s. panel makers were asking for. of course, chinese companies are being accused of really dumping in the u.s. and hurting american solar panel makers. if we look at the chart of one of them, one of thim is yingli
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which says tariffs will raise prices and hurt one part of the industry doing well, installations, which more than doubled last year. >> look at the u.s. industry. it employs more than 100,000 people today. it's one of the few growing sector. certainly with tariffs in place, you're going to see a lot of projects not being able to be built and a lot of companies that have benefited and have grown this market not being able to do those projects. >> now, you can see yingli really popped there. perhaps because these tariffs reportedly appear to be so low. the u.s. industry doesn't think these tariffs will really matter much in pricing, that companies are already resourcing or finding other ways to cut costs. the problem here is that this will continue to be a year of shakeouts in solar. there will be some clean tech ipos and also companies that go the way of solyndra. listen. >> margins are lower. those who are not able to innovate and lower manufacturing costs are going to have a difficult time competing in this environment. krou can very well see a number of new bankruptcies occurring in 2012. >> reporter: surviving requires
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new business models. one of them areva solar uses mirrors to create steam. not a whole lot of demand in the u.s. it came up with new projects. it is helping regular power plants reduce emissions by augmenting operations with solar. it's got several projects in the pipeline. listen. >> now, most of the time when they look at that, it's usually, okay, we have to reduce emissions by investing a lot of cost in the plant to keep it running. what we say is, no. what you can do is you can reduce your emissions and increase the energy output increasing the revenue. that's where we are finding a lot of interest by the utilities. >> you're sort of a bolt on. >> exactly. >> reporter: that is what companies are having to do in this environment. they're having to be nimble. they're having to be creative, guys. we'll have to see what happens. again, we are hearing the tariffs have been slapped on. they're preliminary. they will become final in summer or fall. then we'll really know what they are. but the early reports are they are not nearly as high as what the industry was looking for. back to you. >> we'll look forward to an update, jane. thanks a million. earnings in focus today as we all know.
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the wall street firm's jefferies among the names out with numbers. t tops estimates on the top and bottom line. up just under 2% at $19.44. the stock up more than 40% this year. mary thompson and kate kelly, two lovely ladies, join us to talk about the numbers and more. mary, what do investors really need to know internally about these numbers. >> a couple of things. first of all, the company said that what really helped to drive their results in the quarter, fiscal first quart wesh there was an easing of concerns about the situation in europe. that helped to drive an increase in revenue at both their investment banking business as well as their fixed income. both of them showing very strong results. quarter over quarter and year over year. the equity side, keep in mind jefferies is is traditionally an equities firm, revenue a little weaker on a year over year basis. it was up quarter over quarter. importantly they said the trading vtrade ing volumes were weak in their quarter. the volume actually picked up toward the end of february and
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spilled over into the -- into march. that could bode well for some of their rivals like goldman sachs and morgan stanley. >> mary, just tease up that thought here. what does this bode for the big investment banks? >> it's a very good question, tyler. because jefferies is often recorded as a harr bebin jer of things to come at morgan stanley and goldman sachs, the larger banks that report about a month later. a slightly lower profit like today at jefferies might be a signal to say short morgan stanley or goldman sachs. we did a spot check of the last couple years. the correlations are not really that great over time. between q1 of 2010 and q1 of '11. it's tqualitative congressmenation from tcongresm where you see more similarities. goldman and morgan officials
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used exactly the same description, guys. they need a synonym finder or they're operating in similar environments. >> kate, what about -- what about what we're hearing about possible job cuts at some of these banks? goldman sachs comes to mind among others. what are you hearing? >> i think it's a sat truth that is very much going on at goldman sachs, at bank of america just yesterday they had a fresh round in equities. i think it's very much a part of the discussion. mary, was there any color on that today? >> they didn't -- actually they said there were opportunities for them, jefferies, at least, to hire people specifically from the european banks that are not hiring. but as you said, you know, some of the bigger banks, citi has said they're not going to -- it's not going to be beyond them to make further cuts in their investment bank depending on how business turns out this year. >> any sense on where we are in the cycle, though? we've been hearing about layoffs for a while now. do either of you get the sense that we're closer to the end of that cycle or still smack dab in the middle? >> i'll just say a lot of the
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language i'm hearing is cautiously optimistic. i do think people feel like we're slowly coming out of the recession. but it's still very painful for a lot of people. a lot of these work forces at banks may be permanently shrunk partly because of the volcker rule, for example. partly because of a downturn in business. one source was telling me the other day it just feels like in the new world fees may be lower. i.e. with the facebook ipo, the lowest we know of other than a government-led deal. it's just kind of a new playground with fewer players. >> harder for banks to make money. >> harder to justify the big workhorses. they held on to them for a while. right after the financial crisis they tried to keep as much of their staff as possible. seems like now it's coming home to roost. >> thank you, ladies, very much. all right. this company makes one of the best known breakfast cereals on the market. is it the best play for your portfolio? next on "power lunch," general mims repoh mills reports earnings tomorrow. we may have a better play today. precious metals hammered
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welcome back to "power lunch." i'm jon fortt in silicon valley with breaking news on hewlett-packard. all things digital reporting hp will report that it is merging its printing division and its pc division. that's ipg and psg. this would result in the head of the printer division leaving the company. he's a long-time hp hand. been there since he was just starting, just out of school at the company. both divisions struggling. the pc division have been a hard time with mobile. selling the touch pad. the printing division last quarter reporting low hardware sales and tough ink jet sales. hp struggling to figure out how to right the ship on both of those, deal with the ink sales and printer sales. todd bradley, long headed the pc division, would take control of both divisions under what this report is saying. big shakeup at hewlett-packard because these are two of the largest revenue producing and profit producing units, both of
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which need to be righted. back to you. >> is there trouble in their printing division? that's question number one. question number two, is this the hands of the new ceo? >> it must be the hands of the new ceo. it's an enormous move if this, indeed, happens. yes, the printing tuiti ining d been in trouble. we're moving to a smartphone and tablet era. you don't print as much from that. hardware sales have been down. particularly consumer hardware. after the hardware sales are down you don't get those follow on ink sales that provide the profit. hp has to figure out either how to turn that around or how to have an imaging strategy that takes into account the realities of this mobile lifestyle that consumers are moving into. >> what does this mean for todd bradley? >> well, if he does, indeed, take over both divisions, it's a coup for him. the pc division he heads has been moving into more of the areas where the printer division
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used to rule. consumer retail being one of them. printing division, ipg used own that relationship. the pc division has moved into it. look, he has been in charge of component procurement across much of hewlett-packard. this would put the consumer problem squarely in his lap because that's pretty much all of hp's consumer business once you put those two divisions together. and it's a big turnaround on both counts. that's a lot to think about. what's the smartphone strategy? what's the tablet strategy? what's the enterprise strategy for printers all the way down to pcs? very big. >> jon fortt, thanks very much. we should point out this was a report from all things digital, the website owned by dow jones. cnbc has called for comment and hewlett-packard says they have none at this time. it's been a down day not only in equities, but in other parts of the commodities markets as well. gold and other metals prices getting ready to close. sharon epperson at the nymex, how is it looking? >> it's looking like mostly a copper story today. that's where we've seen the big
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declines and a one-week low basically for copper. we've been talking about bhp billiton and their comments from that executive there about iron ore and slowing demand. also rio tinto out talking about slowing demand in china. that, of course, is weighing on prices. auto manufacturers group in china as well saying vehicle sales will not be on plan for 2012. so all those factors are weighing on some of the metals. but we're also looking at gold prices here below 1650. a key psychological level. if we see it below 1634 that could be a break all the way to the 1600 mark. keep your eye on gold. >> sharon, thank you very much. wall street focusing on food earnings this week for signs of a slowdown in consumer spending as energy prices go higher. general mills reports tomorrow. conagra out thursday. darden restaurants friday. which company should be on your radar? david palmer is sector head of the consumer group at ubs. david, welcome. good to have you with us. >> mills. they've had to raise prices but
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demand for their cereals has been, pardon he, a little soggy. do you like this stock? do you buy it? if you own it what do you do with it? >> we're neutral on this name and cautious on a lot of food names. volume in foods has been weak. a lot of the reason is inflation. some of it has to be because of the weather. we did not have those snowstorms this year. and that, as you can imagine, makes people stock up. but to some degree there's fascination on the part of the investment community with the volumes which have been declining 3% or 4% for most of these food companies. general mills is no exception. >> neutral on general mills. how about conagra? >> the same thing. they're having a rough fiscal third quarter as well. back weighted year here with the fourth quarter projected to be much better. to some degree with these food companies, there's a bit of a nail biter. we're waiting for the input cost to ease. we're going to see if the volumes recover as they get to deal back some of those savings to the consumer. but for now, it's wait and see for these food names.
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>> so you'd rather go into a casual dining than the food companies? >> well, you know, i guess i should caveat, too. conagra and general mills are predominantly domestic food companies. what we're talking about right now is more of a domestic problem. within casual dining, they're largely domestic as well, you're riding the wave of having some of the demand coming back. they're having less inflation to the consumer. seemingly succeeding. darden, for instance, doing better. >> you like darden, brinker, yum. >> certainly. yum and starbucks would be our favorite large cap names. darden a little bit smaller. also cheaper. so we would be focusing, yes, there on yum, starbucks and darden. >> pass the cheerios or pass on the cheerios. >> to get to the restaurant you have to drive there. demand for new cars and trucks is soaring. there's one small, select group of models that are commanding an even higher premium and fast
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becoming real profit drivers for the auto industry. cnbc's phil lebeau is behind the wheel for us with some names in chicago. hi, phil. >> hi, sue. march is looking like it's going to be a relatively strong month for sales. when you look in the showroom right now, the automakers are holding the line when it comes to incentives. at the same time, we're seeing auto sales running at their highest level since early 2008. so who's offering the fewest discounts? let's start with compact cars. the average sticker discount off of the sticker price is $1,043. the hyundai elantra touring, $362. mid-sized cars? average discount $2,397. subaru outback, 583. the volvo c-30, average discount $583. well below what we see for the average for the category. finally, entry level luxury suvs, the average discount for the land rover evoke just $191,
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guys. that's well below the $1,881. the average discount a little over $2,100 right now. that's not the all-time low. but they're holding the line there. but for certain models, if you're looking for a bigger discount, you're not going to find it. >> thank you very much. up next, cashing in on the mobile gaming boom. angry birds maker rovio teaming up with a major u.s. retail chain. the mobile gaming business in general is expected to top some $10 billion this year. we'll look at the hot start-ups in that sector coming up negs. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain
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get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. tell your doctor your medical history and find an arthritis treatment for you. visit celebrex.com and ask your doctor about celebrex. for a body in motion. coming up on "street signs," back to school. steve liesman one on one with ben bernanke in a big cnbc exclusive. go big or go soda to big guns.
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a good old fashioned stock brawl. why on earth is priceline a nearly $700 stock? one analyst says it shouldn't be. they're going to battle it out. battleground priceline. back to sue and tyler on "power lunch." >> thank you very much. we are continuing our hot startups series today in anticipation of a new version of the hit game angry birds which is going to descend later this week. we take a look at the gaming industry as a whole to find out who'll bring us the next big gamers. sma smartphones and tablets are fueling a new generation of online gaming. that growth will continue in 2012 with more than 250 gaming start-ups expected to enter the market. hoping to knock the peep out of the almighty app, angry birds. it's been downloaded more than 700 million times across all platforms. slingshoting a small fin ish company, rovio entertainment, to
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an estimated market value of up to $9 billion. all this competition is paying huge dividends for social networking giants like facebook. according to their recent s-1 filing, 12% of facebook's $3.7 billion in 2011 revenue came from one gaming company. zynga. who will be the next gaming game changer? the angry birds parent, rovio, maker of the world's most downloaded game, one of the undisputed leaders in mobile gaming. downloaded more than 700 million times. the fastest growing game on facebook, no surprise at all there. our next guest says mobile gaming is going to become, at minimum, a $17 billion market by 2015. our guest is gart ner analyst truong yen. he joins us from richard, virginia, my home state. how do some of these companies like rovio, like the parent of my son's new favorite, temple run, how do they make money when
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the apps are free? >> a lot of the revenue comes from advertising as well as microtransactions. maybe you're not paying for the game itself. but you're paying for vanity items. a sword. or just paying to buy extra levels to continue playing the game itself. >> extra levels, more coins or more things that get you to a next level. >> exactly. >> who does that better than anybody else? >> you know, at the moment i would say the dust is still settling. there's a lot of opportunity out there for any of the publishers and developers out there to cash in on it right now. i mean, obviously right now, you know, angry birds is the big game. but i think it's a little too soon to call a winner in any of these arenas. >> rovio, i believe, is a finnish company if i'm remembering correctly. how much of these game companies are one shot flash in the pans?
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is that a danger here? >> yeah. so because it's such -- you know, relatively new in terms of the opportunity, there are a lot of, you know, smaller publishers, developers, as well as the larger ones. like you said before, trying to try their hand at this huge, huge opportunity, right? just this year alone we're looking at almost $11 billion opportunity in revenue. you know, there's going to be a lot of one hit wonders. >> give me some names that are going to benefit from the move -- increasing move in mobile gaming. is it, for example, the verizons, the at&ts that are the carriers? is it the droid market? the itunes store? who is it? >> that's the great part about mobile gaming. it has a democktizing effect. i feel there's a lot of opportunity for everyone in the value chain to win here. obviously you have, you know, the verizons and at&ts benefits because people are using their networks to download these game. you also have the opportunities
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out there for the developers to, you know, be the next big game. and then obviously the advertisers, right. because all these free games, there's an opportunity there to subsidize these games and really get the brand out. >> all right. truong nguyen, thank you for being with us. coming up next on "power lunch," a story we've been covering for the last couple week. the rise in treasury yields. they've been soaring recently. so should you rearrange your retirement portfolio, shift some more to fixed income, perhaps, or stay with the stock market rally? what you need to know coming up next when ty and i return. 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
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bond yields are still hovering near historic lows. with the uptick in yields the past couple of weeks, might it be time to reallocate your portfolio on the fixed income side? joining us is jeffrey perstacos, the gentleman who's going to gi us our advice today and personal finance correspondent sharon epperson. jeffrey, let me start with you. a lot of people have been allocating, trying to capture that yield. but how do they do it now that yields are moving up a little
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bit on the fixed income side? do you reallocate more to that part of the equation or do you stick with a rally that's been going on in the stock market? >> well, i start out with an overall framework on what i'm trying to achieve for them. i do everything with a minimum amount of risk portfolio. start with inflows and outflows and make sure they're balanced. if i can get by with interest i deal with that. the way i stabilize that portfolio is i use a laddered portfolio. the shorter maturity. as the interest rates go up, i do get to participate in the rising interest rates. but it's not a binary decision, all in, all out risk like many people tend to do. individual investors do that. they can remember 2008. but they can't remember what they had for breakfast, some of them. no. it's a very structured environment. i try to do it with a structure that's set up in advance, long-term holdings. then i start adding risk as --
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as i need to. if the interest doesn't cover the inflows, you know, requirement. >> sharon? >> jeff, a lot of people are still thinking about last year and what their bond funds did in the prior year. not thinking about the fact that they may be missing out on some of the stock market rally. so are you trying to get investors as well into dividend paying stocks as part of the asset allocation mix in light of what we're seeing in the bond market? >> as part of the overall structure, if they need growth in their part folio i've already incorporated stocks. the downside of incorporating dividend paying stocks, as much as they do help by having two pieces to them, the dividends and then, of course, the capital appreciation potential, some people actually need to liquidate the stocks at inopportune times. it's a very unreliable investment if that's what you need to do. if you could just live off the dividend, we already had them in dividend paying stocks and we're enjoying the rate appreciation we've seen recently. >> jeff, we talked in the past about the fear factor and how
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much that drives a lot of retirees with their portfolios. the fact that we are seeing many people who say, i'm just not ready to take too much risk and i think bonds are going to be a better way to go, are they missing the whole point of what could happen to their bond portfolios? >> yes. the bonds definitely have risk because there's an inverse relationship between the value of the bonds and the interest rate environment. as the rates go up in the marketplace, the value of the underlying -- of the existing bonds go down in value because they just don't yield the same. it's very misleading when last year the s&p basically broke even and the bond index went up almost 8%. so this year they're totally confused. the ways to stabilize a bond portfolio if you want to stay in a bond fund is to lean towards shorter maturities. you could also lean towards high-yield bonds because they
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tend to appreciate as the economy picks up. the underlying credit tends to get better. and you get to participate in the higher yield as well. >> all right. jeffrey, thank you very much. pleasure to have you with us. sharon, thanks as always, my dear. coming up, just two hours left in the trading day. when we return, our charts of the day. "power lunch" comes back in two minutes. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪
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iiieiii e . and chaim soutine estimated at $10 million to $15 million. let's take a look at the markets today taking a bit of a breather. let's put it that way. about one-third of 1% in each case. about four points lower for the s&p. ten for the nasdaq. industrials at 13,187. we love rock 'n' roll, too. topping billboard's pop chart 30 years ago today was joan jet's "i love rock 'n' roll." we do, too. now for our charts of the day. i'm looking at the 10-year because as rick so very aptly pointed out, we are bumping up against the top of the range that we have not seen since october 28th. we just a few seconds ago were at 2.999%. >>
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