the ones that are doing well. i'm jim cramer, see you tomorrow. good morning and welcome to the show. the headlines from around the globe this morning, ben bernanke weighs in on europe. the debt crisis is easing but the central bank stands ready to help if needed. in europe the government is focused. expected to make a u-turn on the top tax rate while they seem ready to balance the country's books ahead of schedule. here in asia, the u.s. monetary funds says slower growth is scheduled. keeping most asian markets in the red.

good morning. you're watching "worldwide exchange." let's take a look at the future, see how we're poised for trade on wall street. it does look like we're looking at a higher open. the dow could open by as high as 48 points, nasdaq, 8 and change, s&p 500 by more than 4.5. there was uneventful trading on tuesday. we did see a little bit of a pullback on some of the concerns over slowdown growth in china. there was concern about the headline miss on the housing sector data we saw. in terms of decliners it was energies, industrials, and materials. surprisingly the financials did hold up yesterday in terms of decliners. we saw them outpace advancers by two to one on the stock chloe, how is it looking in

asia? >> once again slowdown fears. overall the losses were pretty minor, and there was also a lot of flat lining action as you can see, ditto for the hang seng and also for the shangs hihai compo. the official data suggests that china will continue to consume record amounts of iron ore. that was not the focal point on investors' minds. they were more concerned about high energy prices, what that's going to mean for growth. plus, don't forget we get flash pmi numbers out from china tomorrow, so investors will be able to gauge the extent of the slowdown and the big earnings from banks. that's going to kick off as well. it will be the first to release earnings. remember, the lending earnings have been relatively weak, 'tis the price we've been seeing when

it comes to china lately. >> as far as the european markets are concerned, we lost ground at the beginning of the week but it looks like the markets are perking up a little bit. yesterday we lost. up by a quarter of a percent today for the ftse. the dax is it but over half a percent, 7.7% higher for the cac in france and small gains coming to you from italy and switzerland as well. plenty to go around today, chloe. >> becky, picking up on china, leading economists were saying contrary to popular believe, china may no longer need high growth rates to sustain its economy, and now that beijing is pushing its 1.3 billion citizens to spend, this could create sfresh opportunities for investors. they support china's slower but steady approach. he tells cnbc it shows the world's number two economy is now serious about quality, not just quantity.

>> yeah, i think they have important issues here because in the past 30 years, china has a very strong growth, but now it is time for china to emphasize more on the quality of the growth and more efficiency size rather than the number of growths per se, given the demographic changes. >> well, he's from the imf. in the meantime, beijing's attempts to keep prices down is another reflection of the government attempting to keep money in the people's pockets, but critics warn it could create revenue headaches for local governments. this in return could backfire on beijing's overall growth plans. let's pick up o the real estate and investor consultants at e.c. harris. he joins us from hong kong. thank you so much for joining us. give us an assessment of the

real estate market. some say there need to be double-digit declines to see some sort of easing but if you look at the sheer size of the pent-up demands and people come out and join the middle-income bracket, it still seems like it's still a very fine line when it comes to when that ease willing happen. >> yeah, think one of the challenges from a global market prospective is looking at china as one single market. quite clearly, the five-year plan, the most recent addition being the 12th sets out the drive to the center of china and to drive industry and development in those areas. and therefore, we must separate the east coast and the coastal regions from central china. what we've seen in terms of development is certainly those developers which are looking more inland, have got more sustainable and long-term strategies already in place. >> yeah. so if developers are already

looking inland, china, then that means that property prices will probably continue go up, given that they're not as losty as some of the eastern seaboard cities. if that is the case, then there is no incentive for the authorities to ease up any time soon because overall prices will move up. >> they will move up, but obviously there is a suite of measures from government which relates to constraining the level of debt finance available, the introduction of property tax, and controls over land sales. and therefore, through that mechanism, there's an ability to ensure that overheating does not occur. >> simon, do you think those measures implemented by the government are going to also help to curb in terms of speculation, because that is a big issue right now. >> yes. certainly. the mechanisms in relation to

the number of mortgages that a single individual over single family can have and really those suite of mechanisms are assisting, and we can see the results of that, even in the early stages of hang high, the first cities to be managed under this new property tax. >> all right. thank you so much to simon baxter, real estate and invest tor-con sult tant at ec harris. meantime stay tuned to the show. the ceo of a real estate firm joins us in around 20 minutes' time, and get your questions in to us as well. e-mail us or tweet me @jack me @jackiedeangelis. they're due to testify today before the house oversight committee. the full story after the break.

welcome back to "worldwide exchang exchange". a day after lecturing college students, ben bernanke goes back to his regular job today. he testifies about the global financial system before the house oversight committee at 9:30 a.m. eastern time along with secretary treasurer tim guide her. he says he's comforted by easing stresses in europe, but the fed stands ready to act if things

worsen again. bernanke says the banks are well hedged against a sovereign european default. becky. >> joining us now is our guest host for the next hour, director of market research and strategy. is the situation in europe getting better? some indications would suggest it is. yields to european debt, et cetera. but there are still some dangers lurking out there. >> i think the bottom line is that in the short term, the ecb has done an awful lot to ease the pressures, the funding pressures on the banks in particular. without that, we would have been in the midst of banking crisis and southern earn debt crisis already. they have bought a lot of time. they've lent the banks a lot of times. they start worrying about the comforts of the collateral and

the logical concerns about a policy response that's been entirely about liquidity where nothing has been addressed about sovereigncy of the capitals of the banks or indeed the structuralness of the competitiveness. so what we're going to get in europe, think, is a period of gradual, more gradual, which is good, deleveraging, which is going to imply a recession. we're still going to have a recession this year. it's going to be milder than it had been, much better than if there had been a financial crisis. all good stuff. but there's still headwinds looming this year. flat growth next year. and there's an open question about the countries that still have fiscal or external debt issues, i.e., portugal, ireland, spank a spain, and italy. there's still things there. it's already the case in spain.

>> so where does that mean you see markets going? we have had a couple of days in europe certainly where the stock markets have fallen. yesterday we were just saying the markets from before were down by 1.4% for some of these european markets but we're still up year to date if we look globally, up very strongly. where do markets go next? >> staving it off, keeping it alive, that's a lot. now, you know, we're kind of -- i would say we're sort of at best in this kind of sideways move waiting for the next cataly catalyst, right? what is that catalyst going to be? there are some good things going on. the u.s. economy is clearly healing, the labor market is climb, et cetera, et cetera. the balance sheets are being repaired. many households are through

defaults. but in the u.s. the housing market is still there with a big overhang, the fiscal adjustment is starting to take place. it could be a drag of as much as 3% gdp next year. we have a lot of issues to work through, and in the phrase du jour is generally kicked the can down the road. it's important to kick the can down the road, but it's still there. >> so, arnab, if you've got these headwinds, china is slowing down as well. the extent of that slowdown is under quite a bit of question, so can we -- can the markets get further upside from here, given the kind of rally that we've seen so far? >> i would agree. i think we've kind of in our model portfolio started to take risks off the table last month. we'll probably continue that process next month. we're of the view that china is still going to have an important growth rate, high single digits this year, perhaps around 7%.

the bigger picture is that the transition from an export and investment-led growth model to a consumption growth model is going to lend itself to a significant growth model from single digits now to double digits from a few years ago. the bigger picture is the result of the financial crisis, and what particularly china has endured, global growth on a trend basis is going to be slower than it was during the go-go years, right? we've had a major bust, and we've got to adjust to that. >> arnab, it's jackie here in the united states. i just wanted to weigh in. you mentioned some of the headwinds that are facing the domestic economy hee. we also have some global issues that we're looking at, but for a large part it appears that the markets are shrugging these concerns off.

do you anticipate for the next three to six months, short term in looking at the markets, that we're going to look sideways and higher at this slow inkre medicine hattal pace until there is this domestic catalyst? >> yes. i would say we've had a lot of good news priced in, which makes a lot of sense, and now we're waiting for another catalyst. i don't thing we're going to get anything that's going to cause another big lift-off. we're kind of in this mode where people can start to pick stocks again. i would say maybe there'll be a period of that. but the bigger picture is the macrofactors such as economic performance, policy, these still dominate the financial outlook, and those things are both pulling and pushing in different directions. yes, we're going to trade sideways more or less at best. we'll have some up days and down days when people start to wonder, but, really, we're not going to be going anywhere much up till we have some deeper clarity about some of these unresolved issues, and we're not

going to get that for several months. we have elections coming up in practically -- you know, in france, in the united states. we'll have elections in greece, which is still important, although it's reseeded a bit to the back burner. we'll have elections next year in germany. there are all kinds of things that are still -- in italy as well. there are still things that have to be clarified for economic agents of all kinds, right? for companies, for households, for financial investors as well. so i think we're going to essentially -- we've seen a big rally and now we're going to have some consolidation. >> arnab, we'll come back to you after a short break. we have to head off to this break. it's a budget bonanza as they unveil their respective financial plans for the coming month. we're live from london and berlin with the latest right after this break. stay with us. choose control. introducing gold choice. the freedom you can only get from hertz

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jewish school and three military crew in the past weeks. still according to the internal minister, the man claims to be involved with the taliban. taking revenge on the french army because of its inferring interventions. we have to take this information very carefully, even if it comes from the top french minister. this comes ahead of the french election and the question is will these events change the outcome of the election? a main contestant decided on monday to suspend the campaign for 48 hours. still they were all over french media in the last two days, especially nicolas sarkozy who appears as showing some leadership, so this could reinforce nicolas sarkozy's position in the opinion polls. we have to wait for the next opinion poll to see if there's an impact, but that's likely to

affect the candidate for the election. that's all we can say for the time being. i send it back to you. >> stephane, thank you very much. so the german finance prime minister is presenting the budget. si silvia has this story very it should be one of the easier cabinet meetings because germany is ahead of its own schedule. we want to balance the budget by 20 2016, but you know as germans, we never quite make it easy as we do it. why make it easy when we can make it complicated. he's now under pressure within his own party to balance the budget two years ahead of time. because we now have the actual opportunity to put more money

into the debt service, and, you know, of course, in 2013, the famous -- another funny german word, the debt ceiling comes into place. so it would be nice if we could balance our budget earlier. but it isn't that easy. of course, there is a feeling that if we want to balance the budget ahead of plan, then mr. sharp will have to do another few tricks, i.e., he will have to take money out of the surpluses of the social security budget and the pensions budget which doesn't go down too well with the opposition either. so it could be one of the easier cabinet meetings, but very likely it won't be because there's a lot of argument how quickly the germans should balance their budget to show the rest of the eurozone that they're, indeed, the model pupil on the austerity plan. >> thank you.

let's turn to the uk where the prime minister is set to present his latest budget plan this afternoon. we have a preview for us as to what we can expect. steve. >> thank you very much. it's a glorious day down here at westminster. he delivers his third budget. not a lot of wiggle room but let's find out what he can do for business. we're joined now. look, i mean i said he hasn't got a lot of wiggle room. clearly this austerity drive has to last for many years if it's going be convincing and actually work. what can he do as far as your members are concerned and they produce a budget for business? >> certainly he's got to stay to the deficit reduction plan, but it's also ee kwa ll important that he go for growth. it may end up with a downgrade anyway. he has to look at a budget for business, and we actually said in our budget submission there are three things he can do.

he cannot increase business rates by 5.6% in april, which can be a disaster. he can have a "when it's gone, it's gone," and he can double the youth contracts because to have a call to import at the oepd testify year would be really outrajt. >> you say the business rates increase would be a disaster. to a certain extent we're seeing a corporate tax come down and it's possible he's going to bring it down to a more aggressive rate as wealth. >> that's true, you know, but the rates increases is going to be really quite crippling for small businesses and we need to stimulate. they're the ones being squeezed by not being paid as quickly by the big customers. they're also finding it difficult to get access to capital, and it's the small business sector and the median business sector that's the center of the uk. >> john, rightly or wrongly, attention is being paid to

taxes. the government has been capped so far. it's getting a lot of headlines. is it meaningful? >> we put business growth higher than personal taxation reduction because we think the real issue in the uk for long-term sustainable growth is to get business going and to get exports going. so personalization is less of a priority for us. we don't like the 50-b rate because it's an incentive for people to work and anything that emphasizes work rather than not working has got to be good. but nonetheless, it's got to be a budget for growth. >> do you think vince cable's comments about the government lacking a compelling vision fair? >> no. i think the governments are actually doing things that are very positive and they're putting together a pack object, for example, on infrastructure vep development, which is very important. also an entrepreneurialism would

be great. >> john long worth. it's not just the fiscal policies in the united kingdom we're looking at. we're looking at monetary policy as well. after the breake're going to break for you the mpc minutes from the bang of england. stay right here on cnbc. ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network.

ja good morning and welcome to the show. they say the debt crisis is easing but the central bank stands ready to help if needed. in europe government budgets are in focus. expected to make a u-turn on the top finance rates while germany is planning to balance the books ahead of schedule. >> here in asia the monetary funds say it's profitable over the long term but others beg to differ keeping most asian markets in the red. we have some breaking news for you from the bank of eng. the minutes from the last military policy committee shows they voted 7-2 to keep quantitative easing at a total of 325 billion pounds in march. voted for a further increase in

qe2. there unsurprisingsly was a 9-0 vote to keep interest rates at 9.5% as has been expected. some of the commentaries coming out through the bank of england's monetary policy committee, minutes, looking for change in the balance of minutes for risk of growth inflation. they're more certain that uk growth will pick up in the near term, although significant downside risks remain for the uk economy. oil prices pose a clear risk and may rise further than assumed and unemployment may not cap inflation due to unclear productivity outlook. they say more qe is needed now to avoid damage to the supply capacity of the economy, which obviously is a long-term concern if we see the economy at these kind of depressed levels. just in terms of the market

reaction, sterling had been ticking up before the announcement but it's dropping back. this is sterling against the dollar that we're looking at right now. also, let's just take a quick check on what's going on with the ftse which yesterday lost over 1%. today they're managing to gain back a little bit of ground. let's get back to arnab das who's still with us here from roubini global economics. there is some concerns that there is significant risk of further problems in the uk, economy concerns. two members in particular that we could lose capacity. how does that strike you in. >> i think the first thing to say about the bank of england and about the bank of minutes is that these headwinds imply in the uk and, you know, in the western world in general that monetary policy has to remain very easy. the question of further easing, quantitative easing in the uk, qe3 in the u.s. and whether the

ecb will actually go in that direction, i think all of that is path and kind of data dependent, right? how bad is that going to be? right now it doesn't look all that bad, but if those headwinds materialize, of course, we're going have another dose of monetary stimulus because as we were talking before the break, the fiscal side is going to be retrenching everywhere that counts, right? >> there's some concern in these minutes as well that inflation isn't going to come down quickly as the bank of england was wanting. is it wishful thinking that inflation is going to drop through the normal course of events? >> well, you know, i think in europe we have this issue that there's a lot of countries that are targeting headline inflation, and headline inflation is being dragged up by oil prices, by whatever might or might not happen in iran and by some of the implication of easing monetary prices,

particularly oil. you know, that's a change in relative prices because the bigger picture rather than -- you know, if you think about core inflation, that's actually very subdued in the west in general, very low in the u.s. it's sort of heading downward or has a tendency to head downward in the uk. so what's happening is people are being squeezed by the fact that they're having to cut back on other things in order to pay for higher energy prices, plus the level of demand and this whole business of the output gaap and potential output is not that strong because we had a leveraged boom in the west, right? so we had a lot of capacity that was generated for growth that was built on debt that proved to be unsustainable. so i think all of these things are in the mix, and the net of them is that we're still going through this massive adjustment. we're dragging it out over a long period of time. so we're going to have a period of unsubdued growth. >> thanks. we're going to move on to

another topic with jackie. back to you. the minneapolis fed president says they may need to raise rates if unemployment continues to fall and inflation looks like it continues to rise. they place him among the most hawkish of members but that's still a my noirt. joining us now to talk more about it is john lions. still with us is john loof lauchblt in terms that rates may go up sooner than expected, what do you think the chances of that are? >> i think it's something that most people are already going to anticipate is going to had. it seems more a reality than a possibility and it's due to the number of factors stated earlier. a, unemployment is increase, b, we have higher energy costs, and, c, the government is looking for some ways to lift real estate.

>> typically i when rates rise, the markets don't exactly like it that much, but rates are so low right now that an incremental rise, you think, will not have so much of an impact on the equity market? >> correct. i think on the historical rates we're at levels never really seen before. typical rates and very sustainable economy could go 200, 300 basis points higher, but we think we're only talk 1g 0 00, 150. >> there was a mixed bag of data from the housing market on tuesday. housing markets found a 1% increase. although construction of multi-family projects soared 21%. they're still less than a third of the peak hit in early 2006. now, there's more housing data on today's calendar.

february existing home sales are out at 10:00 a.m. they rise to an annual rate of $4.63 million. let's talk about some of the data we're seeing, a little bit of a mix and some of the impact on the market was on the headline miss of the numbers we saw yesterday. what's your take on it? >> historically before the recession in '06 began it was 5 million per year traded and the average price per home was about $220,000 per unit. today what we're seeing is ballpark 4.25 to 4.50 million a year. but the prices of homes have dropped to about $155,000 on average. what's happening, though, is we're going to see a slight increase in the number of units that are going to be sold, but we're anticipating at savill's that the price of units are going to drop even further, part of it is because of the number

of units that will have to be foreclosed upon. the department of justice reached a settlement with some banks and lenders. it was a $25 billion settlement. $20 billion is to offset pain that those that were foreclosed upon weren't through and $5 billion is for fines and penalties. what it does is clear the process and make it more streamlined and quick to go through the foreclose process. before the recession there was about 1.2 billion forecloses per an um. during the reserks we're up to almost 3 million. and after this goes through with this skpe dieded foreclosure process we're exceeding 3-plus million. what will happen is more units will come onto the market, it will further depress prices, prices will drop, but there's a silver lining here. people will be able to buy these units because they'll be less expensive. >> would you classify that as the bottom? >> yes.

and what we're going to see is as they get absorbed over time, prices will begin to increase, we'll come to a more normalized, stabilized level. right now it's anticipated that about 11 million home mortgages have mortgages that are higher than the value of their homes. this is going to hurt those people further, and we're anticipating that there's going to be somewhere between 8 million and 9 million homes lost to foreclosure during the next four to five years, but hopefully we'll reach a more stable process soon. that level will drop to about a million. >> the housing market is clearly a very important part of this whole recovery story. what's -- the logic we heard, does that ring true to you about how we get some stability in the housing market? >> i think we would agree with a number of the things he said, but this issue of the kind the overhangs, the foreclose, the number of homes that are unsold, the fact that there's negative equity in so much of the housing stock and for so many homeowners, these are all

reasons for us that imply that rates will have to remain very low and there's still a chance not withstanding what he says that we may need another dose of monetary stimulus as it starts to come through. housing is not in great shape in the united states and throughout the midwest. our outlook is lots of headwinds still latent in the economic story, right, in the recovery story. this is still a recovery that is not yet -- people can't bank yet on being self-sustaining. if you look at the recovery, it's benefits and starts and every so often we've required more to get going again. we're not convinced we've broken the cycle, especially in europe but in the u.s. where learn rajjing is more advanced. >> yeah. anyway, we'll pick up on that conversation in just a bit.

john lyons of savills and arnab das of roubini. a lot of markets flat-lined and part of that is because the investors are holding out. that's going to be bank's earnings numbers and agricultural bank of china is going to kick off the earnings of the big four starting in china tomorrow. plus we've got hsbc's flash numbers so we'll perhaps be able to get a glimpse of exactly where the slowdown is, given that there's been a lot of reverberations as to how quickly china is slowing down. alzheimer's you can see, more losses coming through in our key markets. korea down three quarters, australia down a half. the other is rallying by 1.7%. we've had quite a bit of weakness in japan and also greater china, flat-lining

there. although the h index seems to be reflecting quite a bit of weakness, becky. in the european markets after a weak day yesterday, we're looking at gains. 9.2% higher for the ftse, the french market is up by nearly a half a percent but the ftse across italy has turned a fraction lower. jackie. >> thanks for that, becky. in the meantime we're seeing in the state as bit of a monthsive momentum now. if the market opened now, the dow would be up. the s&p 500 higher be i about 3.5 as well, this after stocks finished lower in trade yesterday on tuesday. we saw a little bit of a pullback on the concerns of growth in china and the headline miss in term os the housing data. we saw energy, industrials, and materials dragging the indices a little bit lower. financials, surprisingly, not surprisingly outperformed.

meantime there's much more discussion on "worldwide exchange." we're going to look at the worked market. we're going to get a pulse check on the commercial property sector. who's buying and where when we come right back.

lyons, ceo of savills and guest host arnab das. let's go ahead and talk about the commercial property market. we haven't been able to drill down on that much. a lot of cash on the sidelines, burning a hole in investors' pockets and they're looking to get back. where are the strongest pockets of strength right now? >> that's an interesting question. right now there's about $500 billion being spent on commercial real estate. of that, about $120 billion is going crossborder. there are very large pockets of capital being formed, domestically in the united states made with a lot of investors, but also globally. they're looking for stability, clarity, and place where they can see future appreciation. at savills, we're tracking this capital on a global basis as we're manipulating it. what we're seeing is a lot of money coming into the united

states. and domestically, there's about $220 billion that was spent on commercial real estate in 2011. $20 billion of that was from offshore. a lot of it came from european entities who were looking to escape the eurozone crisis, but there are also quite a bit of middle easterners as well as other country, monies coming out of china, et cetera, looking to be placed here. >> okay. so when we look at the commercial property market here domestically in the united states, there's was a little bit of hesitancy to get into it before, but what you're telling me basically is the fundamentals look better and this is appearing to be a little bit of a safe haven. >> it's absolutely a safe haven and what's happening that's interesting is they're somewhat bifurcation. they're seeing tremendous activity for a limited quantity of product. and the other end of the spectrum, those that have distress, which is very opportunistic, we're also seeing quite a bit of interest and

activity. the core in the middle, which is not nearly as interesting or exciting because you don't have the stability or the great upside potential, isn't getting as much activity now as it would in a more stabilized environmental. >> really, really interesting. these are the day pa points that piece the puzzle together. very, very important. thank you so much to john lyons, ceo of savills as well. meanwhile, arnab das, thank you, in london as well. profits jumped. the company projected fourth quarter sofltware sales will range from a drop of 2% to growth to as much as 8%. although the ceo says that forecast may be a bit conservative. oracle road 1% in after hours. ing it now in frankfurt it's up 22.5%. and mitt romney adds illinois to his win list, taking that state's republican primary contest tuesday over rick

santorum. romney pads his delegate lead, although he's still far from the total lead to take the gop designation. a candidate's ability to beat president obama was most important. up next, of course, the louisiana primary is on saturday, so we'll be watching that very closely. and president obama kicks off a four-state tour today to promote his energy policies. he visits las vegas, nebraska, and carlsbad today. republicans have been highly critical of the white house in recent weeks for failing to provide consumers with some relief at the gas pump. chloe. the chairman of petroleum industry says he welcomes the government's interest. it's said a bigger issue that one has to deal with sanctions

proposed by the european union remains unresolved. japanese companies usually purchase local insurance for crude shipments, but a big chunk of such insurance is sold in european markets. if they cease buying, this will pose serious problems. >> coming up next on the show, we look ahead to the trading day on wall street and ben bernanke and tim guieithner get set to testify before the house oversight committee. stay with us.

good morning and welcome back. if you're just joining us, let's

take a look at the futures. the dow looking higher right now by nearly 35 points, the nasdaq by 7 and change and the s&p 500 up by nearly 4 points. joining us to talk about the day ahead on wall street is paul schatz. thank you for coming on the program. as we look ahead, you know, we've been looking at reinvestment. we receive some money coming out of the bond market, going back into the equity market. at the same time while we're making gains we're moving in a sideways pattern. do you expect that to continue as we move forward? >> good morning to you. listen, stocks have had a pretty good run since the middle of december. so clearly anyone nebraska time you pause, you can correct two ways. you can pause and move sideways for a period of time or pull back at 4% to 8%. i agree with you. yes, stocks have gone on great run and now it's been the expense of bonds. treasury bonds have been hit on

the head pretty hard. at some point we're going to see a snapback in the treasury bond market that will likely pull the wind out of some of the stocks but the rally is not over. i think on balance we're going to see all-time highs this year. >> wow. okay. and when we talk about the corrections, there are some analysts out there saying as you mentioned we could see that 4% to 8% correction. what do you put the chances on that? >> well, listen, before wi go to all-time highs, we're going to have a 4% to 8% correction. it's normal, healthy, and any time should be expected. for now i don't see anything major on the horizon. we've got the global corrections coming up. most of the politicians are going to play nice and behave. there's geopolitical risks. pullbacks are going to be placed to buy. i don't think we should use weakness as a selling opportunity. you're going to have odd trades here and there.

gold probably has some further downside to go, but then there should be a sharp snapback in gold. oil was down yesterday. the commodity sector still looks pretty good, and stocks are the place to be. there's a torrent of liquidity in the global system. it's going to find its place for now. the globe is fairly quiet and stable. >> on a -- >> i say for now. >> obviously it was famously said that it's a bubble. is that still the line? >> yeah. i don't think i'd put it quite so -- you know, quite so brutally or bluntly as that. i think the bigger issue here is that gold goes up strongly when you're either facing a big inflation or the risk of a big crisis and a big deflation. and, you know, as we've been discussing throughout the hour, you know, we're sort of in the middle between those two things so we're probably not heading for another bull run in gold

until and unless something serious goes wrong in the world again. and even if that happens, you know, we're not going have a big inflation in the end and we going do everything we can throughout the west to have a big deflation because we've got a lot of debt. i personally would not buy gold. i don't think we're in a position to buy spam. we could get there, but hopefully we won't. >> all right. and thank you so much to arnab das, of course, and paul schatz, president of heritage capital. and that wraps it up for "worldwide exchange" today. we appreciate you staying with us. from chloe, becky, and myself have a great day. "squawk box" is up nechkt so make sure you stay tuned. choose control.

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good morning. your money, your vote. mitt romney record as very big win in illinois, plus newly released fund-raising records give us a hint of what we can expect next on the campaign trail. and news makers on capitol hill, fed chair ben bernanke and secretary treasurer tim geithner set to testify before congress today, and finally we're going to get a reality check. existing home sales top today's economic agenda. it is wednesday, march 21st, 2012, and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ he wakes up in the morning brushes his teeth and is roll g rolling ♪