welcome to the welcome to the program. the headlines from around the globe, the french energy giant says it will take months to stop the gas leak at its platform as a cloud builds over the north sea. and here in asia, consolidation in the tech space. it becomes the biggest shareholder. and in the u.s., ben bernanke stays on the message. the fed chair says while conditions are improving, it's

still too early to declare the economic recovery a complete success. and he says markets should not bet against the war but warns that the crisis may not be over. >> nobody really knows, but in the past so many times we thought that the worst of the crisis was over, and then new waves of instability came in. so i think it's no time for complacency and we have to prepare for the worst. more on the exclusive interview to come on today's program. also we're going to have this. what does the bank plan to do? we'll hear from the ceo. u.s. supreme court wraps up three days of hearing whether the obama health care plan is constitutional.

and it may take six months to contain gas leak. what is the prognosis in terms of its energy stock price. before all that, let's see where we're at. christine? >> guess what? a little bit of consolidation in the process. a lot of investors taking a little bit of a breezer. nikkei is down 0.7%. guess what? majority of the companies going ex-~ dividend. the nikkei is downtown 0.7%. the topix is down 0.9%. what that says about a slowing domestic economy. moving this market lower, 2.7%. earnings and fundings weighing in on it. hong kong down 0.8%. this particular market, 0.1%. kospi is down, 0.1%. australian market one of the few

to buck the trend. there were comments suggesting that maybe the banks will cut rates to slow the economy and the sensex is down 0.8%. ross, what does your heat map say? >> christine, we've just hit the session highs and we're weighted to just about the outside. neefr 6 to 4 on the dow jones. the ftse down half of 1%. right now it's absolutely fabulous. the cac 40 up 5 points. the ftse, a little bit better, up half of 1% as you can see. as far as the currency markets are concerned, we've got data coming out of the uk a little later, public finances, and obviously the detail of gdp as well. keep an eye on the rise of the sterling/dollar. the yen is a little bit better.

we've got some repat rags. down 2.80. euro/dollar, 133.58. remember we hit the high yesterday. now, as far as the bund markets are concerned, they're up slightly. here, 5.3%. ten-year treasuries down the a two-week low. 217.50. gilt is trading at 0.7. 124.84, the nymex price, 106.68. as we keep our eyes, of course, on the peripheral, the italian prime minister mario monti is keeping an eye of things. he's sure they ooher on a steady course of budget repatriation.

so as debt fears consider to halt the eurozone, is betting against the euro the right strategy? speaking exclusively to cnbc lorenzo says the euro is to be the strong contender of the second world reserve currency. >> certainly it's not in the interest of emerging markets to go back to a system. it's not good for the world to have only a few safe assets, and if you think about all the problems we had, the euro exchange rate is still there, 130 with the dollar, you know, compared to the japanese yen and the others, it's staying in the

range where i'd say it's relatively strong, which means many still believe in the euro and this is a currency that we stay. >> now, if we're talking about the euro as more of a vision for european integration, then we have a clear divide. the older generation, of course, because they're still used to the currencies, they haven't bought it yet. we haven't sold it to them yet. the younger generation who grew up with the euro, for them it's like -- it's self-evident that we should have the same currency. but have politicians and maybe to some extent the ecb failed to sell us the euro as a vision rather than as a currency that's pragmat pragmatic? >> no. maybe it's been too much a vision. i think that, you know, people in the end like visions, but

when it comes to a crisis, the vision is maybe too far away. i think maybe the mistake was to think that once we get the euro, then the job is over and, you know, we're all rich and famous and that's not the way it works. once you get the euro, you may be facing tough times or you may need to become fronted with discipline in your behavior. and germany experienced this in 2002, 2003, 2004. now sparnin, italy are facing this. you cannot live in a common currency and have your nominal development, gdp and so forth totally out of line. i mean that's the hard lessons from this crisis. >> is the fiscal pact really a game changer? >> i think it's a condition to move forward.

if you want to go toward more risk, more sharing of risk, then we need more discipline. that's the way the united states was created. more discipline at the state's level and progressively more powers to the center. so it's -- it's a give and take if you want. and governments and states have to accept that as a quid pro quo for a stronger europe. >> okay. silvia joins us now. did you get insight into how divided the ecb has been as they sorts of backtracked? they've had to introduce emergency measures and we now know the ecb, the northern wing of it, is desperate to point out how to exit from lto measures. >> we had an interesting discussion about that. you know that i'm always also interested in is there a divide

of the national boundaries, et cetera, and what bini smaghi said is, look, you have the completely wrng idea of what's going on. it's pragmatic discussion. nobody has the nationalities inside the ecb council. you can believe that or you cannot, but basically we discuss with what's best for the eurozone as a whole and we don't have this kind of national interests at heart, but the outside, berlin, paris, brussels, wherever you are, rome, they might have a different view about that, especially also the politicians involved. there was a victim of the outside perceived nationality boundaries. he was the third italian on the ecb council, and there was a big huffing and puffing about this that this was completely not on, that france did not have draekter on the executive board

and lorenzo bina smaghi event y ually resigned, eve though his term was unn't up. there was a question about the bank not quite adjusting to the new role as one central bank of 17 in the council rather than the only central bank that is heard. i think there is a -- you hear there is a sort of sense of you can't quite say exasperation. that's a bit too much. but maybe the feeling that writing letters is not the right form to voice your concerns. good morning. >> clearly, at the launch of the euro, interest rates were set for germany. that's one of the reasons why countries like spain and ireland

got into such big questions. the question now is whether the ecb will be bold enough to set policy for the peripheral and ignore it and allow the higher rate of inflation and accept weakness elsewhere sniet . it's interesting, silvia's opinions. to the extents that that's been overwhelmingly influenced by the traditions and the interests of the bun does bank, what's interesting now is the crisis in the last 12, 18 months has really highlighted this divide. when you look at this and reinforce the discipline and control, ignoring who broke -- who broke the limits first in the past, but really focusing on the importance of stability and

monetary discipline, the idea that the ecb should suddenly change its mode of operation and be proactively stimulating growth in the periphery with some kind of trade-off and inflation that's less than optimal against its own history, i think, is eight wille bit fanciful. the reality is i think the ecb continues to operate, so long as we're not in crisis mode, with the view that its job is fundamentally what the bundesbank has represented in the eurozone, so i don't think that there's going to be a realignment, but, you know, the tensions, france wants to have its own representation because it wants its voice heard at the group think table. but i don't think there's a split between the periphery and the call where the mindset ought to go. i think the more important message is this reserve currency role, that they want to see the euro climb back after the trials

and tribulations of the last nine months. >> silvia? >> chris, maybe we're all a bit too pessimistic about the way ecb is not changing. maybe it's changing or maybe it's maturing. maybe that's the right word for ichlt we started with the bundesbank mandate. maybe stronger. maybe that's what the euro needed at this time if you look at the action, not the lip service, ltro, bond purchases, at least against its own principles, and an interest rate. i mean where do they have to make interest rates for the periphery. we have almost zero rate in real terms anyway. i'm getting to the point that maybe despite the lip service, the ecb is a lot more pragmatic about how it sees its monetary policy developing. >> i agree, silvia. i think the point i'm trying to make, the group that's evolving

is coming from -- i use group thing not pejoratively but to represent that the ecb does have a sense of its own role and responsibility and that was dramatically illustrated back in december with the ltro move and the realization that something needed to be done with the other area of the ecb is. . this was to make sure the whole counterpartyish was resolved with ecb standing in the middle. i think that's changed. it's made it more responsible as a central bank. well rl my point being i don't think you have the requirements from the economic standpoint. the ecb has been a lot more like the fed. the financial system globally rather than just some form of growth development. >> bank lending growth comes in, slow to gain in the eurozone in february in annual terms. this kre b data that's just come

out. basically lendings have become weak despite the ltro. they had hope that somehow it would feed its way into the real economy. this suggests that it lineds up on the year. it just ain't going to happen. bank deleveraging is going to outrank everything else. >> i think we have to be careful what policies are introduced. you can make a statement saying we hope this leads to further lending. >> yeah. that was mario draghi's statement. >> it's february, for goingness sake. we're not seeing what's financially a freeze in lending environmental suddenly to turn around and change the dynamics overnight. it allows for the prefunding to get back on their feet, to start realizing what they're doing. to balance their sheets, review the loan book as hound they're going to be on raying in 2012

and 2013. at the same time the ecb stepping into the middle of the equation meant the freezing up of counterparty relationships within the banking system was able to be reduced. so this is a long-term issue that's being addressed by the ltro. we shouldn't be thinking that all a policyma makers should be doing is making sure it remains at the level. we should be making sure the policy platform works. i would completely ignore these data signals telling me anything about the success or failure of the policy. >> he pajted it in those terms himself. if he painted it -- >> you have to recognize he painted it in those terms. what he's trying to recognize is the longer term ambition. >> they're all going do that when they're in a massive

deleveraging. silv silvia, thank you very much. more to come from that exclusive interview as well on the banks of the cam. just a reminder, bank confidence, a little bit higher, 97.1%. that's a tick-up. that's good. we've seen yields drop today in europe. the cds is a little bit wider. the french oil major said there was no immediate danger to the platform. they're looking at two options to shut down the shale. it's being reinforced around the sea. chris, we saw -- i mean total was up. bg dropped off as well. what are investors to do with this specific story? >> we're in a classic

environment. we receive it in the oil energy sector before where enthusiasm at one minute is replaced by concern over the potential environmental consequences or changes with a fallout. we've seen the stocks move sharply to a valued discount. that's appropriate. if it were remaining as a risk trade, it looks longer. it depends if wow want to take a view whether it's a major crisis. you saw that with bp. six months is the time it might take to deal with this. but bear in mind this total leak is coming from a well they thought they effectively capped. so it was a failure to finish off a job. that may not be as big a crisis, but obviously they're going to be saying six months right because they have to look at all their options. it ooh going to be something that will bounce on positive news but it's a gamble on that

basis. i would say it's an advantage to own total in the long term. we like the energy sector. we feel the value has run pretty fully in the last month. i think most energy stocks when they retrace are going get bought by investors. this may be an opportunity to add to positions before quarter end. >> all right, chris. thanks for that. plenty more from you. christine, i've missed you. >> i've missed you, too, but i'm waiting for the sign. not going anywhere. not going anywhere. we're talking about asian tech companies, consolidation and a bid to the best of a bad situation. we'll explain coming up next.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." taiwan's honor high, better

known of apple's supply is said to become the biggest shareholder. hon hai will buy sharp for $800 million. meantime sheep says it has no tention to make any further investments in the venture. also says it has the right to shop. mean time hon hai was one of big companies in tie wa-- taiwa. >> companies came out with their four-year report card. let's start with electronics maker hon hai. it beat the street. of course the hon hai is going to secure more manufacturing orders. sharp is outsourcing and they're

warning investors about raising chinas in china. cha na's next largest retailer dropped to $291 million. the group said the market was squeezed by higher rent. also we're waiting for full-year results from china's oil giant, their second largest oil refinery, cnooc. petrochina reports more tomorrow. back to you. >> thank you. thank you very much for that. chris, we know. in your report you say china is

an excuse. are you implying that any reaction that we're getting about china's slowdown is simply exaggerated? >> well, christine, the point i was making at the end of last week when the markets were getting very vexed about the idea of china's transition and, you know, slowing demand, i think we have to -- we have to be careful to sort of separate the fact that if you're looking at investing in chinese companies or hong kong or taiwanese companies that are directly impacted at the margin from an earnings point of view on the patent demand, of course, you want to look closely at what the data is. suddenly the bond market got hold of a theme that was justifying a sharp slowdown in china, justifying why weal had to run back. i observed a good friend of mine who's based in hong kong who i was talking to a week ago who said what's interesting about china is the further away people are from china, the more certain

they are of their views and i certainly experienced that my team in the region. the expectations going on in china, if you talk to people on the ground as you do, you know there's a sense of uncertainty, but that's not new news. one set of headline numb werers giving us a sign that they very going sharply. that was the next shoe to drop is what i was guiding away from. i think china is and has been going in the last ten years through a constant process of transition. i don't think that the china headlines slowing down on one month's exports is something we have to panic about. i think we have to observe and be aware of the information coming through at a corporate level much more than we are with the macronumbers, so your focus on the earnings and the level from a stock level point of view is an important guide to what investors should do. but the idea that there's this

bic macro number, let's panic because they've sold off for five days in a row. that's really what i was warning against, christine. china is a significant part of china's decision process maker. i think we have to be careful not to draw too much from a manufacturing defects. by the way it's very different from the mines we know. i don't suppose people whoever with talking about it last week know the difference but the reality is the headline one is traditionally lower than the traditional one and the one that's been below 50 on and off, so the flash pmi is being below 50 for the last four or five months. so it wasn't any big news but it was being presented as big news because you're comparing apples and oranges. i think you have to be careful. >> we've got a bit of data out of cnnoc and then we'll get to

the other data. christine, cnnoc? >> the earnings have come in as we speak. coming in at $17.26 billion chinese u.n. people expect it at 16 president 5 billion. we have eps 1.57 un as well and revenue-wise the company is reporti reporting. 28 hong kong sens. we'll update it as it comes through. >> that's actually been revised down to the fourth quarter. a little bit weaker than the uk since the biggest loss in the fourth quarter of 2010. the down revision driven down by the finance sectors.

industrial production down on the quarter as well. therefore, the full year, it was up 7.7%. at the same time we've heard from the financial policy committee. they say european legislation could restrain some decisions. they welcome the efforts to make sure the efforts don't impede the fdc and they say it could be used to signal risks. i think we've had as well a little bit on the account. the deficit was 8.5 billion. it was forecast at 8.7. so not quite as bad as we thought. sterling has fallen, though, after that revised gdp data. so the fourth quarter weaker than we thought originally. we'll take a short break. still to come, italian banker and credit is making its way in cleaning up its balance sheet. what does the bank plan to do with all the ltro. we'll hear from the ceo right after this.

you're watching "worldwide exchange." the french energy giant says it will take months to stop the gas leak at its you're watching "worldwide exchange." the french energy giant says it will take months to stop the gas leak at its el begin platform as a cloud builds over the north

sea. >> hon hai becomes the biggest holder. >> sterling loses a bit of ground after the uk's gdp is revised lower for the first quarter. it's contracted 3% in the last three months of 2011. meanwhile they say they expect to return a profit after posting a 2.3 billion euro loss in 2011. the state run company says it's stepping up restriucturing efforts. it's carried out a review of its business practices. also in italy, unikre did is in

the middle of a clean-up process. we caught up yesterday. she joins us from milan. how's he feets, claudia? >> he actually seemed very confident and relaxed versus what we had seen in the past. the situation is this. the fourth quarter came in with a profit. the forth quarter is down 65% from the fourth quarter of 2010. it's still good news. they continue to need to do a lot of work. full year loss was 9.2 billion. but they did go through with a rights issue and they're also continuing on their restrukt during plan that sees a 4%

decline in head count. this, of course, has been part of what is weighing on the full year numbers. 63 million euros is what they took in terms ofarily retirements and settlements, also $70 million worth of write-downdowns on greek government bonds. revenues continued to decline. what they worked on was the cost cutting. remember that the shares lost 66% last year. this was one of the first banks to move forward with cleaning up its balance sheet. that's the best one. that's where they're expecting 2012 to do well. they didn't distribute a dividend in 2011. they plan on doing it in 2012. the resilience of the bank is because of restructuring, they're positive on the economy. they say in the second half things will improve in the italian economy. they need to move forward with stimulating the economy and they plan on doing that with putting those ltro funds into the

italian economy. let's hear what he had to say. >> what we'll do with this fund is better to say, we are going to lend substantially to the other economy. we're not going to increase our stock in the sovereign bonds. we are today around 37, 38 billion. we stay more or less at this level. we have a very good position in terms of liquidity right now. we're assessing the wholesale market regularly. for us, ltro means kind of a safety net. the funding of 2012, we've already achieved. so the focus now is on the landing side where we think we have capital and possibility to make profit. >> as far as the spread is concerned, the ten-year spread has come down significantly here in italy. how has this affected your accounts and what do you expect?

>> definitely if we look at funding needs for italy, it is not clearly so for germany or austria but the benefit is funding. this is good news for us. so the benefit is substantial. >> are the recent government reforms that are being put into place going to be infective in terms of reduction of debt as well as changing the labor market? >> so far, so good. in terms of reduction of the debt, think the decision has been good and effective. now the big effort has to be on clearly the condition for the economy to recover. in this respect the labor reform is very important. i think we need those fiscal reforms after that. it's been approved.

so we're on a good trend, good track. but it's still there. they want us to be one. so it's a long way to go, but definitely this government is doing things and acquiring credibility from the markets and this is really encouraging for us. >> so there is relief there in terms of what the government has done so far for the banks. the numbers in terms of tier 1 are good. 9.17 if you include the rights issue this year. so federico was positive on how the numbers come up and how 2012 is expected to pan out. we're looking at a restructuring and possibly a profit in the fourth quarter. >> claudia, good stuff. we talked earlier. return to profit this year,

chris. you described this as a trade early that was basically -- it was either -- it was -- either it was going to fail or you were going to make a lot of money. what do you do now? >> as we approached the end of last year, they identified that they needed to clean out their stables as it were. they got rid of a lot of the executives that had been tied up with the scandals previously. they made a commit meant to turn things around. at the first part of this year. i think this is a stock that if you look at where the rest of the sector has been and you look at the outlook that's available to it. if you were brave enough to buy it at the lows or recent lows of last year, you certainly would be staying with this one. i don't think it's too late to get back into it.

but once we go through the details of this, i would expect to see analysts getting more positive about the stock, putting scandals of 2009, 2010 behind us, and moving on. >> okay. just to remind you, sterling, down to lows. you have a fourth quarter down to minus.5%. so we've hit 159.09 on the sterling/dollar. we were 139.40 before that. on euro, the sterling was around 83.89 which is a two-week high for the euro pound. christine. >> the focus on china, the president is apparently in new delhi on a summit to atejd a four-day summit. he'll hold bilateral talks with the prime minister. to get more details on what to expect, let's get more from

sheree. >> thanks very much, christine. the bric's summit will start tomorrow. the trade ministers of all five nations were part of that. i came away with a very good conversation with the prime minister with regard to the possible sanctions by the u.s. if chi in and india were to continue to import iranian crude. and the prime minister of china making it very, very clear that china was in compliance of the u.n. resolution and no country could unilaterally impose their domestic laws on another country and china was not going to back down. china would continue to trade with iran and continue to import. they're the largest importer of iranian crude followed by india. the prime minister also talking about fears of the slowdown in china, acknowledging the fact that they were slowing down. they're anticipating a growth

rate of about 7 1/2% for the year. they're anticipating large-scale restructuring as far as the economy is concerned, dealing with issues of the labor cost. as far as the bric summit is concerned, remember this is a grouping of the world's fastest growing companies, brazil, russia, china, et cetera. at the end of the deli summihi - delhi delhi declaration, we could see them moving up, developing boets its development bank and investment fund. a lot of corporation and talk on what this group could do with regard to the sovereign european pry cy sis and step in and alleviate some of the pain. that's the heads-up here from the bric summit for now. >> thanks very much.

scherr reen boston. the owner of apple supply foxconn says it will by a 10% stake in sharp and take half of its lcd factory. elpida d-listed. experts say elpida's fall is desirable for their struggling d-run business and a race for survival of the fittest. let's talk more about this topic. mark, good to have you with us. what does this mean for the other players now that they've been d-listed? >> sure. what's key is supply and demand balance and currently regardless of elpida's d-listing and

bankruptcy filing, we're still in oversupply in the industry. elpida is still running in the same. so we're still at oversupply. and there are too many competitors in the industry. what we need to see is the consolidation continue to happen and what will be key is what happens to elpida's fabs. any kind of scenario that takes some of the capacity out of the market through some kind of acquisition such as micron buying one of the two elpida fabs, it will read to a d-ram recovery. >> so far they've stayed mum on the issue, we know that. who's going to be the next casualty in the d-ram space. can you speculate for snus. >> the dram companies and the

taiwanese. i would like at nan yarks power chip and promote. they have been dying a very, very slow death over the last few years since 2008. cy think those are the next potential casualties along with inoh tara which is actually a subsidiary of micron. so they still have the favor of actually having a strong parent in micron, but it's also under some risk. >> mark, when you talk about casualties, are you talk about companies failing or being consolidated, and with when samsung already has a 43% market share, how many companies are going to end up in this space that are actually viable? >> yeah. i think there's only room in this industry for three

competitors. thee rhyme industry has not grown on a revenue basis since the '90s. it's very viable. in the mid-'90s it was almost around 40 billion and we've been bouncing around 20 to 40 billion market since then. lots of r & d requirements. so this kind of environment only allows for three. i think the three are samsung, micron and hnnbx. senior when i talk about others, some of those continue to run dram.

>> besides elpida being delisted, we have sharp offering a 10% stake in its kpaechlt another japanese company struggling under pressure from south korean rivals. is this a trejd going forward? >> yes. a good question. you're definitely seeing a lot of o problems in the japanese tech industry. there seems to be a hole owing out of the industry. they've done miserably in the semiconductors in the last few years. and lcd continuing to fall behind with strong leaders being samsung and lg display, the korean manufacturers. so, yeah, japanese manufacturers are having some issues. whether we see consolidations in the industry as we see in dram has yet to be seem. it is a strong indication of the problems the japanese are having, so i think that's

interesting. also, hon hai being the buyout, i can only speculate but there's been a lot of discussions in the last year or two on the apple tv, so this could be a potential for the apple tv. >> before we go, give us something investable investors can chew on. which would be the key players you u'd be looking at. >> definitely samsung continues to be my top pick. we increase up to 7.5 million. it's up to 3 million yesterday. still an upside here due to a number of things. the dram recovery is drawing a lot of epf growth but also the lcd industry seems to be recovering and smartphones is a big driver of their profit. and secondly i would say micron. micron is well positions to actually also have a lot of mps

growth and recover. >> interesting. thank you very much. samsung and micron. got it. thank you very much for being with us. analyst for global memory and consumer electronics. >> still to come on the program is d-day for obama. is his overhaul health care doomed? we'll review the final day of the hearings.

final thought from chris tinker. chris, a lot of people are wondering whether the moves are a result of liquidity. bank of england, ltro and the fed as well. is there something more fundamental going on? >> i believe things change, certainly for european markets with the introduction of the ltro in december. it set the train in place for a value recovery for this market. i actually thing we've been in ball market since 2009, the low 2009. we had a big interruption that was to do with quaearthquakes a this crisis in europe. now we're focusing on the corporate level. there's value out there. value is growing in equity

markets. >> value where? >> value is growing across the board. most sectors we look at has rising valuations. if you look at it, when you're getting selloffs, these are opportunities to buy into rising value stores that are still available in resources, energy. banks started to rise in january value wise. that was a big signal for us. short term i think they've done enough. but this is an environmental now where retracements back to value and opportunities is to buy. a lot of people sat this quarter out. they're trying to talk it down. they're not going to succeed because the message is a more positive value environment. investors are going to engage. >> chris, good to see you today. thanks for joining us. chris tinker, partner with. here in the u.s. the supreme court has wrapped up three days

of hearings on whetherpot's landmark health care law is constitutional. the obama administration faced tough questioning from the high court tuesday. cnbc's hampton pearson was there. >> they found that justices in particular, in particular the conservative justices challenging the government's individual mandate that everybody buy health insurance. justice justices leading the charge. justice kennedy asking at one point, are you creating commerce in order to regulate it. justice scalia, doesn't the man date open the door tore more expansion of koj to regulate more of the economy and chief justice john roberts expressing the concern once we say there is a market and we require you to participate in it we can't set limits. for the government, solicitor

john deed iffing it saying it's essentially a scheme devised by congress for regulation of the health care market to ensure people have health care, an advantage that someone sooner oer later does, in fact, use. the final day of argument will focus on whether the individual mandate can be severed from the rest of the health care law and the proposed expansion of medicaid, the health care program administered primarily be by the states in the next two years. reporting, hampton pearson. coming up on the show, bernanke warning not to jump the bulls yet. is he right? we've got answers for you coming up next.

good morning and welcome to the show. the headlines around the states. ben bernanke stays on message. while the conditions are improvinging, it's still too early to declare the economic recovery a complete success. the gdp lower in the fourth quarter. consolidation in asia takes place. hon hai become's sharp biggest shareholder. former ecb executive

director lorenzo bini smaghi says the crisis may not be over. >> so many times we thought the worst of the crisis was over and then new waves of instability came in. so i think it's no time for complacen complacency, and we have to prepare for the worst. welcome back. you're watching "worldwide exchange" with christine tan, ross westgate. i'm jackie deangelis. great to have you with us this morning. let's look at the futures and see how the trades are setting up on wall street. it looks like the dow could be up by 11 points, the nasdaq by 2 and the s&p . the ralgy seems to have run out of gas, at least for now. we saw the dow drop at least 44 points and we saw window dressings, seeing some buyers getting into particularly specific stocks and despite the

down day we saw financials and tech being the best performers for the year. as you had mentioned before, the nasdaq up 20% year to date. >> meanwhile heading down toward the session lows ahead of the open, jackie, two hours into the trading day. this follows slim losses yesterday. ftse 100 down a half%. the dax is down. the cac 40 down as well. sterling as well. with got a revision, surprise revision downward. 43% was the contraction. the reason for, that it was driven by business services. euro is up to two week highs. the dollar is down. so apple session high against the pound. jackie. >> yeah. meantime here in the state, fed chairman ben bernanke says it's still too soon to declare victory in the u.s. economic recovery.

bernanke says it's encouraging that the unemployment rate is dropping and the debt crisis is easing but joblessness is still too high and housing remains weak. >> we're seeing, again, some good indicators. there hasn't been a double dip or a second recession. right now i think the odds of it are pretty low, but with t forecasting, you never say never. you have to keep vigilant. >> reiterating comments from his speech on monday. bernanke says the fed isn't taking any optionings off the table but he's not suggesting any further qe moves are imminent. joining us now to talk more about it and our guest host for the next hour is john. john, let's talk about some of the comments from ben bernanke. on monday, obviously sent the stocks into rally mode. he's really not saying anything new here. qe3 is still on the table and it has been for quite some time. >> yeah, he's not saying

anything new and if you listen carefully to what he's doing, he's giving some warnings. he's saying that the economy is not fixed yet. he's saying -- we just heard him say to diane sawyer, whether there's not been a double decision, you can't take that off the table. joblessness is high. we're over 8% unemployment. >> that's the thing. it worries me that he's worried about that. mine do you agree? >> i agree 100%. i think when ben bernanke's up there talking about these are issues that we have to worry about, i think they're issues we have to worry about. now, the markets continue go up. i know we took a little bit of a dip yesterday, but i think that's because of what we have both in the u.s. and now in europe is artificially low interest rates. they continue to be low. people are chasing yield, so that's increasing the stock market, the high yield market's open. but when you look at what's underneath, you have people

hurting. people can't find jobs and i don't know where the jobs are and when they're going to come back. i thircht we have structural problems and we'll need to focus on it. restructuring the foundation of our economy. and that's going be difficult. firsthand the next year with the presidential election, it's going to be even harder. so i thing we're going to see a whole bunch of bumps in the road and a lot of economic data people look at say that's good news. i'm not sure it's great news. you take housing. housing prices went down again, but they didn't go down as much. that's good news. i had a partner that used to say the good news about hitting rock bottom is you can only go up. if that's the good news, i'm not sure that's great news. >> exactly. >> jon, yes. the economy may have a lot of structural problems. it doesn't mean the corporate world isn't going to have pretty decent profits and decent evaluations. >> that's true. thing one of the benefits of the

artificially low interest rates has been that corporate america has been able to fix its balance sheet. so what we've seen is we've seen a lot of companies push off their debt and fix the issues that way and they may come back later, but they've at least pushed them off. other companies have been able to fix their balance sheets and have a lot of cash. the question now is how do you go out and invest that cash. and think that's what we're seeing. you know, with see all these companies holding onto their cash because what they're looking at is uncertainty. what's actually going to happen in the economy, where should we be investing that money. so i think corporations and corporate america is in good shape. i think where we're in not good shape is number one at the federal government level, we have way too much debt. we continue to have it. there was an op ed that talked about 61% of all the borrowings that the treasuries is doing is coming to the fed. the fed is the one actually borrowing -- or, i'm sorry, lending money to the united states government. that's a problem because we're going to have to shrink that

balance sheet at some point and at the consumer level we also have issues because consumers are paying too much now for gas, right? they still have too much debt on their balance. she we have students who have huge amounts of loans and i don't know if they'll ever be able to pay them back even after graduating college with tuition levels going up. and even at the local level, the states and local governments are hurting so much it cuts services across the board. when you have too few teachers and policemen and firemen, that's another going to be a good thing for walking around in your town or your city. >> jon, hi. this is christine in asia. does the slowdown in china worry you? >> it's not so much of a worry. i just think it's a reality. what we're seeing 'cro ing acro globe are issues. you see china a year ago saying it's going be china and the emerging markets that are going to keep the economy going.

if you see china slow and america deal with the issues that ben bernanke is talking about with how do we fix the unemployment problem, how do we fix the housing problem, how do we actually fix the problem, you look at the euro. people aren't so scared anymore. why not? they went out and did the same thing the federal government has done, which is make interest rates really low. but we still have major problems. you look at greece. people don't talk about greece. front page of "the wall street journal" talks about in the new elections what we may see are all kinds of radical parties getting into the government. is that going to be good? of course not. it's going to be very bad. one, if they don't put the austerity measures in place, which could be bad anyway, to put them in place, you could have issues. second, when you start to have that kind of political uncertainty and issues, it just leads to bad socioeconomic problems. >> all right. jon, good to have you on. stick around. plenty more to come from you around the last part of the show or the rest of the show, i

should say. we've had a six-month t-bill out of italy. the good news is the average yield has fallen to 8.5 billion. a bit to cover 1.5. that fall in the year, by the way, was expected. still to come, rupert murdoch news corp. is facing a fresh round of allegation. we'll have all the details when we come back.

good morning and welcome back. time for your global markets report. let's start here in the united states and see how we're setting up for trade on wall street. it does look like we're opening at a higher moment at the moment. the dow by 10, the nasdaq by 2 and the s&p by 1. we're wondering if the rally has run out of gas, at least for now. despite the down day, financials and techs still the best performers for the quarter. the quarter, of course, going to end on friday. we saw the dow down by 44 points. the laggards, chevron, indicator piller, and verizon. >> two hours into the trading day. advances being outpaced by a

rally. ftse down half a percent. we were up a quarter of a percent earlier. now down a quarter of a per cement. the dax was down. the cac 40 was down. fin me canada was up. it was up over 7% earlier and they've had a lot of restructuring, finmeccanica. they now like the new business plan. we're keeping your eyes on what's going on with the currency market. the euro/dollar, we hit a high of 133.36. just below that, 133.37. the yen is up across the board. we get the end of year repa tree yags with the exporters. sterling did fall after we got that revision downwards in fourth quarter gdp minus 0.3%. was 0.2%. gilts today, the yield as far as bond market is concerned, 2.25%.

we have fallen just a little bit. treasuries, we're down to a two-week low. 2.17 is what we hit. spanish yields, a little bit lower, bunds trieding at 1.87%. we are hearing we're not going to get elections in greece around about may the 6th according to an oh physician. as far as oil is concerned brent's been down a dollar, trading at 124.35. below 125. and nymex is also off. 44. christine, what kind of day have you had in asia? >> we had a bit of a consolidation going on. the nikkei came off of an easing of yesterday's one-year high. remember the majority of these companies going ex-dividend. the topix is off 0.9.

shining high a big loser down 2.7%. they're watching for a weak slew of earnings. what that says, that's weighing on sentiment in the higher sentiment market. earning as well. the hong kong hariquette down. they managed to claw a little bit higher, the kospi down 0.9%. the australian market, one of the few markets to buck the overall trend. we had some comments coming up from the central bank. giving hope, fueling hopes that they won't cut rates to boy the slowing economy. the sensex is down 0.1%. almost down 1%. so overall, lackluster session. a lot of focus, as i mentioned. of course, we spoke about energy. we spoke about earnings. energy continues to be in focus. just releasing their full year 2011 earnings. tracey chang has the details for us.

tracy. >> the second largest off shore oil and gas producer said its 2011 profit rose to more than $11.1 million. the producer's were hit hard by an oil spill. now, revenue is up 34%, more than $38 billion, helping, of course, a rise in crude prices. the average oil selling price was up 41% in 2011 to more than $109 per barrel. and tomorrow we'll be watching for earnings from petrochina. back to you, christine that tratra. tracey, thank you very much, i'll be back tomorrow. >> let's follow some of the other stories. rupert murdoch's news corp. is facing a fresh round of allegations. they've release 14d,000 e-mails that appear to show that nds, a

former subsidiary of news corp. employed computer hackers at its operation security. it ultimately damaged australian rivals. they katd gorice ic categorical. in 2008 the plaintiff echo star was ordered to pay around $19 million. this comes after the bbc's program. they used hackers to crack and release the security codes of encryption codes for its rival pay tv operation in britain on digital. nds denies the allegations and says most companies in the conditional access industry it used contact s to track hackers

and pirates. certainly it's another spotlight on news corp., jackie. >> absolutely. congress delving back into the mf global case today and where all the missing money went. they hold a hearing at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. jp missouri began's general counsel plans to tell lawmakers that former mf ceo jon corzine was in contact with the bank about a large fund transfer before the collapse. the transfer has been a subject of scrutiny as to whether customer funds were involved. bats is throwing its support behind joe. the company will now split the roles of ceo and chairman from hichlt he's held both roles since 2007. ross. >> we're just hearing a snap from the french energy minister. the u.s. asked france to join

it. remember, we had this discussion with cameron and obama about whether they should release emergency oil stock. apparently france saying the u.s. also asked them whether they were interested as well, if there was going to be an emergency stock release, whether they would also do it. jon, what do you make of this story? i mean why would we be thinking about using emergency reserves of oil stocks other than the fact there's an election coming along? look. i think at the end of the day politicians would like to see gas prices go down and they're looking for a way to do that. i think you're right, focusing on the election. i think it's too two things. one, people care. we need oil and gas prices to come down because as gas prices go up it's take money out of people's everyday pockets and they're not going to be able to put it into the economy. they're going to be paying higher gas prices. second of all because of

politics when you're running for an election, what you wouldn't want to see is gas preess continue to rise while you're president because you're going to be blamed. you're always going to be blamed while you're president. it would be two things. i think it would be great to find a way for gas prices to go down, but, again, what we're doing is finding that things are artificially going down. at some point things are going go up through inflation rate as, and that's when we'll see that. that's when the pain may begin. coming up next on the show, the fate of president obama's key legislative victory, health care reform. it hangs in the balance as the u.s. supreme court weighs whether the landmark measure is constitutional. will they hold the law or are they going to throw it out altogether or engage the odds, straight ahead. 

good morning and welcome back. the supreme court wraps up three days of hearings on whether president obama's landmark health care law is constitutional. they faced tough questions from the high court on tuesday. hampton pearson looks ahead to what the supreme court will

consider today. >> reporter: day two of the historical arguments on the constitutionality of the health care reform law found that justices, particularly conservative justices challenging the individual mandate that everyone buy health insurance. justices anton and scalia, anthony kennedy and justice john robert leads the charge. asking at one point are you creating commerce to regulate it. justice scalia, doesn't it open the door to more skpang of congress to wreck late more of the economy and chief justice roberts suggesting concern one we say there is a market and we require do you participate in it. we can't set limits. for the government, the solicitor defending the mandate by saying it's essentially a scheme divides by commerce for regulation of the health care market to ensure that people have insurance in advance of using and consuming health care, something everyone sooner or later does, in fact, use. the final day of argument will

focus on whether the individual mandate can be severed from the rest of the health care law and the proposed expansion of medicaid, the health care program administered primarily by the states in the next two years. reporting, hampton pearson, in washington. >> and joining us now to talk more about that is paul connectly. he's the executive director of detloit health care solution. when we're looking at the decision, we're not expected to hear back on this until june, so it's going go a while. but there are indications coming out of the proceedings concerning where some of the justices stand on this issue. given what you know, what's your take on how this could go down? >> hard to know. probably a lot of bets. the justices question whether it's a market or not.

they raise the question of individual liberty. i think no one is sure how this is going to play out right now. >> in your opinion, are they, in fact, creating commerce just to regulate it? >> i think what will be determined is whether the health insurance market including everyone by default and does the government apply its power to a unique market called health coverage where everyone is in the market, everyone uses the system. but when that occurs is not predictable. so i think they'll have to establish the government that health care is a unique circumstance in which the government does have to apply market principles, but it's not like any other market. the justices question, you know, the forced purchase of broccoli

or would someone that uses a 911 number be required to participate in a telecom market. that's different in the government's case in saying that health care is a unique market. that's really the crux of this. >> paul, it's john henes here in new york. i have a question for you on a business level. if the supreme court did get rid of obama care, got rid of the law, how would that impact health care insurance companies? >> well, jon, they've already begun changing their business practices and added a number of features to their products that add premium covets to most employers. most are 180 days after passage had to make a substantial number of changes, so it will dramatically change the way the health insurance industry operates going forward.

they conceded to about a half trillion dollars of cuts to their revenue on the promise that there would be an individual mandate. in other words, the idea that more people in the insurance system will increase revenue to the system and everyone then was essentially cut some, about a half trillion dollars over ten years. so you could expect if this is throwns out in june, each of those industries is going to come back and say, look, we made deals. the individual mandate reduces bad debt, it increases the pool. it includes the risk associated with insurance. now that that's not the deal, we want a new deal. so i think this throws everything on health reform into free fall. >> you bring up a good point there. if we're not able to strip away this piece of legislation from the larger legislation and it is, in fact, struck down, then sort of what are the next steps

to try to rebuild the system and can some of the companies like you mention who have already gotten into the process and gone down this road, is there any way to come back now? >> well, it's not clear because the law is still the law, and it's interesting that many of the provisions around the law on insurance remain on the books and have already been implemented. and there are a number of very popular features around the law of insurance coverage for those under 19 years of age without pre-existing conditions, the coverage of kids, up to 26 on a parent's policy and so on. so i think we're in uncharted turf. the thing to remember is that the health care system will undergo substantial reform without the health care act because it's not sustainable. its costs are too high. its outcomes are highly

variable, it's wasteful and inefficient and for the most part public knows the deficiency. they just fear the government being the one to solve all of its problems. thin you're going to see health reform regardless of the law. >> thank you so much, paul keckley. he's the director of deloitte solutions. ross. >> they have been asking the u.s. whether it would be interested in putting more oil in the market. they said they've been consulting with them on doing that, also trying to convince producers to put more oil on the market as well. guess what? they mention speculators pushing the oil price up. what a surprise. jackie. >> yes. and coming up on the show, p.t. barn um says there ee's a sucker born every minute. find out why he thinks the average investor shouldn't be

lulled into a false sense of security by all the green arrows he or she sees on wall street. stay with us.

good morning and welcome to the show. the headlines in the state, ben bernanke stays on message. the fed chair says while conditions are improving it's too early to declare the economic recovery a complete success. the gdp lower in the fourth quarter. contract third degree% in the last three months of 2011. and total shares fall for a second day in a row after after the french energy giant says it will take months to stop the gs leak at the elgin platform. markets should not bet against the euro. >> i think the markets have been burn burned thinking that they had no small amounts, that this would lead the break-up of the euro or to a major exit. this didn't happen.

>> nice to have you here on "worldwide exchange" this morning. let's go ahead and look at futures. it does look like we're going to see a higher market open this morning. the dow could be higher by 18.5, the s&p 500, higher by just a little bit more than 1 point. this after we saw a little bit of lower session yesterday on tuesday. the rally running a little bit out of steam, ross. we saw some window dressing, but not enough to keep these markets up in terms of the pace and momentum that we saw certainly on monday. how does it look over in europe. >> yeah. we trended lower in the last hour of the european markets. and after losses yesterday of around half a percent for the footsie. we're down a third. the cac down a quarter as well. trading lower ahead of the open this morning, jackie. meantime, billionaire investor carl icahn says fed chair ben bernanke did great job to bring the u.s. out of the financial crisis and recession in 2008 and the fed's policies

are part of the reason behind the huge stock rally, but in an interview on cnbc, icahn thinks the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. >> you have this very, very low interest rate. the average guy who says, gee, i can't make any money on keeping it in the bank, so i'm going to buy stocks, but, you know, that's a very dangerous way to look at things. i think the average person doesn't understand that. it's better to make 1% rather than loz 30%. >> that was carl icahn giving his take on the market joining us to talk more about it, bill. still with us, of course, our guest host jon henes. jon, let's start with you. obviously a big rally on monday. the market at very critical levels when we look at the dow, the nasdaq, the s&p.

some saying this is a correction that's been due for some time and that this pause is going to last for a while. what's your take on it? >> well, jackie, we think you're close to the upper end of the range for the year in the u.s. markets, 1420, 1430, the s&p, 13, 5, 13, 6. nasdaq comp, 36%, 37%. so what we're advising our clients to do is take advantage of that and start go in the harvest mode. take some profit, you know, take a step back and get a little bit more defensive, whether that means buying some port, selling some calls, rotating into more defensive areas or raising some cash. we think the risk reward at these levels is really not in the investor's favor. so we want to take advantage of the rally, book some profits. we think you will get a better opportunity to buy later in the

year. remember, there are still many unresolved issues here, the economy in europe, sovereign debt issues, potential geopolitical conflict in the middle east, not mention the vulnerability of our own economy. so given all those questions that still need to be resolved, take advantage of the fact we had a 30% plus rally across the board in the u.s. equity market and take the profit and take a step back here. >> bill, the problem is for those who haven't taken part in the large chunk of that rally, there's a lot. fund managers included. what are they supposed to do here? >> well, i'll echo carl icahn's sentiment. it's better to make 1% than lose 3 30%. think about last year. between may 2nd and the lows in october, the market sold off over 20%. so, you know, you don't want to get caught. you know, we think it could be a

potentially sized downmove here. if you haven't participated at this point, i don't think you want to be an aggressive buyer of equities at these levels. i don't want to advice our clients to jump in the market here after it's already rallied 30%. i think if you haven't gotten in now, you have to kind of wait on the sidelines and i do think there will be a better opportunity later in the year. as i said, think the upper end of the range, 1420, 14 30rks fear value is around 1280. and i wouldn't be surprised if it trades lower before the year's out. >> okay. and, bill, when we talk about sort of seeing a little bit of rally down the line later in the year, some of the potential catalysts that we're going to look at, we talk about housing, consumer confidence. a lot of different data points out that have been a little bit weak. do you anticipate seeing a pickup in those areas. >> well, you know, i -- look.

i think we're toward the upper end of the range. i think what you're seeing now is some weakness, and i think that really sets you up for the dow. like i said, you know, even if we play the range game, i think bigger picture, you know, if we, you know, play from 1420 to, say, 1120, fair price 1rks 280. in the bigger scream of things, that's okay. that probably sets you up for the end of 2012, beginning of 2013. so what i expect now is to see, you know, some deceleration in the economy, the markets start to back off a little bit. you want to try to buy that dip. and then i think, you know, toward the end of this year, beginning of next year, you know, it sets up nicely. you know, in terms of how the market will perform to the upside. >> all right. fantastic. bill, of course, is going to stay around and give us more insight on the show. so is jon hene southeast.

natural gas prices. they hit their lowest level of 10 years. so will prices continue in this downward trajectory? we've got the details next.

keep your eyes on total today. stock again lower after 6% declines yesterday.

the group said it may take six months to contain a gas leak at 1-800-of its north sea platforms. they say there's no medial danger off the platts form. they're looking at two options to shut down tit down. environmental groups closely following the impact here, jackie. and natural futures have fallen over 55% in the past year and are now at their lowest level since february of 2002, this as they continue to build and production is at or near an all-time peak. forecasters are also putting pressure on prices. speaking earlier, darren wolfberg was concerned about the outlook for the commodity. >> really what we want to be watching is over the next month you have all the supply that's been in reservoirs and salt

mines. all of that has to get cycled out of the storage facilities some of you have forced selling going on in the marketplace and it's really until mid april that you see this washed out of the mark market. >> all right. bill, i want to bring you back in on this, who are the winners, who are the losers here? >> i'm sorry, jackie, in terms of natgas? >> in terms of the natural gas trade, play, yeah. >> oh, absolutely. first of all, think our target on the downside comes in around $2, $1.90. thing there is more to go on the downside. look, i've had many, many questions about where do you try to buy here. stay out of the way. i'd want to see the market. i wouldn't try to buy until we see something below $2. you know, obviously the end users are the major

beneficiaries here. i think the people have gotten hurt and we've seen it with some of our clients where people have tried to come in here, pick a bottom. it's been a one-way freight train for a long time and as i said, i don't think you see a bottom here until $2, $1.90. that would be the first place where i would come in and take a shot on the long side. on a shorter term basis we've seen our clients get short. we'll try to cover those shorts at $2, $1.90 and try it on the long side. >> bill, two things. i mean i presume if you're a utility or co-power station company, you know, you're going to be hurt by this. you're going to stay away from those stocks. on the other side, i wonder how much of a game-changer, natural oil gas production is for the united states in the long term. >> well, i definitely think, you know, it's going be a major --

you know, it has to be a major part of our energy policy going forward. it's the cheapest alternative, you know. it's something that the president has talked about a number of times. i mean, you know, in terms of, you know, how we -- how many people we can get, you know, turn to natural gas, i mean that's a difficult thing to say, how long that process is going to take and the time and effort involved in that. but look. when you look at the alternative, it absolutely has to be a big part of the solution going forward. >> okay. let's just move on. taking decisions last minute on sunday night is no way to run a currency, so says the former beg board. in an exclusive interview he said the european policy makers must start making decisions ahead of market pressures. >> by doing it is part of human experience but once you learn, you have to implement. so i think now at a certain

point we knee that. do the politicians really mean what they say and whether greece is different from the others. and so they have to know that this time we've come and it's better to anticipate the markets rather than taking the decisions always behind the curve under the pressure of the markets. so i feel the best way is to clear the funds which are there and clearly say if needed these funds will be used to help portugal and ireland and of course condition alt is important but it's also important to make clear to the markets that if a decision will be needed, it will be taken promptly. >> haven't the markets already decided that the fire power we have in the fund, in the efsf and the esm at the moment are not enough even if we possibly combine the two funds. >> possibly if you want to bait out everything. i think the markets have been

burned thinking that the fact that the efsf and the esm had relatively small amount s that this would lead to breakout or an exit. this didn't happen. i think that was very good, very efficient. we need to avoid it to get into this fear again. i think it's more important to take early decisions rather than also increase the size of the efs, which i think is needed. >> jon, in your mind, how much have we parked for now the eurozone debt crisis? >> look. i think what we see are headlines. and we live on headlines a lot here. so people took a deep breather when greece seemed to be resolved. but greece isn't resolved and knee never neither is the political debt crisis. we're going to see issues because as they've artificially pushed rates down and they've

kind of created a situation for europe to say, okay, we are taking a breather now, we're going to see other countries that are going to have problems, so grease so greece is going to come back. we're going to see other countries that today are going to face a recession. so i don't think it's over at all. >> jon is going to stick around. coming up on the show and later on cnbc, a special edition of "street signs." cnbc and cbs news are teaming up to get military veterans back to work. cnbc's brian sullivan will be on deck with exclusive interviews with jp more eo jamie dimon and lockheed martin ceo robert stevens. coming up on our show, the ceo of toll broes. he made positive comments on the housing market. hear what he had to say coming up next.

welcome back. there's just one piece of economic data out. federal durable goods. that eat's's at 8:30. meantime treasury secretary tim geithner makes not one but two appearances on capitol hill today f he testifies before the house appropriations committee and the senate appropriations committee on foreclosures and student debt at 2:30 p.m. meantime the ceo of toll brothers says conditions aring look really good in the housing market, especially for the high end. the home builder is having its best spring in five years with orders up significantly. >> we've been waiting for this. we've been ready for this. mortgage rates are incredibly low.

buyers have been on the sidelines now for five years. confidence is back. there's a flight to quality and i think we're benefiting from that. we're a luxury home builder. we tend to compete against small builders who are out of business and it feels good. it's continuing. >> toll brothers rose 2%. in frankfurt it's up 5%. let's get back to our guests bill strazzullo and jon henes. bill, i wanted to ask you. we're seeing the positive comments out of toll brothers as well. we saw a little bit of a pickup. is this something you expect to continue? >> i still don't think we're out of the woods here in terms of the housing market. if you looked at the case-shiller data that came out just yesterday, you know, again, we're seeing more price declines. until you start to see prices stabilize and begin to move higher, i don't think you can declare victory in the housing market. so, you know, i know we've had a

great run in some of the home builder stocks. i -- again, that's not something -- a move i would want to get into at this point in time. i still think the residential housing market is vulnerable. and, again, until you start to see prices stabilize and move higher, then i still think, you know, bigger picture, there are problems there. >> yeah, absolutely, bill. and, jon, let's build on what we were talking about with bill in terms of housing. earlier this year jamie dimon told maria bartiroma we were going to see a bottom in the housing market. is that your take. and once the bottom is achieved, the recovery will start in a meaningful way? >> we have a two-tailed market, the high end, which we heard toll brothebrothers' ceo talk a. to buy a house makes perfect sense. to take the rest of the market, you have two different things going on.

people aren't able to get the mortgages. you can't get them. second, you have a lot of young people who are uncertain about where they're going to be. they're not going to plunk down a payment. what they're going to do is rent and see. we're seeing rental prices go up exosh tanltly. they're very high. you would think jump into the buy houses. but at the lower end, think it's very difficult. i think the high end we'll still continue to see buying houses and prices going up there. >> that makes a lot of sense. thank you so much to both of our guests today. jon henes for being our guest host as well as bill strazzullo. that breaks up "worldwide exchange." here in the stagts, i'm jackie deangelis. >> and i'm ross westgate. have a good day from us.

good morning. hold off on the victory dance for just a minute. wi us doing the jig. fed chairman ben bernanke warns it is too soon to declare a win for the u.s. recovery. and who knew what and when. the husband financial subcommittee holding a hearing on mf global today. and play ball. magic johnson and gaug enjaime partners, yep, they're buying the l.a. dodgers for a record-break 2g million. my apologies to steve cohen. it's wednesday, march 28, 2012, and "squawk box" begins right now.