the best writer to be the edi r editor, it doesn't always work. predictions of what they'll look like after you get them. >> jack, thanks so much for joining us this week. it's been great having you here. >> thank you. >> right now it's time fork "squawk on the street." ♪ and happy birthday lady gaga. good morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm melissa lee, and we're live from the new york stock exchange. let's look at u.s. futures and how we're setting up. we've got durable goods numbers this morning, overall or transportation we've got the dow looking to lose at seven points at the open and the s&p looking to lose 2. and better than expected italian bond auction is taking place with yields at the lowest level in about a year. we've got red arrows across the board. >> today's roadmap, a new national high for gas prices this year, $3.91 a gallon.

jack welch said gas is taking a toll on growth and new reports suggest that an spr release may be in the making. jetblue has more than gas prices to worry about after a pilot goes berserk on a flight to las vegas and forces an emergency landing. we'll hear from ceo dave barger. and goldman sachs bows to invester pressure adding a lead director to work with lloyd blankfein but don't think the muppet controversy has gone away completely. after the worst ipo attempt in history, should he have been fired what is next for the electronic exchange b.a.t.s. prices at the pump march toward an average of $4 a gallon in this country. reports say france is discussing a strategic oil release with the u.s. and the uk and nat gas falls down to 1.5%, a ten-year low. an amazing day in the energy complex all around yesterday. >> all wrong. the higher oil price slows down

our economy. the inability to harness this natural gas price other than a few instances, with the epa helping longer term with coal. but it's just setting us up for manufacturing to be weaker because the gas industry -- the natural gas industry has been a major source of jobs and now it's pulled back. the baker hughes, the drilling -- the whole rig complex is going down. >> we noches peek stocks as well. >> everybody. but this is an incredible thing that we're looking at here. you have talked numerous times about how if we can figure out a way to use this fuel other than for what it's being used for even though, by the way, coal-fired plants are starting to go away and being replaced by natural gas, it's an incredible opportunity and one would expect that's still the case. $2.16 is unreal on natural gas. >> i went to one of my best guys in the energy complex and said what would happen if we drilled a big refinery to make natural

gas to go ahead, greenfield refinery. you talk about tens of billions of dollars, it literally is a very expensive proposition, so we've got this great fuel but to switch it quickly -- >> you mean a refinery to liquefy natural gas? >> yes. >> if you could get 25% of the oil that's imported which then switched to diesel for trucks, obviously that will work and that's what westport innovations will work. but it takes time. taking time. >> in the meantime we could see nat gas prices move lower. inventories are extremely high. they are 50% above the five-year average on natural gas and we've seen a lot of companies like chesapeake pull back on production, but these new decade lows that we seem to be hitting session after session suggests that perhaps production will have to be curtailed even further which means deeper cuts for the life of a baker hughes which is caught flat afoot in terms of their exposure to natural gas as opposed to oil. >> and now we're looking at severe capacity limitations,

right? not enough places in the country to put this stuff. >> other than for a power plant, and some chemical companies, not a lot of people have been able to figure out how to be able to harness it and one of the things that does drive me crazy, exxon, which is the largest producer of natural gas in the country does not endorse it as a surface fuel, only endorses as a fuel for utilities, but the amount of switching that could be done over the next couple of months and years, it's done, the companies that have switched to natural gas have switched to natural gas. >> a lot of them have done it. we've seen an impact on coal stocks to use a broad term there, many down sharply yesterday, in my area of the world, m & a, the largest buyout was by kkr, energy future holdings now i believe, it's been crushed now as a result in terms of natural gas prices moving down substantially. >> that is going to be the possibility of the biggest -- you never want to associate, you know, just call a bankruptcy, but that is what my friends are

saying is the biggest, biggest perhaps failure of this era is this is the company that's most levered to coal versus nat gas. >> and it is. and it's certainly a zero, you know, i would never underestimate the ability, very smart guys in private equity to figure out different levers to pull to avoid bankruptcy, but it's impacted so severely by this incredible decrease in natural gas prices we've seen. >> at the same time we've got oil prices moving lower this morning on the report that france is actively in talks to try and persuade the international energy agency for a strategic reserve release. and at the same time fuller saying in china overnight that fed easing will -- may exacerbate, not actually will, but may exacerbate high oil prices already because, of course, lower interest rates, lower dollar, higher commodity prices, higher oil prices. >> but the lead story in the middle section of "the new york times" front page, barack and

netanyahu, they've been in opposition at a lot of different issues and suddenly they are coming together, it's time to strike iran. when i read that, i think hoarding, i think they can dump all the sprs they want and yet if i believe that these two guys who are very powerful are getting together to avoid another holocaust, then i do not want to be short oil. >> jack welch this morning was speaking out about the economy and gas prices, on "squawk box" the former general electric ceo said the recovery is losing some of its momentum from last year and businesses are noticing the difference. >> the thing that surprised me was that fourth quarter takeoff didn't go into the first quarter on the short cycle of the businesses and there is a -- gasoline prices, you can't have this jump and not think it affects the pocketbook. >> and that's essentially what you're saying. >> yes. >> we're not seeing it -- >> we haven't seen it recently. >> we haven't seen it in places

we typically would. are we going to? >> i had a guest on last night who has 50% of the tie and shirt business and, no, acceleration since the year began, acceleration month to month. what he said was this is the $40 to $70 price business and that has not been hurt by gasoline. at the same time the family dollars of the world, i don't know, some are saying inventories are too high, that's not a well-run company, dollar general is a better run company. >> there's the take that the percentage of consumers' income going to energy has come down and fill lebeau talks about the fuel efficiency of the cars, and that's one of the reason that the sales have held up in the fails of higher gas prices. >> good point. we have a note out this morning bank of america and merrill lynch saying the opposite of what jack welch is saying, talking about the industrial renaissance, recommending the rails.

why? the rails that go to mexico, union pacific and ksu, why? because mexico is the cheapest place in the world to build things and china has started to price themselves out. you have a north american renaissance. let's just face it, the split data is just so powerful that i understand why people would be confused that the s&p is as high as it is. >> true enough. speaking of oil and in this case jet fuel, jetblue passengers have a story to tell, several there to tackle the captain after he came out of the cockpit and started screaming about al qaeda and afghanistan, the copilot made the emergency landing in texas where the captain was taken off the plane and we understand still hospitalized as of today. the ceo of jetblue dave barger was on the "today" show earlier this morning. >> we had a medical situation and that's how we responded. clearly especially in today's media is real time, mat, so we know that it also became a security situation. i think as we know, less than 24

hours later, it started medical but clearly more than that. >> here's the "daily news," the tabloids in new york all over this, jet ready to die and "the post" with even though the subject is not entirely funny, this is your captain freaking. second time in a few months, jim, where jetblue has had an issue with a crew member. >> one of the most frustrating things for people at home is they go on planes. planes are all packed, okay? this business deeply impacted because margins going bad, and the reputational risk for jetblue, the stock teetering at $5, you can't borrow a stock that goes below $5. i urged people to get away from the airlines. this is a terrible business. it's been a terrible business since lindbergh. >> never earned its cost of capital. although people always talk about a turn, it's finally changing. >> you'd extend that across the board? what about united and continental, i think it's just

united now? i'm still confused. >> the tale of the planes. you are on continental but it's really united, i don't know. >> if oil goes higher, it wouldn't matter. spirit has done -- let's put it this way, if you recommend one, this is the worst neighborhood, so you're recommending, what, a rickety house, a fixer-upper in the best neighborhood. >> for disclosure, you never liked the airlines. >> for disclosure, they've never been any good. >> touche. >> stay away from it, right? >> it's hard to think of another industry that is exposed more to labor, to commodity costs, to safety issues, to consumer issues and then wild cards like this. >> the first stock i ever bought when i was at goldman sachs was for my dad, i bought him amr, it went from $60 to $30. >> you learned your lesson. that was the last airline. >> just a real bad idea! >> jim, you're grounded! in the meantime, let's talk

goldman sachs, senior executives have reportedly talked about splitting the roles of ceo and chairman. reuters said under a restructure president gary cohn could take the ceo role, and lloyd blankfein would only be left with the chairman role. according to "the wall street journal" goldman has agreed to change its structure in a deal with the american federation of state, county, and municipal employees one of the country's largest labor unions. their proposal was seen as having a 50/50 chance of passing and goldman said we better do something about it otherwise lloyd will be out of a job. >> blow after blow for goldman. but greg smith the disgruntled employee who quit in "the new york times" op-ed, but get a new agent. but this is one more black eye, my prediction goldman will have a record quarter and have more customers than ever. >> here we are 2 1/2 weeks past the greg smith bombshell, he's got his book deal, good for him, but nothing changes in terms of

goldman it seems and particularly in terms of the clients and going through a couple of years ago all the reporting we did at the end of the day, everybody is well aware of the conflict. all the different things going on, but they're not willing to say no longer is goldman sachs going to be my bank. >> no shared take. the stock has done remarkably since this period, it's almost as if it's been levitating. i understand there are good trading, and they will raise the price if you are using the prime brokerage, nothing sticks for goldman sachs. >> even though the hits keep coming as you said. one thing that broke yesterday that we weren't able to show, just briefly, this is a look at the parody outlining the muppets' response to the goldman controversy. >> we represent the anti-muppet defamation league and we'd like to lodge a formal complaint about goldman sachs' use of the word muppets in a defensive and derogatory fashion. >> we're not going to take it anymore. >> yeah. >> look, sure we call our

clients muppets and sure we advise them against their own best interests to make us richer, but does that make us bad guys? >> yes. yes, it does! >> potato, potato. if americans didn't want us to get rich, why would they let us trick them into giving us all their money? >> courtesy of "funny or die." karl mclaughlin making a cameo there. your point like the vampire squid line there will always be a dichotomy between how the stock trades and how it's viewed by the general public. >> i worked at goldman in the '80s, i would like to think it was a kindler, gentler goldman to use the terms. but the idea that we could be in an era where the customers are now regarded as the counter party i think is the big fundamental change here. in other words, every customer is also -- and i know that they'll disagree with this. but every customer is regarded as someone you could make money with or against. i think that's a fundamental change in the business. >> it's a change as we said many times as a result of the trading

culture taking over and superceding the banking culture. we've talked many times about this. can we quickly, i want to get to news on express script and medco, one of the larger deals out there. always j some concerns in terms of anti-trust risk there. an ak just out from express says they expect the parties may be in a position to close the transaction as early as next week, april 2nd, subject to satisfaction or waiver of the remaining closure conditions. no assurance that they will be satisfied. both stocks are up this morning, medco and express scripts, a big deal that people are focused on given the concern with at&t and t-mobile, and a number of others, but express scripts up sharply. >> i thought there were state attorney general actionve objections. did they get glossed over? >> yes, they've perhaps gotten what they were looking for but there's never really been a key question here along the way while many have been concerned as to whether this thing would close and now we've got the

latest -- >> the numbers came out and they were really extraordinary because they have decided to not play ball with express scripts, they lost 85% of the express scripts' business. express scripts' business, that translates into $893 million in revenues. they came out and said the medco relationship could be very strong. obviously april 2nd we have a merger, medco is express scripts and maybe that's a back door for a peace pipe. >> and a lot of people have been playing it for some time and there's so few deals out there to play but it's been one that at least has garnered returns. before we go, some new fallout from the glitch that forced b.a.t.s. to scrap its ipo, the exchange board voted to remove joe ratiman while expressing support to stay on as ceo. i wonder if you guys saw this playing out the way it has?

>> i asked him, you know, would he be -- and i guess they made some decision here. i don't know what your thoughts are. >> that's right. just for people at home, a chairman is often a ceremonial position. you're not on any key committees when you're chairman. you don't fix any of the -- the audit, the compensation, the nominating. it's a nice role that often gives you money, but if you replace him as ceo and kept him as chairman, this is a story. this is ross. this is petina, this is just a sop. >> it doesn't change anything at the end of the day. he's in charge of the business that fails to debut their own shares properly. >> i wonder why he didn't get fired in that case? >> pictures of people in -- >> i guess so. >> a senator geary could probably tell us that from "godfather two" what it takes to make a deal. when we come back this morning, high-end retail doubleheader. we'll talk live with saks ceo

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welcome back to "squawk on the street." this morning's durable goods numbers from february weren't bad. they didn't match up to expectations necessarily. revisions improved but were still negative. but the aftermath is fascinating, because the s&ps were up three points and the futures are now down half a point. as you look at the charts, we see that interest rates on the tens came back down a little bit towards settlement and if you look at what happened in the dollar index it definitely popped up a bit. those two charts keep them in your mind because those could give you a key for the rest of the day. and, of course, the day certainly isn't over. 1:00 eastern, $35 billion five years and as the op-ed in "the journal" said, you know, in 2011 the fed's programs bought about 60% of what the treasury issued. that is a large number and we'll see if the investors continue to pony up the way they have for that last auction, the two year, which was a solid one. back to you. >> all right, rick santelli,

thank you. a pilot's knockdown on the jetblue flight is the latest high profile dilemma for the discount carrier. we want to hear from you, tweet us, we'll look at your responses throughout the morning. certainly a lot of creative messages should be coming. and coming up later, "m"mad dash" is coming up next, and slightly disappointing durable goods data clouding futures, the s&p looking to lose 1 1/2 points but the dow and nasdaq look to be up on the open.

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♪ six minutes to the bell this morning. time for cramer's "mad dash." a bunch of interesting things to watch including a call that came out yesterday on google which has not kept pace necessarily with some of its key rivals. >> they are talking about raising the price target to a big level, when you get the calls 680 goes to 750, obviously, carl, we're talking about up here. this stock has lagged so badly, people used to trade apple and google together, apple coming up at an all-time high. business has been pretty good. >> based on the channel checking, i believe? >> remember, google has the huge market share. all we hear about is yahoo! not doing that well, boy, if they could ever reach some sort of deal in china, we'd have a $1,000 stock. >> i keep seeing signs for

annie's where the stock will open. the price above the range, $19 versus $16. >> we talked to david about m & a not being active, we had the et closing higher, with the indianapolis coming. annie's starts at 14 to 16 to the range and goes to 16 and 18 and credit suisse and jpmorgan, and now 19 and i think it will open. this is hain, by the way, if it opens at 19, it's very undervalued versus its actual. i mean, we got a whole foods play, we got a hain play, cheese, mac and cheese, snacks, crackers. how do you have healthy mac and cheese? isn't that a conundrum? i mean, could you get away with giving it to your kid saying this is really healthy? >> if they come close, then i'm a taker. >> right. >> i'm all in. >> right. >> we'll watch how that does today, it will be fun to watch. goldman in the meantime calls gold three-month target, $17.85, says compelling as a short-term

trade but not necessarily as an investment. >> i get the calls from people at home and scratching your head and saying how do you relate it to stocks it's obviously a commodity trade. what are we going to do to trade gold for every little penny? they like oil, west texas intermediate, they think nat gas may be bottoming. they don't like ag, i would call the opposite on this. i like agriculture, why? because it's the feed the world play. gold is such a short-term call, i don't know if you can do it. it's a professionals-only call. they ought to do it like tobacco. >> do not try this at home. >> do not try this at home, exact exactly, carl. a lot more after the break, in the meantime melissa? >> i'm standing by at the post here and it's indicated to open between 26 and 28 bucks a share, priced above the range at $19. and looking at the big open on annie's, and cera looking to go public, we'll be talking to the

ceo later on this half hour. big, big, "squawk on the street" straight ahead, including the opening bell. stick around.

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here we have it, as we await the opening bell this morning at the new york stock exchange, cera to do the honors here. there we have it. there we go. look at the s&p real time exchange on the big board, and vocera celebrating its ipo, we'll speak to the ceo in a first on cnbc interview. and digital air traffic control, and right at the open we've got apple trading at $16.81 which is a fresh record high on this juggernaut of a tech stock. i mean, it is amazing how many times you can say apple is at a new record high. >> you want to be a fund manager that doesn't own apple? i mean, this is a stock that everybody in the world knows and you don't own it? the first thing i would do is i would fire my money manager if he doesn't own apple because it's such an easy call. >> part of the run in the last trading week of the quarter, part window dressing. the fund managers that don't own apple don't want to be on the books as not owning apple. >> i find it as so absurd.

oh, now my fund owners will look at what i own, oh, he owned apple even though he underperformed. why would that matter? >> i ran a hedge fund and people would say, let's say you didn't beat the averages, okay? let's say the first thing they'll say is did you not have apple? it's a way to -- >> this time around they'll say it about so many stocks. didn't you own ibm? didn't you own apple? didn't you own the financials? didn't you own microsoft? >> and they're going to do it and that's the way the business works. >> and here we have it. >> it's a very odd thing. >> it is. >> i'm not a believer, completely. >> but i guess they do it. >> you know? >> of course, they do it. of course, they do it. >> all i look at is the number. >> it's what goes on. i mean, look, it's a mechanical business. in the end you have to write a performance letter. in the end if the letter says that you didn't beat the s&p, then you're less sophisticated investors will say i know why you didn't, you didn't own

apple, did you? it's eamesi ieasier to say i ow apple. >> on the 31st. >> i owned apple and it helped my performance. it's like pulling the wool over investors' eyes. don't fall for it. look at the numbers. let's take a look at the stocks we've been talking. fpo is one. you made a good point dollar general had announced a secondary the other day. dollar general fell on that, spo is trading on better-than-expected numbers despite the inventory concerns and dollar general a trading lower. >> i thought the inventory seemed like a canard to me and it looked like it was driving the stock down. in some cases it's okay to have a little more inventory. i think the dollar general secondary will go well. >> the inventory is more about consumables which are really great because they are competing against the walmarts and targets of the world that are selling groceries now, this is where people go to buy everything including food.

>> true. it's a terrific manager by the name of winner, dave winner, and he's been adamant for the cgs, he's been adamant, adamant, that because he had dollar store sizes, he's been doing well. this is something that people relate to in the consumer products business. they like that. david, this dollar general, not a bad -- not a bad leveraged buyout, huh? >> a great leveraged buyout, a great one, and a kkr deal, of course, we were talking earlier about the biggest one of all-time that could swamp in terms of the negative returns, but, yes, dollar general a great one. we do believe the secondary, again, is continued selling by the sponsor. >> it's what it seems like. >> a great return and a well-run company to your point. i would love to get in on amolin. bloomberg news, got to cite this, they are the ones reporting it, but they have the

stock up 50%, biotech. they are citing two sources who are said to have told them that amalin rejected a $3.5 billion bid, roughly $25 a share from bristol-myers, this is having the impact of sending the stock above that. >> incredible. >> it's out there. we'll see what develops. but, again, i'm simply repeating for the sake of our audience who perhaps own this stock or wonder why it's up almost 50%, it's bloomberg news reporting that bristol offered $22 but that the board rejected it as too low, may follow-up on that perhaps have more. >> it's a big deal. >> it looks like there's no anticipation that there would be a higher bid potentially to come in. until today, until that report it had not approached the takeover price. >> right. well, nobody knew about this until today at bristol even. this is new news in terms of bristol's actual offer and rejection, so we are only learning about this at this point. >> diabetes, you got diabetes, you have anything for diabetes,

this is the great world epidemic, you are in the sweet spot for someone like bristol that needs growth. i understand why you would do this deal. >> okay. and bristol has been somewhat active at least in terms of exploring deals. we do know that. i know that as well from my own reporting but, again, amalin shares up sharply. want to head over to carl who is with bob pisani this morning here on the floor, carl? >> watching the prices on dnny, bob, this is taking a lot of people by surprise. >> people are staggered in the ipo world. last week this was not on the hot list of anybody. everybody is waiting for millennial media to come out and they'll price big. a lot of demand. a lot of interest. what's on everybody's short list? not annie's foods last week. folks, it was $14 to $16. even into monday. suddenly monday $16 to $18. everybody went what? why? i know, i called people around. demand, bob, people want this

thing. you know, it's well known. whole foods does it. organic is hot. $16 to $18 and last night price is at $19. insidecatio indications are $30 $33. this is cloud computing numbers over here. if this opens at $30, i'll eat my mobile advertising platform, really! this is a remarkable open. i wish the ceo and the families were here because they would be looking at gone smab smacked he. they are profitable, and as i mentioned yesterday whole foods is really the key here. not that they sell annie's pro products, that's not the point, they made it possible that you can make good money, profits selling organic priced foods and there's a lot of room for growth for the company. congratulations. meanwhile, vocera is here as well, they make mobile communications for hospitals, they also had a very nice ipo, but the big one, actually the

second biggest one is going to be millennial media and we'll keep an eye on them. notice what is happening, a flat open and s&p futures dropped notably once we got the durable goods numbers. we had a 100% depreciation tax expiring on january 1st and as a result durable goods numbers were down in january rather notably, everybody said here's the test for the economy, it will come back a little stronger. it did come back but less than expected. here's the problem. you are in the tepid economy growth. we were saying earlier what side of global growth pru on? are you on the 2% or 3% or 2% and sub-2% growth side in the u.s.? unfortunately these kinds of numbers support at best 2% kind of gdp, tepid, so it doesn't help the bulls arguing you'll be wrong. maybe we'll get an acceleration of gdp later in the year but right now the bulls don't have a lot of argument in the short term with these kind of numbers

that's why we're getting the drop in the dow. i wanted to mention china. >> the biggest one-day drop since september. >> 2.7% drop in the shanghai, that's a lot. and the shanghai index has been a horrible, horrible performer for a long, long time. society socie societe general had a report, and the stock market dropped and the australian dollar which is a proxy and had a horrible month is also down. here's the problem today, remember, that global growth story, what side are you on? are you on 8% china gdp or below, mild recession in europe or more severe recession? these things matter. the little data points, it shifts people's perceptions on where you are. right now the data so far is still coming in very tepid and china is a bit disappointing.

>> brings up jim's point about the data being mixed, still 30 to 33 but if it changes -- >> still 30 to 33. 200,000, and looking closer to 33 right now. but these are changing. the orders are still coming in. as i'm standing here, they are taking orders in not just for people standing here with big orders to buy and sell but orders from trading desks the people who are taking it public i should say more accurately are getting orders and they're communicating with them by phone about the size of the buy and sell orders that's why this thing is moving. it's very, very fluid. i look close to the 33 than 30 at this point. >> all right, bob, jim over to you. >> incredible. you are looking at the s-1, a 2010, you got 50 cents in 2011 earnings power i'm speaking about annie's, obviously you went from being a discount to hain being a massive premium. 80% of the selling is by insiders. i know you are excited at home, but being careful. you are buying an expensive

stock rather than a cheap stock. let's check in with chicago. >> every futures contract, remember you have different settlement for cash and futures, but generically the dollar doing better against the major currencies. it's doing well against the pound and the aussie dollar. if you look at the dollar index, very euro centric, it's up but not a huge amount. interest rates fascinating. if you look at all the major, what was perceived and still is, but maybe not to the same extent. safe harbor trades, the yields or the treasuries, they are all showing you basically 20 basis points drops in yield. you had a 207 high yield and the boons are 187, five basis points from the high yields today. you look at the 2010, same thing, roughly 240 was the high yield. yesterday settlement at 218 which places up two basis points was the lowest yield close since the 13. the fed meeting it's amazing how little the last week or so of

data whether it was housing has played into treasuries. seems as though it was just overextended on the selloff which was reallycatalyst. it was the fed statement. back to david faber. >> mr. santelli, thanks very much, rick santelli there. i want to bring the viewers up to date on the larger mergers, having a positive impact on the shares of tent air, i'm talking about flow control. yeah, i know, we don't often talk about flow control, but i'm sure jim cramer knows a lot more, the deal itself can explain it to you this way, you may recall that tyco is splitting itself up something that was announced last september. that will conclude this coming september. at the same time that that flow control business is separated out, it will immediately be merged into a new company combined with pent air in which tyco shareholders will own roughly 52% and pent air shareholders will own 48%, the new company to be called new

pent air essentially, but the combination will have a lot of positive impacts for pent air. we're salking synergies of a significant amount. they are talking earnings per share of greater than $5 by 2015 reflected the expected $200 million pretax sinnergies through the elimination of duplicative costs and further streamlined operations and tax efficiencies, you know, jim, people forget tyco is incorporated in switzerland. and has about a 10% less tax rate than it would in the u.s. pent air is going to become -- new pent air will become a swiss incorporated company, therefore, it will also benefit from the lower tax rate. and, again, given the accretion, apparently they've been talking for a couple of months. it values tyco's flow control bils business at roughly $5 billion, including some debt it will be taking on for tyco. a good deal for pent air, it

would appear, we'll talk to the ceo and not a bad deal for tyco. >> they are not reacting. >> i was just looking at that. >> it should be going up. >> taking a look at amalin going up six, their partner is up a dollar. i would think the flow is analogous, and emerson is a big flow control company, but emerson has been earnings challenged of late. 3% yield, and it's a good situation. >> 13 forward earnings as a multiple on flow serve and it's up 19% this year, not a bad performance. >> one reason the deal can happen is because of the approximate sizes of the companies and the similarity in sizes and you can get the deal tax free to tyco shareholders and for a lot of the other units being spun out that will conclude in september they are not companies of commensurate size where you could do a deal like this. if you are a tyco shareholder and it benefits from the syne y synergies from higher growth prospects but that remains to be

seen. >> who are the bankers? >> who the are the bankers? >> goldman? >> they are on one side. i can give uf the full rundown if you like. >> someone is making some money here. >> goldman's competitors taking issue with our assertions earlier about lack of loss of market share. i won't name names, but it is interesting to note and i have some of the numbers to prove it that, in fact, goldman has lost some market share when it comes to advisory, equity, debt underwriting not to mention asset management competitors have argued it has failed to build a substantial business. >> didn't they both say please don't take advantage of these firms. don't take advantage of greg smith's op-ed piece, the muppets. i'm sure the graphs would say this isn't right! >> we really have to go i'm told in my ear. >> exactly. in the meantime on the jetblue story tell us what you think their new slogan should be in light of the carrier's latest drama, the pilot meltdown on

board. the twitter question today you can tweet us at cnbc. we'll get your answers coming up. this morning's early movers. a lot of familiar names. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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all this week we are honoring our veterans with a special initiative hiring our heroes, we've teamed up with the chamber of commerce to find ways to get the vets back to work. brian sullivan is on the "uss intrepid" with a massive job fair with employers ready to hire veterans, many who are just returning. >> reporter: below deck on the "uss intrepid" we have thousands of men and women out here for the jobs fair. it's with the nbc news family and cnbc and it's about getting our men and women veterans back to work. the unemployment rate among young veterans in particular is double that of the civilian population and the companies below us are trying to remedy that all day here on cnbc.

we're going to be downstairs. we're going to be speaking to the men and women looking for jobs. we'll be speaking to special guests in the corporate world who are looking to hire the veterans who are well trained and on time and eager to work. it's a great scene below us. we'll bring it to you. in fact, coming up in about an hour, it's a great honor. we'll be speaking to dakota meyer, he's a medal of honor winner. we'll chat with him and talk about his experiences and what his friends are doing, can they get jobs, he's a great guy. and we'll have special guests, includie ing jamie dimon, it wi be a huge day on the "uss intrepid" beautiful sunshine and a lot of people looking for work and a lot of smiles all around, and jamie dimon, on "street signs" my grandfather was under patton, and happy to be here it's a great day all along. >> great initiative, look forward to it, brian, look forward to it. much more ahead on "squawk on

the street," we're still awaiting the opening trade on annie's, the ipo on the stock exchange and vocera and we'll be speaking with the ceo of vocera in a few minutes so stay tuned. coming up, we've reached hump day and now we just have one more break to go before six stocks in 60 seconds. it won't be long now. "squawk on the street" will be right back. choose control.

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welcome back, bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange with the surprise ipo of the year, i know that's a little flamboyant, but it's justified, annie's opens at $31.11, why was i astonished because on friday the price talk was 14 to 16, and suddenly on monday night the price talk is 16 to 18 and tuesday night its price is at $19 and opens at $31.11. like i said, this is cloud computing-type numbers. why the big open? organic foods are hot, hot, hotter than a lot of people thought, and 5 million shares quoted. you are getting a very small quote here. insiders own this stock at $5.27, opens at $31. >> then again, we do have pro forma numbers, i think that's the ones people are buying off

of and it's a buck 29 which makes this stock -- what the heck was this doing at 14 to 16? why were they playing that game, that dot-com like and that was unrealistic and this stock is off to the races, it's not that expensive on on pro forma. >> pro forma being what they'll do this year. >> what are we comparing it to -- >> you want to use hain, it sells at 21 times earnings and suddenly you are thinking not that expensive. >> not that expensive compared to hain and arguably a better distribution. >> a little too much excitement, but then again, excitement is what we chronicle down here and people are excited about natural foods. >> exactly. let's head over to carl who has the bell ringer. >> we've got a two-fer, we have bob zollars, from vocera communications, price range was expected at 12 to 14, the price is at 16, just had a 1.2 bid at

24, congratulations, bob. good to see you. >> appreciate it. >> talk about today and what it's like and also the fact that you are part of a two-fer at the exchange. >> it's been a great road show. we've got a great company. we are deployed in 800 hospitals and we're helping them communicate and we're helping to save step and time and lives for the hospital customers, it's been a great experience for us, a milestone on the way and gives us capital to fuel the business. >> revenues show you substantial growth. what is the market like for mobile medical, what are the dynamics like and as we enter the third day of oral arguments in the supreme court and everyone wants to know how the medical field will grow in the weeks and months to come. >> we've had great revenue growth and it's a big market, 6 billion in the health care market and we sell our solution in other verticals like hospitality and so forth. the reform shouldn't have any impact on us. we don't get stimulus money, so if that goes away, it won't hurt

us and the growth opportunities are huge, we've got multiple avenues of growth. >> in terms of technical prowess of the company, talk about the technology behind it, contact manufacturers, that kind of thing. >> yeah, really good. this is the most visible part of our solution is the two-ounce badge and mobile workers tip this button and through speech recognition can communicate with one another throughout the hospital and the net result is they walk two miles less per day and they spend more time with the patient, a great solution. what you don't see behind the badge is the software and that's where the special sauce comes from and the combination makes it a very, very unique voice solution with no direct competitors today. >> all right, no dividend in the near term future. >> no. >> but would that change over time? what does that look like in terms of return to shareholders? >> i think we are focused on growth. we'll do the sales and marketing machine and keep this thing growing and i don't think it will be a dividend paying km when we have so much opportunity to capture the market. >> 24 your favorite number now? >> 24 is good. >> bill zollars longtime

favorite on "squawk box" in the mornings, amazing the two of you running public companies. congratulations to your family. >> no, thank you. bill and i had a chance to tumble with cramer once before, it was a lot of fun. good seeing you guys together. >> bob zollars, guys over to you. time for "6 in 60" 6 stocks in 60 seconds. we kick it off with tractor supply. barclays positive on this one. >> this is the one that is supposed to -- that i think is lagging at this point, home deem poe and lowe's, it's a big selling season and buy the stock. >> annie's is up 67%. the euphoria continues on annie's. iac interactive downgraded at citi. >> it is expensive with the other companies public. >> and this is a stock that is over. >> allergan positive from botox. >> this is something the ceo said could happen this early. this is out of its earnings.

yesterday mac pharmaceutical not so good on migraines. >> and vmwarered at bank of america and merrill lynch. >> this is big data. also recommended, this is cloud. cloud, cloud, cloud. >> and u.s. bancorp. >> i got him on tonight, this is hire veterans and they do the best job at hiring veterans amongst everybody i've seen and so we'll feature. >> all right, vocera, you were talking to them, up 25% so far, annie's up 67%. it's a very big day for ipo, david. >> this has to add some fervor to the market overall. >> i think so. >> when you see the strong ipo performances. we've had a number of times over the past few weeks, certainly any number of sponsors out there that being the leveraged buyout firms that are looking to take public companies some of their companies as well. this helps them. although these are growth stories that the market grabs

ahold of as opposed to the other story that tends to be the delevering story where you are selling stocks to pay down debt, not as exciting and a tougher sell for the guys when it comes to some of the portfolio companies but a good sign for growth getting rewarded. >> annie's, again, on the actual earnings not that expensive when you think whole foods, when you think hain. i mean, this is a trench just like amylin if bristol-myers gets it, diabetes got to stop it, that's type ii, fattening, obesity, a big trend, allergan involved in it, too, it's a tremendous story obesity, and if anybody has something against it including snacks is a winner, pepsi, kraft, coke. >> you should have bought it a long time ago. what's coming up tonight on your show, jim? >> we're going to honor the v veter veterans, that's an important call, we've got to focus on what the country is doing in terms of hiring. bancorp has done a great job.

this is a major initiative by our country that everybody should be focused on. i know our show is deeply foc focused on it. >> see you tonight at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. on "mad money." meet a hedge fund manager on apple that he sees it heading to $60.16 a share. see the time frame. stick around. let's get to the roadmap, tyco's flow control unit with merge with pent air, a provider of fluid processing solutions in an all-stock deal. we'll go straight to the source in a first on cnbc interview, talk to pent air chairman and ceo chairman randall hogan. we'll talk to the ceos of saks and tanger outlets. and hedge funds having a rough year in 2011 but are some of the biggest names in the

industry on the merge of a major comeback, we're breaking down the smart moves next. we go to steve liesman with the result of cnbc's all-america economic survey, steve? >> thanks very much. polled 800 americans and asked them everything about their views on the economy and their views on politics and now we give you their views on investments. very surprising results. we asked americans what's the best investment right now. let's take a look at what they said was not their favorites. treasuries, 8%. and then savings accounts, 14%. they can see stocks 19%. you already know from where i'm going stocks only the third choice. what's the second choice? real estate at 24%. a little drumroll possible here? the favorite investment for americans, gold. 37%. and this was hands down. there was no ambiguity here. in fact, when we looked at every single demographic, which you'll look at right now, some of the demographics here, everyone seems to love gold, even from different sides of the spectrum. if you don't own any stocks, 35%

chose gold as their favorite investment. what if you have 50,000 in the market, 37%. if your income is $100,000 or greater, 42%. that's a problem we'll come back to that in just a minute. if your income is under $30,000, 37%. different sides of the sprek ec all choosing gold as their favorite investment and putting stocks in just the third place. is this a good time to invest in stocks? we ask that question every quarter. let's look at the prior results. back in november, 53% said no. 49% now say yes. okay, the good time, 29%, and then 31% now say a good time. a slight elevation but still pretty negative. in fact, if you look at a net number, take the good time minus bad time, it's still pretty negative, although a little less negative than it was. take a look at the next chart here and what it shows is that -- let's take a look at the groups that hate stocks. people from the south seem to have a preference for not owning

stocks. women much more than men have a negative net number when it comes to being a good time to invest. those with 30,000 or less in income, if you think your home value's going to decline, a net 40% or so, think this is not a good time to invest. and then ples thless than a higl education, again, not huge stock fans. the final chart we want to look at, what the people with 50,000 or more in income say about whether or not it's a good time to invest, these are the people who propel the market. back in march, you can see there, just zoom in right there, nick, 58% said it was a good time to invest. that's march 11. come down again the next one, in june '11, got a little more even as the market turned down, november, where are we now? well, it's better than it was, but i think what is significant it's still under 50%. you can see back in march we had almost -- more than half believed it was a good time to

invest and then compare it with this chart over here the preference with those with 50,000 in the market and with people with incomes greater than $100,000 these are prime stock investors choosing gold as their number one investment. so, guys, my read here is, you know, this may not be an indicator whether or not the market will go up or down but i think it's an indicator of a problem of a perception the stock market has, certainly relative to gold and i think also by itself when it comes to those with money and those with money in the market. guys? >> i think it's a huge issue. i think it's huge. this is an all-america survey. this isn't people that are just investing in the stock market, this is the entire population and across that population gold is their most favored investment. it's huge. it's generational. >> especially when we think of the rally in stocks and the subset that own stocks, you see money flowing out of stocks. >> especially when you have goldman reiterating that perhaps gold is a compelling trade at the moment but it's not a long-term investment even

goldman does not think gold is a long-term investment. >> no. when we have suffered the market break in the 2008-2009 period, there were those of us who said it's been over ten years since the s&p has done anything and we lost a generation and people disagreed about that as they should, but it does appear that perhaps we did lose a generation, isn't it? >> i make just one point which is there's a lot of marketing going on about gold. >> true. >> it's not hard to turn to any television station or radio station and people are out there saying gold is a good investment. nobody's doing that for stocks right now and stocks on its own if you look at the news flow it's not one that is friendly to retail investors. >> there's also a political element, isn't there? people like ron paul who will tell you that actually the fed is out of control. >> great point. >> printing money so fast, we don't know what we're doing. the bulk of the population's perception may not make you money except for the next 12 months. >> all right, steve, thanks so much. steve will have more of his

all-america survey on "power lunch." nokia said they will begin selling window lumnia smartphone, they are looking to recover from a plunge in market shares against apple and samsung is initially selling the devices through china telecom. and the house yesterday voted in favor of legislation that will ease a variety of business regulations, most importantly for initial public offerings. it's the first major pullback in securities law since dodd/frank was passed. president obama has signaled he'll sign the bill as well. a group that includes former lakers star magic johnson and stan kaston agreed to buy the los angeles dodgers from frank mccourt for a record $2 billion. the dodgers said mccourt and certain affiliates of the purchasers would acquire the land surrounding dodgers stadium including the parking lots for $150 million. we know what kind of cash flow comes from the parking lots but

for a team or a city that's been through a lot having magic's name attached to the dodgers after all this time, david, might be a big sigh of relief. >> it may be. of course, the regional sports network and what they can do there. but the number is unbelievable. you had another group come in, these guys knocked it out of the park to use a baseball analogy that they just stopped the auction. it's almost twice what's been paid for any other sports franchise. more than twice what was paid for the chicago cubs a few years ago. the number is staggering, carl, and by the way, this was a bankruptcy, but one in which if you had bought the equity, you'd have a huge return, frank mccourt is going to make an enormous amount of money once they take this $2 billion, pay down the debt, he'll have a lot less, perhaps as much as $700 million. >> he'll make $130 million payment to hils wis wife in the coming days. you would have thought he was a kistre

distressed seller, but not so distressed. >> the number is far and away what people thought it would have done before the auction started. >> nothing puts butts in seats more than winning. all right, pentair is combining its operations with tyco's flow control business. it's an all-stock deal, a morris trust not to get too technical, worth about 4.5 billion in tyco before the assumption in debt. the company unites two of the biggest players in water and fluid products systems. randy hogan joins us now for a first on cnbc interview. mr. hogan, thanks for beefing with us. why are you doing this deal? >> thank you for having me, david. we're doing the deal because it's an incredibly complementary combination with their strength in flow control and ours in water and fluid processing and importantly their thermal management business together with our technical products business. we're creating a new leader in this space, one that is

profitable and creates value from the get-go and has even more opportunity to create value in the near term beyond that. >> well, when you say the opportunity to create even more value, what are you talking about specifically? >> well, as you know, tyco is in the process of splitting up into three companies and one of the companies is the flow control business. so, they were in the process of spinning. the flow control business and they had to put in the cost structure of beefi inbeing a pu company. we immediately through this combination leveraged our public company costs and eliminate the need to put any of that cost in. plus because of the reverse morris trust structure actually tyco is -- tyco shareholders are the majority owner and as a result we ended up with a better capital and tax structure that's also an immediate benefit. >> you will be a swiss-based company, aren't you? a much larger company and one that's incorporated in switzerland helping taxes. any concerns at all from your part in running a company that's twice the size of the current one you run? >> i don't know if jack mentioned it, but i'm an old ge

guy and i'm used to big things. >> i remember your name, of course. >> we have a lot of experience on our team. it's well seasoned. it's a team built out of folks with experience in honeywell and allied signal and a lot of other large companies. and we're combining the best, so a lot of the tyco people are coming over and it's going to be a great combination. plus they are businesses we understand. they are businesses that fit together well. so, we're quite excited. >> and i heard some chatter this morning that there had been perhaps a higher multiple according to your stock because of perceived growth in the residential particularly rental area where i know you're selling some of your product. that will become a smaller component of the overall. "a," is that true, and, "b," if it is, will you see perhaps less growth and therefore a lower multiple for the combined company? >> we think we're going to see higher growth. in our water business, residential was the single largest segment, but as you know residential's has been a brutal

marketplace. we're performing well, despite the fact that 30% of our sales were residential performed very, very well express our peers. tyco flow is hitting a nice point in the cycle, they are a later cycle business, they have a bigger exposure to energy and water. our strategy has been to position ourselves to win in what we call the new new world, the 4 billion middle-class people who are reaching up and striving for a better quality of life, more water, more energy, more food. and this really accelerates our position to serve those needs and really makes us number one to do it. >> mr. hogan, there are many people in america striving for a better way of life and the last thing that they need at the moment is for guys like you to be incorporating in switzerland. if there was one thing that the administration could do to prevent that, what would it be? >> well, i think that was simon, we're not doing -- we're not doing this to incorporate in switzerland. it's the structure of, you know, tyco is the majority, they are there already. our corporate offices is still in minnesota, i live in minnesota, i expect that we'll

be employing more. this isn't -- this isn't a planned consolidation effort. this is for a growth effort. so, you know, i certainly think u.s. tax policy is a disadvantage to u.s. companies but that's not the reason we're doing this. we're doing this for the strategic benefits of the combination, building the scale and the reach particularly in fast growth markets. >> mr. hogan, appreciate your time. well done on the deal at least. your shareholders seem to be happy this morning with the stock up over 17%. >> thank you. >> randy hogan ceo of pentair and the soon-to-be pentair. first up, we'll hit the high-end consumer with the man behind the retailer who carries vuitton and gucci and many more, steve sadove will join us next. and we'll switch away from saks to take the pulse of the retail industry with tanger outlet with ceo steve tanger will join us on "squawk on the street." [ male announcer ] if you believe the mayan calendar,

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there's a look at amylin. up 635 to 2174. interesting day around the market as the dow hangs on to a two-point gain. it was all about the ipo and not the broader market or the

durables. >> absolutely. we had a much stronger-than-expected demand for annie's, which was 14 or 16 bucks which priced above the range at $19 and went public at $31 and change, and no one saw it coming, a big maker of organic food. >> and some people thought they should have gotten out in the first quarter. >> the window for ipos has been wide open and you see this kind of performance, others will follow, there's certainly no shortage i would expect of other potential underwritings in terms of initial public offerings. >> a lot of companies asking how can we make macaroni and cheese. >> and bunnies. and in bunny shapes. >> a new-tech thing. >> make mac and cheese and we'll make billions of dollars. >> this is america. despite surging gas prices many retailers are heading up especially on the high end, shares of saks up more than 20% this year just beating out the s&p 500, and for a "squawk on the street" exclusive is the company's chairman and ceo steve sadove, he's live at the

consumer conference in manhattan. steve, it's always a pleasure to speak with you. >> good to talk to you. >> in recent meetings you have been pretty adamant about keeping to the goal of 8% even margin, but i'm wondering if the economy is master in this pledge to achieve that goal? >> well, i think the economy is actually supportive right now to achieving that goal. we're feeling reasonably good about the economy, the market at 13.2 is clearly a positive. the higher-end consumers feeling reasonably good about it themselves and, you know, for us to get to that level we need to continue to see top-line growth and we're feeling reasonably good about it right now. >> yeah, some of your initiatives include investing in technology and increasing the penetration of your private label credit cards because a lot of people make a lot of purchases about a third of 2011 sales remain -- >> i'm sorry, you're breaking up. i can't hear you. >> we were talking about the private label credit cards. can you hear me now, steve? steve? >> i'm sorry, you know, we're not getting any sound. >> okay, we'll try and figure out the technical difficulties

that the we have with steve sadove of saks, the ceo of saks. in the meantime -- >> the other interesting thing, did you see that citigroup is calling this stock on 20% higher on the aspect that they'll be better able to tap tourism. >> there was actually a hearing yesterday about the very topic about speeding up visas so foreign tourists can come here and shop and because for saks it's a big issue because a fifth of the sales come from the new york flagship shore. >> it's controversial for security reasons and immigration issues. >> of course. that will be an issue that we talk to about with steve once we get him, so in the meantime -- >> right. >> exactly. we'll take a quick break. meantime, hedge funds having a rough year in 2011 but are some of the top names in the game on the path for a big comeback, we'll name the names of some of the biggest guys in the industry next.

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we're back with saks ceo steve sadove for more. steve, apologies for the technical difficulty, but i was asking you a question about the private label credit card, about 36% of total sales in 2011, private label credit cardholders

tend to purchase more at saks, i am wondering what you plan for in terms of trying to increase the penetration and spending by that segment. >> you know, our private label credit card is one of the most important aspects of our business, the loyal shopper and high-end shopper participates in the program and they get rewards, a check at the end of the year, it's very valuable, what we're doing more in the way is targeted promotions against the customer base, the diamond, the platinum customers, making sure they have personalized amenities, making sure they understand the value of that card and sometimes we're offering a differential in terms of more reward benefits for people that use the card versus nonusers. we think it's an important opportunity. it has seen an erosion over time. largely as you went into the credit crunch we saw a decrease in our penetration, a lot of it done by the credit scoring, done by the credit standards in terms of the credit availability, that's reversed, so we're now seeing much higher approval rates and we see it as a big opportunity. >> yesterday the senate held a

hearing about the bipartisanship proposal to boost essentially shopping visas, international travel, speeding up the visa process so that more foreign tourists can come to the united states. jpmorgan was out with a note yesterday saying you would be the number one beneficiary of this. have you done any modeling to give investors any sort of idea of what a boost that this might mean to you? >> you know, we haven't factored it into the projections we've given the street. we know it's a substantial opportunity. if you go to paris today, it's 30% or 40% of the sales, it's big numbers. i don't think you'll see quite the same impact in the u.s., but it's large. i think it will take time. you are starting to see the executive orders that president obama issued implemented. you've got to staff the consulate and improve the technology, but the reality is the chinese customer and it's the brazilian customer as well wants to come to the u.s. they want to shop luxury brands. the pradas, the guccis, chanels,

the louis vuitton's, those are the brands we offer and it's a great opportunity. we're not going to forecost and say it's "x" percentage points because it takes time to materialize. in florida where we've seen an influx of the brazilian tourist, it's had a big impact on the stores. >> as you see the cash flow moving forward, what will you priorityize the money with, i know there are share buybacks, there's also talk about the debt service pile at the moment. what would need to come first in your view? >> well, we feel terrific about where the balance sheet sits today. we're sitting on a $120 million convertible debt offering that will be due next year. it's deep in the money. it will likely become equity. we have a $230 million debt that's callable for 2024. it's relatively inexpensive debt, so we clearly can play with that. and we've been buying shares

back, so we'll continue to look at share repurchases. we feel very, very good about our investment opportunities. we're ramping up some of our capital spending. it went from 65 to this year $110 million to $120 million. we'll be flexible. first we'll invest in businesses where we think there's opportunity and we still think there's a lot of growth opportunity in the business and where appropriate we'll continue to improve the balance sheet. we feel very good about where our debt situation sits today. >> how about a dividend, steve, in addition to a share buyback or instead of? >> you know, we'll look at dividends. we'll look at share buybacks. we've done all of them. we gave onetime dividends when we sold off some of our assets. i don't want to prioritize one versus the other. right now we're focusing on the convertible and we're also focusing on some of the share buy ba buybacks. and we'll see about dividend over time. >> steve, pleasure to speak with you, steve sadove, from saks. hedge fund money managers

are finding a new life in 2012 after having a rough time in 2011. kate kielty joins us with some information on this. >> some of the funds that got beaten up in 2011 have come roaring back so far alongside the s&p which is up 4%. the comeback kids include the fair home fund, kingdom capital and maverick fund and lansdowne capital, and those turn-arounds followed double-digit percentage losses for all the money managers last year. as low as 32% down in the case of fairholme's mutual fund. the success is shared. apple which is up more than 50% is a top holding for mav vic and kingdon, and jpmorgan is up nearly 40%. other common winners include citigroup and the biotech

company mediovation, which is like i said, of course, like i said having a floating stock market floats all boats. so, these funds have had an extra boost, but at the same time one could say, you know, it's too bad that these guys can't perform better when the equity market is down. what's up with the long short funds that can't zig when others are zagging. >> exactly. you want to generate the outsize returns above that of the overall market in which case berkowitz is doing it this year, but it was terrible last year, he saw outlflows last year. >> he's to be patted on the back because he'd had conviction about certain names that have finally performed well, thinking of b of a and st. joe, aig might be another one, he's taken licks in the past but at the moment it's serving him well. >> one name i didn't see on there is mr. paulson. you followed it closely. in fact, you had an interesting story yesterday about him paying

his performance fee for his people out of his own pocket because they're not going to hit their high water mark, getting back to even with the investors. what is going on with paulson? >> paulson this year, it depends on the fund that you are looking at, i think they are all in the black at least a bit. i'm not sure where advantage plus which, of course, was the big loser last year, down 53%, but i do think it's in the black. so, you know, it's going to be quite a while before he gets back to the high water mark as you know, he has to do better than 100% up from where they were in order to make back that performance fee, but, yeah, as you mentioned, he's going to be paying bonuses for some employees out of his pocket. this year he basically told people january 1st pretend we're starting from zero,f yre in the black this year, you'll get a bonus. he'll have to do that. he just lost his banking analyst and he lost a marketing person and those aren't a lot of numbers but they could change. >> are you able to give us color on the agonizing that goes on in holding apple stock which is, of

course, up 52% so far this year, some went in, some didn't go in. is that something people are talking to you about? >> i haven't heard a lot about apple other than the general bullishness that we're all hearing, but it seems to be a pretty widely held holding, the one thing that was consistent among the holdings was jpmorgan and i saw a lot of bank stocks in the top 10 or 20 investments of these players. apple is one that they seem to favor, but i haven't heard a lot about it. >> rally internationals has been quite something among the first three months of this year. as always, thank you. >> thank you. let's head down to sharon emerson at the nymex, there's a big pullback in crude as there is the talk of the release of the strategic reserves is in the market, sharon. >> that's the focus of the market in the minute that we wait for the data to come out from the energy department. the fact that france is saying, the u.s. spearheaded this, wants to release oil from the strategic reserve, that is something that caused an immediate selloff in crude oil

by 2 but add to that the api data showed a much bigger-than-expected build in crude supplies, sew it will be interesting to see in a moment's time whether we confirm that build and whether we continue to see crude supplies increase in curbing, oklahoma, the key delivery point for nymex crude ahead of the reversal of the pipeline. right now we are looking at a huge increase in crude supplies. much bigger than expected. double what the api reported, the increase in crude supplies of 7.1 million barrels, definitely taking this market by surprise and we'll probably get to 104.50 on the wti contract. gasoline is down 3 1/2 million barrels, and diesel fuels down by 700,000, but the build includes supplies of 7.1 million barrels, that's definitely something the market was not expecting. back to you. >> sharon emerspperson, thank y. the dollar is down, as traders continue to see the signs that fed dovishness will continue and

easing could be around the corner. what will it meanwhile for the dollar's next move? and time for the money in motion trade. hey, andy. >> hey, melissa. >> the fed comments put a ceiling on the dollar. >> yeah, it did, and we saw the euro rise, but it's risen really primarily against the euro and against sterling and not against the aussie and the kiwi, other currencies, brazil for instance, what we'll try and do is play that. >> so, you're saying that the euro/u.s. dollar, but you expect that to be range bound from -- at least for the short term. >> right, exactly. so, i mean, let's just keep it simple, stupid, 130 to 135, we really want to trade that, the trade i have out there is to sell at 135-40, maybe a pop just quickly above 135, you want to take it back around 132.50, and stop loss at 136.40 but you could put the trade on at 133 to

sell it there and a 100-point stop and look to take it back at 130currencies are all about adjustment. >> the february highs were 134.85 and they haven't been at 135 for quite some time. why that level? >> again, a lot of times you get false breaking of moves and that's what i was trying to play with, with the wider band on that, that's obviously 240 points above where we're at right now. currencies are always about adjustments if you are aggressive you want to sell at the upper end of the range where it's at right now. you can do it right now. if you want to wait and be more cautious and get a pop to the market and sell that, you can use my original strategy. >> andy, good to see you. and we'll see you friday. friday being money in motion currency trade. if you want more education about currency, check out kurncurrenc class, check out money in motion

at cnbc.com. 10:32 on wall street, organic food company annie's jumping more than 70% above its $19 ipo price, vocera communications is up 35%, the company makes mobile communications systems geared toward hospitals. apple, starbucks and ibm hitting new all-time highs, and arch coal and peabodiering y hittingk lows, after the epa announced new standards for emissions at power plants. the energy stocks are lower with the fall that we've had, of course, in the price of oil. we'll go back to that momentarily to talk about it. materials are also lower. tech is doing reasonably well. you see the moderate outperformance. and the bernanke bounce that we witnessed so strongly on monday has dissipated now from world markets. you see it everywhere you look. and, of course, shanghai had a particularly poor performance overnight. and evenly balance at the nyse,

and let's have a look where we are at the nasdaq, outperformance on the declining side so far. as we attempt to work out exactly where this market is going to go, let's head over to chicago for more information on how people are trading at the moment. scott nations is a cnbc options action contributor, and chief investment officer of nation shares, he joins us from the cme. what can you tell us? where do you think the market will go from here, scott? >> i think this is what a rally looks like, simon. the s&p is off a little bit today, but that's about what we would expect given the durable goods news. it was off a little bit yesterday on bad news, but, you know, we took advantage of great news on monday. we're shaking off bad news, i think that the market is still headed higher. oil is certainly going to help, to the degree that people feel better about putting less money in their gas tank it will help consumer confidence and consumer spending particularly in the names that really need it, the lower half of the branding

scale, you know, costco's doing well, coach doing well. but walmart not doing particularly well. mcdonald's not doing particularly well. to the degree that gas gets cheaper, those names will tag along. >> what about the steepness of the vix futures curve at the moment? clearly the indication is that people don't expect that we're going to have a blow-off on the markets now, but is there an anticipation perhaps that two or three months out we might do? >> simon, that's a great question, because historically the steepness of the vix term structure has really told you something, and when it got really steep, that is, when long data vix futures got really expensive, that was just a recipe for disaster, but unfortunately and we've talked about this on the network, the vix-based etns have completely distorted the information that we get from that kind of term structure and it just doesn't mean what it used to. what it means is the vix-based etns don't do what they were supposed to and is perverting

the structure. >> we've got the america survey, it goes right the way across american society and it indicates that gold is actually people's preferred investment at the moment even those that are not normally in the stock market. goldman, of course, today is reiterating its view that it believes that it is a good trade, gold, maybe you'll get 16% upside so far this year but that it is not a long-term investment in goldman's view. would you agree with that? >> i don't think gold is an investment at all, simon, it's a collectible, essentially. you might say it's a store. but, you know, having a $100 bill is not an investment. it's having a store of wealth in your hand. i am not a gold fan. i don't think it's an investment, it costs money to keep it, to store it, to insure it. if things get bad and i need to buy food and water, ammunition, guns, i don't think people are going to trade me for my hunk of gold. >> if things got really bad, i

reckon a hunk of gold might go easier than a $100 bill. >> it might do better than $100 but if what i need is canned food and bottled water i don't think anybody will get any of those things for gold. this might be one of the situations where investment idea or a product or a commodity makes the front page of the newspaper and that means its time has come and gone. >> let's hope it doesn't come to that, scott. thank you very much. scott nations joining us live there from chicago. >> gosh, i hope not. >> we'll need to buy more leather pouches to carry all the gold coins, right? like robin hood. >> all your possessions in a handkerchief with a stick over your back going round. because things are bad, you know? >> yeah, that would be very bad. meantime, the house financial services panel hearing will give law makers the first opportunity to question a crucial second tier of mf global executives who had operational control over the market trading. and we've got the chairman of the house oversight panel investigating the downfall, and he joins us from washington.

congressman, good morning. >> her name is edith o'brien, assistant treasurer at mf global and according to "the journal" has told justice through her lawyers about transactions that did end up dipping into customer funds although it also says she plans to invoke her right against self-incrimination, what can we get from her, if anything? >> this i mink miss o'brien has a lot to offer in the final days and hours of mf global because it will be the third hearing and what we're trying to ascertain, did we have a regulatory failure for an operational failure that caused farmers and ranchers and investors to lose nearly a billion dollars. >> yeah. for so long the question has been is there a smoking gun, right? we had corzine testify, it appeared, according to his testimony, that there was never an intention to use those funds. do you think, is it your sense, that miss o'brien has possession of that smoking gun but just isn't willing to come forward yet? >> well, i think that's what we'd like to hear from miss o'brien today. we're beginning to piece

together what happened the final days and hours and obviously the house was burning down, a lot of money was being transferred around, and if the money was being transferred out of the segregated accounts into the company accounts, the question is, is at what point in time were the segregated accounts, you know, not in balance? >> if o'brien does take the fifth, who is next? who is your next great hope of finding out information? >> well, i think it depends on, you know, mr. corzine said he wasn't going to testify, miss o'brien the rumor is that she's not going to, but mr. corzine did, so obviously we're waiting to see. but there are other important witnesses that we'll have today, the cfo that was very involved in these last days and hours and we're going to have to see what they have to say as well so we can piece together this puzzle. >> congressman, if she does take the fifth or if she's done a deal with prosecutors as is suggested in "the journal," a

proffer, where she doesn't say anything public in order to get some sort of deal further down the road, will we have missed an opportunity to get to the bottom of what went on here or will that be discovered do you think in criminal proceedings down the line? is this a one-off that you're embarking on today is in essence what i'm asking you. >> well, i don't think we know that. but what we do know, we get more and more documents every day. my staff has been through literally hundreds of thousands of documents and we're beginning to see the paper trail here and obviously the other regulators and investigators are doing the same thing. we'll eneventually know what happened here, but what our committee's charge is and what i want to do is make sure we understand exactly what happened before people call for additional regulation of these markets, making sure that we know exactly what happened so that if there's an appropriate fix to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future that we have the knowledge of what did happen. >> is it about regulation, sir, or is it about the amount of money that it's put into regulation which, of course, is quite a sore point, a controversial point, amongst

your colleagues on capitol hill. >> that's right. and, you know, with what happened we saw this with dodd/frank when we had the market disruption in 2008, everybody wanted to rush, you know, and pass this dodd/frank bill which has put a huge veil of regulation over the entire markets. already some talk that we need to make changes in this business model, in this financial model. before we do that, we owe it to the american people to ascertain what happened before we start down some regulatory trail, because it may just turn out that we have existing regulation in place, maybe the regulators didn't do their job or people violated the existing regulations. >> before we let you go, is it your suspicion that if, in fact, this did happen with customer money the way "the journal" seems to outline that it was habitual or it was a function of a firm that was going into crisis? >> i think that's what we're trying to find out. certainly in the last days and hours a lot of financial transactions, they were trying to liquidate positions they had,

create liquidity, money was going out and coming in, i think an important piece of this at what point in time did they dip into the segregated accounts. >> a billion dollars you could do it overnight but it would be easier to do over time. >> absolutely. >> congressman, thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> good to talk to you. joining us from the house financial oversight panel. as we head to break let's take a look at this list of the top five largest outlet center also in the united states, number five, tanger outlet center, riverhead, new york. >> hundreds of thousands. >> i don't know if it's by sales or size. but number four vf outlet center in reading, pennsylvania, and san marcos outlets. >> three quarters of a million square feet. >> and orlando premium outlets in orlando, florida, and number

one, woodbury common premium outlets in central valley, new york.

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only at the sleep number store, where queen mattresses start at just $699. let's focus in on the consumer officially, of course, consumer confidence slipped in march mainly because of higher gas prices we're told. earlier we took a look at how high end retail was faring and now we turn to outlet shopping malls. shares of tanger factory outlets have doubled over the period, this is the reif and in essence that's the point of it in the first place. let's link in with steven tanger who is the company's president and ceo, he joins us in a cnbc exclusive interview, good morning, to you, sir, thank you for joining us on cnbc. >> thank you, simon, i appreciate you having plea.

>> you have 435 brand name clients, so you know the state of retail in this country, how is it at the moment, how badly are people being affected by the high price of gas? >> well, they're not being affected by shopping in outlet centers with the high price of gas. people love to shop when they're on vacation. fully about 60% of our properties are located in fabulous drive-to american resorts. and they have not been affected. people take their vacations and drive. >> what about within the retailers that you have as clients, particularly on your prereleased projects? what sort of retailers are getting more aggressive? which perhaps would you perceive as getting more defensive at the moment? >> well, the retailers that are getting aggressive are the same retailers that have had tremendous success in other retail venues, such as under armour, nike, sports apparel's

doing very well, accessories are doing well. coach leather goods, kate spade. jewelry's doing well. we expect some increases in women's apparel and junior's apparel. >> steven nicholas is concerned that you might not be able to fully benefit from robust -- in march because your properties are already so strong, is that fair? is that comment something that concerns you? >> no, it doesn't. our properties are 99% leased. we have -- we are experiencing tremendous increases in traffic at tanger outlet centers across the country. we visit -- we are visited by close to 200 million consumers each year. >> to the point of being fully almost fully leased, steven, i'm just curious in terms of your intent to increase development activity, there are a lot of analysts out there who say that the competition is going to be much tougher in the next two years on that front. do you anticipate that the cost to develop new properties will

actually go up? >> we don't anticipate that at all. we're still getting the same 10% to 11% return on our invested cash on leverage that we have in the past. we've been doing this for 30 years. we've always had competition. that's just the state of the american capitalist society. we love competition. but the tenants sign leases in tanger properties and maybe one or two other publicly trades reits, it's more difficult for private developers to get financing and to get leases signed. >> hey, steven, we had a discussion earlier this morning about why if gas is averaging $3.91 in this country we're not seeing a severe dent in retail sales. you got a theory as to why the consumer at least to this point has been pretty resilient? >> consumers love bargains. they find bargains at tanger outlet centers in good times. they like a bargain. and in tough times like these they need a bargain.

the incremental cost to drive to an outlet center to save 25% to 30% every day hasn't stopped people from driving. it's well worth the trip. the t. >> are you in favor of redeveloping sites rather than building from scratch? is that still where you are? >> we are a builder. we're a growth company. we'll deliver ten new shopping centers this year. one south of houston on the way to galveston and one west of phoenix in glendale in the west gate project. we plan to deliver one to two new shopping centers each year. the two that i mentioned this year will be open in time for the holiday season. >> good to talk to you. enjoy your conference. steven tanger joining us there, ceo of the mall operation. >> one of the top five in the country. who knew? veterans looking to make a move into wall street, pay attention. nbc is teaming up with the chamber of commerce and holding a special event aboard the "uss

intrepid." that's coming up next. but first, rick santelli, what are you working on for the next hour of "squawk on the street"? >> some fun topics today, melissa lee. we'll talk about comments i heard from treasury officials at the wto in geneva yesterday. we're also going to talk about go. steve liesman has done a great job on the all-american cnbc survey. gold. america's number one investment? everybody seems to be confused about that. i have an interesting take. last but not least, five months running and we'll get more information on mf. it's about time. all at the top of the hour. carfirmation.

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all this week we honor our veterans with a special initiative, hiring our heroes. we're teaming up with the chamber of commerce to find a way to get our vets back to work. our parent company itself stepping up to the plate. >> my dad was a veteran. the gentleman who runs all of comcast cable was in the original s.e.a.l. team 6. we're proud that many veterans

have made our company what it is today, and i'm excited to work with many in the future as they come home from these wars. >> comcast brian roberts talking to ann curry this morning on the "today" show and brian sullivan joins us live with more on the initiative aboard the "uss intrepid." >> what a great day it is at comcast and nbc and whole nbc universal family is here along with hundreds of companies and thousands of veterans about getting veterans back to work. it's a real honor now to speak with dakota myer. medal of honor recipient. he's from kentucky. we'll talk basketball in just a second. i want to talk about work. you're medal of honor recipient working with hire a vet program in toyota. your future deservedly so more assured than a lot of your friends and your colleagues in the armed services. you're a young guy. you have some friends getting out of the military now.

you and i were chatting. having a hard time finding a job. how do we get men and women that deserve a job as much as anybody back to work in america? >> you have to understand what you're getting. there's a gap between the veterans and employers. the veterans have to do better with knowing how to market themselves. for instance with me, i can't just say i'm a sniper because what does that mean to you as an employer when you get me as a sniper? you don't have sniper positions open, what's that going to do? thing is you have to know how to market yourself as far as i'm good at communication skills, i'm good at power point, excel, i'm good at multitask management personnel management. >> that's a great point. sniper openings probably low right now in the civilian workplace. we talk about the other skills and maybe that's a misconception. you are a trained sniper but what else does the military give you the skills computer technology to make you a great fit for an american company or toyota or anybody.

>> the thing is dedication. the sad part of it is these guys have went and answered the call when the country needed them. they've come back and just because they didn't go and get their college education, they are setback four years because they have to go back to college to get it. these guys are just proving to themselves they went over and they have proven they're dedicated and they have discipline and high risk environments, you have to hire these guys. >> we have to leave it there. carl and dakota, first off, you're from kentucky. >> i am. >> kentucky or louisville? saturday? >> kentucky. >> kentucky. >> definitely. >> he's calling kentucky. carl, i got to tell you, dakota, this is a real hero. i tell you, talking about discipline. when the doors opened this morning, there was a line out the door men and women all in suits, ties, document in hand. you see the discipline here. it's a great day. great event. great to meet you, dakota. thank you for your service to our country.

it's an honor and pleasure. >> nice. seems like just the other day he was ringing the opening bell. thank you so much. we'll see you later on. quick programming note here, catch a special edition of "street signs" today. brian will continue his journey with interview with jamie dimon and robert stevens today on "street signs" 2:00 p.m. eastern time. >> that's going to be a good show. >> yes. >> tweet time. we're asking you this morning what the new slogan would be that you would give jetblue after the pilot's big meltdown. ] i hit a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going. go for olympic gold and go to college too. [ male announcer ] every day we help students earn their bachelor's or master's degree for tomorrow's careers. this is your moment. let nothing stand in your way. devry university, proud to support the education

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that's logistics. ♪ breaking news in this case is what's comiing up tonight on "fast money." >> a high flying stock -- let's go to -- you know what? >> darren, go ahead. >> we have some breaking news. minike is suing reebok for maki nfl jerseys without a license as people might know reebok's ten-year deal with the nfl is coming up at the end of march and nike will start making

jerseys announcing it and showing jerseys next week and start selling on april 27th. reebok was making tim tebow jerseys and peyton manning jerseys and they did not have as nike contends the license with the players association. you need two licenses. one to make the league marks and another to put the players' names on the back and nike says that the deal with the nfl players association for reebok expired so they have no right right now to be making and se selling tim tebow jersey. we've filed a complaint related to the unauthorized use of tim tebow's name on nike apparel. mi carl, back to you. >> as if that trade could not be more interesting. thanks for going with the report as you were on screen. if you are just joining us, this is what you might have missed earlier this morning. >> welcome to hour three of

"squawk on the street." here's what's happening so far. >> forth quarter takeoff into the first quarter short side of businesses and gasoline prices you can't have this jump and not think it affects the pocketbook. >> what you have is way too many politicians in washington wanting to play a political game and the consequence of that is destruction of our country. >> the only way you are going to make really tough decisions and they're tough decisions is to do so together. >> we have durable goods. headline number up 2.2%. >> one of the things that does drive me crazy i have to admit is exxon, large producer of natural gas in the country doesn't endorse it as a service fuel. only as a fuel for utilities. the amount of switching that could be done over the next couple months to years is done. >> look at the s&p realtime

exchange. >> the surprise ipo of the year. i know that's flamboyant. annie's opens up at 31.11. >> we create a new leader in this space. one that is profitable and creates value from the get-go and has more opportunity to create value in the near term. >> good wednesday morning. welcome to the third hour of "squawk on the street." get a check on the markets today. looking at negative action on the dow down about 40 points. s&p down six. nasdaq down nine. commodities, gold, copper, oil down. oil back down to $105 level. double dose of ipos as you saw. annie's making the debut. both up sharply in the first hours of trading. we'll talk to bob pisani about that a little bit later. some of the solar stocks, some of the biggest losers today after news that italy will cut

incentives for solar power generation after similar moves were made by ja solar and sunpower sharply in the red. let's get for the road map. fidel castro hoping to meet with pope benedict today. plus, is there help for housing? according to americans the answer is yes. we'll get more details of the all-america survey and how people feel about the value of their home and then family dollar beating the street but as the economy improves, will shoppers actually stay thrifty? a bull and bear will make the case on the deep discounter. and the bull who thinks the shares will more than double in the next three years. all of that and more is coming up in the next hour. first, we'll get to capital markets editor gary kaminsky who interviewed rob back in february who called the nat gas call way

ahead of the curve. >> he's been saying this for years. let's take a listen to what rob raymond, hedge fund manager and best energy trader said on this show on february 8th. let's take a listen. >> in the near term, we think there's going to be a lot of additional pressure in the gas market through the course of the summer and into the fall. we wouldn't be surprised to see natural gas trade down at a dollar, so worse from here. long-term it sets up a consolidation and rebound in the commodity price but importantly to a world where prices are probably lower for much longer than people have historically thought they would be. >> i think rob and i have for some time is probably the best source that i know in terms of this commodity and in terms of what it means. what does he say now? i checked in last night. a lot of people trying to be experts in thnat gas right now. he said we enter the withdrawal season at record levels of inventory going into the summer, injection season with supply

well ahead of demand, storage will be full. storage will be full by july. and therefore prices will have to collapse further from here to insent producers. it's oversupplied. the important thing in terms of equity price, rob points out stocks imply a lot of value for ground gas reserves. it's hard to see how this ends well. prices have to collapse in order to shut down supply and as a result of that the stock price is going to have to start to reflect the write-downs they'll have to take. not just equities but companies have significant amount of debt outstanding. it's very important again. i always like to believe and rely on those that seem to know a lot about a specific situation. many of you asked me what rob raymond sees here. there's your answer. >> that's not good for anyone who is long nat gas. we'll talk targets later on in the hour. gary kaminsky back at

headquarters. rick santelli with a lot to talk about today in the santelli exchange. good morning, rick. >> good morning, carl. indeed i do. we had meetings in switzerland for the world trade organization. yesterday there was a comment put out by a gentleman who is with treasury. his name is mark. treasury deputy assistant secretary for international financial policy. here's what he said. when trading partners believe others are allowing their exchange rates to adjust in line with fundamentals, there's less fresh usual for protectionism and more support for trade liberalization. i think that sounds great. i don't think it's true. does the word intervention sound like a free market process? we looked it up. one of the definitions online was intervention, interference in affairs of others. you know, when we try to handicap the t.a.r.p. do anything, stimulus do anything, those are complicated. those will take debate. and probably not a lot of

agreement. when it comes to intervention, or when it comes to do we let our currency with japanese let currency value the marketplace, i have my doubts. we had the all-america cnbc survey. this is what we found americans refer in investments. show the chart. as you can see, it is surprising. i really enjoy this. gold was the number one answer at 37%. 37% for gold. i have heard so many guests because it's such a surprise, everybody kind of dissing it. the more professionals. you know what i think? i think when gold is 37% of all-american survey that incumbents politically have a huge issue. whether you are the federal reserve as an incumbent, whether you are in congress, in the senate, in the white house, 37% is a no confidence vote on all of the issues that america just

doesn't enjoy. it might be a sterile commodity but that survey is very compelling. back to you. >> i wonder if you think that figure owes more to what's happened to the united states balance sheet or what happened to stocks over the last ten years? >> i think it has to do with the entire global marketplace with respect to how various countries are trying to think they will manage the process in a way that's more beneficial to them. that's the dynamic. i think the average american doesn't like it. >> we'll talk to you soon. thank you. rick santelli joining us from cme. fidel castro hopes to meet with pope benedict today after the pope vowed to pray for those denied freedom on the communist island and government rejected political change. cnbc's chief international correspondent michelle caruso-cabrera is live in havana with more on this sensitive visit now, michelle.

>> reporter: absolutely. we're one hour into what we expect will be a two-hour mass given in havana by hope benedict. you can see the live pictures. a couple observations about this homily. words he uses most frequently are truth and freedom. he makes reference to free and freedom 12 different times. he makes reference to truth 15 different times. he uses a parable in which three individuals face up to the king and that's despite fear of prosecution. it's for cuban people to stand up for their religious freedom and he makes a direct appeal to the cuban government that the catholic church wants to operate schools and universities in this country. we'll see if there's any response to that. we know that raul castro is in the front row. he heard that appeal.

fidel castro, former leader of this country, has blogged on his website today that he plans to meet with the pope later today. we'll see if there will be pictures or video from that. as you can see there are -- we haven't got a good estimate of how many people have shown up for this mass today. there are thousands and thousands not as many as showed up for john paul 15 years ago. the pope's visit has brought an extra influx of tourists to cuba for sure particularly from the cuban exiled community in the united states. we came in on plane directly from miami with a lot of cuban exiles. they brought in piles and piles of equipment and tvs and food, that kind of thing. these are lines we're showing you right now. there's also other tourists who are here such as people to people tours, visas. this is a particular kind of visa that you can get from the u.s. treasury which allows people to come in. we spoke with one group that happens to be here that is

called people to people. they explained why they are here. >> it is quite popular. they think there's a certain mystique associated with cuba. people want to come here. people want to see what this is all about. >> is it the most popular? >> i would say it is. >> in october people to people started coming and i jumped at it because americans haven't been able to come here for a while. >> reporter: an estimated 400,000 americans came in 2011, carl. we believe many came for the pope as well. we'll see if the cuban government responds to this desire from the catholic church to be able to have schools and universities here. that remains to be seen. back to you. >> hopefully we get a look at how fidel greets the pope as well. thank you very much. michelle caruso-cabrera in havana. coming up next, why americans might be getting a little more optimistic when it comes to own a owning their own home. keep on tweeting. we want you to know what jetb e jetblue's new slogan should be.

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new data out today showing americans might be more hopeful when this comes to the value of their house. diana olick is live in washington with more details on the cnbc all-america survey. what does it say? >> reporter: well, carl, despite the fact that only prices are still falling, actually to new lows on the s&p kay shiller home price index out yesterday,

americans are starting to feel a little bit better about their home values going forward. take a look at the results of our cnbc all america economic survey. 22% believe their home values will increase in the next year. that's up from 15% in the last quarter and highest level seen in two years. it's less than half of the 50% who said they expected to see home price appreciation back in march of 2007 but that was when the housing market was about to fall off a cliff. now, 58% of those surveyed said they expect prices to stay flat while 20% said they think their home will continue to lose value. analysts who follow housing have been all over the map on this one. some say prices have bottomed while others say we have another 5% to 10% down to go. americans do seem a bit more realistic about their home values. 29% say their home is worth less than they paid for it. up from 26% a year ago. given that housing is primary driver of the u.s. economy and spending perception of wealth is

almost as important as actual wealth. we don't want to see crazy cashout refy boom that we did but people feel better about overall spending. as mortgage rates continuing to go up, refys are dropping. we'll talk more about that coming up on "power lunch." back to you. >> thank you for that. diana olick in washington. we'll count you down to the close in europe about 12 minutes away. before we do that, take a trip to the dollar store. >> next on "squawk on the street" -- we are family! i've got all my dollars with me. we're checking in on family dollar earnings. how does an improving economy impact the stock? we have details after this break.

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family dollar saying sales

rose during the holiday season and it sold more food. shares of the of the company up better than a percent. is family dollar a good discounter to add to your portfolio? managing director of barclays capital is bullish. meredith, generally said they're not the strongest player in the sector but same-store sales up 4.5. that's god t to say things abou the industry overall. >> city is really positioned right now. >> how surprised are you at the quarter that fdo turned in? >> they did an extraordinary job of managing expenses and the pressure on gross margin is continuing. that's not a surprise. >> walk me through your bullish case. >> basically besides liking where the industry is positioned, i see this company moving into a new phase. they built a lot of capabilities

with technology and businesses processes. they now have new management who i believe will help them improve the consistency and performance of the stores which has been their weakest area. i think there's a lot of good things in the works adding a lot more consumables will drive sales per square foot and controlling expenses will allow that to flow to the bottom line. >> peter, what's the counterargument to that? >> there's a lot of interesting initiatives that they have in place. a company as you mentioned did a comp of 4.5%. they actually missed their comp guidance of 5%. that marks the fifth straight quarter of missing the mid point of their comp guidance. they've got a lot of things they're doing. we don't believe they're executing well. they have now teelevated comp guidance for the remainder of the year. we believe they'll miss today. >> let me ask you about howard's comments on release. we're accelerating investments

to become more relevant to a broader customer base and expand our assortment and create greater share of customer's wallet. is this what you want to see? >> absolutely. i do agree that there's a lot of change at the company and execution has not historically been their strength. the new coo came from cvs which runs great stores and we believe that will change. execution will get better. >> why the move to this broader customer base and how far up the ladder of the wallet do you think they want to go? >> certainly every company wants to expand their customer demographic and they have typically catered to lower income demographic so moving up should allow people to purchase more and drive sales. that's a good initiative for them but they are bringing in a lot of excess inventory specifically in consumables and branded goods but now you're in a position where inventory is growing faster than sales and experiencing higher theft because of elevated inventory levels. >> what's a preferable name in

your view in this space, peter? >> we cover two other names in this space. dollar which which we are favorable on. big lots which we are neutral on. big lots does have interesting things going on. would point out if people believe that the economy is getting better, we would rather play a retailer that has higher exposure to discretionary merchandise and not a retailer like family dollar where 70 plus percent of the goods are in consumables. >> interesting stuff. rich debate especially with what's going on with the consumer these days. meredith, peter, thank you, guys. have a good afternoon. bells in europe just a few minutes away from signaling the close of the trading day there. we'll bring you all of the action as it happens in four minutes and 30 seconds. we'll be right back.

a lot of attention around commodities and ipos. what a day in europe. markets closing in about 90 seconds on the back of crazy comments from other big eu officials. >> it's very significant potentially the way in which europe is now closing. just have a look at the last hour and a half in europe. you'll see the way in which major indices have fallen away. data is disappointing here. without a huge surge of optimism from the united states, europe is concentrating on its own

problems and you see the way in which those markets there have fallen. look at figures here. almost a 2% decline in the madrid market. an important phase over the next couple of seconds. we have the german central banker who today has within the last hour or so given a speech in london in which he is stressing austerity saying the wall of money will not be able to reach heaven. that's in stark contrast to what we were getting from oecd yesterday which was calling of course for the mother of all firewalls. germans holding the line there. important implications if they don't get to $1 trillion, you may find the emerging markets are not willing to come through with additional funding for the imf. let's just focus on the european map as we count you out.

these bells often catch me out. you'll notice in particular the way in which spain has fallen. those property companies have had a real bad year so far. a sea of red with the exception of the irish republic and some of the northern european countries. let's have a look at where we traded on for example spain and italy because they remain the key focus moving forward. don't forget there's a general strike tomorrow in spain and then they have to come through with that budget on friday. in fact, the worst performing of the west european stock market this far is the ibex down almost 7%. the central question you have to request yourself with so many events coming forward, the greek election, the french presidential election, the degree to which money comes from ecb remains in the middle of the markets around europe and by that i mean where we are in france. let's look at those yields so far today. italians off with a decent

auction today. they'll start at a longer end tomorrow. that's critical. let's look at where we are with the netherlands at the moment. they can't get the budget together in the netherlands. senior members of the coalition there could resign. this is the extra that the market requires to hold dutch debt above german debt. it's been a one-way track through the course of this year. you don't want the dutch government to fall at this stage. that's not kind of constructive. >> i think you could say that about a lot of governments. how about this report out of citi saying it's likely that spain would take part in some kind of program in 2012. not helpful. >> it's not helpful. there are so many questions out there about spain and the degree to which it's able to finance itself in this environment. it comes back to growth. this is the new focus of even those that are investing. are we getting growth across europe never mind austerity and the figures are very challenging. the public sector finance figures are tough at the moment.

>> thank you, simon. keeping an eye on europe and also an eye on china. i don't know if you saw weak data out of china last night. continues to signal a slowdown in that country. capital markets editor gary kaminsky is back with that. not encouraging. >> the overall shanghai market. the reason we bring this up, carl, we pointed it out yesterday the correlation between european markets and u.s. equity markets not what it was in the fourth quarter and i have to continue to pay attention to this. many of the same very smart people who told me to focus on europe two years ago continue on a daily basis to tell me focus on china, focus on that slowdown. with that in mind, i want to take a listen to what peter who joined us on january 19th told us on "squawk on the street." peter, the ceo of a very big import/export business who has been in mainland china for 30 plus years. let's listen to what he had to say. >> i believe it's growing but i don't believe it's growing at 9%. i just don't see how if your

biggest customer has complete and utter demand destruction and second customer, the united states, has had a bad christmas and is not restocking. >> again, much like that rob raymond clip we played earlier in the program, peter was dead on and correct about that. i checked in again last night with peter in terms of what are you seeing since january in china. interesting points. number one, inability for factories able to get operating capital from the local banks, a lot of issues have to do with the fact local banks have bad real estate loans on their books. number two, he continues to see factories having very high inventory levels of raw materials. specifically because of the demand in europe not being what it was. this is the most interesting comment. the fact is as many of the politicians, as many of the ceos who run these businesses are trying to talk to workers about trying to slowdown manufacturing and you'll love this. they are coming to the factories as some of the executives are

driving ferraris and trying to tell people that they essentially have to work in a slower environment. they can't pay higher wages yet as you know they've embraced capitalism at the top end of china in quite some interesting ways. let's continue to focus on this. it's a very good derivative of what's happening in europe and something we must stay on top of. >> when do you think we start to see it play itself out in inventory levels of nike or do you think we're already seeing it? >> again, most people don't believe the numbers out of china. you look at the numbers. they don't think numbers are real anyhow. you'll have to see whether or not the inventory levels of the factory, about a six-month period, where you see we have too much inventory and we can't manufacture. i'll say maybe six months. before i go, i have to give a hat tip out. he did tell you and i about that annie's ipo yesterday. bob, i know you are hopefully there. you were dead on on that.

congrats. great call. >> thank you, gary. appreciate it. >> dead on baby. >> big day here. here we are. i'm just talkingd designated market maker. put up a chart of annie's to show what happened. the price talk on friday, when i went home, nobody is talking about this. suddenly monday i get a call. increases prices. what happened? just a little more interest. yesterday night, prices at 19. this morning opens at $31.11 and right now trading at $33. this is the surprise ipo of the year. nobody had this. nobody was yelling about this last week. bob, this is going to blow up. this is organic food. what the heck happened? how did they -- let's not say misprice. why was there so much demand? put up the screen that i hear this morning. number one is small float. that's been very successful for a lot of companies. 500 shares floated. they traded 5.2 million. 100% turnover so far this morning in that stock.

number two, interest begets more interest. people say what's going on here? what am i missing. there is something to that. i think the big thing is there's more interest in ipos in general and i have noted interest in companies that aren't cloud computing companies doing well. we have the ceo on this morning earlier with carl. that stock price at 16. this is hospital communications. this is not cloud computing. opens at 24. prices at 16. opens at 24. what? still holding up well here. also, there's a lot of interest in some other stuff this week. cafe press does e-commerce. think customized t-shirts. think gift products that are on the air. they are profitable. it's a small company. there's a lot of interest in that as well. that could price above the price talk. the point here, carl, is i think that the ipo market is getting -- let's not call it frothy but certainly getting a lot of interest all of a sudden. by the way, now i can hear the debate starting. did annie's leave too much on

the table? why do they have $19 and they opened at 30. did they leave it on the table? i don't want to get into valuation argument. nobody was arguing annie's was worth $30. not underwriters or anything else last week. hopefully that will be laid to rest. >> i want to get your take later on whether the ipo if interest is growing if it's a precursor to larger market interest or if it can live separately on the side. we have to move along. nice call this morning on a big surprise over at the annie's ipo. let's get to rick santelli in chicago talking durables, the fed and of course the all-america survey. >> absolutely. jim, great guest. quickly durables improved versus last month. last month revisions were highly negative. one or two sentences on durables? >> it shows that the economy is growing about at trend. trend is about 2.5%. not too hot. not too cold. >> i tell you what, jim, i love this cnbc great america economic

survey. it is surprising to many. are you surprised that tangible assets, real estate and gold, were number one and number two, 37% and 24% respectively trouncing treasuries. >> people look back and gold has been a good investment. surprised by real estate because it has not been a good invest why. take away there is they're not paper. the public does not like paper. it's really -- >> tangible things you can hold. that's what americans seem to like. if you were ben bernanke and you read this survey on a scale of one to ten, one being sad. ten being happy. what do you think he thought? >> i think he's probably a two or three. i think he knows this. that's why he's doing his lectures at george washington. he's on tv giving interviews. abc last night. he knows that the fed has a selling job to do that what they've done has improved the economy because most people don't think that that's been the case and that's what the survey shows.

>> i remember in the partially in the '90s and partially late '70s and early '80s when wall street wasn't doing well, it seemed like they wanted to talk recession. when wall street is doing well, they never think that way. i think this is another one of those examples where wall street sees activity and main street doesn't and i think that's why these surveys are turning out the way they are. thoughts? >> i would agree. there is a definite disconnect between what is happening in the financial markets and what is happening in the real markets right now. the public is still not believing that things are getting better. steve's right track/wrong track numbers were not good at 26% with people thinking we're on the right track and rest thinking we're on the wrong track. a big disconnect between the two. it's now problematic for the federal reserve. >> another issue that we can go quickly. everyone says asset allocation. stock numbers are low and part of that is mutue aual funds whe people aren't pro-actively

making a decision. if you're one of the groups that all of these programs bail out, institutional side, bankers, insurance companies, they now buy treasuries because the public isn't and i think this gives us great insight into programs and who likes them. the same ones that central bankers cater to. other bankers. >> i would agree. the survey confirms what we see in mutual fund flows. they are buying corporate bond funds. there's no asset allocation. there's no money there. >> programs are designed to get the public to go into those categories so i guess "dancing with the stars" should be the next stop in the campaign for the fed to say that they have been successful. >> why not? >> back to you. >> interested to see if chairman decides to go on that show. thanks, rick. straight ahead, apple hitting another all-time high today. our next guest thinks the run has just begun. he'll tell us why apple may surpass $1,600 a share in the

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welcome back. texas financials fighting it out for top sector in q-1. plus, who is selling apple and is it a warning sign for the apple nation? a trader face-off over the china

play and how to play it. it's all ahead at the top of the hour. now let's head back to carl down at the stock exchange. >> every day we talk about apple stock hitting a new high. one hedge fund manager making an extremely bullish call on apple saying it will hit 1650 by the end of 2015. eric jackson is founder of iron fire capital which owns 10,000 shares of apple. also a "forbes" columnist and great presence on twitter. great to have you with us this morning. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> let's talk about -- we all talk about multiple on apple being monddest. revenue target of $610 billion. let's walk through how you get there starting with macs. >> macs surprisingly still only 9% market share of the pc

industry. believe it or not, the pc industry is still growing despite all of the negative talk we hear. macs are growing at 26% annually in the last year. i think the pace is increasing. halo effect as more people get iphones and ipads, more people want to get macs. assuming that pace continues, macs could sell 50 million units by 2015. >> ipads as well. you say by 2015 there could be as many tablets sold as there are pcs sold. >> hard to believe two years ago this market didn't exist. now it accounts for 20% of apple's business. most people think 500 million tablets by 2015 is not unreasonable. i think what apple is doing with ipad, they are really playing for ipod type market share. if they hold onto 60%, we're talking 300 million ipads sold in that year. >> good morning. i obviously have been in the

camp with you in terms of what to expect from the stock this year. i have to ask you about these specific numbers. great report making rounds we hope to have more on this tomorrow on the show. these are numbers out there. if you think that this $260 per unit profit to apple under the new ipad and you take the number of units they hope to sell. maybe 27 million. there will be 10 to 15 billion in total pretax property for the new ipad. the company's market companies increase by 172 billion since there was anticipation of these numbers. how do you reconcile 15 billion possible in net profits with 172 billion increase. where is the discrepancy there? who has it wrong? >> nothing goes in a straight line like you know, gary. i agree with you. since late november, this stock's move has been phenomenal. i've said last week, i think the stock actually sees 500 before it sees 700. i think it's been a ridiculous

move. it's probably gotten ahead of itself. right now 4.5 times price sales ratio which historically over the last four years is very high for apple. i think it's ahead of itself. the thing that -- what's to come? how do you justify the move and how does it get to 1,650 or something like that? one of the big reasons why and something nobody is paying that much attention to is tv. i think tv is going to be huge. even bigger than all of what analysts are talking about. >> assumptions are on things we don't know about. television, mobile payments and whether or not enterprise adopts it in a way that we've seen early signs of. how much are you leaning on those to get to your target? >> it's very little actually. i think the ad business is something they have to play in in a bigger way especially if they get into tv. i actually only see something

like 20 billion in revenue. only 20 billion for a $600 billion company. same with payments. i'm only banking on something like 20 billion in revenue from payments. those two might be wildly underestimated. i think they are huge markets. the payments markets is huge and ripe for a company like apple. it's mainly going to be on the backs of tv, iphone and ipad that i see big revenue numbers. >> you know, carl, this report that i mentioned, we hope to dig into this further tomorrow. there's few people that have come out and written anything negative on apple. unusual phenomenon. things that we've seen in the past. it's going to be interesting to actually look at some of the numbers. nobody doubts what they've been able to do but there has to be some sort of discrepancy between the numbers and the value created eventually they have to merge, you know? >> absolutely. eric, appreciate your time. thoughtful analysis. have you back in three years to see if it came true.

when we come back, a new era for l.a. dodgers. the financially troubled team is finally on the verge of a new owner. is there value in this franchise? we'll find out next.

struggling l.a. dodgers franchise may get what it needs. magic johnson agreed to buy the club for $2 billion. darren rovell, a good question at these prices is there value in the ball club is. >> highest price ever paid for a north american sports franchise. i called people this morning who were flabbergasted by this offer. they say there is something they see that others don't. let's talk about declining value of the dodgers under frank mccourt. the guy who sold the dodgers here or will be approved soon.

less than 37,000 fans per game last year. that's only the third time that's happened for the dodgers in the last 20 years. reduced ticket prices. hard to go up from there. they have their work cut out. hundreds of millions of dollars in dodger stadium renovation ahead and there's a lot of challenges that don't make this an automatic home run. how does magic johnson and the crew get $2 billion for a team that mccourt only paid $430 million for in 2004? certainly the big money is in tv ri right fees. the bigger money is in starting your own regional sports network. the issue is can these guys start up with enough cash not to include carriers, foxes, time warners as owners? you do that the true value will decrease and that's where rubber meets the road here. i did speak with one baseball owner who loved the valuation on the dodgers now as it raises the value of all teams. if it's not seen as an outlier.

there are concerns the new owners may spend too much putting the team in almost the same position it was to get into this point if they are overly leveraged, they won't be able to return to the glory days. carl, i knew last year when they didn't sell out fernando venezuela blanket night, they were in trouble. fernando on anything and he's a sellout. he's a hero. even 25 years later, gets the people to come out. >> do you believe this deal came together in a clean way, darren? >> in a clean way? well, it's kind of weird. that's a good question. i was expecting at 10:00 a.m. today for the three bidders to go into their separate rooms and submit silent bids. at 11:04 last night we got a press release that magic johnson and his group were owning it. at some point frank mccourt, who has been suspect throughout this

whole process, decided that that was the bid in this auction that was supposed to take place didn't. it seems weird given that and given the number that seemingly no one can explain. >> very interesting stuff. i'm sure we'll learn more. thank you very much. talk to you soon. by the way, look at the dow intraday down 93. these are session lows as we appear to be losing a big part of the market. energy and commodities taking it on the chin. reversal in some big names in other sectors like goldman. we'll keep a close eye on it. dow down 95 points. by the way, keep those tweets coming following another jetblue employee meltdown, what should that airline's new slogan be? your responses after the break. [ male announcer ] introducing a powerful weapon in your fight against lawn weeds.

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sometimes it happens like this. europe closes and shortly thereafter we see an acceleration of an existing trend here in u.s. markets. dow is down about 100. you look at the list of big losers on the s&p, it's all kinds of industrial names. peabody. u.s. steel. caterpillar the worst performing dow component. keep a close eye on a day where commodities are getting smacked all around. squawk on the tweet. a pilot's meltdown on a jetblue

flight. we've been asking you today what new slogan would you give the airline? bill writes -- there's a bunch of these. jetblue is now jetbipolar. and mike writes jetblue, when we get the blues, you know it. certainly the passengers on that plane absolutely did. let's get a take away from rick santelli. what's on your mind? >> i tell you what, rates are going down. on the fed day, it was all about the red side of the trading card. i could hear them crying uncle as they reverse it to the blue side. sellers of treasuries aren't doing well and had more to do with technicals. that's what we want to watch for the rest of the day. see how it affects that auction. >> thank you very much, rick. we'll keep an eye on