despite performance today. buy xlf on weakness. >> that does it for us. don't forget to catch more at 5:00 p.m. follow me on twitter. "power lunch" begins right now. thank you, scot ty. three hours to go in the trading day and the markets could be heading for six down days out of the last eight. a great first quarter coming to an end, but it's closing out on a sour note. so are we heading for a repeat of last year's spring selloff? or are the bulls ready to fight their way back, ty? >> you want a success story, sue, let me tell you about shares of costco. best levels since the company's 1985 ipo. up more than 900% in 20 years. 80% of that company's revenue comes right here in the u.s. can you still make money betting on this american success story? >> plus, it's a megapayoff from the megamillions lottery. more than $500 million, yes, $500 million. we'll tell you which companies you could buy if you're the lucky winner.

>> and with sue herera, i'm tyler mathisen. we both would rather be here. we should be out buying lottery tickets, but "power lunch" begins right now. i'm seema mody at the realtime exchange. jobless claims down, gdp growing at the fastest pace since mid-2010. but still a little short of expectations. that has stocks back for the third day in a row. we have the dow down 50 points. s&p down 10. and the nasdaq down 25. our midday movers for today, another strong ipo doubling on its first day as a public company. red hot is red hot. it's surging on better earnings and a stock buyback program. and aetna among the health care stocks moving higher today. some talk about the supreme court may not strike down obama care. however, on the downside, best buy getting hit hard. they've posted a q-4 loss and plan to close 50 big box stores this year.

stock down 7.5%. big lots with the big stumble. deutsche bank says it's concerned about sales trends at the closeout retailer. and mosaic down after reporting weaker than expected q-3 profits. the stock down about 5.3%. let's get to the trading floors. bob pisani joins us from the nyse. bob, tell us all the market action. >> hello, seema. bottom line is simple. one day to go in the quarter and our big market maker, our big market mover, financials, is kind of mulling over in the last few days. since the middle of last week they've kind of gone nowhere and starting to rollover, as i said. morgan stanley, goldman, citi group, all the big guys are down 1% to 3% today. we'll keep an eye on this as we go into the close of the quarter. the other group that had a great quarter and has been rolling over, depends on which stocks you're talking about. they're starting to biforkate.

lennar held up well in the last few days on a terrific earnings report. kb lower, we're starting to see splits in the group as it looks like some are winning over some of the others. finally, i wanted to show you the vix. people saying it's gone from 14 to 17 this week, isn't that a big deal. i keep insisting it's not. you don't want to look at the cash vix, sue, at 17. you want to look further out. look all the way into october. it's at 26. these numbers have not changed here that much in the last several weeks. and that's what i mean when i say bottom line here is volatility going out more than the front contract really is not that high. sue, back to you. >> very good observation. thank you very much, bob. now some breaking news. the results from the $29 billion auction in 7-year notes, rick santelli's tracking the action for us at the cme. hi, rick. >> hi, sue. don't you just love auctions? well, this 7-year auction $29 billion, the yield 1.59. the wi was trading 158.50

offered 158 so we tailed a bit. 10 auction average bid-to-cover 2.86, this auction, 2.72. indirects, 10 auction average 40%. this one just shy of 43. directs 10 auction average 13% this auction a little over 13. dealers took down 43.8% of the auction. actually, that's the smallest dealer takedown of the 2s, 5s, 7 won that one. i give the auction a c. it's a little below average on certain issues, but all in all it's a 7-year. it really came in about as we anticipated. remember, with what's going on in europe, if i did grade on a curve, many are surprised it actually didn't come in a bit stronger. back to you. >> absolutely. rick, thank you very much. good points. >> let's switch on the "power lunch" power surge now and drill down on some of the stories that are driving the news this day. we begin with energy. oil trading lower today. but the president turning up the heat on oil companies.

in a rose garden ceremony this morning, he called for an end to tax subsidies for oil and gas companies. sharon epperson is at the nymex following the trades and gauging the reaction. sharon. >> well, tyler, traders here believe it's more about politics than of course about prices in terms of president obama's comments earlier this morning. we are looking at lower prices. and it has little to do with what happened at the white house. it has more to do with what was in the financial times today from the saudi oil minister talking about the fact he believes there's plenty of supply. and reiterating that the saudis stand ready to be in action if there is a need due to the iranian oil embargo. keep in mind as well though we are also hearing a lot of chatter about strategic petroleum reserves and perhaps tapping those, a coordinated effort passed between france, uk, u.s. and then of course we did get the supply data from the energy department yesterday weakening oil prices further. technically we're below some very key levels here falling

below 103 for the wti. brent crude also under pressure. look at natural gas. natural gas continues to tumble after we got a bigger than expected injection into inventory levels. we are hearing from traders we could see in the next month, perhaps in the next few weeks natural gas prices below $2. look for 1.85 to 1.95 for the next range. >> sharon, thank you. today's new economic data kind of a wet blanket if you will on the market today. jobless claims were down and the economy grew in the last quarter of the year, but there are real concerns about growth in the quarter that we are now in. kelly evans joins us. kelly, what's your read on this data? >> good but not great. for stocks to keep climbing from here, we just need signs that the u.s. is gaining momentum. we're still short of that level. think what's happening in regional manufacturing surveys, they don't get a lot of attention on a day-to-day basis, but they've held out in march. what chicago tomorrow morning.

we all know how well that correlates with stocks. meanwhile, jobless claims some annual revisions out showing while they've fallen, the level of improvement, while it matters, hasn't been as big in the last couple months as we thought previously. watch for the payrolls report next friday to see whether that shows as much as people were originally anticipating. and the gdp report, it was out, income side of things were good. but continues to suggest corporate profits are peaking. means you need top line growth if companies -- companies need that top line growth to keep growing. in a world like this where you sea weakness overseas, it's not clear they'll be able to get that in the u.s. or clear they'll be able to grab it from overseas. >> indeed. kelly, thank you very much. also weighing on the u.s. markets today some very new concerns about europe or perhaps better said some of the same concerns about europe. simon hobbs joins us. simon, you covered the european close on "squawk on the street." it was messy. "associated press" running a

story saying spain is limping towards the economic abyss. what are you watching? >> the european markets within the last two hours flashed very clear warning signals that all is not well. you had broad base selling across the board. a huge number of issues in negative territory. major indices falling. look at italy down over 3%. importantly as well that we're selling on the spanish and the italian bond markets. that meant that the yields rose. as the yields rose, in for example italy, the italian banks which own so many italian bonds saw their share prices fall. some of them were suspended limit down. i'm told this is actually nervousness about what may happen in spain tomorrow. but our big question remains, can the money, the trillion euros that came from the ecb still prop up the spanish and the italian bond markets? that is the critical question because no firewall, no fund of emergency money will be enough to do that for either of those two economies. >> and the event that the market is worried about tomorrow is the

spanish budget is released. and they're going to be looking at how drastic those cuts are as as i understand it anyway, simon, and whether or not even with the cuts they will be able to meet some of the eu criteria. is that a correct read? >> plenty will not reach the criteria because a couple weeks able they said we're going to bust through it. and then there's been a negotiation with the european union about what the new deficit targets might be. but spain is now an active concern, again, of course this time we have a trillion euros propping up the banks. back to you. >> simon, thanks very much. the beaten up stock, research in motion, is on everyone's radar today. set to report fourth quarter results after the bell. our tech correspondent, jon fortt, joins us with a preview. jon. >> tyler, likely to be another tough quarter for rimm. this is the new ceo's debut quarter on the call explaining the quarter. lots of questions out there about whether he might sandbag as we know new ceos like to dip the bar nice and low when they come in. we don't know.

the bar's already pretty low. analysts expecting around $4.5 billion in revenue, $4.6 give or take in 81 or 28 cents in eps. now, there are some headwinds rimm is facing here. weak blackberry 7 charter equity says they've been seeing and the touch pad, the tablet, which hadn't been doing that well now has to contend with an ipad 2 that costs $100 less than it did before as well as the new ipad which has new features. also blackberry's selling prices have been dropping. and the new operating system isn't coming until the end of the year. so all of that makes it tough. we'll be watching for guidance and margins, of course. >> let's switch to a big research in motion competitor, and that would be apple. we talked -- you talked on tuesday about tim cook, the ceo's tour of china. he even made a visit to a plant that company i believe taiwan based company that manufactures so many of the products and has had some safety issues. any word on the success of his

trip? has he met over there? >> yeah. from where i sit, tyler, it's been fascinating to see the pictures coming out of this. first we saw pictures of tim cook at an apple store there in beijing that customers took. he was in a fleece. you know, the message there seemed to be tim cook and apple care about customers. then we saw him with government leaders yesterday in a suit and tie sitting down to really talk about labor conditions, intellectual property, now today we see pictures coming from apple of him at foxcon facilities there with the workers in one of those suits they wear to keep dust from getting into the products while they're being put together. the message there tim cook and apple care about the workers. visually this sends a strong message for apple. we'll have to see how the rest of the story comes together as far as the things apple's trying to accomplish there. >> jon fortt, thank you very much. and up next, the countdown to the second quarter. the first has been a winner for investors. market's near four-year highs.

ominously, stocks have closed lower five of the past seven days. >> we've seen this movie before in 2010 and 2011, solid first quarters, then double-digit pullbacks. are we heading for a spring selloff or not? the q-2 playbook is up next. [ male announcer ] any technology not moving forward is moving backward. [ engine turns over, tires squeal ] introducing the lexus enform app suite -- available now on the all-new 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. see your lexus dealer.

the man never rests. scott wapner just off the air, we're going to find out what stocks are on his radar. >> tyler, i'm going to talk

about the tech stock up more than 50% year-to-date and trades for more than $600 a share. certainly i'm talking about -- priceline is the one i'm talking about today. barclays raising price target to $800. says it's best positioned to benefit from secular travel trends. they have strong top line and also solid margin expansion, that's a rare combination to have and also it continues to perform quite well over in europe. so it's an interesting story here as you look at shares of priceline. i knew you thought i was going to say apple, but nope. i'm talking about priceline today. >> thanks, scott. appreciate it. techs and financials vying for the top performing sector this year. consumer discretionary stocks not far behind either up nearly 15% for the first quarter. so is this where investors should be putting their money entering the second quarter? or should we be wary of a spring selloff? let's bring in our market insiders. director of equity and asset allocation and cnbc contributor. and platinum partner's

president. welcome to both of you. uri, i'm going to start with you. you're negative on u.s. equities. why and how much has to do with europe and how much has to do with the fact that we've had such a decent run-up? >> well, i think those are both factors. i'm pretty negative. i said sort of the end of last year that i thought around 1425 would be the year high. we'd hit it in march or april. we're right around there. you know, i could be wrong by a few points, but my gut is you've seen the best of this year. i think that you'll see the market certainly in the fourth quarter go at least as low as 1290 with 1180 a distinct possibility for the late second, early third quarter. definitely the market's priced for perfection. any kind of economic bad news, earnings bad news, is going to take it lower. and europe certainly isn't helping out. so you really need it to be primarily a domestic demand story. and i just think it's going to be weaker than the market is currently discounting. >> gina, do you agree with uri

or not. >> it's strange you brought on two people that have kind of roughly the same view. we think also that a lot of positives are behind us and we're looking at potential more negative catalyst going forward. certainly several of the ones have been mentioned, higher oil prices and obviously europe. we also think slowing growth in china continues to freak the markets out every time you see some evidence of that. that tends to cause the markets to selloff. and quite frankly we're seeing -- we're estimating that productivity has gone negative and that's going to hurt margins that have been high for a very long time. and that's going to make earnings very difficult to get as we go into earnings season. >> uri, if you need to remain invested or you're managing money for people and you need to put it to work, how do you get a little bit of yield in a portfolio if you're negative on equities? where are you deploying capital right now? >> we are -- we believe that

there are real opportunities in the biotech space, in the energy space primarily because we see merger and acquisition activity picking up there. so looking for targets in those sectors. we favor asia while we're mildly concerned short-term with the growth there. we're doing a lot in china. and in korea and indonesia. we would stay away from europe and sort of stay away from conventional, you know, supercap stocks in the u.s. >> gina, let me ask you a similar question but can't help but have seen this movie before. last year greece and this year maybe spain. how worried are you about spain? and how do you defend your gains and make eke out a little bit more given your thought that the s&p ends the year about 1300? >> well, we definitely think the worries regarding spain are very real. and the name of the movie by the way is called "cheap money."

that's really what caused the markets to rally. it tends to be kind of the cold hard truth that tends to cause markets to come back down. so we played this -- the way we are playing this is to be long places where you can get some dividend yields. so we were long telecoms, tech and we also happen to be long consumer discretionary because there was improving sentiment there. but we also happen to be protecting ourselves in consumer staples. we think that little bit of defensive is going to go a long way in the next quarter. >> uri, when it comes to spain, tomorrow's going to be a key day. there are a number of economic events that are happening next week as well. but it seems as though the market is focused squarely on tomorrow. if indeed spain continues to have trouble and or goes into a default situation, how insulated is the u.s. market from that?

>> all right. well, those are two different scenarios. we're not very insulated from it. spain, unlike greece, is a real economy. i think it's the world's ninth largest. there's no way that we're insulated from that particularly in the financial sector. so their banks are involved with ours, ours are involved with theirs. i do not believe just as with greece that anybody's going to let spain default. on the other hand to the extent that it looks like a possibility, we'll go through all the volatility we had surrounding greece times about three. >> excellent, i think. in terms -- do you agree with that, gina? >> we definitely think it's a big problem. i mean, one of the whole points of the long-term refinancing operation was to try to insulate spain and italy because those are two very large economies. and potentially they might be too big to fail, but they also could be too big to save. that's where the volatility will come in. >> exactly. it's a good situation if you play the volatility because

that's where the opportunity is if you're a volatility player. other than that, looks like it will be a very difficult time. >> and straight ahead, paypal critical part of e-bay's business, the payments and money transfers are the life blood of the e-commerce site. today e-bay named a new paypal boss. what's the plan for meeting the competition from companies like google and square? new ceo and president are ready with some answers. "power lunch" exclusive on the other side of this break.

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we're keeping an eye on e-bay today. the online marketplace power house naming david marcus to head its paypal division replacing scott thompson. jon fortt is at e-bay's headquarters for an exclusive interview with two very special guests. jon. >> thanks, tyler. yeah, i'm here with john, david, thanks for sitting down. first, john, i want to ask, big change. scott thompson's background was in financial services mostly. david is an entrepreneur. he's had lots of experience in mobile in europe. why did you make this pick of a guy who's been with e-bay for a few months, brought in through a $232 million acquisition. >> well, i think david's the right leader at the right time for paypal. we've got a huge global platform in paypal. 100 million users around the world. $125 billion volume in 190 countries.

and, david -- and we are driving the innovation and future of payments. david is a proven innovator and proven product visionary and he can continue the skill. so the division and the paypal platform can accomplish things no other company can match. >> no pressure, david, but -- okay. so i look at paypal, the number of competitors listed in e-bay's 10k from credit card giants to little start-ups like square, where do you put your focus coming in of all the various areas where paypal is operating? which is the most important? >> well, first and foremost on the product and the consumer experience. we need to create amazing user experiences for people using us all around the world. we have over 100 million users using us on an active basis. we need to deliver that fantastic user experience to all of them globally. as john said, we have a unique platform to do that.

we have compliance and risk management and platform that can process massive amount of payments. and we control the experience for all these payments which is very unique. it's an amazing platform for innovation and creating great consumer experiences. >> do you prioritize the mobile user experience? the web users experience? what's the priority? >> well, you know, mobile is very important, of course. and mobile has grown about 50x between 2009 and this year in terms of the payment volume coming from $150 million to north of $7 billion this year. so mobile is definitely a place where we'll continue innovating and developing amazing user experiences. we need to create and provide good consumer experience wherever consumers are and wherever they want to use us, which means anywhere at any time. >> david, you want to jump in here? >> let me ask you, john mentioned there's a lot of competition in the mobile space, google there, lots of others. what does paypal have?

you a big user base, what do you do better than the other guys so that you can put distance between your products and theirs specifically? >> well, you know, i think, you know, payment is first of all really, really hard. and especially at scale and a large number of countries. so as i said before, we have an unbelievable platform that's solely focused on payments. and that's our core business. and, you know, we've been doing it extremely well growing at almost 30% year on year at the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars of transaction volume. and, you know, leveraging this platform for innovation and creating amazing products is going to enable us to keep the lead in the space. >> mr. do na hue, how is e-bay's business these days? >> e-bay's doing great. our focus as a company is

driving the future of commerce because what's happening is retail as we've known it historically, retail and e-commerce is being transformed before our very eyes. consumers are changing how they're shopping and paying. e-bay is right at the center of that. i'm talking about e-bay inc. marketplace business growing nicely at 15% last quarter. and paypal is the gem of e-bay inc. and it's driving enormous growth. and to your question, tyler, about how is paypal different, there are a lot of people talking about payments today. there's a lot of new attention toward it. there will be a lot of innovation. paypal is delivering. it's the number one online. number one in mobile. a lot of people talking about mobile commerce under david's leadership paypal went through $7 billion mobile payments this year. with paypal here we're now available at small merchants in the offline world. and now with our point of sales

distribution at home depot, we have a solution going right into the hardware and large retailers around the world, you'll see us roll that out around the country and globe over the next couple years. we intend to continue to drive the future of payments anywhere consumers are. a lot of people talking, we're acting. we're executing and driving that future. >> okay. john, you're obviously still the ceo of e-bay. paypal the fastest growing unit. talk to me about how you're going to manage this relationship with, david, what your role will be in helping to accelerate that growth and make sure it happens in the right places? >> well, david's a proven innovator and a proven entrepreneur and a proven product visionary. and my job is to coach and support him just as the rest of the paypal leadership team. we have a strong team at paypal. my focus is to allow david to be able to spend the time doing what he does best, which is driving great consumer experiences so that paypal's 100 million active users and what i hope to be the next hundred million paypal users learn to

love and grow paypal everywhere they can get it. >> thanks to both of you. this is, again, tyler, a small business story. it will be interesting to see how paypal helps them into the digital age. back to you. >> jon, thank you very much. >> all right. we thought we'd take a look back at just how successful some paypal alumbs have been. former execs went in or invested to create other tech giants. peter used his $70 million the e-bay payout gave him to seed numerous start-ups including a little company called facebook, of which he owns 10% stake. evp turned venture capitalist reid hoffman, founder and bigger owner of linkedin, zynga, one king's lane and dig, co-founder, elon musk, also started space x, which is the first private successor to the space shuttle and solar city which is prepping for a spring ipo.

and former cto, max lev chin later created and sold his company, slide, to google. former paypal engineer, jeremy, now run yelp, one of this year's top ipos jumping 64% in its market debut and valued at $1.5 billion. >> that is some family tree there, isn't it? >> makes you feel like you haven't done anything in your life. >> slackers. >> coming up next, on a serious note, a safe obesity drug. it's one of the holy grails if you will, for pharma and biotech. and an fda panel is going to hold a critical vote on fat-fighting drugs today. we'll tell you what it means to key stocks like vivus. plus, investing in america, costco hitting its best level since the company's 1985 ipo of more than 900% in the past 20 years. is it still a buy? stick around and find out. this is $100,000.

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let's take a look at how some of the markets are fairing right now. and as you see, the industrials

down 57 points at 1368. s&p at 1394 down ten points. but if you look at market breadth as we did earlier today, it was really ugly. i would say there were 25 stocks. that's all. in the s&p 500 that were higher. gold and other metals prices getting ready to close right now. and sharon epperson is at nymex. sharon. >> tyler, we're about $5 weaker here for gold prices looking at the april and the june contract because this is the end of the rollover from the april to the june contract. june is the most active right now. it's trading around 1655 or so. some of the big concerns here of course we've seen a decline in open interest in gold futures over the last several days and it's intensified a bit perhaps with this rollover. we've also seen some intermittent etf selling, that may also be pressuring prices. kp number of investment firms lowering 2012 prices for gold ubs the latest seeing they now see gold averaging 1680. they had been at 2050 for their

price. we're also looking at silver prices and copper prices holding ul relatively well. the industrial component of silver as well as the industrial metal copper benefitting from the fact that some of the data in the u.s. has been not so bad. and we're also looking in particularly in terms of copper at strong production numbers coming out of chile, which is a major copper producer. back to you guys. >> big day for obesity drug maker as the fda is underway discussing the safety of their medicines. seema mody is at the cnbc realtime exchange with all the details. seema. >> tyler, that's right. today the fda wrappings up a two-day panel to discuss whether heart safety studies should be required for obesity drugs. the main stock impacted by this news is vivus. in late february hit an all-time high when the fda advisory panel voted 20 to 2 in favor of the slimming drug named.

optimism rose that obesity drugs could receive a favorable decision from the fda. there's two main results that could emerge from this fda meeting. if the panel says the tests can come afterdrug approval, that's good news for the fat busters. if a panel recommends testing before the drugs are approved, we could see a major selloff in shares of anti-obesity drug makers. >> if the fda rules that vivus has to run pre-approval heart trial, which would be a very negative event for vivus and see shares trade down as much as 50%. >> similar to the analyst wells fargo and jefferies also ious saying shares could lose some air. the main risk factor being of course delay to drug approval. bottom line, obesity is a growing epidemic effecting a third of americans, but the fda wants to make sure that the benefits outweigh the risks. tyler. >> thank you very much, seema.

programming note, cnbc takes an in depth look at the growing obesity epidemic in a new documentary, "fat and fatter." it appears right here on cnbc at 9:00 p.m. eastern tonight. cnbc's investing in america series continues with a look now at costco which derives nearly 80% of revenues from the u.s. market. and it's considered a pretty good barometer of consumer spending. the number one members only warehouse chain now trading at all-time high levels. it's outperformed the s&p 500 consumer staples sector by 8%. a 20-year look, that's a pretty impressive chart. today it's down a little bit, but there's some pressure on the market today as well. it's trading at 89.49 on the trading session. jpmorgan analyst has an overweight on the stock and a price target of $94 a share. chris, it's good to have you here. >> good afternoon. >> what is it specifically that gives you an overweight on

costco? >> you know, costco's really interesting. there's not many retail outlets where you actually pay to go in and shop. and i pay $110 a year to go in and shop there. but you know, if you think about costco over the longer term, there's not many retailers who understand the value in the meaning of their brand. and they consistently invest in price to drive market share. they're driving 4% to 5% traffic growth for a mature u.s. retailer, that is just darn impressive. and they're doing it through improved merchandising, staying sharp on price, paying their employees well and thinking about the customer first versus the shareholder. >> i've also heard that the customer -- i have been in numerous costcos, but the customer experience at a costco is quite different, is it not, than one of its competitors of bjs for instance? >> absolutely. costco's best known for treasure

hunt. you go there because you know you can get an 18-pack of bounty very cheap. you can get good steaks there. but you also go there because you never know what you're going to find. they do a lot better job isn't the discretionary categories than does bjs or sam's club. >> what worries you, if anything at all, for the stock? >> they have an average household income of $96,000 a year. so that plus the improved merchandising has driven traffic throughout the downturn. if things do get better, that high-end consumer starting traveling more, if the high-end consumer goes out more, they cook less at home and entertain less at home, that's certainly something you need to watch. >> in terms of the 4% -- the 4% to 5% growth in traffic, how does that compare to some of the other more established retailers as well, maybe not in that particular category, but you were impressed with their ability to drive the growth. >> yep. if you compare walmart, they've had negative traffic for the past couple years improve late

in the year as they went back to really core message of price leadership and assortment leadership. so they've been negative. you know, sam's hasn't done quite as well. they've been undercomping costco on average. and if you think about an established retailer in the u.s. right now, 1% traffic growth is usually the average number. and they're more than 2x that. >> chris, thanks. nice to have you with us today. >> absolutely. >> don't miss cnbc's all day coverage on investing in america. coming up on "street signs," jane wells profiles one of the most iconic u.s. companies, harley davidson, whose shares have been on fire this year. >> he's right, they have great steaks at costco. >> they have good meat, cheese, yeah. >> really good. >> straight ahead, sbut for people who like to file for themselves and quick books for small business. >> so what's the payroll data from thousands of businesses telling us about the state of the economy? we have an exclusive interview with the ceo on the other side

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the titans. jamie dimon and jack welch have very different takes on the economy. so who has got it right? also high on the hog. could harley be a good bet when it comes to investing in america? and are you feeling lucky? we have a portfolio manager to tell you how to spend the half a billion megamillions windfall if you get it. now back to sue and tyler on poumplg. see you at the top of the hour. >> thanks very much, mandy. tax season upon us. "power lunch" turning the spotlight on intuit, the company behind quick books and turbo tax, the saviors to millions of small businesses everywhere. how is the rapidly changing world of digital payments changing the way intuit's biggest customers conduct business? answer to these questions and more from the ceo, brad smith, who joins us from new york today. welcome, sir. good to have you with us. >> good afternoon. >> let's talk first a little bit about tax season this year and how that is going.

how is the use of turbo tax most especially trending this year? >> well, we're still in the thick of the season. we have another three weeks left. and what we are seeing is a continuation of procrastination. it appears more and more of us wait until close tore april 15, in this case april 17th to file their taxes. so far so good. our data suggests people are continuing to adopt digital software. looks like we're picking up another point of share this year. and i like our prospects for finishing strong. >> intuit's product was the first i ever tried on an apple 2 computer in the mid-80s. it was a revolutionary product at that time. what you did then moving into the small business world with quick books really was the thing that i remember being what sent this company off and upward. what are small businesses telling you about the state of their businesses today? what can you infer from what they're doing?

>> the good news, tyler, we're not only able to pay attention to what they tell us, but we're paying attention to what they're doing. we help small businesses accept credit cards from their customers so we can see if they're getting more customers in the store. what we're starting to see is charge volume per merchant, which is the number of people actually shopping in their stores is up about 4% year over year on a same store sales basis. and small businesses are feeling good enough about that that they're starting to hire employees. in fact, our march index suggested they're hiring at an annual rate of almost 4% now in terms of year over year increase. and they're working more hours and paying higher wages. so it's a modest but definitely is an improvement. >> so your numbers actually get to what they're doing probably quicker than any government number we could see. >> we believe so because we believe looking at their behavior gives us the best indication of whether they're confident about their future. >> you talked about payment systems and you're obviously in that space. we spoke a few moments ago with e-bay's ceo. and i know you're familiar with their products, they compete with you in that area.

how is the uptake going on mobile payments? >> mobile payments is an exciting space to be in. we've been in the space for several years now. we have several hundred thousand customers. and we see a lot of people in the marketplace helping us innovate. the biggest opportunity as many small businesses don't accept credit cards today. whether it's us or other players in the market, we're making it so easy for you to use a smartphone or a tablet. simply swipe your credit card and have it update your quick books accounting and e-mail a receipt to your customer. it's opening a whole new category of small businesses who have never accepted credit cards before. >> i guess you would have sort of an end-to-end solution there. let's talk a little bit about the irs and their involvement in tracking mobile payments and using these kinds of technologies to grease e-commerce. what do you hear there? is the government getting more aggressive in tracking that or not? >> you know, it's hard to tell.

i know we work closely with the government. we work with the rest of the industry to try to find a way for the public entities and private industry to work together. so we'll have to see. i know we're sitting at the table. we're working with them and sharing our innovations and hopefully there will be a clabttiviclab collaborative way for all of us to step into innovation. >> you remain on the board of yahoo! which is involved in a very public civil war or fight for control of the board. and indeed for the direction of that company. what would you like to see happen there? >> i would like to see a company that's an iconic brand that still has hundreds of millions of very active users around the globe continue to succeed and prosper and move into the next chapter of its great history. i'm excited about the changes that scott thompson, our ceo's driving. i like the changes and i'm bullish on the future. >> thank you very much. continued good luck to you.

>> thank you, tyler. >> coming up next, you might need more than just turbo tax if you win the megamillions lottery. in case you've been in hiding, that jackpot is more than $500 million, ty. >> which companies could you buy with that kind of dough? could you pick up a sports team? you couldn't buy the dodgers, could you? >> no. you couldn't. >> darren rovell crunching the numbers. he's on deck. choose control. introducing gold choice. the freedom you can only get from hertz to keep the car you reserved or simply choose another. and it's free. ya know, for whoever you are that day. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. and then treats day after day... well, shoot, that's like checking on your burgers after they're burnt!

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welcome to the world leader in derivatives. welcome to superderivatives.

welcome back to "power lunch." i'm kayla tausche with three in 30. three stock stories in 30 seconds. cafe press, the big on the nasdaq pricing a dollar above its range. opening $2 higher than that currently up 8%. moving on. sears holding sinking after a 110% rally this on speculation it could sell. investors not thrilled maybe all best assets could be gone. alumna upping bid to $50% a share. perhaps this is the result trading at 52. sue. >> thank you very much, kayla. well, in a week that saw director james cameron make history as the first solo diver

to travel seven miles below the pacific ocean, amazon's chief, jeff bezos set out on his own venture to rescue now resting 14,000 feet below the sea. the company will try to rescue the saturn 5 rocket which dropped into the sea minutes after liftoff in 1969. the same ones that powered neil armstrong, buzz ald rin and michael collins on their moon mission. bez bezos' net worth is about $18 billion says he hopes this endeavor will inspire more kids to invent and explore. >> very cool. >> it is cool. >> it's not quite $18 billion, but the megamillion jackpot is plenty now stands at $540 million. if you were the lucky winner, what could you buy? not just fancy vacation homes and sports cars. think big. which companies or even sports teams could you get with that kind of loot?

darren rovell has been daydreaming about it. d-ro. >> tyler, listen, we are going to break down really from a $230 million standpoint, because i don't want people to come after me saying what about after taxes. so it's $389 million lump sum. and then after that i factored in a single resident in new jersey, it was $230 million. obviously depending on your state. we'll start with the dallas starz. you can buy them in entirety according to forbes. they're worth $230 million. >> hockey team, right? >> yep. you can also buy rosetta stone. with the $12 million you have leftover you allow us to put the cd roms directly into our heads so we don't have to learn. martha stewart living $211 million includes em ril.com, martha stewart weddings. i like this one.

petmed express. maybe they'll throw in a couple sock puppets but $50.8 billion was the pet industry in the u.s. last year. maybe you take money and make more money. and finally fund a big hollywood film, make sure you can -- it's not too costly like "john carter" at $250 million. try to make your money back and not just have some fun. but those are a couple things. >> have you bought a ticket yet? >> i bought 20 this morning. >> you bought 20 tickets? >> i usually buy one because i think it's bad luck to buy more than one. seems like the winners always -- you have the consortiums and the syndicates, but i bought 20. >> you? you haven't bought yours? >> i haven't bought any yet. i'll probably do it later. >> do you know what i think is great, at what point do you need to buy a lottery ticket? many people say it's $100 million. like $30 million is not enough. >> $5 million would be fine.

>> i'm just saying when the sign veem screams on my way to work. >> i see contractors being invited to my house when i need it. >> buy you a lovely and talented wife. thanks. coming up just over two hours left in the trading day. charts of the day coming up next. first a reminder that cnbc and churchill downs are giving you a chance to win a v.i.p. trip to the 138th kentucky derby and a $100,000 kentucky derby dream bet. enter now through facebook or twitter. "power lunch" is back in two. tie books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that's the power of all of us. that's the power of all of us. that's the membership effect of american express.

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let's gi you a quick market check there as the industrials are at 130.67. nasdaq off by 28. the s&p at 1394 down ten. but that doesn't really do it justice because earlier when you look at market breadth, only about 25 of the 500 stocks in the s&p were higher. west texas crude down $2.86 at 102.55. it has now crossed below its 50-day moving average. a sign that indicates that the trading range for oil may have ratcheted downward, sue. >> key day tomorrow in europe. specifically spain. the yield on the 10-year has moved sharply higher over the la