>> that does it for us. don't forget to catch more "fast money" at 5:00 p.m. tonight. follow me on twitter. markets are at the highs of the day and "power lunch" picks it up and takes the ball right now. and we will not fumble it, scotty. how are you doing, everybody? three hours to go in the trading day and we are off and running in the second quarter. you probably know all about the great numbers for the markets in the first quarter. so what's your move now? stay in? get out? you never lose money taking a profit of course. two power players will sound off, the ceo of ne tax is and cio of infed rated. >> big new casino opening in atlantic city. we're going to tally up the winners and losers in the gaming stocks, brian. >> that we will. and it's not easy being goldman these days. a private equity firm under fire for owning stake in a media company said to facilitate sex

trarv trafficking. along with sue herera and brian shactman, i'm tyler mathisen. and that can only mean one thing, "power lunch" begins right now. a lot going onto start the quarter. manufacturing much better than expected. construction spending steepest strop in months. more worries about recession in europe. major averages staring down new highs here. nasdaq just about the same. the pulse of the markets energy in focus. the ism number pushing oil up higher by half a percent -- actually, 1.5%. rbob up 1.3%. a bit of a turnaround in nat gas up now 0.5%. avon surging of course after fragrance maker makes a $10 billion bid for the company. avon is struggling. they said no. right now it is trading up 17%

at 22.66. express scripts wraps up that acquisition of medco. it's been a pretty tough year for alpha natural but good day today. groupon revises q-1 results. a downgrade on top of that. kayla tausche will have much more on this in just about a minute. down 11.5%. plus robo payments down after that data breech, visa drops them as a processor. bank of america, merrill lynch downgraded the stock down 1.75%. now i want to go to bob pisani. the latest details as we kick off the second quarter after a darn good first one. >> starting off pretty darn good there, brian. look intraday on the s&p 500. sitting right near another new high. that's intraday. that's what you would expect. this is traditionally a good month because you get in-flows into stocks due to tax season. it really does matter. so far off to a good start. something that puzzles me a little, brian, i'm not sure what

to make it but remember the bond market dropping helping the stock market? yields were going up for a while here in the last month and then in the last seven or eight trading sessions the yields have been dropping as prices go up on the bond market. i'm not sure what to make of this. i'm not going to yell about it too much. i am a little concerned about it though. keep an eye on that one. elsewhere sectors looking good. materials what you want to look at. those are doing well. energy, here's all your risk-on trade. consumer staples are doing good largely because of avon products. heard from brian about avon. let me make one comment because people keep asking me who's going to take out if cody doesn't, bho will step in and do it? think of loreal or some other high-end retail estee lauder. these are traditional retail models but avon is not traditional retail model. everybody knows largely direct sellers. and, sue, that's a different model. so if you think of who would be out there like an estee lauder

or loreal, they're going to have a tougher time integrating a direct seller like avon into their retail marketing system. that's the kind of problem i see out there about all the competitors emerging. at any rate you can see the effect that's happening on avon's stock. >> that makes perfect sense. switch on the "power lunch" power surge and drill down on the stories driving the day. first up economists raising forecast for first quarter growth and then having second spots. steve liesman joins us now with more. >> hey, sue. see if you can follow this. a bit of contradictory data this morning with the institute of supply management, decent manufacturing and overall growth, but a big and meaningful miss for february construction spending. here's the ism data. it was up just one. but take a look, the employment component, production component all up nearly three. backlog dragging it down. prices paid down a little bit but at a high level. ism numbers go along with decent growth.

2.5% to 3% range as last week's surprise consumer spending number all of that prompting economists to raise their growth and cut back outlook for fed easing. then construction spending came along this morning. much weaker than expected. down 1.1% with weakness in public and private commercial construction. residential construction unchanged. january revised lower. all that shaved a couple tenths off the outlook. most estimates in the 1.5% to 2.5% range compare with 2011 fourth quarter growth of 3%. several economists think growth may be strong enough for the fed not to do qe-3. and richard fisher interviewed this morning agreed. saying no more qe and wouldn't even favor, sue, continuing operation twist. >> how reflective is he of the rest of the fed, steve? >> well, i think right now he is not. but i think if you get those numbers in the 2.5% to 3% range, he's going to be right.

and it could be that twist could be off the table. the continuation of it. and i think certainly 2.5% to 3% takes additional qe-3 off the table. but as you can see from my report, sue. it's day-to-day, number-to-number. with a one handle or solidly with a two handle on it. >> very good point, steve. thanks. ty. >> the president is talking trade and the economy at the white house at this hour with the leaders of the mexico and canada. they are calling it the north america leaders summit. news conference is set to begin in just a few moments time. john harwood is standing by at the white house. john, what's the key issue on the agenda with these three leaders? and what if anything are we expected to hear at the press conference? >> reporter: what i'm going to be watching, tyler, is to see what these two leaders in particular, steven harper of canada and president obama, have to say about the transcanada pipeline. the keystone pipeline which the president's held up the first half of it. he's recently made some moves to accelerate permitting for the second part of it from oklahoma

from cushing. there's a new ad republicans going after him blaming him for high gas prices. steven harper was not happy that the administration held up the first half of the pipeline. the president said it's not over. transcanada and reapply and make that happen down the line. but the republicans forced his hand. i want to hear the dance between those two leaders. and of course whatever mexican president has to say about that issue as well. >> turn back to domestic politics. three gop primaries on tap for tomorrow. what is the expected outcome here. and will we be just that much closer to a romney nomination? >> reporter: you know, i just left, tyler, a meeting with a senior advisor to the romney campaign. they're expecting to win all three, district of columbia, maryland, wisconsin, perhaps lose a congressional district or two in maryland and wisconsin, but win those and then their

hope is that rick santorum will re-evaluate his campaign and maybe not go onto april the 24th when pennsylvania will vote and santorum with reason to think he'd do well, but stands to be wiped out in many other states on that day. the romney campaign, which of course was very badly like many republicans do to turn to the general election and president obama would sorely love to have the primary race end after tomorrow. we'll see whether rick santor santorum's in that frame of mind. >> and obama's hot with women, in a good way, giving him a big lead in some swing states. what's changed here? >> certainly some of the conversation taken place in the republican primaries, contraception and other issues has been something that independent women, you know, conservative women like the things that for example rick santorum has said and he's done well with women voting in republican primaries, but independents, some of those may have been diseffected by those issues. i wouldn't put a whole lot of stock, tyler, in a swing stage

pole at this part of the process. i think we are looking structurely as a very close election between president obama and mitt romney likely to be a four to six point race now and for the next several months. we'll see what happens at the end when they're fighting over issues like gas prices and other economic matters at the end. >> john, thank you very much. now to shares of groupon, which are continuing to slide after revising the fourth quarter results on friday. kayla tausche joins us with the latest on the daily deals provider. kayla. >> sue, it was a relatively small figure that got restated just about 2% of those deals got refunded. but the big question on everyone's mind is what's stopping this from happening again? and what is next for the upcoming quarter? that disclosure came friday after market close with a company taking a $22.6 million hit to net income which shaved about 4 cents a share off fourth quarter profit. the company has tapped kpmg

auditors to reach compliance in its accounting by july 1st. i'm told this by a source familiar with the matter. but there are two problems at work here. groupon first is moving to a higher price point to beef up margins for those deals where there's a higher refund rate and a less willing customer base to carry through on purchases. the other is hypergrowth. that was a problem well-telegraphed by pre-ipo accounting sna foos. what's followed from the analyst community is a swath of downgrades and price cuts, the likes of b of a, ever core benchmark and credit suisse. most cutting price target to $20 which is the ipo issue price. with the stock well below that, groupon's big problem is shareholde shareholders. seven investigations opened up on accounting practices just a month before pre-ipo investors are allowed to sell those shares. looking for a catalyst, this may be it. >> indeed. let's switch gears and talk about yahoo!. looks like the power struggle

over control of that company's board has ratcheted up to another level. what's the motivation behind mr. loeb right now? >> sue, just this morning loeb's third point produced a website that went live. it's called valueyahoo.com. of course proxy contests aren't knew, but loeb is taking this right to yahoo!'s backyard, the internet as well as to facebook. which yahoo! is currently targeting for patent infringement. he's making his case there. and the irony is definitely not unnoticed. he's taking an argument previously made in regulatory filings and making it extremely visual and extremely social. the page aims to make loeb's case for yahoo understandable to the company's user base and spends much real estate on the background of the proposed board members and the belief that the crown jewel for yahoo is that al ali baa baa. might be a trademark issue but certainly effective. >> keep us posted, kayla.

thanks. time now for the bond report. rick santelli is tracking all the action at the cme group. hey, rick. >> hi, tyler. indeed welcoming the first quarter as steve liesman was doing with his spot just moments ago. everybody is trying to handicap their strategy for trade the next month as they try to put all the pieces together with data as to assess how first quarter gdp will look. that will of course be the last week of the month. if you look at an intraday 24-hour chart actually of 10-year note yields, you can see they're down a bit. keep in mind here we are at 2.18. the high water mark for march post march 13th meeting was 2.38. we're down about 20 basis point. look at a 24-hour chart for the bund. they're down a little more. high yield water mark for march was a close at 2.05. take away 25 basis points. up rather large close to a third of a percent.

look at dollar versus canada, you can see it's getting very close to breaking out to the wrong direction. and the last chart's the dollar index, which is down currently sits about 1.25% from where it finished up 2011 as traders handicap commodity prices and at least how that affects foreign exchange. tail wagging the dog. back to you. >> rick, thank you very much. and straight ahead, q-1 is in the books. the dow, nasdaq and s&p all surging. s&p by 12%. all three averages beat gold, which was up less than 7%. >> so that poses the question, do you pull back a little bit after the big run-up? or do you let it all ride to try to make your money work? answers from the ceo and cio of fed rated investors. "power lunch" back in two. [ male announcer ] if you believe the mayan calendar, on december 21st polar shifts will reverse the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space. which would render retirement planning unnecessary.

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let's check in with scott wapner and see which stock is on his radar at this hour. >> thanks, scott. it's intel. because intel right now is trading at a six-year high. large cap tech has come back into favorite. technology was one of the best performing sectors in the first quarter. microsoft has done well, ibm continues to do well. intel is doing well today. we talked about it on the "fast money" "halftime report" today. they like the management team and just that move into big cap technology and intel's been able to buck some of the worrisome trends in a slowing pc market.

they have ultrabooks comingou the story continues to be good and investors seem to be responding. >> indeed they do. thanks, scott. stocks meanwhile kicking off the second quarter with gains following better than expected data on u.s. and chinese manufacturing. the dow, nasdaq and s&p all higher today. and have had a huge run since the beginning of the year. our power player says u.s. equities are the best game in town. let's bring in chief investment officer for global equities fedder rated investors. welcome back. >> good to see you, sue. >> it seems as though when i read through my notes that you think q-2 will reflect what we saw in q-1 pretty accurately. that's the decline in terms of perception of risk out there. is that correct? >> we think a lot of the forces in place in q-1 are in place again in q-2. we have recession risk in europe declining. we had perception of the landing in china moving from hard to soft. we think that continues. we had perceptions of the u.s.

economic activity picking up. we think that continues. and against a backdrop of investors ask cheap valuations. we think it's sort of more of the same. maybe a little more muted. >> i was going to say. >> it's too early to sell out here. >> well, we had a pretty decent run though. but you think it is too early to take some profits? and how much more do you think is left in the move? >> well, we started the year with 14.50 target. i think we're likely to probably raise that. the market even at 1600 would be only trading at under 15 times earnings, which is historically pretty cheap. you remember that a lot of the forces that people have been worried about that create the negative vicious circle, if you will, the negative feedback loop, things start going the right way, they suddenly become a powerful upward virtuous cycle. and confidence be gets confidence. activity picks up. equities are priced for much more negative backdrop.

so, the next thing that can happen here is you start getting some multiple expansion in exties for the first time in four or five years. >> where though, steve, does the imptous come from for that? retail investors have been notably cautious. and they've been pulling money out of equity funds in recent months despite the move up in stocks. so what takes the s&p to those levels? >> well, i think, tyler, in the near-term it's earnings. i guess earnings gets a prize on the upside here. most of the companies talking our analysts are very, very cautious. they're giving cautious guidance. they're managing costs very carefully. if things turn out globally better than they expected, a lot of that revenue's going to flow right to the bottom line. so i think the earnings picture surprise is on the upside. that will be the focus the next several weeks. >> let me turn you to china that you describe in my note at least as the possible trade of the year. what's your scenario there? what's your hypothesis?

>> well, this market has underperformed now for a year and a half, tyler. it's one of the cheapest markets in the world particularly relative to the growth potential. you know, perception of risk still high. people are out of that trade. and if china engineers a soft landing, which we think it will, we think from this point forward it could be really one of the best performers globally out there in the markets. >> you know, you also like korea. and if i read you correctly, you're taking a look at japan which runs contrary to what a lot of people out there are thinking. why do you like japan, perhaps? >> we haven't really gotten into japan big yet, sue. but we are looking at it. valuations there are very, very cheap. they've always been cheap the last several years, but growth looks like it's bottoming out. they're coming off a very bad year last year. expectations are very low. if the global cycle picks up, a lot of japanese companies benefit from that. so we are taking a hard look there. but we're not really prepared to load up the boats on japan.

but we are looking at it. >> all right. so u.s. equities look the best out of everything that we've discussed, are there certain sectors that you still think have the upside if indeed you do want to raise your target on the s&p? >> we're staying with cyclicals, sue. we still like tech and consumer discretionary. particularly like industrials and materials that have underperformed on the cycle. a lot of analysts think they've already hit peak earnings. these stocks are trading at single digit multiples which make sense if you're at peak earnings. but if you think the cycle's going to be stronger for longer, which is our view, these stocks probably have another leg up in them at least. >> steve, thanks a million. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> steve auth. >> as if goldman sachs needed more bad press, a private equity fund run by goldman is selling its stake in a media company that allegedly facilitates sex trafficking. the story broke in the "new york times" over the weekend. so what is the buzz inside the bank? and how big a black eye is this

for goldman? >> here's a look at goldman stock. it's down 20% over a one-year period. today a bit of a bounce up about .75% at $125.29 a share. back in a moment. [ donovan ] i hit a wall.

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it got an upgrade today. and the stock is moving smartly higher. the first quarter is the most important time for advertising due to events like the super bowl and although those awards shows. julia boorstin joins us with the breakdown of the most and least effective ads out there. hi, julia. >> hi, sue. ace metrics poll viewers in terms of likability, purchase intent and relevance. now, the losers in the first quarter were financial services, which are struggling with consumer distrust. goldman sachs had two of the eight worst ranked ads. viewers found these ten-second spots with animated characters both confusing and boring. bad combination needless to say. and a sign that goldman needs to re-evaluate its messaging. the big winner was samsung. an ad for galaxy tablet took the number one spot and won for overall connected tvs, smart tvs, took the fifth spot.

ace metric's says the top ten brands almost always see a jump in sales. tv is the biggest single item marketers have. they spend more on tv than any other type of advertising. and it's worth pointing out these may be intended for tv ads initially but they're also repurposed to run online. >> julia, thank you very much. talk about bad press, it's been a bad couple of weeks for goldman sachs. first a former goldman executive blasts former colleagues in a high profile new york times op ed. now an embarrassing report again in the times from nicholas chris tov. points to a private equity investment by goldman in a media company that's been accused of facilitating sex trafficking. now goldman sold its stake in the company late friday hours before the story was published. and says it lost most of the

fund's original $30 million investment. joining us now to talk about this latest pr gaffe, if that is totally what it is, is cnbc.com's john carney and jessica press ler with "new york magazine." let me begin by asking you, jessica, that this was a long standing investment made years ago by a private equity fund run by goldman sachs that they fundamentally just lost track of despite the fact that they had a guy until 2010 on the board of the company, village voice media. is this a question of them not doing their due diligence or losing track of an investment? >> well, goldman invested in this online classified firm in about 2000. so it was really kind of a long time ago. it wasn't then a sex ad's website. it was just kind of a normal classified ads thing. it didn't really start getting the revenue from these ads until

2010 when craigslist shut down its adult services ads. and then by then that was when the goldman managing director that was on the board had stepped down. so they could plausibly claim they didn't know. that's really embarrassing for goldman because they're supposed to be really smart as they tell us all the time. so but they could possibly not know. >> john, does this go to a question of culture at goldman under which maybe the alarm bells don't go off or people are a little hesitant when there's a lot of money on the table? $30 million is not a huge amount for goldman, but a sizable stake. >> yeah. i think a lot are trained to think in spread sheet numbers and not necessarily thinking about how this is going to reflect on the firm overall. and, you know, what is the core business here? is that something we should really be involved in publicly? so i think there's a bigger problem at goldman where people might not be able to go to their

bosses and say, hey, look, guys, i know we put $30 million in it and we need to get out. from what i can tell -- >> this won't look good. >> right. from what i can tell goldman has been trying to get out of this, mostly because the investment hasn't been working out. not necessarily because the moral alarm bells have been going off. >> let's look at goldman's statement and what the firm said to us earlier today. the fund relinquished its board seat in january 2010 as a result of being uncomfortable with the direction of the company and inability to influence its operations. they go onto say that we have been stuck in this investment and tried to exit it for a long time and have now finally entered into an agreement to sell our stake signed on friday. we lost most of the fund's original $30 million investment. one of the questions that i have, jessica, is whether or not if they were uncomfortable with the firm's direction, whether that means they were uncomfortable with the lack of profitability, or whether or not

they were concerned about the actual direction of the content? i can't seem to get clarity on that particular point. what do you think? >> i mean, i always think it's amusing when goldman says in the statements we lost money, we lost money on the investment. like that's the worst thing about it. they also said that about the housing crisis. we lost money when we shorted the housing market. we're supposed to feel bad for them because of that. i mean, it sounds like what they're saying is they were uncomfortable with the direction of the content of the company, but i really don't know what they mean be that. >> one thing i want to point out is that this is nothing extraordinarily new. either about the village voice or about a lot of these alternative media outlets. they've been having what i call hooker ads for a long, long time. it's been in the village voice since the 1970s at least. i grew up in new york city. i grew up with the village voice. it's also on other websites, "new york times" where kristof writes. and you can find similar ads there. >> does it go to lack of due

diligence on goldman's part? >> i don't know if it was lack of due diligence or just their thought of we want to be involved in this alternative media space. remember, when they bought-in it was 2000, that was an internet bubble, media bubble. they thought we're going to probably ipo this in a couple years. we won't be in this a decade. >> bring it back to where things with goldman sort of always ultimately end up and that is with lloyd blankfein. does this speak to his leadership of the company in any meaningful way? >> i think that lloyd blankfein has presided over this company through many disasters. and possibly it does lead up to him, all of these things kind of not engaging with the media, not explaining what goldman does effectively. that is definitely down to his leadership and he should take responsibility for that. >> very quickly, john. >> i don't think goldman has a way out of every bad story is going to be on the headlines everywhere until they have

serious changes at that firm. that might mean serious changes at the very top. >> folks, thank you very much. interesting conversation. interesting topic. up next, brian shactman is going to update the market action. sharon epperson is live at nymex with the metals close. >> how about this number? more than $700 billion. that's a lot of money. and that's how much money natixis manages. talk risk, reward and return on the other side of a quick break. the next revolution in music is happening here. pandora rocks the big board.

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welcome back to "power lunch." i'm brian shactman. resetting the markets for you. pretty interesting money flowing into treasuries as it's flowing into oil and gold and the equity market. so we start q-2 with definitely some money coming into the market. some stock stories we're following right now, kohl's making a nice move after jpmorgan brought it out of its basement. the target now 52. gm is an interesting one. up 3.3% after morgan stanley resumed it with an overrate. this is the key, folks, price target is $45 on this stock. we always focus on big bang dividends, but regionals also in the mix. bank of the ozarks up 2%. you have to own by april 13th. on the downside, linear

technology no longer a buy. buffalo wild wings, one of several restaurants downgraded at raymond james which slapped underperform on bwld. mainly based on valuation nice run down 3% today. and volterra struggling after a downgrade. gold and other metal prices getting ready to stop shouting. sharon epperson at the nymex. hey, sharon. >> they've already stopped shouting. gold settling around a key technical level around 1680. but the real leader in the metal space in this session has been copper. you talked about new money coming into commodities, you see that in the copper. certainly helped the rally and that is the positive manufacturing data we got here. and that definitely contributed to the gains. and copper market and some of the other metals with the industrial components to them as well. look at what happened to gold, yeah, we talked about the new money there. and the technical levels. also some bullish bets being

placed there. money managers raising those bullish bets in the last week as we approached 1700 level. but when you look at the manufacturing data that comes out whether it's china or eurozone or the u.s. which was really the driver, we've seen big gains in silver and palladium as well. those are among the biggest winners in this session. back to you. >> thanks so much, sharon. today's power player president and ceo of natixis asset management. one of the largest asset managers in the world with three quarters of a trillion, with a t, in assets. oversees 20 plus affiliates in the u.s. and asia. good to have you here, john. >> thanks a lot. >> pleasure. you're a busy guy. you guys manage a lot of money. you have such an interesting perspective on global things. we heard earlier that the u.s. market is the best one out there from steve auth. but we've had such a big run-up. do you see it that same way? >> i think the u.s. market is

definitely performed better than most of the indexes out there globally. it's been a great place to be. with that said, the volatility's changed dramatically right now. you know, you've had, what, seven days of 1% movements up and down in the first quarter. last quarter we had 36 days of one-point move. volatility may be down, but it's not an all-clear signal. and i think one of the difficulties for investors going forward is what do they do over the long-term? i'm from boston, boston marathon's coming up, investing is a marathon, not a sprint. first quarter is just a tenth of a mile in a marathon. >> you try and help people put together what you call a durable portfolio. and i think that goes to the long-term aspect of things. but if you were to put together a durable portfolio with a global view, how would you do it today? >> one of the things you would look at is looking at the traditional long only, but then you need to understand and mitigate risk. 85% of investors -- we found

this study in the uk and u.s. believe that risk is associated with only losing money. you're not taking risk to also make money. so we've got to get that educated again. and that means you're going to have to be in things that aren't as correlated to the long only marketplace. that means some of these alternatives that help you mitigate and manage risk so you're able to produce and perform in difficult market environments but also take advantage of a good market like we're in right now. >> i'm curious where you see the risk appetite of retail investors. i realize a lot of your business is not retail, but some of it is. and how would you compare that risk appetite for the u.s. investor as opposed to the non-u.s. investor where basically 60% of your assets are non-u.s. >> that's a great question because it does vary from country to country, ree jon to region. in asia we've seen some really great flows. one of the most interesting things over the last decade is we've been able to raise money year after year with net new flows globally for eight years straight now. people have written off asset

management as being very difficult the last decade. what's happened is we've diversified our business a few markets we've written off a few years ago for asset growth have been our three best markets. in asia they look at something very differently than what uk investors are looking at and in the u.s. differently from the uk investor. to get investors back in the market, we have to educate them and have them understand risk and volatility. and the difference between the two. and understanding what their long-term horizons are and building portfolios that allow them to hit those goals. >> one of the big debates out there is whether or not china, you mentioned the asia landscape, whether or not china has successfully engineered the type of landing that will allow global growth and their own growth to proceed without inflation. how do you feel about it? >> i guess when i look at it, it's short-term statistics. marathon, sprint, i know it's an overused analogy sometimes, but it really is that. look at the u.s. and europe. europe at 15-year high in unemployment. the u.s. is generating 225,000

jobs a month. that's going to take us ten years to get back to pre-crisis job levels. i don't know what the engine for growth will be in china and brazil. they're still dependent upon europe and u.s., two of the largest consumer markets in the world, to generate. i'm wondering how long that's sustainable without job growth in europe and the u.s. >> let me turn the conversation quickly to a wonky sort of management question. you operate a sort of group of boutique managers, right? and you yet grew up infidelity and putnam, companies known for their single brand. what's the advantage what you do over what a fidelity does or a putnam does in terms of your ability to manager money effectively? >> i left 13 years ago. if you looked at natixis, they weren't on any list. we were $130 billion in assets in the united states ten years ago with $330 billion today. globally over $700 billion. i thought at that time i left

that multiboutique being able to build durable portfolios having value and growth international fixed income but different independent autoton mers allow you to compete. >> so no temptation to say, everybody, we're going to be natixis management. >> yeah. that's not the beauty of the model. the beauty of the model is independent management such as loom is sales. there's very little equity overlapping in all our portfolios. sometimes they compete with each other for institutional mandates. it's a wonderful model that's produced, again, over the last decade, positive net flows in an industry that's had some real pressures. >> well, it seems to be working for you. >> thank you. >> come back and spend more time with us. >> it would be a pleasure. >> john of course is the ceo. >> and straight ahead, let's roll the dice. new $2.8 billion casino is opening in atlantic city.

it's called ravel. >> well, something close. darren rovell is opening an atlantic city casino? >> we'll handicap the winners and losers. >> it's revel. if you're traveling to gamble, you have to stay somewhere of course. and a top analyst will give you his top picks in the hotel and travel sectors. we're back in two minutes time with a roll of the dice. i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

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jetson on. the flying car is here at cnbc hk. how you can get behind that wheel. now it's over to sue and tyler on "power lunch." >> everybody's looking out the window at that one. can't wait, mandy. are you looking to roll the dice on the casino stocks perhaps? brian shactman is at the cnbc realtime exchange with some insight on how to play the gaming stocks. >> hi, sue. i'm splitting this into vegas, macau and more regional. and then we'll go into companies that make the slot machines et cetera. dennis from keybanc says it's definitely improving in u.s. and vegas. people aren't gambling as much and there still isn't much pricing power in rooms. revenue per room not what it used to be. other things if you think revenue starved states are the future, penn national is a good prospect. operates in more than a dozen states including canada. 14.5% to the upside year-to-date.

if you want vegas exposure, mgm has had a nice run. they have ties to foxwood in connecticut and that has major debt trouble right now. macau just reported a 24% pop in gambling revenue for march. wynn is well-known and strong in both places. 15% or so year-to-date to the upside. las vegas sands basically came back from the brink because of the bet on macau. look at this chart. i had to do it. since the market bottom they're up 4,000%. it's unbelievable. the stock is still running this year. and they're opening a new $4 billion casino there later this month. two other quick ones. if you like macau but thing lvs is top pi, crown ask a pure play and up 44% this year. and as macau and parts of the u.s. continue to expand, this is the one i wanted to point ut. companies that make the machines, igt, for example, based in the u.s. and has a global footprint. again, put the slot machines for people to waste their money, tyler. they make them. >> thank you very much. and don't miss mary thompson live, yes, she'll be live in

atlantic city's new resort casino revel this afternoon on "closing bell." can this $2.8 billion venture reverse ac's five years of declining revenues? that is the question. first let's take a closer look now at how the travel and leisure stocks are fairing and how you should play them. jake fuller joins us. he's a gaming, lodging and e-travel equity analyst with lozard capital markets. i'll get your thoughts on gaming stocks in just a minute. let's talk travel first. do you like the hotels better than you like the e-travel companies? and if so, why? >> actually, the other way around. so hotels, i think you have a great backdrop, very limited supply growth over the next couple of years. demand remains quite healthy. so demand's growing faster than supply. occupancy's up. hotels are raising room rates. that's typically a very good environment for profit growth. at this point in the cycle you usually want to buy the companies that actually own the hotels. >> so two cheers for the hotels

groups but three cheers for the e-travelers? >> right. bottom line here is travel's growing at 5%, 6%, maybe 7%. only a third of travel sales online globally that percentage is rising. you see online travel growing two to three times at the pace of the hotel industry, but valuations are the same. look at a company like priceline. >> priceline is your favorite in that category. you don't think it's too highly priced and you don't think it's overexposed in europe? >> priceline has become very interesting because market cap wise it's as big as the hotel chains combined, but you're trading at a discount, you're growing faster, a higher multiple business. they do have european exposure, but penetration is still rising. very strong secular backdrop. >> and favorites in the brick and mortar are starwood and marriott. >> i would tend to focus on starwood. at this point in the cycle buy the companies that own the hotels, not the ones that manage or franchise. you get more operating leverage. >> quick thaulgts. i'm sure you heard the report on

gaming companies. what's your reaction there? and a name to buy. >> lvs, the name i'm buying about to open a new resort in macau. in gaming you buy the companies that are building. doesn't tend to be a same store growth business. the u.s. market relatively soft. i would rather focus on lvs and macau. >> thanks very much, jake. appreciate you being with us. >> from travel and tourism to marketing and sports, next on "power lunch" the power of the nfl. >> darren rovell is going to sit down with commissioner roger goodell. he's going to talk jerseys and bounties. power is back in two. ♪

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all right. baseball season opens at staid ups across the country this week, but football fans are celebrating an opening as well. it's the opening of nfl apparel season. new merchandise agreements with nike, new era and underarmour. darren rovell sat down with the commissioner of the nfl to talk about the new gear, but also about the cloud hanging over the game. darren is live in new york for us. hi, darren. >> yeah, hi, sue. nike, underarmour, new era consummating their new relationships with the nfl in this pop-up store in manhattan.

earlier today i did sit down, as you said, with nfl commissioner roger goodell. the talk about the stringent penalties they imposed on the saints personnel for bountygating including saints head coach sean payton appealing his one-year suspension. >> we will hear on an extradited basis. we also have an expedited decision. i assume we'll be able to have the hearings this week and hopefully have decisions by the end of the week. they want to be haerds. i want to hear them. once we've had an opportunity to hear that and understand what the circumstances are, we'll make our decision from there. >> in an interesting development over the weekend, the nfl players association told the players who might be involved in bountygate some 20 to 25 players who participated in this pay for hit program to lawyer up before they talk to the nfl. obviously those penalties have not been handed down yet. and on the merchandise front, tomorrow we'll be talking to

nike president charlie denson about nike's unveiling of their jerseys. they have the nike jerseys here in the store, but they're covered in a tarp. it seems like nike is almost as secretive as apple with their unveiling of their nfl jerseys. but it seems like the buzz has paid off. back to you. >> my 6-year-old is dying for an eli manning jersey. they haven't had them. i'm going to pick a couple up. let's head to the white house now where the president along with the president are presidents from canada and mexico. having a conference in washington. anything newsworthy we will of course bring it to you. >> indeed we will. coming up just over two hours left in the trading day. a check on the markets and you do not want to miss tyler's chart of the day. it is a work of brilliance. i don't know if i have to pick one. we're back in two. 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.

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usaa. we know what it means to serve. the markets pretty much where we started here on "power lunch." but we started off the second quarter right where we ended the first. >> moving higher. >> all right. let's take a look at my chart of the day, which is the oil market. because of course that's one of the big issues not only in the campaign, but certainly a lot of other areas as gasoline prices continue to climb higher.

up better than 2% at the 105.27 level on west texas intermediate crude. >> as we wrapped up the end of the first quarter, i want to look at the dow stocks that hadn't done well. these are the only three names in the dow that are negative year-to-date. >> that's fascinating. >> obviously verizon you might expect utility, but hewlett packard, you know their problem, mcdonald's down on a year-to-date basis. surprise to me. >> but a good performer over the past five. of course they're going to have a new ceo, mr. skinner, stepping aside. i decided for my chart of the day in light of the fact that kentucky plays kansas tonight for the national basketball championship, i would look at a one-year of two products that are emblem. i call that about a nine-point spread in favor of kentucky. >> is that where you were going? >> that's where i'm going with it. >> you were putting so much pressure on us charts of