watson sunk that massive two-footer just a few minutes ago? that'll do it for "power lunch." thank you, everybody, for watching. >> "street signs" begins right now. and welcome to "street signs." i'm brian sullivan. the pain in spain already on your tv plane. the question now is will the plane land here in america or stay overseas. we're going to show you the staggering stats of the spanish banks and why they matter to your money. instagram got a billion dollars from facebook. who's next? we're going to name other hot tech start-ups that may be about to cash in. a big shoutout to herb green berg. he told you the end of last year best buy had one of the worst ceos on the street. that ceo is now out. herb has a list of who may be next. first, julia boorstin watching the markets as our mandy continues to enjoy her vacation. >> brian, the selloff continues with just two hours left in the

trading session. the dow hitting a two-month low. the s&p and nasdaq hitting one-month lows. the dow having its biggest five-day drop since november. we're just a third of the way through april, and we're on track for all three averages to have their biggest monthly drop since last september. the s&p breaking a key resistance level. the nasdaq having the biggest one-day drop since december 8th. only three stocks in the nasdaq 100 are higher. no, apple is not one of them. brian? >> how do we have a market day if apple's not one of the new highs? all right. you're looking right now live at gettysburg, pennsylvania. rick santorum expected to hold a news conference any minute now. he is expected to make a major announcement. when it happens, we will bring that to you. in the meantime, let's get back to the markets. let us begin with your money and what many believe now is the single greatest risk to the global economy, and that is spain. today spain's stock market fell again. its biggest bank stocks also tumbling this year.

this is a big story we, folks. spain, to put it bluntly, is not grease. they'rest maited 2011 gdp is $1.4 trillion. that ranks fourth in the world. that gdp is contrasting by .3%. as of last quarter unemployment in spain a staggering 23%. that is the 163rd worst joblessness rate in the world. but the biggest risk is not the spanish economy. it is the spanish banks. the biggest banks in spain by assets are santender, bbva. you've got bbva at 782. here's the fear. add them up and you get total assets of about $2.76 trillion. spain's gdp is $1.4 trillion. in other words, spain's top three banks have assets that are

worth nearly double the entire spanish economy. now consider this. the biggest three u.s. banks, jpmorgan chase, bank of america and citigroup have combined assets of just over $6 trillion. that is only about 40% of our gdp. put it bluntly, spain's three biggest banks are nearly five times larger as a percentage of their economy than our top three banks. how do you say systemic risk in spanish? all right. we're going to get to scott in a minute. i want to go back to gettysburg, pennsylvania. we are getting word that rick santorum is expected to announce the suspension of his bid for the republican presidential nomination. his daughter, bella, unfortunately dealing with a very serious genetic disorder. again, we are getting word that rick santorum's announcement will be that he will suspend his nomination for the republican presidential bid. nbc news is confirming that. when mr. santorum moves out, we

will bring you that live. all right. let us go back now to the trillion dollar question. will spain's pain take away our gain? let us bring in chief investment officer of guggenheim partners. he joins us now onset. good to see you as well. i'll be hustling back to the desk in just a second. your take on spain. is the risk there enough to bring down the u.s. economy, to bring down the u.s. stock market? >> well, brian, the bottom line is no. spain is obviously a serious economic mess in europe. a much different story than what we saw with greece or ireland or portugal given its relative size. as i've been indicating in my recent research, the problems in europe are systemic. we are going to have to go through a period of serial restructuring in all these nations. i think the market now accepts that. and in our own country we have a

central banker who is committed to making this work at any price. >> scott, i respect your views and you are spot on about the u.s. economy. you've been spot on about as many things as anybody has been the last couple of years. with all due respect, when i'm looking at a banking system where the top three banks are 200% of gdp -- >> right. >> -- who has the money to backstop or bail that out if, indeed, we start to see more of a failure? because these stocks are down over 40% in the last 52 weeks. >> well, brian, first off, to directly answer your question, where will the money come from, it will come from the fact that the efsf and the esm are there as a fire wall. they will lend money to spain if necessary. >> do they have that kind of money? >> well, esfs and the esm at this stage have the ability to borrow the money. even if the ecb has to buy the bonds, they'll buy the bonds. now, to put the problem in perspective in terms of the size of this problem, the total tier

one capital of the spanish banking system is about $180 billion. to put that in comparison to our own crisis, the tier one capital of citigroup is about $150 billion. it took a $45 billion bailout from t.a.r.p. to save citi. so if we -- even if we wipe out a substantial amount of capital in the spanish banking system, which i think is highly likely -- >> you do? you do agree? >> yeah. >> and spain does have a better debt to gdp profile than other countries. >> probably one of the best in europe. >> but the problem is the sheer size. what i was trying to highlight in the short time we had was the sheer size of the spanish problem. it is not belgium. it is not portugal. it is not greece. >> right. look, spain made an announcement yesterday about its austerity program, and they're not going to hit the targets that they originally advertised. the bottom line is spain is on the road to restructuring just like the rest of the european

nations. so it's just a matter of time until we get there. >> scott, where are you -- >> by the way, like the work. good job. where were you on the growth situation in europe right now? i guess the key problem is, earnings are pricing in a european recovery in the fourth quarter. they're expecting europe to come out of recession. this mild recession that we're in. where are you? are we going to be in the mild recession? are we coming out? or is it going to get worse? europe? >> i think europe's going to get worse and i think it's going to get a lot worse. the bottom line is that earnings in europe is not going to be what people had hoped in equities. but, you know, the rewralty is that the ecb holds the key to the whole thing. when you have the euro at 1.30 right now, which is on a purchase power p eer parity bas about 20% overvalued, this currency should be 20% undervalued. they need to depreciate the currency to allow exports and to get these nations to be more competitive. that's what they did in the asian crisis. >> will the germans allow that?

they control the keys to the euro. >> well, you know, isn't it amazing that what mario draghi's done and how quiet the germans have been? they're basically at this point saying, you know, they don't want to come out and admit that mario's doing the right thing. but the bottom line is, they understand that there's going to have to be a lot more liquidity. >> you say you think europe's going to get a lot worse. you also expect this to be their massive restructuring. when do you think things will start to get better? >> you know, i would say -- i would answer that by saying when the euro gets to parity, things will start getting a lot better. now, my call is that the euro will be at parity before the end of the year. >> we have the same call. i put that out as one of my predictions. >> right. >> i've been shocked at how well the euro has held up against the dollar. all i keep hearing from my sources in europe is that there's so much repatriation of euros it's artificially being inflated on the banking side but it can't last forever. what's it going to take for the bottom to drop out of the euro against the dollar?

>> i think it's going to take an overt move by the ecb to intentionally push the currency lower. and it'll probably have to have some coordination with the fed and other central banks. but the bottom line is, the fed does not want to see europe continue to slide into a problem. because otherwise it's going -- >> what can our fed do about europe? >> you want to know something very interesting? in the swap lines, you remember when we put the swap lines in place with the european central banks? the first time we did it, it was unilateral. meaning they could have u.s. dollars on demand. the second time dr. bernanke did it, it was bilateral. we can get euros from them. if worse comes to worse, we can borrow euros from the european central bank and intervene in the european markets. >> i want to get back to your call here on parity on the euro. we're at 1.31 now. that's a 25% drop. that's a very, very -- in currency terms, folks, that's catastrophic. that's an enormous move. you think they can do that?

they're going to flood europe with euros, the world with euros? >> bob, i got to be honest with you. i have a history of being too early. i was too early in the housing crisis in 2006. maybe i've got the timing wrong. but the bottom line is whether we're going to do it by the end of the year or we're going to do it next year, they're going to have to do it. there's no path out. this is it. >> the germans will take the hit. >> the germans will have to. >> to their exports. >> let's bottom line this before we let you go. if you're right about spain needing restructuring, is that going to drag down the u.s. stock market? >> not -- not more than 10% from the highs this year. >> why not? >> good -- good -- our good central banker, dr. bernanke, is committed to keeping asset prices rising. and he will provide whatever liquidity is necessary. >> so does that mean you expect another round of quantitative easing? >> yes. absolutely. i think that dr. bernanke -- i likened it to the emancipation

proclamation. funny how i can tie these things together. abraham lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation and shoved it into a desk daughter two months before he announced it. he needed to wait for the right moment. i think dr. bernanke has already made his plans for what he's going to do. >> you do? >> and they're hidden in his desk drawer and he's going to pull them out when he has the right time. >> quantitative easing all but a sure thing scott minerd has. that's the headline. >> i will say this. they're going to give it another name. coming up on "street signs," weir going to go photo shopping. instrafwram got a billion bucks from facebook. we're going to focus, excuse us, on which tech hot shots could be for grabs next. later, a jaw dropping look at just how big apple really is and where the market would be without the tech giant. a reminder, we're waiting for rick santorum in gettysburg, pennsylvania, to take the podium. nbc news reporting that he will suspend, not end, suspend his

campaign. we are going to bring it to you live when that happens. you're watching "street signs," a lot to do on cnbc, and we're back right after this. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. monarch of marketing analysis. with the ability to improve roi through seo all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g.

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all right. here is your check of the dow jones industrial average. we are just off our lows for the session. still not a great day. in fact, our fifth straight down day for the dow. off 182 points. session low is down 199. you just heard scott minerd of guggenheim say he did not think the u.s. stock market would be torn down by the problems in spain. he said maybe 10%, but overall

he remains fairly optimistic about the u.s. economy. and the u.s. stock market. some good news there. in the meantime, let us go now to washington, d.c., and our own eamon javers. eamon, we are getting word from nbc news that rick santorum will suspend his presidential campaign. and we need to be clear, correct, that this is being reported as a suspension, not as an ending to the campaign? >> reporter: yeah, that's exactly right, brian. the reason why you would suspend rather than end the campaign is you want to keep the legal in a infrastructure in place and you want to be keep the ability to raise money and pay off debts and your staff salary for a couple of weeks or months. that's become kind of standard in presidential politics these days. they suspend them. everybody knows what that means. for rick santorum what this will do is head off a possibly embarrassing moment in a pennsylvania primary if he were not to beat mitt romney in his own home state. that could be a sour note to go out on from this presidential campaign. by ending it here, if he does

that in the next couple of minutes, for sure we will get a sense that rick santorum is going out on a bit of a higher note than after a loss in pennsylvania. i should tell you i've just been e-mailing with some folks in the romney camp. they've said a couple things. we should expect within a very little while to see a statement from romney congratulating santorum on a race well run. also welcoming santorum as an important player with a key role in the task of unifying the party. already the romney folks telling me they want to turn all of the party's attention on the task of beating barack obama going into the fall. >> what do you think this will do to romney's place in the polls versus obama? >> well, look. there was nobody who said they liked barack obama in a presidential poll who was going to be voting for rick santorum. so rick santorum coming into the romney camp, if he can bring his supporters with him, if he does make an endorsement, we're still not clear whether that's going to happen or not, doesn't necessarily bring down barack obama who's at about 50% approval, 51% in a poll just as

recently as yesterday. what it does do is potentially coalesce a lot of the conservative base around mitt romney. that was almost happening anyway here at some point. you started to see mitt romney making the case more and more effectively with the republican party base. i'm the inevitable nominee. it's time to get behind me. let's leave these flirtations with other candidates to the side and go down the aisle and get hitched as the party and its nominee. >> it's obvious from your comments about what the romney campaign is saying, eamon, and i'm sure that you and the reporters there are chattering amongst yourselves about that, this is being viewed by the romney camp as the end of rick santorum's presidential bid. is there any kind of agreement just among you and the reporters that you've talked to over the last, you know, couple of hours or so? >> yeah. i think clearly if rick santorum suspends here, we should not look at that as anything other than kind of a legal nicety. he is suspending the campaign. that means he'll be off the campaign trail. that means romney will pivot into a general election mode.

what santorum will be able to do, though, is raise money. settle whatever debts he's got built up at this point. and he might ask for mitt romney's help in doing that. a lot of times in the past what we've seen are candidates bowing out with huge debts overhanging their campaign. and they need a little help from the front-runner to go out and hit up the party faithful, guys with the big checkbooks, and say help out the loser here and help him settle his campaign debts and move forward with a clear bank balance. that's part of all of this end game. it's comply cated. that's why you see the suspension and not the formal ending of the campaign. >> well said, eamon. we're going to come back to the scene in gettysburg, pennsylvania, the moment that mr. santorum does step out to that podium. we are expecting it any moment now. right now we've got to check again on the markets. listen, folks, we're down five days in a row. i'm not going to make light of the drop we're seeing now. we've got three dow components higher. remember yesterday's show where we did walk you through what happened in 2010, right, from

basically may to july. then 2011 july to october we dropped 18.5%. we're down about 4% now over this little mini drop the last few days. it could turn into something larger than that. but at the same time, it's still relatively small drop compared to what we have seen, julia. >> we'll have to see what happens with earnings. obviously alcoa kicks off earnings season tonight. it seems like alcoa's going to be addressing some of the bigger picture concerns in the market. alcoa is expected to report worse earnings. >> listen, we have got you onset here, which is a pleasure. you live in los angeles. being a native californian, born in los angeles, it's a very dysfunctional place. i understand that your fine city's on the verge of bankruptcy. is there anything you can report as to whether or not l.a. is going to default? >> well, i'm not the one to weigh in on that. i understand that you're going to be out in california, in los angel angeles, in two weeks. >> you're throwing it back to me. >> it seems like you're going to be tackling some of those issues then.

>> i hope l.a.x. is operational. i know they've got budget issues in the great nation of southern california. >> i would say the budget issues in los angeles are particularly hitting the education system and school system very hard. that's something that's really coming to light right now. >> well said. although maybe los angeles should stop building $550 million high schools. >> that seems awfully expensive. >> that was. that was one big high school. we're going to get more on that. nice to have the west coast -- we had scott who's also based there as well. little west coasted action. >> a lot of angelinos. >> like we said, waiting on rick santorum to give us his update. eamon javers reporting really a suspension. we're going to take a quick break here. hopefully mr. santorum will come out. more business news in the interim. herb greenberg, remember, last year named his five worse ceos. of those five only two still have a job. we're barely four months into the new year. herb will go through the remaining two on his worst ceo list and we will discuss their

prospects. we've got julia boorstin. obviously we'll touch tech and media. waiting on santorum. waiting on guffman. we're just waiting. we're back right after this. the chevy cruze eco also offers 42 mpg on the highway. actually, it's cruze e-co, not ec-o. just like e-ither. or ei-ther. or e-conomical. [ chuckling ] or ec-onomical. pa-tato, po-tato, huh? actually, it's to-mato, ta-mato. oh, that's right. [ laughs ] [ car door shuts ] [ male announcer ] visit your local chevy dealer today. now very well qualified lessees can get a 2012 chevy cruze ls for around $159 per month. e.p.a. estimated 36 miles per gallon highway. whose non-stop day starts with back pain... and a choice.

take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪ in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution, in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities, they can create and maintain high standards, from kitchen to table. this technology allows us to collaborate with our drivers to make a better experience for our customers. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ mine was earned off vietnam in 1968. over the south pacific in 1943. such a historic town. first and foremost, i just want to thank everybody for the outpouring of prayers over the

past weekend. we had a -- a difficult weekend. good friday was a little bit of a passion for us -- a passion play for us with our daughter, bella, who is getting unfortunately very sick. and we ended up in the hospital all weekend. i'm here just to report to start out things that she is a fighter and she is doing exceptionally well and is back with us and the family and we are looking forward to spending a lot of great time with her. but it did cause us to think. and as the role that we have as parents in her life and with the rest of our family, this was a time for prayer and thought over this past weekend. just like it was, frankly, when we decided to get into this race. karen and i and the kids sat at the kitchen table and talked about our hopes and fears and

our concerns. and we were very concerned about our role as being the best parents we possibly could to our children. in making sure that they had a country that was -- well, where the american dream was still possible. and i think a lot of it shall--f concerns that we had, that karen and i had in particular for our family, was that with what was going on in washington, d.c., and all of the problems that you've heard me talk about on the campaign trail, that that american dream was slipping not just from the hands of average americans, but for all americans. that that dream was slipping away. and that we had to, as good parents, to go out and do what we could to take on that responsibility for our children and for children across this country. and so we started out almost a year ago now in somerset, pennsylvania. and i told my story. our story of our family.

and my grandfather who came to this country and worked in the coal mines and my father who served our country in world war ii. throughout the course of this campaign talked about my stories and stories of our families. but after a while, it became less about my stories and more about what kept us going were your stories. stories of people across america that we had the privilege of getting the chance to know and to interact with. you know, when you -- when you travel around, one such story was a guy named chuck who had a pickup truck and joined our team. and drove us around in his dodge ram pickup truck for months on end and did so as a volunteer to -- because he believed. he believed that we provided the best opportunity to turn this country around. i met a lot of folks in iowa that i'll never forget.

folks like sam clovis who's a talk show host. i'll never forget this fighter pilot. a man of very strong convictions welling up and tearing up about what was going on with our country, and particularly with our national security. and laying out not a three-legged stool of ronald reagan, but a four-legged stool with the constitution being one of those vitally important legs that we had forgotten about. people like wendy jenson who was our best volunteer. 5,000 phone calls. and just a few days before the primary, she -- because she was someone who was dealing with a disability, dealing with an illness, she passed away shortly before the caucus. but was someone that i remembered her passion for the least of us. those who are on the margins of society as many would have looked at her. folks even today, because of our daughter bella, who come to --

came to our rallies, one after another, in wheelchairs, bringing their special needs children and holding signs up of children saying, i'm for bella's dad. just a beautiful idea of, again, not my story, but their stories, was what really fueled our campaign and gave us the energy. at a time when over and over again we were told were forget it. you can't win. we were winning. we were winning in a very different way. because we were touching hearts. we were raising issues that, well, frankly a lot of people didn't want to have raised. our best phone caller after iowa was a young man who came to our first event in oklahoma in a wheelchair named nathaniel who had spina bifida and wanted

someone who spoke again about people overlooked by society or don't seem to be as valuable as others in society. folks like the duggars who -- the duggar family who traveled around with us in their bus and gave their time and energy because, again, they believed in the basic importance of having strong families as part of a strong country that we can't have a strong economy, as you've heard me say over and over again, without strong families and a strong moral fiber that makes us the moral enterprise that is america. even fun things like the sweater vest. amazing thing, that sweater vest. it happened on a night i was doing an event for mike huckabee in des moines. and showed up and everybody was in suits and ties. and i showed up in a sweater vest. turned out i gave a pretty good speech that night and all of a

sudden the twitter verse went wild saying it must be the sweater vest. from that point on the sweater vest became the official wardrobe of the santorum campaign. and the cool thing was, obviously we have a big part of our campaign is the manufacturing base of the economy. and so we, of course, sourced that sweater vest in a company that was making them here in the united states. and so we ended up going to that little company up in bamigi, minnesota. in the middle of winter. it was a beautiful day. got a chance to see that little plant that had been around for almost 100 years. and turned out we were the best customer that bamigi woolen mills has ever had in their entire history. so it's -- it's been a -- it's been a wonderful story after story of people who have come forward. two girls who put together a song in tulsa, oklahoma, called

"game on." who have traveled and followed us around. over 1 million hits on youtube of that catchy little tune that they were inspired to give. even today we have folks working for us in texas to make it a winner take off primary because they want to make sure that we have the best opportunity to -- for texas and for conservatives to have a voice throughout the course of this primary. it has been inspiring to me, the story after stories that we've been engaged with. and it turns out that it really wasn't my voice that i was out communicating. it was your voice. the voice that you gave me from the stories and experience i had. and that's what people say, how did this happen? how were we able to come from nowhere? it's because i was smart enough to figure out that if i understood and felt at a very deep level what you were experiencing across america and tried to be a witness to that, tried to be in a sense an interpreter of that, that your

voice could be heard and miracles could happen, and so it did. miracle after miracle. this race was as improbable as any race that you will ever see for president. i want to thank god for that. and i want to thank all of you. thank all of you across this country for what you have given. well, hopefully not just me and our family, but what you've given, which is a voice to those who are in many cases voiceless. and we have tried to be a witness not just for your stories and your voice, but to provide a positive and hopeful vision. not a negative campaign. we traveled around and did 385 town hall meetings in iowa. we weren't out there trashing anybody. we weren't out in our campaigns from that point on and we painted a hopeful, positive vision for our country. one that was based on how we could get this country turned around not just economically. not just economically. but reflecting the hopes and -- hopes of americans. not just the fears of americans. the hopes of americans.

what we could do to confront the violent radical islam, and particularly the scourge of iran. and what we could do to take on the problems of a sluggish economy and a washington that has grown so big. we put forth concrete, solid plans, many of which came from the people that i had an opportunity to interact with throughout the course and the time of this campaign. we did focus a lot, yes, on the families and on the dignity of human life and on the moral enterprise that is america. and i know joe klein will be upset about this, but one of my favorite articles was one that he wrote. where his headline was "rick santorum's inconvenient truths" and talk eed about things that maybe we should talk about a little bit more but somehow get shoved aside in the public discourse. we talked about how we were going to build a great country from the bottom up and we carried around our copy of the constitution. of course, it was that constitution that got the tea party folks excited, legitima

legitimately so, about the operator's manual of america being discarded by those in washington. and i think what i tried to bring to the battle was what abraham lincoln brought to this battlefield back in 1863 on november 19th when we talked about this country being conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. he was quoting, of course, the declaration of independence. conceived in that declaration. and we talked about that declaration as the heart of american exceptionalism as to who we are. because we will never be a country that can go forward as a great and powerful country again unless we remember who we are. and what makes us americans. that's what our campaign was about. about what made us americans. how we built this country from the bottom up and how if we are going to be successful in the future, how we must believe in ourselves and believe in that ability to go forward and do the same thing.

against all odds, we won 11 states. plil millions of voters. millions of vote. we won more counties than all the other people in this race combined. we were able to spread that message far and wide across this country. and what we found is that while we found that support, i found a deeper love for this country. every state i went to, and those of you who followed me around, i would say i really love this state. it was a love affair for me going from state to state and seeing the differences, but seeing the wonderful, wonderful people of this country who care deeply about where this country is going in the future. care deeply about those who are out there paddling alone, who are feeling left behind, and in some respects feeling hopeless. and want to do something. ladies and gentlemen, we -- we made the te sidecision to get i

this race at our kitchen table, against all the odds. and we made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over for me, and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting. we are going to continue to fight for those voices. we're going to continue to fight for the americans who stood up and gave us that air under our wings that allowed us to accomplish things that no political expert would have ever expected. there's a lot of greatness, a lot of greatness in this country. and we just need leaders who believe in that. who are willing to give voice to that. who are willing to raise us up instead of trying to provide for us and do for us what we can better do for ourselves. that's the message that -- that came to me. it's one that i feel very, very good about continuing to talk to americans about. i walked out after the iowa

caucus victory and said, game on. i know a lot of folks are going to write, maybe those even at the white house, game over. but this game is a long, long, long way from over. we are going to continue to go out there and fight to make sure that we defeat president barack obama, that we win the house back, and that we take the united states senate. and we stand for the values that make us americans. that make us the greatest country in the history of the world. that shining city on the hill. to be a beacon for everybody for freedom around the world. thank you all very much. god bless you. [ applause ] >> and with that, rick santorum all but ending his presidential nomination bid. he's using the word "suspension" which as you heard eamon javers say earlier really just provides for the maintenance of the legal framework of the campaign. for all intents and purposes, rick santorum bowing out. let's go quickly for reaction in washington, d.c., with eamon

javer. eamon, we heard the talk. we heard the talk about his family. obviously his ill daughter. everybody wishes her the best. at the same time it does sound like this is the end, whether it's formal or informal, of rick santorum's gop nomination bid. >> absolutely, brian. it is the end politically of his bid. there'll be a legal entity. there'll be some fund raising and all of that will continue. he said just now that he intends to continue traveling the country, speaking to americans. but this was a nostalgic rick santorum talking about all of the improbabilities on the campaign trail. even giving a shoutout to those sweater vests that game so famous on twitter as the symbol of his sort of rag tag campaign through iowa and the rest of the midwest. that sweater vest became a holmark of the santorum campaign. now santorum bowing out here politically. but, interestingly, no mention of mitt romney by name. santorum ending his comments by saying that he intends to work to help fight to defeat barack obama. but no endorsement here or mention of mitt romney. that will be something that the

romney campaign will want to see as soon as they possibly can get it from rick santorum, brian. >> eamon javers in washington, thank you very much. let's get back now to the markets. we're actually in a bit of a selloff mode. dow is at session lows. now on track for the worst losing streak since august. only two dow components trading in the green now. hp and pfizer. although we have rolled over even more in the last few minutes. tech stocks not doing much better. fear out of europe sending volatility back in a strong way. the vix spiking more than 11% on the day. we've got bob pisani onset for us. we've got rick santelli in chicago. we've got herb greenberg here. bertha coombs. julia boorstin in from los angeles. my great uncle nino. that's completely inaccurate statement, the last part. bob pisani, i'm going to start with you. i don't know why i'm looking at the camera considering you're to my right.

little healthy decline in a good market or something to really be afraid of? >> there is some concern the europe we're anticipating should turn around in the second half of the year may not do that. strange today, straight down and no recovery. look at that. we haven't seen this in a while. normally the markets will start bouncing a little after the open or at the very least after the european close. today we had a technical event. 1370 was the 50-day moving average on the s&p 500. we hit that at 11:45. the minute that happened, boom, volume picked up. i don't talk about technical analysis a lot. that was obviously a very important event to a number of people. they sold as soon as the s&p dropped below 1370. i don't think is the end of the world at all here. we were at four-year highs five days ago. now we're down 4% and everyone is in a slight panic. >> herb, what do you think based on movements we're seeing today? the key resistance technical levels. is this part of the a bigger

correction. >> people have been telling you we need a little bit of a breather here. we're getting a breather, correct, bob? you think people are really in a panic? i don't think this is a panic. we've got a day where a lot of people are still on vacation. there's a lot -- panic, no. >> i'll tell you why i call it -- i get what i call four exclamation point e maims. it's about time we started seeing things turn around. you can't fwo up in a straight line. they had a good point. we've been up in a straight line. that's why suddenly 4% down in five days, people are like, huh? what happened? >> point, counterpoint. point is this. crack data team here showed that in the week leading up to the tax deadline, we tend to fall. people have tax bills unexpectedly. they sell. the last few years we've sold in the week heading up to the april 15th deadline. just throwing that out there. rick santelli, my point is about spain. the three biggest banks in spain have assets at 200% of spain's gdp. our three biggest banks are only -- i use that loosely -- at 40%. the spanish bond market is sinking.

the spanish stock market is sinking. spain, no offense to greece, portugal or belgium, is a real economy. how much is spain being talked about, if at all, on the floor of the cme? >> oh, of course. i enjoyed your guggenheim guest. that was a great interview. i look at the stock market. i look at the vix. i look at 10-year note rates. 10-year note rates and the vix haven't been the same since march -- no coincidence. markets are all moving to the same thing. i don't look at what's going on as a big deal necessarily in stocks. what was the catalyst is a big deal. listen. we all know what we did with the bailouts in greece wasn't a solution. it was a stability issue. the issuance going on in spain and indeed many parts of europe, maybe even japan and other developed countries, is going to linger. the horsepower of the global economy is in question. and these markets are going to have to deal with that reality. >> now, i just want to point out here that there are only two dow

components in the green. hp and pfizer. so we're really seeing a wall of red in front of us here. i want to get to bertha coombs over at the nymex with the commodity markets here. final oil trades coming in with crude down more than a percent. and gold spiking. what are you seeing, bertha? >> it's very interesting, julie. i'm watching crude here, wti nymex holding $100. falling below $120 a barrel when it comes to brent crude. in a sense that might be a little tail wind for folks who really don't like to see those high oil prices. gasoline pulling back as well. eia with the monthly report today saying it expects fwas lean is going to peak in may at just over $4 a gallon. what's interesting is take a look at the charts for the last few times we've been in this air wra. 2008, of course, the record peaked. we had a month of over $4 gasoline. peaked in july at $4.11. last year we peaked in may. a couple weeks just shy over $4. right now if you take a look at

the chart of retail fwas lean prices so far this spring, for the last couple of weeks we've been around $3.92, $3.93. it could be that we may actually even peak before may. so that's one bit of good news to look at in this pullback. >> you know what, bertha? i'm going to sort of dove tail on the back of what you're talking about with gasoline. i wrote an article the other day on cnbc.com why 4 buck gas won't kill the economy. some people disagreed with me, to be polite. the xly, s&p consumer discretionary spydr spetf, down about 2.3%. the market may disagree with me. they think oil may, indeed, hurt some of these retail names. >> it might. brian, the other thing to look at, it's not a question of just it reaching and touching that level. it's the sustained level. remember, back in 2008 we had a month of gasoline average prices above $4. certainly higher than that in markets where you have high taxes like connecticut or

california. now we're just kind of touching up to it. and we seem to retreat. if the pattern repeats itself, we may see a little bit of relief sooner than later. >> we want to bring in bob pisani again to talk about individual names. as you mentioned -- >> i think the reason that global growth is more of an issue than the tax issue, i agree there may be a portion of that, is the way we're seeing the market trade today. we're looking at the big global names. caterpillar, for example. your alcoas. some of the other ones out there. ge that are out there that are a weakest here. you're seeing financials, industrials and material weak. by the way, alcoa reporting off the close. 9.36. lowest level since january. >> we get into the fun with earnings season. i can't wait. that's what the volatility is partially about. people start wringing their hands. hp, hewlett-packard and pfizer -- >> not exactlystel outperformers in hewlett-packard. >> pfizer's done well. >> you need printer ink to print

out tax forms. you need lipitor to counteryour high cholesterol diet. >> you're not getting lipitor at those high prices anymore because now it's generic. >> quickly, can we throw up one stock chart? i've been talking about these spanish banks. the biggest bank of all in spain, one of the biggest in the world is santander. their ticker symbol, std. take that for what you want. it's closed in europe. that is the adr. these are names, std and the second biggest bank in spain you should be watching every morning when you turn into worldwide exchange. >> spanish banks are biggest lenders to portugal as well. >> well said. >> cramer's always sweeting out about spain at 4:00 in the morning. always. his first tweet. spain. >> he's waking up or going to bed. take a quick break. more on your markets. barry knapp of barclays coming up. a lot more to do on these overall names. a cast of thousands here.

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the markets really selling off now. look at that sea of red. dow down by about 190 points. let's get to barry knapp, head of u.s. equity portfolio strategy at barclays. thanks so much for joining us. what are you seeing happening here today? >> well, we think that there's a series of issues. the real catalyst for all this from our perspective clearly was friday's payroll report. if you put that in the context of chairman bernanke's recent employment conundrum speech and how he was less than confident that, you know, that the labor market was really sending the right signal about how strong the economy was, friday was a real wake-up call. because from our perspective, the equity market was definitely giving the benefit of the doubt to the labor data. right? i mean, if you think about the

strength of bank stocks, consumer discretionary, the retailers, they were really pointing towards a robust growth rate that just pointing towards a robust growth point except for the labor market. >> do you think the decline we're seeing today is different? are we indicating that this is going to be part of a bigger correction? >> we think so. we've actually been talking about april showers for better than a month now. and there's a number of components to that. one was this growth outlook which we weren't convinced had shifted to a new level, say 3 plus percent. the other was the public policy outlook. when you had four candidates arguing about how much to cut taxes, that sounds a lot better than what we are about to be faced with, with is recognition and discussion of the fiscal cliff, raising taxes, lowering taxes, all of those other issues. the earnings outlook was never that great for that quarter. >> barry, here's my confusion.

if things get bad, the fed has basically said they will step in with quantitative easing 3. so the worst things starts to look, shouldn't we expect the fed to step in which would lift all votes and not explain why the stock market is going down. shouldn't it go up, given the fact that the fed has said, we want to help the economy, which we all know means inflate asset prices? >> two issues with that. number one, in the long run, we think that quantitative easing and fed policy is actually lowering p.e. multiples just like it did in the 40s and 50s. if you look at the general trends of multiples, they have been falling. we think is only a short term sugar high. the second issue that i have is before the fed does not act, you

needed the pressure outlook to deteriorate. you needed either the data to get worse or the fed was going to end operation twist without continuing and the markets were going to worry about the implications of that. so we were in a bit of a lose-lose. it's almost the opposite of where we were back in october or november where the data had already deteriorated, was starting to improve, and the fed was starting to tighten. >> so here we are heading into earnings season. what are investors to do? >> we like the dividend stocks for sure. we started talking about those a month ago where they were way overowned at the end of last year. those sectors look a lot more attractive right now. >> can you just buy a basket of

25 of the biggest blue cap dividend paying caps and fall a sleep for a year? >> well, i don't know about fall asleep for a year because my suspicion is, that will work. if you go back to my 40s and 50s period, four years after the fed started normalizing policy. if you buy them at the right time, you can hold them. we have a down side here in the near term. i would probably be cautious on buying anything over the next week or so. those dividend payers will work for some time to come. >> barry, thank you. always a pleasure to get your insilth. >> thanks. coming up next, larry kudlow on some of this as well. we are awaiting the president who is going to talk higher

taxes. well, he's down in florida and he's going to talk about his buffett rule, trying to convince people that this is a good idea for the economy. >> prius driving l.a. big shots. >> how do you know that? >> i just found out. we're back after this. when we got married. i had three kids. and she became the full time mother of three. it was soccer, and ballet, and cheerleading, and baseball.

those years were crazy. so, as we go into this next phase, you know, a big part of it for us is that there isn't anything on the schedule.

all right. our own larry kudlow is in washington, d.c., right? >> new york historical society. >> sorry about that. i've got to ask you this, okay. in the path to prosperity, which i've heard you say before, do higher tax rates on upper earners equal higher tax revenues for the government? people assume that's the case. >> well, you won't get much out of that because you're taxing capital, you're taxing investors, stocks and other assets. they will figure out ways to move money away from it. they won't make the

transactions. the joint tax committee estimated $31 billion over 11 years and you know what, they won't even get that. all this does is damage capital investment. >> the white house came out and said the 400 highest earning households, paying an average of 18% in taxes in 2007, that's down about 30% from -- 30% in 1995. what do you make of this report and do you think that we should change things? >> well, look, color me skeptical. i haven't seen the data. the joint tax committee and the cbo have done work on this. milli millionaire averages -- >> you don't buy the numbers that the white house released? >> i don't because they are contradicting what the other agencies are saying and they are

responsible for the government's work on this. i'm very skeptical. the main point is, fairness, tax the rich, how does that grow the economy? how does that help the investor class? >> i don't know if it will. listen -- >> that's the part i don't get. it makes no sense. >> and ask what may be in today's stock market. >> raise taxes on the rich and millionaires vanished. they collected a third less revenue in 2010 then they thought they would. can they do that in america, though? can they do that nationally? >> well, look, they can not make the transactions and they can move their money offshore. raising tax rates, we have to worry about the rest of the world, the emerging countries, the brits are lower tax rates than we are. why tax investment? i'm for pro growth tax reform. flatten the rates, broaden the base