performer in the dow jones industrial average. >> with all the money i spend on their cell phones and fios, they can't be better than that? that will do it for "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins with mr. sullivan next. that's right. julia's here. but you're stuck with me again today. and welcome to "street signs," everybody. so much for the big drop, stocks surging again. whispers of a china surge bringing buyers in. but i'm going to tell you what i see as the most bullish news of the day. car sales have been hot this year. one analyst says get ready for a slowdown. we'll debate. plus, more bad news for blackberry. goldman sachs advice on how to make money on natural gas. and we're going to list the five best jobs in america and trust me, you will be surprised. julia. that's a fun one, brian. check on the markets with just two hours left to go, the dow having best day in a month. the dow and s&p have had their

best two-day gain since december 20th. the nasdaq and the s&p remain on track for the biggest weekly losses of 2012. the nasdaq remains the year-to-date leader of major averages with 17% gains. let's get over to bob and rick. start with bob, bob pisani, what are you watching right now? >> china and the u.s. look, it's very simple. what side of global growth are you on? china 8%, above % or below 8%. china bank lending 14-month high, deposits are increasing. maybe we'll get a better than expected gdp number in china. it's going to be out overnight. estimate is 8.3%. a lot of chinese companies up. real estate, metal companies, coal companies lousy performers recently. up 4%, 5%, 6% today. this has everybody excited in all our material groups and ours are up as well. trade deficit more narrowing and that's helping our gdp estimates

as well. >> quickly, bob, i got to ask you because a couple hours ago you had all these rumors going around about maybe a leak in china gdp and maybe it would be stronger. others came out and said total bunk and misinterpreted comments out of a chinese newspaper. what do we know about the china rumors driving things earlier? >> what we know is ultimately the branch of the chinese government that makes these statistics is answerable to the chinese authorities. and i think that's the safest thing that you could say about it. the fact of the numbers that are reported, the bank lending numbers much higher than expected is a positive sign overall. it's a sign that these efforts by the chinese to loosen the bank lending requirements are working. and i think that's the positive note that we have to take away from it. i think we're going to come in. the consensus, brian, 8.3%, likely will come in there or maybe even a bit above that. >> all right, bob, thank you very much. now let's go from new york to chicago. great city by the way. rick santelli thanks for hosting us there last week.

i don't want to get into the jobless claims number because i saw you and steve kind of had a dance this morning. i want to ask you more about china or the bond market or whatever you feel like talking about. and i will not use the word sinister. >> yeah. we never want to use the word sinister. i'll tell you, unless something is sinister, markets going up or down isn't sinister in my opinion. let's stick with china. let me be the devil's advocate. i know there's talk about the data whether it's a leak, assumption, rumor. let's switch it a bit. there's also been a lot of drum beats going on i've heard for several days including today that maybe they're going to be lowering things like reserve requirements, which leads me to what i really think has put the risk-on story is that the rest of the world has learned. that is when things are bad in this country for a while, it brings back more qe. well, now japan's learned that. and many think china as well. so all these issues with slowing or is it going to be a hard landing or soft landing have given rise to potentially a more

accommodative stand through things like reserve ratios being changed or lowered. so we want to pay particularly close attention to that part of the equation as well. >> rick, i have to ask you about the lower benchmark bond yields in italy and spain. what do you make of that? and what do you think the reaction is here in the u.s.? >> you know, i continue to think that the issue is not procuring enough money for them to live beyond a certain date like greece. the issue is funding. and when these rates go up, it shows that investors -- you need outside investors, not just the banking system or the ecb. and if outside investors aren't going to contribute or purchase these securities and the funding goes up, this is going to be a huge problem for those peripheral countries in europe. >> all right. rick, thank you very much. bob, thank you as well. well, one of the interesting things about today's market is that we're higher. even though the weekly jobless claims number was hardly awe-inspiring. is this another case of the risk-on qe-3 on trade where bad news is good news because bad news means more chance of the

fed to the rescue. chief economist at first trust advisors joins us now. brian, what do you make? did we increase the odds of qe-3 today? i mean, we're debating this every day. we need an in-trade bet on qe-3 if there isn't one already. >> how long have we been talking about qe-3? it seems like a year now. i personally think qe-3 is off the table. i know people keep talking about it. i think what's driving the market higher right now is better earnings numbers. we have lowered expectations on earnings so much. and we did that after the slowdown last year. now the economy is picking back up. one week of initial unemployment claims that go the wrong way, people are way too excited about that. the bears are way too excited. earnings look really good. alcoa kicked us off. i think that's why the market's higher. >> now, do you think that the source of the employment

disappointment was things like weather and the easter numbers? or do you think that these are real unemployment numbers that we're looking at here? i know the fed's looking into the source of that softness. >> yeah. sure. the initial unemployment claim, we'll take that one first. it looks to me like this is a seasonal adjustment issue with easter. you know, we lose a day, that means there's a day less that people can ask for unemployment benefits. and if it's different weeks and different years, the government just has a hard time -- anybody has a hard time seasonally adjusting. i'm not worried about this week's initial claims numbers. last month's employment numbers, yeah, they were a little soft. but we had booming numbers the three months before probably because of good weather. we had a little bit of a payback. eventually you have to pay it back. but i think this year we're going to average about 200,000 jobs. it should be 300,000 or 350,000 a month, but it's 200,000. and the economy will continue to grow. >> so, brian, what's an investor to do in this market? where are the opportunities?

>> yeah. i personally think that the stock market is undervalued still a significantly. corporate profits, the ability of u.s. corporations to make a profit has never been better. we have the cloud, the smartphone, the tab -- all these new technologies are lifting our productivity and our profitability. i think u.s. stocks have a long way to run. and specifically within them, you know, one of the cheapest, one of the places where you're going to find the most value in the market is in technology. there's others, consumer discretionary, health care, financials. you know, they look good as well. but technology is really the best area to be in for the next couple of years. >> brian, speaking of jobs, the l.a.-based milk institute widely respected came out with a number a few days ago about jobs. they said we're now in the 51st month post recession and employment levels are still far below the pre-crisis peak.

what they wrote is the previous two recessions took only half the time to reach these pre-crisis employment levels. so kind of state your point on jobs. this has been a recovery but slow. what can we do if anything to increase the pace of job creation? >> right. brian, here's the deal from my perspective. the reason the economy is recovering as slow as it is, it should be doing better given all these unbelievable technologies that we have. the reason that it's recovering as slow as it is is because government is too big. the bigger the government is, the more it spends, the smaller the private sector is. it's by definition. the government takes money from the private sector to spend. so that's money that's not in the private sector to create jobs. i think the number one thing we should do is cut the size of our government and allow the private sector to have more resources.

we look a lot like europe today in a way. i think we're better than europe, but what i mean is is if you go back over the past 30 years, europe had 8%, 9%, 10% unemployment rates. they had 2% growth when the united states had 3.5% or 4 in good years. the reason europe was so slow is because they had a big government. i think we need to cut the size of our government in order to get growth back up to where it was in the '80s and '90s and ear early 2000s. >> just to bring this back fo investors and opportunities, you mentioned technology, google reports after the bell. are there any names you'd throw out as great opportunities right now? >> i think the s.e.c. says i'm not allowed to throw out names. i have to stay -- i'm -- i don't manage a portfolio. i have to stay really around economics. but i like technology. and i like the large cap technology names. and you can fill in the blanks

there. i really like them. i think those companies are not only profitable, but they're literally driving profitability for the rest of the economy as well. >> brian wesbury. always a pleasure. we will fill in those blanks. see you again. >> thank you, brian. >> we've still got a job to do. so up next we're coming off a stellar month for auto sales, but is there a sales speed bump ahead? i'm going to call auto palooza. >> and a list of the best and worst jobs in america. find out where your job ranks. >> and you'll see what me and paul bunion has in common. has nothing to do with an axe. find out coming up. ♪ i'm making my money do more. i'm consolidating my assets. i'm not paying hidden fees or high commissions.

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and some of them can't do anything about it. ♪ [ continues ] [ gasping ] there indeed something about a train that is magic. especially today. look at the gains. better performing stocks are the transports. kansas city southern, csx and norfolk southern all doing well. i promised at the top of the show i would show you what i think is the most bullish thing i'm seeing today. this is it. westinghouse air break corporation wabtec they make train brake systems among other things. raised annual forecast, get this to eps of 480 for the year up from 430. a 50 cent hike. ceo saying they expect "continued strength in the global freight rail market." from rails to the roads, could there be a speed bump ahead for the market? one citi analyst out with a note

saying he thinks auto sales will continue to grow, but grow more slowly for the rest of the year. does our panel agree? let's ask president and ceo of manhattan automobile company and bay ridge ford, phil lebeau as well and waiting on jessica caldwell if we can get the technology set up. gary, i'm going to start with you. tell us what you're seeing, are car sales slowing or speeding up? >> thank you. i don't think they're slowing down at all. certainly ford brands we're up about 25% for q-1 year over year. we're up about 34% with lincoln sales. and across the board we're up about 22%. we see that consumers are coming in. we have an excellent lineup of fuel efficient vehicles now especially with ford products. most of our core ford products average over 26, 27 miles per gallon in fuel economy. and, in fact, more than 30% of our core products are over 30 miles per gallon.

certainly with fusion and with fusion hybrid we're at 41 miles per gallon. so we see people coming in definitely. >> well, with fuel prices so high, you're mentioning all this fuel economy, is that something that buyers are really looking for right now? are they coming in saying i want a really fuel efficient vehicle. >> yes. >> i think that's really price of admission in the market right now because this is a different time in the market. and certainly if you do not have a fuel efficient vehicle, it's not competitive. we're very happy that most of our products are very fuel efficient. >> phil, i want to bring you in here. what kinds of trends are you seeing big picture in terms of the kinds of cars people are buying and why we aren't seeing cars contribute a bigger piece to the economic recovery. >> clearly you're seeing a wider spectrum on the lower end in terms of smaller cars, smaller crossovers being bought because of their fuel efficiency. that's certainly in demand right now as we've seen gas move up closer to $4 a gallon. but we're also seeing growth in those other segments as well. we're still seeing full-sized

pickups selling. we're still seeing full-size and mid-size suvs selling. they're not selling as rapidly as the other segments because of gas prices. but what we're seeing is a reflenishing of the fleet in america right now. a lot of people sitting on the sidelines over the last five, six, seven years are finally saying i need a new vehicle. and, julia, they will also need suvs and trucks in this country. >> that is true. and jessica caldwell is prepped and ready to go. i want to follow-up on that a bit. i understand people want to buy fuel efficient cars, that's not all they're buying. if i look at range rover sales, gary sells them. they're up and the range rover gets 12 miles to the gallon city driving. it's across the board. >> right. i think the marketing is opening up overall. i mean, yes, of course, just like phil said, people need trucks and suvs. there's always going to be a baseline demand for those vehicles. when you look at luxury sales over the course of the past four years, they haven't struggled as

much as one would think considering the way the economy is. and i think things are rebounding and it's okay to own a luxury car again, or we're getting to that point. we're seeing sales across the board spike up. if you look at the sales rate the past few months, you've got to think we're selling something from every bucket out there. >> actually, we're up about 31% in land rover sales as well. >> it's interesting, gary, too because when you look at some of the amenities offered on let's say a ford explorer, these are things you used to not be able to get on a domestic car. a mercedes or bmw, now chrysler, ford, have them. all things being equal, are you still seeing people buy the range rovers and bmws and mercedes even if they get the same car for less domestically simply because they can? in other words, are the rich going to spend on those cars no matter what? >> well, there's a difference in a brand and certainly land rover and range rover has an extremely loyal customer base. it's as an unparalleled vehicle

especially in the range rover, there's nothing else like it in the market that competes with it. so it's a very loyal base. very steady customer base. and it's a very popular vehicle that's in high demand. so is the range rover sport. and also don't forget we have an all new entry. we have the evoke which actually gets in the mid-20s miles to the gallon on highway. >> the average price of a new car is up 7%, but dealer incentives are down. jessica, what's going on here? >> well, i mean, the market is definitely growing. you have a bunch of new entries. when you have new entries into the market, they have new technology. safety features, you know, things like navigation, advanced stereo systems. you'll see prices continually climb. at the end of the day what's really effecting consumers out there is you don't see the incentives. you see them but not like a few years ago. look back to 2009 incentives were up about 32% compared to where they are today. so the net price of what the consumer's paid is more. but, again, the cars out there are better. you know, getting more for your

money, but you're still paying more. d we expect that to continue. >> jessica, thanks so much. thanks to jessica, gary and phil. >> thank you. >> now, home depot is up almost 2% today. the stock has been on a tear, but can home depot experience a true revival without housing really coming back? michelle caruso-cabrera sat down exclusively with the home depot ceo. she's live at the global retailing conference in tucson, arizona. >> hey, julia. the answer is, it's pretty tough as goes the housing market, so goes home depot. at least for their revenues. remember, they actually never had an unprofitable year even during the worst parts of the downturn, but they did see a big decline in sales. last year they did $70 billion in revenue. my question to frank blake was how close are you to being back to even to that pre-sales level before the downturn? >> no. we're not close to even. if you look at the end of 2006, we dropped off at the worst

point $13 billion of revenue. so we were $13 billion smaller business. we grew in 2010. we grew in 2011. so we're kind of clawing our way back, but we haven't nearly recovered the $13 billion. we've got another $8 billion to $9 billion to go still. >> how many years do you think that takes? >> so that gets back to your question on the housing market and how the housing market recovers. you know, right now if you plan it on gdp, that would take several years. there's a thought that, hey, if housing actually starts to come back more strongly, it could be faster. >> but they're absolutely not planning for that. frank blake says maybe housing has bottomed. he thinks a lot of people think that and he hopes they're right. certainly home depot right now isn't preparing for a big upturn in housing at this point. back to you guys. >> michelle, thanks so much. so what exactly is the best job in america? we have got a list of the best and the worst, one-hint, tv is

on the list, but not on the right side of the list. >> definitely not. plus, forget america's apple pie. why not change it to as american as pizza pie? >> have you heard about this? the hot dog stuffed crust pizza? it's true. and it got us thinking. what two foods would you like to see combined. don't say peanut butter and chocolate. tweet us. we'll get some new tweets on the air coming up. is fast. hey, heard any updates on the game? i think it's final seconds, ohh, down by two, shoots a three, game over. so two seconds ago... hey mr. and mrs. harris, where's kevin? say hi kevin. hi. mom, put me down. put...the phone...down. hey guys. did you hear... the choys had their baby? so 29 seconds ago. well we should get them a gift. [ choys ] thanks for the gift! [ amy and rob ] you're welcome! you're welcome! [ male announcer ] get it fast with at&t. the nation's largest 4g network. at&t. ♪

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let's check the market internals. and they look pretty good because we are having our broadest rally of the year. roughly a 5-to-1 beat on advance to decline line. nasdaq not 5-to-1. little more like slightly less than 3-to-1. still a good day. 41 new highs, 12 new lows. broad based rally. and it is that time again. it is time for herb greenberg and what has come to be known in this show as the disaster du jour. he's got a bathroom stock that has been in the toilet. >> sort of a bathroom stock. >> they make bathroom papers and supply cleaning agents. what's not to say about bathrooms? >> they got bathroom stuff going

on. absolutely. swisher hygiene is the company. this is a company that often falls through the cracks because of its stock price. today it's about 1.90. that's $1.90. a $300 million market cap and its chairman best known for building waste management, blockbuster video, like the rest of those companies, swisher has been a rollup. lately its takeover accounting has come under scrutiny and getting whacked today because it's been forced to lay its 10k. all as audit committee reveals numbers. >> you didn't even realize falls through the cracks, which i thought was fantastic given a bathroom related stock. secondly, what are they not in compliance of? what's the big problem with swisher hygiene? >> the issue is they're talking about something that could affect about $4 million to a wider loss -- >> which is a big number for them because they're not a huge company. >> they've made so many acquisitions.

it's kind of ironic here. this is a company that should know how to do acquisitions and know how to do them right without having any accounting issues. and they do have some accounting issues. so, you know -- by the way, when you talk about companies that are noncompliance, many companies that are noncompliance often end up back in kpcomplian and remains listed. >> so close to the dollar point, is there any saving this company? >> given the people behind it, given what's going on, you know, you've got to -- you know, yes. >> there you go. in your honor we're finding under the radar stocks, herb, and a new jersey based mid cap chemical companying. soaring new three-year highs even after making a deal to buy a uk-based competitor for $439 million in cash, this stock was at $11 during the market bottom in 2009. you can see it's above $64. another one of these names that comes out of nowhere. one of these fantastic companies i've never heard of before. there you go.

cytec. >> canning plasting bottles. soda makers are finding green solutions to package their bubbly beverages. jane wells has more. >> last century in the film "the graduate" plastics were the future. this century, soda companies hope to make them the past. plastic is the largest consumer of fossil fuels behind energy and transportation. and to reduce the dependence on oil, coca-cola is rolling out bottles which are 30% made from plant-based materials like brazilian sugar cane. >> we have a goal of 100% of our packages being made with plant bot the packaging. >> pepsi hoping to produce bottles from its own scraps like potato peels leftover from making chips or orange riends tossed. >> this is the parts of the plant thrown away.

it's the plant waste converted to plastic. >> the real benefit of plant-based material is the reduction in energy and the reduction in greenhouse gases. but you always have to worry about the trade-offs. >> they require more water to make. and they could still fill landfills. they are not biodegradable. and that is on purpose. >> really what you want to do is capture that energy and material and use it again and again. you want to recycle it over and over. >> jane wells, cnbc business news. >> all right. coming up next on "street signs," nat gas still slumping. but goldman sachs says now may be the time to buy. we're going to tell you exactly what goldman is recommending you do. and, annie, get your gun. women and ammo sending gun stocks soaring. ♪ ♪ i can do anything ♪ i can do anything today ♪ i can go anywhere ♪ i can go anywhere today

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2:31 here in the east. seems like a good time for street talk. we hit a few of the big stories today. this machine -- there we go. story one is actually going for

two. the markets posting second day of gains with the dow, nasdaq and s&p all trading near highs of the day all helping lead today's charge. you've got the metals and transport stocks like the railroads. story two, how to play natural gas. yeah, still in a major slump hanging around $2. but goldman sachs out with a note today saying it is time to buy for next year. analyst david greeley though he sees downside to the current prices this summer, he thinks it will cause tightening in supply and a continued shift from coal to gas which will cause demand to increase. and with that improved supply/demand scenario, goldman says you should be going long summer 2013 nymex natural gas contracts. julia. >> thanks, brian. well, it's a tough time for teens. a new survey by junior achievement in the all-state foundation shows that only 56% of kids aged 14 to 18 think that they'll be financially better off than their parents. that's down from 89% last year. majority of teens also say they

expect to rely on their parents for financial support in their 20s. brian. >> well, if you're one of those parents, julia, supporting your kids, you better hope you love your job. cnbc.com and career cast came up with a list of the best and the worst jobs of the year. so let us bring in cnbc.com cindy perman. herb here as well. like eight of your previous ten jobs are on this list, herb. welcome. let's get to the best jobs. start with number five, financial planner. why is it so good? >> i think in the last couple years we all learned that we did a few things wrong with managing our money or that it was really difficult to manage your money. so an even bigger increase in demand for people who need to manage your money. >> no offense. number four, dental hygienist? i mean, sticking your hand and stuff in people's mouths? why? >> this list is not just about the appeal or the glamour of say television. it's about all kinds of factors. there's demand for dental hygienists. we have a whole crop of baby boomers retiring right now. so they need health care.

there aren't that many people. how many kids do you know right now saying i want to become a dental hygienist? >> hermie the elf. >> is this the facebook phenomenon? >> it absolutely is. in fact the guy from career cast, it was really funny, he said right now in some garage there is a guy coming up with the next big thing. and they're going to need 100 software engineers to make it happen. >> good luck. >> i see hr manager and that's probably popular because people want to be able to fire people, be the ones to do the firing. but i look at this -- i look at this list and it has nothing to do with fun, enjoying your job. really enjoying your job. >> everyone wants to be the next mark zuckerberg. >> you know, did he have fun doing it? i suspect he did because that's the way his brain was wired. but here's the deal, i've been a journalist for nearly 40 years. and i can tell you it is one of the greatest most fun jobs you can have just doing -- i mean, i can pick out a lot of jobs -- >> let's go to worst jobs. >> maybe now is the time i should break it to you, your job

is actually on the worst list. broadcaster is on the worst list. >> his current and previous jobs on the list. >> it's job stress, which is -- it's a high stress low pay industry typically. >> talking newspaper reporter. >> but with the boom of online and people going mobile for their news and everything like that, newspaper and broadcasters -- >> any industry where there's thousands of people willing to do something for free because eight people will read them, that's not a good career path. >> so number five worst job is newspaper reporter. and then where does tv reporter fall? >> that's actually number ten. >> so we're only the tenth worst. >> they studied 200 careers and you came in tenth worst. >> that's interesting because most people write in like to be this, that, 1%, but we're not talking about -- we're talking about across the country, right? >> absolutely. >> your local anchor in some small market, it's tough. you're working long hours, getting up at 2:00 some of your live hits are at 2:00. >> it was.

>> herb makes $6 an hour. >> here's where i take real issue. your number one worst job is lumber jack. >> right. >> that's a dangerous job. people risk their lives. unless you send me to iraq and into a war zone, i'm not risking my life. maybe three hours of sleep -- >> you know what's interesting that industry also has taken a hit from the housing bust because the demand has dried up. aside from the things you mentioned. but it's important to point out, you talk about how you love your jobs, talk to some lumber jacks and there was this one, said isn't it like a dangerous job? and the guy was like i broke my leg twice, i broke my collarbone, i lost my pinky finger, but i love my job. >> a lumber jack also in the. [ inaudible ] >> how many of us here would give our pinky finger for our job? >> not this job. >> me. >> luckily we won't have to. >> we'll never have fo know. >> i love cnbc, but not for my pinky.

>> you're not a company man. go see the third best job hr manager. [ laughter ] >> cindy, thanks so much. >> thanks, herb. be sure to check out our entire list on cnbc.com. well, it's two out of three for warren, guns and money. just missing as a lawyer but i'm sure one will show up somewhere eventually. >> next, it's a special diana get your guns stocks report. ammunition for your portfolio. diana olick from the range when we return. ♪

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i'm bill griffeth. coming up on the top of the hour on "closing bell," we have full team coverage of this big market rally and whether or not this comeback is for real or not. and all eyes on google when it reports earnings after the bell tonight. will the tech giant surprise the street? and will it be a positive or negative surprise? and is there a dividend in the cards? so many questions. we also have a double dose of exclusive interviews with the heads of celgene. we look forward to seeing you at the top of the hour from the new york stock exchange. until then, brian. >> bill, thank you. investors setting their sites on sin stocks. here to show us how to profit from living on the edge is diana olick, fresh off the range in martin, virginia. why are we seeing such a big jump in gun sales? >> well, julia, it's either politics, the economy or part of it could be the zombie factor, you know that. but a good chunk of it is

chicks -- sorry, women. gun sales up 14% last year nationwide from the year before, 47% more women are now shooting than they were ten years ago. and 23% of all women own a gun. that according to gallop. of course retailers are seeing green in all this pink. and at shops like this one here in virginia, sharp shooters are holding ladies nights. they're doing that across the country. and also one expert we spoke to said she is training -- she is training more women than ever before. you're claiming it's not a girly thing and yet you have a big pink target there. >> pink has a calming and soothing effect. >> calming and soothing at a gun range? >> exactly. >> excellent shot. >> frankly, women don't feel safe anymore. >> hasn't that always been the case? >> that has. but there's more safety awareness out there for women. there's also more firearms training available to women. there you go. good job. >> that one kicks more. >> this is small enough to be concealable.

>> in your purse? >> in your purse. there you go. you got the bulls eye this time. we see the pink and purple grips on the guns. and there's a marketing tool to go ahead and draw more women in. >> they're not stupid. >> they're not stupid. hence the pink target. >> now, of course there are retailers that are profiting from this as well as the gunmakers. smith & wesson profiting. even dick's sporting goods seeing big profits from the guns. you know, i want to let ya'll know that i'll be picking my own stories from now on and i'll be picking how much time i want to do for my stories from now on because girls can shoot. >> diana, i'm so impressed. >> packing mama. >> have you been training a long time for this? >> no. i haven't been training at all for this. in fact, it was my first time today with a handgun. >> wow. >> i got to tell you, women trainers, they're very calming. very good at explaining everything. i did a story about ten years

ago on ak-47s and i did shoot that one. these are a lot easier here. >> well, you seem to be a natural. thanks so much, diana. coming up next, the small screen is getting smaller. why is all this no one watching network tv right now? >> and fascinating results of a new survey of mobile application developers and what it may tell us about the future or lack of for nokia and rimm. people with a machine. what ? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense.

welcome back to "street signs." things are looking grim for the tv business as ratings fall off a cliff. ratings hit season lows for shows as wide ranging as cbs's "the big bang theory" and nbc's "30 rock." particularly shocking in contrast to decade old ratings. "friends" drew 28 million and "er" topped it. "30 rock" drew more than three million viewers last week. what went wrong? spring vacations, holidays, there are bigger challenges. dvr uses, media and mobile games

as well as apps. let's discuss the stock impact of some of these trends. managing partner of media cap partners. porter, what's going on here? the ratings at cable networks have been really bad and expected to impact some of the media earnings in the coming weeks. what are you seeing? >> as bruce springsteen once said, 300 channels and nothing to watch. there's a fragmentation in terms of television and cable and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of channels now. so fragmentation is one major cause. another is the fact that people are doing a lot of time shifting and a lot more play shifting, watching tv on other devices than the tv set. >> bottom line, how much are these ratings drops going to effect earnings in the next couple weeks? >> the interesting anomaly in all of this, julia, is for the last 25 years audience ratings have been eroding very

significantly. but advertising commercial costs have been rising. and the cost per thousand has been going up year by year. so the media companies that are behind these tv networks are doing just great. they're having a bang-up year this year. and most of them, if not all of the major network providers, are running ahead of the s&p. >> now, we've seen some downgrades, viacom just downgraded, discovery and scripts all run cable networks just downgraded because of concerns about these ratings. you're not concerned? >> you shouldn't look at the ratings. there are far fewer people watching tv these days, but the people who are watching are spending a lot more time, particularly the people over 30 years of age. they're spending more than four and a half hours a night watching television. that's still the biggest concentration of eyeballs that advertisers have. and network television is still a relative bargain in terms of efficiency in reaching the people they're trying to sell

products to. >> thanks so much for joining us. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> moving on. nokia getting pummelled this week. the stock plunging after the company its forecast. they released the device on easter sunday. the windows operating system is also running. which application do developers like best right now? will, we know it's going to be android. we know it's going to be apple's ios. but i want to talk more about nokia and r.i.m.m. your study was fascinating and what troubled me the most is that r.i.m.m., especially focusing on the q and x, the number ten version of the operating system, application developers seem to not be hot on this which should make a r.i.m.m. investor nervous. >> i think that's exactly right. that's been kearn of ours for

some time. what it has suggested over each of the last several quarters is there's been increasing pessimism among developers for the r.i.m.m. platform and that doesn't bode well for the long-term prognosis of that ecosystem. >> sorry, julia. >> i was just going to ask about nokia. how bad was this misfire and what are your long-term prospects? >> the prospects are -- well, it's an up hill battle for nokia generally. but as you look at our developer survey, it's mixed. near term, the data points suggested risk for q1 and in fact we ended up seeing that based on what came out yesterday. longer term, what is interesting, developers do seem to have an increased appetite in developing for the windows platform so it suggests that there's some promise longer term. in the end, the only thing that really matters is consumers and we haven't seen them open up yet. >> you looked at downloads, how much activity there was for the

activity that people are developing across different platforms which is probably a good sign about what people are buying. the thing that makes me nervous about windows phone 7, half of the developers you surveyed reported no uptick in downloads for the new l uchlt mnia 900. >> that is exactly right. that was the concern that it raised with regard to q1 results. i think by and large when a new cell phone comes out, they see an increase in apps. people want to use them to the max. we haven't seen that. you would see a corresponding increase in downloads. that hasn't happened yet. we'll keep an eye on it as we move forward. >> one thing you said is you saw a stabilization of the long-term outlook for blackberry os in the first quarter of this year. hardly a ringing endorsement. what can we tell about the future of r.i.m.m. and

blackberry and its new operating system from the study that you did, will? >> well, i think as you look at the long-term out looks as judged by the developer community, it remains worry some as it pertains to r.i.m.m. and in particular how r.i.m.m. has tied its high hopes to. the platform continues to be disappointing. and i think increasingly in this environment, ecosystems are critical. >> any positive signs from a report? for r.i.m.m., anything? throw them a bone. >> not much. i think the positive sign is it stabilized a little bit but at a low level. >> my grade stabilized at a c-minus. dad wasn't happy. >> thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> speaking of apple, one of our producers tweeted this. if i had bought shares of apple in 2004 with the money that i

used to by my first i-mac, i would be $64,000 richer today. >> apple shares up nearly 5400% since january 2nd, 2004. >> if my dad had bought a share of apple -- that's not true. coming up next, even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. pizza and profits. >> we've got it here. plus your tweets about which foods should get hitched? inspired by pizza huts franken food. we have pizza and hot dogs and it sneaks. >> thanks goodness snellivision hasn't been invented yet. it's smelly up here. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future.

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the toks are hotter today. the pizza that julia just showed you, which is a combination of a hot dog and pizza, it's a hot dog stuffed crust pizza, have faith, it comes with a little mustard drizzle for your stuffed crust. disgusting. a new poll shows 40% of americans eat pizza once a wook.

that was up 22% from a year ago. i guess sadly it's only available in the uk. >> believe me, with the speed of information, it will be available tomorrow in the 20 states. trust me. >> i have $20 that tells me you won't eat that. >> that's not legitimate. if you brought a pizza from the uk, i would. >> 20 hong kong bucks is like $3. >> yes, pizzas on the rise. technomic out of chicago said that pizza is on the rise. you just showed the pizza stocks. it's not only about the pizza restaurants because when you look at the stats, 37% actually say that they are now buying pizza in a nonpizza restaurant and 49% are buying pizza in the grocery store. so there's more occasions, yes, but the question is, is it going to the papa john's, the pizza

huts, or are you buying dijorno from your supermarket. >> it's not that people are ordering in more, people just like pizza. >> the potential is, not that it's new, they are doing more use of chicken like the buffalo chicken. it used to be that california pizza kitchen used to be the place where you would get your buffalo chicken, your thai chicken. >> we have to get to the tweets. we asked our viewers to dream us their dream food concoctions. >> that's great. >> fried samosa with lobster. >> sounds kind of good. >> and then pizza infused martini. i think that sounds pretty disgusting. and bacon and bacon. enough said. >> when i put out a tweet on bacon, it goes --