going around the horn for the final trade. josh. >> we'd be buyers right here. >> okay. who knows. >> sandisk. i don't want to miss the preannouncement. >> jon. >> underarmor. >> that does it for halftime. "power lunch" up next. michelle, thank you very much. three hours to go in the trading day and the markets trying to end the week on the upside. more strong earnings powering stocks today. but europe and the economy still looming very large. advice from our money man whose u.s. growth fund is up 22%. where does he see opportunity? sue. ty, the market is up but apple is down. it reports on tuesday. should you buy, sell or hold heading into this weekend? >> and what's next for rival microsoft? a big earnings report, but three big things you should think about before you buy-in. with sue herera, i'm tyler

mathisen. "power lunch" for friday begins right now. welcome to "power lunch." i'm kayla tausche at the realtime exchange. first day in three all major markets in the green. they're now up for the week. the dow up just about .08. the s&p adding 8.5 points. and nasdaq up 15 points in our midday section. take the pulse of the markets today. looks like risk is on meaning oil's up, dollar's getting hit and euro getting stronger. our midday movers on the strength of aerospace today, honeywell's earnings beat the street this morning. that's causing that stock to be up more than 3% today. industrials are leading. financials are the laggard. look at bank of america down 2.75%. we'll have more on bac later. and memory chip maker, sandisk rather forget today. getting hit hard down more than 13%. now let's get to bob pisani where he's looking at the

markets. bob, what are you watching today? >> kayla, thanks very much. three to one advancing to declining stocks. we've held the lead all throughout the morning here. volume has been heavy on an expiration day we're having. all the major indexes and sectors are to the upside. few better than the others. lousy week for home data. existing homes disappointing. home builders all up today. positive comments on dr horton going to get earnings soon. i'm not expecting too much here. remember, these stocks have pulled back because the data has pulled back. they're all to the upside today. financials are up as a sector. but if you look at the big names today, this is the one little group that's kind of to the downside. bank of america no traction at all from decent earnings report, not great. morgan stanley, citi, regions financial, key corp. all to the downside. it's a lit notable here on a day when most stocks are up three to one here. as for how we've done on the week? i know nobody likes the idea of decoupling, but the fact is the

s&p 500 is up on the week and the rest of the world is mixed. germany up but spain isn't. china up but japan isn't. call this a very mixed week for the global stock markets. how about ipos today? couple good ones. look at the nyse's ipo, info blox priced at $16. talk was $12 to $15. opened at $22.50 and held up straight line across the board. mid states petroleum priced at $16. price talk 16 to 18. there's one that priced below the range there, sue. the important thing is it's been clawing its way to the upside. not quite back to its initial price, but getting a little bit better throughout the day here. the price talk rather. >> yeah. getting a little closer. thanks, bob. let's switch on the "power lunch" power surge and drill down on the stories driving this trading day. two american titans, general electric and mcdonald's both out with earnings. ge beats, mcd's matches. they're up about 2% or so on the

trading session. jackie deangelis is all over mcdonald's results. but we're going to begin with mary thompson on ge. and it was energy fueling those results, correct, mary? >> that's right. strength not only in energy but also transportation business is driving ge's better than expected earnings. profits from continuing operations of 34 cents a share penny ahead of estimates. revenue beating forecast by about half a billion dollars. other highlights of the quarter, first profitable for real estate since 2008. record 200 1-billion backlog. here's the analyst call. >> we're benefitting from several macro themes. health care access, gas conversion and favorable transportation in energy markets. >> the firm's industrial business which include transportation and health care remain on track to pose a double digit earnings growth this year. margins narrowed in the first quarter should increase about half a percent by year end. outlook on global markets says

they're improving, the u.s. is slightly better but ge remains cautious on europe. as far as the company's own deal, small bolt but big deals unlikely this year. he says the company has enough on its plate right now. a weak spot for ge home and business solutions including lighting and appliances profits falling 11%. the rate of decline there slowed. tyler, back to you. >> mary, thanks. now to mcdonald's. investors loving the latest results. the stock sitting near 52-week highs as you look at it right there at $97.21 up nearly $2 today. it has been about overseas growth for the past few years for the world's biggest food chain. but it looks like growth is back home back here in the u.s. this time around. jackie deangelis taking a close up look. hey, jackie. >> hey, tyler. mcdonald's revenue came in line. $1.23 a share on revenue of $6.55 billion. sales grew slightly faster than expected and margins improved

despite challenging global economic conditions and price sensitive consumers. the word on the street yesterday was the numbers might fall short of estimates because of -- excuse me, slowness in europe. but that wasn't the case at all. in fact, europe's results boosted mcdonald's profit despite its warnings from earlier this year. mcdonald managing to dodge that bullet once again. mcdonald's operating margin edged up to 30%. and also saw some global same store sales growth. 7.3% growth globally. that includes 8.9% growth in the u.s., 5% in europe and 8.5% in china. sales in the first quarter were the company's best since the second quarter of 2004. that's pretty impressive given the slowdown that we've seen this year. mcdonald's also setting up for a management change. ceo jim skinner retiring in june. coo don thompson he led the call today, he's going to take over in july. on a conference call management admitted there was inflationary pressure and commodity costs were an issue and on the rise. particularly here in the u.s. they're expecting this to

continue into the second quarter but saying that it should ease in the second half of the year. overall though a good quarter for the company. as you can see the stock is trading up, like you said, about $2 today. tyler, back to you. thank you. meanwhile disney's movie chief stepping down after overseeing one of the biggest flops in hollywood history. julia boorstin is in los angeles with that story. julia. >> well, tyler, after just about two and a half years, rich ross is leaving his post as chairman of walt disney studios saying in a note to his staff that the role is no longer "the right professional fit for me." ross successfully grew the channel into a worldwide power house with franchises like "high school musical" failed the golden touch with cable tv to film. he the bomb john carter the studio said last month will lose about $200 million and he'll be responsible for $80 million to $120 million in operating losses. ross is also responsible for the

ajengers that opens may 4th and expected to be one of the biggest hits of the year. though the studio only generated about 18% of disney's revenue and operating income in the quarter that ended january 1st, it plays an outsized role for the media giant as a creative engine for the rest of the company. no word yesterday from disney on who will replace ross. disney reports earnings on may 8th and investors will want answers about who will be in the studio until then. >> meantime in europe france holding presidential elections this weekend. it's the first in a series of crucial elections in europe over the next ten days. so, why should investors care here in the united states? our chief international correspondent, michelle caruso-cabrera, is here to explain why they should care. hi, michelle. >> yeah. because if we have a whole series of elections that go against what we've been seeing in the past, that means that the whole bailout plan that we've come to know it in europe suddenly becomes at risk. and we begin to wonder what exactly is going to be the strategy over there. first up on sunday french elections.

americans may see one of the most familiar faces that they know, nicholas sarkozy, lose his job as leader of france. you see him there on the left. first elections are on sunday. then there's a runoff coming up later on in may. we expect that's what's going to happen. the guy on the right, he should be on the left because he's far more socialist, he wants to do things like lower the retirement age. they just raised it to 62 in france, which many people think is too low already. he wants to lower it back down to 60. he wants to spend a lot more money on subsidies. he wants to ramp up debt and raise taxes on the wealthy. going as far as some people making $360,000 could pay nearly 100% getting paid 360,000 euros could pay 100%. he wants a wealth tax. those kinds of things. there are chances he's going to win because right now he's leading in the polls. add that to the fact we're going to see elections in greece. and we're also going to see elections in germany as well. regional elections. show you the calendar. we have a whole month of may that's going to start to raise

the question about whether or not europe is going to stay on the same track of cutting spending and also trying to keep the europe -- the eurozone she tried to say, sue -- >> you just got off the air. you probably had a moment to breathe. but with that with what you just laid out so well for us, michelle, you would think there would be more market volatility. you would think that the market would be focusing more on it. but it doesn't seem to be. >> i agree. and i think ultimately what the market's think -- we don't know what the markets think, but what we have seen every single time some european leader has said i'm going to renegotiate the fiscal pact, i'm against austerity, i'm against this, they don't get punished by other politicians. they get punished by the bond market. they raise rates and suddenly they find religion and they cut spending. nothing like a 7% interest rate to really get a politician to realize they can't spend that much money. i show you the spanish 10-year because the reason we started to see incredible action in just the last week in spain is

because the prime minister saw interest rates going up and started cutting again. go back to italy and august of last year and silvia burl sconeny came out of hiding, every time interest rates rose, that's when they would act. they can say anything they want. in the end if they don't have the money, they don't have the money. >> they can't run from the bond market. thanks, michelle. today marks the seconds anniversary of the largest oil disaster in history, bp's deep water rig spilled. to this day some businesses are still struggling to recover. brian shactman is in louisiana with the story. brian. >> well, tyler, from oil workers to oyster men despite more than $6 billion to 220,000 individuals and businesses, there's a general sense of dissatisfaction out here. we went out on the water to see how the oyster business was going. basically if you have a private leaf, you might be doing okay.

but if you rely on public areas for your oysters, you might not even get off the docks. >> there's no oysters. no oysters. the heart of louisiana oyster grounds have been literally wiped out. and there's no reproduction. there's no seed oysters. and that's really scaring us and especially in this community. >> the oyster business is about half what it was before the spill. but if you look over here, you see shrimp boats. they're a couple weeks away from the brown shrimp season. and i got in a heated discussion with some of these guys. they're unhappy with the health of the water. and they're unhappy with how they've been treated. >> hub ub with people and they're all hurting. everyone one of them. this is what we want people to know. we've been treated wrong. you know, we've been lied to. we've been cheated out of our

livelihoods. >> one hope is that patrick juneau will be more reassuring to the locals as the legal settlement moves forward. you might ask why, well, he too is a local. >> i've fished, i've crabbed, i've worked offshore. i've gone to school here. i interrelate with people in this entire gulf region every day of my life. >> they need the proper documentation and fit the criteria to get into that settlement bp estimates could cost them another $7.8 billion. >> so what is this legal settlement? and how does it work, brian? >> well, tyler, it's really, really complicated. basically the best way it's been laid out is if you didn't take a binding settlement from the ken fienberg gccf, you can reapply. if you fit the certain criteria and they're doing it geographically and by other means, you can file another claim and they think they'll get 100,000 or so and they're going to go through.

if you fit, you'll get your money. but these people over there are very, very skeptical right now. >> thank you very much. brian shactman down on the scene there. very sad story. up next on "power lunch," a flood of earnings pouring in. new data showing that investors are pouring money into overseas stocks. we're going to talk to a fund manager who's beating the market by betting big on the u.s. and a lot of green in the u.s. today. let's look at the other averages that we follow. the russell 2000, one of the broader based averages is up better than a full percent on the trading session. back in a moment. ♪ [ male announcer ] aggressive styling. a more fuel-efficient turbocharged engine. and a completely redesigned interior. ♪ the 2012 c-class with over 2,000 refinements. it's amazing...inside and out. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers

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welcome back to "power lunch." rick santelli here on the floor of the cme group. you know, interest rates, they're going in a bit of a different direction. they're going down while stocks are going up. look at an intraday chart and realize though with stocks up close to 200 -- little more than 200 on the week, here we are unchanged on the week and well off our highest yields which were a whisker away from 2%. the last fed meeting, we have one next week, this next chart starts the day before. so you can see how the selling was really the catalyst of which was the fed meeting. but that didn't last long as europe took hold again. if you look at a bund you can clearly see their intraday looks similar to ours. their chart going back to march 12th very similar. you see that real low yield right two-thirds of the way through the chart on the right side, that was historic low

yield of 164. only half dozen basis points away from the current 170. if you look at a chart that depicts the difference between our 10-year at 1.97 and theirs at 1.70, you can see 26, 27 basis points. even though it's not the highs of the year save that for the historic lows on 164, we were much wider than we were at the beginning of the year. tyler, back to you. rick, thank you very much. stocks rallying today as investors' optimism grows. our next guest says the u.s. is the place to be right now. joining us is noah blackstein. u.s. growth fund up 22% so far this year. noah, welcome, good to see you. >> nice to see you. >> you like the u.s. you like fast-growing companies, but you don't like apple, why? >> it's not that i don't like

apple. i think a number of years ago david faber tagged me as mr. apple because we talked about it for years. our work over the years on apple is trying to figure out what they could earn and how much bigger the company could be. but back four or five years ago it clearly wasn't as well followed and well analyzed as it is today. >> so a great five years but you don't think it's going to have a great next five years or as great. >> well, i would classify the last five years as blank spectacular. and the next five are unlikely to be as good. it's been a tremendous stock. and it's a cheap valuation. we like it. we just think from what we do as stock pickers, we can add more value finding the next apple than owning this one. but it's a great company and chief. if i owned it, personally, i wouldn't sell it. for our funds we've moved on and looking elsewhere. >> noah, you say people should bet on the u.s. a lot of people say you should also bet on the emergencying markets. what is it about the u.s. market or sectors of the u.s. market

you find so compelling? is it valuation or what? >> i think the two big drivers for the u.s. economy over the next number of years one is the recovery in housing. you know, the european crisis we're seeing today, it really started off in housing whether it was irish or spanish housing morphed into banking crisis and sovereign debt crisis. the u.s. has come the farthest along in terms of real estate crisis. real estate will no longer be a negative impact to u.s. gdp growth and in fact by all measures i'm very optimistic that real estate is turning in the u.s. that's uncorrelated to china and emerging markets and europe. by the same token, there's another -- "the wall street journal" wrote about this, extracting tight oil and natural gas in the united states and moving through energy independence through fracking, taking that 10 million barrels a day that the u.s. now imports of oil down to two or three million barrels a day will have a profound impact on the u.s. economy. those two key drivers on energy

and real estate have such a huge impact on the u.s. and have almost no correlation to what's going on in europe or in the emerging markets. i think after ten years of being highly correlated, the u.s. market for domestically based companies could become a lot less correlated going forward. >> you want to concentrate on trying to find the next apple. you've hinted at a couple sectors in which you might be looking for them. what are some other sectors you might be hunting? >> for us the architectural revolution of technology is one of the most profound since moving from mainframes to personal computers. the move to mobility, the proliferation on devices on a corporate network versus the statistic ip address and computer, the move toward cloud computing and data center consolidation, the demand of businesses to have all their information in realtime and all that entails in terms of big data and storage, that architectural change in technology is one of the best opportunities we've seen to find those next generation technology companies.

for the big technology companies, it's going to be a huge challenge. but for stock pickers or for one people doing their work in technology, i think there's a huge amount of opportunity in these generation technology companies and i think it's only beginning. >> very interesting. appreciate it. >> you're welcome. thanks, guys. >> i bet you're wondering what the wealthy people out there are thinking right now. an exclusive sneak peek at the affluent barometer shows 50% are optimistic about the u.s. economy. that's at a one-year high. 40% think stocks are a good investment right now. and in households with an income of $250,000 or above, 17% have a new ipad. 16% plan to buy one. the rest apparently not at least for now. but they got the money if they wanted to. >> if they want to buy. all right. many have said the economy can't come back fully without the financials coming back. next on "power lunch" after big earnings report, is it time for you to buy into bank of america? we'll play a little buy, sell,

hold. and verizon wants to phone a friend in microsoft. find out what a new push from that carrier could mean for microsoft's mobile phone business. could it disrupt the android and iphone? we're back in a minute. [ female announcer ] it's time for the annual shareholders meeting. ♪ there'll be the usual presentations on research. and development. some new members of the team will be introduced. the chairman emeritus will distribute his usual wisdom. and you? well, you're the chief life officer. you just need the right professional to help you take charge. ♪ you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen.... for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing.

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i have two products in front of you. we are going to start with product x. this is a very affordable product that will help save you a, lot of money. i like it.. i like it too. this is product y. this is a much more expensive product. you will not see a lot of savings with this one... harsh. you chose geico and you did not choose their competitor. was this your first car insurance taste test? [ male announcer ] while others are content to imitate, we'll continue to innovate. the lexus rx. why settle for a copy when you can own the original? see your lexus dealer. welcome back. i'm seema mody. the nasdaq is up, but apple is

down. pairing early morning gains. analysts saying nothing is fundamentally wrong with the stock perhaps taking a breather before the next big product release. also on focus riverbed having worst one-day drop since september of 2007. the stock shedding over $1 billion in market cap value. lastly, more start-ups have been going public in recent weeks. one company ipoing here at the nasdaq is proofpoint. a company that specializes in cloud based security software priced at $13. right now trading higher by 7.6%. tyler, back to you. >> seema, thank you very much. time now for buy, sell, hold. we're going to take a look at some of the biggest stock stories hitting the headline ths week. and from the nyse, the one, the only, steve grasso, cnbc market analyst. mr. grasso, welcome. good to have you with us. >> so excited to be in front of bob's plasma. this is really exciting for me, tyler. >> you have made it, mr. grasso. you have made it. apple pulled back this week down

nearly 4%. what do you think? buy, sell, hold. >> i think you would be lucky enough to catch the profits you've made with these extreme moves higher in apple. i think you really should start thinking about lightening up on this. at least sell a portion of what you have going into earnings just in case. you know, remember those doj headlines? the doj headlines where -- i'm making a rhetorical question. doj headlines were from april 10th. if you see where the stock has fallen off from, it was right around this level right here. you would have been lucky to be a seller there. and i think you should probably take some chips off the table. >> earnings are next week, aren't they, steve? >> they are, the 24th. apple does have the ability to be gapping up and down. we've only seen one side of the picture, and that's been the up way. at this point i think you should lock in some profits and take a breather. >> let's move to bank of america. beating estimate ths week. that's been a pretty hot stock last few months. >> it has. if you look at bank of america

in relationship to morgan stanley, jpmorgan, citi group, all of these names, if you see the pinnacle from basically when they reported, they haven't captured that upside gain. so yesterday we saw bank of america trading near $9.20. it hasn't seen that price again. look at the 50-day moving averages on all of these names. and they're pretty much below them. >> so you got a sell on that one. >> i would say sell it. if you're looking at bank of america, it's roughly the 50-day -- let me check so i don't give bad information. 8.71. we're currently below that level. and that has been a pretty convincing tale for a lot of these names, 50-day moving average. so i would say the financials probably have peaked near-term. >> move onto best buy hitting headlines this week. possible takeover target for private equity firms. they've named the members of the executive panel try to find a replacement for the resigned brian dunn. what do you think here? >> it's probably just a sad story which is going on.

they haven't figured out what to do with their square footage issues, but best buy to me isn't a takeout target probably as you said a private equity takeout target. revamp it, cut down the square footage, cut it into basically a tenth of what they have. >> all right. >> i don't think you'd see a company take them out unfortunately for them. but i have joked around saying amazon, if they lose that preferential tax treatment, you might see amazon try to bring them in and act as a private equity of their own. >> buy it, sell it, hold it if you own it? >> i think you got to stay clear. i would not want to be shorting the stock here even though i think the direction is most likely lower, it's too risky in case they do get taken out. >> move onto chesapeake. this one is a hot potato. shareholder lawsuit against the ceo and the company's board over reports that mclen don borrowed $1 billion against his stake in

the company. what do you think? >> $10 billion company with probably over $13 billion in debt and i think aubrey's doing the same type of thing. it's a levered company. he's a levered person. i don't want to talk about his personal life, but if you look at basically the chart on it, it's on its lows here. and for me i don't know if i want to play this as a bottoming nat gas play. i'd rather buy the commodity itself without the headline-driven negative spin that chesapeake is getting. >> i'll take that as a pass. you like some of the plays in nat gas? >> i would say if you want to buy names there, they're levered as well, xco, crk, those are better names to play because it's not a headline-driven negative spin putting on the stock chesapeake is counted from. >> great to see you. >> have a great weekend. >> take care. >> all right, gentlemen.

getting consumers to buy something rather than hold onto their money is one of the keys to restarting the company. when we come back on "power lunch," the pulse of the consumer, the health of the real estate market and a bet on vegas all through the eyes of one of the country's most prominent real estate developers. and a bit later, microsoft's next play. why the tech titan is so important to facebook and how the social media company fits into microsoft's grand plan. we're back in a moment.

welcome back to "power lunch." i'm kayla tausche. let's reset the markets for you. we're off the highs of the day. but we're off the lows of the day. the dow faring the best today up just about 85 points to sit at 13,049. you can see the volatility index moving sharply down nearly 6% today sitting at the 17-point level. let's take a look at news corp. a lawyer representing phone hacking victims this morning said news corp.'s newspaper unit is facing 46 more civil lawsuits. this comes as chairman rupert murdoch and his son, james, prepare to take a stand next week. i'll tell you what their shares are doing. up by about 2% today. about 1.5% as we look right here. let's also look at u.s. airways.

news just coming out today about u.s. airways moving closer to a takeover of american airlines with the approval of three key unions coming today. no formal bid has been made. that could be the next step because parent company, amr, currently in bankruptcy. that bid must be approved by a judge. you have to put it on the table first. amr that is the liquidated amr down about 6% and u.s. air also down a little over 2% on that news. let's get to courtney reagan at the nymex. gold and other metals getting ready to close. >> here we are at the close for gold. once again today gold investors on the sidelines. this push/pull continues awaiting news out of the fed as well as may options expiration that happens next week. now, the option traders are telling us that they think those gold prices could gravitate towards 1650 for the call strike price ahead of the expiration. but if we look at where we've been this week, bouillon has traded in its narrowest weekly range in more than a year. however, copper going the

opposite way. the red metal posting some green arrows bringing us higher for the week at least in that metal. sue, back to you. >> thanks, courtney. appreciate it. our next guest has his finger on the pulse of california's economy like almost nobody else around. he's billionaire developer rick ka rus so, master mind behind some of the top retail and residential complexes in los angeles. that's no easy feat in one of the most hypercompetitive markets around. given the state's 11% jobless rate, how do you maintain that growth? let's go live to one of his properties, the grove, which averages more visitors per year than even disney land. how nice to have you with us. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me, sue. >> it looks beautiful at the grove. you're quoted as saying we don't build retail centers, we build the center of town. but you build the center of town in some fairly affluent areas. is that why you seem to be able to garner 75% more per customer

than most other retail centers in the state? >> well, i think that's one of the reasons. but we have people from 78 zip codes coming here to the grove. i would tell you that ten years ago when we started building the grove, people were saying you're nuts to be building in this area. and what's happened is we draw from such a wide area. we've created our own energy around the grove. and the grove is also changed the area around us. it's brought life back to the farmer's market. third street, melrose, robertson, all the streets around us have exploited. which we're very proud of. so we've been an economic engine to this area. >> 92% of customers on the property that go on the property make a purchase. and you mentioned the 78 zip codes that you draw from, there are those who say you cater mostly to the affluent and luxury spender, but that doesn't sound like that's exactly the case. >> i tell you, people come here for a variety of reasons. one is we have 28% of our customers are tourists.

we have people come here just to hang out to enjoy the day to be with family to walk around. and fortunately we have a lot of people that come here to shop and also to dine with us. our movie theater, for example, is the number one movie theater in north america. it revolves around experience. and i am a big believer that the future of retail and brick and mortar is all about experience because you have to give the consumer another reason to buy and to buy on your property. that's why we're so popular. that's why so many people shop here. it's not about affluence. we have a cross section of people that come to all of our properties. and it all seems to work. and that's the way a true civic center works. that's what our properties have become. we're the center of town for this area of los angeles. >> talk to me about the general state of the consumer in california. we mentioned the 11% jobless rate in the state overall. >> right. >> how can california best try and remedy that and create the good paying jobs that can bring california back to, you know,

the glory days. i grew up in los angeles. i remember when the golden state really was the golden state. >> well, you're right, sue. i tell you, it comes back to the direction of the state and the direction of the city and what the elected officials are doing. and it's got to be all about jobs. it's got to be welcoming business. it's got to be creating an environment where businesses want to come into california. we frankly have an environment here where businesses are fleeing california. and it's a real problem. it's an attitude change. and i think we have problems in sacramento that need to be changed. and until they change, i don't think we're going to come around the corner any time soon with that employment rate coming down. >> a lot of people think that perhaps you're the man to do that either through a run to become mayor of los angeles, and your name also banding about as perhaps governor of the state. >> well, listen, i'm honored by that. i appreciate it. i also like driving growth through business. so we create a lot of jobs and a lot of revenue because of new

projects. we've got about $750 million worth of new projects in our pipeline. so we're going to be creating a lot of jobs in los angeles and in california and a lot of new revenue. and we have an appetite beyond that to do more. we have a very strong balance sheet. so whether i'm an elected official or remain a private citizen, time will tell. i'm happy what i'm doing now. and i also love public service. we'll see in the future. >> well, before i let you go, i've got to ask you about the dodgers. my first baseball game ever was at dodger stadium. and i could not believe the better than $2 billion selling price for the dodgers. you were bidding for them. i think you left before the 1.5 mark. do you believe the price that they got? and how do you make money off of that team if you pay more than $2 billion? >> boy, sue, i don't know. i was at $1.4 billion, $1.5

billion. i think that's where the other bidders were other than the group that ended up buying it, guggenheim. i wish them the best. i think it's really important for baseball. and it's important for los angeles that that deal works out. but i can tell you this, i don't know how it's going to work, but i compliment frank and his team. they've pulled off an amazing deal. and it's supposed to close on april 30th. i assume it's going to. and i wish magic johnson and the guggenheim people all the best. and i'll be in the stands cheering on the dodgers as i have since i was a young boy. i hated losing the deal, but we missed by only $700 million. we were almost there. >> some people say you could still get in there. >> i can still get in it? how? buy buying peanuts? i got to buy a lot of hot dogs to pay for that difference. >> you sure do. thanks. good to see you. >> off to a good start. all right. up next microsoft shares soaring right now. let's go beyond the earnings. the three things you need to

know about the tech titan before you buy the stock. one of them involves facebook. hey, did you ever finish last month's invoices?

sadly, no. oh. but i did pick up your dry cleaning and had your shoes shined. well, i made you a reservation at the sushi place around the corner. well, in that case, i better get back to these invoices... which i'll do right after making your favorite pancakes. you know what? i'm going to tidy up your side of the office. i can't hear you because i'm also making you a smoothie. [ male announcer ] marriott hotels & resorts knows it's

better for xerox to automate their global invoice process so they can focus on serving their customers. with xerox, you're ready for real business. coming up on "street signs," we remember the titans. old school stocks on a roll today like mcdonald's. but can they keep serving up winners? and can you make money on distressed companies? we ask a big hedge fund manager who bought bp after that disaster. so what properties does tillson like now. and sleepless in kentucky. home of tempur-pedic. stock getting slammed. e than-alan under pressure. back to sue and tyler on "power lunch." microsoft -- kelly, thank you very much. microsoft surging after posting

better than expected earnings. the stock biggest percentage gainer in the dow right now. what's going to drive microsoft's growth? there are three possible areas and we're going to look at them. joining us managing director at rbc capital markets and our own jon fortt. jo jon, let me start with you. there is a facebook angle to microsoft's future, isn't there? >> a little bit of a facebook angle. microsoft's got a 1.6% stake in facebook. made that investment in 2007. people thought they were crazy, but it's turned out quite well. i wouldn't expect the benefit from microsoft to come much on the consumer side. yahoo! has led pack online as far as integrating with facebook and hasn't helped their engagement much. microsoft might be able to learn some things about social from facebook and implement those on the enterprise side to improve share point. you've got folks like jive and vmware trying to attack them there. >> rob, you are a fan of the stock. you have a buy rating on it. you have a price target of i

think 34, you say you may raise it. let's look at one of the businesses that's very interesting here. and that is sort of their core. and that is operating systems. there's a lot of upgrading going onto windows 7 right now and to -- and then eventually to windows 8. >> yeah. exactly. i think what you see here going on with large enterprises today specifically with xp being end of life by april 2014, all the companies, the large enterprises, even such as ourselves are converting over and getting off the xp platform. nobody really wants to wait until end of life. so what you're seeing is a good pull through effect on the windows platform. but as your prior person mentioned, they are pulling in new products such as share point on the collaboration side. you're also seeing them upgrade with their unified communications platform and link. there's a natural pull through effect here with the windows upgrade. >> are they in a good place, rob, with respect to the migration and the cloud and away

from the classic desktop platform? >> absolutely. i think when you look at the platform they allow a lot of different partners to build proprietary operations and add ton what they're doing call the dynamics area. transfers small and medium sized businesses transferring them to the cloud. office 365 is in the cloud as well. so clearly getting those into the cloud especially as small and medium size businessed migrate. >> all right. jon, let me turn to you. let's talk about mobility here. microsoft has been in the phone business. they got skype. and there's talk -- interesting story in "the wall street journal" that verizon would like to work with them or is going to work with them to work in the phone space. is this an area of opportunity for them? >> a little bit. i wouldn't put too much on that partnership with microsoft on verizon's side. there are a couple reasons for that. at&t has wanted to move away

from its reliance on the iphone for a while. i talked to randall stephenson about that a couple years ago. they haven't been able to build their own ecosystem. microsoft is struggling in this area and just working with verizon isn't necessarily going to mean they're having enough success that verizon can get away from iphone subsidies. so, you know, will there be a benefit for microsoft there? yes, it's always nice to be working with carriers. but they need big success. and i think -- we'll have to see what happens around windows 8 and windows rt to see if that happens. >> rob, can the phone business be a big driver for microsoft? it hasn't been. >> yeah. it hasn't been. it ultimately could be. the good news is, you know, consumers do turn these devices over approximately every two to three years. while microsoft is definitely late to the game and we have very little in our forecast, the good news is microsoft is investing. they got the partnerships with nokia. they have the partnerships now starting with verizon. at least they're laying the ground work to hopefully get started. >> rob, jon, thank you very

much. >> thank you. >> coming up next on "power lunch," a supersized week for earnings and economic data out next week. and we also have mr. bernanke's news conference as well. how do you position yourself? the trader triple play straight ahead. 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. hey, heard any updates on the game? i think it's final seconds, ohh, shoots a three, game over. so two seconds ago... hey mr. and mrs. harris, where's kevin? say hi kevin. 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!

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welcome back to "power lunch." let's get you caught up on earnings. score card looks good with the s&p reporting four out of five companies beat estimates on the earnings 7.4% met earnings estimates and about 11.6% were below. but given all those beats right now, we're on pace to see earnings up 6% from a year ago for the first quarter. next week going to be heavy on energy, tech and consumer names. let's get you looking ahead here. on monday we're going to hear from home builder d.r. horton. an update on the spring housing season from them. we'll hear from xerox. after the bell hear from texas instruments and netflix as well. we'll see whether netflix can continue to grow subscribers. on tuesday we're going to see if man purses are still boosting sales over at coach. also hear from dow component 3m before the bell and at&t which is of course going to tee up for apple's big results after the close. apple expected to report $9.99

earnings per share on about 37 billion in sales. talk about nine dow components reporting during the week on wednesday. boeing and cat pillar report. gambling growth will be key for casino operating las vegas sands. exxon mobil expected to report $2.07 a share before the opening bell. then it's all consumer on the time after the close with amazon, starbucks and farmville parent zynga and coinstar reporting. and friday more on the consumer with proctor & gamble. and two dow components, micron and chevron to wind up the week. get your shoes on, sue. >> i've got my sneakers on. jam packed week for earnings and economic data. and ben bernanke having a fed

conference. ma matt ches dlps lock joins us, and jeff kilburg. bertha just outlined all of the earnings reports we have out next week, we also have economic data. which will be most important to the market? >> i'm going with the trend here. it's definitely been earnings. with all the focus on earnings next week, apple is a big one but we also have major dow other earnings coming forward here. my partner said, i think we're discounting what europe is. i think that's a major focus here. we've been able to discount it because the earnings have been so good. but if earnings start getting a little weak or the forecasts are weak, i would sense a bit of a selloff. >> all right. jeff, we've got the fed chief speaking. we've got a fed meeting and we have a news conference. handicap the week for me. >> well, sue, a lot to take in. to add onto what you said, we're seeing all the traders here emotions being very high as their staring down the barrel of

operations expiration. next week we see the road in europe littered with potholes. we're going to see this french election have a lot to do with the sentiment. no doubt looking for leadership out of the bund. i think the u.s. treasury market's going lower and track that german bund as you still fear amongst traders. >> jon, you get the last word and last minute of the trader triple play. what happens to energy next week? >> we'll see a selloff in energy. the language out of the fed will be perceived to be bearish by the market. the fed will have to adjust their expectation towards unemployment, while not a policy shift, the market will see that as bearish. look at gold, silver and the rest of the commodity complex as well. >> yikes. gentlemen, have a good weekend. >> take care, sue. >> just over two hours left in the trading day and we'll be back with our charts of the day in two minutes. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. monarch of marketing analysis.

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about four points or so. and the s&p 500 is on the upside. of course a lot of this has been earnings driven. some of the winners today include microsoft, which is up almost 5.75%. verizon is up just under 2%. mcdonald's up 1.7% and ge up 1.6% as well. look just to check in on natural gas which yesterday i believe hit a 10-year low in price that $1.92. and now it stands right there just up a little bit today. but that is a major story worth following for the rest of this year. >> the advertisement says sleep on the temp tempur-pedic, you'l be sleeping for life. you won't. reaffirmed figures for 2012, but those figures were not what the street wanted to see. they were hoping for an upward revision to those figures and did not get t.