like red bull for commodities. >> indeed it is. >> that's going to hold up this market a little bit. >> i got to go right now. >> $75. >> thanks, guys. thanks, gentlemen. ty, see you back at the ranch on a big market selloff today. >> zach karabell, thank you very much. that will do it for "power lunch." "street signs" begins right now. indeed it does. welcome to "street signs" everybody. i'm mandy drury. and it is a sea of red out there. we are at the lows of the day right now. stocks having the worst percentage drop since november of last year. the jobs report, we all know now, is downright ugly. all day you've been hearing qe-3 is back on the table. what does that really mean for your money? well, correction protection. we are helping you navigate this nasty market with two big money managers. their safest stock picks for your portfolio. and we're also playing refi roulette. is now the time to pull the trigger and refinance? or will rates go even lower?

some big questions there. in the meantime let's get straight to the market where the new month is off to a really rocky start. the dow could in fact end the day with it biggest one-day lost since november 23rd. and it's lost its gains for 2012 as well. the s&p 500 meantime in correction mode falling below 1280. it's having its largest one-day drop since december 8th. and nasdaq dropping back to its lowest since january though it is still up about 6% for the year to date. volatility as you can imagine is also on the rise. the vix touching its highest level since mid-december. so let's get straight out to the knuckles and get down to the nyse floor with mary. and then over to rick as well. mary, we are now, what? officially in correction mode here? >> for the s&p 500 and the nasdaq, today, mandy. you know what we've seen in about the last hour or so is the market decline accelerating as we head to the close for the weekend. a lot of traders not wanting to be long into the weekend. this built on the disappointing jobs data today, disappointing

jobs numbers on china of manufacturing and disappointing information out of india. the dow jones industrial average erasing all of gains for 2012 in today's session. and just off the lows of the day as we speak. the s&p 500, couple of things here moving in correction territory, meaning it's 10% below a recent peak. it's also moved below a key technical level, that being its 200-day moving average of 1284 trading below that now if it closes below that, if volume is decent, that bodes poorly for the days ahead. a negative sign for that indicator. also the nasdaq as i pointed out earlier also entering correction territory. 10% below a recent high for the nasdaq. i.t. stocks have been very weak. a number of them trade on the nasdaq in recent days. and the russell 2000 of course it entered correction territory a couple of days ago. it too is weak today. couple of just a quick check of the sectors, ones pacing the decline today, probably no surprise. we are seeing weakness in

financials, consumer discretionary, tech, industrials as well as energy stocks because we've seen a pullback in crude prices on concerns of a slowdown in the economy. i do want to point out that despite disappointing sales number, we did actually see gm move to the plus side because it's offering some retirement packages to a number of retirement -- potential retirees that could save the country $26 billion in pension costs. the stock moved up on that. and as you can see it's holding onto very slight gains, a bit of green in an otherwise very red market. mandy, back to you. >> mary, thank you for that. in fact, we're going to be talking more about that gm news later on in the show with phil lebeau. of course lots of order sales numbers out this morning. in the meantime get to rick santelli. rick, there was a time in the past where if i had asked you, do you think we'll ever see the 10-year yield at 1%, you might have laughed. now it's perhaps not looking so silly or impossible. >> no. no. if you said when are we going to see 1% in a 10-year note yield, my response would be, well, next time you see a negative jobs

number or you see more deterioration in europe. and of course we had a taste of both of those today. even though we aren't quite there, 30-basis point week is pretty dramatic because we were basically at 1.75 in a ten last year. we're at 1.45 now. 30 basis points. while everybody's been looking at the strength in the dollar, it really is euro weakness, let's look at the dollar/yen year-to-date. they were at 3.5 month lows earlier in the session. mandy, here's a fascinating one. everybody's trying to reach for yield without taking too much risk. if you look at the etf that's investment grade corporates, it's almost unchanged today and it's doing pretty well. look at the chart year-to-date. contrast that with the high yield etf. exact opposite direction. so discrimination is going on in corporates while equities get hurt. >> good point you made on the japanese yen. the finance minister of japan put it out overnight, watch out, folks, he's ready to pull the trigger. thank you so much rick and mary. in the meantime get to john

harwood. john, we heard from president obama earlier on. we also heard from mitt romney. what was the chief takeaway here? >> the takeaways, mandy, were exactly what you would expect for an incumbent democratic president and republican challenger. disappointing in an election year, president obama just a few minutes ago at a honeywell plant in minnesota making the case that, well, yes, the private sector continues adding jobs. but it's simply not enough. not what we need. >> the economy's growing again, but it's not growing as fast as we want it to grow. our businesses have created almost 4.3 million new jobs over the last 27 months, but as we learned in today's jobs report, we're still not creating them as fast as we want. >> and of course mitt romney had new energy to criticize the president's policies as he's been doing all yearlong. he came on cnbc, talked to our carl quintanilla and made the case that the slowdown we're seeing is not because of

headwinds in europe, it's because of what this president has done. >> the president's policies with regards to taxation, regulation as well as trade policies, labor policies, all of them have made it less likely for businesses, small and large, to want to hire more people. and when you add to that the normal ups and downs of the world economy, it's been real tough on the american family. >> so, mandy, until the president gets some better news economically, either on overall growth or on job growth, he's going to hear that argument from mitt romney all the way to november. >> i can only imagine. i've got a question for you though. it's very easy to criticize policies and say d.c. has not done enough in terms of creating jobs. do we just need to stop whining, stop looking at d.c. for answers and look to american business to step up to the plate? >> certainly that's part of the argument the administration's been making because corporate profits have been strong. on the other hand, if the demand for products isn't there, it's hard to expect businesses to add workers when productivity gains can accomplish some of what they

need already. this is the point austin made on our air earlier when productivity gain is faster than gain in demand in your product, you don't need to hire new workers. >> thank you so much, john harwood. in the meantime back to the markets. we're around the lows of the session. we have now had our 40th consecutive month of unemployment at 8% or greater. that is the longest streak at 8% or above going all the way back to 1948. so does today's weaker than expected jobs number put qe-3 back on the table? what does that mean for your money? equity strategist and portfolio manager at miller tabak, chief global strategist, jake calf ree, to all of you, great to have you on the show. peter, i will get to you first of all. what does that mean for my money today? >> well, it's not just going to be qe in the u.s. it's going to be qe probably first in europe. then by the bank of england, by the bank of japan. then we're easing in china.

because politically no politician wants to deal with restructuring debt and writing it down. so printing money is going to be the easy way out for them again, which the irony is that right now we're experiencing the qe hangover. this case the ecb qe hangover which then leads to the next qe and this vicious cycle won't stop, unfortunately. >> you know, dan, can i ask you the same question? i mean, it seems like an easy enough question to ask, but actually it's quite difficult. i mean, like some might say, well, i've been looking for a good entry point. maybe this is it. or maybe we're just going to keep ongoing lower. what do you think in terms of what this means for my money today, dan? >> i don't know whether we go up or down from here. but i agree with peter that certainly the likelihood is there that the central bank will come in with some type of additional easing since we're not getting anything out of the fiscal side of things. i would ask peter as i always do, in his world, what does he want the central bank to do? does he want them to tighten interest rates? go andrew mellon on us and send the stock market lower?

if so, i would like to hear more about that. >> well, in the u.s. we're going to have to delever. and the bond market has basically eased for the fed. so if the fed did nothing, it really wouldn't matter. it's what the ecb's going to do next. the europe region is where we were a few years ago in terms of bank debt, potential bank runs and what it means for the countries. the ecb has no choice but to print. this is again buying time. either pain now or pain later. that's to me the bottom line. >> jack, i will get to you in just a second. i want to pick up on what you're saying about the potential for more qe for example from the ecb, peter. wouldn't that be a net-net negative? essentially it would just blow out their balance sheet. may in fact cause downgrades across the continent. >> why is that a negative? >> printing money right now is the only thing we have for the europeans and we're going to get it within the next month i believe either through the esm or another ltro or some form because for the europeans right now it's the only way out.

>> jack, can i get to you? you come in on this conversation. qe-3, will we get it on the back of this jobs number? number two, do we even need it? what would be accomplished? >> well, i think you've raised a couple interesting points. do we need it? certainly growth has been a bit below expectations. certainly i think markets are trying to press policymakers on a global basis for assistance in some fashion. whether it's printing, buying securities, whether it's continuing to maintain exceptionally accommodative policies for longer periods of time. i think you're going to see markets continue pressing policymakers for assistance. i think what you're looking then to is what are economies actually doing. i think that's the trickier thing. i think markets always come back to what are expectations, what's priced in. i think what we have is a vicious circle in the short-term in terms of markets repricing expectations to more reasonable more achievable levels. i think in that regard things are we're getting that stimulus,

it's coming in lower energy rates, supportive overmargins -- >> i have to interrupt for a quick second. lower interest rates and lower commodity, it's like 2008 all over again. my head's going to explode. they don't happen in a vacuum. you're getting lower interest rates and oil prices because there's something wrong. it's not stimulus. this is the same discussion from 2008. do i want lower gasoline prices? sure. but it doesn't do me any good if i have no job to drive to. >> okay. we've got to leave it there. we've got to leave it there. we are going to talk more about oil prices and whether or not it is actually a good thing for the economy/stock market. later on in the show, peter, dan, jack, thank you very much for joining us today. are you looking for a little housing hopium here? well, as bond yields drop to new lows, that means already low mortgage rates could go even lower. that brings us to our street poll. do you plan to refinance your mortgage? vote going to refi, already refied or waiting to refi. that's at streetsigns.cnbc.com. later in the show we'll have

results in a debate on whether today is the day to pull the refi trigger. coming up next, as we've mentioned, it is a sea of red out there. the headlines are pretty ugly. all dow 30 are down. we are ready to help you protect your portfolio. two big money managers are here with their safest stock picks for these uncertain times. plus, is what is bad for america good for walmart? next we're going to head to the annual meeting to see just how the world's largest retailer could benefit from another downturn. a passionate belief

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welcome back to "street signs." we're watching shares am amylin. bids submitted above $25 a share. look at that stock price. popping today intraday. >> thanks very much, jackie. walmart shares trading at highs bouncing back from the mexican bribery scandal, the world's largest retailer is holding its annual meeting in arkansas. they really thrived as shoppers searched fe lorer prices. ceo discussing the company's recent performance at today's annual meeting. >> every segment of our company had a great first quarter. so let me tell you about it. walmart u.s. stores delivered the best comp sales in more than three years. i've said this several times. and i'll say it many more times. walmart is the best position global retailer in the world

today. >> but what will the future hold as customers now seem willing to pay just a little more and they're headed back to the higher end stores like target? well, courtney reagan is at that annual meeting. courtney, what do you think? is what is bad for the economy maybe good for walmart? >> mandy, i think it can be. a number of money managers and analysts do recommend buying walmart as a defensive play. in fact, janney analyst just increased his price target today to $72 from $68 as a direct result of what we're seeing in the greater market. he thinks walmart is a very good defensive play. but that being said, the company has made some missteps in the past when it comes to merchandise, selection, even the store format. they've paid dearly for it. it's just over the last few quarters they've started to increase the same store sales trend in the united states. a weak economy doesn't always mean better sales and increasing stock prices for walmart, although in may walmart was the

best dow component. only one of four positive up 12%. so that theory did play out at least last month. >> you know, i have to ask you, courtney. if you look at the share price of walmart, it seems to have shrugged off the whole mexican bribery scandal. i know there are investigations underway, but there were some calls for some quarters for the removal of walton and the ceo from the board. what's happening with all of that? >> exactly. so while there were a number of pension funds that held millions of shares and many of them voted those shares against the re-election of some of those board members including current ceo mike duke, former ceo lee scott and chairman of the board, rob walton, all 15 members did get re-elected. and google's marissa actually added to the board to make 16. so despite some of that contention, it still didn't come to play that any of those board members were unseated. remember the walton family owns 47% of the outstanding shares. so it would have been very, very

hard for change to have come at least in that manner. but it's not out of the question that at some point down the road management changes could happen as a result of possible findings. we all will just have to wait and see. >> we do have to wait and see. in the meantime, thank you so much, courtney. once again investors are looking for the safest ports in a storm of economic uncertainty. we have two big money managers ready to help us navigate those waters. we have president of intrepid capital funds, peter senior portfolio manager at huntington asset advisors. thank you very much for joining us today. i know there are a lot of people selling today. and i know that panic is an easy thing to do. but panic is not an investment strategy. is now, mark, a buying opportunity? >> mandy, today's the first day of the atlantic hurricane season. and we've welcomed it with a down 2% day. i look forward to high volatility days. i think there's much greater mispricing in the equity market. and so i look forward todays

like today to put cash to work with, you know, three to five-year investment horizon. maybe not between now and october, but i think there are a lot of opportunities. much more so than there were even at the end of the first quarter. >> mark, i'm going to go on the small cap route with you for two seconds because i know that that is your expertise. the russell 2x for example had its worst may i think ever on record, right? so i mean it would have been easy for you to say like a month ago this is an opportunity and it keeps on dropping. so what would you say to people who say how do i know it's not going to get cheaper? >> well, mandy, in the short run anything can happen. for any of us coming on cnbc to project what the share price will be next week is difficult at best. you know. so, you know, for us we're discounting free cash flows or doing asset valuation work. and today i think there are opportunities where i can buy high quality businesses in the stock market for a good bit less

than you could replace them for, you know. so i look at that as an opportunity for, again, long-term capital. >> peter, what about you? what's going to hold up especially through a summer no stranger to bad summers. we've had a couple of bad summers so far for the markets. what have we learned? and how can we put our money in a smarter direction? >> well, mandy, there's really, i think again to carry on the points made earlier, we're seeing prices back down where they were at the beginning of the year. yet earnings continue. corporate america's earnings growth has been there. the balance sheets are extraordinarily strong, unlike the sovereign balance sheets. corporate america's balance sheets are just rock solid at this point. so if organic growth is not there, clearly now is the time -- we've seen some of it this year already. mergers and acquisitions make a huge amount of sense in here. drive the efficiencies. take yourself to the next level. the price battle, go to the places where the price devastation's already happened. the rollover in commodities

started may of last year with coal and natural gas. go there. they're great buys in those areas now. >> narrow it down then, peter. if you say go there, where exactly is there? peter, give us some names. >> all right. let's look at chesapeake. a lot of things have gone on there. but look at the reserves. fabulous reserves. they're in very politically favorable places. reported probably one of the best oil well finds in the recent years in the united states. we also have companies like peabody coal. global coal company. price is dramatically lower than it was 12 months ago. and we're seeing prices recover there as we are with natural gas. so there's bargains there to be had. let's go where else we're very strong. agriculture. companies like archer daniels, dean foods. we're taking export market from other countries we had lost. stay with those. stay where we have strengts. general electric, a fraught with

all kinds of difficulties, a great dividend yield, buy there and wait it out. >> understood. mark, i understand there are a couple of names you also like that have natural gas exposure. boy, they've been beaten down year-to-date. >> up until recently, maybe this month, mandy. it's been tough to find something people hate. but with peter as a segue into natural gas, the company bill bear at bbg at $18, i think you're buying it for close to a dollar per proven reserve. and over 50% of their revenue's coming from oil and natural gas liquids. in addition they've hedged out their natural gas around 650 per mcf into the next 18 months. so, you know, i think that natural gas probably is a fuel of the future. you know, the japanese would love for us to liquefy some and ship it to them if the obama administration will let them. i've got another name that's also been swept down with that current. >> right. >> patterson uti.

they're a land based driller. 331 rigs. they basically have the ability to go to where the action is. so they've stopped drilling for natural gas and now drilling for oil. i can buy that company today at $14 plus. >> okay. >> and liquidate the whole thing at $24. >> i'm sorry to jump in. we've just run out of time. but mark and peter, thank you for your picks. thanks for joining us today. >> glad to be here. thank you. >> thank you, mandy. >> just ahead on "street signs," may order sales were pretty strong. is the road ahead about to get rougher? if you thought it was getting ugly for u.s. markets. emerging market stocks finished their worst may since 1998. we'll find out if it's too risky to globe trot with your money. here's one you may not have thought of -- fidelity. now you don't have to go to a bank to get the things you want from a bank, like no-fee atms, all over the world. free checkwriting and mobile deposits. now depositing a check is as easy as taking a picture.

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well, emerging markets have had a pretty brutal may. in fact, the worst since 1998. so could the selloff be a buying opportunity? whether you spring down the emerging markets or vice versa, joining us now tim seymour, founder of emerging money.com and host of cnbc's "trading the globe." so what extent do we have to remember even if emerging markets selloff, they're also the first to bounce back? >> i was going to say, mandy, you're bringing up a point we've

seen in emerging. china started rallying in the fall november 2008. i'm not sure you have that here. but quickly, first of all, emerging markets are suffering on two fronts. the currencies are where they're getting hurt the most. one of the themes that we're going to stress on "trading the globe" not just the next couple weeks but the next couple years is the dollar. i think the dollar is back. i think if you look at a 10-year chart, it was one of the reasons why e.m. had a great run. growth story in and of itself something that stood on its own, but the dollar weakness supported commodities. i think the dollar stays strong. i don't think this is just a flight to quality. if you're an emerging market investor, look for consumer names where they have a more insulated economy. indonesia for example, one of the names we'll probably unveil, tlk is the ticker, this is the at&t of indonesia. indonesia and brazil to me are the two most insulated emerging economies and i think places you can be a little safer in an environment where i think commodity prices, oil prices,

are still i think have a ways to go down here. e.m. has suffered, but there are places to play here. i think in fact as you start to put your wish list together, and i think you should be because valuations in e.m. are back to '98 levels. we haven't seen this in a long time. it's an interesting place. >> the big drop in oil prices recently also a bit of a tailwind for emerging markets as well. we look forward to seeing you on "trading the globe" in the future. coming up next on "street signs," stock talk plus the american bridge book by china? a special report is next. is now the time to pull the trigger on a refi? or could rates go even lower? we're going to have an all star. don't wait to give us your thoughts. do you plan to refi your mortgage? vote going to refi, already done so or waiting. streetsigns.cnbc.com. >> announcer: cnbc realtime exchange market snapshot is

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welcome back. a market flash on facebook. as long as it closes in the red today, it will have the honor of being the ipo with the deal size greater than a billion dollars to have the biggest two-week lost post-ipo since 1995. that's as far as the geological data goes back. down about 6% today. roughly 27% lower than the $38 ipo price. mandy. >> jackie, i would call that a dubious honor. in the meantime we're having the worst day for stocks, at least percentagewise so far this year. and in fact since november of last year. let's get more on which sectors in particular are suffering. which are managing to hold up okay. kayla tausche's walking the wall for us. kayla. >> the sectors are in good company. you can see nearly all of the s&p 500 in the red. and we're pointing right back to that dismal jobs report from this morning as the cause for that. if you take a look at the sectors and how they're performing, you'll see the s&p is off its lows of the day but pretty darn close to it. and no sector is in the green

where we stand right now. you can see even the defensive plays like utilities, they're fairing the best but still in the red today. the worst sectors are consumer discretionary and financials. you can tell the risk is off. and it's off with a bang. if you take a look at the financials, they are hurting today. bank of america down better than 4%. citi group near a 4% drop. goldman, morgan stanley and jpmorgan all in the red sharply today. let's also take a look at home builders. taking a big hit as well. reacting to that disappointing jobs report this morning. pulte group down nearly 11% today. d.r. horton and lennar both roughly down about 8% today. consumers aren't getting jobs, they're not buying homes, mandy. that's the story here today. >> that is the story. stick around for a second, kayla. i want to bring you in, herb. when i was scanning this morning looking for a green arrow, you know where i found it? in gold. i thought that's kind of interesting because recently gold has been asking like a risk asset. it's been trading like other commodities and hurting from the

stronger dollar as well. what's the deal with gold being strong today? >> it's a classic gold-up environment. you've got people worried. what do you have when people are worried? they want to go to gold regardless -- >> it hasn't been -- >> now look at what we have now. we've also got europe. so many levels of uncertainty. big investors like buffett coming out talking gold down. >> quickly before you go into the other thing, is it a qe-3 bet? gold? >> as much as any bet, mandy. i'm going to tell you, that's the way i look at it. i want to point out something else interesting here. you'd expect on a day like today perhaps a dividend yield and etfs to be in the green. they're not. really this is almost like a classic indiscriminate selling and this confuses people on days like today. you have stocks down a few percentage points and then you've got those down say another 10% or so or many because there really was news. so you have exaggerated moves down. so we have some stocks. we have some gaming stocks down for reasons like a las vegas

sands or like a wynn for reasons that you might say, gee, yes, there's a fundamental issue. so now people have to distinguish between a market on a day like today where everything's being thrown out and those where there indeed are fundamental issues. you've got to dig. >> seems like the moves are so sharp you wonder if there's any thesis behind it. >> in markets like this, this is what you will typically see. that's why you want to try to figure out. >> and then we get to the stage where people talk about when is capitulation. this is what we were looking like in the 2008 and then march 2009 lows where all the babies in the bath water get thrown out at the same time in many cases because people are trying to cover margin calls and that kind of things and throwing out good quality assets. >> they always do that. >> are we at that stage? >> look, we never know until after the fact. and if you look at a broader chart of the markets, you'll see, you know, we're still far

from the lows, the prior lows. so you still have, look, the question here always will be are you catching a falling knife? it's the classic cliche on wall street. >> everyone comparing to 2010, 2011, you see the market come down throughout the summer and then have a back half rally and always starts on the fourth of july. but europe as we found out today is maybe not the main story. if weakness is still as strong as it is here, then this is a broader story. >> well, i guess the focus is going from europe and shifting back to us. here's a question for you. we saw a moment ago we are at eight-month lows for crude oil. you can take two views. you can say this is a positive, right? it's a tax break, more money in the pocket. >> absolutely. >> or this is a symptom of weak global growth. is it net-net good or bad for the stock market? >> in the old days it would have been really great. again, you're asking me and i can tell you this market is different than other markets. there are some reports out there of people who have some really dire forecasts going forward based on europe base the

uncertainty is so great. and where those dominos fall, we don't know. there will be those looking for great buying opportunities. >> low oil is good for an election. >> yeah. >> we'll see when the election comes along before the election if there's any maneuvering on these jobs numbers. >> get a romney rally. what do you reckon? who knows? anybody's guess. >> i'm not going to go there. >> okay. [ overlapping speakers ] >> can i tell you one thing? >> yeah. >> if you saw the romney interview on our station and saw obama come out, the differences in personalities was fascinating to me. >> interesting charisma. >> it will be interesting to see america outside of wall street interprets those two personalities. >> very different personalities. very polarized. thank you, kayla and herb. still on "street signs," it's a sea of red out there. but one of those red arrows could put lots of green in your pocket. we'll tell you which one it is coming up. and car sales have been a driving force in the u.s.

recovery. could this economic soft patch bring autos as well to a screeching halt? "street signs" is back after this quick break. i'm brian sullivan. cnbc is heading down to atlanta for a town hall event on small business. we are going to be hosting some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. small business owners will share their challenges, we'll look at opportunities and we'll learn new strategies for success. join us as part of our studio audience. for free tickets go to townhall@cnbc.com. we hope to see you in atlanta.

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coming up at the top of the hour on "closing bell," every angle of the huge selloff covered. should the government step in and support the economy with more stimulus? steve liesman and rick santelli battle it out. plus, should preserving capital be your top priority right now? or is this the perfect time to go bargain hunting? and will gloomy jobs and the picture there derail the housing recovery? or will record low rates lure more buyers into the market? first, more "street signs" with mandy. >> absolutely. thanks very much for that, scotty. despite today's down market, there are upbeat news. look where we are now. the dow, nasdaq and s&p 500, yes, they are down sharply, but they're not down as much as they

were earlier on today. also let's look at oil. this is hopefully a good thing despite the fact that it is obviously down on disappointing economic data. but crude has fallen more than 8% on the week. it's now down nearly 25% since march. in other words, officially bear market territory. and that's also been sending prices at the pump lower. again, this is the bright spot that we're trying to find for you. well, talking about the pump, automakers reporting a strong may thanks in part to pickup in incentives. will an economic slowdown bring sales to a screeching halt? let's bring in edmonds.com and phil lebeau. we were talking earlier on about the headlines of gm being one of the few stocks in the green today on some pension news. can you fill us in there? >> essentially general motors has made a major move when it comes to shoring up its pension obligations. this has to do with their salaried employees -- salaried

retirees i should say. 138,000 of them. about 36% will get offered a lump sum payment. the bottom line here, mandy, once this is all said and done, gm is going to be lower its pension obligation by about $26 billion. and that's a huge cut into an obligation that runs about $134 billion. they're making headway and getting rid of the one thing that a lot of people are worried about. and that's the pension obligation. >> it certainly explains why gm is up over 1% all the other automakers are sharply lower. jessica, let me get back to you with regards to the auto sales. imagine if you were someone who planned to buy a car in the next few months. tomorrow morning you're sitting there eating your wheatties drinking your orange juice, open up the newspaper and massive headline saying jobs shocker, like you know 69,000 instead of 150,000 we're expecting. psychologically, is this going to have a bill #big impact on consumers in terms of their intention to buy an auto? >> it certainly doesn't help. what we've seen lately is auto

sales seem to be doing well despite what the economic headlines are. thankfully people need cars, right, at the end of the day. with loosening credit and the ageing fleet out there, people trading in older vehicles because they have to not because they want a new car, that's going to help drive autos at the end of the day. while it doesn't help, i mean, it certainly isn't going to collapse auto sales. >> phil, do you agree that pent up demand and ageing vehicles are -- the average vehicle on the road is around 11 years or more. >> right. >> is that going to outweigh fears about the economy? >> it will mitigate concerns people have out there. consumer confidence has been proven to move in lock step with auto sales. and what you're seeing today, mandy, is that we're going to see a sales pace roughly back what we saw in the fourth quarter. i would be surprised if you see many people talking about a sales pace for the rest of this year at close to 15 million. remember, we heard a lot of chatter about that in the first three months of this year. i think because of may and what we saw a little bit in the end of april, people are going to dial those expectations back. >> jessica, what do you think about gasoline prices dropping? are lower gasoline prices better

or worse in terms of auto sales? i can see it both ways. for example, if gasoline prices are lower, i might say, well, maybe i won't trade in my big gas guzzling suv. maybe i won't go for that smaller car i was going to buy. >> uh-huh. yeah, i mean i think there's both ways you can argue it. and i think that, you know, for consumers out there, lower gas prices generally do help. i mean, when gas prices go higher, there is some shifting. but we haven't seen a big effect. i think at the end of the day people are used to high gas prices now. we're not seeing gas prices effect consumer psyche like we did in 2008 when there was the huge shock and people did things that didn't make sense like trading in suvs for compacts. >> that's a good point. phil, thank you for joining us. let's hope the auto sector continues to be a bright spot in this economy. also ahead with 15 and 30-year fixed mortgages at record lows, is it time to refinance? or could rates go even lower? we're going to play refi roulette when "street signs"

returns. we're also keeping an eye on the market selloff as we inch close to the market close. down by just over 2% for the s&p 500. the dow well off the lows. it's now down by 243 points. stay tuned. [ male announcer ] this... is the at&t network. a living, breathing intelligence

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disappointing jobs equals lots of red on the board. we're at 1282 in the s&p. we are no longer in correction territory. correction being defined as a drop of 10%. as for what's happening with the home builders, we're seeing kwietd a lot of damage in that area there. these are homes down by over 7% and toll pulte off. the fear is if fewer people have jobs, they may not be so likely to buy a home. now that qe-3 is back on the table at least as a discussion point, we could see mortgage rates fall even further. remember, they are already at record lows. we're talking 3.75% for 30-year fixed. so if you are thinking about a refi, is now the time to pull the trigger? or should you wait and see if rates go even lower? let's ask our real estate rortder, diana olick, in washington. diana, what do you think? >> mandy, if i had a dollar for every person who's asked me that

question this week, no-brainer to say refi. but the real answer is it depends. now, your decision to refi is going to be based on your loan amount, your current rate, where you live and your you live, and closing costs. and that's because you want to get around paying those fees and everything i said plays into that. so remember the headline 3 point whatever is only going to be if you have a loan under $417,000. yes, fanny, freddie, and fha limits are slightly higher, but the rates will be higher because that's called a jumbo conforming loan. and in order to get the no closing costs, you're going to have to opt for a slightly higher rate which is why lenders are getting you out of the costs. now, keep in mind, you are paying more long term in that higher rate than your upfront closing costs may be. some folks, of course, as we know, are underwater on their mortgages, owe more than their house is worth. that's okay if you have a fannie

and freddie loan. that's lock because you can go through harp. the number doubled in q1 thanks to harp 2.0 which cut out any loan to value ratios. you may not get the low, low rate. on fha re-fis, the fees drop a week from monday. if you're in an fha now and want to re-fi, please wait. mandy? >> we have an all-star lineup to figure out if you should be pulling the re-fi figure. we have ken, melissa, to both of you, thank you for joining. in the conversation, melissa, let me ask you, as diana was saying, it depends on your individual case n general, look, i was one of these people back in march, i thought, rates are so low, i re-fied my mortgage. i should have waited. do you pull the trigger now or

wait? >> it really depends on where you are. in the new york marketplace where closing costs are more expensive, it pays to wait until you can get a real rate benefit, at least a half a percent. we have people who closed in march and april ready to come back because rates have dropped that much over the course of the past two weeks. >> do you pull the trigger now or do you think i should wait for a lower rate or is it close enough to do it? >> it's dropped dramatically. we're talking 80 or 90 basis points. that's because of the euro zone collapse ofr oh potential collapse. i would say these are close to a bottom. they could drop 20 basis points, 30 basis points. not much lower. these are 65-year lows and house prices are down 20, 25% from their peak. best time ever to both buy and refinance, i would do my application as soon as possible. maybe wait for the rate lock for a week or two.

i would do it as soon as possible because it's a long cue of people. a lot of people want to do this. it's a long delay to get it done. >> to follow up on what you are talking about on housing prices, these low mortgage rates will cause lower prices. you are going to lose out because you are going to have to pay for for the house prices. >> house prices have bottomed. they are going up. there is still very good job creation. >> i would disagree with you that these low mortgage rates are juicing demand. this week we're talking about them because they went below certain numbers. we've seen historic low weeks and applications to purchase a home have not followed suit. we're not seeing that demand because people can't qualify for these low, low rates that we're talking about and we're seeing a

larger percent of all cash buyers. where do you see that the demand is going to be juiced when it really hasn't? >> there's also a big fear factor. with the stock market continuing to drop, people are hesitant to get into the housing market. >> i think it depends on where you are. i'm in the san francisco bay area. we have multiple offers. we have house prices and you're absolutely true. the credit standards are very tight. hard for the average person to get in there. but if you can qualify for a mortgage, have a good fico score, have the down payment, it's a good time to do it. >> in terms of the banks themselves, is it a lot low slower to drop rates than raise them? >> it takes three times as long for a bank to drop a rate as it takes for them to increase them. we're finding that the rates

that they are offering are rates that they are willing to sell a mortgage at but not willing to drop the rates and bring many more activity especially the portfolio lenders who will own these mortgages and don't want to have 2% adjustables on their books. >> what do you tell your clients when someone walks into you and says, what do i do? >> i advise them to get the process started. the banks are taking more than a month to approve loans and then to watch rates carefully and decide at what point they want to lock in. at some point rates could go up and they could go up very quickly and we've experienced that in the past. >> one quick point, i've been talking to smaller mortgage lenders about whether they think you should jump in and re-fi now. they say that the loans have so much volumes, they are talking 90-plus day to approve a refinance. if you're being looking to get one done more quickly, you may

want to go to a smaller lender. >> have a good weekend. the markets are off the session lows and still sharply down as we head into the final hour of trade for the week. it all depends on what they find this hour. what do you do? >> well, i think what you do here is look at some of the incredible things that are happening today. first of all, if you look at where treasury bond yields are essentially hitting all-time record lows, it's very interesting. it's coming on a day where at the same time you're seeing gold rallying almost 4% on the day and that puts gold on one of the strongest one-day moves into that commodity since 2000 so it would be one of the top ten days for gold. it's certainly a very, very

interesting day and our view o s been that you still have to remain focused on quality in your portfolio. >> it's about quality and prediction. thank you for joining us, kevin. thank you to all of you for joining us here on street signs. the "closing bell" is coming up next. thank you for joining us this week and i hope you have a very happy and safe weekend.

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