there are unconfirmed reports that someone has come in above the $26 level. >> with that we're going to wrap up "street signs." thank you for joining us, everybody. >> hi, everybody. happy monday. welcome to "the closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. investors thinking that europe's problems are over. >> folks in greece did vote in favor of party that wants to stay in the eurozone. they want to agree to some form of austerity. it didn't spark a flurry of buying on wall street, maybe because the market predicted the results with the late week rally that we experienced last thursday and friday. but today the mood definitely cautious as investors avoid any

big bets before the start of tomorrow's big two-day federal reserve meeting in washington. we should point out technology has been among the standouts. the nasdaq posting the best gains so far today. let's show you how the major averages stand right now. the dow created a hole for itself this morning and has been crying to crawl out the whole day, down 17 points right now. it did turn positive a short time ago. nasdaq, gain of almost 1%. technology giants not named microsoft leading the way today and the s&p is up 2.8 points at 1335. >> financials not feeling the love today either. citibank trading lower. coming up my exclusive interview with citi ceo vikram pandit. it's all ahead right here on "the closing bell." >> let's get to the "closing

bell" exchange. what to expect today. let's try and make sense of today's trading pattern. you just saw mandy drury, bob and lee monson joining us today, too. bob, i guess the market figured it out on friday and there was no need to figure it out today, though the greek market was strong today. >> we're moving at a fairly narrow trading range. if miss merkel indicates some flexibility in loosening the purse strings, that could be a big anything zig nal to the market. if they don't get it, there's going to be some disappointment. >> rick santelli, do you think the feds are going to announce new round of quantitative easing or at least extend operation

twist to keep low rates in the yield curve? >> i'm probably the only person around who believes the answer to that question is no. but have i to tell you i'm in the minority's minority. every trader i think thinks in some wear they're either going to extend twist because they're running low on two years but they're going to do something and that big rally we had last week, many believe it was more about that dynamic with regard to the fed than it was about accurately predicting greece. but the issue is what will it do and that's for a whole other discussion regarding the fed. >> i don't know if you saw the report over the weekend basically where we're all looking for any action out of the federal reserve. mandy, let me get your take on this. the chief economist at goldman sachs says he's expecting the fed to ease. are we talking about asset purchases? you can't go much lower on

interest rates. if we were to see an easing from the fed, what do you think it looks like? >> i really don't know. it's a difficult one to work out. what's interesting here is it feels as if at this stage there's just a real big anti-climax and a sense of disappointment in the market. nobody wants to go short into the fed meeting but at the end of the day nothing is being sold as to greece. the new government mandate in greece is going to be a very difficult one to hold on to if they don't turn around the economy pretty soon and if we continue to have political paralysis there as well, they may end up leaving the eurozone regardless. there's so many things to consider right now. all said and done our market isn't looking so bad today. >> lee, as an investor here, expecting the fed to ease? what would it look like? >> i want to send out some positive feelings to chicago, you're not alone out there. i myself don't think anything's going to happen.

i think we should call a buddy of mine, mike dart. he's always pointed out when you get the even spread at 500 basis points or lower, that's when we'll see easing. right now it's 180 or 190. and if they do extend twist, it does nothing. until you see the break even spreads go below 150, nothing's happening. people west of mississippi, albuquerque, chicago, we're like minded and in the minority. >> rick santelli, spanish yields were above the magic up in of 7% convincingly today. why didn't our market fall apart here? why wasn't there any rush to safety in our markets today do you any? >> because i think the 150s represents the notion that spanish yields not only will go above 7 as they have but maybe test 8% or 9%. i think that's what's already built into the cake and why you

get so little volatility in treasuries. why didn't it go lower? i'll use my same analogy. the beach ball underwater wants to pop up. these interest rates tax a lot of global weakness horse power to keep them there but i think the balance is right. i think the 150s represent the notion that we are going to have funding issues in spain, potentially in italy, greece eventually defaults again and i think that's exactly what these rates are telling us. >> this morning art cashin said the most radical thing the fed could do would be to expand their inflation range from 0% to 2% to 0% to 4%. that would certainly move commodities and commodity stocks what do you this of that idea? >> that's something paul krugman has floated around. >> i think embedded in a wise commentary is the notion that whether it's inflation or whether it's that interest rates shouldn't be this low, may not be this low as long as people

think would get the get off the fence crowd to do something. you know, unlike europe, i think we have a lot of positives in this economy. we just need to light a fire behind the investors to actually do whatever investing they're sitting or refraining from doing. >> but we have that already, though. we have small business as far as expectation of hiring, we saw those numbers last week. small business owners are asked are you going to hire six months from now meaning after the election? they said yes. they weren't asked if romney or if obama win. i think there is a silver lining and the growth gin theengine sa months we'll have earnings and hiring. >> i wonder if there was further move from the fed whether it would undermine confidence because it would suggest to the market it sees things bad enough to warrant further easing, a counterpsychological thing. >> all right, gang, thank you. good discussion. lee, thanks for joining us today. appreciate it.

>> thanks. >> that sigh of relief that you heard after the greek election, well, that was from the white house. disaster averted at least for now. nbc chuck todd is in mexico with the very latest from the government-20 summit. >> hey, there. absolutely. you do hear a big sigh of relief. one thing that got missed here, the head of the eu didn't like -- doesn't like this idea that somehow the non-european economies are going to push and bully too publicly and he did sort of lay down the law this morning saying, hey, you helped cause this mess, we're willing to clean it up on our own but don't get too pushy. >> so, chuck, what would you expect from the g20? was there talk about the imf and u.s. taxpayer dollar going to help the situation? >> well, and that was the basis of the question that really seemed to set off the head of the eu, which was the question

simply was make the case as to why north american taxpayer dollars, both from canada and the united states, they of course contributed to the imf, this was a canadian reporter, shouldn't be used and it does seem as they they would like the imf available. they're not saying how much available and they were saying we have the capacity to do this on our own but it's clear they don't want to rule out the imf either. the other part of the g20 the obama administration hopes comes out of here is policy that will come out of the asian countries that members of the g20 because of of the concern of the global slowdown. >> okay, chuck todd in mexico. it's a tough job but somebody's got to go to cabo. >> i haven't dipped in yet. >> have fun, chuck.

we'll see you soon. >> heading toward the close, about 50 minutes left in the trading session. the dow is still down about 14 but the nasdaq very strong, up 26 points at this hour. >> the nasdaq once again the winner. it's the safe haven. >> coming up my exclusive interview with vick rim pandit. >> we think we're going to be in a position to work with the fed to figure out how to return capital to our shareholders. >> is it a 2013 affair? everybody's asking. >> and she's calling for a breakup of the big about bang. former chair sheila bear says some banks are too big to manage. she'll join us next in a cnbc interview. stay tuned. ♪ i'm making my money do more. ♪ i'm consolidating my assets.

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welcome welcome back. we're in the final stretch for the day in trading. we've got about 45 minutes left until the closing bell sounds. choppy session for the equity markets today.

investors keeping an eye on the bond market. the dow jones industrial average not doing whole lot today, down about 27 points. people are feeling a bit more cautious out of the fed's two-day meeting. but the market is off of the worst levels. it had been down about 71 points at the open. technology stocks among the market leaders. look at nasdaq up about three quarters of 1%. and the volatility index down for the tenth time. the vix with a decline of 10.5%. >> today she unveiled a call to action risk council to address what needs to be done to end too big to fail. >> sheila bair joins us. it's good to see you. talk to us about what you're

trying to accomplish here. >> this is a joint effort here. we've comprised a council of 18 noted expert, former government officials, regulators, former strife executives, leading academics to speak out on the public interest for the need for financial reform. things are really getting bogged down in washington now. we're hoping to elevate the public debate, put better media and public attention on reforms needed to protect the public from systemic risk. those that drove the crisis in 2008 and those emerging now. >> in your press release when you announced this, you said the great challenge is to devise a system to control the risk before it develops. even though you had an army of

regulators for jpmorgan, they still didn't raise the flags. >> one of the the more thing things about jpmorgan trades, they were taking -- this inside the insured bank, they were using insured deposits. that's one of the reasons we have safety and soundness regulation for banks because there is moral hazard with this government back stop. pushing this type of higher risk activity outside insured banks into separate subsidiaries where they have to convince the market to fund this type of activity would put a lot more market discipline on the situation. more regulators isn't always the rate answer, more transparency and market discipline frequently is the right answer. this is a good example. >> i want to get your take on what vikram pandit told us today. i spoke with the ceo of citi and asked him about the firm's exposure to risk after what we saw with jpmorgan. listen to what pandit has to say about the risk controls they've

got in place. >> okay. >> we actually have more liquidity than basel would require to us do. so we've taken a very strong conservative approach to our liquidity pool. in terms of the rest of our balance sheet and how we trade, our derivatives are collateralized, we have tight risk limits around them and we're doing them as an accommodation for our clients. >> what do you think, sheila? are you convinced there? >> well, i don't know. i think it's hazy between what is done to accommodate clients and what's done to take a position of profit making position, speculative position. i think that's one of the things that the regulators are grappling with. again, i think there are gray areas, they should be pushed outside of the insured bank. >> is that what the volcker rule would do? are you say uruguing you're in of the volcker rule? >> there are ways to better insulate use of the government

safety net to prevent speculative use and excessive risk taking. i would also point out on liquidity, i think he's right. the capital position of mega banks and liquidity is better than it was prior to the crisis. a lot of the liquidity now is many cog from insured deposits. less reliance on repos but more reliance on the liquidities the government backs. i would like to see them issue more more long-term debt that is not backed by the government to get more market discipline into the institutions. >> sheila, in terms of the volcker rule, i recognize these things are complex, they take time. it strikes me we're still writing the rules now. >> we are. >> a couple of years later. it seems like it's taking a long time. part of the problem with the volcker rule is you really can't define it. can you say a certain trading is proprietary trading versus

acting on behalf of your customer? if you can't define it and you can't write it, how are you really going to enforce it? >> i think there are some areas that are very difficult in the volcker rule, some that are easier. defining a hedge i don't think is terribly difficult to do. the council, we may be making more specific statements on this issue later on. we do name the volcker rule as one of the priorities that needs to be resolved bit regulators. we need to simplify the rule. some suggested taking a more principles based approach, putting it back on the institutions themselves that would avoid the micromanaging that gets into a debate. the larger issue is whether this is an appropriate risk for the bank to be taking. i think there are a number of suggests that have been made to the regulators about simplifying the rule, making it more principles focused. and we hope that the regulators

will look at those seriously because the rule right now is quite complicated and one of the reasons it is so complicated is because there are a large number of exceptions in it. >> sheila, thank you very much. we'll see you soon. sheila bair joining us. >> nasdaq still positive. technology, the leadership group on the up side. >> when we last checked, facebook was surging today, wouldn't you know. but its first month as a publicly traded company has been anything but happy for the most part. is it time, though, to pounce on this beaten down stock? we'll look at the charts coming up. >> and do you think facebook will get back to the ipo price of $38 a share by the end of this year? send us a tweet. we will air some of your responses coming up in the program. back in a moment with phil and me. with the spark cash card from capital one,

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welcome welcome back. the energy sector feeling the heat as crude prices continued to decline today. over to you, sharon. >> we're still declining on electronic trading. we're looking at prices that are below $83 a barrel for wti and brent prices near the lowest levels we've seen in 16 months time. the euro problems remain when we saw the spanish bond yields tick up. but the reason why some are saying there's still perhaps up side potential particularly in

the options market, is because we don't know the outcome of the iran nuclear talks. they will continue for another day. there's been no breakthrough yet. natural gas soaring more than 20%. it's hot. the warm weather and storage outlook. that's the reason we're seeing the uptick in natural gas prices. >> very good, sharon. thank you very much. and do you realize it's been one month that facebook has been publicly traded? and hasn't that been a fun month? it's well below the $38 ipo price and it's had a pretty good run recently. today when we checked it was doing pretty well. is it time to buy facebook at these levels? that's what we're going to talk about. it's abigail doolittle and you're ready to buy. >> facebook looks like a buy to me. it's had a tough time out of the

ipo gate. now it ready to rally maybe as much as 50% in q3 alone. driving it up is a bull wedge. this pattern is confirmed above 29.50, supporting facebook's bull wedge is a beautiful rounding bottom. this pattern confirms around 33. we could see consolidation around the target. supporting these aspects is the ipo price of 38. there's a big gap. that will fill at some point. i think it's going to be q-3. i think we're looking at a summer rally for facebook. >> daniel, you have a hold, which suggests somebody bought it to begin with. did you buy it and you're hanging on? >> our view going into the ipo was rather cautious. we were recommending it toward the original bottom end of the range and they raised the range.

it was an ugly start from 38 down to 25. >> it's not at a price you like yet? >> 61 times earnings on 17% growth next year. this year we think growth will be 1%. last year they grew earnings 80%. that's when you're bullish about a platform story taking over the world. but at 1% growth you're not liking it too much. they already warned during the ipo process in an updated s-1 filing that q2 was not tracking so well given growth in mobile. they don't have a strong add presence. i want to way to see how they come out in q2. that's our first fundamental data point in late july since the ipo. i think they have to fix the mobile ad product first. we know from everything they said in the ipo filing, what mark said during the road show was they're going to fix products first before they fix

revenues. i think they'll revamp mobile product before they do revenues. >> we'll see what happens. often the charts lead the fundamentals. we'll see if this rounding bottom says something about the future of the stock here. >> i think that it will. >> thank you, abigail and thank you, daniel. we want to know what you think. do you think facebook will get back to its ipo price of $38 a share? we're going to be very generous and say will it happen before the end of the year? tweet us. your thoughts. >> meanwhile, a market that is mixed. the dow jones industrial average down about 30 points but the nasdaq composite doing well with a gain of 21. companies have been hiking their dividends at a fast and furious pace, even though taxes on those dividends could nearly triple in 2013. what's behind the move and which companies are next to boost payouts to share holders? plus my exclusive interview coming up with citi ceo vikram

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welcome back. pet smart. >> go ahead, say it. >> the stock is higher today. >> it says here petsmart is no dog today. there, i said it. >> the stock is higher after announcing it's paying out a bigger dividend. this seems to be a trend right now. petsmart boosting the dividend, caterpillar boosting by 13%, target with a 20% increase in dividends and dell announcing it will launch the first dividend. >> so who is next? joe, before we talk stocks, individual stocks, let's talk about these increases. year to date 38% of the s&p 500 have raised their dividends. what's the trend here? can we expect more by the end of

the year do you think? >> i think so, bill. last year two-thirds of the companies in the s&p 500 raised their dividend. if you think about the yield and rate environment we're in today, paying a healthy dividend is a tremendous investor courting technique by your big brand name companies that have good ksh flows that can afford to pay a dividend and grow that dividend over time. i think you're going to tend to see the trend continue of paying and growing dividends. >> in the past the sector has not been dividend friendly companies. even comcast declaring a dividend this year. standard&poors says the hot area is tech. do you think that's true? or are there other areas that will be increased? >> i great looking outside of some of those original sectors is the important element of the

dividend investing theme. technology is a fantastic place to go. you look at the technology companies and the free cash flow yield they have, the opportunities to find ways to return some of the stranded cash they have in their businesses is a whole new conversation for companies like microsoft and intel within the last five years. another sector we really like and it's more of a cyclical value case is in the basic materials area. so names like a dow chemical or international paper, they've changed their attitude about dividend policy and the ability to grow those dividends immensely over the next three, four years. >> amazing. there was a time with technology you'd never get a dividend out of them, they were too worried about growth and reinvesting their money. now they have too much money out there. joe, let's talk about companies you feel might be raising dividends. you have four names. mcdonald's, lockheed martin and norfolk southern. why these guys?

>> these are four companies that should be raising their dividend. the public services group is in the waste disposal difference, on the industrial side as opposed to residential side. if you want to stay away from events in greece and europe, waste disposal here is as farc s can you get. mcdonald's has lost about $10, $12 recently off its share price because of exposure in europe. it's a great entry point into mcdonald's. lockheed martin is in the aerospace/technology arena with a dividend yield of almost 5%, a stock up big today, norfolk southern, they traditionally raise it in july but for the past two years they've been raising their dividend twice a year. a good place to go for dividends. >> the ceo was here with us and

he didn't say no about raising the dividends. >> let me ask you both do you think this encouragement to raise dividends or declare dividends changes once taxes go higher? and do you think the dividend tax will go from, you know, 15% to 43%, which is of course what will happen if legislators do nothing about the upcoming tax expirations? >> yeah, maria. our view right now is the returns to brinkmanship in both political parties are very high. so we don't really expect any resolution of this until after the elections. but when you look at the logic of moving to that 46% plus tax rate, we just don't think it makes a lot of sense for either party. so our base case is that there is some compromise after the election, you know, probably in the 20 to 25% tax range and the great thing about that brinksmanship game is then you

actually raise the tax on dividends from say 15% to 20% but it feels like a psychological tax cut because we're all afraid of the 46%. >> right, right. >> so we don't expect anything to happen soon but we do think both parties have a fair live pragmatic behind-the-scenes approach that will keep dividends relatively attractive. >> gentlemen, we have to go. thank you for your thoughts on an important area of investing for individual investors out there right now. thanks for joining us today. >> a pretty steady market as we approach the close, 20 minutes before the closing bell sounds on wall street, a market that is mixed. 22 on the dow, 20 points on nasdaq. >> and petsmart is no dog today. industrials have been one of the worst performing sectors but somebody who will join us soon says they could be on the verge of going from worst to first. he'll give his reasons why momentarily here. >> don't miss my exclusive interview coming up with citi

ceo vikram pandit. >> we need to keep our eye on the capacity of how we need to serve our clients. >> is the company done with restructuring or are there more cuts in the cards? >> before we go to break, the dividend. which media stock is this year's outperformer? disney? news corp or time warner? the dividend pays off after the break. if you are one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news.

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just before the break as part of the dividend we asked which media stock is this year's outperformer? disney? news corp? time warner? now the payoff, disney which has risen about 25% near to date. >> groupon is helping the nasdaq outperform the other major averages today. jack jackie deang loss, you have all the action today. >> morgan stanley raised its prior target to $18, saying that the groupon clones out there like living social and amazon local, they've become less relevant. we've seen a steep share drop in groupon this year.

they're saying morgan stanley, that the valuation at this level looks attractive. also all eyes on microsoft waiting for that event after the close. it's going to take place at 6:30 p.m. eastern time and we're waiting to see if they're going to unveil a tablet on a windows 8 operating system potentially to compete with apple and the ipad. it will be interesting to see what microsoft has to say. shares are trading down nearly 1%. >> thank you so much, jackie. we shouldn't be complaining about the market because if the greek elections went the other way, we'd probably be seeing a much tougher trading environment today. >> it doesn't mean it's open field for the bull. we've had a pretty lackluster, narrowly trading day. joining us, our guests today, i guess we figured it out. >> i guess people feel the

upward movement they saw in the market last week is justified, even if it is a countertrend rally. i can't help by feel like somebody in the midst of an earthquake that the cracks are going all around me rather than right underneath me. the cracks still around. >> one of the reasons we're seeing support in this market, 24 points lower on the dow, really nothing too severe, is the fact that people are expecting quantitative easing, expecting more action from the central banks around the world, as a result of europe be and the u.s. slowdown. >> i think it's the what's next trade, right? i'm so tired of people saving "risk on/risk off." i think people will wait to see what the fed will say this week. number two, the contagion risk in europe. everyone is taking a collective breath today.

we did not get the really bad news some people were potentially bracing for. that's over for now. let's see what's next. that's why stocks are flat today. >> meanwhile, i had to look twice to see if i was looking at your notes. you like gold. >> yeah. our belief is the dollar is probably going to be from a technical perspective, probably going to be weakening. as a result the thought is that could be benefiting gold. our chief technical strategist thinks we could be going up to test some old highs. so gold is an area that we still think has some up side potential. >> would you buy mining shares as a result? >> well, the mining shares have been in disconnecting with the gold but they've actually been showing a bit more improvement. so barrett goad is one that we happen to favor at this point. selectively i would look to the miners as well as gold itself. >> let me go back to something you said, brian. what is the contagion trade?

how do you want to invest? is spain next? is france next? >> the contagion trade is worrying about what is the ultimate end game in europe? most investors look at it as when is germany going to finally come out and tell everybody what they really want to do and then enact it. everyone is playing the waiting game. whether or not the potential for contagion to spain or italy or some sort of a surprise, everyone's kind of waiting on what germany's going to finally do. we have at the end of the day, it's our view that the euro is not going away and the eurozone is not going away because for all intents and purposes, it's to each one of those country's benefit to continue to be within the euro and within the eurozone. >> sam, what are you expecting out of earnings within the u.s. for 2012? >> in the u.s. we're finding the first quarter has borrowed from the remaining quarters of the year. we think we'll see about $105,

according to s&p capital iq consensus estimates the first quarter at 7.5%, now we're looking at close to one half percent gain. most of the gains have already occurred in the first quarter. >> hence your gold call i guess. you still like the industrials, though. >> we do. we think industrials are down but not out. they've been one of the worst performing sectors, however, we think many people are applying this blanket of global growth on industrials. >> for instance? >> for instance we reserve stock names for our clients. >> okay. but you do like the domestics. i'll name some names here. norfolk southern, it was just mentioned. >> correct. >> railroads and transportation

companies, big conglomerates, big diversified companies, i'll give you a name like danaher is a name that fits exactly what we're talking about, diversified across the space. >> don't they get impacted from europe? >> sure. the weakness in europe could be a positive for the u.s. and here's why. we could see an increase in volumes for u.s. companies because companies around the world are going to be worried about doing business with european companies and they'd really do business with stable u.s. companies. >> makes sense. gentlemen, thank you. >> good to see you both. >> our pleasure. >> sam, brian, we'll see you soon. we are in the final stretch, about 12 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. the dow off of the worst levels, down about 18 points. >> and the always unspoken mark cuban made an appearance on cnbc this morning. listen. >> they should get rid it have all together. it's an unquantifiable risk that can impact the market in ways we

can't even define. >> what could he be talking about? what got him all worked up? you'll find out when the "closing bell" returns. on how different asset classes are performing, and it lets you go in for a closer look at areas within a class or sector that may be bucking a larger trend. i'm stephen hett of fidelity investments. the etf market tracker is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. ♪ [ male announcer ] aggressive styling. a more fuel-efficient turbocharged engine.

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billionaire investors mark cuban has never been shy about sharing his thoughts. >> hisslisten to his take on th market. >> i think there's high frequency trading. dart pulls and algorithmic trading, there's no sup thing as bug-free software. when you have software battling software to dominate the market, that's unknown. i think high frequency trading has zero place in the market and they should get rid of it all together. >> you know, you could go either way on that. i understand for the small investor, the individual investor who gets upset about the volatility caused by high frequency afratrading where it doesn't make a lot of sense to them. but for the individual trade who are thrives on volatility, this is a god send, right? >> i don't know. i think people do get upset,

even the institutions as well. you can't say one area of the market, though, should be out. this is america and that's the way they want to trade. but do i think it upsets a big part of the trading community. >> and apparently mark cuban is among them. does that mean he's a long-term investors? i think he's a day trader myself. maybe the trade went against him and he admitted this morning by the way that he bought into facebook right away and he had to sell it. he sold it and moved on. >> what did he sell it oat? >> far lower than $38. he said he got killed by that trade. he's feeling wounded by that trade. >> i wouldn't feel so sorry for mark cuban. he's going to be okay. >> before we go, we learned over the weekend we lost a great friend, legendary financial journalist dan dofrman, best known for his pioneering market coverage.

he passed away at the age of 80. in part he was as much a newsmaker as a reporter. he delivered reports that were must-watch viewing and often moved stock prices and he authored the wall street journal's heard on the street column and wrote for "usa today" and "esquire." >> he moved to the internet early founding jag notes. that was in early '99. until last year dan was still blocking for huff post. our thoughts and prayers are with the dofrman family. we're back after this. [ male announcer ] this is corporate caterers, miami, florida. in here, great food demands a great presentation.

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take control of your portfolio today. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account. welcome welcome back inside the five minute mark. over to brian shactman, who is keeping an eye on apple. >> it's broke above its 50-day moving average. it's 527, it's up to 578 and change. it's had a lot to do with gains in the text sector. >> how about that. that has helped the nasdaq.

i wanted to show you the chart we were all keeping an eye on today. there was a time and i'm talking about the spanish ten-year yield. we were told 7% and you get armageddon, right? look where it is today. i mean, at one time it was almost 7 1/4 and the world didn't come to an end. in fact, the greek market rallied today, even with spanish yields where they are and our own market meandered today. the euro, the one we key off of a lot of times down 1% after that rally going into the greek elections at the end of last week. so we keyed off of this more than anything else. the dow was not truly representative of the whole market today. we had, you know, some jagged moves here and there and it looks like we're going to finish lower, down about 27 points here. but look at the nasdaq. as we said, a lot of the big technology names that are not named microsoft rallying today and here we are just off the highs of the session with a gain

of about 3/4 of a percent and we're still waiting for the microsoft announcement that comes at 6:30 p.m. eastern time tonight. as for the other markets we watch, the yield and ten year rising today after record lows last week especially after the auction for 10 and 30 years. crude oil remains lower, down over 1% today. in fact at one time we're below $83, now at 83.12 and change. and the price of gold. the fever has broken. we had like six or seven straight up days. today now it's unchanged. wants to come back here but it was looking like it was going to fin, lower today but right at that $1,600 level. over to dear friends here. peter costa, what do we make of today? are we waiting for the fed? greek elections are old hat, right? >> greek elections are old hat. the fed will come out and say something, intimate something.

>> you don't think they'll announce easing? >> if they do anything, they might extend operation twist. they're still taking a wait-and-see attitude. that's just my feeling. it's a waiting period and i think we've seen that in the market today. >> brian bellski, you're still positive in the market. what do you believe the catalyst will be to move us higher? we wait for the resolution of the european crisis, wait for earnings, all this waiting going on. >> let's just get through summer. we're so engrained stocks peak in april may, market selloffs. let's get through the summer and get visibility on the election, figure it out and have a better feeling what's going on in europe, let's not have qe3. we think that would be a negative for the market. positive short-term, longer term negative. catalyst is fundamentally longer term. u.s. stocks look great from a

fundamental perspective in terms of balance sheets, liquidity and earnings, too. >> you agree? >> absolutely. i couldn't have said it even better and have i a degree in forestry and this guy is obviously a lot smarter than i am. i definitely agree. it's about fundamentals. we have to focus on fundamentals. >> the earnings will be coming out in the next few weeks here. what are you expecting? the economy has been slowing down here. >> right but here's the key thing. corporate america has done an awesome job managing expectations and they brought expectations down, their rush with cash and analysts know that. growth is clearly slowing but that's okay. the quality of growth, bill, is so much better now than it was a year ago. that's really the key. >> gentlemen, good to see you both. thank you for joining us. that will do it for the first hour as we head toward the close, down about 20 points and it does feel like this market is now starting to wait for the federal reserve meeting, which gets under way tomorrow. we'll learn what they