you add in bacon and cheese, dip it in mayonnaise, and go all the way. "closing bell" is coming up next. welcome to it "closing bell." maria will be back tomorrow live from the aspen ideas festival in colorado. >> i'm bill griffeth, stocks are rallying, the european markets are strong, energy stocks adding optimism. overall we're seeing strength in most sectors as we ahead into the always unpredictable final hour of trade. here is the dow. the rally on the open lead mostly because of the european

rally and the economic indicators came out better than expected. the dow is up 81 points. the nasdaq up half a percent, a 15 point gain there, and the s&p 500 index is up three quarters of a percent, that's the best there, at 1329. >> one stop we're watching is arena pharmaceuticals, shares spiking right out of the gate. investors snapping up shares after they were approved the ain't obesity drug. it will be the first new weight-loss treatment in 13 years. >> i'll bet he's got that smile right there just like that. also look who else is coming up. later we will talk about the hot button much of taxes. that is congressman dave camp

will join us, and find out why he is working in a rare join effort to tackle taxes and find ways to head off the fiscal cliff. with all of the averages higher right now, there are signs that things have to get worse before they get better. >> we have marry thompson, rick santelli, jeff cox, and the ceo of john thompson financial. do you believe in the market rally. this is the week we were supposed to see the saving of the euro. >> i think this is just the beginning. there's a lot of notion out there, people very concerned that the crisis in the european union will get worse. you have them talking about how in three days, here we are, the

markets are up, green on the screen, banks making their payments. >> why are people not scared? >> they're looking at past, they're looking at a win in the white house, and they're confident. >> why is the euro -- >> why are boom rates higher which is a bigger question for a fixed income guide but all of the answers are the same in my minute. in front of tomorrow's summit there is not a lot of opt musm. i think when you put all of that together, there's a little bit of safety in our equity still, but with the ten year spread tightening seven basis points from a difference of 12 to a difference of five, five in our

favor, there's a notion out there that there is an entity or group of entity that's are marketing them like safe harbors, and it might not turn out well, but it's fascinating to watch. they have asked investors. >> jeff, i see you nodding your head, is it all related? >> yes, i will take the opposite side of what tom said. in the long run, it could be good for the markets. let me tell you about two things. consumer confidence came out a ten percentage point increase. that has happened seven times over the last 25 years. on six of those occasions the market up on average.

bank of america has been killing it lately as far as forecasts go. they have a 1450 s&p target this year. their two bearish indicators are technicals. the bullish is valuation and negative sentiment that the market over the long run could go higher even though we might have a rough summer. >> well have the analyst on that put that together. mary thompson, one individual story we're following right now, barclays settled on the interest manipulation question? >> yes, it was discouraging for people who watched the banking sector because it's another negative for that group.

it has not affected the u.s. banks. i want to pick up on something that you posed to rick earlier about the euro being lower and the dollar higher. i was asked due to what we have seen today, and the markets that have performed well over the next couple days, are we having a discontinue from europe at this point, or are investors trying to start to focus in more on the positive data we have received here in the u.s. specifically on the housing market. they said there appears to be a little bit of that. but they certainly feel the housing data is a positive in the equity markets they feel that a number of people feel in you're going to be investing -- >> don't forget european stocks were higher today. >> yes, but i think people are pointing back to the comments

made by merkel yes. >> let's remind everyone, she said i will not give them for as long as i live. >> you know, to me is sounded like she protest too much. it was so extreme this it almost sounded like the breaking point. >> people may not be taking her seriously anymore. >> i urge everyone to read the "new york times" piece. they say that germany should back, let the rest of europe go to the story, he brings up a lot of the issues in a very objective way. europe isn't going to go well and there are at lot of reasons to think that. >> a lot of people would think

about greet leaving the euro zone. >> it's not going to happen any any good use out of the eu system will not be good coming out of the weekend. >> jeff, tom, good to see you. one of the biggest movers is are ya pharmaceutical. >> good afternoon, second time is a charge for arena pharmaceuticals, they're anti-obesity drug getting approved. it's the first approval in 13 years. a good news for a lot of consumers and investors. arena is soaring up 25% off the highs that we saw once trading

did that. the market cap also growing by the minute, and if you got in shares a year ago, you're boosting an 800% return on your investment. not bad, i think the market over 2.5 billion trading today. other anti-obesity dlug u drugs are under review. we have a re in a to the far left, and vivas, and investor are hoping for a similar outcome. the fda is expected to decide next july. don't look too close to find a smile on his face this afternoon. >> bilthank you very much. we have about 45 minutes left of the trading day.

>> we have a lot more to come on "closing bell," you don't want to miss a moment. >> the ip market has been ice cold since facebook's flop. the head of listing joins us next. and now barclays settling a huge ma n manipulation. we wanted to know what you think is the best way to reform america's current tax system. tweet us @cnbc.closing bell. to keep the car you reserved or simply choose another. and it's free. ya know, for whoever you are that day. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz.

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a little over 45 minutes left in the trading session. if you're just joining us, we'll get you caught up. stocks on pace for their first

two-day win streak in a week. we had a rally in europe ahead of their eu summit tomorrow. we're going to the highs of the education at 12633, the dow trading in a tight range through much of the day following that early rally this morning. nine of the ten s&p groups lead by energy and health care getting a booth because of arena pharmaceuticals weight loss drug. by the way, shares of eqt midstream are on fire today hitting session highs now as we head toward the close. it is the first company to go public more than a month after the fb trading debacle. are things turning around? or is it a company specific

issue. >> joins us is scott cutler. >> took a month to get a company to go public again, huh? >> yeah, we had a brief delay? >> why? is it connected to facebook? >> i don't i think it's directly linked to facebook, you had bankers telling companies not to go public because of the greece elections. we have this deal today, another tech deal that prices tomorrow night, and the pipeline looks more optimistic. but again, i think we see good signs of things to come. >> i was reading for the first six months that come to an end this week of this year, the ipo amount raised is lower than last year. we go back to 2009 for that. so it's been a tough market. >> we have seen slightly less

from the ipos this year over last year on a less number of deals. so the facebook impact is certainly a bill part of that. last year we saw some big exits that we haven't seen this year. we saw more venture backed technology transactions coming to the market. >> there was lots of talk in evidence that foreign companies were not list here as often or frequently as their financial systems became more robust. have we lot the competitive edge? >> i'm just getting back from a trip to latin america and throughout asia, and with the signing of the job's act earlier this spring, more of the international issuers are looking back to the u.s. because of the opportunities for

emerging growth companies being easier to access the market. so if you look at execution capability, the u.s. market is the only one working in terms of capital raising. so it's been a shift, certainly, from the prior years. >> and technology is equated with the nasdaq, but you had more technology issues, didn't you? >> yeah it's over 50% of our ipos, and this year we're 54%. that's a big shift for us. it's been an area of focus, and when we look at the pipeline of deals coming to the market, we so ae lot of deals coming in the coming months. >> you said it was looking up, but what does that look like? >> if you looked at last year, we had a closed ipo window that started in august. we had concerns around sovereign

debt and ipos. we have three more ipo windows that we think people will have the opportunity to hit, and that's really in the july time period after labor day through the end of october, there will be a because around the election, and then -- >> we're assuming some calm in europe. >> you would be one of the few, that's for sure. good to see you, thanks. >> scott cutler. >> we have about 30 minutes left, the dow is higher, and the nasdaq is also up. >> oklahoma builders, is it too late to get on the party. >> and don't miss our interview with ceo of arena pharmaceuticals.

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busy day in the commodity pits with corn on the move. >> michelle we're looking at oil prices that closed above $80 a barrel for the first time in a week.

we have positive u.s. economic data from housing, and manufacturing. that kind of helping oil prices a bit. corn has been a stand out when you look at what happened to december corn futures and that 12% surge weave se've seen. it has ruined some of the crop for the coming harvest. we're also looking at what happened in terms of the first crack to reflect this no progress. >> thank you, let's get to brian shactman with a report. >> of course housing has done extremely well in the last couple days. look at d.r. horton. upgrading from positive to stable. there is a 40% chance it will upgrade their ratings in the next 18 months. you see a little boost in the

afternoon after it was very high at the open. >> thank you, great synergys here because we're talking housing and numbers today on the heels of that better than expected report. so is it time to get back into this sector? is it too late? we're talking members with ennis tanner, and ken, i'm going to start with you, did we learn anything from the report? is it just company specific, or are things looking up for the whole sector? >> things are continuing to be positive. so lennar's orders were up 20%. that beat us handly, and up roughly 10% year over year. and second, the sales they're

doing are more profitable. so we saw the margins at 22.5% go up from 21% in the first quarter and continue to outpace it's peers. >> if we look at lennar's one year chart first, it has been a very stark up trend. and we saw it all the way up to the $29 level in may. we broke down from there as the market sold off, and now we're retesting that level. in my opinion, this chart is one that has already shown distribution. they tepted these numbers, and let's not kid ourselves, as we look at the index, the home builder chart looks almost identical. in my opinion, unless you believe u.s. housing can

decouple from the broader economic weakness, i'm not a buyer. >> you think it's broken this trend line? >> kenneth, what do you think? would you be a buyer of lennar? >> we would be, we use our company framework that has an effective gross margin strategy, fictioned costs, and third, the fact that lennar as effectively deployed it's capital. if you look at it from the bottom it outpaced it's peers. >> i love it when the technicals and mind mentals send two messages. it's good to see you both. >> the dow is up 105 points, bill, the nasdaq higher by 23 points, and about 35 minutes before the closing bell. do not go away, we have a big interview straight ahead.

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stock stock rs building on tuesday's modest gains, mary thompson joins us now. >> very close to the highs of the day, but we approach the end of the session and also the end of the quarter. the s&p for the quarter down about 5%. what is interesting to note is in the second quarter that the first quarters laggards have turned into the leaders for the quarter. utilities, which, during the first quarter of the year were down about 2.7%. on the other hand, the leaders

in the first quarter have become this quarters laggards. they were up a very health 21%. this quarter they're down just about 9%. also energy stocks that were up. so interesting this rotation that we had during the second quarter. again as we go to the close, the down is down 105 points. >> thank you very much, mary thompson. we want to look at that, a trader walked by and said a little short covering as we go into the close here. look at the dow as mary said is up 106 points right now. >> what strikes me is mario monty said they had five days to act, are they in peril at this time? >> you have european equities

doing well, but the euro was done president the safe havens were being sold in favor of the risk on assets. so it would appear that the markets are seeing progress coming out of the sum, prapts. >> or it's not the summit, or the status quo, that they will just muddle along and we would be okay? >> which would be a positive. >> absolutely. if it's sad and debilitating, that's better than some of that. >> and the markets rallied into the greek elections a few weeks ago, when everybody figured you want today be heading to the hills, and they were right. >> is. >> tom: is a great discounting

mechanism, isn't it? we'll know the message once it's out of here. we want to move on because with the worries of the fiscal cliff looming, lawmakers are coming up with a solution to address the deadly combo of tax increases and spending cuts set to take place, of course, in january. ahead of that, the chairman of the house wanes and means committee is calling for tax reform. >> dave camp made the case in that on ed to stop the tax high saying increases could throw our economy back into a recession. despite the fighting, the michigan republican is reaching across lines to come up with a bipartisan solution with max baucus. we are now with congressman camp. thank you for joining us. when you say stop the tax hikes, what you don't want is the elimination of loopholes without

tax reductions as well, right? if you just eliminate loopholes, which would be a good thing. >> especially john mccain, it becomes a tax hike unless there are cuts elsewhere. >> the problem we have is the expiration of all of the tax policy at the end of the year. that would be a $4 trillion tax hike. that's capital gains, dividends, i want to make sure we don't have that tax increase in an already weak economy, 40 months of unemployment over 8%. so what i'm suggesting is comprehensive and mind mental tax reform. to simplify our code, make it possible for our u.s. companies doing business around the world to be able to bring back those profits without paying a double spent, and we have the highest corporate tax rate of the world,

so we need reforms on the corporate side and on the individual side because families are struggling. we can grow our economy and create the jobs we need. >> it's become clear that corporations are cutting back on hiring, the economy is slowing down, perhaps fearing that the fiscal cliff will in fact happen and they fear the consequences of that. can you tell us if congress can put a fix in on that before the end of the year? >> we're trying to set a pattern to do that, and all of the work that we have done, we said what our path forward would be. we're passing appropriations bills to be at where we think we should be in this country. by the end of july, we will vote on extending current tax law with an expedites tax reform.

but we're going to have to do this before the end of the year. i would not call it a fiscal cliff, but employers are holding back. all of this uncertainty is really causing it all. >> you're on record saying you don't necessarily support closing tax loopholes this year, and yet you say you want to simplify the tax code, that goes hand in hand with loopholes, right? >> what i want to do is lower rates, and close loopholes, so i want to use those loopholes to really get a progrowth tax agenda going in this country. not to off set what may be coming, the $1.2 trillion in the coming years. that would not be a good

approach, but if we can get a overall tax overall, we know that with our budget it's 1 million jobs in the first year, that's the direction we need to go getting a progrowth jobs creating economy back in the united states. >> as you well know, senator mccain was hoping to use those loophole closures this year to try to save enough money so there can be fewer cuts in defense spending which is part of the fiscal cliff we're talking about. you don't think that will happen though? >> i think the best thing we can do is a growing economy and more importantly to families and businesses, but that's not giving us the long term growth and reform that we need going forward. it would solve the problem for a year or so, but not the long-term problems we have been

ignoring for far too long. >> i hate when both sides of the aisle say we have to simplify the tax code, and nobody seems to be able to get it done. >> we put in our budget with a 25% corporate and individual rate. that did receive a bipartisan vote, did pass the house of representatives, so we have a mark tler in the direction we want to go, and we need to make sure that we continue to push forward to get there. >> i hate to harp on the timing of the fiscal cliff fix, but this is what is concerning a lot of investors, workers, and so forth, a white house economist betting this doesn't happen until after the election, what do you think? >> i think that is probably accurate. as i said, we're going to vote on something out of the house in july that will help direct us to get there, but i think that's probably accurate.

>> so we have a brief period where we will get a lot of flurry of activity from potentially a lame duck congress, is that the idea? >> that's why we out our direction in the bills and our vote on tax policy so it will not be a surprise, the direction we want to go. people and markets can look and say that's the direction we ought to go or not. >> chairman, i know you have work to do to, we appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. >> you just heard from the man who will have a big say on tax reform. we want to know what you think is the best way to reform america's current tax system. tweet us @cnbcclosingbell. >> and you only have 145 characters -- >> 140? not too many. >> the dow just coming off the highs here, a gain of 100

points. >> the stocks are up, but the hunt for yields never get old. the best plays for your portfolio is straight ahead. >> money may be able to buy love, and that's never been more true than when talking about your own children. a study why rich kids hate their own parents. first, before we go to break, the dividend. which stock has risen the most this year? dean foods, hershey, or pepsico?

just before the break, as part of the dividend, we asked which stock has risen the most this year? dean foods, hershey, or pepsico. now the answer. dean foods that has increased 40% year to date. >> and technology has been a good source today. >> we're watching shares of google here after it announced

it's new tablet called the nexus 7. we're seeing the stop up but i want to look at the google effect. it will have a ncidia chep -- chip set. microsoft has been higher, and amazon was lower for a portion of the day and now they're back into the green. >> back to brian shactman at the market desk. >> i wouldn't say it's breaking news, but it is news worthy, the highs of the day up 7%. they are launching a chinese language version of the "new york times." they have advertisers lined up, the reports are no pay wall, and they will just translate, but they want to move to chinese original content for the "new york times" as well. >> a good gain b almost 7.5%.

>> and you people the chinese will be able to read whatever they want. >> i guess you would people that, wouldn't you? we're on the hunt for yield, and i love this statistic. currently more than half of the s&p stocks are yielding more than the ten-year treasury bond. more than half, and more than a third are yielding more than the 30-year treasury. >> is that an inventive for investors to participate, or is this a overcrowded trade or both? here with is mike thompson and steve nemathe, you like people getting into dividend stocks, don't you? >> yes, if you look at the dow which is a close approximaty, the top five are at 45%, and the

top 15 names, that gives you a very diversified portfolio, is a very good yield. so, i'll pile on i guess. the dividend yield is great. squl you say pile on, we have seen this recommendation for so long, and yet the stock yields remain very high. it's startling to me. >> it's surprising. a lot of it is for the first time a lot of dividend increase. there's a lot of companies that finally tapped their balance sheets and used the cash to raise dividends. i think people are gravitating to them more now. they're more attractive now. >> mike thompson, when you have valuations like this, what does it say about valuations in the market right now? >> i think you can make an

argument for corporate bonds and their stocks, right? for the s&p 500, if you look at the default rate, it's .14 of one percent. so just by looking at most of the debt in the s&p 500. that being said at 13 times next year's earnings. and we're going to set records so far this year. we're about 105 right now for the year. u.s. stocks look good. there's a lot of noise about the state of the economy, we take a bullish -- >> as we were discussing during the break, we heard from the chairman, and he said it's not likely they'll do anything about the fiscal cliff until after the election, and that includes the tax treatment of things like dividends. >> it's amazing we were talking about it, i think people realize

it even if the tax treatment is the same, you get a better return on stocks in addition you have to edge against inflation. the bond bubble is deflating rates, and you want to own stocks. so you get dividend and yield over stocks and bonds. >> are you willing to go into high yields? and you talked about the economy being better, you will see default rates there too, right? >> we were doing some modelling, and the way i look at it, you can see these companies. not see anything happen to default rates with almost 0% gd growth in the united states. i think more importantly there is another interesting factor going on here. because things are so scary right now in the euro zone, european and some asian investors are starting to short

the euro by u.s. dollars, and the first place is not to u.s. treasury, they will expand out, and the first place they will go is into the corporate bonds. so i think they could even go lower and you have a prolonged bull market there, and eventually you go into the equities. >> what do you make of this rally, steve, ahead of such things like the eu summit, the supreme court decision on obamacare. >> health care was the first sector that started to outperform. we looked at the valuations of many companies, and we said even if the health care vote goes wrong they still look cheap. even if there is problems in the eu, they're trading at 12 times earnings, i think there could be a relieve rally here. >> what is your assumption about the euro zone? will they hold it together and

muddle along? >> there's so many different aspects to it now it's hard to analyze. i worry about germany's and ireland's comments today. i would hold off buying stocks for a week. we have problems, comments out of there, why not wait until the fourth of july holiday. >> markets don't seem to be too concerned about the state of europe. the dow still up almost 100 points, a 94 point gain right now. >> and google is the first company to introduce what it hopes will be an ipad killer. >> we want to know what you think is the best way to reform america's current tax system in 140 characters. tweet us.

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welcome welcome back, tomorrow, bill

is the 14th summit in europe since the crisis. >> just in the last month. >> you exaggerate, but only slightly. what i find so different this time around is we're rallying into the summit even though it's clear there is so much discourt. it appears there will be -- you heard angela merkel. euro bonds? not while i'm alive. >> it ramped up and it's not a good sign, but yet, look at the markets. i point to what happened this morning. the -- they were very strong in some of the european markets. >> i wonder what it is telling us, is it telling us it doesn't matter so much? they will muddle through it? that the progress will come little by little? what was spoeshed to come out at

the end of the summit, it gets them to say come on, are you kidding me? >> there is the euro there. the treasuries over there, the german gold standard in europe right now. the yield was up, and selling the euro, but they were buying stocks today ahead of the summit. >> the rise in german yields is the one thing that might be concerning. people are saying germany may have to carry so much they may not be able to carry their deck. we have a slight sell side bias, and we're coming back with the closing count down. >> arena pharmaceuticals is soars today. the ceo will speak to us about

their bottom line. >> and watch tomorrow, maria will be reporting live with marvin odum joining us with a look at tropical storm debby's impact on oil producers. do not miss tomorrow's "closing bell." [ male announcer ] we imagined a vehicle that could adapt to changing road conditions. one that continually monitors and corrects for wheel slip. we imagined a vehicle that can increase emergency braking power when you need it most. and we imagined it looking like nothing else on the road today. then...we built it. the 2012 glk. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz cial services.

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welcome back to "closing bell," brian shactman here, ap is reporting that congressional leaders have reached a tentative deal on the highway bill that including a two-year deal to overhaul federal highway programs. look at steel stocks, ak steel is up 10%, but you have to keep in mind there is a heavy short interest in that stock, just about all of them sharply to the upside, bill. >> thank you, i want to very quickly review what has gone on in the markets in europe and in the markets ahead of the eu

summit. arguably the one that stands to gain the most. and it was the strongest of the markets today. even then as they're buying stocks and defending the euro, it was at the lower end. our markets, the same thing. you have the stock market higher today, the dow is up 88 points right now, but the 10 year yield was moving up. what is it telling us? it rallied into the greek elections as well, but now it's rallying into the eu summit. >> everybody came out. there was rumors the ecb will case rates maybe in half next week, and that that may not -- we have all of those markets up. >> you're not willing to step up here and buy these stocks? >> that's the problem. a lot of people are short or in cash in the past before news