time for final trades. guy, you're first. >> steel works. >> i like pfizer. >> mike? >> uri. buy the dip. >> testifyny? >> noble corp. deep water markets remain tight. >> hey! it's "power lunch" on cnbc. "halftime's" over. the second half of the trading day begins now. indeed it does. these are the sights and sounds of war in syria. it is another very bloody day of heavy fighting in and around the capital city. if assad falls, it has serious ramifications for iran and if it does for iran, it will have serious ramifications for the amount of money that you pay for fuel. you know these two guys. both are highly respected wall street pros, as well. do you want to know what they have to say about what the country needs to do to stay

competitive? keep watching. we'll tell you. and moving on to washington. hey, congress, america wants you to fix the problems now. with the fast-approaching fiscal cliff, we are talking to another member of congress to get his solutions to a very weighty problem. all of that is straight ahead but we start with my partner ty down at the ncse today. hi, ty. >> sue, good afternoon. good afternoon, everyone. we start with the politics of oil. trading higher today as the s h situation in syria deteriorates. on the ground, unconfirmed reports that the sir yar president left the capital and headed for safer ground in the coastal town of lata ki. forces attacked rebels in parts of downtown damascus. the capital. this comes after several of assad's top men including the defense minister and brother-in-law were killed in a major bombing yesterday. thousands of refugees streaming

in as concern grows of what will happen to syria's massive stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. just a few moments ago, china and russia jointly vetoed a u.n. resolution aimed at putting more pressure on assad. so if syria fails, what does it mean for the oil power house in the neighborhood, iran? one of this country's foremost experts of tn islamic rebubble and getting to him in a moment. first to oil and sharon epperson. light sweet crude and brent moving higher. west texas crude up above $92 a barrel. up $2. 74. brent at $107. those are the highest prices since i believe early may. iran and syria, now the talk of the nasdaq, also that bombing in bulgaria of an israeli tourist bus, certainly the talk of the floor. >> here at the floor of the nymex not talking about europe or the fiscal cliff. they're not talking about

earnings. it is all about middle east tensions and that's what traders focused on and watching and listening for every development that occurs in syria and also watching very closely the response by israel to these bombings in bulgaria killing israeli tourists. of course, iran said they have no involvement in that but watching netanyahu may say and do in response and what all of this could mean for the middle east region. we have seen oil prices up about $8 in the last week or so for the wti contract. that's one trader behind me put it it's all about the war premium and driving directions in the direction. brent crude, as well. highest prices since may 22nd. topping $108 a barrel at one point and it's taken the political premium has taken the entire petroleum complex higher and refined fuels and gasoline are climbing, as well. all of these geopolitical

tensions have ramifications not only for oil but for the gas you put in the tank. back to you. >> sharon, thank you very much. syria is iran's only major ally in the middle east. if assad falls, how will iran react? ali is an expert with the rand corporation and written or co-written several books on the islamic republic. good to see you. >> thank you. >> if assad goes down and seems as though things are indeed picking up speed towards that end, what will iran do? >> well, the regime in iran is becoming very nervous about what's going on in syria. they're the gateway to the power to the arab world. the connection to hezbollah in lebanon and sees itself under siege and thinks the u.s. is actively promoting the overthrow of assad. >> what reaction, what might the

reaction be, for instance, the chemical weapons, the push to nuclear power? >> the major issue is iranian nuclear program and there's a possibility of iran becomes more nervous and insecure that it's less likely to compromise on the nuclear program, keep making advances deexcite the strength of sanctions. i'm not necessarily saying that iran is going to weaponize its program, but it is motivated by a sense of insecurity and insecurity increases every day. >> what role if any would russia play in all of this? and does iran then become closer to russia and what kind of political tensions does that create? >> rush why and china are sensitive of sanctions to get rid of governments and syria and even in iran. a lot of russians have talked about sanctions against iran as serving to undermine the regime rather than just stopping the nuclear program.

and after the bashar al assad regime is gone, iran will be one of the few countries opposed to the united states that will have relatively close ties with russian. of course, iran and russia have their own issues but the russians and chinese might think that the next target could be iran. that the west will want to undermine the iranian regime. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ty? breaking news from the bond market and rick santelli tracking the results at the cme. hey, rick. >> hello there, tyler. yes, 15 billion with a "b." 10-year tips. you know, tips auctions, we're not going to grade. they're a little backwards from most auctions and a bit of an anomaly and more of them coming to the marketplace. so this wi 10-year tips around 65 minus .65 points and ended up

pricing at minus .637. a negative yield. the demand was actually very good. a bid to cover of about 2.62. a little bit below the 10 auction average but think about it. demand for an inflation adjusted product if it goes up, is that a good thing in maybe want it to go down. good demand at a time when nobody seems preoccupied with inflation and probably right. but in the long term, there's many that are worried about inflation and how it will coordinate with economies around the world healthy considering to get healthy the tipiles of cash have to come in and that's where the seeds of inflation may be planted as evidenced by the demand for the auction. back to you. >> all right. thank you very much. three key pieces of economic data today. initial claims for jobless benefits jumped 34,000. now up 386,000. the philly fed showing that factory activity been scaling back in the middle atlantic and

the leading economic indicators dropping in june. the lei, another sign that the economy may be in for a tough time. despite those not so great economic numbers, the markets hanging in there. that may be partly due to germany moving forward with approval of a rescue package for spin's banks. dow industrials up. the s&p higher. nasdaq 1% gain up 29 points at 2972. russell 2000 basically flat and gold up $15 a share. that's about 1%. sue? ty, also on the data front today, existing home sales. raising some new questions about the strength of the housing recovery. if there is a recovery at all. diana olick is live in washington. are the home sales numbers a disappointment or some of that factored in, diana? >> reporter: it was a big disappointment, sue. sales of existing homes took an unexpected drop down 5.4% month

to month and due to lack of supply on the low end and where the investors had been active. just take a lock at what's selling and how that is changing. sales of homes in the 0 to $100k range down 8% month to month. in the 250 to $500a up 17% and plus 1 million is up 12%. 65% of today's home sales are below a quarter mill. that's the problem. and that's skewing the price numbers. realtors reporting the median price of a home up 7.9% from a year ago but for the third straight month that big jump is not necessarily real. it's due to a change in the mix of homes selling. not true appreciation. now, it is that lack of supply of foreclosed homes due to new laws, legal settlements, overprocessing slowing things down. invest or thes out there. inventories of all home sales down 24%. homes for sale down 24% from a

year ago. we have lots more of this on blog. go to it. sue? >> thanks very much. ironically, check out the home builders year to date. we have big percentage moves. ryland up 59%. lennar to the upside of 52%. ty? it is, sue, the heart of the earnings season and we just saw a big miss for more began stanley, of course. let's take a look at the shares of that company right now down 77 cents, modest number in cents but not so modest in terms of percent decline down 5.5%. mary thompson's on the banking beat. >> a big mess. a lot of explaining to do for the bank because it missed on the top and bottom line. earnings missing estimates by 14 cents a share hurt by poor results in fixed income commodities. revenue down 60% after

improvement of two quarters. blaming a pullback of client activity. it's prompted morgan to post come lat real. as for what's ahead, the ceo continues to focus on cutting risk weighted assets and to keep expenses in line with head counts down 7% by year end and unlock value in the wealth management business and strategic options for the european arm of that business and remains on track for another 14% stake in the morgan stanley smith barney join venture by september. investors want the firm to do a better job in trading before they send it any higher, sue. that's what they're watching. back the you. >> indeed. thank you very much. now to behind the wheel where ford may be behind the eight ball. the shares right now up just under 1%. ford's expanding the recall of the escape. phil lebeau with the details live in chicago. hi, phil. >> reporter: this is the second

separate recall for the escape. 2013 escape models due to fire risk. the ford is telling the owners so great stop driving the crossover until it's fixed. three engine fires by a fuel line to rep which you are under pressure and leak fuel. that's caused them to say, you know what? until we get it fixed and hope to have it fixed relatively quickly, stop driving them. this is a bad week for the escape. two recalls this week for the 2013 models. earlier the federal government saying it's going to probe the 2002 to 2004 models. take a look at shares of ford in the last year, down 27%. a bit of a bounce in the last week, tyler. keep in mind all the auto stocks down in the dumps for a good 6 to 8 months. >> phil, thank you very much. let's switch to politics. president obama and the republican presidential presumptive candidate mitt romney on the road at this hour

making the case that they're in the best position to fix the economy. one of the headwinds, of course, so-called looming fiscal lunch. we're trying to put lawmakers on the spot. what would they do to help address it? live from come hill, representative john yarmouth with the solution. good to have you here. >> thank you. >> this is the problem created for ourselves and uniquely have the ability unlike the crisis in europe and weakening economy in china to fix ourselves and we don't seem able to do it. what would you do? >> first of all, i'd realize and admit what we did is fabricate a crisis. we manufactured this crisis. there's no reason to do it. and basically i voted against the budget control act last year because i knew it was a fiasco and the super committee not coming up with a balanced approach and stuck in this situation. so, you know, the -- to me it's

quite sam simple. head off the cuts. it's ironic that my republican friends to cut everything time after time after time and then now when we're forced to -- faced with a cut they say it's going to hurt the economy. we've been saying that. so let's not do it. and the short term, and on the other side, i think, you know, they have to give up this crazy pledge to grover nor exist, whoever he is and realize two sides to the income statement and balance sheet and we have to deal with both of them to try to find a reasonable path to a more sustainable deficit. >> could you find yourself -- ultimately, what i'm hearing you say is what we need to do immediately is postpone the spending cuts. >> absolutely. >> and what you favor in terms of a solution of the fiscal mess we find ourselves in is this so-called balance solution including some additional revenue. specifically what sort of mix would you go for of spending

cuts and revenue enhancements and could you ultimately find yourselves, you yourself, congressman, on the side of the simpson-bowles plan that was the so-called grand bargain? >> i have always thought that was the framework to be considering. we should not have taken it off the table. our leadership did it and republicans. i think it proposes a reasonable starting point to talk about what we do to handle long-term challenges. our entitlement programs and so forth and short-term needs to make sure we don't have the economy relapse in to a recession. >> do you think there is or will be after the election the will and leadership to solve something you say yourself is totally in our hands to solve? >> you know, i may be a polly anna but i believe after the election things get better. i hope we don't try to deal with

this before the election because it frustrates the electorate. just going to make i think members on both sides intransige intransigent. there will be pressure on us to deal with the bush tax cuts. i think that's the most important thing to deal with but most every economist across the spectrum said if you cut 100 billion or $200 billion out of the economy over the next couple of years it's disastrous. i personally not concerned coming out of the defense sector or the nondefense sector. i don't want the see our housing industry retarded at all because of these cuts. i don't want to see our research efforts stifled. i don't want to see -- >> is 100 billion -- i don't mean to sound silly here. is 100 billion that much money in a budget that's three plus trillion a year the and an economy that's somewhere approaching 15 trillion a year? are we really talking about that

much pain? >> well, again, you know, they say every billion dollars particularly in the infrastructure area is 30,000 jobs so if you're talking about 30,000 times 100, that's a lot of jobs at stake even though it's not an exact formula. but in some of the agencies, for instance, the fbi or the faa where the budgets are very personnel heavy, if you actually impose a cut of 8% or actually be more than because you're a partial year you have a huge amount of layoffs in the agencies. >> thank you for the help today. we appreciate it. may your polly anna sentiments prevail please. >> thank you very much. let's go to brian shactman. >> exploring strategic alternatives on wall street. a possible sale and to invest to recalls a possible premium. look at magellan. health care space. expect consolidation. a strong pop. now 10.5% up, sue.

>> big mover. thanks, brian. up next this afternoon, the fight for your living room between directv and viacom. it got a lot more dramatic and 20 million americans are caught right in the middle of the dispute. before the break, look at the vxx. down 1.3%. the etf to track it near a low for the year. also before the break, five big thursday movers in today's trading session. all to the upside. includes walgreen, textron, ebay and nokia and electronic arts up almost 7%. uh, i'm in a timeout because apparently

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cable companies on the move amid a buyout and then the huge fight of directv and viacom. left 20 million americans subscribing to directv without viacom channels. no spongebob for a week now. since then, however, both stocks up 3%, a gain for directv. for more on this spat and the rest of the news, from cable land, julia boorstin in l.a. julia? >> reporter: well, tyler, the stocks may be up but this is a lose-lose for viacom and directv. they're at such odds they can't agree on the state of negotiations. viacom says it's an impasse. directv says it has accepted the

material terms of the 17 channels pulled from air. in the meantime, both companies are suffering. in the week of the blackout, viacom's ratings plummeted. while disney channel made some gains. meanwhile, directv admits it's had quote some subscriber losses. this comes as the two companies lob public attacks at each other. viacom saying to direct providers while directv urges customers to be patient. directv insists that the sticking point is the insistence of viacom for epix channel. so tyler, we are sure to hear more he said/she said until they come to a deal but i have to tell you everyone's asking me when the kids can watch

nikolodeon again. >> exactly. cable stocks in play today as bc partners and the canadian pension plan investment board say they're buying sudden link of $2.5 billion. here's how the cable operators that do trade are faring right now. time warner cable up at 39, up 30 crepts. chartered -- i don't think that's right. i think that's charter semiconduct semiconductor. comcast the parent of nbc universe and cnbc higher by 14 cents. coming up next, we are analyzing the analyzers. american express, news corp. and hyatt. should they be on your list? before the break, five down moves for you in a market trading water as far as the dow goes and there's standouts and they include general electric up half a percent. microsoft is up three quarters

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explaining and said as part of this he sold most of the fund's stocks including berkshire hath away and netflix. raising the cash position up to 70% and does he say he'll be rebuilding the portfolio going forward to have positions of 100% long and 40% short. that's it for now, sue. back the you. >> that is an interesting story to see how that unfolds and where he ends up. thank you very much. time to analyze the analyst. i'm here with dani hughes and great to be here. nice to spend sometime with you. >> thanks. >> downgrading american express to neutral from buy after the company reported flat second quarter earnings. more cautious on the deceleration of billed business as a result of weakening global spending trends. the stock is down 3% on the day.

do you agree? is this a worry? >> i would disagree, actually, sue. i think they had decent metrics and the cardholders spend is higher, it wasn't -- they have a lot of macro headwinds coming at them. >> currency would be one of them. >> that's a big deal but compared to mastercard and visa, you have a more well heeled holder of cards and able to come through and do better than 40% that the amex and visa have done this year. >> all right. so she disagrees with that one. citi joup grading news corp. to buy from neutral saying the split simplifies and highlights value. now, since the split, the stock news corp. up around 12%. certainly mired in controversy previous to that. would you step in to the stock? >> i actually do agree with this call. it is interesting, too, sue. it is like any news is good news. the stock over two years despite the hacking scandal is up like 7

% so we think that the split will do well for this stock once they support either side, the entertainment side and the news side. >> all right. to the lodging industry now and hyatt hotels to positive from neutral saying that the valuation is compelling entry points and an attractive risk/reward ratio. the stock up 2.5% today in the trading session. do you step in it? year to date down 5%. >> that's right. i agree with the call, as well. marriott with not so great earnings either and did very well this year. up about 30%. i think hyatt can do very well over the course of the next year. >> all right. thank you very much. we'll see you later. ty, down to you. >> sue, thank you very much. let's talk gold. the prices closing right now and sharon is tracking the action across the way at nymex. sharon? >> tyler, gold prices closing right now at 1,580 an ounce. up about $9 or so on this contract. but keep in mind, gold is

basically coasted in the last hour and a half or so. hasn't had as much momentum. the momentum is really from the outside markets, from the crude oil market for one helping to lift much of the commodities sector. the gains there and the fact looking at a little bit of a weakness in the dollar. we're looking at a range that we have continued to be in for gold prices from around 1525 to 1645 an ounce. no real catalyst out there. not seeing much demand of physical gold of india or china. we do have the resilience in the exchange rate of products but it is outside factors determining gold's trajectory recently. we're continuing to watch when's happening, as well, the copper market. the ganls in the metals complex. the most significant. copper's at a two-week high and lifted oil prices helping to lift the copper market, as well. back to you. >> all right.

thank you very much. i'm with bob pisan on the floor. hi, bob. >> commodities moving the stork market, as well. we are moving on earnings commentary, as well. the last new weeks of people going in to dividend plays. today, that's not happening. pharmaceutical stocks put up the sectors today. pharmaceutical stocks or utilities. there's the leadership recently, all down. that's because in part it's being driven by earnings. so if you look at the material sector and sharon's right about the comments and copper helping things, freeport-mcmoran is a gold and copper company and increasing the copper production by 25% in the next few days. a nice big play on china and confidence for the market to recover there. oil service, sharon noting, brent up 20% in the last few weeks. that's fueling a boom in oil service. mobile with good comments last night. a big driller. noble. that's a major factor and also

oil prices moving up, as well. ibm, good numbers overall an pulling up the tech sector and guidance for them help of. nice to have the markets moving on fundamentals. not people desperately trying to get in to dividend payers. there's people buying market. >> europe for lent but it keeps coming back. today at least we are not talking so much -- >> forget about europe. >> bob, great to see you. >> all right. >> sue, up to you. all right. after a quick break, a new wave of ipos at the nasdaq. should you jump in? this's the focus of the finan . finance.yahoo.com poll. one more try on the cable providers. and we have charter communications. that's the one we were watching. it is up almost 2%. cablevision up 4.6% and time warner up almost 1%. we're back in two. you can try strategies from independent experts

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welcome back to "power lunch." brian shactman here. take a look at safeway. beat on the top and bottom line. why trading down 6%? really good question. they showed margin compression and actually that negative dragging down other stocks in the space.

kroger and whole foods down. the reason is, tyler, is that this corn inflation fears has all investors in stocks very jittery. with the compression of the last quarter, could be more pressure in the next quarter. >> a gross margins declined is in trouble because -- >> as you know. >> they're tiny to begin with. >> right. >> any pressure there is troubling. all right. thank you very much. let's check in with seema mody. >> a strong day for tech. there were concerns initially of a slowdown but ebay today showing no signs of a slowdown. ceo talking about mobile being that engine of growth for the company. the stock up better than 9%. another big winner is qualcomm. a little light on the revenue forecast and the street very excited about the traction gaining in the smartphone business. take a look at xilinx with a

chip maker. a disappointing earnings report. nearly half of the revenue of telecom partners. weaker demand in past couple of quarters and surely the reason this quarter, as well. stock down 2%. lastly, an ipo drought, today we have five below a. ipo trading higher today by 71%. back the you. >> thank you. the sting of facebook's ibo debacle on the nasdaq is starting to fade. several companies on deck to price the offerings today after the opening bell. kayla tausche is here. >> they hope to mirror the success of five below today. but the sting is fading not just for nasdaq but morgan stanley, as well. leading the top two tech deals this week. kayak software, the price range of $22 to $25 a share could be lower. sources tell me, than where it

prices tonight. we have palo alto networks, a hot name in the sector. it's already raised its price range, seeking a valuation over $2 billion. but overall, companies are looking to snap up more than $700 million in proceeds in the biggest week for ipos since april. but the market's still choosy according to citigroup's field dru ri. he says that while small growth cap ipos are working today, the market has to be tested for large, critical mass companies. that's not happened yet. looking at the performance of another ipo, shows the missed reception in the market right now. durata near the offer price and below the planned range for the deal. the questionable deal is fender musical instruments for roughly $150 million. are investors bullish on high priced guy tars? >> yeah. especially in this atmosphere.

>> we have to wait and see. >> thanks. would you buy stocks listed on the nasdaq? go vote at finance.yahoo.com. the results are coming up. a look at the five most actively traded stocks on the nasdaq. ebay up 9%. microsoft up two thirds of a percent. intel in the red by half a percent and oracle up just under 1%. ke in a special ops mission? you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collateral damage. but rather than neutralizing enemies in their sleep, you'd be targeting stocks to trade. well, that's what trade architect's heat maps do. they make you a trading assassin. trade architect. td ameritrade's empowering web-based trading platform. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account. so i test... a lot. trade commission-free for 60 days, do you test with this? freestyle lite test strips?

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all right. in today's yahoo! finance poll, we asked if you would buy a company listed on the nasdaq. 43% said, no, i do not trust the listing process. 39% said, no, for other reasons. all right. very interesting results. let's see what's coming up with mandy drury. >> hey there. got to love a hot streak and up close today would be three in a

row. are stocks rallying for the wrong reason? tim geithner said the u.s. needs to broaden the tax base. we asked if that's politically palpable. and also, do we have a 401(k) crisis coming? the numbers that should be alarming sound bells. all that coming up. sue, ty, back to you on "power lunch." >> thank you very much. yesterday, at the cnbc institutional investor delivering alpha conference, steve liesman sat down with hank paulson anne robert rubin. steve, what really struck me, a fascinating session, was how they both zeroed in on the need for america to keep or really regain the competitive edge. >> yeah, tyler, what was interesting is everybody's focused on the fiscal cliff and the european crisis. they talked about and then the medium and longer term challenges in the united states faces. we can't get out of the existing problems if we don't address the

longer terms. let's listen to what they said. >> i think there's a longer term, secular decline. it's structural issue in u.s. competitiveness. i define competitiveness this way. can u.s. companies successfully compete with those around the world and the united states have a rising standard of living? if i'm right then the economy isn't going to get to where we want to just by waiting. it takes policy actions the address the competitiveness issue. >> i think we could have a successful economy in this country. we have an enormous natural resources. we have a lot of advantages. rule of law, et cetera. but i think we need to meet three great challenges. we have to have a sound fiscal regime. for all kinds of reasons. secondly, i think we muffin creased public investment in the education and infrastructure with a budget and thirdly reform

of immigration, health care, education and many other areas. >> so, tyler, we didn't get in to specifics but they talked about a policy action, but also, getting the fiscal house in order right now to address the longer term issues. >> they made to me a tremendous amount of sense, both of those individuals did. and i would say one of the thing that is really stood out to me in mr. paulson's comment is to the extent focused on the political debate on what the tax rate is for the top 1% or half of 1% of the economy -- >> good point. >> -- we are missing the point and we need a look at the tax code to ensure that it enhances competitiveness. >> i tried to pin him down. would you recommend to a republican president that he accept a deal with the democrats to increase taxes on the wealthy? he said, that's a phony question. he said the real question is reforming the tax code, you

know, and revamping expenditures in the country. not a big fan of defense expenditures and need to make the country strong is make the economy strong and almost everything flows from there. who did you pick for the next president? he said the best for the economy. >> appreciate it. sue? speaking of politics, political ads are flooding with strong attacks on both candidates. john harwood joins us now with a look at the ads most of us don't get to see, right, john? >> reporter: exactly. take california and new york, likely both in the democratic column and people are only seeing a few things that run on national cable. the heavy pounding is coming in the ten or so battleground states, two sides are fighting over and the messages boil down to these. from the romney campaign, and the republicans allied with mitt romney, saying president obama is incompetent on the economy and turned negative to try to cover that up.

what you hear from democrats and president obama is that mitt romney is a bit of a shady character, money parked in swiss bank islands and cayman islands and hurting the american middle class. here's an ads of cross roads gps on president obama and the economy. >> the weakest job adding quarter in two years. >> it wasn't supposed to be this way. over three years with crushing unemployment, american manufacturing shrinking again. president obama's plan, spend more. he's added $4 billion in debt every day. the economy's slowing. but our debt keeps growing. tell him for real job growth cut the debt. support the new majority agenda at new majority.org. >> reporter: in the ten battleground states, two sides are fighting over most hoef vily, $21 million spent already this week on advertisements like that one. and on this one from priorities

usa which is the democratic allied group, painting mitt romney as somebody who you can't quite trust on the economy. here's the democratic ad. >> mitt romney, the businessman. take a look at his record. romney bought companies, drowned them in debt, many went bankrupt. thousands of workers lost jobs, benefits and pensions. but for every company he drove in to the ground, romney averaged a $92 million profit. now he says his business experience would make him a good president? if romney wins, the middle class loses. priorities usa action is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> reporter: and sue, as you can see from the speaking report in that republican ad, there's increasing use of television news footage used by campaigns this year thinking that provides some credibility that politicians themselves don't have right now. >> yeah, contactually. we have noticed that, john. thank you so much. up next, the real dark knight.

one man that wall street fears more than batman? it's preet bhrarara. we're back in a minute. i'm freaking out man.

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the man who successfully brought insider trading cases against raj rajaratnam grabbed the attention of the world yesterday at the delivering alpha conference telling the world, i apologize i don't have enough subpoenas for fall of yo. joking aside, preet bhrarara didn't mince words with insider trading. listen here. >> cheating is cheating and lying is lying and whether it's masked behind 17 pages of powerpoint of why this particular tax shelter is okay, at the end of the day i think

our folks and investigators and the fbi and the scc are smart enough to see through this. >> it was a very interesting response, sue, to jim cramer's question of whether in this world of budget cuts his lawyers were smart enough or had the weapons actually to fight back against the smart attorneys and brilliant league minds of private industry. >> well, given his record, it appears as though they do have the smarts and they do have the tools. he's been one of the most successful sheriffs of wall street, ty. i mean, you know, the proof is in the pudding sort to speak. >> he was asked whether there's companies that were too big to fail and that that affected his ability to prosecute and he said, absolutely not. no company in his view, no institution in his view is above the law and too big to prosecute. interesting stuff. >> sends chills through wall street today. thanks, ty.

all right. greed and corruption on wall street is one of the not so subtle themes in the blockbuster "the dark knight" and opens tomorrow at midnight. thoughts now of george zuli with the hollywood reporter joining us in london. it seems this is, indeed, a movie reflecting the national mood and the national dislike of wall street as a whole. do you agree, george? >> well, i saw it last night at the european premier here and it does feature a lot of wall street bad guys but i think actually comes down and read it two ways. tries to tap in to the zeitgeist and seen more of the wall street baddies in the movie because hollywood likes to tie things to societial dialogues and the themes. like in cold war, saw the russian bad guys. >> you know, it is interesting, though. you very rarely see wall street at all portrayed in a good light in movies or elsewhere.

>> yeah. you know, i think it's because it's an easy enemy and storytelling purposes, you need someone that's hard to read and you don't quite like the person. you know, the rich guy is a recuring theme in story telling and books, movies, theaters. i think that's why it's a sign of the times. headline baddies, all the newspapers. that's easier to bring a financial bad guy in to a film and dark knight keeps the debate going with room for more from hollywood there's corporate placements in the movie. some subtle, some not so subtle. what did you make of that? pretty big names in there. under armour and saks, as well. >> uh-huh. well, you need the sponsors in hollywood these days to make these movies work and sometimes the benefit of them is just to get people talking about your

brand. you know, doesn't necessarily have to be in a specific light but in a movie that people see and talk about, so, you know, getting that out there and the talk of wall street baddies in the movie are overdone. in other words, some reference to the main character, the evil guy, bain overstated and people thought a connection of bain capital and clearly isn't true with the comic history a little bit. the character out there for quite a while. >> the interesting is timing, is it not? thank you very much. >> yes. >> appreciate it. brian shactman joins us with a market flash. >> we talk about vivus with the obesity of fda approval. look at the stock today. noting the company might have weakness in the intellectual property protection and maybe that has some generic exposure down the road and up 160% this year. but now down, tyler, post the

fda approval which is an interesting price action. back to you. >> thank you very much. still ahead, we'll restore the conversation about restoring broken trust among investors. coming up, next hour, our own stock crusader jim cramer whether preet bhrarara can level the playing field. that and more ahead. no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up! aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance.

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we like it but we're losing gusto now. the industrials down 7 points. s&p 500 down a quarter of a point and nasdaq is higher, remaining so by 15, sue. we have a lot of earnings after the bell, ty. a number of them watched very closely. google is the one, dani, to focus on. >> that's right. up 2.5% today. we're expecting $10.04 eps second quarter revised downward and recently bought land to build new data centers to support big data clouds and we expect cautious guidance and probably beat the street. >> one stock to watch after the bell. thanks, dani. a pressuleasure. all right, ty.