>> one week shows a 7% gain in the three-year note. ty, to you. >> kenny, we appreciate your recollections about september 11th on this day that we commemorate a day that we will never forget that will do it for power lunch this hour. sue? >> "street signs" begins now. and welcome to street signs, where we are ready for the fan boy hate mail because we are asking if now is the time to sell apple. yeah, we said it. sell apple ahead of tomorrow's big event. the campaign trail littered with talks of spending cuts but cuts are not enough. we are going to show what you america really needs to pay down its enormous debt. plus, exile on wall street. yet another tale of an analyst barred. he is here. and why jessica simpson's weight loss maybe one company's big gain. >> indeed. hello, everybody, the markets are in rally mode today, the dow leading the charge, it has

touched its highest intraday level in nearly five years and is now within 6% of its all-time closing high which you may remember was setback in october of 2007. the s & p 500 remains near multiyear highs despite the fact that only once in the past three and a half weekses that managed to rise two days in a row. all right nasdaq with the best positive streak of the major averages up today for the 19th time in 27 sessions, let's get down to the floor of the stock exchange. bob, i want to bring up aig with you here, because we are seeing titanic volume. what is going on? >> weighed at the close, and that's what's important. the treasure successfully sold $18 billion in aig today. aig is buying part of that but going to be a much bigger float from aig. that means the s & p 500 is going to reweight aig answers weighting in the fund, means indexes have to buy a lot of aig. how much? various assessments but 50 to 55 million shares at the close is

likely. aig has traded 200 million shares so that's going to be a big close for aig. meantime, as i have emphasized, the last four or five days, the risk on, back for the stock market. you could see people buying shares in japanese stocks, for example, nice volume here in the ewj the ewa is australian stocks, heavier-than-normal volume there gold has been heavy the last several days, volumes nice there the financial stocks, the xlf has had nice volume in the last several days. and those vix products, well, this one is a bet the volatility might go up, the vxx no the a good bet now. you can see this is being sold today. >> bob, you finally found a way to bring australia stocks into our show. thank you very much. >> all right. let's get back now to facebook and apple. a couple of tech titans, right, maybe a titan and a half. facebook. in a couple of hours, we are going to hear from mark zuckerberg. will he finally talk about the stock which has been cut in half since the ipo? does he, in fact, owe it to

investors and his staff? does it even matter we a? we are going to get that in a moment. first up that company, apple, the eve of a big announcement. tim cook expected to announce the next generation of iphone. this big launch, is now the time to sell apple stock? let us bring in the senior equity research analyst at mez zoo ho securities and senior staff writer at gizmo. aby, what say you, has apple peaked? >> no. i think there is more for it to go it is heading into one of the biggest product cycles, especially the big side. iphone five will have a strong uptake in the holiday season, ipad limited competition. we think there could be a slow down because the stock has done well. >> history is not on its side.

raymond james says am outperformed the s & p one month every single time the leadup to an iphone announcement by an average 5.5%. after the launch, underperformed the s & p by 1.2%some that going to happen this time, a sell on the news kind of situation? >> you know, could be a little bit of a sell on the news, that's always happens on these type of highly volatile stocks. over the longer term, the stocks still have the product cycle that's gonna be -- actually really be fully exploding into the holiday season. before that you could be a selling on the news. >> sam, are you there? >> yep. >> fantastic. i'm going to ask you mo some more prosaic question. >> sure. >> which is this, if you are not off contract, you looking at what $600 for a new iphone? >> probably more than that. yeah. >> more than that so, how many people are going to -- i note old -- forget about the ultrafan boys out there that will

mortgage their house for these products, how many people realistically are going to go out and spend 600-plus bucks or wait until their contract time is up? >> yeah. the entry cost for something like that is immense. most people don't have $800, $700 to spend on an unlocked out-of-contract phone. i think just plain and simple. but there are also a ton of people waiting for months and months, if not a year, for this phone. so, there are a lot of people whose contract makes them eligible to buy it as soon as it comes out. >> so in other words, one of apple's biggest problems is people are holding out for the upgrades? >> absolutely. >> the secrecy up to a new product announcement, people say okay, i'm not going to buy until i see this? >> apple's own buzz factor what made it -- which is what has made it apple so far, tim cook acknowledged as much during the last earnings call. said people holding out for the next model was cutting into sale he is of the current model. not any way around that. >> what do you want to hear from tim cook and apple to make you even more excited about the

stock? >> you know, definitely want to see all the features talked about, the lt support, bigger display and ios 6 support, as well as the main thing, which is going to be a constraining factor, the supply constraints on the supply side. they may not touch upon it tomorrow, but over time, do want to see them get the supply constraints out of the way. >> >> aby, the lte is that incremental speed enough to push sale? >> definitely a positive.hey, t incremental speed enough to push sale? >> definitely a positive. it is a bit positive for people to adopt t regardless, people have been waiting for this product about a year, as sam mentioned and going to see a big uptick and not on the upgrade but how many customers they gain from other platforms and feature phones convert to smartphones and outside of the u.s., where

they still have distribution. >> about nine months of buildup for this product. let's hope it lives up toward the expectations. thank you very much. we have an apple-related market flash with jackie d'angelo. the apple 5 anticipation is building, as you guys mentioned but a componentmaker, rf micropopping on that news today, look at the chart, up 8%. look at the year chart and see rf microhas str has had a rough. >> thanks very much for that, jackie. sam is still with us. we want to get out to san francisco as well where as we mentioned, mark zuckerberg is expected to speak in just a couple of hours. there's a lot of speculation co-finally break his sigh lin on the company's stock, down 50% since the ipot is the first time since he is speaking since theism po. julia boorstin is there. what exactly are people hoping to hear and are they going to get it?

>> this is a tech conference, not a financial conference w people worrying the stock prices starting to hurt employee morale and intention, something zuckerberg won't be able to avoid with tech crunch founder michael arrington scheduled for 5 p.m. eastern. with the event streamed live online, wall street investors will be watching for news. analysts telling us they are looking for insight to the company's mobile strategy, long-term advertising vision and, above all, to hear that zuckerberg does care about the stock price. now, zuckerberg will be in his element here, talking to entrepreneurs, developers, venture capital investors, see anything he says impacts wall street. back to you. >> julia, thank you very much. so, sam biddle have to let you go thank you very much for joining us a little bit tight on time, much more coming up certainly. all right. so america, what do you want to hear from mark zuckerberg this afternoon? we tweeted that question out and you, loyal viewer, tweeted us back.

don't miss what zuckerberg has to say. "fast money" has it all covered at 5 p.m. eastern time tonight and at 5 p.m., i will be boarding a flight to san francisco. we are going to broadcast live from outside the event tomorrow morning with an only slightly larger picture of myself. but up next here on the east coast, the most important thing we can do to stop that clock from growing. and no, it is not spending cuts. and luxury lost, high-end retailers getting crushed on the fears of a china slow down, but are things really as in bad in china? we have found your silver lining. and we are remembering september 11th, hard to believe 11 years since we lost so many

family members, friends and colleagues, three co-workers from my old firm, bloomberg, were lost in that tragedy. as we go to a break, let's get a look at ground zeer recent tributes paid there today and we will speak to mr. mayor, dried giuliani, coming up next. when we got married. i had three kids. and she became the full time mother of three. it was soccer, and ballet, and cheerleading, and baseball. look at ground zero and the

so, as we go into this next phase, you know, a big part of it for us is that there isn't anything on the schedule. look at ground zero and the

it's about one thing. it's about growth. this is the honest answer about

everything. and i'll tell you why i know that, because if you consider the economy, it's like these pies. and the problem we have right now is if you slice this little pie into four pieces, here's what you get. if you slice this guy into four pieces, wow, there's a completely different scenario. so, i ask you, what you rather have this slice or this slice? >> all right, well, two quick points, number one, he used apple pie, because rick is an american. number two you can cut spending all you want, but it will mean nothing without real economic growth. let us bring in rick. also joined by david malpass and seema global president. i want to begin with you, david. something that we have talked about maybe not enough, right, which is that spending cuts are important, but there's a knew rater and denominator when it comes to debt ratios and that denominator growth, if they can get that up by, say, 1% a year, okay, go from 3 to 4 or 2 to 3%

gdp growth, what would that mean for revenues and the economy of the united states? >> hi, brian, hi, rick, if you added 1% to the cbo baseline, would you get 11.7 trillion more dollars in gdp over the next ten years. that would translate into over $2 trillion of revenues for the government. and so you would really have a bigger pie. i was laughing when rick was going through that big pie, but i think it's a good analogy. >> i will stick with that more than $11 trillion, bigger than we have heard about any spending cuts anything, boles-simpson that is a big number. how hard is it to get another 100 basis points out of economic growth? >> you know, i think it's quite doable, if you think about what the economy's struggling under right now, in both 2010 and again now, it's that year-end tax increase, which causes businesses not to invest. so one simple thing to add to the growth rate is simply take

that off the table, make a decision, are you gonna keep the current rates or are you gonna change the rates and get it done now rather than let it hang over. so, we need -- i think we need lower rates on a broader base. we also need some concept of restraint on government spending and third, sound money, meaning get away from this idea that the dollar is gonna disappear in value. >> sounds easy enough on paper. mr. santelli, do you think that david is correct is it doable? >> hugely doable. just think of some of the conversations regarding apple's iphone adding several tenths to gdp. you never hear that conversation about a lot of the government programs or the sol lindas, you need to keep with the private side of enterprise and remember this final thought. you know, if we don't grow the pie, we are going to be picking at the financial bones of a mediocre economy. today it will be 1% you go after. next year it will be the 5%. and pretty soon, you will be texting everybody because if is the only method of gain

revenues, it's a losing equation. >> david, who do you think has got the guts to do this? who do you think has got the political will and the political analysis and the political push through to achieve this? >> i'm a romney supporter, i think he could do it. i actually think president obama could do it if he set about that as a goal. i have about worried that isn't their goal. they haven't said they wanted to have more growth and jobs by having some restraint on government spending. so i think in the end, either the president -- the president of the united states could get this done if he wanted to. >> rick, you know, i haven't seen any ads, okay, because the states here where we are are pretty much decided, so unfortunately, i have not been lucky enough to see this influx of ads from both sides, but anecdotely, all we hear about are cut, cuts, cut, cut, cuts or bash the other guy. why isn't anybody focusing more on growth, growth, growth?

>> one reason, i don't know if people will like it, is the media. we talk about the economy, debts and deficits and all these issues on cnbc. but a large segment of the population doesn't tune into the type of media that i think gets into these issues. they get in a variety of other important issues. i would say 16 trillion has to be prioritized at the top of the list and as david so eloquently put the long-term growth projections, the only way to put that cage is to encompass our debt. >> do you think we are going to get another cut? >> i think moody's may downgrade us. s & p did it in august of 2011. the same problem is facing us in january and february. we had this bad law on the debt limit it doesn't cause the government to spend less, just makes our debt look uncertain a better way, i have advocated and

would like to see them do this repeat current law and replace it with a law that restrains government spending t is the proper way to go. the current law was written in order to get the government more dealt and that is not really a usable proposition right now. we may get a downgrade in january. i think women end up with a recession and downgrade own the path we are on now. >> david, i'm not going to defend debt, right, but i will say what some of the defenders of current policies have said. they have said, okay, right-wing, you've screamed about debts for years, but yet, the stock market has more than doubled off its lows, bond yields are near record lows, demand for treasuries continues to be high. thus what they are saying is the world or american stock investors don't care about debt. >> i think they do care a lot about debt. one reason people are buying treasury bonds is because they

think the world is gonna blow up. i don't take that as a comforting sign. on the equity side, remember the way the federal reserve is running the policy, it benefits the big corporation and the government over small businesses. so, we are ending up with an 8.3% -- exskews me, 8.1% unemployment rate with the stock market at a high. that's not a good rate. >> would it matter if moody's took away the aaa credit rating from the u.s., it didn't matter the last time? the market shrug it had off and moved on. >> because it shrug it had off last time, i was one of the few that predicted interest rates would be unaffected, and rally through t doesn't mean it would happen the second or third times. i would contend the i shall because deficits are going to turn out much different. we had lindsey graham on today. there's going to be more than 65

or 70 house representatives that are going to try to make this much more than a debt ceiling issue. >> man dirk the key thing is how do you get smaller and medium-sized businesses to want to invest in the future. that's where the jobs come from. while i like to see the stock market high, i'm worried at it's doing it because it thinks the fed is going to buy up the national debt which it is saying it is going to do i don't think that is a good solution, even though it does -- has helped the stock market. >> indeed it has. gentlemen, thank you very much for your debate. >> thanks. up next, we are going to speak with america's mayor on this anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks. rudy giuliani is next. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more...

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a live look at the freedom tower in manhattan going up. it is great to see that building finally get built as it stretches into the sky. there's one of the memorial pools where the bases of the

world trade center were. we take you now to cantor fitzgerald's charity day, where they trade all day with celebrities, politicians, for charity for the memorial victims of the 9/11 terror attacks. we welcome in mr. mayor, america's mayor, rudy giuliani. sir, it's a great pleasure to speak with you. and i want to get to the great work that you and the other people at cantor fitzgerald has done. cantor lost disproportionately so many people in the attacks. >> that's right. >> i want to start on a question based on a theme we have heard about in the election in the election, are we better off than four years ago. are we as new yorker, americans, better off -- >> in one way, we have safer than the attack that happened on september 11th. airport security is much better between the bush and obama administrations. we have thank wart over 40 attacks. on the other hand, there are

areas where we are safe. we haven't done as much about port security, allowing iran to become a nuclear power that concerns me greatly, not just because they might attack with missiles, but because they are the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world and it would be very easy for them if they were a nuclear power to hand that material off to terrorists, have them ignite dirty bombs and then just lie about it. so, there are areas in which we are safer, areas in which i think it is much more dangerous. >> in other words, mr. mayor this is mandy drury. you were saying no matter what we do, what precautions we take and how much money we spend, we are never 100 completely safe from a possible terror attack in the future? >> nope. well, that's always true, that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying there is a definable

e e existential threat in iran. if we don't take this really seriously, we could make the same mistake before september 11th and that is underestimate them. i would hate to see it happen. >> what would you do it about it then, mr. mayer? >> i would make it very clear to them we are ready, willing and able to use military power if we have to stop them and if they want to avoid the tremendous damage that will do to them, they will be a lot more reasonable. i think the only thing that will motivate the iranian government is fear, the kind of fear they saw when ronald reagan became president and they gave up the hostages in, you know, two hours. >> how disappointed are you, mr. mayor, that the ground zero memorial is not complete for today? >> well, that's also kind of mixed. i'm very pleased to see the freedom go up, as you pointed out from the beginning. i flew in last night, flew right past it first thing i did this morning was go look at it 6:30 this morning when i arrived there. i'm very glad that is almost done. i'm disappointed that the museum didn't open as it was supposed to today. but i'm glad see -- i spoke to

both the mayer and the governor and governor christie, both governors and seems to me they have reached an agreement and they are going to move forward. so let's hope that is going to get done for next year. i hope and pray that that agreement stays together. >> indeed, mr. mayor, thank you very much for joining us. rudy giuliani. >> thank you for covering this. >> thank you. we believe you are going to be on the closing bell today on cnbc. so, going to get more thoughts from mr. giuliani. >> i look forward to t. >> going to go make some traced and money for chat. thank you, sir. next up on street signs, exile on wall street. is there another case of a company allegedly banning an analyst critical of its stock? that analyst is here with that story. >> later on, jessica simpson is the new face of weight watchers and she is losing the baby weight but will her $4 million endorsement ultimately be a win for investors as well? street signs is back in just a couple minutes' time. [ male announcer ] for the dreamers...

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it is street talk time as we await mark zuckerberg's interview this afternoon, let's look at a company very closely tied to facebook and that is zynga. >> remember, folks, when facebook ipo'd, they noted that zynga was 12% of their revenue. well, look at zynga that stock is down 70% the past year t is down another 7-10ths today. i believe they had another executive leave? >> yes. >> chief marketing officer. >> that's right. another one a lot of departures the last few weeks. >> you talk facebook, got to look at zynga, this has been an absolute disaster. >> since december, down 70%. coming up, exelon hitting a 52-week low in this hot market. >> i wasn't picking on exelon per se, it is a power company, if you live in the chicago area you know the company by heart. by point thing brinking this up it is down today in another up market had new highs every week, every week, every week, this a

52-week low for a defensive name and it shows to me, again, not picking on exelon, but shows the rotation from some of the defensive names and utilities are the most defensive of names, dividend payers continues, exelon continues. >> risk off to risk on. palo alto networks down big time today. >> security softwaremaker here, stocks a great year, up 58%. revenue and earnings beat estimate estimates this is a case of good being -- >> not good enough. >> that's right. magic the laps couple of quarters and deliver prest t de prestidigitation, that is not good enough. it wasn't as bad as fear t is all in how you fear it. >> i don't even know what prestidigitation means. >> tableco.

>> from a hold to a buy it is downgrade. said possible job cuts to its business could leave the company are fewer sales people too push growth. near term, the outsourced i.t. space, margins down, equity cutting the project from 32 to 36. believe think equity no reason to buy the stock, below the price. a couple cents with trading costs, basically neutral. >> guess who is waiting in the wings? mr. herb greenberg. welcome back from the outside world. >> let me out of the cage today. >> might even give you a fee. we have been seeing percolation in the stock of gmc, green mountain coffee. >> would you believe me if i tell you i don't like talking about green mountain, especially as much as i have been talking about it? but it keeps causing something to happen that i have to come back and say you look, the stock is up today for something i need to mention. last night, la vaz za, the italian coffee company -- >> la vaz za. >> came out and said they had a 6.8% in the company. do people forget back in

february, we were telling you la vaz za, had a 6% stake, sold a slug of it at $68 a share, citing global economic issues? well, guess what, those global economic issues have, to the best of my knowledge, haven't improved. especially not in italy. >> got worse. >> but here comes la vaz za again, buying stock at $28 a share. it was before starbucks came out with a product they are creating with with green mountain. >> very opportunistic. >> i look at how stuff works, global economic issues keeps resonating with me for the reason for selling. all i can say right now, green mountain in my opinion is a poster child. >> sounds like your bottom line is don't let the fact that lavazza, lavazza, lavazza, whatever we will call them, buying the stock, is some grand option? >> not in this case. >> thank you, herb. is there another analyst exile

controversy brewing? paulie pore is holding its investor meeting tomorrow, not all analysts have been allowed in. one sell site analyst critical of the company says his invitation was denied. we reached out to paulie pore and they essentially said it is not about banning the analyst, it is about a space issue on a tour they want to give. in a statement, paulie pore told us, we have received numerous request for facility tours from investors, adding as tours are quite disruptive to the business, we are physically limited to the number of people we can accommodate. so, let's bring in the analyst at the hard of this, gordon johnson of hacks yom capital, well known to our viewers, gordon, polypore says this is a tour issue, late in your application, a space issue. do you think otherwise? >> well, i will just say we are not going to send the analyst a day. we brought information about supply and demand analysis as well as the dry process versus

wet process and i think some of those dat a points we brought forth haven't been -- have not been brought forth before we initiate on the stock at $56 a share, see where it is at today, last time we looked, it was $35 a share. seen gm come out and announce cuts to production of volt. nissan come out and polypore come out and announce a new battery supplier who does not use polypore. i think a lot of the analysis we have done has come to fruition yet we continue to try to reach out to this company and they have they are not responding back us to, which isn't atypical, but we like to chat with management, get their side of the story so we can see. >> gordon this is herb. this is kind of interesting. we have seen this in the past, companies try to block bearish analysts. >> we don't know if that is the case. polypore says it is a space issue. >> but it s let me ask you

something, gordon this is an investors' meet egg. do you have any idea who they are inviting to this? >> i do not. i do not. some of our clients did let us know some of our peers on wall street are definitely going to be there we don't know specifically who they are inviting they have not provided us that information. but we -- for all the stocks we cover, we try to attend the analyst days, send out requests for earned advance. want it will be to be there to hear what management is saying. what it boils down to this is an interest defined by oversupply. to you to the oversupply, we think the stock will come under pressure. what is very important, herb, is the past four quarters in a row, this company has done what they have done this quarter, missed the quarter and promised you the next quarter they are going to beat numbers, every quarter they haven't done that. >> gordon -- >> we think the trend will continue. >>. >> gordon, have you been denied access or entry by any other companies that you cover? >> yes. which ones?

>> um, we haven't been able to attend some of the chinese solar companies analyst days or been allowed to ask questions on conference calls for years now. >> what have they said is the reason for that? >> they just don't respond to our e-mails. >> conference calls is a separate issue because conference calls typically, we know that bearish analysts, short sellers are typically not allowed to ask questions, no rule about any of this i should point out, guys but it is bad form. and if you really have an open company, you know someone like gordon is out there you know what his position is, this it is a red flag. >> i love that point. i want you to address a bigger point, which relates to that you have been very negative on most of the solar companies, as some know, right about the solar companies. i'm sure there are companies in your history you have loved. have you noticed a difference in access to management, investors meetings, whatever, whether you are bullish or bearish on a

given name? >> that is a great question. i will go a step further, we have coverage of u.s. still and rio tinto. they will talk to me, give me insights into their views and they will invite me to analyst days and let me ask questions on conference calls if i called them right now is that the key difference. these are companies who they say, listen, gordon, we understand your view, if you're right, you're gonna be right. if you're wrong, you're gonna be wrong. >> that is t throughout my career doing this as a reporter, companies that do not take call it is they think i'm writing something bearish or been bearish in my writings on the company, the best companies take the calls no matter who they are coming from, cops that have taken my call, undersa stand the stock market, understand being a public company and just what makes market he is. >> should be transparent. >> if it doesn't make a market. gordon, we got to wrap it up this is unfair investors what they are going to get is a

bullish analyst with no more detailed information, you will have to guess or listen to a call, not ask the questions you are going to get, your clients won't get maybe quite the level of access of information to the company, this is another hit,an me off. this is cable, right? sorry, gordon. this is cable, right? >> thank you so much for joining us. still ahead, trying to sell us something here? next up, jessica simpson's weight watchers reveal. will this new high-profile attention translate into heftier profits for investors? stock's almost 10% this month. no need to wait. we are back after this short break.

i'm bill griffeth, the top of the hour, all over today's rally in the stock market, follow it the last hour, see if it can be sustained. these four huge interviews you cannot afford to miss, house majority leader eric cantor, house minority whip steny hower at a talk about the threat of a

downgrade. bob benmoshe is back with us to talk about the insurance giant now that the government is no longer a majority shareholder of aig. you saw mandy's interview with new york city mayor rudy giuliani, former mayor, he will be here at the new york stock exchange, ringing the closing bell, we will get him to reflect back on the closing bell. first, back to you guys on street signs. see you at the top of the hour. brian? >> thank you very much. earlier, we were talking about america's growth. well, another big part of that story certainly is manufacturing and there are new concerns that manufacturing, which has been growing now quarter over quarter for a bit, could be headed for a slow down. phil lebeau is here with more. phil, why is -- >> people looking at the sector and saying do they have the jobs needed to sustain the growth? here at the national -- international manufacturing technology show, they say yes they do look at how many manufacturing jobs we have added in this country over the last

couple of years. 500,000. here is trend troubling to some people, called lights out manufacturing, signing lit new push in the industry, works like this [ inaudible ] the machines going 24/7, even when there's nobody in the plant to run them, signingly improving efficiency while not improving the payroll. >> i think it is about doing more with less. taking an operation, making more efficient so that you need less input or people to do the job. that is important to bring jobs back so we can complete worldly. >> some people are looking, here is the truth, see fewer low-skill workers needed when the machines are working overnight, nobody in the plant, don't need anybody in the plant. however, manufacturings say they will be hiring more skilled and educated workers to run these machines, often through the cloud, through a computer,

somewhere far away from the plant. is bottom line, brian and mandy, manufacturers are adding jobs but looking for efficiency before they add jobs. brian, one last thing, talked with a guy who runs a mold shop in the tw -- mould shop in the twin cities area, added two people to his staff, doubled efish shency in the last two years. >> phil lebeau, powerful stuff. thank you very much. we have to leave it there we have breaking news on aig. let's get right to our own eamon javers. >> the department of treasury announcing an additional $2.7 billion in profits from aig stock sales just today. we saw last night they announced a major sale of aig stock, they are saying today that underwriters exercised their overallotment and therefore, the option in full to purchase approximately 83.1 million additional shares of aig common stock at the public offering price of $32.50 per share. now, i just hung up the phone with folks over at the

department of treasury and they say that when you lump in this 2.7 billion dollars from the stock sale today that gives total profits to taxpayers from the aig bailout of $15.1 billion, all told, brian. >> i will take it up from there as we were talking about with bob pisani today there has been titanic volume in aig shares today. thank you, iman. the meantime, we are going to talk jessica simpson. she has debuted her postbaby body on national television. she did that yesterday, a lovely photo of her here. she says she has lost now 40 pounds on the weight watchers program. of course, she has some incentives. weight watchers is paying her a reported $4 million to lose the weight. i would probably lose that kind of weight as well for $4 million. the meantime, weight watchers has been on real tear. we have got the stock here behind me. it is up almost 12% just over the course of one week. so, the question now is simpson's slim down a boost for weight watchers land it keep the stock's metabolism up going

forward? joining wuss an overweight rating, no pun intended at all, is brian wang, analyst of barclays and then on the news line, jerry herman with stifel nicolaus. i want to hear from you, first of all, brian. an overweight rating i wonder how much is due to the slim down from jessica simpson or just unrelated? >> i think the number of different positive catalysts that are coming up, including you the new advertising campaign featuring jessica simpson, but i think also they have a new program launch coming at the end of this year which typically does drive combined with new advertising campaign which typically does drive, you know, increased revenues, attendance at the meetings and retrospect, earnings as well. >> what is so special about the new program? >> typically redo the program, make a major innovation every two to three years, haven't revealed what the details of the changes are yet. for example, in late 2010, they introduced points plus, which drove tremendous growth in 2011. >> brian, i believe they have

got a new cfo and you are going to be meeting with the cfo next week. what are you going to ask him? >> i think there's a new cfo who is starting -- i think there's a lot of questions around their business-to-business health care division. the new cfo is coming over from staples. he does have some background in the b 2 b business. i think that is one of the key longer term drivers so i think that's probably where some of our questions will be focused. >> indeed. indeed. what do you think are the great rest risks to this business and where do you think the stock will go? had a pretty good run the last week? >> it is true. the stock has had a good run in the last week. i think part of that is attributable to the cfo getting out and speaking with wall street. he only started about two to three weeks ago. i guess the biggest risk would be just whether the program doesn't work, the new program, or advertising campaign. i think we -- historically it has, consumer sentiment declined a little bit that would be the biggest risk possibly. >> brian wang, thank you very

much for that. let's talk with jeremy herman. he has rating on weight watchers. what are you seeing? >> i think it's a question of timing here. on a long-term basis, weight watchers has some really important attributes, the most important is its positioning with o beebesity and related he care costs. in particular, with the b to b model, there are substantial opportunities over the long run. on a short term, it suffers from the waning effect of its highly successful program that was just alluded to, that introduced in early '11. there's a slightly more competitiveness in their online system as well. >> jerry, i have to ask you quickly, why would anybody go on weight watchers when we have

prescription weight loss pills coming out? pop a pill. don't work out. don't count calories. aren't weight loss pills going to destroy the entire business model of these companies? >> great question. at the same time t also raises recognition of obesity as a problem. the fda, i think, in part weighed the effects or the consequences of those drugs relative to the cost of obesity. so i think, in fact, it heightens the awareness of obesity as a problem. >> okay, jerry. we got to leave it there. thank you very much for joining us. all right. bad headline after bad headline on china, but could there be a silver lining in the china slowdown? we'll talk about it coming up.

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well, there are new signs that the rich are slowing their spending. a profit warning from burbury. luxury stocks here are also trading lower. tiffany's, ralph, lauren, and coach. so is it the highest red flag for our economy? burbury shows a loss in china.

our next guest says there could be a silver lining. let's bring in ann lee, author of "what the u.s. can learn from china." find the silver lining for us in all of this, ann. >> sure. i think one of the most underreported stories is the fact that china's service economy is expanding consistently. if you look at the service pmi, it's been over 50. we know that anything over 50 is expanding and anything under 50 is contracting, which is happening in manufacturing. in july it was 55. in august it was over 56. so -- >> do you believe -- sorry. do you believe those numbers? that's been the debate. do you believe the data? >> sure because i've actually had conversations with other folks from the u.s. doing a lot of due diligence, asking a lot of companies on the ground what's happening in the different provinces. actually, that information is supporting this data. >> but the sales numbers from a number of these u.s. and european companies, those sales

numbers do not lie. what we're seeing from the likes of nike and many other, for example, high-end, luxury retailers, they're saying sales are decelerating in china. retail sales are decelerating. >> sure. it could be like any other business where there are bumps. no business goes straight up. you're not going to find straight line growth in anything. it's going to be volatile. what i'm saying is that you may have bumps where it goes down one month or even two months. maybe the third month it pops up. if on average all three averages up, then there's growth. that's what i'm suggesting could be happening in china. >> so is this the proverbial, you know, sort of henry ford-esque middle class that will be paid more and purchase more of what they or we or someone else makes? >> yes, if you look at labor wage growth, it has been growing in the double digits for years now. and the consumption growth is also growing in double digits. >> that's a double-edge sword,

right? wage costs are rising which means a lot of companies are starting to go elsewhere for their manufacturing needs like, i don't know, the philippines or cambodia, sometimes even bringing manufacturing back here to the u.s. >> i think that's terrific. we want everyone to share in the growing pie. we want more people to take part in the global economy, to have manufacturing jobs outside of china. then the chinese can then develop their service economy in restaurants restaurants, in the medical field, in education. >> there are always two sides to the story. ann, thank you. thank you all for watching "street signs." we'll be live at the apple event tomorrow. don't forget. >> we will not forget. "closing bell" is next. >> if you see me getting a pat down at the airport, come say hi. at usaa, we believe honor is not

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