to rise. u.s. oil, you can bet on. it's an etf. >> simon, have a wonderful weekend. >> thank you for watching "power lunch." tyler will be back on monday. >> and street sign begins right now. welcome to street signs where we have got a strong ento a strong summer. the dow looks like it is going out like a lion, up nearly 10% since memorial day. but will the bulls become lambs the rest of the year? hedge fund titan ray dalio warning of social unrest. is he right? we'll discuss an debate the risk for your money. the apple insanity officially begins as the iphone hits stores. a housing analyst who made one of the best calls of the year back in december. hear what he is recommending now, mandy. happy friday, everybody. modest gains for stocks today

and two longs streaks for the dow likely to continue, continuing to post its ninth straight friday gain. it would also be the ninth straight year that the dow has advanced on september's quadruple witching day. the s&p 500 is standing alone and not in a good way. despite advancing, it is still the only one of the major averages still lower for the week. the nasdaq composite having its best day of the week today. a bit earlier it hit its highest intraday level in nearly 12 years. those are some of the stats we are watching. well, today's show is brought to you, in part, by the letter, "a." "a" is for apple. all the apple fanatics finally have their dayals the iphone 5 phone hits the stores. how insane is the insanity? out west, jon fortt is braving -- have you been trampled yet? >> reporter: not yet, brian. it does get a little wacky around here but overall, this is very sane. this has turn into a well oiled machine, this process apple has.

it is interesting to track year to year, event to event, what's exactly changed. this year they had blue shirt workers out in the lines figuring out what people's order were o they could get them out that much faster. i think the question is now how long does this launch pop for apple. which they always get. but how long does that last especially given some of the controversies we've talked about here all day, particularly maps, given those are cropping up around lunch. i want to mention at piper jaffray, they noted that the lines in many places, new york, boston, are 83% longer. he thinks that means we could have at least 8 million iphones sold in this opening weekend. of course that includes the preorder number. we know that for the first day alone that was 2 million. also i will note -- talking to customers coming out of here, they said that apple doesn't have the adapters, the old doc to new dock adapters. they don't have extra cables.

there's a cable that comes with the phone. they don't have extra cables, lightning cables, if you want to hook up your iphone at work and have another one at home. so some short supplies there. finally mentioning that the maps controversy, to me it's an echo of antennagate, remember we had with the iphone 4 two years ago. turned out not to be a huge issue for sales of the phone. question is whether customers who get the iphone 5 are happy with it. >> i was actually reading some of the headlines of various newspapers around the world about the maps app. some were like, for example, a mapping disaster. maps app is lost. it is confused. it sounds pretty bad. nonetheless, apple is hitting back and saying it will get better. when is it going to get better? when are we going to see an upgrade to the maps app? >> i think it is going to be slow going. they've got pretty much the entire world to cover. one, a lot of the issues are with the 3-d view which isn't

going to be the highest use case for a lot of people. two, a lot of the issues are overseas particularly in europe. it will be interesting to see if that has an impact on some of the international launches that are happening a week from today. the north american maps generally pretty good. what you get is like gas stations in the wrong places which, might not be that big of an issue for a lot of people. >> okay. thank you very much for that, jon fortt. let's switch gears and get to breaking news. john harwood is in our washington bureau with more on the release of mitt romney's tax returns. john, with an average effective tax rate of 20% over the past 20 years, do you believe this will put the romney taxgate on the back burner? >> no. but i don't think it will el rate it much beyond what it's already been either. the reason for that, brian, is that while releasing these overall statistics, mitt romney is not releasing the actual returns and democrats will say, well, prove it. because this is the dialogue we've had back and forth even

when somebody like harry reid, the democratic senate leader, was making charges, which he is unable to back up, saying, oh, well i heard from somebody that he didn't pay federal taxes. democrats would say, well, it is easy for you to prove it if you just release the numbers. releasing this description doesn't exactly do that, although it provides some information for romney's allies to rebut. what we learn from 2011 is that the income reported by mitt romney is less than he estimated earlier in the year. he'd said that it was going to be about $21 million. now he's saying it is about $13 million. instead of paying a 15.4% rate on that money, he paid about 14%. his aides say that the reason that he got that effective rate down to 14% and not lower than that is that he only claimed a little more than half of the $4 million that he donated to charity. so they were very careful after mitt romney was asked in an interview in august whether he'd of ever paid a lower rate than

13% from his 2010 tax returns which he'd already released. he said, no, i haven't. well, he would have in 2011 had he not only claimed part of his charitable deductions and that's the way that mitt romney's trying to be careful to protect appearances and not give democrats any or o ammunition than they have already. >> so is this all we're going to get? basically the romney camp saying be happy, go home, you've got it, go away, or do you think there is still going to be enough criticism to get even more information? >> mandy, i can only take mitt romney and ann romney at their word. they have both said this is it, we're only going to release two returns. but they're trying to diffuse the demands for more by releasing statistics. average effective rate of 20% over that period of time. never lower than 13%. owed federal taxes in every year. that's to respond to this idea that there may have been some years that he was able to claim enough deductions and offsets

that he didn't owe any. they're trying to put this to rest. i think everybody knows that is a very rich guy. the bigger thing that's happened this week, i believe, guys, is the 47% videotape rather than the numbers that we get on this tax return. >> quickly, john, does harry reid plan to apologize to mitt romney? >> i haven't talked to harry reid. i haven't heard that. i suspect what harry reid would say is that i'll apologize if you show me the returns. >> okay, job. we have to leave it there. let's get back to the iphone hoopla. m.j. lee is currently from politico on the phone. apologies. not the iphone. m.j., we've got the 2011 details of romney's tax returns. do you think this is fueling the critics or quell the critics? >> the tax returns issue has been one of the worst political challenges for to deal with. the fact that so much of this campaign cycle has been spent debating whether mitt romney should release his tax returns,

when is he going to do it, how many years, what were the rates, i think that it's an issue that democrats really seized on to sort of try to paint mitt romney as this person who is rich and is sort of out of touch with the middle class and i think the romney campaign is clearly trying to better the situation but i'm not sure that it is coming early enough in the cycle. now we only have a few weeks left before election day and i don't think that democrats are going to let them go easy. a 20-year summary is certainly not the details that democrats were looking for and i wouldn't be surprised if they said this is not enough. >> m.j., if they say this is not enough, i mean then it sounds like they would be accusing romney of lying. right? if they say, well we want to see more. why? all they hammered on was the effective tax rate. they didn't care what was inside. >> and this is what mitt romney has said in the past when he has tried to justify why he didn't want to release the details.

the more details you give, the more democrats are going to sort of go after him and i think that's sort of the expectation. i think we can see that happening. if mitt romney releases the actual tax returns, then yeah, of course democrats are going to go after him on every single detail and i think that's a real fear that the romney campaign has been facing. and that's why we haven't seen the details coming out of their camp and i wonder if they're details that we're ever going to see. >> we've got to leave it through but thank you for your input on that. apple and its new iphones. the question leer is how does the new iphone 5 stack up. "consumer reports" has been kicking the tires on this new device and is about to publish their first review. however, they have agreed to come on cnbc first with a preview. joining us, paul reynolds, electronics editor at "consumer reports." paul, you kicked the tires,

what's your verdict? does this have the wow factor? >> well, we're still finishing our testing but i think we fully expect that this new iphone is going to turn out to be a fine performer indeed. there's every reason going in to this to think that it would. apple did a good job in setting this product up and we're expecting that it's going to be a fine performer. >> a fine performer sounds like you're kind of condemning it by fake praise. sounds like it is more evolutionary than revolutionary, wouldn't you say? >> it many ways, it is. probably the biggest difference with this new device is its physical form factor having departed from that 3.5-inch screen that we saw in all the previous iphones. this is a different shaped screen. it is longer and therefore bigger in dimensions and the device is thinner and lighter than the previous iphones. the lightness so far has been something that's really quite noticeable. those old iphones are really

quite bulky. >> paul, give us your biggest gripe about -- we never hear anybody slam apple. it's almost like, sacrilegious. what's your biggest gripe about the iphone 5? >> we're still testing and we will have our results out, at least preliminary ones later today. i think we're going to be looking very closely at the maps app. and how that stacks up. i don't think we have a final verdict yet, but certainly -- >> those that have tried it say it's not great. >> yeah. certainly we know from some of the initial reviews people are feeling like it's not quite up to the standard of the ones that you get built in to android phones or certainly the one that you get as third party apps. we'll see how it does. we're interested to see that. >> does it make you more handsome when you carry it? >> more attractive to the opposite sex. >> does it work? like a pheromone spray. only half kidding, paul. thanks very much.

>> pheromone app. yeah. coming up next on street signs, why investors are hoping for an endless summer. we are not clowning around here entirely. we have a guy who manages $260 billion. see if it is full steam ahead this fall. we're also looking for the next big idea in housing now that the recovery is supposedly really picking up steam. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions... because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah. that's a very nice cake! [ male announcer ] well, you can't beat them. [ giggles ] ohh! you got something huh? whoa... [ male announcer ] humana understands the value of spending time together that's a lot of work getting that one in! let's go see the birdies. [ male announcer ] one on one, sharing what you know. let's do it grandpa. that's why humana agents will sit down with you,

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welcome back to street signs. i'm seema mody. a couple of stocks getting hit on the chin. cooper tire and goodyear getting downgraded at key bank capital markets from buy to hold. two main reasons -- declining tire prices and uncertainty vouning the looming expiration of a u.s. tariff on chinese tires. tomorrow officially marks the first day of fall. but investors are already really hoping for an endless summer. wouldn't that be nice? with the s&p 500 on fire the past three months up 8%, and it is the second best summer for that index in 30 years. >> so can this momentum carry straight in to fall? joining us now with the big picture is ceo of principal global investors. peter sorentino is also with us after we speak with jim. jim, you got $260 billion under management. are you going to spend every dime of that on the new iphone? >> i don't think so.

>> on the subject of of the iphone, i think that is more of a stimulus to the economy than qe3. >> you agree with jpmorgan. >> i think that this is a major stimulus to the economy. it is not just what people spen on their iphones, it is all the apps, all the people writing stuff for it. this is a much better stimulus than the fed managed last week because i don't think the fed's stimulus is going to work all that well. >> there is a cover story in the "wall street journal" today about housing recovering and that at the current pace we could add another .5% to gdp. if you and jpm are right about the iphone, suddenly we've got seven or eighth-tenths added to gdp by the end of the year. >> the outlook is a wee bit better than some of the pessimists were saying. it is not because of liquidity. it is because of housing and the iphone. these are the sort of things that are driving the economy which comes back to my belief that u.s. equities have been strong this year, mott just because of the liquidity of the

federal reserve. i think the fundamentals of u.s. business -- innovation, technology, improving productivity -- are enough to justify most of the return we've seen so far this year. >> so the question is, we've had this return so far this year. for some it is great, thank you very much. is it going to continue? >> i think it probably does at least for another 6, 12 months. i don't think we're at a turning point yet. worry's a long way into the recovery that started after the great recession, almost three years ago. so we're a long way into it but it's been a shallow recovery which means it should be sustainable. >> can i throw something out? do you think qe3 has the potential to do more harm than help? it will push up commodity prices, make life more expense of for a number of people. is it possible better off, net-net, we're better off without it? >> i think so. in the short term what quantitative easing does is put more money in the market. you saw the kind of sugar fix that it gave to equities and commodities when it was announced. i do think if you look longer term, there is the risk by the end of the year you'll be

looking at gasoline prices higher than they would otherwise have been and that will be a constraint on small and mid size businesses. >> doug cass, a friend of the show just wrote in. "higher gas prices steal retail sales from other places." >> absolutely. >> so will the iphone steal retail from other places? >> well that's an interesting question. i suspect most people who are buying iphones probably weren't going to buy other stuff anyway. nobody under the age of 35 wants to buy a home in america because of all that's happened. car industry is fretting that young people don't buy expensive cars like baby boomers do. maybe the answer is they're going to spend their money online. things like the iphone 5. i think what you're seeing is different generational patterns of spending. >> part of the four food groups. apple. >> there you go. >> how do we invest apart from buying an iphone. by the way, we say it doesn't really have the wow factor. may i pleegs say that tie and

pocketchief are a wow. >> thank you. i'm looking at technology, manufacturing, i'm looking at the consumer staples, not the luxury goods. because the high-end consumer hasn't got a lot of spirit around them. i'm kind of bothered by banks because regulation will stop them being very profitable. there are some concerns here but i think by and large you go quite broadly across major u.s. equities. i would be quite concerned about european equities. if u.s. equities are a buy on weakness, european equities are a sell on strength. >> another friend of the network loves european stocks. >> there will be a time to love them but it isn't jet. the reason i would differ somewhat from scott is that i think that the problems are really quite deep and they have been made light of by some people. spain's problems are much more severe than some have made them out to be. it's not just about the federal -- the national

government debt. the regions are in debt. so spain has got a genuine debt problem unlike -- >> we're going to talk more about the social unrest equation of the economic crisis over there later on in our show. meantime, thank you, jim. let us add now peter sorentoni to the conversation. first off, you have four names that should be on our viewers' radar. before we get to the names, quickly comment on what jim said. do you agree, disagree, why, why not? >> i would have to agree with some of it and disagree with others. i think we're starting to see a global weakness that's beginning to permeate a lot of the -- not just the larger -- other developed economies but it is also now beginning to creep into the u.s. i think the higher commodity prices that have been foretold by the next round of quantitative easing is going to be a real damper on corporate profits.

we're seeing a general deceleration. the cost wave coming up behind them not just on input prices but with health care and a number of other labor related issues is going to put a real damper as we go into next year an puts the market in sort after range-bound mentality. you were talking earlier about housing. housing has got some room to recover, but again we are looking at a generational shift. the demographics pore ten thten boomers as they retire will downsize. they're buying smaller, getting rid of things, they don't need things anymore. the general consumer area is not one we're terribly excited about. >> you've got four stocks here. three of them have done very well year to date. one is down. >> the names that we like are ones that have a catalyst that something is going to continue their growth over what we think is going to be a period of weakness here. not sort of a major type of recession or crash but we like those companies that have got something that's going to carry them, carry them well. national oil well, one of our

long-time favorites. basically the boom in deepwater drilling off of brazil, off the west coast of africa. anything of value on top of those platforms generally has national oil well stamp on it. it is proprietary equipment, great technological footprint. we think they continue to do well. general electric. their long cycle businesses are picking up orders. they've won some major contracts on mega projects in the middle east in water desalinization, power, national gas being the fuel of the future, those big gas turbines. move on to -- again looking at companies with catalyst. kroger. consumers are traveling out less so when they do go out if you can capture more of their wallet it bodes better for your bottom line. kroger's overhauling their stores. adding gas pumps -- >> adding clothes which makes me a little bit nervous. peter, hold on. >> thank you.

i understand your point about the weakness globally and there is definitely a slowdown going on, for example, in china, in brazil, there is definitely a cloud over europe, as i said earlier. my contention would be though that the underlying strength of u.s. business and its innovative nature is enough to counter that. i think that's the difference between us in what you said earlier. would that be a fair assessment? >> i think it would be. however, i would add to that that one of the things that i'm very cautious about is some of those areas where we have seen strength, we've also seen a great deal of capital investment. we've seen plan expansions, we've seen new lines added. we've seen some greenfield capacity in some of the industrial sectors. my fear is that if we hit this sort of global air pocket, if you will, you see mine output in australia slow, so that's bad for caterpillar, deere, joy global. so you get this sort of domino effect falling backwards on to us. that's my fear, is that if it

continues for long, it will run backwards into the u.s. and that we think could pose a threat to us. >> absolutely. peter, thank you very much. jim, thank you for your commentary as well. coming up next, a big fas d fat disaster dujour. pumped up pumpkins. jane wells is on that. >> hey, pumpkin martinis? lipstick? dog food? i'll tell you a little great, this is just 100% pumpkin that you can put in a pumpkin pie but they mark it up and call it dog food. we'll tell you how crazy it is. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 this morning, i'm going to trade in hong kong.

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the disaster dujour today is vivus. a european committee is expected to vote against the approval of its anti-obesity drug. that's based on the feedback from the committee. the stock has more than doubled to date. sunshine time. auto nation hitting an all-time high with a price tag of $53 even. what a better way to enjoy the sunshine than a trip to the pumpkin patch. that's exactly where we find our jane wells. tough assignment, but pumpkins

are pretty big business. right, jane? >> reporter: yes. linus, great pumpkin has finally diversified. he's gone into beer. dog food. keeps the pooch firm. skin care. cologne. and starbucks ceo howard schultz tells us that even now, still, they're seeing incremental sales growth every year from pumpkin spice lattes. >> that category has created a huge following to the point where there was such pent-up anticipation for the launch of pumpkin spice latte this year. >> all right. look at this. restaurant demand has skyrocketed over two years for things like desserts, ice cream and even salads using pumpkin seeds. that's up triple digits. >> it's very much not an every day flavor. kind of like barbecue. you see introductions of the mcrib at mcdonald's on the menu, then off the menu, because likely pumpkin wouldn't survive on the menu throughout the

entire year. i'm not sure if it is the new bacon, but i think for this time of year, it might be more like the newburgher. >> all right. sara frye is one of the largest pumpkin producers in the country for everyone from libby's to wall heart. she says the new, new thing is pumpkin oil so i asked her what do you use pumpkin oil for. >> i'm probably not going to comment on that. one of the most recent articles that i read that it was -- that it was pumpkin oil was being used for prostate health. >> well, i did ask. and as for the drought, what drought? the pumpkin crop is looking really good this year and guys, the usda says current retail prices for pumpkins are less than half what they were a year ago. back to you. >> did we learn, jane, that pumpkins are the new bacon? >> i think pumpkins are the new bacon, and here's the proof. seattle's best held a contest for the best new coffee. the winner -- pumpkin bacon coffee. it's called how to win a guy with one sip.

>> pumpkin bacon coffee. i don't know whether that's delicious or gross. >> combine them and you've got my ancestors. pumpkins. jane, thank you very much. sorry, grand map. still ahead, another black eye for blackberry. >> and we also go inside the iphone 5 again looking at a couple of pot stocks that are poised to pop. plus our next guest predicted the big boom in home building stocks. now that housing is picking up steam, we're going to press him for the next big idea. back in two. [ male announcer ] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles, like in a special ops mission? you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collateral damage. but rather than neutralizing enemies in their sleep,

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this is a happy friday street talk edition. quite a few blackberry users were not happy today all around the world. number of people really had a few hours of an outage. >> what else can you say about blackberry? they had another outage around the world. not here, you may not have felt it but in europe, the middle east, africa, they had problems. they pride themselves on their insurance ca international capability. citigroup reiterating, sell the stock. saying fundamentals keep getting worse. they actually note that rim may need to raise capital over the next couple of years and says it is not a buyout candidate.

rim down 6%. >> down 55% year to date. skywork solutions benefitting from apple's iphone 5 frenzy. >> it is all about the guts. both moving higher. iphone 5 uses some of those products. skyworks stock -- avago at 5.16%. it's almost 5.17%. skyworks also down. by the way, oppenheimer says the pullback in skyworks is overdone. even though the target was lowered from $35 to $32, that's still $6 more up side. >> a little apple factoid of the day -- the global launch started in sydney, australia. they had a whole countdown just like new year's. michael kors is a retailer we're watching today. big moves there. is there stock is up 5.5%.

it raised their second quarter forecast. analysts with a consensus of 36. can't get much hotter for michael kors. the stock's more than doubled year to date. zplin kr >> incredibly resilient. >> are they good? >> very nice products. not at the high en, but not at the bottom end. good stuff. expedia spiking on some positive analyst talk, deutsche bank upgrading from hold to buy. cantor fitzgerald with a buy on a $64 target. expedia, like michael kors, another stock that's doubled year to date. two stocks. the ticker is halo, and also viro farmer getting a heavenly

boost today. >> i got to admit, i don't understand the story at all. i don't understand the drug behind this story. the release was filled with all kind of very big word. here's what inthough. both stocks are rising. the fda lifting a temporary hold on -- they have a drug they are combining, they're working on together. there was a hold. that hold was lifted. it is a condition basically similar to hives. very, very awful, itchy thing. both viro pharma and halozyne therapeutics -- >> if you're a doctor, be a dermatologist. they go away but they keep on coming back. what may help the next slated recovery? something that's rather difficult to quantify. our real estate reporter diana olick is joining us from washington with a look at this emerging trend. >> reporter: mandy, it may be just something called cou

confidence. we had a lot of positive numbers in august. the home builder confidence surging, the question is, is this a temporary blip or are we really starting to see buyers come back? we know mortgage rates hit a record low this last week. they were already near record lows in august before the fed's qe3. if you look at august sales numbers, it is not about the mortgage rates at all. one-third of all buyers paid all cash and they were not all investors. real buyers are slowly coming back, this after investors ruled the roost over the past year. how do i know? take a look. in august, the mix of homes selling was more in the upper price ranges. that's sales of homes under $100,000 actually fell 5% year over year because fewer foreclosures are for sale. prices out west, down 40% from a year ago. while they are way up in the $250,000 to $500,000 range. so if regular buyers are in fact coming back, then confidence must be coming back. right? that's what we heard from one

potential buyer in chicago this week whose husband just got a new job. >> he came here with a job for double pay. i got a work transfer. we sent our daughter off to college and my other one is now in the local high school and she's blooming. so we couldn't ask for anything more. we just need a home. >> rising prices actually do a lot more than you think. not just up the value of your home. but they brought 1.3 million borrowers out of a negative equity position in the first half of this year. that according to core logic. home values rising also boosted the value of home equity by $400 billion. according to the fed. one caution though, losses in the stock market actually offset those in real home equity but it is still down when you think about it. home equity down $5.5 trillion from 2006. sorry, guys, just trying to keep it real. >> really keeping it a little too real for us sometimes, diana. thank you. nearly a year ago, your next

guest told you to buy the home builders. if you listened, you probably made it big. but what is he saying now? joining us, home building analyst of rbc capital markets. bob, it is not just this time last year. they've really picked up steam since the announcement of qe3 recently. but all the home builders here on your list have exceeded your price targets with the exception of 14 brands homes. are you revising your targets up or are you saying your gains are good, sell. >> i'll say this -- we're reviewing our price targets right now. we're excited that the stocks have had such a strong move since qe3 was announced. we think the fundamentals of the housing market definitely represent a bright spot in a sluggish economy. so we like what's going on. we think that there's still life left in the stocks. there's stem cell up side. no reason to sell out now. if the broader market continues to rally be we're confident that these stocks will continue to outpace the market. >> all of them or select stocks?

>> we have a very selective approach in general. our best idea for conservative investors in the housing sector is we like lennar. if you want to get more aggressive and turnaround story which is definitely improving its worth, strong management team, look at kb homes. if you're shifting over to billing products, we think usg has tremendous upside from current levels and is positioned to rally if we get another increase. fortune brands dominates the areas where it competes. if you're holding a stock for two to five years, looks to good growth. >> keeping it real, are there any you would say it is really a little too late to get in here? >> the whole point is this -- the entire sector, both building products, both housing stocks, have had a tremendous move. our question is these two sectors feel elevated right now but looking at the broader market you got to make the call how much exposure do you want to have given this huge rally we've

had. if the market continues with strength, these stocks will continue to outperform. >> lot of "ifs" there, bob. what would scuttle all this? >> our biggest concern is headwinds coming from softness in the labor market and anemic gdp growth. >> what about fiscal cliff? >> that's definitely an issue that would lead directly to weaker gdp performance. so there is a lot of uncertainty. we've made a lot of strong performance gains this year. what i think actually happens, as a lot of ambassadors will say, participate in the fourth quarter, we know valuations are high but if you're not going to invest, you can't catch the up side move. >> bob, thank you very much. speaking of of the halo, cramer has the ceo of pier 1 imports on "mad money." >> cramer's a big fan of this. i got a five spot for cramer if he does the interview in a papasan chair. maybe it is time to be out

with the new and in with the old when it comes to social and media investing. plus, they're used in all kinds of every day gadgets but china's got a stranglehold on them. we'll take a look at how corporate mirk's fighting back on that. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions... because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah. that's a very nice cake! [ male announcer ] well, you can't beat them. [ giggles ] ohh! you got something huh? whoa... [ male announcer ] humana understands the value of spending time together that's a lot of work getting that one in! let's go see the birdies. [ male announcer ] one on one, sharing what you know. let's do it grandpa. that's why humana agents will sit down with you, to listen and understand what's important to you. it's how we help you choose the right humana medicare plan for you.

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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. those years were crazy. 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.

welcome back to street signs. we found another bright spot in the market today. deutsche bank reversing course on packaging stocks, writing that they've been too cautious on this sector and that it is almost certain that significant price gains will be posted in trade papers this weekend. take a look at those stocks, all trading in positive territory. now, over to scott wapner for a look on what we're going to see on closing bell. scott? >> seema, coming up in about 15 minutes on "the bell," a new report suggesting mutual fund managers may be playing a high-stakes game of poker with your investments. is your nest egg not as safe as you thought? plus, companies paying out a record amount of special dividends. find out why that may be good news for investors but bad news for the economy. and we'll hear from one doctor who's pledging to cure cancer within a decade. and he's got $3 billion in funds

to back him up. first, more street signs with brian. see you in a bit. >> scott, thank you very much. we have seen a slew of recent ipos struggle from facebook, to groupon, to zynga. it is really a tech wreck. one older school tech company is hitting it out of the park. julia boorstin taking a closer look at this trend from l.a. >> reporter: brian, iec interactive corp. may not be a sexy high-flying start-up, but its portfolio of companies including ask, masks and city search is continuing to deliver strong results according to the ceo greg blad who spoke this morning. when it comes to local ads, which is a space that groupon and angie alist are both in, both stocks struggling since their ipos, iac avenue service magic is making money. "groupon got a lot of hype, but if you look at old-fashioned

making money, nobody's really doing it at scale." iec's shares have gained 30% in the past 12 months. while iac thrives, its focus is on digital media, disney shares continue to move up higher at another all-time high. up about 70% over the past 12 months. and cbs news shares are up 3.5% today on upbeat comments from les munvez yesterday. meanwhile, news corp.'s shares are also up about 55% over the past year. now brian, these may be old media companies, but with a little boost from new digital revenue, looks like what's old is new again. back over to you. >> julia, thank you very much. rare earth metals are used in pretty much everything from your smartphone to your car battery. but there is growing concern that china, which is, by the way, the world's biggest producer, is limiting access to

these mined elements. now big business is taking control and trying to kick our rare earth's addiction. it is today's scarcity solutions. from cell phones to ballistic missiles, rare earth elements make up the dna of our technological lives. but, china controls more than 90% of world production. >> china's really difficult to figure out since they have the lion's share of the market. in some cases they'll hold back, and other cases they'll put the market -- flood the market temporarily to see what the prices do. >> reporter: despite's china's recent export quarter increase, the first since 2005, experts in government and industry alike share concerns over access. the pentagon is looking for entrepreneurs to pitch in by making rare earths unnecessary. one start-up that's been ahead of the game is novatalk whose electric motors ditch rare earths for oxide, better known as -- when.

>> when we wear our stoves rare earth permanent magnet motors, we're about the same in terms of efficiency but we're much lower cost so we're a higher value. >> reporter: big tech is following suit. toshiba recently announced it is developing a motor that swaps chinese rare earth for one readily available in the u.s. and australia. >> companies like this will continue to find az to replace rare earth with other ready available materials. >> innovations like that will steer tech's dna away from rare earths. up next, hedge fund legend ray dalio telling cnbc about one of his major concerns. this is part of a rare and exclusive interview you will not want to miss. it has to do with what is going on in the middle east and elsewhere right now in the world. we'll debate what it means for your money and what it means for us in the united states. ♪ ♪ i can do anything

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i worry then about social disrupti disruption. i worry about another leg down in the economies causing social

disruptions, because de-leveragings can be very painful. it depends how they are managed. >> that is hedge fund manager ray dalio earlier today in an exclusive cnbc interview. he's concerned about violence around the world stemming from the financial crises we're seeing, and history says he's likely to be right, but will the hot spots cool off your money? let us bring in viva of stratford. you heard ray dalio, a respected investor, maybe one of the top ten investors around the world saying social unrest will be a problem going forward. is he right? >> absolutely he's right. there's a lot of ways to make sense of the social unrest. if you look at first the noisiest part of the world in the islamic belt, that's where we're looking at the second phase of the arab spring where the focus is shifting from the overthrow of repressive authorities to defining political values of the state where islamist forces are now in charge, and they don't deprive

power from strong state security apparatuses and foreign backing. they are deriving power from the street. that's what we're seeing the ire directed towards the united states, israel and the west overall this. will really become the new norm for the middle east. >> i want to ask you, a lot of flash points around the world, reva, not just the middle east. social unrest in places like india, for example. we're seeing unrest against japan in china. we're seeing unrest in europe as well. is there a common theme here i? understand that obviously the catalyst or ignition might be different, but there is a common "people" theme that a lot of these places are experiencing economic stress right now. >> absolutely, and so let's look at the china-japan dynamic over the senkaku islands, and that's where china on one level certainly benefits by framing japan as the perennially aggressor and using that as a distraction for those rising economic and social tensions at home, but that comes with a risk

because china has ratcheted up the tensions so much that it hasn't really given itself room to back down without appearing weak to its public, so the last thing the chinese leadership wants it for those protests to take on a mob mentality and have that be redirected toward the chinese party, the communist party. and so they are definitely in a difficult situation there. elsewhere in the world, certainly, we've seen social unrhett in the european periphery. that's likely to grow, and certainly that social unrest will catch up with the politics of the elite in many of these core countries in europe. >> can i extrapolate on that, reva. this is really crystal-balling here. i know that we've got an economy that's supposedly on the road to recovery. two steps forward, maybe one step back, but if we have continued economic sluggishness here, is thereto potential for social unrest in the united states as well? >> well, you know, we've seen manifestations of that in the form of various protest movements, but i don't think anything on the scale of what we're seeing elsewhere in the

world where those economic stresses run very, very deep. and in particular look at areas of the developing world. so like the emerging economies of the past decade like india. now, they are facing slower growth, yet they don't have the institutional strength, the infrastructural strength and the political cohesion to deal with the consequences of that slower growth. we just saw that this past week with very significant strikes and protests that paralyze cities across the country. >> fascinating topic. we'll continue to watch it, as we say, around the world. reva, thank you. coming up on the show, the results are in. >> stay tuned to find out who you, the viewers, thought had the biggest ego trip of the week. >> bags packed? yeah. tank filled up. check. who took off on the biggest ego trip this week? stay tuned for the big reveal. [ male announcer ] the 2013 smart comes with 8 airbags, a crash management system and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety.

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[ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. [ yawning sound ] [ male announcer ] the exceedingly nimble, ridiculously agile, tight turning, fun to drive 2013 smart. ♪ okay. what you're looking at is some incredible pictures of the space shuttle "endeavour." about to go into retirement. currently in the process of landing. it will be landing at l.a.x. and will be retired at a nearby space center and science center, but i believe it's called the california science center, and it's kind of sad. it's been 25 times into space, but its time is over. brian. >> very cool pictures there. >> yeah. >> earlier today we asked to you catch your vote