tv Fast Money CNBC November 28, 2012 5:00pm-6:00pm EST
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the world, thank you so much. thank you, gentlemen, that was great. thanks so much for joining us today. that does it for the "closing bell." "fast money" starts in a moment. the dow up 107 points today as the markets remain transfixed. >> and we're waiting for the ceos to come out of the white house. keep watching. >> fast starts now. >> it's a cliff hanger that won't end. >> it's all about the fiscal cliff. and, you know, it's amazing -- it's like the rest of the world has been sealed off. >> at least until the partisans in washington realize what's at stake. or should we say, if they do? >> senator reid basically said we're not going to have one. warren buffett talking about going over, probably going to happen, january. the dichotomy has changed. i thought it was on/off, now i feel like it's on, we're going to go over. >> business leaders pleading with the president right now. >> we're not telling people what to do. we're not in a position, we're not elected to do that.
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but we do have expertise, and the people who are legislating are right to ask our views. >> protecting and profiting from the fiscal cliff on "fast money" tonight. >> live from the nasdaq market site in new york city's time square, i'm melissa lee. just buy it fiscal cliff headlines are whipping the market. and swimming with the sharks, real estate mogul and shark tank star barbara corkwin. and about face, facebook shares hitting another multimonth high. should you be buying this turn around? we'll get the bull case with the shareholder of graykroft partne partners. president obama holding a summit at the white house as we speak with several ceos about how to fix the fiscal cliff. john harwood at the scene at the white house joining us now with
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the latest. john, what have you seen so far? >> reporter: well, a few minutes ago, a group of ceos including lloyd blankfein of goldman sachs, and others made their way down the white house driveway into that meeting, our own brian roberts from comcast. they're engaging in the private conversation where the president is trying to drum up air cover to get congress to go along with what he calls a fair and balanced approach. now, the president put public pressure on himself this afternoon by standing with a group of middle-class taxpayers behind him and saying he wants a deal and doesn't want to wait until new year's eve. >> our ultimate goal is an agreement that gets our long-term deficit under control in a way that is fair and balanced. that kind of agreement would be good for our businesses, good for our economy, it would be good for our children's future. and i believe that both parties can agree on a framework that does that in the coming weeks. in fact, my hope is to get this
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done before christmas. >> reporter: now, of course, that's a hope, but getting there is another story. this is very difficult to cross the partisan divide, the ideological divide and the divide of interest, melissa. you've got people who are going to pay real money one way or the other in lost benefits or higher taxes and bridging that divide is going to be difficult. you still have republicans striking a public posture saying they want more spending cuts from the administration and from democrats. democrats want republicans to prove more robustly than they have so far that they're willing to raise taxes. >> john, do you think this is a way of obama being able to point to these meetings when he softens his stance on, for instance, higher taxes for the very highest tax rate? maybe not 39 1/2, maybe more like 35, but he can say i met with these experts and they're the reason i'm backing off of that? >> reporter: no, i don't think he would do that. that would not be a good political strategy because wall street the among the most unpopular segments with the
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american public. and the president's stance right now for raising taxes for people at the top of the income scale is very popular with the public. what he's got to do is convert that into to effective support in congress while also getting people in his own party to agree to cuts in these spending programs, especially the entitlements of medicare and social security which are so explosive in their costs. >> all right, john, thanks a lot for giving us the latest there. john harwood from the white house. and of course, as ceos come walking out of that meeting, we'll bring you the latest from there. fear of gridlock in d.c. causing a big exodus in stocks. $9 billion flowed out of u.s. equities last week, the biggest outflow this year matched only by the week before the presidential election. so is this rational behavior? or perhaps a lost opportunity here? and it's important to see where the inflows were too. the biggest inflows were to money market funds. and that is --
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>> that's rash -- >> yeah, just go to cash. i'm cashing out. >> they may be costing you money to put your money in the mutual funds. and this is the problem because monetary policy has gotten in the way of fiscal policy. and in fact, if you look at today's market. today was all about monetary policy reversing course of the s&p when, in fact, all we should be talking about is fiscal policy and we can't get anything done. >> doesn't it stand to the point of how desperate people are to hold on to their cash? it mean, we've seen this. there's always a reason to wait, always a reason to stop trading, always a reason to move to the sidelines. and you keep getting them time after time after time. you have the election, you have fiscal cliff, you have tax policy. people still don't know -- it's such a tough trading environment for professionals. so the retail investor takes his money, takes his chip off the table. >> we should know too this data is mutual funds plus etfs. we don't know what the breakdown is at this point. it could be mostly etfs which could be the vehicle as opposed to a retail investor who holds
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most of his or her stock holdings at any one time in retirement savings. >> but we have seen flash crash. if you talk to the average investor, a lot of the stuff is so confusing as i said before to the professional trader that the retail investor can't help but say, you know what? let me just wait one more month. >> and you actually saw this over the last month, and the day after the election when we had the big selloff, you did not see the bond market respond at all, or at least very little. the market was down, the stock market was down 1%, 2%, the bond market barely budged. in the past, that would mean generally speaking you have that asset allocation. everybody's waiting for money to come out of bonds and into the stocks. this to me is going to be tough sledding for stocks, you're going to have a tough time having a sustainable rally if everybody are just getting away from the capital markets. anything that sustains is going to be very difficult if people are not participating. >> interesting also to dig deeper into where the sectors saw outflows.
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utility funds, 38-week highs in terms of redemptions out of those funds and real estate funds, 20-week high redemptions. >> well, one of the important things there, these were crowded trades, things that started to work early in the year. and the outflows, we have one month left in the year. and if you've performed well, an constitutional investor, you know, this is the time of year where you don't want to make mistakes. given all the uncertainty. like tim's point about the negative return being in money market funds, fine, you know, like, here's the thing, let's not screw anything up in the last month, especially when we're heading into one of the most controversial decembers we've had in a long time. >> let's get to our next guest because he says running away from stocks might not be the best move right now, at least when you look at the charts. let's bring in mike harris. what are you seeing that makes you want to be long the s&p and nasdaq right now? >> well, if you look at our systematic trend following models, it's been a very different story than when i last
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talked to you a few months ago. because back in july, august, and september, we were following a medium term trend to the upside but the long-term and short-term trends were firmly to the upside. what's changed? well the long-term trend is in place. the s&p up 17%. but on the medium term side, we've seen a 9% pullback between the september highs when qe-3 was announced and the november lows just two weeks ago. on the short-term, we have about a 5% pop developing here over the last two weeks, so my medium and long-term signals are canceling out and it's my short-term models leading me to be long. it's a cautious long but we're following the short-term trend to the upside in the equity markets, both the s&p and the nasdaq. >> mike, i agree with your cautious long. and i look at low or highs. where is your level when we saw 1,343 in the s&p cash, where is your level where you say, okay, i'm going to bail on this market because obviously if we trade below 1,383 it opens the door to that 1,343, 1,346.
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>> well, i think two of the major levels to watch for are the 100 and 200-day average. you've got the 200-day moving average which you mentioned 83, i think 81 will probably be a bigger level, but certainly as we get through there, i would see a short-term model starting to reestablish a short position and taking our portfolio in that direction. i think the other big level which was a huge level today was that 1,405 with the 100-day moving average comes in. we'd have a hard time getting through that. we got through that today, closing at 1,407, which i think was a bullish short-term signal. now we'll target that 50-day moving average up at 1,417. >> mike, it's brian kelly. you say you're cautious and long in stocks. how is your waiting in stocks now compared to what it normally is? secondly, where are you most heavily weighted in the world markets? >> well, as a managed future
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investment manager, we invest across four asset classes, fixed income, currencies, commodities, and equities. on average about 25% of our risk is in the equity markets. now, as i said, you know, two months ago where the long-term, short-term, and medium terms were to the upside, we've been scaling back on that as the medium-term trend has developed to the downside. the position now is not what it used to b. i think from a macro standpoint, we've been talking about the fiscal cliff for i don't know how long. i've seen this movie before. it looks like the debt debacle from last summer. though they're cautious and nervous about the prospects over the next few weeks, they think that nobody in washington wants to take us over the edge. so i think we all secretly hope and believe there will be resolution there, which will continue to take equities higher. >> yeah, but seeing this movie before means there would be no resolution. i'm not sure exactly what your point is. i agree, this is where people are a bit freaked out. the problem here is you've got
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the fed who is ready to blow you out of the water at every turn. and i think that's what people have to be careful about. >> well, i think from a fed perspective, and i think the article in the journal this afternoon confirmed it. there's more bond buying on the horizon. whether you want to call it q qe-infinity or qe-4. we may hear that operation twist gets moved over to qe-3 and that equals qe-4, and with more bond purchases, i believe risky assets will continue to trend higher. >> mike harris of campbell. mike likes precious metals long gold as well as silver. coming up next, not just a real estate mogul and one of the best known entrepreneurs in the country, she's also a shark. >> the best thing i can do for you that this guy cannot do is i am a genius marketer. i am. i have it in my bones, in my blood and it always works i'm never wrong. >> coming up, the one and only
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barbara corkran brings her shark instincts to "fast" and reveals whether you can believe in this housing recovery story, and that's next. day, it's not just t who lives in the white house, it's about who lives in the yellow house, the green, and the apartment house, too. today we not only honor the oval office, but we honor the cubicle, and the home office as well. because today it's about all of us. and no matter who you are, you're the commander-in-chief of your own life. ♪ or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series
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disney getting a pop in after hours session. >> well, melissa, we talk about special dividends and how a lot of companies are doing that. but those companies that aren't doing that, they're also just boosting their existing dividend. disney one example, the stock boosting a dividend of 60 cents to 75 cents, that's a 25% jump. you can see the stock reacting, investors are happy with that. if you're a shareholder on december 10th, you get paid out on december 28th before that new year. housing has been a point of economic strength this year, but data suggests the industry could be facing head winds. new home sales dropping slightly in the month of october. december sales revised sharply lower, as well, and proposed reforms on that looming fiscal cliff could mean the end of at least some home mortgage interest deductions. how will these challenges impact the housing recovery?
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let's bring in barbara corcoran, head of the corcoran group, also a star investor on the reality show "shark tank." always great to see you. in terms of the interest rate deduction, if that gets capped or -- >> i don't think the impact is going to be very big. one, i don't think they're going to throw the whole thing out, it's a political hot cake. nobody has succeeded in doing it. i think what's going to happen, it's going to fall same place that all of obama's stuff falls on which is going to target the high-income person. so maybe the second home deduction will be dropped totally, or maybe the $1 million ceiling will be dropped so that the lower class and middle class are not hurt at all. i don't think you're going to be seeing that go away. >> really. okay. at what level. if it is capped, if overall deductions are capped, is there a level you're saying if it's capped this much, maybe there will be an impact because people won't have as much to use against their mortgage. >> well, certainly the higher-priced homes can weather
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that storm much more easily. certainly with high-priced homes, you don't have to worry about it. the lower the price of the home, the less they are going to be willing to even touch it and those people can't afford it. >> we've seen a lot of multi-family building here going on in the city -- >> surprisingly so. >> and home prices are so cheap you're saying it's a great time to buy a home. at what point are we looking at a bubble in apartment buildings? >> you're not going to have to worry about apartment buildings for the next two years. it's not about the appetite to build them, it's about the bank's willingness to lend to them and that's been a bottleneck and a problem. there could be so many more new developments if we had the funding for it, but we don't have it out there. people, particularly the financial people are still frightened. >> barbara, this is one of those moments where because rates are so cheap it almost feels like if you can, and i mean borrow, you should and as much as you can. >> well, you're sounding like a real estate broker before the bubble burst, you know. >> i've listened to you on the show. >> but, you know what? i agree with you whole
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heartedly. you have a 30% reduction in sale price, you have cheap money around, you have a shortage of inventory, you have 9 out of 10 markets -- >> shortage of inventory. i don't think people would think that's intuitive. >> you don't think that until you go out shopping for that house. right now 9 out of 10 markets if you go shopping out for a house you'll be overbid on at least one deal. there's no better medicine in the world than somebody being overbid on a house to say, whoa, i guess the bottom is really here. >> what do you do, though, do you wait for the vacation property with the ultra rich going to hit maybe a little bit so on that second property -- >> if you're like tim -- >> he wants to know. >> if you're like the other guys at the table sitting on a ton of cash, do you buy a multi-family apartment right now? >> you know what i was sitting on a ton of cash, i'd go out and buy a beach front property. why? because you're going to get them on 50% off the dollar. best time to do it. second, if you're too afraid -- >> is that because of sandy, by the way? >> no, it's shaking, but it's all temporary.
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people get frightened when there's a catastrophe and they heal the minute they see the ocean view again six months out and fall in love all over again. and if i was too afraid to buy that house, i would buy a second home. it's the last piece of the real estate market that hasn't totally hit bottom, but check two months from now, the minute that spring market hits, those prices are racing away, as well. >> are you better off -- does it matter at all if you're buying a second home versus upgrading to a bigger house for yourself? >> well, right now, if you were upgrading to a bigger house it's such a smart move. even if you sell your house at a 10% loss, you buy the bigger house at 10% off, it's a win-win. and the smartest woman asking the smartest question. >> well, i'm the only woman too, that helps. >> now -- >> and the prettiest. >> out of all the people you work with, who is the biggest schmuck. >> on "shark tank," not here. >> i thought you were talking new york, i was going to say
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donald trump. >> you all look like great people, but it works well on the show. >> how would you define that word? >> we love each other and i keep talking, i don't have to answer that question. >> and -- >> do i have to answer it? >> no. >> we're waiting, but eh, if you don't want to. in terms of the housing recovery, we got those housing numbers today that were impacted by sandy. some people were saying maybe they're a little softer because of sandy. at the same time, we have september revised lower, should we be a little bit concerned that there's a touch of a slowdown in this recovery within the context of recovery. >> you get any stack of numbers from anyone they differ between another stack of number. you can assess it, analyze it to death and read into it what you want. you can say sandy's at fault here, not at fault, i'm telling you, the housing market is stronger than people think it is. the price appreciation you're going to see over the next few years unless i don't know a thing about real estate. i made my living my whole life and i'm usually right, it's going to go much higher than people anticipate. if you look at the latest zillow
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report, 12 out of 12 months appreciation, if that's not a trend, that should put all the naysayers to bed, what? it's a great time to buy and a terrible time to sell. unless you're going to wait awe few months then you're going to get more for it tomorrow. >> barbara, always good to see you. thanks for your time. coming up next, it's cheers for one of our traders and jeers for the others. and later, the biggest pops and drops you might have missed in today's session. stay tuned. i always wait until the last minute.
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comments, and it's interesting you asked her about rentals and the point at which there's a tipping point in terms of overbuilding because there's so much building going on. >> and if you look at the cap rates, it's a great investment at this point if you're going to be in the multi-family space, but there is a point where as housing prices go up, people start saying, you know what? i've got to get in to this market and you can have that overbuilding. so i would be concerned in terms of the reit space. they've had an incredible run. i'd certainly be taking some off the table, they pay a big dividend, but i would take at least 1/3 to 2/3 off the table in that space. >> i love cement here and cemex announced -- that's right, i love cement. >> do we have that on tape? >> cemex raising u.s. cement prices by 20%, these guys are globally focused. the story, it's a balance sheet cleanup, they sold off their latin american business, it's what we call transformational story. take a look, it's had a big run, but, again, major, major affiliation with u.s. housing market.
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>> some of these home builders, they're up 100% year-to-date here. and if they're not really discounting some percentage of this recovery that we're talking about, you know, to me, i think they're getting a little extended. and going back to the fiscal cliff conversation and, you know, about capital gains, if you bought this stock, lenar, for instance, you have fabulous gains. if you think we're going over this cliff, december could be a rocky month for some of these stocks that have really big gains. to me, i don't get how the u.s. housing market is decoupled from all the problems we have in the world. no growth in em or slowing growth, and a stagnant recovery in the u.s. >> a name that seems to have held in there pretty well. and i was with dan, as well. selling a lot of these home builders, i would have said, you know, sell them, take your profit. and you didn't do yourself a disservice by doing that, but home depot continues to outperform. i think the storm changed everything on that, as well. so you get double bang for your buck. home depot, not safe money, nothing is safe money when you're in the equity market but it's pretty close to it. >> scott nations, how are you
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playing the housing recovery? >> well, i think what dan says is interesting, these home builders had a great year, they've had a tough november. d.r. horton, for example, both had a really tough november. they both bottomed and coming back a little bit. because of the volatility in this space and the fact we don't know what's going to happen until the end of the year, i think the way to play this is buy some calls, at the money calls, you're not risking a whole lot of money, you get the upside but you actually protect yourself if there's another big downdraft in these names. options in these names are not cheap, but you know, it's a whole lot cheaper than, say, giving back another 20%. >> yeah, good point there. all right. talk about a big mover, shares of costco jumping more than 4% today. the company announcing it'll take on more debt to pay a special cash dividend of $7 a share. and the company isn't the only one borrowing to pay a special dividend to pay back. choice hotels, hca and town sports international have all made similar moves. so what other companies might follow suit? now, the important thing to, of
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course, think about is how much leverage a company already has and citi actually pointed that out in a research note today. not only should it have a lot of cash in the balance sheet, of course, high insider ownership because then it would -- >> they really benefit. >> exactly. they would benefit from any sort of tax advantage, but also what leverage they have. under two times leverage is sort of the key number they're looking for, and they have their own list which is also interesting. what jumped out at you, dan? >> well, to me, i think the idea of taking out debt to pay back shareholders is ridiculous. to me, you know, we saw this in '06 and '07. a lot of companies were basically hitting the debt markets so they could buy back their stocks at multi-year highs. and to me, that's a bull market move. it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense. unless you have cash burning a hole in your balance sheet. >> and corporate america -- interest rates are 600 basis points less than they were in 2006. and this isn't even a -- this is a capital structure thing. this is purely about taking advantage, this is companies being opportunistic, this is
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cfos earning their money. i think this makes a ton of sense just because, in fact, if i'm an insider or shareholder, this is much more valuable cash to me right now. >> and it doesn't matter if they're sitting on a ton of cash, they're refinancing it. if you have that lower interest rate, it makes a ton of sense to do it. get that money back into shareholders' pockets. it's great for equity holders, negative for bondholders. but you've never seen interest rates as low as this. >> do we have a short memory here. didn't we go through one of the most dramatic de-leveraging -- >> hold on a second -- >> the problem is on the sovereign level now. the problem is not on the corporate level -- never been more cash -- >> take a look again at the full screen of the companies. a lot of these companies are extreme -- they have basically no debt on their balance sheet. best buy is one of those ones on the full screen. all right, maybe that's not the best one given the situation. but its leverage is under one time. historically -- these are probably very, very low leverage levels.
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>> where you think these are going to happen, i would look to the names that have a ceo or a family that's part of it that's very strong. and they would benefit the most. i think that's a lot of what the citigroup was talking about to me. the two that stuck out was oracle and walmart. oracle could certainly do it, and i think that's where you start to look at this time. you've only go three or four more weeks. >> i found it odd that yahoo was mentioned as a possibility, as well where they monetize that. so i thought that was an interesting play, as well. what's going on with that stock. >> yeah. about time. oracle is one of those names on that research note, one of the names of companies that could issue debt to pay a special dividend. scott, let's go to you, unusual options activity in the name today. >> that's right, with $30 billion on the balance sheet, oracle makes all the sense in the world as a special dividend candidate. and we saw some people playing that today. now, put selling is a great way to take advantage of a stock that's going to go higher or
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sideways and we saw some of that in oracle. we saw somebody sell 6,000 of the march 28 puts, collected 49 cents for celling those puts. they think oracle will be at or above 27.51 at that march expiration. and we've seen a bunch of these special dividend candidates jump when they actually announced the dividend. and these puts will be profitable if oracle does that. if oracle pops, these puts are going to be worth less money, the seller will buy them back at a discount, make money coming and going. so oracle with $30 billion on the balance sheet is a great name to look for for a special dividend. >> let's take a break here. is groupon ceo andrew mason close to taking a fall for the woes. he'll weigh in on if and when we could see a new groupon ceo right after this.
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>> owns nearly 6%, and timken spin off their specialty steel company, and this makes a lot of sense because it's not the core of what they do. gold dropped today 1% decline. >> yeah, down quite a bit more than that. there was a big seller early in the morning, that bounced back. i actually think probably silver's your levered way to play this. it didn't go down as much and rebounded faster. >> pop for aeo. >> i was a lot more bullish on the stock around the $15 level. i want to be buyer of the stock, seller of abercrombie. now i'm reversing that. i'd lock in profits aeo if you haven't already. >> green mountain coffee up 17%, tim? >> what do these guys do? just kidding. surge in k-cup sales, fourth quarter fiscal, these guys are definitely going higher. this is a stock not for the weak of heart, the short interest is still high, i think you can ride
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it. >> pop for abercrombie up 2%, dan? >> yeah, like grasso just said, up in sympathy with american eagle outfitters, better than expected results. this stock up almost 50% in the last month since they reported better than expected results. filling that earnings gap from may i think is getting a bit extended here. this would be one if you have gains off the bottom. >> and we've got a drop for baby names. this newborn sured up plenty of followers in life. you're looking at a picture of hash tag jameson. last year, an egyptian man named his daughter facebook. oh, gosh, awful. >> and an israeli couple named their kid like after the website's like button. hash tag hash tag trending now. >> hash tag smooth. coming up next, find out
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ipo'ed a year ago. it would be weird if the board wasn't discussing whether i'm the right guy to do the job. >> that was groupon's ceo andrew mason addressing speculation that his job could be on the line in an interview at a business insiders ignition conference earlier today. following the comments, the stock took off ending the day higher than 11%. joining us with more on this interview is editor in chief business insider henry blodget. >> thank you for having me. >> started off this saying there's going to be a meeting tomorrow of the board's regularly scheduled meeting, but this is going to come up. what did you glean from this interview? do you think it is, in fact, on the table? >> i think so. and i think he acknowledged that. and i have to say kudos to him showing up. the typical corporate response would be to go in the fetal position and disappear and say, oh, scheduling conflicts. he came out and said of course we would be talking about that and of course they would be talking about that.
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and then the question is, is he the right guy for the job? and that is a legitimate question. >> and it was great the way he responded to it. because that really did contribute to the stock going higher. but the next step here would be to inspire the confidence of analysts and investors on wall street. and part of that is taking the helm at a conference call and actually speaking knowledgeably about the business and its vision. and that's what analysts say has not happened in the past. >> that's right, and one of the reports that came out yesterday pointed to exactly that. they said, look, things are not as bad as the stock would have you believe and andrew's not doing good enough job of saying, look, the business is still growing, people are acting like it's going to zero, and certainly the shareholders would like to see more of that. >> and they have over $2 billion in sales, this year they have, they have $1.2 billion of cash on their balance sheet. i would think there's a lot of opportunity here. whether you agree with their current business plan or not, i mean, you know, at one time groupon's core business sounded really exciting, less so now. >> what do you do with a company
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like this? >> do what they're doing, say, do we have the right person in charge? the real problem is the business in europe. they bought many companies, put them together, they were built to sell, but the whole thing is collapsing. the core business is all right. they started this new business, which is goods, it's actually doing well, and as you pointed out, this company's 3 years old, it's doing $2.5 billion in revenue and $6 billion of gross merchandise sales. that's not a disaster. >> and i'm coming from the cheap seats in this, but why can't they have major competitors? coming in and stealing their lunch? and why ultimately isn't their model dead and isn't this a dead company? to me it appears that the business they're in, first of all, manufacturers themselves could be in this business and it would be a good idea. >> because they have aggregated all of the lists. a couple of years ago there were 100 competitors who jumped into this. daily deals, they're growing so fast.
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they got huge, got the capital, got out there and got profitable, which so many people said they couldn't do. the daily deals business obviously has some things to work through. unhappy customers, but they have killed the competition. now they've launched this goods business. the folks who said, look, they'll never make money, it's a ponzi scheme were way too wrong way too negative. >> steve grasso said that. >> so if, mason -- let's say mason isn't the guy for the job, is there a short list? >> i don't know. it's a good question, but it's a turn-around situation right now and europe is the crisis and then it is really pulling the whole company together and building -- they're in 25 countries or something like that. it's incredibly big already. >> we saw the magic a new ceo could have on a stock when we saw marisa meyer taking the helm. what's your take on where it is now? it does seem it's a little bit of a stretch in terms of the rally we saw -- >> well, i work for yahoo and
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own the stock and have since the '90s, the legacy position i've had forever. i don't want to say it's overdone. look, yahoo has a huge asset, which is 700 million people use the site worldwide. nobody else is duplicating that. facebook went by it, different business. but yahoo is holding that business. they should be able to build a good business out of that. and when the stock was trading in the low teens, basically investors were saying the core business is worthless. i hope with her at the helm, she's doing a great job so far, we can build value. >> facebook is another one of the social stocks left for dead at some point and seems to be finding new life. what's your take -- we had you on that night of the facebook ipo. so what's your take now? >> well, at the ipo, i think i hope i said clearly it's going public at a perfect price, everything had to go perfectly, it didn't, obviously, everything's been slowing down. what everybody's focused on now is mobile. the new mobile ads seem to be working. facebook's in a great position for that. ill still think the stock's
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expensive. it's going to trade at 15 to 20 times earnings at some point. it is now trading at 40 to 50 times earnings. the question of whether the earnings can grow fast enough to offset that. >> henry blodget, what did you see in terms of the options activities in the past couple of months? >> yahoo is one where some investors got in early. i think, you know, it's one of those stocks where it's trade $15, $16, you could load up and buy the 1920 calls to lever up the long position and that's paid off very quickly. facebook has been a very, very active trader. and so in a lot of ways you've seen some people monetizing that levered up, they own that stock and you can buy calls and you could get some juice on the upside, you're seeing people come out of those calls right now. >> it's interesting on monday night yahoo, long-term resistance in the name is $19.15. trading right up to $19.16. keep your eye on this level because if it breaks through here, it's off to the races
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middle 20s if it doesn't, we're right back down the ladder. >> cheap seats meaning you don't own the stock? is that what you mean? >> i don't -- >> and he's got a cheap seat. >> and, again, it's to me a business that i think has at least got enough competition especially from the people whether it's amazon or people on a localized basis offering these kinds of deals. >> let's get a market flash here on big retail names moving. >> hey, melissa, it's a tail of two retailers, aeropostal and guess. you can see a difference performance for the stock, aro beat on the top and bottom line, but slashed guidance saying in the post sandy retail environment, it's going to be tough. guess also didn't have a great quarter, but it had a special dividend, $1.20 per share and the stock market is happy about that, melissa. >> thanks for that. coming up next, a high flyer and a game of hold 'em, fold 'em. >> i love that.
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let's play with two stocks hitting new highs as well as new lows. cliffs natural resources falling to a 52-week low, the lowest level since october of 2009. grasso? >> first of all, i was long cliff, i sold it for a profit, but held on to a small piece. i'm still a hoper here. it's all based on iron ore. >> holder or hoper? >> both, radio igt? >> once you're a hoper, you're in trouble. if you look at iron ore, it's bottomed. does that equate to higher prices for cliff? not just yet, but i'm going to give it another couple of weeks. i think going into year end, december positive month for the market, i think i have a shot here. on a small sliver of what i'm holding. >> you're holding, but you're ready -- >> i'm a hoper, but if you're out there, i wouldn't be based on buying it now. i have a small profit, so i'm playing with the house's money. let's move on to expedia hitting a 52-week high. up 143% from a year ago. >> 52-week high, all-time high,
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112% year-to-date, making new all-time highs, they've been crushing numbers all yearlong. if you look at the chart, there's a consistent gaps on every earnings. here's the thing, right, i don't buy stocks up 112%. this company is still growing, expected earnings growth of 18% next year, sales growth of 14%, trading at 17 times, seems reasonable for that growth. this is the sort of stock you want to buy on a broad market pullback if you're looking to get back in. >> what does that mean in terms of our game hold them or fold them? >> i think you have to. >> you fold them -- >> with an eye of holding later on. >> yeah, holding and i'm folding. >> would you take famous actors and cowboys for 300 if given the chance? >> he might -- >> wow. >> the only thing more fun than "hold 'em or fold 'em" is playing "the good, the bad, and the ugly." >> watch this tumble weed.
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there it is. >> let's play. first up, the good, with our own dan nathan. last week despite jc penney's troubles this year, dan thought the stock was right for a long trade. >> not as an investment, but a trade. jc penney i want to buy a little stock and get exposure into what could be a little bit of an overdone situation, 40% short interest, maybe a little bit of good news in december. >> well, he actually turned out to be right. jc penney was one of the best performers in the s&p -- >> wow. >> go figure. >> i asserted that ad libbing and then i realized the meaning behind it. maybe that was subconscious, maybe not, but it was actually one of the best performers. >> the next one is believe it or not, dan's right. >> let's play another one, trade school here -- >> ah -- >> here's one. this is not a company, i don't believe in their turn around, i think the sentiment got so bad the stock was really in a death spiral over the last few weeks, i think for me, as we were entering into the holiday
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season, the least bit of good news could have this stock up. i ended up buying calls, spreading into a call spread and i'm going to hang out a little bit. i think it could get north of 19, but i think 20 will probably be the near term. >> if we wanted to cross pollinate the segments, marry them, you would hold on to this trade? >> yeah, today was the stock up up 6% at one point for no reason. it's a whippy stock, you take what the market is giving you. in the hot seat, cross pollinating, why not? hybrids all the rage. in the hot seat, tim seymour. back in october, you thought microsoft was a buy. >> i like it. valuation wise, you're in a great place here. you're not buying an expensive stock that's had a major run. in fact, in terms of the chart, a great place to be buying. >> sales of the surface tablet off to a modest start according to the company's ceo steve balmer, shares have stumbled recently and down 7% since tim's
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call. soou do? >> well, i think a couple things happening that are very positive. the windows phone is selling and htc and nokia have fantastic phones selling out all over asia. and i think this foray is more than just a foray, i think these guys are nailing it on the windows phone. i think windows 8 is picking up speed, i think at 3.5% dividend yield is worth owning, p/e right in line with the five-year average. and possibly more cash flow accretion being -- as a tail wind, i'd stay in this name. >> coming up next hour on "mad money," cramer's hitting the grocery aisles. plus, one stock that's soared higher leaving most people to say, what the heck? jim's navigating through the facts to find out why and if it can go even higher all coming up top of the hour on "mad money." coming up next, though, a jackpot version of "the final trade." stick with us. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 this morning, i'm going to trade in hong kong.
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or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use. it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing. all right. it is time now for a very, very special edition of "the final trade." the power ball jackpot is at a record $550 million, and though your odds are about 175 million to one, we asked our traders what they would buy if they struck it rich.
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we want to go around the horn. scott nations, kick it off for us. >> i'd buy tivo, and with $550 million, i could come close to buying a controlling interest. tivo is a company that changes your relationship with tv. why they don't control the world and have all the money in it, i don't understand, but i could give the company a kickstart, and i think that's what it needs. >> and you get free tivos for everyone. >> you know, the one thing about winning the lottery, almost like having your own printing press. i would actually go over to japan and look at japan because they're going to have to print an awful lot of yen. >> i thought they were. >> they're going to have to print some more. there was report last evening that the bank of japan is very undercapitalized, lowest capital in 30 years, they're going to print a lot of yen, great for the stock market, dxj, name i've talked about, short yen, long japanese stocks, great trade. >> only if you won the lottery? >> no. i'd do it bigger. >> okay. >> how come we've never heard
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the idea -- >> yes? >> how come we've never heard the idea about a fiscal cliff lottery? how come they don't have a deficit reduction lottery? >> where all the proceeds go to the fiscal cliff? >> why not? >> a.k. steel. >> all right. >> and i'm funding my own lottery. >> you want to buy everything. i mean, to me, if i win that $500 million i'm going to take $100 million and short the heck out of amazon and set it and forget. >> good luck. >> through options or actual shorts? >> well, i would buy tons of put premium and lay all over it. >> no one's tried to short amazon. >> yeah, it's always worked out too. >> why don't you go smaller cap? >> i'm buying msg. as far as i'm concerned, it needs to be run better, there's a new who concert next week, i would solve the nhl -- >> buy another shirt, tie -- >> hopefully. >> garbage on the players strike, by the way. i think dolan has run the franchises into the ground, but we're on the way back up. i could do a lot for the garden and get great seats
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