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. $5,000 a week. how much columbia's dining hall spends on nutella. it costs the school 250,000 per year and the dining hall has no intentions of cutting inventory. instead, they are planning on limiting the amount of other high-demand items such as lobster tails and to give a little more light to our nutella addiction, one jar is sold every 2.5 seconds. delicious. let's take a look at what's happening with the markets. we're up for a third straight day in terms of the dow hitting a record high. we're currently up by about 33 points getting a little bit more steam here. nasdaq also higher along with the s&p 500. nasdaq a fresh 12-year high. thanks so much for watching "street signs." "closing bell" is coming up next, i'm going to go and eat my jar of nutella now.

hi, everybody. we're into the final stretch. welcome to a special edition of the "closing bell" today. i'm maria bartiromo at the new york stock exchange. we are in the green once again. >> i was going to say -- >> all-time record high. >> i was going to say it gets boring but it doesn't get boring. as the continued rally continues, our former boss, former ge ceo jack welch is coming up along with the current black rock ceo larry fink in a "closing bell" exclusive. they will be here covering topics from the banks, to the economy, stock market, the debt and deficit. you do not want to miss that coming up on today's program. >> oh, yeah, and dr. doom himself, marc faber is with us. he told me last month this market was going south. of course, it's gone nowhere but north since. we're going to talk about that with him, and now he's coming back to explain his call and

will defend. it not backing down one bit. marc faber here coming up later in the program. >> looking forward to that. always provocative, and a brawl over billions. saudi prince alwaleed is furious with "forbes" for apparently undervaluing his fortune. steve forbes on this program earlier this week dismissed those charges, but today the prince's chief financial officer for kingdom holdings makes his case exclusively on the "closing bell." >> he says he just doesn't like the methodology. tell us where we stand as we approach the final stretch on wall street. as you can see, we've seen the market come off the highs for the day seeing the double-digit move up 25 points on dow jones industrial average. uncharted territory and nasdaq composite higher, though, it, too, off the best levels with a gain in the session of 7.5 and s&p 500, 2.75 points higher on the standard & poor's. in today's "closing bell" exchange, jack abalin with bmo,

rick fehr, mark auto from knight capital and our own rick santelli. good to see everybody. >> welcome, guys. >> thanks so much for joining us. >> good to be here. let me start actually on the flow, mark otto. you are there and where are you seeing the money move today given the fact that we're in uncharted record territory once again? do you see anybody pulling back thinking perhaps valuations are getting stretched here? >> well, we're still seeing a rally in text. consumer discretionaries and industrials. i think if we'd see a pullback we'd see a shift of momentum into defensive stocks from here. >> we hear the bias is to the downside, but this market is holding in here, mark. >> certainly, is but the breadth of the market which for the past couple of days went from 3-1 or 2-1, a little less than 2-1 winners to losers. >> jack, all sitting here marveling at the continuation of this rally wondering when twa is it going to go? even the guys still long this market sort of have their hands

and their fingers waiting for this thing to go. what are you doing right now? >> we've hit our year-end target already, bill, and we're not going to sell and declare victory yet. i think ultimately it may be up to the fed. i mean, the fed started this whole thing by creating aggressively low interest rates relative to stocks, and it's ultimately likely going to be the fed that really pulls -- pulls the punch bowl away here because, you know, they realize they are creating some froth. you know, we're looking at high-yield bond yields that are lower than the cash flow yield of the stock market. that's never happened. >> what do you mean? so what's the point there that you are looking at in. >> so what that msnbc to me ean lbo, the entire 500 level, still have money left over because, again, you can -- or just take the dell deal, for example. before dell was announced, you

know, ten-year dell bonds were trading at 2.5%. cash flow yield on dell stock was over 17%. so even if you believe dell is the blockbuster video of the computer world, there's still a lot of cash flow there to nurse until it winds down. >> rick fehr, what are you doing with this market here? mean, so many people as jack has identified, they know it's about the fed but they keep wondering when is the fed going to start to pull back on the interest rates and all the liquidity, and what's that going to do to the market here? >> yeah, i mean. what we're seeing is you just can't sell this market. if you're long, you have to say, it and you might be reluctant long, but to try to trade it and try to sell something and get back into it on the pull barks. the pullbacks are so shallow and so short term that it's just not worth it. never become profitable trades, and you just wind up frustrating yourself so what we're telling our clients is, you know, stay long, maybe move up your stop loss points as the market keeps rising, but, i mean, even three

weeks ago when we started to think about maybe starting to hedge, we saw the bullish percent go from 54 down to the low 40s. we saw the bearish sentiment increase. we saw the people expecting a correction increase and it's a contrary indicator, and you can't sell that type of market and you reluctantly stay long. >> you don't want to fight the fed here. rick santelli, let's talk about tomorrow. we've got the unemployment numbers out tomorrow. that's likely going to set the tone. what are you expecting? what kind of a move in that number actually gets these markets to react? >> well, there's very little doubt that one of the reasons we're testing 2% today again is because yesterday's adp number was definitely better than expected and tomorrow the whisper number, around here anyway, about 200,000, even though conventional wisdom still at the 160,000 non-farm headline area. i think anything over 225,000 will give you the same dynamic we had in adp, and i think that would give us a close around 205

to 208 which isn't huge, but it would still represent a new high close, and i think anything based on old expectations of around 160,000 at this point is going to be a little bit disappointing, and when it comes to the unemployment rate, i will handicap whether it's real or memorex by looking at things like the labor force participation rate and i'm sure i'll be joined in that exer size by ben bernanke who now has some flesh in the game about the unemployment rate. >> let me stay with you, rick, because this morning mario draghi, ben bernanke's counterpart in europe, said, you know, things are getting back on track after the dislocation in italy. he's not going to cut rates right now again. how much of that is a support for the markets right now, do you think? >> well, i'll tell you what. the euro had a lot of short bias in it for laying the groundwork for a potential ease, so i think it has a lot to do with at least the dollar index part of the equation, to some extent what's going on in fixed income.

all you have to do is look at the dollar index from mid-november to today, and it's been a rocket ship, and a lot of that has to do with what's going on in the euro and the yen in the same time period. don't underestimated power of europe to affect our markets. >> let me ask you, jack, a similar question there on the economic numbers. you've got $66 billion under management there at the private bank. what are you seeing from clients, and would a better jobs number -- i mean, rick is talking about 200,000 plus jobs created for the last month. is that what you're expecting? >> no, it's not what -- what i'm expecting, but i would certainly welcome it. >> yeah. >> my issue is, that you know, the market is diverged away from fundamental fair value, and when you look at it relative the economy, when you look at relative earnings, so what i would like to see is some justification fundamentally, improving economy and the like to say, okay, this justifies where we are, you know, index-wise. you know, i would love to be

able to keep moving those fundamental values higher to just keep pace with the market it's moving to now. >> obviously, mark, you guys on the floor will be watching very closely tomorrow. do you guys have any consensus numbers you're watching? >> i think we're going with the forecast of 163,000 for the non-farm payrolls for tomorrow. obviously if unemployment rate were to release a number that was extremely disappointing, we certainly will see an impact from that as well. >> what stocks do well on a 163,000 number, do you think? does this market react to that? do we see a rally on 163 or a selloff? >> i think we see a rally at 163 at this point. i think it would take something extremely disappointing to take the market down and shift the momentum at this point. >> everybody agree with that? ? >> absolutely, totally agree. >> the path of least resistance is higher right now. there's money flowing in, and it's really funny because it's

emboldened both individual investors but also professional investors. i think, you know, professional investors are the ones that are leveraging the bond market to buy back stock. we've got over $1 trillion of stock announced for buybacks this year, and that's obviously professional investors or treasurers, but we've also got individuals now looking to tiptoe back on the market thinking that it's safe because, you know, who knows what kind of yields they are getting in, you know, the quality safe haven bond market. >> i love your line, rick fehr, reluctantly bullish, this party's been going on for a while and assuming you want to put money to work here, the financials have been the leaders since the lows in october and november. do you go with the strength? what do you do here? >> yeah. we really like the financial this year. you know, last year we were very bullish on the home builders. it was four years after the crash. the home builders pushed us into the abyss, and they came out first. the next one was the financials

so, yes, they rebounded a little bit last year decently, but we'd still go with the financials at this point. strictly really just five years after the crash. they have had their time to fix or balance sheets, focus on our businesses and to move forward, so, yes, we like the financials here. >> gentlemen, thank you all very much. the jobless numbers out tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. mr. santelli an company from the "squawk box" will be right there waiting to see how the market reacts when it comes out. >> can't wait. >> let's get a check of which stocks are driving the market into new highs. josh lipton with details. >> reporter: time for leaders and laggards starting with the dow. leaders include names like boeing where investigators said they still don't know the cause of those battery fires. the stock though hitting a 52-week high. ibm and united technologies also higher. laggards today, merck, exxon and home depot. as for the s&p 500, winners

today include networking equipment makers like jds uniphase and juniper networks as sienna swung to a surprise share profit and trip advisor hitting another all-time high. now, gap also enjoying a nice pop today. the retailer reporting a 3% jump in february same-store sales beating expectations. that stock up some 46% in the past 12 months. laggards in the s&p, pet smart which forecast disappointing results 2013. ross stores which reported a surprise drop in february same-store sales and western digital. guys, back to you. >> all right, josh, thank you very much. here we go. let's see if we can do it again today. the dow with 50 minutes left up 36 points, was up 57 at the high of the day. >> i think our viewers remember this dire warning from "gloom, boom and doom" report publisher marc faber the last time he was "closing bell." listen up. >> i'm sorry to say, maria, you don't own any gold, and you are

in great danger because you don't own any gold. >> really? find out next if he's still bullish on gold and bearish on stocks even as we hit new highs right now. >> one person who is not bearish on stocks is that gentleman right there, black rock ceo larry fink. way ahead on this rally. made that call on the program last year so where is the man who manages more than $3 trillion investing now? he'll be here for an exclusive interview coming up on the "closing bell." stay tuned. carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey, this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land.

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and doom" report. marc, good evening, good morning wherever you are? >> good morning for me, thank you. >> thanks for joining us. >> and thank you very much for the very kind introduction. >> well, plenty of people, you're not alone, have been saying they expect the u.s. stock market to go lower. they expect gold to go higher. in your view why hasn't that trade worked out yet? >> well, first of all, since the year 2000 when some people in media organizations were touting stocks, gold has way outperformed stocks. in recent months it is true that stocks have performed better than gold, but it's a different risk profile. secondly, i'd like to just remind you and your viewers. today is march 777, 2013.

march 6, 2009, exactly four years and one day ago the markets bottomed up. we're up very substantially. >> right. >> i think investors today are rushing to stocks to be reminded of that. >> okay. but, i mean, when you look at the drivers of this market, you have to believe they are going to be there. i mean, the federal reserve, you know, creating an opportunity for investors because there are very few alternatives to companies that pay dividends. got an economy in the u.s. that seems to be improving. got all these factors coming together that are supporting this market. do you see any of those things changing any time soon, the backdrop? >> i'm not sure how soon they will change, and last time you interviewed me i said there are

two scenarios. either for 20% correction and then the market moves higher where a new high will be reached or not is debatable or a scenario similar to '87 when the market moved up 41% between january 1st and august 25th, or like 2000 when the nasdaq moved up 30% between january 1st and march 11th, so everything is possible. but you have recently i think had stan druckenmiller on the program. he's a very thoughtful person. >> right. >> and i share his views. it will end badly, but unlike stan i believe it will end badly this year. >> how bad? what kind of a sizable selloff are you looking at? >> listen, maria, you'll see yourself how bad it will be. >> well, in the meantime though, you still like gold. gold, as you pointed out, it has

come lower even as the stock market has gone higher. i know there's -- you have a feeling that we could be heading towards an asset deflation period, so why do you still like gold here, marc? >> well, i think personally my age is 67 years old. i want to have something that is not a financial asset. i have bonds. i have real estate and i have equities. equities and real estate are similar. they may not move exactly at the same time, but they have similarities. these are assets, and a lot of them are paper assets whereas gold physically held either safe deposit box outside the u.s., has in my opinion a relatively low risk. now, can it be going up or down? yes. i have argued since september 6th, 2011 when the gold price

hit 1,921, that we are in a correction, but, look, i look at the world this way. i would rather buy something that is relatively depressed than something that is relatively high, and i can tell you about the liquidity argument. i used to go into the middle east in the 1970s. everybody told me oh, there is so much liquidity in opec countries. after the oil price value and liquidity vanished. then i was in asia during the japanese bubble. everybody told me the japanese market will never go down. there's so much liquidity. >> mark, i just want to ask you whether you're so committed to gold, and you are so commit that had we are going to see this selloff. i'm just trying to find out where is this gloom coming from because when you look at valuations, you're talking about a price-to-earnings ratio on the

market of 13 to 14, okay? you've got an accommodative fed, okay, and you've got a corporate sector that's probably the healthiest that we've seen in a long time, so what specifically is bothering you so much about putting money to work in stocks, and how come if you don't like real assets do you own real estate? >> i'm trying to explain to you already in the last interview. i advocate diversification because you and i we don't know how the world will look like in five years time, so there's some real estate. some equity and by the way, the equities i own, i bought in 2008, 2009 and in asia, liquidity in indonesia and thailand where most of my holdings are up five to six times since then so i'm not sure about stocks, but i'm very worried about it. look, i believe that people become rich through work. i don't believe that i deserve

to become well to do through capital gains. that is what i want to say. >> all right. >> another person who is reluctantly long, clearly. >> absolutely. >> thank you so much. >> 100%. >> marc faber joining us. 40 minutes before the closing bell. interesting he said i don't deserve to get wealthy from capital gains. why not? >> seeing a theme today. reluctantly long, so here's a question. which stock is up 700% since 2004? go ahead and google it. you can google it, or you can catch the answer on talking numbers. >> the battle over billions. the spokesman for prince alwaleed will be here to explain why steve forbes is undervaluing his boss' net worth. i'm a conservative investor. but that doesn't mean i don't want to make money.

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you know, i don't pay attention to the stock price. i used to do that for a living many years, and i decided to stop paying attention. >> that's what google's chief operating officer told me yesterday. the street is paying a i tension to google. the street hit a new high after another analyst upgraded the price target to $1,000 a share. google has ore taken apple as the top mutual fund holding. is google a buy at these levels

or too late to get? n? on the technical side of the story, jeff tomsulo at bell point and on the fundamentals jeff kilberg founder of kkm financial and a cnbc contributor. let's do it. jeff, start with the technicals. how do these charts look? >> well, maria, usually on i'm this show saying a trend is your friend until it isn't, but in google's scenario i'm afraid the trend will be tested right now. we have to look at the past price action, so if you look on the chart, in june of 2012 google bottomed at about 559, and then in four months it ran 27% and topped out around 768. within a month it dropped 15%, around 636. now let's fast forward four months. it went from 636, another 24%, and it's at 840. now, if this stock rolls over. >> right. >> we're going to get at least a 10% to 15% down move, and i'm

using the past as my edge right now. >> jeff, what do you think? >> well, maria, unlike our on-air cage match between jeff and i last week with apple i partially agree with him. it does seem overdone, and most of it, if you look like you stated before earnings, trading 750 and a sensational move up and the reason and part i don't agree with is this story is not over to the upside for google, until apple is over to the down side. until folks figure out which way it's going, it's been the widest spread in over eight years. that's the one main question we're seeing puzzling people of when will google stop? >> maria, i like that analogy, but we also got the jinx put on it with the $1,000 price target. i remember back in early 2000 when they did the 1,000 came out on qualcomm. >> that's right. >> 1,000 came out on apple, and, again, the 1,000 came out on google but this is, again, like i said the last time i was on with jeff, it's a risk reward trade here, and you have a

little bit of an edge. you can define your risk around the 845 level. breaks through the 845, then google will go up another 2% or 3%. keep in mind, if this market rolls over -- >> agreed, but that's the main point like they said. have overtaken apple and the found and you may see a pile of period and i don't personally see that and a lot of head linds coming up march 27th with the continuing resolution, but right now i think google, there's a nice pullback opportunity. the risk reward is there and playing it in the options market. >> really interesting stuff. >> and that $1,000 target always a jinx. >> we'll see if that hold this time. >> plenty of companies have come and gone and had that price target put on them. >> don't want that sometimes. >> we are headed. the dow coming off the high and any close, a new all-time high. apparently the imbalances are getting paired off so we don't have a big number in terms of the buy or the sell side to give you. talk about a multi-billion

dollar battle. saudi prince alwaleed says "forbes" magazine is underestimating his wealth by about $10 billion and he's had it. steve forbes' response. >> 20 billion he's crying. he should be happy and i'd be happy with 20 billion. >> but up next, the man who manages the prince's money explains why forbes is way off. >> also, former general electric chairman jack welch in the house today. find out if he thinks tomorrow's february jobs report will send the market higher. jack on that and a lot more coming up later on the "closing bell." tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you should've seen me today. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 when the spx crossed above its 50-day moving average, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i saw the trend. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 it looked really strong. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i jumped right on it. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 tdd# 1-800-345-2550 since i've switched to charles schwab... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 ...i've been finding opportunities like this tdd# 1-800-345-2550 a lot more easily. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 like today, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i was using their streetsmart edge trading platform tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i saw a double bottom form. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i called one of their trading specialists tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i bounced a few ideas off of him. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 they're always there for me.

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that latest "forbes" billionaire list embroiled in controversial they week. as you've probably heard prince holdings is severing ties with the magazine because he claims his net worth has been grossly undervalued and also charges "forbes" is biased against middle east everyone investors. >> earlier this week, i had a chance to ask "forbes" editor-in-chief steve forbes about it. listen to this. >> well, first of all, he is very successful. 20 billion is not chicken feed. >> he said it should be 29

billion. >> we raised him 2 billion. >> did you change your method allergy? >> no, it's always been the same. we try to make -- we went out of our way. put the highest multiples we could on a lot of the holdings that we could, and we couldn't get it above $20 billion, so at $20 billion he's crying. he should be happy. i'd be happy with 20 billion. >> and joining us right now in a cnbc exclusive is the man who manages prince alwaleed's holdings, good to have you on the program. thanks for joining us? >> thank you. >> so what is your reaction to what steve forbes had to say about this? >> well, to be very honest, i find it surprising that mr. forbes stated that he did valuations on an independent basis. first of all, in terms of our investments, as you know, we're into time management companies, iconic assets, real estate, and a portfolio of international and

domestic investments. for him to make the statement that he conducted his own independent valuations when for the past five years he's relied exclusively on the market value of the kingdom holding stocks since we went public in 2007, so to me in dealing with "forbes," this is the first year they have taken in my personal view a radical change in terms of how they evaluate and how they estimate and how they assess the total wealth of prince alwaleed, which, just for the record, is made of two components. his personal financial assets. >> right. >> and then in addition to that the shared value of the holding or his shares in the kingdom holding company which is a saudi-listed company on the stock exchange. >> i'm curious why you even care what "forbes" estimates the prince's value at. do you feel like it hurts the brand of kingdom holdings and

the prince? there are plenty of other billionaires who make the list and they would say they would rather the list go away because they want privacy and yet you're drawing attention to the list with this kind of a charge, and i'm wondering why. >> first of all, let me separate the prince's private net worth from my responsibility as the chief executive officer of kingdom holding company. >> right. >> and as i said, the contribution to his overall net worth is the sure component, so a total disregard for the share value of kingdom holding company. that does impact my personal responsibility, and that responsibility of the investment committee as well as the board and our shareholders. now, yes, the prince cares about his overall net worth, but i care equally important about how kingdom holding company as the saudi public company is valued and is accepted and is trading

on the exchange, on a day-to-day basis, so for "forbes" to come in and say, well, we have done an independent valuation when real they was no basis for the valuation of, for example, the four season and our 47.5 interest in the four season. now, i don't know what information they got to come up with those multiballs for specifically the value of four season and fairmount as well as swiss hotel as well as the iconic hotels that we do own in addition to the real estate so the exception i took is where "forbes" asserted their even valuation with that regard to what the market is saying this company is worth. this is where i take exception. >> what kind of information did they ask for? i mean, did they get brokerage statements? i mean, how are they coming up with this, and are you saying that in the whole $20 billion valuation they did not value the

hotels? that seems -- that seems extraordinary to me given the fact that this is one of the prince's most important holdings, the hotels. >> maria, i don't want to come on the attack against mr. steve forbes, but i do recall him saying on your show two nights ago that 100 times multiple of earnings is certainly an overstatement in his own personal view. now, we've explained to forbes time and time again from the inception of the company, when it actually went public, that the valuation of the company was a net asset value. we are a holding company. we don't report the food and bev ravage revenue on a segment by segment basis because as a practical matter since we do not own a majority position, we do on an equity basis and that's just reporting in an online basis and our shared interests in those company earnings, so when you look at our ebitda, not

representative of any hotel management company or any real estate company or any other similar trading company. >> that makes no sense. >> that makes no sense. >> let me ask you this. as we close out, we're running out of time. the prince is saying that he "forbes" is biased against middle eastern investors. do you share that view? >> well, again, that's his personal view, and i share it in the sense that in as much as there are other middle eastern investors who have done two things, asks forbes to move off the list and the recommendations that they made with respect to their own wealth, and, unfortunately, there is some kind of issue with respect to how they go about the consistency with which they are valuing the individual companies, be they publicly list. that's the whole issue. we use the public market as the

indication of wealth and all of a sudden they have come up without telling us the basis or adding up the components. they said we were -- we were overly, you know, an increase from 18 to 20 billion. that is not a giveaway, and i appreciate the view that there is a fundamental basis that the shares are valued, but they didn't ask us for how the public values that company, you know. >> okay. >> we used the public market value and came up with their own without sharing with us or even giving us the opportunity to discuss that with them. >> good to have you on the program. thanks so much for coming on and explaining this to us. appreciate your time today. >> thanks very much. >> thank you. >> we're in the final stretch of trading here, 20 minutes before the closing bell sounds. a market that's up 35 points on the dow jones, in once again record territory. >> then an activist investor at it again. >> yes, i know it. >> coming up, carl icahn making

noise, again, this time joining the opposition to pc-maker dell going private. wait until you hear what mr. icahn wants. >> and after the bell a special guest host will be here live at the new york stock exchange. former general electric chairman and ceo jack welch. that's next hour on "closing bell." stay with us. [ female announcer ] it's time for the annual shareholders meeting.

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welcome back. technology stocks leading the rally today. let's get to seema modi at the nasdaq with the details and the update over the dell drama. >> reporter: let's take a look at the tech check board. facebook presenting an enhanced mobile friendly news feed which makes it easier to view large images and track stories via your smartphone so that's a stock we're watching. the stock up on the day. also, take a look at apple. the "new york times" reporting that apple's internet radio service is delayed. pandora shares moving higher on that news. it's also getting set to report earnings tonight and switch over to dell. carl icahn has become the latest major investor it oppose dell's plan to go private. the activist billion air who has accumulated a stake in the company wants the pc-maker to pay out a special dividend and keep in mind the stock is trading above that 16 13 65 buyout offer. dell is engaged in an active go shop process for proposals and

welcomes icahn's involvement. maria and bill? >> seema, thanks so much. >> you have, my colleague, one of the best noses for news that i know. >> seriously. ahead of the curve on a lot of things, and you have this opinion about activist investors right now. >> i think that that's one of the characteristics of this rally. the activist investor has re-emer re-emerged. look at a handful of companies in the last three months, apple, hess, herbalife, and we've got a situation now where cash is becoming a problem for companies. for two years we've been talking about how corporate america is sitting on $3.6 trillion in cash. all this uncertainty and don't know what they do around the where the regulatory environment is going. the wiggle room is gone. there's not a lot of wiggle room for excuses in terms of what you do with cash because the activist investors are coming out because they want you to move that cash and pay it to share holders. >> not lost on them that you can

do something better with them and one of the things you can do is give it to me. give it back to the shareholders, so carl icahn, the latest example, amasses a 100 million share 600% and now the second largest shareholder in dell behind, guess who, michael dell, and he says they need that dividend. they need a special dividend and you need a higher price. >> look at a company like ibm which by the way gives 100% of its free cash flow to shareholders. ibm is not growing very much. revenue growth of 2%. >> a pretty mature company. >> but it's still growing. >> but it's growing and it's giving back 100% of its free cash flow to shareholders. no wonder the stock has been a winner for so many years. >> how many activist investors are they fighting off? >> none. >> exactly. >> a great story. >> it is a good story. 15 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. market up 32 points on the dow jones industrial average. >> all right. what will keep this rally going, you ask, top investor rich bernstein is bullish, and he's

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we are just minutes away from the closing bell. if we close at this level, any positive close, another record high for the dow, but how much longer can this momentum continue? richard bernstein from richard bernstein advisers says all signs are pointing to this rally continuing. >> yeah. rich joins us right now along with our own bob pisani. rich, we have to see a pause at some point. you think this goes straight up? >> of course we'll see a pause. i'm not smart enough to tell you when that's going to happen, but i think the long-term -- i think this bull market is much more secular than people would really think, and that's really my main point. >> bob, we've had a little bit of a trend. identified this hour people who have been on the program who consider themselves reluctantly long. i mean, they are just not going to fight the trend, but they are not sure how much long they are thing can last. >> been reluctantly long for four years. that's what i like about it. everybody is reluctantly long, and i don't mean the people who are ideologically angry at the federal reserve and don't care.

i mean, there's a lot of people who say, look, i don't particularly think what's going on. i'm no fool. i'm not going to fight the fed. the fed so far has been right. mr. draghi has been reading mr. bernanke's cue cards this morning saying practically the same thing mr. bernanke said last week. going to keep rates low for a long time. like to talk about macro stuff. how about the private payroll numbers right now? >> maybe if the adp numbers are right for a change we'll get a bit of a boost because the markets, rich, are anticipating the private payroll reports are going to be pretty good. >> are you expecting a good number? >> i'm not smart enough to tell you what it will be like to the decimal points but i think it's a good number. the most important thing that people have missed here with the whole series of payroll reports, not only recently is over the past year, year and a half is they continue to improve. markets don't really care about the absolutes of good or bad. markets care about better or worse, and the employment

situation has clearly gotten better in the past several years, even though it's not still strong. >> right. >> i think people have to think like investors. got to stop thinking like policy wonks and think like investors and investors love improvement, and i think that's what you've seen. >> let me give you the improvement this year because the top performer is in 2013 within the s&p 500. netflix is up 97%. this is year to date. best way, hewlett-packard is up 47% and dell is up 41%. and that's year to date r.these going to be the stocks you want to only rest of the year, or do you want to rotate and go in another group if you want to participate in this action? >> i'm not sure if any stock gives up 100% in nine weeks is the core holding anymore, that i'll say. but i think what's happening is you're seeing a lot of turnarounds, and you were talking before about mergers and acquisitions and about cash on balance sheeds and things like that. the next step in this process, if we follow something that's

reasonable similar to prior bull markets is we'll see that cash go to work. we'll see companies begin to invest more. we'll see m & a pick up. that will all begin to happen. that's your normal mid-cycle environment, and i personally think that that's where we're heading towardsth mid-cycle environment. >> rich, what do you tell people who stuff my e-mail and say, pisani, it's all about the fed. doesn't matter what else is going on. everything else is unimportant. listen, earnings are at historic highs. that matters and they are helping earnings, too. how do you get around people who are so cynical about it, that it's all the fed? >> first of all, let's remember what monetary policy is all about. monetary policy whether it's short-term interest rates or long-term interest rates that the fed is trying to attack usually would be short-term interest rates. the whole point is to artificially inflate assets to the low cast of capital so the real economy can take use of that lower cost to capital. that's what the fed always does. now in this cycle they have gone to extremes and they have had an

extreme recession, so, you know, we could agree or disagree about whether the policies they are implementing is the correct policies but they are doing it and asset prices are responding exactly as they historically would have. >> all right, rich. always good to see you. bob, stick around. more work for you to do. >> thank you, mr. bernstein. we are coming right back with a closing countdown for this thursday. >> and stick around because we've got a huge hour ahead. former ge chairman jack welch will join me for the entire hour. >> and you'll have another white bald guy sitting next to you for the full hour. >> and larry fink of black rock section conclusive to the show and will react to the federal reserve's bank stress test results due out at 4:30 p.m. eastern time. we'll probably be hearing about dividend increases. >> yeah. >> want to stay with us on that. jack and larry here only on cnbc on the "closing bell." back in a moment.

the full hour. jack and larry here only on cnbc [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.

and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. three and a half minutes left here. well, it looks like, what was this, number three? third in a row. >> third day in a row with all-time highs for the dow. >> here we are. >> and here was the trading

session for the day, a 57-point gain in the morning session. kind of drifted for a while, and we're going out with about a 33-point gain right now, at least, at 14,330 right now. banks, you have the stress tests coming out in about half an hour, and going into that, all of the banks are trading higher. the financials have been leaders today in this mark. one more thing to point out, pandora is out with its earnings after the close and we would see how it does, and that stock has been all over the map today and see what those numbers look like. >> apparently the federal reserve is asking the banks to wait before declaring dividend increases until next week? >> don't want the banks to all come out immediately. >> i think some of them are going to come out and say, yeah, we're raising our dividends. >> exactly. >> so we'll see what happens. >> terry dolan, how much higher, what's going on here? >> the trend is positive and not t