good morning. bulls coming off on a historic week. the dow above 14,000 has all the major averages. a rally 2% in the last five trading day. mixed economic data from china is weighing on sentiment and a slow start to the session in europe. investors there reacting to italy's credit rating downgrade. it is monday, march 11th, 2013. it's 6:00 a.m. though et feels like 5:00 a.m. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and steve liesman. steve is here in for joe today who is enjoying some time off. we're going to start with the

markets. the bulls are hoping to pick up where last week left off. the dow has closed higher on every friday of 2013. that's 10 friday necessary a row so far. it's notable that the blue chip index rose on each of the five days in the last week. that is the first time that's happened since september 2011. all ten s&p sectors finished higher for the week led by financials and consumer discretionary. mondays have been rougher. most of the mondays have closed lower. last week was the exception. u.s. equity futures are indicated lower today. dow futures down by about 15 points. we're going to head overseas and check in with kelly evans at the moment. also eunice eune who is in beijing. but first to some of the other morning's headlines out of the united states. all the clocks in my house are still off kilter. 5:00 a.m. is what my car's clock says right now, too, so i had a little bit of an issue. >> years ago, my older son wrote

us a note and said, dad, is it 11:00, 12:00 or 1:00? >> i feel his pain. we had issues. i have i was two hours off monday morning waking up with the kids and couldn't figure out where we were supposed to be. >> goldman sachs has a note from investor investors. gasoline falling nearly 6 cents in the last two weeks. the lundberg survey puts the national average for a gallon of regular at $3.73. the reason for the decline, refiners cutting wholesale prices following weeks of increases. industry watchers predict prices will fall another 10 to 12 cents in the coming weeks. amazon's smartphone release may be delayed. the digit time reports the company will not be able to release its phone in q2 due to

delays in production. progress at the company's partner, foxconn. becky. >> thank you. and other news, berkshire hathaway is nominating investment management miryl witmer to the board. sony's ceo plans to retire in june. and german hedge fund manager floria homm has been arrested on charges in the united states of fraud. he's accused of orchestrating a market manipulation scheme to the improves the performance of his fund. the alleged fraud led to at least $200 million in loss for investors. he has been on the run in five years. and the paper trace reportedly going cold in the s&p. the s&p tried to clamp down loose talk on e-mails and other

note taking as early as 2005. this may make the case harder as signs of distress began appearing in the mortgage securities market. s&p executives are is said to have begun advising analysts responsible for rating mortgage bonds to put the phrase privileged and confidential on e-mails to one another. >> does that matter? if you put confidential like you can't have it now? gotcha. >> i can't imagine that does it. i think basically you stop sending -- >> stuff out? >> at goldman sachs they used to write ldl. and that means let's discuss live which meant let's never put this in e-mail. >> do you remember the phrase somebody said to me once where i think we had it on air one time, it was never write when -- >> oh wsh barney frank. >> barney frank. do you remember it? never write when you can talk, never talk when you can nod, never nod when you can wink. >> good. >> words to live by.

>> s&p analysts were discouraged from doodling and official documents during meetings to discuss pending deals and existing ratings. but it turns out the employees didn't fully heed the warning g warningings. that's always the problem. the government's civil lawsuit relies heavily on e-mails. but legal experts say the u.s. case needs witnesses to bolster those e-mails. >> so the reasons the united states went after moody's first wasn't because of the downgrade -- >> s&p first not moody peps. >> or after s&p and not moody's first was because of the downgrade. but they're going to have trouble with this or not? we've seen e-mails that worked in the past. i'm not sure why this case -- >> in this case, the s&p e-mails that are identity there are not -- they sound difficult, but they're very broad. it's just we're screwing this whole thing up as opposed to -- >> in this particular call --

>> it's nefarious because we're doing xyz and it's showing one thing or another. and there's an argument which they could go after that they may not have to problem. >> andrew, as you were writing your book, were you saying to yourself, there's going to be prosecutions? are you surprised at this point that the failure of the banking system has not resulted in very many prosecutions at all? >> when i started the book, i thought there would be. the farther i got into the process, the more surprised i was that when it comes to criminal intent and having covered a number of these white collar cases, knowing you need the intent, i felt they didn't know enough. the book was almost titled failure of imagination was the other title. i realized by the end that there were people would failed to see it. >> rather than being a crimin criminal -- >> it wasn't so much that they -- right. i believe at the lower levels there were some real problems in terms of the mortgage lending.

but i'm not sure it ever reached the top. >> is that incompetent, then? >> call it incompetent. but everybody says they want to say a scalp or this or that. but there's all these prosecutors who would love to make a name for themselves. frankly, there are authors who wrote all of the devilses are here. and bethany mcclain and all sorts of people that love to write books. >> the unprosecuted criminal acts. >> they discovered something that would have led to something. but ultimately, i'm not sure that the -- >> although chaino has made the argument in the past, that look, you could have done -- you could have gone after them. you could have prgd some of them based on the existing laws that were on the books. sarbangs oxley. saying you signed off on this as ceo. even if you claim you didn't know it, that is enough to catch you. you should have known it. so it's not necessarily -- >> that would have been a civil case and not criminal.

>> but they didn't come after him on a civil case. >> but it was all about marking. it was about how you marked the books and that is still an art and not a science and that's part of the problem. >> that's why charlie munger says that is the way they need to crack down on people is looking at accounting because you shouldn't be able to make it up and say, oh, this is what it's worth today. >> did anybody see the randall for sight in the barons this weekend? >> yes. >> he quotes eric holder saying that there are banks who are -- to jail. >> yes. in fact, i am working on something. >> are you working on a column for this? >> potentially. >> let me recap the bidding on this, which is that he was asked by i forget whom in congress where there haven't been prosecution and holder apparently saying, well, we're concerned about the impact of criminal prosecutions of these banks on the financial system. and this is an interesting idea

that companies -- or banks are not being prosecuted not because they haven't done anything criminally wrong, but because of the effects on the financial system. >> which created all kinds of problems saying this is not the consistent view from the administration. >> i did an interview with paul advocator last wednesday and that's online. he was great. he was really sharp. he said you cannot break up these banks enough to make them not too big to fail. if you think about what is the jpmorgan balance sheet, like $2 trillion? >> at least. so apparently in continental terms of the bank that was bailed out in 1983, in today's dollars, it's $300 billion. so do the math to see how many -- and that was too big to fail. >> it would have been $300 billion, their balance sheet? >> in today's dollars. so you'd have to make -- what is that, six jpmorgan eps? >> but go look at the concentration of banks, though,

in canada and australia. >> they're even more concentrated. more concentrated. >> and i covered the savings and loan crisis and that was problem with small banks. so make them smaller doesn't solve the problem. anyway, time for the global markets report. kelly evans is standing by in london. kelly. >> steve, trading volumes are light today. here is a sense of why. take a look. at the weather, outside of you window here in the studios, these are live pictures. and london was supposed to get maybe a centimeter of snow today. yeah. it's going to be a little more than a centimeter. i know it doesn't quite stack up to the kind of levels that you've seen over there in new york, but nevertheless, keep that in mind when you start to look at some of the activity we've seen. there will be trouble for people getting into work today. knowing the way the city is, there could be trouble for the rest of the week, as well. in terms of trading, let's give you a quick sense of what's happening in markets. across asia, we did see a

generally weaker tone after china came out with weaker than expected sales. china unveiling its biggest overall in like 15 years. that will give people something to chew over when it comes to investing in asia and china specifically. we turn our attention to the european session, the ftse 1 00 has been struggling to stay in the green, but regardless, everybody else is basically pointed lower this week taking a pause after the kind of rallies we've seen in europe that hasekcooed largely the trading patterns we've seen in the u.s. the ftse mib is weaker, down 0.8%. reaction that's not too inconsistent with the behavior we've seen for that index. and if you look at the bond space, we're weaker on italy, but not cart mat cannily so. watch the spread between spain and italy. this is now narrowed to within 10 is basis points, putting pressure on the euro overnight. the dollar is stronger against

the yen, so the dollar strength continues. we've seen as a result crude oil and some of the other commodities taking that on the chin. on that note and from a chilly london -- it's actually warmer in the studio for once than it is outside -- i'll send it back over to you guys. >> it's been warmer here, kelly. we're warming up for spring and gearing up for it. thank you, kelly. in washington news this week, paul ryan is going to be unveiling his budget proposal tomorrow. john harwood joins us from washington. >> we think we should balance the budget. >> john harwood joins us from washington to talk it over with us. good morning. >> good morning. >> what should we expect this week? everybody is saying this is the week. this is the week that we're going to see a lot of on movement or not. >> well, i think it's a week where we begin the effort to try to get some movement, and i would say, you know, in tune with kelly's report, we've got

about a centimeter of hope, maybe two sent meters that something can get done. interesting, paul ryan's appearance on fox yesterday. he talked about his budget and there was some very daunting from a democratic perspective aspects of that. the budget assumes the repeal of obama care, for example, which is not going to happen. but paul ryan also said there are things that we can do that don't offend the fundamental philosophy of either party and i think that's where the -- you try to thread the needle between the president's position and paul ryan and the republican's position, find some ways to deal with medicare in the ten-year budgets window, which is when paul ryan says he wants to balance the budget and it's -- look, you can easily sketch out a potential deal that the two sides could make, but whether you can overcome the hurdles that have knocked over all the recent attempts, we don't know. >> john, let's sketch it out,

then. where do we believe the middle ground is? where do we think there actually is agreement? when paul ryan says there is overlap, what is the overlap so everybody understands where the discussion can at least start? >> fundamentally, one of the lines that republicans have drawn, republicans have said we're not going to replace the sequester with tax increases, for example. democrats have said, we're not going to reform medicare with vouchers. the president ran against that in the last election. so here is a way you could do it. you could take the sequester cuts, replace them with entitlement cuts. what entitlement cuts would those be? eric cantor gave a speech about a month ago in which he said -- he talked about a reform that would combine two different components of the medicare program, have a single deductible for beneficiaries in a way that would deter some use of medical care and raise money for the program. that is a reform that republicans are interested in

that within simpson bowles that some liberal democrats say, not a bad idea. the white house is not ruling out that idea. it saves over $100 billion over ten years. that's one place they could go for entitlement cuts. >> but they're not going to cut the federal -- they're not going to cut federal costs for medicaid and that's is second component of that. you wrote about it with dick stephenson over the weekend. >> cut federal costs for medicare or medicaid? >> for medicaid. i apologize. >> the democrats have pulled back from some of the pedestrian cade cuts that they previously advocated because of the effects of the court rulings that has called into question the expansion of medicaid. but i don't think that's an insurmountable hurdle. the second part of the formula that i was mentioning was you could have a second tax reform process that does overhaul the code, reduces some loopholes, maybe reduces rates a little bit, but raises money on net. republicans, when you hear them

talk and pars their words closely, some of them are not saying no revenue in any circumstance. what they're saying is no revenue to replace the sequester. now, again, it is -- it's possibly in theory to thread the needle. like as we sit here and talk about it. but can they do it in the real world of practical politics? i don't know, but that's why the president is going to capitol hill. he's going to meet with the entire republican caucus on thursday. senate republican kaup caucus. he's going to meet with house republicans as well as democrats in both chambers, as well. >> john, we're going to leave it there. thanks for joining thus morning. we'll talk to you then. >> thanks. when we come back, china releasing mixed numbers and issuing a plan to try and stream line the government. we'll have the details and why the global markets are taking notice right after this. and in entertainment news, just justin timberlake is going to

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welcome back to "squawk box." eunice eune joins us from beijing this morning. eunice, the numbers leave anything but a clear picture in terms of what's happening in china's economy. >> well, that's right.

the data really isn't selling us that the recovery is uneven and fragile. on the one hand, we have the industrial production numbers and the retail sales numbers which ticked lower. on the other hand, we have the inflation numbers which ticked higher. the january to february figures tend to be distorted because of the lunar new year holiday. but it's clear, based on the comments that we've been hearing out of the government from last week from the premier wen jiabao that the government is lowering its target to 3.5%. the authorities here are concerned about rising prices, especially in the property sector. now, another big factor that we were watching today was the fact that the government had announced a restructuring. the government is streamlining the bureaucracy. they're cutting out all the fat with the basic end goal of taking the government role out of the business. now, a good example of this was with the ministry of railways. the ministry of railways responsibilities were basically split. so you had the administrative work was being put into a government agency. we're going to see the

commercial functions put into a company. so there again, you see an example of a government and the business being split. now, one of the other comments that people were focused on today was the fact that the railway minister had made some comments that as a part of this process, the government would open up the railway system to foreign investments. that's leaving people to think the authorities were opening up competition here. >> eunice, stay with us. we're going to bring in another guest to talk more about this. we've been tracking asian equity market and they're rebounded from their lows. for more on that, let's bring in patrick ilvanick. he's an associate professor at sing wah university of investment management. thanks for coming in the the today. >> thank you. what we're focused on is what's been happening with the recovery

there. and recovery that looked like it was starting to kick in in october of last year. there were a lot of questions about that today. how secure do you feel with it? >> a lot of what drove that rebound was the fact that the chinese were pumping in more money again. what was driving that was investment and china really still faced the fundamental dilemma that caused the downturn last year, which is that they're too dependent on investment. they need to shift to more consumption driven growth. and the more they depend on investments, particularly investments that weren't paying off, the more inflation, bad debt, overcapacity they were generating. and it eats up more and more of the credit that was necessary to drive further investment. it's a vicious cycle. >> it sounds like the leadership there may recognize this, at least when you start seeing some of the things they're still talking about, what eunice just mentioned, the opening of the railways. is that acknowledge acknowledgement that we need to find more ways to come up with this growth?

>> there's pretty wide recognition that we need to shift the growth models. but doing it is a little different than what we've seen. what we've seen in the last few years is the process to engage in economic adjustment. they know they need a correction, but they don't want a correction. >> we hear numbers out of china and tend to take them with a grain of salt from time to time. you hear a number like 7.5% that they were talking about, the growth that they can look for and that was just last week when we were talking about these numbers. is there an expectation that they will at least meet that number if not beat it? >> well, there is an expectation that they will probably meet it. maybe not necessarily this year, but a lot of people do believe that the government, when it does lay out its five year plan, that it is going to basically more or less meet the target or beat the target because growth is so important for the chinese economy. now, i want to pick up on something else you guys were talking about when you're saying that the government authorities are trying to recognize the --

you know, the need for growth. one other thing that was interesting here was with the restructuring of the government, rereally saw that they were targeting points of contention. area where -- that have a tracted a lot of public criticism like the railway ministry that have become big symbols of waste and corruption. and the food safety sales have been erupting here constantly and there has been a lot of criticism that something needed to change. and also what was interesting is the commission that manages the one child pold policy has been demoted and moved into the ministry of health. that's suggesting to a lot of people that we are going to see change to the one-child policy, not only as a response to the people's criticism of this policy, because a lot of them think that it's unfair and horrific, but because economically speaking for china's future growth, it needs

to be able to continue to add people to its population in order to concede the workforce. >> with investors, there's always a lot of caution about do we trust this, can we really invest in these places? how do you feel about it? >> i think that's true on a macro and a microlevel. i've always been questioning the data. i and a number of other analysts have said gdp growth was more around 5% or 54.35% last year. on a microlevel, there's the question of do you believe numbers chinese companies report about the performance and that's been a huge issue in markets here. >> we had jim chanos on the program last week. and he's been very skeptical about china for some time. but he thinks that the property bubble at this point is reaching some dangerous levels.

do you worry about that, too? >> you know, there is fundamental demand for housing in china because of urbanization and rising incomes. but that doesn't mean that investors and builders haven't gotten ahead of the market. >> we saw the 60 minutes piece with all of these empty cities. you have a lot of investors who have bought properties, empty properties and are holding them purely as investment. as long as they're willing to hold them, that can persist for a long time. but as soon as they want to exit them, that creates a big overhang in the market. and then if you look at developers, developers have said over the past year that they've gotten rid of a lot of their inventories. but the reality is that the pipeline, if you compare the pipeline of under construction relative to the last 12 months sales, that ratio is at an all-time high. and, in fact, for office and retail, it's nine years worth of sales under construction right now in china. that's a huge overhang. >> yeah. that's a daunting number. patrick, thank you very much for coming in today and eunice,

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good morning. welcome back to squawk on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and steve liesman. joe kernen is enjoying time off today. president obama is set to nomination thomas perez for labor department. finally, at the box office this weekend -- do you guys go to the movies at all? walt disney's big budget move" oz the great and is powerful came out on top, $80.3 million in u.s. and canadian ticket sales giving it the biggest debut in 2013 and international sales for oz adding another $69.9 million. there you have it.

>> now to markets and the economy. andrew scott bower joins us now from the cme. mark whitner of wells fargo. i want to start with mark whitner. did you guys change your gdp forecast at all after the payroll numbers on friday? >> no, we didn't change it in response to that. we do print our forecast out the first wednesday after the employment report, so we'll have an update after that. but the first quarter loose pretty solid. we're going to have a number somewhere between 2.5 to 3%. and the second half of the year is looking okay. although when you do the analysis of the tax increases, you would -- it would tend to have you take those numbers back down a little bit. we haven't done that yet because it seems like we're gaining momentum. >> so this is interesting. mark, just sticking with you for a second, put some numbers on the -- on those comments you made. what are we looking at in the first quarter and what's your

best guest for us second and third? >> well, we don't have a final number yet for the first quarter, but i would say it's probably 2-6, 2-7. the second quarter is going to be closer to 2. we've got some swings to inventories, so we have the bounceback in the first. and then the second half of the year is likely to be 2-6, 2-7, those kind of numbers. fairly decent numbers. the other thing is, on july 31st, we get the comprehensive revision to the gdp data. and if we get the same revision that we saw in unemployment, they're usually about the same magnitude. then growing at a 1.2% pace since the revision. the economies probably average 2.3 and 2.4%. so it sounds like a little bit. but that's not as close to the edge as we think the economy has been. >> scott, let's talk about momentum. every friday in 2013 has been to the upside. have you mortgaged your home, taking out a home equity line and are you now prepared to put

everything you own on the futures on, say, thursday night? >> yeah. because they're paying me to do it because rates are zero, right? honestly, what the feeling is -- and i hate to say it -- is that it's like the little boy that cried wolf. with the sequester, you go back to the fiscal cliff. people, the traders down here and main street, also,, just feels like everything is going to work out. regardless of the problems coming out of washington, the complacency out there right now is everything is going to work out. so that being said, the momentum definitely is to the upside. couple that with the fact that there's still so much cash on the sidelines, people that either missed this rally or just haven't gotten in yet that are just waiting for that first pullback, like we had a couple weeks ago, that morning we were down a couple hundred points. people are just waiting for that. so the short-term is -- the short run, people are looking to get into the market. the trend is still up. but i definitely would temper

that. if you're in the market or if you're getting into the market, obviously, we see volatility, the vix so low. buy some protection. don't be degreedy. buy some protection. it's too cheap not to right now. >> scott, i had a guy come up to me t sporting goods store and ask me when the pullback would happen. i asked him, why do you need to know? his broker put him into gold. gold hadn't performed and he wanted to get into the stock market. so you're suggesting there are a lot of folks out there who feel like this rally has left them behind. >> which suggests, by the way, there won't be a pullback. >> exactly. >> you look at that contrarian view. i agree with that. so the sentiment is there's not going to be a pullback. but again, i would tell that gentleman and everyone else, if you want to get into the market, get into the market, but buy your protection. hedge yourself. don't look for a quick 8% to 10% pop over the next couple of months like we've seen the first few months of the year. >> tell me what that protection would look like.

you guys talk about it, but i think there's a lot of folks that don't understand, what would you do, call your broker and say, i want to go put some money into the stock market, but i want to buy some downside protection. what would you buy right now the terms of downside protection? >> sure. i would look at s&p options. i would look at maybe even the 1500 level put, maybe even the 14.50 put. and not just short run like march or april. go out a few months. go out three, four months. buy some downside protection. so you're buying put options in the marketplace. and it's just too cheap. >> mark, very quickly, there's a lot of concern about february retail sales, whether or not the payroll tax cuts hit, whether or not they're beginning to see some impact of the sequester. how do you look at this upcoming number, mark? >> i think there will probably be a split in there. car sales held up very well. just like spending on big ticket

items held up very well. stock markets have come up, home values have stabilized. it's the lower end that we look at closely because we have that memo from walmart earlier in the month and there seems to be a lot more sting from the tax cuts. i think we'll get a soft report, but we'll still have an increase. and you look at the core number, it may be up 0.3% when you strip out everything. >> scott and mark, thanks very much. >> have a great day. all right. are you looking to make a deal but maybe need a partner? you may want to turn to relationship science. just thinklingedin meets six degrees of kevin bacon. we have the ceo of the company joining to us explain this right after this.

welcome back, everybody. u.s. equity futures, it's a monday. this is par for the course on montds last year. this morning, you see red arrows. s&p is down by just over 2 points. dow is off by 19 points. in our futures, intrade says all trading on its site is being halted. it's unclear if there's ever going to be trading on intrade again. the site allows people to trade on a lot of different real life event outcomes. during the election, we would be looking at what the odds are, were it be president obama being ele elected, mitt romney being elected. late last year, the site was blocked from investors. this morning looking at the site, there's a note to

customers that said they have to inform you due to circumstances recently discovered, they have to immediately cease trading activity on the site. the site requires further immediate investigation. they've closed everything, closed out everybody's member accounts and they will fought be paying anybody off until they get through with the rest of the investigation. >> it thought it was a gambling site, ultimately. >> well, it was. but it's based in ireland so it's different rules of engagement. but this is apparently irish authorities looking at it, not just u.s. >> and financial irregularitities in here. >> which is weird. i don't know what was going on aside from the gambling parts. i am sorry to see intrade go. >> there are others doing it, though. >> are there? >> fair bet or fair -- i saw that. something like that. >> and there's another one. people that do this, they'll continue to do it. if not, our next guest will figure out how to build something to do it. >> it's useful to have just so you see where people are willing to put their money down on these

things. >> plus, one of the issues is there are real world riskings to businesses that have to do with specific events. >> right. >> that normal yaal derivative markets do not allow you to do the hedging. >> betting on who the president is going to be, is it the direct impact? >> make yourself a company that feels like you would lose in obama care. just as an example. >> i get it. i tell it. >> what is the best way to hedge that risk that your company may face? >> although when i looked at intrade last year, i didn't always believe the numbers. i think you could buy it for a couple hundred dollars. >> low volume, low money. anyway, we have another guest who deals with technology and doing some pretty interesting stuff. he spent the last two years building a platform that he says is going to improve the way wall street does business. neal goldman is the founder and former ceo of capital iq, one of my other favorite services.

and i wrote with both of these businesses recently. thank you for being here. >> i'm happy to be here. full disclosure, ken langone is an investor. henry kravitz. everybody and their brother has a stake in what you're doing. >> first, i'd say it's not at all just for wall street, it's for everybody. and so what it is is basically a data product that models out sort of the most in the mix active people across an array of sectors. business, finance. >> 2 million of what you say are the most influential people in the world. >> i said the word in the mix, but i'd say people who are relevant and active in those spaces. so there are people who are sort of interacting. that could be someone who is selling software to a tech company raising money or a nonprofit. >> i always describe it as the six degrees of kevin bacon where somehow i go on -- or six degrees of henry kravitz in this

case where i can go on my outlook file and let's say i need to find steve. i need to figure out how i get to know you. but i go in and it looks and it shows me who i would know. >> i'd say that's one small part because it could be steve, it could be you, it could be anybody. .first of all, who are you and what are you about? >> i ask myself that question every morning. >> i understand. myself, as well. but then how -- and then who do i know who might know them? how might i get an introduction? and then what i have in common with you, like that. >> what, like you like to ski? >> potentially like you like to ski. >> how do you find that information? >> we collect data from tens of thousands of sources. we have 800 people who have been working for two years and it's really a data factory. it's very industrial strength information. >> but it's not facebook and it's not linkedin. so people who are on the network, per se, aren't really on the network. this isn't user generated information. this is information you're

trying to figure out about me or about becky or about steve. >> what are you, scanning the web to find this? >> it's not user contributed data. it's not a social network. and it's not bots, it's an array of techniques to collect data from tens of thousands of sources, but then to spend a lot of time integrating it cleanly so there's only one you, one you, one you. >> but this makes the hairs on my back of my neck stand out on privacy issues. >> it's all publicly available at that time data. we're just making it faster and more efficient for people. >> but it's not just the boards you're on. it's not the profit organizations that you might be involved in. if you spoke at a conference, they would know what panel you're on. it's pretty deep, who you're -- who is agreeable to a husband and wife potentially are depending on their involvement in business or their children. >> and only if they're involved in business. >> i don't know. i'm going to push back a little bit. there's a point at which aggregation of public

information becomes an invasion of privacy. >> it's all publicly available and it's anything that you could do, you just spent longer do it it. >> so the more on protest, the more it appears to people that i have something to hide so i'm going to stop right now. >> i could think of a couple of panels of conferences that i've gone to that that information is not anywhere on the web. you wouldn't know that, right? >> it's in the public domain. >> it's not. >> they won't have every conference. >> only if it's publicly available. and we don't know if we don't know. >> can i x out of your program? do i have the right to say you cannot do that? >> if you had -- if you had anything that was incorrect on our database, we would be delighted to know that and to fix that. >> so let's -- >> that was not an answer. >> that was not a -- >> you can't opt out, steve. >> if it's publicly available -- and, again, it's a professionally constructed database just about things that are positive and assist people

to do business with you. >> you said it's more than just wall street. are there other areas where you see people that are subscribing? >> absolutely. and we're having subscribers across whether you're a consulting firm, you sell software, you're a mon profit, you are an accounting firm. it's anybody's developing business. >> i bet that's big for them, too. >> neal, how much does it cost to do this? linkedin is free, facebook is free, you're about $200. >> we're about $250 a month or $3,000 a year per license. so we would come into a firm and anywhere between three and several hundred licenses. >> interesting. interesting. neal, thank you for coming in this morning. >> thank you for having me. >> good luck with the project. i'm hearing about it all the time. >> are you? all these big guys -- >> they have an iphone app. do it and figure out who you know. but by the way, no phone numbers or e-mails. no e-mails, either. >> no e-mails. >> so there's no spamming. >> i'm going to go x some stuff

out about me on the web. no. so coming up, euro crisis or euro opportunity? we'll talk to the man who hopes to draw international investment into the country, next. it's a new day.

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[ howls ] ♪ >> >> big jobs number. it's like 240 or something. and the market takes off again. >> up 236,000. >> whoa! >> february nonfarm payrolls increased by 236,000 jobs. >> when we finished with the cliff, the government gets out of the picture. look what happens. isn't it terrific? >> what a week. the dow, s&p 500 up every day this week. dow continue to go hit all time highs. welcome back, everybody. ireland is looking to attract international investors in commerce. the ceo of ida ireland.

barry, thank you very much for joining us this morning. it's great to see you. people have been trying to figure out what they think about is happening in europe right now. a lot of headlines drawn by italy and the elections there. can you tell us where ireland stands at this point after all the troubles that have come up over the last several years. >> sure. we had these troubles since about 2008. initially we introduced certain cuts. it was really 2010, the imf, the eu. we have been on a program of doing two things. one is expenditure cuts. the other is tax raising. the expenditure cuts are two to one in terms of tax. we have about 75%, 80% on us. one of the things that's happening in ireland is because of the down turn in the economy, competitiveness is improving, which helps attract international business.

>> what sort of businesses have you been attracting recently? have you lured any large investments in the last year or so? >> yeah. most certainly. predominantly from the u.s., particularly in the technology sector. boston scientific, johnson & johnson. google els, ebays, pay pals. so we have been attracting quite a good feel and definitely held by competitiveness improvements. >> what sort of investments have you attracted, though? are these new factories that people are coming in? is this additional money they have been willing to put in? >> so it's two-fold. if i take an example, we have won about six investments in the pharmaceutical and biofarm suit sal area. eli lily is spending $420 million.

and two new facilities. at the same time there are a lot of american investors to buy irish commercial property, particularly in dublin. it's both mobile investment and then commercial property investment. >> how worried are you about the possibility of the u.s. allowing u.s. companies to repatriot cash to the u.s. at lower tax rates? one of the reasons they're invest anything ireland and abroad is because there's so much cash tied up there. >> yes, indeed. currently the rules are bringing tax profits back to the united states are substantial sums of money all around the globe. ireland has benefited from direct investment from the united states in the same way as

switzerland, the netherlands or singapore has. of course it's what the details of the tax treatment might be around that. because u.s. companies need to remain competitive internationally and they need to have international operations all around the globe. >> you know, one of ireland's big draws also is its low corporate tax rate. you have a 12.5% corporate tax rate. that's very different than what we have here in the united states. there is a lot of talk about trying to overhaul the united states tax rate. is that something you're planning for? do you think the united states could lower its corporate rate with a tax overhaul? >> well, i think there would be some lowering of the u.s. corporation tax rate. the last few weeks i have spent a lot of time in the states, meeting the heads of the major u.s. companies. i think they would not be very

optimistic about major tax reforms starting in the short short-term. it is important for ireland. if you were going to locate an investment purely on the basis of taxes it wouldn't be ire land. there are many, many countries where you can get a more attractive rate. >> barry, thank you very much. always appreciate talking to you. hope the next time you're back in the united states you join us on set again. okay. coming up, this morning top top stories. what's this week's economic test going to bring for the market? mark zande will join us with the answer when we return. [ female announcer ] it's time for the annual shareholders meeting. ♪ there'll be the usual presentations on research. and development. some new members of the team will be introduced. the chairman emeritus will distribute his usual wisdom.

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what's ahead for your investments? moody's chief economist mark zandi. >> what could come out of the next budget plan and what it means for your wallet. former budget director joins us. and get the tools of the trade. experts on gold and equities giving you the details before the day's first transaction. the second hour of the "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and walk to "squawk box" on cnbc. the futures right now after a pretty good week last week, now we're looking a little bit down. we'll see how things turn out.

s&p 500 off two points. nasdaq off four points. paul ryan is saying that a compromise with president obama on taxes and spending is possible. those comments come as ryan prepares his own budget proposal that he acknowledges is unlikely to be approved by congress. >> we think it's unfair to ask them to pay more so washington can spend more. we think we should balance the budget. gasoline prices have fallen for the first time this year. the average price of gasoline fell more than 5.5 cents to an average just under $3.74 per gallon. prices should fall another 10 to 12 cents in the coming weeks. this one is for becky quick. the z10 finally going on sale

today. t-mobile will begin taking orders. they plan to sell it starting march 22nd. get in line. blackberry has been criticized for not having models available after the launch back in february. the keyboard is coming later. >> it has a cool virtual. >> no qwerty keyboard means nothing. >> a guy wrote and said, steve, you don't understand. i need the keyboard to text while i drive. >> does the virtual one from the letters that are raised. >> no. it was interesting. my son was talking about a new

phone. he said droid or iphone. he didn't even mention blackberry. >> but it's selling up in canada apparently. >> what would jose about that? >> blackberry is based in waterloo. there would be a waterloo joke in there. >> so far so good. >> i thought it was really cool. >> it's a cool phone. i played with it. >> i am waiting for it. >> becky they will be getting a keyboard. so one guaranteed customer. >> maybe. >> oh, it's a maybe now. the first half hour was fun. after that, i found buggy things. but we were playing with the test model. >> what do you use? >> i'm on an iphone.

i am. >> i'm straddles both worlds. i have two ipads, big one and mini. >> i still own a blackberry. >> but you don't use it? >> not as much. we will talk to a tech analyst with paul meeks for a "what's working now" segment. friday's job report making participants thinking about the u.s. economy in the first quarter and beyond but note really making too many changes. here's what's going on, folks. there is a race right now. in lane one, we have the fiscal drag equal to 1.5 percentage points of gdp. lane two, we have employment growth, income growth. 2.4% growth path without including any productivity. so here's what we know ahead of the race.

housing inventories, lending, capital spending have been rebounding. prices and jobless claims have been falling. all of that setting up for -- all of that equal on the other side of the fiscal drive of a point and a half. here's the date. mfib in the 90.5 range. almost certainly say it's an increase. it also remains at discretionary levels. everybody wants to know what happened in retail sales is february. was january a lark? we'll look at the charts in a second. the big thing the payroll tax cut. how much it hit and how much it hurt. and the retail control group. that number feeds directly into gdp. other things, i would like to see a three in there not a four. 3.40. ppi of course and cpi on friday

as well as consumer sentiment. let's take a very quick look at retail sales chart of the last 12 months or so. we should have that in the back. if we don't i can tell you it's surprise to the upside. >> yeah. >> a little bit more strength. payroll tax cut. look how good they are in the back. you can see the swoon. >> 0.13%. >> yeah. it was the control group. >> x gasoline, x auto. >> this is the part that feeds into gdp. because the other stuff, the government gets elsewhere. more reliable sources. we say what is that number going to be? interesting comment in the beige book which i don't think we have seen before saying spending was okay but retail sales were

lousy. so services were doing well. which, by the way -- >> interesting. >> -- services is the biggest bulk of consumer spending. >> much bigger. >> much bigger bulling. if i could get on my hobby horse for a second, the government does a lousy job of tracking the economy. great job with the 1950s economy when it comes to manufacturing. tracking either the business side of services, very much would like to see a better job. >> the expectation for retail sales was weak. like zero. >> 0.2% or 0.3%. >> das lean prices drives it up. but the core will be basically zero he. >> 0.2 is the control group. x auto, 0.a. >> we should introduce mark zandi, our guest host today, chief economist at moody's

analytics. and jpmorgan's chief strategist. are we in a better than expected situation potentially? maybe things are really starting to actually pick up. you look at better than expected jobs report. he thinks it's the zero interest rates starting to go kick in. >> i'm a very optimistic person. i actually think it's going to get uncomfortable this spring, summer. >> is this another spring scene? >> i think so. government spending cuts are large. the apex of the fiscal head winds that is going to be q2, q3. >> can you put up that affect tkpwra again? i want mark to comment on the thing that looks like they're

going okay. maybe the european thing. that doesn't seem to have too many legs. the housing, inventory, lending, capital spending, rebounding. all of that potentially offset by the fiscal drag. >> it's just going to be not enough. i mean, gdp, sort of the top line when you add all of this stuff up is 2%-ish. so q2, q3, one and a half, one. and it goes down to 125, 100. if you look at the consensus forecast you don't see what i'm describing at all. >> let's bring tom in. what are you kind of'ing as you look towards the future. are you expecting any more of

the spring scene talk or do we power on from here. >> that's our base case. the incoming data in the short-term will start to weaken. what we're looking at is the setup for 2014 the second half looks very good. that salad 80s why markets are doing so well. i agree with mark. i think in the short-term, if the data is weakening and investor expectations maybe have not adjusted to that, there's a market to consolidate short-term. >> do you mean a drop of 5%, or do you have a number on it? >> yeah. i would say flat would be a good outcome. 5% drop, you know, very possible, yes. >> what's your worst-case scenario? >> well, i think the worst case scenario would be we have a bigger hit to consumer spending than expected. china doesn't really stabilize.

and i think that would set us up for a alarmer correction. that's not really expectation. >> mark, incomes earnings in the first of february were rising 5.6 an annual rate. >> that will upset the cut, won't it 1234. >> a chunk of et. it will keep it going. you have a lot of nice things happening to support consumer spending. >> should i expect some month, may, june, july, to look at the government line is approximate see minus 30 or minus 40. >> yeah, i don't think so. >> that's how it's going to matter. >> it's also in hours. >> right. >> there's a lot of furloughs. that doesn't mean it will show up as a job loss but it will show up less hours.

. and that nails your income. >> tom, i just want to get your thoughts quickly too. if that's the case, if we see a selloff, what do you tell people to do? do you buy on every dip that comes through. >> investedors need to be 08 stocks. that's been our mental last few years. so dips need to be bought. if you're overweight equities and you have additional dollars to put to work, that's a chance. >> tom, are you looking at one or two indicators to try to gauge how this is unfolding? what should woe be looking at, what's winning here, the fiscal drag or private economy? >> you know, investors are getting much better looking through short-term speed bumps.

one way is to look at mutual fund data or hedge fund tracking data against the s&p. both are reflecting their willingness to be exposed or not exposed to the s&p. the hedge fund data suspect giving us a pause the signal. it is more cautious. >> which means the retail investors are a good. >> what i mean by the signal is cautious. it means they are overweight data. if you look at growth managers their data to the market is about 1.1. one standard deviation above average. it's really the level you see in front of the four last corrections. >> tom, if you were telling people they need to be overweight stebgs, if they see a dip and want to buy, are there sectors you think would be well

positioned over the next 6 to 12 months. >> so we're thinking about the march to june period. you want to focus on the lag. a lot of groups were left in the dust. chemicals, basic materials, autos, mining, tech, hard work. the groups that lagged in the first quarter were out in the second quarter. we would want to buy the groups that didn't do well. >> tech, hardware. >> yeah. those are meaningful. >> mark will be with us the rest of the program. >> 7:50 i have a chance to talk to mark. coming up, a budget battle brewing in washington. we will talk to jim nussle right after the break.

comments? comments. send them to @squawk on cnbc and on twitter. zap technology.

arrival. with hertz gold plus rewards, you skip the counters, the lines, and the paperwork. zap. it's our fastest and easiest way to get you into your car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. big job number. and the market takes off again. >> up 236,000. >> told you. >> whoa! >> february nonfarm payrolls increased by 236,000 jobs. >> when we finish with the cliff the government gets out of the picture, look what happens. isn't it terrific? >> what a week.

welcome welcome back, everybody. we have been watching the futures this morning.

after five days in a row of gains, you see red arrows. dow futures down 16 points. s&p off by 2.5 points. in our headlines this morning, two publishing industry groups are opposing amazon's request to own new domain names. they argue it would end in sufficient fixes.book,.author and.read. >> house budget committee chairman paul ryan will unveil his latest budget proposal tomorrow. here to talk about it is jim nussle, former omb director and,000 cnbc contributor. good morning. >> good morning. >> is this an exercise in futility from what we see from paul ryan this week? or is there some reality to finding a meeting in the middle? >> i wish there was some reality to this. no, i think to start off with,

these are the philosophical corners that both chairman murray from the senate and chairman ryan from the house are going to be introducing their budgets. they're probably going to appeal to their base. you saw yesterday chairman ryan coming out saying one of the marquis issues was going to be repeal of obama care. i think we fought that battle. it's been over a few times. good luck with that one. that doesn't make it anymore realistic. all of this is on fact that the president was supposed to lay it out a month ago. and he still hasn't done so. this process has gone down to a lack of any kind of realistic nature. that's unfortunate. >> president obama has been making house calls, doing a lot of meetings trying to make friends quick. is this helping? is there anything afoot here?

>> i don't think it's afoot for the budget process. long term it might have the help. if you're hoping to got a tax bill through or budget bill or negotiate the debt ceiling, possibly. but this is towards other issues such as immigration reform. it's going to take a little bit longer than one or two dinners out with the boys. i think they're going to have to do a little bit more outreach when it comes to specific issues. i don't think the budget is kind of the prime real estate for that kind of common ground these days. it hasn't demonstrated it certainly. long term, could that have some impact? possibly. but i don't see it in the short-term, no. >> jim, i've been watching this process closely for a number of years now. and it strikes me that the attempt at a grand bargain looks like it's a loser. and i've been thinking what they ought to do is go for smaller

pieces. what's your recommendation if you were in the job that you held back a couple years ago, the omb jo. everybody seems to agree on chain cpi. put it together with something the other side and do one small deal. another small deal on top of that. is that a way to go? >> steve, i'm with you. you're exactly right. the days of two men going into a smoke-filled many a, those days are over. the public is tired of it. it doesn't happen that way. that's part of the reason why our legislative process is so broken across the board. we have to let the process work. you're right. one step forward, two step forward. not the 20 steps forward. >> what would that next small

deal with? >> well, i think steve is right. if you look at some of the entitlement reform there are pieces within entitlement reform. i don't think you see the same in tax reform. but i think a recitalment firm, cpi may be one. there's others that might be out there that you could reach for that could be part of a smaller reconciliation deal under a budget act bill moving through possibly. but, again, i think what the white house is doing is looking for other legislative vehicles, other legislative victories. no win has won so far in that process. either side looks back. so they're looking at some other legislative vehicles for that. >> he does have this background.

i think certainly the creativity is there. it has not yet been demonstrated to be -- to have been put forward either while he was budget director or chief of staff. i'm not sure you're going to necessarily see it from treasury during his tenure there. but it's a possibility. he's smart enough. he's got the creativity. he's got the deft pwe haoeupbtd him now. i think all of it is there. >> and if he's not, he's decisive. >> i don't think he's necessarily decisive. >> i didn't hear that. >> people in washington who phraoef he has been divisive historically. >> that's true. >> i think more because of inaction, the lack of moving forward. a lot have been in a position topping put the deal together when the president couldn't or when other cabinet members couldn't. he didn't demonstrate that. so

you could argue he's not going to argue that at treasury either. >> jim nussle, thank you. when we come back, the wall street firm hit the hardest by falling commodity prices. more when "squawk" returns. to watch it for us. thank you so much. i appreciate it. i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money? if your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. ally bank. your money needs an ally. all stations come over to mithis is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet...

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welcome back to "squawk box". in the headlines, goldman sachs disagree on shareholder vote on splitting the chairman and ceo roles. it is unable to concur with goldman's to split the roles doesn't warrant a vote. am swrapb's planned smartphone may not hit the market second quarter as originally scheduled. it says production delays at amazon are responsible for the anticipated late release. world of oz pre-quel the

great and the powerful. it brought in $80 million in the u.s. we kick off another week of trading. dow is sitting at all time highs. let's find out what traders are watching. editor of the golden port. and equity market, scott of the tree om group joins us in chicago. let me start with our gold expert. i keep wanting to play the neil young song "after the gold rush." is it too early, tom? >> you know, steve, it's not that it's too early, okay. but it's all about supply and demand. when you take a look at the demand versus supply we have a big problem. this is what it is. the gld is the sixth largest owner of gold in the world. bottom line.

last year demand went down 16%. that's a problem in the context of these etf structures are new to the market. when they're going up, that's great. had they're going down, it's not an emotional sold. it just has to be sold. central bank bought 428 tons of gold. now, i know you know the central bank gold agreement folks came into existence years ago because that's how gold crashed. and what happens with that agreement is this. they can only sell 400 tons a year or 2,000 tons within five years. well, they bought 429 tons versus selling anything. but when you take that in the context of what's happening with the gld, meaning that they are selling so there's net selling in the gold market. and when you're in a down market with net selling, it's problematic in a big way.

>> right. >> you put that together with the expect of the dollar going up, we have lower prices coming at us. it will be some kind of event or it will be back to the price of what gold costs to get out of the ground. >> i want to come back to that but i want to get to scott on equities. i do have more questions about gold. scott, i think if you go back now and you just look at the day of the week pattern you could do all your investment. mondays are down, fridays are up. and you could probably take off tuesday, wednesday, thursday. how do you like that strategy? >> it hasn't been a bad strategy as of late. but i would like to say friday's jobs report was good. it gave folks comfort and saying it wasn't just a ben bernanke rally. i noticed other guys early on the show absolutely we have a worry about europe. the news has been the vatican. we will see more italy. number two is boy, oh, boy, the

chinese need to step in and be there for us as well. i'm concerned by what we have going forward. we can still only muster 1% to 2% gdp. where is the growth? i don't want to get too down on everything, but i can't tell everybody to buy this market with both hands. you have to have one eye open and one eye closed and be very cautious going forward. >> what do you do with your hands? don't answer that question. >> mark, give some advice to the equities guys. are you still concerned? >> in the interim. we're in a 2% world for the rest of the year. i'm optimistic about 2014, 2015. if i'm a stock investors within a few more days, weeks, months, stocks are the place to be. >> retail investors asked over the weekend, i asked about this in the last hour, sitting on gold about a year. hasn't done anything. he's thinking of selling out of that, waiting for a dip in equities. are you advising retail guys

maybe they should get out of gold here? >> retail wise, we have been out for quite a while. ran it up to $1500, $1600. nothing goes up forever and nothing goes down forever. you have the expansion from 666 to 1900 was absolutely phenomenal. what gold did is this. we've already been to hell. you think armageddon is coming? it is over. we have already come out. gold stphfd out in 2002. can gold go to 2200? i expect it will be 2200 probably three or four years from now. we will pull back to 1350, 1400. it's a longevity deal. >> what gets it up to 2200, tom? is it renewed fears of armageddon? >> no, no.

listen, steve, it's 10 tons of dirt to get one ounce of gold. go check that out and then go into neiman marcus and buy the shirt you have on. give me a break. gold will hold its value. but it's not going to be oatkpg. it's not going to be a big deal three, four years from now. if any inflation comes in at all, everything goes up. milk, bread and cigarettes used to be a buck. >> is there an entry point you see for an optimistic investors? >> take advantage of anybody that sells the stocks. i agree with mark. in the short-term, we have some things to worry about. we have a 7.7 unemployment rate. i don't think growth is good enough for the government to

pull that back from the party yet. any dips in the market, they will be bought. 1575 is definitely in the cross-hairs for the s&p and maybe higher. even if it's 5%. i know that gets a little scary. at the end of the day that will pay that investor to buy the dips. we will see the market end up with with a higher equity market. >> every one says buy on the dip. >> tom and scott, thank you very much. >> have a great one. have a safe one. coming up, facebook board member calling for women to lean in and embrace success. her new book. we will talk to pattie sellers all about it. equity futures. we'll talk about that as well. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade

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futures futures down 20. it was right around there. down 16 a little bit earlier.

not any meaningful changes. 0.2 or something like that. we're watching shares of dick's sporting goods. reported fourth quarter profit of $1.03 per share. revenues falling short. the company says positive trend in athletic footwear. which i was buying yesterday. two pairs of cleats for my son. worse than expected sales in outer wear. my son wanted none. and cold weather accessories. what else do you need? i have my kids. >> can i ask roughly how old are you? early 50s? you almost represent the largest single age group in the country. >> what's the significance of

that? >> what you're doing is what the whole world is doing. buying cleats for their kids. >> i'm the last year of the baby boom. they used to fire teachers ahead of us. i'm also bald. >> baby boomers all think the world revolves around you. >> it does. >> and our kids, by the way. >> so two pairs -- this is in your future. >> already got it. >> you got the cleats and stuff and all the stuff you have to get. >> long, long list. >> i used the coupons. >> good for you. >> my wife said make sure you take these. >> good job. >> let's talk about a huge story we've been talking about around the commercial breaks here. cheryl sandberg's new book has been called a feminism

manifesto. >> you're suggesting women aren't ambitious. >> i'm not suggesting women aren't ambitious. what i want to say unapologetically that the data is clear that when it comes to ambition to lead, to be the leader of whatever you're doing, men, boys outnumbers girls and women. >> joining us is pattie sellers, editor at large at fortune. she wrote the cover story about everything that's been happening. thank you for joining us this morning. >> good morning, becky. thank you. >> so we've been talking about it a lot off air here. kind of can't help but get drawn into this conversation. are you surprised by the controversy itself has created. >> a little bit. you know, the controversy really started out with cheryl pitted against the people who said that it's the fault of institutions. that the reason with women

aren't getting ahead is because of glass ceilings and barriers. cheryl claims, and i think she's right, that she's taking the braver, more controversial point of view which is that it's not so much institutions fault, corporate america's fault, it's women's fault. we don't take enough risks. >> she certainly lays it out that women need to be more assertive. but she also -- in a more knew answered way blames women as well for the way we raise our girls and the things we allow kids to say. she talks about how she was called bossy. we all worried about our daughters being called bossy. that's men, society at large for how we treat them and how we raise them. >> absolutely. the really interesting thing to me is when i met cheryl in 2005 the first thing she told me is that she was afraid to put the

term most powerful women, which you know becky is our famous list we started in 1998 of the most powerful women in business. cheryl was coming to our conference for the first time. she told me -- she was at google at the time. and she said i can't put this most powerful women on my google calendar because we share calendars at google. and i would be embarrassed to put that on my calendar. she was not comfortable with the word "power." only about three years ago did she start talking about power, women, women and careers. she never wanted to define herself as a woman. she talks a lot about this in the book. >> pattie, i have mixed feelings myself as a mom who works. i think the biggest issue that i worry about is ever feeling i'm judgmental decisions about somebody else's decision. the decisions working moms make

every day is -- you feel guilty about the kids, you feel guilty about work and how you kind of juggle it all. the good part is it really does jump start the conversation and make people think very seriously about these roles. companies take this seriously to the point that any company or institution changes based on this conversation that's been kick started. >> well, you know, it's so fascinating that this debate about cheryl sandberg and this clearly controversial book, this debate is taking place at the same time that marissa myer has instituted this rule that you can't work at home at yahoo!. here she is the youngest ceo in the fortune 500 hired last summer when she was six months pregnant, has an infant boy.

she's issuing this rule. you know, on the surface it looks like you have marissa myer saying, you know, sort of limiting women's abilities to do -- lean in if they're mothers and sheryl sandberg saying do what you have to do to lean into your career. it's not that simple actually. it's not that simple. number one, as many men as women telecommute. >> i think i was reading you, it's not so much what marissa myer did as the way she went about doing it. that was your writing, wasn't it? >> it was. and i wrote a piece that said bold move, bad delivery. i mean i think marissa myer, and i'm going to be writing today a little bit more about marissa myer and talking a little bit about this nursery, which i'm the only journalist who has seen

seen the nursery. and marissa, though, i think her mistake here was -- i actually think it was a very brave move to turn around yahoo!. the board says we're hiring you six months pregnant. do what you need to do to turn this company around. the problem is she had her head of hr issue the e-mail to employees. she should have done it herself. she should have done it more thoughtfully. and she has written e-mails to all the employees since explaining it a little more. those e-mails have not been leaked. >> pattie, going back to sheryl for just a second. what do you think she's after? people spoke about whether she will run for office or something else. beyond the book it's become a platform not just for her movement but herself. what do you think the goal is? >> she's been under fire for is this really about sheryl

sandberg wanting to change the world or about her wanting to promote herself? i think it's both. and not to put sheryl in the league of hillary clinton, although i think she is getting there frankly, the reaction of sheryl sandberg has been like the early reaction to hillary clinton, which is she's just out for herself, she's self promoting, it's all about her. well, it has been all about her. but you know what, hillary clinton, no matter what your politics, i think you have toe admit, is a woman who wants to do -- who wants to change the world. so does sheryl. >> if you're facebook management, board, should you be happy she's doing this? should you be happy she has a book out and there's publicity

around this and not facebook? >> i don't know. she's not using facebook as the platform to build this lean-in movement. and i think that's probably a responsible thing to do. but yeah. i don't know. i don't know if the building of sheryl sandberg is good for facebook or not. that is the question. >> pattie, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you all. >> when we come back, more from mark zandi. and why it may be time to friend facebook.

welcome back to welcome back to "squawk box". >> are you ready? save the world? >> no. but here's the question. why shouldn't fiscal policy be on the same metric that monetary policy is on? bernanke says, i am not going to stop until we have substantial improvement in the labor market. why shouldn't fiscal policy be doing the same thing. why should they be working, in the words of bernanke, at cross-hairs to monetary policy 1234 why wouldn't you, for example, say i'm cutting the payroll tax until unemployment is 6.5% and i am not going to

cut spending of the government until unemployment gets to 6.5%. >> there's been proposals like this, right? part of this deal, stimulus was -- no, no, no. there's been similar kinds of ideas we should have fiscal stimulus until we hit some kind of target. >> right. >> but it's just a practical question. look at how we're making fiscal policy. it's a mess. >> by politics by not by the economics of it. >> if you were able to script it. let me say one thing, though. the political process is very unseemly and kind of ugly. certainly not ideal. but at the end of the day the fiscal policy we got through the recession and recovery actually wasn't all that bad. if you had asked me to write -- >> why do you say that? if you look at janet's graphic in her speech she gave several weeks ago, it was similar to other recoveries but in years two and three it was

contractionary. it worked against the recovery. i don't know why you say it wasn't that bad. in fact, it worked against it. let me just tell you my reason for the thinking. one of the things the fed believes about monetary is the precommitment that helps it work. and i wonder if fiscal policy has been less helpful because it's been stops and starts. if there was a precommitment there would be actual -- >> but this is nice in theory, this discussion. but just the practicality of it. you have congress, split congress, a president, you know, they're arguing over everything. for them to execute on something like that would be a miracle. that's why monetary policy, the way it's conducted, they look at what fiscal policies are doing. >> is it insane for the fiscal side to be working against the monetary side? why is it not good enough -- somebody should not be doing what they're doing. >> i would agree. i would agree. it would be nice if we could coordinate. >> we'll have a wide open

federal reserve but contracting the economy on the fiscal side. >> yeah. i think this tension is most obvious in the current context. because the economy is growing 2%. and you want stronger growth. 7% rate on inflation. so you would want it to be less contractionary. even if it's stimulate. >> mark, thanks for your thoughts on that. >> when when we come back, the dow pushing to new highs last week. can the bulls extend the rally? markets after this >> plus, portfolio picks that could make you money. one key thing in common. "squawk" president bush right back. ♪

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now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. will political will political uncertainty derail the rally. a long-time bear on facebook changes his tune. >> i immediately regret this decision. >> we continue our what's working series with a portfolio triple play from louie navalear.

the third hour of "squawk box" right now. good morning again, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. first in business worldwide, i'm becky quick. joe is off today. he's skiing. hitting the slopes. he is. >> where? >> colorado. our guest host is mark zandi. it's the markets that are in focus after the dow rose on every one of the five trading days last week. all 10 s&p finished higher. they were led by financials and consumer discretionary. almost a 14.4. they have cut back some of their losses. dow down 8 points. s&p down by less than 2 points. overnight in asia, nikkei up

half a percent. shanghai down slightly. in the early trade already you can see things are mixed. ftse slightly higher. we have a number of stories we're following this morning. >> the big story of the morning, committee chairman paul ryan says a compromise with president obama on taxes and spending is possible. he prepares his own budget proposal. he acknowledges unlikely to be approved by congress. >> we think it's unfair to ask hard working tax payers to pay more so washington can spend more. we think we should balance the budget. >> gasoline prices falling 6 cents in the last two weeks, the first drop of 2013. lundberg survey putting the national average at $3.73. the reason for the decline lower crude oil prices and refiners cutting wholesale following weeks of increases.

prices will be falling another 10 to 12 cents or more in coming weeks. for more on the markets and what to expect from the training week ahead, the vice chairman at aerial investments and cancer portfolio management. did i get that right? >> close but not perfect. >> my mom still doesn't know how to say it after 30 years of marriage. >> i was reading through some of the notes that you put together. and the one that sort of screamed at me was you say go home and find all on the long term bonds you own and sell them. put your money in cash if you have to but sell your bonds. you have that all in capital letters. >> yeah. i think there are times when something is absolutely clear.

we in the business have been slow at recommending it. this is absolutely clear. interest rates are going to go up. and when they do, bonds are going to get hit hard. >> we thought this was going to happen for a long time. >> yeah. but we are now a lot levels we haven't seen since the 1800s. >> what? >> the only time the 10-year bond was this level was pearl harbor. and rates are going to go up. we have the chairman buying $85 billion worth of bonds every month. people say he's keeping down interest rates. he can't stand on mount olympus and agree they go down. what he can do is bid up the price of bonds. $85 million a month. and when he stops rates are going to go up. bonds will go down a lot. a 1% move in the 10-year takes bond prices down 8%. 200, 300-point move. >> where should the 10-year yield be in a normal economy?

>> 3.5%. 2.5% in a bubble rate. people were afraid. so they put their money into bonds. >> how come people haven't been moving money out? bond flows have not flowed out like you would expect. this is finally the time. >> that's right. what's happened for the last few years, massive flow in bonds. they have gone from 60% equities to 60% bonds. they've been able to get away with it because the performance has been good. but when that starts to go the other way and people realize bonds are not risk free. >> help me. when is that going to happen? >> that's the point. >> you could still be wrong by another two years. >> sure. but i'm going to be right eventually. it's just a question of when. >> i say that all the time, by the way. >> markets can stay irrational

the longer you can stay liquid. >> i didn't say bet your net worth. but go home and find all the long term bonds you have and tell them. >> when you say long, is it five, seven. >> it gets worse every time you take a duration out. >> so should not be a holder of fives. >> i wouldn't hold any treasury over a two. it will lose value. the worst is in municipal. ubl bubble has a price that bears to relationship to underlying values. >> there's a lodging, right? >> 7.7% unemployment rate. it is well below potential. and fed buying a boat load of security. you can explain it, right? it doesn't mean it's a bubble. it's overball. >> bubble is a price out of line with its historical nature, whether the fund mentals of that investment, and driven by emotion. we got here because people were

afraid. they were afraid of the stock market. they are making irrational investments. >> can i just ask one thing. we have heard this message a lot lately. are you telling people aside from not buying bonds, would you go home and look at your retirement account for the average retail investors. and if you have 30% in bonds, would you sell that fund? >> i would sell a fund with any duration over three or four years. you will have a negative return on the investment. nobody should have all their investments in the stock market. >> so where do you go to diverse any? >> some cash, access. gold if you're afraid of inflation. >> some people have pretty limit says options. you can own stocks, bonds or cash. >> don't be afraid of money

market accounts. you will not lose money in money market accounts than you will on bonds. >> is there going to be a pullback and should we be waiting for that. >> what we all learned by now, no disrespect, nobody can call short-term in the stock. >> we can call long term. i'm not saying i know next quarter the stock market is going to be down. >> i apologize. that was out of character. i usually don't do that. >> let me be clear. i'm not saying it's going to collapse next quarter. i say they are going to go down. i don't think anybody can predict what the next quarter will look like in the stock market. >> andrew, it's not about when

you're investing, for -- for a trader, yeah. it's what's happening the next minute. >> retail investors play the headlines. to the extent you're right and the next jobs report isn't as good as the next one, they will look at that and say, maybe i need to wait now. or maybe my drop is coming. >> what the retail investors always does is sell after markets going down. all the data morningstar has done, retail investors are worse in the market. >> i want to make one point about what charles is saying. there's a different way to look at fed policy. tell me if you like this idea. one idea is that the fed is trying to drive down interest rates. the other idea, maybe bernanke is giving it a chance for it to unwind in an unsystemic way.

he's a better buyer in terms of on the way down. what you're suggesting is use this opportunity where the fed is out there now providing that cushion to get out. >> he's giving you a wonderful bid. shoe hit that bid. 85 million a month bid. sell them. find those bonds and sell them to mr. bernanke because you are never going to get another bid like this. >> wow. i don't disagree with that. when i think about why the fed is doing what it's doing, i'm not sure that's primarily in the front of their mind. but i'm sure it's in there somewhere. that's why you might be wrong in terms of how this unwinds. they will be very careful to taper policy. now, whether or not that tapering has the effect they think it has is different. >> the rate of change. >> there are going to be a lot of people who realize --

>> wind up being empty. >> 2% to 4.5%, 5%. it may not happen in one year. but i think you're right, it's going to happen. >> equities. you like morgan stanley. you like bank stocks. >> i felt like i was at a cubs game in november. i was by myself. the fact of the matter is these things which were out of fed last year are coming back. >> 90%. it's still a very effective price. morgan stanley, the brokerage business is many coming back. they make more money in stocks than in bonds. smith barney very strong. >> they will benefit from housing recovery as people have more money to spend. we like banks as a way to play the housing market. >> thank you for being here this

morning. had a lot of fun. scared the hell out of us. >> marcus is with us the rest of the show. coming up, a portfolio triple play from louis navellier. still to come, paul meeks. why is he buying stock for his most aggressive portfolios? find out at 8:40 eastern. ♪ [ indistinct shouting ] [ male announcer ] time and sales data. split-second stats. [ indistinct shouting ] ♪ it's so close to the options floor... [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ] ...you'll bust your brain box. ♪ all on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. ♪ departure. hertz gold plus rewards also offers ereturn--

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welcome back welcome back to squawk back. the futures right now were down eight. now they're down seven. this kind of excitement is no good for my heart, becky. i don't know. >> you know what's interesting, what's going to happen on this monday. because mondays have stunk. >> mondays -- fridays -- that's what i said. >> last month when things really turned around for the market, we started out with red arrows. >> tuesday, wednesday, thursday off. short on monday, long on friday. and you get a two-day workweek. what's wrong with that? >> yeah. it works until it doesn't anymore. >> until they start to anticipate. what do you think the odds are now? 25 cents on the table here.

over friday being up again. >> how about monday? why don't we watch today's? what are the odds of monday being down again? >> i know fridays had been up every friday this year. >> all right. that will be part of our game show we've got. we have another thing that investors can play along at home as well. if you're looking for diversification for your port folio, look no further. louis navellier has three stocks from different sectors that share one common trade. i want to run through this. let me think about this for a second. winnebago, sure minute williams and mexico three stocks. i don't know what they have in common. do you want to give us a little bit of a clue here? >> strong sales growth. earnings are growing faster than sales because the operating margins are expanding. next quarter will be the slowest

for a while. we expect the market to get smart. we expect the leaders to break out. there's been a lot of froth in this market and it's tying to go to quality. >> winnebago, what do you like besides first quarter forecasted sales and earnings? >> not only that. we have order backlog three times what it was a year ago. consumer confidence is up. and it's -- it has a very strong earning surprise history in recent quarters. so we expect another big earnings surprise. >> i think one of the big questions people have, correct me if i'm wrong, but winnebago was like a hog, went into the 2008 financial crisis. where you saw the middleclass americans who had been able to purchase some of these things in the past really pulled back on spending. has that changed, that dynamic? >> sure, it's changed. they have financing available for mobile homes and of course it's tax deductible. as long as you don't have too many homes. sales are definitely up. >> okay. so winnebago.

sherwin-williams. talk us through that. it's not just the paint business but an acquisition. >> they bought a cemex, one of the largest worldwide. they're benefitting from the housing boom not only here in america but around the world. especially -- cemex acquisition was a big deal. >> but you like what you see in terms of housing in the united states as well? >> oh, it's definitely recovering. it's not recovering fast enough. it's slow, steady, adding jobs. if you're going to fix up one of these many properties that are still on the market, paint is the first thing you're going to get. >> talk us through fermento mexico. >> a big coca-cola bottler in mexico. 43 gallons of soft drinks by mexicans a year. it might be what diabetes on the rise there.

their sales and earnings are stunning. they're getting stronger and stronger. they have beer down there too they sell. >> if you looked at the market overall, you did say a little bit you think it's going to be tougher that earnings will not be coming in as great. we have mark zandi on set with us. he talks how he's expecting another spring swoon. maybe you see things slow down the next several months before they pick up again. does that fit with your thought process as well? >> first quarter earnings may be up four or five with surprises and all the stock buy-backs are going on. but they definitely get better in the second half of the year. one thing i'm watching is the dollar. when the dollar was getting weak a couple months ago it was going to fuel profits. but it got its mojo back when britain got downgraded. a comedian got elected in italy.

>> although you look at central banks around the world and they're all printing as fast as they can. in that sort of environment currency -- the dollar hasn't always reacted the way a lot of people expected. >> that's correct. the dollar rallies when everybody is scared. and so britain and italy squared everybody. of course probably another italian election coming up. but we do have the lowest rates in the world outside japan and switzerland. and those low rates that are going to be with us for a couple of years is definitely causing foreign capital fleet. you know, it's going to be interesting to see how the fed unwinds this. you can already see that wall street gets scared any time they talk about unwinding it. but fortunately bernanke and janet yelin confirmed the pump will be on for a while. >> louis, thank you very much

for joining us. >> thank you. coming up, squawk booze news. a fight brewing in europe over the definition of absinth. and now he's investing in the social networking giant. find out what changed his mind. >> you don't smoke pot but you drink absinth? it's monday.

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welcome back welcome back to "squawk." breaking news. the stock is moving. dell stock. icon enterprises announcing it is entering into a confidentiality agreement with dell. as you know, carl icahn said that he is pushing for a better deal at dell. doesn't like the management buyout. proposed a different transaction to lever up the company. >> and getting a big, fat dividend. >> for himself and the other shareholders. the big question now if they are entering into this confident agreement is it possible he could enter into the bidding contest himself. shareholders asked whether he should be coming into this and saying, look, i'm buy -- put up or shut up. if you want to do the deal, do the deal. if you don't want to do the deal, don't do the deal.

the big question is whether icahn will be buying this. my personal view, just to share it, i can't imagine him buying this thing fully. so i'm not sure whether this helps or hurts the situation but it does clearly -- >> it's one of two things. either he is getting in and is interested in participating in some part and whether you take it private, or you basically buy off the loudest vocal critic of some of these things and put it out there. the market reacting positively. >> becky, this is totally outside of any area of expertise i have. why a confidentiality agreement if that's what was going on? >> the purpose of the confidentiality agreement would be if he wanted to buy the company and he wanted to be a bidder you would sign a confidentiality so you could get a look under the covers. that's what this traditionally is about. >> is he a serious bidder, do you think? >> i think he's going to say he's a serious bidder.

>> is there another reason why there would be one? >> the only one i can think of in this context, give him one, take him under the covers and say check it out for yourself. see if the numbers add up yourself. >> does he have to show any seriousness ahead of time to get that confidentiality agreement? >> last week he showed as much seriousness -- >> he owns, what, 6% of the company. >> and then you get a look for 6%. >> southeastern is another major investor. they have said they would support some type of transaction that ultimately levers up the company and keeps it as a public entity. the argument is a management buyout unto itself is untoward because somehow michael dell and his team at silverlake know more than anybody else. >> am i going to get a nasty phone call if i say carl eye karpb is green mail.

>> we do modern day green mail. in old days if you wanted to get rid of him you pay him off and say please go away. now you have to say is come under the tent, be part of my team. that's something that can happen. by the way, it has happened. blockbuster said come in, play with us. others have done the same thing. >> so let me just game this out. carl eye can makes a big stink how the dell buyout is not sufficient. >> right. >> makes a big thing. and then they bring him into the tent. is this going to rault in a payoff? there's no way to buy off carl. >> you could bring them in and make him part -- >> you could make him part of the buyout. the big question is people talked about whether there should be a public stub. you guys are going to run off with this thing. i will have sold too soon. if you believe that let me own a piece of your private company. now, there's been a lot of

questions whether people want to do that. >> and there are a lot of risks. >> huge. >> so you are making a bet on the business. >> we have to go to break. how great is it that andrew is part of the "squawk box" on set. >> can i say one last thing o'dell? this is a risky deal. people don't appreciate that. most of the private equities not silverlake thought this was a dog. every shareholder who thinks they're being ripped off, there is another side. they would be happy if this thing fell apart. so, you know, people are on the deal obviously want it to happen. it's not. so simple. >> dell thinks it's a good deal. >> of course michael dell thinks it's a good deal. >> and you think he's wrong? >> he may be wrong. he may be right. >> is he right or wrong? >> tough sledding ahead. >> you think he's making the wrong call? >> five years from now if he makes this work, we should all applaud and call it a day.

>> that applause and a quarter might get you half a cup of coffee in new york city. >> there are two sides to a market. that's what year watching right now. when we william back, the trading week ahead. the latest buzz in the south by southwest conferences. find out what's turning thaed that forced twitter and foursquare to popular culture. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 seems like etfs are everywhere these days. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 but there is one source with a wealth of etf knowledge tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all in one place. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 introducing schwab etf onesource™.

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"squawk box" this morning. stocks on the move, dick's sporting goods, up $1.03 a share. revenue fell short of consensus as they sold less outer wear and cold weather gear than anticipated. best buy updated from overweight to neutral. the electronics retailer's new management has best buy on track for a multiyear turnaround. we'll see about that. and genoa financial on a past mention. the paper says it could double because of improvements in its mortgage and health care

segments. as we were talking earlier in booze news, an sinth. the definition at its meeting in straussbu straussburg, france it contained a toxin called therjon. it was believed to cause intense drunkness and vision blurriness. the french want to protect the historical method of producing the drink requiring therjon. germans are concerned about health risks. they want to allow the term absinthe. >> i remember drinking it once in college. >> you don't remember it? >> i remember going to a place that had it. i was a junior in college.

>> you have been talking in my ear. if you drink one shot it's like warm and fuzzy. two shots, everything is woozy. three shots you take off all your clothes and run up and down the streets. >> that didn't happen. >> as far as you know. >> the other part might have. i was in college. so that kind of thing happens. >> this is an excellent sign. if they're debating this, this is what they're talking about in europe. come on. we're making progress. >> used to be a big debate over what was chocolate. right? a chocolate debate and what's meat. it doesn't replace any of it, mark. >> oh, darn. i was kind of hoping. >> let's talk a little bit more about the markets and see what's happening. rick santelli joins us from chicago. rick, we got through the last couple of weeks, last week. now everybody is trying to figure out if the economy is starting to pick up a little

steam since the jobs numbers came in a little bit better than expected. what's the talk down there today? >> well, you know, people are looking up in the sky and they are seeing that the pieces of it aren't missing. so the sequester doesn't seem to be an issue. and the notion it's going to gain steam over time, you know, nothing outlives the 24-hour news cycle down here. it's all about foreign exchange. many very good technicians have been looking at the pound/dollar and thinking 1.50 was going to hold. here we sit at under $1.49. i think that's very important. we're looking at the downgrade op italy. the bank of japan pretty much trying to buy everything in it's quantitative mode. maybe down to kenmore washing machines. central bank gone wild has

become ensconced in our financial nature. one said sell stocks while you can. the biggest debate on the floor might be the old debate, the news story cycle how the fed will hold everything until it runs off. and i think, you know, that pretty much summarizes it. so that's a collision for those that believe in the john taylor exit will be messy. many people down here are big john taylor fans verses the notion that after four shots of absinthe, they can deal with all of this. >> the bond bubble theory is something people started talking about a couple years ago. but in the last, i would say month or so, it seems almost every day a guest comes on and warns about it. i know we can't time things. but it feels like there are so many more people who are

expecting it to happen sooner rather than later. that's the sense you get too? >> yes. it's kind of like mid-06 when people were debating there was definitely a credit bubble. the spreads were too tight. credit was underpriced. but yet things didn't really crash for another year and a half or so. many use that analogy. and i think the other issue to pay very close attention to is were even though technically all the ney sayers have been wrong for the last three years, they are right in one category. the last several years the appreciation in price has always come to bail you out on total return. it's been a while since our 1.38 low yield close. if you sell it, you may not get rich. you may die from old age before one or two years down the road sell-off occurs. but it's much more difficult to make any money buying it down

here. you have very little protection. the tipping effect could happen a lot faster. bidding something up and deeming that you're owe -- i think his quote was dealing with zeus looking down, i agree with that sentiment. >> excellent, excellent analysis. thank you. >> thank you. the conferences and festivals known as south by southwest have been used to propel new company's innovation into pop culture, notably twitter and foursquare. we have the trending innovations at this year's event. julia. >> well, this is where twitter and foursquare took off years ago. this year, instead of social networking physical products are in the spotlight. scott weiss calls this the year of the gadget. a motion-controlled sensor for pcs. it is designed to transform the

way people play games and surf the web. another called momodo is a $280 miniature life-blogging camera. it clips to a shirt to take photos every 30 seconds and document your day. the accompanying app experiences into a digital flip book of sorts and 3,000 cameras have already been sold worldwide. of course there are the apps. local mobile transportation apps like uber are seeing competition here. it is investing in a high-end service here offering teslas and rolls royces for the next generation taxi market. >> you can have a big impact with a really creative idea. but it has to stand out. so for us pushing a button and a

rolls royce ghost picking you up, people get excite build that. >> uber partnered with samsung to offer pedi cabs over the course of the week. it has a huge return on investment. they expect about 10,000 new customers after their presence here. and he says they have an even bigger impact when you calculate all the social media buzz. >> i don't know if you saw this, something about a google shoe, sneaker that tracks your walking. did you see this at all? >> a talking shoe. here's the thing. google is not going to start selling sneakers. this is an experiment to show off all the things you can use with google technology. they are demoing a shoe that uses sensors to measure how fast you're moving, the kind of

pressure you're putting on the sneakers. it's all rigged with an adidas shoe to tell you move faster, stop sitting there, get off your tush. it's a trash talking shoe. they're having a lot of fun with it. it's not a product they're going to sell. it's just a fun thing. >> have some fun out there. i don't know if you noticed, an article about a bar in seattle that will not allow you to wear google glasses. they say you should be part of the moment. if you're looking up in the sky at your little thing you can't do that. >> did you get that? i don't want to talk about it. >> no, no. i haven't seen it 1234r release. >> we'll do the break, come back and give you all the details. coming up, the dell deal ic. acceler-rental.

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welcome back. welcome back. we have breaking news to bring you again. carl icahn confirming he's entering into a confidentiality agreement with dell to look at their books. it means, by the way, potentially he could be a bidder or something else. we don't know. there has not been additional commentary from the company beyond the statement that they will be entering into this confidentiality agreement but it

does suggest that perhaps he is being brought in under the tent in the hopes that he might bid for the company. other shareholders suggest if he wants to keep the company public or take all that money out from a difficult deposited, might as well buy the whole thing. in the meantime, we're continuing our "what's working" series. a long time bear on facebook stock. but now he's ready to buy. is facebook the right pick for every investors? pull joins us now. cite are na capital, is that correct, paul? >> that's correct. >> why do you like it now? i remember you hated this thing. >> we manage $4 billion in the smallest of fractions only for the most aggressive folks. these are folks that don't even expect much from the stock in 2013. to put that in perspective, to set the stage. but i would say with when the

company first went public they didn't want to talk monetary traffic. now they want to do that. the big thing not only with this company but with any of the social networking companies is what are you going to do with mobile apps? they have only broken out revenues for a couple quarters. last quarter in december 2013, 306 million in mobile app revenue. i expect in the march '13 quarter it will be 3.50, 3.60. last year they did 458 million in mobile app revenues. i expect it to be closer to 1.6 billion on a total revenue of about 6.8. that's where the market is going and that's where we need to see more progress. >> what is your target on the stock? you said we shouldn't be thinking about the end of this year. i assume you do have investors who care about where it's going

to be a year and a half from now. for 2019, where do you think this should go? >> i think the stock should go much higher than even its ipo price from may of last year. >> are you a bull on google? google has had a huge run recently. the reason i ask i put it potentially in the camp of facebook. but there's a lot of ney sayers out there. >> i like google as well. we own that in a bigger size. it should go to $900 when you add net cash per share. of course google is further ahead. but i think what happens down the road, i'm talking a couple years out both companies will be among the three, four, five horsemen that dominate the space. >> who else are the horsemen? >> through time, apple will continue to be a major league player. >> is apple a major league

player. let's talk real briefly. you on apple? it was the opposite of the last two we showed. >> i like apple very much longer term. it's obviously very with the reven revenue. analysts are still lowering estimates. i don't know how low it could go. i was thinking 375, 400, 425. long term i think apple is a really goodbar began at this price and people should buy it. >> all the services, all the different services google has that make that product and annan droid -- i'll tell you i was with all these young kids who think that is the future. they said how is it possible they will ever be able to keep up but they don't get services. >> the thing you have to remember about android versus iphone. yes, it has a hell of a lot of market share, unit share.

but the revenues to the overall eco system are dominated by apple. >> real quick before we go, do you like dell in this whole mess? are you following it? >> no. because every time you turn around you see more and more negative data. even worse than the bears originally thought, with estimates for worldwide and united states pc units. so hp and dell it's just getting more and more dire. >> that's just an art basically they should -- shareholders should be happy to get rid of the company. >> give it to michael. >> 13.65 is much higher than the offer. and the company generates cash. i can make a valuation case there. but the long term, whether it is public or private, unless they drastically reform their business and lessen their reliance to pc, it doesn't

matter. they are still in the pc business. >> sheryl sandberg is on "usa today". she was on television last night. is that a positive or negative? do you factor it in when looking at stock? >> i don't factor it is. i care about the quality and the depth of the management team. as far as what she does communicating her thoughts to the public in any venue, that really doesn't factor into my analysis for facebook. >> paul meeks, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. when we come back, don't start your trading week without jim cramer's stock to watch. we'll check in with jim right after this. i know what you're thinking...

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let's go down to the new york stock exchange. jim cramer joins us now.

buy on monday, take tuesday, wednesday, thursday off. >> if it were that simple we'd be pretty rich. >> or rested and relaxed, anyway. >> well, true. this is one of those moments where i think people are trying to search for something to trade off of. it's always a sucker's game. the market has been very good all year and if you're looking to something to buy you have to circle back to things that may be dead in the water that may be picking up because gross domestic product in this country might be stronger. >> mark, what do you think of that? >> which? >> jim's saying gdp could be stronger. >> in the next couple of quarters? >> it could be, but the odds are no, we have significant spending cuts coming our way. >> jim, you don't worry about the retailers, jim? >> they've been very strong and my checks indicate they've been stronger than expected. the fema money isn't even here yet. we're still, people are rebuilding in the northeast.

incredible, there are 1 million housing starts. if they do 1.2 million housing starts. >> i haven't let my optimism shine. i am quite optimistic. you know, i think as we move into 2014 and '15. the housing numbers you're talking about will just take over and you can see it in the employment data, right? yes. i'm just nervous that we're taking the next three, six months for granted, and that, you know, these government spending cuts will be quite significant. the other thing i'll point out is a statistical thing. we've seen this picture for the last three or four years, and you come into the new year and then things real willy slow quite significantly. there could be fundamental reasons for that, but it could be seasonal adjustment issues, as well and the data can be juiced just because of the way we're measuring things. >> absolutely. it's been a terrific trade to get the first couple of months

of performance and the sell in may has worked 50% of the time. i think my issue is that the fundamentals are better than they were these last couple of years in the united states and it's difficult to deal with the companies who have always told me that things are good and you don't know what you're talking about because i have the macro view and you don't know what it looks like because i'm smarter than you. i can't do it. i don't know what to do with home depot when they tell me look, things are finally turning around with gross domestic product, and you may think you know because you're a grower of tomato plants. it's a race between higher incomes from working and what we saw in the wage numbers and employment and what's happening from the tax hikes and the payroll tax hikes and the sequester. if you're telling me home depot is telling you that the consumers are in the race. >> home depot is where you'd see it, right? it's that the other retailers where you'd be more nervous about.

>> how do i deal with macy's? they're clearly not a liar or a bluff artist. i don't know what to do with it. >> you're supposed to sell in may and go away. listen, you are so clueless. how do i tell terry lundgren he's clueless when he tells me business is good. >> we'll see you in just a few minutes. >> i have four things i want to ask joe, but we can't. >> we'll see you at the top of the hour. when we come back, our guest host has been mark zandi. we'll get his optimism. more on that when squawk comes back. i'm a conservative investor. but that doesn't mean i don't want to make money. i love making money. i try to be smart with my investments. i also try to keep my costs down. what's your plan? ishares. low cost and tax efficient. find out why nine out of ten large professional investors

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