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"the cat in the hat," was published. so today we picked out some seuss-like stocks. cat in the hat, red hat, one of the worst performers, green hegs and ham, smithfield foods, "oh, the places you'll go," expedia, and priceline. >> i'm going to vegas. see you tomorrow. >> tractor riding, here we come. well, here he comes. "closing bell" is next. hi, everybody. good afternoon. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo at the new york stock exchange. an historic winning streak for stocks hangs in the balance in this final hour of trading. >> it's looking close here. i'm bill griffeth. it would be eight straight days for the dow and the s&p, six consecutive all-time highs for the dow. but right now, we are lower, although we're well off the lows of the day. >> i know! a little rally going on right now. >> a little tease this last hour. >> also coming up in a few minutes, a huge exclusive interview with disney ceo bob iger. his stock backing off of an

all-time high today, but it has been on a tear now for a while. we will talk to him about what's next for disney, the reason activist investors fight to get him to split his ceo and chairman titles, and try to find out if harrison forest, mark hammel, and carrie fisher are really going to be in the next "star wars" movie. >> say it's so. we'd love that. and also here today, ceo of chevron, john watson, we'll get his take on the fight over shale and fracking, that controversial keystone pipeline all very critical to the energy future of the united states. but before all that, let's take a look at these markets. trying to keep a winning streak aleiv. so far, close but no cigar. down just 15 points. we are well off of the lows, however. we'll see if we actually get some buying interests taking us to another all-time high today. the nasdaq composite, also looking at some selling today. in fact, technology, one of the weaker spots of the day, down 16 points on the nasdaq and the s&p 500. looks like this, a similar chart pattern, decline of the session right now of 5 and change.

>> let's get to today's closing number with four very smart people. we have carol roth, brian bellski, michael holland, and our own rick santelli. welcome to all of you. ladies first. you're getting some of your merger activity, carol, that you've been looking for, even as this market goes higher. >> absolutely, bill. as we've been saying, buyouts are going to continue and they're going to continue. and i think that this really is a stock picker's market. and if i'm going to put my money anywhere, and i have, the one that i really like is bed bath and beyond. i mentioned this on the program a couple weeks back. it has now been validated in a number of publications. you have a company that's trading at a very reasonable valuation. it's got a net cash position and a very high historical return on invested capital. so to me, that creates a really good recipe for a potential buyout, and i think that that name and potentially others in the luxury goods sector, as well

as throughout consumer, could be great buyout candidates. >> does this kind of activity, a pickup in mergers, does that signal, usually, near the bottom of a market or the top of a market, in your view? >> i think the market is going to continue to do what i call a dosy doe. a few step forward, a few step backs, swing your partner round and round and probably end up in the same place. i don't really look at it in terms of the broader market, i look at it in terms of very specific stock opportunities. and i think the consumer sector and also potentially health care. >> brian, you have to look at this as a victory. yes, we got a decline, but this market's down just 12 points. how do you read what's going on today after this seven straight days of gains for this market? >> well, especially how you opened show about the markets up from the lows and this buying kind of coming in. the credibility of making new highs for so many days in a row really helps people feel better about moving back into equities and we're starting to see that. this is the little engine that could, though. this market is going to continue to kind of climb higher and it's

looking more and more like a goldilocks nursery rhyme every day that we go on through this. so equities in general, and u.s. stocks specifically still look very, very attractive. >> so you still want to put new money to work? >> sure. because at the end of the day, we're investments, not market timers. our forecast for the market is still 1575. we're still bullish. we may have some upside to that, given what we anticipate could be a surprising second half of the year in terms of the macroside of things. so let's get the pace of job growth continuing on. let's get the manufacturing recovery going on. let's get capex going and the market will continue to go higher. >> michael, this negative psychology the market has faced for months now, you feel is actually a positive, don't you? >> absolutely, bill. after four years of bull markets, it's interesting that brian used a phrase, people feel a little bit better about things when they're going up like this. and people generally don't feel anything right now about the stock market. one week ago, as you guys were sitting down there, and the

market -- the dow hit a new high, there weren't any champagnes popping or headlines going on. people after ten bad years in the stock market, up until four years ago, just got so beaten up by the market, they don't care. that means that stocks like disney, and thank you to bob iger, when you interview him in a few minutes, great companies have done so well, but they are still trading at relatively attractive -- disney's a great microcosm. 36%, year-to-date, past 12 months return, and the stock is still trading in the mid-teens in terms of a multiple. people don't believe stocks are an attractive place to be right now, and carol roth's idea about companies buying other companies is going to be one signal that people are going to finally get the message. >> do you want dividend payers? >> i love them, maria. i love to get paid while i wait. and the last four years, we've been getting paid and made money as well. but, yeah, there are so many great companies paying fat dividends. why not? >> you know, to mr. market now,

rick santelli, the message you're getting these day, it occurs to me, rick, that lately we haven't had any really big up days as we set these records. we're only getting singles. we're not getting home runs to get to these records, just hitting singles every day. not a lot of volatility. what do you make of that? >> you're right. it's the joe dimaggio trade and definitely it starts to add up after a while. well, it's made a more palatable path for have interest rates, which already are going to have a hard time moving higher. but what's fascinating is, even with the fed's thumb on the scale, a point you've made many times, we still see a year and a half wide on the difference between our yields and ten-year boon yields. and one side bar, fixed income market doesn't usually have things that go, oh, my gosh over, but several hours ago, a story eked out that chesapeake energy, who's had their fair share of bad press, failed to recognize a window to call back some of their bonds issued in

2012, $1.3 billion. so everybody was kind of talking about that. it might have even briefly impacted the price of the stock. >> and in terms of that great rotation that we talked about, let me get your thoughts on that. we've been talking about money coming out of treasuries forever, but it looks like the money coming into the stock market is the largely from cash. are you expecting a big move out of bonds? >> this negative psychology that was born in that ten ugly years in the stock market, i don't see people watching now who haven't participated in this doing a wholesale sale. no, i don't see it, maria. i think these things take years, and that's one of the reasons i'm kind of constructive for the next several years, because, you've had a 30-year bull market, as rick knows better than anyone, in the bond market, and we've had a ten-year awful time in the stock market. we're only four years into this bull market. these things take a while. >> carol, i'm very curious. we get people like brian bellski or my colleague who come here, and they're not alone, who talk about the valuations, what they

perceive to be cheap valuations of this market. you don't see the that, though. what metrics that you're looking at that they're not looking at or vice versa? >> i think it, obviously, depends on a case-by-case basis. there are certainly some values out there. but i've talked about before the quality of earrings. sometimes the earrinnings are f in terms of their real long-term quality, because they have been injured in terms of overhead cuts or share buybacks, things that are not sustainable in the long-term. if we don't have that topline growth, then we don't that valuation that can grow over and over and over again. so if you want to command a growth valuation, you have to have growth, that means growth at the top line. otherwise, to me, it means those valuations don't hold up over long-term. >> quickly, are are those earnings fake? >> no, the quality of earnings have actually improved dramatically. what she's talking about has already happened over the last five years. it's the institutional crowd that are starting to feel better. mom and pop in topeka are

squarely in the bunker. >> but that's going to be a potential? >> that will be the big trade. >> thank you all. appreciate it very much. see you guys later. heading toward the close, 50 minutes left in the trading session, what do you think? can we finish positive today? >> it's so hard to say, bill. i'm optimistic, given the fact we're well off the lows right here. >> down 19 on the dow. if it finishes lower, first time we will have broken that seven-day winning streak. up next, an interview you won't see anywhere else. disney ceo and chairman bob iger is here exclusively. lots to talk to him about as his stock has had an amazing run. despite that, he's had to fight off attempts of shareholders to strip him of his chairmanship. i'll also ask him the question on everyone's mind. you don't want to miss his answer coming up on closing bell. and from "star wars" to smartphone wars, new phones from blackberry and samsung getting the kind of buzz usually reserved for apple.

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looking at the markets here, even though the dow is down ten points, one of the standouts today to the upside is general mills, gis, just announcing an increase in their dividend today and as a result now, the stock is up 1.4% at $46.34. otherwise, though, the blue chips are trading a bit lower. the question is, can the dow get back into positive territory to make it eight straight up days and another new all-time high? that's something we'll be watching very carefully. something else we're watching today for obvious reasons, disney's stock. and we take you back eight years to when bob iger took over as chairman and ceo. and in that time, the stock, as mike holland was pointing out a little while ago, up 103.76%. that would be called a double. and shareholders thank him that are. maria? >> in fact, under my next guest's watch, the stock has nearly doubled since october of 2011. bob iger has engineered special acquisitions including pixar, marvel, and most recently, lucas

films, which of course is the "star wars" franchise. his portfolio also includes abc, espn, theme parks and a lot more. despite all of this, he recently fended off activist investors who wanted him to split the chairman role from his ceo role. we welcome to the program disney ceo, bob iger. bob, so nice to have you on the program. >> nice to be here. >> thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on that performance over such a long period of time. >> thank you. >> i want to begin on the buzz around your latest movie, "the great and powerful oz," has pulled in $150 million worldwide in the debut weekend. why did this oz prequel succeed, while disney's 1958 attempt, "return to oz," not so great at the box office. >> i don't think they're comparable. i guess they share a name or part of a name. a great legacy, obviously, a classic movie, done well, beautiful film to watch, well cast, and just captured the imagination and our team did a great job marketing it here and overseas. >> does that typically sort of dictate what happens next, when

you've got such a fantastic open weekend, then you've got a lot of buzz around it. i guess it sort of feeds on itself, doesn't it? >> you hope that it does, yes. in today's world, word of mouth is a big deal. people hearing that a movie is a success is a great thing. you also want them to like it. that's very important too, but a weekend like that is a great thing. >> can we assume this will be another franchise that eventually includes "dorothy: a sequel"? >> too soon to tell. >> let me ask you about another sequel, such a powerful theme and that is "star wars." a lot of talk around "star wars," particularly the old cast, harrodson forest, mark hamill, carrie fisher. are they going to reunite? >> george lucas was quoted as saying they would, but we don't have any official announcement right now. we have a team working on the film right now, j.j. abrams is going to direct it. we have a writer who's working with some of the folks who were involved in some of the earlier films. and when the story is quot

quote/unquote broken, then we'll make decisions about the cast. >> is this something that you've talked to them about already? >> talking to the -- >> the actors? >> yes, there have been discussions already. >> let me ask you about "star wars" and the lucas acquisition. that seems so perfect for disney, given that you have all the fantastic characters out there in terms of animation. what do you envision the biggest opportunity with lucas on top of marvel, on top of pixar? >> well, it is perfect for disney. interestingly enough, we've had a great relationship with "star wars" for years. we have "star wars"-based attractions at a number of our parks, here and overseas, in japan and paris, in florida and in california. they've done very well for us. this is, you know, perfect for disney, because we manage great character franchises, starting with mickey mouse, who was introduced first in 1928, all the way through to the great pixar characters and the marvel characters through today. so this fits into, you know, that great franchise category

really well. and with franchises, what we do as a company is we manage them very effectively, or leverage them, issued say, across businesses, all of our businesses, across territories, meaning the world, and if you have a really solid franchise that you're feeling with great creativity, over a long period of time. so it's multiple business, multiple territory, multiple year. and that's what this is. this is one of the biggest ever, the biggest franchises ever created. and so we're thrill to have had the opportunity to be associated with it and to actually bring it into its future. >> and loved by consumers. i want to talk to you about mickey mouse. i know you have news on mickey mouse as well today. we'll get to that in a moment. let me get to some of the other news of the day. we know there's a suit over viacom about bundling practices. espn such a great brand for you. if cablevision prevails, do you worry that entertainment companies like yourself are going to find it harder to sell, you know, these big packages of

cable channels, where people are really paying for espn ander th they're taking some of the other channels that perhaps they would not have paid for. >> in our case, i can't comment specifically about that lawsuit. i'm not familiar with the details. i haven't been fully briefed yet, but we have great channels. espn is one that you mentioned. the disney channel was another, number one with kids 2 to 11 this past year. very successful. for the distributor, for the viewer, and of course for disney. abc is another channel. we've managed to have great relationships with distributors foreign wide, cable operators, satellite providers, and have cut long-term deals with many of them, without roadway rancor, without having to resort to saber rattling and the like. and one of the reasons we've been able to do that is, these deals are mutually beneficial. we're providing them with great values to sell to their consumers and they're paying us the right price, fair price, for these channels. how we offer them to these distributors and what price they

pay is not something, you know, we get into with you publicly, except to say with espn and with abc and disney, you know, it's a great collection of channels for them and for the consumers and we're going to continue to invest in. >> look, the bottom line is, they pay out because they want it. they want espn and they want the disney channel. >> well, i guess that is the bottom line. >> that is the bottom line. >> and do their customers. without those channels, they would have issues with their customers. these are channels that are in such demand that their customers would say, well, wait a minute, if you're not offering them to us, we'll turn to someone that will. it's a good proposition for all involved. >> what can you tell us about what's going on now in terms of advertising, in terms of the business climate? i guess the up-front period is beginning for some parts of media this week. do you have any vision that you can talk to us about in terms of advertising? how does the year look? >> we don't have a lot of visibility. it's been that kind of a market for a long time. i will say that the year has

been fairly good. a fair amount of demand from advertisers, for advertising time. it's certainly a good sign. we've seen that as fairly steady, at least since the beginning of the year. and that's pretty good for us, obviously. >> and the parks business? >> the parks business is the same. also, stronger than it was a year ago, steady improvement means that more people are coming and our pricing is holding up nicely as well. actually, our pricing has increased nicely, so it's quite strong domestically. >> and so much talk about worries over the economy, about the sequester. i know you met with president obama today. you sit on the president's export council. you just met with leaders there earlier today. tell us about that. you talked about the export story. you also talked about disney shanghai. is that right? what went on in your meeting today? what can you tell us? the president established a council, and it's made up of a number of folks from different businesses, including small businesses as well as large businesses. and the goal was basically to

see what we could do, as a group, to improve the country's ability to export, because, obviously, as we do that, we'll create more jobs and help this economy. and there's been a fair amount of progress made. i will say that the group has not only had a good dialogue, but has served up a number of really good ideas to the administration. that if they get behind, can really end up stimulating the economy and creating jobs. i'll give you one. we talked about a lot of travel and tourism to the united states. that's viewed as an export business. we're basically exporting grand u.s. to the rest of the world. whether that's to visit the stock exchange in new york or whether it's to visit disneyland or disney world or the national monument or our national parks. the more people who travel to the u.s., the better it is for the u.s. economy. because they come and spend money and that support jobs. it's estimated that out of every 65 people who visit the united states from overseas, one job is created. so as a for instance, we talked about our visa policy. if we can do things the to

better facilitate people getting visas in different markets, then they will attractitravel more. and we're seeing much greater demand from markets like brazil, india, russia, china to travel to the u.s. if we make it easier for them to do that, then more people will come. so the president got behind this initiative wholeheartedly, they invested in the visa process in brazil, opening up more visa offices, more people are coming, particularly to florida, which we've seen and we benefit from, but so does the u.s. economy. it raises our business, we create more jobs, and making basically more money, and in the process, we pay higher taxes. so it's a win/win proposition. >> it's so important and i'm glad you brought it up. so many business leaders have that issue. and the same with people coming here and going to school here and then they go right back, because they don't have the ability -- >> they can't stay. >> they can't stay. you recently dealt with some activism in terms of activist

investors. i want to talk about governance here, because you won out, overwhelmingly, that your shareholders voted the to keep the chairmans and ceo role. but that was a fight there. even though the performance has been so great at disney, and the stock price has been doing very well, they wanted you to separate the titles. talk to us about that and how you dealt with that. >> the proposal was actually for the board to separate the titles, once i relinquished the titles. but i think this is essentially a cause searching for a problem. the walt disney company has been a great performer for now a long period of time, a good, solid seven years. we do not have any governance issues. we have a board that is very independent, fiercely so, as a matter of fact. 90% of our board, nine of our ten members, are independent. and they, working with management of the company, are very focused on making sure that they are accessible to shareholders and listen to

issues when they come up and they actually meet with shareholders t shareholders from time to time to listen to what issues they may have. but we just don't have a problem here. and when the roles were put together just over a year ago, things didn't change at disney as the governance world suggested that it may have changed. i still work very closely and collaborate with the board on determining what the agenda is for the meetings, what subjects they feel we need to cover, the makeup of the committees is really something that the board does, not me. the committee chairman, same thing. that's not something that just because i'm chairman of the board, i, somehow or another, mandate to the rest of the board. that's just not how we work. and yet these accusations suggested otherwise, which is just not true. >> in some cases, i can understand the separation, but given the fact that the performance has been so strong, it was, like you say, there's just not a problem. >> well, i don't really believe that there's evidence that when the roles are combined,

companies perform worse or better for that matter. i just don't think there's statistics to prove that. what happens is, when companies have issues, then investors, particularly activist investors, go after companies, suggesting that that may be one of the causes for it. in reality, if you have an experienced, independent, and engaged board that knows what is going on at companies, that is in communication with companies, and also open to shareholders, it doesn't matter whether you have a ceo that also has the chairman's role. in fact, in our case, we have a lead director. and when you look at how we define what the lead director is, that's essentially how we define what was once a nonexecutive chairman role. >> understood. bob, where does the growth come from at disney in the coming three years? >> well, in our case, obviously, it starts with great intellectual property and experiences and then leveraging that across multiple platforms and multiple territories. we benefit from technology, making this great intellectual

property available to more people more often, more places. so the new platforms that you see, mobile platform is one example of that, a great opportunity for the creators of intellectual property to reach people in new ways. a challenge to some current business models, of course, but i think over time, you'll have more people essentially spending more time, either being entertained or informed. also, we see great growth in, basically, the new franchises that we've bought or we've created, from pixar to marvel to "star wars." and of course, outside the united states. we're seeing continued opportunity or growth in opportunity in the emerging world. we're building shanghai disneyland as we speak, which is probably a great example of that. so over certainly the next three years, we're hoping to open shanghai disneyland in 2013. these new big growth markets will provide growth for this company, because they love disney intellectual properties.

>> let me wrap up on mickey, america's favorite character here. he'll be starring in a new series of short films that will begin rolling out in late june on the disney channel. tell us what you're announcing today about mickey mouse. >> we're announcing the creation of 19 new mickey mouse shorts. walt disney created the original mickey mouse shorts in 1928. the first to be released was called steamboat willie, and they depicted mickey as kind of an every man of sorts, but someone who liked to have a lot of fun, and someone that entertained people, not just in the u.s., but he's probably one of the most popular character locally. and over time, we thought that mickey maybe lost some of those great impish qualities, the vitality that people once saw in him. so we decided to bring him back, not that he's truly, really gone away, but harkening back to what walt did, with a collection of new shorts, that depict him in the ways that we thought people loved the most.

>> love it. bob, thank you for being on the program. appreciate it. bob iger, chairman and ceo of the walt disney company. coming up, 30 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. a market that is flat on the session. we may very well hit another all-time high today. we'll take you back to this market when we come back. the dow giving all of those losses up and then some. investors taking another bite out of apple shares after another analyst cut the price on the stock. find out if apple is starting to look attractive as a dividend play, or are you getting off better on owning blackberry and the new phone. also, what do michelle obama, ashton kutcher, and beyonce may have in common? they may be part of the new hacking scandal in america. details, coming up. stay with us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site.

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a rainy day in gotham. it's the battle of the smartphones. in one corner, it's apple. its shares losing almost 2% today after jeffries cuts its price target on the iphone maker. in the other corner, blackberry. its shares down 3% as the new z-10 gets ready to launch in the u.s. next week. now, can either of these stocks pack a punch to make your portfolio a champ? let's start talking apple versus blackberry. and talking numbers on the technical side, it's ennis tanner with risk vertical.com,

on the fundamental side, it's abigail doolittle with the s seaport group. ennis, which group looks best right now? >> i think apple is slowly in the process of forming a bottom. it's become a stock that everyone loves to hate, and on the charts, we're seeing that as it gets close to long-term support. if we look at the three-year chart, we can see the 400 to 425 level was resistance to 2011, and it's really, i think, going to be an important area of long-term support for apple going forward. i think the stock's risk/reward is to own here. >> abigail, who do you like best? >> i think that blackberry is actually the stock that's putting in a bottom here. and for a number of reasons. this company is really benefiting from a turnaround tailwind, where the company has a lot of latitude to over-deliver on its various metrics, even if the z-10 phone isn't the tech geek lover's phone. there's a huge short position on this stock. if this company overdelivers on any metrics in its upcoming

quarter, subscribers or revenue, or even, at some point, over the coming year, turns into a netflix, and pulls itself back into the black, you could see these shares rise significantly. i think you could really see blackberry at $35, one-time sales in the next 12 to 24 months. i'm bullish on netflix. apple, not so much. >> all right. what about that, ennis? >> yeah, i mean, i'll say this about blackberry. i think for the phone to succeed, the biggest step that needs to happen is that app developers need to actually jump on to the platform. i think that's a high bar to cross for the stock. i also think it's got a lot of resistance in the high teens, so i wouldn't be a buyer here. >> you know, it's funny. i think that you're right. i think that is one of the -- that that's some of the feedback coming back about the z-10, and that there does need to be greater ability to put apps on there. but, again, i don't think that this phone needs to be perfect. this z-10 and the q-10 just need to be good enough to put the company back into the black over the next year or two. and i really think that expectations and the bottoming

of this chart, i actually like it. i think that it shows thoughtful buying on those people who are bullish. apple, i think that the down trend continues. they've put up a number of funky quarters. earrings revisions are cycling through. i think that's going to sustain the selling pressure that we've seen over the last six months or so. >> funky being a technical term in the technology world. good to see you both. thank you for your thoughts today. the dow was up ten points. >> it was up. >> it came back again. >> they're going to tease us. we're down three. if we finish positive, new all-time high, eighth straight up day. >> remember this story, first she was criticized for ending telecommuting, now yahoo! ceo marissa meier is taking heat for reportedly having too high of a bar for new hires. we'll talk to someone who has turned around six companies and ask them if maries mayer is making the right moves at

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welcome back. first she cracked down on telecommuting and some people at yahoo! were unhappy. now the staff is complaining about the standard ceo marissa mayer has in place for hiring new employees. jane wells has the story. >> maria, marissa mayer shaking up the yahoo! corporate culture. first she ended telecommuting and now she's tightening up hiring standards a lot. ignoring recruits that didn't graduate from top schools and personally reviewing every candidate, which slows down the process. now, the ceo's goal is to make yahoo! a first choice, not the worst choice, for jobs in silicone valley. reuters told she told staff, quote, why can't we just be good at hiring? apparently a play on the line, why can't you be in a good mood from one of her favorite fames, "say anything," an ironic choice because he sounds like the last

guy she'd hire. >> whatt what are your plans fo the future? >> spend as much time as possible with diane. >> really? >> i'm serious. >> good news for mayer, her own employees are giving her an 86% approval rating on glassdoor.com, where people give anonymous reviews. that is up from 84% last quarter. >> thanks so much. >> so is marissa mayer doing the rate things to turn around yahoo!? >> fred has his doubts. he's chairman of consumer giants avon and bausch & lomb. he goes into great detail in his new book, it's called "reinvent: a leader's playbook for serial success." he joins us now at the new york stock exchange. it's been a while. how you been? >> great. >> you feel that the bottom line for you on marissa mayer as a product person, she's the right

person. leadership, you've got a question. >> it's not her fault. she showed a lot of courage to take on this job, but it's two degrees of difficulty from where she came from. first, she got to be a public company ceo, when she's never been a ceo before, and then she has to play the role of turnaround ceo, which is a lot harder. this is a tough job that she took on, and i really admire her for her courage, but it's tough. she has to build a foundation inside to get this place to change. you cannot get turnarounds to work and stay without culture change. and that's really what she has to work on. >> so what does she need to do, then, to ensure that the turnaround goes successfully? i mean, you're right. you make a really good point, because it's turning around, but also be a public ceo. living in a fish bowl, if you will. every decision gets critiqued. >> she seems to have done a good job getting some cover, the stock price has gone up. so this give her the breathing room to do what needs to be done, exchange the culture on the inside. and it starts from the top.

role modeling from the top. >> what about this knock that she's getting now that her hiring standards are too high. is that possible when you're trying to turn things around and change the culture? >> so i agree with her and i don't agree with her. i agree with her in the sense that culture, plus talent, plus execution, means success. it's the three legs of the stool. so, she's working on the talent, and i think she's doing a good job. it's okay to look at every new person who comes in, every new person who comes in is going to represent an ultimate cost of a couple of million dollars for the company, and why not take a hard look at the people coming in. but the most important thing is, she's got to keep the people with her. she has to take the people with her. that's not happening as clearly as it should be happening at this stage. >> so is that a communication issue? is that just making sure everyone understands what the vision is, so that they can give you the buy-in? >> i think it's authenticity, personal authenticity, walking the talk, it's trust building, it's credibility.

it's getting people to see a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning for the jobs, so that people want to come to work on monday morning. once people converge around this common mission, it becomes a lot easier to do the kind of things she's trying to do. right now it looks like she does things and the media notices and says, well, these are arbitrary things. it has to be something that happens together. >> now, you said you felt on the product side, she's the right person. and as you well know, you've got to listen to the consumer, and especially for yahoo! and what they do, what is she doing right in that regard? >> she seems to be getting more traction out of the ad area, the value per click has gone up. she's doing the right things that she learned at google. that part, she's very good at. the product marketing part, she's very good at. culture change, she never got to see a turnaround at google. and now she's a culture change ceo. that's tough. she needs a lot of support and help from a board. >> well, you have successfully helped turnaround six companies. what advice do you give her,

taking on these two roles of leading a public company, first time she's doing that, as well as trying to do a turnaround? >> i would say, the biggest thing that hurts ceos is lack of self-awareness. so number one, she has to work very hard at knowing what she's good at and knowing what she's not good at. and what she's not good at, she should surround herself with talent, good people. people who also command respect throughout the organization. then she's got to get the team to work together with a common sense of purpose. everybody has to have one agenda and no self-agenda. if that starts to happen, people see it and then they say, well, we've seen five ceos, but this one is for real. and then they start to follow her. >> fred, good to see you. thank you for your thought. >> we'll see you soon, we're in the final stretch of trading. 15 minutes before the closing bell sounds. look at where we are. up four points. it looks like we could actually hit another all-time high today.

>> maria said it would be like this. >> seven days and counts, eight days with this. >> it would be eight days. will the win streak end? we'll find out in about ten minutes. coming up next, we go across the floor to our colleague bob pisani for what the sentiment as we head toward the closing bell. and chevron, its ceo john watson will join me exclusively to talk about how he plans to grow trux production by 20% in next four years. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow,

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she said we would finish higher. we'll see. >> it's negative now. >> are we going to finish the dow's seven-day win streak today. it's going to be a close call here, bob pisani. what do you think? >> i think the dow has a very good shot at it. might be a little tougher on the s&p. we're down three points. a little harder to get through. but both would be up eight days in a row if we got it at this point. markets, fairly narrow trading range. take a look at mastercard. we were doing all right until about 10:30 or so. dow was up about 30 points, and then mastercard presented at a credit suisse conference and said they saw some deceleration in card spending in february. this seems pretty obvious to me. you know, we've had tax refund delays. everybody knows about that.

i don't find that very shocking. but mastercard dropped. and that dropped the financial stocks. so if you look at big bank names, you'll see these bank of america, wells fargo, they all dropped on that news, as well as the other card names. and, well, the market just kind of drooped on that. that was the main catalyst. i know that's not much, but we've got this delicate situation. the markets very extended right now. elsewhere, it's generally a risk off day. a lot of money going into some of these country etfs, korea, south africa, russia. those are all to the downside. and finally, maria, after six days of declines, the turnaround in some of those bond funds. some buying now in those treasury bond funds. >> 12 minutes before the closing bell sounds for the day. we've got a market that is flat on the day, down five points. it's going back and forth. it's anybody's guess here in these last ten minutes. >> plenty of time. plenty of time. a lot of money managers have been warning of a correction on the horizon, but jason trennert says stocks aren't the only game

in town right now. we'll get his bullish call when we come back. >> how about student loan debt. it is approaching the $1 trillion mark. many people do not think that big tuition bill is worth the money. that's the bad news. why some schools are now offering deals, you heard right, a sale on tuition. we'll take a look. stay with us. mission a for a fi. this 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... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. with fidelity's new options platform, we've completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies... to get a list of equity options...

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welcome back. jason trennert from strategic research partners says that when it comes to u.s. equities, there is just no other alternatives to u.s. stocks. >> who's this tina? >> tina was the nickname that margaret thatcher received in the late '70s, early '80s. because every time she would try to liberalize the economies in labor markets or try to privatize businesses, state-owned businesses, she would say, there is no alternative. so she got nicknamed tina. and we're using -- we're calling it the tina factor with regard to stocks. there's been a lot of talk of a great rotation. the great rotation is more from public pensions and endowments into equities than individuals right now. >> do you think individuals start picking up in terms of pace, in getting into this market? >> i think they've started, but maria, i would say it's in the

very early innings. there is some evidence in the last two months, last six weeks, that that's picked up. but throughout last year, it's very clear that individual investors were really net sellers of the equity mutual funds, buyers of bond funds in a big way. usually the retail investors is one of the last ones in. and that's why i think the fiduciaries will be the first. >> it is the unfortunate trend that always happens. it's the little guy getting out. we were talking yesterday about how the fear factor is transitioning from a fear of losing money now to being a fear of missing out on the rally, right? >> i think that's right. i still follow money growth. and there used to be a time when money growth actually was a big input into how stock prices did. one of the things that worries us most is that the stock market has gone up a lot without the velocity of money starting to turn up. and once that happens, it's going to get a life of its own. that's why i'm more fearful of a runaway stock market, the upside, than the downside. >> you want to be in anyway. >> i want to be in anyway.

i think it's going to be much more the so cals, although i think it's much more capital spend than consumer spending. last year, the consumer discretionary spending sectors did very well. ultimately because the economy hung in there and unemployment was coming down, and it wasn't as international. this year, it's much more capital spending. there's much more pent-up demand. it's very clear that companies held back on capital spending last year, during the run-up to the election and during the run-up to the fiscal cliff. this year, i think that there's some pent-up demand. >> anything to avoid? >> i personally would take it easy on the retailers. i think consumer discretionary is one of those things that's already had its time in the sun and i would focus more on the energy, the materials, and the industries. >> very good. good to see you, jason. >> good to see you guys. heading toward the closing countdown. >> and then my exclusive interview with the ceo of chevron, john watson will be here. we'll get his take on how many jobs could be created and talk about the controversial keystone

pipeline, later on "closing bell." but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪

and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. 2 1/2 minutes left. they're going to make us wait until the very last second to see whether we finish with a close, which would be an all-time high, if we finish positive for the dow, it would be eight straight up days. by the way, i know what you're asking. what's the longest win streak