kernen and andrew ross sorkin. more on the situation in cyprus in just a moment. first, the morning's other top stories, the s&p once again failing to hit a record close yesterday, but the bulls still have plenty to be happy about this morning. the dow set to hold its -- of monthly gains. check out the rt yeaher to date stats. so far, the dow is up by almost 11%. the s&p is up by almost 10% and the nasdaq is higher by 8%. u.s. futures at this point are indicated a little weaker, down by about 13 points, s&p futures down by about 2.8. anything could happen. we're going to be watching that situation if cyprus very closely. again, this is the last trading day of the quarter. we have a busy economic calendar today. we'll get a final read on fourth quarter gdp.

polled economist res looking for first quarter unemployment filings to tick higher. in the meantime, the fourth quarter gdp is expected to be revised 0.5%. you have chicago's pmi coming out and the kansas city fed survey. on the corporate front, blackberry is set to post quarterly results before the open. among the things to watch in this are subscriber numbers. blackberry will be holding a conference call at 8:00 p.m. eastern. as we talked about yesterday, i think there was a third of the float being shorted. back over to you. >> thank you -- happy friday/thursday, right? >> it's monday-thursday. >> sondz abdomen awful lot like monday-thursday. >> i think it's great friday.

>> sunday was much better. >> yes, it was the beginning of a great thing. i got it. but it feels like thursday is my favorite day because of the anticipation of friday and friday is too close to sunday. but when you've got thursday and friday and friday is basically off, then -- exactly. this is as good as it's going to be. i guess we're not going to go do what we do. >> it is time for the top global market story of the morning which, of course, is cyprus. we'll get to michelle caruso cabrera in cyprus right now. >> oh, boy, it's windy again. >> i'm sorry. hey there, guys. good to see you this morning. so this is the main branch of the bank of cyprus that you see behind me. this is one of the two largest banks here. there are about 30 people in line and then about a hundred journalists. they are expecting long lines today, but the people in line,

they don't have atm cards so they've had a real difficulty getting cash. that's why the line is here. so because the authorities expected lines and were worried about people wanting to withdraw everything, there are limits -- there's a protest going on to my right that just started, but don't worry about that. there are now withdraw limits in place at this point. 300 euros per day, but they are cumulative. so if you don't get money out today, you can have 600 euros tomorrow, so 2,100 euros per week. we're going to figure out was going on to my right, but there's some activity and it looks like it could be messy. in the meantime, they have been distributing massive amounts of cash in the last 24 hours. look over my shoulder. [ speaking foreign language ].

if you look at the doors, what's happening is people try to get in as they're letting in one person at a time. there's some chaos to my right. we're trying to find out what it is. so that is the situation here. it's not very calm. it is actually calmer than we expected because we thought that there would be much, much longer lines, there would be people who would want all of their cash. they want to do a transaction between 5 thougs and 200,000 euros, they have to get permission from a committee to make sure this is something they would do normally. if you want to do a transaction more than 200,000 euros, then there's the committee approval and then the banking situation. payroll, the you're doing proof you're doing payroll, that's fine. we thought originally it would

be $3,000 overseas. but it's only $1,000 euros. it's an unprecedented situation for the eurozone. one country is supposed to be as good as another euro in another country, but right now, the cypriot euro doesn't have the transferability of any other euro within the system. this is a good day for cyprus, but at the same time, it's going to be very, very tough. this whole situation is obviously an embarrassment for the eurozone, as well. they're supposed to have the free movement of labor capital and goods and this is not a good situation for them, guys. >> do we know if businesses are putting in huge requests, not just for payroll, but literally for taking their money out, all out? you have individuals, clearly, who are there trying to do certain things, but i assume there are businesses on the telephone and other things that

are doing something very different. >> if thoer trying, they will not but allowed. to do large transactions, 80s only committee driven and it's only for the purpose of doing business. if you say you want to close your account and move out on the country, that's fought going to do it. you have to prove that you're buying a shipment of gasoline, a slimpt in quarties. earlier, you had talked about the issue is what was going to happen in grocery stores. if you're someone who wants to get supplies for your grocery store wsh is that something that will committee will say immediately yes or is this something that takes days if not weeks to figure out? >> yeah. the country doesn't have a good track record so far.

we presume it will be quick. this is a country that individuals and people have a close relationship with their bankers and their banking system in a way that you don't see in other parts of the world. in many parts of the world, if anybody has a strong feeling about the banking system, it was probably hate. here in cyprus, that was not the case. it was more towards love. there will be some kind of relationship basis that happens. if you were a large which is, you have somebody that you deal with. i can't imagine there will be -- b. >> well, i don't know. they need -- we need to ship bernanke over there fast. he could make money -- can't we print for everyone? we do that here, don't re? he can just fly around in his helicopter over there, just -- dropping -- i mean, we do it

here. we -- 85 billion a month. they can only get a thousand euros? we could fix this. he could fix this easily. >> if you put your finger on one of the things that -- >> all right. >> you put your finger on the one thing that drives a lot of economists very crazy in the eurozone. they say monetary policy is being done for the north, not for the south, that if you were going to do monetary policy for countries that are in a full fledged depression, you would be doing something very different than what they're doing right now. >> they must have rung out of ink or paramedic or something. that could not happen here, not gentle ben. gentle ben doesn't want anyone to suffer as long as he's -- as long as he's there. >> that's true. >> okay. >> michelle caruso sa brar ra, thank you for joining us this morning.

we'll spec back with you a little later in the show. >> your money is in bob's house and bob's money is in that house. everyone tries to take their money out. the money doesn't exist unless, of course, bernanke -- >> there's not bank in the world that can can stand a run. >> the central bank can. we can. because of our economy and who we are and the strength of our -- that's the scary thing is that we kind of can handle just about anything, which puts us in a dangerous position where we think we can do it because people will assume sooner or later physically the united states will get its act together. so they give us time.

>> but if you look at our banks compared to what's happening there -- >> it's resolve. but our banks, i feel a lot better about our banks. >> well, that's good. >> so we juxtapose that story with some corporate news this morning, which is a little different. >> this is your -- you're the expert on this whole thing. >> the is blackstone and dell in the news. blackstone is now inn to keeping dell founder mike yalg dell as ceo of the pcmaker. but dell was unhappy when he found out the private equity company, of course, had approached other executives to taking over. but this is the worst part. he reportedly doesn't want to work with david johnson.

this would be like one of your guys leaving your company and your new boss is going to be -- i mean, david johnson will ultimately -- if blackstone were to win, he would ultimately probably be on the on board of this company. >> i'm sure he feels like he's been betrayed. it was his own plans that got thwarted. but the other problem is, he wants to take all the money and push it back into the country. black stone's plans wouldn't necessarily be doing that, would it? >> no. >> unclear how much they've had to reinvest back into the business. but the idea that you'd have to work for the guy that they left you, and, by the way -- >> the idea that michael dell probably has to work for anybody is probably -- >> well, yeah, michael dell essentially worked for the shareholders or not depending on where the see the shares

recently. but he hasn't had to have a boss. >> ever. >> but in this case, blackstone would be assigned to see his box. this gentleman would have the role. interestingly, dell gave blackstone and david johnson a path. they signed a document to allow him to work on this deal. so david johnson was limited from working on transactions related to dell originally because he os stenbly had information about the company, but dell, saying we won as many bidders as possible. some of the financing people around them had a lot more confidence. >> i don't know of any johnson computer. do you? >> i don't know. >> that would make me -- i'd be unhappy about that. what did he do at dell? >> he made deals. >> in shipping? >> he made deals for dell.

>> i have a new strategy. >> what's that? >> now i reply. i reply on twitter and i immediately block. i reply and say you're blocked and then i block them. >> someone just tweeted you? >> yeah. feels good. don't be so obviously bitter. what am i, bitter about bernanke? yk about bernanke doing this. i was just making a joke on the helicopter movie. >> well, walmart is reportedly considering a radical plan to have customers deliver packages to online buyers. that's weird. i have to think about that. customers deliver packages to online -- yesterday we talked about crowd sourcing your -- is that really what we're talking about here? can't we all just get along? i have to read more.

yesterday we talked about the retailer trying to better compete with amazon and people would place an order online and go and pick up the package in person. now, reuters -- i wonder if besos has heard about this. he's laughing if he heard about this. >> exactly. but now reuters is reporting a new twist to put the walmart customer in front of the phenomenon. the retailer will rent out a vehicle and allow customers to deliver packages to others. and, of course, no one will break anything or steal anything. walmart says the idea is at the early printing stage.

>> but rieft? i don't want people to know -- you see, i guess he finally heard. >> there is an app that you can get your iphone. it's called pass rabbit, which is a crowd sourcing thing. >> i have heard about that. >> you can say, i need somebody to move some boxes. >> but that's different. me doing that versus walmart doing that? >> anybody who is on their iphone says, oh, there's somebody who needs boxes moved. they'll pay 20 bucks for the boxes to be moved. i'll come over and make 20 bucks quickly. >> i get it when you are someone who needs a handyman to come do something, but if you're walmart and i've ordered a package for you, you can't find anybody to deliver it and you're going to go on craigslist? that's crazy. >> what if you're ordering lingerie or something. >> if you're ordering lingerie

from walmart, you have bigger problems, i think. >> you might be right. >> no. if joe is ordering lingerie for himself, i have issues, anyway. >> people buy it -- >> thank you, jeff. >> not for me. i'm married. i could order it for my wife, could i not? >> oh, yes, yes, i didn't think about that. >> your husband has never bought you any lingerie? >> i don't know. >> you wear your calvins or you wear nothing at all? >> no, no, i'm not going there. now you're making me blush. >> what do you think, mac? mac is wearing lingerie right now, underneath that. it feels like a friday. this is bankruptcy. so a bankruptcy judge has approved the us airways merger with american airlines. our buddy doug -- >> we had him here yesterday. >> but the judge did not approve a $20 million severance package for the outgoing ceo tom horton.

>> this was always my issue. >> have anything to do with stiffing horton? >> no. the judge says. >> he plans to issue a written decision at a later date to detail his reasoning and you saw doug parker on "squawk box" yesterday. here is what he said. >> we do well independently. it's about being able to kept connect more passengers to more places. us airways hire holders. he was dealing -- that was american, too, back then. >> back in the day. they've go the gone through the this a couple of times. >> right. they were doing later stuff and then it came out. but whoa got a great example

with ben lachey yesterday. transactions were getting paid like minimum wage. people can go work somewhere else. >> people have said, oh, those top executives should have known. but lachey's point was each of those guys was responsible right there. . >> speaking of ben lachey, we had douglas yesterday and aig. aig says its board adopted a claw back policy to receive compensation in cases of wrongdoing. including a financial statement, failures of risk management or acts that hurt the company's reputation. ben lachey was on "squawk box" yesterday morning. >> we are focusing on rebuilding the foundation of the company. and our theme is we want to make

sure aig becomes a great company again. and then we'll worry about whether we're a great stock. let's get the company right. >> we are bipartisan a lot lately. >> right. >> all right. aig disclosed the clawback policy in a regulatory filing. becky, do you want me to read this? are you going to be all right? >> i'll be all right for a minute. >> oh, you're sick. >> i'm coughing a little. sorry, guys. take a look at the futures this morning. they are at this point indicated a little weaker. oh, actually, they've turned around. futures are positive by the dow. up almost 4 points. as much up by less than a point. if you want loor fog chaos today, you will be a little -- michelle caruso cabrera told us.

. oil prices up by about 15 cents, $96.73. the ten-year is yielding at 1.844%. the dollar is weaker. 1.279 is where the euro stands right now. and gold price these morning are down by about $3.20. $1,603 an ounce. when he we come back, the final trading day of the quarter, we're going to ask if the bulls can continue this run that we've been on for more than four months. that's next. but before we get to that, we have squawk sports news. the miami heat's winning streak is over. the chicago bulls beating the heat, 101-97. that ends miami's streak at 27 games. huge streaks, but it is short of the record. also offers ereturn-- our fastest way to return your car. just note your mileage and zap !

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welcome back, everybody. let's get the national weather forecast from the weather channel's reynolds wolf. reynolds, what can we expect over easter? can we break out the coats or -- >> you know, in some parts of the country, temperatures will warm up in spots like new york, but for the upper midwest and for chicago, it will be cooler. also cool for opening day. but for today, take a look. we can expect snow showers and rain showers in boston. more rain than anything. no significant accumulation

expected. nice and dry for you in tampa, actually 61 degrees and washington 53. a smaller area of showers in the plains. then we head out towards the west and is take a look. could see some rain drops and maybe in portland but seattle, partly cloudy skies, all things expected. san francisco, pretty nice with cloud cover and 71 in los angeles. in terms of delays, we don't expect anything. washington, atlanta, seattle, so far, things are picture perfect. no delays anticipated whatsoever. enjoy, guys. back to you. >> thank you for that. as we've been discussing, it is the last trading session of the quarter. all day, cnbc will be bringing you what we're calling channel checks. these are short snapshots of what you need to be watching in the coming quarter. we begin with eunice yoon in china. >> here is what to watch for this china in the quarter ahead.

inflation. markets like this one are going up. and that is kautsing people to wonder if the government is going to have to step in and tighten monetary policy. the property market is also in focus. people are wonder fg government measure toes clamp down on housing will take effect. and now that the country has a new set of readers, everyone is waiting to see if they're going to push through much needed economic reform. i'm eunice yoon. >> now back to the u.s. markets. joining us now, maura harris, chief u.s. economist at ubs and from the ceo scott shellady. maura, we haven't spoken to you in a while. we've had some spring swoons in the last couple of years. we've seen some consistently good numbers. it's all very confusing. where are you with how the economy is doing? >> well, i think the economy is doing better and we'll probably

see this in the job numbers today with the unemployment claims and then with the job numbers that we get for march next week. i think in terms of what the said about ten-year, there's been a flight to safety, so to speak. whenever you're nervous about something like what's been happening with cyprus. but the ten-year is not really telling but the economy right now. >> no, it's not. oil is? >> oil could be telling you somewhat more. and it's very mixed, you know, in terms of the demand for oil. because globally, europe is disappointing, you about asia is surprising on the up side. >> do you think that what you're saying, then, indicates that the stock market isn't necessarily stretched in valuation, then? >> well, it may well not be in the sense that injury interest rates are very low. we're seeing real good signs on the economy right now been we're seeing signs that business and investment is starting to pick up again. even though this consumer

sentiment number was on the south side, when you looked at the details of that report, people are still saying that they are seeing better labor market conditions. >> we were at 2% and the sequester cuts the point out, are you assuming that housing and the consumer can more than make up for that point that we got cut off by the sequester? >> well, i don't believe you'll be cut off by a point of the sequester. >> you don't? >> no. this sequester is going to be implemented primarily through furloughs, not through layoffs. these numbers you hear about, a couple hundred -- these defense companies have seen this coming for a long time. they've already been laying off a lot of people. they're prepped for this. i think the whole scare about the sequester is much overdone. >> the economists that tell us that, you know, the same things

that you just cited, that information is available to them. how can people be so wrong a and -- you know, they give those numbers like they're facts, maury, and that seems to irresponsible. >> well, i know it's irresponsible, but there's a disconnect. you can read plenty in the media every day about the furloughs. and then you'll read separate stories about how many jobs you're going to lose. furloughs are not job losses. it's sharing the pain on the sequester where people are going to work one or two days less per month, but i think with all the economic analyses we've read, they're not taking that into account much. >> what do you estimate that a white house tour costs per day, would you say? you can -- can you stay at a

hotel if you're biden in both paris and -- >> half a million bucks. >> half a million dollars each night, 136 rooms. how long could you pay for those white house tours based on those two nights in europe? >> i don't know. do you know the answer? >> no. i think you could go months. so i think that they know how to do things. >> no. you see, here is the deal. it's about the secret service. they're paying the security service to do the duty while that's going on, if you have 20 or 30 secret service people that need to be -- >> but what was he doing over there? do you really need to cut out the -- or is that just a way of making a statement that i'm taking my ball home. >> i don't know. i thought that the secret service -- i mean, i took them on their word. >> it just seems like we've got ways of keeping the white house

tours open so that people can see the white house. >> who do you think it is that see tess white house, by the way? >> school children. >> who fly to -- do you think? >> scott, i can tell you one thing. you put on that coat and secret service is not going to let you in. >> well, you know, the number, about 80 grand a week it costs us to run those tours. >> thank you, scott. andrew will cover up for the administration on this. so it's 80,000 a week. so basically, you could do three months of white house tours for one -- for biden's -- all right. what else, guy? do you think the market is stretched or talk about any of them that are interesting to you, the interest rates, oil, equities. >> we've -- guys like me that have been doing it for 25 years, we've had to go back and relearn everything because the government has been so involved in these markets now and they

really don't trade like they used to. i'd like to name this rally the brussel sprout rally. it's good for you, but nobody really likes it. >> i love brussel sprout. >> never had one. >> you eat those? >> yeah. >> love them. >> you like them, but they don't like you from what i can tell after you've had a few. >> by the way, we're running around trying to justify the rally when, i think it should be more obvious. and the fact of the matter is, with the $85 billion a month or 1 trillion, whatever you want to call it, we can only get a 11% gdp. i think the ten-year is telling you we should be much better. and we're still coming down from the -- but we still have a 7.7% unemployment rate. how long will it take to get it under 6.5%? we're now near out of the woods.

>> and we can. we have plenty of ink, plenty of paper. >> scott, maury, thank you. >> good looking group. >> bye, guys. have a great weekend. when we come back, we are watching the situation in cyprus. just in the last half hour, they've begun to open their doors and allow some people in. there are some long lines, but so far, our michelle caruso cabrera reports things seem to be orderly. also, ebay is facing a threat from upstairs. and we're on the blackberry watch, too. the dp is sit to prort numbers at the opening bell. but first, take a look at yesterday's winners and losers. [ penélope ] i found the best cafe in the world.

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welcome back, everybody. mark mahaney covers ebay. we know the stock has done very well. i think they're up like 50% from the last time they held an investor day. what do you most want to get from them today? >> you're right, becky. this has been one of the best

performing stocks in the internet sector. three major expectations. first this company, they do this investor meeting every year. this street is looking for mid teens earnings swrout look. we expect them to affirm that. that will be the most important news. second is this company has had a fundamental improvement turn around in its marketplace business. how sustainable is that? third, the biggest caught in the gap over the last year has been expectations about how will paypal can do in off-line stores. they're in home depot, for example. we think they've had limited traction there to date. if they can convince people they can get more transaction going forward, they can go up more. >> although the concern is that the margins for that, you know, basic brick and mortar store is the margins are not going to be all that great. have you factored that into anything you're looking at? >> yeah. i think that we've seen the stock pullback in recently. i think there are these margin

concerns. this is a lower margin business than the core ebay auction fixed price marketplace that we've all know about for the company. margins and the pay pal business have been half that. there is this edge to that sword, or whatever that saying is, it's likely to drag the overall margins down so that mid teens earnings growth is all top driven. >> you have an overperformer on the stock. >> i think this valuation on the stock, still relatively reasonable, you've got this on 2014 earnings trading around 16, 17 times earnings. you have, we think, a sustainable mid teens earnings grower. it's not a dramatic buy from these levels. we think there is dramatic upside. >> is that a 12-month price target? >> no. 12-month price target. you know, if we look at the internet sector as a whole, topics for us remain names lik

google, priceline and netflix. but ebay would be on that list, just further down. >> mark, thank you very much. coming up next, the father of big data. if you don't know about this rapidly expanding industry, you don't know what you're missing. it's single handedly changing business probably for the better. we have the man behind it all, coming up next. [ male announcer ] how can power consumption in china,

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cfp -- let's make a plan. ♪ your finances can't manage themselves, but that doesn't mean they won't try. bring all your finances together with the help of the one person who can, a certified financial planner professional. cfp -- let's make a plan. we're talking big data this morning. bob benmosche says he's going to make aig great again with the help of big data. >> we want to make sure aig

becomes a great company again, and then we'll worry about whether we're a great stock. we're investing billions of dollars on our infrastructure. we're going to be much more scientific, much more data based. we've gone from 28 major data centers down to two. >> benmosche is not the only ceo spending a lot of cash on big data. joining us now is thomas davenport. he's a professor and arguably a big data visionary. you were one of the first people if not the first person to coin the term and start talking about this back in 2006. is that right? >> i did. i talked about companies that were competing on analytics, and i think that was the first to do that. >> let's talk about sort of the explosion and what's happened since then. it seems like in almost every industry that i can imagine, people are now trying to use this data in different ways. >> that's true. i'd be hard pressed to think of

an industry that either hasn't already been transformed or couldn't be transformed by it. and as we get into, you know, the advanced big data projects like self-driving cars and trucks and so on, i think it's going to have a much greater effect, even. >> if you were to sort of look around the corner, again, on all of this, there's sort of the obvious suspects that are currently involved if trying to look through, uses analytics, what's sort of the next generation of what big data might look like? >> well, you know, we all carry these sensors around with us called smartphones these days that capture a lot of data on where we are and who we're talking to and what we're doing. so there's a huge amount of potential, i think, in analyzing all of that, letting retailers know that you're in the store, targeting ads based on analytics and things you bought in the past to make you buy more when you're in the store.

i think, you know, we're really just at the beginning of all of this. certainly related to how we analyze data from our smartphones. every industrial device can have a sensor put on it that gets -- the data gets uploaded to headquarters and you can optimize the performance of that device. so there's, i think, very little limit. >> how many wasted data is there out there? are people able to process it? and more importantly, perhaps make sense of it all? >> well, certainly that's a challenge, although, you know, jeff vizo at amazon once said, we never throw away data. the hard thing is, you don't necessarily know at the time what it might be good for later. but, you know, it is much easier to collect the data and to store it than it is to analyze it and makes sense of it. and i think that's the challenge for most organizations today. >> i was looking through some of

the aerls you've written. there's an issue on whether the big data and the analysis of the data ultimately is going to be helpful. it's possible people will make the wrong decisions base odd this data. >> well, yeah. it's no guarantee. you know, gives you an edge if you do it well. it's sort of -- you know, as you see in baseball, the oakland a's with money ball. they didn't win the world series in the year of that book and movie and they vice president since. although, you know, it probably makes them perform better than they would otherwise. so it's no guarantee of success. but if you do it well, you tend tovnt in almost every case there is a slight performance advantage. >> the company i was thinking of was the gary loveman example at cesar's where he was using the data in making a bid for macau and probably decided not to probably for the wrong reasons. >> that is true. and he admits it's the biggest mistake of his career as a ceo.

but on the other hand -- >> what's the back story there? he was looking at what -- what numbers was he looking at that he misinterpreted? >> well, yeah, you know, this was classic financial analysis. they were looking at buying a gaming license in macau and macau wanted 900 million. and all of the financial analysis suggested that the most it was worth would be about 500 million. now he figures it was probably worth double what they were charging, you know, $1.8 billion because macau has exploded as a gambling haven. but they had never done this before, they didn't have a lot of good data. so it's hard to predict the future with any approach, but in general, you know, harrah's has done fantastically well with analytics and data and i would take a ceo who believes in it certainly over one that doesn't. >> thomas davenport, thank you for joining us. come back when you know you're going to predict the next big data thing or whatever the next

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now that's a fast car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. >> history in the >> history in the making again for the dow jones industrial average. >> another record-setting quarter for the dow. up 11% so far. and the best first quarter since 1998. >> the rally goes on and on and

on. >> >> if history repeats itself we will be ahead. the 143rd production of the ringling brothers circus. the name is feld. producers at feld. it's the greatest show on earth. if someone asks you how was the circus, what do you say? >> the greatest show on earth. >> andrew has his nose on. both leads are third generation, any cal and alana. you both grew up in the circus.

did you want to run away and join a family? >> ba, da, bum. >> our first job ever in the circus was as clowns. so we grew up in washington, d.c. when the circus would come to town, our parents would drop us off at 8:00 in the morning. we would go to clown alley. that's like their dressing room. we would get dressed up like clowns. we have another sister. and the three of us would go into the show. we would do a three-show dance on saturdays. we really did it. we didn't have to. we wanted to. >> our dad insisted we got a good work ethic. >> the stuff these people do again and again and again. some of the acrobats, strong men, any of the acts, the idea that you do it three times a day, do it the next day, and take a train to the city. i don't think i've ever seen a

mess-up. >> the passion these performers have is incredible. over the two-year tour they will do 1,000 performances. this week alone -- well, in the two weeks we're playing in brooklyn, we have 23 appearances. we will play to a quarter million people. >> where do you recruit all these people from? the performers. >> eastern europe. >> they're from all over the the world. our performers are from all over the world. that's a big part of what we do. we literally travel all over the world looking for talent. we have performers from china, europe, south america. we even in the new show built to amaze at the barclay's center have a group of unicyclists from the bronx. the talent really comes from everywhere. >> it's fresh every year. it's amazing the way you're able to keep it fresh. it's thrilling and nerve-racking. i have seen people walk on the ceiling of the continental

arena. a lot of times they take one foot off. there's only one left. and the things that go like that. there's nets on a lot of stuff. but they're running around on top of the outside of that circle. >> the wheel of steel. >> that's just sick. i get nervous. i need xanax. >> i'll tell you, it doesn't get easier to watch that stuff. we have been growing up around this our entire lives. it's still nerve-racking because these people are risking their lives. that's what they do. they do it bus they love it. they love that audience reaction. >> yeah. >> and, mien, they are literally the most amazing athletes in the world. >> you have had to deal with animal rights activists. you are opening a new facility in florida i guess will that a lay some of the concerns? second only to nasa. >> well, we have a brand-new office, global headquarters we're moving our entire business

to ellenton, florida. we're committed to the reproduction and the care and the conservation of the asian elephant. >> ulle saw the baby was born, did you see what it weighed? >> no. >> 360 pounds. >> i've seen the circus a couple of times. the kids have gotten a little older. if you look at how ticket sales have come in, can you tell when we're in a recession or not. when the economy turned down, can you tell when things are getting better? >> i think what our business is really about giving an escape to families. yes, there's times, i guess. it's more when gas prices are higher, things like that. but when really need to escape. i think we provide a great value. >> ladies, thank you. appreciate it. thanks for the nose. andrew is going to keep it on.

>> when we come back, a live report from cyprus. banks reopening after being closed for a week. the situation on the ground and what it means for the rest of europe. (announcer) at scottrade, our clients trade and invest

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morning, good morning, everyone. welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. it is 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. our top story this morning, the banks reopening in cyprus just in the last hour. that's where we find michelle caruso-cabrera. how are things going so far? >> they're much, much calmer than when we talked to you one hour ago, becky.

it was absolute pandemonium. at one point the branch manager came out and tried to calm everybody down before they opened the door. >> we need only from you your cooperation and your understanding. and, please, patience. >> it was a lot of pandemonium at that point. there were roughly 30 people in line at the bank where we are right annoy. a little bit more at other laiki branches. the two biggest banks in cyprus. the vast majority; elderly people who don't like to use an atm card to get their cash. they've been stuck for two weeks. or people who lost their atm card. there are going to be withdrawal limits of 300 for the day. they're cumulative for the week. if they want to go 5,000 to

200,000 they have to present paperwork to a committee do show they're doing a legitimate business. they don't want falsification to say i'm buying this shipment and then send the money out of the country. they're in better shape now that they have recapitalized one bank. we will stay here throughout the day to see how things are going. thus far it looks calm for the remaining part of the day after that initial round of pandemonium. >> blackberry is reporting -- it's been interesting. 30% of the stock being shorted and the prospect of a short squeeze. and the estimate was for a loss of 29 cents. the companies posting a gap result of canadian 18 cents a share on an adjusted basis.

that's both well above where the street is. i can't tell where the stock is going to trade at this point. i don't know whether that's current -- that may be current, which is not much. >> yeah, that is current. >> so the revenues are lower than the estimates. >> it's 40% margins because of the higher average selling prices. revenue was a 36% drop to 2.7 billion qaacanadian. it is below expectations in terms of the revenue. but like so far above not -- reversing the expectations of a loss and reporting 22 cents a share. they delivered a million blackberry 10s. >> 6 million smartphones but a million blackberrys 10s. >> subscriber number? >> about 76 million, john. >> that's a big drop.

79 million last quarter. analysts i spoke to expected a 1 million subscriber drop. it could be worse than that based on if they get the same momentum going down than they had going up. they lost 3 million subscribers. >> last year or last quarter? >> in the last quarter. so 3 million, that could be an issue. >> you didn't have to say looking at a current 22 cents when you're losing subscribers, you may be able to get to a number towards profitability. but that's an important number. >> it's a business model shift. that's the gross margin. they will also have a lot of questions about, okay, what did you do when you move to blackberry 10. and the new version that actually manages blackberry 10. how are they doing?

because they have to do that. >> is a million blackberrys better than expected? >> that's about what was expected. a couple analysts were feeling pretty good. >> john; that your iphone? >> it is. >> your ipad. >> technology reporters getting all this information from an iphone and ipad but don't pay any attention to that. >> i've been trying out a blackberry 10 as well. >> you're getting all the numbers about blackberry on a couple of apple products. >> that is true. >> becky, i hope you noticed. >> i did. i'm offsetting it with with a blackberry. let me ask you about the outlook. the company said it will increase its marketingest to ramp up sales and support blackberry 10. they're anticipating a 50% in spending. the company believes it will have break-even results based on

more efficient supply chain and improved hardware margins. i don't see any estimates for what the outlook is. >> they haven't been giving guidance for a while. they have been saying they are going to spend a lot on marketing. so is that isn't new. the break even part sounds like relatively good news. they had been taking losses. >> mike santoli and barbara. did you get any information from your iphone? >> i did not. but i will say this is the first apple product i've owned when apple was about 700 bucks. so i marked saturation point. >> you had a blackberry. >> i did. >> tell me how your life has changed. >> i wouldn't say that. >> your life hasn't? you don't think it's amazeng. >> more things are bubbled in this than my blackberry. more pc-based.

>> test a blackberry 10. in fairness to blackberry, it does many of the things the iphone does. >> really? >> it does. just in fairness. right? you played with it. >> it does. >> i'm not saying it's as clean a product. >> it does some things the iphone doesn't do. it's like the mcdlt. work with me. >> i won't. once you got business e-mails on an iphone it's just not even close. at least for me. i don't need to be fancy. it's just my opinion. i don't need to be fair. >> i want people to know the blackberry 10 is pretty good. >> i can't be as fair and objective as the "new york times". i just can't. >> what do you think about the idea that we're making too much of a big deal as to whether you're an apple person, blackberry person or samsung

where in a few years this will be silly. do you think everything will look pretty similar? >> i think everything already looks pretty silly. i think that's the concern. we have android, ils, and a few people fighting for third. in the pc wars it was mac, windows, and what? no. >> what distinguishes apple is its integrated system. you have ipad, iphone, apple tv can pull those up for you. and i think that makes a big difference. your reference to work and person being separate, i don't think they want their work and business to be so separate. >> companies do. the corporation wants to be able to pull all the corporate data without vingng to call the phone in. >> do you see companies hesitating to go to apple because of that? no, not really. >> you know, there was some

hesitation. they picked up momentum now. the question for blackberry is can they come in as its friend and kind of switch the tide. people held back from iphone for a long time waiting to see if there was another alternative. but right now the employees, the employee hoards are bringing these into the enterprise and i.t. has to figure out what to do. >> blackberry has been halted the entire time. it has not stepped up. >> what do you make? if they lost 3 million verses the profit with 30 million short, what do you think it does? >> it's tough to say. if investors are taking a longview then the subscriber number is a real question. >> all you care about is revenue and subscriber. >> yeah. >> and then you have the outlook where you think they will break even. i wonder if there was some

threshold crossed because people were tired of waiting for the blackberry 10. >> it will be important what they say about the q10. there's a lot of hope in that. will they deliver that in the u.s. in a lot of important markets to have an impact. do they feel good about the reception. is there truth to those reports from deutsche bank that it's cooled off a little bit. >> this is on its last leg. i've dropped it. scratches on the screen. i'm waiting to see what happens. >> i admit it. all the pictures i took on the blackberry i uploaded to iphone. i can't even see what they're pictures of versus the camera on the iphone. >> i have a great high-def camera on this one. >> you keep clinging to the past

here. i don't know how to help you. i think you need a shrink or something to get beyond -- you need to move on. >> no, no, no. they're good here. you can see these. >> nokia has a great camera. they have the best camera ever. >> android. >> android, microsoft. >> that's windows. they do do thesesethings. >> you're taking do do again. and your nose has nos tri ls. this is more advanced than the iphone i think. but you're reading headlines about blackstone. >> in other headlines this morning, blackstone would reportedly be open to keeping dell as ceo. that could sway michael dell to abandon his own bid in favor of blackstone's offer.

he doesn't really want to work for david johnson, who used to work for him, who now works for blackstone. a merger would form the world with's biggest airline. anti trust regulators still need to give their okay. and running into new resistance. iss is urging metro pcs shareholders to vote against a proposed merger with t-mobile usa. it under values metro pcs and shareholders have been campaigning for a negative vote on that deal. the first quart other a strong note. s&p still courting its all time closing high of 1565. we're joined by mike santelli, barbara morrison. i'm going to start with you, barbara. you're not impressed necessarily with the position of the economy in terms of whether it's accelerating or decelerating.

you think it's stuck in neutral. >> that's right. i don't think we have any momentum here. the most recent numbers showing capital goods mediocre, defense and aircraft, consumer confidence took a little dive. i think what we saw in first quarter earningings numbers was a consumer that is doing all right but not, you know, at the high end of spending. and of course we have more cuts taking place over the next 12 months or so. so i don't think we have momentum to the economy. and i think that, you know, while history doesn't repeat itself it winds. i think we're doing the same thing we did in the first quarter of 2011 and 2012 when we thought we had economic momentum. again, we had strong returns in the first quarter which delivered most of the returns of that quarter. >> do you have a good estimate what causes this the last two times and why it would happen again. >> interestingly, chairman bernanke gave a nod to this in

his discussion last week where he said they're looking at why they, you know, maybe got a little bit fooled into thinking -- and he seems more determined than ever to say we're not going to be fooled again. we're going to wait and hold rates longer as long as we can. looking at the last two years that happened. and he said he thought it might have something to do with the extreme volatility of '07-'08 period. gave a nod to that. but i don't know about that. >> we scened twice. are we scening again. >> you have a tail wind in the winter. now that it's warm we have seasonal adjustments. >> are you kidding. >> we have winter right now and it's spring. >> this is a pretty good winter, wasn't it? >> we had two months since 2010 above historical average. >> in north america. >> yeah, that's right. which is where our data come from.

so the housing issue also i think was probably a seasonal adjustment. we were adding back construction jobs in the winter where we have a boom bust construction cycle. i honestly don't know. but i do know that it does seem to turn into a head wind. i am actually kind of on board with the idea here we are the third time in the same exact place year to date. i'm actually kind of a little nervous because the market adheres to one of these. i remember back in the summer of 2012 everyone saying third year in a row. we never got that deep last year. because of course guess what, the federal numbers the the last two years too. maybe they willerr on the side of giving more leash to the economy. >> obviously you will be with us the rest of the program. a lot more to talk about from mike and barbara throughout the show. when we come back, the banks in cyprus finally reopening. lines are long.

security is tight. but things are much calmer an hour after the opening. we continue to monitor that situation. we will bring you the latest. and can q10 save the company or is apple unbeatable? the answer from boy genius right after this. [ penélope ] i found the best cafe in the world. nespresso. where i never have to compromise on anything. ♪ where just one touch creates the perfect coffee.

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welcome back, everybody. they will resume trading 7:30 eastern time, just about 11 minutes away. joining us on set is jonathan geller. he brought one of these new black pwr blackberrys with him. i look at it and say forget it. if i switch to not having a real keyboard i'm just going to go to the iphone or something along those lines. what do you think of what's happening? >> that's the argument. why go with the blackberry as opposed to apple or android. is. >> right. >> and i don't think that is being answered by research in motion. it's a very different market than europe. they're shipments, not sales. it is going to distributors, third parties, retail stores, not end consumers. it does not include the u.s. launch. we will have to see what happens there. when you watch into at&t and see

this phone at $199 compared to android or apple, i don't see why a consumer would pick this over another product. >> they said they're going to step up their marketing efforts. that is the plan. but we were talking about applications and what applications this thing has. >> right now they're lacking. you're able to get some android applications which is a saving grace for research in motion so you can port your android apps to blackberry can which saves the hassle of making a new onement a lot of developers, even for microsoft windows, they're waiting and seeing what happens. it's not worth putting their time in and developing apps for this platform right now. >> the only way those guys get paid is if their apps get used again and again and again. >> exactly. >> they don't know if there's going to be a market for them? >> you're not going to make money on a paid app. i think that's another hick up. >> i'm playing with the keyboard on this thing. >> it is amazing.

>> it's a virtual keyboard. >> it's easier than the iphone. >> i'm here on the squawk set. i love this keyboard -- or almost. no, no. i didn't screw it up. i wish we could show what's going on. every time -- it predicts what raour going to say. but not like the apple. >> it's the best virtual keyboard i have ever used in my life. >> if apple had this the game would be over. >> it will predict the next word for you. >> that's important. it's really, really cool. best virtual keyboard. >> i just want to give a little bit of credit. >> that's important. we haven't talked about the android. i don't know why we keep leaving that out of the conversation. >> android is killing it. they're 70%, apple is the other 30%. it's either apple or samsung in terms of profits. every other company is losing

money. lg, motorola, hgc. it's a two-horse game. as much as money as microsoft is spending, billions of dollars, and a much better eco system than blackberry, better thought process in terms of how they did it, works with all the enterprise sweets. as much as they are spending that's why i don't see it doing well. if of mo can't make it happen as a third person in the race i'm not sure how blackberry can. that's a big issue for me in terms of looking at it. >> do androids or blackberry, do they have the intuitive thing down like apple? i don't know how to do any of this stuff. it just happens on an iphone. >> i have an ipad. >> but even the phone seems even more so. does an destroyed have that

down? >> i think it's getting better. the fact that a 9-year-old can pick up an ipad and use it or 5-year-old speaks volumes. >> it's scary. >> but, see, that's the argument now why apple is maybe losing their cool. people are saying well this product is so bland because anyone can use it. they want something a little more interesting. but at the same time why mess up the interface that works so well. >> pretty intuitive. >> jonathan, thank you very much. blackberry shares should reopen in six and a half minutes. forbes crowns the most valuable team in baseball just in time for opening day. then as the first quarter comes the a close, we will tell you what you need to be watching in washington. carfirmation.

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dodgers, red sox, cubs, phillies. and marlins less than a quarter of the new york yankees. >> time for a commercial break again here. shares of blackberry will open in three months. the quote when "squawk box" comes back. ♪ [ male announcer ] it was designed to escape the ordinary. it feels like it can escape gravity. ♪ the 2013 c-class coupe. ♪ starting at $37,800. ♪

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to welcome back welcome back to "squawk box". in the headlines this morning, blackberry earning 22 cents per share for its latest quarter, excluding certain items. this is the important part. analysts expecting a loss of 29 cents per share. stocks just reopening right now. you're seeing that up 8% or 9% there. blackberry lost 3 million subscribers. but numerous changes of the company the last year are having a positive impact. but look. now it's moving around a little bit. it's come down, come up. i don't know what to make of

what this all means. separately we are an hour away from the labor department jobless claims. 4,000 from last week to 340,000. separately, we were talking about this one already. this is kind of fun. walmart a new way of delivering on online customers. having customers deliver them. better competing against giant amazon. but executives say the plan is still in its very early stages. >> you wonder if there's 30% shares. >> yeah. >> so how much of people saying, yeah, i'm going to buy it because i think it's a good investment. and how many say this throws a wrench. what was the high on that stock? sick at one point.

160, 150. today marks the final trading day of a quarter that saw broad growth in the evaluation of equities in spite of political uncertainty. john harwood with a look at the political issues coming up in the next quarter. >> here's what to watch for in washington in the quarter ahead. here at the supreme court, nine justices will decide the fate of two cases that have been argued in the same-sex marriage. both will work out a compromise on immigration reform including enforcement and path to citizenship. and the president and his economic team will continue to try to work with leaders on capitol hill and the rank and file to come up with a long-term budget deal involving some tax increases and cuts to entitlements. >> john joins us now from washington along with our guest host on set.

and -- >> what? mike santoli. rick santelli and mike santoli. >> never happened before. >> and barbara morrison. investors -- john, i don't know why we had to run a tape when you could have done that for us live with some personality. >> honestly, i don't understand it either. >> tv i think. maybe we wanted to show that cool camel hair coat you had on. >> you know, the tricks of tv producers are endless. and i don't know what the reason was they did it that way. >> i do like the camel hair. >> i can repeat it right now. >> i think it's worth it to show how good you look in that thing. it's weird, john, when we -- you know, we do talk a lot about the

intersection of politics and business because it's been all the talk b. now we have the supreme court and gay marriage. i don't even think i want to weigh it in necessarily to any of that. so let's focus on the things that, you know, are our bread and butter. will there be a grand bargain? they ate some meals together, broke some bread e. will there be talk the next three months? i think that would help the market if there were. >> joe, i have consistently been overoptimistic thinking that all the ingredients were there to make a deal. i thought there was going to be one at the end of the year during the fiscal cliff talks. and then i thought there was likely to be one before the sequester or shortly after the sequester took effect. i still think there's the possibility of when i talk to republicans and democrats i hear them edging towards some sort of

a bargain. >> i don't know how grand it would be. you could do a mini grand bargain that would have a smaller level of cuts and smaller level of tax increase. but i do hear republicans privately conceding that, yes, we may be able to come up with more revenue but we want to make sure they are serious about entitlement reform. and i get the feeling that democrats were orienting themselves to the possibility of turning around and saying to some of their base, we have to do this for the long term. >> is that when we talk about corporate tax reform? maybe individual tax reform? maybe not. >> yes. >> maybe it would be at the same time. >> yes. the question is how grand the tax reform is too. >> are they simply going to cherry pick a few loopholes in order to raise money or a thorough going overhaul of the

system. the view of the administration has always been an overhaul. >> jon, no way marginal rates are coming down. maybe corporate. because the president is at least sort of given a nod to that i guess. >> it's possible. >> the sequester is here to stay, i guess. >> not necessarily. >> no? >> i think what are we now one month into the sequester. it's got about five months left to run. because after you get to the end of this fiscal year then you're talking about the normal budgeting process, the normal appropriations process. and they can smooth out some of the things that make it more painful than it needs to be. i still think that when we get to the summer and the debt limit discussion ripens, people are going to want to go back and say did we want to cut defense that much? did we want to cut domestic

discretionary. couldn't we do things on entitlements and taxes to raise that money without the negative effects. i still think that's possible. >> john, is obama care on your radar screen? i saw some comments and a couple individual states talking about how much just by definition, because you know, a lot of people have not had coverage that's going to be much more extensive than they had before. are rates going to just shock people at where some of these -- i mean, claims are supposed to come up. they will be passed along with people with the policies. the numbers are 30%, 40%, 50% increases. that's going to shock some people, isn't? >> yes. i was talking with lobbyists for the health insurance companies the other day. they have been trying to work with administration regulators to smooth out some things they say will make rates go up.

and, you know, the regulatory things that could be changed. for example, what is the difference -- the age differential that you can charge for older people as compared to younger people. there's mandates within the law that the health insurance companies think are unrealistic. so there's still some play in those elements. and i'm not sure how all that is going to come out. but health insurers say people are going to have some sticker shock. >> we're hurdling towards january 1st. it's funny. each year gets shorter and shorter. as a percentage of our lives as people like you and me, jon, with our gray hair and everything, it becomes less and less al a percentage. it's going to be january 1st. are they ready? >> that is a mind blowing concept. >> yes. >> time goes faster when you get older. >> time contraction. >> oh, my god. that's scary.

>> for us it's like 1/35 of our life now. remember before it was much -- 1/20. >> we need some legislation to protect us on that. >> so like a year is much longer for becky than it is for us. >> no. i'm talking about my son. for him 10 minutes in the car is a death sentence. that's forever. >> duke is tomorrow, right? >> tomorrow night. michigan state. it's going to be a tough game. >> all the games are going to be tough that i see. it's more exciting because the teams that were really good and that we could assume will win are now matched up against each other. >> florida gulf coast, baby. >> that's such a great story. love those guys. >> by the way, joe, do you know who is that coach from florida gulf coast? >> yeah. >> sandy's old roommate.

>> you're kidding me? >> sandy must feel so inferior. they had the same chances and he's nowhere. this guy has $100 million. >> sandy is doing okay. >> sandy is doing very well. come on. thanks, jon. [ penélope ] i found the best cafe in the world. nespresso. where i never have to compromise on anything. ♪ where just one touch creates the perfect coffee. where every cappuccino and latte is only made with fresh milk. and where the staff is exceptionally friendly. ♪ nespresso. what else?

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welcome welcome back. blackberry reporting better than expected numbers. revenue a little shy. subscriber losses might have been worse than people expected. stock is now up 82 cents. so it was up more than a dollar. >> but it's come down. >> like i said it was more than a dollar earlier. now 82 cents. >> that's true. >> joining us now is michael genovese, analyst communications

equipment for mkm partners. give me the lowdown on the most important facts that the company gave us this morning in terms of deciding whether to buy or sell the stock. >> sure. good morning. yeah, we're not surprised there's a bit of a short squeeze with 35% of the shares short. as of yesterday's close. you know, this company recognizes revenues and profits on sell-in. so when a distributor takes an order. what's important is they shipped 1 million units at a higher than average selling price. that drove is the overall average to $256. the street was expecting $10 lower. that's what gave the really strong margins. we're picking up through the supply chain that blackberry really overordered. so basically we're thinking we're not surprised that the february quarter numbers are

pretty good. we think the may numbers will also be very good as they continue this global rollout. the the problem is if consumers don't buy these phones, they have to back out by the august quarter. so we think today is a good opportunity. the subscriber number reclassified the way they talk about a subscriber number. we thought the subscriber number was going to go up. we were thinking it would go up 5 million, 6 million. we really have to clarify whether the underlying number went down by 9 million in the quarter. that may have happened, which would be a huge drop. is and there's a lot of concerns for the future. short-term goods headlines but concerns for the future. >> i think it's ready to turn negative right now. i can't believe that there's that much a lack of understanding of what the

subscriber number actually entails. we don't know if we're going apples to apples. you say it could be as much as 9 million. you can't say with any certainty whether it's 3 million subscriber loss or 9 million subscriber loss. >> probably somewhere in the middle of that range. yeah, what we know for certain is they reclassified it. so previously it was anybody who owned a blackberry and had a data plan. there are several many people who use them as a phone without a data phone. they are making this classification change. that's why we thought the 79 million would go up. it actually went down, which is a bad sign. we'll get clarification on a conference call. whether all of that u.s. sell-in happens in the may quarter. so those are the two key questions we need to clarify on the call. >> stocks turned around.

>> as you have been talking, michael. >> 90 cents. now it's down 38 cents. thanks, michael. programming note, blackberry ceothorsten heins at 2:00 p.m. eastern. did you hear -- >> the way they're cot gorizing. >> for the sell-in at 2.56. they haven't sold to end user yet. and they have no idea what the demand is going to be. it's like herbalife. >> that's what jonathan geller said too when he was here. >> i didn't know that they used the price that that price -- they may have to get rid of them to the end user much less than the margins that gave the beat on the bottom line. >> we have to dig in and figure out how they're classifying

that. that seems questionable if that's what they're doing. >> let's talk about the fed. we heard from a handful. some standing firmly behind the pace of qe, others hinting at a possible tapering off before the end of of 2013. joining us to give us a better read, one of our favorites. he knows everything about what's going on inside the room. greg yips. good morning, greg. >> good morning, andrew. >> before we go to the question which we teased up, you speculated about who may ultimately take over the fed after mr. bernanke. i want to sort of go through it with you. are we really convinced, and i have to admit that i am, that bernanke will ultimately step down in 2014. what's the betting line just there? >> you wrote this yourself last fall. a lot of people hearing from him or his friends that the man is

frankly done. eight years running the fed. it's got to be enough for anybody. even a guy who studies the subject for a living. but a couple people have said to me do not take that as a given. there's a lot of time before he has to step down. and the president, by all accounts, has been very happy with his performance. you know, whatever the real answer is, whatever his plans are, they're being kept very close to his vest. what we have is speculation -- >> let me throw more idle speculation. if i'm bernanke and i think about it, the way people will view me is how this is unwound. why trust that to somebody else? >> well, i think because one of the things he's proudest of actually is putting in place a framework, both more expanded, transparent forecasts, more detailed, how the fed plans to respond in terms of

accommodation. >> warren buffett model. >> so leave the job for somebody else for it not to be as personalized under greenspan. >> i understand that's how you want it to run on autopilot. that's assuming the pullback is going to be an autopilot manageable thing. and i don't know that's the case. >> well, maybe not. if you're eye bottom ma, this is a decision for two people. does he want to get into that situation of making somebody seem in dispensable again as happened with greenspan in the last decade. owe bam a ma has a good bench to choose from if he chooses to go outside. >> real quick. qe. it may not stay at $85 billion. what do you think a fair number is by the next three, four months from now. >> i think it will still be $85 billion three or four months from now. this started with the press conference last week, the emphasis they will go from $85

billion to zero but they will taper it off. maybe 60, maybe 40. what strikes me as valuable about this new discussion is you have talks wanting to go to zero. it actually provides the ability to basically bring those two sides together. the question the street has to ask what month do we see that happening. my best guess is september. >> thank you for joining us this morning. always love talking to you. when we come back, we are kicking off round 2 of squawk money madness. who advanced, including a surprise win in yesterday's matchup. at optionsxpress we're all about options trading.

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welcome back, everybody. welcome back, everybody. round two, emerging 8. a doubleheader here. let's look back. intel edged out jpmorgan yesterday with 51% of the vote to bank of america today. we look at what's happening here. we're looking at all of what we're going to be looking at with the next eight. facebook versus google. and tom forte at telsey advisory group. start off, james with, google. you're not a big fan of the stock. you think it will go down from

here? >> i'm neutral on it. i think it will perform inline. i move my target prices four times a year. i will probably do it the next month or so. >> 770 versus the 802. >> that's right. >> probably no more upside for google than the average stock that i cover. >> just because you think it has had a long, good run. >> it's had a decent run. revenue prospects are good, more in the back half than the front half probably. margins, they've been missing for a while. so i think that's a concern i still see going forward. >> when it comes to facebook, you have a $38 price book. >> between now and the end of the year it's all about mobile monday taoeuzation. 65% of their advertisers were taoeuzing on mobile, up 50% in the prior period. so as they continue to ramp

mobile moneyization. >> anything that could throw off your thesis, what would you be most worried about. >> in vettors realizes. december quarter we thought it was a strong december quarter. some investors got ahead of themselves, which is why you saw them pull back. we think the stock is very attractive. longer term, i think they have an opportunity to monetize that as well. >> thank you very much. thank you for coming in. folks, you're been playing along with us. yesterday you didn't listen to what our analysts are recommending. it is your turn to vote. vote for facebook or google. we'll be talking about the second matchup, intel versus bank of america in the next hour. coming up, preparing your portfolio for q2.

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it is the final trading day of the first quarter. >> banks reopening in cyprus with tight controls on

transactions. michelle caruso-cabrera will will bring us live reports from the capital. breaking economic data. jobless claims and the final read on the fourth quarter gdp hits the the tape at 8:30 a.m. eastern. the third hour of squawks box starts right now. welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. our guest host this morning yahoo! senior finance mike santoli and barbara morrison. more in just a moment. first, though, andrew has this morning's headlines. >> back blackberry shares volatile. wall street analysts expecting a

29-cent per share loss. blackb lea least 3 million subscribers during the the quarter but say demand for the new z10 model helped results. programming note, don't miss blackberry ceo thorsten hein. and final read on fourth kwourgter gdp. >> let's take a look at the markets. you can see right now dow futures continue to go hang in there. up 18 points. s&p futures up over one point. this is the last trading day. if you saw anticipation ahead of all of this, nikkei was down one 1.25. shanghai down 2.8%. in europe right now you do see

at least some green arrows there. ftse in fact, is up 0.9%. banks at cyprus reopening for the first time in nearly two weeks. michelle caruso-cabrera has been monitoring the situation from the beginning. your thoughts on how this process has gone so far? >> well, it's much, much calmer than it was a few hours ago. we saw you two hours ago, becky, it was absolute pandemonium. the bank branch is much calmer. take a look how it looked an hour and a half ago. people pressed against the glass desperate to get in. they were allowing allowing a few depositors at a time. sometimes there was fighting amongst the people there as they were trying to get in there. a lot of those folks when i spoke with them either lost their atm card or didn't have one in the first place because they were elderly. they were desperate for cashment that's the the only way to get

money the last two weeks because banks were shut down and on the verge of collapse. they finally got a bailout for european lenders in cyprus. the issue is there's only a freeze of deposits above 100,000 euros. if you want to withdraw money in anticipation of runs that are happening today, authorities said they would put controls on the amount of money you could withdraw. 300 per day. it is cumulative. if you wait until tomorrow you can get 600 euros. businesses can do transactions up to 5,000 euros without any question. then they have to petition for things up to 200,000 euros. there is cash starting to move in the economy here after two weeks. and a plan for mass distribution of cash. a large amount arrive for one of the ecb's printing presses to the central bank of cyprus and headquarters here. and then they began distributing the cash throughout the country, throughout all last night and

also this morning. we followed a couple of armored vehicles as they left headquarters today. and you could seat guards. they were armed, carrying bags of money. they looked to be refills for atms. remember, there were a couple of false starts. a lot of banks had been restocking at various times thinking, oh, we're going to open tomorrow, and then they didn't. we still see lines of three or four people. but its much, much calmer. >> michelle, thank you. again, that's the progress over just the first two hours since banks opened. today the markets have been reacting not only to that but it is the final trading day of the quarter. the dow about to finish with the best quarter since 2011. all major averages up 3% for the month of march. joining us right now is blackrock's global chief investment strategist. look at the gains we have made. 3% for the month. the dow is up by better than 10%

so far. again, people trying to anticipate as you get to the end of the quarter. is this something that can continue into the second quarter? what do you think? >> obviously this is an extraordinary start to the year. much better than most people, including myself, would have thought. first of all, we continue to have support of monetary policy that probably is in place for q2. it is holding up much better. and we haven't had cyprus aside, some of the issues out of europe we have had in 2011, 2012. >> so does this make you a believer? >> well, the conditions are in place. i don't expect we will have another 10% quarter because partly we will see a little bit of a slowdown due to the sequester. in addition, we're probably not going to see the massive money flows in january and february of spring. >> you mean that's just the way money flows? or was there something special that goes on this year?

>> both. so, first of all, there is a seasonality to this. people putting money to work. the other part was a lot of money, as you know, came out of the market at the end of 2012. people worried about the fiscal cliff, higher capital gains rates. much of the money was on the sidelines starting the year. it came back in. that helped to power the rally so far in q1. probably won't get as much as of a tail wind in q2. >> i hear people say it's going to get tougher to pick your arenas. you probably agree with that too. russ, if you were looking on areas you thought would be the most like throly to succeed, wh would they be? >> we have seen leadership at a small cap earlier in the year. i would be shifting a bit to the larger companies. if you look at valuation, the large mega cap look less

stretched, more profitable. and consumer names has had a big run. they're trading at a huge multiple to the market. it seems a bit too far given they are just getting back on their feet. >> do you agree with that? people like jim cramer say the consumer is doing well, economy is going along. >> no, i do agree i would look at some of the large cap value companies and companies that have under performed the last year. i think the gains do have a lot to do with the federal reserve. >> which areas? >> some of the energy companies. conoco phillips. mining is a good-bye. it underperformed a lot the last year. it's down 23% versus the market that's up 11% year over year. and good dividend yield. all companies have good cash flow, good dividend yield.

>> russ, you don't think what we have seen in the 10-year is an indication of any wobbling? you think this is more related to concerns about europe? >> i think sit mostly about europe. again, it's important to remember the thing with the 10-year is rates are likely to move higher. but it will be a slow process. part of the reason is the fed. the the other part, we don't have a lot of new supply. the private tech tore is still deleveraging. there's still a bid from large institution, insurance companies, banks to the long paper. that means while rates go back up it's probably going to be a slower affair than a lot of people have expected. >> russ, mike santoli here. it seems the reason to panic is when corporate credit actually tells you that something has changed here. nobody expected a 10% up quarter. but it's actually kind of

trading in line where you think it might have traded if you look at high yield. >> yeah. >> so it seems to me the entire chain is supporting without necessarily being a lot of bargains out there. >> i think it's a great way to characterize it. first of all, i don't think anything is particularly cheap. i agree with energy stocks. but the way you talked about credit i think is spot on. the reason we have seen the movement in stocks and the reason credit spreads are as tight as they are, the consumer is still struggling a bit. balance sheets pristine. what's been supporting the high yield market is the fact that default rates, which are typically 4% are down 1.5. so that tightening in the spreads to a large extent is probably justified. >> it's all about holding interest rates down to probably zero. it has not only of course made the stock market look ravely

attra relatively attractive. companies have not hired. but they have refinanced with low interest rates. they have used cash to make acquisitions which boost earnings with very low costs and tremendous buyback programs. we look at a multiple of 14 or 15 and you say, you know, those earnings, some of that has to do with the low. you can't just say, you know, it's only affected the buy market. it affected the s&p also. i don't think it's as inexpensive as it looks. >> i actually do. if you look at the s&p 500 as a company, what they're doing is kind of looking at the capital structure and saying we're borrowing very cheap. we are going to buyback equity over here. that has all those asset classes across the whole fixed income across the equity normalized at this level. but i don't think it is necessarily objectively inexpensi inexpensive. >> up a couple percent this

year. you look at overall multiple in relation to that. 2% dividend yield peaking earnings with something that can't be repeated. so the boost is there. >> but, russ, just to follow up and circle back to where we started, you said that you were surprised by the gains we have seen to this point, the up 10% for the dow for the the quarter. but you would tell people to go ahead and jump in at this point because you have changed your mind in terms of what the market can and can't do? >> well, i think it comes back to what we just discussed, not that the market is cheap at this point but it is a relative game. when you look at cash with the yield curve on the treasury on a relative basis even after a 10% move, stocks look inexpensive. it is the best relative game in town. >> all right. thank you for joining us. barbara and mike here with us

through the rest of the program >> coming up, we have a success story in the utility sector. wisconsin energy adding 50% more capacity in the last 10 years. we have the ceo who will join us on the set next. still ahead, breaking economic data on employment and economic growth. we're going bring you instant analysis and the reaction in the markets. but before we go to break, take a look at the quarter-to-quarter stats for the major indexes. nespresso. where i never have to compromise on anything. ♪ where just one touch creates the perfect coffee. where every cappuccino and latte is only made with fresh milk. and where the staff is exceptionally friendly. ♪ nespresso. whatse?

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welcome back. this is the last session of the quarter. we will see where we will be at the end of the day. wisconsin has given the utility sector by adding 50% more in the last 10 years while building profits along the way. the stock has been on a real bull run. this is actually quite impressive. it has more than doubled in since 2009. joining us on the set is gail -- am i going to get this right? >> klopa. >> thanks for being here. >> thank you.

good morning, andrew. >> good morning. >> the last hour we were talking about what's happening with qe, infiniti. i want to know what happens if interest rates go up. >> i would assume if it goes up it is because the economy speeds up its recovery. for us if it speeds up its recovery, we will see much more electrical demand for electricity. wisconsin is our home state. >> right. >> and in washington there are more manufacturing jobs per capita than any other state in the u.s. we serve industrial customers in 17 different sectors of the economy. wisconsin's unemployment rate stayed below the national average. we're 7% unemployment. we are just treading water. we're not backed in terms of industrial demand to where we were yet. >> is it getting better? is there a material improvement?

people talk about insourcing. is that real? >> a lot of discussion and early indications but nothing in the ground yet. we are seeing two or three sectors that are doing well in terms of industrial demand. medical devices. north american headquarters in milwaukee area. growth in medical device production. and significant growth in food processing and food production. the more food you eat the more medical supplies you need. >> if you have to gamble on one, and i know you like to diversify. >> yes. >> but if you have to gamble on the next generation of energy in terms of renewable or gas or whatever it is, is there one that you think we're not paying attention to? >> we're probably paying too much attention to natural gas in terms of the next fuel for the next power plant addition. with the abundant supply of natural gas coming from fracking

there's no question that the default position for the next power plant is natural gas. i think the lesson of history for our industry is there is no fuel source. i can remember when jimmy carter banned the use of natural gas as a fuel for power plants. >> i don't remember that. when did he do it? >> there was a shortage in 1979. he banned the use because the higher use, the better use for natural gas in his opinion was home heating. >> what's the split for you? >> 40%, 20% nuclear, 10% renewable. they are more expensive. >> does it make sense? when will the economics if ever make sense. >> the price of solar energy is coming down. if we were sitting here two or three years ago i would say in

most parts of the country, 22 cents for a fully loaded solar. in some parts of the country it's down 12 to 16 cents. >> four cents a kilowatt hour. huge, huge difference. >> that will make sense. >> you never say never. but clearly most renewables are twice as costly as conventional sources. >> will the sun still be a middle aged star by the time it does become economic or will it have start to have faded. >> squawks box will still be number one in the ratings. >> >> do you have any plans for new plants right now? >> we are building, and we're about 670% complete, speaking of renewables with a new conventional power plant. but it will be wood waste.

we will have to get to 10% statewide of all our electricity sold to customers at retail by 2015 coming from renewables. we built the largest wind farms in the state. now we will build and complete this power plant that will be fueled from wood waste. and the beauty of that, becky, we can actually dispatch the unit. on a hot summer day in the midwest when it's 101 on lake michigan the wind doesn't blow. >> right. >> this we can actually control and actually make sure that we've got some renewable supply coming online. >> if you had another one to build beyond that, would you go to natural gas at that point. >> yes. that would clearly be the default now. if we needed another plant that wasn't renewable it would clearly be natural gas. >> nuclear. >> i'm sorry? >> nuclear. >> the upfront cost of nuclear is just pro hip active. there are a couple companies in the u.s. that's building nuclear

units. probably for the long term we are going to have to have nuclear in the mix. >> but politically impossible. >> incredible difficult. up front costs extremely high. if the epa has its way we will never build another coal-fired plant. we have to have a diversity of fuel supply. >> thank you for coming in. >> thanks for having me. >> coming up, breaking economic data at 8:30. weekly jobless claims. only a week from tomorrow we will have another employment report. but this will be the final read. rick santelli with what to expect. mike santoli will respond to what rick santelli says approximately.

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when we come back, breaking economic numbers. plus, the final read on gdp for the fourth quarter. u.s. equities have turned around from where we started, up 25 points. s&p up two. it is the final trading day of the quarter. here's rick santelli with with a

look at what to expect in the treasury market in the second quarter. here's what to watch for in treasuries for the quarter ahead. on treasuries keep it easy. home on the range. any violation of the established closing yield range, 180 on the down side, 210 on the up side. could have some follow through. watch the 10-year treasury/bund spread. three-year wide. with regard to foreign exchange, the euro was on a tear up until february. then everything changed. think italian elections, cyprus. any violation of 1.20 on the euro/yen spread is something to pay attention to. i'm rick santelli. ♪

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the smartphone maker earned 22 cents a share for the latest quarter. when you strip out certain

items, analysts had been secretarying 29 cent to share loss. we have seen the stock swing 238% or 9%. it says demand for its new z10 model helped its business. we have been getting some updates. thorsten heins speak on "street signs" at 2:00 p.m. analysts say they would like to hear more about how they are measuring those 1 million units shipped. >> and the subscribers. >> one of the readers said citing strong command for the blackberry 10. boy genius said i'm hearing it's not strong.

>> it is what the stores have asked you for. i don't know. we'll find out more information again. we'll have more of these updates. >> it is time for the jobless claims on first quarter gdp. rick santelli. >> here we go. expectations pretty close. looking for half of 1%. up 0.4. our final look at fourth quarter gdp. of course as we wrap you the first quarter of this year and the momentum may be a little greater than we finished off the end of last year. a month from today we will really start to get the day. let's go through the internals. if you look looking at the personal consumption it was a little light. 1.8 is this look. price index 1%. initial jobless claims revised

last week to 3.41. add 16,000 up to 357,000. so that is a bit of a surprise. and i know that the market probably will have a knee-jerk reaction on this to some extent. although if it is it's hiding in the weeds right now. our number is always a big hoorah. to traders, once again, it's a lot like the fed. big jumps concern them more than deterioration which is a good thing on jobless claims. it's always important. media has to cover it. analysts need to dissect it. down here the only news about the fed is if they slowed down. most traders always suspect they're going to find reasons to tweak things to continue current programs. back to you. >> rick, we keep hearing about that 85.

i don't know why we can't just one month do $72 billion and send it over to cyprus and just not worry about it anymore. would that be a big deal for us, rick? >> i can't tell you that, joe. i don't think we need it. and i would argue if we ever did. i would have to say i was absolutely 100% wrong yesterday afternoon at closing well. i thought there would be a lot more anxiety in the lines in cyprus and the cypriots would be more uneasy. justifiably so. boy, i'll tell you what, there's a lot of class in at least what i have seen so far. there were issues early. i was watching michelle caruso-cabrera and her great coverage. this is certainly a big deal. and i hope there's a lot of strategyizing. maybe taxpayers day of being on the hook, even in europe.

>> i don't think i have a good run reason for the one week move. >> great. >> could be the swaofpblt looking for the swoon. >> how do you write off what happened with fedex and what they have said. >> i don't write that off. we have to wait and see what comes up with next quarter's earning season. companies say they see a slow growth environment. europe is slow. it looks like it will be slower again in recession. slow growth in the united states. >> i also don't think that -- if you look at what's worked in the market it isn't as if the global growth theme has been animating this market. it hasn't been the global cyclicals.

it has been the stable bond-like stocks that are just kind of walking up the market. i think that's why we could kind of ingest that news and say, okay, we don't have to panic about it. not everything was hinging on the idea that fedex and caterpillar -- that being said, there's always a reason why the stuff that looks cheap looks cheap. if you look at the sick cals, like caterpillar and by extension of the emerging market stocks. >> when we talked to the transportation guys they're not really excited about truck volumes. >> fracking hasn't helped. >> you look at both those numbers. >> are you trying to say fedex is a one off. two or three day instead of one day. >> people think the airlines are in a new renaissance some and

there's been so much consolidation there's perhaps another reason for that. >> doug pascher on yesterday. it's hard to say whether people are feeling good about traveling or whether there's just pricing power. >> back to blackberry. i got an e-mail who is listening to this phone call. >> john forte? >> i can't say who. somebody who knows these numbers, though. they're saying these numbers are bad news. it's the issue about the sell-in. it's the issue. we were talking about this virtual consignment business. >> tim cooke? >> this is not tim cooke. but they're on the call. and they're saying it's not write. 7 million. >> they are down or something? >> i didn't understand that. >> 7 million units. >> that can be just the 10. >> if it is only selling a million units and they're not

true sales. >> right. >> and you think about apple selling -- what did they sell in one weekend? 5 million units? >> on a launch. >> this is a problem. i'm sorry. >> are you giving me a kleenex? >> no. there are all those guys standing out -- instead of lines they had the guys like at central park. >> come on in, come on in. >> motioning to go in. >> it's a tough comparison. >> i need a tissue because i'm going to buy soon. >> i know why. because if it's bad news for a company, you feel things a lot of times. >> this is empathy. >> you do. >> he does. a lot in the past you say this is sad news. and i said are you really sad for blackberry? >> first of all, i have been with blackberry for so long as a customer. >> i would expect this from becky. >> like i said, i'm just waiting to see which one. >> back to jobless claims. it's down 30 cents.

it's unchanged when you started. you're not going to say who this is. >> no, i can't. >> you would have to kill us. >> not tim cooke? >> no, not tim cooke. >> when we come back, round 2 with a doubleheader. and the matchup between facebook and google. up next, we'll break down our second matchup between intel and bank of america. stick around. "squawk" will be right back. [ kitt ] you know what's impressive? a talking car. but i'll tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it's carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. ♪ after all, what's the point of talking if you don't have something important to say? ♪

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welcome back, effect. john forte has been monitoring the blackberry conference call. blackberry ceo saying they expect a single digit decline. they see a strong sell through for some of the devices in latin america. what's your takeaway. >> i'm still scratching my head on a few points, beck y. he said they saw a 2% revenue decline from services in the quarter and he expects a single digit decline. my question, what does that translate into in terms of millions of subscribers? it sounds like he's leaving room for that to accelerate in the next quarter even though he says they're managing that carefully with the carrier. analysts are definitely asking

about that. we'll see if the answers get clearer as we go on. they're kind of talking about it but not being extremely direct. >> out of the million, how many are actually sold? how many are sold at the price that they're quoting? >> this is the sell-in versus sell-through problem. >> we don't know. is he being forthcoming about that, do we know? >> it's pretty common, anybody in the apple launch, motorola. even their visibility will be a bit limited. we were launching on verizon right now. but overall inventory seems to be pretty good. older blackberry devices. >> that's what i mean. the ability to roll out a new model and send it to people, i don't think that tells you anything from what i can tell. >> yeah. >> it means you're effect at rolling at a new model. maybe it's zero.

>> no, that's right. what we have seen with apple launches is apple rolls these things out the past couple launches have sold out very quickly. apple had to make them as quickly as they could to try to catch up with demand. we don't know if that's the case. they haven't explicitly said, hey, we're not able to fulfill demand. we're cranking these out as fast as we can. we're not seeing a big inventory buildup either. they did say they cranked up production because demand looked stronger than expected. >> how long does it take to figure out? this launch wasn't yesterday or last week. it's been how long since they launched it? >> well, it's tricky. because they had -- it was early march it launched in canada and the uk can. as far as the u.s., which is a really critical market for them, it's only been a couple weeks. and that's ongoing.

>> they don't get numbers on a day by day basis. heins does not have them on an daily basis if not hourly basis. >> i'm sure he has them on the at&t launch for sure. verizon hasn't actually happened yesterday. >> you get a chance to ask the question, right. >> yes. >> will you make that one of your questions. >> in street signs today. absolutely. that's going to be the question. >> back to money madness. our doubleheader to kick off round two this morning. last hour we previewed facebook versus google. and bank of america versus intel, which narrowly beat jpmorgan yesterday. we have chris rolland joining us

from "squawk" news line. bank of america, todd, make your case. >> we're neutral on stock right now. we have a $12 price target. as we go into 2013, really the primary headwinds is still centered on the litigation regulatory risk, if you will. and really that goes back to the legacy mortgage portfolio they have. in particular private label exposure, whole loan sales that date back over the last several years. they still have nearly $200 billion of outstanding loans that are either in default or severely delinquent where they have the potential repurchase risk. that's really one of the primary challenges going into '13 as we see it with a lot of the news really discounting the stock right now. >> you see the high, what the potential low being at this

point. >> consensus moved up a little bit in terms of their forward looking forecast. but you have to think about this is a company where they have really struggled to grow book value the last three years. as we go into 13, 14, 15, it's all about execution. the story has now transitioned to really a cost-cutting story with the early beginning of capital return for shareholders. but if you look at the track record going forward, a lot of things have to really line up for this company to really meet investor expectations and justify the multiple today on the stock. >> okay. thank you for that. chris, let's talk intel. seems like intel would be a bigger winner than backe of america, i think, but i could be wrong. what do you think? >> intel is really a mixed bag right now. some things are going very well for them. a lot of things are actually going quite poorly. the things we like about intel is their strange to become a meaningful foundry player.

this is a new source of revenue for them. they landed a deal to manufacture chips for a fee. and the company's recent move into the networking market for juniper and sisco. what we don't like about intel are pc sales. they are just horrible this quarter. one of the worst i have seen in the past three years. really if tablets cannibalize that market. we don't like arms move into their market. it is a completing micro architecture that rules the phone and tablet world right now. it's decided to move into intel's pc market and will move into their coveted server market in 2014. >> on money madness, give us the up side and down side. it is not a comparable company to do this to. >> we have a market rating with a $23 price target trading at 21, 22 right now.

so there's not much up side we see from here until the story really derisks. >> two stocks with not so much up side. todd, chris, thank you. >> thank you. >> it's now your turn to vote to send b and a or intel into the fourth. both polls are now open on "squawk box" facebook page. do you want to take a pick? >> i think intel is interesting but not because what's going on. very stable. >> are you picking intel? >> i am. >> don't close out the trading week without hearing from jim cramer. stocks to watch. we'll check in with him next at the new york stock exchange. monday on squawks box, it's a new week, a new month, and a new quarter. can bulls extend the winning streak, or will caution take over? we'll give you the portfolio moves that could make you money.

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take a look at futures right now. we do have some green arrows. dow looks like it will open up eight points higher. making headlines db s.a.c. capital's stephen cohen paid $60 million for an ocean front property in the hamptons. the house is just down the road from his other home. a report doen has put his manhattan duplex in the bloomberg building on the market for $115 million after last fall when he bought a place in the west village for $38 million. this comes after earlier this week when he purchased the picasso for 1 $55 million, then two weeks after the fine he paid -- >> everybody lives on the same street out there. >> they all live -- >> jerry seinfeld's house was on further. remember the hedge fund guy -- >> they live right next to each

other. the comments on this story are incredible. someone writes why the vitriol? steve cohen's made a lot of money. has he committed any crimes? has he he hurt anyone? it is no secret he gives tens of millions to charity. but there's other people who look at this sort of conspicuous consumption and say what gives? >> furthur if you are a grateful dead fan. let's get down to the new york stock exchange -- >> what house did he buy? i have a house in ocean grove. it is just fantastic. couple houses from the beach. governor and i try to make our towns come back. you know that, joe. even my best restaurant. can't even get to it. i live in a different way than steve cohen but it is a great way. >> jim, do you have an iphone or

blackberry still? >> i have an iphone. i'm thrilled with it. i think blackberry itself is profitable. we seem to forget that. everybody wants to knock the stock down. you commented on the short position, joe. i think the shorts are trying to color the darn thing. this is still a better quarter. >> really. >> i think so. there's an anti-moment piece. i just don't -- i don't buy the bear case. there's a lot of people who want to own this company. >> that's interesting. i was going to use your iphone ownership to talk to becky again but ima he not going to. you're not worried that they put out a million but you don't know what they sell it for, how many they'll sell. >> i think there's whole countries that love this product. we tend to forget there are other places besides the united states. >> backward countries? >> yeah. indonesia. lot of people there. becky, thanks for the nod on the

consumers. pvh last night disappoint. got to wonder whether the consumer is cutting back in march. bad weather. >> jim, if you throw a lid on this -- i'm done for. >> no, i'm not. i'm saying it was the weather. it was unbelievably cold. people will get negative because of the weather in march. they'll be wrong. >> okay. that's a story i like. >> weren't you wearing pvh -- >> yesterday. >> it was disappointing? >> they bought calvin klein and they've got a jeans problem. you go to costco,er that giving jeans away along with the crop dip. you snow. >> we will end, jim -- what is your most -- what game are you looking for? >> this game tonight. syracuse must lose. it is a must-lose for the orange. >> it is a must-lose for my brackets. >> i have to have it or else i'm going to start to think about baseball. >> i think it's at like 9:40.

you going to watch them all? >> yes. of course with sal, that's a tough ticket. >> that's tomorrow? oh. shockers and lasalle are tonight -- that's the late game. >> we don't have to work tomorrow -- >> i know. but next week we got to work on the final, unfortunately. >> what can you do. >> but if indiana's gone we won't watch it anyway. >> exactly. have a great, great couple of days, guys. >> you, too. coming up our guest hosts will have the last word right after this short break. this is america.

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stock of the day is blackberry. it has been all over the place. we do talk about it a lot, i guess because we all know what it is and we all have had one and we've watched this fascinating sort of migration. i remember when i thought the iphone, what can apple do with a

phone that blackberry hasn't already done. it really did -- that's what kept the train going. without the iphone, apple would probably be $100 stock or $200 stock. >> you and mike santolli both jumping in at the end. >> i love it. >> if you guys have to sum up heading into a three-day weekend we have a little bit of easier take than we might have expected with cyprus opening up the banks. what are we doing with the long weekend? >> i think you just stand pat. don't make a move ahead of a long weekend. but we are in this period of low slow growth. longer term we do have a lot of positives in the markets particularly as our earlier guest was talking about very low energy costs. transformational energy period here. >> to me, seems like it's gotten a lot of energy for the market to hang around here for the last several weeks. don't know if it is just reloading for a new moon wit