the gold market normally gets a bid and it didn't. >> and that will do it for power lunch, sue. >> street signs begins now. >> the president making a new push to give more mort najs to people with weak credit. is that a good idea or a new reason to worry about the housing market.

>> you have got two pieces of news dominating. a weaker than expected adp employment report. and the news you just heard that the u.s. sending missile defenses to guam and defense secretary hagle saying there is a real danger. we will have more on that coming up in a few minutes. and the s&p having its worst day in a month. bob, what are you hearing more about? is it adp or kim jong un? >> it's a little of both. it's pretty rare when the secretary of defense moves the stock market. lets's take a look at the dow

jones. we dropped another 50 points on that and we are essentially sitting at the lows today. a lot of people asked me why isn't korea a bigger issue? korea has not taken the issues seriously. this is the korean stock market. it has gone sideways. again now this is almost two weeks. the real problem if you want the bottom line? global growth fears. copper alum numb and things like iron our stocks. much of this concerns over weakness in china. brian, back to you.

>> i will tell you, just a quick note, too. a lot of people out there may say why do i care? i chal thing them. they track almost perfectly. >> and overlay things like decline in chinese stocks to decline in many of the commodities like copper and alum numb. it's not a perfect relationship but they're all done. >> out with his latest investment entitled a man in the mirror. he also. >> here now first on cnbc is the man many call the bond king himself. apparently we're not supposed to call you the bond king any more. you say that in your notes. how come?

>> you can continue to do that but i'm not so sure that it would sink in in terms of my psyche. an expansion of pes and profits. and you know it's a fair question to ask whether those conditions continue during a future effort. and that's my point. if investors are already long enough to survive it. that's the michael jackson reference, make a change. >> take a look at yourself and make that. bill, the one thing that really stuck out to me about this piece

basically a or whether it's been in bonds the better part of the last decade. will we ever see an investing time like that again? >> you know, i don't think so. let's look at it from the standpoint of the bond market? in the early 1980s and now just above three. huge capital gains that propelled huge expansion in terms of bes that allowed for expansion of corporate profits. from that standpoint alone, we're not likely seeing the same epic going forward.

>> you have talked about monkeys. better than the majority of investors out there.

but mine or or. >> that would prove the point. >> you know the problem with monkeys is they're never on time. they tend to fling poo and they're generally unreliable creatures so we can't hire them to invest. so we hire people like you and you are paid well to pick things to invest in for your clients. with that said, what are you picking? >> well, we're picking quality at the moment, brian, as opposed to lower quality. and for several reasons. one, there are changes in the works. you mentioned, you know, north korea and gee owe political

possibilities going forward that will bring risk into the marketplace? there are other changes associated with euro land and the movement of deposit money and bank money under the table that might, you know, reinforce some risk, situations and an investor would want to avoid they are buying -- the what the fed has been buying if only to avoid the complexities of risk going forward that we see? once the fed and, you know, once perhaps mutual fund investors stop buying as much as they're buying and that will happen at some point.

>> i'm suspicious of the ultimate objective of north korea and their leaders. we will have to wait and see. i don't think that's a precipitous cause. i think reason to buy treasuries is simply that the economy itself may be slowing and the credit itself is not infusing as much enthusiasm into risk assets as it used to. >> it's been a thriller of it. >> all right. thank you. >> sorry about that. reporting tensions on the korean peninsula ratcheting up in just the last hour? what is the latest? >> well, we have got a couple of things going on here in the north korean front. let's start with the new

secretary of defense who is speaking at the national war college just a little bit ago saying that the threat from north korea is real. he cites their nuclear capabilities and their missile capabilities and said that the united states is paying clear attention to what's going on with this rhetoric. take a listen to chuck just a little while ago. >> some of the actions they have taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat to the interests, certainly of our allies starting with south korea and japan, and also the threats that the north koreans have levelled directly at the united states regarding our base in guam. threatened hawaii. threatened the west coast of the united states. >> now speaking of guam, other

news coming out within the past little while. administration officials saying that the united states military will send missile defense technology they are sending a missile defense tech nothing that is capable of deflecting short and medium range missiles that could be launched from north korea. clearly a military response to this ratcheting up by the north koreans, moving assets into guam to protect the united states and other allies. all of that is getting a lot of attention. each one of these moves is going to be very carefully scrutinized by both sides. the united states does not want a military confrontation with the north koreans but they have got to take whatever steps they can here. >> you wonder why china has been

so quiet. they are really the only direct line into pyong yang. we have got to get this dialed back, wouldn't you agree? >> that's correct. in comments it was said that the united states is going want to be working with the chinese. he is doing everything he can to diffuse the situation on that peninsula. so hagel saying directly that the united states is working with the chinese and trying to do something to deal with what has been a chinese traditional ally in north korea. but obviously some of this rhetoric is not going to make the chinese government in beijing comfortable either. >> thank you very much for that breaking news. we will have more with you throughout the afternoon. stocks are taking a hit on this news. they were done before on the adp number. but as bob pisani showed you, look at the heat map. you have got merk, boeing,

united health care and the four stocks that are up. merk and united health care see defensive names. but boeing and utx, these are both in their own way, defense companies. look at utx. got some defense plays. maybe we need to look at others as well. those stocks are higher. up next, omg, sec. regulators say it's totally okay to make market moving material announcements on social media. good idea or rotfl disaster ris sults. we will tell you what it is when street signs returns. cook what , and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest.

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>> we told you two of the four dow stocks that are higher. look at defense contractors. most of them are catching a bid. you also have lmt, gd and all of those names are higher today, minus ge. ge really not defense. still look at ge, noc and gd. >> the sec says it's a okay for companies to now release material information on social media platforms like twitter and facebook. is this any company on any social media platform? >> that's right, brian.

the key thing is that companies need to let investors know where to look. the sec says companies can share information on facebook, twitter, or other social media platforms as long as they alert investors so no one has an unfair advantage. they are not selected disclosure. with this decision the sec will not take action after questioning whether his announcement of a monthly viewing number for netflix on facebook broke the law. this gives companies the green light to communicate much more on facebook, twitter, and linked in. it could mean a surge in traffic and activity for all of those social stocks. facebook saying we welcome and agree that facebook is an established means for companies

and individuals to share and disseminate information properly. this could be a step towards democrattizing information. >> all right. thank you very much. we're going to stay with that story. already some companies are putting lines in their sec releases that push to their social media. google plus and facebook accounts for an 8k filing today. including the ceo's own twitter account in a filing today. our next guest is an sec filings expert from the great footnoted.org. michelle, thank you very much. you spoke to auto nation's pr about this. what did they have to say and why was i mentioned in that phone call? >> you know they said that they saw the news actually yesterday

on cnbc and they jumped into action. and you know, checked with their gc and then they basically went and, you know, the ceo mike jackson started tweeting away. so you started to see some tweets about business related stuff after a very long time of talking about basketball and football, which i understand that he had a bet with you on a football game. >> not a real bet for money. we were talking about wearing each other's school hats. i don't want to get in trouble because of this. when the news came out, my instant reaction was oh no, now i'm going to have to sign up for facebook and baidu and or kid and that's going to take my time. i'm going to stare at social media all day. >> the question is which sites? the sec didn't say specifically facebook and twitter. although those are the two obvious choices. and people certainly seem to

have a preference. folks i know and obviously not a scientific survey, but people seem to prefer one to the other usually. and the question is when do companies, how do they notify investors? how do they notify my great aunt that she needs to start checking the twitter feed if she owned 100 shares of at&t? will she know what twitter is? those sorts of questions and all sorts of new social media sites. >> i don't want to overly generalize but social media is a young person's game. a lot of people are right out of college and some people get in trouble for posting stupid stuff but all i could think about is who is now going to be tweeting material information? is it going to be the

23-year-old right out of college who is like dude, totally missing earnings this quarter? lol. it's not going to be the 65-year-old general council sitting in his office saying i've got to use this twitter thing now. >> before our ceos go into high er do they need to run what they're posting before the general council? you would hope so because what if they posted material information? and then what if the facebook feed doesn't match up with twitter and that doesn't match up with google plus? if you said that mike jackson posts pictures on instagram.

>> like us on pinterest. there is a lot of holes. hopefully the sec will work this out. thank you very much a story not going away any time soon. >> thanks. >> look at the heat map for the market. it is mostly red. that is because most of the s&p 500 are now down. they have been down most of the morning on the weak adp number, but the north korea escalation, missile defense systems being sent to guam. defense secretary saying a real danger. the market selling off also. gold, it's not catching a bid as much. why not and many importantly, why is gold stumped. we're going to find out the answer to both of those questions coming up. those dreams have taken a beating lately. but no way we're going to let them die. ♪ ameriprise advisors can help keep your dreams alive

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to build a better in-flight experience featuring access to wi-fi, live tv, and updated cabins. getting there just got better. we are southwest. welcome aboard. >> metals taking a beating this week. even today when we have seen a bit of a flight to safety, we're not seeing gold or silver pop. really tanking since the beginning of the year. gold on track to close at the lowest level since last june.

gold was nearly a can't miss investment. >> it has more multiple head winds that -- we keep getting low inflation headlines. we got them a couple of days ago that japan was having problems and there is a lot of skepticism that china's inflation was going to come in hot. india, the largest buyer of the metal has been kucurbing the demand here. the third factor is a lot of the global printing is still going on but it seems to be slowing down. the pull back has to do.

only one is going to be probably doing it. it seems like they are set up to fail market expectations because so much hype has been built in. so far, as far as our economy is concerned. no it's not hot. but at the end of the day, low i look at these things all week long. back in august last year, etfs were adding almost 10,000 aunss a day. despite the 60 to 7 70 billion dollars, the gld and iau have shed almost 10 billion dollars of that metal. >> as one of our smart viewers points out, gold often is just a hedge against the u.s. economy.

so as things have gotten better. it is a reason to avoid gold. and therefore gold is going to be getting weaker and weaker. but another big factor a lot of guys are looking at there is a lot of deleverage a lot about what kim jong un may or may not do? >> there is a possibility or probability that he could do something. but it seems to have the same tone of rhetoric that we have almost every year when we have

the joint exercises with south korea. and brian, one of our main proxies is obviously south korea. but at the end of the day, the ewy i don't think a lot of the stress is. >> thanks brian. >> stop me if you have heard this before. the white house wants to make it easier. good idea or trouble ahead. and roller coasters are on our radar today. we'll tell you why in a topsy turvey street talk ahead. clients are always learning more

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>> once again folks, there are your markets. one of the worst days you have had this year. on pace for its worst day in about a month. the nasdaq. if you talk about north korea

and say why do i care? i don't want anything to happen. go back and look at the chart of the korean cosby. that's their dow and overlay that do our dough. it's very tech heavy so watch the index. it's the middle of the night there or early morning. when it gets trading, we cnbc, global enterprise that we are, will give you the very latest trade. street talk now. start with caterpillar. they say they are constructive on cats leading margins. downgrading cig that.

they say hey with the stock at 65 bucks we're going to maintain a buy but we need to justify the stock price upside to do so. that translates to a multiple that they don't see in cig that's fututhacigna's future. thus, citi group hitting cigna today. and remember dollar tree? remember all the concern about the payroll tax reset hitting consumers especially at the lower end of the store scale? may not be happening at least when it comes to dollar tree. morgan stanley raising to an overweight, raising comp store sales. their survey show consumers have shrugged off the tax hike. six flags, goldman sachs adding to the conviction buy list. they say there is more to go.

which is still in early stages on pricing. you also like some of the. >> the stock is higher. they are up about 7.3%. they didn't miss eps last quarter. the market carries about what is true column, not what has happened. and comes raising their guidance above the current consensus. >> so what distant relative of the cell phone was also created

on this day 153 years ago. bill griffith, do you know the answer? >> no guesses here. i cannot wait to find out what the answer is, though, brian. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. still is. we have the names of five big companies that could be on the verge of raising their payouts. are they real? or ist just an excuse to sell? we will look at both sides of that? and should investors be concerned about today's weaker than expected economic data? paul o'neil weighs in exclusively coming up at the top of the hour. and for that all important last hour of the trade. in the meantime the answer to that important question from brian on street signs after this. changing the world is exhausting business. with the innovating and the transforming and the revolutionizing. it's enough to make you forget

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>> can you hear us now? 40 year ace go today, the very first cell phone call was made from midtown manhattan across the bridge right here in new jersey. for you trivia buffs, the first cell phone was called the

motorola dyna tack 80 x. that is more than $9,000 in today's money. only the richest kings owned one at the time. before the break we asked about another big birthday today. 153 years ago today, the pony express began carrying mail between missouri and california. it only lasted about 18 months. a number of pony express riders were killed by hostiles. everyone has a cell phone now. land lines are going the way of the buggy whip and the stud maker. w -- what is the best phone company or phone related company you cover to invest in right now?

verizon which owns the other % 55%. >> all right. when you look at vodafone, it's got its own business and it's got a big chunk of verizon wireless. how do we look at this as a company? stand alone or just a good investor in a better company? >> i think you have to look at it on some of the parts approach. and the way we're looking at it is we think that wireless business could be worth about eight times forward cash flow or ebitda. that would apply to vodafone's stake.

>> got to leave it there. kind of a busy news day. >> oil also having its worst day of the year. why are we seeing the sell-off? >> the sell-off is continuing right now. there are several factors that traders on the floor are facing. what that could mean for friday's jobs number. we got on u.s. crude supplies today. and then of course the tensions in north korea highlight the concerns over asian energy demand and all of those are factors for prices to come off considerab considerably. >> thank you very much. let's go now from oil to the

stock market. scott, i understand this morning you upped your s&p 500 targets by i believe 50 points. we now have weak adp and north korea. are you regretting that move? >> we actually did that last week. coming into the year, i think there were a few uncertainties. the government, europe, and what they were going to do in washington. i feel come if i dent we have been telling our clients i think there is going to be a pull back this year. they don't have a good feel for that. this is very minor and right now any pull back, at least in my opinion, is an opportunity. that's what we have been telling our clients. figure out what you want to buy. when it happens it's probably not going to last very long. >> do you think it will happen?

>> i don't think this is it. even if non-farm payrolls expected this friday, about 200,000. you might see a little bit of a downside there. i think these pull backs are going to be shallow. you have got some people that have been chasing the market. you have everybody waiting for the pull back. typically that equates to a little higher market and shallower pull backs. >> is there any particular place of the market that you would invest money a little heavier if we do get the pull back? >> absolutely. this year has been strange because health care and staples have been the outperformers.

things that depend on the ebb and flow of the economy. it will improve later this year. we will see two and a half% gdp. europe less bad. maybe flat this year. i think when december 31, 2013 comes, and we look back, i don't think it's going to be the defensive sectors that have done better but those that are more sensitive to the ebb and flow of the global economy. >> scott, thank you very much. i read really slowly. >> that's okay. have a good afternoon. >> actually i can't read. i ad lib everything. washington wants to make it easier for people with weak cred to buy a home? haven't we been here before with rather dire consequences?

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>> something has us confused. we know that housing starts have come way off of 2009. more homes are being built but today's jobs report showed zero job gains in the construction sector. what gives? specializing in the u.s. housing market. michelle meyer joins us now. how can we have more homes being built but apparently no more people building them? >> that's a fair question to ask. we are seeing house iing this

winter was warm. there was not as much snowfall as typical. we have seen stronger seasonally adjusted construction jobs. and in the spring when there construction jobs, it's not as extreme. the factor is sandy rebuild, which likely increased construction hiring right around the turn of the year. and then i would say, the last factor has to do with,the typical choppiness. we've heard from a lot of builders that they've actually had a hard time finding labor. >> also, when we talking about construction, michelle, we make the mistake often of just talks about residential construction, big buildings also need good construction workers. how's that market, looking, do we know? is that getting any better? >> well, the nonessential market typically lags residential. there's ordinarily about a lag of about a year and a half.

we've seen some turn higher in nonresidential construction, but by no means has it been as robust as what we've seen in home building. as home building continues to improve, as we get to more normal levels for housing construction, we certainly will see a lift in the nonresidential sector as well, not only in terms of residential space, but offices as well. it comes along with the healthy overall economic recovery. >> okay, michelle, i'm putting you on the line here. one year from today, will there be more houses and more construction jobs or fewer? >> there'll be more. i feel strongly about that. i think that the housing stock will expand in the year. i think that we're at very low levels of housing stock and housing construction. remember, we're -- we fell to the low, about 500,000 housing starts from 2008 to 2011. that's exceptionally low level of construction. normally, you need to see 1.5 to 1.6 million. household information picking

up, albeit, slowly. it's still going to generate a need for more home building. so i'll strongly -- i'll take that bet. ic i think we'll see more housing stock. >> michelle, thanks for joining us on "street signs." appreciate it. all right, washington wants to make it easier for people with lower credit scores to buy a home. so, are we back to our sort of old low interest bubble ways? or is this a good thing, because you're helping out those less fortunate and that will lift all boats? let's ask tanya markio. tanya, good idea or doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? >> do we learn nothing from the past? it is so ridiculous. but what's interesting is he strategically planned this. this week, fannie mae came out and said that they reported a $17.2 billion income for 2012. that's coming off of 2011, where they had a net loss of $2.4

billion. so, now, fannie is actually making money, and he comes out and says this. there's so many reasons why this won't happen right now. first and foremost, the consumer financial protection bureau has drawn a line in the sand and guinea may has basically said any originator that comes out with 5% delinquencies will be yanked as an originator. so lenders are not going to take that chance that these people might be bad borrowers again. and then he went on to say that it's the young people that can't take advantage of this. and shouldn't we be -- >> isn't there a point there, though? to get a good credit score, you have to have not just good credit, you have to have a decent longtime credit history. something that a 26-year-old that may be perfectly responsible and will pay back their lender, simply won't have. why not help him or her? >> that's the problem. is that he's basically saying

that those people need to come up from their credit score and things like that. we should be teaching them financial responsibility. there's a lot of ways that you learn financial responsibility. go out and get a $2,500 credit card. create credit. don't get a $200,000 or $300,000 house that you may default on and this whole debacle starts all over. the other thing that you have to realize about fannie mae is loosening it doesn't make it any better. you only need a 620 to get a loan from fannie mae. the average credit score is a 640 and you need 3.5% down. how much looser are we going to let this lending go that we haven't learned the from the past? >> tanya, well said. we'll fight about it -- listen, i'm hosting "the kudlow report," actually. we'll argue about this, not you and i, but we're going to do it more there. thank you very much. >> thank you. breaking news for the president. the president saying that he is going to give back 5% of his pay as sort of a tribute to

furloughed government workers. the president makes $400,000 a year, so about 20,000 bucks, apparently, the president is going to surrender in tribute to furloughed government workers. also, the president is also a millionaire from his book sales and probably will be a very rich man by the time, maybe 20 years from now. all right, up next. video proof of that pay what you weigh story from air samoa, aka, he ain't heavy, he's my passenger. that's up next if. [ male announcer ] they say that hard work

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things have come back a little bit. we hit our lows right at the start of "street signs," thank, but we have come back a little bit off our lows. the dow down right now just about one-half of 1%. more for you throughout the day on cnbc. we now have video proof of a story we brought to you yesterday. this is your first look at samoa air passengers getting weighed in before they fly. the airline, the first to price flights based on a passenger's weight. each pound costs around 50 cents. that means the average american male who weighs about 195 pounds would pay 37 bucks for a one-way ticket from america to america. samoa, the weight-based pricing is not new to the airline, which launched in june of last year, and they mostly fly small prop planes where weight really

matters. on a final note for today's show, i want to give you a shout-out to a man who has single handedly restored my faith in humanity. a true story. mike kidd left a very sentimental item in the denver airport. we didn't know where. but dave senna, the manager of the colorado sports bar, walked around to another store that we could not get ahold of by phone and actually found it. he is mailing it back to us on his own dime. and he did all of this without knowing that i host a tv show or anything like that. i never said, oh, i'll say your name on air if you -- never said a word, did it of his own volition, my kid is thrilled. so if you're at the colorado sports bar in terminal beer in denver, buy the boss a beer. good job, dave senna. guys like you, i think, are rare these days and thank you for that. if the president gives back 5% of his salary to furloughed