500. in one point time -- make that one and a little bit's time we could be sitting at a new record high. "closing bell" is next. it'll take you all the way to the close. hi, everybody. welcome to the "closing bell" from los angeles. i'm maria bartiromo coming to you from the milken conference in l.a. in the next two hours i'll be speaking to some of the biggest names. peter wineburg. boone pickens. a whole host of people who are making money in this bull market, bill. >> looking forward to that. maria is in my hometown. i'm in hers. bill griffeth at the new york stock exchange. bums running wild again today, maria, put the s&p on pace to close at a record high. as mandy was mentioning, one of the leading groups in this sector have been the utilities. they are hitting yet another five-year high today. coming up we'll look at whether that red hot sector can continue

to move this market higher. we'll look at that coming up, maria. >> and once again, of course, it's a lot of fed induced buying. today we're talking to former federal reserve governor kevin warsh weighing in on whether the stimulus measures are actually keeping inflation too low. his take on whether the fed might dial it back. >> all right. let's get you caught up on the markets. how they're trading today. it has been a gradual rise higher all day. we're sitting near the highs right now. the dow up 120 points. it was 132-point gain. we need to get around 14,865 to get an all-time high. we're not there. we are there -- let's see. for the nasdaq it's a 12-year high. got to keep all these records straight here. the nasdaq any second now we'll show you the nasdaq, i think. there we go. up 33 points at 3312. a 12-year high. you can see sideways action for the last couple hours.

there's the s&p. 1595 is right about at t all time high, previous all time high. we're waiting to see if we can reach the previous intraday high at 1597. so many things to keep an eye on today. in today's closing bell exchange as we talk about all of this, anthony chan from chase wealth management and dani hughes from divine capital joining me here. jim lacamp from ubs is out there somewhere. so is our rick santelli. anthony chan we noticed a trend in earnings to this point. revenue is a big problem for a lot of companies right now, isn't it? revenue growth? >> it is a problem. whenever you see that 45% of the companies are beating but the historical average is 50, it's a problem. on the earnings they're a lot better. the revenues are short. here's the issue. the issue is we're seeing perhaps a moving away from austerity. the paper is being somewhat discredited. france talking about cutting the

capital gains tax. talking about many of the agencies loosening up on austerity. i think all this is going to generate a little bit more boost to the top line and we probably will start to see earnings and revenues doing a lot better moving forward. >> maria? >> jim lacamp, let me get your take on this record move today on the s&p 500. would you be poised to put new money to work as this market goes higher or you think we're going to be slowing down from these levels? >> maria, what's happened here is we've seen individual investors move to pension funds and now to central banks that are putting money in the equity markets because they can't get return on bonds anymore. we have another $7 trillion in sovereign wealth funds that are out there saying they're going to put more money in the stock market. and where are they going to put that money? the u.s. is growing faster than all the other developed nations right now so the money is coming into the u.s. look what they're buying. utilities, health care, consumer staples. these are very defensive names. they're almost begrudgingly buying these stocks.

further more, we're up to that time of year, may 1st we had a correction last year. may 2nd the year before. april 26th the year before. finally we're hitting some technical levels. so while in the intermediate term i think the market goes higher, in the short term we might have resistance from a seasonal and technical standpoint. >> jim lacamp has been keeping score on those peaks in the previous years. dani, a couple earnings report. we've got a bunch coming up. a flood gate opening up on companies reporting this week. >> a big week. >> there are two you're keeping an eye on. >> that's right. too big to fail departments. aig. which everybody has kept an eye on. they have knocked the cover off the ball over the last four quarters in their reporting. beat analyst expectations. this quarter they're actually looked to pull back a bit. don't forget, they paid back the u.s. government. they took a $187 billion bailout from the u.s. government. they repaid that. and then some. another $22.7 billion went back to treasury and the federal

reserve. they're trading at about 60% of their book. >> there's a trend for the other one as well. same thing. >> there's a trend for gm, too. gm is my other one, too big to fail, we're watching. they both report on thursday, by the way. gm actually has not -- has fared fairly well. they're not looking to fare that well this quarter. compared to last year when they made about 93 cents in the first quarter, they're looking to make about 54 cents a share. they have not paid back the u.s. government yet. they still -- the u.s. government owns about 255 million shares. which if they sold them today they'd only get about half that money back. so it has to be at 75 for the government to break even. >> wouldn't you know, it's time to go to rick santelli, then. what do you make of today's market action? this rally just doesn't want to stop here. bonds are kind of sitting there. >> hey, the rally doesn't want to stop, the fed doesn't want to stop, the ecb wants to jump in and the bank of japan is playing the tune.

yes, i think it continues. i heard somebody mention rynot rogueoff. so fascinating. they get a couple details wrong and everybody who doesn't implement the proper form of austerity celebrates. the dynamic of that paper hasn't changed. over the long haul countries with big deficits underperform. end of story. we can spin it any way we want. yields in the uk -- excuse me. in the eu coming within several basis points of historic low yields in the boonunds. there's also a lot of japanese fast money ending up in places like spain and italy. as they hunt for yield and throw risk parameters out the window. >> a lot of debate about whether austerity is dead at this point. whether growth is the better way to go. >> absolutely. >> maria, you've got a special guest. >> let me bring in terry duffy, ceo of cme group right here. he's been participating in panels and walking around talking to asset allocators. good to see you again. when you see this market at

record highs here, s&p 500, what does it feel like to you? in your heart of hearts you know trading better than most people. tell me how it feels from a trading perspective to you. >> i think what's going on here, maria, we're seeing this not only in the united states. we're seeing it especially in japan. we're seeing central bankers intervene buying securities, government debt all over the world. and what's happening is you're driving -- as rick knows, you're driving yields down to record lows. people need to get some kind of return to the market. they have to put their money to work. they're going to put it into equity markets. the same old song we talked about before. market up to historic levels on anemic volumes. that's going to continue to be the pattern until the government decides to do one thing. how do you get out of a trade? i'm a big believer before you get out of a trade you need to know what are the cause and effects of that? we've never seen this before happen. >> what about all the other asset classes? when you look at the cme group, when you look at gold, for example, that moving gold, you predicted it, by the way, on this show. you said to us so long ago gold is going to plummet. that's exactly what happened. how does that marker feel to you

right now? >> i still think gold feels heavy to me. i know it hasup ticks, it's going to have big rallies, big breaks. overall the market is still overvalued and it's going to continue to work its way lower over the next several months. >> bill? >> terry, as these rates go to record lows because of the fed, rick santelli's odds are it goes to record highs. do you think the fed will do a good job of telegraphing when they're ready to unwind that trade? what do you think the markets are going to do with it? that's what we all sit here and think about and wonder what the market's going to do. what do you think's going to happen? >> we all think and wonder about that because we've never seen it before. i think that's a great question. i don't know how they're going to get out of the trade. you know, i just am a big believer, you need to know how to exit a trade before you put a trade on. i don't think that was thought out very well. now, hence, we have this problem about how are we going to hand this off. i don't think they have the playbook for it. >> in the meantime, in all of this, in terms of the retail investor watching what's going on, you've got these mini flash crashes going on and all this

other stuff with regards to trading. in terms of that delayed opening in chicago last week, cboe, what are your thoughts on all these other mixed messages we're getting in terms of trading upsets? >> i'm a big believer, maria and bill, that we need to have confidence in the marketplace for the panrticipants to come back in. there's so much misinformation about electronic trading, rules yet to be written in washington, d.c. no participants come in the marketplace. hence we're seeing the market go up without a lot of participants in it. we're going to continue to see that pattern until we get some certainty. technology is always going to be an issue. it's not going away. as much as we'd like to think about the old new york stock exchange days, old cme days, this is not goipg away. so now what we need to do is exchange operators, is give the consumers confidence the markets are operating fairly for everyone. >> do you think it's the retailer investor buying this market or largely constitutional? >> i think it's mostly largely constitutional. i don't think the retail is involved. >> terry, thanks very much. thanks, everybody. got to go at this point. thank you, folks.

appreciate your insights today. we talk about how quickly the holiday season goes. before we know it, we're halfway through earnings season at this point. how we doing, seema mody? >> the companies that have reported earnings thus far, 69% have beat street expectations. 19% have missed street expectations. now, beating on the bottom line and missing on the top line continues to be a major trend of this quarter according to thompson reuters of the companies that have reported thus far. 56% reported revenue below analyst expectations. in a typical quarter, 38% have missed estimates. now, there are only seven companies on the s&p 500 that have beaten on both their earnings and revenue over the past eight quarters. some of those names include alexion pharmaceuticals, intuitive surgical as well as western digital. earnings on tap this week. big pharma.

pfizer, merck. >> we are heading towards the close. 50 minutes before the bell rings today. and the market sitting at near all time highs for the s&p. about two points away from that. dow well off the highs of the day up 100 points right now, maria. >> all right. we're going to take a look at the fed and the stimulus. is inflation too low? some members of the federal reserve seem to think so and they think more stimulus can fix that. we'll talk with former federal reserve governor kevin warsh next. stay with us. also, activist investorpush for big changes at ingersoll rand. are they working? he'll join us exclusively coming up. we'll take a look at whether the rise of the activist shareholder has been a good thing for investors. i'll talk exclusively to two wall street legends. peter weinburg along with cliff

r robbins. join us for that conversation. we're back in a moment on "closing bell."

we have breaking news on apple which has been in rally mode all day today. josh lipton has that for us. josh, what do you have? >> bill, apple is marching higher today. at least one big name investor still is not a believer. jeff gundlach of doubleline said a year ago he was short apple. he spoke at the milken conference and said he's no longer short but he isn't buying either. it's cheap, he says, but overowned. no one left to buy. apple up about 3.3% right now. bill wk back to you. >> having a good day. thanks, josh. federal reserve board members who support economic stimulus apparently have a new reason to initiate more easy money policies. our senior economics reporter steve liesman explains. steve? >> bill, you know, the main thrust of fed policy has for many years been the high rate of unemployment and the effort to bring it down. now we could hear new calls for action or at least keep doing the action the fed is doing. because the fed continues to miss and miss in greater amounts on its 2% inflation target. this morning the government said

the fed's preferred inflation indicator, the so-called pce index, fell below 1% year over year to its lowest level since october 2009. the measure's fallen steadily in the past year from a high of 2.87 in september to just 0.97 now. the fed has a 2% inflation target but it said it would tolerate inflation as high as 2.5%. they're missing on that score. the fed has done a better job on its goal of bringing down the unemployment rate, now 7.6%, expected to remain unchanged when the government reports april jobs numbers on friday. of course, it's come down in part because people are dropping out of the workforce. you're looking there at the labor participation rate. also because there has been job growth. inflation for the fed from time to time has been a goal of policy such as early on in the final crisis. even in 2003 and '04. mostly it's been seen as something that gives the fed the ability to run wide open policies to combat unemployment. that could also change.

sustained low and falling inflation could mean the measure gets more emphasis in fed policy and in the statement could be used by -- as a reason to keep in place longer the wide open policy of qe, purchasing assets to drive down interest rates. maria? >> steve, thank you so much. let's see what your next guest thinks about inflation and what's ahead for the federal reserve. kevin warsh former federal reserve governor. now distinguished visiting fellow at stanford university's hoover institution. wonderful to have you on the program. >> good to be here. >> let me ask you. it's interesting what steve just said. that the fed is being effective in terms of bringing unemployment down. is that what you think is happening right now? tell me how the fed's policies have worked from your standpoint. >> so i think it is very hard to believe ta central bank policies in the last couple of years have been moving the unemployment rate down. in fact, the state of our labor markets, the unemployment rate, is nothing to be proud of. the unemployment rate is falling because people are leaving the

workforce. this isn't something to declare victory around. so i think the economy continues to be in mediocre shape. it's short on results and long on excuses. >> how would you grade the fed's policy? >> if policy is about good intentions i'd give them an a plus. if it's about achievement, about saying what you're going to do and accomplishing it, it is an incomplete record and a grade where in my view the fed is trying to compensate for the failings of these other economic policies and they cannot do it. >> yeah. >> the fed has taken on their own backs being the exclusive guarantor of demand and gdp growth and it hasn't worked. >> right. many skilled jobs still going unfilled. i mean, sure, we don't see inflation. but are we going to see inflation at some point? what do you think the big risk longer term is for all of this easy money? >> the biggest risk is a chrok c

misallocation of capital. the only thing we know for sure in economics that capital will be allocated to the wrong projects, not the right projects. can the stock market melt up day after day? sure, i suppose that it can. what matters most is the underlying real economy. real gdp per capita is about 1% to 2% lower than before the financial crisis. and this is not a record that we should be declaring victory about. >> it sounds like it's a failure. i mean, it hasn't worked. bernanke and company are bailing out the fiscal leaders. >> yeah. so negative real interest rates are sending a sign to the rest of washington that somehow the fed can pull a rabbit out of its hat. the fed can exclusively solve this economy by itself. and i don't think the results back that up. >> let me get your take on when we might start seeing the fed to start winding down. obviously, it doesn't seem like ben bernanke is agreeing with you. because he just keeps his foot on the pedal. >> right. listen, chairman bernanke is a decent, honorable man. he's been steering this ship for a very long time without much

support across washington. they think their policies are working. so while i hear chatter in the news about tapering and reducing their monetary accommodation, if they think they're the reason the stock market's up, they actually believe that the economy's in materially better shape, i don't quite understand why they'd be tapering over the course of the next several quarters. >> you're not expecting -- because the whole debate, i guess, over the last couple of months was that maybe the fed starts, you know, winding it down this summer. >> listen, if you look -- >> probably not going to happen. >> listen, if you look at the minutes, the minutes represent the fed as an athenian democracy where everyone gets a say. it doesn't appear to me in a weak global economy, a disappointing u.s. economy, where again by their measures inflation is falling, this is going to give them the excuse they want to taper. instead, this might well give them the excuse to keep this kind of accommodation going for longer and the rest of

washington is patting them on the back. >> are these the right targets that they're looking at? i mean, they're looking at 6.5% on unemployment as a target. and they're looking at the inflation target which we just heard from steve. should they be looking at a different metric in terms of gauging whether or not this is working or not or failing? >> well, they're looking at a -- at what the world's central banks have been doing for a long time. some trade-off between unemployment and inflation. and it is hard in recent years to find that trade-off. so, listen, the unemployment rate might be falling. but it's falling for bad reasons, not good reasons. what they need to be looking at, and i'm sure chairman bernanke is, is what's the underlying state of the real private economy. are businesses on their front foot or on their back foot? the answer is they're still on their back foot. is average hourly income and earnings going up so that employees are feeling better about themselves? the answer unfortunately is no. more qe is not going to change that, but i suspect that's what they think is the only game in town. >> if the fed stops this stimulus, does the stock market

sell off? >> i think there's likely to be a near term deterioration in the stock market. again, the problem for policy, maria, is these politicians and central banks have been way too myopic for four or five years. the answer and what matters isn't the stock market tomorrow. it's the stock market five years from now. it's the real economy five years from now. and that's why i don't get so breathless at the latest readings on inflation. >> sobering comments. kevin, good to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> kevin warsh joining us. distinguished visiting fellow at stanford university's hoover institute. former fed governor. 40 minutes left on the trading session. we're coming back a little here. dow is up 102 points. the bias we are told is to the upside but only slightly right now. of course, dividends really the way to go. the dow jones utility average hitting at another five-year high. there are a lot of dividend payers in there. back in a moment. man: how did i get here? dumb luck?

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another day, another record. this time the dow jones utility average is hitting a new five-year high. and that for the seventh consecutive trading session. so with that index up 18% so far this year, will yutilities continue to burn bright and will that emergency push the s&p to fresh all time highs. numbers on utilities with carter worth with oppenheimer. on the fundamental size steve

cortez with veracruz. good old dow utilities average. what do you think? >> sure. this is getting to be a comedy act, frankly. i've got three charts. but they're all the same story. the view of the short term which is a two-year chart, we try to measure friends by the smoothing mechanism. higher above trend than any time in two years. the five-year chart, 15-year chart we're higher above than any time in the last 15, 20 years. in fact, we're about 12.5% above -- or 1.5 standard deviations. that's only happened, 18, 20 times going back to the 1920s. what happens in the ensuing three to five months is very little upside. somewhere between 1% and 2% at best. lots of downside. i would say sell with confidence. >> all right. steve? >> bill, you know, i am in agreement because i did that. i have been long utilities. i love utilities story. and i still do big picture. but i agree with carter that near term, this has been an

incredible run. these are not your grandma's utilities the way they've been rallying lately. when you have this many stocks at multiyear highs, the tentacles of this overbought, it makes sense to take province p i did that last week in southern company. i will say this. there's a decline to come, a technical rest in the market, it is one to buy. i do still love the fundamental story on two fronts. the first is dividends. you still get -- even after this rally you still get in most utilities about a 4% dividend yield compared to a 1.7% 10-year treasure. that's very attractive. the second is these companies are very domestic. almost by definition this is a domestic industry. i think you are relatively sheltered from international worries in these names. so a pause, yes. but i'm hoping it's a pause to refresh. >> yeah, carter, even if we do get a meaningful decline of some kind, utilities are considered a defensive play by nature. >> that's right. >> wouldn't they do better to the downside? >> that's very fair. on a relative basis in the event of a general give back in

equities, you tiutilities do outperform and other things like that. low beta with the yield and so forth. the math of it still is that there's little upside, if you will, and plenty of downside. if you look at some 150 various indices that attract the u.s. etfs it's the number one performing with the exception of biotech. these are not biotechs. we're annualizing at the 75% rate. just as steve is, of course, agreeing and so forth, here and now, long term notwithstanding, this is overdone. >> interesting. i mean, just think about it. it's performed so well, and yet tremendous skepticism about whether it can continue that performance. again, it's like the rest of the market. it's an unloved rally. that's what the utilities are experiencing as well right now. thank you, guys. good to see you both. >> thanks. the unloved rally continuingcontinues, maria. dow up 100 points. s&p two points away from a new all time closing high right now. coming up in the program, talking with the ceo of heavy

machinery maker ingersoll rand. how his company is being impacted by the recovery in the construction market. also talking with mark andreeson. then lekd dare energy investor t. boone pickens with us explaining just how close the u.s. to achieving that energy independence he's talked about so much. he says it's closer than you may think. you're watching the "closing bell" on cnbc, first in business worldwide. today live from l.a. and new york. back in a moment. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 when i'm trading, i'm totally focused. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and the streetsmart edge trading platform from charles schwab... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 gives me tools that help me find opportunities more easily. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can even access it from the cloud and trade on any computer. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and with schwab mobile, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can focus on trading anyplace, anytime. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 until i choose to focus on something else. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all this with no trade minimums. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and only $8.95 a trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account with a $50,000 deposit, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and get 6 months commission-free trades. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-866-294-5412.

sfwlnch welcome back. big market rally. joining me now, smart technology investor mark andreeson is co-founder of venture capitalist firm. you're making headlines with this investment in glass collective with google funding for google developers for google glasses. your resume obviously the general partner of vc. co-founder of ming. winger of the 2013 queen elizabeth prize for designing mosaic so many years ago. of course, board of directors of

ebay, facebook, hewlett-packard can be investor in so many several startups. where to you think the big growth area are in technology? >> there's a huge amount going on right now. a lot of it has to do with the fact we now have the smartphone boom. smartphones in the hands of 2 billion people around the world. that will be 5 billion people within five years. we've never had an environment with that many people wired up, that many people on the internet. opportunities to build compani on that idea. >> how do you do that? where are going to be the big growth ideas? we know mobility is here to stay and it's changing so many industries. >> yeah. it's applications. for example, this collaborative consumption idea. the idea you can dial up resources on demand. the idea that lots of projects can be funded on the fly with people clicking on their smartphones. online education. i think online education is going to be a big deal on the smartphone in the developing world. providing a stanford quality education for every kid on the planet with a smartphone is a

very big opportunity. >> a huge opportunity given the fact you've got urban areas all around the world with population growth and they have got an encyclopedia in their pocket. you just made your first big investment in 3-d printing. >> that's right. >> 3-d printing, online education and crowd funding. the three areas you're most focused on right now. >> those are the three most rece recent. >> what's the 3-d printing. >> now you can have these small units that basically manufacture objects in the house. basically, like, kids can make their own toys. then you've got these larger industrial 3-t facid facilities. we backed a company that can print in -- we think there's going to be a manufacturing renaissance with new products designed and printed in 3-d as opposed to manufactured by machine the way people have been doing it for a long time. >> it's been 20 years since you created that first popular used web browser mosaic, the way we interact online. these are the areas that you

think are going to grow today. and how long do you think do you give these companies to sort of develop? >> well, our hope is these are 15 or 20 year venture. when we invest we're trying to get behind companies and founders that are going to be able to take their companies 15 or 20 years. the best companies hopefully longer than that, 30 or 40 years. >> how does a roaring stock market help in all this? here we are sitting at new highs again for the s&p 500. how does that play into things? >> it helps. people think there will be more downstream funding for companies in later rounds or ipos. then it's easier to raise money in the earlier stages. it's very good for getting these companies financed. it has a side effect, though, which is there's more competition for each new startup. it makes the startup challenge a bit tougher. >> one of the startups we've been talking about, this glass collective with google, funding developers for google glasses. is this really the next big thing? is this going to be enough of an innovation, you think, to move the needle on google? >> yeah. this certainly has the potential. i don't want to speculate on google stock specifically. i think this thing has a potential to be a platform

certainly as big as the smartphone. we know how big that is. it's at the very beginning. the first product will come out next year. we'll see how fast it takes off. it's amazing for people to try it, they never want to take them off. the range of things people are going to be able to do. think of every emt, medical profession at in the world having up to the minute live videos and diagrams for every immedia medical procedure they could do in their field division at all times. that category of every human activity. >> the marriage of technology and health care is really a game changer. >> of course. exactly. >> online education, i guess, has that as well. that potential. >> yeah. i think online education is actually going to be better than real world education. i'm a radical on it. i think it's going to be better than the lass roclassroom. >> another issue is immigration. talk to us about that a bit. particularly when it comes to young people highly skimmed in science, technology and engineering. most ceos i talk to say they can't even find the skill sets they're looking for to actually put people to work. >> we have a massive labor shortage in silicon valley for

people with skills. we can hire -- i think we can hire another million people across all of our companies with the right skims. i think we could do it tomorrow at very, very high incomes. the other thing about immigration, a lot of the new startups are co-founded by immigrants. when you cut off immigration, you also cut off new company creation. without immigration you wouldn't have had companies like intel. or google for that matter. an immigrant from russia. immigration restrictions like the ones we have now are we think very shortsighted. >> quickly, how would you compare this rally in tech to what we saw in the '90s which, of course, busted on all of us. is this the same? >> i don't think there's much of a rally in tech. apple is way down. google's multiple is pretty low. large cap stock multiples trading at generational lows. not a lot of ipos. i know people are getting more excited. i got to say it's actually hard to see it in our world other than just new ideas are getting funding which they should. >> you're right. a lot of the big names obviously are down. still so much excitement around it. nice to have you on the program. >> thank you.

>> mark andreesen joining us. bill? >> nasdaq is sitting at a 12-year high right now. so it very quietly has gotten to that new high. dow up 113. bias to the upside on low volume. the s&p on pace to close at a record, despite anemic profit growth. bob pisani explains why investors just keep ignoring the bottom line when we come back after this. [ male announcer ] this is george.

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welcome back. well, the recovery in the u.s. housing market helping to propel one industrial giant, ingersoll rand. the company specializes from heating and air-conditioning to security systems to golf carts. >> i'm aware of that. and some analysts and investors worry that while the company is a great collection of brands, the potential for value of all of its businesses brought together remains questionable. the company is spinning off its security business, for example, but will that be enough? joining us right now in a cnbc

exclusiollusive is chairman and. he'll be ringing the closing bell today. it's 100 years for train. they had air-conditioning and heating, i guess. welcome. >> pleasure to be here. >> you're in an area beholden to, let's face it, commercial and residential construction. that's been a tough row to ho. >> we had great earnings growth there to propel us. we're still waiting for commercial construction to come back. >> how do you see that right now? how does that feel? >> we think we'll see a little better half to the second half of the year. largely in retail and small office building. but from the institutional customer, schools, hospitals, it's perhaps a little ways out yet to 2014. >> maria? >> michael, we've been talking a lot about the activist investor

on this program. i wonder what your take on what's going on there? of course, we know nelson pelts, member of the board. and it said that the moves to spin off the security business and increase returns, really, came from, in part, appeasing mr. peltz. what can you tell us about the role ploohe's playing in terms making changes? >> with the number of portfolio changes over those three years, we diversed a few underperforming businesses. frankly the addition of nelson on the board has been a positive. he's brought great ideas around capital allocation and thoughts about what to do with debt and debt restructuring. from that standpoint i think nelson is a happy investor. the stock has done very well. we've tripled the dividend in the past three years from an earnings perspective. we've been in the top -- from our group for the past three years. i think we're going to continue to do that.

just announced a new $2 billion share buy back. we'll be completing that by the first quarter of next year. >> are you done with the spin-offs? are you done with the spin-offs? are you still in the middle of deleveraging, sir? >> no, maria, we're going to finish the spin, actually, effective we hope the end of november. it's a security business. then ingersoll-rand will go forward with our industrial businesses. >> is that the best use for the capital return? obviously shareholders love having the dividend increase like you have. the share buy back helps the stock price. but at a time of such cheap money, what about more acquisitions? even as you're selling underperforming units are there others out there you could buy that would complement what you already have? >> one of the things i am focused on is really integrating these businesses together. improving the organic margins of the business. building the right base to be able to do that in the long run. right now it's been primarily around increasing our own margin. organic growth. increasing the amount of product development that we do. and eventually at some point in

time we may consider that. for now it really is a great investment. >> the guidance you're providing right now, how much of that hinges on the industrial growth and fed policy? let's face it, the cheap money that's out there right now, tuz that help your industries right now? >> we're fortunate from a self-help perspective we think we can get to the 345, 365 guidance out there. we've had a little thinner top line than we expected. the operatie ining capability a executie execution of the company has been markedly better. >> all right. chairman and ceo of ingersoll rand. they're anxious to get you up to the balcony so you can ring the closing bell. heading toward the -- as we head toward the close, the s&p could be just minutes away from its closing all time high. more on the day so far with bob pisani. just continues to move higher, bob. >> yeah. 1594. we're there. let's take a look at the s&p 500. if we close here this would be a new historic high.

we were at a historic high on april 11. this was not as important as the old april 11 historic high. still nice to see. some of the cyclical names that have had a tough time in a good part of april are leading the mark. tech, materials, energy and financial. i do want to point out global growth has been anemic. the u.s. economic numbers have not been great in march. that's put a lot of pressure on these cyclical companies. look at some of the major sectors for april. we're closing out april in the next couple of days. i want to point out utilities, telecom stocks, health care. those kinds of stocks have done a lot better than all of the cyclical names that are out there. there's utility, telecom, health care. outperforming cyclicals like industrials and energy. you had the ceo of ingersoll rand. eaton reported this morning. the big problem is the same all these companies are having. beating on the bottom line but growth on the revenue side has been very tough to come by. particularly in europe. that's what eaton said.

that's what happened to ingersoll rand as well. back to you, bill. heading toward the close. 15 minutes left in this trading session. the s&p very close to an all-time high. not quite there yet. we'll see if we can push higher with the dow up 115 points right now, maria. >> that's amazing. stocks may be at record highs but bond yields are very low. bumping up against their own records. up next we'll talk with michael guyette explaining why something's got to give in this market. natural gas prices spiking more than 30% this year. legendary investor boone pickens will be here to tell us how high he thinks prices will go and how he is allocating capital in the energy space. back in a moment. suffers.harvest it raises the price of fishmeal, cattle feed and beef. bny mellon turns insights like these into powerful investment strategies. for a university endowment. it funds a marine biologist...

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welcome back live from l.a. we are minutes away from the closing bell right here. the s&p 500 just a few points from another all time high, bill. >> yeah. this market just doesn't want to give up here. joining us with their thoughts, michael guyette chief investment stratist at pension partners. and ron mullencamp, founder, president and portfolio manager at the mullencamp fund. michael, you and i were talking during the break. you said the market's favorite letter is? >> v. every single decline you v right

back. you have this very interesting scenario. the deflation pulse has been clearly quite strong. you have now this gap between deflation expectations and central bank inflation targets. that probably means the next step is for the central banks to use the word "more." more stimulus to try and get expectations higher. it probably means sell in may and rotate away into emerging markets. we are very close to that kind of switch in our mutual fund and -- >> maria? >> ron, what do you want to do? i know you don't say the correction is imminent. you say it's going to be a doozy when it comes. why? that's one of the reasons the technicians love this market. everybody is always looking for this correction around the corner which by the way never happens because there's a buy on the dip mentality. >> you have huge cross currents going on here. we call it a rabbit market. when the economy and everything is on a trend you want the ride the winners and sell the losers. in a trading market such as we

have now the shoot the ones that jump up. i don't know if you've ever been rabbit hunting. you go rabbit hunting without a dog that rabbits that sit there never get shot because you don't see them. in this market literally the things that jump for you on a short period you probably want to harvest and go on from there. >> yeah, but you've got a quite a dog, ron, in the federal reserve as they continue to add all this liquidity. what about to michael point, that this liquidity is just going to keep us from having what would be a normal correction in this stock market? >> well, correct -- people really aren't worried about corrections. they're worried about bear markets. the longer we set this on one side and we now -- we're forcing individuals to buy stocks because they can't get anything on bonds or of course in pension plans, we now have foreign central banks buying stocks. those are not healthy things. our central bank is not yet where they are -- our economy is not yet where they are in italy or spain. but, man, we're trying to get there. and the fed is helping us. i think it was jim cramer

said -- >> ron, how do you allocate capital, then, right now? i know you like the dividend payers. they've been working. where are the areas we should be exposed to? >> they've been working very well. we're starting to move money from the people who are paying the dividends to the people who are trying to. apple's trying very hard to pay a dividend efficiently. that is without paying 35% tax up in front of it. i think you mentioned on the lead in, if you're looking at a five-year horizon we love all the things that will benefit from cheap natural gas. >> what about you, michael? where would you put money to work right now if you don't think we're going to get a meaningful correction in may like we did last year? >> it's interesting. maria's right, there's been no correction. behaviorally that which leads in corrections have led. defensive sectors, bond yields have fallen. this strange disconnect -- >> we just highlighted utilities at a five-year high. >> consumer staples and health care. we'll put that aside. if the reflation theme comes back because of this gap between inflation expectations and inflation targets, you want to go for the reflation trade, that

which has lagged the most. those really are the emerging markets. as much as the focus is on u.s. equities, when you look overseas they have discounted much more of a deflation scare than u.s. absolute market price. that's where you want to try and trade. but you have to see the confirmation internally in the market first. >> good to see you both. thank you for joining us. your thoughts on this market today. >> that was a big if and a big but. >> there's a quote to add to twitter right there, ron. >> i think i'll do that. >> see you later. >> that seems like the quote of the day. it's a big if and a big but. >> big but. we're coming back here with the closing countdown in just a moment, maria. >> yes, we are. we're moments way from herbal life's latest earnings. that's one investors have been focused on. instant analysis when they come out. stay with us. [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good.

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♪ it's so close to the options floor... [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ] ...you'll bust your brain box. ♪ all on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. ♪ inside the three-minute mark before the bell rings. let's go to steve liesman with breaking news on the fed. >> bill, good news on the deficit here. the treasury putting out an estimate it will pay down $35 billion in the second quarter. this forecast is $138 billion better than the estimate it made in february. the better numbers the treasury says due to higher revenue, lower outlays, and up beat forecast assumptions. treasury has not paid down marketable debt since 2007. unfortunately the good news not expected to last. it is estimating it will sell

$223 billion in debt in the third quarter. the better deficit numbers for now could push ahead at least maybe a couple months the debt ceiling timetable. back to you. >> with the new tax revenue, with the new tax revenue that was expected. that is good news. thank you, steve, very much. very quickly as how we're doing as we head toward the close here. the s&p was sitting at all time high territory up here. need to get to 1595 and change. right now doesn't look like we're going to do that. the nasdaq has been at a 12-year high today. so we're still nowhere near the all-time highs. but going back 12 years still an impressive rally for the nasdaq. and the dow you still have about 30, 40 points a day. at the high of the day up 132. off those highs right now. peter costas, this really doesn't give up. >> no. we've said this before. this is the really no one loves. i think people will start loving it when we breakthrough 15,000 again. you know, when you see that -- you see the momentum continues and doesn't abate. i think people will start to

love it. >> i was half joking about that today with other traders saying this is -- we'll hit all-time highs for the s&p maybe today. it still won't be on the front page of any newspaper tomorrow. >> no. because lindsay lohan is. or somebody -- >> what's it going to take for the general public to start paying attention to the stock market? >> i think individual investors have to get back involved. i think, you know, you are seeing some inflows into funds. it's not what i would expect when the market's at this level. there is still room. a lot of people still hurting from the last five years. you know, it used to be investors didn't have a long memory. i think investors have a very long memory now. i think it's going to take some time. i think we need to continue to have the same type of positive data points, you know, coming -- going forward. with that, hopefully that'll help. >> defensive measures still the leaders. you till utilities, housing with consumer staples. do you stay with that? >> i'd stay with that. health care stocks, too. they had a great year last year. they're going to continue to have that. >> thank you, peter. off the highs of the day for the

dow. we were up 132. we're up 100 right now. s&p doesn't look like we're going to get that all-time high. we're still about two points away. as the ceo from ingersoll rand rings the closing bell here at the new york stock exchange. stay tune for hour two of the "closing bell" with maria bartiromo at the milken conference. i'll see you tomorrow. and it is 4:00 on wall street. 1:00 p.m. in los angeles. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody. welcome back to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo coming to you today from l.a. and the milken conference. the global conference sponsored by the milken institute. coming up i'll be talking to some of the most influential names on wall street. people allocating capital in a market that continues to move higher. it just won't quit. up next, peter weinberg will join me. cliff robbins. and boone pickens also joi