"the lone ranger," sue, not helping there. >> i think the stock may be playing a little catchup to the reviews for "the lone ranger." that will do it for all of us on "power lunch." have a great afternoon. >> "street signs" begins right now. seems like everybody is buying a car or a house, so is anybody buying anything else? retail sales disappoint, but still stocks are mostly higher. are we still stuck in the old bad news is good news news cycle? boeing's 787 may be made of carbon fiber but stocks made of teflon. off the hook now for its latest problems. and blackberry may have another problem on its hands and another big name in the music world slamming digital. >> brian, on this lovely

mid-summer's day, let's check out whether or not the markets are sharing in the sunny mood. marginal gains, but the s&p is nonetheless on track for its second eight-day winning streak of the year. the first one was back in january. meantime, the nasdaq hitting at another nearly 13-year high earlier and the small gift that just keeps on giving, yes, the russell 2k hitting a new all-time high for the sixth consecutive session. let's get straight to the trading floors and join our friend, bob pisani at the nyse and rick santelli in chicago. start of the new week and new trades, what are people saying down there? >> very choppy data. the retail sales a real disappointment. not ending the second quarter well on the economic front and china's gdp came in with expectations. some have thoughts on that one and the bottom line is we're holding up okay even though data has been choppy. utilities a market leader and that's unusual because of a big heat wave that we've been having to put up some of the heat

waves. con-ed talking about the possibility that there might be some blackouts, and they said they are prepared for that, but all these utility stocks are moving to the upside today. elsewhere, important things to take a look at at some of the china stocks. look at the solar stocks. china announced a fivefold increase installed solar capacity. look at increases, double digits, all $2 stocks for the most part and move in 100% ranges in two-month periods so this is not necessarily that unusual. mandy, back to you. >> thanks very much for that, bob. how are bonds reacting, rick santelli, after the weak retail sales? >> well, mandy in, bond world band news is bad news, period and we saw a kickdown at 8:30 of yields. basically we're in a range of ten basis points today and right around 2.60, 2.68 seems to be the upper range. more to your point, it's not necessarily that the stock

market has it wrong. it's just that the stock market has uncle ben. when it comes to treasuries, ben bernanke makes a big difference. as to the calibration, but not in the direction on news releases, and i think that gives us a lot of information. yields will go down on weak data. it's where they call home base in lieu of fed actions that we're trying to grapple with at this point. >> wouldn't we all love to have a generous uncle like uncle ben. >> and great wild rice, by the way. overall retail sales weaker than expected and if we take out cars and gas, that could work. it could point to a second-quarter gdp print that comes in below 1%, ouch. courtney reagan is the retail headlines and jane wells keeping track of spiking gas prices and steve liesman ties it all together with a nice little bow for you. let's start off with the retail sales data. >> two-thirds of our country's gdp is consumer spending and many had forecast for a stronger second half, now that the payroll tax increase has lost its sting and the economy continues to show signs of

improvement the commerce department's latest data not so inspiring. retail sales increased by just 0.4% in june over may but stripping out autos and gasoline. retail sales even worse, down 0.1%. there were areas of strength particularly with the larger purchases. take a look at this. sales of motor vehicles and auto parts improved 1.8% in june. consumers spent 2.4% on home furnishings than the same category in may and 2.1% more online and sales of building material, supply retailers fell 2.2%. department store sales were 1% lower in may and sales of food and drink retailers down 1.2%. that miscellaneous retail category posting a dismal number for sales. a number of retailers including most recently family dollar expressing concern that consumers are getting by with just basics. that discretionary spending is

really still strained for many, many americans. >> courtney reagan, thanks so much for that. with the gas prices expected to jump 10 to 20 cents over the next few days. jane wells is live in california where as per usual the drivers will really bear the brunt, right? >> reporter: yeah. mandy, we're already paying about 20 cents a gallon higher than a year ago and they would have a quick run-up. analysts say it will get worse before it gets better, and they are watching a report, waiting for it on wednesday from the government to see if there's another surprise, a drawdown in inventories. that means higher demand and that and unrest in egypt are the causes of this unexpected run-up which could, again, add as you say, 10 to 20 cents more. people have been tweeting me pictures of gas prices. the lundberg survey says the cheapest gas is charleston, south carolina and 3.31 in myrtle beach. higher in columbus, ohio and my

favorite, a pic outside chicago, 4.29, that's higher than here and none of it is good when you drive for a living like danny acope i acopian. how much gas do you buy weekly? >> $500, 600, sometimes i don't want to drive because of the gas prices. >> reporter: but you drive for a living? >> yes. why i have no choice. >> reporter: gasbuddy.com says the highest prices are on nantucket, probably a limerick in there. mono, california, where only like three people live and haines, alaska, over 4.60 a gallon. the gas tax in california has reached a staggering 72 cents a gallon, a 22% tax and they just raised it because people are driving less or using more fuel official cars and the state is not getting enough money, so the result, higher gas taxes. back to you. >> jane wells, let me be the

first one to propose a fund-raiser for all those people on nantucket that are struggling with those high gas prices. i note range rovers must be lined up, nantucket reds. >> reporter: there once was a gas on nukt. >> whose long was so long that the guy in front sid forget it. >> buck it. >> the limerick made it all the way to australia. kangaroo was the gas station in south carolina. the theory we posited earlier. maybe you're on to something. if a million and a and a half people in a quart remember buying home they are saving up, 3.5 million people a quart remember buying a car, they are highly unlikely to purchase ore stuff. >> probably in that quarter. courtney said 70% of the economy is retail sales so we're talking about 3.5 million americans which 200 million are of average and ready to buy and spend for the rest of the people that can't and you have a large

number who could be buying houses or autos. what i did after you suggested this idea to me was go out and look. when people are buying cars they are buying appliances and when they are buying appliances, they are buying home finishings. when they are doing well, doing well. doing badly, doing badly. quarter to quarter trade-off. >> what happened? >> i think what's happening here is you have two things going on, higher gas prices, beginning to show up in the last retail sales report, and you have the sequester and the higher tax increase. what we look for here, brian, the key to understanding the psyche of the consumer is what does the consumer see as a permanent increase, and what do they see as general? with a temporary increase you would draw down savings to maintain your savings of living through a temporary price spike but the tax increase in january is not seen as temporary, that's permanent, an adjustment people will make. start to wash off out on the data year over year. that's a level down.

the other thing though, gas prices, probably seen by consumers as temporary, only when it starts to stay this way. >> and we see this every summer. >> yeah. let's grinning in dan greenhouse and joe lavorna. are you as concerned about this gdp number? what are you doing with yours? >> pretty clear that growth in the second quarter is going to be at left 1%, mean 1-1. pretty likely to have a zero handle. pretty bad on its own but coming on the heels of the last two quarters which have also been terrible is not the tail winds of sorts that the federal reserve would want leading up to eventually tapering. that said, we always knew that the first half. year would be weak. it's been weaker than a lot of us have expected. what does this mean for the second half and that's a much more important question. >> you're absolutely right. we had already embraced the idea that the second quarter would be weak and things would get weather.

the question is will they? >> they will, mandy. the gdp numbers are very preliminary. i would argue that the q-2 number is almost meaningless in that we're getting comprehensive benchmark revisions. >> okay. we seem to be having a little bit of a technical problem there. do seem to have lost joe. steve, why don't you weigh in on this one, the idea that we all take a break. will they come back? >> i think they will, and there's a bit of a conflict right now between the jobs number and the gdp numbers. jobs numbers strong and gdp numbers relatively weak, and we don't know which one will end up being right. benchmark revisions could help us make more sense of that, that's one thing, but if we have employment and income and money in their pockets, i'm guessing if we got joe back here, that that's the basis for the better optimism in the second half is better income and better jobs. that should help propel spending. >> joe? >> as steve was saying, income

is key and the income that's derived from the employment numbers aren't particularly accurate so we look at hard data from the treasury, and what we've been in thing the last few weeks is a very sharp acceleration in employee withholding tax receipts. running a 7% year over year rate which is the fastest since '07. that's a real number and tells me that job growth will improve, if not get revised substantially higher. going to get some of the important things that stove was talking about, and should see a better second half, notwithstanding the higher gas prices. >> strikes me there's a potential problem which is that people are hiring in the face of slower demand. that's the kind of thing that lead to recessions and more prolonged downturns, our companies making a mistake or do we know something about their order book that we can't see yet? >> the retail sales were weak, no question about that, but the vast majority of the weakness on the consumer has been on the

services side of the economy which to me is a measurement story. the good side of the economy has done well and vehicle sales were very strong last month, those were hard numbers as were furniture spending, so to me this weakness is temporary and the equity number is telgt us that the profit numbers should be okay so i'm very upbeat on the outlook. >> i was going to ask very quickly what do you think is a greater threat to the u.s. consumer, rising rates and the various permutations and combinations thereof, or higher gas prices? dan, you first? >> listen, let's just take a step back here for a second. the economy has been terrible relatively speaking during the entire recovery. the consumer has been basically treading water at 1.5%, 2% quarterly since the recovery began. month by month and quarter by quarter fluctuations here but generally speaking the larger story is unchanged, one of relatively muted economic growth, one of relatively muted job growth and one of relatively

accelerated equity appreciation, and in the context of everything we're talking about, if the s&p 500 ends the year at 1700 or so, that's an annualized return since 2009 of more than 13% or 14% or something like that. that's a really good appreciation in the stock market, and i think it tells you not just that the economy is not good but it's how companies are managing the environment. >> why do stocks keep going up even in the face of data that's not been great, if not downright disappointing? >> the u.s. stock market is not the u.s. economy. they are somewhat two different things. over simplistically i like to see the u.s. economy moeshures the sum totals of goods and services everywhere and the stock market measures the profitability of that output. end of the day, the stock market can keep going up as the economy continues to expand. the conversation is honing in on the minutia but the general story is one of 175 monthly job growth and 2% quarterly gdp growth. not really changed. >> thank you so much for joining

us with that conversation. >> all right. on deck, the mighty middle. mid-cap stocks have been quietly on a tear. two fund managers here though with their top stock picks for the second half of the year. here's a preview, used cars, big stoves and dental dams. >> and get this, a new study says some of us are guilty of checking our smartphones during sex. yes, i'm skug. where is the most inappropriate place you have checked your phone. tweet us your answers. >> don't -- you said some of us. don't put me in there. you said some of us. >> some of us. >> us? >> some of us in the broader context. anyway, tweet us what you think.

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. today's sunshine stocks are all food, glorious food. a new record high for general mills, also for whole foods and tyson while conagra is hitting the highest levels since 1997. >> let's bring in herb greenberg on green mountain coffee rosters. >> and soda stream. >> and maybe radioshack, but you've got 20 seconds. >> look what we found here in the trademark of course, u.s. trademark of course, green money than has filed for trademark on something called-on. they say that's machine for the production of whole water, soda water and sparkling beverages,

sounds like soda stream, however, we contacted green mountain and suzanne delong told me via e-mail we're not going to comment on the esspecific trademark. likely to see a number of trademarks. >> is this something that's even patentable? >> when you go through soda stream patents there are some patents pending. more trademark on something that who knows what they can put together there. >> talking of soda stream, what's going on with the rumsor, pepsico looking to buy it out? >> that's been out there for a while. pepsico -- >> nothing happening there? >> put the kibosh on that? >> and radioshack popping, deal.com looking that the company is looking for a report. reports they may have hired bankers and others talking the "b" word. not news, and you've argued for a while that radioshack could be a good target for an amazon.com. to me that makes about 0.00% sense but to you it makes a lot

more. >> i talked about it, amazon going after best buy and radioshack, so much real estate on the ground if they wanted same-day delivery, and very small footprints. they could close some of them and have them in many locations. >> that's just your opinion. your greenbergian analysis. that's not news. you're just saying that. >> my totally warped view of the world, yes. >> thank you very much. mandy might agree with this. small is the new big. small-cap russell 2000 index hitting another record high. that's six days in a row if you're playing at home but not all stocks are created equal so which mid-cap and small-cap names are the best of the bunch? joining us, eric marshall, director of research and portfolio management at hodges capital management and a new face, welcome in brian mcauley of the henessey focus funds. brian, i'll start off with you and your affection for dental dams and the company that makes it. how come you like henry schein?

>> henry schein is a dental medical products and veterinary products distributor. they are the largest in the u.s. and also the largest globally, and what we like is they are the market share leader in their space, and as a market share leader in a distribution business they get a lot of buying skill. allows them to earn higher margins than their competitors and deliver better service levels to their customers. so henry schein is consolidating the industry. because they have such high margins there's very good economics in buying smaller competitors so they are gradually rolling up the industry, and they are also going to be beneficiaries of the new health care law without any of the risks that many of the traditional medical companies face from that health care law, so as more people come into the health care system, henry schein is going to be able to sell more products, more supplies. >> right. >> through the dental office, through the doctor's offices for

use in those practice environments, so more volume. additionally there are some subtle changes going on in the middle field where you have a lot of doctors that are beginning to join forces with hospital companies, consolidate with other doctors' offices and getting larger, and that's the sweet spot for henry schein's medical business. >> let me jump in and get the picks, kirby, a mortgage servicer, had a mortgage boom, refi boom and with rates rising will that all go away? >> with nation star we think this is a mid-cap stock that's somewhat misunderstood out there in that they basically just go out and they provide servicing of the mortgages, and the whole mortgage industry has really gone two some major changes where banks no longer want to be in that business, and it's really expanded the address

market for nation star and others in that group, so we see a very nice secular growth opportunity, even with higher interest rates because these mortgages are still going to have to be serviced, and they are going to be serviced by people like nation star. >> and with kirby and middleby, to what degree, eric, are you feeling that these are the kinds of companies, you know, not so much international exposure, mid-caps, small caps tend to have more domestic exposure and the rest of the world is not doing so great that's a big thing. >> looking for secular growth opportunities that aren't necessarily dependant on the economy so we look for companies that can do well in any type of environment. i think in the small and mid-cap stocks, it's easier for companies to grow even in a more stagnant environment. in the case of kirby, they are really benefiting from a renaissance in the petro chemical market here in north america, in the case of

middleby, they are a provided of industrial cooking equipment, very innovative company that are benefitting from new products that are actually expanding their market opportunities out there. they also own viking which is benefitting from a recovery with the consumer on the higher end space. >> okay. to both of you, eric and brian, thank you very much for joining us today. and it sounds like an urban legend, but it does turn out that apple is really investigating a reporter of a woman being electrocuted by her iphone, so we asked how in the world could this happen? >> yeah, and more trouble for blackberry. you won't believe how low prices are going for their new phones. we'll tell you coming up. weekdays are for rising to the challenge.

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cars. now ford's auto sales reach over 200,000 per month. by the way, both ford and gm are trading at their highest levels in more than two years. speaking of firsts, it's te making its debut on the nasdaq 500. a neat headline, does it matter to tesla? >> i'm not sure if it matter to tesla. let's be honest, any time you can be added to an index, certainly your shareholders like that because clearly more people are going to be buying this stock. i think what's more of interest and concern for shareholders are two things. first of all, elam musk meeting with model-s owners over the weekend out in the silicon valley essentially answering their questions saying we're on target to meet our production goals this year and also that third generation vehicle still expected to come in in that $35,000 range. we're a couple of years out from that actually happening and

those are the issues that really matter more to investors and keep in mind, these guys will be reporting earnings next week, and the key there is going to be not necessarily what they do for the quarter, because there are some speculating that there's a slight loss. the key is regarding what they say regarding production and their ramp up through the end of the year. >> let's move on to the boeing, the 787 getting redumgs. the plane itself may be built of carbon fiber but as jim cramer said this morning that stock appears to be made of teflon, dropped on friday 5%. today it's a top performer on the dow. how much have we skewed our view in the last 24 to 48 hours? >> well, a lot of things have changed. remember, the investigators in london came out over the weekend and said they do not believe there's a direct link between the lithium batty system and the fire. we've just received a statement from honeywell, the manufacturer of the emergency locator transmitter which is essentially a component that sends out a signal if there's a plane crash

or an emergency, they are looking at, investigators are looking at whether or not there is a role that that transmitter may have played in the fire on the plane. that transmitter, by the way, is always on, not like it gets turned off. it's battery powered. not hooked up to the plane's lithium ion battery. they are looking at whether or not something having to do with this component might be what caused this fire or had a role in this fire, and as a result people are looking that the saying, okay, is this systemic with the dreamliner? doesn't look like it's systemic with the dreamliner and why shares have been moving higher. >> next up, the bad review edition of "street talk." >> later on as well, a big media critic says twitter is toast, overdone. the question is he right? (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade

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sdwrirks why don't we take a look. stocks getting a downgrade. >> ubs, the stock trades seven times enterprise value to sales and call yelp one of the best position companies in the coverage universe. up 100%. ubs saying a nice run, valuations a little stretched. we'll downgrade it. that's about it. >> getting a downgrade at qualcomm. >> cut to neutral. not a call on the quarter. they now ship sets may be diminishing in strength. iwatch suggest near term fundamentals for wireless are a bit soft. >> and ups, united parcel service also a downgrade. >> jpmorgan chase, bb&t and raymond james all cutting ratings. they cut on earnings forecast for the year on friday, of course, so basically just following up on what ups actually said. the company has grown 13% year

to date and they see a slowdown in what they call the industrial economy, and there's a bullish market in air quotes. >> buy air quotes. j.p. hunt transport services missing analyst expectations. >> a trucking company. missed by one cent. revenue did increase 12% and operating earnings also rose. margins though were down about 11% so they are trucking a lot, so you can see a lot of price competition in the trucking world. >> always give a gift to our viewers in our under the radar stock, so under the radar that i called them in massachusetts to try to find out how to pronounce their name. >> an interesting story and been off the radar. removed from the short-term buy list at deutsche bank today but deutsche bank says this company is a long-term buy. got a radical new treatment for genetic disorder that's catapulted them into the crosshairs of investors seeking what is called the next

breakthrough in biotechnology. eight of the nine analysts cover it a buy or above. keep this name, folks, on your radar. it has been a very, very pot company. all right. next um. apple says it is investigating a potentially iphone-related death. we'll lay out all the details for you coming up. >> and twitter hitting a big milestone. can they avoid the big seven-year itch? before they debate it lets go to bill griff senior citizen. >> a busy couple of hours, believe it or not, back-to-school retail season already upon us, a pair of retail experts standing by to grade the strategies of the big retailers out there and where's all the excitement in this market? all-time highs and why this may be the most unloved rally in history and gasoline prices are up 8% in just the last week, but we'll tell you how to cash in on the pain at the pup. all that and more. maria and i look forward to seeing you at the top of the

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don't look now but shares of microsoft are hitting a five and a half year high today. what problems? the company though announcing

plans to cut the price of its surface tablet from 499 bucks to $349. the stock has climbed nearly 40% since 2008. >> well, apple says it plans to investigate an accident in which a chinese woman was killed by an electric shock when answering her iphone 5. sk jon fortt has been digging in on this. was this a real iphone because there's a lot of fake iphones? >> exactly. really sad story. still unclear what happened here. social media and chinese news reports suggest this a 23-year-old stewardess got electrocuted after answering her iphone 5 but some reports out there say it may have been an iphone 4 and answered it after she got out of bed, some say the tub and some say still in the tub which obviously makes a huge difference. apple released a statement saying we're deeply saddened to hear of thissics dense.

we'll fully investigate and cooperate with authorities. i've been in touch with apple and nothing else the company is willing to say at this point, but i also spoke with electronics expert richard doherty, my go-to guy on this hardware stuff. any time something electrical like this happens, it's a big deal and engineers inside apple will be scrambling until they get to the bottom of it. two, his suspicion is there could be a third-party charger involved here, though it's too early to know for sure, and further complicating this, well, it seems to have happened in a rural area of china. my sense is it's going to take apple a really lock time to figure out what happened here, get access to the equipment involved, et cetera and china, a key market at $8.2 billion in revenue last quarter. soon to pass europe and become the second biggest behind the americas so these headlines, they do matter. >> sad story there, thank you very much, jon. other smartphone news, took four months, retailers slashing the new price of the blackberry z-10

to as low or dallas 49 down from $199. joining us is blackberry analyst at o'meara capital, a price target slightly below where the stock is trading now. stuart, what's wrong with the z-10 and possibly the q-10 for blackberry? >> well, the company has made announcements teague this is part of life cycle management, that they might be cutting prices in advance of a new phone coming and we believe there's a new device coming in the fall but to make price cuts this early before product' nounsments seems early and hard to conclude anything other than the fact that the z-10 has excess inventory and that's due to the fact that the ecosystem around blackberry 10 is sill immature and just not as good as what you have on android and iphone so it's very hard to convince one self to buy blackberry over android or iphone.

>> what happens now? if it is a disappoint president, where else is growth going to come from? >> well, blackberry has two key options to try to charge down. one is to keep iterating and improve their ecosystem and try to close the gap on android and iphone and that's going to be real challenging given that they have much fewer resources to play with than apple or google and the broader ecosystem and the other option is something called secure work space which allows the blackberry applications to work on android devices and on the iphone and that might allow blackberry to go down the route of the services company rather than hardware company. a hard transition because hardware is still such an important part of revenue but maybe they could gradually transition to becoming more of a services company if that product is compelling and in the past when they tried this, it hasn't worked particularly well. still cautious about that particular dynamic. >> let me follow up on mandy's excellent question.

if the z-10 and q-10 turn out to be busts, what is blackberry? do they just get out of hardware game all together and to your point just become a back end provider? >> well, if you look at things even now on the hardware side, over 50% of their revenues come from eastern europe, middle east and africa so, you know, that's not what you would consider to be the core market of a blackberry and their service offerings so, you know, as cheap android penetrates those particular markets, i think all of that hardware business basically goes away so you end up with a company that's hardware and focused on the u.s. in europe, but unless that service offering is compelling, it's very hard to have any real relevance. i think going down the services route is their best bet, but we don't yet know whether or not they can make theirer is verses work properly on iphone or android and if the experience isn't good corporates will go down the road looking for others

instead. >> very quickly, hasn't done well this year, but the share price is still up 26% over the past year. at what point would you say that this is a sell. stuart? >> it's a trick one. they have 3 billion cash. no real risk of them going into bankruptcy. and what you are really looking for is this ongoing risk that perhaps someone steps in to try to buy the company. typically hand set companies trade between the .25 and 5 times sale if they are in trouble. i would say there's a bit of downside risk and the thing you have to be more cautious about is does someone step in and try to make an acquisition? >> stuart, thank you very much for joining us. looking for a white knight in blackberry. what's the most ridiculous place you've seen people use their phone? 1 in 9 admit to using their phone during sex and that's only those who admit it and as much as 12% use it while showering.

i'm not looking at you. >> two observations, number one, if you are using it in the bedroom, maybe you've got to work something out there, but number two, this trend of people using their -- making phone calls in the bathroom. >> yeah. >> has -- i'm making a national plea right now. please, folks, if you're going to make a phone call, don't do it from the bathroom, and if you do, you've got to give the other person on the line a courtesy notice about where you are. >> you can usually tell because it's got that weird bathroom sound, that echo. everyone knows whether you make the courtesy call or not. >> a terrible trend. i don't get it. anyway. up next, what one music titan did today that could be a big problem for pandora, sirius, spotify and others. >> and we'll take you inside the most expensive car ever sold at auction, and while we take a quick break, check out the brand new cnbc.com with all the bells and whistles, brand spanking new. "street signs" is back after the break. eir students need financial literacy education. but the funding, resources and curricula are often not there.

pwc is doing something about that. i'm bob moritz, u.s. chairman of pwc. pwc's earn your future is a 5-year, $160 million commitment of funding, volunteer hours and curricula to help provide students with financial well-being. pwc's earn your future: empowering students and future leaders through financial responsibility.

if you go on spotify right now, you can hear this song. radiohead's great "high and dry" but the voice behind that song is tom york, a singer and leaving spotify high and dry when it comes to both his solo

and side projects like edatoms r peace. julia boorstin, now had a couple of high-profile bands and musicians coming out saying they are being rooked over by spotify, pandora and others. how do the digital music companies respond? >> reporter: well, spotify responded and defended itself. it said and sent us a statement saying that they are doing everything they can to support young musicians. let's pull up the full screen here with that statement. they say we've already paid 500 million to rights holders so far, and by the end of 2013 this number will reach u.s. $1 billion. much of this money is being invested in nurturing new talent and producing great new music. while spotify defends itself, the problem that the music producers are saying is that musicians, especially people creating music now, are really, really reliant on selling their music, either through itunes or just through amazon's music

store or actually selling those physical cds. the issue, brian, is that they need to get more revenue for new music than they are getting from the subscription services. they say, hey, if you're dealing with old pink floyd catalog music it's fine. already made enough money to cover costs. that's fine on spotify. and i think what we're going to see here is we're going to see new music not go on spotify, and musicians like adele and taylor swift, they're already holding back their new albums and only put them on spotify later after they've already made the majority of the up front costs from selling their music. >> okay. really interesting. very interesting, julia. in the meantime, another question out there. is twitter over? that's what one critic said on his blog. he wrote, it's toast. over. done. history. is that true? twitter opened to the public seven years ago today, by the way. so joining us now, mike isaac, senior editor at "all thanks day." and herb to weigh in, as well,

and julia is hanging around. i know she has strong views. great to have you with us, mike. i know you're not convinced that twitter is toast. it also feels like you're not convinced that it's not toast. why? >> so the problem with twitter is that -- is the reason it's so strong. it's a simple product that, you know, you type in 140 characters and you blast your message out. you know? so on the one hand, it's really hard for them to innovate and create new sort of features on a regular basis. but on the other hand, that's kind of the point. so will people get bored with, you know, just communicating? or, you know, is that enough for them? that's part of why. >> would people want innovation, mike? i don't know about you, but like a lot of people i spoke to, they hate the changes on facebook, and people get used to something, and then they're throwing something new at them, and they don't feel they can adapt. >> yeah, i know. i think with every product, thz going to be some sort of grumbling in the beginning. ultimately, if you want to push things forward -- take instagram, by the way, they just

added video, so that has seen a big jump in their usage. i think people want new things, they don't necessarily know they want it when they get it. >> although, mike, hey, this is herb, i would argue that, you know, when it comes to twitter, you know, look, we can't see the future. i think that this fee that they create is one thing hard to replace. i don't have time to continue trying new services. the fee -- the news feed, what's better than that? i mean, i just can't see it coming down the pike anytime soon. >> i mean, twitter has 200 million active users, and that's a number that continues to grow. i mean, these are not people who signed up for an account and never accessed it. these are people who use twitter regularly. and that includes all of us talking about this topic right now. i mean, i think twitter's only real problem is one of sort of too many retweets. there's very low friction. it's very easy to retreat other people's messages. and i think the problem is it's

very easy to keep on following additional people. and everyone could use to go through and delete half of the people they're following. the reason why the ratio is so loud, it's our fault for following too many people. >> mike, i got back from vacation, i was talking to my kids' friends, tweens, 14, 15, 16-year-olds, they laughed when i talked about facebook. some of them mentioned twitter. they were all just into snap chat. that was their life. >> that's the exact -- so facebook is seeing now as sort of like a table stakes identity layer. you basically have to have a facebook account to log into a lot of different services. everyone is sort of on it. but as far as the next big wave is this snapchat app which is essentially a messaging app that deletes -- auto deletes the messages after 10 or 15 seconds. >> please don't give me another one. just don't do it to me again! >> herb, you won't be on snapchat. no offense, buddy. >> i get it. i fully get it.

>> it's a ghost as a logo. is that a booger or -- what is that thing, mike? >> it is a weird little ghost. like it will be there -- honestly, i sort of balked at first. i'm using it quite a bit more than i thought i would. >> but what mike is pointing out here is that it doesn't mean that these other things are going away. >> right. >> just because tweens are using snapchat doesn't mean they stop using facebook or twitter. it's taken for granted you use the older services now. and now, especially the younger generation, will expeerriment wh other things. >> by the way, julie, you make a great point when you narrow down the feed. by the way, you talk about too many retweets. it's the retweets where i get the great links. >> we laid the groundwork. we have to go for a bigger segment. digging into user numbers. technically, i have a g-mail account. i use it to buy stuff so the spam goes there. that's what i use it for. >> funny, that's what i use my

old aol account for. >> while, dial up. >> really, you have the original -- >> isaac is on prodigy. mike, i'm kidding. a big fan of yours for a while. thank you for coming on "street signs." >> thanks for having me. >> no problem. julia, thank you, as well. herb, eh. next up, the most expensive -- >> i want to thank mom, my co-host -- >> the most expensive car ever sold at auction. you'll want to see this car. it's spectacular. i have low testosterone. there, i said it.

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but its history drove the buyers wild. the mercedes won the racing goad drove to when the girlen grand prix in 1954. the previous price record was sold by this car, 1957 ferrari, testarossa prototype, $15.3 million, in 2011. now, prices per collectible cars are soaring. the haggerty blue checks index, basket of collectible cars, up 50% over the past two years. the super bowl of car collect something pebble beach in august. we'll will see, and i bet this

record will be broken. >> when you say we, you mean you. >> i will be there, and you will be there, hopefully, too. >> spectacular car. i don't think it would have sold as much without fang yo, he was like many guys back then, killed before his time. they're the two pinnacles. this car, he changed car racing. >> sterling -- >> he changed the way you drive. >> changed the way you drive maybe -- >> no, the way racing was done. >> he was one of the greatest. that was clearly the price. >> what a car. we saw pool armani. >> with the steering wheel? maybe a hubcap? >> no seatbelts, either. barely a helmet. those were the days. >> they were? >> no, they weren't. terrible. they died every year. you can see we're up marginally here at the start of the trading week. we have been up all three averages, brian, for three weeks in a row now. i think the little -- the little guys, the small caps are kicking up, six consecutive days in a

row, all-time highs. >> i think we'll have to resuscitate the honey badger rally. remember, we said it's the honey badger stock market? >> yes. >> it doesn't give up -- you know, whatever. this is now officially honey badger. while you're getting the turnish bath, i'll be hosting the report 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. >> it's an australian bath. >> bye. hi, everybody. happy monday. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo at the new york stock exchange. the dow, s&p 500 trying to keep it going, a third-straight record high close. bill, the rally rolls on. >> so far, happy twinkie day, by the way, maria. >> and to you! >> i'm bill griffeth here at cnbc global headquarters. the banks have been leading the gains such as they are today after the better than expected earnings from citigroup. even though we are in unchartered territory -- we're in all-time high territory -- there doesn't seem to be a lot