tv Power Lunch CNBC August 13, 2013 1:00pm-2:01pm EDT
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the stock has had a 10% pullback since a great quarterly report. buy it right here. >> steve weiss. >> staying with the short on jv penny. >> reiterating your short. >> with full knowledge that any hint of not terrible news may make it pop. >> all right. that does it for us. have a great rest of the day. "power" starts right now. "halftime" is over. the second half of your trading day begins now. >> a major airline merger grounded by the justice department, at least for now. how will u.s. airways and amr fly forward? the markets, a big story today. the dow deteriorating as you see there. well, deteriorating no more, ladies and gentlemen. look at that. it's come back in just the past few minutes, higher by 44 points, right now at 15,463. we're following, yes, that florida sinkhole. here it is. evidence. how can you tell if your property or the property you want to buy is in danger? we'll explore that one and more
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later this hour, but first to sue at the nyse. >> yeah, big recovery in the market which we'll get to in just a second, but we're starting with the still developing story. the justice department grounding the planned merger between u.s. airways and amr corp. investors not happen we either stock, as you can see. u.s. airways down 7.5%. amr is down had 43% to $3.33. phil lebeau is live in chicago and this has big ramifications, phil, for the rest of the industry. >> reporter: huge, sue, and that's why the airline shares have traded lower. the doj says this is about ensuring competition. just had a conference call and we had a chance to hear what they had to say. one quote stands out from this conference call when it comes to the doj and their explanation for why they filed this suit. essentially they say it all comes down to determining that the merger would have substantially lessened competition for commercial air travel throughout the united states. importantly neither airline needs this merger to succeed. we simply cannot approve a
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merger that would result in u.s. consumers paying higher fares, higher fees and receiving less service. is there a possibility of a settlement? perhaps u.s. air and american coming back saying we'll give up certain routes. unlikely. during the conference call the doj said they are open to discussions, but in their opinion a full stop to this merger, a full stop, is the best option, and i want to show you guys what this means if the merger goes through. you have to take a look at size of the airlines before this merger was first initiated, if you will. that means that american airlines, largest post-merger, it would be u.s. air and american, they will no longer be number one. united, delta and then you have southwest, those guys would all move up in terms of size. american would fall back to its other spot as number three, and then you have jetblue. they would actually fall back to number six. number five would be u.s. airways. now, for u.s. airways, the -- the idea here is that it is
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likely to fight the doj lawsuit without the merger it remains the fifth largest airline. doug parker has said time and again that he believes this merger is good for consumers and good for the airline industry, but we should point out, as you take a look at shares of lcc, down more than 10% today, at least one firm on wall street has lowered its expectation for the merger going through from 50% down to 40%. still yet to hear from u.s. airways. my sense is we'll hear something from them in the next few minutes. when we get it, we'll pass it on to you. >> guys, thanks very much. let's bring in seth kaplan. seth, welcome. god to have you with us. does this mark the end of airline mergers, or will we continue to see them? >> tyler, this merger was supposed to mark the end of airline mergers, really at least as far as large mergers go, just because the there wasn't really anything left that anybody could
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imagine the government ever approving. delta and united can't merge, for example, obviously. there's some smaller players out there but nothing else that would have had quite the impact that this would have had. that's what the doj is saying and why they are opposing it, but, certainly, yes, there's nothing else that would do for the industry quite what this merger would have done. >> what's so different between this merger and the united continental merger of a couple years ago? i guess this one is a little bit incrementally larger in terms of the new airline it would create, but i don't see a big difference there. >> yeah. and that's really what's interesting here is that if you read the complaint, they make some distinctions. they have some concerns about u.s. airways management's approach for the competition. they, of course, would be running the merged airline, but mostly doj seems to be saying, look, this is certainly the third man on the pile and they won't get the football, that because you won't have this one sort of ind pent u.s. airways out there competing anymore and
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offering lower fares and connecting markets competing against non-stop fares that this somehow would have greater harm than the other mergers because it's really not all that different. >> take me quickly through the price impact of this. are air fares now going to be lower than they otherwise would have been if the merger had gone through, and if the merger does go through do you believe airline prices will go higher? >> well, let's be very honest. one reason why companies in any industry merge is certainly to control a little bit more of the market, to rationalize the pricing so all things being equal, if there's no merger, fares would be perhaps somewhat lower if there is a merger. fares certainly are higher now than they were just a few years ago, partly because of consolidation, as well as because of just an improving economy, but in historical terms, you know, it's really hard to say that air travel is a bad deal. you adjust for inflation, and we're still paying a whole lot less to fly than we were a few
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decades ago. another interesting thing here, by the way, you have the obama administration taking the side of consumers, but in a sense opposing another important constituency, and that's labor. back in the old days this would have been an easy call for a democratic administration, because labor unions hated mergers, but the past few mergers have been so positive for labor, delta and northwest especially, very few people lost their jobs and everybody got big raises that here you have the unions actually out in front supporting this. you had mesh unions supporting this merger before management did, and so that's an interesting line to walk, and interesting to see the position that the administration is taking. >> seth, thank you very much. appreciate you being with us. seth kaplan of "airline weekly." now to sue who will bring us up to date on the markets. >> a lot of ups and downs. a big recovery in the dow jones industrial average. part that have linked to the comments just a few moments ago by one of the fed members, mr.
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lockhart, talking to our steve liesman saying there's not enough data right now to start the tapering in essence, and as a result of that you saw the dow moved up 48 points after a very rough morning. the s&p has -- is positive as well. the ten-year note, can you see that yield right now is trading at 2.70%, so that has remained relatively stubborn. bob pisani and kenny polcari are here with me. kennying i'll start with you. i was impressed that the market was able to pull positive with the yield at 2.07% but mr. lock heartopened the door. >> we're stuck in this moment between the 1680 and 1700 range in the s&p that we've seen for the last three weeks. no reason to rally above that or no reason for it to collapse because nobody wants to make that bet. all unsure which way it's going to go so what do you do, maybe do nothing and you sit tight and wait to see. this move today puts us right there smack in the middle. not a lot of volume or participation. again, at the end of august and coming into the holiday so don't
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expect a whole, whole lot. >> mr. lockhart is not a voting member of the fomc and it's untrue that we're on the economic recovery. it's very clear they want to start tapering. more instruct i have to look at the retail numbers and that doesn't normally move the market. >> that's true, but i think this market is grasping at anything that hints there won't be the tapering in september. >> that's clearly true. >> that's ignoring the macro data. >> the retail sales data, the first real production number we had for july, the numbers were not great, but they are good enough i think for the fed to begin tapering and that's why we saw the backup in the yield. we'll get industrial production on thursday, if that number happens, watch. >> there will be other numbers this week, but i still think the focus will be on what the fed will do. >> you guys asked for it and we'll give it to you, kenny's letter that he puts out his note every morning and the recipe will be on the "power lunch" website and today it's linguine with herb pesto and sauteed shrimp. >> how can you go wrong, josh lipton?
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>> thank you, guys. >> you can. my friend kenny polcari a great trader and great cook. herbalife is edging lower. our own andrew ross sorkin reporting back in 2011 the company detected shards of metal in its formula one shake. the company says no evidence that any contaminated product was shipped and still sorkin saying the events and how herbal life responded now drawing some scrutiny. of course, herbalife also subject of a big billionaire brawl. bill ackman making a big bet that the stock will find. carl icahn, george soros they are long herbalife. down today nearly up 100% so far this year. tyler, back to you. >> josh, thank you very much. this morning activist investor bill ackman resigned from jc penney's board. he, of course, had been calling for the chairman to quit and wanted to accelerate a search for a new ceo. ackman says that his departure is a win for him as he was able to elevate the conversation at
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jc penney and make an impact. marcus lemonis is the president of camping world and stacy which had litz a cn-- widlitz and her greenberg is here. he's calling it a win walking off the battlefield declaring victory here. i made the case last week that maybe what ackman was doing is precisely what jc penney needed. they needed a disrupter. he was loud. he was brash. he was impolite. did he do the right thing, herb? >> it could be argued whether his methods were correct but i think a lot of companies need disrupters, whether someone like marcus who will come in, big company, a lot of people don't want to see someone come in and disrupt their plans, but that's what activists do. can you argue they are healthy for the market, and in many cases as kate kelly pointed out in a study that she pointed to tends to result in higher stock prices. >> from what you can see and
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from what mr. ackman alleged from the response of this board, do you think that that board was functioning properly or dysfunctional? >> i don't, and i said it this morning. i'm getting frustrated with hearing how the board is running the business. who is run the business on a day-to-day basis? ackman to me was a distraction. the ceo is trying to do his job. the management team below them is trying to do their job, when are we going to get back to business? >> what does this mean for ackman? he's now off the board, off cameras, and now he can say whatever the hell he wants. >> and i'm sure he will. >> and he can did whatever he wants with his stock. he's got a negative position. under water on this stock. >> right now. i want to say something. i take issue with you, marcus. one guy is running a business but you're a public company, and, hey, if it's not -- if if the stock isn't doing well and the business isn't doing well, what do you do? who is going to look out for the shareholders in that case or even the employes? >> and the last ceo, whose call was that? >> but whose call was it before
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that? he was trying to correct something before that where the company was sort of going nowhere. >> let's bring stacey into the conversation. why don't you just react here. a, b, c, stays. >> you know, let's remind to reality here is that j.c. penney to begin with was in trouble and what really brought is into a sinkhole was ackman bringing in ron johnson and letting him run over the board and do whatever he wanted when everybody thought it was a bad idea so now certainly ackman, you know, he wants change. he wants it quicker. ullman has only been in for four months here. he's reassured vendors, you know, the fact that ackman has walked out of the board is a positive for shareholders because you cannot have a board member who is a loose cannon going into the media and saying sales have bottomed when they have not, which he did last year, or basically airing the dirty laundry and making
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accusations, particularly at a time when this company is looking for a ceo. what ceo in their right mind would want to come into that situation. >> when you sit, stacey and look at jc penney and its stores and its business, do you see this as a viable company? >> you know what? they are in a lot of trouble and that's a question mark. they are burning, you know, maybe over 2 billion of cash so far this year, so the question is at what point do vendors get nervous? yes, they have cash to get through this year but maybe vendors in nine months say, you know what, the department store space is a scary place right now. everybody is delaying orders into q4 and jc penney, we just don't know, so if your vendors pull back which we've seen other companies that be their demise, that's an issue here. >> ackman said he talked offline to one of the vendors who say we think they are ordering too much, being too optimistic. last word to you. >> i think the company is fixable. >> you do? >> sump police stated.
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>> what would you do? >> bring a dream team in, and when guy is the right guy or not, it's the people below hill. who is running inventory and the marketing department, who is managing people at the store level? we don't spend enough time talking about this. >> look at a guy called hubert jolie who came in and is pushing a lot of the right buttons and that stock is triple, double whatever it was a year ago. >> people make the difference. don't ever forget that. >> thanks very much. "the profit" is on at 10:00 tonight but we'll hear more from marcus here in about 15 minutes. we'll be back with us. sue? >> we look forward to that very much. to josh lipton once again with another market flash. josh? >> four movers on our radar, laggards including yum brands, same store sales in china fell 13% last month. that's more than initially expected. yum dealing with bad press dealing with chicken supplier quality and orbitz falling, the headline, its largest shareholder sold some 8 million
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of its 25 million shares saying that it sold because it wants to better diversify its portfolio. the stock down today and still up nearly 280% this year. also, eli lilly company saying its experimental lung cancer drug boosted survival of patients and they plan to apply for a u.s. marketing application before the end of next year and blackberry told us yesterday that it's now formed a board committee to think about options including a sale, up about 20% in the past two days. some 30% this month. still down some 90% from its all-time high in june 2008. tyler, back to you. >> josh, next up, that giant florida sinkhole. forget about sharknaddo, we had holes inside. >> on this street behind me is the sinkhole that swallowed part of that florida resort so how do you know if you're on solid
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ground especially when tiger woods' home south of this could fall victim to this? we'll come to you live from sinkhole nation next on "power lunch." on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise -- your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises? now you can get all the online trading tools you need without any surprise fees. ♪ it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. since aflac is helping with his expenses while he can't work, he can focus on his recovery. he doesn't have to worry so much about his mortgage, groceries, or even gas bills. kick! kick... feel it! feel it! feel it! nice work! ♪ you got it! you got it! yes! aflac's gonna help take care of his expenses. and us...we're gonna get him back in fighting shape. ♪
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incentives, the company's refusal to communicate with shareholders. they believe the stock should be worth about 70 bucks per share. beacon light will be on "fast money" tonight so tune in for that interview. sue, back to you. >> thank you very much, josh. a 100-foot sinkhole swallowing up a building at a resort just outside of disney world in clermont, florida. we'll talking more about making sure you're on safe ground in a moment, but first we start with diana olick with more on that huge sinkhole that ate that entire set of villas. diana. >> reporter: well, sue, it is certainly a wake-up call, not just for those who come to live here but for investors who are sinking money into large developments like this one that could in fact sink. that's just what summer bay resort is facing today. >> each of these buildings are in a homeowners association, as we have deeded owners. the homeowners association is elected by those owners, and
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they have more than adequate insurance to completely cover this entire loss. >> now, caldwell says do have insurance to cover this but florida law requires insurers to cover catastrophic ground cover collapse, but that's not all sinkhole damage. to get the catastrophic the building has to actually be condemned. in order to cover minor damage you have to add that to your homener's policy. claims submitted in florida falah alone between 2006 and 2010 for sinkhole damaged totalled 4.6 billion. no surprise given that there are more than 19,000 known sinkholes in florida, would you think that would drive homeowners away, but one whose cape this very disaster sunday says he's keeping his other time shares in florida. >> that's nature. you can't kick nature to the curb. it could happen in your backyard at home but you never know. >> reporter: now, one-third of
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the sinkhole activity that's been tracked since 1960 has actually happened since the year 2000, and this has a lot of people here claiming that overdevelopment in this area is contributing to more sinkhole activity. back to you, tyler. >> all right, diana, thank you very much. let's explore that very question with larry madrid, a civil engineer and president of madrid engineering group. you agree, larry, i gather that sinkholes are mostly a natural phenomenon, but as diana just said, most of the sinkholes that have happened since -- over the past recent years have been recent and maybe tied to development. can man made behavior add to the problem? >> absolutely. in plant city a couple of years ago there was an overpumping of the groundwater suddenly as farmers were reacting to a freeze that was coming along, and that caused the groundwater
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table to drop and sinkholes, at least a dozen occurred almost overnight. >> so that was the pumping of the water out from the water table, but i guess what most people would be worried about is whether the building, the weight of the building, as in the case apparently at tiger woods' mansion down on jupiter island and this one here in central florida, that the weight of the buildings may be contributing to it. >> well, the buildings themselves do add some weight, but in general they weigh very little compared to the soil themselves. >> mm-hmm. how do you know which areas are prone to sinkholes as we look at that map? it seems like most of the ones there were in central and west central florida, tampa, sarasota area and so forth. how do you know? >> yes. the best thing to do is actually to look at the florida geological survey which the information there is publicly available. they have extensive maps that show where sinkhole activity is
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in central florida, and it is north of tampa and also in the orlando area. >> can you fill a sinkhole, and if so how? >> yes. we do it all the time. for insurance purposes. we -- there are two ways to repair a house. the first one is you can actually put steel underpins that extend all the way down to the limestone, and then the second one, and those underpins, i'm sorry, support the foundation of the house. the second way is to pump grout into the ground, and this is cement, sand and water. it's pumped down into the ground. it fills up the voids and also pushes on the surrounding soils to densify them. you basically in the way that we do it is to go around the perimeter of a house, angling underneath and going along the walls where the majority of the loads are. >> all right. well, thank you, larry, very much, for that lesson on sinkholes. larry madrid, civil engineer in
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florida. sue? >> ty, as you know, three big stories today for our air and auto guy. phil lebeau is live once again for news chicago. phil? >> when we come back we'll be talking about what's ahead for the airline industry as well as the auto industry. there's a grounded merger. airline report card and also maybe the auto suppliers are the best place to park your money. we'll talk about that whether "power lunch" returns. i hav
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e low testosterone. there, i said it. see, i knew testosterone could affect sex drive, but not energy or even my mood. that's when i talked with my doctor. he gave me some blood tests... showed it was low t. that's it. it was a number. [ male announcer ] today, men with low t have androgel 1.62% testosterone gel. the #1 prescribed topical testosterone replacement therapy increases testosterone when used daily. women and children should avoid contact with application sites. discontinue androgel and call your doctor if you see unexpected signs of early puberty in a child, or signs in a woman, which may include changes in body hair or a large increase in acne, possibly due to accidental exposure. men with breast cancer or who have or might have prostate cancer,
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and women who are or may become pregnant or are breast-feeding, should not use androgel. serious side effects include worsening of an enlarged prostate, possible increased risk of prostate cancer, lower sperm count, swelling of ankles, feet, or body, enlarged or painful breasts, problems breathing during sleep, and blood clots in the legs. tell your doctor about your medical conditions and medications, especially insulin, corticosteroids, or medicines to decrease blood clotting. in a clinical study, over 80% of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. androgel 1.62%. welcome back to "power lunch." i'm josh lipton.
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we are watching apple here hit a six-month high and breaks above its 200-day moving average and long-term trend line. for the first time this year we spoke to mkm's katie stockton saying clearing 200 was a positive and no signs of exhaustion and nothing suggesting it's tiring here. the next real resistance stockton says, 485. back to you. >> thanks. air and auto in the countdown. phil lebeau is live in chicago, and the justice department grounding amr/u.s. airways merger but u.s. airways just gave you a statement? >> a joint statement between u.s. airways and american airlines saying they will fight this lawsuit so expect litigation over the next couple of months. certainly won't see the merger close in the third quarter. during the statement u.s. airways and american airlines saying they plan to vigorously defend this merger that they have proposed and to fight it in court. quickly want to show you shares of u.s. airways. this is the biggest drop since
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august of 2012 and to give you some perspective on how much today has hurt them, they have lost $240 million in market cap. sue? >> a new report on air travel. what does this tell us? >> from the month of june. not a great month, especially when you look at at on time arrival percentages. down 71% versus 80% a year ago. there were a few mortar mac delays, some greater than two hours and not a great scorecard for the industry for the month of june >> you know, we've profiled a couple of the auto suppliers that are really benefiting from the resurgence of the automakers. who is in the lead in that particular area, phil? >> no -- not surprisingly it's the leaders here. you're talking about johnson controls, lear, vistion announcing a big move in terms of selling assets in china so when you look at these companies all of them are at multi-year if not all-time highs.
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there owes an auto conference going on today, sue, and i'm not surprised to see that these stocks are moving higher because we're hearing positive comments from all of these executives. >> phil lebeau, thanks so much. >> you bet. >> we're up 80 points on the dow jones industrial average. a big turnaround for the market, and bob pisani is here at post nine to tell me why. >> well, the important thing, is of course, put up the dow, denis lockhart, not a voting fomc member saying he thinks the economic data sun even. didn't say he didn't support a tapener september but implied they need better data. bear in mind the marks were weak all throughout the morning and the reason why retail sales better than july. that may be good enough for the fed to go ahead and consider the idea of tapering, lock at home building stocks, weakness here. that's because they are concerned that the fed may begin tapering on mortgage-backed securities. increased mortgage rates. that's putting pressure on them. finally, sue, the only thing working really well is china etf plays still doing pretty well.
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five or six days we've seen stock coverage. most of the commodities have been to the upside for the last five or six days on china. >> thank you, mr. pisani. appreciate it. gold closing, a downside day. >> commodities have been higher, and now we're seeing a little bit of a pullback, particularly in the gold market. looking at gold prices down about 14 bucks or so and right around 1,320 an ounce after hitting a three-week high in the previous section. keep in mind a lot of traders were talking about the change in direction in the gld inflows, first time that's happened in two month. really not enough to make that much of a difference, and even siller which rallied strongly taking a bit of a breather at close. back to you. >> to the nasdaq up town. seema mody is there. >> hi, sue. blackberry shares is on the
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move, reports indicating that fairfax financial may be interested this taking the troubled smartphone maker private, that speculation driving shares hour and seeing an outperformance in some of the biotechs, gilad pharmaceuticals, this outperformance in the biotech index up 40% year to date has been encouraging for companies that are looking to list on the public market. we've seen a surge in biotech ipos this year. sue, back to you. >> seema, thank you. a little backup in bond yields after some of the data came out. rick selly is tracking the action at the cme, and we're stubbornly at 2.07% today, ricky. >> or stocks are stubbornly close to 16,000, look at it in so many ways. today i'll look at it a unique way. let's test this engine and see how it runs. the fed did a little test today and did reverse repos, this is the way when ultimately qe ends they would drain the system, 3.23 billion announced in the 10:00 eastern area. if you look at yields, you can
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clearly see that we started to make a bee-line for the 270 right around that time. stocks, look what stocks did. basically sold off the minute the test came and basically went the other way when mr. lockhart said no, no, hold the phone a second, and if you look at a chart two years out you can see right how 2.71, feting close to the second highest yield close since august of 2011. guess who likes higher interest rates, the dollar index does. tyler, back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you very much. apple hitting a six-month high but oracle ceo larry ellison says apple is doomed without steve jobs. we'll explain next, and the most dramatic episode of "the profit" so far is tonight. there will be tears. we have marcus lemonis and a bit of a surprise for him. a business in new jersey needs his advice. the owner of that business will ask marcus a few questions of his own next on "power lunch." stay tuned.
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session. reports that colberg is refusing to match a rival bid for steinway. that rival bid said to be from paulson & company. that means the makers of pianos now free to sign the deal with the hedge fund. yesterday steinway saying it got a $38 bid from an unidentified asset manager. colberg offered 35 per share. tyler, back to you. >> thanks very much. tuesday is a big night on cnbc, all nights are but tuesday most especially because "the profit" is on at 10:00 p.m. it looks like the most contentious episode we have seen so far. i want to roll two clips. america, be warned. it is intense. the focus this week, might not seem intense, but it is, the popcorn business. >> what assurance have that you don't screw me? >> how could i screw you? >> take money out of company without telling me or turn a
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popcorn store into a creepry. >> there's risk factors on both ends. you don't know me and i don't know you. all i can say is you'll have to trust me on this one. >> do i have to wonder if you're going to steal? >> no. >> do i have to wonder if you're going to undermine me. >> no. >> do i have to wonder if you're going to go around my back to try to do something to hurt me? >> you have nothing to worry about me as far as integrity or undermining you. >> and you can say that without any reservation? >> 100%. >> integrity is one of the pillars in business and based on what i've seen at the storefront i'm starting to lose trust. >> don't make me cry. you're making me look like a liar and i'm not. >> you lied to me. >> when did i lie to you? did you say to me today are you trying to buy pub one? did you ask me that? >> how aim supposed to know that. how am i supposed to trust you. i'm willing to put hundreds of thousands of dollars into this and you're asking me to trust you.
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i'm trustworthy and i have integrity. you did not display it. integrity is the only thing in business so you can be very wealthy, and you can be very smart, but if you don't have your word, you don't have integrity, none of the other stuff is worth a damn thing. >> right now i do not want to do business with you because i don't think i can trust you. >> that is fairly intense, "the the pro canwest "tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern and pacific only here on cnbc. as that tape was running, marcus, i saw a faint smile coming across your face, as you were riding in the car there and she was saying you can trust me. you can trust me, but you found out otherwise. how intense was that in role life? >> it was intense, tyler, but what people will learn is i rarely ask a question that i don't already know the answer to so i had a back story when i was asking those questions and got back to the shop. >> you found out that your worst fears or suppositions, some of your research proved true.
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>> no matter how big or small business, is what we're looking for in this country is a business with integrity. hard to find it these days. >> you know, if there's one message i've tried to give to my son is that your reputation for integrity, your reputation period takes years to build. it can be gone in a minute, and once it's damaged it is very, very difficult to repair. >> it's impossible in business. >> in business. marcus, thank you very much. >> sue, you have some questions and a little wrinkle here. >> we do, marcus. it's good to see you. wish i was up there to see you again, but we're going to spring a little surprise own, if you will. there's a new burger joint in suburb an new jersey, and they would like advice and we'll talk to the owner in a minute but first a one-minute shot of the business plan. >> pudsters is a fast casual high-end gourmet burger experience. my mind was give a ralph lauren experience for the marshall's price.
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pudster, the name, crazy but true is derived from my old english bulldog puddy, so i wanted to give americana a great gourmet burger with an experience from the interactive televisions, to the ipads that are on the tables, to the freestyle coca-cola machine to the jukebox, i tried to recreate old-fashioned americana and then infuse all this new-wave technology. we have everything from milk shakes to our proprietary beef to frankfurters out of a mall town in new england. it's a new innovative franchise that i want to bring across america with the right operators. >> wow. all right, that's an aggressive plan. michael joins us from west caldwell, new jersey. marcus, you have basically one minute to figure out what you thought about it. what's your opinion? >> sue, can you always trust a guy in a bowtie, that's for
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sure, but i'd like to get a little information. what are you tracking your sales at for the current year, michael? >> we've only been open, marcus, for about six weeks, but the first month in business we grossed close to 170,000. >> wow. that's fantastic. >> what about your expenses though? >> expenses, our expenses -- we're sharing space with -- we have a unique concept. we have a frozen dessert with the burger so you're running at about an 80% gross profit margin with the frozen dessert, and i've had everybody that has helped me and believed in this concept, we're doing about a 46% to 48% margin on the burger, fries and shakes. >> well, michael, i'm pleased to know that you know your numbers, that's obviously a key in
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business, particularly in a new business. what are your long-term plans with the business, and how are you kind of raising capital to get this business off the ground? >> i think the best thing to do is slow growth. we'd like to get the right operators, get the right franchisees. this first unit was a bunch of local investors. we have a board of directors, one being an investment banker out of manhattan named caved rich and i actually got my banker, patrick o'brien, the cfo and president of the company so i've surrounded myself with a power pack team. >> one bit of advice that i will give you, and you used a lot of big words, you're a small business, and even my business, i have a $3 billion business, want to run it like a small business because you build layers in and the expenses get out of control. if you're thinking about franchising, and i think you heard about talking about franchising, make sure you
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perfect -- absolutely perfect the model so when you take it out to somebody else they know what they are buying in. >> absolutely, marcus, and i appreciate that advice. i'm a hard-headed -- >> michael, where are you in west caldwell just so i know? >> because we're going tonight. >> those burgers look good. >> beautiful. >> where are you, what streets? >> we're right on west caldwell on bloomfield avenue, and we're in a prior friendly's which i thought gave this concept great value. i grew up in western massachusetts and my grandma, my n nana rose took me to friendly's all the time where it was burgers and frankfurters and used to get a black raspberry ice cream cone. >> michael, stay focused, in a very competitive space, a lot of people out there in the hamburger space. stay focused and stick -- don't start adding things to your menu like pancakes so stay very
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focussed. >> and stick with the bowtie. >> stick with the bowtie, michael. >> thanks very much. >> you guys are the best, thanks. >> we'll see you tonight, michael. don't miss "the profit." we'll see that tonight and more of marcus at 10:00 eastern and pacific where he goes after the popcorn business. sue? >> all right, guys. thank you. some big money players about to be made some real big money bets on las vegas without setting a foot in the casino. how does that happen? well, julia boorstin knows. she's on the strip for us. julia? >> sue, the mirage, the wynn las vegas and bellagio are all about to have a new neighbor just around the corner. here in sin city, an entrepreneurial hotbed, and it could remake the shape of las vegas, and it could even give silicon valley a run for its money. we'll have that story coming up on "power lunch." that's right for you, including the lexus es and ct hybrids. ♪
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have a look at biogen ticker enjoying a nice move near session highs. the stock had actually been down for six straight days and breaks that streak. the stock up some 45% this year. sue, back to you. >> josh, thank you very much. "street signs" coming up at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. let's see what's ahead. >> hey there, sue, on top of all those big headlines from airline mergers or non-mergers as the case may be, apple, herbalife, many other big stories. we're going to be covering those, but we also have a couple of big interviews. we have anti-an exklews conclusive with steve case, the founder of aol and an investor of the likes of zip car and living social and also the ceo of the next big thing. it's called drop cam. like your own personal monitoring system, the kid and house and office or your pets. you've got to see it. it's really cool. all those things and, of course, lots more coming up top of the hour on "street signs." back to you on "power lunch." >> all right. we'll see you at 2:00, mandy. thank you. in today's yahoo! finance question of the day, we asked with activist investor bill
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ackman resigning from jc penney's board, what's your take on mr. ackman? >> 19 boston say he should continue being an activist and 47% said he should pipe down and 5% say i'll mirror and the rest said they will do the opposite. rolling the dice on las vegas, a massive bet being taken on making sin city a hub for strurs a entrepreneurs and startups. julia boorstin is here with that story. >> reporter: zappo's ceo is betting big on this city investing $350 million into his downtown project, and he's moving zappo's from henderson, nevada to vegas but year's end. he and a group of investors think the lure of las vegas' legendary night life works well with startups.
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>> whatever we need, we can get 24 hours around the clock so that's really good for kind of the startup lifestyle. >> the vegas doesn't even make the top 20 startup communities after the usual suspects in the east and west coast, we saw austin was the eighth most funded city, followed by chicago and then washington, d.c., philadelphia and denver. now, key ingredients to get a startup community off the ground include venture capital and angel investors, low cost of living, universities and big companies nearby to provide a range of talent, and many entrepreneurs actually prefer the more intimate environment. >> it's a big pond with a small feel, and so there's still a lot of sense of community and collaboration working to go. you don't have that built up infrastructure from the long history, and you can make a difference as an individual as this infrastructure is being built. >> we'll be interviewing aol founder and revolutionary ceo steve case coming out here on the heat in las vegas.
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>> tyler? >> the rich are really different than the rest of us. new scientific research on how they drive. they don't -- well, they are driven in lots of ways. plus, oracle ceo larry ellison not afraid to mince words saying apple is going down. the power rundown is next. if you're serious about taking your trading to a higher level, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 then schwab is the place to trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-888-284-9410 or visit schwab.com/trading to tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 learn how you can earn up to 300 commission-free online trades tdd#: 1-800-345-2550
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power rundown time starting with larry ellison's thoughts on apple without steve jobs. >> we saw apple with steve jobs. we saw apple without steve jobs. we saw apple with steve jobs. now we're going to see apple without steve jobs. >> so you're shorting apple? >> i'm not shorting a. i like tim cook. i think there are a lot of talented people. >> you just said to me apple is going down without steve jobs. that's exactly what you said. >> okay. i'll say it publicly. he's irreplaceable. i don't see how they can -- they will not be nearly as so successful because he's gone. >> seema mody and robert frank are here. is larry ellison right, seema? >> certainly not a positive thing to hear if you're an apple shareholder. however, in the last two years apple's competitive advantage in the smartphone and tablet space
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has changed. will this be different if steve jobs was around? maybe not. >> robert? >> yeah, you know, follow the finger. i mean, the direction there is pretty clear, and i think ellison is the most jobsian ceo in america in terms of the mad genius. these two were very close. he had a lot of insight into what made this company successful. i think he's right. >> very interesting. on to tesla with an iconic ceo, elon musk releasing his idea for the hyperloop, a high-speed above ground travel system that could take you from l.a. to san francisco in half an hour. check out the animation nbc created of the concept, so robert, would the hyperloop ever be built or does musk want to keep his name relevant? it looks like the trans-alaskan pipeline with people in it. >> i can't help but think that this hyperloop ends up with a rich dudes in pneumatic tubes.
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>> some people were calling elon musk the next steve jobs, he's smart, kirby and full of futuristic ideas. he might have something. >> we need one here in new york because it takes hours sometimes to go the three or four miles from new jersey to new york, could probably do that in 20 seconds. >> or just shrink ourselves, shrink ourselves down to the size of action figures and then we just start reusing the old bank tubes that we used to do and get in there and zip around. >> when i used to work in the old time life building, pneumatic tubes sent the copy from the typist room up to the magazine floors. and finally a study highlighted in the "new york times" says drivers with expensive cars have the very worst road manners. robert, what do you say? >> look, there are so many of these studies now. some of them showed that the rich lie more and they are more selfish. there's one that show the rich steal canned frechildren more, and the problem is with this car thing just because someone has a bmw doesn't mean they are
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wealthy and could drive a beat-up car so i don't think there's much correlation. >> seema, what's your observation on this important, important top snick. >> just because you have a flashy car doesn't mean you're above the law. however, i will say when i take my bentley out for a cruise i'm always courteous, just joking, wish i had one. >> and people with wealthy cars and the wealthy do tend to be more time pressed and they are in a hurry so that's one reason they may be in a hurry on the road. >> you would think they would want to be more careful because their cars are more valuable. who knows. >> thank you. when we come back we'll give you the big winners of the day in two minutes time. we'll be right back. in a world that's changing faster than ever, we believe outshining the competition tomorrow requires challenging your business inside and out today. at cognizant,
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right now, 7 years of music is being streamed. a quarter million tweeters are tweeting. and 900 million dollars are changing hands online. that's why hp built a new kind of server. one that's 80% smaller. uses 89% less energy. and costs 77% less. it's called hp moonshot. and it's giving the internet the room it needs to grow. this&is gonna be big. hp moonshot. it's time to build a better enterprise. together.
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welcome back to "power lunch." i'm jellyfish lipton. heroes a stoning joeg a bit of a bounce today. osiris therapeutics, ticker osir. up 113% right now, and reports said data from a study showed its drug was overwhelmingly effective in treating diabetic foot ulcers. it means increased reimbursement from insurers. sue, back to you. >> yeah, and that's the name of the game. all right. thank you very much, josh. let's take a look at markets. we're off of our highs of the day but well off of the lows as well. right now the dow is up about 58 points on the trading session.
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the ten-year note, the yield is 2.71%, and that is helping the dollar index as rick santelli pointed out earlier this afternoon. so some stocks at new all-time highs, tyson foods and sigma aldrich. ty, that does it for us, right? >> that's exactly right. that's it for "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins now. and welcome to "street signs," everybody. i'm mandy drury. well, a dead stop in the sky. one of our guests thinks the government is out of their mind to block the u.s. airways/amr merger. not even larry ellison can bring this apple downch the stock hitting a six-month high and, okay, she's over. everyone go home. it's back to business for jcp. yeah, the business of bringing customers back and you, too, can be your own little nanny state to remotely check in on your house, your
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