>> just released by the fbi. that's the very first video they have of that. we'll continue following that story which is developing as well as the slight sell-off on wall street. >> and nice to have you in the house today. >> thank you. nice to be with you. >> that will do it for "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins now. >> all right. why wait for halloween? we have three scary stories. the first one that has broken within the last hour. walmart, courtney reagan doing excellent reporting. walmart is coming back. more into the name, what the latest developments are. amazon sending a shot across apple's bow. will its kindle take a bite out of apple's dominance. two hours away from the race captivating america. how oracle may set sail on one of the greatest comebacks of all

time, aka i'm going to eat serious humble pie. >> breaking news on walmart with report it's cutting orders with a pileup in inventory. when the headline came out we could see walmart stock took a drop. you came out with reporting of your own to clear up the headlines. the stock has come back a little bit. tell us more. >> yeah. that's right, mandy. i got on the phone with dave tollver, i share his name because he wants me to do so, to explain this does come straight from walmart the company itself, saying the headlines about walmart cutting the orders because inventory is building up are misleading. he also used the phrase completely false. he said, this is how retail works all the time and especially at walmart. on any given day, there are changes in hundreds of categories based on consumer demand in different markets and it's walmart's job, like any other retailer, to respond to that. and as a result, we've seen the shares come back up as we understand a bit more about what this story was or wasn't trying

to say. walmart says the story again is misleading and wants to make sure the audience understands this is a normal occurrence and not something that's happening because there is any trouble on a mass scale with what's going on with the inventory and sales at walmart. >> courtney, fantastic reporting. thank you very much. even though those walmart shares are off the lows they're dragging down on the dow a little bit. to bobpisani. it's not just the dow but other retailers, particularly the discounters, bob? >> i think courtney has a very good point but that doesn't mean we haven't had problems particularly at the low end recently. i want to show you how this sort of affects the markets. the dow dropped 35 points or so and you can see some of the effect it had on the big retailers in the dow, for example. nike, also dropped at the same time. put up nike, the drop right there. it's recovering a little bit but see other ones, even the simpler consumer names like procter & gamble dropped at the same time. we saw some other drops in groups as well.

home depot, for example, coca-cola, general consumer names. you see the drop in home depot. i think courtney's comments should absolutely be reflected upon, but i want to know, dollar stores have missed recently, target was a disappointment as well, put up target, a short while ago. it's not like there hasn't been echos of concern, particularly at the low end of retail. what i'm saying here is, keep in mind what courtney has been saying but bear in mind there is other evidence things have been slower recently as well. there's target on a multimonth basis. about this pullback in the s&p i want to point out this is typical of the shallow pullbacks we've been seeing here. this happened in march. this happened in april. this happened september. and we're getting a pullback of about 1.6% in the s&p. from the last week. those were historic highs in the s&p. every time we've seen these shallow, low volume pullbacks, the market has advanced once again. i'm not saying it's going to happen again. i'm just saying that has been

the pattern with the shallow pullbacks all year. mandy, back to you. >> the lower interest rates or treasury yields have not been helping. thank you very much, bob. bring in jan rogers, the street's herb greenberg and courtney is still with us as well. i want to get to you on walmart. supposedly cutting orders it has placed with suppliers. courtney did great reporting. walmart told her it is misleading but did not deny it. what's your take? >> my perspective from the department store perspective as well as discount. if you look at a discounter, they have about 100,000 skus in any moment. a department store has 400,000. any moment your over in something and under in something and always rebalancing. walmart is probably doing that. we know the end of last quarter their inventories were up versus what their sales were up. we knew they were a little heavy. by the same token when you look at what's not selling in the real world it's apparel, accessories. they're probably heavy in that category like everybody is.

and cutting back a little bit. they're probably adding something in the home goods section. they're presently rebalancing business. i don't think this is good news but isn't a catastrophe. >> there's two ways to look at the story. walmart a proxy a y for the eco, walmart is symbolic of all the problems we have or two walmart management is not doing the job, the story referred to earlier today referenced they had added inventory, basically three times expected sales, target two times expected sales which would seem to me to be bad management or at least bad inventory management. >> you would think -- >> how do we read it? >> walmart thuts they left market share on the selling floor last year because they didn't have enough merchandise versus other people. they're correcting that this year. whether that will prove to be a great strategy or not is yet to be seen. >> why can't they get it right? if they had too little last year and too much this year, what is going on with management they cannot see it clearly. >> isn't they have the systems some you wou

some? you would expect them to have the best systems. >> why? because they're the biggest? >> it's performed dismally. >> i would expect them to have extraordinarily good systems given what they do. >> another interesting side to the story. courtney, no doubt you saw that walmart is struggling to keep the stock -- the shelves stocked, partly because they don't have enough man power which i find amazing when you have so many needing a job right now. >> there have been reports that say that, although i have speaken with people that actually believe that is not true, people inside walmart and also people outside walmart. jan, i believe you and i have talked about this and you think that walmart is doing a very good job of managing. i think you gave me a number they're in stock inventory was like 93% or better. is that still what you believe, jan? >> i believe the in stock percentages at walmart on the shelf right now are the best they've ever been. and so i don't think that's a problem. if they have too much inventory,

it's in the back room. but it's not because they can't get it to the shelves. >> if it's in the back room you have to question whether this is a company that has allowed itself to be stuffed and the future sales of those counting on walmart. >> they have so much stuff that hasn't been sold they have to clear out the christmas stuff and move it super early to make way for it. >> go to the numbers. the comp store sales declined .3% last quarter. .3% decline for walmart. is it possible that walmart is simply screwing up here? the manage mn is not what it needs to be, the strategy is not what it needs to be. comp store sales from other competitors similar, quote, discount retailers they have not been that way, not all of them? costco its shares are up 15%. walmart is down about 1%. >> it's hard to compare costco to anybody. if you look at the part of the world selling to $30,000 household income customers,

walmart, that business has been very tough. so walmart's center customer has had a tough time of it. that has showed up in their numbers. they're doing $440 billion a year in sales. they're doing something right. they're the biggest retailer in the world. and they're doing a pretty darn good job of managing their stores right now. they have a struggling customer. it's struggling because of the 2% increase in the social security taxes, they're struggling because we're not seeing growth with that consumer's income. those are problems. and a lot of competition out there. walmart is doing a pretty good job compared to what they've done in the past. >> walmart, let's not forget, walmart cut its sales forecast a month ago. why is this coming as a surprise? >> they cut their sales forecast a month ago. august 15th. >> and they told the story and to anybody that would listen. it should not be a surprise they're rebalancing the inventory loads. >> i understand that even you, mr. jan, with all your

experience in retail r a little surprised by what's going on with jc penney stock. let's bring up a stachart to sh our viewers. it is at a 13-year low, in the $10 region here. in the $10 region. would you have thought to see it here? >> i never expected to see it below $12. i think what's going on at penny's is the same thing i thought was going on at penny's business is getting marginally better as it goes along. i think in the fourth quarter they're going to have strong sales. i still think they're going to have a 37.5% gross margin in the third quarter. the third quarter is tough for everybody. and i think they're having a better third quarter than they had second quarter. i think they could be flatter down on sales in the third quarter but i still think the business is getting a little better day by day. >> better enough to mean it will not have to raise cash next year? because this is obviously something that has been out there. i know management said they will

not need to raise cash any time soon. speculation, particularly jpm said by the fourth quarter, third quarter of next year. >> i don't believe they'll need to raise anything this year. i think they'll finish the year somewhere around a $1.5 billion of liquidity. if they're running store for store com ms that are positive as i believe for the next quarters, they won't need infusion next year. >> good luck. i suspect you might need it. >> the bet is on. >> i feel confident. >> you should have bet on stock prices. >> courtney, thank you very much. great reporting on walmart. we'll follow that story. jan thank you. herb as well. >> move to housing. diana olick, were those new home sales as strong as expected? >> mandy, they did come in a little over expectations but we need to put a few things into perspective here. signed contracts to buy existing homes rose nearly 8% in august but that 421,000 annualized rate

is still the second lowest of the year and way off expectations for the full year which were supposed to be around half a million new homes sold. the 8% coming off a huge drop in july which you can blame squarely on the jump in mort game rates. 6.99% of all home sales are newly built homes. but historically, new homes make up between 20 and 25% of all sales. you can see how low we are now. and it's not like existing home sales are off the charts either. so, we can talk abouthese month to month moves but really sales are pretty flat and construction is running at about half of what it should be if you look at your demographics. we talk about pent up demand in housing and make no mistake, it is there. the trouble is, builders have to make up for five years of building pretty much nothing and they're not doing it fast enough. not to mention that while mortgage rates are still historically low, it is much harder to get a mortgage today. this as the median price for a new home is up nearly 10% year

to date. mandy. >> okay. diana olick, thank you very much. we all know your home is probably your biggest asset, right? so what happens if the market is ballooning into another bubble. should we be scared of this housing market? joining us now is jonathan miller from samuel miller a real estate appraising firm. what say you, bubble or not? >> oh, i don't think it's a bubble. i think what's very different from the last housing boom we had is that credit remains in place it's historically very tight. i think the big issue right now and actually i was very leaved back in may when we started to see interest rates rise because clearly the housing market can't sustain 12% growth in the u.s. that's silly when you have stagnant income, high unemployment and tight credit. i think what it's doing rising rates are going to take some of the edge as i like to say, edge off the froth of the market. and correct the problem before it gets too far along. >> what is the biggest problem out there right now, jonathan?

>> the biggest problem and it's a characteristic of i like to say housing is local, but credit is national, this idea that inl venner to is very low. inventory has improved this year as housing prices have been rising. the big problem is homeowners, you have about 40% of people in the u.s. with a mortgage don't qualify for a trade up or lateral move. they sit and people without credit challenges can't find what they want to buy and they don't list for sale. so it's a challenge. when you choke off supply, prices rise. and it's not based on anything fundamental. it's basically based on fed policy. >> yeah. i was reading a real deal last night. i was quite surprised by how many of those real estate brokers were saying the biggest problem right now is they have absolutely no inventory. they were hoping maybe clients would come back from the hamptons and start putting their homes up for sale.

not happening. when do you see inventory picking up? >> i see incenter rising. it's rising across the u.s. in general. we're seeing inventory has improved this year. in the new york area, for example, in manhattan, inventory at the end of august was the lowest in -- on record. so some markets are faring better than others. really what you're going to see, it's not going to be new construction. new construction for the most part in urban metro areas is targeted at the luxury sector which maybe represents the top 10% of the market. the balance, the other 90%, isn't seeing the inflow of new product into the housing stock to ease some of the demand short age. >> we know that new york city is an odd place inhabited by people who share cars. jonathan miller of miller samuel, good seeing you. thank you. >> great to see you, thank you. >> last but not least, to the dodos in d.c. because we could, america will be looking at another shutdown, let us bring in jimmy, columnist of the

american ernts price in i it ta. handicap it for us. what are the odds we actually get a shutdown no matter how short? >> i don't think we're going to get a shutdown but unfortunately, that's sort of the good news. the bad news the reason i don't think we're going to get a shutdown, republican house leadership can promise to their membership that you know what, we'll keep the government open but go to the mattresses on the debt ceiling. that is a far scarier possibility to have an actual debt ceiling crisis than a government shutdown by even if the government shut down for a week, it hurts employees but as far as the gdp effects it's minimal. >> what about a technical default? >> i think it's unlikely. that will be bad. by technical default, delaying paimtss as opposed to not paying the debt. i think that's unlikely. i think far more likely is treasury, if they were unable to come to ap agreement, would pay the debt but still have to not pay something else and that not

something else is 40% of the budget. that would have a huge economic impact. technically, the u.s. government not meeting its commitments would be in default even if not on the treasury bonds. >> do you hate taxes? >> i do. >> do i hate taxes? >> i'm not happy in april if that's what you're asking me. >> here's my point. i was tweeting this out today because listen, at some point in d.c. both parties have to have a grownup conversation with the maerp public. according to the center for budget and policy priorities, more of a left leaning group, the average middle income family will pay just 5% after deductions of its income to the federal government. 5%p. lowest in roughly 60 years. okay. i understand state taxes, sales taxes and social security and medicare have gone up. i get that. if you want to fund a government, the fda, veterans benefits, maybe interstate roads, when is d.c. going to say to the american people, i'm sorry, not enough people are paying to maintain the government, at least as it is right now? >> listen, if we want a bigger

government, at some point you have to pay for it. unfortunately, government is on a trajectory you could raise taxes to 70, 0% and still couldn't pay for it. that conversation has to be about more than taxes. how big of a government can we have in the future, what can we afford. >> sounds like we have a lot of conversations unfinished. >> lot of dialog. >> thank you very much. >> i just like to hear the truth once in a while from d.c. i don't know what a stamp is but the price of that thing is going up. the post office proposing a hike from 46 to 49 cents on a letter. the price goes through, they would go into effect january 26th. happy birthday, dad. it's intended to generate $2 billion in revenue for the ailing post office. in the meantime the post office says it hired a consulting group to study the future of stamps. price tag for those services more than half a ill innen dollars and i guarantee the consultants will get paid. >> so far the reviews from amazon kindville been good.

is this a legit threat to apple. >> the top five signs you know you are super rich. #out of control, #knock it off, #insanity, getting the late night comedy treatment. female announcer: save up to 35%

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>> check it out. i brought you cookies. #home made #oatmeal raisin #show me the cookie. >> sweet. #don't mind if i don't. >> pretty good. #i'm the real cookie monster #no no no. >> delicious. #i did it all for the cookie #lollollololol. >> that was justin timberlake with jimmy fallen yesterday marking the overuse of hashtag. >> don't say funny. jimmy is a talented guy with a television program. >> i thought you were in the camp that hated hashtags. >> america has a dangerous and growing addiction to hashtags. >> it's addictive. >> amazon stepping up the pressure on apple with its kindle tablets. john fortt sat down with jeff bezos and congrats to the interview, great stuff, and the

reviews we have read have been glowing for the new kindle. real threat if? >> hashtag exciting. >> hashtag great interview. >> i'm not sure. look, the low end of the kindle was at 159 a year ago. going up against an ipad mini at like 329. still didn't manage to overtake it. now it's down at 139. so 20 bucks less. we'll see what they can do. we have to see what apple does with its line of ipads we expect to see in the next couple weeks. i also have to say, i talked to jeff bezos about what the goal is for the new kindles, what successful means. take a listen to what he has to say. >> i guess you want them to say wow, right? not just -- >> we have a different approach to that, which is, we have been very clear we sell these devices at break even. we don't make money when people buy the devices. we want to make money when

people use our devices, buying kindle e-books and tv shows and povys. we think we're better aligned with our customers if we make money when people use our devices, not when they buy them. >> i wasg with gene at piper jaffray, amazon is likely to destroy the mid range of the tablet market below apple. folks like microsoft and nokia, others trying to get traction will have that much more trouble with amazon taking zero margin on the hardware. >> #awesome luck. for me i think it's like the awesome thing here, is the mayta, mayday button. up pops on your screen the live tech help person who can like walk you through whatever person you have. they can draw on your screen with their virtual pen and say, you know, here, you need to press this button. >> what is this. >> here to navigate to here. >> remotely access our tablet and see what we're surfing? that's a good thing. >> i'm sure they have privacy --

>> i'm sure. hold on. let me access -- >> do they not? >> i talked to him, one of the greatest talents is to deliver a feature and have it not seem creeppy. >> that's creeppy. >> hold on. >> no, no, no. backup, backup. hold on. let me access your screen. i'm going to now somehow go through your wi-fi network and draw on your -- >> make your tablet do things. i talked to him about this once and he was saying the key is telling customers up front exactly what you're going to do. >> can you turn that off? >> really that's what -- if you don't press the button then the little guy doesn't pop up. >> what are the privacy safeguards they have in place? >> i mean like what can they -- certain things they can't access? >> i'm watching you. >> it's amazon. they're tracking your every move. they know what you've looked at. what other people who looked at that also looked at. it's amazon. >> #about turn, i wept interest

like loving it -- went from loving it, one of the tech idiots who doesn't know what i'm doing but now i'm thinking about hey, they can actually see what i'm doing. >> you're thinking about it too hard. >> thinking about it way too much. >> who sang that song. ♪ i always feel like somebody is watching me ♪ >> i won't sing again. rockwell. >> this just in, it was rockwell. that's spooky, mayday out. #creepy. john, thank you very much. appreciate it, bud. end all this hash crap coming up. still ahead, here's good news, gas prices have fallen every day for the last 23 days. pretty soon, gas will be free. >> it really will. trivia time, the university with a bigger endowment with the market cap of big name tech companies bigger than the gdp of several nations. >> big name tech. explorer card.ed mileas i've saved $75 in checked bag fees. [ delavane ] priority boarding is really important to us.

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the last couple days you noticed this already but we're news so we'll tell you again already. gas prices are dropping. regular unleaded averaging $3.45 nationwide and that is the lowest national average since in january. sharon ep southern, are they expected to fall even more? >>. >> they are definitely expected to fall more. we're seeing a dramatic decline as you mentioned. looking at prices that have dipped just about 5 cents in the last week alone and we're seeing a three-week stretch here, more than that, in terms of how long we've seen gas prices falling. couple factors that are causing these gas prices to fall and one of them is that oil prices are falling dramatically as well. we're poised for the lowest close since last july and we're also looking at refining that has stepped up considerably here in the u.s. consumer demand is flat. we're making mores gasoline than we need. this is particularly true for people who living in the south,

particularly states like south carolina. seeing eight states where the statewide average is below $3.25 a gallon. in south carolina you may be lucky enough to live in an area where you're paying less than $3 a gallon. how long is this going to last for folks? we have seen a little buying in our gasoline futures but that doesn't mean the retail price is going to pop up any time soon. we talked to tom at gas buddy.com and he said expect prices to fall another 7 to 10 cents through columbus day. back to you. >> thank you very much for that. sharon epperson. a lot of cross current in the markets as we can see. where does gold fit into the picture? have a chat with fran here on set, ceo and chief investment officer. nice of you to stop by in person. gold, down about 20% year to date after 12 years in the money. >> spectacular. >> it was spectacular but it all seems to have fallen into a hole. >> past three years up 12%. perform bonds. it's hard for people to believe

that. i think that gold will continue to have its growth. the companies are probably the best place to buy. >> why? was it ju was it just the scare of the taper that changed the story for gold and now it seems to be off the table. >> historically gold starts at a summer rally to the chinese new year. we're going to be going into the wedding season in india, monsoon rains are good, harvest is great, so you'll turn around and see high gold consumption like in 2010 we had. it's an important part of the equation. strap on the fear trade. the debt ceiling battle will get extended. they will monetize debt. look at inflation and five-year government note, why would you buy a five-year government note when below the inflationary rate. you can bind like franco nevada, pays on a monthly dividend higher than a five year government note. >> india, let's take that out of the equation. if you had to choose between

buying gold etfs, gold the bullion or gold mining stocks which would be? >> gold mining stocks. >> why. >> down the most. >> were you chatting with herb greenberg before the show? he loves them. >> he does. he's smart. >> that's debatable. >> you're getting a yield greater than a five year government note. management of these companies were overextending for the sake of growth. now it's all about shrinking, getting cash flow out. >> how do we know, frank, whether or not -- i'm going to make up names because i don't know where their production points are. if i'm abc gold corp and my cost of production is 500 an ounce, that's good. if i'm xyz gold corp 950 an ounce not as good. if i'm 123 gold corp and my cost of production is 1200 an ounce that's terrible. how do we know what their cost of production -- i assume we know? >> we track 88 gold producers around the world. it's a key factor of how we generate alpha. i think that many of these companies are driving down their

costs, restructuring and that's the focus because their costs were running up to $1500 an ounce of gold and that became excessive. >> we can see there some of these gold stocks have been hammered. as you say if you think that a good bet while they're down but same time have to have a strong stomach. thank you very much for joining us today. >> on deck, a trifecta of titans, heavyweight stocks burning up the charts. should you go big or go home. >> later on we are counting them down, what are the top five signs you aren't just rich, but super dirty rich. champagne wishes and caviar dreams when "street signs" returns. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade

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okay. . folks, street talk time. stories you need to know about. first of all, let's talk about nordstrom which is actually getting an up to an outperform.

really not helping the stock at all. >> it's not. mccory raising their target to 66 from 60, about 17% more than the current price. they have superior growth opportunities that other stores don't have because in large part it's an upper middle class customer business. stock under performing most of the other retailers in it space this year. >> going retail heavy today. a look at ross stores as well with goldman adding to its conviction buy list. >> i would like to see their unconvicted buy list. goldman sees a 16% return in ross stores. they say it is a long-term retail disrupter. they love the free cash flow story at ross stores. they removed dollar tree from their conviction buy to add ross stores. >> okay. we want to bring in herb who's waiting in the wings. come over here. we talking about intuitive surgical, named a new top pick at sun trust robinson.

>> tart price $506, the stock at $365, huge upside seen except for the fact that srg was nearly 600 this year. >> people see it having come off and then this deal with mako surgical, going to be akwids by stricker. if there's an acquisition aspect to the deal i would say no, this is not going to happen right now, not at these prices. intuitive has all sorts of issues that have to be hashed out. >> you did a fantastic -- documentary. >> let's go now. >> this will be my strange australian accent. documentary. >> you said donkmentry. >> it was a mistake. people can check it out at cnbc.com. those issues still out there on the table. >> absolutely. still out there. and you still have legal issues. interesting lawsuit just filed. week or two in ohio that has a number of names in there.

it's actually a lawsuit that includes cleveland clinic and others. so related to robotic surgery. this is still something that's going to work through the pipeline. >> wright medical, wmgi, i can't remember the ticker -- >> wmgi. >> i got it right. >> a research firm came out with a note saying this could be an acquisition target because the mako surgical. >> this mako deal is so expensive. look at stricker, stricker is coming down. paying close to 90% over the current market value. that is well beyond what is paid in a deal like this. 12 times sales. typically it's going to be 4 times, 5 times unless a diabetes company. you have such a premium here, people shaking their heads on this deal. >> say that bankers were sharks in the mako deal. >> when is your next donkmentry coming up? >> thank you herb. thank you very much. many are calling this as a stock

picker's market. bill smooeds from smooeds capital management welcome to "street signs." jpmorgan up about 16% year to date, down a little over the past month, media company ginnet and big farmers, merck, up about 17% this year. bill, i want to start with jpmorgan, you've seen the headlines, battered by the bad headlines, perhaps not as much as you would expect, though. lots of lawsuits out there, but you like the stock anyway. why? >> well, we got into it originally in 2012 on the london well trade. we're using the lord rothchild buy when there's blood in the streets. and again, whenever i turn on the television set for two days in a row and see my friend jamie dimon wandering around and people being critical of him i love this whole lawsuit situation. the government asked them to buy bear stearns and the government

asked them to buy washington mutual and the legal settlements they're working on right now are associated with things that washington mutual and bear stearns go wrong. shows you who you should do business with. we think every time the negative picture of them gets established, it's a pretty good chance to add your holdings at an incredible name at a very cheap price to book and wonderful play on the future economy. >> why is ginet a housing play in disguise? >> it's fantastic. housing and autos, first of all, community newspapers are huge advertisers in housing and autos and then they just are closing on -- in the next few months on buying 20 additional television stations from -- by buying b lo an that will give them 43 local stations. turn on the stations an you hear local auto dealers. so they dominate. if you are an auto dealer in the

united states of america, or if you're in these communities and you want to advertise your residential real estate you have to use them and then, of course, they have a huge digital business on the side and then in a forbes article this week, this last couple weeks pointed out there's huge spectrum sitting on the sheet that's unaccounted for. >> cheap cars here. take a look at merck. i believe you like this stock. a great pipeline and it's hopefully going to be a good dividend payer over time. >> yeah. we might be the only people that we've heard or read or -- that are excited about a drug that's being tested on 30,000 people. it was a 1500 person cleveland clinic study, was done and just raved about it and what was so ironic about that is the cleveland clinic was merck's biggest critic on vioxx. here's an institution that doesn't like merck very much, puts out a 1500 person study two years ago that says that this might be the most effective

lower of bad cholesterol and razor of good cholesterol in history and they're about two years into a five-year test on 30,000 people. at the same time, they're going to significantly reduce the costs associated with their r and d. remember the pharmaceutical companies expense their r and d which in their world is their capital expenditures. everyone else depreciates their capital spending. these are very conservative income statement stoos we appreciate your time. jpm, gannett and merck. >> thanks for having us. >> as we head to a break, pop quiz for you, america. what u.s. college has an endowment fund that is bigger than the gdp of many nations like jordan, latvia and tanzania. to throw out a random few. tweet us your guesse guesses @streetsigns cnbc. >> a blow to an mall lovers in the uk. 50 shades of wine. to bill griffeth what is coming up on the closing bell? >> lot of energy at the big

board. japanese prime minister shinzo abe here to ring the closing bell. stocks in jeopardy of falling for a fifth straight trading session. top money managers to tell you whether this presents a buying opportunity. big day, google executive chairman eric schmidt here for the full 4:00 hour and how much money is at stake and weigh in on how the dysfunction in washington is affecting the business world. then cisco chairman and ceo john chambers tells us about his company's new way of delivering data to consumers. all that and more coming up. maria and i look forward to you joining us at the top of the hour for "closing bell." more "street signs" coming your way after this. [ male announcer ] at his current pace,

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>> here's the amazing thing, harvard's endowment used to be bigger. their portfolio's performance over the last several years. to the right you see what they did in 2013, their fiscal year summer to summer. so they had a gain of more than 11%. look way to the left, 2009, ouch, just like everybody else, they had a big decline, 27%. that's why when you look at the next screen, even though you think $32 billion is a lot, well, it used to be $37 billion. they're still working their way back up there. look at what's in it, now compared to what it was in 2008, jane mandillo who has been at cnbc's delivering alpha several years in a row increased the portfolio's exposure to stock by 5% or 4% from 2008. real estate the same. real assets like timber, real estate, that kind of thing, but bonds she made a conservative decision to go lower. 9% compared to 15% several years ago. she was delivering.

here's an important thing to remember about endowments that are different from pension funds, so different from hedge funds. she doesn't have to worry about redemptions. harvard isn't going to call up and say i have to pay for an expensive wedding hand me back everything i got. buying things that have less liquidity than we're used to. here's what she said. >> if we can boost our returns by taking on ill liquid positions especially things like natural resources where over the long term you're going to see value increase due to the fact that there are more mr and more people who have need for the products that are coming off of these properties. >> she wants a premium for taking an ill liquid position. it has at least 300 basis points and frequently it's 700 basis points. >> unbelievable. thank you so much for that, michele caruso cabrera. a question for you, i did not grow up in this country -- >> is this where you pay me back. >> no. i'm going to stand on the higher moral ground and not pay you

back. >> for once. >> >> absolutely. >> i did not go to college here in america. explain the system to me. i don't understand why every single year somehow college costs go up, right? why should they go up when they've got clearly or at least a lot of the universities out there, >> i don't know. >> it doesn't make any sense. they're hoarding all this cash but yet -- >> harvard has a bigger cap than yahoo!. free tuition for everybody. coming up, the top five signs you know you're really rich. >> and 50 shades of rose. ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of long weekends and longer retirements. ♪ ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. ♪

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own a really expensive one-of-a-kind carpet that comes with a copyright. >> this carpet was custom made for him. never made before, never made after, copyright issues. >> number two, your idea of a party decoration is chopping down hundreds of white birch trees so you can hang them from the ceiling. >> this should feel like it is a natural upside down forest. >> and our number one you know you're super rich moment is, you have no idea how miserable commuting to work is because every day you drive to work in a shiny gold lamborghini. >> i drive it daily and i have a blast with it. >> is that guy real? is that a real dude? is that a real car? >> do you know what you would

say about a guy that drove past in a gold lamborghini? >> you would say he's cool. >> what would you say? other than let me on out! >> the other sign tonight, you're marrying a playmate of the year and you have three we had lgz. >> which month, though? >> that's the key. miss december and playmate of the year. >> a month better than the other? >> i just made that up. >> june particularly naughty? catch the premiere of the secret lives of the super rich with that fabulous voice. don't know who it was. >> sounded like you. >> up next, while the "real housewives of new jersey" may not be welcome at one safari park. i love having a free checked bag

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your money needs an ally. you may be wondering why we're showing you video of "the real housewives of new jersey." this story got us thinking about this. a safari park in uk is banning visitors from wearing animal things like cheetah print. think that's a good idea? thanks for watching "street signs".

>> i think i could not go to the safari park and let's leave it at that. walmart shares down 1.2%. they've come up. a lot more on "closing bell." kelly evans is sitting in today. >> she is, indeed. oh, maria. >> maria, fantastic. back from the west coast. thanks for watching "street signs," everybody. >> "closing bell" is next. >> hi, everybody, welcome to "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. >> i'm bill griffeth. more on the markets in a moment. what a very big day we're having here on the "closing bell." first of all, japanese prime minister shinzo abe is ringing the closing bell. but look at heavy littehitters have coming up in an exclusive interview. >> also ahead, then