>> oh, wow. >> sometimes it happens. >> sometimes it does. >> the bid, $50,000, opening bid for this, write in. >> he'll even sign it. >> "closing bell" is next. >> for $50 million, i'll sign anything. >> anything? hi, everybody, good afternoon. breaking news right now. insurance ceos descending on the white house at this moment for a pivotal meeting about changes to the health care law. i'm maria bartiromo coming to you from the new york stock exchange. happy friday. >> happy friday to you. i'm bill griffeth at cnbc global headquarters. stock market hits historic highs. we'll have much more on that in a few minutes. first, to john harwood at the white house. boy, john, wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall for this meeting, huh? >> reporter: well, i would, bill, because the insurance industry didn't like what the administration did yesterday. at least some portions of it.

at least on the other hand, they don't want to be in a pitch battle for very long with the administration. how they're going to approach this meeting, what they're going to request from the white house, what the white house is going to give them, is all going to be fascinating to learn. although i don't think we'll learn it today because the insurance executives pointedly declined to talk walking into the meeting. they avoided reporters. they have indicated that they don't plan to talk when they come out of the meeting. we'll see if the substance of the exchanges makes any difference in that. but what the administration did yesterday, the executives complained, puts the blame on them for the cancellations of a lot of thooe these policies. the white house said it was okay if insurance commissioners and insurance companies extend some of these canceled policies. not only to 2014 but into 2015. of course, the many states and many companies don't want to do

that. and the white house doesn't really want them to do that because they're all trying to move to the new standards of the new law. and so the insurance industry reacted as if that was blame-shifting. to the extent it does happen, it will have financial and logis c logistical implications for the company. very difficult for them to turn around canceled policies in a short period of time, although some of the ones in question aren't going to expire at the end of the year. they'll expire a few months into 2014. but there's also the question of the rate that insurance companies get because their pricing has been fixed for 2014 around a certain set of assumption. there is some latitude and discretion for the secretary of health and human services to make some adjustments in regulations that would make up for some financial losses by the insurers. we'll see if that gets extended and accepted during this meeting. but i think as we've discussed yesterday, bill, the overriding impulse of the white house

yesterday was to provide a heat shield for democrats from the political backlash. so, i think less will change than meets the eye. and that is that this meeting may be about a fairly small number of cases in the end. >> john, thank you. we, of course, will go back to you. get the updates on this. we know you're efforting bringing us some ceos after the meeting for reactions. we'll be back to you, thanks. >> in the meantime, let's turn to the markets which are still working on record highs. interestingly we have six straight up weeks for the dow and the s&p as the price of oil sees six consecutive down weeks. correlation or not. the dow up 70 points right now at the high of the day. same thing for the nasdaq as it approaches 4,000. something we haven't seen since december of 2000. s&p in record territory, heading toward 1800. let's bring our market experts in to figure out what happened this week.

kim forrest, rich peterson, david sieberg, and our own bob pisani. david, you think this is performance chasing. i mean, weaver had -- it's been a stellar year anyway, but now six consecutive weeks with all-time highs. it shows no signs of letting up here. >> right. look, i think performance chasing is one of the aspects we see here. that will definitely continue into year end. there's no doubt about it in my mind. but, look, i think people are just feared about missing this rally or the next leg to this rally. i think you have a lot of, you know, retail money coming in now, starting to chase here a little bit. you still have some hedge funds that have underperformed. i really believe you'll continue to see an upward bias to this market. especially after we heard yellen give commentary that's essentially putting tapering on the back burner for the near term. >> and, bill, i can confirm that art cashin just came by the set and tells me that $500 million

to buy is the imbalance at this point with about an hour to go before the trading day ends. >> and it is exploration day so we'll get more volume, too. >> more volume for sure at the end of the day. it looks like we're melting up. what about this melt-up at year end. is there anything that can get in front of this train? >> it's incredible. this is a market for the centuries. s&p 500 near 1800. dow jones near 16,000. nasdaq near 4,000. these are spectacular numbers. in fact, if you look back -- look back to the numbers back to 1991, seven occasions where the s&p gained 20% or more. the subsequent year it was positive. that bodes well for 2014. the question is, is it possible in the first half with a lot of gains eroding in the second half. hard to tell. earnings look good. capital markets look good. even the fact we had weakness with retailers this week, walmart, kohl's, investors want

in this market. >> it's a seasonal time for run-ups as we look for that proverbial santa claus rally but hasn't the fed policy taken the seasonality out of this market? it's taken all kinds of traditions out of this market with the distortions it's created, don't you think? >> it has. you know, the bias is upward. so, is it really the santa claus rally or the continuing fed upward bias. who knows? at a certain level who really cares. i think what investors have to do is look at their portfolio on a stock by stom stock basis and not try to time the market. that's so dangerous. >> does that mean you're buying based on fed policy or on fundamentals? >> on fundamentals. fed policy is interesting but, you know, you have to buy stocks. not fed policy. >> so, then where do you allocate capital, then? tell us where the growth is and how you buy on fundamentals? where do you see the strong fundamentals? >> well, there's some names in

technology that continue to be unloved. that's where we're really looking for that. again, we have a much longer time period than most of wall street. we're looking three to five years out. so, i'm willing to get an unloved, underpriced stock today that has potential in the next three to five years. >> bob, what you seeing as behead into sixth consecutive up week for the stock market? >> janet yellen, the signal to janet yellen yesterday was very clear. they're going to give her not a pass but they're going to let her clearly implement and continue to implement ben bernanke's policies, at least for the early part of her tenure next year. so, there's the one obstacle people were worried about. i think your point is right. a lot of the old stuff wasn't working. sell in may and go away. that didn't work particularly great this year. >> september and october were the scariest months. were anything but this year. >> that's exactly right. that hasn't worked out particularly well. i think the important thing is, that was the last obstacle, the

yellen hearing. there have been modest inflows into mutual funds. steady for the first time in years but no titanic outfloes. my point is, there's a room for the public to come back in. they say it's exuberant but i don't see avalanches of money coming into the stock market. >> ralph told me, here's my take on this, there's going to be a huge game of catch-up. old dogs like me, texas instruments, microsoft, ge, dupont, right now these companies are underowned, underloved, underappreciated because they're not sexy like technology. he said, technically speaking, these names look fantastic over the longer run. >> i was going to say, you talk about the fed, the late great marty can't fight the fed. my colleague says, the fundamentals are driving the market. it's a combination helping the fundamentals because it's helping companies get cheap capital to do buy-backs, help earnings drive higher. >> that's true.

you're saying it's all part of the fundamentals? >> part of the picture. >> david, a trend we've seen has been this rolling correction where one sector will go higher as another falls by the wayside. we're still seeing that. where do you see the strength in the market right now? >> i mean, we're seeing it pretty much, i mean, across the board. if you look at like tech specifically, one thing i wanted to point out listening to this conversation, a little bit of headwind, when you heard cisco after they reported, you look at the market up and cisco made commentary about global demand, global and demand being weak. it's amazing to see the market actually and the strength of the market, you know, after comments like that from a global tech leader. >> it was up yesterday. nasdaq was up yesterday. >> exactly. i mean, that's my point. so, you hear commentary like that. and in the face of that commentary, this market is still going up. it's a very, very powerful sign.

>> if that would that happened six years ago, cisco down 11%, the nasdaq would have been down 3%. but because you have new techs, priceline, amazons, those other stocks in that group, groupon and linkedin, they advanced yesterday and put the nasdaq into positive territory. >> david, let me ask you where the conviction is on that trading desk. you're seeing the flows, so where is the money going? >> security software and internet names. we're seeing them across the board. again, that's the performance-chasing space. that's where people are looking for that extra dig into the end of the year. we're seeing a tremendous amount of buying in those two years. >> we'll leave it there. thanks, everybody. appreciate your time. we're at the highs of the day with 50 minutes before the closing bell sounds. a market up 7 2 points. unchartered territory yet again with dow at 15,948. insurance executives are moments away from that meeting with president obama over his obama care fix. we'll bring you all of the developments as soon as they

happen. plus, we'll look at why this move could end up resulting in higher premiums for the rest of us. todd shellen berger says forget housing recovery. homeownership is for suckers. his words, not mine. up next, he'll defend that controversial statement which was all the buzz on cnbc.com. and then the main event itself. they've been training all day, all week, maybe their whole careers. now seema mody and dominic chu are ready to rumble on what's the best investment right now, high dividend payers or high growth stocks? do not miss this epic battle coming up on the "closing bell." jackie: there are plenty of things i prefer to do on my own. but when it comes to investing, i just think it's better to work with someone. someone you feel you can really partner with. unfortunately, i've found that some brokerage firms don't always encourage that kind of relationship. that's why i stopped working at the old brokerage, and started working for charles schwab.

avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today.

homeownership for suckers. really? that's what one of our next guests claims in an article on cnbc.com. it was very popular this week, i will say. >> joining us right now, is the man who penned that piece, todd schoenberger and here to take him to task, fred. todd, what do you mean homeownership is for suckers? >> here's the thing, ma priya. what we saw actually in the first part of the summer is we had mortgage rates that were

actually creeping higher. you had a number of agents going out saying the next housing boom was actually about the start. you had a number of people went out, they bought homes, sitting on the fence. that was all fine and good. now we look at the metrics over the last couple of months. we see that now you have existing home sales that are down. pending home sales that are down. we can only foresee that means a trend leading into next year. plus, you have to look at the ancillary facts of higher property taxes, higher maintenance costs. it doesn't make a lot of sense right now to go out and purchase a home unless you really want to start losing some money. i would say stay away from it right now. >> i'm thinking, fred, you're not going to be showing this article to your customers any time soon. >> oh, you know what, i'll show it to them. i just want to know where todd is buying the stuff he's smoking. it's ridiculous. first of all, let's talk rates. >> did he say anything wrong? did anything he say just now, was any of that incorrect? >> the whole theory, yeah. let's take rates.

the fed is not going to just stop purchasing mortgage-backed securities without knowing that the private markets are going to be there to pick up what they've been buying. it's not like it's going to, blah, and everything goes to 13%. let's start with that. also the numbers you mentioned are true, but they're national numbers. i know in philadelphia, san francisco, chicago, for example, and a bunch of people i talk to at the nra conference last month, everybody is still busy. it's not insanity like it was in september. we had this tiny little run up. but we're never going to see what we saw with this gigantic raise and then crash like we did in the mid to last decade because there's no more no-doc loans, no more fraud out there. everything is 43% back understand ratio, come up with down payment, et cetera. >> todd? >> fred, let's add to that. you're right. you have the documents, you don't have the issues as far as giving away money and going in

the back of a bank trailer and signing documents. you're absolutely right. however, going forward, you have suspect banks are not going to be out and lending right now. look at recent data. one-third of home purchases are all cash buys. if you go into 2014, one thing they didn't mention in the article is what's coming out of this dodd/frank bill. have you people if they can get a mortgage, they actually have to go through counseling before they can actually take ownership of the property. how many people -- even if you get through the criteria -- can actually qualify for the mortgage are actually going to go through that counseling session? let me tell you something -- >> let mim finish. >> electricity -- >> go ahead. >> property taxes, everything's going higher. >> yep. >> the counseling thing is just a small amount of people within some loans within fha. fha has not set their limit on what their back end ratio is. we'll see people going into five-year a.r.m. to help qualify. mortgages won't be as bad as it seems.

the 43% back end ratio for qm. the private money is going to be in non-qm mortgages, nonqualified mortgages where you can go higher than 43%. yes, slightly higher interest rates but you're going to get more people into houses because of. it's all going to equate out. people buy because they have a job and they want to plant roots. let's talk the job market. if you think the job market -- >> the job market is under pressure. >> it's not -- >> it's under -- >> we're in an absolute plateau. >> no, no, fred, let's talk about those roots. you have people, they actually go out and purchase a home right now, they're stuck in the home. if you want to buy a home, plan on dying in the home. because here's the thing, you'll never sell it. if you're stuck in that house, you have to only assume you're never going to be able to get out of it. let's say you have a five-year plan. you want to leave new york and live in san francisco. chances are, you won't be able to sell the property unless it's at a fire sale. >> just curious -- >> i love the idea of

homeownership -- >> todd, do you own a home? >> todd, have you been -- >> i do. >> so you own a home. when did you buy that home? >> 2006. >> and do you have a mortgage? so, you bought at the top, is what you're telling us, 2006, which means you sold at the top. >> i would love to sell it to you. 50 cents on the dollar. >> do you feel like a sucker? >> absolutely i feel like a sucker. homeownership is for the birds right now. >> you got suckered in 2006. >> by the way, i also bought at the top. i also bought at the top. i bought at the end of 2006. but i'm not going to flip my home. if you buy a home now and you buy it because you want to be in it for the long term, what's the problem? rates are at rock bottom levels. prices, while they have gone up a bit, are not sky high. so, i mean, you know, you bought it in 2006. not with the idea to flip it. >> let me tell you something. i did, actually. >> i flipped it? >> this was in texas. i didn't want to stay in texas

for the rest of my life. you're in new york though, ma a maria. >> you bought it with the intention to flip it? >> i'd be angry, too, todd. >> enough of my personal stuff, maria. you're in new york. you're not leaving new york. that's a small percentage of homeowners right now. going fwrd, if you go out and buy a home, have you to anticipate you're not going to be able to sell it fast. you also have to look at ancillary costs with higher property taxes, higher maintenance costs. do you want to burden yourself? probably not. >> fred, you have the last word. fred, you have the last word. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> yeah. >> poppycock is the last word. let's go from there. >> thank you, guys. >> thank you, gentlemen. good conversation. >> that was fun. >> yeah. >> you bought at the top, did you? >> i did. but i love my house.

>> you'll be there for a while. >> i'm good with that. >> exactly. 40 minutes left in the trading session. we have a rally going again today. another up week. six in a row now for the dow. >> and a record setter for sure, george soros and dan loeb, two of the smart money in the investing world, are betting fedex. we'll tell you about it next. mother black eye for the nfl. did you see that last night? a colts player head-butting a helmetless player in last night's game. throw that on top of the bullying scandal in miami, concussion, top sportscasters saying they wouldn't let their own sons play football. is this multimillion dollar league in the midst of a crisis it needs to get ahold of? (vo) you are a business pro.

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have invested in economically sensitive fedex. loeb adding 2 million shares and soros adding $1.52 million shares. >> joining us is larry mcdonald and carol roth to talk about it. >> good to see you. >> thanks for joining us. you came back from the big hedge fund conference. i want to ask you about that. i know you have good observations about that. first, what do you think this bet is on, george soros and dan loeb buying into fed ex. >> keep in mind when you see s.e.c. filings on ownership positions, these are probably bets that were made, purchases that were made during the depths of the debt ceiling selloff, right? if you look at fedex, it's up 25%, 25% from the debt ceiling selloff. exxonmobil up 20% from the debt ceiling selloff. you have to be careful. >> in terms of putting money into it now. >> presumably, carol, this would

be something of a bet on the global economy, knowing how sensitive a company like fedex is to the strength of the global economy. do you see it that way? >> you know, bill, can you call me cynical or you can call me a nicer name, but i don't think this has anything to do with the global economy. i think this is all about activism. and when i look at the names that have gotten into fedex, the two you mentioned and some other ones, it seems like the hedge fund ball, everybody is at the table here, and i think that there were some rumors going around earlier in the summer that ackman was going to invest. there was a pop in the stock. all these other hedge funds said, hey, looks like there's some sensitivity here, so they all jumped in. they're trying to play the activist story here. now, the strange thing is that there's really not a lot for an activist to do. fedex is already doing share e liebacks. they're already changing their operations. the only potential thing you could do here is remove the ceo. i'll tell ul what, mr. smith is

a former marine and not going down easy. >> he's a tough cookie. >> the stock is up 6% in 12 months, up 30% in the last three months. what are we getting active about? do you agree this is about an activist situation? >> well, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. i gave keynote speech at walkers global conference and i sat down with a senior veteran there that's been in the business for a long time. says it's the greatest pressure he's seen on style drift. in other words, people are just piling into trades, trying to get a little of alpha because they're behind. some hedge funds are missing the boat by 10%. >> these are the hedge funds that were obviously supposed to be head and now going long. >> exactly. they're style drifting, essentially getting -- they say you're market neutral. getting more long instead of sticking with your foundations. >> or growth fund you can view one company as a value, or a typical value stock as a growth stock if it's doing things like

fedex is doing. by the way, let me point out. we highlighted last night berkshire hathaway and 13-f filings had taken a big position in exxonmobil. that was yesterday. just today the fda -- or the epa pulls back on ethanol mandates. what does exxon do? it popped. it's up 2% today. warren buffett has done it again. >> yeah. >> good for him. >> by the way, like you said, in is probably done during the debt ceiling. already wea've seen a big move n some of those stocks since then. i think what you said is really interesting. i'd like to get your thought on that, carol. the fact that larry is just back from keynoting this hedge fund conference and he's hearing hedge funds are going all in right now, particularly those playing catch-up, are we going to see this kind of catch-up and melt-up till year end and into 2014? does that get you concerned in any way that hedge funds, some of these guys, are actually alienating their usual way of investing and going all in because they miss so much of it? >> right.

well, i think hedge funds haven't been hedge funds and not been hedging for a long time, maria. it is, to me, sort of a neon sign. while i do think the market will continue to go up, particularly with what we're hearing out of the fed for a little bit here, i think a lot of these hedge funds are looking to public up the prices and they're going to bail up. i think you'll end up seeing, whether it's in first quarter next year or maybe second quarter next year, some of these names that got run up, perhaps coming back down when everybody comes out of it. i think it really is a time to take a pause. when you see the hedge funds getting in, unless you're making a quick trade f you're a long-term investor, really thinking about it. >> if you thought the fed was getting ready to taper, what would you be buying right now? >> that's the thing, bill. this is why this is such an interesting segment. if the fed truly is somethigoin taper early, the safest thing is to be in is cash. i think the market will lose 10% or 15% on taper.

>> you don't think anything would be immune to a downturn if they start tapering? >> you talked about exxonmobil and warren buffett, make the argument that's a defensive trade. you look at a company like exxon which hasn't done well in the bull market historically, it has done well in down markets and has a good rating. perhaps warren buffett is being defensive and he has his eye on the long term there, too. you could make the argument that's potentially a defensive trade for him. >> well, i'd just say, bill, may 22nd to june 24th the s&p lost 7.5% in a very short period of time. that was the selloff. >> the bernanke -- >> yeah. and bounced, buy on the dip, pretty much very soon after. thanks very much. >> when we told the world they were not going to taper, right, maria? >> you're right, bill. we knew it. thanks. heading to the close, 30 minutes left. we continue incrementally to go higher here. the dow, let's face it, another couple days we could be at 16,000. >> amazing.

>> at 1800 on the s&p. new high territory. >> rocking and rolling today. meanwhile, a new study finds 25% of shoppers plan to do some shopping on thanksgiving day. 25%. is it now inevitable all retailers will start opening on turkey day? we'll hear from the ceo of the national retail federation who conducted that study. ♪ [ male announcer ] how could a luminous protein in jellyfish, impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 70% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing.

well, the dow and s&p 500 on track to close at record highs again. nasdaq, though,ing still way off its record highs but creeping closer to the 4,000 level, which we have not seen since september of 2000. >> a fresh 13-year high at tech-heavy index. we're just about 15 points away from nasdaq 4000. a lot of traders are watching this level. they tell me, look, key psychological, also a technical level to watch if we can break through it and actually hold above it. we could see another leg up for the nasdaq. looking at today's auction, we saw a lot of strength in biotech names, vertex, biogechlt n. semiconductors providing a source of strength. stocks above this key 500 level.

the entire index up about 1.5% this week. got to talk about the momentum names, the high beta tech names. mixed picture here. names like netflix and baidu are higher but regeneron is down, as well as tesla. ipos, another strength for this market, active ipo window. we had a big ipo at nasdaq, zulily, daily deal site. look at that first day pop, up over 70%. in the meantime, we're about nasdaq, about 15 points away. nfl, more than $9 billion industry, but even well oiled machine can get damaged. players being arrested has been a problem for years. now it seems quaint compared to recent events. >> miami, the charges of locker

room bullying that's captured the nation's attention. one player being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, lifetime injuries, many involving concussions. recently president obama and our colleague at nbc sports, bob costas both said if they had a young son now, they would steer them away from playing football. >> yeah. and then last night an ugly incident in the nfl's national thursday night game, after ripping the helmet off an opponent, an indianapolis colt head-butts the helmetless player. unbelievable. add it all up and you have a league that has high-end sponsors with a growing image problem. joining us to talk more about it is vi, former nfl player and now sports director and patrick, sports contributor for forbes. thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> how badly has the nfl's image been hurt over these recent

controversies? >> maria, from the moment one arrives in the national football league, they tell you, you've got to protect god, country and the shield. the shield, all of us who played in the nfl often refer to the nfl in admiration, sometimes cynically the shield because that's the logo of the nfl. they don't want to do anything that would besmirch the image of the league. i'm telling you, they're in damage control. how to get away from the bad publicity with the concussions, hazings, all that stuff, it's damaging the league. >> let me play devil's advocate to some degree here. what are we talking about here? football is a violent sport. it always has been. you firsthand know that. player hazing. we know players get injured, trash talk, players will do things in the heat of the moment that are now suddenly no longer legal according to the rules. are we overreacting to things that happen in and around 13

this sport these days? >> bill, this has always been a part of the nfl. it's always been from its inception. it will continue to do so because it's a violent game but we're learning and figuring out the inside things happening in the nfl, the hazings sometimes gets too far. players just don't have a sense of propriety anymore about how far they take things. we're going to learn more and more because it is the most powerful sports league in the world. it's the 800-pound gorilla in the world and we'll find out more about the nfl than we want to know. >> what should they do to fix the recent headaches? >> well, you know, if i figured that out, maria, i'd be working in new york for the nfl offices. a part of what they have to do is damage control and figure out -- they have to come out, up front, and their pr agencies and all the people that perform public relations will step out front, as they always have.

>> we'll be heading to a videotape from the white house as the president was going into this meeting with those insurance executives in a moment. we'll have to interrupt you in a moment. patrick, what is your view? how does the nfl solve this obvious pr problem they have, you think? >> they certainly have stride to do their part by settling the concussion lawsuit. you know, their secret weapon is the fact they have scarcity, fantasy sports and gambling. consumer is so crazy about the sport that you have 30 million people playing fantasy sports, $5 billion spent on fantasy sports. $95 million spent on super bowl gambling -- >> we have to go. let's see what the president said before the meeting. >> welcome the executive who is are here from a lot of the insurance companies that participate in the marketplace. we all share a similar value, which is we want to make sure that americans have good, solid coverage that gives them the

security they need, themselves and their family members, if and when they get sick. we know the demand is out there for that. we had, despite all the problems with the website, over 1 million people apply. many multiples of that wanted to see what options were available. obviously because of the problems with the website, but some folks have been blocked from seeing the well priced, you know, benefits that are available in the marketplace. so, we're working 24/7 to get it fixed. the website's working a lot better now than it was a couple of weeks ago. what we'll be doing is brain storming on how do we make sure that everybody understands what their options are, because of choice, of competition, a whole lot of americans who always think insurance is out of reach are going to be in a position to purchase it. and because of the law, we'll

also be able to provide that help even if they are still having trouble purchasing that insurance. but they have to know what the options are in order to be successful. i appreciate all these folks coming in. we're going to be soliciting ideas from them. there's going to be a process. we want to make sure we get this done so in years to come, every american is going to have affordable health care that necessity all deserve. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, everybody. >> well, now we're with john harwood outside the white house. john, what do you make of that? >> reporter: well, the president was making clear there that the agenda for this meeting isn't just about the so-called fix that he announced yesterday, about extending people who had the old policies that don't meet the standards of the law. this is also about trying to enlist the insurance condition companies to help the administration get past these problems with the exchange websites. the white house has been -- had

a lot of difficulty, obviously, in making the website work properly so people can find out what their options are and buy insurance. but the insurance companies can also help them with that. they've been reaching out to the insurance companies to assist in trying to get to those customers, make sure that people don't fall through the cracks. so, you know, we've all been focused on the fix and the extension of old policies. but there's a lot about the implementation of the new parts of obama care that the insurance companies could help the white house with and they're trying to get that help. >> you wonder how candid those ceos can or will be in a meeting like that, especially when we know that they are not happy at all about the fix that the president announced rather hastily yesterday. >> well, exactly. some of the ones who were saying yesterday, this is a joke, i'm wondering if they're going to repeat that when they get in the oval office with the president. well, everybody knows when you get in the oval office with the president, people tend to be

inhibited from speaking their mind. on the other hand, this is a crunch time moment. not just for the administration but for these companies, so i would expect that we would get, let's say, more than the usual amount of candor from these executives because of the pressures that all of them are under. >> yeah, it's funny. it's like everything is a pr moment, you know? i really would have liked to have heard from the insurance ceos, to be honest, just then. >> well, we -- >> reporter: we've been trying. they don't seem to want to talk to us. >> we'll see how the meeting goes. maybe when they come out they'll join us to give us a sense. that's really -- the rubber meets the road with them and they are actually seeing how this is playing out on a real-time basis. thank you, john. john harwood. in the final stretch before the closing bell sounds. unchartered territory, all-time high is what we're looking at if we close right here, up 72 points on the dow industrial. >> the third friday of the month, expiration month so we might get volatility and extra volume on the close there. up next, the rematch we've

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welcome back. stocks keep charging into record territory. dow and s&p 500 set to close at all-time highs today with dow up 69 points here. nasdaq quickly approaching 4,000. what will drive this next leg of the rally? >> let's find out. we have our dynamic duo once again in opposite corners of the financial ring. it's marvelous seema mody who says it's about high dividend stocks but dynamite dominic chu says it's higher growth stocks. >> i'm going to start with why investors are focusing on high-yielding growth stocks. let's talk about yesterday. yellen's testimony confirming low rates are here to stay. historically speaking in a low-rate environment, high dividend yielding stocks outperform as investors are on the hunt for yield. here's a second reason. the economy.

still in recovery mode. labor participation rate at a multiyear low. consumer sentiment number for september disappointing the street. experts say investors will stick to defensive, slow-growing, also high-yielding sectors like consumer staples into the year end. >> i don't know, seema. i think you're being way too pessimistic about the way the economy is going right now. these are tough numbers but the economy is still growing and things are slowly getting better. that's why edward, who manages chase growth and mid cap growth funds says there's a number of reasons grooet stowth stocks co doing better. check out relative performance going back to the 2009 lows of the russell 1000 large cap growth versus large value. 20 3% for value versus 196% for growth. growth needs to play catch-up and can if it reverts back to the mean. that's why you could see growth stocks doing better. >> i hear you.

i'm going to push back on your valuation case because there are several stocks in health care and consumer staple space trading ate discount to their peers. pfizer, walmart, altria. they have a dividend yield above 2% and trading at price to earnings discount relative to their peers. if you're going to tell me investors will look for stocks that have a dividend yield above the ten-year note, two-year at 2.7%, got that list as well. let's switch to the next graphic. at&t, entergy, pg&e, above 3%. at&t, dividend yield of 5%. very attractive in this low-rate environment. >> here's the thing. the fed may keep rates low but that doesn't mean they may not taper any time soon. the last time they talked about taper was back in may. look what happened to interest rates. they'll still relatively low but shot up higher because of the talk of higher interest rates. look what happened to utility

stocks back then. when interest rates go higher, all these high-yielding type stocks, utilitiesings telecom, consumer staples, they all take hits. if you expect interest rates to even have a little volatility, the stocks that are at least the most vulnerable to that, that's what lamar vilry says, he says watch out because interest-rate sensitive sectors like telecoms and utilities git hit hard if interest rates hint at rising. >> that's not what we heard yesterday from yellen. >> we heard a lot from yellen. interest rates stay low, and they have. what if taper comes along, utilities will hit really hard. >> that speculation will always be there. that's true. >> great analysis on both counts. >> good job. >> you have to say when? when will rates move? you made a great point, democrat

. >> that makes my case even better. >> but doesn't matter. >> thank you, guys. >> thank you. >> heading toward the close. ten minutes left in the trading session with the dow up 73 points. s&p also higher in record territory. >> up next, morgan stanley's david darst has three things investors need to keep an eye on to know if this market can finance charging into record territory. geoff: i'm the kind of guy who doesn't like being sold to. the last thing i want is to feel like someone is giving me a sales pitch, especially when it comes to my investments.

you want a broker you can trust. a lot of guys at the other firms seemed more focused on selling than their clients. that's why i stopped working at my old brokerage and became a financial consultant with charles schwab. avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today.

welcome back. we're inside the 7 minute mark before the record closes for the week. in record territory again. we are likely ending at an all-time high. joining us to talk more about it is david darst from morgan stanley woelt management. good to see you. would you put your money to work in this market right now? >> gingerly. you want to be selective. the market run up is 25%. banks are up 35%. transportation up 32%. small cap up 32%. japanese market up 40%. last week we added 2% to europe. 3% to u.s. large cap growth stocks. and 1% more to japan, maria. so, we would be very judicious, cautious, in adding here and selective, yes. >> david, i'm being half

facetious about this question, but is there a reason to analyze this market beyond thinking about fed policy? i mean, once you know that the fed is not likely to taper any time soon, is there anything else that matters when it comes to buying this stock market? >> bill, i think the consumer is really the key here. next week, as you know, we get on wednesday the retail sales numbers. they're supposed to be down 0.1%. they've had a very hard time since july. up 0.6%. august, up 0.4%. septemb >> but cisco was horrible, down tremendously one day this week and the rest of the market didn't care because we were all talking about janet yellen that day. >> you said retail is critical here. a handful of retailers have been catching a big bid. look at macy's. look at jcpenney. you had real surprises in the upside. >> in stark contrast to the

second quarter, all these ceos were cautious, tentative, conservative. they've come -- their commentary has been very sanguine, optimistic. >> cisco, what did that tell you? >> that's the hardship in the telecom sector. you want to be extremely selective in the tech sector. we like apple. it's climbed back 30% to be even for the year. the oil drillers have been phenomenal, which we've liked all year. baker,halliburton, add to those. >> thank you. have a good weekend. >> i'm on "nicely business report" on pbs. >> 6:30. >> in new york, right, exactly. coming back with closing countdown. >> we already knew about the nsa spying scandal. now we're learning the cia may be collecting your financial data. general stanley mcchrystal, former commander of the u.s. forces in afghanistan, we'll get his reaction to that.

also leadership, are we seeing enough of that in washington? join us for general mcchrystal on "closing bell." monday, don't miss my interview with prince alwaleed binn talal. ♪

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yet another late buying rally heading into the close here. look at the dow, up 84 points. record territory there. same thing for the s&p as both approach new century marks. we have the nasdaq heading toward 4,000. stick around for the second hour of the "closing bell" with maria bartiromo. have a great weekend. i'll see you monday. and it is 4:00 on wall street. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody, welcome back to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the new york stock exchange. there is no stopping this rally. the dow and s&p 500 closing out the week at another all-time high tonight. money moving into equities in a big way. take a look at how we're settling out on this friday night on wall street. dow jones finishing at high of the day with a gain of 86 points. technology, financials across the board, economically sensitive names leading the charge today. nasdaq up 13 points, at about a