start us off. >> sticking with micron. >> doc? >> pipelines have been hot. williams, wmb. >> pete? >> like facebook off twitter tonight. >> have a great day. see you tomorrow. "power lunch" starts now. "halftime" is over. "power lunch" and the second half of the trading day starts right now. >> the first thing you need to know this hour is that the nasdaq has been jumping wildly again today, off the lows right now. we were down 50 points on the open this morning. now we have a decline of about 15 points. just before the recent drop we had a market watcher who on "power lunch" said watch out, the dip is coming fast and he was right. it's an old friend of mine, as a matter of fact. not that you asked. he's back with us today. we'll see what he says about the markets right now. and atlanta, pay attention. we had snow and ice overnight here in the northeast. it's making its way up the coast into new england. the roads are a mess. but life goes on.

but this rough weather is starting to have an impact on the great american economy and steve liesman has some really great and interesting stats and facts for us. we are talking about the impact, everything from jobs to stocks as a result of the weather. i'm bill griffith in for tyler. great to be back on "power lunch." sue is ready to go with several big market stories. >> it's great to have you with me today. you mentioned the big nasdaq spike. the big caps and small caps are also making some very big moves today. you see the drop and the pop for the s&p midcap index. a similar pattern for the small caps. you'll see that in the russell. you can see it right there, as a matter of fact. down .75%. year-to-date the russell is down 6%. the midcaps down 5%. perhaps we shouldn't be surprised given the gains we saw last year. seema mody is live in times square to put some perspective on all of that today. >> good afternoon. the nasdaq on track for its worst week since june of 2012, that adp report certainly not giving investors a reason to get

back in this market. in fact, one trader telling me he doesn't want to step back in until he knows where the bottom will be. with that said, technology stocks have had a terrible day today. some of the stocks that have a significant weighting on the nasdaq are lower, including google and amazon. apple shares outperforming, getting specific, 3d printing stocks getting hit on the chin after 3d printing systems lowered its earnings outlook due to slowing demand. that's moving some of the other 3d printing stocks lower today as well. lastly, big moves and here's the reason. macao's gross gaining revenue, up 7% in january, its lowest growth rate since october 2012. you can see the screen red across the screen. back to you. >> thank you, seema. the etf that follows the dow is now down almost 7% year-to-date. the etf that tracks the s&p 500 down 5% this year. the qs track the nasdaq and are down 3.5%. how do you win when the markets

lose? bob pisani and dominic chu are working that for us. dom, i will start with you. you really looked into this whole theory of how you can profit from the market going to the down side. >> either profit from it or hedge some of your exposure if you're long stocks because if those stocks are going down, you want an investment that goes up to counteract that loss. take a look at the volatility index, the vix, the fear index. this uses options prices. we won't get more complicated than that. it uses options prices to gauge what the volatility picture's like for stocks. you can see it's been up and down all over the place and it has spiked up just recently over the past few weeks. if you take a look at a more near term picture, see that, over the past three months it's up 47%. that's a massive move for one particular index, if you will. there's an etf that tracks it, vxx is the ticker. it's an chanexchange traded not. take a look at the spike up this way. that's a big one. there are etfs that track each of the indices.

take a look at this one. this tracks the s&p 500 inversely. it goes up when the s&p goes down. that's the sh. same thing happens for the doj which goes the opposite way of the dow. it's a dog, if you will. then the qqq that you said, psq is the opposite. it goes up when the nasdaq goes down. >> mind your ps and qs when you get into this, because it is difficult. you may think you're buying one and you are actually not. bob pisani knows a lot about that. he just returned from the big etf conference in florida. he's our man on that particular subject. what did the guys in florida tell you about the short etfs? >> i love these products, providing you are a professional investor and know what you're doing. these products are not suitable for long term buy and hold people. let me explain why. look at the vxx. what you have here is a basket that owns short term vix futures in the near term like february-march, for example. the problem is that you have to keep rolling over into the next month as they expire. by definition you are selling

low and buying high, a higher contract, and that's why you get a disconnect. it doesn't match the vix. it's fine short term if you understand how to use it as a professional. let me move to the short inverse, the sh. here, the problem is it resets every day so for example, after a month, if the s&p is down 2%, you think the sh will be up 2%? maybe, but maybe not, because it's what's important is how it gets there. if you're up 1% then down 2% the next day, because it resets every day, you may not get the exact same price. i will give you an example. right now the s&p is down 1.75% for the month and the sh is up 1.69%. that's close but not quite, and as it gets further out, it can gyrate more depending how the values go. >> you're agreeing. >> absolutely. >> i like these products. people don't understand what they are and they get into trouble. that's the trouble i have. that's why i don't go on the air talking about them a lot. but for professionals, i like them. >> you have to use them tactically, you have to get in and out of them, use them for

short term investment hedging instruments. that's why they're used by a lot of professionals like bob said. >> thanks, guys. appreciate it very much. let's talk more about this market, because edward and craig are investment strategists. last time when you were on "power lunch" about three weeks ago, called it. you said watch out for a dip and this was your explanation. >> my concern was that many were underestimating the volatility that will come from transitioning simultaneously to new fed policy and new fed leadership at the same time. i still have that concern. >> you called it and you got it right. how do you feel about the market now? because we have seen quite a retracement. >> i never thought there could be a smooth fed exit in this emerging market turmoil is the latest evidence of that. i don't think the selloff is over. we probably have to test below 1700 on the s&p 500 to get any buying back with any real volume. >> do you agree, edward? >> actually, i respect craig but

i think that we are kind of getting close to this correction. the reason i say that is because if you take a look at history, you typically don't go from a bear market, a bull market, i should say, an extended one, into a full-fledged bear market in the span of one month. you typically see a topping process either in the form of a narrowing participation or we haven't seen those bread crumbs of late. as you get closer to 1700 on the s&p, it becomes a fairly good level to be more aggressive with equities. >> what would you be -- where would you be allocating cash right now? i ask that because it seems as though the bond market is also trying to tell us something, breaking the 2.6% level on the ten-year, then we moved back up. the trade for 2014 was supposed to be higher interest rates. it's not. we are getting lower interest rates. >> so the good news is i don't think the economy's falling out of bed here. i know bad news is bad again and

we have had some big misses but i watch credit spreads, they're not signaling a huge distress. i thought the q-4 gdp was a pretty good number. i would be looking to allocate on weakness, be very patient here to the cyclicals, industrials, things that get exposure to a replacement cycle. i would use this to reduce exposure to treasuries because i think 2.40, 2.50 on a ten year is probably the floor. i would look for income substitutes. >> where would you put money to work, ed? >> well, particularly in those sectors that are outperforming. take a look at this year, health care continues to be a large overweight for us. we are also finding new opportunities in technology with wireless semiconductor names like skyworks, for example. also, we're taking a look at names that already reported, classic companies where you are seeing not only earnings upside but revenue upside and fairly good constructive guidance for 2014. as the market pulls back and the multiples on those names

contract, we think those will be good opportunities for us. yeah, health care, technology as well as some of the industrial names like union pacific. >> thank you both. bill says hey. >> great to see you both. dominic chu is back with a market flash. >> let's take a look at deckers moving higher, near session highs. the company had a $98 price target for the stock. it's the maker of ugg boots and a lot of the other footwear products. it is currently moving higher on the day. the stock is down about 7% year-to-date. back to you. >> thank you very much. if you live in the northeast, the new york city area, tristates, more specifically in my neighborhood in new jersey, i can sympathize. we had a rough mean nasty morning. the snow started after midnight, the ice a short time after that. new york city schools are open, tough group that they are. you got major public transit running but slowly today. we are hearing about another storm this weekend. let's hear about that now with the weather channel.

>> as you move through the afternoon hours, it looks like the wintry weather will wind down across parts of central and southern new jersey and parts of southern pennsylvania but not so across northern new england. significant snow will be likely ongoing there. all through the afternoon and evening hours. the storm really doesn't go out to sea until overnight tonight, then we can put this winter storm to bed by tomorrow morning. additionally, this is how much snow we expect, at least eight to 12 inches in parts of southern new england. certainly ski resorts will be happy with that. no additional snow accumulations across south jersey and southern pennsylvania or southern connecticut for that matter. let's turn ahead to this weekend, where everybody wants to know where there be a big snowstorm along the coast. right now, it does not look like it. that's not to say it's not going to happen. some of the guidance we were looking at earlier did suggest there might be a coastal storm. this one looks like there are two pieces of energy that are coming together at different times and they do not combine forces in a way that will produce a big storm along the east coast. doesn't mean there won't be snow but it just might not be the big storm that some may have been

anticipating early, but stay tuned for further details. you know things change. back to you. >> darn. i wanted a nor'easter. didn't you? i wanted a lot more snow coming this way. >> i'm done. i am so done. >> we are all so done. this is steve liesman, obviously. we want to look at the impact, you can imagine all this snow is going to have an impact on the economy but you will show us specifically how. >> here's the deal. it happens every winter. it gets cold and snowy. no surprise. it would appear to make little sense to blame bad economic numbers, numbers that are seasonally adjusted, on the cold and snow except it does appear this winter has been substantially colder and snowier than previous ones. in fact, this is business weather expert paul walsh. he told me several areas are breaking snow records this year. >> this year, snow has been particularly impactful because we had so much snow. in areas like chicago and new york and philadelphia, we are

approaching record levels. what that means is that municipalities have to spend money to clean up the snow and a lot of these municipalities are starting to get close to actually running out of money. >> you know it's a bad year when they're running out of sand and running out of the salt. now layer on top of the snow the cold. here's where we have looked at, they put together a graphic for me over at the weather channel, thank you very much, of temperatures compared to average. you can see a vast swath of this country pretty much half of it, where a whole lot of people live, much colder to colder than normal, even all the way down to florida. especially down here, where you get cold in the south, where they build homes in the wintertime. then the numbers aren't really seasonally adjusting for that. along with retail, a lot of the industries affected during the same. interest sensitive sectors, the fed cares about auto and housing, people don't go out and shop for cars and homes in subzero temperatures. that's not to mention tens of thousands of canceled flights. it all adds up.

fed interested in figuring out if the data is a weather effect or sign of broader economic weakness. here's the problem. it may not be able to know it, what the right trend is, for awhile. when weather depresses the economy you usually get a bounce-back. walsh is bullish on the spring. spring could be stronger and neither the strength of that nor the winter weakness will tell the fed the real underlying trend. of course, this is a bucket list of mine standing in front of a weather map. always wanted to be -- by the way, some economists already taking down their first quarter forecasts by half a point, in some cases more than that. here's some of the figures. chicago, 58 inches so far which is just average from here, it will be the fourth snowiest on record. new york, 40 inches as of today. headed for a top ten year if they just do average from here. cleveland, 53 inches. average 36. you're plus 20, a couple feet almost right there. detroit, 39 inches in january, a new record. >> know what you should buy? obviously natural gas and propane. how about salt?

did you see -- >> did you see that? >> a barge just arrived in milwaukee with 50,000 tons of salt to distribute throughout wisconsin. >> you're making my point because the economics of it are that salt is seasonally adjusted. they are ordering what they believe to be the average amount of salt. if the price spikes, that's a market signal already that you're well above average. same with propane and some of these other heating related products and commodities. >> that's the way we roll around here trying to figure out the impact on the economy. i like when you point to that map. like over there. >> front coming through. that's a bucket list thing of mine. >> see you a little later. we'll talk jobs in a little bit. sue? >> blame that groundhog. it's all his fault. girl power and silicon valley. a new all female fund is starting. we have the ladies behind it coming up next. if you drink coffee, hang on to your wallets. we'll tell you why in two minutes. mine was earned in korea in 1953.

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welcome back to "power lunch." continuing a strong run, the stock up 30% based on news that an experimental drug to treat irritable bowel syndrome succeeded in a couple large scale trials. it's up another 9% on top of yesterday's gains. so a huge move there. i just want to point out that we have now clawed back to even on the s&p 500 so the mini rally

intraday in stocks is continuing at least for now. back to you. >> rough morning, dominic chu but things are looking up as we head into the afternoon session. another commodity going up. coffee prices are spiking as brazil, the world's largest producer of coffee beans, they are dealing with severe drought conditions. check out this chart for the year so far. beans are up 20%. big turnaround for that commodity. it had been declining for the past three years, down about 40% in that time. two of silicon valley's most prominent female venture capitalists are starting their own first. theresa gow from excel and jennifer fonstat will focus on early stage mobile startups. together, they have helped create $10 billion in public market value and have over a dozen ipos under their belt. in their very first broadcast interview, it's right here on "power lunch." welcome, ladies. congratulations on your new

venture. >> thanks, sue. >> thank you very much. >> you must be very excited. you two have known each other from when you first both started or were at bane capital, is that correct? >> it's true, jennifer and i have known each other professionally, personally for over 25 years from our very first job on the same project team. >> jennifer, why now? what about the environment now in silicon valley and/or in the market made this feel like the right time for you two to strike out on your own? >> well, theresa and i have known each other for a long time. we felt we had a shared vision in what we wanted to do, what we wanted to accomplish. we both really wanted to get back to our roots and invest in startups at the early stage, rolling up our sleeves, we have been working with companies for over two decades each and we really wanted to work with companies for the full arc of their growth from seed all the way through to long-term sustainable businesses. >> theresa, the market has been extremely volatile right now. does that make a difference in

your ability to grow these companies and eventually take it public, or does perhaps the volatility work in your favor? >> well, you know, jen and i have both lived through two major boom and bust cycles from internet 1.0 to now, sort of the age of mobility, and i think that this particular volatility in capital markets, we have not yet seen slow-down in technology innovation or in the growth of the early stage companies. i actually think it's a really great time for us to be investing at the ground floor of these startups. >> jennifer, talk about the atmosphere towards women in silicon valley. there are very few people, females, in venture capital. why is that? because women tend to be terrific investors and terrific ceos and their returns many times outpace their male counterparts. >> well, we do think that being women does offer different perspective at the boardroom and in the management teams of our companies. we are excited to bring our fresh perspective to those companies. we have seen and there's a lot

of data that's shown that women around the board table and diversity around the board table improve the bottom line and has real impact on outcomes. in the case of startups where you increase the chances of success, very important. >> is this going to be a firm only of women? or are you going to be kind of gender blind in your hiring and investing? theresa? >> we are going to be gender blind in terms of our hiring and our investing, both jennifer and i have been very successful in investing in early stage companies in a variety of sectors from security in companies like health care i.t. like avena health for jennifer, which happens to be funded by men. we are following opportunities for long term investment. but clearly, we do think and hope that by being two prominent co-founders, entrepreneurs in our own right in the tech venture space that we might be, you know, a role model for women

coming up in the entrepreneurial space and in the venture capital space moving forward. >> very quickly, twitter reports its earnings after the bell today and i know your focus and theresa's focus is going to be on mobility and twitter certainly seems to be really the standout in the mobile space right now. >> yes. we're very excited about mobile. we think that it's a 10x opportunity to what the early days of the internet offered. we see twitter as the tip of the iceberg in terms of the type of opportunities we see and the companies we look forward to funding. >> ladies, best of luck. please keep us posted on how things go. come back and spend more time with us. thanks for joining us on "power lunch." >> thanks, sue. bill? >> we will take a break. you probably heard cvs kicking the habit saying it will no longer sell cigarettes at any of its stores. but it may be a good moral move but is it the best interest of shareholders? we'll look at that coming up. plus -- coming up, power pitch. this company is buying up some

of the most precious land in the world, the rain forest. and then giving it away for free. will the business plan win over the panel? >> we need to find out whether we are in or out on cuipo. >> stay tuned to find out. customizable charts, powerful screening tools, and guaranteed one-second trades. and at the center of it all is a surprisingly low price -- just $7.95. in fact, fidelity gives you lower trade commissions than schwab, td ameritrade, and e-trade. i'm monica santiago of fidelity investments, and low fees and commissions are another reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. call or click to open your fidelity account today.

could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. mmmhmmm...everybody knows that. well, did you know that old macdonald was a really bad speller? your word is...cow. cow. cow. c...o...w... ...e...i...e...i...o. [buzzer] dangnabbit. geico. fifteen minutes could save you...well, you know. it's power pitch time. entrepreneurs get 60 seconds to make their pitch and our panel of experts decides if they have what it takes to become the next big thing.

>> on today's power pitch we have a startup that buys up some of the most valuable land on earth only to turn around and literally give it away for free. the company behind this very unusual business plan is called cuipo. let's take a look at his power pitch. >> hi. i'm tom murray. one square meter of the rain forest equals one monkey, ten plants, hundreds of insects. every second, 4,000 square meters or the size of a football field is destroyed. what if there was a way you could prevent this? here's what we thought. why not buy thousands of acres of rain forest and give you, the individual, the opportunity to save one square meter by buying things like a shirt, watch or over 300 of the products we currently have in the marketplace. cuipo has a very unique system for when you buy a product, it has a hang tag with the unique code that allows you to redeem your meter and see exactly where it is on the google earth map. we collect data on consumers by buying cuipo products to enable us to really understand consumer

demographics and for future marketing initiatives. our team consists of the founder of paul frank industries, real estate experts and creative designers. cuipo is ultimately a global lifestyle brand that saves the rain forest looking for investors, retailers and you. >> you can see tom there on the right side of your screen. he can hear us but he can't react just yet. on our panel today, we have a senior fellow with the case foundation, founded by aol co-founder steve case and his wife jean. the foundation focuses on people and ideas that really change the world. we also have super broker donny lens. he actually sells some of the most valuable real estate on earth to the tune of $8.5 billion along with deepak chopra, he is on the board of a company building a new wave of sustainable real estate that focuses on the environment and healthy living. let's huddle up. what were your first thoughts on this company? >> i love the idea. i think it's really a genius

idea because it helps monetize the rain forest and there's really very few ways to do that without actually tearing everything down. you get to keep it and you get to sell it. what better idea than that? >> it's a win/win. what about you? >> i had a couple concerns, particularly around the area of the consumer market's a really hard market to break into and how sustainable that market is and how large that market is. >> let's bring tom in. he will sit in the hot seat. we will ask him questions. >> who are your competitors and secondly, how do you intend to build your brand? >> actually, we don't see any real competitors in the marketplace. our idea is so unique that we were able to actually get a patent on our business process. we partnered with my friend john oswald who founded a company called paul frank who was very successful in the licensing world and going out to the consumer marketplace. >> if we had a company like a tobacco company that said i would like to do something good and show that i'm offsetting the bad with good --

>> there are certain categories that we don't believe are in the best interest of the global cause so that would probably be a difficult sell. >> how many sales have you had so far? >> by the end of the first quarter of 2014 there should be about 500 or 600 products in the marketplace. the company is looking at growth and being about $4 million in 2014. >> how much would your revenue be each month? >> we are looking at a significant growth rate of 40% month on month over the next year. >> you have teeshirts and socks and bottles and stuff. are they made of sustainable materials also? >> wherever possible, we use organic cotton, we use water-based inks. the watches which are amazing are actually biodegradable and compostable. >> the name is difficult. it's difficult to remember it's cuipo. have you ever thought about another name? >> we believe that by using a name like the rain forest tree cuipo it makes it much more appealing globally. >> we need to find out whether we are in or out on cuipo.

what do you think? >> i just think the consumer marketplace is a really hard place to be. how do you separate yourself from all the other products out there that are consumer products. i think this is going to be a tough marketplace. for that, i'm out. >> what about you, dolly? >> i would give a meter to every buyer of an apartment just to get them into the habit of doing that themselves and to expose them to it. that's a way to not necessarily reach the ultimate consumer but to reach me and i reach the ultimate consumer. so there are conduits and ways to do that. for that reason, i'm in. >> people are approaching them. they want to be partners and also at least at this stage, i'm sure there will be competition in the future. at least at this stage, they feel they are not competing with anyone head-to-head. i'm going to say i'm in on this as well. we've got two ins, one out. tom, what's your reaction? >> every time we save one matter of rain forest we are making an incremental impact.

we just wanted to think outside of the box on this and do it in a different way. i think that if other people compete with us and copy us, it's only going to benefit the world in a better way. >> that's a good way of looking at it. thank you very much for joining us. tom murray, good luck. big thank you to our panelists. that is today's "power pitch." >> we have a quick update. dolly is truly in on cuipo. she's accepted a board seat with that company and tom murray is putting his money where his mouth is. he's pledged to give up to one million square meters of rain forest to anybody watching the "power pitch." are you in or out? log on to powerpitch.cnbc.com and leave a comment or tweet with the hash tag power pitch. bill, over to you. let's look at the metals, see how they are selling today. not as much volatility there as we have seen for equities today. the big gainer percentage wise has been silver, as you can see, up about 2% today. gold's up another $5.90. copper and platinum down on the day.

another market flash with dominic chu. >> it's been a tough year for estee lauder, forecasting profits below estimates. second quarter sales came in below estimates as well due to slowing growth in china. the stock is down already about 12% year-to-date and even more today. back to you. to the bond market we go. to the windy city and rick santelli tracking the action at the cme. rick? >> hi, bill. well, tell you what, if you were looking to be long treasuries today, you're not making any money but you're not necessarily losing a lot. yields popping up into the upper 2.60s, highest yields intraday in three sessions. but as you look at the intraday chart, you can see that it did have an impact or was impacted by the adp report this morning. so as you open the chart up to a two day, you had early signs when it came back over yesterday's yield high. you see year-to-date. there is good news if you are living south of the united states. moody's upgraded by one notch to

the fourth level of investment grade. country of mexico. as we look at their currency, this is the dollar versus the peso today. you can clearly see the dollar went down but as good a news as that is and there are structural reforms particularly in energy going on that they are being rewarded for, when you take a step back and realize it wasn't that many sessions ago the dollar traded the best level against the peso since july 2012 it's something definitely a work in progress. sue, back to you. >> thank you, ricky. it's becoming one of the most important indicators for the job market. we will tell you what it's signaling right now. and it's two days before that big jobs report, of course. plus, there's that terrible drought out west that's taking quite a toll. jane wells is live with that story in l.a. >> one report says california's ag economy could take a 10%, $5 billion hit unless we get rain, a lot of rain. what it means to food prices, stock prices and what we will end up drinking instead of water. [ park sounds, sound of spray paint ]

♪ we asked people a question, how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? $500,000. maybe half-million. say a million dollars. [ dan ] then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. ♪ i was trying to like pull it a little further. you know, i was trying to stretch it a little bit more. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. [ man ] i looked around at everybody else and i was like, "are you kidding me?" [ dan ] it's just human nature to focus on the here and now. so it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪ ♪

welcome back to "power lunch." a roller coaster day for ralph lauren. the clothing company said the stock initially moved higher on the company's improved sales

forecast and better than expected profits but it reversed course after it said in its conference call it expects increased promotions to eat into margins. the stock is currently down about 2%, though off the very session low. back to you, sue. >> that mirrors what's been going on in the stock market today because the dow and s&p started out under pressure, now are staging a comeback with the dow up 16 points, the nasdaq and s&p, well, the s&p just ticked negative. it's that kind of day. bob pisani joins us from the floor of the nyse. hey, bob. >> sort of steady as she goes. dennis lockhart, head of the atlanta fed, out with some comments just a moment ago. he says the bond taper is likely to continue and end by the fourth quarter. a big change in the economy is the only thing to stop the taper, reiterating essentially what evan said yesterday. he also braces for some of the data coming up, maybe weak on the weather there. take a look at the s&p, sort of steady as she goes. we were not far from the highs of the day. we sort of came off of that as lockhart made his comments. rick mentioned moody's upgrade of mexico.

i think that's important and it definitely moved the etf for mexico. there's the eww, that move up as moody's upgraded mexico by a notch. and a lot of the questions here are whether or not you can successfully differentiate emerging markets now. so mexico's up today, turkey is sort of not, indonesia is. a lot of people trying to argue mexico, poland, nigeria, other countries that are doing better than other parts of the world, their prices should be up and not completely sold off. maybe this will be a catalyst to start a conversation about that. back to you. >> you're probably right on that. thank you very much. a key read on jobs ahead of friday's employment report. adp data showing 175,000 private sector positions were created in january. but there's another report out today that's getting more and more attention when it comes to the reading of the health of the job market. we can certainly use some clarity on that. steve liesman's got it for us. >> going to get to that in a second. a sigh of relief from two economic reports this morning after we had a string of bad misses.

we got one today, a near-miss, adp out by just 12,000 compared to the estimate and a beat in the ism services indicator. here's the ism overall. there's the 54, looking 53 1/2 reversing some of the weakness we saw in december economy and service sector growing according to that. capital economics saying that the ism service indicator quote, makes us more confident that the weakness of some of the other incoming data is just due to temporary weather effects. pantheon economics saying the employment component is quote, consistent with payroll gains. that may be a little high for the overall report which puts it more at 170, 180, but here's that employment component. there's the jobs report from the government. what do you think? >> wow. look at that. >> they kind of go together. but why would that be? how about the idea which you already know, the service sector is the biggest part of the economy. this is a relatively new report going back. we don't have a whole lot of data but more and more economists like this and like to jump off from this report to another one. we'll see if this is just a brief sigh of relief or if it

lasts through friday. it accounts for 189,000 jobs for friday. the employment rate ticking down to 6.6%. lot of talk about whether the weather could play a role. but this nervous market i think might sell first if it's a miss and ask weather questions later. >> that's right. then dig through the numbers and completely turn things around. thanks, steve. appreciate it. bill? aus know, cos you know, col in the east, drought in california. jane wells, i think i can speak for all of us east of the rockies, we would gladly share some of this moisture with you guys out there. >> i will put it on a train. send it our way. farmers in california's $50 billion ag economy can apply for $20 million in federal aid with priority to those farms seeing at least an 85% reduction in water allotment. many are seeing 100% reduction. house republicans have introduced a bill to give more water to farmers and less to an

endangered fish. that is not expected to go anywhere in the senate. 99% of the nation's nuts come from california which probably doesn't surprise you. almonds are a huge crop and rising prices will impact companies. >> it will drive us to announce price increases on the products affected by these higher commodity costs. but we will not be alone in this. i'm sure we will see pricing action across the industry based on the california drought and to the extent it's applicable, almond and dairy costs. >> jpmorgan said white wave could also be impacted and pointed out that california, the number one dairy state, could see higher cheese prices as it costs more to feed cattle. that could be an issue for kraft. a third of central valley farmland could go fallow. that could impact processed tomatoes, maybe campbell's su soups. last month's freeze could have ruined much of the state's $2 billion citrus crop. while wine grape growers are concerned 2013 was a bumper crop so there is ample supply for

wine drinkers. the only crop i really care about. >> leave it to you to come up with a silver lining on such a tough story. thanks. appreciate it. cnbc 25. the contenders. today's focus is on all things financial. we are talking about the biggest names in the industry and see who mary thompson and kate kelly think should have been on the list but aren't.

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>> looking at my screen, every minute. i got to tell you, the recent volatility is not scaring companies from going public. four ipos today on the nasdaq, all of which are in the biotech space. unicare is actually a biotech developing gene therapies for treatment of orphan diseases. what's interesting is that biotech is actually one of the reasons the nasdaq is lagging today. some of the heavyweights are trading lower including gilead. strong beat on its top and bottom line but that's not helping today. back to you. you may not know it but cnbc turns 25 this year, meaning we all get cheaper car insurance. but we are asking you to vote for the 25 most influential business people in the past 25 years. we are talking contenders here on "power lunch." today, we look at the biggest names in finance and who better to ask than our experts on that beat. kate kelly covers the hedge funds and smart money.

kayla tausche joins us, she covers, what, the hedge funds -- >> cover the banks. i cover a lot of miscellaneous finance. >> mary thompson, both of them on the top of the beat on business and finance. who are the shoe-ins? i'm curious what criteria you use. in technology you look at transformational types who broke the mold. what do you look at in finance? >> let's start with i guess we will start actually with those who were left out and those who were shoe-in. the one who is left out that i picked out was bill gross. he's the world's largest bond fund manager. back in the '80s you couldn't talk about equity funds without mentioning peter lynch. he's the peter lynch of bond funds. he also built a company, co-founded pimco, one of the largest asset managers in the world, sixth largest in the world. can't talk about the bond bull market without talking about bill gross. he has been an influential voice and again, he manages the largest bond fund in the world. >> and he's smart.

>> even better. he's the one who is overlooked. i think my choice of shoe-in for the final 25 is hank paulson. he was a great manager during the crisis, that being the financial crisis. he basically cobbled together private companies with government to get us through this to help save the u.s. economy. add to that, before it he was ceo of goldman sachs. during that time he helped take the company public. that was a transformative move for goldman sachs, allowed it to compete with the megabanks of the era. >> kayla, what about you? >> of all the 200 people we have on this list, we have michael milken but lou ranieri is lesser talked about, vice chairman of solomon brothers in 1977 when he invented the mortgage-backed security which of course throughout the years took on many forms, but he was the original person behind that. in the 2007-2006 era, that market swelled to $2.2 trillion. as we know now, that is the culprit of the financial crisis.

he was on cnbc a couple years ago and he knows that he is one of the people at the forefront of the crisis who is still to blame and this is what he had to say. >> as to my role, being one of the founders, it's my problem. i talked about it starting in '05 but obviously didn't do a good enough job to stop it. so you know, i bear the burden. >> of course, it wasn't just him. it was the people who also had these securities in their hands. they made them into exotic highly risky vehicles. but someone had to invent it first. you don't often think of innovation and financial services. he was a real in vat novator. my shoe-in is someone who is decades later thought to be at the very top of his craft, george sorros. he takes these broad macro policies and actually able to follow one single directional

trade and make huge profits. remember in 1992 he bet his entire fund, $10 billion, against the pound, forced the bank of england to devalue it and the rest is history. he's 83 years old. he made $1 billion last year betting on a slide in the yen. we saw what happened there. obviously someone who is still at the very top of his craft, still viewed as one of the most highly regarded currency traders. >> age is only a number. kate? >> i want to start with my shoe-in, alan greenspan. how can you talk about the last 25 years and not talk about this fed chairman who presided over one of the most sustained periods of economic growth in recent memory. he was known for his low interest rate stances which he took particularly in the early 2000s and some felt set the stage for the financial crisis but this is a guy whose experience was forged through fire. remember he was sworn in in august of 1987, just about two months before the stock market crash of '87. he had to impose a federal funds rate reduction right after that

and that's something that he would use as an important tool in his arsenal later. definitely greenspan. my overlooked is another of the sort of lew ranieri school. it's dick fuld. he presided over lehman brothers, responsible for the largest corporate bankruptcy in american history. many think this was the galvanizing event of the crisis. but lehman brothers under dick fuld's stewardship grew into a huge powerhouse, multi-strategy investment bank, commodity trader, et cetera, but also some argue that he took it too far. he couldn't sell it, couldn't get investors on board when that was crucial, and he was just pretty much in denial until september 15th when it all fell apart. he's now running a small m & a consultancy. >> you make a compelling case but it would definitely be a fierce water cooler debate about dick fuld. >> can i also throw in a quick honorable mention? michael lewis, the business

writer, needs an honorable mention. he's the reason we know about ranieri. he chronicled wall street -- [ speaking simultaneously ] >> he did it in a very entertaining way. something that everyone can access. wonderful writer. >> thanks, ladies. >> fantastic guy, too. had him on the show several times. welcome back any time. >> one of the best at explaining business to the layman of anybody i've seen. >> absolutely. fantastic honorable mention, thanks, ladies. aren't you a lucky guy. >> i'm the luckiest guy in television. check out shares of apple. the tech giant becoming a battleground now for big stock investors. it's up $5 right now. josh lipton, what's going on? >> well, you heard of the thrilla in manila. now we have the thrilla in cupert cupertino. a big brawl has broken out

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shares of apple bucking today's downward trend. some of the tech giant's biggest investors now battling over this company in a big way. josh lipton is out in san jose with more.

>> carl icahn loves a good fight but now, he might have met his match. icahn pushing apple to buy back 50 billion of its stock at its annual shareholders meeting later this month. apple recommends that shareholders go against icahn's proposal. the company, remember, already committed to returning $100 billion to share holders by 2015. ann simpson, senior portfolio manager of investment at calpers which owns $1.6 billion of apple shares, agrees with apple and has a problem. >> those who like to consider the long term will be talking to the company and listening to the company and having that conversation. so tweets and twitters and facebook postings is really megaphone diplomacy. >> simpson says apple's focus should be on product innovation, development and the quality of the board, not financial engineering. she says icahn is a short term

investor with a short term agenda. icahn firing back, saying that simpson's priorities are misguided. it is a shame, he tells me, that anne simpson is more interested in spewing pejoratives than improving corporate governance in this country which calpers is in a position to do. as for the criticism that he's a short term investor, icahn says he is often a long term holder as well. for example, he's own biogen since 2007 and federal mobile since 2001. it's still not clear how this will play out at apple's shareholder meeting on february 28th. one thing we do know, icahn and simpson probably won't be sitting next to each other. bill? >> that's a safe bet. thanks, josh. we're coming back with three big winners in today's trade. i n with the plan but with less energy, moodiness, and a low sex drive, i had to do something. i saw my doctor. a blood test showed it was low testosterone, not age. we talked about axiron the only underarm low t treatment that can restore t levels to normal in about two weeks in most men.

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let's get you up to date on this crazy market. it's been all over the board. the dow is up 27 points on the trading session, 15,472 and change. s&p just a tad to the plus side. it's been all over the board as well today, both on either side of the unchanged line. the nasdaq composite is down little bit more than a tenth of a percent. >> three of the winners on this crazy day, genworth financial up 3%. so is packar and the luxury

retailer tiffany is up 2.5% right now. a shameless plug for "closing bell." twitter reports earnings after the bell tonight. we'll have that for you coming up on the new york stock exchange at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. >> michael lewis joins us april 1st. "street signs" begins now. bonds, botox, butts and beats. those are your big themes today, folks. thank you for riding shotgun with us here on "street signs." stocks pretty much flat and most of america trying to thaw out today. this all comes as one of the world's most watched technicians says a crash is coming. we'll ask bill gross if that's what he sees. plus, has the botox boom finally slowed down? allergan's ceo is here. and a bull-bear debate you cannot afford to