three winners in the market right now. hasbro, radio shack and invesco. 5:00 p.m. eastern time only on cnbc, curling coverage. that's it. >> that will do it for "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins now. credit cards, mice and insurance are trying to get us in the green today. but they are not enough to power the dow higher. this as we wait on janet yellen's first speech as fed chair tomorrow. and oil crossing back above $100 a barrel. mandy, good monday. >> happy monday to you as well. we have three really big stories on "street signs" radar today. the mystery sector that may be forging the way higher for the markets. why boring tech is bringing sexy back. and a trillion dollars worth of

investment advice. let's start the sector off. the sector this year that is having the fastest growth rate is the financials. the question, though, is whether or not it can lift all boats. let's bring in fdr capital markets' paul miller. paul, what do you think? >> you know, a lot of that eps growth is reserve releases and things like that so it's not quality growth. i think that's why it's holding it down a little bit. but these guys had a nice run the last six months mainly because the ten-year's gone from roughly 1.50 to 3% now down a little bit. to me, it's all about where the ten year goes and what will drive the ten year is economic growth. if we get some real economic growth coming through, good job reports, they will do very, very well. if we will stagnate a little, they will probably sit here for a bit. >> was the higher ten year yield a good thing for the financials and thus for the stock market? >> it is a good thing for the stock market and for financials. it takes some time for it to run through on the fundamentals side but the stocks will be bid up

before that as people expect that steep curve will occur. you need loan growth more than anything else. >> are we seeing that? >> we need that economic growth. i don't know. i hope we do. i think march and april is going to be a much better situation with this when the spring buying season comes back in the market. we are really hoping for a very strong spring buying season that can sit there and drive that gdp growth hopefully which can drive the stocks higher. >> not all financials are created equal. paul, which ones would you avoid? >> you know, i really like the quality names right now, wells fargo, usb, pnc. i think these guys, if we get some real economic growth and a steeper year curve, you will see nice earnings growth out of those companies. now, there are already high multiples and people don't like that but quality's the way to go. >> the ones to avoid? >> you know, we are still shy on bank of america and jpmorgan. we think those big broker dealer models, there's too much noise

in those models to get a grasp what's going on. bank of america, they can earn $2. we don't know if they can do that or not. >> thank you for your thoughts on the financials. next up, old boring technology. guess what? it's back. in fact, the unsexy names you do not see unless you are an i.t. professional and back in some control room, are very hot. juniper networks, akamai, f networks, some of the best performing stocks in the s&p 500 this year. are they still worth your money? scott, let's focus on akamai. you just came out with a note on them. one of the best performers so far this year. maybe the gains for the year are already priced in. what are your thoughts? >> thanks, brian. i don't dispute the fact that there's a lot of good stuff going on behind the scenes as you referenced. i was just thinking about a data point which i think kind of punctuates this. apparently in 1984, there were 1,000 connected devices and this

year, there are ten billion connected devices. that's a growth rate over 30 years of 70%. there's a lot of growth that's been going on over time and that will continue in a lot of different respects. we think akamai is a company at the center of a number of those trends. >> it's an irony, isn't it, that akama, the boring old stock, the back room that essentially benefits from the surge in internet traffic due to old people going on social media, the sexy side, it's interesting the way it is benefiting. what about other companies in the sector doing similar things that are also benefiting from the internet surge? >> well, i guess the way we think about it is you take akamai, for example, they're at the center of trends like video and cloud and mobile and security, and we think all those trends have legs for the next number of years, so the best way we think to think about this particular kind of perspective is to consider companies that

are perhaps not direct but maybe indirect beneficiaries of these kinds of long-standing continuing trends. >> like give us some names here for the sake of our viewers. >> so one name we like, for example, that we think is going to benefit from a number of these trends is emc. another name like brian alluded that that has been around for awhile. interestingly, geographically, very close in headquartering to akamai but is extremely well positioned when it comes to the storage area. really hasn't done much of late. we think they are a company to watch. >> i have no doubt they will grow in terms of video but i worry about the 32 times trailing earnings number on valuation. >> right. so there's no disputing the fact that some of these names, some people might say are somewhat stretched. but then when you think about akamai, so they grew in the fourth quarter, their revenues, i think it was around 15%. but then if you x out a

divestiture, it was closer to 20% and that's largely organic growth. for a company to be generating growth like that with earnings leverage, we think there is a lot of value to be had. our 12 month target price on the stock is $62 a share. >> good move there. akamai and emc, two names you like and we like you. thanks for coming on the show. now let's turn to the broader markets. we have nearly $1 trillion worth of advice for you from the number one barron's fund family for 2013. they are affiliated with 26 fund companies. the ceo of natisis joins us for an exclusive interview. pleasure to have you on "street signs." thank you for your time. tell us what you are telling your affiliate funds about what to expect this year. >> well, i think what we expect this year when we look at what's going on with the job rates,

when we talk about job numbers back in december, and november, they are pretty weak so we think there will still be volatility in the marketplace because of the job numbers. at the end of the day, we think fundamentals on equities is pretty strong. we see looking at the market over the long term to be the best approach right now. we see rates going up, no reason for the tapering to start to taper yet. i don't think the numbers are that weak. we think volatility in the market, be prepared for it. >> what kind of firms do you look for in terms of strategy? >> well, one of the things, we haven't been on, this was the first year we have been part of barron's in a very long time. the reason why is -- >> quit now. because you're one for one. >> -- municipal manager. what's that? >> stop now because you're batting a thousand. >> exactly. i know. you got to leave on top. we feel like we've got a company that really allows us to remain

relevant in all the different market environments and that diversification, that model we built is a really durable structure. we think we will be in for a long time. >> you're not the only person who talks about the benefits of diversification but let's get a little more specific here. you said we should expect more volatility this year. what investment strategies have been working and are going to work this year? >> well, what's been working for us over the last year, 2013, was of course international equities, the u.s. market for the equities side was beautiful. even fixed income for us for the credit side, really held up strong. already this year, i think this is what's really important, we had some volatility in january. you didn't see investors run to the door like you did a few years ago, even with some extreme volatile days. so investors i think are starting to think about the longer term strategies, what is going to be a portfolio that can help them withstand this volatility, and looking for different approaches, liquid alternatives has been a real fast-growing area for us over

the last few years. so you tie that in with traditional investments, you start to build a portfolio that helps you withstand the market volatility and can help mitigate the risk. >> is the age of stocks still upon us? is it real estate, is it art? or is it just plain old fashioned equities? >> well, you know, i buy art because i like it. so when i look at what to build for a portfolio, i look at what's traditional on the long running side but then you have to spread your horizons out to looking at alternatives and what will help you manage and mitigate some of the risk that's out there in the marketplace. i think when you look at our company over the last ten years, 72% of our funds were in the top percent in morningstar. 62% had four and five star ratings. those were all different disciplines, it could be alternatives, that's long on equity, maybe international, u.s., fixed income, on the credit side. so across the board, you have seen this type of diversification. what we're trying to tell people, that's the way we built

our company. that's why we perform number one. we think if they look at building portfolios like we built our company, they will probably end up withstand market volatility going forward. >> thank you so much for joining us today in a cnbc exclusive. on deck, aol's distressed ceo, but with the stock up 300% in just the past two years, does anybody really care tim armstrong is putting his foot in his mouth? plus, the case for lurking on twitter. herb greenberg thinks all you non-tweeters are actually people, too. later on, protecting america's stash. how security firms are benefiting from the u.s. pot boom. plus amazon is upping the ante in the battle for your living room.

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aol's ceo tim armstrong in the news again, reversing course after comments he made over employee health care. let's go straight to julia with more. this is getting a lot of traction. >> that's right. after listening to an outpouring of employee feedback, tim armstrong reversed the company's decision to change 401(k) benefits from a per pay period contribution to a yearly lump sum. in a memo to staff over the weekend, he also apologized for singling out two employees, quote, distressed babies costing aol over $2 million, saying he made a mistake. the mother of one of those

children mentioned by armstrong says he apologized to her personally. she spoke to nbc nightly news over the weekend. >> i think what he was trying to do was explain his justification for cutting employee benefits with this rationale that we're spending this much on health care, it has to come from somewhere. and i think this was the wrong way to go about that. >> this all started back on thursday, on cnbc, when armstrong said changes were needed in part because of $7 million in additional costs from obamacare. aol said it couldn't break down the accounting of that $7 million because of its confidential and competitive nature of that data. brian? >> julia, thank you very much. so what does this snafu say about tim armstrong's leadership? let's bring in cnbc contributor jeff sonnenfeld. jeff, two things. you had what julia talked about, then you had the public firing last year of an employee but the

stock's up 300% some in two years. should investors care? >> investors should care. i'm so glad you phrased it that way because i do think a lot of cynics asked that question. one issue absolutely has to do with the company's performance. we can debate that for an hour. maybe you talked about that. it's not as good as it appears. secondly, there's an issue about the legitimacy of a benefits cut and what that economically, strategically and the third has to do with communications in leadership style. that's the real issue. three separate issues. on the poerformance alone, just to mention in passing, yes, his stock is up but the revenues are down by half, his cash has fallen by a third, his profits are down by more than a third. it's not performing -- and the big acquisitions haven't worked. he bought the patch which he created and shut it down. the huffington post is kind of flat. 20 million viewers per day or so, it's pretty much the way it was before he bought it.

nothing's worked. tech crunch viewership is down so performance is not so great. the real issue has to do with his conduct. he shows a disrespect if not abusiveness towards his employees. >> you say his communication style is backfiring on him. can he recover from this? >> yes, you can. there are some people who make a bad thing worse. we think of mel gibson. he manages to apologize in ways where he offends people more. prince harry when he wore his nazi regalia managed to qualify his apology in a way that made things worse. mickey aronson refuses to go public for carnival. those guys don't correct the problem. tim armstrong is trying. there are better ways to do it. take a look at jim burke, on the tylenol recall, or take a look at massive recalls at mattel more recently where they were handled beautifully by bob eckert. >> is it always better to always come out and say i'm sorry, or

are there times when it is best to keep your mouth shut? >> it's never too late to say you're sorry. you have to do it carefully. the big disaster in bopal where thousands of people were killed, the ceo went, said i'm responsible, how can i help and the indian authorities immediately stopped the investigation and said great, you're responsible. they didn't operate it. sometimes an apology if it's careless can backfire. it has to be authentic. you have to be able to show you mean it. some kind of contrition. also, make sure it doesn't happen again. in this case, tim armstrong firing an employee because he was taking a picture on a thousand person call, he has a pattern of doing this. he has to figure out how to correct his conduct. >> this is just about our life, not just being a ceo, jeff. do ceos now have to act differently in the age of cell phone cameras and social media?

you say one dumb thing and a million people know about it in 15 minutes. ceos, can they afford to be blunt-spoken? >> ceos, ceos and even people on media can afford to put their foot in their mouth and something which i try to do, i use you as a model all the time, you and mandy, if ever you guys get ahead of yourselves, you artfully use humor. the whole fiasco where coke tried to bring out a new coke and destroyed the old coke, people rose nup aup in anger. people said the ceo set this up. he said i'm not that dumb and i'm not that smart. he said sometimes the humor and the authenticity can win the day. as a public figure, as a ceo, you surrender certain private rights to be reckless. >> the upshot of social media and everyone recording things, you are only in the news for maybe five seconds, right? you are a scandal for a minute, then everyone moves on to the next scandal.

>> you get that tag line attached to you. exactly right. >> we have to leave it there. good stuff as always. thanks for your time. still ahead, how private security firms are finding lots and lots of green in protecting america's pot. as oil climbs back above $100 a barrel, we will help you find a way to profit from that. and maybe pay for your higher gas bill. [ male announcer ] the new new york is open. open to innovation. open to ambition. open to bold ideas. that's why new york has a new plan -- dozens of tax free zones all across the state. move here, expand here, or start a new business here and pay no taxes for ten years... we're new york. if there's something that creates more jobs, and grows more businesses...

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let's take a look at scott's miracle grow. this stock is not moving, down one quarter of 1%, about a 14 cent move down. you think why in the world is "street signs" talking about this stock. there's no news. there's not, but, but, this is a segue to our next segment here, if you are going to grow dope, apparently it takes a lot of fertilizer and the ceo telling us last year that it's about three times the amount of fertilizer to grow pot than a tomato, for example. if pot booms, as it probably will, just keep an eye on that name. >> as you were speaking, it actually turned positive. albeit extremely -- >> are you saying -- >> -- minuscule move. >> -- scott's has gotten higher? >> it's getting a little higher. >> that was a good one. where did you come up with that?

>> i learned from the best. i really do. as the pot business grows in states like colorado, there is a new emerging market of security personnel. this is all aimed at protecting the marijuana industry. let's take a look. there is a new gold or rather, green rush in colorado. the legal cannabis market is expected to reach $1 billion in 2014 in this state alone, all because these little grown plants are now legal to consume for medical and recreational use. but these million dollar grows and piles of cash need protection. >> the business we're in, there is a very high threat for us. >> reporter: that's where guys like leo, known as the russian assassin, come in. >> when [ bleep ] happens they

throw us there to go deal with the bad situations. >> reporter: leo was a core member of blue line protection group's team. >> we pick up contracts every day. every single day, we transport millions a week. >> reporter: army veteran ted daniels runs blue line. he's assembled an elite team of security experts like the soviet sniper trained leo. there's a growing need for people like them because as long takes marijuana industry remains a cash only business, criminals are moving in, with concerns about mexican drug cartels who want a piece of the action as well and protection does not come cheap. >> it will cost anybody from $2,000 a month to i would say maybe $12,000 to $15,000 a month depending on what level of protection and what package they prefer. >> want to catch more of leo and the gang, watch the entire

series on investigations, ini investigationsinc.cnbc.com. >> i don't know what they're protecting because they're protecting a legal product. who would want to steal something they could buy legally? >> large amounts of money are being moved. you have security personnel and i guess criminals hovering around. >> why would they steal something they could go buy legally? >> because they are moving a large amount of money around. it's a lot of cash involved. >> they don't have wire transfers? >> you got to go to investigationsinc.com to see the full story. >> it's a fair question. >> it is a fair question. >> you only need security if it's something somebody wants to steal. if it's legal, go buy it. much less trouble. up next, this year's biggest loser stock. it's a name you all know best. plus herb greenberg is giving the big heave-ho to one of his red flag stocks. which one is it? (vo) you are a business pro.

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happy monday street talk edition here. stock news and views you can use.

red robin is up first after raymond james ups it to a strong buy. you can clearly see the result. >> it is a nice pop, maybe a good segue after the last segment. i feel stupid because apparently, i thought they were stealing the pot. they are stealing the cash. >> the cash. >> why don't they just wire transfer but they can't. it's all cash. >> yeah. they're not stealing the little green shoots. >> there you go. >> money. >> i love it. red robin, just wanted to correct myself on that. important to do that. target is $80 a share. rrgb, can we put that back up? upgraded to a buy, bank of america, merrill lynch. >> you have alibaba to possibly acquire ordinary shares of auto navi holdings. >> board of directors receiving a private proposal, basically an offer to be bought, $21 a share. it's digital map cnavigation

system. boardwalk pipeline partners, lp. >> as the name implies, it's a pipeline company. about 14,400 miles coming from new orleans up into indiana and kentucky. that stock is actually getting walloped, down 42% today. when you're a master limited partnership, people buy you largely for your payout. they cut the payout by ten cents a share after earnings came out. deutsche bank downgrading to sell. don't cut the payout when that's the reason people are buying you. >> stock number four, gt advanced technologies. >> gtat is the company here. despite the odd name, it's a crystals company, basically they do l.e.d. displays, solar panels. it's an apple play. heavy volume. they might be the crystal provider for a future iphone cover, among other things. >> then we have synergeva.

you can clearly see the difference in the price. >> nice move, 5.7%. massachusetts based biopharmaceutical company. they develop ther put kproducts unusual diseases. their average target, $91, $4 and change below where the stock is right now. be careful with that. retail sales for january coming out this thursday. it will be a really big deal. it's a data-light week and we have had bad weather recently. one company is america's largest strip mall owner and operator. we have the ceo, david henry, joining us now. please come in here. great to have you with us today. you've got three big tenants. you have a lot of tenants but the top three are t.j. maxx, home depot and walmart. what does it mean for you when the numbers come out? >> the national retail federation projects about 4% up

this year compared to about 3.5% last year. the consumer is still spending. holiday sales for brick and mortar stores, our retailers, were up about 2.5%. it's now a six-year high in terms of consumer daily spend. we're cautiously optimistic for our retailers. there are some headwind. the weather has been awful and consumer paychecks are a little lower with health care deductions and other things. we are cautiously optimistic. >> find the upside. your stock has been underperforming the broader market over the past year, in fact, your stock is down 2.4%. why should investors be interested? >> generally, reits have been down in general since may, when mr. bernanke -- >> lobbed that out there with the taper. >> that's right. so reits in general are interest rate sensitive. in general, the reit business model is very sound. we are talking about hard assets, inflation hedge, talking about very solid balance sheets.

the average reit is leveraged only 50% so that's a very good balance sheet ratio. in addition, the average yield of a reit is about 4% versus 2% so it's a good high yielding stock in general. >> but you say you are not so exposed to the fashion mall business. is that something which helps mitigate the impact of e-commerce which we all know is growing and is here to stay? >> that's true. kimco is neighborhood and community shopping centers. we sell essential goods and services, grocery stores, dry cleaning, drugstores, mcdonald's restaurants, nail salons. these things are very difficult to get over the internet. >> we have been talking about a number of retailers which due to extenuating circumstances had to cut costs, closing stores. but you say there are still more retailers within your wheelhouse that are opening stores than closing them. >> that's true. closing stores is all part of the retail cycle. retailers expand, retailers shrink, some go out of business. think of a forest. 2% to 3% of the trees die every

year. new trees come. in general, what's good for our business is there's more retailers that are expanding right now than are shrinking. we have a five-year high of planned new store openings. 40,000 some new stores are going to open up over the next 12 months. >> we certainly hope the consumer holds up. the all important american consumer. thank you very much for joining us today. brian? well, from best buy to worst buy. at least this year. so far, 2014, best buy is the single worst performing stock in the s&p 500. is it worth your money? joining us now on the technicals, mark newton. on the fundamentals, john stevenson of first asset investment management. mark, let's take a look at the charts. great to have a fellow hokie. john, you are outnumbered, my friend, two to three virginia tech graduates. is this a healthy pullback or something worse? >> technically best buy is starting to look very attractive here at least in the near term from my perspective. stock similar to what the retail sector has done since november,

an extreme amount of deterioration but you start to see an increasing amount of stabilization. a couple different points to mention here. the stock actually retraced about 50% of its absolute highs back in november so for technical purposes, $22 is a rock solid level of support. you are starting to see a few signs of what we call positive divergence. momentum stayed higher and that's also a positive. now today, the stock has moved to new ten day highs, getting up above last week's highs. you are starting to gradually start to bottom out. my thinking is the stock likely can get back to 28 which was a former high that it hit when it gapped down. that's about 14% from current levels. it's gone from best case to worst case. my thinking is the worst is behind it, at least in the near term. it's starting to bottom out. >> fundamentally, do you agree with that? >> yeah. i may be outnumbered in terms of schools but totally in agreement with the technicals on this one. i think best buy is a best buy.

the reality is this stock got pounded down 35% admittedly the last quarter was dismal, but it wasn't all that bad. same store sales down .9%. look, the reality of the stock is this is a really cheap stock. it's trading at 13 times and there is tons of low-hanging fruit. it's seven day delivery when you order from best buy. the website is abysmal. all they have to do is fix some of that and they are really in the ballpark to compete with amazon. you bring that down to three or four day delivery from seven, and you are really taking -- not to mention sgna is running at 10% of sales. you get it to 8%, that's $800 million in the bottom line. so this is a company that should be bought. it's going higher. >> there you go. should be bought, going higher. wow. best buy, worst performer this year. great to see you. see you soon. check out the online edition of talking numbers as well. this is important. any day that you can learn

something is a good day, no matter what else happens. if you can learn something. i figured something out. if i say something really stupid, everybody comes out of the woodwork. so you know they're out there. >> absolutely. >> here's my new goal is to say something stupid every day. >> if you say something clever, people won't say anything. if you say something stupid suddenly everybody jumps on top of you. just the way the world works. >> apparently. i thought a little box of dope wasn't worth very much but you know, you're right. i said something dumb and people came out of the woodwork. >> not dumb at all. you ask questions that people out there are also asking. >> yeah, but any day your intellect can be questioned is fantastic. >> makes you a better person. makes you a better person. >> i couldn't be worse. next up, a big move. amazon's move may signal a strategy shift or nothing at all. as oil stays expensive, the best ways for you to profit from it. plus, herb is waving the white flag as opposed to the red flag.

we will have him on the show in two minutes. first, what is coming up on "the closing bell"? >> so-called secret ipos are becoming very popular with technology companies. a high profile company just filed one over the weekend, as we know. we will look behind what's behind this trend and whether it favors companies over investors. speaking of ipos, pet drug maker aratona therapeutics was one of the best performing ipos of 2013. we will look at this extremely profitable business of keeping your pets healthy when we speak to the company's ceo and he brinis bringing a friend with him as well. it didn't work for aol but is withholding 401(k) matches until the end of the year the future for retirement plans? we will forward to seeing you at the top of the hour. interesting day as we get ready for janet yellen's testimony tomorrow. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 trading inspires your life. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 life inspires your trading. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 where others see fads... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...you see opportunities.

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to decliners. the s&p up fractionally. technology continues to lead, up .5%. last week, amazon bought a gaming company and that got a whole lot of people, including us, thinking they were getting into the gaming business. but that might not be all they have up their sleeve. josh lipton, what are you hearing? what's the whisper out there? >> yeah, if you take a step back in this story, big tech obviously wants to control your living room. we all use our smartphones and tablets but we also spend a lot of time on our couches watching television, so big tech companies offer you all kinds of devices, consoles, widgets to try to stream media to your television so you think apple tv, comcast, xbox 360. analysts telling us amazon could be the next big tech company to join this party with its own set-top box they kind of describe as a kind of consumer and e-commerce hub.

analysts telling us they think that device will hit as soon as possibly april. i was talking to michael pachter this morning. he thinks you will see a device that streams movies, music and games that are based on the android operating system, and could try to distinguish itself from some of the competition by coming with hardware so you can download content as well as stream it. >> possibly fighting for your and our living room, companies like microsoft better watch out. thank you very much. last week we told you how twitter tanked on disappointing user growth. a big issue could be all the fake and inactive accounts. we talked about that. herb greenberg thinks there is something else at work here, something maybe twitter could do to help itself. it has to do with the so-called lurkers, the people that are on twitter, they don't post anything, they just skulk around. why are they valuable to twitter potentially? >> because they would help the growth. i think twitter has made a

colossal, colossal mistake in not marketing to or advertising to people to explain to them, and i have been sort of, a theme i've had for several months and i laid it out again on the street and on linkedin, they are not marketing to people and explaining just use us as a news feed. if you are seeing growth in engagement slow, that tells you all of us, some of us who are there, whether we're journalists, celebrities, sports stars, whatever we are, we are starting to just talk to one another so they have to do something else and convince these lurkers that this is a great, whether you call it time waster or way to learn how to see other things, that it's just m misused by most people. >> i don't understand how twitter can make money if a lot of people just lurk. they are not engaging, not actually contributing to the content, not having conversations and telling brian that was a dumb comment or whatever. they're not doing anything except for lurking. how can twitter make money off that? >> if you're lurking, you are

hitting those sponsored ads, you are using the service. you are just not interacting with you and me. you are just watching it. you are using the links. >> hitting the sponsored ads is what i want to know. >> we use twitter all day. >> have you? herb greenberg, have you ever clicked on the sponsored ads? >> i have never clicked on a sponsored ad because i have never seen -- i have never seen a sponsored ad. >> that's a problem. >> i'm on it all day long. >> promoted tweet, right? >> well, you see them from advertisers, you see that kind of stuff. it will hit there every now and then. again, i'm looking for specific things on twitter. i will tell you one important thing. i think if you go to people who are not using twitter one way or the other and you ask them about it, despite all the hoopla regarding twitter and social media, they simply will tell you, a, either i don't want to tweet or b, they will say you know, i still don't get this twitter.

so i think they have a lot to do with it. the last conference call, they didn't talk about marketing or advertising, at least theirs. i think they need to start talking about that. >> i totally agree, i hate agreeing with you but i totally agree with your point, what you said at the beginning which is basically what do they do to engage people. that's the question. that is twitter. what you just said sort of quickly is the entire business. if they can't figure it out, you get my point. >> this last quarter -- go ahead. >> i was going to move on to green mountain because i know you are hot under the bonnet about that one. you have taken it off your watch list and sort of waving the white flag. the best bit -- >> no white flag. no white flag. >> okay. it's no longer a red flag, then. the best bit in your article is you said the run makes you look like a total chump. >> well, you know, look, you raise red flags over this and at

some point when you see the stock go the way it's going, i have this newsletter reality check coming out. you have red flags, yellow flags, green flags. there is no flag on this. from this point on, this is a stock that will be a trader stock, speculator stock, between here and 2016, who knows what's going to happen. i will tell you this much. because so many short sellers have been squeezed out of this stock, if there's anything that disappoints people on this, look, the thing still could go down in a vacuum. from that perspective, i'm going to continue to watch it and comment on it, but i can't tell you -- it is what it is at this point. >> it's up 145% over the past 12 months. we will see. >> which indeed is why i look like a chump. >> by the way, herb, not to pile on, have you seen coffee lately? >> hey, by the way, by the way, not to pile on, have you seen the gdx? >> coffee is outperforming. i am winning the bet so far.

>> you both are making a comeback this year. >> hash tag winning. does anybody say that anymore? >> he is also drinking 15 cups a day to try to make his bet come true. he really is. >> i'm having a heart attack. >> thank you. coming up next, the used car that actually costs more than a brand new model. with oil back above $100 a barrel, your next guest has a strategy to play the end of what he calls probably forever, low energy prices. stick around. [ sniffles, coughs ] shhhh! i have a cold with this annoying runny nose.

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it's going to stop making cars in australia by 2014. not even a personal plea from the australian prime minister to the ted of toyota australia, phil, he rang him up and said, please, keep on making cars, please prevent the xlacollapse the car industry. >> toyota is following ford and gm who have said they're going to pull their operations at least in terms of manufacturing out of toyota. there is some concern that in certain regions where these plants were located and where employment will take a big hit that it could push some of the regions of australia into a recession. it all comes down to this,

mandy, you have to build where, a, it's cheapest, and, b, where you have an easy market either to absorb what you're building or you can quickly ship to somewhere else. australia is a relatively small market in the middle of nowhere. and at the end of the day, it's more -- it's cheaper, more economical if you're an automaker to build in other places in southeast asia and then you supply the australian market with something you're building out of say south korea or japan or india. it's just easier that way. >> and it is absolutely and the strong australian dollar has killed many other industries as well. there was another interesting headline we saw today. an old tesla, a used tesla, costs you more than a new one? >> this comes from iseecars.com. they basically looked at 45 million used vehicle sales over the last two years, and the average used model s last year sold for $99,734. that's at least $6,000 more than the average transaction price

overall last year and well above the msrp which ranges between $71,000 and $94,000. the average one was selling with about 3,700 miles on the odometer. keep in mind, tesla sold more than 15,000 new model ss last year, so you have got a combination of a very limited supply out there and a lot of people who are saying i don't want to wait six or eight weeks. we went on auto trader.com. go on there sometime. type in model s. you will be surprised at the prices you are seeing there. a lot of them for well over $90,000. several for well over $100,000. >> that is why the stock is hitting all-time highs today, up 60% since november. phil lebeau, thank you very much. oil back above 100 bucks a barrel. it takes oil to make gasoline. oil hasn't been below $70 a barrel in nearly four years. so your gas bill is probably going to go up. is there a way to profit? we'll bring in a new face to cnbc, matt stephani.

matt, a real pleasure. welcome to cnbc and "street signs." you picked the best show to start your cnbc career on. is there a way now to mitigate some of the pain? who are you buying in relation to oil prices? >> well, in relation to oil prices right now what we're looking at is some oil field service companies, baker hughes, halliburton. we believe the technology they provide to the energy service space is going to significantly increase their profits. when we look at oil field service companies, we like the sand companies, u.s. silica, high crush sand, where they mine sand that is used in hydraulic fracturing to fracture wells and increase production from those wells. we think those are great opportunities in the energy space. >> you know, with natural gas, as the price goes down, you're more economically likely to cap a well, right, or whatever it might be because it's not profitable, right? >> sure.

>> with natural gas prices going up a little bit lately, in fact up a lot bit lately, are more wells going to open up and thus increase demand for the companies and services you just recommended? >> i think that's a big factor. as you look at prices of natural gas above $4, many of the companies we look at from an exploration and production standpoint actually can make money and they're willing to drill new wells. that benefits the service companies tremendously. >> what about alternative energy companies? where do they fit into this, matt? >> mandy, we think there's a global crisis coming. we think that actually energy in its cheap form is about to end. if you look at the billion automobiles driving on the planet right now, in 35 years, that will be 2.5 billion cars. you look at a billion people worldwide that don't even have electricity in their homes. that's all changing. the u.n. is going to increase their funding of developing those nations, and we expect to see substantial increases in investments in alternative

energies to meet that demand. so we've looked at companies such as siemens, such as vestus where they supply into the wind space. >> matt, thank you. we'll see you again. >> brian, mandy, thanks for the time. here is a riddle for you, dear viewer or listener, the super rich may be dumping stocks to buy this. the answer has to come next. [ 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.

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welcome back, everybody. robert frank is here to tell us why art is not imitating stocks. >> it is not. usually there's a very strong correlation between stocks and collectibles, but right now that's breaking down. while stocks have had a tough year, art and car prices are going straight up. at the london art auctions this week, sotheby's and christi's setting all-time sales records. sothe so what are they buying the boulevard mon martre went for $32 million. christie's selling the checked tablecloth for $57 million. the bull market in ferraris, that's also continuing. this testa rossa sold for $40 million. that's a record for a testa rossa. we don't any if the rich are

taking money out of stocks and putting them into cars and paintings, but collectibles certainly in a strange way the more stable market right now, which is odd and unusual. >> $40 million. that's a nice car. i'm not sure 40 bills is worth it. >> that's a lot. you can buy 20 something brand new ferraris. >> what would you do with that many ferraris. >> three of mandy's home. >> thanks for watching "street signs," guys. and welcome to "the closing bell" on this monday. i'm kelly evans down here at the new york stock exchange. >> how are you. nice to meet you. >> great to have you back. >> nice to be back at the new york stock exchange. that would make me bill griffeth. today is one of those days we don't have -- look at that. look at that. it's unchanged. just for a moment there it was -- we were right where we started the day for the dow jones industrial average. no triple digit move as we had last week with all that mega volatility.