tv Street Signs CNBC February 18, 2014 2:00pm-3:01pm EST
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and another big winner, first solar. tyler, little bit of m & a excitement. >> thank you very much. it's been quite a comeback from market lows over the past couple weeks, up about 5% on most of the major barometers. i will keep playing with my air cork here. that will do it for this edition of "power lunch." "street signs" begins right now. your numbers of the day today, 13 1/2. the amount of time in years it's been since the nasdaq has been at this level. 62, the number of time in years it's been since the u.s. has won a medal in an olympic sport until today. you will hear from the men who did it. and 1323, the amount of money in dollars it would cost you to buy just one ounce of gold, way up from a month ago. hi, everybody. i'm brian sullivan. if the giant olympic flame over my shoulder didn't give it away, i'm coming to you live from
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sochi, russia. mandy is off this week. we have melissa lee and simon hobbs doing all the heavy lifting and we are going to give you all the updates on what is happening with the latest. there has been a change in the medal count. got some great interviews for you and as well as a look back at some of the soviet yunion cas that are still on the road here. by the way, i know you have breaking news. serious stuff right now coming from a neighboring country. i will send it back to new jersey with melissa and simon. >> we look forward to all that. meantime, let's take a look at live pictures from kiev, ukraine. riot police are moving in on thousands of protesters encamped in the city center. at least nine people are dead, two of them police officers in the clashes. parliament was set to debate changes to the constitution, curbing the powers of the president. the protesters want constitutional reform. authorities had imposed an ultimatum of 6:00 p.m. local time to disperse before using all action necessary. protesters have been tossing molotov cocktails at the police and the police have responded
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with water cannons. simon and i are monitoring the situation closely and will keep you posted. in the meantime, let's send it back to brian in sochi, who has good stuff for us. >> yeah, guys, tough scenes going on in kiev. actually not that far away from where we sit. a reminder to our viewers, those scenes are nine hours ahead of new york eastern time. that gives you an idea of the people there gathering very late. some serious stuff going on in a neighboring nation. however, there is still celebration here in the 22nd winter olympiad in sochi, russia. so far, everything has been absolutely spotless. perhaps with the exception of the united states speed skating effort. that's for a different time. because today, we had a 62 year dry spell broken. it has been 62 years since the u.s. men's two man bobsledding team has won any kind of medal. that dry spell ended today. the steves, there you go, look at that, good run there. they came in after a great start. the russians won going away in the medal count but guess what,
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steve holcomb, the driver there, doing a great job, putting them into bronze medal position. earlier today, we had a chance to speak to the steves and i asked them about the sled and the bmw design and also, what's changed with it. >> we can only do so much off the track. we are strong and fast training all throughout the summer. you got to just play with the design and go with aerodynamics versus suspension. we have been working hard to figure it out. >> how important is that first five seconds? >> there are smaller things after that but that's 90% of my job, to be the biggest, fastest, strongest push athlete i can be and to accelerate that sled from a dead start to the 50 meter. >> look ahead to the four man, you guys have been on this track before in the world cup. finished probably not how you wanted. how do you improve that? >> well, two things that are good, to our advantage. one, the track is much different than last year. we also have a brand new sled, brand new night train squared
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sled that wasn't debuted until this season and it's running well. i think the combination of great push crew, good driving and great sled, we will be fast. >> great job to both the steves there. as they said, the four man is coming up this weekend. here's the good news. in the last hour or so, the u.s. getting another medal so now we are tied with the netherlands atop the medal board. 20 medals each. russia coming in second place. we were tied with them for much of the day today at 19. germany still has the most gold medals, by the way, at eight. the netherlands and the united states tied there at the very top. not sure what flag that is for the united states. you see that? we flipped it around a little. i will make sure that's right the next time. we have had flag fails so far today in the tv program. i will say there is something fun coming up. there's a lot of old soviet cars still driving around. we ran into a few of them. there's one of them. we will show you some of the cars from 20 and 30 years ago that are still on the road today.
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also, i will try what has been told to be the impossible. i will attempt to make some russians smile and perhaps even laugh. that's all coming up. i know it's a big day for the markets as well. back to you. >> if anybody can make them smile, it will be you. we will come back to you shortly. a big line that's getting a lot of buzz, tesla's ceo elon musk reportedly met with apple's head of merger and acquisitions last year. it's got many wondering if a deal could be in the works. phil lebeau joins us with more. are they stronger together? >> reporter: oh, i don't think they're stronger together. i'm not really sure that this is an indication that tesla is interested in selling to apple or apple is interested in buying tesla. when you take a look at this report, the thing to focus on is that you are talking about the head of m & a for apple and elon musk, ceo of tesla, having lunch. lord knows what they might have been discussing. but it's certain that musk meets not only with apple executives but other executives at other tech firms out in the silicon
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valley. he's talked about it openly in the past because he views tesla being as much of a tech company as it is an auto company. as you take a look at shares of tesla, and yes, a head line like the one we saw over the weekend about this lunch date between musk and the head of m & a from apple will get a lot of people interested. you are looking at a stock right now that's really going to move on what happens after the bell tomorrow. that's when tesla reports its fourth quarter earnings and the focus is going to be on what's happening with operating margins as well as the guidance for the rest of this year in terms of sales. >> for sure. phil, for the moment, thank you very much. let's bring in andrea james, who covers tesla and will power, who covers apple. both of them are with us now. andrea, what do you think of the idea that tesla could do some sort of deal with apple? what would apple bring to the table? >> well, apple brings a lot of money to the table. you know, the companies have very similar philosophies.
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they are both extremely innovative and very important to sort of innovation. you know, tesla needs about $1 billion to bring its next car to market. they have about $800 million in cash, they are generating about $100 million operating cash per quarter and have access to wall street. they don't need the money right now but philosophically, both companies are able to dominate their industries without a lot of market share. >> will, how do you view the situation from apple's standpoint? what could tesla do for apple? >> well, i tell you, it certainly is tantalizing on a couple fronts. we know steve jobs had some interest in developing a car. as you talk to investors, one of the big concerns is what new product category could move the needle. the global auto market is perhaps one that could do that. that said, i think it's very unlikely. i think this is a little too far afield from their core of software and consumer electronics and if they are going to spend $25 billion on something, i would prefer to see them go after something like netflix to jump-start the tv
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business. >> although steve jobs was quoted as saying to the "new york times" that if he had more energy he would have taken on detroit. i'm curious, granted it's unlikely. let's say the headline crossed tomorrow that this was going to happen. would your guess be that apple stock would go down, that it would actually be a negative for apple at this point in time? >> well, i think it would raise some real questions. again, i think it's pretty unlikely and i guess difficult to speculate on. i think what the real focus is now is trying to get themselves more deeply imbedded into the car. i don't think that necessarily requires actually making an acquisition. i think given the software more deeply imbedded really goes a long way in improving usability in the car by itself. >> i want to switch gears. the stock is up today and of course, we have earnings tomorrow. in terms of the call, elon musk told cnbc back in january he would have an update on the battery factory. what else are you listening for as a catalyst? >> yeah. great question.
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expansion into china has gotten a lot of people excited. they did their soft launch just by announcing china pricing and the stock was up on that. initial deliveries are scheduled for april. we want more color on international expansion and also, we want to know how things are going in europe. any kind of color on that factory, that is cell capacity, battery cells is the biggest constraint to tesla's growth. we want more details on that factory, who their partner might be, how much capital investment is needed. that's what would advance the story to the next level. and of course, color on sort of their 2014 guidance. >> i'm sure somebody will ask the apple question. thank you for joining us. andrea james and will power. we have breaking news coming from d.c. let's go to cnbc's eamon javers for more. >> reporter: just within the past couple minutes, the congressional budget office has put out a study analyzing what would happen if the nation's minimum wage was raised to $10.10 an hour. that is a proposal that
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president obama has made. he's put in effect an executive order which would raise the minimum wage of federal contract employees to that level but has proposed that raise for all workers in this country. the cbo here, however, saying that could have a detrimental effect on employment in the united states. the cbo's conclusion is that once fully implemented in the second half of 2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers or 0.3%. that is according to this analysis by the cbo. the cbo also saying that while some workers would lose their jobs, there would be other workers who would benefit from the higher wages, saying about 16.5 million people would have higher earnings during an average week in the second half of 2016 if that $10.10 option was implemented. also, they are saying here that what the effect is, is it would raise the cost of low wage workers relative to technology and machinery and so a lot of
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employers might shift their emphasis away from human beings and toward machinery and technology as a solution here. so some interesting and potentially controversial here findings from the cbo on minimum wage. >> eamon javers, fascinating stuff. thanks for that. let's meantime bring in steve liesman for his analysis of the situation. what strikes me as to what eamon said is it would raise the cost of low wage workers which i would think would be in industries which have thinner margins and can't afford to do that. >> and propel them towards technology. the way i look at it, the cbo reported a few weeks ago on the aca effects on jobs, they slapped this way and slapped the president going back the other way. both proposals seen by the cbo as being -- having a negative effect on jobs. different channels, important to point out. one is the supply of labor but this seems to reduce actual jobs that are out there made available by the demand for labor. that's the more important point here. there are offsets. there are more families who
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would be brought up out of poverty. that's significant. it's something like 1.5% of those people who make the minimum wage or around $11, would lose their job. the remaining people would be making more money and there are positive economic effects from that. the range of error the cbo pointed out is between zero and a million. it could have no effect or it could be a million jobs but the center is half a million jobs on this impact. i think this is going to go from being an economic discussion to being a serious and heated political discussion. >> this is a big labor market but i'm surprised they can fine-tune their models to the extent that they can come through with figures of that sort of accuracy. >> what they're using are i guess somewhat controversial but i guess generally agreed upon co-efficients for how this works. the idea that if labor costs are x, the demand would be y. it's sort of standard economic analysis and whether or not it's true, it's at least a theory by which to begin to have a
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discussion about the cost and the benefits of the government policy. >> steve, thanks. steve liesman. still ahead, old man winter putting a big chill on home builders. we will get your best housing plays ahead. plus the big battle to control the cloud. our exclusive interview with the ceo of fox is coming up next. later, we tell you about the sweetest ipo to hit the streets. plus brian's epic quest to make a russian smile. that's all ahead on "street signs." hes? 24/7. i'm sorry, i'm just really reluctant to try new things. really? what's wrong with trying new things? look! mommy's new vacuum! (cat screech) you feel that in your muscles? i do... drink water. it's a long story. well, not having branches let's us give you great rates and service. i'd like that. a new way to bank. a better way to save. ally bank. your money needs an ally.
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huge news on the housing front today. home builder confidence taking its biggest one month hit ever. the national association of home builders says its february sentiment index plunged below 50, indicating now negative sensement for the first time since may of 2013. all segments of the index were down. current sales were down the worst, 11 points. sales expectations and buyer traffic also down dramatically. >> what does this mean for the housing market going forward? let's bring in david goldberg, building products analyst. great to see you. so it's wintertime, it snows. it snowed a lot in january. snowed a lot in february. is this a big deal? >> yeah. look, the seasonal effect from the worst weather we have had in the last couple years definitely impacted the number. we talked to a lot of market experts on the ground, we look at markets like florida, phoenix, markets in florida and markets in phoenix, texas. nobody has really been talking about this kind of pullback in the housing market. this is a bit of an anomaly with
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the weather, given some labor shortages they talked about in the release. i wouldn't read too much into it. >> at the same time, the snow hit areas where probably home building activity was the lowest. in warmer climates, that's where the pickup is happening. could there actually be a concern out there maybe something that you really want to see the march data to really get a handle of? >> look, we will watch the trend clearly and keep talking to people on the ground but one thing to remember is some of this is also expectations. we did have a great 2013 in terms of the selling season. we had prices up a lot in some of these markets, double digit price appreciation in a lot of good housing markets like phoenix, like some of the markets in florida, texas, maybe not quite the same level of home price appreciation but still great, california. so some of this is expectations have been set really, really high and we are having a good year this year, just not what we had in '13. i think that's some of it, too. we will definitely keep monitoring it but i'm not overly worried about the housing recovery falling apart. we haven't gotten that from anyone recently. >> can you decode when they say to us they are concerned about labor shortages, is that a
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weather phenomenon that people simply couldn't get to building sites to do what they had to do, or is that something different? is that structural, is it about skills and geography? >> it's much more about skills and geography. it's really about we haven't trained much of a labor force. we have been through this housing downturn for five or six years now. you haven't trained skilled laborers in a long time. so just getting people to come to the job sites, getting new employees into the jobs and being able to pay wages that would bring new employees in. that's what they have been talking about there. labor, when you think about it, is a step function. we get really short on labor, new people come in, you get them trained, it eases, then it gets tough and starts to rise up again. it's a step function. we are always kind of dealing with it. it's something that will ease and tighten again as we go forward on the housing side. >> drilling down also, they mentioned constraints on the supply chain and we are taking a look at here usg, new high, owens corning, all highs. at the same time, you like the home builders. why? >> we do like a bunch of home builders.
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in a lot of cases it's company-specific stories. for example, i mentioned pulte group, one of our key calls for the year. very big exposure to the active adult segment, 55, 65 and older. lot of opportunity to take advantage of baby boomers retiring. these are lifestyle oriented communities with a lot of leverage. we also like a name like ryland, a bunch of acquisitions recently, lot of opportunity to grow the business, grow earnings and beaser, in the middle of a company turnaround in terms of its balance sheet. look for value, find some company-specific stories where demographics really play to them but there are opportunities still. >> david, thanks. still ahead, google glass takes to the friendly skies. we will tell you about one airline's big bet on wearable tech. plus, we head back out to sochi, where brian talks the big money and olympic athletes. plus this. that is a lot of 4 x 4 from 1970 soviet union. more after this. honestly? this deal was way too good to believe.
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sochi signs. i'm brian sullivan live in sochi, russia. this is a "street signs" bicontinental edition. we are joined by peter carlyle with octagon. he is the director of olympic and action sports. basically the sports agent for some of these new sports. some of the names we are starting to know from these olympics. i know it's late, it's 11:30 at night, it's been raining all day. appreciate you coming out for us. obviously, the athletes that you rep and some of the new sports, slopestyle, you've got snowboardcross, the very cool things, they are hot now. what's the real marketing potential for some of these athletes once the games are over? >> it's actually far greater than some of the traditional olympic sports because there's an industry that carries on between the games. they have the x games, they have the dew tour, the burton open series. these guys can stay out there. this kind of builds their global image and they can go back to work in the industry. so they do actually better than the traditional athletes. >> when you say go back to work
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in the industry, what kind of work do they do? somebody who does snowboardcross, what does he do the next four years? >> the x games is on every year. it's a big event, it's televised. during the season, they will have a dozen televised events, so -- >> they get paid to do that. >> they are paid by the sponsors. >> their pay is all sponsorship. >> they can earn prize money as well. it's fairly significant in some of the major events. most of their money is -- >> we are showing, some of the stuff these guys and girls are doing is insane. you are just waiting for unfortunately somebody to land on their head. it's unbelievable. what is the earning potential for that? because that's a huge physical risk. >> it is. i think a lot of these sports are. these guys are professional athletes. they train year round and they know what they're doing. a lot of the risks are calculated. but if you win a gold medal in the olympics in one of these sports that has a decent amount
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of marketability, it can mean anywhere from $100,000 to seven figures a year. >> what's the difference between winning a gold and winning a bronze or not winning a medal at all? >> not winning a medal at all is tough, because after that event is over, a lot of the exposure pretty much evaporates. typically, i would say you have to win a gold and you have to win a gold in a really marketable event. it does depend on the games. here, we have had fewer medals and so if you've got a good story and win a bronze medal, that's going to generate a lot of coverage and some of those stories are gaining some traction. it depends. >> how mainstream are these marketers? we know the snowboard companies, the jacket, mountain dew, some of the action drinks, can they get mainstream? >> they do. p & g, visa, that's as mainstream as you get. these companies are now really engaging with the athletes. >> the official car sponsor of the games is volkswagen. they have audis and vws around
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here. what kind of car do you drive? >> acura. >> you do not drive a lotta. do you know what those are? >> i have probably seen a few. >> peter, it was a real pleasure. you must be wiped out. thank you for taking time for us on "street signs." appreciate it. sit tight for a second. the reason i bring up that car is for a reason. there are a lot of modern cars around here. you see mercedes benz out on the road. however, there are still remnants of the former soviet union on the highways here around sochi. we saw a few. we thought hey, our audience will be interested in this because they are not cars you see in the united states. take a look at some of these rides. got to start with the most common car in russia. the 2107, really the people's car of the former soviet union. 1.6 liter engine. you got about 15 inch tires here. this car was everywhere in the '70s in the soviet union. you still see a bunch here. this is the 2 x 2 model.
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the niva is the 4 x 4 version. that's the base model built in the '70s. the owner of this one got ahold of it and tricked it out with big tires and has a carburetor stack on the right-hand side. he's very proud of this version. one of the cool offroad cars here in sochi. i like it. he's got the aftermarket steering wheel. you can see it's a very basic interior. this car was built in the '70s in the former soviet union but they have tricked this out to really make it more appropriate for modern day russia. then one step up from that would be this. this is known as a wazik. they make brands like vans. this is a true 4 x 4. nowhere in the united states. then you probably remember the images of the russian diplomat, they were probably in this. this is an upper class car, four door, bigger engine, slightly more amenities. you can see not much in the styling but if you were anybody
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back in the '70s or '80s in the soviet union or russia now, you were probably driving this. a little bit of a fun look at some of the classic or not so classic cars of 20 and 30 years ago. coming up a bit later in the show, they say the russians can be surly folks. i will try to make some russians smile. it was not nearly as hard as one might think. pretty successful. that's coming up later on in a bicontinental edition of "street signs." we were just remarking how proficient brian is at seemingly selling used cars. >> cars are his thing. >> evidently. still ahead, yoga pants and pillow top mattresses. "street signs" is coming your way next. first, we are digging in on the big battle to control the cloud. our exclusive interview with the ceo of box is coming up when "street signs" returns.
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kiev, ukraine, where riot police are moving in on thousands of protesters encamped in the city center. the violence has intensified and it does appear the fires in the protest camps have spread. the protesters want constitutional reform. this is the bloodiest day of violence since the ukrainian president turned away a trade deal with the eu in favor of russia. street talk time. let's hit five stocks on the move. we kick it off with a big move. this deal worth up to $25 billion. >> the deal will be the second largest for u.s. public companies this year behind of course last week's $45 billion comcast deal to acquire time warner cable. both stocks trading at all time highs on that news. tune in to "the closing bell" at 4:00 p.m. eastern for an
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exclusive interview with the actavis ceo. >> big win for carl icahn, by the way. an upgrade to overweight from piper. >> refresh on its product line. the target has increased to $56 a share. >> take a look at netflix. the movie streaming service attracting a surge of viewership for the second season of "house of cards." >> separately, carl icahn's latest filing with the s.e.c. he cut his stake in netflix by $2.9 million shares, leaving his holdings at about 2.7 million shares, roughly $1.2 billion. and lululemon. >> the brand remains intact despite missteps last year. the stock is still trading lower on this year, down about 12%. >> take a look at green dot, prepaid credit card provider. >> the stock saw an upgrade to equal weight from underweight at
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morgan stanley. shares upgraded based on price but the price target remains at $19. >> as the battle to control the cloud heats up, keep an eye on box. this cloud storage company could be the next big internet ipo. let's go to julia borsten for her exclusive interview with the ceo. >> i'm joined by box's ceo aaron levie. thanks for talking to us. i have to kick things off by asking you about the reports that box has filed confidentially to go public. are they true? >> unfortunately, we can't talk anything about kind of any financial stuff. so unfortunately, no comment on that one. >> can you tell us when you would like to go public? >> that's sort of in the same category but in general, we are certainly trying to build an independent long-standing company. being public is on that path at some point. >> on that path, is box profitable and how much in revenue do you expect to generate this year? there have been some numbers thrown out there. >> yeah. kind of given the stage of the
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market and where we are as a company, we are investing very aggressively for growth right now. that's something that we are very happy about and excited about is we see a window of opportunity with this market where the leaders of the next generation of software are going to be created right now. we're investing to ensure that box is one of those leaders. that's sort of what we're focused on. >> you made a high profile today from cloud space, a very public company. what does this indicate about where you are focused now? >> yeah. we brought on graham younger, who will be the edp of worldwide operations. he was previously head of success factors so running over a $1 billion business for s.a.p. with box it's about how do we get to the fortune 500. we are verticalizing in ways that make sense so when we go into retail, financial services and media entertainment, we have a strong value proposition for those industries. you are just going to see us continue to mature and build a much bigger platform and set of
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solutions. >> you won't tell us how much revenue you are generating but why don't you tell us what investors should understand about what makes box different from all these companies you are competing with. because you are taking on the big guys. >> yeah. so there's a pretty significant shift where workloads from the on-premise world of inside your data centers are moving to the cloud. workloads from your desktop computers are moving to mobile. the way people are sharing is entirely different than it was even five years ago. if you look at companies like chevron or eli lily, these are core customers and they want new ways of working and new ways to share their information. we are building out a platform that can help them do that with much lower costs, that can work from any mobile device, let them get the most out of their information. that lets us be very competitive with microsoft and emc and ibms of the world that are really still on old legacy platforms. >> talking about microsoft, ibm.
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even dropbox has a valuation about five times yours. what will really allow you to compete with these giants? >> i think our ability to move very quickly is something we are very proud of. we are a 1,000 person company but can still act at the speed of a small startup, because of the kind of people we hired and the kind of culture we created. that lets us be very disruptive. as soon as new platforms emerge, we tend to focus on whatever the new ways people want to work are, and that lets us make decisions much faster and innovate more quickly. we have an open platform so it works across all the different devices and different systems that our customers use. we balance a core focus on security and working with large enterprises with the end user experience that you would expect from a consumer application. >> fantastic. we look forward to following your growth and having you back on after you do file publicly for an ipo. thanks for joining us. back over to you. >> thank you for that exclusive. still ahead on "street signs," can one of the most
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addictive social games ever crush it on wall street? we make the case. plus google glass takes flight. how the wearable tech could change the way we fly. first, what are you looking at for "the closing bell"? >> thank you for asking. it's the stock that most viewers ask us about all the time, tesla. those shares hitting new highs right now. should you buy the stock ahead of tomorrow's earnings? oh, yeah, you heard there's a little potential about them being an acquisition target by apple of all companies. >> lots of talk about that over the weekend. also, all eyes on herbalife. that company will report earnings after the bell. we'll have instant analysis and a debate on this closely watched stock. and we are talking pot and profits with the ceo of medical marijuana vending machine companies. never thought you would hear those words together. the company is med-box. >> an interesting day. shares are getting hammered. we will talk about some of the research responsible for that. >> see you at the top of the hour. [ tires screech ]
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every day of the week. centurylink® your link to what's next. 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. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 at schwab, we're here to help tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 turn inspiration into action. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 we have intuitive platforms tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 to help you discover what's trending. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and seasoned market experts to help sharpen your instincts. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 so you can take charge tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 of your trading. it is no secret gold had a rough 2013 and according to the
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world gold council, demand slid to a four year low last year, as investment funds dumped nearly $40 billion worth of the precious metal. why is gold rallying 8% this year? let's talk numbers. on the technicals, steve pyler and steve cortez. steve cortez, fundamentally speaking, is it just the turmoil in the e.m. that's creating this flight to safety? >> you know, i don't think so. i think one of the reasons gold did so poorly last year is actually because of emerging markets. the marginal demand for gold tends to come out of emerging markets, particularly china. china had a very tough year. so gold did as well. now, it's had a nice bounce, very nice bounce so far in 2014 but it's really not that material when you put it in the context of last year's performance. if you bought it a year ago today you're still down almost 20% in gold. i believe in gracie gold, the american skater. i do not believe in gold as an investment. the main reason, we don't see
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inflationary pressures primarily because wages are just too constrained. wage gains have been tepid at best. that's not the recipe for an inflationary gold rally. >> cortez is not a buyer. let's get to the fundamentals. it might be heartening that on friday, gold closed above the 200 day moving average for the first time in 2014. >> yeah. in terms of the charts, gold has had a nice bounce since the january lows. however, when we look at the longer term charts and look at gld here, which is the gold traded etf, we can see that it's been in a down trend since 2011. really, we think the most likely scenario is that it's doing another kind of wide sideways range like it did from november of 2011 through about march of 2013. so there is a bit more upside here as it has had this nice bounce but we think around 134, it will start to run into some selling pressure and likely turn lower from there, as there aren't any big reversal signals yet and that big down trend from 2011 likely still in effect. >> so the bottom line here, both guys are sort of bearish on
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gold. thank you both for that. appreciate it. check out the online edition of talking numbers in partnership of course with yahoo! finance. a big move on oil today. let's get the latest at the nymex. >> you know, the dollar being weak has certainly been helpful in terms of commodities and we are seeing oil here, wti, nymex closing above 102. some geopolitical concerns helping to underscore that. rebels in south sudan captured the capital. libyan output is lower than it should be this time of year. but also, that cold weather is also driving it, particularly on the east coast. we are supposed to get a respite but are expecting to see colder than average temperatures for the end of february and beginning of march, and that is fueling the energy rally today. back to you. >> thanks for that. coming up next, the big money in ugly sweaters. plus this. you hear the russians may
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oh, that sound. the theme music for the game candy crush. if you didn't recognize it, you live under a rock. the company behind that blockbuster game made more than half a billion bucks last year, today filed for ipo. i hate this game. i shun it now. i was addicted to it. it's dead to me. >> how much have you spent? >> nothing. i didn't spend a dime. are you kidding me? let's talk about the company in terms of its valuation because some people are saying you know what, apply an electronics arts multiple to it but it seems a little more akin to a zinga in that it has one blockbuster game which it depends on for revenue. >> they have a bunch of games now but yeah, the question is the king question which is after you have a big hit, how can you get another one. they've had to go buy their hits. the market value is around 4 1/2 times trailing sales. if you do that for king, you get
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a $10 billion company. i don't think they will get that but it's plausible. >> in terms of the warning signs, this is according to our producer here, you signal -- you highlight the fact that revenues declined quarter on quarter to $602 million. if that's the only warning sign, that doesn't seem like a big one because quarter on quarter, that's a decline of just 3%. >> yeah, but when you're going out to market, saying this is my big hit, and this is basically the entirety of my business right now, you don't want to show that decline right away. by the way, that's into the fall quarter when things should be going up because people are buying more ipads and iphones and andrade devices. this thing should still have legs to it. looks like it's declining. >> what happens if they say we're different, we will be serial producers of games like this, we have got everybody locked in, we are -- because there must be at some point a big games operator that succeeds in this space. how would you recognize it from the beginning? >> i don't know how you would. everyone says they are going to be different. super cell is sort of saying that. that's what zinga said. everyone says we cracked the
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code and turns out no one has actually cracked the code and this business is a lot like the movie business. if you have a big hit it's not like you're going to have another big hit. >> that's fine but king has been around since 2002 which is a longer life span. >> they did. two years ago they were a nice small business. business and th exploded last in 2012 because of one game. so they're just like everyone else right now. they're based on one hit. >> are they valuable to other people in the space? could they drive traffic to facebook? probably not twitter, but other players? google, for example? >> if i'm apple and facebook and google, i'm extraordinarily happy about the success of this business because it's a $2 billion business traded overnight that is based on my platform. it's a great advertisement to me. >> so to that point, peter, let's say $2 billion company, does it then sell itself? what odds would you place that king is independent in, say, 12 months -- 12 months after its
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ipo? >> this strikes me as a really good private company. it's going to keep making lots of money for a long time even if candy crush fades away. it's going to keep milk itself for a long time. i don't know how it fares as a public company. i'd love to own this thing if it was private. as a public investor, i don't know about it. >> i guess insiders need to exit. same story. >> they have already been exiting. they've had $500 million in dividends in the last six months. >> i like it. >> peter, thank you. do you play candy crush? >> i don't. i'm sorry. >> have you ever? >> i'm useless. no. i'm sorry. google glass takes flight. the concierge lounge -- anything first class simon will do. >> the hope is technology will soon be used in the air. phil lebeau has more on this big opportunity for google glass with the airlines in chicago.
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>> i love this story because this is really where we're seeing the airlines going into the future, trying to have more information about you and i as we get to the airport and as we get on board. let's show you what they're doing with virgin atlantic in london. they are meeting customers at the curbside as they pull up. these are the upper class customers, those customers who are the elite ones, and they're incorporate ed google glass. the concierge meets them, they have specific information about each individual passenger on the google glass. so they know about you, where you're flying to, any of your specific needs. they'll be testing this for the next six weeks. here is the early reaction from people in london about how google glass is working. >> it provides all the information relating to the car, how many bags they've got, their mileage in their accounts, that sort of thing. really it's trying to alleviate the amount of paperwork we have before they arrive. >> it was very smooth, very efficient, and to be honest with you, i didn't notice the
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gentleman's fancy glasses to start with. it was only when he told us that they were new that i noticed what they were. but, i mean, it obviously made it all very smooth and easy. >> virgin atlantic says the whole industry needs to listen to what these passengers are calling for and keep innovating to bring a return to the golden age of air travel. flying should be a pleasure, not a chore. and the bottom line is this, guys, for a long time we've seen airlines talk about we want to have more information about you before you get on board, but how many times, melissa and simon, have you been sitting on a plane and they come in with all this paperwork and they're like are you mr. jones? you have to go over here. this is hopefully moving us to something more personalized. >> the missing piece, and you know this better than me, is face recognition technology. that it will know who the passenger is and then the data flows. >> well, that's the next step. i'll settle for this in the meantime. look, if they have more information about me when i get
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to the airport, that's fantastic. >> absolutely. and i would think that from a revenue standpoint, simon, you're used to traveling virgin. if you would this ability you might be more inclined to order more things because they know what you want. >> the truth is, phil, they already have this. it's just it's written down on large sheets of paper. >> well, that's the problem, and it's terribly inefficient. i don't know how many times you fly, but every time i fly, i see them come into business class and they go i'm looking for mr. smith. it really is terribly inefficient. >> that's certainly not my experience. always they pick me out. >> well, you're remarkable, simon. >> well, you're a big shot. >> that's the reason why. because i'm usually flying on the free miles but that's the story. phil, it's good to see you. thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up next, a beautiful bright spot for what some call seriously ugly sweaters. >> and tomorrow on squawk box, meet the man who crashed a wall street secret society and wrote all about it. the author of "young money"
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you can find a select few on ebay going for upwards of $3,000. wow. >> suckers is what i say. all right. russia is ranked as the third most unfriendly country in the world according to the world economic forum right behind bolivia and venezuela. so we sent our own intrepid brian sullivan on a mission to turn that frown upside down. >> so we're here in the adler central market, kind of a meeting place in downtown adler, about five miles from the main olympic center. and we have heard that the russians tend to be a surgically sort, not necessarily the most friendly. we're here with one goal, to disprove that. we will make a russian smile. >> and where are you from? i'm guessing russia. i just guessed. it was a complete stab in the dark. come on, you can do it.
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we're going to get you to smile. close. you got close. you are very smiley. you have not been to america. when will you come? is this the olympic snuggie? see, they smile. within ten minutes of being here, we have made not one, but three russians smile. you like american girls? we have a lot in common. go olympics. >> go olympics. >> fantastic. >> are they laughing with him or laughing at him? >> they're laughing at him. >> just throwing it out there because they looked a little bit like they're laughing at him but, you know, that's brian. >> don't forget to catch "squawk on the street" tomorrow.
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we will have the ceo of green mountain. >> tonight on fast freestyle, we have the coo of tony sketchers. thanks for joining us here on "street signs." >> have a great evening. >> we'll see you tomorrow. >> "the closing bell" starts now. and welcome to "the closing bell" on this tuesday. i'm kelly evans here at the new york stock exchange. >> and i'm bill griffeth. we're watching a market searching for direction today. very mixed sort of a situation. first day of this shortened trading week, and these are some of the stories we're watching. the housing data, the home builders sentiment was the worst on record. the biggest decline we've ever seen. i mean, do you think they've got cabin fever or what? is this all about the weather or is there something else brewing in the housing market? we'll look at that and break down some of the numbers and what they
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