lowe's in the wake of that report as well also doing reasonably well. >> the home builders have been doing well. ivy zelman's interview today really moved those stocks. there is very interesting pockets of strength. it's been fun, simon. thanks. >> i always enjoy it. thank you very much. that is it for "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins right now. i did that for you guys. the market is tired of fast moves. it wants somebody who will spend some time with some stocks. as we slowly march our way even higher, we have got some slow hand stock picks for you. hey, you're mandy drury. >> i am mandy drury. >> how you feeling? >> last time i checked i was mandy drury. >> sound a little different. how you feeling? >> i've got a barry white voice today. >> very cool. so i will take this. here's what else is topping today's show besides the picks. why against all odds the

consumer is still king. incredible stats you got to hear on retail. is real estate really slowing. the story about housing you may not hear anywhere else. and the big money that colorado is finding in dope. okay. you want some records, we have records. these are being broken, folks. you have the russell 2k, the small guys hitting a new record today while the nasdaq composite hit a new 14 year high for the third consecutive day. the s&p 500, meantime, is trading above its record close. thank you. i will take it from here. >> that sounds like the godfather. >> i'm al green. history is littered with those who dared to bet against the american shopper. every time somebody says retail is dead, retail seems to rally. even with this weather, guess what, retail stocks have been hot. dom chu picking through winners and losers. i thought all retailers were doomed. >> there is certainly no slow hands or soft touches in this particular map we have. >> you make a good pointer

sisters. >> yes. let's take a look at the big studs and duds in 2014 on the retail side. these are some of the big names that have made huge moves to the upside. zale's, signet jewelers. they are combining. also barnes & noble, jos a. bank. there's a story there. take a look at the downside. you've got some of the traditional underperformers we have seen in the past, jc penney, best buy and sears heading lower. they are picking up downside momentum that they picked up in the past. of course, there's another story here as well. within stock picking, there are industry winners and industry losers. check out athletic apparel because on the one hand you have lu lu lemon down 11% so far this year. on the other hand, you have underarmour up 36%. so a lot of different themes, whether deal related stock picking or traditional downside movers, a lot of those making headlines. >> thank you very much for that.

cnbc contributors are here. i feel very comfortable in the mall. i can make my way around and know what is what when it comes to retail and shopping. but i'm a little confused. give me the skinny here on what kind of take-aways we've got. what kind of trends can the investor take away from this? >> i think it's very clear that the mall is struggling no matter what the stocks are doing today. we saw mall traffic down 14% in the fourth quarter. i don't think that was an anomaly. it was worse because of weather but we will see that happen again all this year. so people who are trapped in the mall that are only doing mall-based selling, that don't have a big online business, it's a problem. >> that being said, i think stores need to be very careful not to ignore the stores because like we talked about many times, the majority of the sales are done in store. they need to make sure they are growing their online and investing in their stores, not letting one sales cannibalize the other if that makes any sense. the low and middle income consumer is going to be very discerning when they make purchases for the immediate

term. i think home values is also something that's very, very important to that lower or middle income consumer. it's the biggest asset and as long as the home values creep up, they feel better about that internal balance sheet. i think that that is a big, big thing that we sometimes fail to recognize, especially as wage growth is very, very stagnant. >> you and i have disagreed on this point which is that car sales and home sales have stolen sales away from other people. if i buy a home, i might need to buy a couch but i'm not going to spend $1,000 on clothes because i have this giant purchase. >> it's all fungible. if you're making a lot more payment on your iphone every month, if you're making a payment on a car every month, it's money that's not going into a sweater. i don't disagree with that. the other big thing going on here is it's getting to be harder and harder to be an off-price retailer, because the full price retailers are selling at the same prices as the off-price guys. it's really hard to say 40% off of department store prices, 40% to 60% off when the department store is saying 40% to 60% off.

i think that's a longer term theme. that's not going to get better over the course of this year. >> doesn't that dovetail in the theme you have a giant like walmart who is trying to play in a small store format, isn't that going to kill the dollar stores? >> i think it will make it much harder for the dollar stores. i look at these numbers today and i'm not a big target fan despite the fact i wish i were today, because i think walmart is putting pressure on them at the bottom, then i also think walmart's new strategy of putting a lot of their capital into neighborhood markets and expresses is going to put a lot of pressure on the dollar space. >> and online. >> and online. >> on my screens here, i have 45 retailers that have a market cap above $500 million. 37 of them are significantly higher this year, this month, in fact, only a few that are down. why is kroeger up 11%? why is the gap up 15%? why is signet jewelers up 21%? why is rite-aid up 21%?

i don't understand why these retail stocks have done so well. >> it is something that is a little bit confusing to the market. i think some investors are a little forgiving, when we talk about things like weather or even something like the data breach at target. target said same store sales in february are nearly flat which is much better than i thought they were going to say that they were. so i don't know if we have a short memory, short attention span, we're forgiving, we want to get out of the house, i'm not sure. or is demand built into the stocks and slowly we will see that drift away. >> again, it's how we opened the segment. i said that half-jokingly about the american consumer. i don't know how it is in australia. anybody here that's ever bet against the u.s. propensity to spend? >> is wrong. >> been wrong forever. >> do not bet against it. >> we like to spend money. we like to shop. >> you ran department stores and helped run department stores for decades. you're not that old. but you know what i mean. every time you probably were surprised at how much people spent. >> the customer is really resilient.

what you have to believe now is the economy's getting better. if it is, things we did last year that we didn't like like bad weather and higher social security taxes are going away. it's working our way. >> one thing we have been banging the table about on "street signs" is how much everybody's heating bill has gone up. in some cases double, triple. it hurts everybody across the spectrum. but not hurting retail. >> it's temporary. it's only right now. these investors are looking at what happens in spring and next fall. >> plus you only get your heating bills once a month. >> right. it's only pain for one day. then you move on, go back to the mall. >> it is. >> nobody cares. heating bill tripled. >> you probably pay less attention to on it an ongoing basis. >> i got the thermostat at 62. the dogs are shivering. >> i pay attention when my bill comes that one day. i might not spend for a couple days. >> and you used retail therapy to make yourself feel better about it. >> yeah. right. >> put a layer of blubber on like i do for protection. thank you very much. with all due respect to the

show, two hours ahead of ours, let's turn our focus to what we're calling slow money. the slow money market. the past two years, stocks like that turtle have slowly simply just gone higher. i will stop speaking slowly. are there any stocks left for holders to buy and hold? for the long term? joining us, all-star fund managers eric marshall and don wardell. eric, first to you. we had a little fun with that because we always talk about trading, trading, trading. slow money market, what's to buy right now? >> well, we are focusing on companies that have a high degree of fixed cost leverage in their business models and that are experiencing pricing power. one that we like there is a company called eagle materials which is a way to play the recovery that we see in the construction markets. they make cement and gypsum wallboard. they are a low cost provider in both those areas. the company has made strategic

investments here over the last few years that we think will double their earnings power at the peak of this cycle compared to the peak of the last cycle. and even though the stock has moved, we still see considerable upside from here. we think ultimately they could have anywhere from $10 to $12 of earnings power at the peak of this cycle. >> of course, we will be talking tomorrow about building materials and housing but don, you do believe the market will go higher in the next 12 to 18 months but if indeed slow and steady is going to win the pace, what stocks will win for you? >> we really like rockwell automation. the tenets of our philosophy are dividends, valuation, fundamentals. fundamentals will get you from point a to point b. with a lost volatility along the way. but rockwell automation is on the front end of a super cycle for automation. you are seeing spending expectations rise, rockwell's in a great position from that

standpoint and we think they can earn well north of $7 a share. put a 20 multiple on it, that gets you well north of $140 a share and the stock at 120 still gives you a lot of upside. we really like that story. >> certainly that stories makes a lot of sense but there is one particular stock pick i've got here on my list for you that does scream a warning sign. that is an 11% dividend yield. quite often you see a stock that has such a high dividend it's because there are problems elsewhere and it's the only way they can get an investor to be interested. is this the case here? >> no, we don't believe so. in fact, yesterday, they raised their dividend to $3.92 annually. we think the near term deep water oil drilling fundamentals are weak. i don't discount that. i won't argue with you about that at all. i think over the next, again, over the next 12 to 18 months, you are going to see continued demand for deep water drilling and they possess the most high spec technologically advanced

fleet out there today. they get the leading edge day rates and we expect their ebita to grow and we suspect this dividend is sustainable and should be attractive to investors who want long term share price growth potential as well as income to get paid while they wait for very near term weakness in the space. we are very attracted to seadrill at this point. >> thank you both very much for joining us on this slow market. nice slow jam, by the way. i've got the voice for it. you've got the moves. >> i have neither the voice nor the moves but i appreciate that. on deck, a housing hat trick. three huge headlines moving the market today. we've got our all-star panel of housing experts joining us. plus, why we are calling it painful as it is, herb greenberg, a real estate genius. >> we are? >> we are. later on, why big business is making it their business to stop a controversial bill from becoming law in arizona. stick around for this.

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housing has been a bit of a riddle. the mixed data we got today, new home sales up nearly 10% in january. sounds good. but mortgage applications fell by 8.5% last week. that doesn't seem to mesh with the other graphic with the green arrow and the 9.6%. what the heck is going on with housing? diana olick is waving me down. she's on set. jed coco.

>> these are government numbers based on an incredibly small sample of homes for sale in january. they round up to the point that if you do the rounding and the math, they are actually unchanged and their margin of error is bigger than their movement. even ivy zelman who was on our air earlier doesn't buy those numbers at all. she says new home sales were flat in january. >> do you agree with that? >> they are super volatile numbers. new home sales, new home starts. i like to look at a three-month average year over year -- >> what does that tell you? >> about 7% up year over year which is still improvement but not the same at 10% up month over month. >> can i ask a dumb question? >> please. >> why do we even bring them up if they are unreliable? >> that's a bigger question for the government. there is a cottage industry of information surveys out there. >> go through the earnings reports, they are publicly traded home builders. >> right, but they only make up a small percentage of the

market. you have lots of builders across this nation who are midsize to smaller size builders. the big publics get all the attention because we trade the stock. but they are not the bulk of the market. >> can i ask one thing? i also saw one report that said the median price fell to the lowest since august and that might have been one of the other reasons why it helped move supply along. >> the builders are faced with some trouble. they have higher costs for land, labor, supplies. they cannot lower prices as much as they might like to, although they are trying to bring affordability back because it went completely out of whack in 2013 where we had rising home prices and rising mortgage rates at the same time which i call a toxic cocktail. >> so affordability is better now? >> no. >> you got something very cool on renting versus buying. get to that in a second. final question to you, diana. whenever there is a bad sales number, people say housing's doomed. we have heard from realtors. my brother-in-law's a realtor. our executive producer's mother's a realtor.

home sales are -- could be rough lately because there's no inventory. >> exactly. >> if i'm in seattle and want to buy a home and have great credit and a mortgage ready, i may not be able to find my home. how real of a story is that? >> that is a very real story. i talk to real estate agents every day who tell me i don't have a house to sell right now. look at california, inventory i ways down. we have our realty check recovery map, you watch every market across the nation, inventory is down. the hope is it will come back this spring, people will come out of their houses from the winter and put them on the market and we will see that rise but that's the biggest barrier to entry right now. >> trillia is out with their 2014 buy versus rent report which i believe says it's about 38% cheaper to rent than to buy. what's behind this? >> nationally it's 38% cheaper to buy than to rent. huge differences locally so it's not 38% cheaper to buy than rent everywhere. but when you take into account all the things that go into buying and renting, mortgage payment, tax deductions,

maintenance, property taxes, and the sales proceeds when you sell eventually, it's still very cheap to buy compared to rent. mostly because mortgage rates are still very low by historical standards. they are up over the last year, but mortgage rates at 4.5% would be the envy of anyone coming to us today from the 2000s or '90s or '80s. >> we both own our homes. i have a home in sydney as well. he has a home in america. we just put so much money into those homes. >> yeah. buying a home, every month, hole in the roof, alligator crawling out of the toilet, stuff i got to spend money on constantly. >> we don't factor in the alligator coming out of the toilet. >> once. >> even once. not part of the model. we do factor in what the norm for maintenance, for upkeep. there is always uncertainty involved with buying. part of the uncertainty is you could be buying a money pit. there could be lots of costs you don't expect. but the other uncertainty is what happens to home prices

after you buy. what happens to home price appreciation -- >> you put in the tax deduction in your model as well? >> that's all in there. >> not many people want to buy nowadays versus rent. >> the challenge is lots of people aren't even in the game of whether to buy or rent. if you haven't saved enough for a down payment, you can't qualify for a mortgage, you can't find a house to buy, then it doesn't do you much good that buying looks 38% cheaper than renting nationally. >> where is the spot, the local market, where it is actually better to rent than to buy? >> at the metro level, it comes closest in honolulu but still 5% cheaper to buy than rent there. bay area, san francisco, 13% cheaper to buy than to rent. remember, that's if you stay put for seven years, itemize your tax deductions and get a 4.5% mortgage. if you don't stay as long or don't itemize or can't get the best prevailing mortgage rate, buying won't look as good and

renting may be the better deal especially if you don't stay seven years. >> thank you. diana, great to see you on set. >> you have the most polite of all reporters. like please. most just butt in. >> that's your co-host. speaking of housing, we are calling herb greenberg a real estate genius. here's why. financial education website credit donkey compiled a list of america's top cities for the future. they based it on things like housing, construction, jobs and population change. one thing stood out to us. eight of the top ten were all on the west coast. of course, herb recently moved back out to san diego. herb, you are a regular horace greeley. >> is he even there? no. okay. maybe not. >> genius without a phone. get a phone, herb. >> you don't have to be a genius like sun on that side, rain, sleet and snow on this side. >> i know.

i was born in l.a., 10 years old moved to san diego. spectacular weather. moved to virginia when i was in high school. i have no idea where the hell i'm from, actually. lived here for 20 years. there's a lot to be said for the west coast but when i see $1.6 million for a tear-down, is that a bubble where you are? >> prices -- >> for a tear-down! >> prices look a little overvalued in the bay area. but nowhere near what we saw in the bubble. >> okay. on that point -- >> do you know where herb greenberg is? >> i haven't seen him. i will look when i get home tomorrow. >> out sunning himself, probably. still ahead, the delta miles makeover. they are making pretty big changes to their frequent flyer program. not everyone is happy about it. some passengers are up in arms. forget hot chocolate. we are talking pot chocolate. yep. chocolate made from dope. guy around 2 percent ay yor to manage your money. that's not much, you think except it's 2 percent every year. go to e*trade and find out how much our advice and guidance costs. spoiler alert. it's low. it's guidance on your terms not ours. e*trade. less for us, more for you.

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to manage your money.r guy around 2 percent that's not much, you think except it's 2 percent every year. go to e*trade and find out how much our advice and guidance costs. spoiler alert. it's low. it's guidance on your terms not ours. e*trade. less for us, more for you. it's not an accident we are showing you delta stock up again today, up 21% year to date at an all time high, because despite that, there are some delta

customers who are out of their minds angry today. the company making big changes to its sky miles frequent flyer program. in a nutshell, it is rewarding ticket costs over flyer miles. let's bring in phil lebeau, who we are happy to have also here. all the reporters are suddenly on set today. it's fantastic. why are people angry about this? >> they are angry because the average person will look at this and say well, look, in the past if i might have received x number of miles because i was flying that far, i'm only going to get a portion of that because the cost is much lower, because you are going to be rewarded in the future based on how much the ticket fare is. so if it's $230 times the multiplier, you may be getting that. we have two examples of why people are going to either love this program or hate it. remember, this is all about the business traveler. let's start first with one of our own co-workers. we will call her silver medallion jody. she was upstairs saying i hate this system. here's why. >> you are being slammed on television. >> she knows it. on a flight going down to miami

from new york, $233 is the cost for a ticket. currently she will get 2742 miles or points. next year, that same flight for a coach ticket, sorry, jodi, she's only going to get 1631. you can see -- she's not happy. now let's call up what we would call the super elite. diamond medallion ceo. the person who is paying for flying in business class. they will love this system. with the multiplier, currently they are getting 4936. next year, they will get 9900. here's the reason why delta is making this move. it's all about the business class traveler. i'm sorry for the average person at home who will say i'm not getting the same miles. you don't matter to the airlines relative to the high margin business class traveler. that's what the airlines are trying to do. look what delta has done in new york. look what they're doing in the trans continental flights. this is all about winning over those customers. >> if the average person is annoyed about this, what are

they going to do? go to southwest or virgin america or jetblue? because they've got exactly the same system as delta is now bringing in. >> correct. they may sit there and say i'm going to go to american or united. i talked to jay sorenson who runs all the frequent flyer numbers. he made a point today of saying i bet you the other two are going to fall in line with this. your choices are limited here. >> first, the airlines have created these regional monopolies. i live in new jersey. basically 90% of the time i have to fly united. there is not even another flight going anywhere near where i need to go. >> shares are higher, they are higher because delta is doing what you want the airline to be doing if you are an investor, maximizing profit, going after the high margin customer. >> not just higher. they are at an all time high today. >> exactly. >> there you go. the investor is speaking. thank you so much. i thought you would say diamond medallion brian sullivan. >> i've been told he's gold. >> i am united, sir. i flew delta to moscow.

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street talk time. hitting stock news, views and recommendations that you can use. enough with the poetry. let's get to intermune. you were speaking with the ceo just yesterday. it's been downgraded to market perform from outperform despite positive news on recent drug trial data. it's absolutely tanking. >> yes, i know you were out yesterday, it was a 160% gainer at this time yesterday. the ceo dan welch did come on. the downgrade is because they note uncertainty in the trial data. the target was raised. the concern is this. great drug trial results but the competitive landscape could get a little more crowded. maybe some cost pressure there. >> also dreamworks animation not looking so dreamy. the shares plummeting after a downgrade to underweight from

neutral. >> wow. getting slammed, down 12.7%. >> nightmare works. >> not funny. $30.71. the problem is the movie "turbo." it was expensive, it's underperformed. that's a big cost drag as well. here's the worst thing about this stock call. the price target, $19. stock's at $30. that is one of the lowest differences i have ever seen in our short history of street talk. >> stock three, ralph lauren, moving higher after being upgraded at wells fargo. >> up 1.4% to $162.24. the upgrade attributed to new store strategy, turn-around in europe and japan. they upped their valuation range to a heady 186 to 197. they don't give a set price target as wells, they give you a range. the bottom end, 186, whatever it is, that's still $24 above where the stock is right now. that's the bottom end if you believe wells. >> we have also got first solar.

the stock has been moving lower, down by about 10% since the company reported its fourth quarter results. >> to 52.36 on first solar. goldman sachs cutting their target by 27% to 42 from 58. goldman sees $10 more downside on first solar. they maintain their sell rating, company missed analyst estimates by nine cents. gross margin below the industry average. that's about 33%. >> done pretty well over the past year, up about 67%. our market mover of the day, trading at an all time high. the stock is absolutely soaring, up by 34%. anika therapeutics. >> they develop products for tissue protection and repair. target increased to 60 from 47 at summer street research. their rating remains buy. they had a buy. that was a good call. the fda just approved settlement for a product that treats pain from osteoarthritis, a very painful condition. look at this, though.

333% gain. lot of people talking about biotech maybe being in a bubble. intermune yesterday. lot of these names, if the market opportunity is there, every ceo should ask what's the market opportunity. we should get this guy on. >> there's the invitation if he's listening. he or she. the hottest trend this year is actually not in stocks. it is commodities. they have gone wild, gold, silver, natural gas, crude, they have all been seeing big gains this year. the natural gas down the last few days. nonetheless, the question is whether or not you should get in on commodities or maybe are they starting to look overbought. let's talk numbers. andy busch is on the charts, john stephenson is on the fundamentals. gentlemen, good to see you. john, what is behind this big comeback in commodities? do you think it's sustainable? >> you know, i love commodities, mandy. generally speaking, i'm pretty bullish but i have to be bearish right now. i think what's behind it at least in gold has been sort of a short covering rally.

cold weather has really moved through all the u.s., it's moved natural gas up. i think that's really an example of what's happening. you've got inventory levels down 40% below the five year average. that's generally a positive sign but then you've got drilling activity, most producers drilling for oil and light oil. you are seeing that a 20 year low. what's happening, we have too much natural gas in north america. we will see that come down and on the oil side, globally speaking, you have libya coming on, iran, iraq, all of that is very bearish for that. then of course, the big driver of commodities overall for demand is china. look at pmi numbers, 50.5 or 49.5 and so all of that means that i think commodity prices are probably going to go down. i would be a seller right now. i would not be a buyer of commodities in general right now. >> you would be a seller. andy, what about the deutsche bank commodities index? this is an etf that tracks all kinds of commodities and it's very clear that each has its own sort of supply and demand.

nonetheless, in terms of the chart, how is it looking? >> actually it's a little different from what john was just talking about. i definitely would not be selling this at this point. the reason is, i sent a two year daily chart of the ddc and you can see it's traded in a range of 24 to 30. clearly it's been in a down trend for some time. but here's what's interesting. on valentine's day, this thing broke the down trend line and shot up so we broke up from 2580 and gapped to 2595, then went up to 26 1/2 which is where we're kind of trading. what i would say on this is this. i would wait for a pull-back to test that trend line again. usually what happens is once you break resistance on the upside you come back and test it, that's when i want to buy it. technically i don't think this is that bad. it's actually indicating that you formed a bottom and you really should give it a shot to go long at some point. >> we've got two different sides

of the coin which is what makes a market. gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. check out the online edition of talking numbers in partnership with yahoo! finance. i think you just did an interview, a rare interview and people can check it out online. >> it's a two-parter. pretty cool. he has interesting comments about argentina, basically saying they have already defaulted. he thinks the regime is coming to an end, made some comments about the ukraine. check it out. >> what do you do when a country defaults? >> you buy the equities. we talk about that. 100% of the time, stocks go up when countries sovereign default. maybe we should do that tomorrow. remind people. next up, big business stepping up pressure on arizona for its controversial law. will the governor do the right thing? also, forget chocolate and peanut butter. we take you inside a company that's figured out a way to combine chocolate and pot. the big business of marijuana and munchies. you feeling hungry? what's coming up on "the closing

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overblown. >> that was bill gross 24 hours ago right here on "street signs" talking about the departure of their co-ceo mohammad el-erian. we are just getting word into the newsroom, this is coming from the financial times, that some investors in the german insurance company that owns pimco are nervous about the management changes there. the ft saying investors are calling the company to take action. you should know pimco contributes about 30% of all operating profit overall to allianz. we will update you as soon as we learn more. if they want changes, maybe they could push them through. big story if you have been following the pimco tale. >> hopefully we will be able to talk to them. in the meantime, we are closely monitoring an important battle between big business and the state of arizona. at issue is a bill that would make it legal for business owners to deny customers based on religious beliefs. many say it discriminates against gays and companies like apple are simply not going to

stand for it. it is up to the governor to sign it or veto it. scott cohn, is the governor any closer to a decision? >> reporter: well, she is 24 hours closer. we know that. she has until the end of saturday officially to decide whether to sign the bill, veto it or do nothing, in which case it becomes law by default. if it makes you feel any better, here's a tweet from the governor last night. i assure you as always, i will do the right thing for the state of arizona. governor brewer is now back in arizona, where she is said to be deliberating what the right thing is, and that of course is what all the fuss is about, what the right thing is. growing protests at the state capitol, both opponents of the bill who say it's a license to discriminate against gays and proponents who say all it does is protect the freedom of businesses to refuse service to anyone if giving them service conflicts with their religious convictions. but businesses have been among the most vocal opponents. you mentioned apple, also intel, delta airlines and yelp are added to the long list of companies urging a veto and the ceo of salesforce.com just

tweeted that if the bill becomes law, we will never do another corporate event in arizona. there is also a business component in favor of the bill. it is aimed ostensibly at protecting small businesses. small businesses. now that brewer is back in arizona, you can bet she is also hearing from them as she deliberates and everybody waits for a decision. >> we are waiting. thank you very much for giving us all the details. we want to bring in our leadership's todd sears and the cato institute's elliott shapiro. thank you for joining us on this topic. todd, economically speaking, business-wise, is this very damaging whether the bill gets signed or not? >> absolutely. the fact that she didn't veto it immediately sends a really strong message to business that discrimination is actually okay or something to even be considered in arizona. it's one more black mark, whether it was arizona considering martin luther king day in the '90s or immigration in the 2000s and now lgbt is one

more black mark. the businesses, whether they're thinking about coming to arizona or are already in arizona are going to have to consider. >> you know, there are constitutional and state issues here at work, right? in no way it cato saying the law is right or wrong but your point is this is in some ways arizona's attempt to get in line with more of a federal stance, is it not? >> that's right. the federal religious freedom restoration act which passed congress unanimously about 20 years ago has the equivalence in various states around the country, and this is not a state enforced segregation or anything like that. we support gay marriage, we are filing briefs next week, actually, supporting the challenges to oklahoma's and utah's marriage laws. but this is about individual businesses. i tell you, the economic effect from this is those businesses that want to display and rightfully so that they are welcoming to the lgbt community should display that in their marquee. i'm sure they will gain from that. and those businesses that value

their religious beliefs can do that as well. this is about the freedom of association and it's not about state discrimination or state enforced discrimination. >> but considering the backlash from business, not just little business but big business as well, some big names out there, it's hard to imagine that even if governor brewer does actually sign the bill, it's hard to imagine it's not going to be challenged and challenged again and eventually struck down. am i not reading this correctly? >> it depends on how it's used. there are exemptions from the exemptions in the religious freedom restoration act. you can't have human sacrifice as part of your religion to be exempt from murder laws. here, what was passed was responding to phoenix, tucson and flagstaff passed laws that are setting up a potential situation like happened in new mexico with the wedding photographer who was fined when she didn't want to work the gay commitment ceremony. not just serve gay clientele but work the actual ceremony. that's what this is meant to prevent. not meant to prevent all types

of discrimination and if the state can show there's a compelling interest and it draws its law narrowly, it can overcome that, as has happened in the federal circumstance. >> todd, you know, those in favor of the bill, there doesn't seem to be many of them at all, are saying that this is about religious freedom, that let's say you're islamic and you work at a restaurant and they say well, this would protect you from having to say serve pork. where you can have the religious freedom to say i'm not comfortable that i won't do it and you cannot be fired for that. where is the line drawn, i guess, between accomplishing those types of good goals, protecting people's religious beliefs, and making sure everybody has equal access to everything? >> i think there are two things here. we're talking about, in your example, refusal to provide a good versus a service. so if the islamic restaurant is open to the public, they are not saying what it has to serve. but that it has to serve everyone if it's open to the public. it's apples and oranges to use that comparison. second, if you're looking at how this bill is worded, you could

actually say that by virtue of your religion, whatever your religion is, although this is clearly meant to be a quote unquote, christian religion exemption, that you could refuse to serve anybody for any reason whatsoever. it doesn't have to just be gay and lesbian people. i think that's why you are seeing people like senator mccain and senator flake and even some of the arizona legislators who actually passed this bill, now that they have actually read it, maybe given it a little more thought than they did in the initial stages, they realize that this bill could be a whole lot more harmful to the state than they originally intended. so they have actually lobbied against governor brewer to veto the bill as well. i think the religious exemption is no different in my opinion than looking at refusing to serve blacks at lunch counters in the '60s. i find it hard to draw that distinction and actually have good conscience from a business perspective. >> it's a good discussion. thank you guys very much for coming on the program. we do appreciate it. >> thank you. colorado's newly legal pot market could soon rake in $1

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colorado's newly legal marijuana market could soon exceed a billion bucks annually and hundreds of entrepreneurs want in on the action. one company has figured out how to combine munchies and marijuana. harry smith is here with the story. >> reporter: at denver's incredibles edibles they're cranking out 40,000 marijuana infused candy bars a month in a kitchen unlike any we'd seen before. that's a lot of marijuana. >> this is a small portion. we're going through right now 500 pounds a month -- >> reporter: 500 a month? >> and we can't keep up. >> reporter: where is the main ingredient? >> this is the hash oil. keeping it warm so it mixes better with the chocolate.

pure concentrated thc hash oil fully activated. >> i think you need to close that door. i may be becoming affected by it. >> harry, if i'm not wrong it's much more potent to eat it than to smoke it, isn't it? >> one of the things they say is take a bite and wait 45 minutes and the problem they say is people get one of these edibles and they taste so good so they start eating it. you eat an entire one of those bars -- >> what do they taste like, harry? >> i have no idea what they taste like, but what they say is you won't utter a word for about two days. >> which is very hard for an anchor. you've also brought along a whole pile of things on our desk. what are all of these? >> one of the other companies we profiled make what is essentially an e cigarette and what's inside here, not for our purposes because you can't transport these things over state lines, would be a little cartridge with hash oil.

highly, highly processed hash oil. it comes in all these different flavors. you see this, look at all the different colors of the rainbow. each corresponds with a different strain of marijuana. just dozens and dozens of varieties. you get the one you like the best, and all it takes -- see the little end will light up. >> oh, yeah. >> that's one, two, three, tokes of this and -- >> we need to get the old rush music playing. >> this is also part of the story is this then, you know, gone is the black light, where is cheech, where is chong. that's an aspect of that. there's a serious stoner aspect of that with the big bongs and all that other stuff, but this is so rapidly moving into the mainstream. >> what do you think about this? in colorado, right, if you light up a cigarette, oh, my god, you're destroying my children's lungs. let's smoke pot. do you find it odd that pot smoking is a lot more acceptable

than cigarette smoking? >> this is the huge alternative. and, oh, by the way, this stuff, these things and the edibles, they now make up 40% of the pot market. 40%. and the arrow on this stuff is like this. >> big business. big business. okay. thank you, harry. and do not miss the premiere of "marijuana in america: colorado pot rush." >> don't be tumped. >> i would never be tempted. i am pure. >> dozens of rare guitars are over there. they're going to be hitting the auction block. we also have steve liesman tuning up for us as well and we're going to rock it out. >> a perfect segue. i always say be the man 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.

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we like to talk about alternative investments here on the show. this is probably the most rocking segment we have ever done literally. this april gurn si auction house auctioning off some of the rarest guitars. three of them here, including our man steve liesman on lead guitar. >> $75,000 guitar. >> you don't know that yet. >> don't drop it. >> is he right or is that going to go for more than 70? eric clapton owned that guitar. >> this is a rare guitar that might be worth without eric clapton. his association, who knows. >> what else have you got? >> and steve liesman played it, too. >> down at the far end the other

dark guitar, that's another very rare gibson played by steven stills, but the middle one is the most valuable of all. that's a martin om45 deluxe, one of ten known to exist. considered the finest martin in the world. >> why? >> the dee tails thtails that w the manufacture. martin is the oldest guitar manufacturer in the united states. this is their rarest model. the first one to come up for many years. high six figures, maybe more. >> what kind of buyers goes for this kind of investment? >> the kind of person who likes fine old cars, beautiful wristwatches, and beautiful guitars. >> and a piece of american history. that's another interesting part of it. >> but is it a good investment. >> look at vintage ferraris -- >> are these ferraris? >> they appeal to the same buyer. fine wrips watstwatches. >> which one would you pick?

>> the one he wouldn't let me play. he'd let me play this one and the other one but the -- one of these gibsons was made during world war ii and the gibson never admitted to it but women made these. there's a bunch of special gibsons and i think this might be one of them. >> that's why they're superior. >> made by women. >> we have to leave it there, allen. thank you so much for bringing those in. steve, thank you for the ballad as well. and thanks for watching "street signs," everybody. >> "the closing bell" kicks off right now, everybody. yes, welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans here at the new york stock exchange. >> and i'm bill griffeth here at cnbc global headquarters. here we go again. the s&p 500 flirting with all-time highs. for a time we were two or three points above the old closing high and we have a late day sell-off that seems to be spoiling the party.