we will watch that very closely and see what happens. transports confirming the move in the dow. the transportation average is up about 60 points. the ten year note, 2.67% on the ten year yield. three winners right now, target, national oil wells and kroeger. good to have you back, ty. have a great weekend. >> same to you. stay dry if you're in the rain, stay warm if you're in the cold. that does it for "power lunch." "street signs" begins now. that's it, big boy. nice move. hi, everybody. mandy and i have your spring playbook. it is raining out west. it is set to snow again here. mercury is finally out of retrograde. we have warmer weather stock picks just for you. plus, the party that amazon.com may actually be late to. kate kelly ominously detailing the widow maker trade. is "house of cards" a smash

for netflix? >> brian, why are we playing "get jiggy with it"? do you have any idea what year this song is from? >> 30 pounds ago? >> 1998. it might have been 35, to be honest. why are we mentioning this? because the dow and s&p behind me are enjoying their very best february since 1998. we are breaking records all over the place. the s&p pushing further into the unknown and untrod territory. the russell 2k, they're breaking records. the nasdaq not quite a record but nonetheless another 14 year high. all in all, a pretty good week and a very good month for the three indices as we close out february. this is the tally for you. the dow up 4.4%. the s&p up 4.7%. the nasdaq, the outperformer, up by 5.6% over the course of this past week. >> i had to go live with my aunt and uncle in bel-air.

can you believe that? story of my life. >> that is the story of your life. very short story but a good story nonetheless. >> thank you very much. the prince of cnbc, princ s princess. weather has been an excuse for corporate earnings for years but this year, do companies actually have a point? the weird weather continuing everywhere. let's start with that and get on the weather channel's kate parker with more. >> reporter: we are talking about a deluge of rain in california, something they haven't seen in a very long time. in fact, it was march 2011 the last time we saw more than one inch of rain in one day in l.a. we surpassed that a couple days ago and it keeps on coming in. you can see we do have a flash flood warning in some areas as this rain does come in in spurts. we are seeing some lines that have heavier downpours within them. here are the watch areas through southern california. san diego through santa clara and santa barbara, we had a coastal flood advisory thanks to all this rain.

let's talk about additional precipitation. three to five inches anticipated for southern california right along the coast and if you head a little farther to the north into san francisco, one to two inches. we will get some in the mountains as well. that snow has been beneficial. that will provide water as we get into summer. that is necessary. so what about the northeast? let's break it down for you heading into sunday night. a wintry mix as you can see anticipated, basically north of washington, d.c., but into new york, it will be snow, not just through saturday and into sunday, but also into monday, we are anticipating some of that. from west coast to east, this storm is going to be making its way across and making an impact for just about everybody. >> kate parker, next time you're on, please bring some good news or i will hire minnie driver. >> reporter: deal. united airlines blaming the bad weather for a quadrupling of cancellations this year. a quadrupling. phil lebeau, quadruple. i don't know how much that is but it sounds like a lot. >> reporter: four times more than they usually have, brian. it's not surprising, because what we're seeing from united,

we have seen from really all of the airlines. united feeling a real hit when it comes to canceled flights in january and february. all together, the company says this will impact the revenue for the first quarter primarily because most of the cancellations are on the regional flights. those have higher revenue per seat mile. the cancellations did quadruple last month. here's the reason why. we saw this at almost every airport. there was just bad weather especially in the eastern half of the united states. united canceled more than 22,000 flights. 90% of those cancellations, regional flights. again, your regional flights, you have higher passenger revenue per available seat mile. that means the first quarter for united will be lower. despite that, yes, the stock is under pressure, down more than 3%. look where it is for the last year. it's not far from its 52 week high. another stock we want to show you, delta. it is close to its all time high. this is an example of a lot of investors know that the first couple months of this year have

been a mess. but you know what? they are sticking with the airline stocks because they believe eventually, the weather clears and when it does, the airlines are sitting in a pretty good position. >> i'm also hearing that these airlines are getting a whole lot better at anticipating the bad weather and cancellations that go along with it. for example, a lot of them have this kind of software that automaticly rebooks travelers that have canceled flights ahead of the bad weather. so they can go an alternative route. >> what airline is that? i want to fly them. >> they are getting better and better. >> reporter: they are getting better. having said that, it's a tough situation for the traveler because there is no slack in the system. if your flight canceled, you are in a really tough spot in terms of getting some place relatively quickly. >> i'm still trying to figure out what airline that is. which one? >> i'm not sure which airline -- >> the automatic rebooking. that sounds fantastic.

>> -- automatically rebooks the traveler. >> reporter: almost all of them have that where they will rebook you. almost all of them have it. >> i fly 100,000 miles a year, countless problems, never been rebooked by anybody. >> reporter: when i get cancellation notices almost every time it says you have been rebooked on this flight. if i don't like that, i can go back and change it. >> yes, if you're canceled. mandy is talking about predictive software. >> in an airline knows there will be weather ahead, the software kicks in on the airline's request and therefore, it can automatically rebook you. the other thing i heard was even though due to bad weather if you have to stay on the ground, your flight has been canceled, you have accommodation costs, you have meal costs, the airlines aren't liable for that but some of them for the sake of loyalty, and that's really important in the airline industry, some of the airlines are starting to foot the bill. is that right, phil? >> reporter: i don't know if i would go too far with that. i think there are cases where they will look at footing the bill but when it comes to loyalty as being the primary

driver there, they realize that everybody's in the same boat. there is no incentive for the airline to say you know what, let's be altruistic and pay a little more for the person who has a canceled flight. everybody is in the same boat. >> okay. got to leave it there. always great to talk to you. let's bring some good news. winter will eventually come to an end. in fact, spring is only 20 days away. well, 20 sounds like a really long time. nonetheless, it will come and with spring comes green. who stands to benefit? barry, vince, great to see you. who's going to benefit? >> well, i think obviously companies that have not been able to do a lot in the bad weather, you have companies of course like john deere which people haven't been out plowing their fields at all through this wintertime and probably have pent-up demand for their goods. they made some great improvements and even have additions to some of their

product line and have been buying back shares aggressively. we also like a company, meritage home building. the new home builders have been holding up better today, the numbers were better than existing homes. obviously, as the weather improves, people will be looking to buy. i know there's a lot of demand, my son's out in denver and he can't find a house, it seems, right now. i think that will be real helpful. then probably people will be driving more so the companies that are in the refining business and the marketing of gasoline like valero could do very well. i still think we're on a highway to the danger zone, if you will, pardon my old fighter pilot talk. but the market is only up for right now but everything that goes up does come down. i think people need to be a little cautious and be careful with the things they're buying. >> highway to the danger zone? my only question is where is --

kenny logigins action there. i have had random people say to me lately you think we're going to drop. i don't know what the answer is. what do you think? >> well, we look at the price to sales of the s&p 500 and it's trading at about $1.61 for every $1.91 revenue. historically it's around $1.53 over the last 20 plus years. so that may seem a little toppy, may be getting there slightly. however, with interest rates as low as they are, i don't think it will be a problem at all. i think this market will have a fairly decent year. i expect a few corrections, a little choppiness but in the end if you hold through the end of the year, i think you will have high single digits, low double digit returns. our reason for that is again, we watch the revenues in the s&p 500 and they were growing at about 1.8%. this last year, 2013, it jumped

up to 2.7% and although it might be a little slower here in february because of some weather in january and february, we think that number's going to be north of three. >> you think it will be beneficiary once the consumer in america thaws out? why specifically walmart and not another retailer? >> well, if you look at walmart, they grew their revenues last year by 4.91% versus the entire composite of the s&p 500 grew at about 2.76%. they're opening probably 200 to 300 stores a year. not only that, but walmart has the ability to compete with every retailer. they could even get into the auto business if they wanted to. they have a lot of channels they can open up and compete and they have growth of not just store sales but new global stores that will be opening in the 200 to

300 range. we are real positive. plus, it is trading on a capitalization, you are paying 51 cents for every dollar of revenue when you buy walmart and again, if you look at the market as a whole, you are paying $1.61 for the rest of the market. so we feel there's extreme value there. >> barry and vince, we will leave it there. i know barry, your last pick was valero. we will get more on that next time you're on because we will see you again. have a great weekend. >> thank you. >> take care. a quick correction to something we did yesterday. on the program, we did a segment on itt educational services. their ticker is esi. mistakenly aired the ticker for itt corporation which has nothing to do with itt educational. itt corporation, white plains, new york, a fine company. in fact, one of the better owners of the new york knicks. they had a nice run the few years itt owned it. our apologies for that. on deck, why the streaming music space is starting to look a little like a crowded new york subway train. plus, we are asking if wait

ers were paid a minimum of $15 an hour, would you continue to tip them? go to streetsigns.cnbc.com to vote. later on, the retruth behind the "house of cards" success and a motorcycle fit for rich uncle sinbad. ates ates means advanced technology. we learned that technology allows us to be craft oriented. no one's losing their job. there's no beer robot that has suddenly chased them out. the technology is actually creating new jobs. siemens designed and built the right tools and resources to get the job done.

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now. we suspect that is something that is likely to come up in apple's annual shareholder meeting that is under way right now. let's go to josh lipton at apple hq. >> reporter: here at apple hq in california, a couple hundred shareholders were here today voting on ten proposals, everything from executive compensation to the 2014 stock plan. they also did overwhelmingly re-elect their directors. there were eight nominees, remember. tim cook then did take the stage to field questions from shareholders. one shareholder did press him about why they don't talk more about the new products in the pipeline. cook said listen, we're not interested in getting a road map to rivals. this was his quote, he said they get ripped off enough. but he did point out that r & d spending was up 32% year over year. his point was we are committed to innovation, committed to new products and in his words, we

are putting our money where our mouth is. i also thought it was interesting how he highlighted where he sees real growth in the emerging markets. he talked about brazil, russia, india and china, how in fiscal year 2010, revenue was less than $4 billion. last year it was over $30 billion. that clearly is where they are seeing growth. finally, he did get questions about cash. cook saying the company is committed to this $100 billion capital return program. he said the board is thinking about ways to develop that program and they will have some news on that within the next 60 days. guys, back to you. >> josh, thank you very much. apple stock is down so far this year but is higher than it was at the last annual shareholders meeting. >> good point. but it's still down from 700 a share. >> significantly down from its record high. apple's itunes is a huge business. it looks like amazon may want a slice of apple's pie. our content partner re/code reporting that amazon is in talks with various music labels.

this is of course leading to speculation that amazon may soon become the latest entrant into streaming music. let's bring in mark mahay. all of us are saying do we really need another service like this. >> probably not. we've got a slew of services in the market and there have been some very impressive new entrants in the space just in the last six to nine months. spottify coming into the u.s. over the last year and itunes radio. i guess the simple answer is better if amazon is going to enter this market, it better have a much better mousetrap and also, it has to challenge pandora, the leader in the market is a free service. hard to compete with free. >> you hear amazon may launch it as a free service but under prime so it's not free. i'm thinking all right, say you pay the $79 or whatever the prime is and they include this now, that means their prime margins are going to get whacked. we already know their margins are squeakingly small. >> yeah, that's true.

this is 3% operating margin business but it a's a retailer. that's fine. that's not the real issue on amazon. there are some other overhangs on the stock. amazon also has an advantage in this space in the streaming music space which actually apple does, too. they have devices in the market now. they are not as ubiquitous as apple's devices but amazon has the ability to package it not just with prime but with fire and -- >> they already have a cloud service. i use itunes but have actually also uploaded all of my music to amazon's cloud just in case. >> yeah. brian, you actually just touched on one of the biggest new growth areas for amazon. amazon web services. you are doing it as a consumer. they have a slew of over 1,000 businesses that are paying them in excess of $2 billion a year, fast growth, high margin business for their cloud business. amazon can go at this a couple different ways. it still doesn't eradicate the value proposition pandora has. >> you have an outperform on

pandora. you think they are better than itunes? remember when we were scared that itunes would stomp all over pandora? what do you think is the better service? >> well, we think they are actually not dissimilar from each other. pandora, the stock has been our top pick in the small midcap space since the beginning of the year, hedging right at our price target here. the challenge is if somebody wants to come in and disrupt pandora with 75 million active users, you have to have a better mousetrap, much better product and you are trying to compete with a free service. that's very hard to do. unless pandora screws up, and it's possible. so far they seem to be executing pretty well. i think there's a lot of moves still for pandora. we like the stock from here. >> indeed. the price target is $38. it's currently sitting at $37.73. >> still 17 cents of upside. $8 trading cost. >> thank you very much. by the way, i have been spectacularly wrong on itunes. the itunes music was good.

i enjoyed it. i have tried that. it doesn't have the variety, i don't think, as much -- it seems to play a lot of the same stuff. i have gone back more -- i like mog. nobody else uses that apparently. itunes music has been a bit of a disappointment. look at pandora, continues to rock. >> i can highly recommend the australian rock channel on pandora. i get a lot of midnight oil, inxs. >> i don't know how you sleep. i want to bring up the chart. this is kind of a sad story. at this stage, sony is really needing the cash. they are reportedly in talks to offload their regional tokyo hq. it's kind of like pawning off the family jewels, if you like. this is the original building with really classic iconic products, the walkman, trinitron tv, et cetera. selling off the birthplace is a little symbolic.

the company is facing over a $1 billion loss this fiscal year. they need to restructure, sell off assets. this could be on the block as well. >> it's a building. >> it's a building. that's a guy. >> sorry. yes. guy. rock center changed hands -- by the way, rock center, formerly owned by the japanese. it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt and there will be a whole lot of hurt out there coming when this trade unwinds. we will take you inside the widow maker. bitcoin debate. the currency down big again today. why on earth would any company accept bitcoin? we will make the case for it. [ bagpipes play ]

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inside to get on their computers, watch this show and trade. >> i have no idea what you mean by that look. the harder you soar, the harder you fall. nat gas tumbling 25% this week alone. let's get to jackie deangelis at the nymex with more. >> exactly right, a big fall for nat gas this week after last week we hit a five year high rising above $6. what is behind this decline? a couple of factors you have to consider. first, these prices skyrocketed because of the cold temperatures and the forecast for more storms to come, but then traders started to back off the trade a little bit because they weren't sure if the cold was going to materialize and how long it would last. already, tomorrow is march 1st. people are hoping that spring is around the corner. meantime, we also have to switch from the march to april contract this week. that took some of the volatility off the table. yesterday's storage report showed a draw-down in supplies of 95 billion cubic feet, much less than we saw last week when we saw it draw 250 billion cubic

feet and much less than the five year average. also, this is a volatile trade generally so traders are watching it but they are saying that we could have a winter storm here this weekend and that is why the prices are up about 3%. this could be very touch and go when it comes to nat gas. back to you. >> jackie, thank you very much. hedge funds have been all over that nat gas trade. in fact, some made a huge amount of money, but somebody is bound to get hurt because there is always somebody on the other side of every trade. kate kelly has a look inside what they're calling the widow maker trade. >> reporter: that's right. the tales of trading losses are legendary here in texas, the home of natural gas trading. one fund manager told me he walks in every day knowing he could lose everything on any given day, but that he also thrives on this sort of chaos. gas at one point earlier this year was up almost 50% only to dive down to its current levels after the worst four day stretch since the mid '90s.

now traders are expecting another rally in march. no surprise given the current cold snap. but whether gas producers can keep up is kind of uncertain. demand issues this winter took a big chunk out of current supplies and pipeline capacity in some cases was strained. high prices are incentive for gas suppliers to double down but there's no guarantee that those prices will last. on the flipside, gas buyers like the operate or of the chemical plant behind me have taken advantage of the fact gas prices were relatively low around the first of this year in order to reopen facilities like this one that uses natural gas to make metha methanol. prices rocketed' but are down to $450 where analysts i talked to at goldman sachs are expecting the commodity to finish up at the end of this year. >> kate kelly in texas, thank you very much. appreciate it. >> obviously any relief we could get on natural gas would be a huge relief, to all the people

who have been getting heating bills that have been tripling, at least doubling. didn't yours triple? >> mine more than tripled. listen, luckily we are in a position where we can afford it. lot of people can't. the bill, nobody cares about me, but the bill was ridiculous. it was shocking. it definitely was like should we go out to eat tonight, we got this giant heating bill. it all comes from the same bank account. you think about it and i know a lot of people out there that aren't maybe as blessed to be in a position that i am are struggling. it's bad. our producer, one of our producers, one bedroom apartment, usually $150 a month, her bill was $500. >> isn't it insane? >> no planning for it. it just comes, boom. so you can't budget. people out there have said i'm on the equal payment plan. wait until the adjustment. you owe $3,000. that could happen. just be careful. >> let's take a look at what the nasdaq is doing. as we mentioned earlier today, it is sitting around 14 year highs but it is kind of moving

to the down side where looks like we're flat lining, could move negative. who knows. we're sitting at 4319 right now. it's up for four straight weeks, though. speaking of the nasdaq, is netflix playing with a loaded deck when it comes to the success of "house of cards"? plus, do not forget to vote in today's street poll. we are asking you if waiters were paid a minimum wage of $15 an hour, would you continue to tip? you can weigh in and tweet us as well. the results when "street signs" returns. in the new new york, we don't back down. we only know one direction: up so we're up early. up late. thinking up game-changing ideas,

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it is street talk time. our very first stock of the day is ebay the latin american partner. this is a stock herb greenberg raised the red flag about, talked a lot about. >> stock's up.

herb tends to be more right than wrong but the stock's up 11% today. getting an upgrade to a buy from a sell. big jump. their target is $130 a share. their price, $104 a share. you can do the math. >> pier one imports moving to the down side today, down a whopping 6%. series of downgrades here. >> yes, series of downgrades, the company best known for its papasan chair. they cut their target to 15 from 25 at bank of america. downgraded from neutral to outperform, their target cut to 18. so the target is three and change lower than the current price. >> and american public education, absolutely tanking. 22% off after downgrade to market perform from outperform. feels like an outsized reaction. >> this has not been a good week for for-profit education companies. let's put it that way. this is the leading service in adult education, target cut to

36 from 44. weak fourth quarter results and concerns over declining military course registration is whacking that stock. >> let's take a look at westlake chem, the stock seeing some gains today. >> yes. shockingly, it's a chemical company based in houston. their target going to 149. the stock's at $134. they are raising that from $140 so significant upside. westlake chemical increased their quarterly dividend. second biggest owner of this name is vanguard. you might own it even if you don't know it. sales of sotheby's getting hammered today after the auction giant disclosed the buy of this $83 million diamond defaulted on the purchase. this follows last night's earnings miss. let's start talking numbers.

j.c. o'hara and ron doughton. it's one story, right, one guy, whatever, one buyer defaulting on an $83 million diamond. does it tell a bigger tale or is this a temporary blip? >> i think even before this event, we found that pricing power at the company has been eroding for some time, when you just look at the ratio between sales growth and accounts receivable growth, it's actually been desalarating for a couple quarters which is an indication it's really been tough sledding in terms of pricing. >> what about the charts here? >> it really depends on what time frame you're looking. longer term, the charts are kind of neutral, kind of moved sideways on my screen. intermediate, i kind of like it. has a nice little uptrend. shorter term it's definitely under some pressure. i want to go back to the longer term chart i brought along. what stands out is the inability to break above that 54, 55

level. that actually created over the last few usersyears a triple to. owners of the stock have seen that, are selling their shares. what i'm really watching here is the 200 day moving average. for the stock that has been a great tellle stoabout how the stock will perform. below the 200, you get the opposite effect so we are pulling back in the short term, right around 44. it's also the february low. really key in on that level. we break below, down side risk will definitely increase. >> guys, thank you very much. have a great weekend. have fun with the weather. be sure to check out the online edition of talking numbers, part of or partnership with yahoo! finance. it is to be found on the internet. up next, if you knew your waiter or waitress was making $15 an hour, would you still tip? time to vote in the poll. and bitcoin credibility has

been put to the test this week with the major exchanges going belly up. why would anyone want to take on the business of accepting bitcoin? why don't we find out what's going on on "the closing bell." >> let me tell you, the s&p is on track to close at another record high but we are seeing late day selling again. that has been the norm lately. we will see if we can hang on to these gains. we have somebody who says this rally this week is a trap for the bulls right now. >> all this as the nasdaq has just turned lower. also we get the outlook for oil and natural gas prices from one investor making a $1 billion bet on the fracing biz. and companies seem to be pushing back against activist investors lately. have people like carl icahn overplayed their hand? we will take a look at that coming up. all of that is straight ahead, top of the hour. tdd# 1-888-628-2419 searching for trade ideas that spark your curiosity

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nasdaq has now turned negative but it's been a very good month for all three indices. a big battle being waged in seattle right now. at issue, a proposed minimum wage increase. the city already boasts one of the highest in america at $9.32 an hour and the proposed hike would bring it to $15 an hour. washington state already guarantees the state full minimum wage for restaurant servers, an important point here, but the federal tip minimum wage is only $2.13. many in seattle are asking whether they will still have to tip their waiter. we asked in our street poll, would you continue to tip if servers made $15 an hour? what do you think the results were? >> i glanced at them in the commercial break. look at that. three fourths said no. >> i'm not surprised. 75% said no. certainly, i know in australia it's not compulsory to tip because we have a very high

minimum wage of over $15. it's higher if you [ inaudible ] as well. if you get good service, you may tip but it's certainly not compulsory. >> people expressed concern will service quality go down because the tip is the incentive. you don't know. i'm sure some people would work just as hard, some may not. who knows. listen, i worked three minimum wage jobs for three summers in high school. i worked at a fast food restaurant, made minimum wage but all i needed was gas money and the occasional cd. maybe i would buy a maxell tape so i could make a mix tape for my girlfriend. things are different now. lot of people trying to make a living on minimum wage. it's pretty much impossible. it's a big debate. >> it certainly is. >> wonder if you could structure minimum wage by age. should a 16-year-old make $15 an hour if a truck driver is making $20? i don't know. >> it is actually staggered like that in australia. >> is it really? >> absolutely. >> where somebody has a family, they would be at a certain -- you see it in union jobs --

>> as a teen you get less in terms of minimum wage. maybe my memory escapes me because it's been a very long time since i was a minimum wage worker but then it's $15 something from the age of 18 onward. staggered like if you work a public holiday or sunday, it's even more. it's staggered. >> i talked to people that own restaurants. i have friends and people, business contacts. they all said the same thing. if the minimum wage goes up, they are fine with it. they will give their best employees more hours and lay off the people that are not performing. if they can. if they can. so people that are good performers will make a much better wage, so more money and more time but there will be people that get cut. that's their view. from paying to a form of paying and a real question here. given all the turmoil, why would any business still accept bitcoin as a payment? your next guest says there are some good reasons.

joining us, tim reynolds. you know my point and you make a good point in sort of the preinterview which is listen, don't think these companies even if they accept bitcoin are going to hold on to the bitcoin. >> that's absolutely right. the way these companies are taking bitcoin, they will probably work with another merchant who will convert it into dollars very quickly. maybe last year they would have wanted to hold on to the bitc n bitcoins and get in on the currency arbitrage but this week they are probably trying to turn it into dollars as fast as they can. >> why do you think it's kind of like a p.r. move? >> there are two reasons. one, a lot of the businesses that accept bitcoin are technical businesses, websites who are catering to the community of people who like and buy bitcoins. it's a way to get closer to their customers. the other reason is not so much now that more and more businesses are using it, but in the past, if a business started accepting bitcoin it was kind of

a news story because of the controversy around the digital currency and it was a way to get your company's name in the news. when overstock.com started accepting bitcoin, i haven't thought about that website in months but suddenly it was everywhere just because of that. >> mandy -- the story is so amazing she's choked up over the bitcoin story. it's remarkable. your doctor accepts bitcoin. he called and said please come in for a checkup. online payments, i want to switch it a little bit, mobile payments, i have the wallet app, it's sometimes hard to find stores that accept it. i've tried. i've kind of pulled back, used it a couple times, pulled back on it. do you think bitcoin will be that or do you really believe that bitcoin is here to stay long term despite this problem? >> i don't think that's a nut anyone has yet cracked but cash is going away. you are seeing different experiments towards making electronic payments a reality. i think bitcoin could be one of the eventual winners. the technology is so exciting,

the people in silicon valley are pumping millions of dollars into businesses that think this is going to be the future of payments. i wouldn't want to make a prediction about whether two years from now we will all be paying with bitcoin from our wallet. what i will say is it's exciting to see innovation that will make it cheaper perhaps for consumers and for businesses. the main reason i think merchants are interested in this is they don't have to pay credit card companies when they take payments in bitcoin. that's good for their bottom line. i think overall that's the message that payments innovation is bringing, we will cut some of the fees. >> we need proper regulation. maybe the mt. gox debacle might speed up regulation. thank you very much for joining us today. >> good to be here. netflix's "house of cards" seems to be its show this year but is it really as big of a hit as some are suggesting? later on, a tour of your own private island in the sun. how much will it cost you? [ tires screech ] [ car alarm chirps ]

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the academy awards are this sunday and this year, netflix is shaking up the red carpet, proving it is not just a tv game changer. jane wells herself is on the red

carpet with more. who are you wearing, jane? >> reporter: i'm wearing a raincoat by laundry and my shoes came from -- shoes came from zappos. >> stunning. >> you can see they're really stunning. the red carpet is covered with a tarp right now. it's been raining here. this year we have an unusually strong set of contenders and netflix, paid tv and cable are getting a lot of credit because the small screen is providing a lot of competition for the big screen. >> it does raise the bar. i don't think it's necessarily competitive, i just think it's good for the business because there's a lot of choices that allow people to see things and obviously if there's good material out there, whether it's on free tv or pay tv, i just think it's really good for the business. >> look at this. no matter who wins best picture sunday night, financially it really is just an honor to be nominated. the real money was made after the nominations came out last

month. look at the boost in revenues the following weekend. >> well, what studios do in the immediate wake of nominations is they add a lot of theaters to those movies that are nominated. films that would otherwise be maybe dead in the water, finished in theaters suddenly have hundreds of theaters added to capitalize on that newfound oscar notoriety. >> youtube views skyrocketed for clips from the nominees. best documentary contender has been put online in arabic so people there can see it. who helped fund and distribute it? netflix. >> that's exciting to see the kind of muscle that netflix has put behind the film and the kind of attention they've given to it. it's exciting and ground breaking. >> the director says netflix has

really done so much for documentaries because, of course, so many of us started watching them once we could find them on a place like netflix. guys, back to you. >> jane wells, thank you very much. appreciate it. well, if you have not heard of the show "house of cards" you're either living under a rock or west of here. it's gotten all the buzz but is the show really as big as we think? joining us, the atlantaic's derek thompson. love the piece about this. basically you sort of dug into the numbers as you know them. what are your conclusions? >> you have this broadband analytics company which looked at exactly how many of netflix's subscribers were watching the show. they estimated 6% to 10%. 10% of the 30 million people who subscribe to netflix in america, just under 30 million, that's about 3 million people watching "house of cards" in its first weekend. 3 million sounds like a pretty impressive number. it's when you compare it against prime time tv.

last year cnbc averaged 12 million people watching it nightly. that's only a quarter as popular as cbs shows. >> do they need the eyeballs? don't they just sell subskringss? >> that's exactly right. it totally goes back to the economic model. if you're a broadcast channel, if you're fox, nbc, abc, cbs, you need to make shows that are seen not by 3 million people, but by 10 million people, 15 million people, because half of the money that you're getting is from advertising. half or more. if you look at a cable company, however, or something like hbo or netflix, the vast majority of money they get is from subscriptions. they don't care as much bike adverti about advertising. >> i have kevin spacey on line one for you. derrick temperatuhompson, pleas to mr. spacey's office.

thank you. very much. >> on "mad money" it's the stock oscars. do not miss the golden bulls awards tonight. it starts at 6:00. up winext, we'll take you inside your very own island in the sun. is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve. and you'll see just how much it has to offer, especially if you're thinking of moving an old 401(k) to a fidelity ira. it gives you a wide range of investment options... and the free help you need to make sure your investments fit your goals -- and what you're really investing for. tap into the full power of your fidelity green line.

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>> if you're looking to he is cane the cold, how about florida and your own private island. this private island is called little boquilla. the surrounding area can never be developed. the 6,500 square foot mansion was built in the 1920s by charles burgess who invented the dry cell battery. the four bedroom, four bath manor home was restored by the current owner with limestone, marble, and it has outdoor pavilions, boat dock, caretaker's cottage and a museum. a banyan tree was even planted by thomas edison. the island is approved for up to 29 homes so a developer could subdivide or a super rich buyer could buy the island for themselves. price tag, $29.5 million. i know what you guys are thinking.

you're thinking show us a really nice island. show us a real island. well, we got another one for you today. got two islands for the price ever one. this is little pumpkin key. it has a main house, two cottages, a boat, captain apartment, 20 slip marina, tennis courts that serb as a helipad and it's only $110 million. so the private island market right now just exploding. >> but does it have a banyan tree planted by thomas edison? >> no. isn't that cool? that is cool. the guy who owned the other island invented the dry cell battery. >> they should take purchasing tips from richard branson. they wanted $6 million for his island. he offered $100,000. they basically flew him off the island in disgust. a year later called back. he bought it for $180,000. they wanted $6 million. >> what changed their sentiment? >> lack of buyers. >> and he says today that's one

of the best investments he's ever made. >> speaking of investing, i love this. end our week on a high note. gold and diamond studded motorcycle. >> check it out. i think we have the pictures. it's a motorcycle that was built by jensen, the denmark maker of customized motorcycles. it's called the gold finger. it's 24 karat gold covered with 250 small diamonds. this thing sold recently for $850,000, but they're building an even better one. it's going to have more diamonds and it's going to sell for over $1 million. that would be the first two-wheeled seven-figure vehicle. >> the damian hurst edition. you can't take it anywhere. >> you can't take it to sturgis. >> you can ride it in circles and put it back in your armed garage. >> can you imagine going to sturgis in something like this? you would get your butt kicked. >> i would head out there if i

had time. that's the best advice. don't ride that bike to south dakota. >> don't bring a diamond covered motorcycle to sturgis. >> thank you so much, robert frank, and we're closing out on a pretty good note here. the dow is up only about 0.2 of a percent but it's been a great week for the dow and the nasdaq and the s&p, even though the nasdaq is only ever so slightly. >> and because you're sunshine, i'll be rain. the dow was up triple digits. we're down. last hour of trading right now, "the closing bell." and welcome to "the closing bell" on a friday as we round out the trading day, the week, the month. i'm kelly evans. >> i'm bill griffeth. we have some action right now. we thought we would end the week, the month on a high note but stocks are losing altitude. the talk on the floor is about the situation between russia and ukraine. the acting president of ukraine is imploring