reporter phil lebeau say it, all signs point to this plane having exploded at 33,000 feet. dow down 77 points. gold up $17 an ounce. mandy is on assignment today. she'll be back soon. stay tuned for far more developments in this breaking news story about malaysia air flight 17. thanks for watching. bill and kayla right now. brian, thank you. yes, we do have continuing coverage of that tragic crash of a malaysia air flight 17 over ukraine. i'm bill griffeth here at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm kayla tausche in for kelly evans who is off today. we'll follow up on reports this plane may have been shot down. first, the markets today have been somewhat resilient in the wake of this news, turning on a dime earlier in the session. but right now you can see the dow down 83 points. it had been down as much as 93 points just after noon today. the nasdaq, for its part, is also down slightly. take a look at the chart there.

the nasdaq is down by 40 points. just about 1%. the s&p 500 right now is also trading in negative territory, down by about three-quarters of 1%. sitting at 1,967. vix has been moving sharply. >> biggest one-day gain for the vix. it is now up 21%, even higher now. >> it had retreated as the market talked about this potentially being an accident. but now we've gotten more reports, the vix approaching that 13 level right there. many developments coming out of the ukraine today surround being the malaysia airplane crash. nbc news correspondent pete williams has been track being the story all afternoon for us. pete, are there any new clues? there was talk earlier in the day this may have been an accident because there hadn't been much activity over that airspace. but what do we know right now? >> the number one theory -- emphasize the word "theory" of the u.s. at this point is that it was in fact shut down, but

there is no hard evidence to confirm that. statements by the ukrainians, the coincidence of where it happened as it was about to cross the border between this disputed area in ukraine and russia. and the timing. all those things put together, witnesses on the ground saying they thought they say a missile streaking into the sky. all that together. but in terms of actual hard evidence, here's what the u.s. is trying to gather. number one, they're going back and looking at satellites that monitor the kind of heat signatures that could be given off by the launch of a missile. so they'll look at that data. secondly, a former intelligence official says that these missiles, if in fact it was a missile, the kind that could reach that altitude, the plane was at 33,000 feet, they use radar and that can be picked up as an electronic signature. so they'll go back and see if they can find that. and then the next thing is, looking at the flight manifest, the list of passengers, to see if there were any suspicious passengers on-board, to look at

the other possibility, that this was some kind of terror attack. we don't even know what the manifest is yet. we don't know if there were any americans on the flight. there are conflicting bits of information from the malaysians. all of those things will be happening, as well as people on the ground looking at it, trying to see if they can tell just by looking at the wreckage. >> pete, obviously we're in very early stages of all this. i know you don't like speculation. i don't like speculation. there is that story, though, making the rounds that's on the interfax news agency wire that points out that vaeld meladimirs plane, he came back from brazil today, the bric conference, according to interfax, there are similarities in style and look between putin's plane and the malaysian air jet. >> and flight paths, too. >> we can draw conclusions on that, too. >> well, that would mean nothing if the missile was fired from the ground. this plane was at 33,000 feet. you wouldn't have been able to see anything about the characteristics of it.

>> you wouldn't think so, correct. >> no, you know you wouldn't have been able to say, oh, that looks a lot like the russian president's plane. so that could cut both ways. that could mean that the russians were on -- had more security to watch out for putin's plane. it could mean the ukrainian separatists were targeting it. i find that to be a wash. it does, yeah, i suppose, raise the possibility that the plane was shot down by a missile fired from the air, from a plane that looked at it. but if the plane looked at it, then presumably it could see that it was a malaysian passenger plane. at this point i think that interfax report is a wash. >> pete, thanks, as always. nbc's pete williams there with the latest on that malaysian air flight. let's talk about this and the market response and where we go from here. joining our "closing bell" exchange today, heather hughes, ken moret, bob pisani and rick

santelli are standing by. rick, let's talk about market response. there have been other events in the past where it would be hard to point to a market response of any kind but you got it today. albeit a bit muted, but gold was up, bond prices up, the vix up sharply. even wheat prices, so important to the economy in that part of the world, up today as well. what did you make of the response? >> absolutely. i think you nailed it. as i talk, you can see the charts. 24-hour chart of 10s and 30s clearly reveal both were trending towards lower yields before you see the big break just before 11:30 eastern. so if you look at the fact we're at 2.49%, now 2.47, those two basis points. without a doubt the fact we haven't moved off the low yields is due to the tragedy. about the same basis points for a 30-year. what's interesting, currentsly a 3.29 yield, this is the closest yield for a 30-year since june

of last year. maybe two of the best charts, dollar index really didn't pick a direction but the crb index, and it encompasses everything you've talked about. indeed, corn had a big move initially but that moderated. you're looking at live cattle, heating oil, wheat, it is a wheat region, there's the energy, there's the gold. crb index you see definitely had a jump. in terms of residual effects, i would say that intraday every time lately we've dabbled with a sub-2.50 yield close or sub-3.30 yield close in 30s, the market has come back late in the day. the fact that it hasn't really does draw, as you said, all lines toward the tragedy having a very specified and identifiable impact. >> larry, a lot of people are looking at these charts. we did see some sort of rebalancing in the middle of the day when the market wasn't willing to take the worst scenario at face value that we are now talking about. but it's been a resilient market for the last few months. apart from the beginning of this

flare-up about four months ago, we have seen risk being on but it does feel like today there is a broad move out of high yield and in to some of these safe haven trades. i'm wondering what you see going forward. >> that's a great point. high yield has been underperforming the s&p for the last couple of weeks. substantially. and that historically right before lehman, right before the 2011 debacle, when that happens you typically have high yield underperforming before a big pull-back in the market. but i would look at this situation in russia. i think there is an opportunity here. i was on brian williams in march and think this presents an opportunity in russian equities, they're still extremely cheap. the rsx is off about 6%. if you look, there's just been tremendous capitulation in the rsx eta today. >> we're starting to set lows for the day. in your view does this present a

buying opportunity or do you want to wait for more evidence of what's exactly happened to this flight before you start to commit some new money here? >> yeah, that is interesting, bill. to larry's point, i guess you are seeing a shift back to maybe the safer sectors away from high yield and will investors begin to kind of bottom-feed here and wait for stocks to go on sale. a lot of us have been waiting for some sort of correction over two years now since that has occurred as defined as a 10% or more pullback in the markets. over 1,000 days. what concerns me is not just the black swan events that are happening, but the potential of, there is a lot of people waiting in line for that correction so could that further exasperate it when we do have geopolitical situations like this unfold, these horrific situations. >> michelle caruso-cabrera joins our panel as well. we are still trying to ferret

out exactly what happened here, michelle. as all market watchers will do, they wait to see, i guess, before they try and commit some new money here. right? >> sure. we definitely saw the market react. what people are waiting to see is was this plane shot down. we have the ukrainians saying it was shot down. russians saying it was shot down. separatists all say it was shot down. everyone points the finger at everybody else. as pete williams says, we have no hard evidence actually that it was shot down. i think one of the key questions facing the market is we just saw the u.s. impose sanctions last night. we're waiting to see whether or not the europeans are going to be as strong. they did impose additional sanctions as well. as we watch the facts of this case unfold, is this going to push the europeans to a place they didn't want to go when it comes to sanctions on russia, a very large economy. and it would have implications for international markets in a big way if we start to see very serious sanctions, which even with what we saw last night, an escalation, but most sanctions

experts say not big enough to have a real impact at this point. >> may i just, as a pilot, i don't fly boeing 777s, but a notice to airmen was issued and on april 3rd, as we know, the faa and the u.s. issued a no-fly zone in the crimea peninsula. i think that's very important. as a pilot, we take these notices seriously, so i can't imagine why other airlines would not. >> but they did, obviously. right? by the way, this is not in crimea. it was a region where they could fly. that's all water under the bridge. if there are americans on-board, if for some reason, if it was the separatists that brought this down, this is going to lead to a rach chesting up in sanctions, i would think. >> the important thing, michelle, a lot of people down here were questioning why there wasn't a more severe reaction in the market. that was only down about 70 points. the general feeling, the conclusion was, that it was unlikely that this was an intentional attempt to down a commercial airliner.

and that if it was an intentional attempt, that's a whole other level of terrorism to create a greater level of concern. >> what do you see at 30,000 feet? you can't tell, right? >> can i know a lot of people have talked about just staying away from international stocks all together. the u.s. only equities trade has been very popular for the last couple years and there have been doubts about european growth and various geopolitical flash points. i'm just wondering if you think the u.s.-only trade is going to be more popular just given how much we don't know about what's going on out there? >> well, i think in my view there's two more likely scenarios that cause this plane to crash. one is an unintended missile. as the other guests have said, it's possible that the missile operators did not know what this was and they shot it down thinking it was something that it wasn't. and now you have the russians and the ukrainians pointing fingers at each other because nobody has anything to gain by

shooting down a passenger airline. the second potential is that it could be a terrorist attack. i think those are the two most likely in both cases as tragic as they are, the market will play through that and as mercenary as this may sound, i think this is going to present a buying opportunity, not only domestically but also in the foreign markets. so i think we're going to play through this. >> absolutely. folks, thank you. we'll continue on. more news to come, i'm sure. we'll see you later. thanks for joining us today. heading toward the close here, and as we do, the dow continues lower, down almost 100 points. this is the low of the session here. you saw the volatility index. the fear indicator continues to move higher. it has a gain of 24% just today. >> that's pretty incredible move, undeniable chart right there. we are getting more and more information in real time on the malaysia airlines jet reportedly shot down in ukraine. malaysia airlines is expected to hold a news conference less than an hour from now. of course, as soon as we have that, we'll bring it to you live. and when we come back, we'll

speak with a military expert who will explain what it takes to down a giant passenger plane. and later, google and ibm reporting earnings less than an hour from now after the bell. we'll bring you those numbers the second they hit the tape. we'll have experts break them down with our full team. that's up next on "closing bell." don't touch that remote. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz you've been burning for at the summer event, going on now at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. but hurry, offers end july 31st. share your summer moments in your mercedes-benz with us. offers end july 31st. but parallel parking isn't one you do a lof them.ings great. you're either too far from the curb. or too close to other cars... it's just a matter of time until

you rip some guy's bumper off. so, here are your choices: take the bus. or get liberty mutual insurance. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. see car insurance in a whole new light. call liberty mutual insurance. i research. i dig. and dig some (trader more. search. because, for me, the challenge of the search... is almost as exciting as the thrill of the find. (announcer) at scottrade, we share your passion for trading. that's why we rebuilt scottrade elite from the ground up - including a proprietary momentum indicator that makes researching sectors and industries even easier. because at scottrade, our passion is to power yours.

oh i knew i forgot something... i'll just do it now. well, we're boarding. no, i'll use citi mobile. takes two seconds, better safe than sorry right? yeah who knows if we'll even get service on the islands? what! no service? seriously? no electricity, we're going to make our own candles, we're going to churn our own butter. oh, we lost one. can't leave a bag unattended. bank from almost anywhere with the citi mobile app. to learn more visit citi.com/easierbanking

as we head toward the close, we've got 45 minutes left in the trading session here. markets are moving lower in terms of the equity markets. maybe there will be traders who don't want to be long going into the nighttime. you just don't know at this point what the feeling is. but just in case, that may be what's going on. some more selling going on. the dow down 105 points, that is the low of the day. because there are many more questions than answers at this point. if this plane was shot down, for example, who has that kind of capability and what kind of missile do you need to reach a plane cruising at more than 30,000 feet? >> joining us now to discuss that, anthony cortisman, senior advisor at the center for international strategics.

phil was talking earlier to you, colonel, when you look at the debris and damage done, there's very little doubt left in experts' mind that this was shot down in the air. what do you make of this situation where we are right now? >> o to bring down an airliner from 33,000 feet, you need a good air defense weapon. not also in terms of miffsle but also the radar. that says russian and that says either a separatist element or the russians themselves. >> anthony, who -- we're trying to figure out motivation. we know perhaps what happened but we're not figuring out why it happened. what do you make of that and who stands to benefit? what are the motivations here necessarily? >> no one stands to benefit but it seems likely that this was a system that is long range, as

the colonel said. all you get is a radar image. it shows the speed and the altitude. it gives no idea of what the plane is. it is also clear that the rebels had this kind of system and had been trained in it. how well trained they were, how prepared they were is uncertain but they've evidently recovered the black box and are going to forward it. the problem for everyone is nobody knows whether there was iff data or transponder data, whether the operator would have had an idea at what they were shooting at, how well trained they were and how disciplined they were. >> michelle, we are getting that interfax report which we do take with a grain of salt that the pro-russia separatists have gotten hold of that black box. i'm just wondering what we would need, what the various state leaders would need to actually start to discern what happened here, who was behind is and how

it essentially happened? >> well, those are all the questions that they're going to want to know. interfax is a russian government news agency, hence why we wait to get confirmation from other sources in order to be sure of what they tell us. the reason those questions you're asking are so important, kayla, is what is the response going to be from the united states and europe in a situation where we are already imposing sanctions on an escalating level on russia because we believe the u.s. -- the united states believes and so do the europeans that the russian government has been fomenting this unrest we've seen in the region of ukraine, reports they've been supplying weaponry, whether this degree of weaponry we don't know at this point. but, if indeed that is what happened, if separatists shot down this plane, the implications are going to be unbelievable. you've got 280 passengers on there, many of them western european and americans as well. it could be interpreted as a

terrorist attack of some sort, and it's going to be dramatic and would seem to require some kind of dramatic response from the united states, some kind of escalation in sanctions. that is, if separatists shot it down, we don't know that yet. >> phil, we're hearing from u.s. airlines, they're saying we're not going near that airspace. we've already said it's unsafe. we don't want to go there. you wonder why malaysia air hadn't thought that through to this point. >> bill, that's a popular route. when you're going from amsterdam to kuala lumpur, you're taking the shortest route possible because you want to burn the least amount of fuel that you have to on a flight like that and that is the designated route that they looked at. they said that's the safest one. you would think at 33,000 feet, it is not uncommon -- doesn't happen all the time, but not uncommon that have you airlines that will fly over hotspots around the world because the belief is that 33,000 feet, they

are to a certain extent above all of the dangers down below. what's interesting is, you take a look at all of the video that's coming in, look at the large pieces of wreckage. that's an indication that this plane exploded, came apart, whatever happened, at 33,000 feet. this is not a case where it disintegrated as it came into the ground. you wouldn't have huge chunks of the fuselage, the tail, et cetera, if it had burrowed into the ground. it would be more of a disintegration effect. >> anthony, many people are drawing parallels between this and korean airlines flight 007 in '83, of course, height of the cold war, when that plane was shot down over the soviet union. i'm wondering, that was obviously a conflict that directly involved the united states. but, this obviously at this point does not. i'm wondering what you think the u.s. response should be and what would be appropriate once we find out what is behind this? >> well, first we need to know the facts and the black box, of course, is going to say virtually nothing about what

caused it. it won't probably even give an idea the size of warhead, because that would depend so much on where it hit. but we have to be patient enough to know who did this. there's no question that the rebels already had air defense systems. they've already shot down ukrainian air force aircraft. so this is not a new development. it isn't destabilized. and the thing to remember here is, for all the focus on the airliner right now, russia had moved 12,000 troops to the border, had changed from basically withdrawal an hoping for negotiations to something which was a much deeper confrontation. >> right. >> now the airline incident could either ease that or we could see really dramatic events over the next few days that are triggered by russia and the ukraine. not by the u.s. >> we will see what happens, of course. we hope to get more answers when

that malaysian airlines press conference happens next hour but for now, colonel allard and anthony, thanks for joining us. michelle and phil, we'll hear more from you later this hour. >> as we talk here, the sell-off pace here -- the dow is now down 131 points. we are starting to see the response in the u.s. equity markets pick up quite a bit as the volatility index moves that much higher as well. >> the lows of the session just before the close. we want to send it over to dominic for a quick marketplace. >> let's not forget this is not the only geopolitical story in the world as well. with the airlines stocks, with uni united, american, delta, all the big major u.s. airlines, they are all down towards session lows, off by about 3.5%. they really did take a leg lower right around the headlines from malaysia airlines. these of course are airlines not affected directly by this. still, investors taking it out

on these stocks in particular. again, ones to watch, bill, kayla, as we approach the closing bell. >> thanks, dom. let's show you what the market's been doing. we've got about 40 minutes left in the trading session. the dow down 130 points. gold's been moving higher. bond prices higher. so the safety trade has been very popular today. >> losses in equities escalating into the close as we do start to get more information. of course, whether we come back on the other side of this break, we will have more coverage on malaysia airlines flight 17. stay tuned. from 2000 to 2011, on average 17 manufacturers a day shut down in america. there's no reason we can't manufacture in the united states. here at timbuk2, we make more than 70,000 custom bags a year, right here in san francisco. we knew we needed to grow internationally, we also knew that it was much more complicated to deal with.

i can't imagine having executed what we've executed without having citi side by side with us. their global expertise was critical to our international expansion into asia, into europe and into canada. so today, a customer can walk into our store in singapore, will design a custom bag and that customer will have that american made bag within a few days in singapore. citi has helped us expand our manufacturing facility; the company has doubled in size since 2007. if it can be done here in san francisco, it can be done anywhere in america.

the sell-off continues on wall street as we wrat fait for answers out of the area around the ukraine and the crash of malaysian flight 17 a few hours ago. right now the dow down 124 points just off lows that were set a few moments ago. nasdaq down 1.25%, the biggest decliner today. the s&p is down about a full percent. >> we're also seeing a lot of ripple effects in the big commodities, wheat, gold prices. jackie diangeles is at the nymex with more. >> let's start with energy prices because they were impacted by this. west texas intermediate closing over $103 a barrel. that was up nearly 2% on the day and the highest we've seen it at more than a week. earlier this week wti traded

under $100 a barrel and tardz were saying we would get to $98 because the geopolitical risk premium was coming off the table. a couple of reasons for the surge today. we had a bullish inventory number yesterday that kept prices supported. when this news about the plane crash came out is when you saw prices go higher. traders telling me $105 is the next stop. gold prices saw a $20 pop in gold. closing at $1,316.90. but not necessarily new buyers were coming into the market and that's what we really need to see to know the safe haven trade is back on. still that short covering is a sign that that could be coming. back to you. more now on the market reaction to this tragedy. dennis gartman, editor and publisher of "the gartman letter." we wait for the market to tell us what it thinks, what it maybe means. with the safety play, very

strong today -- gold, oil, bonds, wheat, all those markets moving higher today. what do you make of the response of the market? what's it telling us? >> i think the response of gold is quite logical. i think the response of crude oil is reasonably logical. i think the response of wheat early on was a little exaggerated and the grain markets actually sold off late in the day. but too many people got excited about the fact that this happened in ukraine and as we all know, ukraine is a huge supplier of wheat to the world. wheat got probably a little exaggerated. what surprises me is the inability or unwillingness of the euro to get weaker. i would have thought that the euro would get demonstrably weaker on this news. gold in euro terms, however, is very strong today and i think that's a telling circumstance. we've got gold back above 975 euros. i think that's important. we've been -- you and i have been around a long time. these sorts of events you shoot first and ask questions later. i think that that's what you see

people doing, shooting first, going to safety, logically doing that, and then seeing we've got a weekend coming up, let's go to the sidelines. >> we should point out as well, michelle caruso-cabrera is joining us as well, the russian market has been down seven days in a row here, oddly enough, going into this whole situation. >> part of that is because there were new sanctions imposed last night. right? it looked like they were coming at some point. so the russian market, which by the way, had recovered nearly everything from the big ukraine sell-off of several months ago. that's why we saw the sell-off happen even before this incident occurred. that was part of the response. i would add to what dennis was saying. also, the decline in the 10-year yield also very telling today as people sought safety because they don't know what's happened. to dennis' point, you don't know what's happened. a weekend is coming up. nighttime is coming up and who knows what's going to happen overnight or what news is going to break overnight. it is incredibly logical to seek

traditional safe haven plays as we did in a nanosecond today in the markets. >> dennis, the things the market had been posturing for the end of tapering. we did get comments from the fed's bullard out of st. louis talking about how rates could actually rise a little bit sooner than expected. but people have been thinking in bonds that yields would start to rise and that we were finally turning this corner. with the print of 248 on the 10-year today, do you think we'll stay in this range for some time more as we get this figured out? >> obviously, this news forces people, rushes people, into the u.s. government bond market. you'll take yields down for a short while. but the comments coming from fisher, coming from bullard, indicate that all things being otherwise equal, and this suddenly changes that equality circumstances. without today you would have seen yields moving lower -- excuse me, yields moving higher. you would have seen the federal reserve bank moving or being talked about moving at some time quicker to tighten monetary policy.

but this circumstance today trumps that. it takes all of those other concerns off. this is the only thing the market is going to focus on for the next 48 hours. >> you bet. thanks, dennis. always good to see you. michelle, stick around. we'll get back to you as news warrants. of course, the news is, as we continue toward the close, about 30 minutes left in the trading session, the dow down 135 points. don't know if you saw the 10-year is now at 2.45. everything is starting to move a little bit more as we head toward the close of trading. >> the 10-year has been a leading indicator in these geopolitical issues. a lot of investors have been watching that extremely closely. when we come back we'll have much more on the malaysia airlines plane crash in ukraine. including a press conference set to begin shortly. stay tuned.

the cadillac summer collection is here. ♪ ♪ during the cadillac summer's best event, lease this 2014 ats for around $299 a month and make this the summer of style. ♪

welcome back to "closing bell." the markets in the red for the better part of today. but the dow is now down 136 points. it is near the lows. it is not at the lows, but nonetheless, this sell-off is continuing as we are heading into the close. we want to send it over to dom for a quick "market flash." >> one of the worst performing industry groups in the market today is the large cap biotech

stocks. big names, like celgene, regeneron, gilead. janet yell be made an allusion that some stocks could be more on the overvalued side. that trade seems to carry over into a trade today where geopolitical risks are at the front of every trader's mind. we have the latest information now on the malaysian airliner plane crash in the ukraine. >> michelle caruso-cabrera is at cnbc headquarters with more. the search under is under way but it is getting dark. more people are getting to the scene to try to search through the debris. >> journalists have been arriving there so we have more an more video coming in now as well, not just from journalists but from individuals who were in the region when it occurred. we'll roll through some of those

pieces of video now. fireball hitting the ground in the eastern part of the country in the donetsk region of the ukraine. the reason we're highlighting amsterdam is this flight took off from amsterdam, headed to kuala lumpur in malaysia. this malaysian airline flight. you can see naturally from the map why it is that they might be flying over ukraine and over this airspace. additional video has come in, reuters has gotten video as you can see here, different areas of different pieces of the plane spread over roughly 15 kilometers that we are told is phil lebeau's highlighted, very large chunks of the plane which would suggest it exploded in mid-air, either because it was shot at or because there was some kind of explosion. firefighters arriving on the scene, reuters reporting hundreds of dead bodies found on the ground. what we don't know is why this

plane went down. russian news reports say it was shot down. ukrainians say it was shot down. russian separatists all say it was shot down. they all blame each other. it is not clear who did this. it is not clear -- we don't have hard evidence yet that it was actually shot down, but that's the key question that the market is asking, is why on earth did this plane come down. i want to play for you what president obama said today. we were waiting to hear what he would respond. he made a speech related to infrastructure earlier in baltimore and this was his brief statement at the beginning of that. >> right now we're working to determine whether there were american citizens on board. that is our first priority and i directed my national security team to stay in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why and as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers wherever they call home. >> guys, back to you.

>> thanks so much, michelle. we want to get more reaction now from a corporate perspective. michelle, you'll stay with us as well. >> with us exclusively, t.j. rogers. obviously you, under normal circumstances, would be spending a lot of time on your earnings and all but the scope of the interview has changed for obvious reasons as it pertains to news. how do you respond, a guy who runs a global concern, when you see news like this overseas? corporations are going to have to be thinking about safety for their workers. traveling through that part of the world. how do you respond at this point? >> kind of interesting that question doesn't catch me by surprise because we have over 100 employees in ukraine -- or 100 people that work for us as contractors. we had to shut down or travel from our company to ukraine. we're on the other side of the country from this stuff.

and i just think about the tragedy of the smart people that are there, the fact that they have a chance to work in high tech and earn some money and take an economy there, which is a disaster economy, socialist economy, which has harmed everybody, and they have a chance to turn it around, and then we have to get into these squabbles for territory. putin decides he wants part of ukraine, it's a tragedy. i think we need to do something to cause them to remember this is not in their interest in the future. >> t.j., there are new sanctions of course in just the last day that affect your sector. they effect the defense sector as it pertains to operations in russia. we have heard all day members of congress praising those sanctions, but from a business perspective, do you worry that these are ill-fated or do you think that the intent is the right one here? >> the answer is i don't know enough of the details about what you're describing to really have an opinion.

but if we do issue sanctions, and if they do reflect on our company, then we will follow them. like i said, i think the you united states needs to do something, not military, for sure, going in to places like this has always been a loser, starting with vietnam. but i think we need to make them understand that they're going to be worse off when they do stuff like this and they simply need to work peacefully on world economy. >> michelle, let me go back to you for a moment. the market continues lower here, we're down 146 points, setting lows for the session. i mentioned bond prices were setting highs for the day. there is more developments now in another part of the world that may be causing this right now. right? >> yes. the israeli prime minister says he has instructed the military to begin its ground defensive in gaza. this is according to an official statement being given by reuters. once again, the israeli prime minister says he's instructed the military to begin ground offensive in gaza. i don't know if we are looking at live pictures -- yes, these

are live pictures of gaza. this is not surprising. we had been getting indications that this may happen any day now and as you can see, absolutely rocket fire going on. the "wall street journal" ran a headline the other day saying an arc of unrest unseen since the 1970s. and if this day isn't emblematic of that, i don't know what is, as we continue to discuss what happened in eastern ukraine today and as we watch rocket fire over gaza. if i could go back to t.j. rodgers to ask your immediate reaction to this, do you have employees as well in israel, and what about the use of sanctions? is that something that you advocate as a way to try to get vladimir putin to stop back being the russian separatists as the united states believes that he is? >> i do believe in the use of economic sanctions against russia in order to convince them that it's not in their interest to do what they're doing.

on the israel-gaza issue, i remember very clearly one of the first images from television i saw a ship sailing through a mountain of sand and it was a picture of the suez canal on a black and white television back in the 1950s when i was a kid. and that was the beginning of the war in the middle east and i've lived with it all of my life. i just -- it's just not going to go away. it is something i'm going to have to live with and i feel bad about it, but there is nothing i can do. >> does this make you want -- i'm thinking about ukraine at this particular moment and the fact that you've got those contractors over there. does it make you rethink your strategy to have production in that part of the world, t.j.? do you think about moving it elsewhere, maybe even bringing it back here to the united states? >> well, these are not production people. we, frankly, never would have put production in ukraine. these are r & d people. what's interesting about ukraine

is that, i can hire a ph.d, a smart ph.d that's really good for less than i'd pay an administrative assistant in the u.s. and this is an opportunity for them to work on high tech. so it is unfortunate, but it wouldn't change our strategy. >> that's a pretty incredible statement. it isn't about the nature of competitive labor markets when you can pay a ph.d in a country who, i presume, you're impressed with and who's incredibly qualified and is much cheaper, even as the unrest is occurring there because of technology. you can still hire them without a problem. is that true? >> that's true. you know, the thing about ma manufacturing, you got to make something and take it across the border. and guys with guns can be at the border. with technology, with brain power, you can think about something in ukraine and it goes from a satellite here and there are no guards that can stop it. so r & d is much more portable

than manufacturing. manufacturing has to be in a stable place. you can't afford to put it in an unstable place. it is too expensive and too catastrophic if something goes wrong. >> let me reset for anybody that may be just joining us now and you are looking to see what the market response may have been to the malaysian air crash in ukraine. there is another story that's just coming out right now about israeli defense forces moving in to the gaza region now. a ground effort has begun by these israeli defense forces and that has started a new leg lower for the equity markets here in the united states. the dow is now down 163 points. that is the low of the session. bond prices have moved higher. we're down to levels we haven't seen in several months for the 10-year yield and the volatility index, the vix, is up 25% -- or was, last time i checked, as a result of all of that. >> volatility up as much as 34% earlier today. when we first got word that the israeli prime minister, as michelle just told us moments

ago, had authorized offensive forces in the gaza area. t.j., i want to take the discussion back to ukraine because you were making some interesting points about how you can't -- you can't have human capital in stable regions because it is too expensive. i know that there are a lot of executives who would agree with you, they there are intangibles costs to having them there. do you disagree with that? >> no. whether you separate part of your company away, it hurts your company. we see it here. we have buildings here. and when we have a project, we force people -- and they don't want to do it -- to move together if one building because if you can talk to somebody across the hallway, you're going to be better off. we see difference building the building. we see it different city to city, even worse in the u.s., and when you get 12 time zones away, there is a big difference. our big gest fab plant is in minnesota. our most important r & d is still in the u.s. here. >> can i jump in for a second?

the israeli defense forces have tweeted out saying that they, too, confirming a large idf force has just launched a ground operation in the gaza strip, a new phase of operation protect i protective edge has begun. if their defense, the new phase follows ten days of hamas attacks against israel. hamas being the militant group in gaza. ten days of hamas attacks on israel by air, land and sea and repeated rejections of offers to de-escalate the situation. as we show you live pictures of rocket attacks in gaza at this point as -- and by the way, we are now seeing reports that the russian separatists have called for a three-day cease-fire if that is indeed true, we start to see a cease-fire in eastern ukraine, perhaps, while we start to see the situation ratchet up even more so in israel, guys. >> t.j., we'll let you go at this point. thank you very much for your insight, your thoughts on this very newsy day, to say the

least. i'm understating that obviously. thanks for being with us today. so the markets are trying to keep an eye on two different fronts around the world and make sense of it and try and figure out what to do about it. right now what the word is, if you're in equities, it is time to sell. if you're in bonds, it is time to buy right now. >> yesterday we were talking about earnings and growth and mergers. today as many people have predicted, geopolitics can turn the market on a dime. we'll have more on this situation though when we come back. defending our country. thank you for your sacrifice and thank you for your bravery. thank you colonel. thank you daddy. military families are uniquely thankful for many things, the legacy of usaa auto insurance can be one of them. if you're a current or former military member or their family, get an auto insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life.

♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz you've been burning for at the summer event, going on now at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. but hurry, offers end july 31st. share your summer moments in your mercedes-benz with us.

nine minutes left in the trading session. the dow has come back a bit. we were down over 160 points a moment ago, now down 140 points. stocks moving lower. there are two different stories we're following very carefully. one, the downing of malaysia air flight 17 over ukraine a few hours ago, and now in the last hour we've learned about israeli ground forces moving in to gaza and that has gotten the market to move to this next leg down. joining us right now, kenny p e pulkari. >> the whole malaysian thing caused a little bit of nervousness but then the market settled in and kind of assessed

what was really going on. but the latest news, the israeli news been is certainly causing much more angst and anxiety in the market and you saw an immediate reaction once that headline hit the tape. >> it is pretty simple. you have the ukraine complying later in the day with the purported israeli ground offensive. that's an excuse to pull the bids. the volume is not heavy today. it picked up if the last hour, for sure, but it is still not heavy volume right now. bill, i still maintain the important story is around the ukraine. it is not just about what traders have been talking about all day, was it an accident or not. i think that's important. but who is responsible. and if there were reports -- if there is confirmation that, for example, russian separatists got hold of anti-aircraft that was supplied by the russian government, even if it was an accident, there's still going to be repercussions to that. it is a complicated issue right now. >> a lot of tentative speculation going on, kenny. what's a trader to do here? obviously selling but we are

coming back here. so it is not like it is just this watchout sell-off we're experiencing here. >> no. there is not a lot of pick-up in volume. people are not panicking by any stretch. this is one of those situations where it feels like this fear will create some opportunity because it does feel like -- it does not feel at all like it is going to fall out of bed. i think if you got the guts for it, stay with it. tomorrow is just another day as we move in. as long as israeli situation doesn't really implode -- we'll see over the next couple of hours -- >> but bob, can i follow up on that? wondering, as -- what's so unfortunate about the israeli-gaza situation is we have seen it so many times. i completely understand a market reaction where on the initial reports of the invasion that you're going to see a run into treasuries, a dropping in yields. but this seems like one of those situations that if ever you're going to get a snap back, it is because the market has seen this situation some times and

survived. >> and i agree. that's why i saw, doesn't feel really panicky yet. doesn't feel like people think, oh, my god, this time it's different. it doesn't feel like that at all. >> this fits in with the whole idea, which makes some traders crazy, of the teflon stock market. that the prior ukrainian crisis didn't kill it. the syrian crisis didn't kill it. the iraq crisis didn't kill it. go around the world in the last year. nothing has killed the teflon stock market. a lot of people say -- >> hang on, guys. we want to get to the closing countdown. the market is going to close out in about six minutes. stick around, kenny and bob. as we go to the break here we're down 147 points on the dow industrials. kayla and michelle and i will be back with more "closing bell" in just a moment. but i've managed. ♪ i got to be pretty good at managing my symptoms, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. ♪ when i finally told my doctor, he said my crohn's was not under control.

♪ he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. [ female announcer ] humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. if you're still just managing your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible.

[b♪ll rings] ask your gastroenterologist about humira. time and sales data. split-second stats. ♪

its so close to the options floor, you'll bust your brain-box. all on thinkorswim, from td ameritrade. three minutes left in the trading session. just a quick recap of the markets and how they're trading at the moment. dow is down less than 1%. it is the nasdaq that's being hit the hardest, down 1.3%. art cashin just pointing out, this is the first 1% move for the s&p in about 80 days here. kenny and bob still with us here, you've got to decide, do i stay long in this market, into the night, or do i get out here? >> there is a new rumor i'm just hearing about, the white house in lockdown. i didn't hear it myself. i'm hearing it from people saying it here. that may change the picture. you may confirm that.

it is word kind of traveling around which now sets a different tone. >> i think what we've seen today is a reaction that's understandable where we've seen the most volatile sectors move to the sideline. social media stocks, biotech stocks, solar stocks all down about 3%. that's the group that moved the most. i'd like to keep an eye on those high-yield stocks. second half of the year suddenly people are lightening up on the high yield. >> abc is the source? >> we're getting all kinds of -- let -- trust me, there's all kinds of stuff going on here. we're trying to ferret out what's real and what's not and letting the markets figure this out for us right now. >> the market seals to be getting weaker as we move into the last couple of minutes. whether that's true or not. fact is, it is certainly enough to cause some nefbousness for sure. >> we have to be very careful -- and we are when we report anything on the air that we have been able to verify it. that's not always the case but we're very careful when we do that. we are hearing these rumors as well in washington but we're careful not to do anything about

it until we know something very more substantially here. down 160 points. what do you think happens tomorrow. you got one more day to go in this week? >> we've sort of abandoned completely discussions of the earnings situation. we have a lot of earnings. google and ibm will be on at the top of the hour. we'll get to that as well. >> that's a big point here. >> oh, by the way -- >> we had some names down 6%, 7% that were largely on the earnings situation. >> you guys will be watching asia tonight and the european markets to see how they're doing. >> absolutely. because it is going to pick up. if the news whether it is russia, whether it is the issue in ukraine continues to build, that's going to follow certainly into asian time. >> was it an accident or not, and who was responsible, even if it was an accident, who is responsible. >> lot more to come. thank you, guys. let you get back to finish up the work there. what a day, down 160 points when all is said and done for the dow

industrial average. the nasdaq and s&p down more than 1% as a result as well. bob iger, the chairman and ceo of disney ringing the bell, named executive of the year by "chief executive" magazine. stay tuned for the second hour of the "closing bell." welcome to the "closing bell." i'm kayla tausche in for kelly evans who is of off today. bill griffeth will rejoin me in a moment. we have had a busy day in the market and we have another busy hour ahead. the dow is down 162 points, slightly off of its lows of the day. s&p 500 down about 24. we do have some earnings that will hit after the bell, including google and ibm. so some important stocks to watch even as we watch parallel geopolitical issues in the malaysia airlines flight that's down in ukraine, as well as an

escalating crisis in gaza as israeli troops are on the ground there. we'll talk a little bit more about what's moving all of this market talk. lot of moving parts today. we will be bringing it all to you right now. but we want to bring in some market experts to go over all of this that we've seen so far in the market today. we have a lot of people on hand with me, of course bill griffeth and carol roth who joins me, cnbc's jon fortt and nathan bacharach as well. michelle, over to you. >> the prime minister of israel confirms a ground offensive with the military has begun in the gaza strip. this is a live picture that we have from gaza. at various times you'll be able to see rocket fire as well. the israeli defense fund -- defense forces, excuse me, tweeting out that they have a large idf forces just launched a

ground operation in the gra za str gaza strip, a new phase of operation protective edge. the goal is to target hamas tunnels, hamas being the militant group that's been firing rockets into israel. their goal is to target hamas tunnels that enable terrorists to infiltrate israel and carry out attacks. the pr war is definitely ongoing as well. we are told that this phase of protective edge is going to have armored corps infantry, engineer corps, artillery and intelligence combined with aerial and naval support. it is going to be big, they're going in there to try to clear out hamas and the weaponry and the rocketry that they have that they've been using to shoot into israel. they haven't hit a lot of tasht targets because of this incredible technology, the iron dome which is likely to receive even more funding from the u.s. government but that's just happened in the last hour or so, within the last 45 minutes in fact on a day when we were already spending a lot of the day discussing unrest in eastern

ukraine because of the situation with the malaysian jet. guys, back to you. >> michelle, stick around. obviously you'll be with us here this whole hour. we've got a lot to get to. as kayla mentioned, we have with us on our panel this we are, cnbc contributor carol roth, jon fortt standing by with the earnings. nathan bacarach. we got "fast money" trigger brian kelly. brian, start with you. obviously, u.s. equities, you're going to sell, although we did come off the lows. bonds you're going to buy. safety trades were very strong today. what did you make of all of this? >> the safety trade was very strong before the tragedy in the ukraine. we came in, the russia sanctions had hit the market. people certainly concerned that that's going to affect europe. but really this is all about the gas supplies to europe when we talk about economics. as long as those aren't cut off you should be okay.

but the market just could not hold up on any of this news today. it looks like people have an itchy trigger finger to sell, particularly when they're at the valuations that we're at. market cap and gdp, we're at one of the highest levels in the last 20 years. >> also joining us now, steven cook from the council on foreign relations. we want to talk with you about the situation in israel. put this in perspective. how important is what's going on there right now? is this sort of the beginning of an end game here, do you sense? >> well, it's very hard to tell at this point. i think that he we need to have some caution here. there's lots of discussion of this being a very big operation, though right now by anybody's estimation the israelis are going after very specific targets regarding terrorist infrastructure. one of the reasons the israelis have been kept out for so long is because they don't want to get stuck there. you can't talk about the beginning of an end. maybe the beginning of a very

long period of time that the israelis are there if in fact they commit themselves to large operation. >> here's what happens though when you have current events like this. all of a sudden it is hard to look at anything that's going on and look at fundamentals. you almost throw earnings out the window. all of a sudden you're saying what are the political impacts going to be. i think this is a cold, hard reality for you as an investor, is that after a couple of days we settle in and say, we can handle losing the libyan oil supply. well, we can handle syria, whatever happens over there. we were doing pretty good with ukraine until a missile took down a passenger jet. israel will come along. all of these things eventually we'll get used to them. almost like a bad back acache. like i didn't like that this morning, either, but i can live with it. it is a great time to redo your bond position if are you looking for lower rates. >> if i can weigh in and talk to the guy, steve, from the council on foreign relations.

as we talk the 10-year yield is on track for its steepest one-day drop since early february because we've had all of this geopolitical news. steve, what do you think is the lasting impact though of israel going in to gaza? i ask that because we've seen this several times in decades past and yet ultimately the markets get through it. economically speaking, is there a broader international impact besides the terrible heartache that we see on the ground there? >> well, if we go by what happened in 2008, 2012 and this example, it's unlikely to be the case. of course we'll have to see how the israeli operation unfolds, whether it is bigger than what they are currently suggesting is under way. but this tends to happen. i remember being on cnbc in 2006 during the hezbollah-israel war where the markets were guy rayr as a result of these geopolitical developments, then everything settled back to a northerlial pattern.

i think the thing to keep in mind is to look at how far, how deep, how extensive this israeli incursion is going to be. is it just an incursion or a full-blown invasion? >> i actually think that when you look at markets today, seems like the news was digested in pieces. first there was a big drop-off, then it came back a little bit. then toward the end of the session we heard the news about israel, it sold off a little bit more. but the market seems to be digesting the information very well. from a support standpoint, the fact that we've had almost 20% of the s&p company report earnings and those earnings have been pretty decent. you know me, i usually am a contrarian here. they have been decent both on the bottom line and the top line. i think that provides a level of support to be able to digest this information, assuming that we don't have further escalation in the days ahead. >> but yet whenever we hear what could potentially break the

rally in the market, michelle, the answer is always something geopolitical in nature that wasn't expected. i know that you have characterized eye specially what's going on in gaza as something that we've seen before, but what in your estimation would be a sign that this is not -- this is not normal course news out of that region? >> i think steve said, they'd have to end up staying for a very, very long time. and even then i'm not sure that that would necessarily impact the international capital markets because they've grown so accustomed to unrest in the region. when you talk about the unknown, that's always the issue. what don't we know. you can never predict what the unknown is. i would suspect whatever finally derails this rally on a geopolitical level, is likely going to be someplace that we don't necessarily expect. similar to like cypress back in february when nobody had any idea that that was going to happen. >> do we have earnings? >> we do. we have ibm out.

>> do we want to go to ibm, guys? the earnings are out. we're going to hang on for just a second, jon fortt. i'm going with the flow here. steve cook, what happens next? 24-hour cycle to go through here. not only just malaysia -- middle east, that's your specialty, but malaysia air as well. we're trying to keep it all in perspective and make sense of it all bhap do you think all. what do you think is going on here? one story trying to take advantage of another story? a little leveraging here going on under the cover of darkness? >> i don't think so. i think that the israelis were planning for quite some time in that given the turn of events in what was actually happening in gaza, the fact that they were unable to suppress the rocket fire. this was bound to happen. don't think this was timed under any circumstances to take advantage of other attention on other news.

>> if i could say one thing about gaza right now, we need to have more soda streams. soda stream is producing those machines that make the sodas in gaza. i think we've got to start to have more of an economic interrelationship to what's happening in gaza and for those people and the rest of the world. then eventually get to the point where it is not in anybody's interest to have the kind of back and forth that we're having right now. i think that's a back story i would love to see more about. >> we've actually done stories about soda stream. we've gone to the gaza strip and seen the soda stream factory there. all their employees are palestinian. i think if there was more of that happening, there would probably be less of this for sure. >> more moderates over in the west bank and got to have a role. >> some breaking corporate news after the bell involving ibm earnings and hewlett-packard boardroom news.

earnings per share of $4.32. that beats the average analyst estimate of $4.29. it beat on the bottom line. on the top line, tales, $24.4 billion versus $24.1 billion estimates. a sales beat as well. in the statement saying they are pleased with their strategic imperatives around cloud, big data and analytics, security and mobile. they're going to continue to extend and leverage their strengths. ibm shares up 2% in the aftermarket. also another big tech company, hp. hewlett-packard. saying in a statement that meg whitman, the current ceo and president, will assume the title of chairman of the board at hp. again, meg whitman, current kce, will become chairman replacing ralph whitman. in a statement it also says patricia russo, former lucent alcatel ceo, has been appointed lead independent director of the company. they've additionally added alcoa

ceo clause kleinfeld to the board of director at hp. meg whitman, current ceo becomes chairman. patricia russo, current board member, becomes lead independent director and current alcoa ceo joins the hp board. a lot of big tech movers coming out after the bell. >> all familiar names and with ralph stepping down for health reasons, i guess it is no surprise on that. we have google out now as well? who's got google? josh lipton, what's google look like here? >> bill, let me get you those numbers. google just reporting 6.08. the street was looking for 6.24 on 15.6 billion. paid clicks, the volume of clicks up 25%.

that's smack in line with what the street was looking for. cost per click, or cpcs, the amount advertisers are willing to pay, on average, when you click on an ad, down 6%. that's a bit better than the street was looking for. they thought cpcs would be down about 7%. also a management change here. google's chief business officer will be leaving google after almost ten years at the company. more information through this release, bill. i'll bring you headlines as we get them. >> thank you. jon fortt, what's the headline here? what are you hearing right now? >> i want to get to ibm. he's a big deal to revenue, he's on the call pretty much every quarter. larry page, of course, is not. i want to mention the breakdown in ibm's global technology services was about in line with analyst expectations. software which has a big impact on margins also in line. systems and technology, the hardware business which had been a drag on that business was at

$3.3 billion and was expected to be right around $3 billion or a little under. >> this is ibm. we're looking at google right now but you are talking about ibm. >> talking about ibm. with t overall these numbers for ibm do look good. >> what do you think the market is going to think about revenue? because this is a company that's just been blasted for eight straight quarters of revenue declines, even a $24.4 billion revenue number which beats. the company says it is down 2%. are we now at nine quarters? what do you think analysts will say? >> i think this it was expected that revenue would be weak. i think people are going to be relieved that it wasn't even weaker, particularly the hardware is showing some strength despite the continuing difficulties in emerging markets and those key businesses that are so strong on the margin line continue to hold up. one might wonder wi, do people l

better about results? >> i think the board would be very happy with this. they're playing this game, let's remain a dow component stock. they phoned a friend, they phoned apple. they are going to be paired with apple in other strategic initiatives going forward. >> i got to go with kayla. this is a classic case of financial engineering, now nine quarters into it. they barely ever beat revenues, somehow they always seem to have a profit. don't get it. this is a seller in the news for a while. what they're going to do with apple will take a while to get im implemented. i don't think they can keep the revenue up before the cavalry comes over the hill. >> it is hard to engineer hardware sales. but they kind of showed up this quarter. >> that's what my first manager said to me, sounds great, show me a couple quarters maybe. >> jon and i had this discussion

off camera. ibm has a huge workforce, probably the largest from a technology standpoint. they have a lot of opportunity i think still for some cost cutting. from a stock perspective i think this is bullish news. >> jon, for the viewer who doesn't hang out on the google conference calls as you do, explain the head of business development's role. >> he's responsible for just a lot of revenue and explaining what growth is about. the cfo is on there to talk about some of the costs and all that, but the growth guy, when you don't have the ceo on the call, his presence is that much more important. so it is very interesting an important to see what the company -- who fills his shoes. granted, he's been in demand every time there's a ceo opening for a major internet company, his name comes up. curious what he'll be doing next. but visually this is -- optically this is important for google. >> i don't mean to ping-pong

back and forth between google and ibm, but i remember what stanley brdru drukenmiller said yesterday. he didn't mean to pick on ibm specifically but he used them as an example of the earnings engineering he sees going on. he said sales haven't grown in six years but their earnings grow higher and their stock goes higher because they take all this cash they've got and buy back stock, rather than re-investing in the company. >> you know i really pound the table that i don't think enough companies are re-investing for growth. but i do think that ibm is a unique situation given the transition that's been going on with their business model and given the enormous amount of overhead that they have. >> you just said it. carol, you just said it -- there's way too many people there. look at the numbers over microsoft. they lay off 18,000 people and the stock goes up by $28 billion. for every person they laid off,

this is why main street has a problem with wall street. for every person they laid off they grew $1.5 million of stock value growth. when you do math like that, you can't imagine why ibm wouldn't sit around going, well, they're gone, they're gone, they're gone. >> that's another huge point with microsoft laying off people, ibm, who knows what may happen in the future, what's that mean for the jobs market going forward. >> drukenmiller on one side saying this is a completely engineered company based on where it is training. i had an interview from someone from t. rowe price. if this is a company whose stock price is manufactured with buybacks, why is it still so cheap? >> the other side of the ibm story is that they manage to get margins out of services whereas companies like hp have really struggled to do that. this deal with apple, they're see sen essentially trying to become the services arm for apple. it will take a long time for

that to materialize if that works. but it is an interesting partnership and apple's devices are high margin. there is a margin opportunity for ibm there. they've been divesting lower margin industry standard servers trying to invest in areas like this. we'll see how it plays out. there is a bull case here. >> ibm popped initially on the earnings when they came out and now it's back to below where it closed at the top of the hour there. they are probably looking at the fine print and seeing they didn't like what they saw here. >> as we make our way through the release as well, we'll bring you more on ibm. but the other story today that first got the world's attention is that maildz airliner that went down in eastern you a crane not far from the russia border. nbc's pete williams has been following the story in washington. what's the latest? >> the latest is that the finger pointing continues between the ukrainians, the russians and the ukrainian separatists over who may have fired a missile. that's the claim that that's what brought this plane down. the u.s. still has no confirmation of it.

the ukrainians now say that they base their statement, their conclusion, on intercepted phone calls. they say they have intercepted telephone calls between russian commanders giving the order to shoot the plane down. that has yet to be confirmed by the u.s. american authorities are trying to see if they can track the radar of a missile or the heat signature of a missile being launched. they're also looking at the passenger list on the other side of the possibility that this could have been an on-board terror attack. the u.s. has reached no conclusion yet. in the meantime, the world airlines seemed to have concluded that something bad happened there and they're all rerouting their planes around this part of eastern ukraine. the plane went down right near about 30 miles from the border between ukraine and russia. and virtually all the world's airlines are now saying they're not going to fly anywhere near there until this is all sorted automatic. >> pete, we're just getting word, "wall street journal" is reporting -- i assume you know this, maybe you don't, but i bet you do -- u.s. intelligence is

confirming that surface-to-air missile was fired at the malaysian jet. but there's still no word on the origin. they're sort of divided on where it came from exactly. >> and still being a little cautious before they formally confirm it. but this has long been for the past hour or so the leading theory among the u.s. intelligence agencies, some preliminary assessment that led them in that direction and they're looking to confirm it before they will be any formal announcement. but that comes as no surprise. >> nbc's pete williams, as always, thank you, pete. >> you bet. a very busy news day around the world and here on wall street. what took the market down mostly today is the ground offensive in gaza by israeli forces. >> we'll have more on that developing story and much more on the market reaction as kayla and michelle and i continue with our panel on "closing bell" right after this. shining the competition tomorrow requires challenging your business inside and out today. at cognizant, we help forward-looking companies run better

and run different - to give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. so if you're ready to see opportunities and see them through, we say: let's get to work. because the future belongs to those who challenge the present.

back over to michelle caruso-cabrera now for the latest in the situation in gaza in this particular case. >> on a day that was dominated by the news coming out of ukraine and the downing of the malaysian jet, in the last hour we get yet another hotspot on the global front where now we've learned that israel has now begun the ground offensive into gaza. that's happened over the last hour, determined by the prime minister. we saw absolutely rocket fire, artillery fire as well. this comes after ten days of an air war, a cease-fire that did

not work. and then signaling from the israeli government when they warned palestinians living in certain parts of gaza that they should leave the area. israeli defense force sending out several tweets saying that what they're targeting are tunnels where they believe hamas is hiding, where they've hidden their weaponry and where they believe they can infiltrate israel. "the new york times" is reporting -- and also the live video that we saw earlier shows heavy artillery fire. there's ground troops in the north firing rockets in the naval gun boats as well, as well as the continuing air strikes, as well. there's a port near gaza where some of that fighting is coming from. they're saying there is infantry units, armored corps, engineer corps. sounds like a very large assault on gaza as they try to put an end to the rocket fire that's been going into israel over the last ten days. we're bringing this up, guys, because it was one of the key reasons why, as the markets were already weak because of the uncertainty about what was happening in eastern ukraine,

then we saw yet another leg down in the equity markets, another big rally in to u.s. treasuries pushing the 10-year yield down to below 2.5% markedly. and looking at the biggest one-day drop that we have seen in months when it comes to the yield on 10-year, pushing interest rates sharply lower. >> michelle, stay with us. we also want to bring in the president of international capital strategies. he joins us on the phone now. doug, thanks for joining us. in the last hour we talked about the israel and gaza conflict and this new move by the israeli defense forces to have more visible presence on the ground there as the reason for the market sell-off. but now it is just uncertainty in general with the new report about a surface-to-air missile now that the "wall street journal" is reporting this having been fired at that malaysian air jet. i'm just wondering how do these situations shake out, how long do they last and how much uncertainty will this bring to

the market. >> well, look. let's take a step back where did we start. where we started from, you have a fight going on. in one corner you have central bank induced overvolatility. the other you have the escalated uncertainty of multiple geopolitical events, many of which are happening at the same time, some of which directly impact things like commodity prices, some of which less directly impact but have this overall push-back against this unnecessary volatility we've seen. one thing leads to another and trying to predict a single outcome what will move the markets. but overall, with this geopolitical activity -- >> what do you make is likely to be the white house response and u.s. government response on these two fronts? we saw a very brief statement

from president obama today about the malaysian jet. i'm sure that they have had conversations abowith israel. they had to know this was coming. >> i think on the israel-gaza thing, not only the white house but almost everybody thought it was going to happen. it was necessarily the prime minister's first choice but when he was backed fluinto a corner, multiple offers of cease-fire were rejected, the escalating missiles on the ground, he i guess felt backed into a corner. i don't think the white house was at all surprised of this. they certainly didn't seem to oppose it in the way that stopped it. what the white house thought would be the big story is this meaningful escalation in terms of sanctions. then this tragic airplane disaster this morning. i think the white house is trying to get ahold of all these things and figure out the responses individually and collectively. >> what's amazing about this is

it takes what appears to be the complete failure of coming to an agreement with iran off the table which was -- looks like was going to happen this weekend. now that's totally under the radar. >> that's exactly right. a lot of people thought that the european leaders meeting yesterday which was going to discuss a number of things, including russia sanctions, was going to be impacted by the need to keep things calm in anticipation for this july 20th deadline on the iranian nuclear deal. this almost certainly now appears not to be happening. the problem is being pushed down the road for another three or six months. but you're right, any one of these events is, on its own, normally a very large geopolitical event but they're all cumulatively creating the sense that there's too much uncertainty for people to go to bed at night and think that everything's under control and that's causing that multiple layers of uncertainty that policymakers can't get a hold of and certainly markets can't

either. >> michelle, i want to ask you a question in terms of gaza. how significant is the type of offense here to this entire situation, the fact that israel has gone to a ground offensive? how significant do you think that is in what's going on over in gaza? >> to say the obvious, it is certainly an escalation from a ground war -- i mean from an air war. we know that they didn't necessarily want to do this. at the same time, we heard martin fletcher earlier in the week describe the situation as saying the israeli defense forces often call this "mowing the grass." that the militants build up a reserve of weaponry and at some point they have to go in and destroy it. and so it's not necessarily surprising that every several years we see a situation like this unfold. so what is the key question when we had on the guest from the council on foreign relations earlier, is can they go in and can they get out or does it become some kind of quagmire where they're stuck in there. they don't want to be stuck in there.

that's the key question i think we're looking at. >> nathan. >> after the united states, the company with the largest amount of companies on the nasdaq is israel. this thing goes on long enough and that starts having an impact, then you might start to see something coming back to the united states. that's a big index, of course. this is -- israel is second to the united states. but that's probably the only place that i see in the short term where there could be a direct correlation between what's going on over there and what could be happening as you take a look at whether or not you're going to invest in an index or individual securities. >> we'll move on. doug rideker, thanks for your time and thoughts and insights on this. we appreciate it. more coverage of this very busy news day and the market response to all of this. we'll be right back with more "closing bell" right after this. did you remember to pay the dog sitter?

yeah, citi mobile. and deposit that check? citi mobile. pack your bathing suit? wearing it. niiice bank from almost anywhere with the citi mobile app.

welcome back to eamon javers now in washington with more on what washington is learning about what brought down malaysian flight 17 over ukraine. eamon? >> that's right, bill. new reporting now from nbc news as jim miklaszewski at the pentagon quoting now senior u.s. officials saying, telling nbc news that the malaysian airliner was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. this conclusion, jim says, is based on intelligence resources

available to the u.s. intelligence agencies, and to the military. but some controversy here -- or at least initial questions now over who fired that surface-to-air missile. according to the officials, u.s. intel analysts are still trying to determine whether the missile was launched by separatists in the ukraine or by russian forces positioned across the border. obviously that will be a very key question in the hours and days going forward as -- if somebody brought this down intentionally, who did that, or was this an accidental firing of a surface-to-air missile. a lot here to still be sorted out, bill. but now senior u.s. officials are confirming that their evidence is that this plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile. >> eamon, stay there. bring in phil lebeau who's been following this as well. what do you make of some of the latest developments we're learning out of that region of the world, phil? >> well, two things stand out, bill. the first one being that when you look at the video of the wreckage here, the large chunks, it is

clear that the plane blew up at 33,000 feet. that's been clear for some time. other thing that stands out is that the airlines in this area, in this region who fly over it, there are going to be a lot of questions about why malaysia air is flying where it was flying. well, keep in mind that is a popular air route when you go between amsterdam and kuala lumpur. they have been doing it for some time. but, there are other areas of the world, other countries in the world, like united states, where the faa, three months ago, told all u.s. airlines -- stay out of that area, don't fly in that area. so these are going to be questions that will be put to the malaysia air leadership in terms of should they have examined this in advance. doesn't mean they're responsible for this, but clearly those questions are going to be coming up. >> eamon, we know that president obama spoke with president putin earlier on another issue -- on

the sanctions, matter of fact, and their relationship with ukraine. do we have any sense at this point -- i haven't heard a word whether they've spoken since we've learned more developments about the malaysian crash. >> we don't know that, bill. what we know is there was at least one phone call between putin and obama earlier today and during that phone call the first media reports of this airplane crash came out and that putin raised them with obama. we don't know exactly what putin said. the white house read-out is simply that putin noted the early reports of the malaysian airliner crash with the president of the united states. we'll have to wait for further read-out if there was another call between the two presidents. obviously one of the key questions here is going to be who controls this crash site and the evidence that might lead investigators to figure out exactly who brought this plane down. then some question about why, was this an intentional strike or was this an accidental misfire, a crew somehow asleep at the switch in this very hotly contested area. a lot of military activity is going to be a lot of questions

about lou that happened. but can investigators get access to the crash site will be the next question. >> that will be the next question. it is a question that we want to pose to a former ntsb investigator who joins us now on cnbc. greg, thanks for joining us on a busy news day with a lot of happenings in your wheelhouse. you are one of the noted experts in this area. i'm just wondering with so many countries now involved in this, the u.s. officials have launched an investigation, british officials, malaysian, ukrainian, how does this actually proceed and what's the first step in investigating exactly what happened? >> given the new information about almost a confirmation that this was a shootdown and a surface-to-air missile, now the investigative process takes on a different complexion. it is no longer an accident. it is an intentional act. it is a crime scene. so the way the methodology that's used by investigators will be substantially different only because they're going to be looking for evidence. they're going to try and determine exactly what kind of

missile it was that brought this aircraft down, exactly where it struck the aircraft, and any of the other peripheral issues that would go along with an event like this. >> black box. who has authority over that? we know that maybe the pro-russian forces have gotten their hands on it, but how do the investigators really begin to investigate that when they don't have a handle on it? you know? >> that's an outstanding question. because, given the fact that this is an intentional act, it is in a war zone, the aircraft is in the ukraine and, of course, you have the russian separatists and a few other folks there and whoever has control of that, the question now is going to be who's got the box, how are they going to read the information out, because you can't just plug it in and play it. so you have to have sophisticated equipment. where is that box going to go. and then what are they going to do with that information. it is a shootdown.

and if it pans out to be that, it is an intentional act, are they going to try and cover it up and we'll never see the data again. if investigators do in fact have access to it, then it will help them at least possibly understand what was going on at the time just prior to the shootdown. and then to see if in fact the airplane was incapacitated and the crew lost control at 33,000 feet or they continued to fly it until it broke up in flight. >> greg, thank you for your time. appreciate it. eamon, thanks. we'll check back with you as news warrants as well. we also want to get back to the developing story in gaza with israeli forces launching a ground invasion. for that story we turn to nbc's martin fletcher in tel aviv. martin, what do you know at this point? >> reporter: well, hi. what everybody feared has indeed happened. israeli ground invasion about an hour and a half ago. israel launched its army into gaza. there was very heavy fire from the air. a lot of rockets, airplane

support and the tanks and armored personnel carriers, all went on to the ground at the same time. we don't know details yet but they are attacking along the north and central region and along the south. the goal of the invasion is not all-out war against the gaza strip or even against hamas. it appears limited at this stage, according to the army spokesman, to taking out the secret tunnel network that hamas has built, and other islamic organizations have built, that lead from gaza into israel. their goal is to allow gunmen to go through those tunnels and attack israeli soldiers and civilians inside israel. this is all about destroying as many of those tunnels as possible. to do this, the israel called up about 50,000 army reserves and today has said they're going to call up more reserves. doesn't look like it will be a very quick operation at all. earlier estimates were that if israel did this, in order to take out the entire network, it

would take 10 to 14 days. the fear of course is that when israel goes in with the army, as it now has done, the question is will civilian death toll rise. bad enough already -- about 240 palestinians have been killed in these last ten days of the -- of israel's onslaught, many of them -- about 75% of them civilians. the question is will many more civilians now get killed as israel's army operates inside the gaza strip. the answer to that is probably yes. but as the army's operations at the moment anyway, sound as if they will be limited to the border areas where the tunnels are. that's an area where the palestinian population is fairly sparse. so the operation could continue without too many civilian casualties. but of course, what will happen now is that hamas will fire with a vengeance their rockets at israel. 130 on average a day so far. that will probably increase. >> all right. nbc's martin fletcher there in

israel. we'll be checking back, i'm sure, with you at many stages there, martin. slow summer day for the markets turned into quite a volatile session because of all these events we've been telling you about. bob pisani here to walk us through the entire -- the lows in the stock market were mostly what's going on in gaza there. >> but it started a little after 11:00 eastern time. we got word of the downing of that malaysian jetliner. we dropped about 70 points. a lot of people wondering why wasn't it even more severe than that. a lot of people felt if they could develop the idea that this was some kind of accident, regardless of what happened, maybe the consequences wouldn't be so severe. some people questioning that logic later in the day. you see as we got word about the israeli ground offensive late in the day, the two of them combined to move the do you to the lows of the day. what was moving most? the most volatile sectors. social media, biotech, solar stocks, they were all down more than the rest of the market.

another very heavy day of selling in junk bonds. etfs associated with junk bonds. since we've started the second half of the year, there's an example. we've been straight down essentially in junk bond land. a lot of people hiding out in this particular group, down heavily today but again, this has been a trend since july 1st that people are watching that very carefully. for the vix, one of the biggest days we've seen in a long time. multi-month high but 14 is still roughly the average it's been in the last seven or eight months. even though it has been a big jump today, overall we're just about in the average. big question down here is two-fold -- was it an accident, and two, even if it was an accident, who was responsible. even if it is an accident, there could be repercussions in terms of responsibility. back to you. >> all right. bob, thank you very much. let's go to michelle caruso-cabrera with some of the latest news. >> on that question, was it an accident, vice president joe biden weighing in, "situation

was not an accident. it was blown out of the sky." vice president biden saying outloud what has been confirmed by both the "wall street journal" and nbc news as well, that the plane, malaysian plane was shot down, "blown out of sky." confirmation coming from the vice president at this point. >> very good. even with israel and the malaysia airliner story, it's been a very busy hour for corporate news which we are anxious to get back to. >> google and ibm moving in after-hours trading on those earnings report. there's some big news on apple. we'll have more on those stories moving the tech is beinger sect. i make a lot of purchases for my business.

and i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards, even cash back.

and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can.

any other day this would have been our top story. we got a lot of earnings out at the top of the hour. >> so here's what we got, bill. lots of earnings after the bell. we'll start with ibm, big blue now falling in the after hours as the company reported its ninth consecutive quarter of lower sales. that stock, you can see, currently down 1.5% towards after-market lows. google revenue increased 22% in the second quarter as the internet company saw strong demand on its website stuff pcht company said its chief business officer will be leaving the company and google shares are up about 1.5% in the after-market trade. the chip side of thing. advanced microdevices plummeting in the after-hours after its second quarter earnings came in a penny shy of wall street estimates. it also forecast revenue growth this quarter before low

consensus views. those shares down 15.5% in the after-market. seagate losing ground. down about 4% in the trade. here's an interesting development. we came with a change in the board over at hp before. now apple is announcing that susan wagner, who was a founding partner, a co-founder and director of blackrock, the world's biggest asset manager, has been elected to apple's board of directors. she will replace bill campbell who is retiring from the board after 17 years of service. campbell had been part of the apple family starting off back in 1983 as a vp of marketing. so, guys, a big deal, boardroom shake-ups kind of all over the place. this latest one with apple. this is the interesting part, guys. in the statement, apple ceo, tim cook, says we believe, her, sue wagner's wagner's strong experience in both m and a and developing and

global emerging markets will prove strong in the future. >> jon fortt has literally been shaking waiting to report some of this news here. what about the sue wagner shaking to report this news what about apple, what a week they've had? >> yeah, lots of changes him bill campbell is an iconic figure in silicon valley known as a coach. he has taught many representatives how to run a company. so after 17 years, he is stepping down, sue wagner as dom just mentioned specifically for emerging markets experience for so much of apple's iphone, opportunity and ipad opportunity as well, i just want to also quickly touch on google. we didn't get to mention that nakesh is going to soft bank and filling him for him is omad

courtsani, seen as the google revenue model. if there is anyone to step innio nakesh aurora, it will be he. >> as he so eloquently called him "the man." >> this is like jordan coming out of retirement in terms of online revenue. so no worries there. >> all right. what do you make of the earnings we are getting here, all of this technology? >> i think we will jump over to susan wagner, first of all, another board member, we love to see people added to the governance and to the board of directors and to do better with her mna experience. obviously, people have been wondering what apple has been doing with the test. we have been signing a little since strategic alliances, i think this bodes well that they have a master plan with what they will do with all that cash.

>> i will tell you when the dust settles here, you start to take a look around, there is great opportunities now in bonds, there is twice as many bonds out there as there are stocks. we will get a real assessment of the economy. i think the slowing of housing. i hate the numbers for the national association of realtors. i don't ever trust them. they come from so many places around the corner, through the woods. i think as we take a look, we will see the economy is going to kind of slow down a little. we will back away from this talk from early 2015. it will move back a little bit. i think it's a time to realocate your portfolio, take a look at where you may not be. i would get out of emerging markets. they've had a rally. i would look at repairing your bond position before rates go up because they are going up. >> it will be interesting to see what kind of advice sue wagner gives on black rock as a company has been critical of companies buying back so much stock and reinvesting it. apple 18 billion if buy backs. so it's interesting to see if

the financial profile will change. >> here's somebody that knows all tricks in the book. as have you the carl icahns and others of the world coming up to tim cook and trying to get attention, now, he's got somebody on his team who really knows his playbook. >> i would add this shows apple was mature company, but this addition really marks a clang for apple in terms of how it views its business go forward. right. it wants to add that expertise on how to manage a company its size in this kind of a market with all the possible mna and the possible deals that can happen down the line. this is wall street expertise at its core. they are bringing it to a product innovation company to help it deal. >> isn't this what to do with $150 billion? >> they said her mna experience will be valuable. that's a pretty big hit. >> with everything going on this woke, the imcook has something

up his sleeve, obviously. we move on, more on what's happening in israeli, ground forces in gaza at this hour. that's what took the market down earlier today. >> we should note, cnbc has a special on what's happening there and how it could impact markets globally, overnight, here in the u.s. tomorrow. stay with us. we'll be back after a short break. a month? yup. all five of you for $175.

. >> all right. we continue our coverage now of the unrest in this case in gaza as it continues at this hour. >> with us now to discuss these developments is john brown on the cnbc news line is the editor of the alga minor, a new york newspaper which covers israel-related news, of course, chief international correspondent michelle cabrera russo is with us. we have a few minutes left of the show today. john, i want to start with you, given all the geo-political assessments, is risk officially off? >> no, i think risk is potentially very much on. a time of great uncertainty. i think we may never know what happened in the ukraine because it's shrouded in russian

misinformation and secrecy. i think the gaza thing will end well forisse ral. i think the iranian-nuclear deal will be met and postponed for fade. but we have markets of all time highs and it's not based on a great economy but on a massive monopoly liquidity. so it's a time for careful thought. >> if i could weigh in on that and let mr. brown know reuters is reporting vladmir putin has said this airplane disaster would not have happened if kiev had not renewed its military operation against the rebels in eastern ukraine. if you think through the logic of that statement, it's almost an implication of the separatists on the ground having shot down this plane, now we know that nbc news has confirmed the plane has shot down. the u.s. that change your position at all, sir? >> no, we are guessing whether it's an accident or not. it is all based on a major strategic error over crimea. that's a much longer story. you can expect more russian

misinformation like this. >> i apologize, we have a minute left, your thoughts on the ground incursion by the israelis into gaza right now? >> look the last ten days you had a situation where 6 million forces of citizens are under rocket fire. they tried with the egyptians, which was dismissed by hamas. literally, you have a situation here where the ibs, the israeli government had no choice. this was coming for a long time and everything was done to avoid it and now the idf has gone in overwhelming force with detailed military strategy, striking multiple targets and private targets. i think as you just mentioned, we will see a decisive victory forisse ral at the end of this. >> all right. lord brown, thank you for your insights into all of this as

well. >> i know. john brown. >> well, a lot of news, a lot of moving parts today. thanks for sticking with us on the closing bell. thanks to michelle for being with us all show as well. thanks to our panel. >> good the see you again. >> "fast money" starts right now. by the way, happy birthday, too. [ music playing ] >> welcome to "fast money." we start with breaking news out of israel and russia t. dow, s&p and nasdaq all getting hit with the small cap, russell 2,000 the volatility index often referred to as a fear gate, it jumped more than 30% in a single session. news breaking in the last hour of trading that israeli forces have launched a ground offensive into gaza, after news break that a malaysian plane was shut down over ukraine. plus, we are watching google and ibm. they have reported stocks are moving and those conference calls are going on right now.