the nasdaq lagging behind just a little bit. earlier on has caught up a little bit. it's now up 0.25%. perrigo is up and amgen is up 3.3%. >> that does it for this edition of "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins now. welcome to "street signs," everybody. stocks are higher today but it does not mean that some investors aren't reaching for the pepto. why? first of all, there's the eurozone where growth is flattening. is it time to euro-proof your portfolio? we'll dig in on that ahead. plus, back here in the united states, we have a piece of housing data that could make investors a little queasy. and wall street's top food analyst has a big stomachache on a recommendation that's gotten off. also, a man that is no stranger to indigestion, mr. herb greenberg is having a very

hard time digesting some of the recent food ipos. he joins us ahead. brian sullivan is on assignment out there. but we have a big surprise coming up for you. we have a very special guest who's going to be taking the ice bucket challenge live on "street signs." personally, i cannot wait. but before we get to that action, let's get to what stocks are doing, touching their highest levels of august. the s&p and the nasdaq on pace for their best week. no real indigestion in the markets today. bob pisani at the nyse and rick santelli joins us from chicago. bob, what's keeping us higher in markets today? are traders taking the glass half full view? >> yesterday we were run on not a lot of news. the bottom line, this is still the best place in the world to put money for the moment. earnings are still increasing although we still have hiccups, disappointment in retail is there. same thing happened again today. s&p 500 on the upside. i would note that futures moved earlier in the morning when vladimir putin gave a speech in

crimea where it was viewed as somewhat conciliatory. futures moved up on that. we've been running on that all throughout the morning. let me show you, really tough times on a couple of things. besides disappointments with walmart, noodles and company, red robin, these are not mistakes, down almost 20%, both of them. disappointing earnings. but specifically talking about higher food costs as well. inflation starting to eat into the margins of some of these companies. we've seen it before with some of the pizza companies as well with higher cheese costs. this is a friend trend that's definitely happening. we've turned around with high momentum sectors biotechs, this is this week here and some of the biotech names. homebuilders, the itb for that group, has been turning around after being down for basically a month and a half even though interest rates were low. biotech has turned around as well. things have not only stabilized but beaten-up groups -- here's

the biotech sector on intraday on the upside. >> bob pisani, thank you very much. rick santelli, take your pick, germany, france, u.s.? what's giving you the most indigestion? >> i would think the first two. europe in general. but the two largest economies in the form of germany and france. you can see that the dax did better today. they're well over 9,200. you could see by the bigger chart that at one point last week, they were looking to challenge 9,000. the point is that this may be good for the u.s. as bob pointed out, the best place to invest, i agree. but beyond that, at some point, we're not firing on all cylinders. in an interconnected global marketplace, that activity is going to take a toll even though investors seem -- >> how does it feel to have been

the original anchor of "street signs" and being back on the old set? >> old. >> original, i didn't say old. original anchor. >> i'm glad it's still here. lives up to hopefully a good tradition we built. >> talk to us about what's going on in the markets here. bob said a moment ago, all of this makes us look that much better. >> i agree with that in relative terms. whether it's europe, russia going into recession, japan with a horrible gdp print, china not as strong as people think. the u.s. in relative and absolute terms from an economic perspective is quite strong. i've been short stocks for the last couple of weeks thinking we're going to have a sizable correction based on geopolitical risks. i think we're in a secular bull market. but the downside risk going in for a september surprise might be larger than some might think. >> still concerned about russia -- >> yeah. it's hard to take vladimir putin at his word not knowing what his

word means. when they're moving a convey of trucks toward the ukrainian border, it makes me nervous. >> so you are not buying it? eugene, come into the conversation. are you worried about what's happening in europe and what it might do to our u.s. markets? >> not exactly, mandy. i think what ron said, the geopolitical risks are a bigger concern than what's happening in germany and europe. we all know already that there's going to be slow growth, 1% or so. but i think because the geopolitical risks have started to recede, the market is continuing to hang in there. i'm on the long side as opposed to the short side. but i'm looking for companies growing at a fast rate but that are not selling at extended valuation. >> i have your stock picks here. names like microsoft and cicso. cicso is an interesting one considering some of the comment chambers was giving yesterday regarding the slowdowns in the markets. certainly cicso isn't the only u.s. multinational that's been affected by the slowdown in emerging markets.

are there any other names that you would like to talk about, perhaps, that are seeing some kind of negative impact from the emerging market slowdown? >> well, i think any of your technology companies whether intel or microsoft or cicso, you would see that impact. but in cicso, what i saw was that you had 70% year-over-year growth of 5 million x. that means you're starting to get an increase in technology orders. names in peril, selloff in retailers, like in macy's. but in some of the apparels, if you go back to the winter olympics, north face was a big negative beneficiary. they make a lot of outerwear. you can buy a name like that cheaply. winter's coming around again and that stock is selling at a premium valuation. but the p.e. on it is much lower than the market --

>> macy's is up again today. ron, what are you looking at in terms of investigang in this market? >> i'm in cash and shorts. i'm going to let it ride till the end of september. making my list out of the stocks that i have liked that i expect to buy at lower prices. this is a rather unusual departure for me to go short term in this tactical. i often talk about secular trends. i think the geopolitical risks are a little bit higher and i didn't like the behavior in the action i've seen in the market. particularly concerned -- and i'm writing about it this week -- about the behavior of commodities. they don't forget geopolitical risk but reflect economic risks worldwide. >> that's very true. look at oil prices. ju ye eugene, ron, thank you. walmart, the world's biggest retailer cutting its full-year profit forecast partly because of health care costs. courtney reagan is here. talk to us about these health care costs? >> when you hear higher health

care costs, may sound like an excuse. but when you're the world's largest retailer and the biggest u.s. private employer, the cost of providing health care to employees is significant. because the government's new health care rules under the affordable care act, many more individuals are seeking insurance coverage than in previous years. walmart explained that many of its employees choose to enroll in the company's plan rather than buying insurance on the state exchanges. walmart now forecasting it will spend $500 million in health care expenses this year after initially assuming $330 million in those annual health care-related costs because of both surgeon enrollments and health care cost inflation. because of those increased costs, walmart now forecasting full-year earnings will be in a range between $490 million and $500 million. significant but for a very good reason. they gave us the numbers. it's very expensive to cover all those employees. >> certainly is. we want to know if it's going to

get better or worse. let's bring in deutsche bank's paul trusell. >> the latest estimate is now over $500 million for '14. that compares to just $330 million that they outlined three months ago. so we are concerned that those costs could creep higher. as courtney mentioned, you have a lot of first-time enrolliees. they're enrolling in walmart's health care plan instead of going to the exchange or facing a government penalty. >> is there anything that walmart can do to mitigate those costs, though? >> certainly they could take their premiums higher. they could relax some of the

offerings that they're providing. walmart does allow, as i mentioned, part-time workers to partake in the health care benefits. they also allow same-sex partners to participate. so these are good things. i don't think walmart is planning to take those type of offerings away. so more than likely, this is a headwind they'll have to face all year long. >> paul, how much of this is a permanent headwind for walmart? how much a temporary one given that -- disintermediation is affecting retailers more than a lot of people anticipated and even low cost retailers like walmart which have a large base might be facing headwinds that have nothing to do with health care costs. >> i think this is really more temporary. health care certainly will be a big cloud over retail and a lot of other employers going forward

as laws and legislation continues to change year to year. but quite frankly, i think that this really was brought on by the a.c.a. and a lot of the changes. so we do view this as one time in nature mostly. and walmart is probably the retailer that was the most underpenetrated in terms of the amount of employees that were not enrolled in health care. so we don't see this being a big issue across the broader universe. >> paul, it's courtney. i have a question about the numbers. walmart initially gave us their estimation of $330 million. now saying more like $500 million as you've said as well. why were they so far off? could they have estimated this better? are the financial analysts on wall street like you modeling for costs like this? did you get it closer than walmart did? >> you know, it's very difficult to gauge how to model this out long term, especially quarter to

quarter. so this did come as a surprise to myself. and i'm sure many other analysts and investors this morning. i will say that in talking with the company, the $500 million annual expense does seem like a number they're now confident and comfortable with. they did outline the $180 million that they faced in that second quarter. and with the year now halfway completely, i think that it's fair to say they probably have a better gauge now on just how many associates of theirs will participate in the plan. but as you mentioned, the health care costs combined with the additional investments in e-commerce, they also added a number of store workers back to help overnight in restocking the shelves or during the day to check out. these are substantial expense headwinds that they will face the balance of the year. >> paul, thanks for joining us. you have a hold on walmart and your price target after $75. it's $74 and change right now.

we're going to leave it there. still ahead, something just happened to housing that has not happened in four months. we'll dig in ahead. later on, our good pal, herb greenberg, he's having a little bit of a hard time digesting some of those food ipos that have come to market lately. he'll tell us why. and jim cramer was challenged and he accepts. the madman takes the ice bucket challenge live right here on "street signs" in about 15 minutes' time from now. stick around. make sure you watch. in new york state,

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foreclosure activity jumping in july for the first time in four months. let's bring in diana olick. is that a big concern for housing or is it quite volatile? >> definitely volatile especially now. we're seeing it bump up for the first time but just two percentage points. it's been down in the double-digit percentage points year over year and for the past four years foreclosure activity has been falling. of late, very dramatically. i think what we're seeing here is a market normalization. so you're going to see these month-to-month fluctuations. remember all those government loan modifications done during the worst of the foreclosure crisis? they had a five-year turn. and believe it or not, we are there. next year, a lot of those modifications start turning into pumpkins. so we could see the numbers tick up. >> good point. i also want to ask you while i've got you about homeowner's insurance. how it might potentially be one thing holding back housing from

recovering even more. >> absolutely. if your home sits by the ocean or atop a fire-prone canyon or even in a not-so-nice neighborhood, you probably know you're paying more for homeowner's insurance. but something closer to home may be driving your monthly payments higher. that's your personal credit score. homeowners with poor credit pay 91% more for homeowner's insurance than those with excellent credit. homeowners with median credit pay 29% more than those with excellent credit. now, we checked out one of the biggest insurers, state farm, they confirm they factor fico scores into their rate. a spokesman says, there is an undeniable correlation between credit information and insurance risk, in terms of the frequency a person could have a claim and the severity of their claim. she could not say how much in dollar terms how much it could raise insurance costs. but the ranges vary from state

to state. one thing to note, though, three states -- california, massachusetts and maryland -- prohibit insurers from using credit scores to determine rates. if you want to see where your state falls, there's a link in our story on cnbc.com. go to it on the "realty check" page. >> thanks, diana. let's bring in laura adams. if you ever wanted an example of why it's important to have a healthy credit score in your financial life, laura, is it unfair to use those credit scores to set insurance rates for homeowners? >> it's definitely controversial. from an insurers' perspective, they want everything they can. they want to know everything they can about a consumer to make a smart decision. certainly from the consumer side, perhaps it seems somewhat unfair to use credit to set rates. i think what's important to remember is that if you have

poor credit, not only is it going to help your entire financial life but insurance is one part of that. so insurance -- people who have poor credit are certainly paying higher rates. but hopefully as their credit improves over time, they'll see those rates come down. so i don't know if it's unfair. it really depends on what perspective you're looking at it from. i think there's an awareness factor here. many consumers don't even realize that insurance rates do factor in credit. >> how much more would you be expected to pay in homeowners insurance if you have poor credit? up to what maximum more would you be paying? >> it really just depends on where you're starting from. i can give you some quotes here. in montana, for instance, the average homeowners rate there is 8.18%. if you have fair credit, you're looking for a 65% increase. that could mean an extra $535 per year just for having fair credit.

it could be twice that much if you have poor credit. the numbers are significant here and consumers really have a lot to save if they can keep their credit scores healthy. >> i was wondering also, though, given how much we factor into the price of a home, homeowners mortgage insurance costs, not just the homeowners insurance cost but the added cost, how much do you think this is hampering home buying in some of these regions where low credit is causing higher rates? >> i don't know if it's hampering buying. but certainly those consumers with poor credit are paying more. they're paying more interest on their mortgages. they're obviously paying more in most cases in most states for their homeowners insurance. and it also depends on the amount of loan insurance that we're talking about. so i think there's really a lot for consumers to gain by doing what they can to increase their credit score and also their credit base insurance score. insurance companies are basically looking at your credit history to create their own type of scoring model that's used in

setting your rate. >> really interesting discussion. as you say, very controversial as well. thank you both. coming up next, the united states freelances, how new technology is harnessing the various skills of the unemployed and putting them back into the workforce. and a big burger bust, one of wall street's top analysts was on our show yesterday saying red robin is his top pick. ouch! look at the stock today. down by 20%. is he ditching burgers for a big slice of humble pie? find out when "street signs" comes back. ♪ ♪ drivers want to go further with their electrical vehicles. but you can't take a trip from lisbon to stockholm if you can't re-charge along the way.

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and make this the summer of style. we have a developing story. let's get straight to scott wapner. what have you got? >> wanteded to give you a little bit more of this report from earlier by dow jones. at the s.e.c., apparently investigating valeant and

pershing square in its bid for allergan. earlier i told you the s.e.c. had declined to comment. pershing square has put out a statement which i do have here. but i can tell you that i just got off the phone with bill ackman himself. he confirmed that neither pershing square or valeant took any steps towards a tinder offer before buying allergan stock. that would be prohibited under the law. you could not propose a tinder offer or take any steps whatsoever towards a tinder offer and then acquire the stock. so he tells me neither pershing square or valeant took a tinder offer before buying the stock. it was only after allergan rejected our three offers that we decided to launch an exchange offer.

ackman speaking with me, confirming what this statement from pershing square says. now, valeant has made a comment saying, we are confident the trading was completely lawful as our reply to allergan's frivolous lawsuit will make clear. va valeant are also referring to the allergan lawsuit of earlier in the week or last week, accusing pershing square and valeant of insider trading. so that's the latest development, mandy, as we have it. statements from both valeant and pershing square and a conversation between bill ackman and myself in which he confirms that no steps whatsoever were taken towards a tinder offer before buying allergan stock. so the latest in this ongoing and developing story. >> if you have anything more, let us know. thanks very much. you may be one of the millions of americans that are out of the workforce. but you want to keep busy and you also probably want to make some money at the same time. there's now a range of start-ups

to help people make a living leveraging whatever skills you have. julia boorstin, how big is the freelance economy and what's driving it? >> it's fueling a growing freelance economy that accounts for $1.2 trillion of annual income. freelance start-ups touch every part of the economy. rev is a freelance transcription service. scripted screens and selects writers and connects them to companies ranging from trip adviser to small businesses like law practices. they pay $50 to $1,000 per blog post. >> they can come to scripted and have the work flow taken care of in one central place, track their work, provide -- request

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>> that was spencer rascoff taking the ice bucket challenge for a.l.s. he took to twitter to challenge our very own jim cramer. so jim is standing out here. do you accept the challenge? >> i do accept -- another guy who's great. weiner at linkedin. you have to be appropriately dressed. i see these guys wearing t-shirts. what's that about? wapner, what was the judge wearing? >> golf shirt. >> you get a $250 shirt, the suit, you see the najarians and know it's real money. you dump it on me. >> what's the worst that could happen? it's only water. >> i don't really like this suit.

>> are you, sir? >> this is a valentino tie. i don't really like it anyway. >> it's a little chilly out here. i'll stand up. ready? ready? >> sure. >> set, go! how feeling, sir? >> great. >> you know how this works? you have to challenge three other people. >> i'm going to challenge a group of people. i want all the "mad money" viewers who are on twitter to dump water over everybody -- each other, family members and then tweet your pledge. that's what i'm going to do. >> that's what it's all about. >> thank you so much for everybody -- >> lou gherig's disease. >> that's right. this terrible disease we all

know that makes us the luckiest people on the face of the earth. >> it really does. thank you for doing that, jim. tonight, you can be caught on your own show, "mad money," 6:00 p.m. herein right here on cnbc. coming up next, we're back to the markets and the one sector that's been a high flyer over the past year. and later on, why the fries could not satisfy. "street signs" is back after this. you're driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom!

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naviencorporation and qep. he did not hold it at the time of the alpha conference. he's dissolved his stakes of adt. also if you take a look at what's happening here, he has increased his stakes in among other companies comcast, the parent company of this network, to about 2.2 million shares. he had about 500,000 shares before that. also looking at where he's decreased his stakes. he's taken one of his largest holdings, aig, and trimmed it from 5.7 million down to 5.4 million and also trimming his shares in sirius xm from 82 million shares. boosting up his stake in comcast and trimming stakes in aig and sirius, among others. there's lots of holdings here. but those are just a few of the

highlights. back over to you. >> thank you very much for that, dominic chu. just yesterday, sea world got absolutely tanked, drowned, whatever you want to call it, hitting their lowest on record. down another 4.2% today. let's talk a little jcpenney. shares of the troubled retailer up 2% today ahead of its earnings which are coming out after the bell today. jcpenney's been trying to turn itself around for a while. what are we going to hear? let's start with alex furman on the fundamentals. looking at the technicals, we have rich ross, global technical strategist at outback grayson. alex, the fundamental side here? >> we like jcpenney as a short-term trade. we're starting to see inventory productivity normalize as the last of the ron johnson, eric goods has been purged. just maintaining the progress you saw in q1 on that metric, you could be looking at comps as much as high single digits in the second quarter and maybe

more than that in the back half of the year. would not be recommending this as a long-term investment. i think the recovery is going to start to run out of steam next year. and more importantly, when you think about the gross margins which really need to recover for jcpenney to get back to profitability, jcpenney's e-commerce business is 10% of sales right now, rapidedly growing as a percentage of the overall business. no one on wall street seems to want to talk about this. but it's a substantially lower margin business giving shipping and handling. you're looking at an incremental 10 to 15 incremental basis point every year for the foreseeable future. it's too difficult of a long-term recovery. >> what about the technical side for jcpenney, rich? tell us about that story. >> i'm in line with alex here. i like the stock for a late summer trade. and when you bring up the chart, i'll show you exactly why. the chart we're going to look at is a weekly chart that takes us back to the beginning of 2012.

we're down 75% from just the 2012 high alone. you've broken below that 50-week moving average and remained below it for over two years now. you see that well-defined multi-year down trend as well. earlier this year, we get a selling climax on a quick break below $5. established a nice head-and-shoulders bottom providing a base for a pretty good rally. we are into some resistance here up around the $10 level. but keep in mind, you've taken out that 50-week moving average and broken back above that down trend. we could take out that neckline of resistance and move out to 2 12, $13 a share. there's potential buying pressure on the stock. we need a little light for this candle and this stock could take out that resistance and trade $12, $13 a share in the short term. >> thank you much to you both. airline stocks getting a

boost from lower oil prices. but can they continue to soar? let's bring in helene becker. remember when the airline industry was a dog of an investment, it was having a lot of troubles and wasn't a good place to put your money. the last three years have turned that thesis on its head. but the question is, considering the last three years have been so good to the airline stocks, is it continue, helene? >> we think the airline industry is in a really good position right now with oil prices coming down. jet fuel costs are lower than they've been anytime in the past year or so. the economy is a little bit better, especially in the domestic u.s. so we're seeing really good domestic results. international, they're pulling some capacity down for the winter months. so we should see improving international numbers, especially on the north atlantic and in the latin american markets. so i think given that, there's still runway ahead for the stocks. >> even for a couple of your favorite pick, you have three

here. two of them, american airlines up 55% already this year, southwest airlines already up by 56%. so you're saying they've got further to go? >> well, we really do. we'll start with southwest, which was our top pick in 2014. we had identified about $2.5 billion worth of revenue that they could generate over the next four to five years. $1 billion from new international roots that started july 1st and then another close to $1 billion in revenue from dallas love field where they'll start service anywhere they want in the 48 contiguous states after october 13th. so that's $2 billion of the $2.5 billion. and the other half a billion from changes they're making in their operations. since may of 2011, they've returned almost $2 billion of capital to shareholders in the form of dividends, dividend

increases and sharing purchase programs. those are some of the reasons we like southwest. over the next few years, we think earnings will going to double. if earnings double, the stock price should double. as to american, we think that's another good -- that's a good stock to be in. and on american, lots of low-hanging fruit with respect to the merger with us airways. they really haven't started the heavy lifting yet. but they're preparing for it. and we think that 2014 should be a pretty good year. at least the first half of 2015 into the latter part of the year should be pretty good. so we think there's still some runway on american as well. >> and your other pick is air canada and it's only up by 9% year to date. thank you for the quick snapshot on the airline stocks. herb greenberg has been getting indigestion from all these restaurant ipos. some of these companies that

half the country have not heard of are going ipo. plus, red robin laid a big, fat egg. but yesterday you might remember if you were watching "street signs," bob told us he liked those stocks. we'll grill him to see if his opinion has changed. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ tires screech ] chewley's finds itself in a sticky situation today after recalling its new gum. [ male announcer ] stick it to the market before you get stuck. get the most extensive charting wherever you are with the mobile trader app from td ameritrade. wherever you are with the mobile trader app we do? i took the trash out. i know. and thank you so much for that. i think we should get a medicare supplement insurance plan.

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welcome back to "street signs." i'm scott wapner with an interesting little tidbit and a lesson for everybody. be careful what you read in a 13f. we just said that omega, lee cooperman's hedge fund, had taken a position in sea world. i can tell you, according to my sources, omega no longer owns sea world. that they are completely out of that stock according to my sources. again, these are 13fs that are filed. they are as of the end of june. we always give the disclaimer, be careful what you read in a 13f. and this is a perfect example. sea world has been a stock all over the news this week. the earnings were very disappointing yesterday.

the stock has gotten absolutely hammered, as you can see from this chart. the stock was down i believe more than 20% yesterday. it's down yet again today. there were at least four downgrades on wall street. as a result of the earnings. it's that continued story about that black fish documentary which seems to be having a lasting impact on attendance which has clearly been hurting sea world. just when you thought that omega was stepping in to sea world, i can tell you again from my sources, they are completely out of sea world. >> really good to clarify that. thank you very much for that, scott. just to give you a couple of more factoids on sea word. it went public on april 19th, 2013, $27 per share at ipo. i think it rose about 24% on its debut. but considering it's now at $18, you can see what kind of drop it has had. it's hit a record low.

shares of red robin deep in the red today. but take a listen to what happened on this very show just yesterday. >> red robin is a casual dining company that i consider to be a jack-of-all-trades like much of the, you know, the industry that's trying to do a lot of different things. they do burgers really well. >> okay. they do burgers really well. bob darington, i just want to give you a shoutout as well. not a lot of people would come back after that for a dose of humble pie may, but good that you did. does is it make more of a buy for you? >> you know, mandy, i can't pour a bucket of cold water over my head, but i'm not afraid to eat my humble pie. >> what a good sport, bob. >> what i would tell you, i've been asked, did this management

team get stupid overnight? listen, in the big scheme, they've put together an incredible track record, as investors begin to understand the ideosing crazies that affected this company, the fact they had a disproportionate negative effect, on a 12-week quarter as opposed to 13, and the quarter ended in the middle of july, oh, by the way, i think they'll be more understanding that maybe the trends aren't as bad, maybe they shouldn't be beaten up as much as they have been. >> so where do we go from here? does it try to rectify some of the problems that were revealed? >> listen, to be fair, anytime a company misses like this it's in the penalty box. the heinous is on the company to turn around and put better trends up. my belief is in the third quarter we'll see a bit similar trend to what we saw. in the fourth quarter, i think trends will be better. next year i think they'll be better than that. the only thing, mandy, you have

to realize this stock on an adjusted basis is trading at about six times intersurprise ebitda. that compares to the industry that are growing slower with worse trends that are trading at about 200 basis points or about eight times. in my mind, in my view, this is one of our best picks at this point. >> it gives you more -- for an opportunistic investor. >> absolutely. >> yeah. is there anything else that you're worried about with the higher costs they talked about? anything they can do to offset those things going forward? >> in the big scheme, they talked about the commodity inflation, that's real, it's there. it's not going away. i think that will be a pressure point. i think those risks are reflected within the company's -- especially within not only the revised numbers, but also in the share price. my belief is this company is probably set up to beat expectations, as opposed to struggle to get to them.

>> bob, before we let you go, i've always wanted to know what humble pie tastes like. would you have a bite? >> i'm happy to, i believe this one is made with rotten robin's eggs, to be fair. >> delicious -- >> well, i don't want to eat it often. >> i'm sure -- well, might not be the last time, but as long as you do have it every day. not good for the waistline. >> thanks, mandy. >> thanks, bob. as if we needed further proo of that health has no place in a fast food joint, burger king is ditching the satisfries due to low demand. when they were first launched it was bk's most successful launch in years, sense 100 million chicken fries in just four weeks. make your own conclusions on the back of that news. it's restaurant ipos causing indigestion on wall street of late.

herb greenberg is here to tell us why they're racing for the tums. which is giving you the most indigestion. >> today i think noodles is giving people a ton of -- pol pollo loco, just because they companies go public, you know, that doesn't verify their business model. with all of these restaurants, whether it's potbelly, noodles, any of the recent ipos, what you learn through history is once they go public, you know, they have to grow to meet wall street's estimates. they have to put up number to meet wall street's. potbelly may not have as much locations in a very crowded sandwich market to do that. noodles, who knows what's going on there. so that's the message you have to take away from this. let me tell you, here in san diego there's a mexican restaurant chain call rubio's very good little change, it's been around, a public company, they couldn't expand really

outside of the southwest, as much as think tried. they ended up having to retrench, it was not a successful public company. >> in reality, the bottom line is just because a company goes public, the concept is not necessarily validated. i mean, not all of them can be bad, right? >> you know, i consulted with john gordon, a restaurant consultant in san diego. he's really very good. the one he likes is zoey's, jim cramer last night on mumm gave a long six-minute pitch for zoey. he makes good points, but it's a mediterranean chain. that's an interesting concept, they're not the only one, but that's the one a smart guy would look at and say it's the one he thinks might have a bit of runway in front of it. >> herb, don't go anywhere. i want to get your take on a story that's very close to your heart, literally. a new study says those

aggressive low-sodium diets, like the kinds you've been on may not be working, in fact people consuming less than 3,000 milligrams of sodium today had a higher risk of a heart attack and stroke than people consuming between 3,000 and 6,000. that puts you in the high-risk bracket, herb. you've got to get back into the salt. >> no, you have to look at the blood pressure results. with me with high blood pressure, you can see the results. i checked with my doctor at the clinic who runs the integrative medical center, he said, look, he looks at it as a clinician, what he sees in the clinic, and he sees improvement. i can tell you i've had physiological benefits that i won't get into here, and it's not what you think, as a result of lowering my salt. my blood pressure has its ups and downs still, it's much more controlled, but remember, i do work over at the street with jim cramer. that's a high cramer diet. maybe if i went on a lower

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"gq." social media erupted with complaints from customers, many of them parents who have the -- and by the way, apparently the model on the cover was a topless lady in the "blurred lines" video. thanks for watching. "closing bell" is next. welcome to the "closing bell." >> hey there, kelly. thank vladimir putin for the green arrows today. what? the russian president was calming public statements about tensions in ukraine, but why do investors buy anything this guy says at this point? we'll have more on the man that's moving markets all over the globe. what's wrong with walmart? the company cutting the forecast says it hasn't performed, could that be because shopping isn't as