big indication. thank you for that, robert frank. >> is there a cyber monday in the art world? >> jar. >> yes. >> good. >> thanks for watching. "closing bell" is coming up next. and welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm bill griffith. it's not happening right now to green territory. third day this week talking about where's the next catalyst going to be? this market clearly looking for direction from something. we have got the earnings behind us. the fed meetings are behind us. the election behind us. when's ahead of us? >> well, if there's anything notable that's happened lately, that's oil. because now it's brent dropping below to $80 level for the first time since december 2010 and makes a big difference to you at the pump. keep an eye out for gas prices

to fall. >> interestingly, not putting much downward pressure on the stock market. also, commodity futures trading commission head timothy mass 5 2k joins us after announcing the settlement with the banks. there are some smoking gun chat room messages you have to see on this story which has some wondering why the penalties announced were not greater. we'll get into that and more with timothy massad coming up momentarily. >> two earnings are out in an hour. cisco and jcpenney. we'll bring you the numbers that could move both stocks and overall market, second they hit the tape and the best analysis on the street that all starts right after the closing bell. at&t is halting build-out of fiber optics in about 100 cities in what so far is the most apparent chilling effect of the president's call this week to

clamp down and regulate the internet. this as reports say that the fcc chair may defy the president's call for net neutrality citing the agency's independence. this story is a lot of moving parts and pieces. it continues to develop. we'll have the latest for you. very important story coming up. let's take a look at the market. dow off 23. been in the red most of the session today. the s&p's off about 4. nasdaq positive. yesterday we saw the major indexes in the red until pretty much, bill, the closing bell turning positive adding a point to each one and went out out a record highs. we have an hour to go. >> european influence this morning a big one, as well, to the downside. liz ann saunders with us. we have keith fitzgerald. jack barusian. and welcome back rick santelli out veterans day holiday in chicago, as well. liz ann, that catalyst, what is it do you think?

what is it that the market is waiting to happen next that will move us either up or down in a meaningful way here? >> you cited the things behind us. you could get a few good earnings reports and maybe a prelook at fourth quarter earnings and earnings need to be a driver for the market and probably gotten as much valuation expansion in the near term that we will get. i would say from a policy perspecti perspective. there was hope riding on a less divided congress and whether maybe something can get done and i think corporate tax reform might be some of the nearer term catalysts. will we get that or just talk again? >> what about keystone? rick, if i could ask you, i don't know how closely you're following this but looks like mary landrieu trying to push it and maybe contributed to brent below the $80 mark. are you chuckling? what? what? >> it just shows you how wonderful harry reid and the senate are. how many times could they have

brought that bill to the floor? how many? for years. and when does he bring it to the floor? in the hopes of keeping mary landrieu in congress. i don't know. i guess i'm cynical. i personally don't think it's -- >> what do you think the market would look like this if it passes? >> wait a minute. i think many market participants see it for what it is. it's a pliolitical maneuver and won't address. i don't think it had to do with the activity. >> the feeling is that it will pass. >> i don't think with this congress. i think with the next one. i think they just want mary landrieu to have a positive vote. i don't think it will pass the senate. >> jack, what do you think? politics is about the only thing you and rick agree on. >> i think i have a different spin. i think it's good for the market. last week's election was a mandate, a statement. all of a sudden you heard the president talking about a repatriation of capital overseas. don't be surprised to see the headlines, i mean, corporate tax

reform. a real tax policy. a real energy policy. all these things are very bullish. i mean, look. the next couple of years could end up being the best of all possible worlds for investors. >> i always thought gridlock was good, jack. piece by piece, for the keystone in particular, i mean, what do you think is going on in the oil space. does it have to do with that project finally getting the green light and how much of an impact will it have? jack? >> oh, i'm sorry. you know what? i think that it's a big impact and more importantly, what you're going do see is some of these agencies that have been used as henchmen, the epa, it goes by the wayside and then get the real cap x and get back to where we should be and that is energy independence as a headline and as an energy policy. that's something that we have missed out on. >> keith fitzgerald, you have been encouraged of the earnings reports so far and rumblings to

see more stock buybacks at this point. but, i mean, can't corporations think of better things to do with all that cash? especially at these valuations right now. >> like some cap x. >> build something, buy something, get earnings on the tape somewhere. buybacks speak to corporate mentali mentality. if they think they have a good deal, they use it for their own you weres. i think that's a positive sign. their cost of capital is relatively low. i don't want to see them dive diverting earnings to do it. >> fair point. jack, i want to go back to something. you were saying we'll have an energy policy in this country. we have clearly done all right not having one for the last couple of years and couldn't ask for a better outcome if you had no idea who was in the white house and the policy and the congress than today. >> think about it, kelly.

imagine where we would be with a congress that was actually pro-growth, pro-energy and, in fact, we didn't have the problems, you know, a few years back. there's a school of thought that says that energy would be considerably less or more importantly not going up as much as it did. what we did was empowered the putins of the world taking oil over $100 a barrel. >> who's we? is we the financial industry? because to some extent it was everybody buying the commodity argument to push it up in the first point. >> it was an ancillary effect of the lack of congress action. it's the belief of the oil industry, for that matter. hidden secret. they haven't said much because they like the fact that oil's over $100. but the reality is it's not good for the every day american. >> hey, jack. isn't it more than that, though? jack, it's not only that it's some point maybe we'll be allowed to export energy and anybody who think this is's a bad thing study what happened opening up agriculture to exports in this country. but the bigger story is the

people in power, the last six years, even longer in some cases, depending on the states, are anti- anything fossil fuel. >> absolutely. >> there's a lot going on here. >> without question. rick, you're right on, rick. you know what? see, that's why i said what i said earlier. the epa, the nlrb, used as henchmen instead of the vanguard and the oversight of what's going on with the greatest expansion in our own backyard here in the midwest. >> liz ann, if you haven't figured out, you have to step in. like a big family dinner here. you have to step up if you want to be heard. let's ask you a schwab view of energy right now. do you see much lower energy, oil specifically prices? you don't see much in the way of inflation down the road. is that because you expect energy to continue lower? >> we think and we have had this view for a couple of years now. super cycle ended in 2011. super cycles don't end going into an upside "v" but a period

of flatter trends and volatility and clearly on the downside of that in energy and probably more downside. there's value in the stocks. the concern is that does it become a value trap? we think that the primary reason is on the supply side. not to mention the strength in the dollar. not really a demand story. but when you look at emerging markets in particular, that are doing a tremendous job and sort of reining in inflation pressure. the increased supply by the yooits. all of those i think conspire to keep a lid on oil prices here. >> liz ann, one thing i see people considering maybe for a trade, maybe longer term is getting into the precious metals and gold in particular popping up and this wouldn't seem like the best opportunity for gold. do you have a view on that? >> i think fundamentally, not a great environment for gold right now but come down such an extraordinary amount and because it's a more tradeable vehicle right now, sentiment conditions tend to work at extremes.

you have to -- sentiment at a pessimistic extreme probably provides a near term pop and you saw gold do well in the real tumultuous phase and if we go through phases like that again i think gold is that short-term safe haven. i'm not so sure about the long-term fundamentals behind gold, though. >> that's -- i'm totally with liz on that and depends on the perspective. short-term trader, one thing. nimble and in and out. diversifier, looking for shed risk, dampen volatility, gold at any price is an important component in the portfolio. used to be an optional component. now i think mandatory. >> rick, what do you talk about on gold? >> you know what? i agree long term gold should be in portfolios but i'm more enamored with silver at these levels. >> absolutely. good point here. >> you think they're ready for a bounce? >> yeah. i think silver in particular. you know, it's got the best of every world. but there's so many good

industrial uses and gives you an added insurance. >> all right. >> thank you. >> you know what? one other thing. >> jack? >> you want to be owning these precious metals in dollars or other things other than dollars. >> yen? >> yen, euro. you do not want to own them in dollars. >> own them. that's the point. >> thanks, everybody, for being here. great to see you this afternoon. >> see you later. dow's trying to turn positive. only off about ten points. the s&p slightly lower. the nasdaq holding on to a gain here. alibaba doing well today. all right. the world's biggest banks ponying up $4.3 billion in fines for attempting to manipulate the foreign exchange market. chairman of the cftc leading the charge in this case gives us his first interview since taking over this summer. this was a big deal for timothy

massad. that's in a moment here. good ending for two window washers dang frlg the new trade center blocks from where we are. we'll show you the dramatic rescue later. if you missed it, don't go anywhere. we're back in two. ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money? uhhh. no, that can't happen. that's the thing, you don't know how long it has to last.

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as you've probably heard by now, handful of biggest banks paying over $4 billion in fines on charges that they tried to manipulate the foreign exchange rates colluded in this regard. kayla has the incredible story for us. >> bill, an investigation spanned more than a year and a half does appear to be nearing at least some sort of an end in the first of what's expected to be many settlements regarding this issue. in all, overnight six banks paying nearly $4.4 billion to settle claims that dozens upon dozens of traders gathered in chat rooms to game the market and benefit positions that they were holding. the majority of the action taking place during a one-minute window 4:00 p.m. and a snapshot of the market gets taken and a conversation sampled saiding,

come on, fix it at 07. and then saying congratulations the each other, quote, nice job. i sold a lot up there. because they see $5 trillion of currency change hands each day and hard to characterize the effect on any economy except to say as the ctfc's head said this morning it is profound. the settlement includes five u.s. and european banks. the occ's three u.s. banks. jpmorgan and citigroup with the most costly payouts just above billion dollars for each of those institutions. now, as i said, that's still more to come. barclays for one firm elected not to sign any of today's settlements and there are still ongoing investigations by the federal reserve and the justice department that could result, bill and kelly, in criminal charges. back the you. >> all right. kayla, thank you very much for that update. >> more on this story, let's bring in a key player in all of

this, the brand new chairman of the commodity futures trading commission timothy massad joining us exclusively. good to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> how could -- i mean, the sweep, the scope of the collusion is breath taking thinking about it. the number of companies involved, traders involved. how is it possible it went on as long as it did without regulators finding out about it earlier? >> it is terrible it went on and particularly staggering is that some of the banks doing this while the cftc an others were looking into libor and bringing actions. >> there was a manipulation of the market which is then made illegal, obviously. >> and orders on that, yes. >> failed to include other benchmarks -- >> no. i would say regulators failed to include. we started looking at these things. takes a while to uncover this. you have to collect the evidence. go through that. we did a painstaking investigation.

but, you know, it's the fact that the banks weren't on top of this, supervising their own people, were allowing this to happen which is a real shame. these benchmarks are incredibly important to the economy. so many things rely on them and to have some of the largest banks in the world attempting to manipulate it is unconscionable. >> details have been coming out and people raising eyebrows thinking you perhaps lowballed the whole settlement. you might have been able to get more. you should have pushled for more. the doj and fed are still working on their own investigations. what do you say to people who say, frankly, this could and should have been tougher? >> i can't comment on what other agencies are doing. we thought this was a very good settlement. they're very stiff penalties and asking the banks, requiring to baengs to take remedial measures to prevent it from happening again.

and we have gotten those in place. they have agreed to do that. that's what's extremely important. >> why haven't the doj and fed settled? >> i don't know what the status is. whether they're investigating. tough talk to them. >> why is it so piecemeal? >> how do you mean? we settled with five major banks that have been involved in this. they all settled at once. that's quite different than what happened in libor. >> i think she's getting at why aren't you working with the doj and the fed on this? >> we work with all regulators but they make their own decisions. i don't determine what they do. we were -- we were on top of this, looking at this for sometime. we coordinated the timing with the fta and occ. >> is it a question of resources? >> in the sense that we're very stretched in terms of our resources. we need more resources to go after more things, more bad behavior. that's always a challenge. >> how much more? >> well, you know, look.

there's lots of things that we'd like to look at, look into. robust enforcement is important. spoofing, for example. we have new authority to go after spoofing where people enter orders that they really don't mean to complete. >> and then pull it back. >> to move the market. that's a resource intensive investigation because you must look at a lot of order data and voluminous and a huge information technology challenge. if we had more resources, we could do more on that. >> mary jo white is trying to get xaenls to admit guilt on cases like this. now head of the scc s. that a drive of yours, as well? we are getting this neither admitting nor denying and the worst-case scenarios in some cases some of the guys colluding on this the punishment for them is their bonus is capped at 200% of their annual salary. that's hardly a penalty for this kind of activity.

>> well, i guess what i would say to that is this. we have 1.5 billion in fines to us from 5 banks. fca almost equivalent amount. plus remedial measures. i think it's very important that we got this now so that we can remedy this market. the question of admissions of guilt, you know, sometimes we get that. sometimes we don't. settlements often don't get that. that's just the nature of -- >> shouldn't you, though? if you were able to get more admissions of guilt, you know, the penalties that these companies end up paying just -- >> i'm trying -- >> the aggregate is cost of business. nobody goes to jail. nobody's thrown out. they continue to do their -- >> we can't send people to jail. that's up to doj. >> i understand. >> we work with them. i'm trying to fix the markets, ensure integrity of the markets. getting a settlement like this today and get the kind of changes we want, i think that's a lot more valuable than taking

two or three or four more years that it might take potentially to get something stronger. you always have to make those hard choices. i think we were right in doing what we did today and try to fix this mess. >> by the way, this also raises the investigation has raised some further concerns about other manipulations that might have been going on. sy versa one that came up this morning. can you comment on that? >> i don't comment on anything in terms of things we might be investigating or things that we are investigating. what i will say is this. benchmarks are extremely important. they have been an important focus for us. look at libor. look now that what's coming out of in terms of trying to reform libor. might have waited two, three, four more years to do that, too. i think it was right what the agency did and -- >> do you think there's less public outrage and fewer penalties for the heads of the banks or employees of these banks as opposed to libor

because people don't understand what the real impact of manipulating of foreign exchange position is? >> look. i would say generally it's important to hold individuals accountable. we'll always do that where there's evidence that we have to prove that. but at the same time, we're going to bring the enforcement actions to get the kind of remediation that's necessary to fix the markets. >> with all due respect, every cfct chair sitting there says it's always an issue of not having enough resources to do our job. if you did, would we see higher penalties? would we see more severe penalties? >> you certainly see more enforcement actions. that's a good thing. you'd see us be able to do more examinations of critical infrastructure like clearinghouses that we made even more important in the system. we don't have enough resources to examine them regularly. you'd see us be able to

economists on staff that understand the markets and make sure we're always being proactive, not reactive. the american people deserve strong regulation. you know, we have the best financial markets in the world. one of the main reasons we do is because of strong sensible regulation. if we don't invest the resources in that, we won't continue to have that. >> just a final question on this point. as people, again, in the general public and at some of the banks are looking at so many different agencies trying to grapple with what's going on here, why does the cftc need to be independent? why not roll it into one agency to centralize the resources, perhaps use the knowledgeable of working in the financial market? >> not up to me. but all i would say is looking back at the history of these, the agency grew out of a different tradition than, say, the scc. and our markets have some differences. although we also share some

things and so i work very closely with chairman white at the scc along with other heads of the other regulatory agencies. >> mr. chairman, we know you have a train to catch. we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> thank you for joining us today. the new cftc chair joining us today at new york stock exchange. >> such an important day for that commission. for so many others watching the news both here and abroad. the banks as we mentioned on all of this, bill, have held up reasonably well. we don't know what else is yet to come before it's all said and done. 35 minutes to go. and the market kind of sitting there still waiting for a catalyst. the dow down 13 points with the s&p down, too. we probably won't get -- well, we may not get all-time highs. nasdaq up ten points right now. up next, "beat the street." high lights fund managers outperforming their benchmarks. picking up an idea or two. also ahead, tonight, earnings. cisco systems and jcpenney out

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[annit's working forny. new york state. already 41 companies are investing almost $80 million dollars, and creating 1750 jobs. from long island to all across upstate new york, more businesses are coming to new york. they are paying no property taxes, no corporate taxes, and no sales taxes. and with over 300 locations, and 3.7 million square feet available, there's a place that is is right for your business. see if startup-ny can work for you. go to startup.ny.gov.

today kicking off a new segment called "the great street." every wednesday we will have an actively managed fund manager significantly outperforming their benchmark on the trailing 12 months. >> because we have been beating them up a little bit. >> yes, we have. >> talking about how much the s&p 500 is beating active managers. joining us for the first installment of the series is josh spencer, portfolio manager of t. rowe price. fund's benchmark only up about 18% and nearly doubled it. josh, welcome. and tell us how you did it. >> thank you. it's nice to be with you. well, the performance is really a testament to our global research platform here. we have a number of success stories. chinese internet space, apple, staying patient with that stock off the lows.

proof point in software. very broad based. we know the xaenls very well and high conviction in our holdings. at this time, i'm a bit more cautious than i was, you know, maybe a year ago or six months ago, frankly, because of the strong performance we have seenl in the market and in the fund. >> but i do see -- i mean, you're cautious, more cautious than you were and biggest position is amazon and buying more as the stock suffered here. why? >> i have. you're exactly right. sometimes to generate that strong performance you have to think a little bit differently. and though maybe i'm cautious on the broader market or on the nasdaq, amazon is a stock that's near the lows. it's frankly close to a two-year low and i think investors have grown frustrated with amazon's investments and they're maybe losing sight of the fact that this is the billion dollars in sales and growing at 20% annually. just enormous numbers and dominating two very important

businesses in online retail and cloud computing. >> just one more question on this, josh, because we are about to hear from bob olstein thinking amazon is not worth more than $100 a share. >> i couldn't disagree more. their choices that they're making in investment spending, that's what's driving the lack of profitability today. they're investing in things like fulfillment centers, data centers and building a mote around the business and it's frankly two businesses because it's retail and cloud computing and that mote is virtually insurmountable. i have no doubt they will be profitable over time and investments are by choice. >> i mean, i look at the list of stocks you buy and it's like the great momentum plays of 2013 and '14. the teslas, zillows. alibaba bought on the ipo. you think alibaba's for real? >> i do think alibaba's for real.

that's actually one as it's pushing 120 here, i have cut back my position size and although it sounds like momentum oriented, what we are looking at is business fundamentals and technology is an area of rapid rates of change and we have to stay ahead of that change. alibaba is a tremendous business and we were very early in understanding this company, investing in it through softbank in the early days and then the ipo, as well. >> and, josh, this outperformance, the expectation that you can keep up with it, outdo the index again, how do you -- what's the method behind the madness? just what would you say to people going, well, typically i buy in after these guys have a great run and, you know, how do you know that you'll be able to continue to deliver these kinds of results? >> well, we can't promise that but we do know these companies very well and if you think about what i told you about amazon and how we're stepping into the stock with negative sentiment, that's what you should look for.

you should look for someone who thinks differently. when's willing to buy into that controversy. and we've done the deep work to give us conviction in the companies to stand up when others disagree. >> we wonder if you could stay right there. we'd love to have you debate this point with bob olstein and coming up. call us crazy and might be fun to give it a try. >> that would be fine. happy to. >> appreciate it. >> josh spencer. it. >> making stuff up as we go along here, folks. >> look. so's the dow. now turned positive with about 30 minutes to go. s&p off by a point and the dow in record territory. nasdaq helped by apple in particular up about 14. speaking of olstein, boring can be better he says. he's been plowing money into the stocks considered by many to be run of the mill and they have generates far more run of the mill returns. he has the list and we'll talk more about amazon coming up.

and this was anything but boring. coming up, the thrilling rescue of two window washers trapped at the brand new world trade center just hours ago. we'll be right back.

welcome back.

goldman sachs estimating stock buyback jumping to 18% next year. >> and that's possibly at the expense of new jobs and business investment. this is what we were talking about earlier. jeff has details on the report. jeff? >> thanks, bill. companies are flush with cash and it looks like they'll be giving a big chunk of it back to shareholders in 2015. now, i should mention goldman sachs projects share repurchases to surge to $707 billion next year and continues a year's long trend to boost buybacks. of course, this is great news to shareholders who have reaped the benefits of the trends of cash back to the market over the past five years or so. it is not such great news for the economy, though, which is seeing slow growth in part because companies haven't been in a rush to use that cash to grow their businesses. now, goldman expects capital expenditures to increase just 6%

next year in a sign that confidence remains shaky. now, with that all means is continuation of a plodding economic recovery amid a market that remains addicted to cheap, easy money. back to you. >> all right. jeff, thank you. important issue. we also want to update everybody on what happened at the freedom tower in lower manhattan a little ways from here this afternoon. two window washers trapped 69 floors above the ground. you saw this happen. >> i drove by there on the way to new york stock exchange. hydra ma. everything worked out, though, right, jackie deangelis? >> that's right. thankfully so. there was a safe rescue made of the two window washers dangling from the world trade center and officials have told me the scaffolding is secured. two rescue attempts were made. the second was to cut through the window and saved the two window washers and that scaffolding is secured to the building. it was chaotic in downtown

manhattan and people on the ground and the nypd for their efforts to save those window washers and how they did it, really in quite a swift manner. as chaotic as it was, it was not that part in this part of downtown manhattan. they closed off all the streets near the world trade center. secured the location to make sure that they could access it properly. when the window washers were being taken in, cheerls down below. really happy that these people were safe. and being taken in to, you know, get treatment and get help. i do want to say that the executive director of the port authority said tests were conducted to see if situations like this could happen safely. they're not sure exactly what went wrong, why the cable snapped and they were dangling but here on the ground the cleanup efforts are under way, traffic is moving more smoothly and people just happy that everybody is safe. back to you. >> yeah. jackie, that was -- we all were

holding our breath. that's for sure when we were in the area there. thank you very much. >> you have to wonder how much more common it's going to be. i point people to a nice piece of "the new yorker." a lot of new buildings are difficult to clean than before. >> not just straight up and down anymore. >> exactly. >> xot wick the architecture. heading to the close. 20 minutes left. dow in positive territory. is it possible to have an all-new high? >> anything is possible. we'll find out shortly. the nasdaq outperformer on the day. boring is beautiful at least coming to stocks according to the next guest, bob olstein is back with the list of boring names that could deliver exciting returns when he comes up next. sheila! you see this ball control?

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welcome back. let's get out to mary thompson with the movers of the day. plus, mary, some of the after the bell earnings to watch out for. >> key names after the bell, kelly. macy's moving higher after posting better than expected sales. they did trim the earnings forecast. you can see up 3%. alibaba gaining ground a day after reporting the single-day

sales. surged 56%. up from 14% since reporting earnings last week. up 3.3%. jm smucker fell after a disappointing second quarter outlook. this due to a sharp drop in the folger coffee sales. sea world is sinking on weaker than expected third quarter earnings. 5.6% decline in attendance of a year ago. we'll end with two major earnings reports after the close. cisco systems expected to earn 52 cents a share on sales of $12.6 billion and analysts are concerned they could temper expectations ahead of the news stocks trading fractionally lower. jcpenney also out with the results. embattled retailer expected to lose 80 cents a share on sales of $2.18 billion. doesn't sound good. lost $1.81 a year ago.

shares trading off 7.5%. >> thank you very much. well, boring stocks are about to get exciting according to veteran fund manager bob olstein. he's had ten stocks in the portfolio takeover tar gets or subject of activist investor campaigns. >> yeah. bob olstein joins us again. great to have you back. listen. what do you mean by boring and can you give us a couple of other names that investors should take a closer look at? >> when we bought zoatis it was near boring. people worried about animal antibiotics and things and that's when you get the right prices. the ten stocks of the private equity guys took out of the olstein funds were activist campaigns boring six, nine months ago. macy's today and i have been on cnbc for three years, talking about macy's, mixed revenues.

missed same store sales. yet the stock up 5%. that's because it's producing free cash flow. in these boring, boring industries, macy's was boring. they didn't have the same-store sales. tripling on the fund and basically now you have a lot of stocks in the portfolio with similar characteristics now. >> and now, i mean, you're a classic value player and looking for companies that you're getting a good bargain on buying them. talking about kohl's, oracle, abm industries. but are these guys laggards for reasons that you would give you pause to buy them? >> let me explain something about that, bill. our fund's at an all-time high, as well. must be doing something right with the laggards. you get value when people are kohl's problems with same-store

sales and new brands and getting an 8.5% free cash flow yield. abm, here's a company selling with $2.40 of free cash flow at $28 a share. eventually those free cash flow yields of 8% and 9% against 2.5% u.s. treasury securities people recognize them and especially -- >> what about -- >> -- strategic buyers. everybody's coming after aur port noel owe. >> what about ibm? >> ibm is one of those value traps in my opinion. >> what's the difference between that and some of the names you just mentioned? >> i don't see ibm making their way out of the current chaos that they're in. so basically, and they don't have the same free cash flow yield. there's been a lot of accounting, pension accounting and things like this. i'm not sure what business ibm is in anymore. >> are you happy with the companies taking the cash on the

balance sheet and buying back their shares? is that the best use of that money right now? >> absolutely. why not? if you're making 8%, 9% with the excess cash and we're assuming they have excess cash like apple did, okay, buy back and make 8%, 9%, 10% on the money, it's pretty hard to get into new capital ma pro jekts. like kohl's right now is mining the customers. going more into the internet. you have marsh mclenlan and they sold a lot of companies using the cash in the appropriate ways. >> okay. >> shrinking the capital sigs. >> most important is amazon! and what we're going to do is leave you in your one corner. we have josh spencer in another, bob. thank you for being a good sport about this. we'll take a quick break and coming back really want to hear the two of you, two very smart guys, bull and bear case on amazon. >> very different points of view. that's in a moment. meantime, dow up 3.5 points in

record territory. >> bob olstein, will talk amazon, with josh spencer. we'll be right back. ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you have enough money to live life on your terms? i sure hope so. with healthcare costs, who knows. umm... everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor.... can get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today.

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kelly and i concocted on the

spot a stock brawl over amazon. bob olstein with us here, done very well with the boring stocks. he doesn't like amazon at all. on the other side, josh spencer from t.rowe price and did very well and loves amazon. he's buying it right now. let's get both sides of this. bob, very quickly first, why don't you like amazon? >> i like it very much. i never saw them go where they have in ten years. the valuation is the problem. that's all it is. it's a great company. bezos said he doesn't care about investors but customers. they did an 8% margin to valuation wouldn't be right. i have problems believing that they're ever going to get to a profitability. >> josh? josh, answer that. >> yeah. well, i think boring can be beautiful, as well. so i agree with a lot of what bob said, but amazon is a wonderful company.

they're still growing, over 20% a year. a lot of those companies we talked want the same-store growth challenges, they stole their growth. if you look at the totality of merchandise volume flowing through the amazon platform and kind of look at the first party sales and third party sales, the market cap relative to sales is no different from walmart's. despite the fact that amazon over time should have a much more capital efficient model and i have no doubt that amazon can achieve 6% to 8% retail margins and they can have $300 billion plus through the platform and that's before the cloud computing business. >> bob said he thinks it's worth $100. what do you think? going back to 400 and above? >> i think it's going up there and well beyond if we give it some time. i think it's been proven time and time again not to bet

against jeff bezos, making smart decisions for the long term and the investments in things like fulfillment centers and data centers are building the mote and the competitive advantage around the business. >> got it. thank you both for your thoughts. i think it is clear. one trusts jeff bezos. the other doesn't at this point in their strategy. thank you both for your thoughts on amazon. that was fun. all right. we'll come back with the closing countdown for the wednesday with the dow down two points right now. cisco systems and jcpenney with earnings after the bell. the panel's ready and waiting. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. financial noise financial noise financial noise

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three minutes left here. another day, not a lot of volatility. we saw selling on the open this morning. now, this is a one-year chart. i didn't see -- i saw head on the open this morning. one-year chart on the dow and the opening this morning, german market down sharply this morning. when they closed around 11:30, we came back and looks like we may finish in all-time high territory and need a positive close. there's the day on wall street. earnings after the bell tonight. we have jcpenney reporting and they're up about 7% right now, interestingly. we have cisco systems, reporting, as well. down a fraction right now. do you like this market at this point? are you --

>> sure. it's a great seasonal time to be an investor. >> why isn't it moving more right now? >> don't forget the market rallied 10% in 3 weeks. this is a consolidation for a few days and not surprised if it pushes higher in november. thagsally what happens. >> consolidation is great now. we're trading in very narrow ranges six or seven sessions and at historic highs. this is consolidation. the market up 1% every day, you would have some move, somebody would start taking profit some point. a mild panic. a move down. what happened is this works off of overbought conditions. i hate to sound like a technician and people who actively trade, the longer the market moves sideway, the less overbought it. >> a 10% drop and then a 10% rally and people go, gosh, what do i do now? >> how do you answer that question, what do i do now? >> i think the market will continue to push higher. >> what would you buy here? >> i think growth stocks typically work this time of

year, a company that's delivering on earnings, plenty of health care and technology stock that is are reasonably priced. i think they push higher in the year and typically worked this time of year. people buy the winners as long as valuation isn't too strange. >> hard to find any kind of bargains out there. they're not obvious out there. a few stocks like twitter. dramatically oversold. some of the gold stocks. miners. >> two companies of network at the end of the year when the tax loss selling is over and what's what happened. >> two companies with something to prove reporting after the bell, jcpenney and cisco systems. >> important thing of jcpenney is can they continue with the turnaround? i think the problem is macy's reported some disappointing comp store sales. they're not just warm weather. they're seeing a little bit of a slowdown and that's a tore that's very well managed in terms of getting customer loyalty. i think that's a warning sign. >> gas prices might help them later into the quarter.

more money in people's pockets. >> from your lips to my local gas station owners. thank you. bob, see you later, as well. still a close one. we'll see. yesterday it wasn't until the very last moment that we saw that 1-point gain on the dow for the new all-time high. will it happen again? stay tuned. those and the earnings on the second hour of "the closing bell" with kelly evans. see you tomorrow, kelly. thank you, bill. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i'm kelly evans. dow trying to turn positive at the close of the session there but not quite making it. we are off about three points and slightly below the all-time high reached yesterday. s&p meanwhile giving up that point and added yesterday. back at 2038. the nasdaq up 14 thanks in part of strength of apple. results of cisco, jcpenney. joining me is nathan bachrach.

stephanie link and our very own jon fortt. also "fast money" trader steve grasso is here. nathan, it's been a little while. you come to us from the heartland. what do you think's happening right now? this consolidation of markets. fed's about to raise interest rates. are consumers confident or not? when's your read of things. >> consumers are not confident. taking a look at the surveys, simply money survey sentiment, they don't feel good about where they are and i think that's good but the hometown favorite macy's reported good news, bad news. her's what happened. when the going gets tough in america, the tough go shopping. i think by the end of the year you're going to see any worry of retailer is gone. today was the day where we didn't go back or forward. >> here, you probably noticed this. i'd love to know what you make of this. macy's said, here's a consumers spending on health care, technology and cars. that is not just the bread and

butter. retail sales pretty good overall. stephanie, still makes it harder for some of the more traditional retailers. >> i said for pretty consistently over the last several of months they're choosy. right? one or the other. until we get really sustainable job growth and getting progress there and we need wages. wages are still running at 2% analyzed and just too much of a head wind. offsetting that is oil. right? >> yes. >> and maybe we do get the seasonal factor better weather, more normalized weather. all of these things kind of set you up for better fourth quarter for the sector. maybe even into the first quarter of next year. >> remind people we did -- welcome, steve. >> i'm sorry. i apologize to jump in. >> want to remind people. brent today, wti, brent has a real -- >> that's a huge problem. getting back to the retailers, we could all be happy about there's no disappointing. they didn't say discounting was

an issue. >> no. growth margins rose 100 basis points. >> they were able to cut costs and have their margins intact so they're not discounting. last year all about discounts. >> inventories are also not as fat as they were because they're cautious going in. holiday season. what's going to happen, not going to be deals and seen the research now. best deals on monday and thursday. i think we should call that by the way, selfish thursday because it's selfish on behalf of retailers to take you away from your family. >> they don't see your point on crude and on oil, they don't have to discount so i thought it was her statement and stephanie i'll give you credit. >> i'll take credit. thank you. >> retailers see we got that money back in the pockets they're not forced to do the same discounts of last year. >> what can you tell from the early days here so far, is it an apple christmas? in other words, how much -- granted product launches early

for maybe the holiday season or maybe not. how much might that be taking the wallet? >> looks like an apple christmas. iphone 6 done extraordinarily well out the gate. 6 plus, as well. demand overseas is strong. don't forget their beats now and selling them and continue to sell them in stores and now the revenue from that, as well. they have got more flow through into apple pay. retail stores are trying to optimize those and first holiday season as head of retail over at apple and a lot to be interested in. as far as apple is concerned. as you mentioned, a lot of consumer bent is shifting to technology and away from other things and not sure about clothes and maybe if you buy them with apple pay and do this. >> hold that thought, everybody. we are getting jcpenney results hitting the tape now. a miss on the top line. let's get details of courtney. hi, courtney. >> hi, kelly. top line jcpenney with revenue of $2.76 billion, slightly below

what wall street had been looking for of 2.06. a loss of 77 cents, slightly better than the wall street consensus of a loss of 80 cents. q-3 same store sales flat. the company had said earlier at the analyst day guiding to low single digits in october. down from mid-single digits so that is below what the company had said and below wall street expecting which was a gain of 3%. for same-store sales and turned it around for sometime. i don't know if it's a break in the trend or not because if you say flat, that's not negative or positive but not good. >> did you see gross margins? >> 36.6%. that is up 710 basis points from this time last yore. >> that's better than expected, yeah. so goes back to macy's of a 7% drop in same-store sales and made up the quarter with better

things of cost cuts, better inventory controls and very great operator. jcpenney having a hard time with top line sales but i'm impressed the gross margins hung in there. to steve's point of not seeing the massive discounts and speaks to the fact they don't have the inventory. they're all at pretty low levels of inventory. >> they said it was down 10% on the period. here's the interesting thing. what about people saying, wait a minute, i'm walking around and i see discounts everywhere. are they smarter about marking things up in the first place or what? >> i think specialty, teen retailers are really where they're seeing the brunt of the sales. i think something like a macy's, they have kind of a different sort of strategy in terms of the way they price things. they have more power to their vendors so they -- >> updated the full-year guidance. lower on the release for jcpenn jcpenney. >> that is courtney. >> reading down the long press release that jcpenney is updating the full-year guidance

for comparable same-store sales and further expand their gross margin which is what stephanie was talking about as a key point in the promotional environment. and might be sprigs of hope and want to hear more from the executives of sales trending in the current quarter. this is the all-important holiday season and hopefully it will be a clue on the conference call of a half hour or so. >> everybody stay right there. we'll pivot as cisco with the quarterly report out. hi, dom. >> here's the headline numbers. stock up about 2.5%. a decent move for a company of this size. earnings per share fiscal first quarter of 54 cents. that beat the average analyst. they beat by a penny or two each time. sales of $2.52 billion and beats the average of $2.16 billion. again, the numbers look at first blush to be beats on both the

bottom and the top line. shares up about 2% on average that the stock is up or down by 6% over the course of the last eight earnings reports. so this is something that we'll be watching for as soon as the details of the release come out more so. we'll be listening, going through the numbers, listening for the conference call and right now an earnings beat, a sales beat and shares up by 2% in the after hours trade. over to you. >> shares responding positively in a competitively space. don't miss the interview of john chambers of cisco tomorrow morning 9:30 a.m. "squawk on the street." jon? >> i'm guessing why it's up after hours, gross margin at 63. 3%. but also, important to mention, long-time cfo is out. he is leaving at cisco and,

kelly cramer appointed to this position. that makes the call extremely important because frank was kind of a voice of the investor on these calls. he was the one that advocated for conservatism as far as the way that cisco is run. john chambers pivoted to that a couple of years ago taking down some of the financial targets so it's going to be interesting to hear what cisco says that might be different from here, as well as what the guidance is on gross margin as well as just top and bottom line. >> joining us now, we have daniel ives. what jumps out to you about the report and the change? >> i think it's step in the right direction. you compare it to ibm and oracle, cisco's moving the right direction. chambers, another feather in his cap. i think they're trying to focus on the cloud and next gen data center. in terms of change here on cfo, you know, i think it's something that the street's going to

welcome going forward. and it ultimately here investors i think feel better about cisco after this earnings, especially relative to a lot of other tech stalwarts that suffered soft numbers. >> steve? >> i just want to ask, daniel, what he thinks about this. this is as you were saying trying to transition to a cloud space and now back of the, you know, maybe just a couple of months to a year ago or so, it was thought that the margins were not intact. where they were trying to transition they were going to get squeezed. jon fortt said that the margins look better. do you think they'll be able to hold on to the margins going forward or just a little bit of a short-term gain? >> chambers is a magician with the balance on growth and profitability. i think going forward, you know, at least from the past, you have to give him credit and it does seem like on the cloud, see more acquisitions, cloud, big data, cyber security. they're going definitely in the

right direction. >> nathan? >> i tell you something. this is a middle-aged tech company. i don't know how to say it. they don't move around the court the way they used to. we make a big deal of cisco. in cincinnati we say let's see. 3%. wait a minute. 3% annual growth for 5 years and "forbes" saying hewlett-packard and ibm ahead of you, this is not good news. >> maybe they weren't right. >> i think it takes a lot of money, yeah, takes a lot of money to get them up in the cloud and competitive. >> it's not just the cloud. north american enterprise is doing well. emerging markets, china specifically. they have done a pretty good job cutting costs and really focusing on streamlining. buying back more stock and i think the gross number speaks to the environment better than what people thought and 11 times forward estimates, not heroic to expect him to rally. >> would you rather?

ibm or cisco? >> i know my answer. >> google? >> by the way -- >> that's exactly my point. that's my point. >> secular -- >> part of the issue is in the cloud era, all of these big titans that had their own lane on ibm, mainframe and big hardware, i'm cisco, i'm microsoft. i do software. they're into each other's space and a threat to all of their margins which were based on when they ruled that one area. >> but the interest -- >> who has the leverage to keep margin and push the other areas. >> service provider revenue is falling. cap x numbers fell at at&t last week. in the face of that they beat on the top line and speaks of transition starting to work. >> what's the guidance going to be? >> of course. and i'm not expecting anything great. >> i'll go with jon. they have competition an i'm from missouri now. not cincinnati. show me.

>> dan, before you go, what number are you looking for for guidance? >> conservative in terms of january guidance but again you take a step back here. chambers trying to climb up mt. everest for show and growth and definitely a tough growth perspective going forward. i continue to see them underpromise, overdeliver. >> thank you for being here. steve, daniel, everybody. stick around and catch steve coming up at 5:00 p.m. talking to the ceo of silver wheaton on the falling price of silver. stick around here. much more ahead on these big earnings still to come. a debate you don't want to miss and on particular on jcpenney and michael bloomberg says college isn't worth the money and many high school grads better off going into a profession like a plumber. we want to know whether you think that's good advice. your chance to vote and weigh in is coming up. are investing almt $80 million dollars, and creating 1750 jobs. from long island to all across upstate new york,

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welcome back. jcpenney reporting third quarter results. stock trading at about $7.64 after hours. for more, get the popcorn, mark haight and max snyder that

debated on this name in the past. do you want to take a victory lap or what? >> no. it is still early. i think it goes lower but i'm only as good as my next call, kelly. it is going my way right now. >> mark, what about you? look. you love the clothes, the story. a story's not working. >> yeah. it's a turnaround. it takes some time. inch by inch, this company -- company's gain iing its custome back and they're projecting free cash flow to be positive for the year. i see that they just turned ebita positive. you know, and, you know, i don't look so much at the top line although as the top line grows sequentially and continues to grow, they should be able to work down the debt and that's the turnaround. working down the debt, the value of the company goes up. >> so gross margins were up 710

basis points and better than expected. do you think that's sustainable in this environment? >> yeah. i mean, you know, i don't see that they're doing anything woefully wrong like, you know, like they did in the previous management. and, you know, i visit a lot of the stores from what i can tell there's -- there's customers coming in that, you know, want to buy there. previously used to buy there. >> rick, what do you think about the gross margins? they're moving in the right direction. >> the gross margins are moving in the right direction. i modeled high growth margins. i think they're sustainable and said here before talking about this stock is they need sales and margins to get to that gross profit dollar level and right now they're not getting there. >> so, mark, nathan. i have to ask. warren buffett said you look for a one-time solvable problem.

there's a few with jcpenney. my fear is getting the same-store sales right, we're shopping so much on the web they're having fixed the problem that's now passe. mark? >> yeah. look. you know, the company has a certain amount of debt that they got to pay down and comes from profits, free cash flow, so as long as sales continue to grow and their margins are at where they are now, that debt will get paid down. and they've already paid down their 2015 debt. >> but are you going to pay off the mortgage in the neighborhood and go down, as well. paid off the mortgage and can't sell the house for what you bought it for. when's the growth story to get excited about as an investor that's going to make me say to rick, hey, we have you ten ways from sunday on this. >> look.

my attitude is this stock is severely undervalued under a number of different valuation metrics and i also believe it's a potential takeover story because of its low valuation at this price. and what they could do probably is maybe do something about lowering their number of stores and maybe monetizing some of that or lowering the cost, doing something more drastic that a potential takeover person would do but the bottom line is as long as they're not doing anything drastically wrong and what they were previously doing. >> all right. rick, last word to you on this. >> first of all, they didn't pay down the 2015 debt. they kicked it down the road. sales aren't growing. and i think they are going to continue to not grow. i think this is a $4 stock. >> mark, where do you think it's valued? >> the value is worth way more than its book value which is $8.

>> can i just point out that -- can i just point out that 30% of the book value came from their secondary and 110% of the book value is inventory which if they had to liquidate it would be sold at about 25 cents on the dollar so i don't think book value -- i never used book value for that reason. >> i'll make both of your cases. they have shop kick and macy's and jcpenney have shop kick. see how they and don't use it a year from now and see how sales grow or don't grow. >> we'll leave it there. gentlemen, thank you this afternoon. appreciate it. out to dominic chu. dom? >> tech theme with cisco here and watching netapp. they're moving lower in the after hours to the tune of 3.5% after mid second quarter results, earnings better by a penny. revenues just a bit light and may call it in line. third quarter earnings outlook

lighter than some analysts anticipated. the shares down 3.5%. one to watch in the after hours trade. back to you. >> thank you. at&t says it will freeze investments until it's more clarity on whether the government will regulate the net like a public utility. what will that mean for the future of the internet if the ftc ramps up regulation? shakespeare famously asked when's in a name? apparently a lot. vegan start-up hampton creek is being sued for using the name mayo. hampton creek ceo is here to react to this legal battle coming up on the closing bell. be right back. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 [ male announcer ] your love for trading never stops,

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welcome back. more fallout after president obama's surprise statement to regulate the internet like a public utility. at&t putting its fiber production on hold. the company saying today pausing investments to bring it to 100 cities until it gets further clarification on what will happen here. joining us with his take on the story is leo hindry former at&t ceo. welcome. >> nice to be here. thank you. >> is this politics and posit n positionipositio positioning? >> you know, in the case of at&t, it's a wise statement. the this the single most ill

conceived, uninformed and misintentioned piece of legislation in my lifetime. seriously. >> wow. >> in trying to throw the internet and broadband back into the 1996 telecom act, this is an act enacted around the -- jon was there when we were doing it. around the telecom industry, the word internet is seven times. and there's no differentiation between commercial internet, residential internet, internet for the medical and education communities. and what the president has done here is to just put a spike in advancing an industry that is vital to the future of this country. i have no ax to grind in this but if you take all of the broadband distribution, whether it's mobile, satellite or cable or in the case of at&t and verizon, phone, and you say

that's a public utility, tonight, i was mentioning to jon earlier as we were getting ready for this that tonight in the united states three companies will take up about two thirds of the broadband capacity of the united states. >> i bet i can guess one. >> facebook, netflix and youtube. and if you don't differentiate their sort of hogging of the internet from the internet community that only wants access, you're going to generate exactly the opposite response, jon, that the president was seeking. >> here's what's frustrating to me. the conversation seems to have shifted completely away from a competitive marketplace in broadband. seems to me that what we really want is for people at home to have two or three really good options for fast internet access and if i don't like what comcast is doing, i can switch to at&t. if i don't like what at&t is doing, i switch to brand x over

here. why aren't we focused on setting up or removing regulation that is allow for more broadband competition and investment in local communities? >> this is the point of show yesterday. >> to john's point, that's exactly the world we should be creating and the world we just -- and what fascinates me about the world you described is that net neutrality, i was there at the creation. i was an advocate for net neutrality. and net neutrality for me meant that poor kids on the pine ridge reservation or here in new york or in the united states got the same broadband access of a kid of greater means might get and also said that those of us who owned content and distribution could not discriminate against your content in favor of ours. fast forward to the distributors. about nine of them. have no content. they're at&t, verizon, comcast, time warner cable --

>> comcast does have -- >> including, well -- >> but they built a wall between nbc content and comcast the cable company. it's very thick. so i can legitimately say that comcast is a cable company with its left brain and with its right brain it's nbc. >> what about google with youtube? >> what about google putting fiber in the ground believing it should be part of the world that jon wants? >> that's what i mean. if people are laying the pipes and delivering the content. >> except the only one who falls into that category quite literally, kelly, is google. google has youtube. and they're also putting fiber in. but the world around the world is about competitive broadband distribution and the third piece of that puzzle back in the mid '90s, jon, to drive a fast car, a high, souped car and you're comfortable with a sedan, then i should pay more for that.

and we have that. we have highly differentiated so those of us who might be big broadband consumers pay more than a lesser consumer. >> we have to go, unfortunately. but again, thinking back to the case of our company, comcast, i mean, when people use the term net neutrality, what they're trying to get at is comcast not charging more for delivering content simply because they're competitors s. that a concern here? >> not at all. comcast in those instances where that might be the case already agreed to not do that. comcast agreed never to discriminate against independent content in favor of its internet content. so world was working fine and in this -- in his zeal to be -- i worked for this gentleman a couple of times, in his zeal to be populist, he's done something devastating but the big problem, and nathan and i spoke about it earlier, uncertainty. and that, kelly, was your at&t

announcement. no industry can handle prolonged uncertainty. >> how about the monthly cable bill? that's a big concern for everybody. >> we have to leave it right there. >> i'm sorry. >> no, i'm sorry. we need to keep the conversation going. please come back. >> i'll be upstairs waiting for you. >> we'll do that, too. we did that yesterday and leo today. former ceo. important topic. >> thank you. a pleasure. always. a winter storm is leaving much of the midwest buried in snow. will it lead to sticker shock with the heating bill? ceo of wgl joins us. is the cost of college worth it? michael bloomberg says he doesn't think so. your chance to weigh in at cnbc.com/vote is just ahead.

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welcome back. we begin here with the dominic chu again and a quick earnings alert. >> check out rocket fuel.

higher in the after hours. better than expected loss in the third quarter on record sales. stock currently up by 10%. this is a company, kelly, artificial intelligence technology for digital advertising. back over to you. >> thank you very much, dom. natural gas traders betting on a frigid winter. with snow fall across the midwest, the bets are starting to pay off. but the state of natural gas trading, let's begin in deer park, texas, where kate kelly is. hi, kate. >> reporter: hey, there, kelly. it's been unusually cold here in houston and probably the beginning of an unexpected november cold snap that pushled up the price of natural gas to recent highs just a few days ago. that was probably the first of many head fakes, however, that the natural gas market will deliver us this winter season. and it's why they call it particularly commodity the widow maker. still prevailing wisdom in the markets is that robust levels of gas and storage keep prices low for much of the season. here's phil perkins, a veteran

trader, elaborating on this. >> we are priced for a risk premium, running out of gas, which we have not done. we have had a horrific winter last year in terms of temperature swings from normal and cold and we don't run out of gas. as far as the hub going below $3, i would say that given a cold winter or a normal winter, i would say that it is a likely proposition by the end of the winter. >> reporter: so, kelly, the hub there he's referring to, of course, henry hub benchmark natural gas contract and overall a pretty bearish call of a trader working with the best and i also met with someone here in houston yesterday, kelly, who was even more so than that saying we could touch less than $2. back to you. >> wow! kate, thank you very much. that would have a big impact on heating bills. kate kelly in texas for us

today. my next guest heads up a company providing natural gas to millions of customers in and around the washington, d.c. area. they beat wall street's estimates of of a loss of 26 cents. joining me now in an exclusive intersue is terry mcallister. thank you for being here. >> thank you, kelly. >> could natural gas be headed below $2? >> i suppose it's possible, kelly. there's production coming on everywhere. mar sell lus region and storage facilities are full. cold blast coming through. gas prices declined because we know and we see inventories are full and this is at the beginning of the winter so everybody's stocked up. everybody's ready to go. like we did last year, we came through the winter in really pretty good shape. even towards the end of winter

with that polar vortex. >> so what would that mean for your business? >> you know, it's great. you know, low gas prices are great for our business. we're a natural gas provider. we're 166-year-old company in the national capital region. we just announced record earnings. quarterly earnings, we tend to look at an annual base i. we just announced record net income for the company and for the natural gas utility washington gas. but that's not just where everything happens. people tend to think of us, kelly, as a natural gas company and that we are first and foremost. been in business 166 years but we're a full spectrum energy provider. we provide clean efficient energy services for customers across the united states. >> understood. >> so part of our business this year and we saw good results in other areas other than just utility. we provide distribution. you get solar from us around the country. >> okay. >> that business a couple of

years threw off a couple of cents a share and now 15 cents. we're in 16 states around the country. >> so what's the elasticity of demand like for natural gas? i imagine if you say lower gas prices are good for your business, got to be people aren't concerned about the fuel using to heat their homes than can you give us an example of what you typically see? >> yeah. kelly, the reality of it is here, you know, companies like ours in utility space, we don't make money on natural gas. low natural gas prices, we see it from a consumer end. it enables customers to pay their bills. it enables more customers to want to be natural gas customers and we saw good growth in the new customers again in the utility. that's good. it puts more disposable money in the customers' pocket and then use for other goods and services or other necessities they have. so having a lower natural gas price from the consumer end of things is really a pretty good place to be. >> understood.

also just going back then to one point which is that if you're fundamentally -- here's the reason why i asked. if the price drops an enthe demand goes up, affects everything from the cap x you might be doing, the investment in the pipelines, that sort of things. what is your projection. how might it change with an unusually warm winter relative to what we have seen recently? >> well, you know, kelly, really, it's we're a long-term investor. our strategy's long-term investments and assets. i'm funny. i like to own stuff for the money i put in place. so we're long-term investor and capital expenditure plans tend to be long-term, as well. pipeline investments are not something you turn on and turn off. we have announced half a billion dollars of committed investments. those really aren't ready to come online until '16, '17, '18 time frame. we plan for normal. we don't flex a lot in the wintertime. we know where we're going.

investments are long term. and they're geared for the long-term investor. >> all right. we'll leave it there, terry. appreciate your time this afternoon and i guess we hope for a warm winter for perhaps you guys do, as well. thank you for being here. >> thank you very much for having me. gold really losing the luster recently. down 11% in the past 3 months and it could get worse for the precious metal according to ron insona. find out if it made the hot list next. and food giant unilever suing hampton creek over the word of mayo. hamp con creek ceo and disrupter josh teptric tells us when's behind the food fight. stay tuned. then there's trusting your vehicle maintenance to ford service confidence. our expertise, technology, and high quality parts means your peace of mind. it's no wonder last year we sold

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studying and millennials because they were brought up in a black market kind of regime, their sense of capitalism is turning that country upside down and eating it from within. making some change there. number three, hidden health costs. we got a hold of a story of study of deloit looking at average health costs. you think $1,050 but actually add with the extra stuff you buy don't think about. that's the top three. >> changing up the shirt, as well. we'll whip the camera around the newsroom to dom. >> just a few steps away from allen just was, we were listening to the cisco conference call and getting details. the company guided the second quarter sales number, that's the current quarter, to be anywhere from a gain of 4% to 7%. it is important because the average analyst estimate of a gain of an 8% and that shortfall

or perceived swung cisco shares from a 2.5% gain in the after hours to now about a half to a full percent loss so we'll be watching the sharyls because the conference call is ongoing and any details we'll bring to you and right now sales guidance for the current quarter is when's dragging the shares down to the negative side in the after hours trade. back over to you. >> indeed it is. thank you. sometimes all you have is your name, credibility, even if that credibility drives on how you define mayonnaise and that's what unilever and hampton creek foods are fighting over in the name of mayo. blackberry used to be a first name in mobile. john chen will be here tomorrow to discuss how he's keeping that turnaround story going. you won't want to miss it. rades. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so when a market move affects one of your positions, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 schwab can help you decide what to do. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 with tools like free live-streaming cnbc tv tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that give you the latest financial news and trends.

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welcome back. that little jar of mayo causing big problems. hampton creek is a disrupter. catching the guy of bill gates himself and helping to back the company and catching the eye of unlever, the maker of hellmann's mayonnaise. with us now, an exclusive interview, hampton creek's

cocreator and ceo. welcome. >> hi, kelly. >> you're fighting unilever. do you think you're going to win? >> i do. on the legal merits, it's mayo. instead of mayonnaise. ai think we are going to win because we have had win because we've had 77 thos people send us messages of support. 23,000 people sign a petition. and we've had our retailers say this needs to be here because it represents something more important in food. >> what do you guys think? >> i think the mayo clinic also not made with eggs. maybe unilever will go after them? >> you never know. >> also not made of eggs, what's interesting is what it tastes like. not, you know, whether it has eggs in it specifically, especially because you put that on the label. is this possibly great marketing for you where your sales are going to spike? >> i think a few people knew about hampton creek before this, honestly. i think this larger conversation

we're having about food. mayonnaise, mayo. the deeper issue for us is our food system is just messed up. we need to think of new approaches to make food better, to make food healthier and more affordable and it gives us a chance to say that over and over. you are a vegan food company. which is why this doesn't have eggs. >> i wouldn't say that. >> that gets to a point of what we're talking about. today when people think of vegan food or alternative food, it's thought of as vegan or alternative. we're in the condiment set at walmart. we're $3.48 and proud of it. we're less expensive. people put us on egg salad and -- >> have they patented the word mayonnaise? >> there's a standard of identity for mayonnaise that requires according to that standard for it to contain chicken eggs. also needs at least 65% oil. we call ours mayo.

and the second piece of the argument is we're injuring them because about 50% of people that purchase just mayo today were formerly purchasing hellmans or best foods before. >> how are your costs lower and talk about commodity costs and the trends we've been seeing. >> so that's the big theory of the company. the only way the good thing wins if it's more affordable. we picked a conventional chicken egg that has sustainability. two commodities come from soy and corn. those commodities are going up. droughts other things. we use plants instead. in this case, a canadian yellow pea that's more cost effective than the chicken egg. >> when are they going to rule on this? >> don't know. in the meantime, you have to do a taste test. >> josh tetrick, thank you for being here. millions of us have heard

this song -- ♪ not that one, although maybe many tune in to the closing bell. "pomp and circumstance." former new york mayor michael bloomberg said not everyone should experience the joys of college. we'll tell you why.

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welcome back. mayor michael bloomberg calling out colleges today saying when you crunch the numbers and add up the costs it is just not worth it. what do you think? is college worth the money? we want you to weigh in on this. >> i think he's absolutely right. for some students, or for some people who just aren't inclined toward an academic environment, going to college and maybe not finishing and paying all that money and taking on all that debt is not worth it. if you are a great entrepreneur where you work with your hands and college isn't a better place to work an that. work on those entrepreneurial skills and build a better business. if you are inclined for college, you should absolutely go. he talked about harvard. everybody who gets into harvard should go because they'll pay as

much as you can't afford. >> we've already proven if you are smart you can go to harvard or ohio state and if you are smart you'll be making the same amount of money because smart is as smart does. the unemployment rate among college grads is 4%. if you don't graduate from college, it's 8% to 10%. they understand you get a college degree, you'll probably not be unemployed and you'll get paid more. i love that michael says, great, i'll become a plumber. you start at 45 and end at 55 or 60. >> you might end up at 200 if you own your business and employ a bunch of other plumbers. the key is to maximize your potential. >> where do you come down on this? >> i kind of side with nathan. >> thanks for that $10 bill. no, i think the same thing. i think you stand a chance to do better in life if you have an education. doesn't mean that it's call or nothing. it's very personal specific.

but -- >> i'll tell you where it's a great alternative. a proprietary school where you'll rack up loans, finance your way through though course and have nothing to show for it versus going maybe gateway community college, computer aided manufacturing. $65,000 jobs. $4,000 or $5,000. a lot less than the proprietary trade schools. i think that's where there's a big difference. >> i think that's a big part of what he was talking about. get educated. absolutely get educated in the best way for you. and for some people that doesn't mean spending $20,000. check out our survey. 68%, 70% of people saying is college worth the money? they are saying no. this is a largely college educated audience. >> that's a surprising number. >> it all depends an what you get out of college. it's very individual. >> i'm all about life-long learning. absolutely constantly learning what you need to know. finding smart people. but the traditional way of

everybody worth the college, four-year college has backfired an a lot of people and saddled them with debt. >> statistically if the unemployment rate is such an advantage for having a college degree, shouldn't that be more important than that nominal 40, 50, 60 grand? >> that's the macro story. it's absolutely true at the macro level. at the micro level, that's where -- >> do not borrow more for college than you expect to make your first year out. if you'll make $35,000 your first year out in whateverior chosen professor is, do not borrow more than $35,000. >> you don't know what your job is going to do when you get out of college. >> on the macro level -- >> that's why you'll spend too much. >> he would have made 20% more if he finished college. >> what did you go into college thinking you were going to do? >> i got a batch lovers arts at hofstra in english literature. i became a city planner and then

figured out -- >> there you go. >> here we are today. >> still about more than 60% of people say college isn't worth the money. thank you to the panel for being here. "fast money" is coming up with melissa lee. hey there. you saw the big move in twitter today. we have the king of twitter and alex from target, a phenomenon born on twitter to talk about the power of twitter. >> i have heard about this. "fast machinoney starts rig now. steve grasso, karen finerman and guy adami. we are trading two big earnings move irs after hours, jcpenney and cisco. first, to our top story -- twitter's massive rally soaring well over 7%. dick costolo reigniting positive sentiment on the street.