tell you that there were many supporters here on both sides of the issue. back over to you. >> okay. kate rogers there in central manhattan. that basically does it for this show. this edition of "power lunch." >> great as always to be with you, and "street signs" begins right now. stocks down. gold up as the country awaits tonight's big state of the union speech. hello, everybody. more of these manic markets in a moment. plus, why one oil executive sees gasoline going back to, wait for it, $5 a gallon and soon. the great wealth debate, income versus wealth, and small cap stocks that analysts manage to see 30% up. >> hello. well, things turn south very quickly today. we are off the lows, and the nasdaq is really very hard to stay in the greenl. if the dow ends up losing triple digits like it was it will be the ninth triple digit move of

the year for that index out of just 12 sessions. hello, volatility. it's kagsing a thatted wroe. it brings in the settling crude. i'll tell you what is doing well. gold. on pace for its best. seven-day run since 2007. up about 7% over that period. let's get down to bob pasani at the new york stock exchange. shortened trading week for you, bob. what's everyone talking about? >> we have a problem. there's no bids. there's not a lot of interest in buying. >> that is a problem. >> i know that sounds simple mrisic, but sometimes it's the truth. >> we started out all right, but immediately we just droop because there's no bids. there's not a lot of people interested to buy. why is there no interested in buying. the markets are choppy for several reasons. the full screen there. a certainty on the ecb and on greece. we've got russia and ukraine starting to perculate again. little pieces coming out. we've got earnings estimates coming down. that's the biggest problem. this is the world i live in.

it's turned by earnings estimates. let's see why i'm concerned. take a look at what happened in q4 for the earnings estimates. they were up 4.2% right now. that's today for the s&p 500. five weeks ago they were up 6.6%. that's a big decline. now look at q1. this is what we're in now, and this is where stocks really are priced with what's going on. in this quarter right now. today earnings are only estimated to be up 3%. december 1st we were almost 9%. that's a huge decline, and most of the decline, guys, is in energy and material names. today we got some disappointments with one of the regional banks. regents financials on top of some disappointments with the big banks last week. the way i'm looking at things, earnings are decelerating a little bit more than anticipated, and i think that is the single biggest problem for the markets right now. guys, back to you. >> all right, bob. thank you very much. we'll see you soon. let's get now over to rick sanlli in the bond pits of chicago. 1.793. we're down into gpa territory

here. how much lower can we go? >> well, i this i we can go a lot lower. for now, though, i would think that this is home base. right around 175. at least until after thursday's meeting. our current 20 month low yield close has been last thursday. right around 171.5. i tell you, the gold market is speaking volumes about how new playbooks need to be out there for central banks. what? all central banks want to talk about is disinflation or deflation, and what is gold doing? moving up. foreign exchange, everybody wants to talk about stronger dollar. must mean weaker commodities. you know, we're living in a new age where everything is upside down. if you really like gold, you should not only like it because of the logistics, but just check it out when you denominate the yen. the japanese right now, that should be the home run trade as it's very near making an all-time high denominated in yen. >> we are denominating in yen now, rick. this is a crazy world that we are in.

rick -- >> isn't it? this is the new normal, man. welcome. >> new normal? >> thank you very much. rick santelli. >> i don't know how many new normals we've had. >> version six. >> with everything else going on, you have central bank chaos. oil has dropped. currency swings. things denominated in yen. don't forget about the most important driver for stocks. let's hope that it's still earnings. this is a big week. ibm, netflix today, discover, starbucks, ge, mcdonald's later on this week. robert luna joining us. i'll start with this. before we get to some of your picks. are earnings the most important thing to stocks right now? >> absolutely, brian. i mean, that's what drives markets. price to earnings ratios. right now if you look at earnings season, i think things are pretty much going to be in line with consensus if you back out energy. if you back out financials. the problem is those are pretty -- two pretty big parts of the market. there are going to be some challenges, and i have heard guests talking about it earlier.

i think we're getting away from an index picking market if you want to find some value today. >> if we just take out energy and financials for a second and take a look at overall earnings, you got a lot of really good things going on like low gas prices, low interest rates, low unemployment. relatively speaking. et cetera, et cetera. am i right in thinking that you're in the camp that believes, you know what, if you are a company that can't execute in an environment like this, there's a real problem? >> that's exactly it, mandy. there's always going to be head winds out there right now. if you look at the back drop in the environment that you just set up for companies right now, if you can't execute, when are you going to get real? if you look at a company like disneyland right now, disney, i'm sorry, right now, everybody is worried about the economy, but disney parks are at record attendance time after time. every blockbuster hit they come out has theaters packed. if you have what kurmz want right now and your stocks trading at reasonable valuation, the markets can reward that. on the flip side, if you're not execute willing, you'll get punished, and that's what we are

seeing happen in earnings season right now. >> all right. let's get -- blacks yoes smith cline. gsk. where is the attraction? >> the attraction is this. if you look at health care, that was one of the leading sect os. pretty much anything health care if you threw a dart at was up 20%, 30%. this is a stock that was down about 25%. the big reason, brian, is advair, their respiratory drug came off patent. the two new drugs didn't get to market as quickly as people were thinking. the stock got punished. if you look at the valuation now, they -- their injection bess. what's happening right now with that company, there's a lot of good things that haven't been priced into the stock. most of all what i would like -- it's well covered by cash flow right now, and if you look at the environment, we just talked about a 1.79%. >> what would you be avoiding? >> what i would be avoiding right now, mandy, are some of

these overpriced consumer staple companies. i think companies out there like coca-cola right now, that people have just gotten into there because of the search for yield, and you are trading at 18 to 19 times earnings. there's no top line growth. i would be very careful. i think the relative value trade where people are just looking to find anything that yields higher than a ten-year treasury or the case of global fixed income, anything that yields higher than half hour a percent is scary right now. i look at some of the dividend yields that you have in your portfolio and ask yourself are these really sustainable? >> robert, we're going to leave it there. we like some of the names. ngg, by the way. robert, appreciate it, buddy. thank you. >> since he mentioned consumer staples, that might be something he avoids. actually, the s&p consumer staple index hit a record high earlier on today. >> staples, the store, is -- office depot and it are being pushed to merge. it's all about the staples. >> it's all about the staples. if we're not talking

earnings, we're talking energy, and right now the energy sector is getting whacked. crude falling again today. down 56% since june of last year. nat gas also down about 9% just this session. let's go to jackie deangeles, the new york mercantile exchange. >> the rally hasn't lasted here. wti down $2.30. brent under pressure as well. $48.28. down almost $2. a couple of bearish factors in the marketplace that traders are talking about. the first would be the imf. cutting its global growth forecast for 2015. also, those numbers that we got out of china for 2014 growth. it's the lowest we've seen since 1990 in the crude oil market that does care about what's happening in china because it's a big consumer. meantime, iraqi production up to four million barrel az day. this is record production coming out of iraq. no signs of output going down there. also, you had iran saying that they said it could see oil at

$25 a barrel, and that it's pleased and venezuela and others at opec are not being heard. you had earnings out this morning from energy companies. halliburton, baker hughes. they did beat on the bottom line, but management cautious about the future. specifically citing potential problems of low oil prices in 2015. overall these factors put together sending prices lower. i know i heard that tease that you're going to be talking about gas prices. your guest may be saying they could go back up to $5. $2.05. we could be under $2 very soon. back to you. >> thank you very much. >> let's get more on the continued downward spiral in oil and natural gas and bring in eric lee, a commodity analyst at citi. eric, any floor for gas and/or oil anywhere on your radar? >> i'm going to focus on oil today, but certainly for the short-term, there are a lot of downward factors, and it's going

to be hard for exactly where and at what level the oil price is going to fall to. that said, it would not be surprising and it's quite possible to see $13, $20 even in the short-term. that said, we do see a recovery in 2016 back to potentially $70 level. >> when do you think the recovery is going to stop kicking in, eric? >> well, all eyes are on storage at the minute. right now one of the other reasons for the weakness is all of this supplier is looking for storage tanks to go into find it hard enough such that traders are looking for put it on floating storage. that is on oil tankers. you really are going to need to see these stocks come down. we do think by the second half of this year and probably the fourth quarter of this year, you can see supply needing to be cut back globally and then stocks start to draw down. that should start to help prices rise even though you have to work off quite a big backlog. >> yeah. i would expect then that traders storing stuff on the big old oil tankers off shore are doing so

because they think prices are going to go up. >> well, there's two parts of that. one part is that if you have nowhere else to store, the front month price for crude needs to fall enough, such that you have, say, $10 gap between this month and 12 months from now. it's not just that. the futures price higher in the future. it can push down the frontline further and further if you can't find storage space. >> so or there's no buyers. >> right. or there's no buyers. that's the other alternative. >> we're just all pondering that question so deeply that no one can say anything. that's how powerful that statement/question was. >> can i ask you about hoffmeister. i'm not sure whether you heard the tease, but john hoffmeister is predicting in a we're going to go back up to the lofty levels and he even sees $5 gallon gas. you know, going towards maybe the end of the decade. not obviously this year or next,

but nonetheless, he has been wrong before on that prediction. what do you think about that particular call? >> well, when we're talking about longer term, crude oil prices and longer term gasoline prices, i think that certainly you have to talk about what the long-term is. are we all dead in the long-term? in terms of 2020, i think that for now we're looking at a $70 to $90 range for crude oil in the sense that that's the level that you might need to bring on enough supply and demand at that time. that's below the levels we've seen in recent years. >> do you think it could see, eric, $20 a barrel in oil? is it possible in the next couple of months? >> i think it's definitely possible. >> definitely possible. $20 a barrel oil definitely possible. >> well, i would put the emphasis on possible part of it. what i mean by that is if not enough supply is brought back in the very short of this term, we do think by the end of the year,

supply meaning cuts back, but in the short-term, if there's not enough supply cutback, have you to look for oil to put in storage tanks somewhere, and if you don't have that space, then you have to get down to the cash of production today on a day to day basis, and though the top of that very short-term is in the 30s. you know, if even that's not very responsive because there are shutting costs, then you could even see -- >> eric lee, a real pleasure. thank you for coming on the program. >> thanks. >> okay. on deck, we are going to preview tonight's big state of the union address with a stat on income and wealth that just might surprise you. >> then later on, brace yourself, america, because one former oil executive that we've already named says $5 pump prices are on the horizon. he will tell us why ahead. also, speaking of gasoline, can you name the states with the lowest average pump price? we're going to tell you the answer when "street signs"

returns. a bit surprising, actually. welcome back to showdown! jerry rice here with 8 year old andrew hunter debating who will win the big race between the tortoise and the hare. what do you think andrew? rabbits are faster. it's not a rabbit, it's a hare. what's the difference? maybe figure that out before debating the best wide reciever of all time. wait, are you odell beckham jr.? vote on twitter for your chance to win a mercedes-benz big race viewing party.

state of the union address happening tonight. the president expected to promoez pose new tax on the wealth where i. it's predicteded that next year the top 1% in the world will control more wealth than the other 99% combined. you may have heard that shocking stat already. it's made the rounds today. here's what you may not have heard. the real gap is at the very tippy top of the top.

in fact, the report from oxfam says 7.5 billion yon, 8 billion people on the planet, the richest 80 have the collective wealth of nearly $2 trillion. that's up 50% in just the past four years. receipts bring in two cnbc contributeors, jared bernstein. jared, inequality say serious problem. it's becoming more and more clear that the gap is more and more a reflection have rising stock markets. we're talking about wealth, not income. not what you make from your job, your pay, but the assets that you control and own. how do we fix that? >> i think it's exactly right, and it's at some level almost a matter 6 arithmetical compounding. of course, that kind of wealth will accrue. look, with the president coming from tonight actually makes sense to me in the following sense. he is talking about closing some of these loopholes.

particularly one in the capital gains rate called the step up basis loop moel hole, and that's a way in which when somebody passes on, they can bequeth to their heirs millions of dollars and face no taxation at all. even if the heirs go out and sell their assets. they don't have to pay capital gains on them. most people on both sides of the aisle agree that that's a big loophole, and it seems like a great place to start. at least chipping away at the problem you are mentioning. >> jimmy, your thoughts? >> well, let me disagree with the premise of the question. is there any linkage between income inequality and economic growth and advanced economies? no. there really isn't. in fact, even it's faster growth. is there a linkage between income inequality and advanced economy? >> no. if your goal here is to raise middle class incomes, it actually may be in contrast with lowering income inequality. if the way you hoos to do that

slows economic growths. if you want to pay for it by trimming upper income tax breaks, that's fine too. the way the president has chose tony do it, by raising taxes on capital on investment income is exactly the wrong way to do it. that's anti-growth and anti venture capital and anti start-up. >> maybe not sound economics. it feels over the past how many state of the union addresses has the president down? six right? increasingly he is talking more and more about the economy through the prism of wages and inequality. is this the right -- do you think it's even going to stick with the current congress? >> well, i think on the latter, no. many of these ideas are going to be rejected by this congress. i think that means the president shouldn't sit on his hands. i disagree with part of jimmy's analysis. it speaks to your question. we've had some growth, and lagts it's been actually pretty

considerable. i watch your station all the time. it's up 50%. the stock market has doubled over the recovery, and yet median household income is flat. right there, i mean accident inequality by channelling growth to the top of the scale by definition has some of the problems that jimmy just dismissed. >> that's the definition. >> i think the president is going to be talking about now that we've achieved some growth, let's think about the policy architecture that helps it reach the middle class. >> i want a policy architecture that doesn't result in a long-term lower potential gdp rate. listen, if you want to do it through tax relief, fantastic, but what all economic research says that capital should be taxed lightly, if at all, why would you want to do the anti-growth thing? find other ways to pay for your tax cuts. >> let me ask you this. put aside the idea of raising the capital gains rate, because we have to argue about that. do you -- >> you want to raise the capital gains tax rate?

fine. let's raise it to the same of ordinary income. lower corporate taxes. it's all part of the same continuum. >> we might have an agreement there. let me ask you this. are you and some of your friends on that side of the aisle comfortable with closing this stepped up basis loophole that actually sacrifices literally hundreds of billions through, i think what most people just look at as a trust fund loophole. would you agree with at least closing that? i'm doing the graterate. >> i would like to close that loophole, and i would like to offset that harm, you know, to the capital income structure by lowering corporate taxes in tan dem with that move. >> well, actually -- >> guys, let me bring it back just a bit here. i will ask this question. if we're talking about the tax break side rather than the growth side, are we in some ways admitting that we can't figure out how to raise wages across america, that we have to attack the other side of the balance sheet?

do you think that it's important and we can't overlook them. things like we've talked about the minimum wage, but things like unions having a little more elective bargaining power to rebalance that low unemployment, low unemployment is a very important missing ingredient to help boost wage growth at the bottom and the middle. >> final word to you, jimmy. >> listen, i think we need more fast-growing, high impact companies to create lots of good jobs and new services, and that's what i would look at. do we have the kind of tax and regulatory structure that's really allowing the entrepreneurial growth engine to grow as fast as possible? >> everybody gets a miniature american flag. and an eagle. >> sign me up. >> thank you very much. >> great debate. well, you can live stream tonight's state of the union

address. starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern on cnbc.com. okay, folks, the earnings bound to get back into action with the three names to watch before they report today. >> plus, how one movie is proving that things in hollywood are just fine. stick around. push your enterprise and you can move the world. ♪ but to get from the old way to the new, you'll need the right it infrastructure. from a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile, borderless and secure. hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. and stay ready for everything that is still to come.

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welcome to another season of the earnings squad. i'm joined by cnbc john ford and fast money's john, founder of option monster.com. let's kick things off with the score card of the 10% of the s&p 500 companies that have reported so far this season. 75% reported above temperatures. 6% net estimates. 19% missed estimates. let's get to our first company of the season and that would be ibm. john, what are we expecting here? >> we're looking for revenues of around 24.8 billion dollars, eps of $5.43. perhaps more importantly, we're looking for 2015 guidance, and that guidance is where sap and other enterprise company athat relies heavily on software had

trouble this morning. it was on the transition to the cloud, which ibm likes to talk about. they've set $7 billion in revenue. cloud revenue for 2015. we want to see what more they have to say about that. also, they've been counting on growth in emerging markets, which they've had a hard time recently. we want to see how that impacts the total business. also, how they're looking now with just over $7 billion worth of businesses that were lower performing marginalized. the signing numbers important. we're looking for $17.5 billion. >> for a company like ibm, this is the performance. down 18% over the past year. it is the worse performing stock in the dow last year. 25% is from software revenues. according to what s.a.p. said, they said it's because of the cloud-based delivery system, which is what everybody is transitioning to. this is a real concern. this is the quarter that ibm really needs to say, you know what, investors, tlaz reason to be in the stock. >> yeah. and there's reason war enbuffett

is in the stock. you have to wonder how much longer he will put up with this kind of performance. whether, a, he goes activist, which is not his style, or, b, exits the stock. obviously he is believed in it here. i think we're going to get a pretty good idea after tonight and the numbers john talked about. how exactly do those cloud numbers rshgs and iffier that not strong, then this is a problem. >> let's move to netflix. it reports after the bell. this is known to be extremely volatile after they report earnings. in fact, after the last report in october they reported subgrowth that was below consensus, and the stock fell 20% in the ensuing two days. a lot of people are looking at this that this is a key test as to whether or not they can post those numbers that they really need to post. the expectations, 1.35 million. some are saying that they actually sand bag last quarter because they came in with such terrible subnumbers. they were really playing it conservative. there are some build in expectations that they will actually hit the number. what do you think?

>> i think they will. ahead of the number, mel, i have bought call spreads in this. >> so you are bullish. >> knock on wood, the stock has moved up almost $7 or $7 plus today. that's a good thing. i have taken about half that position off. this is a call spread. i'm not one on the stock. i would love to be long and into these numbers. it's almost right back to where it was when mark cuban talked about it when he said this is a forever hold. if they have a good number today, i think it goes well north of $360 and perhaps pushes back towards $400 in the coming weeks. >> especially because they've got a lot new original content coming out in 2015. there's a lot of good things happening in 2015 that analysts are pointing to. in terms of cree, this has been counted as dead for a while because so many competitors come on to the market with these smart light bulbs. >> one of the big competitors has been china. they've subsidyized their l.e.d. makers in a big way. now they're worried that either

world trade organization or some of the others may come after them so they've pulled back from those subsidies. i think that's good for cree. the stoblg is only about $3 off the 52-week low. about $37 off the 52-week high. as you say, it's on its back side. i do see a fair amount of put trading today ahead of the number, but calls were out numbering puts by about 2-1. >> maybe up top. >> i would still be more of a better on the upside than down side because of this, and because of the lawsuit that they filed recently with the international funds that say these guys are being subsidyized by the chinese government and it's got to stop. >> john and john, thank you. tune in to fast money tonight. we'll be covering the conference calls after hours, and we're going to be trading that, of course. back to you, guys. >> all right, melissa. john and john, thank you both very much. we're about ready to introduce you to the 30% up side. we have two analysts with two

stocks. they see 30% gains in. >> what do we call this? >> when do we do is it? >> how many days a week? >> every day saturday and sunday. >> unless by popular demand. >> can i find it. >> anyway, later on why one former oil executive says the good old days of $2 a gallon of gas coming to an end, folks, and why $5 at the pump might be on the horizon. plus, can you name the state with the cheapest gas? we'll vee re-veal the answer when "street signs" returns.

>> we do have the close for crude. 46.39. down by 4.7%. another 4.7% today. this is june high. >> it collapsed into the close. the viewers, and listen others the radio capital see the chart, but we've in the la hour oil just tanked. >> yeah. >> that's down $2.30. really 60% drop since june of last year for crude. as for natural gas, look at that picture. down by 9% today as well. it's incredible what's going on with energy prices.

>> let's not forget about this, by the way. it's a stimulus for the consumer too. >> gasoline goes down. most of us heat our homes with natural gas or electricity that is maybe powered by natural gas. this should be an additional stimulus for the consumer wrrn winter hasn't been that bad. >> maybe the ceological. >> it's not a huge chunk of change. psychologically, you think you will be. time for something we do every single day. it is time for "street talk." >> basically saying sell this baby. >> the target price when you hear it, you'll nabbed. the stock down .8%. their target is $30. intel at $36 and change. they see $6 of down side, and the analyst adds that the $30 price target is "generous." their check shows a sharp slowdown in server activity, but they do add this.

intel's di denned could provide a floor for the stock. >> moving on. another dow component. this is home depot. what's going with this one? >> home depot is down .9%. credit suisse likes the story. they reiterate. the reason we have it on street talk is they raised the price target to $120 from $110. about 16% up side to this stock price right now. >> number three, let's move on. microtechnology up to positive from neutral. >> it's easy for you to say. >> almost up 3%. 2.8%. 29.80. memory segments are nearing the bottom. stocks had a rough year. down 17% this morning. analyst saz this is an attractive entry point.

>> yeah. stocks down. 1%. 62.92. this is a missouri-based computer and data processing company. analysts did a customer survey. i'm going to summarize it here. it basically shows your competition concerns, and also concerns about outdated products. target 55 from 62. they see isi about 10% drop in jkhy. >> you could have made that under the radar candidate. you had another one that was even better under the radar candidate. it is -- i hope i'm saying that correctly. the ticker is fldm. it's a san francisco-based life sciences company. >> upgrading. outperform from just a plain old perform. they raise the target to $30. get this, as bullish as that is on a stock that is $37.44, the average targets of analysts who cover -- it's $44.38. this morning before the market did this up, they saw 30% up side.

they go micron. two analysts say -- who knows? it may not happen. they could be completely wrong. who knows? >> who knows? >> nonetheless, yeah. >> let's take a look at what the s&p is up to. the nasdaq is already positive, and now the s&p is as well. >> you're welcome. >> the markets started out positive today. >> lows around noon, just before noon. >> whop ner, he wasn't even on the show. >> drury. >> okay. >> so there you go. okay. >> there you go. do you think we can permanently say good-bye to four, even $5 gasoline? no, you'll meet a former oil executive that thinks otherwise. that's coming up. >> american sniper smashing box office records. what was it about this movie that re-energized hollywood and audiences as well? interesting story. stay with us. i'm only in my 60's.

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that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. a hajj weekend at the box office for "american nip sniper." $105 million. a record for january, and the largest ever opening weekend for a drama. have the reports of hole whoed's demise been grossly exaggerated?

julia joins us now from l.a. what are people saying there, julia? >> well, it certainly seems so, mandy. the scale of "american sniper's" massive success is a huge surprise, and a testament to the fact that a well made film can break out even filths not a franchise or superhero flick. it benefitted from the six aacademy award no, ma'am nags the day before the film opened, including best picture and best actor for bradley cooper, but presales already pointed to a huge opening even before the nominations were announced. the film showing particular strength in red states. warner brothers, which produced the film "building interest with military screenings and veteran outreach, had chatter on wreed. the film appealed to a strikingly broad range of movie goers. many conservatives say it's pat wrokt, and liberals saying it's -- the sniper's huge opening is a big win for warner

brothers. the film cost them $58 million to make. the film is a big success isn't helping the stock very much today. the stock down 2.5%. the film also benefitted from clint eastwood's name. it's his best performing movie. and the fact that it was adapted from a best selling autobiography of the same name. brian. >> julia, thank you very much. you're going to stick around into this next conversation because our guest is talking box office. he actually thinks that despite all the naysayer, this year might deliver the best box office year of all time. let's bring in paul, senior media analyst. why do you say that? >> this is going to be a tremendous year, and american sniper doing this well in january and breaking records as it is sets us up for the perfect box office year. we've got films like the next avengers movie that will kick off the summer this year. we've got "fifty shades of grey." the next james bond movie. you jump all over the calendar.

we have some of the biggest titles, biggest franchises of all time set to be released in 2015. this is great news coming off of 2014 that was down about 5% from the previous year. i am estimating that for the first time ever rentrack will show that the year should wind up with over $11 billion for the very first time. again, with all these massive franchises, you have the next fast and furious movie, which was postponed from last year. you have a pixar movie from "inside out." the hits keep coming. if all them deliver in reality like they look to do on paper, it's going to be a massive box office year. >> in the same way, paul, that controversy really stood up a lot of people to go and see the interview. do you think that the big controversy surrounding american sniper is going to help people to it as well. i'm not making any judgment on what i think about it, but there's a lot of conversation about whether or not it glorifies a hero or a killer. people on both sides of the

tracks have very strong views. >> look, when a movie conversation piece, that translates in many cases to big box office dollars. no question there's a huge conversation surrounding this movie, and so people no matter how they feel about the movie, they're going to want to see it to get in on that conversation, to be at the heart of that, and also let's face it, all this, you know, press devoted to these recordbreaking numbers. numbers we normally do not see in january is contributing to this increased momentum for the film, and also as julia said in her opening piece, the oscar nominations are a big part of this. the movie went wide the day after the nominations were announced. it had six nominations. best picture. bradley cooper for best actor. so the momentum -- everything about this movie, warner brothers released it for theaters about three weeks ago.

four weeks ago. it went wide in over 3,500 theaters, and we're seeing over $100 million for this film. the biggest martin luther king weekend. a bunch of records shattered, and people are really talking about this movie and they're going to see it in big numbers. >> and, paul, i think it's a real testament to the fact that when people are talking about something, when a movie is part of the water cooler conversation as it often is with those superhero movies like the avengers or like a fast and furious, people want to go to a movie theater and have that communal experience. they may not go as often as they did a couple of decades ago. they're certainly not. even with although great content on television, they will still go to a theater. they'll spend the money on the more expensive imax tickets or 3-d tickets because it's an event experience. i think that this movie was not expected to, but it has turned into an event. i think that paul's optimism about this year makes a lot of sense. when you look at some of the big title on the slate, i think it's just interesting that despite the myriad of options that

people now have at home on demand from netflix, now also from am sdmron, increasingly, they are stillotology spend the money and go to theaters. if the movie merits it. >> yeah. paul and julia, thank you so much. we'll be watching, carl. 2015. biggest box office year ever. it's a big call. >> watch for it. >> thank you. >> all right. let's go ahead and look at the markets because pretty much all three major indexes are now in the green. very slightly. not overstating it. up 8 points on the dow. we're down fairly sizably earlier today. amex, coca-cola, united technologies, those four stocks are leading the dow up right now. j & j is the miserable one. j & j down 3%. intel is the next worse. >> loser today, and, in fact, they came out with earnings this morning and filled in on "squawk box", and a lot of debate about their forecast. whether or not it was in line or bad, looks like the market is voting that whatever j & j said, they didn't like. >> they didn't like. it's amazing the way the market

picks and chooses what it wants to latch on to. >> speaking of good and bad, more and more americans are slowdowneding a little like james brown, right? they feel good about the economy. >> you got to say it like he does. no? okay. there is a dark cloud to go along with this silver lining. we're going to explain coming up. you just got a big bump in miles.

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here is the good news, more americans are feeling satisfied with the u.s. economy than any other time in the past ten years. the bad news, that number is still less than half the population that is saying that. so on a new nbc poll, 45% of americans say they are satisfied and that's up big from the last one, but it's still not even half the country. >> it's still less than half. by the same token, in the same survey there were 49% of americans approving of the

president's handling of the economy. it's still less than half which is kind of interesting. >> you're right. >> it is. >> double-checking. >> how many percent less than half? >> 74% of stats can be made up 41% of the time. how much did you pay per gallon the last time you filled up your tank. for many of you it was less than $2 a gallon. >> our next guest says don't get used to it, folks. he says higher gas prices are coming back. $5 a gallon, at least eventually, but before you call him crazy, just hear him out. he'll be joining us next. plus, it's also your chance to guess the state with the nation's cheapest gas. we'll tell you the answer and thank you to those of you who have already tweeted in with your answers. ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop?

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or any allergic reactions like rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a free 30-tablet trial. take a look at gas prices today. the nationwide average is $2.05 for 87 or 89 octane. we're getting close to 2 bucks a gallon, and, yes, america, i know many of you are paying under that thankfully but the national average because of hawaii and alaska and partly california is higher at $2.05 according to aaa but it's down $1.23 from last year. it is now down for the 116th straight day. >> okay. gas buddy.com says missouri has the cheapest gas, $1.75 per gallon. a lot of people sort of tweeted -- >> that's amazing. i would have never guessed missouri.

>> that was my guess, by the way, oklahoma. >> texas, oklahoma you would have thought. maybe at a manufacturing point, a lot of refineries but it's missouri. the show me state. harry truman, baby. >> there you go. >> it's amazing. >> we learn new things every day, even we are surprised. it may seem hard to believe with gas prices so low right now, but our next guest says enjoy it while you can because 5 bucks for a gallon of gas could be on the horizon. here with us now is john hofmeister former president of shell oil. he's founder of citizens for affordable oil. great to see you. with all due respect, you have called for 5 buck gas in the past, and it didn't turn out to be true, so what makes you confident you will be correct this time around? >> it did hit $5 in california, illinois, and new york, so it was partially correct. >> we're talking about national averages. >> but national averages, no. we're looking -- the $5 number being kicked around right now is really later part of this decade

as the world demands about 100 million barrels a day. we don't know how to get there yet, but the world will demand 100 million barrels a day, and so i expect those prices in that time frame, 2018, 2019, quite a ways from today, mandy. >> well, i would say, john, you will be correct, i can say that with 100% conviction because of inflation. maybe within 20 years, but we're going to get to $5 a gallon gas soon because prices always go up over time. what would be the driving force? a cut back in supply or an increase in demand or both? >> well, it would be inability of production to keep up with demand in my opinion. so that would be a shortfall in supply but that's what we'll face by the end of the year as well in my opinion. i'm an operator. i'm not an analyst. i pay attention to what companies do in their operations, and what the world is experiencing right now is this incredible ability of the oil and gas industry to slam the

door on cost. in the last two weeks 150 rigs shut down in the united states. we saw the announcements today of shaf lumber jay and baker hughes cutting jobs. we're slamming the door on cost and i expect by the third quarter, certainly the fourth quarter, we'll be seeing prices moving back to where they were close to last june. >> so -- >> and maybe by the end of the year actually hit last june's prices. >> the cure for low prices is low prices, but, john, a moment ago we were speaking with eric lee from citi and he also believes we're going to see a recovery in prices as the year goes on, but not before we potentially see either $30 or even $20 for crude, right? he said that was, quote, definitely possible. so down before we go back up. do you think that's a possibility as well, john? >> i'd be surprised, but you never know. this is a trader's paradise,

mandy. this is fun for the traders. they can buy as low as they can push it -- or sells a low as they can push it and buy at those prices and store it and have a great time on the upside of oil as well. >> we've got to go but as i pointed out from toronto last week, i went through 25 years of data. the average inflation adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil is about $48. we're almost exactly at hour historical average. it's not $100. >> well, we'll see what happens down the road. >> well -- >> optimistic about the higher prices. sticking to his guns on it. >> absolutely. >> i will remind you, too, john, the canadiens are increasing their rig count as we're cutting ours. they're going up. >> it's their winter. that's the normal time of season to increase. they can't produce in the summer because of the soft turf. so this is the time of year in which they do increase their rig count but not for long. >> john hofmeister, always great to have you on cnbc. thank you very much for joining

us today. >> all right. much more on oil i'm sure on "the closing bell." the dow, the s&p, the nasdaq are all higher right now. >> "the closing bell" is coming up next, and we'll see if we can close higher at 4:00 p.m. eastern. and welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i'm kelly evans, and, yes, it may not look quite as familiar, but i am here, bill, at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm here at headquarters which looks like cnbc headquarters as well. tell us, we've been waiting for this opening. >> everybody has referred to this space as the garage. as the new york stock exchange has unveiled this addition today they've been renovating for the past year. it's called the buttonwood room and people know that goes back to the founding of the exchange. more than 200 years ago outside of buttonwood tree. a couple blocks e o