$82 stock. burgers. burgers have been better money maker in some cases than some of these high tech wizardry conditions melissa. thank you. >> yeah. >> thank you for watching. get your "power lunch" to go. powerlunch.cnbc.com. close "closing bell" starts right now. >> hi welcome to the "closing bell" right now i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm bill griffin. mixed day. look how close we are. the steady march back to 5,000. the last time the index had a five handle we all remember that back in march of 2000. we know what happened after that. we are a mere 75 points away from nasdaq 5,000. >> the dow is giving up the 18,000 mark again today.

back below that level. can't quite decisively break above it. same for the s&p at 2100. sam will have more on that. walmart now giving a raise to thousands of workers boosting the minimum wage to $9 an hour. what prompted the move? and is wage inflation finally take hold in america? carl is speaking exclusively with walmart's ceo. we'll bring you some of that shortly. >> we'll talk about whether the wage increase is a good idea or bad idea economically speaking. >> listen up if you like uber and lyft. there's a lawsuit that can change everything about those companies and if they can afford to stay in business without raising fares substantially. we'll have the details on this developing story that's sure to get bigger down the road so to speak. >> yeah. >> see what i did with that? >> i like that. here's where we stand in the markets. hello. right now the dow also 34 points as mentioned back below that 189,000 mark. the nasdaq higher on the

session. 19 points. the s&p is fractionally lower today. i think our cash and bill summed it up earlier saying markets are following oil like a smitten teenager. whatever move oil makes equities follow. >> one of arthur's mainly pithy comments. let's get to the "closing bell" exchange heather hughes from sun america funds in snowy, washington d.c. sam still, rob morgan from sethy financial, jim lowell from adviser investments and rick santelli. mr. market i'm going to start with you, rick. you represent the markets here. it's been a very quiet week for the equity markets when everything else has been moving wildly. what do you make of what's going on this week here? such a strong beginning of the month and now it just quieted down. what do you think is going on here? >> it might have quieted down. keep in mind treasuries gave up all their profits and they had a

really profitable january. we're basically close to unchanged on the year when you include february. we had a lot of movement in the short end yesterday. everybody thought, well you've reached close to where we closed out last year and every maturity. 2s, 5s, 7s, 10s, 30s, yesterday was it it's over. it isn't. rates are creeping back up. i think the best way to understand this week is this the equity markets are back in the positive. the treasury markets are basically unchanged and the dax closed above 11,000 for the first time in history. quantitative easing a nouksed on the 22nd of january is going to become transferred from words to actions in march. not that many weeks away. i still contend that's the dynamic and no matter what you think about the fundamentals of the european economy, i have a feeling they're going to start to catch more fire than they have. fundamentals arrivederci. welcome qe. >> here we go again. >> letting our viewers know the

isi group is saying they think greek capital controls are increasingly likely by friday. >> wow. >> could that undermine all of the positives rick just mentioned? >> oh, i think greece is an issue. when you look at as we're saying, oil and the impact on the markets and potentially the fed and what they're saying in the u.s., those seem -- investors seem to be somewhat indifferent towards those over the past week or so compared to how we were reacting before then and all eyes are on as you alluded to, the greece situation and quantitative easing and europe. i think those are two more pressing issues of higher importance than our fed and oil, which have dominated this year. >> oil's had a very volatile day. was down about 4% this morning. back below $50. now it's at $51 on wti. jim lowell we keep bandying about the nasdaq 500 level. is it significant?

are we too come place sent? >> i don't think you need to be come place sent. it probably is inevidentftvitableinevitable. the question is valuations and across the spectrum inside the nasdaq which is much more broadly diversified than it was back in 1999. biotechnology stocks and companies have really come of age are one example. i think there still will be very good opportunities inside the nasdaq, not just in the small and midcap side of expense but even inside the larger cap space. it will be volatile. we get there and we get there for good fundamental reasons. >> let's speak of those fundamentals, rob. we have two data points that are so telling it would seem about the u.s. economy. jobless claims this morning super strong. fell back down again, which is an encouraging sign. then walmart coming out, giving this raise to its workers. it wouldn't do that, i imagine, if it were still under so much pressure like we saw in the last couple of years. does that mean the fundamentals are finally falling into place here? >> kelly, i think both of those

are very good signs for the future. obviously the job market is really what's driving the train here and the number this morning as you pointed out was really good. and absolutely. walmart giving basically a billion pay raise to its employees, that's a good sign to the future as well. i think a big part of that was they're just keeping up with their competition but, still, a good sign nonetheless. >> we're still lacking wage growth over the past five to six years as far as a long-term trend. i know the last report there was a fractional uptick and wage growth, perhaps a hint of inflation or 2.2%. we haven't seen any wages over the last few years. >> absolutely. there's certainly no wage inflation yet. i know kelly, you mentioned at the beginning of the show that's something we were speculating is that starting, and i think there's still a lot of slack out there. >> right. >> sam, still we wish gung

gung he fat choi. >> why are you connecting that to me? >> because you know the answer to the question. >> okay. that's good. well, yes, a lot of people they get all worked up about the super bowl which has correlation with no causation. in terms of the lunar calendar you could say there is causation because it's divisible by 4. the year of the ram, goat sheep, whatever you want to call it for this year since 1900 has actually gained a little more than the market on average, a little bit more than 7% and has risen about 80% of the time whereas more normally 67% is your typical advance. so if you're looking for one more additional piece of information to feel good about 2015 this is it. >> i guarantee, you know people who are at home or wherever you are watching guffawing things like that traders are watching things like that. >> sure, rick.

i was going to ask a question. if we want to talk about numerology, one is people are saying, wait a minute do we think the fed hiking cycle is going to begin as we head into a presidential election year. >> sure. >> a number of things here for us to think about. >> i don't know if that was directed at rick. >> that's for rick yeah. >> oh, there are. listen numerology and trading, i can't tell you how many people i know down here that have bought new condominiums in chicago and new york by trading new and full moongs. don't dismiss any of this. one point i wanted to make i'm not joking either, you look at a volatility chart you look at the lunar cycles something goes on. jobless claims were down 21,000. i get that. the low for the cycle was 266,000. the 10th of october of last year. but we did have president's holiday so you want to be a little careful assuming that number is right on. >> you don't think -- >> go ahead, heather. >> you don't think they're really going to ease though? i think, kelly, that was your

question, if the fed is going to actually ease this year regardless of the -- >> tighten. >> no yeah. >> yeah, exactly. but if you think about the reasons for qe2 and qe3 were to liquify the banks and recapitalize the banks, right? with the ten year at only 2.1, if you're raising short-term rates or hiking tightening interest rates, you're really defeating the whole purpose. you're squeezing the bank's net interest margins and that's doubtful especially with net inflation. >> jim lowell let's make this meaningful to investors. where are you going to make money in this market? >> you'll make it in europe in japan, fidelity international growth has a great track record of going into these kinds of markets. i like the uncertainty in europe. greece will continue to create ripple effects in that market both positive and negative but the end result of greece staying, leaving, some sort of mixed result i don't think is a net negative or positive for the overall zone. the overall zone has gunbegun to

show evidence of side stepping mild recession towards the end of last year. if they can maintain a little bit of a pulse in growth and the uncertainty remains elevated i think that still is a very attractive not just valuation wise but momentum wise space for investors to look at. >> quickly, are you saying you agree with rick santelli that you can kiss fundamentals good-bye and say qe is what's going to cause any gains you'll see here. >> or lunar cycles? >> right. >> you've always got to be careful when you talk about kissing and rick in the same breath, but i would say this, the reality is i think we can stimulate our way through europe through better days in the stock market. maybe not on this scale which is truly remarkable. i think it's a positive. i wouldn't want to fight that tide. >> we'll leave it there. thank you very much. more to come on this hour. appreciate it from our "closing bell" exchange with 50 minutes to go. market still under pressure with the nasdaq which is still higher

by 22 points. we go the s&p fighting to turn positive here. we'll keep an eye to see if it moves back above 2100. the dow trying to reclaim 18,000 in the meantime. >> one of the reasons, maybe the reason the dow is negative is walmart leading to the down side. the company's stunning everybody with that $9 hourly wage announcement that begins in april. ceo doug mcmillan speaking exclusively with our carl cantonea today. we'll have highlights from that interview plus reaction from our all stars barney frank and larry kudlow coming up next. >> also coming up wild swings in crude oil. we'll go live to the nynex with what's driving today's big moves that have been moving the market here as well. stay with us. >> announcer: the bond report is sponsored by pimco. your global investment authority.

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biggest loser" on thetoday. >> walmart ceo spoke exclusively with carl cantonea today. carl has the highlights. >> reporter: hi, guys. we are in bentonville, arkansas. we did talk earlier this morning about the wage hike. we asked them did the companies see this as a political inevitability? were they having trouble retaining workers and that's why they made the move? mcmillan argues it's simply about improving the experience of shopping in walmart stores. >> we want to provide a great customer experience and we want our associates to know how much we value them. the changes are structural changes in the store, wage increases, training programs and this company, as you probably know, has always been a people business. it's a people business today and it will be tomorrow and so our associates, their pride in the company, the ownership that they take those things are vital to

running a good retail business. today we're investing in them. >> we also talked about the l.a. port dispute with mcmillan. you are starting to see some impact on the shelves of goods not making it into the country. a lot of seasonal things patio furniture. kelly and bill back to you. >> that's our carl cantonea. thank you, carl for that report. >> let's talk more about walmart's wage hike. we have larry kudlow and former democratic congressman and cnbc contributor, barry frank. >> larry, the stock down 2.5%. some of that could be earnings. is this wage increase the best use of capital for walmart? >> i think it reflects a stronger economy. i think it reflects free market pressures. you know, oil prices are down consumer spending is up. i think walmart wants to stay competitive. there is a hunt for talent as the ceo suggested. is it the best move for walmart? yeah i think in the long run it's a great move.

>> wonder barney if you have any idea about the way in which other companies here might have to follow suit. i can't imagine you have any issue with this move from a philosophical point of view. >> no, i very much admire the way larry put it. i am struck by a number of people in the business community. it's a great model 230r9dedel for the way to work. it's depressing that people in the financial community would be unhappy that walmart has decided to pay people who work very hard $18,000 a year. that's what they'll get with $9 an hour for a 40 hour week. i'm happy for the work at walmart. keeping wages suppressed is organized. we went through a period where we did suffer economically to some extent because wages in the manufacturing industry goods that are traded in the international world, we had a

problem, but when you talk about walmart, when you talk about the service industry when you talk about food preparation, these are noncompetitive. nobody can decide that because walmart's prices may have gone up a little bit that they can go to mumbai to buy what they need. so i think this is not just good in and of itself and a recognition that you get good people when you pay better but i think it's going to be a good sign about where we can go going forward. final, this is the way the economy is supposed to work. as unemployment shrinks, as the job market tightens pressures should be to raise wages. >> right. >> at some point that might be too much but we are a long way from even approaching that problem. >> just one quick one here. i think that bill and kelly, a lot of people misinterpret the wage situation. wages are stronger than you think. you can look at average hourly earnings on the monthly job report. you can say wages are only growing 2.2%.

hours worked are 3.3%. that's a 5.5% increase in wage income. since there's no inflation, that's pretty strong. i'm looking for good consumer spending. i think walmart is trying to get ahead of that. >> larry, can i -- >> go ahead, barney. >> i want to make the distinction. that's a good macro economic. those of us who are concerned, i know you are, the fact that there may be pressure to work mothers with small children, fathers with small children so i think, yes, the overall number is good but the rate is also important because it does relieve people from the pressure to be working far more hours than a sensible family wants people to work. >> i've got a present for you, barney. here's some red meat for you. we had governor scott walker on "squawk box" this morning. he was asked about this wage increase. you know the conservative view of that move by walmart, here's what governor walker says. we'll get your comment on that.

>> i think conservatives can win the fairness argument if we talk about putting the power back in the hands of the hard working taxpayers. per your point about income issues, i think we talk about not pitting one american against another. we lift americans up entirely through growth. >> i don't know how much you got to work with there but -- >> growth. did you hear that word growth. >> a statement. >> growth g-r-o-w-t-h. i moderated that panel last night. we had an overflow crowd. we had to turn people away. scott walker's the hottest ticket in crowd right now. i had to stand up for four hours to do it. all i'll say is this. i know there's a lot of things like this. you might raise issues. scott walker talked about economic growth, reagan tax cuts, about reforming education and tuition, about a strong national defense and he did a great job. >> larry. >> go ahead, barney. >> i'd like to respond. of course larry again, you can't talk about one factor.

growth is very important. distribution is also relevant. by the way, you talk about not pitting one american against another. what was mitt romney doing with his 53%/57%. >> i agree. >> let me finish. but the problem is this. every time we talk about incomes for the lower income people we're talking, that's going to be inflationary. the unions are getting too much money. this notion it's pitting one against another is silly. the tax system affects people is important. other issues are important whether or not you have people in unions. that's a very important issue. people are attacking unions. senator cork ran did in tennessee when volkswagen wanted the uaw in the plan. that's pitting the state of tennessee against the workers at volkswagen. >> let me jump in larry. >> hang on. >> all right, fine go ahead.

>> very important. look, scott walker last night explicitly criticized mitt romney for having a negative message and scott walker talked about the need for a positive message and fresh faces. i think some of that clearly was a jab at romney. i think some of that was a jab at mrs. clinton. some of that was a jab at jeb bush but i just want to say in sum, the other thing walker said besides tax reform and education reform he said that his toughness with the unions and rolling back collective bargaining he's trying to send a signal to our enemies overseas on how tough a president walker would do and he explicitly -- >> that's nonsense. >> he explicitly mentioned reagan -- >> i'm sorry. you're filibustering. >> and papco as a signal to the soviet union. >> larry, i cannot believe you would say this. you really think that these terrible murder rouse fanatics

at isil are paying attention to what collective bargaining rights police officers have in wisconsin? that is just the most artificial transparent justification for doing something that conservatives want to do. the notion that as governor you use the power you have because you have a legislative majority to take rights away from working people, whether they have gone too far in one case or not, that that's somehow going to deter a bunch of murderous fanatics -- >> that's not what he just said. >> that's what you quoted him as saying. larry, that's just exactly what you said. >> quickly, larry. quickly. >> larry you're filibustering. >> what you do at home has a lot to do with how people perceive you overseas. >> that's not what you said. >> he wants stepped up ground and air action regarding isis but what happens here in the u.s. toughness at home does have an impact overseas. that's what he said. >> i want to repeat. you repeated that.

the notion that being tough on public employees is somehow going to deter these crazy people from killing people is just a justification of doing what you want to do anyway. as far as stepping up action i'll be impressed by the people on the republican side who want more ground troops et cetera when you talk about you're raising taxes or telling me you don't care about the deficit because you were talking about tens of billions of dollars additionally a year going on the deficit and then that becomes an argument for cutting social security for old people trying to live on 1,000, $1500 a month. >> i know we have to leave it right there. >> a lot of ground covered as usual. it's a show within a show. parni frank and larry kudlow on "closing bell." >> thank you guys. >> appreciate it. >> 35 minutes to go. this argument goes back to the supply versus the demand side of the u.s. economy. greg, in the wall street journal talking about this great piece shedding light onto the extent to which supply side reforms. this is the interesting thing of the minimum wage hike walmart

and others are these moving towards a better direction ultimately for the economy or not? the debate is heating up as you can see there. >> fascinating. dow is down 33 points. gold corp tumbling on the back of a disappointing loss. big one. gold miner losing half. gold corp ceo will speak with us next. we'll talk earnings and how he plans to get that company out of a funk when we come back after this. financial noise financial noise financial noise so what's going on today?

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wild swings in crude oil as gold recaptures $1200 an ounce. >> jackie deangeles has an eye on everything. >> good afternoon. we keep saying that every day, wild swings in oil. yes, it certainly held up today. we saw a dip of more than 4% in the morning after we got that very, very big build from the api last night. more than 14 million barrels. so all eyes were on the department of energy number today. it came out at 7.7 million. still a very big number but because it didn't really match up to the api we saw some of those losses pairing towards the close. we finished at 5116 for wti. down 90 cents on the day. a lot of traders asking if this is us trying to find a bottom or if we are going to see builds like this in the next few weeks. do we take that big leg lower? gold. we saw a little bargain hunting when we hit the $1200 mark. 700 on the uncertainty in greece isn't exactly safe haven buying.

this has been a rough trade and most people aren't expecting it to do much from here. back to you. >> jackie thank you. we're going to drill down on gold. it's down 10% over the last year. that's not as bad as shares of gold corp down double in that time. >> joining us charles jenesse, chuck we call him. he likes to be called that. president and ceo of gold corp. chuck, welcome back. >> thanks, bill. pleasure to be with you. >> so a bigger loss than expected. this impairment charge had something to do with that yes? >> right. of course it's a noncash charge to the balance sheet and the value that we carry an asset in argentina on the balance sheet, and that's due to the conditions that we've seen down there in that country as well as the compression in gold price. importantly, we made $360 million worth of cash flow during the quarter and the business is very sound. we're very excited at the prospects we have going forward.

>> chuck, are you throwing in the towel on argentina and kirshner and how bad is it? >> not at all. this is going to be a fantastic mine for us. when you buy something and the financial conditions change we have had pretty serious inflation without a corresponding devaluation of the peso it squeezes those margins. a lot of what we put on the balance sheet when we buy an asset like this is future exploration potential. because of the conditions in argentina that value has come down based on third party analysis. that makes up the impairment. no, this is going to be a great mine. we're going to produce close to 480,000 ounces of gold in the first full year and we have a lot of opportunity there going forward. >> we're focused so much lately on oil, on the decline there. breathtaking decline. you guys experienced that a couple of years ago anyway with that huge decline in the price of gold. we're all expecting oil to move

higher at some point. what about gold and what's going to move it higher if it's not, you know -- i mean the dollar's going higher so how is that going to move gold prices higher from here if in fact we're going to see the cost of the currency go up here at the same time? >> well it's interesting, bill because gold was actually the best performing currency last year save only the dollar so that negative correlation between gold and the dollar sometimes works very well and sometimes it doesn't. and my view is -- and i've said this on your program before that i'm not a believer that we're going to have dramatic rapid increases in the gold price, but i do believe that the market has missed frankly, and it's the reason goldman sachs called for 1050 gold last year and they were wrong. there's a new player in the gold space and it's asian physical demand. we can now look at it on a month-to-month basis and it's

helping to offset some of the weakness of the financial players in new york and london. that's what's helping provide a floor for gold and will help us slowly move up over time. >> that, chuck, is exactly what i was just going to ask on the demand side. thank you for addressing it. just briefly before you go what about demand from central banks. what are you seeing? >> well, that's been remarkably very stable over the last what 28 quarters. we just saw the data that came out last week for last year and it's been very stable. there is a need and a desire around the world to diversify away from only holding particularly u.s. dollars as your currency your reserve currency. gold is one of the options. we're seeing a lot of countries slowly add to their gold reserve. >> we'll let you go. you took issue with goldman's call on gold.

where are we going very quickly? >> like i say, i don't see a dramatic increase. i think we'll probably trade in the 1150 to 1350 range, but i think it will be higher at the end of the year than it is today. >> all right. that's as close as we're going to pin him down. chuck, good to see you. >> thank you so much for being here. chuck jeanesse. much to go on "closing bell." phil lebeau shows auto loans are booming. how much risk is the loans will be subprime loans that could go bust. >> scott wapner with cnbc business news. >> here's what's happening at this hour. russia started supplying gas to rebels held eastern ukraine after kiev temporarily suspended deliveries because of infrastructure damage due to heavy fighting. france won a confidence vote. they teemed up with conservatives to demand he scrapped business ventures. egg and meat lovers listen up u.s. advisory health panel has decided to remove warnings

about dietary cholesterol saying there is no link to dangerous levels of cholesterol that cause heart disease. expensive suit that india's prime minister wore when he met with president obama have been roundly criticized because his name was stitched in gold pin stripes. it cost $16,000. opposition leaders say he should be helping india's poor instead of wearing expensive close. "closing bell" back after this. i'm looking forward to. for some every dollar is earned with sweat, sacrifice, courage. which is why usaa is honored to help our members with everything from investing for retirement to saving for college. our commitment to current and former military members

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welcome back. we have news on cisco u.s. foods. >> earlier we told you the u.s. federal trade commission was going to move to block this of the two top service administrators in the country based on anticompetition. sysco says it will contest the u.s. ftc's attempt to block the proposed merger. they say the ftc's commissioner's vote of 3-2 to block this particular transaction demonstrates what they call a lack of consensus within the convention.

sysco believes this will change because of this deal in an anticompetitive way. the ceo of the company, bill delaney, say the facts are strongly in our favor and we look forward to making our case in court. the latest sysco weighs in and they will appeal the decision. >> i'm sure. dom, thank you very much for that story. meanwhile, americans have been borrowing record amounts for autos. is that a concern. phil lebeau has been taking a look and has the story. hi, phil. >> hi, kelly. the last six to nine months look, there's a bubble. people with poor credit are borrowing buying cars that they can't afford. the latest data that we've received from experian which tracks auto loans every single quarter shows that we're not seeing that. so far the total number of auto loans open in the fourth quarter hit a record $886 billion, up about $86 billion year over year. super prime, those with the best credit they topped the growth in the fourth quarter. and delinquencies remain low.

there's really not any evidence showing that we are seeing above performing when it comes to subprime borrowers. when you break down the categories it's clear that while all categories are seeing growth this terms of credit ratings, the subprime and deep subprime borrowers put them together and they still don't add up to what we see for super prime borrowers. so we're not seeing that development of low credit quality borrowers really hurting the market at this point. in terms of auto sales and whether or not they continue to roll in the month of february most that i've checked with in the auto industry say, yeah we think things are relatively strong. we are seeing sales lag a bit in new england. that's only natural given the amount of snow we've seen in vermont, connecticut, massachusetts, the boston area has been hit hard. truck and suv demand remains strong. consumer confidence is down compared to where it was a month or two ago. it's still extremely high. bottom line is this guys. it's hard to say that things are perfect in the auto industry but

they're very strong right now and this report shows we are not yet seeing a bubble when it comes to those with the poorest credit ratings. >> all right. phil, thanks. stay right there, as a matter of fact. join the conversation here. >> yeah. john joins us from competitive enterprise institute. he has in the past raised a red flag that all of this auto debt could end badly. john, great to have you with us. you heard what phil had to say. >> still because of the public policies affecting them still have some of those concerns but i think phil is right. there are different types of debt and when you're talking about the best of the best credit scores, these savvy consumers, they have more options open to them new peer-to-peer lending mechanisms such as prosper. yet at the same time they still face washington's taxes and mandates and so they have to look at their financial situations and say, well maybe it's -- maybe it's cheaper in

the long run to pay a little interest than to have to sell some stocks to finance a car purchase and cash even if they would have the cash and assets to cover it. >> john is your fear that we could see the same kind of collapse as we did in real estate? >> well my fear as is always washington's policies as far as trying to do something or just the mandates and cost of cars in general, that the fuel economy mandates from the obama administration the epa itself estimates that that will add -- or is adding $2,000 to the price of every new car, a total of $67 billion for the auto industry, and the national auto dealers association is pricing 7 million out of the auto market for new and used cars so that creates conditions to have you know new types of subprime loans in the bubble or is pricing lower income consumers out of the car

market altogether when you need a car for work, mobility to move to a better job. >> phil respond here. >> i don't think that's an immediate concern. yes, the price of vehicles is at a record high. it will continue to go up. some of that is because of the fuel economy standards that have been mandated but, remember, there is a review in 2017 of the cafe standards. we could see that being adjusted particularly if the republicans gain the white house and they have control of congress as well. there will be some political motivation to perhaps roll back some of the mileage increases that are mandated there, but there's always this concern that you're going to price people out of the auto market. over time we've seen that that concern is overstated. there will be people who will fill that gap, whether it's on the used side or the automakers realizing you have to come down a little bit in order to incentive advise at the very bottom of the markets. >> maybe i'm missing something here, john. as phil points out, there is a pre-owned or used car market that's out there that can act as

a safety valve for people who can't afford the new cars that are maybe priced out of their area because of government regulations or whatever. so i'm not sure i understand the economic problems that you foresee coming from the automotive side of the debt market because of people being priced out and maybe reaching higher than they can afford right now. >> well i mean they're sort of what's the use of the new mandates in auto or safety if people can't afford new cars. they don't get the benefit -- they don't get any benefit of those. i don't necessarily see a huge problem. i think washington mandates as always and taxes are keeping people just from having the options whether they want to take on less debt to buy a car, whether they want to buy a new car or other things and rather than instead of you know saying you know they should look at proposing new mandates on top of these mandates look at what, you know, is preventing people from having these options, the type of car they

want, they can afford and can finance. >> all right. we'll leave it there, gentlemen. thank you. important issue. we're going to keep following it along with everybody else homing in on this data. 15 minutes to go into the close here. keeping an eye on markets which are losing some altitude. the dow off now 50 points. weighed down by walmart today. the nasdaq, still positive. still the big story as we watch it gravitating towards the 5,000 mark. >> 76 points away. >> we'll have a live report on the nasdaq for more detail next. plus, yahoo coe marissa meyer holding a conference. we'll go live to san francisco for the very latest on that. josh lipton joining us next coming up on "closing bell." there's nothing more romantic than a spontaneous moment.

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welcome back. 13 minutes left with the dow down 20 -- no 48 points right now. dominic chu, let's have a roundup. >> bill, kelly, we have an interesting theme for today's movers. returning capital. a slew of companies made announcements on that front. here are a few of the bigger names. first up tobacco company lauralar. boosting it to 67 cents per share.

colgate pal moll live boosted its quarterly dividend payment t. announced a new $5 billion buy back program. sticking with the soda theme, soda giant coca-cola boosted it by 8%. that quarterly payment will be 33 cents a share. we'll end be here on the mutual fund side of things. t.rowe price, it boosted to 52 cents per share. it announced a $2 special dividend payment as well. this capital return kelly, bill, very much a theme. >> not a subtle one. thank you very much dom. so many investors looking for that income. >> yes, they are. >> 12 minutes to go. >> art cash said we have the imbalances to the buy side by $300 million. >> keep an eye on that. we've seen a move a little bit to the markets to the down side in the final moments. dow losing and can the nasdaq

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so wyche' got t-- so we've got

the nasdaq moving higher. >> bertha coombs is with us. >> the interesting thing is watching the nasdaq come back towards 5,000, now you have a different sector that leads. oftentimes it's biotech and it is again today. the biotech indices hitting historic highs. the nih is saying its eye drug was more effective in patients with diabetes. meantime you're also seeing some big names that were high flyers then high flyers again today like priceline. that strong dollar is encouraging a lot of folks to travel. a lot of those stocks are moving to the up side today. tesla reviving even as of course we have to hit on apple, that's the biggest change from 15 years ago. today right now not quite there but having hit a high above $129 a share its market cap topped 3/4 of a trillion

dollars. >> that's a very big number, bertha. we're keeping an eye on that one. >> from also land to standard bearer. >> i think it's around 172 to hit the trillion dollar mark. thank you for now, bertha. our bob casani is over here working the floor for us at the nyse, what do you see, bob? >> there's a lot of action in some subsectors. while in oil $3 price swings in oil and the big exploration production companies were out with comments eog and mill bl saying they're going to lower capital expenditures. the numbers had come down considerably. they were a lot lower, eog, earlier in the day. we had a rally in gold. that's gone. gold miners continue to drop very noticeably. gold had a disappointing earnings report. this is going on for a few days now. another gold rolling over

interest rates sensitive. the rates have held up pretty well up to a few days ago. they're starting to move to the down side. this is an emerging trend here that just started this week. we have had a very narrow trading range in the major indices. kind of unusual given the volatile start we had. we're moving in 100, 150 point trading range for the whole week. that is very unusual. we're getting other areas moving. when i come back we'll talk about nordstrom which will be reporting after the bell. we'll hear about the other end of the economic spectrum. >> 1.4% there. thank you, bob. we are coming back with the closing countdown on what has been a very quiet week. tomorrow is expiration day. usually we get volatility. >> maybe we're saving up to it. yahoo ceo marissa meyer taking questions live. we'll bring you those headlines, tell you what she said. we'll watch the stocks as well. you're watching cnbc, first in

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now you can get the works, a multi-point inspection with a synthetic blend oil change tire rotation, brake inspection and more. $29.95 or less. we have 2 1/2 minutes left here. i have bob pasani here with me as we look at this chart of the dow. very very narrow range for the average here when you consider we have an expiration week. tomorrow is expiration day. usually you get much more volatility leading into that. maybe we'll get that tomorrow. who knows. >> look how odd this is.

this is 125 point range. >> that's pretty small. >> 7, 18,000 point index. >> 125 point range on a daily basis in 2014. in january we were in 2 and 300 point ranges on a daily basis. >> consistently. >> one more chart before we get to nordstrom, wti and crude very volatile today. we were below 50 for a time on the open this morning. the inventory numbers showed a bigger build than expected. it's come back. still down 1.6% for the day. at $51.27 on crude oil. as art cashon often points out, the stock market follows crude like a smitten teenager. >> today eog had interesting points about production. the great thing about shale is they can ramp up production and ramp it down fast. marathon's going to be trying to do that. excuse me eog is going to be trying to do that. marathon does deep sea drilling. i want to go to nordstrom. >> let's see what they're doing.

>> reporting after the bell. >> earnings coming up down 1.1% at $77. >> the thing that's important about nordstrom is there are high expectations for sales. i have seen numbers at 4% and higher for the fourth quarter that would include obviously the holiday season. guidance too. i've seen expectations of 4% and above guidance for com store sales for this quarter. that seems to be fairly high numbers. nordstrom's held up very well. not far from new highs. so the point is the expectations are very much on the up side here. whenever you have that, the potential for even a slight failure because the stock price is up means it could drop. i'm not predicting that i'm saying the expectations are very high for the company. they've also talked about maybe changing their sale days. they have the famous july sales days the medium one. that could impact the numbers as well. >> we'll know all coming up in a few seconds here bob. we're getting ready for the numbers from nordstrom as we go

out. 50 point decline. s&p still below 2100. nasdaq march to 5,000 continues. now about 76 points away. stay tuned. hour number two of the "closing bell" coming your way with kelly evans. i'll see you tomorrow, kel. have a good one. thank you, bill. welcome to "closing bell" everybody. i'm kelly evans. here's how we're finishing up the day on wall street. we started with a decidedly negative tone. the nasdaq is beguning forehead lines. up 18 points. only one in the green today. it is just 75 points away now from closing above 5,000. the s&p and dow couldn't do it. the s&p giving up a couple of points for its part 2097. the dow down 44 today. some weakness in walmart in particular though. we'll talk about that in just a second. closing at 17985 and change. our panel, get to it david

servos here from jeffries. michelle caruso-cabrera and eric welcome to you all. "fast money" trader john and jerry joining us for this block as well to kick things off. john, with you actually let me just begin. we have walmart this morning. we're awaiting on nordstrom any second now. are you getting some reads about the consumer about wage inflation? how are you playing the retail trade right now? >> for the most part i'm being patient rather than playing the retail trade. i think overall it's just a question of when as far as many of these stocks making some comebacks here. obviously the west coast slowdown is impacting some a lot more than others. obviously a tiffany not impacted by the imports coming in from china nearly the same way that a walmart is for instance but i do think that there are going to be some great opportunities created. walmart, i think it probably needs to be sub80 before i get interested, but ralph lauren i'm certainly interested in that name right here. >> let's stay on walmart for

just a second, eric. you guys have some data talking about the parts of the country that will be hit hardest by their decision to raise wages. >> yes. we just did it on cnbc.com today. check out the whole article. if you look at the number of stores they have in each state and the difference to what the minimum wage is in those states compared to $9 or $10, texas is where they're going to see the biggest increase in expenses. a lot of states have a minimum wage close to $10. there are a lot of states where there aren't many stores. you have to look in the south where some of the minimum wage laws haven't been as aggressive. >> great point. michelle it gets interesting. they're saying to walmart, you're following the trend. the minimum wage is going up in a bunch of states. there are some as eric mentioned where it will have a real impact. >> i thought this was very much a political move that they got the wins from washington and they get tired of being beat up. this is a fairly new ceo and he made a political decision. sometimes a political decision is an economic decision if it gets regulators off your back.

>> if this was a political decision versus an economic decision, why? this entire thing has been wage inflation. if they're doing it for the right reasons, great. if they're doing it for the wrong once not so much. >> i think that's right. this whole retail story that you started the block with is such a big story. it's been a bit of a conundrum why we're getting all of this money into people's poblgts and they're not spending it as quickly as we thought. i'm kind of excited about the very marginal minimum wage increase here. i think it's a net positive. i'm watching consumer behavior. >> you're not impressed with the consumer spending? >> not at all. >> really? >> i would have thought if you put 50 100 bucks a week in some people's pockets -- >> from gasoline you mean? >> absolutely. for mean, it's -- one of the things that's gotten me nervous is you haven't seen the big spending push. the data has come out softer. if people see a modicum of wage growth at the bottom end and some companies like walmart

doing it the psychology could be very positive for the biggest spenders for guys who live paycheck to paycheck. >> one data point to look at they estimate it will cost them $1 billion in extra wage spending. they make almost $500 billion a year in revenue. this is not even one day worth of revenue. it goes to your point. a big headline but just a few hours of revenue. >> what about -- because we're going to get the nordstrom numbers. they were the first ones to recover. are we expecting -- nordstrom is under a little bit of pressure today. what do you think is going on. now we're getting this oil price collapse that's getting stimulus to the bottom end. so you know the nordstroms of the world are kind of right on the edge. the walmarts of the world, i think if this works the way we think it does through most

economic models it should be phenomenal. >> dr. jay, nordstrom? your thoughts? >> i like it. people were nervous the same way with this retailer that they have been with many of these, kelly, into the earnings announcement. the puts were out trading calls almost 2-1 which is a bet, of course, either to the down side or its insurance. either way, people aren't speculating to the up side very actively in nordstroms so if it's holding the gains they've got, they'll be very pleased. >> we'll get more on that in a second. michelle, can we pivot and talk about what's happening in europe? isi puts out a memo saying they think it will increase in greece by friday and the market shrugs. >> that will be tomorrow. i think ultimately what the market is telling us now or over the last several weeks, this is very much a greek problem. the greek finance minister, what he would say, i would leverage, it's italy, so far italian

yields aren't budging. the timing is bad because the ecb will be coming in buying italian bonds. i think the market is telling us, while this is going to be a very big deal for greece. it will be a watershed moment if they leave the euro. i'm not saying they're going to but if they do it's a big political oh, my gosh story. i don't know how big a market story it will be? >> would you agree with that dave? >> 100%. >> what i read you're more excited about the market opportunity in the bigger qe parts of the world which include europe and japan in spite of all of this talk about greece the capital controls? >> the first piece we wrote was a tempest in a tea pot greek style. i still stand by that view. this is going to be hard for greece. whether they sign this agreement or whether they leave. it's just not a good time to be there. and leaving will be very painful. they'll take some pain up front but probably better for them in the long run. actually better for europe. you know i'm on the fence of how this is going to go. i totally agree with michelle

though. this is -- if we get a dip, if we got the s&p down 2 or 3% and the dax down 5% it's a huge opportunity to buy. >> jim cramer's been saying that. you're not referring to me as the tempest and the newso glass? >> stirring things up. >> put a little water in it. >> a little bit hair yi. it is remarkable. dr. j, i'm just curious why we're talking about a situation why before we would have seen things trading down horribly. greece goes back and it just doesn't matter? >> well to the other guest's points, it will matter, but it'll matter a lot less because they've basically ring fenced these banks over in germany and the rest of the folks that had major exposure to greece. so the impact it will be felt. there's no doubt that this is not just oh, forget about that but it's a lot smaller impact than it would have been in '11

or '12, kelly. now it's just a question of making sure that they don't open a door for negotiation or renegotiation of debt with spain, italy and france. >> let's underline one key point he said there, who owns greek debt? not that many. almost no banks, right? it's mostly hedge funds, greek pension funds, the tradeable debt is very small. the rest of it german taxpayers are on the hook finnish taxpayers are on the hook. >> that's why we're not seeing a dip. people aren't getting fooled. people know. that's why you're not getting the easy opportunities. >> i'm with you. i think it's a shame. i would love that opportunity. >> everybody else is not that stupid. they know what to do. >> i hear ya. we did get the dax in the beginning down about 3 off the high so that was a little bit exciting, but i'm with you. i think the market has come to sort of understand that every time someone is not paying their

bill it's lehman brothers not everybody is lehman brothers. all the stuff of size is in the public sector it's not in the private sector. >> in other words, taxpayers own it. >> it's not own that the ecb, imf, european commission. it's basically just flushed out of the system. the reason they had to bail them out in the first place was because all of this stuff used to be on the banks. >> hold that stock for one second. we have a couple of moving pieces here. first of all nordstrom earnings are out. the revenues, courtney reagan has more detail now. hi. >> that's right, kelly. as far as the bottom line the eps for nordstrom a miss by 3 cents. nordstrom reporting fourth quarter eps of 1.32. estimates looking at 1.35 per share. revenues a slight beat. the issue here is very weak 2015 eps guide dance. much below what wall street's consensus is for that number. another though very strong point in the quarter was the same store sales were up 4.7%.

the street was only looking for an increase of 3.4%. very much a mixed report here from nordstrom right after the bell. kelly, back to you. >> courtney thank you. quick reaction to nordstrom earnings with the panel. dr. jay, i'll start with you. what do you make of it? >> i think it will press a little lower. we talked about the put buying. that's insurance or a bet that it goes down. they priced in at 4.2% move. it's down 3% in the post. won't be surprised if it extends that towards that 4% number. then it probably is a buy. i think these are one of the best operators there are out there. >> is this part of a pivot moment here? this was the year that it was about main street and not wall street. we had the drop in gasoline prices. we had walmart outperforming in order stroms missing on earnings.earnings earnings. >> i've been thinking a lot about this. in the old days people had a savings rate that they cared about, they had precautionary

savings. we went through the housing period where everybody's house went up and that became their atm and their savings vehicle. we had a necktive savings rate at the bottom end of the income distribution or weakest credits. we're coming out and the savings rate is going up. people don't trust their house like they used to. one of the things that might be a little different this cycle is they're not going to get that big consumption move that we get out of the income and wealth move. people have to build up precautionary savings. i toy with that as an idea. eventually this retail story will be a good story. >> what does that mean with p at 2100 and dow and we can't get places like nordstrom. if walmart is not hitting it out of the park and nordstrom is not hitting it out of the park where do the markets go? >> you have another problem in the whole grand scheme of things which is we have a strong dollar. we've talked about this a bunch of times.

a stronger dollar is a harder dollar to earn everywhere. tourism goes down. all of these things play back into the u.s. economy. as we're looking at a stronger dollar develop, everybody company's earnings is that much harder to get. >> briefly before we go to break let's bring in frank gill. he's joining us all the way from london. interesting, frank, how the strong dollar is resulting from some of the mess in europe. can you briefly tell us which way you think the situation in greece goes here into the week end. >> well, our baseline expectation is that there will be some sort of agreement which will enable greece to continue to service its largely official debt that the point. >> and -- >> but it is going close to the wire. >> close to the wire, but is this, again, going to be a wire that the market trips over or not? i know it's a trillion dollar question but i'm just curious for your view. >> well we've run some of the numbers and if greece does exit

the monetary union compared to 2012, i think one of your other guests was already saying this that the eurozone banks exposure to greek counter parties is less than 1% of the total eurozone gdp. most of the exposure is on public sector balance sheets through official lending which is roughly 4% gdp but, again, we don't see direct contagion from a greek exit at this point. we think there could be some indirect contagion. >> understood frank. thanks very much for joining us. sorry it was abbreviated. frank gill in london. we have some news now i believe on the l.a. port situation with jane wells. >> kelly, it's up in oakland. while negotiations continue with the u.s. labor secretary in san francisco, a broad side from across the bay where the port of oakland has not basically, has shut down operations for the day. apparently the dock workers there are having their

contractually allowed once a month meeting, which is a full day. usually that meeting has taken place traditionally after hours at night. today they chose, which they contractually can, to do it during the day. pma, pacific maritime association, their management says that has essentially forced the dock to shut down with the port's peak period of activity. the work stoppage means containers will not be loaded or unloaded on the 12 vessels at berth. no dock work in oakland today. now the dock workers might argue, well, management could hire them at night to do this but management has stopped working dock workers on the night shift. this is another case of hit for at that time -- tit-for-tat. >> walmart is concerned about get being merchandise on the shelves there. jane is in oakland this time. thank you very much. >> our thanks to dr. jay as well. will this silence the walmart

critics? the company is hiking its minimum wage to $9 an hour today. it could start a wave of wage inflation or could it? we'll take a look at what this means. just ahead, yahoo! ceo marissa myers. details on plans and we'll discuss if it might help yahoo!'s stock prices. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. won't keep you up at night. know you have insights from top investment strategists to help set your mind at ease. know that planning for retirement can be the least of your worries. with the guidance of a pnc investments financial advisor, know you can get help staying on track for the future you've always wanted.

walmart is raising the minimum wage to $10 by next february. jeff cox crunching the numbers. he joins us at post 9. over arching question, is wage inflation taking place in america? >> the story isn't about whether walmart was paying the workers $9 or $10 an hour. what it's about is the missing link. it's all about wage inflation. the one thing we have not seen. while we've seen the unemployment rate come down and down and down we have not seen the wage rate rise proportionately. now what happened today is maybe a game changer. if other stores follow walmart,

if other businesses do what they did, that could be really significant for the economy. now we've already seen some big companies. we've seen aetna, we've seen disney. ikea that have already voluntarily raised the minimum wage. if walmart sets a larger trend it impacts i've said in a lot of ways the biggest way being interest rates. the fed has kept its rate near zero because it's not seeing that wage inflation that it wants to see. should walmart trigger a bigger reaction within the market, monetary policy, kelly, could be back on the road to normalcy. >> sure. jeff, thank you. dave zerbos your thoughts on this one? it goes back to the question of whether walmart is doing this because it feels like it has to and there's finally a moment when all of these private sector companies feel like they have to? >> i think it's a lot more about expectations and sentiment than it is about a significant amount of money being put into the economy. >> very correct. >> that expectation that you highlight is something that could cross a lot of businesses and a lot of areas that get this

moving in the direction that the fed has been trying to get it moving for a while. >> when you say they have to you mean competitively in order to retain workers? not they have to politically? >> correct. correct. that's what the whole -- i mean corporate america wants to avoid. they want to avoid washington doing this for them. >> right. >> then you get into an issue where you can't control that cost anymore. if, say, you're a worker at abercrombie & fitch, you're making minimum wage there, walmart is paying $9 an hour, $10 an hour. that looks better. the economic impact the number i got from tom, about $1.5 billion which is not a lot. >> one day of revenues. >> exactly. it's whether it sets that tone. they're the biggest retailer in the world. >> what about the idea that it makes free market people to say, look, we don't need to raise money. companies are doing it.

it helps companies do things that they won't face a government mandated wage. >> only 4% of americans make minimum wage. that's the one left out data point. how meaningful -- >> it's a political issue. it's a political issue, however, if it does become an economic issue, it certainly takes away sort of that last refuge that the fed has to keep its rates at zero. >> just to remind people the economic debate happening. it goes back to what we heard larry kudlow and barney frank talk about. is it a supply problem plaguing the united states or is it a demand one? if you raise wages for the wrong reason, that could hold the recovery back. if it's happening for the quote, unquote, right ones dave because companies feel like they have to and that they can do it because they have the capacity that will improve their outcomes here then that's all very encouraging. >> encouraging and also encouraging for the slack in the labor market because a lot of those folks have been sitting out of the labor market and are doing it because they didn't see

the opportunity to come back in and as the lower wages come back up people start looking at the jobs as good opportunities as opposed to riding benefits that are very high or were very high. >> we have to go. what is your view in a nutshell? do you think it's a supply or a demand problem that the economy has right now? >> i think right now we're in an over supply problem. we have too much cheap labor globally. >> okay. >> that's been depressing wages at the bottom end of the income distribution. i don't know that that's going away any time soon. there are a lot of wage inflation at the top end but you know the unskilled labor sort of thrust that's been put on the market over the last ten years, mainly from the emerging markets has kept the unskilled labor markets very very low in terms of wage. >> that's why we'll see if this has any impact. maybe a lot more needs to happen before we know. >> thank you, jeff. all eyes out on silicon valley on yahoo! today. yahoo! ceo marissa meyer meeting with hundreds of millions of

developers mapping out the company's future. she's finishing a news conference. we'll get you the details from that. as bad as the animosity and gridlock in washington it can't be as bad as in turkey. it injured five. what were they fighting about? that's straight ahead.

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>> a meeting with marissa meyer. >> well kelly, at this mobile developers conference we did just have a briefing with yahoo!'s executive including ceo marissa meyer. i asked marissa meyer given the range of new tools and products she announced for developers these are tools that will help developers that will measure, monetize or advertise her app, did she think those new products were going to help yahoo! take mobile shares from google facebook, here's what she had to say? >> mobile apps you are going to see it continue to rise and grow. that said we have seen in the

past few years we've seen great growth both in terms of total revenue as well as in terms of share. >> marissa meyer going on to tell me. two words, she remained pretty confident. she can take share from google and facebook. remember yahoo!'s mobile ad revenue was 4% of the overall market. google is at 35%. facebook closer to 20%. meyer did tell us today that mobile adebayor revenue clocked in at $1.2 billion. the mobile ad business growing really fast. >> josh thanks. listen, i was distracted for a moment there by her voice. it sounded worse than usual, josh. do you know, is there anything in particular wrong? >> no kelly. there weren't any questions about that. she answered questions for a long time took a number of questions from the press, answered every one. no issues at least here about

that kelly. >> yes. just curious, josh. thanks very much for joining us. appreciate it. josh lipton is on the west coast. lance is here from mashables to give us this take on this big conference for mobile developers and whether you think this is going to move the needle for yahoo! >> this is a fantastic move. obviously yahoo! has to present itself as a mobile first company. that is critical. they have the model of facebook which did exactly that. we will focus on nothing but developing mobile apps that experience. for yahoo! everyone's known for a long time it has so many eyeballs from monetizing that. it's an uphill climb, but giving advertisers the tools, putting those right in their hands so they can turn it really into money doing ads in these products and delivering ads to pull in new customers is a fantastic way to go. it's so smart. >> you bring up facebook. i can understand their challenge moving to mobile. it sounds more like a technology one and people want to use it. how many people here have yahoo!

apps on their phone. >> yahoo! weather. it's beautiful. the best weather app. >> weather gets great reviews. so does the new flikr app. they're seen as a portal destination on the desktop. that's the big issue. >> i don't see any ads on yahoo! weather ever. >> mobile first, they have 15,000 employees. they're doing desktop and doing other things that are not mobile. so they're not facebook because they are almost a 20-year-old company. it's really hard to turn that. >> do you know what's funny, i want to make sure we understand. everybody talks about comparison to facebook but the target is google, right? that is more analogous to what yahoo! is trying to do. the search business. delivers ads. in the same kind of way it has a much bigger share. i know facebook has grown fast and that's fantastic, but yahoo! needs to focus on the way google has done things. yeah, there's a lot of people

who maybe are not working on mobile but having a conference that is all about the tools for advertisers to deliver mobile and native ads is a signal. it's more than a signal. it's real action. >> are they also going to be a b2b company not a b2c as opposed to getting you, me everybody here to download another app? >> one of the things i keep thinking about is the way yahoo! rides that thin edge right? between services and content. i always thought they would lean hard into one side or the other and they have not done that. they continue to build out the content side and continue to pull in talent and try and create original stuff. that's important to do in order to pull people in to see those ads. >> we've got to go. do you have a house view on this, dave? >> not that i know of. >> lance, thank you on yahoo! this afternoon. shares were up today. we'll keep an eye on after hours. uber and lyft are making demands. demands that may change the ride

share models in a major way. we'll bring you that next. scott wapner has a news update. >> president obama urging countries to tackle islamist extremism around the world. he rejected as an ugly lie suggestions that the war was at islam and embroiled in a clash of civilizations. he made those comments at a white house conference countering extremism. the u.s. and iraqi military offensive in april or may involving 20 to 25,000 troops. this from reuters. former pollish president lech walesa says he believes global solidarity in economic sanctions against russia would force vladimir putin to change his aggressive policy in ukraine. coca-cola has increased its quarterly dividend by 8%. james robinson iii and peter uberoff have resigned from that

board. robinson has been a board member since 1975. coming up on "mad money" the ceo of perrigo. that is the cnbc news update after this hour. "closing bell" back after this break.

welcome back this could be

an uber problem for uber and lyft. >> the plaintiffs argue that they're employees in this suit. they're seeking reimbursement for gasoline and vehicle maintenance. if judges rule in their favor costs could increase significantly to include health insurance costs and more. dan in l.a. who asked us to withhold his last name. he says he's spending $80 a week on gasoline $30 a week on car washes and $30 a year on maintenance. his costs could near $5,000. >> really what i feel that i am is an employee given that uber controls everything i do from where i go how i look how i can talk to people. every job that i take i'm even forced to take even if i'll lose money on the contract otherwise i'm fired. in that way, too, i feel like an employee. i've been driving for uber long enough to see that it once was a really fantastic thing. now it's a vision of capitalism

gone awry where our salaries used to be significantly higher. not salaries earnings because over the last year they've cut the price of service by 70% all of which comes directly off the top of the driver's fares. so i now earn about 1/3 of what i used to earn six months ago. >> uber and lyft declined to comment. while the decisions could be limited to drivers in california, they plan to appeal that. she's seeking nationwide class action status which could be a game changer for other share economy startups. >> there's our downward wage pressure. stay there. what do you make of this snnchts he doesn't have to show up. it's not like he's an employee. if he wants to work 9 to 355, he can work that. they don't control whether he comes to work. >> that's what uber and lyft say we're connecting the drivers and the passengers. >> i use uber all the time. i said oh, yeah ever since

they dropped the price of uber to below a taxi, why would i ever take a taxi. i remember when they do that they i thought at first this was going to be terrible because the costs went down so much but volume went through the roof. >> that's always the argument as well. he says the driver that we interviewed that's so fired up he'll only drive during surge pricing because he'll make more money. >> there you go. it doesn't seem to me like this is going to be one of those sort of -- one of these companies that works where you basically have an employee structure. it's going to be independent contractors. i don't see why they would ever go -- >> the judges did though seem in the latest hearings which were several weeks ago seemed to be leaning towards agreeing with the drivers. >> in california i'm shocked. wow, you know? have you seen the price of eggs in california? they'll do things. they'll do so much regulation, so much intervention there, they'll drive uber out. >> in one of the biggest markets. >> if california sets a

precedent for everyone else in the country, then uber is in trouble. >> health insurance costs, complying with obamacare. they'll pay $2,000 per worker penalty. the costs go higher and higher and higher if the drivers win. >> that's a big if kate. thank you. >> kate rogers. we'll send it out to dominic chu here. >> we're watching a couple of big movers. noodles. they came out with earnings share reported of 13 cents. that misses the average analysts said of 14 cents per share. a miss there. revenues coming in just shy. $109 million. the expectation was for $110. what's really hammering the stock after hours is some of the commentary about q4 comparable sales. a 1.34% sale gain. also they see 2015 per share profit growth of 20%. analysts were on average looking for a 27% gain or growth in profits. their previous guidance was 20

to 25%. it comes on the low end of their prior guidance and well below analyst's expectations hence the move down. turn now to what's happening with marvel tech. that company is reporting earnings and sales. earnings of 25 cents a share beats by a penny but sales come at $857 million. 890 was the estimate. also, very weak q1 and -- revenue and earnings per share guide dance. marvel technology down about 5% in the after hours trade, kelly? back over to you guys. >> thank you very much. dominic chu back at headquarters. now 2014 was another splashy year for cedar fair. record results were up. the ceo will tell you what's driving success and he'll tell us whether he's concerned about the recent measles outbreaks. stay with us.

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welcome back. the measles scare and now a new bug. amusement park operator cedar fair continues to report a fifth consecutive year record results. we have the ceo of cedar fair. welcome, matthew. >> thank you kelly. >> what consumers are showing up to your theme parks? are they spending more? i noticed your top line didn't increase all that much but curious about what you're seeing out there. >> the record we saw was a

record fourth quarter. maybe 2015 will be our sixth record year. i think the consumers are feeling a little better about themselves over the past couple of years. that's evidenced in attendance and spending. >> are you getting the extra benefit from the drop in gasoline pricing? >> that's interesting. traditionally it hasn't affected us but i believe it has to be a positive. if it stays low we'll see a benefit in 2015. >> can i ask, matthew, as well there's obviously a lot of talk about walmart raising wages for its employees. it feels like there's more private sector upward pressure on the wage front. what are you doing about that? >> over the last few years we've taken all of our full-time employees up to $10.10 which is the federal target that i know the president is looking at. for our seasonal employees, they are still at minimum wage. a vast majority are college students who come to us for job skills and extra change in their pocket. >> matthew, this is eric. a question for you. attendance was down 1% but

spending was up. what do you make of that dichotomy dichotomy? >> i think it will always be in our industry particularly this balance between price and volume and i think we did a good job of balancing that out over the last couple of years. it varus by parks. some have good growth potential. our carowinds park is undersized. you'll see a lot of attendance growth there. some of our larger parks are closer to the threshold from an attendance standpoint and there we continue to push price. >> what ultimately drives growth for you? do you always have to have a bigger badder roller coaster? are you always constantly doing capital expenditures to get them to come back and do something different? >> bigger and badder does work. this is an industry where the vast majority of our guests come back. you do need a new invest am. we do it at a cadence every three or four years, probably a major investment in our bigger park.

our smaller parks get something new a little less frequently but certainly as impactful. >> what's a giga coaster? >> that's a big, bad coaster. a coaster over 300 feet in terms of its drop. this one drops 325 feet in our charlotte park and it goes for more than a mile. >> what's the latest newest technology in roller coasters? what was the biggest advancement most recently? was it being able to be suspended from above rather than sitting in a chair below or what? >> no. i think the biggest thing is always height and speed, and i think comfort. to a great degree we design coasters that feel good as you ride them. so they're very smooth. they're very fast. what that allows us to do is get more people who visit to actually ride the coaster. that's important that everybody have a great experience. i will tell you beyond the coaster market the introduction of digital entertainment into amusement parks is just starting to take off. we have a new attraction on the knots berry farm which is a

digital interactive screen voyage to the iron reef. you help us safe the park from the serpents below. >> what about weather? i mean we talk about weather a lot as it affects earnings. do you guys specifically hedge weather directly or do you just take your chance on what might happen? >> yeah we don't hedge it directly. we do try to encourage visitation, the vast majority of visitation during the peak summer months when the weather tends to be best but what we have an advantage of we have parks spread all across the country. a couple of them in southern california or southern california and northern california so it tends to balance itself out over the course of a season. >> i know another -- speaking of which, some of those california parks and others have had measles outbreaks. talk a little bit about the concerns you have as a ceo if people will be safe and if you've experienced any outbreaks? >> so we have a park five miles away from disneyland. as bob iger said recently, they didn't see an impact. we have seen no evidence of that at our knots berry farm park.

i hope for the sake of the public this will fade into the distance. >> you are to some extent taking your chances, no? >> i think everybody's taking their chances whenever they go to an event with public space. so i think it's an issue not for the amusement park industry i think it's an issue for the health care organizations in the country and hopefully this will be a lesson learned and we'll advance from there. >> matthew ouimet the ceo of cedar fair. appreciate it. >> appreciate it. thank you, kelly. what's heating up cnbc.com. we're bringing you the top stories. all day we've been celebrating tonight's 100th episode of "american greed" by looking back at some of america's greediest scoundrels. >> american greed 100, the greediest kons. qwame kill patrick. it cost the city millions and ultimately contributed to its

downfall. "american greed" 100th episode tonight at 10:00. i'm actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] woman: [laughs] no way! that really is you? if they're not a cfp pro you just don't know. cfp -- work with the highest standard.

walmart workers weren't the only somewhereinterested today.

alan has the breakdown oig. >> we had walmart stories today. beg news. but jeff cox's story that you were talking about a little earlier in the show that's turning out to be the big driver in our pack of stories. and i have two theories. one, it attractions the core readers because is this the tipping point for wage inflation, it might trigger fed action, get the economy rolling forward a little bit. also i think when you startinflation, you get the me too crowd. so a big crowd in on that one. walmart one of our big tickers today. again we had on "squawk on the street," we had this analyst from rbc capital markets saying he thinks apple could he said up getting as much as $200 billion back for shareholders. when you look at all the things

apple has gone apple watch, apple pay, tippediphone pay, it's not that big a number before and finally, a subject near and dear to our reader's hearts greece has been hitting it for us. we have a feature up right now looking at greek depositors have been taking a the lot of money out of the banks and putting stress on the banks. and it's also leading to a rise in burglaries. >> we have to talk about ports. if you're here we have this news out of oakland. what do you think about that? >> oakland is the fifth largest port on the coast. so it's sort of the medium player on there. and i actually used to be stationed right there at oakland covering it and i can see why they would close it down. they are the first forget very crowded. not a lot of room to work. the trick is whether the other big

big ports will follow suit. i was talking to transportation experts looking at who could win and there is a lot of debate. a lot of people are being look at the canadian railroads because ship lines converted up to canada. association of american railroads reported in the last four weeks, a 17% pop in freight traffic for the canadian railroads. >> do you think this will have any effect on earnings some will comes use this as an excuse? >> i think this will be the retail, the dog ate my homework excuse for the next earnings season. they will point to those typhoonie ups. all the experts i looked to said the big boys should have known back in june that this was probably going to be a problem and started redirecting shipments. >> the dog ate my shipment my homework excuse. alan, thank you. much more mentioned on cnbc.com p. if you not american politicians fight dirty, check out this

scene from the floor of the turkish parliament.

breaking news. dom chu has the details. >> sanofi has a new ceo, a physician by training. olivia most recently the chairman of the board of management at german drug giant bayer health care as well as bayer ag. so this is the german drug by giant. also a member of pfizer executive team. he will take up new duties effective april 22. so again, sanofi gets the new ceo, former pfizer executive as well as bayer ag executive. so he will take the reigns april 2, 2015. back to you. five turkish lawmakers

injured yesterday after members of parliament got into a brawl over a new security bill. chairs flew lawmakers trading punches. opposition legislators try to delay a debate. the bill would expand police rights to use firearms allow them to search people or vehicles without a court order and detain people for up to 8 hours without prosecutor authorization. wow. >> we should not be surprised. take a look at this website. parliament fights. we've seen turkey on the list. italy, corekorea, masscedoniamacedonia, jordan afghanistan, the list goes on and on. is this this is a standard way of doing business. >> might get more done. >> we have moved on. >> there are girls in there. >> sounds like a list of front

tear markets as well. >> there is a wrestler from minnesota or -- >> jess sit body ventura.>> there is a wrestler from minnesota or -- >> jess sit body ventura. >> i think this is just what we need to get the fiscal policy going. >> well, let's completely change topics before we have to end the program here because i do want you to talk a little bit about what we watch in markets now. michelle greece tomorrow? >> do they get a deal done by the end of the day. and if it's really ugly maybe capital controls over the weekend in yeesgreece. >> there is a bank holiday monday in greece. but euro meeting on the 25th is probably when everything gets done. and i remain hopeful that it doesn't get done. >> john deere earnings coming out. >> that's right. outpacing the cat. all right. thanks, everybody. "fast money" is coming up.

that does it for you. melissa melissa, what is on tap? >> would you eat a crab cake burger? >> absolutely. is that even a question? >> red robin gourmetburgers got a crab cake burger on the men you uhe inviting the pope to eat it and if the pope accept free crap cake burgers every friday in lent for everybody. thanks a lot before "fast money" starts right now. overlooking new york city's times square i'm melissa lee. our traders are john dan, brian and guy. tonight the nasdaq is posting its longest winning streak in nearly a year. and we have all the big tech stories covered for you. yahoo!'s mobile moments, company first ever mobile developer conference today. we have the details. and facebook rallying after one analyst said instragram is worth $33 billion. and instragram users could