2% losses in today's session. >> looks like another big show melissa. thank you. see you tomorrow and we'll see melissa tonight on "fast money." check out powerlunch.cnbc.com. "the closing bell" begins right now. and welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans and that's bill griffeth taking a picture with his blackberry. >> you can take wonderful photos with a blackberry. it has a terrific camera. >> it wasn't always that way. i use it all the time. >> love my blackberry. let's get to business for "closing bell" this day. stocks giving back some gains we saw as we entered the final hour of trading. the dow still positive just by a couple points. still trying -- any positive close we know will be a new all-time high. not so for the s&p right now. any positive close will be a new all-time high but it's down

about three points going lower here, and the nasdaq we're keeping an eye on that one. >> it's going to be all about the nasdaq this week. eerily similar to the exact same time of near 15 years ago the nasdaq closed at all-time highs. it's closing in on 5,000. it just turned negative on the session. we're off five points. 4,963 is the level. we're talking about 35 points away from crossing 5,000. we'll have lots of numbers coming up on this. obviously on an inflation adjusted basis you would have to of that index at 6,800 to have it equivalent you could argue. >> you have that number just right at your fingertips. >> we were just looking at it but a lot fewer companies as well. in the nasdaq this time around you have something like 2,500 companies versus 4,700 last time. janet yellen getting grilled by the house on the fed's independence.

>> they were pretty feisty. we'll get reaction from house financial services committee chair jeb hensarling coming up later today. they were really going after her. >> oh, yeah. >> on a few issues there. let's talk about the big picture in our "closing bell" exchange. with us a keith fitzgerald from money morning.com. jack bouroudjian from index financial partners. kenny polcari from o'neil securities with us. so is christine short from he is at this myself and look who is joining us mr. dennis gartman from the gartman letter. thank you for joining us. kenny p. day two, yes, some fireworks, more than you saw in the senate yesterday, but what do you make -- when all is said and done of janet yellen's tyme and its impact on our thoughts about the market. >> there hasn't been explosive volume, people are listening and watching and almost entertained by what's going on in washington. we're not seeing any real reaction.

there's no directional driver coming out of it forcing traders to go one way or the other. quite honestly i think we're hitting our heads on resistance at the moment. the path of least resistance feels a little lower. not that it's going to fall a little lower. it just feels like it's a little tired and it needs to churn and catch up. >> they're going to tease us on nasdaq 5,000, is that it? >> i think they are. >> keith, i'm trying to figure out what the market signal is for you? is it from money map to money morning? >> it's just a change of name. we're the same great group and doing the same type of analysis. >> what's that analysis telling you about this market? >> to the point of earlier guests, we are hitting resistance. the market is stretching its legs a little bit and taking a pause. i think yell sentence doing exactly what she should be doing and this is one of the few cases where i agree with her being feisty and taking a stand. so i like what she's doing here. meeting by meeting, look at the data. that's what we need to see. >> christine, if i remember the notes right, you're the one who

is saying we are in danger of being so overly obsessed with the fed we're going to forget about fundamentals like earnings and the important things that influence this market right now. i mean when have we never obsessed over the fed, right? >> no. absolutely. like you said, what the fed says really drives the markets but in the past couple years we've really seen less of an emphasis on earnings so a great earnings number will come out and it may or may not move the market as much as it once did. i think you saw a little more of that this earnings season. great earnings numbers that were unexpected caused a rise in stocks along the lines of a facebook or twitter, but today we've gotten some mixed retail results, and the good results really haven't been rewarded because we're more or less flat at this point, but i think it is because of that. the results were so mixed, and i'm not sure investors know what to make of the retail earnings we've seen out today. >> meanwhile, there's also questions still about oil, the direction that may be heading, what it means for consumers. are we forming a bottom here around 50 or no?

>> well i'll have to tell you, kelly, i'm a little surprised by its ability to hold well today. the term structure has been very bearish, but today we had a relatively bearish number that came out for inventories following on the api number last night, and the market took it very well. one of the oldest rules that traders learn is a market that won't go down on bearish news is not going down anymore. this was bearish news. crude oil didn't go down. you have to be impressed by that. we're starting to break some trend lines. i'm rather impressed. i'm surprised and impressed. >> you're also watching strength in coal so i mean i'd heard the strong dollar was going to keep these commodities depressed for a while, but, you know, how do you reconcile that when you have a strong dollar still? >> well i mean we've had a strong dollar we're going to continue to have a strong dollar. i think the world has to get used to that fact. you've beaten the crude oil market and the coal market down into submission but the strong dollar is having probably a greater impact on the grain market than anyplace else bill.

i think that's where we have to pay attention to what's going on. look at coal prices. coal stocks are down 90%, 95% from their highs and crude oil is down what 65% from its high? these are very, very cheap prices at this point. >> coal is extraordinarily inexpensive. >> last night hewlett-packard reporting earnings a big miss lowered guidance. a lot of that from the impact of the stronger dollar. what kind of impact on the market jently lygenerally should we anticipate moving through the market? >> is this to me? jo jack bouroudjian? >> as far as i'm concerned, i think the major corporations out there have been absolutely wonderful in hedging out that currency exposure. look we've had a series of companies come out. those that have warned ahead of time telling us their exposure to the world markets was not what they thought it was are those that did not hedge out their exposure properly. so we're starting to see those numbers come out but the reality is that -- and i wrote

this in my notes -- this is the yes market. this is the yellen energy stability market. a couple months ago i said that you don't get a hangover from drinking. you get a hangover when you're done drinking. janet yellen is telling us the party is still on. >> what's the stability, jack? i get the first two? >> the stability is what's happening around the world. don't only look at europe. people are so fixed on what is happening in greece, what is happening in the ukraine, they fail to see what's happening in india. they fail to see what's happening this china. we are starting to see some real progress, and something that goes back to what you were just asking dennis gartman, one of the reasons that we're starting to see some upward pressure in these commodities even with the strong dollar is because demand is picking up. that is the global growth story. and if that continues, watch out. we're going to -- >> what were you going to say, keith? >> i was going to say i'm totally with jack. there are a lot of things people have taken their eye off the ball because they're trying to concentrate on what's happening in the greek holiday, if you

will. and they're forgetting global growth is not going to stop. it may slow down but it's not going to stop. the other thing is the big guys are no longer growth companies, and i think that's symptomatic of what happened with hp microsoft, and intel this time. it's the smaller guys you want to look at for investment. >> you know christine, last few days folks have been coming through here saying, you know to temper or expectations for first quarter earnings because of that strong dollar. we haven't had any warnings coming out, but you can imagine that there will be companies like hp that will come out and have to confess or maybe use it as an excuse that that strong dollar is hurting their earnings. >> that's been the theme of this entire earnings season. about a fifth of s&p 500 companies that have reported up to this point have mentioned negative impact of the stronger dollar and many have guided forward to the first quarter and said that's going to continue happening throughout the first half of 2015. so i think that theme is going to continue into next year. you see large companies saying

this is unprecedented and it's going to impact retailers. we have elle brands out tonight and that operates in 60 countries. you will see walmart. it's the more domestically companies, home depot and lowe's blowing their numbers out of the water. they're domestically focused and they zrontdon't have to deal with currency headwinds. >> we'll have little more on home depot and what's happening there in a moment. first though our dominic chu joins us with a quick market flash. what's going on? >> aruba network shares are surging by 20% this on the heels of a bloomberg report that hewlett-packard is probably in talks to buy the computer network and enterprise network provider. again aruba networks surging by 22% on this particular report.

at focus says the report is the mobile -- at least enterprise infrastructure ewe situnit along the lines of what its wi-fi capabilities of and what it provides in terms of wi-fi infrastructure. hewlett-packard said to be in talks to acquire aruba networks. a deal announcement could come as soon as next week. that's a bloomberg report. hp just reported earnings and it's set to split into two separate companies later this year. an interesting development to watch. that's why the shares are on the move. back over to you. >> thanks, dom. it occurs to me this is one way to deflect people away from the lower guidance they gave. suddenly have word get out about a possible acquisition here. >> and it brings us back to this question about old tech as we look at the nasdaq generally moving towards the 5,000 mark. today it's a little under pressure. it's now down about nine points. kenny, curious for your thoughts and this hp possible deal news here. >> listen i think, first of all, that we're teasing with the

5,000 and like we said yesterday, i think once it breaks through, it's going to end up being a net net positive but to go back one quick second about your earnings about the guidance, we're just getting through with fourth quarter earnings. first quarter is going to start in april. i think you're going to see some of the adjustments coming in or warnings or guidances coming in mid-march as they prepare once again to come to the confessional with earnings in april. >> that was true to my point. we need to be mindful at the very least they're probably going to use the strong dollar as an excuse for whatever weakness they may show up with. >> and they're going to do that probably starting in march as we get closer to the next reporting season. >> yeah. >> let me ask -- >> don't forget that's also when we're going to start to see the effects of the lower oil, too. usually takes about six to eight months, so remember factor that in also. >> okay. and dennis to this point about stronger demand that was coming up a little bit, does that have you turning more bullish on commodity softs, hards, metals, industrials, et cetera, and

where does that leave gold? >> i think the point about india being stronger is very important. not enough people are paying attention to what's going on there. new change in government. mr. modi is going to change that country completely and i think we'll be surprised by how much demand comes from there. everybody wants to talk about the weakness in china. i just think that's wrong. china continues to be strong and i think we'll be surprised next year how strong demand for many commodities will be after the smoke clears. >> who agreed? >> i agree. >> me keith. >> so did jack. >> everybody does. >> china is totally underrated. everybody is very upset about exports, exports, exports, but people forget they import 97% to -- 99 cents on the dollar. it's all about the imports and domestic demant. it hasn't been an export-driven economy for a decade. >> all right. >> and it will be more and more consumers driven as we move through the next several years. that's what the government wants to do and that's what they will continue to do. >> trying to create that consumer driven economy. thank you all for joining us.

appreciate your thoughts on today's market action. >> that's our "closing bell" exchange exchange. we've seen markets turn negative. the dow is off a point. nasdaq is off seven and the s&p is off four. >> we had ten consecutive up days or was it nine? >> ten, i believe. we're trying to make it 11. now it will be a tougher climb. things looking for negative with 45 minutes to go. >> up next house financial services member french hill will give us his take on jeanette yell -- janet yellen's testimony. >> also coming up, american express raising rates on more than a million credit card customers. the hike following a rough couple weeks marred by an antitrust setback and the end of its partnership with costco. the proingss debate if now is a good time to own am ex shares when "the closing bell" continues.

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our next guest was front and center for fed chair janet yellen's testimony in congress today. he's keen on hearing what she had to say about community banks. >> that's right. joining us now in an exclusive interview, representative french hill a republican from arkansas and member of the house committee on financial services and founder and former ceo of a community bank. representative maxine waters let's begin here asked yellen about lessening the regulatory burden on community banks. take a quick listen. >> the chair and i have met on more than i think one occasion to talk about community banks and whether or not there was steps that could be taken that would ensure that the community banks are not overly burdened with regulations and to separate out the community banks from

regionals and big banks, and so it is not that mr. barney frank or i or others believe that there never, ever ever can be any modifications, any changes. we have always said that we are open to technical changes. >> so congressman, i guess the question is, is there some sort of quid pro quo negotiation going on for overall changes to dodd/frank? >> let me say this by saying that every member of congress democrat and republican has great community banks in their hometown. they're all hearing about the negative impact of dodd/frank on their ability to serve customers at competitive prices. >> specifically where, on capital requirements? are you guys -- when you were running the community bank did you feel it was an onerous requirement to maintain similar capital requirements that the big banks were having to do at the same time?

>> no. small banks across the country have significantly more capital than the largest banks. they've always had excellent capital ratios. it wasn't capital. it's the rules that make lending more difficult for credit-worthy borrowers. it raises the cost and curtails the sleuth availability of that credit. >> you know i keep mentioning that we've asked barney frank about that very issue, and he said, and i remember this distinctly, he said let me get this straight banks are reluctant to lend if they don't think they're going to get their money back? he said that's precisely the point of dodd/frank. what douse to you say to that? >> here is the reality. the qm rules combined with other regulations have made it difficult for small banks to offer a competitive mortgage product or a competitive consumer loan. a lot of banks are exiting that business. that's their bread and butter. that's what a community bank should be doing in the loan

portfolio and it's been made very difficult, not just dodd/frank, but 20 years of increasing regulatory burden on small locally owned financial institutions. >> representative were you satisfied with the testimony you heard from the chair this morning? it was pretty contentious in there. >> well chair yellen made a comment that i have complete agreement with. she says community banks face a substantial regulatory burden and it's far and away bigger for a small bank than it is for a large bank and that's i think what the ranking member is talking about, it's what all members are talking about. we are systematically putting out of business our small, locally owned, entrepreneurial geared community banks across this country reducing their franchise value, making them infective. as some have said too small too you can seed instead of too big to fail. >> right. and i can imagine the smaller banks are more inclined to want the fed to start raising rates sooner. i mean bigger banks have other areas they can make some money except on just the lending

portion, but if they start raising rates, that will help those smaller banks, won't it? when would you like to see the fed start raising rates? >> i will let the fed make the decision about when the right time is to raise rates, but you're right. small banks definitely are confronted with a net interest margin that has shrunk and they do not have a lot of the other fee areas to offset that spread. >> i wonder congressman, if you support the bill to audit the fed, a bill which would give congress some review powers over the monetary policy decisions. >> i think it's important to maintain the independence of the fed as it relates to monetary policy but it's also important that they are absolutely answerable to congress on their policies and regulatory policy that is they put forward because it's absolutely instrumental to whether we have a healthy economy or not if we have good prosperous banks of all sizes across this country. >> sure. this is an example though this testimony, of that inaction already though isn't it? are you satisfied with the

current level of scrutiny? there's a goa audit for example. or do you think we need to see additional measures? >> as a new member of congress, i'd like to hear some testimony on what those new measures might be and how forthcoming the fed might be to answer those questions. >> all right. >> before we let you go i mean it is clear there are many members of congress who are unhappy with the level of interest rates, monitor policy they think has been far too easy, far too long. are you in that camp? >> i believe that the fed should -- i like the idea of looking at a rules-based approach to monetary policy that takes into account employment inflation, economic growth outlook, and i believe that the fed has been plenty accommodative, and it's been probably accommodative a long enough period of time. >> all right. representative french hill thanks for joining us this afternoon. >> appreciate it sarir.

>> my pleasure. >> always good to get the perspective of somebody on the ground at the community banking level. where are people moving, the community banks, the credit unions. not that we haven't had a crisis there in the past. >> don't miss a double dose of fed action. we'll be hearing from st. louis fed bank president james bullard at 7:00 a.m. eastern and cleveland fed president loretta midwest mester will be on at 2:15. >> lots of fed speak coming up tomorrow. don't miss it. >> 35 minutes left in the trading session. the dow pretty flat here up three points. any positive close will be a new all-time high. same for the s&p, though it is down three points and the nasdaq -- oh they're teasing us. we've had ten up days in a row for the nasdaq. could we make it 11? we will find out. up next our weekly "beat the street" segment. we have a top wall street bond pro telling us how he's doing it. outperforming the market by 14 percentage points when we come back.

we are back with our weekly series "beat the street" and this week we're focusing on bonds. this is the eaton vance global macro absolute return global fund. it's up 6% in the last year. decent but when you consider it's benchmark, the barclay's u.s. aggregate bond is down over 8% that is great

outperformance. >> what are they doing right? eric stein is joining us now. welcome to the program, and what's made all the difference for you? what's your strategy? >> well thanks for having me. what our strategy is in our eaton vance -- it's a long name. we focus on country picking. we're looking around the world at frontier emerging and developed markets and looking to take long and short positions in bond and currency market approximates. >> does that mean you don't have an opinion on the direction of interest rates by nature? >> well no we do have an opinion on direction of interest rates. typically though we're trying to be relatively low beta to the broad direction of rates but we have views on interest rates in different countries. like right now we like interest rates in places like new zealand, poland and brazil. we don't like them as much in the u.s. and japan. but we try to run a roughly but not always perfectly balanced portfolio. >> what are the fees eric? because obviously this is an area of focus right now in washington as well.

>> yeah. you know the fund charges a 1% management fee and then there's other expenses such as transfer agent fees and distribution fees so probably running at close to 1.5% ratio. certainly more expensive than a typical mutual fund but when you compare it to hedge funds and private equity funds, we think it's a compelling value proposition for investors. >> with major central banks at odds with each other, we're going up europe asia going down, is that the best of both words for you to take advantage of those disparities? >> well look certainly in the world that we're in of central bank monetary policy divergence also a world we've seen a little increase in volatility over the past couple months that does provide us with what we think is better opportunities, but we're always looking for countries that are either improving their fundamentals where we can take long positions or in countries where fundamentals are going the other way where we can take short positions. >> that raises an interesting question, eric. a lot of people are in bond funds, not necessarily realizing they're shorting bonds.ith that as long as investors are

aware of the risks. obviously there are risks in being long here as well. why should somebody go with a fund like yours other than buying a bond and hanging onto it until maturity and dealing with the risks you're involved in? >> what we hear from our clients is that they're really concerned with the volatility in markets, so if you're just long a bunch of assets long equities long bonds, you're subject to the beta of the market. what we're trying to do in our global macro strategy is take a long and short approach. >> you said you didn't like the u.s. market. does that mean you think rates have bottomed here? i mean we're all mindful of the fact that people for years now have been calling for the end of the great bull market in the u.s. bond market here and it hasn't happened yet. is this finally the year do you think? >> i think it probably will be

particularly at the front end if we get the fed to raise rates. i think the fed, from what yellen said the past couple days, i think the fed wants to raise rates if they can. if they raise rates, i think you will see the front end of the curve sell off. the back end of the treasury curve is more correlated to global factors. in particular i'd rather be long rates in places like brazil and new zealand and short front end rates in the u.s. i think that's a good relative value trade. >> just a final question, eric getting back to the whole argument about whether it's the fed holding these long end rates low or other forces what's your sense? why is it that even as the data is improving and we're talking about the fed ultimately raising rates that the 10-year, the 30-year in this country and other places are effectively at record lows still? >> yeah. i think a lot of it is we're in a globalized bond market. german bund yeldsields, 32, 33 basis points. other yields switzerland are negative.

you have global yields so low in many other developed markets, particularly in europe, that acts as a drag to keep treasury yields down low. in addition, given all the risk that we've seen and the volatility we've seen joe geopolitically that keeps rates low. >> i wish we had more time. we don't even have enough time to mention the entire name of your fund. you're from eaton advance. >> egarax. >> thanks. i'm choking. >> you want me to do this? >> yes. >> have some water while i say much more to come on "the closing bell." american express hiking interest rates on more than a million credit card customers. find out if am ex is a stock you need to own coming up next. but first, here is courtney reagan with a cnbc business news update. courtney? >> that's right, bill. here is what's happening at this hour. three men accused of plotting to travel to syria to join the islamic state were arrested

today on terrorism charges. all three were residents of brooklyn. two of the three were citizens of usezbekistan. the second generation smart watch from pebble called pebble time raising a record $9 million in one day on kickstarter. those that presort get the watch at $160. it will be out in may at $200 for the rest of us. blackberry is working with google. the move builds on blackberry's recent partnership with samsung. and more than 40 vehicles crashed this morning on a snowy stretch of interstate 95 near bangor, maine, injuring at least 17 people. both northbound lanes on a 30-mile stretch of the highway were closed for five hours. that's the news update for this hour. "the closing bell" returns after this quick break. what does it mean to have an unlimited mileage warranty on a certified pre-owned mercedes-benz? what does it mean to drive as far

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you have to wear this thing? ♪ ♪ can it tell the flight attendant to please not wake me this time? ♪ ♪ the answer is yes, it can. so, the question your customers are really asking is can your business deliver? kind of a quiet day for the major averages. a bit of a pullback here as we head to the close. the dow is down just a point. the s&p down 4. either one of those if they finished higher would be in record territory, and it looks, kelly, like we're going to have to wait another day for nasdaq

5,000. >> hopefully two, we'll see, maybe friday would be the day we do it. our kate rogers is drilling down on today's big movers. hi, kate. >> kelly, that's right. check out these three oil companies, newfield exploration, cabot oil and gas and range resources. they're three of the top four gainers in the s&p 500 right now. energy also one of the only two s&p sectors positive on the day with both brent and wti crude jumping in trading. brent is above $60 and wti is above $50. and american express, one of today's top dow gainers, up 1.5% or so. the company says it's hiking its interest rate on some of its credit cards by an average of 2.5 percentage points in recent weeks. >> thanks very much. it said that because it did a survey recently and discovered it's competitors were charging more than it was. so they knew they could get away with that. by the way, it may be a top gainer today, but american express is the worst performing dow component so far this year.

even so noted investigate mario gobe lli told "the halftime report" he's still buying it. >> i like it more. if i liked it two weeks ago at $95, i have to like it at $78. >> do you add to your position? >> tiny. >> joining us right now in the bull corner, cnbc contributor michael yosh ka mi and david nelson from bell point asset management. welcome to you both. michael, first to you. why do you by am ex here? >> you buy am ex number one, because it's one of the few companies out there that actually has top line revenue growth. the costco situation will be overcome in time. they're raising rates on a million people but let's put it in another way. they're raising rates on only 2% of their total population -- total cardholder members. so it's not like this was a huge systemic issue, and when

consumption increases in the united states as the economy recovers american express will recover. it's like what aaron rodgers said. relax, relax. >> fair enough. >> i was thinking aaron rodgers has said a lot of things recently. that's not one thing that came to mind. david nelson you think am ex is broken here. >> i think the business model is broken, and investors are telling you they're dumping the shares. it is up today. i think it's just noise. the costco loss was a big deal. right after that jetblue made the same move. i think, you know, one of two things is going to happen in the very near term. first, spending volumes will go down at american express and/or they're going to have to start to lower their transition fees. their transaction fees are quite high, around 2.5%. that's well above -- almost a percent higher than a lot of

competitors. when was the last time you went to a dry cleaner -- i go in all the time and they will say we won't except an american express card simply because it cuts into our bottom line. the model is broken. >> michael? >> that's always been the case. they have always been more of a premium product, and if you look at their demographics that's the case. let me ask you this question. i can understand the concerns. american express certainly has been a poor performing stock over the last 12 months but i think mario go belly is right. if it's a poor performing stock, that's generally the kind of stock as long as the model is not broken -- >> that's the issue, the model is broken. if the model is -- >> they're saying no mas. >> then why is their revenue going up? >> very slightly. earnings will grow maybe 3% this year and 3% the following year. if you look at estimate revisions right now -- >> how is that broke snn. >> -- falling off a cliff. they're falling off a cliff. they're headed straight down. the model is broken and the fact they're raising fees they're

telling you they have to do something to shore up cash flow and boost the earnings. >> michael, what do you think will be the revenue drivers going fordward for the company? >> consumption. >> but consumption covers everyone michael. it covers everyone and there's a lot of choices out there. >> exactly. yeah, there is a lot of choices but there's been a lot of choices with visa master cord. we're owners of mastercard. we love that stock. there's been lots of chourss out there for a long time. people have been saying this about american express for years. i think they're certainly going to run into headwinds as people are more frugal but to say the model is broken when you have a rising top line company. all we ever hear from analysts and research folks is we got to start having more top line growth. american express' top line growth is growing. >> you could say the same about a lot of other companies. at 15 times forward earnings, it's hardly cheap. there's a lot of better places in the financial sector you could look. ultimately, you may prove to be correct. i think you're two years too

early. >> david, now ex si ten -- the fact the fees are coming home to roost with a lot of point of sale contacts -- >> i think it's critical at 2.5%. if they have to cut back to 1.8%, think of what that will do to the top line michael likes so much. it will devastate it. this is a high quality company, and they'll survive this but even bondholders got it. when costco was announced credit default swaps started to widen. it's not a big issue for high quality paper like american express but they're telling you the business model is not as good as the bulls would like to you believe. >> michael, what about that, when they lost the co-branding with costco with jetblue, this is a very cost conscious economy we're in still. so do they have a problem in that regard? >> well yeah american express, as i said has always been a premium product, and i think it

was certainly a major hit to them for costco and jetblue to decide to go a different direction. i don't think there's any dispute about that. my question is as was just said you know maybe my position will be right in two years. i mean at this point where the stock is at now, it makes sense to me to be accumulating the stock that you think maybe not six months maybe not 12 months -- >> but, michael, that -- >> i think that's going to be an opportunity. it's all about a time horizon strategy. >> last word david? >> i would say that 15 multiple could easily go to 12 and certainly buying things on the cheap is always attractive. i looked at it. when the koptioncostco news hit, i was all over it. i have to check this out. but the more i dug into it, the worse it got. i think you need a catalyst and i just think you're a bit early. >> we'll leave it here. meanwhile mario gobelli continues to buy tiny. >> michael and david, appreciate

having you both on. >> and we have tiny movements in the major averages right now. you see what i did there? the dow is up 2 points at this hour, so we could get an all-time high there. the s&p still down 3-plus, and the nasdaq is down 8 points. >> all right. still to come house financial services committee chairman jeb hensarling is speaking with us exclusively. we'll get his reaction to fed chair yellen's testimony. also his warning that housing policy could lead us into yet another financial crisis.

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there may be some concern about the spring home buying sales season. there's no doubt that we are seeing a remodeling boom though right now. >> this is interesting. there's no better proof than skyrocketing shares lately of home depot and lowe's significantly outperforming the broader market. diana olick joins us with the details. >> home prices are rising faster again, and that's a road block to home buyers. but for homeowners rising prices make them more confident about the value of their homes and in turn more willing to invest in them again. especially if they can't afford to move. while full recovery in

residential construction is many years ago, the home improvement industry could post record level spending in 2015 according to harvard's joint center for housing. there you go. home depot and lowe's. remodeling building permits are up 6% in january month to month. that from whether facts. why? first, people who didn't move because of the housing bust are now improving their current homes, maybe even preparing them to sell. we're also seeing people do maintenance now that they deferred during the penny pinching recession. then there are also new federal and state simtimulus programs for energy efficient upgrades and finally the surge in rental demand has investors reinvesting in their assets to attract new and better tenants. discretionary products that make your house prettier and more fun are rising as well. also renters, believe it or not, who may be renting for longer periods of time are doing little upgrades that their landlords will now allow. guys? >> when a blockbuster closed in

our neighborhood what do you think they replaced it with? >> a rent a center. >> a paint store, painting. yes, a lot of renovation going on. >> it's one thing you are can't do with an app. paint an apartment. >> unfortunately you can't. >> i'm sure soon you will be. >> thank you, diana. change the wall color. i'm sure you can -- >> live virtually in your home. >> virtual wallpaper. >> i like that. art cashin is signaling $200 million to buy. that's the imbalance to the upside so we'll see if that has an impact as we head toward the close. the dow is up about seven points putting us in record territory. the s&p still in negative territory down two points. >> with 12 minutes to go with stocks on the dow looking to close at new highs, keep it right here. we'll get you the action in the final minutes of trade when we're back in two. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ ♪

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through it all, we saved and had a retirement plan. and someone who listened and helped us along the way. because we always knew that someday the future would be the present. every someday needs a plan. talk with us about your retirement today. so we mentioned art cashin saying about $200 million to buy, the imbalance, a small one but enough to keep the dow in record territory with 8:30 left. the s&p is still down 2. nasdaq, you never know. it's starting to come back a little bit. we could get an 11th consecutive up day for that. joining me now, peter andersen

who joins us on the floor of the exchange finally today, and larry mcdonald from socgen and you like bonds now. we were having a conversation about how many years people have been talking about the demise of the bull market in the bond market in the u.s. and you're here saying you want to buy bonds. >> we made a call last week and this week on cnbc earlier in the week in the sense that all i try to do and we do as a team at socgen is measure from time to time the street gets off side. over the last month you have had decent numbers. the street got totally joufside. the 10-year has gone from 2.16% down to 1.96% today. i like treasuries short term but what i'm really looking at is today a big drop in interest rate volatility and foreign exchange volatility. that tells you there's problem with the dollar short term. >> does this market want the fed to raise rates? after all is said and done with

what janet yellen said the last couple days do they want them to raise rates or not here? >> that's the most important question. i do think that finally we want rates to be raised. this waiting for so long has really been tiresome and i think it's now come down to mincing words. you listen to the testimony yesterday, right, and we are getting so focused on every single word the fed chair says that i think to a greater extent if there was just some action, it would set us in the right direction. offsetting that is inflation is so low now it's frustrating. i think we have to stay in a holding period. i think the fact she's giving so much guidance. how much handholding can we take? how she's telling us she will leave the certain word and the phrases -- >> patience eppsmay come out but it doesn't mean i'm raising rates. >> it makes a complicated algorithm. and the most important part of that is it can be misunderstood

by simpletons like myself. >> a lot of us simpletons out there. your favorite investment right now. >> $2 trillion in europe that's in bonds. that's a negative race. investment grade bonds here in the united states, treasuries there's a thirst for yield that's going to come this way. $2 trillion in europe at negative rates. >> that's a reason to want to buy bonds over here. >> a reason to buy treasuries. >> where are you making money? >> u.s. equities. supercomputers like nvidia makes the chips, palo alto networks does the computer security things like that are timeless. whether or not the fed raises rates, whatever is going on in europe, they still need to protect what we're saying even today, and so data encryption, things like that are going to be in great demand no matter what happens in the next year. >> very good. peter, larry, good to see you both. thank you for joining us. heading toward the close. we'll have "the closing

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janet yellen started speaking again, coincidence or not, it was moving higher here up for a portion of the day, and looks like we're going to finish higher. that would give us another record for the industrial average. not though for the s&p. we're still down 1.5 points and the nasdaq pulling back a little bit. we may not get our 11th consecutive up day for the nasdaq as we approach 5,000. oil, we watch it like a hawk and it finished above $50 today. wti crude, nymex, up 3% today. now at $50.75 per barrel. earnings tonight, this should be interesting, a couple stocks we follow. l brands sales force.com is usually an interesting report but transocean has just been decimated by the lower oil prices. it had to cut its dividend. lost its ceo. now it's going to be reporting earnings tonight. >> the only hope is along with diamond offshore the other day which basically lowered their capital expenditures even more

is whether or not they'll surprise on the capital expenditure side. i tend to think a lot of bad news is already in the stocks but we thought with that diamond offshore and it dropped rather noticeably. i loved today. it's a little sideways consolidation, about even on the advance advance/decline line. that's good. a lot of indices are way above the 50-day moving average. that means you tend to come back to the mean. i thought it was great news the bonds were below 2%. it great performance by janet yellen. it was a performance. most people think june is a little less likely for a rate hike. bonds love that and i love that chart you put up of oil at $50. remember all those people that were talking about oil at $20 or $30. there was a lot of shorts out there, and i think this may be a factor when they're starting to realize it's highly unlikely we're going to see $30 oil at this point. >> so we're at a point now where higher oil is good for stocks. >> i think -- >> often it can go the other way. >> now that we've built a real base around $50. ba the low was around $45, the high

was around $55. we're right in the middle and the market is perfectly comfortable staying there for the next few weeks. >> we're going out and we have a record for the dour not for the s&p, and we pull back on the nasdaq. stay tuned. those important earnings reports and the chairman of the financial services committee in the house jeb hensarling is joining kelly evans on the second hour of "the closing bell." i'll see you tomorrow. thank you, bill. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i'm kelly evans, and there we go, another record for the dow jones industrial average. we thought today or any day now might be the day the nasdaq joined the party but not so much. still 100 points to go for the nasdaq to notch a new nominal high but the dow doing it with a gain of 14 to 18,223. the s&p slightly lower at 2,113 and the nasdaq sitting at 4,967. it's breaking a ten-day win streak by about less than 1 point. let's bring in today's panel to

talk about it. we have some earnings coming up. zachary karabell is on the set. welcome. along with michelle caruso-cabrera. welcome to you. and nathan bachrach in town from simply money. we're joined by gordon from rosenblat securities fresh off the floor. gordon, they say don't short a dull market. feels a little dull today, but you got to say these numbers, this continued rally is pretty impressive. >> it was a fabulous day in the market because nothing happened. if ever there was going to be a day you were going to take profits, if ever there was a day you would put some money on the side and say thank you very much, the stock market gods have been good to me we're at highs, we're going to have a correction, we have all kinds of indicators it can't go on forever, and today we saw none of it. it was actually calm all around the world. i think this is fabulous for stability. >> zachary, it wasn't calm in that testimony, that hearing that janet yellen was giving before congress, certainly not today. very contentious at times. >> yeah. you have the elizabeth warren

kind of back and forth about the auditing. i mean i don't think this was the most dramatic testimony except for the fact that it did support those who have been saying, look the fact there are a few hawks on the fed who say that they really want to raise rates because that's what the theory would suggest, that doesn't mean that that's where yellen and the rest of the committee is going to go in june because, look, there's no evidence of inflation, the job market statistically is tight but we know there's also issues about what that statistically tightness is. i think her testimony really suggests what a lot of other people have been saying which is there simply may not be in this current world a rate raising trigger that she's going to support. >> it's interesting, michelle a week ago today we would have been talking about -- i think i raised this -- the i'llihood isi group is talking about capital controls in greece and concern about what would happen into the weekend. and now it's totally off the radar screen. >> they came to a last-minute agreement about an agreement in principle mostly about words. now they really -- greece really has to do something, but i would

tell you, kelly, that greece is still in an incredibly difficult fiscal position. they are on the verge of a cash crisis, and there are reports coming out of germany that there's already preparation for a potential third bailout because they're going to need more money. for our purposes, you're right, it's off the radar. the world is completely relaxed about the situation in greece. >> and here is the interesting thing, it makes me wonder if the new government chose the wrong moment to try to use the markets to gamble for better terms because it seems like a couple years on people have figured out how to get around it. >> because of the ecb going in and buying quantitative easing we know that the ecb will buy italian bonds. behind closed doors, hedge fund managers would say what if they don't give in to you and greece would say, my leverage is italy. if they let us go italy's interest rates will rise. how are italy's interest rates going to rise when italian mario draghi is buying their bonds? >> it's also the third or fourth

debt market in the world, nathan. >> i'm sorry? >> italy. >> in terms of bonds, if they go down it's a disaster they take everybody with us. they're a ball and chain. we go right to the bottom of the ocean. one thing that's getting ignored right now, bob pisani was talking about it, we have oil at $50 a barrel. wonderful. we just added another 7 or $8al 8 million barrels. when we get around 55 every commodity trader will get nervous. at 70 we have run out of space and you don't get $50 a barrel when it gets there. this is what's being ignored here along with happy days are here again in europe. >> we were talking about this before. we will have another round of this in three or four months with greece. >> back to greece? >> yes, back to greece. all they did was say, okay, four months from now we will i don't know, renegotiate what we've just not renegotiated. >> how many times have they done that? >> look, laeset's not cast

aspersions endless short term extensions of our debt ceiling. governments around the world like to do this short term we can't decide now, we don't want to provoke a crisis. i think that's a risk factor. it's not a high probability risk factor but it's a real one. particularly with european stocks up. the euro fund is up 10% versus the s&p up 2.5%. i'm just -- i think something to be really cautious of. >> gordon is joining us off the floor. bill was talking about tiny this tiny that last hour but t.i.n.a. has been the akcronym people have been throwing around. there is no alternative to u.s. equities. that's not the world we're living in anymore, is it? >> listen right now it's all about the 10-year and what we heard from capitol hill. the fellows have been -- the traders i have been talking to have said look any excuse you were looking to get out, any reason you were looking for to

make a move out of equities to lighten the load to change your risk profile, not there right now, take it off the board. you can see this because it almost feels from a trading stand pointed that this level right now has basically become a floor and they are looking to take them higher. so they've taken the whole correction thing short term out of play for the moment but, you know, when the volatility comes back, you know it's going to be harsh. at this point we don't see it. >> nathan, what are you guys buying? >> i see value in europe. sometime in march -- >> despite everything that was just said. >> absolutely. as soon as they start actually doing some aggressive bond buying and you see more money going into europe we all know what qe did in the united states. we've seen the movie, we got the videotape, we readed the book, we got the t-shirt. we will see the same thing play out. i don't know that it will help the man on the street in europe as much but it will help their stock market. >> do you think then that u.s. equities are overvalued?

>> i think they're doing fine. i think they're going to have a decent year. i think at this point you can't expect large cap stocks to continue to carry the day year after year after year. >> if you're buying european stock what are you doing about their euro exposure? you can see european stocks go up but because you're a dollar based investor you could lose. >> hdeg. i get a hedged european position and then we can play -- they can play around with the euro all they want. >> smart move? >> it's been a smart move if you were in europe on january 1. >> i can say that. >> there you go. >> congratulations. >> ding, ding ding. >> i couldn't say anything last year. >> i don't think this is an either/or. there's clearly opportunities in that market. it's been deeply deeply oversold for years relatively. the financial system is stable. again, i think there are definitely opportunities there, but, you know, with some caution. >> hold that thought for a second because sales force.com is out with quarterly results

and josh lipton has the numbers. hi josh. >> kelly, sales force just reporting here. 14 cents on $1.44 billion. the street was looking for 14 cents on $1.44 billion so smack in line there. just looking through the release, kelly. deferred revenue, $3.32 billion. that's up 32% year-over-year. sales force also giving some guidance here. q1 eps 13 of 14 cents on $1.49 billion to $1.51 billion. analysts had be looking for 15 cents on $1.5 billion. this conference call, kelly, starts at 5:00 p.m. eastern. we'll be on that call and bring you headlines as they cross. >> all right. josh, thank you. for now salesforce shares up 4.5% on that report. turning as well back to the panel here talking about the role that salesforce, some of the big tech names have played in the nasdaq rally as we eye the 5,000 mark again. how significant is it to see, for example, you know, an amazon

at the top of the pack. just year-to-date in terms of the point contribution. the fact that there are fewer companies in this index now altogether. 2,500 only and the nasdaq then compared to 4,700 at the turn of the decade. it's a very different index again, just curious for your thoughts. >> one thing i try to remind people of, every time you talk about a bubble emerging and you go the nasdaq is still below its march of 2000 peak almost 15 years to the day from this discussion, i find it very hard to think about something that has taken 15 years to get back to its last peak in bubblicious terms. that could be wrong. everything can collapse at any moment -- >> look what happened in 2000. a great phrase for 1999-2000. got the kids off the street. any company that didn't have earnings, see you later. now when we look at it, these companies -- you look at apple 14 times earnings -- >> real profitable -- >> bottom line maybe who lives through that bubble and sees who supposedly -- not even close.

i mean pet stock would come out with a new ad and the stock would rally. it was insanity. >> that great debate line, you're no john kennedy. this one for our generation would be i know bubbles, and this ain't no bubble. >> gordon charlott do you agree with that? >> there have been a lot of things you have been talking about. one is the europe paradigm. that's a murky line at best in terms of what is american and what is europe. as far as tech stocks yeah they've been handled well. more importantly the stocks have been very aggressive in cherms of reacting to earnings to the upside and the downside. you saw stocks down here guidance was lower and then the stock got hit hard very hard. the momentum of traders are out there. they see something they like they're aggressive. if there's something that disappoints, they attack them. and that is sort of the nature of a market that's going to be at this level.

so interesting times, important times to really factor in a lot of the different things that the panel has been discussing today. >> zach last word? >> some of these are truly volatile in a way you're not going to get from like a general electric. amazon, which has been a huge debate on this panel for months, it was at 400, then at 280, then at 380 and that's in the space of four months. you're not going to get that kind of movement. there's a degree of volatility in tech land that is just not true in utility land but that's a very different statement than this is not being undergirded by some sort of revenue in earnings. >> it was march 10th of 2000 the nasdaq closed at 5048.62. that's a level we're 100 points away from as we eye that exact date 15 years later. gordon thank you for joining us. stocks may have hit new highs but ceos are selling shares like there's no tomorrow. the last time that happened the s&p 500 dropped 9%. should you follow their lead and get out of the market? that's next. and janet yellen says she's not seeking changes to the dodd/frank financial reform law,

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well ceos are cashing out. a new article over on cnbc pro detailing a possible shift in market confidence because even though the market continues to hit records, many executives are selling shares engaging in the insider trading we follow. let's bring in david sour bby. the question to you is how contrarian a signal this is. >> i think out of the many variables that maybe keep me up at night at the stock market and what i watched as a portfolio manager to pick good companies, insider selling, i'm not sure if that's in the top 50 or even the top 100 or the critical variables that help me pick stocks or watch the market. i watch insider buying. i think that's a good gauge, but not insider selling. >> it's interesting because i was going to correct myself. i said contrarian. we're not talking about a contrarian indicator. we're saying if ceos are selling, should you be too?

>> i don't think so. >> you're saying we should be selling when ceos are buying? >> no. i'm buying when ceos are buying at trough valuations but to watch insider selling, no i don't think even the rise in insider selling gives me any apprehension on the market or even some of the stocks i own in my portfolios where it could be names like google, oracle, cvs, liberty interactive, moore, where there's greater number of insider selling than buying. apple is a good company as well. that would have never given you a good gauge at either selling the stock or selling the entire market. >> and, david, do we know how much of this and it always gets attention, but how much of it is programatic? meaning it's preprogrammed selling at "x" date as opposed to having anything to do with the actual price of the stock? >> no, we don't, and usually what it is when you have a chance to sit across from management teams to talk about how they're managing the company

and the topic of insider selling comes up, it's usually -- it's what any of us would do. i'm going to get a second home, i'm going to pay for overly priced kids' college education. that's more likely the catalyst for insider selling than anything to do with a peak valuation in the underlying security or stock price. >> but, david, isn't this more an issue of if you have the individual security that if all of a sudden the ceo starts bailing out of the shares you go maybe this is telling me something i couldn't get from the financials? >> no i don't think so. my red flags would be this when i see bad corporate behavior would be fast growing company overspending on capital expenditures, first. second, value destroying acquisition. third, cfo resigns unexpectedly. inventories going too high. those are all i think in the spirit of poor stewards of capital or capital discipline. those would all be red flags to

me. simply put, not insider selling. >> david, is there a way to know whether the kind of selling we're talking about isn't triggered by personal developments? in fact, if it starts to clump together, starts to be similar industry or what have you, that it does point towards executives looking at their shares and saying you know what? maybe now is the time not necessarily because i don't have confidence in the company but because i want to move capital out of this and into something else that might have better value long term? >> the best answer is perhaps but if you look quantitatively over the longer term and we've paid a lot of attention on the asset management side to insider selling, to my knowledge, kelly, it's never been a good gauge for either the markets getting expensive or the securities getting expensive versus some of the other krit km factors that i mentioned such as cfo resigns. >> i get it on the individual securities because when you start to look at insider selling, to zach's point they

mostly do it in a program style so that way they can always say i just do it on a program and that way nobody can ever criticize their timing but when you see markets at new highs and insider selling across the board at a new high that doesn't say to you wow, collectively maybe the folks out there who know something might be getting nervous about their share prices? >> probably not because we saw the same story when the dow was at 14,000 and insider selling the ratio of insider selling to buying was getting to the red flags, and yet here we are talking about a new high in the dow significantly higher. >> to follow up on michelle's point, when you see erratic trading by a ceo and the data is showing often that ceo has a 10% return after they make those kind of sales wouldn't that say to you, forget the program trading by ceos for a minute, i want to look at the opportunistic sales that are being made by a ceo?

>> you can probably -- i mean you can probably find the isolated case where a ceo is selling where they think maybe their security is getting undervalued, but -- >> i don't think it's so isolated on the traders. >> i don't think so. i think the long-term stewards of capital who are great ceos who generated shareholder value, any insider selling on that point is more just an i need capital for whatever need. it's not a sign that my security is getting overvalued because there's still a positive return on equity generator. >> great to talk it out. >> i stand by that belief. >> thank you for that believe. david sowerby and there's more on cnbc pro. coming up fed chair janet yellen under fire during her testimony before congress today. >> you're sticking your nose in places that you have no business to be. you have no business in the long-term labor markets. >> so is she overstepping her bounds by stepping into the debate on income inequality.

house financial services committee chair jeb hensarling is here to weigh in exclusively in a few minutes. plus uber inking its first ever travel partnership with hotel giant starwood. what could that mean for its $40 billion valuation? we're going to ask coming up on "the closing bell." stay tuned.

welcome back. we started with our josh lipton who is back and has more on salesforce.com's quarter. hi, josh. >> kelly, we're watching salesforce here because check out that stock in the afterhours. it is ripping higher.

just on the phone with some analysts who cover that stock, including analysts from fbr. what their pointing out is listen, it met here on the bottom and the top, but when you look through the release kelly, deferred revenue, $3.32 billion, that was better than expected. bookings, $2.54 billion. that was better than expected. bookings an indicator of future growth so showing momentum there. remember, this call beginning in just about 40 minutes, we're going to be on it looking for more color and insight from executives at that time. kelly, back to you. >> thank you, josh. now those shares up 8.5% and don't miss salesforce ceo marc benioff coming up on "mad money." ukraine's economy is in shambles after a year of political turmoil. the international monetary fund has promised a $40 billion bailout package, but earlier today cnbc's steve sedgwick asked ukraine's finance minister whether that will be enough. >> i don't think people are taking seriously enough the

depth of the problem so this package of $40 billion is enough i believe to stabilize the situation but if we're going to return to growth if we're going to rebuild when we regain our access to our territory, we are going to need something much greater and much more support. >> let's talk about it now with the panel. looking at the impact obviously, michelle, starting with you. local to ukraine, the currency we know has been under so much pressure. >> hammered. >> reverberations throughout the region and yet it has not been moving the needle on the market generally speaking. >> no and this is very similar to greece. horrific problems even far more horrific problems on the ground in ukraine. they need this massive bailout. she's talking about $40 billion -- >> which is interesting because greece needs $282 billion. >> that's what they've already gotten. they might need another $20 billion but we can talk about that in a month or two. ukraine is incredibly sad. they've lost a huge percentage of their territory and so therefore, when you lose a big chunk of your territory, you lose a big chunk of your gdp.

they've had issues about whether or not they're going to get this bailout because the imf says what are we lending to? two-thirds of a country, to a whole country? how long does this war go on for? they need clarity about when they might get paid back. >> and ukraine is a story about russia. >> and a story about natural gas and a story a little bit like greece where there's been massive amounts of corruption. you have had multiple dysfunctional governments soup coups. it's not like this has been a well-run fiscal country and suddenly russia invaded and things got bad. >> if greece had a militia that was supported by a neighbor inside their country, we would say wee wouldn't give them a penny because there's no way we can sort everything out there. to a certain extent when you have a finance minister saying when i get some territory back -- oh really? this isn't a monopoly board game and i'm trying to get park place. we're talking about chunks of territory and the gdp that michelle is talking about. >> to zach's point even before all this the place was a disaster.

i mean they had so many failed imf programs. russians complained that the ukrainians are corrupt. that's the kind of situation that you have on the ground. they need so much change internally. >> and the only wrinkle is there's a national security aspect to this both for the european union and for the united states which is it is at least perceived to be in our collective interest that the ukrainian government is sovereign and stable relative to russia. so that's an entirely different calculus than the imf calculus. >> and russia says it's a national security issue as well for them. why shouldn't we have nato right on our border? no way. >> how do you think the drop in gasoline prices has affected all of this? i remember talking to a person six or nine months ago as this was breaking out who said look ultimately this is going to mean russia has to come to the table for a deal, that they have to soften their chanceer stance. have we seen that at all? >> not yet. putin is incredibly wealthy and the general consensus on the people is they are willing to tolerate an incredible level of

suffering. i'm not so sure that's true but right now he's still very popular and so even as they suffer economically, he doesn't feel it, and so far it does not change his calculus. >> you better have an adviser this year who has a degree in political science because you can throw economics out the wi7ndow because the unintended consequences of low energy across the -- whether you take the middle east, you take europe, you can take any place that michelle has already got punched on her passport and i will tell you when you take a look at the loss of revenue, it's going to play out politically and economically in ways we never dreamed. >> and yet, zachary, it's almost as if people are putting their head in the sand and saying just buy u.s. stobs, buy good companies with good fundamentals and you don't have to worry about that and to some extent it has been borne out and it leaves ukraine and greece in a weaker bargaining position. >> the world has never been free of hot points and trouble spots and these are the ones we have today, but look at what we are talking about relative to 190 countries, relative to a global gdp of $60 trillion or $70

trillion. if we were talking about the untenability of the chinese government, that's a very different conversation than whether or not ukraine is stable and sovereign or greece. greece is 11 million people and a $400 billion gdp. it's like alibaba plus two iphones. >> that finance minister sound american? she was born here. >> was she? >> exactly. i have heard a lot about her. she's considered extraordinary. >> another story in that as well. >> you can tell she's a his tompistol. >> we have an update with courtney reagan. >> kelly, we just have our news update to bring you at this hour. secretary of state john kerry testifying before the house foreign affairs committee criticizing israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's comments on the threat from iran. he told lawmakers netanyahu, quote, may have a judgment that just might not be correct here. "the wall street journal" reports regulators are considering lifting the decades old restriction on flights longer than 1500 miles from new york's laguardia airport. the move would trigger a

scramble by airlines to launch lucrative long haul flights to california and the west. microsoft founder bill gates in canada today meeting with government officials, this to discuss canadian philanthropy and canada's commitment and leadership in that area. hall of fame golfer jack nicklaus is dough voting his time to ice cream. he's teaming up to create jack nicklaus premium ice cream offered in select markets and come in seven flavors. hopefully it helps you shoot that ball straight too. that's the cnbc news update for this hour. "the closing bell" returns after this quick break. ? i sure hope so. with healthcare costs, who knows. umm... everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor.... can get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today.

welcome back. time to check in on some of the stories heeding up the website. allen wastler joins me with "the hot list." >> apple is doing it for us again today. instead of people going, wow, it's doing so great, we had an analyst on earlier whose long-term bearish on apple. the stock is trading around $132. he said it's going to end up around $115. it's collin gillis of bgc partners. his theory is the smartphone market will cool off and start to level out and because apple gets so much of its revenue from the iphone that's going to have

a knock on effect on apple. so that's one thing. now, another thing, this is totally different, but the journal of clinical psychology came out with a study saying that the cost of depression on the economy is more than $210 billion and that it's gotten markedly worse since 2008 when the financial crisis hit. and this is translated into lost productivity days suicide costs. pretty disturbing story. a lot of readers are reading that one. finally, we have a wonderful story on the nicaragua canal. this is the new canal a chinese consortium is trying to build to compete with the panama canal. one, it could be like a quarter million jobs for people in nicaragua. on the other hand, it disturbs the environment. they're taking land away from farmers to do it and a lot of people wonder if there's really that much demand for it anyhow. we saw a demand through the

panama canal increase and people say that's a temporary thing. those are the three burning it up. >> there's plenty to read about on the website. allen wastler at headquarters. does house financial services chair think yellen and the fed are too close to the white house? he'll join us next. and the next time you ride with uber, could you earn a free hotel stay. what a new deal with starwood hotel could mean for uber's already huge valuation. we're back in two. ok, if you're up there, i could use some help. smart sarah.

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fed chair janet yellen under fire today in her second day testifying on capitol hill. our very own steve liesman calling it an ugly day. saying he's never laerdheard the fed chair being accused of bias like he's heard today. here is one clip. >> we meet with a wide range of groups. i think it is a complete mischaracterization of our meeting schedules and my meetings are entirely public. my schedule is completely in the public domain. >> well that's where i'm actually taking this from. this was just handed to me. >> i think if you have -- >> it's good this much of it is in public domain because all we're trying to do is make a little more in the public domain. >> these are private one-on-one meetings and i don't think it's appropriate. if i had breakfast with you, i would not make a transcript of what we discussed over breakfast. >> here now with his take on

that and much more chairman of the house financial services committee, republican congressman jeb hensarling of texas. congressman, it is great to have you with us. welcome. and what's your reaction to the testimony you heard from janet yellen this morning? >> well i was disappointed because what we have seen now is that middle income families are still struggling in the slowest, weakest recovery in the post-war era, and yet it seems that we will continue on on extraordinary measures that were employed back in 2008 and here we are in 2015 and yet they are not more transparent. they are not more accountable. and the real issue is economists i know believe that we are best served when the federal reserve will communicate to the public what their monitor policy will be, and yet we didn't hear it in this particular testimony, and yet we always hear from the fed,

well, wait a second this has to do with our independence and the chaex i think you saw had to do with the fact that many of us believe if independence is an issue, we ought to examine it from the legislative branch of the government. we've asked the fed, you make up monetary policy, you can waive it, you can change it but you ought to have an obligation to communicate it to the rest of us, and when you don't, you hinder economic growth you hinder a healthy economy, you hinder middle income america that now has smaller paychecks and a smaller bank account. jil just say that it's interesting to hear your perspective because a lot of people on wall street are saying we're drowning because we're hearing too much from the fed. there's too much fed talk out there. the statements have never been longer. the minutes from the last meeting were -- >> well i know but it's not quantity that counts it's quality.

i'm questioning chair yellen and i think it's inshe's an incredibly talent the lady but i ask her about a statement in her testimony that essentially said we might change the forward guidance, but we will not necessarily change our targeted feds fund rate and so i begin to question, okay fine we've got tens we've got hundreds of pages of forward guidance but if it doesn't change monetary policy, what's the good of it? how many trees were sacrificed for what is essentially meaningless verbiage when we need a more predictable rules-based monetary policy which i think history shows will create a healthier economy. we didn't hear that from the chair today and that was disappointing. >> understood. it goes back actually to one of the questions hanging over the entire testimony, and that's the role and the goals of the fed. we heard a different exchange talking about whether it was appropriate for yellen to be so concerned about long-term unemployment but it is congress -- this is the thing it's up to you guys to set the

fed's mandate which right now includes focusing on stable long-term interest rates and full employment. why not, if you're upset with the approach here change the goals or change the wording or change the legislation that gives the fed its purview? >> well we did that in the last congress. the house financial services committee moved a bill that again, would simply ask the fed to reveal its policy. it's really about transparency and accountability just as long as they reported it to the rest of us and to ensure that the fed as you know just doesn't have to do with monetary policy it has to do with being a prudential banking regulator yet they are exempt from any of the provisions like cost/benefit analysis that other regulators are required to do. we moved that bill in the last congress. i intend to move a similar bill in this congress. i'm sure we'll have hearings to come. i've never met a federal agency

that wanted more oversight, more transparency, or fewer resources, so i'm not necessarily surprised at the fed's reaction. >> understood. it's interesting to talk about though whether -- again to the point of the question i guess, this is an issue about the fed trying to effectively do what it determines the data is telling it do in this environment. perhaps all of this is simply because some would argue using rules-based strategy like you're talking about, interest rates should be negative and it's kind of hard to take them there is we're left with this kind of make it up as we go along, lots of words, lots of guidance trying to talk through our goals that we can't necessarily achieve through conventional means. >> i'm not really sure six to seven years after the financial crisis hit whether we still ought to be making it up on the fly. again, the extraordinary measures of 2008 have seemingly morphed into the ordinary measures of 2015 and, again there's probably some reason why we continue to have this the slowest, weakest economic recovery in the post-war era.

i think a lot of it has to do with obamacare. it has to do with dodd/frank. it has to do with increased tacks, but it also has to do i think, with the more improvisational monetary policy and, listen accountability and transparency on the one hand and independence in the context of monetary policy are not mutually exclusive concepts. all year asking is that the fed tell the reps of us in the economy what are the factors you will use to conduct monetary policy, how will you waive them and if you change your approach you need to communicate it to the rest of us. if you look at the period of great moderation, you can see where the fed used a more rules-based, predictable approach, and we had greater economic growth. i don't think that's a coincidence. i think there is some cause and effect to that as to many national and prominent economists today and that's what we believe the fed should do. dodd/frank has vastly expanded the powers of the fed.

we're having a fed selectively intervene to prop up credit markets that it's never done before using tools that it's never used before. there also has to be a commensurate increase in the congressional oversight of these activities. >> just a final question before we let you go congressman, the concern lots of people have about the bill that you're discussing here is that it would do precisely what you're trying to avoid, which is it would further politicize the fed because of this pressure, this political pressure it would constantly feel bearing down upon it. are you confident that this wouldn't do that that this would give the fed more ability to be fully independent in its measures even as you're discussing -- >> i don't understand how transparency accountability, and merely reporting to the public somehow is an interference and somehow politicizes the fed. if that's true maybe we shouldn't have the fed testify before congress at all and maybe janet yellen ought to cancel her weekly luncheons with the

treasury secretary. now, we don't know what goes on in the weekly sessions since those are private, but if that's the concern, why should the federal reserve ever have to testify? are they always going to continue to be the great wizard of oz behind the curtain? at some point we need to pull the curtain back. there's a lot of good and smart people working at the federal reserve, but they need to ultimately have their assumptions tested in the court of public opinion, and that means testifying and it means telling the rest of us what is your medthet thodology, when are you going to change it, when are you going to waive it so we can test it in the court of public opinion. the federal reserve doesn't have a monopoly on hiring smart economists. there are a lot of smart economists around the nation that ought to be able to judge the monetary policy in a more open and transparent fashion. >> you have made your case. thanks for being here this afternoon. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> chairman hensarling on the fed after that contentious back and forth today.

i don't think anyone would have missed it if that didn't happen but we certainly would have. tune into a d.c. edition of "the closing bell" tomorrow. i'll head down to the nation's capital to speak with beltway heavyweights including allen green spare, sheila bair and richard trumka. there's a lot going on tomorrow in the intersection of washington and wall street. you won't want to miss it. coming up hereby starwood hotels hopping on the uber bandwagon. offering starwood hotel points for each ride customers take anywhere in the world. and you've heard of smartphones, smart watches, smart houses. get ready for the smart bottle. an app that will verify your aged scotch is as old as it says when "closing bell" comes back.

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guide, and explore the range of aarp medicare supplement plans. sixty-five may get all the attention, but now is a good time to start thinking about how you want things to be. [ male announcer ] go long™. well uber users, pay attention next time you book a ride, because you could be earning rewards towards a free hotel room. our kate rogers has the details. >> hitching a ride with uber can actually pay for some passengers. this comes as they announce a new partnership today with starwood hotels that allows preferred guests to earn hotel points for every dollar that they spend with uber. of course, there's a couple of

catches here. they have to link their accounts and only after completing a stay at a starwood hotel can members then start earning one star point for every $1 that they spend with uber. if you use a transportation company during the stay additional bonus points can be accumulated. the move brings uber into the big leagues as far as transportation companies go. limos.com and hilton have a similar partnership. other car companies also partner with hotels for rewards points. starwood has more than 1,200 hotels in more than 100 countries, and 72% of the more than 290 cities where it operates feature a starwood hotel, giving more opportunities, of course to leverage this new deal. it will also likely add to tensions between uber and a transportation establishment in big cities like new york where the two parties have abouted heads -- butted heads. back over to you. >> i want to bring in the panel. first of all does everybody

here use uber? >> yep i signed up for this today. >> for the hotel thing? >> absolutely. >> so how does it work? >> i don't know if i have already stayed at a hotel once this year it counts, or i have to -- that wasn't clear to me. it seemed like a no-brainer because i use both. >> every time you take an uber ride, you'll get points toward these hotel rooms. >> yes. but as michelle added you do have to stay with starwood hotel before you can start cashing in. i will point out, it takes like 3,000 points to get a free room. so you've got to spend a lot of money with uber for this to be worth your while. >> i'm just thinking about the american express story we had earlier. if uber and starwood can do this symbiotic thing, at some point you can start to build rewards that don't necessarily come from this or that credit card. >> transportable reward points based on your services. >> exactly. uber is really an immediate thing. you need it now. you use it now.

interesting thing is will they have a model that will allow you to plan? business travelers and tourists don't always do things spontaneously. and a cab is a spontaneous thing. but if you need to book a ride to get to a play or event. so it will be interesting to see if this pushes uber in the way of helping people schedule thing. you can see as it begins to enter these other kinds of usage areas that have become somewhat of a liability. >> interesting point. >> i'll offer anybody on the panel dinner anywhere in new york that they want if any time in the next six or 12 months we hear a quarterly earnings report and some ceo gets up and says man, we just killed it. and i have to tell you something. the rewards program that we started, oh boy -- >> you don't think that's a factor for companies? >> well, for example, i live in ohio in cincinnati. i've got delta. if i want to use another airline, i've got delta. i've got american express delta card because that's the only option. >> sounds to me like that's a

good deal for american express and delta. >> only white plains is more exactly. but you choose your rewards first, and you look at your lifestyle first. if you happen to be a heavy user of starwood and uber wonderful. >> i think he's right about that, but kate brought up a good point, that this is going to put the taxis at laggerheads. the point is, the taxis never evolved. another company comes in and evolves. >> kate, quickly? >> i spoke to a medallion driver in new york today. he said this is one more reason for people to pick uber over us. and it's really bad for the morale. >> another service that people love and are responding to. thank you. up next think that jonny walker in your liquor cabinet is really aged 12 years? now there is an app for that. we'll bring you the details behind the so-called smart bottle movement when we come right back. stay tuned.

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you've heard of the smart phone, obviously, the smart watch, the smart car even, but now a smart bottle. the beverage giant putting electronic stickers on its jonny

walker whiskey bottles. get this they connect with your smart phone to tell you everything you need to know about that bottle of liquor. the app will be able to tell if your 12-year-old bottle of whiskey really is authentic. it will also send you targeted marketing ads, of course and even going to give you cocktail recipes when it notices you finally cracked the bottom. this, i have to say, i find fascinating. >> i mean, it is so hard not to just come up with a series of jokes about this. like you know do you want to have that fourth glass. the idea of ads -- or it's sending you ads on the phone is a little creepy. particularly if -- i mean again, imagine it's a bizarre smart about someone having a little more susceptibility. >> book a flight to cancun. >> you're like, wow, look at that. >> i might be naive, because i assume if the bottle says it's aged a certain amount i trust

them. and if the app tells me -- >> i want to know they can test their own product in this way which is interesting. can you slap the sticker on something else? >> i doubt if mccown or any of those guys said yeah, i'm a scotch drinker, ever going down this road. i'd like to put this under a few friends' foreheads and be like oh really? you're that old? >> targeted advertising whilst inebriated. i mean, if that's not taking advantage of someone -- i mean look, all marketing takes advantage. >> you can't sit in a bar without seeing advertisements. >> that's what i hear. >> a fascinating innovation that a sticker can tell you about the stuff inside. i'm sure we'll see a lot more about it. and perhaps we'll drink to it as well. thanks for being here. that does it for us on "closing bell." fast money coming up in a few seconds. hi melissa lee. >> everybody's wondering what's

going to happen with apple. it was down in today's session. we've got a top analyst who says there are five reasons why apple will continue its run. >> that's in contrast to colin gillis's call. >> exactly. "fast money" starts right now. i'm melissa lee. tim, seymour, dan, brian, and john najarian are your traders. american airlines has been one of the hottest. rallying 34% since the start of 2014 with all the major players locking in huge gains. but take a look at what has happened over the past month. delta and alaska air both down more than 7%. united down 6%. southwest falling 4% since the end of january. this as crude oil ended the day higher by 3%. so, we ask, are the best days for the airlines over? is this trade done? what