frc. >> cme. >> shout out 16th birthday to jasper horax and as well i would like to say to his aunt patricia, great job, wonderful kid, watches this show every day. happy birthday to you, brother. >> do you like the s&p too? >> i like the s&p. >> good stuff. "power" begins now. "halftime" is over. the second half of your trading day begins now. >> scott, gentlemen, thank you very much. welcome to "power lunch." tyler here with mandy drury right there. back from the bubble. 15 years later, folks, the nasdaq hitting 5,000 once again. the stocks that got us here and why it is different this time. >> indeed. the markets hitting new highs. how is wall street playing it? we have the top three hedge fund strategies. >> wrar ren buffett speaking about becky quick, about his

company, about succession and more. >> apparently that race is down now to two guys. >> yeah. >> we'll take a look at who they are and why they are potentially his successors. >> lots of good questions there. meantime, stocks are rallying on the first trading day of the month, and even though they are coming off the best month since october 2011. the big market story here is the nasdaq hitting 5,000. remember, it was 15 years ago this month on march 10th 2000 to be exact when the nasdaq hit its peak. march 2009 when it hit its low. we team coverage for you. melissa lee on why it is different this time around. bertha coombs on what the fax 100 is telling us. are first, dominik chew standing right next to me looking at the stocks that got us here. dom, what are the names? >> i mean over the past year there have been stellar run-ups. obviously, when we're at 15-year highs for the nasdaq a lot of companies have to contribute but it's a market cap weighted index, and these are the stocks that have big market caps and

also perform well. about 76%. monster beverage is up 90% just over the course of the past 12 months. it's been a real stand-out. even since the low that is we saw back or at least the peak that we saw back in march of 2000. >> entell up 37% over the past year. one of the beggest point contributeors. microsoft, up 15%. not as much but it contributed more points because it's a $360 billion company, and then apple, up 72% over the past year and it's, of course worth $750 billion, $760 billion. the biggest point impact of the

nasdaq. >> it's something we'll explore later on with our guests. intel, microsoft, the big old tech names as posed to the fancy, sexy new tech names. >> sure. >> okay. >> stay with us, dom. over to you, ty. >> mandy, let's head to melissa lee at the nasdaq. nasdaq at 5,000. a lot of people, melissa, say it's different this time. explain. >> yeah. i know your eyes will glaze over when you hear that but it is different this time around for three main reasons. first of all, you got to take a look at the valuations of technology then and now. considerably lower today. s&p tech was at 66.5 on a pe basis compared to just under 17 today. it was four times higher during that nasdaq peak and if you take a look at individual stocks it is staggering. cisco was at a pe of more than 200. today is about 16.25. yahoo was at a pe of more than 1,700, and today is trading at six times current pe. second major difference it is less techie. yes, less techie. it is still tech heavy, but it

is less techie overall. back in march 2000 technology was 65%. today it is 43%. what has gained over the past 15 years in terms of waiting on the composite consumer services health care, as well as financials. it is worth pointing out that the nasdaq -- back then, 4,800 nasdaq components. today just over 2,500 nasdaq components. the companies tend to be older today. they take longer to get to market. in fact take a look at the number of ipo's that have happened in 1999. there were 371 ipo's back then. last year it was just over 50 tyler. yes, different this time around. we should note too, though that 5k is a nominal high for the nasdaq. if we want to get to the inflated high that would be 6,900. 38% higher than 5,000. >> good to make that difference. thank you very much for that. melissa lee. okay. let's get back to the idea that we're exploring, and that is

whether or not it is different this time around for the nasdaq. can you still find value in this market with me? is brian belski bemo capital markets, and zach head of global strategy invest net and cnbc contributor. is it dangerous to say a complacent statement like, well we're okay now because it's different this time. we've been down that road before. >> also think about where private client is. the majority of private client holdings in the late 1990s, early 2000 era nervous tech

stobs in particular, and they're not there yet. the majority from an asset side of things, mandy, are still on fixed income. the excess from a psychology and from the absolute number of shares is not there. >> okay. would you agree with that zach? >> i would. the only thing i don't fully agree with is i happen to believe it's always different this time meaning i think the past is instructive but not deterministic. i'm 100% on board with everything. in addition to the fact of i have a hard time with the gnomen clay tour of bubble. if we are actually talking about we're just about to get back to the peak of the past bubble 15 years later. either this is like the slowest, biggest, longest bubble ever in human history, or we're just talking about very different phenomenon. that doesn't mean the market isn't going to go down or that there aren't arguments for over valuation. not arguments i don't agree with, but there are tenable ones. we're in some sort of giddy

precipous. >> so you are saying they're not overvalued. >> right. i don't happen to believe. i respect people who are making that arguments and the reasons they are. i don't agree with it. secondly, all the companies in the nasdaq now, maybe not all, but almost all except for a lot of biotech, have a lot of real revenue and real earnings. we're talking about multiple of bigsz that are viable, profitable, ongoing for the most part. radically different than what we were talking about. often the valuations were nonexistent because you were dealing with price to sales or price to expected earnings. we have that rash towards ipo's. >> what do you think about valuations? do you see value in the nasdaq itself? >> well the one thing that zach brought up on the bubble character is just because stocks or an asset goes up it doesn't mean it's a bubble. that's number one.

number two one of the things you did mention is cash and how much structural reform we've seen in technology. these companies a lot of them are paying dividends. you have great cash flow great return on invested cash. the theme has to be going forward and how these companies are going to employ the cash over the next several years. especially consideration how defensive many of these companies have been the last 15 years. we think from a longer term perspective the sect ors in a are able to demonstrate structural reform are the ones that should outperform. that's why tech has had a great run. it's a higher barrier to entry companies, companies that are high bricks and mortar type companies. that's where we're talking about the intels microsofts and apples, and googles. mroo thank you. brian and zach, good to see you both. by the way, go to power lunch.cnbc.com to see zach's strategy for asia. interesting thoughts there. ty, over to you. >> right. you know guys it's really real companies making real money this time and selling for prices that aren't irrationally exuberance.

big market story, of course today. the nasdaq and its piercing of 5,000. a little bit in retreat now. let's not forget the dow, though. it has been rallying significantly today. up more than a half percent. 103 points. mary thompson joins us from the nyse floor. hi, mary. >> hey there, tyler. it seems like there's new money going to work today. that's helping to fuel the gains and the number of deals and reversal in the price of crude as the market is tracking that. it's not really helping energy stocks, though oddly enough. let's get to it. let's take a look at the sector that is are winning today. we're seeing strength in consumer discretionary, and, of course technology on the heels of that big deal with the semiconductor space and xp. as i mentioned earlier, energy is under pressure despite the turnaround that we have seen in crude oil prices. higher right now up 69 cents. it was lower earlier in the session. then utilities, which, of course, reached record high last week. there seems to be some rotation out of utilities and into the consumer and technology names today. closer look at the consumers. these are the winners.

we have avon products moving higher. game stop win and carnival cruises leading the way of the consumer discretionary index. as far as semiconductors take a look at this group. semiconductor index is up over 16 points right now. as i mentioned, it's one of the reasons we are seeing gains in the nasdaq as well. as tyler mentioned, the nasdaq off its highs of the day. energy remains a weak area despite the gains we've seen in crude oil prices today. you look there, noble down over 40%. valero down. gasoline prices are rising as well. could have a positive impact for some of them but not so in today's session. lastly, we want to talk about some of these cars. there was a big deal in the card area with costco signing on visa and citi. we'll have more details on that coming up after the half hour. a little after 1:30 tyler, back to you. >> thank you very much. it was the interview of the day here on cnbc. the world's greatest investor. warren buffett speaking with our becky quick on "squawk box".

today from omaha, nebraska. a lot of topics covered from his holdings in ibm, the economy, value in this market and the big one, who will take over from him at brookshire hathaway at whatever point it is that he steps down. it is coming apparently down to two guys. >> they're down to the horse race. that story comes from charlie saying that those two are world class. they absolutely are. he described them as world class, and that was probably an understatement. i would totally agree with that. either one of those men could run just about any company you could name. it wouldn't just be brookshire. they are incredible managers, and we are lucky to have them. >> well let's take a look at the two corporate brothers in biblical contention for the top spot. we'll call it jain, mandy, jain and abel. >> jain born and raised in

india and a graduate of harvard business. here behind me. >> and 53-year-old greg abel a canadian, and a graduate of the alberta school of business. >> jain is the head of brookshire hathaway's reinsurance business, behind the biggest deals in insurance, even a policy on alex progressed reeg ez. s. >> and abel runs brookshire hathaway energies including pipelines and some of america's largest utilities. >> he has nearly 30 years of institutional knowledge. >> but, mandy, abel is a more recent acquisition, coming to the company in 2000. >> let's get down to business ty because jain's business is responsible for $42.5 billion of brookshire's $84 billion in float. >> that's pretty good but abel has built the energy side of the business into a future thinking powerhouse with $15 billion worth of acquisitions and a strong push towards renewable energy. >> well buffett has said publicly that he considers jain part of the family.

hard to beat that one, ty. >> abel took over for buffett's trusted lieutenant david sokel. >> david, sorry, buffett told becky quick that his replacement has already been identified and there is still the possibility that another buffett lieutenant matthew rose might get the top spot. >> battle of jain and abel or maybe a rose. >> okay. we're moving on. amgen getting a boost from its cancer drug. is this stock a buy right now? meantime the markets hitting new highs. plus the top three hedge fund strategies on the street right now, but as we head out, the stocks really fuel the nasdaq back to 5,000 since march of 2000. apple up over 3,000%. ♪ [upbeat music] ♪ defiance is in our bones.

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ae snoo lumber liquidators falling after 6 0 minutes did a story saying they sold products with cancer-causing chemicals. more details on this. costco teaming with citi and visa visa. novaris?

blacks coast smith cline. gsk divesting its cancer drug portfolio to novartis and buying novartis's vaccine business. speaking of cancer drugs, amgen's cancer drug for multiple myoloma was snoen a study to help patients live twice as long as a competing medicine. analysts say this should increase sales of amgen's drug despite some safety concerns that were raised in that study. dr. harper is their vice president of research and twomt. he joins us now. dr. harper welcome, first of all, but explain the significance of this result for cancer patients. do we typically see this kind of dramatic improvement from one broouchlt to another. >> a little more than a year ago

we purchased another biotechnology company onyx, and the strategic driver there really was to obtain it's used to treat patients with white blood cell cancer called multiple myoloma. we believe scientifically that also for clinical studies we will be able to demonstrate superiority. not only with respect to efficacy for treating the underlying cancer but also to have less of a propensity to cause some of the nerve damage in the feet and hands that is a real limiting issue. this study that just read out demonstrated that superiority. >> well, not just velcade. there are several multiple mi

homa drugs competing. how do all these drugs compete, and can yours replicate the size, do you think? >> well i think it's important to recognize that cancer therapies are generally combination therapies with different mechanisms being used together, so there are the derivatives, as you are mentioning such as -- there's the inhibitor velcade and things like steroids. these are used altogether, and what we are talking about here is potentially supplanting one of those drugs as a backbone therapy by having kyprolis be a preferred agent over velcade given the large difference we've seen. >> all drugs, dr. harper have side effects, and this one does too. apparently some heightened kidney toxicities and heart toxicities. easy for me to say. how worrisome are those? >> well we did see a slight

increase in some of the general toxicities that are seen with this class of drug which travel along with the very large, as you mention before doubling of the efficacy signal. overall, though the benefit-risk equation is extremely favorable. we also saw a much lower rate of perative really neuropathy damage to the nerves and hands and feet which is again, a really important issue for in class of drug. >> all right. dr. harper thank you very much. congratulations. we appreciate you being with us. big critic of russia's putin gunned down and big bond news out of austria. >> michelle carusa cabrera taking us around the world in 90 seconds. >> that's coming up. we're also going to tell you about the new hilton in havana when "power lunch" continues after this. it's more than the cloud. it's security - and flexibility. it's where great ideas and vital data are stored. with centurylink you get advanced technology solutions

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walls of the kremlin. a water shed moment for europe's banking system. holders of senior debt and austrian bank have found out they are going to lose money. it's the first time in the entire european financial crisis that bond holders have suffered. it's happening because of new banking rules that went into effect in the euro zone on january 1st with the goal being that investors should take losses when banks go bad, not the taxpayer. fidel castro is apparently still alive. photographs published today in cuba showing the former dictator meeting with the so-called cuban five. these are the spies who spent years in u.s. prisons, and they were released in december as part of a prisoner exchange with the united states. for the first time in 50 years there is once again a hilton in havana. paris hilton. there she is standing with the old havana hilts behind her. she attended the closing night party of the annual cigar festival. super model naomi campbell was there as well. there she is taking a selfie with fidel castro's son.

the former hilton havana was seized by castro. now the freed havana. >> which has the most implications for the united states and the u.s. investor? >> for the united states certainly the situation with russia wra. this is starting to feel like russia post yeltsin and rough and tumble days. the austrian bank situation actually hard core decision about what's going to happen. you have to be far more decisive about what kind of bonds are you going to buy in european banks. this is very very different than the last ten or 20 years. >> wonderful. thank you very much. to the bonds market. rick santelli tracking the action at the cme. ricky, over to you. >> well thank you. michelle is absolutely right. traders just can't wait to see all the specifics and the focus with regard to bond buying. sometimes traders say there could be a real shortage of the types of securities that they're looking to purchase. looking at an intraday of tens. we're at eight basis points, and fives, tens 30s.

foreign exchange is the big market. today you see the intra day and the euro versus dollar you have seen it go down 112. this is important. look at the range since the ecb meeting on the 22nd. we continue to look as though we're breeching this congestion. when it comes to corporates, there's no bigger deals hardly going back all the way to verizon. 22 billion activists. it's a huge nine-card deal. its book is three times approaching $70 billion or maybe a little selling in treasuries as investors get ready to take some of that paper. tyler, back to you. >> rick thank you very much. the nasdaq of course hit 5,000 for the first time in 15 years earlier today. why the biggest of the biggest stocks are telling a different story. the nasdaq at 5,00015 years ago. this month. power is back in two.

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>> here's your cnbc news update for this hour. iran's foreign minister is blaming western nations for the rise of isis saying western nations marginalize and disenfranchise muslims causing radicalization. he made the allegations during his speech to the u.n. human rights counsel in geneva. lehman brothers paid out $34 million in 2014 bonuses to the team winding down its business. that's according to a court filing. the investment bank collapsed more than six years ago. senator barbara mccullski will not seek re-election. the 78-year-old now in her fifth term was first elected to the house in 1976. the richest person in the world just got richer. forbes says bill gates net worth rose to $79.2 billion in 2014 from $76 billion last year. that puts him at the top of the magazine's list of the world's

billionaires for the second consecutive year. and incidentally robert frank will have more in the next half hour on that. coming up on "closing bell" stanley drubbingenmiller. there he is. that's your cnbc news update this hour. back to you, mandy. >> wonderful. thank you very much sue. let's take a look at what precious metals are up to. gold prices are closing right now, and feeling the highest in nearly two weeks this morning after the rate cut in china, which is the world's second largest gold market. flip up the board. we're just closing to the down side, though. we're at 1,208 some of the metals we watch. silver to the down side like gold, but copper pulladium and platinum. >> nasdaq hitting 5,000 for the first time in 15 years today. right now a little bit below that off by about, oh off to the 50,000 mark by about 15 points. let's go to nasdaq and bertha following the big movers. >> hi tyler. one of the biggest movers today

is nxp on its big deal for free scale semithat's worth $12 billion. it's at a hue new high, and stocks today are strong, and we're seeing the nasdaq hit 5k even without apple hitting a new high today. one of the things that's really interesting here are the sectors that continue to la fw. take a look at the semiconductor index, for example. got a lot of names at new highs today, but there's still a lot of laggards like intel that are still not back to their y2k highs, and the semiconductor index as well is still off more than 30% from its all-time highs in march 2000. and that is one of the reasons why when you look at the nasdaq.

>> you don't have everybody are and their hair dressing short trading. you have investors looking at valuations, and they still pay up for some names. like amazon which is not profitable generally, but they still want to pay out for tesla. when you look at the forward pe's in the 100 plus range. netflix and other momentum mover. even monster beverage, which is one of the biggest gainers trading at all-time highs has a higher valuation than the overall nasdaq 100. investors are willing to pay for growth. >> bertha thank you very much. hedge funds are on track now to top $3 trillion in assets this year. nearly one-third of those funds banking on an extra $100 million in brand new money coming in. this according to a new deutsche bank survey due out tomorrow

but power lunch has the exclusive first peek today. here now with us our friend barry pos ano, head of global finance with deutsche. >> i'm curious here as to why the appetite for hedge funds is as robust as it is because the majority of them have not exactly shot the lights out. >> i think the interesting thing is we have doubling assets under management since 2008 from $1 trillion four -- that's despite pedestrian performance. what drives that is two things. one is the expectation for returns is much lower than it has been. that's healthy. for some statistics on that this year only 14% of the respondents are expecting to get in excess of 10% of the turn relative to last year or 37% in excess of 10%.

there is a big dispurgeons of returns by strategy and manager. one of the interesting things you have is that at the top 5% of managers last year average of 22% return. pretty remarkable. the other thing that you'll see is that by strategy there's been -- there's been. >> not only is strategy selection even important, but manager selection is driven returns.

>> absolutely. if we talk about the geographic regions over 2015 and where it's expected to be the best performer, it's still not america, is it? canada, u.s. but there is a lot of renewed interest in asia too, no? >> that's absolutely right. it's u.s. canada one, western europe two, and yappan three and asia china, then india four and five. us u.s. is pretty simple. it is growth good macrofundamental back drop et cetera. europe is a changing story over the last six months. three things are true that are not true six months ago. the euro is much weaker. they're big importers, and you finally have qe in europe for the first time. japan is the renewed optimist. china and india are new. to shortcut it india has a lot of optimism around market litteralization, and it's the opening of the economy as evidenced by china connect and others. >> i guess so. institutions largely and also private investors in a certain

level of assets. they're looking for noncore related returns, and that's one of the reasons they're attracted to hedge funds. are they also increasingly attracted to quantity takive strategies? >> yes. there has been a major rise in quantity takive and cta, directional quantity takive. >> what's cte? >> commodity trading advisors, and they tend to be the ones that attract a lot of attention and have been the trend following managers. last year a lot of very smart managers were able to look at the landscape and see a lot of clouds on the horizon. whether it's ukraine or syria or the middle east. there's a whole lot. whereas the cta managers were able to capture trends that might have been counter intuitive. somebody asked if bonds would have been positive performers in 20 14. no one is predicting the fall in oil. dollar strengthening was predicted, but it was really not -- >> so those are things that they captured by being trend followers, which is driven money in that direction. >> on the quantity systematic

side, it's been the diversity of the strategy and a scaleability of the trat that's been attractive. >> since are you here on -- we're going to put ow the spot. just get your that's on this big march that we've had over the past 15 years to get back to this point. >> well look, i think that we still are going to attract enormous amount of capital into the u.s. by virtue of the lack of attractiveness and other opportunities. that's changing at the margin buzz you are having divergent central bank policies. finally, we're on a tightening path, and europe is on an easing path, and we still have unattractive relative returns in bonds at 2% ten-year yield. doesn't draw much money away from the equity markets. our review is that the market is although much less undervalued than it used to be and very long in the tooth, this is the six-year anniversary on march 9th of the rally. it is still a stable and safe place to be. >> thank you so much for joining us. barry, a pleasure to have you with us.

>> thank you. >> well we've been yelling so much about janet yellin do we even remember ben bernanke? remember him? we haven't heard from him in a while, but he spoke today at the brookings institute in washington d.c. when ben bernanke is speaking you better bet your bottom dollar that steve liesman is going to find him zoosh he has been on the speaking circuit talking for a fee, but not necessarily always publicly. very rarely sitting down for public interviews with the media. this time on tape and he was at a conference this morning at the brookings institute where he actually works and where he is completing his book due out in the fall and he was asked about this issue of a bill that would require the federal reserve to follow a monetary policy rule or formula. you can bet what he thought about that. if the fed is always taking actions like that and congress is pushing back and saying no

you're violating the rule i think that is less direct of the fed, but i think it still is a way in which congress would exert undue influence of monetary policy. >> so the former fed chairman joins the current fed chair in opposing this rule in congress along with the audit the fed bill which would allow the government accounting office to monitor the feds making a monetary policy. >> to end the anxiety, i can tell you guys he was asked about monetary policy tyler, but he bernanke declined to answer. >> shocking. >> thank you very much. >> nasdaq 5,000, but is this rally for real? isis threatening twitter and

dialing into samsung's new mobile bet. all that on the power rundown next. ♪ help northern china reduce its reliance on coal fire heating plants and prevent 60 million tons of co2 emissions? when emerson takes up the challenge it's never been done before simply becomes consider it solved. emerson.

>> take a look at this video. this shows the enormous strain on buildings when you receive over 100 inches of snow in one winter. last night's snowfall caused a massive roof collapse on the farm outside of boston early this morning. 15 horses were trapped when it collapsed. the horses received minor injuries, but thankfully ty all are expected to make a full recovery.

>> let's get back to the markets right now. of course, we are talking a lot about nasdaq 5,000, and then we are off that mark right now. we are moving higher for the three indexes. even though we've come off an excellent february for the stock market. mary, over to you. >> all the -- about the nasdaq 5,000, and the dow jones industrial average hit a record high as well earlier today. it's also off those levels but the markets getting a boost from a number of deals. new money flowing in at the beginning of the month. the strength that we are seeing in semiconductors or i should say it stocks and consumer discretionaries in particular driving the markets higher. quick check of the dow components. helping to fuel the bluechip indexes rally today. cisco, intel, visa as well as boeing. let's focus more on visa. visa was named the exclusive credit card network of costco which is issuing a co-branded credit card with citi. all of this replacing a 16-year deal that costco had with

american express. while analysts say, you know these are incremental positives for both visa and citigroup, but overall it was really a big negative for american express. let me explain why. first of all, the costco deal basically generated $2 billion in revenue for american express. half of it through the loans on these cards and half of it through transactions. >> while it's an increase it's a very small increase. about $14 billion in transactions, and that will be added to a portfolio of lonz of about $650 billion for citi. again, incremental adds for citi and visa. a big loss for american express. tyler, back to you. >> all right mary. thank you very much. time now for our power rundown. let's bring in julia borstein to join mandy and me. actually enough nasdaq hitting

5,000 this morning. julia, how does this tech rally feel to you? for real or something swishy? >> tyler, it does feel different this time around. 15 years ago it was all about clicks and eyeballs. this time around revenue and profits really do matter and the key thing here that really makes me feel like this time -- i'm sorry -- the 5k is different, 5,000 is different, is because if you look at the valuations, they are very different. if you look at the companies that went public in 2014 their valuations were about -- i'm sorry. their valuations and in terms of how they were valued at times revenue was 6.2 times revenue compared with about 32 times revenue back in 2000. certainly the companies going public now have much higher revenue, much higher profit. >> these are real companies selling it to me at realistic or reasonably realistic prices. there are no sock puppets here. >> no sock puppets here. certainly when you look at the

pe ratios compared to the pe ratios now. it certainly gives you some level of confidence. everybody celebrating nasdaq 5,000. i would like to celebrate 5132 because that was the intraday all-time high back on march 10th 2000 by the way. of course, we're not there just yet, but if you have a party hat and you are making a party hat with nasdaq 2,000, it's not the same ring to it. let me give you an amazing factoid here. apple has been a big part of this, and peter, friend of c nx put out this great stat this morning just highlighting that apple's market cap over the last 15 years has gone from $26 billion to the approximately $755 billion that it is today. mind-boggling, right? >> let's move on to the next topic, which is isis which is now threatened twitter employees after twitter blocked accounts associated with the group. going as far as to warn jack dorsey and twitter employees that this will be war.

julia, this does not feel identical to what went on with north korea and sony but it does feel like people trying to intimidate the messengers. >> this is a threat here. i mean the reason why isis or people who are identifying with isis have threatened twitter is because twitter has taken down people who are threatening others that are affiliated with isis twitter handle. basically they will shut you down if you violate their terms of service. that's why they are attacking jack dorsey and others.

they're playing it safe. these are not the first threats. >> just very quickly on that point, ty twitter cannot be isis's mouth piece. if they allowed it to happen it's incredibly damaging for twitter. the question is, though if not twitter, where do you think isis is going to go to try and get its message out? does it go on linkd in to start recruiting. >> samsung releasing the latest version of its galaxy. it's got a new curved screen. it gets rid of the plastic back cover. removable battery and microsd card. is it a good move. mandy, you first? >> absolutely. well, you know i saw the two new s6 galaxies together, and honestly, the edge just blew me away. i believe even though this is now made of metal, it's actually

lighter than the plastic version, which admittedly was cheap and nasty, even though it could be easily removable. nonetheless, it looks beautiful. >> it does look gorgeous. it looks gorgeous and it looks an awful lot like the new iphone. focus on the camera. the fact that it's all sleek and glass. we'll see if the curve screen really makes a difference. >> mandy, over to you. >> going to the dogs. that is the title of bill gross's investment outlook. he stops by live in the second hour of power to explain why. it's all coming up in 20 minutes time.

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>> we learned on average hedge funds produce about 3% in returns for investors, but the top fifth percent averages over

22%. >> yeah the nasdaq hitting 5k. we learned the top performers this year were netflix, monster beverage, and avago tech. the biggest points gainers, though, all tech names. yeah, like microsoft and intel and, of course apple. now, if you missed any of the big stories in the past hour you can go and visit our site at power lunch.cnbc.com. over to you, tyler. >> andy profiting from social. one of the many topics front and center of the mobile world conference underway in barcelona, spain. our john ford is there, and he has the story right after this. >> kr cnbc program is sponsored by trade station, find out why strayeders trade with trade station.

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. on doak at the next hour more on nasdaq 5,000, including why it's important and why it might not be. plus, where are fund managers getting more cautious on apple. a big call from wall street on apple stock. we all know guys that bill gates is the world's richest man, but exactly how rich he really is may shock even us. the 1% stat that you have to hear to believe. >> thank you very much brian. okay.

well profiting from social. one of the many topics front and center at the mobile world congress that is currently underway in barcelona, spain. our john ford is there. it's been a year since facebook's blockbuster acquisition of what's app, and it's making more sense by the day. considering what's happened with the broader world, what'sapp subscriber roles are surging. the top 700 million users. facebook messenger is not far behind at 500 million. why does it matter? because in emerging markets messeninging apps are acting more like wireless carriers. home to 10% of the users, messeninging apps have already destroyed carrier sms and now they're targeting voice. >> mark zucker burg just got off stage a little while ago talking about exactly this. trying to show carriers that he is friend, not foe.

the concern, of course of facebook and what's app are taking those revenues sms and voice revenues away from them. he brought a number of carrier ceos on stage to say, look partnering with them through internet dot.org has actually bras us in more data revenue. really there are a lot of questions here about whether the goals of facebook and others the carriers are aligned here in growing the size of the ultimate pie, and then of course you have the lower end hast handset makers that are coming in at the same time, which everybody says is good. at least for the people who are trying to build services on top here. the question is can the equipment makers, can the chip makers, can the intels and qualcomms of the world continue to make a profit as this entire trend continues to drive forward. that is a major issue here. especially as we see phones from motorola come in under -- well under $200. even under $150 now. it's a huge trend.

we are continuing to see it. i'll be covering it here from barcelona continue over the next couple of days. guys, back to you. >> thank you very much, john. that's it for the first hour of power, folks. >> brian take it away for another hour of power. >> staring down at my screen here to see exactly what the nasdaq is at the moment. tyler, mandy -- i'll call you tandy. 11:00 in l.a. and -- >> welcome to the second hour of power lunch. i'm brian sil sullivan. join us where all the action is today, which is at the nasdaq and this big 5,000, but knowing the nasdaq melissa, there's no hats, there's no streamers, because there's not a lot of people there. >> well there are plenty of people here at the market intelligence. we are about eight points away from nasdaq 5,000. nasdaq cracking 5,000 for the first time in 15 years. we've only closed above 5,000 two other times both back in march of 2000. keep in mind we are still about 50 points away from an all-time

high of 5,048 for the nasdaq, and we are still 38% away from the composite's inflation adjusted high of 6,900. there has been one stock story, brian, that is really fueled the run to nasdaq 5,000, and that is apple. take a look at the chart behind me. the nasdaq 100 with apple, which is this blue line here and the nasdaq 100 without apple, and you can see this discrepancy. year-to-date the nasdaq with am is up 5.3%. without apple it's up 2.7%. a huge driver in terms of so far this year brian, the gains. >> a couple of things. inflation adjusted not taking anything away from the number. you're right. it's not just apple. 19 nasdaq 100 stocks down over the past year and 26 stocks in the nasdaq 100 are more than 50% above their 52-week low.

it is not just been apple. >> that is true. >> a huge driver. >> it's been a huge money maker as well. did you know that there are six companies in the nasdaq that have done even better than apple over the past 15 years? those names are ahead. it's called a tease. right now let's talk more about apple. channing smith, portfolio manager of the four-star morning star rated capital advisors growth fund with us now. channel, tell our audience and our listeners why you have actually been reduceing your weighting in apple a bit? >> it's really -- we like apple for the long-term, but it used to be a 5% to 6% waiting for us top hold but we've really cut that back. the main reason is where we are in the technology cycle. if you look at the numbers from comscorer, we have 75% penetration rate for smart phones. if you look at idc, we're growing 9.8% probably for the next couple of years. we think we're at that massive

stage where it's going to be tougher for apple to grow with such a large and solid base. we think that a lot of the purchases will be more dependent on replacement, and the price and where we are in the industry, it becomes a lot more difficult going forward, brian. >> do you also think there's something to what jeff said a year and a half ago that it's so ornt owned who is left to buy it. is apple over owned? >> look at the competition. when you get to this size what happens is that any type of advantage that you have quickly gets eroded away from competition. look at samsung yesterday. they come out and announce a new phone. very sleek model. they have their version of samsung paid.

we think it will probably be the high really for the next couple of years. >> channing at the points about competition, particularly from samsung as well as gross margin concerns, could you have made those arguments, you know six months ago, a year ago. what you are seeing i get about the iphone in terms of the adoption cycle, the technology cycle, but what is not in a lot of the street's estimates these days, the impact from apple pay. also the fact that the i watch could be a new category. there could be another leg to the capital return story. are you afraid you're going to miss perhaps some percentage points to the up side at this point in shares of apple? >> no we really don't. i mean, if you look at apple and the valuation the last couple of years, it's really traded below the s&p. if you can get to that 135, 140 and assume a $9 earnings run rate for the year in a 15 multiple, you are kind of right close to where that multiple should be in that price target should be. it's going to be enormous and we don't know how big of a

profit driver it will be. keep in mind the iphone is the big profit driver. if that slows, it has to be made up somewhere else. you know if you look at the iwatch, we don't think it's going to be a category killer and a lot of analysts out there project thatture going to see 50 million to 60 million units shipped next year. we like to see the proof in the pudding first. >> sure. >> it seems like you have a phone in your pocket and you have an i watch, we don't really see the benefit of having an iwatch, so we think those numbers might be a little lofty. look this is still a great company. the question for us is do you overweight it at this level, at this valuation? we don't think you do. if you are bullish on iwatch then you should probably overweight apple at this point. we don't see that. we want to see iwatch perform. >> so channing -- >> go ahead. >> is this part of a broader, more defensive take on the markets? not only are we watching nasdaq 5,000, but today the dow also hit an intraday record high. you are looking towards more the stable bluechip companies. are you feeling more concerned

about the market as a whole? >> we are. we've only been at this level 5% or 6% of the time since 1908. >> if you look at a number of other valuation projects -- nothing to be alarmed about, but are you probably look at mid single digits returns going forward. we're going to tone back our risk levels and tone back our return expectations for our clients. that's kind of where we are with apple. everything seems to be fully valued, and when this happens, you don't want to chase different opportunities. have you to be very prudent trying to find investment opportunities, but they're hard to find. we're turning over a lot of rocks out there, and we're just not finding a lot of good value. we will do at capital advisors is build that cash and wait for a better day to arrive. >> thank you, channing. channing smith capital advisors. >> thank you. >> to dom for a market flash. dom. >> melissa, brian, we're watching shares of genoa financial, which are falling by about 7% to 8% after saying that

they're in a regulatory filing and there are material weaknesses in its controls specifically when it cams to calculations for their long-term care insurance reserves and premiums. they also did say that they are looking to target implementation and fixes for the sometimes in 2015. they are currently working to remediate the material weakness here, so, again, in a regulatory filing, they're looking at control procedures. it's having an affect on the stock down by 7%. back to you. >> it's already one of the worst performers in the past 12 months as well. not the kind of news genworth needs to hear. thanks. >> lost in all this nasdaq hoop la, the yield on the ten-year continues to creep higher. it is now up half a percent in just over a month. folks, that's actually a huge move for treasuries. joining us now for another first on cnbc is bill brooks. unconstrained bond fund manager. he is out with his latest investment outlook before we get you that i know you're a bond guy, but you are a market guy, you're an investment guy. your take on nasdaq 5,000,

please. >> i think it's a landmark number. i do think it reflects some overvaluation in terms of nasdaq types of stocks. you were talking about apple and not so sure that apple is overvalued, but some of the tech stocks that are up 10% or 15% today. i think they're reflective of a little bit of a bubble. it might at some point be correct. >> well this is probably the thing that stuck out to me the most about your investment outlook, and i'm going to read this. it's long, but you get the point. it kind of also, bill, i think falls into the stock story. you wrote this. "a more serious concern, however, might be that low interest rates globally destroy financial business models that are critical to the functioning of modern day economies. pension funds and insurance companies are perhaps the most

important examples of financial sectors that are threatened by low to negative interest rates. you're making your views there very clear. do they also meaning these globally low interest rates, drive people sort of mindlessly into equities? >> well they do. negative interest rates basically, you know confiscate capital, and we have $2 trillion worth of bonds in the euro zone that have negative interest rates. in some cases out six or seven years. money leaves you know those bonds at negative yields and moves into european equities and into japanese exquits with their quantity takive easing program. there's a transition mechanism that they're willing to endure. they're reflective of not creating a bubble but certainly over the past few months, the initiation of quantity takive

easing in euro bland land and the continuation of quantity takive easing in japan. huge amounts of money promote an upper drift in equity markets all around the world. >> i want to key in on that bill. we are seeing a number of corporations go abroad to issue bonds. we have coca-cola with a huge overing. apple in swiss frank denominated bonds. what is the ripple effect there. especially as we were seeing european pension funds look for yield. they're not finding it where they are. the money is coming presumably to the united states and going someplace. maybe not equities. maybe it's in, you know if they need the bond exposure maybe it's going to u.s. corporate bonds creating wropt to say a bubble but more competition for those ishgz. >> i think it should. in some cases at the margin it's difficult for insurance companies in euro land and pension funds to make a complete adjustment from negative years

in euro land to possible yields in the united states. i think u.s. treasuries at just above 2% you know versus the chairman's ten years at 30 basis points, that's 170 basis points at 1.7% difference. insurance company where a pension fund can make 170 basis points by simply shifting from one to the other, and i think ultimately that anchor the anchor of the ten-year bunnede at 30 basis points will keep u.s. treasury yields low relative to where they might have been normally. >> is it in your mind though bill, the fact that we're doing -- i don't want to call them shenanigans, but that we're issuing nondenominated debt -- is it a sign that the markets are getting a little desperate to find yield anywhere they can or by any means necessary? >> well certainly from the standpoint of the issuers. they think that's the point

you're making. they're issuing debt in some cases at negative yields, and euro land, and to that extent it's very profitable for a corporation to do that. in the united states if a corporation can issue ten-year debt at 2.5% as we technically know the bond market swapped that into a short-term rate, and after taxes basically pay about 25 basis points use that money to buy their own stock, you know at 2% to 3% yield and basically a 6% to 7% earnings. these negative yields promote to some extent bubbles and distort i think importantly capitalism. >> it's so interesting too, bill, we have to go.

i know this rich guy, and he has a car and he got a new car. it's a true story from last year, and i said, well, did you pay cash? no, i took out a loan. you were worth millions. i'll just go ahead and take out the 1% loan and, by the way, i combine treasuries at 2% or the s&p at 3.3%. that's the kind of behavior you're talking about, is it not? >> that's one of the main reasons where the fed in june or perhaps a little later i think, in june you know will -- they don't speak to it. they recognize the distortion -- the affected money is going into financial assets as opposed to real assets and the growth ultimately reflective of investment and productivity will be hampered and so ultimately the fed at least in the united states will raise interest rates. not a lot, but at least a little in order to prevent these types of arbidrage distortions.

>> hopefully the weather is better at newport beach. see you again. >> here is your menu for the rest of the hour. we'll take a peek inside. warren buffett's playbook. three stocks he is betting on right now. also lumber liquidators getting hammered. the company's safety practices called into question but are short sellers really to blame for this. if your family makes a couple of -- wait until you hear the mind-blowing stat about how much bill gates is really worth compared to even most 1 percent. that's coming up. stick around. ♪ at mfs, we believe in the power of active management. every day, our teams collaborate around the world to actively uncover, discuss and debate investment opportunities. which leads to better decisions for our clients. it's a uniquely collaborative approach

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warren one of et talking about his favorite stocks exclusively earlier today. let's get to dom chew and a look at buffett's playbooks. >> buys and sells earlier today on jack box. he spoke to warren buffett exclusively and learned about three of the stocks that he is really making some moves in. first of all, the big one everyone wants to know about. big blue. ibm. those shares have been the worst performers in the dow over the past couple of years, but he is sticking with them. he likes to buy. take a listen.

>> our interest in the company is just increasing day after day and if the company is buying it we're not laying out a dollar. if we're buying it we're laying out money, but we're buying it cheaper, and i like buying anything cheap. >> he keeps his value investing in play. he also talked about some of the ones that he didn't want to be in anymore. exxonmobil is one of them. he still likes the company a lot, but he thinks that there are better uses for some of that capital. take a listen. >> we thought we might have uses for the money. exxonmobil is a wonderful company. its current earning power has been diminished significantly from where it was a year ago as is true with all oil companies. exxonmobil has been a lot of the great investments of all time. >> but the reason you told it is you thought you could better deploy that? >> i think i might have a use for the money. >> buffett also spoke to becky quick about the people running companies that i e likes to

invest in. the ceo of general motors he thinks she's the right woman and the right person for the job. >> i think she is exactly the right person for the job. i met her a couple of times, and she is very very good and i think -- i just think the idea of trying to do something now that gets a little pop in the stock is just -- should not be on her agenda or the -- >> of course melissa, go to cnbc.com for the rest of all of those interviews. back to you. >> thank you very much. right now the $2 billion river park wedgewood fund this is a lock-term value fund and his top holdings just happens to be brookshire healthaway. it comprise 7.3% of his portfolio about $810 million. he has been long the stock for more than 16 years. is there anything then david, that would make you sell any of your stake in brookshire hathaway or are you trying to add more? >> well valuation is going to be the reason that we would be

trim it. we actually trimmed it last november mid-november when it was first in mid 140s. we plan on owning it for many years to come but as buffett outlined in the annual letter if are you buying shares you know, at a price to book of around two that's going to be an acre on your performance over the near term. when these shares get highly weighted in our portfolio, when they approach 10%, we're typically trim or when the valuation gets reasonable, maybe a little bit heady, we're twoing to be trimming more. >> up 26% of the past 12 months david. do you get concerned that in times of i don't want to say confusion, but for lack of other alternatives people buy brookshire hathaway as a de facto treasury because of earnings power and i'm not sure they can replicate 28%. >> i would agree with that. heck, if you go back to the lows of last 2011 the stock is

almost double. the shares are due for a rest. i think for those that invest in brookshire as an ultra safe option to stock market investing, that's probably a mistake. that said, brookshire is very unique as they are uniquely suited, better than other publicly traded companies, to take advantage of economic weakness, natural disasters, stock market bear markets. you know they're sitting on 40 50 or more billion in cash to swing a really fat bat, and that's the thing that we've really liked about thoempl the year. we can't find other companies that gives us that opportunity or that ability to take advantage of bad economic times and n bear markets. it's very unique we believe, in that sense. >> so david, quick question here. obviously you like the port goalo companies. are there companies within that

portfolio that you have in individual stake in because you like those prospects so much? >> actually, we don't have that much overlap with what buffett has owned or ted or todd. >> okay. we'll leave it there. thank you. >> thank you. >> to dominik for a market flar. dom. >> melissa, we're watching shares of google on the rise. they've spiked in midday trading. that's happened after they upgraded the stock. prior neutral. they also raised their price target to $650 a share. it was 580. among the reasons for the bullishness, early signs of product momentum and faster profit growth, and an attractive valuation at current levels. back to you. >> all right. thank you very much. >> lumber liquidators, you know it now, slammed on a "60 minutes" report. the company ceo partly blaming short sellers. herb greenberg on why that is likely to be hog wash. >>. >> plus, eye-popping new numbers on bill gates' net worth. you got to hear these numbers. trust me. power lunch back after this

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lumber liquidators following a "60 minutes" report that says the company failed to meet health standards in its products. lumber liquidators responding saying "60 minutes" used improper test methods during its reporting. its chairman and founder of "60 minutes" last night. >> i just don't understand how a group can do a task on their chinese made lamb nants and every single one of those failed to meet the emissions standard. >> people have different reasons for this test. this is a group of lawyers who are suing us selling short on our stock. >> it's the short sellers not conducting the tests. it's the certified labs. >> it's the short sellers. >> herb greenberg, cnbc contributor and partner at pacific square research. they're blaming short sellers in part herb. your take on lumber liquidators

and how the ceo appeared last night and his comment about the shorts. >> well first of all, i have not donnie serious work on lumber lick wit aiders. i want to make that clear. i am watch this closely because i'm looking for the kind of clues. when i saw the ceo yesterday on "60 minutes" my first reaction was he wasn't answering some of the questions. when i saw him go after the short sellers, i said whoa every single time -- almost every single time we see a company start to blame the short sellers, it's almost always a magnet to take a closer look. we just put out a report today and one reason is i was doing deep work into the company, and they were blaming the short sellers. in this case when i look at the entire story, i said this wasn't the short sellers, but "60 minutes" did the investigation, and having gone through having to jump through the hoops i did at nbc when we did the herbal life and the documentaries, i can only imagine what they had to go through at 60 minutes to prove to their lawyers that what

they were seeing underkournd was actually something interesting. when you get the labs and you take a look at it and say, wait a second now, to have you three independent labs coming up with the same information. you have to take it very seriously. obviously, the company doesn't see it that way. >> so we've seen this manufacture a losses half dozen other times. you certainly have in terms of these companies where the story is brought out. perhaps it was brought out by short sellers, but the story is out there, and now the stock is trading horribly. what usually happens with these companies? >> this is not the end of it down 21% today, is it? >> good luck with trying to figure out in this kind of market in the world we live in and, actually, fascinating. this is one of the first times i've seen in a very long time a story stock that clobbered because of investigative reports in the media. that has gone away over the years. i think this raises broader questions to the entire issue of you knowing, what people put in their homes and where they get it from and what they're

getting especially from china. in this case melissa, they could come out with some proof from their labs and juice the stock higher and more information comes out showing -- >> i don't know, herb. i don't know if people remember this. they had office raided by customs over addingly autosing word from a protective force because the siberian tiber. the stock is down 62%. this is a name that has been in the negative news, if you will and probably some hedge funds and short sellers doing research for a while. maybe it is the shorts. are short sellers tipping off authorities to things they actually find wrong? not saying that's what happened here, but just that general scenario. >> here's what i know. >> no it's not a bad thing when anybody tips anyone off that something may be going on. all i know is this company has missed earnings last time. the stock fell because, remember, the company missed earnings, and the company is

trying to prime the pump by saying "60 minutes" is coming out with a report and one other thing i want to point out here the company came out with a statement today. the statement is through an -- filed with the sec. that statement is not on the website. they don't want that to be out there for whatever reason in the real what i call public domain. again, i look at that as something that why, why don't they put that on their website, that statement. >> that is peculiar. >> i just want to point out in terms of within this space, take a look at notice hawk. s also operating the flooring pace. 52-week high in today's session. >> thank you. see you again. >> up next why you might have a big beef if you will in your next grocery bill and do you remember this song? a huge hit back in the year 2000. the last time the nasdaq hit 5,000. take a look at microsoft since then. stocks have been on a tear the last couple of years. we'll be right back.

i'm sue herrera, and here's our cnbc news update. the white house says the one-week extension of homeland

security funding presented by congress reflects the failed leader 14i7 of republicans in the legislative body. an explosion in downtown cairo injured at least nine people today. that bomb was hidden under a pashgtd car. a second bomb was found, but it was defused before it could detonate. more than $4 million worth of gold was stolen from an armored truck pulled over on the side of interstate 95 in wilson north carolina. three armed men ordered the truck security guards to get down on the ground before they drove off with several barrels of gold from that truck. if are you hoping to catch the grateful dead's reunion concert this summer, you will need a miracle or a whole lot of cash. the group's fair thee well show sold out in minutes over the weekend. three shows will take place in chicago's soldier field. >> it's krst nbc news update for this hour. back to you. >> all right, sue. thank you very much. well oil turning lower late

in the day. let's go now to jackie deangeles at the nymex. >> good afternoon to you, brian. we saw wti closing under $50 a barrel. what's more interesting is brent has closed under 06. about a $3 loss on the day. a lot of people talking about what the iranian foreign minister said. the possibility for a nuclear deal. maybe that would mean that sanctions would be lifted and we would see iranian oil start to flood the market. couple that with the fact that libyan output is also increasing slowly but surely and doing very strong dollar today. the dollar index over 95. meantime, the spread between wti and brent also coming in. it was about 1,250 this morning. now we're talking about $10. starts to make more sense because you had some factors that were driving brent up, and now they're coming more in line. i want to talk about the products which came off a little bit today. everybody is focused on retail gas prices. triple-a saying the national average is $2.42. it's up from $2.30 just a week ago, and triple-a is saying we could see another 20 cent pop in the next month because of the

refinery maintenance and strikes, et cetera, brian. watching that. back to you. >> i got some people tweeting me pictures of what they're paying in california. ouch. expensive again. jackie, thank you very much. >> five stocks five analyst or investor calls. we do it every day. it is called street talk. ow off your computer and ready to go? >> yes. >> morgan stanley raising its price target to $160 from $133. about 24% up side. they love the recurring revenue model. >> it will be a category killer but many people think come april there will be some sort of increase to the dividend or another buyback. maybe some people sticking with it in hopes of that. meantime, we're also watching the 52-week low here on the stock. that's what i was checking, brian. downgrading the stock to an underperform cutting the price target to $17 from $30. bmo said you know what we

should have started at unperform before, but they didn't expect a dividend cut so stoon. it believes rigs will have a difficult time competing given lower capabilities and efficiencies versus their peers. >> i'm not going to criticize that call but i will say this it's been down for a couple of months. some of the analysts were very early. some seem to be playing catch-occupy the modelling game of $50 a barrel oil. next up united rentals, you are i, the ticker. morgan stanley upgrade it to an overweight from equal weight. their target goes to $115 from $11. a little more than 20% higher than you or i's price this morning. >> this is an interesting stock. we should listen for headlines tomorrow because the ceo will be presenting at an isi industrials conference. could be some market moving headlines from that. next up we're looking at oshkosh credit swiss to an underperform. lowers the estimates as well as the price target. it goes to $39.47. competing now against lockheed martin for a joint light tactical vehicle contact, but

the analyst says even if osk wins, it will not be a meaningful contributor to earnings. >> yeah. this is oshkosh. not begosh. the vehicle maker here. that is a heck of a fall. the average analyst target price is almost $51, so many would obviously disgray with this call. doesn't make it wrong. i like it when analysts go on their own and say this isn't what i see. all right. our final stock sxurnd the radar name horizon pharma. posted strong quarter guidance but an expected green capital raising the price target at $27 from $18. it's an ireland based company. the target is $27. >> you know the momentum is on this stock. you can take a look at the technicals. 50 day moving average. it's a big performer over the past 12 months. a lot of the gains have happened in the past month. 60% return over 12 months. about a 30% return in the past one month. >> thank you very much.

bill gates and michael jordan have something big in common. a lot of commas and zeros in their respective bank accounts. a stat about just how rich bill gates really is that, trust me, you have just got to hear to believe. and they tell us summer is coming. eventually. when it does you might have to pay more for those steaks. you want to grill? we'll discuss the latest rise in beef prices. did you get a good night's sleep last night? if not you might need some sleep coaching. point-counter point on why sleep coaching may be the next wave of athletic training. stick around.

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welcome back to power lunch. we're watching shares of the big cruiseline operators like royal care bean carnival, and norwegian cruise lines up today in had the green. you can see there helping things along. a positive industry analysts oh at jeffries saying the latest

cruise market watch data shows that cruise industry pricing growth for sailings over the next three months has risen 3.3%. this is a less than 1% gain in january. they're seeing that royal caribbean and carnival are showing the largest pricing increases, and they do maintain their buy or relative overweight rating for royal caribbean. all of these cruise lines up on the rising tide with these particular boats. back to you. >> nice way to end it. >> your steak dinner might be getting more expensive. let's bring in jane wells from los angeles on why what's your beef? >> brian it seemingly never ends. nice sound. i wonder which end of the cow. even with corn under $4 yes, it costs less than half of what it did to feed kalgs a few years ago, but the beef prices remain really high. first beef production dropped last week in part due to weather. prices in january shot up 19% in a year. lfr $1 a pound to $633 and get

ready. we're heading into montgomerying season when prices almost always go up a lot. the usda says for the full year beef prices will rise 5% to 6%. that is twice the overall rate of food inflation, but american restaurant association economist david maloney wonder if beef is in a bubble. that's because imported beef is a lot cheaper. we import more than 10% of our beef in places like ---ure guy and brazil. he says it could hurt demand for domestic, but the usda requires country of origin labelling for beef, and maloney says retailers may hesitate to use the cheaper imported beef because americans may not want to eat beef froo another country. that is an interesting city. i don't know. by the way, finally, pork futures up as well. one reason? port congestion easing on the west coast. pork exports can resume.

see, brian, melissa, one up side of a -- bacon cheaper for you and me at least for a while. >> well eat bacon now before they ship it over to asia. >> wrap the steak in bacon. >> wrap the brazilian steak in bacon. >> goes to what you just said. last summer in wisconsin went to the grocery store, looked at the steak. packaged in mexico. i'm thinking i'm in wisconsin. there are a lot of cattle. i know they're mostly for purpose purposes. tloo did you buy it? >> no. >> see? point -- see? that's the point. >> it was cheaper to go from mexico to northern wisconsin than it was to just do away with old bossy? >> see, that is the thing i cannot figure out. corn is so cheap. i realize the national herd has been reduced dramatically because of drought and feed when

it was at $8 a bushel but it is so cheap to feed the cattle now i just feel like the flow-through so to speak is taking an awful lot longer than it should. >> jane welsh. it's what's for lunch. >> point now for point counter point. we'll let you know what we think and who makes the better argument. >> first up wall street gets social goldman saks planning to finally debut a new social networking app called symphony by july of this year. it's going to be a winner mount st. helens wra? >> i think that this is -- i think they're on to something here, brian, because if i were an investment bank i would want to see what the trends are on say, social media or twitter without logging in. this is sort of a safer way of checking out what's going on in social media without exposing yourself perhaps to some of the hacking possibilities than would otherwise exist. >> i would agree. i would say this. i would add to it as well. our former company, bloomberg,

makes a lot of money on the terminals. maybe they want to steal it because the messaging portion is a massive part of the reason why people tend to have it. >> that is true. next up here more airline woes on friday. passengers on american airlines flight from dallas to oklahoma city face delays of up to nine hours, it typically that flight is only an hour long brian. >> looks like it's hard to defend the airlines here. they gave people a chance to get off. people want to stay on the flight. it's 200 miles approximately at this point. you just got to drive. it's just a couple of hours, at this point get in the car. it's the weather, but still zoosh i get it brsh if it's bad weather, are you going to drive in the bad weather too? i mean, i was stranded in albany. hi the choice to drive or stay in albany and i decided stay because the roads are bad. the roads are bad. >> albany is also a fine city. it's the new york state capital zoosh that did factor in as well. >> it does factor in. the empire state. >> luxury health care chain equinox is eyeing what it thinks may be the next front ear in personal fitness.

sleep coaching. is sleep the next wave of human physicianlogical development? zi love this idea because we -- i mean, we as a nation are probably sleep deprived, so why not sleep more effectively. we train for all sorts of other things? why not sleep. it's so important to everything. mental well being, physical well being, et cetera et cetera. >> it's -- and maybe it shows that as far as actual training methods go we've reached the peak of human development. people are -- there are no 300 pounders -- no 300 pounders -- no 300 poubders in the nfl in 1976 melissa. none. now there's like a couple of hundred of them. >> to you that's proof of the peak of human development. >> no no no. personal training. you know what i mean? now they want to get some extra sleep. i think it's great. all of our colleagues at anchor morning shows, by the way -- >> they need it. >> know from which we speak. >> yes, exactly. we have been there too, brian. >> oh. painfully. >> there are six nasdaq stocks that have bigger percentage gains than apple since march 2000 and none are tech stocks. we'll have the full list coming

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big story of the day, the nasdaq hitting 5,000. right now just below that mark. we also want to show you monster beverage because it is the top performer in the nasdaq 100 since the highs in march 2000. it is up more than 50,000%. >> that's it? come on. well apple has been a spectacular moneymaker in the nasdaq in the past 15 years, but it has not been the best moneymaker. there are five other stocks in the nasdaq 100 that are up more on a percentage basis than apple since march of 2000. they are keurig green mountain tractor supply, gilead sciences you have also o'reilly automotive and express scripts. >> blackberry looking to make big bets by putting its software

on other devices. will it help move the needle for blackberry's stock? collin has a buy rating on the stock. great to see you. >> great to be here. >> it's not just blackberry messenger i'm assuming. could also be the system found in a lot of automobiles. >> all those people out there talking about passport and classics, retrain your thinking because this is an enterprise software play. now, it's relevant because nasdaq 5,000. you want to find what stocks still have good upside potential in them and blackberry is one of those names. it's a special situation. it's a turnaround. we're very positive on the new management, john chen who is reshaping this company to be an enterprise mobility management play. let's manage all the software on other company's networks. >> if the hardware is an afterthought, with the company have a higher valuation if it got rid of that hardware division and focused on software and become a software company

and commanded software valuation? >> you may see that happening. you have already seen steps to reduce the dependency by working with partnerships to outsource a lot of the hardware development. now, the hardware phones are still going to be a stopgap over the next year as they build up the software revenue stream. they have a target of $500 million and they have a har get of $100 million for bbm. those are pretty lofty targets but this manage get has delivered. you have a $6 billion market cap with $3 billion in cap. >> how much value is there in qnix? it's in ford vehicles. >> it's really for the internet of things. the ford win is nice. we would call this the call option on the company. right now the focus should be on the services and on the software business and on bbn, and then if iot and the internet of things takes off, blackberry has a position in that market as well.

>> collin great to speak with you. thank you. brian? >> all right melissa, thank you. collin as well. bill gates topping forbes list of the richest people in the world, but do you know exactly how rich he really is? how many sort of average incomes or even 1%-er income would say it take to match bill gates? all kinds of crazy stats about it coming up next.

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are worth more than $1 billion according to forbes. robert frank is joining us with how big is it at the top. >> those 826 billionaire was a total wealth of -- bill gates, he's still the richest guy in the world with $79.2 billion. that's after he's given away nearly $30 billion in charity. he's been number one for 16 of the last 21 years. amazing run for him. number two, carlos slim of mexico coming in with $77 billion. and the man of the morning, warren buffett, with $72 billion. now, more interesting to me are the billionaire losers last year, and there were a lot. 138 people lost their billionaire status last year. big declines in oil and emerging markets claiming most of the victims, but russia was by far the largest, losing 28 billionaire as the russian economy and western sanctions chopped to zero off the

oligarchs. jiri kovalchuk, he saw his fortune drop to $650 million. oleg tinkov saw his fortune drop, no longer a billionaire says forbes. and supermarket mavens both have lost $300 million each with the country's ban on food imports. the russians still have 88 billionaires, and those billionaires control a larger share of that economy than any other country. >> i was trying to figure out how rich $80 billion is. like how much money is that. to get into the 1% in the state of washington it takes $400,000. that would be the become to put you in the top 1%. bill gates has 200,000 times wealthier than the entree into the 1%. >> right. he could pretty much buy the state. >> i calculated he's actually

richer than almost all the millionaires, not billionaires combined. >> and he's given over $28 billion to charity. >> not knocking it. >> who bothers me is the top of this list has a majority of nonself made millionaires. the waltons, the kochs. the top of the list is not changing much. >> i'll see you tonight on "fast." "closing bell" is up next. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i'm kelly evans on this monday which could be a historic one. maybe it already has been down here at the new york stock exchange. >> took 15 years but the nasdaq finally did top the 5,000 mark although it's trading below that level right now. it was a milestone kind of a day and we've been waiting and waiting and there was that slow creep to get there. >> we're only four points aw