is an overweight for us. hard not to be overweight on health care. >> you really don't know? >> i would buy -- >> you have an apple watch? >> holding up the watch. [ laughter ] >> all right. that's all for us. thank you so much for joining us, have a great day a enwe'llnd we'll see you tomorrow. "halftime" is over and second half of the trading day begins now. >> i don't know what's happening in the next hour but it will be good. welcome to power lunch, and we ask you, do you want to save money on your life insurance bills? may be a new way to do it, but you have to give something up information. are you willing to do that? new report card grading airlines, on time performance, lost luggage, everything else that a business traveler needs to know before booking the next flight rkts flight, but we begin now with a perennial question that faces retirees and near retirees. should you rush to pay off your

mortgage? cnbc's senior correspondent has a great piece about it today on cnbc.com, for a lot of homeowners is it a great idea or not such a great idea? sharon will join us what do you say? >> well, tyler, you know this is a question that many financial advisers have to answer as well for their clients, and, of course housing debt is a major concern for boomers since for many it is their biggest expense. data from the demand institute shows that the median outstanding mortgage balance for 50 to 69 -year-old household, more than doubled from nearly $49,000 in 1992 to $118,000 in 2013. since most boomers plan to stay in their current home in retirement they may be saddle with the debt for decades more. why get rid of it? advisers say not so fast. balance paying off the mortgage with saving and retirement crunch numbers first. a well diversified portfolio

returning 7 % in the long run is better than paying off a mortgage with 3% or 4% for many boomers. boomers find maximizing retirement contributions, paying off higher debt like credit cards and building up emergency savings is a better use of their money. >> fascinating questions. i just refinanced by the way, to a 15-year loan to try to retire my debt quicker. i may have done the wrong thing. i had some personal reasons why i did that which i won't go into here, but diana, a real estate expert joining us now. what do you think of this? i mean, sharon makes an excellent point. in retirement cash is king. the more of it you have the more financial flexibility you have. it's very intuitively appealing to pay down mortgage debt, but you're really boosting home equity, which is to say putting money in an ill-liquid asset? >> exactly. i mean, sharon made a lot of very good points but you're right. i also have a 15-year fixed, and

the problem is that so many of us are so debt averse because of the financial crisis we don't want any dealt on our homes, especially because home prices can fall. really fact of the matter is you shouldn't be aggressively paying off the mortgage if you're an older american because money is better invested elsewhere. if rates were 10% or 12% or 8% that's something different, but this is below 4 % for 30 year fixed, 15 year fixed, or an awe justble right, seven year arm. if you're moving sometime soon and that way you decide when you put money into your home and when you don't want to put money into your home because the fact of the matter is, that money is not doing much for you in your home, and we know that prices have bottomed out in most markets and going up slowly. i think it's a better bet to put the money somewhere else. >> sharon -- >> as pointed out, mortgage rate is really key here. those who have not yet

refinanced and have high mortgage rate probably not many out there, but there's some then you know there's the question, is it better to pay that down because perhaps they can't refinance for various reasons. for most people they need to look at their retirement savings, which they don't think about, and don't forget if you're maxing out retirement contributions at work or with an ria, you get a tax break there too. it's not like you miss out on the tax side. >> all right. >> i add to that remember there are a lot of new programs out there for folks who are even under water on their mortgages, that they can refinance into lower rates. folks don't know about that thinking i can't refinance because i don't have equity. you can. >> all right folks -- >> how does the calculus change if you're younger, 30 or 40 years old. >> i was just going say i will toss it to someone a long way from retirement, and that's you. is probably smart enough to be living debt free. melissa? >> you are contributing to a bunch of pots at the same time,

maxing out the retirement savings, that's key because, again, you want flexibility with your investments, and that's why you do that. also, you could be aggressively paying down debt. one part we did not talk about is emergency savings, folks do not have because they do not put that an auto pilot so they dip in retirement savings or take out a home equity line of credit to pay off bills. don't do that. make sure you have liquid cash for emergency savings, retirement savings as well as being able to pay down that mortgage if you have that extra money to do so. >> a lot of great advice guys thank you so much. breaking news in the bond market, 30 year bonds up for auction. dom? >> melissa, 30-year bond auction or the reopening, the reselling of 29 year ten month bonds gone off at yield of 2.97%, comparing to a 2.567 yield right before the auction, a limit weakness in bond prices pushing yields

higher. interesting statistics the bid to cover ratio was 2.28 18 weaker than the average over the last ten of these auctions a 2.46, that curtesy of street account. they calculate that indirect participation, indirect bidders, came in at 51.3%, higher than the overall ten auction average of 48.64% as provided by street account. again, indirect bidders important because they represent those foreign and central banks as part of the particular group. again, we are moving to the highest levels of the session on that 30-year treasury note on the heels of the auction. again, 2.597 yield coming in a little higher than it was when we went into the particular auction. melissa, back to you. >> dom chu, thank you. delays, tarmac times, mishandled bags, how did airlines do throughout the brutal winter snow? we have the new data out. phil? >> melissa, these are numbers from the department of transportation looking at how

the airlines did in february, and, remember we had a series of storms particularly in the northeast that made flying around this country a nightmare. here's the best airlines in terms of on-time percentage, and by the way, industry overall 7 % on time, but alaska hawaii and delta the tom three. in the bottom there's envoy air, american eagle as it is now, frontier and jetblue, not surprising given what we saw happening in boston which is its hub. how much damage storms caused, 16 flights delayed three hours in february, eight delayed at least four hours, and check this out, one flight between frankfurt and jfk, folks on that flight february 2 sat on the tarmac for seven hours. look at shares of the airline index, keep in mind that the airlines have had a tough sled over the last three months in part because so many people moved them higher melissa, at

the beginning of this year or end of last year because of what we saw happening with jet fuel prices, and that trade has really pulled back over the last six weeks or so. it's down 4% year to date. back to you. >> all right, still digesting seven hours on the tarmac. phil lebeau thank you very much. >> never been more than four can't imagine seven. >> knock on wood phil, knock on wood. how are stocks fairing at 1:08 p.m. eastern time? the dow is hugging the flat line s&p flat, pretty much across the board where we see the most action, if you call it that, the russell 2,000 small caps down a third percent. bob is on the floor with the action. bob? >> hey, melissa. sideways action. i want to show the s&p 500 because it sure looks like people were selling the u.s. to buy europe. europe had a great day. down -- that's 1130 the low point where europe closed. we move positive, but largely sideways. germany, you see what i mean

here ux here, buys europe throughout the day, the imf loan installment, we are near historic highs in germany, but everybody up 1 to 2% in europe today. oil stocks ho hum, xop, again, up, down up down all this week, the week for this. we were on the verge of breaking out on tuesday. i was very excited, and then oil couldn't get over 54 and fell apart, everything came back down again. oil has to rise more for us to get back up. i don't know when that's happening. treasury yields up this week. watching some of the interest rate sensitive vehicles? huh? you notice reits down home construction utilities. timely guys market's not cheap. throw in high stock prices, lower earnings outlook, and economic uncertainty with the potential for higher risks, you get a lot of downside concerns and that, tyler, is why no one's buying or selling anything because they don't have conviction right now. >> bob, thank you very much. would you let your life insurance company track your

every move? if it meant you get a discount on the policy one of the biggest u.s. insurers bets you might. the man behind the plan joining us, and the most popular place for a first date. >> where would you go? that's still ahead. [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom.

welcome back shares of amc entertainment, the theater chain

downgraded to neutral from a buy at mk partners, valuation at a near peak level but believes in renovation strategies. despite the downgrade they upped the price target to $37 from a prior 35. still, down by 2.5% so far. >> thank you. general motors halting production of the volt in order to decrease unsold inventory. there's 70,000 volts to date fewer than original forecast. walgreens closing 200 lower performancing store in effort to save $1.5 billion by 2017 and constellation says due to robust cash flow, they are paying shareholders for the first time. >> thank you. a potential game changer, certainly a new wrinkle in the insurance industry. john hancock offers discounts and rewards to any consumer who agrees to wear a fitness tracker

under a certain plan. the healthier you get, going to the gym or staying tobacco free the more gift cards, points rewards, and discounts on your policy you are eligible for. the tradeoff being your every move potentially, could be tracked. thoughts now from the man behind the plan john hancock, welcome to power lunch. tell me how it works. are we right saying potentially every moves are tracked? as i understand it what you get if you sign up for this program, which i gather is both -- available in a term life or a whole or universal life format is basically a fit bit that tracks your activity or your output, am i right on that or what more does it count that i'm not aware of? >> yeah basically, you're absolutely right. a fitbit basically tracks your activity so there's actually inside a fitbit there's not gps technology, so it does not track your every move, but, basically, our program is really -- there's

a lot of science behind it obviously, and data that's straightforward. if we were a life insurance company, if our customers are staying healthy, we're doing well, we'll share value back with people. we encourage them to maintain and take small steps to improve their health. >> i used a fitbit until it petered out on me, frankly, but it linked back to the cell phone or ipad. does this link up to you guys or what? how does it work? how does it work? >> so we basically, we're giving a fitbit to every customer, but, in fact, this trend, everybody's got different wearable technology that they prefer. our program can work with any of them, but essentially, yes, if you -- everyone's wearing wearable technology now, it's linking up somewhere. that automatically feeds into our program if they choose it to, and we'll be able to give people credit for the activities that they are taeking. to stay healthy. >> michael, what happens, if i

wear one and i'm a couch potato and i don't have any activity in the day, i just sit around doing nothing. could that actually bite me later on in terms of paying higher premiums? i mean, could this backfire for a consumer? >> no, there's in our program, there's no way to get negative points for not doing activity. we reward people engaging in healthy lifestyle activities and i guess what we do is let the customer be in charge. so we continue to have our products without this vitality, or you can choose to have vitality rider or not, and even if you choose vitality you can choose the type of information that you want to share with us. >> would this be available to all customers, this vitality rider, and vitality is the name of the company that pioneered this over in south africa. is it available to all customers? that's number one, and number two, to get greater discounts

than those who might be trackable via my fitbit can i report to hancock or vitality, whomever, this is my cholesterol today, went to the gym three times this week and i did whatever else that would help me live a healthier lifestyle? >> sure. so yeah the -- the option is going to be available to all of our customers. yesterday, we announced this and we got it initially on two products, one universal life product, appealing to all the people who need permanent insurance and one on term insurance product appealing to people with a temporary need for income protection. over time we're adding it to -- as a choice to all of the products that we offer. >> the fitbit basically it tracks steps, physical activity how vigorous the activity was, but to the second part of the question there, can i report to you other pieces of data some of which might be personal and medical about my level of health? will that accumulate discount points for me?

>> yeah, so we have tried to make it so customers can demonstrate their healthy behaviors in a number of ways so you could get points for going online and learning about, you know healthy habits. you get point for physical screenings points by showing us some of the key biometrics are in healthy ranges like blood plan cholesterol, et cetera. most, as a life insurance company, we're used to collecting personal data at the time of underwriting from the customers customers. the on going information we ask for is really a very small subset of that. >> michael, ultimately from a john hancock perspective, it's not just to give discounts. you think you save money in the long run? what's the reason you do this? >> absolutely. as i said in the beginning, if we get our customers to live longer healthier lives, we make money. there's value create. we want to give some of that back to the customers, and we're going to give it back to them in

the form of significantly lower premiums as well as these discounts and rewards from major brands along the way, and all they have to do is live a healthy life. >> all right. we'll leave it there. thank you very much. for more on the story, life insurance rewards for your data log on to powerlunch.cnbc.com. do you want to be rich? of course you do. the first thing to do is find out out rich make their money. robert frank telling us, and, plus, crime and punishment andrea day is on the case. >> conning people out of millions in two different schemes but you'll never guess how this grandfather spent the cash. that's coming up right here.

let me talk to you about retirement. a 401(k) is the most sound way to go. let's talk asset allocation. sure. you seem knowledgeable professional. would you trust me as your financial advisor? i would. i would indeed. well, let's be clear here. i'm actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] [laughs] no way! i have no financial experience at all. that really is you? if they're not a cfp pro you just don't know. find a certified financial planner professional who's thoroughly vetted at letsmakeaplan.org. cfp -- work with the highest standard.

master mind behind two schemes brought to justice. cnbc's andrea day has the crime and punishment. the case came to a wild close in court after being slammed by a federal judge called a serial scammer. how may spend the rest of his days behind bars. this is a serial conman. >> lie after lie after lie >> translator: grandfather wheezeled more than 10 million from investors to fuel his appetite for hunting, motorcycles, and fried pies, leaving victims begging their cash. we met with prosecutors in the eastern district of new york for an exclusive look into the case that left them shaking their

heads. chief of the securities fraud section, winston. >> he moved from one scheme to another. >> he says the first company, harbor funding was a farce from the get-go. >> he essentially promised $100 million in financing to the individuals looking to rebuild the areas of hurricane katrina. >> there was one big problem. >> he was already broke at the time. >> still he says harbor funding promised there were millions ready to lend but first, they wanted a 10% fee from developers and their clients. >> he looked straight into the eyes and lied to them. >> he says lang used escrow accounts with fine print allowing him to take the cash as soon as it was deposited. more than 300 victims from all over the world conned out of cash, like this man from the u.k. who handed over his life savings. >> aside from a small pension left all the lump sum, which was held for a future family is gone. >> is millions poured in investigators say lang spent and

spent, mortgage daughter's college tuition, trips to vegas, and that's just the beginning. he opened a restaurant called grandma paddles fried pies and ordered planes to hunt for moose, taking friends and family along for the ride and when investors call for money, this is what they heard. >> my situation is i'm flat broke. >> my name is just as bad if not worse than yours on the internet. >> i'm not the one who took the money. >> there were so many complaints about the lack of funding, and in the midst of that, bill lang spent money to purchase three new harley davidson motorcycles. according to the prosecutors, when millions were spent, lang and his associates moved on to another scheme. this time a treasure island. >> they basically said that they were going to mine the beaches of the island called sitinik islands. >> saying there was gold in the

sand and sold stock in the company, black sand mine. they had no idea it was founded and controlled byly bill lang. >> the entire company was sold on lies. for example, they hid all their involvement with harbor funding. >> i'm not here to [ bleep ] around him. i don't give a [ bleep ]. did you have a gold mine? >> we had an undercover postal inspectser pose as an investor and call black sand mine. >> with stacks of evidence lang was indicted in both schemes. ultimately, pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, and more. >> the impact of this will linger forever. >> saying quote, i can't believe how stupid i was, getting 22 years behind bars and ordered straight to prison. back to you. >> thank you. a check of the bond market on the heals of the 30 year auction at the top of the broadcast, and as you see, price is down,

yields up today, up by a little bit, and for the short term, though it's been here is the one to look at. fairly significant move in the 30-year bond as the yield moves higher to 2.59%. price is down yields up today. melissa? >> all right, ty. one of life's great mysteries, what is the secret to making money like the rich? our editor, robert frank, knows. >> melissa, most of us make money from salaries, but the rich make money from money. we'll have the real source of income from the top earners, and why they have a lower tax bill. today's power house is home to the famous golden gate bridge. it is the birthplace of actor clint eastwood and it is home to the only rolling national historic landmark the cable car. can you name that city? e financial noise

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i'm mary thompson here's your cnbc news update. president obama visiting jamaica to meet with caribbean leaders and reassert u.s. leadership in

the region meeting with the prime minister in kingston and no decision was made on removing cuba from the terrorist sponsor list. dramatic video shows afghan security forces responding to a taliban attack on a courthouse. the militants killed the district police chief as well as two other officers and injured another 3 is 1 people. a two hour fire fight ensued. a new study confirms shorter people have a risk of coronary heart disease. researchers studied 180 genes affecting height and link to heart disease is genetic rather than poor nutrition or lifestyle factors. for the reality tv obsessed kim and is in arian mania, and hundreds of fans gathered outside the hotel to catch a glimpse of the two sisters. that's the cnbc news update this hour. back to you. >> all right, thank you so much mary thompson. this is how gold is closing as we speak. the stronger dollar is reigning

in the metal markets. gold closing 1193.7 an ounce, down by.08 percent. copper, platinum down, and palladium palladium, though, the one bright spot here. dom? >> another bright spot shares of pier 1 climbing higher in upgrade from web bush securities upping the stock to out perform from pry neutral. they increased the target to $16. it used to be $$13. they topped estimates at 39 cents a share and company earned 54 4 million in total sales and announced to close is 00 stores in three years. restructuring, good earnings sales, upgrades all back to the gain. >> i don't know about you, but you don't to change the channel to get kardashian news right? >> i'm glad they can see it mere. >> car dashians here on cnbc.

a symbol of europe but now it appears that it needs a bailout of its own. according to the "wall street journal," the 46 foot tall euro symbol is falling apart. metaphor? who knows. vandals painted a star red, light bulbs need to be replaced, and there's bumper stickers on the sculpture. the edc does not own it contributes to the upkeep. the civic group is asking banks to help by becoming a sculpture sponsor. the ecb moved headquarters to another building leaving the statue at the old location but there is sits. greece, the center of the eurozone's debt problems today makes a huge payment to the imf. the question is, will greece have enough money for the next go around? sarah eisen speaking with the chief ahead of the spring

meetings. >> kristhey could not guarantee that the greek government had confirmed that there were any assurances greece could keep meeting the debt payments. there was a sign of how serious this was ahead of today's payment, and the next big one is may 12th owing the imf 760 million euros, bigger sum than today. there's plenty of uncertainty. i asked whether the new government was really fully committed to paying back the creditors like the imf in sticking with the euro. she warned it's in the best interest of the greeks to do so. >> i think it would be a terrible situation for the greek people. equally asking that the fire walls, the banking union, the strengthened fiscal union have put the euro zone in a much stronger and better position than where it was four years

ago. >> and melissa, she emphasized europe's in a better place than several years ago with the creation of the banking union and to weather any storm coming from greece. >> all right. thank you so much for that. let's get to mary thompson. breaking news. mary? stock spiking on the news. coming from dow jones. according to sources which says ge is close to selling all or part of the real estate holdings dow jones saying the sources tell them ge in talks with blackstone and wells fargo with selling real estate assets totaling $30 billion. keep in mind, of course, ge is trimming the real estate portfolio, but this is a rather major sale. if all the assets are sold, the company indicated it mentment mentwants to trim capital to finance units of the company where units are held. the company is close to selling all or part of the real estate holdings. >> mary thank you.

european stocks out perform u.s. stocks year to date. the your best bet europe or the united states? joining us now, the ubs wealth manager, and the manager of the lk balance fund. guys, great to have you with us. steven, you like the u.s. but you like europe even more. even with the outperformance where, in europe can investors find value? >> well i think there's an opportunity for u.s. investors just to embrace the eurozone as a holewhole. that's a better trade than u.s. stocks, which we continue to like, but you can be more specific in sector choices. for instance there's very strong forces underpinning the consumer sector and we like consumer discretionary staples a lot. >> opposed to looking at countries, the dax, a nice out performer versus the united states so far this year and over the past 12 months. you say blended europe is better than just picking one country?

every stock market in each country has different performances. >> yeah. i think if you're going to go for a country approach germany's probably a safe bet. clearly, one of the factors helping the eurozone at this point is the weakness of the year year, and germany is likely to be a beneficiary of the strength. >> tom, to you. you got picks and interesting ones of that. texas pacific land concerned about the oil patch there, and is the worst behind the stock? really, it's mirrored the price of crude wti specifically. >> tpl is a typical holding we have where market focuses on the wrong things. yes, oil is down but value of the land holdings is majority of the value of the stock, and what they do as a small company with eight employees, gist collect royalties and buy back the shares. as long as they continue on that path and produce oil and gas under the land we see that with

a real bright future. the worst is behind it. there's more to come. >> how do we look at the company like alcoa, getting earnings yesterday. what do you get from alcoa's earnings, play on the notion of a global recovery? >> it's actually not a play on global recovery as much as it's a play on the increasing use by u.s. auto manufacturers of aluminum in their cars. they produce parts in the ford f-150. we see that trend continuing as u.s. manufacturers have to drop the weight of their vehicles to continue to meet government regulations in terms of fuel efficiency. here's a company that's based in the netherlands with operations in the u.s., and has moved significant parts of them here to help that industry. >> all right guys leaving it there. thank you so much for the time, steve and tom. powerlunch.cnbc.com to see steve investment for china. tyler? wait no more.

the secret to making money like the rich our wealth editor robert frank, is here and he knows what it is. >> the secret right. turns out the secret to getting rich is not ordinary income. for them, it's all about capital. a study from the nonpartisan tax policy center found people making between 50,000 and 100,000 a year salary and wages account for three quarters of the gross income and make less than 1% from capital gains. for the rich well totally different story. among those making $10 million or more a year salary and wages account for only 16% of their income. cap gains are far and away the largest source of income accounting for half of their total egi. most of the wealthy make money from selling stocks companies, or other assets. second biggest income source was business income followed by dividends and interest. what does this mean for tax season? well, the tax rate on capital gains, sk, is 23.8%. tax raid for ordinary income?

39.6 %. the rich can pay a lower rate on total income than people who make money from salaries. remember that story, of course from warren buffet paying a lower rate than his secretary. for all those pushing for higher cap gains rate others point out the rich can choose when to sell their assets so if the rate is higher, like it did in the 1980s, they simply take their gains before any kind of increase. >> so that one pie chart we showed there, that was salaries above $10 million or total incomes? >> total adjust the gross income -- >> incomes above $10 million. >> correct. >> not just the salaries. >> nope. >> is this -- is the capital gains largely deriving from stock options, i guess? >> it's that. it's a sale of company. what's interesting looking at that group making $10 million or more, many of the people are there just for one year. you can spend your whole life building a company, selling it in that one year making that big gain and then the next year, you don't repeat so it is a lot of -- there's some people just selling stock every year.

a lot of people though, selling a company, and they only get in the group for one year so again, a little misleading to people who look at that saying well, it's people sitting back making money from portfolios. they really selling companies. >> interesting appointment. robert, thank you very much. >> tyler, a question. what do you think is the most popular place for a first date? where would you go? >> it's been a long time, melissa, a long time. >> we're going to find out what the current most popular place for a first date is straight ahead. the city in today's power house is home to ajellngel island yelp and gap are both headquartered here and the united nations charter was signed here in 1945. can you name that city? until i started gellin'. i got dr. scholl's massaging gel insoles. when they're in my shoes my feet and legs feel less tired. it's like walking on a wave dr. scholl's massaging gel insoles, i'm a believer!

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why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision or any symptoms of an allergic reaction stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a free 30-tablet trial. welcome back to power lunch. shares of mgn resorts, stock rallying gaining momentum in the last hour on announcement of a special dividends of $400

million. it's split between the casino operator and dubai world, its partner on the complex. it's going to get a share of cash and maybe that's giving that boost to the overall stock market for that mgm stock. back to you. >> thank you very much. time now for the power house, home of the golden gate bridge a give away talking about san francisco, california, where we just open our brand new bureau earlier this week. with us is jeff of mcgwire real estate. checking out san francisco stats, median price is $500 million, and listed on the market for 56 days. jeff, the first one. 1177 california unit number 622, $550,000 is the list taxes about $7,000 two beds, two

baths baths, 535 square feet comepact for two beds and two baths, jeff. >> good morning, tyler, thank you for having me on. actually, it's a junior one bedroom in the towers, nod hill, iconic section of san francisco. incredible views. trolly car goes in front. >> that looks very nice there. really looks much more spacious as we look at those photographs, jeff, than you would think from 5 35 square feet and nice finishes looks like it's recently upgraded on california street, and even i know that street. this is 310 townsend number 109, 895,000 is the ask, taxes of $11,000, two beds two baths about is 1100 square feet. tell us about this. >> two bedroom, two bath modern flat located in soma south of market area very hot section near the at&t park cal trans,

makes a nice easy commute to silicon valley. >> look at that. that looks lovely down there. near the ballpark and then in the south of market right? kind of a -- >> very close. >> was a desirable, hip neighborhood and so forth. let's move to listing number three. this is the power house of the week, 9 48 lake street asking price was 1.295. you have an update? taxes at $17,000, and three beds, two baths, 1800 square feet. looks nice. >> very nice. classic, traditional, three bedroom two bath flat with period details throughout, box beam ceilings in the dining room, two fireplaces, overlooking pine lake park. >> is an offer on this, i'm told? >> actually this just closed for $1.410. >> so people are -- how often are you seeing properties i'm

sure, desirable ones like that how often are you seeing them go above the asking price with multiple offers? >> almost all properties are going over the asking price. and the key is -- >> go ahead. finish your thought, sorry. >> it's going over the asking price, and the key is that if it's priced correctly, properly prepared, with the lack of inventory, and the large supply of buyers it will go over. >> and do most of these properties have multiple offers? i assume they do. that's how they get above the asking price. >> you're absolutely right. >> and -- >> a large portion of them -- >> and we said that the average day is on the market was about 56 and about 2700 properties. are you seeing -- does that 56 day number sound right to you? >> actually not. when you look at what we're really seeing at we're in a six to eight day market. >> that's what i would guess.

>> 12 days max. >> that's what i would guess. i'm sure the data is assembled in a different way and reflect one thing, but if you're saying things are going way above ask, that suggests they are not staying on very long at all. are most people paying cash or borrowing to buy? >> about 20 to 30% are paying cash at all price points. >> that is something. jeff, thank you very much. appreciate your help. >> thank you very much. >> joining us from the silicon valley san francisco area. >> what a market tyler. >> celebrity power house of the day now. lebron jameiss selling for $15 million. the house includes over 12,000 square feet of living space with six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. it features a chef's kitchen, wine cellar guest home infinity pool. wow. dom chu, market flash? >> i cant focus after that pool

melissa. watching shares of altera. david faber broke the story that intel called off talks with the company over failure to secure an adequate price between the two sides in the negotiating position here. the shares now reversing course and now they are up 3.5% on the day right now. again, we had our own david faber reporting that they rejected a possible offer in the low $50 per share range. now, what's that has done is push intel towards the strongest level of the session as well. if you look to the competitors also xilinx talked about candidates for a possible intel deal in the absence of altera. the shares higher as well on the day. interestingly here, because of the rejection, maybe some are looking for, melissa, this way that maybe altera gets another bid from someone else. >> in play now. thank you. looking at the most popular places for a first date starting with number ten, applebees.

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before the break, we showed

you some top places for a first date according to the mobile dating app, clover. melissa did not seem shall i say, terribly impressed, but let's go to the top five now. number five. best first date texas roadhouse, number four ladies and gentlemen, the cheesecake factory. you will not go away hungry there. the third favorite place for a first date is? panera bread. >> a little better. [ laughter ] >> number two, i like the stock better than the place, chipolte ladies and gentlemen and number one most popular place for a first date is? starbucks, according to the survey, the majority of women prefer coffee for a first date but more men actually prefer a full meal at a restaurant and if you saw the movie "best in show," it's not far off. i -- the ladies' man brings the wine melissa. >> that goes with none of those. >> we saw each other at

different starbucks across the street from each other, and hammington got up the courage to walk across the street one day and approached me. >> isn't that romantic? [ laughter ] >> you know, i have to agree, out of all the places starbucks because it is the lowest time commitment, and you can take your coffee and go. >> yes. >> if it doesn't work out. >> i think starbucks makes a lot of sense there. i think it makes a lot of sense there. >> i agree. >> okay, folks, if you missed the big stories in the past or like where to have a first date or the latest on the kardashians in armenia, visit our website. >> several financial experts suggest that prioritizing a mortgage free retirement is not the best strategy. today's yahoo! power poll asks what are you prioritizing before retiring, 23 % said paying credit card debt 59% said

maxing savings contributions, and 18% said billing an emergency fund. >> that felt like steve harvey on "family feud." >> you did a find job. survey says -- >> if this financial stuff does not work i have game shows. >> that's right. >>. iran will not sign the deal if sanctions are not lifted immediately, and the senate is itching to weigh in. what does that mean for oil if the deal goes down? more power lunch in two minutes. financial noise financial noise financial noise iful it is. ♪ ♪ honey, we need to talk. we do?

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coming up on "power lunch" part two, red hot part of the world recently and if you get in now, will you get burned? should google buy a technology company whose name you know? feast your eyes on today's mystery chart, no it is nots a stock. it is an etf. it's been rocking over the last month. one could say it's on a roll. tweet us your guesses, a hint to the google tease. that's coming up in the second hour of "power lunch." >> a riddle within a mystery in a conundrum. no deal unless sanctions lifted on day one, and noncommittal to put it mildly, but at the same time the white

house launches a behind the scenes campaign to persuade lawmakers in congress not to derail the deal. cnbc's chief washington correspondent is live with the latest. john? >> reporter: tyler if he can keep members of congress from voting to impose sanctions prematurely and wreck his iran deal, he'll take them to chipolte, starbuck, and panera. he's got a game of prevent defense. he's put a lot of chips in the middle of the table on the iran deal. it's his principle foreign policy legacy at this moment beyond the attempt to wind down the iraq and afghanistan wars and so the math works this way. if they pass a bill, which it seems they have majorities in both chambers to impose a review and perhaps additional sapgss on this deal he would -- and if you assume he loses all republicans in both chambers which i don't think is a slam dunk, but it's possible.

he could only lose 12 democratic senators and 43 democratic house members, about a quarter of his caucus in each chamber. that's when you need. it's a high bar to override a presidential veto needing two-thirds in both houses. the challenge is chuck schumer, next in line democratic leader in the senate has -- one of the people that's been pressing the president and suggesting that he was going to take action the president does not want to happen, but i got to tell you, i think at the end of the day, that may be postturing. i don't think chuck schumer would bring down a democratic president's foreign policy achievement. if he did so, that makes him vulnerable in the race to succeed harry reid. >> quickly, when the bill is likely to move through, does that mean basically, congress gets to advice or get to do a thumbs up, thumbs down on agreement or be consulted? >> well the -- there's a couple different bills, one involving

sanks sanctions the other review, and the bill moving forward now gives them the power to do thumbs up and thumbs down. the administration's trying to morph that goo something that would be something nor advisory and not be depositive over the deal. i think the odds are good that when push comes to shove, that's what they'll get. >> all right got it. meet you at starbucks, john thank you very much. that's the first hour brian over to you and melissa. >> pulling double duty thank you, melissa. it's 2:00 on wall street 1:00 at the kansas city fed, and here's what is happening in the markets right now. we'll call the dow effectively flat. it's vacillateing down down a couple points and gold down eight and a half bucks an ounce and dollar against the euro, we see a buck-six high change whatever for the euro and once again, we begin with oil. it was down 6% yesterday. it is up right now, about 1.3%.

67 cents a barrel to 51.09, and, of course, it gained significantly last week, and, in fact, it's been really an incredibly chaotic lately trading for oil between 44 and 54 bucks a barrel multiple times over the past two months. jimmy is with us, and, jim, why are we seeing -- we had a trend for about four months where oil went one way, which was down. over the last two months it's done a lot of this, looks like an ekg, right? why have we seen all the volatility lately? >> well i think part of the bottoming process is to have sharp volatile swings within the two month range established at the bolt tom. we're in the bottoming process. we control the low end of the bottoming process now, and i base it on the big day in the euro. that broke out of an attempted rally slash consolidation period, and it's headed lower.

oil is higher today on the day the euro is lower. that's unusual, but not unheard of to have a decoupling on a one, two, three day basis. overtime, though it continues lower, crude should follow. >> well, you said that the volatility is the sign of a bottoming process, and i thought you'd say we bottomed out, but now you say oil's going down again? >> yeah, but i think that oil could go down in the mid-40s and be perfectly comfortable within the bottoming process. >> do you see the possibility of a three handle, 39 bucks a barrel or below that? >> i don't. i don't. i use technical analysis, and when that gives you readings that are ridiculous based on the fact we use a lot of oil as well as the rest of the world, through the chart out. there's not going to be a three handle. low 40s like before, people realize that that's just too cheap. it's one of the most crucial commodities we use, and it's not going to be just begin away.

>> we have to wait and see if the storage tanks will be filled up. that would be a big wild car. jim, thank you very much buddy. >> thank you. as oil struggles to break from the lows pink slips are the new norm for energy workers year to date. american energy companies have announced more than 47600 job layoffs, a mind boggling 3900% gain from the same period one year ago. i guess there's a slight bit of good news here. which is that the pace of job cuts in march was down 90% from the pace of february's cuts. still, the news flow remains bad. yesterday, conoco philips is going to cut head count to cut costs by a billion bucks by the year 2016. company did not specify how many workers will be laid off on when. now, on tuesday, noble energy warned of a 10% cut in jobs since oil's nose dive in the fall work at baker hughes felt

the most pain 9,000 cuts at schlumberger, and more cuts. >> followed through by big gains in today's session, and today's sessions on fire over the last two months tracking the action. the large cap chinese stocks up 20%. ewh, hong kong etf up 10%. with us is forbes columnist gordon chang and the editor of the report. great to have you with us. jim, start with you. this is about the chang high and hong kong connect and money flowing, isn't it? >> that's a part of it. i mean, there's three catalysts. one is the ability of mutual funds in mainland china to channel money into hong kong and arbitrage out the difference between share evaluations. second part of it is exceptionally low valuations for stocks relative to history, and

more importantly, relative to other parts of the world, look at the hong kong average pes, we trades at 15% below the longer term average pes, despite the fact that shanghai's above average and everyone else is trading premium valuations. hong kong's a feeldeal. >> shanghai, value weighs higher there, valuations of hong kong listed shares lower, and so therefore, that hong kong shanghai connect makes it possible for retail investors and others to funnel money into oo lower fall vags market? >> that's rights and that difference is big. you saw companies trading for 35% difference, for shares on the exact same company between two markets. that discount's narrowed to 24% right now, but it's still there. it's prevalent. it's going to go away. >> gordon why do you not like china and say the coming collapse is going to happen? that's the title of your book and that investors should stay away. >> one thing about mainland

markets, they move generally opposite fundamentals moving according to the expectations of whether the government's going to pour more stimulus into the economy, and because the chinese economy is deteriorating. bad last year, deteriorateing in the first three months of this year there's a lot more government stimulus primarily saying it's going to happen and i think it will. therefore, the chinese markets have been booming, and it's going to continue this way for quite some time. that does not mean china's a good bet. eventually bubbles end in tragedy. same thing in china. >> i want to clarify because we're talking about china as a whole, i mean, looking at the etf products eft track shares in china and those that track shares listed in hong kong. the fxi and ewh, we showed primarily hong kong listed shares, and there's other etfs like deutsche bank and asher tracking the a share.

gordon gordon, you talk about the china shared opposed to hong kong shares or are hong kong shares facing a bubble territory at this point? >> of course there's going to be the arbitrage that you have with the shanghai hong kong connect because, essentially, you know you had, for instance we saw it yesterday, with markets closed for day, but hong kong three days. you had a really big spread in the shares, and that's why you have a lot of the money flooding down both wednesday and thursday. the hong kong market operates differently. it's more on fund mal, and, yes, china is an important part of it, but when you look at the large caps in hong kong, they have businesses outside of the territory, and so therefore, you see little bit different. i like hong kong more because of that, because i think the rest of the asian market where you do have hong kong involvement is going to out perform china, at least in the long run when the bubble collapses. >> jim, quick, you say invest in

hong kong shares not china, if forced to choose? >> no question about it. pick the shares the two etfs, focus on a shares is a better benefit at this stage of the game. >> thank you so much for the time, gordon and jim. >> thanks a lot. >> thank you. china makes stuff. they make a lot of stuff. a lot of the stuff that they make comes to america by ship and lately more of those ships are coming to the east coast, not the west coast. pick a side. port, import, export released a report that u.s. east coast portings handled 3% fewer unites than those in the west. that is a shift from 2014 where the west handled 33% more. it is not all good news for the east coast ports. they don't have the capacity or the depth to handle the increased load. let us bring in now cnbc.com

managing editor and port reporter who we are now henceforth calling dock wassler, and morgan brennan following the story. >> i've been to ports myself. >> accurate statement. >> we all have. this is definitely something we heard about on the east coast and increased congestion along the east coast, places like newark and the fact that cargo diverted from asia over to the east coast, which has been a huge cost for the shippers that are doing that, but the expectations is that even though we see more cargo coming in that that's going to change as congestion on the west coast -- >> sounds great, dock, but the problem is to get these massive ships in you need deep water. >> big honking ships with deep water. >> the west coast, there's the l.a. long beach area they are deeper than 50 feet up to 55 feet, okay? latest ships make they carry

19,000 teus 20 foot equivalent units, two big honking trucks you see on the road every day. here on the east coast, depth is 50 feet taking up to 16,000 of those containers, okay? okay. we'll just dig deeper. >> good luck. >> that's easy. >> ask savannah georgia how that works. when they started the process 20 years ago, and they have not scraped the bottom. >> the amount of certification environmental permits you need look at dredging it's gross. all right, you're digging stuff up okay. you do maintenance drudging because they are at the end of the river. you want to make it deeper? woah woah there was factories on the harbor. you're going to dig up pollutantings and contaminants. we don't want that in the bay. that's a question. other, also questions, too, the big one for new york? they are going to dig deeper but first the bridge. raise the bridge. >> they can't get under, and the

bridge is a multiyear process. >> and, i was going to say nonetheless, we are starting to get reports that there are agreements being made for smaller ships to come through that don't need those big death penalties. >> right. and that goes to the smaller parts. >> right, if you want the same number of teus, we learn something, every day on the program, i promise america we add an acronym. today is teus. you need twice the number of boats to match the giant ships so that's too many ships, less deep ships, but more ships. >> why expectation is more imports come into the east coast that's not sustainable, you'll see smaller shipments of stuff that's not as valuable perm nenltdly coming in the east coast and majority goes back to the west coast saying this month we'll see an increase on imports on the west coast again. >> i need to go back and watch season 2 of "the wire." and if you know what i'm talking about, right?

>> yes. >> there's other issues like labor. >> labor's a big one. >> small tight roads, potholes, no capacity. >> and -- >> why am i doing this in. >> a trucker shortage is looming too. they rely on truck more than the west coast. they have trains, and we have a driver shortage looming. >> huge shortage. immediate fill for 40,000 drivers is what the industry is looking for. that said some of the east coast railroads are putting billions of dollars now into expanding the capabilities. their ability to take these containers and move them -- >> you need permits there too. >> that's true. >> thank you very much. teu, folks. all right, here's what it lined up and ready to load in the rest of the program. first up the crazy price tag on all the deal making that's been happening this year. and we are asking should google buy a big name i'm sure you all know, and, plus a look at today's mystery chart again, it is not a stock. it is one of the best performing

exchange traded funds over the past month. here's a hint the name perhaps, is the perfect one for this very fine program. we're back after this.

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welcome back to "power lunch," 999 billion dollars, the price tag on all the global m&a activity annoyanced so far this year, and that is according to s&p capital. for comparison only 873 billion in deals had been announced by

this time last year. brian? >> all right. well speaking of m&a, the rumor mill churning again over a possible bid from google to take over twitter. it is important to note that that is all it is right now, a rue mar. there's reports out there, whatever, but david confirmed today that twitter is not in any box to be acquired however, this google twitter tieup talk is nothing new. let's bring in our researchers, herb greenberg. we talked about this on the tk show -- 2:00 show for a long time. do you think this will ever happen? >> well, when we talk about it originally, it was when twitter was private and thought the deal should have happened. it -- look google does not quote-on-quote need twitter. what twitter needs and what i said all along, they need to be part of something else to go about its business and create what it's creating now, which is a heck of a good service. now, i say that with an as risk because twitter, itself in terms of desiring whether it needs to be acquired, will look

over the next i think, next one or two or three quarters to see what kind of stainability it is because if the stock starts to get, you know take a hit here it becomes vulnerable again. i have to say, if you look at the developments they have recently with pair scope, a new retweeting mechanism they have which is great, they are showing they can start to do things and move the needle. now we just -- >> they are neat, but if they do not bring people in or keep people around, then it does not matter. they could release the golden goose, and if no one is there to see it it does not matter. >> then they are a sitting duck that's why i said one, two, three quarters one or two quarters, we'll see. keep the momentum from last quarter going. >> herb doesn't google need something? the stock chart has no mobile messaging. it needs to be jolted at this point. >> no no. >> maybe not twitter, but something like a twitter. >> well, that's a great point. it needs something, but twitter is not going to do anything more than move the buzz needle on it

for a few minutes given this news cycle, and then it's part of the company. if it's not additive revenue, that's another swallowed up company. what google needs is -- that's another issue. >> is that what you said when facebook bought what's app? >> well, you could say -- >> you could say that and that worked out for facebook. >> well yeah that's a good point, melissa. >> you're not going to fight about it. dan nathan cnbc contributor, well known to option actions viewers, known to melissa lee, and dan, i believe based on comments you made a number of times, you disagree with herb's point and agree with melissa that google needs something because where they failed miserably is the social media. >> caller: no doubt about it. >> i say it in quotes because there's not much social about it. >> i always agree with any liz is a is a. >> you have to otherwise you might not be on the show.

>> exactly. >> hey. >> the rumors, i stick with faber on that who knows what the -- i don't know. whether they are real or not okay. here's the deal i believe google needs twitter for some very important reasonsment i think they have some huge blind spots. mel mentioned the stock performance, that one thing, stock flat over the last year nasdaq up over 20%. somebody investors out there are a little bit skeptical of future growth right now for google and so i think it has a lot to do with the blind spots i'm going to talk about. the first one is realtime search. there was a time where people used to want to figure out what was going on in the world, go to google and google it. now they are going to twitter. that makes twitter a very unique search product, okay? i think it's really under valued in that capacity right now. in finance, we use it a lot. we're going to see that move to other verticals. i think the products like the scope that herb mentioned are important, but to me they do not move the needle right now, and i think they are gimmicky

leaving the social media aspect of it. google does not have a social media component. google plus is a disaster here. i believe twitter would be much more valuable as part of a much bigger property like google. >> yeah, but, dan, it's folded in, and it becomes a mess. you keep twitter separate. they will not get rid of google plus. that's a given. >> they don't have to. >> caller: on the social front, though, they have already done this deal where they are are going to start embedding tweets in search results here so i just think that, you know when you think about what the price tag is for a public twitter with a $32 billion enterprise value, i think it's massively undervalued when you consider that t for it inside a much larger property like a google, and what they are going to be able to extract from this unique property. >> yeah we're going to leave it there. i'm with herb, i think the public pressure of twit african-american metrics everyone's using now, it's going

to get real tough for twitter, at least in terms of the criticism and per special circumstancetive of investors looking at the numbers. great conversation, though thank you very much. another look at today's mystery chart. it is an etf that as i said had been on a roll over the past 30 days, first hint? the perfect name for "power lunch," but here's a new clue. a general, a parrot patriot, and a canned ham. tweet us with your guess at melissa lee, and then it is a whole new take on cat fishing. in and out doubt what will be the coolest photo you'll see all day or your money back. your mom's got your back. your friends have your back. your dog's definitely got your back. but who's got your back when you need legal help? we do. we're legalzoom, and over the last 10 years, we've helped millions of people protect their families and run their businesses. we have the right people on-hand

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all right, here's your daily giant cat grab shark from ocean for dinner photograph. this really happened. a bystander in florida caught this amazing picture. it is a wild florida bob cat, a big one at that pulling out a three foot long shark that got too close to the beach. officials say they believe it's real. the photo was posted on the florida wildlife commission's facebook page. apparently, though the photographer startled the beast

which dropped the shark, ran off. i don't know what happened to the shark. time now to reveal today's mystery chart. it is one of the best performing etfs over the past month, and it is the pbj etf. we highlighted this in february 23rd new ideas column on cnbc pro because every food-related commodity was down consumers have more money due to lower gas prices and heinz deal a part of it, but it's not all of why the food companies have done well. look at recent stock moves of the smaller food-related namings. over one month, spartannash, up 20%. fresh del monte up 13%, pin call foods, and jj snack foods up 7 %. the food companies, especially the small ones have been as we said on a roll. a roll. >> as you say, brian.

that's so bad. >> i apologize. the final oil trades crossing jackie to rescue us. >> we are praping how oil closes today, interesting action and it's not just a technical bounce here potentially, but there may be a shifting sentiment. i'll explain reasons your for that when we return.

here's your cnbc news update. cuba's vice president said that while cuba was working to reestablish relations with the u.s., president obama should not have been imposed sanctions on venezuelan officials. if the u.s. attacks venezuela, it attacks cuba. bolivia's president thanked two art collectors for returning paintings when they realized they were stolen from a blifian church. they were on display at the government palace in la paz. the democrat from maryland who is running for the u.s. senate pledged to swear off all campaign donations from wall street banks outraged by a report that major banks met to

discuss ways to urge democrats to soften their tone against the financial sector. someone took a joyride in a pace car used during the indianapolis 500. the vehicle was found abandoned along the road after being stolen from a chevrolet dealership in indianapolis. that's the update this hour. brian, i hope that was not you. back to you. >> it was not, but maybe it could have been. thank you. oil is gaining some ground today after a big loss yesterday. jackie d has more on this, this volatile oil trade as of lates. >> what's interesting, brian, watching this, we see a day where we are lower, and then buying on the dip, and this volatile action back and forth. some say this is a reason behind the move today. yes, we got a monster build, almost 11 million barrels here in the u.s. last week, but some traders read this as the potential for inventories to

have peaked. the goldman note this week suggested we would see a u.s. peak in april. funny to see how the perception of the number has changed today. i want to highlight geopolitical instability on the radar. iran dispatching a naval float to a key water way next to yemen, so traders are concerned about that as well. back to you. >> all right, thank you very much. time for street talk five analyst calls every day. let us go and stop one, melissa, two stocks in one. merit-age homes, sell them, cut to underweight from neutral. saying the sentiment is too pos sieve? >> one reason worth noting is the seasonality pointed out. seasonality of under performance when it comes to may through july for the home builder. that's something to keep in mind for the entire sector. sock two here cliff's natural resources, downgraded to an underperform and the call here is that iron ore supply is up

and the iron price forecast is going down by 13 to 20% through 2018. bmo is cutting ratings on labrador labrador, iron ore as part of the broader call. >> it's been a disaster falling off one, down 30% this year and the ammists, where were the analysts then? iron ore prices fell forever. the average rating on the stock is underweight. you don't see that often. all right. stock three, adobe, stevens starting coverage with an overrate waiting, float like a butterfly, sting like adobe. >> that was so bad. >> the company's in the sweet spot of multiple growth targets, $100 target on the stock implying 25% upside. >> he gets a demerit for that awful title, brian. in mid-march, company posted earnings took a tumble because light on earnings and outlook for the quarter was light. keep that in mind when we see these bullish calls on adobe.

we are looking at marvel technology initiating the out perform rating out perform, highest on the street maribel's dominant position with cash flow, and creations from sale or money losing mobile hand set business and there could be interest in the chinese government in investing because 9 % of the lte engineering is in fact, in china. >> just noting that price target is at the high end of the price targets on the stock, only rbc is higher 21 a share, the average gist under 17 bucks a share. in stock, as always last anytime is an under the radar, smaller company, and today, it's masonite, the ticker is door. it's a maker of doors, starting coverage with an outperform $74 target. not a lot of upside, 8 %, but bringing out names you don't know about normally. >> yes. this has a nice run for door and, in fact this is a new 52

week high in today's session. >> someday, my love will open that to your heart, melissa. thank you. let us talk more stocks, energy names, and this is trading nation traders trade better together. let's do it. we have richard ross, head of technical technical analysis, and erin gibs with sb capital iq. with oil unpredictable and volatile how do we trade? >> this is a tough call and as a portfolio manager, i actually made the call too early being very favorable for energy back in last december but at the risk of being rong for a second time, i think we finally seen stabilization in oil prices and though it's been rather volatile, we've not seen the huge 30% decline we saw at the beginning of the year, and for recent weeks, it's been trading more stabilized and more importantly, earnings growth or earnings declined this year stabilized around negative 55% for the year.

at least we have a better sense of where the stocks will be for the year as well as what's going to happen in 2016. now, they are not kpak exactly the value we thought they were in november. they are trading rich. the prices have stabilized, and, again, i think as we move further in the year and people look at 2016 we look again, at growth these companies really are going to have that value. as well as the fact they offer a 3% dividend yield versus 2% for the s&p 500. i just see a lot more potential appreciation versus the broader index for energy. >> not backing up the truck, but you are saying there's value here? >> yes. >> not the best trade in the world, but not the worgsst and you could make money? >> yes. waiting for oil to stabilize, that's been the question for energy, is when are the prices going to stop at least hit a low. we've seen that by now. >> all right, well let's hope. rich ross, what do you think of the energy trade technically? >> brian, bullish on crude oil,

the underlying and bullish on crude oil stocks. more specifically, oil surface stocks. first on crude, underlying focuses on wti. a breakout above the moving average at $54 is imminent. there's $65 on wti this summer. now, in terms of those oil service stocks ofx, brian, important brakeout today above the hundred day moving ank for the first time since last july generating a strong buy here. there could be could be another 15 % upside in the names. keep in mind names tend to out perform in the early stages of the crude oil price recovery. which is exactly what's going to unfold here we think. yesterday, brian, an important tell. crude oil, as we know down 6% on the day, but the osx down just 57 basis points. that's telling you the stocks want to go higher, and the double bottom and break above the hundred day confirms that. buy crude the underlying and osx

names. >> it's a buy. thank you very much. for more trading nation, go to tradingnation.cnbc.com. a major u.s. company may be about to lose its title as the biggest in the world at what it does. the champ and the new challenger ahead. plus jp morgan ceo, jamie dimon worrying about a new crisis. is pimco nervous? >> plus -- >> i'm paid to be a blimp pilot. what it takes to be a blimp pilot coming up on "power lunch." and now your trading nation's stats of the day and a word from our sponsor. >> it's difficult to hedge ens unknown unknown or black swan events because by the nature they are impossible to predict. instead, consider focusing on the known-unknowns, like election results, economic reports, and earnings reports. 550 [ male announcer ] your love for trading never stops tdd# 1-800-345-2550 even on the go. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 open a schwab account and you could

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paid to be a blimp pilot. something we never get tired of is the view. i enjoy the instinctive flying no auto pilot. it's always different whether it's tv coverage for a variety of sports entertainment reasons or passenger rides. no takeoffs and landings are ever the same. it takes 15 people to launch and land one of these air ships. it's quite a team effort. the handling line party makes sure the blimp is angled into the wind. the blimp does not have wings like a plane, so we have to correct on cross winds. they are 90 degrees from the nose of the ship holding us in the wind, and they are balancing the weight we take on the ship depending on the mission. favorite event thus far was covering the galaxy. i'm a big soccer fan. i enjoyed being overhead. i got to take up jordan spashrks

for the super bowl and that is the area she grew up in. that was cool to take her up and show her hometown from the blimp. i very much enjoy the adventure in it. >> meantime good year has a new fleet of blimps that are bigger faster, and more me nooufrble. this covered the first game this year, and for more on what bill gets paid to do go to powerlunch.cnbc.com. i saw the lights of the blimp, and they read. over to you. >> neck and neck for the title of the world's most valuable oil company, with market caps at $350 million, and they are closing the gap at 14 %. note, brian, that 14 % gain made this week. >> wow. thank you. jp morgan's ceo, dimon, sounding alarm on bonds, a bit, saying new regulation resulted

in diminished liquidity in the bond market. how concerned should investors be, if at all? there's a lot to talk about, mark, but what do you think of the comments? he also said another crisis will come although i also know it will be 6:00 at some point. >> ha hi brian, yeah the treasury market is still very deep and liquid so there is no question the volker rule is causing rules for bank and slightly less liquidity, but that causes bonds and liquid product like clos, et cetera and the problem is treasuries will be liquid but there's a good point, which is that central banks are clearly impacting the valuations not just of treasuries but of government bonds all over the world. given the size of the central bank's balance sheets. >> interesting question. say the federal reserve never owned u.s. treasuries mark, the crisis never happened

impossible hypothetical but let's just talk about pure price discovery. where do you think the yield on the ten-year bond deserves to be? where would it be x all of that? >> well, brian, it would be at least 50 basis points higher, so you're looking at closer to 2.5% opposed to 1.95 today. there is no question qe and size of the balance sheet of the fed has taken down long term interest rates. >> a 2.5% yield, call it 3% to be aggressive, mark is not necessarily the sign to me of a great economy. >> no that's exactly right. in fact, you know interest rates all over the world are low and low because the world lacks aggregate demand. there's demographics and other factors, but the reality is that there's a shortage of income producing assets. we think treasuries and other government bonds are subsidized by central banks, and so to find decent income today, you need to

own things like corporate bonds, things like nonagency mortgages, which are not subsidized by central banks. >> corporate bonds. good credit bad credit, all along the curve? what looks most attractive to you, mark? >> brian, we actually really like housing-related sectors as well as cyclicals. we think the housing market has legs. household formation will start to pick up. the labor market is strong. we like building materials. we like nonagency mortgages. we like home builders title insurance. also cyclicals. we think that the economy is in the middle phase. it will continue to grow around 2.5% or 3%. the consumer's strong. we like lodging, gaming autos, airlines and other cyclical sectors. >> all the stuff that people are going to buy, mark thank you very much. appreciate it. see you soon. >> thank you, brian. silicon valley cannot get enough skilled technology workers, but the workers can't always get in the country that

are skilled. is it time to really change the rules? plus a very rare and very cool sight caught on camera. we'll show you what we're talking about when "power lunch" returns. if you're running a business legalzoom has your back. over the last 10 years we've helped one million business owners get started. visit legalzoom today for the legal help you need to start and run your business. legalzoom. legal help is here. anything worth pursuing requires knowledge, hard work and a plan. at baird, we approach your wealth management strategy the same way to create a financial plan built to last from generation to generation. we'll listen. we'll talk. we'll plan. baird.

pretty cool sight on camera in kansas, a rainbow and tornado tornado. the tornado formed in the field with the sun out. in the middle of the screen, you see the rainbow appearing next to the funnel cloud, brian, what a nice sight. >> it's cool, but the pot of gold at the end of it has to be scattered all over. >> the help cons having a hard time looking for it. >> another irish crack. >> what? >> immigration is a hot button topic, and visas are red hot. the visas at capacity and that is just in the first week. it is the third consecutive year this has happened where requests out strip supply in under seven days. jared bernstein, and bruce morrison former congress and chairman of morrison public affairs group. to you jared, is it as simple as just upping the number of h1b

visas? >> it's not. we want a system that's welcoming to skilled workers from abroad. what we don't want is a system that want is a system that allows even incentivizes employers to replace their current work force with cheaper workers that are outsourced from abroad through the h1b program. so the problem here is not so much about skilled immigration, it's about a very broken h1 temporary visa program that's exploited to the point where we're really damaging the pay of incumbent workers here in significant industries. >> that word, the e word exploited, is a powerful one. do you feel that companies are either exploiting the current system, or even some of the workers, who i guarantee you most of whom are happy to come are being in some ways exploited? >> i think exploitation is a problem. the real answer to the problem of skilled immigration is green cards for the people we want and most of the people we want

are already in schools in the united states. and want to stay. we don't give them green cards at this point for the most part. we give them these h1-bs. we also use h1-bs for these outsourcing companies that bring in workers and have a real problem of displacement and exploitation. so there's a much better discussion to be had about green cards than h1-bs. >> when we hear companies say we need to open up h1-b visas, increase the number, etc., because i need to get skilled workers, do you think there's a quiet part of that that they're not saying, which is basically, by the way, i need workers i can pay less? >> yes. i think that's true. i've been doing this for 30 years trying to get those companies to put the same amount of effort into green cards, and unfortunately, they don't. >> jared, do you agree with that? >> you know, unfortunately, i'm having trouble hearing bruce, but i heard a little bit of it actually through the wall. >> you guys are that close. wow, next time just come up

here. basically what he said and i guarantee you can hear me even without a wall basically what he said was that workers -- companies want to just cut the wages. they can pay these folks less. >> exactly. so here's the problem with the h1-b as it stands. it's a great case study. southern california edison recently laid off 500 domestic workers and replaced them with h1-b workers who they got from an indian outsourcing firm, basically two firms that outsourced these workers. i gave you guys a chart of this to show the comparable pay. they were paying their american workers 110,000 a year. they're paying the h1-b workers 70,000 a year. it's a great salary for someone from an indian outsourcing company, however, it's a 40% pay cut and it's displacing workers, which is explicitly what h1-b is not supposed to do. >> do we shut the program down then?

what do we do? what's the solution? >> there are at least two solutions. one is that we really have to reinforce the prevailing wage laws so that when we do use an h1-b worker we're paying them the wage in that occupation. secondly, we also have to do much better at the anti-displacement so this southern california edison problem isn't allowed to occur. >> the problem is with the way that the statute is written. the displacement rules don't apply when you use an outsourcing contract. >> exactly. >> and that's completely wrong. >> that can be fixed. >> the truth is if you want to fix the program, you remove the unfair competition with american workers by using green cards, because green card workers, people who were immigrants, have the same rights and responsibilities in the workplace as american workers. they don't work for less. >> i'm hearing bruce now, which is good because he makes sense. i agree with the point.

however, that is a much much more ambitious policy change basically bruce is talking about some dimension of comprehensive immigration reform and these folks behind me are not working too effectively there. in the meantime, there are things we could do to fix the h1-b problem to make it less exploitive. >> jared, you've got the capitol, and bruce has a bunch of books. the magic of tv. a big discussion. we'll bring you back on to finish it later. coming up we'll tell you how to get your hands on the apple watch without spending $500, or stealing it. don't do that. we're back after this. financial noise financial noise

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if you would like to sport the new apple watch, but don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy one or just don't want to spend that kind of money, you're in luck. josh lipton is here now. how do we wear it without shelling out the dough, josh or stealing it? >> well so even if you just want to try before you buy, then listen up. lumoid is a san francisco-based start-up that is offering consumers the chance to rent the new apple watch, so the sport watch will cost you $45 to rent for one week. then if you decide to buy the watch, then $25 of that will be applied to the purchase price. as for the steal watch, that model will cost you $55 to rent

and $30 of that would go toward the purchase. lumoid's ceo says there are already more than 3,000 people on the waiting list. >> thousands of people have just been adding themselves so it's been a little shocking for us but in a good way. we are hoping that we will be able to fulfill this demand to be able to test drive the apple watch, and then convert them into purchases. >> now, what about that highly anticipated gold edition, which of course, starts at a cool $10,000? that one, unfortunately, will not be available to rent. sorry, sully. but lumoid's ceo says this is the future of shopping. in her opinion, consumers will want to test drive and compare and contrast different gadgets before buying them. lumoid is a start-up already raised about $2 million from investors. company rents other gadgets as

well so wearables like fitbit and jawbone and even drones. only time will tell, of course if the apple watch will be a hit or a miss for the start-up. guys, back to you. >> josh, i'm curious, how are they going to manage inventory? i would imagine a lot of people want to rent this thing off the bat when it first comes out and then it's going to dwindle, so they'll be stuck with a lot of inventory on their hands. >> right now, her biggest concern is the 3,000. i mean they only created that waiting list just about three or four weeks ago, so that is quickly ramping up. her first concern when i spoke to her was just trying to meet that initial demand. that's the first challenge of the program right now. >> all right josh lipton thanks for that. before we go, very quickly, if someone says what are the best and worst performers on the s&p, you'd tell them ensco is the best, bed, bath & beyond is the worst. >> a fairly flat day across the board in the markets, we're seeing a nice bright spot here. the talk of the intel talks,

that's really putting a boost under the sector. tonight, an analyst who's going to give us his list of potential takeout targets. that's at 5:00 tonight. >> we'll look forward to that. melissa lee, thank you very much. a busy day for melissa. thanks for watching, everybody. "closing bell" starts now. and a hello and welcome to the closing bell. i'm kelly evans down here at the new york stock exchange. >> and i'm bill griffeth. the chinese market so strong. >> the european market hitting a new intraday record in the earlier trading session. >> earnings out last night. you had both alcoa and bed, bath & beyond. look at what both of them are doing today. alcoa down 4%. they hit the number, but their revenue came in light. the guidance i guess was below