grow. the market is there, and also we feel we're empowering people. we're trying to create a culture where -- >> and, lance, we've got to go, unfortunately, eight seconds left of the show. thanks for coming in on. you're a good sport. thanks for coming on. >> see you tonight at 5:00. >> looking forward to it. "the closing bell" starts right now. and hello on this friday and welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange. >> and i'm bill griffeth we're in rally mode and you can thank general electric for the rally accounting for much of the gain with the announcement that it's selling much of ge capital over the next 24 months for $26 billion. big, huge share buyback. the stock is up 10% right now, $2.60. the dow up 100 points as a result. >> take a look at that.

this is the major catalyst. after the company announces this major restructuring, it's not only divesting this business it will return $90 billion to investors through dividends and stock buybacks by 2018 bill. >> the dow component soaring trying to close at its highest level in nearly seven years after the company announced that restructuring. we went over all that. juke see >> you can see what the major story of. >> the other big story, apple's watch. it's ready for preorder but it's already sole out. it's backordered until june. will consumers make this the next big blockbuster. so far so good. we'll hear what the experts have to say and whether it moves the needle needle. apple's stock. >> also japan bringing aboard a legendary film icon to scare up tourism and you won't believe who or what it is. you won't want to miss this story. it's all ahead on "closing bell." >> here is how we trade going into the final hour of trade for

the week. the dow up 98 points now. that's the better performer of the three major averages. the s&p is up ten. nasdaq is up 19 at 4994. let's get to all of this in your "closing bell" exchange. michael robinson from money morning.com is with us today. so is hugh anderson from hightower. gina sanchez. larry mcdonald from socgen and kenny polcari from o'neil securities. kenny, you're or mr. market today. you take away ge and what's going on? >> and it's a relg tiffatively quiet day. the earnings really start next week when you get the banks and a lot of conglomerates come out and investors will get a sense of what earnings are there going to be? will they be like alcoa where the dollar was not such a big issue and the fact they had a lot of income in foreign currencies that were weaker actually helped them. so this anxiety that's been

being over the stronger dollar may not necessarily be all that big. >> gina, what do you think about some of the performance today. looking outside of ge it's a strong day for caterpillar. it looks like that company is up 2.5%. it's had several days now where it's quietly seen some strong gains. anything you glean from that or more broadly how the market is positioning into the next couple weeks? >> well you know obviously caterpillar is very much, you know -- it's a bellwether for sure and i do think we have seen improving earnings with the exception of energy. that's the big exception obviously. and the expectations for this earnings season are very very, very poor. so i think that we could see some beats just off of the fact that everybody is expecting, you know terrible numbers. but generally speaking i would say that i'm looking at revisions by economists for the growth numbers and i'm also

looking at the savings rate and it's telling me that even though we've had very cheap gas, we haven't had a tremendous amount of demand and, therefore, it's hard to expect a whole lot from earnings. you know we're just at the beginning of earnings season, and i do think this is going to be disappointing. >> michael robinson, another franksal gain fractional gainer would be apple. the apple watch sold out in a matter of hours online and they have to wait until june if they want -- those who didn't get in on the first wave. what do you think of that as it pertains to apple stock? it's something we've been talking about all week. what's your version of that? >> well i think they have a very successful product on their hands. it sold out in no time. i ordered one this morning. i'm waiting six weeks to get it. i think they can do 10 million watches in the first year. that's a little on the conservative side of all the analysts. at that rate we're talking $4 billion a year. i think they will disrupt the entire watch market. we're talking about a market that's $2 billion a year in scope. there's a lot of room for them

here with this watch. and it comes on top of the new payment system. you've got the breakout with the new iphone. so there's a lot of momentum. i think it's an excellent catalyst for the stock and the whole wearable tech sector and tech is really really driving the market right now. >> one analyst -- i don't know if you saw the e-mail we got. he's upset that the apple watch he just found out is water resistant, not waterproof. >> yes. people pointing that one out. people might be finding that one out the hard way. michael, are you doing market research or do you genuinely want the apple watch? what is it about this product to you that is a must-have? >> you know well for me it's like -- i have an ear bud. i wear it most of the time. obviously i don't have it on and i'll put it inside my watch band at night and talk to it. so for me to dictate ideas and memos to siri -- i was at the dentist last week and i had to put my phone across the room. i was having separation anxiety.

for me it could be a really good productive tool. "wall street journal" had an excellent video where they were talking about what's good about it is it's optimized for doing quick alerts and things like that. i'm not going to try to surf the internet from my watch. also the payment in the watch is also very good -- a nice tool. >> hugh are you buying one? or are you buying apple shares? >> i'm not an early adopter. i'm a firm believer in manufactured scarcity. there's a lot of people that like to adopt that kind of thing but it remains to be seen if there is traction. the dem gresk ographic demarcation will be very interesting. >> yeah the new thing, wearing a watch on your wrist. that's very novel. we've had huge mergers this week and you think we have more to come in the near term. where do you see more mergers hang? >> well i think you're going to

see plenty in the energy sector because that's the opportune time when the sector is beaten down, but i think you're seeing -- we're on track for the second largest m&a numbers in history and i think you're seeing a lot of companies recognize that the window to cheap financing is closing. my question is are they jumping in because they see opportunities for growth or are they jumping in for trying to achieve economies of scale because they're seeing diminished growth opportunities to they want to cut costs by spreading them over bigger enterprises. >> i'm looking at larry mcdonald as well at your concerns. we have seen u.s. markets underperform the rest of the world, especially this week. how relevant is that for you? where do you see the most opportunity right now? >> well one of the things we've been looking at is the disconnect between dollar sensitive sectors and the s&p. you look at the defense sector outperforming the s&p by almost 800 basis points in literally the first quarter, a little bit in the first quarter in two

weeks. so you've got a number of sectors in the s&p that are extremely dollar sensitive that have been very bid up relative to the dollar so that's something to watch out for as the rest of the year transpires because it's a tremendous amount of outperformance in a very short period of time. >> kenny, we've been watching china booming this week. what do you make of that? does it come over here? is it because of the dollar? what do you see going on? >> i think foreign markets, whether it's asia whether it's europe i think those are great opportunities and you've seen it. those markets -- japan is within a whisker of 20,000. china the same way in terms of its performance. i think the u.s. will be okay but i think the bigger opportunities will be abroad. >> gina how much does this go back to some of the new ways people can invest in the markets without the currency exposure which we're going to talk to wisdom tree about here in just a minute? is that what makes these so much more attractive for u.s. investors than it might have

been in the past? >> well i think part of it -- that might be part of it but i think the majority of it has to do with the fact that policy is diverging and you are seeing easier policy in europe and we've continued to see easy policy in japan where as now we're starting to face the potential for policy tightening in the u.s. maybe it's not going to tighten quickly. i think it's september and beyond. but, still, we're looking at divergent policy and that's going to be very supportive to international markets whereas it will become less supportive to u.s. markets. >> michael, next time you whisper into siri's ear where will you tell her to look for investment opportunities in technology away from apple? where is the growth coming from now? >> it's all over the place. we have concentric rings of technology. it's sensors, semiconductors, the cloud, big data health care. i'm looking for a lot of mergers in the health care industry this year, writ large, which would be biotech and so forth. technology right now is throwing off a ton of cash.

so it's across the board. i like just about every area. there's not anything that i would be getting out of right now in the united states is where i like to be. >> all right. >> michael, can i ask you a question? it's kenny polcari. have you tried to put that watch on your wrist and actually look at it? because i know i turned 54 i can't even see my watch and i got a regular watch on. >> well it's funny. i left my glasses in the car. i'm doing this today without my glasses on. >> right. >> no i think it will be fine with that. i got the smaller version actually. your point is well taken. i got the smaller version because i don't want it to stand out too much but i think it will work really well. >> even more difficult though to read because it's a smaller version. >> we're going to have to do a test run with you on the floor kenny. >> have a good weekend. >> the strong session, look at that dow up almost 100 points and a big chunk of that does go back to the 10% move in ge. for that company today, helping to bolster the dow jones

industrial average up half a percent. but the s&p up pretty much on track with that also up 10 points along with that nasdaq adding 19 on the session. when we come back, he's standing right here. we have wisdom tree's chief investment officer back with us. what. about the rest of the year. wisdom tree boasts more than $50 billion in exchange traded funds. >> also ahead -- >> we've exited insurance, plastics, nbc universal, appliances, and now financial services. i think our batting average is pretty damn good. >> general electric's ceo jeffjeff immelt touting their sale of ge capital. ge also announcing a $50 billion stock buyback. the pros discuss the future of

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45 minutes left. the dow is up 97 points. just off the high of the session set moments ago. the s&p is up ten points and the nasdaq up 19. let's show you -- i think we were going to show you the dow 30. yes. >> sector board. >> these are the ten sectors of the s&p 500 index and only one is negative, financials. >> and just barely. industrials leading the way. general electric contributing to that, but by the way, caterpillar having a nice session as well. we saw the impact that was having on the dow as well. our next guest says the single post important thing going on is the shift in money flowing into

the currency hedged etfs. >> joining us to explain in the cnbc exclusive we welcome back wisdomtree's chief investment officer luciano sir ra cuekusiracusano. investors want to hedge their positions. >> exactly what we've seen this year is $60 billion has come into the etf industry. $28 billion of that has come into currency hedged etfs. >> half of the money going -- >> nearly half going into the industry this year went into currency hedged etfs. that's a huge change in investor behavior. i think it's driven by people's sensitivity to the impact that the foreign currencies have on their international equity exposure. you have to remember about 50% of the world's currency outside the u.s. is in the euro and yen. last year the euro was down 12%. this year it's down 12%. last year the yen was down 12%.

the gains on the stock side are being washed away on the currency side. >> and it's felt that the euro and yen will continue to fall. you first mentioned this asset class probably six months ago on the program. >> six months ago on the program. five years ago in the marketplace. but it took a while for the world to catch up and what it really took is for the intarntioncentral banks in europe and japan to get more aggressive under quantitative easing. they're having a qe party over there. it will have an impact on their kaur ren sis. >> i could be real flip ant. everybody is realizing they have to be in hedged etfs, that could signal a top in the dollar couldn't it? >> going into the year the nashth was 90% unhedged. now it's 85% unhedged. the interesting thing is the euro is really back to where it was nearly in 2010. it's done a huge round trip over

14 years, meaning it's getting close to parity. that's where it was 14 years ago, but with a lot of volatility. where our question is, why take on that kind of risk if you're not being rewarded with the return over time? the think the lightbulb is starting to go off that this can be used strategically. >> our question is aside from this obvious trend which could still have some legs where else do you think we're going to see a lot of people putting their money to work and what kinds of products, for example? >> well you know i think they're going to continue to look at europe. i think they will look at germany. continue to look at the countries that benefit when their currencies depreciate that have strong exporters, that have a balance of payment surplus. i think in the u.s. if you switch gears here we are facing a headwind. we're going to have liftoff soon. rates are going to go higher. you're seeing a soft patch here in earnings. may actually get an earnings contraction in q1. so the real question is what happens to the aggregate dividend growth.

>> i was going to say dividend growth will still be key even as rates go up. people will still be -- >> i think it's essential. it will separate the wheat from the chaff. the companies who can raise dividends in the environment where rates go up i think that's where the market will be tilting. six of the largest company in america that pay dividends are scheduled to raise their dividends in the next two weeks, exxon, chevron, apple, progetor and gamble j and aj, and wells fargo. if they're confident to raise the diffividenddividend that's telling you something about what they see for the rest of the year. we haven't had a back to back earnings contraction since september of 2012. the market went down 6%. this is a key divergence. last year earnings increased 5%. aggregate dividends increased 12%. what did the s&p do? it increased 13%. there's a relationship between how fast the aggregate dividends are growing and what the stock

market can return for you. over long periods of time those two numbers need to work themselves out. >> are there any flows that surprise you right now into -- i'm thinking through it all. so you have many different products, precious metals or energy and oil. anything where -- >> commodities generally under a lot of pressure. speculative is coming back some of it wants to play in oil. that's not where we want to go. we've seen money coming into hedged germany, into japan, until equities hedge that give you dividend growth. >> will you launch even more particular kinds of hedged products -- >> we will. yesterday we launched japanese dividend growth hedged. we created the category and we'll continue to own the category. >> where does this go? the actively managed etfs which you guys are doing as well where is this whole category heading right now. >> there's a lot of innovation.

what's really going to happen we're putting tremendous pressure on the traditional active managers. they have to pass such a high hurdle because we're index space. we're typically lower fee. the performance records are starting to build up. so it's putting tremendous pressure on the traditional mutual fund managers. that's where it's headed. it's headed for a major shakeout in the mutual fund industry and more innovation in the etf industry. >> to be fair, actively managed tends to lag index in an up market. >> yes. >> but we haven't had a down market in a while. >> in six years exactly. >> how do you think you will do relative to the actively managed funds when we inevitably have that down market? >> we will see and we're going to try to create the products that will work well in that market as well. and hopefully we'll be sophisticated enough on the asset allocation level to be able to give our clients some guidance about etfs you can use that get you more defensive positions. it all comes down to how you mix

and match them. >> is is there anything somebody buying a hedged japan or euro that they need to know. >> they typically will use forward contracts to hedge out the impact of the foreign currency. so there is a derivative in the fund, there is some counter party risk but we think it can be managed. the important thing is that the cost right now to hedge is virtually zero. with respect to the euro and the yen over the last 15 years, there really hasn't been a cost to hedge those currencies. not all currencies but the yen and the euro traditionally haven't cost a lot. anyone who is saying there's a tremendous cost to hedging depends on which market which currency you're talking about. it's not true in europe and it's not true in japan. >> luciano, always good to see you. >> great to be here. >> thanks a lot. 40 minutes to go into the close. this is often the hour we do see a lot of etf trading showing up. we've had some sessions where we saw gains this size evaporateingevaporating. the s&p is up 9 and the nasdaq

up 16. when we come back one of the stories of the day, what does general electric's massive restructuring, that $50 billion stock buyback mean for the future of the industrial giant and it's ceo? we have a bull and a bear on ge coming up as the pros dive in deeply. and later, we're on watch. apple watch, of course. in case you hadn't heard, they're sold out. we're going to go live to silicon valley and get the very latest. e pursuit of healthier. it begins from the second we're born. after all, healthier doesn't happen all by itself. it needs to be earned... every day... using wellness to keep away illness... and believing that a single life can be made better by millions of others. healthier takes somebody who can power modern health care... by connecting every single stock buyback mean for the silicon valley and get the very for as the world keeps on searching for healthier... we're here to make healthier happen. optum. healthier is here. (trader vo) watching. waiting. for that moment, when right place meets right time. and when i find it, i go for it.

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we're higher. the dows are off the highs up 87 points. let's see the 30 components of the industrial average and pinned at the top of that list today would be general electric far -- and you mentioned, you know caterpillar has had a good day, up 2.66% but it's way behind the gains we're seeing on ge today. >> this after the industrial conglomerate exiting the lending day and announcing a $50 billion stock buy back. mary thompson is covering this huge story. >> i know. this is, as you said a huge story. it comes on the heels of ge's largest acquisition ever. the deal happening last year. but this really is probably the most transformative move jeff immelt has made during his 14-year tenure at ge. essentially it's expected to make ge a pure play industrial company. by 2018 ge finance profits will account for 10% of total earnings and that will be down from 42% in 2014.

industrial profits, they'll increase to 90% by 2018 from 58% in 2014. now, over the next two years, the company is going to be selling $165 billion in assets. they include u.s. and international banks as well as global consumer lending and commercial lending businesses. stock up 10% today, but it is lower over the long term and that's been an area of frustration. a number of people saying ever since immelt has taken over the company has never been rewarded for its industrial businesses, always been penalized because it has such a large part of earnings coming from finance. again, the expectation is in decreasing the reliance on financial earnings, it will afford or result in a higher premium for ge. so why are they doing this all now? well, immelt in an interview with cnbc's david faber said the interest rate environment and regulatory environment made it the right time. starting with the interest rate environment. low rate environment means there

are plenty of yield hungs gri buy hungry buyers. and as far as the regulatory environment, in february regulators gave guidelines as to how a company like ge which has been designated systemically important could tually apply for sifi dedesignation. and part of that would be of course shrinking ge capital. again, quite an announcement today. the company affirming its 2018 earnings as well even with ge capital being less those earnings. the buyback expected to help along with growth in the core industrial businesses. aviation water, et cetera back to you. >> this ge shake-up leaving many to wonder about jeffrey immelt's future future. >> let's bring in david nelson and brian langen berg. i feel it's incumbent to point

out i have a couple shares, still do from my days when ge owned nbc. it's in my 401(k). david, what do you think? is this the pivot point for this company as we've been waiting for this thing to come back after all these years? >> it's been pretty frustrating for shareholders over the last ten years. it looks like jeff finally got the memo and he's starting to listen to shareholders. this is jeff's day. he certainly issueaddressed some of the issue shareholders had. they can now focus on their core businesses aircraft leasing, energy, and health care. you know as far as the stock goes from here i'm not sure. i think what you have to ask yourself is what's the organic growth rate going to look like as this company evolves down the road and becomes 90% industrial? >> we're looking at a chart that essentially takes into account the entire tenure of jeff immelt right there. >> it's a pretty frightening

chart, and i think -- i don't think jeff was necessarily in danger of losing his job but i think what he was in danger of losing is his legacy. i think he wanted to really do something. i think he'd like to stick this out and see this through. you can make an argument here that the multiple will go up from here. perhaps even a market multiple and that would -- the move today certainly is justified. >> brian now that we've had this 10% move how much more difficult will it be for ge to go above say the $28 mark, which already takes into account some pretty decent earnings growth for a company whose revenue is smaller than it was a decade ago? >> well first and foremost i'm really glad i downgraded to a hold last month. even though i didn't see that coming. >> i want going to bring that up yet. i was going to let you say your thing first. >> no you take shots. you take shots. this was a big, gutsy move and people had talked about selling all or most of finance for a while. i had never been in the camp saying they were going to do it. i think what changed here, the things you did have were number

one, increased regulatory environment, higher cost of capital. i think part of this was they looked how it was going and they said the market for assets is good, let's just do this. it makes it a very focused play on the industrial side once they get it done. on a going forward basis by 2016, three industrial businesses are going to be at least 85% of the profit. energy in total will be about 45%, aviation about 25%, health care about 15% and some odds and ends. in terms of the stock -- >> to kelly's question you say take some profits at this level right here at $28, right? >> if you're a near-term investor and you don't have a cost basis issue you have had a nice pop here, okay? over the next six to nine to 12 months, you have a lot going on. they're going to go and sell what they have just said they're going to sell.

they're going to close on their big deal that's a huge acquisition. it's going to take a little while. if you're looking for a significant move over the next several months, not too likely. from a long-term perspective, we'll all be playing with our numbers. i was running some numbers and right now i'm at $1.80 for 2016. just playing around with it they might be able to get to within 5 or 10 cents of that number even after selling all these assets if they buy back the stock aggressively enough over the next few quarters. >> sorry, brian. before we run out of time david, will you weigh in on the possibility of ge buying more industrial companies to double down on this bet and maybe buy some growth it needs. >> gosh i hope they don't do that. i think this is the right move. make the company grow faster by getting smaller. $50 billion is a good step in that direction. there's no way they could deploy

this amount of capital. >> due own this? >> i do not. >> you're not buying it here? >> i'm not buying it here. $1.80 will not do it. they have to get to $2 $2.25 for this move much higher. >> that $50 billion figure wouldn't it be better spent on some type of industrial acquisitions or are you comfortable with what they're doing with the massive buyback? >> no no and no. i want them to shrink the share count. i want them to focus on what they've got. they've gotten themselves some great assets. they're finally focusing on getting the costs out and what they need to do with the capital is just buyback stock. >> had to ask. >> yeah. thank you, folks. >> thank you. >> david, good to see you. thanks for joining us. and brian langenberg as well. >> time now for a krnz newscnbc news news update. >> the state department says it's gravely concerned about the release on bail in pakistan of the man accused of plotting a 2008 militant assault in mumbai

that killed 166 people. he was seen here being cheered by supporters in january. nato is stepping up training exercises to reassure baltic states and poland that the military alliance will stand with them in the face of possible russian aggression. nato began reconnaissance flights over poland and romania after russia annexed the crimea region of the ukraine. a small plane with two people on board made an emergency landing in the sea a little more than 200 yards from rio de janeiro beach because of engine trouble. both people on board though were rescued by a fishing boat nearby. neither was injured. and scary moments at a downtown high rise hotel in austin, texas. fire broke out at the doubletree hotel this morning causing the top three floors to be evacuate evacuated. 100 firefighters battled the blaze before eventually putting it out. for now, back to you. >> thank you so much courtney. 30 minutes to go into the close.

seeing if we can close out this week with one of those triple digit gains that was so common last week or triple digit moves. this month half a percent gains across the dow and s&p which is up 9 points and the nasdaq adding 18. >> the chinese stock market is in danger of a bubble is it about to burst? the experts weigh in on the upside potential and the risks of investing in chinese stocks right now. that's coming up. and later hk expectillary clinton expected to announce her presidential bid this weekend. "meet the press" moderator chuck todd will join us to discuss the growing field for the white house.

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heading to the close, we have about 22 minutes left in the trading session here and we are sitting at the high of the day. the dow up 103 points. >> look at that. and as the dow reclaims the level of 18,000 check out shanghai's stock market. nearly doubled from a year ago. and that's posing a question around here. we want to know is this market in a bubble? >> yes. this week has just been almost parabolic. joining us right now is brian jacobson, chief strategist at wells fargo advantage funds. our bear is simon mail the head of asian equities.

good to see you both. thank you for joining us. brian, you think there's more juice here yes? >> i do. actually today is an interesting day to be talking about this since it was yun we're ago today that chinese officials announced the intention to create that shanghai high pressure hong kong connect. when they opened up that fire hose on november 17th 2014 it really unleashed a lot of liquidity into the financial markets. it was a year ago jeff everett told me this is going to be big and it has been. i think there's still a lot of room to run. >> simon, exactly that question. has it been too big or is there still runway? >> i believe it's been too big in the hang high market. you have seen a classic speculative bubble. the problem is chinese investors since the property market and increasingly macao who has been closed off as an avenue for investment, they've turned their attention to the stock market. that has meant you have a stock market that has moved from being vaguely fundamental to one

that's being based on as i heard one prominent local commentator say recently based on a valuation measure of price to whatever. what you've seen in many of these sectors outside the banks and outside energy some of these stocks are now trading at 50 and 60 times earnings. why this is a concern is those valuations are starting to feed through to the hong kong market as well through exactly the mechanism that brian just mentioned, the hong kong/shanghai stock connect. manyland investors can now invest in the hong kong market. because the premium of chinese a shart over hong kong listed a shirt has reached 28%, those chinese investors are starting to look at the a share market and that bubble is being transferred to hong kong as well. my concern -- >> brian. >> sorry. >> i don't see how that's an argument saying this cannot continue though. if you look at from a u.s.

investor's perspective which is what i look at it from because that's who our clients are, now you have access to some of the a shares, if that premium of a shares over h shares begins to come in a little bit -- it used to be significantly higher than where it is. right now it's 23%, 25%, that's probably going to continue to narrow. i don't see how that necessarily will be detrimental to u.s. investors in china. i still think there's tremendous opportunities. i would not step in front of this fire hose they opened up. >> simon? >> i would agree that stepping in front of a fire hose is always dangerous, but the problem is in our view the fundamentals are simply not there to back it up at the moment. the chinese have been trying to stimulate the economy. they will continue to try to stimulate an economy that is simply not growing the way the market believes. the headline figure for growth in china has come down to 7%. if you look at annual energy consumption growth in china in february, it was up only 2% in

february. that's a really good indicator -- >> simon, the interesting thing about what brian is saying is you may be dead on about the fundamentals, but are the flows going to overwhelm all of this push this move further, and as dangerous as it may be does it still spell opportunity. >> i fully agree that flows move the market but that's speculation. and that's dangerous. when the local market is basing their view on a price to whatever view. >> i disagree it's price to whatever. i think if you look at some of the h shares and those like say the msci china index. that's trading at 11 times next 12 months expected earnings. in the united states we're trading at 17 times. so i think that actually the fundamentals are there. it's just maybe you have to look for it. indeed, there are areas of froth. there are areas where you're probably going to get hurt if you try to stay there where it's purely speculative but overall i think there are some tremendous

opportunities, even based on the fundamentals provided you're looking in the right areas. maybe it's not in the eight a shares, maybe more in the h shares. >> that was a good discussion guys. thank you both. brian jacobsen mr. male. holding on to the gains. >> if you build it will they come? apple will find it out today. they will see preorders for the new smart watches selling out. we'll go live to silicon valley. also what procrastinating on filing your tack taxes implies about your net worth. there actually is a relationship and we'll discuss that coming up. why are we so committedyour net worth. there actually is a relationship and we'll discuss that coming up. why combine performance with a conscience? why innovate for a future without accidents? why do any of it? why do all of it? because if it matters to you it's everything to us.

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zero heartburn! prilosec otc. the number 1 doctor-recommended frequent heartburn medicine for 9 straight years. one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. welcome back. 14 minutes left. the dow is up 105 at the highs of the session. meg terrell rounds up some of the movers in these final minutes of the trading week. meg? >> that's right. shares of symantec spiking after it's been reported it's exploring a sale of veritas. it's expected to fetch more than $8 billion. last year symantec announced plans to split in two by the end of the year. take a look at kythera, rising

today after positive comments out of bmo capital markets. an approval decision on a treatment is expected at the fda next month. the shares now trading up just a little over 6%. bill and -- last one. alibaba in a steady decline. the company is forming a car and smart living division. the stock is down more than 17% year-to-date. bill and kelly, back to you. >> now it's time. imagine meg terrell coming up with a biotech stock that moved. >> you have to read about some of the names of these drugs. they have a great piece on that. fascinating. very revealing. 13 minutes to go to the close. health care is the second best performing across the indexes today. industrials are leading the way on the back of the huge ge deal and buyback announcement. financials are the laggard. we'll see if they can stay in the green. the dow is up 107 with 12 minutes to go. >> and art cashin just this

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the dow is up 100. we've got the s&p up 10. the nasdaq is up 18. joining us with their thoughts oliver and david. not a bad day. >> not at all. >> although, you know, the two earnings we did get, high-profeel earningshigh-pro high-profile earnings, disappointed the market. >> it's a forward looking market. i'm a bit concerned about earnings this season and looking forward for the rest of the year. not necessarily about what happened in the first quarter because we've got the old the dog ate my homework excuse with the weather but really about the forward looking statements that some of the ceos are making and being so cautious about the rest of the year. it's giving us a little bit of pause. >> if there's one barometer of corporate confidence we're seeing right here right now, it's got to be all of this deal activity. i mean just this week alone look at what we've seen.

>> no question about it kelly. the deal activity in the pharma area and energy area i think is going to spark more deal activity. it always happens in waves. this profit thing that oliver was focusing on is supposed to be minus 4% as you know versus plus 5% at the beginning of this quarter. the second quarter which people have not started to focus on yet, minus 2% is the current forecast. third quarter, plus 3. fourth quarter plus 6. if that comes to pass the market can lift later this year. but we're going to be watching not only the ceo and cfo comments on the outlook and on low energy prices and the high dollar, what it's doing to them but their capital expenditure plans. that's a big factor -- >> i'll tell what you they're spending on. they're spending on their own shares. look at the buyback. that minus 4% would be minus 6% if it wasn't for the buybacks. $50 billion just from ge alone today. >> and share buybacks are often

viewed incorrectly as a positive thing because you're reducing supply but you have to take a step further. a lot of companies are now using the shares and using them as incentive comp for their executives and employees. it's getting recycled. you have to look at both sides of the equation and so i'm not buying and we're not buying into it as being universally positive. you want to be a little careful. we've been talking on this on cnbc for the last six months there will be huge performance divergence. >> i want to hear their comment on pricing power. we're in a low-flation, deflation world. are they able to make price increases stick? that's an important thing to watch. >> we won't have time to talk about it next segment so let me ask you, your expectations for bank earnings next week. >> we don't like the banking sector. we don't see the transparency there we want. >> even the smaller banks? >> the banking sector is going to be the ultimate demarcator of

whether the market can move higher or not. that will indicate when bank profits start to pick up it means interest rates are going to go up inflation is going up. but it's not -- the dog has not barked yet in the worlds of sherlock holmes. >> thanks a lot. >> usually it's shakespeare he's quoting. >> i love it. >> we'll come back with these two guys. we have "the closing countdown" in a moment. >> a busy wrap up to this friday. general electric shaking things up, that apple watch hitting the stores and good gillieszil godzilla is marching for your dollars and we're having a "game of thrones" moment. that's all ahead on cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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your move wherever you are. and start working on your next big idea. ♪ ♪ three minutes left. let's review the week shall we? here is the dow. generally a positive week. we had good rally on the open sideways through much of the week and the rally late thursday into friday. for the week up 1.6%. who had a better week? the shanghai market. there are a lot of people who feel maybe the chinese market is in bubble territory. who knows, but for the week shanghai was up 5.4%. oil this week $50 was the level to keep an eye on. wti crude finishing the week with a gain of 4.4%. we're back above $50 at $51.73

per barrel and today alone up 1.85%. of course, the stock of the day, ge announcing the sale of much of ge capital over the next two years and that $50 billion share buyback and the stock today up 11% right now. that's the high of the session there at $28.60 david darst. >> bill their dividend is 92 cents a share annually. >> it's still a yield of roughly 3% even with this gain today. >> correct. and it used to be $1.25. it still hasn't made it back to the old level. on china the bubble possibilities in china, thus far this year 4 million new accounts have been opened by individual investors. this coming week is going to give us a look at retail sales producer prices, consumer prices. those will indicate whether we have the pricing power, also the housing market. you're going to get a chance to see housing starts and the home builders confidence index. >> you're looking overseas? would you go with china at this point? >> we wouldn't go to china.

we'd go the other direction. we think some of the beaten down energy companies in europe world dutch petroleum, toe taltal, are great values. europe is just starting qe. that's the wind at their back down there. i agree with david 100%. look at the inflation data next week. that's going to give us a real good idea of what the fed's thinking is and, let's face, it the fed is still very much in this market and driving things. so that's very very important. >> as you both pointed out, this will have a profound impact on the financial approximates. >> buy europe buy japan, and look at good callity master limited partnership. >> would you buy ge? >> we don't own ge but what a move and all i have to say is what took so long? ge capital has been a bainne for ge. what took so long. >> you're not the only person to ask me that.

we're going out with decent gains after a pretty decent week of gains for the blue chip averages here in the u.s. stock market. stay tuned now. we have much more to come on the second hour of "the closing bell" with kelly evans and company. a blue ribbon panel and a "game of thrones" moment coming up as well. have a good weekend. thank you, bill. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. let's close out this week. i'm kelly evans. general electric sparking a nice rally on wall street today. let's begin there with how we're finishing up the session. the dow up 100 points. general electric goes up 11% today. of course, since it's a price weighted index, ge still only at 28 bucks so not an overwhelming contributor. caterpillar had a nice day, up 2.5%. you can see the size of the gains. pretty similar across the dow and s&p. half% gainpercent gains.

the nasdaq adding as you saw there about 16. so the nasdaq having a week where it's up about 2%. our mary thompson joins us for more now on this big day here for general electric in particular. hi, mary. >> what a huge day. we're going to focus on ge because it had a ripple effect across the markets. of course, the company announcing this massive restructuring that will shrink its finance business and drive profits from industrial operations to 90% by 2018. shrinking financial profits to 10% from the 42% in 2014. its stock the best performer among the dow components today up almost 11% in massive volume. ten times the average daily volume. over 340 million shares changing hands as the company will buyback stock, something that should help the company offset the loss of those profits from ge capital. take a look at where it stands week to date because all the indices are up for this week including the dow, and it is the

best performing dow component for this week. it also helped drive the industrials to be the best performing sector among the s&p 500 sectors that we follow this week. the industrials very strong again, not the dow industrials, but the s&p industrial sector. the best performing outper rming energy and health care which were the two best coming in. a quick check of the year-to-date performance of ge. the fifth best performer in the dow 30 and investors obviously like the news because finally they feel a lot of value that is contained in ge is going to be unlocked as the company undergoes this massive asset sales within ge finance. it's going to be selling $165 billion in assets over the next two years. kind of a speedy sale but the company feels the time is right because the low rate environment makes these higher yielding assets very attractive and we'll get some regulatory benefit from shrinking ge capital. kelly, back to you.

>> certainly getting plenty of attention. mary, thank you. mary thompson. let's get to it with our panel. joining me is katherine rampel. cnbc contributor evan newmark and robert frank. "fast money" trader tim seymour joins us as well with a hello to you. evan, let me start with what we learned this week. to some extent we're in a earnings restion andcession and a dealmaking boom. what's an investor to do? >> first of all, i will remind you, kelly, even though you made me sit two seats away from you today, i will remind you on monday i said spring is in the air and it's been a good week in the markets. but i'm not expecting any great, you know, huge bull run in the market. i think earnings will be kind of mediocre. >> but that's my point, which is the tell? is it the fact that for two quarters earnings are basically going to decline or is it the fact we're suddenly seeing a spate of dealmaking activity that's got to reflect some confidence coming back?

>> i think we're going to have to look at the economic numbers in a couple months and then we'll have confirmation as to whether or not this dealmaking actually makes sense. i say look in a couple months to see how the economic data is playing out. >> robert maybe it's not an either/or. maybe they are two sides of the same coin. >> i think the other two sides of the whole ge story, this was ge day. that's what drove the market and the discussion. on the one hand, yes, this was a long time coming a lot of people were pushing for it. on the other hand, the $50 billion stock buyback, isn't it a little disappointing that so many companies are just becoming atm machines rather than drivers of innovation and investment? it's the corporate equivalent of saying, you know what? i got nothing. we're just going to give the cash back and combined with bill george's op-ed today against nelson peltz and dupont, we want our companies to be investing and innovating. if they're just giving cash back to satisfy short-term shormds,

shareholders, is that where we want to be as a country? >> if a company is saying i have excess cash and i'm going to return it to shareholders and those shareholders do something better with it that get a better return, does that mean it works out for the best? >> in theory yes. if it looks like companies don't have a better place to put that cash cash, this is how they -- >> i think the ge story is very significant and not for the reason that robert is saying it's significant. it's significant because general electric today has basically thrown in the towel, and this is to me -- >> should they be throwing in the to you snel. >> they should be but to me it stands for maybe one of the biggest failures in american corporate history. what you're talking about is a company that 25 years ago was the most admired company probably in the entire world. a company that 25 years ago said yeah, we're a conglomerate, we're proud of it.

we have the best managers in the world. we know how to allocate capital better than everybody else in the world. today was a signal that guess what? we were wrong. we were wrong. and we failed. >> 20 years ago there was no such thing -- >> one at a time. >> it's a big story. >> catherine, you first. >> 20 years ago there was no such thing as a systemically important financial institution. there's huge regulatory baggage that comes with being labeled too big to fail. too big foo fail was once upon a time a very good thing. it meant you had some insurance of some kind. today, you know, it comes with a lot of drag. >> that's exactly my point. this is a regulatory driven move that didn't exist 20 years ago. but this finance group also helped to massage earnings. i think we get a cleaner earnings report from ge. >> tim seymour, jump in here, please, if you would on this point about ge as well. is this an indictment of the company's leadership over the last couple of decades? >> no. i mean look this is ultimately

something that the company is following through on what they told investors they were going to do and we know ge capitol got them into hot water. it's one of the reasons ge traded probably at a lower mult. . if you spin out this business and you get to a place where by 2018 they will be 90% industrial earnings. this is a very good day. smaller is better. jeff immelt is doing what investors want him to do. it's the largest energy infrastructure company in the world. they are the best they continue to be the best and i think this is a stock that was woefully underowned by the marginal crossover investor and they will now be here and you have a lot of people who do think buying back shares is a very good thing. i'm one of them. just because companies have cash and can put it to work, as a shareholder that's all i care about. but i'm getting pulled up by the buybacks. at the end of the day they have plenty of cash and they should be doing it. it's responsible corporate

balance sheet operations. >> but, tim, this is the company that invented the x ray machine invented the jet engine. will we see another x-ray machine or jet engine from ge? i don't see it. >> they were the number one turbine developer of the world. ge is still at the cutting edge of technology. to say they're not just because they're cashing in on real estate investments is absurd. >> there is an aspect to their decision making. if you think about what they're left at, it's energy. >> everybody is thinking they're getting the timing exactly right. i mean, that is the conventional wisdom. and the one thing that i would say about the last 25 years and certainly ge's performance and tract record is you should always question the conventional wisdom. 25 years ago in business school ge was held up as the absolute paradigm for capitalism going forward.

25 years later it's a failure. so today to say, oh gee, they're doing everything right, they're giving that you are money back to the shareholders they're doing everything exactly right -- >> it's not a failure, evan. >> is there somebody in the industrial sector -- if we were to focus on the sector -- obviously they're not apple but that's a different story. evan, to your point about what should have been done can you think of an industrial company that embodies some sort of strategy that business schools are teaching to say do this and don't do what ge did? >> the reality is companies like united technologies or honeywell or lots of other companies for years were kind of sticking to their knitting and acquireing other companies. they bought rca, they bought nbc -- >> evan, i hear what you're saying. they made some mistake in the past. but if today is the -- >> because i'm trying to learn

something from this tim. i'm trying to learn something other than you know what? we finally figured it out after 15 years with jeff immelt as the ceo. i finally figured it out. it took me 15 years. sorry shareholders. >> this smells personal. i wonder how many shares of ge evan owns. >> he's been ceo since 2001. >> robert? >> evan has this one. look, i don't think it's a failure as a company. this was a move people really wanted for a long time but i do think you have to look at their history of innovation and sending 50$50 billion back to shareholders, what does it say about their confidence in investing in their own business? >> we know we're going to see earnings decline by about 4% from a year earlier. a lot of that because of energy and gas but not the only reason. it would be minus 6% without the support of buybacks. that tells what you a force this is if we're just focusing on this narrow pressure. but you can also look at profits economy wide and how are those doing? >> they've been doing quite

well. they've been doing way better than pretty much any other economic indicator you can look at whether that's gdp, job growth, anything else. if nothing else companies are doing quite well by that measure. >> tim speaking of which and before we let you go who aside from ge do you like and would you be buying here? >> going into earnings next week, let's follow some of the things people also have strong views about. we've expressed a few today. in the financials this is one of the places where probably with all the earnings pressure this is one place where actually i think you have a little bit of a tailwind with the exception of what's going on with the income compression. investment banks businesses will be much better. i'd rather be with citi bank. and the airlines. delta reports next week. i think a lot of people have misread the signals out of the airlines. i think it's margin expansion time and i think you buy the weakness there. let's watch those. >> a bunch of ideas there. thanks tim. tim seymour, be sure to catch more with tim and the rest of

the "fast money" crew at 5:00. they will tell you how you should be trading these moves in oil and the u.s. dollar. ahead, apple's watch is officially available for preorder. is demand living up to the hype? we're on apple watch boom or bust watch. oil has been in the headlines but not like the story we have coming up. we'll hear from the ceo of one oil company raising money through crowd funding and paying investors through monthly royalties of oil sales. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. it took tennis legend serena williams, fencing champion tim morehouse and the rockettes years to master their craft. but only moments to master paying bills at chase.com. depositing checks at the atm and transferring funds on the mobile app. technology designed for you. so you can easily master the way you bank.

welcome back. after months of waiting, apple's watch is finally available for preorder. josh lipton it looks like you had some good crowds out there in palo alto. was there something special going on? >> well kelly, you know we had a bit of a mob scene here at the apple store in palo alto. it was not just the watch. tim cook did make a surprise visit. i had the opportunity to speak with cook and ask him how the launch is going. here is what he had to say. >> it's been incredible. you know this morning i got reports from all the way around the world, from japan to australia to china to germany to france to the uk canada and now in the u.s. it's

extraordinary. customers are giving us great feedback and orders are great as well. >> now, cook has had a big impact on apple. you think about caple leital return, the acquisitions. the street has somewhat muted expectations for the watch, at least in the near to intermediate term but bulls argue if apple continues working on the features on the pricing, and critically if developers get more and more excited, sales could surge. back to you. >> thank you very much. and will apple get this one right. we'll ask jordan cohen and eric yokamstaler. jordan conducted a survey saying fewer than 1 in 20 american adults plan on buying the watch. does that surprise you? >> no. and i know it sounds low but

that translates into about owe10 million americans who will buy this first generation. 1 in 20 sounds bad but it's actually quite good for apple. >> eric bringing you into the conversation. there's been some buzz some coverage but not as much as other product launches that come to mind what does that say to you? >> i don't think that this is that big of a deal. i think the hype is way much more exaggerated than the impact it has on apple right now. i think we are very very early in this. so it's expected that this is not such a big deal right now. >> is anyone here going to buy -- looking to the panel -- an apple watch? >> i believe there are two kinds of people in this world. there are watch people and there are nonwatch people. >> is the apple watch going to change that position and make a -- >> i'm a nonwatch person. >> but you're wearing a watch. >> but it's a cheap timex.

there are people who collect watches, who are really into watches, really into technology. it sounds to me this is more aggravation than its worth. >> catherine, are you a no watch person? >> i normally wear a watch but not a watch that has any sort of bluetooth capacity. >> you're not interested? >> not particularly. i don't know if i want constant alerts but apple is very good at telling people what they want. >> robert, who is buying this and what about the luxury end of the market? >> if you do luxury surveys of the wealthy around the world the number one favorite brand among the wealthy wherever you go around the world is apple. it beats out louis vuitton, hermes. they could sell an aluminum cube with a single bulb and it would sell wherever and if they made it in gold it would sell in

china. it has some downsides, it's not very waterproof. it's a good add on a supple am for the whole ecosphere and it will do fine but it's not going to rival the phone. >> jordan, what is injure estimate -- your estimate of how well this watch does and as people focus on the pricing, maybe it's too expensive for some folks. >> i think that there's a point to make here which is this isn't just a watch. it's a wearable device and we also in our survey asked people what else they're going to be doing with this besides telling time. 30% say they're going to be using it for health monitoring. another 20% say they'll be using it for shopping. 15% for gaming. so they're not really going after the watch market. they're not trying to be just a watch on your arm. they're creating an entirely new category. >> erich, what would you say about the payment tucks?function? i'm not a big early adopter. i don't have an ipad but to have the device on my wrist where i

can pay for things in some context, i'll all for it. >> the watch market isn't really very big. if you think about the entire swiss watch market is $30 billion. that's how much apple made just on the ipad in 2014. it's not big enough for apple. what is big enough is when they get through this devition when they get ax ses to the payment market and if consumers adopt this as a payment device it's a very big market for apple and apple needs a big market in order to move their top line growth. >> as a committed nonwatch guy, i have a question for the two gentlemen which is what about the battery life? the very thought of having to charge your watch, there's a contradiction there. the whole idea of a watch is you forget about it. you don't think about it unless you need to take -- >> exactly. >> are people going to air about charging the phone? charging the watch? >> right on. i think you have to understand that apple is trying to be

amazing right now. apple doesn't have to be amazing. apple is amazing. every device is amazing. apple needs to be useful. when they launched the ipod they launched a new way of managing your music and your library and how you buy music. in the same way it's about the usability or utility to the consumer right now and this is still has to develop and right now it is more a nuance and a problem than a solution. >> jordan last word. >> did you ever think you would have to charge your phone every night? did you ever think you were going to own something called an ipad? something else that people are talking about is are people going to want to buy the apple watch if they know they're going to have to buy another one a year from now or two years from now? apple has proven they get people to buy this stuff over and over again. you know i have the same land line phone for 20 years before i had my cordless phone and then now -- >> you never had a charge a land line. >> and if apple puts out a product that's valuable which i

think they're doing here they've proven they can get people to look past things like i have to charge it and get a new one every year or two. >> kelly, if you're charging your watch every night, you are going to have a nervous breakdown. just so you can pay for that starbucks coffee after you go running. >> it will be infrequent usage of the apple watch in those situations. >> most people take their watch off at night anyway, don't they? >> you can charge it in the nice fabric box or something. needs more research. you're going to be an apple watch guy. >> definitely not. >> thanks guys. ever dreamed of striking it rich in the oil industry? now you can and you don't even have to get your hands dirty. up next meet the head of one crowd funding drillers that will pay you royalties from the oil it produces. now japan is appointing godzilla as their tourism ambassador.

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welcome back. we've all heard of crowd funding by now for movies musical acts even potato salad recipes. now we have the oil industry looking for folks to ante up. investors looking to get into the energy space can give their money to some of these companies and the best part they get a piece of the profits unlike most crowd sourcing where investors get nothing.

joining us is joey gabbledon. i'm sitting in the new york stock exchange. when i see a company like yours raising money this way, i think is that because they didn't have any other option available? why this strategy? >> yes. so crowd funding was a direct fit for us because besides oil and gas exploration, we're also a technology company. anything we can do to get a technological advantage and crowd funding was a direct fit because it gave us exposure and it didn't cost us a whole lot of money. we're actually trending on crowd funder and we're in the most viewed on equity net. so we're doing really good in the crowd funding space. we've raised about $5 million for the last nine months so we're -- crowd funding has given us great exposure. >> you said about $5 million you have raised through this platform? >> yes, $5 million committed and in the bank about $3 million to date. >> okay. i'm reading here as well you say

you have spent eight years identifying low cost conventional oil fields sandstone, not shale, that are profitable even with oil below $20 a barrel. because obviously the price environment today has rendered a lot of projects unprofitable. are you confident that you'll be able to turn a profit and what kind of profit to all of these investors who have given you that $5 million? >> yes. so we're very comfortable. there's been a lot of press on how prices are 50% below but we kind of look at them as prices are 50% higher than the lows. we've got very economical wells. we enjoy the shale plays. with shale you have very high costs and a couple other factors. we're in our comfort space right now. as long as prices trend like they're doing right now, we're profitable even at $20 a barrel. >> catherine? >> so a quick question for you. i know right now you only allow investments from accredited investors presumably because that's what the law allows. do you expect once the jobs act

regulations are finalized you will open up this opportunity to nonaccredited investors? >> yes, that's the current thing we have. we have a lot of commitments and a lot of people wanting to invest with us but because of the current laws in place, we have to say no to any unaccredited investors and we've got a prequalify form on our website but we're really with the new jobs act, we're really looking forward to that because that will really open up to a lot of people so they can control their investment and make good returns on royalties so we're really looking forward to that. >> you don't think that's putting too much risk on people who don't maybe have enough assets to take on that risk? i know it's a high risk high return business. >> yes. so what we've done with the synergy is we've gone great measures how to reduce the risk. typically there is a lot of risk. oil and gas with private investments, it's high risk with high returns. what we've done is really sat

back looked at all the risks, and mitigated those. for example, one of your risks is when you're in a really good well or a good oil field is you're subject to operating costs. you have no control over the operating costs and sometimes you can run to your mailbox, look at the check, and be disappointed. we offer royalties and royalties are usually held by metal rights owners and they're not subject to any costs. no matter what the prices of oil go to our investors don't have to worry about any expenses whatsoever. >> joey, it's a fascinating approach and as you say, you're trying to be as much a technology as an energy company. we'll be following for sure. thanks for being here this afternoon. >> thank you so much guys. >> and it's time for a cnbc news update with tyler mathisen. >> thank you very much. here is what's happening at this hour. president obama meeting with the president of panama. he congratulated him on hosting what he said will be a successful summit of the

americas. the summit formally opens this evening and that's where president obama is expected to get together with cubean president rule astro. a secret service officer was arrested charged with a misdemeanor for destruction of property. he's been placed on administrative leave. tough times for the secret service. ups and downs in the temperature being blamed for triggering a rock slide in vermont this morning. travel on interstate 89 north was down to one lane as the vermont agency of transportation broke apart a boulder that came crashing down. well she said i do just too many times. ly li anna married ten men as part of an immigration scam. eight of them at the same time. she pleaded not guilty to two counts of filing a false marriage application and license. she's the blond woman in the gray sweater. gentlemen, you are forewarned. that is the cnbc news update for

this hour. kelly, back to you. >> i'm just wondering if she got to keep all the engagement rings. >> that's some alimony there. >> quite valuable. >> i can assure you there were very few engagement rings involved. >> tell you one thing -- >> i have to hand it to her, that's the entrepreneurial spirit. if you're going to do something wrong, go big. >> thanks ty. >> she's the bernie madoff of marital -- >> come now. word leaking out that hillary clinton is about to join rand paul and ted cruz as early as this week. "meet the press" moderator, chuck todd joins us. if you're procrastinating on paying your taxes, you are not alone, and chances are you are wealthy as well. the correlation coming up. it kinda is. it's as crazy as you not rolling over your old 401k. cue the horns... just harness the confidence it took you to win me and call td ameritrade's rollover consultants. they'll help with the hassle by guiding you through the whole process step by step. and

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welcome back. general electric's slogan used to be it brings good things to life. they brought enough good thing to today's cnbc "hot list." allen wastler joins me now. >> ge was the big story today. we had lots of stories about it and people piling in. the one drawing the most attention comes from our "options action" team. apparently some traders made very well-timed bet, about 18,000 calls in ge that they got

yesterday going for about 33 cents each now all of a sudden they're up to $2 each. not a bad little payoff right there, sixfold increase. that's got a lot of attention. also apple watch, the other big story of the day. that's got a lot of attention. right now the story that's leading the pack there is about they're already hitting ebay. people already got the commitment to get the watch later in the monday and they're selling that on ebay and it's going for 40% more and in some cases even more. we're expecting that price to go up. finally, el pollo loco. 85% of the restaurants are in california. the ceo said if he had to do it all over again, he wouldn't be starting a business in california. too much in taxes, too much bureaucracy. he wouldn't do it. that's getting a lot of attention. >> allen, thanks very much. lots of good stuff on the website. a lot of weekend reading. just days after another police shooting has created another

racial divide in south carolina news of another community suffering a similar fate trying to move forward. kate rogers is in ferguson missouri. also "meet the press" moderator chuck todd joins us with a preview of sunday's big announcement that hillary clinton is officially running for president. we're back in two. ale announcer ] your love for trading never stops. so open an account with schwab. and when a market move affects, say a cloud computing stock you're holding, we can help you decide what to do. with tools that help you see how market activity is affecting your positions. so when the time comes to decide whether to scale in or scale out... you can make your move wherever you are. and start working on your next big idea. ♪ ♪ you total your brand new car. nobody's hurt,but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do, drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had a liberty mutual new car replacement,

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welcome back. the town of fergson, missouri is working to rebuild small

business after being destroyed if riots following the michael brown shooting. kate rogers is in ferguson with those details now. hi kate. >> hi kelly. that's right. we've been here with this crew all day watching them demolish what used to be a family dollar store. that was burned during protests back in november. now we watched this crew prep the building knock it down now they're onto a massive cleanup effort that will last well into tomorrow. this family dollar is just one small business being demolished thanks to a grant partnership from the st. louis economic development partnership. they've allocated about $500,000 to raise and beautify small businesses in the area. >> we think that because of these burned buildings, that people were reluctant to come back into the area and shop and so by bringing these buildings down then people see signs of progress. they see opportunities for businesses to thrive and they feel comfortable and safe. >> still, kelly, in total 250

small businesses according to the partnership were impacted in some way after the death of michael brown. 11 buildings were burned housing 20 small businesses. 6 of them have been demolished and while this site behind me may not be pretty it's an important step for this small business community in moving forward and recovering in ferguson. back over to you. >> thank you so much. kate rogers out there in ferguson with that story. racial tensions are front and story in this country also in south carolina with the police shooting of walter scott. chuck todd will be tackling the issue of cops wearing body cameras and the 2016 presidential race on "meet the press." hillary clinton is expected to announce her intention to run as early as sunday. is this basically a done deal, hillary's run? >> it's definitely a done deal. i think what's interesting is how she's decided to go about announcing that she wants to go this go slow approach and what's fascinating in talking to folks

around here is that essentially she's trying to recreate how she got into the new york senate race. very small. that was famously known as a listening tour of new york. well, her first stops in iowa and new hampshire are going to be it looks like in actual living rooms. she's going to almost do house-to-house style visits trying to replicate what she was good at in 2000 which was the small group type of campaigning and not do what she wasn't good at in 2007 and 2008 the big campaign, the big rally type of issues. >> i just want to quote david freelander, chuck, who says come sunday we should all focus on this because according to one clinton aide quote, they're going to raise in one week what some republican presidential candidates will raise the entire cycle. really? >> look, we're going to see a stunning number. look at the expo nen tal growth. barack obama in 2008 raised $750 million which was a number

nobody had ever heard of before. four years later he raised and spent, this is without any crazy super pac money, $1.5 billion. now throw in clinton throw in the clinton brand. i fully expect her to raise somewhere north of $2 billion. and, frankly, there are some republicans -- i think if februaryjeb bush is the nominee, we're looking at a combined $4 billion to $5 billion just by two candidates, the two nominees never mind everybody else. you have to wonder at some point enough is enough on campaign money i think. >> evan? >> chuck, i have a question. is america ready for 18 straight months of hillary clinton? and by that i mean the following. doesn't somebody in the democratic party want to at least make this interesting or is this just going to be a march to the national election in a year and a half? >> well, there may be at least -- i'll give you this, i think you might get harlem globetrotters versus the washington generals. meaning, i do think there will be a couple democrats and actually there are people around

secretary clinton that say she kind of needs a couple of opponents in the primary simply to do some debates, to not be rusty. look what happened to president obama in 2012 against mitt romney. a classic case of a guy who hadn't been on the campaign trail in four years. i think he will at least get the globetrotters and the generals. >> i understand you have rand paul on the show sunday. >> also have rand paul. flying out to vegas tomorrow morning to conduct that one, to get there. it's been an interesting week for him and his launch and the fact that there's so much republican fire aimed at him, forget democratic fire and we're going to talk hillary clinton and i also got john kerry on the program to talk iran and cuba. >> how important is this fund-raising going to be? will this decide who emerges on the republican side as well? if the rand pauls of the world can't meet jeb bush will they at least be able to use the debates as enough of a springboard to speak to that

portion of the american public who might be able to push them into better finishes in iowa for example? >> we learned this four years ago. rick santorum had nothing. he didn't raise that money. he found one sugar daddy type of super pac donor and he was able to deep alive. these new rules, the new ways campaigns are funded i don't think there's an elimination. there isn't anymore where money eliminates you. i think certain candidates, they don't have to be the top fund-raiser. they could just raise enough money. ted cruz is one of those guys. he doesn't have to match bush dollar for dollar. he just have to have enough to stay alive and be in the debates and then he can, quote, unquote, live off the land. i don't think money for many of these guys other than maybe chris christie, maybe a rubio money could eliminate them if they don't hit certain threshold but not for many of these other guy approximates. >> chuck, thanks very much. we're looking forward to that interview on sunday. tune into "meet the press," you've got just five days left to file your taxes as well and not everyone will make that april 15th deadline.

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welcome back. tax day is almost upon us but

if you're just starting to file your taxes, you are far from alone. the irs says the week of april 5th is the busiest single week for tax filings. eric chemi is here with that story. interestingly what it reveals about you if you're one of the late filers. >> first off, this week is the most popular week of the entire year. 13% of the americans, they file their taxes right now. that's much higher than in march where it's just 5% average per week. what's interesting is the longer you go out for people who don't file, the richer that they are. that's why i'm glad robert frank is here because he's the expert when it comes to all things wealth. when you look at just the data on what it says 19% of the people who make more than $10 million, they file by april 15th. so 81% of them will file the extension, they will wait until the rest of the year. you will see the chart up there. it goes down and down and down. if you look at the article, we break it out further. you look at $200,000 $250,000.

>> it's like implying some nefarious -- >> it's really interesting to see how exactly linear the relationship is. >> you know -- >> hang on. one at a time. >> because of the refunds. >> k1s. it's private partnerships. >> they don't get the data in time. >> if you have a private partnership, if you invest in anything that's not a regular mutual fund or stock, you get tax filings that always come late. that's why you get an extension. >> that would be interesting if it was accurate but the problem is that -- >> i am the daughter of many accounts. a long line of accounts. i checked this afternoon. that's why. >> a couple facts on the table. most of the income for people who make more than $10 million comes from capital gains, number one. not from k1s. >> that number went down a lot for last year. we have the data from last year's filings so that number tends to be volatile.

if you look at capital gains as a percentage, even though the markets were up those percentages went down. >> but the more important point is the wealthy pay their taxes in april. they pay the estimated amount. often times they'll they'll get some of that back in october when they do pay, but it's somebody watching this would think that the wealthy are not paying their taxes. somehow they get without paying their taxes. >> that's not what i'm saying. it's just not done yet. >> what were you going to say? >> so, all i was saying is that if they don't get the paperwork in time -- >> she was agreeing with me. >> i was agreeing with you. but the other interesting thing about all of this is because most of the time they're getting a refund they're effectively giving an interest-free loan to the irs. >> correct. >> and the interest loans go way up even past the october deadline. they're still processing returns in november and december. that final month of the year refunds are $7,000 on average, whereas the national average is only about $2,900. so the longer it goes out into the year the bigger the refunds are. >> one other point. the top 1% this tax year will pay 45% of the nation's income

tax. >> wow. >> among the highest ever. >> i'm more confused than when we started this segment. because what is this telling us then, this data about the timing? if it's not about the k-1s that you mentioned and it's not about the capital gains -- >> those who haven't filed yet, they're probably rich. and the longer it takes, the richer they are. that's what it says. that's what we're saying. >> whoever hasn't filed is the richest person at the table, that's for sure. >> well, the good news at least for this set is that -- >> he's the richest person. >> i have filed. >> we have all filed. >> has anybody not filed here? >> i haven't filed yet. >> oh! >> i have to sign them tomorrow. my dad's taking care of it. >> it takes days for filings to get completed. >> it's done. i just need to sign it. >> the signing matters. >> the signing does matter as it turns out. >> eric, thank you. thank you, guys. after a quick break, it's shaping up to be a big weekend for fire-breathing monsters. godzilla has been promoted to

tourism ambassador for japan, while the dragons on "game of thrones" are back for another season. our panel's take on this mix of fire and ice when we come right back.

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so kickstart designs low cost irrigation pumps enabling them to grow high value crops throughout the year so you can make a lot of money. it's all very well to have a whole lot of small innovations but unless we can scale it up enough to where we are talking about millions of farmers, we're not going to solve their biggest challenge. this is precisely where the kind of finance that citi is giving us is enabling us to scale up on a much more rapid pace. when we talk to the farmers and ask them what's the most important thing. first of all they say we can feed our families. secondly, we can send our children to school. it's really that first step that allows them to get out of poverty and most importantly have money left over to plan for the future they want.

welcome back. and take a look at this. a fire-breathing building-crushing godzilla has been welcomed to the city of tokyo today. and rather than destroying the city, there is a new ambassador for tourism. the 170-foot statue -- there's another look -- was propped up outside of the offices of toho the studio which made the classic film and hopes to attract more visitors to the city. and from one monster to another, this sunday marks the return of "game of thrones" on hbo and hbo now, where there are sure to be plenty of dragons as well. in the past two months "game of thrones" was the most illegally torrented television show, despite the fact that the new season doesn't start until this weekend. over that time period it was downloaded, guys more than 7 million times. so, which would you rather, go to tokyo and see the godzilla or watch "game of thrones" this weekend? >> the godzilla thing reminds me of philadelphia where they have a statue of rocky, who is also a

fictional character. because the statue is the movie version, not the real version. so, when your city can only come up with statues of things that are not actually in real life that's a sad benchmark. that's how i feel. >> but movies are more real to people than ever. >> the port authority has what's his name from "the honeymooners." >> exactly, and who wants to go to the port authority? >> jackie gleason? >> philadelphia and the godzilla are on the same level. >> i want to know, what is the target audience for godzilla? we talk about domestic, you know. are we talking about fans of mafra? what was the other one -- >> radon. >> rodon. >> radon. >> and again, not to trump my age, but i am probably the only one who was watching these things in the '60s when they were on -- >> but you have a lot of wealth at your disposal so maybe you would travel to toho. >> i've spent a lot of time in tokyo, and i'm not saying the make-or-break on the decision is going to be the godzilla statue. that's just me. >> what about "game of thrones"? >> i'm not a "game of thrones" guy. >> does your son watch it?

>> my daughter a little. i'm honest with them. i say i'd only watch it for one reason, and it's not the right reason. but look i can't get into that with my kids. >> "game of thrones," though, wildly, wildly popular, at a time when hbo now is going to be watched for its success, for the whole over-the-top phenomenon. >> will they still be downloading them illegally if you can pay without a cable company to get your hbo access? that will be the interesting thing. does that 7 million number go up or down when we have those stats? >> there's an interesting analogy to what happened here in the music industry. that basically, the illegal downloading in the '90s forced the music industry to change its business model and say okay, we're going to come to consumers where they are, even if it's not quite legal. we need to serve the need that they want. >> and the crazy thing is the music industry had their clock cleaned. i mean the music industry has basically been in secular decline because of that for years and i think this is hbo trying to get ahead of the curve here. but it's going to be really

interesting the next few years. because you know i barely watch cable tv at all now, and i'm, you know, i've turned into a netflix binge viewer. >> but we know you'll get really excited once the 2016 presidential cycle heats up. that's the moment glued to the screen. >> i've got bad news for chuck todd, at least for his ratings, which is, every weekend that he has hillary clinton or a presidential candidate on probably not going to turn the tv on. >> i think you say that but i think you won't be able to resist. >> no, no, no no. i think i will be able to resist. >> quick final thoughts on the market before we let everybody go. robert, you first here. turning to next week what do people need to be watching? >> look, you know, i think continue ede focus on the fed. i think these markets in china and in europe are just amazing. and you know here's one fact. the richest 17 chinese gained $50 billion in wealth. >> wow. >> this year alone because of what's happened at the chinese market. we talk about a bubble here. it's happened so quickly over there. we're going to see whether it continues. >> evan? >> i'm not going to look at

earnings. i don't think whether they're good or bad, i don't think it's frankly going to matter. i think the real story, and we touched on it a couple times, is going to be is the u.s. economy going to finally, you know put its foot on the accelerator into the spring? i'm hopeful just based on anecdotal stuff, but you never know until you know. >> catherine. >> i'm always interested in what's happening with wages, and we have a couple data points coming out next week to shed light on that. we've seen a few data points in the last few weeks that have indicated that we might finally be turning a corner. >> which ones next week to watch for? >> i believe there's a consumer sentiment number that's coming out and i think -- >> retail sales as well. >> yeah. >> the second week of the month is typically the time when we get that big spot of data that kind of unleashes all at once. so, that alone with the earnings should give some indication as to whether those wage pressures are building. >> yes. >> something to watch for as well. eric? >> we talk about taxes and we have that april 15th the i.r.a. deadline from last year. so, there might be some money that gets put to work next week because of these -- >> irs deadline?

>> irs deadline but the i.r.a. deadline for last year's money. >> of course exactly. important point. thank you, everybody, for being here. appreciate it. that's it for "closing bell." "fast money" is coming up. what's up melissa lee? >> apple, the tech trade into a capital turn. we will discuss the downgrades this week kell. >> over to you guys. >> "fast money" starts now live from the nasdaq market site overlooking new york city's times square. i'm melissa lee. your traders are tim seymour, steve grasso brian kelly and guy adami. here's what's on the "fast track" tonight. the apple watch hype overshadowing an apple downgrade today. hear what tim cook has to say about the preorders in a cnbc exclusive coming up. and the hong kong market hot right now, but for how long? we'll tell you how to play the big rally. we start off with our top story. general electric powering the dow higher today. ge closing up nearly 11% with trading volume nearly 300 million shares. the company announcing a massive restructuring this morning. it is selling most of its ge capital and real estate a