nicole: most of the names on the dow have green arrows. david: did not even which has talk about facebook up over 70, lot of record highs today. it seemed so long ago, we have come back from the january pullback, some of these stocks are at all-time highs. none higher than the russell russell 2000 down at the bottom, small and midsized stocks not left out. only a game for the high rollers, not so. liz: time for your front page headlines. slowing as financial data firm saying it is slashing product managers from 56.7 in january. david: the war on words over ebay is escalating and we may hear more live in just a few minutes. carl icahn once a company to spin off the paypal unit

accusing board members of conflicts of interest. saying he is mudslinginggand we will hear it all, carl icahn will be here in just a couple of moments. david: rise next base of the higher profit margins that is completed the deal to buy vodafone stake in verizon wireless. david: at&t could save billions of dollars rebuilding its net worth with cheaper equipment. at&t will buy less from specialized companies such as cisco. liz: no kia has announced the first phones powered by google android software. the new phone that had to help them stay relevant in emerging markets. david: whatsapp adding a voice call service for their users. the news, days after they were bought the facebook for

$19 billion. we have a very dizzy hour. stay right where you are, "after the bell" continues. liz: stocks on a roll with all major indices ending the day higher. let's break on the action with our panel. chief investment strategist who says investors should add international opportunities to their portfolio. hank smith, chief investment officer who thinks we're in the middle innings of the market and not too late for investors to step up to the bat. joining us from the floor of the cme. solid news from blackberry, facebook, all kinds of other issues we see with comcast and a lot of text, lot of media. what psychologically made this move? >> overnight the low, we had

been battling between 135, 145 level for the past maybe two weeks now. we broke through that level went straight to 150, 1850, 1855 range trading around there. once you go through some of the technical numbers people seem focusing on the upside issue. upside growth surprises and that is what we are waiting to see later in the week. a couple of fed numbers, janet yellen speaking on thursday. it was all the way to the upside. david: still trillions of dollars of cash on the sidelines. a lot of people think those trillions or hundreds of billions of it will start trickling into the market. and what form will they come into the market?

mutual funds, or what? >> yes, etf, mutual funds or the individual stocks. i think this is what we learned so far this year. '40 will be more volatile than '14. corrections will be short-lived. generate pullback was reversed in two weeks, and here we are three weeks later back to new nominal all-time highs. david: i need to get your thoughts on all that is going on. a little squeamish in some areas, what do you love right now? where should people be at least looking as they avert their eyes away from say the united states. >> we h international equities, certainly now for the better part of a couple of years. it worked well last year that will work even better this year. particularly in relation to the euro equities.

the euro area has posted positive economic growth stemming the recession, there are countries not only among the core, france and germany, but in the peripheral for terrific evaluation report coming off such a bad slate of economic news for so long almost anything good is helping to expand multiples in those markets allowing for greater upside potential in the euro area at the market more so than what investors should expect for u.s. equity markets in 2014. david: you do see some gains to be made of plastic into u.s. companies in particular well named companies. johnson & johnson, union pacific. mcdonald's. what happens in those companies that make you invest in them? >> they all have attractive yields, all growing dividends. the fundamentals are intact, strong balance sheet, strong dedicated management returning cash to shareholders and all

with reasonable valuations. you don't have to pay up for these. stocks, the high quality stocks are selling at about the historical average of the market so they are not overvalued in our viewpoint and plenty of tailwind to remain in equity investor and to suggest really in the middle innings of this bull market, nowhere near the end of it. liz: interesting clearly different from yours. some of these are american names and yet you are feeling they at least have a footprint in the emerging market world, intel making a lot of news in barcelona but you also like honeywell. >> we are finally going to realize the cycle is going to be ignited. we know you have the cash, or seeing confidence from big companies and small improving.

we think that cocktail plus fading political function will finally allow for spending on aged capital stock to occur and we like tech and industrial sectors that is a companies like intel and honeywell were a couple that with face the spending cycle, which we think will be good for thh general economy but also good specifically to those sectors and those companies. >> need a mmre active consumer. that is one thing that has been sort of missing from this market in certain areas coming in and others they haven't. do we have any clue of the consumer will get a little bit more aggressive about buying? >> they consumer, depends on where the planet you are talking about. we do see reparation on consumer balance sheets long for a barbell approach they are advocating here. the core dividend strategy in the u.s. and the same high-quality companies in europe are really trading 15-25%

discount because of the multiple compression on the back of the euro crisis and european debt issues continues to be the fuel and if you can get some medium wage gains out of the u.s. and developing economies of europe, you could have a very significant tailwind push in the multiple expansion again in the u.s. and in europe and possibly stabilizing the emerging markets which have been beat up 30 to 40% over the course of the last 18 months. liz: be early, certainly. great to see all of you. david: offered to take 51% stake of barnes & noble. what do they see in this retailer that others don't? will they consider a higher bid? the man behind his bid joining us next.

liz: plus, this one. carl icahn stirring the pot once again today stepping up his quest to spin off paypal from ebay. accusing them of ignoring conflict on the board. carl icahn joins us to talk not only about ebay, but we will ask him about herbalife, apple shares and so much more. charlie gasparino has it. he is talking to all of us coming up. ♪ [ male announcer ] what if a small company became big business overnight?

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but with less ergy, moodiness, i had to do something. i saw mdoctor. a blood test showed it was low stosterone, not age. we talked about axiron the lyndt that can restoret vels to l in about two weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 women, especlly those who are or who may become pregnant, and children should avoidt where axirons applied as unexpected signs ofuberty in children or changes in body hair or incased acne in women may occur. report these symptoms to your doctor. tell your doctorbout all medical conditions and medications. serious side effects could include increased skf prostate cancer, worsening prostate symptoms, decreased sperm unt, ankle, feet or body swelling, enlarged or painful breasts, problems breathing ile sleeping and ood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness

or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, common side effects include skin redness headache, diarrhea, vomiting, d increase in psa. ask your doctor about axiron. liz: this with a huge story. men's warehouse has increased its bid for competitor joseph a bank. david: nicole petallides with more on that. nicole: you are absolutely right, the store that has been an ongoing saga. men's warehouse just will not give up now sweetens offer for joseph a bank. joseph a bank moved to new record high, 60.14 was the annual hi there. i% gain for joseph a bank. men's warehouse basically pressed on with its bid, boosted by more than 10% despite the

facts joseph a bank has been trying so hard to stay independent. actually on its way to acquire eddie bauer but men's warehouse says listen, we will give you more money. 63.50 per share. you better jump out of the deal you are working on with eddie bauer. if they are able to conduct their due diligence, might even boosted to $65 per share. they are dangling the carrot big-time. david: a bid to buy 51% stake in the company. telling us on friday believe it was the company was worth a lot more than that. take a listen. >> i believe the back of the envelope to answer the question is somewhere north of $25.

liz: the stock is still around 17, so what is behind gm for the troubled bookstore and is the company prepared to increase a e bid for the majority stakes? let's ask. what is the answer? you think you're priced in $25 per share, are you okay with that? >> we offer $22 per share as part of the recent proposal for controlling interest in the comppny. we believe a substantial premium to the current share price and would be a good deal for current shareholders with had the feedback of support from some shareholders we spoke to. david: have heard from barnes & noble about the offer? >> they recognize they have received the offer but we have not heard back yet. david: are you expec expecting a

@ounter offer of any kind? any kind of communication at all from barnes & noble about the deal itself? >> in the past they have been very responsive to us. liz: why do you want this company? the one in my neighborhood closed. we know what happened, where do you see the future this company and the real opportunity? microsoft has a stake in that. >> we see substantial break up company in the value. lot of reasons people were not like the company. the big stor bookstore. lot of people are bearish. we think there is a longer-term to that theme. that business is very profitable. the key to us between the struggling no caps the negative sales trajectory and the profitable retail businesses. separate source of value.

one is new store growth where they have had the most new stores in 10 years. the second source is more of a tech play with a digitalization of textbook rentals growing at a much faster clip which we think would be very well rewarded by the textbased comp. this little piece of business possibly could be worth more with the company alone. david: i am the parent of a college student. we are a captive audience to say the least. is that the reason, because of all the problems publishers are having, college texts have some secure market because there is really no place else the parents of the students can go. david: colleges are looking to

outsource the business so barnes & noble has been able to win more share the core level and it is kind of like what you saw at the retail level where physical books move more toward online program and there is a time that would achieve a higher valuation. at this time there is an emergence of a theme in college to be separated or highly valued by the company where college has lower least risk. liz: what is your plan b? >> the company has a track record. we have great respect, they have a track record at this company and other companies including the ceo value created transactions including transactions well in excess of the current market price. if they don't accept our

proposals, we continue to think about what we do as investors in the company because we have been pretty vocal publicly since 2011. we are always a value in that. david: thank you for sharing. you will probably want to stick around for that. ukraine talking about urgent international aid to prevent the economy from falling into the abyss after protesters take control the levers of power at least for now. the question is what the russians will do. we speak with the president of the catholic university who is in kiev during the demonstrations of the aftermath of the violence. liz: and carl icahn on his new attack on ebay. the stock moved higher today in light of it and he steps o up hs campaign with the company to spin off paypal. the billionaire is also a big

apple shareholder. we will discuss the new galaxy s5 smart phone and the smart watch unveiled this afternoon. a lot to talk about with which harley calls uncle karl. ekdays are for rinto the challenge.

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[ female announcer ] watch live tv anywhere. the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. david: ukraine remains tense today as russia steps up its protest over the ouster of their president. now under investigation for the killings of civilians during antigovernment protest in kiev last week. one of those killed in the protest with a young professor for ukrainian catholic

university. the president of that university joins us now. thank you for being with us, appreciate it. tell us a little bit about how your professor was killed. >> he, like hundreds of thousands over the last three months, went the capital to participate in the protest. he had been there two timms before this trip last thursday morning. he arrived there with another member of our community advancing toward the barricade, the other fellow helped, steps back to help carry away a wounded person, he went forward and never heard from alive after that. david: is there any reason to believe, bishop, in fact your professor of the people who were killed apparently by snipers that those snipers were working on behalf of the government?

>> there is no question they were working on behalf of the government. those were government orders, paperwork is emerging on how different plans were being laid to completely close down the demonstration. david: of course obviously there is a huge him inside the story with some of what started the protest was the desire on the part of ukraine with citizens of ukraine to be aligned economically more with europe then with russia. is that really what instigated this? >> that was let's say a catalyst. underlining region was to live differently, it wasn't a question of 80 east or west so much as the principles, the corruption is rampant. the health care, the economy, business was being rated by

mafia style practices of the government. so it was a zone which would induce reform as opposed to russia. david: rushes controlled by vladimir putin. he very much wants ukraine to stay in his sphere of influence. is there any concern, are you worried that in fact russia might under the pretext of saving russians who live in ukraine or whatever might invade ukraine? >> there is a way of creating unrest and trying to foment separate separatism that surprisingly has been quite mild in these last days. it is really quite amazing to see how this population the 20th century was traumatized by the death of 17 million people

through violence in which the last days live through harrowing situations. how calm and well ordered the general population of ukraine is in the absence of normal police monitoring and kind of a pause in normal government. david: we're looking at video of what happened last week including some molotov cocktails finer targets. lot of violence last week maybe the whole scheme of ukraine not that much, but there was violence. the question is where do you go from here? she was very popular least in the west because she was a striking looking woman. the former prime minister was released from prison over the weekend.

look at video of her now speaking to the crowd from a wheelchair. does she represent the future? >> most, especially those who participate consider a government that is receding. the day before yesterday, they say that the opposition is yesterday and something new being born today. it is for many people of the past. david: what is the future of ukraine which mark is it a positive future? part of europe or will it come back under the sphere of russia? >> what people want his life without corruption. they are supporting integration with europe, and what they want is justice. there is great pain, great post

traumatic shock in the country celebrating the funerals of all these victims, society is stunned and somber but determined to move forward and not allow a corrupt politician to rule the country. david: he has been up pretty much straight through the past week is fighting a flu as well. >> i like to thank all of our supporters the u.s. and the university and all the people who have been praying for peace in the ukraine. david: appreciate you coming. over to you. liz: when he talks, stocks move. as billionaire carl icahn once again calls for a spinoff, this time of the paypal business

from ebay. he is also throw in some verbal molotov cocktails accusing ebay of lax in governance. we are talking to carl icahn about those accusations and we will ask him about herbalife, apple and the companies he has stakes in that are very controversial. as the song goes, blame it on the rain or the snow. are there other forces at play pointed to bigger troubles ahead? some important thoughts, stay tuned. (vo) you are a business o.

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liz: ebay showed quite the move today. , to the upside. carl icahn was once again called for the separation of the company's paypal division. david: amazing how he can move stock. he is accusing ceo john donahoe failing to spot conflicts of interests on the company's board. joining us charlie gasparino with billionaire investor carl icahn. charlie. >> thank you. carl, how are you? >> how are you doing, charlie. >> boy, you didn't minutes any words today. >> i'm too old to do it. too old to minutes words. >> see if i got this right. you think the board is kind of corrupt. [. ceo donahoe is incompetent and the company is so poorly-run it needs to spin off the only thing that is really good here which

is its paypal subsidiary. does that sum up what you think. >> you're saying a lot there, charlie. let me start off saying i've been through a lot of these. of boards that are just basically, i say, a non-caring and incompetent to some extent but never seen one like this. i never saw one that is so blatant they gave away $4.5 billion, to a board member. they gave it to one of their own board members and donahoe, what the hell was he doing?% sitting there sleeping or going alongwith it? i mean, amazing thing is knew that he had a safe harbor in a sense with the fact that he could sell it to microsoft some where was his budgetary responsibility? >> talking about the skype deal? >> i'm sorry the skype deal. >> so andreessen was part of that. they took, a 70% stake in it.

then he unloaded it to microsoft. what you're saying by unload it to microsoft, instead of spinning it out or doing ipo, what they left was $5 billion on the table for shareholders, correct? >> and gave it to the buyers which was andreessen and company he was partner with, silver lake. >> right. >> and you know, just to give you the number, they valued skype at 2.75 billion. >> light. >> which was below what they paid for it. which only 18 months later they flipped it to microsoft for 8.5 billion. >> sound like a massive conflict of interest to me. we should point out there andreessen and ebay, you're making stuff up. searching the internet for stuff and these guys are very credible investors and board members. i will say this though. do you think what was done from your standpoint was illegal? it smacks of, i mean, what it sound like you're saying that they basically ripped off shareholders? >> i think, it is what i'm

saying. i will tell you this, that we're going to do a 220 request as of today, tomorrow. >> right. >> and dig into it because they say in the letter today, you know, they say, mark andreessen and cook are most accomplished value driven leaders. they are value driven for themselves, that's for sure. >> 20 request. you're starting on outside investigation into this thing, correct. in a way. they say they really searched this. i don't know how anybody knowing microsoft was around could sell this and by the way, if you do an ipo which maybe wouldn't have been so bad, sell 20% to the public and then do, andreessen comes along, on the board, greatly respected and he buys it for himself with, they kept 30%. >> let's get to some factoids here. you own 2% of ebay, correct. >> a little bit more, yeah. >> do you plan to buy more shares?

>> i don't go into that. i'm not going into what i plan to do sparse my own portfolio. >> how about a proxy fight? are you going that fight? >> we definitely are. we said it. >> this is proxy fight then. >> yeah. we have two guys, two nominees ready to go. we already done that and we're nominatings them. we have nominated them. we're there. >> you're there. ready to you will president trigger though. let me ask you this. before you pull the trigger, knowing you must have talked to the board and talked to mr. donahoe? >> i had some conversations with mr. done a hoe. they basically, i don't want to go into them. we sort of agreed wee weren't going into them. >> he obviously did not impress you? >> i think donahoe has done an awful job relating to corporate governance and not a great job running the company even against amazon. amazon has done, you read our letter, so much better than ebay has. >> right. >> but corporate governance is

one of the worst i have ever seen. >> poorly-run company with this sort of crown jewel in there that you believe must be spun off, correct? >> hey, listen. it is binary this company. it's a great value, one of the best i've seen, if you can separate them. it was like motorola. >> how would you separate them? >> let me put it this way, if you want separate them, this company under the mushroom of ebay, under donahoe sort of watching it will go off a cliff in my opinion. i'm not one saying it. elon musk said it. he said it would wither and knows it a roll better than i do. >> you said something pretty interesting about an dreesen. he has been an ebay insider and engaged in several transactions that lead us to question his loyalty to ebay. that is really strong words. >> i look at the fact that he made 4.7, 4.5 billion, he and silver lake. they bought the company. >> right. >> but my question is, i mean,

he says after he bought it, which is really sort of amazing. >> right. >> he said, you know, that skype was an archetypical phenomenon of breakthrough technology. his partner stated it is one of the most important companies in the world. i saying what only wonder what happened to andreessen's fiduciary responsibility to tell to donahoe? maybe he did and donahoe is sitting there sleeping. >> okay. >> donahoe has not done a great job. >> we're asking mr. donahoe to defend himself on that. >> i hope he does. i would like to be there with him you. >> met with him. we haven't. switch gears a little bit. hertz, it has been widely reported you take a major ownership position in hertz. >> let me tell you something. i say, i said sort of kept using that, i'm not going to comment on my positions but i said i wasn't going to have proxy fight there nor did i. i didn't put anybody up on the slate. some guys like to get these

rupees more out. i'm not going to argue whether i had some stock in it but i will tell you that was never my plan and i never had, i'll tell you for sure i never had the position they talked about. >> they were talking about a major position and you were going to, another business network -- >> yeah. look, i, i happen to like faber% but good reporter, but i think he should have made sure he talked to me. people use us for that. >> i do want to be clear you do not have a major ownership position in hertz? >> look, i'll tell you on the phone i do not. but i don't want to, i don't want to ask me other ones. will not get into everything we own. >> let me ask you this, carl, i'm getting a little bit of a hook. you are into politics, care deeply about this city, this country. there has been a lost talk in new york among new york republicans i guess you put yourself that, they are worried about the direction of this city under mayor de blasio. he is very far left guy and

raise taxes. wants to take apart a lot of things bloomberg put into place. bloomberg was not exactly tea party republican. does this scare you about bill de blasio. >> i say one thing i'm involved in and knowledgeable in country in general which is charter schools. eight charter schools. >> he is against charter schools. >> he is against them. >> the charter schools show you a little like corporate governance in our companies today, charter schools shows us one of the reasons we have3 problem in education. i have eight charter schools. we put money in. they're run sort of, cost us money. >> right. >> but they, and not much. kids in those charter schools are in the middle of the bronx. >> oh, yeah. >> worst areas read as well as kids in scarsdale down the street where it is a public school, and run with the board and run with the union. those kids can't read or write. what does that tell you? this it he wills you should not be run

by a government agency. education is too important and we're giving that up. that is one of the great things in this country. >> carl, before i forget, how much money did you make on apple? >> we're making a lot of money on apple. >> how much? >> that comes out of left field. i don't go into the numbers. >> come on. you can give me a little bit. >> i don't even have it. on paper we're making some. but on paper we think the stock is really cheap. i like to think we helped a little bit saying it should be bought back. there we like cook very much and, you know, we really didn't want to have a fight. in the case of paypal, you can not have this company, like motorola, i said that two three years, luckily they listened. motorola we made a lot of money it could have gone bankrupt if they had not split it up and brought in sanjay and did a grat job and sold it. same thing will happen with

paypal. could be great. phenomenal company but you can't have a run -- >> can't have a run by people that is incompetent. >> number one, forgetting incompetent. look at the corporate governance here. how does the guy give away 4.5 billion? if your family owned the company, charlie, and let a guy run it and gave away 4.5 billion in 18 months, what the elle would you do. my that's right would have whacked him by now. >> i said that on the program. >> don't have time to ask you about herbalife. i'm so sick of herbalife anyway. thanks for joining us. >> fine. okay, charlie. liz: icahn enterprises, we always neglect to mention it, but that is his company. annual low is 54. just closed today at $110.78. >> amazing guy. david: making money for the stockholders. >> people call him a speculator. that is what he does. think about what he is doing here. step back, you doesn't have to agree with him. he is shining the what goes on

inside these boardrooms. if you're an investor you have to like a guy on think, he may not get all the details right. it is up to us to get the details right. >> he gets them mostly right. david: sometimes he puts spotlight on them and sometimes they scurry like cockroaches. >> we have to hear what andreessen is has to say. investing in companies, both saying andreessen was investing in companies of competitors of ebay an on the ebay board and left money on the table. david: serious charge. >> serious charge. i know mark andreessen somewhat. always a decent guy. love to hear his steer. they have put out the statement. the statement doesn't again to answer questions. david: he says he wants to come on with him. that would be a great pairing. 's do it! >> he mitt him. let me get a shot. liz: charlie gasparino and thanks to carl icahn. we heard a lot of impact on of the snow and ice on the house being market this winter. it is only part of the picture. we have a former fannie mae executive and what is really

slowing down housing and how bad the pullback really is.

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credit officer. thanks for joining us. >> thank you, liz, a pleasure. liz: the weather is certainly a factor from i guess the mississippi river going east when people don't want to go outside and start to house hunt, et cetera. i get that but we've seen number falter anywhere west as well. what is at work here? >> well you've got house price that is have been going up faster than incomes, faster than rents and certainly job growth has been lackluster. you know. it continues to grow. but not at the rate that people would expect. and so that's creating an affordability issue in the market's responding by actually doing what it did during the last run-up, it is loosening credit. the government asking for loosened credit and lenders responding by loosening credit. we just released our index of mortgage risk today for the month of january. these are loans that were securitized by the government agencies in january and there was a big jump up in january in

the risk index. liz: is that because you feel that credit is being, is becoming too loose? are we going right back to the bad behavior? or, i mean, even i have trouble getting a refi because they were accusing me of some type of criminal. impossible. i have very good credit but i think perhaps it was getting a little too tight? >> i think we're talking about here home purchase mortgages which directly relates to the sales of new and existing homes. and what we find is that more than 50% of the mortgages that were made in january that were securitized by these agencies had down payments of 5% or less. >> and a quarter of them had debt ratios above 43%. that has been creeping up. liz: that is bad. that is reverting to bad behavior definitely. that leads to the question are these government sponsored entities the real problem from the beginning to end? we did see headline fannie mae paid back the bail out and more. they made a lot of money. they wrote a check to treasury,

$7 billion, that's great, but it doesn't help if they're only requiring questionable, questionable borrowers to put down 5%. the rest of us had to put down 20, 25%. what is going on here? >> a lot of that is fha. this includes fha, fannie, freddie, so it's a broader mix but having said that, fannie and freddie to talk about their profits is largely an illusion. these are not like private companies with capital operating in a marketplace and prices are being set by the market place. they have no capital. they are backed by the government. they have been given the an effective monopoly on the non-fha loans. they do 9%, 85% of all the non-fha loans in the country and so, to say they're making money, relative to what? and so the taxpayer is still on the hook for the risk. most people don't realize this. but they're backing, the

taxpayers are still backing fannie and freddie in terms of their capital to the tune of $250 billion. liz: ed, we just showed both fannie mae and freddie mac stock. both people can buy stock. we are a business network. we can sit here and judge gses until the end of time but bill ackman a billionaire hedge fund guy, believes in his heart that fannie mae could be worth 10 types what it is now. he is talking common shares in just a couple of years. he's a smart guy. should people be buying this stock? >> well, i'm sure he is a smart guy. i knoo fannie's stock went up 70 times from the late '80s to 2004. and so there is probably a play here for fannie mae stock. how long that play goes before the wheel turns and there is risk comes back and bites the government, nobody knows but certainly these trends tend to go on for years and we've been back with these house price

increases for just 15 or 16 months. liz: sure. >> certainly the government will try to keep this going for the next, you know, as long as they can and that could be years f that happens, fannie mae and freddie will make what appears to be a lot of money and then the question is will the government allow any to go to the shareholders which is entirely different question. liz: indeed. it? >> time something everything and buyer beware. liz: exactly. caveat emtore too. thanks, ed pinto. >> pleasure, liz. david: members insider of housing i know in america. mcdonald's may soon break one of its long-lasting traditions and fans of the a possible mange up in the morning when we go off the desk. stay tuned. peace of mind is important when you're running a successful business.

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liz: on the heels of the comcast-netflix deal. we have break news. according to reuters at&t is now in talk with netflix about a possible agreement to improve performance for broadband customers who use the service. again, this fall on the heels of netflix's new deal with comcast where they pay comcast for faster speed. david: they will have pay a lot of people more. some say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. you may east it all day long at mcdonald's or longer.

the company is talking about option extending breakfast menu including egg mcmuffins past the 10:30 a.m. deadline. they are looking to combat competition. i ys say be thman with the plan

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