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tv   MONEY With Melissa Francis  FOX Business  March 17, 2014 2:00pm-3:01pm EDT

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us through the next hour of "money." cheryl: what is going on melissa? melissa: the markets are moving. a great day to start the week. we have atic you're wall street throwdown. al by baba worth 15 million. it is always about money. we want to show he you what is going on with the markets right now. the dow industrials off the high of the session but still up 113 points. that is better than 1%. s&p higher as well. nasdaq composite is up 43. a lot on the lack of violence in crimea. remember, this is on the back of a five-day losing streak even though we're seeing relatively light volume. industrials leading the way. we'll have a lot more on in just a moment. but first, it is the sexiest ipo since facebook. i'm talking about mammoth internet retailer alibaba which is spurning china to make its market debut in the u.s. it is expected to raise up to
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$15 billion. it could be the biggest internet deal since google. not everyone is ready to buy in. this is today's "wall street throwdown." scott martin is ready to go all-in on alibaba. he is also a fox news contributor. we have brian sossi, is saying stay away, far, far away. scott, go ahead and get it started. >> melissa, you brought up first and fores mow this is coming to the nyse, a new york stock exchange. this is major win for the. >> change. a major win for the u.s. number two, a growing company. roughly two billion in revenue makes by the way, a billion in profit, bigger than ebay and amazon in a growing area of the world. emerging markets, china, asia, that's a beautiful place for them to be. by the way they finished up a very strong q4 we'll see in april that will further boost the raise. melissa: brian get in there. >> given how the ipos have done in the tech sector. melissa: how do you egger with the profits.
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>> game on, melissa. happy st. paddie's day. now the books are open. what will you find investing in alibaba. revenue has grown but slowed over most recent quarter. company valued oversee essential basis -- melissa: up enormous 51%. i would take 51% any day of the week. >> 20 percentage points slower than the prior quarter. now it is public company. alibaba is suspected to every piece of slowing china data. melissa: that is great point that is a great point. what about that, scott. >> sandbag the numbers, do a bigger raise once the q4 numbers come out. same thing found out about twitter and facebook, that rocketed off the ipo facebook was supposed to be way too expensive. melissa: a lot for a long time. >> jumped twofold from the bottom. you have to get in on a tech ipo nowadays. look what is happening with pinterest. all the values are -- melissa: it looks so bubbly.
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nine ipos doubled in value first day of trading past nine months. you have to wonder when does the bubble burst? >> here we go. melissa: okay. >> i will put -- alibaba owns stakes in so many companies they will have to pay up aggressively to attack these eyeballs much the barriers to entry are so small and i think valuation could be excessive and you will be punished because they overpay for the companies. melissa: i don't know how you're losing, scott. get there. >> there is a -- judge on the panel. everybody trusts alibaba. you're talking about tens and tens of billions of dollars getting exchanged over their sight every year. how can you tell me -- it is winners. >> slowing revenue growth the stock will get routed like what happened with twit ear couple weeks ago. >> but it didn't happen yet. melissa: all right. you have 25 seconds, left. i mean, scott, try and bring it home. i don't know how you're losing. >> well, i can't either, melissa. here is the other thing. don't storyforget there are
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other tech companies alibaba can buy as well. >> i'm most concerned this company is susceptible to slowing growth rate in china. 500 million users will be slowing. >> no way. that is burgeoning middle class. >> peace out, guys. melissa: there is the whistle. [whistle blows] scott, you know what? it is st. pat tricker's day. explains the judges are drunk. no way you lost. thanks to both of you. let's get back to the markets right now. as we said a great day on wall street. solid rally right now. the market is up 174 points. alan knuckman is at the cme. does it concern you at all that we don't have a ton of volume today. >> no, not so much. typically this week is the end of the earnings cycle. we kick back in april 8th with earnings season. that reminds us how well earnings are doing. took a complete day to get us back after complete reversal but it took two days. i'm still very positive.
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we're here at the midpoint of lows we saw in the overnight session in the s&p to the all-time highs. if we get back above this level we could make a full recovery that projects 1925 in the s&p as we have seen many times before. melissa: alan, is no one concerned what potentially could happen in russia? we promised to respond if what happened happened and we did. no one is wore royed about that? >> you can't keep a bull market done. we responded. a little bit of relief responding today, mainly technically driven. nothing escalated over the weekend. this about it, russia has the power of military, we have the power of the market. the financial markets are punishing russia. that is where they lose that game. they have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization. that could hurt them more than anything. those sanctions are going to hurt. melissa: alan, thank you very much. >> all right. melissa: more rough roads ahead for general motors. the automaker announcing three additional recalls this morning.
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is any car safe? we have scott, "motor trend" editor. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. melissa: three more recalls. are gm cars falling apart or are they getting bad news out at once? >> one of those things comes around and they have to issue a recall so they do. judging a company just by the recalls is not necessarily a good thing. toyota led everybody in recalls last year with over 10 million cars recalled. honda was number two. both those companies have very good reputations for reliability. so measuring not all recalls are the same. melissa: maybe they won't have reputations for reliability for that much longer. i mean toyota does stick out in my mind as a shopper, as a car had a lot of problems and recalls. with the pile-on at gm, just seems like this does significant damage to the brand. >> it, what it does it reminds people of the ignition switch recall. and that is something that gm is trying to get through and do all the things that it can do but it looks like that story has got
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some legs and it will stay around for a while and continue to remind people about recalls. that is really the bad thing about these recalls is. melissa: i mean the flip side of it is, of course seems like everyone is having a recall. look at honda doing the same thing. we were looking trying to see what is the least recalled car? maybe that is what you want to go for. turns out last year was mercedes. >> well, yeah. you know, that is also the recalls in the u.s. as opposed to worldwide and now that we have global companies it is changing very rapidly. i also think that the way that carmakers deal with data now and the way that the government deals with data it is going to happen a lot more and it will happen a lot faster. i don't know if that is necessarily great for consumers because we're going to start seeing recalls for just the most minor of things so that they can -- melissa: get used to it and not that big of a deal and you get a recall notice and go in and get, unless like the initial gm recall with all the fatalities. unless it is something serious like that. do we start to get immune to it?
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>> in a way we do. we're seeing more and more recalls every year. and that is really a product of the way data is taken and the way that carmakers are scared of attorneys. ultimately what that does is, that can impact the price of a vehicle. you will see it go up because everybody has to hedge against the potential of a recall. there is 10,000 moving parts in a car. melissa: yeah. >> i'm surprised that there is not more recalls. melissa: bottom line on gm we're looking at a stock chart right now. it is up 1%. this is a market in rally mode today. tough to tell the long-term impact on this stock. thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me. melissa: up next, does the missing malaysian flight actually prove that our world needs more surveillance? we are always so worried about privacy but the whole world is looking so no one can find a plane. wait until you hear today's "money talker". what is it going to take before tesla sells cars the
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old-fashioned way? new york is trying to ban the direct sales model. the president of a car dealer coalition is here on why she is not giving up the fight. more "money" coming right up.
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malaysian airlines 370 turning contentious in the second week. china's news agency publicly bashing the u.s. and malaysia for their efforts and expressing the belief, quote, the intelligence superpower united states must know more than it's revealing. here for today's "money talker", fox news security analyst, kt mcfarland, a former navy seal, jonathan gilliam and a former pilot himself. thank you all three for joining us. this idea that we're always so paranoid. there is so much surveillance and government knows what we're doing at all times and here we have a plane no one can find and no one can trace. do we need more surveillance? >> we do have pockets in gaps of radar. melissa: at least. >> not only around the world but right here in the u.s. there are someplaces where there is no
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radar. it is pretty limited but, there is so much information. i think there is 80,000 flights a day. if you were to shove all that information up to the satellites, there is not enough bandwidth for all that. melissa: didn't we just give terrorist as perfect map where they could go and disappear if they wanted to? >> here is what i think. not so much what we do know about the plane? what about the bad guys know about us and reaction to this. we're not look in southern hemisphere. we're looking in russia, china, north korea, american satellites are not looking there. maybe chinese satellites are looking there in strait of malacca but they're not sharing. the other thing, if you want a big pr splash we had a week of 24/7 media focus on this with nothing there. if a terrorist groups wants to do something, have the world pay attention. melissa: yeah. >> they also found out about a awful lot of lack of security at third world airports and passport integrity. melissa: jonathan, what do you think? you're a former navy seal. the navy is heading up this
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investigation. is this an argument that we don't have enough surveillance around the world that we could lose a plane? >> i'm going to agree with you on wholeheartedly on that. i think one thing about china is, quite frankly i don't think a lot of people really interested in what china has to say about this because they came out with these little tidbits of information. that to me was almost like trying to go ahead us showing what we have. we didn't buy it on it and that was a great thing. melissa: we thought is there a government out there that knows a lot more than they're telling us right now? that may be fine. they may be using that information in order to advance the case but they're saying we know a lot. does someone know a lot and is not telling us? >> it is drip, drip, drip, all this information and we keep getting more. i'll tell you, my theory going up this to 45,000 down to 25,000, to me, it says everything i need to know. melissa: talking about the altitude. it went much lower. >> the cockpit oxygen system is
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separate from the passengers cockpit civil. if you turn off the passengers cockpit system and climb the plane to 45,000, there is a limited amount of oxygen for the pilots. meantime, everybody in the back quietly goes to sleep, within minutes they're dead. now you can bring it back down, because pilots have limited amount of oxygen in the cockpit. they will have then oxygen for them and put everybody, they're dead. now what happened after that, i don't know. but that i think they killed the people very quickly. >> then what they do, land someplace which is what your scenario -- melissa: there are reports from different research groups here in new york saying there are 634 runways they could have reached. >> because of world war ii. maybe what that means is a much more complicated conspiracy you think. i'm not a conspiracy person. what that means somebody on the ground was waiting to receive whatever that aircraft is. melissa: jonathan, do you believe in that or is that too much conspiracy theory? >> i don't really jump into
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conspiracy theory but that's a possibility. we'll tell you if that happens, and here's a great thing leading back to your question about surveillance is. melissa: right. >> surveillance isn't just what equipment we have and what databases we can check and follow, it is all about sources and what sources can tell us. we have sources everywhere in the world. if they landed that plane, unless they had state cooperation, which if we had a satellite that showed us that it did go north, it has to have had state sponsorship because, the radar signatures, when you go over land. melissa: kt what does that mean to you? do you believe that and what does that mean who is cooperating? >> you don't know. where are we not looking or at least we're not looking and nobody else is telling us that they're looking there. melissa: right. >> that would lead you to believe that it is someplace southern. melissa: tom, do you buy that. >> i believe i do but i believe it is suicide. "daily mail", the what it is worth, the wife and kids left the pilot and guy at "politico"
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reporter, politically-minded got arrested for being a homosexual on the day that this plane disappeared. melissa: so many unanswered questions. we'll see. mystery is how could we not know? that is most troubling about this, obviously hundreds of souls we don't know where they are. we want to know how is it possible we don't know. thanks to three of you, we appreciate it. from the u.s. to every corner of the globe money is flying around the world starting in spain where ono is being bought up by britain's vodafone for $10 billion t gives vodafone access to nearly 2 million customers in spain and will boost the tv and broadband offerings. vodafone is already the second largest wireless carrier in the world. over to china, alibaba, you heard of them, right? nikon and been named and shamed on state television. broadcasters, cctv aired a two-hour prime time show in honor of world consumer rights day. who even knew that existed.
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in the program it said alibaba's payment system failed to protect customer data. as for nike conit accused the japanese camera maker selling faulty cameras and concealing product laws. that shares fell 1.7% in tokyo trade. landing in france, where a strike planned will reduce lights by as much as 30%. air traffic controllers upset at president francois hollande pro-business policies are planning a protest across the country. airlines are telling passengers in and out of france to prepare for major disruptions. how nice. next up, will elon musk win or lose the battle over selling his cars? not looking good for now. new york lining up to be the newest state to ban his sales model. listen to the latest on this one. and the real economic impact of the ukraine referendum. the markets don't seem to be worried at all but how long can that last?
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melissa: we want to show awe big mover right now. there are headlines crossing on intercept pharmaceuticals. the stock is getting crushed. let's go to nicole pet on floor of new york stock exchange with the story. nicole. >> melissa, this stock is is up 490% just this year in 2014. down almost 14% today. on news experimental drug in mid-stage trials actually had some issues pertaining to some heart related problems. other than those who were given the placebo. there were a couple deaths as well. you do have the company, intercept, saying those deaths were unrelated to the drug. a little bit of he said/she said in that matter. however you do have the analysts out there touting the drug overall which treat as liver
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disease and what we see here is that wedbush securities saying that they still, they knew some of these related issues pertaining to heart related issues and they still like the company and you had needham raise the price target up to $500 today as well. melissa: nicole, thanks so much. so the referendum in crimea is shaking the world today. president obama spoke earlier about the u.s., u.s.'s response. >> we are imposing sanctions on specific individuals responsible for undermining the sovereignty, territorial integrity and government of ukraine. we're making it clear that there are consequences for their actions. melissa: here with the economic costs to the ukraine crisis are chris harmer of the institute of study for war, and matt mccaul from pen financial group. matt, let me start with you. what do you think of the response from the u.s.? >> the response from the u.s. is targeting individuals right now. they're going after high-ranking individuals in russia, freezing their assets and not letting
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them travel to the united states. we're seeing spread to economic situation -- melissa: chris, does that have impact? >> melissa, good to be with you. that will have no impact whatsoever. the russians have incredible capacity to endure pain and this is pinprick at worst. you're talking about 20, 25 individual russian political leaders minimally affected by travel ban and assets, not even seizure but just asset freezes. there is no possibility that will have impact on russian policy making. >> the flipside of that, some are worried that russia could dump its currency reserves. they have 300 billion in u.s. dollars that it could dump. that would have huge impact on the dollar. matt, do you think they're able do that? that is one of the things making rounds in emails. >> very difficult to dump -- melissa: what about a portion? >> they definitely could. i think it is realistic. they will not do it at this time i believe. if the u.s. and e.u. puts more
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sanctions on them that will have ripple effect. we will feel that which will crush the value of our currency and that will hurt our economy. melissa: they sold 80% of u.s. treasurys in early march in anticipation of what is going on. did that have any impact that meant anything? >> it really did not. the largest outflow we saw in treasurys since 2008. however you didn't see interest rates move on it. so it didn't have a big effect. melissa: chris, how does this play out from here do you think. >> all about the money with the russians. in this case it is all about the geography. they don't have really good port systems. they have two bad cold warred earth port. and shallow water port in st. petersburg. and geographically isolated port at vladivostok. what they have in their geo-- that port is not a great port somewhat is lated in the black sea and you have to go through the turkish straits to get to the mediterranean.
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they need it more than -- melissa: everybody is watching on the show, worried about the investments, worried about the business and value of the dollar. what is the geopolitical risk for this as it continues to escalate? do we see violence on the horizon? do we see challenges to the markets on the horizon? matt what do you think? >> as far as the markets i think it is isolated right now. however if expands the first area that is her the emerging markets brisk markets. they trade their own natural gas and oil. they can't get away with not using u.s. dollars f that expands and no need for the u.s. dollar that could have ripple effect here for investors. companies such as exxonmobil has a lot of business in russia. citigroup has business in russia. it could hurt individual companies. melissa: chris what do you think? what is the risk from here? >> real risk our true enemies or true competitors at least in china will see u.s. inaction in iran, u.s. inaction in syria, u.s. inaction in crimea. they will conclude rationally
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the that u.s. is not willing or capable to defend our interests around the globe. one thing for the russians to invade or annex crimea. one thing entirely for the chinese to take the senkaku islands. they're building a navy for it. our lack of action in these three key areas make it much more likely that the chinese will turn into raw naked aggressors. melissa: less about political risk of companies around the world sitting in territories not necessarily friendly with us, how much weaker we are now. thanks very much to both of you. >> thank you. melissa: before we head to break. listen to this. an oxford university study says half of all jobs in the u.s. are at risk to automation. within the next 10 to 20 years. half. that's around 700 different occupations. those most likely be replaced including receptionists paralegals, even shop assistants. also at risk, taxi drivers. the study says cab drivers and show fur drivers have 89% chance
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of being automated by 2013. you will be driven by a car by itself. bartenders have a 77% chance. really a lot of shocking stuff there. up next, now it is new york against tesla. how many other states could gang up against elon musk? and is it hurting consumers more than anyone else? busy times for sarah palin. the former alaska governor going rogue, making cool 6 figures in the process. do you ever have too much money? she doesn't. nascar is about excitement. but tracking all the action
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with centurylink as your trusted it partner, you'll experience reliable uptime for the network and services you depend on. multi-layered security solutions keep your information safe, and secure. and responsive dedicated support meets your needs, and eases your mind. centurylink. your link to what's next. melissa: i want to check in on oil right now because you see a big dip in the middle of the day, but we seem to be building back up. phil flynn is at the cm e-trading group, tell me about
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the market group. >> i think when you look at oil, obviously, you know, the fear over the ukraine situation eased off a little bit. there's not going to be any sanctions on oil, and that put the market down. obviously, the stock market is euphoric today, and a lot of that on that industrial production number. we are coming off the lows a little bit on energy. parking lot of that could be a rebound -- part of that could be a rebound in the oil price because of strong ea fining margins, and one of the things that brought it down was the arbob gasoline futures, they're down 7.77 right now, pretty incredible when you consider we have a big drawdown in supplies. anticipation that refiners are going to kick it into high gear, squeeze out as many barrels as they can, and that's going to, of course, keep those gasoline prices down. natural gas, the other big market that was rocking the day, it's even pulling down a little bit, 4.48. but it was kind of interesting, when you look at that strong industrial production number that really got the stock market rallying this morning, you know,
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we saw industrial production really fall off in january. that was in the heart of the cold front. and a lot of that is because a lot of manufacturers are on interruptible contracts. when it gets cold, you know, they turn off their gas, shut down production. i think with the warmer weather, that really helped those industrial producers come back online, they could get their hands on cheap natural gas. that gave that market a real boost. then, of course, precious metals, they're back down a little bit today. they broke a key support on the gold at 71, 371. they're down $1, so we're -- $14, so we're taking a lot of that premium risk out of the market. melissa: okay, thanks so much. so tesla may be driving into even more trouble ahead just as new jersey enacts a ban on sales in the state. car dealers in new york are now pushing to do same. but why shouldn't tesla be able to sell cars the way it wants to, especially if customers are buying? deborah doorman is the president of eastern new york coalition of automotive retailers, she joins me now on the phone.
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deborah, thanks so much for joining us. >> you're welcome. melissa: why do you think that tesla should not be able to sell directly to consumers the way it has been? >> well, let's start with the fact that no one's ganging up on tesla, and everyone thinks that tesla should be able to sell their cars in the state, and i'm sure new jersey feels the same. car dealers this new york state have sold over 17,000 as of august hybrid and electric vehicles, and we welcome additional -- melissa: but, deborah, let me stop you right there because i've interviewed elon musk on this subject, and he says when you give his cars to a dealership that sells all gas-guzzling cars, they're not a natural advocate of his product. his product is the enemy. so it's like giving your car over to the dedecision more them to -- competition for them to sell for you. they will not sell it, they will not advocate for it in the same way they do other cars. how do you respond to that? >> i think that's nonsense.
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that's a a hot car right now, consumers want to buy it, dealers want to sell it. melissa: what about the idea that they don't understand the technology as well, that this is more of a technology car, that he has specialized people who focus on how to sell it, how to have this carvers or us a traditional -- car versus a traditional car. >> they have been trained to sell high rid and lick trick cars -- electric cars, so that's just a nonsensical matter. one of tesla's own spokesman talked about how they were primarily engineers. well, that's great and terrific, but the fact that a consumer -- the franchise system is there for the consumer. melissa: why? you say franchise is there for the consumer. what is the consumer missing out on by buying this car directly from tesla? he says that you cut out some of the price, that you save money. >> well, actually, when you have factory stores, think about it, you're eliminating competition
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and eventually the price goes up to the consumer, not down. but what a franchise dealer does is invest in buildings, people, training, equipment. they take trade-ins, they provide service recall, they have service convenient for the customer. you're not buying a widget here. you're not buying a camera or a thousand dollar laptop. the average cost of a car is $0,000. the large -- $30,000. the average length of ownership is 9-11 years. this is an issue about car manufacturers, and there are going to be additional manufacturers coming into the market. once they start marketing a mass market car to a consumer, you really want them to do that out of a store front with a kiosk where they have no investment in anything else and they can disappear in three months or six months or a year? melissa: okay. >> it's not about tesla. melissa: deborah, thanks for coming on. we appreciate your point of view.
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>> you're welcome. melissa: up next, proof that models can be beautiful and brilliant. a new marketing strategy by a new clothing company has people talking, including us. wait until you hear how it's cashing in. at the end of the day, it's all about dollars. ♪ ♪ are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.
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the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. ♪ ♪ >> i'm jo ling kent with your fox business brief. home builder confidence ticked higher this month. the national association of home
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builders, well fares housing market index hit 47 up from february's 46. builders are concerned about a shortage of buildable lots and skilled workers. industrial production rose in february at the fastest growth rate in six months. the federal reserve said industrial output, which includes manufacturing, mining and utilities increased by six-tenths of 1% after declining by two-tenths back in january. and unemployment rates dropped in 43 states in january. the labor department says 23 states reported more hiring while 27 said the number of jobs fell. the highest jobless rate is in rhode island at 9.2%. the lowest, north dakota at 2.6%. and that's the latest from the fox business network, giving you the power to prosper.
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sometimes they just drop in. always obvious.
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cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. cme group: how the world advances. ♪ melissa: whether it's on wall street or main street, he's who's making money today. anyone who owns under armour, the stock announcing plans to issue a two for one stock split. this is the second time the sports apparel maker has made such a move with shares soaring 150% since the last stock split in july of 2012. shares up right now by more than 2%. founder and ceo kevin plank has nearly 20 million shares of his company meaning he's made more than $55 million so far today!
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that's a lot of gym gear. wow. also making money, sarah palin. she's selling her tour bus for nearly $270,000. palin used the hue amongous vehicle back during her one nation tour in 2004 when she was considering a run for president. pretty busy time overall, though, for the former alaska governor. palin is also launching a digital video channel for her millions of followers aptly called rogue tv. sounds lucrative. and spending big on a record-breaking life insurance policy, a mystery silicon valley billionaire, have you heard this story? officials from the guinness book of world records say that a secret buyer has, purchased the most valuable policy in history, one that insures his survivors will receive more than $200 million. rumors are flying as to who it could be. some say zuckerberg, others say larry ellison, still others are convinced that it's the real-life iron man, elon musk. i've got to tell you, this story's fishy to me.
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you don't buy an insurance policy, you invest it. we're going to hear more about this one. all right, a different kind of model behavior. one clothing brand unveiling its spring collection with a twist. so all the models that you see there, her too, all those models have ph.d.s. meet the man behind the campaign, beta brands founder chris linland. chris, very interesting campaign. you're getting a lot of good attention for it, which is what pr's all about, so i congratulate you on that. how did this idea come about? >> well, we let anybody model on our web site, and we have about 18,000 models so far. of so we're always thinking about new ways to present clothing on -- health mel what do you mean you let t anybody model on your web site? all of these, obviously, are very professional and have white backgrounds. what do you mean? >> absolutely. there's an application we created called model citizen, and it lets anybody upload an image of themselves, no matter how good or bad it is, and they get to be the lead model on our
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web site. so we've always had this approach toward amateur photography, so it's very natural we'd say, all right, why don't we launch on women who have got ph.d.s who aren't models. melissa: but the women we're looking at here, these look like photos you've taken. >> no, no, they came into our studios, and we shot them one friday afternoon about three weeks ago. melissa: some people are saying you're kind of having your cake and eating it too which, again, i would congratulate you for but still i have to point out the your customers who have ph.d.s also happen to be really attractive and thin. so, i mean, they look like models anyway. it's not like you have sort of frumpy ph.d. candidates, you know, that look like they haven't left their parents' basement for a long time. how do you respond to that criticism? >> you know, the thing that's funny about it, the criticism's fair, but people don't understand the organic nature with which this took place. it was literally us saying, hey,
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does anybody know any ph.d.s local to us that can fit a size 4 which is our sample size, and over course of a week, they all agreed to show up. health mel why did you limit them to people that could fit the size 4 sample size? >> oh, that's our standard sample size, period. melissa: you could, i mean, you could make bigger clothes to take pictures of. you're saying you don't have any clothes in stock that would fit anyone bigger than a 4 when you're -- >> oh, no. no, we release brand new products all the time, and the process is this: we get a sample while manufacturing's going on in san francisco, and then we shoot someone in that single garment, and then we put that photo up and start selling. so the we were to wait a few weeks, we could have done out of that. melissa: have you seen a boost in sales as a result of the campaign? >> enormous. biggest days of traffic ever. melissa: chris, congratulations to you. we love innovators. the last hour of trading is
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coming up, so, of course, we've got liz claman here with a preview to finish this stellar day. liz: i know. listen, that's the star of the day. this market's unbelievable. but what a surprise. people who had sold out last week scared of what would happen when it came to crimea and the russians and ukraine have missed out on this rally unless they've piled back in, and even then you're catching the tail end of it. the man who knew the little cold war was coming, his name is george friedman, he's with a company that he founded stratfords geopolitical intelligence. why does he matter? because there are many companies from citigroup to burr berry, you name it, that are in red square, that are in moscow, that are in russia. how will they be affected? does vladimir putin stop here, or does he continue? we may have dodged a bullet on this, we'll find out from george -- health mel they put out tremendous strategy and analysis. i love the research. that's going to be great, liz, thank you so much.
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up next, wishing for the day you win the lottery? be aren't we all? some old scams are new again. you need to hear this to make sure that you aren't the next victim, because you can never have too much money, but i don't know, with lottery tickets, the it's a real roll of the dice.
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melissa: all right, i want to point your attention to sears right now, some headlines that are crossing each on this day where the market is accelerating, sears is pulling away from the rest of the pack. nicole petallides is on the floor of the new york stock exchange with the details on what's moving this stock. nicole? >> reporter: some interesting news, melissa, for sears as they are going to now, they got the approval from the board to spin-off on april 4th spin-off land's end, so land's end which was under the umbrella of sears which sells casual clothing and
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the like will begin trading under le on the nasdaq. so that's big news for sears. sears has been shedding some of its other companies, it's been struggling with operating losses and mounting, obviously, mounting losses, declining sales, so this is big news. this comes on the heels of a couple of other spin-offs including back in 2012, prior to that the orchard supply hardware stores unit in 2011. so this is the latest spin-off from sere, and the stock's taking it. melissa: they scoop 'em up and spin 'em off. time for a little spare change. that wire transfer you're sending that poor nigerian prince, that isn't the only way you're getting ripped off. according to the latest ftc report, lottery scamming has almost doubled since 2009. peter barnes joins me. this particular scam, how do these work? >> reporter: well, you know, these are lottery scams that we're talking about today, melissa, and they can come by e-mail or by a phone call, and
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in this instance the ftc brought this letter to our attention. it was received by a retired man in northern virginia back in january. it's entitled "prize-winning notification." letter said he won $125,000 in something called the the international shoppers lotto powerball. a check was included in this letter for $3,875, but the letter said don't deposit the check right away, call this number in canada, get instructions. now, this was the scammer's misfortune because this letter actually arrived at the home of an ftc employee who knew about this. it was or her husband who got the letter, so he didn't do this, obviously, but had he done it, he would have been instructed to deposit the check which, of course, is fake and then wire half the money to canada to cover taxes and fees and things like that. he would have been wiring real money and been out nearly $2,000. melissa: i mean, you hear all
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the tomb in the news about winnings -- all the time in the news about winnings that aren't claimed, the lottery ticket that nobody came by to get and, of course, people want to believe -- how big a problem is this though? >> reporter: well, as you said, the number of consumer complaints at the ftc covering scams that are about prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries has doubled to about 90,000 over the last five years, and just as recently as last month there was, the justice department indicted ten people in south carolina for scamming 203 people in a lottery scam out of a million bucks. so this is a growing crime. melissa: are they able to do anything more about it than just warn people? i assume a lot of these people are outside the country. >> reporter: yeah. there are a lot outside the country. this one was canada, there's a lot that comes out of jamaica. you know, education here is one thing. they do try to prosecute be people, but it's pretty hard particularly when it's overseas. melissa: peter, thank you so
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much. >> reporter: you bet. melissa: so up next, is it inclusive or is it alienating? some companies are using bold new ads, one got my attention over the weekend. they are raising eyebrows. but will they benefit the businesses, or do they turn buyers off? it's the "money" question. bruce is next to show you what is working and what is not. you can never have too much "money." ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] what if a small company
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became big business overnight? ♪ like, really big... then expanded? ♪ or their new product tanked? ♪ or not? what if they embrace new technology instead?
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♪ imagine a company's future with the future of trading. company profile. a research tool on thinkorswim. from td ameritrade. [ cellphones beeping ] ♪ [ cellphone rings ] hello? [ male announcer ] over 12,000 financial advisors. good, good. od over $700 billion dollars in assets under care. let me just put this away. [ male announcer ] how did edward jones get so big?
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could you teach kids that trick? [ male announcer ] by not acting that way. ok, st quarter... [ male announcer ] it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪ ♪ melissa: so big message, buggeriesing. major brands taking a new approach to advertising from honey maid to pa nana -- banana republic. but does the customer gain? here now is my favorite marketing maven, bruce try dell. we're doing this segment because this weekend i'm driving around in taxi in the back of new york, for anyone who doesn't come here, you watch a tv while
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you're in the back of a taxi. there was a banana republic ad showing a lot of really attractive couples, they're in the clothes, they're looking fabulous. it took me a second to realize as they went by that some of the couples were same sex. and i thought this was pretty bold. they weren't making a big deal out of it, there you go, they just mixed them in. what do you think? is this a risk, or is it just a sign of the times? >> it's, obviously, it's both. it's a risk for a very small percentage of the market who's still going to say they find that offensive. but if you look at what's happening in all segments of society, certainly we've spoken about it in sports on the air before, what you're seeing is that advertising mirrors popular culture. what's going on in the world is what you're going to see in the advertising. the question is, how far does each one of the advertisers take it? because i have to tell you, when i saw that banana republic ad, i really just saw it was two guys who were on a trip. it never dawned on me that they
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were a romantic couple. melissa: right next to you we just saw the one male kiss the other, so i think right there that's -- i don't know, i haven't been on a guys' trip alone, but i feel that's not necessarily what happens. but i could be wrong, i'm not a guy. [laughter] you know, to me it seems like knowing advertisers for years they don't love of to take risks. we're running out of time, honey maid doing something very similar, showing multiracial couples, showing same gender couples with kids. honey maid a much broader product than banana republic. good idea? >> what honey maid's doing, they're celebrating diversity. they're not making it a natural part of who they are and what they do. some people find the word "cracker" offensive. [laughter] no, i think it's a great idea for them. melissa: interesting. bruce, thank you for that. sorry we can't have a lot of time to, but good stuff. so that's all we have for you. i hope you're making money today. it's a good day to be invested in the market, we're up 181 pointings.
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be sure to tune in tomorrow at 2 p.m. as i hand off this big rally to liz claman. the countdown starts right now. ♪ ♪ liz: alibaba says open sesame to to wall street. the chinese e-commerce giant bringing its block buster ipo to new york. but what does alibaba actually do, and why does yahoo! stand to gain? we've got the answer. american retailers have endured a brutal winter. stores closing due to snow and ice, shoppers going online to avoid the bitter cold. but could retailers and their customers finally be coming out of hibernation? how to plant your spring portfolio now. and a st. patrick's day without guinness? the irish makers of the world famous stout are skipping one of the biggest st. patty's day parades in the world. we'll tell you why and what it could moon for their parent company. countdown on this st. patrick's day starting right now.

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