stocks on a high: as the dow makes history, the surprising chatter from the trading floor. on this jobs friday, business is up, and so are corporate profits. so why aren't american workers sharing the wealth? plus, president obama is busy meeting and eating with lawmakers. but who will pick up the tab for the nation's debt? and, as yahoo and best buy order employees into the office, will investors feel at home with the stocks? first business starts now! you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas. good morning. it's friday, march 8th. i'm angela miles in today's first look: february labors on. today's jobs data for february is expected to show 165,000 jobs were added, and the unemployment rate remains at 7.9%. into jobs friday, the dow ended the session with another record

high. and the s&p 500 is about 20 points away from a record close. gold and oil also rallied. the fed's stess tests on banks shows ally financial was the only firm that might not be able to withstand a deep recession. the other 17 banks passed. goldman sachs and morgan stanely were near the bottom. pandora is still in tune with wall street. the company reported a $14-million loss after the close, but sales are up 54%, and the ceo is stepping down. the stock rallied 19% last night. there is the sound of the bell, and larry shover of sfg alternatives is ready to get the day going. what is your prediction, larry, on today's jobs numbers? > > right now i am expecting 7.9%, unchanged on unemployment rate. about 163,000 adds to that number. > what do you make of the bank stress test? > > well, the stress test basically came out as expected,

nothing really beat the surface that caused any kind of angst to anybody, especially because the market action we saw yesterday, nobody really seemed to be very surprised by it. > north korea is threatening nuclear action or a strike against the united states or maybe even south korea. where is the market reaction? > > i would like to know exactly the same thing. it seems like we are hamstrung with this macro tranquility with europe, the u.s., and china. it doesn't seem like anything else matters right now. > what is the feeling from the floor? i am hearing from traders it is downright boring. why is that? > > well, it's boring because, i think right now it just grinds higher and nobody knows what the next catalyst is going to be. again, we are in a period of macro calm, and we need something else to drive the market to its next direction, and nobody knows what that is going to be. > but should investors be concerned about a big correction here, larry? > > put it this way: i think

slow and steady always wins the race, so i don't think people should get out of their exposure. however, this might be a really good time to reduce your exposure, only because that baton has not been passed. nobody knows what the next catalyst is going to be. > thank you for your thoughts larry. overworked and underpaid has become a more common refrain lately among the american workforce. and as hard data shows in our cover story, it's not just an empty complaint, but a very real phenomenon. profits are up for corporations driven in part by productivity gains made by workers. but the average employee isn't seeing a big bump in paychecks. "a bigger share of the output of american business is going to owners and creditors of those businesses and less, in percentage terms, to workers in the form of wages and fringe benefits." u.s. economic activity is up 2.5% since the start of the recession in late 2007, despite 3 million fewer american workers on the job. and with unemployment hovering around 8%, the jobless face stiff

competition for any opening, giving hiring firms the upper hand setting wages. "jobs that pay $17 an hour now pay $12." employers are also taking their time when bringing on new employees. according to staffing expert taz wilson, job seekers are facing more and more interviews before they're hired. "when a job used to turn over in a week or two weeks, you're looking at a month to six weeks now. we even have temp jobs, these are 3-4 month jobs, that they're interviewing 2-3 times now to find the right candidate." today's job market, then, exemplifies the widening gap between the success of corporations and the struggles of the working class. "as far as profits are concerned, the business recession has been over for some time. sadly, that hasn't been reflected in wages and prosperity of the nation's workers." burtless added that workers who are invested in american firms

the past few years have benefited indirectly from their productivity gains through higher share prices. as for for job seekers in this environment, wilson recommends to stay positive, noting that a good attitutde can attract opportunities. facebook is getting another facelift. the social network's ceo, mark zuckerberg, revealed the redesign of its newsfeed. it has less clutter and larger photos. zuckerberg calls it a "personalized newspaper," allowing users to sort topics and drill down to specific music, photos, and brands. a tech analyst offers his opinion on the new look: "i will always say - content is no longer king. context is key. and what facebook introduced today is the ability for you to introduce context into your stream." the rollout of the newsfeed started yesterday.

business remains up in the air at boeing. aviation regulators continue to investigate the cause of a fire on board one of its 787 dreamliners in january. yesterday, the ntsb reported the fire was sparked by a short circut in one cell of a lithium ion battery. other electrical parts connected to the battery appeared to be working that day. the ntsb will hold a hearing next month to focus on the design and certification of the battery. congressman paul ryan and chris van hollen are the latest lawmakers to break bread with president obama. the president has been meeting over meals this week with top leaders after failing to reach an agrement last week to avert across-the-board sequester spending cuts. senators who dined with mr. obama tell reporters they are optimistic a deal can be reached to reduce the deficit. next week, the president heads to capitol hill for seperate meet-ups with democratic and republican

caucuses in both the house and senate. also on the hill next week, a senate subcommittee will hold a hearing about a whale of a trade at jp morgan chase. the bank lost upwards of $6 billion on credit derivative gambles made by a trader nicknamed the "london whale." reports say witnesses from jpmorgan chase will testify. the hearing is set for march 15th. truck and engine maker navistar has a new ceo, and it's helping the stock roll higher. shares of navistar raced higher by more than 20% in trading yesterday on word the company topped earnings expectations and is naming troy clarke the permanent ceo of navistar. clark was the coo since january 2010 and spent 35 years at gm. plans are still under way at navistar to cut $175 million and lay off roughly 700 salary workers. we will have more in chart talk. time magazine will soon be independent from time warner. the company will split the

magazine division into its own publicly-traded entity. the move allows time warner to focus solely on its tv and film production business. time, inc., as the spinoff will be known, will include iconic magazines "people" and "sports illustrated." time warner stock hit a multi-year high on the news, closing out thursday at 56 dollars. jcp is pinching pennies. the retailer recently laid off 2200 employees from stores and district offices. sales at penney's have fallen 25% during the first year ceo ron johnson has run the retailer. the department store is reported to be attempting to contain costs after his new strategy to sell merchandise turned off customers. next week, the chicago tribune reports jc penney will open trendy boutiques. personal computers are fighting for a place in a mobile world. in the past 10 years, consumer pc sales dropped by half, according to research by

gartner. the convenience and speed of smartphones and tablets have replaced the traditional desktop. but it doesn't mean pcs are going away, just taking on a different role. about one to two desktops will still be used as central, shared hubs in a household, along with mobile products used by the rest of family members. "the pc is not going to go away. it still has its purpose, but it is being upstaged by a lot of these mobile devices where they just make a lot more sense." that was jason hiner, editor- in-chief of techrepublic. a broker from florida is accused of fumbling millions in nfl player money. according to the wall street journal, jeffrey rubin, a former advisory for pro sports financial, is permantely barred from the securities industry. he's accused of steering more than 30 pro football players into investing $40 million in a casino that went bankrupt. notable players in the deal include terrell owens, plaxico burreess and kyle orton.

the 2013 honda civic emerged as the safest vehicle in a new round of crash tests. a highway safety group assessed new vehicles and found that the civic two- and four-door and the volvo xc-60 handled the impact the best. the civic is the first smaller car to pass the tougher safety test. it is currently the best-selling compact car in the country. a new energy is coming to walgreen's. the retailer is building the first "net-zero" store in the u.s., meaning the store will create as much energy as it uses, and in this case will produce extra electriticy each year. the net- zero drugstore will go up in evanston, illionois. it will have 800 solar roof panels, two wind turbines and use led lighting. still to come, can apple stock be revived? that's later on in traders unplugged. but first, companies are gathering personal information about you. but when does the

marketing technique go too far? that's next with bill moller.

did you hear the story about how target used customers' discreet buying habits to determine if a woman is pregnant

even before anyone in her family even knew? or how amazon can determine what book you're next likely to read. it's through analytics my friend. or as the title of a new book states, it's all about, "big data: a revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think." viktor mayer-schonberger is one of the authors, and i immediately see wonderful potential here, but also some worrisome trends. companies are doing deep dives into my personal data. that's fine for marketing. i'll allow that. but there are some concerns, don't you think? > > there are some concerns, but there are a lot of upsides as well, and big data is not just a marketing tool. with big data analytics, we really can peek into a lot of the areas that were hidden from our view. take predictive maintenance. we now know with cars and with airplane engines when an engine in the car will break before it actually breaks, a couple of days before. so we can do predictive maintenance to repair it, not when it is broken

down and we have to tow the car from the road, but when we have time to do that. that uses big data analytics, that uses lots of data, and that has a huge upside. > victor, what do you think we need to know about the potential here? do customers, do consumers need to be considering maybe how to protect themselves if this stuff is misused? > > yes they do, but they also need to understand that the data that they have and the data that they accumulate is incredibly valuable to companies, not just because of the primary purpose that the data could be used for, like selling you a book or so forth, but because of the secondary and tertiary value. take navigation company inrix. they help you get from a to b with turn-by-turn navigation, and even with traffic built into it. but, at the same time, inrix also can

mine that data to help urban planners, to help out railways and airports to build better infrastructures to route people around trouble spots and so forth. and in that sense there is data that does double duty, and that is a huge boon of efficiency and productivity in our economy. > it is a brave new world. viktor mayer-schonberger . the book is called "big data." thank you so much. > > you are most welcome. still ahead, yahoo and best buy are shaking things up in the officeplace by banning employees from working from home. what that means for the stocks next in traders unplugged.

in today's traders unplugged, from the floor of cme group, the gloves are off for our pro traders, alan knuckman and andrew keene. ready to go guys? let's take a shot at round number one: marissa mayer of yahoo is banning employees from working at home. it didn't go over very well, but best buy is following suit. is that a reason to sell either one of these stocks? > > i don't think so. i personally know i work better from an office. i could work from home as well. i know i am a lot more productive in the office. but a lot of americans are sitting in their cubicles at home, and when they are done at work, all they want to do is go home and forget about work. if you actually work from home, you are actually more productive, you actually work more, five to seven more hours per week. it is a study that is actually factual, alan, don't try to- > > you are not answering the question! the question is which stock would you buy or sell? > > buy yahoo! are you kidding

me? best buy is a terrible business model. they are a showroom for amazon. > > i liked yahoo when it was at $12. at $20, i don't know. i would like to point out that working from home is the hardest job you do have. > round two: app-le. applications, better known as aps, will top $56 billion. apple stock has fallen out of favor, but people are loving the aps. is this a reason to buy this stock, and will it help apple? > > the more you look into it, it is hard to find reasons to buy apple except for the price is lower. that is not enough of a reason. and this is the fifth anniversary of the ap store opening, so it is kind of interesting that we are looking at it as a mature market even though it has only been five years. > > i am writing this down right now. what is it, march 8th? alan is actually talking about a short position in apple. > > no no no. i think- > > apple has issues right now. the issue is the stock goes down every day - lower lows, lower highs on the daily chart. 75% of the time it goes down from the open to the close. they can do many things. unlike other companies, they can do things to rectify their things, which are spending their cash, extra dividend, maybe buying some stock back, or this phone in china would be huge. > > okay, the bigger play, i think, obviously is google. you have the android surpassing,

and we are going to have more phones with this android, and you are going to see 1.5 billion phones sold by 2017. and the growing area is not china, it is brazil and india. so that is where the android is going to take over. > round three: the bitcoin: the bitcoin is an online currency. that is up 230% just since the start of the year. but gold, which has been around forever, is way down. what does that mean? > > i still like gold. i think gold here at the $1,550 level is very reminiscent of what happened last spring with a base out at $1,550. so, this is, what?, the third or fourth time we have come to this support level, so it is important to watch. we made a series of higher lows over the last couple weeks, trading in a range - $20 - between $1,585 and $1565 over the last week. > > simple supply-demand curve: if there are more buyers than there are sellers, it pushes the price higher- > > that's not the right answer! > > ...pushes the price lower. paulsen owns so much gold, that is why the stock. hedge fund liquidation in gold. how much is gold worth is the difference of what someone is willing to pay and what someone is willing to sell it for. same with

bitcoins, same with diamonds. exact same market. they don't have the industrial production in this world. people just buy them because they think it is going higher. so that trend in the bitcoins could continue higher until there are no more buyers left, and the dry up like bull mania. > > bitcoins are subject to fraud, and it could be money laundering, so it's a whole different- > > gold is subject to fraud! > > but you've got to carry it around with you! > > you have it in your pocket? > > so you have a tangible value. i have some in my teeth, thank you. > all right, moving on, bonus round time: what age was warren buffett when he made his first million dollars? > > i'm going to say under whatever alan was. > > six. > > six? > > i don't know. > > i will say 22. > > what was it, back in the 1920's, probably? > one more guess alan. > > one more guess alan. take your age and divide it by two, so like- > > 26. > yes! alan nails it! it was 26. > > see, your age divided by two. it was 26. > good job guys. > > thank you. > first business continues right after this. > > i had the six right...

scott bauer of trading advantage joins us now to pick up on a stock that we mentioned earlier in the show. it is navistar. good morning to you. > > morning angie. > this stock had a tremendous ride yesterday, up above $6. is this stock a buy at current levels? > > you know, the one

cautionary thing that i would say about navistar is, going into yesterday, there was huge open interest in the weekly march 28th calls, so anybody that was short that call going into this earnings report had to cover the stock, and it was a big panic to cover the stock. there was an extra few hundred thousand shares of stock that people had to rush to. now, if things are in place and if they can maintain the cash balance that they say they are going to through the summer months, which is typically their low point of the year, then it is probably fairly valued here. but again, i would let the stock settle in first. give it a couple days. if it stays in the $30, $31 range, it is probably a buy for the long-term. > and this is a stock that maybe somebody wants to look at down the road, because if the company does become profitable at the end of the year like it is promising, maybe that would be a good time for investors to shift in as well.

> > totally agree. especially, you know, they lost $1.40 a share, so they are still projecting losses going through the summer. but they have a massive, massive stockpile of cash. over $1 billion of cash. and if they can maintain that, you are right, it probably is something worthwhile to look for going into the later part of the year. > thank you, and good to know it was a short squeeze behind the scenes. thanks scott. > > sure. that closes out our show for today. coming up next week, concerns about 401ks. as more americans dip into their retirement funds early, are 401k savings plans really working? from all of us at first business, thank you for watching, and remember to spring your clocks ahead this weekend.