what to do if you missed the deadline to sign up for health insurance. in today's cover story.... awaiting answers... the head of gm steps up for a second round of testimony on capitol hil... plus.... the compelling argument in favor of high frequency trading.. and... the entrepreuner who is jumping on the organic snack train with crunchy kale.. . first business starts now! you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas. good morning! i'm angela miles. it's wedensday, april 2nd. in today's first look: investors are on a record rocket ride. the s&p 500 raced to a new high tuesday- closing at 18-85.5. as manufacturing numbers came in with slight rise and car sales numbers were much better than

anticipated. it sparked a buying stock spree by investors. while commodities sold ff. gold lost 5 dollars and oil almost $2. 12 large banks are sued by investors. they claims the banks conspired to rig prices in the foreign exchange market. no comment from the banks. wells fargo is naming john shrewsberry as its new cfo. larry shover of sfg alternatives is here to get our day started. he's watching the market for us. good morning larry. >>good morning. >>well the fed will keep interest rates. there's some strength coming into the economy from manufacturing. is there any reason not to buy stocks right now? >>well, not really because look at the alternatives right nowthere's not a whole lot out there that could give you the

dividend yield that stocks could right now. that doesn't mean we can't have a pullback but when you think about it, our economy is growing and stock's the number one beneficiary of that. >>but there are some people who believe we could be headed for bubble trouble with the stock market. it sounds like you don't buy into that. >>no i don't except there might be certain sectors. let's keep in mind valuations are pretty normal right now. but we've seen a swing in momentum out of biotech internet cloud computing into more pockets of value. people are starting to look at multiples right now because there are some sectors that clearly are pretty high. >>down on the farm, corn and soybean prices are through the roof. what does that mean for consumers? >>right now, no one expected this but the brazilian harvest wasn't as great as expected. expect bean prices to continue to go higher. it might be a good time to buy a stock like admarcher danielsbut do expect a little bit of food inflation come summertime. >>thank you larry. >>you're welcome. time now to say good morning to my colleague chuck coppola who has an update on gm..chuck...

angie, in our cover story, mary barra, general motors' c-e-o for less than three months began facing two days of congressional grilling. the safety flaws in 2.6 million g-m cars now being recalled have been detailed for weeks. but congress wants to know why g-m which taxpayers bailed out, took more than ten years to act upon it. general motors ceo, mary barra offered an apology to victims and their families and a vow--- to find out if key engineering employees at g-m covered up or were incompetent in accepting substandard ignition switches and why they were installed in chevy cobalts and other g-m cars, anyway. i want to know that as much as you do. it's not how we do business today. it's not how we want to design and engineer cars for our customers." the faulty ignition switches have been linked to 13- fatalties. the victims pictures lined the hearing room. in a lawsuit, the families of three teenagers killed allege that the automaker knew about the problem but jeopardized lives in order to cut costs. "what was to have been a simple shopping excursion turned into a death trap as their vehicle, without any warning, lost power. steering wheel locked,

power brakes no longer worked and the safety air bags were turned off." the g-m recall has now spread to 2.6 million cars built between 2003 and 2007 and will cost g-m 300-million dollars in the first quarter. congress is also scrutinizing the national highway traffic safety administration, nhtsa, whose investigators did not see a pattern in chevy cobalts accidents in which air bags did not deploy because electrical power to them had been shut off. "these crashes involved unbelted occupants and off-road crashes that began with relatively small collisions." where air bags are less likely to deploy." despite the investigations and pending lawsuits, g-m stock remained fairly even for the day, closing at 34-dollars, 34- cents a share. "i don't believe gm is going to go below 30 dollars. i think it's a safety play and will hover around that 34 dollar handle."

general motors waited several hours before releasing its sales numbers to traders and investors.. blaming a computer glitch. when the numbers were unvieled it showed a 4.1% sales gain at gm. chrysler sales rose 13%, ford sales climbed 3.3%. all three big automakers breezed past expectations as the weather improved. "i think a lot of people with the better weather came out and bought cars that last weekend and it really skyrocketed the total and i think again, surpassing most people's expectations." tesla cars are being targeted for possible security flaws. at a hacking conference in singapore-- security researchers revealed just how easy it is to hack into a tesla

owners account, which gives hackers access to the cars location, and the ability to control door locks. that's despite owners accounts that are supposedly "password protected." tesla did not return our request for comment. families and friends of those on board missing flight 370 will meet today with malaysia airlines officials and membersof the malaysian goverment. the government is dealing with increasing pressure to provide answers as more family members arrive in the malaysian capital demanding information. the sudden disappearance of the jet-- is also gaining attention of the international air transport association. the director of the i-a-t-a says a task force will be created wtih recommendations by the end of the yar on how commerical aircraft can be tracked continuously. the search for the boeing triple 7 is in its 4th week. russian officials deliver a blow to ukraine. russia has stopped giving ukraine price breaks on natural gas, sparking new economic fears. prior to

the crimean crisis....russian president vladmir putin cut the price of nat gas for ukraine as part of a larger financial agreement between the two countries. those close ties fueled outrage and eventually led to the outsting of ukrainan president viktor yanukovych. the economy is fragile as a result of the conflict. it has received aid packages from europe and the u.s. to help keep the economy steady. greek bonds are making a comeback. the 3 and 5 year bonds will be issued by june according to the finance minister of greece. the wall street journal reports-- the bond sale could help the nation raise up to 5 billion dollars by the end of the year. it's the first issuance of long-term bonds since the country was bailed out.greece has lost about a quarter of its gdp during the 6 year long recession. pensions are in peril in the city of detroit. emergency city manager kevyn orr is proposing steeper cuts to pensions. his plan leaves retired firefighters and police officers with a choice of recieving 10% less money to stop creditors from getting their hands on art work at the detroit institute of arts.

the numbers are in, and the white house is celebrating. "in these first six months we've taken a big step forward." president obama says 7.1 million americans signed up for the health insurance, exceeding the initial goal of 7 million. the government extended the deadline to april 15th for people who started the process but then were blocked by a technical glitch caused by a surge in last minute sign ups. michael mahoney of go health dot com says there are still plenty of americans scrambling for coverage. " we're shocked by the number of enrollments, the number of calls, the number of visits we got on our website. it blew away all the projections that we had. however, we are still seeing a large number of people that missed the deadline and still need help. whether they had an issue with another website or whether they simply just missed the deadline and are calling in to enroll now and i think we'll see that over the coming weeks. just becase you missed the deadline doesn't mean your need for insurance goes away." uninsured americans are subject

to a penalty. the penalty is based on how long you don't have coverage. so if you missed the march deadline but get insurance next month ... you'll only pay one twefth of the penalty. the penalty for americans who don't sign up at all is 1% of your income or 95 dollars... whichever is greater. the next open enrollment period begins in november. republicans have unveiled a fiscal road map that would seek to balance the federal budget in ten years. it would mean 5.1 trillion dollars in cuts to spending. particularly hard hit would be programs that help the poor and future medicare enrollees. also, the plan would repeal the affordable care act---protect military spending and would not raise taxes. wisconsin congressman and house budget committee chairman paul ryan is the budget's author. the document is considered a list of republican priorities and is not expected to become law. the senate is slated to take a test voted today.. on restoring benefits to long-term unemployed americans. 60 votes are needed. if the legistlation eventually passes... uemployment checks that stopped december 28th would return for the next 5 months, including money from the past 3 months. democrats campaigning to bring back the benefits insist they have a way

to cover the $10 billion cost. getting house republicans to approve the bill will be challenging. a vast majority of fast-food workers report "wage theft". according to a survey 89% of workers say they have been asked to perform tasks "off the clock". have been denied breaks during long shifts. more than 45% said they had not been paid for all of their hours worked. the survey was conducted by the union-backed group "low pay is not ok." despite a breakout year for facebook stock....ceo mark zuckerberg and coo sheryl sandberg-- took huge pay cuts. facebook shares are trading above $60. but according to a recent filling zuckerberg's companesation plummeted 70% last year. he takes a $1 dollar salary. but he has $3.3 billion in stock options. sandberg took a $10 million pay cut but her bonus pay went up 78%. sandberg reportedly sold more than half of her stake in facebook since the ipo. caterpillar is on the defense.

executives testified on capitol hill yesterday...and defended a tax strategy that has saved the manufacturing giant 2.4 billion dollars over the past 14 years. that's according to a report from senator carl levin. the michigan democrat says the company moved profits to a swiss affiliate for a special tax rate. cat contends its practices are legal. "i want to emphasize, caterpillar complies with the u.s tax laws and we pay everything we owe." republican senator rand paul voiced his support for cat at the hearing... stating the company "deserves an award" for following through on its obligation to shareholders. darden's plans to spin-off its red lobster chain hits a boiling point with a major investor. jeffrey smith's starboard value holds a 5.5% stake in darden and is intent on stopping the move. in an sec filing starboard questioned the motive behind the spin-off and said it was the wrong move for investors. red lobster is darden

restautrant group's weakest link -- sales fell 8.7% in the latest quarter. and, this one takes the cake...in response to customer feedback, starbucks is bringing back its cake slices. the coffee chain tried to replace them with little loaves that cost 20-cents more than the slices. but savvy customers said the loaves were smaller than the slices and that didn't cut it. so starbucks is back to selling slices...at the higher price. qq still to come: record run ... how the average "bear" is reacting to this market. plus...can junk food junkies learn to love kale? the man who is betting big on clean eating. and... what the fbi may uncover as it digs into high frequency traders... first business continues, after this!

high speed traders highlighted in a 60 minutes piece over the weekend for alleged bad behaviour are also the focus of an fbi investigation. for the past year reports say the fbi and market regulators are questioning whether high-speed trading firms violate u.s. laws by obtaining insider information and are high speed traders manipulating the market by getting to exchanges first-- better known as front running. joining me on set this morning is dale rosenthal-- assistant professor of finance at the university of illinois at chicago. thanks for coming by dale. what's your reaction to this story and all those reports that have been coming out of late? >>thanks angie. there's a lot of heat and light. there's a lot of concern but there's also a huge amount of misinformation and disinformation. we see the people leading this chargethe people who are saying we really need to look into high frequency tradingwho is it? it's the big banks. we had katsuyama

today on cnbc who' s running a competitor to bat saying they are taking advantage of the customer. well guess what? if i'm going to compete with somebody, i'm going to say they're bad and i'm good. if we look historically though what's happened is we've introducedtrading has become more and more quick, more high frequency. we've seen that the big banks have lost market share. they fought dodd-frank and moving swaps on exchange because that was going to expose the swaps market to the same pressure. and so there's a consistent message coming from the big banks which is we don't like this competition because we're not very good at it. >>but overall, is this fast tradingit looks complicated and complex. is it a bad thing for the market? >>no. this is a good thing. it's complicated because the markets have become competitive. if we look at rally racing, if we look at nascar, if we look at formula 1these cars are incredibly complicated because the difference between winning and losing is very small. the competition is fierce and the markets have become very much the same way. >>what are some bad things that are happening in the market right now from your estimation? >>there are some bad things. we generally have a pretty good handle on what these things are. there are things like quote

stuffing where you are just sending a flurry of quotes to the exchange to try to make it hard for people to figure out what's a fair pricethat's bad. but also there's a concern with order types.are there undocumented or poorly documented order types. this is sort of like when microsoft sort of had a versionhad system calls that their own programs could make that made them go faster than the competitors software. similarly there's a concern over that. those are bad things but i would say about 95% of the high frequency trading out there is really trying to get prices quickly. you're trying to get an order for your customer. because the person who gets there first gets it for their customer and the person who gets it second doesn't get it for their customer. >.will slowing down trading help? >>no. slowing down trading actually hurts things. that gives me a little bit of time and i can figure out which way did the markets go and if the markets went in a good way i give the order to myself. if they went in a bad way i give it to youmy customer. when we slow down trading we are inherently hurting the customer. >>dale, thanks again for your insights today. >>you're welcome. coming up...what's fueling the market momentum?...find out in chart talk. and.... can a "superfood" give one company an edge in the grocery aisle. that's next with bill moller.

you lose everything - your marriage, your job - and you

take stock. what is my purpose, what am i supposed to do? brad gruno asked himself that and instead of self- pity or giving up, when the chips were down, he started making chips. dehydrated kale chips a business that began in his garage 3 and a half years ago. brad's raw foods is now a national brand in hundreds of stores and the business made 13 million dollars last year. did you have any sense that this vision would actually turn into a business? >>i did think it was going to be big but i didn't think it was going to be this big. >>when did it come to you that this is now a business because it wasn't at the outset. >>i started about 6 years ago. i kind of came across the raw food diet. i was 40 pounds heavier and just depressed because i lost my company and went on a raw food diet for years. i would make these chips for myself and then everybody was asking me about it and i thought maybe i'll start selling these things. i never thought about getting into the chip business. >>who believed in you other than yourself?

>>i had a few family members that did and the i started selling these in farmers markets in bucks county, pa. everybody was coming up to me on a downturn economy and where everyone was paying $7 for a bag of chips because everybody wanted to feel better and healthier. they just saw me lose 40 pounds and feeling better and i think everybody wants to feel better and lose a little weight. >>has it all been upcurve or has there been setbacks, doubts, or challenges? >>there's been a ton of challenges. starting a business like you saidin a 1 car garage. we have over 65 thousand square feet right now and a full factory. in the last 3 years it's definitely been challengingmoving 3 times and hiring 120 new people. it's been challenging but a lot of fun too. >>what if kale is a fad and it fades? >>oh no. kale is one of your

highest nutrient dense leafy greens there is. there will be other things that are like kale but i believe kale will always be there to stay. >>you are thinking about other things too. >>we are. we have a dozen other things right now that we're getting ready to come out with. >>brad's raw foods. bradthanks so much. >>thank you. thanks bill. just ahead-- the momement is back in the market. what the charts are telling traders are about stocks at an all time high. chart talk is next.

money is flowing into the market. joining us now is dan deming of stutland equities. good morning dan. as you're looking at the charts , what are you seeing as buyers step up the pace? >>yesterday was a pretty positive sign for the market. first day of the 2nd quarter and already we saw a significant upmove in most of the major averages. so the s&p closed at record highs, we saw the nasdaq up about 1.5% yesterdaya very significant jump and it jumped back above its 50 day moving average as wellso those are 2 big positive signs from yesterday. >>are there any signs in the market that we could see a big collapse? >>on the surface the market looks pretty good. when those kind of things happen they come a little out of left field so it's hard to plan for them unless you plan ahead and that's why i think the vix is such an important part of any portfolio. but looking at what's going on in the market right nowrolling into the 2nd quarter the market was able to consolidate and hold above significant support at levels. right now you are seeing money

flowing into the market for the 2nd quarter and april is typically a pretty good month for the market. >>do you think the bulls are in control? >>i think we'll have to see how it plays out today because i think we'll see if we get a continuation of that bounce above some of those significant points yesterday. i think you have a bit of a stop action thing going on where people are buying in short positions because we did break above some of these new highs and some of these averages. but it certainly felt like on the close yesterday that it had some momentum to the upside. >>we like that. thank you dan. > >you're welcome. that wraps up our show for now. coming up tomorrow our film critic highlights tense times in hollywood as studios sweat out numbers at the box office. will it be enought to cover the cost of producing big budget movies? we hope you will join us. from all of us at first business...thank you for watching!

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