baird voiced worries over the bank's earnings power. one area of strength in finance today-- private equity firm kkr. it announced the hiring of a former wall street c.e.o. john mack headed up investment bank morgan stanley during the credit crisis, leaving last year. he is now a senior advisor to private equity firm kkr. shares of kkr fought the weak tape for the financial sector, rising more than 1% to a six week high. we mentioned homebuilders earlier. they also fought the weak tone in the market, even though the latest national home price data continue showing weaker prices. homebuilder lennar helped its stock sector by reporting earnings twice as much as wall street anticipated. a key sign of strength, new orders for homes, jumped more than 30%, leading the company to say it sees a real recovery in housing. still, lennar's c.e.o. calls the recovery erratic, but notes the builder is able to raise prices while reducing its inventory of unsold homes. with today's 4.7% rally, lennar stock is at its highest price since the summer of 200

you made reference to sheila baird who i think was really an outstanding leader of the fdic. sheila told me two things before she left. she said, one, being chairman of the fdic is a very tough job. and i can now vouch for that. so she was right on that point. the second thing she told me was, everything will be okay. that she wasn't quite as right. >> she didn't tell you about europe? >> and some other things, as well. but if nothing else, it's been an interesting and challenging experience, and i think the role of the fdic during the course of this financial crisis really has been a very important one. and i think if i may say, i think history will look back upon the performance of the fdic over these past three or four years and i think the performance will hold up pretty well. two things that i really wanted to talk with you about this afternoon. i want to take just a moment to talk about the condition of the banking industry. just earlier this week on tuesday, the fdic released its quarterly banking profile, so i wanted to share some of the results of that with you. and

i am also proud to share the stage was someone like larry baird. i have to say this, when you say the word of the name giants, there is only one giant in this city that we welcome. that is the san francisco giants. you know what i am talking about. [laughter] i will say this, i am really happy to associate st. anthony's and what the giants have done in partnership with them, because it is something i have always wanted to see, our businesses, our sports team to be able to make that strong connection as they have historically done. not only to the management come down, like larry himself, but the owners and the players have been here serving meals. again, showing the love that this city has, the connections that we all have, because it is about connecting people in life, no matter what stage they are, what economic level they are at. i am -- i have always about the city for the 100%. everybody lives here, and what we do and what sherry does and went sherry announces a need and the father praise for people to come, people should listen. and they shou

in the wake of the two thousand and eight two thousand and nine nomic crisis is written gave way to baird of his russian president russian industries primarily split between globally competitive commodity produces in two thousand and nine russia was the world's largest exporter of natural gas the second largest exporter of oil and the third largest exporter of steel and primary elim and other less competitive heavy industries that remain dependent on the russian domestic market this reliance on commodity exports makes russia the rowboat to boom and bust cycles that follow the highly volatile swings in global commodity prices on the back of shrinking world demand for its prime moneymaking exploits as well as state mean global credit markets the russian economy's growth prospects started to contract in two thousand and nine since then lending to russian banks and firms. and economic growth is back on the positive side if you see from the point of view. g.d.p. decrease of forty per cent. presidencies the first when you reach forty percent ok you were. no your balanced or positive you are ban

the saudis, of course -- >> where do you come ought on this, bob baird.ou so much gop you think, based upon this, there's evidence that the royal family, the one we deal with as friends are really our enemies here? >> oh, i think there's a real problem here. look at it, chris. these two guys get off an airplane not l.a.x. they run into a saudi official who takes them under his wing to san diego. pays for them. the same official is getting money from the saudi embassy. he is spirited out of the country. he's unavailable for an investigation right now. and as eric said, 15 of the saudi hijackers were recruit inside the kingdom. we don't know how, how they were vetted and the rest of it. and saudi arabia has simply refused to answer those questions. they are covering up something. this is not one of our best allies. >> well, the truthers, those who believe that our own government was involved in 9/11 have an absolutely opposite view. they believe we did this to get us in war. to justify a war with iraq or whatever over there. make us more hawkish. this seems

baird with a $23 price target because of this. they moved it up from 19 to 23.here are multiple different directions you could go. that's the direction i would go. >> i like mxpi. these semiconductor chips are in the ipads and ipad 3s, we believe, and it is also a near field communication play which is a payment play going forward, and i think apple is going to embrace that with the next generation, probably the iphone 5, so watch that stock. >> patty? >> you know, i am looking at over at the broadband providers, at&t is one that i have got. we know they're selling a lot of tablets, a lot of phones, but on top of that, folks, as they throttle back and what you can do through the cell phone companies they're going over to actually the wi-fi within buildings. you are getting a pop there and the dividend with at&t. >> simon. >> a little low tech ideas is zags, provides the covers for the ipad 2 and going down in think with now apple producing its own and the real winner is zag, producing the covers for the consumer electronics business and creating android, so i th

baird. he joins us on the fast line. david, welcome to the show. >> good afternoon, how you?od. why the expectation of pullback here? >> well, to your point, there's been a fairly meaningful move in "b" of "a" shares, up 75% this year. three months ago when the stock was at five and a popular topic on your show and many others, at 5, the concern with "b" of "a" were about capital and survivability and liquidity, et cetera. those fears were more than unfounded in our view and at $10, it's a different risk reward tradeoff in our view, that the shift is going to go away from does bank of america have enough capital, do they have enough liquidity, et cetera? to what's the earnings power of this company given all the selling and so forth? the call we're making is simply, don't continue to buy the stock given the move and potential earnings power we see over the next 12 to 18 months. >> you say directly in your note today the focus is going to shift to the earnings power. aren't we starting to get the feeling as though the earnings momentum and earnings power is improving across th

baird wrote a book the great betrayal. they despaired to the nth power the free trade.going to dump our goods there for free of charge and we are going to charge tariffs on their goods coming in here. they warned about a level playing field any more than bentz lombardi was. they were about winning. see a lot of left-wing people would agree with you. someone told me they came to interview and she was worried. you had very long hair and she said i think you he may be. he goes into seo nieces mr. b. canada just want to say you are the first my life who was spoken out about corporatism in national politics. >> i believe it was in iowa and a fellow came along. i think he had an earring. most of the guys i grew up did not have earrings, you now? but he was in the car with me and he was driving along and asking me questions and he was clearly left-wing. finally he said you know, my whole life i have been looking for someone who would really take on corporate america and when i find him it turns out to be pat canada. [laughter] >> i do want to mention briefly the failure to bui

. >> baird taking down verizon and at&t. return oven investment capital.d out yesterday, it's beginning to get a little worrisome. >> i have loved these stocks. verizon, trim verizon. trim it. it's had too big a move and numbers could be coming down. i like verizon, but 35.34 seems to to be able where you could have a better risk reward. goldman. nordstrom. >> i think nordstrom is kind of that high end cohort like coach that people get excited about. here's my problem with that. they seem a little late to me. it's been up a lot. it's not unlike the blair likes ross stores but these have moved. i wish they would have done these earlier. >> a couple stories in the energy space. the president is going to talk about subsidies to oil companies at 10:45. only going to speak for a few moments. we'll see what he says. and exxon is no longer the numb were one publicly traded oil company. the honor now goes to petra china this week. >> i don't like the chinese market, the financials. look, you can argue this is an oil company. baidu's financials look like america's.