lori: barclays corporate index up 7.9% year-to-date versus s&p which is up 16%.l me more about the trade in terms of doing your homework. >> right. lori: you're throwing out all of these investment grades and ratings and borrowings costs and all these metrics and for average investors it might be hard to sift through? >> for right now the solid tide is lifting all boats. there is not a lot of homework going on. people are buying liquid issues and trying to stay invested. as i said almost like a barbell. buy some. look at single a rated companies. that will be very, very safe. you will not get a lot of yield but it will be very safe and buy any kind of intermediate bond fund that focuses on high end quality and or buy individual bonds. if you want to look for some yield, go into the leverages markets but don't do so on individual basis buy a well-known mutual fund from big houses, fidelities franklins of world because the liquidity dries up in those markets and you don't want to get caught as an individual investor. lori: good advice. richard, thank you. melissa:

that is, again, perhaps on the back of this s&p home price index. barclay's lennar, toll brothers and horton. but moving out of the consumer names, look at barnes & noble, introducing a new nook service, due to come out in the fall. we're off session highs but still up in decent volume for this name. we're watching a lot of consumer names a bit more carefully as we go into the very important fourth quarter after this week. carnival shares hitting 52-week highs. didn't have high expectation for this stock. growth going forward, some prospects on guidance weren't quite what the street hoped for but we're up by almost 3% on carnival. take a look at office suppliers. staples announcing strategic initiatives to turn around many parts of the business, or at least an effort to do so. investors aren't convinced. heavy buying and we're seeing some moves into shares of office depot. >> courtney reagan here at the nyc. thank you very much. >>> gary is here on set talking about a great interview andrew brought us this morning with barry diller. >> fantastic interview. an

barclay's report? there is credibility to it. they just announced a new mainframe, a billion dollars investment. it does continue to outperform the sthe mainframes are initiated. >> do you and guy have a tanning contest? >> why is that? >> you are so dark. you both have the same skin? >> it's like our moods. >> that's kind of a compliment. >> all right. shares of general mills are lower today at j.p. morgan cut the rate. are you eating cereal these days, mike? >> my kids are eating lots of cereal. i think if you look at the set up, j.p. morgan downgraded to neutral. it pays a hefty dividend. if you believe in the end of the world or global growth slowing picking up pace, cereal has to be eaten. take a nibble. >> keep eating the organic cereal despite what we heard today from the "new york times.." >> amazon trading at all time highs. the avengers, ironman, the hunger games and more. it was a new all-time high earlier today. it has since gone negative. >> 52 week high. that's the time to sell. >> let's see what eric jackson thinks of this. he joins us now. good to see you. let's talk about the fundamentals here. this announcement of

barclays is looking better. amazon and google, new 52 week highs. we get back to the major averages here, you see the dow, s&p and nasdaq are all virtually flat. yesterday we had soaring markets. the dow closed at the highest level since 2008. we are barely holding on to some really stellar gains. back to you. connell: we will be back there in 15 minutes. our first guest has been thanked the u.s. economy continues to improve. scott minerd joins us from out west. >> you can argue that the glass is half empty or the glass is half full. i have been on the side of it is half full. it has been a pretty good bet. even though we are having subpar growth, the markets have been performing very well. i remain fairly constructive and i don't think we will go into a recession anytime soon. connell: you are absolutely right about that. big rallies to multiyear highs yesterday for the stock market. this story today on jobs is obviously economics, but it is also politics. monica will come on and talk more about that in a moment. forget about the market for a second. really, scott, are things really getting better? what is