cnbc's bertha coombs is back with us.ore on that and all the latest breaking headlines coming into the cnbc newsroom. >> hey, larry. a regional epa official is resigning after his, quote, crucify comments surfaced last week. al almandar sent a letter to lisa jackson stating his regret over using the word, and it wasn't a reflection of how he ran his region. oklahoma senator james inhofe made an issue out of his comment on epa enforcement against oil and gas companies. >>> and one world trade center rising near the site of the twin towers is now the tallest building in new york. topping the empire state building. when the new building tops out in june, it will be the tallest in the u.s., and the third tallest in the world. >>> and groupon gets a bump after hours from its board shake-up. the board is adding accounting expert daniel henry and deloitte vice-chairman robert bass who will serve on the audit committee. who is out? starbucks ceo howard schultz. and a story that cnbc broke earlier today, delta airlines closes thei

bertha coombs with the day's market rundown. good evening, bertha. >> good evening, larry. the one silver lining, the stocks closed off the day's lows, we were led down by financials and materials. a very light volume. the first trading day as you mentioned for investors to react to the march disappointing jobs numbers following the holiday. a surprise move, ohio announcing that it's switching medicaid plan providers with a big loss from molina, off 15%. aetna and united health along with three nonprofits. meantime, you've got $1 billion in patents. that seems to be the theme of the day. aol surging to 40% after selling 800 patents to microsoft for that much while facebook snapped up instagram ahead of the ipo. and apple shares yet another new record adding over $40 billion in market value over the last 14 sessions. it is poised to become the second company ever to reach that $600 billion market cap milestone any day now. and super value shares bounce back after catching a better than expected low. and we hear from alcoa, and you know what that means, larry, it's earnings s

bertha coombs has more on that. >> cot scotty, i've been watching that all day. materials, not huge, but nonetheless, not one stock is in positive territory all day. consumer staples, a couple in there. best performers during the day las been energy. was positive just for a few minutes ago, exxon is the big move to the outside on there. the one dow component that's positive all day. in terms of the materials, we have been led lower by gold miners. a also the steelmakers as well getting hit on on that concern about global growth with the concerns in europe and china's numbers not quite as strong as some might have liked in terms of pmi. wal-mart is the big drag in terms of the dow and in terms of the s&p having its worse decline since january 2009. very heavy volume on allegations of widespread bribery and mexico off 4.5% right now. a little bit off of the low ests session. meantime on the earnings front, checkpoint software after beating on the bottom line, following disappointing sales outlook off about 6.5%. kelloggs off as well. apparently we're not eating as

bertha coombs is there. all right -- bertha, my apologies. the president is walking out right now in the rose garden of the white house. he is signing the jobs act. let's go to washington, d.c. >> good afternoon. i want to thank all of you for coming. and in particular i want to thank the members of congress who are here today from both parties whose leadership and hard work made this bill a reality. one of the great things about america is that we are a nation of doers. not just talkers but doers. we think big. we take risks. and we believe that anyone with a solid plan and a willingness to work hard can turn even the most improbable idea into a successful business. so ours is a legacy of edisons and graham bells, fords and b boeings and twitters, and goog l ls. america has always had the most daring entrepreneurs in the world. some of them are standing with me today. when their ideas take root, we get inventions that can change the way we live. and when their businesses take off, more people become employed because overall new businesses ac

. >>> i'm bertha coombs. nymex, nat gas futures closing below $2 for the first time in over a decade. tomorrow morning we're going to get the weekly inventory numbers. the expectation is for an injection of 20 to 24 billion cubic feet. a number above that and traders say they really don't know where their support is right now. the low in 2002 was $1.96. after that, traders saying we are heading into no man's land. >> all right. thanks so much, sharon. real declines there, sharon. i'm sorry. bertha. my apologies, bertha coombs. >>> data from credit reporting agency equifax dipping their toes into subprime borrowers. bank credit card lending rose from 41%. retail credit card issuance to the same group was 4.7%. subprime auto market has grown, now comprising 46%. are the financial institutions asking for trouble or is it a sign that banks actually think the consumer is getting healthier? joining us is craig, csla and scott valentine with fbr capital markets. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> craig, i

bertha coombs with the latest there. treasury prices pulling back despite better than expected gdp. rick santelli is at the cme group. rick? >> i tell you we're at a 188 yield at 2:00 a.m. eastern. definitely we're higher at 193. at 193, we're lower on the day as you look on the intraday. as we go out to the week, we're several basis points out on the week and we're going to make a fresh, low closing yield going back to the first part of february. even though we're not at the lows, we're pushing back the comps again as data and nervousness over europe continue to show up big in the credit markets. look at the dollar index. a dollar is weaker and inflation is up. the dollar will look better. this is going to be the lowest close since early -- excuse me. since the last week in february and underscores even currencies like the yen and the pound. economies worst off than we are, our currencies are doing better versus the dollar. rick, back to you. >> five minutes to go before we he is enclose the bell on this wall street. take a look at dow industrials higher by 44 points. nasdaq s&p hi

bertha coombs is at the nymex. david, is it any coincidence that this selloff began after the fed meeting minutes in march where it was suggested -- the implication was that there would be no mormon tear easing from the fed beyond what they've already done? >> the market had been running off quite a bit. this correction is the healthy part of the market. this is a good thing for the market. >> let's not also forget that we've got the first quarter earning with alcoa and everybody expecting very minimal earnings growth, under 1% for the s&p 500. >> bertha coombs, if you're there, the demand level from china is reducing for oil, for example, as we watch a slow down continue there. not to mention the european debt crisis. oil goes lower as demand for china goes lower. >> those numbers helped set the tone following the european close. we've got brent falling below $120 a barrel for the first time in several weeks and now we have wti absolutely flat on the year. the last trade, december 30th, was 101.35 and we are right

i know that everybody -- dan morgan, you're going to want to hear -- bertha coombs is standing by with more on that. everyone is going to want to hear what the ceo is planning. >> the revenue is better at 1.8 billion when you round it up. earnings of 23 cents versus expectation of 17 cents, as they seem to cut costs here and reap better margins. search revenue up 8%. for the second quarter their outlook is slightly above the expectations. the estimates run from 1.02 to 1.1 billion. he's certainly under pressure from the hedge fund who wants to ask questions about those strategies, especially after the big layoff that they've had, 2,000 employees. they expect to save some $450 million a quarter. what are they going to do with those savings? how are they going to execute it? this call is really going to be doing knicnext? >> dan morgan n. the wake of these results, do they really matter or what are you going to do here in what is the strategy? >> i think it's an early indication that it looks like the restructuring plan that they've just started is starting to pay off. scott thompson is

. >> let's go down to bertha coombs following this story in lower manhattan about the suspicious package being found at 2 world financial. bertha? >> new york police department has confirmed that the package was found as a visitor was being screened to enter the building. dow jones is reporting that the new york police say it appears to be an explosive device. it appears to be a grenade. they are trying to determine whether or not it is real and whether or not it is active. at the moment things remain cordoned off here at the world financial center. it was found as the visitor was coming to number 2 world financial centers. that tower whas been evacuated. merrill lynch is in the world financial center as is rbc and american express as well. so far folks remain outside although they have dispersed for the most part. this has been going on now for over an hour. we will update you as we get more information. >> bertha coombs coming to us from lower manhattan. for those who don't know the area down there all that well, world financial center is literally just across the west side highway fro

bertha coombs is here looking at apple's slide by the numbers for us. bertha. >> on the sixth day the sellers rested. they say you take the stairs up and the elevator down when you start getting this big. that's certainly true with apple. took about 20 sessions for the stock to gain $50 billion in market cap. top $600 billion in market value at its all-time high just six days ago. then that last five days saw that wiped out and then some. that 10% pullback for apple wiped out about $58 billion, $59 billion in market value. that's comparable -- comparable loss if you'd had for any of these stocks would have taken them to zero. u.s. bank corp., goldman sachs, aig, mastercard. all of them right in that neighborhood of about $60 billion in market cap. in terms of other nasdaq 100 stocks, you would need to combine the market cap of news corp. and dell together to equal that loss that we saw over the last few days in apple. and the sum of the parts certainly would still be fractionally worth what apple is worth right now. in terms of economic scale, it's in th

bertha coombs. julia boorstin in from los angeles. my great uncle nino.t's completely inaccurate statement, the last part. bob pisani, i'm going to start with you. i don't know why i'm looking at the camera considering you're to my right. little healthy decline in a good market or something to really be afraid of? >> there is some concern the europe we're anticipating should turn around in the second half of the year may not do that. strange today, straight down and no recovery. look at that. we haven't seen this in a while. normally the markets will start bouncing a little after the open or at the very least after the european close. today we had a technical event. 1370 was the 50-day moving average on the s&p 500. we hit that at 11:45. the minute that happened, boom, volume picked up. i don't talk about technical analysis a lot. that was obviously a very important event to a number of people. they sold as soon as the s&p dropped below 1370. i don't think is the end of the world at all here. we were at four-year highs five days ago. now we're down 4% and

bertha coombs rounds up all of the action. bertha?this quarter says if you've got a stock that has been booming, it's got to be perfect, absolutely perfect. qualcomm not walking on water. it's sinking. it's off nearly 6%. its earnings beat on the bottom line at $1.01 a share. the company saying it's going to increase its operating expenses to try to facilitate a supply as it tries to grow more 4g and 3g. meantime, another casualty after hours, it is third quarter guidance is a bit lower than estimates and the stock is off about 4% here after hours. vmware, topping estimates by 6 cents. 60 cents on the bottom line. that's where the growth is and continues to dominate when it comes to the top line and it is up about 1.5%. it's guiding the next quarter estimates yum brands after hours, it's kind of flat here down 1% or so. it actually did beat on bottom the bottom line and top line and is boosting the 2012 earnings growth to at least 12%. the ceo saying that they seem to be firing on all cylinders, in particular when it comes to china, u

bertha coombs with a stat check. bertha? >> you could call this week as the winners and losers, separate them by the haves and have-nots when it comes to consumers. as bob mentioned, housing is the real stand out. they have been the have-nots for so long. up nearly 7.5% at a two-year high after the case-schiller rose for the first time and the highest level since 2010 when we had the home credit buying activity that was so rampant. underscoring the pending home news reporting that its first quarter rather was a narrower loss. also saying that new orders were up 46% from a year ago. shares were up more than 25% on the week. that's the biggest gainer within the housing sector. pulte also reporting a positive shift. ten different home builders up double digits for the week. meantime, those housing gains were part of the reason that the s&p discretionary sector closing at an all-time high but driven by retail stocks and a number of stocks hitting historic highs. apple really helped pull that shift, coming out with that big blowo

how much has it impacted bp's bottom line in bertha coombs?> bp has made an amazing recovery but still has a long way. back on april 2010, bp's valuation stood at $190 million before that night of the he can ploegs. it wiped out over $100 billion over the two months that the oil kept flowing and some analysts were writing bp's owe bit ware. but the company agreed to set up a trust fund, suspended the dividend and raised cash and it was clear that the gaffe-prone tony hayward was on his way out. just a month later, the fatal well was capped. the market cap recovered to about $137 billion by year end in 2010 after posting a full-year loss of $3.7 billion that year. by the end of 2011, while shares remained flat, the company had positive a 23 billion -- disposed of $23 billion in assets, resumed paying a dividend and returned to profitability. the turn around helped an awful lot by high oil prices. >> >> impacted it by $400 million, that's a lot of money. so we have oil prices up 40 or $50 and, you know, you're talking about tens and billions of

. >>> i'm bertha coombs at the nymex. traders saying there was an awful lot of curve. the months after that, from june through the summer when we begin hurricane season and we also begin the cooling season, that is still trading above $2. we're expecting inventories tomorrow anywhere from 20 to 24 billion feet convection. >> you have to expect that becomes a screaming long-term buy. but you never know. i'm not recommending it, just pointing it out. less than an hour of trading to go. let's get to talking numbers where we look at shares of best buy that were down 6% yesterday and whatever that means, is it time to buy? shares of this electric be tronic retailer, and if so, if not, who would you buy instead? rich ross is with us, the chief technological strategist. best buy, tough time for this retailer, huh? >> as painful as it might be to sell the stock at a multi-year low, we think it's time to step up as i've alluded to. we've been in the age of consumer electronics for the past two years. flat panels, video games all sewering off the shelves. >> couldn't tell it fro

back to you. >>> thank you so much, bertha coombs.know about the outlook for qe3. steve liesman joins us now. >> reporter: melissa, what a week it was. nine of 17 foc members taking to the podium. on balance the market takeaway has been it's weakened the case for additional quantitative easing. one chance left. bernanke speaking at 1:00. he's been mum on economy and monetary policy. his speech is not expected to be about eater but there's q and a so there's still some possibility the fed chairman will speak. otherwise the question is he happy with the guidance that is out there? so far that guidance has been that fed officials are not making the case for additional quantitative easing. let me give you some of the comments. dennis lockhart saying qe would require fairly dramatic negative change to the outlook for the economy. janet yellen saying ending without extension not a tightening. if the fed stopped doing that it would not be reversal of policy. and bill dudley of the new york fed said additional qe has costs and could raise inf

thank you so much to bertha coombs. ross, over to you. >> okay. thanks for that.azing to see those trucks at that depot swept up. here in europe and certainly going to impact the u.s. open in terms of futures and where we are with european stocks has been the spanish debt auction. you've just tuned in this morning. disappointing spanish debt auction, disappointing in the sense they're looking to raise around $3.5 billion maximum, only raised about 2.6. it could have been the spanish government decided there were cheeky bids they weren't going to accept. and this is after some auctions, of course, in january. but nevertheless, the three, the four and the eight-year this morning, yields were higher. we thought they would be higher. bid to covers were lower and they didn't raise the general amount of money to have. and the take away really has been that investors are demanding higher-risk premium for spanish debt. the result has been yields higher across the board. the ten-year now 5.6%. we've seen the ibex. that yield is the highest since early january. now the wide

bertha coombs looking at the amazon loyalty factor. >> costco is known for having the most wealthy retailostco shoppers earn about $79,000 a year on average. amazon customers are at the upper end of retail as well. they are the second biggest big box retailer as well. $67,000 is what they earn. but are they as loyal? it depends on what they are buying. when it comes to electronics, that's one area where amazon is topping loyalty. three out of four amazon shoppers stick to home when they are buying electronics, as opposed to 10% who say they might buy electronics at costco. a third might buy them at best buy. in terms of coast toe, well, actually a third of them, more than a third would go to best buy and when it comes to supporting goods, amazon number one, 21% stick to online home. dick's supporting good is second with 13%. another 8% share for walmart. amazon loses to big boxes when it comes to household goods. amazon is actually the third choice among its customers with only 11% market share after bed, bath, beyond and walmart. the company is trying to grow with all new offerings for t

bertha coombs with the latest on broupon. >>> next, carl icahn will update us on his take of cer energy. >>> also ahead, billionaire investor eike batista gives his outlook on brazil's economy and tells us whether investors should be concerned about the nationallization of oil in argentina. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. >>> welcome back. all day on cnbc, we've had some of the biggest activist investors on wall street. talking about the bedroom wars they are waging. f >> we're in the end game, so, may 17 ng is the shareholder meeting. votes are coming in as we speak. independent group called brendon woods da survey. we have 94% support for management change. which is an enormous margin. never been involved in a proxy contest with this grade a lead, i would say. >> activist shareholders unite at the passive summit in mid town, new york. david faber has been rubbing elbows all day with the best in business managers. he joins me now with the cnbc exclusive. with one of the activists out there, carl icahn, with icahn enterprises. >> yes, there isn't activism without carl

we want to go to bertha coombs. >> police are telling us -- the nypd said there have been a number of suspicious envelopes sent to an area in negotiation. two locations of wells fargo and one in mid-town at madison and 34th and another at broadway and 85th. at this point they do not believe there is anything hazardous involved with them. in one case, there was a note that read welcome to may 1st. the sources are telling the callings at w nbc in new york they believe this may be related to occupy wall street. they are investigating whether that may be the case. at this point it doesn't appear to be anything hazardous, but there were envelopes and with a note saying welcome to may 1st. a couple of them appears to have a sort of powder inside. they are investigating the situation right now. >> thanks a lot for the update. i want to go back to collin. i'm sorry to interrupt your thought. you are talking about the managers that held on through thick and thin and now -- >> we are coming up to windows 8. it will do well in the enterprise market. they are clearly under pressure in the consume

bertha coombs is at the cnbc realtime exchange. >> s&p even on the day down just one point here a moment ago it was just and and it's really been consumer only sector you can see the dollar guys there, starbucks gets the estimates up ahead of earnings and gap at eight, ten-year high. a lot of color in the last couple of days. green has been the big color. as far as tech is concerned, the drag definitely coming from ibm. ibm, in fact, responsible for 50 points to the downside. intel also disappointed. nasdaq has been positive for much of the day for good reason with yahoo! having beaten on its earnings. scott thompson saying one thing we've got to do is get real fast and good on mobile and that's one of the things that he wants. apple, meantime, bouncing back to the levels it was last friday. that is the big heavy lifter. in terms of that ypf story, ypf today it opened -- you can see there about 11:30th morning after shares resumed trading. this afternoon, the state department is weighing in, saying that it is very concerned about the move to nationalize the firm and is urging the governm

let's get right now to bertha coombs at the nymex with the close, bertha. >> it's closing right thereyear low just shy of $1.96. that will be the number to watch to see whether it breaks through here in the options i'll tell you, they actually have dollar october puts. that's bets we might be at a dollar by october. meantime, as far as oil closing down for the week, but things kind of evening up a little bit as far as brent because we have the nuclear talks on iran's nuclear program tomorrow over the weekend. gasoline, the futures are higher for the week. but at the pump gasoline is lower. in fact, if you take a look, it looks like we may very well if things continue like this, see the peak this year in april. last year we peaked in may. three years ago when we were at these $4 levels we peaked in july. so seven days to the downside at the pump. that's certainly quite a bit of relief for consumers. brian. >> all right. bertha, thank you. >> peaking earlier and earlier. it's interesting. from the energy pits to down on the farm, jane wells joins us with what could be a coming corn cris

bertha coombs is live in arlington, texas, with more. bertha. >> reporter: hi, sue. arlington is west-southwest of dallas on the way towards ft. worth. the folks in this neighborhood kind of count themselves lucky. nearly 24 hours after those storms started, some of them managed to find roofers to get some of the tarps on the top of their roofs so they won't have leaks. another man told us that the insurance adjuster had already been here. so the process has started. home depot in arlington is keeping doors open 24 hours a day to help people start with their repairs. meantime, back in dallas that fantastic video we saw yesterday of those trucks essentially getting thrown around like toys. schneider says they're glad all of their workers heeded the early warning system, got out, they were safe. no one was hurt. but they lost about 100 of 250 trucks have been damaged. they're still trying to work with all of their customers to try to get all of the logistics and shipping back online quickly. we were in lancaster this morning. that is the other area that was hit very ha

bertha coombs joins us now from houston with the pipeline winners and losers. ha. >> reporter: hi, sue. yeah, we are at the echo terminal under construction here in houston. its enterprise partners big effort to try to provide the missing link we have seen in the oil boom so far. we have all this oil with no way to feed it to refiners. sea way reversal and transcanada's expected, keystone gulf link we'll see 100 million barrels a day just from cushing to texas by 2014. we'll see it across the country in all of these areas we're seeing a number of shale plays and unconventional oil drilling on land. analysts are bullish on enterprise. deutsche bank also likes the bigger players like kinder morgan that are the master limited partnerships because of the way they structure, they really pay out bigger dividends than just the stocks themselves. so while the stocks have been on a run, analysts say the mlps are attractive for income-oriented investors, they pay between 4% and 7%. now, if we start see iing the f moving rates, that may not be attractive when you see some

cnbc's bertha coombs joins us live with all on that and the latest business news. >> as predicted thet is lower. it's the first time investors are getting a chance to react to the disappointing jobs report from friday. we were closed on friday. the economy creating only 120,000 jobs in march. well below the expectations. one silver lining that you were talking about, crude oil prices are 2% lower on that news as well. and as a result prices at the pump are flat with last week according to, aaa. union workers continue after a strike deadline passed over the weekend. communication workers of america represents 40,000 at&t employees. the phone giant trying to see if they can get cuts when it comes to health care and pension plans. and sony is cutting 10,000 jobs, about 6% of the global workforce. several top executives being asked to return bonuses. the new ceo is under pressure to get back to profitability after four years of being in the red. but those of us who eat out are helping feed the job market. the national restaurant association says restauranteurs saw record hiring in the las

meantime a market flash with bertha coombs before we go to break. bertha. >> hey, mandy. we're watching the close here on oil. and it is on par to at least be flat for the day. had been down. oil, wti nymex went up four days in a row. we'll see if it can actually even up and close up just by that penny. we were just above 105 a little bit fractional few minutes ago. still a strong month for oil up nearly 2% on the month. we'll be right back here with "street signs." [ male announcer ] this is corporate caterers, miami, florida. in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution, in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities, they can create and maintain high standards, from kitchen to table. this technology allows us to collaborate with our drivers to make a better experience for our customers. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ helping you do what you do... even better. or creates another laptop bag or hires a

let's move to bertha coombs now at the nymex where the trading is wrapping up. bertha. >> yep.rapping up here in terms of the gold pits. gold down today. overall take a look across metals and it's that strong dollar that's keeping things lower as simon mentioned on a risk-off day. for the week gold is higher. silver edging and copper, though, the worst performance we've seen on a weekly basis for copper on those concerns about slower growth in china. worst week since mid-december. back to you. >> thank you very much, bertha. it is gearing up to be a huge week next week for earnings and indeed the economy. so how should you position yourself? time now for the trader triple play here on "power lunch." at the nyse matt cheslock and jack bouroudjian. how do you see it? you've seen it time and time again. >> inflation running at 2.9% as we saw earlier today with cpi and a 10-year at 1.99. people are losing money putting their money in the 10-year. we're going to hear the fed chairman in a couple minutes on the q & a. bottom line is they are force feeding us an expanding balance shee

bertha coombs joins us live with more on that and the rest of the day's business headlines. >> hi, barbarathis morning we have the markets a little bit lower. spain is now officially joining britain in recession. tech if i cannily defined as two straight quarters or six months of negative economic growth. for us, it is a very bug week of economic data. so far personal income and spending looks good for march. but it is the big april jobs report this friday that everybody is going to be waiting for. economists are expecting 125,000 jobs having been created. meantime shares of barnes & nobles are bucking the trend. book seller leveraging nook e-reader in a deal worth $300 billion with microsoft. they are going to form a joint venture to compete with apple and amazon on digital books. according to aaa and oil price information service, 38 states and the district of columbia are now saying gasoline prices lower than last year. nine cents lower in the metro d.c. area. and a new deal by sunoco is giving hopes in the east coast to see relief. they had been looking to close the philadelphia refine

let's check in with cnbc's bertha coombs for more of the business headlines. >> i'm still sorting through fact that you all have peacocks. >> i know, we should have them here on our lawn. >> unbelievable. they have them around the corner from me at st. john the divine here in new york city. they're quite beautiful. but they are around the corner. so not so loud. >> you don't have to hear them screeching. >> stocks are kind of flat. investors are sifting through a ton of economic data this morning. leading economic indicators showed that there's strength in the economy going forward. but manufacturing today coming out of the mid-atlantic was weak and the weekly unemployment claims which came in higher than expected at 385,000. and then there are mixed signals on the home front. sales of existing homes fell 2.6% in march. but february sales were revised higher. first quarter sales were the best in five years. a lot of it likely because of the warm weather we saw. and even more encouraging the national association of realtors says distressed sales have fallen and the inventory of homes for s

bertha coombs is rounding out all of the action. >> took the words right out of my mouth, saying theye going in different directions. a smaller than expected 8 cent loss. 807 million, slightly ahead of expectations. the company's outlook for second quarter screening revenues is belowest mates. a lot of competition from hbo and other cable products. texas instruments, first quarter well above the own range of guidance. on bottom line, 32 cents a share. earnings beat by 3 cents. take a look, stock up by over 2.5%. lion tech shares provide some smiles this afternoon. surging on the back of better than expected earnings. also on the top line on strong, inviline shares. also after hours, reporting first quarter sales of 87 cents a share, that's 3 cents better than estimates. revenues well ahead of expectations as they see rental customers exercising early purchase of what they were renting. shares of ameriprise rising. let's see, yep, still 10.5% up. well ahead of estimates and boosting its dividend 25%. this is third dividend increase within the last year. and ceo says that clients contin

let's go to bertha coombs at the nymex. >> we just dipped below $2 mark even where it stopped earlier. this will be under pressure as we look towards the close of nat gas in the next hour. mike fitzpatrick says watch $1.96. that was a 2002 low that we'll be watching for. after that $1.85 which was september 2001 low. as far as the metals close, traders saying gold here sharply unchanged. we saw some profit taking in silver and copper continues to extend its three-month low as well. continued pressure on global demand issues. boone pickens will be on "street signs" to talk about nat gas. that's likely to be a very volatile close over in that pit. back to you guys in the studio. >> fantastic interview at 2:00 on "street signs." meanwhile, google ticking higher today but showing lackluster performance so far this year down nearly 2% on the year so far. the internet giant set to report earnings tomorrow after the bell. so what should you expect and how should you play it right now? well, joining us to get ahead of the numbers is citi internet analyst. >> good afternoon. >> google's last r

let's get to bertha coombs at the nymex with the close. >> last week according to cftc we saw a lot ofd managers really slash their net long positions on oil overall their positions. but, boy, today wti was looking good. and that brent premium collapsing. a week ago we were at $20 for brent above wti. the seaway pipeline reversal, which is reversing the flow of the pipeline from now to run from cushing down to the gulf will start two weeks early. as of may 17th it will start operations and be ready. and those tariffs will be a whole lot cheaper than they are for the brent premium. so we saw a bit uptaking off the table here as far as brent today. and gasoline sliding right along with. and at the end of the day nat gas closing above drs. 2 once again although folks still very bearish on nat gas. back to you guys. >> bertha, thank you. are you looking to land your money in a mutual fund? look at encompass. up 31% over the past three years. smart money named it one of the top 100 funds this year. joining us co-manager of the encompass fund. good to see you again. thanks for coming on the

we're going to check in with cnbc's bertha coombs, she has that and the rest of the day's business headlines. >> investors today are kind of sifting through a lot of mixed news. some of the things help the markets move higher, companies like johnson & johnson, new ceo starts today. upping their dividends, tempered by disappointing earnings and the disappointing weekly unemployment claims report. they're higher than economists were expecting. they dipped about $1,000, to 388,000. this is the third week above 385,000. a lot of people are worried about the job market stalling. h & r block warning its profits will be lower than expected. so they'll shut about 200 storefronts and about 350 positions through voluntary buy-outs as it aims to refocus on its online filing business with store front. >>> data showing existing home sales closing fell in march from february. but a new report today from the national association of realtors says new contracts for home sales in march, so-called pending sales were actually up 4% to the highest level since the new home buyers' tax credits fuelled by that home

bertha coombs at the nymex. what's going on? >> we've got gold extending losses here today.t. silver finding a little bit of a bid. the cme group with the pullback that we've seen in silver, copper and palladium has lowered margins starting this afternoon. that could help those commodity strengths tomorrow. the big story today is the collapse of the brent premium. enterprise and ambridge now start the seaway reversal on may 17th. on and maybe even before that. that's two weeks before they had initially forecast. the tariffs somewhere in the range of 2.75 to 3.82 and 3.25 to 4.32 for heavy crude. they'll initially have 150,000 barrels a day. still not clear how quickly they might ramp up to that 400,000. they're still targeting a year from now. nonetheless taking a look. you can see brent really pulling back today on that news and gasoline going right along with it. back to you in the studio. >> thank you very much, bertha. it is a monster week for earnings. johnson & johnson reports latest earnings tomorrow before the opening bell. the stock's had a wild ride over the past y

. >>> stocks are higher this morning on wall street, we check in with bertha coombs on cnbc. >> i'm a bruins fan, but not a as rabid a bruins fan as a red sox fan. i want to, you can hate me now, but don't hate me today in terms of the market. the market is bouncing up. investors are awaiting a decision from the federal reserve on interest rates, in a little more than an hour. the fed expected to keep rates unchanged. the big news is likely to come when fed chairman, ben bernanke talks to reporters about 2:00 after that decision. one of the topics likely to be the big drop in orders for durable goods that were reported this morning. meantime, the market is rallying though on strong earnings news in particular the big driver is apple's blow-out quarterly report. the tech giant earning $11 billion after selling 35 million iphones and 12 million ipads in the quarter. after the surprise strength, apple shares have regained close to $50 billion in market veil wa veil wags sin valuation. and a whopper of an announcement from burger king. the number two fast food giant going to be the first

bertha coombs lives in lower manhattan with the latest. >> reporter: hi, tyler. police say that it appears an employee sent himself a novelty grenade that was on a plaque that said pull pin. someone who worked in the building sent it to himself. but it was discovered through normal screening this morning in the mail. those security personnel when they saw that, it looked suspicious to them. so they alerted police out of a preponderance of caution. and it wasn't until a little while ago that the bomb squad determined that it was a novelty gift toy grenade item. meantime, number of workers were evacuated. workers told us they were in a meeting, some of the folks. and they were told calmly they needed to leave the building. it was all very calm. folks stood outside for about an hour or more and then went in. among the tenants in the building, merrill lynch, commerce bank and deloitte. very relieved it was just a toy. back to you. >> any indications as to whether this individual was just doing this as a test of the security? or was it just the idea that he was buying

let's go to bertha coombs at the complex. >> we haven't gotten the settlement price but the final trade for natural gas. we saw a lot of defense -- a lot of traders saying there was a lot of defense virtually at every one one-thousandth of a penny. we held at the 19999. it just collapsed here at the close. what's interesting if you take a look at the curve on nat gas, we're still above $2 starting in june and looking out a lot of traders say that the market not yet ready to get that short because we could have warmth this summer. the big move up in oil and gasoline on a better than expected inventory number. back over to you. >> amazing below $2. bertha, thanks so much. despite today's gains, the market is still on track for one of the worst weeks of the year. so how do you weather the storm? how about stability? we looked at the ten best performing stocks on the s&p 500 over the past two years. as expected, the list includes some high fliers like priceline and apple. but it also includes steady eddies, chipotle, dollar tree and starbucks have shown stable growth trends. let's bring in

bertha coombs is there with more information. what do we know?hern end of the world financial center and it is tower two. some sources are telling us that apparently through regular screening this morning the screeners encountered a package that they had a concern about and police have been called in. tower two of the world financial center has been evacuated. right now remains cordoned off. police are here on the scene at the moment in front of the tower. we have a number of folks on the outside wondering what is going on. it's very orderly and very quiet from what our sources are telling us the security officials have a concern about this package and they are examining that package and apparently it came up through normal screening process. >> okay. thank you very much, bertha coombs. i know if you find out more, you'll let us know. looking at the tenants of that building, commerce bank and merrill lynch wealth management among others. straight ahead, more on the market rally today. winning and losing stocks from the trading day overseas. ttd#

bertha coombs.friend art cashin gives us his take and the top winners and losers consumers are banking on after the break. >>> coming up, what goes up must come down, right? we'll talk with someone who thinks that day will come for a can company such as apple and google. are either of them the next r.i.m.? in america, we believe in a future that is better than today. since 1894, ameriprise financial has been working hard for their clients' futures. never taking a bailout. helping generations achieve dreams. buy homes. put their kids through college. retire how they want to. ameriprise. the strength of america's largest financial planning company. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you, one-to-one. together, for your future. ♪ together, for your future. fiona here was just telling me that ford dealers sell a new tire like...every five seconds, how's that possible? well, we purchase 3 million a year. you just sold one right now didn't you? that's correct. major brands. 11 major brands. oop,ther

cnbc's bertha coombs joins us from lancaster, texas, one of the hardest hit suburbs there. and sounds lie they still don't know exactly how many tornadoes touched down. >> reporter: right. right now the preliminary estimate, becky, is somewhere in the range of 13 or so. but those crews from the local national weather service are going to be fanning out over the area starting at 8:00 local time. take a look at this home. this is a brick home and it's pretty much destroyed, the timber has come in. we're not sure where these cars came from that are now in what probably was the front area of the living room or so. even when you see these cars move to match boxes, the most incredible video was at the schneider national depot in dallas. just south of dallas. that is a big hub for this wisconsin-based company. their 7-ton tractor-trailers were tossed around like match stick toys and at this point, the company says the miraculous thing is because they had a little bit of warning, people were able to get safety and get some shelter and no one was hurt. of course, an awful lot of dam

cnbc's bertha coombs is here to break it down for us. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's talk gas prices. according to aaa, 3.$3.83 a gallon. do you think -- >> in a sense, nobody wants to spend more, but the fact that we've stopped that trajectory of prices going up is a bit of a releechlt in fact, we've got a dozen states where the prices are all lower than they were a year ago. >> so it's all relative it's all relative. a month ago we were talking $5 a gallon this summer. it looks like we peaked. nobody likes the high price but the fact that they're not going up is encouraging. >> where do we see things headed? >> part of the reason that prices have come down is that oil prices have eased up because tensions with iran are a little bit cooler. they're back negotiating over iran's nuclear program. of course, things could pop back up but at the moment there aren't any things that are going to impact prices higher. so that's one of the things that has people encouraged. certainly when you're paying less for gas, that leads to more mo

bertha coombs joins us from lancaster, texas, a day after amazing video of highway rigs, bertha, tossed>> reporter: it is incredible, carl. april marks the beginning of tornado season and it's really gotten off to a ferocious start. texas, officials say it takes several days to sort it out. take a look at this house. this is a one-car garage house. the one car is in the back. these are two cars here on the front door. we don't know where those cars are from. so it takes several days to sort all of that out. if you take a look at the video of the rest of the neighborhood, you know, it's not just the tornadoes insurance officials say. you also had a lot of hailstorms so that's what's associated with the thunderstorms. it could be thousands of claims, likely hundreds -- maybe $100 million or so. the insurance institute talks about the business damage. doesn't look like a big $1 billion storm like last year in joplin but a lot of businesses like that trucking company certainly are going to feel the disruption here. the airlines are feeling it this morning. coming back to me live here. the a

corporate earnings, we'll check in with cnbc's betha coombs who joins us more. hi, berthai, barb raxt stocks are stronger this morning. the dow is up about 167 points. the last few days investors had been bore worried about european debt. but a debt auction in spain saw good demand this morning, so we're seeing a little relief. economic data in the u.s. is kind of mixed, construction of new homes in march fell for the second month, a surprising 5.8%. that was well below expectations, mostly led by pullback in new construction of apartment buildings. but new permits for new homes rose to a three and a half-year high. gasoline at the pump is coming down a bit, but coca-cola is a little more expensive. the soft drink giant this morning reported better-than-expected profits as a result, thanks to the higher prices, and a jump in demand. another reason the market is bouncing, apple shares higher for the first time in six days, some analysts think apple may have come under selling pressure ahead of today's tax filing deadline, with some investors perhaps taking profits. apple lo