big pharma companies have passed the baton to the biotech.elgene has the breakthrough drugs in the pipeline. all week we are going to reveal the best new drug companies in the world. do not move. lightning round's next. >> it is time, it is time for the lightning round. cramer takes rapid-fire calls and i tell you whether to buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell. we play to this sound and then the lightning round is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? time for the lightning round. i'd like to start with lee in california. >> caller: hey, jim. sunny boo-yah from california. >> i wish i were there what's going on? >> caller: in view of the turnaround in the housing industry, i feel that the more than new houses, the more new lawns, the more new lawns, the more new lawn mowers, what is your opinion of the briggs and stratton corporation? >> i think that is a terrific buy. that's been one of our highly recommended stocks since superstorm sandy. ian in florida. >> caller: hallandale beach booyah to ya. i held the position of avy for the last five years.

big pharma companies passed the baton to the biotech.elgene has the breakthrough drugs in the pipeline. all week we are going to reveal the best new drug companies in the world. do not move. lightning round's next. ♪ ♪ i don't want any trouble. i don't want any trouble either. ♪ [ engine turns over ] you know you forgot to take your mask off, right? [ siren wailing in distance ] ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing the all-new beetle convertible. now every day is a top-down day. that's the power of german engineering. it's lots of things. all waking up. connecting to the global phenomenon we call the internet of everything. ♪ it's going to be amazing. and exciting. and maybe, most remarkably, not that far away. we're going to wake the world up. and watch, with eyes wide, as it gets to work. cisco. >>. >> it is time, it is time for the lightning round. cramer takes rapid-fire calls and i tell you whether to buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell. we play to this sound and then the lightning round is over. are you ready, skee-daddy? time for the li

why is big pharma struggling here?he biogens, the gileads doing all the inventing? >> reinvention is what i talk about in the book. i think there's a need for big pharma to reinvent, because some of these older approaches are no longer working. you just heard today, and i think your channel is carrying the news, a new drug for ms, biogen is the company, specialty products are the new way people want to have their drugs come to them. the primary drugs are starting to get a little old. >> right. >> so those that embrace specialty pharma do a lot better. also, your r & d, you've got to take that research and development engine seriously. if you spend your time as ceo doing a lot of other things, probably you're not focusing on the most important thing. but pharma is ready for a reinvention. and there are companies like novartis, large company, approaching cancer in a very special way, targeted therapies, gene-based approaches and they're going to make a big difference. people like david epstein that runs the pharmaceutica

back in the 1990s, during the heyday of big pharma. the mercks, pfizers, they were thought of as rock stars, growth stacks and they sold for as much as 30 to 40 times earnings. the biggest patents expired, the growth diminished or vanished entirely and big pharma became a nice defensive place to find stocks with high yields, fixed income alternatives. but the truth is, inventing new drugs can be a fabulous growth business. maybe the best there is. just these days the real innovation is happening at a different set of companies. that's why i've been saying the important biotechs of today represent the future of pharma. they are well on their way to being the next big pharma names. so far this week, i've recommended celgene, gilead and biogen which you might have heard earlier today on "closing bell." today i've got one more biotech. this stock exemplifies the growth trajectories i'm talking about. i'm referring to regeneron pharmaceuticals. right now it's up $176 $12 off the 52-week high. it's got a market cap of $17 billion. do not let

i mention all this because even though the days of big pharma may be over, but the blockbuster drugs '90s having gone generic and the stocks trading like fixed-income vehicles, there's a group of stocks right now that remind me of the big pharmaceutical companies 15, 20 years ago. i'm talking about the large-cap biotech companies that are bursting with innovation, companies that have terrific pipelines full of new drugs with enormous potential. i think these fast-growing biotechs have the potential to be the next big pharma stocks, which is why i'm highlighting them all week. last night i told you about cramer fave celg. and tonight i've got another one for you. it's gilead. gilead sciences, gild for all you home gamers. gilead is the number one maker of drugs that treat hiv out there. that's also a developing game-changing, new drug to treat maybe one of the most aggressive and horrible illnesses on the planet, which is hepatitis-c. now, i last recommended gilead back on september 12th, as the company with the best chance of dominating the hepa-c market, and since then, gilead's roa

how about a big pharma company with a big 3.9% yield?ter than treasuries after the tax benefits. it's been left behind by the rest of its cohort. i can't believe i'm talking about this one because it's so far behind. i'm talking about one of the great american companies, merck, mrk, the pharmaceuticals giant that's stumbled more times in the last few months than a college kid on st. paddy's day. since early december, the early pharma names have roared. pfizer up 12%, bristol miers up. i'm typical of my eighth anniversary, i somehow got blue ink on my hand. and cell gene jumped 43%. meanwhile, merck has done nothing. it's actually down about 1% over the same period. right now there are reasons merck has underperformed the rest of the ones. in december, the good -- in december, the company got bad clinical trials from a new cholesterol drug that they were working on. and i thought it was going to be a big one, i have to tell you. so merck decided to stop development here in the u.s. and pull the drug overseas where it was already approved.

they'd rather take the money from big pharma then put their lower priced drugs on the market they're the ones who are saying you can't pay me enough that i will hurt low income people by not putting this low cost me out of the barn that a crime is being committed no i'm not i'm just saying are wrong is being done well i'm saying if there is a wrong is in your view i would think you would take say how can these generics both of them up and if you think about profit over helping they're the ones who hold the generics that can help low income people and they're the ones who are more interested in big pharma as money than helping low income people and i would think that's the cycle beyond and i hear i hear sort of a course of saying i think this room on this is borderline collusion because you have two firms who are you know close the competitors they were going to sort of work together to fix the price because it is sort of a price fixing scheme when you tell the company i'm going to pay you so that our price can stay all abated and your lower price your lower priced good came into the

have an answer trust but you know what tom if i'm shocked that you're taking this position like big pharma is bad because you know what it's really bad it's the generic manufacturers who are not allowing their product to be sold on the market at a lower price they're the ones hurting the consumer because they'd rather take the money from big pharma then put their lower price drugs on the market they're the ones who are saying you can't pay me enough that i will hurt low income people by not putting this low cost you out of the bargain that a crime is being committed now. i'm not i'm just saying are wrong is being done well i'm saying if there is a wrong business in your view i would think you would take say how can these generics both of them. think about profit over helping they're the ones who hold the generic second help low income people and they're the ones who are more interested in big pharma as money than helping low income people and i would think that's an aside and beyond and i hear i hear sort of a course of saying i think this room on this is borderline collusion because you h

but we know what made the big pharma companies so hot in the '90s.were constantly innovating, developing major new drugs, bountiful pipelines, and we can use that template to find the stocks of the next big drug companies, the ones that deserve to trade the way merck and eli lilly and pfizer did in the 1990s. and that is why all week we've been highlighting the larger biotech plays, companies with terrific prospects like celgene and gilead. right now, they're the ones doing the innovating. and tonight i've got a new one for you, and that stock is biogen idec, biib. it's a major biotech that hit a new 52-week high today and $183 as the stock soared $5.60, up more than 3% after the fda approved their new multiple sclerosis drug. don't be scared away. it's had a rally since i recommended it last january at $117, when everybody i know thought it was already too high, and it's given you a 56% gain. but please, remember the analogy here. back in the '90s when the stocks were on fire, they would run and run some more and run some more year after year. bioge

we do big pharma, we don't pay. tax cuts, we don't figure what it's going to do to the economy, but you, you might have to pay for it. there is one senator prepared to filibuster to protect social security, medicare and medicaid. senator bernie sanders will join me in a moment, but president obama, he went to capitol hill today for a closed door meet wg the democrats. senate budget chairwoman patty murray, she revealed a plan with new revenue and spending cuts. nearly $1 trillion over the next ten years. president obama will meet with both parties on capitol hill. meanwhile, chairman paul ryan unveiled his budget plan and listen to how ryan describes republican priorities. >> the most important question isn't how we balance the budget, but why. a budget is a means to an end. an end is the well being of the american people. >> the most important question is how we balance the budget and making sure it's not on the backs of working americans. congressman ryan also made an unfortunate slip. >> this to us is something w

. >> reporter: aarp and the ama argue settlements allowing big pharma companies which pay companies towait, undermine abilities for doctors to give cost-effective prescriptions to patients. analysts from deerfield institute found generics lost 52% of them. armen . >> these deals have been structured such that generics will get on the market before the patent expires that the brand name company is protecting. >> reporter: the justices had tough questions from both sides during today's hearing. a decision is expected by late june. i'm bertha combs. >> here's jeff brennan, currently a partner at mcdermott. the simple question, i guess is, who's winning and who's losing here? are consumers losing? are drug companies winning? >> it's really not that simple. it depends on your view about that paradigm which the ftc is challenging. they would say, and their supporters, would say that in a settlement agreement in which the innovator company pays money to the generic, that that has an effect where generics enter the market at a lower price, and consumers are worse off because they don't have an

consumer products and big cap pharma. st a big cap pharma, and i'm going to go with bristol myers myers. goldman sachs think they're going to double their earnings by the end of the decade, and so do i. >> josh brown. >> in an amazing group think, i'm going to reiterate pfizer. closed at at 52 week high. i don't think she's close to being done. >> anthony, break the trend. >> mastercard here. look for a share repurchase and an increase in the dividend. this stock's got a lot

. >> john: the real reason you'll never see in our lifetime is it is such a big threat to pharma. >> also to alcohol. people want to get high. people want to get drunk. pot doesn't have a lobby. >> when pot is legal -- >> they keep forgetting to show up. >> and when pot is legal it lobbying pharma that ends up boning all of the fields. you may not believe this but there was a guy on fox business channel yesterday who was talking about the business of pot. on fox business. >> john: once they buy it, they can call it a drug. >> big pharma. >> if they can spray it, they can genetically engineer it.% >> they can put it in our corn and they can never tell us. >> we could have like fish pot. >> i can't wait. if you're allergic to fish, just die and you won't even know it. >> john: why is it only ron paul and rand paul leading the fight politically on this issue? think about it. >> i think the liberals tired out. now it is happening without them. >> the government reflect the people at all in anything anymore? >> john: it would help with our taxes and that's where we get the expression join

. >>> health reformers are taken on the likes of big tobacco and big pharma. ulprit -- big junk? we'll talk the science and business of addictive food with, author michael moss, coming up next. ♪ i'm your venus [ female announcer ] what does beauty feel like? find out with venus embrace. every five-bladed stroke gives you 360 degrees of smooth for goddess skin you can feel and feel. ♪ i'm your venus only from venus embrace. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ earning loads of points. we'll leave that there. you got a weather balloon, with points? yes i did. [ man ] points i could use for just about anything. go. ♪ keep on going in this direction. take this bridge over here. there it is! [ man ] so i used mine to get a whole new perspective. [ laughter ] [ male announcer ] earn points with the citi t

but is this your best big pharma bet? d young brands ticking higher on better than expected china sales. is the worst over now for the company two traders, one stock, one big debate. with fidelity's new options platform, we've completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies... to get a list of equity options... evaluate them with our p&l calculator... and execute faster with our more intuitive trade ticket. i'm greg stevens and i helped create fidelity's options platform. it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. sales event has begun. ♪ featuring the powerful gs. ♪ just when you thought you had experienced performance a new ride comes along and changes everything. ♪ get great values on your favorite lexus models during the command performance sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection. higher today. is the worst behind the fast food giant now? let's debate it. mike murray is our bull. steven

when you look at the financiafi, when you look at what's going on in the big pharma names that's a sectorng higher. people feel some safety there. but not only safety they look at the valuations. that i love the yields they're getting there and i think there are names like merck that have underperformed the rest that can outperform and get to the next level. >> i think a big important point here, staples has been a favored sector over the last years. they're much too high with having a similar dividend and yield. if you look at the stocks like general mills today or proctor and gamble, i would stay out of those. >> if you go back to caterpillar, if you do get a turn around in china, if caterpillar does start to pick up, where is the market going? there's upside to the market if china joins the party. >> our next guest is looking for stocks to move higher on mr. bernanke today. let's bring in the deutsche bank chief economist. >> happy to be here. >> are we going to get the so-called goldie locks scenario from bernanke today? >> yes, we will. the fed sees a lot of monsters under the bed. a

it was wars that were unfunded, it was big pharma. when you look at the causes of the projected debt, it has nothing to do with what the republicans are trying to get at, and that's the big three. >> and remember that the economic crisis in turn has nothing to do with the debt, right? we've got -- yeah we have a big budget crisis, but that's a result of the crisis, not the cause of it. >> what percentage of the downturn from the housing market do you blame on where we are right now? >> the housing market drove everything. the housing market, the combination of the bust in the housing market, which right there has attracted a couple percent from goldman, more more than a couple percent, several% of gdp, plus the effect of leaving all these people with high levels of the debt and their assets just evaporated, plus the businesses are not going to spend if consumers don't have money. that's all of it. all of this is about the aftermath of the housing bust. all the deficit stuff is a complete red herring. >> so that takes us to wall street

gave us big pharma, ineffective tax cuts that did not increase the tax base and create a bunch of jobs like they said it would. and of course put two wars on the american credit card for the next generation. and let's just get it straight, folks. since 9/11 we've spent almost $1.5 trillion on the wars in iraq and afghanistan. and there's a troubling new report. much of the money has been wasted. now, the special inspector general says the united states has wasted $8 billion on failed reconstruction projects. you know, nation building over there. we've wasted more than 13% of the money that we've sent over to iraq. now, we're spending billions on roads and bridges overseas while here in america we can't get the politicians to work together on an infrastructure package when we've got bridges falling down, killing people? when the republicans say that they can't afford infrastructure because of the deficit, they should remember that spending on both wars makes up half of what the country's current deficit is. this is the president who overspent, drove up the deficit, and forced us into th

big pharma, as well as specialty, because they have intellectual cap, they're creating new drugs, and i think they'll add wealth to the shareholder in the next year or two. >> very good. thank you all. nice to see you. appreciate it very much. >> thank you. >>> we have some breaking news right now on wells fargo. what's up? >> bill, wells fargo is confirming that their website has apparently been attacked by hackers in what's commonly known as a denial of service attack. wells says that the vast majority of their customers have not been affected and the customer information there, it's safe. but that many stomn fact, are having difficulty accessing the site as a result of this presumptive attack on wells fargo. they say the disruption is intermittent and they're advising customers who want to get into their wells accounts to try logging in again, ie, repeatedly, and hope that you can get in that way. but, again, confirming that their website, if you've been having trouble getting in, they've been the victim of a denial of service hack attack. >> hear it more and more these days from t

big pharma can save a lot of money. they're on a new drug discovery cycle.ivity that says there are a lot of takeovers that could be profitable. industrial companies, capital expenditures are moving up here and also in the developing markets. i think that will be a good sector too. ashley: one sector that is really underperformed is tech. so far but do you think it will catch up and do you like the tech sector? >> i'm personally underweight tech because i think a lot of the traditional growth areas really aren't going to be, have the kind of growth that we think because we have a lot of transition, move to the cloud and so forth. i think it is going to leave a lot of companies well behind on the kind of growth you would expect. i think they're more like industrial cyclicals and weaker links i think will be very disappointing. ashley: you know i should say the volumes have been a little mediocre which perhaps suggests a little bit of a lack of conviction. all the talk about the great rotation out of bonds into equities, there hasn't been a tremendous outflow

now not only do they have big cap pharma but they're a consumer brand company which is why their multiple is too cheap, it should trade higher than the high teens, which is why even on a benign tape like we saw today j&j goes up. >> trading 15 times forward. you like j&j here even at all-time high levels. >> we've been involved in this stock for a long time. there's something that could happen here potentially that the street is excited about. there are three parts of this business. and essentially there could be some spinoffs that create value. as guy mentioned, it's a multifaceted company. i think that's what people are really excited about, that opportunity to unlock value. >> tim, your top trade today. >> we talked about europe. the other part of all this, i think volatility has certainly moved into a crescendo period but it's something you have to trade. we sold cap puts which we put on last week. the cac, or in other words the index in france, their s&p has sold off more than any market in europe. you've got to trade this hard because the signals you're getting out of the e.u. are v

and you had to strike deals early on behind the scenes with big pharma and the big hospitals and there we needed to have. so, steve, you were talking earlier about how americans might not agree with the democrats' tax increases but they're not going to agree with the spending cuts. you say to americans, okay, we're going to spend $41 trillion instead of 44, $45 trillion. i think generally that's a pretty persuasive argument for republicans out on the campaign trail, isn't it? >> everybody says, well, of course you can cut $45 billion from the federal budget, how hard can that be? $4 trillion doesn't sound much when you're talking about $44 trillion versus $45 trillion. but, yes, health care is the big problem, no, we have not obviously solved the health care problem. what is happening instead, we've talked about many times is health care is squeezing out that 12% of the budget. it's squeezing it out. and what you're going to see. if this budget is like paul ryan's last budget, yes, he's going to do some stuff on health care, but he's going to massively cut into this discretionary spend

big drug companies, the patent clip is now a little sand dune. it's pretty well behind us. and secondly, research output has accelerated very substantially. there's lots of news in pharman and also lots of news elsewhere in health. i'm not a bit surprised it's taken off like this. >> even today, if you look at pharma stocks, a number of them hitting 11 1/2 year highs, whether bristol-myers, lily, jng. your top holding is roche, gilead, sanofi and merck. why can the gains in those continue to go? >> you're going to keep seeing some of that. we can go through a variety of issues. the hot thing right now is we're heavily invested in roche for their cancer position. about june 1st, however, you have coming up something called the american society of clinical oncology meetings. so it's a big meeting where all the news on cancer drugs comes out. so we've got our playbook all set together. roche is a star, and bristol-myers is a star. look at the chart on bristol, it's been going up. we expect it to continue to move really nicely. >> yeah, talk to me about, you know, name like gilead. >> gilead is, you know, not an asco stock so much, but it's a great play on anti-virals. it'

big call from piper on chipotle. >> they did say there was a slight increase in comp numbers. this stock is not done. it's going higher. >> morgan stanley on viral pharmae and we've been recommending the stock and they have a drug that's very powerful. okay. this is a gut-wrenching moment because pbh, he bought the house of brands and i have the joseph aboud and the ck and people are doubting him. they're doubting the master like when they doubted him when he bought tommy hilfiger. doubters beware. he will have ago story tonight. >> i wonder if he'll tell you about another from the color. >> eric weisserman is great and so many good people in the ishd stree, but the stock's headed down and a lot of people think this is the end until he integrates the companies. i don't know. he's the master integrator. i don't want to bet against manny. >> okay. >> by the way, he's a clothes horse. >> you and manny. >> the three of us. >> we'll see you tonight at 6:00 and 11:00. >> good morning to you, carl. we've got an action-packed next hour. we'll hear from j.p. morgan's chief u.s. equity analyst. is this now a selling point on the markets? live from the motor show

pharma stocks reaching the highest level in more than 11 years. some of the best performers there. you have bristol-myers up 24% this year. valiant and allergan also bighnson up 14% and ubs raised the price target from 87 to 81. simon, back to you. >> thank you very much, up next on the program. the results of cnbc's all-america economic survey between stocks, real estate, bonds and gold, which choice clocked in as the top investment choice on the street? steve liesman will lay it all out for us. plus, forget s&p 1565. 1760 is the next stop so 12%, 13% from where we are here now and it could happen, they say, faster than you think. we're back in two. >>> let's get to steve liesman who has the results of the all-america survey. i know you're talking about gold bugs this morning. >> we asked a question a year ago and we recycled it for the economic survey and we asked 800 americans, and we asked them quite simply what is the best investment? back in march 2012 and now a year later, let's see what they say. i'll tell you what the answer is not. it's not corporate bonds, it's not bonds and savings accounts. that's like less than 10 for any of them. how ab