. >> listen to bob pisani. >> my mother will call you and thank you. ere should she send the check? >> michael, brian, bob, good to see you. still ahead, man down. one of our top stock draft picks on the disaster du jour. brian. >> i can't wait to hear that one, mandy. also coming up after the break, transcanada, the pipeline getting a new suggested route. we're talking thousands of jobs. and we are going to talk to the man who runs the pipeline division for transcanada. will the new route get the pipeline, the xl, the keystone, will it get approved? we're going to ask the man from the milken institute in lovely los angeles right after this break. ♪ i'm making my money do more. i'm consolidating my assets. i'm not paying hidden fees or high commissions. i'm making the most of my money. and seven-dollar trades are just the start. i'm with scottrade. i'm with scottrade. i'm with scottrade. and i'm loving every minute of it. [ rodger riney ] at scottrade, we give you commission-free etfs, no-fee iras and more. come see why more investors are saying... i'm

. >> let's go to bob pisani. if it's friday, it's gary kominski. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> what was wrong with the financials? i guess they got caught -- >> i was happen people the key things we're looking for, mortgage activity, trading activity. trading activity was up and wells fargo, do you know, almost 30% of the mortgages in the united states are originated by wells fargo today? their mortgage activity was up 7.5% increase in loans. that was a tremendous number. i think what the street did not like and the reason we're seeing some of these financials down, you go to the traditional banking activity, that is loans. the loan business is still weak. we're not seeing any focus on the trading activity, not the focus on the mortgage business being better but traditional banking activity is still weak. that's, by the way, why we're getting the reasonable bank to weak. these guys, wells fargo, have got trading operations. jpmorgan has trading operations. they have nothing to fall back on, for example. >> when you think about the and on

bob pisani is on the floor of the nyse. we started to see an acceleration on the downside. >> yes, there was a real preponderance of sell orders where they indicate what there is to buy and sell. we have problems for all throughout the day in two groups, in financials, which we can go into the close and material stocks on concerns about slowdown in china, 8.1% gdp that you mentioned in china. material stocks weak during the day. stocks like wells fargo going into the close, and then stocks like steel stocks, like freeport mcmoran. >> so the economically sensitive stocks taking a hit? >> yes. and china was a disappointment but the march numbers are looking better. it's a very hot topic right now. >> you mentioned citi and morgan and bank of america, i think you're going to find these big guys are all right. the concern is some of the regional players out there that don't have big trading operations and maybe don't have huge mortgage operations. loan growth in general has been fairly lack luster. >> bob pisani, thank you. at

. >> in the meantime, bob pisani has a recap. we started okay this morning but have gone south since then. >> we have two problems. number one, the market leader, apple. the second problem is the economic data is not cooperating existing home sales down month over month. we're getting good earnings beats but not spectacular. >> we have seen this day after day. you would think that the market would sheer but it's in a bad move. they dump on stocks. >> look at that bottom line. earnings up 3.1% so far in the first quarter. they have only been un1%. that was the estimate. they are improving. here's my concern. >> some of the things may the guidance for the future. many companies that predict pretty good numbers for the first quarter may be guiding over to the second quarter. >> guidance has not been that bad. we're 3% from the high. that's a normal number for the s&p. we're getting the choppy economic data. how can you argue for an expansion of the multiple when you get this kind of crummy, choppy economic data. you think it's slow

bob pisani, thank you so much.of course, sources telling cnbc that facebook has made the decision deciding to list on the nasdaq when it goes public. kayla tausche is joining me now. kayla? >> neither nyse or nasdaq has confirmed but we have heard that facebook will list on the nasdaq in times square in may. even though facebook was wanting to be a blue chip, it's no doubt that a large cap name would immediately land a fund in the same way that google and apple has and it will be interesting to see exactly how nasdaq did win this. the race is for nasdaq to lose. not only less expensive but home to other legends and for a company it's not surprising and if you're looking at it right know, showing the social names as far as the nyse, we're hoping to get a comment from them soon. what we're waiting to hear is how nasdaq pitched the 8-year-old social networking giant, marketing for the initial trade and going forward is one of the biggest, if not the biggest considerations of a company's listings and the package was ve

. >> bob pisani and i have been texting the wardrobe department. we want scott's outfit there. >>> google will be squarely in focus right at the close of trading. we'll have the numbers for you as soon as they are released. e. per share estimated to be $9.65. revenue $8.15 billion. analysts, though, of course will be paying close attention to the costs per click which sharply declined in the fourth quarter. here's what google shares have been doing ahead of this and just in the last few minutes, bob pisani, a move higher for the shares of google. now a gain of almost 2%. this is one of those days where it's hard to tell whether our markets are trading on our fundamentals or something else. as i mentioned, china, words out of europe today, all kinds of things going on. >> remember, it's not global gdp growth. trade deficit here in the united states narrowing a little bit. that's important. china's numbers were out, that is excellent. 14-month highs in bank lending. they are trying to trim interest rates and try to make more money available. it appea

bob pisani with the latest. recovering tonight, avon products surging 17% after the company rejected a 10 billion dollars unsolicited off to acquire the company from a prooivtly held firm coty. avon, the largest director seller of beauty products called co coty's offer opportunistic and, quote, not in the best interest of shareholders. avon is in the process of hiring a new ceo to replace andrea j amg who announced her leavet. a private equity fund has agreed to sell back its stakes in a company facilitated for sex trafficking. they're selling its 16% stakes of website back page.com which is opened by village voice media. goldman says it has lost most of its original $30 million investment. some say back page.com facilitates the trafficking of understood age prostitutes and sex slaves. it goes to greater lengths in cooperating with law enforcement and monitoring ads for illegal activity. will the second quarter be as good as what we saw in the first quarter? the s&p 500 has been up better than 60%. today the ind

we've got all the things bob pisani just talked about. we're going to show another index, citi surprise index, which is negative or turning around i should say. spanish issue, keep our viewers from having a hot head right now. >> well, the most important thing is to have a plan. typically a plan will call for a very diversified portfolio of which equities are an important part, but so too are other asset classes like fixed income and even other investments. if you have a diversified portfolio, chances are it's not going to go up and down as much as the market does on any given day. and also when you have a well-thought out plan you can think a bit longer term. over time the world economy's going to grow. that's going to take profits with it. even if you had a tough year or tough period if you decelerate for a wliel, eventually you'll reaccelerate. and when that happens it will take profits and prices with it. >> chris, do we buy the dip? >> i think right now there's a lot of uncertainty. i think in the near-term it's going to take stronge

bob pisani, i'm going to start with you.on'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 everyone is in a slight panic. >> herb, what do you think based on movements we're seeing today

bob pisani on the floor. jones industrial average, nasdaq gone negative as the stocks are negative in addition to apple. let's go to our guest, chief investment strategist of morgan stanley. it's going to be a wild weekend. we have the imf. already have good news. lining up money, 430 billion, we're hearing. christine lagarde is doing her job. can this actually influence our markets if he's the and which bond spreads over 40 to 50 basis points. right now the french is trading at about 140, 150. so they are beginning to worry about -- >> so socialist, would this actually influence the early winner over the weekend, they might be run off, would this affect our market monday? >> one of the things going on that's right for the united states of america, you look at these banks, they've gone from 30 times equity, the assets, leverage factor, down to 11 or 12 times. our banks are in phenomenal shape these days relative to the rest of the world. that's a good thing. there's repair, resuscitation, rejuvenation that is

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange.ike we're going to end with a modest decline in the s&p 500. the report about facebook broken here will be listed on the nasdaq in the last six months. thanks to mr. peterson over at s&p capital iq for confirming that. bill and maria, back to you. >> all right. let's focus on the markets this morning. initial jobless claims dropped to the lowest levels. retailers posted mostly strong sale numbers. while all of that should bode well -- >> the index measures how well economic data is doing compared to ekxpectations. when you look at the chart today, the index is on the verge of going negative, a sign that expectations are higher than what the data is showing. >> the economic surprise index. >> i always have a new chart for you. >> i know. i've heard it all. >> so are the fundamentals pointing to more stock market losses ahead? we did noticchan the mood of the market this week, especially after the minutes of the fed's march meeting came out and seemed to suggest that the fed was putting

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange.ded on the lows, never got into positive territories. ibm a real drag, more than half of a decline. key stock after hours, another dow component, american express beat on the top and bottom line. how much are the card holders spending? it's a good indication of consumer spending. looked pretty good. up 12%. they seem very happy with that. they talk about credit quality, of course, and that's been getting better. the ceo said it is among the best that we've ever experienced. positive comment there. amex down a little bit in the after hours. bill, back to you. >> bob, thank you very much. looking at our business headlines, it's the question that everybody is asking around the world, is europe headed for a credit crunch? the international monetary fund is warning that european banks are under pressure to preserve capital. they could cut back sharply on lending. as a result, the imf is predicting that it will shrink by 3% and expand by .09% next year. treasury secretary said that imf has t

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. stocks drop because some think the economy may be stronger than expected. we have the fomc minutes out. bottom line is this, some think the gdp might have to be revised upward. that's probably a minority position but for some it means no qe 3 or less chance for a qe 3 and less chance that operation twist would be extended. on that, stocks dropped. buying yields moved up rather quickly and then, of course, the dollar moved up as well. it makes everybody a little crazy but that's what is going on. >> stocks have come back a little bit but certainly the dollar is at the highs of the day. as hopes for qe fade, wall street reacting big time. we saw that reaction as stocks drop to the lows of the session. is this a sign that the economy is in fact improving and with a sustainable recovery? should investors make changes to their fundamental strategy? >> joining us, is vick store, ceo at alpha technologies. good to see you both. thank you for joining us. let me kick this off with you. what wo

bob pisani made the point that it's going to be back-end load he h ed? what would you expect? >> i think we trade in an environment for the next quarter. what i recommend are a couple of things. more a defensive tilt. a couple of ways to get that, one of which is mega caps. it trades at 15% discount to the broader russell 3,000. the second dividend stocks, now, in the u.s. it's gotten expensive, particularly utilities. it's outside of the us. if you look at the dividend countries in sync ga mothesingae dividend yield is less. >> we will leave it there. gentlemen, great to have you on the program. thanks so much. we'll see you soon. >> thank you. >> thank you so much, russ and ron. >>> a big management shakeup at best buy to tell you about. is brian dunn really to blame? >>> then, can a high fly airline continue? we'll be right back on the "closing bell." everything that i've gained in life has been because of the teachers and the education that i had. they're just part of who i am. she convinced me that there was no limit to what we could learn. i don't

bob pisani right now with more. what was the one group that traded to the upside, bob? >> there was a mixture of consumer groups -- >> the retail. >> they are expecting big numbers on thursday. warm weather is being kind to everybody. retails are going to look good. the numbers are excellent but the problem today was the federal reserve. specifically, the minutes they came out. the bottom line is pretty simple. some in the fed think the economy might be stronger than they think. gdp numbers might be revised upward. believe it or not, that caused stocks to move upward. there's the fed minutes at 2:00. there's the stock market moving to the downside. the issue, of course, is the improving economy may mean less qe 3 and that caused bond yields. and there was pressure object commodities. that is a spike in the dollar that you're looking at. this is a dollar index. a basket of currencies. that put a lot of pressure on various commodity stocks, oil, for example, moved to the downside. and then all of the commodity names weakened as well. now, remember, strengthening economy,

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange.alking to maria on the top of the floor. five ipos may be pricing today but now it may only be four. one of the companies is postponing the ipos although the registration statement on the form has not been withdrawn. elsewhere, there are other companies going public, mostly in the foreign industry. mrc global which does valves and fittings. and bright source energy seeking to go public as well. maria? >> thank you, bob. we've been ook looking at activists investors and who they are and how they have performed. mary thompson taking a look at that angle, which firms have done well and which ones have not. maria? >> maria, experts say the best defense is a good offense. lawyers and crisis manager who is advise companies in these situations say to achieve this a firm has to do a couple of things. they need to maintain an ongoing dialogue. this way it's less likely that they will defect to the activist's side. asset sales changing with the strategy. they need to look at these options and re

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange.r discretionary stocks leading, housing stocks an important component. excellent earnings reports this week and low interest rates continuing to help a little bit. they are taking a bigger share of the pie of new homes from those smaller not publicly traded home builders. elsewhere, you hate the idea of decoupling. the global sector this week up 1.5% and, of course, we're seeing brazil and china to the downside. the s&p is up 1.6% this week. guys, back to you. >> guys, it's been a pretty big week. earnings and giving equities a lift. more than 176 companies have announced dividend increases so far this year and of those companies, 60% is made up of financials, consumer discretionary, and tech names. >> will the dividend payouts be the catalyst in this second half? joining us now is steven gallagher along with morgan stanley smith barney. always good to have you on the program. thank you for joining us. steven, kick us off. what is the impact of the dividend increases? what are you expe

we have bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. simon hobbs, can't wait. >> i'd love to hear what simon has to say because everyone i've talked to is talking about the spanish and the ministry banks out there. we need some help from you guys. do you remember that valentine? >> you say that jokingly but -- >> i'm not saying it jokingly. >> but they did it in greece and the greek banks sucked it every day and became victims of their sovereign. it's not funny. >> the point is, it's happening. >> yeah, i'm sure it is. >> and the valentine that i'm referring so the the 1% euros that they are giving out. simon, what's your thoughts? >> both sides are in this together now, isn't it? look how badly the spanish stock market is doing. we're 4% above the crisis lows. the danger is that with spain the economy is crumbling so badly. the loans are rising, debts are rising so badly at 20% unemployment. the government is going to have to presumably come in and help them. will there be external funds? that's the conversation that is going on. they

let's bring in bob pisani now. because, bob, i'd love to know what in the world changed overnight? >> so would i. well, back to you, kelly. i'll tell you something. you want to know the truth? the market today is dominated by short-term momentum trading patterns. they go with it until the middle of the day. that's the truth. however, you want a more satisfying intellectual reason? let me give you the top reasons people are mentioning why the market is up today. number one, the important thing is we had that successful spanish short-term auction. that's the big thing. that's what's really mattering. two, the finance minister over in germany, he came out late in the morning and said spain does not need a bailout. revelation. that held the market. all of europe closed on the highs here. finally we just had apple up. apple goes back over $6 thur6$6. when it hit close to $600 in the middle of the day here, the market again lifted. it seemed to have some influence on the overall market. there's your official reasons, kelly. >> thanks, bob. >>> brian? >> thank you and bob. we're going to

we have bob pisani sitting with me at the new york stock exchange.steve liesman with more on the economy and the outlook for the next quarter or so and david is covering the avon story. pretty good here, light volume as maria was talking about. >> we'll stop talking about volume.ç china's soft landing story, what side of the gdp growth are you on. we get inflows because of what's going on with tax season. believe it or not, as poor as the equity influence has been, that still matters. so that's certainly working. the only problem with april sit's followed by may and you know what that is. may is traditionally a slower month and it's amazing how people sell in may, go away idea. it is a bit of a wive's tail but there is a bit to support that. i believe wall street will be fine but -- it wasn't great. the construction spending number is not good at all. you had fed officials out with slightly differing opinions on the future of monetary policy, right? >> also moving targets as to the first quarter growth number, which is pretty consequence chal, bill.

santelli is in chicago, bob pisani. what a way to spend at headquarter. 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 30

let's turn to bob pisani, our man on the floor of the nyse. qe 3, in or out, up or down? >> mr. bernanke is getting really good at this. they released their new forecast. unemployment estimates are down. they raised their inflation market. sounds like good news. the market sells off because that sounds like less qe 3. mr. bernanke comes on and says very clearly, the fed remains prepared to do more to help the economy. that's the buzz word for qe 3. so it's very much on the table and stocks move up. so which is it? well, it depends on which mr. bernanke you're actually talking to. >> it's really interesting when you look at this market. we've had a fantastic first quarter. we're looking at multihighs once again. >> that's right. i find it remackable for all of this fear about the economy, we're 2% from multi-year highs. at the beginning of april, we were two weeks away from that. the dow is 1%. remember the nasdaq, that high goes back to ten years ago, maria, and we're only 3% away from that. so for all of this worry out there, the stock market, as john harwood has pointed out, i

bob pisani is at the new york stock exchange. bob, who do we blame for today's selloff? >> you can't blame europe. 60% europe, 40% spain. when i say ism services, that's when this came out and we just kept dropping here. this is an intraday chart of the s&p 500. notice how we've come off the lows late in the day. still obviously down. this is important, if we can come up just a little bit more here, the european markets key off of that in the morning. so even with the dow down 100 points if we ended up i think that it would be positive. mention the vix, it's popping up 17. that's the cash contract you're seeing here. important thing is don't pay so much attention to the cash contracts. look further out and see what's going on here. you can see how the circles are occurring here. 21 here just a little further ou. markets are higher, but let me tell you something, kelly, i think the numbers will come down. the probability is if you look out further out, you'll come down on the vix and they won't be going up so much. that's what we've been seeing recently. these numbers hav

bob pisani and rick are standing by. bob, let me get to you first of all. if i'm not wrong, there's a bit of a laughter going on around the trading desks here with regards to walmart. here's a company essentially that paid out, what, $23 million in bribes in mexico? lost about $15 billion in market value? >> that's right. it's a bit of a chuckle. it is obviously not a funny matter. it's incredible for their accusation to lose $15 billion. they're below $200 billion now. that's absolutely right. down about 7% in the last couple days. there's walmart down another 2% today. that's a big issue. here's the other thing people are talking about. housing numbers. now we have the three big housing statistics and sequentially from march to february, they're down. that's a little bit of a concern. people are clearly taking business away from the earlier part of the year when the numbers were a little bit better in february. i think the housing numbers are a little bit of an issue today even though the publicly traded builders are up. mandy, i'm telling you, they're ca

bob pisani has the top three excuses. bob? >> earnings growth is slowing down. that's good and bad news. already you can see people trying to justify what's going on. the fact that we're only going to grow 1% in earnings this year. the top three shows up are number one, what's going on in europe. that makes an awful lot of sense. the other is the recent strength in the dollar. the third is higher energy and commodity costs. all three will come together this afternoon when alcoa reports. a global company deals with higher energy costs, dealing with the stronger dollar and tealing with the weaker europe. >> they blamed europe the last quarter, too. >> that's right. they're going to be blaming it for the next couple of quarters. that's a good point, kayla. i think the main reason we're seeing earnings slowing down, though, is because good evens, we've had three years of absolutely -- historically great numbers here. let's put up here. 2008 was a disaster. look at this earnings growth. double digit for the last three years. we're going to be 6% in 2012. now here in

let's check in with bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. jonathan corpina. you said you didn't want to yell at the stock market a bit earlier today. but you got to admit, it's a pretty sizable and broad-based rally if you look at, you know, the russell. if you look at the transports. if you look at some of the supporting indices. it seems to have legs. >> it does. i was very unhappy with the housing numbers this morning, the starts numbers, jon. i thought they were really below expectations. we're supposed to be getting better housing numbers. but we did get spain with a successful short term auction setting up for the bigger one later in the week. the finance minister of germany came out late in the morning and said spain doesn't need a bailout. we moved audiota ed up a little that. european markets ended up highs for the morning. then apple up above $600 12:00 or so. markets lifted to the upside. >> i think the news coming out of europe today definitely eased some concerns on investors. we still have been trying to figure out exactly the total implication

bob pisani, steve weiss, is it safe to stay in the water, bob, we go back to your view. >> things are different this time, tyler. believe me, they're looking at things differently. if the broad hits the fan, you can bet mr. draghi is going to initiate another round of ltro. if they don't get any structural reforms, but i bet they do, i think things will be a little more calm this summer. >> here's the deal. to bob's point we won't have the crisis we had last year. however, i think it will be tough. i'll add china to that mix. china's slowing and slowing more than people think is going to keep pressure on the markets during the summer. >> i agree with that, steve. let me add two other points why we might not have the big crisis this summer. number two, qe-3 is definitely back on the table. we saw that this morning. disappointing gdp numbers and gold goes up $10 immediately. good heavens, the markets up on a day they shouldn't be. and real estate's back in a big way. >> i agree with you. ivy snyder on "fast money" she changed her target up 1% in prices versus down 1%. the other interest

at&t. ♪ >>> bob pisani here. coming up on "closing bell," u.s.ay be nearing a merger. we'll take a look at which carriers could be the big winners or losers if the deal takes off. plus, does netflix need to change its business model? or is the company better off with a change of leadership? and after nearly 3% decline since monday, should investors buy apple shares ahead of its earnings next week? that's all ahead at the top of this hour. first more "street signs" with carl doing double duty once again, carl. >> thanks a lot, bob. beyond big tubs of mayonnaise and monster size packages of toilet paper, did you know costco sells 100,000 fresh roasted chickens a day. they've figured out how to get you to buy them and a whole lot more. no wonder costco shoppers spend more than they planned. there are no signs or directory. costco wants shoppers to wander and stumble across items they weren't expecting. >> i do try to go down every aisle just in case. >> that sense of discovery and low prices are what draw customers like this new york marketing execu

in fact, let us bring in bob pisani. bob, this has to be a big loss for the new york stock exchange. 800 million users, expected valuation around $100 million. not to mention all the media attention that's going to go with this facebook listing. what do you think the reaction should be? will be, from the new york stock exchange? >> they have no comment. i've already contacted them. that's officially where they're at right now. i agree with kayla's point about this. in terms of like whether you're here ringing the opening bell or there ringing the opening bell, i don't think that was that important to them. i also don't think the concept of listing fees are necessarily going to be that important. whether you spend x amount here or x amount at the nasdaq. that's not what's going to matter. what mattered to a company like this is the kind of relationships that you have. the corporate partnerships that matter. and for whatever reason and we'd like to know the details of the deals that were offered by the nasdaq as well as th

bob pisani. taking a look at google. down 2%. starting to chew over the results that have been mixed. the top and bottom line looked fine. there are some concerns. this whole notion perhaps it can use a c class of shares for acquisitions which is exactly -- for a company that funds things like solar plants, you know that solar ipo. >> that was awful. >> google was an investor in bright source. >> we remember, let's keep in mind what's the cost of keeping motorola a viable entity. that probably wasn't discussed in the call either. >> facebook, no one asked anything. apple. motorola -- shouldn't that be fair game to talk about? >> you would think so. you want to understand what the plan is there. listen, cheap stock. >> 11 1/2 times earnings. >> enormous amounts of cash. and it's key business volume still keep going up. so all good but -- >> cap x down. costs in line or better. big question is about apple, facebook and search and what they are going to do and mobile and how it is going impact this

we have bob pisani at the nyse and jon fortt back at hq in new jersey. look at the earnings, look at what we had yesterday. on the surface it looked like we would have a down day today. >> we should have had a down day. 45 companies reported today 18 miss, 40% of the companies reporting miss. that's unheard of it. we've been doing 80% have been beating expectations. 20% less than that have been missing. this was a very strange day. we had mr. bernanke out assuring the world that he would act if things fell apart. that's the primary reason that we're moving up and then some people complain about the housing. march sales were better than expected overall. this is the kind of day, put up the s&p futures. 1390 at 1:30 and all of a sudden that was a new high for the day and all of a sudden, boom, there is 1:30 when we moved up from new highs. >> i think we've got to point out again decoupling from europe. we did not have a very good europe close. so this was a big u.s. quantitative easing induced rally? >> yes. that's the main package. speaking of the dow, di

let's get right to bob pisani at the nyse. you know, bob, considering before the opening it wasn't looking so crash hot there for the market. why are we up today? is it earnings? is it economic data? or should we be saying thank you ben? >> you should say thank you ben. i mean, look, the earnings -- this is the first day i have been rather shocked by the earnings numbers. we had some high profile disappointments. initial jobless claims disappointing, the euro weak going into the open. these are the residuals from mr. bernanke assuring the market if things go wrong, he'll be involved. the commodity earnings, the paper company, they came out and talked about lower global prices, dow chemical said the same thing. potash, lowered demand for fertilizers. coal and iron ore producer, cliff natural lower demand as well in asia pacific, look at the nurmbers. rather surprising. mandy, a rise in brent crude today. that's not good for the economy. it's putting pressure on the transports. look at this it started going up for the first time

bob pisani.o is talking the latest in mmf globa saga with a guest. >> associate with the commodity coalition that is trying to get money back for many thousands of investors regarding mf. welcome, james. i'm going to give a quick set up and it's all yours. it's very difficult for prove intent to fraud. you do believe that there is fraud and criminal intent that will be a case you're going to bring against mf and it's all about those wires. fill me in on your case and how excited or optimistic you are that you're going to be able to win. >> we're very optimistic, rick. let me tell you. you say it's difficult to prove fraud. obviously the person that joe biden describes as the smartest guy i know isn't going to write an e-mail that says steal the customer money. but what we do have here is a situation where on october 27th, the chicago mercantile exchange, regulator for mf global said that mf global is not allowed to make external transfers without our approval. the very next day mf global produces

>> geez. >> thank you so much, bob pisani, we'll keep a close eye on that.soft up more than 4%. the best performing dow component. a 32.30. >> remember the days when that used to happen. intel is probably cheap off of this. let me just say that. i disagree. midstates. >> not so much larger ipo. you're talking there it is. $200 million in sales last year. and going back in with modern technology and saying, hey -- >> that's why we have technology. nobody wants to talk about it again. the president, romney's involved with -- he's not even natural gas there is still a disconnect, david, if that company had been private and then public three months ago, it would be a 10, not 13. >>> we'll keep an eye on that. the ceo of infoblox when we come back. >>> supporters of infoblox and the ceo is joining us here. >> this guy is 24. isn't that how you estimate money? >> no, i've just been on the run for two weeks. >> there you go. >> you definitely brought some back up. >> we did. >> i've never interviewed 50 people at one time. you said be nice to you or we're in big tr

bob pisani will join me in just a bit. thanks to solid earnings due to general electric whether the stock is cheap. >> and here's how we look at the dow jones well off the highs. and we came not just down on apple, the s&p did end the day and week in positive territory. >> let's talk about the highlights of the week. you're in the anchor chair today because bill is off. you watch the markets. i'm going to disagree with you. i want to blame it all on apple. >> it's more wobbly on apple. i can tell you the minute apple started trading over 30 million shares, that was six or seven trading sessions. trading 22, 2 4r4. earnings have been strong. retail sales were good. the ipo action was good. i see positives out there. i'm not worried apple. the housing starts were a disappointment and i know everybody wants to blame bank of america, but there's not a lot of loan growth that is out there. there are separate issues that concern me a little bit. i'm worried about the fact that we have a couple weeks of very choppy economic stori

in the "closing bell" exchange, bob pisani, steve liesman -- >> look at simon's face. >> and we're going to start with simon. a took a frenchman at the ecb to begin this rally when he suggested the obvious, the ecb could buy bonds. >> was it obvious? the last time marrow was up at the ecb news conference, he was suggesting that the recent fallout that we had on spanish yields had more to do with what the politicians were doing and benoit said the politicians were doing the right thing and the market wasn't really understanding that. in other words, there was a market inefficiency. the sort of inefficiency for which the ecb may have to blow through and buy spanish bonds again. that was enough for people to feel -- look, we don't have to wait. spanish growth or spanish austerity, there is in addition to whatever firewall we could put up there, there is always the prospect that the ecb could buy bonds. they were up there yesterday and, guys, as you know, they came back down and quite a solid rally on the european banks today although to a certain extent they did sell into that. >> and that

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. apple has gon from 605578 to 609.accenturs is strong. ibm after the bell, we're expected to hear similar things from them. up 12% over the year. guys, back to you. >> we're all in the interest of accountability. back in november, neil hen see was here on "closing bell" at the new york stock exchange and picked three stocks at that time. >> uh-oh. >> he's nervous. >> but he shouldn't be. they were ross stores, dominos, and family dollars. since then, ross is up nearly 40%. so exhale, neil. domino's is up 12% and family dollar is up more than 11%. good call. >> what is he going to do now? >> he's joining us. so is kate moore, senior global strategist. congratulations on a great call on the retailers, neil. >> well, thank you. >> what do you do now when you have such a strong move here and do you believe this rally today? >> well, i believe the rally today. we've been saying it's a good rally because corporations are taking a tremendous amount of money and have been since 2008, '09, '10, '11. it's just that the market is

gary kominski and bob pisani and rick santelli. first let me get your take on the reaction from the markets, rick. >> well, you know, there were two reactions on the statement and i think the reaction of higher rates on the action is apparent. there's no mention of any more extension of the twister qe and another bit of a selloff when the original forecasts were released because of his horizon for the unemployment rate falling below 8%. rates are where they were four or five hours ago. >> he said that labor market conditions and unemployment rate has declined but remains elevated and i think that's probably the crux of the issue. we're seeing a recovery but it's not necessarily fast and not -- or certainly not strong enough as people would like to see right now. >> yeah. and the problem that i have with the stock market is that it was evidence of the silly addiction that the quantitative easing has. we have the forecast out. they raised the growth estimate and unemployment estimates and in general this is signs of somewhat improvin

bob pisani is on the floor of the nyse. even though we ended off the best levels, i like the placement of money, technology, retail, giving us real specific trends of why people are going into certain sectors. >> yeah, amazon drew up the retail to new highs. we also have real estate coming back. that was the other big trend. real estate investment trusts, home building trust hit new highs. that's why the consumer discretionary group was so strong. earnings were good this week. remember, the start of the week we were probably up 4% on earnings. now we're up 6.5% for this quarter and a couple weeks ago everybody was complaining we're only going to be up 1%. slowly but surely it's getting better. there's the number as we saw it today and two weeks ago. the important thing is we have 60% of the season done so far. now we're going to hear in the next couple of weeks from retailers and they have an april ending quarter. >> that's a good one. >> now we're going to hear whether trends in april hold up. >> and do the moves equate to

bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange.line a beat, but a very top line beat and that's what is moving the stock to the upside. that's going to be a big help to tech stocks. general electric, mcdonald's, schlumberger. buildings all over the world, great overview of the industrial state of the world. guys, back to you. >> thank you, bob. taking a look at today's business headlines, egan jones firing back at the s.e.c., the security and exchange commission, wondering whether to file charges for making misstatements with the application of the s.e.c. about an hour ago, egan told us that the application submitted to regulators was accurate. egan also said that the depth of the financial crisis not everyone was on the firm's side. >> i'm sure we've maidde enemie but our clients have benefited. in connection with gm, there are a couple of wackos that called in and threatened me with bodily harm. and in connection with our other recent ratings, we don't care. we get to the truth. we may be wrong. normally we are not wrong as you c

let's get to bob pisani. we saw self-programs at the end of the day. but the market finished out quite strong, bob? >> that's right. the dow is 50 points away from new four-year highs. we had interesting things happen. mr. bernanke, the follow-through from mr. bernanke comments that he was standing by ready to help so the economy fall down a little further. i think that's a factor in the market. and we have the pending home sales. better numbers from ryland and some of the other groups like pultegroup. and the dow industrials near new highs. very strange to get a divergence like that. ups was very disappointing. that put pressure on the tran transports. we had surprising weak numbers, for example, dow chemical had weak revenue numbers and potash and a paper company had disappointing numbers. we haven't had a down day on the earnings like we've seen today. 40% of the companies missed their numbers. one company i'm waiting for after the bell is talbman. maria? >> bob, thank you so much. we're waiting on amazon as the company is ready to report first quart

we'll kick off with bob pisani at the nyse. bob. >> hello, simon. you're right. it was definitely about europe. we saw this today because the minute that europe ended at 11:30 or europe closed at 11:30 and here we are on the s&p on an intraday basis, you can see we start immediately coming off our lows. it's still a down day, but not nearly as bad as it was about an hour and a half ago. as far as whether this whole decoupling issue is real or not, it's not been a good week for us or for europe. but i want to point out that not every stock market is moving in tandem. for example, we're down about 1.5% for the week on the s&p 500, but european stocks, well, germany almost down 3%. italy down 5%. and look at china. china was up 2.3%. and australia, a big commodity producer, was flat. so the world is not moving exactly in tandem whether or not decoupling is real or not. elsewhere it's just been an ugly day again for some of the big commodity companies, big energy companies. coal stocks, can this get any worse for coal companies? i mean look at this. they keep droppin

bob pisani joins us from the nyse. bob. >> this is one of those days where it doesn't feel like the dow is up 90 points. we're about even on the advance-decline line and it doesn't feel that way. feels like a down day in a way. that's because people are worried about nonconfirmations today about apple and google not helping the nasdaq. but these worries started way back in february. the transports failed to confirm the industrials advance. that was the first sign people were a little bit concerned. and of course remember the -- we had gasoline prices really high. and in april the russell 2000 didn't confirm the s&p as it was advancing. more worries. and now today more worries because the nasdaq for the first time this year isn't really advancing with the rest of the market. and that's because apple and google are on the weak side. so take a look at the major sectors today. you can see nasdaq underperforming the overall market. the s&p is kind of weak. and, remember, google and apple very important components there. ther

bob pisani joins us.tching the real estate investment trusts at this point because you said there's been a change in leadership. and they're it. >> it is. they're the new leadership group. the fed's had a low interest rate policy for years. and the real estate investment trust community is the big beneficiary. they're able to borrow rates and refinance at exceptionally low numbers. reits at a four-year high. also improvement in the fundamentals, guys. look at the chart here. we're seeing apartment building, terrific rents are through the roof. the business there is outstanding. we're also seeing high quality malls recovering as well. that's also helping the real estate business. you've also seen business travel strong. so the hotel business is doing exceptionally well. suburban office buildings, so-so. overall we're seeing real improvement in the real estate business. how about the laggards? sue, we have a new laggard. all the big name financial groups. all the big names, morgan stanley, jpmorgan, citi, s

bob pisani has more on the latest on wall street. so we started out weak and then at the end of the day had a pretty good bid. what happened in that last 30 minutes? >> well, europe -- have you noticed when europe closes, we get better. we hit our lows around 9:30, 10:00. some days you wish europe would stay closed all day. the minute europe closed, we started to get better. five to one declining in advanced stock. it got better as the day wore on. >> why was europe in the spotlight once again? i realized that we had a weak bond auction in spain but this is not new information in terms of what is going on in the euro zone. >> well, there is indication that spain is going to have a tougher time and there is concerns about portugal in particular might need a second bailout. so the yields are starting to rise and the bond auctions have started to have higher yields. so it is an issue. we are decoupling from europe. i'll show yope has done in the last month versus what the united states has done. the index is down much, much more than th

bob pisani is our eye on the floor of the new york stock he can change. >> and we revved up and stayed up thanks to help from europe. >> we just got the earnings from intel. it's going to be one of those jerky hours as they come out whenever they do. you can see the bottom line number looks to have beaten the estimate. came in at 56 cents when the estimate was 50 cents for intel. i haven't heard a revenue number but they were expecting about $12.84 billion, which would be a little lower than it was last year at this time. but right now so far it looks like intel is in with a beat. we have jon fortt standing by? all right. so this is a number we're going to keep watching very carefully here. i don't know if they have a hold on the shares of intel because they don't seem -- there it is. it is moving lower. it's still trading even as those numbers are released. we'll be talking to stacy smith about that to see what kind of pc sales growth they have. here's jon fortt with some of the other numbers that they have. what have you got? >> guidance is a little better than the street had expecte

now let's get to bob pisani where he's looking at the markets. bob, what are you watching today? >> kayla, thanks very much. three to one advancing to declining stocks. we've held the lead all throughout the morning here. volume has been heavy on an expiration day we're having. all the major indexes and sectors are to the upside. few better than the others. lousy week for home data. existing homes disappointing. home builders all up today. positive comments on dr horton going to get earnings soon. i'm not expecting too much here. remember, these stocks have pulled back because the data has pulled back. they're all to the upside today. financials are up as a sector. but if you look at the big names today, this is the one little group that's kind of to the downside. bank of america no traction at all from decent earnings report, not great. morgan stanley, citi, regions financial, key corp. all to the downside. it's a lit notable here on a day when most stocks are up three to one here. as for how we've done on the week? i know nobody likes the idea of decoupling, but the fact is the

bob pisani joins us from the nyse as always. bob, what are you watching? >> i'm not very happy with the home sales either. the trend is not the direction i want it to go in. however, there is one segment of the home market that i am very happy with and that's the d.i.y. the do it yourself market. we had u.s. gyp some come out. great numbers out of these guys. earnings and revenues well above expectations. wallboard volumes were strong up 17% from quarter over quarter. pricing up 16%. and the pricing is sticking. so they're getting volume and pricing. it doesn't get any better than that in the buildings industry. and by the way f you're wondering where this is coming, it's the repair and remodeling. that's what's driving the sales. not the sales to the home builders. that's an important point. here's the building material companies. you can see not a lot of energy here. usg is basically flat to down all throughout the day. the other big names in that space also basically flat on the day. still not good numbers, but not enough really to get everybody excited

let's head now to bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. bob. >> hello, tyler. look at this, we're holding our gains near the highs of the day. why is everybody so confident again all of a sudden after being so rocky yesterday? alcoa was marginally a help. but i only think marginally. comments by the ecb official they might be buying spanish bonds if they need to in the future. that helped. but regardless, look at this. 1.5%, 1. 75% in all industrials here. financial stocks, all to the upside. i want to put up the crude oil to nat gas chart that brian just put up because i want you to note here the ratio. look at this. 102 to 2. again, oil up, crude -- oil up, nat gas down thr, this is a ratf 51-to-1. has anyone ever seen 51 to one ratio? i don't think there has been. i think this is some kind of record. it's a sign things are really out of whack in this business. the obviously is why don't we short oil and go long natural gas? you think you could do that. there is a way to do that. there are several etfs out there. proshares ultrashort oil, any time you see whe

start with bob, bob pisani, what are you watching right now? >> china and the u.s. look, it's very simple. what side of global growth are you on? china 8%, above % or below 8%. china bank lending 14-month high, deposits are increasing. maybe we'll get a better than expected gdp number in china. it's going to be out overnight. estimate is 8.3%. a lot of chinese companies up. real estate, metal companies, coal companies lousy performers recently. up 4%, 5%, 6% today. this has everybody excited in all our material groups and ours are up as well. trade deficit more narrowing and that's helping our gdp estimates as well. >> quickly, bob, i got to ask you because a couple hours ago you had all these rumors going around about maybe a leak in china gdp and maybe it would be stronger. others came out and said total bunk and misinterpreted comments out of a chinese newspaper. what do we know about the china rumors driving things earlier? >> what we know is ultimately the branch of the chinese government that makes these statistics is answerable to the chinese authorities. and