the cftc suing nymex. what's this all about?> well, i'm not able to speak specifically on an enforcement matter, but we take very seriously at the cftc our obligations and of course market obligations to keep information appropriately confidential. and i think i'll leave it there on that suit. >> you can't go more on individual cases, i totally understand. good to have you on the program. thanks so much. >> terrific to be with you, maria. >> chairman gary gensler joining us. embattled j.c. penney ceo in court today. the struggling retailer warring with macy's over legal rights to sell martha stewart products. courtney reagan has been covering it for cnbc. >> well, j.c. penney ceo had to put disastrous earnings behind him in order to take the stand today in the case where macy's is suing j.c. penney and marth stewart living. when johnson arrived today, he was in a good mood, telling us, he was wearing a j.c. penney tie and shirt from stafford. our producer caught up with johnson to ask about the trial and those earnings, no comme

the cftc on the case. we have details of the investigation and what it means to you.at to have you on the show. thanks so much for coming on. explain the wash trades. what are they? why are they eel lisle? >> well, you explained it well, gerri. it's actually when you offer to buy and you sell at the same time. you just cancel each other out. you are not taking risks in the markets, and it creates a false volume, and there's all sorts of fancy terms for what it could do, butignition momentum is one that can sort of trigger a feeding frenzy, and it's something we are reviewing and looking at, and it could be hurting small traders. what we have found, gerri, through a study we did and talked about a little bit in december is that every time a retail customer, a smaller guy trades with one of the high frequency cheetah traders, that's what i call them, every time it happens, the high frequency chee that trader makes $3.50 on the little guy. that's concerning about the caps. gerri: how many make money on this? why does it give them such an advantage? >> well, what they try

what we've seen some big funds do according to the cftc is go net long, the dollar.e constructive on the dollar. less constructive when it comes to commodities. with george at rbc says at these prices with the possibility that perhaps with those negative pmi numbers we saw last week we might see stimulus from china notwithstanding tightening when it comes to real estate. some may want it stay with gold and not continue selling here. copper rebounding today despite concerns, sue, that we may not see any more demand coming out of china because of the real estate curves. >> bertha, thanks so much. appreciate it. to the action on the floor of the nyse, unchanged according to the level. bob pisani is here. >> sounds like holiday trading. 40-point range. got down at the open. haven't done much since then. we are near highs for the day, believe it or not. doesn't seem that way. wh what the big losers are, pretty simple. largely commodity names. that's because we have a scare. i'm calling it a growth scare out of china and can you see that today and the dow loses. look at st

down 16% when it came to net long positions last week, according to the cftc.et reallocation in these days. and one of the things that funds are doing is going net long the dollar, for the first time since november 27th, according to regulators. gold, however, today is getting a little bit of a breather. and looking a little bit higher. we're a little bit higher across the metals complex. it defies the speculation when it comes to real estate today. copper still a little bit firm, but metals have really been taking it on the chin over the past few weeks, david. very interesting, especially when you look at that piece last night on "60 minutes" that saw the entire cities empty. where people have bought up condos, but nobody lives there. >> yeah. at least not yet. you never know. things can move fast in china. bertha coombs, thank you very much. >>> i want to hit on hess. the stock is up, the oil company under fire, of course, as viewers know, from hedge fund elliott associates, selling about 4% of its shares and nominated five directors. the meeting will be held

before joining the cftc, jeff was a trial attorney at the u.s. department of justice where he defended the u.s. litigation in putting to seeking to hold the government liable for losses resulting from hurricane katrina as well as the bernie madoff ponzi scheme. he was an associate at washington, d.c. and clerked for the honorable james lawrence king in the southern district of florida. after jeff, lashon johnson is going to discuss consumer protection issues surrounding all pay lenders. i would like to point out that there is no national news recap for the pay loans. so what lashawn is going to be talking about isn't an issue a lot of states are concerned about regarding the user caps but instead some of the federal protection issues focusing on how the balloons are marketed, whether the terms and conditions of the loans or one of the loans will automatically rolled over or being disclose to consumers more interested in taking out a pay loan. lashawn johnson is entering with the federal trade commission and the division of financial practices. sh

, unregulated london subsidiary almost brought down our entire economy and he uses that, maybe the cftc should regulate activity in london as well as new york. this book is very effective at challenging the narrative and he is right to point out we need to challenge that narrative to make changes to dodd-frank. and to prevent the further acquisition of power by regulators who have gotten a fair amount of power in dodd-frank. he is willing to take on issues no one else is willing to take on. that the fdic became the entity that will be in charge of the orderly liquidation authority. why is it that the fed which has no authority, no experience in regulating insurance or hedge funds can suddenly become an insurance or hedge fund regulator? he asks the hard questions. i do have a few questions after reading the book that remain open. one of those is could the orderly liquidation the force for good if used properly for the first time? to pick a name out of the hat, citibank has problems. would regulators perhaps use the orderly liquidation authority to wind down city and sent a message to a

for example, we have -- as one specific example commissioner weegan of the cftc, there's a rule out about more transparency to the over-the-counter derivatives market, so a swap execution facility and there's debate at ftc, how many prices do you need to ask for? you think about internet shopping, the more prices you get, the cheaper the deal. if you just call a store you get a pretty bad surprise. used to be they would have five prices and now it's going down to two because of commissioner weejen. you hear him parroting the lines the banks use. >> this gets to the line, deepak, the problem is the battles are happening at such high levels of technical complexity and so far outside of the spotlight of media attention that there is this built-in assem tri, right, to who is lobbying. we have an amazing graphic that shows this in spatial terms. as someone that organizes people, works with community groups i want to hear how you can address that. [ female announcer ] switch to swiffer sweeper, and you'll dump your old broom. but don't worry, he'll find someone else. ♪ who's that lady? ♪ who's

this one in subsidiary almost brought down our entire economy and uses that to argue that maybe the cftcshould be regulating activity among them as well as the committee in new york. peter has been very good. it's very effective at challenging the narrative. his right to point out we need to challenge the narrative in order to make changes to dodd-frank and to prevent the further acquisition of power by regulators who have already gotten a fair amount of power in dodd-frank. he's willing to take on what no one else is going to take on why is it the fdic became the entity in charge of the orderly liquidation authority. why is that the fed, which has no authority or experience in regulating insurance for hedge funds can suddenly become an insurance or hedge fund regulator? he asks the hard question. i do have a few questions after reading the book still remain open. one of those is good the orderly liquidation be a force for good stories properly for the first time? the citibank has problem. could regulators use the authority to send a message to the market that there will be consequences

cftc and sec are working on derivative issues. so there's a lot of work going on. our monetary policy, we exchange ideas and discuss the economy quite frequent see -- quite quickly in different cities but we don't courteney in the sense that we agreed as a general matter to take actions together or in some sequence. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my time is limited to just want to make a comment. he may not have time to respond to a. i did notice in your testimony that you noted that all taxing and spending stations that congress makes, comment on what we do, but they are not equal. you know, so for example, you know, lowering taxes on the wealthy does not necessary have the same impact on our economy as given unemployment benefits to the unemployed, yes or no? >> different taxes and give it spending and different implications. >> the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from minnesota, ms. bachmann, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, chairman bernanke for being here today. i was reading your testimony, and thank you for giving you. and especi

. >> fcc, cftc, attorneys general, fbi and their legal bill must be incredible.allegation which has been heard from time to time that they had an ability to know. >> or suspect. >> yeah. to me, i don't know. everybody knew, so to speak when they did their models. i think there are a lot of firms that were asked by clients that said can you hedge made up for me and that is the j.p. morgan case which s like, no we can't. >> sure. >> we can't because we can't produce that how he's doing it owe we can't hedge it. is that a case? well, i'm not a u.s. attorney and i know that j.p. morgan is an easy defendant right now. let's call them that. they're a pitiful, helpless giant, a la nixon. jamie will come out and do plain speaking. >> as he has. >> everybody will like him again and it does seem to be coming back. >> when we come back, the s&p looking to take another stab at history as it has several times. will the broader index finally get past its all-time closing high. the opening bell in four minutes. >> and you're watching "squawk on the street." we are live from the

regulators are examining gold price necessary london and the cftc is trying to determine if the prices are being manipulated. no formal investigation has been opened, but among the issues being discussed is whether the setting of both gold and silver prices is transparent. when they say things like that, guys, i think that's back to libor, eurobor. probably all in question this morning. >> is this a joke? >> i don't think it's a joke. the whole london fixing, it was one of those similar thing. we're taking your word for it. >> and the what regulators have said since this, in europe and here, has been we're not going to take your word. your word is no longer the gold standard. >> that being said, you can sell gold anywhere in the world. to me, it's a little bit manipulatable over the long-term than, say, libor is, which is a number. >> you can understand why they're skeptical. >> sure. >>> let's get to our national forecast this morning from the weather channel's reynolds wolf. >> aloha. good looking morning in the northeast. >> aloha. i like that. >> it's just mixing it up a little bit

net long positions in nymex crude futures and options, they rose 3.2% according to the latest cftc commitmentongs that we've seen in five weeks. switching gears to metals. pushing gold down but gold now back above $1600 an ounce. we could see volatility in gold because of that onyxes expiration today. traders are telling me they are not surprised to see the safe haven rotation out of the safe haven trade into the riskier commodities. carl, back over to you. >> thank you for that. >>> why cyprus' loss could be other country's gain according to rich russians. but first, i think we might go to rick santelli. rick? >> thanks, carl. my guest, right after the cyprus story hit a week ago friday i remember burching into you and you basically said, you know, think about sabers in this country, what's the different outside of vocabulary. can you expand upon that and the topic today with ben berbernank what can economists and policymakers learn? weigh in on all of that? >> the interesting thing is cyprus is talk b about hurting sabers. we had the situation that they've been taxing the savers with incred

i want to ask about the cftc.hy are they not doing something about the speculation in commodities prices? why is senator ins winsworth st? i understand that this crisis is $10 trillion. but george bush did not make a great fuss over it, he just gave us a tax break and smoothed things over. i hope the republicans do the right thing, take care of the people. i don't want anything to from the government. i have been working all my life and so has my entire family. i hope that you guys stick to your guns, no matter what the cost. and please bring us back from the brink of disaster. set up the chained cpi did the president wants. and will you explain that a little. thank you. guest: the consumer price index is based on several different things. the cpi is basically made up of something that a lot of people don't use. if you look at the consumer price index and the cost of living and stuff. i want to go back to one of the things that you were talking about, the 401k's and the savings. that's the things that really need

we want to welcome back cftc commissioner bart chilton.-hairs. this time he's blowing the whistle on what he calls wash sales. here to explain it is bart chilton. bart, as we understand, you're still not enforcing the futures limits on the fed in terms of bond buying. >> as they say, i'm going to drop everything and do that for you right away, joe. >> they're at 70%. we're worried about 10% in the rap seed market. what's this latest thing with wash sales? >> well, these wash sales, joe, people know they're illegal. they're not allowed. it is when somebody trades with themselves. we discovered they are going on at this large, voluminous level. really to me a shocking level. and they're impacting what people see as volume. so this is an area we're going to review to ensure that markets are operating efficiently and effectively. who knows what sort of impact they're having. and it raises a host of policy questions we have out there. because this stuff just shouldn't be allowed. >> where would it cause the most harm if it was happening? >> wel

we're also watching what's happening in terms of what the cftc is going in terms of net losses with the tract and i've slipped to the lowest level since the beginning of the year and that could be another factor why we're looking at weakness in the wti oil market. >> and you've been talking about natural gas that continues in this session and we're look at natural gas prices that gained 30 cents in the last week and that has a lot of what we're doing with the cold weather forecast that we got last week, brian. keep in mind, as well that we've seen the net short positions flip sense the first week and that's a big change. thank you. >> sharon epperson. coming up on "squawk on the street" are more consumers looking to trade in their iphones now that the samsung galaxy s4 has been unveiled. we'll speak to someone in the business of consumer electronics trade-in and we head to break this morning. bright spot. look at jc penney and melissa lee pointed this out to us. what's going on with jcp? >> somebody get herb greenberg on the phone. >> if jc penney converted to reitlike units it could go

according to the latest cftc data hedge funds cutting their bets on commodity rally to a four-year lows that they're watching from in everything, from coffee to natural gas. but speculators reducing their net long positions and that's really important here. in 18 futures and options by 9%. and, in fact, that's the lower that we've seen since march of 2009. taking a quick check on energy prices seeing wti oil creeping down. i do want to point out gold is holding steady slightly higher above the flat line this morning. >> thanks so much. >>> market fighting to keep the winning streak going. next guest say it's to be expected but does remain constructive. he oversees $425 billion. welcome back. >> thank you. >> i want to pin you down on this near-term downside risk. i mean, it is in the near term. but how much risk would you say there is, not too far out? >> look, it always difficult to say the market has had a strong run. we have had extraordinarily low levels of volatility. so simply would not take a great deal in terms of incremental data to drive a downside. and that's not unusual. ho