no better guy to talk about this than charlie gasparino. charlie, what is the latest? >> our long national nightmare is coming to an end. not really. he has notified the board of directors of bank of america that he will step down by the end of the year. sources tell cnbc this was his decision, they're telling me, not the board preb, not regulatory pressure but he thought take one for the team, so to speak. he's come under a lot of pressure stuff, all the bonus stuff, the cuomo investigation. but ken lewis is out. that will be by the end of the year. and what they're telling me inside b of a, and we are speculate about this all day long, is that it's his decision, he wants to go, he wants to spare the company further turmoil, and he does have a succession team. we have five names we should put up there. these are the guys that are possibly -- do we have those names or do you want me to read them out in. >> why don't you go ahead and -- >> these are five or six names -- by the way, there's no successor named right now. i think that's going to be done in the next couple

gruebel. >> charlie gasparino. you tell them, charlie. >> you weren't going to get the story without an opinion from charlie. >> should we check on where we are trading. >> save me, simon. >> the volume picking up. 842 million shares traded so far on the session and i keep expecting it to come up. we're down 1.6 points down. >> a fractional move. 38 points lower on the dow. apple shares off a 52-week high. our next guest thinks the stock is going higher. it is at $185 and change, up 76% on the year. $$$$$$$$$$ >>> welcome back. the final stretch on wall street. 25 minutes before the closing bell sounds. technology is a laggard today. cisco up big yesterday, down 1.5% today. ibm under selling pressure. qualcomm, oil down as is chevron, weaker by about 1%. the highlights on the upside the financial services, citi, goldman sachs, j.p. morgan higher on the session and a handful of industrial names like boeing and lockheed martin. the dow down 33 points. nasdaq weaker, down .25%. on the nasdaq 2125. >> end of t

charlie gasparino, author of "the sellout." he joins us. plug in. >> i heard maria laugh. >> congratulations on the book, charlie. you know i'm going to be first in line buying the book. >> you are the first in line to get an autographed copy. >> what am i, chopped liver? >> i told you to go spend money on the book. >> not only do ladies come fist, but italian women come first. >> exactly. >> this is an interesting story, is he being treated fairly. the big question is he going to last? sources tell cnbc if it is purely a civil charge from andrew cuomo against ken lewis over failure to disclose bonuses they are going to fight it out, they say as of right now ken lewis is not resigning if it is a civil charge. however, if the s.e.c. charges, wall street's top cop, the securities and exchange commission although they haven't acted like that in the last ten or 15 years, if it is a charge by s.e.c., they are reopening their investigation. judge raykoff said it hurt shareholders and lewis may be in the renewed s.e.c. investigation, if he gets ch

the man who hayes made the most news in the last 24 hours, john packs sits down with charlie gasparino, along with bill and i, talking to him about his legacy, the future of morgan stanley. >>> eric leacher, he founded the m & a business, ran it, he is a titan for the m & a world. he'll relax to the interview as well. >>> and on the eve of michael jordan being inducted into the hall of fame, big auction coming up of basketball memorabilia. the first along, some lebron james stuff in there as well. those two guys are so famous in sports, even i know who they are. >> we look forward to the show. up next, maria bartiromo has firsthand accounts. >>> as we go to break, here's another live look at the 9/11 memorial service at ground zero in new york city. >>. >> michael morgan taylor. >> paul a.tetmire. >>> as we near the one-year anniversary. cnbc will air a special on sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern, reflexes on waite wall street. maria bartiromo sits down with self people to get their firsthand take on what happened and how far we've come back. maria joins us right now with more. it sounds l

our on-air editor charlie gasparino joins us now. charlie, it was getting a little depressing running through that long list there. >> you needed to take a breath halfway through. >> no kidding. let's talk about these two guys. one of them i recall, is it tannen and -- >> chaffey and tanner. lots of e-mail traffic that seems to suggest that, you know, they believed one thing they were trying to get people to stay in the hedge funds and subprime mortgages, subprime debt. while they really believed the subprime market was going south. it did go south. severely south. >> i'll say. >> but the point of this segment, and the column that i wrote today is this, if you look at the damage that ralph and matt did, you know, their hedge fund, even if you believe the worst, their lawyers have alternative splapgss, some of those e-mails would seem to suggest they say one thing and say something else, they're taken out of context. we'll find out about that in a couple of weeks when their trials begin. if you believe the worst of the case, the damag

charlie gasparino is standing at his side. take it away. >> i'm cognizant i'm sitting in striking distance, he's in striking distance of me as i ask these questions. you know, they made an interesting point. the stock is going up as you're leaving. explain that. >> i can't. maybe i should have left earlier. >> why now? i have heard there's been some tension with the board. you take issue with that. >> absolutely. there's no tension with the board. if anything, when i told the lead director that at 65 i wanted to step down over a year and a half ago, he used 2010 as i'm getting ready to turn 66, and i interrupted and said, no, bob, it's in '09. so we've talked about this for a long time, and why now? once you start that process and the board did their job, they hired a search firm, they looked outside the firm, inside the firm, and when it was clear that james gorman was the right person, there was no reason to wait. we had a board meeting in july in london. talked about it extensively there and said let's go for the summer bre

all right, charlie gasparino. was happy about that. >> your books, come on. >> we totally talked up his book so he should be happy about that. when it comes to citigroup -- >>, what he brings up actually a good point. i mean, pandit's fate is directly tied to the valuation of those assets on his balance sheet and the valuation of those of what used to be called toxiciassets, level three assets, have obviously strengthened. if they've strengthened pandit's going to be okay. if the market rolls back over and the valuation depreciates i think then pandit's going to be in trouble. >> okay. >> banks scare me here. i'm just telling you. wells fargo has trouble, 29 1/2 a bunch of times. it's a little spooky getting towards halloween, girlfriend. you know what happens there. >> boo! >> that was pretty scary, actually. all right, more "fast money." up next, one ipo, two retailers and a 19-pound newborn, few of the item coming up next on "pops & drops." ♪ yes, you're lovely... ♪ what do you think? hey, why don't we use our

our on-air editor, charlie gasparino, joins us now. what's going on. >> they were into two bear stearns hedge funds, they go to trial in a couple of weeks. here's the irony here. called my white collar crime sources up and said, listen. there's been a lot of talk, there were investigations whether merrill lynch disclosed proper investigations. whatever scharts, who said it was fine, he gave an interview with us just days before the place imploeded. whether citigroup, where executives were saying everything was fine. they were investigations into this. and by the way, the implosions of those firms is in the hundreds of billions of dollars in investor losses. those investigations from what i hear are either in limbo or these guys have moved on. that doesn't mean there will be be a slap on the wrist charges. clearly not prosecution -- a good chance they won't face sec charges. while we have what the prosec e prosecutors are going to say in a couple of weeks, they're going to be the culprits of the crisis. the guys that ran those hedge fun

let us goe right to charlie gasparino, author of "the sellout with the breaking details on ken lewis. ken lewis, seemed real much earlier, charlie. what's your take? >> you know, last week, larry, i reported that they were making prerations for his exit, if he should be charged in one of these probes into his, whether he failed for the bonuses. did he disclose the $4 billion in bonuses that would happen to go to merrill lynch. whether he disclosed that br before or after the shareholder vote. so, you know, we knew that, you know, this was kind of on the drawing board to a certain extent. and that basically what i was hearing from b of a at the time is if he gets charged by the attorney general that he wasn't going to resign. but if he got charged or could get charged by the sec, that he would probably have to resign. and the reason why is the se skr the lead regulator in the securities part of the business. here's the interesting thing. when we broke the story today on "fast money" what i reported was simply this. what b of a were telling me is that, he's not going because of any boar

that according to cnbc's charlie gasparino. that is cnbc.com "news now."st in business worldwide. "fast money" with melissa lee starts right now. >>> live from the nasdaq marketsite, this is "fast money." i'm melissa lee. stocks hitting new highs for 2009. these guys are ready to tell you where the fast money was playing today. also tonight, rick santelli gives his always loud, always provocative view of the fed. later on "options action" a stock that was lighting up traders' screens everywhere. should it be on your screen? but first let's get to the word on the street right now. and it seems right now that we have to follow the dollar in a sense because a lot of the market is dependent, about 18% of the market is dependent on the direction of the dollar. >> well, follow the dollar. follow essentially where risk compression has taken assets to, and people ray lot more comfortable now than they were coming into monday about what the fed's going to give us tomorrow, what the g-20's going to give us. they have no place to go in terms of pulling in stimulus. t

charlie gasparino is with us tonight. just finished writing his new book "the sellout." >> keep that on. don't put it back on me. just keep looking at that. just keep the book on. just keep it on there. >> there you go. >> thank you. your sque a good one, dennis. no, i do not think that there will be a new chapter. john mack's fate was sealed and, you know, the book talked about it. my book talks about this, essentially last year when the financial crisis occurred, you know, morgan stanley took a major hit, took a major loss during the financial crisis. the bailout was ben bernanke's, geithner's boss at the time, which was the new york fed president. morgan stanley would have been done if it wasn't for that bankruptcy and that bailout. i think in coming out of the crisis, i think morgan stanley was slower to come out of the crisis than some of the others, particularly goldman. it was the first two quarters in 2009. i think, you know, there's been some tension with john and the board over some of this stuff. that said, the

charlie gasparino is going to be our on-air editor when the "closing bell" returns. >>> welcome back to the "closing bell." new developments at ubs. we know bob mccann is up for the wealth management job but he might even be in the running for a bigger one. the man he might replace is robert wolf who runs the u.s. subsidiary of ubs. author, philanthropist, athlete, i won't even get into all the italian nicknames. charles gasparino jins us with another story that you broke here on cnbc. >> that music is totally appropriate for that book, i want you to know that. >> and you. >> and me, that's right. and bob wolf. and bob mccann. bob mccann, the former held of merrill lynch's broker department, there are talks right now of moving him not just as the head of the broker division of ubs, we actually first reported that. but also, possibly head of the entire u.s. subsidiary of ubs where he would run not just wealth management, but investment banking, and basically reporting to ozzy grubbel, the head of the big swiss investment firm, financial firm, and if he does that, from what i understan

joining me charlie gasparino to talk more about this. just hung up with morgan stanley and they do con firl this is part of an orderly succession plan, that this was an 18-month process, in fact, where john mack discussed his succession with the board 18 months ago and has said throughout that period, till today, that when it came to his 65th birthday, he wanted to step away from the ceo role. his 65th birthday is this november. do you have any other information on this? >> i actually broke this story a month ago, where i said point blank, john mack will be stepping down before the end of the year as ceo, remain as chairman. jim gorman who runs the brokerage division will eventually be the ceo. you remember when i broke that, it was right around the time of second quarter earnings, which were extremely disappointing. yes, they've thought about success for a long time. i really do think there's an issue here about the board being a little bit uneasy about the direction of the firm. the fact that they missed -- they lost money in the secon

charlie gasparino, author of the new book "the sellout," available in stores now. >> blast off!han "burn baby burn disco inferno." >> we used that for david's book. >> yeah, he's up for everything. there is a chance -- i'm not saying it will happen but there is a good chance he'll ge the whole thing, the whole ubs title and replace this guy. replacing this guy, robert wolf. interesting guy. big obama fund-raiser. under investigation in the cuomo auction rigged securities probe. from what i understand cleared. running -- there is his bio. from what i understand, mccann is a possible replacement for wolf if he does join. that's all wrapped up in this whole b of a thing. remember b of a bought merrill? b of a is essentially trying to prevent bob from working anywhereas part of some severance agreement. he was in court last week. he's been given an offer from ubs, from what i understand right now. what they're talking about internally is giving mccann the entire u.s. americas. that's a big thing for mccann. it would theoretically put him in place to run the whole investment bank whi

. >> charlie gasparino will join us with some insight. to know, want to start with jimmy cane and his alleged pot smoking. >> you go right for the jugular vein. >> you wrote that into the intro. come on. >> because i knew you'd like it. >> why is that? >> it was kind of interesting. remember when that story came out in "the wall street journal" in 2007 we were on squawk box playing around. >> you were standing there. >> i was imitating. what jimmy cayne is saying now, one of the reasons he smoked pot was because he has a pre-existing medical condition. that is no joke. he's telling people that he had some sort of a condition where the pot smoking alleviates the conditions. that's what he's saying. i haven't -- >> you saw the entire audience collectively roll their eyes. >> it's kind of a change from what he said in the past. but exactly what that condition is will be in my book. >> stress, stress. >> a tease, no the a segment. what about dick fuld? he was confronted by reuters reporter over the weekend at his summer home in idaho. >> it's

charlie gasparino joins us now. what's the feeling inside b of a. will lewis survive this?onths now we've been asking how does he keep his job? >> i'm looking for a quarter because i want to flip it. here is what i hear from senior people inside b of a. if andrew cuomo sues lewis for, you know, his role, his culpability in the failure to disclose the bonuses for the losses, if this is a cuomo case against ken lewis and if it's civil, which it will 99% sure it's civil. i don't think cuomo has a criminal case here even if he had the most damning e-mails in the world. it's kind of hard to get that level of intent here. if it's a civil case they are going to fight it. ken lewis at least right now sources inside b of a tell me will not resign amid a civil case from andrew cuomo. however, if their primary regulator, the securities and exchange commission, sues him for civil securities fraud, and you know this case has been reopened, the s.e.c. is now -- i think they came out a statement saying they're vigorously pursuing every angle, if the s.e.c. does sue, then, according to a s

as you probably know, david faber and our charlie gasparino have both been tracking this story sinceack in june when the bonus pool was pegged at about $11 billion. but the two big questions now is, one, how will goldman handle any pr backlash from congress and investors, and, two, what does this say about the new order on wall street? is it still about profits? more from rob cox now of breaking views and our own david faber. nice to have you here, gentlemen. david, i will start with you. it does seem like it's a difficult position for mr. blankfein to be in however, although he's tried to address issues in the past about how to handle the bonus issue with employees, but can he really escape any pr backlash? >> i think it will be difficult. certainly there was a great deal of it after the second quarter and those record numbers from goldman and when people got a look at just how much they're accruing for compensation. the percentage of which, by the way, has not really changed over time, but the amount of which has given they made so much money in the second quarter. that being said,

there's been talk and reporting by charlie gasparino that there was tension from the board. did you pick up on any of that when you were speaking with the board yesterday? >> i didn't pick up anything like that about the company. the word from the company is that mack told them 18 years ago that he wanted to step down. he will turn 65 on november 16th, so this is something that they say had been in the works for a while. >> mary, thank you very much. we're going to see you again later in the morning. also in the next half hour, we'll be talking to industrial analyst dick bove and and him what this leadership change means to morgan stanley. he is very optimistic about it, saying that this leadership change is a welcome one. >> our other top story this morning, treasury secretary tim geithner was on cnbc last night hosting a town hall, kind of a cohost. that was after a grilling by the t.a.r.p. committee. did you watch any of that? >> i watched a lot of it. >> he did well, i thought. >> and last night he did well, as well. he was able to take some of the tougher questions and