halliburton came out with numbers that were very good, 3 cents above expectations. more importantly, north america really has improved. recounts up. they may have opportunities to increase the pricing level. here's the concern -- natural gas prices are way down. if this continues, there will be pressure on halliburton to cut prices for all the rigs that they have out there. and speaking of lower prices, sharon over at the nymex, i see oil down $2 again today. >> it is, and bob, the traders here have a lot to watch -- the two gs and jet fuel, goldman sachs and the volcanic ash from iceland and the impact on jet fuel prices. nymex gas prices are at a three-month low, below $81 a barrel, but we're also paying close attention to the june contract where all the liquidity is, as the may contract will expire tomorrow. we're watching what is happening to heating oil as well because heating oil is seen as a proxy for jet fuel, and in addition to what we're talking about, about goldman sachs and talking about greece and the bailout plans there and imf conditions, we're also l

i mean, we don't know, is this going to be halliburton? do you remember halliburton's scandal? and in the end three years later it ends up being nothing and nobody remembers it. we may be looking at that. we may be looking at something else. i just don't know how you can know right now. >> my buddy tommy kern, georgetown '86, he did a great job, he's a lawyer. he also sent me a "wall street journal" editorial. ski talked about it on friday. if this is the best the s.e.c. came up with after as long as investigated it's pretty flimsy. and i'm not as outraged as most people. and remember paulson wasn't paulson before the last few months. he was just sort of another hedge fund manager out there. granted one of the larger ones. but his star has definitely been on the rise over the last six months or so. a lot of it after this whole thing happened. again, i don't share the outrage. goldman sachs just is being goldman sachs. >> for the people that want to try the political side to this whole deal and what's coming down the pike in washington, people are also talking about mary schapir

oil services giant halliburton will get bigger with its proposed purchase of oil and nat gas well services firm boots and coots. it's a $232 million cash and stock deal valuing boots at $3 per share. private equity was back buying in the market, this time a transportation and military logistics firm. dyncorp is the target. cerberus capital is the buyer. almost $1 billion is the price tag, or $17.55 per share. dyncorp has 28 days to find a better price for shareholders if it can. just a month ago, some were leaving palm for dead. in fact two analysts cut their price target to zero in march after a sales drop and disappointing outlook. as we mentioned earlier, palm is exploring a possible sale. with more than 130 million shares, palm stock was the most actively traded issue on the nasdaq. a.i.g. continues to find new buyers with the stock tonight sitting at its highest split- adjusted price since october. today's better than 8% rally comes as the wall street "journal" reports another cloud of uncertainty may be removed. its derivatives a unit has gotten out of most of its mortgage related tr

colleagues, other federal contracting officials had bent the rules regarding handing out contracts to halliburton. and, wow, i don't know if you remember. bunny was so nervous during that interview. our first take, we rolled a 20-minute data tape. we never used one sentence from it. she just was so nervous and she was -- had never been in this position before. of, you know, essentially talking out of school regarding what had happened with her former employers. but she warmed up and she did a great interview but she suffered as a result. it was very, very hard for her. another former government employee we interviewed is a woman named jane turner. jane was an f.b.i. agents. she came to us and told us that during the clean-up at 9/11, at ground zero, f.b.i. agents had repeatedly removed rubble and artifacts that they then handed out as souvenirs to their friends and family. on its face, it doesn't sound like that terrible of a crime but we went and talked to 9/11 families and they were just so stunned. they consider ground zero, you know, really to be a gravesite and they were horrified by this be

that other federal contracting officials had been the rules regarding handing out contracts to halliburton. bunny was so nervous during that interview. she just was so nervous. she had never been in this position before. essentially talking out of school regarding what had happened with her former employers. she warmed up as to the great interview she suffered, as a result, it was very hard for her. another former government employee we interviewed is a woman named jane turner. she was an fbi agent. she came to us and told us that during the cleanup at 911, fbi agents have repeatedly removed rebel and artifacts and they handed out as souvenirs to their friends and family. on its face, it does not sound like that terrible of a crime. we went to talk to 9/11 families and they were just so stodge. -- stunned. they considered ground zero to be a grave site and they were horrified by this behavior. jane pointed out in she was vilified within the fbi. became against her very hard -- they came against her very hard and really tried to smear her despite a really good track record as an employee. a

halliburton is buying. a lot of mergers going on in this business. baker hughes doing well in the natural gas place like eog and apache also doing well. a lot of people asked me why freight car companies are doing better. these guys make rail cars for the transportation industry. look at these stocks. they've been going up dramatically in the last five or six trading days. as far as i could tell, we're seeing coal car loadings go up. also decline in idle rail cars. a little bit of hope in the transportation sector here. that's very intriguing. talk more in the next hour. tradertalk.cnbc.com. scott, how is it looking at the nasdaq? >> we're up .10%. modest gains across the board. let's talk about shares of palm. take a look at them today. up 16.5%. there's been a lot of takeover speculation around this stock. there are reports today the company has, in fact, put itself up for sale. take a look at big cap names on the move. google up by about .75%. apple is higher. intel is unchanged. earnings later in the week. california pizza kitchen meantime is up

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we can't allow these -- >> sean: what is more corrupt, enron, halliburton, wall street or washington? you think is more corrupt? >> that is not the logical question that is not a logical question. >> sean: not to a liberal mind in the mine of the american people it is very logical. >> what is the republican plan to try and protect consumers? saufpb sean who mismanaged -- >> sean: who mismanages people's money more? you don't want to answer i'm not surprised. if they did what they are accused of, i am as angry as anybody. >> i think we have to assume there are assumptions. i read the federalist papers number 51, it assumes people are inherently flawed in this regard. government is bottom line at the end of the day you cannot trust them. one of your favorites said it best, ronald reagan, trust but verify you have to do that particularly with i politicians. one thing clear from that sound bite we heard the democratic polling clearly shows that wall street in their minds the devil incarnate. they are going to use it as a political football. what they need do is go back and pull the video

. >> halliburton was an amazing conference call. they said things are getting better all over. even in natural gas, under $4, drilling like mad. when you see china putting money into these countries they are not going to be idle. the catch with china, drill, drill, drill. that's why we're going to hear from them later this week looks good. amusing to see this group, like transocean, now really breaking out. this is all about the chinese needing oil, not about the oil futures, oil inventory. we can keep reading about the international, you know, energy association saying there's less demand. nonsense. a country like china is a smart country that needs to be thinking all the time about where its oil is going to come from in 2020. it doesn't care about the west texas crude and it doesn't care about the iea. what it cares about is having gasoline in its country. >> right. which doesn't require a lot of foresight or thinking about 2020. >> they're like smart guys, bunch of smart communists sitting around. communists on mute and got the phone mute, guys that like to invest. i love in

halliburton, a defense contract, to ripped or taxpayers for billions in iraq. congressman who pushed the prescription drug bill, he went to work for a big pharmaceutical company after leaving office. tommy thompson, former secretary of health, has interests in a health insurance company. so it's running rampant, especially among republicans. guest: yes. host: but not exclusively republicans? guest: right. it's been in every administration we've seen, you know, prior to this year. and i appreciate the fact that you've been able to cite more examples. you know, i have said there are hundreds, hundreds of examples. by the way, billy posen is a particularly interesting case, because it was his experience that prompted me to try to change the period to include lobbying activity. billy tauzin was instrumental in 200 in negotiating the pharmaceutical drug agreement that gave the pharmaceutical industry everything it wanted. it gave it no price controls on drugs. it prohibited the importation of cheaper drugs from canada. and it prohibited the federal government from u

dollar rallies a little bit off this story and that's why we're seeing crude down and names like halliburtonand options activity with people buying puts and that. that's the chain i'm seeing. >> let's bring in dennis for his take on financials, as well as the greece situation. dennis, jim highlighted the strength of the dollar and the weakness and commodity stocks. we're not seeing a flight to safety in gold. what is the trade here at this point? >> i think, actually, in the last five or ten minutes you have seen a pretty strong rally in the gold market. it has come up from its lows. it has come up as crude has come up from its lows. do i think all of this is a response to the president's statement. i thought the president's statement was as populous as he would like to make it, reasonably measured as he is capable of doing, but, nonetheless, i don't like it because it means more government intervention and i think long r good thing. >> the turn in the gold market, dennis, how would you interpret that and what would be your trade on gold? >> the same trade i've had ton for a long period of t

my suggestion would be, if you're looking to drill down a little further and look at halliburton. much more of an international exposure and with oil, let's lee careful. you get stats coming out tonight and tomorrow morning. oil right now pulling back under 86.5. >> john, you made a very impassioned plea last night for ak steele, worth repeating. you're absolutely solid. >> i amp i like a number of other steel makers, as well. the reason, of course, the price of iron ore the main thing that goes into steel has gone up. the producers of oil and steel and iron ore, i think that's a wind at our backs here in the u.s. and that hurts most of the asian steelmakers. it will be great for u.s. jobs overall. this is not job protectionism but increasing their price and doing so on a quarterly, rather than annualized basis. >> let me pick up specifically on some of those names. j.j., you have an insight as to what retail customers have been doing. >> yeah, we saw with our retail traders over the last week, you know, one name john did mention we talked about bhp, bhp is one where we saw a lot

the top 2% of this country or when the country is bankrupt and the money went to companies like halliburton who then threatened to move their businesses offshore. you know this country has been robbed by that upper 2% and everyone is running to be a quote-unquote patriot in the name of this tea party movement but i think they are going to be surprised. i really pray we'll all be surpriseed in november that people even they are against health care plan a lot of people are because it doesn't go far enough. host: katrina is joining us from the republican line. caller: i would like to say we have already experienced obama care. we picked up our prescription on monday, the 12th. and the prescription went from $12.45 and it's been the same price for six years to almost $ 40. >> this was $39 and some change. caller: had you called the insurance between? i called the pharmacy because there's a tech i worked with and she said all of our prices are skyrocketting and people are screaming at us but we can't eat the cost. every time i hear the democrats talking ant creating jobs or taxing businesses i h