i believe jon fortt -- jon, you there? >> i'll just note that the company announced a couple weeks ago that mark dirken would be retiring at the end of august. >> there you go. >> we don't know why that is exactly. i'm trying to look at this release quickly and see if they noted a reason. i don't believe they did. they said he is retiring and not leaving for another position. we'll have to see if he can be convinced to stay under the circumstances. but, you know, there is a bit uncertainty about what the company will do now. of course that is a secondary consideration. there's been a loss of life at this point. but we'll wait to hear from the company about exactly what they will do after losing a leader who had been in this position for such a long time. >> betsy, we have you back. apologies for the technical difficulty a moment ago. of course we're talking about the tragedy and what kind of impact that might be on the company. we've also been talking about the possible leadership transition. have you got any idea on who m

and jon fortt is standing by to break down the numbers when they do come in. lewis, you have a neutral rating on hewlett-packard. >> they already signaled almost every area of their business is going to be weak, whether the pcs, printing, services. their expectations are down so low, that we're not expecting much. it's really a second-half story. >> the expectations are so low, that presents the biggest possibility of an upside surprise, doesn't it? >> it does. we also think when you look to next quarter, the april quarter, that this situation really doesn't get any better there. so we're going to sit on the sidelines and wait. >> dan, what are your expectations? obviously meg whitman has her hands full now, right? >> it will be really challenging. if you look in the last quarter that's closing out in terms of pc unit volume, you know, apple sold almost as many ipads, actually a little more ipads than hp did. so it will be interesting to see how that works into this number. >> are we just getting the numbers? >> we are. i'm hearing 92 cents, gang. 92, the expe

jon fortt, let me kick off with you.describe then what we think google is about to do. [ technical difficulties ] >> well, that's a nutshell for you. let's go to julia. julia, you do not think, as i understand it, as a matter of fact none of you think this is a good idea. you think google may be spreading itself too thin. >> absolutely. people associate google with software, not with hardware. obviously google's move into the phone business has been successful because it's providing the android software for these devices. i think it would be a little weird for google to be manufacturing its own products. obviously we have to say we don't know exactly what google's doing. these are all only reports so far. but the idea of google making its own boxes, making its own devices, seem a little weird. but i think what google's really going for here is not just music. this is obviously about the battle for your living room and the battle to deliver video content throughout the house. >> jon fortt, are you with us now? >> no. >> l

thank you, jon fortt. february kicking off on a strong note for the whole market after the best beginning of the year since 1997. it was close, but no cigar, though. up until the last five minutes of trading, we were set to have the first triple-digit close since january 3rd, closing up about 83 points. a number of market bears have calls for a weak first half of the year. our next guest, no exception. he has since changed his stance, however. jason is with me. also joining us is vadeem. good to have you on the program, gentlemen. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> jason, let's talk about your expectations. you were in the bearish camp. you say the opposite of what most expect. a strong first half, and a weak second half. >> maria, to me the big -- this is the term of the week here, game-changer here i think was when the ecb started to expand its balance sheet very dramatically. i think that took the worst-case scenario of systemic failure, and the european banking

our jon fortt is all over the story. what are you hearing, jon? >> reporter: apple has sent out an invitation to its pretty clearly ipad event in san francisco. i heard from a source that new york would be a key location for an apple launch soon. next week was my understanding. but as an insider pointed out, it's not new york. it's san francisco for the ipad. so what should we expect to see in this new ipad? a higher resolution screen, a higher resolution camera for photo, possibly 4g lte, the latest fastest technology. and i expect to be a faster chip, probably called the a6. it points to a device with a focus on content creation. the ipad originally was seen as something for consumption. this with all that hd could be something for creation, tyler. >> if i've got you wrong-footed here, i apologize. but what does 4g allows me to do that some other "g" doesn't? >> reporter: on the plus side, it's faster than 3g. on the downside, it doesn't penetrate walls as easily. when you're inside buildings trying to get that connection, whether it's voice or

we've been on that watch today on news that jon fortt was bringing us, apple's going to hold an event next week. expectations are the company will announce and introduce a new ipad although they have not mentioned that on the invitation that jon got. that still is the expectation in the market. let me also call to your attention 536.27. if apple does hit $536.27 it would hit a half trillion in market cap. >> i think automatically you always look second derivative trade. i think nuance stabilized, found some support. if you want to take small positions in there i think you can. cirrus logic, still works. >> there are some expectations about the new ipad if that is what is unveiled will have that steering capability inside of it. >> correct, absolutely. from a valuation standpoint, 25, 26 appears to be where support is. >> looks like you're getting a little bit of a bid in nuance on those expectations, that stock up almost 2% as we hit 1222 in the east. while we always talk about apple, take a look at that other stock versus priceline. our friends at trademonster.com that priceline has

. >> jon fortt is covering the conference call going on right now.ou can see it's off the session lows. maybe that was helped by the fact today it did decline off of dell's earnings last night. >> right. i think this one -- it's going to be messy for awhile. but the valuation for me is just so compelling here. i think that it's rallied a little bit. i don't think that 2012's been so great. it's rallied off the bottom. relative to the peers and what they've done, i think there's still room to go. very meaningful room to go. >> i think the market is giving meg whitman the benefit of the doubt. it's trading down about 15 cents now from the close. it's sort of sbregs. operating margins better than expected. i think that's one got positive takeaway. i think the guidance is there. well, chipotle had a ridiculous run. but given that quarter the stocks should have been down more than it was. we flagged it that night and went on to make all-time highs. if it doesn't sell off given this report, joe terranova's been on. i think this is the stock that looks like

what's new and different and exciting about the ipad 3, jon fortt?>> sharper screen, better camera, new a-6 chip that's able to handle the grasphics. this is a big product for apple, in part because last quarter, it did 9 #$.2 billion worth of sales, selling 15.4 million units. that's about 20% of apple's holiday quarter revenue. if this continues to eat into pc market growth, and continues to drive things for apple, they're expecting a 32 #$.5 billion quarter. that's what they guided to. they usually beat that. this could sell quite a bit. >> how nice for you, mary. >> jon, is there any indication, whether they will put sirius in the ipad? >> i expect to see sirius across all the ios devices, probably this year. that's how they tend to roll off -- roll out these kind of platform centric features. yes, i would expect to see that. >> it will brew our coffee, toast our bagels and have everything ready as well. talk to you all later. let's get a closer look at the movers and shakers so far today. courtney? >> thanks, bill. what a flirtatious market we'v

jon fortt is in silicon valley. ler, an amazing run and supportive analysts have begun pointing out that the valuation has gotten a little rich lately. the stock has more than doubled in that period. now more than 12 times forward earnings. if you assume 10% eps growth and 10 times is the high end of large cap tech valuations. here's a little of what ibm has been doing right. the new ceo was the architect of a plan to give investors an eps road map to $20 of operating eps by 2015. she's also made commitments about global expansion and emphasis on software profits and a plan to gobble up valuable technology through acquisitions. here's what i've realized lately based on conversations with ibm folks. ibm growth hinges on two things. analytics and smarter strategy. they're tied together. as ibm services does work for governments and companies, they collect all kinds of data. that data makes ibm analytic software smarter. that helps them win contracts. it's a cycle similar to what google has going with search. if that st

more now from kayla tausche, jon fortt and john carney.st question to everyone here beginning with you, kayla, should facebook share less of its stock with the banks and more with its own clients and customers? >> well, tyler, the original issue with the $100 billion figure when it came out was a bit of sticker shock, but also the company wanted a little bit of room for upside if $100 billion is full valuation, you got to be able to have some upside there. they hired the banks to be able to price this conservatively and build in that upside. when you open it up to the entire market, you can't engineer it that way. >> jon fortt, same question to you. >> i don't see the point. when you think about more than 800 million facebook users which of those actually get to participate in the deal, pretty much everybody who's going to be buying it after it's publicly traded is the same people who would get in before. it seems to me like they would have to play favorites to do that. >> john carney, am i being too populous here? >> i think you are. i al

and greg blatt as well. >> yes. >> and jon fortt. >> yes.p next on "power lunch," mastercard on fire on the back of its latest earnings. the stock near new highs. can you still get in on the credit card stocks? plus. [ male announcer ] let's level the playing field. take the privileged investing tools of wall street and make them simple, intuitive, and available to all. distill all that data. make information instinctual, visual. introducing trade architect, td ameritrade's empowering web-based trading platform. take control of your portfolio today. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up $600 when you open an account. >>> let's check in with scott wapner and see which stocks are on his radar this thursday afternoon. scotty. >> simon, thanks so much. i'm watching target today. there's a lot of same store sales data out and target was really good. twice estimates is what their number beat. out with a positive note just a short time ago. they say january sales trends encouraging. they're raising the eps also reiterating outper

let's get highlights from jon fortt who's been on that call.t he has not said in our interview? >> he's teasing us a bit. he just said their guidance for q3 will show they're breaking away from competitors. but the cfo has not given that guidance yet. more detail on what he said. geographically a couple areas were particularly strong. japan and canada. india continues to be weak. germany was weak which is coincidentally something we heard from google. so overall there were more variance in the top ten areas. routing gross margins were up. total switching grew 8% in revenue. and overall cisco grew strongly. it was higher than that if you x out the consumer business. which they backed out of as part of this restructuring. how they're meeting with customers. their enterprise closed rate is twice as high when they're selling business technology as opposed to just i.t. chambers maybe taking a victory lap on this quarter given where they're struggling now. >> i'm glad he mentioned germany. throughout all this european crisis, i've been wondering abou

investors are watching closely issues like labor conditions in china, and dividends with jon fortt, watching very closely, joining us from the apple headquarters with more details. hey, jon. >> yeah, mandy, the meeting started at 1:00, was over by 2:00. it looks like some of the people we went home and bought stock. all the directors got reelected, got elected with 80-plus percent of the preliminary vote. the directors now must get a majority vote in order to be elected to their post. that was something that apple initially did not want shareholders to vote for, but they saw the preliminary vote was strong for that, so they said, okay, we're going to do that. and by the way, the current directors, if they don't get a majority, they will voluntarily resign. issues on conflict of interest disclosure. directors say on pay and political contributions from apple. there were resolutions about those. those all failed. there was protesters out here talking about labor in china. i want to let you hear what one of them had to say. >> a living wage is something that should be global. you know, when you

. >> we're going to take a moment, we've got breaking news from jon fortt out in silicon value. >> weoard members resigning. four board members are departing. and the chairman, roy bustok, is one of them. i've got the release here. they're explaining that they've appointed a new ceo. and in the process, several board members will be stepping down. also, the board today elected, it says, too highly qualified independent directors. so big shakeup at yahoo! here after jerry yang stepped down. i heard he would not be the last board member to resign in the shakeup. and indeed, more board members stepping down at yahoo! >> do you think this means they're less likely to strike a deal with a buyer of some kind, that they will remain independent with this new management team? >> well, my sense was from the beginning that the board was not looking to sell everything, but they are still looking to try to spin off the asian assets, which is complicated to do in a way that's not very costly from a tax perspective, bill. >> jon fortt, thank you very much. as we head to the close here, the dow up 39

jon fortt is following this story. jon, how big is the app economy?well, try 466,000 if you trust the math of michael man dell, an economist known for writing about how innovation e creates jobs. how does he get there? well, 44.4,000 job listings in the category tens to mean there are 3.5 times that many in existence. that gets you to 155. double that for the nontechs at app firms multiply that by 1.5 an outside job a firm creates and boom. here's why i think that number can be low. yes, it counts some jobs that probably already existed. engineers working on web development and switched to aps, but it probably undercounts entrepreneurs and cloud-friendly companies that haven't launched app yet. >> 466,000 jobs and growing. any sign of a top in this market? when do we jump the app shark? >> well, here's why i don't think there is. this is more than just some new thing tacked onto tech. it's a direction that all of tech is shifting into. think about the various companys that are coming out with apps. microsoft being one. coming out with obviously apps f

jon fortt has been listening in and is here with more. what'd he say? >> several interesting things. let's start with what he said about that cash pile. he said we have more cash than we need to run the business on a daily basis. everybody knows that. when he says it, he then said investors need to have a little patience so that apple can act prudently and figure what to do with that cash. suggesting something sooner rather than later can happen. he talked about apple tv saying apple doesn't do hobbies. we always thought there was something there. perhaps hinting towards a bigger mass market product than the current apple tv product. something we've been looking for perhaps coming this year. on the ipad he said price is is the most important thing. says that he still expects that tablets will be bigger than the pc market. that ipad has grown so quickly because it stood on the shoulder like things like itunes and the app store that came before it. also the emergence of the markets. markets like that made about $1.4 billion worth of apple sales. this most

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jon fortt in san jose. >>> bank of america shares getting hit very hard on the back of a downgrade todayy citi. b of a cut to neutral. but get this -- it's the best performer on the dow so far this year. and here's something you may not know. on any normal day, b of a makes up about 10% of trades on the nyse. so is this stock for investors or just day traders? joining us is paul miller from fbr. nice to have you here. >> thanks. >> the chart illustrates it best. the stock's had a tremendous run since the beginning of the year. but is this a stock that you think investors should put fresh money into or has it gone too far too fast? >> i think the stock got overly beaten down at the end of last year. it's going to outperform the market. but i think for long-term investors, this is still a concern with this company because of the liability side of this balance sheet. all these private label lawsuits are sitting out there. as an analyst, we don't have insight where they're going to fall on these suits. a lot of investors say, this is going to be dragged out over years, the settlements are al

dell's ceo spoke exclusively with our jon fortt who is with us now. jon, what'd he tell you? >> good morning, tyler. intent to run out latest commercial products i sat down to understand strategy a little better. headline, he's not thinking about consumer very much even with smartphones and tablets hot and windows 8 coming later this year. listen. >> within the context of the $3 trillion industry, consumer's about $250 billion and commercial and public sectors $2.75 trillion. so that's kind of how i think about it. >> he did say he's excited about windows 8 later this year and expects it will help profits. his focus is on small and medium size business providing them with not just service and pcs but storage, networking, services. here's what i found most interesting about our conversations this morning, he sounded more optimistic even than he did on the earnings call when i talked about the thailand floods which caused hard drive shortages that hit dell's margins off camera. he said those are clearing up and thinks he can go after a small and medium business customer ibm and

jon fortt is in silicon valley getting ready for hewlett-packard's earnings. and brian is sticking with us looking at retails as well. the price of oil is at multi-month highs right now in a large part because of the tensions with iran. what's the very latest? what are you witnessing there in the ancient city tonight? >> well, the israelis themselves put on a very tough face, and they say life goes on as normal. at least that's how they're trying to conduct things. but as you mentioned, nine-month high on brent, topping $123 per barrel, because of the tensions between israel and iran. the latest is that the u.n. nuclear watchdog has broken down the talks, totally broken down because iran would not let them visit key sites. russia is starting to weigh in, warning this country should not in any way attack iran. and when you add all of those situations up, you're starting to see growing tension within the oil market. it's very supportive and bullish for the price right now. there's hope that sanctions are going to work in some form or fashion. but in the meantime

let's take positions ahead of the results and bring in cnbc's technology correspondent, jon fortt. what do we expect today by all accounts? >> three things i would say to look for, scott. one, the impact of the 4s. they've got the base band chip in there. 4s sales, overall iphone sales a little bit more than 20% better unitwise than most people expected. china, the 3-g transition you've got to think that's continuing to go well based on everything else you see happening in china. qualcomm should get a boost off that. finally the overall chip set number. most people looking for 150 million. if they do better, that's good. then you wonder do you get a beat and raise, perhaps. guidance important. >> i'm glad you end with that. because that speaks to the expectations, right? the market wants a beat. it wants a raise. because the stock is run. expectations are so high. there's no margin for error in this name now. >> here's what's interesting. qualcomm likes to say they peg their growth expectations overall to gdp. you've got to ask, does gdp globally look better than it did a quarter a

jon fortt's outside. we'll see if there's any news out of that. that does it for us today. don't forget to catch more "fast money" tonight at 5:00 p.m. and follow me on twitter. interesting market that we're following today on a day where crude oil hits $107. "power lunch" begins right now. >>> indeed it does, scott, thanks very much. three hours to go in the trading day and we have some breaking news about apple. brian shactman has the latest. let's go to brian. >> the share holding meeting getting underway as we speak. big question for investors will ceo tim cook announce any move toward a dividend. what happens to the stock if he does? and what happens if he does not? also in focus, apple's response to the labor controversy at the factory in china. and any news about the ipad 3, we are tracking it all in realtime. we'll bring you any news that comes out of it. tyler, back to you. >> thank you very much. on the "power lunch" menu this hour, the soaring price of gasoline. doesn't go down too easy. being driven bip fundamentals or speculation? >> health solutions moving hig

i'll be talking to jon fortt about this, on "closing bell." >> now you have like a developing arms racearry ellison goes out and shot right to the bow of -- when he goes for taleo last week, now they're star starting to run up again. survive of the fittest, keep buying. >> that's the classic story on wall street. >> i look at that as one less buyer in the industry. oracle has already bought. >> how do you know they won't buy somebody else? >> they won't buy crm. i think the stock is overvalued. i gra el with herb on this. >> i was just pointing out what people were saying, because this has been a tricky company. i've certainly raised red flags over it, and mark over at bernstein has been a fairly big bear with the stock on it. >> i hope you're not standing up yelling. i'm sitting down. >> you made that promise. >> i'm very quiet. >> we'll see how long that lasts. >>> let's good et to some of your tweets. grasso want to take this? >> i've been looking at this, a bit per president-elected. i don't know if i jump back in. i'm not confidence that the sell-off is done. >>> is the recent weak

our own jon fortt has been digging into those numbers. jon, how is life in thevale?er: well, let me give you the good news first. tech is surging ahead again. here are interesting stats. jobs up 3.1% versus 1.1% a year ago. so jobs are up. people are still moving in net migration, more foreign immigrants moving in than domestic people moving in by about 4,000. v.c. investment is up 17% to $7.6 billion. and vacancy rates are down in two counties. but there is bad news. the people who put this report together said, we're becoming two valleys. the public sector, still suffering. median income is falling. opt one hand, tech is doing well. v.c. investment up. jobs up, particularly in tech. but on the other hand, folks like teachers, the housing sector, still not as strong as would be nice. >> we were showing that house that was nearly a million dollars. it's incredible what you don't get for a million dollars. >> yeah, we've got video -- >> make you feel like millionaires. >> that's right. this house is going for just under $1 million. been on the market a little more tha

. >>> i'm jon fortt, and this is "tech check." >> how can you reinvent college and make it more relevant for generation techs? a 20-year-old wharton dropout has an answer. it's called course kit. >> we're just bringing the notions of facebook and social networking to the learning experience. think about what a class is, it's just a group of people. >> at nyi, the 400 students and the professor's finance class used course kit to chat with him, and other students, and post photos and notes. nyu is just one of hundreds of colleges and universities using the 2-month-old service which has raised $6 million in funding. >> it's a change in the way education is delivered. and i think it's actually going to give consumers more options. >> for now, course kit is free. plans are to eventually make money from sales of textbooks and other items. >>> welcome back. mens wear and accessories are the driving force behind goods last year. trying to cash in today. courtney reagan is at fashion week. >> good afternoon. there's one noticeable trend emerging. it's not a hot item of clothing. it's a gender. fa

jon fortt in silicon valley with the exclusive. ler, happening this week in barcelona and kom score giving me data on what companies are winning in the u.s. who is apps have the highest penetration. the top two won't surprise you. google on top with presence on 96%, number two is facebook with 76% penetration. but get this, number three beating out amazon, apple, wikipedia is yahoo! >> they're pretty well-positioned to do well in mobile. i think that comes in in yahoo!'s history where they've been able to really monetize their content well on the web, which has been a challenge for some of the other players. >> considering yahoo! stock lost half of its value since the launch of the original iphone, it's a bit of a head scratcher. this shows yahoo! has a better beachhead in the mobile area than given credit for. the problem is yahoo! has no clear strategy for protecting its position and monetizing it. the risk is outside forces amazon's kindle fire strategy could hurt yahoo!'s chances. yahoo! is not alone in this challenge. facebook

steve liesman has been passing the fed minutes, and jon fortt with more on today's wild moves in apple shares. steve, what did you make of the fed minister? did you get the feeling there is more qe or less qe on the way? >> i think the answer is yes, mandy. i think what's interesting about these minutes, among other things, is that they're kind of entrenching their positions. we learned, for example, that some members of the fmoc have already penciled in additional qe. some members are saying -- in fact, one particular member, jeff locker, he believes it's going to be preemptive tightening by the federal reserve well before late 2014. i think bill characterized it well, i don't think we learned any new information as to the split on the board. but i think we learned new information about how entrenched these interests are. the market generally, the stock market in particular seemed to take it more as taking qe more off the table. >> but what did you make of the comments from fisher? didn't he say it was just a wall street fantasy and everybody's going to be massively disappointed? >> i

jon fortt. >> we talked how wall street is being disrupted would-be bankers are going to tech, what about setting up shop in new york? that is happening, too. ♪ >> reporter: let's get this out of the way. new york is not silicon valley. but the tech scene in gotham is taking on a life of its own. general assembly at broadway and 20th in manhattan is an entrepreneurial petri dish, where enlt pre nurse meet, learn, have a drink and get work done. 19 companies work out of this pays space, more than 100 early stage start-ups like "show me" are members. >> places like this, you meet people doing interesting things, you can kind of learn just from osmosis what people are doing. >> part of a tech movement mayor bloomberg's administration encouraged by making low cost office space available. diversify away from relying on the tra difficuditionally new y. >> whether fashion, media, we have to be a leader in technology. >> it's as true in texas showbiz. >> when it comes to talent, it's becoming a place to hire the best people, so because we really also love new york just as a place to be. >> when i

jon fortt has the details. over to you. >> keep in mind how the ipad fits into the broader apple story. the ipad is typically where we see the chips that are going to end up in phones later in the year. and we also see cutting-edge graphics capabilities that migrate to the new iphones after they show up in the latest ipad. what's the new ipad likely to have? a sharper screen, better camera, better chip with smoother graphics, and of course, sirius voice recognition. price something a big question mark. will this have 4-gdln and will they keep the ipad 2 # around? >> the ipad3, we bring in a guest. andy, let's talk about the ipad3. how much of an atted component will this be for a stock price? >> i think most investors expected it at dh point. as we've seen with the iphone, really, really good updates. it can have an exponential impact on it. if it comes through and their product is good and it looks like it's a big improvement, i think we could see our numbers go up. >> do you think that the ipad 3 is more abou

let's bring jon fortt into the conversation. s.a.p. making a deal back in december. ase of, you know, s.a.p. see oracle do? that didn't work out well. >> well, i know what you meant. >> hope he gets it because i didn't. >> in a way, yes. oracle's playing catchup in the cloud, but i don't think they're playing catchup to s.a.p. there's a bigger picture here. there's another start-up called workday run by the guy who did people soft. got bought out by larry ellison. they're doing really well probably going to go public late they are year, early next. that's one to look at as far as a lot of people in this space are concerned about. it's a battle for the hr cloud. it's going to be a broader battle even. this cloud consolidation is not over. >> can you tell me who you think is ruling the cloud right now? you ask some people names like google, amazon, sales force comes up. who do you think is in the cloud? >> i stick to cloud doesn't mean much of anything anymore. are you talking about software as a service or platform as a service. they're all very different. salesforce i

we want to go to jon fortt. what's the latest here? >> hey, melissa. grab back of things.chambers just said that cisco's productivity is up 20%. but more things on q3 that they talked about. q3 eps looks like it'll be 45 to 47 cents is what they're projecting. the expectation was at about 45. gross margin 61.5 to 62% operating margin 27% to 28%. now, the overall revenue, their forecasting growth 5% to 7%. that's more conservative given the fact they did 11% this quarter. but we're being cautious. including thailand saying that they expect several quarters of difficulty in thailand. so hey, they're just going to be cautious. chambers said that these are unusual times. they're doing well. >> you said several quarters of difficulty because of thailand? >> he did say that. which i thought was interesting because a lot of people say they expect thailand to start improving in the second half. >> exactly. >> they appear to be sort of throwing the kitchen sink in here in a way to kind of keep people cautious. the stock is up near 52-week highs at this point. they've been through a

jon fortt joins us with more on that. hi, jon. >> hey, sue, story in today's "the wall street journal" been tracking even when users stuck to the browser's default settings. i talked to someone on google's side of this and they say this is just an embarrassing mistake on google's part. another black eye for a company with a lot of negty privacy headlines for the past few months. how did it happen? safari did allow them to set cookies for people who opted into google plus and the plus one button, but google needed to check and see what safari users were signed in and which ones wanted that, so they used a temporary cookie, one that lasts a few hours for that. and that temporary cookie accidentally left the door open for every other google third party cookie that wanted to get on to the browser. google has taken it down. they've released a statement, i have it on my phone, it's almost undecipherab undecipherable. and the damage has been done. consumer watching to already written the ftc claiming this violates rules google ag

. >>> i'm jon fortt, and this is "tech check." retailer is doing big business -- >> sending pens, and mochi pens have mochi functions. >> reporter: last year jet pens sold over 700,000 pens. many imported from japan, ranging from a couple bucks to $300. theirs is a low-tech niche and the marketing budget is limited, so much of it's done for cheap on social media. >> we integrate facebook, twitter, our blog. we also have other bloggers blog about us. >> reporter: they even hired an established pen blogser to interact with cut mecustomers t the site. >> what do you think we should give away on facebook for st. patrick's day? >> reporter: not an easy question with all these choices. want a green pen? there are more than 30 shades. maybe you want to write something a leprechaun size on a grain of rice. no kidding. >>> welcome back. european finance minister is getting set to discuss the fate of greece in what is setting up to be a very high stakes weekend across the pond. michelle caruso-cabrera with more now with what's at stake. >>

jon fortt is in silicon valley with some of the fallout on that. hi, jon. >> hey, sue. what cisco wants is the commission to promise that skype will be inoperable with other video calling systems. it's easy to see that cisco has a dog in this fight. it has a high-end telecom for business, the video conferences systems also appear at smaller businesses. cisco's fear that it hints in a blog post is that microsoft could try to control the future of video communication with skype. what i've been puzzling over for the past couple hours is what does this mean for the stocks involved? one analyst i spoke to said this will probably slow microsoft's efforts to integrate into the platform. there are others apple with facetime, google with google talk. will this move from cisco have an impact on how those systems grow? the head of the skype business unit, tony bates is a former top exec in line for the ceo seat after shane steps down. and cisco itself hasn't always been open with its video systems. the ec had to force them to do that when they bought tanberg not long ago. >> very

jon fortt is in silicon valley with the details. apps for my mac, hey, jon? >> that's right, tyler.vestors should understand today's apple announcement. apple sold more than 60 million iphones, ipads and ipod touches. now apple is looking to convert those legions of ios users into mac users in part making them work more like ipads which started in earnest with the last release, lion. now up marginally with the broader market. mountain lion icloud. access and store files on the internet. twitter built into the os as the default social network making ilt easier to share. a mac version replaces that and somewhat ominously named gate keeper lets you determine ahead of time what apps get to run on the system. built as a security features and the bias toward getting people to download from the mac app store. support for chinese language input and chinese services. this is the biggest market. and also interesting here the ipad, there's kind of conflicting reports on how much it's been halted sales in china because of all of these trademark concerns that we've been talking about this week.

our tech reporter, jon fortt, is in the house as he has been most of the week at the realtime exchangejon. >> yeah, it's been a fun week here with you guys. look at the nasdaq at some particularly well tech. start with semiconductors. a brutal 2011 but bounced back nicely this year. intel, up 23%. that's done well. even as the pc market has not because they are just proportments amazing. qualcomm riding the smartphone wave. let's move onto software. the big name in software of course is microsoft. anticipation of windows 8 driving that stock. besides they're not doing too shabby in smartphones at least showing they have a fighting chance into it. tax season coming up. that often does well. and the leadup to that. and then ca when it comes to big data centers. moving onto big iron, what's the name? cisco. six months ago they were really, really hurting. but they've bounced back as they've grabbed market share back and people realize it's not just a cisco issue in networking, there were some overall issues. f-5 has continued to do well and akamai delivering all that content from various

jon fortt says it is just a number, but -- >> you can't discount that psychological factor.f people feel like things are getting better again, maybe they'll buy back into this market. >> wall street may have also received a bump with news that greece approved its second bailout to the prevent the country from defaulting on its loans. >>> the u.s. supreme court has agreed to hear a case on affirmative action. the challenge comes from a white stount who says she was denied admission because of the law. in 2003 they supported the use of race as a factor in admissions to support more diversity in colleges. but they could now change, since the court now has a more conservative panel. california voters banned affirmative action years ago with prop 209, but there are still efforts to try and overturn it. >>> the door is slightly open. the obama administration is now considering arming rebels in syria if bashar al assad does not stop the brutal crackdown on dissent. >>> meantime, the syrian government continues to pound rebels in the city of homs. today, over 100 reportedly killed a

jon fortt has more. john? >> reporter: yes, the blockbuster filing from facebook is out.ere are some of the really interesting numbers that you can find in here. revenue, $3.7 billion. net income $1 billion even for a 2011. but here are some other things that we didn't know before about facebook, like where are the users? geographically. well, just 21% of them are in the u.s. and canada. also, facebook has operations, including data centers, in 20 countries. now over to bertha. >> thank you very much, jon. >>> defense secretary leon panetta announced late today that the u.s. will change its combat role in afghanistan. it's going to shift to a train and assist strategy by the middle of next year. >>> in and in port said, egypt, 70 people killed, a thousand injured when a soccer match between two fierce rivals turned violent. this hour police are still unable to quell the stampede. >>> american airlines trying to work its way out of bankruptcy is looking to cut 13,000 jobs as well as terminate its workers' pension plan. labor costs account for about 30% of the airline's ove

let's check in with jon fortt who joins us from outside apple headquarters in coupealifornia. i guess you have rising hopes of a dividend. what's your source telling you? what's your best guess as to whether we get it today or not? >> i'm not sure we will actually get it today. i expect to hear something about it though because tim cook has been mentioning that. i also expect to hear about china, both its importance as a market and its labor issues that have been brought to apple. a small clump of about a dozen protesters over here talking about that. i was able to talk to a couple of them today. i think that's an issue. and finally we're going to hear, i think, a little bit more about the momentum behind the ipad and iphone particularly in those developing markets. >> yeah. one of the analysts raised an interesting question earlier or an issue in that i guess tomorrow would have been steve jobs' birthday, correct? you know, so maybe tomorrow's the day that perhaps you would get a dividend announcement or some sort of major announcement, whether it was a stock split or somethi

. >> let me -- >> john, we've got to get jon fortt in here. >> six years ago a lot of people thoughtpple was ridiculously overvalued. how many ipods and macs do they have to sell to be worth that. what people weren't looking at is the core potential that they have. being good at software, and hardware, the smarts to put it together in an era that was moving toward mobile and clout. >> and sell products. >> facebook could -- they didn't sell phones. they didn't sell tablets. what could facebook do with the fact that it's really good at social, when nobody else is really good. they're really good at software development. >> how do you -- >> jon, sorry, i know more people leaving facebook than joining, because they're bored with it. they've done everything they can with it, and they're bored. i'm not saying it's not a great company. >> let me -- >> it's about a $75 billion valuation. not about whether or not facebook is good at looking at pictures of grandma. >> it doesn't matter if you know 1 million people who are leaving, if are there 2 million or 3 million people joining. >> where a

let's bring in peter, managing director at jefferies and cnbc's jon fortt. gentlemen, welcome. peter, you have a conviction buy on the stock and a higher price target than it is right now. tell us what that target is. it sounds like you think anyway, in the short-term, it's unstoppable. >> sure looks that way. we have a $599 target. we view this here as one of the biggest in apple's product line history. we're going to have an ipad 3, hd refresh in march. we expect an iphone 5 launch end of june. and expect the itv available for the holidays. it's a big year for apple. >> peter, who else will buy in that's not already in the stock to send it higher? >> that's a great question. i think there's two groups here that are really waiting for an announcement on dividends. we have the income and balance growth group. and then we have a lot of closet indexers who have been holding back either slightly market weight or significantly under market weight because they're worried about what they're going to do with their cash pile, whether they're going to make a ridiculous acquisition or bl

jon fortt with the inspiring and insightful words from the new ceo tim cook. the first since the passing of steve jobs. before we do that though, bill, what is ahead on "closing bell"? >> we have plenty of ceos coming your way on "closing bell." a trio of them as a matter of fact. we'll talk with the ceo of aig just moments after the results are of the hour 4:00 eastern. plus, we'll get the outlook for consumer spending when we speak with the heads of clorox and darden restaurants. they, of course, own olive garden and red lobster gardens. brian and the gang and "street signs" are back right after signs" are back right after this. >>> do check out shares of apple. again marching toward an all-time high. $514.98. call me when it gets to $517. over the $500 a share mark. the run in apple just keeps going. i mean, apple is not just a company anymore. it is a way of life. it is a thing unto itself and it has created what we're calling the iconomy. jon, what are the hot topics? >> well, no new news on a dividend. though it did come up. tim cook all but ruled out a

good work, jon, thanks so much. john fortt joining us from san jose. why? soul mate. no, no it's her dad. the general's your soul mate? dude what? no, no, no. he's, he's on my back about providing for his little girl. hey don't worry. e-trade's got a totally new investing dashboard. everything is on one page, your investments, quotes, research... it's like the buffet last night. whatever helps you understand man. i'm watching you. oh yeah? well i'm watching you, watching him. [ male announcer ] try the new 360 investing dashboard at e-trade. that is better than today. since 1894, ameriprise financial has been working hard for their clients' futures. never taking a bailout. helping generations achieve dreams. buy homes. put their kids through college. retire how they want to. ameriprise. the strength of america's largest financial planning company. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you, one-to-one. together, for your future. ♪ >>> testimony yesterday in london uncovering some wide ranging corruption at news corp. sun tabloid. our kayla tausche on tha

. >> thank you very much, jon for fortt. meantime over to kayla at the news desk. she's also been looking through. got some details on executive compensation. and also china which of course is a big question mark particularly when you have a company that's valued at what facebook is valued. want to know about international expansion. >> i first want to touch on something jon said about the voting. what they call a super majority. this rattled during groupon. they said you're only putting a small fraction. in the past it'll be interesting to see whether they're willing to concede control. on china from the s-1 but the paragraph closes with we do not know if we will be able to find an approach to managing content that will be accept to believe us and the chinese government. facebook also saying it sees mobile products as key company priorities. the company also says it does not foresee paying a dividend in the foreseeable future. if they're going to make $5 billion plus in that proceeds from this offering, what are they going to use it for? the company says we do not

let's bring in jon fortt with more details on this story. ixed bag, missing on revenue and beating on earnings per share. this morning alone, shares have given up all the february gains. the main culprit is the thailand floods. dell said they had plenty of drives, but not the right ones. high-end drives went to large enterprise customers. that left dell with few options but to sell low-end, low-profit pcs, add have that to a weak public sector market, that seems -- dell is guiding higher into the second half, but many analysts boulevard it's too early to count those chickens. >>> let's get more inside. chaise wu, analyst at sterne agee. it looks good today, shaw, but what did you hear and do you believe the second half can see the company emerge from what was, it appears a difficult first quarter? >> those are two questions. first, we think there's problems beyond what the company is saying. we think the competent thif market has gotten -- so we're seeing lenovo and acor getting aggressive at the low end. apple is taking a bite out of their c

he was so early on that story as well as jon fortt. great work by eamon.ier. this is the dumbest thing i've ever seen, let's call it what it is. 1.4% of the company has floated 1.8 million shares. they printed almost 2.5 million shares already. stock's up 25%. if, in fact, you had that type of demand -- look at that. it's up 38%. if this is not shades of what we saw in 1999, then i don't know what is. to basically float 1.4% of the company -- do investors buying the stock right now or traders realize that essentially 19% of the flow, of the total company's capitalization is free for sale by private equity firms as david alluded to. read the s-1. another 10% by hedge funds. i don't know who's buying the stock. i don't know if it's traded among a handful of traders trying to drive this. but it's the dumbest thing i've ever seen. >> how can this have no lock-up period whatsoever? >> you can do whatever you want. you have to disclose it and tell those participating in the ipo that these are the restrictions. the attempt was to get a public market so those who