jpmorgan used aig a bit.partly because they had internal lines so yasbeck in 1998 that cut the first-ever deal, the first time aig discovered the joys of soopers senior was in 1998. we have got this wacky super sr. and he said yes bring it on because they could both do whatever they wanted and barely have to process capital, so yes, jpmorgan did deal with aig quite a bit in the very beginning and yes kept on dealing with them throughout this decade but two or three years ago-- far, far less. [inaudible] not to the scale of many of its competitors, no. you can see that the that the years. jpmorgan is certainly not up there in the top half-dozen. you can actually see the breakdown of who benefited most from the rescue and i think jpmorgan was somewhere around ten or 11 from memory but i can get the figures to you at the one. >> but, what about-- >> they thought the monoline situation was that. back in 98 there was discussion. one of the fascinating things about telling the story is that so many of the mistakes

jpmorgan's c.e.o. jamie diamond has been called, quote "president obama's favorite banker" by "the new york times." diamond reportedly has a phone hotline to his old pals, chief of staff rahm emanuel and treasury secretary tim geithner. here to explore the ties that bind is peter necessary ti, president of the -- peter flaherty. why would jpmorgan chase be interested are in giving $5 million in cash to an organization like acorn? >> by the way, judge, i believe that figure is low. if you go back over the years, i think the figure is much higher, but this thing really started during the '70's when acorn gut rolling, they targeted the banks, because as jesse jackson pointed out at an acorn conference, quoting jesse james, "that's where the money is," and they figured out if you could picket a bank director's home in a leafy sub burr to say who are these people, get them off my back! like jpmorgan, bank of america, citigroup, started paying tribute to acorn t included direct cash donations. it included in

jpmorgan -- goldman is almost jpmorgan stripped of that element. >> goldman sachs is gloria, jpmorgan all of you odd couple fans. you also have to know what he's rooting for. i like what he's saying but i think you will probably be short jpmorgan here with a tight stop. goldman sachs, i think got too frothy, this 165 give or take level. we sort of moved around here for a while. i would rather be short jpm outright. take my shots at goldman sachs lower f. >> i don't disagree. i will tell you this, if the market starts to go lower, i will start to skew that. right now dollar for dollar, i will get shorter jpmorgan on the way down. >> and past trades, you can do sectors as well, rick. take a look at resources, commodities, which are obviously getting beaten up lately. and what do you want to do? discretionary, take a look at the travel and leisure names. those are the names you want to short against what we believe will be the beneficiary at the end of the year, commodity resources. >> that's a great point you brought up that we missed out on the first part is, what kind of percentage? y

jpmorgan sthiz that hibbette has. goldman sachs, need hham, they downgraded dick's but investors going with the group, that's up 3%. the optimism also expanding to the greater universe of sporting goods stores. cabela's, big 5. two key unknowns for these retailers, the impact of the big box discounters, we're talking about target, walmart, even costco, they all play in the sports space. plus the overall health of the consumer. that is the big unknown out there. so many analysts are looking at it as the holy grail to this recovery. we're going to get a better look at that with consumer confidence tomorrow. but bob, as i was looking at the story, i'm thinking about the fact that when i started school if i wanted to play a sport and i played soccer and basketball and volleyball, you've got to show up with that equipment. otherwise, you can't play. there's probably going to be a lot of kids who have to dot same. >> thanks very much. dow jones industrial average, well, we are just in positive territory, just barely. we've

balance sheet that jpmorgan chase did not want. for the next six months this sort of bumble alongn their problems, fannie mae and freddie mac turn out to be not sulliv that have to be taken over effectively by the state and there are a number of ways in which the chairman of the federal reserve and the other people at the f seat to keep lending gog and the economy, understanding that lendg and credit is in the circulatory system of the economy a if it isn't auctioning that the economy cannot function but it is only in the fall of 2008 that weekend in september, when lehman brothers, merrill lynch and a ig all get into trouble at the same weekend, that the drum are really reaches its crescendo. and, as most of you know and i'm happy to talk about it in questions, theed did not save lehman broers. i.t. wind other. they knew it would have some ripple effect then it turned out to be a tsunami. they didn't have to save merrill lynch because they mary did to bank of america, much to bank of america's later regret and in the wake of that

citi was up 3%, bank of america, jpmorgan getting a nice lift. commodities yet another one of the spaces that was down yesterday. but up today. taking a look at oil, just shy of the $70 right now. some of the retail news, certainly better today than what we heard from lowe's yesterday. there's the bell. the "closing bell" continues. >> and it is 4:00 on wall street. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody. welcome back to the closing bell. i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the nyse. tonight, a rally underway. looks like stalks staged a biggs comeback led by better than expected retail earnings and growth in single family home building. the rally giving a boosted to the energy markets, oil up $2.44 a barrel, better than 3.5% closing at $69.19. hewlett packard moments away from reporting third quarter earnings. going to be a big report because it could set the tone for tomorrow. we have instant reaction, inside info about the quarter for you coming up as soon as they hit the wires, we'll have the numbers for you and give you the investor r

jpmorgan up nicely on strong volume. again, back to where it was prelehman bankruptcy prices for them. citi was strong. i just showed you the rebalancing. they're still waiting here to rebalanc

he's now at jpmorgan. if you look at what jpmorgan does and citigroup does, it's a different operation. city is sprawling and huge and never has been managed. the reason why i came to this conclusion is because of eric. he wrote what i believe is one of the best articles ever about the crash of what happened at citigroup and how the risk takers were just left to do whatever they wanted because they couldn't get temperature who is the guy charging with his friend. you went through and showed how chuck prince had no idea what they were doing. it's a team. >> you have to give this team a chance to start executing. you may see profits. it's a roll of the dies. >> you are rolling the dies again.ce. >> you are rolling the dice again. >> eric, thank you. charlie, thank you. have fun. >> reeling him in there. come on in, eric. another time. he will be back. >> millions of students are heading off to college this month. millions of parents are younger kids are wondering how they pay for college when the time comes.

put call ratios for the ones out on parole like jpmorgan and goldman sachs were healthy. but there's some indefensible giddiness in names like citigroup that had only about four puts trade for every ten calls that traded. i think what we see is people casting a wider net that missed out on the jpmorgan, morgan stanley and goldman sachs of the world. pete? >> it's no doubt people are chasing, and they feel like there's more up side to come, so it makes sense. i'm seeing a lot of protection, at least being bought, maybe even speculative puts, looking for a pullback, scott. >> yeah, the put purchases and the bigger names makes sense. let's spend a bit of that profit to protect the profits, but i don't understand the lack of put buying by citi. if that's the case, why would you buy calls? indeed bike a $4 call, and that call never expires. >> that's a good point. scott, see you later tonight and catch more of scott as well as myself on "options action" at 11:30 p.m. eastern time. also on the web. i know you download it on your ipod, steve. >>> we have flagged you to the dash

the best short term but they still are the worst on a aany -- >> jpmorgan closed above, pre-lehman high last september. thank you, matt. we appreciate it. >>> we will come back to the bank story. i think it's really important to the stock market and economic recovery. but first we must swing over to tech land. cisco beat the street. the silicon valley bureau chief straight from the west coast, jim joins us, one of the world's greatest businessmen, what's going on? >> see if you like this report. good evening to you, good but not good enough, stable but not solid. does the cisco dip spotlight opportunity for investors, 31 cents a share against 29 expected with inline revenue of $8.4 billion and offered better than expected guidance anticipating a 15 to 17% dropoff in first quarter revenue. that might be bad but a point better than some on the street were looking for. despite the less than optimistic tone on the conference call, they're not calling a bottom. a trend suggests a bottom and have to go several quarters to be sure. they said this was the first normal season am sequential perfo

jpmorgan was approaching that level and then it pulls back. it just can't get beyond that. >> some of the ammunition for financials this week has come because not only have we gotten great numbers on housing, but we're starting to see -- you know, mbi announced today that a billion dollars of bad loans may be coming back into them. the point is if housing prices are stabilizing and going up, no normalized earnings could be a lot better. tomorrow's number has big implications for the financials, i think. we already have seen -- not good, but already priced in. the auto data, not great but getting better. this is why you need to not pay too much attention. >> it's the financials that continue to be the leading right now. goldman sachs and morgan, they pulled back. look at citi. in five days, citi has gone from $3 to nearly $4 in credible volume out there. today in the options world, 15 million contracts again. unbelievable activity. look at wells fargo, though. this is one of the banks that has not paid back the t.a.r.p. there is nine who have.

goldman sachs, jpmorgan. those stocks have done well, but it's hard to see those be the next leg up. so i look at a citigroup where they've had staggering losses over the last couple of years, but almost all of those losses have been driven by what you call the problem asset portfolio. that's subprime mortgages and leveraged loans. and i would argue, the loss cycle is pretty much through in those asset classes. much we still have credit issues coming, but i think you start looking forward about those massive losses. >> that's what i'm saying, jeff. that's my point. you can earn your way out of this. the toxic assets on a cash flow servicing basis with a very steep curve and zero rate at the bottom, that's taylor made for earning their way out. >> and you kind of have to pick your spots, because to get bullish on banks in general, you've got to believe the economy is going to make a turn. but to get bullish in citigroup, you have to believe what you're looking in the rear-view mirror is a lot worse than what y

. >> what's the range you're playing in jpmorgan? >> well, jpmorgan, and again, i wish we were talking about this last week, we had a selloff yesterday, but jpmorgan between the $43 and 41 area, that's the range we've been playing. today it finished below, around i think about 40.60. i'm still long it. not happy about it. >> is the market going to be stalling or going sideways for a while? what do you have embedded in these trading ranges? >> guy, you bring up a great point. obviously when i'm looking at ibm, still looking at the industry, keeping an eye on tech. if tech and the spider start to roll over, i'm not comfortable at the $116 kind of range. instead of getting long say about 5,000 shares, maybe get 2,000 shares but i'm going to be very careful. i'm going to play the range until it doesn't work again. >> thanks so much for your time. >>> time now for today's selloff edition of "pops and drops." bxi was down 5%, tim. >> and i think kit continues to go down. be careful.l. >> the cat was a drop today down 4%, guy. >> it fell to

and do you buy jpmorgan on today's meltdown?e've got that trade coming up. >>> plus the ambassador brings us the foreign telecom trade that is a on fire. but now for today's edition of "pops and drops." we kick it off way drop. fluor down 6%. pete. >> a huge run with the majority of the earnings coming out from the engineering space but today a big drop. pullback. probably a great opportunity. keep an eye on fluor. >> another drop for sprint. down 4%. karen? >> it is a 3 1/2 dollar stock. it's maybe a little overstated. however, they were cut by piper jaffray to underweight from neutral. >> yum brands was down 4%. guy. >> downgraded ubs on valuation and they are rich on valuation but morgan stanley just upgraded these guys a couple days. so the stock keeps having trouble with 36 but i still like the name. >> we've got a drop here, literally, for meteors, star gazers, sky gazers, all of them, preparing for the high point of the annual meteor shower which reaches its peak on wednesday. according to nasa you can expect to see dozen

upgraded by jpmorgan, will they help keep the tech rally alive? mike, what do you think?lett-packard move the needle? we've gotten so many earnings out about consumer spending, business spending and technology. will this make a difference? >> well, i think it will make a difference. i think hewlett and dell's upcoming earnings, too, i'm interested in watching both of those. we've seen affirming statements from cisco's chief chambers, but i'm neutral coming into it, i have to say. >> i think you can buy hewlett-packard here, about $27 billion in revenue, 90 cents etf. they got an analyst date september 24th. look ahead to that. they will give you guidance on fiscal year 2010. the hardware sector right now is beginning to see the benefit of the pc supply-chain strength from the 70s working its way through and also the asian demand is there. i think right here, hewlett-packard, although it's trading 43 bucks, i think you would still buy it. >> in the chip space, they think one of the industry kind of bibles that fourth quarter utilization for taiwan semiand umc, which is the

jpmorgan chase, american express, all generally had positive trends here. those stocks are down along with the rest of the market here today. one group that is doing decidedly better here today in general are the hmo stocks. that's because the president signaled over the weekend there may be less of a public component to the health care reform issue. that's about the only sector that's to the up side here today. let's talk about what's going on in the rest of the markets. go to all of my friends around the board here. matt nesto standing by over at the nasdaq. >> thanks, bob. appreciate it very much. you know, where is that lift? we'll see. we've got 60 mirnz to nutes to . but we're still down 2 1/2% at the nasdaq, our biggest single-day decline we've seen since july 2nd. if it goes to minus 2.7 it takes us back to late june-b a two-month decline we haven't seen in two months.s. take a look at erts, electronic arts, down 7 1/2% here today, the worst performer in the e nasdaq 100. interestingly, it as well as wynn and liberty media all have been very hot and

we gave $29 billion to jpmorgan to buy in. i haven't quite figured out why yet. no one has given me a good explanation other than the fact that jpmorgan had about $4 trillion of derivative exposure from bear stearns, but if that is the case, it was up to them to buy it. if their stearns wasn't going to bring down jpmorgan they sure as heck should have done something to prevent that from happening so i am still scratching my head on that. but after bear stearns collapsed , and this is, there is a chapter on moral hazard the definition of moral hazard is if we prevent people from suffering the consequences of their own actions, we are just going to cause people to be more reckless. we actually have seen studies between ets and air bags. there haven't been a decrease in highway deaths after we have added crumple zones and seat belt in airbags and 80 s and the best explanation anyone has come up with is people know the of all these safety features so they drive a little faster. that is roughly what a moral hazard ease. if you know that your car is in short you can le

jpmorgan on the down side. other stocks as well trading outside the financial groups here. you can see our parent company, general electric, down fractionally. that's held at the 14 level but had trouble getting significantly over that. exxon has just been a difficult story all day. down about 11% so far in 2009. pfizer same situation. at&t, telecom stocks. all this group you're looking at is generally underperforming the overall market. for other takes on the market let's turn to our cnbc investor network. rick schottenfeld, chairman of the schottenfeld group. rick, are you in the pullback camp here as everybody else seems to want to be and is yet not positioned to be? >> i think next week is a quieter week, and i don't think we're quite ready for that pullback yet. i think we've got a few more days of up side. but yeah, i'm in the pullback camp. i think this earnings season is a little different than the last in that the rally's got you higher expectations. expectations were so low that stocks were moving up

he said he thought it was jpmorgan chase. the treasurer didn't want to confirm that and now we know it. the terms with no fees, 3% is pretty advantageous for this date. >> for seems like very favorable terms and he is also saying that they expect to be able to repay that or at least pay off the sizable amount after the sales a month early after short-term debt is auctioned off. it seem to be a great improvement from when he was out there with you. they have come back from the break considerably. >> for this week, sue. looks pretty good this week. >> my prediction is that before too long, california is going to have to go upgrading the stock saying we have clarity now. let's hope there is clarity. this is the third schedule on the dream liner. >> hope we don't get another revision and we had many. thank you very much. see you later. >> the dow jones now positive and this makes it days in a row. this would make it of course. we will take the realtime pulse of the markets. >> here's what else is on the menu. a west coast affair.

. >> get ready for the jpmorgan chase safire card. this card will target incomes over $120,000 a year. they can earn a point for every dollar they spend. it is the u.s. card blunder. -- card lender. ford is boosting its sales outlook saying it sees signs of the recession ending. they have developed an intelligent control system that will allow cars to communicate with power grids. this will allow drivers to avoid peak electricity time frames. that's it to the markets. we had a partial rebound of the losses from monday. burning set targets and home depot helped things out yesterday. -- earnings at target and home depot helped things out yesterday. google shares are worth four tim es as much. reporting for wbal tv 11 news. >> [unintelligible] i would be treating the whole world to lunch. we will see you back here for another report at 6:15. >> we will get another look at a morning commute with traffic and weather together. >> brett favre makes up its mind again and will play again. come on back, and we will tell you why. >> to not forge

equities strategist with jpmorgan. bearish? >> well, i'm teddy bearish, i guess you could say that.. >> that's a new technical term. >> you know, i think the market has gone a little too far. if you look at where we are right now, we're about halfway back from the high of march of '08 to the low of march of '09. we're about halfway back there. kind of like a u-shaped recovery. we're going to see a little retracement back if this may be the beginning of it here in the summer. i know that my colleague, tom lee, has been bullish for quite some time. i respect him very much. but i think that consumers are still sitting this one out. we need them in order to have a full recovery.. >> tom lee, where do you stand? >> you know, i think this is a very healthy correction.. for those investors who aren't fully invested, as you know, that's really the majority of the asset managers we speak to and a lot of the hedge fund. this is a good opportunity to really leverage towards a cyclical recovery. as you know, we think there's going to be a

and it's marked down to extremes in the case of jpmorgan.i think jamie diamond marked it down more and it will be worth that. >> i can't believe he's a media mogul. very funny. all the newspapers. >> he's good. i bumped into a producer friend of mine who he said is he that good? no one is ever as good as you read about, except for him. >> thank you, jim. >> thank you. >> tonight on "mad money" at 6:00 and 11:00 eastern. it takes the yin and the yang to find the perfect balance. we went around the world to find the best yin and yang. very excited about these. plus housing lessons from a student. everyone else has been bailing on the market, kid was getting in in a unique way. the first student-run real estate firm, next. we've all heard about the trouble in the housing industry. the fact is, with all the talk of a national real estate market, your town, your neighborhood, your home, or the home you'd like to buy, are each unique. the national conversation may not apply at all. if you've been worrying about what your property may be worth, or

ibm and jpmorgan. two companies that we like the cash flows and the safety story. the global difference of ibm and valuations have come up, but during times like this, we think safety, safety, safety. >> what would you tell them? >> smaller market caps is where we fish. names that we like today and weiss markets and ticker wmk and the chairman owns 48% and a 3.5% dividend. comcast cable and the roberts family in control. international speedway that has a nascar franchise. hein ken beer if you are watching, you have to go to the market to buy it and turn on cable tv. hein ken is controlled by a family trust. >> franklin resources on the list. you are the second person that said that. >> which one? franklin resources? >> is that on your list? >> we thought it was close to fair value and liquidated it, but we were fortunate to hold those shares. >> what's the one piece of advice or thing you would say to make people feel better who lost their faith in the market in investing right now? >> i would say unfortunately the measures we used in the past go out the window. so

jpmorgan above 40. we talk about it last night. i can't remember the last time that happened. i think on a consumer play, that is actually the trade. >> look what black stone did today. i think it closed at $15. 15.5%. go back to may 6. a high of 1444 on about 17 million shares. it broke down from there. we stay above that 14.511. the problem with that is they report tomorrow before the bell. so not a lot you can do. but keep that 14.5 level in mine. blackstone looks interesting. >> monday they traded 35,000 calls. this stock went absolutely crazy to the outside. today, more and more calls. they were continuing to come after them. you look at something like bank of america. huge open interest in bank of america. over 60,000. they traded 117,000 of those today. please are looking to the upside. not just bx, but bank of america, citi, we traded 16.5 million option contracts today. it was all the financial. all exceeding the 20-day by a large number. huge activity all upside call. they have protection on the foot. they keep moving. >> you can't forget goldman sachs and the activi

bank of america, jpmorgan chase, wells fargo and goldman sachs to the up side. today general electric, the parent of this network. we mentioned how oil prices are lower today and energy stocks certainly a drag on the markets. that's why you see exxonmobil to the downside but pfizer, at&t, and verizon are all in the green. >> scott, president obama appointing federal reserve chairman ben bernanke to another second term. the president set the tone for change in the financial system in his speech. >> that's why even though there's some resistance on wall street for those who would prefer to keep things the way they are, we will pass the reforms necessary to protect consumers, investors and the entire financial system. and we will continue to maintain a strong and independent federal reserve. >> a long list of goals ahead and not everybody's convinced bernanke should have been reapoined. joining me is a visiting scholar at harvard university along with roger altman, former deputy secretary under president clinton. welcome back to closing bell." >> thank you. >> marl

goldman sachs was up 2%, jpmorgan up better than 2%.between 1% and 3% in the banking sector. nasdaq did well. technology on the move, on the up side, up 1.33% on the nasdaq, 25 points higher at 1,955 and the s&p 500 picking up about 10 points, about 1%. hewlett-packard reported earnings after the close tonight. they were better than expected, both on the earnings per share number and the revenue. stock is up just fractionally here as we say goodnight. have a great evening, everyone. thanks so much for being with us. "fast money" is up next. i'll see you tomorrow. >>> hewlett-packard earnings come in a penny above estimates at 91 cents a share. ceo mark hurd says business is stabilizing. >>> a judge reversed the options back-dating the conviction of former brocade communications ceo reyes. reyes is facing a 21-month prison sentence. >>> sony is cutting the price on the game koens yoel to $291 and introducing a slimmer version next month. that's cnbc.com news now. i'm julia boorstin. "fast money" with melissa lee starts now. >>> is a bull

jpmorgan and bank of america as i mentioned also strong. here's one reason why we're seeing financials do well. remember those mortgage insurers? radian had excellent numbers overall but the basic idea is mortgage insurers seem to be returning to some kind of profitability. radian, that's not a typo on the percentage move. that's a 52-week high. that's a big help to banks, to know there's some kind of return to profitability for some of the mortgage insurers out there. also, american express intraday came out and said their credit metrics are showing the first signs of improvement in 18 months. that is an intraday chart of american express. that helped the financials as well. finally, i just want to note the real estate investment trusts also moving up here today and a lot of speculation on that. the most obvious one is that they are notably underowned because of pessimism in commercial real estate and traders are being forced into those stocks as well. melissa, back to you. >> all right, bob. thanks so much. we're just getting earnings out

ite a recipe or not having bought toldman, but some of the naems you mentioned, jpmorgan has put heavy call ratios on them. however, only about traded today in citigroup. it seems to me that's come quite a way. >> brian, you're watching wells fargo. >> yeah. wells fargo is another name in the baj stocks. we're seeing a lot of bearish activity in the last few days in which options traders are coming in and, of course, going out and selling calls in august. what does that tell me? some of this rally still has yet to hit all of the names in the bank. wells fargo is still trailing some of the names here now. but i have to say, a lot of them had this openings for the last few months. i still there's there's some caution out here in the worng place, punish it looks leak some of these moves are ready to move higher and higher? yes yeah. bun emotion at two different times over what we've had the last few months. fear caused a lot of selling here and fear of missing the potential bottom, who knows if it was the bottom or not, fear is buying a lot of this buying right now. and the other point i

jpmorgan chase holds more than $1 of every $10 of deposits across the nation. the same is true of bank of america and wells fargo the newspaper says citigroup issues half of the mortgages in the country and holds one-third of the credit cards. regulators are concerned these banks may be operating under the assumption they can always does go to the treasury department for a bailout if they need to. let's look at stocks. squeezing out the gains yesterday. the dow jones is up eight days in a row. futures pointing to a positive start. keep an eye on shares of dell. before the close, it came out with quarterly profit and revenue that topped estimates it after cutting costs by contracting out 40% of its manufacturing. a pickup in sales of low-cost net books. back-to-school sales have been pretty good, according to the ceo michael dell. back to you. >> thank you. everybody receives the infamous automated robo calls. nobody wants to get them. >> the federal government is taking action to put an end to the calls, thanks to rule changes. starting next thursday use to sto

shares of suntrust lost nearly 4% on that news, while jpmorgan chase slid 1.5%. experts are scratching their heads over the biggest movers. fannie mae and freddie mac, f fannie shot up more than 40%. speculators are betting the government won't close or dismantle them. >>> we'll see how today's troubles in china affect wall street. their markets plummeted as much as 5.5% on fears the chinese economy is recovering too slowly. >>> an updated report on consumer confidence will be sure to be out as well as new homes sold. >>> president obama expected to announce he's nominating ben bernanke to a second term as federal reserve chairman. bernanke is expected to be with the president when that announcement is made. >>> auto dealers have stacks of paperwork for the cash for clunkers program. the department's website crashed. the government extended the deadline for paperwork today but warned it could be extended furthe because its website still was having some problems. >>> finally, factory workers in france are stripping down to save their jobs. at least that's their ho

you've got stocks like jpmorgan up 3%, ge up 3%, by the way, parent company of this network. goldman sachs was up about 1%, really lagged some of the other names. morgan stanley up better than 1%. bank of america as well as aig also higher. in the oil sector you've got exxonmobil up about 2% and boeing also higher as well by about 2 1/2%. let's check the ticker right here. the other stories we're following on the "closing bell" ticker tonight, and we can tell you that shares of j.m. smucker gained today after the company posted earnings of 83 cents a share. it was better than the estimate. the estimate calls for profits of 80 cents a share, and it comes because of sales that were up 58% due partly to the company's acquisition of folger's. it was up nearly 4%. meanwhile, salesforce.com reporting its second quarter profit doubled on strong revenue growth. it also beat analysts' expectations. the company also raised its fiscal year and 2010 full-year expectations. and it got an upgrade to market perform from fbr markets. and the stock as a result had a big day, up 16%, as you se

jpmorgan above 40, morgan stanley above 30. and look at pending home sales, which we'll get into today. that basically tells you that residential housing has found a bottom, and who holds those loans? the names like bank of america, the names like jpmorgan. that's why -- >> you pointed that out on the halftime report, regional banks have great exposure in their portfolios to these types of loans. but karen, if the financials are able to move higher on the belief that perhaps the commercial real estate isn't as bad as it had been expected, you were one short iyr, which is the etf that tracks the reits. what's your position now? >> well, way less bearish. we talked about how a lot of the reits were able to issue equity. it absolutely seemed like an endless appetite for equity, and anyone who was able to get a deal done, that was it for us. we had forrest city is one we had been short for a long time. they had an offering a month or two ago. we were able to cover on that. i just can't be short when they're able to raise so much mo

jpmorgan also raised its opinion on avery dennison. they're now overweight from neutral on that one as well. they say the label and office supply maker is well positioned to benefit as demand rebounds from cyclically depressed levels. and lastly, regions financial, also a buy from neutral at bank of america merrill because the company may be close to raising enough capital to cover losses. always a good thing. >> all right, matt. the latest madden game touched down at midnight. fans in new york city lined up outside gamestop in herald square for the release of "nfl madden 10." it is the first major release for the holiday season. the holiday season. are you kidding me? and one that electronic arts is counting on to revise slumping sales. so is it game on from here on out? joining me now is todd mitchell, senior research analyst with kaufman brothers, and rick menard, senior analyst media and technology with the motley fool. guys, thank you so much for joining me. todd, these numbers out of mpt were really depressing. hardware sales dow

jpmorgan, bank of america, citi. and there's some discussion out there that maybe that data will be a little better than expected. >> all right. so there we go. bob pisani, thanks very much. we're down 80 points now on the dow, but it is indeed a down day and a down week as we wrap it up here today. "closing bell" is next. continuing with melissa francis. >>> it is 4:00 p.m. on wall street. do you know where your money is? welcome to "the closing bell." i'm melissa francis in for maria bartiromo and here's what we are following at the close. stocks retreating after two days of gains amid mixed economic data. although we have recovered from the lows of the day. what really spooked investors, though, was a dropping consumer sentiment raising fresh concerns about consumer spending. and oil getting crushed today along with the broader market. crude down more than $3 or 4.3% at the close to close at $67.51 a barrel. here's a look at how we finished the day on wall street. the dow closing down on the day but likely well of

we knew madoff had this jpmorgan account.you can be assured prosecutors are looking into how much money went in to and out of the account at the time. it was interesting to see it was the one account the redemptions were made out of, bonuses were paid out of as well. they used it as a little bit of a slush fund. >>> let's head over to the nasdaq marketsite where melissa lee is standing by. >> we'll talk about the rally we saw post fed meeting. where are opportunities right now? you might want to think market cap. >>> also you might be getting a little bit giddy after this rally. we will present the case for perhaps a recession on the horizon. yes, better to know now and get ready than know too much. much more ahead on "fast money" at the top of the hour. >>> we are back if just a minute.

financials right now, jpmorgan, their balance sheet just got better, also look at the asset managers, they're doing well. the capital markets play, morgan stanley, goldman sachs we're going to talk. citigroup actually rallied. if you look at citigroup, citigroup is about to bust above the 200-day moving average at 466. >> more importantly on citigroup, it's going to the $5 level, and institutions start looking at that. at it goes closer to $5 -- institutions start actually looking at that. as it goes closer to $5, was saw it costs $4 today. >> it's 30% away from $5. >> nobody -- nobody. >> the bigger picture is look at where it's come from. nobody wanted to touch financials a couple months. the government has said the bigger ones will not fail. the bigger ones will not fail. >> people have moved towards, you look to citi, look to bank of america, look now, the consumer-base money centers. we've talked about a lag in morgan stanley and goldman sachs. look at goldman sachs today. it was in negative territory almost the entire day. be careful. keep an eye on goldman sachs, volatility has

chuck, analyst with jpmorgan and, of course, el nesto grande sticking around.back to school a bust? >> it's really too early to read. you're only ten days into the back to school period. and there is a tax holiday shift that moved sales out of july and into august. we'll get a better sense of that. jcpenney did call it out this morning off to a positive start. we'll know over the next month. we think it will be softer year over year. >> what's going on with these numbers we're seeing? >> i mean, generally speaking, consumer continues to be retrenched on employment as we know is really high. you have certain retailers like kohl's showing the first positive comp in the department store in quite some time. nordstrom down 7%. much better than planned. retail becomes a relative game and relative expectations by and large, the numbers are better. more important than that, etf upside out of macy's was very impressive. we think the same will happen at nordstrom, kohl's raise today, jcpenney's raised today. that's what's moving the stocks today. >> matt nesto, it also a

jpmorgan and goldman sachs. what do you see in terms of financials?ncials will follow the broad market. we have resistance from two weeks ago and i'm not willing to buy in at this level unless i see a break out above the resistance we had. i'm happy and don't normally do this. i'm happy to chase. i want confirmation. >> let's move on. the mixed bag and more than 1111% after missing earnings. dick's sporting goods soaring and raising the full year outlook. based on the smathering of retail news, can we draw conclusions as to what might make good plays going forward? >> we have to look for the best operators out there. not in that camp. what we are seeing is the hard line portion is joining the softer side. they have not been the best operators out there. beyond that, you look at dick's and we have seen fabulous sales on things like fleece. people are unemployed and still doing sports. it's a way to bring yourself back to your roots. believe it or not, i believe dick's and things like that are expanding. sears i would stay away from. what i want to focu

company with as much direct influence on public policy as goldman sachs since the days of maybe jpmorgan or standard oil. >> reporter: for its critics, goldman's success is due to it being plugged directly into washington's -- power. there can be no doubt that goldman sachs alumni are incredibly well placed in all tions of political influence, democrats or republican. take the past four chairman, robert ruben, the secretary who deregulated complex financial markets. jon corzine, close to president obama. stephen friedman. bush chief economic adviser until may, chief regulator of goldman while sitting on its board and buying millions of dollars of shares and then hank paulson. president bush's treasure secretary responsible for the controversial bailouts. >> goldman has an extraordinary record of former employees joining the government and occupying key positions. >> reporter: it was the rock magazine "rolling stone" that sparked the storm of attention to the wall street giant. matt, argued that goldman is a giant vampire squied wrapped around the face of humanity. responsible for no less

of the likes of jpmorgan, morgan stanley, goldman sachs, to name just a few.ubs was right up there engoinging itself on u.s. mortgages, creating cdos and stupidly keeping the super senior ceos on its own balance sheet. it took, well, it's right up there. let's call it a big race between criticizedity, ubs and merrill for who took the most losses. ultimately though ubs appears to have come through this very difficult period. concerns now not sz much on the investment bank, which is sort of trying to realign itself. but on its global wealth management business. of course there's been a good deal of attention there for other reasons dealing with that irs settlement with the swiss government and the like. now, switzerland did say it intends to convert the mandatory convertible notes on tuesday. the government saying the sell would have no material impact or ubs saying that sell will have no material impact on its third quarter earnings. it will have the i'm path of taking town sterling kacapital ratio ever so slightly but ubs has done a good job of replenish that

the big mover on the upside and the financials and the energy stocks and the coal stocks and jpmorgan upgraded. that's doing well up 2, 3, our fore%. the oil near $75 and seen energy stocks basically outperform the sectors with the financials. back to you. straight ahead, the market is hot and we will talk options strategies. what are the best plays in the dog days of summer. tips you need to know about coming up. >> here's what else is on the menu. >> i'm jim goldman in the silicon valley bureau. apple continues to hum along even as the business suffers. this company's flag ship 5th avenue store is doing like $350 million a year. >> julia boorsten in los angeles and trouble afoot in the murdoch empire and news corp selling the dow jones index business. the once untouchable fox news networkled with a boycott on one of its hottest shows. >>> powering higher and impaired and the dow up 18 and the is s&p up about a point and a half. take a look at the movers. fannie mae is the biggest mover. citi is the biggest mover on the dow. on the nasdaq, sirius xm radio. >> the market continues to