kate kelly, kpix 5. >>> coming up is barbie creating barriers for young girls?hy playing with dolls could be playing with careers. coming up. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] spring is calling. save 25% when you buy two scotts fertilizers -- one to use now and one for later. out of his debt.. by blamine casino! that s >>> coming up tonight at 5:00 a man blows a half million bucks gambling invasion and now trying to get out of the debt by blaming the casino. that and more at 5:00. >>> finally, girls who play with barbie dolls could have a limited view of their career choices. researchers have some young girls play with barbie or mrs. potato head. then they ask the girls about possible careers. results showgirls who played with barbie thought they were capable of fewer jobs than boys. and those are mrs. potato head thought their job options were equal to boys. so we asked you on facebook, is barbie influencing the career options for girls? sound off on our kpix 5 page. look for the story in the feed. >> there are career barbies though. so i don't know. >> there's a anchor b

kate kelly talked with some of the traders in texas about price volatility in the u.s. market and how tough it is to make the right call on natural gas. >> this means a lot more of this. as people crank up the heat to keep warm, the price of natural gas has shot up making this the most volatile winter for the commodity in decades. unlike other commodity that are also subject to the tug of supply and demand, natural gas can shift suddenly spiking during a winter like this one and quickly plummeting once the forecast changes and the thaw sets in. in the past few weeks alone they've hit multi-year highs only to follow with the worst four-day losing streak since 1996. >> demand for natural gas and many other commodities is much more elastic today than what we've seen in the past, so as a result you think about the consumer being much more price-sensitive. >> consumers have taken notice every time they open their heating bills, and so have investors since it's that elasticity or sensitivity to price change that has made trading natural gas much more risky. >> traders here in

kate kelly is here with the latest. kate? >> thanks, scott.tisan proposal came out of washington yesterday that could effectively end fannie and freddie replacing the housing insurers with a new set of agencies that would put the private sector on the hook first if the loans started to collapse. this is bad news for wall street where the thinly traded common stocks of the two names and preferred shares had been hedge fund darlsings. pershing square's bill ackman and bruce berkowitz took enormous hits yesterday on these double digit percentage declines. the impact on the preferred shares at least initially to this senate proposal and these are held in large skiz by perry capital and paulson and company as well as others, was far less. the prefer every days were much flatter yesterday. perry and fairhome sued charge that their handling of fannie and freddie are unlawful. they argue the government's backing of the u.s. mortgage system is more essential than ever. whether they will prevail under this new pressure, scott, remains to be seen. there

nobody could ever take away from us. >> yeah. >> thank you. [ applause ] sed in the >> that was kate kellyeporting. seven of the nine men who appeared in that play are now out of prison. most released in the past several years. noble butler who entered subsequent thinking he would never leave now says he is optimistic about his chances for release. >>> coming up in the next half hour, the international crisis developing in the ukraine, russian troops on the move. and now a stern warning from president obama. >> barging into hotel rooms, but are these bay area cops corrupt? why an attorney says being rough and tough is a necessary evil for undercover officers. >> oh, my god! [ crying ] >> i never thought i would see my house again. >> on life support after coming down with the flu, how a comatose woman bounced back from the very brink of death. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, >>> your realtime captioner is linda macdonald. >>> now at 6:30 a live look outside san francisco. it's been a day of flooding, strong winds, power outages across the bay area and the rain is not over. >> let's check our hi-def d

award winning reporter kate kelly has this week's jefferson award recipient. >>> reporter: accordinghe bay area is one of the nation's hubs in sex trafficking. and most of those victims girls, 11 to 18 years old, caught in a world of abuse, trauma and exploitation. >> i started learning more about the issue and said, how can i use my skill set to make a difference in the healing in this population. >> reporter: and amy lynch teaches mindful movement as one way to heal. >> notice your breath. >> reporter: amy started the nonprofit "arm of care" which stands for art, recreation and movement. she partners with bay area agencies that serve sexually exploited youth. we can't show you the faces of the teenagers she helps but we were allowed to attend the free classes she gives to staff caregivers who work on the front lines. >> working with sexually exploited youth is very stressful. >> reporter: jackie is a case manager at the alameda based service program for sexually exploited youth. the technique she learns in amy's class not only helps her, it helps with her clients. >> they are eithe

kate kelly, kpix 5. >> and carla tells kate that there's a recent survey out that shows about 22,000children could benefit from super stars literacy. so the nonprofit plans to expand. >>> and you can nominate your local hero for a jefferson award online at kpix.com/hero. >>> boy, paul. mother nature sure gave us a gorgeous day today. you probably picked one of the best places in the bay area to enjoy it. it's stunning. >> the only thing messing up the shot is me. a great view from sausalito back toward san francisco in case you don't think this is a world class destination over the past 10 minutes. we have spoken with folks from china and jordan and germany and they agree the weather was nice with a high of 73. gorgeous day, gorgeous view with high, thin cirrus cloud cover out there we are going to set the stage for a fantastic sunset coming up about 30 minutes from right now. these are your current temperatures. now, mind you, back east they are still in the 20s and 30s. there's still snow on the ground. it is still very much winter east of the rockies. for us, the final evening of

kate kelly, thanks. all right. the calendar says it's march 25th, the fifth day of spring. mother nature doesn't seem to care. more snow coming and here comes the weather channel's tom nizol. >> a nor'easter will work its way over the coast in the next 24 hours. we're going to move this forward in time here. the central pressure of this system drops very quickly as much as 46 millibars in a 24-hour period of time. that tightens the storm up like a coiled spring to produce really strong winds along coastal new england and snowfall as well. let's take a quick look here early on. we're looking at snowfall as much as 3 to 5 inches in and around washington, d.c. portions of southern delaware in this area could see 5 to 8 inches. then we transfer this system up coastal new england. a big change of snowfall. boston about 3 to 5 but out to the cape about as much as a foot to a foot and a half. the same totals up to 12 inches here in down east maine. and that's going to combine with strong winds here as we go throughout the night into the early days of wednesday morning. take early

nick tiller is here in a cnbc exclusive along with our very own kate kelly.ou here. take it away. >> thank you, scott. nick, i wanted to jump right into a commodities and sort of geo plolitics question. you were telling me that geopolitics are making you more worried about petroleum and the shocks in the supply of fuel around the world and here for the first time in a while. tell me why. >> yes. the oil market right now is probably as dicey as i've seen it in my career. the geopolitical situation going on right now not even just russia and the ukraine, but when you look at libya, it's in chaos. iraq, they've increased production but it's by no mean stable. venezuela is a mess. there's a lot of reason to be worried about the supply disrups. >> you left the sac five months ago to focus on your charity, sustainable america. you're looking at food and fuel. what can people do and what is your organization trying to further on the fuel side? >> i did. i founded sustainable america as a charity that's devoted to both the food and the fuel markets trying making them

kate kelly, kpix5. >> and you can nominate your local hero for a jefferson award online, kpix.com/hero. >>> let's take a look at our saturday morning forecast and start things off with a live picture over oakland. you can see hazy out there this morning, but clear. it should be all in all a nice day. here's what you can expect when you're heading out the door, a cool start at least this morning, some patchy fog out there, a partly cloudy day overall, warmer, though, warmer than yesterday which will be nice. and then more clouds and rain rolling in late sunday evening into sunday night. so here's our highs for today, pacifica63, 71 in livermore, 70 in santa rosa, 72 in san jose. and over the next seven days you can see today will be warm, we got that rain rolling in sunday night, and it's going to clear up for the rest of the week which will definitely be something to look forward to. >>> and don't forget -- >> oh, yeah, don't forget this, saturday night set your clocks ahead one hour. also check the batteries in the smoke alarm, always a good time to do that. >> spring forward, we're g

kate kelly, what's going on?ks so much, bill np in a suit just filed in delaware chance ri court, the activist hedge fund third point run by dan loeb is suing directors of sotheby's for a poison pill implementation they have recently made. thirdpoint sought to increase its ownership in the company up to 20%. was rebuffed by sotheby's. they're saying sotheby's is inappropriately interfering with their rights and they would like to seek injunctive relief in delaware. they note in the lawsuit just filed that this has never been before decided, this particular issue, by the delaware court system. it will be an interesting one to watch for sure. >> a new wrinkle in the age of the activist investor. thanks, kate. >> thank you. >> keep us updated on that. kate will be joining us coming up at the top of the hour here on hour two of "the closing bell." we're moving higher with seven minneapolis left in the trading session with the dow up 107 points. joining me is oliver portia. welcome back, sir. >> thank you. >> this mar

i'm kate kelly with some breaking news on sac capital.edge fund losing another investment portfolio manager. gabriel plotkin is leaving the firm at the end of 2014, according to sources and an internal memo. plotkin has been in talks with founder steve cohen for some time about his desire to start his own hedge fund. and according to "the wall street journal," cohen will invest $200 million of his own money in the fund. this is probably the sixth or seventh portfolio manager or analyst to leave the firm so far this year. the firm has told employees that the departures are well within their standard levels of turnover, melissa. but it's coming at a sensitive time for the firm, which is about to go from being a publicly fund managering hedge fund into a family office, as a result of regulatory issues. >> thanks for that. >>> stocks under pressure of a downgrade of the coal sector. scott is at a coal mine digging deeper into the commodity. scott? >> i like that. that's good. we're getting a feel out here for why it is that coal is doing what

i want to get to kate kelly, who is in the cnbc newsroom, because you also have news for us. >> thanksmandy. i have just been communicating with hedge fund managers, some involved, some not involved in this name. it's been quite a battle, really, since bill ackman announced that he had this herbalife short in december of 2012. on the long side, you see some of the biggest players in money management, including some major hedge funds. you have obviously carl icahn in the lead position, also george soros with a significant stake. capital research and management. v vanguard, fidelity, traditional old line institutional managers. on the hedge fund side, from what i'm told, those in it on the long side with one or two possible exceptions are in it for personal reasons. because they disagreed with bill ackman and disagree both either with his thesis or tactics in terms of trying to launch this long awaited investigation. at least long awaited by him. in terms of the merits of the ftc probe itself, one thing i'm hearing is herb mentioned this, it will be key whether the ftc reconsiders its 19

it is now official as kate kelly reported earlier this morning.nergy. that deal expectsed to close during the third quarter. the bank says the transaction won't have a material impact on its earnings. part of this, a result of dodd frank. part of this a result of just the political pressure that's been put on some of these institutions around that commodities business and even questions about whether -- >> regulatory pressure. you can't do this any more. >> leave it there. >> the crisis in crimea has highlighted just how much europe depends on russia for natural gas. 80% of natural gas -- go to ukraine. 15% of the natural gas from europe flows through ukraine. meanwhi meanwhile, joining us with more is howard hamm. he is featured in the new book "opportunity knocking" by "squawk box" producer lori an loraco. good morning, howard. good to have you here. >> good morning. it's good to be with you. >> this is really the situation. thanks for help lori ann with her book. the situation in ukraine has given you guys a lot of political pressure to help yo

kate kelly has all the details on that back at hq.ll its commodity business. >> that's right, sara, and this deal will rid jpmorgan chase of an ancillary business and make its buyer a bigger trader. jpmorgan chase as you said will collect $3.5 billion in cash in exchange for selling its physical commodities business which includes oil and gas supplied deals with refineries and other energy users and a metal storage business. it will keep its traditional trading capabilities which allows clients to hedge their exposure to crude and other raw materials through financial contracts. it's all part of jpm's effort to scale back on noncore activities which include both commodities but also prepaid cards and some of its foreign banking efforts a point that it talked about most recently at its february investor day. it also rids jpmorgan of a unit that created some headline damage over the years as a result of coal losses, for example, in 2010 and a power plant pricing settlement last year with federal regulators. for mercuria it could be in t

kate kelly has the story. >> kelly, in a dramatic move intended to improve compliance s.e.c.ireded cia backed data miner pallen tier to better monitor it's own employees. they explained the firm's desire to take the data they already have and better connect the dots in order to ward off future misconducts. palantir has already conducted a pilot program and based on the results of that, it's been hired full time. this is only sac's latest move to reign in errant workers after a slew of insider trading convictions and a $1.2 billion justice department settlement that ended its life as a public hedge fund. they will be renamed point 72 and the firm will invest only founder steve cohen and employee money plus that of some cohen family members. pal lantir is adding sac to a client roster that includes the fbi, jpmorgan, and morgan stan lay. >> thanks very much. >> we've heard from a lot of folks on how yellen did today. we want to hear from you. tweet us how you think the new fed chair fared in her first post meeting press conference. @cnbcclosingbell is how to reach us. ch us. ♪

joining me dani hughes, marcus lemonis kate kelly and kevin o'leary. r brian kelly, so the trio of the kellys returns. great to see all of you. kate, i want to start with you and talk about the fact that despite the major indexes having a strong day, the small caps, the russell 2000 i think just had their best day until the end of 2011. >> i just hung up with a hedge fund trader who said the russell move blew his mind. it was a crash to the upside. his theory is, you know, people were concerned about ukraine obviously. they weren't sure whether to go all in in terms of being long so they were using a long position in the russell perhaps as a hedge and they went all in today when the geopolitical issues standarded to recede a little bit. he thought this was a remarkable move. he also said, you know, this market is looking volatile to me. i think overall it's going to be strong but what's going to happen day to day, there's no telling. in terms of the jobs number friday, if i knew what it was, i'm not sure i could trade it accurately lly which i think sa

kate? >> kelly, haven't we seen moments like this a number of times so far this year? put china in that category, but i'll get back to that. and the market is able to digest them. you may see a strong reaction over the course of a day or two days. but i think in general, people are expecting volatility this year. they're expecting choppiness. they expect valuations to come down a little bit over the course of the year, perhaps. but overall, you know, they're optimistic about the economic picture. we're getting data to support that. in terms of china, there certainly are real fears there about slowing growth. i think the feeling i'm picking up from folks i talked to, the government has the ability to stabilize things if they choose to. i think we're seeing some of the wildness in commodities like copper, which did bounce back. overall, folks i talk to think we're okay. >> guy, it was so interesting -- >> hi. >> hi. and i know the market today is behaving more as you expected. you know, conforming more to that pullback. we had the jobless claiming data. 315,000. that's t

kate? >> kelly, it has been a rough two days really for these government mortgage insurers whose common stock has suffered over news they might be wound down altogether. fannie and freddie have plunged 35% or more apiece. very volatile stock. that's moving around a lot, but clearly big double digits. front and center on the recent losses have been big ackman. this is the hedge fund manager who runs pershing square and bruce berkowitz. those are the top two holders of the agencies' common stock. other hedgies have invested in their preferred shares. they could also get hit. they're two of many hedge fund managers betting that they will return nice dividends to investments as part of the post crisis restructuring plans. the plans that are now on the chopping block as lawmakers try to wind the agencies down. still, it isn't all bad for bill ackman today. his billion dollar short position, yes, that was a "b," in the multilevel marketer herbalife just got an announcement that it's under investigation by the federal trade commission. this is the news he's been waiting for for almost two long years

with me today's "the closing bell" panel, kate kelly, kevin o'leary, author of "cold hard truth on men profit's marcus lemonilemon carol roth, and guy adami. guy, do you want to talk oracle, markets more broadly? >> let's wait for oracle because it's traded great. let's talk about the markets in general. you're too young to know who ethel mermen is but everything is coming up roses. it's crazy. the market doesn't want to go down. i see the news. i think it's mixed at best. bob pisani just said the data has been good. i'd call it mixed. i don't think earnings have been fantastic, but the market wants to plow higher. you can't get in the way. i have been wrong for the last 60 s&p points. i thought the last sell-off would sort of move faster to the downside. it didn't. so it tells me the market -- it tells me we will continue to go higher. >> we saw the market slice down through on the s&p 500 that 1850 level but it has sprang back up, kate. what do you make of that and the move we've seen at the same time seen in commodities. is that a bullish sign fundamentally or will it be a problem d

i'm kate kelly with breaking news on sac hedge fund manager steve cohen who is considering settling withled to supervise two errant employees. these charges filed last july just days before a parallel criminal case was filed by the justice department against his term sac. six to eight months later a lot has happened. the fund is essentially a family office. it will be changing its name in a week or two. the criminal settlement for $1.8 billion is expected to be settled by april 10th. in the meantime, this s.e.c. civil case is set to resumed. i'm told cohen is key in -- or the key for him will be the nature and length of a proposed securities industry ban of some sort. the head of enforcement last summer when the case was filed at the s.e.c. said they are looking to ban cohen from managing public investor money, carl. so, of course, the devil is in the details now for cohen. hands on manager. he is no longer managing public money for the most part but the question will be is k. he provide strategic advice, trade asset, manage his team? all of that will be an issue as we look to resolve th