the next lechl, we look at those recession stocks. when they bottom we buy our next quarter. douglas in california. >> caller: thanks for keeping it real. >> thank you for calling. >> caller: i'd like to ask you a couple of questions if i may. >> sure. >> caller: after reading your stock replacement strategy, i'm into trading. i would like to ask how does the vics move the market or how does the market move the vix? >> it's a measure of what's the stock is oscillating. it goes up and down. the wide swings tell you the emotion. it's a gauge of emotion. how about that. it's an actual way to put the numbers to a motion. when we get emotional, emotional and extremes of emotion, i find that you want to be a buyer when you get that extreme motion down and you want to be a seller when you get the extreme motion up. david in texas. >> caller: how are you? >> not bad. thank you. how about you? >> caller: i'm doing great. i'm into some binary option trading. how does it compare to every day trading or every day trading or should i be doing something different? >> look, i want to tell p

s&p 500 just between those lechls that people are looking for stronger signals to sell. >> pretty flat in europe today and that continues. ibex having the best up about a percent. >> that's for today's show. thanks for tuning in. i'm kelly evans. >> i'm ross westgate. coming up next, "squawk box". >> i'm not back until monday. >> put up with me. >>> good morning. cisco beats the street and hikes its dividend, giving its stock a big boost. >> apple's next frontier, the company reportedly talking to cable operators about a set top box. >>> and the market braces for more data on the labor market. we have those jobless claims numbers out at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. it's thursday, august 16, 2012. it's the 35th anniversary of the king's passing. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ >>> happy thursday and good morning and welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm andrew ss

. >> we've seen gas prices all year just at such high lechls. remember going into the summer driving season, throughout it, we just never got the relief you might have otherwise kpmted as the market was selling off and people got worried about the global growth picture. whether it was supply disruptions here or abroad that's consistently been the theme. it continues to erode the spending power of lowest income americans. >> as far as the gulf goes, this has been called not a new orleans storm even though that's obviously a big center of attention but a gulf coast storm. mandatory evacuations in louisiana and alabama. 1,500 national guard have been called to mississippi. they're talking about a storm surge of roughly 12 feet. as anybody who's ever covered a hurricane knows, it's not the wind necessarily that gets you. it's the water. so there's going to be a lot of discussion about the ability of levees to hold. >> the $14 billion refurbished system. this is a major test of that capacity and, ok, of all of the various improvements. communications