let's find out what leon cooperman says. he's the chairman and ceo of omega advisors and widely regarded as one of the best market watchers on the street. lee, always great to have you. thanks for coming back on the halftime show today. >> thank you for having me. >> so we're looking back five years now into this bull market where we were and how far we've come. what are your recollections on where we were and how we've gotten to this point? >> well, i think we have to thank mr. bernanke slowly growing economy to get where we've gotten. i mean, it's very predictable in a sense that, you know, every economic recession sows the seed for the next business recovery and every business recovery sows the seeds for the next recession. so back then in march of '09 the market figured out that monetary and fiscal policies were about to change and started to rise. and low and behold in june of '09 we began the economic recovery we're currently in. so i think it's kind of very classical. so is it bull market aging? yes, is it over? no. i

. >> rick, i saw this quote from leon cooperman. i think it was via doug cast but cooperman says if people don't believe oron don't understand tn interest rates have to go up, they shouldn't be in this stock market at all. i don't think a one percent interest rate is any big deal. i'm going get your take. was the impression that janet yellen was hawkish in your view? >> no, definitely not, larry. what we saw today in action was some of the nworld's biggest bod funds and their positions being long, threes being long, fives. they like to be long the heart of the yield curve around that five-year sector. if you look at threes or fives, they came out like a rocketship with higher yields, lower prices. i think that the market reaction tainted what followed with regard to why did the markets move. i didn't hear anything in the press conference. i didn't read anything in the statement that would have me in any way alter the time line, and i think you nailed it. you said forward guidance is kind ofda vague. the reason it's vague is because

today a big investor leon cooperman, chief executive of omega advisors came out in support of ichan'sspin off proposal. >> they should spin off a portion of paypal, monetize it, create a value, lower the cost of capital and give them flexibility. >> and shares of ebay today fell about 1.5% to $58.22. >>> urban outfitters beat but revenue came up short. the name sake store continues to struggle and the ceo warned about the first quarter performance. sales at other stores like free people and anthropology remained strong. >>> a private equity firm is nearing a deal to purchase the institutional shareholders services. the firm is known for guiding shareholders how to vote for things like merges, executive pay and the election of board members. iss has been on the block since october, and if the deal is done, incite venture partners would be the third owner in the past switch years. no terms disclosed for the latest possible deal. >>> sue, a lot of deals are made every year at the annual south by southwest festival where what's trending in technology, entertainment and investing all seem

here's a comment, however, from leon cooperman, hedge fund manager. notable to most of you.u, lawsky should be ashame of his. he's acting as a politician to advance his personal interest. not doing his job as a regulator. those are serious accusations from a well-known and well-respected and extraordinarily charitable individual, someone whose opinion people respect. what do you say to that? >> everyone is entitled to their opinions. i try to do the best job we can do. it's not frankly about me personally or my ambitions. it's about doing a job as a regulator and we have a whole team working on this. mr. cooperman is heavily invested in these companies and obviously doesn't like when we take actions that affects those companies. but we try to do the best we can do and make the calls we think are fair and, again, we want companies to do well. frankly, there are non-bank servicers who may be doing this very well and we want to encourage more companies to do a better job. that's what we do as regulators. >> at the end of the day, it comes down to, you know, consumers making com

leon cooperman of omega advisers. it's a cnbc exclusive.e thinks about where the market is right now and get his perspective on how far we've come in that five-year period. monday, 12 noon right here on "the half." >>> coming up, battle for trader of the year is heeing up. find out who is topping the leaderboard and who is looking to shake up their portfolio. ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop? because everyone has retirement questions. ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. to get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today. >>> welcome back. the competition for trader of the year continues. each person on our desk gets a five stock portfolio and the chance to make ten trades throughout the year, the trader with the best ov

we him to permit has been just angry -- leon cooperman has been just angry. >> michael lewis will be joining "surveillance" thursday at 7:00 a.m. eastern time, author of the new book "flash boys." question, loaded which is why we are asking it today. our twitter question of the day -- it is a loaded question. weekend in new york city. we hope you had better weather. it was a four-hour meeting with the secretary of state of u.s. and the foreign minister of russia, agreed to disagree. should the future of ukraine look like switzerland or canadian federation or some approximation of the union of soviet socialist republics? a private citizen who worked with the army intelligence in afghanistan and with the pacific can, adam parker with us as well. talking on the equity markets. wonderful to have you here. what was the backstory of the non-discussion this weekend? actingia is not really --e a responsible citizen international citizen. i'm not optimistic despite reports about troop movements of -- ukraine or out moving away from ukraine, russian true movements. i'm not optimistic about rus

. >>> coming up at the top of the hour, leon cooperman here five years into the run.e their calls on the who the best and worst performance might be over the next five years. plus we're looking for oil with "mad money"'s jim cramer. we'll head to the bayou straight ahead on the half. >> looks good in that hard hat too, scott, thank you so much. >> yes, he does. >>> technology companies and entrepreneurs gathering in austin, texas, this week as part of south by southwest. our next guest offers customer service ranging from simple cloud storage to all inclusive workplace platforms, parking lot ners include google and salesforce.com among others. aaron levie joins us this morning from austin. aaron, good to have you. good morning. >> thank you very much. >> i can't think of a sweeter space to be in at south by southwest than the one you're in. what are you seeing down there so far that is the interesting? >> one is sort of a lot of nerds and hollywood people are getting together. so this is, i think, right behind me nicholas cage is about to go on in an hour or so. a lot

have, bob pisani has done a great deal of work himself, there is and there are many critics, leon coopermanrvin schwartz. >> mark cuban. >> right. >> who have spoken about it many times who want to see something and say it is, it is hurting integrity of the markets. >> it is. but the exchanges stand behind it because they need sources of revenue. s.e.c., behind the scenes, they don't care about it. they don't care. it's just not important. maybe this can change things. they introduced a fellow, new exchange coming that looks like it's harder to rig, so to speak. but there is nothing new here. it has been allowed. there has been front running, it's electronic front running. one of the great moments in interview steve kroft said, isn't that illegal? michael said, no, it's legal front running. how can that be? isn't it crazy? your government has blessed. your government thinks it's good. it's your government. it's government as good as you're going to get and they don't care. >> talking milliseconds but it can add up to a few cents here and there over time. >> which sort of makes -- begs for c