so yields have come down post that ecb ltro. yields continue to fall in spanish auctions and it's worth reminding 0 ourselves, christine, spain has raised 40% of their total funding needs for the year and here we are on march 1st. >> it's a good sign:a good start to the month. higher spending we're seeing by japanese companies to tell us more we have the details from the uk. >> reporter: up 7.6% for the october to december period according to government figures released this morning. this was the first rise in three quarte quarters. spending reached some $122 billion largely pushed by invest mtsz for restoring kuwait hit plants and equipment. sales in august business sectors fell 1.3% and pretax profits dropped slightly more than 10%. still, the finance ministry sees the figures as a bright sign for the country's economic growth. the data will be factored into data in the october-december period due out next week. japan's gdp fell 0.6% but analysts say this is likely to be revised upwards. that's all from the nikkei business rep

getting the benefit of ltro, too. both italian and spanish ten-year debt firmly below the 5% mark at the moment as gilts go back up to 2.2%. we won't get any more qe and bunds here 1.84. what's significant as well how much money is flowing into the short end particularly in italy. we saw this happen yesterday. italian debt for the first time below 2% after 15 months it's moved further below the level down to 1.75%. this is where you're seeing the real impact of that money, the three-year italian debt, 2.5%. euro dollar fairly steady. still weaker, 1.3257. euro/yen still near the recent multimonth highs we've had. dollar yen this morning, that hit a fresh high that we haven't seen since may. curre currently 81.47. and just to remind you where we are with brent now, during the post close last night, late post sentiment brent with a number of 128. back down to 125.39. we had erroneous reports of fire. the nymex will show the sharp spike up late yesterday and nymex crude trading at 108.30. christine? >>> asian bourses doi

that ltro saw banks ticking up just under 530 billion euros in cheap loans.cant rise in ecb overnight deposits. they had a record 827 billion on monday. still over 800 billion today. at the same time the balance sheet of the ecb is now over 3 tr trillion euros which when you compare it with both the fed and the bank of japan in terms of gdp is a greater balance sheet. silvia is in her regular post outside the ecb headquarters for our monthly meeting, when they're in frankfurt, of course. silvia, is that billion sheet there stoking up even more of the internal divisions on the ecb particularly between the bankers and the rest? >> reporter: well, i think the concern has been there all along. the concern is i think not only with the german faction, as it were, they are fully aware of the dangers of this. now the ecb, i must admit, is better equipped to withdraw funds to sterilize, to maybe run down their balance sheet again than other central banks because they have a little bit more sophisticated tool kit, if that's the right word for it but, yes, the concern i

what does the bank plan to do with all the ltro. we'll hear from the ceo right after this. >>> you're watching "worldwide exchange." the french energy giant says it will take months to stop the gas leak at its >>> you're watching "worldwide exchange." the french energy giant says it will take months to stop the gas leak at its el begin platform as a cloud builds over the north sea. >> hon hai becomes the biggest holder. >> sterling loses a bit of ground after the uk's gdp is revised lower for the first quarter. it's contracted 3% in the last three months of 2011. >>> meanwhile they say they expect to return a profit after posting a 2.3 billion euro loss in 2011. the state run company says it's stepping up restriucturing efforts. it's carried out a review of its business practices. also in italy, unikre did is in the middle of a clean-up process. we caught up yesterday. she joins us from milan. how's he feets, claudia? >> he actually seemed very confident and relaxed versus what we had seen in the past. the situation is this. the fou

the ltro has boosted liquidity and the crisis has been contained but i think if investors look to the way the portuguese bond market is prici pricing, it's still pricing at a high level of stress. and the portuguese equity market hasn't really rebounded any from where it was, say, six months ago. so i think that's still a pretty key test that not all is well had in the eurozone but i completely agree that i think for investors who are worried that the actual triggering of credit default swaps was an eventual land mine are for the markets, we really don't think that's the case. >> andrew, we have to leave you here, unfortunately, but thanks for coming on and speaking to us today. andrew sheets at morgan stanley. ellen will stick around a bit longer. chloe? >>> thanks so much for that. coming up on "worldwide exchange," china's central bank, the pboc signaling that it is willing to loosen its grip on the yuan. so how far might they go? carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey, this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the loca

in truth that is mois normally happens in regards to the printing of the ltro. but i think it's a race to be the worst at the moment. it is not what it's weakening against and that's sterling and the u.s. dollar at this stage which is the concern. >> i'd like to jump in on this conversation, as well, and talk about the unemployment rate. obviously very high in spain even when compared to some of the other eurozone countries. how are they going to work through that problem and try to create a situation where they're growing to be able to move forward? >> the unemployment rate at 20 is terrifying. youth unemployment i think approaching 50 is absolutely appalling. and i think here and now this is actually the problem of the eurozone project is the portability of labor. if you were to take it a leaf out of your book in the u.s. and we had total portability of labor, the story i sluff 1849, a group of up employed workers made the trip to san francisco to dig gold. unemployed construction workers in spain should be making the trip in eastern europe to help the mining

let's rewind to december 21st when the ecb came out with the initial ltro.n the markets in quite some time. yesterday was a feral environment, to see the volatility in the precious metals and treasury complex. we did not see it spill over to the s&p so the equities are setting up for volatility as everyone is expecting a 5% to 7% retracement. >> jeff, thank you very much for joining us today. >> all right, becky, take care. >> you, too. >>> up next on "squawk box" what the state of the advertising industry is telling bus the overall economy. wpp's ceo sir martin sorrell will sit down with us. >>> and later pain at the pump. senator david vit we are his plan to fight high gasoline prices. "squawk box" will be right back. it's kind of hard to make decisions by yourself all of a sudden, when you have been making them with somebody else for 35 years. i guess there is something in me that has always been strong. i've always gotten through some pretty rough stuff without falling to pieces. ♪ ♪ >>> we're back. the world's largest advertising agency saw sales jump 4

they can't, until ltro came along, they can't take the hits to the balance sheet.s and say, we know we know this is worth a billion. it's on our books for four. we can't sell it. we know it's worth a billion. they can't take the hits to the capital bases. >> that's a real opportunity. >> we think there is a lot of volume and the deals are big investments. they are big and the banks there were more aggressive than banks here. >>> you really looking for the most part distress anywhere you find it whether in the u.s. or europe? >> we are buying and working on a couple of hotel properties in london that are coming from this seller. the basis is good and we are buying a multifamily on the 7,000 units in the u.s. the market in the u.s. is as good as it will get. >> what happens when the rates struck? >> lock in the debt. >> even though we said yes, rates will stay low, we are seeing rates with the ten year going up. do things change and you worry as rates go higher? >> we are working on investments and trying to secure a 10-year paper. it could be that the debt is your b

gets put to work, and quantitative easing 3 talks happens, but the action doesn't, and ltro 3 doesn't happen. people are going to be accustomed to the extra liquidity market when it's not there. >> are earnings estimates too high? >> i don't think so. i think the notion we'll see declining earnings as early as this year, i think that's a little pessimistic. i think we'll still have positive growth this year. >> thank you so much for joining us. >> we'll see you both later on the program here. >> and we are in the final stretch here. back in positive territory. 20 minutes before the closing bell sounds, bill. >> oil may be higher today, but our next guest will explain why we could see a big sell-off on the horizon. >> is this market due for a correction? >> standout performers among the s&p 500. back from post 9 right after this. >>> but first, before we go to break, the "dividend." which nasdaq 100 stock is outperforming the others so far this year? comcast, the parent company of this network, intuit, or oracle? >>> just before the break as part of the "dividend," we asked, which nasd

the ltro did to an stepped have a systemic risk to the banking system in europe, but also concern over restructuringses exist. greece is as you point out the market focus now. greeces has moved to the background and spain is in the fore. while i guess you could say the risk of revupgting in spain is as high as it's ever been, never the less, it's not inevitable. if we get the right sort of fiscal and structural reforms, it's quite possible that these targets are achieved alongside support from perhaps a troica type structure which will provide the appropriate financing. but it's in the quite the next shoe to fall, but certainly the market is looking at spain with an awful lot of concern. >> john, this is christine. with so much uncertainty coming out to the eurozone, to what extent can the global economy count on the u.s. for a recovery this year? >> that's a very good question and the central question is the growth pulse in the u.s. sufficient to offset weakness in europe. i think will are two camps. one camp suggests that growth numbers are rolling over, that there's a seasonal effec

after the second ltro. joining us now is marcus swarngs strategy gi strategist. mark is with us still. 827 billion euros with the ecb is a huge amount of money. what does this tell us about the extent to which the second round of the ltro works on us? >> i think it depends on what the purpose of it was. i'm sure mr. draghi was hoping it would be held onto and businesses in general. one continues to perceive it to some extent. i think wait tells us is the banks are still holding huge amounts of money. the interbank market doesn't work, the ecb is effectively the account for the euro money markets and the banks are basically making sure they've got enough money to pay down the debts, which are going to be maturing. it leaves us effectively in gridlock perhaps a better way of describing is deadlock. we're not going to really see much improvement. particularly not with respect to the spectrum of greece. >> it's a pretty -- markets are a pretty expensive way of achieving deadlock, isn't it? what's it going to take to move the banks out with this kind of hunkering down

so it's not signaling the rate of contraction that we had late last year before the ltros have been in place, but there's been a broad based weakening. a steep race of decline still in the periphery. perhaps more worrying than that, germany, the rate of growth is creeping closer towards stag thags. so it looks like the problems in periphery are continuing to affect the two largest economies. importantly, this is march, so end of the first quarter and what the data is signaling is for the eurozone as a local, another quarter of contraction on part of the 4.3% decline that we saw which is obviously a technical recession. so even though the rate of decline is only modest, the meg different surrounding that fact of the double digit session could down consumer confidence going forward. >> there are various sectors. the services figure the march services pmi figure seems to come out at 48.about 7, and the manufacturing 47.abo7. walk us through each part. >> manufacturing was a key area of weakness here. it looks like global trade is closing and we can see that with the other pmi numbers that

things and most people can't understand either side of that equation, he can move markets but the ltrok probably were a little more blunt about certain issues, and i think that he was just kind of included in that ven diagram. back to you. >> rick, on a different subject, if you were a credit default swap buyer and you were going to get, you saw something go to 40or 50 cents on the dollar, would you be miffed or buy another one? does that seem fair? >> reporter: let me sell you something. if you ever have a chance to read the rules and how they delegate it to certain committees and people that represent certain groups on who ultimately decides what's a credit event and what isn't, i'd personally, i don't believe in regulation. let people buy whatever they want to buy. if you're asking me would i buy something, would i get a haircut like that and somebody from up above behind another curtain says default, no default? not on your life! >> do you think that was a bad decision then? >> listen, i personally think a default is a default, but in the world we live in, nothing is as it appears

with the ltro, i think the interesting question is to what extent the 500-plus billion we had on ltro 2 is going to feed into the real economy. and the answer to that is it's going to be very slow. >> christine? >>> focusing, of course, on china. some mixed messages from china's services sector. the purchasing manager's index for the nonmanufacturers apparently eased in february to 48.4 from january's 52.9. investors hope that gives the pboc more reason to loosen policy. now the data was kind of conflicting with a separate private is yosurvey which shows nonmanufacturing pmi up at its fastest pace in four months but market which compiles the index says services firms are feeling less confident about their short-term outlook. also, we have china lowering its growth forecast, growth target. that as kicks off its ten-day parliament meetings focused on the chinese economy. premier wen jiabao has said they are looking for 7.5% economic expansion this year through a combination of fiscal and monetary policies. the new target is lower than the s symbolic 8% mark beijing has kept since 2004.

so i think the ltro will continue to make spreads either at this stage. we've been constructive on credit since january on credit spreads, on corporate bonds, but now we think we wouldn't risk this stage because the rally has played a lot in the markets. we are bit more conservative after months of rally. >> alberto, how much of a precedence does greece for other governments who are also facing sovereign issues? >> yes, i mean, the man conduit is portugal. portugal is a spread and bank spreads have not been tightening. they've been excluded from the rally elsewhere in the market. and i think that investors are concerned about whether the us a it territory reforms will be successful in portugal and potentially our economy expects portugal to renegotiate the package from the imf later on this year or early next year so it's not an imminent 2012 problem but there are kcountrie with austerity where growth will not be there. >> i have to go to markets. we spent a long time trying to avoid a cds payout. we spent nearly most of last year trying to avoid a cds pa

so all the liquidity done in ltro one and two has essentially enabled the banks to buy the sovereign. as we know there's this huge circumstance late between the sovereign on the one hand and the banking on the other. the sovereign has dwarn guaranteed the banks. the problem here is that if the ecb decides that the fiscal compact is not as secure as what was originally proposed, the likelihood of it going and doing more is less. in which case you'll have problems with the banking system. don't forget they hadn't actually turned 0 out for three years. they have funded at least some of their debt for three years but it's still a lot coming up in the second half of the year. so that is a problem and the liability side rather than the asset side of the balance sheet and what you're seeing in europe is the paradox of thrift and, therefore, you're going to see growth crater through peripheral k countries over the next few months. that's unlikely to be good. so, therefore, both of those could be the ecb side and the asset side of the balance sheet. >> so then what does the ecb need to do beca

so when ltro isn't the saving grace anymore, then what is? >> well, my sense is sometimes the short-term plans become medium term. first you might see them as medium term but also is it buys these countries time to work through some of their problems, see what policies will work. so even a shorter medium term at least buys time to try to come through with maybe more structural changes. >> all right, great. thank you so much for that. allison will stay with us to give us more insight on the markets and stay tuned, of course, to are "worldwide exchange" because we have one guest who is coming up that's warning investors holding u.s. tr treasuries is akin to 0 financial suicide. we're going to have that in about 20 minutes' time. stay with us. >>> also, still to come on the show, focus on spain today as the country is due to issue three to six year worth debt. will demand hold up despite the country's struggles with brussels over its deficit targets analysis. carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey, this is challenger. i'll be wai

it brings us back to the ltros. is it wearing thin. there were rumors on friday that the ecb was back in trying to subdue the yield spreads back in buying bonds. we don't know if that happened or whether or not it was a rumor, but the fact that there were rumors suggest the impact of the ltro was wearing thin. so there are still a fair amount of concerns about the eurozone heading in to the summer and i think that's the background that we have and the reason perhaps why we've got this building up of the firewall now. >> have investors seen the benefit of the ltro, is that all done now? >> a big question mark for europe is that on one side, the cost of that from 2% to 5% of gdp, sometimes higher on one side. on the other side, we have growth at best of 1%. most german countries being down minus 1 ppts 7% our forecast. which means the only way on balance it, this is why the market will be far more in the doldrums and i would come back to to reality. >> okay. jane, we'll let you go. thanks for that. patrick will stick around for the rest

see the banks picked up government debt on the ecb quantitative easing equivalent over there, the ltro. without having anything fundamentally changed over the solvency picture, it's good to meet the funding obligations. going forward, it's not like they have taken advantage to turn this around. the deficit picture is worsening and the economy is weak as well. >> what worries me a little bit, kelly, the euro weakened mid-morning, we saw our markets move. and that worries me, the higher yields have been creeping up for a number of days and all of a sudden you come in and they are passing around spanish yields. >> with oil up, it's not exactly the situation would you want. would you hope that commodities would cool off and instead it's reflecting the supply concerns. >> any reason why telecoms are -- >> it's the defensive kind of day. >> thanks, everybody. we'll check in. ross? >> it's amazing. your voice changed there. >> and it sounds better, too. i think i'm going to adopt that voice. >> that was cool. this set is amazing. let's remind you of the day's big movers and shakers. seema moo

and the chinese, especially after ltro, seeming to be investing again in the eurozone. i don't think there's anything too significant about the fact that they haven't been buying as many treasuries as before. i think these are general asset trades they are doing and when you have italian ten-year bond yields at 5% backed by some sort of ecb funding and you have u.s. treasuries at 2% then they might see where it is. >> whether china is going to keep to its trading ban, whether they're going to widen it, to what extent. when you hear they will rebalance the economy, what exactly does that mean for foreign forex strategy? >> i think there is a move towards strengthening the renminbi but this has been going on for a long time. i don't think china is going to do anything dramatic or something that is going to take people dramatically by surprise. but it will be a continued process of appreciation of the renminbi and, meanwhile, what they will be doing is trying to stimulate domestic demand. this has been a long stated policy for them and they will just continue exactly down

will be the last ltro.ounce on that one. >> it's amazing to see how the markets react, as if tuesday fefr happ never happened. >> there was a time i felt 60% would be better. now we think it's good. but bernanke, again yesterday. he said we're not going to let this go down the drain. this guy, he is giving will this economy nine lives. weren't you surprised? that was pretty amazing. >> definitely leaning into the wind. we'll talk about some of the fed policy today with liesman, but then again, you look at brazil, rates down to single digits. mcdonald's missing big in europe today. >> very important. >> and you begin to wonder if we have to start recomputing global growth stories. >> i'm wondering about earnings. mcdonald's is down badly. >> and also asia pacific and middle east. and that's a problem. that fuels tuesday's concerns, although we're not seeing it today. >> does it worry to you see the weakness or can it be written off by stuff like the lunar new year? >> every time you write things off as somet

. >> now in the last couple days, the ltro was aggressive, but it's out there, kinus. at the same time the fed is not taking the punch bowl away, but moving it further down the ble. now we shift our focus just to the economy getting better of the that's a vulnerable period for the stock market. >> i subscribe to the philosophy if you have a basket of high-quality companies that can generate cash flow in whatever the outliers of the economy, whether inflation or deflation, that's how you preserve wealth, how you increase wealth. it's not a very complicated story. >> if i were a buyer of protection on greece, a have seen the result this morning in terms of the no protection, then, you ow, i would be upset. people with a machine. customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. >>> i'm in ussels, where it is 13 minutes past 10:00. the eu leader to break up at any moment. ing into the summit, the finance ministers decided they were

sovereign zone on a yield hunt maybe not to greece, maybe not to portugal, would you go on and with wle ltrocked stop. isn't this a safe place to pick up high yield right now? >> i don't think so. i think people who are going into a low duration fund are taking a baby step away from a money market fund. and i believe that the most important principal in managing a fund like this is not to achieve some sort of higher yield. it's to primarily preservation of principle and maintaining a return. so in fact, in our fund and our corporate side we have no european debt exposure whatsoever. and invested primarily in industrials sectors, names like walmart, proctor & gamble, ge. high credits. i don't believe a low duration fund is where you reach for credit and yield. >> it's been a pleasure speaking with you. that's the latest edition of the "fast money" portfolio. let's move to the next trade. business is picking up in china, brazil, and peru. also double digit revenue growth for their global businesses. good news considering we were just bracing ourself for a big slowdown in china. ge, this compan

. >> and real quick on europe, you said the ltro and ecb action stabilized things. do you worry there are certain unknowables out there, like the risk and european banks that you are doing business with? there are unknowables out there, right? >> yes. and again, a lot of event risk around europe. what the politicians are now trying to do and they are going in the right direction, it is very, very difficult. and it'll play itself out over years. you have to be very focused on managing your risk. >> you're checking on the program. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you, jerry del missier on floor. back to you. >> thank you. the dow losing altitude. we were up 37 points. now about 15-point gain. apple shares continue higher up nearly 50% this year. when we come back and talking numbers, we will break down the chart and show you why apple shares might may be a little overripe right now. or maybe not. >>> later, he is running way back in the polls as you know. but as ron paul planning it stay in the race until the convention or will he soon throw support behind

but what i call shock of terror, the ltro has been an enormous boost for the financial system. but it has done nothing in terms of the questions regarding solvency of the other countries. we think the liquidity injections we can see now will have an impact for some time. >> michelle, would you agree with that, that the concerns are still there? give us your play-by-play in terms of what happens next. >> yeah, deep reforms are what needs to happen. and that's the hardest thing to get done. we see the typical reaction of what a lot of the countries, greece for an example, of how they first react to a debt crisis. they cut salaries and they raise taxes. instead of doing things to liberalize the economy, to make it easier to hire, and yes, to fire. although it's painful, it's also a thing that makes the economy more flexible. they don't want to face that. italy has those problems too. >> that's a great point. this is sort of the mentality of the region, isn't it, in terms of the labor laws. this is probably one of the biggest issues. jose, its gee to have you on the program. >> tha

focus is still on what has changed since ltro 2. we'll also be watching and waiting for the greek psi decision. what will the takeup be. 30 major holders of greek bonds have already confirmed that they're going to be taking part in the debt swap. and we also get numbers out from the top four and henkle. we'll be talking to their ceos to see how they're coping in the environment. tune in to cnbc world to catch all of the world overseas. i'm louisa bojesen, "going global" with your money. with a new view of the market, you could see an investment opportunity you didn't see before. fidelity's next generation ipad app lets you see what's trending around the world, as well as what over a million fidelity customers are trading throughout the day. and advanced charting lets you customize your views and set up your own comparisons. our ipad app can help refine your strategy or even find a new one. i'm velia carboni, and i helped create fidelity's next generation ipad app. it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fideli

what's going on over there with the ltro, they have continued to throw liquidity at the system.facts and circumstances and i don't see why it's not going to continue to work. also, if you look at the u.s. multi-national companies that are reporting earnings, they are still seeing some positive demand over in europe, so, no, i don't think -- i think they have figured out how to figure the problem. it may take some time though. >> coming up next, there's a big bearish sign in 2012 sizzling stocks. find out which high-flying stocks on the street they are itching to short. stick around. more "fast money" ahead. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of long weekends and longer retirements. ♪ ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. ♪ laces? really? slip-on's the way to go. more people do that, security would be like -- there's no charge for the bag. thanks. i know a quiet little place where we can get some work done. there's a three-prong plug. i have club passes. [ male announcer ] get the mileage card

well, then the stimulus that's happened in the pass, qe-1, qe-2, and europe's ltro translates into near term inflation could hit as early as next year. the other scenario of recession pushes back 2014 or 2015 but increases the scale of that inflation. because can you imagine our current fed not react bing to a rollover back into recession? >> no. >> with massive stimulus. >> all right rb rob. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for your time. >>> coming up next, fraud in the secondary market. we're talking to the founder of share and post which just settled with the sec. more "fast money" up next. ♪ ♪ here we are, me and you ♪ on the road ♪ and we know that it goes on and on ♪ [ female announcer ] you're the boss of your life. in charge of making memories and keeping promises. ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. ♪ ♪ oh, oh, all the way ♪ oh, oh a living, breathing intelligence teaching data how to do more for business. [ beeping ] in here, data knows what to do. because the network finds it and tailors it across all the right po

and the ltro have reduced those risks.he risks have been diminished, causing people to look at relative valuations. they say you ought to be long equities and short fixed income. >> what are some of the next levels we should be targeting now that we've broken above 13,000? we don't know whether that's sustainable. what's the next range to be tash targeting? >> i think it's very difficult to make a short-term prediction over the rest of the year. the one thing -- the big risk out there still is an israeli attack on iranian nuclear facilities. that is a big risk. if we avoid that risk, i think the market could have a very good 2012 and also a very good 2013. >> how good is the economy going to be this year, steve? >> i'm more in the 2.5% to 3% camp. i think people coming back to work is going to end up with higher gdp. there's a huge conflict right now in the numbers that we've talked about, which is that payrolls are saying it's a 4% world. the gdp, the demand side is saying it's a 2% world. i'm taking the in between with a

spilling onto the united states, given what mario draghi has just done this week, another level of ltro? >> that's exactly right. to jason's point, i think one reason qe-3 has lower probabilities, europe has essentially opened the liquidity spigot. in some ways, we've got a really kind of a global easing cycle under way. i think that's helping all dpngs assets globally. >> so you want to be invested in stocks? >> yes, absolutely. and i think one of the things i took away from our ohio conference this week, microfunds are really still pretty holding on to fixed income positions. but fund managers are underweight cyclicals. a recent survey, 50% of fund managers are underweight cyclicals today. tech has been the best performing group year-to-date. >> i like tech. one of my -- >> who doesn't like tech, right? >> the fact of the matter is, the multiples are still very reasonable valuations. >> they really are. >> even let's say apple -- >> how can that be. not a single person comes up here and says i don't like technology, it's too expensive, i wouldn't touch it. if everybody loves technolog

they also benefit from the quantitative easing, the ltro, the printing of money that has to happen for the west to address the issues it's facing right now. >> i have traders. brian kelly is sitting next to me and he's the first. >> i'm curious where you come down on the china-consuming metals, let's call it, debate. a lot of people are saying it's the growth rate that matters or simply just the level of demand. as long as china continues to consume at this same level, copper, tin, that type of thing, should find a base here. >> i think right now they could go either way. it's not going to come down to growth, it's going to come down to whether china wants to build inventories, so i don't think you'll see massive selloffs at these levels. we think growth will disappoint. we think the consensus is getting more and more bullish, but we think china will come in and start to build positions in all the metals should you see price deterioration here. we think selloffs would be good buying opportunities. >> patrick, i see on your list you're long platinum as well. >> yeah, platinum you're get

fixed income has benefited enormously from the europe ltro program. so it's like the equivalent of the fed's purchase program. so they'll have a good capital markets quarter. and there are other businesses, maybe okay with asset writeups. for the last two years, anyway, you've had a strong first half and terrible second half. i expect you'll have a strong first -- you know, decently okay first half, and a far weaker send half. >> would you still sell citi and suntrust right here at these levels after the sell-off? >> i think sun trust is at -- you know, it's richly valued. so what's the trade here. are they going to -- you're just not going to make any money in my estimation on that name. and citi, it's difficult to move that ship. they're investing in a lot of regulatory processes, but it's like the old broken-down victorian house, you have to put so much money in to get to a modern equivalent of a new house. it's just -- their investment span is prohibitive. it's not that exciting in terms from an investment scenario. people were way too optimistic

treasury theme with stephen next to me, the tlt is a great opportunity here due to the fact that the ltros only three months old has already paralleled the three-year domestic qe. the tlt is bullish on treasuries, allows you to get in. it's never been about the trade here. it's always been about price appreciation, not people seeking yield. >> question on that. i'm certainly with you in spirit. i haven't been long for several weeks in the bond market. we have a 30-year auction today that the dealer community seems to be very worried about. do you think it's going to go well? >> i think this will be the last shakeout here, cortes. we've seen a tremendous shakeout on all the treasuries. >> next, turning march madness into mad cash. >>> and coming up next, goldman sachs under fire big time. how a former executive's parting words is sending shock waves throughout the street. and the search for dividends, forget about banks. we're going to show you some other smart ways to find higher yield in a yield-starved environment. and how to runwith the bulls in tech, apple and financials. that's next

but the ecb with the ltro certainly took that issue off the table.e've already decoupled. the chinese equity market with s&p in the last 12 months, so, yes, the u.s. is a closed economy. only 12% of exports are a part of gdp. we can definitely decouple and would argue we already have. >> when you look at the upside/downside on ud gdp, joe, credit suisse said consensus on gdp is too low and my thoughts is gdp is too high. when you look at how oil prices affect the gdp assumptions, that's your high/low? >> i'm the high end. you're right. high gas prices are a risk to growth, raises a deflator and takes ahold of the commodity economy very quickly. the labor market is better. a powerful offset there. offset maybe a third of the gasoline rise by lower electricity and natural gas use so that's been a powerful offset and, of course, rates are low. yes, you're supposed to be worried about energy, but right now gdp for the quarter is okay, close to 3%. we're going to get a big lift in defense spending. most people don't know that and consumer spending looks o

we powered through it because we were in the middle of the ltro, the liquidity coming from all that bigeveloped world central banks. i don't think it will be such a favorable event next go around. energy prices presents a real problem. you saw that in this morning's university of michigan confidence number. >> barry, it's josh brown. i'm a big fan of your work. and last summer i guess right around this time last year you had put out a note about escape philosophy and i think bar rens picked that up. and we stalled out on that because europe got serious. do you think what we're seeing now is picking up where we left off last spring? and is this sustainable enough that in the second half when we lose some of the stimulus that we're seeing, can it kind of feed onto itself and do its thing going forward? what are your thoughts there? >> i'm thinking, you know, after learning a bit of a lesson around that a year ago, you know, what you've really seen over the last couple of years is since the recovery started is that things like nominal gdp and nominal consumption have been very stable, but

in the meantime, there's still remaining investor concerns and the ltro has done its job in terms of european markets so let's move forward. >> taking profits off ahead of that report? >> i think the balance of risk to traders is a pretty solid number on friday there are whispers in the market in the nonfarm payroll number. >> john brady at the cme, great to speak with you. >> let's move over to technology. apple one day away from the product launch event. here to help us sort through fact and fiction is cnbc's jon fortt. what do we really know? >> let's look at numbers. it doesn't seem like investors are too hyped up. to keep things in perspective, the stock is up 25%. let's look at what is plainly expected. i doubt it's called the ipad 3. the most important thing is what apple is doing with that extra horsepower in this a6 chip. if so, it's like that karate kid moment where they say to take daniel out, it could crush the already hobbled competition. will we get fast wireless lte in a an ipad? maybe. which could see an update to the television set and when these ipads go on sale aft

they've taken the third ltro off the table.ke i can't come back in. one of the objectives of the policy is to create another side to the trade. >> you said they're saying it's not going to happen. how many this evenings have they said were never going to happen in the last two years have ended up happening? >> i agree with you. >> it's not going to happen imminently, not going to happen this year. if we get to two years' time and things haven't improved -- >> if we get to three months' time and europe is really rolling over, i don't think there's a question as to how they would respond. >> but don't you want to keep people guessing? that's one of the points of policy is that you create another side of the trade. >> they should try and let them stand on their own. >> i'm not that concerned. >> you want me to read the headlines. >> i have cal carly fiorina com up today. i want to you read the headlines. >> revenue essentially in line with expectations. now it looks like the stock was called down after having earlier been called u

. >> this response to what the ecb said today and draghi suggesting that this ltro will be the last,t's up to governments to do the tough sledding, are you convinced that not only a crisis scenario has been taken off the table, but that real repair can begin? ? >> i do believe real repair can begin, yes. >> how is that going to happen? >> the european situation, the ltro has given them the time to address their problems longer term and i believe they can do that. >> taking a look at your portfolio, a big portion is in corporate bonds, 46% or so. where are you finding the best values at point, are there certain sectors or certain geographies? >> the corporate bond market is in pretty good shape. we like higher quality corporates. we think they can do well in what we think will be a fairly slow growth economy. we also like better liquidity, larger names that have better liquidity. >> are you dare to go look at european corporates? >> we own some european corporates. we're not expanding our holdings at the current time. >> a lot of discussion today about what bernanke or what the fed is

. >> the ecb president suggesting this liquidity dump, the ltro, that's it for now.hat the banks have enough money. it's interesting that merkel has also said a very similar thing today. a huge week for europe, though perhaps the equity markets have not moved as much as you might thing. a her from goldman i think is interesting. let he show you, on the three major indices we're all over the place the the utilities have done well today in europe. dollman has a note out today that suggests it is now changing its view of europe and there is no case, it believes, the risk, no central case for a sustained fall in stock markets in the next three months. it is therefore upgrading utilities from neutral to overweight. utilities in general, but you'll see how some have contained. what it's suggesting here is you can get a yield of 6.9% on some of these utilities. they're talking potential up side. one more thing i want to tell you is where we've gone on spanish yields. this is the weekly look at the ten-year in spain. you'll notice that the yields are rising in spain at the e

the yield, ten-year spanish debt 4.88 so we're continuing to see post-ltro 02.he declines in bond yields particularly at the short end of the italian curve as well. the yield 1.77%. you move below 2% tore the first time in 15 months and we've continued to drop below that. and that's where we're seeing the benefit of l it tro 2. you were talking with about barclays earlier taking $8 billion because they felt the stigma had dwon. of course they were saying they were ring fencing that away from bonuses. so trying to deal with bonus criticism. there's been a lot of that in this part of the world over the earnings season, trying to separate that out and say we're not going to benefit from ltro. banks are benefiting and they will make big profits in the first quarter because of the fall in yield and the rise in the stock markets as well. as far as euro/dollar is concerned, weaker today. euro/yen falling but still near the recent multimonth highs. dollar/yen hit a fresh high, 81.47. that's where we stand ahead of the u.s. open. back to you. >> ross, thank you very much

mÁs de tranquilidad, sin embargo de acuerdo a estudios realizados por distins compaÑÍas, tener un ltro> hola amigos, les invitamos unos tacos, quesadillas, lo que ste! >> es una excelente persona. >> y los chilaquiles, todo! es buena en el arte culinario. >> cuando uno va a l basÍlica de guadalupe, nunca m voy a olvidar la primera vez que fui, ahÍ mismo la hacen y usted se la come. >> tiene que ser de la calle. >> por supuesto. [risas] >> es como un hot dog de nueva york. [risas] >> para que se le anje la quesadilla. >> cuando uno va a la gran manzana que es el mejor medio de transporte. estÁn lotaxis que traen pantallita de tv, ahora van a cambiar las pantallas por unas tabletas, usted vago a procesar su pago a traÉs de la tarjeta de crÉdito, ahora se puede hacer pero hay un recargo de 5%, y con tanto costo, habÍa una pÉrdida de 5% del trabo de los taxistas, nueva york inplementa mismo. >> eso estÁ perfecto. lo Único malo de los taxistas es que no se paran, en nueva york casi hago que me atropellenpa que se paren. >> la primera vez que fui a nueva york, era invierno y me habÍpuesto a

there is little doubt the combination of the ltro has put a band aid.rd. you have the safety. let's not diminish normalization. whether you look at stocks in nuclear war of 2009 at 65, 6600 or ten-year rates intraday that traded 170 at one point. you have to inspect if growth isn't huge a normalization has to be rates moving higher. inflation, what did we learn from the university of michigan sentiment survey. whether you believe the preliminary read or not one of the metrics moved to 4%. this is a real wild card. i was amazed. now you can double short the treasuries, etfs. there are a lot. they have to track. are we creating a spiral? as rates move higher, speculators jump in. i have no problem with speculators. maybe etf activity contributed to some selling. those are the ingredients. now it's up to traders to really put on how many tablespoons of each. once you get that down you will know the next big trade. back to you. >> that was awesome. i'm not kidding. >> you may want to check "equities" there. i think it was equites. >> the man's in a hurry. y

. >> has the ltro divorced for now the banking crisis from sovereign crisis, will that continue to be the case? >> to shall degree you have three years of a pre-pass. it doesn't mean we're fixing the economy, but it does mean there's less pressure on those specific financial institutions but you look at spain, youth unemployment of over 50%. that spells political uncertainty or political destabilization. >> all right. stick around. more on come from you. >> coming up next on the show from our end, we'll take a look at the environmental impact of total's gas leak in the north sea.  >>> total has rejected suggestions that that's a risk of explosion on its gas plath form in the north sea. a flame has been burning to prevent excess gas pressure from building up, but they suggest a change in weather conditions would cause a flame to ignite. the company's assured that operations on the platform have already been shut down. and could cost up to 10 billion. wild varience in those estimates. joining us is frederick hawk. thanks for joining us. you think right now the gas leak

nobody's doubled in value from that point of the ltro, okay?solid footing. you know, from here i think the easy money has been had. i think there's probably another, you know, 15% or so. that's because this is a smaller company that does have expansion opportunities that the bigger guys don't really have because they are everywhere. i think it's more of a good kind of a longer term story now because the easy money has been mad. >> you do mention the ltro. that huge injection that came from the ecb. that, of course, changed sentiment and risk appetite in the first quarter. is that -- i think this is what you're driving at. is that a one off event, therefore? >> i think the one off event is, i was getting -- you know, i'm the only one with a buy on the stock. you know, when we were in november, people were saying, dave, is this mf global? you know, the market is very smart over long terms -- over long term periods but can be very unknowledgeable sometimes. you know, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's got to be mf global. i think

is, does it make actually a whole lot of difference because the markets of course have decided post ltro that was the big news. no systemic financial collapse has been put off the table. and whatever, when it's 940, 800 billion, whatever, those punds wouldn't be big enough anyway for any collapse in confidence in either spain or italy, so the key thing is to keep eyes really on yields in spain and italy. a little higher than we have been. these will probably be the best indicators for investment sentiment, but it looks like we'll finish the quarter on a positive note. >>> coming up, private equity industry's most dangerous enemy. you'll be surprised it's not -- who or whom? i don't know. and newsmakers turn to squawk first every morning. you know what i mean. but next week, we may outdo ourselves. a special series of newsmakers that you'll only see here, including david -- no, mark faber, bob doll, richard fisher, donald trump, trump tuesday, senator marco rubio, david bon derman, michael eisner and richard branson who needs to come in here to sign my thing. stay tuned. >> and we have a

. >> the ltro, the long-term refinancing operation, certainly credited with helping to bring those yields> certainly it doesn't help that in the times today, a banker in barcelona literally fending off a protester with a ten-foot pole, it looks like, who has a knife. >> if that is not the contrast between what we're seeing in europe with these bond yields and troops on the ground, first i said, what part of america is this happening in? when you see this kind of action, rocks thrown at windows, it's always european banks and european bankers. >> let's not forget what the european unemployment rate is in spain. >> 20%? >> right. that's a lot of people not working. >> euro zone 10.7, 15-year high. >>> meanwhile, gold, the watch is on. biggest one-day drop for gold since the collapse of lehman brothers back in 2008. there were a bunch of fat-fingered theories yesterday that got knocked down. >> technically i was looking at the chart. short term it's a hideous chart. >> hideous. >> and i think a lot of gold is literally traded off the chart. i remain positive about gold, because of all the re

markets have rallied by over 8% this year so far even though ltro hasn't solved the structure all problemsggling with hair labor markets. and recently we've heard manufacturing slinging even in germany and france. and overall, it's set to contract by 0.1% this year. so to get a view from somebody closer to your shore, git per said that oo geithner said europe is on a tough long road on recovery. >> 0.1 in american speak would be a good thing. but aren't we talking about concerns that the contraction is steeper than 0.1? >> also the concern is over the longer term as opposed to just going out further than one year. portugal isin-investigativ inve positive, but longer term, there's still concern. four month t-bills were actually able to be auctioned at the lowest rate since 2010, but the ten year rates are still highly elevated. so the concern is as the slump deepen, it will be even harder to reduce the deficit and it actually portugal might need additional rescue funds. >> let's talk about italy where the ten year yield is now over 5. how big a challenge is that, is that something you think

are slightly higher but still contain 5% as we still have a lot of money sloshing around from the ltro. gilt 2.14. bund futures, the bund ten-year cash yielding 1.78%. still extremely low levels. euro/dollar has been weaker today as we head to the u.s. we did see the rba as well out of australia decided not to do anything with interest rates. then the aussie dollar and other currencies are weak against the u.s. dollar and the euro as well. that's where we stand ahead of the u.s. open. back to you. >> ross, thank you very much. we'll see you again tomorrow morning. meantime, let's get back to today's top story here in the u.s. super tuesday's primaries and caucuses. our chief washington correspondent joins us now from new york. john, set this up for us. 10 or 11 states, how does this break out and how important is this tonight? >> well, i will set it up for a second but the first thing itch to set up is to ask joe kernen, you have a problem with minivans? >> do you have a minivan, john, honestly? >> reporter: you bet. i have a 2000 honda odyssey. >> aren't you kids grown? >> reporter: l

. >> you're looking to put this trade on it looks like post-results of the ltro.o. you put the trade on and we'll see a decline going into the ecb meeting? >> it's whenever they make the greek announcement for the psi. >> all right. andy busch, thanks a lot for that trade. you can catch more "money in motion" currency trading every friday at 5:30 p.m. eastern time. >>> when we come back, some breaking news on oil inventories. we'll break down super tuesday's big race to the gop crown with former house majority leader dick gebhart. we're back in just a moment. >>> want more "squawk on the street"? no problem. talk to us anytime. e-mail us at sots@cnbc.com. follow us at facebook.com/cnbc. and get our twitter updates, . s [ man ] predicting the future is hard. but i have this new smartphone. and now i can see everything more clearly. ♪ i can organize the analysis. sort through all the data. maybe even rattle some cages. i predict that i'm going to like the future. because the future is where i'll be serving up humble pie. a la mode. [ male announcer ] at&t introduces

released their first wave of qe and came with it hard essentially 1.2 trillion dollars in that three-year ltrowever, domestically we saw the waves, the stock market go up and down versus qe one, two, three potential. europe is in the first initial wave and enjoying the liquidity over there but it is a three-headed monster. liquidity, austerity, and obviously growth which we're seeing concern for. >> jeff, thanks very much. talk to you soon. >> have a great day. >> jeff pretzel at cnbc in chicago. less than a half hour from now we'll have an exclusive interview with mcdonald's ceo jim skinner who has announced this week he is retiring at the end of june. company president and ceo don thompson has been chosen to succeed skinner. that brings us to this morning's squawk on the tweet. what new product would you pitch to mcdonald's' incoming ceo to keep growing the fast food giant? tweet us at cnbc squawk st and we'll get your responses throughout the morning. i don't think you are a big consumer of mcdonald's products but i imagine you can think of a couple ideas, menu offerings they haven't though