check out shares of medco. down almost 8.5%, down $5.44. reuters reporting that objections are growing to the proposed buyout by express scrips as regulators weigh whether or not to stop that $29 billion deal. investors certainly not taking any chances. we're now approaching a 9% decline on medco. brian, over to you. >> thank you, sue. two and a half hours to trading. let's reset the marketplace for you. i wouldn't call 4.5% a spike in the vix, but we're up above 20. a 10-year at 8.9%. gold down $15. we'll get details on that from sharon in just a minute. and we do have oil now below $97 a barrel. all three major indices are to the downside. but i want to look at the sector heat map for a second because it tells an interesting story. the best sectors of the year are the worst of the day. materials and financials at the bottom. it's really reflected in the laggards within the material sector. look at monsanto for one. up 13% double digits for the year. u.s. steel has six month it's up double digits year-to-date. similar story there. energy's

rite aid had one, cvs bought one then you have medco spun off of merck. doesn't seem to me they can figure out exactly where pbms fit in. c slrks s believes it's better inside them. others say they should get bigger on their own. >> express has had a successful run choosing to be -- and medco itself. >> let's not forget the walgreens-express scripts battle further fuel here that has people looking at that. >> certainly one of their biggest deals announced last year if in fact it were to be opposed, that would be significant. most investors still expect this will go through but certainly a lot of fear out there. again, all it takes with a headline with week attribution. >> thanks for jumping onset at the last second. >> turkey says an attack on iran would be a disaster. now reports iranians are stealing oil from iraq are coming out. a live report from inside iran after the break. >> and the giants are the world champs. eli manning's a two-time mvp. is bottom line going to pay the price today? steve liesman is crunching those numbers. >> and in mandy's home

skepticism is growing about express scripts $29 billion buyout of medco over anti-trust concerns. the deal would combine two of the three biggest companies that manage prescription drug benefits. and that's tonight's "market focus." >> tom: as stocks have gotten >> tom: as stocks have gotten off to a hot start this year, dividend-paying stocks have not kept pace. that brings us to tonight's word on the street," "yield." gregg greenberg is a reporter at thestreet.com. gregg, is the search for yield over, in other words the time to dump dividend stocks if the economy is pick up steam? >> absolutely not. from the fund managers that have been coming to speak with me, the search for yield is still on. and it's going to be on as long as treas year-- treasury yields relane low. we heard from the fed just last week we going to keep rates low for the foreseeable future, so as long as that is the case, pele want yields. >>om: so theunto get paidhileou wait still is out there and among them, fund managerless highlighting stocks, include intel here. yielding over 3%. and close to a 52-week hi

bill mentioned these at the top of the shows as well, express scripts and medco, under pressure because of a reuters report that raised concerns about the deal between these two, express scripts buying the rival, pharmacy benefits manager for $29 billion. another consumer group joined in calling to have this deal blocked. what is making investors nervous, a line in the story noting the ftc wants to block the deal but make sure it has enough evidence to do so so it can win in court. both of the stocks down 4 and 6 1/2% respectively. benefiting walgreen up, wall green's pharmacy business would be hurt if the deal between medco and express scripts went through. bill, back to you. >> thank you. so sorry about that little football game yesterday. >> you had to mention it, didn't you, bill? >> was that out loud? >> you were so aggressive on the field. >> maria, if it was the giants, you could be aggressive, too. >> good sport coming to work today. how productive are you. >> i didn't want to be unproductive. i think the giants fans are not productive today because they were celebrating late in

that fed regulators are collecting dat-to-to folksily block express scripts merge we ared me coach medco down 8%. express scripts down 5%. hampton pearson joins me now with details there >> last week, wisconsin senator herb cole, who chaired the antitrust committee focused on lost competition saying there could be two pbms left. no timetable when the ftc will act but the proposed merger was announced last july. maria, back to you. >> hampton, thank you so much. hampton pearson in washington. >>> the bulls have been charging ahead, pretty good 2012 so far. let's look at the chart. let's talk february. according to my next guest, since 1945, the s & p performance for the month was the second worst with returns ranking 11-12. stan stovall and bob froehlich join us. good to have you on the program, gentlemen. thanks for joining us. talk february what are your expectati expectations, sam? >> i think february could end up being a month in which we digest some of the gains, up 20% that number is not that surprise, you look at history in the eight times since world war ii following near-miss bea

express strips, couple concerns that maybe acquisition of medco would not be approved by the ftc nows maybe it will the stock is back at five month high. among the best gainers. also in terms of relationships, possible breakup, talks between yahoo and alibaba have broken up you can see what happened with the stock this afternoon, fell off of a cliff. investors very concerned about that. >> lundberg new highs as we have a down day on the nasdaq, apple set to close about $500 for the second day in a row. ulta the rival to sephora. >> we're 20 minutes away from the closing bell, a quick market check on nasdaq. composite giving back some of yesterday's 26 point gain, volume on the light side today. the nasdaq down 10.5 points, that is off the worst levels which was down 20. cboe climbing as stocks, take out the vics, up 7.5%. settled above 20 on friday, first time that happened since mid-january. over to you b bill. >>> market is coming back, maria. >>> two weeks ago paul richard said buy the dollar, yen, target of 78, we hit that and more as you can see, what do do you take profits or k

. >> this is medco health and med scripts.eek or two ago, there was news that the ftc may try to block this deal, the merger between the two pharmacy benefit managers. today, the stocks are up because an outfit called the market intelligence said it looks like the ftc staff is going to prove this. look, we don't know what's going to happen here. i've been someone out there raising red flags over the entire pbm world and many things that go aalong with that. right now if you look at the stock three or four weeks from now and this deal is proved, people are bertting something will happen. >> it's interesting. the news out of this is positive in terms of merger. to me, if these companies are put together, you got to own survivor because they're going to have a good shot at increasing pricing. i'd like the merger. >> think what you just said, increasing pricing. you get into the issue of i know this is not your point, but when you get into the issue of the fact that they even have to merge, what really happened to cause the need f

we also are launching these large scale competitions with companies like medco and qualcomm google whore putting these large cash challenges that say the first person to solve these problems that humanity has gets this cash award and it's driving incredible breakthroughs. >> what caused the change from people wanting to make money for money sake, wanting to make money to answer the big question marks that have been looming over society for a long time? >> sure. so a lot of wealth today is being made by people very young in their age from the dot-com, the mobile phone breakthroughs and so forth and they're making their billions during a socially conscious era and instead of building buildings to their names, they are focused on, can i slay challenges during my lifetime and leave that has a legacy? >> someone argued that facebook, yes, it claims it's a social utility but we haven't really seen a lot of its power unleashed and the good that it could do. >> we've seen arab spring, right? we're seeing social media literally bring democracy to peoples around the world which is an extraordina

and the big one is medco's purchase of scripts.the fees don't get paid because the deals ultimately don't happen, there's bankers who spent years trying to get deutsche boerse and the nyse back together. >> david, see you later. >>> let's check in with rick santelli at the cme group in chicago for a check on the bonds and the dollar. >> if you remember in 2011 when the dollar was down, dollar index down close to half a cent, usually equities were up pretty large. that is the case today. you could call it risk-on, i guess. but if you look at the interest rate markets, we've seen a bit of movement this morning. post-adp, looking at the big numbers on equities, they're creeping up a couple of basis points. treasury had a lot of information today, not only the 72 billion mst for the threes, tens and 30s next week, not only the fact they're studying fixed rate notes, not only the fact they may issue more tips in 2012, but also germany had a negative bill auction. second dare markets in the u.s. are filled with negative yields. they are

now if you look around and look at the performance of walgreens, medco, expressscript, some of our competitorspayers and customers. >> what's revenue at cvs? >> it was $107 billion in 2011. >> is imbab way dollars? no, these are actual dollars. it's a huge market. it's a giant. people don't realize that. >> $120 billion projected in 2012. >> were you deliberately talking about uncertainty earlier like we hear so many people talking about, making a political comment that we need to square some things away before we get moving again? >> we have to plan for a range of outcomes we believe that we can win and do well because if you focus on serving both your payer customers as well as the patient actual consumers you'll do pretty well but it would help to know what are reimbursements going to be what is covered, not covered, how are you going to react and what are the payers going to have to pay in relation to what the government's paying. >> that's health care and then the financial services industry, with dodd-frank and everybody else with tax policy so if possible there is some regulatory and un

still a concern some would say and medco express scrips.>> regulators are starting to show an increasing willingness to stop deals. sure, they're going to be active and intervene when appropriate. i don't see that as their mandate. i don't think we're going to see an increasing level of blocked deals. if you're in an industry where the markets are narrowly defined, where you've got few competitors and where there's customer sensitivity, that's going to be a red flag for regulators. anyone thinking about transacting in those types of industries are going to have to be very clear on what the road map is to get through a regulatory process. >> all right. we're two months in, more or less, into this year. we have not really seen a significant increase in m & a activity. there's been some here and there. not the year, though, that many had been hoping for as we ended last year on a very quiet note. are things going to really pick up? >> well, i think the headwinds that we had in 2011 are really turning into tailwinds for 2012. so you had on your

let me ask you about the compress scrips and medco deal.he government against that deal? >> no, we're going to leave that you know, the results of that deal in terms of whether it goes through or not up to the regulators. you know, there's tremendous change in the health care landscape. those changes are creating challenges and opportunities, and our integrated is model as cvs caremark is uniquely positioned to compete in the marketplace. and the products and services that we're bringing into the market are resonating for our clients and their members. >> if the two biggest pbms are going to get together, wouldn't that be a material negative for the third, which is you? >> there's certainly a lot of competition in the market. as i mentioned, you know, the challenges that exist in health care around you know, managing costs and you know the fact that baby boomers are turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 a day and that's going to increase utilization, our integrated cvs caremark model isible to address those challenges in a very meaningful fashio