because of the merrill lynch franchise. >> brian kelly?rices and with weiss in terms of the fundamentals. unfortunately, like joe, i'm with mauer if i on the fact that you could get a pullback here and i couldn't say buy them hand over fist right here but there's a catalyst in march. you are going to have the stress test come out and going to have dividends paid and buybacks and you can buy these on dips. >> right. >> in to that catalyst. phil lebeau with breaking news of boeing. problems over the last several days with the dreamliner. phil? >> reporter: i'm listening in on a conference call for boeing and currently conducting with reporters. and although they can't talk about the fire on the 787 dreamliner earlier this week because it's under investigation, they wanted to do to get in front of the questions out there on wall street and people around the country and the world, two points, first one being that they say so far since the dreamliner's launch it's meeting expectations on the same level as the launch of the 777 back in the '90s.

he got every major job at merrill lynch, including president, cfo. he went on to become ceo and retired in 2008 and hank paulson called ms the current financial crisis is beginning to take up and asked him to come to washington to run fannie mae after it been put into conservatorship, basically nationalized by the united states government. in april 2009, he came in and was eventually made the head of tar. so my interactions with him was basically providing oversight and many times been very critical of a lot of things he was doing for the treasury department was doing the secretary take was doing. he was my main porthole into treasury. we had a number of conflicts as you can imagine. our jobs are not necessarily going to create a long-lasting friendship. my job was to criticize him and make recommendations where he and the program had gone off the rail, which by 2010 is pretty often. we decided to have a meeting offline to clear the air, have a cup during and defuse what was a building tension between the two of us. our weekly meetings had devolved i

he used to be a mckenzie consultant for brokerage department of merrill lynch.met him. took over merrill lynch brokerage department. became a senior executives at merrill. then left. became senior executive at morgan stanley to run its brokeage department and became ceo essentially appointed by the board. favored by john mack, his predecessor, long time morgan stanley ceo. he has gotten good on tv i asked him a lot of tough questions. one question in particular had nothing to do with earnings, about what he thought breaking up the banks. big issue. here is what he had to say. >> i don't subscribing that to at all. may suit small interest of ourselves and others versus big commercial banks. i think it is flawed lodgic. the biggest banks in the world are not u.s. banks. chinese, japanese, swiss banks. there are big banks in australia. >> why do we need big banks in the u.s. that are system systemic important, systematically risky? do we need them. >> percentage of gdp, compared to the major industrialized countries in the world are smaller. okay. >> they're less s

he was the president of merrill lynch and had retired. and the patriotic act had come out of retirement in order to serve under the obama administration and to run the t.a.r.p. program, but we didn't get along well, and our weekly meetings had devolved into shouting matches. one week i got yelled at for using a saturday night live character making fun of tim geithner. it was funny. he told me how outrageous this was and how the secretary himself was very upset when he heard about this, but i learned he has no sense of humor. [laughter] but it was bad. so we decided we'd meet off line and have a drink at one of those terrible washington restaurants to try to just clear the air. and we sort of had our chitchat, and i talked about how our daughter was about to be born, and then the conversation sort of turned. and he asked me what i wanted to do next, what my plans were after in this temporary job i had. i explained i wasn't really sure. i said, well, maybe a job on the street, meaning wall street, i said i wasn't really sure. and he said i

buying as a dip before we get to the second half of the year, and when i find myself agreeing with merrill lynch as an independent adviser, i don't know, but i like what kate moore had to say. >> what you're saying basically is you've got to be in the market but look for the right places because we'll see selloffs along the way, nathan. >> we'll absolutely see some selloffs. >> thanks, gentlemen. >> no doubt about it, maria. >> see you soon. thanks a lot, guys. stocks snapping the two-day losing streak. bertha coombs is here with the session's big movers, winners and losers. bertha, what can you tell us? >> reporter: leading the way higher today, some of them getting a little bit of a boost perhaps from the jpmorgan health care conference. in the spotlight, a lot of them. take a look at that sector, the s&p health care sector hitting a 52-week high and danaher after an all-time high after pre-announcing strong fourth quarter earnings. vaccines and medical products mckesson a fresh all-time high and seagate, meantime, led the s&p percentage gainers after pre-announcing better than expected fiscal

reminds me of my first job at merrill lynch. i think women do a few things better than men. they have better tuition and have a better poker face. women can do better in money in something that is traditionally a man's world. >> it started with clients and perspective clients. it started as a fun networking group. >> wow. >> see who the very passive ones are. you learn a lot about other people went you're playing this game. >> there are ceos here. there are women who sold companies for $100 million. there are women who go through very public divorces who need skills. >> you need to be good at the poker table. >> 50% of it for me is watching and shaking people down. >> half of this game is reading the table. >> so does knowing when to hold them and now when to fold them bake more better business women? alexandra lebenthal made a series for women's poker night in new york. thanks so much for joining us. so why poker? what's the payoff for a ladies poker night? >> it's all about the poker face. i say that with no joke. although, i actually have a terrible poker face, for those

people like you have said that morgan stanley, citigroup, bank of america, merrill lynch as well, peoplet didn't did happen, it would have been a global armageddon. neil: we don't know that. >> we never know. but i think that president bush made a good call. it is pretty bipartisan at the time the one there was a lot of collateral damage at the time. you have bank of america, an amenity that was left out of the whole doctoring financial law. and the government -- the world is upside down. >> you know, it is hard to make sense of this. this is what happens. neil: you and your lemmings were screwing the world to they said they were going to bailout the banks. why is i? if they didn't do that on the whole system would wind down the toilet. neil: that's a negative theory and we could never know that. >> but who is going to admit that they're wrong? wilkerson? neil: there will be other banks that will be sued doing transactions and this is all the result of this. >> you know, we are going to barter and have a barter system. >> that's what you say when you're losing. [laughter] neil: okay, gre

reminds me of my first job at merrill lynch. >> i think women do a few things better than men.ion and have a better poker face. >> it started with inviting just our clients and prospective clients. it turned into kind of a fun networking group. you'll see who the very asse assertive ones are and who the passive ones are. you learn a lot about other people who play this game. >> there are ceos here. there are women who sold companies for $100 million. there are women going through public divorces that need to learn negotiation skills. >> if you want to be good at the conference table, you have to be good at poker. >> half of this game is reading the table. >> so does knowing when to hold them and when to fold them make for better businesswomen? alexandra lebenthal started a series of ladies poker nights in new york. great to see you again. >> thank you. >> so why poker? what's the payoff? >> it's all about the poker face. i say that with no joke, although i actually have a terrible poker face, for those who know me. it's really about the negotiation, about holding your cards to

after a legacy, merrill lynch wiped out last quarter's profit. are still cases outstanding and investors are saying, what does that mean for how much money the company will report when it does have earnings? investors were hoping more capitol to be on return. tyler? >> thank pup president is taking to the podium with nominees. and leon panetta behind him. let's listen in. >> as president and commander-in-chief, my solemn concern is the american people. over the past few years, we met that responsible by ending the war in iraq, transitioning into afghanistan, decimating the al qaeda core and taking out osama bin laden. by disrupting terrorist plot and saving can countless american lives. among an outstandings national security team, i'm especially grateful to leon panetta who led the cia and military with incredible skill. leon, after nearly five decades of service, you have more than earned the right to return to civilian life. i'll have much more to say about leon's distinguished service in the days ahead. today i simply want to convey to you an

>> upgraded to buy from bank of america and merrill lynch. they like the kayak acquisition. we like it. >> the pop for sleeping, talk about a day of rest, january 3rd is national sleep day. a number of websites are offering tips on how to observe it, including napping at work, sharing photos of snoozing pets. do not overdo your celebrations, one study from last year says too much sleep can be harmful as well. >> up next, we set up shop for our top three trades of the day and the slcelebrity activist battle over herbalife. and gloeold slips to a near two-week high. [ male announcer ] where do you turn for legal matters? at legalzoom, we've created a better place to handle your legal needs. maybe you have questions about incorporating a business you'd like to start. or questions about protecting your family with a will or living trust. and you'd like to find the right attorney to help guide you along, answer any questions and offer advice. with an "a" rating from the better business bureau legalzoom helps you get personalized and affordable legal protection. in most states, a

bank of america merrill lynch says expect to bump short term guys.e are in defense spending which it says is the bottom for 34 years. >> if you just heard the comments from maxine waters you could expect more cuts as well. we go from guns to butter, so to speak. take a look at dean foods. stock is up more than 4% after that fiscal deal that averted a dairy cliff as well. also the potential doubling of milk prices. dean foods is up by 69 cents to 17.20 again. a gain of better than 4%. ty? >> becky, let's go up town and check in as nasdaq where we find seema mody following big movers there. hi, seema. >> hi, tyler. after congress averted the fiscal cliff, strong gains across the board. look at the nasdaq up around 2.4%. high end dividend stocks moving higher. the tax rate more or less stayed the same. cisco up nearly 3%. apple shares moving higher. there is a tech blog that says that apple is working on the iphone 6 as well as new operating system for the ipad and iphone. can you see the stock moving higher. that report helping speculative suppliers mo

benjarvus, green-ellis, merrill lynch.f dicey loans and not unlocking reserves, company is very conservative, not ready to return capital to shareholders, not yet. and you who knows how new management feels about emerging markets? the former ceo, that's what made citigroup special for me, but when you sack the cheap proponent of the go global strategy, and you put in a conventional banker, what does that say about the entire fund of the investing thesis? very little. these two come on the heels of numbers from jpmorgan and wells fargo. but the action so to speak in the stock market is about the regionals. wells owns 30% of domestic market. getting stronger every day. bb & t and citigroup, the numbers not that much better than the big boys. it's clear they are being rewarded instantly with higher prices because they are perceived as excellent, clean, noncontroversial ways to play the housing recovery, which we are seeing, almost a million housing starts. and they seem to be in better shape whether it comes to regulators and

. >> but bank of america has an an asset on their books called merrill lynch, right, so once people move money out of bonds, the trillions of dollars parked in cash and bonds back into equities, we haven't even begun to see any of that. obviously we're positive on asset managers as well as the buy side. in terms of housing, we -- we saw in the numbers today construction and jolts actually ramped up again. so we're seeing construction hiring and pickup sales going very, very well, so i think that even the consumer, a lot of pent-up demand in terms of leisuring right, everybody has basically been home, hasn't gone on vacation and paying down credit and eventually that will change as well. >> who wants to jump in there? >> no, no, i was saying hello to scott. >> saying hello to scott. that's good. >> so in terms of the challenges, we've got the debt ceiling debate coming. i guess my question is are we going to be able to get in this market at better levels? do i want to wait and take to the sidelines and wait for a nice decline to actually buy because it definitely does feel like this marke

in the front page of "the new york times" with merrill lynch and bank of america. what are the rules for you at "the new york times"? homages opinion and how much reporting interview answer to? >> guest: my columns which appear in the front page of the business section reported columns. that means they are backed by fact, that i'm not just gazing at my navel and then opining about what i see. it is really more reported columns. you know, it is not overwhelmingly opinion. i really love to report, so what i do is kind of a little more underreporting site than on the opining side. i also do new stories that appear in the daily occasionally, so that is a little bit of a difference. a lot of other colonist onto new stories, but i really like to keep in the mix to keep up with what's going on. who do i report to? a report to the sunday business editor, david killen in the business editor of the paper who is literate and copy it. c-span: we only have about 90 seconds. as we look ahead, this whole thing you've been writing about, do you have any hope this'll never happen a

risk facing investors according to a new survey of fund managers published by bank of america-merrill lynchng to test an inflatable module on the international space station beginning in 2015. the $18 million vessel is made by bigelow aerospace. when inflated, and weighs about 3000 pounds, about 13 feet by 10 and a half feet, plenty of room to hous host more astronauts abd the space station. that is very latest from the fox business network giving you the power to prosper. copd makes it hard to breathe, but with advair, i'm breathing better. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condit

first let's wrap up today's market activist with ethan harris, bank of america and merrill lynch andssell investments and our own rick santelli. guys, let's kick things off in a few minutes. will be getting facebook's earnings so i may have to interrupt once we get the numbers out. meantime, let's talk about the markets in terms of what you're seeing. ethan harris, your thoughts on the gdp report? does that reflect what's been going on in terms of money moving into stocks or not? >> i think the gdp report should be basically tossed in the wastebasket. i mean, this report had so many weird components to it. if you strip out all the flaky stuff there, we're still in a 2% economy. a lot of things to worry about out there, but fourth-quarter growth is fine. >> mark, you agree with that, dump the gdp report in the wastebasket? >> yes, i think it was expected. a lot of companies and people were paralyzed over the government discussions and i think we'll see acceleration move in the second half of the year now that we have clarity on taxes and so forth. >> let's say we ignore the gdp report

don't forget the merrill lynch. let me tick down the regions.f all, the economy's continuing to recover. the housing market's rebounding, consumer lending's improving. even jobs and business investment are coming back, albeit slowly. the latest fed report was so optimistic about the u.s. economy that it actually sparked fears that ben bernanke might let rates rise sooner than expected. something that would be fabulous for the banks if it happened, but caution, i don't think it's going to because the -- ben just told he's going to keep rates low until we get to 6.5% unemployment, that's pretty far. second, many of the worries that have been holding banks back are in the rearview mirror. objects turned out to be further than you thought they were in that thing. hence, the big end of year bank rally and bank of america's stellar form nature 2012. right there, the non- stop catastrophe that was the european financial system, seems to be stabilizing. no real risk of contagion anymore. we managed to bridge the fiscal cliff. and i think we may be able

one from bank of america, merrill lynch, to underperform sue. so this stock getting thumped today.ack to you. >> thank you, brian, very much. as you probably know by now. that fiscal cliff deal, well it is laidened with billions of dollars worth of pork. today we asked you on the yahoo! finance.com question, is pork the only way to pass important lemgs lags these dayes. 25% say sadly it is the only way to get things done in washington. 3% say acceptable in extreme measures but 72% of you say that pork should be banned. >> let's see what is coming up on "street signs." they always deliver the bacon. mandy? >> hi, sue. congress approved the initial $9.7 billion to go towards sandy insurance claims this morning. we had congressman greg meeks in support of that. we have another guest who said congress voted no. it is going to be an amazing debate. the euro turns 14 today. happy birthday, euro. has it been a success? what would it cost you, and i'm not just talking about the initial outlay, but upkeep, garden webs staff, dresses, everything that goes with it, well talk about that with r

according to a bank of america/merrill lynch report, u.s.quity funds saw the biggest surge of inflows, $19 billion. that was 9 biggest since 2008. money going back into mutual funds. >> yeah. what does all of this stay about the health of the investor and the market? let's ask david darst of morgan stanley wealth management and kyle harrington from harrington capital management. david, i'll begin with you. is that a bullish sign? >> definitely a bullish sign. as you know, the first week of january has an 85% accuracy rating in terms of calling how the year ends up. january as a whole has a 76% rating. i would -- i'm amazed at the master limited partnership, scott. they are up 7.6%. the leading sector is your health care stocks. they are up 4.5%, a little bit -- the stock market is up about 3% for the month, so you've got a very month to date, got a very, very good start to the year. housing, automobiles, okay? consumer confidence, so you want to see the profits come through. then the market can advance. >> that's a wild card. >> how but, kyl

fed minutes, and then we've got marion bartell, chief technical analyst over at bank of america merrill lynchells us where the markets are headed now and which sectors will lead us higher and ibm chief executive officer making predictions of his own. the top five inventions to watch over the next five years. this could inform your trade. all that and much more top of the hour on "fast." see you then. >> sounds like gee whiz stuff coming up on "fast money." >> don't want to miss that. talk about keeping your options open, actor gerard depardieu is seeking lower taxes and is getting a green light from the head of the most powerful countries to become a citizen. >> and our robert frank is here to tell us if he'll actually get a good deal there. stay tuned. t for myself. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters... my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people looking o

let's check the starts with mary anne bartels at bank of america merrill lynch. happy new year to you. >> thank you for having me in today. >> tell you what you see. >> right now, the s&p is approaching the 1500 area. we are starting to get into the 2008 and 2009 range. we were bullish looking for a year-end rally, which worked out really well. we still think january can rally a little bit now. we're concerned about the month of february. and as we move into the month of february, we're concerned you can get a 10%, 15% correction. >> what would make you think that correction is actually coming? >> well, one of the things that we're monitoring is the vix. and that still remains really low. it tried to move higher, it's back down into the 14 range. so, we think the vix is signaling somewhere in 2013 we're going to see volatility. we've actually even stated the vix could go up to 40. we also have at our firm global financial stress index which is the lowest weevil seen since 2007. in addition, it's the fourth year, and typically in the four-year cycle, we generally

unsuccessful firms included fannie mae and freddie mac, bear stearns, lehman, merrill lynch, citigroup, wachovia, ubs, aig, countrywide, and wamu. with variations they exhibited similar shortcomings in organization governance, and management. many of these institutions have become so unwieldy that they were virtually impossible to manage. managers may have profited from conglomeration into organizations, it is not clear that this massive size benefited market eat fish and sea or the financial system or firms that failed their shareholders. we forget how large our financial conglomerates actually are. in 2008, citigroup, with 350,000 employees and nearly 2500 subsidiaries, was the largest complex financial institution. aig, smaller than most of the major firms comprise some 223 companies that operated in 130 countries and had 116,000 employees and in my book i try to share with the reader how complex these firms are and the aig organization chart, their small compared to large complex financial institutions, take the four pages of fine print and a huge number of organizational boxes. we

, and he wants them, bernie madoff wants them to go after morgan stanley and goldman sachs and merrill lynchregulations coming on dark pools and bonuses, and says, quote, it was nice to see that fenra is getting around to dealing with the issue of wall street signing bonuses, and goes on to say, the problem is the pressure they put on bonus babies to generate large commissions promoting special products of the new firm to pay off the bonus costs and finally on dark pools. "wall street journal" had a letter to the editor over at knight capital defending the markets. madoff says, "although i have the most upmost respect, there's problems with the letter in the journal supporting dark pools, while madoff and knight provided lower costs, this is different than the flickering quotes provided by high frequency trading terms." he's not a fan of dark pools or high frequency trading, and, in fact, his christmas eve e-mail to fox business laid out why he thinks this does not help anybody. from the word, the pen, to the computer of bernie madoff, you got it. cheryl: vocal on the keyboard, and he spoke

that represented a backdoor bailout to help out goldman sachs, deutsche bank and merrill lynch and then aig collapse. basically, aig is telling fox business, this is breaking news, that the board members were not there during the crisis at aig. they have to hear out starr international, they have to hear out the lawsuit. they will be exposed to further lawsuits if they do not. this is what neil cavuto was told. take a listen. >> as far as i am concerned, that bailout never should have taken place. the way it did take place was wrong. it was a backdoor bailout. >> essentially, what aig is also saying is that -- according to aig, robert does give hank greenberg credit for putting together a great team and a great company, but whether or not the board will join hank greenberg's lawsuit is unknown. aig's board had an alternative choice and it helped restore financial stability in the u.s. during a time of severe volatility. that is where it stands right now. as we hear more breaking news, we will get back to you guys. connell: they will attempt to shine some light on dark pool trading. thi

risk facing investors, according to a new survey of fund managers published by bank of america merrill lynch. the european debt crisis came in second and a hard landing for the chinese economy was third on that list. >>> dunkin' brands set its sights on the golden coast again the doughnuts and coffee chain is going to be opening up shops in southern california in 2015, returning to the state after more than a decade. dunkin is looking for more opening in venues like colleges, universities, casinoses, military bases and airports. that's the latest from fox business, giving you the power to prosper lori: earlier today the president calling for a new assault weapons ban and 10 round limit on magazines. this is all part of a comprehensive plan to curb gun violence including some steps he would take without congressional action. lou dobbs is here to weigh in. what were your thoughts listening to the president earlier? >> it was galvanizing, first of all he is exploiting deaths of 20 children to drive a political agenda which is to constrain the second amendment. he had children up as props. went

the fist boost came from merrill lynch which rates tony's target price. the upgrade was based on the yen's drop to its lowest level in 2 1/2 years against the dollar and a turn around in unprofitable businesses. then the next piece of good news playing into the picture came from china. china daily said that the nation is considering ending a 12-year ban on the sale of video game consoles. beijing forbid the sales of game consoles in 2000 over the concern about the potential harm to young people. but the ministry of culture is now holding discussions with other departments about potentially ending the ban. although game consoles are available on china's black market, investors welcomed the good news as it would open up more than a billion people to sony and other makers. >> who knew that they had banned game consoles. fascinating. >>> tomorrow, nintendo, fuji film are expected to report. on the policy front, india's central bank will hold its rate review meeting. many analysts expect the rbi will cut rates this time around. and a state of emergency has bee

savina shells is here, senior director at bofa merrill lynch. welcome. >> good morning. >> is this the start of a pattern for the year, nymex down in the u.s. brent a little bit up? >> we think this is just a short-term trend where wti has been strength.ing over the last few days. the spread is now trading into $15 a barrel whereas a couple of weeks ago we were trading at $22, $23 a barrel. wti has been regaining some strength relative to brent. ultimately, u.s. crude or production growth is running at 900,000 barrels a day. to per that into perspective, the u.s. in 2005 produced about 5 million warls a day approximated today they're at 7 million barrels a day. it's a phenomenal growth trade that is unprecedented in history. and we think there is -- you know, room for this to continue when we speak to many of these producers in north dakota and texas and louisiana, they'll tell us. on 20 years of reserve, very often, the profitability is as high at 20%, 25%. >> you've continued to drill, even if wti falls a little bit. >> now there's talk that p

we have an economy where stanley o'neill can run merrill lynch in to the ground.ens of millions of dollars. the point being that i simply wish there was a correlation between productivity and hard work and how you are rewarded and there isn't. >> we have the poverty rate now. we can show folks. it is at 15%. however, for african-americans it is around 27, i believe i may have that right. what can we do about that racial disparity? that's a huge gap. >> it is unacceptable and the gap between children and adults is unacceptable. i think it is the policy. i think we need long term solutions to this poverty. no more band-aids and that's what made me excited. obama was hinting in his inauguration address he was willing to tackle these things. >> this is such a problem problem and so multifacetted but where do you start to tackle the president bush? we were talking before we came on the air to talk about it on a national level and the national stage is first and foremost. where with the policies and the solutions? where do you start? >> i think in the tax rise on upper-

we had decent sales figures coming through from burberry and an upgrade from merrill lynch.eally, i think what happens here in the united states is what will drive these markets, particularly on the debt ceiling. >> yeah. important that they have their own retailers that mean a lot. >> you don't see them moving all the markets as retailers here might move them. >> true enough. thanks, simon. let's get to energy and commodities. sharon? >> carl, the big mover is definitely platinum. platinum is the story in the metals market and commodities market largely driven by the news coming out of south africa. the world's largest producer of copper says it's going to expend in retaliation employees say that they are going to go on strike and perhaps shut down all of the country's operations. this is a significant development for the plant and it's caused prices to go above $17 an ounce and platinum more expensive for gold for the first time in ten months' time. the largest commodity, gld, that has been relatively flat this year while the pplt, the largest platinum and plenty to look a

and merrill lynch says they think there will be further weakness ahead for near-term natural gas contracts the injection and winter season the highest amount of inventory on record. back to you. thank you for that. bob pisani is back after a break. nice to have you back on post 9. >> in san francisco, it's interesting to see the dotcomers moving back to the city. they had moved to the suburbs and now getting older and moving back to the city and populating parts of san francisco and to see the stock market rally continue. i met people in san francisco, is the rally for real? will it continue going? i will highlight the broad base. you heard about the public buying stocks again. earnings are fair but likely bottomed. that earnings is likely happening. earnings are happening and china is bottoming. earnings not unreasonable. f a lot of money is repositioned. a lot of money hiding in stocks but defensive areas like headquarters. th -- health care. this augers well. this is very unusual, you get a monthly report, put up monthly numbers where you see health care, industrials, materials, all adv

deutsche bank, they upgraded to buy from neutral at bank of america, merrill lynch, with a 20% price're also watching shares of apple close to the session lows at this point, down almost 2%. there was a note out of deutsche bank's japanese team, they did some checks on their supply chain, which indicate a 30% quarter on quarter drop for the march quarter. seeing the impact there. apple shares down 2% at this point. >> gold is on its worst losing streak since may 2004. ira epstein joins us live now. welcome to the program. what do you think of the price of action on the gold? >> thank you for having me, simon. i'm bearish on the gold market. if you go to the weekly charts, the weekly charts take a little bit more time to develop their formations, and the pattern is one of lower highs, lower lows, it's under what i consider a key moving average on the futures markets, which is the 18-day average of closes, and i can see this market making a pretty quick run here into the 1600 level, 16 1/4 zone. this bounce we're getting right now, which is a bounce off the lows, i don't think it's goi

you put countrywide past merrill lynch, bank of america, you take a look at bank of america starting the loan where they've been absent to some degree in trying to get a loan for, if you want to do housing, and you have a reason why this stock continues. bank of america and citi are the ones that are most behind. citi, as it becomes clear, i think people when they decided to put capital through, their capital plan didn't make it. horvath, fresh start. there has to be a reason citi is upgraded day after day. >> another one from wells fargo, putting it on the priority stock list. we'll have a discussion later about whether or not these will be the big dividend plays in 2013. the journal today looking at -- looking for permission for more buy-backs. >> wouldn't this be something if a fourth-quarter story, like the banks, continues to be driven. if you have the insurers, have you seen those charts? you've got premiums going up. sorry, everybody. premiums are going up for insurance. because of the catastrophe. but you also have tremendous -- new companies come into insurance, and david, t

bank of america, merrill lynch, ethan harris' team, they are calling it the three gorges.uester, the debt ceiling and the resolution around the fiscal 2013 budget. i don't have a better phrase. three gorges, go with that now. the retailers, pleasantly surprised with what i saw for the retailers, caveat. december same-store sales were up 4.8%. that was before expectations, 3.4% and remember, the numbers have been coming down in the last few weeks. i was surprised more than half beat the numbers, that was nice. great numbers overall. gap, ross stores, tjx, costco, nordstrom and macy's, all beat. here is the problem here, the storms were really a problem. big midwest storms, storms in the northeast a after christmas a problem, the fiscal cliff talk held retailback. i count seven companies that guided lower, two guided higher. i think the reason was bad. we saw stern agee, apm raising -- bernstein, a couple of them as well. what's hand, banks are the back door play for the housing recovery but now trying to expand that argument, some of the analysts, say banks are the back doo

. >> bank of america, merrill lynch had a survey out yesterday.ht banks for the first time in six years. for a long time running, especially for citi and bank of america, they're underowned in those shares. does the overweight bank shares, does that concern you at all, that there may be too many investors in this trade at this point as banks near the valuations that are the highest in recent history? >> we would want to pay more attention to it. our understanding has been that the mutual fund industry is pretty underweighted in banks. we think more money will come back into banks, that they're overweight in aggregate. the last two years, people's attitude was, why do i have to buy banks, they don't do anything. now that they had a strong 2012, we think the pendulum is going to swing back. you'll have more people rushing into banks so they don't miss the rally. >> david, pleasure speaking with you. thank you for your time. >> no problem. >>> the president set to speak on gun proposals in the next hour. cabela's speaking at the icr conference in mia

. >> he was still at merrill lynch. >> listen, it's not a coincidence. >> it's great to see you here.not perfect fourth quarter. a lot of the legs are firing. not all of them. we've still got a lot of work to do. but we think of all the digging and shoveling and cleaning up that we've done the last few years, that's done. now we get back to the fun stuff, which is running the business. and that's what we're excited about. >> just owning all of smith barney and then that combined with some day the market headed to new highs, and then actually gaining traction, that's a lot of leverage. >> that's a lot of leverage. >> andrew loves m&a. you like all the nuts and bolts of the investment banking. >> but there's the broader -- >> i think about the financials. when the market gets going. >> but it will get going. you look at the m&a franchise. you look at rates and credits, these are all long-term -- >> -- gets better. >> nobody can time this the next several months. >> i've got to ask a nuts and bolts question because so many people sending in an e-mail about this specific issue, which is f

you could see the investors, and their intermediaries, the brokers of the merrill lynchs, the rias, anddle of september/october, we want to take a look so the amount of money has been pulled out, i'm starting to see it coming back. and that anticipation of the dynamics is a very powerful offset. how long can it go? you know, admiral farragut said this in mobile bay, damn the torpedoes. now the investor ready to say damn the politicians, let's focus on fundamentals. and within that framework the fundamentals look very bright, and the valuations are not high, there's not a great deal of margin of safety. and things can go wrong. i mean, you know, the iranian thing, food and fuel. another year of a drought is a problem. another year in which some other dynamics, but within that framework, pick stocks. >> we'll get to some of those. >> and i think the market will be up. >> has that opened already? >> i'm not going to give you anything unopened. it's a violation of some rule. >> so you brought like a company. >> michael bloomberg in answer to a question said you eliminate the 16 ounce drink