the morgan stanley analyst admits the timing will weigh on the stock. they see urban resuming its long-term trajectories at retailer with ability to increase domestic square footage annually for at least four years. almost a $28 stock, it goes to 40 if the turnaround happens faster than they anticipate. that's the bull case. now, in the bear corner, we've got citigroup. citi finds urban outfitters to be ludicrous, given that the ceo just resigned and to make matters worse, they think the consensus estimates are still too high. the reason? urban's ramping up spending to build up its e-commerce business and expand internationally. but when you factor in those higher expenses, the operating expenses the company won't be able to make their numbers unless it sees a dramatic increase in its gross margins, what they make after the cost of sales. and citigroup doesn't think that's likely. not at all. the problem as they see it is that urban's been marking down its products. and while markdowns declined in the latest quarter, they're still well above most of las

morgan stanley out with a positive note. it's in the ipad and iphone.hose are the chips arm holdings makes. morgan stanley raises the stock to overweight. says earnings estimates should rise. says it also has an advantage over intel and mobile commuting and also it's a player in the new windows 8 operating system for mobile. so it's in a number of key areas here. they say the selloff that the stock has seen has been overdone that the fact people are worried about it losing market share to intel was overdone. and now is a reason to pick up some of those shares. and investors seem to be doing that today, ty. highs of the day up 4.25%, sue, for arm holdings. >> thank you very much, scott. well, 2011 certainly was not a banner year for deals. market volatility soared, but will m&a activity pick up this year as the volatility has subsided somewhat? let's find out from a special guest at two lane university. andrew. >> reporter: sue, thanks. you are asking the right question. i'm here with rob kindler, vice chairman and head of global m&a at morgan stanley. t

. >> this concerns the venture between the two companies, that being morgan stanley and smith barney. as it stands right now, citi owns 49% and the other 51%. citi would consider selling the remaining 49% to morgan stanley in one fell swoop and morgan would consider this possibility, too. the problem is, and there is a problem here, the way the deal is currently structured would require a whole new set of negotiations for the stake that citi currently holds in one fell swoop. it would require a whole new set of negotiations. as it stands right now, morgan stanley has an exercisable option at the end of may to buy 14% of the joint venture. and as far as negotiations on what kind of price that 14% might fetch for city at this time, those negotiations haven't been opened either, according to people familiar with the situation. maria? >> how important would this be for morgan, mary? are you talking about more assets under management? what is the reason behind it. >> first of all, morgan stanley has made clear that obtaining the 14 prz p% is a top priority for it. but eventually acquiring

that coming over the wire to us from morgan stanley.b & t saying it has passed and boosted its dividend by 25%. bb & t announcing that the board of directors declared a 2012 second-quarter dividend of 20 cents a share, 4 cents increase from the 16 cents dividend previously announced on february 21st. a couple of important announcements there. >> thank you so much. back with bob. >> another exciting day. >> another exciting day. one more question on the progress here at nasdaq. you previously expressed an interest in acquiring the lse. i want to get your take on where the growth comes from in nasdaq. is it through organic, is it through deals. does that make it even, you know, more likely that you're going to go after lse? >> i think your basic question is how do we grow. and the answer is all of the above, organic growth, initiatives we're funding internally, obviously acquisitions, those which are bull in acquisitions. we'll continue to execute on our plans. >> bob, great to be here at the nasdaq. >> good luck with the announcements at

but yes, morgan stanley confirms it is investigating. this is all about the case of anna gristina, arrested last month in midtown, manhattan, for promoting prostitution in the third degree. she allegedly ran a brothel out of an apartment building in manhattan for years and allegedly boasted about her profession. gristina was meeting with the financial adviser just before her arrest. she in fact still works there in the midtown office. a morgan stanley focus said they're investigating but it's important to note that no one at the firm has been charged. our calls to the broker's office and apartment have not been returned. so who were her clients? our nbc station in new york, wnbc, reports the nypd is reviewing the activities of a sergeant once assigned to the neighborhood, but at this point that sergeant is not suspected of wrongdoing. we're still looking into it. maria, back to you. >> scott, thank you so much. still to come on the "closing bell," we'll show you what social media game makers could be the big winners from the new ipad. we

morgan stanley, the strongest among the financials up 2%. on what is a pretty good session across the board as you see. there's jp morgan with one.66%. goldman up 1%. wells fargo, up 2%. b of a up. where do you come down on the banks? >> financials right now are the place to be. i think when you look at the potential for the investment banking revenue to be better than the expectations, you look at goldman sachs, you look at morgan stanley, which have performed well. you look at visa, mastercard, they continue to work. look at capital one. you can look at american express, which continues to work. i like going outside the box at these levels, because the market is risen so much. take a look at an o.r.i.t., oritani financial. that works as well. >> the banks have rallied off the lows, largely due to -- certainly less-than-inspiring earnings, right if the earnings growth momentum picks up what does that mean for the banks? if you believe that you think there's more room to room. >> they just had their stress test results leading into the result

because jefferies is often recorded as a harr bebin jer of things to come at morgan stanley and goldmanachs, the larger banks that report about a month later. a slightly lower profit like today at jefferies might be a signal to say short morgan stanley or goldman sachs. we did a spot check of the last couple years. the correlations are not really that great over time. between q1 of 2010 and q1 of '11. it's tqualitative congressmenation from tcongresm where you see more similarities. goldman and morgan officials used exactly the same description, guys. they need a synonym finder or they're operating in similar environments. >> kate, what about -- what about what we're hearing about possible job cuts at some of these banks? goldman sachs comes to mind among others. what are you hearing? >> i think it's a sat truth that is very much going on at goldman sachs, at bank of america just yesterday they had a fresh round in equities. i think it's very much a part of the discussion. mary, was there any color on that today? >> they didn't -- actually they said there were opportunities for them, je

morgan stanley has been among the strongest bank stocks this year before seeing the recent turn lower. even the traditionally defensive health care sector was hit by selling after drug maker merck's outlook for this quarter was disappointing. the shortfall gets blamed on currency fluctuations. shares of merck dropped more than 2.5%. shares have been trading in a tight range between $38 and almost $40 per share before today's drop. this is merck's lowest close of the year. we have more analysis of merck on our web site, nbr.com, under the "blogs" tab. as we await friday's report on jobs, employment services web site monster worldwide continued to see heavy trading with shares jumping more than 10.5%. the market continues to speculate about a possible sale. the company has confirmed it has hired financial advisors to review strategic alternatives. that can be wall street-speak for "we're for sale." the prospects of a deal for part of independent energy producer harvest natural resources was enough to push this small-cap energy stock higher. shares jumped 23% as volume exploded. the comp

morgan stanley is where you look. jeffrey his a phenomenal quarter and more institutional and morgan stanley has the whole wealth management that will do well. you start to see that retail money come out of bank accounts that are at record highs and head into the stock market or come out of the bond market. i think morgan stanley is the player. >> the movement yesterday where people wanted to call this over and this was a bad run that people should have sold, look at the xlf. no resistance until about 1710. despite the fact you have overbout conditions, as the guys said, they found investment banks. pick the part you like and you are getting i think the european banks said it and watch them. they are making a mint out of this. they are fixed income and making money on free money. they are surprised from the european banks. i agree with you, people have been under weight and looking at first quarter numbers. managers get fired. they that down here. they get fired because they weren't invested enough. people miss this r

morgan stanley, we mentioned the coal producers., you can see it's 13 to 1 and over at the nasdaq i'm getting a big thumb's up by melissa. and over at -- the nasdaq is 6 to 1. >> yeah, he's really improved. it's worth noting here the vix is up by 15. meantime, as we are one hour in, let's head to chicago with much more on the market's latest moves. rj o'brien is at the cme group. what is going on here? >> there's been a little bit of a repricing coming from continents outside of ours. the greece situation continues to drag on. of course, china has lowered its growth but it's not going to feel recessionary. keep in mind, and in terms of consumption and investors, this is a modest repricing of risk expectation and around 1320, 1325 s&p, they have to perhaps add to longs. because there is more upside. >> i feel like we could have had this conversation, john, 24 hours ago. what has changed in the last 24 hours? europe broke up. it seems like the concerns about greece hit hard in today's recession. >> that's right. they are running up ag

you're working on well mr jennings who is the managing director was he's on leave now i have morgan stanley. in december he got a cab ride home from new york and he didn't think that he should pay the fare that the cab driver told him that he needed to pay and according to the police reports he started to slur and enormous amount of racial or angry words at how the cab driver drove off trying to go find a cop and allegedly mr mr jennings when to stalham almost in the neck it's unclear he put his hand cut his hand this all stepped up so there was a soul there is a larceny charges and there's there's someone of a hate crime angle here. jennings it's interesting you know he lives down the street here from us maybe five minutes away from me as close house he chose an attorney who i understand is his next door neighbor jean. serrie just come out that major prostitution ring has been broken up in and apparently senior bankers are involved in paying for sex for minors and if you've been tracking this story at all does it relate to swinging in new canaan the projects are working on now you know i d

story you're currently investigating of course overlaps with the story of a senior banker at morgan stanley from connecticut who has just been charged with hate crimes tell the audience about his bizarre crime and how he relates to this new canaan story you're working on well mr jennings who is the managing director was he's on leave now i have morgan stanley. in december he got a cab ride home from new york and he didn't think he should pay the fare that the cab driver told him that he needed to pay and according to the police reports he started to slur and enormous amount of racial. words at him the cab driver drove off trying to go find a cop and allegedly you mr mr jennings when to stab them almost in the neck it's unclear he put his hand up and he cut his hand it's all stabbed up so there was a soul there's a larceny charges and there's there's someone of a hate crime angel here. jennings it's interesting you know he lives down the street here from us maybe five minutes away from me as close house he chose an attorney who i understand is his next door neighbor jean. i turned to just co

i'm joined by steven roach, who is executive chairman of morgan stanley asia.ood to have you on the show. >> good to see you, andrew. >> let's talk first about bo xilai. his departure is categorized by many as a power struggle, the result in the communist party over the future leadership of china. what are your thoughts on that? is this what's happening? >> you know, i don't have any brilliant insights into the demise of mr. bo. i sort of take odds with what the earlier comment was that he was a shoo-in for the standing committee. he was always a very controversial candidate for that. there was now a fairly well-known incident of one of his key aides, and you know, like political issues in the west, when something slips up on your watch, you know how the buck stops here, you take the hit, and he does. >> do you think, though, that with bo out of the way, and what one blogger from china described him as an ultra left stronghold. do you think that his demise or his departure will have an impact on the political direction that china will now take under the new lea

. >> morgan stanley says the apple stock could surge as high as 550. day that morgan stanley adds to its best ideas list, apple got another pry target rating as well. what are you seeing? >> it's not every day a firm as big as morgan moves its price up $200. buying was in the premarket and it was aaggressive. now they're projecting over a million ipads, the new ipad will be sold on the launch day. that will be simultaneous in ten countries at 8 a.m. i'd love to have held into friday's announcements. i'm trading the weeklies, though, and these things have just exploded so much. by the way, a million option contracts have already changed hands in apple so far today. we're halfway through the session. most people seem to be into these weeklies, better than half the option volume is in these contracts, judge, and it's just an amazing thing to watch how much these have moved up, for instance, as a $6 investment on monday this week was worth over $34,000. >> wow. >> that's not a leveraged bet. that's not saying go out and mortgage your house to do it. that's

morgan stanley placed the broker who was meeting with her on leave. this is just normal policy. and we're told that the employee maintains he had no vomit with criminal activity and that there's been no finding of any anything to the contrary as far as morgan stanley is concerned but policy while the criminal investigation is going on. we can't confirm he is under investigation, that he's been placed on leave. so that's the latest in this story. again, we're not saying the broker's name. we have calls in to him. he's not yet responded to our request for a comment. >> it's broken across the new york tabloids for a couple of days. thank you very much. scott cohen from the breaking news desk. >>> when we come back, a firsthand look at the new ipad from someone that played with the new features. his opinion and see if it's worth buying. [ horn honks ] hey, it's sandra -- from accounting. peter. i can see that you're busy... but you were gonna help us crunch the numbers for accounts receivable today. i mean i know that this is important. well, both are imp

of morgan stanley, one of the first global investment banks to establish a presence in china. zhang xin is the c.e.o. of soho china, one of the country's largest real estate developers. ian brepl smer the of eurasian group. i am pleased to have them all here to talk about china, the plit currents and i begin with you. tell me how you think chinese economy looks over the next several years. what are the challenges? >> i think 2011 we had one of the most challenging years. in the 17 years i have become... i've been doing i have never seen credit so tight. banks are not lending because, you know, china was fighting against inflation so the way to do it is to tighten the credit. as a developer, of course, even worse, residential developers, you cannot sell home. for those who have one home, you can simply not buy a second home no matter what your need. so that was how the chinese government was so strict in controlling the inflation. but by the end of last year inflation is pretty much under control. i think this year we're looking ahead. i would be surprised if the credit is not

morgan stanley goes to $7820 from $500 and change and morgan stanley says they think apple could earn 80 bucks next year which would put their valuation they believe at about $960 in 2013. and even moody's looking at the cash hoard across corporate america thinks they think apple could end the year at $150 billion. apple not the only one with a new high, helping to keep the nasdaq today at above that 3000 level. you've got microsoft, intel, ebay, you combine all of their market caps in that group and it equals apple's market cap right around now. you take out apple, the tech sector not quite as strong in the s&p, only up 15% year to date, michelle. bed bath and beyond at an all-time high as bernstein ups its targets. >> bed bath and beyond, bertha, thank you. >>> let's drill down on the stories driving the day. investors eye financials on the back of the stress tests from yesterday. the big news the goldman sachs letter and we'll get to it in a moment. but bank of america was supposed to be the bank in a mess, but it pass the stress test. rival citi failed. why did b of a and citi fel

less money at all they could prediction that i've been talking about this week goldman sachs morgan stanley all of these big broker dealers they're going to be in terrible trouble next year because they're not earning anything on their inventory a big part of a profit for a broker dealer is just interest on securities lending the securities or what we used to call repo there's none of that well fed zero rate environment there is no short term interbank lending so these institutions are dying morgan stanley for example is in terrible trouble they're laying people off they're pushing employees of vendors to try to lighten the load and i think as time goes on the fed is going to be forced to raise rates long before two thousand and fourteen ok interesting prediction i want to talk to you more about this i've got to go to break quickly because we're going to have more with christopher whalen author and senior managing director it can take capital partners and still ahead here it's one of the newest additions to twitter already has fourteen thousand followers will give you our three that's on th

zero rate environment there is no short term interbank lending so these institutions are dying morgan stanley for example is in terrible trouble they're laying people off they're pushing employees of vendors to try to lighten the load and i think as time goes on the fed is going to be forced to raise rates long before two thousand and fourteen ok interesting prediction i want to talk to you more about this i got to go to break quickly because we're going to have more with kristen program an author and senior managing director at tangent capital partners and still ahead here it's one of the newest additions to twitter already has fourteen thousand followers will give you our three cents on the federal reserve's latest attempt at transparency and try to keep it in the last ten hundred forty characters that that first your closing market every. if you just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i like to tell the truth. i confess i am a total get of friends that i loved. her. he was kind of the jester. i'm very proud of the role that al-jazeera has played. look. you know sometimes yo

morgan stanley down 4% and hugh i higher by 1.5. they were taking their key from europe. here in the united states. apple is dominating the quarterly dividend as well as a share buyback program. web bush upping the estimates on apple ahead of the announcement to $750. that's the highest price target on the street. joining us is the analyst behind it. $750 target. scott sutherland joins us on the news line. great to have you with us. >> thanks for having me. >> you did this prior to the dividend innish asian and the buyback. does that change and make you more optimistic? >> you know, i think a lot of people anticipated a 1 to 2% yield and then this was anticipated and we think fundamentally it's a strong story. >> what sort of multiple are you using to get to 750 a share? >> you look at this company and you look at next year's number, we get to this price target. companies should still grow earnings in 20% for the next few years. i think it's still a very reasonable multiple. >> when you look at other tech companies out there or other stocks in general, investors like to d

here's what morgan stanley said. the chinese markets are improving. mills are raising prices. steel production is up month over month in february. they are simply pointing out that some of the demand is slower. it had 24% growth in imports, in iron ore for the last ten years in china. you can't grow 24. it's going to slow down a little bit. i think this is a little overblown and people are long the markets right now a bit and this is an excuse. >> maybe, but at the end of the day you are still talking about the chinese economy moving up from 11% at its peak to down to 8%. even though you're talking about, relatively speaking, very strong growth, 8% is a far move from 11. >> one thing to say about that is, 10% growth five years ago and 8% growth, your total demand is exactly the same because the economy is bigger, right? >> that's exactly right. >> there's no change the marginal demand for products. >> what has been the impact on europe? >> you've seen -- and it's interesting. forget today's moves. if you look at resources in london, they have underperformed for the last month

investigators say it included a morgan stanley banker, handling the money and a police sargeant kept tabs on authorities. some people living near the brothel had suspicions. >> very well dressed gentleman. with a european background, that is with a it appears to me. >> police say the accused madam used all cash transactions and a sliding scale from $1,000 an hour to $25,000. supporters say she's a soccer mom who loves animals. >> and the oakland zoo celebrated completion of a barn raising today. men's warehouse founder george skimmer cut the ribbon. giraffes won't have to duck and live beneath a 25 foot high ceiling. it can house nine giraffes. as well as a stall where they can receive medical treatment. and new digs for giraffes. nice. >> generous, too. >> and we have more coming up. including a watch more expensive than a rolex? >> with more flash and bling. stay with us. c >>> at 6:00, serious new accusations against apple, government investigation into price fixing. and imagine running one of the largest food banks. lgs, wheels of justice spin out of control for a san jose man. a

. >> morgan stanley does not like their stock. i want to quote, first sentence here.llowing another inline quarter, weakness suggests recent underperformances will continue. and they add without material improvement interest rates or business formation, we see few catalyst for estimates to move higher as third quarter results were largely inline with consensus. i think you gave us plenty of reason it will go higher, away from interest rates and new business formation on this conference call. >> well, i think so too. we're high on the stock obviously. proud of the employees. we got great service results. sales picking up in this quarter. and it's our important selling season. we've got new product rolling out. we've had a single sign on for clients to reach all our products and we have android and a smart phone app coming out. i feel very good about it. it is a tough environment but i think we are finding ways around it to grow the revenue. >> in one of the questions that, talking about the $800 million on the balance sheet, might be close to a billion dollars. then yo

who actually use the oil, airlines, et cetera, but wall street specklators like goldman sachs, morgan stanley. >> those trying to make a dollar. >> to make as much money as they can. now, there have been differing ideas of how much would change. this is interesting. goldman sachs itself and goldman sachs may be the major specklator on the oil futures market. they estimated the price of a gallon of gas would go down by 56 cents. >> watch theed show on msnbc, the place for politics. >>> the nfl comes down hard on the saints. the hawks win in overtime. plus, kobe bryant and the lakers get fancy dousing the mavericks. your "first look" at sports is straight ahead. you are woching "first look" on msnbc. erything - everything. but why energy? we've got over 100 years worth. is it safe to get it? but what, so we should go broke with imports? look, i'm just saying. well, energy creates jobs. [announcer:] at conocophillips, we're helping power america's economy with cleaner, affordable natural gas. more jobs, less emissions. a good answer for everyone. we gotta be careful. it's cleaner. it's affordabl

so i've got to start with this downgrade today, it's morgan stanley., we've reached the price target which is actually down from last year, and they're saying that you may have elevated risk of the fan e fannies and freddies. to me the problem has peaked but they're saying it's accelerating. but who's right? >> well, we've said for the last several quarters we think we're on the backside of the mortgage repurchase issue. we have been out of the mortgage business since august of 2008. so it's 40 months or so since the last time we originated and sold a loan to the gses. and so we think we're on the backside of that. it takes a while for the agencies to work through any backlog. it has been an earnings head wind for us over the last several years. but if you take that away, the core fundamentals of the business continue to improve in our capital markets or fixed income distribution business and in our core banking business. so the head wind will probably persist for a while longer, but to my earlier point, we think we're on the back half of the gse repur

apple's price target raise at morgan stanley above $700 a share. stock tonight soaring to a fresh all-time high. closing up, as you can see, $21 higher now. speaking of technology, choppy day for the nasdaq after the big rally yesterday. my next guest at bank of america merrill lynch global research said there are still signs of strength in the technologies. here's her take on the market. also joining me, jason with strategic research partners. good to see you both. thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks, maria. >> you still like tech? >> i love tech. i believe technology is entering a new secular bull market. technology from a technical perspective has been in a bear market for the past 11 years. it's been range-bound since 2001. we've cleared that level. so we think we're on path over the coming years to test those 2000 highs. we can see the nasdaq composite back up nearly 4,000 again. >> that would be something to talk about for sure. of course, the high is 5,000. but regardless, money has been moving into the sector. what is driving all th

. >> cortez, if you saw that call today from morgan stanley which raised its china gdp outlook from 9% to 8.5, thereabouts. >> at the same time they also lowered their egp analysis. >> you realize you're sort of on the outlyer's side, morgan stanley talking about what's happening in china and others talking about the growth concerns being overrated? >> absolutely, i'm comfortable as the outlyer. i still think the china story is the greatest risk to global markets and i think we're in the early stages of the unwind. shanghai composite is now 8.5% off this month's highs, so the selling has been truly intense. >> cortez, cortez. listen, share prices are down, we've already seen the chinese government buy banking stocks. we know they're not going to let their economy just completely fall off the cliff. how does that figure into your analysis? things are weakening, yeah, but -- >> we'll get his answer after the break, cortez, because we're going to take one right now. coming up, is an end in sight to research in motion? halftime report is on the way. sometimes investing opportunities are ha

investigators say her operation included morgan stanley banker who handled the money and a new york cityolice sergeant who kept tabs on the authorities. some living near the suspected brothel had suspicions. >> very well dressed gentlemen. women of european background it looked like that's the way they appeared to me. >> police say at accused madame used all cash transactions and a sliding scale ranging from $1,000 an hour to $25,000 for a weekend. her defenders say she is a soccer mom with four kids who loves animals. she is being held on two million dollars bail. >>> apple getting a warning from the justice department. according to bloomberg the government plans to sue the cupertino-based tech giant and five of the biggest u.s. publishers for fixing prices on electronic books. eight s apple and the publishers of working to the change the model under which e books were priced when the first ipad was released. some of the companies in talks to reach a settlement no comment from apple. >>> hundreds of thousands trying to preorder the new ipad are running into problems. appear -- apple tol