let's talk about pulte. pulte missed on top and bottom line. they are getting killed today.umbers were eh. if you want to see the effect of the weaker fracking activity on the home building industry it's clear if you lift the hood on pulte's numbers. orders were up 6%. up nicely in the southeast and southwest and north. texas was down 5%. that's a clear sign slowing energy business is starting to affect home building. we saw this yesterday as well with united rentals. certain parts of the country where there is significant energy business. lower equipment rentals, as well. dow is down 55 points. >> thank you very much bob pisani. >>> likelihood seems to be growing every moment the doj and fcc will move to try to stop comcast from buying time warner cable. latest reports from the "wall street journal" indicating the likelihood that the staff at the fcc will recommend taking the case to an administrative law judge. this is done very rarely and almost always spells the death knell for a deal. doesn't mean comcast won't stay in there and keep battling and take this all the way d

let's bring in bill pulte. the ceo of pulte capital partners. i would ask you to oblige us and bear in mind we may have to interrupt you to go down to washington. what is your read on the housing starts numbers? and how do they transfer into the overall view of housing? >> look, we certainly had a slower q 4 and certainly a slower q 1 than you would have thought. if you ignore the noise, the housing market still strong. one of the things we're seeing in the market is a lot of m&a activity. especially amongst building products companies. we might see it in the months to come. it won't be as as aggressive as we thauxt i think the slow growth in housing, although there still is growth say louing people to underwrite transact n transactio transactions. >> do you pick off some of the builders here? what is the most attractive part if you're an investor? >> three major stocks, massco, builders first source and fortune brand. mott a lot of m&a activity and frankly, a lot of them have been hovering at at the same prices for last three or so months, it w

and pulte home builder saw the profits drop more than 20% as home closings fell and it was soft. part of the problem is northeast because of construction delays due to weather. shares tumbled 18% to $19.79. and johnson and n announced a dividend increase to 75 cents a share. the ceo said that is due to a strong financial position and confidence. the yield on the payout is now about 3%. the stock was up a fraction to $100.46. >>> now to the drought out west. california has for decades neglected to build new water infrastructure. no new reservoirs and dams and now everything is on the water table, if you will. even desallination, which removed salt from sea water. jane reports from carlsbad california. >> bone dry california sits next to the largest source of water in the world. the pacific ocean. turning saltwater into fresh is expensive, requires a lot of energy and isn't good for nearby fish but california is running out of choices. >> we are standing in the middle of the reverse osmosis plant. >> josica jones is showing off the $1 billion plant built by poseidon and providing 7

. >> operation finally home and the pulte made the mortgage free home possible for the family. >> a tennesseeily has a unique way of keeping an eye on his dalmer run o'hearn is live on the big board on how he's literally becoming a hovering dad. do you think sal will get ideas. >> i hope not because i think his daughter would have a few things to say about it. most of us have heard of helicopter parenting, let's call this drone parenting except we're not being metaphorical. this tennessee father has as you said become a hovering dad thanks to his love of technology and his adorable eight-year-old daughter katie who you see right there. chris early is a self described tech junkie who owns a production company. as mentioned he's father to eight year old katie who asked him to walk to school on her own a few weeks ago. of course katie didn't want her father to watch her. let's say his creative instincts kicked n he used the drone he had to take video of her on her way to school. now, some may say he's being too protective but chris says it's all in fun and of course a great way to make sure kati

here's pulte taylor, all of the home builder's going lower today. latest hillary bombshell, in the new york times russia buys a major uranium mining company from canada but canada and russia follow tens of millions of dollars into the clinton foundation while hillary was secretary of state. she even had to give approval to the deal. carly fiorina expected to enter the presidential race early next month weighing in on the latest of 3 scandal. here is the quote from carly fiorina posted on her face book page moments ago the clinton l.a. raking in millions from foreign governments behind closed doors while making promises about transparency that they never intended to keep. monica crowley, is this again we are year-and-a-half away getting all the dirt out right now and she will be a saint next year? >> this is what carly fiorina says that is so important and why the messenger is so important. carly fiorina is a very accomplished and talented woman. i do not think she will be the nominee or vice-presidential nominee but here is a service she will provid

. >> pulte, downgraded over jpm to underweight. is vulnerable not only going to underperform, but that housing is vulnerable after a strong year so far. >> thanks for nothing. a hold on the stock that was doing well. lennar and toll brothers had been sensational in the housing business. the housing business away from the major home builders has been not so good because of the credit issues. so good operators have done quite well. toll was at 32 33 forever. lennar in the 30s. look at runs that they've had i don't think a guy who sat out the rally in pulte can say a sell without feeling like wow, i didn't do it. by the way i did not mean to jump express scripts when i said walgreens was interested. i'm saying people are saying walgreens would be interested in pbm. i jumped -- >> that would be an enormous deal. >> express scripts is so big. >> that being said walgreens, i had one phone call during the break, somebody on the call they were very very clear in their intent to pursue m&a. some people are quickly taking a look and wonder d

but otherwise toll brothers, pulte, i would stay away. i'd rather buy a house. going to buy a house and watch it appreciate. liz: well, hopefully it'll continue this trajectory over at nbr. bob, are you taking a different side? >> the high end homes are doing well, the low end homes, i think, have got some room to rebound. so if i were going to be playing this, i'd look at kb because they have a big chunk of their -- liz: how about the derivative plays like the eagles of the world? >> general racks, i agree with you, i think that's a smart play, yes. liz: yeah. they make the generators, and everybody now is building that into building a house. >> exactly. and you've got to worry about -- liz: gary b.'s just looking at me like, liz, i've been there, i have the generator, i have the big house, it's a nightmare. >> thank you. [laughter] liz: okay. a lot of political business and market action this week. time to pick the biggest winners and the biggest losers. stephen loeb, you're up first. >> biggest winners this week, liz, and i think it's very significant, were t

. >>> welcome back, i'm meg tyrell, let's check home builder stocks, shares of pulte group and othersing a hit as sales of existing homes rose to the highest level in 2013. john, over to you. >>> thanks, meg in case you missed it, mobile messaging app, whatsapp acquired by facebook release an update to its iphone app available in the next couple of weeks. the latest update will allow users to access whatsapp's free calling feature, much like skype or face-time's audio service by using an internet connection rather than cell service to make calls. be a droid has had the service for a couple of weeks already. whatsapp hit 800 million active users earlier this month. that app continues to chug along for facebook. >> huge internationally. anybody who has to communicate across borders, whatsapp is your best option. >> the properties that they've got at the multiple hundreds of millions of monthly active users, impressive. >> we're wondering how facebook would operate whatsapp in instagram, would they integrate it it's incredible to see them operating them as separate services has done noth

pulte group. phm down.r jpmorgan downgraded the stock saying the home builder likely to underperform its peers. the others are trading lower today. what do we think about this group? >> they've been on a massive run. we talk about this sector for the last couple weeks. >> a lot of downside risks to this group. >> i actually think you want to look at these names on pullbacks. we haven't had any pullbacks. now that we have this downgrade it does offer an opportunity. >> i'm going to compare this to our favorite investment the airlines, right. so if you weren't in early you missed it. you look at these and go should i be in them. on a pullback when people don't want to own these, get downgraded and miss a quarter -- >> can we define what a pullback is? >> 10%. >> off 52 lo 2-week highs. >> good question from greenhouse but also real questions about where housing truly is. and where is it going. and where it is going in terms of the airlines. it's not real any question in terms of whether their business models

pulting hundreds of dollars in to pricey productions like car graphed flash mobs. ♪ >> reporter: skaving their way to romance. >> i thought why not buy her a dress and ask her to be my date. >> reporter: some recruiting celebs to get in on the game. the new york jets giving this girl muscle to ask her football-crazed friend to prom. >> will you go to prom with cara. >> reporter: bryan cranston breaking a seriously bad question for these prom goers last year. >> maddie if you don't go to the prom with steven it may be your best course of action would be to tread lightly. >> reporter: an over-the-top trend. >> oh, my god. >> turning teenagers in to puddles everywhere. >> the cost has been going down. it is $919. over the past few years it's gone down a little bit. >> it seems it would put so much pressure on teenagers. what if you put all of that time and money in to a promposal or if you are a young woman or man on the other side of that, if you want to say no. >> you are on the spot. >> like a marriage proposal. you have to say yes in front of everybody and then go back and correct it

pulte had disappointing earnings results.the dollar is killing revenues for a lot of big companies, 3m dr. pepper lilly and hershey all reported their revenues were hurt due to the strong dollar. look at these numbers. s&p 500500 earnings down 3%. the small caps though melissa, up 3.4% because small caps mostly make their money in the united states. strong dollar really hurting the multi nationals. melissa. >> bob, thanks for that. now let's get to bertha at the nasdaq. >> yeah, huge number today, melissa. if we were to close here it would be well above the all-time high close for the nasdaq. only 70 points or so below the all-time intraday high. i'll show you that look that bob was showing you before in terms of where the strength is today. we're getting it from the bio biotechs, from the midcaps and the shop caps. the large caps are strong but the nasdaq 100 is the only major index that has not out its all-time high and is still about 5% below because we've been getting the big lift from these smaller names of late. back to