short sales outnumbered reos in several markets where reo sales had outnumbered short sales just a yearll at an average discount of 21% while reos, that is foreclosed properties, sell at a discount of 36%. but the short sales of course take a whole lot longer. there's plenty more on this on the blog. >> diana, thank you very much. well, foreclosures, housing and jobs among the top issues impacting local economies. "power lunch" is going across america now for a take of the pulse of the nation's cities. we're going to convene our mayor's round table. mayor of huntsville, alabama, aka the rocket city thanks to its bustling aerospace industry. joining us momentarily on the phone will be joe rilely of charleston, south carolina. the state's second largest city and home of the citadel. and a notch on the rust belt and home to several fortune 500 firms. welcome gentlemen all to "power lunch." mayor battle, i'm going to start with you. because diana just left off with housing, let me ask you, how is the state of housing in your neck of the woods? and do you see a bit of a recovery there? >> ou

but kohl's disappointed-- sales there fell slightly. looking behind the numbers, analysts say there's a lot of pent-up demand in the economy. >> people are spending money because they haven't for the last couple of years. they haven't had to spend more money, so now they have a little more money. they want to spend it, and with the sales taking place at the retail level, people are willing to spend their money now. >> tom: investors were also spending money on wall street. the dow rose 28 points, the nasdaq jumped 22, and the s&p up eight points. over in the bond market, prices fell on the ten-year note, sending the yield higher to just over 2%. >> susie: those paltry bond yields have caused investors to look around for other options. real estate investment trusts, or reits, are viewed by some as a savvy alternative. suzanne pratt reports on why the sector is so popular. >> reporter: this may come as a big surprise, but lately, real estate has been a pretty good investment. we're not talking about this kind of real estate or shaky u.s.

and what percent of your overall retail sales are alcohol sales, of all kinds? >> it is a necessary component above -- a necessary component, but not exclusive. it is 5%. we offer beer and wine in the majority of our stores. commissioner sugaya: thank you. a couple of questions to staff. can we control the type of checkouts in this building? >> i believe we can add a condition. commissioner sugaya: kelly ban alcohol sales in the establishment? we went around on this before. -- can we banned alcohol sales in this establishment? we went around and around where we were told we did not have tears in -- jurisdiction. i think that is a wrong interpretation but i will ask again. if we approve this, can one condition be no alcohol sales tax -- no alcohol sales? >> i do not know. i will try to find out. commissioner sugaya: you can continue. commissioner miguel: i think commissioner sugaya's comments are well taken. any organization like this should have their organization -- their hiring personages on the tip of their tongue and i find it extremely disconcerting to not

short sales outnumbered reo sales, including los angeles, miami and phoenix where reo sales had outnumbered short sales just a year ago. negative equity, of course, is still the worst in the markets. we always talk about the sand states. but across the nation, at least 10% of all states of borrowers in all states with a mortgage are in a negative equity position. we've got plenty more information of this on the blog, realty check.cnbc.com. >> thank you so much. diana olick. >> 15 minutes to go. we're up 17 points. we've had volatility here in the last few minutes which we'll get to more, because of what oil is doing to the stock market. >> tonight is the pricing for yelp. it will start trading tomorrow. should see $12 to $14 a share is what bob was saying earlier in terms of the range. bertha coombs rounding up the "under the radar" stocks for us. stay with us. >>> the recovery of the u.s. economy has continued. >> this is the feks, though, on european equity markets. i'm freaking out man. why? i thought jill was your soul mate. no, no it's her dad. the general's your soul mate? dude what?

the applicant originally applied for a type 42 on sale beer and wine permit any type 20 off sale beer and wine. after receiving multiple complaints, the wrist -- they withdrew the application for type 22 with abc. the applicant's plan that hours of operation is 10:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. daily. there is no opposition from northern station. the applicant premise is not located in a high crime area. it is located in an undue concentration area. at the time of this report, dated march 5, 2012, there were two documented letters of protest. march 8, 2012, i received notice that both of those protests since withdrew their protest. there is no record of support, and a l u recommends approval with following conditions. one, sales of alcoholic beverage to be permitted between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. daily. no. 2, no noise shall be audible beyond the area under the control of the licensee as defined in the abc 257. three, no person under the age of 21 shall sell or deliver alcoholic beverages. four, petitioners shall not make structural changes in the premise interior without pr

sale happens. lookç at suspicious activity, robo-signing, backdating, suspicious signatures. and then we looked at the electronic registry maintained by the mortgage industry that tracks loans. we tracked what was in the county record to see if there were conflicts. we found a significant number of complex there. 58%. -- conflicts there. we go into each of these in the report and talk about what we're looking at. we try to explain it in plain english, showing you the different exceptions within each of the subject areas. not only did we findq issues and 99% -- irregularities in 99% of loans. 84% appeared to be clear violations of law. but it was not that we found one issue in 99% of those loans. two-thirds of them had four or more issues. four of irregularities, violations of law, or more. more than 75% of the loans had violations within three or more subject areas. it is not that we found -- these loans did not have one thing wrong with them. they had many things wrong with themç across differen

in the last year, germans car sales -- germans car sales were strong. >> premium car makers were offering rebates of 20% on a mercedes, bmw, and audi. in the past year, customers of had to wait several weeks for their vehicles. part of a record sales year for the auto manufacturers. volkswagen sold more than to hundred thousand cars in china. bmw had an increase of 37%. mercedes-benz was up 35%. but the carmakers fear they will not follow up on last year's performance in china. they fear lower economic growth there will affect banks. >> gold has been a hot commodity in this uncertain environment, and deutsche obama is looking to cash in on at the bank -- due to bond -- deutsche bank. the vault is due to be built somewhere on the streets of the british capital london. it will be the center of the global world trade. >> to the markets now. stock markets retreated from our recent strong outlook on the chinese economy, because the demand for iron ore was slowing. here is our summary from our correspondent at the frankfurt stock exchange. >> the higher oil price on theds about the growth of ch

by stephen c., sales tax makes up the bulk of revenue budgets, 83.5%. this estimate is in line with what the controller's office has for revenues. federal funding source represents 8% of our budget and consist of $4.1 million in federal funds for the yerba buena island project. that is an island i just mentioned for the budget, and we will be shifting expenditures from fiscal year 2011-2012 to fiscal year 2012-2013. the next such a source is the vehicle registration fee. this would be the third year of the program, second year of full revenue collection. we anticipate $4.8 million of that represents 5.2%. the remaining parts of the budget in terms of revenue are less than 2%. city regional grants and program funding have interest earnings of 1.1% and state grant funding of 0.7%, and other revenues were 0.3%. on the next slide, i wanted to highlight the 10-year recap of sales revenues. back in fiscal year 2003-2004, collections were at $64 million. we hit an all-time high in 2007- 2008 with almost $80 million of revenue collection for sales tax. we had a

sales and europe.arnings miss for the first time in the last six quarters. wall street bonuses weren't good this year. tiffany sales felt it. executives on the conference call noted restrained spending by customers in the financial sector did affect sales in the northeast and mid-atlantic. tiffany turning in fourth quarter earnings of $1.39 per share. three cents short of expectations. the retailer famous for that little blue box did forecast fiscal 2012 earnings of $3.95 to $4.05 a share above current consensus. we'll have to see what exactly happens. the company expecting revenue to grow by 10%. shares are leading the s&p sector. as you can see right now up almost 7.5%. elsewhere in high-end retail michael kors ups guidance for fiscal fourth quarter as strong demand for luxury goods continues to propel sales higher. same-store sales up a staggering 36%. but a shift in distribution facilities delaying the delivery of merchandise to stores could prevent the company from meeting sales forecast at least

wendy's had sales of $8.5 billion last year, while b.k.'s sales were $8.4 billion. mcdonald's still rules when it comes to burgers with over $34 billion in sales. and for fast food overall, mcdonald's is number one, but its followed by subway and starbucks where sales neared $10 billion last year. susie i will put you down for one double cheeseburger. >> i have a real weakness for the french fries. i don't usually go for fast food but i will take the french fry. >> tom: i'll take the burger, you get the fridays that is nightly business report for this monday, march 19th. have a great evening,. >> susie: same to you, tom. good to be back. see you again tomorrow night. "nightly business report" is made possible by: captioning sponsored by wpbt captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> tom: i'm tom hudson with a "nightly business report" news brief. apple stock closed above $600 a share for the first time, after the company announced a quarterly dividend and stock buyback. starting july 1, shareholders will get a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share. ap

if there's a sale by for sure to watch list and more free of the anniversary sale or after christmassale will literally been brought by these images almost 247. these days pending penney's is a year- round sport. >>> is really just the people into thinking that i'm actually saving something and i'm being practical and this economy allison sent as a start of the web sites bay area mommy. for one reason. >>> to save money. she features the latest coupons sales and product reviews on the web sites. at home she organizes coupons and a book that she got with what else a coupon. >>> people say you never pay retailer for products because there's always something for that. the more you save the more you feel like a winning these coupons are a lot like cards and a blackjack table. and just like in vegas the house always wins. they all just want you to feel like they're getting a good deal here these companies even if they say in certain products is on sale definitely they're getting something. according to forrester consulting a consumer research group shoppers use on- line kuban's spent clos

december sales figures were revise up to 336,000 and the median sales price jumped more than 8%. >>> president obama today made a surprise nomination for the top job at the world bank. during a white house rose garden event, the president announced he has selected dartmouth college president jim yonq-kim. the korean-born kim is a physician by training. the actual selection of a new president will be made by the world bank's executive board but kim is expected to be selected in part because the u.s. has the largest percent of votes. >>> we have new video of a memphis television news crew threatened while ting their job. >> everybody's lying about my best friend. >> now, you can't touch the camera now >> the suspect brandon odom got angry at the reporter's question. he went to his truck and grabbed a gun. the memphis news team drove to arkansas for the arrest of a man. the reporters showed an officer footable rage. odom later turned himself in. >>> organizers of the national day of unplugging say it's about seeing what you have been missing in the real world. the campaign has some sugg

1/2% range even though we now have more hybrid models for sale.ottom line, hybrids more expensive than your standard internal combustion engine car get you 40 miles per gallon. people are saying i'm not sure i want to pay up for a hybrid now. >> what are the future of hybrids then, jessica? >> that is absolutely true. i don't know if that chart is going to show it, when you actually look at what hybrids are being sold, the toyota prejust one model, makes up 50% of the hybrids. you add the high bids are and electric vehicles all together. i think it is still going to be a slow adoption for all of these vehicles and not going to expect it to go much more than a few percentage of the market. it is going to take time for these vehicles to roll out to being widespread across all types of consumers, not going to happen in just the next few years. >> even the traditional cars, big cars getting more and more fuel efficient, right have to go for a hybrid or electric to get fuel economy, right, jessica? >> type look at the large trucks and suvs, touting the

three day sales of $150 million. lions gate picked up the twilight movies when they bought summit entertainment. the going to join the gang on "fast money" tonight at 5:00 p.m. >>> we've also got an update on the earthquake in mexico. >> sorry. i want to completely bring up out of the random blue, can we bring up a chart of zag? a lot of viewers on twitter bringing up a good point. >> i know zag. i have red flagged this. >> this is the maker of the cases for ipads and iphones. a lot of the people -- listen, here's the way it works, folks. if you say anything negative about apple you get killed. people come out of the woodwork on twitter and say you're an idiot. >> zagg is going up. >> there you go. >> pulled out of negative territory. >> here's the thought. if the ipad 3, maybe you didn't want a case, is a little hot, what are you going to do? you're going to run out and get a case because you don't want to burn your little -- >> knees. >> knees. what i was thinking. >> it may be because also there was concerns the r

america still accounts for 71% of sales. why the acceleration lately? gas prices. >> it looks good, wrapping up the third month of the year and all three months have been good. i'm hoping it carries phyllis theroux the spring and summer months. >> reporter: well, some analysts with concerned that the good news for q1 may hurt q2 as some of the sales were pulled earlier, move forward because of nice weather and harley continues to restructure and will institute new systems that could cause a hiccup and even though bike sales actually trend with home sales, harley has finally gotten the upper hand. >> one thing harley has done really well over the last several years is to reduce supplies such that the supply demand equation is working in favor of their current owners. if you own a bike today, you've got equity in that bike, and if you want to trade it, you get good value for that bike. >> he's got harley. oh, i'm sorry. he's got harley at outperform and bmo capital raised them to outperform. seeing a lot of sales to first-time buyers, women, minorities, y

and the number of homes for sale is also down significantly from a year ago. despite fewer homes, prices haven't moved much. the median price in february was $156,600, up just 0.3% from a year earlier. even with a mixed picture on home prices, real estate web site trulia.com finds for the great majority of the biggest cities in the u.s., buying is cheaper than renting. its survey shows owning a home is more affordable than renting in 98 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas. buyers have found bargains in areas where the housing bust hit the hardest, like florida and las vegas, but trulia's jed kolko says other markets also offer value. >> places like detroit, cleveland, atlanta and other places in the midwest and the south, places that weren't the hardest hit places when the bubble burst. those are places where housing tends to be affordable year in and year out. these are places where you see higher vacancy rates, more land to spare and slower economic growth over the long term. >> tom: the three cities where renting is still a better deal than buying: san fr

both up 9% on same store sales. the difference now that i'm finding, the buckle, the street doesn't believe in this name. it's about a 30 plus percent short, opposed to tjx, i think tjx can go higher. >> steve weis, what are you doing op the market as it related to retail? >> it put it on j.c. penny. the stock is values, sam valuation as macy's. it's a pair trade. i also shorted kohl's. and i bought nordstrom. nordstrom and macy's were both down on the print. great sales numbers. maybe expectation in macy's. >> grasso, you're on the floor today. that's giving some surge to the market. little bit any way. what are you doik? >> put it this way. as long as we stay above that 1370 level in the s&p, you could pr pretty much get a chimp to throw a dart and a dart board to buy anything because this market's going above 1400. it's almost that easy. >> right to brian tunic, on the fast line today. a specialty retail analyst at jpmorgan. were you as surprised at how strong the retail numbers were? >> definitely. i think we we

but bourbon sales are growing faster.i expects them to double over the next seven years says unemployment goes down, spirit sales go up. and tourism, 450,000 people came to kentucky for the bourbon trail last year. so beam is investing several million dollars not just in bourbon but in expanding its visitor's center. >> we're trying to build the site so we can accommodate upwards of 200,000 visitors a year. we're really excited about that. >> all right. here's the hottest video of the day. look at this. literally bourbon has to be made in new never used charred oak barrels. they char them on site in louisville. and the number of barrels made here is up 50% in a decade. >> we're making over 2,500 barrels a day here at this facility. and we employ about 300 people at this facility. >> now, they resell some of these used barrels to scotch makers and tequila. they cannot use them again for bourbon. you can only use them once. that helps them recoup some of their costs. guys, another thing bringing down the cost since the hous

. >> susie: sales breaking records. lines out the door. no, we are not talking about another apple product launch. this is the mega-millions lottery and it is now the biggest jackpot in history. sounds like a good business for the states that profit from ticket sales, right? but just how much do they get to keep and at what cost? darren gersh takes a look. >> reporter: the district of columbia isn't that big. just over 600,000 people live here. now think about this. >> we're projecting to do $2.5 million in mega-million sales. >> reporter: that's tracey cohen, chief operating officer of the d.c. lottery and she's already a big winner. the district government is looking to keep $1 million of those ticket sales. pretty good for a couple days work. and the district has only been offering mega millions for a little over a year. >> it's like a 500% increase in sales! >> so the lottery is what's known as a voluntary tax. i pay my $5, five tickets please. and because i have almost no chance of winning, i have just voluntarily taxed myself $5. >>

you know, this may be one of the greatest sales opportunities.u're in the market for a house, if you have your finances together, if you know you're going to keep that house, if you're not a crazy flipper, i think it's a great time to buy one. >> those crazy flippers, those crazy flippers. i will say, though, that i think you could see home sales up for a considerable period of time before you see home prices coming up. there's a lot of factors and variables in there. clearly some opportunities. i keep talking about the green shoots. richard florida, nice to see you. >> thank you, christina. thanks for having me on. >> that's going to wrap things up. the conversation continues online.