sam zell staying with us. he's our special cohost of the special edition of the "closing bell" tonight. find out where he's allocating money today and he is dribbling in real estate around the world. also coming up, closing in on dow 15,000. yeah, dow 15,000 already. much more on this historic rally coming up with mario gabelli who will weigh in as well. then we'll hear from the head of the international monetary fund, christine lagarde. find out when she thinks the fed will begin unwinding the stimulus and what she told me about cyprus. we'll also talk about the president's proposed budget, all ahead on "closing bell." stay with us. >>> also, stay with us, because we're going to talk with the president's top economic adviser, alan krueger. he'll be here to tell us what the new budget could do to your wallet. stay with us on the "closing bell," cnbc, first in business worldwide. tdd: 1-800-345-2550 searching for a bank designed for investors like you? tdd: 1-800-345-2550 schwab bank was built with tdd: 1-800-3

the great billionaire, sam zell, the real estate whiz is also with us. in fact, sam will be maria's special co-host at 4:00 p.m. eastern. so stay tuned next hour for that. also with us, exclusively, imf head, christine lagarde. she's watching what's happening in our stock market and with our fed very closely. she's also issuing a huge warning about the banking sector, that you'll want to hear later in today's program. also, get this, the kpmg partner who leaked that inside information has put out a statement and now his lawyer is going to be talking to us first. you'll want to hear this, coming up, on today's edition of "closing bell." as i said on twitter, who's not on "closing bell" today. here's what the market lacks like. here we go again. the dow was up 152 at the high of the day. now a gain of 139 points is at 14,812. the nasdaq has been the strongest of the major averages since this rally began on friday morning after that jobs report came out. the nasdaq up 4% since that low on friday. it's up 1.76% right now, with a gain of 56 points. the s&p, no

listen to a sound bite from sam zell.'d like your reaction on where we are in the market right now. >> i think that, you know, this feels like the housing market of 2006. everybody can't afford to miss it. all i know is i never got -- as an operator of a company, i never got recognized for cash in the bank. i only got recognized for increases in earnings. that's the measure of the stock market, not how much cash the company has. >> that's sam zell yesterday on cnbc on the closing bell. >> first, it is entirely possible that it is the housing bubble but it would be 2005, not 2006. that vintage was some good, some bad. that's important because 2 you have 240 is when it got way too carried away. i think there are two kinds of stocks here. kinds that fit the parameters of what zell would like, pharmaceuticals are not all overvalued. talking about techs -- microsoft, intel, oracle, cisco are all clustered at 11 times earnings. now is that wildly exuberant? no. there are other parts of this market which i would describe as bein

i want to get your opinion on what sam zell said yesterday. listen to this, mario, because he compared the market right now for stocks to the housing market back in 2006. listen to what he said. >> every single day it goes up. every day in 2006, the housing market went up. what was the number one headline every day? housing prices going up. what are you talking about every day now? new high on the stock market every day. i just think that we are suffering through another irrational exuberance. >> yeah, look, sam is right. and yet he's as the dynamic went from being materially undervalued. and after the bernanke came out of jackson hole, they put more money into the system. he's joined by mario draghi and now corona in japan. so that liquidity was designed to reflate housing and reflate financial assets. and so an area like the stock market that we want to participate and not through mileless investing. companying like t. rowe price, cheap stock. leg mason, the stop is going through a rewrite with the ceo sullivan coming on board. maria, the st

sam zell, in my opinion, is spot-on. it doesn't mean he's not invested. he's just pretty much wide-eyed, and in terms of greg ip's comment, of course it's not only the fed. but that's a lot of it. and in terms of when it will end, 24 hours ago, jim bianco and steve liesman said something i looked up. and it was that charles evan said in february that i think that we can slow down some of these programs, when i six months in a row of 200,000 nonforeign jobs growth p. i researched it. 16 years ago is the last time that happened. are they going to keep these programs up for 16 years! >> rick, let me answer that. no, they won't. and i saw that commentary by steven and jim yesterday, and remember, charlie evans is by far the most dovish member of the fed. you cannot assume -- >> it's his idea to target unemployment, though, is it not! >> correct. but listen carefully to what everybody else on the fed is saying. including janet yellin. she's talking about winding down by the end of the year. >> well, once again, i keep betting boatloads of sliders. i'll bet you

here's sam zell. >> every day it goes up. every day in 2006 the housing market went up. what was the number one headline every day, housing prices going up. what are you talking about every day now, new high on the stock market every day. i think we are suffering through another irrational kpub rans. >> is that how you see it irrational exuberance? >> until you have a definitive change in the way the central banks are putting liquidity in to the world economies i would disagree with that. if you look at what is going on right now, you have money looking for assets and real estate is doing well in this scenario. money has to find a home. it's going in to equities. >> do you think if we were to get a plan in washington to actually, you know, begin to fix the medicare and medicaid problem, the fact these problems are running out of money and could go bankrupt, do you think that would create confidence? just knowing there's a plan in place? >> yes. i think if we had a plan phased in over time, focused on getting debt as a percentage of the economy down to a reasonable level,

we did get it right. >> you hear what sam zell has to say.le who are out there. do you share any of those concerns? >> i think corporate profits will continue to be strong mostly because companies are not innovating. it's a part of the joblessness issue. you just see how hard it is now for companies to hire new people. >> is it a fear factor, just from everything we have seen? >> yeah. it's fear factor but it's also pure economics. you look at adding one person, one head count. now all the an sillry costs, it's a big number. so they are trying to grow their revenues and keep their sgna flat to going down. that's how they are driving their profits. they're not really focusing on pure top line growth. >> you know, it's inflating the housing bubble too. same guys. >> yeah. >> all right. we'll have more of this conversation in just a moment. we are inducting a new squawk master. here's a hint for you. he or she is the author of the book "the $10 trillion gamble." quick. go to google and look it up. she's always been able to brighten your day. it'