joining us is bob pisani and simon hobbs from new jersey. we're focusing on weakness in europe. >> yes, we are. it was really quite broad base. some of the indices, like italy, we have an eruption of selling on the italian and spanish bond markets. raising the question really as to whether the honeymoon that we've experienced may be coming to an end of the first quarter. of course, risk assets have rallied substantially of a trillion dollars. tomorrow we have the spanish budget and there is clear nervousness ahead of that. and what was interesting was that as the bond market sold off, some of the italian banks which of course have profited hugely from fwiing italian debt soared in value it's fair to say we have warning signs flashing importantly from europe today. >> bob, here we go again. suddenly we're going to be focusing as we did last fall on the spanish budget. >> you know, i want to get simon's thoughts on this. they are trying to reduce the deficit to a certain percentage of the gdp but it's going to crack. we've heard numbers 22%. y

simon hobbs is here. simon, perhaps we can start with a bailout itself. it calmed the markets overseas even though it was an increase in what the bailout would have to be. >> yes, it's very wooly the amount of money they have for the bailout. it's not the shock and awe it once was. enables us to potentially give greece more money or island or portugal. but it's nowhere near the sort of trillions we were talking about. interestingly of course it will staggered, sue, over a number of years. if you've ever had spain or italy in difficulty, they would withdraw from putting support in there. it may not be as strong as it appears at first blush. >> where do you think the next focus will be, simon, as spain unveils a painful new budget -- >> yes. >> we still have worries however not only about portugal but other countries in europe, what's the focus going to be? >> let me focus on spain. i hope the united states never has to go through what spain is going through at the moment, but i think with the tea party, sue, should watch it very closely. spain is out there

simon hobbs joins us. simon, you covered the european close on "squawk on the street." it was messy. "associated press" running a story saying spain is limping towards the economic abyss. what are you watching? >> the european markets within the last two hours flashed very clear warning signals that all is not well. you had broad base selling across the board. a huge number of issues in negative territory. major indices falling. look at italy down over 3%. importantly as well that we're selling on the spanish and the italian bond markets. that meant that the yields rose. as the yields rose, in for example italy, the italian banks which own so many italian bonds saw their share prices fall. some of them were suspended limit down. i'm told this is actually nervousness about what may happen in spain tomorrow. but our big question remains, can the money, the trillion euros that came from the ecb still prop up the spanish and the italian bond markets? that is the critical question because no firewall, no fund of emergency money will be enough to do that for either of those t

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. >> very good afternoon to you, welcome to the closing bell, i'm simon hobbs at the new york stock exchange. >> simon, good see you, hi, everybody, i'm maria bartiromo a mark that's is flat here that is a victory really isn't it, simon? we had the lows hit earlier today in the morning and financials under pressure and computer stocks among the laggards. >> come back in a straight line, now down about 15 points on the dow. not bad. >> volume still under pressure, talking about very low numbers day in and day out, you have got to take a look at oil, not a big movement in oil today, $106 barrel oil. i wonder what your sources are saying as far as the magic number to actually start having different decisionmaking happening on the part of consumers. >> we are not far off. once you start talking about $4 a gallon gas, obviously then you're in some difficulty what people seem to be focusing on far more at the moment is that employment report on friday. as we heard from goldman sachs today, bill o'neil, if you can get a third positive surprise, maybe people will begin to uprate their view of the u.

simon hobbs. >> a triple whammy of bad news, but we're making decent gains.gh. we've had a little bit of trouble here when data came out of the united states. down to about 40. so that was a concern, but as you can see, we're closing out virtually on the highs of the session. let's talk about the market. it's still very much the eye of the storm or eye of the heaven i guess. >> markets are closing now. >> you see that positive territory right the way across the board? more or less. let me show you where we are on the bond markets. of course, today is the day that you have that $720 billion dumped into 800 banks. they have the cash in their accounts to spend and we have some auctions today. government auctions in both france and spain and you can see the way in which you can't to debt. this is a weekly chart. the yields coming further and further down into negative territory. good news despite spain. what's happening on the short end of the italian market, on the two years, you've had a very dramatic move and i'm going to paint this in red because i think this

all that far and more coming up in the next hour of squauk on the street and to simon hobbs here on thecouple of traders. >> take you right to the cutting edge of what's happening and feels like an important day for the markets. joining us, gordan charlotte from rose and black securities and steven gillfoil from meridian equity partners. welcome to the program. what's going on here? >> what you are seeing, we opened around 1348, a risk off trade going on because of the greek situation. >> it is because of greece. >> it is definitely greece. i know we have tentativeness because of the boe and the jobs data later in the week and right now this is a little nervousness because of the debt swap coming up later this week. >> why suddenly now would you get nervous about the debt swap for thursday night? >> it seems like it kind of snuck up on them a little bit. they suddenly lowered it to 75%, what they need. it was 90. a little nervous here. what they need to do, what's going to happen, is greece is going to have a situation where they may default. they may drag the other pigs into t i saw th

a lot of talk about whether or not simon hobbs, the european vacation for the markets, is come to goe had this quite dramatic dumping of stock right away across the board. let's just take in the european close and then i'll show you in some detail where we are. >> the european markets are closing now. >> so you'll see that it is right across the board. look at some of the figures there and you'll see, for example, germany was down almost 2%. we have pulled back, it's now down 1.7%. let me show you that on the chart for today, some of those key markets. here we've got germany, spain and italy. you'll see the way in which we got this dumping of stock coming through and then a stabilization. that's perhaps as important to mention. i've called around. it appears to be nervousness about what's going to come through tomorrow in spain with the presentation of that budget. obviously you have the general strike today. but it's interesting that the break for what's happening, most of the 35 members of the decks are down, it's very, very broad-based. let me show you specifically, union credit,

let's bring in simon hobbs as we count you down. >> the europeans have moved their clocks and we haveajor story we've got so far is the rising tensions in europe that characterize last week within the last two or three hours have been receding tension, partly because of what ben bernanke said with an indication that rates will stay lower for longer here. therefore, more accommodation in the system. but also because angela merkel has importantly indicated she is prepared to back down. there will be the two bits of the firewall coming together and maybe she will make move. the germans will allow europe's firewall to be greater. you see the way in which the european markets have gained as we come now to the close for both of those reasons. very importantly, and if i show you where we are on the foreign exchange markets, bernanke's comments are dollar negative. you see the greenback down across the board. merkel's developments are euro-positive and quite dramatic move higher here on euro/dollar as you can see as a result. a symptom of what is going on. last week of course, all the talk wa

sim simon hobbs is back. coming up on "squawk on the street." >> the dividend of apple and the ceo of avalon and what is happening in china to hong kong. back to you guys. >> all right. time for 6 in 60. we get to six stocks in 60 seconds. i've got to tell you, i think it's late. sprint has enough capital to be able to develop 4g the analysts are saying absolutely no. i don't know. i think the bonds will end up owning this company. >> okay. the gap, people are finally starting to see apple despite the run, 25% increase coming up. that's amazing. >> capital one? >> did a very big secondary last week and it's held which is amazing. >> caesar's entertainment? >> i don't know. it should never have gone public. >> and schwab to wrap it up? >> search starts to warm up, why? because shorts is how they make their money. >> we did. see you on "mad money." >> i think post-stress test and i'm revealing a new technology stock that nobody thinks a technology stock up and down on sto, is it good, is it bad? analysts disagr

simon hobbs is here. >> i wouldn't go quite that far. certainly we're doing it at 11:30.tarted the global rally in equities yesterday, has brokered that going around the world. we've seen the reaction of what is happening in europe. let me show you as we head now into the final stages of closing, trading i beg your pardon. for london. can we have a look at the session chart of where we during the course of today's session? thank you very much. we've come right the way down during the course of the european session. look, importantly, how high we were at the top and how low we are here. this is actually a big move on the european session because wall street here hasn't followed through on the futures being as high as they were when perhaps europe was trading around here. that's kind of the story to what's happening in europe today. the bigger news, of course, you had a period of relative calm now because of the 1 trillion euros the ecb pumped on to the balance sheets of banks. there are three things looming that may undo that calm. i want to highlight those if i may. here

simon hobbs back at post 9 to wrap up the final trading session of the week. >> the ecb president suggestingf has to say to kind of ensure there's confident that the banks have enough money. it's interesting that merkel has also said a very similar thing today. a huge week for europe, though perhaps the equity markets have not moved as much as you might thing. a her from goldman i think is interesting. let he show you, on the three major indices we're all over the place the the utilities have done well today in europe. dollman has a note out today that suggests it is now changing its view of europe and there is no case, it believes, the risk, no central case for a sustained fall in stock markets in the next three months. it is therefore upgrading utilities from neutral to overweight. utilities in general, but you'll see how some have contained. what it's suggesting here is you can get a yield of 6.9% on some of these utilities. they're talking potential up side. one more thing i want to tell you is where we've gone on spanish yields. this is the weekly look at the ten-year in spain. you'll n

carl quintanilla, melissa lee and simon hobbs also all off. not sure what message they're all sending me. dow looking to extend its winning streak to eight. that's one day after the s&p 500 closed above 1,400 for the first time in more than four years. you see it there. fair value or the implied open at least looks like we will open a bit higher on all the major averages. futures as you see on the rise despite that february consumer price number jumping by the most in ten months. of course, inflation worries impacting the bond market. as for europe, let's take a look at those markets. you'll see there that we are up across the board on all of the big european marks. always like to take a look at spanish and italian yields. if we did, you'll see they're really not doing much of anything. kind of flat today. spanish 10-year above 5%. italy, of course, importantly below 5%. >> here's our road map for the morning. what's going to drive the buzz and trading today. number one, got your ipad yet? apple's newest version of the tablet out today as the

well, we like you. [ laughter ] ♪ >>> seems like a very fine time to check in with simon hobbs aboutawk on the street." >> with the market down the worst fall we've had in two weeks, byron wien, veteran strategist on how you play the market. tiffany's. we're also going to talk about the comeback kid, namely jefferies up now over 40% year to date. back to you guys. >> all right, simon. thank you very much. it is time now for six in 60. which i'm still getting used to. be gentle. i haven't had enough starbucks. ubs says in people have. >> it's overrun the price target. they raised the target again. i think the stock should cool. there's a big meeting wednesday. >> not too bullish on the evolution juice bars as a growth driver? >> it could be a good play. >> arm holdings, bar icalclays g comments. >> the trade is made. it's a laggard. stays a laggard. >> nike? >> they report this week. we're getting bullish comments ahead. do they know something? i tend to think they don't. be careful. i don't like a stock that runs ahead of a quarter. >> jefferies raised their price target. >> futures