now joining us for more, art steinmetz, chief investment officer at oppenheimer funds. you heard our report from seema. this was the talk of the day all about apple. from what you know about this deal, does this make sense? >> well, for who? for apple or for the investor? it certainly makes sense for apple. they have transitioned from being a growth company to a value company over the last few years. what apple doesn't seem to have in the pipeline right now is a lot of blockbuster growth ideas. but what they certainly do have is enormous amounts of cash on hand and enormous cash flow generation. that makes it a reasonably safe bet for bond investors. and of course they would like to continue to increase their dividend. and they start to get a little constrained by the fact that so much of their cash is offshore. it's overseas, and they can't repatriate that without the big tax hit. so this is something that makes sense all around. >> art, you wrote a few days ago that you think stocks, u.s. stocks specifically are ready to stand on their own two feet. why do you say tha