nasdaq at the lowest level in a month. right now nasdaq off by nearly 40 points. s&p 500 under pressure today. down bay bit more than 1%. >> obviously europe is remaining a drag on the street. what has changed now? this is before with the latest headlines showing the same fears about that region's fiscal situation. why are investors suddenly pressing the sell button right now? >> today's closing bell exchange, bob pisani, black bay group's todd shellenberger. stu schweitzer and rob smalley. rob, we begin with you. last week, wednesday, thursday, we are talking about dow 13,000 again. we are like on the cusp of that. all of a sudden now we are worried about europe. front and center yet again. what's going on? >> well, it is very simple. if spain really does the full scale bailout, not $it means its in play and there's just not enough money. right now to find that. lot of traders think ultimately the end game now is coming and the ecb will have to step in and be the lender of last resort. will's too much debt. somebody has to come in and provide whatever up want to call it, redemption fund to get access or to find some way to get some of the debt that's sitting out there and move it away from some of these countries. there isn't any other way i can see better than having the ecb step in. >> todd, do you feel it is as simple as that. >> you can look at it that way. six of the 17 countries right now that are using the euro are already in a recession. then you look at those economic super powers. such as china, brazil, india. they are slowing down. obviously we have our own domestic concerns. it is not just as simple as that. because there already a number of other land mines that are out there, that traders are worried about it. we have to wonder what's the next shoe to drop. that's why you have markets down today. >> we have been talking about that for weeks. we have been asking that same question for weeks. and yet, after a sell-off the market seems to recover as i said last week we are talking about the possibility of hitting dow 13,000 again. yet stu, you remine defensive. todd is defensive. does anybody like equities now? >> so -- yeah. we are defensive but i have to say we are also look to take advantage of lower prices if we get a pronounced sell-off. and add risk to client portfolios. we have been avoiding european risk to a great extent for 2 1/2 years now. and europe is a whole lot cheaper. yeah, they have their problems. yeah, the cycle of summit after summit after summit. failed expectations. and that's going to continue for quite a while to come. ultimately i do agree that the ecb has to come in with a lot more firepower and i think they are going to do it when we least expect it. >> unless germany does want. i have to ask you, considering how sentiment is so bear i shall right now, right, at what point do we feel that there is going to be some kind of capitulation and that maybe the market is going to turn. >> well, sentiment seems to be more bear i shall to the equity market. in the corporate credit market we are beneficiaries of the activity. we continue to see in flows here. last week in -- investment grades we saw 1.1 billion in-employees and saw in-flows into high yield. this is a continuation of a trend we have seen all year. so we are in an environment in corporate credit we say is, quote, good enough for correct. we think that will continue. so, again, corporate credit market seems to be on the positive end of this. >> bob, if -- >> i agree with that. we -- underweight equities. we have been overweight on behalf of our clients in high yield credit and other forms of extended credit. they have been paid really quite well to be invested and in this market continues to provide opportunity for return. >> and i -- i love the attitude now by the bulls that are out there because, look, this is a -- this is a disaster. $1.5 trillion in debt. another $500 billion by the money center banks in new york. this is a crisis of mass proportions. once they start defaulting you have g-p countries that could be defaulting. >> todd -- todd, this -- >> you want to stay away from equities. >> the sky is falling view certainly has been shown to not be the correct one of late. call it what you want. but those people who have said that the market -- we are going to have a guy on the show late their says dow 3,000 will be next. that view just has been dead -- dead wrong, though. >> look, let me tell you something. maybe everybody is in equities because it is the only place to be. at 1.4% yield on the den-year, you are not going to assume the risk p 7 1/2% in spanish ten-year. you look at equities. that's why you look -- look at good balance sheets and some investors are doing that. i'm telling you, if earnings aren't there to support this market, it is going south. >> bob pisani. >> we have seen -- and we have actually continued to see good returns in higher quality and better quality high yield as well. so, yes, there's bifurcation in this market between some of the peripheral couries in europe that are definitely having its problems, that are definitely having their problems and those countries -- those companies that have solid balance sheets and have delivered some good returns. >> lack what's been going on in the united states. i know stu, have you written about this before. look today with eaton. u.s. business and the america's business doing very well important them. eaton and big electrical business. elsewhere, their businesses were down. overall the revenues were flat. the stock is way up today. even though it wasn't a great earnings report because the -- prices have come down. $50 to $35 of the stock. up today. >> okay. guys, we have to leave it there. great debate. thank you so much. >> thank you. bye-bye. >> all right. despite the sell-off, there are some stocks bucking the trend. >> hi there. certainly what investors are trying to find, pockets of strength in the down market. strong report earnings reports are helping the following outperformers in today's market. take a look at burton. second-quarter earnings. beat on top and bottom line. that's why the stock is up. toy maker hasbro, while poorly profit fell 25%, topped wall street expectations as it continues to workmanaging inventori inventories. that stock is up. looking at eaton. management did point to slower growth in emerging markets. but eps of $1.50 per share came in higher than street estimates. that's why that stock is also up. when taking a look at financials, mostly all of the major banks are under pressure. but one, jpmorgan bucking the trend. ceo jamie dimon buying $17 million worth of common shares, stock up about .9%. couple of major deals are getting bulls excited today. pete peet's coffee. friday's closing price, that's why that stock is up better than 50%. lastly goi, provider of satellite images is being bought by rival digital glow for $900 million in stock ask cash. from the look of it, volatility of the markets, concerns about the euro debt zone cries risk not stopping major corporations from putting their cash to use. >> okay, thank you so much in the meantime we are a little over 50 minutes until the closing bell. dow, as you were saying, well off the lows of the day. still down. >> do not go away. we have a lot more still to come on this very big market day. >> the u.s. economy faces downside risk predict the eurozone crisis. does the central bank need to act now to save the economy? is the eurozone crisis making you more or less likely to invest in the stock market right now? tweet us. my volt is the best vehicle i've ever driven. i bought the car because of its efficiency. i bought the car because i could eliminate gas from my budget. i don't spend money on gasoline. it's been 4,000 miles since my last trip to the gas station. it's pretty great. i get a bunch of kids waving at me... giving me the thumbs up. it's always a gratifying experience. it makes me feel good about my car. i absolutely love my chevy volt. ♪ [ female announcer ] the next generation of investing technology is now within your grasp with the e-trade 360 investing dashboard. e-trade 360 is the world's first investing homepage that shows you where all your investments are and what they're doing with free streaming quotes, news, analysis and even your trade ticket. everything exactly the way you want it, all on one page. transform your investing with the e-trade 360 investing dashboard. we are approach being 45 minutes to go in today's trading session. time now for a quick market stat check on the dow. blue chip index is still down triple digits. was off as many as 239 points. much earlier in the session. it is the dow's biggest decline in a month. eighth straight monday decline important the dow. mcdonald's, one of the leaders of the pullback. microsoft, hp, cisco and kraft other big laggers today. >> to act or not to act. that's the question for the nike company as another fed meeting approaching. well, if you ask san francisco fed president john williams, action may just be the answer in an interview with the financial times, he forecasts unless further action was taken there would be a lack of progress in boosting the jobs market. >> with the jobless rate stuck over 8% and the stock market getting hit by europe's fiscal problems, does the fed need to move sooner than later? let's ask our panel. joe, i will begin with you. welcome. you have a fair will you negative view on where the economy is going. we just talked on halftime show last week how you took your gdp forecast down by nearly a point. you expect the fedding to act but your time frame for that is pushed into 2013. why do you think they will wait that long. >> i don't think that the fed will do anything over the next couple of meetings. i don't think that they really have anything to gain from doing further actions. rates are already low. you are right. first half looks really lousy. i do think the second half will be better. it will be some ways like last year. last year growth was under 1% in the first half and second half growth averaged 2.5%. so i hope that the fed doesn't do anything. right now i don't think they will. but this is a very activist fed and president williams, i -- i do believe that -- reflect it is views probably of bernanke and others. >> why, steve, do you feel that if we are going to see any fed action it will be a september affair? >> well, first understand that that is not so much a call as a way of kind of putting it off. i think that what's happening is a lot of people think bernanke wants a little bit more information. wants a little bit more data. also, would love to see the fiscal side of the act get involved. that's a big part of it. i think that will has been -- hope that will happen. but the idea -- >> are we going to see action on fiscal side before september? >> i doubt it very seriously. i think here is you want the see more jobs data. what i'm hearing from most fed observers now is the fed will tweak around the edges in august and maybe change the language, maybe get rid of interest on reserves. if it needs more substantial action that will probably come in september. >> ron, how much do you think the fed's hand may be forced what's happening in europe, assuming that situation worsens? >> i think that's the key variable that all terse the time frame for the fed. i think they will go next we. agree with steve they will either reduce or eliminate interests on excess reserves. i think that they are going to launch an open-ended round by mortgage bonds to keep bonds low. goldman sachs saying housing come back. that will be a big help one way or another. had have a lot more they are capable of doing. it starts next week. awould agree with steve it may get paced out over august and september as the fed takes in more data. europe and china, growing slowly now, i think pete the fed's hand a little bit. >> but how much insurance -- taking your scenario here. how much insurance would actually -- fed moving buy them in terms of european or chinese slowdown? >> i looked -- inoculate the u.s. economy from everything that's happening around it. including the fiscal cliff happening here at home. and i think by going open-ended -- >> no way they can inoculate themselves probably against all three of those. >> move to make it less work. >> that guy -- what are we trying to accomplish? >> how many more jobs are going to be created by moving sooner rather than later? i'm just not sure it would actually help that much. >> this isn't a rate problem at this point. i would argue the fedex tends the language of 2015, which is more analysts think is going to happen, then that sends the negative signal to businesses and households. fed thinks lit wait that long to raise rates and doesn't believe its own forecast and has the negative effect that the -- pressing influence. >> so -- >> i would say the fed may not even put a date on it. i say that they may have a lot of open-ended commitments can -- >> they are not going to do that. they are not going to do that. >> on the fed, go to actual economic targets. until unemployment gets the ax. are you saying the fed should do nothing? and will do nothing? is that what you are saying. >> i'm saying that they should definitely do nothing. but i'm a little bit more nervous on the will, steve, as you know they are very activist and tinker, this i -- tend to want to do things just for appearance's sake. i mean, i'm worried if my gdp forecast is right on from you, they probably will tinker more next week. >> while europe -- obviously remains front and center, you say it would be the catalyst to get the fed to act sooner rather than later. certainly the lack of job growth is a major impact. fed is keeping an eye on it and negatively impacting the economy. as all three of you know, our own larry kudlow just sat down with mitt romney. you will see the full interview tonight on the kudlow report. it is an exclusive interview and one of the comments that mr. romney made to larry was the polling. saying he thinks the president made a mistake when he first came into office, misjudged the economy, thinking it would right itself and focus instead on health care and some of the other major programs of his first term. i'm just wondering, ron, your take on that, whether you think that would be -- make any -- have any impact on job creation in this country. you know what, before you do that, i'm told we have it. let's listen to that. i will get your reaction if we could. >> i think the president made an error coming into office and deciding that the economy would take care of itself. and he focused his energy on a series of liberal plans that he and his friends have been working on for years. all of these things. not coincidentally and had the -- impact of slowing job creation and making it less likely for entrepreneurs to either open their doors or to expand hiring. >> your reaction? any truth to this? >> well, i'm not sure i would agree with the characterization. i think -- i said this -- in the early days of the obama administration. i think that that your efforts were misguided. health care aside which i think they brought to the forefront rather prematurely. i was calling it the time and steve can voucher me on this for a trillion dollars stimulus that focused on the electrical grid and on big infrastructure products and shovel-ready type stuff. payroll tax holiday. those are the two things i talked about in early 2009. i think that the entire economic team at the administration missed the boat on the way to approach this. if they got the economy right, they could have gone ahead with other initiatives they had in mind. >> i will make one point which i agree with what romney said and ron's characterization they could have focused more on the economy 37 one thing that's wrong with sit his statement requires for knowledge at the time and of how bad things would be. i don't think that anybody knew then -- >> 20/20 vision hind sight. >> even after -- there was some hope the $700 billion stimulus plan, which included a number of tax cuts, although temporary and not permanent, some government spending, might have kick started the economy. i don't think anybody thought we would be here right now. i think if the president knew it he wouldn't have done some things. >> joe, your reaction? >> i think steve makes a valid point and agree with that. however, if you look at some of the survey data, university of michigan shows households confidence in government policies, a very broad term, it is at a low level. just like confidence. so i think that there are things that have taken place over the past few years that the general hasn't liked. we need to get businesses hiring and need long-term structural reform. not this temporary stuff that does not work. >> we all agree on that point. >> got to leave it there, guys. thanks so much. be sure to catch all of larry kudlow's exclusive interview with mitt romney. tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern and it is here only on cnbc. >> 40 minutes to go before the bell. dow down 123. nasdaq is off about 1.25%. >> texas instruments on deck to report its results after the bell. should you buy the stock ahead of the second-quarter earnings? >> which will come first? dow 20,000 or dow 3,000? two market watchers each looking the other way. we will debate their stance in the next hour. stocks for your p? with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments. the expert strategies feature is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. [ male announcer ] while many automakers are just beginning to dabble with the idea of hybrid technology... it's already ingrained in our dna. during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection. today's stock sell-off bad? nothing compared to the percentage decline in oil prices. sharon epperson has the details. >> we saw oil prices down as much as 4% in the session. of course, the spotlight for much of the day has been on spain. and the concerns about what's happening in the eurozone. will are other factors that are weighing on oil prices traders say as well. they are watching what's happening in china and watching very closely, what's happening to china in terp of the shipments of crude had purchased at least until the oil embargo went into effect in july. they say there is probably a good chance that iran will not close the strait of hormuz. the officers said as much, they need to get the oil to one of the biggest consumers and that's china. mandy, back to you. >> sharon, thank you so much for that. down day for the nasdaq. shares of texas instruments managing to underperform. that stock is off by more than 1.5%. after the bell today, is this the right time to buy in? let's start talking numbers. technicals, carter wirth. chief market technician of oppenheimer. on the fundamental side, brian, who comes from morning star. great to have you with us. bring up the chart here. texas instruments. >> the first thing you said is the most important, agents poorly. down. and that's what you see here in this chart. markets ricocheted nicely off the june lows. this stock continues to basically underperform the market. well defined down trend. one-year chart. take a look at would other time frames. and you will get the same kind of picture. here is the same downtrend but on a longer-term basis. we are dealing with the possible break. that's what we think will happen of this trend line that's here off the lows. breaks to the down side. take a look at just to -- for perspective. long-term chart which incorporates the nasdaq of 1999. basically this is -- sort of -- this is not exactly exciting stuff. so -- considerably worse. >> for your part you say this company is undervalued, right? >> we do. we like it from a long-term fundamental perspective. we like the moves they are making and higher margin analog chips. we like their diversity across broad range of tech sectors and not overly exposed to pcs. we like the possibility of some smartphone and tablet designs this holiday season. chip inventories are at a lean level. if there is a snap back, i think ti will see an even bigger snap back in chip orders which bodes well important future growth at some point down the line. >> what's the key thing you are listening for here? what do you think people at home for example should be listening for when they get the numbers this evening? >> for me it is really all about the guidance. i-want to see what some of the industry outlooks are are for. especially important things like industrial automotive, things harder to gauge so we haven't heard a lot of thus far. ti normally, their average growth in q3 is 6%. we think they will probably guide something weaker than that. but we certainly think that's in the stock in the mid 20s already. >> understood. thanks for coming in. over to you, scotty. >> mandy, thanks so much. looking at a dow down only 89 points. i say only in the context of where it was. just off the open this morning we were looking at a decline of some 239 points. but we are coming pack and coming back fairly quickly with about 35 minutes or so to go before we wrap it up. commodities and real estate your best bet in this uncertain environment? 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stocks maybe, real assets better. is he on to something? let's ask him. mike pinto believes he's partially right. let me get to you first. great to have you on the show as well. when you talk about real assets, where exactly are you most bullish? i mean, the things that jump to mind are things like housing, gold? i don't know, lamas. what in particular are you looking at? about well, mandy, those are -- >> stamp. >> real assets we are looking at. i mean -- you know, in the treasury market, for instance, almost all real interest rates are on a negative type of basis which means that risk aversed investor looking to hide treasuries will be haircuted relative to future inflation. that's what i tweeted on sunday. and in order to maintain purchasing power, investors now forced into riskier investments either high yield bond stocks, real estate or real estate assets such as gold, real assets such as gold, doesn't mean that you should necessarily buy them. it means, though, that if you want to maintain purchasing power, that you have to take that leap into real asset territory. and in order to get that real return. >> sounds good. do you agree with bill? >> well, mr. gross, interest rates have been negative for a very long time. they were much more negative in the past. we have about -- bout of deflation we are face something the united states. the u.s. central bank is one of the few central banks on the planet that's laying foul and latent at the time. china is reducing reserve requirements. ecb is ceasing to make interest on excess reserves. bank of japan is buying equities. now i do agree pexposure to gol. we bought a gold etf. we are still about 55% in cash. because we are not going to go all in until bernanke does one of two things which is extends his bond buying easing program or he himself ceases to pay interest on excess reserves. >> do you want to respond? >> sure. not really an argument here. i agree with that. i mean, the -- significant outcome going forward is whether or not bernanke and other central banks can success reply reflate their economies. if they can investors want assets that can ybe successful. if they cannot, then investor continues to want, you know, assets that are high quality, treasuries, and you know, and -- with the ability basically to maintain their principal value. it is a -- in between type of market that reflation and deflation are constantly struggling at this point. >> when we have deflation when the fed is on the sid lines like they are currently on the sidelines now. i think they come back to the fo fo foreforce once the unployt rate goes 208.5% or what i really would do feel most of all is that bernanke's going to come in and stop paying interest on interest reserves when we see cpi overall year over year cpi headline fall to 1.2%. that's been the trigger in the past. start his rounds of quantitative easing. >> what are your expectations in terms of the fed? we have a debate earlier in the program with liesman. what's your take? does the fed come in? if so when? >> we think they will. not necessarily an early august which is the next meeting. perhaps jackson hole. we are talking about that investment committee. but in any case, you know, what they do would be substantially diluted relative to what they have done in the past. they expanded the balance sheet by 2 $2.5 trillion by buying mortgages and treasuries. it is fair to say that now with the five-year treasury at 50 basis pointses that there's relatively little to do in terms of lowering yields and that they might ultimately have to go to negative rates like they have done in switzerland. in any case, you know, going forward, whatever form it takes, will be very dilutive. >> always good to have you on the show. thank you very much. in the meantime, we have breaking news. cisco and job cuts. let's get straight to john with more details. >> cisco is cutting about 2% of its work force. that's on top of cuts. 9% announced last year. just got a statement from a spokeswoman over at cisco. saying that they are trying to drive simplicity. as they move forward with those efforts. doing lyndon restructuring that were collectively impacting approximately 2% of our global employee population. what i'm hearing is that these actions are not across the board, across all of cisco. but they are targeting certain areas they want to de-emphasize so they can invest in other areas. this comes as public sector spending, lack of public sector pending has hit. >> can we say that these -- this latest round of cuts was unexpected then? is it -- reflection of how bad things may have gotten more recently? were these expected? >> i think that's how -- this was not expected and cisco had been getting questions in the analysts calls about what are you going do if the revenue you have expected in the back half of the year, in fact, does not show up, are you prepared to do further cuts and management did indeed give a bit of a head towards the pact they were prepared to do that. that could be what this is. >> got you. >> in terms of the stock and down 1.5%. it is off the lows of the day. along with the general markets. we have just over 20 minutes go before we reach the closing bell. at this stage the dow is down by only 94 points. i sinl 94 because it was down as much as 239 earlier on in the day. it has come back a long way. >> still is the eighth straight down monday for the dow. f we close negative. still set to close solidly in the red. is it a buying opportunity or will a weak gdp report later this week spark more selling? two top strategists weigh in. >> you have a case of the mondays as well. we all do. after the bell, believe it or not, but many small and mid sized businesses are saying no thanks to some tax breaks. find out why this could be one of the best reasons yet to overhaul the tax code. stick around. [ male announcer ] before you take it on your road trip... we take it on ours. this summer put your family in an exceptionally engineered mercedes-benz now for an exceptional price during the summer event. but hurry, this offer ends july 31st. legalzoom has an easy and affordable option. you get quality services on your terms, with total customer support, backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. so go to legalzoom.com today and see for yourself. and so too is the summer event. now get an incredible offer on the powerful c250 sport sedan. but hurry before this opportunity...disappears. the mercedes-benz summer event ends july 31st. tech sector is weighing heavily on the broader market today. bertha coombs at the nasdaq with more on that. >> well off the lows, scott. take a look at apple. it was positive just a couple of seconds ago. and then, in fact, apple's performance here always weighing on the nasdaq. the s&p's tech sector has moved into correction territory from the highs in april. take a look, nasdaq big caps held up well in no small part because of apple moving higher here. ahead of its earnings. other stocks we are seeing buy programs come in. little bit of buying in, research in motion, near the highs on the day. that big new stake in the company. google as well helping to do heavy lifting moving positive earlier this afternoon. back to you. >> thank you very much. we have about 15 minutes to go. until we ring the closing bell. let's get a quick market stat check what's happening with the nasdaq. the index has still cut its losses by more than half after selling 72 points earlier in the session. meanwhile, investors rush into the relative safety of u.s. treasuries today. pushing the yields to 5, 10 and 130-year treasuries to record lows. as we were saying, another monday, another sell-off. major averages off their session lows but the dow still down about 90 points or so. heading into the close. >> with today's sell-off in mind should investors take more money off the table ahead of friday's key second quarter gdp report. with us today sam from s&p capital iq. kathy jones from charles schaub. good to have you today. kathy, i can't find anybody today who likes equities. you don't either well, i'm a fixed income strategist. i always love bonds. >> talking your book. you really think there is more room to go here? >> look, i think rates could drift a bit lower. but the value isn't in long-term treasuries. value would be much better in shorter term, say, corporate rapt bonds. other sectors in the market right now. >> we were talking a moment ago with bill and he was talking about how we were seeing certain countries in europe like switzerland, germany, holland, fland, growing number of countries here seeing negative yields. people desperate to get so-called safety at any cost. is this a situation you are going -- you think we will see here as well? >> i don't know if we will go to negative yields. we have -- already there in the tips market. we could go there. seeing a lot of flows into the safe assets. so we could get there. but, you know, probably we will stay above water. >> sam, you know, this is an interesting day. i brought the point up earlier mid week last week we were looking at the possibility of getting back to dow 13,000. here we are waking up a monday after a bad fridaand we have another bad day and wonder if the world is coming to an end again. what are your thoughts? >> my thought is that because really nothing has changed, fundamental picture still looks as bleak today as it did yesterday. the earnings picture while it is still expected to be negative is less negative than it was last week. so i really think it is much more of a trading range to theuation, technical situation. i would say if we end up going significantly deeper, it would probably be the most anticipated sell-off in the stock market. >> would guys, one is saying dow 3,000 and other one is say 20g,000. if you had to -- >> both might be off their rocker. >> might be off their rockers but if you had to go with one or the other which way would you go? >> dow 20,000 because he is talking 2020 which is about an 8-plus return or yield per year which is the long term average. person is not really sticking their neck out by saying we are going get to 20,000 in the next ten years or so. on -- i would tend to say we are look agent a 10% discount to the median since 1936. 22% bulls in the aaii survey. you have the lowest level of strategists recommendations since '09. >> what's going to flip that around? i mean, what will get people interested in stocks again? >> well, i think that -- the problem is there's so much overhang in terms of wore bees europe, worries about the u.s., potential for recession. i think that if we continue to see things such as the housing numbers move a little bit higher -- >> bright spot. >> s&p case-shiller index. continuing to show improvement and get the ism numbers to start to peak back above 50. those could be favorable signs. >> all right. thanks so much. good to see you, as always. >> we have about 15 minutes or so go before we ring the bell on wall street. dow well off the lows. still looking at a decline of 85 points. >> calling it the ultimate bull day. coming up, one strategist calling the dow 20,000. other one is saying down 3,000. battle it out later on "closing bell." >> larry kudlow's exclusive interview with mitt romney. that's tonight at 7:00 p.m. only on cnbc. man, i'm glad aflac pays cash. aflac! ha! isn't major medical enough? huh! no! who's gonna help cover the holes in their plans? 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[ male announcer ] help your family stay afloat at aflac.com. plegh! with the idea of hybrid technology... it's already ingrained in our dna. during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the purs of perfection. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments. the expert strategies feature is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. stocks are just minutes away from closing lower. although they are well off the lows of the day. >> fears surrounding the eurozone crisis where the catalyst once again. and earlier on cnbc, chairman roger altman weighed in on why this seems to be the never ending crisis it should be no surprise to anybody that the crisis has erupted again because most of europe is in recession. because none of the structural changes that have been so widely and incessantly talked about, fiscal union, banking union, have been actually detailed or let alone taken. >> you know -- sorry, go ahead. >> no. no surprise. it is the -- kick the can down the road scenario has worked. then the mark's concerns have been eased. then came back and flared right up in our face. >> talk so much about greece anymore. the problem was greece have not gone away. i really feel as if in the markets the fear of greece leaving the eurozone has really receded. we are no longer that terrified about it. everyone i speak to feels it is almost inevitable. what's the fear here is the proposition of spain leaving the eurozone. if they get a full sovereign bailout, then we are going to start talking italy and once we talk italy, we will start talking somebody else. >> that's the whole key to it. bob pisani has been saying throughout the day if spain doesn't need a full-fledged bailout, you can see the reaction in the market. if you track the movement of the euro versus dollar, you will get a good idea of where the stock market is going on a daily basis. when, you know, you have the borrowing cost in spain and italy and elsewhere, eurozone. rising to these unsustainable levels. take a look at the euro versus the dollar today. euro opens weaker, two-year low. you can see as it comes off the lows, intraday chart again, if you could, euro dollar, you will take a similar chart if you were to put the dow up against that as well. euro at the lows. dow against the lows. euro rises. dow rises as well. that's been a big pattern in the market. >> trying to sort something else out. eurozone summit, neck big powe wow, it isn't scheduled until october for the meantime lot of focus on what is the -- ecb going do? will they have to do serious bond buy willing? will the germans allow it? there is a lot of problems we still need to sort out in europe. >> indeed. >> we love hearing you. from today we want to know whether the eurozone cries ssis making you more or less likely to invest in the stock market now. do you look at your twitter? >> is that a backhand eed comme? i do. >> we will test that response and see whether you get any response. coming up next, coming right back with the closing countdown. >> after the bell china flexing financial muscles and scooping up major assets of struggling western companies. coming up, a look at what could be next on china's shopping list. if you are one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels, and... is concentrated, so you could use less gel. and with androgel 1.62%, you can save on your monthly prescription. 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>> it certainly is. you had 98% of the components of the s&p 500 in negative territory thing morning. so when you look at a lot of the technicals and internals, et cetera, on a day like today, you could sort of say it was a mini capitulation day and that we were simply retesting the upper channel of this move since early june. >> matt, how about earnings? you know, we are going to get a number of big companies reporting their numbers and companies that could certainly sway the direction of the stock market over the next week or so. caterpillar, boeing, apple, that's going to be a big one. at&t, and ak steele. will you be watching earnings? >> absolutely. apple will be the bellwether of them all. we see tech although you said it was weak, it rallied nicely. apple done well and google has done well. those are some of the things we will look at. look at international sales from the caterpillars and boeing and see how they are faring over there. >> in terms of the earnings season if you have the theme, you have, for example, generally a lot of companies meeting on the bottom line. you about receive gnaws are coming in light. right? revenues are harder to find and creatively account for. does that concern you? >> yes. it does. but i think that the -- we have walked these earnings down enough. i think that it might abtime to buy. i'm not going to come in with both feet here and definitely not. i think europe will rule the roost now. you know, we wake up this morning and it is down 200 on greece and spain. so there's still ruling the roost. earnings aren't really top line yet. >> sam, i'm looking at the dow last thursday closed at 12,943. made the point earlier we are here staring at dow 13,000 again. today we are at 12,730 and change. we have a much more negative tone about what is happening in the market today. where do we go from here? what takes us to the next level higher if, in fact, we are to go there? is it the fed? >> i think the fed certainly -- what i have been saying is it is relay would-word situation and that's anticipated stimulus. that if we get too low in terms of sentiment, in terms of indicators, et cetera, the fed will step in and chinese government will step in, et cetera. and that could help push things higher. >> here is the thing. even if the fed steps in, whether it steps in next week, in except, steps in after that, if there is a fiscal cliff and go over it, it feels to me no matter what the fed does, negative impact that that fiscal cliff will outweigh everything. >> you are absolutely right. if we do have a fiscal cliff, then it is going to take the fed with it. if you will. so i think that that's why bernanke would like to wait as long as possible. there have been four times since 1976 that the fed has either raised or lowered rates in october, in an election year. so it is not an out of the question situation. >> you would certainly admit, i'm sure, that the -- the situation now is much more politicized and polarizing for that matter than it has been in a number of years. certainly you would say in any of those pastimes where the fed has acted in an election year. you know, bernanke does want to have any implication whatsoever that is acting to -- on one side or the other. >> true. i think he also doesn't want to give congress an out. congress needs to step up and do what -- it needs to do. and it -- you have been told several times that that's the