that affected their same-store sales numbers. however, here in the united states of america, they actually posted a small improvement. back to you. lori: nicole petallides, thank you very much. ashley: another week, another record for our inventory. phil flynn of price futures group in the pit of the cmd. >> traders want more. probably the most and 85 years. obviously, the strong stock maaket seems to be indicating a stronger market. if you look at the impact in gasoline and the heating oil, that is what has been getting a lot of play. it may be a sign that they expect gas to improve. ashley: brent and west texas crude is hitting the lowest level since january 2012. >> we are finally taking advantage of all the oil production we have in this country. because the supply went down a little bit, there is an expectation we will be able to export it to the global market. that is exactly what you are seeing right now. ashley: terrific stuff. phil flynn, thank you so much. lori: the cyber threat. china's use of espionage. fueling already heightened concerns. the senate held a hearing on capitol hill today examining that drive. peter barnes joins us now with the latest on that story. peter: help give investigators companies more weapons to fight cyber crime, especially from china. $300 billion in theft from american trade secrets last year alone. one expert told lawmakers today "get tough." >> the administration is doing some naming and shaming. that is good. we should be using our visa authorities. if you hire hackers in the government, you will have to cooperate with investigations or you will not get visas to come to the united states. peter: the fbi and justice department need more to prevent hacking. back to you. lori: thank you, peter. ashley: record after record on wall street. investors are very cautious. especially after the fake tweet that triggered a selloff. joining me now is congressman scott garrett. congressman, thank you for joining us. what are you hoping to achieve? >> that actually falls into the third of three panels that we will take to look at this. we want to step back and see how we get to where we are right now and dive into some of the details a little more in detail. the goal is to make sure that there is more investor confidence, more complexity. if we can do that, you will be achieving what you want to do. ashley: to screw up is human, to really screw up takes computers. what average you come up with with regard to changing the regulations or the system, isn't there always a way you can change a computer program to get around it? >> well, sure. i thought congress would be the next step. that is true. the problem is congress for too long has been looking at these issues in a singular fashion. we need to step back and take a holistic approach. maybe we need to revamp the system in a much larger sense than we have in the past. to answer your question, yes, no matter what we do, there will always be new issues coming up in the future. ashley: you brought up congress and i did not want to put it in the same line as screw up. about what they will demand from the obama administration to allow the ceiling to be raised again. >> sure. one of the things we have been looking at is how to get our fiscal house in order. we, of course, passed the so-called ryan budget. that does do that. it bounces the budget within the ten year window that we operate on here. maybe we can take another step in that direction. maybe we just need to get the senate and president to agree that balance is a good thing. lock that into gather with a debt limit increase. i think you would have a bot of conservative support for it. ashley: i also want to mention the internet sales tax issue. what is your stance on that? is it an equal playing field or a money grabbing job killer? >> probably leaning more towards the latter than the former. i think we have began to hear that it is quite a complex issue. the states are all trying to get the even playing field. congress, we are always trying to get that level playing field. it is just something that you cannot achieve, i think. ashley: very good. thank you so much for joining us. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thanks a lot. lori: after the bell, disney reported blockbuster shares. the theme park division drive disney's profit up 32% from last year thanks to higher spending and attendance. americans are still trying to cut back on their debt. consumer credit increased at its slowest pace in eight months in march. nearly $8 billion. that was below the estimate, so keep that in mind. credit card debt fell by more than 2%. the first the client this year. all options for oil and gas leases have been postponed. the auctions which covered more than 3000 acres are now scheduled to take place on little later in october. jamie dimon fighting to hang onto the reins. lori: lean and mean describes ashley webster, of course. also talking about the airlines. what it means for flight prices and availability. ashley: lulu lemon putting it behind them. charles payne looking right through that. lori: there is gold. a nice uptick. silver and copper up 2%. people are thinking the economy may be gaining some traction. back after this. ♪ all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point rify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 when the spx crossed above its 50-day moving average, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i saw the trend. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 it looked really strong. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i jumped right on it. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 tdd# 1-800-345-2550 since i've switched to charles schwab... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 ...i've been finding opportunities like this tdd# 1-800-345-2550 a lot more easily. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 like today, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i was using their streetsmart edge trading platform tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i saw a double bottom form. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i called one of their trading specialists tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i bounced a few ideas off of him. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 they're always there for me. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and i've got tools that let me customize my charts tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and search for patterns as they happen. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 plus webinars, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 live workshops, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 research. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 whatever i need. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so when that double bottom showed up, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i was ready to make my move. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 all for $8.95 a trade. td 1-800-345-2550 can you believe it? 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it is weaker. back after this. ♪ i turned 65 last week. the math of retirement is difrent today. money has to last longer. i don't want to pour over pie charts all day. i want to travel, and i want the income to do it. ishares incomes etfs. low cost and diversified. find out why nine out of ten large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal. red hot deal days are back. don't waste another minute. it's red hot deal days. get the droid razr m by motorola in white for fe. everything droid does in a compact design. or the droid razr hd by motorola in white, with google voice search that understands you the first time. just $49.99. hurry in, sale ends may 12th. powerful dices. powerful network. verizon. ♪ >> 22 minutes past the hour. i am lauren green with your fox news minute. the action was taken after an inspection found the 91st missile spring in north dakota received a delta grade for its skills. and cleveland, police say investigators have found ropes and chains inside the house where three women were found alive after ten years in captivity. charges are expected to come today against the man who owns the home and his two brothers. later liberty will open on independence day. they were damaged and hurricane sandy back in october. those are your headlines. i am lauren green. that to lori and ashley. lori: thank you. >> the response team from the annex and then gauzy, six individuals, drove the attackers out of the compound. lori: many look at what happened leading up to the attacks as a there election of duty. time for lou dobbs to wait in. you said many people have been waiting for this hearing because we need answers for those lost in the line of duty. lou: absolutely. to a man, they are so upset about what happened in benghazi. the failure to at least act and provide support. it appears they were just written off by their command which was in washington, d.c. it is unclear what that command is. then, we have a secretary of defense that said you cannot send men and women into combat not knowing what the result will be. real leaders will tell you that is why you sent people into combat. to determine the outcome. we are watching very frustrated public servants who probably took claire's themselves that. i will not go name by name on them. each one of these people testifying today, you can tell is so emotional and spent trying to deal with the fact that they did nothing. you know, as the testimony continues, we will learn more and more about it. the review board leaders, refusing to testify. it is bizarre what is going on here. there seems to be an attitude permeating the legislation. i cannot give mark thompson and gregory peck's enough credit. this is a day in which we will learn something that we do not know. i believe the american people will demand answers. to watch these three men, i mean, it is heartrending. we are all caught in one way or another, grieving the loss of four americans. we are also grieving the public's right to know. we have had neither until this point. this has been an eight month stone wall in this administration. lori: talk about the issue of protecting our interests overseas. you have to imagine that this concern has been heightened, obviously with the boston marathon attacks as well. will these hearings result in better security and tactics overseas to protect americans? lou: i would certainly hope so. the reason is, there has been no one, no one has been held accountable for what happened in benghazi. we do know the outcome and we do know some of the failures, but we do not know the actual people who failed to make decisions that led to the outcome. without that accountability, how can we assure that future? it is a very troubling time. one that i think the american people will be demanding far more hearings, far more answers from this administration. lori: thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. lou dobbs tonight. ashley: when a 16% drop in first-quarter sales is good news, the new warning from struggling jc pennies. lori: no one was expecting this. one on one with blackstone joan solotar. where are they investing now? that is next. ashley: as we go to break, take a look at who is up and who is down. we will be right back. ♪ .. we went out and asked people a simple question: how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we lened a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, onehing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age. ♪ the question is how do u make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. ♪ ashley: time now for stocks as we do of course every 15 minutes. let's head to the floor of the new york stock exchange. our very own nicole petallides np, session highs, np. >> aw, ashley webster, i've got your number. we're taking a look at names on the move. first one is parent of fox business network. we're looking at news corp today ahead of its quarterly report. it is down right now about 1 1/2%, roughly 31.74. year-to-date it really is a win ir. it is up about 25%. so certainly outpacing the major averages for news corp. in the 4:00 p.m. show we're in the thick of earnings season so we'll have a lost names to show you including not only news corp but also we'll watch groupon, tesla, a name that really has been gaining. tesla certainly has been grabbing some headlines today as well as green mountain coffee roasters. stay tuned to the 4:00 p.m. po get you those numbers. back to you. ashley: very good. nicole, thank you. lori: okay. these days with stocks at record highs a lot of folks are wondering what to do. where is the smart money headed? we have the senior portfolio manager director of blackstone where she runs the strategy group. welcome to you. >> thank you. lori: curious for your take on the market. is it worth all the hype or do the fundamentals support these levels what do you think?. >> in private equity we take a longer term view but we have to pay a premium to the market, we're looking 15 times multiple in an environment where the economy is growing earnings, are growing, maybe two, 3%. so valuations feel full. lori: okay. so in other words if you're looking at just traditional investment versus alternative investment obviously which is what the blackstone group specializes in, this is your claim to fame, to the tune of $218 billion under management, correct? >> that's correct. lori: there are more opportunities in alternative investment. if we look at your track record and the news headlines you generated over the last couple weeks. first before we get into the specifics of that, give me a sense what kind of private equity deals or alternative invests are hot right now, types of deals, the size, whether or not there are a lot of bidding wars going on? >> sure. when there is a lot of liquidity available and interest rates are very low that tends to drive pricing up. and so absolutely there is fierce competition for deals and so we focused in different areas. i'll run through them. but in private equity we really focused on nontraditional deals. rather than paying big preems yumts to -- premiums to the market and 20% premiums and taking public companies private we focus on bidding up companies. backing management teams. buying out of favor industries. so, for example, we backed a management team to buy refinery assets when no up with -- no one was interested. built up a company. took that public. we'll buy pieces out of companies that are in distress, need to sell. so i would say we're not really long the market. we're finding different ways to deploy capital there. lori: simply put there aren't as many stand alone companies on the market these days as there were perhaps five or ten years ago? >> orrwhere we think we can generate a return for our investors and the big challenge most of our investors are corporate pension funds, government pension funds, foreign governments around the world and they need to generate a return of six to 8%. lori: business is doing well for you guys. i know publicly-traded shares of blackstone are up some 40% year-to-date. you're able to charge higher management fees as well. fees as high as they were around the time of the financial crisis right before that hit, correct? so that also has to be helpful to the bottom line. >> we've been very fortunate in all of our businesses. so in real estate we've outperformed the benchmark by over 1000 basis points. in private equity, 900 basis points. in the hedge fund business, 400 basis points and in credit, our fund have generated close to 20% returns annually. so because of that we've seen investors increasingly give us more and more dollars to invest on their behalf. lori: altruistic invests too. i have know invitation is blackstone's $4.5 billion investment to buy distressed homes. >> yeah. lori: in areas hardest hit from the financial crisis. i'm linking these because of time interests, and hiring 50,000 veterans across the country. what is the time frame especially real estate deals do you peck to benefit there. >> two different but i will link them as well. in relation to housing we take risk capital. we have to generate a good return for our investors and we think we will but it was deploying capital in such a way we were buying post-foreclosed homes, fixing them up, really investing, creating a very high quality product and people can rent those homes now and the average cost is about 30% less than the cost of renting an apartment. as it relates to veterans, steve schwartzman heard the call there was a big need to hire veterans. realized, here we are, we manage and own a lot of companies, 80 companies, roughly on behalf of our investors. and just thought, this is something we have to do. and so this is purely altruistic but it is the right thing. we think it is good for business. we think it is good for the country. so we committed to hiring 50,000 veterans over five years. lori: thank you for sharing the business outlook with me today. joan solatar joan will be participating in the 2013 university of rochester school of business new