Film if it could demonstrate sufficient crowd interest. And theyre not doing it for a return, theyre doing it for the content. A 10 pledge by the pdf of the script the day the movie is released plus email updates on the shoot. 35 buys a digital version of the movie plus a tshirt. 100 people paid 500 for kristen bell to record a voice mail message for them and another 100 people spent 1,000 for tickets to the movie premiere and afterparty. One devoted fan pledged 10,000 for a speaking role in the film. This is certainly a big win for warner brothers. Its effectively free financing plus the promise of a truly devoted fan base. Brian, well have to see if other studios take a lesson from this and try to find out ways to profit from the power of crowd funding. Julia boorstin, maybe you sold me. Well find out. Thank you very much. As we wrap it up here, 115 s p 500 companies are trading at new 32week highs. Thats about 23 of the index. 52 of those are at alltime highs and weve got an hour left of trading, 1565 is your big number, alltime closing high, s p 500. Hope yall have a wonderful day, closing bell is next. Take care. Hi, everybody. Good afternoon. Welcome to the closing bell. Im Maria Bartiromo at the New York Stock Exchange. The historic lunge for stocks continues. This time it might not be a nail biter for the dow, but we are solidly higher as we enter the final hour of trading. This would be ten straight up sessions, eight consecutive alltime highs for the Dow Jones Industrial average. Just incredible. It could be a photo finish this time for the s p 500. That index now knocking on the door of its alltime closing high. That high is 1,565. 15. Will it happen before the bell . We are on it as we are watching as history may be unfolding on the stock market on a few different levels. Well tell you. All right. Another day of huge interviews here on the closing bell. We have treasury secretary, jack lew, in his first sitdown since taking the post. And the chairman and ceo of i. C. E. , the Intercontinental Exchange is here. If all goes as planned, jeff sprekers firm will soon earn this place here, being the New York Stock Exchange, and he has some very interesting things to say about this rally, of course, as does jack lew. Thats pretty amazing. Spreker took his Company Public in 2005. It if goes as planned, hell take that company to a 20 billion firm. Lets show you the markets. Up 62 points on the Dow Jones Industrial average, sitting at 14,517. Nasdaq composite also higher, up about ten points on the nasdaq. Take a look. Technology mixed to higher, at 3,254. And the nasdaq higher at 1,650. Much to talk about. Watching for the s p alltime high. The dows winning streak still in place at this point. Lets talk about in it our closing bell exchange. To Heather Hughes we go. Also with us is cnbc contributor greg ip and rick santelli. Heather, let me kick it off with you. What are you seeing in this market . Cous does it surprise you that we continue to hit all these new highs and do you think its warranted . Maria, thank you for having me. There are three quick reasons i think that investors are still flooding cash into these markets, is that, number one, valuations are still compelling. P. E. Ratios are low. Number two, theres a lot of cash still sitting on the sidelines. The bursting of that old bond bubble may finally happen. And number three, the fed is still easing, as we all know. So those are some positives to look at, going forward. Speaking of the fed, mr. Ip, the always analytical greg ip. There your standpoint, economically speaking, the lack of negatives is a positive right now, isnt it . Oh, absolutely, bill. Its all about the dog that didnt bark. We had a huge tax increase on january 1st of this year. Here we are, more than two months into the year, and we have yet to see any sign that that tax increase has had a Material Impact on the consumer. Retail sales coming in for february, stronger than expected. Todays jobless claims number suggesting that hiring is actually doing better than people expected. So youre seeing two things. Number one, people growing more confident in their numbers for 2013, and a couple of people actually raising their numbers. Barclays, for example, now looking at 2. 5 growth in the First Quarter, up from 1. 9 . So you have a little bit of positive activity. Were going to hear from jeff spreker in a moment. He said his exchanging the New York Stock Exchange is basically making a bet that q3 is going to end. Because hes expecting a lot of action around Interest Raterelated products. When would you expect qe3 to wind down . Right now, most people are expecting it to wind down around the end of the year. And i think thats a pretty good call for two reasons. Number one, we havent hit the trigger point yet where the fed says enough is enough. But i think we could hit it in six to seven months. Plus, the very fact that the stock market is the doing so well today, risk assets are doing so well, is making a couple folks at the fed antsy that theres a bit too much reaching for yield going on, and that will start to raise objections within the fed about continuing. Yeah, that strength in the equity markets, michael guyed, you were famously calling for a correction, now youre on board. We went from sucking wind in february to the market getting its second wind. Our models flipped last friday at the very last moment, given intermarket improvement. Now, i think whats interesting here is in terms of our own inflation rotation report, were getting farther away from another bump bonds. The most bullish thing from a technical basis would be if emerging markets come from deeply oversold levels to lift global risk on sentiment. Weve had this juncture where basically qe countries have completely decoupled from every other country equity market. If you see that contraction start in the second quarter, i think thats a very healthy sign. That is very interesting to note. That emerging markets, they are undervalued, compared to the s p. And i think its key, youre right, that can we stay decoupled from, say, the big elephant in the room, china. Im not sure, going forward. If so, if china or europe begins to play a role in the headlines again going forward, then we definitely, perhaps, will see some sort of pullback. And thats completely healthy. Rick, jump in here. Lets talk about the 30year bond option. A little soft today . What do you know . What was behind that . Yes, it was. And i just find it so fascinating that 80 of the discussion about stocks is how the feds programs are boosting the price. But when it comes to the actual area that the boost is coming from, buybacks and quantitative easing, where the fed now owns arguably 20 of the treasury market, theres still a lot of anxiety, when you get up to these resistance levels of significance. 3. 25 in the long bond. That was the kiss of death. So can the treasury market truly reflect what is perceived to be a good or bettering economy, or is it just the fed. Remember, 20 years ago on that chart that im showing, in 94, when the fed had its tightening cycle, that was the last time we saw 8 in the 30year. What would stocks do today if you saw 8 . It would be, what, about 500 to 700 billion. The fear is when the fed does start to pull back on quantitative easing, well get a spike in rates and the stock market will fall, unless they come up with a way to ease this out, some kind of exit strategy. What do you sense theyre going to work on . Im going to shock you today and actually agree with ric santelli on something, which is i think that theres way too much attention to the fed in terms of trying to explain this rally. To me, the most interesting story of the last two or three months is how policy, whether its Monetary Policy or fiscal policy here in washington, is receding, thats a big story. Now, tomorrow on the cover of our magazine, the economist, we have a story called the the america that works. And i think the theme that comes through in a lot of our reporting is just how well the private sector is doing, in spite of all the shenanigans that are going on in washington. Thats why youre seeing Earnings Holding up. Its why youre seeing private employment continuing to gather steam, even as Public Employment drops out. I guess im just not as worried about some folks about the day that arrives that the fed takes its foot off the accelerator. But you said well probably start unwinding this at the end of this year. Does this give a disruption in stocks, because right now theyre sort of the only game in town for any kind of return is stocks. Do you think we see a disruption in stocks when the market starts realizing the fed is going to ease it up . If you look back to the 1960s to the 90s, we were highly correlated to that money supply and the easy money. For example, in the 1970s, the average stock market return at the end of the year was 70 correlated to the money supply. In 09 and 2012, weve seen withdraw from that money supply, yet the markets continue to rally. So greg brings up a good point, that if the fed starts to normalize, we may still be able to rally without that easing. Thank you all for your thoughts today as we head into this final hour of trading. Good to see you. Take care. Well, the s p 500, tantalizingly closer to its alltime closing high level. Josh lipton has more on that. About four or five points away. Green across the screen today. Major averages rising in todays session. The dow poised to extend its winning streak here to ten days. That would be the longest winning streak since november 1996. If we get another update tomorrow, by the way, that would take us all the way back to 1992. But, of course, all eyes on the s p 500. Your benchmark gauge hit a new fiveyear high today. Remember, the alltime closing record of 1665. So points away as we head towards the closing bell. Maria, back to you. Points away, josh, lets see, we are right now at 1561. 23. Weve got 50 minutes before the closing bell sounds and this, a rally rocks on. Remember, as josh just told us, we need to close up more than ten points, 1063 for an alltime high ton s p 500. We have it all written down there. Up next, jeff sprecher, ceo of Intercontinental Exchange tells us what he thinks will happen with stocks when the fed starts to pull in on the liquidity. Have you take a look at amazon . Down 3 . The worst trading day in more than a month thanks to a jpmorgan downgrade. You were warned about this stock on the program last month. Well update you on that and find out who thinks todays decline actually is a buying opportunity. Then, our Steve Liesman interviews the new treasury secretary, jack lew, is practicing his signature right now for the dollar bill. Its the only interview with mr. Lew that you will need to hear. Steve covers it. Thats coming up right here on closing bell at 4 15 eastern time. Stay tuned. But we can still help you see your big picture. With the fidelity guided portfolio summary, you choose which accounts to track and use fidelitys analytics to spot trends, gain insights, and figure out what you want to do next. All in one place. Im Meredith Stoddard and i helped create the fidelity guided portfolio summary. Its one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. Now get 200 free trades when you open an account. Executor of efficiency. You can spot an amateur from a mile away. 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Its the s p were watching there, getting evercloser to its own alltime high. We are about four points away. Bob pisani, how are changes looking in this rally right now . I think the amazing thing, and youre going to talk to jeff sprecher, maria, in a couple of minutes. I want to point out the exchanges are all hitting new highs today. The volume has been light. I. C. E. , new high. I think people are starting to understand the synergies there. Cboe, thats a new high. They locked up the s p options contract for at 14 years. They Just Announced that. Thats a big steal. But nasdaqs at a new high as well, cme, chicago merck, also at a new high. Virtually all of them. But on stocks, the volumes keep dropping, and thats the primary driver that were looking at here. So heres your average daily volume, so far. 6. 4 billion, for the First Quarter of 2013. Last period, 6. 8 billion. And First Quarter of 2012 was lower than the First Quarter of 2011. Finally, that s p 500, i want to point out, theres your 12year chart. This is a triple top. 1565 would be a new historic closing high for the s p. But we were here in 2007, a little bit below that, and also right near it as well in 1999 2000. Guys, back to you. Thank you so much, bob. And our next guest is still grabbing headlines with his acquisition of the New York Stock Exchange. Heres my interview with jeff sprecher, th then in charge at the Intercontinental Exchange. We spoke yesterday at the conference down in boca raton, where we kicked off our conversation about what we should expect when this acquisition is finally closed. Lets talk about the nycu, your next deal. What can you tell us about where you are, when you expect it to close, and what are your new opportunities . We announced a close before the holidays. The antitrust regulator has already approved the deal. Were now moving our attention to europe. Theres a lot of independent regulators in europe were working, and the last piece of that will be to apply for european antitrust approval, which we hope will be done in the Third Quarter of this year. Now, there are, what, four exchanges in europe there are four on continental europe. And one in london. So in total, five other exchanges in part of this. You want to spin those out into one company. Tell me how youre envisioning this. We had this view if you look at europe right now, you see the Banking System coming together. You see the European Central bank really taking a center role, beyond what it had done in the past. And our view is that the exchanges have to find a way to deal with all of continental europe. You have individual exchanges there in every country, four of which we have on the continent. And our view is that those exchanges need to find a way, with their colleagues, to have a federation or organize for crossborder trading in a way that the Banking System and the regulatory system is going to demand. We felt the best way to do that was to organize them as a continental entity, put european management in place, and give them their own capital by listing the company on a continental stock market. That way, they can do joint ventures, they can do acquisitions, they can do deals. Whatever it will take to help really organize through the continental europe. So in just over a decade, you have completely changed, transformed an oil exchange in london to the worlds second largest futures market by volume, once this deal passes. Its pretty extraordinary, what youve done. You started your company in the year 2000 . In 2000. Took it public in 2005. Correct. If you think about what was going on in year 2000, it was the year that you and i and most people adopted the internet. And we had the Great Fortune of starting an exchange in the internet era. Adopted online trading, adopted access through browsers, and historically, in the commodity space, you had the big exchanges with people in the funny jackets that were flashing hand signals. It was that technology shift that allowed us to grow very, very quickly. Let me ask you about volume. Obviously, for a long time, given your focus was the commodity side of the business, ive heard you talk about the equities business, just being not a good business. What happened to the equities business, over the decade . You know, people wanted more competition. I go back in my mind to say the exchanges themselves were probably not serving the broader public. There were people that felt advantaged and disadvantaged, and as a result, lobbied government to change regulation. To create more competition. And that, you can understand, it was a good thing. But some of those regulatory changes have really led to dramatic fragmentation. With the competition now has come a market that is so fragmented that its unstable. And thats what we saw in the flash crash. Every day, you can see stocks that trade in bizarre ways and there are now better regulations and systems to stop that. But we havent actually prevented it. And so, we need to bring the pendulum back and get rid of the fragmentation, get all the Market Participants thinking about how we can better serve the next wave of entrepreneurs that want to raise capital. And large corporations that want to issue equity and debt to fund their businesses. And take away some of the risk in the markets. You told me, this is in some ways a bet on the end of qe3. It is. Let me ask you about that. Because the fed has been there, really driving this market. So you think quantitative easing, at some point, obviously, goes away. But your deal is partly a bet on qe3 going away. It is. Because ice is really a commodities business, oil and agriculture, which has been growing because of Global Change dema