He had reviewed video from the aftermath of that attack last week and was struck as a human being and as a father by the video, mandy, of that father holding his young, dead child as a result of that attack. We welcome you now to closing bell for cnbc. We were just listening, of course, as secretary of state kerry and, you know, bill, it was heart wrenching, sol of the commentary he was making. Of course, one of the big things he said was accountability. Someone needs to be accountable for this. And also, that our basic sense of humanity is not only offended by the crime but the attempt to cover it up. Meantime, we are, of course, watching the markets for you. We have one more hour of trading so go. We havent forgotten all of that in all of this. Well get you more. Lets get to bob pisany on the floor today. Yields on the 10year dropped. The Stock Market Holding on to fractional gains here, robert. The big question is, are we going to see the june swoon again . The answer is at least not right now with the data we have been getting. Letss take a look and look back to may and june. Remember that big june swoon . That happened in the beginning of may. Actually, second week of may. When there were discussions about taper talk beginning. Thats when mr. Bernanke said, well, it was a possibility to begin tapering towards the end of the year and maybe finish completely our program of buying bonds in the middle of 2014. That caused a 7. 5 decline in the s p from the high to the low towards the end of june. There was the whole june swoon thing. Bottom line is mr. Bernanke got better at communicating what they were thinking. The markets came off the bottom. Look at july and august. We rallied. 9. 5 rally from the ral by to the historic highs we had and that was the very beginning of august. Once again, we have been sputtering around trying to figure out whether the taper will begin. The bottom line is most of the traders down here betting when tapering begins, it is a taperlight form. Not an aggressive stance and i think thats where its going right now, guys. Bottom line, new home sales, the numbers of durable goods, argue at best for a taper light. Back to you. Thank you very much. We have had the fractional gains today a. Narrowly traded day for the major averages in the stock market and as i said the yields on the 10year continue to move lower perhaps on the Economic Data. Lets talk about it all. Is this a repeat of june . Well talk about it with our panel. You are expecting a bit of a pullback in the markets in the fall. Why . Well, look. The market thus far has been able to go up despite the fact we have had no Earnings Growth for last six to nine months. I do believe Going Forward we will need significant Earnings Growth to power the market higher and as a result i think some of the negative revision that is we expect between now and october could drive the market lower from here. David, do you agree with that . Do you think the markets go lower from here . It is certainly clear going in to september history is not on its side. I think for many decades now, the dow has been lower in september and indeed one of the worst months for about 60 of the time. Sure. And i think that theres been the assumption that the driver of growth in the economy was recovery and housing and whether its the new home sales or looking back a little bit further, we began to see a selloff of lumber in march and the Home Builders themselves were selling off aggressively in may with massive Insider Selling in that sector at that point. I think that should have been sort of a lead to us orca that ri in the coal mine for things to come in the sector. We have seen declines in the real estate sector, the general malaise in the third and in to the Fourth Quarter in terms of the general economic numbers and gdp stats, so i dont think were going to see the Earnings Growth that we need. And with that in mind, we could see multiples expand the wrong direction and i think the market react negatively to that. Rick, lets bring you in here, my friend, lets ask you how much of this has the yields have come down and gold has gone back above 1,400 today, is that the economic fundamentals were talking about or how much of that is whats going on in syria, do you think . Gold, some of whats going on in the region could impact gold to the upside but i really do think its more towards the adage we had a very long time. All roads lead to the stock market. Where else will you put your money . I think periodically gold becomes a little avenue. Granted, it is probably a oneway street and it really doesnt make sense when you really think it through. But i think that dynamic will stay in place. As for interest rates, the key is, its not symmetry. Theres no symmetry. Its asymmetrical. We closed we are, what, 10 basis points of off of that 290 area. With two bad data points. Im not sure were selling off and not sure that the calibration to strong and weak data is going to be symmetric for a while in interest rates. Yeah. It seems that we are back to the old days, not necessarily good old days but the days with bad Economic Data is good news for the stock market. Brian, i dont want to leave gold in light of whats going on in the background there and of course the gold bugs feeling vindicated since they come off the bottom. How do you feel about the precious metal as an investment . Well, from the bullion side, the commodity itself, we feel better about that. With the respect of the stock side of things, remember, these are companies that have a hard time meeting revenues. We have seen institutional side with respect whats happening in holding and think theyre oversold. Could see a continued bounce here. We still think that the stocks as a group, mandy, are part of the prior cycle leadership and rather be in industrials, technology and financials in the states relative to global Precious Metals at these levels. Are you among those that keep a portion of a portfolio in gold anyway as a hedge . 5 or whatever . Well, we do for some of our blended portfolios, bill, when we take a look at holdings both in canada, in the United States. But our u. S. Portfolios we look at are benchmarked toward the u. S. And what we want to do is be cautious here in the materials space given where fundamentals are. 2 or 3 position is prudent in the u. S. At these levels. Can i follow up on what you were saying about industrials, brian . You know, a lot of industrials, you know, they have assets in various geographies around the world and in light of the fact of seeing stabilizations in the regions, brian, do you feel that that hasnt yet been priced in yet and could be part of the upside you see . Its an excellent point, mandy. I think the big thing on industrials are investors over ten years used industrials for the incremental volume growth, momentum growth out of china. We think its recovery growth where the stronger, consistent growth is coming from north america, especially in the u. S. As the manufacturing renaissance really drives earnings through cap x. You want to be more diversified within your industrial space and less so focused on the areas that only focus on china and emerging markets or europe. You want to be more diversified across sectors. Dean, the pullback, do you invest in defensives or what do you do here . Yeah. I mean, so right now the areas we tend to overweight are technology, health care and to a lesser extent consumer cyclical. We are reducing the exposure. The tricky part is were not really seeing a lot of pentup growth from our perspective particularly in the areas tied to the industrials and so youre trying to balance out the area that is are particularly attractively valued with some of the still can find the health care names where expectations have been set low enough to be met or exceeded where some of the tech stocks come in. David, in light of the very low volume, i think today could be potentially on track to be the lowest volume day of the year so far. Would you be just sitting out for the next couple of weeks and just waiting and seeing what happens in light of the payrolls number which could be a big decider in september for the fed meeting . Would you be sitting this out . I would be cautious and if you have long positions, i would be creating hedges against those, raising cash and silver and gold is attractive even with the rise of price off of the lows. And i think it has room to move higher. We havent really fixed any of the issues that were driving the price of gold two years ago. Fiscal issues, monetary measures are still in place and i think youre seeing this on a grand scale, on a global scale in terms of demand for the physical metal itself. Four weeks is unprecedented and worthy of note. The physical demand for the metal is running at record rates even with the price declines, it is worth noting. Rick, do you think this decline in yields today is the market saying that maybe we, because of the sort of weak data we have been seeing lately, house sale number on friday, todays durable goods number, maybe the fed will have to cool the heels for a little while before it starts tapering . No. I think 10year note rates are down because the data is weak. Will they go up faster than came down with a 200,000 jobs report . Thats the question. Dont pay so much attention to whether well taper or not. It will happen sooner or later. Stay in tune with the market and treasuries are in tune with the market. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Lets get back to gold and silver by the way, as well. Soaring today. Courtney reagan watching that action for us. Thats right. Gold popped up to 1,407 and seeing the weaker than expected durable goods number it did pop again and then settle down and like your guest was saying, this really all has to do with what the fed will or wont do with the tapering, whether or not it does it, an extreme level or light level. Many traders bet it happen at least on an extreme level at september. For the third week in a row theres significant traders adding to the net long positions for three weeks now in both gold and silver. And silver closing today and settling at threemonth highs and data out of europe and china adding to the idea that there could be increased demand for silver as an industrial metal and thats helping to prop up the prices of silver. Mandy . Okay. Courtney, thank you very much. Lets throw it over for a quick market flash. What are you watching . Look at whats happening. Theres really some ideas of whats happening with bid, sothebys. The hedge fund run by dan lobe has announced a boost in their stake of south bys. They had 3. 7 in terms of the outstanding shares and now a spike on that piece of news and watching the ticker for sothebys. Seeing some action on the hooels of the activist investor saying his fund has boosted its stake and may look for talks, again, thats a big move here in terms of whats happening with them. Back over to you. Indeed it is. Bidding up bid. They are bidding up bid. Thank you. Okay. Well, we have about 45 minutes left in the trading day before the closing bell. The dow is hovering on the flat line. The s p is marginally positive. Thats the operative word here. Very, very low volume. What would happen if suddenly you were not allowed to make anymore trades in your 401 k . None, never . Thats happening to some American Airlines employees. The fund manager of those 401 401 k , how does that happen . Well find out next. We ri lie on the cloud, right . More and more every single day. Just how reliable, though, is it . How secure is it . For many, we have the answer last night. And it was not good. That story is just ahead. Do not go away. [ male announcer ] ive seen incredible things. Otherworldly things. But there are some things ive never seen before. This ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. Which is good for business. Because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. Suddenly, faraway places dont seem so. Far away. Welcome back. Suddenly seeing a bit of selling here. The dow was in a pretty narrow range. The lightest volume day of the year as you mentioned, mandy, so far. The dow down 24 points a moment ago. Now coming off that low. Not sure if it has anything to do with the statement by secretary kerry you saw here live on cnbc. They have more evidence of chemical weapon use by the Syrian Regime. We have ammon javier javers. Hi, bill. Secretary of state speaking here in washington. Forceful words. Heres a little bit of the secretary of state explaining what the stakes are here. Our sense of basic humanity is offended not only by this cowardly crime but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up. At every turn, the Syrian Regime has failed to cooperate with the u. N. Investigation. Using it only to stall and to stymie the important effort to bring to light what happened in damascus in the dead of night. A couple of key points here. The secretary of state saying that although investigators are still getting access to the scene, some of those u. N. Investigators in particular have been actually fired upon as they try to get there to see if that i remember determine which chemical weapons may have been used here, the secretary of state saying chemical weapons were used in syria. He also said that the president of the United States stands ready to make an informed decision about what to do in response to that. He said there must be accountability. The secretary of state saying an International Norm here cannot be violated without consequences. Now, the question over the next coupling hours is what are the consequences that the Obama Administration has in mind here, guys . Ammon, the president has to make the decision and weigh out the information on hand to make that quoted informed decision, is secretary of state kind of putting us on notice theres an action . Reading between the lines here, it seems as if theyre trying to set the table for some sort of forceful action by the United States over the next 24, 48 hours. You pick the time frame but it seems very clear that the United States would be in a very difficult position doing nothing in the wake of the forceful words of secretary of state kerry saying that the president will make an informed decision and talking about the real humanity of these images that he and others have seen coming out of the syria, the anguish and suffering of women, children, civilians in syria relates to what seems to be clearly now to the u. S. Administration a chemical attack. And of course, not to be taken lightly, president assad himself spoke with Russian Media today warning the United States not to get involved in anything. So, i mean, we are hearing from both sides on this issue right now. Look. The relationship between the United States and russia is extremely fraught right now. First of all, over syria, but also, over edward snowden. Theres an international, diplomatic component and a military component as well as a domestic political component for the Obama Administration. The speaker of the houses Office Released a statement saying if the president intends to take action here in syria he owes it to the American People to address them directly and explain what hes doing and why and what the outcome will be he expects. Drama here at home as the president appears to be contemplating an activity overseas, bill. Thanks, ammon. Were watching the market, still. Back to the lows on the day down 24 points right now. The big Investment Firm td rowe price banning about 1,300 American Airlines employees from trading in and out of td rowe price with funds in their plan. They said they repeatedly warned the employees who made the moves based on recommendations from an Airline Industry news letter that their activity would result in higher fees for all planned participants and make it difficult for managers to manage their funds. One of the copublishers of the news letter joins us now. Easy tracker 401 k . T. Rowe price declined to participate in this interview. What was your reaction of banning trading of funds that t. Rowe price manages in the 401 k . This is going on for several years now. This started in 2010 what is that . The banning of subscribers. In 2010, t. Rowe price threatened some of our subscribers with a ban. In 2011, they actually banned some of our subscribers for a period of one year. And now, in 2013, they have banned a number of our subscribers for life from purchasing t. Rowe price funds inside the American Airlines 401 k system. This is not totally out of blue then. This is an ongoing process for a few years here. Thats correct. And we have filed a complaint with the s. E. C. In may of 2012 about this action on the part of t. Rowe price. We felt it was beyond the scope of any s. E. C. Restrictions allowed and we felt we were really being singled out. Nobody else has to comply with this restriction that were aware of. Also, if im right in thinking, sir, these investors are still allowed to get back in to a t. Rowe price fund through payroll deductions and sell out of a t. Rowe price fund in their plan . Theyre just restrictions opposed to a ban. In terms of trading but not a regular basis of investing through the direct deposit. Right. Sir . In other words they can yes. They can direct their payroll contributions to t. Rowe price funds. They cannot go in and say, i want to purchase, i want to have 10 of my 401 k , for instance, in the t. Rowe price mid growth cap fund. That would not be allowed. You know, there are going to be those, paul, and, you know, who say, 401 k , a Retirement Plan is no place to be short term trading, to be market timing. You know . All of those things that people i know people who day trade 401 k plan money. Is that appropriate in this case . It is it is not. For instance, in all cases, in all cases, the funds that t. Rowe price has accused our subscribers of violating their prospectus, in all cases, these were not shortterm trading violations. These are things and some cases where the funds were held six, eight, nine months. Right. So, these