Thats right. See, im still on vacation. I know. It seems to have started to head south when Speaker Boehner and others came out in support of president s call for military action against syria. So the market seemed to be able to handle this better than expected ism news. Can it handle higher Interest Rates, 2. 09 , cannot handle syria. You know, its the unknown. And now that john boehner says hes agreeing with the presid t president , that ups the ante in terms of a real military action on the horizon. And thats a complete unknown. Syria also on the mind of former home depot and chrysler ceo bob nar deli. He said its a looming issue over the economy. He has a lot to say about that and the impact of new healthcare law. Hell also be here to tell us who he thinks should be the next chairman of the federal reserve. You dont want to miss this exclusive interview. Thats coming up later on on the closing bell. And if buying nokia was such a good move for microsoft, why is the stock getting slammed today . Well take a closer look at the two companies, and if, in this case, the sum is actually less than the parts. Well have both parts. Lets check where we stand as we approach the final hour on wall street. The Dow Jones Industrials average down a fraction. We had been up strong earlier, about 100 points earlier, and having given that up and then some, and now trading flat on the heels of john boehner agreeing with the president on the willingness to have some kind of military action in syria. Nasdaq and s p 500 actually showing gains. Take a look here. The nasdaq up 14 points. Once again, technology the Leadership Group. Although it, too, off of the best levels of the afternoon, even with that doubledigit move. S p 500 looks like this. A gain there, as well. Just barely. Also off of the highs. Scott . Lets jump into it and find out whats moving as we kick off september, which has been the worst month for stocks since 1950. Mary thompson at the big board, dominic is back at the headquarters. Mary, kick us off. What are you seeing out there . Reporter maria, of course, today is flat, the session coming on the heels of a miserable august for the markets, as well. Theyve been trying to rally the dow above the flat line, not having much success. Slightly or fractionally higher right now. Heres the story. 11 30, you had headlines crossing that House Speaker john boehner said that he did support the president or would support the president in the event he went ahead with military strikes against syria. That caused the dow to sell off. As a result, the marks gave up over 100 points. The dow remains under pressure again today. Look at what happened with the 10year yield. Sas scott mentioned earlier, the yield climbed above the 2. 91 area. It pulled back a little bit. Nevertheless, the elevated rates are keeping pressure on Interest Ratesensitive groups today. And they continue to be the leaders to the downside. They include telecom, utilities, as well as consumer staples. We do want to note that microsoft is a drag on the dow today. A lot of people questioning why, when it comes to the 7. 2 billion acquisition of nokias handset business. Scott, back to you. Okay, mary, thank you so much. Dominic chu, over to you now. September not usually kind to stocks, we know that. No. Not at all, scott. It started off pretty strong. The first trading day of september has lost a lot of its steam as the days progressed, just like mary said. Should investors be concerned . If you go all the way back, like you said, to 1950, on average september has traditionally been the worst month for the Dow Jones Industrials. It falls by. 8 on average. The dow also in that timespan closed down six out of every ten times. 60 during that timespan. Meanwhile, look at another asset class. The opposite for gold. Historically speaking, september comes up glittering for that yellow metal. Since 1990, gold finished up in september by an average of 2. 7 . Now, of course, past performance is never an indicator of future performance. Lets not forget we have a lot of other factors like geopolitical risks, a la syria, so the crystal ball is cloudy, but interesting stats for september. Good for some, not good for others. All right, dominic, thank you. Were about an hour away from the close, and the markets have lost the Early Morning gains. Is it still over syria concerns . Lets get into it with mike from hi hightower. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. Lets look at this market. I guess my question is, why is the market reacting so strongly to syria . What is the big threat here given the fact that we were looking at a gain of 100 points earlier and weve completely weve completely lost that at this point . Kicking it off with you, jeff. Maria, look, you hit the nail on the head before, that this is if i was going to use one word to describe this market, its confused. I dont think its just syria. I think syria is one catalyst of a market thats very fragile. One of the things i looked at, i thought was very interesting, v spoke Investment Group did some research on this, when you look at what happened in august, as we had the bad selloff in august, the stocks that outperformed that month were the stocks that normally would outperform in a rally, not would outperform in the market going lower. You talk about high p e ratios, high shortages, internationals. And we had big outflow from equity, mutual funds. I think the Institutional Investors were out there trying to find some type of value anywhere. And as far as just what the fundamentals are, look, we saw this morning on the ism number, were back to good news is bad news kind of thing. So you have the syria, the fed, a whole bunch of things out there, a lot of uncertainty. Steve, you can make the argument that good news can be good news. Ism was better than expected. Market was up 100. Syria just sort of turned the table on things. It seems as though the market is being more able to condition itself to higher Interest Rates and everything that is coming down the pike. I dont think syrias really moving this market. I think it topped out the dow and s p topped out in early august. In fact, if you look at the New York Stock Exchange composite, it made its interday high last may and was unable to best that high with the dow and s p. So the market has been going down for a little bit. The most bearish thing a market could do is be oversold and then try to rally and not be able to. Thats what happened today. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, steve, did you say you dont think syria is moving the market . I dont think syria is boehner moved the market. The minute boehner came out, the speaker of the house, said he agrees with the president , that a u. S. Military strike would be warranted, the market sold off. We went from up 100 to up nothing. I dont think i dont think news moves a market. News is just a reaction to the social trends that are occurring. Sure, you have shortterm emotional spikes. But, look, this market has been down since early august. So theres Something Else thats moving the market right here. And i think the psychology of the market is we turned in the summer and now continuing that trend down. Yeah, fair enough. Because you do have a fair amount of catalyst this month, lets face it, that could really change sentiment, whether it be the tapering and the beginning of the tapering or the announcement of a new fed chairman. So, mike, knowing all of this, would you put new money to work long on equities . Well, we would, even though this time of year we seem to pay our annual dues to be a member of the i am long equities club. We dont think this is a reason to move out of stocks. Many of our clients are saying something roughly similar to what jeff is saying, which is theyre not afraid, but theyre using this as an opportunity to reposition for growth ahead. We continue to focus on technology, because thats a play on albeit slow Global Growth and also folk use on healthcare, because its a demographic shift. Syria may be the excuse now, and its a humanitarian issue we should be conscious of, but its probably not the reason why people are selling off here. Its the time of year we shouldnt be surprised. Rick santelli, i think the 10year note yield topped today at 2. 90, or thereabouts, you correct me if im wrong there. Do you believe the market is starting to or has already priced in a taper coming in september . I think theres a pretty good chance its priced that in. I really think that thats the crumb at the edge of the crust. I believe that the fixed income market is on its way to pricing in a new era of Monetary Policy without crisis management. And i think were one chapter into that pricing book. Today, whether you look at 5s, 10s, 30s, judge, the further down the curve you look, the bigger the difference with yesterday slash fridays net change. Meaning a fiveyears up four basis points. A 30year is up eight basis points. But yet the fiveyears going to most likely make a new highyield close going back to july of 2011. Why . I agree with alex. Its an issue of confusion. But not about the markets. The markets could look at data sets and points and make a decision. Its confusion among the various leaders in charge, whether its on foreign policy, Monetary Policy, or fiscal policy. So whats the number that would cause you to move away from equities, mike, on the 10year . Is there a level i mean, is 2. 9 troublesome . Is it a lot higher than that that it would become problematic . No, we have room to go up. The bond market would hate anything above that, but stocks will handle a threehandle. Its inevitable, but theyll handle it in the context of growth as a relative number there. As long as we have Global Growth and Earnings Growth in the United States, we can handle 3 on the 10year. And we will and i have to say, i think this whole taper thing were all taking our eye off the ball in terms of what really what really has the market concerned about Monetary Policy. The whole dynamic between yellen and summers as far as whos going to get the fed chairman sharapova fship. Treasuries are not affecting the purchase of treasuries are not having a lot of effect on the credit markets now. Its about the mbs and its about the rate structure. Its not about this little the taper per se. Over the holiday, i had conversation with some market watchers about who might be the chairman. And there is a feeling within some circles, Deutsche Bank has this feeling, that tim geithner is also an option out there. A stealth choice . Yeah. I mean, i dont know, anybody buy into that of our panel . Tim geithner a possibility for chairman . I mean [ overlapping speakers ] want it im sorry, what, steve . Yeah, i have no no idea who will be the fed chairman. I dont think it matters that much. Whats interesting about this taper talk is that yields on the 10year note actually bottomed in july of last year and started rising since then. Thats well before anybody was talking about a taper. So i think whats driving the trends of the market is not so much taper. I think rick has it right, were in a new era so to speak, quote unquote, where the rate structure is starting to turn, because psychology has turned. You say he doesnt want it. I dont think he wants it. Its another thing to say you dont want it and Something Else when the commander in chief comes and says, i want you to do this. Yeah. How do you say no at that point . And if you have enough vibrations as far as summers goes, if you get enough, you know, pullback on that, the market doesnt want it, yeah, geithner could be seen as kind of the compromise guy between yellen and summers. But i would still bet on Larry Summers as far as the chairmanship goes. What about the markets, guys . Its interesting to talk about what the president may like, because he gets a huge sayso in this. But dont you think behind closed doors theres people that are worried about how the market will react if it doesnt like the processes or the procedures of the new person . I think thats key. Yeah, of course. Thats rebutting steve who said it really doesnt matter. I would agree with rick and say that it matters wholeheartedly to the market who the next fed chairman is going to be. Monetary policy will be everything as far as the market going forward. You cant overstate it. Yeah, especially given the fact we have to do this big exit. Right. Eventually. Whenever that is. Yeah, eventually. And youre seeing the reverb racials in the foreign markets now. The emerging markets. And thats where you really will get killed, and you start to get the rate pressure from abroad, and, you know, you get to that point when the fed starts to lose control of the whole rate structure and you have chaos in the market. And then the next guy is not is going to have his work cut out for him. All right. We will leave it there. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. Were in the final stretch of trading for the day. 45 minutes until the closing bell sounds. A pretty good rally that has developed in the last few minutes. Up 24 points on the dow. Coming up, what is microsofts acquisition from nokia mean for the smartphone, and what about microsoft investors hitting the stock hard today on the deal . Well find out why. After the bell, dont miss my exclusive interviews with former chrysler ceo bob nardelli. That and more coming up on closing bell. Stay with us. Im a careful investor. When you do what i do, you think about risk. I dont like the ups and downs of the market, but i cant just sit on my cash. I want to be prepared for the long haul. Ishares minimum volatility etfs. Investments designed for a smoother ride. Find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. Ishares by blackrock. Call 1800ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Read and consider it carefully before investing. Risk includes possible loss of principal. Hi, welcome back. We want to show you a live look there at secretary of state john kerry. He is on capitol hill, a Senate Hearing on syria under way. Key testimony from the secretary right now, and also defense secretary chuck hagel. There have been some protests in the room, maria, thus far. And i believe were listening in the break, we heard another protester come in there, and secretary kerry addressing that, as well. So that continues to go on, and we continue to follow it. And joining us right now on the telephone is new york republican congressman peter king, chairman of the House Homeland Security committee. Congressman, good to have you on the phone. Thanks for joining us. We know that Speaker John Boehner and majority leader eric cantor say that they will support acting against syria. Will that be enough to get the votes needed . Maria, first of all, thanks for having me on. Its going to be tough. Im going to vote yes. I believe we have to take action. Having said that, the president started late, and i give john boehner credit for stepping up and really putting politics aside. It will be tough. It will be an allout effort, i think, over the next week by the president , by the speaker, by nancy pelosi, you know, to get the votes. Because right now, the average person does not know why we should be in syria. I think we should attack. We have to take action. But its going to be tough to make that case, because the president has really waited a long time to engage the congress. It certainly seems, though, representative king that the president has his work cut out for him, as you say, on a couple of fronts, not only convincing your colleagues that this is the right move, but you alluded to, as well, theres a new poll out by abc that says only 6 in 10 or 6 in 10 oppose a u. S. Only strike. What if we cant get any of our allies to join in . Should we go at it alone . I think we have to. The fact is whether it was kosovo or really almost anywhere else, certainly when it involves these types of attacks, the u. S. Is going to go it alone anyway. Kosovo, we had 21 countries, and we did 95 of the air attacks. And the british did the other five. So it helps certainly helps diplomatically to have more support. But if we feel the president feels military action is needed, then he has to go it alone, even if we dont get other countries. Because for the most part, at this stage, not that the brits wont be in, a lot of the others would really be almost unintelligible . Congressman, i guess i have two questions here about the way weve been communicating all of this. First off, was the president right to hit the pause button and ask congress for approval . It seems to have sparked real debate across the world, by the way, you know, people are wondering why he hit the pause button in the face of such such a story. And secondly, why are we telegraphing our every move to syria . On the latter point, my 9yearold grandson the other day asked me whether or not syria gets cable tv, because all of this was coming out on television, what were doing, how were going to do it, a limited attack, not going after assad. Hes 9 years old, and he, again, was hearing the very thought. Now, hes looking for cover, and its so important we attack, why is he waiting another 9, 10, 15 days before congress will be able to meet, debate, and act. So, no, i think he set a terrible precedent for the office of presidency. Right. And sent a terrible message. You wrote an op ed that said obama cannot show weakness on syria no matter what congress vote. Havent we already shown weakness . I guess i should have said we shouldnt show more weakness. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he has shown so much weakness, vacillation. Its not been in any way a profile in leadership. Its been a profile in vacillation. Congressman, whose credibility do you think is more at stake here . Is it the president s . What about the United Nations . Ban kimoon is out saying an attack could lead to more bloodshed, arguing against a punitive strike against syria. So whose credibility here is more at stake, and what happens if the United Nations does not go along with us in the way that we may act in the future . Well, i dont have any great regard for the United Nations when it comes to these issues.