Of 666. It is in a book of record here along with other bits and bobs. Meanwhile, for bitcoin, bankruptcy hacking and an apparent suicide. Were tallying up the many headlines and problems to figure out what it means for the future of this Virtual Currency and others like it. Also, an cunlikely championf boosting the minimum wage. Its conservative multimillionaire ron unz. He wants to raise it all the way to 12 an hour. Whats really interesting are his reasons why. Ron will join us exclusively. You do not want to pass judgment on his idea until you hear him make his case. Coming up here on the closing bell today. Now, heres where we stand in the market for the final hour of trade. The dow is up 77 points. Again, 16,437. Take a look at the nasdaq, which is just fractionally lower. Literally shedding about two points. The s p 500 adding about five, a quarter of a percent. We have some variation today for sure. Lets talk about todays action in our closing bell exchange. We bring in our panel. Kenny, i know youve been skeptical of the rise here. It just continues. You feel like this market just cant be brought down at this point. Why . You know what, because they want to force it to go to 1900. You can almost feel it. Theyre not putting pressure. Theyre letting the buyers come in. Look whats happening. The market keeps going higher and higher. The buyersc keep coming after i. I think whats happening also, its running up in front of tomorrows nfb report. I think all expectations now are muted. Goldman cut their number yesterday. I think youre going to have a sellthenews type of event tomorrow. If it comes in low, theyre going to dismiss it as weather. Nfp, by the way, nonforeign payroll. What are they expecting . Whats the number everybodys looking for right mow . 150 is the consensus, i think. Goldman went to 125 yesterday. Kbryeah, the bar is lowering. When we talk about people pulling this market lower, who are they . Is this where the Retail Investor is getting involved . Where is the upward bias coming from . I think its more trading oriented. When you look at the mark, we set high. Its really been select groups that have been invited to be up double digits. Some techs, new tech, some of the financials. Some of the health care buyouts. A lot of the market is sloshing around on change. I think the market is a little tired. We really havent seen retail pour into the marks. I think its more professional traders. Ken, were talking about this being a tradeable market. You still are convinced this is a secular bull market going much higher from here, yes . c yes, i do. Theres really nothing that i see out there to get in the way of the market, whats happening in russia and with the russians and the ukrainians. I think its a temporary situation. The dow is i think well see 18,000 with a friendly fed, with no political drop. When did you see 18,000 . This year. Really . By the elections, i think well see it then, yes. I think the momentum is going to pick up once the weatherrelated problems are behind us and we get some good Economic Data. The Retail Investor you were talking about i think will see that positive news. Thatll encourage them to go in. I think well see dow 18,000. But i think that the markets, the lows of 2009, 180 rise since then, i think its setting up for big problems to come. Im going to direct for a second. Give us the five box. If you see 18,000 on the dow by the end of this year, raise your hands. Anybody else . Okay. We know you do already. Jim lowell, you dont . No, i do. I think theres a reasonable chance of seeing significant gains towards year end, especially the fundamentals continue to project slow growth, not slowing growth. Everybody now assumes the weatherrelated factors are impinging the kinds of Economic Data were seeing. If that turnsc out to be the case, fine. If we really are entering into a slowdown or if the market plays russian roulette on a more protracted basis, then we can certainly see a pullback on the magnitude 10 to 15 . Jim, what about whats happening . Some of these names really jamming up this year. Today if you look at the action, relatively sharp declines. We have to put this in context. Does that tell you, perhaps, something about momentum in this market, more broadly . Theres definitely valuation at play in the small and midcap stocks. Were seeing historical levels of valuation. Stocks are getting pricey there. On the blue chip, were seeing good values. No question that today, if you look at the nasdaq, thats all about the Biotech Sector selling off measurably more than the broader markets. Rick santelli, guys here on the floor will tell you theyre watching the yield on the ten year very carefully. Thats the most sensitive indicator of whats going on overseas. It has risen appreciably. Whats it telling us right now . Well, listen, kennys a sharp guy. I hear he makes a great beef stroeg november, but when i look at a tenyear note cyield, i would say the exact opposite for 2014. These guys are paying more attention to the stock market. But not necessarily the stock market when it moves higher. It seems as though the stock market, whenever it gets iffy, becomes a Real Driving Force for the tenyear note. That makes sense. Now, the upside, i found it amazing today as the stock market continued to power up, Interest Rates pretty much hit their high yields early and drifted a bit. Now, if tomorrows number is really solid and the stock market gets a good head of steam, and i think anything over 175,000, i think stocks are going to be off to the races. It will be very key to see if we close above 275. Because if that occurs, as a technician with the compression i see in Interest Rates, that would be a significant event. Look at whats happening in the financials. Yeah, go ahead, ken. My belief system is when the market is rising, you need to be in it. When its coming down, you need to be out of it. Its just that easy, isnt it . Everybodys going to get out and not get one rain drop on their umbrella. Thats the world i want to see. In november of 2007, we told our clients to get out because the momentum of the market had changed and were watching it carefully. My concern is after thec elections, when Interest Rates go up and the taxes potentially go up, something is going to trigger this. With the fed putting all the i think theres a thesis here about the gop. Its equally as important as when to get in the market. The reality is over the last five years, the last ten years, staying with the market in a welldiversified portfolio, thats built wealth. Especially when you have the fed we told our clients to get back in the market in june of 09. You also have to have a buy strategy, not just to sell. Listen, ken, i got to ask you a question. On the one hand, you see the dow at 18,000 this year. In the same sentence, you said that youre expecting this correction to come when the fed starts to pull out. Im curious. You see us running things out and coming back to 16,000 . Where do you see us at the end of the year . At the end of the year, i think well be close to that 16,000. Its next year when these imbalances that the fed and all this debt were running up come to roost that i think the potential is we could see the dow around 9,000 or 10,000 after that. I think a bear market is setting up. Right now i think things are going, so we need to participate. I dont think its time to get out right now. What i learned today is the bond guys are watching stocks and stock guys are watching bonds. Thats comforting. And the fed is watching the golf channel. There you go. See you all later. Take care. We have some breaking news now on the Goldman Sachs elevator story. Andrew ross sorken has the details on the cnbc newsline. Not a big surprise. Maybe the timing is interesting, andrew. Thank you, guys. Crazy story. Bizarre. It has now take an stranger turn. Of course, there was th the gselevator twitter handle. We unveiled who that was or unmasked who was about a week and a half ago. A 34yearold from texas, former citigroup banker. Never worked at Goldman Sachs. He was the man behind that handle. Hed also gotten a book deal. Apparently today, touch stone saying the book is no longer on. What is surprising about it is that in many conversations that i had with the publisher and over the past week, the publisher reaffirmed multiple of the book and claimed they knew who he was the whole time. Now theyre raising some questions about what they actually did know in their statement, suggesting that information thats come to light in the past week or so, i imagine some or the reporting we did, changed their view. Andrew, what do you think is the problem from the publishers point of view. Look, at this point the problem is the credibility problem, the pub lis si problem. Frankly publicity is good. Publicity is the greatest thing for a book. I would have thought so. The New York Times editorial page, which obviously i have nothing to do with, came out and scolded the publisher for publishing what they called a Nonfiction Book which they ultimately thought would be fiction. Hard to understand. A lot of people probably thought it was a parody account to begin with. I will say my intent when we unmasked him and did that report and figured out who he was, it was more because it was a parlor game and mystery on wall street than inside goldman and whether he was a real employee. Sort of a surprising turn. I thought i might go out and buy the book. You know what he could do now is write one heck of a novel. Can he write this book for someone else . He could. He could turn around and find another publisher. I saw a statement that i believe he made in a publicationc this afternoon suggesting he might do that. I just got off the phone with him as i was getting on the phone with you. He said it was a mystery to him. That as of friday he was told they were still a go and were supporting him. He didnt get a real explanation at least thus far today about why they pulled back. Of course, well do more reporting this afternoon. Hope to bring you that when we figure it out. You must feel horrible. Excuse me . You must feel horrible unmasking him and killing his book deal, andrew. You know, i feel a little bad. I didnt intend to do this. He seemed like a nice guy who was trying to admittedly, it appears he did lie to some people about what he was doing. Unclear whether he was lying to the publisher. More so he had lied to some others. Its worth also noting the book proposal he sent out, gs seemed to indicate he worked there or had worked there. That may have left a misimpression. The publisher, by the way, never had actually met him before they signed the deal with him. So, you know, lots of questions that still need to be asked and answered. Great stuff. Andrew, thank you. Thank you. Riveted by this one. Well see ifc that book resurfaces yet. One of the great parodies on twitter. Moving along here. About 50 minutes left in the trading session. The dow is up 71 points. It was up 90 at the peak today. The s p is in record territory if we close right here. And retail sales, meanwhile, frozen in january, hitting earnings for Companies Like costco. Up next, whether any spring thaw will heat up Retail Stocks from here. Speaking of heating up, facebook shares, theyre down today. But theyve been up 30 so far this year. Can the company keep up this rally . Bob told us yesterday to beware of the social media stocks. Whats next for facebook . And tomorrows allimportant february jobs report could change everything in this market. Or maybe not. 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The Office Supplier retailer didnt blame weather or promotions for its drop in sales and profit but rather the migration of customers online. Staples said its online sales increased 10 in the Fourth Quarter. That means 50 of the total Company Sales are coming from onlean purchasing. Childrens place plans to close a total of 125 underperforms stores through 2016. Staples closing 225 as a part of its costcutting program. Add that to the 1100 closures of rad radioshack stores. Were looking at a lot ofhempt real estate here soon. Thats true. Thank you, courtney. You stay here and join the conversation. Evan, you think this slowdown has a lot to do with weather, dont you . Certainly does. Weve had probably one of the top five coldest and snowiest winters weve ever had on record, certainly in the northeast and midwest. Frankly, its kept a lot of people at home. When they are ready to get out, they were buying those musthave or needtohave items. Bill and i were talking during the Holiday Season about how something felt different this year. We saw that come through in the ecommerce numbers. Those were up big. Weve seen pressure on the consumers as weve turned the corner into january, whether in the form of heating bills or costs related to obamacare. The chains under pressure, the chains going away, if you want to go down the list, its those that are underperforming that havent kept pace with this shift. That was suggested this is a totally different story than weather. Yeah, for a certain extent, youre absolutely right. Its definitely not the only story, but it has been a big story. What weve seen this winter is that consumers are buying only needs. Theyre going to certain locations. Sbarro, they took a hit as well. For them,c the impact from weather is on traffic. If people arent coming in because of the weather, theres an impact there too. Theyre getting ready to file bankruptcy for a second time. Maybe as early as next week. Courtney, that is a story right now. Youre finding out who the real weak links are in the industry when the snow does fall here. Yeah, sure. Exactly. Some retailers would say, look, we were weak across the board. If you look at the regional differences, where we had the heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures, we were weaker still. There are ways to parse through and see what hit when and where. But not all companies are as forthcoming with that information. Cato corp. Is another company that reported. Its a retailer mainly based in the southeast. Theyre blaming weather. We saw atlanta and parts of the carolinas get hit by those freezing temperatures. It paralyzed those areas. That was a real trouble spot. Evan, its interesting though. Rick even made this point yesterday. Are so many of these retail chains just one snowstorm away from bankruptcy . I certainly dont know about that. The ones that can manage it well can actually, you know, do well and plan their inventory appropriately. Certainly were not out of the woods yet. We talked earlier about those high home heating bills. As people get those bills in the mail over the next couple weeks, thats going to have an impact on march. You know, one of the good news things to think about here, we have a later easter this year. Thats obviously a big spending period. So a later easter, spring will come, things will warm up. But were not out of the woods yet. And to that point, there was a survey just out today of diners who said they plan to spend 9 less this year. 9 less on eating out. Thats a big, big number there, courtney. That doesnt help. I mean, thats a sign of the mindset of the consumer out there right now. Their price conscious and trying to keep to buying the basics right now. Sure. I would say that actually might be even more troubling all of these data points for the casual dining space. Those are sales that when you lose them, theyre really gone. You dont make those up. Youre only going to eat so much every day. Youre not going to save the meal you missed because you had a lower paycheck and move it into next week. Thats really gone. Thats a bit more concerning to me than maybe what some of the retailers are reporting. And just curious because we are having this discussion about all of the pressure the consumer is under. On the same day we found out in the Fourth Quarter of last year u. S. Household net worth hit 80 trillion, up 17 since its prior peak. The point still being, i guess, that what looks like is happening across the economy is to apaq,tent concentrated among those at the top. I think thats really the case. Even though weve come a long way in a lot of different areas, there are still a lot of folks that feel very differently or spent very differently than they did before the financial crisis and before we went through all of these hardships. We may never be able to shake that. I think theres a difference among different income classes. Wait until spring when it warms up. It may not come. So i hear. Those of you in florida, i know its already warm there. Florida and the southwest. Thos