Same. Were pretty much at session highs. At the high today, the dow was up 90 points. So, again, we are at 85. Yesterday we saw some buy orders on the close, so well keep a close eye on it here, and on apple, tyler, in particular. Yeah, it could close at 100 or so for the First Time Since splitting 7 for 1, and that means apple would be back at 700 on a presplit basis. Say that five times fast. Well monitor how apple finishes during this final hour of trading. And could we see dow 18,000 this year . Professor Jeremy Siegel thinks so. Hes here exclusively, with no surprise, a pretty bullish market call for this year, and for perhaps beyond. Well get into the details with him and talk about valuation as well, coming up. And how about that new deal from sprint . Did you hear about it . 20 gigs a month of data for 100, but there is one catch, youve got to be a new customer. So, what about someone whos been with sprint for years . Why do they have to pay more . And this isnt unique to sprint. Longtime customers get the short end of the stick from their insurance companies, maybe even their cable companies. Today we will find out what you can do about it. Yes. And heres where we stand in markets. As mentioned, the dow back above 16,900 as it eyes that 17,000 mark again. The s p 500 up 10 points to 1,981. The nasdaq at another, i believe, tyler, here during the trading session today, booking another 13year high at 4,527. 14year, excuse me. And joining our closing bell exchange, Peter Anderson from Congress Wealth management, Quincy Krosby from prudential financial, John Rutledge from safanod and terry dolan from benjamin and gerald brokerage, and our very own rick santelli. One and all, welcome. Let me begin with you, peter. The market seems extraordinarily, maybe even unnervingly resilient right now. Is there anything out there that is worrying you . Well, of course. I mean, were all worried about something, right . But let me just first say that the optimism is promising, because weve got pretty good growth today, right, with low inflation. However, and thats a big however, lets not let that get to our heads. Thats just one data point. So, i think further down this year, what we will see is some tips of inflation, and thats whats going to cause us some worry, tyler, is how are we going to react on that . Are we going to react to that in a calm fashion or are we going to really have our head spun all around . So, the market has to factor that in, and we should start thinking about that now. I mean, its great that things are looking great today, but lets talk about the next couple of months and how we are going to be prepared to respond when we start to see some inflation picking up. You know, the amazing thing, and well get into some of this with Jeremy Siegel in a bit, but John Rutledge, the concern on a lot of Equity Investors minds, given that Everything Else looks benign, is well, what if we get higher growth and higher inflation . Today the cpi index retreated relative to the growth weve seen in the past five or six months, import prices, producer prices, you name it, the pipeline pressures are pretty weak. So, whats it mean if the inflation we thought perhaps that was finally starting to pick up a little bit is acquiescent . Well, like Arnold Schwarzenegger said, it will be back. And so, this is a temporary respite. You know, weve got a gulf stream force working here, which is 4 trillion of Bank Reserves being turned into loans. Thats whats making the economy grow. Thats whats making the pressure on wages and prices that were starting to see. Were going to see more of that later. On top of that gulf stream, weve got these little waves we see. Throw a dart at a map today and youre going to hit a revolution or a civil crisis of some kind in the world. So, the market goes up and down with that. But the pressure is for the market to rise and will continue being so. At some point in the next year or so, were going to see that pressure show up as rising Pricing Power for companies, which will give them rising margins and better Earnings Growth. That will give us more support. So, a choppy market, but up is the direction. So, john, let me just follow up on that. You seem to be implying that its not with all of that reserves on bank balance sheets, excuse me, the reserves in the system flooding the system, that you dont think its going to end well. Do you, or can it . Well, it starts out well. Its like drinking too much at a party. It feels really good in the beginning and you have a headache at the end. The inflation will come sooner or later. The best asset class today for me is real estate. The number two asset class is private equity. Why . Because graham dodd has killed small banks ability to lend to Small Businesses, which is why the job numbers are so weak and the feds so nice. But big banks are gushing out money to private equity firms, hedge funds and m a borrowers. So, the best bet to do is to buy somebody who borrows money from big banks to buy little companies. Those are Companies Like private equity firms, you know, blackstone, apollo, kkr, carlisle, those kind of guys. Thats an interesting point. And terry dolan, let me turn to you. Im so glad that john just mentioned real estate, because i remember the ceo of cantor fitzgerald, Howard Lutnik telling us this program, once it dawned on him that we could talk about a better growth environment without necessarily a big increase in rates that real estate was a nobrainer and theyve moved aggressively into commercial real estate. Youre starting to see it across cities that arent just toptier cities in the u. S. Benefiting with cranes all over the place. What do you think the outlook is for real estate and commercial real estate here . Would you be as bullish . Well, i am very bullish on real estate as a result of a natural hedge against inflationary expectations in the future, as was pointed out. I think right now were in a luxury situation where, you know, Consumer Prices have been really benign and were looking now at wage growth as our benchmark for inflation, at least from the feds standpoint. So, when you look out the time horizon, and again, ill go with the idea that inflation will be back, real estate has always traditionally been a great place to have your money. Its a tangible asset and it bodes well with inflation. Rick santelli, tie it all together for us. The other guests seem to be concerned about inflation. It hasnt been around in a long time. Weve been talking about it for a long time. What do you think . Well, i think inflation reminds me a bit of the stock market. If you look at the ppi index or the cpi index in many of its reconstituted forms over the years, it basically always goes up. Its one of the few areas we dont allow a correction. The minute you get a correction on an index, all central bankers start crying 1930s again, deflation. I dont think were ever in my lifetime in a developed economy going to see deflation. I do think, not the kind that we had in the 30s, anyway. I think the healing process needs lower prices, especially in europe, to get competitive. So, Central Banks are working at odds with a significant component of the healing process. The models still in place. We have jackson hole. I am sure janet yellen can find something in slack in the labor market or the tame pipeline on inflation, even though cpi headline has been at 2 or higher now four months running. And i once again contend, if you look back at the very first fed organizational meeting 100 years ago, since then, the dollars had 2,225 inflation. Let me ask quincy on this. Quincy, its true there are places like peripheral europe where deflation could help to be part of the solution here. And again, on the consumer side, as we see with sprint today, it can be good news. The trouble is when you have high debt levels across the society and you have to pay down those with dollars that are losing their value. Again, as tyler was saying, kind of help us get some perspective on this and the fact that inflation here in the u. S. Still is and remains quite low and what that does mean for investing in equities here. Well, you know, it becomes attractive, but you know, the Small Business owners have been telling us in their surveys that they are actually going to have to raise wages. And they usually come first. And then when you tie it in with housing, lets just face it, when we see those housing numbers move higher, it is based on, its predicated on consumers saying that they are feeling better about their own situations. We are seeing fewer purchases from Institutional Investors in housing, and that usually is a precursor to higher wages and inflation. So, it is in the pipeline. The question is where in the pipeline is it. Its not a science, and thats the key. And i think once lending picks up, it is telling you that were seeing inflation. Were seeing pickup in lending, by the way, which means borrowing demand from commercial real estate. Thats the first time weve seen it in many, many years. Its been about 30 weeks now where that has picked up, telling us that at the very core that were going to start seeing prices start to pick up and wages, and that is inflationary. Is it good . Well, ultimately, higher wages is good. Its what the fed does and their reaction that could create the volatility for the equity markets. You know, peter, i think it was you who said that, actually, a little more inflation isnt necessarily a bad thing, because it will mean that companies will have some Pricing Power. That can turn into higher profits, so long as they manage their costs, most especially their labor costs well. Did i hear you right on that . And that could be good news for equities as earnings go up. Yes. Yes, you did hear me right. Thats one of my fundamental tenants during this whole troubled times is, you know, a little inflation is not a bad thing. And im looking forward to that, because that will be Pricing Power. Now, the next step in that calculus is to ask yourself, well, where would i go, what kind of companies would i buy that might have the most exposure, positive exposure to rising prices. And those, of course, are the companies that have high fixed costs, or whats known in our business as high operating leverage. So, you look for companies that can raise the price of their revenue but not have additional variable costs, and thats going to go more to the bottom line. So, high capitalintensive companies, such as caterpillar, for instance, or united rental equipment, any of those companies should do better once we start to get even a 25 basis point hike. You know, thats kind of small, but that will signal to the rest of us that the economy continues on the upswing and those companies should do better. And its funny you mentioned caterpillar. Thats one that has rebounded nicely here in the last couple of sessions. Guys, well leave it there with a big thank you for the perspective this hour. Good to see everybody. We have 50 minutes to go into the close and the dows up 88 pin points, pretty much at allday highs. Thats 0. 5 . Same for the s p. Wharton professorer eer jere siegel will speak to us exclusively on whether the bulls are here to stay and why he sees dow 18,000 this year. Aeropostale is doing is, so is jcpenney. The revolving door in retail and if bringing back former ceos can fix the stores and reinvigorate cash registers. Later, meet the mom who got sick of her kids ignoring her phone calls, so she developed an app to make them call her back by disabling their phones so the only number they could call was hers. That mom is here. Dont touch that phone, remote, whatever. I make a lot of purchases for my business. And i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. Like 50,000 bonus points when i spent 5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. And i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at Office Supply stores. With ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. Travel, gift cards, even cash back. And my rewards points wont expire. So you can make owning a business even more rewarding. Ink from chase. So you can. All right, there you go. Dow industrials up 87 points, 19 points higher for the nasdaq at 4,527 and the s p at 1,982, a almost 11point gain there. Kelly . As the old saying goes, one mans junk is anothers treasure, that holding true in todays market as well with a different kind of junk, as Retail Investors ditched highyield bonds, Institutional Investors are snatching them up. Thats what the wall street journal is saying adds up to over a net 13 billion of late. Joining us now to take a deeper look into why Retail Investors are steering clear of junk bonds while institutional money is diving in is michael cassner from halliard asset management, and our jeff cox, who is writing about this topic on cnbc. Com. Michael, did a dog whistle go off . Why did Retail Investors start to shed junk . Well, i think there was a couple of things going on. If you look at the highyield market relative to the s p two months ago, both were trading at highs. Both took a nosedive, and since that time, the s p has rallied up to almost the previous high, while the junk bond market has only retraced about half of those gains. So, i think that Retail Investors were spooked by the illiquidity, while Institutional Investors still see this as a relative profit opportunity versus stocks. Should we trace this back, jeff, blame even janet yellen and her testimony on capitol hill, when between that and other comments, i believe she specifically called out high yield by name as a sector she was worried about. Did that spook retail . Its a i dont think , as much as te relative valuations. I think retail expected the market to trade in a very more even fashion. And when we saw the illiquidity in july and the Sheer Velocity at which the market fell, i think that spooked investors. I think its a great question, kelly. One of the things that caught my eye first of all, let me just say that this is part of a summertime of derisking for Retail Investors. We talked friday about the fund flows coming out of mutual funds. One number that really caught my eye is 63 . Thats the amount of recent junk bond issuance thats been cccrated. Ccc bonds are just above the type of bonds that would come from companies that are on the verge of filing bankruptcy. So, i think what the markets going to have to well, one other point, too, is that when you look at the spreads, the spreads on ccc bonds are actually at postcrisis lows. So, when you bring in the fed, the question as far as the fed goes is are these things priced correctly or are they priced incorrectly, the victim, again, of price distortions from ultraeasy fed policy . Michael, who got this right, the retail folks or the pros . And whod get it right right now . Is now the time to go buy junk . Well, to answer the first question first, i think that the Retail Investors got it correct. And i think what janet yellen did, by keeping Interest Rates so low, the investor looks to the treasury market and sees a 10year yield of 2. 25 and you add 50 basis points on to that and thats where you are in investment grade. In the junk market, the average yield is between 5 and 6 , so they move towards that market. Institutional investors need to be invested, so they will look for opportunities to buy, whereas retail can be actually a little bit more smart about their investments and exit that market when they think its too expensive. Yeah, and youve got to but wait a minute, i mean, is this really the right thing for those individual investors to do, jeff, if we some of the other institutions buying in include people like pimco, who said they sold out of the wrong stuff. They loved the prices and the yields that they were then able to get in and buy this stuff up at. Well, you have to extrapolate this, kelly. If youre trading these things, if youre the shortterm view on them, yeah, you want to take advantage of price distortions. But if youre looking at the longerterm picture, the saying what Warren Buffett talks about, you dont know whos swimming naked until the tide goes out, well, the tide could start to go out on these in a hurry and if you start to see some of these companies that are basically Zombie Companies who have been able to come to the market and borrow cheaply, now all of a sudden those bonds start to mature and they cant borrow at those levels anymore, you start to have a real problem in this market. And i think thats what the Retail Investor is reacting to. Michael, junk has been a great place to be over the past five years or so, outperforming equities. In fact, are you buying it now . I take it youre not. No. Were at a very low level and just a few issues in the junk market. I mean, the markets come from a yield to maturity of roughly 2 to 5 6 currently, so we think theres a lot left in that market. To add to the previous point about Retail Investors concern is theres a dramatic drop in liquidity in the junk bond market because of dodd frank. What we saw in july is when investors wanted to cash in their bonds, the street didnt want to buy them, and you saw an exasperation in the price drop. Yeah, as one smart guy has recently put it, the credit market is always liquid as long as youre a buyer, and that seems to have been true again in july. So, fair point, and well watch those conditions there carefully. Its going to impact everybody. Michael kastner, thank you. Jeff cox, thank you as well. Thank you very much. Weve got about 40 minutes before the closing bell. The dow is up about 87 points. The s p with about a 0. 5 gain as well. Up next, do former ceos have the right stuff to breathe ne