So were 15 points away from that or thereabouts. Sure. Getting close. Apple also hitting new highs. Its like a market of its own. We have the analyst who just hiked his price target on the stock to 150 and satisfiesys this company is on the way to a 1 trillion market company. In case you hadnt heard, the buzz is theyre working on a car now. That would be one of the new projects. Well look into that a little later. Lets show you how the markets are trading today. Hasnt been the most volatile session. A lot of eyes on the negotiations between the eu and greece on the debt negotiations. Something else we will talk about, but right now the dow is up 12 points. 22 points away from an alltime high. Do i have that right . Yes. The sn is p is up 1. 45 in record territory. Look at the nasdaq 5,000plus is the old alltime high set back in march of 2000 and, boy, are we getting cleser. These are the round level that is will get people talking, talking about the tech cycle this time whats different versus last time and whats not and how risky is it. Lets talk about it all. We have a lot to get to in our the closing bell exchange. We have mark joining us today. Ken from Money Matters is with us at the big board. Hes also author of buy hold and sell. Also with us today Gerard Fitzpatrick from russell investments, Michelle Carusocabrera is here to discuss the situation with greece, and rick santelli, of course, is joining us from chicago. So michelle start us off. This is what has captivated a lot of traders over the weekend and today. Whats the latest how do they stand right now as those negotiations continue . So the market has moved higher on reports that greece was finally going to ask for an extension of the bailout program. I have been communicating with greek government officials. I just emailed back and forth with a greek government spokesperson, and here is clarity. They say they are not going to ask for an extension of the bailout program. They may ask for an extension of the loan agreement. Again, this is a conversation via email but it sounds like they are going to try to ask for the money but not necessarily the conditionality that goes with it and its not even a certain thing at this point. So thats where we stand right now. A lot of parsing of words and im not sure that the move that we saw in the markets was necessarily justified. Im not sure it brings them closer together but theyre trying really hard to get to something that on paper is acceptable to both of them. And lets bring people up to speed here on how this has affected the markets today. It was a dow jones headline earlier we saw markets turn positive for the first time when they said greece intends to ask for a bailout extension on wednesday citing an official. Michelle, in the meantime whats happened is the Financial Times story thats talking about 10 billion of outflows from greek banks or euros, im sorry about 10 of the deposit base. If Mohamed Elerian was here he would say all that matters is the pace of outflows. We have the ecb meeting tomorrow at which they apparently according to this report have to discuss whether to keep providing emergency liquidity assistance to the greek banks. They can decide any day they will do a teleconference and decide if theyre going to pull the emergency liquidity assistance from greece. Its my understanding based on people who were in the room yesterday that they dont think that happens tomorrow. The reason were talking about tomorrow is because its every wednesday that the governing council meets. But if things start to look very, very bad if we start to see deposit outflows become very extreme and the ecb concludes that greece has just become too much of a bad credit risk, they could say, okay were not going to support greece and the greek banks anymore, and then you could really see a squeeze. Think cyprus where youre going to have to have capital controls, et cetera. My reporting indicates unlikely tomorrow unless something very very ugly has happened today. Mark what do you make of all this . You know you have to make money for your clients. What are you doing with this in its meantime . Well one, bill we try to put some context on it and say ultimately we think the risk of a contagious from the greek government walking away from the bailout discussions and taking with it greeces participation in the euro as unlikely and as a result we think that it should not move investors attitudes towards being involved in equities which we think will withstand any kind of short to intermediate disruption as a consequence of the distortion created by that threat. That said we continue to like european equities at large over u. S. Equities and weve already been rewarded for having that advocacy so far this year as the valuation disparity is beginning to close as news across the euro area in the aggregate is improving. You know let me pivot a little bit and talk about this from a rates point of view. Thats the other interesting development. You have the 10year back above 2. 1 from below 1. 7 not terribly long ago. How does the u. S. Outlook for rates relate back to the concern about greece . Three years ago when greece hit the headlines, treasuries would rally very strongly. Look how the treasury market has responded. Were not so concerned. You can see where treasury yields have increased up to 2. 15 . So basically the market looking at it saying not so much of a concern with greece and coupled with pretty strong wage information coming through from the u. S. And strong employment numbers. Were really traveling through a period of real selloffs within treasuries. Looking at the year ahead, i think we have seen the biggest move in the treasuryies so far. A 50 bit move in a month, i dont see that happening again. We do believe the treasury yields are going up. Were expecting between 2. 50 and 3 . Enough good news coming through from the u. S. Domestic market and subsiding and receding inflationary risk would cause yields to go up but against that you look at the wider global bond market particularly germany with yields down 35 basis points thats going to put a certain ceiling. We think theyre going up but not shooting up. Ken, it would appear the u. S. Equity markets not concern eded about greece leaving the eurozone eurozone. Yet were close to alltime high for the nasdaq. Are you buying at these levels . Well certainly right now greece is the word. Its got groove and its got meaning. But i think youve been waiting all weekend to say that havent you . Exactly. Yes, i have. You know five years ago when we had the big greece problem and in 2011 is the same at that time it was a surprise. It was kind of scary. Nobody was really prepared for it, but now weve had five years to prepare for it so i think if you get caught in a greek issue right now, its your own fault. I think most people have taken the precautionary measures so youre out of europe . Is that what that means . No were fully invested not out of europe at all. In fact if this whole issue with greece turns into a down in the market i would see that as a buying opportunity because people have prepared for five years for this. If it happens its like a boxing match. The punch that knocks the guy out is the punch that he didnt see. The punch that hes expecting, he can take that all day long. But my point is this if the obvious thing for investors to do is protect themselves in this case but youre saying that youre long europe then either youre saying that youre not worried about this outcome or that its going to play out in a different part of the market in which case investors couldnt protect themselves or could they . Im saying for example Bond Investors should at this point have protected themselves from the possibility of a greek exit or a greek default and so therefore, the affect of that happening would be muted. So, therefore, if the market reacts to it emotionally and it goes down i think the basic fundamentals are there to support that it will come back. So im not worried about it right now. I think the market will play through this. Rick santelli when i left on vacation 11 days ago, we were talking about much lower yields for the 10 and the 30. Oil was still comfortably below 50 a barrel. Now everything is rising. Is that are they working together on this or bring me up to date. Whats going on here . Well i think the move in treasury rates has been well telegraphed. The market hasnt acted really correct since the january 22nd ecb meeting. We now have the difference between 10year yields and 10year bunds at the widest its been since, well 1989 26 years. I dont think it has anything to do with greece directly. I think most of the traders i talk to think its great water cooler talk but extend and pretend is what they believe will occur. If they were worried about greece why would they be selling treasuries . With regard to the way the socket is acting many are saying rates are going up because the u. S. Is so great. The National Association of home blrs dropping to 55 was the reason they picked today to sell treasuries because of the economy . I think its about europe and i think its really simple. I think march is getting closer. Qe is getting closer and they can now see the chimney and they can envision santa going down it. Does that mean rick you think yields for example, in germany are going to start moving back up if this quantitative easing comes and the greece situation doesnt disrupt markets . No, i think quantitative easing u. S. Style will be traded by Global Investors like they did in the u. S. They will be buying equities and the high quality sovereigns. I think that spread tells me the distance is going to get even wider between the two maturities which by the way, we settled at 67, right where were at in two years. Settled at 1. 65 in 10s. And 2. 75 in 30s. Im telling you, you could take all the fundamentals and put it in a baggie and drop it in Lake Michigan. The only thing thats going to matter in the next 48 hours is if we get on the wrong side of last years settlement. Lets not forget you drop it on Lake Michigan its going to thunk today, its not going to sink. Thats true. Last word michelle. The markets, the way theyre acting here, you know this could end tomorrow i guess. If Angela Merkel agreed to it. If people just finally agreed to what we know is going to happen or are we being complacent about this . Is it still possible that greece leaves the euro . I think theres an assumption out there that the markets are pricing in that somehow everybody comes to a deal. Id go a step further. Everybody what the markets might be pricing in is they dont care if greece gets a deal or not. Its not that clear. I think if it happens, its a big watershed moment historical moment for the euro for the european union, et cetera but so far the markets keep telling us they dont think its going to be a big market event. Its been so advertised and yet very little response. Michelle thank you so much for your reporting on this hour as we try to follow it everybody. Thank you for joining us. 20 is the number of points the dow is higher. Were looking for 18,050 and change. The s p though not only closing here potentially at a new record if it stays positive but maybe, bill above the 2,100 mark for the first time. The bigger threat to the u. S. Economy right now is the ongoing west coast port dispute costing the economy billions of dollars every day. When we come back the ceo of the port of long beach itself tells us whether theres any end in sight to this costly fight. Thats coming up. And apple hitting another new high today. Coming up well hear from one analyst who says this hot stock is set to rally another 17 , maybe more. Were back in a moment. Kid hey dad, who was that man . Dad hes our broker. He helps looks after all our money. Kid do you pay him . Dad of course. Kid how much . Dad i dont know exactly. Kid what if youre not happy . Does he have to pay you back . Dad nope. Kid why not . Dad it doesnt work that way. Kid why not . Vo are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed . Wealth management at Charles Schwab my name is bret hembree. I am an electric crew foreman out of the cupertino service center. I was born and raised in the cupertino area. Its a fantastic area to work. The new technology that we are installing out in the field is important for the customers because system reliability i believe is number one. Pg e is always trying to plan for the future and we are always trying to build something stronger and bigger and more reliable. I love living here and i love the community i serve. Nobody wants to be without power. I dont want my family to be without power. Its much more personal to me for that reason. I dont think theres any place i really would rather be. Here is the number to write down and clutch to your bosom for the next 40 minutes, its 18,053. 71. We close above that on the dow, you have an alltime high. Were getting closer to it. S p already in record territory. Any positive close will do it and the nasdaq is getting darn close to that. Weve been saying it for a long time. Its been at a 14year high but were almost back to the old alltime high set back in march of 2000. Im thinking some good primes on that number to keep an eye on here. Its a round number on the s p 500 that were looking for. About 2,100 and nasdaq 4,900. Thomas perez is in San Francisco tooted to today to try to solve the port dispute between dockworkers and their employers. The disagreement has plagued 29 ports on the west coast causing supply disruptions in cars to food to electronelectronics. Its costing about 1 billion a day. According to the ceo of the port of long beach, he joins us in this cnbc exclusive. Thank you for joining us today. So much to talk about. I guarantee you, people take for granted the importance of these ports in our nation and they do that until theyre missing something or theyre paying more for something because of these port disputes. Now, with he know labor secretary perez is there in San Francisco to mediate. Have you had any education of whether theyre making progress in these talks right now . Theyve been at it all weekend and obviously secretary perezs involvement is a welcome addition. Weve got a great mediator that has been assigned by the white house, and since hes been involved, its been a tremendous amount of progress made on the talks. So i can only imagine that secretary perezs involvement is going to aid these talks and get this to conclusion. I mean were so close. I cant imagine they cant resolve this very very soon. Let me just quote one viewer, john, who writes in to say doesnt this make a great argument for breaking up both the manage getment and the union monopolies as an antitrust effort here . Its an issue thats got to be addressed. The impact on the economy is so great that certainly a lot of those discussions are going to take place. Now, i know that youre working on upgrading the port of long beach. You want the port of the future. How much of that has played a role in all of this . I mean you know disruptions, the infrastructure issues we faced, getting these ships in and out of port in an efficient manner so the economy can keep chugging along. Where do weigh stand on all that . How important is that . Its critically important. Weve been investing billions of dollars. Were currently in a 4. 5 billion Infrastructure Program as we speak. About halfway through that. A lot of it has to do with increased capacity for handling these very very large container vessels that are now coming into port, particularly on the west coast. We are handling the largest vessels making the run between asia and the west coast. These are 14,000 container vessels. They dwarf anything that weve seen in the past and these are small compared to whats being built right now. So that infrastructure and the ability to handle big ships is really calling for a tremendous amount of investment at the port level. And at the same time as i understand it, you are not represented in the labor negotiations between the Maritime Association and the union. So how frustrated are you . How involved can you get to come to a resolution here . Do you just feel as though you were sitting on the sidelines . I was dark haired about two weeks ago so the frustration levels are pretty high. What can do you . What kind of leverage are you bringing to the table if youre the entity severely impacted by this . Our job is to facileitate as much of the positive outcomes as we can. We are certainly doing everything we can, including reaching out through our political structure to the white house and the white house has responded. We have worked as hard as we can to make sure that both sides know and feel what the ultimate customers are feeling in this entire process, and it is a severe amount of pain right now. I keep reading how long it would take to get things back to normal again. I want to hear it directly from you. Assuming they get something done by this weekend, i mean i dont know if thats realistic or not, how long before we start to see that backlog diminished enough to where we can get back to normal in terms of shipping here in the u. S. . Well we have as of this moment we have about 32 ships at anchor, 22 of them are container vessels. That is an enormous and almost record level of backlog sitting out at anchor. Our actual terminals, the actual operations that handle all these, we have six Container Terminals at long beach alone, and those are at above 95 physical capacity. So the challenge of digging out from this is immense. Its epic. Weve not ever experienced this before, and, of course this is tied to these very very large vessels that are now calling upon the ports. Once a Labor Agreement is signed, we will engage our recovery plans, which involve both our Terminal Operators as well as all of our port assets in providing as much Available Space as necessary to clear this freight out. You didnt really answer my question. Are we talking nine months or so to get things back to normal . Is that what i keep reading . Is that true . No, thats not true. We think that were going to make tremendous headway within about six to eight weeks. Okay. Well certainly be back to normal by our next peak which is really the september time frame. All right. We wish everybody the best. Get Something Back together there. Thank you for joining us today. Youre welcome. Thank you so much. We have a news alert now on a drone development. Hampton pearson has that story. Thats how we can solve this shipping problem, hampton. Well not exactly. This is an announcement from the state