Mortgage . Cnbcs Senior Correspondent has a great piece about it today on cnbc. Com, for a lot of homeowners is it a great idea or not such a great idea . Sharon will join us what do you say . Well, tyler, you know this is a question that many Financial Advisers have to answer as well for their clients, and, of course housing debt is a major concern for boomers since for many it is their biggest expense. Data from the demand institute shows that the median outstanding mortgage balance for 50 to 69 yearold household, more than doubled from nearly 49,000 in 1992 to 118,000 in 2013. Since most boomers plan to stay in their current home in retirement they may be saddle with the debt for decades more. Why get rid of it . Advisers say not so fast. Balance paying off the mortgage with saving and retirement crunch numbers first. A well diversified portfolio returning 7 in the long run is better than paying off a mortgage with 3 or 4 for many boomers. Boomers find maximizing retirement contributions, paying off higher debt like credit cards and building up Emergency Savings is a better use of their money. Fascinating questions. I just refinanced by the way, to a 15year loan to try to retire my debt quicker. I may have done the wrong thing. I had some personal reasons why i did that which i wont go into here, but diana, a real estate expert joining us now. What do you think of this . I mean, sharon makes an excellent point. In retirement cash is king. The more of it you have the more Financial Flexibility you have. Its very intuitively appealing to pay down mortgage debt, but youre really boosting home equity, which is to say putting money in an illliquid asset . Exactly. I mean, sharon made a lot of very good points but youre right. I also have a 15year fixed, and the problem is that so many of us are so debt averse because of the financial crisis we dont want any dealt on our homes, especially because home prices can fall. Really fact of the matter is you shouldnt be aggressively paying off the mortgage if youre an older american because money is better invested elsewhere. If rates were 10 or 12 or 8 thats something different, but this is below 4 for 30 year fixed, 15 year fixed, or an awe justble right, seven year arm. If youre moving sometime soon and that way you decide when you put money into your home and when you dont want to put money into your home because the fact of the matter is, that money is not doing much for you in your home, and we know that prices have bottomed out in most markets and going up slowly. I think its a better bet to put the money somewhere else. Sharon as pointed out, Mortgage Rate is really key here. Those who have not yet refinanced and have high Mortgage Rate probably not many out there, but theres some then you know theres the question, is it better to pay that down because perhaps they cant refinance for various reasons. For most people they need to look at their Retirement Savings, which they dont think about, and dont forget if youre maxing out retirement contributions at work or with an ria, you get a tax break there too. Its not like you miss out on the tax side. All right. I add to that remember there are a lot of new programs out there for folks who are even under water on their mortgages, that they can refinance into lower rates. Folks dont know about that thinking i cant refinance because i dont have equity. You can. All right folks how does the calculus change if youre younger, 30 or 40 years old. I was just going say i will toss it to someone a long way from retirement, and thats you. Is probably smart enough to be living debt free. Melissa . You are contributing to a bunch of pots at the same time, maxing out the Retirement Savings, thats key because, again, you want flexibility with your investments, and thats why you do that. Also, you could be aggressively paying down debt. One part we did not talk about is Emergency Savings, folks do not have because they do not put that an auto pilot so they dip in Retirement Savings or take out a home equity line of credit to pay off bills. Dont do that. Make sure you have liquid cash for Emergency Savings, Retirement Savings as well as being able to pay down that mortgage if you have that extra money to do so. A lot of great advice guys thank you so much. Breaking news in the bond market, 30 year bonds up for auction. Dom . Melissa, 30year bond auction or the reopening, the reselling of 29 year ten month bonds gone off at yield of 2. 97 , comparing to a 2. 567 yield right before the auction, a limit weakness in bond prices pushing yields higher. Interesting statistics the bid to cover ratio was 2. 28 18 weaker than the average over the last ten of these auctions a 2. 46, that curtesy of street account. They calculate that indirect participation, indirect bidders, came in at 51. 3 , higher than the overall ten auction average of 48. 64 as provided by street account. Again, indirect bidders important because they represent those foreign and Central Banks as part of the particular group. Again, we are moving to the highest levels of the session on that 30year treasury note on the heels of the auction. Again, 2. 597 yield coming in a little higher than it was when we went into the particular auction. Melissa, back to you. Dom chu, thank you. Delays, tarmac times, mishandled bags, how did airlines do throughout the brutal winter snow . We have the new data out. Phil . Melissa, these are numbers from the department of transportation looking at how the airlines did in february, and, remember we had a series of storms particularly in the northeast that made flying around this country a nightmare. Heres the best airlines in terms of ontime percentage, and by the way, industry overall 7 on time, but alaska hawaii and delta the tom three. In the bottom theres envoy air, American Eagle as it is now, frontier and jetblue, not surprising given what we saw happening in boston which is its hub. How much damage storms caused, 16 flights delayed three hours in february, eight delayed at least four hours, and check this out, one flight between frankfurt and jfk, folks on that flight february 2 sat on the tarmac for seven hours. Look at shares of the airline index, keep in mind that the airlines have had a tough sled over the last three months in part because so many people moved them higher melissa, at the beginning of this year or end of last year because of what we saw happening with jet fuel prices, and that trade has really pulled back over the last six weeks or so. Its down 4 year to date. Back to you. All right, still digesting seven hours on the tarmac. Phil lebeau thank you very much. Never been more than four cant imagine seven. Knock on wood phil, knock on wood. How are stocks fairing at 1 08 p. M. Eastern time . The dow is hugging the flat line s p flat, pretty much across the board where we see the most action, if you call it that, the russell 2,000 small caps down a third percent. Bob is on the floor with the action. Bob . Hey, melissa. Sideways action. I want to show the s p 500 because it sure looks like people were selling the u. S. To buy europe. Europe had a great day. Down thats 1130 the low point where europe closed. We move positive, but largely sideways. Germany, you see what i mean here ux here, buys europe throughout the day, the imf loan installment, we are near historic highs in germany, but everybody up 1 to 2 in europe today. Oil stocks ho hum, xop, again, up, down up down all this week, the week for this. We were on the verge of breaking out on tuesday. I was very excited, and then oil couldnt get over 54 and fell apart, everything came back down again. Oil has to rise more for us to get back up. I dont know when thats happening. Treasury yields up this week. Watching some of the Interest Rate sensitive vehicles . Huh . You notice reits down Home Construction utilities. Timely guys markets not cheap. Throw in high stock prices, lower earnings outlook, and Economic Uncertainty with the potential for higher risks, you get a lot of downside concerns and that, tyler, is why no ones buying or selling anything because they dont have conviction right now. Bob, thank you very much. Would you let your Life Insurance company track your every move . If it meant you get a discount on the policy one of the biggest u. S. Insurers bets you might. The man behind the plan joining us, and the most popular place for a first date. Where would you go . Thats still ahead. [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. If you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution thats right for you. With easy stepbystep guidance, were here to help you turn your dream into a reality. Start your Business Today with legalzoom. Welcome back shares of amc entertainment, the theater chain downgraded to neutral from a buy at mk partners, valuation at a near peak level but believes in renovation strategies. Despite the downgrade they upped the price target to 37 from a prior 35. Still, down by 2. 5 so far. Thank you. General motors halting production of the volt in order to decrease unsold inventory. Theres 70,000 volts to date fewer than original forecast. Walgreens closing 200 lower performancing store in effort to save 1. 5 billion by 2017 and constellation says due to robust cash flow, they are paying shareholders for the first time. Thank you. A potential game changer, certainly a new wrinkle in the insurance industry. John hancock offers discounts and rewards to any consumer who agrees to wear a fitness tracker under a certain plan. The healthier you get, going to the gym or staying tobacco free the more gift cards, points rewards, and discounts on your policy you are eligible for. The tradeoff being your every move potentially, could be tracked. Thoughts now from the man behind the plan john hancock, welcome to power lunch. Tell me how it works. Are we right saying potentially every moves are tracked . As i understand it what you get if you sign up for this program, which i gather is both available in a term life or a whole or universal life format is basically a fit bit that tracks your activity or your output, am i right on that or what more does it count that im not aware of . Yeah basically, youre absolutely right. A fitbit basically tracks your activity so theres actually inside a fitbit theres not gps technology, so it does not track your every move, but, basically, our program is really theres a lot of Science Behind it obviously, and data thats straightforward. If we were a Life Insurance company, if our customers are staying healthy, were doing well, well share value back with people. We encourage them to maintain and take small steps to improve their health. I used a fitbit until it petered out on me, frankly, but it linked back to the cell phone or ipad. Does this link up to you guys or what . How does it work . How does it work . So we basically, were giving a fitbit to every customer, but, in fact, this trend, everybodys got different Wearable Technology that they prefer. Our program can work with any of them, but essentially, yes, if you everyones wearing Wearable Technology now, its linking up somewhere. That automatically feeds into our program if they choose it to, and well be able to give people credit for the activities that they are taeking. To stay healthy. Michael, what happens, if i wear one and im a couch potato and i dont have any activity in the day, i just sit around doing nothing. Could that actually bite me later on in terms of paying higher premiums . I mean, could this backfire for a consumer . No, theres in our program, theres no way to get negative points for not doing activity. We reward people engaging in Healthy Lifestyle activities and i guess what we do is let the customer be in charge. So we continue to have our products without this vitality, or you can choose to have vitality rider or not, and even if you choose vitality you can choose the type of information that you want to share with us. Would this be available to all customers, this vitality rider, and vitality is the name of the company that pioneered this over in south africa. Is it available to all customers . Thats number one, and number two, to get greater discounts than those who might be trackable via my fitbit can i report to hancock or vitality, whomever, this is my cholesterol today, went to the gym three times this week and i did whatever else that would help me live a healthier lifestyle . Sure. So yeah the the option is going to be available to all of our customers. Yesterday, we announced this and we got it initially on two products, one universal life product, appealing to all the people who need permanent insurance and one on Term Insurance product appealing to people with a temporary need for income protection. Over time were adding it to as a choice to all of the products that we offer. The fitbit basically it tracks steps, physical activity how vigorous the activity was, but to the second part of the question there, can i report to you other pieces of data some of which might be personal and medical about my level of health . Will that accumulate discount points for me . Yeah, so we have tried to make it so customers can demonstrate their Healthy Behaviors in a number of ways so you could get points for going online and learning about, you know healthy habits. You get point for physical screenings points by showing us some of the key biometrics are in healthy ranges like blood plan cholesterol, et cetera. Most, as a Life Insurance company, were used to collecting personal data at the time of underwriting from the customers customers. The on going information we ask for is really a very small subset of that. Michael, ultimately from a john hancock perspective, its not just to give discounts. You think you save money in the long run . Whats the reason you do this . Absolutely. As i said in the beginning, if we get our customers to live longer healthier lives, we make money. Theres value create. We want to give some of that back to the customers, and were going to give it back to them in the form of significantly lower premiums as well as these discounts and rewards from major brands along the way, and all they have to do is live a healthy life. All right. Well leave it there. Thank you very much. For more on the story, Life Insurance rewards for your data log on to powerlunch. Cnbc. Com. Do you want to be rich . Of course you do. The first thing to do is find out out rich make their money. Robert frank telling us, and, plus, crime and punishment andrea day is on the case. Conning people out of millions in two different schemes but youll never guess how this grandfather spent the cash. Thats coming up right here. Let me talk to you about retirement. A 401 k is the most sound way to go. Lets talk asset allocation. Sure. You seem knowledgeable professional. Would you trust me as your Financial Advisor . I would. I would indeed. Well, lets be clear here. Im actually a dj. [ dance music plays ] [laughs] no way i have no Financial Experience at all. That really is you . If theyre not a cfp pro you just dont know. Find a certified Financial Planner professional whos thoroughly vetted at letsmakeaplan. Org. Cfp work with the highest standard. Master mind behind two schemes brought to justice. Cnbcs andrea day has the crime and punishment. The case came to a wild close in court after being slammed by a federal judge called a serial scammer. How may spend the rest of his days behind bars. This is a serial conman. Lie after lie after lie translator grandfather wheezeled more than 10 million from investors to fuel his appetite for hunting, motorcycles, and fried pies, leaving victims begging their cash. We met with prosecutors in the Eastern District of new york for an exclusive look into the case that left them shaking their heads. Chief of the securities fraud section, winston. He moved from one scheme to another. He says the first company, harbor funding was a farce from the getgo. He essentially promised 100 million in financing to the individuals looking to rebuild the areas of hurricane katrina. There was one big problem. He was already broke at the time. Still he says harbor funding promised there were millions ready to lend but first, they wanted a 10 fee from developers and their clients. He looked straight into the eyes and lied to them. He says lang used escrow accounts with fine print allowing him to take the cash as soon as it was deposited. More than 300 victims from all over the world conned out of cash, like this man from the u. K. Who handed over his life savings. Aside from a small pension left all the lump sum, which was held for a future family is gone. Is millions poured in investigators say lang spent and spent, mortgage Daughters College tuition, trips to vegas, and thats just the beginning. He opened a restaurant called grandma paddles fried pies and ordered planes to hunt for moose, taking friends and family along for the ride and when investors call for money, this is what they heard. My situation is im flat broke. My name is just as bad if not worse than yours on the internet. Im not the one who took the money. There were so many complaints about the lack of funding, and in the midst of that, bill lang spent money to purchase three new Harley Davidson motorcycles. According to the prosecutors, when millions were spent, lang and his associates moved on to another scheme. This time a treasure island. They basically said that they were going to mine the beaches of the island called sitinik islands. Saying there was gold in the sand and sold stock in the company, black sand mine. They had no idea it was founded and controlled byly bill lang. The entire company was sold on lies. For example, they hid all their involvement with harbor funding. Im not here to [ bleep ] around him. I dont give a [ bleep ]. Did you have a gold mine . We had an undercover