chairman ben bernanke said the fed will ease until employment and economy improve. earlier this week he said that the economy is not doing as well as the fed hopes it would be doing. the minutes are expected to show dissent among policy makers but the overall message should match of that bernanke. wile hear from the president of atlanta and indianapolis and dallas. that should give us an idea of who was saying what at that table. >> 14,673 versus 13,100. 18% is not going to do it for me. if you are looking for -- >> for a bullish market. >> 131 to 146. it would be almost flat for the rest of the year. >> bigger? >> yeah. i guess some people would be glad if we just held onto these gains and maybe added to them a little. >> you won't have too many people arguing with 18%. >> we already got it. that would be flat for the rest of the year. kind of flat. you would hold onto gains. it's only the fourth month of the year. only april. we're on a really fast pace. let's not be satisfied. let's keep this pace up. let's keep it going. this is going to help. the president is rolling out his fiscal 2014 budget plan today. details are just crossing the wires. the plan mixes in approximately another 600 billion in revenue. it's revenue. don't even be concerned with that. and a few cuts. these are taxes. the white house says the budget incorporates the president's compromise offer to speaker boehner to achieve another 1.8 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years. interesting numbers in here to get to those deficit reductions. it includes 400 billion in health savings. a crackdown on waste and fraud in medicare and raises $500 billion by limiting high income tax benefits. maximum over 1 million would be 28%. buffet rule goes into effect requiring household incomes over a million to pay at least 30% after charitable giving and taxes. it limits the value of tax deductions as i said for the top 2% to 28% and it ends the rule for carried interest that lets financial managers carry tax on current interest on capital gains tax rates. the white house says the budget proposal includes cuts that the president would not propose without these revenue measures such as adjust the chain inflation index requested by republicans. the president is set to make a statement at 11:00 eastern this morning from the rose garden. might be like the other -- i don't know. we'll see how this is greeted. >> this was supposed to be a budget that was looking at entitlements and proposing cuts. i don't know what they do beyond cpi. >> we've heard that when republicans have been talking about this, you already got your tax increase. he wants another tax increase to agree to same cuts in the first deal when they were looking for the initial amount. there's a lot of investment and infrastructure setting up different innovations centers. the investment as they call it is spending on infrastructure. spending borrowed money once again. we'll see. it's probably going to be met with somewhat tepid response since it includes another 600 billion in tax increases. there are some people we'll hear the slowing economy and bad jobs number was a sequester and some people think it was the first round of tax increases with the payroll tax expiring that is causing low income and middle income people not to spend. >> we talked to david walker yesterday who suggested this would be a step in the right direction in terms of looking for ways to raise revenue and tackle the entitlements. >> he wants to see whether they are serious. it's playing out just as "the new york times" piece from a week and a half ago playing out like clock work. >> good news people on the far right or far left agitated about this and didn't like the budget. he said he thought it was dead on arrival. >> which we're going to hear it's the republicans fault and then we have an election. have you done the math yet? >> i have not. >> how many months? yeah. pelosi is ready to go. >> it's going to be another fight this time around. we will continue to get some of these details but the full details aren't expected until the president speaks at 11:00 eastern time this morning. you'll hear talk about people going over these initial details this morning. there is other washington stories we're watching today. senate negotiators are putting final touches on bipartisan immigration but the major unresolved matter for this bill rules for bringing foreign farm workers to work on poultry and cattle operations labor unions have reached tentative agreement in recent weeks on handling of low-skilled workers from foreign countries who would work as construction laborers, maids and waiters. senator mccain told reporters that senate negotiators are trying to get the bill done this week. we'll talk with tom donahue at 8:00 eastern time. the chamber is also holding a capital markets competitiveness summit in washington today. the planned remarks in them he's expected to say that dodd-frank is falling short. the expectation is he'll say it was built on the hope that regulators would coordinate their approaches and together create a coherent system in spite of the layered structure built on the dream we can make financial services industry less complex and less diverse will jeopardizing access to capital. we are not against regulation. we just want smart regulation. >> let's check on the markets this morning as we said we're at another high in the dow. s&p closing in on another high indicated up another four to six points. we keep cranking along. many say it's money moving into the stock market not getting treated well anywhere else. let's look at the oil boards. still below on 95 at 93.96. almost back to 1.8. euro is recovering. almost 131. closer and closer to 100 on the yen which people say is inevitab inevitable. gold had a good day one of the last few sessions. back to 1589. >> ross, i have to tell you, i have been thinking about what you told us yesterday all night, all day through this morning and talked to a lot of people about it the idea that when you were growing up you were doing your homework by candlelight. that's stunning. i can't get over that. >> that was when we had big power cuts. scheduled power cuts because workers went on strike. we had a three-day working week. there weren't people to drive the power so there were scheduled cuts. you knew at 7:00 the lights would go out or whatever time it was in the winter for a certain number of hours until you got up in the morning. i remember doing candles on. that was the state of the economy in the mid '70s. >> crazy reminder. it's given me a lot to think about. >> i hadn't thought about it for a while. following the record close. you can see on the board behind me, weighted to the upside. 8-1 advancers outpace decliners. dow jones 600 you can see at the best levels for the day. how does that translate? 43-point gain for the ftse. banks are doing well. another pretty good auction today out of italy. they raised money they were looking for. 8 billion on one year and the point is yields continuing to decline from march levels. despite that we still don't have a government we try to negotiate our way to a new president in italy maybe trying to get elections before the summer. that might be a plan. hasn't really bothered investors trading on the technicals and not fundamentals one investor told me today but nevertheless yields are lower at the moment as they are on in spain. plenty of appetite. one of the things we might see from the bank of japan monetary stimulus is japanese investors may go overseas looking for yield. they love fixed income. these two yields may benefit even more from that as well. one stock worth pointing out not here in europe, if you remember the main manufacturer of apple products not great news today. they posteded ed ed a 23.7 decl sales. w that's where we stand right now in europe. back to you. >> okay, ross. we're up 12%. another 6%. people would like that. i don't like that. i want more. 50% above gains so far. >> don't be greedy. >> we deserve it after all this time. and there's so many great things happening like this. u.s. and south korean officials are warning that north korea could carry out a missile test at any time. we're joined from seoul with the latest what can you tell us? >> the latest is that very highly probable north korean missile launch, joe, did not happen today, wednesday, here in korea. today was actually the day that north korea has reportedly set as the deadline for its foreign embassies in north korea to clear out because it said it couldn't guarantee their safety in case of a conflict in this region. it did tell foreigners in south korea to leave as well. south korea did try to play down the warnings, south korea did raise its surveillance level this morning. a u.s. official told reuters that two missiles are believed to have been moved for a launch along its east coast and this is in line with a number of south korean reports that i'm getting today so will they fire it? some experts here say that kim jong-un will have to do something. stage some form of an attack given his own rhetoric in recent weeks but an attack that is limited in terms of the repercussions that it will bring so that he stays legitimate to his own military and people and not go out of line too much with the international community including south korea and the united states. >> you know, things in the east are very hard for us to understand any way. we're not -- either we don't know about the aggressive moves that the west has made or we haven't been told or there haven't been any. this is all sort of his own deal to try to strengthen his position and standing in his own country. i don't know where the aggressive moves of the u.s. or the west -- do we not know about them? there really haven't been any. this is all about him playing with himself more or less. >> exactly. and that's this prolonged duration of tough talk and this tough rhetoric coming out of north korea is having some north korea watchers saying that maybe he really feels the need to quiet down complaints at home and he feels the need to somehow stay legitimate and come out with all of this chest thumping. of course there are usual explanations. he wants to get concessions from relevant countries to tame the new conservative government here in south korea and of course to express its anger over the joint military drills between seoul and washington. >> i guessf had to, he would hang his hat on that there have been joint military exercises. >> he wants sanctions cut too. >> it's about him. it's not about overt moves that we're aggressive from the west that are threatening north korea but i guess he can sell that to his people. thank you. we appreciate it. i worry about you. i don't know whether to or not. i hear people in cafes over there -- >> what's the mood there? is this something that you all look at as not a big deal? >> i don't mean to play down the seriousness of this situation but for example, my colleagues here have dinner plans and they show up at work. it's business as usual. it's pretty calm over here. i don't really feel like i'm working out of a newsroom located in a country that entered a stage of war like north korea said days ago. >> all right. let's hope not. >> thank you very much. we hope to talk to you again in the days to come. we hope it is with better news. thank you. when we come back, we'll talk about what's working now and why some investors are turning to socially responsible investing. >> announcer: before you hit the road, here's your travelers check. a shocking number of americans aren't keeping track of their frequent flyer miles. according to a new study by travel website the points guide.com, 73% of americans who collect travel rewards don't know how many they have. who is least likely to keep track? find out next. 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[ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. yes, you could. i could get used to this. go national. go like a pro. >> announcer: nearly three out of four americans who have frequent flyer miles aren't keeping track of them and the worst offenders? young people. 80% of 18 to 29 year olds who have bank travel awards don't know how many they have. welcome back, everyone. as you can see, the futures are indicated higher this morning. the dow futures up by close to 45 points above fair value and s&p 500 up by five points. in our headlines this morning, leonard lauder is making a major donation to the metropolitan museum of art. he promised the institute his collection of 78 paintings, drawings and sculptures valued at more than a billion dollars. it's one of the greatest collections in the world. there are pictures on the front of "the new york times." >> this is not cable friendly if you're going to show this. it's a nude. that's a nude. >> good luck figuring that out. >> that's a nude. that's a nude. they are right there. >> that's what we saw this morning. >> not only -- you know, she's -- well, we'll just put that forth without comment. >> there were a lot of pictures. >> there are 33 picassos. it will make it one of the greatest collections in the world exceeding -- >> is she reading "the wall street journal"? >> she's reading something. >> or "ladies home journal?" she's reading a journal. >> there is apparently the museum that's getting these, the metropolitan museum of art, there's -- they don't have enough early 20th century art. it's a big deal. who is that? 33 picassos. i don't even know. leger. is that french? i don't know that guy. i'm not going to talk anymore about it. not that stops me from showing my ignorance about other things. >> another picasso. this is head of a man. >> i can recognize that. not sure what i feel about that. >> looks like a car with headlights. >> he's in a bad mood. >> a huge donation. it has gotten a lot of headlines. why don't we talk about the national forecast this morning. the weather channel's julie martin is here. we have certainly been feeling warm weather around here. it reached 80 here yesterday which was a first for us. >> exactly. you are in for another really good day. we have summerlike temperatures on the east coast. we have a winter storm in the middle of the country. severe weather in between. it's a little bit crazy out there. here's what we have going on. showers and storms here in the northeast places like boston will get wet but check this out. washington, d.c., 90 degrees. that would be a record if we meet that today. 80s in miami and then mostly warm and sunny across the southeast but here's where it gets interesting. the mess here in the middle. severe weather in the red zone here all of the way from dallas, houston, up through chicago, indianapolis, possibly some hail and damaging winds maybe a tornado or two but that threat not quite as high as the others. and then on the backside of this we have a potent winter storm that's going to dump a foot of snow in minneapolis. go figure. it is april and it is definitely a mixed bag out there. west coast looks good. lingering showers here in the pacific northwest. nice and sunny in l.a. today. 81 degrees for you. denver by the way hit the teens this morning and you're still going to feel the chill today. here's that severe weather threat i was talking about in more detail stretching from houston up through pittsburgh today. isolated tornadoes with this but hail and damaging winds really going to be the big problem and on the backside of that, snow and wind is tracking across the upper midwest and in fact minneapolis by tomorrow will be waking up to a foot of snow in the city and then all of that pushes eastward. things calm down by friday. it's going to be a rough couple of days for many folks unfortunately in the center of the country. if you live in the east, looking good today. back to you guys. >> thank you very much. we'll take it. it is feast or famine. 30 degrees in the morning to 85 in the afternoon. >> i have no complaints. i can smell the earth thawing. this is great. >> we'll be in hot, muggy stuff soon. we're focusing on socially responsible investing. this is a new twist to the catholic fund. you went to university of detroit mercy. did you go to jesuit school or is there another one i don't know about? >> university of detroit. it is a skjesuit school. >> did you ever have detention? i had a little bit of problem with some of my jesuit friends. you were a good boy, weren't you? >> i wasn't an angel but probably wasn't as bad as you, joe. >> all right. basically you can imagine that i figured this out. if it's a catholic orientated fund, you probably screen out things that catholics either don't believe in or do believe in. what kind of stuff causes you to do different things than a normal fund? >> our funds where we have a catholic advisory board that asks us to screen out companies that support abortion and pornography. we don't screen out things that socially responsible funds focus on. socially responsible funds typically screen out things like companies that are deemed to be polluters, tobacco, firearms, alcohol. we are focused. we screen out abortion, pornography, stem cell research and companies that contribute to planned parenthood. these are core principles of the catholic church. we have done good at it. despite screening out about 150 companies out of the russell 3,000 only 5% of the companies are off the table for our portfolio managers and analysts to consider. >> it would be interesting to look at those. i wonder how many dots you have to connect to pornography, what would qualify. what was that old saying the supreme court justice said when they were trying to define pornography, i know it when i see it. something like that. >> i know it when i see it. >> i figure -- >> does that include entertainment companies that have rappers that sing for them? >> it screens out entertainment companies. screens out hotel companies that show pornography on their tv sets. screens out several of the hollywood studios that have subsidiaries that are engaged in production or distribution of pornography. abortion is a big one. abortion is the focus of our 50,000 shareholders and they are pro-life and pro-family and most drug companies are screened out as well as some insurance companies that pay for abortions and also insurance companies that pay for abortion and hospitals that perform abortions. total is about 150 companies that are screened out. portfolio managers have done a great job of selecting from 2,850 companies that are left and produce excellent investment results for our shareholders. >> let's look at your favorite stocks. how far back can we go to get an annual average return? >> we started in 2001 with the catholic values fund. we have six different funds with different investment objectives. our five-star rated fund is a dividend fund that's been around since 2005. it's double digit returns on average over that time period. so far this year it's already up 11% which we're very pleased with. >> so double digit each year. >> on average, yes. >> can you go into some of the individual names you like in case some of our viewers want to participate in stocks? >> sure. one of our large holdings is ross stores. off-price retailer. a phenomenal company selling at 15 times earnings growing between 10% and 15% per year. i always say this company looks like a off-price retailer but it's above the ground gold mine because it's so highly profitable. extremely high profit margins. 40% return on equity with no debt leverage. extraordinary company. it's under valued in the marketplace. another stock we