Back ecb measures like negative rates. Euro has fallen this morning on that news. Our road map with the record highs. Investors retaining their appetite for riskier names. Now what . At t and directv reports of deal talks now active and could be done in the next two weeks. And as we said, davids exclusive with ibms Ginni Rometty, a rare conversation about the companys future. First up, more market history for the bulls. The dow with a record closing high for a second consecutive session posting its first alltime intraday high in a month and the s p achieving a record high close of its own. Internet and biotech names helped the nasdaq jump 1. 8 in yesterdays session. Dow, jim, with a win today, thats five straight. We havent done that all year long. No. This is amazing because this bubble talk has presumed that what would happen is the nasdaq, the internet plays, highly valued momentum plays would bring down the dow. This pool of capital keeps going around. The analysts are making a stand on the cloud and internet. You saw the bounce yesterday. So many ipos in the chute. They dont have to come out and make a defense here. Theyre out of the fox holes making their move. You have the dow up and nasdaq up. Kind of a sweet spot for the market, but it is, like you said, its gone up a long time now. David, weve talked about this rotation for weeks now. Odd that yesterday you had winners at the top of the list like a sales force, but also not far behind, a name like alcoa. Yeah. You know, i there seems to be a great deal of debate at this point still, i think about whether or not the rotation out of all those high multiple names has truly ended and were going to get back to sort of thinking about growth in a real way and Hedge Fund Guys starting to creep back in after taking down a lot of ex po sure. I dont know the answer to that. Its something people need to keep an eye on. Jims been talking about it for a long time so im curious, is this a real sign or is it a fake . I think that they can all bounce. I mean i think that there havent been a lot of equity offerings of late. Some of these stocks got overdone. The fireeye bounce. Two guys saying salesforce. Com where it started, the last week of february, is going to have a better than expected quarter. We see a lot of people coming out and saying the Internet Security names are good. They can make a stand, david, and no one can get in the way of the stand for a couple days. I think these do bounce. Take a name like rack space thats going to open up what, 16, 17 . Manage internet cloud. A piece yesterday in the wall street journal a guy who tends to be too negative saying its going to miss. That was a terrific setup. Who does in is . Elizabeth arden. Consumer package good company that is a horrendous quarter. I was negative on mad money. They sent me like 5,000 products, told me everything was going to be good. That was wrong. You could have a situation where wall street says i have to cover my shorts on the service now. Use that as an example. Cover my shorts on the work days. Let those rally based on sales force which is the Umbrella Company making all these companies seem like, you know, look, theyre all going higher and watch the stand. I mean do you have to go by fireeye. Jim cramer, jim, you must love fireeye now you hate it. I hated it from 80. Give me a break. I missed 26 to 28. How perfect. Youre price sensitive. Pitch a perfect game, no hitter, i walked two guys, wow. There is general talk that rotations like these mean the bull market is old, right . What do you make of that notion . Great rotation is the whole way up and, you know, ive never felt that a bull market ages. I mean im not saying its fine wine here. Its not a great cabernet. You know, its a cabernet and then kind of a sav yon blank and then zinfandel. I dont care for them. And then rotate back to a cab, maybe a good one like a camus select. A mallback. A lot led by m a, directv in the premarket this morning. Published reports say at t is in talks to buy the satellite tv provider for about 50 billion, or 95 a share and that a deal could be completed within a few weeks. Man, a lot of talk about the telecom. Whats your read on this so far . Carl, of course a couple weeks ago we got the reports from the journal there had been conversations earlier this year. I was able to confirm that. At this point, though, hard to follow up on what the reporting is out from a number of news organizations in terms of confirming they are a couple weeks away when you see these stories you can say somebody is certainly talking and telling them this. Dont know where the sourcing is exactly. The logic is something we and many investors in at t have been certainly focused on over the last couple of weeks since these first reports arose. And, you know, i would say that while people fully understand why at t might want to do this, it is not without at least some level of doubt as to whether it is the right strategic move for the company. You get 30 million customers, add to what is uverse, their video offering, perhaps allow uverse to use a lot of its bandwidth for broadband in certain areas, although not much of the country. You have more of a retail presence with direct. If you want latin america, you get a lot of it. Its never been clear that thats what at t is really focused on. Question, of course, of cash or stock here if they use stock, well remember theyre paying that dividend. One of the key reasons they may want to do a directv deal is because the Free Cash Flow will help with their payout ratio, something that has been a concern for investors and at t as to whether they can maintain that dividend. At the same time given the after tax cost to debt one might wanter why they might not use more cash instead of stock. You have to pay more dividends on it. Another key is the regulatory window. Comcast and time warner table, comcast our parent company, are going to be going through the regulatory process. If you want to get in front of the regulators might be a time to do it with this deal as opposed to waiting until that has been approved. Well see. It was not that long ago we were talking and they were giving signals about europe at at t being an area they were focused on. Its unclear exactly why they pulled back and perhaps it had something to do with the nsa and snowden. Ive heard there was a backlash from a lot of those european regulators about allowing any consolidation by a major u. S. Carrier, jim. But well see. And then finally we still got dish out there. If youre charlieringen youre watching your potential partners going away. You could do a deal with directv where you might actually end up with control or sell to at t and those both go away at least take once of those options he likes to talk about on his fingers when he talks how he could do a lot of different things. David, back to the point you made about latin america. I mean, the big problem with directv is theyre too big in latin america i think and these countries really make it hard. Theyre not banana republics but putting the screws to directv. Why would at t do that . Secondly is mike white really done . I mean mike white is fabulous. Came from pepsico, doing a great job, is he finished . No. He may be. Or may be a sign they think listen this is not a Growth Business at this point, jim. You know that. And you dont have that second path for broadband. Thats kind of an issue, isnt it . Yeah. Apple along go ahead. Sorry. Along with the board and mr. White, when you get an inquiry coming in you hire your bankers and do a good deal of thinking about whether this would be right time to return significant value to shareholders and may be taking stocks so theyll get opportunity to participate in the merged entity although at t is still mostly about wireless even with this deal. You know, well see. If they announce it i will be curious to see how the stocks react. With it out there hasnt been that hard on at tses stock at this point but it is interesting to watch the Strategic Decisions or considerations that they are currently undergoing. Directv has been up 12 for the month. 69 in january. I mean people have to understand theres so much money being created in the stock market. Theres a shortage of supply of the high quality companies. The bankers are ready to pump out lousy stuff and think well all say fine and rubber stamp it, im not going to from my end. There is without a doubt Wealth Creation in front of our eyes. The stock market a great place to be. Part of the Small Business optimism. Thats a great point. Small Business People are saying hey, you know what, lots of money being made. I want a part. Question is by the way, there is no stronger sign of confidence, guys, than m a. You know that is a real sign. Weve wait years, years now, with a lot of false starts for a period like this. I do think jim, were starting to really see it and the conversations im having with bankers and lawyers who ri lie on this are extraordinarily turned on a dime too. Sang quinn. Right. Why doesnt cocacola buy the rest of keurig to make a point Hedge Fund Guys who come on and tell you a stock is going to go, stock up 100 points from the last time a hedge fund. Im not going to mention hedge fund names. The guy has been picking on me. Like pope john xxiii said when he came here better answer in justice with mercy as they told den nare russ. Ive always felt mercy toward none with charity thats backwards. Speaking of money, a question if ibm can make 20 by 2015. Talk about what youll say today to Ginni Rometty. Thats the road map that theyve had out there for quite some time. Tomorrow is their annual analyst day meeting. We are lucky enough to be here at the Digital Experience Lab in midtown manhattan. One of a number of labs, in fact, theyre increasing the presence of those that ibm has where they bring their customers in and work with them in a lot of different things. A sign of the Growth Opportunities the company sees. But the key question is, can you grow, given we havent seen that in terms of even the bottom line and the top line, and how are you going to do it . Great opportunity for us. And for our viewers to meet Ginni Rometty who, frankly, you know, leading one of the Largest Companies in the world, is not a wellknown presence at this point having been ceo for roughly two years or somewhere around that, so im looking forward to it. Lots to talk about. Im expecting sort of a broad ranging conversation but the focus being on what she calls a transformation of ibm, a company that is no stranger to transformation and each time it has worked, of course, for this company. Its a big interview. We all love cloud. Theyre going to be cloudy. We didnt like cloud for a couple weeks. The timing is fabulous, david. The more she mentions cloud the higher the stock goes. Yeah. As you know their cloud presence is significant, perhaps theyre trying to do more now to actually put a spotlight on that, whether its cloud or data or even watson which they are now starting to commercialize. Watson. We know it as having beaten the jeopardy champions but its becoming a product they are using for clients. David, hes very sensitive areas but concerns. What would when you you didnt get it to go get a go against watson. David says he can take them. Always looking for rematches. Or are you more like mr. T . Not going to be a rematch. Watson knows i can take him, i think. I think i can say that safely. Yeah. I mean watson, frankly yeah. Watson has hes in tune to his reputation. We cant wait, david. Ibm leading todays ceo parade on the show. Also got opentable ceo matthew roberts. A good guy. The website facing competition from the likes of yelp and later this hour whitewave foods up 30 . Exclusive with the ceo gregg engles on whats working for the Company Behind horizon organic and silk. The dow going for five straight, the first such streak of the year. More squawk on the street from post nine in just a moment. Avo waves dont care what age you are. Take them on the way you always have. Live healthy and take one a day mens 50 . A complete multivitamin with 7 antioxidants to support cell health. Age . Who cares. Pfizer is hinting it could increase its 106 billion offer for astrazeneca if the rival agrees to talk about the bid. Astrazeneca says pfizers recent offer represents an opportunistic attempt to buy the company that doesnt reflect the value of its drug pipeline. Meantime pfizers ceo ian read appearing before the British Parliament trying to win support amid lawmaker concerns about job losses. Take a listen. Lets be very, very firm on this issue. We dont make decisions lightly about changing assets or closing assets or asking people to leave the company. We understand the impact both on the company and the people leaving. What we do is try to create a company that can be successful and succeed and get products to patients. Trying to sell it to lawmakers that jobs are okay, trying to sell it to your target that you might sweeten it if you engage with us. Kraft sold the cadbury idea and that didnt end well. Isnt this once again a pure sign they dont care. They want that tax domi soil. They dont mind not laying people off immediately . I suppose. I wonder if that accent helps him over there. It may. Interesting. You know, weve talked about this a great deal. And taxes, listen, mr. Read made no secret taxes are a key part of consideration of why theyre doing this deal and reconsidered doing it after a brief conversation earlier this year and then some reporting of that and they came back to it and said why not take a shot. Time is of the essence here for pfizer. You and i are in agreement we dont believe congress will do anything to curb these inversions but i would reference our colleague Andrew Ross Sorkins column in the times, senator levin is one of the few looking at it. Could you do a shortterm remedy to get longterm tax reform at least has to be a concern for pfizer. They dont want it to go hostile and stretch out. They want to get astrazeneca to agree the sooner the better to try to get this thing done because to your point it is very much focused on making the inversion happen and they dont want to watch that window close. Look, you go back to the point, congress, and when i speak with people in congress and speak with people in treasury, they just say listen, were seeing this. I said well i know youre seeing it. How about doing something . Oh, were seeing it. I dont think people at home recognize that, you know, we sit here and we talk about this all the time, it just kind of dawning on them this is happening. David, its not like they see this as a crucial issue. The republicans want to lower the taxes to the rich. The democrats want comprehensive reform. No one really cares. No. We need comprehensive Corporate Tax reform, it would seem, and this is a sign of that certainly. And a challenge to it. Mine in a way you can see ian read saying youre not going to do anything about it were leaving. By the way, andrew references this, i referenced it yesterday, again, talking to the banking community, the incoming inquiries from fortune 500 companies or fortune 100 companies, maybe fortune 50, are significant and so this is not going to be the last of them. At some point people will wake up. Weve been sitting here over a year talking about these inversions as they took place time after time in the form suitcle industry but but its moved beyond that, Applied Materials or companies of that nature, the expectation you could keep seeing it because there is that concern it will be eventually shut down and you will have a competitive advantage conferred upon a Certain Group of companies while others have to compete with them, thats not going to make it easier. Were dealing with were in a mid term year. Right. Nothing will happen before the fall. No. And, you know, congress doesnt operate in some sort of political vacuum, they have their own calendar and cycles to worry about. Right. Look, the worlds changed. I mean europe is a great place to invest. Many multiple year highs there. Rates are low. Its not like youre buying something thats a clunker. Theres like david is right. Theres 50 Big Companies in europe, theres 50 Big Companies here. You should expect the fact that the mergers have to occur because wow, im raising smms, blahblahblah, by the moment they do the deal. It matters. Every food and drug company should be doing it or id be ashamed of them. When we come back its not just about sorry. Guys, go ahead, carl. See you in a bit. I was going to take us to break. Cramers mad dash as we countdown to the opening bell. Davids interview with ibm ceo Ginni Rometty amid the challenges facing big blue how she plans to transform the company and the s p 3. 5 points from 1900. More squawk on the street from the nyse straight ahead. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. She can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. My mom works at ge. Does it end after youve expanded your business . . After your companys gone public . And the capitals been invested . Or when your companys bought another . Is it over after youve given back . You never stop achieving. Thats why, at barclays, our ambition is to always realize yours. Just about seven minutes before the bell on this tuesday. Lets get cramers mad dash ahead of the market open. Retail sales come in 0. 1. Thats a miss. And the skeptics say you cant blame winter weather. Show me the money situation. Heres what i think will happen. Retail sales agate not so good. Nordstroms which reports may 15th you should buy ahead of it. I sat down with nordstroms spending a fortune on online. I think its going to be an okay quarter. Its not going to hurt on the top line. [ inaudible ] says buy coles not just because i gave my daughter a gift card to kohls for fathers day. Again isi does fine work on apparel. They are saying vf corp doing well. Vf north based. Theyre everywhere. Im going with the analyst view retail sales are going to be good when we hear from the companies this week. Not bad. I like the group. I would like to get behind every one including walmart and maybe even target if there had not been such management in turmoil which told me maybe target is losing, not winning. Only seven companies now give you monthlies doesnt make it easie