[ cows moo ] [ sizzling ] more rain. [ thunder rumbles ] [ male announcer ] when the world moves. Futures move first. Learn futures from experienced pros with dedicated chats and daily live webinars. And trade with papermoney to testdrive the market. All on thinkorswim. From td ameritrade. Live from the chicago mercantile exchange. Stocks recover after yesterday. Dow jones industrials right now up about 106 points. Bulls getting some ammunition from the latest housing data. And home sales are at their fastest pace since the summer of 2008. Plus dont cry for the insurers, at least not arthur gallagher. It is selling policies at higher prices. The insurance giant ceo telling us what this means for the bottom line in 2013. This is a fox business exclusive. And the greenback can thank or is it blame japanese Prime Minister as the japanese yen continues to weaken against the mayor currencies. Major currencies. What the impact on Trading Volume at the cme . Is there a trade that can make you money . It is a fox business exclusive with the founding father of the futures markets. Countdown to the closing bell starts right now. Liz its the last hour of trading. We are getting a big fox business welcome here at the cme group. Hi everybody. Im liz claman. Live in chicago at the chicago mercantile exchange. This on a day where there is once again a rally. So weve at least gotten back 106 about 106 points that we lost yesterday. So an interesting day here. We have a stronger dollar. Weve got weaker oil. We have got very strong gold today and silver. A lot of activity here on the floor. But what a day here in chicago. Its a fox business exclusive. in the next two hours, you are going to hear a lot about whats going on as we get closer and closer to the sequester. But coming up on after the bell, my exclusive interview with the acting treasury secretary. He very well could be the guy who is at the helm of treasury in just a couple of days when that sequester kicks in. Of course will there be an 11th hour deal to avoid all of those 85 billion in cuts . He has some interesting comments on the sequester, all the budget cuts due on friday, and wait till you hear what he says about the volcker rule. When will it finally be ready for banks to peruse it, look at it and get ready for it . We will ask him about that. What does he have to say about some 11 states fighting the particular statute of dodd frank that gives treasury the right to liquidate troubled banks. All right, it is a busy day here on countdown to the closing bell. Lets take it right to the markets. First, we want to talk about is pretty much the Dow Jones Industrials. Im going to look up here. You can see on the board here where we can see all of what is going on, everything from every commodity, etc. , but right there Dow Jones Industrials, climbing higher right now in this last hour. Up 111 points. The nasdaq better by 11 points. S p 500 is now up 8 points. And that level at 1496 1496. Take a look at the homebuilders too jumping today on very nice data we got. In fact it is the best data we have seen as far as homes are concerned about five or six years, since 08. A nice day for the homebuilders. They are closing very very close to most of their new highs. Pulte is moving higher by a full 5 percentage points. You know, a lot of these guys have actually been on quite the tear. So thats what were looking at today. As far as some of the other things, we have home depot. You cannot ignore home depot. That stock doing very well today, after it came out with numbers that just basically killed it so that stock is up 5 , helping the Dow Jones Industrials. It was frank blake who told you on fox business exclusively a couple of months ago dont listen to what the analysts are saying when they downgrade home depot. This is a company that has its act together. Its done very well. Its going to do a massive i believe 17 billion dollars stock buyback and very good data within their Earnings Report that really seems to be strengthening the Dow Jones Industrials. Gold today up 2 full percentage points. As i quickly look in the aftermarket session, gold is up 28, 28. That is a pretty significant move considering crude is moving in the opposite direction, down about 59 cents for crude oil. But along with gold, you see a very strong move in silver. Silver getting a very nice play, and you begin to wonder exactly what it is that is one of those situations where you say is this the trade that is the one that you want to do right now. Lets find out, because equities look pretty good right now too. We have Teddy Weisberg at the nyse. Lets go right there to teddy. Teddy, you tell me, you know, its 100 points, 100 points there, but 200 points lost yesterday, does that actually give you more i guess optimism for the next following days . I guess we go daytoday at this point well, i mean isnt it easy liz, i mean, it is so easy, down 200, up 100. I mean it is pretty tough here. I mean the markets in general are bumping up against the recovery highs. We have talked about the markets being more or less priced to perfection. We saw that yesterday with some disappointing news out of the euro zone, which they have kind of pushed under the carpet for the last three or four months, but we had you know, we had some negative news and were down 200. Today we get some pretty decent economic numbers, and were up 100. Im not sure im not sure what it all means except that its very very hard. At least at the moment to kind of figure it out. Liz what can you figure out jonathan over at the nymex because we do have weaker oil today. As i look here, i mean, at 92. 51, down about 60 cents, what happened to the so called 97, 98 dollar trade per barrel . It seems like the inventory numbers last week really pushed us with a lot higher build. Now that fundamental factor that theres so much crude is really kind of weighing on crude. I think thats why you are starting to see it separate a bit from equities and some of the other commodities because we have the api tonight and then eia tomorrow. So we will be watching that. If we get a larger build than expected, we could probably run down to 98 im sorry, 90. 80 or 90. 50. Liz okay. You guys, and i would like to point out too, with a very strong dollar, i was over earlier in the soybean oil pits and they were down 100. You know, they are looking at that and they are saying thats very much because we have the stronger dollar. You cant lose that sight because that definitely is something that affects all of these markets even here in chicago. Thank you very much guys. It is great to see you. We appreciate it. Thank you. Liz okay, so when you look at the Worlds Largest floor of the Worlds Largest futures exchange, you got to wonder, how it all really began. Ive got the guy right here. Hes chairman emerrtus of the cme. Great to see you. My pleasure to be here. Liz im dying to know exactly what you think of the trades these days and what the Options Market is telling us, the message of the Options Market. Well, im going to tell you that we suddenly got volatility all over the place because everybodys i wont say were in a precarious situation in the united states, but the whole world has got a lot of problems, and that really spells difficult markets. And markets that are going sometimes both ways. Liz i mean one minute gold is down below 1600 an ounce. Today we see a 28, 29 dollar jump. How do you, an expert in this, read that and participate and make money off of it . Well, it is not easy. You have to be nimble and you have to be willing to kind of follow the trend when the trend develops. The trend in gold of course had been down for quite a bit, but suddenly, you know, its telling you that it recognizes the world has problems and when it does have problems, where do you run . You run to gold. Liz now my question is because i was once at a black tie dinner with leo and i swear in the middle of it hes got his blackberry under the table buying i believe it was gold futures contracts. Probably. Liz i think it was in the middle of the night, hong kong. We werent in hong kong, but the trade was in the middle of the night. I thought to myself how did you know . Did you know that even with gold with the way it was the past couple of months that we would have a day like today . Of course not. The last couple of days you had a little bit of an indication that it was finding some sort of footing and it went up yesterday and quite a bit today. So i dont know if this is a change in trend, but it is possible. And theres good reason for it because the world as i said is in difficulty. Everywhere we look. Everywhere we look theres a problem. This latest thing in italy liz tell me what you think of this. It affects us . It seems strange. Anything that happens in europe that takes up europe that shakes up europe affects us. It not only affects the italian, but it affects the euro because it affects all the countries in europe. Liz would you go long the dollar . Im not going to predict which way to go. Because it is very very difficult. I would tell everybody thats trading to be willing to change their view. It is going in both directions. The yen, for instance, has had a tremendous break and deservedly so, but then again, its gone so far that a reaction to where its gone could happen any minute. So you have to be a little nimble and you have to be willing to change with the direction of the market. Liz what is the number one futures market you are watching right now . Well, actually yen has been the market that ive watched for the last month because of the change in attitude in japan. I kind of felt that it was going to break the way it did. They want to weaken the yen and they will do so, and they didnt even get any thing from the g 20 to say you are doing too much or shouldnt be doing this which is sort of license to keep going. Liz we were doing that too in the u. S. A little bit with the fed; right . Everybody is somewhat afraid of being too strong, so there is i wont call it a currency war, but there is certainly currency skirmishes, what we have been doing is similar to what other nations have been doing. We have been making everything more liquid which affects the dollar and the dollar weakens. Liz it seems obvious that the yen would continue to weaken and that a lot of people are shorting the yen. Is that a trade that could turn and move quickly . It could in terms of a shortterm reaction toward where its been going. I think in the long run the yen probably has more to go. Liz i have to ask you about exchanges. The cme obviously was not part of the big acquisition, the big merging trade that weve seen lately. Of course the nyse joining with the i. C. E. , there is a rumor, im not shocked that you probably know about this, that the Deutsche Boerse and the cme may very well hook up. Would you be in support of that kind of thing . Im not going to comment on anything like that. Liz i can try, leo. You can try. [laughter] i will have no comment about that. But clearly, theres opportunities all around the world, and were very much obvious to them. We very much want to take advantage of them. Weve been expanding geographically all over the world whether its china or brazil, and we have been doing it very very successfully. Youre standing in the heart of market territory. Liz you dont have to sell me leo. Thats why i would think the Deutsche Boerse would want to be a part or frankly any exchange for that matter. I cant speak for them. We have done extremely well. We are in a strong position the cme group internationally, geographically and organically. Yesterday we Just Launched the first deliverable chinese contract. Thats a big event thats historical. And its indicative of the fact that china was willing for us to do that. They didnt we didnt need their okay to do it. But they did acquiesce that we do it which is indicative of the fact that china recognizes they have to open up their borders to International Use and international competition, and i think with the next three four five years it is going to happen. Leo, he invented the early day futures markets. It is great to see you, thank you very much. Great to be with you always. Liz closing bell ringing in about 47 1 2 minutes. Stay tuned. Coming up, they are not complaining about changes in the healthcare laws. Theyre just working to get them right and to make money. Arthur j. Gallagher joining me live, coming up next, a fox business exclusive. They have a great dividend. You want to hear about that. Friday night, buddy. You are gonna need a wingman. And my cash back keeps the party going. But my Airline Miles take it worldwide. [ male announcer ] it shouldnt be this hard. With creditcards. Com, its easy to search hundreds of cards and apply online. Creditcards. Com. Otherworldly things. But there are some things ive never seen before. This ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. Which is good for business. Because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. Suddenly, faraway places dont seem so. Far away. Liz take a look at our fox business, our workstation here at the chicago mercantile exchange. And sandra smith knows everything over here, great to see you. Sandra welcome to chicago and the trading floor. Liz it is so much fun. You are looking at the trade as we call it, but today you cannot ignore what happened with gold. Sandra unbelievable move and actually in the electronics session, on the cme still seeing gold prices skyrocket up about 27 bucks right now. On a day when Goldman Sachs came out and said the gold cycle is over. We may not get a 13th Straight Year of gains. We got that testimony from bernanke liz and it was off to the races. They flocked to gold as a hedge against inflation because guess what . He defended the feds bond purchases. You do that. You weaken the dollar. You see gold prices go up. Very simple trade, but a very important one thats happening. Liz exactly. But best number since november. And everybody just like leo had just said, everybody expects that oh gold is going to continue to fall. Sure enough, it turns tale and i think thats probably what you witness every day here at the merc, depending on which area you are looking at. Sandra one thing thats been pointed out today is the lack of investor interest thats been in gold. Thats one reason why the market has been turning very bearish on it. People have been lean the etf. They have been getting out of there. When you get that weakening investor demand, you get a lot of the nervous longs. Those people that were hanging on to gold by a thread. They start to shake out of the market. Thats what really led to this dramatic below 1600, liz. Liz thank you very much, sandra. Sandra smith with the trade. She has to go back to our nest and work as she does. In the meantime, we have another nest in new york, down at the new york stock exchange. Nicole petallides looking at the macys. Nicole we have a good little hot spot here, liz. Lets talk about macys in particular. They came out with the Sales Numbers that actually were quite good. Under the macys umbrella is also bloomingdales. Earnings did drop, but again doing well with their Sales Numbers. The other story surrounding macys of course is the deal with Martha Stewart. When i was reading through this very closely, talking about the ceo of macys who really considered Martha Stewart a friend and thought this deal with Martha Stewart was to be a good one for macys, and then she called him on december 6 in 2011 and said they were going to move forward working with jc penney. He said he was sick to his stomach and hasnt spoken to her since. This is an on going court battle about the rights for products of Martha Stewart. When you talk about bath, bed, everything for the home and now were going to hear more testimony later in the week from ron johnson. This is something that will continue to go forward. Back to you. Liz thank you very much nicole petallides. As i look and see, i want to quickly check. We have the Dow Jones Industrials up 102 points. Really it is oil that a lot of people were looking at today, down 62 cents. But what will happen tomorrow when we get the eia inventory numbers . Will we see some gyrations . A trader with all of this is joining us now. Lets talk about what you anticipate. Oil is really your trade. We still expect crude oil prices to decline down to about 200 day moving average, which is right around 90. 43. We look at the technicals and look at the fundamentals and what kind of information is coming out. Tomorrow we expect inventories to build up to about 2. 5 Million Barrels. I would anticipate that we see something a little bit greater than that. If you look at liz that of course is bearish for prices; right . Yes, we still anticipate them to come down. Really the reason behind the bearishness is the u. S. Oil boom that we have seen. Right now we have got production at 20year highs. Weve got Oil Inventories at 378 Million Barrels right now. Thats 10 higher than last year. And the u. S. Is producing about 7 Million Barrels per day. Last year it was only 6. 6. We should average about 7. 25 this year. Liz so supply goes up. Prices go down. That to me is very much a message about i guess a lot of people would criticize this administration saying they are not energy friendly, but boy, that sure looks friendly as far as drilling and all of that. You as a trader, let people know let people know because they see people on the floors and they have no idea what they really do. When you wake up in the morning here in chicago, what is the first thing that you do when you fire up your computer . You have to look at the markets that you are specifically honing in on, whether its gold, silver, the s p, oil, start looking at the key levels that support the resistance levels. Liz are there websites . Tell me where you find the information. What do you look at . Well, specifically i mean i hit fox business right away. Liz good answer. Foxbusiness. Com. We love that. I mean, theres a lot of great stuff on there, you know. So i mean you want to start looking at the cha