Transcripts For CNBC Closing Bell 20141203

2072 and change for a new alltime high. The nasdaq continues to march ever higher today up about 17 points right now. Were just about 5 now away from nasdaq 5000. 5 . Yeah, right . But think about how long its been. March of 2000 when it hit that mark and signaled the top of the internet bubble all those years ago and not close to that level since that time. And were wondering getting closer whether this number is making some investors nervous now. Hmm. Thinking thats the completion of this bull move. Right . Well debate it. We have a pair of heavy hitting ceos ahead. Joseph swedish as they change from wellpoint effective here and here to ring the closing bell and changing the Ticker Symbol and talking obamacare impact. Plus International Papers new ceo mark sutton in his first interview since taking the reins ago. So a lot to talk to them about. And again, more to get to ask, to see what they got out of this meeting with president obama. Interest dog see that poll during power lunch a couple of hours ago. Is president obama probusiness . And ceo of alint air. Thats coming up in a couple of minutes. I mean. Can we go to hawaii for the interview . Heading toward the what ryan islands. A lot of them coming from china. We have a lot to talk to him about. The dow up and nasdaq, too. The real story of the session, frankly, is whens happening with oil. Aaa out with more figures showing another 15 to 20cent drop by new years and the debate of negative and positive on the u. S. Economy continues. A quick look at the russell, as well. Outperforming everyone today. The Small Cap Index up about 10 points or almost 1 . Much to cover in our Closing Bell Exchange today. Jack bourougiasian, we have Steve Liesman and Rick Santelli with us, as well. Once we show you rick, there he is, steve, lets start with you. A rather upbeat beige book today but the markets did absolutely nothing with it. I think a lot of this stuffs dialed in. You had the ism services number, fourth largest on record. The internals were good. This week, the ism manufacturing and the thing is those vehicle Sales Numbers may take the shine off traditional Holiday Spending and still spending by consumers in the holidays. The datas been pretty robust. Putting together looks like at the moment of current data, cnbc wrap it up data, 4 growth in the second and Third Quarters back to back. And were doing about a 27 and now might edge up and all eyes on the friday jobs number. I forgot to mention the adp number. Shy of the estimate but that came in again above 200,000. So the datas good and i think the market knows that and expected. Larry, what are you buying here . Theres a boost to Fourth Quarter Growth Numbers and concern that comes home to roost next year in the form of Slower Growth for some of the production areas of the u. S. What do you think are the ways to play this trade . Absolutely. Look. Its clear that investors are in denial of the consequences of Lower Oil Prices and putting it in context, theres winners and losers in this. Clearly some of the losers are impact of high yield and cap x. You get a benefit in net importers of energy. Places in asia like india and japan that are net importers, countries but also areas of the United States that are net importers beneficiaries so we see the cyclicals are a better opportunity than the defensives into next year. Better value. Foreign over domestic. Better value. Opportunity. You have to rotate the portfolio into 2015. Thats whats so exciting of whats happening. Squawk box, our colleagues were at the ceo summit in washington today. And among their guests was larry fink, ceo of black rock and euphoric of the Lower Oil Prices. Heres what he had to say and then your reaction, everybody. Spectacular for india, china, japan, American Consumer and for europe. This is going to help mario draghi and the europeans. In terms of restabilizing the european economy. I just find it shocking that narrative is so negative and this is an incredible tax cut for americans and everywhere else around the world. Do you agree, keith fitz jer snald. Absolutely i do. I think my numbers show the average American Family gotten 1,100 boengs effectively from the fact of lower gas prices at the pump and could have still lower still and takes pressure off the wallet. Makes yellens and draghis job easier. I like this a lot. And, rick, there are plenty of people concerned because you get a big boost to gdp right now but then Going Forward it starts to slow some of the strongest parts of the u. S. Economy. And maybe its not quite as exciting once people adjust to gasoline prices in 2 instead of 3 or 4. Are we overlooking the drag it will have next year . We need to take the green aluminum hats off and look at the world honestly. Yes, i agree with larry fink. I disagree with larry mcdonald. I dont see a dark side to this. Woe to the high yield players that ignored the obvious. Tightness in spreads. Coming back to haunt us, so be it. I dont see anything like the credit issues of 07 or 08 developing because of this but i would also say a dose of reality in another way as many including wall street journal pointed out health care costs, this isnt about obamacare, this is about actuary and accounting. Since 07, Health Care Insurance has increased at a rate of 42 . So, you know, i understand why the Holiday Season might not be looking so good. That money has to come from somewhere and i think as nice as it is the dropping Energy Prices help the middle class but they try to balance the budget every week. Something to talk with the ceo of anthem coming up. Absolutely. What youre saying is underscored showing that wages didnt go up that much because nonwage benefits, for example, were. I just want to bring it back to the question then. Okay. If you have the health care thing as a factor and drag on income in the drop of the economy with the oil thing, does that move the fed out of the picture next year in terms of rate hikes . Rick makes a great point. Im sorry. Go ahead. Rick makes a great point. Its the lower soes yore economic, the middle class struggling and very little benefit from lower Interest Rates. The oil tax cut will do for the middle and lower class what lower Interest Rates did for the upper class so it actually narrows that wealth gap. Well said. Its significant. If youre walmart, this is a gravy train for you because thats the Customer Base at target. Theyll benefit of this. I want to know if Airlines Stop charging for bagging fees. Whats the excuse now . Well talk about that. Jack, welcome aboard. We havent ignored you to this point. Im going to guess you like the drop in oil, as well s. There a downside to that, though . Bill, you know what . I see it as a winwin. In fact, i love saying this. I agree 100 with what rick just said. Thats exciting to say. Wow. All right . The reality is right now i dont see any downside to this. Look. You know, we talk about the big explosion and revolution in the heartland, remember, whats happened there, you have seen the quintupling of property prices there and other things that started to unfold and all of that is coming back down to earth so what i think we should be doing with this drop in oil is counter intuitive. Energy investment has gone to 4. 5 of gdp in this country. That doesnt sound like a lot but in the past Decade Energy its worth raising the question of what happened to the regions, some of the jobs and all these assumptions that were making that everythings great next year. May i make a comment on that . Wait. Were talking about a boom and bust cycle. Its going to happen. We cant keep it from happening. The reality is that one of the things that we want to see is lower Energy Prices. Which, by the way, is good for everybody. Kelly . If i could pipe in quickly on this. Think about how dynamic the u. S. Economy is. Its allowed it to come through the challenges it has. Were not strictly an oil producer. We are not strictly on the way to being the worlds largest. We are but its simple. You know this. Which is to look at the oil trade balance. We are still importing more than we are exporting or more than producing and so the issue is this. As long as that trade balance is negative, that Lower Oil Prices on net are a benefit to the nation. It doesnt youre absolutely right. Theres some areas of the country that will absolutely be devastated if it keeps down and keeps going down but right now, first of all, i dont think the people that sunk the wells are idiots. They counted on a lower price. Thats one thing. Growth comes off the top but the American Economy is dynamic. We have a lot of consumption and production. I totally disagree. Ben fish out of this. Larry . Did not anticipate the price coming down. They sold high yield debt that they cant pay back. They did now youre getting into the area the consequences to this are with us. Ripple effect of cap x and thats going to go out the window. Steve . And all of the making manufacturing go through the roof and going to make every business thats right going hang on. Hang on. A meeting of the committee of doom here . I dont understand this. This is a very interesting this is a very interesting dilem dilemma. With a massive price adjustment is relocation of the marketplace. Right. You will have the stronger players coming in. Theyre going to use it for an opportunity to consolidate. Guys with debt pay for that. Theyll go out of business. The stronger players steve, you asked for that. Economic darwinism. Hang on a second. Steve, you asked bill dudley yesterday about the leverage and acknowledged theres overleveraged portions and said its not systemic. Why do you think its high yield . Higher interest rate. Why . They have taken higher risk. Junk. The issue is not catastrophic. I dont like hearing people say theres no negative to something when its been such an important part of the question, kelly, is about the emphasis. The savers and ended up bankrolling the experts. But, rick, what i dont like about it is that this potentially delays the quote unquote normalization even more. I want to get i think youre underestimating technology, american technology. First of all, fracking wells are like oldschool oil rigs. They dont last as long. Its a shortterm investment. High prices tend to be the cure for high prices and low prices are the cure for low prices and Pension Funds havent begun to exit all the investments. Wait until we export with a republican congress. Kelly, let me press you on this idea here. Are you saying that one should be overall negative about Lower Oil Prices for the u. S. Economy and for u. S. Stocks . Is that your overall conclusion . No, no. Not at all. It will condititribute to the n for yield and would be nice for in a world the oil price able to drift down and support long term instead of threatening for 200 years oil is doing this. 200 years thats oil. Last word. One of the things to Pay Attention is geopolitical issues to come out of this. Putin who we have been bashing now for a couple of months and last couple of years for that matter is in a desperate situation. Desperate leaders do desperate things. If you notice all of a sudden he started to arm as bar shan. Thats one of the downsides of what were talking about here. So if there is something to watch for, that would be it. We have to go at this point, guys. I will since you mentioned Vladimir Putin leave you with art cashins line of the day. He said what do Vladimir Putin, crude oil and the ruble have in common . They will all see 63 next year. Thats why we love him. Two, three, four. You got that one. Good discussion, guys. Thanks, everybody. See you later. Thanks very much. Meantime, we move higher here. Alltime highs for the dow. Yes. How many times we said that this year . Keep an eye out as the dow is up 25. Nasdaq adding about the same. S p up 7 points to 2073. Coming up, a brandnew anthem. One of the nations Largest Health insurers changing the name and back to anthem from wellpointe effective today. The firms ceo speaking exclusively with us before ringing the closing bell here at new york stock exchange. Thats in a moment here. Up next, Hawaiian Airlines ceo speaking with us exclusiv y exclusively. Will it trickle down to cutting airfares and the fees . You should see, by the way, his stock price chart. Well be right back. Gains for the market today, not great but enough for an alltime high for the dow. Record territory for the s p, as well. Nasdaq up 21 points. Still trying to climb out of that hole it created for itself on monday. The top level picture doesnt tell the whole story, especially right now. Keeping a close eye on oil prices, watching the steady decline. Look at this threemonth chart. Oil prices down almost 30 in that time frame. Airlines as you can imagine are loving that. Well show you a chart of hawaiian air in a moment. See a relationship of oil down and hawaiian air higher and the ceo with us today. Theyve been Holding Investor Day here in new york city. Joining us in the cnbc exclusive, we welcome you. Thank you for being here. A nice lei. We have one for each of you. Well a luggage fee. A tradition. Important one rather. You give this one to kelly and a quick peck on the cheek and embrace. There are rules of anchors doing that. Ill hand it to her. Ill accept it from you, as well. Oh boy. The stocks at an alltime high. It is. Its boomed in a last few weeks. Is that all Energy Prices . Not all Energy Prices. Energy prices help in a really big way. For us, every onecent change in gas is 2. 4 million to the bottom line. So theres it would be a gross overstatement to say that isnt an important part. But at the same time, our whole Business Model has really come together in the last year and were looking forward to a terrific 2015. How good is this quarter . I cant ask with a straight face with the lei on here. What point do you guys have to get out there and say, look, we are talking about a significant advantage over our current analyst estimates, for example. Well, we keep our analysts pretty well informed and guidance is generally pretty accurate and not so much of catching the analyst out but we have been publicly saying that so long as fuel stays low and demand where its been, all of the other things that we have done should lead us to much higher margins than in the past. Speaking as a customer, though, not of hawaiian air per se but a flier, you know, the industrys had to raise fees elsewhere to make up for the decline of traffic over the years since 9 11. So we have to pay for baggage now. You know . All these other fees that we have to pay. With energy costs coming down, would it behoove you as a gesture to public to bring some of those fees down at some point do you think . Well, you know, pricing whether it is airfares or whether its things like baggage fees and the ancillary charges are set by the marketplace and interplay of competition. Frankly, traveling today in north america is a very, very good deal. And that is despite the fact that we have seen an enormous explosion in number of taxes on our industry often adds disgu disguised as fees and obliged to hide in the traffic price. I think we have controlled the cost. So the answer is no. Well short answer. The short answer is going to be it depends on the competition dictates. Hers Rex Tillerson this morning from the ceo summit talking about where prices may be going in terms of the oil price from here. Keep an eye on the fundamentals. In terms of what happens with demand. Getting economic pickup around the globe and get an increase in demand to take up the excess supply, likely some correction on the supply side by some players, hard to say how much that will be. And when it will become material. And so i think its something well be watching the fundamentals. Thats what sets this price. What we didnt hear him say was the low could be 40. Right. At some point. Yeah. I mean, we very much sort of a taker of the supply demand dynamic in the energy market. Into our business. Reduced volatility. Were not speculators in the price of oil and lower fuel prices are really good for our business. And go largely to the bottom line. Goes without saying. How expensive are the hedges . Are you regretting them right now . No, not really. Because theres volatility in the oil market and we have seen it go up as often as we have seen it come down and for us its about taking some of that volatility and risk off the table. Mark, by the way, we had to take them off. They were wrecking havoc with the microphones. We appreciate them very much. We have breaking news. President obamas immigration executive order, we have Hampton Pearson with details. Whats going on . Texas is leading a multistate challenge to the president s executive order. Texas and 16 other states filing a lawsuit in Southern District federal Court Challenging the president s action. Among the states joining in that lawsuit, mostly in the south and midwest, alabama, georgia, idaho and indiana. Abbott, the attorney general, greg abbott, that is, of texas, attorney general and the governorelect, arguing that texas could be uniquely hurt by the executive ord we are the large border with mexico. As we know, that executive order by the president could legally shield as many as 5 Million People from deportation. This is the first multistate challenge to the president s executive order on immigration. Texas and 16 other states filing a lawsuit in federal court just in the last few hours. And, hampton, thank you very much. Mark is still sitting right here. Mark, if you dont mind, what has the net impact as a ceo of obamacare been to your business . Obamacare has had a pretty muted impact because were chiefly located in hawaii and hawaii has its own state regulations around health care. Which in many respects sort of overlay the obamacare regulations and obligations. So there wasnt much new in it. Not for us. In general, across the industry, though, i think probably larger impact elsewhere. Thank you. Thanks, mark. See you later. Still record territory for the dow and the s p. Doesnt take much. Any positive close for the dow, s p up 7 at 2074. Coming up next, wait until you hear how a bond fund manager is outperforming by 5 . Were back in 2. We believe outg the competition tomorrow requires challenging your Business Inside and out today. At cognizant, we help forwardlooking Companies Run better and run different to give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. So if youre ready to see opportunities and see them through, we say lets get to work. Because the future belongs to those who challenge the present. The pain felt like my feet were on fire. E pain. I had these very burning, needlelike sensations. I knew i needed to see a doctor. My doctor said, lets try lyrica. Lyrica has helped relieve my pain. Its known that diabetes damages nerves lyrica is fdaapproved to treat diabetic nerve pain. Lyrica is not for everyone. It may cause serious allergic reactions, or suicidal thoughts or actions. Tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. Or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, changes in eyesight including blurry vision, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or skin sores from diabetes. Common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. Dont drink alcohol while taking lyrica. Dont drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. Those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. Having less pain. Its a great feeling. Ask your doctor about lyrica today. Its specific treatment for diabetic nerve pain. My baby drove up in a brand new cadillac. Look here, daddy, im never coming back. Discover the new spirit of cadillac and the best offers of the season. Lease this 2015 standard collection srx for around 359 a month. Dows up 32 points right now. Dominic chu stepping in tracking movers for us here in the u. S. Dom . Thats right. Not much of an upside and session highs right now. Jcpenney lower after Goldman Sachs downgraded them to a sell from a neutral saying competitive changes in the industry may prevent it from achieving the multiyear financial goals. Shares down almost 3 . Biogen rising on the heels of positive trial data for alzheimers. And then taser lower after jp morgan analyst downgraded to a neutral from the overweight based on valuation. Shares down 2. 5 . Corning gaining ground and raising the Quarterly Dividend by 20 to 12 cents a share and announcing a 1. 5 billion Share Buyback program. Shares up by nearly 3 and ending with walgreen. Boosted by strong Prescription Drug sales. The shares up there by almost 1 , bill, kelly, on the days trade. Thank you very much. We have more breaking news right now. This time involving drugmaker cenofi. Cnbc learned a lawsuit is filed against sanofi from cnbc. Coms dan mangum reporting this. The ceo and other executives were involved in whats known as kickback schemes, paying pharmacies, hospitals and doctors and other parties to prescribe its dibtsz drug over competitors. Now, this lawsuit was filed by a whistleblower saying that she was fired for uncovering the schemes. You can learn more on cnbc. Com. Back the you, bill. All right. Meg, thank you very much. Keep us updated on that story. We continue one of our favorite segments here. We call it beat the street. Where we talk to a fund manager outperforming the benchmark over the previous 12 months. Today its the leg Macy Brandywine bond fund. A mouthful. The barclays, only up about 1 and joining us now is jack mcintyre, manager for that fund. Great to have you here. Welcome. Hi. Great to be here. My first thought when i red about this, i think you are in the top 2 of managers performance this year and frankly the sector hasnt done that well. Even in terms of relative to the benchmark, talking about a couple Percentage Points on top of it. Congratulations but why is this tough a space as of late . Well, you know, if you think about the drivers of the global economy, we are marred in this noninflationary growth and Monetary Policy i think by and large biassed towards stimulative. It is not getting traction right now so but the key is that as long as the markets focusing about liquidity and im kind of talking about global Monetary Policy. And even if the fed tightens, global Monetary Policy is biassed tomorrow stimulative and should get a little bit of traction and add in lower Energy Prices and i think 2015 is setting the stage for more growth globally and certainly kind of an i think more of a contrarian view. I think larry fink agrees with you. Weve been covering the ceo summit in washington all day. Larry fink, of course, the ceo of black rock. Heres his forecast for Interest Rates down the road. Well see what you think of it. Bonds stay in a narrow range for sometime and force the behaviors of different central bankers and very low range and maybe the new range in u. S. Treasuries is 2 to 2. 5. Maybe not 2. 5 and 3 . You may see between now and year end if im right and a bunch of Insurance Companies needing to cover the gap and bonds tick under 2 again. I assume you agree but what do you do about it and maintain your performance in 2015 . Yeah. Okay. Solar ri talked about treasuries. I think treasuries probably stay range bound but so our universe is global bonds and here im not just talking the books but opportunities. Mexican bonds 6 , 7 . South african bonds. So, you know, and this is along the lines of what i think larry was talking about. Theres Global Capital from japan looking for yield and, yeah, some of it into treasuries and still some opportunities in some sovereign bond markets away from german bonds, japanese government bonds and u. S. Treasuries. Before we go, jack, what are those if you give people a couple of ideas, places specifically you are looking here. And i think its key. Because you are not as individual and probably wont want to buy South African bonds and part of a portfolio, its a great way to be positioned. You know, again, i think the dollars going to continue to be strong versus the euro and japanese yen and contrarian play is dollar weakeninger ha versus currencies i mentioned. Thank you. Continued success. Appreciate it. Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Those of you listening on satellite radio, the Ticker Symbol is gobsx. Half an hour to go here. The dow moving high sbeer the close and now up 37 points. The s p adding 9 points for its part. The nasdaq with a strong session, as well. Up about half a percent. Anthem ceo speaks with us excluollusivlue excluesively. The name change starts today. Well talk about that. Obamacare and a whole lot more so stick around. Take a closer look at your fidelity green line and youll see just how much it has to offer, especially if youre thinking of moving an old 401 k to a fidelity ira. It gives you a wide range of investment options. And the free help you need to make sure your investments fit your goals and what youre really investing for. Tap into the full power of your fidelity green line. Call today and well make it easy to move that old 401 k to a fidelity rollover ira. Welcome back. If youre trading today and having trouble finding the wellpointe stock ticker, you are not alone. The company is going strong and just got a new name and look. There it is. Wellpointe changed to anthem, inc. And trading under antm. And thats how its doing today, up a fraction now at 129 and change and with us now at post 9 and cnbc exclusive we welcome joe swedish ringing the closing bell coming up here in a little while, as well. Great to be here. Thank you. A rebranding, consolidation of the brand. Thats correct. We really are focused on building a new brand identity and many markets we serve across the country, specifically a less complex engagement with the market. Trying to deliver on our customers expectations. They want clarity, simplicity. Our sense is that rebranding ourselves in terms of how we are known best in the markets we serve is a phenomenal opportunity to really improve our engagement in the marketplace. Tyra banks isnt after you. Antm is americas next top model. I just heard that this morning. Im well, lets just say, im struggling with it but i think i can get by and maybe well talk about it. There you go. Your company has benefited to a great degree from obamacare. Yes, we have. Number one in terms of enrollment, yes. Anything to change about this . What do you think about the thoughts from the republican majority now in the house and the senate that they would love to repeal obamacare . Absolutely. I certainly understand. You know, the continuing desire in terms of repeal, replace proposition. Lets just back up. We made some very big bets regarding socalled obamacare. We analyzed through consumer preferences. Analytics what people want in terms of engagement in and around socalled obamacare. We offered 1,000 new products in the market in enrollment last year. We call version 1. 0. We believe moving to version 2. 0 and enrollment is an active development right now, we are going to meet expectations. We feel very strong that well have an equally good outcome as we did the first version where we captured over 750,000 lives, roughly 10 of all the enroll lees. A quick question on cost, though. Especially right now. People are concerned that when they enroll this year, the prices are going up and the range of 10 and now documents of the white house indicating this people all the toe enrolled on a cheaper plan and knock them out unwittingly and not find out until january. Are you satisfied with whats happening on the pricing and availability front . I can speak for our company and what we have offered this marketplace. This year, all in across the country and looking at maybe upper single digit which we feel very good about. Obviously, highs and lows regarding variation and all in single digit. We think thats a reflection of the analytics, very significant and beneficial pricing we administered the first time around which allowed us to i think go to market with effective pricing on this phase. A big trend in health care these days is Wellness Programs at major corporations of a carrot and stick inside a Health Care Plan to get employees to take care of themselves. You dont want to smoke, you know, and you want to exercise and go to the doctor more often. Right. And your premiums go down. Now the eeoc is suing, they sued a couple of Small Companies and now honeywell saying that maybe their wellness plan is not voluntary enough. It is more compulsory in that part. Dave coat, heres his response to that and then you respond, as well. We dont refuse anybody coverage and the whole point is why should people who dont care about how theyre living, why should they being able to take advantage of the people who do care and are doing something about it . You have the people saying i have to take care of myself subsidizing the people that say i dont care and doesnt seem right. Are these Wellness Programs keeping premiums down or or not . Absolutely. Let me first say we as an employer in excess of 48,000 associates have Wellness Programs integral part of our Health Benefit portfolio. Number two, as a health plan, we provide wellness support to all of our members, all of our kes hers. I have a conversation with ceos across the country. They view it as a very necessary part of their offerings to associates who choose to make very significant life style choices that better their wellness and well being. Does the eeoc have a point in the way some of these are add sminsterred theyre compulsory and that if youre not taking care of yourself we wont take care of you . Well, my sense is giving what i know about our offering to our members, our employers who use Wellness Programs that they, in fact, are not denying coverage. Theyre rewarding associates for improving their lifestyle, their wellbeing. Waying more for it if you dont. You will be rewarded with incentives given what youve chosen to avoid in terms of adverse effects on your health and wellbeing. Let me close by saying that it is integral to Health Benefit portfolio and viewed as necessary. Cant speak to eeco and where theyre what path they have chosen. My hope is its an integral part of the Health Benefit plan. Joe swedish, good to see you. Thank you. Theyre bucking to get you upstairs. Great to be with you today. Thank you so much. Ceo of anthem here at the big board. 15 minutes to go before that bell is rung. Looking at the dow up 40. S p about 9. Nasdaq 22 and a strong day for the russell here. Home builders with a boost of plunging oil prices you say . Well, well explain whether they are or not. And then later this 2 to 3 growth range number feels like its perpetual looking at next year it looks like more of the same. Some of wall streets top pros tell us if they agree with walmart ceo that the economy is sort of meh. Be right back. Welcome back. Taking a look at homebide ehome now across the country. Diana olick with the story for us. Diana . Builders depend on transportation, getting materials and labor to construction sites. Not to mention the cost of running machinery. Cement mixers, cranes, gaspowered tools. Low earl prices are a huge benefit there. Now to the not so basics. Materials, roof shingles, pvc plastic pipe, paint, toilet seats. Costs for materials manufacturers go down but do they pass that on to the homebuilders . David crow at the National Association of how manybuilders says manufacturers are not going to change their pricing for short run dips in energy costs. We dont know how long it will be, right . First they pocket the savings because they want to make sure that these lower costs are going to last. So, names like sherwinwilliams, masco, mohawk, may see expansion modestly much more than homebuilders themselves. One last theory is lower gas prices reverse the new urbanization we are seeing. Bring buyers back to the exurbs. Its less to do with gas and more to do with the fact that wealthier buyers are in the market right now and they can afford to pay what we call the location premium. The first time lower income buyer who would want the cheaper homes out not so much in the market right now. Kelly . Thank you. 12 minutes to go here and continuing to watch markets and gauge the fallout. 41 points higher on the dow. A strong, pretty Strong Performance across the major indexes. Coming back, california warehouse to Washington Bureau, Morgan Brennan testing out fedexs overnight Delivery Service as the shipping industry faces its busiest time of the year. Remember the wine on the show yesterday . Yes. Yeah. We find out where it ended up when we come back. Stay tuned. Heres some news you may find surprising. Were for an open internet for all. Were for creating more innovation and competition. Were for Net Neutrality protection. Now, heres some news you may find even more surprising. Were comcast. The only isp legally bound by full Net Neutrality rules. As we all know, ordering online is an instant, quick and easy but getting the package to the doorstep is sometimes a different story. Mother began brennan placed an order at wine. Com yesterday in Northern California and today at the Washington Bureau to receive it already. Hi, mor again. Hey, kelly and bill. Thats right. We shipped this wine. Com package overnight to see how the carrier is gearing up for peak Holiday Season. We started in berkeley, california, at wine. Coms Distribution Center. Four bottles of wine carefully packed for transport to oakley before overnight to fedexs world hub in memphis better known as the matrix. Most express packages pass through. 500,000 sorted each other in december on 42 miles of belts with 250 cameras tracking everything. From there, this morning, the box to dulles, virginia, and then trucked to washington, d. C. For the last sorting. Before we signed for it here at cnbcs but owe. 2,800 miles. Six stops. Five cities. Two airplanes and three trucks. So basically, everything from logistics to weather has to go right. Needs to go right for a package like this to be delivered. Its why fedex employs 15 meteorologists and pouring billions of dollars over the last years to upgrading the network. I have a special delivery here for closing bell, specifically gary. Your silver oak 2010 is safe and sound and bringing that to you coming back to new york. Guys, back the you. Its near and dear to the closing bell staff ill have you know. You probably knew that i guess. Thank you, morgan. Great job. See you later. My hats off to these guys. Multiply it by hundreds of millions of times again and again, right . We are coming down with the closing countdown. After the bell, as the naz gak marches toward the infamous 5,000 level again, we want the know if you think it would be a sell signal. It signaled the top 15 years ago. Our live poll opens shortly at cnbc. Com vote so get ready. My baby drove up in a brand new cadillac. Look here, daddy, im never coming back. Discover the new spirit of cadillac and the best offers of the season. Lease this 2015 standard collection ats for around 329 a month. About 3 30 left here. Art cashin said a billion dollars to buy on the close and may see little move higher here. This is the dow today. Kind of inching along. I defy you to show me where the beige book came out. Usually you get some volatility but that wasnt the case today. 2 00 eastern time with a couple of hours left in the trading session, thats where it came out. Market did absolutely nothing with it. A rather upbeat assessment, by the way, of the economy. Its at the close here that we moved higher and we are in record territory here with the dow up 36. John manly with us, bob pisani, as well. The beige book, upbeat and comes at a time when oil prices are going down and seems to be the goldilocks time for the economy. Goldilocks time for the market for sometime. Things just good enough to need more help and not enough for problems. This is a good environment. The fed is accommodative for a while. I dont see that changing and earnings are coming through. But i always feel like theres a however coming at some point, right . Something dropping. Somebody else waiting for the however that provides the other side of the market because i know this is not going to last forever. St. Matthews said let tomorrow worry about itself. Amen to that. Bob, there was some weird trading midday today. Im talking to trading desks to figure it out. We put up campbells soup maybe intraday. All of a sudden, a number of stocks at noontime, show it. Look at this. All of a sudden boom on heavy volume. Recovered again and then all of a sudden caterpillar. You dont think theyre connected. You can see suddenly just shoots up and then sort of cams back down again here. Very strange patterns. Cablevision. I could go on and on here. Put it up for me. Look at this. Boom. All vshaped. Something, one of two things happened. Some kind of trade program trade executed. Either wall street firm changed the recommendations, buy and sell lists for 2015. Thats possible. But more than likely, looks like misexecuted a program and dumped volume on the market, a little bit by accident. Talking many times normal volume for a number of stocks. A professional doing a trade wouldnt do that. Too much volume. Spread it out over a long period of time. Looks like Somebody Just messed up here a little bit. Unfortunately when somebody can hit a button and instead of executing something in two hours but its two minutes, you can have this kind of thing happen. Thats my guess. I was in texas at a conference and a biggest concern if not the biggest concern of individual investors is computerized trading. You know . They feel like it the individual doesnt get a deal in this market because of the computers out there. I have to say, with that sort of thing, i think it is like drug dealers shooting drug dealers. I dont want it to happen but im not involved. Buying this as an investor, what im supposed to be, id rather wait two minutes to see if it corrects itself. You want an al go rythym. For you, one dollar. Ill give you a bridge. Not brooklyn. Thank you, frick and frack for joining us. Enough to put the dow and s p in record territory. The daznasdaq 5 away from 5,000. Heres hour number two. See you tomorrow, kelly. Thank you, bill. Welcome to the closing bell, everybody. Im kel rily evans. Dow jones industrial average with a gain of about 30 points into the close. 17,900 now breached. 17,909. S p adding about 27 points. Nasdaq up 18 to 4774 and talking later about that 5,000 mark and what that might mean. Meantime, lets get straight to it. With the panel, cnbc contributor stephanie link, chris whalen and our very own sarah eisen and brian kelly. Welcome, everybody. Stephanie, what did we learn today . We learned that the economy is continuing to show improvement. I think we are getting over yesterdays auto sales, really very good. Thats really, really good. We got todays ism nonmanufacturing survey with new orders up. We have truck sales november truck sales, second best since 2005. I mean, some really good stuff here an i think most importantly we had oil prices stabilize and oil the stocks have led for the last three days and making people feel more comfortable. We found out where they were on black friday. The dealer lots. Yeah. Well, or before. I mean, i think auto sales have a life of their own. They really do. Financing thing . Weak retail and then auto sales going great guns. This market as i said before about Interest Rates, low oil as stephanie was saying. Money from everywhere else on the planet. You add it up. The economy or at least parts of the economy is doing very well. Housing decelebrate rating, though. Beige book today a line about new york City Real Estate softening a big saying that rents are down year on year and theyre so high and come up so quickly. The indices, one of the founders of caseshiller showing red. Even in boston. Northeast markets not moving around a lot showing down price movement. The beige book was pretty healthy. Employment ganls across the board. Relative optimism and adding to the list of better data, adp worse and then above the 200,000 mark and important for fridays job report. Revisions higher. Netted out. The big gains in the small and mediumsized businesses. Everything but housing. Im going to declare a moment here an i want everybody to weigh in, including you, brian kelly. The cycle switches from a commercial construction one. You look at absolutely. Commercial is everybodys favorite. Nonresidential Construction Data points really quite ama amazing. Look at fastenal today, really kind of a give you a good indication of mid American Industrial manufacturing. Mainly not nonresidential. Thats right. Daily sales, up 15 accelerated in the month. Putting on risk. Thats exactly right. Anybody with a portfolio, you disagree . No, no. I agree but i think that shows whens going on in the market on the whole because a lot of these commercial deals are international buyers. We have seen Flagship Properties go and starting to see that looking at japan, looking around the world. Where are you going to put your money, wheres the capital flowing . Flowing into the u. S. Capital markets commercial real estate and the Economic News today good. Housing being down is probably in a perverse way a good thing. Worst thing for the market would be a rapid rise in interest ratds. By the way, coming to housing, we have come a long way sort to speak. The Typical Home Price i think from the same caseshiller of october 313,000. Thats right. Thats an alltime high. We want it that much higher from here, do we . No, no you dont. But the key thing is availability of credit i think is constraining this market a lot. And so were going everywhere else. I think unfortunate because it really means that americans are going to have to be renters. By and large. Did you see speaking of availability of credit Corporate Bond sales 3. 75 trillion in the u. S. Alone. We need to repeat it three times. Isnt that crazy . Yes. Almost 4 trillion. What does that say to you . Pemps Companies Looking ahead and seeing higher Interest Rates on the whorizon and using the window look at medtronic and raising huge amounts of money. A marker of commercial lending, leverage loans, i think thats the next problem. Been good reports until press about this. Not enough. Let me get a stupid question. Doing leveraged loans and oil. Think of Lower Oil Prices. Whats difference of leveraged loans and im talking about businesses. Got it. Shale oil. These sorts of things. Banks focused much more attention now on business lending as opposed to Consumer Lending because the regulation. Stephanie and brian, i dont know if you caught it, the beginning of the last hour a bit of a debate over whether people were appreciating the risks to the economy from this collapse in oil prices. Right. And, again, not that there arent a lot of benefits but are there negative consequences, as well . I think its a positive. And i think thats one of the reasons why auto sales were so strong. Looking within the numbers, the truck sales, suv sales were off the charts. I mean, up 20 to 30 . Gm and at across the board. Chrysler. And then again you look at this these class 8 trucks, big trucks, up 93 in november year over year. Doubling. Very, very telling to me. So i think thats very good. I think so its good for those sectors clearly and good for the consumer and seeing the benefits oil stays this low. Probably more in the First Quarter because we have just just happened. I know. Still happening. In fact, aaa saying well see another 15 to 20cent per gallon decline by new year. Tough get to oklahoma. 1. 99. It is amazing but the one thing ive been saying for weeks now is be careful what you wish for because start to look at whens happening with slumberberger today. Laying people off. Texas, certainly fueled by the energy boom and then high yield you were talking about. A huge portion of the high yield market is in energy. So again, be karg careful what wish for and probably stabilizing in oil now. I keep flipping around but larry glazer with a good point of extent of best thing for inequality in the country because its a huge tax break if you will for lower income portion of the country and lower rates are better for the higher income portion and brings me to walmart ceo today on squawk box and still cautious on this point and coming from the ceo summit about the economy in this country. This 2 to 3 growth range number feels like its perpetual. And there are customer that is are under pressure. Trying to stretch it to a next paycheck and we still see the pay cycle play up. First of the month, the demand goes up and numbers are better. Next year it feels like more of the same. Sara, this is the moment he was saying perhaps to buy the walmarts of the world. The beaten down, struggling consumer names throughout. The low income is the slowest to recover and why names like walmart and target and Consumer Staples with the middle to low income restaurants a big part of this story fallen behind and havent seen the gains of home depot and the jewelry retailers thinking about that gas tax for the consumer it definitely helps the walmart customer the most and did sound cautious as you said overall. About some of the other problems in the economy weighing them down. Described it as a perpetual i think he used the word economy. I thought all the ceos sounded down beat. Im thinking 2 . Looking at the Economic Data and thinking, it doesnt feel like 2 . Theyve been brned. They and everybody calling for higher Interest Rates and finally and just not seeing it. Thats the underlying growth. Population is. 6 . 2 , 3 is pretty good. Something that moves 90 , you have to be worried about this. We dont want to be up 7 , 8 with inflation. 2 , 3 , thats quite manageable but to your point of the low end consumer, they really need Something Else to offset not seeing the growth and the wages. Wages. Thats what everybody points to. So thats why the gas tax is information. Brian kelly, what do you think the wage piece kicks in here . It hasnt yet and i dont think it will unless theres some regulation to change that because theres no incentive for companies to do. I would watch that, though, because that will be the trigger for anybody whos thinking its big inflation and thats the trigger. Watch that carefully. Absolutely. All right, guys. Thank you. Leave it there for right now. Brian, thank you. Stick around and catch brian kelly at 5 00. By the way, mr. Kelly with a big released. Bitcoin big bang and plen toy read about in there. Congratulations, brian. Thank you. All right. Nasdaq is on fire this year. Now about 300 points off the alltime high. Investors who remember the dotcom bubble, getting nervous now about nasdaq 5,000 again . Thats remember when things went south in the year 2000. Talking about that next. We want the know whether you think that level could spark a selloff. Weigh in now. The poll is open. Also ahead, the bourbon industry is booming. Makers cashing in with the third product in the distillers 60year history and this has a lot more booze in it. The Company Chairman joins us later. Stay tuned. Location. Location. shouting location. Heres the location that matters the most. Here. Or here. Or here. Its wherever this is. To get customers to come here and stay here, youre going to need an app that connects to all your systems. So they can bank, shop, do what they need to do, and you gotta do it fast. Before the competition does. Its tough out here; you better be on the right cloud. Today theres a new way to work. And its made with ibm. Welcome back. Lets start here with dominic chu and a quick market flash. Kelly, what we have is disney. Walt Disney Company up a third of a percent in the after hours session. This after the board of directors declared an annual cash did i have depend of a 34 rise over the same time last year. So an annual Cash Dividend amount of 1. 15. They basically upped the dividend and also point out that this is the companys 59th consecutive Dividend Payment to shareholders and shares a focus. Already a dividend payer and dow component upping by 34 , the annual Dividend Payment. Back over to you guys. Wow. Thank you. Nasdaq inching closer to that 5,000 mark again. Last time hitting that level is march 10th, 2000. Intraday high of 5023. Thats nearly 15 years ago. We all know what happened next. Now, would nasdaq 5,000 be a sell signal for investors . Let us know what you think and well bring in David Garrity with the panel. 15 years in the making but does nasdaq 5,000 mean anything to you . We have to look at the base level in terms of earnings and from that standpoint we have certainly consistent growth, a better mix of Companies Generating higher profits and arguably given the macroeconomic outlook of lower oil and Interest Rates, probably in a situation here and probably going to accelerate Economic Growth in 2015 and carrying into 2016. So in that respect, the fundamentals would probably favor moving through nasdaq 5,000 and probably have a 15 to 20 upside for nasdaq in 2015. Wow. And thats so in other words saying its not a sell signal. Its a buy signal and partly because the nasdaq of today isnt like what the nasdaq of 2000 was. Certainly. The composition is far better in terms of companies producing earnings and granted companies are coming public not necessarily profitable. We can look at some crazy valuations for some private Companies Like uber and basically a glorified cab company. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and overall nasdaq and the macroeconomic picture, you know, Interest Rates are low. Likely to stay low. Inflation is not an issue. Economic growth accelerating, driving earnings. Perhaps the excesses, chris, the private markets and not the public ones. I think so. Think about it. Were not producing you mentioned uber. The qualitys better than it was in 2000. But how much better . Sure we have more earnings but steph, i would be interested to hear what you think of this . We have a lot of companies in the nasdaq very reasonable. Think about microsofts and intel. Apple even. Look at cisco. Youre looking at kind of a nasdaq at 25, 30 times forward estimates versus 2000. To davids point, you get better earnings over time. David, i wanted to ask you about Revenue Growth. If the economy continues to improve, you expect then im assuming to see revenue acceleration and multiple expansion or just looking for just better margins and control and better profitability . I think the point of earlier before the break that, you know, with the oil tax in effect the tax coming down, in terms of income distribution, you have an opportunity for broader segments of the population to take the discretionary dollars and use it for improving the technology that they own and obviously Revenue Growth off of that, Household Budget realoe case can acceleration and a situation here where the yield curve levels and the curve itself stays low, you know, obviously positively sloped, might see improvement in terms of multiple putting on the earnings and looking at acceleration in terms of Economic Growth and probably would cause the market to pay up. Sara, the fact that the nasdaq is back to a level that seemed to crazy and stretched, perhaps the only real lesson from that if anything it is not japan, the nikkei and in 1989 has never gotten close although this year lately its making a big of a comeback and is that part of the takeaway . Part of it and sentiment into the discussion which is vastly different than it was going back 14 years ago on the stocks on the nasdaq on technology in general, you dont have the euphoria that you had and thats a consistent theme in this rally for the s p, nasdaq and for the dow jones industrials. Perhaps a reason to climb this wall of worry. Going back and look at the biggest percentage gainers in 2002 in the nasdaq and monster beverage and keurig green mountain. Priceline is one i was going to ask about, as well. David, is it safe to buy the broad index or even back to march they were talking about the bio tech sector and how outsized the valuations were, is there concern that could be building up again heading back towards 5,000 . I would say sort of looking at things seasonally, probably a rally into year end and then a bit of a pullback in january and then earnings and look good and peoples outlook for first half of 2015 is constructive and, yes, safe to buy the index. Thank you. By the way, as we were asking people at home whether they think the nasdaq is a sell signal, 57 are saying no. So take that for what you will. The nations top ceos meeting in washington today and speaking to cnbc squawk box. Head of blackstone says with 2 trillion in cash, Companies Start wheeling and dealing. In the normal m a cycle you see Companies Buying similar kinds of businesses. That make sense. Where they can take cost out and get positive synergy that part of the cycle is whats going on now. So is International Paper eyeing any deals . Well, well speak exclusively to the companys new ceo coming up and also on that big summit in washington. And she broke through the glass celling. Sallie krawchecks says being more diverse could be better returns for shareholders. Were back in two. Welcome back. Over to dominic chu here for a quick earnings alert. We have weaker guidance in the after hours trading here. Aeropostale. Third quarter loss in line with estimates. Fourth quarter loss coming in more than expected. The shares currently you can see down by 4 and then pvh, the company posting better than expected troft eed profits and light. The stock currently you can see there down by. 5 . Guess is posting weaker than expected Third Quarter sales and a weak Fourth Quarter and fullyear guidance number and trading down by a quarter percent in the after hours trade. Back over to you. Thank you. For now. Conference in san francisco, chair Sallie Krawcheck is there. She joins me now exclusive from the event with cnbcs julia boorstin. Hi to you. Sallie, tell us, so many other pressing issues for Corporate America why you think gender diversity should be the top one. Well, not the top one but up there. What else do you know if we increase in this case diversity to grow the economy 9 and more women, more diversity leads to higher returns on capital, lower risk, greater innovation, greater client focus. The power of diversity is to great that diverse teams outperform other teams. Your Company Elevate has a fund to invest in companies that have diverse boards, diverse leadership. What kind of results have you seen so far . It is really days because we relaunched it back some months ago but, you know, better good results early than bad results early. What we wanted to do is finish the thought because we have seen all this research. Which quite frankly people ignore and say research is research but what are the stock results of this . Right . How can women and millennials looking to put the money for a good run and have an impact, how can we do that and how can we expose and really show the good performance of the research comes from having those diverse teams . You want to show diversity is not about the right thing but the smart thing for results . Both. But, you know, back in the day when i was a Baby Research analyst, i always used to go in and meet with portfolio managers, traders, your viewers and did question in every single meeting was, is the Management Team any good . And i hate to say it but i used to say, ah, sure. How do you know . I met with them for 30 minutes or i saw them on stage. Or they sound really smart on the earnings call. This is research. This is research that goes to the heart of the issue all investors care about which is the quality of management and its one of the few funds that invest behind this. Chris . Its chris whalen. Talk to us how you measure this, talk about the research. What exactly are the criteria youre referring to . Yeah. Well, for the fund, what we do is its a lets look at the facts, maam. Rather than us saying, gee, we think that companys doing Better Things in diversity, we look at the results. We start with global and go down and the percent of the women on the boards, percent of women in senior Management Teams, woman cfo or coo and major ones are women on the boards, women on the Senior Leadership team. Takes a lot of work to get there. The result for the companies in the fund, their percent of women on the boards is third. For Management Team, 23 , 24 versus 11 for both globally. Significant outperformance on those numbers. Do you have a broader concern of getting boards to be more functional and to look at size, look at other criteria . When i see a board in double digits, i consider that a red flag just, you know, as a financial professional. Well, thats a different issue, right . Im talk of percent of boards and not the people on boards. Thats a different issue which were not addressing the fund and whens the optimal size of the board . We could have a very big glass of wine and talk about the experience of functional and dysfunctional boards and we probably shouldnt do it on air. When do you think the boards of the majority of the companies out there are going to see an increase from a third women over time . How long do you think it takes to see substantial growth . I think a third is kind of disappointing as an investor myself but i get your point in terms of what youre looking for. What kind of growth do you see and when . Well, remember, the average in globally is really the low teens opposed to 30 . These are the one that is are doing the better job. Look. This is part of what were trying to do. By highlighting the issue through elevate, by talking about the issue, by showing the research, highlighting and showing and exposing the performance, where people say, geez, maybe what was interesting in theory, you know, ill get to it later, you know, and by the way, i have a board position open. But, you know, my the guy that looks just like me is really super terrific for this position rather than doing that to really highlight and show the results is one, one way of helping move this forward. The truth is if it were easy it would be easy. If it were just the result of having a better pipeline or good intentions, we would have been there 30 years ago. Its not easy. It takes a lot of things. The other part of your business is this network. You charge people to be members of a way to network and meet other women in business. What are the results there . And whats the business potential for you running this . This is an interesting one because as i started to think about this issue and this opportunity of advancing women in business, looking at the business opportunity, networking matters. I dont have to tell you. I dont have to tell many of your viewers. Networking is unwritten rule of success in business and so that business proposition is to bring these women together so that they can not just get to know each other and have that glass of wine we were talking about, but actually, to share information. Its little bit of what we see here at this fortune conference of relationships of formed are what matters and in fact the network really interesting. The women who joined the network stay in their industries longer than the average. Its really quite notable. Great. Kelly . And thanks very much, sallie. Final question as we pivot to talk about 2015 and the work, do you see an environment finally of higher rates of, you know, does this country look more of the same next year with these Falling Oil Prices and everything going on or a real pivot . In terms of the economy or the markets . Yes. Exactly. The macro outlook here. Yeah. If you dont mind. If i may. A general question here on the landscape. No, of course you may. Look, you know, what i think we have to watch is geopolitical risk stepped up. The markets are volatile because of it and uncertain because of it. On a steady state basis, i think things feel fine. Our women are reporting the economy is fine. You know . Their businesses are fine. Theyre growing but you have these points of significant risk around the world and we have seen very easily whether its the risk of cyber attacks, very concerning and picking up, geopolitical risks, these things can come out of left field and hit you, so a baseline i think just strong the leadership, i was going to say. Great to have you on the program. Julia, thank you so much this afternoon. We have breaking news now on the airbag recall with our phil lebeau. Whens happening, phil . Chrysler is expanding the recall of faulty vehicles with faulty airbags. This time another 149,000 ram pickup trucks. 2003 adding vehicles registered in seven u. S. States, southern states. Alabama, florida, georgia, hawaii, louisiana, mississippi and texas as well as five territories. This is the second automaker today expanded the recall of vehicles with takata airbags. Earlier today honda said it will do a nationwide recall of the vehicles with takata airbags and, kelly, capitol hill today, they said, nope, we are not doing a nationwide recall ourself. Back to you. Thats right. Thats right, phil. Thank you for reminding us and bringing us the latest news on that story. Phil lebeau. Sending or receiving a gift of amazon this Holiday Season, theres a good chance the box was made by International Paper and the new c eo tells us what kind of packaging demand he sees this Holiday Season. And heres some Proof Positive about how hot the bourbon industry is. Makers mark with the third product in 60year history. This bottle will have a 114 proof. Thats a lot of alcohol, people. The distillers chairman emeritus will join us. And did north korea lead the hack attack of sony . It may be soon answered. Well bring you the answers later. New cadillac. My baby drove up in a brand new cadillac. Look here, daddy, im never coming back. Discover the new spirit of cadillac and the best offers of the season. Lease this 2015 standard collection srx for around 359 a month. Welcome back. President Obama Meeting with some of the countrys top Business Leaders today in the lengthy question and answer session. John harwood was monitoring things and joins us now with the details. Hi, john. Reporter hi, kelly. The president spent a lot of time with the Business Roundtable executives and topic theyre especially interested in, Corporate Tax reform. The president repeated what hes been saying for a couple of years now which is that hes interested in doing it but only if it doesnt cost the government money. What were not willing to do is to to structure a tax deal in which either it blows up the deficit or alternatively that you get tax shifting from businesses to middle class and working families. Reporter now, of course, that makes it controversial within the Business Community because some executives would benefit of lower ratds and others to cost them through the loss of deductions. In the short term, there are going to be some winners and losers including in this room. The question then becomes, are folks willing and ready to go ahead and make that move for the sake of a simpler, more streamlined, more sensible tax system . Reporter and of course, thiss aside from the complication of a deal with congressal republican that is dont care as much as the president does about making it revenue neutral and more interested in a lower top rate than the president is. The odds are long against this happening in the next two years but the president this meeting today tried to keep alive whatever slim hopes there are. Thank you. Thats our john harwood in washington. My next guest was in that room today. Joining me live from washington, d. C. And here in a cnbc exclusive in his first interview as the new ceo of International Paper, mark sutton, welcome to the program. Good afternoon. Im happy to be here. What did you make of the president s comments today . I think what was most important to me the president very engaged on several topics important to the Business Community. Trade policy, infrastructure, integration. It was a very engaging session and hopeful that things are worked out, especially on Corporate Tax reform. Sounds like a longer Term Initiative but you have the Holiday Season to worry about. What can you tell us about the demand youre seeing moving through black friday and cyber monday . Kelly, we make probably 1 in 3 boxes that ship products all over the country and we have coming out of the third quert and continued into the beginning of this quarter and hopeful that the Holiday Season is strong. Online shipping that you mentioned is a Fastest Growing segment of packaging and 20 a year. What is it that youre shipping . Well, think about consumer nondurables. The types of things average consumer is buying and for the Holiday Season today that can be almost any type of product so getting it to market first, to the Distribution Center and then repackaging and then to the homes is types of things and all that broad range is what we package. It says you are the largest boxcar shipper by rail and youve been elbowed out or certainly paying higher fares because of the demand for crude capacity over rail here. As oil prices have fallen, are see any impact in terms of freight rate right now . Oil prices lower is better for our company and takes a little while to flow through to the transportation costs in rates and then surcharges of diesel and then seeing if oil prices are at the level some benefit of that. Again, as we have been saying, its happened so fast and hardly had time to see the impact but give us a for example looking to 2015 of what impact if Oil Prices Stay here has on your business . Theres puts and takes on in our business. Plus side, obviously, lower transportation costs and in some cases lower input costs because of our suppliers cost go down. But again, it depends on why oil prices go down. If its because Global Demand goes down, thats an offset for our business so we have to wait and see and in general Lower Oil Prices are a positive for us. Final question. On cap x, you guy vs a lot of plant that is are big ticket projects. How much are you considering for next year and people are looking for these companies to be putting this cash to work in infrastructure and in cap x generally. What are your plans on that front . Cap x is split among regulatory and maintenance and expansion. We spend well over a billion dollars a year on cap x and expect the same next year. Well spend more if we have more demand. Does that mean that that goes before looking at potential takeover targets . M an is a hot target here. Thats our sustained cap x. All right. Billion that will help. Mark sutton, thank you so much. Ceo of International Paper. Newly minted we should add and been there for 30 years. Forget about smartphones, new battle is streaming devices. Roku the most popular device but in a big surprise, chrome cast overtook apple tv. Bourbon, the hot new spirit. Makers mark has caused infighting. Wellll tell you why its so special and talk to one of those family members coming up. Im spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. [ female announcer ] need to hire fast . Go to ziprecruiter. Com and post your job to over 30 of the webs leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. You put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. Makes my job a lot easier. [ female announcer ] over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter. Com offer2. Soviet strongman, that strength may be getting zapped and readers of cnbc. Com cant get enough of it. Time to welcome managing editor allen wastler. We have a great analysis piece up now looking at putins nightmare seems to be coming true because you got the declining ruble, you got inflation, rising prices and then the price of oil is plummeting. Remember, putin, he made his name in the russian republic on the economic boom and rush whys going to be a mover and shaker and everything. Fascinating analysis. The readers are eating it up. 120,000 people read it. From russia . No. From russia with love, right . Yes. Number 2, a little piece by eric chemy with a look at whens going on in the private equity markets and essentially the wave of activist investors like carl icahns and changed the game in private equity and you remember you used to do an lbo, pay off management, pay out the proceeds, move on. That game disappeared and the firms are trading with themselves. Which is making a little bit of a bubble in the private equity market and as people wondering what might happen and that piece is eaten up by readers. Yeah. Putting that capital to work. Exactly. And then finally, what might be my favorite piece of the day. From north korea, if your name is kim jongun, stop using it. Nobody is allowed to use the glorious leaders name. If youre already named that, you have to change your name. Or change your birth certificate. People love that story, too. So there you go. Yeah. Its not the only thing in north korea. Thank you. Plenty of stuff over there on cnbc and sony formally naming north korea as the source of the cyber attack that exposed Sensitive Files and made unreleased films public and trying to keep the studio from releasing the interview. Well have more on the story when we come right back. You can bring back a lot of things from a trip around the world. But you cant always bring back customer data. Because many customers dont like it when their data moves around. Can i go now . If youre going to do business globally, you need a cloud that can keep your data where it needs to be. Today, theres a new way to work and its made with ibm. Welcome back. Sony will officially name north korea as the perpetrator of an attack on the movie studio forcing employees to work with pen and paper. Imagine. The hack leaked five unleased films to the internet and coin sided with the attempts to stop the studio of releasing a comedy of the interview. Tv news men recruited by the cia to kill north Korean Leader kim jongun. Great pr for the movie you have to say and also a pretty serious issue and i want, chris, you and everybodys thoughts on this one. I think sony staged the whole thing to Pay Attention to this movie. To the movie . No, look. Its a serious issue. North koreas chief industries are counterfeiting and other bad things. I mean, they dont do anything in a normal sense to create prosperity for the people and sony, the thing, the north koreans, it confirms once again that that whole asian area, china, north korea are a problem. I think when they misbehave, just go out, go to the points in the pacific and shut them off. I feel like this isnt going to end well. The u. S. , believe me, if things are really bad, i bet they could count the points. Whats more scary is fbi warned the fbi warned this mal is out there and other businesses need to be aware of it. Perhaps we havent seen the end of it. These are hostile acts. Are we equipped to talk about it in that language . You have to ask our politicians. Yeah, steph . That i dont know. China is spending an awful lot of time trying to control corruption, trying to control these kinds of issues. North korea is not even close to it. I think this whole thing is going to be an interesting theme for 2015. Cybersecurity from an investor point of view. I really think you have to own a package of a lot of these various different securities. And just package because they are all volatile. I bring it back to investment. With the proliferation, its only going to get worse. Were hearing more and more of these kinds of issues. A year ago it was target. Now its sony and this political its an investor issue on the flip side where its a risk for certain Companies Like retailers. Douglas mellon was asked about it this morning. Its one part of the business that im not strict and i dont control costs. I let them spend as much as they can because thats and thats why i think its such a big deal because what theyre doing internally may be fine. Its not sufficient for these really advanced cyberattacks. You need these Specialized Companies with Specialized Services to be able to handil it. Even then, they decent it. Think about the difference between Corporate America which in their case can write a bit of a blank check and just our National Purse if you will, where the strings are tied very tightly. Look. At the end of the day you have to spend money on this. Government sponsoring this activity, criminal organizations who have organized this. Ive had to get two new debit cards this year from bank of america in both cases because of fraud. Its a huge cost. Its embedded in the system. Were all going to need a drink. If you like bourbon, youll love this. Makers mark has released a new bourbon. It has a much higher alcohol content. Its so limited that the chairman emeritus was only given two bottles of the new product. When he was caught giving one to his ofriend, his own son cut hi off. Bourbon. Its continued to outperform vodka and other spirits and the proof is in the barrel. Its in its makers mark is bottling a new bourbon with a higher alcohol level. Uncut, unfiltered and limited availability. They are calling it cask strength. Were getting an exclusive first look at this bottle with bill samuels jr. Welcome. Thank you. Is this some youve brought or is that all strictly brought it in and i was sent this is it . I was the one that resisted the longest. Finally my son and the master distiller said everybody that comes to the distillery, we let them slip in the rack house and thief out a little bit right out of the barrel and they say its unbelievable. So finally i get hit in the head 500 or 600 times and someone said why dont we bottle a little bit of this up. And we did. Its caused an incredible craze. I mean like nothing weve ever experienced. 117 proof . As it comes out of the barrel 60 alcohol. Is this even legal . Well, yes, in small quanti quantities. But you have to behave. Do you think this would have helped the relationship between Mitch Mcconnell and president obama . Im from conditikentucky and known mitch a long time and theres no one that respects the tradition of the senate like Mitch Mcconnell. I think youre going to see things work. Are people interested in the alcohol content or is it the flavor and distinction there . Whats happened is the American People are starting to enjoy and appreciate flavor. And not just in spirits. Its good for us and not so good for vodka, not so good for white wine. Good for red wine and really good for restaurants that arent chains. So its about craft. Its about tradition and good taste. And what i was arguing about is high proof alcohol takes a little adjusting to. But this stuff is amazingly approachable. How expensive is it . Well, its not cheap. Ive got grandchildren ive got to get through school. Do you have to raise the price as demand goes up . This is a little complicated. This is we have one brand. Weve got to forecast for six years. Everything we make is essentially sold and it takes six years before it gets through the warehouse process. As we let some of this out it ta takes away from the other and commitments weve made to distributors. So its limited for a practical reason. Weve made commitments. Wed have to break the commitments. But the reaction, the response has been so overwhelming. And its helping kentucky not only your corporate parents but its really creating this whole thing where guys on these bachelor parties go bourbon tasting and chris . Bill, talk about do you go . I would love to. Or bachelorette. Seems to be a renaissance in brown liquor, and i think also theres so many different types of bourbon and other varieties who are doing extensions of their brand, different varieties and flavors. Is that partly why youve done that to respond to this or responding to approximately 400 bartenders over the last 2 1 2, 3 years that tell us its the best high proof spirit they ever put in their moulth. And even a dummy like me will figure out if the dogs like the dog food, let them have a little. If i walk in and order a glass of this, what is it going to run me . Probably 11, 12, 13. Just for a glass . Thats not bad. I thought 50 or 75. So were talking pricey, but not i think a bottle of weve had some for sale at our gift gallery at though distillery. Some of our very best friends would know where to find a bottle to take home. And you can maybe send some to the white house. Ill try. Samuels jr. , thank you for coming by. Great to see you. Its a pleasure. Might keep this but it might be too dangerous. Fast money is coming up. Whats on tap . Everybody is looking for the next biotech play. Rbc names this company one company to own into year end. They just did a deal to acquire dishen muscular dystrophy drug. I want to know the p e ratio on that one. Well, high. Thanks. Fast money starts right now. Im melissa lee. Tim seymour, pete najarian, guy adami. Some of the years biggest winners are showing signs of slowing down. Tesla, yahoo u. S. Steel and apple. Lets kick takeoff with tesla. The stock has rallied since september 4th but since then down about 20 . They cut their numbers. What was interesting about that, they cut their numbers in half but left their overweight target and 320 price target