Rainy today. Stocks pushed down by tumbling Energy Prices which neared fresh sixyear lows by the end of the session. Global supplies outstripped demand and just today Goldman Sachs last forecast on oil calling for further declines in the prices in the year ahead. At the nymex today, domestic Oil Prices Fell another 4 . Down 2. 29 a barrel. Closing at 46. The lowest since april of 2009. Foreign brent crude was down even more falling 2. 68 a barrel. The lowest since march of 09. With oil prices in freefall, many are asking not just how low can oil go but how low is too low. Jackie dangelis has more. Reporter the crude crash continues with no end in sight. Prices on both sides of the atlantic now under 50 a barrel. While cheap crude means consumers could save 50 to 75 billion on gas this year according to aaa, many are wondering how low is too low for oil. The Tipping Point where the drag on the economy outweighs the pickup in consumer spending. Were in the beginning part of the price zone right now that hurts production in a big way and starts to reverberate through the economy, the manufacturing economy especially. It will be particularly painful if we break the 40 level, and break the 33 level which is the low price target into the 20s, then its going to be a real bleak situation. Reporter production is just one risk if all falls too low. The Ripple Effect is big oil laying off workers and pulling back on hiring. The number of jobs in the exploration and Production Industry probably number around 500,000 jobs. The Multiplier Effect the support services the dry cleaners and restaurants and real estate around those jobs add probably another three to four times. So in theory upwards of 1. 4 million jobs could be at stake. Theres also a global impact. Low oil prices dont just hurt the u. S. It hits canada. It hits russia and venezuela. So there could be the makings of a Global Financial crisis as the fallout from the impact on these countries. How low will oil prices go and how long will we stay there . Goldman sachs ajusting the 2015 pride forecast to 47 a barrel and say we could stay under 45 before the Fourth Quarter of this y i do agree with Goldman Sachs forecast. When you look at the supply demand dynamic, its still heavily skewed heavily to the supply side. It doesnt look like it will change before the beginning of the summer. I would expect prices to be low going into the summer. While supply is key, so is demand. And neither are seen changing anytime soon. For nightly Business Report, im jackie dan gel lus. Its Earnings Seasons when Companies Post what they made or lost last quarter, how they did it and how they look to the future. As usual tonight, alcoa kicks off the Fourth Quarter earning season and posted a solid beat. 33 cents a share excluding certain items easily topping the wall street forecast as you see there. Revenues are nearly 6. 4 billion, also Beat Estimates on a 14 jump in yearoveryear sales. Shares initially higher. Afterhours trading, after issuing promising guidance and upbeat comments from alcoas ceo. If you look at the ups, the revenue is up 14 . And by the way, 50 of that is driven purely by organic growth. Profitability is up. Literally, we have a, i would almost call it a business trifecta. We have three groups and all of the three groups are performing very very well. Morgan brent with her latest results. A business trifecta he said. Certainly youve seen stronger Aluminum Prices contributing to alcoas stronger than expected earnings. I think the bigger story here this is a rebound and transformation story, to use ceo kleinfelds own words and accelerated transformation. A stronger than expected full year really indicative of what weve seen from a mining company, to an industrial manufacturer. So value added businesses contributing products to aerospace and automotive industries. And we really saw that shift take place over the year. We started seeing that at the bottom line. You look at the revenue increase year over year. Heres the even bigger number profits, earnings per share adjusted 725 increase. Wow. Over the Fourth Quarter of 2013. Engineered quite a turnaround there. And youll see that in alcoa stocks. Since the company left the dow industrials, the shares have just about doubled. Lots of ceos saying kick me out of the dow. Just kidding, folks. Morgan thank you. Joining us tonight, Andrew Berkley joins us to talk more about the fourthquarter season and the impact it might have on the market. He is a portfolio strategist at 07 oppenheimer and company. Thank you, sue. What kind of a season do you think its going to be . Theres so many crosscurrents. How is it going to shake out this time around . Yeah im expecting a pretty wide range of results, meaning that if you look at analysts consensus, theyre only looking for about 1 growth in the s p 500, which is the slowest growth rate since 2012. If you take out energy its about 4 a little bit better. If you go down the industry level, what well find is a wide disparity between the losers of the earning Season Energy and Energy Related ideas are going to be down well in excess of 20 in terms of Earnings Growth. On the other side you have a lot of positives, which are in Technology HealthCare Consumer discretionary, so for one quarter in quite a long period of time youll continue to see a very big disparity between industries and stocks for that matter. Do you think, andrew that the forecasters who see 1 Earnings Growth and only 1 are being a little too do you remember . As you know its all about the level of growth and the expectations going into the earning season. Weve seen the numbers come down by about 6 during the quarter. Which is pretty pessimistic. We think the bar is pretty low at this point. Nonenergy earnings should be able to surpass the results pretty easyilyeasily. We think the guidance will be pretty upbeat given the better economic and macro data coming into the beginning of the year. What about the strength of the dollar for those multinational corporations . Might it be a bit of a headwind this time . The other big theme is definitely the currency. The dollar is very strong. That will be a headwind for companies that derive a lot of revenues overseas. It will be more of a benefit for the domestic oriented companies. Especially those with lower input costs from commodities u where the higher dollar is keeping the Commodity Prices down. It should be a netnet. Aggregate, the s p 500 draws about 70 of its revenues domestically and about 30 oversglaes andrew lets bring it around to third base and bring it home. Are earnings at this level high enough to sustain and justify stock prices at todays levels. Yeah. Just about. Valuations are definitely at the high end of the range. If we have 3 or 4 earnings at the end of the day, i dont think thats enough to support the multiple. That will have to accelerate in the Fourth Quarter. If we have a stumble, we need to get back onto a stronger earnings trajectory through the year. Andrew well let you go. Thank you so much. Thank you. And more now, sue, on another losing day on wall street. As another steep drop in oil prices did drag equities lower with chevron and exxon mobil the biggest decliners in the dow. Blue chip stocks fell 96 points four points shy of a streak of five days in a row of tripledigit moves of one way or the other. The nasdaq was off 39 and the s p lower by 16. A top fed policymaker said the nations central bank should stop talking about the need to be patient, when its about to hike interest rates. Richmond Federal Reserve president said in order to keep inflation under control, the fed should raise rates sooner rather than later and that by dropping the word patient from its guidance the fed would be signaling that a rate hike is near. The u. S. Health Care Industry is a 3 trillion behemoth. Thats why the annual jpmorgan in san francisco, the energys biggest, is sometimes called the woodstock of health care. Meg has more on some of the big deals and major themes of this years conference. Reporter it was a big day for drug deals in critical data. The annual Jpmorgan Health care conference kicked off with a bang. Announcing a 5. 2 billion acquisition of a pharmaceutical comp paying more than double the diagnostic companys share price. Bristolmyers has a drug that was stopped early because it met its goal helping patients live longer than standard chemotherapy. Can biotech and pharma continue the success. I think so. The outperformance is due to sus stance. Its the fact that companies have brought forward a lot of interesting new drugs. Reporter the conference set the agenda ahead in health care. There are about 9,000 investors in four days in san francisco. The mood was upbeat after five years of biotech outperforming the broader market. Drug pricing, a debate started to heat up in 2014 around the cost of new medicines for hepatitis c and concerns there will be more pressure in other diseases. I believe theres been a modicum of pricing pressure for some time now. I mean i think if you go back five or ten years, were seeing much more focus on value. Were seeing payers and patients demand more for the medicines that theyre buying. I think thats a trend that will continue. I dont think its only diabetes and oncology i think youll see that more broadly. Reporter half a dozen Industry Leaders all have the same answer when asked about the prospects for 2015. Im meg terrell in san francisco. College football is getting even bigger. But not necessary live for the athletes. Is it time for them to be compensated financially. The Republican Controlled Senate is taking up legislation to resume construction of the controversial Keystone Pipeline setting up a showdown with president obama after he vowed to veto the bill if it passes. The candidates of texas oil pipeline bill was approved in the house la the u. S. Military Central Command had its twitter and youtube accounts hacked for a short time today. But people claiming to work with the Islamic State militants. The twitter site even posted a thread that said quote, american soldiers we are coming watch your back end quote. No classified material was exposed, and pentagon officials which quickly suspended the site called the breach embarrassing but not a threat. The unsettling cyber attack on the u. S. Military comes on the same day president obama pushed for new measures to protect the nations Computer Networks from hackers. This is a direct threat to the Economic Security of american families. And weve got to stop it. If were going to be connected, then we need to be protected. John harwood joins us from washington on the new cybersecurity, and Identity Theft initiative that the president now plans to outline in his state of the union address. We know john that the timing of this new white house plan could not have been i guess more ironic. Whats in it . Well the white house essentially is trying to make sure that everyone has maximum information about whats happening to their identity. So it places requirements on businesses to notify customers if their identityies or information has been compromised. Thats where you may see some of the political disagreement over how much onus is going to be put on business as opposed to on consumers themselves. I do think this is a promising area for bipartisan compromise because everyone is seeing what happened to sony pictures. Everyones seen the stories about target walmart, and where customers data has been hacked. I think the president seizing on this is one way he might be able to find a place to work with the republican congress. John can i turn you back to the Keystone Pipeline. Has there been any movement on either side in terms of the congressional opposition that exists to keystone . No i dont think so. I think the next step were going to see is once we get a senate vote on this it will get the 60 votes needed to go to final vote and it will pass. But it will not have the 67 votes needed to override a president ial veto just as it was well short, maybe 15 votes short or more in the house of representatives on veto override strength. I think thats when the negotiations will happen after it clears the senate. More purely political, i was a bit surprised to hear the press secretary today say that the white house regrets not having sent someone higher in the administration to the solidarity demonstrations in paris. Thats right. I think the white house decided to admit a mistake there. They were getting a lot of criticism. They didnt say they regretted the president not showing up but said a higher ranking official eric holder was in paris for meetings did not make time for this. And i think given the presence of other world leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu who the french asked not to show up the white house decided that they need to acknowledge some of the criticism of not being taking a more active role. John thank you, as always. John harward in washington. The worst day in ten years, that is where we start the market focus. Apparently there werent too many blue tiff fanny boxes under the tree this year. The highend jeweler cut the Profit Guidance citing a disappointing holiday season. Shares off about 14 to 8901. Different story for lululemon, raised its Profit Guidance thanks to improving trends and strong holiday results. The stock almost 7 higher 62. 49 the close. Lululemon upped its Profit Guidance for the Fourth Quarter and the full year. Shares up 3 to 14. 57. A warning from san disk weighed on the shares today. The flash memory provide said Fourth Quarter revenue would come in below the forecast. Shares slumped, down 14 to 83. 57. American airlines saw its percentage of seats filled in december. It did see its capacity increase. It also said that its Fourth Quarter revenue unit will be lower than expected. Shares were off more than 4. 5 today to 49. 58. Adding to the list of earnings warnings today, core labs also cut its Fourth Quarter guidance. But separately after the bell it announced an increase to its dividend. The payout is now 50 a share. Which is a 10 increase. The annual yield on the dividend 2. 1 . Shares closed 7 lower to 103. 91. Dollar tree said it expects to reach an agreement by the end of the month with the federal trade commission on its planned purchase of Family Dollar. The retailer added that it expects to divest less than 300 stores to make that deal happen. Separately Family Dollar sent a letter to shareholders repeating its recommendation on that shareholders goal with the dollar tree acquisition over the proposed takeover bid from dollar general. Got all that . Its a complicated story. Thats a lot of dollars. Thats a lot of dollars. Speaking of dollars, oregon and ohio state take the field in just this evening in the football playoff championship game. It will undoubtedly shine the spotlight on the ageold debate whether or not College Athletes should be paid dollars for playing. Many already have full scholarships and medical care but is that sufficient. Former nfl player jack brewer joins us now with thinks thoughts. Hes ceo and founder of his own Money Management group. Jack always great to see you. You played intercollegiate football. This new playoff structure has generated millions maybe even billions in extra revenue for schools. The coaches are paid millions of dollars a year. Should players be compensated, too . Definitely tyler. You know me im a capitalist. At the same time you know what its right and wrong. You look at all the hours that these players are putting in. Its just a shame that many of them are going through three, four years of college, no degree and no compensation. At some point we have to change this system. There are those who would say, jack though that many of them do have full scholarships and medical care and that should be enough compensation especially if they do finish college, before they join the pros if they join the pro, basically they have a great education and they can go on. It is for a lot of the majority. Probably 90 to 92 of the players would never even ask for compensation. Most guys would rather go get a fouryear degree at a university. Theres a small percentage that are just there, wasting scholarships youre not going to class anyway. A lot of them dont graduate so why not take the scholarships and give it to someone whos really going to use it. Lets talk about some things that really surprise me. One, as i did my research is the ncaa rule that caps the amount of money that athletes can make outside in their spare time Something Like 2,000 a year. I understand why that rule is there, so some big alumni cant give a kid a 10,000 job that he or she doesnt show up for. But 2,000 in this day and age sounds a little low to me. Its pretty sad. I had two children while i played college football. Youre talking 15 years ago, tyler. I was only allowed to make 2,000 per year. So you can only imagine so many guys with families they have other obligations, they come from backgrounds where their parents dont have a lot of money, so its just its unamerican to put these players through that and not allow them to make a living. The other issue which youre so very familiar with when you financially counsel and handle client accounts especially with former nfl players, is whether or not these young people are capable of managing whatever if they were paid would they be able to manage it financially . And sufficiently . What do you think . I think you can put in compensation deferment programs. You dont have to pay the players all the money up front. Put procedures in place that will teach them to protect them from themselves. Thats the biggest issue. A lot of these guys are and ladies are young. And they havent had that financial background that education. How you make up for that is putting things in place where theyre not allowed to take all their money at once. In regards to the ncaa youre talking about such a fraction a small percentage of players, that its really not that big of a deal. Most players just arent going to opt into getting paid over getting their education. And so thats the real debate. Jack thank you very much. Who do you like in the game tonight, by the way . Ohio state all the way. Im a big ten guy. I think the world has been exposed, and now they understand that there really is athletes in the big ten. Rooting for the other team here. Thanks very much jack. We appreciate it. Jack brewer with the brewer group. Thank you. New cars new concepts and Auto Industry that is optimistic about the future. A report from the biggie, the Detroit Auto Show. The sharp and steady drop in oil prices is expected to hit the texas state budget hard this year. Just today, the states comptroller predicted an almost 14 decline from Energy Production and taxes coming in the upcoming twoyear budget cycle, with revenue from natural gas to fall by 8 . Oil prices continue to slide. So does the cost of filling up your gas tank. U. S. Drivers paid an average of 2. 20 a gallon for regular gas last week. Thats the lowest price for this time of year since 2009 according to the industry researchers, the lundberg survey. Aaa has the National Average even cheaper, 2. 13 a gallon down 7 cents in just the past week. Cheaper gas is one reason behind strong sales of new cars and trucks over the past year. With 50 new vehicles making their debut a this weeks Detroit Auto Show its a pretty good bet car sales will be strong again in the year ahead. Phil lebeau has more from detroit. Introducing the chevrolet bolt. Reporter with sales surging, the buzz is back at the Detroit Auto Show. These are good times in detroit. Reporter there you nr performance cars and luxury models. But two electric vehicles may generate the most chatter. Gms new extended chevy volt and allelectric chevy bolt a concept car, gm estimates the bolt will have a range topping 200 miles, when it debuts in 2017 and could sell for as little as 30,000. Can you make 30,000 stick . Its a concept vehicle, but if its going to fit the equation that customers are looking for, thats what were going to do. Reporter while automakers are touting greater mileage, plunging gas prices have many in the industry saying its time to revisit economy standards set five years ago, which called for auto fleets to average 54 1 2 miles per gallon by 2025. Forecasting what theyre going to be in the future we just need to take a very a factdrivenage sits of what that will be. Its time to explore the future of buick. Reporter for now, the focus is on a resurgence in autos, not seen since the late 90s. Theres so much enthusiasm and optimism right now. Im hoping its not silly optimism cockeyed optimism. It seems more pragmatic of the lessons. Reporter the combination of a healthy economy and strong Consumer Confidence has many in the Auto Industry believing u. S. Sales this year could top 17 million for the First Time Since 2001. Phil lebeau, nightly Business Report, new york. Big news coming out of the Detroit Auto Show today, the 2015 volkswagen gulf named the north american car of the year by u. S. And Canadian Auto writers and editors. The new aluminum body ford f150 pickup was named truck of the year. Thats the eighth time ford has taken home the truck of the year honors. And the fourth time by the way, for the f150. Congratulations all around. Yes, indeed. Terrific. All right. That will do it for nightly Business Report for tonight. Im su herera. Im tyler mathisen. Hope to see you back here tomorrow n. This is bbc world news. 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