of people here inside ukraine that are afraid of a potential conflict. worth noting that russia says the true presence of belarus is for exercises, that it is there at the invitation of the government of belarus. jonathan? thank you. we appreciate it very much. still ahead, billions of dollars wiped out in a matter of minutes. facebook shares took a nosedive after the closing bell yesterday. we re live with cnbc for the latest on that and the other stories driving the markets this morning. way too early will be right back. morn ing. way too early will be right back
as the u.s., iran and five other world powers get ready to hold talks this month on a final nuclear agreement. the u.s. sanction islamic republic of iran broadcasting last year, saying it blocked foreign channels and distorted its programming. twitter making plans today to possibly sue the obama administration over just what it can disclose about government surveillance requests. this days after other tech companies agreed to a deal that restricts how much they can say about those inquiries. twitter s legal chief has posted online that the deal is not transparent enough and its users deserve to know more about what the government is asking for. asian markets ending the week stronger. japan regaining some of the huge losses from earlier this week. the nikkei up 2%, hang seng up, gains in london as well, very minor gains this hour in london. yesterday, that s what the dow looked like at the closing bell yesterday. biggest gain of the year for the most closely watched batches of stock
good morning. we ve already heard from the companies that you listed, expect stocks to open higher, especially the nasdaq. you can thank apple for that. after the closing bell yesterday, it handed in its report card, it said its profit was down 22% but it beat estimates. here s what else it said. apple said that it sold 31.2 million iphones, way more than expected. tim cook says the iphone 5 is by far, the best selling iphone. and then, then tim cook said the magic words. he said we are laser focused and working hard on amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall. that has apple shares ready to pop in about 20 minutes when the opening bell rings. it looks like apple shares are up 5% in the premarket. let me go through some of the earnings you mentioned, mostly good, though caterpillar is the bad one in the bunch, lowering its full-year sales forecast, pepsi, ford and boeing all beat estimates. boeing may be the biggest surprise, given the headache
second at 18%. another poll out of iowa shows it much closer. let s go to south carolina, as well. south carolina, of course, the first southern state to vote, it goes number three in the calendar and votes on the 23rd of january. this is also, again, showing newt gingrich on top. far ahead of mitt romney. romney at 23%. gingrich 18 points ahead and rick perry at 9%. kyra, i guess newt gingrich to take his national poll numbers and translate it into an operation and make sure he gets the teams in place in theearly states to get the voters to the caulks and primary sites, kyra. nancy pelosi is saying that she has information on gingrich and newt is sending her a warning. what the heck is going on here? yeah, this started yesterday and, remember, this goes back to the late 1990s when gingrich was house speaker and he was facing 84 ethics investigations and pelosi said she maybe will unearth some of the stuff that was never made public. here s what she said. i know a lot abo
now, the plan does not address the debt ceiling. you see the debt clock there. it ticks down to august 2nd. that s when the u.s. could start defaulting on some of its bills. it could be a jumping-off point for a bigger deal. here are some of the highlights of the plan according to cnn senate forces, it shaves about $4 trillion off the debt load. rejiggers the tax load, cuts short-term spending by about $500 billion. it changes the entire budgeting process and it reforms social security. now, this plan is not to be confused with something you heard about yet, cut, cap and balance. that s a house plan that passed last night, imposing strict limits on future federal spending. that is likely doa, probably won t pass the senate. the president is promising to veto it if it did. in about 90 minutes, the spotlight in the news corp. phone hacking scandal turns to british prime minister david cameron. he ll be front and center at the house of commons talking about his links to the mu