vanessa williams to design. on behalf of today s organization i want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less than miss america you are and the miss america you always will be! [ cheers and applause ] williams was the first african-american woman to be crowned miss america. she thad haskell for the apology and his leadership. time to get down to business with landon dowdy. welcome to monday welcome to monday to you, too. futures are slightly higher. investors await the big two-day federal reserve meeting on interest rates this week, get a key read on retail sales and consumer prices ahead of the more than meeting. the dow rising 103 points on friday to 16,433. facebook is looking to bring virtual realit to your smartphone. the social network is working on a new 360-degree video app that
year, the federal reserve said it can be patient in deciding when to raise interest rates. that helped sends stocks soaring with the dow rising 288 points. the biggest gain of the year. back to hardball. today we can say again in a loud and clear voice that the united states should never condone or practice torture anywhere in the world. not under any future administration or in any future conflict. welcome back to hardball. hillary clinton was honored at the kennedy center gala. she made her first public comments on tort you since the release of that report. and she made clear that there should be no ambiguity about u.s. torture policy. that should be absolutely clear as a matter of both policy and law including our
how can you not feel happy when you hear that? love that song. anyho, talk to me about the numbers, dow up before the closing bell. you know what? wall street doing its own happy dance, solid headlines. earnings have been pretty good, keeping stocks in the green. also, fed chief janet yellin reassured investors saying that interest rates will stay low, that means borrowing money will continue to be cheap. l plus economic growth in china slowing down but not as fast as expected. you get a lot of green arrows on the screen today. seeing triple digits to the upside. this is today. look at how the market s been lately, lately it s been volatile. we ve been getting, i don t know, whiplash lately. trip triple digit swings yesterday, stocks down for the month because we ve been getting mixed signals from earnings season overall. today, up arrows, yes, seem to be the pattern. we ll take the green on the
perspective, is the ukrainian military any factor in all of this? well it s the readiness that s the factor. they ve come into the area, unprepared. the unit we saw was supposed to be almost elite paratroopers surrounded by local residents and looked exhausted, ill equipped, too. messy response. the ukrainian security forces moved in saturday and got ambushed on the way in, losing one of the guys killed, five injured and since then tried to build up forces, move around and each time stumbled. we see a lot in the sky, jets and helicopters but no presence on the ground. nick paton walsh, thank you so much. on wall street, positivity with the dow rising. look at this more than 140 points. alison kosik joins me to talk about why stocks are doing well.
right there to grab that gavel. hey, joy durks have a nice christmas? nice question, john. yes, i did. my family is healthy and happy and santa claus is good to us, regardless of his race. my christmas was terrific. thank you. rapid response panel is next. i m josh lipton with your cnbc wrap. dow rising 122 points, notching its 50th record close of the year. s&p is up 8 points, also at a new high. nasdaq gained 11 to close at its highest level since september of 2000, helping propel stocks higher. welcome news about the labor market, filing for first-time jobless claims fell more than expected. claims dropped 42,000 next week, hitting the lowest level in