8%. in the meantime, kraft foods shares rose. net profits would be slightly higher. sadly, that s not going to help the jobs picture. kraft said they will cut 1,600 jobs as it realigns. maybe good news for homeowners. natural gas closed at a low. this past december was the sixth warmest on record. many heat their home with natural gas. that s it from cnbc. now back to hardball. this is why my election, which appears to be a recall election, is going to be such a big deal. this is one of the defining moments in wisconsin s history and the national political
call voters. over past four years, you find another group emerging here too. that is the tea party vote here. also the tea party vote down here in charleston, south carolina as well. we just saw rick perry a moment ago ago. he is here in the western part of the state in western columbia. you also saw newt gingrich moment ago. he is up here in york county just along the border with north carolina. you have seen a lot of population growth come out of charlotte over the past 10 years. a critical theme in south carolina will be this jobs picture. they have been at or near 10% unemployment for the past three years running which almost doubles the unemployment rate in new hampshire as well as iowa. look for that to be a theme as we move forward now. 21st of january, pushing ahead now with martha. martha: coming up, a man accused of killing natalie holloway. joran van der shoot van der shoot is in court again. he may be ready to take
investors hoping for a third straight day of gains in the dow to kick off the 2012 year. cnbc s becky quick, happy new year, becky. hey, happy new year, chuck. i think this is our first market rundown of 2012. our first time together, and you sound sick. all that running around caught up with you. i m actually about 50 times better than i have been over the last 72 hours. take it away. looking at a day in the markets where we ll probably open down. but a little bit of a rough back and forth this morning because we got news when it came to the jobs picture. adp report was out and you know how important that is because it gives us a glimpse of what to expect for the big jobs report from the government. 325,000 jobs were okay. what we re looking at is the initial claims number. weekly jobless claims came out,
investors hoping for a third straight day of gains in the dow to kick off the 2012 year. cnbc s becky quick, happy new year, becky. hey, happy new year, chuck. i think this is our first market rundown of 2012. our first time together, and you sound sick. all that running around caught up with you. i m actually about 50 times better than i have been over the last 72 hours. take it away. looking at a day in the markets where we ll probably open down. but a little bit of a rough back and forth this morning because we got news when it came to the jobs picture. adp report was out and you know how important that is because it gives us a glimpse of what to expect for the big jobs report from the government. 325,000 jobs were okay. what we re looking at is the initial claims number. weekly jobless claims came out, 372,000 weekly jobless claims, down 15,000 from last week, a
where do you stand? i remember when the numbers jumped from 9% to 8.6%, i was happy. because i cheer for america. i have been in a family with an unemployed, you know, father, i like seeing people get back but i was immediately shouted down from a lot of people on the right going oh, those numbers are ridiculous, you re a fool, et cetera, et cetera, and it s just because people stopped looking for work. since that number, we ve had weekly jobless claims that have also been hopeful. don t we have a reason to hope that this 8.6% could be 8.4% or 8.2%? both sides are right. people are dropping out of the workforce, the 8.6% isn t as good as it looks. but at the same time, the jobs picture has been improving slowly. it won t be great next year, but it will be moving in the right direction. we have to go, but housing, i m fascinated by this. we don t talk about it enough. housing hit the highest level in several years 685,000 housing