Averages as we enter the final hour of trade here and see whether or not they want to be long going into the weekend here, a question we often ask on a friday, but for a different reason. Geopolitical usually. Now youll wonder if they just want to be out because of what could happen on the asian markets over the weekend. As mentioned, heres where we stand on the 4000 level. Yesterday we were watching a 4050 level. How quickly weve gapped down, off 1. 3 . The s p is shedding 16 points right now. The dow off 136 though, 16,034 is the level as we enter the final hour. Lets get to it in our Closing Bell Exchange for this friday. Susan fulton from fbb Capital Partners is with us, ken moraif from money matters, chad morgenlander and rich peterson from s p capital iq, all very pleased that art cashin from ubs is making a rare appearance in the Closing Bell Exchange and Rick Santelli out of chicago so a full house today. Arthur, what is your view of whats going on today . Well, weve got a coup
European central bank and the bank of on england are holding policy setting meetings today. The ecb is trying to deal with the slow recovery and inflation thats too low. Well have a live report from our colleague, Geoff Cutmore in frankfurt in just about ten minutes. First, andrew has some of the morningss top stories. Good morning. Thanks for that. A number of stories out about the Retail Industry this morning. Some of the nations largest stores will be reporting december comps today. Also, costco, one of the first out of the gate. The warehouse chain posting a better than expected 3 increase in december comp. The retailer was helped in part by online sales. Macys cutting 2,500 jobs as part of a reorganization. The Company Plans to close five stores, but open eight others. Macys says the move will save 800 million per year. The company reporting a profit above wall streets consensus. Take a share that i a look of shares of zs today. The specialty retailer cited quarterly outlook. Shar
With a dose of past hour, the fed released the minutes from its december meeting. It reveals that policymakers believe they can tap the brakes before the end of the year. Back in january, it would purchase 8500 worth of securities each and every month. A combination of later dated treasuries and Mortgage Backed securities. What does this mean for your money . Lets look at how the markets are reacting to the news. Stocks are holding heavy. We are now down. Down about ten points for the Dow Jones Industrials. Use all that we are slightly lower for the moment. Maybe ten year yields rising sharply. We have not seen 1. 9 in a long while. A totally different story at the currency market. The euro falling through. Some traders consider that numbers to be a parish technical breakdown and strength of the dollar. In the grand scheme of things, so much stronger than were was a year ago. Gold down right now. Twentyfour dollars. The dollar rallies stronger. Silver pulling back by 0. 55. This on the
Netflix. One streaming Company Accounts for more than a third of primetime internet traffic. Would you pay 84 million for boxes with lines between them . 60 million worth of contemporary art. Varney and company, we are about to begin. The big names which are moving, they make tractors, heavy equipment, global company, considered an economic indicator, lowered their sales forecasts, the stock is down 2 . After that long hard winter, not much reaction to the stock up 0. 20. Overall stocks taking a breather, look at the big board, down 52 on the dow, 16662. I would say we are three solid rally away from 17 k, eager to use the new graphic which we have available. The s p 500 flirting with the 1900 level, hit that yesterday, fell back but still pretty close to record territory. That is the broad market. That is your snapshot of the market. The top story of the day which affect your money, democrats want to make it more difficult for businesses to relocate overseas for tax purposes. Similar
Continues. Bayer will buy america consumer over the counter business for 14. 2 billion. Also the two companies are establishing a have a teemgic collaboration in cardiovascular diseases. And this will vowill involve me paying 2 billion to bayer. But again, the big headline here is the 14. 2 billion deal for mercks over the counter consumer business. Why is there so much deal making going on in pharmaceuticals . This has been incredible. Weve seen a swap from glaxo and novartis. This is a way for companies to hone in on what theyre good at. Were hearing a lot of pharmaceutical companies saying they need scale, they need to cut costs and they want to be number one or two in positions where theyre playing. So areas where theyre a little bit smaller, were seeing these asset swaps. And now of course this is all set against the backdrop of pfizer making its 106 billion bid for astrazeneca which is eclipsing Everything Else going on in the industry. But this is a big deal for merck and one it