Obviously we were higher than that, not much more but were higher earlier in the day. The nasdaq up by only eight points and the s p finishing up by just a trickle of positive. Well, ticktock. The market is closed. Seems to be waiting once again for some clear signal on whats going to happen with regards to the fiscal cliff. How can you make money in the final trading sessions of the year amongst all this uncertainty . We have definite answers coming with our panel. Back with us Nathan Bachrach from the financial network. Also matt mccormick, sandy lincoln, and john spolinsani. What do we do between now and the end of the year . We wait. You hope there will be a resolution with the fiscal cliff. Also 2013 could be a difficult year. Its the first year of the president ial term which is usually a weak un. Earnings growth looks a little bit weaker. We are very big on di dends. We believe this is a grinded out market. Prepare for instability. So its glass half empty for you right now. Wed like to be optimistic but tell clients buy with sound Balance Sheets. And if the market goes up better, were in a better position. I have to press you on what you say about you Like Companies that pay better dividends . Right now youre looking at the. Senate bill will will tax for gross incomes of 250,000. Thats not a deal killer. There was an article this week talking about how dividends people buy dividends for income and downside protection. Those issues do not go away regardless of what happens with taxes. People need income. You told us last time you liked europe. What about here in the United States . What would you buy here . Well, i wouldnt buy anything if i havent bought it already. I would sit around and wait. Youve got she nan nanigans goi in washington. There are 535 people who have to think i want to keep my job. Theyll decide to rise above. This is all going to be wonderful. In the meantime, if youre trying to figure out which way to go, i have traders out here who will tell you every day very difficult thing to do. Isnt that the case. For sure. Sandy, weigh in here. What would you be doing . Actually i take a little bit different view. This fiscal cliff is a grander issue than just the United States. The drag in the u. S. Is a big import to the rest of the world. Stock markets are supposed to be leading economic indicators. If you look at the markets around the world from the last several weeks to months, the markets seem to be indicating just the opposite. They seem to be indicating that a deal will get done. What kind of deal whether its one stage or two stage, nobody knows. But the fact of the matter is the equity markets tend to look three to six months out. Theyre giving good signs around the world. In europe, asia, emerging markets and here in the u. S. What id be doing is sitting on a well structured portfolio regardless of what the economic outcome is. Well diversified across markets, across countries. Some emerging large caps. Most importantly dividend growers. Ill have a bit of exception with your last guest. I think this is a much more global story. I think a lot of backdrop in europe and china has some improving trends in it that are behind this. If the market is such a great predictor, tell me where it was in beginning of 2008. Then we had a total collapse. So i dont buy my response would be look where it was in march of 09 when you could have [ overlapping speakers ] the valuations werent reasonable then. They are cheap now and even cheaper outside the United States. Yeah. You just made my case for why it is i feel like going outside the United States. Ill let america settle it and figure it out on its own. All right. John, what are your clients telling you right now . Jeff just said i think it was over the weekend that so many of their customers are clenched right now. That theyre just waiting to see what the resolution of the fiscal cliff is that theyre holding back on orders. Is that the case with some of your clients as well . Well, i think right now we havent received the clarity of the election we were hoping for. I think both sides republicans and democrats are basically negotiating behind closed doors. Hopefully i think the news over the weekend was a lot better than it had been. Moving a little bit. Senator corker moving as well. We had better data out of china last week. Household net worth increased by 1. 7 trillion which was a big number for the fed. It says the bernanke policies are working. In terms of clients what theyre doing, obviously theres a lot of clouds on the horizon shortterm. But longer term, its positive. So right now towards the end of the year what weve been seeing is a lot of accounts looking to take out short positions and stocks that have been hef sli shorted. So youve seen stocks like sears holdings, jcpenney, hewlettpackard, facebook, all those types of stocks that have a high short interest. Since theres not a lot of clarity outside in terms of the fiscal cliff, theyre going after those shorts and pressing them to the table. [ overlapping speakers ] quality dividends. If you see volatility happening, its going to strong Balance Sheets. Buy stability, protection, fundamentals. And remember that every central bank in the world is full bore in the mote. Its just a matter of time when that velocity picks up. We think itll be the begin og the year. Try the end of the year. A lot will have to get sorted out. Were not going to get any solution on january 1st. Were going to have one way or the other. [ overlapping speakers ] first lets take the first step. Lets get to january first without blowing up. If we blow through january 1st then if youve been patient, start putting your money in slowly. Youll have wonderful opportunities. So hes 100 in cash. Theres a very good backdrop here for the consumer which Consumer Confidence is at a four of fiveyear high. Youve got the housing up so is their debt, by the way. There are a lot of things in here that youve got going on. And gas prices coming down. Strong operating margins. I think theres a good case to be made that the story in the u. S. Is a little bit stronger than portrayed. Its not going to pivot at the end of january or end of december, its a solid story going into those months. I think some people should take a trip out to the midwest and see whats going on and youll have a different feeling for whats going on in the rest of the country. All i can say is im going to miss the fiscal cliff when this is over. Were all going to have to go back to work. There will be another crisis to talk about. There you go. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Okay, everybody. The dow posting its first fourday winning streak since midoctober. Only a gain of 14 points today, but whatever. There you go. Weve had a fourday winning streak. Mary thompson has been our eye on the floor today. She joins us. What were the leaders we saw today . A leader today was mcdonalds. The dow component coming out with better than expected Sales Numbers thanks to some new additions to its low price budget menu. That was a winner. Also we saw this continued strength in computer hardware stocks. They were up for five days in a row. Theyve had a very strong move off of a 52week low that they touched back in november. This despite weakness in apple which continues to underperform. The rest of the computer hardware makers, investors selling this stock for tax purposes and people expressed concerns about the Growth Prospects today. Of course we have jeffreys cutting its estimate for the stock from 700 to 800 dollars. Retailers not winners today. Retailers broadly lower ever since they announced december sale numbers. Theyve been under pressure since then. Of course another data point were looking at for the retailers will be thursdays numbers on retail sales. Back to you. Good place to finish there, mary. Were going to be talking about the American Consumer. Whether or not the American Consumer is in trouble. News that could rattle stocks in 2013. Courtney reagan is taking the pulse of u. S. Stocks next. And as the fiscal cliff turns, President Obama Campaign style once again today. This time in michigan. That after talking with House Speaker john boehner over the weekend. Their firps one on one in weeks. Is that why republicans are saying they would swallow higher taxes for the right deal on spending cuts . Well talk to tom cole who is making that case in just a few minutes. Bmw and mercedes are looking for the best selling luxury brand in the United States. Wait until you hear what your money can get you these days. Youre watching cnbc. So as you can see, geicos Customer Satisfaction is at 97 . Mmmm tasty. And cut very good. People are always asking me how we make these geico adverts. So were taking you behind the scenes. This coffee cup, for example, is computer animated. Its not real. Geicos Customer Satisfaction is q rea this computeranimated coffee tastes dreadful. Geico. 15 minutes could save you 15 or more on car insurance. Someone get me a latte will ya, please . Is the u. S. Consumer in trouble . The front page on this mornings wall street journal says yes. But are holiday sales and shipping proving otherwise . Courtney reagan is on top of that story. Today is a big day when it comes to Holiday Shipping and spending. Its fedexs busiest day of the year counting all the orders. Ceo estimates it will move a record 19 million parcels today. Thats up 11 from last year. Part of the reason for the increase is the boom in online sales. The more people click, the more fedex ships. They are shipping millions of gifts ordered on cyber monday. The second monday of december or green monday as coined by ebay is usually the heaviest of the month. Last year green monday was walmart. Coms heaviest traffic day in december. The Worlds Largest retailer again offering special deals today hoping history repeats itself and shoppers have yet another reason to spend. Comscore expects more than 1 billion will be spent online today. Despite the expectations for online holiday sales, some are fearing theyre facing a host of economic head winds that might put a damper on overall spending. Reporting that the consumer is losing some of its spending muscle. Is that the real concern there . Lets talk about this from both side. Stewart hoffman of Pnc Financial actually seeing strength in the consumer right now. Steven, whats your biggest concern about the consumer right now . My biggest concern about the consumer is the fact we arent generating enough income. Weve seen the consumers dip into what they used to do and go to credit and weve seen a big jump up in consumer credit. And the savings has been dipping as a result. The net effect of that to me is slowing down the improvement of the Balance Sheet which is something that really needs to be done over the long haul. The fact that we dont have the income is the end result factor. You may see a redistribution of sales simply because they dont have the inventory at box stores. I hear what steve just said. But given the jobs report, weve also seen a drop in gasoline prices. When you get the when you remember the prices fell by gasoline. Your decline in prices. Thats a big increase in Consumer Spending and probably income last month. So i think consumers can replenish savings just a little bit and still have spending. You also have at the upper end 20 billion and growing of dividends declared this month. To beat the tax hike. Thats 20 billion of cash flow that higher income individuals, not all of them but many of them will get. And much of that will end up being spent. You acknowledge that university in Michigan Consumer sentiment, that was big decline. And much of that is attributable to fears about the fiscal cliff. All bets could be off the table if we go off the fiscal cliff. Sure if you go over the cliff. And youll still have some tax hikes. We have Consumer Spending around 2 in real terms in line with income. We dont think the whole tax hikes will go into effect early next year. So yeah if you go over the cliff, lots of things consumers, businesses, you name it. But i dont think were going to go over the cliff. At least were noi not going to dive over. And i think without that, the Dividend Income and net Consumer Spending, Consumer Confidence number watch what people do. Not what they say. Other measures of confidence have been doing much better and thatll rebound. If we just back up for a second, steven, we talk about the fiscal cliff every day. Those who are in the market talk about the fiscal cliff every day. Does the average consumer out there moms and pops, do they talk about the fiscal cliff . Does it factor into their spending efforts . Not really. Thats a great question. And the answer is no, not really. What i think really is happening with the michigan numbers and the sentiment numbers is a little bit of optimism that followed on the back of the election process. And then its settling back in that nothings going to change. Nothing is going to get better. Nothings happening in washington. There is no Movement Towards consensus on either side of the debate. People look at that and say what were we so optimistic about . I think the cliff will be more of an effect afterwards. But to go back to stewarts point, hes talking about 2 growth in spending. 2 consumer growth is probably going to produce a very weak gdp number. Although we had a nice number on the boost, well have a horrible in the next quarter. Which isnt great. Thats really the point. 11 rise in fedex sales not going to lead in an 11 . Consumer spending. At beast were looking at 2 . Thats not good. My 2 forecast is for next year. I think well do better this quarter. And you dont sell 15. 5 million cars in the month of november if consumers cant get the credit. And theyre not in somewhat of a spending mood and feel they have the income to justify it. Well, it is subprime lending that is driving that. 45 of all new leases are subprime. Thats not particularly good. They have cut the lease rates dramatically. Weve seen a big surge up in auto spending thats taking place. However, were also slowing down the pace of domestic sales. And i think it will be lower next year. Got it. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Lets go back over to Kayla Tausche for the market flash. Were watching shares of hsbc with word coming in that the bank and the federal regulators are near a settlement that will be record in size. Roughly 9 billion and announced tomorrow. That is over just allegations that hsbc had controls in place for Money Laundering to places like iran and other regions where u. S. Has financial sanctions there. That would be a record settlement and comes at a time when being hit about that exact issue. Well be watching the tape for that tomorrow. All right. Thank you very much. So death to the dreaded death tax . One of our next guests says they hurt the economy more than they help and he calls them jobs killers. A heated debate on the death tax coming up here. But coming up next, more republican lawmakers are saying they are open to higher tax rates on the rich if they come with spending cuts. Thats a really big if. Were going to speak with one gocongressman who will lay out the spending cuts he would like to see, he needs to see in order to vote on the higher taxes. And we wanted to give you a heads up on a hot slide show on cnbc. Com that highlights predictions that went wrong this year. One great example, doomsday forecast that the u. S. Bond market would go bust. Thankfully that did not happen. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Theres more on the cnbc. Com. Check it out on our website. Were back on tv in just a moment. Tdd 18003452550 you shouldve seen me today. Tdd 18003452550 when the spx crossed above its 50day moving average, tdd 18003452550 i saw the trend. Tdd 18003452550 it looked really strong. Tdd 18003452550 and i jumped right on it. Tdd 18003452550 tdd 18003452550 since ive switched to charles schwab. Tdd 18003452550. Ive been finding opportunities like this tdd 18003452550 a lot more easily. 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