think again. it won't happen fast. and pardon our appearance. which airports do travelers think are in need of an overhaul? tonight on "nightly business report" for thursday, december 15th. good evening, everyone, and welcome. not quite. stocks rose today on wall street, and the dow did have 20,000 in its sights. and then it didn't. lifted early by economic data showing inflation is tame at the consumer level, and manufacturing activity expanding for a seventh straight months. happy feet. that's what they say when a quarterback gets jumpy in the pocket. the dow rose 59 points to 19,852. nasdaq climbed 20. and the s&p 500 was up eight. financial stocks continued their strong run today. benefiting from the federal reserve hiking interest rates yesterday. and while it's going to cost you more to borrow money right away, it might take you a while to see the upside of that rate hike in your savings account. wilfred frost explains. >> reporter: major banks have wasted no time in hiking their lending rates. all the big names including jpmorgan and bank of america have hiked their prime lending rates most, from 3.5 to 3.75%. the prime rate is what banks use to anchor floating rate loans such as credit card loans and some mortgages. however, the increase for savers is slower and less full, especially the case at the start of a raising cycle, because banks are still not super profitable. therefore the incentive for them to show price discipline now is higher than when rates and profitability are further along the line. this change is what they've been waiting for, so they're not in a rush to spoil it for each other. banks with a higher proportion of higher funding, and within that, more small checking accounts. goldman sachs' research says bank of america has the most sticky deposit base because it has 60% retail deposit exposure. the likes of pnc, sun trust, wells fargo and bb&t close behind. for "nightly business report," wilfred frost, new york. when it comes to predicting u.s. economic growth and other measures, the federal reserve has missed its mark. according to the "wall street journal," for five years now the fed has overestimated gdp growth, inflation, and the unemployment rate. and for five years in a row, the fed's forecast has been wrong. joshua zumbren is a national economics correspondent who wrote about this for "the wall street journal." josh, welcome. you had a very involved chart in today's paper. i'm not sure i understood it completely. but what i did understand was that the fed doesn't seem to be terribly accurate when it predicts what the rate of inflation will be or what employment or growth will be. why do you think this is? >> that's right. they've had a really tough time in recent years predicting what this economy would be like. when you look at what the mistakes have been, they've been consistently making the same mistake over and over. they've been consistently saying that growth is going to be stronger than it's actually come in at. they've thought we would get 4% or maybe 3% growth. we've consistently gotten 2 or 2.5% growth. we've consistently come in lower than what they expected. so it's not just that they've missed repeatedly. nobody has a very good track record predicting how the economy is going to perform. the interest thing about the fed is it's missed repeatedly in the same direction. >> are they looking at the wrong data? or are they simply interpreting the data incorrectly or differently? >> you know, i think there's been a lot of reasons that they've gotten this incorrect repeatedly. one of them is that they thought their own policies i think would be more powerful than they actually have been. they thought holding interest rates near zero for this long, doing the kind of quantitative easing policies, they thought those policies would give the economy a lift in a way they haven't. they clearly underestimated the effect of u.s. demographics. they didn't realize how much of a drag there was going to be on the economy from the aging of the population. i think they would admit that's one of the things they've gotten wrong here in recent years. and what's really interesting is right now the fed is actually more pessimistic than the financial market. you've seen the dow take off and the dollar strengthen. you've seen bond yields go higher, and everybody thinks there's going to be more inflation. the fed came out yesterday and said they don't think that's the case. this time the fed is the pessimistic one. they've been wrong repeatedly in the past but they've always been too optimistic. right now they're the most pessimistic in the bunch. >> are private forecasters or any that you know of better at predicting these things than the fed? >> everybody has had a very tough time understanding this economy in recent years. private forecasters have made mistakes too. we've seen a handful of predictions over the years, oh, the u.s. economy is falling back into a big recession, we saw this in 2011 and 2012, that never really came to pass. we saw predictions of hyperinflation from some private sector forecasters. that clearly was wrong as well. it's been a tough time for everyone. the private sector forecasters are more optimistic than the fed. >> josh, thanks very much, very interesting article in "the wall street journal." >> thanks for having me. yahoo! shares came under pressure today following a bloomberg report that verizon may look to get a better price or get out of its pending $5 billion acquisition of the company following yesterday's news of a second major yahoo! e-mail hack, a billion accounts. today the white house said the fbi is now investigating the hack, which could wind up being the biggest data breach in history. shares of yahoo! were down 6% to 3841. >> news of the breach highlights the fact that your e-mail account is in hot demand. but it's not just for the secrets in your messages, like i'll get milk on the way home. andrea day explains why the hackers are willing to pay top dollar for access and what you stand to lose. >> when your e-mail account is compromised, the possibilities are limitless. >> reporter: from cracking into your bank accounts to taking over social media. >> once someone gains access to your e-mail account, he is you. >> reporter: he is the ceo of perimeter x, a cyber security firm that specializes in preventing attacks from bots. a bot can sift through files faster than a real person can. when used maliciously, it can target e-mail accounts, cracking passwords in seconds. it's called a brute force attack. hacked e-mail accounts are worth 10 to $20 more than credit card accounts. >> you can click on forget my password and create new accounts by using your e-mail and faking your identity. he can even gain access to private information that your bank might ask to do an online faster. ultimately he's going to make money. >> reporter: and he says you won't have any idea until it's too late. >> you won't see anything. they take over your account, from there they jump and take over your social media account. within an hour they'll drain your bank account, then shift items. >> reporter: how do they get your password to begin with? this is a live attack dashboard where you can see bots cracking codes in realtime. it doesn't take long, especially for common passwords. >> users use an average of only six passwords throughout their entire online identity. >> reporter: using the same password for a bunch of different accounts makes the attacks easier. the best advice is to pick a strong password and change it often. even if your information wasn't stolen, in light of the recent yahoo! breach, watch out for official-looking e-mails from yahoo! trying to trick you into clicking on a link. don't click on it. i'm andrea day for "nightly business report." >> scary stuff, eamon. there are a lot of different hackers out there. >> reporter: that's right, criminals are looking to profit by stealing your data online, get into your bank account. but remember, what we've seen recent in the headlines are state sponsored attacks. that's what hit sony pictures entertainment, allegedly the north koreans and now allegedly the russians hacking into the dnc and john podesta's e-mails. they have a lot more money and resources to deploy. they're looking for different things, ultimately. >> would a government sponsored hacker ever want to come after me, a regular john doe who doesn't work for the dnc or for the government or for a big corporation like sony? >> reporter: well, it depends on who you knew, who is in your circle of friends. they may see you as somebody to get access to somebody else. ultimately what we're looking at is the weaponization of privacy. what happened to the dnc and john podesta is this idea of taking private information and putting it out there in an embarrassing way, compromising material online. they call it doxing. it happens to regular people fairly often throughout the internet. one of the many dangers, it seems to me, of all this recent hacking is this idea takes off and we see a lot more doxing of regular people. if you're a schoolteacher in a small town and somebody gets into your private e-mail, maybe there are things in your e-mail that you wouldn't want your students or your employers to see. that kind of thing could really take off in the wake of the success of the hacking of the dnc. there's a lot more people that will look at this and say, here is a way to get back at my enemy. >> ieamon javers in washington, thank you. the new president will have a gop majority at the fcc on his first day of office, paving the way for potential policy reversals including one involving so-called net neutrality which forces broadband providers to treat all internet traffic equally. the president-elect wants a bump in infrastructure. and airports are in his sights. coming up, which terminals are in good shape and which could use a face-lift. the nation's homebuilders are suddenly feeling the best they have in more than a decade, which is kind of surprising, given rising interest rates. diana olick explains why the unexpected swing. >> reporter: homebuilders haven't felt this confident since before the epic housing crash of the last decade. a monthly sentiment of builder confidence in december took an epic leap, thanks to optimism for trump-anomics. >> the women and men who make up the home building industry have been burdened by excessive regulation for a significant portion of the last eight years. they're looking forward to the new administration coming in and living up to its promises that they're going to repeal and roll back a lot of the regulation. and i think that's something that the housing sector could very definitely use. >> reporter: confidence rose to the highest level since the middle of 2005. it's the first read since the election and the largest one-month gain in 20 years. last december, confidence was decidedly lower. builders said they saw big jumps in current sales. and their expectation for sales over the next six months was even higher. traffic through new model homes, which had been in negative territory, finally moved to positive on the survey, despite the fact that mortgage rates shot up after the election and continue to move higher daily. >> most of the builders have been around long enough that 4.5% mortgage rates are still viewed as pretty reasonable. maybe to some of the millennial first time homebuyers, it will be an incentive to motivate them to get into the market sooner. >> reporter: that may be a little overoptimistic. just ask investors. stocks of the big builders knee-jerked higher after the report was released in the morning, but quickly moved lower despite the broad market rally. deregulation may help builders, but stricter immigration could hurt them. >> we do think builders are too optimistic given the still high cost they have for land and tight labor supply. >> reporter: builder optimism so far hasn't translated into a similar move higher in home construction. the two used to move in tandem, but in thissic. housing recovery, the hope has got enahead of the how. i'm diana olick in washington. facebook takes aim at fake news. the social media company will team up with some media organizations to be third party fact checkers. facebook said it will target the worst of the worst, peddlers of fake news, and hopes it will make it easier for its nearly 2 billion users to spot and report the imposters. shares of facebook rose a fraction. general motors will begin to test its autonomous vehicles on public roads in michigan immediately. ceo mary barra said the automaker will begin to produce the next generation of self-driving cars. early next year gm was up 29 cents at 36.24. waste management is buying back up to $750 million worth of its shares. this replaces its previous $575 million buyback. the company is also raising its quarterly dividend by nearly 4% to 42.5 cents per share. shares of waste management tacked on six cents. pier one surged today following strong third quarter results. the home furnishings retailer saw e-commerce sales rise 38%. sales trends rebounded in the second half of november as its seasonal assortment resonated with customers. shares rose 32% to $8.57. okay, folks. here's something that may surprise you, especially if you've been frustrated with flying recently. a new study finds that customer satisfaction with america's airports is at an all-time high. this comes even as president-elect trump promises to rebuild terminals and hubs he describes as looking like something out of the third world. phil lebeau has more. >> reporter: admit it. you don't like spending a lot of time at an airport. between long security lines is growing crowds, most of us want to get on a plane and get out of town. but a new survey shows people are actually happier with their airport experience. >> the airports are improving themselves. those improvements they had in hand and on the drawing boards before 9/11 back in 2001 were kind of put on hold because of a lot of security concerns and other things that the airports were having to do to accommodate new security regulations. so those plans are now being actually carried out. >> reporter: new restaurants, shops, and spruced-up terminals are becoming more common at airports. according to jd power, portland, tampa, las vegas, orlando and miami have the highest satisfaction scores. by comparison, some of america's oldest airports are rated as the worst. that includes new york la guardia, newark liberty, philadelphia, and chicago o'hare. those airports face greater congestion as they add flights, and millions of travelers put extra strain on old terminals and gates. it's a problem president-elect trump hopes to solve by spending $1 trillion on america's aging infrastructure, including rundown airports. >> we're going to rebuild our infrastructure. which will become, by the way, second to none. >> reporter: some airports like la guardia are being renovated. for others it may take some time before there is a full makeover. in the meantime, millions of travelers are going through old airports and really not minding what they're seeing. phil lebeau, "nightly business report," detroit. since infrastructure will be important to the next administration, our next guest has the names of some stocks he says belong in your portfolio. he is stanley elliott, analyst at steifel. nice to have you, stanley. >> thank you for inviting me. >> are you looking at international companies, domestic companies? where do you see the most potential? >> domestic names, names that would provide materials into the infrastructure space. we're a little more cautious on some of the capital goods, although we do think '17 should market the bottom for many of those capital goods names. >> let's delve in here a little bit. when you say capital goods, i assume you mean some of the big heavy equipment manufacturers like caterpillar. your choices in the space are material suppliers, companies that help with concrete and aggregates. name a couple of the ones you like. >> so vulka materials is a name we like, martin marietta, summit materials and u.s. concrete. all those companies own aggregate quarries, cement plants, asphalt plants. we think '17 will set up to be a very good year for them. >> in terms of how long you think it will take, summit materials is up 24% on a one-year basis, do you think there is significant room to run still in these stocks? >> we do. >> obviously you like them, but -- >> we do, actually. when you think about '17, from a volume perspective, we're looking at fairly easy comparisons, because of weather disruptions earlier this year. another thing to think about is the funding environment has improved, both from the f.a.s.t. act passed last year as well as higher state and local spending levels. lastly, on the pricing side of the equation, this is an industry that's been able to push pricing through as well. then on the cost side, costs are favorable. so we expect another record year of both profitability and revenue growth for all those companies. >> let's assume there is a large infrastructure effort that comes out of washington in 2017. these things play out over a period of years, usually. do you expect that some of those capital goods companies might benefit in what they used to call the out years downstream? >> absolutely. when you look at -- let's say caterpillar, for example. 2017, the company has already spoken to the fact that it will down on a revenue year basis. if you go back to the 1920s when the company first became public, it has never had five consecutive years of down revenue, which is what we're looking at right now. so with the mining markets, energy markets bottoming plus a boost from construction, we think the outlook for that company going forward should be pretty good as well. >> stanlestanley, thank you ver. when it comes to investing, millennials may be starting to shift their mindset. we'll tell you what that could mean. the photo sharing app instagram says it now has 600 million monthly active users, doubling in size in just two years. facebook bought instagram in 2012 for $1 billion. as the dow approaches 20,000, more and more investors have happen have wanted to get into the game. as aditi roy tells us, one highly sought after group may be changing its attitude toward investing. >> reporter: when donald trump won the election, 27-year-old nick made changes to his stock portfolio. >> i've changed my individual stock plays. i have a lot of solar. i had to adjust for that and i could have took that loss as soon as trump won the election. >> reporter: he isn't the only millennial watching trump and his pocketbook. richie is more cautious. >> i was not sure what will happen. i'm right now in wait and watch mode. and then thinking what to do. >> reporter: unlike them, most younger americans don't vest. a recent bankrate survey found only one-third of millenials vest in the stock market. that doesn't deter companies like robin hood. the palo alto, california based investment company operates on a mobile only platform. 90% of its clients are under the age of 35. the firm, which has 1 million users, says it's noticed a significant uptick in investing since the election. the company reports the day after the election was its biggest transaction day. transaction volumes increased more than 90%, as new accounts grew by 71%. in the week after the election, robin hood transacted more than $1 billion through the platform, up 50% from the week before. robin hood isn't the only millennial focused investing platform seeing an uptick. stash allows its users, whose average age is 30, to invest as little as $5 in fractions of etf shares. it's seen a 30% increase in daily inflows since the election. and acorns, which allows users to round up everyday purchases and invest the spare change in portfolios, has seen an uptick, consistent with its month over month growth rate. these millennial-driven services face a big challenge. two-thirds of millennials have less than $1,000 in their bank account, according to a 2016 survey. still, robin hood's co-founder says he believes the company's post election momentum could be just the beginning. >> i think there certainly is a coming of age of the millennial demographic to be a part of the economy, right? like this is i think 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, will be the first years a lot of these new consumers will have their first few hundred or few thousand dollars to save. >> reporter: even as millennials like jake say they're not changing their portfolios one bit. >> i learned a long time ago that things are cyclical. they could i have kind of go on just based on political movement. >> reporter: it remains unclear whether this uptick in transaction volume will continue. the vocatifolks here at robin he hopeful they'll be able to capture the vast potential of millennials who will have $8 trillion in income by 2025. i'm aditi roy for "nightly business report," palo alto, california. >> 20,000 today, i'm getting on the 30th of december. >> are you? a year end. we'll see. you heard it here first. that's "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm tyler mathisen. thanks for watching. >> i'm sue herera. have a great evening, everybody. see you tomorrow. >> announcer: nightly business report has been funded in part by hss. our value principles are patient first. we want to deliver the highest quality care. >> the goal of creating and sustaining value is all about putting the patient at the center of the equation. >> the purpose of this organization is to help people get back to what they need and love to do. a kqed television production. ♪ >> it's sort of like old fisherman's wharf. it reminds me of old san francisco. >> and you'd be a little bit like jean valjean, with the teeth, whatever. >> and worth the calories, the cholesterol, and the heart attack you might have. >> it's like an adventure, you know. you've got to put on your miner's helmet. >> it reminds me of oatmeal with a touch of wet dog. >> i did. inhaled it. >> people when they say sommelier or something.