it was being called the christmas protest. three big hours for you. buckle in. merry christmas. varney & company about to start right now. charles: huge gains for the markets this year. the calendar year, in fact, has wall street looking extraordinarily well. want to bring in market watcher rebecca walser on these gains and of course, at this point in time, we always look ahead. what do you make overall of this market, considering all the negative headlines, all the negative speculation? first to have this kind of market is really remarkable. charles, it is. merry christmas. i m having such a great retail season high. i don t care what the retail experts, you know, were expecting. we got 3.4% growth and super saturday, charles, the biggest shopping day ever. $3.4 billion on super saturday. that s what happens when you have a short christmas shopping season, right, from thanksgiving to christmas. charles: yeah, no doubt about it. and i got to tell you, it s anecdotal but a
watering $5 billion. the implications of unrest, weeks of protest and hong kong. the effect on the city s top names. shery: we are seeing pictures being pressured down half a percent on that news that the white house is halting any licenses for businesses to work .ith hallway huawei this after a stellar performance . green.ector was in the the s&p 500 was able to erase this week s loss. nasdaq two and a quarter percent. the energy sector leading those rises, gaining ground with news that saudi arabia was in touch orbital in and order to slow the decline. lily catching the eye of investors. let s see how we are shaping up in asia. pointing to a mixed open. futures down almost .5%, but in sydney, seeing a little bit of positivity. that sentiment is stronger-than-expected and it was short-lived. bloomberg reporting that the u.s. is planning to publish that final list in chinese imports. they plan to hit with tariffs this week or early next. reporting the white house is holdin
percent. it has been a difficult week for the majors in europe. turning to the united states, all on the agenda today is uber. we have the major indices lower as well. the s&p 500 down 1.4%. trade is the big factor even though both sides in the negotiations are behind closed doors. following president trump s we have some inflation data that was interesting. the gaming index is the worst performing index, down about 4%. it is pointing to the lera as well. in other geopolitical news, turkish banks intervened overnight and that has the lira rallying after declining in the month. coming up, uber s ceo will join bloomberg live after the company starts trading. that is scheduled for 12:30 new york time. pricing at 45 or $46 per share, this will bring uber possible cap to what interest do you have in uber? think what s going to be interesting is whether it inll by into a long-term ga story. seeing how the market buys that long-term profit. vonnie: it is an $8.1 billion offering.
further decline. 2018 has to offer both good and bad. ramy: we are getting breaking news on the south korean front again. we have cbi today, inflationary prices coming in line with what estimates were. a nice rebound from the decline we saw in the previous month. it slightly exceeded what economists broadcast. you know we have been talking quite a bit about where inflation is in the market here in the u.s. and japan. really there is no difference in south korea though they may be in a little better shape. it is perplexing. because things are low, they are bound to go up. i a magic the commodity markets will kick in. the commodity market will kick in. fact that an expected tightening from the fed and others is a key risk to watch and 2018. betty: certainly we are watching the markets here today in the u.s.. let s quickly pull up where we ended up and u.s. markets today. 1/5 of 1%.er by the nasdaq also higher. pretty much green across the screen. a lot of people are not takin
rippling spotify revealing plans for new listening options, for radio and podcast. yvonne: it is a showdown in the podcasting world. also a showdown in washington. we are going to be getting the vote. essentially we heard earlier today that the senate does not have enough votes to pass a continuing resolution. looks like we are closer to a government shutdown. i want to pull up this chart, which raises another issue. it i separates, but related to this continuing resolution vote. issue, which is the debt ceiling. that deadline is coming up. it is a bit of a moving target. expectations are we are going to hit that debt ceiling and need to lift it in march. that is being reflected in treasury markets, where traders t-billsing short-term due in march. yvonne: it s interesting you up, because there is difference between a shutdown anticrisis. we are only talking about there is a difference between a shutdown and a crisis. it could be limited depending how long a shutdown la