when he saw the dow go off the cliff as much as 478 points. on the upside, he got a rate cut and the fed chairman said they would end the policy of quantitative tightening in the next couple months, which is something that the president wanted to have happen. and you heard it mention a second ago, was the fed giving in to pressure from president to do what the president wanted powell to do. here s what powell said about that. we never take into account political situations. there s no place in our discussions for that. we don t conduct monetary policy to prove independence. we conduct monetary policy in order to move as close as possible to our statutory goals. so again, powell said he s not looking at a long series of rate cuts like you would during a recession. they may adjust depending on how things look going forward. powell said we ll do what we need to do to support the economic expansion. as mentioned, china plays
administration they said we could never get more than 2 1/2% economic growth in our lifetimes. now we see we have close to 4% on an annual basis economic growth and the only problem that businesses have right now is finding enough workers. sandra: it is amazing to watch that 4.2% updated the gdp number. we thought 4.1% was big and they revised it higher. we spoke to the white house after the number came out and larry kudlow said it s sustainable. where could the dow go from here? i think the dow has another leg to go. of course, it is hard to predict markets. the main thing it is not just going to the stock market millionaires. it is a broad-based economic growth that we re having. there are a lot of different measures. the median household income is up more than 4% since the election. it had been essentially flat over the previous obama years.
6 6.2. there was a lot of mathematical investment formulas built on top of that one equation. so all of those have to get reset. it s possible what we re seeing is just a real spasmic reaction to this dramatic change in the value of the chinese currency that once it sort of runs its course, we ll be back maybe not to new records but the markets will stabilize. i should point out throughout this conversation we watched the dow go down to 463. it is interesting, sue, just in the course of this six-minute conversation, the up and down, we ll see what happens as the day continues. it will be an interesting one and obviously one of balance concern for the people who have money in the stock market. so thank you all for joining us and we ll keep following the latest from the markets and keep you up to date throughout this hour of news nation. now to another big developing story, this one out of france
the year. that s good news for the american consumer. yes. and perhaps the presidential rating as well. what about the job market? more than 300,000 jobs added last month. we re looking at 5.8% unemployment rate. are we poised for more growth? we ll see the 300,000 number continue? i wouldn t expect the 300,000 number to continue. on average, we ve been adding somewhere around 240 that s about what i expect. that s pretty good considering where we ve been. i think the important thing to realize there is that the number of people participating in the labor force is stabilized. that was falling. and that was a sign that the job market was so weak that people were giving up the surge. some of those folks are coming back. so i look for the job market to continue improving at about the pace it has in recent months. ? one word answers. what are we going to see in the dow in 2015? 20,000? 21,000? yes or no?
year. the dow was up about 90% this year. so can it carry over into next year? the economic data is going to be key. this time around it s going to be about earnings growth and whether or not the u.s. economy can sustain this kind of recovery. the fed will be a huge focus in 2015 as it was this past year. interest rates, will they stay where they are, or are they headed higher? what does that do to the overall housing market? we ll look for signs there on that front as well. right now what we need to know it s going to be a great year for stockings ins in 2014 and we ll see if it will carry over into next year. the opening bell coming up shortly. still to come #blacklivesmatter, will it have staying power in the new year? a few bodies have been recovered from air asia flight. we are still looking for answers. next on msnbc. huh, fifteen minutes could save you