eastern time. and in europe some markets have already closed early. the nikkei did hit 15,000 briefly for the first time in six years. our road map begins with holiday cheer for the market. it might sound like a broken record but once again stocks set to open at fresh highs. today is another important day for retail. some stores are staying open for as much as 100 hours straight to try to take advantage of the late rush. but with new data showing a drop in sales, will those extra hours be enough to boost holiday totals? and what was the most important story for your money? it s not over yet but we ve got that answer for you. and we re joined by dennis berman, business editor and columnist at the wall street journal. the bulls are in a pretty jolly move this christmas eve, nasdaq closing at its highest level in more than 13 years, all three major averages posting their strongest four-day winning streaks in over two months. for more on this record market rally, let s
the crimean referendum, of course, is this weekend. the roadmap begins with continuing global concerns led by china and ukraine. have the markets looking at a modestly higher open this after the major averages logged their worst day since february 3 period. general motors is firing back that air bag failure in recalled vehicles resulted in more than 300 deaths. target admitting it did not take immediate action after security software originally alerted the company to malicious activity after the data breach. and mark zuckerberg calls president obama to complain about the government s surveillance programs. first up, though, thursday, the 13, was bad luck for the bulls as worries about a slowdown in china and rising tension between ukraine and russia helped spark a market selloff. all 30 components finishing in the red. and the s&p has fallen to negative territory for the year and the nasdaq posting a decline for the fifth time in six sessions. the s&p has only had a y
gloom. yes. you can understand why futures are slightly flat to down this morning. what else? all right, economic data here in the u.s., we got the initial jobless claims, import prices. those beat come out at 8:30. and then the bloomberg there s a g in that, right? > yes, very good, bloomberg. bloomberg index comes out at 9:45. earnings before the bell, wal-mart and kohls, you re going to break those. a lot of earnings from retailers today. wal-mart and kohl s before the bell. after the bell, jc pen sandee nordstrom. yesterday we learned from macy s that they re not selling as much stuff as they thought, and that s because of all the promotions. anyway, there you have the morning brief. very good. we look at occurrence success, commodities, futures flat. 10-year yield is nothing. the first screen is boring. on to the next screen. courtney, the v.i.x., that s stunning, 12.90. you talk about resiliency and quiet across u.s. equities, there it is. we ll get to t
cisco just posting its worst revenue decline in five years. and gdp in the second quarter did not go at all. the compass the economies of both germany and france actually shrank. u.s. markets are waking up. you are with that european news. we are joined by bloomberg economist david howell. the numbers for germany, france, both worse than excited. it d take the markets by surprise? yeah. both of those numbers were less than expected, so they took the markets by surprise. the moral of the story is the drag on growth came from weakness because of the unusually mild winter in europe having advanced construction activity, which kind of stole away from the second quarter. the other is the drag from that export, which is partially linked to the situation in eastern europe with russia being a very large trading partner of germany. that meanid, does things will get worse, or was this just a one-off? unfortunately, it looks like things are set to it looks like the growth pictur
innds and taking a 70% stake 17% stake in monster beverage. alibaba will not be able to publish results on time. a will go public next month. the unrest in the wake of a shooting of a black teenager in new policeissouri, a commissioner hopes to turn things around, but the question arises, why have local policemen armed as if they are in police been harmed as if they are in a military zone. phil mattingly, this has gone on to washington. is there a single definition for why local police forces have been using military-style equipment? vincent truglia teambuilding for the last couple of decades. it kicked into high gear post -september 11, 2001. use a change of posture and state police. postureaw a change of in state police. it made it an issue of not only who gets the money, but how much money can we give them. the key has been a department of defense program called at 1033 program. that was written into law. excess material from the department of defense can be transfer