you bring the passion, and we do appreciate it. thank you very much is, kaylee. as always. >> thank you. ashley: let's take a quick look at the markets on this, the very last trade thing week of the year. we were in the green from the get go when the markets opened at a 9:30 eastern this morning, and that's pretty much where we are. trading volume is light, but never mind, the s&p, the nasdaq and the dow jones industrials all a up around half a percent. not bad at all. maybe the santa claus rally goes, continues on. kelly o'grady in for liz claman today. kelly, take it away. k cel well, ashley, i am going to try my very best to keep that green on the screen. [laughter] happy boxing day, my friend. ashley: thank you very much. i appreciate that. [laughter] kelly: all right, folks, well, santa looks like he might be hanging around, because it looks like this rally still has legs. the major averages all higher with just under an hour of

trading left on this first day of the shortened holiday week. now, the dow right now on track for a new all-time high. it needs 1700 points today to hit -- 170 points to hit the mark. currently we are past that at 181 right now. same thing for the s&p 500. it needs 42 points to hit a new record, right now 22 points up. the s&p and nasdaq both looking at their third straight days of gapes. speak being of the nasdaq, that is having quite a recent run, up 12 out of the last 13 days. right now hovering around 15,100. the major average up 8 weeks in a row. and i want to look at the deal space because merrier tuesday in the pharma sector -- merger tuesday is really helping boost. bristol meyers quick's -- squibbs is a whopping 104%

premium over -- [inaudible] last close, bmy's second major acquisition of a cancer treatment company in a week. [laughter] doing quite good, up 101% right now. and not to be outdone, astrazeneca is buying a chai biopharma -- chinese biopharma for $1.2 billion in cash, boost its presence in china. remember, that is the second biggest pharmaceutical market. right now it is trading up almost 61%. and let's take a look at a apple because it's appealing an international trade commission ruling that it cannot sell its apple watch series 9 and ultra ii watches due to the patent infringement. a company sued apple, will be remember, complaining the tuber -- cooper teen that giant used its pulse tech in the apple watch. the biden administration refused to overturn the itc's ruling.

apple down -- not really affected that much, but moss mow currently up 2% so clearly, it is a very business she day, the day after christmas. let's see if our floor show traders think the markets are going to be naughty or nice this week with. with us now are scott redler from t3 trading and ea seaport security's teddy weisberg. gentlemen, fantastic to see you both. scott, i just mentioned those two mergers in the pharma world. 104% premium on the price. what do you make of this? >> well, shows speculation out there, still shows some people still think there's value out there and just has healthy action across the board. people are looking, actually, at the bios to be a good sector to own into the last week of this year as well as january because they haven't really performed that well as a part of the january with effect. and i know myself as a trader

i've been trying to position this week. besides a massive rally we've seen from -- actually from thanksgiving all the way through christmas now into this week where you have the category santa claus rally, i think we're having -- traders are happy. right now there's a lot going on. you have some mega capp techs going on, some pharmaceutical names, you have some beet. en-down names like a nio and also names like tesla performing. at this point santa's ringing his bell, and let's just hope he doesn't get burnt out from too much eggnog. [laughter] kelly: never too much eggnog, come on. [laughter] i want to get back to you on some of those small caps. teddy, i do want to bring you in here because i'm looking at 2023. we haven't had a ton of deal activity, but the prediction for 2024 is that we could see a pickup in that. presidentially predicated on -- potentially predicated on if the

fed is going to cut rates. what's your take on what we might see as a it does seem that there is some appetite for consolidation? >> well, first of all, as scott pointed out, the santa claus rally actuallilies, and -- actually lives, and i've never seen a year like this year. we usually get a rally, but this year has been particularly interesting. going forward, you know, the 800-pound gorilla is still going to be the fed and interest rates. already a lot of pundits, you know, telling us that the fed is going to cut rates one, two, three, four times starting as early as march. the fact is nobody really knows, nobody. everybody is just e guessing. but for the moment, the markets are reacting very positively to the prospect of a reasonably aggressive fed in terms of cutting rates. i'm not sure that's in the cards, and the $64 question's going to be if they don't do what the pundits want them to do, then the market's going to have a problem going forward. and as far as if deal activity,

deal activity is usually a by-product of where the markets are. and when markets are good and robust, all of a sudden deals tart to happen. start to happen. so i guess we just have to wait and see whether we'll see more deals going forward or not. if we get the rate cuts, and it is a big if, and if they happen sooner rather than later, the markets should react very positively, and then the deals will come back in force. kelly: yeah. certainly the fed's messaging has been a bit confusing. scott, i wanted to get your take because obviously we are seeing the santa claus rally look good at the moment, but it also makes me think about the january effect and what stocks might benefit from that. it hasn't been as pronounced in the last five years. i think we've only had two where you've really seen the s&p 500 grow by tend of january, but i wanted to get your take because if you said you liked blink and nio. why those two? >> well, i actually was on last week with liz, and teddy also, i

think, when we talked about the january effect. what it is, it's names that have been beaten down so bad that everyone just sells it in the last month of december, maybe even late no because they have so many gapes elsewhere that they don't really care what price it is -- gains elsewhere. there's a lot of pressure. so come mid december all of a sudden you can't take as many tax loss sales on it, people stop selling, and these names that have been really hurt start to lift. so when i was with liz last week, we started talking about nio which is an ev in china. there was a huge investment in the company in the below $8 range, so that became a floor. i said maybe with that stock being a $40-50 stock years ago a, maybe it'll lift with the january effect, and we bought some options, tried to spell out a strategy for individuals to buy. it's up nicely today, i still think it has more room. then you have blink charging stations. everybody's talking about evs, well, you've got to have

somewhere to charge them besides tesla's charging network which i also think out there everywhere, but there need to be other players. blink is going to -- it got absolutely obliterated. you look for these names that have been really crushed. the cannabis names, you're going to start harding about them today, the wellness names, they've been in a bear market for four or phi years, so msos which is an etf for the u.s. cannabis names, there's talk about more federal support versus just state support, and all of a sudden that's up because also -- [inaudible] if there's different types of ways to make money different parts of the year. so like you said is, kelly, the january effect is something that traders look at. it's the hated names. [laughter] you have a pfizer in there that's been hated, a lot of names that all of a sudden selling goes away, bottom feeders come in. you know, granted, they're not, like, year-over-year big winners, but for a month or two

months you can make 20-100% or more if you know how to focus on them. kelly: well, yeah. we'll definitely be keeping our eye on the january effect. teddy, i just want you to play out 2024 for me because i am looking at the cracks that we're seeing in the consumer, and i'm really curious what is going to happen when we get to q4 2023 earnings season which is coming up in, you know, in a few weeks here. so do you think we are going to see some cracks? because it only talks a couple of bad report cards to make wall street get antsy. >> well, first of all, kelly, the viewers need to be reminded when it comes to earnings reporting, i call it the earnings trifecta. it's the bottom line, it's the top line and the guidance. company gets all three right, and the stocks usually will get rewarded. you miss on one of the three, it's a problem. the biggest one would been on guidance. the third quarter earnings came in a little better than expected, but, you know, the

analysts in the companies have been pretty whichever about a dealing with the investor expectation when it comes to earnings. so most companies if they have bad news to report, they'll report it well ahead of the actual earnings that they report. but i think that we just have to see how they come in. if usually there's some surprises and, obviously, there'll be some that aren't to so -- so good. but the three things the company needs to get right and after that the most important is the guidance. you get can the -- the top line and bottom line right but you have poor guidance, you going to get punished. @kind of a wait and see thing, but it's not hard to figure out. unfortunately, we'll just have to wait and see what the companies say when they report. kelly: it's a good point on the guidance. we've certainlyly seen a number of company start to message that we might sew some not so great nude, i'm thinking nike, fedex. thank you both for your time, scott redler and teddi weisberg,

happy hold bays. the s&p core longic case shiller index showing today that u.s. home prices rose 4.9% year-over-year in october compared to september's annual gain of 3.9%. october home prices accelerate at their fastest rate this year. let's go live to jeff flock in mount prospect, illinois. jeff, i would love to buy a home, but i am till renting. when can i expect these prices to crop in -- to drop? >> reporter: that's a real good question, kelly. i'm in the kitchen of a home that just sold over asking, a budding war -- bidding war it's in the chicago suburbs x. if you'd think prices would be going down right now, but case shill or says not so much. -- case shiller. because, you know, there's not a lot of inremember story, and that's why there's such demand. that is the problem in terms of affordability. i know you probably make a decent amount of money. well or, you'd think you'd be able to buy a house right now.

according to the focus at redfin, put up the numbers, they say only 15% of the current listings are affordable for somebody who is making median income, a household making median income. and that's, you know, in some ways kind of crazy. it's down from a year ago and typically maybe 40 or 50% of homes are deemed affordable. in terms of the actual numbers, this year they say at redfin over 350,000 homes are affordable listings this or year. well, that a compares to about almost 600,000 just a year ago a. so things are not heading in the right direction, and the focus at bankrate, we talked to them about, you know, in order to buy a house, you get a mortgage. if you've got a lot of debt, that really cuts into what you can a afford. listen to how the folks at bankrate put it. >> if you're carrying a lot of other debts, big car loan payments, student loan payment, a lot of credit card debt, that's going to limit your ability to borrow for a

mortgage. and not to mention if you are piling up those other debts, it might be time for a long look in the mirror when it comes to home ownership. >> reporter: i'll tell you, you ask what the future holds, well, interest rates down in the last week. maybe they've hit their highs but maybe not. you know, we're in in the living room of this house right now that a just sold. they staged it with this furniture, maybe you can tell it's a stage, but you don't really have to stage anymore, they say. people are going to buy things regardless because there's such a lack of end inventory, people trying to get in like you. you say i want to buy a house. well, good luck to you. [laughter] kelly: yes. i wish santa brought one for christmas, but it didn't seem like he got my order. jeff, thanks so much, always appreciate it. >> reporter: santa baby. [laughter] kelly: high home quites and interest rates are not the only concern heading into the new

year. we've got the cushman and wakefield chairman here next to tell us what worries him the most about filling all these new york city skyscrapers with tenants. the drn ticker is up more than 85% other the last two months. "the claman countdown "is coming right back. ♪ they're waiting for you. hey, do you have a second? they're all expecting more. more efficiency. more benefits. more growth. when you realize you can give your people everything, and more. thank you very much. [applause] ask, "now what?" here's what. you go with prudential to protect, empower and grow. with everything you need to deliver, you guessed it... more. one more thing... who's your rock? learn more at prudential.com ■ if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. ■

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kelly: could we see an economic disaster in 2024? oh, my gosh, couldn't i sound more like the grinch today? the financial stability oversight council put out a report saying commercial real estate could trigger a 2008-like financial crisis next year.

the fsoc is warning the top threat to the economy next year is the $6 trillion pile of outstand thing commercial real estate loans owned by u.s. banks. joining me now in a fox business exclusive is one with of the largest global real estate firms' chairman bruce moser. happy holidays, thank you for coming on with me the day after christmas. you are a trooper. i wanted to get your reaction to this report because i was reading it, and it said that 44% of loans are currently less valuable than outstanding loan balances, and it's because of a mix of low occupancy rates, defaults. do you think that the commercial real estate industry could precipitate a broader economic collapse? >> well, kelly, i think premature to suggest that. first and foremost, let's understand that we're looking for interest rates to stabilize in the coming year. we hope and think that they will. they may even come down.

your prior guests alluded to the fact that there may be two or three or even four lowering of the interest rates. we need to see interest rate stabilization so that we can price, so that we have transparency x then i think it's an asset by asset case. i don't necessarily see a systemic issue. i think we're going to see certain assets have to reec bytize, new money that looks at the new at the end of the day pricing structure and says it's attracted to them. so this is a wait and see. it's premature to say anything is systematic at this point. i'm optimistic about 2024. occupancy is coming back. in addition to occupancy rising and people coming back to the office, we're also seeing lease up that while it was down this year, we expect it to at least in the second half of next year we expect to see tick-up increase. kelly: so quick follow up on that. the report cited that they're seeing 10-20% default for commercial real estate loans which is equivalent of up to

$160 billion in loss. i'm curious if you can give system context on what you're seeing in wakefield and curb match's operations -- curbman's operations -- cushmans. are you seeing default rates in that range? lower? higher? >> kelly, we wouldn't necessarily see them, we're one of the largest property managers in the world. that is really more a question for the banking sector than it is for us on the service side. so i really can't peek to that in any -- speak to that in any great detail. cel e cel okay. i want to, now let's look forward at some of the things we we might see office buildings, or office companies invest in. i have heard that gen-zers, in order to get them back to the office, are looking for all or sorts of perking like gyms and juice bars and nap pods and all that. i old my eyes at this because -- i roll my eyes at this, but we're also seeing some of these company down size both their work force, also their footprint

as they're trying to trim costs. so is i'm wondering what trend the do you think is going to win out? are we going to see companies invest in office spaces that are attractive to this group of folks that is coming into the work forbes or are we going to see them -- force, or are we going to see them focus on the bottom line in. >> let's take a half step back. pre-covid new york experienced employment that outpaced the notion for over a decade. and in spite of that, the footprint was shrinking because corporate america was getting more and more efficient. this is not new news. what is news that is very positive is that we have seen is now a flight to quality. those assets that are invested are actually performing, outperforming, and, yes, general, anders and millennials want to see amenities in as part of what they see in any asset. is so that includes at this point gyms, it includes

conferencing facilities, it includes f and b. this is all -- these are all things that are differentiating ones a set from another and, quite frankly, very positively so. what i will see is what gen-zers and millennials want to come back to is a different office. they want more collaboration space. they're doing away with offices, offices are now being set up on the interior and places for people to collaborate and inknow slate are, in fact, happening, and that's the way people want to come back to work. that,s i think, is part of the future. kelly: well, if you can set up a pet day for me, i will get behind this trend, because iding love to bring my friend if. bulldog to work. [laughter] one quick follow up. i'm normally based in los angeles, and one of the things that we've seen is a lot of vacancies which means less foot traffic, less people coming in to the office that's really hurting some of the businesses around them that relied on the foot traffic of folks coming for

lunch or shopping. you know, is this something that you think that we're at the bottom of? they call it the doom loop, which i hate that term, but what do you think? are we on the uptrend here? >> i think we definitely are. let's just take new york by way of example. occupancy at the a peak this year on given day was over 60%. today we're over 50%, actually at about 511.6. that's up year over year-over-year -- 51.6. and by the way, retail is rekohing nicely not just in new york -- rekohing nicely. -- recovering nicely. in new york or try to get a reservation. if you were going shopping over the holidays, you'll tide yourselves in the midst of lines. and let's be clear, people want to come back to work, particularly gen-zers and millennials. they want mentorship. kelly: mentorship is a great point, yeah. >> you have to be in perfect these focus want to come back

and are coming back. at this point at least three days a week, mondays and fridaye particularly tough, but i would venture to say in the coming year we're going the see that occupancy level rise even more so. karl e cel bruce, we are going to half to leave it there -- to have to leave it there, but i thank you for your time. >> thank you very much for having me. happy holidays. kelly: one chinese electric vehicle automaker is jumping into the luxury market. who's rolling out a new big ticket sedan, an electric vehicle etf, driv, is up over 25 year to date. we're coming right back.s go ♪ rude. who are you? i'm an investor in a fund that helps advance innovative sports tech like this smart fitness mirror. i'm also mr. leg day...1989! anyone can become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq, a fund that gives you access to nasdaq-100 innovations.

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kelly: fox business alert, i promised you green on the screen, guys. look at the markets taking off in the final half hour of trade. the dow is picking up steam as it heads for itsth record close of the year. remember, it only needs 1172 points to clinch -- 172 points. we are just over 200, so looking pretty good. a couple of other things i want to get to. british billionaire jim ratcliff is investing $1.6 billion to buy a 25% stake in the legend e dare soccer club manchester united. ratcliff will pay $333 a share -- 33 a share, and his investment includes $300 million to upgrade the team's iconic stadium, manchester united has a current valuation of $6 billion

ranking it as the 13th most valuable sports team on the "forbes" franchise list. >> and 3-d printer maker e nanodimension has submitted an all-cash offer of $16.5500 a share to purchase the remaining shares of or -- it doesn't own. the rival 3-d printer merrick has rejected multiple offers including a $25 per share offer in july when it was planning a bigger merger. they said they would review and consider the new offer, so definitely something to keep an eye on there. and now netease is easing higher after china approved 105 new video game licenses. the stock had plunged friday, remember, after china's gaming regulators proposed new restrictions on how things like how long minors can play video games, how much they can spend. on saturday the government announced it would further improve the proposed rules after folks earnestly studying public views. a group of smaller chinese gaming companies have announced

share buybacks to help ease investors' fears. and remember earlier scott redler talksed about this one, nio just unveiled its new auto for the high-end market at its nio day 2023 event. the et-9 is a four-seater with steve designed as a its own space like first class on an airplane. however, it's going to cost you $112,000, and expect to start deliveries in the first quarter of 2024. love to sign up for that or, but it's out of my price range. now this, a dangerous new escalation in israel's war against hamas as the u.s. targets other rogue players in the region. we're going. to get the latest developments on the ground in israel. and as the battle over anti-semitism on campus is showing no signs of slowing down, a brown university or student is here to tell us what he'd like to see on his ivy league campus. let's take a look at the dow

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kelly: folks, this is breaking news. tensions in the middle east continue to rise as an msc mediterranean container ship has just confirmed it was attacked while sailing through the red sea. all crew are safe with no reported injuries, thankfully. a spokesperson though for the you think rebels alleges it was their group that attacked the ship. the ship was headed from saudi arabia to fact pakistan. this as a israel's minister for strategic affairs and a key ally of prime minister benjamin netanyahu is in d.c. right now to meet with secretary of state antiany blinkenning as the idf says israel is under attack from seven different sectors say, quote, there's no immunity for

anyone. fox news' trey yingst is live in tel aviv as the u.s. military strikes out at those attacking american troops in the region. trey, or it's great to see you. >> reporter: hey, good afternoon. we know overnight president biden ordered the u.s. military to strike a numb of targets -- a number of targets belonging to iran-backed iraqi shia militias in iraq. three separate targets were hit, and we understand that they were destroyed and likely a number of hezbollah militants killed. the airstrike es did come in response to a drone attack against the irbil air base that houses u.s. service members. three americans were injured in that attack, one critically, bringing the total number of attacks against american interests in the middle east to 103 since mid if october. it also comes as israeli forces remain on high alert after an airstrike in syria killed an irgc command. in response, iranian president i saying, quote, this act is a sign of the zionist regime's

frustration and weakness in the region for which it will certainly pay the privacy also new attacks today into northern israel from southern lebanon, and a government spokesperson in israel saying this: >> the anti-tank missile attack just recently on the greek ott docking church injuring a civilian in israel is a reminder that for hezbollah and its iranian puppetmasters, nothing is sacred. there is no going back. either hezbollah retreats as a part of an effective diplomatic solution, our preferred option, or we will push it back ourselves using military force. >> reporter: we are also following breaking news out of the red sea where a container ship reportedly was attacked by houthi rebels. today fired missiles from yemen striking that container ship, but according to the owner of the ship, one of the crew onboard was injured. back to you. kelly: trey, thank you for that live horse report, and your

reporting has been nothing short of stellar throughout this. we appreciate it. as the war in the middle east rages on, the battle between wall street and leaders of elite american universities continues. for,king square ceo bill ackman tweeted on sunday that a reliable source has told him -- corporation has asked president claudine gay to resign, and she has allege ad refused saying if she's fired, she will sue. ackman continued to call for gay's removal from the position saying the sooner she's gone, the soon or or repairing the damage can begin. i want to bring in a student who has been in the thick of all of the commotion at brown university where just a few weeks ago 411 students were -- 41 is students were charged with press dress passion after a pro-palestine demonstration. alex joins me now. you're not jewish, but you are a freshman at brown university. >> i am. kelly: i want to just get your take right off the bat. i mean, i can't imagine this was expected when you stepped on

campus as an eager freshman back in august. what is it like now? what is the tension on campus like? >> what was a little bit, because on my student to be the visit back in april or or one of the things that stuck out to me was there were a bunch of protesters that said invest in appar if tide. thaw want brown toty e vest their endowment from anything that's related to's israel, and the administration is reluctant to do that because if they don't see the endowment as a political instrument which is something i agree with. but i think that going on at a ivy league institutions across the country we see that there is a bit of sort of an attitude of incivility. people aren't really being treated with respect because of their political beliefs. you do see that there sort of is a lot of disagreement and that there the really isn't people able to disagree using their voices, like us having a conversation right now, it's people yelling, people dress terrace passing. i'm a supporter of freedom of

speech, so if people want to yell, that's their right. however, i wish that people would exercise their free speech a bit more responsibly and engage in dialogue. i wish that more students would be interested in doing that. kelly: it's interesting that you say this was even going on back when you were there visiting in april, because i think it's sort of risen to the top of the media and everyone's consciousness right now, but there the has been this undertone that's been coming for a while, yeap. you know, i do want to get your take because i mentioned in the intro there are 41 students that were arrested, there were some that charges were dropped in a november protest after a couple of to-palestine students died. do you think that the administration is doing enough, not doing enough in terms of cracking down on anti-semitism on campus? >> right. well, i support free speech, and i don't think we need to be

cracking down on free speech per se too much. however, i do think that, again, a lot of these people they're, i mean, people in general, college students, we like attention. i think i would be lying if i didn't say i didn't like a little bit of attention myself, but students are sort of attention-seeking. you see 411 is people arrested -- 41 people, there's all the cameras, they think there's a lot of -- they're lauded as heroes by some people, and that is a thing that sort of feeds into that ego. rather than having discourse, people really just want attention. and this has to do, i guess, with these days instagram reels, tiktok, people's attention spans are short, so they really don't have the time to read up on all the facts. they're interested in big, flashy gestures that can go viral as opposed to digging into that substance that's there. kelly: yeah. it's an interesting point you make because universities are supposed to be a place where there is supposed to be that free discourse ors that if you have a different opinion than

me, web actually -- we can actually talk it out instead of yelling past each other. i will push back a little bit, when someone is calling for the genocide of an entire population, it would have been nice to see president claudine gay condemn that. but i want to get your take on what bill ackman has been calling for. i went to harvard undergrad, i was going because i wanted to get certain jobs, certain opportunities. he's calling for employers, donors to pull their money back, to not come to a place like brown university. what's your reaction? if are you worried that some employers may just say, you know, alex, we're just -- we're not coming if for you today? >> i don't know. i think that's a little bit unfair to students who through no fault of their own are at an institution like. i think that's a little bit shortsighted. bill act match, he went to harvard, right? i'm sure he got employment tunnels.

there might be a little hypocrisy there. it is important that we push back on sort of this mob mentality, herd mentality. i think people need to think for themselves, and back in the day it used to be like if you're a democrat, you're a republican, it might be like i'm a yankees fan, you're a red sox pharynx but we can still be friends. [laughter] hoping to get back to that on college campuses sometime the soon. kelly: well, i would hope so as well. alex shieh, thank you so much for your time, and for reminding us that we should is be having more conversations. >> absolutely. thank you. cel okay. well, many happy returns. gerri willis is hitting a mall in new jersey to tell us what retailers are expecting as a your relltys try to take back that ugly sweater you ghei them for christmas. shame on you. but the retail etf is up more than 23% over the last two to months. we're coming right back. ♪ mucking

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i'm a little anxious, i'm a little excited. i'm gonna be emotional, she's gonna be emotional, but it's gonna be so worth it. i love that i can give back to one of our customers. i hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. oh my goodness. oh, you guys. i know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. you have made an impact. so have you. for you guys to be out here doing something like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity.

♪. kelly: it looks like the santa claus rally is on for some retailers. let's take a look at a few. dick's sporting goods is up 2 1/2% right now. target rising. kohl's, almost 4 1/2%, is higher after swarms of customers are

flooding to their stores to buy gifts for the holidays but now retailers are bracing for another swarm of customers but this time they will be returning their gifts instead of buying them. according to the national retail federation last year people returned 16 1/2% of the items they bought online and in stores. that is double the amount of returns in 2019. what's worse is last year's returns were valued at nearly 81billion dollars. so how are retailers bracing for the hectic week of returns? , gerri willis is a brave soul in a mall in wayne new jersey where customers are flocking. what are you seeing there, gerri? >> reporter: i got to tell you the place is full of folks returning presents. what are we expecting? $173 billion worth of christmas gifting will be returned over this whole holiday season. that is up two billion dollars from last year. we spoke to some consumers, what

it was like this year, how is it different? it is a ring of experiences. listen. >> there was no issue. we got the right size, we tried them on, they fit. there was no has sill, no problems. >> i notice they're pushing more store credit versus like cash or, even exchange actually. they are asking me to just return an item for another item. >> reporter: and so, what retailers are doing is really struggling with all of these returns. it is really hard for them to process them all. so what are they doing? they're giving out shorter return times. one in seven retailers are only giving you a week to return these items. they're introducing new fees. they're saying hey, we're not paying the tab if you're sending it back by mail. free fedex certificate you thought would get to return your goods, that is not happening this year. also a large proportion of these goods every year are going to

landfills. they're being totally trashed. last year there was enough retail goods thrown into landfills that could have fill 10,500 bowing 737s. imagine that a lot of christmas present that got canned literally. -- boeing. kelly, back to you,. kelly: i can't believe one week to return? that makes me feel like i have to go back to double-check everything. great report, gerri. thanks. closing bell rings in six minutes. heuston we have a problem. the dow is no longer on pace for a record close. i will try to work some magic in the last few minutes. the nasdaq and s&p are on pace for the third straight week of gains. they are through holiday season. samsung delayeded production at

its chip plant in taylor, texas. the 17 billion-dollar plant was supposed to turn out chips in the second half of 2024. now it will start production in the beginning of 2025. meanwhile intel's stock is surging to 20-month highs after the tech giant announced plans to invest $25 billion into expanding its chip plant in the southern part of israel. the government is also giving intel a $3.2 billion grant to aid in construction. with samsung and intel expanding their chip production our "countdown closer" says a.i. could help fuel another big year for chip-makers. joining us with more than $30 billion in assets under management, pacer etf president, sean o'hara. another good irishman. i love it. >> thanks. kelly: we're talking about ai we're always talking about a.i. i want to give your take. some investors look at the space go clearly nvidia but where else

can i put my money? you have a particular etf that is focused on that space. what are some key holdings that investors get exposure to in that etf? >> well, thanks, kelly o'grady other irish name. if you look at ticker, trfk, nvidia is in there, broadcom is in there, intel is in there, palo alto is in there. palantir is in there. it wasn't specifically this technology revolution we're going through, looking technologies impacting everybody from streaming to the cloud and now a.i. which will be a big gobbler up if you will of data. we decided to pull everything out of the data centers the component parts that enable all this wonderful technology to happen. it has had a terrific year. it is up over 65% year-to-date. for investors who want to play

a.i. in little more diversified way, trfk would be a way to do that. producers off the beaten path a little bit in the a.i. game, and my name there would be asml. they are a specialty chip manufacturer. they use lithography. they are fastest in the world making chips faster and smaller. all the big chip providers including nvidia, micron, amd use them in your manufacturing process. you don't necessarily have to pick a winner which one will have the best chip. what you can do with asml own the best chip manufacturing our outsourcing of chip manufacturing. kelly: asml we see it up on the screen up. 1.25% today. we'll switch gears. that is a good pick to keep your eye on. i want to talk about the small caps because so much of the growth we've seen this year from

the "magnificent seven," the big tech names, of course nvidia being one but some of these companies have been hampered by high interest rates. we may, certainly the market thinks we will, see interest rate cuts next year. do you think that is a space where investors can take advantage of potential cuts next year? >> yeah i think it's possible. i think you have to be very careful when you look at small caps, particularly you look at the broad indexes like the s&p 600 or the russell 2000 which are two of the better known indexes. the things to keep in mind about those broad-based indexes about 30% of all the names in those indexes don't make any money. some people call them zombie companies. the other thing which is important you mentioned at the beginning they're typically more highly levered than large cap. they get their debt differently. they don't issue debt. they get bank reinvolving finance facilities called bank loans.

as interest rates risen we see bigger chunk of small companies earnings utilized by interest expense. if interest rates would come down it would certainly help. the other shoe is about to drop. i mean that their longer term fixed debt is going away as well so it will roll over higher than they started. we're looking for screens that will eliminate some of these problems. we don't like to buy names that don't make money. so we exclude them from our screens. we use free cash flow and free cash flow yield screen. so we know the small cap names we own have excess free cash flow to deal with the challenges that some others who don't have a lot of free cash flow can absorb these higher financing costs. so our et. if there was, the ticker calf. it was up like 32% so far this year. it is performing really well. i would caution people, i think the small cap cycle coming but be careful, make sure you're selective in the small cap stock selections.

kelly: well, sean, really important insights, always be careful with those investments. certainly a lot of folks look at the market right now. we're seeing all green on the screen. they are saying oh, wow, what a great time to get in. definitely earnings and as the fed what not come into play that will be key in your mind. sean, thank you for your time. >> thank you. kelly: close to setting a new all-time high. [closing bell rings] it is not making that right now, only up 165 points. nasdaq and s&p close up for the third straight day. that is it for "the claman countdown." i will be back tomorrow. but "kudlow" starts right now. david: hello folks, welcome to a special edition of "kudlow." i'm david asman in for larry kudlow. the u.s. military striking back. the question will it be enough? president biden ordering the pentagon to hit back