>> an architectural wonder. hummer sales down 81%. yikes. >> that doesn't surprise me. >> but saturn sales down 84%. i think much of that may be due to people not sure that that franchise is going to be there. >> absolutely. you want to know you can go get your repairs at the dealer. if the deal ser not going to be there, why would you buy it? >> meantime, stock market continuing to move lower. the dow at just about the lows of the day. >> we've seen a move into the treasury market today. as a matter of fact, we've had a big rally in the 30-year and 10-year treasuries with the dow down almost 160 points. >> look at that 10-year. >> seeking safety once again. that does it for us on "power lunch." we'll see you tomorrow. >> "street signs" with erin burnett gets underway in about 30 seconds. thanks for joining us. see you tomorrow. stocks are having their worst slump in a month after

some disappointing economic data. bernanke told the house financial services committee that the u.s. must get its fiscal house in order to avoid future risk to the dollar. cnbc's david faber reports that our parent company ge and comcast are in talks about a possible deal that would see come cast assume a 51% stake in nbc universal. that's cnbc.com news now, first in business worldwide. i'm mary thompson. hello, everyone. i'm erin burnett. the market welcomes october on a down note. why? well, more concern about the state of the economy. we're going to find out what the true story is today on "street signs." the dow down about 150. here is what we're going to do. we're going to get the picture from two mayors to talk about the truth. is the american jobs machine cranking up or breaking? and then we'll take you to the front lines to a different kind

of gas company. we're talking oxygen, helium, nitrogen and argon. the ceo though, we promise, not full of hot air. finally, we'll take a break and grab a cold one. loolts we're not alone because we have good news from one of the top wine and spirits purveyors. we have the ceo with us exclusively. there may be an appearance on this show today from hamsters. bob pisani and brian are at their posts. >> stocks down because the dollar has been up. mr. bernanke making comments on the dollar. quietly trying to drum up the dollar today. there's a g-7 meeting over the weekend. look at the s&p 500. tough start to the month and the quarter, but remember this. there's a monthly shart. we're only 3% off the highs, 1070 or so. that was back on september 16th. pretty modest correction so far. can't even call it that really, but a little more serious if you look at the transports here. there are certain groups that are getting a lot of chatter rolling over a little bit. transports down now 7%, almost

8%. another one-month chart compared to where we were september 16th. that was the highs for the year remember. also, if you look at some other big names, some industrial names starting to look a little weaker. you get caterpillar down 8% or 9%. some of the other big industrial names are also weak here today. talk more about that later. tradertalk.cnbc.com. brian shactman, not a good start for the gaur quarter on the nas either. >> not at all. look at the internals 4 to 1 declines to advances. a lot of news. cisco buying the teleconferencing company from norw norway, tandberg, for $3 billion. there's a lot going on. rad vision which 40% of its revenue last year came from cisco in this space is down 33%. polyco polycom is a competitor. they're down 3%. by the way, we had an ipo today and it's very well.

it's up 10%. priced in the middle of the range. comcast, down 6.4%. you have to hand it to mr. faber. it's hard to report on the parent company. came out with all that information about the possible talks. microsoft, a couple names really week. taken off the conviction buy list. oracle down 2.1%. ebay down 2.3%. yahoo! down 2.5%. finally the weakest of the weak would be the chips. the semi-conductor index tells the story. broad com taking it done the chin down 5.3%. the internals are pretty weak at the nasdaq. >> thanks very much. you saw the markets from bob and brian reflecting the tough headlines we had in terms of the economy. ford, general motors, and chrysler, they always come out with how sales were on the first day of the month. and, well, after clunkers went away, big drop in sales.

they were worse than expected looking at some of the headlines out of ford and gm. second, weekly unemployment numbers rose more than expected. and we question whether that will be a preview of the most important pa da point of the week, the monthly jobs report and we get it tomorrow morning. are things really bad out there? are these headlines reflecting the truth? what is going on in the real economy in america's citizens. joining us, the mayor of north carolina. i believe he was on the first flight sully flew after that incredible day on the hudson. also with us the mayor of seattle, greg nichols. thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much. i didn't have to land in the hudson river today. captain sully did a great job. >> i know you said walking through the airport you saw him. it was like having mick jagger along. >> he's a rock star and well-deserved because he saved a lot of lives. >> he sure did. it's one of the most incredible

stories. let's start with you then, mayor nichols, in terms of the economy. the headlines coming out, the recent data points this week have disappointed people on home sales, on jobs, on car sales. what's going on in your city? >> well, we're seeing certainly more people unemployed. i think our current unemployment rate is about 7.6%, but we're kind of counting our blessings because that's much lower than our state's average and much lower than the national average. we got hit later with this recession than most parts of the country. we didn't have the huge property bubble that many areas did, and until lehman brothers failed and then washington mutual, which was based here in seattle failed, we were not feeling the worst of it. we're optimistic in the long term though. we have a very vibrant and diverse economy here. we're seeing construction, amazon.com is building 1.5 million square foot headquarters. the gates foundation is building

a large new headquarters in seattle. biotech, by know medicbiomedica are opening up research centers here. short term though we're struggling like everybody else. >> your unemployment rate is 7.6%. >> mayor mckrory, you have an k interesting take on this. >> it's not due to this region losing more jobs than other regions. it's due to so many people still moving to charlotte and north carolina for potential new jobs. they're coming from ohio and pennsylvania, and michigan, and even california with no jobs because they think there's more potential to land on their feet in places like charlotte. it's a unique dilemma we're going through. >> so -- well, i guess from here where is the growth going to come from in charlotte? i mean, i know, mayor nickels was mentioning amazon building

1.5 million square foot headquarters. is there any major employment creator you can see? >> i think the major growth driver will be in the energy business where we hope to become an energy capital for the united states and the world where within charlotte we'll have engineers designing future nuclear power plants, fossil plants, solar power, wind power right out of charlotte for the rest of the united states. even though it's known for bank of america and wachovia or wells fargo, we also are a major utility and engineering center. we see tremendous potential in that area, but the downside is our sales tax revenue is down 19%, which is really impacting also the commercial real estate with retailers hurting so badly. >> and what about from here, mayor nickels? i know you have received in seattle i'm trying to get the numbers right, $70.6 million in stimulus money. >> yes, we have. and that's helping in the short term. >> is it enough or do you need more? >> well, we'd like to have more

obviously, and we have a lot of projects that are shovel-ready because when the economy was going better, we were planning for and designing those projects. but for us, similar to charlotte, we're looking at the future. what's the 21st century economy look like? for us green jobs and particularly green buildings. we think of ourselves as the green building capital of america. when president obama was a candidate, he came here, wanted to see a green business. mckinstry company locally. we see the opportunity to conserve energy and transform our transportation system from fossil fuels to electric vehicles as real areas of growth. >> you got $56.6 million. was it enough? >> well, we have been committed to $56 million. we've probably gotten about 15% to 20% of that at this point in time. but the stimulus is not going to get us out of this recession. we're going to have to get ourselves out of this recession

because i'm convinced still you're using borrowed money and most of us are using it not on long-term infrastructure but short-term operating costs which means we've got to come up with that new money in a year or two for future mayors and future governors. so i think whether you're seattle or charlotte, we've got to get ourselves out of this recession by creating new industry and trying to sustain and grow the existing industry that we have. >> mayor mccrory and nickels, thank you very much. thanks for sharing the story about sully. >> everyone alluded when we landed in new york. it was great. >> next, chairman bernanke says the fed can take the lead role in regulating the big banks. is the fed biting off more than it can chew? speaking of chewing, we also want to know what people are washing it down with. we'll find out from the company that imports corona beer in the united states. you're watching "street signs" and we'll be back. welcome to the now network. population: 49 million.

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after a september to remember, and that was in a good way, the dow is limping into october down six of the past seven sessions. chairman ben bernanke really stole the headlines and the television cameras today. he was testifying before the house financial services committee. he said he supported this whole concept of a council of regulators that would oversee big, important financial institutions in this country. the question is, was he really backing down on the fed ruling the roost? does he really believe in a

council and what in the world would a council of people who are fighting for power succeed in anyway? david mint and dana raush. i couldn't tell what he was saying. he was saying i'm for this council but it almost was possible he was saying that but really under cover of the council, the fed rises. >> right. i actually don't think he said anything new. this was exactly the same as what the obama administration released in march which is to say they proposed a two-tier institutional response to dealing with systemic risk. one was this council, which was supposed to identity systemic risk and find out ways to sort of combat that and prevent that from happening and the other was consolidated regulatory supervision for safety and soundness of systemic risk over a tier one financial holding system, the systematically important institutions, and bank holding companies. if you look at his testimony that's what he called for today.

>> you're saying it doesn't sound new to you. diana, one thing he did keep saying until he was blue in the face is, quote, i do not support too big to fail. but again we don't have this definition of who is too big to fail, how you would know who was, or what you would do about it if they were. >> that's exactly right. i think that we cannot abandon too big foo fail unless we take a lot more interference in all these companies' business and in a sense it's not so much failure, it's bankruptcy. bankruptcy is an orderly way of unwinding someone's assets. chairman bernanke is right, we need coordinated regulation. we need nonbank banks. we need groups that do the same things as banks to have the same kind of regulation as banks do, but that's not to say the federal reserve should be doin t it. they should be focused on a sound money supply. it should be preserving its independence. we have other agencies such as the treasury, fdic, s.e.c. who

can deal with financial regulation. >> david min, i guess just taking out the players and the individual personalities, if we set policy obviously the people who run the institutions will change, the policy will be there. do you think a council of anybody who always are going to be dueling over authority are going to be able to make good decisions on what institutions or people are really a risk to the system? >> and i think that's what bernanke was pointing out today. the council is really meant to identify ways systemic risk can rise and ways you can deal with t maybe it's increased capital. trying to figure out which institutions might pose a threat to the system, what types of products. the reason ber than ki was cana for one regulator to have authority over these too big to fail institutions, i think when the crap hits the fan, you want somebody who can make decisions

decisively. i wasn't sure what diane was saying, but i think one thing we have to remember is if you don't have prudential supervision, you're going to have banking crises. that was the lesson we learned from japan and other countries and a lesson we learned when the banking system outstripped banking regulation and we ended up with that shadow of a banking sector that wasn't regulated for safety and soundness. >> i agree we need to have sound regulation, consistent regulation. we don't want some firms escaping into a different kind of regulator when they're doing the same things. we need to be regulating the credit default swaps which are what caused the crisis. we still have not subjected them to any regulation. but if a firm goes under, we should let it go under. we have a process to unwind it. it's called bankruptcy where different players in the market pick up the pieces, and what we don't need is a special system to take assets away from the creditors and shareholders the way they did in the gm and chrysler bankruptcies and then

hand them over to campaign contributors such as the united autoworkers which is what happened with the auto companies. >> david min, here is my question. we're having all these conversations and we can debate whether it should be a council or who should have authority and all of these things, but then i look at just the facts of the situation which is we have banks that are as big now as they ever were. some of them are even bigger. all these changes might happen. >> right. >> and those institutions might not get any smaller or less "too big to fail." >> how do you change that 1234. >> exactly. >> i don't think bankruptcy is appropriate because the whole problem with systemic risk is the confidence issue. so the government does need to guarantee like in banking they guarantee deposits. it appears clear that the government is not going to allow senior debt or cds-type exposure to be allowed to fail because of the systemic risks there. >> but you can guarantee the deposits and still allow the institution to fail. >> what can we do to fix the too big to fail problem?

i think the obama administration looked at this and had one of two approaches. the first was let's try to unwind them and regulate the shadow banking system. they decided that would be too hard to do. what they decided to do in the interim and maybe permanently is to add a layer of regulation that deals with too big to fail institutions while putting in measure that is might be disincentives, might be jacked up a little bit, such as higher risked capital, increased oversight, and perhaps a systemic risk insurance fund that would be used for systemic risk costs basically. >> you can have high-risk capital and high requirements, high capital requirements, you can have more regulation, but in the end if a firm makes bad decisions, it should be allowed to fail. we shouldn't be bailing out these large banks -- >> we have -- >> i think we're talking about resolution authority versus bankruptcy and the fact is that it's very clear we can't allow these senior bondholders because of the spillover in systemic risk effects, they can't be

allowed to just default on the obligations. >> that's the end of a sentence so i will leave it there. i'm sorry to both of you. >> thank you, erin. >> and i think this is the first time diana -- >> i think he was going to say i think it's the first time diana and i have agreed on something and i think he might be right. we'll continue it. just ahead on the show, ge and comcast, deal or no deal? david faber has the latest. and this pirate ship was sent to us by a ceo on the front lines of the economy. it's meant a lot to our show since we like to sail on pirate ships. argh. we'll be back. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i want everything right where i can find it. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 anything that makes trading easier. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i want to be right in the middle of the action-- tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 you know-- i have to see what's going on. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and when i pull the trigger... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...i've got to get the best price out there. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 (announcer) try the new schwab.com tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 for yourself. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-888-4schwab tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 or visit schwab.com/trader today. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 'course a trade doesn't always work out my way.

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only two stocks in the dow are higher today, travelers and walmart. we have a major update on the deal talks between general electric and comcast and david faber is here with the latest. >> how are you feeling, all right? >> i don't really like this story. >> are you feeling comcastic? >> we will reiterate a story we first brought you about an hour and a half ago. ge and comcast are in talks about a deal in which ge would spin off its nbc universal unit into a new company that would be merged with the content assets

of comcast according to people familiar with the negotiations. the deal under consideration would allow comcast to take a 51% economic stake or economic control of nbc universal through contributions of content assets such as the e channel, the golf channel, a group of regional sports networks, and perhaps more importantly the contribution of as much as $7 billion in cash to the new company. there's a look at comcast's content stable. the deal is complex, far, far from a certainty. under the scenario, ge would spin nbc universal along with a significant am of debt into a new company. comcast would merge consent assets it values at as much as $6 billion along with cash so that it would take a 51% ownership stake. ge would control 49%, and as part of the spinoff nbc universal would be able to contribute what i'm told is as much as $12 billion in debt to the spunnoff entity. all of these numbers of course can change as valuations are

still negotiated. bankers on both sides of the deal also tell me nothing sim nent, given the high degree of difficulty in getting this work, they are far from certain this will work. comcast officials are not commenting. under the scenario being contemplated comcast would not issue equity or endanger its investment grade credit rating. these talks have been prompted by the prospect avendy. it would add a lot more debt to nbc universal and spin it off. assuming the company was valued at $35 billion subtracting $12 billion in dead, comcast would need to contribute equity value of $12 billion to gain a 51% stake. over time comcast could increase

its ownership stake in the new company and could in part fund those purchases by cash flow it receives from the company itself, but don't forget it will be a fairly highly leveraged company so also having to pay down debt. comcast ceo brian roberts has lone coveted control of content assets. we remember the failed unsolicited bid for disney a number of years ago. officials have declined comment. a lot of questions here, of course, erin, continuing to be one i haven't gotten answered which if it is a sale by ge, giving up control, would there be a tax hit on the gain or have they revalued the asset such as even in 2004 or written them down, that that gain would be negligible or be offset by losses in other parts of the company? a lot of moving parts here. >> highly leveraged media company with a need to pay down debt. >> acot of ca lot of cash flow. maybe as much as $4 billion. >> enough to pay your salary.

oh, we make jokes here. >> yes, we do. i hope so. you always want to be a footnote in the annual report. >> yeah. or not. thanks to david faber. obviously, a story everyone here is very focused on. we have a big update in the bernie madoff case. a bankruptcy trustee turning up the heat on one of madoff's investors and cnbc's senior correspondent scott cohn is here and has the details. >> i'm feeling comcastic and we'll leave it at that. onto madoff. jeffrey pick hower and his family and friends may have received more than $7 billion from madoff over the years. he says he's a victim. madoff a long-time friend callously betrayed his trust. that came from a motion to dismiss a sued against him by irving picard. he's putting a finer point on

the charges. that he knew or should have known he was benefitting from a fraud. the sums received were staggering by any measure. $7.2 billion. nearly $2.5 billion in just the last two years. the accounts were riddled by obvious fraud including backd backdated trades. net worth according to the magazine of $1 billion. he's no stranger to controversy. then there are the charities he set up and their dealings with companies picor effectively controlled. he insists he did nothing wrong. saying picard's allegations don't make sense, but picard has actually upped the ante. he said over the summer that maybe $5 billion of the proceeds that picr received were fraudulent. now he's saving $7 billion, the full amount, were fraudulent.

this is picard continuing to try to rake in all these assets in the one suit we're waiting for, the promise suit, against the sons, andrew and mark. >> and everybody is very curious about that. on a human level as well as, of course, a crucial financial one. thanks so much, scott. get ready to stop trading because jim is searching the high seas. jim on pirate ship, that really would have been a treat. jim is a pirate but on the high seas more questionable. and then are consumers buying more or less. we will ask the ceo of the world's largest wine company. i guess people are drinking more vodka. we will find out, but right now we have some breaking headlines. let's go to phil lebeau. toyota? >> we have toyota's september sales, erin, and they are down 15.1%. in line with all the other major automakers reporting a decline following cash for clunkers in july and in august and again toyota down 16.1%. we're still waiting to find out and we should have it in the

next hour or so what the sales rate was for the month of september. again, the expectation 9.3 million to 9.5 million. that's the latest on auto sales. we'll have more "street signs" in just a little bit.

welcome back to "street signs." rick santelli on the floor of the cme group. it's a really fascinating day. i'll tell you why it's fascinating to me, because i see all of this jese upgrades on wh tomorrow's job number may look like from the vantage point of different analysts and different brokerages, and then i see the activity that goes on before, during, and after these announcements. suffice it to say that there is

probably the most activity in treasury options i have seen in a long, long time. having said that, we know the number tomorrow. let's look at the charts real quick. intraday you can see yields on the ten-year note were around 316 at one point. year to day reveals we haven't seen those since about mid-may. we broke that from the end of may because it was one day at the end of may that had a big range. in terms of the 30-year bond, it's the lowest yield. see the charts. since april, end of april, really rocking and rolling on the long end of the curve. remember, it's like a skater on a rope. the last guy has the most fun. back to you, erin. >> thank you, rick santelli. jim cramer is here. we're going to stop trading, but we have a special guest, one that jim is always interested to talk to. we wanted to give you a present. joining us from philadelphia, airgas chairman and ceo peter. the ticker is arg, as in arg. >> arg. >> as in pirate ships. >> yo ho, i don't hoyo ho, the

life for me. >> we still have your ship. >> i'm glad you're enjoying it. >> we do. it's sort of a mascot for us, i'll be honest. okay. so you're dealing with every kind of gas, argon, nitrogen, you name it, you deal in it. how is business? >> well, i would say business is a little better than it was two or three months ago. we've seen a nice pickup in sales in the last 30 days. you know, they look like green shoots to me, but we've seen other, you know, pickups in the last five or six months that sort of just flattened out. we're cautiously optimistic. >> it's good to hear someone say they had a good september. we get a lot of data that indicates we didn't. peter, i know, and peter has been probably the most frequent

guest on my show, peter, no people being hired, right? just no people being hired in the private sector. >> well, i wouldn't say that's entirely true. we're seeing callbacks at automobile companies and some of the metal fab companies are calling back workers now. now, part of this is attributable to stimulus funding and military krcontracts and things like that, but there are people going back to work, and there are also layoffs occurring. so i think we're just in the bottom of the barrel right now, and some people are optimistic and some are pessimistic and we're sort of just in suspension. >> i will take that. i felt like today was really one of those days where people have just decided, whether it be bob pi sansani referenced about the goldman sachs saying fewer jobs, every piece of data has been spun negatively.

it's nice to hear peter talk. >> peter, from here where do we go? what are your customers waiting for before pulling that trigger to have you say, look, i'm not suspended anymore. >> besides the playoffs, peter. huge phillies fan. >> well, my index, the one i watch the most is the traffic index. if you look at the roads these days, you will see a lot more truck traffic and truck traffic really moves the u.s. economy, and so i see that. that's a sign of optimism that i'm picking out, but, you know, we're not sure. some of our customers are investing heavily, but they're in alternative energy or construction projects that have finally been released, but i think everyone is still pretty cautious. they're optimistic that the economy is getting better, but they're not taking any chances, and if it gets better, they're

going to end up being more profitable because they'll have a lower cost structure, and that's certainly our approach at this time, and i think it's the approach of a lot of our customers. >> well, peter, thank you very much. we appreciate it, and a belated happy pirate appreciation day. that's what it was, september 20th. >> you had him on the 19th and did not wish him a happy pirate day. >> very important that i have had peter on ten times. why do i do that? because of the ceos i have had on, he has probably been the most accurate and his refusal to be as negative as what the market is saying to us today, but to necessarily give us a huge uptick, i think pretty much explains why it's one of these markets where we're stuck in a range. >> because there's no massive reason to be optimistic. he said huge pessimism is not warranted. >> 9500. i think there were people when

they were at 9800 that were saying 10,000 is a foregone c n conclusion. now they are says 8,000. >> thein and t yin and the yang >> that's an interesting point, but let's just say we do or say we sit where we are. what do you do? >> well, i think -- here is what i think is most interesting about today. all stocks are down equally today. the recession stocks are down. the stocks that do well in a recession are down as much as most of the industrials except for union pacific and norfolk southern which are up. i think you go to the cloroxs and kimberly clarks. unless you're going to gay paris, a weak dollar is great. no one ever wants to say that because it's so quint sen tha--.

every company that is down today, many of them have tremendous weak dollar exposure. i don't know why you'd sell them. i'm saying using kimberly as the exact model for where we are, a high yielder what tremendous international exposure and exposure to natural gas, that should be going up. >> kimberly clark. from cradle to grave. from diapers to depends. >> kimberly is to me the single -- other than the j and j, the most levered international but the cost structure that's going down. anyone who is on the darden call knows this is a country that is saving because red lobster was just hammered. clarence, listen to me, i know -- >> clarence otis. >> less than other places. red lobster is my benchmark. it is my benchmark and red lobster was very, very weak. exactly what i was thinking. >> really? >> exactly what i was thinking.

the hamster. what this does is it puts everything into context. >> it does. >> let me tell you something about the hamster. this is hot. this is a toy. a few years ago the toy would have been a giant giraffe thing that would have cost $1 million. but now this guy. wait, that's confusing. is this supposed to go to young children? >> wasn't that great -- >> did i just say something about confusion that. we're telling children that rooster sounds come from hamsters. >> you're right. i didn't go to college to get -- >> we're going to have much more actually on where this toy comes from and who is benefiting from the fact that hamsters make rooster sounds. >> it's actually sonny that said it. >> next on, you have john

koelmel. >> yes, i do. >> and the sba communications ceo. >> we do a lot -- >> we share. when times get tough, do people cut back on their coronas? we'll ask the ceo of one of the largest wine and spirit companies in a cnbc exclusive. and -- >> and a quick reminder, all the recommendations expressed by jim cramer are solely his and are not the opinions of cnbc and may have been previously disseminated by him. before acting on a recommendation, consider its suitability for your circumstances and consider seeking advice from your own financial adviser. excellence is right on time. it's gmc truck month. shop sierra 1500 slt with the 403 horsepower 6.2 liter v8. it's the most powerful half ton v8 in its class.

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a brief update on what's going on with the negotiations with iran on nuclear weapons. president obama will be speaking at 3:05 eastern. we'll take that live for you. we do have this headline for you. sorry about losing that picture. the weapons inspect will be going into iran this weekend. the president will speak and we'll have that here live on cnbc in just about 15 minutes.

consumers are spending cautiously, but a lot of people say when times get tough, people still drink, maybe even people drink less, although some of the numbers actually show they were drinking more. what's really going on and what can we find out about the economy. we have an exclusive interview with the president and ceo of constellation brands. wonderful to have you with us, mr. sands. a lot of numbers have come out. you might say people get depressed and drink more. but in this recession at least in certain categories people did cut back on drinking. certainly in drinking out at restaurants and places like that. what are you saying now? >> well, we like to say that the business is somewhat recession resistant, but it certainly hasn't been recession-proof. we have seen some slow down, although not necessarily in a major sense in some of the categories in some of the most premium categories we've seen

those affected. in general i would say that the business pretty healthy, even during the recession. >> and bob pisani mentioned this morning there was a pickup in vodka sales. that caught my attention. when we were in moscow last winter, there was something like 70 kinds of vodka on the grocery store shelves. they enjoy having a good vodka and they said for the first time in history they'd actually seen a decline in vodka consumption. that was obviously a big indicator for that economy. what do you see today? >> well, you know, our principal brand is sveka. it's midpremium. it sells for about half the price of the high-end vodkas, and in this environment consumers who are definitely being a little bit more savvy about what they're trching have really chosen a brand like this as one of their principal

brands. this product has been growing high single digits now, and, therefore, it's really the fastst growing premium spirit brand in the united states today. >> and when things change economically, when things really improve, you might expect to see some growth in your high end and maybe less growth in your low end as people switch back, right? hypothetically that's what you might see? >> we're really only in the premium business, which doesn't mean expensive. our business is wine products for instance over $5, and within the premium segment, yes, we have seen some trading down from the very high end, and that is due to the fact that the restaurant business is down and that's where the high end does the most business. so when we see the recession ebb and we see people start going out, i think we will see the highest end of the business recover. >> okay. so you will say haven't seen it

yet. one thickng i noticed, there ha been an increase up perhaps in wine distributors loading up on inventory. maybe they're hopeful on the holiday season or maybe things really are improving. what do you read into that? >> i think in our particular case we have just gone through a process of consolidating our distribution network. so we did have some timing benefits in the second quarter associated with that. it wasn't really that distributors were loading up for the holiday season. it was specifically related to our own activities. but that said i still think that, you know, things are pretty good out there in many respects. if you look at grocery store data, the wine business is growing midsingle digits which is what it's been growing for the last five, six, seven years. so, you know, i would say i'm

cautiously optimistic about a pretty good holiday season. >> we'll take that because like jim cramer said, a lot of people are just plain old cautious and don't have the optimistic on the other side of it. thanks for being with us. >> thanks, erin. next on the show, down six of the past seven days, how are pros sorting out their portfolio. and an early warning for the holiday shopping season. that is next. does the rate change depending on how often you trade or how much you have in your account? at td ameritrade, there's only one price for online stock trades--$9.99. now matter how often you trade. no matter how much money you have in your account. straightforward pricing from td ameritrade. independence is the spirit that drives america's most successful investors. it doesn't cover everything. and what it doesn't cover can cost you some money.

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retailers, of course, are already planning for the big holiday and that is christmas. the fight for consumer dollars is fierce. here to tell us what the plan is for big players in toyland and what might be the hot toys, no matter what noises they make is bertha coombs. >> 85 days until christmas and the fight is fierce for consumer dollars. they are talking about toys like the virtual hamster for $7.99. the top ten toys include a lot of those value plays, but they think there will be big ones like garage band by the beatles rockband which they think will be a big player.

the transformer brand construction set which retails in the three figures they think will be a top hit. so will value toys like barbie under $12. toy makers themselves say at the end of the day, no parent wants to be a grinch at christmas. >> nothing is recession-proof. one of the words i heard today was recession resistant. the toy industry has not suffered at the same level the other industries have suffered. >> they want to buy brands they trust. in many cases, that they may have played with when they were a child that they know their children aren't going to play with once and lose interest with. >> walmart is going to launch 100 toys this year at a $10 price point. they think that will bring people into the stores. i talked to the ceo of toys "r" us. they are going to combat that playing on the value, the toys

parents really like and might be willing to pay more for. you can see that on cnbc.com. erin? >> did you hear that, bertha? >> i did hear the briefing about these. remember the virtual pets ten years ago? they were very involved. the nice thing about these, you don't have to feed them or clean up after them. they do have habitrails. they don't die, you just put in a new battery. >> that is a good thing when talking about hamsters. bertha coombs, thank you very much. i want to get to the bottom of where they make rooster noises. $7.99 for the hamster. taking a look at the market, obviously yesterday we know the market fell sharply, but then we had that comeback. how fearful is the market today? dave ravelli, is this it? is this now the bears are going

to be able to seize control? >> yeah, erin. it looks that way. a pivotal number in the s&p is 1040. it's the bottom of the support of the uptrend wedge we had in the past few months. if we close before that, we are in for a 5% to 10% correction. >> what do you say, warren? >> i think that is a bit of a technical level we have been looking at. we could sell off a little bit more. i think included in that is the fact we ended the second very strong quarter up 15% across the industries. we have a vacuum with job numbers tomorrow. there's not a whole lot to hang your hat on so it's a perfect opportunity for the bears to take hold at least a week or two. >> thanks to both of you. obviously, bears and bulls will be fighting again tomorrow on the jobs front. we have a good news job story. if only we had more like this one.

five stocks in the nasdaq 100 in the green today. ryanair, dish and research in motion.

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want guaranteed income for life? axa equitable is redefining what you expect from annuities. ooh, peanuts. key unemployment at the highist level since 1948, there is a bright spot. a new program. janet is in houston, texas, with the story. >> good afternoon. here in the shadow of the johnson space center, a bright spot that shows there are jobs available for students with the right training. we are at united space alliance. this is a large nasa contractor. they do everything from making space suits for the astronauts to outfitting their personal laptops they take on the shuttle. they tapped into a program called genesis works that trains high schoolers who might not be in