for the market. everybody, watch cnbc all day. that does it for this edition of "power lunch." >> "street signs" begins right now. we'll see you tomorrow. welcome to "street signs." in less than 24 hours, america goes to the polls. the race too close to call. but who does the market want to win? do stocks even care? you should care about the fiscal cliff. h&r block. watch out east coast, a new storm on the way. latest on its track ahead. watch out apple. startling new stats on how it now has real competition in its tablet market. let's take a look at the market stats. stocks literally are stuck in a wait-and-see mode ahead of tomorrow's election. dow quietly sitting around a two-month low.

the index' worst three-day moving street in a year. s&p is down for a second down day in light volume. the nasdaq outperform being the s&p so far this month and so far this year. the only market in the plaque. latest numbers from the u.s. department of energy show 1.4 million homes and businesses are still without power. 780,000 new jersey residents are still in the dark and pse&g, the state's largest ess esst utilit 78% of its customers have had their power restored. in new york half a million customers still without power. con ed reporting an 84% restoration rate. generators are still powerless in new york. 60 locations serving over

140,000 voters have already been moved. new jersey voters displaced by the storm will be per misted to vote via fax or e-mail. early voting is also in progress in the garden state. banks in sandy's path are back up and running but giving consume aers few extra day to pay their bills. jpmorgan chase, wells fargo, citi group and pnc all waving fees for customers through wednesday, november 7th. everybody probably personally cares who wins the presidential election. but does the market care? let's bring in the president and ceo of td ameritrade. does it matter to stocks who wins tomorrow? >> well, if you read conventional wisdom here, i think a romney win would be good for stocks but in the long run i don't think it matters which candidate wins. i think we just got to get our political leaders to start working together to align fiscal policy better with monetary policy. then the market will go.

>> sadly, i agree. listen, this all might be in the hand of congress. not the white house. right? >> yeah. well, it takes three levels of the government there to get things passed and hopefully fix or physical challenges. >> who do you think would be better for your business specifically, fred? >> well, traditionally, a republican would be better for our business. but i don't think with respect to us, we're indifferent. whatever candidate it is, we just hope that they get together, work across the aisle to get what their fiscal challenges and get our economy on a firmer footing. >> fred, what's the one thing you would like to see the next president do, whether it's the same president, or a new one? >> i think the main thing right now that's hanging over the economy and it's hanging over businessmen, it's hanging over retail investors is the level of

uncertainty in the u.s. economy and in the macro economic environment. i think if they could just get the u.s. economy where you are better aligned fiscal policy and monetary policy, both in the short term but also in the long term, if they can get that done and get businessmen some greater clarity on where the economy is going, hopefully in the right direction, i think we'll change retail sentiment and business sentiment faster than i think most people realize. >> absolutely. we always say that the market hates uncertainty and loves certainty. what about the near certainty of higher taxes that would be on the table if indeed obama wins again? >> well, as i said before, i suspect it will be a split between the white house and the congress and i think they'll have to work together. i would expect some tax increases if obama gets elected. but i think they'll be

reasonable and as long as they avoid the fiscal cliff or make the pain of the fiscal cliff much less than it is if it just expires. i think the market will take that positively. >> fred, thank you very much for your insight on that matter. most polls are saying obama will be re-elected. well, the romney camp is confident it will pull an upset. does anyone really know? john harwood is here with his crystal ball. i don't know how accurate it is. seems nothing could really know right now. >> all we have is the polls and the polls can be flawed. they are going in a similar direction. we've seen that the battleground in this country election has been narrowed substantially. we only have about nine states where candidates have been focusing on. within those nine states, you have some swing counties that have gotten a tremendous amount of attention. i want to just throw of three of those counties. start with prince williamnty in virginia. right outside of washington, d.c. it is an ex-urban county a little bit away from washington.

this county president bush carried with 53% of the vote in 2004. president obama came in, did better than that in 2008 as he took virginia. let's go down to hillsboro county in florida. this is tampa. it is where republicans held their convention. that's not an accident there. it is the beginning of the i-4 corridor across the middle of the state. hill b hillsboro county is the state president bush carried with the majority in 2004. president obama came back and carried hillsboro county in 2008. both candidates are focused on that county as well. then finally in the state of ohio, probably the hinge state in this election with 18 electoral votes. look in the center of the state. franklin county which is where columbus is. now it tends to be a democratic county. john kerry carried it with 54% in 2004. it has ohio state, has the state capital there. but that wasn't enough for him to carry the state. barack obama carried it with 60% of the vote. that is the formula for democratic success.

mitt romney's trying very hard to prevent him from rolling out margins like that. in fact, mitt romney's going back there this afternoon. both candidates have spend tremendous amount of time. >> how key is it that we get voter participation? how much will that sway the vote, actually getting people to the polls? >> that's the real difference in analysis between the romney campaign and the obama campaign in all the public polls. what the romney campaign says the public polling we're seeing is not capturing the intensity of republican support which is going to result in disproportionate turnout more than the polls now project. if that happens, then those swing states where obama's leading the polls could fall romney's way. >> there's also that misclaim that you can't win without ohio. it is more likely you'll win with ohio, but you can win without ohio. >> well, of course. you could put together the states in many, many ways to get to 270 electoral votes. it is just that ohio is a state that's closer to the finish line for romney than other states

that he might have to win to replace it with. the romney campaign believes they need to carry the state of ohio. clearly -- >> it is a big help obviously. >> clearly if they can put pennsylvania in to play, if they could put minnesota into play, if they could put michigan into play -- >> is pennsylvania in play, john? >> probably not. >> what about michigan? >> probably not. >> romney's home state. >> romney's home state but it is pretty democratic. the auto bailout worked very well for obama there as it has in the state of ohio. >> polls are all over the place. only thing i know is 81% of americans are sick of polls. >> i think it is about 91%. or maybe 101%. >> what's the margin of error? john, have you a long couple days. thank you. let's talk taxes. both candidates say they are the candidate by and for the middle class. but guess what? taxes may be going up for millions of middle class families regardless of who wins. joining us, kathy pickering, executive director of the tax

institute and h&r block. tell us why? >> thank you so much. we have been watching ant, the alternative minimum tax. and it has expired. so what that means is that if congress doesn't take action during the lame duck session, 30 -- approximately 30 million people will have an increase in their taxes of $3,000 to $5,000. we're very anxiously watching to see what's going to happen with the amt patch. >> am i right in thinking this is actually something people aren't even aware that they're actually eligible for. it actually comes into effect immediately. suddenly they're going to get a bill as opposed to a refund. >> that's exactly right. the tax expired last year, december 31st, 2011. and so now many people don't understand amt, they don't know

how to plan for it, they're not expecting it, and so exactly as you said, they're going to go in expecting to get a refund and not only not have a refund, but end up owing money. >> let's dig in a little bit more though. you bring up an important issue but here's the problem. 34 million americans likely going to pay this thing. it is too part of the revenue tore congress to do away with it. it was meant for 19 wealthy families in 1969. if it is not changed on a macro level it will soon encompass every family. >> that's exactly right. that's what's so interesting. this tax was originally envisioned to ensure that the wealthiest americans, who somehow otherwise didn't pay taxes, had to have some income tax that they paid. and so now because of this fluke of not having it paid for inflation, we're finding that each time it comes up congress

has to come together, make a patch in order for people not to be impangted cted by it. >> when anybody talks about raising taxes on only those people who make over $250,000, and the people who make under $250,000 are like, yeah, they can afford it. in about ten years thanks to inflation, a lot of people are going to get caught making that $250,000. >> well, here's another thing that people don't understand, is that residents of states that have high state income tax sometimes get caught up in this. and so one of the things that could happen -- this is pretty scary to think about -- but residents of new york and new jersey who have just been impacted by super storm sandy could now also find them caught in this glitch. it can impact very middle income people. it doesn't have to be high-income earners that are making over $250,000. it can be middle income people

through a series of circumstances would also be impacted by this. >> now threatening to pack $3,700 on average on to people's bills for the current tax year. kathy, thank you for plaini ini that to us. a new storm hitting the east coast is the last thing anyone hit by sandy wants to here. ed to. >> it is mind boggling to think this could happen just a week after sandy. let me somehow you how this is coming about. first, a storm center exactly two days from now right there about 100 miles to the east-southeast of atlantic city. and stalling. unlike sandy, not a storm that's going to bring a storm surge all the way in on the coastline. but one that stalls offshore and really kicks up some wind and waves. let's look at some of the concerns from the storm. again, timetable, 48 hours from now is when it would begin.

powerful coastal storm. what does that mean? the storm center that lurks offshore, a nor'easter we call them. we haven't seen one this strong, believe it or not. if you don't count sandy in about a couple of years, two, three years now, big winds from the storm, coastal flooding indeed a possibility again but not nearly as severe. and it stalls for 24 hours. there's even the potential for some snow involved in some locations. we have a lot to take a look at in the next 48 hours as we get closer and closer to that storm center moving up the eastern seaboard. there's also a little bit of wiggle room in who gets it the worst. cape cod or perhaps back to new jersey and new york city or long island. that's the kind of thing we'll be focusing on in the days ahead. >> todd gross, thank you very much. guess what? gas prices are down. on average across america, in fact down pretty big. we'll tell you why. later on, is apple a sitting duck? the one thing that could crack that stock's teflon shell.

customer erin swenson bought from us online today. so, i'm happy. sales go up... i'm happy. it went out today... i'm happy. what if she's not home? (together) she won't be happy. use ups! she can get a text alert, reroute... even reschedule her package. it's ups my choice. are you happy? i'm happy. i'm happy. i'm happy. i'm happy. i'm happy. happy. happy. happy. happy. (together) happy.

i love logistics.

welcome back to "street signs." generators certainly are the item in demand in the northeast these days. take a look at generac, at a fresh all-time high, the stock having gone public a couple of years ago. as a lot of people bet, this is going to be one whopper after

quarter for them. >> people still need generators out there. thank you, bertha. here's the good news i guess. power is back on at many gas stations around this area. the bad news, many of them still can't get gas and some of the lines remain very, very long. kate kelly is at a gas terminal in new jersey. kate? any sign of relief anywhere on the horizon? >> in a word, yes, brian. business here at nustar's linden, new jersey gas terminal where trucks fill up to get the gas to go to gas stations. business has gone from steady to booming. in the past hour or so, nustar officials say they see 15 or 20 trucks out of this facility today, a big hike from what they saw over the weekend. that should be a good sign for frustrated drivers in this area who are still cueing up for gas for hours. in the past few days, nustar, bp, hess, kinder morgan and phillip's 66 have all been able to get their new jersey terminals at least partly

running. that's a big difference from this time last week. ago here at nustar, the truck racks behind me are now fueling up with jet fuel on some trucks and that's a first for them. they did it at a request of an airline which wasn't, i guess, getting fuel in the usual way because these marine terminals are down. they said we'll give it a try and it seemed to work out. that's the kind of thing they're having to do. now word is getting out that nustar is open for business. they have all eight of their truck bays open. we're starting to see the traffic pick up today. stim the still the rebuilding continues and it will be expensive. a nustar executive told me he had to replace six pump loaders at this facility at a cost of $250,000. another says repairs could to the another $100,000. the company is trying to do other things like bring up specialists from the gulf region who are experienced with more extreme weather. they're also providing petty cash to employees who haven't been able to access atms and gas for their commutes.

desite all this trouble, there is a sense of coamaradericamara. some workers are actually going home to visit their families for the first time in over a week, brian and mandy. that gives you an indication that at least things are stable. >> well, stable is better than getting wet. we'll take that any day. john kingston, global director of news at flats. a moment ago we were saying u.s. average gas prices have taken their biggest plunge since 2008 over the past two weeks. you try and guide that with some of the prices people are paying around this area where there is a huge gas shortage, going for maybe $4 or more. is that just gouging? >> i don't think it is gouging. i think it accurately reflects the market though i won't argue there may be state laws that say it is gouging. going into sandy the fact is that the gasoline market relative to the crude market had been extremely high. when you have that kind of spread it generally isn't

sustainable. i think what you see in the rest of the country is that spread was not sustainable so gasoline prices are coming back down a little bit closer to crude. obviously in the northeast you have an anomaly there. >> i know you can't give an actual forecast for prices but can you give a forecast when things will get back to normal in this part of the world? >> it is interesting to hear about all that activity in new jersey. hess has a very good website they update for all their stations. it shows how many gallons they have in stock at a two-hour interval. it is extremely good. it was interesting to look at it earlier this morning and see that the stations on long island are still in trouble. the stations in the city are in a lot of trouble. stations in new jersey were far better. you're hearing better reports out of new jersey. it's not really that surprising to me having looked at this. like a lot of people, i've been anecdotally looking at social media, twitter, et cetera. new jersey reports seem to be a little less crazy. i thought long island where i live was going to be a little bit better today but that does not seem to be the case. >> i think jersey only better

because there are so few cars or not road, john. i commute every day. i just notice people are just giving up, not even trying anymore. is there anything that we can do to prevent -- listen. it is an adapter. it is a storm. it is unpredictable. but from an infrastructure point of view, anything we can do to make it better next time? >> you'll see a lot of these terms na terminals decide, you put higher walls around some of your terminals near water front areas? one number, the doe, department of energy, has kept a list of terminals in the mid-atlantic northeast area. they have 75 terminals on that list now. i believe -- yeah, 75 terminals on the list. 65 are open. ten are not. one of those ten is down in virginia. you can see where the vast majority of terminals in this area are open but key ones are not. one terminal that did open over the weekend, very important, the imtt terminal in bayonne. it is important because it is so huge. it is like the size of two or three smaller terminals

combined. but back to your other question, some these terminals will have to look at storm walls and that kind of protection the same way the entire new york city infrastructure will need to look at it. >> immediate to longer term, is there any way we can reduce our reliance on gasoline? i know we're a driving culture, but surely there are other ways for example taking away some of the price increase caps and just let those prices rise. >> well, right now in the short term, if you did have the ability to gouge, i'll use that word freely. if you have the ability to raise prices as high as you can you would do two things. first, there is a lot of talk out there about people panicking, topping off their tanks when they really don't need to, that sort of thing. if you have $6 or $7 gasoline that would end. it also creates an entrepreneurial opportunity to go with a $9,000 tank truck into harrisburg, albany, whatever, load it up, bring it here and actually spread money. it is the spread over the regular price somewhere else is not that high, that opportunity

doesn't exist. i said this on your show last week. i mentioned it to a few people at home over the weekend. it didn't make me really popular but i still think that this is a short-term thing. we can make it a little shorter if those gouging laws were not in effect. but that's not the case. it is a lot of political hay to be made by going after somebody who jacks up their price. >> yeah, totally. good argument for electric power. thanks very much, john kingston. this has been the most expensive election ever. wait until you see just how much every single second costs the candidates literally. we're going to break down the cost per second. now the trivia question we threw out there on twitter -- which president can claim the best dow performance during his term? it is not fdr. the answer surprising one when we come back.

or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use, it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing. throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age. it has more of 7 antioxidants to support cell health.

one a day men's 50+. saved $480 bucks. you know what that is? yeah. don't say it. so you know what it is, right? yeah, yeah, don't. that's a lot of dough! ♪ [ male announcer ] switch and you could save $480 bucks with state farm. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] don't just reject convention. drown it out. introducing the all-new 2013 lexus ls f sport. an entirely new pursuit.

somplts, he so, here's the answer to our trivia question.

that guy, had he the best performance over the dow during his term, and that is john calvin coolidge. he had a gain of 265% for the dow. lot of that related to post world war i building. fdr was close. 195% over his time which is much longer. still, calvin coolidge. >> very cool hat! >> about the only thing cool about him. what's kind after mellow guy from vermont. very frugal. unlike the notoriously frugal john calvin coolidge, this has been the most expensive election of all time. eamon javers has broken down every dollar down to the second. >> good afternoon. since january 1st, 2011 the race for president has racked up quite a bar tab. both candidates' campaigns, their political committees and the top three super pacs on each side have been burning through the cash. combined mega spending has surpassed $1.7 billion. that's billion, with a "b." that's not easy to do over the

course of just 21 months. rate of mega spending averages more than $179 million every single month. that's more than $2.6 million in spending every single day. by the hour, more than $109,000 an hour. and moon walking backwards here, you can see by the minute, it's over $1,800 a minute. down to the second, if they were spending it every single second of every day for 21 months straight, they'd have to burn through more than $30 a second. that $1.7 billion in total spending is just through mid-october. we won't know the grand total here for this race until after the election in early december. guys, a gusher of campaign cash this time around. it is really changed the face of the entire presidential campaign. >> not only can you counter, you can actually do moonwalking as well. very multi-talented. i know it is kind after philosophical question more than anything else, but is it all worth it? >> the irony here is that after tomorrow we could see all this money spent over $1.7 billion

and we could end up with a status quo election. we could have the same occupant of the white house, the same senate, the same house after all of this money. what we've got is essentially a stalemate in american politics. presidential campaigns depending on which poll you look at. 48%-47%, 47%-48%. this country is a very bitterly divided country right now and all of this sending is not doing anything to change the face of that. >> if you win it's worth it. if you lose it wasn't worth it. shouldn't have spent a dime. >> look. one of the things that this president has done early in this campaign is to use the money that he had knowing that he was going to have nearly unlimited in political terms amounts of cash. he used that money to go on the air early and really define mitt romney over the course of the summer and the race for the presidency has really been a battle back from that early summer for mitt romney. and now it is as tight as a tick, as they say. do not forget, america, our coverage of your money, your vote begins tomorrow.

kicks off 5:00 p.m. eastern with a special "squawk box" and goes until late. i'll be in democracy plaza, also known as rockefeller center. why apple could be losing its luster as more people are taking a shine to amazon. and toyota hits it out of the park again. can anything put the brakes on that company right now?

♪ chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. he loves risk. but whether he's climbing everest, scuba diving the great barrier reef with sharks, or jumping into the market, he goes with people he trusts, which is why he trades with a company that doesn't nickel and dime him with hidden fees.

so he can worry about other things, like what the market is doing and being ready, no matter what happens, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense, from td ameritrade.

it is time for yostreet tal. target getting an upgrade from

jpm. >> up 1.2%. they say that tharth is positioned for outperformance in 2013. they see faster profit growth, in part because they've got some deals neiman marcus apparently. >> exclusive deals. >> they think it is going to drive traffic. target slightly outperforming walmart this year. big announcement today from netfl netflix. a program to protect them from getting taken over in a hostile manner. >> shareholder rights. shareholders may benefit for from the deal. either way, as herb would say, this comes about three days after carl icahn unveiled a 10% stock. mostly for stock options. that stock is down 14% over the past year. shareholders rights. nrg upgraded to buy from citigroup. price target from $24 to 26%. >> it is not helping at all.

throwing out names maybe off the radar. they like nrg, they say a further tightening of supply-demand fundamentals. it is a new jersey based company but they do almost all their business in texas. there is some optimism there that's going to help their wholesale business. almost $8 of up side. >> really big gain on biomarin. >> i think we've had enough disaster recently. >> if we had sunshine, here it is. bottom line, it is good news for shareholders but not only sufferers of a rare disorder. they had the positive phase three study of an enzyme replacement therapy. basically a very rare genetic birth defect disorder. it is awful. and the drug trials, very, very positive. so some relief perhaps for the

folks that suffer from that. it is very bad and the stock is reflecting that. amazon also getting a vote of confidence over at evercorps adding that firm to their conviction buy list. >> restating thee ining they're. amazon another good day. listen, if you believe the thompson numbers, they're actually trading at 6,000 times forward earning. >> 6,000 times? >> valuation on amazon is so out here. for years nobody just cared. it just hasn't mattered with amazon. now you get the evercorps conviction buy rating. it is american shopping. >> it really is. it is convenient. and you can shop around for good prices. is there still a reason to bet on amazon? contributor to tech crunch, rocky, recently there were a host companies like goldman sachs, wells fargo, deutsche all

putting it around a buy or outperform or whatever. are you as positive on this stock? >> yeah. as a consumer i love amazon. i checked this morning. since the beginning of the year i've ordered 90 times from amazon. that's twice a week on average. as a consumer, i love it. as an investor i just look at what's going on and i'm scratching my head. it's priced as if they will drive everybody you the out of business and then have infinite pricing power. i just don't understand that. nobody is going to have infinite pricing power. it doesn't make sense to me. but at the same time, it is a stock that i'm afraid to short because i just don't understand what the market sees in it. >> if you shorted the stock, you've been beaten like a rented mule for years. i wasn't kidding about the 6,000 times forward earnings. >> i know. i know. it's just -- if you look at the other stocks in the space like apple and google, they're just creating at much, much nicer multiples and they have very strong businesses an they've shown that they can make a profit. amazon for years has been

operating on single digit margins and in many cases -- >> that's because, rocky, they sell mostly other people's stuff at narrow margins. apple makes its own stuff, has intellectual property on it and has big margins. you can't compare the two. >> exactly. and i just -- i'm long apple. i'm not even touching amazon. >> what do you think is the biggest obstacle for the growth of that company? >> i think the big obstacle is wall street just waking up and saying, hey, when is the company going to start showing some profits? we've given you many, many years now, more than a decade to give us a return on our money in terms of the actual performance and profits of the company. and amazon has chosen not to do that. they've been given a long leash to invest back in the business which is usually a good thing but at some point that leash is. >> we've been saying that for a decade, rocky. we had this argument 10, 12 years ago for amazon. >> pretty soon it will run out.

>> and investors will demand profit! >> some day. >> free beer tomorrow. >> thank you so much, rocky. in the meantime, cardiologists and investors are excited about a new wave of cholesterol fighting drugs. this could have multi billion dollar potential for pharmaceutical stocks. seema mody at the nasdaq, what's this all about? >> here's the story so far. drug firms including pfizer, amgen and partners are working on a new class of injectable cholesterol reducing drugs that could decrease ldl. that's the bad cholesterol. by significant amounts when used on top of a statin. this is generally for patients that can't lower levels of bad cholesterol to their goal on statins alone, or can't tolerate statins. >> how big of a market opportunity is this? >> well, brian, let's get you some of the numbers. 33 million americans use

statins. of these, 11 million have uncontrolled ldl cholesterol. and aadditional 1.4 million cannot tolerate taking statins in the first place. basically this could be a great benefit to patients who fall in those categories. ubs says injectable cholesterol will become an $11 billion market by 2020. big opportunity for drug firms, many of which are still dealing with losses associated with blockbuster drugs going off patent. >> what's the timeline here? when could patients see these kinds of novel cholesterol drugs hit the market and obviously when they can start using them? >> great question. basically the drug being developed is in phase three, another in phase two. the citi biotech team estimates one is probably 6 to 12 months ahead of the amgen in the race to market. be interesting to track. coming up, forget dixoc dic.

one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar. though all energy development comes with some risk, we're committed to safely and responsibly producing natural gas.

it's not a dream. america's natural gas... putting us in control of our energy future, now. [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multi-vitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age. it has more of 7 antioxidants to support cell health. one a day men's 50+. check for more! well, i guess i can double check...

my watch! [ male announcer ] it pays to double check, with state farm. my watch! try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business. this is the only thing we've ever wanted to do and ink helps us do it. make your mark with ink from chase.

i'm bill griffeth. coming up on "closing bell," we'll look at whether the election's result could affect home prices over the next four years. lmplt lmpl also, ubs chairman's robert wolf is with us. we'll get his reaction to this report that says dividends and capital gains taxes are going up no matter who wins the election tomorrow. and we'll hear from somebody who says all the devastation from super storm sandy greatly creases the chance of voter fraud, unfortunately. that's all at the top of the hour. we all know about the trouble getting gas in the northeast.

all those lines. but nationally, gas prices are actually dropping. we talked about this early on. but sharon epperson is live from the nymex. what's your take on this, sharon? >> it is important to point out that even though wire a suffe'rg in this part of the country, a lot more people are feeling far less pain at gas pump. national average is down 9% in the past month. at $3.47 a gallon right now, even falling three cents just since friday. elsewhere around the country, look at the big price drop that we've seen. even in california, which had record high gas prices just back in october. now they're looking at more than a 60-cent drop in the price of gasoline. that's certainly helping the overall national average. then of course, we're looking at demand destruction after hurricane san day. that's impacting as well. across the country, whether it is oklahoma or south carolina, missouri, all seeing very sharply lower prices. that's definitely translated into what we're seeing for the national average. we're also seeing futures prices down sharply just in the past

month. important to keep your eye on all the different factors that go into the energy price. brent crude is up actually $2 today. middle east tensions out there. that could certainly change the price reaction. back to you. >> sharon, thank you very much. looks like toy is a is back. profit rose nearly 600% from last year. sales jumped by 572,000 cars. just right here in the united states of america. phil lebeau joins us now. phil, were the numbers as good as they seemed on paper? >> absolutely. really the profit engine right now for toyota, especially in the last quarter where they basically tripled their profit compared to a year ago, north america is where it is happening. you see that every month when you take a look at toyota placing gains of 30%, 40%, month after month. last month being the first time that we haven't seen that in a while. but clearly they are regaining their strength in north america. lexus is a big part of that. they were really hit hard folth

tsuna following the tsunami. >> in 2008 i was at cnbc in singapore. we were heralding the fact toyota was crowned the world's largest automaker, at least by sales. is it going to get back the crown? >> i'm not sure they want to get it back that quickly, mandy. this year it will be between general motors -- i think when i talked to tim, he makes it very clear they got way ahead of themselves. because of that that's why they had the quality problems. i think they are more concerned about picking up sales but making sure they don't go down the same path they went down a few years ago in terms of quality problems. >> to the other side, from a camry, you know, serviceable utilitarian car. to a tesla! how they doing? >> well, this quarter they had a wider than expected loss but not by a huge amount. i think it was a loss of 92 cents. street expected a loss of 89 cents. about $110 million.

more importantly, the guidance that they set for next year. they'll deliver $2,500 -- 2,500 to 3,000 units. that's been their target all along and they are very optimistic the ramp-up is on target. if they can beat those suggestions they will not only be cash flow positive but they'll start to rake in serious profits in the next year. that's what people are focused on. that's why shares today are getting a nice little pop after these earnings. >> it is the outlook that counts. thank you so much for that, phil lebeau. has apple dumped the shop for the mini? >> you got android sishlg icirc. windows 8 circling. whatever that is. all you apple hate boys get the fan mail ready.

shares of amle with bouncing back perform the stock is trading 1.3% higher thanks to sales of new ipad. 3 million in total, bulk coming from ipad mini. >> meantime, the ipad is getting

serious competition in the tablet market. new stats show while it has a big lead in market share, that lead has dropped nearly 10% over the past year. let's bring in todd has hazelton. is this bad for apple or good for everybody else and also good for apple? >> you know, brian, competitors have one lever to compete against with apple and that's price. they'll use that to their full advantage. when you have a company like apple that has the highest margins in the space that we cover, there's plenty of room for competitors to offer products not as good or desirable but at a lower price so they'll get a chunk of share. >> will apple change the price or won't because it wants to keep that cache? >> one thing we to want keep an eye out on apple, will they ever

compromise their position in the high-end? the ipad mini price tag was higher than expected bit it allows them to maintain margins and allows competitors to compete. apple is still at the high end but it may come at the cost of scale. >> if you can afford $250 on a tablet, can you probably afford $400 on a tablet, because you don't need it, it's a discretionary device. is it a case of you get what you pay for is one about the same as the ot win? >> it is in a lot of cases. we see apple's ecosystem is the most attractive part. i have the ipad mini. it's a beautiful tablet. so far, it's my favorite seven-inch, 7.8 inch on the market right now, but i think you'll see market share decline because more people are in the space. amazon at $199. nook hd, $199. the nexus 7.

so when there are more people in the market, the price will fall. >> you think the premium price for the ipad mini is worth it -- >> i do. >> but why do you think they have something up their sleeves for the market? >> i think the next version will have a better display and processor. those are the two things that bother me about it right now. i think in the future apple has, and the technology exists, the power to move in the way microsoft has. we see the combination between a desktop operating system and a tablet. in which case we'll see this do more than ever and be more powerful. >> they are losing market share, right, collin? back to the previous point, if the market's getting bigger but their market share is getting smaller in that market, aren't they still just literally rolling in cash? >> absolutely. this is not a bad thing for them to stay focused but you want to point out those looking for apple to become, you know, the mass scale play as well as the high-end play, that may not

happen. look what's happening on the phone. the smartphone market phone. android has 75% market share, that's because of the plethora of inexpensive handsets. what we care about is stock, what does this mean to apple and apple stock price? what we see happening is december quarter is another massive quarter. the stock is going to be inching up as we get into the holiday quarter. we see that strong up momentum is stalled out and we don't expect that happening. >> if it did drop, if the stock dropped, at what point do you to want buy it, collin? >> we have a $600 target. we have a hold rating. we believe it's lickly to drift north of $60 during the holidays but most of the expectations are baked in. i'm looking for 19 million ipads, i'm expecting 40 million iphones. so it's going to be hard to produce significant upside to those numbers. on the flipside, it's not expensive. stock trades ten times. any thing can you get in that

550 range, you certainly want to be a buyer. some people are attracted at these current levels, below 600. what we're seeing our focus is focussing in on equity options. it's a great name for equity options. if you want to think of ways to collect premiums -- >> if they could redo it, hermy the elf from claymation, he wouldn't want to be a dentist, he would want to be an developer. a big book maker is already paying up. we have the amazing story next. tonight larry kudlow interviews marco rubio. a big interview coming up on "the kudlow report" 7 p.m. eastern time. we're back on this fine program in two minutes.

but when i was in an accident... i was worried the health care system spoke a language all its own with unitedhealthcare, i got help that fit my life. so i never missed a beat. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. [ lisa ] my name's lisa, and chantix helped me quit.

i honestly loved smoking, and i honestly didn't think i would ever quit. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. it put me at ease that you could smoke on the first week. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, tell your doctor if you have new or worse symptoms.

get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. with chantix and with the support system it worked. it worked for me. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. amazing live shot of mandy's house in washington, d.c. that's her second home. by the way, that's the president. and europe's largest betting company is betting on an obama win. get this, folks, irish book maker patty power is already paying out the people who pick the president. with pickled peppers. they believe it's a done deal.