microphone. her message was that the gop only cares about the wealthiest americans and doesn't care about anybody else. i ask you, is any of this helpful? did this move the needle closer to a deal, to not only avoid the cliff but bend the curve on the runaway debt of this country? here's an idea. how about we stop the press conferences, statements and speeches, stop the personal and political attacks. it is time for the president and the speaker to get into a room and not come out until they have a deal. that's just not good politics, it's actually good for the country. tomorrow is december 20th. it's time to get the deal done. that will do it for us. thank you for being with me. stay with cnbc. "fast money" begins right now and i'll see you tomorrow. when up in the capitol, there arose such a clatter. >> frankly, if you looked at it, the republicans, in the house and speaker boehner, i think, were in a position to say, we've gotten a fair deal.

the fact that they haven't taken it yet is puzzling. and i think, you know, a question that you're going to have to address to them. >> i sprang from my office to see what was the matter. >> tomorrow, the house will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every american. 99.81% of the american people. then the president will have a decision to make. he can call on senate democrats to pass that bill or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in american history. >> and what to my trader's eyes would appear, but bickering politicians over the cliff did they steer. "fast money" starts right now. live from the nasdaq market site in times square, i'm melissa lee. here are tonight's top three trades. top tech stock of 2013. is it apple? google? facebook? gene munster joins us with his

top pick. and cutting the cord, as more people use netflix and hulu. which media companies are most at risk? plus, solar flare. solar stocks making a comeback. is it a short squeeze or maybe something more? first, let's find out where our traders stand. b.k.? >> i was a byer, but with options, call options, because you wanted to find your risk in this. it's almost impossible to find out what these politicians are going to do. they are coming closer to a deal but i don't want to old the bag if the whole thing falls apart. >> hi. >> hi. what did you make of today's swoon here? >> it was as expected. dan's actually showing me headlines that might make the selloff -- might exacerbate it in the aftermart, but today was expected. if you stay above 1425, you remain a buyer. and the one name that performed, a name we've talked about forever, look at thc, which has been explosive after doing a reverse split, which historically doesn't work, it's

worked for them. >> dan? >> just real quickly, white house said to tell business leaders that budget talks regressed. that just hit the tape. i'm casually short. the market, i'm kind of balanced on a single stock basis but net short. the index here, and so, to me, what i think is happening, we have seven trading days left in the year, we have very little resolution. we saw the vicks have one of its biggest days in a couple of months here. there's been a level of complacency that could come to a head. >> for people thought that we would reach a deal by the end of the year, that time frame is getting more compressed, karen. what were you doing today? >> not a whole lot, but net probably a buyer, i would be a buyer, especially if we see more follow through to the downside tomorrow. could things trade down by the end of the year, absolutely. but i do think that sometime, 2013, it will be higher than were they are now. >> mike, one stat stood out to me, that's the slow creep higher since november 21st.

up 8% since then. and it is, in fact, climbing. >> yeah, first, it is higher and then when you factor in the couple of holidays that we have and we back that out, that's about 1.6 points higher than the stated number, when you take out those days, so, it's actually above the median here of the last two years. not exactly a depressed level. what b.k. mentioned, using options to create directional bets, a lot of people have been doing that, both in single stock and etf. that's interesting, because you might expect to see volume starting have drop off with the end of the year coming and people doing christmas shopping instead. they're shopping for options. i was not a buyer yesterday. i was a seller yesterday and i still stay that way today. i would be on the short side except in everything that has a really high short interest. >> let's talk about shares of her ball li he herbalife. calling the company a pyramid

scheme. michael johnson quickly responded, telling cnbc in an exclusive interview this afternoon that the accusations were bogus. let's go to kate with the latest on the story. >> thank you, melissa. the knives are out between a ackman and johnson. it's likelier to get nastier tomorrow at a conference at 9:30 in the morning. ackman has been spent a year researching herbalife and the short case may be the most powerful he's ever seen. meanwhile, chief johnson argues that other short sellers are effectively gaining up on his company in effects of pushing it down. ackman denies those charges, telling me he has no option strategy and hasn't spoken to other shorts, including david einhorn, who raised questions earlier this year but has never said publicly whether or not he holds the position of any sort in the name.

einhorn isn't commenting today if he's had any discussions with ackman, but this options chart lends some potential credence to the more general point that johnson is making, namely, that bearish traders have piled into herbalife of late through the options market. this shoefls the increase of put activity, so, basically, it shows an increase in a bearish bet. one day in particular stands out. on november 29th, there was massive put volume in this name. more than ten times the average daily volume, as a matter of fact. most of which was a bet that the stock would fall below $40 by december expiration. now, here's the twist. those options expire on friday. and with today's decline, they are now deep in the money. meaning whoever made this trade made a lot of money, melissa, just this very often. >> yeah, and kate, we're going to dig deeper into this activity. first, we want to hear exactly what the herbalife ceo had to say. >> this appears to be another

attempt to manipulate the market by a group of short sellers. here's what we know and let me give you this quickly. on extraordinary number of puts were due to expire this friday. we previously learned this activity was pegged at some, quote, significant event. mr. ackman says he will make a presentation on thursday, the day before the puts expire. not we know that this has been going on in the shad dome shado eight months. this is ridiculous what's happening here. >> let's get more on this and bring in john najarian of option monster. dr. j, was this suspect activity? >> unusual activity. dan nathan krilted this, as well. i'm not trying to glom onto your work, dan, but there was unusual activity here. average daily volume in november was 10,000 contracts on the put side. and there were several days where it traded 30,000, 40,000

contracts until november. the first day of december, it traded about 21,000 puts, double normal. so, the question is, was, number one, we have no idea if it's ackman or einhorn, who it was. could it be the hedge that was done with an over the counter trade? very likely. that's a good potential. and/or it could have been somebody just wanted to accumulate a lot of these opt n options. whatever the event was, and again, we won't know that, melissa. >> right. dan, what did you make of that? >> yeah, doc and i were just going over it. two days, unusual activity, november 29th and december 3rd. both instances, it looks like the options were sold. but stock, it traded against stock. large blocks of stock that was also sold. so, that would be a relatively bearish position. it's a vol trade in a lot of ways but it makes out when you have a dramatic move like we had today in the stock. so, again, who knows. this is one of the hard things. we go over this data a lot.

it's very difficult to just pin it to who is doc what. but the way it was reported, from the exchanges, it was the puts were sold and stock was sold with it. >> when ackman says he has no option strategy, did you get that to mean that options weren't the primary vehicle to express this short or he had options as a hedge but it wasn't his primary strategy? >> i don't think so. when i spoke to him, he wanted to rebut what johnson said. he said my short conviction on herbalife is expressed through equities. he said, i have no puts in this name, i have no option strategy at work here. now, this hay be a bit of a break from what ackman normally does. he does express his view through the options market. buff he says at least in this case, that's not going on. >> yeah. >> kate, it's karen. let me ask you something. though it might seem unseemly a little bit, there really isn't technically wrong with, let's say ackman were to have told people, listen, i'm going to be

very bearish on herbalife some time before december. i can understand why the ceo would be unhappy, but there really isn't anything wrong with that. it's not material information, is it? >> sure. a hedge fund manager, any trader is welcome to express their views, correct? and, you know, he will be giving a two-hour presentation with quite a bit of detail about where he came to feel this way tomorrow. so, sure, i'm with you. i mean, fair disclosure. he's essentially conveying to the world that this is his new idea and he feels very strongly about it. so, i hear you. for herbalife, it's more negative information that had to answer a lot of questions about their distribution network, who buys and sells their products. a lot of question about that. the country of belgium sued them, accusing them, in their words, of a pyramid scheme. and questions have been dogging them all year. they really took a dive about six months ago in the stock market. and as you can see now, people are really piling into the options in a bearish way, also.

>> mike, you've been in herbalife, correct? >> yes, yes. it's really interesting. the last time when there was speculation that einhorn was bearish, the options premiums got really elevated and this time, we're not actually seeing as much of that. what's interesting here is when dealers sell puts, so, if the street buys puts, dealers sell them, the dealers hedge. they do that by shorting stock. so, if someone was actually out there buying a lot of options, whether they were buying them over the counter or listed, what you would see is, you see that short interest start to rise. what supports dan's point of view, that these puts were actually sold is the fact that the short interest actually dropped in the month of november. i don't have up to date short interest for every single trading day, but short interest didn't spike, so, that suggests that there wasn't necessarily, on balance, a really big fire puts. >> dr. j, what's the bottom line here in terms of the ceo's allegation that short sellers were ganging up, he's going to

ask the s.e.c. to look into it. does he have any ground to stand on? >> i agree, it's not material non-public information, it's his own gut that there's something amiss with herbalife and they thus far have been pressing this over the last three hours. stock is down about 8% in the after hours tonight, trading into the 37s after being 42 or so before. >> i don't think there's anything wrong with him telling other people who do trade. kate if you're still there, wasn't there an investigation into the target options that ended upcoming up with nothing? >> i actually don't know the answer to that, karen. >> i think at the -- >> yeah, but the target he traded over the counter. he got dealer short, dealer shorted him the options all over the street over the counter and so they're out there -- i mean, but again, it's hard to figure that stuff out. >> kate, thank you for bringing us that story. kate that broke the news that bill ackman is short herbalife be sure to tune in when bill

ackman will talk about the short. another first on cnbc interview. you want to tune in for more on this developing story. dr. j, you are often in momentum trades. this is one you are partaking in? >> no. for the exact same reasons that dan probably is not short this one. it was too confusing. i mean, yes, there were a lot of puts that traded, but again, they can trade on the bid, which means they were sold, that's what dan saw, that's what i saw. so, to us, it didn't -- that wasn't the drtrigger. i want to see people wbuying pus on the offer. and obviously tomorrow, just ahead of expiration, that's when the unarer really meets the road. >> dr. j, thank you for coming by. john najarian of option monster. let's separate out whether or not you want to be short. the fundamental case and karen, i turn to you, but i know you've been gnc, some sort of a competitor to herbalife. this company has been in business for 32 years. most recently, they've put up 15

straight quarters of positive earnings surprises. free cash flow is strong, dividend yield is 2.7%. on the surface of this, it looks like a legit company if you can get past what ackman is alleging. >> the balance sheet looks good. if there's one thing that can kill a company, even if it's not true is a run of the balance sheet and i think the way they're situated, i don't think that's at risk of happening here. i like gnc. totally, totally different model. this is a retail vitamin chain, you probably see them in your neighborhood. i like them. to me, i guess, if herbalife would blow up, probably good for gnc. >> they've repurchased $182 million worth of shares recently. >> yeah, just getting back to how do you trade this thun, i think it's going to be a pretty difficult trade. very volatile. remember what happened with green mountain, the way it got extremely volatile once this news comes out. you may want to play it the

options so you have a defined risk. what happens in these situations is, it's all headlines and you don't really have any clue what ackman is going to say, what the company is going to say, what's coming out of the conference. >> and by the way, take a look at some of these charts of these other multilevel marketing companies that got swept up in the selling of herbalife. you see the chart is a mirror image of what went on today in shares of herbalife. coming up, the top tech pick for 2013 today. noted analyst gene menser muns the name. and later on, the analyst who is one of the most bearish voices on first solar is back. now that the stock has had a massive run. see if he's sticking with his short. much more "fast money" coming up. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 when i'm trading, i'm so into it,

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apple's a stock investors continue to sell. down today and off more than 24% since its september peak. but that's not stopping one firm from predicting a big turn around. piper jaafari branding its top tech pick for next year. gene munster, senior research analyst. he's behind the call. he joins us now from minneapolis. hey, gene, good to see you. >> hi, melissa. >> what's the primary premise here? >> first, near term, people are concerned about what the iphone number looks like for march. we've heard about the production cuts in the channel. ultimately, we think some of the math that they're doing is incorrect. they are talking about the percentage decreases, but we don't know what the december number is, and based on our work, we think december is fine. in other words, near term iphone is going to be okay. and there needs to be something where investors get excited

about 2013. we think there are three things. increased dividend in april. number two, china mobile, about 500 million subs, that should be a catalyst for iphone growth in the back half and lastly, much talked about anticipated is apple television. so, near term, we feel good about iphone. longer term in 2013, we think there are going to be several catalysts. combination get us comfortable. >> what factor is the 24% decline from the september peak in branding apple the top pick of 2013? i'm just wondering, you know, given the steep pull-back, you are simply seeing that upside, a meaner version report of trade in 2013. >> well, i think the reason, you know, you talked a lot about it. there's been many reasons behind it. everything from potential increase in tax treatment for capital gains to potentially people's concern about the iphone. i think that's the fundamental reason. we feel good about it based on our work. i think that concern has really driven shares lower here. ultimately, when they report the december quarter, we'll know. we think that's going to be positive for shapes. >> hey, gene, it's dan.

it seems like the buy side is getting aggressive on that iphone number. there's numbers as high as 50 million. the catalyst you laid out, the dividend increase, china mobile and apple tv, what if they don't come become mid year? this is a stock that's had tremendous performance, based on product cycles. what's next? i can see the stock in june and not have any of those come to fruition? the street is already expecting 11% eps growth, so, we've had massive deceleration. whats makes you negative on this stock, at what point, i guess? >> well, if these things don't come through, we'd be negative. if the iphone number, if we're incorrect on what the demand is, we have a lot of research around that but that would be reason for us to be more negative on it. ultimately, i agree with you. they have to be these catalysts. we feel good that the catalysts are going to come through. and that's the opportunity, with

something like apple. there's a lot of analysis done on this, in order to make real money, you have to step in when everybody else is not stepping in. we believe that this is one of those opportunities. >> all right, gene, great to see you. >> thank you. >> gene munster of piper jaafari. apple, the top pick. mean wheel, general motors siege a pop today. the company is going to shell out more than $5 billion to buy stock back from the treasury. but not everybody thinks gm is in the clear. time for a good old stationed street fight. in the ring tonight, a rematch, actually. >> me and finerman, again. >> karen, presenting the bull case and guy, who is bearish. >> oh, going to start with me? >> yes, start with you in the bear case. >> why is that? >> because gm spontded positively to the news. >> that's fair enough. glad to be here tonight, fighting finerman again. >> get to it. >> worthy foe. this is a trading call more than a fundamental call.

i'm going to throw a couple of trading things at you. ask yourself this. if this fiscal cliff is about to get resolved in some meaningful way, why would the treasury, the government, some arm of the government, sell their stock -- sell a portion of their stock ahead of it? just something to think about. maybe they know something that the rest of us folks don't know. that's number one. number two. the problems of gm haven't been solved. it's the same company they were before the government bailed them out. though the stock has performed reasonly well over the last couple of months, those problems still exist. and they have an inventory program that will manifest itself in rebates and what have you. that gives you some indicate there might be a problem ahead. though i understand why the stock rallied on this, they don't want to be called government motors anymore, i get it. treasury still owns 19% of it. think that's 300 million or so shares of stock. it will come out in an orderly way, i get it.

but again, the problems at gm are still very real, so, i would use this opportunity as a chance on a trading side to sell the stock. >> karen? >> i have a list of reasons but i listen to those and i think, that doesn't make any sense to me. i want to refute some of those. i cannot believe that oneha han of the government knows what the other is doing, front running the fiscal cliff talks. it could happen. stranger things i suppose have happened. but if they were front running, if you had great inside information, would you just sell a little? i'd be out. however, it's possible. but i don't buy it. the other thing is, it is a different company. they've gotten so -- rid of so much of their legacy liabilities is what got them in trouble in the first place. the only ones that survived in mostly intact, i think, are some of the pungs obligations. bum the cost structure is very different. the whole industry is very different. and they are in a position now to be able to make a ton of money, where they weren't before. so, i think the losses in

europe, which have been hurting them, we will see improvement there. the valuation to me is very cheap. and they have a new platform coming out this year, the k2xx, our family will be a buyer of one of those. get rid of the overhang, it's like aig, rather, 32.50. we may not see that again. >> b.k., where do you stand on this fight? >> you know, i like the car industry in general. i understand what guy's saying and generally when stock gaps up, i like to be a seller of that. in this particular case, i think it does pretty well. i personally prefer toyota to gm, because they have an fx tail wind. they have a lot more room to go. in this case, if you have to be in a u.s. car maker, i guess gm's all right. i rented a malibu. >> a malibmalibu. >> wow. >> it was nice. >> real quickly, i'm more on guy's side here with, with the stock gapping up on that news, just like aig, there's going to

be a lot of overhang. i think you're going to have an opportunity to buy this thing in the mid to low 20s if you want to. >> split. i don't know if that's progress. just fyi. >> it's been decided? >> mike's floating around. dr. j is in here somewhere. >> we're going to go to mike, because he saw unusual activity in johnson control. >> this is going to break the tie. johnson control gets 8% of their revenue from general motors. they had their analyst day earlier today and they basically surprised the street. forecasting better than expected sales for next year and better than expected profits of $2.60 a share. if you follow the logic that that's a derivative play on general mole or thes, you are probably bullish. options were bullish on jci. about 93 cents. that would break even if the stock is above $30.93 by january. that's 4% higher than where the stock is right now. >> so, the bottom line here,

mike, according to your options activity, you would say that gm, that karen's won the case? >> karen has won the case, not only on the options activity, but also just on the comments that jci made. they were making better than expected remarks for their sales for all of 2013. 8% of their rev newspapers come from general motors. that sounds pretty good to me. >> all right, well, correct me, because guy lost once again. no tie here. >> good thing i'm not here tomorrow. >> all right. coming up next, our next guest once called first solar his greatest short opportunity. but has the stock's recent run changed his mind? gordon johnson is back to tell us where he stands. and still to come, is the end near for tv as we know it? we'll take a up tooer dive to find out how big of a game changer cord cutting could be for cable. stick around. [ male announcer ] the markets keep moving. make sure the news keeps coming with thinkorswim by td ameritrade. use the news links breaking stories with possible breakout stocks,

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or florida, they're gonna love it. shaul, your alabama hospitality is incredible. thanks, karen. love your mississippi outdoors. i vote for your florida beaches, dawn. bill, this louisiana seafood is delicious. we're having such a great year on the gulf, we've decided to put aside our rivalry. now is the perfect time to visit anyone of our states. the beaches and waters couldn't be more beautiful. take a boat ride, go fishing or just lay in the sun. we've got coastline to explore and wildlife to photograph. and there's world class dining with our world famous seafood. so for a great vacation this year, come to the gulf. its all fabulous but i give florida the edge. right after mississippi. you mean alabama. say louisiana or there's no dessert. this invitation is brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. well, if itmr. margin?margin. don't be modest, bob. you found a better way to pack a bowling ball. that was ups. and who called ups? you did, bob. i just asked a question.

it takes a long time to pack a bowling ball. the last guy pitched more ball packers. but you... you consulted ups. you found a better way. that's logistics. that's margin. find out what else ups knows. i'll do that. you're on a roll. that's funny. i wasn't being funny, bob. i know. first solar has been ripping higher lately. the stock is up more than 160% since june 1st. but not everyone is buying into the recent run. here's what gordon johnson told "fast" last month. >> in terms of your greatest short opportunity, what would it

be? >> first solar. >> first solar? >> wow. >> goes to bankruptcy? >> structurally disadvantage, i think it goes potentially into bankruptcy. what first solar does is they sell solar panels. and right now, they're not doing that. they have a u.s. project -- they have u.s. projects for which they are able to sell solar panels into, but that's not indicative of tangible demand in third party markets. >> that was actually last year. even better call there. is the run a short squeeze or something more now? joining us once again is gordon johnson. so, i mean, you recommended the short a long time ago. the trade is up despite the recent run. what do you do right now? >> what i would do right now if i was still short the stock, hold tight if it wasn't short, i would wait until after their analyst day, which is supposed to happen in january and then i would get aggressively short. >> you think there's going to be a pop on the analyst day from what they say? >> i think what's driven the stock higher is a number of

things. you had first solar earn $1.27. we were at $1.35. you know where the bear is on the stock. the street was at 43 cents. the street was just massively off and the stock rallied. but what's really driven the stock from 16 to 32 is a very aggressive new management team who only talks to specific investors and they are saying things that are just pie in the sky. they won a two megawatt project in china and i heard they are telling people they are going to win a 2,000 megawatt project in china we stid checks and all the checks came back and said absolutely not, that's not going to happen. >> you mean, there's no project at all in china or the magnitude is not that. >> the magnitude is less than what they are leading investors to believe. there's a number of other things the team is putting out there. things are still bad for them because we have to wait for the fundamentals to play out. >> what are the fundamentals? how does this apply to supply and demand? >> what you heard out of china, a government official in china

said last month, he was quoted until saying, if we continue bi bailing these companies out in china, it's giving a patient poison to quench their thirst. you had a bailout of sun tech, a bailout of another chinese company and you've had multiple bailouts since then. you have massive oversupply in this market. you need companies to go out of business. what china is doing, they are coming in and bachling them out. thus this capacity that needs to be reduced is continuing to grow. so, we think capacity in china is going to row. you have much more supply than the demand. we continue to see price pressure. >> gordon, one of your competitors, i think tend of november, has a $50 price target on the stock. mentioned their cash flow. i'm not asking you to talk about their call but can you talk about their cash flow? do they have a healthy situation? >> that's a good point. where the projects they have,

they will have the cash. but once the projects are over, if you look at first solar's earnings over the past four quarters, quarters where they have not recognized projects, they lost $5 in q-4 and $5 in q-1 of 2012. so, what they're doing is, they're recognizing these one-time projects. they have two more left. once they are finished, even if cash looks good, they will start to lose a lot of money on a quarterly basis. once that happened, we think the stock tanks. >> last question. is there another bearish life to this trade if the fiscal cliff talks are, don't turn out very well and there are even more cut backs to things like department of energy programs? >> absolutely. this is kind of outside of our wheel house but we actually do not any there's going to be a resolution been january 1st. we think it's pushed out. we think that will be seen negative for solar and we think that will pressure the stocks, the high beta stocks that have done well, including first

solar. >> gordon, great to see you. b.k., i go to you. you once had a street fight with gordon about solar -- >> i lost badly. >> yeah, you did. i'm goi >> i'm going to stick with him on this one. i think the solar industry in itself, obviously, if you look at it on a macor scale, gordon talked about solar industry in china getting bailed out, you always have that risk there, that big government intervention is going to keep the supply going. so, i think it's very tough. i would stick with gordon, say, short this, after the analyst day. >> all right, coming up next, could cord-cutting bring the end of tv as we know it? we'll take a closer look at what lies ahead for cable. give you the trade. stick with us. let's give thanks -

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welcome back to "fast money" in sometitimes square. video killed the radio star, but could your tv next? according to nielsen, 5 million homes in the u.s. are relying on a cable provider for internet but aren't paying for tv programming. so, why are people cutting the cord? will rising costs and limited offering have aufb been cited. despite this trend, cable stocks

are seeing nice returns. so, just how big is the cord-cutting phenomenon? let's bring in chris morangi. chris, great to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> why is this? you would think the cable providers would be feeling the paint at this point, if this were a trend. >> well, everybody loves to tell you how much money they are saving by cutting the cord. neither one is probably true. the data says the number of pay tv subscribers grew last year, it will probably grow next year. but the market is still healthy. we're still growing units and rate. which leads to an increase in revenue on the video side. but the story in cable is broadband. it's the broadband hedge. no matter what you consume, you need a fast connection to do it and cable, in 75% of the country, has that connection. >> just because these companies may suffer in terms of the -- cable subscriptions, they will gain because of broadband. >> over time, we think that's

true. that discounts a very large business in business services. comcast, $16 billion in the cable business. that's where the future is. >> so, chris, i'm curious. we talk a lot about apple and the big exciting thing, they're coming out with a tv. they tend to be game changers in the industry. from your perspective. i know you're not talking apple. do you look at it as a game changer? >> i'm not necessarily sure that apple is a foe at this point. apple, you can argue, has helped the cable business with the tablet. it's increased the consumer's reliance on a fast connection, which is provided by cable. so, you know, i think there's a lot of ways that cable and apple could partner. apple may change the game, but it may not hurt capable in the long return. >> all right, we are showing, or we did show some of the returns of the cable stocks just this year and they've been stellar. you stick with these? >> i do. comcast has a lot of mow member tum. you could see a positive print in terms of video ads in 2013.

could change the psychology. doesn't really affect the financials all that much. >> any sort of interrun or thes to the way people watch and consume media that you like? like a netflix or -- >> not at this point. if tv everywhere -- the cable industry's version of being able to watch content anywhere the way you like it, that would be very pow powerful. >> chris, thank you. dan, where do you go on in this space? >> to me, as a consumer, they are doing all this bundling. the broadband is the key. that's how you are using the other devices in your home. but to me, i have sub vipgss, i have a $7.95 a sub stripgs to month, i have one for spotify, one for hulu plus. at some point, consumers are going to get hip to the point maybe they just need the broadband and they prefer to do a la cart or other membership services. >> let's do pops and drops.

jcpenney up 3%. karen? >> i guess they made a higher out of aber come bree. doesn't change fundamental story to me. we are short. >> drop for navistar. dan? >> this stock has been a struck wreck if you want to call it. they reported q-4 earnings. >> clever, dan. very good. >> down 44% of the year. they had the lowest orderers that they've seen since a quarter in 2009. this one is trading near the 52-week low. probably want to avoid. >> pop here for fedex, up 1%. guy? >> the quarter wasn't great, and they said some things that were sort of shaky going forward, but the market reacted in a positive way. i would take this opportunity to get out of the name, but price doesn't lie, so, maybe you have another day, upside tomorrow. >> alcoa, booeks. >> down on potential for a ratings downgrade. but in the metal space, we could be in the very, very early inks on a run. i don't mind alcoa here.

you can play it dbb, your base metal. >> pop for night capital, up 5%. mike? >> they decided to accept get-go's bid for the company. 30% of which is going to come in stock, compared to the all-cash bid. those this is only 25% higher than the current stock price, if you look at it on percentage basis, still potentially a little bit left in there. >> and a pop here for fishing. >> what? >> there are plenty of fish in the sea and apparent it will cars, too. chinese fishermen were shocked when they reamed in a porch cayenne. authorities say the $160,000 car may have been under water for two years, though it's unclear how exactly it got there. the fishermen sold the water-logged wagon for scrap, netting only .4% of its original value. didn't get anything out of that. >> it creates an artificial reef. we do that here in the united states, where we put old subway cars out in the --

>> thank you. >> leave well enough alone. those chinese fishermen, man. bad stuff going on. >> let's just move on. coming up, we are reading through the tea leaves to find out where stocks are headed next. find out if the market has more room to run, when we check the charts. that's next.

let's get back to the markets. before today's selloff, the s&p had been picking up steam. can the momentum continue and will stocks hit new highs before the new year? let's check the charts with mike harris from campbell and company. mike, good to see you. >> good to see you. >> what are you seeing in the charts right now? >> i think it's a good time to be system matic. with traders squaring up their books ahead of the holiday week, our models continue to trade 24 hours a day. if we look at the charts, we have a really interesting technical formation, a bullish trend channel over the last four weeks. i talked to you two weeks ago, we talked about the uptrend that our models were following. you can clearly see this on the chart. today was an interesting day. we traded up to the top of the channel run, 1446 and those march s&p futures.

we met quite a bit of resistance up there and the fiscal cliff headlines brought the market back down to the center of the channel. you can see we've had good upward movement over the last few weeks. certainly from a technical standpoint. we need to don't move to the upside. but going into the end of the year, we could see the markets continue to rise, and certainly a fiscal cliff agreement could be the catalyst to push us there. >> hey, mike, it's brian kelly. i'm a fan of technicals as much as the next guy, but i can bdra a bunch of channels in a chart. why is this one different than others? >> in this case, it becomes a shuffle fulfilling prophesy and people continue to watch the charts and see the markets have been moving up here. all we hear from the media is a bunch of negative headlines about going over the fiscal cliff. when you think about it, and technical analysis supports this, really, the total truth can be brought from the price action of the markets. and if the markets were really concerned about us going over the cliff, we wouldn't be

trending higher, we'd be trending lower. i think this technical analysis supports the fact that the markets believe we will see some agreement and so it's smarter to be long than short here. >> right. and mike, the bottom line here is that you do see that the year to date highs on the s&p 500 will be hit between now and the end of the year? >> if we stick to this technical trend channel, it's possible we get up to 1460. that being said, there's going to be large options strikes at 1450 we'll have to get through. but a lot is coming down to the rhetoric coming out of washington in the next couple of weeks. >> mike, good to see you. >> thank you. >> sometimes it's tough to buy the losers and sell the winners. let's play hold 'em or fold 'em. stocks that are hitting new highs. valero up 72% from a year ago. beeks? >> hold th'em. i messed that up the last couple of nights. i wanted to say it right out of the gate. i like a lot of the refiners. their margins are doing well. i wouldn't be surprised to see this pull back just a touch.

it's had quite a run here. i'd be a buyer. >> next up, goldman sachs. 52-week high today. shares up are 45%. guy? >> though it closed lower, yes, a 52-week high. goldman sachs, one of those financials that seems to have momentum. the trade has been with these guys around earnings. you either short them into earnings and then look for the bounce, which has worked. but in this case, i this you stay with the long position into their january release and then you sell it and my sense is, by the time they release -- i didn't say it yet. you fired too early. you jumped me. >> no, i'm not folding, either. >> oh. >> bunch of jerks there. hold them into earnings in january, then you fold it because i think it's going to trade up in the mid 130s. >> that's kind of confusing. you're saying -- >> they weren't wrong when they did hold 'em and then fold 'em. they are exactly -- >> hold 'em and fold 'em. >> playing a game. >> it's not "and."

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it is time for the moment you have been waiting for all evening. trade of the day. so, beeks, what's inside the safe? insi >> inside the safe is wheat, corn, soybeans and sugar. >> a lot of stuff. >> a lot of stuff in there. i originally came up with this idea, there was some giggles -- >> like all of us. >> because we're talking about the mississippi river and how mississippi is at all-time lows here and they may have to start blasting so barges can get up and down the river. >> blasting, like carving out more out of the bed? >> yes, they are dredging right now. that's called b-roll. i learned that awhile back. >> yeah. >> nice. >> there is a drought, in the middle of the winter, which is highly unusual. they're talking about bringing some watt from missouri, north dakota. but if they do that, then it hurts the rest of the winter wheat crop. you have a crop, ending stocks that are basically record lows, right off the bottom.

very susceptible to any type of weather shock. i think any type of weather shock here, you get a nice trade in wheat. and you also have a crop report on january 11th, so, you have a catalyst coming up. >> so, there's a drought and it is also harder to transport the commodities? >> so two ways. yes. the xhcommodities go up and dow the river on barge. they have to take less down so the barges can float. adm gets hurt by that. kirby corp. they might benefit. but even the fertilizer is having a tough time getting up there. farmers usually -- >> would a derivative play be rhames and truckers? in fact, they would be, melissa. >> harvard girl. >> if they can't ship by barge and they are talking about shutting the mississippi river down by christmas, they have to go by rail. yet, there is a shortage of rail cars. therefore, some of the rail names like a green breyer or something like that, that's been in the news, that might be a play.

>> would you hold or fold the rail names? >> you're really playing all -- >> i didn't throw them all in there. >> ksu is the name i like. i've mentioned that. you should notice the band we played in the intro, we played it in the outro and into the intro. little mountain for you. now, you should know that, because leslie west, from long island. you're from long island. >> i don't know every single person 23r long island, but sure. >> great job by john malloy, who is working it big time back in ec. >> yeah, all right. coming up next hour, very big show. from the stock market to your supermarket, cramer's got you covered. exclusive with the ceo of whole foods to find out if it can continue its winning ways, plus, another play you can find in your grocery aisle that could be ready to heat up. stick around for that. first move tomorrow, coming up next. [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles

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[ applause ] ♪ [ male announcer ] life brings obstacles. usaa brings advice. call or visit us online. we're ready to help. time for the final trade. let's go around the horn. mike? >> herbalife puts may get a very good bid tomorrow and if they do, i might consider selling. >> on a fiscal cliff