confused about oil? join the crowd. the middle east right now is a crazy complex puzzle of conflicted interests. we've got an exclusive interview with the man that helped rebuild iraq's oil infrastructure. he'll put the puzzle together for you. your other hot topics this hour. why jpmorgan's failed twitter experiment may more abosay more the problems with twitter, making sense of the head-spinning world for health

insurers right now is the president says you can keep your now perhaps canceled plan. if you love deals but hate crowds, we have your anti-crowd christmas shopping plan ahead, mandy. boom! new record highs right out of the gate this morning for the s&p 500. the dow industrials and transports, in fact, the dow industrials higher in spite of cisco which is having its worst day since february 2011 and the third worst drop in a decade. it is down right now by 12%. gold, on the other hand, is higher. this is the yellen effect. even as the world gold council says that demand for gold is at a four-year low. brian? all right. one of your top stories today, for about an hour, the president admitted that the rollout of obama care was a mess, saying, quote, it is on me. and he offered up a fix and basically trying to change one of the administrative bedrocks, if you will, of the plan by allowing people to keep the insurance that may now indeed be canceled. let's talk more about this with igor of think progress as well

as robert from health policy and strategy associates. igor, first to you. the problem with the website is one that is a problem, but it will be fixed, right? we have no doubt at some point this is going to be fixed. my bigger concern is something that you wrote about today. that 40% of those signing up for the new health care program are between 49 and 64 years of age and about a quarter of them are under the age of 26. if that continues, it could make the economic model less viable. how do we fix that? >> well, you know, the early numbers about what kind of people are coming in and signing up for the exchanges just for october don't really tell us a lot. if you look at past experience in massachusetts and other experiments, the young and healthy people who don't feel like they need care come in as the deadline approaches. so, you know, this is a six-month process. there's time for that risk pool to get younger and healthier. so i think it's not a problem yet. the key, though, of course, is going to be ticsing t ifixing t to make sure they can sign up

for coverage easily. >> i'm going to follow up on that. this one is for you, robert. if we do not see -- i know igor said there may still be time, but if we do not see enough younger and healthier people signing up, to what degree might obama care premiums go up for everybody? >> dramatically. it just depends on the situation. i don't disagree with what igor said. we've still got time to do it. what concerns me about obama care is the sort of cynicism i'm seeing growing because of all these problems, whether it's the cancellations in the story about people's premiums soaring, the problems in the small group insurance market which are the latest story. there's a sense that this thing isn't working. and it was going to be hard to sign these people up already. so this administration has a huge hill to climb. maybe mount mckinley to climb to get this thing turned around in a relatively short period of time because it won't just be that insurance premiums go up. this thing will financially implode on itself if we don't get a good cross-section of people. >> igor, what would you do? there's been a lot of discussion -- and i hate these

terms, but forgive me, other people are using them as well, sort of the winners and losers. if you've got a preexisting condition, if you're older, it's a win. obama care's good for you. >> absolutely. >> if you're younger and healthier, you'll probably have to pay a little more to support those others coming on. what would you recommend as tweaks around the margin to try to balance that out a little bit more? >> well, i mean, i think the biggest tweak, the most substantial tweak, is just to get the website operational. then we'll know what kind of -- some of the problems are downstream. but you've got to get the people in coverage. you know, as i've said, that's really the ultimate solution. and also, if you're young and healthy and you're paying more in premiums under the new law, i think if you become sick and you actually utilize your insurance because the insurance covers more, you may end up paying less for health care in that year. so you may ultimately win. but, you know, the website, priority number one, absolutely. >> and what do you think is the chance, say, you can put a percent amg term on it, if you like, robert, that this would will financially implode on

itself? i think the cbo projected they'll have about 7 million people signed up to the exchanges or buy the insurance through the exchanges by next year. we're so far away from that, just so far. what chance is there that this will not actually be viable? >> i think significant. this thing is in real danger, i believe. you know, people say when we get into the website, folks are going to see that they can buy really good cost-effective reasonable-cost health care. you know, young people are going to find that it's going to cost them about 10% of their after-tax income to buy a health insurance policy. and that policy is going to have a $1500 or $2,000 deductible for the standard option. i think it's going to be a real issue for those people to look at that. people don't have a lot of money in their checking accounts to pay that for what they see as a piece of paper with a $2,000 deductible. now, in insurance terms, this is a good deal, believe me. but for these young people, for families, a family of four making $59,000 a year will pay $400 a month for a plan with a

$2,000 per-person deductible and about a $50 co-pay. so this is going to be a -- that's a bargain. but it's going to be a challenge for these people, i think, to check the box and do it. >> you know, i think one of the points of light is an otherwise very dark story for the white house is that there does appear to be a great deal of interest among people to get covered. they're visiting the website, calling the center, trying to get through. and if they can turn those numbers into enrollments, that's going to be a big step forward. >> half of them might be journalists just trying to investigate the story, unfortunately. listen, i've been there myself. igor, how about this. instead of piling on for healthcare.gov, for us, for me, i can't speak for anybody else at this network. i want to move on to the bigger issue of why we're so sick as a nation. why aren't we talking about that more? why are one and four or five americans basically on lifetime prescription drugs? why is obesity such a problem? why is die seats such a problem? why do health care costs so much

more here than anywhere else in the world? why has tort reform gotten no traction when we agree that's a portion of our health care costs? to me, all this distraction over website they'll ultimately fix is causing a huge disservice to america by reducing our attention on at least what i perceive are the real problems of why we're so sick anyway. >> yeah, these are really important issues. it's part of the reason why the law invests in prevention, why it establishes a prevention fund to try to get at some of those issues. and why it also encourages providers to deal with chronic conditions more effectively to try to lower the cost growth overall in health care. you're right to point out that's the big problem. that's the ultimate answer to try to kind of bring premiums down in the out years. you've got to tackle how we manage health care conditions, how we research health care conditions in terms of what's the most effective treatment. the law moves us in that direction. more is going to need to be done, absolutely. >> prevention, not cure.

really interesting thoughts. thank you very much for joining us. we'd like to talk more about the impact on the insurers specifically now. let's bring in vishnu. i'm very interested in your comments that you don't believe this will have a major impact on the health insurance stocks one way or another. why? >> well, most of them, when you look at their book, it's not a lot of individual membership to begin with. and what was happening with the exchanges, it actually was an opportunity for these firms to gain greater traction within the individual market and to actually drive membership growth and drive revenue. but if you see what's going on today with the renewal of some of these policies, these policies do not meet the minimal benefits standards, but it's only a one-year delay. and most of these policies don't likely exist after 2014. thus a lot of the folks that have these policies will then eventually move into the exchanges. >> but the fact that it is a e one-year delay, isn't this an administrative burden on a lot of these companies?

for example, they uncancel a policy for somebody whose policy was just canceled. and then a year later they're suddenly going to have to cancel it all over again. these are publicly traded companies. they don't want to waste a whole lot of operational time fiddling around with all of this canceling and uncanceling. is that not a burden? >> no, it is. it's going to be pressure on the profitability line but not a huge amount of pressure. most of these firms, again, have a small individual membership book, meaning that it's not going to affect them as much. what you're going to see, a lot of the pain felt is going to be with the smaller regional insurers. the major insurers like united health care, wellpoint, aetna, cigna, humana. but, again, the exchanges themselves, this delay doesn't necessarily help them as much. what they want to see is membership grow. and that's if new lives come into the exchange market. >> listen, to me, what we just talked about and we look at basically people that have preexisting conditions, people

that maybe are older, people that are maybe less healthy, if they're all going over to the exchanges, this is a win for the insurance companies. >> well, i'm not sure if it's a win because then you get adverse selection in place. if you get older, sicker folks within the exchange, then your policies become more expensive to service. >> yes, but if you're a health insurer that's largely staying out of the fray and you happen to pick up fewer unhealthy people and more healthy people, premiums should go down. you'll pay out less. >> well, i mean, overall, maybe not. it depends. because then your book is going to stay the same. and a lot of the major insurers have stayed out of the market and they have been very cautious with the public exchanges to begin with. so a lot of them are going to, you know, not necessarily feel the pain right now. and the wait-and-see approach was basically a smart strategy we've seen as everything has unfolded over the past couple months. >> and if you had to pick a winner in all this, it is wellpoint. just to reiterate for our viewers that four out of five

stars is what you were assigning wellpoint. thank you, vishnu. on deck, call it the rubik's cube of crude. we're going to put together the puzzle of oil in the middle east. >> the epic twitter disaster. what on earth were they thinking? we're going to debate all that ahead. and mcdonald's stirring the pot in the coffee wars. is the best day to do your shopping on christmas, obviously it's not black friday or the day before. when there's the fewest crowds and the best deals. love it. coming up on "street signs." i got this. [thinking] is it that time? the son picks up the check? [thinking] i'm still working. he's retired. i hope he's saving. i hope he saved enough.

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let's get down to sheila at the nasdaq where we're looking at maybe a bit of an early santa claus rally? thanksgiving? great pumpkin rally? >> let's talk about what the nasdaq is doing today. we are barely hanging on to gains. that's largely because of cisco and those weak earnings. but overall keep in mind, we are less than 40 points away from nasdaq 4,000. that's a level we haven't seen since september of 2000. and the good news could keep coming for the nasdaq as we head towards the end of the year. and that's really because of the santa claus rally. remember, this is the propensity for equities to push higher towards the last few trading days of the year and into the new year. historically if you look at the

performance of the nasdaq, it's actually benefited the most from the santa claus rally. since 1980, 77% of that time the nasdaq has been positive during the santa claus rally days. and on average, posted a gain of 1.6%. potentially gains ahead for the nasdaq here. last year santa claus was especially nice to the nasdaq. in fact, the index was up about 3% higher during those last few trading days. now, one of the signs of strength we are seeing in today's market right now are those big momentum names. we love to talk about names like priceline, tesla, green mountain coffee. all of those names are higher on the day. traders overall do tell me, look, when you continue to see buying in momentum names, when you see that strength happening, that's generally a good sign for the market and perhaps a sign that we could push ahead. so watch out for santa claus's cheer at the nasdaq. >> coming early this year. thank you very much, sheila. what got buried in all of the obama care news this afternoon is that a u.n. inspection report shows that iran has basically halted nuclear expansion.

the international atomic energy agency says iran's stockpile of higher grade enriched uranium has slowly risen since president rouhani's administration. but just a moment ago benjamin netanyahu says he is not buying any of this. meantime, fighting in iraq seems to be getting worse. libyan oil production is rising, but still very low. opec production is down. and now saudi arabia is getting angry over iran. simply put, the middle east is a mess. let's try to figure it out. joining us is chief economist at tygress financial partners. you've got a lot of titles, but you've been to the region, spent a lot of time there. you know what's going on. i can't figure out -- when i hear that now saudi arabia is rattling its sabre over iran, i'm thinking who's on whose side? what's the puzzle piece here? >> you bring up a very good point. iran, from saudi arabia's standpoint, iran is the most essential threat. >> in what way?

>> well, they are seen as funding and supporting the shia fundamentalists in syria, in libya, in egypt, obviously hezbollah. well, that's a threat to saudi arabia. >> but that's not new. >> no, you're absolutely right. it's not new. you're absolutely right. but it hasn't stopped. but in iran has been able to do this kind of involvement when their economy is on their heels, what happens when their economy gets better? what happens if the u.s. or the west decides to take some of the sanctions off because there's some progress on the nuclear front? >> indeed. what do you make of this news? the fact that the report showed that iran has halted nuclear expansion, how much will that go toward the effort to raise sanctions, how much more angry will saudi arabia be? >> yes, all of that. you're absolutely right. you're absolutely right. saudi arabia will, as i said, it's a threat to saudi arabia. what can they do to counter

that? their biggest weapon is -- or their biggest tool is crude oil. so what if saudi arabia decides to keep on pumping oil, keep on pumping oil past $80 a barrel. past $70 a barrel. >> they can't, though. there are social programs that require a certain level for oil prices to fund, correct? they can't drive oil prices down that much. could they? >> yeah, they can. >> they can. >> what's the pain threshold for prices? >> when i was in iraq, this was only two years ago, both iraq and saudi arabia were -- had a political environment that they were comfortable with oil prices down around $70, $80 a barrel. now, that's two years ago. and oil was at, i don't know, $115. $120 a barrel. so they already were comfortable with much lower levels. >> would saudi arabia really hurt themselves just to stick it to iran? >> i don't think it's viewed as sticking it to iran. i think they view it as a national security issue for saudi arabia.

they don't want to -- they want to keep iran down. maybe bring iran to the negotiating table with saudi arabia. >> so maybe it's a necessary evil. >> it is. >> for saudi arabia. okay. but how likely is that scenario where they would keep those spigots open just to, as brian said, stick it to iran? >> when the conversations that i've had with senior iraqi oil executives, they're the ones who brought this to my attention. they're the ones who said, if the oil production -- and this actually, they were talking about relations between iraq and iran. and they felt very strongly that they could see saudi arabia use their power and production to reduce prices to keep the situation in iran more challenging. >> where does this go? i mean, you know, they've got this minoog, this giant new oil field coming online in iraq. it's small but getting bigger.

it could be one of the biggest in the region, if it can avoid getting damaged by infighting. will iraq seriously become a 4 or 5 million barrel a day regulator? >> the persian gulf outside of basra, they raised their export capacity there to 4.5 million barrels a day. their highest level i believe in august was about 3.2 million barrels a day. that includes the thousands coming out of the north in kirkuk. they also parallel that. the answer is they've got most of the global iocs in iraq pumping oil. there are security concerns. the national oil company is about to move out. >> okay. >> off of the field. they're about to move out for security reasons. but i would walk on the north oil company in kirkuk.

right now with no concern for security. >> fantastic. >> so there are some areas in iraq that are dubious. >> right. >> they are questionable, no question about it. >> we've got to leave it there. we'll save the african discussion for another session. we love your insight. >> it's a whole different side of the rubik's cube. >> also a different continent. >> it is. we'll get to australia one day. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you. still ahead, the cheapest gas -- what? >> no, we won't. >> why not? >> there's nothing there. >> some good gas. lng. the cheapest gas in the nation. we're going to go out there and find it for you and tell you where it is. and what in the heck was jpmorgan thinking? we're digging in on the big bank's epic twitter fail with a very cool special guest. trust me, it's a shocker. the person's never been on "street signs" before, but you'll know who he is coming up.

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okay. take a look at those markets. we're near session highs right now. the dow is up by 53 points. in fact, we had new record highs right out of the gate this morning for the dow and the s&p. the mid caps and also the dow transports. but here is the most interesting factoid of the day. and this is courtesy of our

wonderful producer, jackie o'sullivan, on the show. on this day, brian, in 1972, the dow closed above 1,000 for the very first time ever. when you were just a little wee baby in arms, we cracked the 1,000 mark. >> that's a good stat. >> that's a great stat. >> jackie not only being tall, also obviously from a very intelligent sort of background -- >> no, she's o'sullivan. >> she's our boss. we were the lowly sullivans. speaking of, you may not have heard of this company, but you will now. it is getting walloped, down 38.5%, down 8 bucks. tts is the ticker symbol. gotham analysts saying it used a china-based twitter to inflate itself. this is allegations from one research firm, right? overstating earnings by 200%, obviously one of the worst days for this stock ever. >> ever. let's send it over to dominic chu for a quick "market flash." >> tesla down again today.

the stock down about 22% since it reported earnings that disappointed wall street back on november 5th. now, three car fires later in five weeks, that's not helping matters either. this stock, though, still up about 300% year to date. but tesla, the momentum certainly, mandy, coming out of that stock. >> certainly not the only stock that's taking it on the chin. thank you, dom. let's get straight to jackie dianne g deangelis with your daily pump trol patrol. >> reporter: the national average at $3.19, 20 cents cheaper than this time last year. in fact, prices around the country are now at lows not seen since february of 2011. you've got an increase in crude supplies coupled with a decrease in crude prices. and also a quiet hurricane season all contributing to these low prices at the pump. so where's the cheapest gas in the country right now? joplin, missouri. where a gallon of regular gas cost $2.62. that's according to

gasbuddy.com. joplin seeing prices a full 45 cents cheaper than the national average. missouri just one of nine states where the average price of gas is under $3 a gallon today. and that's today's "pump patrol." now back to you. >> thank you very much. still ahead, a double shot of talk. first up, "street talk." the five big stock movers that you need to know about. and also, welcome to "coffee talk." how mcdonald's is stirring the pot in the coffee wars. we asked people, "if you could get paid to do something you really love, what would you do?" ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪

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arguably one of our favorite times of the day, it is "street talk." the stocks you need to know about. first of all, we have solar city getting an upgrade. >> the stock is up 5.5%. it was raised. the target, big pop to 71 from 50. they see about 16 bucks of upside. calls it one of the first solar asset-backed securities. this stock's been red hot. >> sony, an upgrade to equal weight at morgan stanley. >> i put it in there because i have to do the end conversion. i figured you could help us out

with this. cramer said on "squawk on the street," they raised their rating on stoneny, but they lowered their target to 2,000 yen. like 20 bucks? >> yeah, approximately. >> yeah, from 2100 yen. there you go. so they still see a little bit of upside if you convert that to dollars. ps4, the playstation 4, is out tomorrow. we've also got finish line upgraded. the target was also boosted. >> to 32 from 26 bucks. that's about 20% more than the current price there. the analyst loves finish line store then a store format. where have we heard that before? jc penney except finish line is at macy's. and we know as of yesterday how well macy's is doing. the analyst also thinks they discounted much of their weaker inventory, got it out of there. basically this stock has been crushing its main rival, foot locker, up about 40% year to date, 33% over one year. >> today's under-the-radar stock is bright horizons family.

>> up 3.25%. for the first time ever we've talked about a publicly traded day-care center. massachusetts based. offices here, the uk, the netherlands. they joined the new york stock exchange in january, and they were initiated at wells fargo with an outperform and a $44 to $48 target range. stock's right now at $36.49. so wells fargo sees a lot of upside. >> i think anyone who's got a kid in child care knows this is big business. >> it ain't cheap either. >> that's what i mean. yesterday we talked about how nobody is talking about cisco shares. they were red hot. we're going to highlight we're red shot because cisco having their worst day in almost three years. weak sales, weak guidance. what a disaster. on the technicals, rich ross. on the fundamentals, mark lichtenfeld. people expected a lot from

cisco. they disappointed the world. what do you make of the story? a quarterly issue or a management issue? >> well, i think it's maybe a little bit of both. i tell you what. i like the stock here. i think you do want to let it settle in a little bit. you don't a falling knife. when it does maybe in a few days or few weeks, there's a lot to like. only trading at ten times forward earnings. 3.2% dividend yield. i think if they set the bar very low on purpose for the second quarter. they said to expect an 8% to 10% revenue decline. what happens if next quarter they're still leaving a decline. let's say it's only 5% to 6%. that could be a meaningful earnings beat. analysts would have to take up their estimates. the stock could pop. so i think there's still a lot to like about cisco once you let it settle in for a few days or weeks. >> maybe a little bit of sandbagging there on the guidance. what about the chart here? do you think the technicals offer the same kind of sanguine view on cisco?

>> i wouldn't touch this stock in a million years. i couldn't disagree more. i think this is a relic of a bygone era. when you bring up this very long-term monthly chart, you can see exactly what i mean. when you take out that spike from the tech bubble, essentially we're looking at a financial zombie. here the stock's done nothing for over 12 years. long since days are the halcion days of beating by a penny. when we zoom in, it doesn't get any better, mandy. can you see, yes, the rising tide did lift cisco throughout most of the year, but boom, just this summer we get that first key earnings disappointment. as we've said on the show several times, your first loss is your best loss. now we've taken out key support at 22, which is now resistance. i think this stock can revisit 17. i would not buy it. if i did not own it. if i owned it, unfortunately i would still sell it right here. >> two words, financial zombie. >> relic -- i think you're in this relic of a bygone era, i've been hearing that of several tech stocks, intel's done okay

this year. i don't think cisco is going away. and if it does get down to richard's target of 17, that's 8.5 times earnings. i would be backing up the truck at that point. >> all right, guys. good debate here. very disagreement there between the technicals and the fundamentals, but that's what makes the market, everybody. thank you. up next, the brewing battle in the coffee wars. mcdonaldcdonald's saying it's g be all in to be the next king. will dunkin' and starbucks get roasted? we find it a little bit funny. a very special guest will join us for a dramatic reading of the best bank bashing tweets. but before we do that, bill griffeth, you are not our special guest, says but you're on right now to tell us what's coming up on "closing bell." >> somehow i got caught up with that ask jpm controversy as well. that's for another day. conventional wisdom says that the fed has fueled this historic rally in stocks, but a new study just out finds no evidence to support that. we've got the study's co-author to explain why.

plus, dennis gartman will be here to tell us why he thinks it's all nonsense. also, the retail sector as we know has been red hot, up more than 40% this year. but sam says there are still only a handful of retail stocks still worth buying right now. and he lays out his latest shopping list. maria and i look forward to seeing you at the top of the hour for the last hour of the trading day. in the meantime, more "street signs" and tweets coming your way after this. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 trading inspires your life. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 life inspires your trading. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 where others see fads... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 ...you see opportunities. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 at schwab, we're here to help tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 turn inspiration into action. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 we have intuitive platforms tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 to help you discover what's trending. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and seasoned market experts to help sharpen your instincts. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 so you can take charge tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 of your trading.

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there are only 47 days left in the year. that means that tax time, yes, is right around the corner. good news. but new changes to the tax code could result in a bigger bill from the irs. sharon epperson is here. sharon, what are the changes, and why do we hate them? >> we definitely are going to hate them. if you're a high income tax payer, you're definitely going to hate them. if you make over $400,000 a year or $450,000 for couples, you'll

be in a new tax bracket. you'll also have to pay maximum rate on capital gains. that's 20%. that's going to really hurt you. even if you make a little less than that, say you make $200,000 or as a couple together you make $250,000, you'll have to pay a medicare surtax, 0.9%, and then you're also going to have to pay tax on your net investment income. and that's 3.8%. so there's a lot of tax that you'll have to assume that you may not have had to assume last year. >> what are our strategies to try and minimize all that? >> if you can, you want to defer income. if you're getting a bonus or stock options, try to defer that income. you also want to think about how you can maybe offset some of the capital gains with capital losses with capital gains, harvest your tax losses is what i'm trying to say. and the final thing you want to do is that you want to make sure -- and a lot of people do this already, but some people say i'm just going to put into my 401(k) to the company match and then invest outside of it. you want to lower your income dollar for dollar. and the way you can do that is to maximize your contributions

to your 401(k) or your employer plan. $17,500, if you're 50 or over, it's $23,000. you really want to make sure that you do that. and then, of course, talk to somebody because a lot of times you just use your old return as a guide. >> right. >> that's not a great guide anymore. there are about enso many changes. >> great tips. thank you so much, sharon epperson. we can get more year-end tax tips. this is your go-to place for that. shifting gears, mcdonald's is brewing up a big battle with its plan to go all in on the coffee wars. jane wells, woman who probably knows a little bit about this subject. give us what you've got. >> yeah, well, i'm on my fifth cup today. we're going to get more details as the investor event continues today. ceo don thompson says 2014's going to be a challenging year. margins will be under pressure with higher labor costs. but he sees a lot of opportunity in coffee. thompson says the entire beverage category is worth $300 billion. coffee and tea the fastest growing parts, and he says

mcdonald's could and should do better. there are 4,200 mccafes providing as much as 8% of sales. mickey d's plans to add 350 to 400 more each over the next two years. >> we currently captured less than our fair share of the overall beverage category. that gap alone equates to more than $3 billion of sales opportunity. >> all right. who will they take that $3 billion from? thompson said, quote, anyplace that you can buy a beverage is a competitor. but when we asked coffee lovers on both coasts, which do you like best, it's clear we're only talking about two competitors. >> i prefer dunkin' donuts these days. >> starbucks wins. >> oh, that's easy. dunkin' donuts. >> yeah, starbucks is my favorite. >> i like mcdonald's. >> i don't like mcdonald's. i just like their cheeseburgers. >> duncan doughnuts is known for their coffee. starbucks for coffee. mcdonald's, fast food. >> there you go. barclays says mcdonald's has 13%

market in brewed and espresso. mcdonald's says breakfast has the highest margins of the day, and emerging markets are using coffee as a loss leader to get people in. the ceo believes mcdonald's has one advantage over rivals. quote, along with coffee, you have to have food. brian, mandy? >> well said. everybody's got a different point of view, jane. thank you very much. good stuff. cut it off at five cups. should starbucks and dunkin' donut s be worried that mcdonald's is getting more aggressive in coffee? we have two coffee experts ready to throw down. joining us from "coffee talk" magazine is carrie goodman and dan cox from coffee enterprises. carrie, do you believe mcdonald's will make a real dent in the coffee battle? >> i believe that they are going to be significant in the coffee battle, yes. i think that there should be some worries about that. i think it can be a good thing except that if mcdonald's is coming in with coffee and their strategy is to make it less expensive and cheaper, then we're going to hurt the industry

because specialty coffee is all about quality, and we really have to make sure that we're not training consumers that they should pay less for a good cup of coffee. >> if i was mcdonald's, i'd give coffee away or make it a quarter. i'm serious. get them in the door, they'll get two egg mcmuffins. zmoo that's really great for a short-term thinking, but long term if they're going to start doing that and these coffee producers have more pressure on them to bring their prices down, they're barely making a living right now and feeding their families. and if they can't afford to grow the coffee, we're not going to have coffee. >> dan, here's the thing. i think it's a fantastic time for mcdonald's to expand its coffee line because coffee prices have dropped about 30% over the past year, and they make great margins on this. >> and they have dropped, the prices have dropped and the producers are losing their money and their incomes. and we've got to get the prices back up. and we've got to train consumers -- >> yes, i can. >> coffee costs more. >> dan, what do you think? is it going to be a big threat to starbucks and dunkin' donuts,

or is there room for coffee for all? >> there's tons of room, and there's some really big significance between the three. number one, mcdonald's owns breakfast. point blank, 64% of the drive-through business goes through for mcmuffins. the problem is they don't own coffee. and they're really not that clear on their coffee strategy. if they don't have an in-house coffee groove. these guys need somebody in house to run the place. these guys, however, do have a coffee guru, and they're doing well, but it's not the same customer. the person that goes to starbucks is not going to be the same person that goes to either one of these two. i shopped this about an hour ago. $1.87 for a small. $1.41 for a medium. small and a $1.62. dunkin' is a fantastic company but they're not national. they're east of the mississippi. 7500 units nationwide, but they run on dunk in' coffee.

this is an egg mcmuffin frying to get into the business. thompson is smart. he recognized their number one product last year was a frappe. and mr. howard keeps going through and going through, but his strategy is international. so for drip coffee in the united states, first, there's plenty of room. second, they also own drive-through. they got into drive-through late. and dunkin' has got into drive-through a little late. as you know, where he love to drive and talk on our phones and eat and drink at the same time. so i am very optimistic that the more these guys do -- and they also own marketing and distribution, the better off coffee drinkers will be, the more coffee will be consumed in the united states, the more coffee we consume, i think the better it is says for the industry. >> i think we can sum it up as the coffee industry sounds a lot like today's childhood. everybody's a winner, right? carrie? >> absolutely. >> thank you very much. >> i hope so. thank you. >> i prefer winchell's.

>> a middle for everybody. still ahead, up next, if you hate crowds but love deal, stick around because we're going to tell you the perfect day to do all of your christmas shopping. but first, our dramatic reading of some of the hilarious tweets sent during jpmorgan's twitter q&a last night. [ male announcer ] what if a small company became big business overnight? ♪ like, really big...

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by now you've probably heard about you've probably heard about jpmorgan's failed twitter experiment. for some reason they thought it would be good to open up twitter to questions to top investment bankers. why anybody thought it would be a good idea was a thought for another day. most of the tweets were not nice. some were nasty, some snarky, some funny. since jimmy fallon has cornered the market in slow jamming stuff. >> to answer your questions for one hour. tweet yours early juicing #@jpm. >> did you always want to be part of a vast corrupt criminal

enterprise, or did you break bad? >> if you were a shameless financial predator profiting off the misery of your customers, what kind of creditor would you be? what's your favorite type of whale? i have mortgage fraud, market manipulation, credit card abuse, libor rigging and predatory lending. am i diversified? is the fact that you paid over half a billion in fines since august a source of pride? or are you embarrassed it's not higher? reading the #askjpm twitter feed makes it seem jpm put a kick me sticker on its back when it rolled out that hashtag. ladies and gentlemen, the snarkpocolypse is upon us brought about by this. #askjpm. is it the ability to throw

anyone out of their home that drives you? or just the satisfaction that you know you could do it? at what number of billions of dollars in fines will it no longer be profitable to run your criminal enterprise? will the firm explore new markets like selling candy backed securities to babies without disclosing the lack of chocolate in the bonds? what is the maximum amount of material wealth that a person can accumulate and still be allowed into heaven? is it true jpm stands for just pay more? no. it stands for just print more. >> q & a canceled. bad idea. back to the drawing board. >> joining us now is the american original himself, award winning actor, stacy keach.

nair tor of cnbc's "american greed." he has a new book out. "all in all" about his life. three or four lives for most of us mere mortals. i bet when you trained at yale and did shakespeare, never imagined you'd be reading tweets. >> no. i don't think any of us knew twitter or facebook was going to be around in those days. >> you probably never imagined you would actually be tweeting yourself with the handle stacykeach1. you know like we all do this is what twitter is. if you're on twitter you open yourself up as jpm has as well to the snarky comments. to the haters. >> snarky comments. but it's entertaining. i think -- well, let's put it this way. it's entertaining to those on the outside. on the inside, i guess -- i'm sure that jpmorgan doesn't think it's so entertaining. >> some people there that are not having the best day. jon fortt, we're making light of it. we were talking before the show. this is a problem for me with twitter, not jpmorgan. they made a mistake. but it shows that if you're

hoping for corporate money on twitter, if you want to, you know, advertise with businesses, but there's this kind of reaction, it seems like why would i as a company advertise on a platform that makes it so easy for me as a company to be ridiculed? >> first of all, i think you got to be careful. just like with any medium, when you're looking your worst you don't walk out of the house. time when you do your sit-down with oprah or whomever. it's just common sense, now is not the best time. and twitter was not the best even social medium for them to do that. but i still think this is an important medium for people to engage in. all the data that i'm seeing shows that people are increasing their engagement. brands that are spending there are getting a return. looking at some numbers that we brought you on cnbc just a couple weeks ago from adobe, tumblr has the highest positive engagement. twitter is right behind them. facebook actually worse. you might get worse treatment on facebook. >> how do you define engagement?

if somebody calls you a jerk or whatever, they're engaging. >> that would be bad. no. i mean positive engagement. these are measures of positive engagement. it was over 400 million unique visitors. >> what's your view, stacy? >> i was going to ask the question, when twitter went public a few days ago at a certain price. how is it doing now? >> it went like this to 50. it's still a little above its ipo price. it's well below the peak it touched intraday as everybody did this with the stock. >> how does that compare to facebook, for example? >> facebook did this. let me give you my yale school -- nonyale school. it's two ls. that's the facebook ipo. >> it's doing okay now. it took about a year to get back on its feet. okay. also coming up on "american greed," yourself. be sure to catch stacy for an all new "american greed" episode. the fugitives. what's going to be happening? >> we're going to find out about a man named john utsik who was a

great promoter of wonderful rock groups. aerosmith. >> it was aerosmith. >> that's right. yeah. >> he took them for a lot of money. >> allegedly. we don't know. suddenly he was making a lot of money. then the money went south. then he went south. he's in brazil, i think right now. they're trying to find out -- >> i propose a month long investigation. you and i, stacy. rio de janeiro. sao paulo. up next, the absolute best day to do your christmas shopping this year. bny mellon combines investment management & investment servicing, giving us unique insights which help us attract the industry's brightest minds

who create powerful strategies for a country's investments which are used to build new schools to build more bright minds. invested in the world. bny mellon. is caused by people looking fore traffic parking.y that's remarkable that so much energy is, is wasted. streetline has looked at the problem of parking,

which has not been looked at for the last 30, 40 years, we wanted to rethink that whole industry, so we go and put out these sensors in each parking spot and then there's a mesh network that takes this information sends it over the internet so you can go find exactly where those open parking spots are. the collaboration with citi was important for providing us the necessary financing; allow this small start-up to go provide a service to municipalities. citi has been an incredible source of advice, how to engage with municipalities, how to structure deals, and as we think about internationally, citi is there every step of the way. so the end result is you reduce congestion, you reduce pollution and you provide a service to merchants, and that certainly is huge.

there are just 40 days until christmas. black friday may be the busiest shopping day of the year. researchers have found the best shopping day of the year. it is december 4th. that is according to the analytics firm shopper track. why the 4th, you're asking? they say the stores are going to have the good deals. also, this is the most important thing, the least amount of traffic on those days. i like that combo. >> first off, it's too early if the christmas music. cut it. if you're like me and don't buy anything for anybody, you're done already. >> yeah. don't you buy anything? not even for the team? >> no. >> don't be a scrooge.

>> i pick it up off the sidewalk. >> lovely. we'll look forward to that garbage. meantime, markets are moving higher today. sitting on record highs right out of the gate. there you go. up by -- >> where's your christmas spirit? >> you're the one who said you're not buying anyone anything. >> thank you for watching "street signs," everybody. even you, jacob marly. >> "closing bell" with a much better attitude is next. hi, everybody. good afternoon. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo. we're going for another record close. >> all we need are plus signs for the dow and s&p. i'm bill griffith. markets responding positively to the testimony of janet yellen before the senate banking committee as they consider her for the new job of fed chairman. and she was as dovish as we knew she would be, maria. that pushed interest rates lower