this is where we stand. the dow is down by 70 points. the ten year is back below the 3% mark. gold as you can see here behind me, is down by five bucks. let's get to steve liesman with all the details of the fed minutes because it was a very important meeting and people have been waiting what they had to say. >> reporter: this was the meeting where the federal reserve tapered and at that meeting, most participants saw the taper as appropriate as a cautious first step. many saw the economic progress compared certainly to october and over the course of quantitative easing as meaningful. now, there was a debate about this. several were concerned about tapering with the high unemployment rate and low inflation. some preferred a larger taper, even a few of them wanted qe limits and a completion date to be published. many supported at the end, many supported modest taper along with the rate guide, that dovish rate guide. there was a debate at this meeting about actually lowering

the unemployment threshold from 6.5% down to 6%. ultimately that was rejected for a more qualitative assessment that said the fed would take a look at the situation when we reach 6.5% unemployment rate. in a very curious development, there was a fed survey of fed members on the benefits and costs of quantitative easing. i asked the federal reserve to explain the form this took. most participants, according to this survey of fed members by the fed, saw qe as helping financial conditions. a majority thought the effect of qe is waning. biggest concern is the effect on financial stability of these asset purchases and some concerned the fed could suffer capital losses. in another interesting development in the minutes, the fed staff continued to forecast quote, significantly faster growth relative to potential in the years ahead. most participants were confident in the economic outlook. they said consumer spending was helped by the waning effects of

tax increases, higher consumer sentiment and spending also helped by rising wealth and equity in real estate and also lower energy costs. the fed sees less fiscal drag in 2014. the minutes also make clear that they were yet to be counting on a budget deal. it was in the room at the time, the fed thought, that the congress would come up with a budget deal. there was also a pretty spirited debate on the reasons for the participation rate decline, the labor participation rate decline with some folks thinkinging it was cyclical and others thinking it was more of a long term trend. one other thing i want to report, the nfib come out sometime before the friday jobs report with their small business employment number and they are saying small business owners increased employment by .24 workers per firm. doesn't sound like a lot but it's the most since 2006. just to reiterate, we got a big small business hiring number in the adp report this morning of 108,000 which was the best we had since february 2012. that's another good jobs report to come along with this fed

report. >> bottom line, some of them wanted the taper faster, some of them wanted to end qe earlier than expected. what do you think is the most market-moving headline here? >> i read the report looking for any sense at all of how the federal reserve would react if economic growth came in stronger than expected. i don't see that in there. i don't see that they are ready to play with that. i think we have to listen to the speeches in the next week or so and the next fed meeting to see what's the tolerance of that $10 billion the market expects to taper. i don't see it here. >> taking a look at the market reaction here, just before we came out with those minutes, we were down by about 70 points on the dow. we are currently down by about 80 points. the nasdaq is positive. i would like to welcome dominic chu as my cohost today and also our all-star fed panel. joining us is wells fargo's anika kahn, ken volpit. welcome. what is your reading on the

minutes? >> overall, if we compare the minutes to the last minutes, we of course saw a changing in the wording, more specifically on the actual economic numbers, and labor market conditions, and more specifically, drilling into the risk to outlook. as we look at inflation, it continues to be a moving target. but also dropping down, data dependency is another part as to how they are tying asset purchases to data dependency. of course, we know that as we look at a data dependent federal reserve, that we continue to see improvement even in the recent months. we are also comparing what they saw from excess reserves. that's another thing that i didn't hear about. and in the previous report, we saw of course only a couple of members wanting to tie or lower the unemployment rate was a

threshold. so it is very interesting to see that number pick up. >> now, the interesting part about this, too, is the market reaction. like mandy said, we lost about 15 points on the dow going into this release, got it all back. we are now down around 65, 70 points as well. how much of the market, how much had the market priced in what was going on today and is there a real expectation like steve liesman said that there could be some variance to the way quantitative easing or this bond buying program will be reduced or tapered going forward? >> i think the interesting thing out of these minutes and what might have affected the markets here, though very little, is the fact that this sounded more like a compromise than a test. meaning that smallish $10 billion taper wasn't just a test to see if the market could handle it, how it would react, and then maybe they could do more if it reacted okay to that. it was more of a compromise, a balance between the members of the fomc on what they felt the best course of action was. going forward, a lot's going to depend on communication. steve, i wonder, do you see

anything in there on the subcommittee on communication and whether maybe in january, they might vote? i know that's often the case. as to whether they might do eight press conferences in 2014 rather than the four they have been doing because this is really important. as the fed steps back directly in -- >> i didn't see anything on the communications committee. i would like to just sort of wrap one thing that you just said, wrap it up. this was a compromise test. the fed was going to test this thing and how they were going to test it was where the compromise came in. but i think you are absolutely right to call it a compromise. there are different factions at the fed and where the center of the board is, a, the economic progress was meaningful, meaningful enough for a taper. a taper that was $10 billion and a taper of $10 billion that came along with the rate guidance. but not so much rate guidance as to actually move that unemployment rate. that was new to me, that they actually did discuss a new number of 6%. >> i would like to talk about what's going on out there in the bond market. about an hour before the release of the minutes we had a ten year auction.

i think rick santelli gave it a "c." just before the minutes, 2.999. we are at 3.003. what do you make of this and where do you think it goes from here? >> i think the ten year is actually in a pretty good spot. i think we talked about this in past sessions. you have a real interest rate of about 70 basis points right now. where i think there's more vulnerability is in the shorter end of the curve, probably between two and five years. if the numbers continue to come in stronger, that's going to probably push -- move closer concern about fed increasing interest rates, in the short end will probably take a hit a little bit more. the intermediate part might weaken a little as well but 70 basis points when you have an economy still growing at a fairly slow rate is a reasonable real interest rate already. i don't think ten years have a lot further to go. >> but how much of that is dependent on what happens with the overall data? you can see there all across the board here, we are seeing at least a little market impact. the jobs number come friday will be key. that's going to be huge, right?

if we get a strong jobs number, how high can yields go on the heels of that? >> well, if we have a strong jobs number, i think it will hurt the two to five year part of the curve worse than the ten year part of the curve. i do think as we go forward, the more dovish the fed is in the face of strong economic numbers, probably the higher ten years are going to go because that's going to mean they are going to have to be more aggressive down the road. >> go ahead. >> i want to chime in on that real quick, which is that you get at the real question here which is that even since these minutes were published or this meeting happened, the economic data has improved. we got that strong jobs number this morning. the nfib number is strong as well. there hasn't really been a meaningful number that hasn't been an upside surprise. we revised growth into the 3.5% range for the second half of the year. so the question becomes has the fed -- is the fed going to

change in this outlook at all and what that tolerance is around that change. again, i don't see how to judge that from these minutes but that's the question going forward. >> how much -- >> the numbers they were expecting the gdp forecast that was their consensus was 2.8 to 3.2. if we will be running around 3.5 that's already above their central tendency. that may pull forward a little bit any kind of fed response. >> we are of course watching the nonfund payrolls this friday considering that estimates seem to be lifting as we speak. >> we did see dow jones revise up their consensus with big jumps by guys like morgan stanley, 175 to 200 and somebody else went 125 to 165. it's still 200 seems to be the consensus. >> we have to watch whether the market will take good news as good news. thank you very much. let's go out and see what the markets are up to. >> take a look what's happening. we said the dow was down, call it about 65, 70 points going into the minutes. they have gotten down 75, 80

points, got back some of those losses. now we're down towards session lows, down 92 points. you see the nasdaq composite up about nine points, up .2%. the s&p not marginally higher but marginally lower. that's a big deal. let's send it down to bob pisani at the nyse. rick santelli in chicago. bob, to you first. stock market reaction may be interesting because we are at session lows, right? >> we are. that five-day forecast, first five days of the year not looking very good. we are negative on the year so far. take a look at the dow. there you are, sitting not far from the lows for the day. we were just about the same here at the open. i think the important thing is what caught everybody's eye down here is fairly bullish commentary, i thought, overall here. here's what's important. they came out and said economic progress has been meaningful, they came out and said the fed staff continues to forecast significantly faster growth, significantly faster growth, and most participants are now more confident in the economic outlook. if the degree of tapering is

determined by economic progress, this would seem to argue for a reasonably fast taper. i think that's probably why we are seeing stocks reacting somewhat to the down side. back to you. >> of course, we are watching a reaction as well in the ten year. it's at 3.009% right now. we had that ten year auction an hour ago making news as well. rick, what do you make of everything? >> bob talked about five day forecasts. we haven't seen a good five day forecast whether in the markets or on the weather. i see one basis point moving fives which are up, i see one basis point moving tens which are up half a dozen basis points. dollar index, a little bit stronger, not having a bad reception, to 2014. but the real key here is even though it seems like we have been at 3% forever, we are now flirting with only the third close with a 3% official closing handle since the lows in july of 2012. that's the key. >> that is the key.

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welcome back t "street signs." you saw it on the bottom of the screen during the fed minutes, greg maddox, tom glavine, frank thomas all elected to the baseball hall of fame. craig biggio narrowly misses election for the hall of fame. again, maddox, glavine, frank thomas, three big names i grew up with when i was watching baseball as a younger kid. all elected to the hall of fame. the word of the day is pleased. that's how jc penney described its holiday sales, although the company did not actually release results. the investors in jc penney don't seem to buy it. right now the stock is taking a big hit. let's bring in cnbc contributor jan nippen whose blood is boiling by this news, and courtney reagan. i don't know, guys. pleased seems like such a positive word to me. jan? >> well, they gave this guidance november 20th, i think it was,

and the stock went to about 9.5 and they gave the exact same guidance today and you see where the stock's been today. one would think that would be fine, right? however, my blood is boiling. i'm so mad i can't see straight that they gave numbers in november and they didn't just give a number or an about, they said 10.1%. that's about as precise as you can get. then i waited patiently thinking tuesday, just like they did the prior month, they would come out with a release that said whatever. unfortunately, they didn't come out with a release and you saw the stock got hit yesterday. >> to what degree is this making you lower your estimates for the entire quarter? does it raise a red flag and suggest there's something going wrong here? >> i originally assumed they would be 5% or 6% for the quarter. now i'm using 3% to 4%. that would assume a 10% in november, 3% in december, january really doesn't matter much, so that would put them in the three-ish range. maybe it was worse than that, maybe it was better. people are wondering.

but you can't do what they did. had they come to me back when i was running i.r. and p.r. for a major retailer with this draft release, i would have said to the guy in my office you're going to have to work some place else. >> that's a real key. let's talk about the p.r., the communications, the investor relations side of this thing. how big of a snafu is it to come out with partial numbers reflecting a certain part of the time period you're talking about and not be as forthcoming with it as jc penney could have been? >> i think it's frustrating, as you can see here. the investors want real answers, real numbers. how much can you do with pleased. it's positive and you reaffirmed exactly what you said in november. that doesn't really help me much. i'm sort of reiterating jan's point, but i do think it's troublesome. we reached out and said hey, can you offer us an executive, come talk to us, provide us with some more. they said no, thanks, we're not offering anyone at this time. >> you are being way too charitable. i described it as stupid. it was just a bad idea. >> i don't want to sound too

draconian but these are the kind of questions investors want answers to. is there any possibility there may be a need for more liquidity for jc penney this year? >> no, that's not the problem. the problem is people expected something to come out because it came out in november. had they been silent in november, it would have been fine. they didn't say anything, they still reiterated the same cash numbers for the end of the year. none of that's a problem. this is just disappointment that nobody knows what the number is and everybody expected to. >> everyone hates uncertainty in the market. courtney, there was also really big data out of the holiday shopping season across the entire retail world. what's the biggest headline? >> this is from shopper track. these are the folks that actually track what's happening in the stores. this is not online, this is only in the store. traffic did take a hit during november and december, down almost 15%. but sales were up 2.7% in store. so i talked to shopper track founder and said i don't understand what accounts for the difference. he said the thing is that people are going to the stores but they're going with intention. so they do most of their

browsing and window shopping online, if they're looking for a red sweater, they know exactly where to go. they don't have to go to the mall and check at gap, jc penney. >> they window shop online and go and say i want that, here's where i get it. >> yes. it's good -- i actually don't know if it's terrible for the malls. >> they want you to walk around and impulse buy. >> retailers need to make sure they are showing you a full catalog of what they can offer online and in the store. >> it is not good for the malls. >> you don't think so? >> it is not good for lower end malls. >> it's not terrible. people still need stores. 90% of retail sales are still done in-store. >> so far. but that changes every year now, because we're seeing the growth online being 10%, 15%, 20%. we're seeing growth in the malls being 1%, 2%. that changes every year. if you're a lower end -- if you are a less successful mall, if you are not one of those 350

great malls in america but one of those bottom 350 out of the 1100 enclosed malls, you will give up a lot of business if this is what's happening. >> the busiest shopping days, black friday, busiest day, but then also, you've got that last week so it was procrastinators that really pulled through so folks did hit the stores because perhaps they ran out of time to buy online for whatever reason, procrastination, didn't get there in time, whatever it was. those events still seem to work. >> do you see a number of malls being repurposed for other things? leasing out whole floors to corporate tenants? >> i have been describing some of the lower productivity malls as places where we will all be playing paintball or have zombie conventions or there will be aquariums or i don't know what they will be, but they are sure as heck not going to be selling retail. >> that's draconian. >> thank you so much. still ahead, the big bucks

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welcome back, everybody. you know square one, get familiar with it. that's exactly where we are right now. at 2:00 p.m. as the minutes were breaking from the december fed meeting, we were down by about 70 points. that's approximately where we are right now, down by about 80 points. very, very little change. meantime, it is the biggest breakthrough and culinary creativity since the cronut. we introduce to you the world's first burrito vending machine called the burrito box. this is how it works. customers select the kind of burrito they want, they pick the toppings and less than a minute later, a hot fresh mexican treat pops out. the burrito box offers a range of flavors like chicken, rice and beans, bacon, egg, cheese, you name it. it's currently installed in a 24 hour gas station in l.a. they say it's nice and healthy. >> i would go there all the time. i would go there all the time.

i'm just saying, i'm not the healthiest eater but i would definitely like the novelty of a make your own burrito. >> i think there is competition as well. you can have life-long free burritos from that vending machine if you're the winner. something like that. go check it out. speaking of food, monsanto is posting better than expected profits today thanks to strong sales of biotech soy beans and other seeds but could growing consumer backlash over genetically modified ingredients, gmos, become a longer term threat to monsanto? here with us is sarah eisen with more. i got to say, gmo, i eat them all the time because i just eat them. >> everybody does. >> is it a big deal? >> this is the core of our food industry in this country. more than 90% of the soybeans in the united states are genetically modified, more than 80% of corn. this is the core of what we do. it raises the question now the consumers are getting a little more aware, could this be a real problem for monsanto and some of the other players that actually supply these genetically

modified seeds. you saw general mills making the move to make cheerios not gmo. the trick there is that most of what was in cheerios were oats and those weren't modified. you don't have to change the formula too much. >> it's a good point you make. gmos are in 80% of american food products and most of it, we don't even know. i guess the move by general mills might raise awareness but bottom line, do americans care? are there any real undisputed test results that show it's bad for us? >> no. and the federal government, the fda, has said it is safe to eat genetically modified ingredients. the industry continues to say it's safe in this country. no question about it. are consumers aware of it. great question. i looked into it and for the most part, they're not. if they are, they are afraid of big food, they are skeptical of big profits before health. that includes trans-fats and gluten but not really gmos. when actually asked about their awareness and what they know about gmos, you would be shocked. very, very little.

it's a whole different ball game. that's why many industry analysts, observers and groups say it won't change any time soon. general mills, don't expect a trend here. >> we have to keep an eye. >> it's gaining traction, for sure. just not a mainstream issue. >> insidunderstood. very interesting. thank you very much. we are slurping up a thirsty edition of street talk. and sending your money on a nice long vacation. we bring you the best stock place on the slopes and on the high seas when we return. and ah, so you can see like right here i can just... you know, check my policy here, add a car, ah speak to customer service, check on a claim...you know, all with the ah, tap of my geico app. oh, that's so cool. well, i would disagree with you but, ah, that would make me a liar. no dude, you're on the jumbotron! whoa. ah...yeah, pretty much walked into that one.

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street talk time. let's take a look first of all at the container store which is really tanking today, down by 13% on a downgrade from bank of america. >> how many more catalysts can you find? that's the real crux of this kind of issue now. remember, container store was one of the hottest ipos of 2013, more than doubling, a huge day out of the gate. some would say priced for perfection, perhaps. when you have a report coming out that beats on one side of things with misses on the other, some would say nice run, let's take some profits. >> yelp pushing higher. estimates have been boosted at

jpmorgan. >> any time you talk about companies in this space, internet, online reviews, anything like that, it's about mobile. with these companies, if they can demonstrate or show there is any kind of real catalyst for the mobile side of things to get people to engage in that way, that can be big. apparently some optimism here. it's been on a nice tear. you can see there. >> yeah, really amazing performer. talking of optimism, panero being upgraded to outperformer. >> it's interesting because with these food stocks, they tend to be volatile. it depends on traffic, depends on all kinds of offerings. panero has been at least in terms of a performer a bit more on the volatile side of things. this time around, you can see over the last year, underperformer. only about 11%. so perhaps with that being said, there is still a little upside left. >> and i got a new soda stream for christmas, and maybe some other people are, too. with soda stream, this is a

company that's shown hyper-growth over the past couple years as people get into it. the question then becomes whether or not they can still deliver that same kind of growth, especially in the wake of perhaps more competition from other providers and other beverages. >> i got my dad a soda stream for christmas. >> i love it. twitter shares moving down. down 2% after cantor fitzgerald downgraded the social network stock to sell based on excessive valuation. this is just the latest of downgrades twitter has been hit with. the stock has doubled since its november ipo. we're just really wondering whether or not this is the sign of a turbulent ride ahead for twitter. let's talk numbers. on the technicals, j.c. o'hara. on the fundamentals, andy bush of the bush update. gentlemen, good to have you with us. andy, question is, how do you even value a company like twitter? >> that's a great question. you know, it ipo'ed at 26, right, and soared -- that's what

they're thinking, then it soared to 44. at 26 it was 16 1/2 times sales. even that was a premium to companies like facebook and yelp and others. at 74, where it eventually got to, that's three times that. clearly, that's out of control. the estimates for earnings going forward, were like 6 1/2 for 2013, 8 1/2 for 2014 and 16 for 2015. so the belief was that this company in its infancy would find a way to use the advertising, find a way to monetize it. one of the companies they bought is one of the ways to do that and so in their very first conference call on earnings or twitter call that's going to happen february 1st, we are going to see what they've done and it's adding more earnings or more profits to twitter. now, the key is obviously they are ending a lockup period on february 15th. there's 9.9 million shares that will be available but the big

one though is 454 million shares become available. i think that's why 20 out of 26 analysts who cover twitter have it either as a hold or a sell. >> for analysts aside, we know the fundamental case is either to buy, hold or sell it. let's talk about the objective side of things, the charts. i know that twitter hasn't been public very long so the history doesn't go back very far. what can the charts tell investors about where this stock is headed? >> you are absolutely correct. twitter has only been traded for about roughly 42 days. you don't even have enough information to get a true gauge of trend, a 50 day moving average. i will tell you this. the chart right now is on shaky territory. right on support, trading around 16. we have major critical support at 58.8. that support also comes as part of a descending triangle and that is a classic bearish pattern. now, at the same time, i don't want to lean too far over my skis and call for a breakdown. i would like to see it close to

confirm the bearish triangle, then i would get out. at the same time, if support acts as support should, we could see a counter trend rally here back up to the 65, $68 area. again, it is a very difficult chart. a lot of moving pieces to it. i would be cautious here and if you are in it, i would be very nimble. >> mind the step. thank you very much for joining us. andy and j.c. be sure to check out the online edition of "talking numbers" in partnership with yahoo! finance. still ahead, we are sending your money on a vacation so what will it be? ski or the high seas? the ultimate cabin fever stock brawl ahead. then it is out to the ces for our exclusive interview with tim armstrong of aol. before we get to that, what's coming up on "the closing bell"? >> we will see your aol and raise you a qualcomm. wearable technology is one of the major trends at this year's consumer electronics show and the ceo of qualcomm will give us his prediction for how big this market will be. not only wearable but driveable

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welcome back to "street signs." let's take a look what's happening with microsoft shares. you can see there, just down call that a 1.5%, 2% now. re/code reporting that microsoft will not make any ceo decision until february at the earliest. by the way, nbc news group is a minority stake holder in that new venture, re/code. that's one to watch for sure. >> indeed it is. intel is going all in on wearable tech at ces with earbuds and even smart onesies but is the enough to move the needle? let's bring in ed schneider. intel totally missed the boat on things like smartphones, pcs are waning. is wearable tech the right strategy now? >> it's the right strategy but

it won't move the needle, meaning that to the extent that wearables have any impact at all, intel's the one that should be powering them and they are ideally suited for that. they're doing $13.5 billion a quarter, you'll have to sell a lot of wearables to even make a dent in intel's revenue. that's probably not going to happen. >> it's not just about the wearables, it's about the ecosystem they create. some of them are still plug-in types. but they are also about bluetooth, any kind of wireless connection. how much of a ripple effect can we see from the wearable side of things into other parts of the tech atmosphere, if you will? >> good point. you can't really predict it just like you couldn't predict five, ten years ago what the smartphones would mean for this type of an industry. so it's a smart move and they have exactly the product, the processors are ideally suited for this so they should be powering this. we'll see where it goes from here. most companies including intel really can't see much more than about a year or two out in terms of where the market's going to be so you want to play what you

can now and hope for the best. >> when you say the wearable tech isn't going to move the needle, what is, then? >> well, that's the whole problem for someone as large as intel. the only thing that could come close to helping the top line would be smartphones and they have completely misexecuted for the last ten years on that and it's no different today. they are pretty far behind the smartphones. >> you have a market performer. we have to leave it there. thank you for joining us. we will be watching wearable tech from intel. marissa mayer is making waves, announcing a focus on video and digital magazines. what does that mean for rival aol? the ceo tim armstrong joins us for an exclusive interview at ces. julia? >> reporter: tim armstrong, thanks so much for coming to talk to us today. so marissa unveiled this new program to put a lot of money in

content. what does this mean for you? does it put pressure on you to change strategy? >> no, as a matter of fact we're very big partners with yahoo!. three years ago we decided to invest in video content and advertising. aol's results, i'm sitting here with you the first time in almost a decade that aol has grown. we will end 2013 with growth. from our standpoint, we were the first in the marketplace with strategies in that area and we have been very successful at them. i would expect all boats to rise in that area. >> reporter: do you have any similar changes in the works? >> again, we already changed aol three years ago. from our standpoint, a lot of people in the marketplace are catching up to where we decided to pioneer. i think from the standpoint, if you looked at our results from q-3 with content video and programatic, we are clearly number one or two in those spaces online and will continue to aggressively pursue them in 2014. >> reporter: mandy? want to jump in? >> absolutely. we understand aol offered to buy a business but no deal was made. why did you want it?

>> i'm sorry, i couldn't hear you there. >> reporter: you offered to buy business inside. >> oh, first of all we are big investors in content brands and big investors in things that we think humans really want which is curated experiences. i have been friends with henry for a long time. i think business inside is a great property. i won't comment on whether or not we have done anything with them. but we have certainly been fans of content properties. look at the huffington post, we expanded to five continents, almost at 100 million users and just surpassed 500 million video views. we are a company that can take content brands and explode them, and i think those rumors are probably driven off of how successful we have been in content. >> are you still looking to make more purchases potentially in that area? >> we are investing in four things as a business. we're investing in video, mobile, programatic advertising and content brands that are global. you can consider us to be investors in any of those four sectors. we are not investing in singles.

we are investing in doubles so any business that we are going to invest in has to hit two or three of those areas. so i'm not going to go into any details of what we're announcing or investing in, but you know our strategy. it's video content, programatic ads and we are probably the leaders in a couple of those spaces right now. >> what are you doing here, looking to make more partnerships? >> the focus areas for us at ces, we have been meeting with a lot of our customers, advertisers, i met with all the global holding company ceos. we are in meeting with the device companies. i think one of the megatrends at ces this year is the fact that content and ads and devices are getting closer together. i think you are going to see game-changing deals in that space this year. then the third thing we are doing is spending a lot of time looking at technology. we did our board meeting out here this week. we did a board meeting one day in ces meetings and tours on technology the next day. so we're very interested in where the world of technology is going. >> your local news business has been struggling.

i understand you're on the lookout for an investment partner. will that make this business worth it or are you better off shutting it down or spinning it off? >> patch is a product that gets a lot of attention and gets a lot of attention for good reason, because number one, it's an important space. we have almost 20 million users on the product and number two, it's local as a giant white space. from our standpoint, our next step is to invest in it with partners and that's what we're working on right now. i would expect during q-1 to have announcements around that. >> reporter: we look forward to hearing who that is. thanks so much for talking to us today. mandy, back over to you. look, ma, no hands. nissan ramping up plans for driverless cars. you won't believe just how soon you won't be behind the wheel. and some of us like to hit the slopes this winter, others like to hit the high seas. which winter getaway is the better stock buy? as to what's happening with the dow, it is currently down by 84 points and the more you know, the dow hit 2,000 for the very

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watch out, google. nissan is ramping up its plan to get driverless cars on the road. phil lebeau spoke to the ceo this morning and phil, what time line are we looking at here for these driverless cars? five years, ten years? maybe sooner, later? i don't know. what do you think? >> reporter: some of the technology is coming in right now. we will see it over the next couple years. completely self-driven car, you are looking closer to 2020. we had a chance to see the new r & d simulator nissan has been developing out in sunnyvale, california, all part of the company's plan to push for a completely self-driven car by 2020. if you think nissan's ahead of the game, think again. we are seeing all the auto makers get into this area. the growth in self-driven cars is really going to take off once you get into the next decade. 2025, by then, ihs automotive estimates there will be almost a quarter million on the road around the world. by 2035, 11.8 million self-driven cars. and a lot of the demand for these cars will come from aging

baby boomers. >> we see that a lot of people start to be impaired from driving at 75 or 80 years, but this technology is going to allow people, senior people, to continue to drive even if they hit 90 or years old. so in terms of quality of life, it's huge. the needs are here, the technology is getting ready. i think the ramp up is going to be pretty quick. >> what's going to slow down the ramp up is government hurdles in terms of regulations. states, countries saying, okay, this is what we expect these cars to do, here is the level of safety it must meet. it will take some time to work out the rules. first self-driven cars that go on sale, expect them to be sold at a healthy premium. they could go for $7,000 more than a standard regular car that you'll actually have to drive. take a look at shares of nissan. unlike the other auto stocks in the last year, it has not fared as well but carlos is very

optimistic about the future when it comes to self-driven cars. we've had a chance to see the tech nothing anology and talk w executives. they're in the race. guys? >> phil lebeau, thank you very much. i'd probably trust more self-driven cars than drivers on the roads. it is freezing outside and some people might be thinking a cruise sounds pretty great right now, but there are also a lot of people out there braving the slopes in this cold. i was one of them. it is just a matter of personal prefe r preference. when it comes to stocks, which is the better buy? vail resorts and royal caribbean. tim, i want to start with you on the seaside of this. rcl is your top pick. is that cold weather going to impact the stock in a good way? >> well, mandy, good afternoon. yeah, we continue to believe

that -- if you look at it historically, cold weather, especially in the northern quadrant, let's take the mississippi river east and then say from tennessee north, it generally is very positive for cruise bookings, and wee just started the critical wave period which is when 35% of the industry bookings occur in january and parts of february. from that standpoint alone we're optimistic about the wave period. >> rcl is your top leisure pick for the whole of 2014. remember all the problems that it's competitor carnival had. did that help royal caribbean in any way? >> actually in the caribbean what we've seen is carnival trying to rebuild their brand and having to do that with advertising, promotions, and discounting. on the margin it's hurt both royal and norwegian but to a lesser degree.

they are not having to rebuild a brand. what we're seeing is with royal, with the hardware they have, for example the oasis and allure of the seas, where they have that allocated within the caribbean, that's muting a large impact from what's happening at carnival. also on the revenue side, mandy, they have made some significant investments over the last two years on their crm and i.t. stams thatsta systems that's helping them manage brands. and their celebrity brand, they've had some new leadership over the last year or so and that's starting to turn here for that brand, and, again, that's going to move the needle on the revenue side. two other things i'll mention, they also have some costs and interest expense savings coming through. >> so that's the seaside of things. i want to talk about skiing. what does that do for a company like vail resorts? >> dove tailing on tim's

comments, the cold weather is a good thing for vail. we have had a great start to the season. we call this marketing snow. it's been snowing really nonstop for the last couple weeks in vail and a lot of the company's colorado assets. when the consumer sees there's going to be good snowfall. these are high end consumers. they're very price agnostic. we're seeing good advance booking visibility from the higher end and again this incremental snowfall we see drives that last-minute booking decision. the other point i'd add about 40% of vail's visitation to its four colorado resorts comes from denver locals. the unemployment rate in denver is down from about 8.5% a year ago to 6.5%. we which there's a bit of a boost from the local demand as well. >> mind you in full disclosure here, it is the only publicly traded ski mountain company in the united states. a vail resorts likely to have any competition in that department anytime soon, joel? >> not that i'm aware of right now. there's a publicly traded

company in canada, whistler black comb holdings which is a single asset property but right now this is the only pure way to play that theme currently. >> tim and joel, great stuff. what about you, sea or ski? >> i'm actually -- i like both but i would be a skier. i enjoy skiing and i a lot of fun doing it. >> i'm a skier as well. i took my very first cruise ever a couple years ago or three years ago now but guess what we hit? hurricane earl. it was the latter half of 2010 and already not having great sea legs, trust me, that was not pretty. >> i will say, i will say that the midnight buffet on any of those royal caribbean, norwegian is something to behold. >> coming up next, why the super rich might be screeching to a halt. [ male announcer ] the new new york is open.

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it seems the super rich are stalling. sales of super high end cars are slumping. you say china is to blame. >> bantly reported sales today. they had a fantastic year delivering over 10,000 cars, but the surprising thing, they look at the whole market for cars priced at $200,000 or more. that whole market globally declined last year by 6%. what was shocking to me is when you look down, every area did pretty well.

the u.s. just blockbuster last year with luxury cars. china was way down. and what they attributed it to in part was the slowing economy. that's number one. they also say the outmigration of ultra high net worth individuals from china, so the rich leaving china, their market is disappearing literally. >> where are they going to, here? >> look at the number of visas being given to chinese. they're moving to australia, moving around the world, but that has never been a market-making sort of issue until now. so we're now seeing that not just sales slowing, not just the economy slowing, but the outmigration of the wealthy from china. >> chinese billionaires moving to brazil or the u.s. buying bentleys there. >> and there's an issue of conspicuous consumption. you don't want to be a politician flashing around a bentley in china. you don't want to be seen showing your wealth in china with corruption crackdown. that's an issue. if you're going to buy a bentley, you will probably do it

in the u.s. >> we'll be speaking with the president and co o of bentley on monday here on "street signs." thank you so much. robert. thank you very much, dom, as well for joining us. >> it was a pleasure. thanks for watching, all of you guys. >> "the closing bell" is next. and welcome to the "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans at the new york stock exchange where, bill, we had a rally yesterday but we're giving it back today. >> i'm bill griffeth. those who were hoping for a follow through have been disappointed, but they can't be disappointed by the economic data out this morning. adp jobs number, 238,000 jobs created in the private sector last month. that was the biggest number in all of 2013. that was positive. the ten-year auction, we're going to talk about it in a little bit, and the fed minutes. >> and we're still di justigeste news from yesterday, the smaller trad