>> no, not really. >> nothing at all? >> it's encouraging. i just like what they're doing. it's the number one player that's down and out at an attractive valuation. >> that does it for us. rob, thanks to you. >> thanks for having me. >> have a happy and healthy one. we'll see you, i know, in 2015. that does it for us. have a great rest of the day. tyler, take it away. "halftime" is over. "power lunch" and the second half of the trading day starts right now. >> thank you very much. tyler mathisen here. rally time on wall street, folks. big day for stocks yet again. the dow, up close to 600 points in two days. s&p 500, there you see it, up 1.72% at 2047. the russell moving up more than 1%. we've got the markets covered like a warm blanket. two big newsmakers here in the next 15 minutes. nasdaq on the fight, new listings, cyber protection and everything else. plus, jim o'neill weighs in on russia and a threat none of

us can see but is a danger to us all. we are live as well in cuba as the dust settles there after yesterday's history-making announcement to normalize relations. so what's business like there now? michelle caruso-cabrera has gone in search of answers. first, though, let's go check in with sue at the nyse. hi, sue. >> hi, ty. and we're at the highs of the day, as you said. a huge rally on wall street today. and basically it's been two days that have taken us up about 3%, 600 points. we are at the high of the day. and bob pisani joins me here on the floor of the new york stock exchange. santa claus is coming a little early. >> why are we up 300 points? >> i don't know, i asked you. >> that's why i'm here. thank you. they pay me to do this. number one, oil is trying to stabilize. that's the most important thing. number two, the fed is perceived to be sympathetic to the stock market or helpful to the stock market. and finally all in on the u.s. on the part of the europeans. the germans bought heavily this morning in our markets. s&p futures went through the roof when europe opened at 3:00

a.m. take a look at the s&p 500. the only thing that caused a flutter today is when oil started to move a little bit to the down side in the middle of the day. other than that, there you see the dow industrials. we are up dramatically. s&p fluttered a little bit in the middle of the day. put up oil and i'll show you what happened. some of the oil stocks had a little trouble early on. but other than that, we've been pretty good and pretty strong all throughout the day. the xle is the main stock you want to watch. that's the etf. >> right. >> for the energy sector. and even that was positive throughout most of the day. that's an indication we're decoupling a little bit from the oil industry. all ten sectors in the s&p 500 are to the upside right now. >> come on in, kenny. kenny polcari joins me as well. let's switch places. what do you make of this? 600 points in two days. >> it's almost -- it's almost the way it was on the way down, right? we went down very quickly. just like we did in october. a lot of it was automated. and then the systems realized

that and the buyers -- well, it was just the opposite yesterday and today, right? the sellers realized the buyers are hungry. and boom, you have 600 points in two days just like that. we're back at 2050 on the s&p, almost near the all-time high. my sense now is the path of least resistance now is up because there are no more big announcement. the ecb is the next big announcement in january. here's always that headline risk, russia will continue to be a headline risk as well as oil. like bob said, if oil finds a base, investors will feel better and it will go higher. >> thanks, guys. ty, up to you. dow is hot, nasdaq sizzling. our kate rogers following the big movers there. hi, kate. >> hey, tyler. well, the nasdaq has now slashed its december losses by two-thirds, we're up over 1.5% here. tech is really moving thanks to orac oracle's beat yesterday. we've got big gains from seagate, western digital, netapp

up. microsoft leading the big-cap charge here, up almost 3%. it's responsible for about 14% of the nasdaq 100 gains today. now on the down side, amazon still among the biggest losers, down near 1%. bed, bath & beyond among the consumer names to the downside today. sue, over to you. >> kate, thank you very much. so does this carry into the new year? joining me here on the floor, anastasia amarosa and phil orlando at federated investors. good to see you both. appreciate it. >> good to see you. >> you both are optimistic going into the new year. phil, i'm going to start with you, though, because you have a fairly high s&p target. what's going to drive that? >> well, so we were down about 5% or 6% over the last week going into the beginning of this week. we felt there were two catalysts that were going to come up. one was the fed which we got. we thought yellen was going to be very dovish. and then next tuesday we think there's going to be a sizeable upside revision, a third quarter gdp, from 3.9 up to about 4.4.

that gets us to our 2100 at the end of this year. next we're at 2350. we're expecting up to about 18 times earnings. 8% earnings gains to about $130 off of $120 this year. >> right. >> that gets us to our 2350. >> you were nodding your head in agreement on some of that as well. >> i was because, you know, the earnings story is really hard to deny. and i think one thing that we have to say about going into 2015 is that we're starting off a very solid footing. we've got gas prices being down 20%, 25%. so that helps. it helps the consumer and we know that's what i have droos the u.s. economy. the only caveat that i would paint to the earnings picture is that yes, the earnings of corporations should continue to be revised higher. but the exception, of course, is energy. depending on what happens with energy prices, we could see energy earnings be a drag there. >> talk to me about high yield because there was a lot of buzz down here. and the segue is obviously from energy. >> yeah. >> the question is, is there a bank out there that has a lot of

exposure to the high-yield debt in the energy sector? would that be the surprise? how do you feel about high yield right now? >> yeah, i think so. it's not necessarily one single bank has a lot of exposure, but look at, for example, the leverage for the russell 2000 companies, the presumably the same ones that have issued the high-yield debt, that leverage ratio has picked up. we know the leverage ratio for the s&p has declined. so it does mean that the risks somewhere have accumulated. so the question is, do we think that high-yield issuers will default in 2015? >> right. >> to me the answer is no. yes, you may have a few isolated incidents, of course, energy is a susceptible one. high-yield spreads have everything to do with corporate profitability, as we talked about, fourth quarter profitability headed into 2015 is quite strong spp. >> what do you think about high yield and where would you put money to work? >> where we are -- because we've got this above-consensus gdp growth, we're at 3.4% next year.

we're clearly more economically sensitive. consumer discretionary, industrials, technology, financials, the growth of your elements of health care. so we're going to ride the economy. in terms of where the junk market is, i'm not an expert in junk. the one thing that we are concerned about is much like long-term capital in the late '90s. >> exactly. >> is there -- what's the unknown unknown? is there someone -- some hedge fund, some bank that's too much exposure? we don't know. i think that's what the market has been fretting about for the last week or so. >> but you bothy your clients fully invested. i think you told people sitting on the sidelines, it's time to get in. and if they did it, they're doing well. >> they're doing well now, but yeah, we thought that was an opportunity for a rally up to 2100. santa claus is back. >> coming to town. >> thank you, thank you. >> thank you for wearing the tie, phil. he does that just for me. great to see you. >> good to see you.

>> good to see you, too. ty, up to you continue vladimir putin holding his year-end news conference. he says basically don't blame me. he's been trying to ease fears about russia's economy insisting the alarm plunge in currency will stabilize. seemingly not working all that well. people in the streets protesting putin, health care and the prospect of recession in an economy that even the russians say may shrink 4.5% to 5% next year. cnbc's geoff cutmore is live for us in moscow. what's the latest, geoff? >> reporter: yeah, it's interesting, isn't it. there were some small protests, but tyler, to be honest, president putin's approval rating still remains high here. a lot of that is down to how russians feel he's behaved on ukraine. but just briefly on the economy, then, he said the economy should begin to recover over the next two years. and he said a lot of the reasons for the fall in the ruble are

external factors like the sanctions and the oil price. let's just listen to what he had to say. >> i do not think i could call the situation a crisis, or you may call it whatever you want. but i believe that i said quite clearly that the central bank and the government on the whole are acting correctly. >> reporter: so relatively reassuring words on the economy. and we did get a spike in the stock market here. so russians seem to have put some money back to work here. just on the ukraine, obviously classic putin. he pointed the finger at the west and said you're responsible for escalating the crisis in ukraine. but he did say we are interested in a diplomatic solution, and we would like to be part of talks that bring that around politically. and that set a more conciliatory tone than we've heard of late from the president. so i think that's been relatively well received.

back to you, tyler. >> all right, geoff. geoff cutmore reporting from moscow for us. well, one day after the president's historic announcement to normalize relations with cuba, michelle caruso-cabrera has made it to havana. michelle. >> reporter: hey there, tyler. yeah, the reaction here muted from the government. we're not going to see any of the big rallies like we've seen in the past, no long hours worth of speeches. just that appearance by president raul castro on the tv yesterday. and some students marching in support of the government last night, and also about the release of the spy that had been released from prison. the relations come as cuba over the last few years -- moving away from an economy that is entirely controlled by the government to one that has some free market policies. though they'll never say that. they'll never take free market. they won't use words like entrepreneurs, things like that, but they have done things like say okay, before anyone works

for the government now, there's 180 categories where you don't have to work for the government. you can work for your own account, as they call it. you know, not an owner, not an entrepreneur. you know, categories like shop owners, party clowns, if you want to refill lighter fluid, et cetera. those changes, though, as tiny as they are, have led to 400,000 people deciding to go out on their own. that's according to government statistics and start businesses themselves. some have failed. but what we have found when we were here one year ago is that a lot of those individuals are actually making now far more money than they did before, and more than the average worker in cuba who makes $19 a month. this store that we're showing you here, a woman who makes clothing for the religion, we focused on her a year ago. look at those singer sewing machines from the 1950s. they still work, a testament to

american manufacturing. but she was clearing 100 -- the equivalent of 120 u.s. dollars per month take home. that makes her one of cuba's 1%. i'm not sure the government realized just how successful that little reform would be. as you lift the lid of economic repression just a little bit, what starts to happen? there needs to be more of that if ever there's going to be real foreign direct investment regardless of what the united states does with the embargo, they need things like rule of law, contracts that actual companies would want to enter into. they haven't offered those kinds of things in the past. so there's a lot of hurdles for the cuban economy here. but once again, a big historic step when it comes to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations. back to you, tyler. >> michelle, thank you very much. michelle caruso-cabrera reporting live from havana where it's 81 degrees, by the way. how will opening relations with cuba affect a small but very committed group that michelle just mentioned? cuban entrepreneurs joining us now is ted hankin, author of

"entrepreneurial cuba: the changing policy landscape," also associate professional at baruch college. good to have you with us. i was speaking with another student of cuba who said that the changes announced yesterday including the ability to send more money in will probably help the small entrepreneurial class more than anybody. do you agree with that? >> i do agree with that. the cuban government has an internal embargo against the cuban people, political freedoms, civic liberties and also economic free am dodofreed. but over the last five years, raul has started to heed the advice that he needs to convert some of the state-owned economy into the private sector because they're trying to lay off 1.8 million people in cuba, and they need somewhere for them to go. and so this that michelle mentioned, this self-employment, is part of their answer. they also have cooperatives, but that's a very new development that's just getting started. >> so what is the mechanism by

which the policy overtures announced yesterday will actually directly help those small -- call them businesspeople? >> yeah, microentrepreneurs because they're still very small. the government still has a lot of controls over them. but what it will do is allow americans -- especially cuban-americans who are very interested and very knowledgeable about entrepreneurship and interested in helping their fellow country men and women in cuba. and so it would allow them to do various things. one thing is invest and send more money to those businesses. a lot of the remittances, 2.5 or $2.6 million a year is coming from cuban-americans. they can now send a lot more given the changes obama -- >> $2,000 a month? there was a number attached to it. >> of the remittance. yeah, it went from $500 to $2,000. it quadrupled the amount of you can send per quarter, i think it is. and that's going to have an impact. it's already had an impact over

the last three or four years because obama, remember, made marginal adjustments to that after he became elected the first time in 2009. >> do you expect that on the streets of havana and the countryside, the might haves announced yesterday jointly in a coordinated yesterday with the u.s. and castro regime were highly well receive there had? are people happy about this? >> i think people are happy with tears in their eyes, especially small businesspeople because they're the ones who are constantly up against the lack of resources, the lack of a wholesale market, the lack of credit. there's no credit market in cuba. and they need a place where they can go. the government still wants to monopolize import/export. the government hasn't set up wholesale markets. the government restricts what you can bring in in the airport. but with the u.s. opening the door, the pressure's going to be on the cuban government. you can't blame the u.s. anymore. who are they going to blame? >> well, that's an interesting point. professor, thank you very much. ted hankan.

all restrictions on cuba and you voted 63% yes, 37% no. sue. ty, when there is a lot going on with russia and the ruble, who better to have of the bricks, former goldman sachs chairman jim o'neill. it's good to have you here, jim. appreciate it. we have a lot to talk about with you from russia, of course, to oil to the sony hacking, but i want to start with what you've been focusing your attention on quite a bit, a new problem -- some say it's an old problem that's just been ignored -- that you say could cost the world $100 trillion by 2050. and that is the superbug that is out there, or bugs, plural. tell me about that. what did your report find? >> well, that's part of it. and the initial stages of this report, i've been working independently but at the request of the british prime minister to try and estimate what the costs

to the world as a whole will be, both economically and otherwise, are failing to deal with antimicrobial resistance which includes superbugs, but unfortunately if we don't find a solution, it's going to affect a lot of infectious diseases around the world, particularly for some of my friends in the countries and africa. what i'm tasked with is to not only highlight the problem which we've done in this initial report, i think it's the first global estimate on such an issue that's ever been undertaken, and it's very complex to do. but after this now, we have to, more importantly, come up with some ideas about trying to recommend a solution to both the dependency on especially antibiotics but also to try and come up with reasons and ideas to stimulate the production of new antibiotics. so a big challenge, but a very important one. >> it is an extremely big challenge, and that leads me to

the next question which is how do you galvanize basically the world or perhaps the wealthier countries in the world to come together and agree to fight this? i mean, there's only one or two fo pharmaceutical companies out there who have been focusing on these particular bugs, and they have not benesly rewarded for it until recently. cuba's pharmaceuticals which was just bought by merck. how do you galvanize that? >> so there's a number of strands that we're already got ideas about where to pursue. and as evidenced by the example you just mentioned, it seems to me trying to boost the amount of innovation that's going on in amr is probably a really important thing. if you look at the number of people that we estimate could die by 2050, it's possibly 10 million globally, and that's a conservative estimate. that will be more than the number of people that die in the world today from cancer. and if you compare the amount of research going into both, of

course, in amr, it's pretty minuscule. so one idea we're looking at, we're in the very early stages of the idea of some kind of global innovation fund. diagnostics is another area we think could play a very important role, a sort of google for doctors as such in which we try to enable or force or help our medical experts around the world be more disciplined about the use of antibiotics. >> yes. >> and on top of those two things, the really big thing touching on specifically your question, is i have to try and persuade at a minimum the g-20 if not more countries around the world to sign up to join agreements supporting all of these ideas. i've got between now and the middle of 2016 to try and pull it off. but it's a big challenge but one that i'm very committed to trying to help. >> obviously, and what i've read of the report or what's contained in the report, i'm sure you will get their attention when you do address the g-20. let me turn you to russia.

you've spent a lot of time in russia. you coined the name brix, brazil, russia, india, china. give me your thoughts on what's happening in russia right now with the fall of oil and where that puts president putin, because everybody says he's very smart, but this may have been a miscalculation. >> yeah, many people i've spent a lot of time with as well as following leading political figures have often told me they think he's the smartest guy in the world political stage for many years. but one wonders about that when you look at the challenges that put themselves under here. in some ways i can turn a lot of conventional thinking on his head. i wonder whether it was the decline in the oil price and the realization that the russian economy was going to go through a really weak phase which encouraged putin to think of ways of remaining just as popular as, of course, he's been

for the past decade if not longer in russia. and despite the fact we obviously disprove of all the things he's been presiding over the past few months, of course, until at least now, he's been highly popular with his people still. and it might well be a lot of it was motivated by trying to distract attention away from the weak economy. the miscalculation, i think, he's made here is because of the collapse of the ruble, there's going to be a huge shock to the real incomes of 140 million russians. and his popularity is not just because he's tough. it's because russian people have done so well the past decade, if not longer. even though they're not the biggest of the brics, they're the wealthiest of the brics. that's now in the process of changing dramatically. if he's as smart as people think he is, somewhere along the line he's going to make a big change. i just heard your guys from moscow reporting on it.

maybe we've got a hint of some sign of that today, but in my judgment, he can't carry on down the same path or he's not going to retain his popularity. and ultimately his power base. >> let me turn you to the current controversy over sony. they were hacked by the north koreans. your take on that? they have basically pulled the movie at this point. what should they do? they're a corporation in crisis. >> yeah. you know, to be honest, i'm not sure if i'm particularly qualified to give them any wisdom or opine on that, but obviously, you know, in the way life has become, everybody's got to be foremost really mindful of personal risk. and whatever the questions about the independence of that company, if there's any vague concern of threats of human life, obviously they've got to act on that. >> yes. >> everything else is secondary. >> i would be remiss if i didn't ask you about the u.s. market, the u.s. economy quickly before we let you go because i know

you're very busy. but we're at the highs of the day. 300 points to the plus side on the dow. a 600-point move to the upside in two days. what do you make of the market here? >> well, it's fascinating because the markets obviously have read the fed message so constructively. and maybe the fed's pulled off a very special trick that a lot of us have started to worry they wouldn't be able to do these days. because i read what the fed said yesterday as suggesting that they're looking through the decline in oil prices and maybe there's more cohesive and consensus amongst the fed governors about thinking about raising rates from the middle of next year onward. slightly hawkish compared with what i would have thought. but of course, they can only go ahead with that if there's no real damaging repercussions and con ttagion through the market. it looks to me like they've pulled off an important trick. let's hope it continues so we

can vaguely begin to think about returning to normality through 2015 and beyond. thanks for having me on. >> please come back soon. jim o'neill. >> okay, thank you. coming up next, an exclusive will nasdaq ceo bob greifeld. reports that the nyse will try and combat dark pools. we'll also talk cyber protection and possible listings at the nasdaq in 2015. is uber, perhaps, in the offing? we'll talk about that with the dow up 306 points. new high for the trading session. we're back in two. in this accident... because there was no accident. volvo's most advanced accident avoidance systems ever. the future of safety, from the company that has always brought you the future of safety. give the gift of volvo this season and we'll give you your first month's payment on us.

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-- on the dow jones industrial average, which is up 298 points, just off of the session highs, which was a gain of about 308 points. that's almost a $1.75 move to the upside. the nasdaq up almost 2 full percentage points on the percentage moves on the trading session. and that is the equivalent basically of 86 points to the plus side. s&p 500, up 1.3% and the russell 2000 is up 1.3% on the trading day. ty? >> all right, sue, thank you. 2014 turning out to be a banner year for the stock markets and has helped set the stage for the best year for ipos since 2000. what does 2015 have in store? we've got a guy who's got a good view of that. he's the nasdaq group ceo bob

greifeld. >> pleasure to be here. >> we talk about this ipo picture. it's been a great year. a lot of them. the nasdaq has been responsible for the bulk of the ipos that have come to market. as you take a look at what's happened in 2014, what exactly is going to happen for 2015? can we expect to see 200 or more ipos again? kathy smith over at renaissance capital, she manages an ipo etf, says that we could see more than 200 ipos next year. >> so the first thing i would say is what's important behind the ipo number, we did 186 so far this year, is that means you have companies that really are growing and have need for capital to continue or accelerate their growth path. that's great for the overall economy. i think 200 is in the realm of possibility. we'll finish this year somewhere in the 190s so it's not too far out of steam. you see our pipeline right now is very strong. it's probably equal to or greater than the pipeline we had last year. so we enter 2015 with a fairly high degree of optimism.

>> now, you've beaten out your major competitors in the exchange space for ipo listings. but you missed out on a very big one, and that, of course, was alibaba, the biggest ipo in history. next year a lot of people are expecting maybe uber, some other high-profile ipos to come out. take us through what you are going to do as nasdaq to ensure you get some of those high-profile, high-fund-raising ipos. >> they're important. and we have won a number this year. gopro obviously had a wonderful debut. we had jd.com did a great job, truecar. so our value proposition really is the same whether you're small, medium or large company. so we do a great job with branding and giving our companies visibility. we do a great job managing, helping our companies manage through the quarterly earnings process. when i say when you go public, you're facing an endless series of quarter. beyond the party and celebration associated with that, we want to

work with our clients quarter after quarter, year after year. and that really is what differentiates p s us. >> how important is it for you to score the lebron jameslike ipos, the big ones? and does it really elevate your brand, your company when you get them, and how do you feel when you don't? >> sure. so from a financial point of view, it's not important. so alibaba listing -- >> that's what i'm driving at. >> yeah, probably says $50,000. it's not about the revenue associated with it, but you correctly identify it's about the brand. nasdaq has built its brand over the decades by being associated with our companies. and our companies truly have been the innovative entrepreneurial companies. so it was important to us and we worked very hard at it. >> market structure is also a big deal. there's been a lot of reports that exchange operators are working with bank broker/dealers to craft a new system by which we trade stocks. can you take us through what you can tell us about that dialogue that's happening between regulators, banks and exchanges

about how market structure may look different in 2015? >> first thing i want to say is the u.s. equity market structure is the best on the planet. the deepest, fairest, most liquid efficient marketplace. this year we had over 60 companies from outside the u.s. say their home market was not as good as the u.s. but we need to get better. we're the best but we can get better. there's been an ongoing dialogue between the different industry participants now for a long period of time. it's a hotly debated topic. what we've done is we want to participate in that dialogue, and i think it's productive. but we took some unilateral action. and that is in february, 14 of our stocks were taken down what's known as the access fee from 30 cents to 5 cents. so 14 actively traded stocks. and we're going to see -- and we'll see it in conjunction with our customers whether the market quality has improved as a result of that. so we're very excited about that. >> now, cybersecurity is a big deal. we know that sony, a very

high-profile victim of a hack attack. they've pulled a high-profile movie as a result of that. what is nasdaq doing to secure itself, and what is cybersecurity going to mean in 2015 for nasdaq? >> so cybersecurity is obviously a situation where you can never rest. we had a wake-up call about four or five years ago, and i'm grateful for that because we really had to get to what i call government-grade or military-grade security. so we have a team of people that focus on it. they're ever vigilant. you win battle after battle after battle, but you realize that you still have to be prepared for the next battle. so it's something we're keenly aware of. we're focused on it. we protect our trading systems to the fullest extent that's, i think, possible at this point in time. but we also recognize that there are forces out there that will continue for themselves to get better to try to infiltrate an attack. so it's a state of preparedness. >> one final question. as you look ten years down the

road and you think back ten years ago, i know nasdaq makes money very differently today than it did back then. how will it be different ten years from now? >> well, we are now a technology company, right? ten years ago, you say we really were a stock exchange company. >> right. >> today even our exchanges we say it's a technology business where we happen to get paid per share or per contract. so you look forward ten years from now and you look at our business composition, it's always going to be about how do we deploy technology to improve the lives of our lists companied, our trading community partners, other exchanges around the world that we think we're excited about helping cuba out as they want to develop their own market. it's always going to be about technology. >> bob, thank you very much. dom, thank you as well. bob greifeld, the ceo of nasdaq. appreciate your being with us. >> thank you. sue, down to you. >> we have a stellar rally on the street on the back of the fed. the dow jumping 300 points now. second straight day. we'll have some of the winners for you straight ahead.lywood i.

sony is pulling "the interview" from theaters. won't even release it on video or dvd. did they make the right move? you can go to cnbc.com/vote and weigh in. we're back in two. has gotten yo, but what if you could see more of what you wanted to know? with fidelity's new active trader pro investing platform, the information that's important to you is all in one place, so finding more insight is easier. it's your idea powered by active trader pro. another way fidelity gives you a more powerful investing experience. call our specialists today to get up and running.

welcome back to "power lunch." the dow is experiencing its best two-day rally since january of 2013. and the catalyst, yes, the fed saying it would take a patient approach toward raising interest

rates. the dow currently up by about 300 points, near their session highs. having the biggest impact on the blue chip index, goldman sachs adding 31 points to today's gains. visa and ibm 25 apiece. 3m also tacking on 23. a good day for those blue chips and the index overall, sue. with the dow up 307 points on the trading session, let's see what's happening in metals. we do have a slight gain. a lot of people thought metals markets would get hit hard today. not the case so far. we're up about $1.50 on the trading session for gold. earlier, now up about 0.2%. about $10. silver is in the green. copper market slightly lower. a 14-point -- a $14 gain in the palladium market and platinum just modestly to the down side. let's check in on interest rates and rick santelli at the cme. hey, ricky. >> reporter: hi, sue. there's nothing modest about the moves in interest rates and mostly because of the move in

equities. obviously it's big time. and if you look at a two-day chart of tens, you could see how big time it is. and if you open the chart up to early november, you can see that we have a lot of resistance. just above us, we're currently trading 2.22%, between 2.30 and 2.38. boy, do we have resistance. look for that. when it comes to currencies, let's be extreme today! let's look at a six-month chart of the dollar versus the ruble. yes, it's extreme. it has leveled off. but even at these levels, the dollar is off 80 something percent against the ruble year to date. let's look at another one. let's look at the dollar versus the chinese yeah auan. it is at the best levels since 6.27. it's down about 2.6% versus the greenback. tyler, back to you. >> rick, thank you very much. the fed day rally continues and how the s&p 500 up almost 4%

over just the past two sessions. the biggest winners coming up. you do not see a green wall like that very often. that means about 25 stocks are in the red and on the s&p 500. plus, it's being called a win for cyber terrorists. sony pulling now its controversial movie "the interview" from theaters. did the company do the right thing, or has it opened up now a pandora's box for more hackers and terroristic threats? go to cnbc.com/vote and let us know how you think.

welcome back to "power lunch." the s&p 500 near session highs, continuing its rally from yesterday when the fed said it would be patient in regard to raising interest rates, leading the way higher for the index, oracle on strong earnings. first solar, tenet health care, kraft foods. again, kraft announcing that chairman john cahill will replace ceo tony vernon there. big s&p movers, sue, on the day. back to you. we're up 203 points on the dow jones industrial average.

the dow and the s&p up almost 4% in two days. let's get the trading action with bob pisani. i feel like i should be wearing my santa claus hat or something. >> i know. my heavens. you're saying why are we up so much? that's why here we're. there's three reasons. i think oil is really trying to stabilize in the mid-50s. secondly, of course, as sue said, the fed is helpful. here's the other one. europe is really all in on u.s. stocks. how do i know that? because i watch the markets. look at the s&p futures. 3:00 a.m. in the morning, suddenly s&p futures which are normally fairly quiet went right through the roof. that's 3:00 a.m., that move up. that's europe. that's germany opening, pouring money into u.s. futures. that's how we know that's happening. xle here, take a look at the energy sector. oil started moving down. we had a little test midday. as soon as the stock market opened, oil stocks went negative briefly but then moved sideways. that's a very important test here. we're trying to deconnect -- disconnect from the oil sector. sectors are on the upside today.

very rare, almost all ten sectors are up 1% on the day or more. you just don't see that very often. that is a broad rally, folks. so i think it's very important, sue, that it's with the help of the fed and with europe pouring money in, we are trying to disconnect a little bit from the oil volatility. any kind of stability in oil here, i think we're going to be very good for the rest of the year. >> absolutely. all right, bob. appreciate it. uptown to the nasdaq and kate rogers. kate? >> sue, we are inching closer to 2% gains here where the rally continues. the russell 2000 continuing to climb, it's up over 1%, closed up over 3% thanks to yesterday's fed rally. for the month, it's up around 1.5%. we're also watching biotech names here. moving today, we're seeing gains from biogen. and among the biggest gainers on the nasdaq 100, the btk up near 2.5%. we always have an eye on tesla, also up around 2.5% for the week. tyler? let's take a look at the video just in now of boston

bombing suspect dzhokhar tsarnaev. he was led to the federal courthouse in boston for a pretrial hearing after being asked by the judge, he said he was satisfied with his legal counsel. we have not seen that individual in quite some time. but there he is being transported to and from the vehicles. this is all you will see of "the interview," that movie, for now. sony drops the film after hacker threats. hollywood actors speaking out. we want to hear from you. should sony have blinked and pulled the movie? go to cnbc.com/vote. more on this unfolding story right after this. new way to work

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welcome back to "power lunch oi ." check out session highs. lockheed martin, one of the biggest in the world.

also ray ththeon. defense stocks showing some of that upside, tyler, firepower in today's trade. sony has pulled, as you probably know, the release of "the interview." that's led to a ton of criticism in hollywood. now, the encyclopedia defines an act of war in which a belligerent prevents access to or departure from a defined part. is that where we're headed? do you think they should have pulled the movie? go vote now on cnbc.com/vote. let's bring in our julia boorstin in los angeles. eamon javers is at a secret location outside of washington where they are monitoring hackers. and we'll have more on that at the top of the hour. back to him in just a second. let me begin with you, julia. i've read some commentary from performers, actors and people in hollywood who are quite critical of sony's move. >> reporter: absolutely, tyler. we could look at some of the tweets, but we had everyone from

rob lowe to judd apatow to jimmy kimmel coming out and saying they think this is terrible, terrible for free speech and dplokcy. rob lowe said he saw seth rogen at jfk. he says hollywood has done neville chamberlain proud today. steve carell had a movie canceled greenlit called "pyongyang," of course, about north korea saying it was a sad day for creative expression. >> does this movie have any potential ever, julia, to reach pay-per-view where it might actually make a lot of money for sony because goodness sakes, the publicity it has gotten is priceless. >> reporter: i certainly think that this movie could be huge on video on demand. right now sony has told us that there are no plans to release it on video on demand. of course, that could all change. i think it will be really interesting to see what happens over the next several weeks, even over the next month if they

find out any information about the credibility of this threat. sony has ruled it out for now, but anything could change in the future. >> eamon, this sony story has tentacles that go into lots of different industries. and it goes beyond the mere fact that sony's computers were hacked. the government says by pyongyang or agents working on behalf of north korea. it goes beyond that really to how a corporation is vulnerable to hacking, number one, and number two, vulnerable to blackmail. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, tyler. well, what happened here is a lot of folks are now talking about the possibility that the north koreans were, in fact, behind this attack. government officials behind the scenes have been leaking to the media, you've seen a lot of headlines over the last 12 to 24 hours that it was, in fact, the north koreans behind this attack. the u.s. government, though, officially not actually confirming that at this point. and part of the difficulty here for the u.s. government is figuring out if we do name, as

the united states, we do name north koreans as responsible for this attack, what can we do about it? what are the range of options here for a u.s. government response? and it's very, very tricky. as you say, this was a private company with private security that was hit. and privately damaged. to what extent is that the government's responsibility to deal with, and does that rise to the level of what a lot of people in the cybersecurity industry have been talking about for years, which is a cyber pearl harbor. folks i'm talking to think it's not quite there on this one. >> eamon, julia thank you very much. let's lock in the vote, shall we? should sony have pulled "the interview." and you can see by 4-1, the viewers say no, it should not have. 20% yes. 80% no. and we'll have more from eamon later after the top of the hour on where he is and what they do at that undisclosed location outside of washington to combat hacking and its threats. sue, down to you. >> ty, as you can see, we have a very strong rally on the street.

up 297 points now. it's the best two-day gain for the dow and the s&p 500 since january of 2013. more markets when "power lunch" is back in two. opinions. there's no shortage in this world. who do you trust? whose analysis is accurate? how do you make sense of it all? a simple, unbiased stock score consolidated from the opinions of independent analysts... is that too much to ask? nope. equity summary score, powered by starmine, will help you execute your ideas with speed and conviction.

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welcome back to ""power lunch." fedex moving higher as the day

progresses. goldman sachs analysts upgrade and increase the price target to 211 bucks. remember, sue, yesterday it got hit with a pretty big selloff on the heels of a bad earnings report. back over to you. >> yeah, it sure did. a little bit of a recovery for shareholders today. in this hour, power stocks sharply higher with the dow up as much as 300 points today. almost 600 points in two days. former goldman sachs asset management chairman jim o'neill says that russian president putin has made a miscalculation with the sharp drop in the ruble and oil. and nasdaq omx group ceo bob greifeld says cybersecurity is a situation where you can never rest. he says i he has a team that wins battle after battle but always has to prepare for the in ex-one. let's see what's coming up at 2:00 p.m. on "street signs." >> hey there, sue. it's a case of what does the fed say. luckily i've got steve liesman riding shotgun with me today. even though stock market investors are cheering what the

fed said yesterday, we're going to try and decipher exactly what it does mean going forward. also joining us from "shark tank," jaidamon john will be wi us for the whole hour. questions like would he invest in cuba? make sure you join us at the top of the hour for "street signs." "power lunch" returns after this quick break. [ male announcer ] your love for trading never stops.

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welcome back to ""power lunch" commercial real estate owner capital properties is down about 6% in trading. now it's plummeting on news of a lawsuit by the company's former chief accounting officer that the ex-chairman told managers to maybe manipulate financial results. again, some interesting stories and developments on this particular front, sue. back over to you. >> thank you very much. a very big rally, as you know, on the street. second day running. joining us now, senior managing partner with meridian equity partners. so what do you make? it seems to be sustainable at least for today. the question is tomorrow. >> true. and it is sustainable. i'm quite surprised at the market movements that we're seeing today, yesterday clearly warranted whatever information we got out of the fed. but the follow-through today is really showing us something special. this santa claus rally really wants to happen. we've been watching oil and the effects of oil on this market. >> absolutely. >> we thought for a little while maybe this pressure was going to be too much. but what we're seeing now is this follow-through.

the thing i don't like is there's not enough volume to support this rally. >> exactly. >> we're 15% below volume from yesterday and today's rally. clearly tomorrow we've got a lot of volume there. >> thank you, jonathan. that does it for us on "power lunch." >> sue, thanks very much. "street signs" begins right thousand. ♪ i'm going to take you higher and welcome to "street signs," everybody, where we are watching the markets take us higher. almost everywhere you look, we are up, and good things are coming in packages of two. the s&p enjoying its best two-day gain in nearly two years. the dow is now up nearly 600 points over these two sessions. and the index is also seeing its best day of the year for the second day in a row. all of this despite crude oil futures turning negative. so it's all largely thanks to an early christmas gift from janet yellen. hello, everybody, i'm mandy drury. broo