american moment and i'll spend every minute of my last years make shurg that we seize it. my presidency is entering the fourth quarter. interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter and i'm looking forward to it. but you usually get a time-out. now looking forward to a quite time-out. christmas for my family. i want to wish everybody a merry christmas and happy hanukkah, happy new year. i hope you get time to spend with your families as well because one thing that we share is that we're away too much from them. and now and i'm going to start with them. here you go.

>> thank you mr. president. starting with north korea. that's the biggest topic today. what does a proportional response look like to the sony hack? and did sony make the right decision in pulling the movie or does that set a dangerous precede precedent. >> let me address the second question first. sony the corporation suffered significant damage. there were threats against it's employees. i am sympathetic to the concerns they faced. having said all of that yes i think they made a mistake. in this interconnected digital

world there's going to be tu opportunities for hackers to engage in cyber assaults in the private sector and public sector. now our first order of business is making sure that we do everything to harden and prevent those kind of attacks from taking place. when i came into office i stood up a cyber security inner agency team to look at everything we can do at the government level to prevent these attacks and one thing i hope congress is prepared to work with us on is strong cyber security laws that allow for information sharing across private sector platforms as well as the public sector so that we are incorporated the best practices and preventing these attacks from happening in

the first place. some of them will be nonstate actors. many of them can do some damage we cannot have a society in which some dictator can start imposing censorship in the united states because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a movie imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like or news reports that they don like. or even worse imagine if producers and distributors and

others start engaging in self-censorship because they don want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. so that's not who we are. that's not what america is about. american i'm sympathetic that sony as a private company was worried about liabilities and this and that and the other i wish they had spoken to me first. i would have told them do not get into a pattern in which you're intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks. imagine if instead of it being a cyber threat somebody had broken into their offices and destroyed a bunch of computers and stolen

disks and -- is that what it takes for suddenly you to pull the plug on something? so you know, we'll engage with not just the film industry but the news industry and the private sector around these issues. we already have. we will continue to do so. but i think all of us have to anticipate occasionally there's going to be breaches like this. they're going to be costly. they're going to be serious. we take them with the upmost seriousness. but we can't start changing our patterns of behavior any more than we stop going to a football game because there might be the possibility of a terrorist attack any more than boston didn't run it's marathon this year because of the possibility that somebody might try to cause

harm. so let's not get into that way of doing business. >> would you consider taking some sort of symbolic step like watching the movie yourself or do a screening here. >> i have a long list of movies i'm going to be watching. >> would this be one of them? >> you know, i never release my full movie list. but let's talk of the specifics of what we now know, the fbi announced today and we can confirm that north korea engaged in this attack. it says something interesting about north korea that they had the state mount an all out assault on a movie studio because of a movie starring

seth rogen and james franco. i love seth and i love james but the notion that that was a threat to them i think gives you some sense of the kind of regime we're talking about here. they caused a lot of damage. and we will respond. we will respond proportionally and we'll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose. it's not something that i will announce here today at a press conference. more broadly this points for the need for us to work with the international community to start setting up some very clear rules of the road in terms of how the internet and cyber operates. right now it's the wild west and part of the problem is you have weak states that can engage in these kinds of attacks.

you have nonstate actors that can do enormous damage. that's part of what makes this issue of cyber security so urgent. again this is part of the reason why it's so important to work with us and get an actual bill passed that allows for the kind of information sharing we need because, you know, if we don't put in place the kind of architecture that can prevent these attacks from taking place this is not just going to be effecting movies. this is going to be effecting our entire economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant. and by the way, i hear you're moving to europe. where are you going to be? >> brussels. >> yes. helping politico start a new publication. >> congratulations. >> it's been a long road. >> there's no doubt that what belgium needs is a version of

politico. the waffles are delicious there by the way. you have been naughty. cheryl go ahead. >> thank you mr. president. looking ahead to your work with congress next year, you mentioned as an area of possible compromise tax reform. and so i am wondering do you see a republican congress as presenting a better opportunity for actually getting tax reform next year? will you be putting out a new proposal? are you willing to consider both individual and corporate side of the tax ledger there and also are you still concerned about corporate inversions? >> i think an all democratic congress would have provided a better opportunity for tax

reform but i think talking to speaker boehner and leader mcdonnell that they are serious about wanting to get some things done. the tax area is one area where we can get things done. and in the coming weeks leading up to the state of the union there will be conversations at the staff levels about what principals each side are looking at. i can tell you broadly what i'd like to see. i'd like to see more simplicity in the system. i'd like to see more fairness in the system. with respect to the corporate tax reform issue we know that there are companies that are paying the full 35% higher than just about any other company on earth if you're paying 35%. and then there are other companies that are paying zero because they have better accountants or lawyers. that's not fair. there are companies parking

money outside and everybody is paying something if they can effectively headquatered in the united states. in terms of corporate inversion those are situations where companies really are headquatered here but on paper switched their headquaters to see if they can avoid paying their fair share of taxes. fairness, everybody paying their fair share, everybody taking responsibility. i think it's going to be very important. some of those principals i've heard republicans say they share. how we do that, you know, the devil is in the details and i'll be interested in seeing what they want to move forward. i'm going to make sure that we put forward some pretty specific proposals building on what we have already put forward.

one other element of this i think is important is -- and i have been on this hobby horse now for six years -- bless you -- we have got a lot of infrastructure we have to rebuild in this country if we're going to be competitive, roads, bridges, ports, airports, electrical grids, and we are way behind and we indicated there's a way of us doing corporate tax reforms. lowering rates, eliminating loopholes so everybody is paying their fair share and during that transition also providing a mechanism to get some infrastructure built. i'd like to see us work on that issue as well. historically obviously infrastructure isn't a democratic or republican issue

and i'd like to see if we can return to that tradition. >> i'd like to ask about cuba. what would you say to democracy advocates inside cuba that fear the policy changes you announced this week could give the regime economic benefits without having to address human rights or their political system when your administration was lifting sanctions you sought commitments and why not do the same with cuba and do you have any indication that north korea was acting in conjunction with another country? perhaps china. >> we have no indication that north korea was acting in conjunction with another country. with respect to cuba, we have glad that the cuban government has released slightly over 50 dissidents. they are going to be allowing the international committee of the red cross and the united nations human rights agencies to operate more freely inside of

cuba and monitor what the taking place. i share the concerns there of human rights activists. this is still a regime that represses it's people and as i said when i made the announcement, i don't anticipate overnight changes but what i know deep in my bones is if you have done the same thing for 50 years and nothing has changed you should try something different if you want a different outcome and this gives us an opportunity for a different outcome and suddenly cuba is open to the world in ways that it has not been before. it's open to americans traveling there. it's open to church groups

visiting. their fellow believers in cuba in ways they haven't been before. it offers the prospect of telecommunications and the internet being more widely available in cuba in ways it hasn't been before and overtime that chips away at this society and offers the best prospect of greater freedom and determination on the part of the cuban people. i think it will happen in fits and starts but true engagement we have a better chance of bringing about change than we would have otherwise. >> do you know where you see cuba being at the end of your presidency? >> i think it would be unrealistic for me to map out

exactly where cuba would be. change is going to come to cuba. it has to and the more the people see what's possible the more interested they're going to be in change but how societies change is culturally specific. it could happen fast and slower than i'd like. it's going to happen and this policy is going to change that. >> i have a number of questions on cuba as well. >> do i have to write all of these down? how many are they? that number standed intimidating. >> quick as i can.

i wanted to see if you got any assurances from the cuban government that it would not revert to the same sort of sabotage it has in the past when top presidentss made similar ovetures. >> be specific. what do you mean. >> they shot down planes they sort of had this pattern of being provocative -- >> just general provocative activities. >> provocative activities any time the u.s. reached out it's hand to them. i wanted to see what is your knowledge of castro, did he have any roles in the talk? did you ask about him? how is he doing? people haven't seen him in awhile. given the deep opposition from some republicans in congress to lifting the embargo to an embassy to any changes you're

doing are you going to personally get involved in term of talking to them about efforts they want to do for money on a new embassy. >> i'm going to cut you off here. this is taking up a lot of time. >> okay. >> so with respect to sabotage, i mean my understanding of the history for example the plane being shot down it's not clear that that was cuban government purposefully trying to undermine the clinton administration it was a tragic circumstance that ended up collapsing talks that had begun to take place. i haven't seen a historical record that suggests that they shot the plane down specifically in order to undermine the clinton government. i think the -- it is not precedented for the president of

the united states and they move toward normalizing relations. there hasn't been anything like this in the past. that doesn't mean that over the next two years question anticipate them taking certain actions they may find deeply troubling. and that could put significant strains on the relationship. so that's true for a lot of countries out there where we have an embassy. and the whole point of normalizing relations is that it gives us a greater opportunity to have influence with that

government than not so i would be surprised if the cuban government purposefully tries to undermine it's own policy. they would be surprised if they this to take actions we think were a problem and we will be in a position to respond to whatever actions they take. the same way we do with a whole range of countries around the world when they do things we think are wrong. and actually have it and we can then apply. the only time fidel's name came up, i may have mentioned this in another interview i did was i

delivered a fairly lengthy statement at the front end about how we're looking forward to a new future in the relationship between our two countries but that we are going to continue to press on issues of democracy and human rights which we think are importa important. you know my opening remarks probably took about 15 minutes which on the phone is a pretty long time and at the end of that he said, mr. president, you're still a young man, perhaps you -- at the end of my remarks i apologized for taking such a long time but i wanted to make sure that before we engaged in the conversation that we -- he was very clear about where i stood. he said oh don't worry about it mr. president you're still a young man and you still have the chance to break fidel's record he once spoke 7 hours straight.

and then president castro proceeded to deliver his own preliminary remarks that lasted at least twice as long as mine. and then i was able to say obviously it runs in the family. but that was the only discussion of fidel castro that we had. i sort of forgot all the other questions. >> i have a few more. how personally involved are you going to get. >> well with respect to congress we can't unilaterally bring down the embargo. and what i do think is going to be a process where congress digests it and there's supporters of the new approach and people will see how

reactions we take unfold and there's going to be a healthy debate inside of congress and i will certainly weigh in. i think that ultimately we need to pull down the embargo which i think has been self-defeating in advancing the aims that we're interested in but i don't anticipate that that happens right away. i think people are going to want to see how does this move forward before there's any serious debate about whether or not we make major shifts in the embargo. >> i wanted to follow on that by asking under what conditions would you meet with president castro in havana. would you have certain conditions you wanted can you rule out military force.

>> i think i'm going to leave it where i left it which is we just confirmed that it was north corey. working up a range of options. we made a decision and to the nature of this crime. and we're not at a stage here where we visiting cuba or president castro coming to the united states is in the cards. and the relationship will develop over the next year and i think over my life i'll have the

opportunity and enjoy interaction with the cuban people but there's nothing specific where we're trying to target some something on my part. collen. >> thank you mr. president. >> there you are. >> we spoke earlier about 2014 being a break through year and the end of the year with executive actions on cuba and immigration and climate change but you didn't make much progress this year on your legislative agenda and some republican lawmakers said they are less inclined to work with you if you pursue executive action so aggressively. are you bog to continue to pursue executive action if that creates more road blocks for your legislative agenda or have you concluded it's not possible to break the fever in washington and the partisan gridlock here? >> i think there are real opportunities to get things done in congress. as i said before i take speaker boehner and mitch mcconnell at their words that they want to

get things done. i think the american people would like to see us get some things done. the question is going to be are we able to separate out those areas where we disagree: and we agree. if republicans seek to take health car away from peopcare ae that just got it they will meet stiff resistance from me. if they try to water down consumer protections that we put in place in the aftermath of the financial crisis i will say no and i'm comfortable i'll be able to uphold those types of provisions but on increasing american exports, on simplifying our tax system, my hope is that

we can get some things done. i've never been persuaded by this argument that if it weren't for the executive actions they would have been more productive. there's no evidence of that. so i intend to continue to do what i have been doing which is where i see a big problem and the opportunity to help the american people and it is within any lawful authority to provide that help i'm going to do it and then i will side by side reach out to members of congress, reach out to republicans and say, let's work together. i'd rather do it with you. immigration is the classic example. i was really happy when the senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill and i did everything i could for a year and a half to provide republicans the space to act and

showed not only great patience but flexibility saying to them look if there are specific changes you'd like to see, we're willing to compromise. we're willing to be patient. we're willing to work you. ultimately it wasn't forth coming and so the question is going to be i think if executive actions on areas like minimum wage or equal pay or having a more sensible immigration system are important to republicans, if they care about those issue and the executive actions are bothering them there's a very simple solution and that is pass bills and work with me to make sure that i'm willing to sign those bills because both sides are going to have to compromise. on most issues in order for their initiatives to become law i'm going to have to sign off and that means they're going to

have to take into account the issues that i care about just as i'm going to have to take into account the issues they care about. >> this is going to be our last question. >> thank you so much. so one of the first bills is one in construction of the pipeline. and you talk about the risks associated with that project. i want to know if you would tell us what you would do when faced with the bill given the republican majority and what do you see as the benefits and given the drop we've seen in oil prices rekrencently does that ce how we would contribute to climate change and whether you think it makes sense to go ahead with that project. >> well i don't think i minimized the benefits. i think i described the

benefits. it is canadian oil drawn from canada. that oil currently is being shipped out through rail or trucks and it would save canadian oil companies and the canadian oil industry an enormous amount of money if they could simply pipe it all the way through the united states down to the gulf. once that oil gets to the gulf, it is then entering into the world market and it would be sold all around the world.

there's no impact on the oil what the american consumer cares about. and sometimes it gets sold like let's get the oil and it's going to come here and the implication is that's going to lower gas prices here in the united states. it's not. there's a global oil market. it's very good for canadian oil companies. and it's good for the canadian oil industry but it's not going to be a huge benefit to u.s. consumers. it's not even going to be a nominal benefit to u.s. consumers. now the construction of the pipeline itself will create probably a couple of thousand jobs. those are temporary jobs until the construction actually happens. there's probably some additional jobs that can be created in the

refining process down in the gulf. those aren't completely insignificant. it's just like any other project but when you consider what we could be doing if we're rebuilding our roads and bridges around the country something that congress could authorize we could probably create hundreds of thousands of jobs or a million jobs. so if that's the argument there are a lot more direct ways to create well paying american construction jobs and then with respect to the cost all i've said is that i want to make sure that if in fact this project goes forward that it's not adding to the problem of climate change which i think is very serious and does impose serious costs on the american people.

some of them long-term but significant costs none the less. if we have more flooding more wildfires, more drought there's direct economic impacts on that and as we're rebuilding after sandy we have to consider how do we increase preparedness in how we structure the jersey shore that's an example of the costs and you can put a dollar figure on it. in terms of process you have a nebraska judge still determining whether or not the new path for this pipeline is appropriate. once that is resolved then the state department will have all the information it needs to make its decision but i have just tried to give this perspective because i think that there's

been a tendency to hype this thing as a magic formula and to what ails the u.s. economy and it's hard to see on paper where exactly they're getting that information from. and how it impacts the decision i think that it won't have a significant impact. except perhaps in the minds of folks when gas prices are lower. maybe they're less susceptible to the argument that this is the answer to lowering gas prices and the oil that would be piped through the pipeline would go into the world market and that's what determines oil prices ultimately. >> in terms of congress forcing their hand on this are you not going to let congress force their hand on it. >> i'll see what they do. we'll take that up in the new

year. >> all right. any new years resolutions. >> i'll -- april go ahead april. >> thank you mr. president. last question i guess. six years ago this month i asked you what was the state of black america in the oval office and you said it was the best of times and the worst of times. you said it was the best of times in the sense that there has never been more opportunity for african americans to receive a good education and the worst of times for unemployment and the lack of opportunity. well ending 2014 what is the state of black america as we talk about those issues as well as race relations in this country. >> like the rest of america black america in the aggregate is better off now than when i came into office. the jobs created and people that

have gotten health insurance and housing equity that's been recovered. the 401 pensions recovered. a lot of those folks are african american. they're better off than they were. the gap between income and wealth of white and black america persists and we have more work to do on that front. i have been consistent in saying this is a legacy of a troubled racial past of jim crowe and slavery. that's not an excuse for black folks. and i think the overwhelming majority of black people understand it's not an excuse. they're working hard and hustling and trying to getten education and send their kids to college but they're starting behind often times in the race

and we should be willing to provide people a hand up. not a handout but help folks get that good early childhood education. help them graduate from high school. help them afford college. if they do they'll be able to succeed and that's going to be good for all of us. we have the highest high school graduation we have seen in a very long time. we are seeing record numbers of young people attending college. many states that initiated reforms you're seeing progress in math scores and reading scores for african american and latino students as well as the broader population but we still have more work to go.

now how we're thinking about race relations now is covered by ferguson and the garner case in new york. a growing awareness in the broader population of what i think many communities of color have understood for some time and there's specific instances at least where law enforcement doesn't feel as if it's being applied in a color blind fashion. the task force that i formed is supposed to report back to me in 90 days. not with a bunch of abtract musings about race relations but some really concrete practical things that police departments and law enforcement agencies can begin implementing right now to

rebuild trust between communities of color and the police department. my intention is to start implementing them. some will require congressional action and some will require action on the part of states and local jurisdictions but i actually think it's been a healthy conversation that we have had. these are not new phenomenon. the fact that they're surfacing in part because people are able to film what has just been in the past stories passed on around the kitchen table allows people to make their own assessments and evaluations and you won solve a problem if it's being talked about. in the meantime we have been moving forward on criminal justice reform issues more broadly. one of the things i didn't talk about in my opening statement is the fact that last year was the first time in 40 years where we

had the federal prison population go down and the crime rate go down at the same time which indicates the degree to which it's possible for us to think smarter about who we're incarcerating how long we're incoi incarcerating. division programs, drug courts, we can do a better job of and save money in the process by initiating some of these reforms and i have been really pleased to see we've had republicans and democrats in congress who are interested in these issues as well. the one thing i will say and this is going to be the last thing i say is that one of the great things about this job is you get to know the american

people. you meet folks from every walk of life and every region of the country and every race and every faith and what i don't think is always captured in our political debates is the vast majority of people are just trying to do the right thing. and people are basically good and have good intentions. sometimes our institutions and our systems don't work as well as they should. sometimes, you know, you have a police department that has gotten into bad habits over a period of time and hasn't surfaced hidden biases that we all carry around. but if you offer practical solutions i think people want to fix these problems. this isn't a situation where

people feel good seeing somebody choked and die. i think that troubles everybody. so there's an opportunity of all of us to come together and take a practical approach to these problems. and i guess that's my general theme at the end of the year and we've gone through difficult times. it's your job press core to report on all the mistakes that are made and all the bad things that happen and the crises that look like they're popping and i understand that. but through persistent effort and faith in the american people things get better. the economy has gotten better. our ability to generate clean

energy is better. we know more about how to educate our kids. we solved problems. ebola is a real crisis. you get a mistake in the first case because it's not something that's been seen before. we fix it. you have unaccompanied children who spike at a border and it may not get fixed in the time frame of the news cycle but it gets fixed. and you know part of what i hope as we reflect on the year is it should generate us some confidence. america knows how to solve problems and when we work together we can't be stopped. and now i'm going to go on vacation. thank you everybody.

>> you've been watching a live broadcast of the p's year end news conference. it's become a annual preholiday ritual before he flies off on air force one with his family to hawaii. let's quickly recap what he said. john howard i want to bring you in here because, you know, we naturally started on the positives talking about the progress in the economy saying pick any metric the american resurgence is real. we're better off. but to me one of the biggest headlines of the news conference was when he was asked multiple questions about north korea and the fact that the fbi named them as behind the cyberattacks on sony and he believes that sony's decision to pull the movie the interview was a mistake and he wishes that sony had spoken to him first. what did you make of that? >> i think the president was trying to align himself with the forces of free expression and once the administration had made the public determination that north korea was responsible or

engaged in this attack as he said, that then puts it on the united states to respond. so on the release of the film he said that sony had not made the right call. let's listen to how the president put it during the news conference. >> sony is a corporation. it you know suffered significant damage. there were threats against it's employees. i am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. having said all that, yes i think they made a mistake. >> the other thing the president said is we will respond. it said these attackers have done a lot of damage. said we will respond in the manner and the time and the place that we choose. he didn't outline any responses. said it would be proportional so we're still left with the question that we were discussing before the news conference mandy which is is this going to be an

official u.s. set of sanctions? a prosecution. is it going to be a covert cyber counter attack? we don't know. >> absolutely. there's a lot of talk also that perhaps he'll rope in various other countries. i know that china juans some sort of communication on what they're going to do here as well. but some interesting commentary with regards to cuba and the huge news this week the normalization of relations between the u.s. and cuba. a little bit of levity on certain moments but i was interested in the fact that he dodged the first question on cuba with regards to why didn't we get more concessions from that country with regards to making so reforms. he sort of din really give too much on that beyond, you know, well once we're there we can maybe influence change. >> it's a fair question. it's one that a lot of people have raised. some in his own party as well as republicans and his answer to that is essentially we've been

at this for 50 years. behaven't achieved results let's try something different and that is fundamentally how he phrased it. the question then was, you moe, how is cuba going to behave and are they going to undermine the possibility for this new relationship and the president said i would be surprised if they took an action to undermine something that they have just undertaken with us. why would they do that. he also said and this is something we have been wondering since the white house press secretary declined to rule it out in the last couple of days he indicated there was no plan for him to visit cuba before he leaves office. he said i'm a young man. i may have the opportunity to visit cuba sometime in my life but we're not setting a target for any kind of a visit over the next two years. >> neither him visiting there nor president castro visiting here was the way he put it. but john howard thank you for wrapping it all up. once again we were watching the

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welcome back, everybody. take a loose at the markets. sitting around session highs. the dow up at 17,846 on top of the last two days of a monster rally. we also had the dow utility average and just wanted to mention it also this morning hit a new all-time high up about 25% year to date. let's get out to bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. i remember yesterday, yes, people said it's a great rally going on and what people were cheering is decoupled from oil. stocks higher while oil went lower. today, of course, we have both stocks and oil going higher. >> everybody's getting everything they want. this is a real santa claus rally for sure, here. we are moving up here. we were flat largely this

morning kind of ambling around and toward the highs now and moving up around the time president obama began the press conference and maybe due to the very positive comments on the economy. this is what i'm talking about there. that is expiration day and huge amounts of volume pushed through and has been pushed through in the market and hard to separate it out. there's a positive effect of the roll going on in the options and futures market and let's move on to sony. you were talking about that. the president saying there's a response and modest move up a few cents. didn't say what it would be and sony's hit hard there. two or three cents on the upside. big move today in oil. third day in a row the oil names moved up rather nicely and that's important. normally short covering in the first day or two and then after that they're covered an up to real natural buyers and look at the xle, energy sector in the s&p 500. up 8% this week.

there's an intraday. very surprised, mandy, what the president said about the keystone pipeline and played it down and benefits canada and only a small number of construction jobs in the u.s. and trying to minimize the impact of a decision to have to make, pro or con on the canadian pipeline going forward. let's see the major indices this week. it is a rare event seeing most of the major sectors up more than 2% in the week. energy, materials, health care, industrials. these are the market leaders. i've gotten years where this hasn't happened and we have seen a move up very notably here just in the last week or so. >> you're absolutely right. very interesting comments on the keystone pipeline and maybe might get a few thousand construction jobs and only temporary and trying to focus on infrastructure like building or rebuilding bridges and codes, you get hundreds of thousands if not up to a million construction jobs. >> doesn't it sound like he's trying to minimize the impact of

a decision, if i approve it, you know, the impact is minimal. trying to aassauge his critics. >> he sounded a little bit annoyed talking about, annoyed for the question. bob, very quickly, next week since we have only got just over an hour left in this trading week, what do we need to watch for next week? >> you are tired of the santa claus rally but there's a technical thing that happens. santa claus rally is last five trading days of the year and we're going to be entering that next week and first 0 two of the following year and that's the actual rally is, a move up in the s&p 500. that's generally pretty good overall and i think that's what traders are looking for. that and some stability in oil here and i think you'll see some of these oil names, particularly in the shale names, stabilize the mid-50s they also continue

to move up and more modestly than last three days. >> enjoy your weekend. thank you so much. okay. another wild week for oil, as well. is over. let's go live to the nymex. jackie deangelis standing by. really strong day for oil today, jackie. >> absolutely right, mandy and short covering lifting prices today and bob mentioned the expiration. you have the january contract come off the board. member closing over $57. a dollar to the upside actually just in the last hour of trade. and what traders are thinking about right now is are we starting to stabilize here? at least temporarily. you know, a month ago, the saudi arabians said they thought oil, brent that is, would stabilize around $60. the levels we are seeing right now and yesterday said the price declines temporary, as well and boosted the market and seems to be a little bit of confidence here in some buying into that february contract. at the same time, on the flip side, traders say you have a dollar index at 89 and continues

to strengthen. that could present a little bit more downside for crude and not out of the question that we could stabilize temporarily here. meantime, bob mentioned the keystone pipeline comments from the president. you talk about the job angle there but i want to talk about gas prices and aaa saying that we are now $2.45 a gallon. last weekend, dropped a nickel over the week, as well. the prices could be going lower and that's bolsters his argument that that crude may not necessarily do anything for us here on gas prices, mandy. back over to you. >> okay. thank you very much. we'll go for a very quick break here. we'll be back right back. just points off the session highs for the dow but, you know, it's doing well and getting higher. going into the close. don't go away. robot butler, can you shut the shades?

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losses. it's moving nicely to the upside. currently up -- oh, we are looking at the s&p there. the dow is now wiped out the december losses and the dow utility average hit an all-new high. thank you very much for watching requests street signs." "closing bell" coming up next. have a great weekend. thank you, mandy. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i'm el i can evans at new york stock exchange. bill is off today. stocks are rally again. take a look at the s&p 500 currently in record territory. we are at 2076. pretty much. a point above the prior record close. we have had an incredible week, one of the strongest of the years with 3% across the major averages and here's an hour to go in the trading session today. the dow after more than a