are down as much as 330 points. now we're down by 263 and it's being attributed to a number of things including in large part to the big spike higher that we saw in oil as it was going towards its setting at 2:30 eastern. thank you for watching "street signs." "the closing bell" is next. see you tomorrow. >> and welcome to "the closing bell." i'm kelly evans and what a day it's been yet again down here at the new york stock exchange. >> i'm bill griffeth. if you thought yesterday was fun and interesting, wait until you hear about today. the white knuckle ride continues. red arrows abound at least for equities. oil is a different story late today, but there's the industrial average which was down more than 300 points about an hour ago, now down 262, and right now roughly speaking, broad terms, the major averages are down a little over 4% right now from their most recent all-time highs. >> well actually people talking about the 600-point drop we had

seen in the dow just since yesterday's highs. we talked yesterday about the outside reversal we had and what that meant technically. art cashin among others really focused on what this has looked like from a trading point of view even as people are arguing about the fundamentals and speaking of which, let's talk about a couple wacky things going on in this marnth.ket. we'll get you all angles covered. why are mining stocks being routed? how come retail sales look so weak when gas prices are so low? will europe come to the rescue next week with their version of quantitative easing? and does all of this add up to a global economy, bill that's healthy or in trouble? >> let me show you the stock market and then we can talk about oil as well. the dow industrials as we said down 258 right now, a decline of almost 1.5%. s&p down 21 points. decline of more than 1% at this hour. the nasdaq is doing better than the three. down 39 points or about 0.85% at 4622.

show you oil very quickly. late today ahead of an expiration coming tomorrow the price spiked. wti -- it was up 5% on the close. it's come off that a little bit now. we're at $48 a barrel and we haven't even gotten to the treasuries which we'll talk about right now. let's get to our "the closing bell" exchange. keith fitzgerald from money map press, kenny polcari from o'neill securities is here with us at the big board and steve liesman and rick santelli. steve liesman, first of all, the thing we had to puzzle this morning, the retail sales number from this morning. much weaker than expected when we all expected better things because of lower gasoline prices. >> it was a weak number across the board and you also had downward november revisions. i will say that the combination of october/november enough to power ahead overall consumer spending according to most estimates to a pretty good number for the total fourth quarter but really we have a

puzzle. when you look at the market and what it has to see, what's in its vision you have these negatives that are coming out of the oil fields. we got a bunch of that in the beige book where they talked about things like hiring freezing and layoffs. that's the negative side. and it's not clear to the market that there is this upside. i suspect there will be. i think december is going to be seen as an anomaly but right now the market has the data in front of it and that data is not very promising. >> kim i'm going to go out on a limb and say the data needs to be updated for today's world. what if the retail sales report included more health care expenditures? what if it included -- i know there's nonstore retailers but we spend money online or mobile devices. is it just a different play for where that consumer dollar is going today than the traditional retail plays? >> i think you have great points there. both health care i mean

obamacare really has changed the way we pay for health care. i know my policy changed this year, and i'm paying a lot more out of pocket and that has to be considered, but also i think you're right, online sales. we're expecting a huge online sales number whenever the retailers start reporting, and that's hugely important. so maybe the government really isn't collecting the data that's driving the economy. >> that data on health care shows up in a quarterly services number. you are absolutely correct in that we have a goods indicator on a monthly basis but we have to wait for a quarterly number to know what's happening in the other huge part of the economy which is the service sector. the government has to do a better job of counting that. >> keith, meanwhile, you have a headline that aetna raising the minimum wage for its employees to $16. that's certainly not an industry that's having any trouble right now it would seem and health care continues to be the best performer in the stock market.

>> well you know you give me a trillion dollars and i will show you a good time too. i think that's the one industry that is going to have its wallet handed out. if you look at who is driving new cars it's not the doctors, not the patients it's all the guys in the insurance companies and they have nice fat margins as a result of all this. so i think that's absolutely consistent with what the obamacare has done. to steve's point you've got to have acura data and i think the government is totally behind the eight-ball. they're using stat takeistics they may as well have used 100 years ago. >> kenny polcari, that's easy for me to say, i know you were being a bit irreverent when you tweeted out after we had this big sellout that maybe we would finish positive today. you were thinking back to yesterday's wide swings. it doesn't look like it's going to happen today but you still have upward pressure you would think from the price of oil late

today with that big spike, albeit because of options expiration. >> you do, but you know what? we're now at a point in the market where we made some really big technical breaks. we definitively broken through the 50 broken through the 100. therefore, just from a technical trading perspective, the market is in this nowhere land. it feels like it absolutely wants to test the 200 which on the dow is at 17,000. my sense is the market feels like it needs to do that, it needs to flesh it out, netz toeds to see where the weak links are before it can establish a base. >> kelly, this is how momentous this day has been. we've gone 6:30 and we have yet to mention the treasury yields that we hit this morning. >> which should have been the first thing we talked about. >> normally it would be. >> let's bring sick santelli into this conversation. i should apologize to viewers. the 30-year went below 2.4% today. that's the lowest in the

history, at least in recorded history, i don't know how long we should talk about how far to go back -- >> these are rates they had in the roman empire as i understand it, yes. >> the 10-year -- >> it's funny, i'm actually getting e-mails about that. i'm getting e-mails about that. my own data collection goes back to the eisenhower administration. there's a lot of talk that after world war ii, and i get all that, but it's the lowest we'd call it in modern times. everything i talk about in that 2.45 that was the old july 12 202012 all-time low, that was a close. the one guest that was talking about statistics he's absolutely right. you know you talk to anybody you bump into on the street that doesn't work in the industry they really do see the economy as spongy. most middle class think we're still quasiin a recession and as far as the data in health care everybody totally is spot on. we had senator rubio spot on. you know, there's a hole in the

bucket. the wages are dripping out. they're not increasing for the average guy. things like property taxes, we don't talk about, keep going up. and affordable care act, bigger out-of-pocket expenses. all of those i think are making the positives for gasoline lower prices kind of diminish a bit, but, of course we can't do the counter factual. we can never prove it but that's my sense of what's going on but if we have low gasoline prices for a long time and i think we will, maybe not this low, i think over time you will see them show up in the numbers, but as far as treasuries go it's real simple. treasuries are telling you there's a variety of reasons we're not going to get enough cylinders firing in the economy, kind of like the way the iimtf downgraded growth. >> i open my ipad in the morning to the cnbc app and can't decide whether i should look at lower gasoline prices or lower treasury yields. is there a price level you see?

>> on the big, big levels i would say 10s you want to pay close attention to 1.58 to 1.60-year-old below the market. and for 30s, i would say that the next area you want to pay attention to is right around 2.27 to 2.30 area. >> wow. >> kim, i just want to take -- rick has been painting a picture that isn't very positive, if you will, about how people are really doing in this country. i want to raise one other thing and wonder where you're putting money to work right now. people's needs and desires for material stuff relative to what they have is less than it has been almost anytime in history. right or wrong, he's getting at a little bit of what's happening about the desire for products being virtual, being cyber based and the way it's changing costs. do you still like tech here kim? are there any companies that come to mind. do you think he's onto something in identifying this broader trend? >> i think he is onto something, and i don't know if you remember this or not, but i came out of

tech. i was a software engineer so i love tech i follow it closely, and i have to agree that, you know, even at christmas time we're not getting sweaters we're getting electronic stuff and now games and then people are buying all manner of stuff virtually and they live more of a virtual life. i think ray is onto something like that. i still love intel even at this price. i think that, you know, everybody -- i know. everybody loves to bash intel, but take a look at it.operator and they make the stuff people love. >> and a actually kim, i got a sweater that counts my steps and cal raysories calories. i got both those things. >> that sounds awful. >> it looked really attractive. keith, do you want to nibble at energy here, do you? >> absolutely. you know i haven't heard one oil company, bill talk about not being able to sell the inventory they've got. if you look at global demand the data suggests it's still

increasing. so the developing world is using more oil than it ever has simply because it's never really had an infrastructure that uses it before. that's offsetting conservation gains in europe or the developed world. longer term when the price bottoms, i have no idea, but they're still going to sell all the oil they've got and that says i want a part of it. >> steve liesman, i want data plans included in the retail sales report next month. >> tell congress not to cut back on the data expenditures and tell them we need more data and the kind of costs you get is when you have a sell-off on data that may or may not be right and you can't balance that i guess what you're thinking about which is the services expenditures then you really have to wait until you get a better picture. >> i was thinking about t-mobile which is letting you take your tax credit and apply it to their minutes or data if you will and get an extra $20. again, there's another place where people are really spending. >> all we need is more data. that's what we are missing. by the way -- >> better data.

>> speaking of steve liesman tomorrow don't miss his exclusive interview with imf managing director christine lagarde. that will be tomorrow at 12:15 p.m. eastern during "the halftime report." looking forward to that. >> thanks everybody. >> see you guys later. >> looking at a market off 252 points as we head into the final 50 minutes of trading. we're off the lows of 333 but still a sharply negative day across wall street. declines of 1% off the s&p which earlier was back below the 2,000 mark. the nasdaq gives up 39. >> the pro will be weighing in on what you should be doing to safeguard your money and whether you should be buy the today's dip. jay jordan will tell us how he's putting his clients' $8 billion in assets to work. that's coming up here on "the closing bell." also ahead, wells fargo cfo john shrewsberry speckaking with

us. strong loan groentwth in its 18th consecutive quarter. stay tuned. there's a difference when you trade with fidelity. one you won't find anywhere else. one-second trade execution. guaranteed. did you see it? in one second, he made a trade we looked for the best price

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another volatile day. boy, and like yesterday we have just seen wide swings in a number of markets. the dow down 220. was down 350 at the lows of the session. s&p and nasdaq well off their lows. price of oil has been all over the place today. finished up 5% in trading. here is the dow heat map. these are all 30 components in the dow jones industrial average, and once again, kelly, health care, pharmacy that area the leaders. merck and united health are the two plus signs today for the dow in an otherwise big down day. >> you give me $1 trillion and i will show you a good time. >> i love that line. hilarious. >> banks in the spotlight for the other reason today. shares were under pressure. kayla taushche has the highlights. >> there's a somber tone in financials led by jpmorgan which missed on the top and bottom

with mixed results. across the bizusiness you had positive loan growth. you had low yields that slowed trading activity but the biggest shadow over the quarter was a $1.1 billion legal charge described by the bank as lumpy and unpredictable. again, to analysts' frustration because they can't really predict these charges that come seemingly every quarter. the most common question for management is a bank breakup in the cards? here is ceo jamie dimon. >> if the regulators want jpmorgan to be split up then that's what will have to happen. we can't fight the federal government. if that's their intent and we think we can earn a superior return still versus other banks and carry the higher capital and modify our business model over time without taking drastic action. >> dimon saying washington is wrongly trying to regulate size of institutions not necessarily risk, though he admitted

jpmorgan might yet need to get smaller. the four quarter saw wells fargo grow revenues and profits to become the biggest u.s. bank after and the low rates made lending less profitable overall. low rates also had the added benefit of spurring new mortgage lending. the worry though for wells, its exposure to oil prices and lending in the energy patch. john shrews ssberry called the drop very recent. he said the bank combed through all its exposure and found its clients are preserving their cash, but they're not borrowing more. there's not that much loan demand from the sector but that credit in the energy sector is not showing cracks just yet. when you have a bank kelly and bill, with a lot of exposure to energy like wells does that's going to be the question but overall bank shares under pressure and not sending a good tone for bank of america and citigroup which are out tomorrow. guys, back to you. >> kayla, thank you very much. let's talk more about those earnings and the landscape for banks. with us first on cnbc interview is the aforementioned wells

fargo cfo john shrewsberry who happens to be a member of cnbc's cfo council. how does it feel to listen to yourself being quoted extensively from the conference quote. >> it feels fine. it would have been great if he had quoted the part about what a great quarter it was for wells fargo with loan growth. all pretty good. i'm happy to hear it. >> we expected you to say that anyway. it's part of your job. >> is it a mixed picture for you, the outlook for mortgages because you are the biggest mortgage lender out there rates are still low and attractive for consumers, but at the same time you know, they're not borrowing that much in part because of the squeeze that they're going through on wages and otherwise and the price of oil here. how do you characterize it? >> i would tell you that loan growth for wells fargo in the fourth quarter annualized third to fourth quarter grew at 13% which is as strong as it's been in some time. some of that is in mortgages,

autos, credit cards, it's in all categories of commercial and industrial lending. so while, for example, energy lending may slow down because of what's going on there, overall very bullish quarter and showing up in loan totals. >> john, what is the total portion of oil and gas in your loan portfolio and what other kinds of exposures do you have to the drop in oil prices? >> so in loans it's about 2% of our portfolio. we have $850 billion worth of loans and in that portfolio is includes the upstream exploration and production folks, it includes services it includes midstream or pipeline companies, and it includes the larger integrated oil companies as well. so it's a very modest portion of the portfolio. much of it is done on a reserve basis where we remargin people down as prices move. this isn't your first cycle. we've got a team that's been on

the ground for 40 years. we're taking it very seriously, but it amounts to 2% of loans. >> have you seen any -- >> there are a couple -- sorry. >> i was going to ask if you had seen any deterioration in loan quality here as well? >> no we haven't yet. the first thing e & p companies do in this instance is they stop spending money on projects and cap ex. they have reserves in the ground that are convertible into cash and so you don't see instant signs of stress. this is going to take -- this is going to play out over some time. if crude remains very low for an extended period of time then we'll watch it work through the credit portfolio over time but it's very well contained. >> would you rather interest rates remain low which would theoretically be a benefit to the mortgage market that you are so important in or would you rather see them go up so your net interest margins go up? in other words the spread between what you lend and what you return at the same time. the traditional way that banks make money. which way would you rather have

it right now? >> well there's two different points on the curve that we're talking about. asset sensitivity we have is at the short end of the curve where we have many loans that are indexed to libor or fed funds, et cetera. as that begins to move up that's good for we wills fargo. incidentally we've been producing at a high level while rates have remained low. on the longer end of the curve we're a little conflicted. our customers do better and so we're very happy in the mortgage market when rates remain low. we do have a big fixed income portfolio as well like all banks, where we deploy some of our excess deposits so that portfolio loses value as rates begin to rise although incremental investments become more attractive as rates rise. so in the interest rate environment we've been in, things have worked out very well for us. if rates begin to move up i think that's good for wells fargo as well and we can perform in either environment. i think mortgage borrowers would

prefer if long rates remain low. >> two quick related questions on your energy exposure. one, i understand the head of your commodities business left a couple years ago. do you guys have a commodities business to speak of? >> we do. we have an energy hedging business. it's based in houston where the larger team is and we help our producer customers lock in prices going forward which many of them are benefiting from right now. and we help our consumer customers, people who have energy prices built into their cost structure, manage their costs on a going forward basis. it's an important service we provide to both sides of the industry. >> and how big is that relative to everything else that you do? >> it's pretty modest. when you think about the risk portfolio at wells fargo, there's more exposure in a good way to producers, producers benefit when -- from hedging when prices go down. if you thought about the market risk we actually owe customers on a mark to market basis so it's not really contributing to incremental risk. >> cyber security every day a

new entity is hacked we hear about. i saw in your notes that your expenses went up in the quarter because you hired a consultant in the area. talk to us about that. and have you gone through a stress test of sorts to make sure or figure out where the weak spots may be or whether you're protected at this point? >> sure. well, we've had lots of people also used third parties as was mentioned on the call this morning in connection with building out our cyber capability and frankly, the resiliency of our technology infrastructure and we're consistently testing ourselves, penetration tests and other sorts of activities where we've got our own people and vendors trying to penetrate the system to test our capabilities and detecting it preventing it to begin with et cetera. so it's here to stay. the threat comes from many different investigate vectors. i'm happy we have the resources

we do to be able to afford that because i think it's a risk for all financial services firms. >> how much in resources do you anticipate? do you expect spending to go up appreciably in that area? >> well even if they do given the magnitude of the firm it's not going to be the differencemaker in terms of how our performance runs. you know we're generating on the order of $20 billion, $22 billion a year of net income after tax. so hundreds of millions of dollars here or there which is what some of these initiatives could amount to is money well spent and not going to change the direction of the firm. >> john, we have to let you go. one final question. this isn't just about the energy producers, this drop in oil prices. a lot of people your company, others, sold investors, for example, notes that would be linked to the performance of commodities and the performance of oil. what happens to the value of those investments now in terms of the exposure that you may have to the drop in oil through that channel?

>> i don't know what the market cap is of commodity linked notes that exist in the world, but obviously they would be underperforming in this part of the cycle. they'd be part of a diversified portfolio and the people who invest in them would be aware of that risk. so i don't think that that adds up to an appreciable risk certainly not for wells fargo. >> understood. just want to explore all aspects of this. it's been a stunning price decline, john. thank you so much for being here to help talk us through all of it and how wells fargo is dealing with it. john shrewsberry, the cfo of wells fargo on the strong quarter in loan growth. 35 minutes to go bill. >> we were coming back. a moment ago we were down just 180, but now heading lower again, down almost 200 points on the industrial average. 17,418. hovering above 2,000 on the s&p. we were down 13 points. the nasdaq is down 23. up next mining stocks got destroyed today. our morgan brennan has the

damage assessment you can't afford to miss. plus two traders weigh in on why the stocks are getting hit and what it may indicate to the broader market. stay tuned. your mom's got your back. your friends have your back. your dog's definitely got your back. but who's got your back when you need legal help? we do. we're legalzoom, and over the last 10 years we've helped millions of people protect their families and run their businesses. we have the right people on-hand to answer your questions,

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welcome back. the dow is off 200 points. it was off 333 or thereabouts at the lows of the day. we've been watching for the typical correlations to see if they bear out today, bill. is it what happens with interest rates? is it what happens with oil

prices? lots of different moving pieces. >> so many cross currents right? >> yeah. and as you're seeing with about half an hour to go that's shaking out still to a negative day across the market although we're now off only 176. >> deep in that red sector would be the mining stocks down sharply as prices collapsed in some key metals copper was a big part of that as well. >> it's not just oil. morgan brennan is assessing the damage here for us. what did you find morgan? >> oh boy, it's been a really tough day for the mining stocks. as you mentioned, copper this is on the back of copper and in general the industrial metals. those coming off in a big way. copper was the biggest loser. and we also saw that here with the high grade copper contract the march contract that trades here on the nymex. price trading around 5 1/2 year lows. you can see that right there, down about 5% for the day. and, of course that did spill over into the mining and metal stocks. some of the hardest hit stocks today into the s&p 500.

so looking at the copper mining stocks specifically, those were the hardest hit, and you can see that here. well, you can see that with the global x copper miner. freeport-mcmoran is down 11 almost 12%. the big etion loser in the s&p. hitting a fresh 52-week low southern copper down 4%. and as i mentioned, copper was the biggest loser of the industrial metals today but we saw all of those different types of metals, aluminum nickel lead all of those trading lower. allegheny tech hitting 52-week lows. nucor hitting 52-week lows. and alcoa despite better than expected earnings down 5.5%. to top that off, i will say this also had ripple effects into mining equipment makers. we saw caterpillar trading lower and joy global.

you can see that -- joy global turned positive. guys, back to you. >> i think they heard you, morgan. thank you very much. morgan brennan back at headquarters. markets have been bouncing around. every time we look, something different is going on. gold one of the few metals in the green today though. that is is safe haven typically. let's head into the commodities pits. joining us a todd colvin and paul sachs. i'm guessing au is a reference. tell us what you think is happening with gold. >> well done. gold is actually performing relatively well compared to just about everything else you're mentioning. it it's shrugging off the implosion in crude, the strength of the u.s. dollar. gold has really been holding its own. if there's a theme,s volatility. commodities are moving 4% 5% 6% a day. to me it seems like there's some liquidation, margin calls. it really is a good time to

consider tail risk. so gold is really sort of regaining some of its safe haven status. >> todd, copper five-year lows. what's the story there and do you see that continuing here? >> well i think it kicked off back in november when we saw it dip below that key 300 level. it really hasn't looked back since. yesterday we got declines global growth declines looking forward, and now we see it's just become sort of a runaway train. we're looking at copper prices right now maybe seeing a range between 175 and 325 over the next year based on our option analysis. i think that's a pretty wide range but it gives you a sense of we're at 250 right now on our way down from 300. it seems like there's a little ways to go to the downside. i wouldn't be getting in yet. i think there will be an opportunity but it's not today. >> paul it's actually interesting to me how stable gold prices have been generally speaking. in fact, it reminds a little bit of oil for the couple of years

before the massive decline this year. is there a risk if you get involved in gold and suddenly the price does crack for whatever reason that suddenly you could be down 50%? >> i mean that certainly is a possibility. it did have a brutal year in 2013. it sold off 28%, really much too large of a move for an asset which many people consider to be a currency. there's an intelligent way to play the gold market and that's with gold options instead of buying the underlying but you really want to make sure you're covered at both ends. gold has the potential to surprise to the up side this year bucking other major trends. >> wish we had more time. thank you for your thoughts on commodities going lower at this point, especially the metals. thanks. >> about 25 minutes to go here. watching the markets. now we're off more than 200 points again. the s&p is trying to stay above 26,000. we zipped below that level during the intraday session. >> when we come back we have dominic chu telling us what's moving the markets.

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we have stabilized i guess you'd put it that way right now. the dow down 205 points. of the 30 components, 27 are lower, 3 are higher. they're all health care related. united health pfizer and merck are positive on an otherwise big down day. the dow was down 350 points but we've since come off the lows big time. >> and dominic chu is keeping an eye on all of the big market movers for us today. as bill said you have your hands full. >> a lot of red stocks for sure but there are some slivers of green. let's start with what's happening with general motors which is moving lower on news the automaker will boost capital spending of 20%. killing hopes of a dividend hike. those shares down 2.5%. tesla shares hitting an eight-month low founding elon musk's comments about a fall off in sales in china. he also said he didn't expect the company to turn a profit until 2020. tesla shares there down by 6%.

footlocker is falling after goldman sachs downgraded them to a sell from a neutral and lowered the price target to $47 from a prior $55 citing concerns peak margins on basketball sneakers are a risk factor. finish line shares traded lower in sympathy. a lot of red but like you said bill, kelly, at least a couple shocks on the dow, the health care side, are doing pretty well in today's trade. back over to you. >> thanks very much. market taking a beating as you know, but it's time for our weekly "beat the street" segment. we're talking midcaps. we bring you the american century midcap value fund. this fund is up 12% in the past 12 months while its benchmark, the russell is up just 8%. >> kevin tony of american century joins us. he's nominated by morningstar for u.s. fund manager. great to have you here and joining us.

let's begin with midcaps. where are you finding outperformance? are we right to see one of your top holdings is the i-shares midcap fund? >> thanks for having me. at american century we try to be fully invested at all times, and so occasionally when we have buys or sells going on we'll temporarily park somebody into the i-shares so they are getting full exposure to the market. >> so you want to be fully invested. that means when we get this kind of volatility you're not rejiggering your portfolio that much moving around? you guys it sounds like are classic stock pickers. you buy something when you see value and you just hang on for the ride. is that the idea? >> well we are bottoms up stock pickers, that's right. and we're looking for high quality companies with good returns on capital, narrow range of outcomes good balance sheets a lot of downside protection. so we are, as you said classic

value managers and so when something outperforms, we'll trim it back and when something underperforms, we'll add a little bit to it. >> i see a couple names here kevin, that you have brought. life point hospitals, cisco, and republic services. quickly tell us about these. >> okay. sure. life point is a hospital company with a broad footprint across the united states, and we think as people in the united states get better access to health care, either through a better jobs environment or through obamacare, that that will help margins and earnings at life point. >> cisco is thesysco is the largest food distributor in america. >> it fits our process very well. it's a stable business model. as the consumer gets more money into its pocket with lower gas

prices, we think that should drive revenues at sysco. their primary customers are restaurants, and that should help sysco and sipsysco should benefit from lower gas prices lower distribution costs. they're getting over the hump on i.t. spending man. >> i like republic services here as well. that's an interesting play. a phoenix-based company, too, yeah? >> phoenix, yeah. that sounds real nice when you're in kansas city here and it's cold. yeah it's a trash company. they pick up the trash, and, again, fits our process really well of high quality companies, high return on capital, low volatility, and so we think as the economy improves and commercial construction picks up, that their volume should improve and then pricing power should follow. so that should help them get their margins to normalize as well. but if our thesis doesn't play out, this is the type of a company that doesn't have a lot of downside.

>> well i love people will often say trash is a great economic indicator. we hope you're right about this investment, about the economy, and we wish you luck next week as well. >> thanks kelly. >> thanks for being here. >> heading to the close, about 17 minutes left in the session here. i don't think kenny polcari's tweet this morning when he said even when the market was down 250 points that we'd finish positive, not going to happen but he knew that as well. down 180 points on the industrial average right now. >> if you want to check out that fund we just mentioned as well with kevin, it's acmvx. that's the ticker for the american century midcap value fund. here is a look at the big caps and tech not spared today. we'll go live to silicon valley for a special report on the tech wreck when we come back.

market slightly coming back but that's relatively speaking. down 20 points on the nasdaq 100. the dow down 178 right now, and the s&p down over 10 points as well. as we head toward the close with about 14 minutes left. >> if you're looking for ports in a storm, don't look at tech. josh lipton is here with the tech wreck. what are you seeing in silicon valley? >> well kelly, the new year

isn't kicking off in the way a lot of tech bulls had obviously hoped. right now the tech sector and the s&p 500 down about 3%. that is the sixth worst performing sector out of ten so pretty much right in the middle of the pack there. but, of course what's really attracting a lot of attention isn't the sector as a whole. it's been really the moves we're seeing in the big tech names. you take google for example, this week that stock did hit a new 52-week low. it's now down nearly 20% from its all-time high. then of course there's ibm. big blue. remember the worst performer in the dow last year and it's in the red again so far here in 2015. in fact, many of those tech names we talk about the most are well off their 52-week highs right now. that includes apple, microsoft, and yahoo!. and some that we're seeing now could be just profit taking. remember, last year that tech sector was the third best performer in the s&p 500 with a gain of nearly 20%. guys, back to you. >> josh thank you.

and, yes, we are aware that blackberry shares are suddenly up 20% right now. dom chu stepping in with that story. >> this is session highs for blackberry shares. what we have right now is blackberry spiking as we speak. reuters is reporting that a south korean electronics giant samsung had recently approached blackberry about a potential takeover offer. it said that samsung proposed a possible price range, initial price range, of between $13.35 a share to $15.48 per share. hence you see that movement higher by about 21% right now. so again, a reuters story citing a source that says that samsung had approached blackberry about a potential takeover. we'll bring you more details but for right now that's what we have. it's a reuters story that blackberry could be a takeover target for samsung. >> we have to quickly point out what's being bandied about, $13.35 to $15.49 a share is

nowhere near where blackberry is trading. >> $11.38 is where we're trading right now. there's obviously a healthy dose of skepticism. there's takeover talks or rumors for a while here on blackberry's stock and so this time around you can see people handicapping whether or not this comes to fruition. still, interesting that there are actually numbers associated with this report with regard to a possible initial takeover price by samsung if in fact those stories are true guys. >> i know i kid about blackberry, i have got mine and all that blah blah blah but, you know, from a cyber security standpoint that's still a gold standard in the industry the blackberry operating system is and that may be one of the attractions there. but you wonder if the canadian government would allow the takeover by a south korean company or any other foreign entities at this point. >> lenovo had been talked about at one point as a possible suitor for blackberry. that's a chinese company. cross border deals will always be a huge amount of skepticism is going to be at least paid to some of these takeover deals,

but when it's cross border like this, remember, it is a big deal for blackberry if anybody is talking about this. but you're right, bill it's something that's been talked about for a while in terms of a possible suitor. it's the first time we've heard that samsung is very front and center in the talk. >> thanks dom. see you later. let's get back to oil prices. late day rally settling over $48 on wti. 5% gain there. jackie deangelis at the nymex. >> good afternoon. a near 6% gain on the day, very volatile seesaw trading but we closed at $48.48. we had options expiration today which usually does take prices up. that's one of the reasons. and also the pattern of late has been to see either extreme buying or extreme selling into the close and that is exactly what happened today. however traders are saying the downward bias remains for a couple reasons. we got a big crude in gasoline inventory build and dollar strength and worries about global growth. let me give you a gas price check. $2.10 the national average and

bill finally $1.99 at a station near you. >> yes, it was. i tweeted the photo today and as i said i was so excited i bought gas all around. i bought a round for everybody. >> you're storing it now. >> everyone is getting into the tanker business. thanks, jackie. >> bought a tanker. coming back a little bit here. ten minutes left. >> yes, that's the case. we'll keep a close eye on this. we have low gas prices to watch as well. >> trying to catch art cashin's eye. it low gas prices is supposed to help the consumer why were retail sales so bad last month. that's a question we've been asking all day. we'll get to that just ahead. ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how

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okay. six minutes left here. we're a little tight on time because of the blackberry breaking news, down 180 points on the dow. joining me right now bob pisani. are you buying dips like this? >> we started buying some more today. look, it's day nine. there's 242 trading days left in the year. let's not throw in the towel quite yet and let's remember last year up 14% on the s&p 500. it started in a very similar fashion as what we're going through now.

i wouldn't throw in the towel and stick with high quality companies, good dividend paying stocks. i know it's boring but it works. >> it's day nine and there's 240 days left? >> 242. >> that means half the day is wrong, right? i'm terrible with math. did you see the rally in energy we've had today? >> late today. >> 2:00 nothing is happening. suddenly it seems to have started with oil. then nat gas blew up and all the ou stocks started moving the xop, the expiration and production etf suddenly blows up. we know options are expiring on oil today. we talked about that. jackie talked about it as well. that's probably the explanation but it also coincided with the base book report. maybe the comments had a little bit of influence. >> let me take a quick break. we'll get to the closing countdown around see how we close this day out. another wild day and then much more after the bell second hour of "the closing bell" coming your way in a moment. stay tuned. [container door opening] ♪

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and oliver and then bob, blackberry late today, we were highlighting is up almost 30% right now on the talk reuters report that samsung was looking at them as a possible acquisition target. >> i think m&a will be big. ernest and young talks about the expectation of high m and a. you're going to see great values out there. >> 2006 -- >> you still have a 2006 model? >> 2006 blackberry. >> i have thrown it in the snow. it works. it's reliable. >> the thing keeps working. >> i'm an apple guy. let's hope blackberry makes it. >> cyber security is very important. >> sony had to use that there. oil, are you buying any energy here? >> we bought some energy earlier. i remember i was talking to you, we thought around $60 was the bottom. the bottom line is the world is not collapsing. if things aren't as bad as they

appear, so the year is probably pretty good. >> we'll see what happens. good to see you. thank you. take care of that blackberry. going out with a decline of about 200. another wild wacky day. we'll see what happens tomorrow and what's going on with blackberry. stay tuned. the second hour of "the closing bell" with kelly evans and company. see you tomorrow, kel. thank you, bill. hi, everybody, welcome to the closing bell. i'm kelly evans and here is how we're finishing a wild ride on wall street. going out with the dow off 187 points, the s&p off 11 and the nasdaq off 22. so 1% decline for the dow, about half of that for the nasdaq and the s&p. and certainly declines in jpmorgan after those earnings results played a role in the underperformance of the big dow index. let's bring in today's panel, talk about that. the moves in oil prices and so much more. rick edelman is here. cnbc contributor stephanie link and our very own michelle

caruso-cabrera. also joining us for more on today's market action is "fast money" trader guy adami. guy, you get to do the honors here because this is a guy world and we're all living in it. >> i hope it's not a guy -- man, that is scary as can be. now all of a sudden you see a lot of people you see some fed governors talking about it obviously over in europe people talking about this global deflation trade. just given everything that's happened, you have to sort of -- you have to allow for the fact that maybe that's the case. baltic dry index down 30-something days in a row. we talk about the crude move. the copper move has been equally impressive to the downside. coupled with that with the fact that the bond market is stubbornly bid. rates want to go lower and that points to deflationary environment. doesn't mean necessarily that stocks have to go down but it doesn't paint a rosy outlook down the road. >> michelle? >> i think a lot of stock investors are very poured edworried about the utter collapse in yields and commodities and what is it telling us?

you made a throwaway comment yesterday on the segment i was on where you talked about real rates. we're a show dedicated mostly to stocks but they have to start understanding the concept of real rates. when we show the 10-year yield at 1.8% if you think inflation is below that, if you think prices are going to go down say you think prices will go down 1%, that means you're going to get 3% on your money. that's the real rate. >> exactly. >> there are arguments to be made by economists that interest rates are still too high for the state of the committee that we have right now. >> i know it's something if you raise it rick most people recoil. they say what are you talking about, but that's how it matters to people in the market. >> this is why people are so flustered and why we're seeing renewed volatility like we didn't see for most of last year. as people are focusing on the fact that the stock market is iffy and we have price problems in oil and elsewhere at the same time we have a massive yield issue not only in the u.s. but foreign as well and people are wondering where exactly do i go and what do i do with the

cash? >> what do you tell people when they come to you and say, rick help me. what am i supposed to do? am i supposed to buy bonds when i keep hearing about all the risks? >> what we're telling our clients and anyone new with cash to invest is real simple. you have to ignore this type of volatility. look at today, in fact what happened from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. had nothing to common from 10:00 a.m. to noon. you can't make investment decisions based on this nonsense. don't make big bets. lots of money in lots of little places so no one mistake will hurt you. >> stephanie? >> to me what's troubling is you have energy that hasn't led in a long time and it just seems to go down every day minus today with crude prices. i think whatas a little bit of short koverring. now you have financials following suit. 25% of the s&p are waiting going in the opposite direction. >> it's incredible the market has held up as well as it has. >> today you had the retail sales number. i would say that's a one off because it doesn't really jive

with what we're hearing on jobs and confidence and income but then you have that kind of turnaround. so i think today was a lot -- there were -- there's a lot of news. what i would point to the most important thing was the bank earnings which were a little disappointing and to the point of the panel, interest rates, if they're headed lower, this group is not going to outperform anytime soon. you have to look at other sectors. i still believe the consumer is the place to be. i believe pockets of industrials are places to be like auto and aerospace and truck that will benefit from lower oil prices but you have to be selective and stock specific. >> guy, what do you think looks attractive out there? >> health care. health care. health care. >> he keeps coming back to health care. >> health care health care. i said it five times. i think there's great stories in health care. you look at what's green on a lousy day despite the fact we bounced off the lows. there's great stories in health care. i banged this drum as well. take a look at what cell gene has done over the last couple

weeks. look at the bounce gilead has had. we talk about agio. look at exact sciences. that's a name we talk about with you six months ago. there's some great stories in the health care sector and to self stephanie's point, if the yield curve continues to flatten, that's a tremendous headwind for the banks. they'll be hard pressed for their earnings to improve. >> i agree completely with health care. >> everybody does. >> and i would broaden it. instead of focusing just on health care, more broadly into technology overall, telecommunications, financial services innovation and here is why. the companies that will succeed are 21st century companies, not the 20th century. >> some quick examples? >> we have huge examples all over the place. even utilities can be argued as being 20th century. >> and they benefit from low interest rates. >> we have so many examples it's hard to narrow them. >> let's bring jon fortt in the conversation. a huge pop in an old tech

blackberry now being approached reuters is reporting by samsung. shares responding but still not quite up at that level in terms of price that was reportedly being bandied about. >> there would be a number of hurdles before this becomes absolutely real. there are regulatory issues blackberry is a jewel in canada. samsung is obviously a korean company, but there are things about this that would make sense. blackberry is not the phonemaker it was a few years ago. john chen has really limited the phone exposure to blackberry focused it squarely on mobile device management. you can use their service software to manage iphones, android devices as well as black blackberryies and other devices. also on security, and just back in mid-november blackberry had this announcement they would be doing security work in the enterprise with samsung. samsung is more of a partner than they had been in the past. so there is a lot of reason to

believe that this could eventually happen, but, again, there's a lot of hurdles that they would have to cross before they get to that point. when i recently talked to john chen about how long he'd be around leading blackberry he said he was there to get the job done. didn't sound like he was necessarily planning to be there for years and years. so, you know, this is one to watch. >> what is there of value in blackberry? is it the customer base? what would you be buying? is it the technology? to me their e-mail still works better than everybody else's. i don't understand the technology behind that but i know that i feel far more -- it's far more reliable at this point. what exactly are you buying if you buy blackberry? >> if you're buying blackberry you are buying a number of patents but most specifically you're buying a lot of enterprise capability in software. not only managing devices, also dealing with secure e-mail. they have a number of contracts with governments and government

contractors that make specialized devices. that's part of what would make a transaction complicated is there are a number of customers with very high security needs, a number of government that is would want to weigh in on who would be getting access to that type of technology. so it's not just canada. it's a number of customers here that could potentially complicate this but there are real assets particularly when you look at how the downside in the hand set market has been minimized and if plaque berry is gaining traction in the server software it becomes more valuable, if they're successful in that from here on out. >> this is not only a no-brainer, i don't see any downside for blackberry and really largely inevitable. i think it will be the harbinger of things to come in 2015. so many massive companies are sitting on such massive amounts of cash about $2 trillion among the s&p 500 alone. you're going to see this kind of mergermania going on. >> is it ultimately in the best interest of shareholders? does samsung/blackberry make

sense as a tie up? >> it certainly can if it's strategically sound and i think blackberry has less to lose than samsung does. >> and at this point let's take a pause and add into the conversation with his take on these markets, noted investor jay jordan from the jordan company. jay, thank you for your patience. we want to talk a little bit about the markets where you see opportunity, and i can't help but notice you put some money to work in the energy space lately. are you going to keep doing that? >> well, i think we're going to slow down. some of it is in the upstream energy market but we're cautiously looking at it. from a global point of view i'm very, very concerned and i would probably be the contrarian on the panel. as you know i think asset prices globally are substantially overvalued. as a result of what's happened with the fed and the financial repression and quantitative easing. once this liquidity gets finally sucked out of the market combined with price of oil under $50 with deflation raising its ugly head and all of the global issues with iran or syria,

russia, this isis business and this terrorism, any one of which could be a tipping point to really play havoc on global markets. so i am very cautious and we are. what we're doing is what we've always done through sickles is we're buying private companies and we're not overleveraging them. and that has served us well over the five cycles i have been in. jo jay >> understanding your concern, you have to look at the valuation out there all the time, i'm sure it's frustrating but you still have to put money to work. you recently made an investment in some telecom assets. in other words what pragmatically are you going to do and would you recommend other people with their money should do here even against this backdrop of concern? >> well there are certain industries we like but i think the focus -- our focus is private, and private is very important to us because it doesn't -- we don't experience the volatility that you would in the public markets and the financial sector and what have you. so we have five global themes

that we look at. we do look at energy education, health care, and a number of others. we try to stick to segments that are growing globally and have a great future globally. >> you know i love what jay had to say and i love him like a sister because what he said if you parse it really carefully, although jay sounded really negative, what he said was i'm buying carefully and keeping my debt low. well that's sound advice for anybody. buy and keep your debt low. >> jay? >> yes, sir. we're in sync here and we've done well through the cycles and our businesses get through the cycle. we could be heading into another cycle. as you know since we went off the gold standard we have a cycle every seven to eight years. well it's 2008-2009, we're going to be hitting something soon, and we'll be prepared for it. >> it sounds like it. and, jay, thank you for sharing your perspective this hour on these volatile markets. it must be nice to be a little

out of the limelight with some of these acquisitions. >> and guy adami thank you very much. >> right on kel. >> see him on "fast money" at 5:00. we will be talking about copper's decline with mr. dennis gartman himself. don't miss it. now, when the markets behave like this the voice many people want to hear from is jim cramer. up next jim joins me for his view on what's going on and where the market is heading. that's in two minutes. stay with us. do y ou like to travel? i'm all about "free" travel babe. that's what i do. [ female announcer ] fortunately, there's an easier way, with creditcards.com. compare hundreds of cards from every major bank and find the one that's right for you. creditcards.com. it's simple. for fastidious librarian emily skinner, each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events to come. well somewhere along the way emily went right on living.

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welcome back. it's a pretty rough day on wall street for the bulls and there are signs more trouble brewing in areas outside of the stock market. dom chu rounding up some red flags for us. dom? >> so there are a number of different signs traders are watching right now. we speak to a lot of them on the floor of the exchange elsewhere in the markets here but one of the things we want to talk about is what's happening with the overall market and one of the things is yes, stock market related. so this is interesting here because one of the signs people are looking at is the transportation average. it had a strong year last year but in the first part of this year, it's showing some signs of weakness and over the past year you can see nice uptrend but right around this right-hand side we're seeing a little bit of weakness. that may be one of the yellow or red flags traders are seeing right now. transportation stocks seen by

some as a leading indicator for the overall market maybe the economy. if you fast forward to other parts of the market here you take a look at some of the other sectors, some of the other asset classes we're looking at, one of them is also in the commodity side of things. it's not just oil we're focusing on here for signs of deflation or slowing growth. one of them is also an agricultural commodity. the -- it tracks a another of agricultural commodities. you can see a steady downdraft as well over the course of the past seven to eight months. one other place is one a lot of people have been focusing on and that's the strength in the treasury bond and treasury note market. this etf tracks the longer end of the treasury maturity curve here, so the 20 to 30-year cycle for bonds. you can see here it's been up about 27%, this etf that tracks the longer end of the treasury curve. when you want to go to find other signs of weakness in the marketplace, people don't go towards treasury bonds unless

they're scared about something. people don't sell off commodities unless they think there's going to be some fear of at least no inflation, disin disinflation or maybe some deflation. some things people are watching in the market as possible signs. >> joining me with his take on what to watch is mr. "mad money" himself cnbc's jim cramer. >> how you been? >> welcome back. it struck me listening to dom there's one thing the areas have in common and it's the strong u.s. dollar. i know we don't talk about that all the time as a real problem. it's supposed to be a good thing for this country. is it becoming a problem? >> well i think that a lot of the industrials are certainly traumatized by a strong dollar at least we expect to see some guide downs from these industrials because of the dollar and we're hoping lower gasoline lower energy is going to offset that but clearly there are a lot of the technology companies that have been slammed because people expect that there will be guide downs because of the weak currencies. >> and then there's blackberry.

what do you make of this news? >> i was looking, blackberry has a great balance sheet, and i always felt there's got to be someone who wants that install base. a lot of people thought microsoft was interested. samsung is flailing. they'll do anything. put them -- pass them to blackberry? samsung is a desperate player right now. it probably suits a desperate move for a desperate player. >> if i'm a blackberry shareholder, do i want samsung to buy me? >> yeah you want anything. >> i guess you want 30%. >> it's like you're in quicksand, they throw you a rope. i don't think you say i'll wait for a better rope. >> fair point. what parts of the nashthmarket do you like? health care keeps coming up. every person we ask, talking the economic piece the outperformance, the fact it can be bullish and a port in the storm, key to a better economy or a weaker one. where do you see places for investors to get involved in this market? >> you know what? i'm a little more bullish than that in that i can see other

than finance, rates are just too low, and other than oil and you got a chance to be able to lighten up on some of the oils today on that spike at the end, i kind of like a lot of stocks. i think you just have to look at domestic. i know health care is terrific. i listened to guy adami. i love guy. he's dead right. health care is terrific, but the domestic stocks, when you look at a company like a target which i don't necessarily like here because it just ramped i am salivating for people who don't understand the relationship between disposable income and target to sell target because they're frightened. i would love a shot at getting into target with brian cornell doing what he's doing. so you're getting a second chance to get in these domestic stocks but nobody wants to do that. may i suggest we divide by ten, kelly? i remember in the october/november period 1987 i was dealing with a market that was at 1770 and it would got down 18 points and i would say, hey, let's pick. >> time to get to work. exactly. this reminds me of the retail

sales report the conversation we were having earlier. you brought up target but is it possible people aren't spending at target but at netflix and health care prem numiums or their data plan? >> i do a lot of bottoms up analysis and i checked with pretty much every major retailer. i didn't find a retailer that had down numbers. we look at the numbers and say, you know what? i am sometimes just going to say those numbers make no sense. they may make sense to big fixed income traders, to big s&p traders, but if you do bottoms up like i do which believe me is a real pain in the butt i didn't have to do it maybe sometime i won't have to but it's just contrary to the boots on the ground approach. i always trust boots on the ground. >> what about what jay jordan just told us? he's like i'm glad to be in the private markets and he's even dabbled in the energy space. he's sort of saying he doesn't have to worry about huge price fluctuations day to day. is it unfair for retail

investors that they do or is it a reality. >> i think you have to be the latter or decide i'm going to own an index fund and i will contribute 1/12 of my contribution every month. which is absolutely fine and i don't want to do oil and gas. there's so many more shoes to drop. it's imelda marcos' closet in that area. i'll stay out. when you have situation where is the market is being driven by a mood disorder and they're throwing out stocks there are opportunities. we didn't have this in 2014. it was placid. tonight on "mad money" i'm comparing 2014 to a lap doing. 2015 is a tiger with a thorn in its paw. >> okay. just a final question then jim. because i can't stop thinking a little bit about what further risks might be out there if we're in a situation where the dollar squeezes up partly on global positioning, by the way. there's been some nice work on that. the dollar squeezes up, commodity prices keep going down, maybe the treasuries keep rising and price falling in yield, et cetera.

if that's the environment we're being handed then what works? >> have a restoration of hardware which buys all its stuff oversea was a strong dollar and marks it up. i think what works is everything that actually is a taker of commodity and really does better. look, in that environment with rates going down go buy chipotle which doesn't get grazed by a pork recall. you can buy domestic stuff. you could even buy darden. actually just buy olive garden. can you believe it? it's going higher in that environment. you can go buy target. it's going higher. you can buy white wave it's going higher. >> jim, are you buying tankers, oil tankers? do you see what's happening with some of the rates? >> they're all -- look the rates are going up i understand the contango trade but you got to be very careful because three always seems to be a surfeit of tankers when you least expect them. >> take a look online you can google images of oil tankers in the major ports. >> they're a good platform to

get married on. you have like 500 people on top of one of those but it smells bad. >> i hope you're not considering it. >> debated it. bjorn hanson offered me one. i said you need a lot of deodorizers. >> thank you, jim. tonight on "mad money" it's a biotech bonanza. he will intek with the ceo of he is peeron. global economic fares haveears have been weighing on the u.s. economy but could that reverse if europe begins a huge economic stimulus overseas? that's up next. if you thought low gasoline prices would spark stronger consumer sales think again. why did holiday shopping sales come in a bit weaker than expected? we're going to ring up the state of the consumer coming up on "the closing bell."

welcome back. are the investors selling right now. walking in a buzz saw next week when europe's central bank is meeting a week from tomorrow many think it will finally unleash its own bond buying program that the market will cheer. let's bring in david melpass and david hale. david melpass we'll start with you. people who get out of the market are worried here. are they not anticipating a potential boon from europe next week? >> good afternoon. i think we've already seen the market price in the qe that the ecb will do next week. i don't think it will be very

powerful. i'm more thinking we're going into a phase of global rebalancing where people will get tired of just being in the u.s. and will take a look at some of the emerging markets, oil, the euro and so on. >> david hale what's your speck speck tiff? >> i think the markets have been discounting quantitative easing for several weeks. bond yields are at record low levels. stock markets have been resilient. so i do think the expectation of this happening is now broadly in the market because of comments by both draghi and other members of the monetary policy council. >> i think the davids are both correct. but i'm not necessarily convinced the governments are going to act. routinely, notoriously governments resist doing anything until they feel they have no other choice. are their backs really against the wall? the fact they're going to disappoint the markets horribly do they really care enough to act? >> are you talking about the central bank or talking about the major governments? the actual federal governments fail to act but the ecb has

managed to -- >> they are only doing it because the governments have failed so are they yet at the point of saying okay i'm giving up on you guys, we're going to take over and do it. >> do you think they will deliver next week? do they have to do quezing? >> there's no doubt they have to do it. >> but do they acknowledge that? >> well i think draghi does. i think draghi has certainly, but obviously markell is the big wildcard but they don't necessarily need her and it doesn't necessarily need to be the big bazooka. it could be the beginning of an aggressive plan but the problem is the market is expecting an aggressive plan. it could be the beginning phases of many things to come which is what i'm thinking might happen. so yeah okay the markets sell off, then there's your opportunity to look at some stocks. >> did you look at the article where he generally leaked the whole thing to germany today? did that convince you in any way you're going to get enough or did that convince you it's not going to be enough david hale? >> i agree in general with michelle that draghi has

surprised people on the positive side regularly enough that we ought to expect a decent amount ofq qe. my concern is qe i don't think will work very well. the bond yields are already low. the ecb is going to finance all those bond purchases with bank financing. in the u.s. 18% of barqnk assets are stuck at the fed, dead money. so it's not really a good move for europe that's going to cause stimulus. >> david hale do you think it will work and do you think we're going to see it next week and if so, how much? >> i think it will be $500 billion euros at least and the primary impact will come through a following currency. the european currency has fallen from 1.35 a year ago to about 1.18 in recent days. it could easily drop to 1.1. >> wow. >> if things get bad enough going out 6 months or 8 months it might be parity with the u.s. dollar. monetary transmission mechanism will be the currency. >> david malpass, i'll give you

the last word. if that happens, what does it mean for us here? >> as long as the euro holds together, meaning you don't see it split up between france germany, italy and so on then i think what we're looking at is a weakness in europe. we're used to that and then we have to look at whether we do tax reform, for example, the things that really matter here. >> okay. both of you davids, thank you so much. thanks for being here this afternoon and giving us a sense of what's priced into the markets. we'll send it out to jon fortt with a quick market flash for us. hi jon. is his mic on? >> i don't hear him. >> sorry about that. we're going to take a quick break, come back to jon on this breaking news. straight ahead, we're also going to talk about plunging gasoline prices and whether consumers are or are not spending the extra cash that's given to them. that's coming up. and with oil below $50, energy firms starting to scale back

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now let's send it over to jon fortt. what's going on out there? >> i'm trying out all the cameras in the newsroom. turns out this news is on adobe.

it's up just over 1% after hours on news that they have authorized -- actually up almost 2% on news they've authorized an additional $2 billion for stock buybacks. this kind of refreshes a previous $2 billion authorization that they had that expired at the end of last fiscal year. the stock is up above 70 bucks per share. the highs in the mid-70s. not sure how much they'll repurchase at these exact levels but this authorization is good through 2017. so $2 billion for adobe. the stock is up after hours. >> and a the buy back train continues. pantheon macro had a big report on buy backs. good train reading. it turned out it was not such a happy holiday for retailers and that was with gas prices lower in december. courtney reagan is joining us with the results that were just out today. what did they find? >> kelly, perhaps there were fewer gifts under the christmas trees this year or maybe as some economists are saying the government's retail sales figure

is wrong. well, it's a fact that prices at the pump have been lower for more than 103 days. drivers may not be diverting those savings into retail spending. census bureau says retail sales fell 0.9% in december. the largest decrease in 11 months. those readings are part of the equation that the national retail federation's economists use to tabulate the holiday sales results. according to the nrf total holiday sales in store and online rose 4.0% 0.1% lower than the group's forecast for the season with total sales at $616.1 billion, that is $800 million shy of the initial estimate. separating out sales online catalog, things not made in stores, those increased 6.8%. also well shy of the 8% to 11% growth that was forecast. some of the biggest retail stock

losers include guess, new york and company, footfootlocker and pvh. >> courtney thank you very much. so will a lower -- i can't say that five times first. will lower oil prices give retail a boost eventually. monica mada joins us now with our panel. monica, what do you make of the diverging retail numbers? >> well i think we saw this coming a little bit in november and december. it was a highly promotional holiday season. retail he isers -- retailers were breaking out all the stops to get consumers into the store. the consumers was able to satisfy everybody on the holiday shopping list and save money because the retailers were putting every promotion under the sun out there. in my own facebook feed i had three pictures from people putting low prices at the pump. people are excited.

the average consumer drives by 12 gas stations a day. >> that's a point. >> monica how much do you think the west coast port issue played in the overall sales numbers? and how does that play out with gift cards? because we've been hearing that stores didn't have the merchandise, their inventories were very lean and so as a result you had consumers doing more on the gift card thing and so as a result january, february, march might be better than december/november. >> that's a very interesting point. gift cards remain actually on surveys one of the most desirable giftable items among recipients of gifts. so i think gift cards are popular just because people actually want them. they don't want to return the ugly sweater. they'd rather pick it out themselves. as far as the port issue goes most retailers, bear in mind place their inventory orders well in advance of the season. so you had people placing orders six, seven months before and then again you had the

wholesalers stocking up those items in advance. i don't think the port issue played as much of an impact in these lower retail numbers. i think it was consumers taking their time to adjust to these savings that they're seeing with gas prices. if they're getting money at home, they still have higher rents to contend with higher health care costs to contend with. that doesn't show up in the retail numbers and, again, retailers had great promotions. you could still get everything you wanted this year and save money. >> rick and michelle where do you think this extra consumer dollar is going? >> i think ultimately it's going to be going back into the marketplace, but i think -- >> into stocks? >> both into investing, paying down debt buying investments -- >> paying down debt. a big theme. people are wondering where are these missing dollars. >> it's paying down debt. we're seeing dramatic reduction in consumer debt and there's no question this is where the money is coming from. consumers are loving this. consumers are not dumb. when you give them newfound cash, they are loving it because there are things they've been

wanting to do they haven't been able to do and now they can. this has been equivalent to four times their pay hike. the amount of money they're saving at the gas pump. this is huge for the american consumer. >> i think that last point is super important. the numbers we saw today won't be nearly as relevant. if oil prices stay low, boom i think six months next year you're going to see tremendous amounts of consumer spending. >> not to mention the fact natural gas prices are down so much and the costs of these companies is coming down substantially. if you have traffic improve a little bit and you have the cost structure coming down a little bit from the big companies, profitability is going to be that much better. >> and it all happened just as the winter hit so home heating costs are dropping as well. it's a double benefit. >> last word to you, monica. >> i think you will see more optimism from the consumer and that materialize into sales going into the first and second quarter of the year. again, consumers are cynical. they've been beat over the head the last several years. they're not going to open up their wallets around start

spending on discretionary. they are reducing debt and they're going to take their time to really savor this. >> coming up low oil prices may be a net positive for america, but if you work in the sector it's not good news. the plunge is now costing jobs. we'll get a realtime report on layoffs, and jpmorgan boss jamie dimon saying things are, quote, under assault. you better believe that made the hot list. we'll get all the stories topping cnbc.com straight ahead. stay tuned.

stay tuned.

not everyone around the country is celebrateing the drop in oil and gas prices. mary thompson joins with the results of a hiring survey. >> a oil prices down 50% in the last six months. a semi annual survey finds they're dialing back plans for hiring. more expect they will cut jobs from now to july. 36% of managers expect to cut jobs in the first half of the year and that's up from 11% who are planning cutbacks in the second half of last year. meanwhile, a percentage of firms expecting to boost hiring they dropped dramatically to 22% of those surveyed from 50% with 44% expecting to do less hiring than they did six months ago. an increase from the 12% who say they'd slow hiring in the last half of last year. almost 30% though expecting payroll levels to stay the same over the next six months. the volatility in the energy

markets providing some upside though to firms who are still looking for workers. more than half of the managers say they are seeing an increase in the number of workers applying for available jobs while fewer of the lucky ones that actually land the job are, a, asking for more money and, b, rejecting other offers suggesting workers are putting more of a premium on the current offers fearing better ones may not be out there in the future. kelly? >> mary stay right there. we want to get some thoughts on this from the panel. one of the most important things from someone laid off from the sector is whether they find new work. >> they will probably have a struggle just like the whole country experienced in the aftermath of '08. we're talking about the energy sector. this cannot be a shock to anybody. they go from the worst to the best and back again. and so it goes. what i find most excite being this survey is that only 44% say they're going to reduce hiring. >> oh come on. that's a big number. >> i would have thought all of them would. >> maybe it's a bad sign more of them aren't. >> yes, exactly.

and maybe there's a lot more to come they're trying to be too optimistic. it may be worse than what the numbers say. >> if the oil prices say low, it's inevitable isn't it? >> i would agree 100%. a lot of people are questioning, okay, we've dealt with these kind of declines before. the question is how long what's the duration here? and six months you might see a very different survey than you've seen with this one. >> what's interesting is six months ago these companies were complaining they couldn't find workers. and so it's kind of interesting to see this dynamic play out and that might be to your point that maybe 44% are only looking to reduce because you know what? they still haven't found enough to do what they wanted them to do in the first place. >> and maybe they're being a little more prudent and pragmatic and hiring in first place. they didn't overhire before. >> they couldn't find the people. >> remember what csx told us yesterday and what we were hearing today. there hasn't been any slowdown in production in this country at all, mary. so we're talking about a phenomena that hasn't even hit

home yet so in order for this to happen what six months 12 months beyond that? they have high yield debt that goes out for five years. >> i think in six months you might see things change a bit again if we see oil prices stay at these levels. one thing i do want to note i was speaking to someone who actually said given that there was a need for skilled workers in the oil industry now that some of the producers or companies may be laying off, those companies that have a little extra cash laying around maybe aren't cutting back production as much. this could be a boon for them because they can pick off some of the workers from their competitors at this time. so those who have the money to pay these workers, they actually may benefit. >> all right. mary thompson. >> to get the skilled workers they need. >> thank you very much. important perspective on this area. the market sell-off is the hot topic and our website covered it from all angles. allen wastler is next with "the hot list." tune in "the closing bell" and we'll be joined by jim grant weighing in on whether or not the fed is getting it right with

their current rate time line and whether 2015 is proving to be the year of stock picking. you won't want to miss it.

the dramatic moves in stocks had people clicking into

cnbc.com for the whole hot list. let's check in with allen wastler. >> you know, when the market goes wild like it did today, people just pile in trying to figure out what happened? so those are the market goes wild people pile in trying to figure out what happened. p we have a wrap up of why commodities are taking a beat willing. basically we go through what is happening with oil, copper supply issues. and corn was a bumper crop soybeans, cotton others that have had great crops so they're getting hit, as well. so people loving that. and we also have the wise men effect where people are seeking out advice. we have some from o'neal securities. he broke down the technical levels and psychology he's arguing is more about frustration, not so much panic.

it's people frustrated with monetary policy frustrated with government fiscal policy and interest rates flip-flopping. so that's why ken any is at. people seem interested in that. and then finally, jamie dimon, when he speak, people listen. and today he was on the defensive saying banks are under underedunder undered assault and he thinks that break up notion is poppycock. so people love jamie dimon. >> we should make it clear poppycock is allen's word here. >> that's me. >> thank you, allen. good to see you. it's waepbeen a rough ride. where the downward trend continue? final thoughts when we come back.

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sgleern sgleern. before the bell, bank off america, citi black rock. how will results impact trading. >> banks very very important to see if there are some that can outrchl in rchlperform in terms of

better cost control, better management. loan growth was a bright spot but there were so many other pieces that were disappointing that we'll have to see. those expectations were a lot lower than citigroup and bank of america, but if they don't deliver, i think it takes another leg down. >> earnings season feels like when the real push will come to shove. but a couple weeks still for that. >> and will this be the quarter where we really start to see it. >> a little lagging. >> and they will start giving us guidance for sure. >> and by the time they announce their earnings of what happened last quarter, the new level of oil prices may just unwind. >> we will get a taste, though. and they are the behemoth. if they can do okay, maybe that will settle shallome down. >> i found csx interesting.

we keep coming back to it. but here is a company that basically is carrying the oil on its rails and seeing no effect. that's what michael moore told us, no effect yet. >> they can't cut production yet. >> and consumers are still driving. so we need the product. we're just altering what we're paying for it. >> and we're not sure production necessarily falls. we know production growth is coming to a complete stand still. when you just pump the baby for cash flow. >> if you're audi a rabnd you had saudi arabia. but what puts the bottom in oil prices. >> we were saying if it's below $70, we have a problem. if it goes below $60 we'll super v. a problem. do we say 40? >> at some point the price drops enough and it starts to incentivize more companies.

>> and we'll see m and a, too. >> her started to mark the activity picking up and we've followed at least a couple. complaint really count on m&a to be the tell. >> and i do think things will get a whole lot worse. but those ten companies in a lot of trouble right now. but you can bet exxon and chevron are licking their lips wanting to do something. but they have the luxury of time. >> a lot of others will be reaping the benefit. so if the average investor who is diversified, this is more good than bad. >> want to ask you about something jim paulson at wells wrote about. he went back, looked at some work that i think ken french had done on the stock market and said one thing that is gift this time from the tech bubble if

you will, the tech bubble overall market multiple was high because tech stocks was really high. what's happened this time around is the typical company, valuation is actually higher now than it was then. you just have a lot of low people dragging on the market. so it's just an interesting way it talk about valuation and how much we're strepped. does that worry you when you're talking about people getting into the stock market? >> no because if you look at historical number, sure, those numbers are higher than average, but if you look at the growth of earnings and the stability of companies, the cash they're sitting on, the opportunities for the next 5, 10 years are more than compensating for the risks. >> and you have much lower interest rates than we did back in the tech bubble and probably going lower. so that is pretty darn good for equities and for valuations. >> do we still have low interest rates because of the tech bubble? isn't that what started it? the bursting is what brought the interest rates down. >> and when greenspan was talking about a conundrum back in the day, all the things

difficult to grapple with today seem 30 times more so. i don't know where that leaves europe when it has to figure out how aggressive to be for its central bank here next week. >> given the whole situation we're facing on a global basis and the ecb, much rather to be on u.s. soil than anywhere else. >> especially with a strong dollar. >> i think i've heard people lately joking about shopping for real estate in greece and now after we heard our guest talking about the euro going to parity with the dollar well -- >> if you buy that property in greece, you have to convert your dollars to euros. if the euro goes down and the rot goes done you get a double exam any. >> unbelievable. guys, thank you for being here. "fast money" coming up in just a few moments. melissa lee, are you shopping for greek real estate? why not currently. obviously you've noticed huge

swings. we'll give you the one pick to weather the volatility. >> can't wait. straight to you. live from the nasdaq market site i'm melissa lee. break manage just theing this just the past hour samsung approaching blackberry for potential acquisition. and tesla's rough ride the stock sinking after the ceo saying the company would not turn a profit for another five years. but first, tonight's top story. return the volatility. stocks sinking today after weaker than expected retail sales numbers. and even with a massive midday closing in the red. are investors concerned about global growth and