brian, some interesting stuff, right? >> yeah, to your point, to your debate tonight, coal versus gas -- >> coal versus solar. >> coal is going to be gone in ten years, isn't it? >> enough for a trade, though, brian? i don't know. >> we'll see. >> thanks for watching "power lunch." >> "closing bell" is up next. and welcome to the "closing bell." can you believe it, it is december, mr. bill. >> it is. i can't believe how high your heels are today. i'm looking up to you even more. >> i will work on the slouch. i'm kelly evans. here at the new york stock exchange is that would make me bill griffeth. here is how we're kicking off the first trading day of the last month of the year. the manufacturing index came in below 50 for the first time since november of 2012. that's amazing. we will talk about whether santa claus rally could still be in the cards for the stock market here. >> we told you yesterday about

wells fargo sales tactics being under investigation. today we have new comments from the wells fargo ceo. while amazon has seen big gains over the last two months in the stock market we have data that shows now may be the time to sell that stock. we will explain why. >> and giving the gift of stocks. stocks, not sock, stocks, we will introduce you to the ceo of new company that's selling gift cards before buying shares in the checkout line. it does give new meaning to stocking did you ever, doesn't it? >> yes, it does. it's very clever. >> let's start with the breaking news on auto sales. phil lebeau joins us now. record breaking pace, phil? >> record breaking, kelly, it was monster month. we knew it would be. over 18 million, now we know exactly how much. auto data which basically crunches all of the numbers every month has come up with the calculation that the sales pace last month was 18.19 million

vehicles, that's the pace of sales. we're showing you this chart because it goes all the way back to the year 2000. that's when we had an all time high for auto sales. we are now on pace that break that overall sales rate in 2000. if you look at the individual auto makers last month, toyota led the way with an increase of 12.4%, gm, chrysler, fiat and ford, the percentages are not really impressive going up or down, but the overall sales rate was impressive. i want to focus on general motors. average transaction price, this is what they sold the vehicle for in dealerships, a record high of $38,500 up $580 compared to last year and at the same time the percentage of the price that went into incentives going into that, it was down 1.4%. so a lot of people saying, they're giving these cars away. huh-uh, incentives went down at general motors. one other note, volkswagen, what a rough month, sales dropping

24%. clearly the diesel scandal has hurt sales because there are so many that are still under a stop sale order so they can't sell these vehicles that may be sitting in the showroom. as you take a look at shares over the last two years of gm and ford, compare them with auto nation and group one. folks, this is where the money has been in if you're investing in autos. the dealership stocks not with the auto makers despite the record numbers we have seen this year and last year which was also very strong. >> phil, that mix there at gm you highlighted i'm sure that must reflect as well how many of these autos are light trucks. that includes suvs, correct? but the figure in october was over 50%. i'm assuming that pace held up last month, too. >> yeah, it did. and that's why it is. because the demand is so strong there and it's always strong but it's particularly strong right now because of low gas prices. people who might have been thinking about an suv, they are not thinking any more. they see gas at $2 or less than $2 we're buying the suv or

pickup truck. that's where the strength is right now. >> ford was sflat overall but their truck sales on the f series were up 10% in that month. >> yes. >> why is that right now? i know you highlight the low gas prices but it just seems like there's something else going on with the big truck sales. >> there's still a lot of pent up demand. despite the strong sales over the last couple of years, very strong pent up demand. the average age of a vehicle continues to rise in this country. we still have the average age at about 10.8 years. think about that. most people are driving around with an old vehicle. >> i agree. >> we are not just talking a few at 10.8, a lot of people have 6, 7-year-old vehicles. >> that's the great recession right there, people had to delay it for a while. phil, thanks very much. we do have gm's former vice chair bob will you tell us back with us, tell give us his take on whether the market is overheating.

>> i think november had the fewest number of selling days for any month since 2012, it was only, you know, because the weekends and holidays and things going on. >> didn't matter. >> let's go to bob pisani who is tracking today's action here at the new york stock exchange. traders love december, don't they? >> they love it because there's all sorts of fun things that go on in december. you buy last month's losers. take a look. solar stocks, airline stocks and metals. guess what's up today, solar stocks, airline stocks and metals. you buy the laggards, but the traders loved december. number one, it's the best month of the year, average gain in the last 25 years, 1.8%, best month of the year, that's number one, number two reason they like it so much the january effect. this happens in the middle of december, it's the tendency of small cap stocks to outperform for the next month. december 15th you buy the russell small cap index, then

there is the free lunch rjs this is my favorite, you're selling all the losers in mid-december for tax returns. by mid-december a bunch of stocks that have been beaten up badly, those stocks tend to outperform in the following two months because everybody sees them as bargains and buys them, it's called the free lunch, it's my personal favorite. and then of course there is the legendary santa claus effect. this is the effect of the last five days of the year and the first two trading days of the year, the market tends to have a nice short rally, it's about 1.5%, it's very reliable since about 1950, traders almanac famously discovered this way back in 1972 and everybody of course loves to end the year with a nice rally. a lot of reasons people like december. back to you. to our "closing bell" exchange for this giving tuesday, jury regard fitzpatrick from russell investments is back with us, we are pleased to welcome mr. arthur cash inn who is at post 9 and rick santelli checks in from chicago as well. arthur, as santa claus still

come to town even if the fed, the grinch, puts a bit of coal in our stocking? >> i wouldn't unwrap the presents quite yet. some of them may have to go back to the store. >> count the metaphors, everybody. >> the history of this month is better in the first few days, as bob described it kind of dips in the middle and comes back on in the end and we have couple of curve balls here. the ism went below 50, the last time the fed raised rates when the ism was below 50 was 1981. reagan was in the white house, welker was at the fed and inflation was 10% so that raises some questions. secondarily we may get a surprise on friday because the nonfarm payrolls will not get a benefit from the birth death model that adds things in. in october it added in 163,000, which is typical of october. in november it tends to be flat to minus. so there is an outside risk that the payroll numbers could be

under $150,000, lots of questions for the fed. >> gerard, it wasn't just a headline number on that murlg index, it was the new orders that went below 50 as well. historically what does that mean for the performance of credit and against a fed that's supposedly about to tighten? >> it could be a concern out there and some disappointment with that manufacturing number out there, but ultimately we take the view that the fed ultimately will now lift off in december, unless there is a really, really bad nfp number out on friday. we don't believe that's the case, we think the fed will hike the rates and i think ultimately they will survive the fact that there has been a relatively weak msn number out there. >> by the way, we're looking at the ten year yield. 2.15%, gerard. it keeps going down. look at the 30 year, 2.19%. these were not the positions people were expecting as we're talking about lift off. >> well, the key issue there is about the flattening of the yield curve.

we're seeing that the longer end still doing quite well. three main reasons i see, one is it's still a good diversifier with second wits, two there's less supply risk for long end treasuries and three right now there are still some concerns with the economy. 2.2, 2.1% still considered relative value. the big thing is on the short end you're starting to see the two year and short end rise as the market increasingly suss spengts that the fed will increase rates. expect to see a flattening to continue ahead. >> you and i have talked about that, the flattening of the yield curve but the dollar has strengthened into this and there is a feeling emerging that maybe there is a selloff in the dollar if the fed does start to raise rates. maybe a sell on the news story. do you buy that or what do you think is happening here? >> no, i don't buy that one bit. to me if the fed raises rates the dollar is going higher, how much higher and how long it lasts i can't say, but i would

be shocked if we didn't give parody a run for the money. if you look at yields today the 2s and threes have moved up so rapidly in anticipation of what seems to be a well telegraphed normalization of rates, we're comping all the way back to the 28th of october on the 30 year that kelly pointed out. that's a three-week spread difference and it really underscores how rapidly some of these short rates have risen. but to me i just think about that movie a christmas story. do you remember the lamp that was supposedly made in italy. see, it's all about how fragile the economy is 48.6 tells us something re big. even if you are an optimistic sort it could definitely based on history of how this occurs in the ism could be the precursor to a manufacturing recession. we have all read about it today in a lot of e-mails. so it really doesn't go hat in hand with the idea of history and tightening and all the statistics everybody always

uses. it really is a different case this time and if the economy is so fragile because i know art has strong feelings here that a quarter a point could make everything go up in smoke then the issue shouldn't be discussing the fed, the issue should be discussing why the fed doesn't talk about how fragile the economy is. >> how about that arthur? is it even possible to have a recession that's just in manufacturing? >> well, i don't think you can keep it totally isolated. i mean, that's an outside possibility. but i think there's a lot of questions and people talk about the fed losing credibility if they don't move. if they do move and something really negative happens and if, god forbid, we go back into a full blown recession, they will have no credibility at all. >> all right. we have to go, guys. thank you all. good to see you. appreciate it. now, we told you yesterday about regulators investigating wells fargo sales tactics, our kayla tausche spoke with wells

ceo john stumpf today. >> wells fargo's ability to sell more products to existing customers has been envied by the bank's rivals because wells customers have an average of six accounts with the bank and brokerage customers have 10 1/2 but this so-called cross selling has been drawing the attention of the regulators, namely the ocb and san francisco fed have increase under way about the bank's sales culture. this follows a civil suit from m l.a.'s city attorney in may. that lawsuit calls the bank's sales tactics per initials and often illegal. employees were pressured by sales quotas to the point they would enroll customers in fee charging accounts without their permission. i jack dorsey john stumpf whether cultural differences are still in the bank? >> our whole business model is to serve customers.

what's good for customers is draw for us and we draw bright lines around that. >> unclear to what extent those bright lines have been reinforced since these allegations were first uncovered just a couple of years ago, but it is the bank's first comment since the news of these inquiries in washington have been reported. the bank, though, we should know has largely dodged the brunt of regulatory investigations that have plagued other big banks. it is still getting pressure from the fed to pad its balance sheet with new long-term debt, some call that unnecessary but said the bank would do it. as far as interest rates and that pesky rate hike, guys, he thinks the fed will raise come a few weeks from now. >> maybe we should say he hopes they raise. they all do. >> we've heard also the cfo john shrewsberry tell us their exposure is more balanced than some other banks. in the context of all this what did he say about the performance of the oil and gas space, the

energy space which has been such a boone to this economy in the recovery and is now partly responsible for pulling manufacturing into recession. >> very interesting, kelly, on a day when we are talking about possible cracks in the capital markets led by energy and materials on the credit side to ask banks, especially like wells fargo that have a lot of operations in texas, in the midwest where a lot of these operation right side about their portfolio. we haven't had an update on wells fargo's exposure since their prior earnings call and here is what stumpf had to say about that. >> we're still a net importer of energy so this is a great thing for consumers. sure, it's hard for those in the energy patch that are tied directly to the business but secondly these companies are figuring it out, not all will survive and only 2% of our law outstandings are related to energy. only about half of those are in enp. >> we should note, guys, the bank is sort of withholding some

of its loan loss reserve releases because of potential energy defaults. the first time they have done that in years. they are also being more conservative about new loans in regions where employment is heavily favoring the oil and gas sector. so there is a response from the banks and from wells fargo in particular, but pretty optimistic tone from john stumpf. >> all right, kayla. thanks very much. we have breaking news from washington now. eamon javers steps stepping in what that. >> here is something you haven't seen all that often in washington recently. this is a bipartisan press release on transportation announcing a five year transportation deal. that's something that they have moved incrementally kicking the can in recent years. this has been a long awaited deal. now we see this press release out from both the house and senate democrats and republicans. it's not the kind of press release we have seen a lot in this congress. a couple highlights from the deal, it's about $300 billion worth of spending, raising spending on everything from

highways to maritime and all across the railroad infrastructure of the country. also we are looking at an extension of the export/import bank which had been shut down earlier this year, that will be reauthorized and reopened as part of this deal. finally it doesn't appear we're digging in this a little bit, doesn't appear to do anything to change the gas tax. one of the things they are saying is that this deal is entirely paid for, you can expect to see some controversy over how they paid for this bill. all those details will be coming out. >> i think one of the places they found the money for it is the federal reserve and one of its various excess accounts where all of a sudden $63 billion was turned up or something but that turns out to have been a pivot point for moving this piece of legislation which as you mentioned is a big deal in terms of the time frame and what it might eye lou different states to do on infrastructure going forward. >> absolutely. that federal reserve patch of money that they're pulling from

is going to be controversial. there will be a lot of people in washington and across the country who say that's not a good idea but it appears to be one of the keys to getting this done. republicans do not want to pass anything that they can't say is fully paid for. they don't want to add to the deficit with this kind of spending. while they want to increase spending on infrastructure they don't want to do it in a way that doesn't have all the offsets and paid for in there. how they got there is the trick and we will see discussion of that. >> already been called a budget gimmick. >> budget gimmick. wow. >> shocking. eamon, thank you very much. about -- let's do the math -- 42 1/2 minutes to go into the close. >> slicing and dicing, you are. >> dow is up 120 points. >> it was up 180 at the peak. >> not often that you see it go below 50 into contraction territory and then recover, but that's what people are betting on. interest rates are moving lower.

when we come back buyer beware. find out why it could turn out to be a december that apple and amazon shareholders would rather forget. also ahead bob lutz will give us his reaction to november's record breaking auto sales figures. find out how long he thinks the good times can roll. stay tuned. you pay your car insurance premium like clockwork. month after month. year after year. then one night, you hydroplane into a ditch.

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welcome back. breaking news just moments ago. auto sales surging to a record pace for the month of november. >> former vice chair of gm and be cnbc contributor bob lutz gives us his reaction to those numbers. robert, welcome back. >> good to be back. >> what do you make of that? i mean, how long does this last, do you think? >> i think it's going to last a long time, as long as everybody maintains discipline. the last time we had an 18 million industry was before the '08 meltdown, everybody was drunk and disorderly, everybody was incentivizing madly to try to hold market share, putting all kinds of vehicles into daily rental and so forth. this time it's totally different. incentives look big because they're heavily advertised but

actually they're slightly down for the industry, way down for general motors, some of the asian brands are up a little bit. in the case of general motors retail is up, average transaction prices are up. i mean, it's amazing. who would have thought a few years ago that gmc would have average transaction prices of $44,000. >> we remember back in 2009/2010 when the industry was saying it's okay now we can be profitable making 10 million vehicles a year and look at the numbers but it's interesting that the shares haven't done better. do you think that's because of concerns about sales in other markets? >> i think people just don't understand. the american car companies are simply not silicon valley brands. we've talked about tesla before. negative cash flow, negative profitability, the low sales, running out of cash. look at the valuation. then you've got one of the

world's healthiest car companies called general motors with increasing retail share, average transaction price, low inventories, great products, et cetera, et cetera, and look where the share price is. i don't get it. >> you know, fed bank president charles evans said today in a speech that he thinks if the fed raises rates in a couple of weeks that we for one thing could see kind of a come back of sorts for auto sales. he feels like these low rates have benefited the industry and once that goes away maybe we see a drop off in sales, what do you think? >> well, it could be because it's going to make time purchases more expensive. one of the things that has been lifting the industry and frankly which worries me a little bit is this 80-month paper. 80-month paper and low interest with low aprs is affordable right now because of the low interest rates, but 80-month paper to me is a dangerous thing because the customers spend a lot of their time being in

negative equity and a rise in interest rates obviously it's going to make car payments more expensive, however, if it's a modest increase i frankly do not think it's going to have much of a slow down effect on sales. >> if anything if it increases because the economy is getting better and that extra, you know, 500 bucks on a loan might be one thing, at least at the beginning, bob, but what happens if the economy weakens or people who bought it in the weakest parts like the energy space no longer can afford the payments. if we start to then go back to the ajs of the mortgage industry about people either not being able to pay their loans, but in this case maybe finding that the car is literally disabled by the dealer until they can collect that payment. if you follow that chain back along to the source, how would that shake out across the industry if you found that a lot of people all of a sudden couldn't pay? >> well, a lot of people all of a sudden can't pay they default and that's a bad thing. it's not the auto company's

holding the bag, it's the bank and the finance companies, but that's a bad scenario, but at this point it's hypothetical. if you look at it on a percentage basis there are not that many people working in the oil and gas sector in the united states. it's not like an automotive recession where one in ten americans is directly or indirectly associated with the automobile business. so i think as long as the other sectors stay strong, housing is very strong right now, retail sales are looking good. i think we have to be careful that we don't talk ourselves into a recession here. a quarter of a point interest rate rise by the fed is not going to have a dramatic effect. >> very quickly, bob, before we let you go, why are crossovers so hot right now? ? that a dem graphic play? >> it's partly demographic and secondly crossovers are always made off of passenger car platforms, they drive like

passenger cars, ride like passenger cars, have great fuel economy like passenger cars, but they offer a higher seating position and they have way more space. so when you think about it, it's by far the most intelligent vehicle shape. if you did vehicle shapes by logic, you would have only crossovers and sport -- and two-seat sports cars, you wouldn't have sedans at all. >> there you are. from the car guy himself, bob lutz former vice chair of general motors. >> thanks a lot. we have 34 minutes left in the trading session with the dow up 126 points as we begin the month of december. >> up next, an about face. fidelity investments marking up some privately held startups like snap chat and drop box. we will dig deeper into those numbers and what's at stake next. i'm only in my 60's.

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i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. unicorn volatility, fidelity investments has now marked up some privately held startups such as snap chat and drop box that it marked down in september. >> cnbc.com senior tech report ari levy joins us now with the details. hi again, ari.

>> what happened in recent months is big mutual fund companies like fidelity and black rock marked down the value you have companies including snap chat, drop box and a slue of others. most of these companies were consumer, but not all. coupled with square lowering the price of it's ipo and general market volatility these mark downs fed into this idea that the inflated tech market was lodsing steam. but as we reported last month funds mark up and mark down their private holdings routinely to reflect a host of scenarios, some of them specific to the companies, and some related to the macro environment. in fact, what we're seeing now is the realization of that, drop box, snap chat and others are being priced up, regaining some of that lost value. if you talk to an investor about what this means you would find that this is actually the sign of a fairly healthy market. things aren't all moving in one direction, investors aren't getting too carried away by the hype, they're showing discretion in how they value these companies and are looking for

reasonable growth metrics to validate their pricing. what's unique now is that shares in niece private companies are being widely held by large public funds so we are actually seeing the volatility on a monthly or quarterly basis when in the past you would only see valuations when they raised the big venture round and almost always at a higher price. but, ari, this is what's so interesting. i understand that the ipo pipeline and the timeline has changed, but if we are now relying on who exactly to determine the value of these shares, this effects a lot of retail investors that might have exposure they don't even know about. >> yeah, i mean, most of the exposure that retail investors would have into these companies is through some sort of fund that they're in, a pension fund, perhaps a 401(k) and it's going to be a tiny sliver of their holdings. for fidelity, you know, their holders in each of these companies is like in the tenth of 1%. you're talking 40, 50, $30 billion funds that have like 10

or $11 million in shares. there's pretty minimal retail exposure as long as these companies stay private. >> still it raises a lot of interesting questions about their involvement. thanks a lot, ari, for joining us. >> ari levy out on the west coast. speaking of unicorns the ceo of of the business app slack will join us, it was named ink magazine's company of the year. we just tried it out here in the workplace today. >> is that right? >> yes. we've got to get you to sign up. >> yes, you do. >> no slacking off. >> time now for a cnbc news update with sue herrera. sue. >> no slacking off, bill. she's keeping an eye on you down there, buddy. all right. here is the news update at this hour for you guys. turkish police telling nbc news that a small handmade bomb exploded on an overpass near the metro station in istanbul. five people were injured in the blast which happened on the

european side of the city. defense secretary ash carter telling the house armed services committee that the u.s. believes that turkey should become more active in the war against isis. he also said turkey should secure its borders and go after militants who enter the country. californians have reduced their water usage by more than 27% in the five months since emergency conservation regulations took effect but the statewide conservation rate dropped to 22% in october from 26% in september because they had such hot weather out there. tiger woods is painting a bleak picture on his return to golf saying he has no idea when his back will heal. he said today he hasn't started rehabilitation and he doesn't know when his back, which has undergone three procedures in the last 19 months, will allow him to do so. and that is the cnbc news update this hour. that is not good news. >> no, it's not. he turns 40 at the end of this month. >> right. >> and it is clear that his body is starting to break down after

all these years. >> of course. >> he really has been very hard on his body with the way he swings the club. so i don't know. we'll see. he's already volunteered next year to be a vice captain on the rider cup team. >> yeah. >> we will see if he's actually going to play. >> he was always in good shape which i think he has that going for him, you know, he also -- he always trained much more than some of the other golfers. >> he did, and i think that's coming back to haunt him. >> it might. >> he has overdone it. >> we'll have our fingers crossed for him. >> we wish him well. absolutely. >> kelly, keep an eye on him. >> i know. it's a tall order. >> i don't do unicorns, though. i'm sorry. >> 25 minutes left to go here. the dow continues to drift a little higher. it's now moving -- there it is, up 150 points on the session today. the s&p up 19, the nasdaq 42. again, this is so interesting. one of the most stock market sensitive pieces of daytota youn came for came down at 50 and

stocks are fighting back from the lows in the session. >> we will be back and talk to a leading trader about what he's watching. then the ceo of stockpile will explain how you can give stocks to your loved ones this holiday season in the form of gift cards. stay tuned.

we are -- we are in that important last half hour of the trading day. here i have mark newton here with a couple charts. last time you were here you were talk about this resistance, the s&p kept bumping up against, it was critical. where are we in that? >> today is an important day. we've managed to get above the resistance that's held the s&p for the last six or seven trading days. here is a chart going back since the beginning of november. the s&p has gotten above a level near 2090 which i think is very important. a couple things important to mention about this. you're seeing broad participation across many different sectors, healthcare, technology, discretionary and financial. those account for 65% of the s&p. it helps to add conviction to a move like this when you see really good participation from a number of different things. we also have obviously beginning of month fund flows, december seasonality, 75% of the time since 1950 the s&p is positive.

those certainly help, but techniqcally this is a real positive today at least with regards to the s&p and several of these sector indices are pushing up against resistance and looks like they are about to break out. >> that would be the semi-conductors economically sensitive. >> this is a leading sector. technology tends to underperform sometimes in december, but the stock certainly is showing very good signs of strength today and getting up towards 685. this level is up in october highs and set to potentially close above that at today's close. it pulled back and held where it needed to, now it's moved up and set to take out these former highs from october. that's an encouraging sign to think that the semis can lead in the days and weeks ahead and having technology as being an outperforming sector helps us to think that santa is coming higher despite the selectively in the market which continues to be a big deal. short term it looks like we are going to move higher. >> he's looking up the chimney

waiting for santa at this point. how about putting a little stock in that stocking this season, a company called stockpile is creating a tangible way to give stock in the way of a gift card, it allows shoppers to buy a portion of stock in the check outline and give it as a gift to someone else. here is stockpile's ceo. welcome to the hoe shoo thank you for having me. >> so there was a lot of press when you guys -- i know you've been working on this for a while but they're starting to show up in a lot of stores obviously. i'm interested. what's the response been so far? how is demand to the extent you can tell us? >> you know, the response has been gangbusters. people are buying these cards by the handful and we weren't really expecting that, but it makes sense because people are buying these as gifts for friends, family and i'm talking kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews. you don't typically buy one of these, you buy five or ten at a time and that's what we're seeing. >> i think you -- or somebody had said that your distributors

wanted upwards of 1 million of these gift cards. you know, again, now that we're through black friday, we're through some of the important times people are in stores, what kind of numbers are you seeing? what kind of take up? >> can't get into specific numbers yet, but we actually had to increase that order. you referred to that million card order which we did initially and we are seeing so many cards being bought right now and redeemed into brokerage accounts that we had to increase the order. we actually just set up an online store on our own website so if you can't find the cards at your local supermarket, whether it's safe way, kmart, office max, giant eagle, you can actually come to stockpile.com, order them online and have them shipped straight to your door, we're seeing that kind of demand right now. >> so you are in denominations of 25, 50 and 100. even if i'm buying $100 card, your three most popular stocks are apple, facebook and google. those are expensive high dollar stocks.

if i'm buying $100 i'm not getting a whole lot of stock here, am i? >> well, that's the magic of it. you don't have to have enough money to buy a whole share. google the flebt class a is trading upwards of $600, $700 a share right now, it's a tough stock for people to afford. with fractional shares and our gift cards you can buy a fraction of that. we're making stock easy and affordable for anyone no matter how much money you have. >> and this is something when people get it they are not going to necessarily take it to their trading platform if they have one, this is something that you guys redeem on your website, you are the trading platform. >> you are a brokerage firm. >> is that correct? >> exactly right. we built a fractional shares brokerage from the ground up and built it so we could deliver a user experience that were easy from beginning to end. you literally take this gift card, flip it over and take the claim code on the back, type it in at our website -- i think i

have it upside down -- sign up for an account and the fractional shares end up in your stockpile brokerage account. it's that simple, it's almost magic. >> you found for the most part people over 30 are buying these for people under the age of 30. so i assume these are the reluctant millennials who have been loath to invest in the stock market at this point. is that the idea? >> you know, i think it's more millennials who have never had a shot at doing it. i will give you my own story. everybody tells young people start early and do it for the long haul. in my case i had to wait until i was about 28 to scrape up enough money to buy 50 shares of microsoft and then i was pretty much tapped out. here what we're seeing is young people coming in, getting gift cards or coming in on their own and buying 25, 50, $200 worth of their favorite stocks and start investing early. it's much better to start when you are in your 20s than in your 30s or 40s. that's what we're seeing. >> please keep us posted throughout the holiday season as

to how you're doing. i wonder if we will see some copy cats. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> the ceo of stockpile which i may notice at your local checkout. dow is up 151 points now, s&p up 20. today the nasdaq adding 43. when we come back tease could turn out to be dicey for both apple and amazon shareholders. we will explain why in just a moment. later we will talk car sales with a major auto dealer in the midwest. a good friend who might remember of this show, find out how long he thinks this buying trend could last.

history shows it is not always the december to remember for apple and amazon investors. >> we have deidre bosa on that story for us. >> that's right, guys. buyer beware. contrary to what you may think some of two of these hottest holiday names may not be the best stock bets in the month of december. over the last 15 years amazon and apple have been among the worst performers on the s&p 500 in the roughly four weeks leading up to christmas despite selling some of the most sought after gifts. according to data cruncher ken show buying either in december

has been no better than a coin toss. they trade negative about half the time and their average returns compared to that of the border markets have been dismal. guys, it's not that they don't see any holiday cheer it's that santa typically comes early for these names. you are more likely to see returns for apple and amazon in the months of october and november and then investors take a little bit of profit back in december. now, also using ken show we don't other surprising names that follow a similar pattern. there's hasbro, the toy maker, game stop the world's largest seller of video games and electronics retail giant best buy. so, guys, be careful when shopping for the last minute gifts of stock because you may end up worrying about returning in more ways than one. back over to you. >> an interesting lead up to the segment that we just had. >> thanks, deidre. see you later. art cashin just stopped by $500 million to buy going into the close.

that's the buy. we are already starting to see that here, we're heading up 148 points on the dow with 12 minutes left. >> keeping an eye on those indexes for you. also up next why dividend stocks could reap rewards for your portfolio. our guest will explain. stay tuned. me move stuff, what are you working on? let me show you. okay. our thinkorswim trading platform aggregates all the options data you need in one place that lets you visualize that information for any options series. okay, cool. hang on a second. you can even see the anticipated range of a stock expecting earnings. impressive... what's up, tim? for all the confidence you need. td ameritrade. you got this.

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we have nine minutes left in the trading session. we are continuing to move higher. some of that buying coming into the market here the dow up 154. joining us right now bill smeed and david bonson. good to see you both. you guys are in sort of -- we are all kind dread spirits. i think about viewers out there who buy for income and they love their dividend stocks, but dividend stocks go in and out of favor based on the view of where the interest rate has gone, what the fed is going to do, but you hold fast on these guys, don't you? >> well, yeah, especially ones that are raising the dividends. the academic studies will show you you make more money by owning the ones that have the best dividend growth going forward and that's the result of free cash flow and most of that's coming from the domestic economy not the foreign part of the economy. >> david, you were just saying

free cash flow is out of favor right now. >> it seems to be. it's a rare year where the worst dividend payments are the best performers. it historically doesn't happen very often but it's happening this year. we're confident next year will look a lot different. >> one of the areas that you like of the market is biotech. talk about why biotech and healthcare space is interesting to you. >> amgen is a perfect example. i think in the last 13, 14 years they've bought back 40% of their company. they started their dividend 2011, just imagine this, they started their dividend 2011 at a rate higher than the ten year treasury was paying at the time. >> right. >> and then they raised it dramatically, i think the most recent dividend increase is 27%. stock trades on a market multiple it might be one of the 20 most superior companies in the entire index, trades at a market multiple with fantastic dividend growth. we like it a great deal. >> who do you like? >> we are big on mlps, but we

are quite convinced that the rear peer player, some of which have been affected the most i think of enterprise products, epd, that really have absolutely no threat to the growth of the distribution that we think are a good fee based business. we think that into 2016 probably when crude oil starts to improve a bit, but even apart from that the natural gas infrastructure story is going to carry epd higher through time. >> jim chanos has said what he doesn't understand about the energy investments is that you have people betting on oil to be higher based on lower supplier and people betting on the mlps to keep producing oil. if the oil price is going to move higher does that mean we have to be pumping less oil through the pipeline? >> i think that the difference is that it's a global story. the u.s. producers will continue to produce, there's significant capacity for them, the economics get better at a higher price but if production will come down globally it will be on the

you -- not the u.s. frackers. >> he says, god, i have two questions for you, first one is will the price of natural gas ever go up and the second question, if so, when and god comes down from heaven and says the answer to your first question is yes, the answer to your second question is not in my lifetime. >> we'll go with that point. we will make that our benediction. good to see you both. thanks for joining us today. we're coming back with the closing countdown. after the bell new data points to crude oil prices dropping even further next year. jackie deangelis will join us with those details coming up. you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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at&t has the tools and the network you need, to make working as one easier than ever. virtually anywhere. leaving you free to focus on what matters most. we are just inside the two minute mark as we head toward the close. mr. pisani joining me for the closing countdown. the dow is moving higher, back to the highs of the close of the session. traditionally the best month for the year for the stock market. the yield for the ten year holding around that 221 level as the flattening of the yield curve continued in anticipation i guess of a fed rate hike and the dollar index. a lot of talk all of a sudden about whether the dollar will sell off if the fed raises rates in a couple of weeks here. >> the dollar has not been doing

that. >> exactly. >> the strength has been holding in and that's one of the reasons we have had a little bit of problems with certain sections of the stock market. very good volume today. treasury etfs particularly strong volume today. we had very good volume right across the board, generally we do almost 4 million shares in the consolidated, that's a good day. the vix has collapsed, it's 14 again potentially we are at probably a two month low in the vix here right now. overall it's a good start to the year. my point is the average gain in december is 1.8%, it's a good month, we've done two-thirds of it today, we will come back on december 29th. i think that's the best way to do it. we will come back the next few weeks, see what's going on. >> the ism manufacturing number below 50. >> yeah. >> they haven't raised rates with that below that in 20 -- almost 35 years. >> i think that is a little bit

disconcerting. the nonfarm may roll will be the most dis couldn't certing thing. if it's anywhere near 200,000 they're going to go. >> going out with good gains this first day of december. project entrepreneurs ringing the about he will at the big board, the other charitable foundation at the nasdaq. stay tuned for hour number two with the "closing bell" with kelly evans. see you tomorrow, kel. >> welcome to the "closing bell," everybody, i'm kelly evans. here is how we're finishing the day, first trading days of december on wall street. you wouldn't have thought it maybe after you saw that disappointing number at 10:00 a.m., the ism manufacturing index dipping into contraction naer territory, one of the most stock market sensitive indicators we do get. the dow up 167 points, nearly 1%, the s&p adds 22 points, about ert than 1%, closer above 2100 and nasdaq up 47, nearly a 1% gain. joining me today our very own mike santoli, along with cnbc

contributor john nigerian. past money trader see more, welcome to you, tim, as well. mike, tell us what to make about this. i hope this isn't a stocks rising, yields falling. >> i don't think we're quite -- i don't think we're quite making that leap to say this changes the story about what we will expect out of the fed in december. you have a treasury rally, the slow growth sectors of the stock market outperforming today, healthcare and staples and you had a little bit of a yield chals or basically yield instruments rallying. i do think it means people think it's going to be a moderate pace of fed rate increases in next year but also first of the month, you cannot discount these factors of people saying we want to position seasonal strength in december. as far as i can tell nobody has a bullish besides that but that one for the day -- >> the reason to be i wish in december is because you're i wish in december, right, john? >> yeah. i think there was a lot of focus

this week on exactly how fast rates could go up to mike's point and i think it's going to be very slow. you will be able to time it with a calendar literally. if i'm right about that then people that are saying we could see a 1% or 1.25% in 2016 for a fed funds rate, i think i'd like what they're smoking because i don't think we're going to get that. i think we will be about half of that, kelly, and that might just be two moves in the entire year. >> we have been whip sawed over the past few months. go back to the jobs report at the beginning of last month on october, much stronger than expected and you started to see people go, wait a minute, what if they have to respond more ago tifl so this. the data today i wonder if that takes us right back to where we started but does it upset the apple cart for some of the tradespeople have been putting on for the rate hike. >> when you look at the financials going up today that's a sign people are betting on

rates increasing. take a look at utilities, they were the third or fourth best performing sector today that shouldn't happen if they're expecting rates to jump and keep going. i think this is more of a move and then wait and wait and wait and wait and maybe my hair will grow back by the time we finally get the second move. >> what you might start to hear beginning tomorrow with janet yellen is manufacturing is only 20% of the economy even with that bad manufacturing number, auto sales at a record, you basically have enough momentum to make whatever case you want and they want to make the case we can go. >> we are going to hear from janet yellen in the next couple days people say almost designed to finalize the case or prepare the world for the fact they are going to raise interest rates. >> but this has been telegraphed i think for a couple months. you almost get the feeling they thought if they blew it at a.m. point over the scummer when they had that window. what guys are talking about so

far bad news is good news again and you have this opportunity to rotate back in the things that work in that environment but i think what people are missing is that the december rally comes after an october/november -- mostly october where markets went screaming higher over oversold conditions. we get into a place where the fed injects a lot of uncertainty. i look at charts on the dollar, i look at charts on some things that are i think building a base and ready to shoot a lot higher. that to me is going to inject a lot of volatility in the markets and people are not prepared for that it's true, especially because we're wondering do we start to walk it back, if the data is softer, the fed is less aggressive. >> where is the dollar going and i think you could basically pick apart every rally we had this year. it didn't fit on all the style points you wanted to see. credit has lagged, the high yield market has been a thorn in the side of the bookcase for a while now, you don't know what kind of dollar index the stock market wants to see and we are back at 2100 on the s&p 500 about i my count the 15th time

this year on a given day we have crossed that level and only ever gotten 1.5% higher in the entire history of the index, it's not a dip we can say this this is somehow a launch point. >> jon, what are your best ways to play this market? >> i think with opec coming up this week you are going to be focused on energy, i am, anyway, and you look at con show and some of the stocks that are outperformed in the last few face. i have several that have not out performed. i look at econa, made a big pop a couple weeks ago and now it has languished, it's an $8.30 stock or something like that. natural gas separate discussion from crude oel and obviously west texas immediate or domestic crude versus brent, big difference there, too, especially with what putin is doing trying to cut off some of the flow out of syria and other places to turkey or wherever it's been going. >> let's dig a little deeper into this. oil prices are down more than

20% this year and it could get worse in 2016. jackie dee ang las has more as a result of cnbc's exclusive oil survey. >> we're stuck in this tight range between 40 and 42, everyone is in a holding pattern waiting for opec to speak on friday. what was really interesting here the survey we conducted with analysts traders and also different energy funds getting their pulse on energy prices. with that opec is probably going to stand firm, at least what's that they think at this point and that we will see more down side in prices in the first half of next year. i will remind you last time we did the survey in august most of our respond events the majority were right in the downward trend in pricing. what was remarkable was that 100%, everybody who took the survey said opec is not going to cut protection, they're stuck in a rut here because it's sort of like a vicious cycle where you've churned profits and lost money so then you have to bring more oil out to try to make that up and it just keeps going and going. furthermore, not likely we will see saudi arabia stop producing

especially when it's expecting to see iranian oil come back to the market next year. what's this going to do for pricing? it is going to keep it lower for longer, that's the theme we have been talking about for some time. for this year most of our respondents which that wti and brent will finish in that $40 to $350 range but nearly half of them think that wti could see a fresh low in the first half of next year. what's interesting as we head into friday's meeting is we could have a potential domino effect. if opec doesn't cut 90% of our people saw that russian will keep its output unchanged, this he only think they will see a slight decline in u.s. production next year. the bottom line is that the oil glut will continue unless we see a change in demand. when all is said and done this could be sort of an inaction by opec that actually takes a lot of action when it comes to pricing. >> jackie, stay right there. thank you so much. >> actually, while oil prices have fallen some energy stocks, mike, as you pointed out have outperformed. i wonder how long that can hold

out. >> the production stocks have outperformed what crude has done. it's hard to pull a message out of that except to say people probably feel like even if we haven't bought on the actual commodity it's somehow carving out a low, obviously down side maybe is considered limited plus people felt underexposed to energy equities and felt they got too oversold. >> jon, a couple of different themes emerging here, too, you can play the production space, then there's questions about natural gas and some of the companies contingent on those prices and where they're heading and all of this tied to where oil is going. >> i won't be surprised if some of the oil stocks do take a little hit, perhaps a boost into the opec meeting, maybe even through that depending on what the announcement is in particular from saudi arabia, kelly, but then you take a look at some of the tax loss selling that will go on into the final weeks of the veer and how they

will be jumping out of one stock and into another. that rotation because obviously if i chose to sell, for instance, chevron and buy exxonmobil i can do that and it's not a wash sale rule violation, but i have to leave it for 30 days plus a day before i get back in if it's the same stock. so i think you will see a lot of rotation among those names. >> jackie. >> i just wanted to make the point that traders have been pointing to out to me really look at the refining names as well because oil prices are so low and the margins are lower it makes a lot of sense for them to be refining product even if they have to store it while demand is a little lower in the win winter. refiners are churning out product right now and they could potentially do well because of these low prices. >> tim, what would you say? >> well, the rates for refiners are north of 90%, i think this has been the trade. the question sing money that wants to be in the energy space all is in the refining trade and at some point you will get to a place where either the mr. up of inventories is too much and they have to bring down some of the

utilization. it is still a trade that works. i think oil prices have largely found a bottom, i think global demand is a lot better than people think, globally it's 1.7, if you look at china, china oil demand is growing at 4%, we are in a place where 40% of cap ex has been taken off line. the u.s. as a margin producer has been absolutely pulled back, it's not falling yet, but year over year you are going to see 9.2, 9.3 last year we were at 9.4. year over year these numbers start to look pretty impressive in terms of the supply. oil will stay lower for longer but to say that there's going to be a huge washout, i think a lot of these things have it in the price. i would rather be at emp in mid market than refiners at this point. >> i know this is a different subject really but the natural gas, i mean, there are so many companies that in order to diversify or just looking for the opportunity went into natural gas and now those prices same phenomenon, there's tons of it, record amounts of it as jackie has told us time and again and even the liquefied

natural gas plays those are predicated on the price moving up, huge projects coming on line in the next couple years and you wonder if they are even going to be economical. >> that's the part of the industry that's subject to this dicey credit situation. we're going to have a period of distressed loans of defaults of banks shutting these guys off. it's going to be messy headline wise for a while. we have breaking news to get to on mark zuckerberg. what's happening? >> huge news from mark zuckerberg announcing the birth of his daughter named max. he is also announcing that he and his wife are going to give 99% of their facebook shares currently worth about $45 billion during their lives to charity. he outlines all the different things he wants to do with this charity and the importance in their generation where you can chance human potential, promote equality, curing disease, personalizing learning, harnesses clean energy, connecting people. a huge announcement that they are donating effectively the

entire amount of their wealth worth currently about $45 billion to charity to help advance the next generation of their daughter who is named max. we are going to continue to dig through their letter and look at the different letters where he is committed to donating this money. back over to you. >> julia, thank you. obviously great news for the two of them. when he talked about his paternity leave and about his wife being pregnant he mentioned they had been through miscarriages, it's wonderful to see the birth of their daughter. >> what a time to make this announcement about giving away his wealth. at his age, right, i don't remember exactly how old bill gates was when he made a similar gesture, but clearly deciding he wants to set a pretty, you know, high standard in many ways. >> jon. >> even more generous than perhaps even warren buffet who has given away most of his as well but is leaving a pretty significant amount to his children although 99% of $45 billion still leaves a decent amount. they are not giving it away

today, it's throughout his lifestylif lifeti lifetime, a that's not to dismiss or demean the value of this gift, that's huge especially on a gives day like today. >> he also probably hopes it become bigger than $45 billion over the years. >> the rest of us who owns those shares hope so also. >> congrats to those guys. it's an impressive feel good moment. i do think you're getting to a place where a lot of people have influenced globally have made stands that are starting to reverb rate around, issues on the environment and medical advancement. i think facebook has a stock by the way continues to show that they also have revolutionizing how media is being consumed, how they are really dominating the ads spent, how they are dominating the digital space. that's something a lot of people didn't think they were going to be able to do as little as a couple years ago. i think there are still opportunities there. i think twitter is a place that people have underestimated what that platform can do, the global reach of it. so if we can trace any of this into the stock market i would

say that is the theme that still works. >> sure. by the way, in the meantime, this is an unpopular thing to say on a day like today but i do wonder what kind of scrutiny and -- is going to come to bear on all of the money, all of this wealth, this is a huge, huge deal for capitalist i can society, it is being funneled through nonprofit, whether it's on the small scale or much larger scale when we're talking about gifts of billions and billions of dollars, there have been reports on how effective are those resources even though they partner, mike, this will be an increasingly big theme as more and more of the capital is funneled through these organizations. >> i doubt there has ever been that much capital dedicated first of all in a tax protected way and basically they have to create whole institutions around how it's administered. probably has never in history been even accounting for inflation, everybody else 100 years ago that much money. >> let's get back to julia boorstin. >> zuckerberg and facebook

issuing a filing here to explain how he plans to get 99% of his wealth currently worth about $45 billion. he says that he is establishing a new entity called the chan zuckerberg initiative and that he will control the voting and disposition of the shares held by the entity. there are a lot of questions about how the money is going to be gifted to charity and he says that he plans to sell or gift no more than $1 billion of facebook stock each year for the next three years and that he intends to retain his majority of voting position. they also say here, this is very key, any sale of shares by zuckerberg will be conducted pursuant to a trading plan, 10 b 5-1 trading plan. that means that the sale of the shares will be planned out ahead of time so there won't be any question of whether he's selling because of something going on with the company, et cetera. this is all part of that plan to what they say is, quote, further the mission of advancing human

potential and promoting equality by means of philanthropic advocacy for the public good. this chan zuckerberg initiative we can see more filing about the establishment of this and the plan to sell some stock over the next three years but the fact that they are only selling no more than $3 billion worth of stock over the next three years indicates the gifting of $45 billion is rld a long-term plan for zuckerberg and his wife priscilla. tim, thank you this so much. more coming up on "fast money" today. they will have three stocks history says will rally this month and that's coming up at 5:00. a new report putting gilead in cross hairs over high drug prices. plus messaging an slap was napd ink magazine's ipo of the year. weller speak to the ceo later on the "closing bell."

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welcome back. two high profile drug makers are coming under increasing pressure over the price of p drugs. me go tirl is here and has those

details. >> let's start with gilead. today a report coming out from senators widener and grassley looking at the price of their hepatitis c drugs. this is an 18 month long investigation, the company provided them 20,000 internal documents, talked with a lot of different experts and conclude that gilead maximized the revenue of these drugs at the expense of access and affordability. a lot of people are saying gilead is a for profit company of course it was going to do that and the stock hasn't been affected too much by this, but gilead did come back and say they respectfully disagree with the conclusions of the report saying the way they priced it and even with the discounts that have been given on it now it's lower priced than previous regimen with better koour rates and better tolerability. this is another look at the pricing at drugs and taken in the context text of everything going on it's pushing more pressure on the system.

this is a break through koour and these are the things we should be incentivizing but it has based strain on budgets of the public and private pairs so that's why there is so many kons strags. the second one is a different story, turing pharmaceuticals which makes daraprim. they raised the price on 5,000% overnight after acquiring it to $750 a pill. now express scripts the largest pharmacy benefits manager coming out saying they are partnering with a small company to create basically a $1 competitor to daraprim. it's not a generic version of the drug, it's different under compounded drug rules it doesn't have to get fda approval. they are going to be able to have offer this as soon as this week and it costs $1 a pill versus $750 a pill. turing is saying because this isn't fda approved we don't know if it's safe or effective and they say their drug is affordable. they have not, however, lowered the cost of that i ever drug

like they said they would a couple months ago. >> i think they had said they were going to and they haven't still moved on that front. the key is in express scripts is going to carry it that's pretty much an endorsement, is it not? >> this news about the dollar competitor came out a month ago but it wasn't clear just how much traction this was going to get and express scripts the bigger pbm coming behind this does give it legitimacy. >> it seems like both these pieces of news seem to suggest this is going to be this ongoing story. you have all this scrutiny on drug pricing and people in the industry like express scripts trying to go out and say we're looking to do something about it. does gilead have anything to say about whether there is a pool of patients that have not had ak skes to this drug that this he hay has been overemployees priced, the congress men say. >> gilead's response is they have patient access problems programs, they have provide the drug at a discount or free for anybody who can't get enough

coverage with their insurance or some you have to pay out-of-pocket. this is what all these drug companies say. you do hear stories of patients slipping through the cracks and that's definitely a big problem, but that is what gilead says about the affordability of the drug. >> working its way through the rest of the system a lot of those costs. coming up, we will ask the ceo of hawaiian airlines -- >> stewart butter fooeld will weigh in when we come back.

welcome back. slack is a sceim heing businesses and teams consolidate apps like messaging, drop box and at this time twitter all on one platform. they launched publ clie in 2014 but has amassed more than a million daily active users and has been named ink magazine's company of the year. join joining us now is stewart butterfield. >> thank you very much. >> congratulations. we know you have more than a million users. can you tell us lately just how many people are using your platform? >> a little closer to 2 million. about 1.7 million daily active users. we only count daily active users, it's the kind of product where if you are not using every day you are not really using it. >> how do you make money, stewart? >> we charge for a premium service, people can use it for free but there are additional features you get when you pay,

about 30% of our daily active users pay right now. >> 30%. is the goal to get that up higher or just to grow the whole pie? >> to grow the whole pie. it takes some time for people to get used to the product and decide that they want to make the purchase decisions so i think that will grow naturally. >> i can tell you "closing bell" is one of those teams, especially since you were coming on we had to give it a try earlier. it's interesting how easy and seamless it is to move between smaller groups to larger groups and do task-oriented work. what i wonder is how sticky will this be longer term? what you've come up with is so innovative but many other people targeting this space right now. what makes slack unique going forward? >> well, i think we have a unique focus on the customer, on design, usability, but it's a very -- a couple million people is a tiny fraction of what we believe the total market is here, which is hundreds of millions of people.

in terms of stickiness, people tend to either start using it or or not and when they start using it they are in for the long haul. we have teams that have been using it since the day we launched. >> we are eager to get rid of e-mail or at least i am. i understand the appeal in that regard as well. because it's being used for business and involving so many of these important key functions, how is security and how much time, how many resources do you have devoted to making sure that this communication is secure? >> we put a lot into security. it's actually bigger and more holistic effort than people think. we have network and technical security but there's also physical access security, training, background checks on employees, a lot of audits and certifications. most security breaches are not caused by carelessness at the technical level, but by people and so there is -- as big of an investment in audit and

trainings as there is in technical security. >> that's a good point. i'm sure it's true on the user end as well. just talking about the value of what you've built here an investment round as recently as april that valued you in the range of nearly $3 billion, you've raised plenty of money privately. what is your timeline, what aspirations if any do you have for going public? >> we don't have any timeline at this point. there's no -- it will be a while before we even make plans, we're growing a little bit too quickly to have the kind of predictability that public markets require. but we are trying to run the company with discipline that we would need should we ever decide to go public, that's internal controls, that's audits and building the discipline. >> right. stewart, before we let you go, any thoughts on what we've seen lately with some of these publicly-traded companies that have struggled to maintain the ipo prices or in square's case get to that lift off point. as you see the money going

around in silicon valley is it too -- is there too much money going around or are you worried that things now seem like they're slowing down? what's it like? >> i think the best companies still have a pretty easy time raising money, the valuations are very high, there might be less upside at the time of the ipo but we need to take a longer view. we will know whether square's ipo was successful a couple weeks from now or a couple years or couple decades from now. some of these companies will be long-term and they need a little time to judge. >> we will see if you are one of them. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> stewart butterfield is the co-founder of slack. can the red hot auto market keep up this scorching pace? we will speak to the owner of 30 auto dealerships coming up. plus what vladimir putin's end game might be when escalating tensions with turkey. bill bradder will join us later on the "closing bell."

november turning out to be another great month for auto sales. phil lebeau is here to wrap up the results. hi, phil. >> two areas we're really in demand last month, trucks and suvs, we've been talking about

it all day long. in part because of low gas prices, people are saying i do want to buy that truck, i do want to buy that suv because i'm getting more vehicle for my dollar, i'm not worried about fuel efficiency. jeep up 20% last month. ford it's truck business alone up 18.4%. and one thing we haven't talked about today, the demand for luxury automobiles. we're getting into the half part of the season when luxury is going to fly off the shelves or out of the showroom. lexus truck sales up 6.8% in november, bmw suv sales up 18.6% and finally audi, although it has been touched by the diesel scandal it o o a certain extent it managed to eek owl positive sales last month of 0.4%. once again after three straight months with the sales pace over 18 million we are looking at the annual sales this year of being a new all time record of almost 17.5 million vehicles. to be technically correct, kelly, it's on pace to come in

at 17.463 million. >> i bet they must be counting every single one with glee, phil. thank you so much. phil lebeau out in chicago. will this red hot sales be able to keep up the pace? joining us is bob or the man who owns 32 dealerships in the northwest including the largest lexus dealership in the country. great to have you back, welcome. >> thank you. thank you. good to be back. >> we want to talk about november and even though it had some of the fewest auto sales dates or retail dates i guess you would call it in a couple of years it sounds like you guys are still seeing cars fly off the lot. what are you seeing? >> that's true. that's true. you know, that is unusual november. this november actually had 30 days, but when you count the selling days that the factories count, take three of those -- take four sundays and then that

would cut you down to 26 and then take three more off of that, you're down to 23 versus 25 or 26 last year in november because we had five saturdays last year, four saturdays this year. >> big days those saturdays. i see they are 2 1/2 times what you do on a normal weekday. given the fact it was a shorter sales month, bob, what do you think it is? is it because financing are so cheap or people looking for big road bows for the holiday season or pent up demand. >> i think it's a little bit of all three or four of those things, actually. and with lexus it's even -- it's even more because we have some

fantastic products this year and all new products, the small suv, the new suv that has been our best selling unit forever and this year it's brand new and, i mean, to tell you we can't get enough. we can't get enough of them. >> bob is a legend in the chicago area. i'm from chicago, too, bob, so it's great to see you and i always -- i'm used to hearing your voice and seeing you on television because his ads are ubiquitous, but bob does the weather effect sales, you mentioned some of the trucks and obviously upscale suvs that lexus has. >> right. >> with the lack of snow up until now has that cut into that at all? >> well, the lack of snow up until about two weeks ago was fantastic.

but then -- but at the lexus store in arlington heights, that saturday it started snowing friday night -- no, it started snowing friday afternoon early. saturday morning we had 16 inches of snow on the ground at the lexus store. >> wow. >> so that -- >> that will make for a pretty postcard. big red bow, snow falling and a brand shiny new lexus. bob, congratulations on the month. please keep us posted. we want to see if it's going to be a record breaking year. >> oh, it's going to be a record breaking year. we're going to guarantee that and it's going to be a good one. >> thank you, sir. how are falling fuel prices and the stronger dollar impact its the airline industry. hawaiian airlines will join us

next. and do you remember tepper's response when i asked if he's going to be involved with sunedison. >> i don't understand where stuff comes from. >> well, where there's smoke there's fire. those details are later on the "closing bell." i finally did it! ♪ ew, you did it all right. let sparkle paper towels clean it up. do the math - and you'll see sparkle costs less. plus it's perfect for cleaning spills... ...desktops... ...windows... ...and chalkboards. now that's what i call clean. too clean? sparkle. because it's a messy world out there.

welcome back. facebook ceo mark zuckerberg announcing the birth of his daughter. let's get to julia boorstin with more. >> that's right, zuckerberg and

his wife celebrating the birth of their daughter named max announcing they will donate 99% of their wealth now worth $45 billion over the course of their lifetime. the two says they aim to put advanced human potential and promoting equality by curing disease, personalizing learning, connecting people, building strong communities, reducing poverty and providing equal rights and spreading understanding across nations. zuckerberg saying he will retain his majority voting position in facebook for the foreseeable future by selling or gifting no more than $1 billion of facebook stock over the next three years. >> it certainly has everybody buzzing. air travel is something everybody loves to hate but some airlines provide a better experience than others, hawaiian air is the number one on time carrier for the past 12 months. stock up 81% over the past year. joining us is mark duck earl president and ceo of hawaiian airlines. welcome back. >> it's great to be here. on a cold and rainy and

miserable new york day when it's bright and sunny in hawaii. >> you are supposed to bring us the nice weather. tell us about what's happening in the airline space where most of the headlines are about efforts jetblue is making with regard to addressing this pilot shortage. how bad is the pilot shortage and how dangerous is it. >> an airline like us hasn't seen a pilot shortage, we weren't forecasting a pilot shortage at our end of the business. there are lots of pilots who have the ambition to come fly with us and we're very fortunate in that respect. i think the issue around pilot shortage is really at the entry level which is some years away from hitting the major carriers. quite a number of years. i think it's probably a good time for people to start thinking about the pilot shortage, but today at the major airlines there is not a pilot shortage. >> mike. >> you know, mark, the big story for years now obviously with the industry has been, you know, discipline on new capacity and obviously there has been a lot of benefits to that. kpajtly where do we stand with

regard to your business? in other words, will you have leverage to continuing strength in the cycle which point or is it can going to come from whatever pricing you can squeeze out? >> we're actually -- we have had a terrific 2015, it isn't entirely in the bag yet, we've still got another couple weeks to get to. 2016 looks better for us based on future extrapolating the current trends out into the future. a large part of that is because of course fuel is down, demand remains very robust and while capacity has moved up in a number of markets it's not moved up enough to undercut all the good stuff that's happening in the business. >> jon. >> as far as direct because that's one of the things that when people go to hawaii one of the great things about going there is getting there direct and you guys are expanding that by going direct, i believe, into japan now from honolulu or from ma maui, i forget which, directly in. how important is that rather than just being a hop across the

country to having direct flights? >> sure. correctly, for example, we have the longest domestic flight in the united states, we fly jfk to honolulu on a daily basis. >> my brother has done it with you. >> i hope he had a good experience. we do believe in connecting people nonstop to hawaii, we have services to four cities in japan, we do career, china, australia, new zealand, tahiti, american samoa as well as nine cities in north america and that's been our business model is bringing people to hawaii so they can experience that great hawaii vacation. >> we've covered planes, automobiles, we just need trains now in this show, mark. thank you so much for letting us know what's really going on. >> thank you. great to be here. is there a real threat in the tensions between russian and turkey that could drag the u.s. into another military conflict? that is next right after this. here at td ameritrade, they love innovating. and apparently, they also love stickers. what's up with these things, victor?

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president obama speaking in paris earlier today during the climate change conference spoke about russia's involvement and strategy in syria. >> i don't expect that you're going to see a 180 turn on their strategy over the next several

weeks. they have invested for years now in keeping assad in power. their presence there is predicated on propping him up. and so that's going to take some time for them to change how they think about the issue. >> joining us now on set for more on putin and russia's next move in the fight against isis is bill broader. here at post 9. welcome. >> glad to be here. >> your reflections on what the president was saying this morning. >> i think he is -- i think the u.s. is playing checkers and russia is playing chess here. putin has a lot of different objectives as far as syria, ukraine and russia itself are concerned and it's a much bigger problem than just trying to convince him that assad must go. i mean, basically putin is afraid of getting kicked out of

his own country by his people, he has started a war with ukraine in order to generate popular support, sanctions ended up happening and as a result he ended up having to do happening and as a result he ended up having to do something greater which is going into syria to keep everybody distracted into russia. >> why should we take all of that and think he has a sophisticated strategy here and it's not about showing force and using desperate measures. >> it is about that but putin's problems now is sanctions. the russian economy is being crippled by u.s. and western european sanctions and putin can't back down and say okay i give up in ukraine. stop the sanctions. so his new strategy was going into syria -- going into syria when all the refugees go into europe and more refugees were going into europe. he's in a powerful position and

in the middle of the situation and europe is desperate and america is desperate to solve the problem and he's going to offer a half solution in exchange for eliminating the sanctions. >> and john that of course has many people in the journal yesterday and the day before saying his next moves tactically or otherwise will be to look toward lithuania partly to have that as pawns in a greater game. >> at the end of the day, the worse the economy gets in russia and it's getting bad because of the sanctions. he has to be aggressive throughout the country. look, we're at war. you have to tighten your belt because we're at war. he's done ukraine and he's in the middle of syria and he'll do -- for him it's one big game. it's one big game of staying in power so the people of russia don't get upset. >> ahead of the opec meeting do you think it's likely that they

would continue to hit the supply trucks, the oil trucks in syria moving out from isis to where ever they're going? we're assuming right now it's turkey. we're thinking that he's right that perhaps they're trying to move the trucks and get the oil sold through an open spot if you will. if he can cut that off and if he can make a bigger show than he's already done with that, couldn't he actually cause the brent prices to rachet up pretty dramatically over the next weeks and months? >> i don't know the numbers in terms of isis oil exports but they're pretty diminishing. he's claiming he has gone into syria to fight isis and the only place he is fighting isis is where there's oil trucks -- if you look at the targeting it's 90% non-isis. >> that goes back to what is really going on here. thank you for joining us. have to leave it there for the time being. >> hedge fund manager david

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welcome back. you may remember about a month ago i asked hedge fund giant david tepper about whether he

owned sunedison. >> it speaks to the authority you can have in the market when just knowing about your appearance, sunedison was up 5%. there was a rumor that you were going to come on and talk about it. you say it's a stock picker's market. would you pick a sunedison. >> people probably smoke a lot of marijuana in your viewing audience and people on twitter. i don't understand where stuff comes from. i never talked about stuff on this program. we haven't had any big positions in my book for a year. really, truly, there must be something really good coming into the country. >> well, terraform is surging on news that david tepper has taken a stake in the stock. it's up 32% there at the close. here's the back story. tepper sent a public letter to the company's board questioning it's strategy saying recent moves departed from the company's business model and seems most frustrated with their

relationship with sunedison. they recently named the ceo to be the terraform ceo. also global asset management to be the cfo. now this prompted last week two other board members to re-sign. one saying, quote, the respective conflicts committees as constituted before today together with independent advisors had been working hard and in good faith to protect the interests of the stockholders. as a result of today's actions of each of the boards i don't believe i will be able to do so going forward and therefore re-sign. these letters were included in an a.k. filed last friday evening. remember the market closed about 1:00 p.m.. in tepper's letter today he wrote, quote, we expect the board and the conflicts committee to expect and defend the integrity of the corporate i denty and interest of the stakeholders. we reserve all rights

accordingly. that would seem to include suing sunedison if that was deemed appropriate. he goes into further detail regarding what they have done with the solar company back in july. that began to hurt terraform shares. they were under further pressure. it's been said to have good assets with long-term agreements with investment grade companies. sunedison having a different kind of approach. going into the residential model but now that they have really come and shaken up the board, mike, so much, the conflict of interest there is something that has david tepper quite upset. i understand because of what's happening with terraform what this says about this company is not so glowing. >> obviously. you had a fairly descent financial situation. s going to draw some scrutiny when decisions are being made. not because an individual company says this is our strategy and this is what we're going to do.

so not surprising to see this little public voice get the stock moving again. >> we don't see this often from david tepper. >> and now when you look at the stock 40 back in july, $6 just a week ago. you can see why depending on the time line he bought it that he would be pretty upset because that was that letter about what happened here. but the stock moves 30% in a day and everybody is cheering. but still a far cry from a month ago or two months ago. >> that's right. perhaps in order to get it back to where he thinks it should be traded and valued there might be to be further steps taken to dislodge the control of sunedison here. so perhaps a longer road there but more information regarding that big, big move in the stock today after we heard from david tepper last month. we'll leave it there guys for the time being. thank you for joining us here on closing bell. no ugly sweaters john, though. >> we'll make a bet on some of those ugly sweaters.

>> fast money is coming up in a few seconds. what's on tap? >> we'll talk about global but solar across the board was higher today. so we have a question for the traders. would you rather invest in solar stocks or coal stocks. both have been beaten down. >> or natural gas or oil -- >> no, it's just solar or coal. >> that's a tough one. straight over to you guys. >> fast money starts right now. i'm melissa lee. tim seymour, pete and guy adami. hedge funds are having a terrible year but good news for a hand full of stocks. we'll tell you what the names are and how you can make serious money. plus looking to beat the market, we have the three stocks that history says will outperform. and the names and how you can get in on the action and later mark zuckerberg announcing plans to give nearly all of his facebook stocks