good morning. the santa claus rally, stocks trading at all-time highs. the dow continues its steady climb to 20,000. >> trump tweets again. we'll tell you what the president-elect has to say this time about consumer confidence and his election win. and ringing up retail. the nation's stores give us a snapshot of the american consumer. it's wednesday, december 28, 2016, "worldwide exchange" begins right now. ♪ good morning. welcome to "worldwide exchange" on cnbc. i'm sara eisen.

>> i'm wilfred frost. it's the last week of 2016. all week we're playing the top songs of the year. >> you missed some good ones yesterday. >> did i? >> happy to have you back. >> it's great to be back. feels like it's been a long week away. happy belated christmas to all of those celebrating it stateside. let's check in on the global markets and futures at this hour. yesterday we got slight gains. still not hitting 20,000 on the dow. it comes off about a week or so now of slightly treading water in terms of which way markets are going, on low volumes yesterday and friday the last two trading sessions saw particularly low volumes relative to the year as a whole. we are called higher today. only slightly. 16 points or 17 points for the dow. 1 point for the s&p. the nasdaq 9.7. one thing is clear for these markets. we'll end the quarter with positive gains. of those three indices, particular lly the dow, which looks like it could hit double digit returns.

if we look quickly at the u.s. ten-year treasury note, we did see a little bit of a slippage yesterday, at 2.55 at the moment. so still some way from those highs of 2.64% in terms of yields that we saw two weeks ago. significant moves. >> we'll talk about the markets. the resilience and strength is amazing. we have data out of asia to report. in japan, industrial output rising 1.5% in november from the previous month. that was roughly in line with expectations. retail sales also increased in november. inventory fell for a third straight month. in china, reported strong performance in the fourth quarter according to the china beige book survey of 3300 firms helped by hiring and an increase in profits. manufacturing sector also improved from the third quarter with more than half the country seeing revenue gains. inventories rose at a record

pace. to europe, a fresh read on business confidence. economic growth in italy rebounding slightly but not expected to rise above 1% this year. overall sentiment among manufacturers and retailers declined for the second straight month, consumer confidence up slightly in november. in spain, retail sales rose by 3.3%. let's look at european markets. many of them reopening today. including the uk, hong kong and australia. you can see mixed performance. slight declines in italy. the ftse 100 up a bit. worth pointing out for the quarter as a whole we are looking at strong gains in europe. similar to the dow. up about 9% this quarter so far. germany and france looking at similar gains but for different reasons, a weak currency. more because of valuations, which were very low than the hopes for growth and inflation coming through as strong as in the u.s.

either way, fourth quarter looking good. >> the european bond market is not following the u.s. bond market. the german u.s. yield hitting a record low. ten-year yield continues to remain low there. that has really caused the weakness in the euro over the last few weeks. as our treasury yields move higher with the ten-year sitting at the highest level in two years. >> starting to see a pick up initially after the trump rally. certainly causing hopes of global reinflation but not as pronounced as here. there's the german ten-year bund yelled. >> right on cue. >> equity markets for asia, which is coming up now. we are looking at decent performance in hong kong. slight declines in shanghai. >> what is adding fuel to the rally is the rising price of oil. let's check out the broader market picture. oil has risen for the last seven sessions in a row. we're trading at the highest levels of the year for wti and

brent. 54.19. it's up another half percent. brent 56.44. up 0.6%. nat gas under pressure after a nice pop yesterday. the idea here, we'll start to get production cuts out of the opec and nonopec members in january. the more comments on the wire suggest that the countries will go through with them. now we have to see the proof in the pudding next year. especially as oil prices rise. rigs have been building as well. back online. but so far oil prices have rebounded nicely. it's been a huge comeback story of 2016 when they started off the year dipping below $30 a barrel. as for the dollar, it has been strong. strengthen again yesterday on the back of strong consumer confidence numbers. that's the dollar/yen reaction. it's stronger again this morning. 117.66. dollar stronger against the euro 104.41. and the dollar stronger against the pound as well by a quarter percent this morning. 122.39. dollar continues to hover at the

highest levels in more than a decade. it has hurt the price of gold. on the back of the stronger u.s. dollar, a bit of strength. we saw this yesterday, too. it's up about a quarter percent. so we'll watch that carefully. not doing as well as bitcoin, back above $900. >> look at that gold chart. one-year chart. despite the doom and gloom around gold, the euphoria around the dollar, gold still year to date is up 7%. yes, it's had a terrible fourth quarter but still up from the earlier points of the year. >> i would say it's not just gold that behaved like that. if you look at groups like defensives, utilities, consumer staples and telecom, to strong in the beginning of the year. defensive plays, rate sensitive plays, yields were low around the world. you bought those stocks for shelter and for payment on d divide dividends, then everything changed after the election. they changed to the losers, and

the financials, the energy stocks -- >> still up year to date. >> but still up year to date. you've seen that chart mirrored for a lot of defensive groups. >> the other point related to that gold point is the dollar, of course strong this year, strong in q4. but the broader dollar index for the year as a whole is up 4%. that's a lot against a broad basket of currencies. quite a lot for a year move, but not as euphoric as we might think. i know it came off strength in 2015. >> and 2014 and 2013. four years in a row. >> four years in a row. i think a lot has come in the fourth quarter. we can overstate that dollar strength point because of the move in the short-term. >> that's perhaps why it has not spooked stocks. stocks are still expecting 12.5% earning growth next year. one thing that could get in the way of this is this strong dollar, trading at 13-year highs. if it gets stronger, we'll have

to watch that relationship and see if stocks can hold up, whether that pours cold water on those high earnings expectations for next year as valuations for the overall stock market ntinue to go above historical averages. >> dollar a bit stronger today by about 0.14%. president-elect trump treating about the economy again late last night. he wrote u.s. consumer confidence index for december surged nearly 4 points to 113.7. the highest level in more than 15 years. thanks, donald. >> he thanked himself. >> tweeting in the third person. taking credit for that and if haven't days for the equity market rise. we can't really argue with it. >> it's hard to. the confidence numbers are up. that was a strong number, consumer confidence. we've seen it across business confidence, investor confidence, home builder sentiment. all rising. the question we've been trying to figure out is how much does that sort of boost growth in

itself. those rising confidence numbers. >> we have to see the big question, as we discussed many times, how sustainability this i sustainable this is. >> is he going to continue tweeting every economic report that could be fun for us. >> already is. the day ahead on wall street, we have more data. the housing market front and center. mortgage bankers association out with its weekly survey of mortgage applications at 7:00 a.m. eastern. at 10:00 a.m., november pending home sales. forecast there calling for a rise in signed contracts. home buyers locked in mortgage rates ahead of the fed interest rate hike earlier this month. don't know if he'll be tweeting about pending home sales. not as sexy. >> if you are watching, please do tweet. >> we know he gets up early. tweet about "worldwide exchange" as well. we are starting to get early

indications on how the holiday shopping season shaped up this year. landon dowdy joins us with the numbers. good morning. >> we'll see if trump tweets about this. jump in consumer spending in the final week before christmas may have helped retailers overcome a muted start to the holiday shopping season. new data shows a major shift in late december with brick-and-mortar sales rising 6.5% year over year. mastercard spending report says strong demand for furniture, home furnishings and mens apparel pushed total holiday sales up 4%. slightly above forecast. analysts attribute the surge to an improving job market, lower gas prices and optimism over trump's potential impact on the economy. despite a late spending surge, not every retailer will benefit. department stores such as macy's, jcpenney are still heavily discounti ining items. the biggest beneficiary of all, amazon, outperforming rivals

once again with the retailer calling it its best ever holiday season. now that we're done with the giving part of the holidays, it's time for returns. u.p.s. expects to deliver 1.3 million packages back to retailers on january 5th on what the company likes to call national returns day. by the end of the first week of january, u.p.s. expects to have returned a record 5.8 million packages topping last year's 5 million. to news out of china, the u.s. has charged three chinese traders with the hacking of a major u.s. law firms. three chinese traders earned more than $4 million in illegal profits after they hacked into the systems at law firms and found out about unannounced deals, and then allegedly purchased shares of five publicly traded firms including chip and drugmakers. to south korea, the head of the country's pension fund has been placed under emergency arrest as an influence pedalling

scandal led to a parliament vote to impeach south korean president park. the chairman of the pension fund is being investigated for the merger between two samsung affiliates and whether he pushed the backing of the deal. in corporate news, qualcomm fined $854 million. qualcomm broke the law by limiting chipmakers to its patents. the company allegedly forced cell phone manufacturers into infair licensing agreements and refused to do businesses with firms that disagreed with its terms. qualcomm saying they would contest the decision. another chipmaker continuing a huge run in 2016, leading the overall gains for the sector this year. nvidia shares rising in extended trading. >> this is a wlild chart. this is a fantastic chart. >> up over 260%.

>> geez. it's the best performing stock on the s&p 500 as we just said, up 262%. the graphics chipmaker benefitting from outstanding rising demand. the semiconductor index hit new highs yesterday. the index has risen for ten straight months and is up more than 40% year to date. we talked about this earlier that sector performance of chips is why samsung has performed so well this year despite its own galaxy note 8 issues, whatever it was. >> the recall. the fires. >> nvidia has been the surprise breakout star of 2016. those year to date performance gains, i was reading in the "journal," match up to one of the best performing stocks ever for a year, that's netflix in 2013, i think it was. up almost 300%. so not quite there, but definitely not the same consumer name recognition for nvidia. who knew. >> of course not.

>> it jumped another 6% yesterday after goldman late to the party put it on its conviction buy list. gave it a new spurt of life. >> hope you had nvidia in your portfolios this year. when we come back, the 2017 play books, predictions on what next year will hold in the world of politics. that should be good. first, our facebook and twitter question of the day. what do you think was the biggest market surprise of 2016? we'll read some of your responses on air before the end of the show. buss was built with passion... but i keep it grow byaking ery doar count. that's w i havthe spark cacard . with it, i en unlited 2% cash bk on all of mpusi. and thatnlimited 2% cash bkfr sa ousands of dollars eacacyear going ba into my busess... whicadds fuel to my botm line. what's i iyour wallet?

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welcome back to "worldwide exchange." let's get up to speed with the market action. yesterday slight gains for u.s. equities and futures suggest we'll get the same again. it's a similar story over the last week or so. low volumes around the holiday period. eked out a steady little bit of gains. still some way away from the dow hitting 0,000. can we do it before the end of the day? at the moment these futures markets suggest we might still miss out over the rest of the course of the year. about 0.2%, 0.3% of gains in the futures markets. oil prices up yesterday about a percent and a half. looking strong for the quarter as a whole. about 10% of gains for wti over the course of the fourth quarter. following that opec supply cut deal. we're up again today. 0.7%. 54.34 for wti. >> the book is about to close on 2016. so that means cnbc is getting

out the play books with some prediction foors number of sectors in the new year. today we're examining politics and what could happen under a new administration in washington. here's john harwood. >> reporter: if the 2016 campaign caught us anything, it's the unpredictability of everything about donald j. trump. anyone making predictions about his first year in the white house and not to mention those of us who thought he would never get there in the first place better do it with humility. in 2017, president donald trump will sign tax reform into law. but it won't be comprehensive tax reform of both the individual and corporate systems. he'll focus on international tax reform with the goal of returning corporate profits to the u.s. and raising money to finance his infrastructure spending plans. at least one of president trump's cabinet picks will be defeated by the senate even though republicans control more

than enough s will look for opportunities to peel off a few republicans that they feel too far out of the mainstream. target number one, health and human secretary designate tom price who favors big changes to medicare and medicaid. and the incoming president will not rip up the nuclear deal the outgoing president struck with iran, even though donald trump criticized it during the campaign. u.s. allies, britain and france, were part of that deal and so was russia. the u.s. adversary mr. trump wants better relations with. the new president may embrace stricter monitoring of the deal but getting rid of it altogether is not worth the trouble or the risk. >> that's a tough one. >> great call at the top. it will be hard to predict pretty much anything. >> he was modest about the -- >> very. >> about a lot of people didn't predict donald trump. he said a lot of things on the

campaign trail. his advisers said a lot of different things that are not necessarily all in tune. so those willing big questions. on tax reform certainly for wall street and for the profit outlook there are high hopes at this point. >> absolutely. interesting what he said on iran. the fact that that, of course, of all the international deals -- >> would be hard to rip up. >> very hard. still to come, the late effort on the trump transition and show attendance dropping over the holidays. the numbers and the reasons behind the decline. before we head to break, here's today's national weather forecast from the weather channel's reynolds wolf. >> let's look at that forecast. in the northeast, 41 degrees in new york city. beautiful day. atlanta, 68 degrees and mild. dallas, very, very warm for you. 80 degrees, partly cloudy skies. breezy in bismarck, 30, 45. and seattle with cloudy skies. los angeles with 77. on the front range you'll have clear skies, 44 degrees.

if you're going into parts of the central rockies, up towards the tetons, you have a chance of snowfall there. back in miami, looks beautiful with partly cloudy skies and 82 degrees out by biscayne bay. more coming up on the other side of the break. more "worldwide exchange."

welcome back. let's get you up to speed on the market action. strength in the futures market again. the dow closing 55 points away

from 20,000. the nasdaq closing at a record high. it looks like it will build on that strength. nasdaq futures up 9. s&p 500 futures up 1. dow futures up 18. so we are seeing some double digit gains in the early action. that's better than we saw yesterday where the dow actually opened up stronger. the dollar continues its strength as well. strong dollar, strong stocks has been the name of the game. 104.38. pressure on the euro. dollar up a quarter percent against the yen. that's always a good sign for stocks, that risk barometer. the dollar stronger against the pound. 122.39. at 13-year highs for the dollar. u.s. markets don't seem to be pha fazed or concerned about that one. the two marching hand in hand. >> not so far. we'll see what happens. making headlines, president obama and japanese prime minister shinzo abe visited pearl harbor yesterday.

the trip came seven months after president obama became the first sitting american to visit the japanese memorial dedicated to those killed in hiroshima and nagasaki. the two men delivered remarks and spoke about the strong alliance between these two countries. >> making all the front pages, those pictures of that moving moment this morning. in other political news, president-elect trump continues his meetings today at his florida home in mar-a-lago. edward lawrence joins us with the latest on the transition what are we expecting today? >> it's not been as smooth as it has in the past. what started out as a difference of opinion over israel is now turning into a feud between president-elect trump and president obama. >> reporter: the future president has been out of site over the holidays, but visible on twitter. he's now taking on the current president directly. saying president obama campaigned hard in important swing states and lost. the voters wanted to make america great again. >> it's part of american

rivalry, partisan rivalry. >> reporter: behind closed doors advisers to president-elect trump say his comments may seem divisive but he really wants to heal the country. >> if you go to the meetings and talk to the president-elect, he's about unifying the nation. >> reporter: democrats don't buy it saying mr. trump went too far pushing an israeli agenda rather than letting a sitting president finish his term. secretary of state john kerry will defend the administration's decision not to veto the u.n. resolution on israeli settlements in his speech later today. republicans remain critical. >> the issues between the israelis and the palestinians need to be resolved by those parties. >> frankly again, doing something like this at the end, when you know something different is coming within a matter of weeks, there's no particular reason to do it. >> reporter: growing conflict between administrations during what has become a bumpy transition following an unprecedented campaign.

president-elect trump named a bush administration veteran, thomas bossert as assistant to the president for homeland security. >> edward, thank you very much. still to come, the morning's top stories and a round up of the global market picture. first our facebook and twitter question of the day. what do you think was the biggest market surprise of 2016? i put mine out there, i'll share it also when we come back. you're watching "worldwide exchange." but with growthco. that's why soany innovatorshco. are on tbm cloud. like refinery 29with nearly a billion views a year. or ror game developers whose ed bpopularity depennners. onaunchingew updat fast. helping to keep a compy's success uncomplid - that's what the ibm d isuilt for.

good morning. the march to dow 20,000. will santa claus come to wall street? the odds straight ahead. new this morning, the u.s. accusing three chinese traders of hacking law firms. details coming up. and the top trending stories, including broadway show attendance dropping over the holidays. it's wednesday, december 28, 2016, you're watching "worldwide exchange" on cnbc. ♪ goornin i worn good morning. welcome back to "worldwide exchange.." >> all week we're playing the top songs of the year. >> rihanna makes it. >> i didn't know this was rihanna. >> fifth harmony, sorry, it's

not. >> i didn't think it was. >> let's check in on the global markets. futures looking strong again, after a mini rally yesterday sent the dow ever closer to the elusive 20,000 number. >> not as close as we have been. >> it's true. last tuesday we were 12 points away. >> 13, i believe. >> 12 points. yesterday we closed 55 points away from dow 20,000. at one point we got within 25 points during yesterday's session. we are close. but no cigar yet. we'll see if today is the day. we said that every day for the last two weeks. >> lower volumes as well. >> lower volumes, thin trading. s&p 500 futures up 1.5%. nasdaq made a move higher. tech made a big leader. the nasdaq closing at a record high. strong again this morning. futures up about 10 points. early action in europe, let's show you where we are. sort of a mix to flat picture. holiday trading set in here as well.

one bright spot. ftse 100 and the pound weaker. that export heavy index has liked a weaker pound. as for germany, flat to negative. same with france, italy and spain. italy and spain the underperformers, almost down a half percent. overnight in asia, also a mixed picture. we saw strength in hong kong where the index closed up almost a percent. shanghai has been a loser lately. a laggard across asia and the world markets. nikkei closing flat. the yen has made a move weaker. >> as for broader markets, let's look at oil prices. decent pop yesterday, 1.6%. a very decent pop over the course of the fourth quarter, almost 10% of gains for wti. up 0.6% today. 54.2. as for the ten-year treasury note, we slipped from the highs we touched about two weeks ago in terms of yield, 2.64 was the peak, at 2.56 at the moment.

you can see from that chart, the strong move upwards in yields. dollar prices for the year as a whole, dollar strong. most of that coming in the fourth quarter. and as we end out the year, still continuing that momentum, albeit much less strongly than has been seen. dollar strength across the board, only about 0.2%. gold prices have had a tough final quarter of the year. year to date gold up 7.4%. sara, today we are clearly, as we have been, focused on whether the dow will hit 20,000. i wonder in the short if we should be more focused on the nasdaq, because the dow is ahead of the other two. i wonder whether we hit that milestone and get a bit of rotation and people focus on the other two indices. and the other two indices are broader market measures. dow price weighted. driven higher by a few stocks, a handful of them including goldman sachs.

this theme of rotation has been strong. has been alive. where you get randomly -- like yesterday, tech has really underperformed since the election. made a move higher, you continue to see monroe taey rotating fro financials into technology. that could fuel the rally go higher and higher. when does that stop and when does new money come in and get put to work? that's the question. >> year to date performances are similar. the dow up 14%, 15%. either way, amazing gains across the board for u.s. equities when you consider where we were at the start of the year. >> when you consider where we were at the start of the year, best two performing sectors year to date, energy and financials. they were the worst performer. remember when the price of oil was lagging? they made it to the top of the s&p 500. >> remarkable turnaround. >> the housing market is front and center on today's agenda the mortgage bankers association

will be out with its weekly survey of mortgage applications. at 10:00, a read on november pending home sales. forecasts calling for a rise in signed contracts last month as home buyers tried to lock in mortgage rates ahead of the interest rate hike. president-elect trump tweeting about the economy late last night. he wrote the u.s. consumer confidence index for december surged nearly 4 points to 113.7. highest level in more than 15 years. thanks, donald. >> as we said before. i don't want to keep repeating ourselves, of course he will take credit. he has a missieassive effect one things. i wonder if we've all been short-sighted. when you look at what he's inherited, gdp growth, it's low but improvement he's inheriting

a strong economy. and if you add the fact that interest rates will be going up, policy will be tighter, the stock market had seven out of eight years of gains, a great q4 run and as a year as a whole, it will be a wake-up call. already the economy is doing well. what more can he do to improve it. taking credit now, i wonder whether halfway through next year or a year into his four-year term whether we will get a wake-up call. >> as the market continues to rally on all of this hope and confidence, which we're seeing in the numbers clearly from that consumer confidence number, does that make the market more vulnerable to surprises to the down side? one member of congress, a democrat speaks out against cutting the corporate tax rate. do we lose some of it? or trade heated rhetoric. you don't see a lot of negatives being priced in but so far the glass half full approach. that's the way consumers are feeling. >> let's move on. news out of china. the u.s. charged three chinese

traders with the hacking of major u.s. law firms. according to a federal indictment, the three chinese traders earned more than $4 million of illegal profits after hacking into systems and found out about unannounced deals. they then alleged by purchased shares of five publicly traded firms. shares of toshiba falling sharply for a second day after the company warned of a possibly multibillion dollar writedown for its nuclear business. the stock dropped 11% yesterday. delta air lines cancelling an order for 18 boeing 787 dreamliner jets. delta assumed that order as part of its takeover of northwest airlines back in 2000. it will continue to take delivery of boeing 737 planes. volkswagen's financial arm is buying canadian mobile payments company for an undisclosed amount. the firm pay by phone allows people to pay for parking

services by mobile app. a great idea. i always thought that would be helpful. >> it's a nightmare. they got it in london. it's a nightmare. >> $300 million of transactions. why? it sounds like a good idea. >> it does. by the old school meter that you put a pound of coin into and you always have a pool of pound coins in your car, so much simpler. it's complicated. >> but you always don't have a pool of pound cars. >> you do if you drive regularly in a place that needs them. if they improved whatever apps that are available, maybe it's a good thing. the initial apps very slow to work with. >> strong opinion. >> you always have to have the pound coin pool in your car. >> quarters in this country. >> that's what you need for meters here? >> yeah. abbott labs winning approval from the federal trade commission for its $25 billion purchase of st. jude medical. abbott will sell two medical devices to resolve regulator concerns that the deal would

hurt competition. bp is buying a chain of gas stations from woolworths for $1.3 billion. bp up a half percent today. hitachi is considering the sale of its power tools business. the move following reports that the company is in talks with kkr on a deal worth $1.3 billion that could be reached sometime next month. lloyds banking group making moves ahead of the uk's planned exit of the european union. the financial times is reporting that the bank is creating a subsidiary in germany or the nether lands in an effort to ensure it can maintain clients in those countries and ensure it has access to the european payment system. it's the only london-based bank without a subsidiary in another

eu country. >> and it matters less to lloyds it has less banking revenue which will be threatened. and less european revenue. s no a massive brexit factor story. >> time for top trending news. celebrities from around the world paying tribute to carrie fisher last night. the iconic actress best known for her role as princess leia in the "star wars" film series passing away. mark hamill saying it's never easy to lose such a vital and irreplaceable member of the family but this is heart blabr g heartbreaking. the tributes poured in from around hollywood. harrison ford saying carrie was one of a kind brilliant, original, funny, emotionally fearless. we will all miss her. george lucas weighing in, carrie and i have been friends most of our adult lives. she was extremely smart a talented actress, writer and

comedian with a colorful personality that everyone loved. "new york post," great cover, she was force. carrie fisher, 1956 to 2017. >> such a terrible shock. very young. also just last week, before the flight from london to l.a., where the initial heart attack took place, she was on all the talk shows promoting her book. lots of fresh, positive upbeat, long-term outlooking interviews appearing in the last week. adds to the shock and surprise of all of this. broadway box office failing to break any records over the holiday weekend. revenue, attendance and number of shows dipping. despite some hit shows closing next month, make fooing for a gloomier start on 2017 for broadway. a huge focus on hamilton coming to london. >> it is coming. when? >> some point in 2017. i can't remember. i think april time.

>> that's going to be a hard ticket. >> i hope you see it here. the original. >> i think it will be more of the original cast opening in london. >> really. >> because it's already rotated here. >> yeah. the apple watch rolling out a new challenge for the new year. the company releasing a new update today called ring in the new year to help apple watch users meet their fitness goals. the update i clouds three activity rings to be completed per day for the entire month of january with special badges and stickers for achievement. this is why i don't have a smart watch. there's one thing to make a new year's resolution, it's another to be constantly reminded. >> you could be reminded on your phone equally. >> it's too much. >> it is too much. have you formed all of your new year's resolutions? >> no. >> i think we should have check t collective ones for the show. >> being nicer. >> you're so nice to your fellow co-anchors when i'm off.

i feel that is harsh. it cuts me deep. >> i'm sorry. here's a check of the european markets at this hour. we're back in a couple minutes.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." time for our must read stories.

my pick in the "wall street journal," a friend for trump in asia. and it refers to this visit yesterday to pearl harbor by prime minister shinzo abe. praising him for the optics of it, the symbolism of it and it gets to the hard numbers here. clearly trying to send a message to president-elect trump reading tokyo spends $1.7 billion annually on the 54,000 u.s. troops based in japan. that's about half the local cost and it would cost the u.s. more to bring the troops home. then there's the nearly 18 billion tokyo committed towards some of the largest military construction projects in the pacific including new facilities in southern japan and even on the u.s. island of guam. it talks about abe's outreach to some other nations across asia. and it talks about some emerging threats in asia like china and the south china sea, north korea being more assertive. and sort of gives some advice to trump, abe was, of course, the

first foreign leader in trump tower to visit. we remember that photo with ivanka in the room. >> was very positive as well. when he came out of that meeting. >> the symbolism happening is important with abe here this week. >> as it was with obama going to hiroshima. he was the first foreign leader to meet trump and positive coming out of it. my pick today, titled from trump's outbursts to limonada, the defining tweets of the year. it's the summary of the best and most important tweets of 2016. goes through everything from the u.s. election to ryan lochte, from brexit to limonada. it explains the importance of some of the most relevant tweets. they reveal the top trending topics of the year according to twitter. rio 2016 was top. election 2016 was second. and pokemon go was third.

our favorite word, brexit, sixth. >> wow. >> very disappointing. >> sort of economics and financial. political. if it was sixth, that means it beat trump. >> it did beat trump, but 2016 was above that. >> i wonder how much we contributed that. we were the king and queen of brexit. >> good read. good summary of top trending topics of the year. >> the team is getting ready for "squawk box." joe kernen is in new york with a look at what's coming up. >> i was in new york last night even. last night and this morning. >> did you sleep there? >> i did. i did. it was cold. no. yeah. we had a -- no. rangers 4-3. we got there, down 2-0. four times we got to sing the -- don't know if you have been.

wilfred thank you, for picking a story for me about twitter. i can't believe you did that you looked all around until you found one until you could say it. >> as many times as possible. >> you said twitter like six times. i loved it. i think today looks pretty good. we'll see. 20,000. 20,000 is coming. yesterday a couple times, you know, up 30 or 40. i'm like, eh. less than 30 points 40 points from there. we'll see today. 18. all green. sometimes it starts slowly like that. we'll be talking to a couple people that may have insightful things to say. kate moore is our guest host. blackrock's chief equity strategist for the americas. i would just do one or the other. north and south is too much for me to think about. she can handle both. then elarian is on.

he will help us look around corners at multi speed economies in the new normal. the new normal. he's a walking mckenzie buzzword phenomenon. >> he creates them. >> he creates them. so there are four things. >> that means for at least an hour, you will stop making fun of my accent and make fun of his. >> there's some similarities there. i'll see how he says twitter. >> you did that when we were sitting next to each other on "squawk box." >> a lot of my stuff is not new. >> unlike the new normal. joe, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> looking forward to "squawk box" coming up in nine minutes time. still to come, 2017 market predictions from michael purves.

first we've been asking all morning what is the biggest market surprise of 2016? cameron deacon responding saying the speed in which the u.s. rallied after trump was elected due to the shock factor. yes, i agree. he says i thought we were due for a couple days of decline. turns out it was a couple hours. >> i reckon that's in my top five. not my top one. >> wilfred will reveal. "worldwide exchange" will be right back.

welcome back to "worldwide exchange." futures this morning looking up. dow futures are up 18 points. s&p up 1. nasdaq building on its record close, up 9 points earlier. joining us is michael purves. we are seeing thinner volumes and trading. but there is strength. dow 20,000 is in sight. >> right. >> what will it take to get there? >> i nthink just more of the

same. i think we'll get through 20,000 in a few trading days. it's one of the least significant statistics. >> why. >> it's a big, round number. it's nice. when you step back and look at technical composition of the broader u.s. equity markets, you see materials, industrials, all performing well. banks performing well. you see small caps performing well. you see realized correlations across stocks and sectors breaking down. all that to me is a sign that the equity market has some real strength. the 20,000 on the dow is a nice, big round number. i don't read a lot of technical significance into that. >> not technical significance into that, but what about the seasonality of december? is that a sign that we'll get profit taking at the end of the year, and in january a pullback? >> december is generally a strong month. when you have a strong first 10, 11 months of the year, you often have a better december.

people never believe the economy, never really believe in the rally for many of these years. all of a sudden they find myself, my god, it's october. i'm behind. a lot of the slower moving money has to allocate in to keep up with the benchmark. that force is underway. since post trump, an aggressive rally. still i think we'll lift up, you know, he would could get another 20 points before the year is out on the s&p 500. >> if you look at the performance numbers this year, s&p 500 is up 11%. dow is up more than that. what would you tell people who ask you should i just put my money into an index fund next year? that's been the winning strategy the past few years. >> we had that huge transition from a market defined by monetary stimulus to one defined by fiscal stimulus. fiscal stimulus is a much more choppier market. i think it will be more difficult for the passive money and it's actually going to be a

richer opportunity for those who can generate alpha. there's much more divergence across what sectors, what stocks within the u.s. equities will be winners. it won't be as easy as it has been. >> overall, jeegenerally the indexes will be flat? >> no my prediction is we'll be up next year. because of trump, i'm factoring in higher earnings and lower multiples as well. i think when you wash that through, you know, i'm expecting 2350 right now at end of the year but i may upgrade or downgrade dynamically because there's more political risk in some of these trump factors. >> we have to leave it there. thank you very much. michael purves, thank you very much. time to round out what we thought the biggest surprises of the year were. mine was that the nasdaq

finishing 1 1%. >> has to be brexit. that's it for "worldwide exchange." "squawk box" is next. what's the val of capital? 's cril thinking le? a basketll costs $ what team spi(cheers) what'st worth totalk mom? what'shealue of a walk in e woods? the value capital is tcreate, not juealtbut things thr moan stanley capital is tcreate,

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good morning. the santa claus rally. stocks trading near all time highs as the dow continues its slow but steady climb perhaps to 20,000. cyberthreat, a new warning to air travelers that hackers could obtain your personal information and credit card numbers from unsecured data on flight reservation systems. we'll tell you how that works. and a late surge in holiday shopping helped to yoffset a wek

start to the season. it's wednesday, december 28, 2016. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ >> live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." good morning. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen and michelle caruso-cabrera. we have been waiting for quite some time now getting to that 20,000 mark. the dow looks like it will open up higher, about 18 points higher. doesn't get you over the mark yet. nasdaq looking like it will open higher as well. s&p 500 looking to open about a point and a half higher. in asia, let's show you what's going on. hang seng is up pretty well there. looking at the shanghai composite and the nikkei down. nikkei is down just a tad. and the european equities at the moment, mostly red arrows. the ftse up on its first day back in business after a long holiday weekend for them. and then finally