chur chur churchill in "the darkest hour." it's that season, going to be talking about movies a lot. >> always tremendous. >> always tremendous, playing churchill. there's been a couple depictions of churchill this one's awesome. >> you one the would be the exp. you're our inhouse englishman. >> i'm not sure about that. >> we're not sure you're english? >> "closing bell" starts now hi, everybody, happy monday. welcome to the "closing bell," i'm kelly ef en vans at the newk stock exchange. >> i'm scott wapner if for bill griffeth the ceo tells us his side of the story in an exclusive interview coming up. . and apple makes it official. confirming its a ingcquisition

shazam is this an artificial intelligence play? we're going to look. what's to buy ahead of tax reform debate on whether airline stocks could be the big beneficiaries of any tax bill. but we do start with the story that's taken wall street, main street, any street, frankly, by storm, and that is bitcoin. bitcoin futures popping in their first full day of trading on the cboe cnbc's bob pisani joining us with that story. bob, everybody is talking about it. >> it is and it's finally happened the good thing is at least trading has happened and relatively orderly we passed 18,000, folks. bitcoin futures opened 6:00 last night eastern time, 15,000, moved up very, very quickly. here you see it's over 18,000. so it's been small, 3,600 contracts, figure the math here. 17,000 p 17,000, 18,000 about $60 million. that's not a lot but it's a start at least here's what's important. let's go over what exactly a futures contract is, why this is so important first of all, it's just agreement to buy or sell a commodity or a financial instrument at a predetermined price and a specific time in the future so let's look at what

this bitcoin contract does number one, it's just one bitcoin, that's all, very simple to understand. prices close to $18,000. the margin you can get into it for 44% margin, what it will cost you it expires january 17th. that's what's important. now, let's see how you could do this and what's going to happen with this. let's say you bought bitcoin futures. january 17th, here's what happens, say bitcoin is $19 thourkt$19,000, congratulations, you're in the money. you just made $1,000 bitcoin, $17,000, sorry, you lost you lose $1,000. that's why the futures are essentially a zero-sum game, somebody wins and somebody loses all the time i want to emphasize that this is very small numbers that we're dealing with i know everyone's excited about it, but bitcoin's a $300 billion market the u.s. stock market is $25 trillion even the gold market is 20 times

the size of the bitcoin market and the bond market dwarfs everything at d$38 trillion the good news it is started, we get cme next week, nasdaq starting in 201837 t the volume will build. scott, i don't know if this makes it more respectable but go some ways toward making the whole bitcoin thing a little more transparent back to you. >> bob, thank you very much. if you missed the run in bitcoin, the question we here is it too late to get in? joining us, yale university professor robert shiller become to you both. >> thank you >> you're our bill here, we'll let you make the case. people say to themselves, wait a minute, i should have bought bitcoin four years ago when it was 5 cents or whatever, what's the case of buying it at what did bob say, $18,000 >> yeah. there's two things to separate here number one, i think bitcoin as a currency when people are looking at investing in it, it's still very early we're starting to see retail interests spike and a lot of the

buying activity we've seen over the last few weeks has primarily really been driven buy retail investors. institutional investors haven't really had a way to get into the asset class. as you look at the launch of futures, many people are really pricing in that institutional money coming in with this recent run-up i think there will be a much bigger run coming in 2018 when more products and instruments come to market we have three markets under our family a bitcoin investment trust that as of today has $2.6 billion in assets under management starting at $300 million earlier this year just that growth, alone, has been a great indicator of the potential of this market i think the second component is if we look at analogies to early internet investing, really there are no ways for people to i vest in blockchain technology which is the broader theme here today. a lot of investers who ar are looking at this, okay, to get involved in the broader technology shift happening today is to buy bitcoin or currencies to get exposure to the broader blockchain. >> can't something be legit and

be a bubble? why do people have to rush into it today even if you think it's total totally legitimate based on more than just hype and momentum? even the most ardent polls like mike novagraz say, could go to 40,000 but this kuscurrent iteration is a bubble. >> sure. that's where the decoup cucoupl production capital and financial capital is interesting we're seeing a lot of speculative investing. i think it's normal in new technology paradigms to see, quote/unquote, bubbles forming saw that in the early internet, seen that with steam locomotives, seen that as a trend throughout history what's fundamentally different here is we're just getting started and this financial speculation is fueling the development of information we've invested in over 110 companies that are building infrastructure around digital currency and all of those companies are raising money, they're capitalizing themselves through icos or token offerings and they're using that money to build all the infrastructure that's going to fuel this new financial system >> yeah, i'm thinking about an ipo -- kellycoin

i'm just going to raise the money and do whatever i want with it. >> everybody else seems to have one. >> exactly professor, what do you think about bitcoin? you think it's a bubble? >> well, the question is, what's the definition of a bubble >> come on, isn't this the classic definition of one? >> if you look up bubble in the dictionary, you don't get a very good definition. in my book, i wrote about this to me, a bubble is a time when there's great excitement about an investment spurred by other -- stories of other people making a lot of money driven by en envy people buy things sight unseen out of excitement. gambling sort of move develops that's a bubble. >> sounds like you're checking all those boxes. >> but the thing is the bubble isn't necessarily totally wrong. i think bitcoin has aspects of a

bubble in it whether it has gone too far or not is just almost impossible to be sure about because we don't really know what's going to happen with these brand new instruments. >> to the question that -- is it too late in your opinion -- i don't even know if i should ask you this, i'm not sure what your opinion is of it, then, should people buy bit kocoin at these levels if your relative, friend, said should i buy this thing , what would you tell them? >> one of my teenastudents, a teenager, said he's buying bitcoin. i said i hope you're not buying too much he said it's less than one bitcoin. i think you can play with it that's okay. it's probably educational. it would be wrong to put a high percent of your port fofolio in. it may have gone up ten fold in it but that's not guaranteed. >> the real question is, how does -- whether this certain, this current iteration of it, i

it ends badly, how it does end we had andrew of scitron on "halftime" today listen to what he said about bitcoin and react on the other side here's andrew left. >> it ends badly because people do not have an understanding being accepted as an alternative asset and going up in price are completely two different things but i think traders and dreamers are missing the fact mind uber driver this morning didn't want to know how he can make money in crypto he wanted to know how he was going to retire on it. and that's the problem >> i'll give you the first response. >> sure, so the way i would react to that is i think what professor shiller was saying is absolutely accurate. the people who are investing in bitcoin, this is a -- every day it passes the probability of bitcoin going to zero goes lower own lower and the other probability is it being some astronomical number. for me as i look at my personal portfolio, i'm obviously long bitcoin because i fundamentally

believe in the technology. i think there's an element of people playing with house money. that's why i think icos have done so well, raise sd so much money, there's been a lot of wealth created part of the wealth creation has drif b tven the adoption of bit and digital currencies in social circles. thanksgiving was an interesting time all went home to our families. probably every thanksgiving table in this country thhad a person at it who invested in bitcoin, maybe it was ethereum and made some money and everyone else around the table thought, hmm, i'm going to start looking at this asset. i never met a single person who started researching them, started learning about them and hasn't become completely fascinated which is why i think what we're seeing on wall street is an interesting paradigm right now. >> professor, the higher bitcoin goes, does that make it more legitimate or less more credible or less? >> that's a psychological question yeah, it's a contagion people are getting excited watching other people and it's

smart people invest in it, they take that as a cue that it's an okay thing to do i think smart people do invest it but they're careful, they don't do too much. our care is starting to get, for some people, going by the wayside. don't count on a tenfold increase it's unlikely to happen. it could happen, but don't count on it. >> it's unlikely it will increase another ten -- that's the most anyone will say about bitcoin. guys, thank you both very much >> thank you. all right. joining us in our "closing bell" exchange today, steve grasso, director of institutional sales at stuart frankel. allison deans, founder of aa deans advisory, and rick santelli at the cme. it's good to have you all with us grasso, you want to give us your take on bitcoin mania? since we just had this conversation. >> sure. so i think, you know, you play all around and somewhere in the middle it's -- can you could have said it was a bubble at

$1,000, d$5,000, $10,000, $15,000. does it have room to trade higher when you look at -- to the professor's point, leaving off that spot, it does add credibility that it's actually an entity that's worth at least looking at or tradeable when you're able to trade futures now you can short it so now you get another side, so you get both people who never had access to trade it, never thought about trading it their bylaws said they couldn't trade it now it trades in futures they're able to trade on the long side and able to short it now. so i do believe the more people educate themselves, it probably moves higher from here. >> allison, talk to me about markets. anything other than bitcoin. >> seriously >> i'm such an old-fashioned value person, i'm like how are you setting value on this? aside from maybe putting $50 in it, forgetting about it, if it works out, great i just don't get it when you can't put a value on it. so speaking about value, the market is a bit pricey even if you adjust in the benefit from tax reform, which i

think is extremely likely is going to go through, and there are going to be lower corporate tax rates, you're talking about a 19 times forward earnings market going down to 17, 18 times. so pricey, the dream ma is interest rates are going higher so the bond market is not a particularly attractive area to be in. interest rates are still pretty low. cash isn't so great. my view is you do still have some good momentum on the earnings front which should help the market i don't see anything negative coming however, i would start locking in profits and moving more of your equity exposure overseas now. >> rick santelli, i asked this question earlier, i'd like your take on it as well whether we'll look back at this week and say it marks the beginning of the end ebband that is the beginninf the end of this raging bull market that's gone on since the bottom of the financial crisis because of what the fed is likely to do, not so much only this week but this tightening path that we think the fed is sfi finally going to get on, how that all is going to impact the stock market what do can you think? >> i don't think it does at all. i think the stock market will

have issues at some point that may taper its ascent i don't even know if it's going to crash maybe it will just slowly take a trajectory lower over a long period of time i think what our central bank is doing, it's the only possible alternative for our central bank with what wi what are we going to do, keep adding stimulus? i think it's the bank of japan and all the investors and some of their proxies for stimulus, whether it's their own security market, or some etfs they own or corporate securities i think those are the areas that we need to question in the future i really do think we could make a lot of assumptions about how much of this stock rally is perpetrated by issues we disagree with or politics s or policy but in the end, in the end, the rest of the world has many big issues that we may not have if the fed continues on this road and think ultimately that will be a positive fundment

l to co lfundmental to come back and hel stocks when they start to recede >> allison, you talked about overseas is the way to go. the dollar, it's been so low lately, what if it rebounds after they pass tax? it that going to make it hard to invest overseas? >> it's less the tax bill and more the magnitude of the interest rate hikes coming out of the fed that could make the dollar more attractive and i think the fed is going to go into this pretty gradually overseas, valuations are compelling enough. they're earlier in the economic recovery stage i think there's enough upside relative to the u.s., any dollar depreciation it's still worth it. and it's good sound diversification at this point and these valuations. >> is that how you see it, right? overseas has done quite well this year. >> it has, but if you look at the marketplace, it's all on a relative basis i think that everyone thinks that the u.s. equity market has already spit out as much as it's going to do. you have the two-day meeting out of the fed, the alabama elections. you have options expiration. this morning you had bombs, bitcoin, biotech everything

this has taken everything you've thrown at it and because of what allison said, the inkmecrementa rate hikes you're going to see are extremely dovish i think you're okay, u.s. equities as well. >> thank you all, steve grasso, allison, rick santelli joining us talking bitcoin, but other things, too, other things, too. president trump signing a space policy directive moments ago. let's get to eamon javers for some of these details. >> reporter: the president signed this director a few minutes ago at the white house it tells nasa to begin the process for planning a trip back to the moon and the president said beyond. >> this time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to mars and, perhaps, someday to many worlds beyond. >> reporter: a side benefit of that spending from nasa, the president said, will be jobs here in the united states. it's tricky, though, because

despite the enormous amount spent, previous presidents have tried to go back to the moon as well both presidents bush had plans to go to the moon and president obama had a plan to go to mars none of that came to fruition, ultimately because of the enormous cost of the space travel that was contemplated by the presidents of the united states still presidents like to set big lofty goals like the president's doing today. and, of course, in the meantime, you get that jobs benefit. kelly, back over to you. >> all right eamon, thank you eamon javers at the white house. >> sorry 45 minutes to go before we ring the bell on wall street. modest gains for stocks. dow jones industrial average up by nearly 36 points. there it is, 24,364. still ahead, airline stocks have largely underperformed the market this year, but those stocks could be big beneficiaries of tax reform. if it gets passed. we're going to debate whether you should buy, coming up. plus shares of biotech company spark therapeutics taking a big hit today after the president presented data on a new hemophilia tatrement down 35% we have an exclusive interview

we have an exclusive interview with the ceo right after this.? at pgim, we see alpa in the trends, driving specific sectors of out performance. where a rising middle class powers a booming auto industry. a leap into the digital era draws youthful populations to mobile banking and e-commerce. trade and travel surge between emerging markets. everyday our 1,100 investment professionals around the world search out opportunities for alpha. partner with pgim, the global investment management businesses of prudential. their leadership is instinctive. they're experts in things you haven't heard of - researchers of technologies that one day, you will. some call them the best of the best. some call them veterans. we call them our team.

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shares of biotech spark therapeutics down 35% today

after the company presented preliminary data on its hemophilia treatment meg tirrell is live at the american society of hematology conference in atlanta. she joins us exclusively with spark ceo jeff marrazzo. meg? >> reporter: thank you so much thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> to be clear what you're working on, your stock ticker, meaning you're aiming to deliver these therapies just once to fix the underlying genetic problem going on in diseases like hemophilia investors reacting negatively to your update in hemophilia today. tell us about the reaction, do you think they're looking at the data in the wrong way? >> i think what i'd just say, they are probably still trying to digest the data we presented today. taking a step back, what's important, what we presented on today was actually results in both our program in hemophilia "b" and as a results in a program of hemophilia "a," we infused. 18 participants across our hemophilia "a" and "b" trials

and what we've seen so far is incredibly exciting and encouraging. in hemophilia "b" we with have 11 participants out close to a year with 13 years of follow-up data, we've seen reduction in bleed rates by 100%. and the infusion rates they have to take and similar reductions in our hemophilia "a" program. in our hemophilia "a" program which is something i think investors are more focused on today, we continue to be extremely excited about not only the potency of the product we've seep, we know we have more optimization to do in terms of our dose finding and dose escalation work but we're confident and excited about not only our technology, our product candidate, but our team to be able to solve that as we've done in the past. >> hemophilia "a" being the more common form of the disease, some data here that people seem excited about. how do you think about the competitive landscape? is it a zero-sum game for whatever gene therapy gets to the market first >> we certainly don't think so

the data they shared over the weekend and published is incredibly encouraging any time you get data where you get a potential new solution for patients, think there's a great unmet medical need for patients with hemophilia, i think that's a great day. we believe that our early results, albeit early, are also showing incredibly encouraging sign we've seen reduction in bleeding in our hemophilia "a" trial, albeit early our vector is incredibly potent, can dose escalate from there we need to do more to dose escalate and optimize that product. we're excited about it and would like to be part of the market providing into uses. keep in mind, these are patients that today have to take infusions on a regular basis, chronically for the rest of their life and i think gene therapy has tremendous potential to potentially give patients a single dose and not only eliminate the bleeds they suffer from but also eliminate the needs for the connihronic infuss

>> another program going on isn't in the hematology space but close to getting fda approval, gene therapy for a rare retinal disease that leads to blindness as that approaches the market, you could be a trend setter in price, the first gene therapy, one-time treatment in the u.s. how are you thinking about pricing that >> we will set a price after we're approved we're not quite there yet. our action is scheduled for january 12th we're obviously within a month of that. incredibly excited and optimistic about the potential for that approval to come. and then we are certainly spending a lot of time as we've talked in the past about what we think the value of gaining back functional vision in patients are. we think our society already places substantial value on site actually in the way we actually compensate people who lose sight on their long-term disability policies or court cases where people have lost sight we've done our own economic analysis internally looking at the functional vision improvements we've seen in patients and believe when you make assumptions you can get to the value of the therapy which is one time, potentially lasts

lifelong potentially in the patients, value of therapy in excess of $1 million we believe we can price responsibly next to the value that's created and provide benefit and access importantly for patients as well as benefits or our employees and shareholders. >> there's a lot to think about there. we heard the $1 million potential framework so we'll keep that in mind. jeff, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. appreciate it. >> kelly and scott, back over to you guys. >> all right, meg, thank you so much coming up in march, by the way, cnbc is hosting its inaugural healthy returns conference a special event featuring top ceos, newsmakers, investors and entrepreneurs about the business of health care for more information and tickets, go to cnbc.com/healthyreturns. and we have 35 minutes left in the trading session dow hangi ining on to a 19-point game nasdaq up 26, the outperformer russell in the red today shedding three points. still ahead verizon ceo throwing cold water on media rumors today, as talks about a disney/fox deal continue to bubble up. why he's not betting on

regulatory approval for any deals in the media space any time soon. up next, we're going to head out to southern california for an update on the devastating wildfires that have already destroyed nearly 1,000 structures and are now heading toward some of the region's priciest real estate [ keyboard clacking ]

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[ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. our advisors can help you find both. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future. yours. welcome back let's get a check on some of today's market movers. we begin with shares of canadian solar trading higher after receiving a proposal letter from

its executive from take the company private. the company's ceo offering to buy all outstanding shares for $18.47 per share the stock is up nearly 3%, trading just under $18 right now. and other solar news, sun power is soaring today after the company was upgraded by baird to outperform from neutral. baird hiked its price target on the stock from $10 to $7, saying it hit an inflection point that will continue to see long-term growth $9.30, sunpower trading, up 11.5%. wildfires in southern california burned hundreds of thousands of acres and destroyed thousands of homes and structures in the region jane wells joining us north of los angeles with the very latest jane >> reporter: hi, scott i want to show you what's happening right now, the fire behind me, as it slowly makes its way down here into carpentiria. the winds have been relatively low. the fire creates such a plume up there, they start to create their own weather pattern.

i want to show you a map, this thing, the thomas fire exploded over 56,000 extra acres in 24 hours. that is 350-plus square miles, that area is larger than the combined area of chicago and boston if you look at video as it has moved into montecito are the expene expensive homes are, hasn't gotten there yet, most of the da damage so far has been in ventura county zillow says $17.4 billion of residential real estate, 24,000 homes are in the burn or evacuation areas they're saying that is 11% of all the housing stock in ventura county one out of every nine homes in the median value in that area where the burn and evacuations are is $617,000. so that adds up to a lot for insurance agencies and what may be winding down now, but today, the fire pio ex pl expla explained why it's particularly challenging. listen >> we're going to have to hit this hard with helicopters

there are 27 helicopters assigned today yesterday, there were 29 and those helicopters could fly for seven hours every single one of those helicopters flew for seven hours yesterday. >> reporter: we have two of them flying over here right now as they're delivering water. they are keeping this fire out of the homes in summerland then montecito where many, many celebrities live, where estates are so expensive how expensivexpensive? the most expensive home on the market in montecito now according to zillow is $85 million, and fortunately for that home seller, it's not near the fire, at least not yet back to you. >> jane, one thing i'm wondering as the devastation continues is whether people are definitely going to rebuild or have some sense that this is a new normal in california, that they want to relocate that property elsewhere? >> reporter: the big question, kelly, is can they get insurance? and as we have learned over the years as people continue to build homes in areas where there is greater fire danger, and now

that may be a greater area than we realized, the only way they can get insurance is through a state fund which is supported from everybody's premiums and also taxpayers so you may see more people having to get state insurance if they're ever going to get permission to build. >> wow, that's a great pobint. jane, thank you for coming it all for us jane wells in california. time for a cnbc news update, let's get over to sue herera sue? >> hi, kelly, hi, scott. here's what's happening at this hour, everyone authorities have identified the man who detonated a homemade bomb in a new york city subway passage at 27-year-old akayed ullah. nbc news reporting that he told investigators he attempted the attack in the name of isis and learned how to make the explosive online. former california governor arnold schwarzenegger had some choice words for president trump in paris today he was there for a climate change summit where he met with the mayor of paris >> it doesn't matter that donald

trump backed out of the paris agreement because the private sector didn't drop out, the public sector didn't drop out, universities didn't drop out, scientists didn't drop out, engineers didn't drop out. no one dropped out donald trump pulled donald trump out of the paris agreement and if you have an american express card, you won't have to sign anything starting next april. the company hopes to speed up transactions by dropping the signature requirement. the move applies to all merchants that accept american express. that's the news update this hour scott, kelly, i'll send it back downtown to you. >> all right, sue, thank you so much sue herera. apple is, take a look at those shares today, trading hirhir higher by 1.75%. after confirming it will buy shazam josh lipton with the details. >> reporter: apple saying it's thrilled the shazam team will be joining the company saying in the statement "since the launch of the app store shazam

consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for ios. today it's used by hundreds of millions of people around the world across multiple platforms. apple music and shazam are a natural fit, delivering great music experiences to our users." terms of the deal were not disclosed. a valuation, less than the company's valuation after a private financing in 2015. shazam which lets users identify music with audio clips raised more than $143 million from investors including kleiner perkins and sony music in november, shazam had 175 million monthly active users across ios and android apple put a lot of time, money and effort we know into is this streaming music service which now has 30 million subscribers tim baharan of creative strategies sayzam could add a new level of value for apple

music specifically greater music discoverability for its users but also notes that shazam is using a.i. to discover and identify these songs and that underlying technology could have a wide range of useful applications he says for various apple products and services. guys, back to you. >> thank you very much, josh that's exactly what i was thinking, scott, which is just the sense of in a world that's so voice-driven now, to be able to ask shazam technology, we know already works with tv shows and other types of things, hey, can you identify this or that, probably for apple a pretty powerful thing. >> yeah, for everybody who's getting into that. i was more thinking about the money. and that it's like a drop in the bucket >> oh, true. >> for a company sitting on 200, i don't know what the number is now -- >> they could have paid $1 billion but only had to pay $ 00 million for shazam that's another unicorn dehorned. >> mere pennies for a company sitting on that much money. up next as congress works to get a bill on the president's desk before christmas, a report by the "wall street journal" says some high-income

businessowners could face a marginal tax rate of more than 100% we'll look at the latest tweaks and changes being proposed and where that bill stands right now. and later, airline stocks could be a big beneficiary of tax reform not everyone, though, on wall street is so convinced we're going to debate the airlines and which names could rdy tta o ibeeao keffn the new year we have a news alert an

lilly. kate roger has these doe taetais kate >> we're watching shares of eli lilly higher by .25% right now they're announcing their board approved an 8% increase in the company's quarterly dividend to around 56 cents per share. the old rate was around 52 cents per share. once again the stock is higher by a quarter of a percent right now. back over to you. >> kate, thank you so much, kate rogers with that story. d.c. lawmakers, meantime, racing against the clock to get a tax reform bill to the president's desk before the christmas holiday. ylan mui is in washington with the very latest on where everything currently stands. ylan >> reporter: scott, the treasury department out today with a new report that they claim shows a

tax plan does pay for itself the report projects gdp will average 2.9% over the decade and that transplait plaiplai plail8 trillion additional in revenue the tax bill costs $1.5 trillion the treasury says it will be a net gain of $300 billion now this is way more optimistic than just about every other estimate that's out there. the joint committee on taxation estimates growth will only make up about $400 billion and the tax policy center said today the gain is just $186 billion. republicans did spend the weekend working on the final version of the tax bill. conservative groups, they're still pushing back against the possibility of a 22% corporate rate saying today that that number would be very disappointing. there's also concern about the triple whammy of eliminating the state and local tax deduction and phasing out the child tax credit as well as benefits for passthroughs that could force some wealthy self-employed households to pay a marginal tax rate of 100% or

more now on wednesday, the tax bill conference committee will hold a public meeting president trump will also deliver what the administration is billing as its closing argument on tax reform guys, getting this done by christmas is republicans' own self-imposed deadline. they also want to get this bill off their plate before funding for the government runs out at the end of next week back over to you guys. >> ylan, quick question, is there any movement whatsoever on s.a.l.t. you know, gary cohn was on this network on friday, he seemed to suggest without saying it, of course, that there was progress, perhaps, on that issue, and they would be dealing with it more substantially over this past weekend. you have anything on that? >> reporter: we had two senators on cnbc just today one of the options that appears to be floating around is this idea of including deductions for income state and local income taxes as part of the $10,000 limit whether they're able to go over $10,000 for the total size of the deduction, that's an open question >> yeah, interesting

ylan, thanks so much ylan mui on capitol hill for us. do have about 20 minutes to go we are holding on to gains across the board except for the russell 2000 which is a fractional loser today up next, we do have some breaking news, i'm sorry, on carl icahn. >> y yes, we do. be sure to tune into the show tomorrow at 3:00 p.m., i'll be speaking to stanley druckenmiller. where he's putting his money as we head to the end of the year and 2018 don't miss it. we'll be right back.

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sfwln welcome back with we have a news alert on carl icahn. >> these headlines coming from dow jones saying the activist investor carl icahn did speak in an interview with the "wall street journal" calling for a ceo change at xerox. the current ceo jeff jacobson has been in the position since january of 2017. the headlines say icon said he wanted to avoid a board fight. xerox denied his request to extend the nomination deadline he also said xerox has potential but needs more management and board members,ier in the day he thom na nominated four new directors the stock was moving lower fractionally by around a quarter

of a percent earlier back over to you >> all right, kate, thank you. i feel like the bear's woken up, i mean, it seemed like he was in hibernation, so to speak, for a while, because up until, you know, i don't know, a month ago -- >> is is that because he was sort of involved with the trump administration or no? >> not necessarily i think it was -- value was hard to come by in the market, and he just recently did sand ridge which was his first activist campaign of the entire year. >> yeah. >> which we just learned about recently now this with xerox. so don't poke the sleeping bear. you know what they say, right? wake up. >> the ceo has only been in place, what, since january of this year. i mean,e ursula burns stepped aside when they did the spinoff back in january. this is pretty early into the tenure of this executive who he thinks is not fit for the job apparently. >> yeah, so we'll see where this goes from here said he wanted to avoid a fight but they wouldn't extend the nominating deadline, r so here we find ourselves. but it is interesting, i just

wonder if, again, after being inactive for a while, and sort of assessing the landscape where things were, where valuations are in the market, if he's about ready to get back into those campaigns where we see, you know, every so often every few months there's a tweet or a stake or a 13-d that's filed where carl icahn becomes active in something we'll have to see. >> he's never afraid of a fight. that's for sure. >> never never. >> that's carl icahn calling for the ouster of the xerox ceo. 14 minutes to go, dow's up 32 points right now. small gain to the s&p and nasdaq as well with the russell down about three. barrons over the weekend naming delta air lines as one of its favorite stocks for 2018 up next we're going to debate whether tax reform could help or hurt that sector coming up next. we'll be right back. world. and energy to fuel its growth. real estate such as e-commerce warehouses.

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tax reform appears to be on the horizon, and some say airlines will be big beneficiaries. >> joining us now, ian, director of equity trading at web bush securities and jim, equity analyst at cfra research good to have you both with us. ian, how big of a boost will the airlines get from tax reform >> ultimately depends on what's in the bill, but i think people

are expecting a 20% to 22% corporate tax rate so depending on how they spend the money, i think ultimately is going to determine what the stocks do. most likely they'll just buy back stock i'm not really sure what multiple you put on that but still have the issues of capacity going up, and actual pricing getting worse. so two of those kbcombined i thk you're going to have headwinds in the space regardless of the tax reform was. >> you just painted a picture, though, that sounds like -- if you' they're going to be using money to buy back the stock, that's good for the stocks, is it not >> potentially depends on what multiple, how much of that is already in the name everybody knows that this is happening. everybody knows it's a sham. so it's a question of how much is already priced into these corporations' stocks i would argue a lot of it and ultimately the end consumer is snot going to benefit from this tax reform plan at all so that to me is the bigger picture than what the company is going to be

buying back stock. >> all right, jim, you're our bull on the airlines here. what do you think the impact of tax reform is going to be? >> well, it's going to help in some ways. first of all it's important to note that airlines are not faying cash taxes right now. there's not going to be additional cash to buy back stock with that being said, it's going to help eps comparisons, make investors feel more positive about the sector, should fuel growth that way. the most important way tax reform could help the airline industry is through investors being consumers, themselves, actually flying more because they have more money in their pocketbooks. we think that's going to be a very profound impact. >> what do you mean they're not paying cash taxes right now? >> airlines have billions of dollars still in net operating cost carry forwards. that means even though they're reporting statutory tax rates between 34% and 36%, they're paying very little in actual cash taxes to the government so they're not going to see a windfall in lower actual operating costs that the they pay to the government. they're actually just going to have it on an accounting basis, only. >> ian, you sound so skeptical,

but the economics of the airline business have changed fairly dramatically in favor of the airlines enough so that even warren buffett has given his blessing to the space so why then are you so negative on what the prospects could truly be and i'm not exactly sure what you referred to as a sham if you're referring to what you think the benefits of the tax plan will be or something else. >> i'm referring to what i think the benefits of the tax plan are going to be. and ultimately, the reason i'm concerned is that when you look at the fundamentals of the industry, i hear what you're saying about buffet giving his blessing, he's not always right. and you still have ultra low cost carriers adding all kinds of capacity. they all guided up for capacity significantly into next year you still have people replacing their fleets and the end consumer, like i said, i don't think is going to benefit from this one iota, and therefore, you're going to have costs

getting higher, pricing going lower and it's a bad mix for an airline that's a heavily leveraged group. >> jim, when you -- last week, we had citigroup come out and say it could take a $20 billion hit if tax reform goes through, it would help long term but hurt in the near term simply by that one-time charge because its deferred assets are worth less could something similar happen to the airlines or is there -- >> yeah, it's a similar situation but their deferred tax assets could be worth less at the same token, they're not paying cash taxes now so there's not going to be any net difference for the airline industry again, consumers are going to have more money in their pockets, going to fly more i disagree that airline fundamentals are negative. i think they're improving and they're very strong now. we expects airlines to be solidly profitable into next year and think there's going to be pricing increases which is going to help profitability next year. >> will they have to take those writedowns on their balance sheet? i understand what you're saying it doesn't affect the taxes they're paying now do they still have the one-time writ write-downs?

>> in terms of earnings, ongoing operations, it's going to be a net zero effect on the airline industry. >> how big a hit do you think we're talking, by the way? anything near as big as citigroup's or a fragment, a fraction of that money doctor no, >> no, a fragment of that. thousands of dollars of profitabili profitabilities. they've been eating away at those for some time. they still have billions but much reless then than ten years ago. we have strong buys on delta, american and jet blue. the fundamentals are sound for the industry and all going to grow profits next year and we think the valuations, if you're looking at the market as a whole, valuations have risen across the entire market they're trading at a discount to where they traded a couple years ago. we think they're very attractive looking. >> guys, thank you >> thank you >> thanks, scott. all right. ian, thanks, jim, thanks to you as well. about to close it up which means we're going to come back with the "closing countdown" right after this. and after the bell, the holidays are here.

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little bit of steam into the close with 52-point gain of course, a lot of the conversation today is about bitcoin. futures trading beginning today. 17,000 or so is where bitcoin currently sits today. so, of course, we're keeping aen e an eye on that along with energy stocks today as oil gets a little bit of a bid today, over with bob pisani. i know we're on the stock exchange floor everybody is talking about -- >> you know, the most important thing is, 4,000 contracts, $17,000, $18,000, do the math, it's about $70 million that's peanuts the important thing is it's the first step volumes will get higher. cme will start next week remember, it's hard for people to trade this. only interactive brokers, you've been talking about that. they're one of the only ones that allow it. the people who want to come in, particularly shorts, not easy for them to do that. let's just give this some time the important thing is trading's been very orderly.

and nothing has blown up or gotten weird so that's all you really want in the first few days people are just seeing does this thing actually still trade that's the important thing by the way, just want to note, the s&p i know wasn't very exciting stock session, but we're at a closing high right now. >> okay. so closing high on the s&p, about to embark on a fed meeting. janet's last stand janet yellen, of course, fed chair. her last meeting how should we be thinking about what the fed is about to start doing? >> i'll tell you what to think about, the receideficit. that's why the deliberations really meriatter. they could move the deficit up significantly. if that happens for some major, major way. trillions of dollars which potentially could happen, that's going to be an issue and could show up on the federal reserve why? because that could make the difference between them doing two rate hikes or three rate hikes s or maybe even four rate hikes to get control of things that's why the senate/house conference is very, very

important. >> market seems ready for what happens tomorrow i mean, this week. they expect -- >> we expect a hike, but the question is, what is next year going to look like >> all right good such, bob, thank you. again, s&p goes out with a closing high dow's up nearly 60 at the bell does it for us the second hour of the "closing bell" with kelly starts right now. >> thank you, scott. welcome to the "closing bell," everybody, i'm kelly evans on this monday we actually are going out with a pair of record highs on wall street the dow blue chips and broad s&p 500. here's a look at your closing levels the dow up 56 points we definitely popped on the bell 24,385 is the new closing high that's about a quarter percent gain the s&p up a third of a percent today. about 8 1/2 points 2,659 is the new closing high there. the nasdaq composite actually up a half percent, but still below by about, call it 30 points. 30 points below its closing high from the end of november

the russell 2000 also below that late november close. also shed another tenth of a percent, about a point and a half, two points today russell closed at 1,519. the price of bitcoin was the headlines, though, surging after futures started trading on the cboe last night. top analysts will weigh in on what the futures mean for exchanges and online brokerage stocks i'll see what kind of activity they're experiencing in all of this today joining me now, cnbc senior markets commentator michael santoli alongside contributor from tiaa investments stephanie link and krns kcnbc contributor "the wall street journal." the laggard was boeing over at the s&p, century link led the day on a pennsylvania deal syana corp lagged. bitcoin also moving higher after this weekend's rollout of futures trading on the cboe which stephanie can't wait to talk about >> oh, gosh. no, thank you. >> maybe -- >> we'll hand it over to mike santoli.

>> cosmic take on what this all means. >> i'm the crypto commentator now? >> yes, absolutely >> what it all means, look, i think it's obviously from the ground up, it's a groundswell of retail interests i think it's still okay to ignore it. like, i think it's okay, still, for somebody in the business like steph to say, i'm going to just let this kind of wash -- >> yep. >> -- over me and not feel like i have to figure out what the implications are for my companies or overall market. i don't think it means there's some kind of broad-scale speculative froth that's been building up. it seems very specific to crypto. >> i don't think people are selling stocks to buy bitcoin. that's actually your point, probably, right? >> people selling gold to buy bitco bitcoin. >> it could be, certainly. when they do sell stocks, that will impact my business and what they care about. i'm watching it, it's fascinating for sure i'm not there yet on the investment side. >> on the other hand, i'm also hesitant to kind of make a declaration this is all completely empty, there's nothing really behind it

it really could be >> sure. >> you know, the question i have, i don't want to be, like, that quote that hangs over paul krugman which is the internet's only going to replace the fax machine, that was basically the sum total of the economic import i don't think that's where you want to go with this you can be agnostic about whether the price today means anything about the size or speed of the opportunity >> so dennis, what do -- you know, is bitcoin like the internet, do you have to decide one way or the other what do you think is going on here >> well, i think stephanie's right, i think you have to really keep an eye on it the individual investor who owned individual stocks prior to the 2008 meltdown was keyed in on individual shares that has largely, not completely, but has in some ways receded as more investors move to index funds so bitcoin is the fun thing to follow and i think that there are legitimate business applications and whether you are involved in the asset management business as she is, o involved in the media business as we are, kelly, you got to keep on it because it is changing perceptions about what people

think is possible about money going forward. >> listen, i'll just say it got harder to follow look, we have to show three quotes now i doeshn't know if it's 18,000, 16,000 >> the premium, futures premium to the actual underlying price is not what you want -- over time you want to have the a arbitrage work. >> absolutely. >> and have it be more seamless. >> what is it right there, now, kehl icallly -- >> 18,510 and, you know, we can put it back up, but it looks like the, you know, whether you look at bitstamp, coinbase, those are more in the 16,000 or 17,000 range. >> we had a really interesting debate in our meeting this morning, kelly, about what is the proper price for bitcoin and when does it close if you're going to be settling these futures contracts. >> exactly. >> some of the things feel a little too fluid right now for there to be true certainty about the way these things work. i guess that will get fixed over time. >> you guys have real annoying job you have to figure out what number are we printing in the paper? >> whatever you use for currencies. >> yeah. >> they trade theoretically 24

hours -- >> that's true you have to pick one anyway, lots of moves there for bitcoin today. let's talk about tech stocks, as well, for a moment they led the nasdaq as it rose for a fourth straight session. apple was a big mover. it was up almost 2% and the company confirmed it's acquiring music recognition app shazam for about $400 million we have not seen techs leap for a while. >> except for the last three, four days. >> i wasn't here, so it feels like this is new. >> essentially did not happen. that's right no, but it's actually happened in a very measured way tech is kind of like assumed this gentle leadership again that's very true i don't know that apple, yeah, is necessarily riding this shazam deal. it's fascinating because it doesn't matter how big apple gets, any deal they do of whatever size has import. >> this is what i love, the fact we're even talking about a $400 million deal, but if a.i. is really important to apple and if they need to improve siri dramatically which they do, if google's pixel 2 phone can show

you which song is playing without you having to do anything, stephanie, is seems like have a bargain that dcan deliver a lot. >> so let's just put that into p perspective, they want the data. they want to as you mentioned focus on a.i., blend into the a.i. totally makes sense. good to see. overall, tech today was sort of interesting because the stocks lagged, right? some of the real growthy tech name s lagged we've been talking about this rotation, right, into kind of the cyclicals and energy and today was materials and energy and also tech did also lead but it was really the old-school tech, oracle, cisco, ibm, those kinds of things along with faang, they pampparticipated but aggressively you're seeing this underlying current in the market, little more of a value tone that's probably going to continue apple is a value tech name. >> uh-oh, you just called apple an old tech name. >> a value tech name >> value >> an old value tech name. >> apple's been public since

1980 >> there you go. it's old. >> you are killing them right now. they don't want to hear this in cupertino. up next, let's talk tax reform for a moment. gop leaders hoping to have a final agreement to vote on by the end of this week president trump is expected to talk taxes wednesday in an effort to push things along. the treasury department out with with a new memo saying the bill we pay for itself agent rate additional $300 million over 10 years. a new poll by urkts"usa tody and" suffolk university shows low support for major legislation in three decades. 48% are opposed. mitch mcconnell says once people see it, they're going to like it, echos of obamacare but turned around a little bit, we have to pass the bill to show you how much you like what's in it what do you make of it all >> i tell you, so much good reporting from the "wall street journal" and other outlets over the weekend about what is really in the bill and its effect i'll bring up three different things, okay first in/first out

its impact on stock investors. the kind who are watching cnbc, hugely important, particularly if you've been holding the stocks for a long time that is consequences perhaps unintended or intended the great piece in the "journal" as well about the 100% plus marginal tax rate for certain taxpayers in high tax states the next thing to look at, of course, is the corporate amt and individual amt pitch was suppwh supposed to be repealed and is not. there's a long way to go i find it hard to believe this is going to be voted on by the end of next week i will give odds to mike or you, kelly, that that's going to happen in four daydays i don't buy it. >> mike? >> i think there's a pretty good chance it doesn't -- i don't know honestly it seems as if we're now -- the challenges are on the foreground a lot of people questioning exactly why we're on this artificial timetable and all the rift of it but look, they really do want to get this done. i do think the 20% rate, maybe it goes to 22% for corporate, is a hill hat it they are willing to charge and die on and really

sacrifice a lot of other elements that as we list them off don't seem very popular. >> steph, last word on this. >> to the point of it leading to substantial growth next year, i think it's not going to lead to % gdp growth like some pundits are saying i'd be happy if it just gets us to 3% consistently quite frankly. but i talk to companies all the time especially in the tech sector, they're actually going to use the cash repatriation and lower taxes to actually buy back stock, issue dividends, special dividen dividends, that sort of thing versus plowing it back into the economy. on the other hand, the industrials and cyclicals and energy companies will put money in especially on capital expensing so there are going to be pockets of the market and sectors that are really going to participate, and the overall headline of maybe growth just aggressive growth, i think that's going to get dampened a bit. >> fair enough. more consolidation in the health care space today, according to the "wall street journal" there you go again,

dennis, it would create the largest hospital chain in the u.s. overtaking hca. over a week ago we got confirmation of cvs buying health insurer aetna for $69 billion. how important, guys, is scale in the marketplace? >> clearly they think it's crucially important. you know, it's all about does the customer or the supplier have the relative leverage and the ability to kind of spread the risk out so it seems to me, you know, hospitals, if you look nationwide, incredibly fragmented. >> steph, these are technically non-profits. they're catholic lot catholiccc i love this. church officials have to approve this this would make the single largest hospital system in the u.s. >> non-profit/profit, hospitals are in a secular world of some pain they can't get the volumes, can't get the payer mix right. it's a challenging environment i applaud they are doing m&a and putting cap-x into various parts of their businesses. it's just a really tough place

to invest. very choppy at best. >> dennis, we also had news i think last thursday about another big hospital merger as well even at the same time, by the way, the biggest are actually struggling with high debt levels, whether their scale is actually delivering. >> yes >> at that -- you know, it's a weird thing that there are some getting bigger while others are sort of saying maybe our size isn't so great. >> right i think the other deal you're thinking of is the davita health systems, largely dialysis. >> thank you, yeah. >> kelly, what's so fascinating about each one of these situations is that scale begets scale, so? you' if you're going to bulk up on the leverage side, how do you get it on the provider side? doctors sort of get lost in the mix ear. more doctors than ever before are actually employees, they're not the independent practitioner you remember perhaps in your youth. they are just cogs in the big wheel. so we're a long, long, long way from single payer health care, but we are sort of getting to sort of a olygopolistic health care, players try to get leverage off of each other it's a much different world than

it was ten years ago >> emblematic of that, look at aetna/cvs. it's interesting to me that aetna is still trading at a discount to that deal getting done what do you think in terms of there being regulatory pushback against this because it's sort of akin to at&t/time warner, if it's a vertical merger, you think it should be okay . >> it is a vertical merger and it's about a different, at least if you believe them, a different total provision of health care in ways we've not experienced before so i think that's a bit more of a compelling case than some of these other deals. so big spread out there, simply a big company. you need individual state approv approvals. so it's going to take a long time probably as much a reflection of time, perhaps, as actual approval. >> that's a great point. guys, thank you, dennis burman, stephanie link joining us to kick things off. >> thank you. bitcoin prices booming again after the futures began trading. we're going to look at how making bitcoin trading more acceptable to investors could

impajt ti impact the exchanges that are doing so. later the ceo of agios farm su pharmaceutical joins us. contact the show on twitter, facebook, or-m eail us give us your best bitcoin iwatc. first in business worldwide. we know life can be hectic.

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since september. jamie dimon told a cnbc audience bitcoin is a fraud, but ten days ago bitcoin closed above $10,000 for the first time here we are today, kelly, approaching $20,000. see behind me, $17,000 with real futures trading on the cboe. it's been a big wild ride back and forth, kelly >> yeah, i think i read somewhere five times it's lost 80% of its value already so now it's going to be even more dramatic if and when that

happens. thank you. a lot in wait and see mode as they monitor. i spoke with nyse president tom farley about this a couple weeks back. >> worth spending time on for sure five years from now do we look back and say, wow, it revolutionized everything. it's unclear we're absolutely spending time on it. if there's one issue to lock out for with bitcoin and cry cryptocurren cryptocurrencies, how do you manage the risk? we will not dive into any product or business if we don't have a good sense of, okay, how do we manage the risk? it's very volatile and gone up real fast, it can go down real fast >> it was the tree lighting. he doesn't always dress right that joining us now is rich great to have you along. who, by the way, is most exposed in terms of the world that you cover to the trading that began today? >> well, no one else is trading it so the cboe started trading today. they're the ones that have any risk at all.

really i think their risk is limited. i think everyone knows the cme will start offering trading next sunday >> yeah, what about the brokerages >> well, they proceeded sort of like the nyse and tom farley they've done it in a wait and see cautious approach. interactive brokers did watch today despite thomas petterfy, the ceo there, admonitions or warnings about the clearing risk they still traded today. and i think this has been stated on your network, 50% margin, no net shorting he's been very conservative. they made a path to trades today. i got to talk to him and, you know, he was a little bit excited about the trading. >> rich, i wonder if there's a way you can kind of try to scale how big an opportunity this might be either on the retail side in terms of overall volumes, for those brokers, or even on the institutional side at this point it seems as if we're in the experimentation phase, of courbviously bitcoin

aggregate value isn't huge do you think this could become an important product category or no >> certainly a lot of interest from the retail investors. i've been told by ameritrade as well as other retail brokers receiving unprecedented amount of calls, inquiries about trading bitcoin. that said, if you see how many trades that td ameritrade does a day, or interactive brokers, it's about 750,000 trades per day. again, volume can grow today the very first day you're going to -- the 4,000 contracts they traded, it was probably somewhere around 3,000 to 3,500 trades so when you think about they're doing 750,000 trades a day, it's very, very small now hopefully bitcoin will grow and be a legitimate product over time but right now from a retile perspective it doesn't move the

needle >> why do you say hopefully? do you own it? >> i don't own it, no, but, you know, i've been cautiously watching this. what they do appreciate is the optimism and sort of the light that's brought back into the markets. people now understand futures and the relationship between futures and the underlying product. and, you know, it's gathered a lot of interest. i can just -- >> that's true, there are a lot of good explainer articles about it, maybe getting people involved in financial markets for the first time it could be an interesting learning lesson. i was going to say to your point, rich, the future price of bitcoin is way above one of the cash prices which is way different from the other right now. what do you think happens to those spreads over time? can sk >> yeah, that's a great point. the spreads i believe were somewhere in the 7% to 8%. that is a widespread between where the futures are trading and where the underlying cash product is what usually tightens that up is

arbitra arbitrage, you have market makers that will bring that spread closer together i think right now it's very limited trading. the bitcoin the cbo is trading is one bitcoin per contract. not really the institutional sides. from what i understand it was only one to two contracts on the bid and offer at the cboe. i think over time with more liquidity, you'll see the market makers bring that spread in. and i think that spread is a little bit wide, excuse me, the volatility as well >> all right real quick, rich, before we go, i mean, if people said to you, okay, how does this spread, if it does spread in a bad way, right now everything's going up. let's say it sells off massi massively, what's the contagion to financial markets more broadly if any, as you see it? >> well, they do have trading limits if it does go down, they can -- like on the way up today, our last night, the cboe slowed

trading. i think the contagion or the real risk, i think thomas petterfy outlined this from interactive brokers, is on the clearing side. if you had a real dramatic, you know, pullback in bitcoin, there could be issues about people that can't meet their, you know, the requirement or the debt that they built in the account. >> right. >> now that said, they've gone at it very cautiously. the cboe is going to limit the holdings of any individual to 1,000 contracts in the last five days of the contract so they're doing the best to keep everything in check and do this in a planned and orderly way. >> yeah. very disciplined now let's see if it stays that way as this progresses rich, thank you very much for your time. appreciate it. >> you're welcome, kelly >> rich. don't miss bitcoin week on "fast money" all this week at 5:00 p.m. eastern. some of the biggest names in the cryptocurrency space will be joining the gang tonight, okay, do i have to say

it bitcoin jesus they call him. >> it's in quotes, you have to say it. >> it's in quotes. the bitcoin jesus, end quote, who bought bitcoin at a buck he's going to tell you where he thinks it's going, next. and the holiday package delivery rush is on. u.p.s. appears to be having many more delays than rival, fedex. coming up, we'll discuss what's behind those delays and how it could impact your investment in the shippers. first another major credit card company will no longer require signatures for purchases. our ketaaway on whether that's the best way to fight fraud, when we come back. ♪ (music plays throughout) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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another news alert on another big dividend hike. kate rogers, who now >> hi, kehl llkelly, announcing board approved a 20% increase in its dividend to 12.6 cents per share. the stock is unchanged after hours. once again zoetis announcing a 20% increase in its dividend back over to you. >> follows eli lilly verizon striking a new streaming deal with the nfl. julia boorstin has the latest for us hi, julia. >> hi, kelly, verizon will pay the nfl double its last deal $2.25 billion for five years to stream nfl games for the nfl, struggling with declining tv ratings, this could, of course, generate more revenue, reaching more younger mobile viewers and verizon is hoping to rake in mobile ad dollars. verizon is giving up exclusive access to nfl games for its

subscri subscribers. now fans with bill able to watch games on any carrier on verizon platforms including yahoo! sports and aol and this deal expands game streams from just phones to any mobile device. >> moving very heavily into digital through our oath properties, yahoo! and aol and to go to yahoo! sports now via your mobile device and beable to watch any game preseason, regular season, playoffs, super bowl, is something nobody else offers >> the nfl is growing value as part of a trend. internet giants including amazon and facebook join media giants in bidding on sports rights. a new pwc report out just this morning projects the north american sports industry will grow over 3% annually to nearly $79 billion by the year 2021 media rights are the fastest growing part of the pie far surpassing ticket sales and merchandise. a number of deals are coming up for renewal over the next five years including 25 regional sports networks deals and also

the espn deal with the nfl kelly? >> yeah, that's the biggie i confess, i don't quite understand how this is going to work, julia, because it's not just for verizon customers so if i'm on a t-mobile phone, if i use a trkat&t, where do i o kind of stream this game and what does verizon get out of that >> that's a very good question, kelly. i think the key thing here is that verizon is acting like a media company that generates ad revenue more than it is just a carrier. remember that verizon owns aol, and yahoo! yahoo! sports is a huge platform now people will be able to go to yahoo! sports, go to that app, go to aol and stream on those apps or on those platforms. verizon, this is a way to generate new ad revenue and expand the potential reach of the ad revenue beyond just its ow interesting how to see how this shifts, given how verizon thinks and it's acting like a --

>> go to yahoo! sports -- >> or your yahoo! app. it's an answer to the question many asked of verizon, how does yahoo! and aol fit into what you want to do they've become more of an ad network play, they were always a data volume play so essentially it was always we want more volume over our network now, now it's volume that also gets ad revenue from eyeballs. >> it's an interesting one, i'll tell you that, julia, thank you. time for a cnbc news update. let's get over to sue herera sue? >> hi, kelly, thanks so much here's what's happening at this hour u.s. senator kirsten gillibrand, i should say, calling on president strutrump to resign. three women spoke out against him accusing him of varying degrees of inappropriate behavior one was asked if she was considering a lawsuit. >> i mean, what am i going to sue him for? being really creepy? that's not something that would stand up in court but what i'm more concerned about is as a culture in our country, what is acceptable behavior and if the

standard that our president is setting, it's not high enough right now. in california, the thomas fire is now the fifth largest wildfire in california history new evacuations were ordered as it moved into santa barbara county destroying more than 750 structures and threatening thousands more causing $34 million in damages and it's only 15% contained. it really is the season for giving at least for one south carolinian after dropping a gold coin in a salvation army kettle. that coin is valued at $1,300. and it was dropped in with a note that said, in part, "use this anonymous gift to publicize giving." that's a nice story to end on. that's the news update at this hour kelly, back downtown to you. >> i have not done my part this year you know -- >> oh, you will. >> every time i walk -- i don't have change ever, cash ever. >> i'm pretty sure every year there's an anonymous donation of

a roll of very large bills in new york in a kettle almost every year. >> are you watching to kbrgrab . >> is a story that goes around >> we do it in the news update every year we do. >> that's awesome. we'll see where that takes place. giving us some ideas here, sue, anyway, thank you very much. >> you got it, kell, see you tomorrow. >> sue herera. you, too. let's take a look how we finished on wall street today. 56 points higher on the dow. quarter percent gain, third percent gain for the s&p both of those were record closes at the bell. the nasdaq up 35, shy of its record the russell down a couple of points today it's a good ways off now its record high for the end of october. let's get to other big stories in now in our "rapid recap. >> bitcoin futures officially opened for trading yesterday on an exchange run by the cboe. >> you think back to the gold rush, right, there was a famous saying of you don't go out and mine for gold, you go ahead and sell the picks and shovels there's going to be a shakeout

people who benefit are the exchanges. >> shares of nxp up a bit after elliot, 6% holder of this company, says it believes nxp is worth $135 on a standalone basis. >> we'll be working all this week, and into next weekend, and then probably the earliest we'll get it would be a week from today and i hope we do have it a week from today so the house can get it done and get it to the president before we adjourn on december 22nd for the holiday. >> i just reject the view that this big tax reform is going to cost us a whole lot of revenue, but if it did, if for some reason we came out and saw that deficits were increasing dramatically from the current baseline, i'm sure congress and the president would think about what they're going to do about that. >> apple is, indeed, buying shazam apple telling cnbc in a statement just now, "we are thrilled that shazam and its talented team will be joining apple. >> and it's time now for the "takeaway. we begin with something else from dan niles who posted a

piece on cnbc earlier saying lumentum will be the hottest stock of 2018, has a 90% share of the 3-d lasers apple uses for augmented reality so they stand to benefit if tim cook is right that a.r. will become a regular part of everybody's day. lumentum has been hurt, but what do you think >> 3-d sensing, this is another one of these kind of buzz phrases we're going to have to become familiar with $3 billion company, lumentum, the idea that something it has that can become pervasive. i think it's a multistage bet you're making there. i wouldn't necessarily, you know, push against dan niles' idea here that it's something with a kind of a longer-term driver that may be underrecognized. >> there's momentum ticker, lite, up 8% today. american express is axing the signature. beginning in april shts y, no l have to sign your credit card reseptemberr reseechtr

recei receipts the big question, will visa follow suit? the big question, why has it taken so long to scrap the pointless signature in the first place? >> it's a very good question obviously seems like somebody was covering themselves along the way to allow the, you know, the merchant or the card processors to kind of have a little bit of an out >> it must have been -- >> the fact you can especially with screen-based things, the fact you can put an illogical line on there. >> a smiley face. >> shows you there wasn't must behind it. >> i think when i was in the uk, every country is different amex will be doing this globally in the uk sometimes you'd sign and they'd compare it to the back of your license and scrutinize you and other countries they laugh if you say, do i need to sign this sign it, what the heck would be the point of that? >> exactly almost like a completely optional thing really in terms of how the system work. >> right i'm looking forward -- i hope visa follows suit. it holds everybody up. >> facial recognition, charge your account right away. >> oh, boy finally, if you thought things were getting more normalized, think again. fitch says there's now $9.7 trillion of negative yielding sovereign debt globally. that's up from $9.5 trillion at

the end of may look, the european central bank is still buying up tons of bonds. they even own corporate bonds including, this got noticed, the debt of mattress firm parent company steinhoff whose shares plunged last week amid accounting woes. >> for normalization to happen, it has to start in an an nation abnormal place, right? i don't think anyone thinks this is the way you'd draw it up if you had to i saw a consensus of estimates of central bank mandated rates in 2020, ecb might get back to zero. >> oh, wow that's -- >> you know, they're looking for the way out here >> in 2020, which will have been 12 years after the financial crisis, they're going to get back to zero. >> well, look, we're redefining what high rates were in the early '80s, it was double dint digits. >> my dad reminds us every day, paid 12% on their first mortgage and had prepayment penalties times have changed. a news alert on general electric. >> board changes at general

electric this is from a new 8k filing verizon ceolowell mcadam resigned from ge's board of director directors. he said he could no longer allocate the time necessary to continue to serve on this board. once again, verizon ceo lowell mcadam resigned from the board of general electric. kelly, back over to you. >> forimportant you see the who phrase, verizon ceo is not resigning, he's resigning from the ge board. up next, the fight against cancer ceo of agios pharmaceuticals will join us to discuss the latest results of eithr experimental blood cancer treatment on a big day for biotech. stay with us when mother nature's done her worst, the only thing that matters to us is keeping the lights on for you. the hard working men and women of the international brotherhood of electrical workers, dedicated to keeping the power on in communities across the country. because when bad weather strikes, we know what matters most. the ibew.

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yours. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future. and i am a senior public safety my namspecialist for pg&e. my job is to help educate our first responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. everyday when we go to work we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. i live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. once i moved here i didn't want to live anywhere else. i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california.

we have a news alert on boeing to begin with here. kate rogers, what's happening from >> kelly, another dividend approved a 20% dividend increase it's announcing it replaced its previous share buyback program with a new $18 billion authorization. the stock had closed down by around 1% today. as you can see, it's higher by more than half a percent once again, another dividend increase this time with boeing back over to you. >> kate, thank you mike, real quickly, to recap in the last couple of hours we've now had eli lilly, zoetis and boeing come out. are they frontrunning tact

reform here? >> i think it's board meeting season on some level i think this might be the time of year you're likelier to get these announcements. i think these are big, stable companies that are almost as a matter of routine going to increase dividends although these percentage increases seem bigger than just -- >> nice and hefty. boeing doing $18 billion stock buyback. we'll watch all the stocks. biotech names making big news, news out of the american society of hematology conference spark therapeutics dropping 35%. we spoke with the ceo earlier about that bluebird bio up 18%. foundation med down 5% bioverativ, agios, posting slight increases during the trading session today. our own meg tirrell is out in atlanta at the conference and has the agios ceo right now. meg? >> kelly, thank you so much. david schenkein, thanks for joining us. >> it pleasure, thrilled to be here. >> you also are a practicing physician. put into context for us, this meeting feels a little different in terms of updates for

patients, particularly in hard to treat cancers tell us about the updates you're seeing here, what's most exciting. >> as you know, as a hematologist, i've been coming to a.s.h. now for over 30 years. and it's so exciting to see the advances that we're seeing in a variety of different blood cancers, but also in the noncancerous blood diseases including some that we're working on so we're seeing a real amazing change that's going to make a real impact in patients' lives and coming not just from one area clearly we're seeing the impact of the immune system, work in metaboli metabolism getting cancer on the run and really making an impact on some of the rare genetic diseases like sickle cell disease, and others it's an exciting time for patients with a variety of blood diseases. >> for agios, within the last few minutes you just released a few data sets. tell us about your updates at the conference the way agio sss is really specifically targeting cancer patients. >> such an exciting time for us,

literally in the last five minutes we presented really important data on our inhibiter which is a pill taken once a day that has the potential to really dramatically change the way we treatleukemia, presented data for over 200 patients, close 2to 30%, had prior therapies, have no option left, are going into remission no evidence of their leukemia, not requiring transfusions, not getting infections so far with over 14 months of follow-up, they haven't reached a median survival. this is the data we're taking to the fda later this month to be agios' second approved product our first product treating another form of lieukemia was approved in august together with cellgene. >> the second product would be your own wholly-owned product. as you approach the market with a drug you're going to commercialize yourself, how do can you look at the pricie inin environment more medicines now

and how do you think the industry has been handling it under a president who said the industry is getting away with murder on drug pricing >> yeah, the application we're putting into the nfda will be fo a genetically restricted population we know the right patients to treat, in patients who have had multiple prior therapies our focus is developing medic e medicines we think have tremendous benefits for patients that's our focus we're just working through our pricing strategy now because we don't -- that will help us with our launch next year so we're taking into account all the factors out there. our goal is to try and provide benefit, and we think price should reflect the benefit we provide to patients. again, in a patient population where we know the right patients to treat based on a genetic marker. >> do you think it's a risky environment under president trump, more so than it was before >> i don't think so. not if you're focused on true innovation if you're focused on first in class novel medicines like we are, that really have a chance to just change the way we treat a disease, and if we're successful with our second

medicine like we were with our first one, we're talking about decades of treatment of leukemia which has been dripping in intravenous chemotherapy in your veins to now imagine you're going to take a pill once a day at home and go into complete remission, that's a complete change in the way we treat the disease. so for those kinds of medicines, we think the strategy is set >> pretty amazing when you think about it dr. david schenkein, thanks for being here. >> thanks, always a pleasure. >> a lot of exciting stuff there, meg, thank you very much. appreciate it. meg tirrell. coming up this march the inaugural healthy returns conference a special event featuring top ceos, newsmakers, investors and entrepreneurs about the future of health care it takes place march 28th in new york city. for more information and to ge cnbc.com/healthyreturns. u.p.s. warned of delays, why

u.p.s. is trailing fedex in keeping up with the holiday rush and what it means for the shipper's bottom line.

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what we do every night is like something out of a strange dream. except that the next morning... it all makes sense. fedex powers global commerce with vast, far-reaching networks... deep knowledge of industries... and, yes... maybe a little magic. ♪ just two weeks to go until christmas. hard to believe. last-minute shoppers may want to consider finishing up sooner than later as shippers deal with record volumes with one company taking a clear lead. up nt, swdn twex ahoowbeeen u.p.s. and fedex and which one is better bet to get your packages on time ation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that.

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the race to get that shopping done is on, and shipping giant u.p.s. has issued a warning early on in the season adding one or two daytimes in transit times. ite giant fedex hasn't -- so far why this discrepancy again joining us is donald brauten thank you for being here, sir. >> my pleasure. >> is this all in our heads? it feels like we keep hearing about u.p.s. struggling with the holiday season is it just that fedex's struggles aren't as publicized what do you think is going wrong? >> nothing near that

you have two basic differentials, one they have been crowing about talking about the cash flow they're generating instead fedex has been talking about all of the billions of dollars they're investing in new technology, bert sortation, better hubs, and that's paying off. it pays off in more flexibility, better capability to deal with the surge that is happening, as e-commerce is continuing to grow and fedex has planning for that. u.p.s. has been milk the cow, doing their best to take advantage of ongoing cash flowing. the second problem is the differential in the labor. the bottom line is u.p.s. is a highly unionized workforce and fedex is not, very entrepreneurial. they actually own their own

routes, and the feddics are ability to volunteer to get extra pay, to deliver even up to and including christmas day. they literally are the rudolph if you will of christmas deliveries, and they will deliver packaging up to and including christmas day. >> don't, you mentioned that e-commerce is continuing to grow it seems as if amazon and everybody else needs both of these players, right it's not as if you can go either/or. is capacity increasing enough over time to collectively between the two of these companies that it's going to be able to service the customers as they have to >> well, all of these companies are growing their capacity, whether you look at xpo logistics, feddics, you look at u.p.s., any of these companies that are servicing the u.s. post office even is growing capacity they're making deliveries on

sunday the bottom line is there's a disparity between those ability to get things delivered on time consistently without service issues, xpo logistics, feddics to name a couple, others that consistently seem to have an excuse well, it was the weather, the fires in christmas, well it was, well it was and consistently seem to have service issues, and that company based upon the performance over the last five, six years. >> i'm wondering, as to that point about the shareholders, can they agitate for executive management to change does this need to be a board shake-up why has this persisted for as long as it has >> well, as i said there's two issues one is how much do you spend on your technology and your infrastructure and your equipment? and the other one is beyond the

board control. that is the labor force. getting a -- a person who works -- who owns their own route, i.e. a fedex ground person, or a person who is going to get double, triple time pay, plus extra vacation, i.e. a fedex express driver, mod investigated to make delivery is as late as christmas more, christmas day itself is one thing. getting a teamster to do so at ups is quite nearly impossible. >> maybe there's more to it. thank you for your perspective. >> always a pleasure people watched more than a billion hours of netflix, according to the 2017 data we'll review a year in binging next, and stanley druggken millr will join me tomorrow. don't miss it.

thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. their leadership is instinctive. so you can get business done. they're experts in things you haven't heard of -

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welcome back the recap is not quite over. users watched more than a bill yor hours of content a week. top five -- american vandal, 3%, 13 reese went to end with an e,

and riverdale. >> i was going to say, i don don't -- i actually think it's a good exercise. as you said, the data showed that one user watched "pirates of the caribbean" -- which one "the curse of the -- anyway. >> one of the -- >> 36 a days in a row. >> that's a weird anomaly. i saw the b movie thing, somebody in the uk -- which means they had a kid if you have a young child, they're not going to get tired of a movie they love. >> another union in ant arc could binged through "shameless." i thought they were going to bing it like ten hours, not two, at least two -- at least a

couple episodes. it's interesting, they're not going to tell you a lot more than that. they're not going to say exactly what they served next. >> it would be fun to be on the inside maybe a little creepy, to know -- >> you might get freaked out once in a while. that's does it for "closing bell." thanks for joining us, everybody. "fast money" joins us right now. >> "fast money" starts right now. live from the nasdaq marketsite overlooking new york city's times square the traders tonight on foist, the crypto currency future, and in honor of the historic event, it's bitcoin week, with some of the biggest ballers in the space will be joining us all week long, starting tonight, they call him the bitcoin jesus, roger