i think our time is up. we better go to dagen and connell. dagen: could you imagine a barbie doll being shared? [laughter] connell: that is our lead and? well done as always. big story today. really big story on wall street. the ceo at citigroup. charlie gasparino has the inside dagen: obama and romney, round two. neil cavuto will be there and why the president needs to make some magic. connell: the new numbers are in on housing. dagen: top of the hour, stocks now and breaking news. reaction to the citigroup story. we will go to the floor of the new york city with nicole petallides.

nicole: there was a lot of shock here. right in the morning we heard about the fact that he was stepping down and quickly to follow was the chief operating officer. we learned that he was clashing with the board on many things such as strategy, performance, the morgen stanley unit was big in that and other things as well. right now you see citigroup has been all over the place. it has been higher by three quarters of 1% after being down at a level of 35.55. people digesting what we have been seeing from citigroup. as far as the major markets, dow jones up triple digits. just went through the dow 30 and some of the names that hit 52

week highs. i have five names for you. johnson and johnson, traveler about walmart, merck and pfizer. they have hit 52 week highs. we continue to follow the nasdaq. it is tacking onto yesterdays gains. you can see all three of the major averages. another factor that we will continue to follow is gold. it is up eight dollars today. dagen: thank you. connell: let's go to charlie gasparino to expand on this citigroup scandal. charlie: i think it is less of a resignation and more of an ouster, fired, clearly, he was shown the door. the timing was on. the guy that is replacing him

did not want to read the earnings call and be asked a million questions so they did it this week. i am getting back from a source pretty close to citigroup. almost unprecedented way that this happened. you do it with earnings or before earnings or in a way that is less. you do not normally do it a day after earnings. it is what it is. why would he be fired? i can tell you that the board, you know, if you add up the missteps since 2008, they are monumental. he had real supporters on the board in the past. he left morgan stanley.

it imploded, but pandit stayed. when bob left, he lost a key ally. while a kind of stabilized, you could point to a lot of things. the feds said is basically failed. citigroup was not meeting its stress test parameters to do that. part of a deal during the financial crisis, they kept the peace that they recently sold on the books at $5 billion more than it should have been. there is a lot of missteps.

they essentially ousted him. they did not like the job he was doing. john was with them. there is lots of speculation out there about that involvement in the libor investigation. there is talk, pure rumor, and insider trading investigation in india. there is a lot of side issues. we will probably take the whole day to sort it out. my guess is that he was ousted. he was shown the door. there is plenty of last straws. i think this was the last straw. maybe there is something else after that. the board said they had lost

confidence. that is what all my sources are saying. back to you. dagen: thank you so much, charlie gasparino. connell: we will hear from him throughout the day. if you look at some of these numbers coming in, this is some other minority numbers. ten have left. dagen: joining us now is former managing director at bain capital and author of unintended consequences, what everything you have been told about the economy is wrong. that should work very well for mr. romney tonight. that should be the easiest sell, but he has to go up against the president. >> should not be surprised by this. very high levels of government spending and higher taxes which are to follow eventually. they have very low workforce

participation rates. they are in the 50s and we are in the 60s. you have europe and france having 35% less average hours of work. i think this is the result of government policy and people look forward into the future and see what is coming. this has an effect on our economy today. connell: everyone is expecting this new and more energetic and more aggressive president obama to take on mitt romney. will there be a different mitt romney are pretty much the same thing we saw in the first debate? >> hard to think he can get any better than the first debate. connell: does he have to make any adjustments? >> them -- the mitt romney i worked with was the same in the debate. connell: look like them that you

worked with? >> asked tough questions and having that information at the top of his head and able to put it all together and see where the issues and some point in your argument are. he does it in a polite way. dagen: if someone goes after him a little bit, it is all very subtle, how does he react? does he have to be careful he does not get a little edgy? i do not know. >> he is a passionate guy. he can get quite passionate. that generally occurs when you are talking nonsense or trying to cover up for the fact that you do not really know the facts. you start bf.

connell: did he ever chew you out or he would come at you with numbers and here is why i am right? >> i would not say he chewed me out, but he disagreed with me and i disagreed with him. i am a pretty passionate guy as well. dagen: does sophisticated hurt him? >> i think it can. it is unfortunate in these debates where you get two minutes to answer. you cannot really dig into the facts that underlie the economy. i do not think that these debates format and this type of thing really plays to the strongest part of mitt romney. connell: what do you think was missed maybe the first time around or a big economic point? >> i think the obama administration has a very good campaign strategy, it is a very bad economic policy. you run up $1.1 trillion of

deficits and you pretend all you have to do is raise taxes on people earning more than $250,000. then you fight cost reduction every step of the way. it increases the middle class taxes. is it romney or president obama? a dollar spent is a dollar taxed ultimately and we will have to have much higher taxes if we continue down this path. it slows down our economy and employment. very difficult to communicate that in the debate. connell: you did a pretty good job of it. dagen: it was great to see you. thank you for being here. a lot of insight there. we cannot wait for tonight. >> i will be there. connell: so well neil. dagen: yuko watches coverage tonight.

he will be right here and about 20 minutes time. connell: we will talk to neil coming up. china will lose it top billing soon as the top creditor to the united states. dagen: feeling more confident. should you feel the same way about the housing market? let's take a look at oil. consumer inflation was up last month. oil is stubbornly above $90 a barrel. ♪

dagen: sure to come up in tonight's presidential debate, the amount of money that china has loaned to us as a nation. the peoples republic is about to lose its place as this country's largest creditor. who takes the top spot? well, japan. china's holdings fell through the month of delight while japan has raised its stake.

fox con, an unspecified number of 14-year-old interns were discovered working in one of the factories. the minimum working age is 16. the maker of the products is investigating the incident. they say fox con is at fault for not verifying the age of its workers. connell: back to nicole petallides at the new new york stock exchange. nicole: we are looking at goldman today. they beat the street. we are looking at the stocks. we are watching goldman stocks. it boosted the dividend year over year. they sought better numbers for investment banking, also fixed

income trading. the headcount is something we saw down 5% from one year ago. clearly, goldman sachs has been cost-cutting in the recent quarters. you have seen a winning day on wall street. dagen: ed pinto is coming up. they are feeling more confident. should you? dennis: still to come, neil cavuto. he will be talking about the debate tonight. he will be leading our coverage. stay tuned for neil. right now a pretty big rally in the stock market. ♪ i'm a conservative investor.

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>> at 21 minutes past the hour, i have your fox news minute. in infectious disease expert, the meningitis outbreak is nowhere near its end. they are worried other medications made by the same company that manufactured the painted black steroid may also be contaminated. it has killed 15 people and sickened more than 200 others. secretary hillary clinton is taking the blame on the terror attacks in benghazi. she is possible for the state department and safety. she blames the fog of war for the confusion of details surrounding the incident. a high-priced hype at eight museum. a thief got away with seven

paintings. police are now reviewing video footage, but so far no one is in custody. that is your fox news minute. back to dagen. dagen: thank you for that. somebody is feeling good about housing. confident soaring to its highest level since june 2006. it is the sixth straight number that the number has moved higher. ed pinto is here now. is there any other reason to be excited at this point? >> not really. dagen: [laughter] all right. interview is over. got to go. >> the homebuilders have a headache. if they getting better or worse or less painful. it is getting less painful. but they still have a headache. when you look at the actual hard

numbers, such as what our home sales, they are running around a quarter thousand which is way down. they are still down about 50% from the early 2000. when you look at how many homes are available, we are down below 150,000. that is an it certainly low number. that is what is happening, obama sentiment side and on the objective side. when you look at the overall market, you have basically three problems. while affordability is tremendous, you have this overhang of potentially unsold inventory and shadow inventory that is coming on from foreclosures and defaults. you have house prices, they bounce back some.

they are still 30%. the big issue is jobs. we have had a jobless recovery. as a result, it really takes jobs to create demand for housing, not the other way around. dagen: stay on that note, is the economy strong enough at this point to sustain the recovery that we are starting to get? >> i think it will be, at this level, it is a slow recovery. it has a lot of headwinds. in order to get rid of those, you have to get jobs growing much faster. some different policies than the ones we have been following. we really have to get private-sector jobs growing and that will take care of a lot of the problems. dagen: you can get a mortgage, though, can't you?

>> half of the home purchases are done with fha. not with fannie and freddie. you can get a loan with a very low down payment. the problem is, do you really want to get a loan, do you have enough confidence to take out a loan. do you have a job? is your income sufficient? what is going on in the marketplace and can you sell your home because it is underwater. you have a lot of headwinds. dagen: i want to get a mortgage if i do not have to put any money down and the burden is on the government. it is the taxpayers problem, not mine. >> we have heard that story before with fannie and freddie. dagen: ed, thank you so much. ed pinto. connell: we have neil cavuto standing by. he will join us here in a

moment. he will tell us what he is expecting in the big presidential debate tonight. dagen: now some winners on the s&p 500. ♪

dagen: more on the house of citigroup vikram pandit. charlie gasparino reported that he was forced to leave. connell: the author of the book exile on wall street. one analyst fight to save the big banks themselves. we thank him for joining us. it was short notice today.

your thoughts on the move here from the board at citigroup. >> there is no bigger critic of vikram pandit than me. while he has been ceo caught it has been the worst. i do not feel as though citigroup had proper oversight from the ceo since he has been in place. i think the board has actually taken, you know, a step where they probably wasn't too a few shareholders. it is the way this whole transition has come up is eye-catching. dagen: he has been there for three decades? >> a company like citigroup, it is tough for any one person to run that well. i am keeping an open mind.

i think sometimes a change can be positive. i think citigroup has had some of the worst corporate governance under vikram pandit. i think the way this transition has taken place is part of that. here you have not only the ceo, you have both stepping down at the same time. zero transition. and it was one day after we listen to the ceo talk about the long-term strategy. what is taking place here? by the way, where is the conference call with the new ceo? this has been awful. that is the opportunity and challenge of the new ceo to approve a culture that has led to a lot of mishaps and underperformance. connell: you are right it is really. to have the earnings come out and then this move be made.

you have been a critic of vikram pandit. why do you think it happened this way and to expand on the point about corporate taking over, is he a long-term answer? >> i am not sure. i think you had one warning sign. 182 days ago was a negative -- and what that is, the shareholders spoke up and said we do not like the executive compensation plan. with good reason, it had artificially low hurdle rates where the top executives would get incentive pay for earning one forth of what they earned the prior year's. work better concrete example of some concern among shareholders than that. then it is played out here. there must be some sort behind the scenes. i do not know what it is. this is a ludicrous ceo transition. i have never seen one like this

in my 25 years and covering the industry. dagen: will this be a better bank a year from now? >> i hope so. i think what they need to do is have more clear goals. under vikram pandit, one day it was let's grow assets, then the return that was one half above the industry average, yesterday they had a few new metrics they were showing, everybody needs to be on the same page when it comes to goals. the actions need to be more aggressive. i asked a question yesterday, why not be more aggressive in the ceo said there is not funding for people to buy these assets or, perhaps, they are not written down as aggressively as they should. then they need to show that shareholders matter. it has been a culture where shareholders do not matter enough. look at their disclosure.

the company would not disclose the basic measures of risk. why would they not disclose that? also they do not disclose risks by business line. you take that, you take the compensation seem that looks pretty red in it comes off with an attitude that shareholders do not matter. connell: we will run in a second. i am not even sure i need to ask this question for some who causes the most ludicrous ceo switch you have seen. what are you told to do with the stock? >> last time i recommended it -- it is down.

a current price target is not that far from where the stock is right now. when we look at this company, we are saying we still have very big concerns. we are having an open mind. we still need to improve the oversight of the company. connell: thank you for calling in, mike. dagen: neil cavuto interviewed vikram pandit several years ago. he could not get him to give a straight answer. neil said chocolate or vanilla and his answer was swirl. connell: speak of the devil. dagen: could you be more of a nerd? connell: that is no way to talk about neil. neil: i remember that well. you could not get a straight answer. that vanilla and chocolate question was a genuine answer. do you like anything? connell: do you want to weigh in on this first? neil: it is not the way you

handle a ceo transition, we had a smoother process for arranging elected leaders of the free world. citibank, even after all the billions, is that a screwed up company. dagen: $45 billion. they can send us all thank you notes. neil, tonight the debates always contain surprises. what do you think will going to be the wild factor to look out for tonight? neil: this may be a tough venue for that to happen. you are involving a studio audience asking questions. the host wants to be able to fine tune those questions. we will see. i think it is harder to go

directly after your opponent when you are really responding to questions from the audience at hand. although, bill clinton was pretty good at this and 1992. he would immediately take the question, turn it around to a central campaign theme and then george bush senior, the incumbent, this is what has not been happening under his stewardship. there is a way to turn this into your advantage. for the president, this is a very challenging venue. connell: even to pull an al gore which would be one of the risks tonight if you are trying to challenge mitt romney. neil: do you remember that? connell: yes. it was me and dagen call anchoring. neil: because you have a town

hall format, there will be cut away shots on the other guy. they are aware of that. i think, particularly, the president is. candidates have not even brought their watches before. i think you want to watch the eye rolling, the hissing, the sign, maybe the joe biden smiling and laughing thing. i guess everything in moderation will be key. i am always wondering what will be key. why didn't the president look at mitt romney more in denver? i did notice that romney constantly looking at the president to his face. at some level, that obviously registered. whatever the substance of argument, it was that constant

smiling and almost -- it was a little unsettling. it tends to get people sidetracked. i don'ttknow. i don't know. i think they should bring chicken wings and make it relaxing. dagen: i would love that. ask connell about the frozen smile on his face. it is the only way he can get through his day with me. neil, one thing that the "wall street journal." point out was that mr. obama did seem to be that mr. obama seemed to be very critical of mitt romney and his proposals rather than selling his own record or at least selling what he will do in the future. do you think we will hear more from the president on that note tonight? neil: i do not know.

i will say this, the criticism of the president was that he did very little to sell his own policy and let that romney so his. the criticism of joe biden was he would let his opponent get out his policy, he was too busy ripping there's. there may be a fine line in between. i do not know why we always say that. there is nothing unpresidential about getting in someone's face. it seems that there is. if you were the president and you realized you had a lousy first debate, you can pretty much say given the tight polls on the vice presidential debate that your vice president did, at the very least, a better job than you, it is upon you to be a little more aggressive without seeming like you are, you know, high as a kite. how they pull that off, i do not

know. the pressure is on the president. this is where all the debates have been built much like this duty studio audience. he has had 100 such venues. the president under a dozen. you did the math. that is a lot of practice. connell: watch neil tonight. on fox business.com you are doing a survey where people can wait in. neil: it is an online survey for people to respond what they think about what they have seen and heard. it is scientific as much is it is an immediate reaction. between this and all the

tweeting we will have going back and forth, we will be high tech up that yang yang. connell: thank you. we all know how painful that can be. dagen: no we don't. [laughter] connell: election 2012 neil cavuto 8:00 o'clock live tonight on the fox business network. dagen: i am not high tech up again yang, thank you very much. [laughter] connell: we now have jeff flock. jeff: i am looking at pigs this morning. they are eating like, well, like pigs. when they get bigger, they start to eat corn that cost eight dollars a bushel. the impact to you and me coming up after the break. ♪

♪ >> i am lori rothman with your fox business brief. oil shares jumping after announcing it will spin off the downstream business into an independent company. it also authorized a special dividend of $2.05 per share. nfl owners have been innocently

approved the sale of the cleveland browns. he wants to bring the winning football team back to cleveland. the browns have only been in the playoffs once since returning to the nfl in 1999. recall from ford. it is due to a side airbag issue. it affects the 2011 / 2013 years. it does not know if any crashes or injuries are linked to the problem. that is the latest from the fox business network. giving you the power to prosper. ♪ [ male announcer ] the markets keep moving.

make sure the news kes coming with thinkorswim by td ameritrade. use the news links breaking stories with possible breakout stocks, options with potential opportunity, futures and forex with in-depth analysis. it's an all-you-can-eat buffet for all things trading. thinkorswim by td ameritrade. it doesn't just deliver news. it's making news. trade commission free for 60 days, plus get up to $600 when you open an account. nicole: i am nicole petallides. every 15 minutes we have stocks. we do stocks now. let's take a look first at amazon. we are watching amazon closely.

today's headlines is about hiring for the holiday season. they will hire 50,000 workers to help them for the holiday season. you see amazon is at 244.99. they were in talks to buy texas instruments. let's take a look at the dow, nasdaq and s&p. of arrows across the board. only a few names in the red. we are watching financials doing well. energy stocks doing well. that is the latest here on the floor of the new york stock exchange. connell: feeling the effects of the drought. an increase of pork prices. dagen: jeff flock is in maple park, illinois. i have been on many hog farms and hog houses and the smell, there are no words.

jeff: yes, these clothes will probably have to go and get something done with them. there is a pile of pigs. you see them right there. they thought there would be a bacon shortage. there will not be a shortage, but we will definitely get an increase in prices. i do not know how many pigs there are out here. ttere are a lot of folks in your position forced to liquidate herds because you had a teller corn you are feeding them. >> that is right. there was a huge impact on the pork industry. jeff: do you blame anybody for that? >> if you are going to blame anybody, you have to blame it on the weather and we do not have much control over that. jeff: we are still in the seven dollar range, that is good if you are growing corn, not so good if you have to feed it to

these hungry mouth. where will we see prices, how high will we see hog prices and prices at the store? >> they probably will not be felt until next year. it will impact production. about a 10% increase next summer as much as about a 7% increase in retail. jeff: as much as 7% we could see pork prices going up at the it is hard not to look at these guys and not want to take one home. the prices are going up, maybe you want to take one home. dagen: me? no. jeff: yes, you. who else? dagen: the wind blows the wrong way and no. you do not want to eat for about five days. jeff, burn your close when you are done.

connell: wasting your tax dollars. the latest on board in washington coming up next. ♪

dagen: oklahoma senator releasing his annual waste book. here is a hit list, $1 million spent on developing recipes that

could be served on mars. $335,000 on a robotic squirrel to discover why snakes do not attack once that wake their tails. fifty grand on smokey the bear. bolan owns, by the way. and of course, the biggest waste of the year, congress. connell: that makes sense. dagen: a robotic squirrel. connell: johnson and johnson beating the street today with their third-quarter reports. dagen: sandra smith has that in today's trade. sandra: if you take a look at the dow, we are right near the highs. take a look at johnson and johnson shares. they are near the highs of the session. stronger than expected results

raised the 2012 outlook. drug sales were strong in the u.s. it got more competitive with the generic drug sales. that being said, this is the other big buzz right now. a stock that is up about 14% right now. profits were up about 23%. i will have a look ahead at ibm and intel. dagen and connell. connell: busy day here. we will have up-to-the-minute coverage about vikram pandit. dagen: charlie gasparino will be here with exclusive reporting. he will talk about timothy geithner. ♪ es from independent eerts and see wh criteria theyse. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then y can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you wt to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments.

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>> hello i'm dennis kneale. cheryl: hello everybody i'm cheryl casone. vikram pandit with the shock of the day, ousted as citigroup chief. charlie gasparino reporting

exclusively. we are covering this story throughout the hour. dennis: three weeks to go before election day and both agree tonight it is make-or-break this debate for president obama. neil cavuto joins us for the site of the debate. cheryl: homebuilder confidence rising for the sixth straight month. the ceo of the national association of homebuilders is here with new numbers on the improving housing picture. but of course right now it is a busy day in the markets. top of the hour, stocks now every 15 minutes. we have nicole petallides on the floor of the new york stock exchange. besides the shock of vikram pandit's departure, really the overall market having a heck of a day here nicole. nicole: great day on wall street so far. the dow jones industrials up 121 points right now. certainly a stellar day with momentum to the upside. most of the dow components of the 30, 27 have been in the green. 5 of which are hitting new multiyear highs. that's some great news there. we will continue to follow citigroup very closely. traders on wall street were

certainly surprised when we heard that vikram pandit was stepping down early on, and of course right away they began to wonder if the board was dissatisfied, if he was ousted, that's in fact exactly what happened. back to you. dennis: thank you very much nicole. citigroup already has named vikram pandit's replacement but our charlie gasparino was reporting that he could eventually be replaced as citigroup chief as treasury secretary geithner. charlie is coming up. mike mayo financial industry research analyst told connell and dagen this. >> there's no bigger critic of the old ceo of citigroup vikram pandit than me, the stock price performance for citigroup while he's been ceo has been the absolute worse of the large bank. i don't feel as though citigroup had proper oversight from the ceo and the top of the firm since he's been in place. i think the board has actually

taken you know a step where they probably listened to a few shareholders. it's just the way this transition has come about is really eye popping. dennis: let's have matt mccormick join us now. thanks for being with with us. this guy that citigroup has named as replacement, is he a sticker? people are already doubting whether he's going to hold on to the ob? >> i don't know. if people have concerns surrounding citigroup, i don't think geithner would get rid of them. mayo's point is excellent. people were surprised of the abrupt resignation of pandit in the way it happened especially since earnings came out yesterday and i think it gives more investors pause for concern. i don't know all the details but it sounds to me this was a power play and pandit was forced out. dint it doesn't -- it doesn't

appear this is the natural way things go down. dennis: what if the board said look we need to cut you and pandit just said what am i doing? forget it, i quit. go ahead and quit >> that could be a possibility. again, i don't know, dennis. if you look at what pandit started out with and i give him credit, he had a very difficult hand coming on board in 07. it is the worst of all possible jobs to get. he did the best he could, but the results are obviously lacking. the stock is down 90% since he came on board and clearly there's dissatisfaction among shareholders and people look at their peers and they see other big banks do better and say why can't you do that. what happens here is my guess after the announcement of the board they had a meeting and there had to be some type of friction, some type of result that happened last night that caused this because logical behavior would say if you're going to have this major announcement you do it on the earnings call. it is very abrupt and unexpected to have the day after.

that's why people have pause for concern. dennis: let's note that citi stock has done poorly under his entire tenure, but it is up 30% or so year to date i believe. this replacement mike corbat is he going to be a builder or dismantler, which he should be for the value of city? -- of citi? >> i would look at him to find a way to grow organically. i mean when you think of goldman sachs, you have an idea of what they stand for and what do they do. if you ask citigroup what do they stand for, it makes people scratch their heads, i get it a global bank eventually. find a way to grow their balance sheet and their income statements and i think what they have to do is find a way to get the dividend higher and make outright displays of strength, and right now i think citi is even though it is up 30%, mainly because of qe 3 related pop in the market, i don't think the fundamentals are sound. i think he has to convey to

people like me that the foundation is solid and he could build it. i don't think geithner is the answer. dennis: all easier said than done. we will be watching it throughout the day. matt mccormick, thank you very much. cheryl: a new chart based on data from the bureau of labor statistics shows for every 1 person added to the labor force since january 09, 10 have dropped out. jobs and unemployment going to certainly be tackled in tonight's second presidential debate. doug schoen a democratic strategist, fox news contributor. and also a republican strategist is joining us from the american enterprise institute. doug, vice president biden last week talking about the fact that we basically have unemployment, things are getting better. the president has to address that tonight. >> it is undeniably the case that it is better to be 7.8 than 8. but when you look at discouraged

workers, underemployed and unemployed workers this is still a very very weak economy and the administration has yet to come up with a compelling defense of a record that leaves them deeply politically vulnerable tonight. cheryl: i think you gave mark's argument for him. >> i often agree with doug. cheryl: obviously, okay. >> i often agree with doug, and i do agree with him right now. vice president biden was gloating in the debate last week that after 43 months we got it down to 7.8%. but the fact is if you count all the workers who left the workforce, the unemployment rate is really closer to 11%. as you have pointed out, we have had 43 months of this high unemployment. that really gets to the danger that obama faces tonight which is that, you know, he has to -- happy talk about the economy won't sell with the american people because the american people feel the economy is bad and it is hurting and they just won't buy it. so what obama needs to do tonight, and it is a very difficult challenge is he needs to defend his record, while at the same time pointing out

explaining how a second obama term will be different than the first. right now he hasn't done that. he's running a stay the course campaign at a time when the american people want to change direction. cheryl: then doug if you were advising president obama tonight, how is he going to deal with those attacks, i realize it is a town hall forum and a bit of a different venue but he's going to be attacked on that by romney, what would you say to him? >> my take is pretty simple. the obama administration needs to do two things, one, make the case that the romney that showed up at the first debate is not real mitt romney, that he is somebody with an extreme unworkable economic package that's going to cut taxes by 5 trillion dollars and somehow balance the budget without really reducing spending on defense indeed increasing it 2 trillion. that's number one. but mark's absolutely right. the president needs an agenda going forward. he doesn't have one. cheryl: mark, ten seconds, what would you say to mr. romney tonight? >> well, i'd say to mr. romney is do what you did in the first debate. i mean romney doesn't need a

decisive win. barack obama does. he needs to hit the ball out of the park. romney needs to do what he did last time around. cheryl: i don't think we will see as much agreement tonight between the candidates like we do right now between the two of you. doug and mark, gentlemen, thanks to both of you appreciate it. do want to let everybody know at home you do want to stay obviously stay with fox business tonight because the big debate is tonight. this is going to be television's best debate coverage. neil cavuto will be anchoring. he begins tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. did i mention dennis it is all tonight on fox business? dennis: it's going to be great to see. i will be watching. homebuilder confidence is out of the basement. we will get the improving numbers next from the ceo jerry howa howard. cheryl: rising gas prices getting much of the blame as consumer prices spike. we will take a look at that during the show. speaking of consumer prices, you are feeling it in your gas tank. there's oil. down 18 cents, 91.70 right now. we will be right back.

>> another sign of the housing recovery, homebuilder confidence up in october for the sixth straight month. and at its highest level since june of 2006. joining me now in a fox business exclusive with more on the housing market index jerry howard, ceo of the national association of homebuilders. i want to start with credit

quality and credit conditions on this one because we are still seeing that as a reason why homebuilders are not taking this number above 50, which is growth, in the industry, where are we with credit conditions? it seems like it is getting better for consumers. >> i think it is getting marginally better for consumers. still a very difficult process. the overreaction of the banks are forcing people to come up with records about their personal finance that they have never had to do in the past. it is a very daunting process that's been made much worse. cheryl: prospects are at 51, those that are walking into the show room, if you will, looking at homes, that's at 51. now, they are in full positive territory for that. but why is that not fully translating into sales of new homes like we need to see at this point in the recovery? >> i think it points right back at credit conditions. people are out there. the demand is there, but it is hard for them to get the mortgages. let's talk about the regions. that was another kind of interesting fact of the report today, was that the west is actually really gaining

strength, on prospects, the west is gaining on confidence, and the northeast really dragging down the index what's going on? >> well, i think conditions in the northeast are are stagnant, and that's why it's dragging down the index. out west, you are seeing much more growth. if you look at our improving markets index, a lot of them were centered out in the northwest and the west itself. so it has to do again with the locality and remember, all housing markets are are local. cheryl: is the jobs picture in this country holding builders back from really reporting to you and to the survey that they feel good about the housing market? >> yes, it is a chicken and egg. i mean housing creating jobs, but in this recovery, we feed more jobs before we can create more -- we need more jobs before we can create more housing. something needs to catch quickly and if it does, i think it will pick up faster. cheryl: we still have shadow inventory of foreclosures that are still sitting on the markets, the banks have been flooding the markets in the last six months, at the same time that hurts homebuilders? >> yes in some markets

foreclosures are a big issue. 70% of them are in 11 states. that means there's a whole lot of this country where foreclosures and shadow inventory isn't really a problem. cheryl: a lot of that is in the west. that's why i'm still surprised that the west is showing any kind of growth, where you have arizona, california, parts of new mexico, nevada that are getting hit fairly hard right now. >> again, localized places even in those states, there are markets in california that are absolutely booming right now. cheryl: i do this every month to you, and i will still do it to you, these home building companies, these stocks have been on a tear. you have back office conversations with these guys. what do they tell you about the company's overall performance, how wall street is kind of pnterpreting how they are doing? they are kind of mixed today. >> i don't think it's wall street that's interpreting. i think that the fact is that the american people are coming back into the housing markets, and it doesn't take, you know, a rocket scientist to recognize that and realize that housing is a good investment. cheryl: we hope so. it was anyway five years ago

until the crash of the market. jerry howard, thank you very much. always good to have you on the day of this report. >> thank you. cheryl: dennis over to you. dennis: 15 past the hour, stocks now every 15 minutes. nicole, apple sending out invites, big things come in small packages. nicole: that's right, october 23rd, just as we told you last week, the "wall street journal" has been talking about this now. the invitations are on there way out to the folks -- their way out to the folks that are technology minded. we will hear more from apple. the invitation from san jose california says we have little more to show you. this is very interesting here for apple. there's been a lot of speculation about the ipad mini, which may be 7.8 inches, rather than 9.7 inches, right? we may hear other things as well. so this will be in san jose california. and apple is jumping 13 bucks. back to you. dennis: thank you nicole. microsoft outpricing its own

surface tablet at 300, 400 dollars, if the mini ipad comes in at 200 dollars, microsoft could be in trouble. we have social insecurity coming ahead. also we will talk about the debate. but first let's see how the currencies are faring against the u.s. dollar.

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>> at 20 minutes past the hour, i have your fox news minute. government forces in syria have carried out a series of airstrikes on rebel stronghold in the northern part of the country. activists say the attacks resulted in a number of casualties. one of the provinces focused on was where rebels have made advances in the past week. social security payments will increase in january by 1.7%. that increase among the lowest since annual adjustments were adopted in 175. -- 1975. the increases reflect the relatively low inflation over the past year. by comparison this year's adjustment was 3.6%. fruit growers in several states are dealing with a furry fluffy menace, apparently. we're talking about squirrels. they have apparently destroyed profitable apple crops in some

areas of vermont, new york and parts of the midwest. last year's mild winter actually helped to produce abundant foods that helped fuel the fast reproducing animals. back to dennis. squirrels are so cute. dennis: thank you very much, julie. >> bye. dennis: a usa today gallup poll showing romney leading obama by 4 percentage points among likely voters in the nation's top battleground states. neil cavuto joins us from tonight's debate site at new york's hofstra university. pressure is on neil. >> pressure is on both of them, if you think about it for mitt romney who had an out of the ballpark performance, he has to remind folks that he's capable of doing that again. normally the biggest challenge for a winner is to repeat. for the president, expectations were raised after that dismal performance that if he just comes and shows a tad more

energetic, he could be off to the races. they are calling this a way to balance out that is the white house what happened in the first debate. this may not be the venue to do it, guys, since this is involving a studio audience and it is a town hall forum with regular average folks. the chance to go back at your opponent might not be there or at least not as much as obama you wanted to be there or for that matter romney and you want to get back because you capitalized on that the last go around. i mentioned earlier that clinton in 1992, he would take almost any question and parlay it into an attack on then president bush sr. that his administration did not deliver the goods, we are slipping into a recession, there is a way to work this type of a format to your advantage. i might stretch there that romney has had a lot more practice at doing this virtually all of his campaign stops over the last couple of weeks in particular have involved forums

such as this. usually one stop a day where audience members can participate and he can get down with them and talk to them, one-on-one. so he's very good at this. barack obama when campaigning for president was very effective at this, but even his closest aides will say he's rusty since he has been president. cheryl: neil, i do want to ask you about something you will be doing tonight for television's best coverage obviously of the debate, and you will be serving your viewers instantly to find out their thoughts on how the candidates -- surveying your viewers instantly to find out their thoughts on how the candidates do tonight. >> it's a chance for them to talk about their reactions. what it is is an attempt to sort of get a knee-jerk reaction, but the one thing i found about these instant polling methods and especially ours what we're planning to do tonight is they are not just sort of innocuous

and meaningless they are a quick and rapid way to get instant reaction as the debate is when you see those instant results, they do tend to mirror not all the time but a lot of the time how nation as a whole is feeling. if there's sharp divisions among the electorate anyway, they are more inclined to sort of support the candidate they like, but sometimes they can be definitive as was the president's first debate with romney that all the aspirational thinking in the world on the part of the president's people didn't get away from the fact that people who even liked the president thought he bombed. that's something that will come out in this survey tonight i think. it is a good quick read. dennis: quick question, regular town folk in this town hall meeting and they're undecided. i can't understand what it says if you are undecided at this point in the election three weeks to go, does it mean you're smarter than the rest of america or you're less politically interested? >> i don't buy it, dennis. i think when that -- if that few

were undecided in the first debate, how did the momentum swing so wildly to romney? i suspect that all the president's supporters were not as solid as maybe he thought. the same could be said for romney's supporters if he puts in a poor performance. i tend to accept this data on undecideds or independents with a big grain of salt. obviously the shift represented more than a small so-called undecided voters. in this case, part of the president's support is built on a foundation of sand. that's not to say that he -- [inaudible]. for now it chips, and support clearly shifted from the last debate. the president wants to stop that tonight and make that cement tonight. we will see. dennis: shifting sand, going to make it concrete, thank you very much, neil cavuto. don't forget, folks, join neil tonight at 8:00 for television's best coverage of the debate and

vote in our on-line survey of who you think won that debate. you are not allowed to vote before the debate begins though cheryl. cheryl: that's good to know. vikram pandit ousted as citigroup's chief. charlie gasparino will be joining us next. he's reporting exclusively pandit could eventually be replaced by treasury secretary geithner. dennis: and speaking of the walking dead, good one, you won't believe just how many people watched amc third season premier of that show. we will talk about that. first take a look at some of today's s&p winners and maybe a loser or two. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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dennis: stocks every 15 minutes. the dallas silver 100. nicole: we will take it if you are a fool on wall street and like what is going on you see the dow jones industrials up 117 points with cabarrus across the board. nasdaq and is in the gaining with the nasdaq and 1% continuing to follow citigroup very closely. headlines continue to force out. for vikram pandit himself, the former ceo, ousted this morning by the board. and the decision to leave was his down and the bank are in good shape and confidence -- envisioned the last thing he'd do in his life.

>> vikram pandit ousted, charlie gasparino is forced to leave his post by an unhappy citigroup board. matt mayo, financial industry research analyst, first on fox business. he had this to say about vikram pandit at the parter. >> there's no bigger critic of the ceo of citigroup vikram pandit than me. the stock price performance, has been the absolute worst. and it has been in place. and, and it is really eye-popping. cheryl: charlie gasparino joins us with more breaking details. what do you know at this hour? >> vikram pandit is out today.

he is saying the decision was his but i don't believe that. my sources are saying sources close to citigroup no people on the board no one is going on inside that place, vikram pandit was essentially ousted. he resigned. the company officially released today but when he resigned under pressure, there is no doubt that citigroup has been unhappy with a series of events. it is not just one event that leads to this. is a series of events and the smith barney valuation, they have been selling chunks of smith barney to morgan stanley. the last jump, overvalue on the balance sheet, had to write down $5 billion, that is a big screw up on top of the fact that they failed the stress tests telling

people they were going to pass it. put all that together and it is one thing after another and they felt they needed a more competent person involved. vikram pandit steadying the ship out of the financial crisis but even then in the financial crisis he gave a lot to the market. he is the guy who said before they were going to sell smith barney to morgan stanley that he would never sell and turned around and sold. he was running citigroup when it was clear the company had problems. they were trying -- sheila bair killed the merger trying to buy wachovia and they basically had a deal and somehow wells fargo was able to snatch it from under vikram pandit's nose thanks to sheila bair, putting it with citigroup was not the right move. this guy has led a very controversial few years.

in some respects like is a very stern critic but he has got good background on this thing. the question was not if, it was when they would do it. the timing is typical city grew. you would think they would wait for the end of the year and pull the plug on the guy a day after earnings. that is typical of citigroup. i will say this. another reason i am holding stock. dennis: sounds like somebody quit. thanks very much for your report. we will hear more all they i am sure. continuing with coverage of vikram pandit's exit, james lee been vault joins us. you own shares of the company. is it time for break above citigroup? >> i think so. i will not throw vikram pandit under the bus. there is a question about the board's culpability and everything for the last four years. vikram pandit came in as things were going downhill in the

financial sector but the problem is it has some remarkably good attributes. the banking regime. nobody ever thinks about that because it is so encompassed by everything going on with whether the fed will allow it to raise its dividend and buy back shares or as charlie was mentioning the decision to sell the rest of the retail operation at barney. [talking over each other] dennis: not doing so well in the recent quarter. >> that is long-term business, not what we are worried about in the slightest bit. [talking over each other] >> this is not a 1-man show. this is too big to be a 1-man show. you need to get a visionary who can figure out how to carve up the assets. you have a very good banking franchise domestically and internationally and a decent investment banking franchise that the global security transaction business is kind of

know where competing with banks of new york and the streets of the world. get rid of that. restructuring these things. cheryl: that is the new ceo. we already got one analyst commentary from wells fargo saying this is the true banking person, somebody -- pared down the bank which everybody seems to want and cut the cord and make this a true bank. >> could be. he has gotten some good audits so far. i would like to see an outsider coming. dennis: y doubt this new guy? you can have a 30 year insider? >> that is it. you took the words out of my mouth. think of what gorman has done coming and jamie dimon at chase. we think he has been there forever but he came from the bank one acquisition several years ago. he was an outsider and took over for harrison and got a bang going in the direction it needs to go. you need a fresh set of eyes to use your term. cheryl: they have loan growth.

they had revenues looking pretty decent. a good quarter over all and denis mentioned timing this thing is odd. why not wait until thursday? >> couple things. this definitely draw into question the board. i thought to myself this is a board of accomplished people. however, the same could have been said about a hewlett-packard's board which is a textbook case of this function. i don't think citigroup's board is as bad as hewlett-packard has been over the last few years, but they need to get this ceo transition done smoothly or the competency of the board will be drawn in. dennis: the board took no action after shareholders vote against the vikram pandit pay package and the board did nothing. what should the board have done? >> i did not vote against the pay package. i am ok with that. you can definitely take exception to it.

that struck me as one of those things that was more popular vote than economic vote. vikram pandit -- i won't for a dam and the bus. he brought in at the worst time and did a pretty good job. he was left a heck of a mess. that with a big mess when you think of how many mortgage-backed securities were on the balance sheet that needs did to be cleaned up. vikram pandit did a good job doing that. i have no problem with vikram pandit but you need a visionary to streamline the business. cheryl: the way this was handled, maybe these things are never done in a clean way but this was handled badly. london staffers looking at the television screens this morning going vikram pandit is leaving? [talking over each other] cheryl: the ceo's own staff was blindsided. >> this is where you folks are going to really cut your chops by doing the reporting and finding out what happened but i suspect we do things happened. the board was unhappy and vikram pandit probably set i made a lot of money and that has been a

good job and importantly stock is back from the brink. we are doing okay. i don't need this anymore. dennis: in a divorce the spouses can't agree on who really broke up. that happening here? thank you for being with us. the consumer financial protection board, one of this carries agencies and were flooded with complaints about student loans. cheryl: as we go to break take a look at the ten year treasury. there we go.

>> i am adam shapiro with your fox business brief. the route street rally continues around strong earnings with the likes of goldman sachs, coca-cola and a dozen companies. the dow is a triple digits 120 points. consumer financial protection bureau received nearly 3,000 complaints of student loans since they began accepting students in march. students are having to deal with the same problem mortgage borrowers, extra fees, confusion who owns the loan and unavailable representatives. student debt is over $1 trillion. amazon is putting out the help the online retaiier will bringg on 50,000 workers at its

fulfillment centers across the u.s.. amazon expects thousands of temporary employees to stay on in full-time positions. that is the latest from the fox business network giving you the power to prosper.

stuart: dennis: walking that has pulled off the feat as impossible as its name. breaking all time record for basic cable with the third season premiere sunday night. and did it without being able to reach fourteen million subscribers. and pull and a million viewers in its premiere on sunday. that is a 50%, carried on dish and >> it is not a big three or cable anymore. everyone is coming up with

original programming. dennis: never even the chronic flesh -- and -- watching the particular show on who luann their advertising their own original shows. there is a kind of a dissection. >> and it streams on line and let them tap in to get the mom line to circumvent the dish network block. cheryl: interesting thing to change. and mattel hitting a new high as well. >> hitting a new high here. looking at some stock closely after their quarterly numbers and areas they did well and some areas not so well. and the toymaker. and one area -- and monster high another area, these areas that

did well offset some of the losses that are declined for barbie and the real story, those are some names we are watching within the mattel umbrella. stock is up 4.6% and hitting a new 50 keep week high. look at the major market averages. it has been up all day long. dennis: when life gives you lemons make lemonade but that is not all you can make. harold edwards is one of the largest women suppliers of the u.s. joining us from los angeles. i saw an extraordinary line in in a clear reading on you and you want in the next ten years to grow your lemon shipments fivefold. how are you going to do that?

>> it is a matter of promoting lemons and building awareness. we have launched a campaign, unleashing, and the last few years -- >> you girl lemons and avocados which go great together in guacamole. you have 8,000 acres. why is it we americans consume three pounds a year of lemons? with all the -- you would think would be far higher purses six accounting year. >> great question and the question we ask ourselves and we think it is based on awareness. we look at consumption of lemons around the world we are seeing much higher consumption levels per-capita so we are trying to promote the use of lemons across a spectrum of potentially different uses and convince people to eat more and use more.

dennis: lemons are not just for eating any more. give us some of those. >> health and beauty obviously has a lot of applications but also just as house will garnishes. the day when men in your disposal, your sink, it provides a national freshness and is good to smell. dennis: thanks very much. the stock this morning is 76 times earnings. sounds like facebook valuation for a grower of lemons. thanks for being with us. cheryl: if you want to drop three pound of water, water with lemon juice. instantly. for regulation nation to regulation calif.. you will not believe one community's no-smoking policy. that and more. dennis: look at these winners on the nasdaq. [ male announcer ] this is steve.

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dennis: tech leaders on third quarter report. sandrr smith has details on what to watch for in today's trade. sandra: the technology sector is very strong. with get these dow components reporting "after the bell" tonight. intel the biggest leading gainer of the dow off 30. if you look at ibm, not a leader

but in the green today supporting the average, ibm up $0.62 right now. if you the get the stocks, ibm getting started there. and off to a year to date chart, stock has been on a roller coaster ride. a lot of anticipation after the bell tonight. end profits, and they're not really in favor of this. look at intel which is getting a huge boost, leader in the dow right now. here's a year to date look at this chart, this stock is up 2%. it is down 8% so it has been struggling as the world's largest semiconductor company. the following pc sales, this company has been struggling,

scaled-back expectations. and intel shares have declined 10%. and the bad news is priced in. and the overweight reading with the $25 price target, and they set the bar really low, wall street saying they are going to clear the hurdle just fine. we will be watching. cheryl: time -- the federal appeals court will hear arguments that could stop california's low carbon fuel standards. california's global warming law would force refiners and ethanol producers to make cleaner fuel for california. out of the refiners are suing saying it gives in state

companies and advantage. nordstrom is getting into the gay marriage debate openly supporting the rights of gays and lesbians to marry by supporting referendum 74 that would legalize same-sex marriage in washington state. san francisco suburbs, the latest municipality to ban smoking in condominiums and duplexes and other multifamily homes. smoking is banned in buildings with two units. that is your west coast minute. dennis: never heard of banning smoking inside your own home. cheryl: you might as well be a leper of you are a smoker. dennis: in the presidential debate china's role in our market and it turns out the people's republic itself is about to lose its place as our country's biggest creditor. for the first time since the height of the financial crisis, japan owns more u.s. debt. the treasury dement reporting chinese holdings and treasuries fell through july by

0.2% while japan raised its stake by 5%. mitt romney is expected to press the china card against the president tonight. cheryl: we are going to be watching. the street has taken -- the street was taken by surprise. vikram pandit ousted as citigroup's ceo. dennis: melissa and laurie get word on the timing of that decision and talk about the s&p analyst about what is next for citigroup shareholders. el for ? that's a goothing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they pick up some of what medicare doesn pay. and ve you up to thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. call today to quest a free decision guide

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dennis: dialogue 117. investors not frightened by the abrupt ouster of vikram pandit. cheryl: earnings numbers have been strong including citigroup. and spain is heading in the right direction. we have been positive. and we will hand it to melissa frances and lori rothman.