they are going to go with their core money maker. charles: i think the watch is a phenomenal thing and after jj abrams, i believe they might have to buy netflix. kevin, it's been too long. eciate seeing you, buddy. >> yes, thank you. ashley: a charles: this has been a great week for the 3:00 hour. what are you going to do for us today? ashley: thank you for that pressure, charles payne. i shall do my best. thank you. the calendar may say friday the 13th but wall street trying to finish the session on the upside, at least on the dow. the dow seven-day winning streak could be in jeopardy. still up 50 points. we see the s&p 500 and nasdaq slip ever so slightly into the red. we also have breaking news on a timeline for possible trump tax cuts 2.0. larry kudlow just talked to the press. we will go straight to the white house for the details on that. tax cuts 2.0. meanwhile, there's a brewing battle over biofuels.

it's the refiners versus the farmers in a war over ethanol that has two sets of trump supporters at odds. both sides are here to react the a possible deal. sicybersecurity firm cloudflare, its ipo skyrockets. they are laughing and rightfully so. the ceo matthew prince will be here to tell us how his company has been able to run the wall street ipo gauntlet. less than one hour to the closing bell on this friday, the 13th. i'm ashley webster in for liz claman. let's start "the claman countdown." ashley: but we begin with breaking news. sentencing proceedings under way for actress felicity huffman in federal court in boston. her husband, william h. macy, the actor, is with her as she

already pled guilty in may to conspiring to pay $15,000 to a fake charity that essentially facilitated cheating with her daughter taking a college entrance exam. prosecutors have asked for a month in prison and a $20,000 fine. we of course will keep an eye on this and bring you the very latest in that case. meanwhile, back to the markets right now, the dow hanging in there, up 41 points at this hour with less than an hour to go in the session, and in the week. but as we mentioned, the s&p and nasdaq just falling back a little bit. by the way, for the week, the major averages all higher, on pace for a third straight week of gains. by the way, apple coming off session lows as well, after it disputes a report by goldman sachs which cut its price target for the stock, citing concerns over its new apple tv plus services. also adding to apple's losses and concerns for other high-flying tech stocks, a house panel is demanding internal e-mails and other records of tech giants including apple, amazon, facebook and alphabet as

its antitrust probe of the sector broadens even more. sources say the majority investor of wework, softbank, expected to buy $750 million worth of we shares in its ipo. it expects to raise at least $3 billion in the offering as the rumors for weworks plummet -- rumors of its value plummet from $47 billion all the way down now to near $10 billion. that's a big drop. all right. breaking news. let's get back to this. moments ago, national economic council director larry kudlow saying tax cuts 2.0 could be on its way as soon as the middle of next year. blake burman joins us now from the white house with this developing story. take it away, blake. reporter: yeah. the administration appears to want to be giving tax cuts a second version of it, 2.0, another go at some point next year, which would of course put that right in the middle of the presidential election of 2020. to step back for a second, let's

look at where things have been moving in the most recent weeks, the most recent months. you remember last month, president trump reversed his support on indexing capital gains, saying that that's not something that he is in favor of. the president and the white house also said that the need for a payroll tax cut isn't necessarily needed at this time. in speaking with a senior administration official early this morning, i am told that serious options that are at least being talked about or considered at this point include extending tax breaks on the personal side to make sure that they are extended after they are set to expire in 2025, and that includes lowering the marginal rates, doubling the standard deduction and extending the salt deduction as well. now, the president's top economic adviser larry kudlow today said at this point in time, they are currently putting the best ideas together. >> we'll gather together the best ideas from the hill and the

administration and outside folks to provide significant new rounds of middle class tax relief. probably we might put something out sometime maybe the middle of next year. reporter: you will remember in the weeks leading up to the 2018 midterm congressional elections, president trump teased the possibility of a new tax cut, middle class tax cut this year. that didn't come to fruition. now the calendar is being shifted to next year right before the presidential election of 2020, and the dynamic will still remain the same then. democrats this time next year will still control the house and if republicans have ideas of more tax cuts down the line, the reality is they are going to have to not only keep control of the white house but also flip the house. ashley: they are indeed. interesting stuff. tax cuts 2.0. blake burman, thank you very much. the dow set to close higher for an eighth straight day. it is the longest win streak in

16 months. closing in on a record high we saw just back in july. right now, as you can see, the dow is up, starting to slip a little, up 37 points. the s&p and nasdaq down anywhere from a tenth to .2%. so the question is can this momentum that we have seen in the markets over recent weeks continue? let's get right to the floor show to find out. we have traders at the new york stock exchange, the cme group and the nymex. tim anderson, let's go to you first. i ask you that question, a lot of momentum over the last several weeks. where do we go from here? what's the next trade headline, is it the fed next week? what's going to impact these markets? >> we have had a very strong move this week after this bond bubble we were in the last ten days of august seems to have burst. tremendous mutual fund flows into equities and out of bonds funds, very hard to pinpoint

when the major averages might hit new highs. but it certainly feels like we're going there. if not next week or the week after that, then certainly sometime early in the fourth quarter. ashley: interesting. chris robinson, for awhile there, all we focused on was the inverted yield curve. the ten-year treasury now up to a staggering 1.84% or thereabouts. does that mean that these fears of recession are now way on the back burner? >> well, the stock market rallied 2200 points in 12 days, 9% in 12 days. the s&p, over 200 points in 12 days. i think what happened i think, it was a bubble in the bonds. as soon as we saw that ten-year yield dip below 1.5%, everybody had to buy them. we're going to zero. i think that we are going to continue to have volatility. i would not be surprised if a month from now, we have another 5% or 10% move lower and it is, it all comes down to we are one

tweet away from a 400 point rally or 400 point break. i would continue to see that through the rest of the month. got to remember this, 2200 points in 12 days, if you were chewing your finger nails off 12 days ago, now is the time when you want to be rebalance iing a taking profits. you don't want to do it when we had the 2,000 point selloff. ashley: very good point. phil flynn at the cme, one thing we have seen from the data, retail sales today, the consumer, the u.s. consumer continues to hum along very well. you could argue the u.s. consumer helping to prop up the world. we are the only game in town. >> they really are. we are seeing it in a multitude of different directions, not only in the retail sales but the consumer confidence numbers today. where the u.s. consumers continue to defy the news. they don't believe the stuff they hear on tv when people are talking about recession. they don't listen to that. they are feeling the best economy that they have seen in many, many years. what's kind of interesting, i did see one report that broke

down the consumer confidence by political party, and in that report, apparently the democrats are a lot less confident about the economy than the republicans. i don't know what that is. maybe they are watching the wrong network. they are getting all the bad news instead of the good things that are actually happening in the economy. ashley: that doesn't play into the narrative for many of them, certainly in the mainstream media. thank you, phil. tim, back to you. i mentioned the fed. i'm assuming the market has baked in, what, a quarter percent cut, another 25 basis points. what's the likelihood they may go better than that, or has the data recently kind of prevented them from doing it? >> i think t fed's real objective is to get the fed funds rate down in line with the rest of the yield curve. a couple of weeks ago, i was convinced that they were going to cut 50 basis points purely to do that, but the move in the bond market has been so extreme, with the ten-year moving from a

yield of under to 1.85%. now i feel like a 25 basis point cut will accomplish that objective. i'm pretty sure that that's where we're going next week. ashley: we won't have to wait long. tim, chris, phil, thank you, gentlemen, for joining us on this friday the 13th. we all survived. good stuff. thank you, gentlemen. let's take a look at the dow 30 heat map. it's kind of a mixed bag, is it not? we have maybe just a few more in the red than the green. the dow is up. united health care, intel at $52.53. being dragged down by lackluster guidance for major industry player broadcom, the company maintaining its outlook, saying while demand has bottomed out it's not clear how long the depressed levels will last. it's down about 3.5%. chip makers also getting dinged

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ashley: breaking this hour. cloudflare making its big wall street debut today. what started as basically a simple application to find the source of e-mail spam has grown in a cloud-based network valued around $4.4 billion. it's known as the fourone of th internet companies that renders web sites impenetrable to hackers. take a look at shares of cloudflare right now. the company by the way priced at

15 bucks, already up 20% on its very first day at $18.05, up $3 from the opening price. remember, it's not necessarily how the stock opens, it's how it closes. right now, looks pretty good. here with us, live from the floor of the new york stock exchange is the co-founder and ceo of the company on its very big ipo day, matthew prince. matthew, congratulations. >> thank you. ashley: big day for you. i guess the first question for anyone in this situation, why an ipo right now? >> you know, my dad was a stockbroker and it was fun to have him here with me on the floor. it was actually the first time he had ever been on the floor of the new york stock exchange today. he was sitting with our market makers and watching spreads closing and i remember so clearly him talking about what it meant to be a public company and to have the public be able to invest in the management teams and the businesses that they believe in.

i think we're really proud as an entire team at cloudflare to be taking this next step in our journey, but we really think of this as day one in our business, and that there's a big opportunity ahead of us, and we hope that we will be able to create real value in the long term for our shareholders who have been with us to date. ashley: what exactly do you do? can you explain to our viewers what your company does? i used the word impenetrable which in the world of hackers seems almost impossible. how do you do it? >> yeah. so cloudflare runs one of the world's largest networks. we are taking the functionality that you used to have to buy from companies like cisco, all of those boxes that used to work in the world and we are turning that into a service that is distributed around the world and can fit in front of any company or organization's online presence, whether that's a website or whatever else they're exposing to the internet, and use the collective knowledge of

all of our customers in order to stay safe. so a way to think of that is if there's a cyberattack against any one of our more than two million customers, data about that cyberattack is immediately shared across all of our customers so that they can be as safe as possible online. ashley: in your prospectus you said in the first half of this year you reported a net loss of about $129 million. now you've gone public. how do you see the second half of this year playing out? >> i think we were in a fortunate position to be able to make investments in our business, to make sure that our systems and processes were in place so that we could have a very stable and thoughtful business going forward as a public company. so we made significant investments in 2018 and what you will see is that will come back in line to what will be a much more normal level and we see a clear path to profitability for the company and a very substantial opportunity for us as we move forward.

ashley: what do you do with the money you're raising? >> we are building out a giant network. we have an opportunity to take on what is a substantial shift in the market, where once upon a time people bought hardware and software to solve the problems of today. we can solve for a much broader set of customers through a cloud-based service. so we are going to continue to invest in both our sales and marketing efforts and our research and development efforts because we believe the addressable market for the services that we're offering are substantial and we're really just getting started. ashley: we wish you the very best of luck. matthew prince, thanks for joining us on a big day. congratulations to you once again. >> thank you. ashley: all right. let's check the big board. we have about, well, 42 minutes to go. the dow starting to slip. we were up 50 points, now up 16. can we hang on to the end of the session? we have to wait and see. close to session lows. pg & e shares powering

higher this hour after the california utility agreed to an $11 billion settlement with insurance carriers that helped resolve most of those claims made in the wake of the 2017 devastating northern california wildfires. the charred wine country in last year's campfire, that was the deadliest, most destructive ever in the golden state. pg & e currently up 8% on that news. up next, new hope for the heartland. the new agreement made on two of america's major agricultural exports that is bringing some peace to the trade war. the question is, how long will it last? edward lawrence standing by at the white house when "the claman countdown" comes back. at fidelity, we believe your money

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and is not for treating symptoms unrelated to parkinson's disease. nuplazid can cause changes in heart rhythm and should not be taken if you have certain abnormal heart rhythms or take other drugs that are known to cause changes in heart rhythm. tell your doctor about any changes in medicines you're taking. the most common side effects are swelling of the arms and legs and confusion. we spoke up and it made all the difference. ask your parkinson's specialist about nuplazid. ashley: new measures in the u.s./china trade war. china is lifting some tariffs on agricultural products such as pork and soybeans.

china purchased 200,000 tons of soybeans yesterday, the most since june. to edward lawrence now at the white house with the late-breaking details. edward? reporter: yeah, movement on this trade stuff here. good news for farmers here. in fact, farmers have seen their stockpile of soybeans grow so that's welcome news. the chinese department of agriculture confirming that purchase of those soybeans. also, when it comes to pork, removing or having the exemption tariffs on pork products might spark a buy there from chinese companies. adding to all of this intrigue, the last 18 months of these trade talks has been kind of like a soap opera here. president donald trump now responding to the idea that's been floated about possibly an interim deal with china. he said yesterday that he guesses he would consider it, but in the same breath said that he would really want to have the whole deal. he said i would rather have the whole deal. now, trade experts say the president is working towards that whole deal but the progress has been slow.

>> they have opened up the financial sector for wholly owned american companies. they passed this new foreign investment law. they are expanding the so-called shanghai free trade zone model to another ten cities in china. but we're still nowhere near going back to what they basically agreed to in early may. reporter: that's the key, is what concessions would china add back into a trade deal the u.s. said was gone. in fact, my trade sources on both sides, neither of them are talking about what concessions will be added back into this trade deal as they go forward so the next week, next couple weeks will be very critical, first with the deputy level meetings that will set up the face-to-face meeting between the two heads of the trade delegations from the u.s. and china. all of that happening here in washington, d.c. ashley? ashley: the story goes on. but maybe a little bit of life at the end of the tunnel. edward lawrence in d.c., thank you very much, at the white house. let's check the markets for you. the s&p and nasdaq still slightly lower. the dow hanging on, up 21 points at this hour.

the market's generally treading water the entire session but the dow, the only major market now in the green. coming up next, shares of auto insurance giant progressive, well r, moving in reverse. the details and what's causing today's traffic jam in the s&p. coming up in the fox business brief. "the claman countdown" will be right back. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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gerri: i'm gerri willis with today's fox business brief. old navy detailing plans for its coming spinoff into its own separate publicly traded company from parent gap. the lower priced apparel retailer saying it is aiming to open 800 new stores in underserved markets. that's part of a plan to hit $10 billion in annual sales. no specific timeline given. gap shares up marginally. cars.com shares getting some juice. the online auto seller's dealer inspired unit making a deal with gm to provide website services to over 4,000 of the big three dealerships nationwide. gm hitting some bumps intraday but cars.com fully in gear. it is up, look at this, i can't see that far. but hay. progressive moving in slow motion. shares taking a hit after the insurance giant reported a plunge in net income for august. the bottom performer in the s&p this hour facing its worst day since last year. currently trading down almost

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ashley: breaking news for you. there are reports that president trump has tentatively agreed the a biofuel reform deal. that report comes after a week of negotiations between the white house and the biofuels and oil refining industries. the industries have recently clashed on biofuel blending mandates, as the trade war hurts demand for u.s. corn. we have both sides of the issue with us today. we have american fuel and pet

petrochemical ceo jeff thompson and representing the refiners, todd becker, an ethanol producer. explain what the issue here, it all comes down to blending mandates. i don't think our viewers understand what that means. from your perspective, from the refiner's perspective, explain the issue. >> well, thank you, ashley, for having me today to share my members' views about the rfs which we certainly consider to be a broken program. what it does, it mandates a certain amount of biofuels be blended into the fuel supply system of the united states and right now, what is being required to be mandated is too high. there's no place for the biofuel to go. that results in high compliance costs. it's threatening the economic viability of refiners, refining jobs, and most importantly, it's also raising the price of fuel for consumers. so what we understand the president is considering in

response from demands from the biofuel industry, is to make these already unachievable volumes even higher. which again would be a real problem for refiners, disastrous i think for the president and really bad for consumers. ashley: let me understand, why is the consumer going to pay more? i thought ethanol base, the e-15, 15% ethanol to 85% gasoline, i thought that ultimately is cheaper than regular gasoline. >> well, ethanol certainly at the moment is cheaper but the mandates are so high and because ethanol is already maxed out, basically all the ethanol our gasoline can use is filled so that means the marginal compliance is going to come from foreign biodiesel. foreign biodiesel is about 75 to $1 more expensive. as the program gets more expensive, part of those compliance costs certainly are going to be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher fuel prices. ashley: but you understand that because of the trade war we have

corn piling up and the producers wanting somewhere to get some money back on it. you can obviously understand their case. my question is, is there some common ground that could be reached here? >> let me just say that we certainly are sympathetic and my members produce about 20% of the ethanol made in this country so we care a lot. if you look at eia government data, biofuel production consumption are at all-time highs. what's dropped this year are spor exports. we think a big part of the reason for this pain right now is because of the trade war with china. that's what needs to be fixed. ashley: the white house, i don't know the details of what agreement may have been reached but they wanted to raise quotas by 5% on the mandates. that is too much, in your mind? >> yes. it's certainly too much. the mandates are already high right now. every single year they implement this program it had to grant waivers, had to reduce the volumes because they are simply not attainable. the president wants to add

another 5%. all it's going to do is to lead to again, higher prices, more waivers are going to be necessary and by the way, it's not going to help u.s. farmers. it's only going to help foreign biofuel producers. that's not consistent with an american first energy policy. ashley: all right. got it. thanks so much for explaining the issue from your point of view. really appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. ashley: fair and balanced, we go now to todd becker, an ethanol producer. hello to you, todd. the question is, you have a bunch of corn that's been grown and has nowhere to go so you want refiners to take more of it to produce more e-15, this ethanol bland gasoline. that's your part of this story, is it not? you want to be able to use the corn and you want the refiners to up the amount of refining they do. >> we just want the refiners to comply with what the law says and not get a waiver to grant so they don't have to use it or get an exemption.

that's all window dressing. ethanol has been 30 cents to a dollar cheaper than gasoline well over the last ten years. it cheapens the fuel to the consumer. there's a 10 p% mandate but the can use up to 15% that the president gave us as an industry as a waiver. it putting pain on the u.s. farmer with what's going on right now. these waivers are exempting refiners who are making significant profits, exempting them from billions of gallons of gasoline, equivalent to billions of bushels of corn. that's what we are fighting for. it's really affecting rural america. the whole window dressing around the price and it's going to go up and they can't comply, that is such an old story. the ethanol industry can give the refiners everything they need. they just have to blend the ethanol. they have every tool in their toolbox to be able to do that. but they don't want to. know why? because they control 90% of the fuel tank of the american consumer. every 1% that ethanol takes away from them causes them billions of dollars of less revenue. they are going to fight and give you these stories and talk about

all the things of high levels of compliance, but the only refineries in the united states that are closing are ethanol refineries. there has never been a refinery in the united states that closed because of a renewable fuel standard. an oil refinery has never closed because of the renewable fuel standard. ashley: the white house has proposed raising those quotas by 5%. is that acceptable? >> we are still waiting to hear what the president is going to do but we feel like he really has the best interest of the u.s. farmer in his hands right now and he really appreciates the fact that if you look at the counties that elected him, they were farm counties. they were rural counties. agricultural counties. he really wants to come back and say to them look, i understand the pain you're suffering and we really are going to do something to help you. it's really not 5%. we're not asking for a 5% mandate. the president has already delivered on one promise which is to allow e-15 blending. what we want is the exempt gallons that were taken away, that is really causing pain on this industry. look, the ethanol industry, half

of the 225 ethanol plants across the united states, the refineries, are owned by farmers. so between the trade war and the small refinery exemptions it's really put a hurt on rural america. this president has all the tools that he needs and all the power that he has in his agenda that he can absolutely fix this problem for rural america. and really get the farmers behind him. because the farmers are not going to vote for anybody else but we have to make sure they vote for this president. ashley: todd, thank you for stating your case so clearly. we wish you the best of luck and certainly the farmers who are already hurting in these times of trade tensions with china, so obviously hopefully some common ground could be reached. thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. we have some breaking news for you. actress felicity huffman has just been sentenced to 14 days in prison after pleading guilty in may to conspiring to pay $15,000 to a fake charity that facilitated cheating when her daughter took a college entrance

exam. prosecutors originally had been asking for a month in prison and a $20,000 fine. again, felicity huffman, 14 days in prison. more on this as it becomes available. let's check the big board for you. with under 20 minutes to go until the close, the dow hanging on in there. we are down to just above 14 points, now up 32. 27,214. the trump administration sending smoke signals of the coming ban on all flavored e-cigarettes. charlie gasparino running to our set right now, i can hear him down the hallway, with new exclusive details on vaping joint ju giant juul's plan to fight back against the crackdown. "countdown" will be right back. ♪

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ashley: all right.

welcome back, everyone. altria shares hitting their lowest level in over a year. investors growing wary of the tobacco king's stake in the e-cig company juul and its potential long-term value amid the white house threats of a ban on all flavored e-cigarette products. guess what? fox business's charlie gasparino learning exclusive new information. >> the only reason why i know anything about this, i was on cavuto's show for the whole hour talking about -- ashley: neil cavuto gave you this? >> we spoke about vaping, the vaping ban and i got some info from a competitor of juul's who called in, alerted me. ashley: how reliable is it if it comes from the competitor of juul? >> here's what we know. they are, you know, they haven't decided to do this, but the real question is, do they fight this ban, particularly for their two big flavored products. i didn't know this until a couple hours ago. they had mint and menthol. ashley: they do. >> that's their flavor. their competitors would say the

mint stuff is like candy cane. they say mint and menthol are basically the same and mirror what's in cigarettes so let us keep our flavor. the question is, do they go whole hog and do a big lobbying effort. we should point out that people close to juul tell me they have not made a final decision. others have said they have some of the biggest lobbyists in the world already hired and already making calls. just so you know. ashley: they have a ton of flavors. mango, peach, you name it. they just want to protect mint and menthol. >> apparently -- ashley: those are the closest to what cigarettes -- >> they have 75% of the market. that's a big part of their business. like 80% of their business. some huge, i don't want to throw around numbers that i don't know right off the top of my head. ashley: oh, come on. have you ever vaped? >> no. if i find my nephew vaping he will be wearing his rear end for

a hat. ashley: how old is he? >> i don't want to -- ashley: not old enough? >> not old enough to vape. ashley: okay. >> this stuff looks like it's nasty stuff. in any event, this could get pretty ugly pretty quick. here's the thing that juul has to figure out. do they really want a public conversation about vaping right now, its positives and negatives, and the sort of blowback they are going to get to their brand. because if you lobby this thing, that's what's going to happen. congresspeople some against it, some for it, some saying it's a libertarian thing. i personally don't care as long as kids don't do it. if you want to destroy your health, that's your choice. you know the ins and outs, that's your business. i guess what they are weighing from what i understand from inside the company is they are weighing like whether it's worth it. because you are going to get some blowback -- ashley: well, they have been under fire for some time. >> but the more information that comes out, maybe the stats are it's only like rare cases where

people get really sick on the stuff, particularly the flavored stuff. ashley: 200 plus cases. >> still, you will hear about those 200 cases and even if it's 200 out of a million. ashley: i agree. >> and that hurts the brand. i think that's what -- what i understand internally, that's what they're weighing in terms of whether they go forward with this lobbying effort. it's not -- they have lots of lobbyists. altria has tons of guys. they talk to people all the time. so whether the ceo of juul says let's go is not -- ashley: they have been pretty contrite up to now. they have agreed this is a problem. they want to raise the age to 21. they are all behind it. they want to put in machines to verify i.d. >> i'm not saying they are doing anything wrong. ashley: i'm just saying -- >> the product is the product. i don't know if it's better or worse than cigarettes. i can tell you because i covered this stuff so many times in different areas, that if you want to do a lobbying effort, that's information.

once that information gets out there, both sides of the store gets out there, right, and if there's 200 cases out of a million, you will be hearing about those 200 cases. so now the question is, from a brand perspective, is it worth it. do they do something else, do they just give up the flavored stuff. i understand that they -- they are poised, they could do this, they have not decided to do it and that's what the ceo of juul is waiting for -- weighing, whether it's worth it. ashley: they sell themselves as an alternative to real smoking with real, you know -- it's got nicotine. it's addictive. >> it sounds disgusting. ashley: if you are smoking the real stuff it may be a way of at least, i don't know if it's -- >> chicken parmesan flavored vaping? italian sausage vaping? ashley: if they did, i might try that. cheeseburger. now we're talking. maybe then i would be -- by the

way, if they had cheeseburger vaping, cavuto would be all over that. here's what cavuto would be all over. pumpkin spice latte. he would go nuts. by the way, that might be mint. that might be banned. pumpkin spice. ashley: don't get him excited and take it away from him. >> neil's going to be -- ashley: we know what he's going to be. charlie gasparino, great stuff as always. sorry, neil cavuto. closing bell ringing in ten minutes now. the dow looking for eight straight wins. can it hang on? up 55 points at this stage. on this friday the 13th, our "countdown" closer has some picks that might keep you in the luck. we certainly hope so. that's not the person giving his picks. "the claman countdown" is coming right back. i get it all the time. "have you lost weight?" of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter...

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. . ashley: breaking news. any moment actress fell lyssie huffman expected to leave a

boston courtroom, 30,000-dollar fine, one year probation, 50 hours of community service. this hour after pleading guilty in may conspiring to pay,000 to fake charity that helped facilitating cheating for her daughter taking a college entrance exam. we'll go there live if and when felicity huffman comes out of the building. stocks slipping in the final hour, as fed rate cut expectation has fallen to 80% amid improving trade headlines, stronger than expected august retail sales. markets closing in on their third straight weekly win or gain. the dow hanging in there right now. let's go to gerri willis live on the floor of the new york stock exchange for a look at some of this week's winners and losers. reporter: ash, let's look into this. dow laggards, mcdonald's down as wendy's will spend

$20 million on breakfast. breakfast "baconator," love to hear the words. they are beautiful. mickey d's didn't like it. merck down, health risks of baldness drug. that stock is down. visa, credit card and payments company, been on fire all year. everybody in the category has been. rotation out of growth stocks, into what you might call value stocks. that is what happened there. we want to look at laggards. market access, atp and verisign. market access, one single day they had decline, their biggest in seven years. think about that. adp, you know these folks. this is data payroll folks. cowan, bank of america cutting price targets on the stock. all three of those down. but the big story has been, pretty good week for most of the indexes. and for investors in general. ash, back to you.

ashley: gerri willis. thank you very much. despite jitters in the major average, on this friday the 13th. our closer naming stocks can be portfolio lucky charms. i should say that with a irish accent, shouldn't i? i hudson valley cio gus gasko. thanks for being here. haven't been a too spooked friday the 13th. markets have been treading water. from your perspective which stocks do you like, to quote, keep the bad vibe away? >> this is bold rush. this is information and data. those that can collect and measure and manipulate the data. names anything from chips to software that collects this and manipulates the data. ashley: you like individual names or etfs, what do you like? >> etfs, semiindex, sfb.

chips and dram that will collect put the management of data together to make better decisions. ashley: how exposed are they to downturn in the u.s. china trade talks because those sectors get heavily hit if those things don't go well? >> that's correct. if i'm looking out more than a year, a third more density of chips and information flowing. where do you want to be? a tailwind next five or 10 years. that is the place investors really should be. ashley: pick up on something talked about earlier, fed expectations coming down. latest data is pretty strong. retail sales have been great, consumer sentiment. u.s. consumer is humming along pretty well right now. what do you expect from the fed next week? >> i think they go 25. it's a couple things. right now expectations they will be lose. plus you're in a worldwide economy. europeans are continuing to cut. you have to move along with them. i know we're supposed to be full employment and limited inflation.

there is to inflation. employment is strong. this goes against what normally you would do. in order to keep currencies in parallel, that is one of the options you need. ashley: someone looking for yield are dividend plays where to go, looking for companies that pay the biggest dividends? >> stay short in terms of duration and ladder portfolios. as interest rates rise you can take advantage of that. otherwise be in a combination of things such as dividend stocks. ashley: we've been talking so much the previous month about the inverted yield curve, having a bigger yield than the 10-year. that was such a sign of recession. could it be just around the corner? what is your take on that? >> ashley, now it is positive. people end up, you have to be there for an extended period. when there is a negative curve you end up having positive market for 10 to 11 months. we ended up getting overbought on equity, i'm sorry on the fixed income side. people ended up getting a little jumpy. you have to look at things over longer period of time. ashley: hard not to be jumpy,

every headline or tweet moves this market up or down 400 points quite easily. >> that is correct. we don't invest for tomorrow. ashley: don't watch every second of every day? >> that's correct. turn the screen off. we're looking strong growth. consumer which is still rolling along. that is 70% of the economy. ashley: any areas you're avoiding all together you wouldn't touch with a proverbial 10-foot pole? >> commodity areas in terms of developing in the excuse me, emerging markets they are basically slowed or have been slowed. they will come back as china does. that depend on what happens with a deal with the united states. ashley: gus, am i thinking you're generally pretty bullish? >> yes if you're looking out more than two or three years. you want to be a positive person except if you're felicity huffman. you want to be long in stocks. ashley: great stuff. we got a lot in a short amount of time. thank you, gus.

dow closing higher for the 8th straight day. [closing bell rings] the longest winning streak in 16 months as the bell rings. that will do it for the "claman countdown." connell mcshane, melissa francis picking it up on "after the bell." melissa: hope for a deal. giving the dow eight in row. stocks still mixed at the close as investors.s. china trade progress. the dow ending higher on the day up about 33 point. you see as we close, off session highs but it is the longest winning streak in 16 months. i'm melissa francis. happy friday. connell: happy friday, i'm connell mcshane. this is after the bell. a little fade on the end for the s&p as it fought for gains at the close. same for nasdaq in the red, snapping what was a two-day winning streak down by about 18 point. breen for the week for all major averages. we're in positive territory the third week in a row. melissa: we have fox business