2020, don't worry about growth reaching 3%. i think 2% growth, even a little bit slower, is just fine. think of this recovery as being a marathon, a long-lasting marathon, as opposed to a sprint that finishes all too quickly. cheryl: i don't want these markets to end quickly. i am loving the numbers, charles payne. we are on fire. charles: i am, too. thank you very much. good morning, everyone. i'm charles payne filling in for stuart today. as mentioned, the numbers are in and they are really impressive. retail sales over the holidays so far, up 3.4% from a year earlier. it's a big green flag for the strength of this economy but not as good as maybe the national retail federation predicted. they were looking for 4.2%. we will see what the discrepancy might be. but we are still expecting more record highs with the stock market. the dow, s&p and nasdaq on for one of its longest winning streaks ever. we are also watching hong kong. christmas there marked by more violent protests.

it was being called the christmas protest. three big hours for you. buckle in. merry christmas. "varney & company" about to start right now. charles: huge gains for the markets this year. the calendar year, in fact, has wall street looking extraordinarily well. want to bring in market watcher rebecca walser on these gains and of course, at this point in time, we always look ahead. what do you make overall of this market, considering all the negative headlines, all the negative speculation? first to have this kind of market is really remarkable. >> charles, it is. merry christmas. i'm having such a great retail season high. i don't care what the retail experts, you know, were expecting. we got 3.4% growth and super saturday, charles, the biggest shopping day ever. $3.4 billion on super saturday. that's what happens when you

have a short christmas shopping season, right, from thanksgiving to christmas. charles: yeah, no doubt about it. and i got to tell you, it's anecdotal but as i looked around at malls i saw greater foot traffic. i'm starting to see gen-z hang out in malls like their grandparents used to. it feels like the retailer, brick and mortar folks who have survived, have figured it out. the magic word has always been omni-channel. it's starting to work. of the retail sales, are you okay with the idea then that this could be an area of investment, because over the last two or three weeks, i have seen a lot of folks buying macy's, i have seen pretty good action in kohl's and those kind of things. i know there's a search for value but is that too dangerous of a move? >> no, i don't think so. i think long term, you look at macy's, look at that history of that store. obviously, brick and mortar eventually is going to dissipate in lieu of the online or hybrid

model with, you know, shopping. you look at sales for this retail quarter, they were up 14%, almost 15% but they were still less than 20% of overall total sales. so yes, do we eventually see a total cyber-online shopping experience, where people maybe just go, i don't even know about groceries anymore. everything in the future is going to look different. drone delivery, all of that. but for now, long-term, we still have, you know, purposeful buying at these stores that people are going into and enjoying the in-person experience. there's still nothing like trying on something before you take it home, before it's delivered to your house and say i hope it fits you. yeah, i think long-term, yeah. charles: especially when i go into the stores knowing that most of the stuff won't fit me in the first place. want to bring in kristina partsinevelos. she's with us. okay. the numbers so far trailing what expectations were, but to rebecca's point, the data is still very impressive. kristina: we saw u.s. consumer spending grew in november, we are expecting strength for december. those numbers haven't come out.

you did mention the national retail federation, they revised their numbers a little bit lower. they are expecting sales during this holiday season to be between 3.8% and 4.2%. so it's a little bit lower, but overall, it's still really strong. the other thing, too, we haven't talked about is i have seen numbers of $42 billion worth of online purchases are expected to be returned, and we know that online sales as a whole are on pace, this is according to mastercard, to increase 18%, almost 19% through the holiday season up to christmas eve. did you buy a lot of things last minute? charles: not as many as normal. i am that guy who is always in the mall at the last minute and i was wondering if any stores were open yesterday morning. kristina: no, i checked. charles: i want to bring in retail watch er kristen benz wih us. it's been awhile. how are you? >> i'm great, charles. how are you? merry christmas. charles: it's wonderful seeing

you. of course, you were the first person years ago that hit me with bukl. i made a lot of money on that. what's going on now? >> a lot of great retail numbers, regardless of what the nrf said. we had a fantastic christmas selling season. the consumer is absolutely healthy and i think there's a lot of really good news out there. charles: so what about, you know, because on the non-business channels, the retail story, a lot of folks hear about the massive amounts of bankruptcies, the empty malls, those kind of things. those stories still go on and you know, no one ever explains the amazon effect or those kind of things. our overarching feel sometime is that maybe retail is in trouble. >> retail is not in trouble. retail that's not performing well, and retail that's not thoughtful, those retailers are drowning. but if you can actually capture the attention of the consumer, have a thoughtful product, on

sale at the right time, where consumers can get it on their schedule, and make it interesting and entertain them, those retailers will prevail. charles: kristina just brought up the mastercard numbers. here's what i think is fascinating. you have apparel up 1% but 17% on digital. jewelry was up less than 2% but almost 9% on digital. department stores are down almost 2% but they grew by 7% online. electronics up 4.6%. i think the point i'm trying to make here, it's ironically -- as much as we talk about the internet and amazon killing brick and mortar, could it be the savior if played right? >> absolutely. amazon was responsible i think for 80% of samsung sales on black friday. so definitely, it can be a savior. you know, retail is very darwinian, right? so it's only the strongest survive. so only the most strong and clever and thoughtful retailers that can really capture your share of wallet and attention

will thrive. kristina: which is why experiential shopping is prevalent. you can hang out at the store, get a massage. but in terms of other numbers we are seeing -- i would love to do that -- u.s. retailers also released some of their holiday numbers, holiday hiring numbers, and so for macy's it was unchanged at 80,000 seasonal workers but target did increase, they planned to hire 130,000 store employees, 10,000 more than last year, so little bit of a change to the good. charles: on that note, let me bring rebecca back in. target is in the top ten movers of the year, written off over a year ago, couldn't compete in an amazon world. they have been able to compete. amazon themselves just posted their numbers, the best shopping numbers ever. they talk about the items that sold, how many people they have hired just for christmas season. i think quarter million. they have 750,000 employees around the world. rebecca, the impact now that i

think is more positive for the overall economy, because we hear about all these retail jobs that are going away, but they are being replaced by better paying warehouse jobs, better paying jobs, you know, moving this merchandise. >> absolutely. to your point on target, just so you know, they were open until 10:00 p.m. on christmas eve. i happen to know. c charles: now you tell me. >> i know, right? i always have the feeling i go to stores at the last minute, it will be an empty shelf, what's the point. but target was open until 10:00. what's happening is target had a great sort of benchmark with walmart and the fact they dwoul do a hybrid. you order online and go to the store and pick it up same day and it's right there at the front, customer service. you don't have to go through the whole store to get your item at the very back. target and walmart have both done an incredible job in the last two years of really starting to compete with amazon and say look, how can we leverage the brick and mortar as

a positive with our online, you know, benchmark that we need to hit. that's really the benchmark and the new way it's going to have to be for all these retailers that will stay long term, and obviously the grocery experience as well. order online, pull your car in and they deliver it to your car. it's awesome. you can't complain anymore. and also target has partnered with delivery where you can have it delivered the same day. order online, and it's coming from the local store. so these are the things that are happening. charles: it's fleereflected in e prices. don't forget about dow component boeing. they have a new ceo, dave calhoun. he's focusing with the faa, trying to cooperate with them. also take a look at uber. their founder, travis kalanick, has completely severed his ties with the company. he's off the board and sold all his stock. now take a look at nike. the colin kaepernick true to 7 shoe, it was a hit, sold out. give us the details. kristina: $110 black and white, part of their air force one

line. i guess it raises the big question about controversy and people that are controversial. we know colin kaepernick took a knee, then afterwards asked for the betsy ross flag shoe to be removed because of -- he was saying it was linked to slavery. he's weighed in on all that. you have some people saying they wanted to go against nike, boycott nike was actually a hash tag that was trending. but sales did increase and then for this particular shoe that we started talking about, it sold out right away. $110. charles: how many were sold? kristina: i would have to get back to you on the actual number. charles: nike has a history of doing this, not just with this shoe. they put out a limited amount, sell out and create this frenzy. kristina: everybody does that. charles: that's right. kristina: that's called the drop and supreme is one that started that in terms of shoes if you are a sneaker head. charles: kristen, i want to bring you back in. overall sales have been up for nike since the colin kaepernick controversy but not u.s. sales. i go through all of the numbers and this is what people are

missing. they have been carried by growth in china, growth in europe, in fact, this last earnings report, the stock was down three bucks because north american sales came up short. but you like nike, right? you think they can compete in an amazon world? >> i absolutely do. because they are creating an ecosystem around their brand, kind of like amazon does, kind of like disney with disney plus. so you have all these sneaker heads and they have a whole sneaker head app they are using, nike plus app. they have experiential retail stores where people want to go work out. it's kind of like a local neighborhood store, very much like lululemon type of playbook. i think they are very resistant to any kind of controversy. lululemon has see-through yoga pants, they bounced back. nike is bouncing back from the kaepernick issue. i really think they are extremely well-poised to continue taking market share. and i think their numbers look fantastic. revenue is up 10%.

they beat on comps, eps and revenue. there's a lot for me to like here. charles: the stock has been absolutely phenomenal, no doubt about it. let's face it, they have one major global competitor, very much like the boeing/airbus situation. if you can, stick around. right now i want to check on stock futures. we have been up most of the morning, not runaway stuff but you know, just gradually higher. what you're looking at, more record, potential records for the stock market. meanwhile, impeachment is in limbo as nancy pelosi delays sending articles of impeachment to the senate. the question is, will pelosi's strategy actually work in favor of the democrats? a lot of people are worried about that. last week, president trump signed a defense spending bill. in there, he raised the legal age to buy tobacco to 21. will it deter young people from taking up smoking? we are asking that question. we are keeping an eye, of course, on hong kong. protesters there clashed with police on christmas day. more "varney & company" right after this. ♪

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charles: well, the christmas holiday did not stop protesters in hong kong. former cctv business anchor is on the phone with us now. phil, these protests, any signs that they are going to start to let up, because it feels like they are getting more intense and the tactics involve more public protests. >> yeah, good morning, good morning, charles. good morning to all your viewers over there. one of the key critical issues for hong kong right now is that as we end the year, it's been six months of this that has been ongoing, as you said, it's ebbed and flowed. it was peaceful, then violent, then peaceful, and recently it's kind of dialed up just a bit in the last 48 hours. there is a major protest that's planned for new year's day in hong kong, organized by civil rights organizations, and i think that will be a true test of how we start off the year

next year between the protesters and the police there in hong kong. charles: it felt like there was a schism for a moment there when you had all these protesters show up saying hey, we want to do it in a non-violent fashion, and pushing back against some of maybe the more exuberant younger protesters who were maybe seeking or not afraid of confrontation. is there any sign of who may be sort of directing this, you know, where the leadership on this is coming from and what the tactics might be going from here out? >> it's unclear at this point. one of the issues the protesters have is that they're not very well organized, and they certainly lack any tools that traditional protests have involved, either an elected or volunteer leader and it's very fragmented. now, the police obviously have the backing by the state and of course, some support by beijing as well. so you can imagine they have

access to numerous resources, including surveillance, weapons, vehicles and the usual tools that a police force would have. so clearly, it's not a very equal fight, if you want. a lot of media is calling it a fight. it's not really a fight. you have dozens, hundreds of police chasing college students around shopping malls and it all started when, over christmas, many of the young students that you mentioned were singing and protesting sort of within city malls, and of course, the police had a great dislike for that. charles: well, thank you very much for catching us up. we will stay on top of this. we appreciate you helping us as well. meanwhile, let's check on these futures again. now, there's now talk, of course, of dow 30,000. i mean, maybe it could happen this year. want to bring in gerri willis. gerri, listen, stocks have been big winners this year and now people are saying hey, why not

30,000. i don't know if we've got that much momentum for this calendar year. gerri: well, maybe not this calendar year, but maybe the first two weeks of january. traders down here have two words. melt up. let me show you three stocks here that have had shocker performance. i'm going to start with tiffany's. 65% gain year to date. remember when we had basically thrown in the towel on this stock? guess what, they are reporting a turnaround in holiday sales, especially china. up 5% to 7% during the holiday sales season so big numbers for tiffany, the stock soaring this year. target, for example. bricks and mortar, what can that company possibly do and yet the stock up 94% year to date. amazing performance there. i want to talk a little about apple, too. we had low expectations for this stock, even earlier this year. remember the skepticism about the company's ability to rev up that services revenue. iphone 11 would never do anything, right? they are up 80% and on christmas

eve, dan ives at wedbush raising his price target on that stock to $350. look, nasdaq futures right now poised to hit yet another record at the open. we got a lot going on down there and it seems very positive indeed. back to you. charles: there's two investment lessons there. when apple said we are going to stop releasing the actual number of sales on the iphones, the stock cratered, to your point. if you had bought it then, you would be up significantly. you would be outperforming every money manager in the world. tiffany left for dead, taken over by louis vuitton. people out there should understand there's amazing value often in the names that are most beaten down. thank you very much. gerri: i agree with that. merry christmas. charles: much to stuart's chagrin, official baby yoda merchandise is finally here. the plush doll didn't make it in time for stores in the holidays, a huge miss, a big miss in opportunity for disney.

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what's your idea? i put it out there with a godaddy website. make the world you want. charles: check out shares of peloton, indicating slightly higher but off 18% this month. still with us, kristen benz. you are looking for peloton to bounce back. we should remind the audience one of the more famous short sellers out there put a sell on the stock with a price target of five bucks a share. make your case.

>> ouch. what do i like about peloton? i think that's very much overblown. i think a lot of companies go through controversy. what i like about peloton, its stickiness with millenials. it's not just about a bike. it's about a lifestyle. it's about the classes. it's about the music. so i definitely, you know, there's a lot of short interest out there so i think investors should be mindful that a brand like this has real stickiness and staying power. i wouldn't sell this stock short right now. charles: all right. by the way, there is some controversy over the music that they've got to resolve, and about price points that millenials can actually afford. i know they love certain things but sometimes they got to pay for it, too. it's been to long. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> it's been a minute. thank you so much. charles: folks, the opening bell minutes away. will we have a tenth straight day of records for the nasdaq? that's the big question. looks like it could happen. at fidelity, online u.s. stocks and etfs are commission-free.

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negotiations blew up, the market pulled back. so it was not without its challenges but late in the year, really found its stride and really has come on like a rocket ship, with tremendous records across the board, particularly with the nasdaq, but the s&p and the dow all at record highs. in fact, we are ringing the opening bell at this very moment. want to take a look at where the dow 30 stocks are. those stocks will populate here. we just talked about nike making a pretty good rebound, some of the consumer staple names at the top. 3m a little bit lower. for the most part, the majority of these stocks are just slightly higher. then i want to look at the s&p 500, a broader look at the stock market, up four points at 3227. then there's the juggernaut. nasdaq being powered by fang names, also by semiconductors. the number one stock this year, advanced micro devices. nasdaq is up 11 days in a row right now.

one of the longest winning streaks ever. joining us to discuss, jeff sica, kristina partsinevelos. jeff, okay, i say going into 2020, the bears and other wall street folks have a new cause of concern. now they are saying there's too much optimism. the china trade thing, you can't really talk about that anymore. but already, last week, the investor, individual investor optimism went to 44%, the highest read all year long, and i have already seen articles saying there's too much optimism out there, investors are too giddy. you worried about that? >> it's very lonely in the bear world right now, because there is all this optimism. to me, optimism is a good thing for market momentum but optimism also tells me that there's a lot of people that have put a lot of money to work, and how much more upside do we have. so you have to look at the flipside of the coin, and the flipside of the coin could be that maybe -- and what i feel is maybe the optimism is a little bit overdone.

charles: i would say it's underdone in the sense that particularly when it comes to professionals, up until a month ago, you look at the bank of america survey, they have been so bearish, so pessimistic. they were sending a record amount of cash, fueling the so-called melt-up because they missed everything. at the least they will do some window dressing but i don't know why it's bad, you know. i have done research on this, tremendous amount of research, why people think it's bad when other folks become opt mifimist. i think it goes back to the shoe shine boy who said i like the market, and kennedy went upstairs and sold everything. kristina: when everything is going really good and nobody thinks anything can go wrong, that's when things go wrong. 2019 was almost the year of the recession that never was. like you mentioned, you are seeing markets, the s&p 500 since the president has been, under him it's gone up about 50%. you are seeing all-time highs just right now for apple and tesla. apple being at $284.

tesla we will bring up in just a second to see where it is. i think we will have the january effect. you mentioned window dressing. a lot of big guys sold some of their stock, got rid of it quietly in the month of december and those will pick up and take advantage of the sold stocks in january because it's a new tax year, too. charles: there's a two-pronged thing i'm seeing the last two weeks. the momentum names caught fire again, the so-called fang names. they have surged in the last couple. so have some of these undervalued names, because people are looking for value. lot of folks out there don't necessarily want to chase a tesla at $420 a share or whatever. but i think that could be where people are making a mistake, by trying to guess something is oversold when in fact, the fundamentals haven't changed. >> for a value investor that's looking, you know, the whole term, blood in the streets, now there's champagne in the streets, everybody is celebrating. it's a very frustrating time to be a value investor, and so many people have piled into these five stocks. if you look at the s&p 500, if

you remove the five stocks, you don't have quite as rosy of a picture. charles: although over 400 stocks are up this year. and about 350 are up more than 10%, about 300 up 20%. this is a lot better than last year when i think fang names were a larger component of the winners but i do think the idea that okay, i'm excited, i'm an individual investor, i see it, i'm watching it, now i want to get in so i'm going to pick the stocks that haven't gone up because logic tells me that they are due to go up? that's the point i worry about. you should see the action at macy's and kohl's in the last couple weeks. people are buying these stocks in the hopes that maybe they rebound. maybe they will. kristina: i have a question for both of you then. if you are talking about value, you mentioned fang, what value are you talking about, the typical large market caps or intel we never seem to mention? you feel like those are being underestimated or not -- charles: value is a big word. it means a lot of things to a lot of people but i think a lot of people thinks value are names that aren't already up. they see stocks that haven't

gone up and think there must be value there. most of the time when a stock has broken down it's broken down for a legitimate reason. often they can come back. case in point would be chipotle mexican grill. a mon stster move after people wrote it off. and target, one of the top ten stocks of the year, was written off. so this can work but it's a dicey game. >> look at bank stocks. 2018 was awful, it was flat, it was lackluster. now you have had bank stocks which are up 35% with the s&p 500. they have been an incredible performer. a lot of people wrote them off. even as a bear who did not like banks said that bank stocks were ripe to buy in 2018 and they have had a tremendous move. i think they are going to have another great move in 2020. kristina: i have been paying attention to the spdr etf that focuses on the financial sector.

charles: it's done okay but energy is another name where people are sort of, west texas around $60. if it gets to 64 you could see a big rush there. the industry has issues in terms of financing and things like that. again, that was a big winner, biggest winner wednesday. so there is this surge out there. you can either chase the winners or guess on the losers, and you know, i always tell people chase underlying fundamentals. it's not always easy to know because you have to do a little bit of work. i don't see anything wrong with that. overall, as someone who is typically bearish or very cautious, are you seeing signs that 2020 would be the year we give a lot of this back? >> i think we will have momentum into the first quarter. i think when we go into the second quarter, i think we are going to give some of it back. i haven't been as optimistic on the trade deal as most people have been. i think we are going to hit some serious head winds and start to see some people using the trade

conflict as a reason to sell. we will pull back in late -- charles: we should point out to the audience, it's not done enough, forget about the talk, tariffs were in place all year long. over $350 billion in tariffs in place all year long. know what happened? seven million job openings, wages at a rate they haven't seen in decades. the stock market went through the roof. corporate earnings are robust. that's what happened. that's smoot-hawley. that's what happened with $350 billion in tariffs in place and we are winning that war. by the way, see the report on soybean purchases last month? up 53%. that's long before we even signed the trade deal. but you're right. hey, let's talk about amazon. do we have time? let's talk about amazon. it hit $2,000 a share and kind of has waffled a little bit. but they came out with phenomenal numbers. they said people shopped there record levels and you know, they put all the data out. you have all the details, right?

kristina: in terms of 2019, that last mile that they have, 3.5 billion customer packages globally were delivered in 2019. more people tried prime this year than ever before. charles: did they like it? kristina: well, i am one of those people. i will admit, i have prime and i take advantage of it. prime orders more than doubled for grocery items, almost quadrupled for same day delivery, again, something i take advantage. you need to spend $35 or more. so it's great. that means worse traffic in the streets and congestion, especially because they aren't working with fed ex anymore on the ground but overall, this is a huge win for amazon. charles: they are just winning and they don't care. there are going to be political issues with all of this winning but right now, they are laser focused and there's not any industry out there that's not trying to -- >> no, 58% of the growth in retail comes from amazon. they made it easier. another great thing, another great thing they did is they created 250,000 jobs on this

initiative which is an incredible -- kristina: delivery. >> delivery initiative and amazon is doing nothing but helping the economy and will continue to help the economy. third party sellers have done tremendously well. charles: the story about one van going from the warehouse with one package for one-day delivery -- kristina: you just said here's amazon that's creating this delivery system, pushing fed ex out, so this is a big concern going forward. here's another giant that literally has their hand over the entire market from every single step. charles: amazon is the favored whipping boy of everyone. eventually they will have to break off aws. no doubt in my mind. when that happens, we will see. meantime, thank you both very much. let's check on this market. you know, it's 36 points but it's the day after christmas and it's a record. we are still making records across the board. meanwhile, here's something that

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charles: got a new trump tweet

for you. despite all of the great success that our country has had over the last three years, it makes it much more difficult to deal with foreign leaders and others when i have to constantly defend myself against the do-nothing democrats and their bogus impeachment scam. bad for usa. we know what's good for usa. college bowl season and it's under way. michigan state taking on wake forest in the pinstripe bowl tomorrow afternoon at yankee stadium. joining us, dave claussen and mark dantonio. very exciting to play at yankee stadium. let's start with wake forest. what is the pinstripe bowl all about? >> i think it's about our kids being rewarded for having a good season. they get to experience a once in a lifetime opportunity to come into new york city, experience new york city at christmas and over half of our players have never been here so it's really been a memorable week. charles: you know, what's really

interesting, a lot of folks are pointing out bowl season usually is in warm weather places, florida and california and so forth. this is going to be a pretty cold bowl. i don't know if it gives michigan state the advantage but i like the idea you guys are branching out beyond warm weather states. >> you know, we have had an opportunity to be here in new york city and i think it's going to be 51 for the game, so lot of people here, lot of excitement. our players love being here as well. they get the opportunity to experience something from a student athlete perspective they will remember the rest of their life. charles: let's talk about the whole college sports scene, particularly football. a lot of news, lot of questions about where it goes from here, particularly folks are saying hey, the athletes themselves should be benefiting financially. any concerns or thoughts on how this could impact just the whole collegiate sports scene? >> i think there's a lot of concern. there's a student athlete model

that a lot of us believe works but we also recognize the money involved and you know, there's a reality with these players that, you know, they are performing for a lot of people and it's certainly a tricky issue right now in our sport. charles: coach dantonio, you guys are in the stock exchange right now, you are at the heartbeat of where money is made. the shares of nike are up near all-time high. these kids are smart. they see it, they hear about it, they want a piece of it. >> yeah, i think that that's correct. they've got to figure out a way to do it so it's equitable for everybody involved, i think, across the board. i think that's where it gets a little tricky from player a to player z. it becomes a little more difficult but i think those are things that will be talked about at a higher level. charles: gentlemen, congratulations. both of you have fun. we will be watching. thank you. >> thank you. have a good time. charles: the maga etf, you know the etf that's based on stocks that do well under president

trump's policies, up 25% this year, almost even with the s&p. want to bring in the man who created the maga etf, hal lambert. you came up with this idea. i put out a piece on the day after the election of stocks that people should own under trump. i'm proud to say my number one stock has done extraordinarily well because i knew the working man and woman would get back to work and i think that's a perfect proxy for them. what's the process that you use to determine what stocks do well under maga? >> thanks for having me on. i tell you, it's a great fund. the process is this. this is a way for people to invest based on political ideology. if you are supporting trump and you are supporting republicans, this is a way to put your money behind that because the companies in the maga fund are those companies putting political contributions behind those candidates. they are supporting republicans, they are supporting trump, they are doing it through their pacs that they have in their companies as well as their

employees. i took the s&p 500 and it's all s&p 500 companies, and i screened it based on those political contributions and these are the top 150 republican supporting companies in the s&p 500. charles: that is a unique approach to this, although i'm saying to myself how, soon you're not going to have any companies -- i mean, can people, executives in this day and age, even show support for republicans, for republican ideas? dick's sporting goods, get rid of rifles, for instance. it feels like the pc culture has found its way into the executive suite and if you are a publicly traded company, it seems like these executives are blinking. >> well, some of them are, but many of them aren't. you know, they've got to support the politicians and the policies that are going to help their companies. those are a lot of times republican, conservative policies. look, i think this fund's great. it's got about 23% industrials, it's about 16% financials and it's about 14% energy. so you talked earlier about value investing. this is much more on the value

side. it's got very little tech in it. as we know, the big tech companies are heavily democrat and they support democrats to get into office which is kind of amazing if you think about it. the policies of this president with lower taxes and lower regulations have really driven this market higher and created a lot of wealth for a lot of people, and created higher wages for all income stratas, yet those companies are still supporting people like nancy pelosi. charles: yeah, well, that's for another time and discussion. congratulations on your success, hal. thank you very much. talk to you again soon. >> thank you. charles: let's check on the dow 30, folks. the index hit an all-time high. you can see most of these names are higher, boeing having some issues, they came out, they sent a letter to congress on wednesday. that stock got hit then. it's still under pressure. you can see doing extraordinarily well with a nice mix of leaders. gas prices, meanwhile, are slightly higher from a year ago but you know, still pretty afford yaable in the scheme of things. how long will oil prices at the pumps stay low? who better to ask than gas

buddy's patrick duhaan, next. at chevy, we're all family.

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charles: the national average for regular gas, well below three bucks a gallon. in fact, we are now at $2.55. joining us, patrick duhaan with gas buddy. america's energy independence has worked. we are swimming in oil. but there are some serious red flags out of the oil patch, whether it's the permian basin or things in the north dakota area. can gas and oil prices stay this low? >> certainly, you are seeing some struggles right now. that's going to lead to some consolidation there for oil producers in those states, but stepping back, looking at the biggest numbers here, the u.s. closing out this decade, producing close to 13 million barrels per day, this is really the decade of a turn-around in america. we have added 7.6 million

barrels a day of oil production from when we first walked into the decade back if 2010 and that's going to help pave the way for 2020 that's still very affordable at the pump. what a great decade it's been for motorists. charles: of course, we always cheered cheaper crude prices, lower oil prices. now that it's such an american-made product, is there a sweet spot, no pun intended, where we want oil to be at a position where we are creating jobs? because if you look at gdp numbers, the worst part of gdp this year has been business investments and structures which is another way of saying we are not building any oil facilities. that has cratered. those are great paying american jobs. is there a sweet spot where we can see resumption of that and still have oil and gas prices at a reasonable point where it doesn't hurt the consumer? >> i think one could argue that we are knocking on the doorstep of that sweet spot, somewhere between $60 and $65 a barrel, $70 a barrel, maybe being a top. now, keep in mind, this year

it's not necessarily a u.s. only story in terms of an increase in oil production. guyana just had national petroleum day a few days ago as they pumped their first barrels for exports. this is going to be a decade that will see tremendous growth for not only the u.s., brazil, guyana, norway and others, canada included. so another decade of energy affordability. charles: you are the best. we appreciate it. thank you. >> thanks, charles. charles: the u.s. sending spy planes over the korean peninsula yesterday. can we ever truly trust kim jong-un? not a rhetorical question. let me know. tweet me. meantime, we will ask a north korea expert. also, busy holiday shopping season continues with people out returning presents, using the gift cards today. we will show you the record-breaking numbers. the second hour of "varney & company" straight ahead. as a reliable phone company. but to businesses, we're a reliable partner.

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♪. charles: 10 a.m. on the east coast. it is 7:00 a.m. out west. i'm charles payne in for stuart varney. the day after christmas. sales rose 3.4% from a year ago. that is the big green flag for the strength of our economy. another record day for markets. s&p, nasdaq hit all-time highs. 11th day in a row for nasdaq being positive. two names hitting all-time highs at the open, apple and tesla.

i like to bring in market watcher jim awad. you're always optimistic. you're cautiously optimistic. >> yeah. charles: you're the perfect person to ask. all the bears that got it wrong for china trade, optimism, too much of it. individual investor optimism through the roof, always a sign to sell. is it that simple. >> too early. too early. the math supports higher stock price this is year, interest rates low. corporate profits growing again. you could sustain an increase in stock prices equal to the growth in corporate profits next year. maybe even a touch more if interest rates stay low, you get more multiple expansion. charles: why men interest rates will be low for a long time. doubtful the fed will hike rates. some folks think they will lower rates next year but if they don't do anything that is fine with you? >> i think that is what the market is expecting.

if they lower rates that could scare the market. if the economy was strong they raised rates that would scare the markets. they are expecting 2.5% growth in gm p and 5% growth in profits, and a steady fit. i think that is the most likely scenario. charles: some are arguing that even with the profit acceleration next year that is expected it could already be baked into the cake. certainly some stocks are enjoying some pretty high multiples. >> but you probably, highly probably not going to have a year next year like we had, that we had this year. and it moo be, with stocks as elevated as they are, it might be more of a stock-picker's market. then there is the old debate between growth and value. and some growth stocks are expensive, but many of the medium growth stocks, the apples, microsofts of the world, companies with sustainable earnings and a long history of earnings growth are not

overvalued. you can debate companies that don't make money what they should sell at and they may be overvalued but enduring growth stocks are not overvalued and for value stocks to do well you have to have markets continue to be believe they will have reacceleration in the economy and that is why those stocks there is theory growth will get stronger rather than stablize around the 2% level, if that happens, value will do well. if it doesn't happen it will be more after growth year. charles: we got latest read on mortgages. to christina on that? kristina: 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 3.74% which is up ever so slightly. so a tick compared to last week but overall the 15 year fixed-rate at 3.19. a little bit of movement to the upside. but it is still the fourth lowest annual level since 1941, according to freddie mac chief.

charles: bring jim back in. my investment thesis for 2020 based on two headwinds becoming tailwinds. one is housing. >> right. charles: looking at household formation reignite. look at signs, permits and things like that. also business investments, not structures per se, certainly equipment, ip spending, things like that, things that were held back a little bit in 2019, i think contribute to next year. >> absolutely. housing will do well as long as rates stay low because wages are growing, incomes are growing. many millenials postponed forming families and they're demographically doing that now. business spending clearly with the resolution of all the tariff issues, at least for now, at least have some confidence to know that they can spend to know what the rules are. both with respect to north america and with china. we do have to watch continuing negotiations on phase two although i think that's probably a postelection event.

i think that will be a long one but i totally concur with you that business -- that is the reacceleration of the economy. the case, business spending which is weak will pick up -- charles: residential invests first quarter, first time we saw uptick in residential investments in a long time. >> right. the question is supply. can builders find the land? charles: meantime all about the consumer. they are 2/3 of economy. kristina you have new numbers, extra numbers on data coming out for the holiday shopping. kristina: more so numbers we're getting from the nrf. online spending increased quite a bit compared to last year which resulted in some returns too. so the nrf, sorry from mastercard, so 18%. they are predicting too, there will be $42 billion worth of returns specifically regarding online sales. overall we talked about the super saturday or call it panic saturday. the biggest day in retail history, 34.4 billion. think about the people, if you

talk about all the surveys, a lot of people left things to the last minute because of shortened period between thanksgiving and christmas. charles: six fewer days of shopping. kristina: consumer growth strategies survey, 7,000 people, 60% said they wering until last minute, christmas eve to buy goods. some numbers we'll see. amazon, showing prime was stellar a monster. today is big shopping day too because of all the discounts. charles: good point. gift cards, people turning those back in. here's the thing the consumer has been amazing. >> yeah. charles: yet we got consumer spending income numbers. what i love about it, incomes up .5 of a percent, spending up .4 of a percent, both beating estimates but savings rate ticked up, we're at about 8% savings rate. we have robust confident consumer jim but they not get over their skis. think about the great recession

some folks learned their lesson. >> that was a big change for anybody who lived through it. you don't forget those kind of event very quickly. people have been restrained and orderly. they have been spending in line with incomes, savings rate is up. we're in good shape. the area where there is potential risk is a lot of corporate debt out there. low quality corporate debt of the as long as economy and there rates stay low we'll be fine but some day it won't be. charles: as long as wages are growing, people are spending extra money. >> as long as wages growing and people continue to spend 2020 should be a good year. charles: let's check with the big board. as jim was speaking we took off big time. as soon as the market hears his voice it goes straight up. thanks a lot jim. uber ceo travis kalanick is leaving the board of directors next year.

the stock is more or less unchanged. boeing, as you know they have a new ceo dave calhoun. he will focus on cooperating with the faa the company and the army, by the way, meantime finalized orders from three nations to provide armed forces with boeing's ah-643, the big apache helicopters. the big news in the commercial planes. how much boeing has to admit, not misled but certainly did some thinks that were disturbing. congress not happy what they saw wednesday. that is why the stock is down today. move on to politics. impeachment fiasco remains in limbo as speaker nancy pelosi decides whether or not or not to send impeachment articles to the senate. here is the headline from the "new york times." is nancy pelosi caught in a trap or setting one? want to bring in charles hurt, fox news contributor, "washington times" opinion editor. charles, really seems like nancy pelosi got herself in a pickle. democrats are struggling here. she was pushed off this ledge by

the far left. now she has to deal with it. >> i think that is exactly the problem, the root of the entire problem, charles, the fact she got pushed off this ledge. before she got pushed off the ledge she was very clear you coin do this, you couldn't pull this off, impeachment off unless you had broad bipartisan support they have anything but broad bipartisan support. this idea of the house voting for impeachment, then sitting on the articles, not transmitting them to the senate i would argue is borderline unconstitutional but at very least, in my opinion it means the president hasn't even been impeached at this point. it is just like a prosecutor. a prosecutor, you are not indicted until the prosecutor files those charges with the court. and in this case the senate is the court and nancy pelosi has not transmitted those articles to the senate. as far as i'm concern heed is

not impeached. here is the other thing. this notion she will sit back to declare whether or not the senate is proceeding properly or not, that is completely unconstitutional. the constitution says clearly the senate has the sole authority to try the impeachment articles. so, it is becoming i think abundantly clear to voters that democrats and nancy pelosi are doing exactly what nancy pelosi warned against, which is running a full political process with no regard whatsoever to the constitutional constraint. charles: i have 30 seconds left though. there are some folks talking this morning about senator murkowski she is not happy with some of the things mcconnell said with respect to working with the white house and this whole thing. could republicans overplay their hand, at least in court of public opinion with this thing? >> i think there is always a chance of that but i have to say, i think that the house process has been so unfair and

so clearly geared to do one thing and one thing only, that is remove the president, that idea that people are complaining about fairness now, come on, give me a break. charles: charles hurt, merry christmas. thank you very much. >> merry christmas, charles. charles: americans love their pets. that is not a man bites dog headline by the way but get this, folks $72 billion we spent on pets in 2018? we'll continue our wags to riches series. this time all about a device that will let you see, talk, give fido treats when you're not home. it is called furbo we'll talk about later on in the show. it's a phenomenal product. spyplanes over the north korea after the hermit kingdom threatened a christmas surprise. our next guest says we need to stop expecting north korea to surrender. more "varney" after this.

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charles: all right, folks look at the big board. we're still near all-time highs. meanwhile the u.s. sent spyplanes over north korea on christmas according to a report. kristina you have more details. kristina: this comes from south korea's news agency. they said there were four surveillance planes flew over north korea. this could be in response to north korea threatening washington, telling the united states they would give them a christmas gift, i quote that, unless the u.s. makes concessions in nuclear talks with the country. we had fox news confirmed military and united states and south korea have been working together to pay closer attention to what is going on in north korea. this is going on. this is continuing. north korea is reportedly

carried out two rocket engine tests at a satellite site. the tension, it's still there. charles: sure. kristina: all this is revolving around the nuclear talks. why you had north korea threatening and united states is not retaliating but -- i want to end with one comment from the president, maybe it's a nice present, maybe it is a present he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test. this is what he told reporters on tuesday. charles: not just kids who have a christmas list. even the president wants to pick out gifts. kristina: he wants flowers. charles: bring in north korea expert, harry kaszinis. your reaction to this. we saw kim jong-un on a big white house, that always telegraphed him doing something provocative, the promise of a christmas gift did not necessarily materialize. >> it didn't, charles, but i have a feeling if there is no

big diplomatic breakthrough the next few days that the north koreans will test a intercontinental ballistic missile that has potential to coming. maybe it won't happen yesterday or today but the north koreans will not put billions of dollars into nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, but probably materials could have fon to feed their own people where hundreds of thousands of people died because they don't have resources if they don't test the weapons to make sure they work. we have to watch this because the north korean nuclear arsenal, i have seen statistics and war games they could kill up to 100 million people in a war. we have to watch this carefully. but this test is inevitable. charles: when they do the world get as chance to evaluate how far along they come. seems there will be a point if we think they have the ability to pinpoint the accuracy of those long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles we may have have to be more offensive-minded about our approach to them? >> well do. the problem here, charles, we're actually at a point now where

there is no good military options. give you an example. i have done war games over the last few years where we actually gamed out what are president trump's options if he wanted to do some sort of military strike or even regime change in north korea and those war games, millions and millions of people die, the north koreans, they just don't have nuclear weapons and missiles. they have chemical weapons. they have biological weapons. they have millions of soldiers reasonably well-armed, thousands of tanks. this unfortunately is not military problem anymore. it's a diplomatic problem. there are no good diplomate tick solutions but a lot of ways we can mitigate the. charles: united states wrote big checks to kim jong-un's father and his grandfather on premise things to change but they didn't. this is the only currency. how does a dictator give up all the currency you described for promise of more economic aid? that is only thing we could do

for him. so where is that tipping point? >> i don't think there is an easy one. i think negotiated set meant looks something like this. first i think this we have to do admit the korean war is over. right now, charles, theoretically we're still at war with north korea. all there was a truce signed in 1953. the first step is building some trust by getting that peace treaty signed. next you have to do some conventional arms control and even nuclear arms control. ronald reagan did that very successfully in the 1980s, that lessened tensions with the soviet union. i think there is blueprint there. i think we need embassies with the north koreans. we can't keep going through crisis after crisis after crisis with pongyang. eventually something will happen, god forbid, they do a missile test, that missile lands in tokyo, japan or south korea and we're on the brink of war. we need to do things to mitt fate the threat as opposed to pie in the sky solution because that will not work. charles: let me shift gears,

harry. chaotic scenes in hong kong. protests on christmas day. bringing some parts of the city to a standstill. how much worse will it get next year? >> i think gets a lot worse, charles. the chinese are trying a strategy to wait the protesters out. they're hoping all of their rights and demands and aspirations will burn out under chinese pressure. i don't think that will happen. there is a lot of evidence that a lot of good outside people are funding the groups, trying to promote democracy with hong kong. i think that is a good thing. i think beijing will get tired of this, and we could see a tianamen square solution, where thousands of chinese forces mass and kill a lot of people. i hope it doesn't come to that but i think that is where it is going. charles: that is real ugly potential climax of this. for outside observers, it seems like spread. started with extradition. six or seven strong demands.

the most recent protests are detention and concentration camps for the uyghurs. it actually feels like the protesters are fighting more things. that they're doug in pretty good. if that is the only ultimate out come of this? >> yeah. like i said, i do think this will get worse. we have to remember. china's aspiration is eventually overtake the united states to be the next global superpower. they are very close. they have a 12 trillion-dollar economy. that is where they want to go. if they feel hong kong will threaten any of their aspirations i do think they are going to strong. i think this is tipping point for the global community to see who china really is. they have detention camps. this is something we'll have to grapple with. charles: if they think they will be preeminent country with the world's reserve currency doing tianamen style crackdowns. they're not paying attention. harry, thank you very much. always appreciate the wisdom. see you later on in the day. disney finally releasing a

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charles: straight to streaming. our next guest says one in 10 households already have disney plus subscriptions. bring in channel factory advisor dallas lawrence. so disney, are you suggesting that they have got, they could win the streaming wars next year, 2020? >> i think we saw some real breakout stars in 2019 that will forecast the winners in 2020. on content side, disney was clear breakout star.

bog iger said the goal was scale big and launch fast. they clearly did that. 10 million subscribers on day one. that was the beginning of the magic. we saw a million new subscriptions after that. they ultimately reached one in 10 new households by end of november. we expect the number to be one in three next couple month. what is fueling that is the fantastic content lineup. they have beloved movies, thousands of television programing. commitment to the original content like "the mandalorian" propelling them. the interesting race to watch in 2020 is the platform race. platform race is really important. roku is in a poll position. all the great content whether disney, hulu, needs a operating system to view. roku is number one operating system by far. there is great network effects from the business for competitive market. when we saw disney for example launch, roku downloads went up 50% as disney subscribers needed

operating system to watch. last companies that are winners are advertisers. we have $70 billion in the u.s. spent on television advertising. very little goes to streaming. that is changing dramatically. companies like hulu and pluto tv owned by viacom have integrated models doing well. samba tv has code on 25 million smart tvs changing the way we advertise. clear winners are emerging. a couple losers. i think netflix has head winds going into 2020 as do the linear cable companies. charles: disney jumped out a lot faster than anyone anticipated except perhaps, bob iger. we'll talk to you real soon. coming up, congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez says we're living in a fascist society at a rally for bernie sanders. she is getting a lot of heat for that one. but where do millenials stand on her comments? that is next. ♪.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ lucy in the sky with diamonds ♪ charles: stuart may be out. we pay homage with the beatles. everyone loves the beatles. director of notre dame cathedral in paris not too optimistic regarding repairs of the burned down church. that is tough to hear. what is going on? kristina: i will look that up. i didn't know i would be covering that. i apologize. charles: i saw earlier the number was. kristina: 50% chance being saved. we know the controversy in france you had a lot of wealthier people chip in right away. that raised the comment among a

lot of french people, here you go, wealthy people are not helping us. but the restoration work for this church will begin in 2021. it was a huge hit to the economy, given it is such a tourist destination. that is pretty good news it will move forward. 50% chance. that is not 100% chance. that is a big blow to the economy. charles: a lot of folks worry about it can you restore it where it was do you start to mess around? there was chance to modernize it. there was, talk about making it more reflective of modern society. there was uproar about this i think you try your best to bring it back to the former grandeur. there is ways of you know, using modern-day technology that should be able to help with that. kristina: you would think so. why the 50% number is a little bit concerning. the other big thing too, which goes to your point about traditionalism, they have not been able to host a traditional

christmas service. that is the first time since the french revolution. do you think an institution like this, it has been forever history books, should it be changing for time? or should we sometimes hold on to the traditions we know? charles: should be rebuilt exactly the way it was, bottom line, period. kristina: that is what they're hoping. 50% chance it will be saved. charles: markets are open. moving towards high of the session. dow jones is up 52 points. most of the names are higher. disney of course had a pretty good year. one mistake, maybe they're fixing. finally selling baby yoda dolls. kristina. kristina: have you seen "the mandalorian"? charles: i have. kristina: the show. the internet is obsessed with the baby yoda. now it is a disney product. you have to go to etsy where 30 party sellers created their own version this is plush toy, 24.99. if you are excited i have to buy

it. you won't get it until al least march first, 2020. that is the at earliest. also "the mandalorian" producer jon favreau doesn't want disney to watch out with the products for the show. there is secrecy around the episode. this is this themed around "star wars." i have not seen the show. maybe you can weigh in. this is well-received. charles: for 2019, my wife favorites are lamar jackson. she loves his football playing and baby yoda. kristina: why? charles: i think they need to euthanize the hands. doesn't look like baby hands. alexandria ocasio-cortez loves to shoot from the hip. she is always going for outrageous comments. her latest salvo during a rally for bernie sanders ruffled a lot of feathers. take a listen. >> what we're living in right now is not an advanced society.

>> we are going to fascism. that is what it is. >> it is fascism. evolving into as well. charles: bring in emma michelle. young americans for liberty analyst. she is considered an icon amongst millenials, amongst progressives. would you say many of them actually agree with her, that we're evolving or some would say devolving into a fascist society? >> look at her following. she has this massive following amongst young people, i was talking about this with a friend the other day, who is not involved in politics. still know who she is, what she believes. this is dangerous when we have someone seen as lightning rod for youth, saying we're not advanced society? the united states is the most advanced, best place to live in the world, hands down no matter who you are. the fact she is calling us a fascist country shows how little she understands history, right? if this was a fascist country, she wouldn't even have a twitter account much less be able to go

up on a podium, talk badly about our political system or leader. that is not something you have freedom to do in fascist country. shows how little she understands history. charles: it does. a lot of folks out there get fascism wrong to your point. that being said, she has influence. she has a lot of power. it is only growing. she raised more money than any democrat not involved in democratic elections. she is leader, she will be a leader in that party for a long time. what do you think the ramifications would be? she is influencing policy. a lot of people say she is one of the main reasons we have impeachment right now. >> yeah. we have to be paying attention to what she is saying and what she is doing. this like you said is going to set the tone for youth politics and democratic politics in general. this is something that scares the main line base of the democratic party because they obviously understand we're not a fascist country. yes, i have my disagreements with them. at the end of the day we agree

america is a good place to live. when you have someone seen as such an icon for youth politics that says america is inherently bad place, a fascist place where you can't make a living that is not a good message, not something americans want to hear. we want to be inspired, motivated this is a god place to live. that we have hope. that is not what she is giving. charles: emma, stay right there. president trump signed a defense bill, a spending bill. in that bill he raised age to buy cigarettes and i cigarettes from 1821. william, everyone is not happy about this new smoking age. reporter: even president obama did not go it far this applies to all cigarette products, cigarettes, cigars, e-cigarettes and vaping. that is responsible for number of fatalities. among the 19 states already raised the smoking age, many do

not enforce the laws. >> we know tobacco and vape shops should be adult only. half the places don't check i.d. or sell to minors. reporter: president trump wanted to prann e-flavored cigarettes and was told that could drive companies out of business. libertarians argue this is big government hypocrisy. 18-year-olds an vote, buy a rifle, join the military but under the bill signed last week can't buy a tobacco product. >> i think it is stupid we can send us people to other countries to fight for our country, age 18 but we can't even, we're not even allowed to drink or smoke. because, like, those are all adult-like things, you know? reporter: those are adult-like things. so the next round in this fight, health experts want the fda to regulate the flavor and additives in e-cigarettes to

reduce youth smoking. charles, back to you. charles: william, thank you very much. i want to bring emma back in to get reaction to this. emma you heard from william, some of the folks there saying this is government going too far? >> yeah. it absolutely is. when you think about this, really, i think about my 20-year-old brother who is in the air force. he can go off and fight in another country and put his life on the line. actually be drafted to do so, compelled to do so by the government but when i want to go buy a christmas cigar he can't buy one with me. that shows how out of line our government is. they are trying to prescribe morality to people who are adults. you can vote. you can go off to another country. you can pay taxes. you can buy a home. but they think you don't have the personal autonomy to go out to make a health decision. that shows how big the government has gotten. i think founding fathers are rolling in their grave right now thinking about the fact that the government wants to regulate

tobacco. charles: by the way, always thought you were incredibly smart and wise for your age, but cigars, wow, you have gone up another notch in my books. >> thank you, thank you. charles: italy will charge a new tax on pet companies, folks. kristina, how hard will this hit companies like facebook and google? kristina: same tax in france, 3% on digital revenue. italy will do the same january 1st. the specific thing italy will focus on business-to-business transactions, advertising, services of cloud computing, won't include streaming platforms. will be a break for supreming services like spotify. the tax is where the value is created. a lot of big tech companies, even though they're serving the entire population in several countries all across europe, they're not paying the same court tax rate that companies based there are doing. so you have these countries that have been weighing in, saying that is not fair.

which is why france did it, italy doing it. uk, canada looking into imposing their own national digital tax on tech companies. charles: yeah. kristina: the major sticking point though, they want the united states to go to the oecd and create a national or blanket strategy. so far the united states is not working -- charles: united states, trump administration is opposed to all of it. kristina: international bodies. charles: it could actually become a major issue in 2020. kristina: with all these countries. charles: thank you very much. let's check oil, folks. a new guest says america's energy boom we should be celebrating this. warns democrats could take it all away next year. that is next. ♪. imagine traveling hassle-free with your golf clubs. now you can, with shipsticks.com!

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charles: folks, check the big board. now up more than 50 points. we're in record territory across the board. three major indices. check out oil fenn. at the highest point in three months n a quiet rally there. gerri willis at new york stock exchange. gerri, what are big drivers now? crude oil pretty big rally mode. >> three straight higher days in a row. that is what makes it. the report from the american petroleum institute really helping things. they're saying that u.s. oil inventories shrinking down by 7.9 million barrels last week. that is the biggest decline more than four months. think about it. prices are going up. that is the way the world works. we have wti, up 11% in december. 35% on the year. big move for oil prices as you're seeing, following through. gas prices as well of course. the other thing helping here, that trade news, right? we like the idea that trade news is improving.

that means better economies across the planet. back to you. charles: gerri, thank you very much. my next guest says we should be celebrating america's energy dominance. he were the a piece in foxnews.com rejoice in america's energy boom. don't let democrats take it away in 2020. bring in daniel turner, power for the future executive director. lay out your case why this is so great particularly, when climate change, fossil fuels are a big topic in 2020, not the kind of top i can that, they're not celebrating in the way you're saying we should? >> they are not. you're running for democrat nominee. you have to pivot to something negative. you have to find something that you can run on. they can't run on america's energy success. when you look at 2019. for the first time in 70 years we're a net exporter of oil. that is just absolutely incredible. we are the largest natural gas producer in the world. a decade ago we were third in both of those rankings. a decade ago, you were talking about the price of oil. oil was hitting $140 a barrel.

now we're talking about a high of 61. so when you have domestic, abundant energy, that you can produce on large quantities that produces a reliable power source for the economy, manufacturing costs come down, agriculture costs come down, the cost of living comes down. we see that we have record sales. you talked about it on your shows. we have record sales in stores. record restaurant sales. report travel sales. america is celebrating american energy. charles: correlation to gasoline prices american prosperity and politics is well-documented. when gas is cheap, americans get happy. that is pretty simple. yet on joe biden, on day one it would be his admission to get rid of all these jobs. >> joe biden said there is no place for fossil fuels in my administration. that is a direct quote. i do not understand how he claims to be middle class joe, i'm the blue-collar guy, he wants them in places like pennsylvania and ohio which have hundreds of thousands of people

working in the fracking industry. how do you say you will get rid of fossil fuels, embrace alexandria ocasio-cortez's radical "green new deal" which makes fossil fuels illegal? charles: daniel, it is so crazy. look at top earning job sector. number one is utilities. number two, folks that work in the oil fields. they pay more than any other job in the country. where you get middle class folks to send their kids to college, start a business, change the course of their lives. >> exactly. charles: to your point, not just joe biden. every day, a major car companies announcing major electric vehicle plants. there is no demand for them. i have to say to myself, what do they know that we don't know? by the way they admit they will end up having fewer workers now. they are laying off tens of thousands of workers to make cars nobody wants? >> the electric vehicle sham, i have no problem against it philosophically, i do oppose the subsidies that electric vehicles

get. i question, are the electric vehicles made in electric factories? no, they run on conventional energy. they have to be plugged into an electric grid. that electric grid plugs on conventional energy. charles: get rid of coal and, whatever, something that is renewable. it just, i think there natural way things happen in business. i feel like the government trying to make these things happen when we don't want them, before there is a way to transition people to real good paying jobs is gargantuan mistake on their part. >> exactly. democrats running should see america celebrating america's energy dominance and celebrating america's independence should embrace that. charles: daniel, thank you. president trump is holding the first rally in 2020 in ohio in early january. we'll talk about the focus on battleground states with rnc deputy communication director. also we continue our wags to riches series. we'll talk about a device called

furbo, it lets your friend get treats when you're not home and monitor home for trespassers and monitor emergencies while you're not there. we have the guest next.

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charles: so don't skimp on those dogs, on dog treats at least a new study that helps you keep track. kristina, what is going to happen. kristina: headline says one story but when you go into the details -- this story is from emory university. the dog may not count difference between four and five treats but the dog has capabilities according to the study, they looked at 11 different breeds, the dog uses same part of the brain as human does when it comes to counting. they scanned brains of dogs, and saw movement in the brain. you know how a headline can say one thing but when you dig into it, showing dogs, may be deeper thinkers that we might think? a lot of people spend money on dogs. this is another story. charles: my wife don't feed dog

human food because he will go on dog food strike for two days. she is always angry at me when i do that. we all spend a lot of time talking about our pets and we love them. we spend $72 billion a year on them, just in the past year. we're talking with our next guest. he is with a company called furbo. welcome to the show. we have one on set. tell us how this work it sounds very exciting. >> furbo is great way to check on your pet when you're out of the house. it lets you see, talk, toss streets out to the pup. charles: any past loanian thing we are going for here? people go to work, pet tears things up we're still here, here is a little doggie treat? >> absolutely.

furbo mon force for dog activity, things from your cat or kid. when your dog is active, sends you a little alert, check in, watch a video. we get a lot of people catching dogs up to miss chief. up for moments of joy throughout the day. charles: how is it going so far? i saw an ad online. i was very attractive to it. >> it's a popular camera. the most popular pet camera in 11 countries. we're the most successful amazon seller of any product, black friday through cyber monday this year. charles: really? that is absolutely mind-boggling. where do we go from here with this product? >> so, you know, we're going from here is asking ourselves, what would you want a pet sitter to do, when you're not home? so, what else do you want to make sense of or monitor using computer vision or a microphone? so for example, maybe you want to be able to differentiate

between your dog's barks. maybe you want to know if your dog's jumping on a couch it shouldn't be on. so sort of helping, helping keep your pet safe, keep tabs on your pet. charles: andrew, congratulations. it's a great product. thanks for sharing it with us. >> thank you. charles: traditionally many people retire, they move to florida, especially those here in the northeast but there is a new list of tax friendly states where retirees are headed to. we'll tell you which ones. plus lan regulations are the norm across this country. we have a guest who says regulations are driving the cost of housing through the roof, pun intended. so don't go away. third hour of "varney & company" coming up. ♪ there's a lot of talk about value out there.

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charles: good morning. it's 11:00 a.m. in new york city, 8:00 a.m. in california. i'm charles payne in for stuart, while he takes a well-deserved holiday reprieve. to all our viewers out there, really, we hope you had a lovely christmas day but it's back to business today. your money, well, doesn't take a holiday and good thing, because we are at record highs on the s&p and nasdaq, the dow not far behind. we have strong holiday numbers on holiday shopping spending, online shopping hit a record level. overall retail sales up 3.4% this holiday season. kristina partsinevelos breaks down the numbers for us. kristina: you are seeing online sales, that's a big number that retailers are paying attention to, investors as well, up 18.8%, this is according to mastercard. you are seeing, we talked about this, the super saturday, also known as maybe the panic saturday, where really it was the largest retail spending day in history at $34.4 billion. the strength continues across the globe but i didn't get to

say this in the previous hour, some tips that i'm seeing online because i am all about the discount. if you are in the market to buy any technology, it's best to wait until january because of the consumer electronics show. once that comes out, the new products, then you see a lot of retailers discount old ones. the second thing is pay attention to your retail return policies. they are becoming tighter in terms of time, not 90 days necessarily. then the third one, there are a lot of options out there for you to get deals. there's an amazon price tracker, honey, a browser extension, all ways i like to find a discount. retail sales doing much better. that's helping target. charles: it's really a joyous time. you can actually feel it in the air. i want to bring in heather zumarraga. heather, first, these numbers we just talked about, what do you think about them? the consumer certainly thriving, the economy, but can the consumer keep it going into 2020? >> oh, absolutely i think so. the year-end rally continues. i know some markets were closed because of the holidays around

the world, boxing day, but our markets are open, as you can see, and the consumer is really driving i think our economic growth in the u.s. higher and we are seeing that wages are increasing for the people that need it most, the blue collar workers. amazon confirming this was a record-breaking year, billions of dollars of goods sold worldwide. so it's just confirming the trend that in 2020, we will also have a strong economy as long as the consumer hangs in there. charles: you know, the federal reserve and others have always tried to engineer what they call a virtuous cycle and i contend it has to be organic, coming from higher wages, greater confidence in employment. it's hard to break it. the more we feel confident about this economy and the more we spend, the more we spend, the more people are hired, the more they go out and spend money. i feel we are right in the thick of that now. >> i really thing your optimism, people like yourself, it transpires to the viewers and you're right, confidence begets

more confidence. look, i think for 2020 we are not going to see over 20% returns in the indices, record-breaking returns, but even if we still get single digit returns, 7% to 9% in the stock market, 2% to 3% gdp growth, less volatility because we have china phase one deal passed, usmca will be passed, i think that just leads to more certainty for the markets and the economy. charles: meantime, we had some rubbernecking about things happening in d.c. this impeachment situation. now, if i'm right, if i read this correctly, you don't think it's going to affect the markets, so does that mean, you know, the democrats, the longer they drag this out, the better it could be for the stock market and the economy? >> well, i hope they don't drag it out but it appears that's going to be the case. but investors see through this. they know it's dead on arrival in the senate and they know that president trump will not be impeached. if anything, the markets have actually increased 5% since the impeachment hearings started

october 31st, i believe that was the date, so it doesn't change fiscal and monetary policy, the whole impeachment process, and investors know that this is going nowhere. it's a partisan sham and they see through it. charles: so interesting, about three, four days ago, bloomberg which, you know, they always have negative articles about trump and the economy, they wrote a piece that said the market is up despite impeachment because they think the president will survive and it was -- i thought it was funny because they admitted that was their only way to get them to admit the markets want president trump to stay in office. >> hey, however they want to admit it, that's fine. but you can look at the data, you can look at the numbers. so if naysayers, i said this before, even if you don't personally approve or like president trump, the policies of deregulation, unnecessary deregulation and tax cuts have fueled this market higher. the policies that are coming out of the administration. and you can't say well, nobody cares about the market because over half of americans have a

401(k) or a pension or some form of retirement that's tied to stocks even if they're not day trading so it does matter. the economy does matter to americans. you can't discount half the population. charles: the surge in wages, blue collar wages are on -- i think this is the best surge for wages in two decades. what everybody cares about that. let me just find out, what's your concern, what could derail all of this? >> well, i think now that we have trade past us with usmca phase one deal and we have the fed cut rates three times this year so i think they're on pause unless we have some inflation data that's either going up or down to sway the direction of the fed's policy moves, but i think that the only thing that could change this is we discussed the consumer, the confidence of the consumer spending at some point in time, you are seeing the savings rate also go up and consumers might be a little reluctant but right now, confidence is strong, the consumer is strong, so i guess i

would hinge the biggest risk global growth. the u.s. is still the best house in a bad neighborhood. i guess we are seen as a safe haven on a global basis. i guess either democrats winning or global recession. those would be my two. charles: meantime, it's all about two things, it feels like. momentum, fang stocks, these big momentum tech names, and consumer -- communication services names have been on fire again yet there's also been picking at names that have underperformed. what's the combination in your mind that keeps the rally going? what will lead the rally where investors have opportunity to make money in 2020? >> i think you are seeing some data on the manufacturing and production side, for example, that was weak, that you are seeing signs of life and it might be because of china or the technology sector as you rightfully pointed out has been on fire. micron saying the chip maker saying they maybe hit a bottom in their cycle so if you are seeing outperformance in other areas or other sectors due to,

say, a china deal or due to usmca passing, then that's what is going to keep the markets going and it's just, look, today will be a big shopping day. it's after the holiday but i will be shopping online. got to work from home, you know, kids' schools are closed for two weeks so i can't really work today so i will be home. my boss already knows. but that will keep the economy going, my spending, i suppose. charles: you are doing your part for productivity as well. thank you very much, heather. want to check on boeing. the company, the stock is under some pressure now. they've got a new ceo, dave calhoun, who by the way has an amazing resume for stepping into these kind of situations, and now they are cooperating more with the faa. they sent a letter to congress. unfortunately, it means perhaps more pressure on the stock, but at least we will get the real deal and that might make the resolution that much faster. also, let's check on nike. that stock up ten cents here. the company just releasing a new sneaker. this features colin kaepernick.

it sold out in the first day. the demand, do we really know the real demand for this shoe? kristina: of course. that's why we can say it sold out if they sold 1,000. we don't know the actual numbers for nike. shoe sells for $110. it's called the true to 7. you can see there's kaepernick just on the back of the shoe over there. it just brings up the whole conversation of his success even though he's not playing, he was the first one to take a knee down during the national anthem -- charles: isn't that etched on the shoe somewhere, the first game he played without the thing? i thought it was somewhere on the bottom, the date of the game. kristina: i didn't read that at all, actually. i have to check in and get back to you on that. charles: $110, a little less expensive than most nikes. kristina: it's not out there in terms of pricing but it still sold out. he was also the one that asked for the betsy ross flag shoe to be removed, which they did. they even had a just do it ad

campaign with him and won an emmy off it. there is the betsy ross shoe. kaepernick did link that to the era of slavery. charles: although be great for him [ inaudible ] betsy ross herself. listen, we are still in the holiday season. let's keep it cheerful. but it does mean arguments, right? on set, with relatives, about politics. lucky for you, the trump campaign has created a website. it will give you all the information you need to know to stand your ground and get this, it's called snowflake victory.com. we will talk to the rnc about that one. also, we will ask about president trump's first rally in the new year. it's going to be in the battleground state of ohio. he won by a pretty big margin in 2016. if you want ohio to know it's really up for grabs this time around, we will ask someone from the rnc. third hour of "varney & company" just warming up. ♪

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charles: 2020 democratic presidential candidate pete buttigieg announcing a new contest to drum up fund-raising. what's the gimmick here? kristina: okay. so he's asking people to give the lowest donation possible, be creative with the number and i'm immediately think a penny, are we going to donate a penny? other people have taken to twitter to say this is really a gimmick including someone from sanders' campaign. why? because mayor pete has been criticized -- not criticized but he has larger donations and sanders is one of the democratic candidates who goes onstage saying he has such average low donations, aka, a lot of people are just giving small amounts, it's a good thing, appealing to the masses. so this could be a way for him to lower his average donation amount. charles: another gimmick that's happening is the people are giving, but they are giving more than once. in other words, i'm going to

give a hundred bucks, i may give you ten bucks ten times and your average donation technically is ten bucks instead of a hundred. a lot of it is gimmicky to begin with. kristina: political guys, you really have to think outside of the box. all this happening around christmas when you do see more donations come higher. charles: thank you very much. meanwhile, president trump has been making his way across key battleground states and while he's showing no signs of slowing down, he will hold his first rally of 2020 in toledo, ohio. i want to bring in rnc deputy communications director casey smedley. how worried should trump be about the state this time around? >> well, that's correct he did win it by eight points in 2016 but this is him saying you were there for me in 2016, i have been there for you the last three years and let's do giit again. his next step in ohio will be his 26th in ohio since the 2016 primary started. that again, not just in ohio but

against key battleground states, president trump is saying i appreciated your support before, i made these promises to you, i'm keeping these promises to you and let's again keep america great. charles: got to tell you, what we have seen so far from these rallies have been mind-boggling. honest honestly, they are like a tour de force. all these people stand out in cold temperatures and long lines and it's something that was created in 2016 and a lot of people were wondering if president trump would be able to have that magic again. it feels like it might have gotten stronger. >> yeah, i agree with you. not only are people coming back and the lines have gotten longer, some have started as early as 48 hours out, but they are bringing family and friends and we for our part at the rnc and with the trump campaign have found a new way to capitalize. it's not just here's your event, rsvp, we want to know who you are, get you involved, volunteer, make sure you are registered to vote, make sure your friends and family are volunteering.

we have seen an influx of more than a million new people come into the movement and the rallies are a big part of that. here's my favorite stat about the rallies. these aren't just, you know, life-long card-carrying republicans. on average, nearly a quarter of rally attendees are registered democrats. there's no one on the left who can claim the opposite happening with republicans coming over to their side. it's not happening. it's only happening with the trump movement and it's happening as a direct response to the results that we have seen over the past three years. charles: shocking, shocking stat. i never heard it before. hold on a second. i want to get to this. president trump's campaign out with a hilarious new website called snowflake victory.com. tell us all about it. kristina: they launched it on christmas eve and there is a big banner that reads how to win an argument with your liberal relatives. we know we don't want to talk politics over the holidays but the website, you see it right there, there's about 12 hot button talking points ranging from the wall, health care, how much elizabeth warren's plan will be all the way to

impeachment and there's arguments there and you had several trump administration staff members that have been promoting it and tweeting it online, encouraging people to go after their liberal snowflake friends. charles: all right. of course, the website also lists the president's accomplishments. cassie, as we wrap up 2019, give us, in your mind, besides this website, president trump's accomplishments. >> well, certainly the economy. he just posted today we had another 3.4% i think growth in christmas spending. that tells you people feel good about the direction things are going, they feel good about the extra money in their pocket, that we know is the number one issue people take to the polls with them. that's not going to change. we see this strong economy meaning a good sign for president trump and republicans next november. but again, i want you to pay attention to that crossover of democrat support for the president. that's only happening as a response to these great results that we have been able to see over the last three years. charles: great stat. i had not heard it before and i will be focused on it. we all will. cassie, thank you very much.

appreciate it. next case, we truly are invested in you here at fox business. we have gotten wind of a new study out that lays out the 13 most tax-friendly states that you may want to retire to. surprisingly, a couple are blue states. we will tell you which ones, next. ♪ i recently spoke to a group of students about being a scientist at 3m. i wanted them to know that innovation is not just about that one 'a-ha' moment. science is a process. it takes time, dedication. it's a journey. we're constantly asking ourselves, 'how can we do things better and better?' what we make has to work. we strive to protect you. at 3m, we're in pursuit of solutions that make people's lives better.

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what will you change? make the world you want. charles: so you're looking to retire in 2020? you better listen up because we are breaking down the most tax-friendly states for retirees. kristina has the details. kristina: there is a very long list and this comes from "u.s. world news" and i'm just going to take it in alphabetical order. alabama is on the list. i will go with the really long list. alabama, alaska, because there's no state income tax, florida on there, no income -- florida, we talked about many times on the network, that they have had the most number of movers to florida, because of the situation here in new york. the president being one of them, the president domiciled or his home is now technically in florida as opposed to new york. on that list as well, illinois,

mississippi, that's because pension or social security can be subtracted from taxable income, then you've got nevada, no income taxes, new hampshire, pennsylvania, south dakota, tennessee, and i would encourage everybody that is looking at this right now to head to foxbusiness.com. we have the full list of details there and more specifically what the median real estate taxes, some homes, it breaks it down into really some detail as to why those are more tax-friendly. no new york, obviously. we know that. charles: i'm thinking about buying real estate down there. kristina: in alabama? charles: all my family is from there on my mother's side. speaking of retirement, a person who should retire is rapper kanye west. he had a special christmas surprise for his fans, though. what's up, because we know this is not the first time he's delved into christian music but he's been big into it. kristina: yeah. he's huge right now with this. he has dropped on christmas day an album called "jesus is born"

and this comes after his "jesus is king" at blbum. you can find it online. west has really dabbled in i guess focusing more on christianity, he's been hosting services, gospel services. he even, him and his church or the group he's associated with, they were at coachella and performed in april of last year. he's dabbling in the opera as well. in november he launched an opera which i haven't read the reviews on how that did, but he's got "jesus is king" and "jesus is born" and sunday services, opera services, let's not forget his brand that's been going very very strong. fashion label. charles: extraordinarily strong. juxtapose nike stock against adidas the last few years. kristina: that's what you were referring to before. charles: i'm really happy he's doing this. i loved all the things he's doing -- kristina: more the attitude sometimes, the negativity comes from maybe the ego. charles: yeah, but you know

what -- kristina: he's doing it. charles: in a world where atheiism is getting momentum we need more superstars to step up. that's my personal experience. kristina: spirituality is great. charles: uber's travis kalanick apparently sold all of his stock now. we will get jeff hoffman's take on that and the tech ipos, 2019 was disastrous. will it change next year? "star wars," questions about that, the force, and it had a lackluster opening. we will break it down for you next. ♪

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charles: quick check on the markets. we're at highs of the session. s&p and nasdaq at all-time highs and dow, not far behind, gaining pretty good traction this morning. meanwhile, uber founder and former ceo travis kalanick is leaving the company's board of directors. i want to bring in jeff hoffman.

jeff, kalanick, it's interesting in the sense that we know he might have been uncomfortable being on that board, but to sell all of his stock and move on here, you think this is the right move? >> well, charles, listen, i'm going to give you two choices. you can swim alone directly into a category 5 hurricane with people yelling at you, or you can take roughly $3 billion and go home and lay on the couch with nobody yelling at you. i think, i mean, you can get back to me on that decision if you want but i think from his perspective, let's look at the hurricane they were facing right now. it was, i don't know if anybody would really want to take that on. uber lost $1.8 billion in 2018, but they lost $5 billion in the second quarter of this year alone. that's more than amazon, they lost more in nine months than amazon lost in seven years. i don't think it stops there. if you look at the core economics of the business, which

is a question that i think people weren't asking early on, the core economics of the business right now, they lose 25 cents on every dollar that comes in, but here's the important one. they lose $1.20 on every ride they give. i'm not a mathematician but i'm pretty sure you can't make that up on volume. charles: you know what, they already admitted they have done billions of rides so that means billions of dollars in losses yet if you read the s-1, you know, necessithey admitted theyt sure they would ever be profitable. the current ceo hems and haws when asked about it. seems the only way they can make money is if they remove human drivers, yet the stock seems to have found some support. there have been a lot of up breaks in this stock, several this month and several last month. what is wall street saying? >> i think there is definitely optimism that he left and with the new ceo coming on, but i want to tell you what i think they are not seeing. how do you get to profitability. that's the question we are all

asking. what are the core economics here. there's two sides to that. can you cut costs, can you stop the bleeding a little bit from the losses, and i think the answer might be no. you already have drivers upset and complaining that they are averaging $10 to $12 an hour, that's typically what they make doing this and you already have potential issues where there might be regulatory changes, where they have to treat drivers as employees. very expensive. but let's look at the other side. if you can't cut costs, can you raise prices. because you got to get there somehow. it's getting worse in that sense. the competition is getting stronger and better, which drives prices down. uber got kicked out of london, in europe they are competing with bolt, in russia, a huge market, they are competing. in china they are having trouble competing. think about this, which i think people don't know. 70% of the global ride share market is in southeast asia. uber is having a tough battle in

southeast asia against grab and go jet. if you ask me it looks like a race to the bottom. i'm not sure you want to be part of a race to the bottom. charles: kalanick is moving on to bigger and better things from his perspective. i did feel bad when uber rang the bell and he wasn't on the balcony. it is what it is. he's got $3 billion and has moved on. i want to move on, too. 2019 saw a lot of disastrous ipos. you can argue the market worked, at least individual investors got hip to the idea silicon valley would run up the valuations of these names, then dump them or foist them upon an unsuspecting public. people were saying i'm not going to overpay for these names. can we see some sort of change in 2020? what are you looking at for these ipos coming up next year? >> i tell you what the good news is. what this is leading to is kind of a correction, because somebody asked me people like wework, whose valuation went from $47 billion at one time to this last round, softbank

invested $8 billion, so people said are companies like wework ruining the ipo market. i think what they are doing is rationalizing it. now we are starting to ask the questions, because companies like pinterest and peloton and slack's ipo is down 40% from its initial offering, people are starting to say what are the core economics of these businesses, how are they going to get to profitability. and the corporate governance question is coming up. people are starting to say you get these superstar ceos with too much power and how are they really governing the company, who is making the decisions, who surrounds them, and these issues, you know, we had those issues with both, i think you saw some of the governance issues with both wework and uber. i think that that's good news for the market is that we are rationalizing and asking the questions we should have asked in the first place. charles: but the fixation on unicorns, there are still missing unicorns in silicon

valley. i think in the last quarter, about 38 or so, and there's this sort of pride hey, this is a unicorn, before the american public used to participate when these companies went higher, and not wait until they peaked, but i got 30 seconds. got to ask you, what ipos should we be looking at for next year? >> well, i mean, we do have some good ones coming up. airbnb, everybody is watching that. i think that's going to be an interesting one. you are going to see door dash. you will see stripe. there are some great filings coming up that i think everybody should be looking at and it's great the head of the s.e.c. is trying to find a way for smaller investors by lowering the requirement for qualified investor to get in on ipo so more people can be part of -- can join this party. charles: jeff, thank you very much. appreciate it. >> absolutely. charles: amazon announcing another record-breaking holiday shopping season. thanks to shoppers not just in america but around the world. you say it's all about the echo?

kristina: they can use it to purchase their goods and this is a time when a lot of amazon customers are taking advantage of prime. according to amazon, more people have tried prime than ever before. they did the 3.5 billion customer packages globally in 2019 so these are some of the numbers we are seeing. for the holiday season, you saw quadrupling of prime free one-day and prime free same-day, and then the number of prime members subscribed to grocery delivery for the first time this holiday season rose 80%. i got it over packaging. i bought $40 worth of goods and it came in about four different boxes. that's something they still need to work on. there was so much empty space in the boxes. nevertheless, it shows how they are taking over the market and creating their own delivery services as well so they don't need to use fed ex. charles: phenomenal. thanks a lot. so after opening the presents, many families are headed to the movies. the new "star wars" film crushing the box office on christmas day. just how much?

kristina: $35 million in the first -- on christmas day, which is honestly one of the biggest movie days of the year, because there's nothing else open. i tried to get tickets yesterday, went to three different theaters online booking and they were sold out. the 3d period came in at $92 million so it's still the third best performer for the "star wars" franchise after "last jedi" but "jumanji "yesterday, $12.5 million. "frozen 2" which is another disney movie, that came in at $3.5 million. "knives out" $4.5 million on christmas. i just want to jump, you have "little women" but the sixth is "spies in disguise" also a disney property. you see the top six movies, three of them are disney properties. shares of disney right now, yeah, up about 19 cents at $145.48. charles: i'm hearing uncut is

the film to watch. hearing about that? kristina: no. oh, is that the one with adam sandler? oh, i did hear about it. he's taking on a different, more serious roles. yes. somebody told me it was amazing and i need to go see it. then "bomb shell" is number nine which should be interesting. charles: thank you very much. i want to check on peloton. you remember we had the peloton husband on the show a few weeks back from that sexist holiday ad. i want to come back to you because he's actually back in the news. kristina: yeah. he's doing it purposely to get back in the news. guess what, folks, that's who you are seeing on the screen there, his name is sean, he bought his real girlfriend a peloton. we know the controversy around this advertisement is because he bought the actress or actor in the commercial, peloton, she looked, you know, so sad, looking for approval and showing her progress even though people said she stayed 116 pounds throughout the entire commercial or less, but he wrote here's hoping this goes over better the second time. merry christmas to my actual

girlfriend. please, in brackets, please don't leave me. looking at the actress, the woman in that commercial, she got another gig with ryan reynolds to help promote his gin. this guy has gotten so much hate online for it. there you can see, there's the picture of this man and his real girlfriend. if i remember correctly, he's a canadian and i think he's also a school teacher. he's not doing this full-time. charles: so peloton shares are down now a little over 5% today, almost 6%, down probably around 20% since then, although it wasn't necessarily the ad as much as the negative sell by -- they are saying it's going to $5 a share. kristina: you mentioned that earlier. the guest thought it would resonate with millenials, which the price point is so high. they still have -- charles: they've got some issues, like the guy we just talked to, this is one of the questionable ipos, to be honest with you.

maybe a good story for the actors involved. thanks a lot. next case, congress is still on holiday recess. they reconvene on january 7th. but that hasn't stopped our next guest from penning a new scalding piece on nancy pelosi. matt mcavie is with us, he says she overplayed her hand on impeachment and the cards will fall. he will explain. also, alaska senator lisa murkowski breaking with the gop old guard on impeachment. at least she's leaning that way saying she's disturbed by majority leader mcconnell's coordination with the white house. some are saying cracks are beginning to form with the gop. we will ask matt about that. ♪ ♪ ♪

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charles: now turning to impeachment, our next guest says house speaker nancy pelosi has no leverage on impeachment and

will fold. want to bring in matt mccoviak. it's interesting because it looks like even the "new york times" may be agreeing with you right now. >> yeah. that alone should make me second-guess myself. but in spite of that, look, there are so many reasons the detail in this "washington times" column why pelosi won't get what she wants. the house doesn't have leverage over the senate as it relates to impeachment. it's not like this is a bill going to conference committee where both houses have to pass the final. the senate didn't get in the middle of the house process and the house isn't ultimately going to get into the middle of it effecti effectively in the senate. she has no leverage over mcconnell. mcconnell knows this. all mcconnell is asking for is to use the same process that was used in the clinton trial which is that she present -- you present both cases, both the impeachment managers and the white house lawyers would present their cases and then at that time, you would have a 51-vote threshold on whether there are witnesses and which witnesses to call.

so that's all he's asking for. i think that is what will happen. i think she will fold after the first of the year. she doesn't want to delay this. she's imperilling the scheduling of campaign travel for four or five democratic u.s. senators running for president, including two of the top four candidates. and lastly, i would just say, charles, if trump is this urgent threat to national security and to democracy, then why would you delay forwarding the articles of impeachment? charles: there was certainly a great sense of urgency to the play-up to all of this that somehow has evaporated. i want to ask you about a potential wild card and i think people aren't quite sure, the role of supreme court justice roberts. what exactly, when they say the supreme court or the justice, chief justice oversees this, what exactly does that mean? >> yeah. he effectively serves as the judge for the trial. but what's unusual in this case is that you have both sides ultimately determine the process ahead of time. so you are going to need a

bipartisan agreement to begin the trial. and that's in terms of how long it will go, what each side presents, those kind of things. ultimately, the chief justice is the judge that will rule things in or out as the trial begins. charles: you talk about this 51-vote threshold. republican senator lisa murkowski saying to a local television station that she's disturbed by mitch mcconnell's coordination, coordinating the senate with the white house, as an impeachment strategy. matt, i don't know that anyone is under any illusions there is any sort of bipartisanship here but is there something to the public relations aspect of this, of acting or saying that you are impartial and could this be the crack in the armor for the gop? >> yeah, i mean, there are so many calls and pressure campaigns being put on, folks like mcconnell, lindsey graham, saying they are not impartial. no one is saying that about bernie sanders or elizabeth warren or kamala harris, the democratic senators who have already said they have decided to remove trump from office.

look, murkowski is a wild card. let's remember she won re-election to the u.s. senate as a write-in candidate after losing her primary race. she feels the need politically to demonstrate independence in that state and she does it from time to time. i wouldn't worry too much about this. you would need four republican senators to join with all the democrats to force the issue on witnesses, and right now, we are just not there. charles: so i want to bring up one more thing, because there's a new article out in politico saying that rank and file democrats are starting to warm up to bernie sanders and that he might actually be the nominee. i will say this much. it seems like he's gotten stronger since the heart attack, seems like his message has gotten clearer and more crisp. it feels like there is a wind in his sails. maybe it's the wind that elizabeth warren lost. >> i think you make some great points. i think he has been rising over the last month or so. as warren has faded, as she peaked early and has down, hasn't really been able to take

the attacks on the medicare for all plan and explain it. she seems to be moving back to the middle a little bit and that's opening up room for some of her supporters to go to bernie sanders. he has alexandria ocasio-cortez who just held a massive rally in california for him. he's rising in iowa. look, he has a high floor and low ceiling. i don't necessarily think he will be the nominee but i do think he will be a factor and he very well may win either iowa or new hampshire, in which case it will be hard to prevent him from going throughout the entire calendar and amassing delegates and playing a role at the convention. charles: i got to tell you, when i watched the debates, i try to watch it as someone who is without any political ideology, as if i was a voter trying to make a decision. at the very least, he has the most energy, he seems the most authentic. he seems to have the best answers to at least -- like he's not going in the wind, he's not poll testing things to see what they look like. i mean, his answers are, to his point, he will tell you i wrote the bill.

it feels like he's the more authentic when it comes to the far left stuff and i think it's got him a solid base of followers. >> yeah. keep in mind, you know, look, you can make an argument he's already won the primary in the following sense. his ideas were seen as radical four years ago in the democratic primary. they are now considered basically mainstream. right? at least half of the major candidates are adopting his views on issues, whether it be climate change, health care, you name it, corporate influence in politics, those kind of issues. so i still don't necessarily think he's going to be the nominee. i think elizabeth warren or joe biden or even pete buttigieg all have a more clear path. but because democrats allocate delegates proportionally, unless there's an overwhelming frontrunner after the first four states this will go on until may or even june, perhaps even a convention. charles: it would be interesting to see bernie the power broker, considering what happened to him by the democratic party last time. appreciate it. thanks, matt. coming up next, we will talk real estate with the former hgtv

star mike aubrey. he's got a bone to pick with all the red tape that comes with building a home and says that it is actually raising the price of homes. we will let him sound off on that, next. (thud) (crash) (grunting) (whistle) play it cool and escape heartburn fast with tums chewy bites cooling sensation. ♪ tum tu-tu-tum tums

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how you show up for the world, that's what's real. what's your idea? i put it out there with a godaddy website. make the world you want. charles: president trump is reigniting his feud with california's governor gavin newsom. it's all over that state's homelessness crisis. kristina: that's what the president tweeted out to the governor, saying if you don't get it under wraps or you fix the problem, they are going to pull federal funds. we know just according to some data, it really does lead the nation when it comes to the number of homeless people. as of january 2018, that's the latest i could find, 129,972. almost 130,000 homeless people and according to that number, 68% of those are unsheltered. so the president has also said we may hold money back from the wildfires. charles: hud just put out the report a couple days ago, and the country was up 14,000,

california was up 21,000. it is a shame and it's an absolute nightmare. the richest state in america, $3 trillion gdp, that many homeless people. thank you. in the meantime, the nasdaq cracked 9,000. folks, we don't have any 9,000 hats but we will celebrate. that's a record. you are looking at right now for the nasdaq. blue cities like san francisco, new york city, seattle, have imposed so many more regulations on real estate development that our next guest is actually driving up housing costs and he's here to make his case. real estate expert mike aubrey. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me, charles. charles: it's ironic, maybe there's a correlation but these are the states where the housing prices are extraordinarily high, by the way, the homelessness is extraordinarily high, too, as a side issue, but why, why do they keep layering on regulation after regulation? >> you know, that's a great question. because listen, when you look at this thing and you look at it over really the past 50 years, they have done nothing but create way, way more regulations than are needed, and right now,

i mean, you just talked about the homeless crisis in the bay area. right now, we also are at an all-time low on inventory. so if you have developers who are trying to build properties, do developments and you end up making it almost onerous to try to do that and taking a really long time to be able to do it, it puts them in a position where they are going to have to, a, pass that cost back to the buyer, and b, the other real big thing is it takes longer to do, which continues to keep our inventory low. charles: so i got less than a minute, but when will this insanity stop? it's easier to build a $50 million spec house than to build a building where you can house a lot of middle income folks. >> listen, what you are talking about is density and that's exactly the problem we have. here's the issue. builders make more money off of high-priced houses than off entry-level housing. if your process and your impact

fees that are out there are going to the builder, the builder is going to give it to the buyer and now that means the builder is going to build big money houses instead of entry level houses. charles: it's crazy. absolutely nuts. mike, thank you very much. appreciate your expertise. more "varney" after this. ♪ most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. (man) we weave security into their business. (second man) virtualize their operations. (woman) and build ai customer experiences. (second woman) we also keep them ready for the next big opportunity. like 5g. almost all of the fortune 500 partner with us. (woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. . . there's a lot of talk about value out there.

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kristina: should talk be prepared. charles: of all the stocks six are semiconductors led by advanced micro. catch me one more time today and every weekday on "making money." starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern. moan while connell mcshane takes it from here. connell: we're here on "cavuto: coast to coast." i'm connell mcshane filling in for neil the next couple hours. we're continuing to smash records. nasdaq trading today the first time ever above the number of 9,000. we point out global markets added more than $17 trillion in value in the year 2019. courtney dominguez joining us and kadena group president gary b. smith, whether the rally continues into 2020. courtney, you first on this, the run, it has