noi y you like las vegas sands, innovative industrial properties. the stock is through the roof. and gwph. some various, they cross a lot of industries. appreciate it. always love your insight. liz claman, got a strong rally. everyone is looking to this 4:00 meeting and maybe we will get stimulus this time. liz: exactly. maybe. how many times we have to ask this? what charles is talking about if you are just tuning in, breaking news, we are about to see a breakthrough on billions of dollars of coronavirus aid question mark, maybe. markets are betting it could actually be right around the corner. look at this rally we have. we are just one hour away from a meeting of the congressional minds. the top four leaders, senate and house, about to negotiate the final version of the covid omnibus spending bill and that's enough to break the s&p 500 out of its longest losing streak

since september. the russell on track for a record. maybe the dow might make it, too. we are about 10 points away. it comes as the pfizer coronavirus vaccine makes its way to essential workers across the nation, day two, but could some wicked weather disrupt the distribution? we are going to take you live to dallas-ft. worth airport where they are loading the planes as quickly as they possibly can. meanwhile, landlords struggling during the pandemic as small businesses shut down and skip the rent payment but one sin city landlord bucking the trend in the epicenter of the covid shutdowns. its ceo is here to show his hand and it's a full house. he's here in a fox business exclusive. wait until you hear the dividend they pay out. is america in the middle of a full-blown global cyberwar? russians now accused of hacking thousands of u.s. government agencies and businesses, using a back door in the solarwind

platform. it's being called one of the most significant national security failures in years. the former israeli ambassador to the united nations is here with a threat analysis. israel dominates cybersecurity and he's ready to share that technology in order to build new business relationships with nations of the world. first we begin with a fox business alert. breaking news. you are looking live at seattle, washington, where front line workers at the university of washington medicine hospitals and clinics are getting the pfizer/biontech coronavirus vaccine. again, this is just moments ago. we do have the caregivers, nurses, doctors, environmental services staff and also the respiratory care therapists at the facility. they are all first in the state to get the shot. today, 75,000 doses of pfizer's covid-19 vaccine are scheduled to arrive in 19 different texas locations, including two hospitals in dallas. more is on the way as fed ex and

ups planes wing their way around the country with the precious cargo. let us take you now live to dallas-ft. worth international airport, where fox news correspondent casey steagall is camped out where the ups planes are idling. tell us what you have been seeing and we are trying to beat a weather storm, are we not? reporter: that's right, liz. we see a flurry of activity over here at the dallas-ft. worth ups cargo hangar. lots of planes going in and out. of course, we don't know which ones have the actual vaccine on board but what happens is this is a vast network of systems and what we've got are some of the vaccines being flown into major hub airports like dfw and also places like chicago and miami, then they are distributed out. they are loaded on trucks and then they are delivered to the point of care or the dosing

centers. 425 sites across the country getting their shipments today. you add that to the 145 that received theirs yesterday and another 66 centers will receive them tomorrow, according to hhs. each specially insulated cardboard box contains about 4800 doses and as we said, they are then loaded up on trucks and delivered, and those tasked with moving these vaccines consider it a real privilege. >> i lost a relative three weeks ago. three, four weeks. so it impacts all of us. so let's let the healing begin. reporter: so here in texas, 19 sites receiving about 75,000 doses today. more than 19,000 went out to four locations yesterday, like methodist hospital here in dallas. texas has been allocated nearly

a quarter of a million initial doses that will go out to 110 different providers across the lone star state, but you talk about that winter weather that's supposed to be impacting parts of the east coast coming up over the next couple of days. fed ex, ups, everyone says there are contingency plans in place. we are certainly hoping that that weather does not delay any more of these shipments. liz? liz: well, bless ups and fed ex. we are looking at a sky overhead and it looks pretty dark over there. we are waiting on what could be a foot of snow in the new york city area. just at a terrible time. we can take a look at ups and fed ex stock. casey, thank you. fed ex is moving pretty much flat but ups is definitely higher at the moment by .5%. let us flip it over to shares of zebra technologies on the tail end here. this is the maker of smart temperature gauge labeling on the vaccine packaging. this morning, it blasted, you can see to the far left side

there, the intraday chart, to an all-time high after distribution chief tony cicchin appeared here on "countdown" yesterday to show zebra's smart labels. yesterday we showed you they are equipped with built-in temperature gauges that indicate whether the subarctic temperatures required to keep the vaccine stable have been compromised and earlier today, we did see that all-time record high for the bar code company zebra. we do want to mention somebody is taking profits at the moment because it has now reverted to the downside. fox business alert. look at apple here at this very moment, it is adding 35 points to the dow jones industrials, by far the blue chip leader here. it's jumping 4.5%. the move sparked by a nikkei report that the tech titan will increase its iphone production in 2021. now, according to apple, it will manufacture between 95 and 96 million iphones during the first half of next year. that's a 30% increase from a

year earlier. obviously the 5g cycle is just starting, but this, just 24 hours after the launch of its apple fitness plus app. some, i put that in quotes, some business networks outright pinpoint it as a major threat to the peloton app, saying it does the same thing but at a cheaper price. well, doesn't really look like peloton investors are putting any credence into what some out there are saying, because peloton shares are jumping 3.8%. to our floor show traders. jon corpina, phil flynn. jon, peloton leadership aside, apple is no longer a tech company, it's a lifestyle company. do you buy apple or do you buy the stocks, the technology behind this lifestyle company that's within the apple ecosystem to make it work? >> good afternoon, liz. full disclosure, i have been an apple holder for a long time. i don't trade it. i simply buy it and hold it. that being said, i'm a true

believer in the mothership. yes, there's a lot of companies within the ecosystem there that get to profit off of apple's continued growth in different products. but when you look at apple as a company, it is a lifestyle stock. it's going to continue to be a lifestyle stock and company. i think this price level that we're at is one that's somewhat important. if you go back to the end of the summer when the split came in apple, apple came down to the mid-teens and has been trading in the mid-teens to low 20s for quite some time. this is the first real bump-up we have seen since then. if it can continue on this and trade above 130 and stay above that level, it will get closer to the highs. nasdaq is trading up close to or at the highs, yet apple is about 8% off its highs. then we continue to talk about the cash on hand that apple has, about $200 billion. that's off the highs we have seen before but that money has got to be put to use at the right time. once again, i'm a believer in the mothership. i'm a believer in apple.

you can see opportunities in the ecosystem there, but why invest in the ecosystem when you could take the driver of the train right there. liz: right. you get the whole cow and the milk. i'm mixing metaphors here, phil flynn, but i was looking at apple, you know, the all-time high close, $134.18. all-time intraday, $137.98. where we are now is just hardly below that, $127 or so. do you like any of the ecosystem names within the apple or at least under the apple umbrella? >> you know, i think jon's right. i think you want the mothership overall but there are opportunities at these other companies. i always, whenever we talk about this, liz, i'm always reminded you are always better off buying a share of apple when the new phone comes out as opposed to buying the phone. you do a lot better financially and you don't have to replace it in three years, right? so that's always a good thing. or two years, depending on who you're at.

but there are some companies out there right now. one of the reasons people may want to look at those, because they can't afford a lot of apple. there are some of these firms where you can pick up a few more shares. one that's kind of off the radar service a lot of different companies right now. their stock actually looks the best technically right now compared to some of the other ones. like broadcom and those kind of companies. [ inaudible ] lost the iphone rights so there's another company out there that's going to take over that spot. there are opportunities there. you have to really look around but at the end of the day, you are going to want apple as part of your portfolio not just for this play or the new phone but it's interesting. i remember they say we have to ramp up production of the iphone for the new 5g. didn't you hear the same thing on the iphone 11? sounds like deja vu all over again when it comes to iphone. there's always pent-up demand

for these new phones. liz: yes. it's the short memory that people have when it comes to the markets. good to see you both. thank you for weighing in on apple which i do remind our viewers is the real driver behind this gain of 353 points for the dow jones industrials. we do need to see a gain of 356 to make it a record close. solarwinds is extending its losses. remember we showed you the stock yesterday? as more government agencies reveal they were targeted in this massive cyber-attack that exploited a weakness in the cybersecurity firm's software. russia stands accused. on the heels of the u.s. breach, 40 israeli companies also hit by a mass hacking effort. now that effort being blamed on iran. is the world on the verge of an all-out cyberwar? we are about to direct that very question to former israeli ambassador to the united nations. the closing bell ringing in 49 minutes. the s&p up 44.

the ambassador joins us after the break. ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa

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liz: boy, is this a stark description. the "wall street journal" today describing the depths of the suspected russian hack that's left federal agencies and u.s. businesses reeling like this. quote, the breach could amount to one of the most significant national security failures in years. this news comes as israel just experienced its own mass cyberattack. the former israeli ambassador to the u.n., who served as israel's minister of science and technology, joins us. welcome. let me ask you point-blank. are we on the verge of a full-blown global cyberwar? >> thank you for having me, liz. yes indeed, we are in the middle of a war. here in israel every day, we face hundreds of attacks, cyberattacks, against institutions and government sites and we are dealing with it. we don't hear about everything that's happening but we are seeing the numbers going up every day and it's coming from

different directions, from iran, from other countries. liz: israel in particular has had a very tough year, according to what i read and that is that iran has tried five times this year alone to attack, and sometimes obviously in its most recent case, successfully. israel is dominant when it comes to global cybersecurity. what are you doing, because you have now this diplotech organization and tomorrow you will be speaking with nikki haley, former ambassador to the u.n. for the united states, and talking about sharing some of this technology with countries that you are now forming new relationships with. >> well, today we have a new reality. today we have challenges that we both have to join in to work together and that's exactly what we are doing at the diplotech summit. we are bringing world leaders to speak with israeli entrepreneurs

to see what we can do together to face the next challenge. we are now starting to speak about covid, but there will be another challenge. it will be another cyberattack, it could be another virus. that's why we have to work together to share, to share our technology, our know-how, with other countries. you know when you speak about cybersecurity, it's not only about the u.s. and israel. even in africa or other developing areas of the world, they all use cell phones, they use the banking system, and they are facing cyberattacks also. so today we have to work together to get ready for the next challenge. liz: one of the things that israel is also doing when it comes to innovation is it is trying to develop its own vaccine. it is now in phase 2. this is an elite group of israeli scientists putting it together, just like what these elite groups of cybersecurity analysts mostly trained by the military in israel have done.

wednesday, just a few days ago, a huge pfizer vaccine shipment arrived at the airport and prime minister netanyahu was there to greet it. can you just give us a sense of how this is going to roll out in your country of 8.8 million? i understand 300,000 doses have arrived and you are expecting about eight million doses ordered. >> we are very optimistic as we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. prime minister netanyahu said it very clearly that he will get vaccinated, he will be the first one in israel to get vaccinated and ambassador haley and myself are calling the israelis and everybody all over the world to get vaccinated. i think leaders would give an example by doing it first. that will be the case here in israel. and we are eager to collaborate with other countries to help other countries and hopefully in a few months we will be able to travel, to allow people to come visit israel. our industry is based on

tourism. it was a very tough year for our economy. liz: yeah. this is tourism, this is catholics, this is christians, muslims, they all descend on jerusalem to see these unbelievable locations, the wailing wall, the western wall, you know, the church of the holy sepulchre. it's stunning. when you talk about innovation, though, this is a tiny country, 8.8 million people. how soon do you expect that everyone will be vaccinated, especially considering you just saw another breach of 2,000 new cases a day? >> so we are looking at this like a military operation. unfortunately, we have experience in times of emergency and we mobilize the military and they help us to get as many and as fast more people get vaccinated and i believe it will take us about two to three

months and we hope that everybody will get vaccinated. my position is everybody should get vaccinated. i think this is the answer to what we are facing today. liz: before we go, we have a president-elect, joe biden. this is a man i am sure you know from of course the obama administration. this after you have had a particularly strong relationship with the trump administration. what are israelis looking forward to? are they concerned? do they feel open-minded about this administration that's incoming right now? >> first we are grateful for president trump and for the administration. look what's happening today. we are signing peace accords with four arab countries. that is amazing and we have to be grateful for the efforts of that administration. i am sure we will work with president-elect biden and his team. we have to look at this very

carefully and the iran deal, the jcpoa, whether the u.s. will re-enter that agreement or not, we are worried about it. my colleagues are worried about it. i hope the u.s. will not re-enter this agreement. it's a bad agreement, bad for the u.s. and bad for israel. liz: well, the diplotech summit is tomorrow. i am an honored participant to be able to be invited to moderate it. thank you. good luck to you. >> thank you very much. liz: inspirational country. >> thank you very much. liz: any time. when we can travel, i'm there. happy hanukkah to israel. thank you so much. movement on two major d.c. fronts at this hour. it took 44 days but senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has now formally congratulated president-elect biden and vice president-elect harris on their win in the 2020 election. what today's action means for the stimulus battle and the

millions depending on unemployment benefits. closing bell ringing in 38 minutes. we are taking you live to capitol hill next. - i sent your new prescription to the pharmacy. - any idea how much it will cost? - [doctor] i recommend goodrx. you get free coupons to save on your prescriptions. - goodrx, smart. - [announcer] stop paying too much for your prescriptions. - thanks. - download the free app today.

liz: fox business alert. the real real getting a very real boost into the close. piper jafferie initiating shares for the online shopping destination for second-hand luxury goods at an overweight. look at this pop, 12% to the upside here. the firm believes closet cleanouts will be coming back in vogue as americans emerge from their homes post-covid vaccinations. as you see, shares up $1.83 to $17.16. the online pop's not stopping there. chinese internet giant baidu reportedly ready to charge into the world of electric vehicles. citing sources, reuters is reporting the tech titan considering building its own electric vehicle and is holding talks with auto makers to

potentially contract or form a joint venture to make the dream a reality. so baidu is jumping 11.5% but china's ev universe also in drive on the news. look at nio, xpeng and li automotive all in the green today. leader is nio up 5.8%. back here at home, ford hitting the gas on its electric ambitions. the all-electric mustang mach-e is hitting showroom floors today. ford popping on the news, up 2.33% as the company positions the car as an ev aimed at non-ev buyers, with 65% of preorders already coming from people who had previously never owned a ford. nice move here. ford now stands still, just about $9.12. from evs to an all-out laser battle. needham kick-starting autonomous driving sensor maker velodyne at a buy, the bullish call coming

one week after citron research joined the ride after slamming the bumper of rival lidar maker luminar calling that company a quote, sucker's game. laser shares, luminar's ticker sim be symbol, down and falling 13% today. veloydne speeding ahead by 3.4%. okay. we are just getting this breaking news, folks. we need to tell you. in just over half an hour, let's call it 31 minutes, congress's top four leaders will meet to discuss the spending bill to avoid a government shutdown but in addition, billions of dollars in coronavirus and stimulus aid. there's a special guest. chad pergram live on capitol hill with details on congress's heavy lift ahead of friday's deadline. who is joining the meeting? are they going to get anything done, chad? reporter: good afternoon. well, this is the most significant movement in coronavirus talks since july. house speaker nancy pelosi is summoning other top

congressional leaders to her office for a conclave at 4:00 p.m. eastern time, the secretary of the treasury steve mnuchin will join by phone. the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. >> the way forward obviously is to put aside the two things that are the most contentious on each si side. liability protection and state and local. we all know the new administration is going to be asking for another package. reporter: keep in mind mcconnell had a good working relationship with president-elect biden when they served together in the senate so mcconnell may feel he can cut a deal with biden on a liability shield. but issues remain over money for state and local governments, even the bipartisan coalition of senators couldn't agree on local aid. >> state and local government assistance i support completely. i know what my cities, my

counties and what my state has gone through. they need help. we couldn't agree on including that in the package at this moment. reporter: now the hope is to finalize the $1.4 trillion spending package to avert a shutdown this weekend and then attach covid aid on top. liz? liz: chad, keep us posted. right in the thick of it. chad pergram of fox news, thank you. doubts over its valuation putting airbnb in the red for a third session. this despite a comeback in its business helped by the cdc deeming the home sharing giant's offerings safer than hotels. airbnb pulling back by 4.33%. how many of you are even heading to a hotel or theme park or casino or anything away from home this holiday season? guessing not too many of you. one ceo says the travel and leisure economy is still worth the bet on his stock. vici property ceo, the name

behind caesars and harrah's makes the case next. with the closing bell ringing in 29 minutes, dow jones industrials up 294 points. the russell still on track for an all-time record close. don't go away. we'll be right back. it's been a tough year.

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i trust 'em, i think you can too. trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. call now so you can... retire better liz: we all know that covid-19 has been brutal on travel industry stocks, but you'd have to say that vegas is the epicenter of the pandemic bomb. the number of visitors to las vegas has plummeted 54% year over year, according to the las vegas convention and visitors authority, as many have had to close casinos, hotel rooms, limit the number of people, so that news of that plummeting has to be nails on a chalkboard for any real estate company, but real estate giant vici properties which owns the land on which some of the most famous gambling destinations in the

world sit, and this includes caesars palace and harrahs las vegas right on the strip, well, their business is actually booming. let us welcome right now the ceo in a fox business exclusive of vici properties, ed pitoniak. we brought you in because landlords around the nation are getting crushed. even major retail names are missing rent payments to the biggest of big names. yet your revenue jumped more than 50%. what is going on in your world, especially considering you own the land under which these casinos sit? >> yeah, liz. first of all, thanks for having me. it's been a very interesting nine months since mid-march when covid really first started hitting. during this time, over these last eight months, we have collected every dollar of cash rent owed to us by our five tenants, including caesars, our one and only tenant in las vegas. we own two assets there, caesars

palace las vegas and harrahs las vegas. our tenants have not missed a single month of rent for two key reasons. number one, our real estate is absolutely mission critical to what they do and they are not shoeboxes a few doors down they could move into should they decide not to pay us rent. the second driving factor behind their ability to pay rent to us is just how economically majestic their businesses are. obviously in the best of times but even in the worst of times which is what we were facing in the spring, their access to capital, their liquidity and their ability to manage their costs and then the reopenings played a key role. the one last thing i would add is once the assets did begin to reopen, especially the regional assets posted levels of profitability that actually exceeded profitability for the same period prior year.

liz: people were angling to start gambling once again and there's that vegas feel which is just insane. yes, the talking statues at caesars are one of my favorites because i'm a geek. ed, look, you do have properties that are not open right now. greektown, michigan. harrah's metropolis in illinois, harrahs in joliet have shuttered. what do you do about that? >> well, you know, liz, back in late march, early april, if you and i were having this conversation i would have had to concede that all 28 of our properties were closed. that is not the case today. there are still 24 that are reopened but the more important point is what last spring taught us is our tenants have an ability to close the asset down as had to be the case in the four assets just cited but when the bell sounds and they are able to reopen, they reopen quickly, they reopen safely and most importantly, they reopen to

paying guests who cannot wait to get back to the asset. so we don't think we are facing anything like the crisis we faced in the spring, where we didn't know when assets would reopen, we didn't know how they would perform when they did reopen and at that point, you know, it's painful to remember this, but we were being told by various authorities last spring that we could still be facing a two-year wait for vaccines. and of course, the most exciting news of all is that this week, americans started getting vaccinated. liz: you also own a couple golf courses. may i say, we have covered the golf industry doing unbelievably well. obviously it's easy to social distance, you are outdoors, people are taking up golf. my question to you is, you also own a big property of about 34 ac acres just off the strip. any consideration about turning that into a golf course when you only have 18,000 hotel rooms under your umbrella. i'm doing your business for you here. making suggestions. >> you know what, we may name

the course after you if we go ahead and do it because it's an idea no one ever talks about. it would be intriguing. our four golf courses have done tremendously well. really, really well. and it's an example of the american urge to get out, get out of the house, get together with others, and we believe fundamentally, that we are facing a period here once the vaccine really starts to take effect, once we begin to really get covid under control, we are going to face a period of consumer booming behavior that we haven't seen in arguably 100 years. it was a very interesting quote from j.j. abrams, famous director, writer, producer, who said he doesn't believe it's coincidental that the pandemic of 1918-1919, the so-called spanish flu, was followed by the roaring '20s. we at vici are certainly believers, as are our tenants, that we could be facing our own

version, i shouldn't say facing, we could be about to enjoy our own version of the roaring '20s, the 21st century version. liz: yeah, indeed. ed pitoniak of vici, we are pulling for you guys. i like the dividend there, about 5%. we keep it going and we will see. a landlord who is actually doing well. thank you so much. we'll be right back. charlie breaks it next.

liz: president trump has a little more than one month left in office but when he leaves, could he face a whole new slew of challenges? to charlie gasparino, who has news on who might be waiting for the moment the president leaves the white house and these are not necessarily friends. charlie: yeah, and it's the

manhattan d.a., cy vance, very powerful law enforcement office. everybody knows he's investigating trump. that's not a secret. but what is new here, we've gotten this from people close to the manhattan d.a.'s office, is that he's expected to vastly increase resources and personnel to investigate donald trump, president trump's business dealings, when the president leaves office in january. what sources are telling the fox business network is that d.a.cy vance could create what's known as a special task force inside the manhattan d.a.'s office to investigate president trump, his business dealings, his taxes, his dealings with insurance companies, his dealings with deutsche bank as well, one of the big banks that did business with donald trump, one of the few that did business with him after his brush with bankruptcy in the 1990s. why is this an important story? listen, if there's a special task force within the d.a.'s office, that's all they're going to do. they are going to devote time

and energy to people on that task force just for investigating trump. so it's putting the target on him a lot more, a lot more seriously, and again, you know, the d.a.'s office does a lot of investigations, investigators, lawyers work on multiple cases, but the ones on this one are going to work just on the trump business dealings. what could they be looking at? tax issues, insurance issues. michael cohen, the former trump lawyer, once said that donald trump would inflate his holdings to get more insurance coverage and deflate it to pay less taxes. that could be something they are looking at. we should point out this is very politically fraught, and not only that, these are difficult cases to make. donald trump has had plenty of lawyers going through what he's filed over the years. he's been under audit forever. no charges have been filed. before you jump to conclusions that something's going to happen here, be real careful. politically fraught because from what i understand, joe biden, the president-elect, is not in favor of this. he would like to move on. as you know, he and his son,

particularly his son, has his own tax issues to worry about. he's under investigation. so that's where we are right now. fairly interesting story. it's going to come to a head i believe after he leaves office. one more thing, liz. i have to give lydia moynihan, my producer, kudos on this. last week, she was the first and essentially only person to report that pete buttigieg was at the top of the list to be transportation secretary for president-elect biden and he was likely to get the post, that eric garcetti, the l.a. mayor, was not going to get the post because there was some personnel problems he had within his office. today, as you know from the headlines, it's going to happen. kudos to lydia. she was first to report this last week. kept us way ahead of the ball game on mayor pete buttigieg who will make some history here. the first i believe member of the lgbtq community, at least one that's openly lgbt, to be

named to a cabinet post. liz, back to you. liz: yep. his abilities with the meritocracy, he appears to be the one who may do a good job there. thank you, charlie. small caps and large cap names hovering at records right now. but what about meeting in the middle? today's "countdown" closer has some midcap picks to make your portfolio sing. with the closing bell ringing in nine and a half minutes, the russell 2000 is about to close at an all-time record high. don't go away. this is decision tech.

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liz: breaking news. we need to take you to atlanta, president-elect joe biden is throwing his support behind the democrats running for senate in georgia. he is speaking right now at a campaign event for jon ossoff and rafael warnock. they are embroiled in tight runoff races that could tip the

balance of power in the senate if they were both to win. ossoff faces republican senator david perdue. warnock is up against senator kelly loeffler. the ronoff is scheduled for january 1st. this is biden's first campaign trip in six weeks. look at the dow up 324 points. closing bell ringing in seven minutes. markets we could see last minute closes if we see a rally. dow needs to gain 356 points to see its 11th record close of the year. russell needs eight. now it is 42. that would make it the 10th record of 2020. imax getting a boost this hour after price from benchmark. there is bounceback trade of nearly 50%. analyst mike hickey said imax should have only limited exposure from any exhibit tore bankruptcies. while imax is jumping 4 1/3%. without saying as much investors

interpret exhibitors to mean amc, cinemark which have absolutely struggled. get to cheryl casone in the fox business newsroom. cheryl. reporter: both stocks fell after a report in the "new york post" said the two companies,amc is down 10%, cinemark up 2 and 3/4%. both companies, control 1/3 of all u.s. movie screens in the company. they could come to an arrangement where cinemark could run venues where amc is in default. that "new york post" story was denied. amc would sell a huge amount of class-a shares. with a filing with the sec it entered into equity distribution agreement goldman sachs and b riley to sell one million class-a shares. as of october 30th, amc had 86 million class-a shares

outstanding this would dilute the stock. amc tapped the capital markets multiple times. they have been in trouble. both of those stories hurting amc in general. the plight of these movie theater chains, liz, is obviously still the hot topic for conversation and a little desperation. back to you. connell: i'm looking forward to sitting in a movie theater though. i'm one of those people loves to be there listen to the crowd and say shhh, be quiet. reporter: popcorn. liz: that's okay i'm full on extra butter. not just the large caps. the russell 2000 index is hitting a record high at this hour. small caps showing muscle as the economy slowly recovers but today's "countdown" closer says you know what? aim for right between the big and the small, the mid-caps. lisa ericsson, head of traditional investment group at u.s. bank wealth management,

218 billion in assets under management. lisa, why aim for the middle lane? >> we really think it's a great middle ground between large and small cap as we look forward into 2021 there are good prospects of economic recovery what we see the economy holding its own as well as the vaccine. the reason we picked mid-cap a great way to play it over time historically shown to have better returns and not quite as volatile as the small cap names. in terms of great return risk rate tradeoff we think it's a sweet spot. liz: if we look at all the s&p major sectors today, all 11, they are all moving higher but which sectors in the mid-caps, the smaller and mid-cap names are you gravitating toward right now? >> well, liz we are actually advocating a clients a broad exposure to mid-caps and again one of the reasons why we think mid-caps are so attractive

because they really have a nice blend of sector exposure to again to pick up on the recovery. while you still have tech names in there, health care names, you actually have nice exposure to many more economically sensitive sectors like industrials, materials, financials. we really advocate buying a package deal on the mid-caps at this point. liz: let me broaden this discussion really quickly here with our final minute. the federal reserve began its two-day meeting today. are you expecting any kind of move? how closely should investors be listening to the fed which in the past really moved the markets? >> we are really expecting this particular fed meeting to be more of a non-event. certainly everything the fed says is pretty important. really what they indicated in past meetings as well in the conversation leading up to this particular meeting is really they're planning to stay the course and there hasn't really been a lot of chatter around potential new announcements. there may be a little bit more

guidance around outcome-based outcomes how long they keep interest rates low. i think generally the market knows they're very committed to easy monetary policy. liz: lisa, what kind of economic recovery pace are you anticipating this coming year? >> so for the first half of 2021 we're really expecting positive economic numbers. if you look where we are now we've had nice recovery but not an ability to fully reopen absent more broad reopen opening so really the vaccine not expected to fully hit until we enture 2021 should allow the economic pace to pick up. additionally as you look at it to your point we have a nice monetary environment. while there is some contention over fiscal support i think generally the understanding is that you know, we need to continue to bridge the gap. so we are optimistic, glass

half-full as we look into 2021. [closing bell rings] liz: lisa ericsson, thank you very much. gang, both a russell and nasdaq record close here. that will do it for "the claman countdown." we will see you tomorrow. connell: stimulus hopes, also a vaccine rollout really helping to lift stocks today. the fda clearing the path for what would be a second coronavirus vaccine, this one coming from moderna. it is expected to win emergency use approval by friday and that news may be offsetting a little bit the rising virus cases we continue to see. they have spiked to nearly 16.6 million in the united states. any minute now meantime house speaker nancy pelosi meeting with mitch mcconnell and other leaders on cap total hill. they say they will try to negotiate the final version of a covid relief bill. as we look at the numbers at the close investors like that talk finally maybe getti