the dow jones industrial average looking pretty good. so is my friend cheryl casone, in for liz claman. cheryl, this is, what, this is the second to last trading session of 2020. cheryl: yeah. we will see how we do in the next hour. got some good numbers. we will see if we can boost those a little bit. thank you very much. we also have this right now. that's breaking news. the senate is set to gavel in at any moment. they will get the ball rolling on a veto override of the $740 billion defense spending bill, but still no vote set on the house, that $2,000 stimulus check president trump supports. we will get the state of play on capitol hill. there's a lot of moving parts right now we are following for you. meanwhile, lauren just mentioned this, the dow, s&p 500 trying to wrap the second to last trading day of the year at new record highs. the dow needs 68 points, the s&p 500 needs 8 points to do the trick. as you can see, with the s&p

just below that level, the dow and nasdaq are actually looking pretty strong. it was definitely the nasdaq, though, that was the runaway market leader for 2020, as tesla, which is the hottest ipo, one of the hottest stocks out there, excuse me, a lot of hot ipos and the work-from-home stocks really powered the tech-heavy index but can it keep up that sizzling hot pace for the new year? that's a big question on a lot of folks' minds right now. the nasdaq investment intelligence executive vice president is going to be here to share her insights on what's going on in particular with that top 100. and what do you do with a holiday gift card from a store that just isn't your taste? rays has the answer. it will pay you cold hard cash for that unwanted plastic in your pocket. we have the ceo here in a fox business exclusive. breaking news right now, the senate is gavelling in ahead of its vote to override president trump's veto of the defense

spending bill. first votes are expected to happen in just about two hours from now, but the fate of the $2,000 stimulus checks, that's a bit murky because senate majority leader mitch mcconnell rolled out an entirely new bill last night. it combines the stimulus checks with two other political hot potatoes. let's go live to the nation's capital. we have the play by play. where are we, david? reporter: good afternoon to you. well, a lot going on is where we are right now. house speaker nancy pelosi had said from the beginning she wants $2,000 direct payments to americans struggling from covid-19. president trump says he wants the same. it's one of the first time they're on the exact same page. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell who will gavel in on the senate floor in just a couple of minutes says okay, i will give you the $2,000 but you also have to approve several other portions of the president's wish list. i want to talk to you specifically about those on the president's wish list. senator mcconnell is also looking for democrats to repeal

section 230 of the communications decency act which protects big tech companies who censor speech online. now, mcconnell also wants a study of the 2020 presidential election for integrity and security issues. this is something president trump has asked for and mcconnell said it would be bipartisan. democrats called the election integrity in section 230 parts of the package poison pills, and they want a straight up or down vote only on the $2,000 direct payments to the american people. mine today nancy pelosi criticized leader mcconnell. listen here. >> who is holding up that distribution to the american people? mitch mcconnell and the senate republicans. in blocking it, they are in denial of the hardships the american people are experiencing now. reporter: as i speak to you right now, some americans woke up and found $600 in their

direct deposit bank accounts. that's because president trump signed that into law. we will see what happens with the $2,000. but back to the ndaa, national defense authorization act that funds the military, the president vetoed that recently. they will be taking what's called a procedural vote today. the actual vote to override that veto could come on saturday. sunday is when the new congress is sworn in. two days later on tuesday, that's when you have that runoff in georgia. so a lot going on over the next few days. cheryl: hence the words political hot potato. as you have been speaking, we want to say that mitch mcconnell is speaking right now on the senate floor. we should see chuck schumer very soon. obviously that's going to be a couple hours of a lot of speeches about all of this. thank you very much. we appreciate that live report from washington. we will continue to monitor what is going on on the senate floor again because of this different bill that mitch mcconnell has brought to the

table, again, murky i think is the best word we can use to describe what's going on and whether or not americans are going to get that $2,000 check. the $600 checks, i do want to add, have already started to go out electronically at least overnight. we are monitoring what's happening in washington. investors are keeping a big eye on all of this, because obviously, what happens with the stimulus checks and any bills that are passed or not passed, that's going to affect the markets, in particular, as we head into the georgia election next week. the dow is up 69, s&p is up 4, nasdaq is up 19. we need 68 to get a new record on the dow. we are kind of sitting on that right now. i don't know what's going on with that. nasdaq, though, we are still at this point going to have a new record but a lot can happen. now, we had all-time highs today at least during the session, where we close is certainly always going to be another story. the u.s. dollar index is falling to its lowest level since april of 2018, dropping about 12% since march. this as the crypto giant bitcoin

is spiking to a new record high, inching closer to that 30,000 level. we are at 28,703 right now. pretty amazing what we have seen with bitcoin this year. will, though, this weak u.s. dollar, the crypto trend, is all of this going to play into 2021? let's bring in our traders, phil flynn and teddy weisberg. good to have you here. good afternoon. teddy, i want to start with you. you have the weak dollar which is not really a surprise considering the fed's movements this year. strong bitcoin. but what does that tell you about where the markets are right now? >> well, the weak dollar is really music to the ears of all the big u.s. multi-national companies, cheryl. companies that are doing a lot of business outside of the u.s. clearly benefit from the weak dollar, no question about it. that's a broad brush approach, there's a lot of companies that have a lot of exposure to

offshore sales. by the same token, it hurts foreign companies that are doing business in the u.s., which in a way, prompts those foreign companies to establish facilities in the u.s. to manufacture here to stay competitive, so that actually helps the u.s. economy. it's sort of a win/win depending on what side of the equation you're on. in terms of the stock market, i'm not sure it has any major effect, but it does certainly help the bottom line of these big u.s. multi-national companies. cheryl: it certainly does. it also helps the energy markets, phil, which you know very well but at the same time, what's going to be interesting here, speaking of the economy, and overall demand, whether it's energy demand or consumer demand, phil, is going to be is there pent-up demand that's going to kind of kick in in 2021, and i say that because we're looking at the vaccine rollouts, obviously, we're looking at even though we've got new records heading for daily cases, the vaccine is at least starting to be distributed, what

does that tell you about 2021 and also the time frame for the economy? >> means we will have a lot of fun in 2021. okay, i'm telling you, you're right. pent-up demand, is going to be incredible and one of the places it's really going to be hot, you look at that weak dollar, is going to be the commodities space, oil but also take a look at the agricultures and grains and the big companies, and the crypto currency. it will be part and parcel of the same story. a long time ago, i got in the business in the dark ages, right, and they always used to have farmers that were always dreaming of beans in the teens. that was the call. it seemed like it would never, ever get to $13 a bushel. guess what? beans hit $13 a bushel today for the first time since 2014. that's a real benchmark for where we come in with commodities. it means inflation, it means strong demand globally, and expectations that we're going to

see a much stronger commodity market in 2021. i think you're going to see that reflected in commodities stocks. look at the cryptocurrency space. there's a new etf that follows cryptocurrency, riot. it had an incredible day. i think commodities times are here in cryptocurrencies as well. cheryl: also, you know, teddy, if you look at 2021 and think about what sectors that you want to invest in, there's question marks certainly about the stay-at-home stocks which is fair enough as we get out of the pandemic at some point in '21, but you also have to think about other sectors that may continue to be strong, and i'm thinking about pharmaceuticals, energy, to phil's point, and maybe there's some others you're looking at as well. >> well, i mean, i absolutely agree with phil. i think we're going to see a shift, you know, away from the sectors that have led the market this year into sectors such as the commodities, both hard and soft, by the way.

i'm not sure about crypto. maybe i'm just too old to comment on crypto. but for me, it's a great thing to trade. i'm not sure what it's all about or what the store of value is. if i was concerned about inflation which really is what the movement is in the commodities sector, both hard and soft, is all about, i think i would rather have exposure to gold and the hard commodities like copper. i think crypto is just a game that a lot of people are playing. it's an expensive game but it's still a game. but there's no question, there's no question that we're going to see i think movement away from some of the leadership of this year into the broader sectors, maybe some of the value sectors, as the economy recovers, as we come out of this covid cocoon and all the pent-up demand is going to rush back into these sectors which have been pretty much left on the sidelines this year as the focus has been companies, you know, that take advantage of covid and certainly the tech industry.

cheryl: and i think about pharma. phil, i'm still trying to figure out what you mean by the dark ages. exactly what decade are you talking about? >> well, that was the day when they still were putting commodity prices on blackboards, okay? i don't want to say what year it was. cheryl: they were not the dark ages. >> phil, i remember those days. i remember the chalk and chalkboards. >> those were the good old days. yeah. one of the jobs would be getting chalk dust off your hands. i remember that. it was fun. i tell you, it really is incredible when you look back at the way technology has come. from the early days of price reporting in commodities and stocks and where we're at today with the electronic stuff, you know, i think this cryptocurrency could be another deviation of that in the future. we'll have to see. cheryl: you're sitting with two skeptics, phil. >> i don't think so. cheryl: teddy, phil, guys, thank

you very much. if i don't see you tomorrow, have a happy new year. >> happy new year. cheryl: well, another piece of the news, talking about pharma, astrazeneca moving higher. its covid vaccine approved for use in the uk, despite spikes in a new mutation of the coronavirus. u.s. approval is expected early next year. there has been some bumps in the road for the company on this one. the stock up more than .5%. fears over the new strain of coronavirus in britain bring the idea of new covid task force closer to reality. the information you need to know for your future travel plans. taking a look at the big board. we are above that 68-point mark on the dow, but we've still got about 48 minutes to go here. we'll see what happens. "the claman countdown" will be right back. did you know you can go to libertymutual.com to customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need?

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international airport, we welcome in jeff flock. jeff? reporter: the company, at least one of them, there are many companies, by the way, that are working on these apps that would be on your smartphone that would prove that you either are negative in terms of a test for covid or that you had the vaccine. as you know, you know, right now we've got to put a mask on and have ids. well, this would be kind of a covid passport, some people call it. it would link to your medical record. it would prove that you had the vaccine or that you have had a negative covid test. it's possible, the airlines are working with these companies, it's possible that the airlines may require this at some point. certainly some countries require a negative test before you get on an aircraft to come there, and of course, the airlines now require us to wear this mask if we are going to be at the airport, so potentially they could require that as well. obviously they want to make people feel safe about flying. if you look at the numbers, they have been ticking up lately,

over the course of the last four days we have had a million travelers each day pass through the tsa checkpoints. of course, that's well below what it normally would be, more like two million plus. so there. but if it was to be successful in terms of airlines, it might also be used at, say, football games or at the theater or at a live concert, if you knew that everybody coming in was either negative for covid or had had the vaccine. that may be the future. i don't know, some people are critical of it. they don't want people to have their medical records. other people say hey, wait a minute, i don't have a cell phone or smartphone that has an app. other people simply say i don't want to have the vaccine. we'll see where it all goes. cheryl? cheryl: certainly will. i'm curious, are they doing testing at the airport there like they are here at the new york area airports, jeff? reporter: they are. yes, they are. here at o'hare, it's for passengers or for staff.

you can't just come in off the street and ask for a test but yes, they are testing here. cheryl: here we go. jeff flock, thank you very much. live from chicago's o'hare airport. well, it's the holiday gifts we both love and some of us actually hate. that pesky gift card. coming up, how one business is looking to help you make the most of all those unused gift cards you still haven't used from last year. let alone this holiday season. as we go to break, dow up 80 right now. this means at this point, we stay above that 68 level, we will have a new record for the dow. nasdaq is looking strong. s&p is teetering. we are on the markets throughout the rest of the hour until the close. "the claman countdown" will be right back. new projects means new project managers.

you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. cheryl: a fox business alert for you. caterpillar is breaking out as today's pop stock. the heavy machinery maker

fast-tracking its way to the top of the dow after it was named a top idea for 2021. expectations for a comeback in demand in key markets is fueling that bullish call. as you can see, caterpillar, stock up more than 1.75% right now. some good news for jd.com. it's lifting chinese tech stocks into the close. jd's board giving its stamp of approval to explore spinning off the online titan's ai and cloud unit into a new company that they are going to called jd digits. jd itself is up about 3.25%. the okay blunting the pain of new fines lobbed at jd and alibaba and tencent in connection with complaints alleging unfair pricing moves during china's singles day shopping event last month. baidu and the other names strong as well. retail's biggest names also glowing green at this hour.

guggenheim going on a shopping spree, boosting its target on kohl's, levi's, pvh and cape space home-based tapestry, this coming on high hopes for retail recovery in 2021 as pent-up demand gets unleashed post-covid vaccine rollout. as you can see, all those stocks in particular are higher. look at kohl's which can use that boost, about 3.5%. well, speaking of shopping, from your favorite mall staples to one of the most polarizing gifts for the holiday season, the gift card. some people love them. my parents love them. some hate them. our next guest has turned them into a billion dollar business and if you hate your unused cards sitting in your dresser drawer, he will give you cold, hard cash for them. in a fox business exclusive, we welcome in raise ceo. jay, great to have you here. >> great to be here. happy new year. cheryl: how's business? >> business has been, you know, it's been an interesting year with covid. the category has completely

changed. we saw that continue into the holidays but we came up very strong. consumer demand was definitely where we thought it would be. we're really pleased. cheryl: do you think you are seeing more interest in gift cards because americans don't want to go into stores? >> i think that's part of it. i also think that both raise and [ inaudible ] created a space for gift cards so people want to save money now in preparation for spending in the future. as dollars are tight across america, i think that's really good for our business as well. cheryl: you mentioned slide, the digital payment service you have launched. obviously a lot of millenials these days don't even use cash. they never carry cash. how's that part of the business going for you right now? i'm assuming it's growing. >> it is. we are only actually four or five months in and we are so happy with growth. it originally launched as a stand-alone payments app that paid 4% or 5% if you topped up your account everywhere you shopped. it really is a great use case for using your phone, showing it

and having a code scanned at checkout but with covid, and with the contactless list, we have seen much higher adoption of that use case. it's not just millenials, it's boomers which are the highest growth segment in the contactless space. slide is great for that. not only do you save money, it's super-fast and contactless. that's why slide has really grown much higher than we thought it would thus far. cheryl: let's go from the boomers and techs to boomers and gift cards because that still is a pretty popular, you know, means of shopping out there. what about the brands? obviously you can monitor what gift cards are getting exchanged the most. which brands are you seeing get exchanged? >> you know, what we have seen is just a continuation of the covid shopping trend. people are staying at home, they are spending more time at home, improving their home, home improvement projects, so we have really seen the classics you would expect like walmart and target, but that do it yourself category of lowe's, home depot, those have really taken off as well as home entertainment.

obviously all the online streaming service as well as things like the nintendo e-shop has been really strong categories this holiday. cheryl: the restaurant number is interesting. is that a lot of delivery? >> yeah. that's actually been a big one. it's mostly delivery. we see the door dash and grub hub and uber eats of the world. that category is one, it's not surprising at all that it took off but it's one we have been really pleased with. we have been able to work with those partners. those are all direct source, those are coming directly from those services. we have been able to work with them to offer unique promotions to get more people to order in this holiday season. it's been a really nice promotion with that category. cheryl: you're right. uber eats and seamless and grub hub are all now top ipos. i'm curious, though, also about the scam side of this. this is the downside, the dark side of the business that you do. there's a lot of companies that do what you do, and sometimes people pay $187 for a $200 gift card and they get it and it's got zero on it.

how do you protect the consumer from this type of scam? >> first of all, we take pride in the ownership of this marketplace and we back everything we sell by a one-year money back guarantee. any problems, we promptly investigate and give a refund. i want to start there. how are we able to do that. we actually have the industry-leading cloud platform. we bought it in house. we have commercialized that, lots of other companies use it as well, but we are monitoring every transaction to make sure both the sellers and buyers are legitimate customers. as the case with any marketplace, sometimes bad actors get through and as soon as we hear about them, we investigate and issue a refund. we stand behind everything we sell. cheryl: before i let you go, i am curious about travel. we have been talking a lot this week about pent-up demand for travel. moving into 2021, there are other sectors to watch from a stock perspective, but in 2020, what did travel entertainment look like, hotels, airlines, things like that? did you see that or no? >> oh, we absolutely did.

travel used to be one of our most popular categories since covid hit call it mid-march, the category has taken a massive hit. we expected that to continue through the holidays and indeed, we saw that. we were not seeing people buying up airlines, cruise lines, et cetera. we did start to see, however, a pickup in kind of vacation rentals. i think people are instead of hopping on a plane and sitting in a hotel, hopping in a car and renting a house so they can get more privacy and safety. that aspect of travel has started to bounce back. we have not yet seen the return of airlines and hotels yet, though. cheryl: got you. got you. hopefully next year will be a different story. jay, thank you very much for being here. >> absolutely. thank you again. happy new year. cheryl: happy new year. well, the stay-at-home movement going all out in 2020 and it really boosted the nasdaq to record-shattering gains. coming up next, we've got an inside look at what's in store for the tech-heavy index again in 2021. we are looking forward.

plus the new threat to our national security and communication networks being raised in the fallout from the nashville christmas day explosion. we will talk about that. take a look at your markets. again, remember, the dow and s&p 500 all solidly in the green for the year and at this point, the dow and nasdaq on track for new records again. we'll see how we close out. we'll be right back. - as the original host of "wheel of fortune"

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as a matter of fact. the incident revealing a security gap when it comes to the nation's communications infrastructure. want to bring in ed lawrence, who has been following this side of the story for us. ed? reporter: the attack exposed that critical security issue because of the tennessee -- because of all this, the tennessee communications board scheduled an emergency meeting on january 4th to deal with it. when the at & t building or hub went offline, it knocked out communication lines from kentucky to georgia. that took 911 centers offline, hospitals disconnected and mobile phones as well as some home phones were just useless. the nashville airport issued a ground stop because it lost internet connection. computer science professor at vanderbilt university douglas schmidt says these communications hubs should not be exposed within six feet of a public street or even in a large metropolitan area at all. listen. >> i think the first thing to do of course is to try to establish better security around those areas without completely disrupting the kind of

entertainment value that a place like downtown nashville is fwhoenl for. reporter: he says it could be costly to move these hubs but the cost would be much less than dealing with the aftermath of another attack on this critical modern infrastructure. he also says there should be more redundancy so when a hub like this goes offline, it will then not have a huge impact because it can be moved to another distribution point. again, he says these changes should be made now instead of when the next attack comes to try and hurry to get those into place. cheryl: we actually have been monitoring. there's a press conference going on in nashville right now. we aren't going to take it, we have been kind of listening in to see if any new details were coming up in particular for the story you are talking about, which is the vulnerability of these networks and obviously the vulnerability of the folks in downtown nashville who on christmas day were shocked and woken up out of bed by that explosion. edward lawrence, thank you very much. again, we have authorities in nashville, we are watching that, we are watching what's happening in washington as well. we are also watching the

markets. this is the second-to-last trading day of 2020. it's been a heck of a year for the nasdaq. you've had a lot of big pandemic plays that were among the top ten winners in the nasdaq 100 this year, and we have talked about these names a lot on this show. moderna, peloton, zoom, docusign and octa. all these names helped fuel the nasdaq 100 up 47% year to date. remember, it's on pace for its best year since 2009. this index, if you don't really track it, it tracks the 100 largest non-financial stocks in the nasdaq composite. i want to bring in to discuss all of it nasdaq's edp of investment intelligence, lauren dillard. great to have you here. >> thank you for having me. cheryl: it has been an incredible year for technology stocks, in particular the stay-at-home stocks, if you will. i'm curious, though, as the economy starts to recover, the vaccine begins to roll out, if in your mind we are going to see a bit of a change in the nasdaq 100's performance. >> well, i think you summarized

it quite well. the nasdaq's had an incredible -- nasdaq 100 has had an incredible year this year, up close to 47%. it really represents the modern industrial way we are all living. i don't think it's just necessarily covid or stay-at-home trades, though. it's very much the sort of digital revolution on demand and you mentioned several of the new entrants representing the health care industry and peloton, of course, as we all shift to working out at home. so i think you will continue to see that through 2021. cheryl: also, too, whether it's the peloton or octa or zoom, you know, the stay-at-home phenomenons, the amount of cash, investor cash that's gone into these names has been nothing short of incredible, in my opinion. at the same time, what types of names do you think we are going to see emerge in 2021? i realize the nasdaq 100, the nasdaq itself is very technology-heavy. what kind of companies do you expect, what kind of companies

have approached the nasdaq about potential listing? >> well, we welcomed more than 300 companies on to the nasdaq this year, which was a huge number of ipos and we still continue to see them. i think there were seven in the last, say, ten days or so. so companies definitely view this as a window to access the capital markets, and frankly, i think investors, that benefits investors. that benefits all investors because then they can access the companies, they can access the companies through the value creation and i think that's what we're seeing. many of the companies that have had their ipos have outperformed frankly the general s&p. cheryl: yeah. obviously, there's going to be more. the new york stock exchange, i know the competition has made it easier for companies to list, we have spacs and that direct listing strategy but we won't talk about that. we will go back to the nasdaq. i do want to ask you about the issue of chinese edrs because the nasdaq itself as a company is unique in that that is really the go-to place for a lot of

international companies that come to list on our soil, and in particular, chinese companies have really listed on the nasdaq more than any other exchange. are you concerned about this back-and-forth with beijing, more regulations being piled on these companies in china but also here in the united states? >> yeah, well, i would say two things. first of all, to your point, we would welcome companies and we do welcome companies whether they are direct listings or spacs or the traditional ipos. in fact, we had a large number of spacs this year. i want to make sure i say that. as far as regulation, you know, we want to have fair, transparent, efficient markets. that's our objective. that benefits everybody and we obviously have to follow regulations around the globe, so an executive order did come down around the chinese companies. we did have to remove four companies. they were not nasdaq listed from some of our indexes so we follow regulations just as everybody else does. but i mean, that's something that we have done for, you know,

decades and decades and will continue to do so. cheryl: doesn't really concern you, then. >> well, i mean, it's always a concern. everything going on around the globe is a concern, obviously. but again, it goes back to we want investors to access the value creation in the companies that list on nasdaq, whether it's the pelotons of the world or airbnb that just listed. we want investors to have access to that value creation. we all should. it's making sure, you know, it's a fair and again, efficient process, frictionless, but of course, we operate in a highly regulated environment. cheryl: how do you advise investors that are looking to kind of take better advantage of the public markets in 2021? we definitely have seen kind of a hit to the passive investor for 2020 because it's been a stock story, not necessarily an index story, if you will, because of the pandemic and the companies that have emerged. at the same time, a lot of people now are getting more and more interested in the public markets. what would you say to the average investor out there watching that really wants to take better advantage of it? >> well, first of all, we did see record numbers of etfs and

that's a good way to access or put a diversified piece of your portfolio at a lower cost. obviously we are an index provider so that's important. that's a diversified piece of your portfolio. retail investors, there are ten million new accounts across 2020. that's a lot of new market participants. the market's a way to express confidence in companies, a way to express how you think our future work from home or future of work will look like. i think that's why you see companies like octa, you know, enter the nasdaq 100 and performing well. i mean, so i think as a retail investor, as a new investor especially, i think education is critical. we have smart investing, there's lots of places to get educated, but you know, we would like people to stay in the market long-term. that requires educating yourself on what your exposure is and what your risk is. cheryl: considering the amount of millenials that have gotten involved in trading and with the emergence of robinlooked ahood everything else, sounds like

that's going to happen. thank you very much. happy new year to you. >> happy new year to you. cheryl: all right. well, something else to keep you happy, we hope. charles payne, he makes me happy. makes me laugh, right? you don't want to miss fox business's next virtual town hall with mr. payne. charles will be hosting the future of capitalism on january 13th, 2:00 p.m. eastern time. message fox business on facebook or instagram or e-mail your questions to investedinyou@foxbusiness.com. socially distant glamping booming in 2020 but road trips are not the only use for rvs in the pandemic. coming up, the creative way one chicago restaurant is bringing rvs into his outdoor dining business. it's pretty cool. you will like this one. take a look at the market right now. we are solidly looking for a new record on the dow at this point. remember, anything above 68 points higher on the dow at the close gives us a new record. nasdaq is on track as well. we are on these markets and the numbers. "the claman countdown" coming

right back. ♪ ♪

cheryl: as promised, we wanted to keep you updated on what's going on on the senate floor. there's dick dirbin of illinois speaking. mitch mcconnell wants to put a kill shot on those $2,000 stimulus checks that americans impacted by covid would be getting. support was coming from democrats, from president trump but i want tyou to listen to mcconnell just a few minutes ago. >> -- slow down this vital bill unless he gets to muscle through another stand-alone proposal from speaker pelosi that would add roughly half a trillion dollars to the national debt which is in line with what

president trump has suggested which has no realistic path to quickly pass the senate. as i said, the senate will not let our national security be shoved off course, certainly not by senators who have spent years, literally years, trying to gut america's capabilities while our adversaries continue ramping up. cheryl: he also made a comment that republicans would not be bullied over this. we wanted to give you that news coming out of the senate floor. this effectively basically kills this idea of $2,000 checks for folks. there's no deal on capitol hill on that, but tiffany lvmh did finally get their deal done. what a saga. tiffany shareholders accepting the luxury power house's on again/off again merger proposal. today's green light ends a more than years-long dispute over the tie-up after lvmh got cold feet due to the luxury industry's downturn during the pandemic. tiffany pursued legal action to hold lvmh to its promises.

that led to new talks and a $425 million discount of the deal's original price tag. this is now a $15.8 billion merger, expected to close early next year. there are the stocks on your screen. tiffany's flat. lvmh up about .5%, trying to hold on to its gains here. we are of course following these stocks as we go into the final nine minutes of trade right now. it's been a quick hour. well, with indoor dining being limited or in some states, it's been completely shut down due to covid, restaurants are coming up with pretty innovative ways to attract patrons. one chicago suburban eatery started camp find-away. grady trimble is camped out to tell us how this works. hey, grady. reporter: this is my own private rv. you are invited and we can invite four other friends to book a spot here at the chatterbox in long grove and they just started taking reservations today. the phones inside have been ringing off the hook from people who don't want to eat outside

but want to sort of eat outside in one of these rvs. you mentioned they call this camp find a way. this is normally the outdoor dining area, the patio in the summertime. we just got several inches of snow last night, though, so nobody really wants to eat outside right now, so what do you do? you put up a bunch of rvs. that's exactly what mike did. tell us how this idea came about. >> well, it was an idea that me and my wife got to, we have an rv and go to other restaurants. we took our rv and were eating there and it's safe and comfortable, and we kept saying we need to find a way where we can bring this to our customers here at the chatterbox. that's what we did. reporter: you've got a lot of loyal customers but right now in illinois, there is no indoor dining across the state so you had to do something. >> absolutely. we want to give a big shout-out to all our customers and thank them for being so loyal and so supportive through this, because

it's been tough. it's been tough for our employees and just everybody. reporter: how did this partnership happen? i see sunny island rv on the side of all these rvs. they are a dealership where you actually bought an rv from years ago and then you said hey, i've got this crazy idea, can you send me a couple rvs that i can put on my property? >> yeah. yeah. and they gladly did it with us, and they brought them out here and actually, they educated our staff, so if our staff does sell an rv, they actually get commission. it's more ways they can make money and pay their rent. reporter: fantastic. and so important right now. there you go, cheryl. they're waitstaff and may also try to sell you an rv while enjoying a meal out here. cheryl: i love it. grady, great report. very fun. thank you, sir. good idea. all right. well, forget two peas in a pod. today's "countdown" closer has five ps for a healthy portfolio in 2021. we have now got about six and a half minutes until the closing

bell.

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cheryl: three minutes to go before the closing bell. dow, s&p 500 are on pace for new record closes. the s&p, we're really close. a nail-biter to the close, folks. the dow up 116. nasdaq probably will not have new record today. we have one trading day left in 2020. what positives do you think investors should look at for the new year? alex is a senior poem. good to have you here. >> cheryl, thanks for having me on again. cheryl: recollection chapman. your name is not easy. >> alex rex chapman. cheryl: i love the five ps. let's start with positivity.

>> these are principals that affect the how the economy and market does next year. positivity. what will be the state of positivity in this country? look right now we have housing numbers that are fantastic. stock markets reaching record highs. we have a lot of hope from the vaccine, all these things will affect how people spend money, how people travel, how the market works. major impact on market. potus, what will happen on january 21st? what is the make up of three parts of the government going to look like. what that means for a new administration and that impact on the market. powell, now, there is a whole subject in of itself, what the federal reserve will do. we have federal reserve that raised the size of the balance sheet of the united states from four trillion dollars to $8 trillion. this can have real impact. we've seen it in the price of gold and the price of cryptocurrencies. we've seen cryptocurrencies

quadrupled. gold went from $1500 to $1900. what is the endgame with that? that is something that is out there. the fourth p, pathogens, or the pandemic. shifting from a period living through a pandemic, a period next month or so, some are saying the dark before the dawn. seeing what the country looked like post that. the most important p i think is preparation. there is a lot out there. we have to see how things evolve over the next few months and we have to be prepared for anything that the markets and the economy throws at it, at us and also whatever the pathogen might throw at us. cheryl: that is the unknown. >> that is unknown unknown. everybody has become an expert in this subject. everybody has an opinion about what the future holds for this pathogen and what it looks like. i will tell you that the americans are extremely strong. we've shown resilience.

if you went to sleep december 30th last year, to december 30th this year, the market looks fantastic. cheryl: who would have known. alex, i'm out of time. [closebell rings] we have new records for the dow. as for the s&p. i can't see it. there it is. jackie: stimulus checks are rolling out. we're at new highs in a vaccine led recovery. a record close for the dow. 73 points higher. we were looking for a 68-point close to get that record. the s&p was teetering in that area. the s&p only up five points. not making quite there. the nasdaq closing shy of record territory with only one day left in 2020. i'm jackie deangelis in for connell mcshane. welcome to after the bell. time for the news happening at this hour. fox team coverage. rich edson with president trump in west palm beach.