and 26 trillion sit within 600 stocks, the metaverse is the biggest play for the next decade. >> wow great stuff. ray wong, thank you so much. take a look at the markets there , we do have, you too, green across-the-board, the dow up 36, the s&p up 6, the nasdaq up 75, the santa claus rally for what it's worth today marchs on. in the meantime i'm going to toss it over to lauren simonetti in for liz claman, lauren? it's all yours. lauren: i'll take it thank you very much, jackie, hi, everybody well happy new year's eve eve one more day to go until the end of the year and the markets trying to go out with a bang. take a look at the dow and the s&p 500 here. any higher close is a record, so we're looking at fresh closing highs for both of them, and a whole tech lexicon cropped up this year, the metaverse, plus apple is inching towards that $3 trillion market cap. we're going to take a look back at the tech year that was and preview what's ahead for the new

year and if washington can kill silicon valley's party we've discussed and the jury in the trial of elizabeth holmes has failed to reach a verdict for a second straight week. a live report on what's next in this high profile criminal fraud trial, plus the latest on the pandemic, the fda maybe ready to broaden eligibility of pfizer booster shots for young teenagers, and a record breaking year for ipo's might be ending on a sour note. we're going to take a look at that and talk to one fintech founder about the sector that promised to disrupt banking as we know it. i'm lauren simonetti in in for liz claman, the final hurricane florence hour of trade starts now. >> a record breaking run for ipo 's this year with $315 billion raised as of

september 23, but and there's a but, according to the wall street journal, two-thirds of the companies that went public this year are now trading below their ipo price, so we've seen the sizzle start to fizzle, the worst performance comes from oscar health, that's the insurance tech company that's down 68% from its ipo price. take a look at bumble, it soared 63% on its first day of trading back in february. it's down 50% since then. meanwhile, the biggest u.s. ipo since 2014, we can't forget it, it was the ev truck maker rivian, it's only up 4% since its debut, so while there was no dirth of ipo's this year or spac mergers or direct listings, some of the hype certainly died down so with that let's get straight to the floor show and say good afternoon to stephen guilfoyle and phil flynn sarge what happened to the ipo market? >> well we had an active year.

i mean, we're really can't complain about the level of activity or the level of activity we see for next year, if stock prices stay high, but we had what i would call selling going into the last three or four months of the year. it's getting really heavy as a trader you have to take advantage of it, it's probably a lot of tax loss related so maybe you get a little bit of a pop in january and yet you have to take advantage of the environment. lauren: uh-huh, so do you have some ipo picks for next year? >> yeah, i do actually. beyond meat, right? that's going to be the big one next year but the one i really like is one that has meat, okay this year, that actually is above its ipo price and it's one i don't think that gets a lot of national attention and that is portillo's. this is a chicago institution. they're a hot dog chain but more than that, it's beef and polish sausage which if you don't know what that is in chicago, it's kind of the same thing, but this

is the most well-run chain i have ever seen in my lifetime, and i think once the nation gets into this portillo's it could be as big as chipotle so its done very well on its ipo, it came out of 20 it's in the 30s it was a high as 50 and its pulled back but i think on the pullback i really like this. next year, beyond meat we'll see how that does because after you eat at portillo's you'll have to get off the beef a little bit i think. lauren: i was just scratching my head saying phil, you can't really talk about beyond meat and portillo's in the same sentence but i guess there's something for everybody. >> it's called diversifying your portfolio is what it is. lauren: exactly and your of appetite. sarge what do you think the biggest threat to the ipo market in 2022 is? i'd go with inflation as that affects future growth, what do you say? >> well inflation and interest rates which affect stock prices that's really what will always impact the ipo market and also new ipo's.

don't forget, when capital is raised for ipo's that hurts the market in general, so these, they will cannibalize each other when there's such interest, and next i think we have something like 900 companies that are in the supposed pipeline where the $1 billion or more is still there so if we have another good start to the market year, we could see another year of cannibalization. >> uh-huh. lauren: cannibalization, i love the meat eater words today, but you know, i wonder what the appetite is going to be next year, phil, because i was looking at the s&p 500 over the past couple of years, so back in 2019, the s&p gained 29% , last year 16%, this year, pushing close to 30%. since its inception, the average gain is around eight or 9% so we can't possibly have this double-digit growth again, or can we? >> we can, but it's going to be a lot more challenging. obviously we're going to be

facing a rising interest rate environment, that's going to be very difficult. you mentioned inflation. these are going to be a big issue, so i think it's going to be a challenge but we can't underestimate this market, every time we try to say hey this is going to happen and that's going to happen it's going to kill the returns because where else are you going to go? now inflation, of course is coming into play so maybe some inflation plays like cryptocurrencies could bounce back, they had a bad last month here, but gold and silver and commodities could really rock and roll but you're right, but getting back to the ipo's, wasn't too long ago where we were talking about not enough companies were going public. nobody was going public then all of a sudden we have this surge so it is a supply and demand thing but i think overall ipo's are still going to do pretty good next year. lauren: okay do you think next year in some ways, sarge, is going to be the return to normalization? >> well, i think after these three years of strong gains really four or five of strong gains we're going into the year,

the mid-term election year, which is typically the weakest year from a market perspective of the four-year presidential cycle, so we already have that going against us. we already know that the monetary policy is going to get tighter. we already, we think the fiscal policy will probably get a little bit tighter although they did pass a nice infrastructure bill. they aren't getting the size of the build back better plan that they had hoped for in washington at one point, so conditions are going to get a little bit tighter. plus, folks at home should know january isn't always such, we talk about january effect. it's not always such a hot month 11 of the last 20 januaries have been a negative month on the s&p 500 and during that 20 year period the s&p 500 has a median average of down 0.68%, so i think if the third week of january is about where i see some trouble coming in and we'll see how the market gets past that, and then it's on to march where i think the quantitative easing will wind up.

lauren: yeah, and that's when the tough times might begin, and to that point, phil, you know a lot of times in the beginning of the new year, you start to see investors pour into the beaten down sectors that were beaten down at the end of the prior-year. i'm trying to think off the top of my head what some of those sectors be , i'm thinking cryptos, i'm thinking maybe fintech, they go into those spaces, so they pile in in early january, so you can't really tell how the whole year is going to be because it's just a little bit of buy the dip trade. >> i think you're absolutely right, and at the end of the year, we got a little nervous, as i think a lot of times, a few weeks ago, after thanksgiving, the concerns about omicron, we had this big sell-off and a lot of companies let's face it. i think that was way overdone and that's why i think some of these fintech companies got hurt the reopening trade that we were all hot on that terrible all of

a sudden those stocks may start to come back, so you know, you're looking at travel and leisure, looking at crypto, and commodities i think commodities are the way to be. you look at what's happening in the commodities space, with the supply chain. we're in a cycle right now where we can't get caught up with demand, and if the economy continues to be strong, commodities will be the place to be once again in 2022. lauren: i have to bring up gold, phil because you say commodities and i think gold. worst year since 2015, as a whole other topic. gentlemen we gotta leave it there thank you for the time. happy new year. stephen guilfoyle and phil flynn thank you. lauren: well we have good news in the war against omicron. there's a new study from south africa and they found that johnson & johnson's booster shot is 85% effective in preventing hospitalizations. well the study has yet to be peer reviewed the news giving the stock, slight boost today and let's go to gerri willis,

she has what's happening right now in new york city where we have mayor deblasio's private sector vaccine mandate, perhaps continuing with the new mayor. gerri? gerri: you've got that right, lauren. eric adams, new york city's mayor-elect will keep nyc's vaccine mandate, that is for private sector employees. this is a surprise turn of events for employers who expected the first in the nation mandate to be deep six or at least watered down by the mayor-elect, didn't happen obviously, and now, adams health commissioner dr. dave chuckshe saying the private sector mandate will stay in effect for the new year with a focus on compliance, not punishment. that's essential right there. deblasio's vaccine mandate announced december 6 was assumed to apply to the city's 184,000 private businesses, many private sector business leaders chased at the mandate. they didn't like it. meanwhile, the president's top

medical advise or says a second booster shot maybe required even as workers and students struggle to comply with mandates for the first booster. >> it is conceivable that in the future we might need an additional shot but right now , we are hoping that we would get a greater degree of durability of protection from that booster shot. gerri: now so far we have about 75 universities saying they will require a booster dose including california state university, duke university, georgetown, among many many others, and this as the fda is expected to approve the pfizer booster shot for kids age 12-15 by early next week. the cdc is saying get this , here's news for you, the dream cruise you want to take, well you might want to think twice. the health agency is monday montana monitoring or investigating 92 ships for covid-19 a factor that could

add to traveler's worries as they consider embarking on a trip. covid-19, as you'll remember, shutdown the cruise industry back in march 2020. nobody expects they return to that now, at least that's what the experts say, lauren, back to you. lauren: yeah, gerri i think a lot of people just don't even care anymore. i mean that's the point we're at gerri: [laughter] lauren: sad but true. right? a cruise sounds nice, a little scary but nice. we'll see if the new year brings , gerri willis thank you very much. high flying fintechs, they were all the rage this year now another entrance is customers like roku godaddy and twitch and we'll talk to the ceo about its latest round of funding and its $8 billion valuation but first let's check the markets, remember any gain today for the dow and s&p 500 is a record, if you're looking at the s&p, basically, for every one in three trading days this year,

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lauren: 2021 was a big year for fintechs with $94 billion poured into the sector, and one

company reaping the benefits is tipalte and thes payable automation start up, the company nearly quadrupled its valuation to $8 billion after its latest funding round and it currently processes more than $30 billion in annual payments for more than 2,000 customers let's bring in co-founder and ceo, congratulations, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. lauren: can you explain exactly what it is your company does? >> yeah, we have financial operations for high growth and mid-market companies. financial operations are the functions of the finance department does on top of accounting, its managing suppliers, payments, invoices, purchase orders, there's a whole slew of challenges the finance department deals with, and in the high growth and mid-market segment, they were kind of left behind and didn't get the level

of automation they needed and it's a bit more complex, because the companies already have the level of complexity built into them so you need a solution that can address them, but also be very simple and that's what we do. lauren: and who are some of your customers? >> well, the big names are not market companies, the big names are amazon twitch, it's a business unit of amazon, twitter , godaddy, roblox is bigger names many of them started with us when they were mid-market companies themselves or business units within them, that were smaller when they started with us, but as we like to say in tipalti, no one out grows. lauren: those are impressive names that you have as customers and no doubt that sort of helped the valuation that you've got, i think with the end of last year it was 2 billion now you're at $8.3 billion.

>> correct, yeah. i think these big names are important, but investors pay for growth and we are experiencing a hyper growth for several years now and we continue to experience hyper growth for years to come. the opportunity and our ability to grow into the opportunity and the barriers around that, i think, are what attract investors. this market is almost a million companies in potential, currently maybe four or 5% serve 95% waiting for solutions to serve them. we are de facto, the most advanced solution, the best of breed in the market, and we are able to grow at a fast pace into this market and continue to double year-over-year and that's what investors like, and that's why they gave us this evaluation lauren: who are your biggest

competitors? >> mathematically, 73% of the deals we win are against no competitors, so the biggest competitor is status quo, is just continuing to do with e-mail and excel sheets and whatever means our customers use to work with before they meet us , so status quo and momentum is our number one competitor. among those players, technology players, play in our markets there are a couple of companies that have come close to us, one is called abbott exchange that went public a few months ago and then some other smaller ones. lauren: yeah, i think i'm asking because, you know, when you look at fintech as a sector and you compare them to the traditional banks, the lines that differentiate the two are blurring, right? because traditional banks are increasingly digitizing and

getting into new hot spaces like cryptocurrency, so i'm asking your competitors, because it seems like the old school guys are getting pretty new school as well. >> possibly in other markets. in our market, it's hard. in our market, so i think banks do a different job if you're a consumer and they do a different job if you're a large enterprise , if you're disney or general electric. the mid-market will be harder for banks, will be harder for everyone, because as i mentioned a level of complexity you need to build into the solution, but it needs to be very simple, very inexpensive. banks are one of our competitors , i like to say no disrespect that i like that competition because it'll be hard for them to become software companies and go deep into what we do. i think it'll be faster for the

fintechs to be giants than for the giants to learn new tricks and complete faster. lauren: well that was a nice way of saying it. chen amit, thanks for the time. speaking of fintechs, robinhood launching the beta phase for its most-wanted crypto products next month, we'll have those details for you and retailers have a new strategy. they say that it's easier to just keep that ugly sweater or that unwanted christmas gift. we're going to tell you why you should keep it, next. the closing bell ringing in about what 28 minutes from now, dow's up 19 points, any gain today is indeed a record high, and the nasdaq is looking to break its two-day losing streak, and finally, have an up arrow, "clayman countdown" coming right back. ♪♪

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lauren: all right, take a look here, you have the dow jones industrial average and the s&p still on track for record closes i'm looking at the s&p, because it really was a tremendous year. when you think about it, they had 11 100-point moves this year , i mean, it's just going up and up, but kind of testing resistance at 4,800. we'll see if we can land there by the end of the day. first we go to lydia hu who has today's pop stocks and you're starting with micron. reporter: yeah, micron semiconductors the company says a wave of new covid outbreaks and stringent lockdown mandates in china will impact manufacturing and lead to delays in chip supply. samsung issued a similar warning saying it will temporarily scale back operations, at a plant that manufactures flash memory chips used for storage and data center s and smartphones, the news impacting micron today, you can see it's down, oh,

almost 2%. biogen shares are tanking after samsung denied a korean media report that the u.s. drugmaker was in talks to sell itself to the company. the report sent biogen shares soaring nearly 10% today but if you take a look now they are down more than 7%. moving over to the airlines, jet blue says it will cut nearly 1,300 flights from its schedule through january 13, as it deals with an outbreak of covid-19 infections among its staff. the airline is based in new york , where the number of covid cases are striking dramatically. united airlines announced they would also be cutting back on flights due to the virus. you can see here on the board the airline stocks are mixed but just focusing on jetblue down just a little under a half a percent at the moment. >> richard branson's satellite company virgin orbit kicked off

trading on the nasdaq today following a spac merger, with blank check company next gen acquisition corp. trading under the ticker vorb, virgin orbit is branson's second space company to hit the stock market and is a spin-off of virgin galactic which went public in 2019. the company made a lackluster debut after tailing to reach its fundraising goal of 500 million taking a look at the shares right now, down about a percent and a half. and robinhood says it will launch the beta version of its crypto wallet next month meaning it will rollout the product to tens of thousands of customers who want to sign up, the wallet will allow users to deposit and withdraw bitcoin, ether and dogecoin as well as providing education on crypto transactions share of robinhood popping on the news today at the moment up more than 7%. back to you, lauren. lauren: thank you, lydia hu,

very much. well, tis the season for returns , according to a cbre report this year $66.7 billion worth of products expected to be returned, with some online retailers are making it easier on themselves. you too but really themselves, they are issuing refunds while allowing customers to just keep it. you don't want it, keep it. it's cheaper in the end, i guess , jeff flock is in how do i say this , jeff into lancaster? reporter: lancaster. lauren: pennsylvania. reporter: apparently bradley cooper mispronounced the name in a movie once and people got it all screwed up, it's lancaster, pennsylvania so you're in good company there. this is the park city mall and we're in the central court here, where perhaps you can see it's almost like pre-christmas. there's a whole lot of folks here, many of them returning, and as you've cited those number s. we found statistics that even more are going to be returned when you factor in all of the

online stuff. somewhere between 112 and 114 billion with a b dollars, that's a 24-27% increase over what returns were last year. why is this? well, some of the retailers have extended the amount of time that you can have to return, nordstrom rack, where i must confess i do some shopping, 45 days instead of the standard 30. nike 60 days, macy's, walmart, s achs as much as 90 days. the problem is, returns cost retailers money. as you point out some are saying just keep it. the shipping costs are too bad. we talked to the founder of ledb ury, the shirt-maker, fine shirts, and they say this is costing us and we're probably going to have to pass it on. listen. >> i think that if the pricing of shipping continues to rise, and these challenges continue that that's going to be something that retailers figure out a way to recoup that cost and sadly often that comes back

to the customer can slightly higher prices. reporter: and that money that you spent, by the way, at christmas, well, did you actually have it? apparently 36% of christmas shoppers didn't have the money, and they went into debt to finance christmas. that compared to 31% a year ago, so building more debt, not quite as much debt per-person, that came down a little bit, lauren, but still people like to have things and not have to pay for them, but of course, some day, maybe you have to. lauren: well there's this , i'm not going to say the name. one online retailer that sell big things that are expensive to ship and i know several people, myself included, who bought one of these big things, two, didn't like them, called the company, return it, just keep it. can you imagine how much money they're losing on that because the item is expensive and so is the shipping.

reporter: i know, and some people, you know, have started now to say well maybe i can do this as my ticket, but apparently, they are tracking, they say. probably not tracking you because you're not doing it all the time but if you try to do it multiple times, i think they come after you. lauren: they should. all right, jeff flock, thank you very much. reporter: what was the big thing by the way, can you tell me? lauren: it was two things, well one was a dresser, and then another company one was like a big drum-style coffee table. i found places for them in my house in the basement. reporter: redecorating are you? lovely. lauren: [laughter] on the cheap, for me, not for someone else, jeff flock thanks so much. happy new year. all three major averages at last check were positive, we'll see , if this the dow just flipped it's close now, 2021 was chalk full of tech themes from nft's

to the metaverse to the chip shortage. what are the sectors biggest risks and rewards in the new year? we'll talk to well we'll call them the techsperts, next, the closing bell ringing in a few minutes and we're trying to hang on to the gain for the dow and s&p 500, nasdaq firmly in the green, we'll be back. in a recent clinical study, patients using salonpas patch reported reductions in pain severity,using less or a lot s oral pain medicines. it's good medicine.

stress can keep you from sleeping, affect your moods, hurt your health, and your relationships. if you've lost a job, worry about your next meal, or have trouble making it through the day, we can help. text “stress” to 211211 to find a solution. lauren: 2021 tech with out of this world virgin galactic's sir richard branson and blue origin jeff bezos hitching a ride on rockets to space while netflix's squid game stole the streaming show and was crowned the most- watched content ever on the platform and is now worth over $900 million and probably the most talked about announcement in tech is the metaverse as facebook unveiled plans to become meta, with the creation and exploration of a digital reality

so what's ahead for tech in 202y of it? joining me now is star ship capital managing partner and tech analyst, john meyer, and market watch senior reporter john schwartz. john, and john, thank you for joining us. john meyer i want to start with you. is 2022 really the year that everybody hospitals on to the metaverse or is that more in the distant future? >> you know, i think it's more like 2023 or 2024 for the metaverse, but i think for us early adopters 202r for the metaverse, it will be the year of critical software development, game development, world development in this metaverse, a foundation- laying to really make this that breakout experience product as we get into the mid- 2020s for end consumers. lauren: john schwartz what if i don't want to be in the metaverse? are people going to have a choice like that person who said i don't need a smartphone and

you probably no one person, right? you guys no one person who still has a flip phone. i mean, can you still act like that in this increasingly technological world, and then does it get confusing when you have options for metaverse that you want to be in, google, apple , roblox. >> right, there is no one metaverse. there are a series of sub- metaverses and in fact if john mentioned this is a couple years away if that. in a sense think about second life. remember when that came around that was considered a metaverse of sorts. so what facebook has done is they renamed and rebranded themselves to move away from their reputation which is not great and moved towards the next buzzword but microsoft talked about metaverse, disney, apple, everyone has, but for now it's just a concept. i mean, it doesn't exist per se. it's this idea of kind of going to the next level, the next generation, but i think we're far away and the tools are not

quite there yet, and one thing that's going to hurt facebook is they try to buy more metaverse tools is that the ftc is cracking down on mergers and commissions, not just next year but the next couple of years and that's going to impact facebook. lauren: all right let's go there because you brought up regulation, you brought up facebook, or meta, and if you look at facebook, apple, amazon, and microsoft together, john meyer they have a combined market cap of $10 trillion. that's obscene. it's completely insane. what dents that in addition to potential regulation in 2022? >> well i think what dents this is a temporary plateau in what has driven the biggest revenue for companies like apple , and that is plateau of smartphone revenue. we've hit peak smartphone. we've hit a point where in 2022 it will become less and less with 5g now out, with, you know, cinematic camera

s now out, it will become less and less wise to keep upgrading your phone every year, to keep funneling your money through a company like apple or google, for their biggest, again, revenue generators. now, that is why these companies are rushing to the metaverse, because they believe that's the next technological paradigm but really the next is going to be just a temporary plateau of smartphone revenue. there's not enough to keep adding, to keep cropping this revenue up. lauren: so the other john, john schwartz, is there a way to play it in a different way? i mean, maybe you invest because a lot of these big mega cap popular names have gotten so expensive that you invest in the old school tech names like ibm and intel because they are safe and in many ways they enable new tech? >> well i might even go the opposite way. i actually think if you're a start-up right now, and you're competing against a facebook or

google, before you are either acquired and you never had a chance to grow into anything much more than what you were, like an instagram or what's app , maybe there's a potential for that next company to spring forward. now, i'm just looking back at when microsoft went through the doj complaints and that sprung facebook, google and created a whole new category of companies, so i think the threat of lawsuits and there is a very clear threat, i think, apple and google are both seen by the department of justice early next year, and then we have the ongoing investigations into the others, both u.s. and in europe, i think that gives an opportunity for companies that are be competitors who might be able to find a niche somewhere and kind of gives them some breathing space. i don't think it's going to scare away investors that much from the bigger companies, they will continue to grow, but i mean, at least the threat of some sort of action because i'm not going to hold my breath for legislation to become law. lauren: i know, and if we were

to see it i would guess it would happen maybe before the mid-term s, while the democrats have the power. >> good point, lauren because once the mid-terms come around all bets are off in terms of legislation. lauren: so bottom line, this segment as 2022 is the year we start to understand the metaverse and then we'll be in it in 2023. [laughter] we have a year to learn it. it's crazy. it's crazy the future is now. john meyer, john schwartz thank you for the time we appreciate it. >> thank you. lauren: coming up, the jurors return a guilty verdict for ghi slain maxwell and no verdict yet however in the other trial that we're watching for elizabeth holmes we'll have a live update from california right after this but first we check the big board you can see the dow jones is slipping, 24 points it looks like the dow is not going to make it, seven days in a row, by the way that

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lauren: bitcoin slide this month is not deterring micro strategy, the company led by ceo and crypto bull, michael filler announced it bought over 1,900 bitcoins for a cool $94 million in cash, micro strategy now owns close to 125,000 bitcoins or one in 170 on the market. all right, with bitcoin trading around $47,000, micro strategies holdings work out to almost $6 billion, but hey, michael sailor said you've gotta own bitcoin, he would buy it at any price.

yesterday's bombshell verdict found ghislain maxell guilty on five of six charges related to the disgraced financeer jeffrey epstein's sex trafficking ring, she faces a maximum 65 years in prison and now her defense team is working on an appeal but over in california, the jury has yet to reach a verdict in the trial of elizabeth holmes after six days of deliberation, joining us with the latest is kelly o'grady kelly? reporter: hi, lauren. yeah, many are wondering why it's taking so long to reach a verdict here but i want to emphasize this isn't the court of public opinion. the jury needs to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and the fact that they are taking even this time over the holidays shows their commitment to that so let's dig in. there's a mountain of evidence to review. the prosecution called 29 witnesses and introduced thousands of e-mails documents, recordings, that all have to be considered. now in contrast the defense called just three witnesses with holmes being the focal point. second this all comes down to intent and let's remember, this woman is being accused of

swindling investors so she's charasmatic after hearing holmes testify for seven days the jury could have walked into that deliberation room and said we don't believe a thing she said they didn't and legal experts are saying these healthy deliberations are showing at least some jurors care what happens to her. >> i think at the end of the day it may come down to, do the jurors like ms. holmes, do they want to help her and do they feel the government proved its case? you have ms. holmes on the one hand and you have the government 's case primarily billionaires losing money, big corporations losing money who is the jury going to care more about in these circumstances? reporter: i want to highlight, holmes claims she was the victim of a decade-long abusive relationship with the company's coo, so the prosecution urged the jury not to factor that into their decision we live in an age where questioning a victim's integrity could be tricky. the jury will resume deliberations monday, january 3 and it doesn't mean things will

go her way. last week liz had the founder of gallion group on but clearly, the jury is not on the same page as of yet, lauren. lauren: kelly o'grady, thank you very much. coming up, the dating site much different story, match.com announcing its partnering with the sex in the city create or candice bushnell to help singles find love on january 2 which they call dating sunday also the busiest day of the year for dating apps, check that out, next, and another check on the big board the market is certainly losing steam in these final couple of moments the dow is at lows of the session down 81 points, 83, keeps going a little bit lower and it had been up well over 100. "clayman countdown" is coming right back.

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♪. jackie: lauren, just a few moments left in the trading day. market is down by 73. s&p down for the first time in seven sessions and the nasdaq is down about .1 of 1% as well. our "countdown" closer today is joining us now. if you went over your holiday season budget he has healthy dividends to replenish your wallet. innovative cio managing director dave gill foy. we teased you the matchmaker if you will of stocks and dividends. i think we need that. a lot of people, we're starting to see the market to tilt defensive as we head into the new year. dividends are a safe play. what companies do you like? >> dividends are a safer play and that is one of the things

that innovative portfolios we really focus on are dividend paying type stocks, ones that we call from dividend achievers index which are the 350 or so raised dividends 10 years in a row. we buy 50 of them. it is an active fund we do. dividends are important, especially for next year i believe, because next year is a midterm election year of the four presidential years, it is the most volatile year going back to the 1984. so the dividends are a important buffer in that. the average downdraft during a midterm year is 17% for the s&p 500. so you got to have some dividends to buffer it. a lot of the dividend taipeiing stocks already had correction in my opinion. if you look at the industrial sector, look even xli, sector spdr for industrials that thing has been, been building a base for like eight months. so technically it looks very good. and the dividends just add a

little bit of a buffer on a stock that is already cheap. one that i think is really cheap right now is hoosier-based company from my own state, cummins engine. people think of them as just diesel engines for trucks but they're also heavily involved in the electric side and the fuel cells and developing technology for that but the stock's already down 20% from its 52-week high and their forward p-e is only 12. so you're getting a very good stock with dividend yield of 2.6% right now. they have raised it every year for 15 years. street target on the stock is like 275. i think you could easily see that happen next year and not get swept down in any kind of correction the way some of the high-flyers and the dow or the s&p 500 really been driven by a lot of the lower dividend-paying stocks with a high p-e. i think it's a good place to be, at least for the next year.

lauren: uh-huh. what about snap-on the toolmaker? they have been paying a dividend for decades now. >> they have been paying a dividend since 1972. snap-on 15% down from its high. good dividend yield, pe is low. paying the dividend for 50 years, something like that. the last one is interesting, small cap stock most people probably haven't heard of, abm industries. they do cleaning, facilities management for big office buildings, governments, airports, things like that. so their earnings, they missed earnings and but earnings are still really good. their debt is really low, when the reopening happens, it is happening but fits and starts but it is happening they will get a lot busier. they have a pe of 11 right now. so the stock is at 41 bucks, down from 55. they have been paying a dividend since 1980. they have 50 years of experience doing this.

lauren. yeah. >> it's a solid company. i don't think you will go wrong in this space. lauren: dave gilreath, thank you very much. [closing bell rings. all the averages are down. that will do it for "the claman countdown." "kudlow" is next. ♪ david: hello, everyone, and welcome to "kudlow." i'm david asman in for larry kudlow today. well president biden celebrating his 2021 economic record as it were, tweeting yesterday, quote, we are ending 2021 with what one analyst described as the strongest first year economic track record of any president in the last 50 years. if you're keeping count that includes ronald reagan. let's keep the progress going.

let's bring inte