just say the word....traders await cues on the next move in syria. in today's cover story....why americans still struggle to achieve the dr. martin luther king dream. plus fast food workers across the nation are fed up. and... project yellow light. why its becoming harder to get backing for a hollywood hit. first business starts now! you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas good morning! it's thursday, august 29th. i'm angela miles. in today's first look: the stressed stock market. traders are on edge. as the

global tensions rise in syria. yesterday the major indicies all rallied as investors pumped money into oil stocks. gold lost $4 as oil traded above $109 dollars per barrel. the federal reserve offers new rules to avoid another housing market meltdown including lenders holding more money to cover risky loans. and, guess what? shares of the jeans maker guess had a huge breakout. the stock rallied more than 18% on heavy volume in the after hour session after delivering a strong earnings forecast. ben lichtenstein of tradersaudio.com joins us now for trader talk. good morning. will we continue to feel the syria effect in the market today? > >i think so. if you look at yesterday's activity, the market tried to get a bit of a bid going throughout the day session trade. but around the middle of the day, we started to sell off a bit---unable to get into new low prints. don't get me wrong---it wasn't that weak

but just unable to hold the rally if you will but for the most part what i've been noticing in terms of this downside activity that we've been seeing off that 1700 level in the s &p's. just very little rejection of these lower levels. what we have been seeing on that slow steady grind higher was every little bit of a retracement, every pullback was met with strong by side activity and we're just not seeing that right now. i think that's the fear factor at play. > >what about oil? what are the highs here? > >talk about fear factor at play. 112 yesterday---in the overnight leading into yesterday morning's trade. didn't quite get up there during the day session trade yesterday but certainly the 110 level is scary as it is. we're starting to see it increase at the pump. we're really feeling the pinch. at this point though it's anyone's guess how far or how high this market could go. the market is basically vertical to the upside which means it's seeking value. any statement, any comments at the wrong time from the right person could send that market screaming higher. obviously geopolitical concerns at play there. > >traders love to buy on the rumor. what would you buy? > >i actually think that as long as this market holds above

that 1600 level it's still a buy. really this rally has been led by fed activity. that hasn't changed . yes, we're seeing geopolitical concerns, yes we're seeing the dollar teeter. gold has been on the move a little bit but for the most part, this isn't over until the fat lady sings. but for the most part until we get some sort of word that we're seeing some significant tapering, we're seeing the lack of qe activity. i think that the market is still been---i think you have to give the benefit of the doubt to the bulls. now again, that would change of we were to see s &p's below 1600 but until that happens i really feel the strength is to the upside still. > >thanks ben. > >my pleasure. in 50-years since the civil rights movement's march on washington economic equality is still elusive by many measures since martin luther king spoke of "the dream." our cover story looks at milestones made but with many more yet ahead. "because they marched, city councils changed, congress changed and even the white house changed." fifty-years after martin luther king evoked the dream...this image brought it rushing back. "it's hard to believe. i wish my grandfather had been alive to see it."

but decades after the march on washington for jobs and freedom, the event's full name, and the 1965 voting rights act when 42% of blacks lived in poverty, economic equality has been elusive, even by the most recent measures. black unemployment is 12.6%, for whites--6.6%. since 2009, black income has dropped 10.9%. white income has dropped 3.6%. the gap in household income hasn't changed in 50-years. and it's become harder for black entrepreneurs to get started. "access to capital is a huge reason but so is education." the nation's 44 and a half million blacks comprise 14.2% of the population but 8.9% of college graduates. and 8.2% of corporate managers. "with the decline in manufacturing that paid a livable wage, if you don't have an education, things have

gotten worse." casey says research shows the gap between haves and have nots within the black community has widened. while black entrepreneurs' prime source of collateral for business loans-- their homes have lost value. "home values, used as collateral, have dropped and without that, they can't borrow money." "african-americans net worth is tied to their home, whereas whites are more diversified." despite peaks and valleys in economic cycles since the 1960's--the gaps are basically the same. one notable gain---- instead of 42% of blacks living in poverty 50-years ago, it's now 28%. for whites--a little less than ten-percent. on the heels of the anniversary of dr. king's speech on equality.. merrill lynch is agreeing to pay to settle a lawsuit with black brokers. the lawsuit accused the brokerage

of steering black employes into clerical positions while also diverting wealthy accounts to white brokers.the lawsuit was filed on the behalf of 700 black brokers who worked for merril lynch back in 2005. the new york times says merrill will pay $160 million to settle the racial bias case. fast food workers are hungry for better wages. a nationwide strike among food industry workers that started on the east coast is expected to spread to the south and the west coast today. its part of the growing "fight for 15 movement". workers are calling on corporations to pay a living wage of 15 dollars an hour. currently, the national minimum wage is 7 dollars and 25 cents. the strike is expected to take place in 35 cities across the country. a full disclosure is out on salaries of officials at the federal reserve. outgoing chairman ben bernanke ranks low on the list with assets worth around 1.5 million dollars.vice chair janet yellen, who is

rumored-- to be under consideration to head the fed -- holds assets worth about 3.8 million--including a stamp collection possibly valued up to 50 thousand dollars.the other frontrunner for the job-- lawrence summers-- has as much 24 million dollars. jpmorgan may soon be slammed with more penalties. regulators are preparing to unload a slew of fines against the bank.some date back to the bank's behavior with consumers during the recession. reports say the bank sold unecessary financial products against identity theft.and wrongly collected overdue bills from customers. the new york times says regulators will unveil the actions against jpm sometime next month. the bank declined to comment. several hooter's employees in florida are in hot water for allegedly attempting to get a slice of the bp settlement. the u.s. attorney says they inflated their incomes to make it look like they lost significant amounts of money during the 2010 oil spill. meantime, a federal judge is

rejecting bp's latest request to suspend settlment payments. the oil giant maintains-- the claims process is filed with fraud. the tables have turned in the manufacturing sector. boston consulting group finds the u.s. is becoming a hot spot for cheap manufacturing. costs in germany, japan, france and italy are predicted to rise by as much as 18% in the next two years. while lower labor costs in the u.s. are attracting foreign buyers. the military situation in syria. has consumers fearing the worst for gas prices. oil futures reached a two year high this week, climbing above 112 dollars. however, consumers can breathe easy that gas prices are lower heading into the labor day holiday. gas buddy says prices average 3.58 cents a gallon, down 7 cents from last month. demand for oil is also sliding. " overall demand for refined products like gasoline and aviation fuel is down. about 2 million barrels a day over the last few years over where we had been. and our supply is heading up. our refiners are producing record amounts of fuel we are a net exporter of refined petroleum product."

that was rayola dougher of the american petroleum institute. she says less demand could ultimately stabilize prices for motorists, as oil producers are forced to compete. all state insurance is counting car crashes. sioux falls south dakota ranks as the safest city for drivers. the average driver goes nearly 14 years between car collisions. about the same as boise, idaho. the two cities with the most accidents: baltimore-- and dc which falls to the bottom of the list. with drivers having fender benders or worse almost every 5 years. a startling hindsight revelation is coming from overseas. german chancellor angela merkel says greece should never been allowed to join the eurozone. merkel was speaking to a crowd of german voters when she proclaimed: the debt crisis in greece has been brewing for many years and then blamed her predecessor for letting greece use the euro currency. the election in germany is september 22nd.

options trading in leap wireless is reportedly under review. usa today reports the chicago board options exchange along with regulators are checking to an unusually large number of call options contracts that traded just hours before at&t dislosed it was paying $14 billion dollars to takeover leap wireless. leap's stock doubled on the takeover news making those call contracts extremely profitable. there's a guilty plea connected to the george zimmerman case. george zimmerman's wife is pleading guilty to perjury. her husband was acquitted in the killing of travyon martin who was shot by zimmerman as he walked through a gated community.shellie zimmerman admitted in court yesterday, she lied in a her husband's bond hearing that the couple had little money. prosecutors uncovered the zimmermans had more than $100,000 from internet donations. detroit will retain access to its casino cash. a judge ruled this week that the city can continue to hold on to its gambling tax revenue.detroit's

bond insurer had attempted to gain access to the money, arguing that the taxes are considered collateral for other debts. however, a judge says the revenues are protected by u.s. law and cannot be frozen. currently the city rakes in 180 million dollars a year in taxes from its three casinos. groupon is buying a warehouse. and it's viewed as a competitive step toward amazon. the wall street journal reports groupon is building a network of warehouses to store items to sell similar to amazon.but there will be a revolviing selection of goods similar to costco or sams. groupon's core business is selling daily coupons on the internet.groupon's shares have trended higher this summers under new management. groupon is among several companies doing a ceo shuffle this year.a new study shows-- nearly 40% of the top-paid ceos in the u.s. during the last 20 years wound up being fired, fined or bailed out by the government. among the names on the top 25 list.ken lay who's company enron collapsed from accounting fraud in 2001. and dick fuld who ran lehman

brothers which went down in the 2008 financial crisis. still to come: why funding for films is presenting new challenges in hollywood. plus...a low profile stock that traders are watching today.. and, ..preparing for the worst. tips on planning for natural disasters bill moller is up next.

hi, i'm ben affleck, and many actors have played the part of a u.s. serviceman in the movies, but for veterans like james crosby and so many other brave men and women, his service and his sacrifice for our country are real. outside baghdad, a rocket attack blew up my humvee, killing one of my marines

and leaving me paralyzed. [ben affleck] when james returned home, he, like many others, was in no condition to cope and advocate for the services he needed. fortunately, paralyzed veterans of america's trained experts were there to help him so he could concentrate on getting well. for over sixty years, paralyzed veterans of america has worked to ensure that our injured veterans get the medical, housing and auto benefits they have earned. i'm so thankful paralyzed veterans of america was there for me. surely those who sacrificed so much deserve no less. join me in supporting our paralyzed veterans. visit p-v-a dot org.

in the 1950's americans worried about and planned for possible nuclear holocaust that age of fear has passed but with global terrorism and chaos not to mention natural disasters, it's easy to think, how should i prepare myself and my family for a disaster. anthony kovic wrote the book emergency prepping: simple disaster preparedness for the modern family. anthony, how do i know what it is exactly i'm preparing my family to protect itself against? > >you want to protect yourself from the basis of disasters. storms that come in, power outages, blackouts, things that will destroy your food supply especially if its in the

freezer for a couple of days or a week. > >people hear conversations like this and they probably say, "i don't have to prepare." the trucks are always going to be delivering food. and they probably don't take the kinds of steps you recommend. > >that is true. we live in a country where our systems and our distribution networks always are working on time and working well. so we haven't been used to those kind of issues. > >what should i buy and have on hand in the home? > >canned goods like soups are the best thing. dry foods like beef jerky and powerbars. stuff that has a great shelf life. > >so you don't need to have an elaborate preparedness. these sound like very simple inexpensive steps that a family could take. > >very simple and very inexpensive. most people live in cities with high rises. you cannot bring generators and stuff like that in high rises. > >where do you keep all of this? just in the standard family pantry? > >standard family pantry. you get a couple of bins and put them underneath your bed and have a good 2 week supply ready to roll. and you'e good to go. > >i know a lot of companies sell these things. i've seen

them at costco. > >that is true. a lot of companies have gotten in the emergency prepping business. some of the companies have long shelf life products. 10, 20, 25 years i've seen them but i don't know if you wanna eat something that's been around for 20 years. > >well taste maybe isn't the top priority when you're facing a disaster. anthony kovic, thank you so much. > >thank you. bill-- enviornmental concerns are on the rise in japan. japan's government will takeover cleanup efforts following a toxic water leak in a japanese power plant. the fukushima plant was hit by the 20-11 tsnuami. radioactive exposure levels within the plant and among staff have increased since july, when the leak began. the problem was not actually discovered until mid august. still to come: are we living in the age of box office bombs? find out in movies and money. and later on -- the tech stock that traders love -- but is not so popular with average

investors. we'll be right back.

the butler carried the box office of the second weekend in a row. our movie guy is here to tell us if the butler is headed for a threepeat. good to have you back on the show. will it happen again? > >it very well could. it doesn't have a lot of competition this weekend unless teenage girls flock to the theater for the one direction movie i think the butler will score a third straight weekend. > >we'll talk about that in just a minute. but here are the box office numbers from over the weekend---now, these numbers are not high but is the butler making its money back? > >absolutely. the butler was most definitely a hit and it was a very small film with 41 producers all chipping in with six pennies ofr whatever---but its definitely going to make its money back and it's a word

of mouth hit so this film is going to keep going for a few more weeks. > >that's what i'm hearing. the demographic is growing on this one. also on the list...so coming up this weekend you already gave us a bit of a tip off...let's start with closed circuit. > >not a very big release from focus features. they should have released the world's end in more theaters last week to get a bigger bump. you're not gonna see much from closed circuit this weekend. > >and getaway, which you screened. > >i did. and it's a really ridiculous movie. it should just be called shifting: the movie because that's pretty much all the movie entails. it's probably gonna do 10 or 11 million over the 4 days. you're not gonna see a lot of big money this weekend. > >that's horrible. and then one direction. this is a concert movie. > >this could go either way. if this movie was released a year and a half ago maybe it would

have done more. we saw the justin bieber movie and the miley cyrus movie back when she wore clothes that did very well. but the jonas brothers movie and the katy perry movie didn't do that well so this is kind of a mixed bag. we'll see how it does. > >behind the scenes you have a couple of big hollywood heavyhitters george lucas and steven spielberg saying that the film industry is in for an implosion. hollywood is having a hard time getting movies onto the big screen .why is it so hard? > >you look at a case like the butler and all the people behind the scenes involved to get the money together. that's a common theme in hollywood. what lucas and spielberg were getting at earlier this summer when they made these statements was the idea that these big budgets that keep coming out of hollywood--- if they don't make their money back we're gonna see hollywood implode. and we had that month period where you had white house down, lone ranger, and ripd, and turbo, and pacific rim. and they were all sort of failing a bit and that's what they were looking at. but we've had 23 movies this year that budgeted over 100 million dollars. 15 of them can be considered successes so which way are we going here? > >but ther's a lot of money spent on flops. >.absolutely. the lone ranger

was a huge flop---white house down. but you know, 15 out of 23 if you're doing the math that's not too bad for a summer is going to be the biggest summer on record. we're looking at $4.4 billion this summer in the midst of all these flops, so it's a weird summer for sure. > >eric, thanks for coming on the show. > >thank you. still ahead the software stock still ahead the software stock that's captured the focus o hi, i'm ben affleck, and many actors have played the part of a u.s. serviceman in the movies, but for veterans like james crosby and so many other brave men and women, his service and his sacrifice for our country are real. outside baghdad, a rocket attack blew up my humvee, killing one of my marines and leaving me paralyzed. [ben affleck] when james returned home, he, like many others, was in no condition to cope and advocate for the services he needed. fortunately, paralyzed veterans of america's trained experts were there to help him so he could concentrate on getting well. for over sixty years, paralyzed veterans of america has worked to ensure that our injured veterans get the medical, housing and auto benefits they have earned.

i'm so thankful paralyzed veterans of america was there for me. surely those who sacrificed so much deserve no less. join me in supporting our paralyzed veterans. visit p-v-a dot org.

matt cavanaugh of cmz trading joins us now to talk about a software stock that is oh so popular with traders. good morning. > >good morning.

> >the company is salesforce.com. it's not as large as microsoft but it tends to be a mover and it's very popular with traders. why is that? > >well i think it's a good bellweather for the software industry and it's one that we like to look at. this is a stock that was below $10 thousand back in 2009 and is now a mid-40s stock so its really a big player in the cloud market, a big player for crm software. it's something that we're definitely gonna be watching. > >earnings are out tonight. the options market is predicting a major move could be ahead. would you be a buyer of this stock now or would you wait later? > >i think this stock is an interesting thing to watch because the expectations over the quarter have really come down. the analysts have cut what they're looking for for the whole year by a third. so as a result the stock is kind of sit. it's attracted a lot of short sellers and really it's just sitting here waiting for the information. i think the big key for salesforce is going to be how are their acquisitions

that they've done moving together with the company? can they increase their margins anymore? and what kind of positive news can they say going forward. so i think, at least in the short ter, it's possible that this stock could get a pop if they say anything positive at all. > >what you're telling us if the news is positive , the short sellers could be squeezed into buying more shares and that could be a good ride for investors. who knows? > >this is a really expensive stock. it's trading about 80 times earnings. revenue growth in the mid 20's isn't even exciting because people expect so much more but with expectations really coming down and people not thinking too much is gonna happen and short sellers saying---let's hope we don't have to cover here. maybe something good will happen. > >thanks for coming on the show matt. > >thanks for having me. that's it for today. coming up on the show tomorrow -- it's trader's unplugged! and, don't miss the singing nuns. how these sisters flew to the top of music charts and are making it big time in the recording business. from all of us after business.have a great thursday.

♪ >> now a paid presentation for meaningful beauty advanced by cindy crawford. >> with special appearances by debra messing. >> valerie bertinelli. >> christa miller. >> and stars from tv's royal pains and the mentalist. >> hosted by network tv correspondent katrina szish. >> brought to you by guthy-renker. >> hi, everyone, i'm beauty and style journalist katrina szish on location in beverly hills. in just a few minutes we'll meet one of the most beautiful women in the world, supermodel cindy crawford.