shutdown strategies. traders adjust to a news shutout during the government standstill. in today's cover story: the people protest. fired up furloughed workers send a rallying cry to congress. plus.... financial red flags... what you need to know before parting ways with your partner. and.. the sudden fuss over facebook in the options market. first business starts now! you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas good morning! it's wednesday, october 9th. i'm angela miles. in today's first look: traders and investors get their first taste of a new round of earnings. alcoa reported a surprising profit after the

close. yum brands which owns kfc missed on earnings due in part to lower sales in china. washington outweighs earnings with the debt ceiling drama. yesterday-- the vix options set a one day volume record at cboe. while the dow dropped 159 points, nasdaq was off by 75 and the s&p by 21. the commodities were much more tame...gold moved down $6, oil inched up 52 there is a serious salmonella outbreak. 278 people in 18 states have become sick since july. the outbreak is linked to foster farms chicken. the numbers to watch for are on your screen. no one has died. and the neiman marcus christmas book is out. among the extravagant gifts - a $1.9 million dollar demand ring that includes a trip to africa where it was mined. larry shover of sfg alternatives joins us now for some trader talk. larry, is there a political drag on this market? > >there definitely is a huge washington discount. half the traders are scared because they don't want to miss out on some type of resolution rally. the

other half are worried that they're gonna be in the middle of a crisis selloff. so traders seem to be at a standstill right now, not knowing exactly what to do. > >traders do have earnings to chew over. alcoa reported after the close. what do you see in the numbers that you like or do not like? > >alcoa beat and actually beat by a lot. a big surprise to everybody given the fact that aluminum is the worst fundamental based metal in the last 10 years. huge stock overhang, 100% supply growth out of china. nobody has any hope for alcoa and the aluminum market but they somehow have been able to streamline their operations and make some money. great to see. > >what about fed fears in tapering. has that been wiped off the map now that everybody's worried about washington? > >it's a great point. tapering if anything now given the drag we have on the gdp and the partial government shutdown, perhaps is gonna be delayed until maybe january. nobody's talking about it. i haven't

read a thing about it but people are starting to expect maybe december's not gonna happen because of the gdp drag that we're seeing. so, nobody's really talking about it but it's something that will come front and center once this political stalemate gets figured out. > >are there places where investors should be rotating their money into or out of? > >it's an interesting thing--- if you're scared of what's going on in u.s. right now i would start looking at europe just to rotate a little bit. the pmi numbers were very broad based last week suggesting a 1% gdp growth in the eurozone---really incredible. so i would just find an etf that gives you broad exposure to the eurozone. > >thank you larry. > >you're welcome. in our cover story, the ripple effect of the government shutdown can be seen from the rim of the grand canyon national park--closed for only the second time since it opened in 1919, to protests happening daily. with a big one expected friday in washington, d.c. involving the trucking industry. jesse jackson flanked by local politicians and federal workers protested in front of chicago's federal buildings. "no one has the right to hijack the national government and use use their power of economic terror in this perverse and

ugly way." juanita harris, who works for social security has three children, a husband on dialysis and was handed a letter from her boss to show creditors during the shutdown. "and have they honored that? four have but the rest want me to pay late fees, if i can't get the money to them." not only are tens of thousands of federal employees forced to stay at home without pay. it's also threatening state workers with paychecks tied to federal funding, such as workplace safety inspectors and caretakers for people with disabilities. "it's time for speaker boehner to get a backbone and call the vote and get our government back to work." arizona opted to stop welfare benefits of about 200-dollars a week to more than five-thousand families. in a letter to house speaker john boehner, illinois' governor called the impasse "dysfunctional...to shut down the whole government is just plain wrong." among defense contractors, lockheed martin

says it will furlough 24- hundred workers in 27 states. regarding the fast-aproaching debt ceiling deadline, goldman sachs economist alec phillips draws a worst-case scenario that computes federal spending could drop by 175 billion dollars a month if the debt ceiling is not lifted. phillips says there's also a 30-percent probability that the debt ceiling gets raised but the government shutdown continues. economist believe the country is on a collision course as lawmakes remain at a standstill in the great debate over the goverment shutdown and the debt limit. yesterday was an action packed day of news conferences by the president and house speaker john boehner. the president took to the airwaves to insist republicans end threat and fund the government. prior to talking to the public the president called congressman boehner saying he's happy to engage in talks with republican leaders. "but i also told them that having such a conversation talks, negotiations, shouldn't require hanging the threat of a government shutdown or economic chaos over the heads of americans. " "the long and short of it is,

there's going to be a negotiation here. we can't raise the debt ceiling without doing something about what's driving us to borrow more money and to live beyond our means." tomorrow treasury secretary jack lew will testify before congress about the importance of raising the debt limit by the october 17th deadline. two of the u-s's biggest creditors are publicly calling on the nation's politicians to quickly deal with the looming debt ceiling. china and japan hold a combined $2.4-trillion in u-s debt. in its first official response, china says it is the united states' repsonsibility to act. and japan's ministry of finance is reportedly very worried about the situation. add to that the head of the international monetary fund christine lagarde -- who spoke out publicly saying that the failure of u-s politicians to raise the debt ceiling endangers the entire world economy.

the government shutdown is creating trying times for traders. last friday --the labor department could not compile its report on unemployment numbers. this week traders will be left guessing on news from usda on grains and livestock. "we're not getting any supply demand report which is a huge report due on friday. most of your energy reports aren't coming out. in addition, your livestock and live cattle -- they're having to take alternative measures like the cme with calculating settlement prices and other data as far as production versus supply versus demand." futures trader phillip streible tells us in many cases traders are basing their decisions on technical levels when no news is available. the shutdown is setting in. the f-a-a has halted any new aircraft registration due to the closure of its registry office in oklahoma. that means boeing and airbus are prohibited from delivering orders to customers. and tourism continues to take a hit. destination d.c. says after a record year for washington tourism, bookings are beginning to fall. abc news reports hotels in the d.c. area are citing a 25% drop in bookings so far. instead of helping homeowners,

several states are accused of using money from a huge mortgage settlement ---to balance budgets and fund pet projects. states allegedly siphoned off one billion of the $2.5 billion of settlement funds meant for struggling homeowners. the national conference of state legislatures cites texas, arizona, georgia, kanasas, nebraska and virgina as using the majority of money for other purposes. and connecticut, colorado and pennsylvanias as issuing most of the money to homeowners. one important note: states were given discretion over how to handle the settlement money. five former employees of convicted swindler bernie madoff go on trial this week -- for their alleged participation in a $65-billion ponzi scam. the "5 employees" plead not guilty-- however, prosecutors contend that bernie madoff could not have acted alone in the decades-long scam. jury selection started yesterday. the trial could bring out testimony from director steven spielberg, actor kevin bacon

and actress zsa zsa garbor who lost money in the scheme. bernie madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence. jc penney reports having enough cash on hand to last until the end of the year. that caused a rush of buying in the stock tuesday-- with share trading well above s8 before closing at $7.77. there were concerns the jcp was burning to quickly through its cash. but the retailer anticipates $2 billion in year-end liquidity. jcp also reports revenue fell 4% in september while online revenue increase 25%. microsoft's ceo has some parting words for shareholders. steve ballmer issued his final letter to microsoft investors this week. he outlined accomplisments with microsoft, and offered direction for the road ahead stating the company's focus is to "create a family of devices and services." ballmer is set to leave the company sometime within the next year. toyota will have to stand trial over claims the car company failed to warn the public about design defects. a california judge denied toyota's motion to dismiss the case. the claims about the

defects are coming from the estate of a woman who testified before she died that her 2005 camry sped out of control and hit a school building in 2009. toyota won an earlier sudden acceleration case by a brooklyn doctor. gm is shifting from showrooms. the plan is to expand online car shopping, so customers can bypass dealerhip showrooms. the move faces legal challenges -- dealers have exclusive rights to sell most new cars in person, which often leads to higher add ons. guess who's shopping at dollar stores? the weatlhy. research firm mintel finds that among people in the top income bracket earning more than $150- thousand dollars per year -- 50% are shopping at dollar stores just as much this year as last year. more than half of the people surveyed overall believe products sold at dollar stores are just as good as other retailers. cruise prices are at the lowest ever. a report says prices are down 43% from 2009-- with some cabins going for 30 dollars per

night on carnival and royal carribean. prices typically fall this time of year, however, it does follow high profile ship mishaps. home prices in vegas may have reached the peak. the greater las vegas association of realtors reports the 19th month streak of rising prices. has ended-- at least for now. the median price of a single family home was $180,000 in september--- down 1.1% in august. but still up 28% from a year ago. the ticker symbol for tweeter home entertainment was swiftly changed because investors confused the bankrupt home entertainment retailer with social media company, twitter. the confusion is understandable -- tweeter's old symbol was t-w- t-r-q. it is now t-h-e-g-q. tweeter stock jumped a staggering 18-hundred percent friday. social media giant twitter is readying an initial public offering and will soon join the market. still to come: the cost of divorce costs . how a bitter breakup can hurt your future... plus, 100 dollar makeover... the amped up security on the new bill. and...is paying with cash costing you more... bill moller reveals why after the break.

i'm going to pass chemistry, and i'll take it from there. i'm going to do what makes me happy. i'm going to work hard. be independent. live large. make the most of every opportunity. i knew i wanted to go to college. but figuring out how to pay for it? i didn't have a clue. the u.s. department of education has over $100 billion. and that's a lot of money. to help students pay for college. and the free application? you mean the fafsa. i did it online. it was easy. i'm never giving up on my goals. i will make a difference. i'm going to find out how to pay for college. i'm going to college.gov.

cash - money in your pocket or the bank. it's the physical form of currency. but did you know cash costs you. a study by tufts university finds using cash costs us 200- billion dollars a year. bill hardekopf - columnist in forbes & the christian science monitor and ceo of lowcards.com has written about this study. bill how does cash cost us? 200

billion is a big figure. break it down for us to the individual or the household. > >well, 200 billion is a huge figure bill. it averages $1739 per household. and that's a lot of money that carrying cash can cost each american. > >help me understand this. how is it costing us? > >there are a number of factors that go into it. some of it is theft. some of it is the atm fees that we all have to pay when we go out of network to use our atm cards. but the majority of it surprisingly is the time that it takes us to get cash. the time that it takes us to go to those atm machines or to the banks. everybody has a cost for each of the minutes and hours that they spend. and the cost of getting our cash is actually what's costing us the majority of that 200 billion dollars. > >i guess some of this over

time will be obviated once we get our cell phones up to speed and we can use them as a substitute for cash. but in terms of fees outside of the out of network atm fees, what other kinds of fees are hitting people? > >there are a lot of payroll card fees, debit card fees. some people are paying now strictly by payroll cards or prepaid debit cards. and those have some fees tied in with them. it's illegal to make people get paid just by those cards but some people choose to get paid by those cards and there are a lot of fees tied in with them. > >and also, currency exchanges. you have to pay a fee to get to your money. > >absolutely. everytime you have some type of transaction like that it could cost you some type of currency exchange fee. all that adds up and it adds up to 200 billion dollars over the whole country. > >so in a nutshell, we've gotta be fee smart then in terms of how we use and access our money.

> >we certainly do. we do need to be aware of how to avoid those fees. try and only go to an atm that's in your network. try and make sure that you don't have to use an out of network atm because it costs about $3.85 on average when you use an atm that's out of your network. > >bill hardekopf with low cards dot com, thanks so much. > >thank you. it's costing the government more to give a security spruce up the new $100 dollar bills. the big bills went into circulation yesterday and include a blue ribbon that coats each bill, a liberty bell hologram and a new watermark on benjamin franklin's portrait. those features cost 12 point 6 cents per bill a 60% increase. but well worth it according to the chicago federal reserve. "at this point what we're trying to do is stay ahead of the counterfeiters... so our security features, they are easy enough to indicate and they are hard enough to counterfeit." 100 dollar bills are typically the most counterfeited notes. coming up on first

business...will costco ring up a profits for investors following earnings due out today-- and, why a divorce means breaking up with your spouse and your bank account. tips on how to protect your money in a split are coming your way next.

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a nasty divorce can be killer to your credit score. gemma allen of ladden and allen family law is here to talk divorce and dollars. good morning to you. > >good morning. > >divorce is such an emotional issue. but it's also very financially oriented. so what can people do to protect themselves? first off, i would love to have you give us a worst case that you've seen in your law practice. > >one of the worst case scenarios is people who think that once they're divorced, the taxes they filed jointly when they were together can no longer haunt them. the fact is that they can haunt you and they often do. and you never

want to have an enemy like the irs. and the irs doesn't care--- even if your spouse indemnified you against the taxes---the irs will say, that's great. that's between the two of you. i'm coming after wherever i can find the money. > >and your creditors don't care that you have signed on the dotted line either. they just want their money as well. > >exactly. a credit card is a perfect example of a somewhat lesser enemy but also a tough enemy. credit card collection companies will say---i don't care if he or she indemnified you ---go after them. we're coming after you because we know where your money is. > >should you close all joint accounts before you get divorced? > >great advice. and that should be part of the decree that all accounts that are joint are closed or at the very least all balances are paid down to zero. and arrangements are made as to which ones you take, which one i take, and how we move forward. > >at what point should you set up your own line of credit--- get you own credit card. > >as early as you can in a marriage whether it's a good

marriage or a bad marriage. because it's important to have that running forward, whether you stay together or whether you break up. a woman and a guy each need their own credit rating. when you come to apply for a mortgage nowadays, most of the mortgage companies are looking at both. > >what about bills that you hold jointly? > >bills that you hold jointly you've gotta apportion between you. it's the hardest thing to talk about is money but if you say i'm going to do these and you do those. and by the way if either one of us is late or unreliable it will come back to haunt both of us. again, married or divorced. > >as horrible as divorce is it would seem that if you could at least play nice through the process you might have better fortunes in working this credit issue out. > >you know what, it is true. but i think you also have to be careful. sometimes even in an amicable divorce people are not quite as vigilant about every detail. you need to attend to every detail of your credit because that will be with you til death do us part, nevermind divorce. > >gemma, always a pleasure. come back soon. > >thank you so much. still ahead-- why the options

market is suddenly hot on facebook. chart talk is next

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costco rolls in with earnings today. joining us now is james ramelli of keene on the market dot com. he is on the case for us. good morning to you and what do you see in the charts on costco? > >good morning. good to be here. so, looking at the chart of costco we see a stock that has pulled back off its highs but is still trading in relatively bullish territory. it's not the most screamingly bullish chart around but it is nearing an area of massive support where it should find buyers. they are reporting earnings. we see a mixed historical performance---it sold off four times and rallied four times out of the past eight quarters. but the interesting thing we're seeing is that they're building in a much larger implied move than the historical average. we're talking about 3% versus 1.7%. i want to try and fade that movement and look at a strategy that will help me profit if costco moves less than expected. > >at what level then would you buy or sell this stock in plain english? > >i don't want to be buying this stock if they come out

with a bad earnings report and the stock breaks this 110 support level. i think that that's a level to lean on and could be a good level for me to get in or if this move comes in less than expected i do expect the stock to head higher through the end of the year after that. > >what do you think about this option action in facebook? people are buying these way out of the money calls. could be predicting that the stock rises above $70 maybe $80 by the end of the year. do you buy into that? > >i don't. to me these honestly just look like hedges. we're seeing them come in and buy calls as high out as the 75 line as early as next month in november. i think anything beyond the measure move target for november which is around $8. which also encapsulates facebook's next earnings is just gambling. they're getting really aggressive with these targets and it looks to me like a hedge---them coming in and covering some short units. > >from the traders lips...thank you very much james. > >thank you. coming up tomorrow...what our film critic has to say about the record breaking start at the box office for the month of october. and whether captain phillips has the power to sink gravity this weekend. from all of us at first business have a great wednesday.

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