the nation's new health insurance program: how its creating: profits and problems. in today's cover story .... why it's becoming tougher to own a home in america. plus, short sellers waiting in the wings for moneymaking opportunity. and....hollywood name drop. can a film with serious star power kick "gravity"out of its top spot at the box office? first business starts now! you're watching first business: financial news, analysis, and today's investment ideas good morning! it's thursday, october 24th. i'm angela miles. in today's first look: earnings are back in focus. stocks fell yesterday on a mixed results coming from corporate america. the dow fell 55 the nasdaq dropped 23 and the s&p pulled away from it's record high by

falling 9 points. the commodities fell as well. gold was down $10 and oil $1.22. a jury says bank of america is liable for countrywide mortgage fraud. the department of justice called countrywide into quesiton for selling shoddy loans in a program called "hustle". countrywide was a unit of bofa. and t moble is dropping contracts on tablets and instead selling the devices through monthly installments. todd horwitz of average joe options joins us now. we had a selloff in the market yesterday? will there be more selling ahead? > >good morning angie. it certainly looks like there's gonna be more selling. i think some of the key things you want to take away from yesterday's trading was a little bit of a spike in volatility which we also had on tuesday. i think you wanna take a look at some of

the higher fliers who are under a little bit of pressure. so i think that this is just the start of some more selling to come. > >we're also watching what's going on with crude prices. the price of crude is going down but those inventories are going up. so where do you suggest the price would be for this as far as a floor? > >i think that $95 should be probably the first floor in crude. but i think eventually we'll probably work our way down to $90.the original rally was built on fear in syria and egypt and had nothing to do really with the inventory as we are a net exporter of oil right now. > >you talked about some of those high flying stocks earlier. would apple be on your list? we're hearing a lot about carl ichan, the big investor, sending a letter to the ceo of apple. will it matter to that stock? > >i think carl icahn wore out his effect when he took apple up from 460 to almost 500 a couple of months ago with his

announcement. i think everybody is now used to it and we're seeing the stock is actually performing fairly well over the last few days but i do look for that to probably stop here pretty quick as well. > >todd, always a pleasure. thanks for coming on our show. > >thank you so much. the gap is widening between middle-class salaries and homes they hope to buy. as our cover story explains, it adds up to more properties out of reach. home prices are going up a lot faster than wages, with dire predictions. "until we fix that, improve median income, i'm afraid we're going to see home affordability slipping." the national asociation of realtors reports home prices have risen nearly 16% in 25- cities over the past year. while financial website interest-dot-com reports incomes rose about three percent. discouraging, to luisa fonseca's sister. "she has to scale back. she's looking at cheaper homes that she can afford." putting home-buying on hold for others.

"waiting and getting money together, hoping it (price) goes down." san francisco, an expensive market already, got even pricier. when the median--as many above as below, home price last year of 552-thousand, 600- dollars...rose this year to 706-thousand, 300. an increase of 153-thousand, 700-dollars. a big bounce, unlikely to repeat, next year. "it's gonna be less than 16%, next year. so you're better off saving, maybe paying a slightly higher rate but be in a stronger position." and there are options. "there are program with 10% down, there are programs with 3% down, but your credit drives that 10% product." "if you want to own your own home, you're going to have to have more liquidity because your wages aren't going to keep up to the market." in a related survey, country

financial reports 41% of americans think owning a home is attainable for a typical middle-class family. that's down five points from last year. testimony on capitol hill begins today into the problems plaguing the government's new online marketplace for health insurance. high demand and contractor confusion are among the issues causing glitches on the site-- and frustrations for americans attempting to sign up for health insurance coverage at healthcare.gov. today-- a top contractor responsible for the site will testify before a house panel. the contractor contends more users are now able to enroll for insurance. cnn reports-- the nation's health cheif-- kathleen sebelius-- says the president was not told about potential website problems. she testifies october 30th. "clearly there's problems with the website but i would argue that the problems go much further than that. how about the report over the past couple

of days of the hundreds of thousands of americans who are finding out that they are going to lose their coverage. " president obama has called in a top tech advisor to fix healthcare.gov. marketwatch.dot.com reports-- the obama administration may consider giving americans more time sign up for health care before facing a penalty for not having coverage. urrent deadline is january 1, 2014 with penalties starting after march 31st. yesterday, president obama met with insurance companies that stand to profit from the affordable care act. wellpoint insurance is not rattled by the exchange glitches. for the third time this year, the insurance company is raising its outlook. third quarter earnings fell five percent....but wellpoint says it expects a 2013 profit of 8 dollars and forty cents a share, above analyst expectations. the ceo says the company remains optimistic about the growth opportunities on the exchanges. however, the stock fell more than 3 percent in trading yesterday.

caterpillar's stock lost ground in trading. shares fell $5 dollars yesterday. cat missed on earnings miss and reported revenue for the year-- will be nearly $11 billion dollars less than last year. the steep drop in business is happening due to declines in the mining. caterpillars has trimmed its staff by an esimated 13,000. motorola solutions says its business took a sharp hit in the thrid quarter from the government shutdown. revenues fell 2%. motorola sells equipment to government agencies. the government shutdown caused a slowdown at the national transportation safety board. the ntsb says 59 accidents took place during the nearly 3 week partial government closure. during that time, only 2 of the 59 accidents were investigated by the agency. the majority of staff were furloughed during the shutdown. now-- the agency says its conclusions of those investigations could be hampered due to the delays. boeing is laying out a flight plan. the ceo says the jet maker is working on nagging parts failures on dreamliner 787-s. boeing also plans to "gradually" increase roduction of the

dreamliners. the company's shares rallied more than $6 dollars wednesday, closing at $129 after the boeing reported earnings that topped analyst predictions for the 8th straight quarter. the u.s. is beefing up security against cyber attacks. the department of commerce has released new guidelines for cyber security standards.it hopes to streamline the process of fighting a hack attacks by providing a common language for business, tech and government workers. michael kaiser of the national cyber security council says the guidelines are particularly important for critical infrastructure such as electric grids and banks. " i think its going to really create a lens for businesses to look at how they are responding to cyber security. what they are doing around prevention, what they might do if an incident took place. and embedded in that framework is also a maturity model, so it helps cybersecurity organizations address security going forward." for your personal safety against hacking, a representative from symantec tells us be sure to update

software protection frequently, change your passwords often, and do not click on questionable links. turning to the economic picture overseas.spain appears to be emerging for a recession that has lasted 2 years. the latest economic data shows gdp there grew by one- tenth of a percent in the 3rd quarter. the recession has been espcially hard on the people of spain with austerity measures in place. the country is said be benefiting from foreiners investing in the nations' stocks and bonds. back in the u.s....detroit's financial future is now in the hands of a federal judge. the motor city's bankruptcy eligability trial continues today. lawyers face the major task of proving that the city qualifies for chapter 9. in order to do so, lawyers must show the city is insolvent, has the state of michigan's permission to file, and must illustrate steps were taken to negotiate with detroit's creditors. the trial is expected to continue through next week.

the nation's largest magazine publisher is putting an end to internships. condenast- home of vogue, vanity fair and glamour magazines reportedly is ending the program follwing heavy media coverage after two former interns filed lawsuits against the publisher. the interns claim they were paid less than $1 per hour. their cases are still pending. women's wear daily says interns will no longer be accepted starting next year. fedex is already spreading holiday cheer. the delivery company expects online holiday shopping will help boost shipping this year. it predicts monday december 2nd could be the busiest day with 22 million packages. that would put fed ex christmas shipments at pre -- recession levels. the company will bring on more than 20 thousand workers for the season. walmart is attempting to entice shoppers to buy the new ipad from apple by offering a trade in deal. apple rolled out the thinner lighter ipad air this week. the tablet will sell for $479 november 1 at walmart. shoppers could get up to a $300 credit toward the purchase by turning in their older model ipads. a partnership with samsung is giving one stock a major boost. screen maker corning signed a

10-year deal with samsung to provide the company's tablets and smartphones with display screens. the deal sent cornings stock 14% higher yesterday to close over 17 dollars. it also said it will buyback 2 billion dollars worth of shares. starbucks is branching into the tea business. the chain popular for its coffee-- opened its first "tea bar" in new york city yesterday called "teavana". starbucks' ceo views tea shops as a growing area as more pop up around the nation. ford and toyota are in fight for first place. a report says ford considers its focus to be "the" best-selling car in the world this year. ford claims sales are up 20% for the first half 2013. but toyota contends ford is not counting all of the similar cars toyota sells under "different" names in other countries. ironically, china is said to be ford's largest market. still to come: short sellers are considering their options as big names stocks continue to rally.

plus...overserved. the nasdaq component that is claiming overwhelming success. and quantity of stars or quality of film...which matters most? thats later in movies and money. we'll be right back.

we saw what netflix did the other day. then there is tesla with its surging shares. the s&p is at or near its all time high. some analysts say there are a lot of overvalued stock in this market - which usually means short sellers smell opportunity - ready to pounce when a company's stock takes a dive. so where are the shorts? they seem to be staying away. brian battle is a director at performance trust capital partners. short selling---you don't own the stock but you sell it as it's sinking. > >right and there's two reasons to do that. that's a very normal and ordinary market function. selling a stock fundamentally because you think it's not worth that price. or you sell a stock you don't own because you expect to buy it back at a later date. > >but brian when you look at the price to earning ratios they

are stratospherically high. it seems a ready made market for shorts. > >you're right. a typical pe ratio is like15-20 times earnings and some of these stocks you described are like 100 or 200 times. it's an extraordinary multiple. but what the companies would tell you is we're in a growth enterprise and we're gonna make the company bigger. so there's an expectation that the earnings will come later and they're trading that in for profitability right now. > >but it's more than that too. we have the federal reserve investing a lot of money too and interest rates basically mean you've gotta be playing the stocks. > >right. the federal reserve is incenting people not to be in the bond market and to be in the stock market. the other thing that's inhibiting short selling is we've had a consistent rally. every time you try to short this market, you get your face knocked off. so the speculators have to stay out of the way because you can't stand in front of that steamroller because you never know when you're gonna get run over. so you might be exactly right and your timing's wrong. so it's discouraging a lot of

short sellers because for the past year or two years, you couldn't win. > >so what are they doing? are they staying on the sidelines or looking for other opportunities? > >the problem with this is that short sellers should be a part of the market ecosystem. and if shortsellers aren't in the market, what they'll do is when they smell a stock going down, they'll pile on. so, they'll make the stock go down faster. > >that accelerates the drop. > >what we're gonna get is more volatility. the longer you don't have a correction, the bigger the next correction gets. if the market feels toppy as you said we're near the all time high the short sellers are waiting because they need---they want short stocks and they're just waiting for their opportunity and if we have a downdraft it might be pretty big. > >brian battle, as always thanks so much. > >you're welcome. thank you bill. success is coming at a cost for the panera restaurant chain. the ceo tells investors -- the restaurant's rise has been so rapid-- it's starting to effect quality. also, customers are walking away because they don't want to wait in line. the plan now is to hire more workers, add extra equipment and ease overcrowding at some locations. panera stock rallied to nearly $200 this year. it closed last at $153. coming up.... a star studded film takes on a critcally acclaimed box office winner. who takes the top spot?

find out in movies and money. and later in chart talk.....an airline stock with soaring potential..... don't go anywhere!

ehicle. when i came here, i... i couldn't move. [male announce david was broadsided on the highway. they weren't very hopeful at the time that he would survive at all.. [male announce an ied wounded mike in afghanistan. i don't remember all of the blast... was over 500 pounds of explosives. [male announce their physical injuries have healed. the traumatic brain injuries - tbis - haven't. the way i describe it is you're just afraid. am i going to start forgetting things? [male announce tbi is as serious as any battlefield injury. you're just not the guy you used to be. [male announce thankfully va has made important advancements in tbi seeing it, treating it, understanding it. and they're here to help veterans affected by it. i can see that what we're doing here at the polytrauma unit

is to move from survivability to thrive-ability. [male announce if you think you or a veteran you know has sustained a brain injury, get screened. the blockbuster film gravity may get some competition at the box with a "new" thriller opening on the silver screen. our movie guy joins us now. will gravity hold up this weekend? > >i think it's gonna hold up well amongst audiences but i think it's going to slip to number two this weekend behind a little film called jackass presents bad grandpa. > >you just wanted to bring that up to irritate me. let's take a look at what else happened at the box office last weekend. gravity coming in at number one with $30 million. captain phillips at $16 million. carrie---$16 million. escape plan---$9.8. almost a tie with cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2. and coming out this weekend...the counselor which our producer says is being heavily promoted and... > >i like the film, i don't know if audiences are going to like the film. i think people who were sort of put off by the

ending of no country for old men---this was written by cormac mccarthy. it's the author's first screenplay. it's definitely in his voice---a lot of monologues, a lot of grim stuff in the movie, some very violent death scenes. i don't think audiences are really going to respond to it. it's not so much a plot based film. it's a little more character and dialogue driven. i liked it but i don't think audiences will. > >what else this weekend? > >well, you got bad grandpa. jackass films, they've opened in october and they've done very well. jackass 3d opened at $50 million. this one has a lot of the stunts but is more of johnny knoxville doing a borat kind of thing. and i think the film is definitely going to open very well and take the number one spot this week. > >sony has a number of films out right now. captain phillips, carrie, cloudy with a chance of meatballs. but how is the film studio doing overall? > >it's the one studio out of all the majors out there that is really still in the red. a lot of studios have ahad a lot of rebounds from even their big bomns this year. sony is still kind of reeling. captain

phillips is doing very well. it's probably gonna need another $30-40 million overseas to get itself in the black. cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2 has only done about half the business that the original has done so it's still kind of waiting for its overseas numbers. carrie---the same thing. kind of a disappointing opening. it didn't do in the mid 20s that a lot of people were expecting so that film's still in the red. and now the george clooney film , the monuments men, has been moved out of its december release date into 2014. it's not gonna be finished in time. so that's one less film they have the chance to get in the black. all they have left this year is american hustle which i think is gonna do very well but most of its money is gonna be made on the other side of 2014. > >and i hear brad pitt's movie is doing quite well actually. > >twelve years a slave---yeah, it had a very solid opening. just under a million and only 19 screens. when fox searchlight expands that oscar talk is obviously gonna beef up for it. so i think it's still gonna do very well. there's gonna be a lot of interest in it. > >and you weekend pick? > >i'd go see bad grandpa, jackass presents. > >i knew you were gonna say that. > >why not? or gravity. or captain phillips. there's a lot of good stuff out there. > >and that's a good thing. good

to have you on the show. thank you eric. > >thank you. just ahead--- people holding on airline stock have doubled their money is it time to buy more or sell high. find out how to tell next in chart talk. for cleaner air and your right to breathe it. for those who want to quit smoking and for those who need them to. we're fighting for clear skies over every city and healthy lungs throughout the country. the american lung association isn't just fighting for air. we're fighting for all the things that make it worth breathing. join us in the fight at fightingforair.org. from coast to coast, cops are ccking down... on seat belt violations. buckle up, day and night, or expect a ticket.

it doesn't matter who you are or where you live, they'll be on the lookout. cops write tickets to save lives. ( seat belt clicks ) click it or ticket.

the airline stocks have been soaring this year. joining us now is matt cavanaugh of cmz trading. good morning matt. > >good morning. > >you are taking a look at southwest airlines, but as you know these stocks are often

tied to what's happening with the economy. > >absolutely and i think that's one of the big keys to why everyone should be watching southwest. > >what do you see in the charts for this stock? > >it's been a really impressive rally. we've talked in the past about how these airlines are changing their models, tightening their businesses up, even adding dividends in at some point. and you can see southwest has run but i think it's run a little bit too far. > >so as a trader, what would you do here? would you take some off the table? would you look for a pullback? what's your strategy? > >i think that if you've been fortunate enough to be long in these stocks, you do take some off the table and maybe wait for a pullback. but the really important thing here to watch is what does southwest say about the consumer? people are gonna be looking at their integration of airtran and their passenger growth but i think that the big key is to say what are they saying going forward because nobody flies more

passengers than southwest. and if you're gonna get a good indication for the economy, it's gonna be from them. > >well let's play what if the company says that the consumer is strong out there. do you then go and buy some of these airline stocks and take a closer look at southwest? > >i think on a pullback possibly. but they really have run so much. southwest, like we said, is about doubled from the beginning of the year. i don't think they're cheap and i don't think their dividend yields are enough to attract me so i'm gonna wait for a pullback, watch what they say and see if i can get some clues. > >thank you matt. > >thank you. tomorrow promises to be even bigger and better on first biz.coming up friday in traders unplugged the guys take a stab at making money on zombies! it's going to be good. until then, from all of us at first business, have a great thursday!

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