is the party over? traders weigh their options as the stock market rally begins to look a bit tired... in today's cover story... conflict in the ukraine causes a worldwide ripple effect. and... a major bitcoin operator suddenly shuts down for business. plus.. why for some. becoming a playa on wall street takes round the clock work.. first business starts now! good morning! it's wednesday, february 26th. i'm angela miles. in today's first look: stocks failed to make gains. following monday's roaring rally, stocks turned red with gold the only green on the screen. federal regulators issue an emergency order for testing on the transportion of crude oil by rail out of concerns of

possible explosions. asiana airlnes is fined a half million dollars by u.s. officials for not properly assisting families after last july's crash of flight 214 at san francisco airport. and, gm expands a recall to 1.37 million vehicles. the models built between 2003 and 2007 include: chevy cobalt, pontiac g5, saturn ion chevy hhr, pontiac solstice and saturn sky. the engine can shut off suddenly if the ignition is bumped. the problem is linked to 13 deaths. trader larry shover of sfg alternatives joins us now on this wednesday, and larry, why is the s&p struggling with getting over this 1850 mark? > > you know it reminds me of 1650 of last year and even 1350. at this point 1850 is going to require growth metrics to get past that level. it's not

like last year where the market rallied before the data set so we need growth metrics to prove that we deserve to be above that level. > > let's move over to the commodity sector and oats are at a high because there's not enough space on trains. oil is taking too much of the space. what's happening here with oats and oil, larry? > > yeah oats is at an all-time high-- a 10 year high over corn. a lot of it does have to do with transportation-- you're right-- just pulling gas down and crude oil down from the upper midwest. it's compromising getting the oats to market but also the winter has been tough too-- the snow cover has been very very hard and the supply hasn't been that great. > > and now over to hollywood where dreamworks came out with their earnings after the close in the stock fell about 6%. what was the trouble? yeah, you know, very dissapointing because wall street seemed to be-- the

consensus was they were going to miss on sales which they did because they had a couple of releases, home releases last year that didn't do very well, but they've done some very good things for the company so perhaps we will see a snap back as people look into the numbers a little bit more carefully. > > and of course the oscars coming up on sunday. good to have you here, thank you. > > thank you. gone in a flash! investors are reacting to the the sudden disapperance of bitcoin exchange mt. gox. this is how the site looked on tuesday. the message reads: in light of recent news reports and the potential repercussions on mtgox's operations and the market, a decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being in order to protect the site and our users. leaving investors scratching their heads and wondering-- hey-- where did my virtual currency go.. as bit coin prices fell to $135 on the mt gox index. the only one who knows what mt gox is doing with their money is mt. gox and the problem is they are being extremely unprofessional about this. they just shut down their site, they're not explaining what's going on and

they've got thousands of clients with millions of dollars in this exchange and they're giving no explanations. bit coin trading continues on other exchanges.. however we learned from the better business bureau, bitcoins have spawned a new scams... i think a lot of consumers don't understand it but a lot of the bitcoins are being used for scams. so if you really get a question, or someone tells you you won something or that in order to get the prize of the offer you've got to use a bit coin, do some research because a lof of the scammers are using that right now. chuck coppola joins me now with more on bitcoin business.. angie --- despite a wild week in the headlines --- one firm is attempting to put "bitcoins" on the institutional radar. "second market" is waitng on regulatory approval that will allow it to launch it's own bitcoin exchange in new york. an organizer had this reaction to the mt gox situation. this recent news as well as news that has occured in the past is not

surprising to us necessarily and we just understand that there needs to be the financial infrastructure that is in the public market for alot of the different assett classes whether it be equtiies or debt or anything else and that's just not there." david kinitsky is working with second market to launch the new exchange. he says second market's gathering input from federal and state regulators, who've been largely left out of the bitcoin movement. western union may be connected to alleged fraud. the u.s. attorney's office in pennslyvania is investigating money that moved over the western union network back in 2008. there are allegations there were fraud induced money transfers to organziations tied to possible scams. the company says in an sec filing it's cooperating fully with the government. president obama authorizes a pay raise for federal workers. the one-percent hike would go into effect next year. the president can set the new pay rate by order, but the associated press reports that he's also set aside money for it in his fiscal 20-15 budget, which comes out march 4th. the increase would be the second year in a row that federal workers see a 1% hike -- that after three years of pay freezes. union reps for federal workers called the raise: "pitiful."

president obama isn't alone in making news about budget decisions -- the republicans are also circulating their own ideas about the upcoming budget. in the plan being unveiled today, the g-o-p says it wants to lower the top tax income rate on the rich from 39.6% to 25%. they would also impose a new surtax on some wealthy taxpayers but not one that applys to capital gains or dividends. the plan needs democratic support to become law. the nation's biggest bank is eliminating 8,000 jobs. jp morgan chase says the cuts will be in the consumer and community units, and blames the lay-offs on a drop in demand for refinancings. the overall employee base of the bank will reportedly only drop by about 5,000 because the bank is adding positions in other areas. jp morgan chase has more than a quarter of million employees. the latest read on the housing market-- shows home prices are cooling off slightly.. the s&p case shiller index of 20 cities came in with a .1% decline in december from november. it's the second straight month over month drop. a spokesman for the

s&p index says the str0ngest part of the recovery in home values maybe over. traders are welcoming earnings that helped push housing stocks higher this week. wall street cheered on home depot, sending shares up almost 4%, even as it said winter weather hurt income, and plans to lower it's 20-14 forecasts. however, at toll brothers, earnings were better than expected and it's issuing a higher dividend. the upscale homebuilder revealed that a jump in home prices pushed earnings higher. but, warned that messy weather could put a dent in future earnings. the stock was down slightly yesterday. retail stocks rallied on the heels of earnings from macy's shares spiked 6% after .. the department store chain reported sales were weak.. until valentine's day when profits improved. the company also predicts business will pick up when the weather turns around. office depot stock however plunged 9% as it warned wall street to expect a sales decline for the year. office depot also notes challenges with merging with officemax. zulily shares soared 36% as the online women's and childern retailer reported its first earnings since going public in november. those earnings came in much strong the anticipated.

the market is buzzing with new gadgets. as the curtain gets ready to close on mobile world conference tomorrow, tech companies are going out with a bang. blackberry has introduced a new, low-cost smartphone.the phone will cost $200, and is set to debut this spring in southeast asia. samsung is toutng a trio of new sleek smartwatches, that'll hit the market in april. meanwhile, samsung's release of its latest smartphone, the galaxy s5, caused some activity on twitter. htc and nokia both blasted samsung on social media ahead of new releases from those companies. linkedin has a new china connection.. the social media company just launched a site in chinese. linkedin already has 4 million user n china-- but until now, the site was only in english. linkedin will be required to censor content under china's law. this is a big win considering chinese authorities have blocked access to twitter and facebook. ford falls in the eyes of consumers while tesla rides high. a new consumer reports survey of 1.1 million consumers ranked ford at its lowest rating since 2006. the automaker has been dogged by issues with tech features on new vehicles. meanwhile, tesla gets

the highest rating ever given by the magazine -- a score of 99 out of 100 for its model s. needless to say that gave a nice bump yesterday to tesla stock -- it closed up almost 14% at $248.00 as target prepares to release earnings this morning.. lawmakers are demanding more information about its massive security breach during the holidays. reuters reports a house committee wants all documents or communications generated between november 1 and december 13th in which target employees discuss any suspcion of a data breach. target tells first business it does "appreciate chairman darrel issa's interest, are in contact with his office, and look forward to continuing to work with him and other members of congress." bernie madoff may have duped wall street investors, but his former secretary doesn't hold a grudge. madoff's former assistant took the stand this week at a trial of five former

employees, accused of helping madoff pull off a long-running ponzi scheme. annette bongiorno told a jury she never knowingly committed fraud. she also spoke in high regard of madoff, admitting she had called him her "hero" for helping her family. madoff is currently serving a 150-year prison term. the trial continues this week. power couple george lucas and mellody hobson are sharing their wealth. lucas the creator of star wars and investment executive hobson are donating $25 million to the chicago lab schools for the construction of an arts building. it will be named the gordon parks arts hall in honor of parks who was the first african american to direct a major hollywood film. george lucas sold his film company to the walt disney company for $4 billion in 2012.

disney is attempting to encourage fans to download digital copies of its movies through itunes. the release is timed as disney's mega hit "frozen" gets ready for its digital debut march 18th. films may be watched on computers or apple devices. disney says its working to expand the service to other tech devices as well. still to come: why life on wall street isn't as glamourous as hollywood makes it seem. plus...how the stock market in the ukraine is stablizing despite political unrest. and... in our cover story.. how the world wide effect of the ukraninan conflict is already playing out -- that's coming up after the break.

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in our cover story, how unrest in the ukraine can cause economic instability in the region and beyond. ukraine's pro-russian president, viktor yanukovych--ousted by a pro- west uprising after he rejected closer ties with the european union is now being called a criminal for the nearly 100 protesters killed by police. while ukraine teeters on the brink of financial default-- ukraine's finance minister pleading for immediate installments in foreign aid totaling 35-billion dollars. the financial world takes notice. not only does it affect that part of the world, it affects your pocketbook. how can ukraine, a country of 46- million people half a world away be so divided as to cause instability that reaches europe and perhaps the u.s.? energy market trader phil flynn says it starts with natural gas produced in russia carried in pipelines to ukraine and beyond to europe.

russia will look to raise natural gas prices on ukraine. if they cut off supplies of natural gas, europe will use more oil and it will be bullish across the energy complex. already russia has made it clear that ukraine's 15-billion dollars' worth of inexpensive deals for fuel sources are in jeopardy. the u.s. can be affected because the price will go up if the supply is reduced. the white house walked carefully down the middle of ukraine's unrest. this is not a competition of east versus west. there's no resumption of the cold war. this is about the ukranian people and their future. the bright spots emerging

from the crisis in the ukraine-- are the country's bond prices are rising and so is the stock market. on speculation that the country will get european and u.s. aid after the ouster of president yanahkovych, the ukraine;s stoxx europe 600 index rose to a six-year high. coming up... they may be out of the spotlight now....but two washington insiders plan to "tell all" about the financial crisis... and after the break... why wall street nightlife is not all it's cracked up to be. stay with us!

it's not all fat pay checks and big bonuses on wall street. kevin roose-- author of young

money uncovered the truth about new grads who landed jobs at prestige firms just after the economic crash of 2008. kevin joins us now via skype this morning. good morning, kevin. great to have you here. > > thanks for having me. > > let's cut to the chase-- what's the wosrt you heard from young people you followed and interviewed? > > well these people are 22 and 23 years old. they're brand new to wall street and they're put in to one of the most grueling work environments you can imagine. one of them told me about this thing called the banker nine to five. it's where you work from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. the next day so this is pretty common and it's a really intense culture. a lot of people get burned out very quickly. > > what happens next to these young people after working those so-called banker hours? > > well some of them stay in finance and decide to make a career of it but of the 8 young people that i followed, about half of them decided that they didn't want to be on wall street. it wasn't what they expected. they wanted the parties and the lamborghinis, and in some cases the sort of wolf of wall street culture, but what they got was something much more dull and much more harder to cope with.

> > is it worth it, though, for some in the end? you work and you grind it out, but like a lot of careers out there, at the end you might have some money in your pocket. > > absolutely i think what's changed is that it's no longer the sort of guaranteed pay off. it used to be that if you put in your, your 100 hour weeks for a number of years pretty soon you'd be a millionaire if you stayed on wall street. i think that path is broken down so for a lot of the people i followed, this was no longer as attractive a career path as it once and had been. > > are you seeing are there fewer young people now heading to wall street? > > there aren't fewer but they're coming from different places. if you look at the data from different places like harvard, princeton and yale those schools are all seeing a precipitous fall in the number of their graduates who are going to wall street which may actually be good for these other schools that normally haven't been able to get their students in. now they're able to. > > what are the wall street firms telling you? i'm sure they have a lot to say about your book. > > yeah they're not entirely happy. these young bankers aren't allowed to talk to the

media. they all broke the rules by doing this and so they're very nervous and the banks are understandably pretty upset that their employees went behind their backs and spoke to me for three years. > > thanks for coming on the show again it's kevin roose and the book is young money. take care, kevin. > > thanks. the men in charge of helping to engineer the country out of crisis plan to put in writing. ben bernanke -- the former chairman of the federal reserve tells the ap he's working on a memoir. there will be focus on his time at the fed during the 2008 financial crisis... as well as the "great recession" that followed. timothy geitner who served as u.s. treasury secretary through presidednt obama's first term is also writing a book. it's titled "stress test" and comes out in may 13th. chuck the stock market has essentially rallied since 2009... but is the rally getting old. what to watch-- is next in chart talk.

dan deming of stutland equities joins us now for chart talk. good morning, dan. > > good morning, angie. > > the charts show us that this has been a long rally is the really starting to get exhausted, dan? > > well angie there's hints of that of course i think anybody who wants to counterpoint that could say it looked exhausted a couple of years ago, but the bottom line is that right now we're seeing a five year run in this market from the march lows of 2009. we're seeing a market now push up towards highs. 1850

seems to be pretty good resistance here. the market tried to get through there the last couple days and has been unable to. basically i think right now what i'm looking at is how much higher can it go relative to how far and fast can it fall. > > so at what point do investors say i've made my profits from this five year run maybe it's time to take some money off the table. or do they stay in the game? > > i think right now it would be interesting to see if we can get through this 1850 area in the s&p 500. like i said, you've got to kind of weigh-- what i'm doing is when i look at this-- weighing what's the positive, what's the plus side? maybe 1900 but with the downside of-- certainly we can see this market giving up 10% pretty quickly we saw that happen a month ago. so right now it's really basically a question for me repositioning on things that i think might have more more vulnerability to a down move.

> > oh i like that, and what is the volatility index telling us? you've been watching that. > > yeah i have-- it's back down. right now we're kind of seeing the moves in the market not as severe as we saw a couple of weeks ago. so you're seeing the vix under a little bit of pressure here down below 14. so it's given maybe a false sense of security, but we have kind of hovered right around this 1850 area. so right now i think all eyes are on, can we get through here? the vix will probably stay subdued. if not then i think we'll see the vix pick up pretty quickly if we fall away. > > do you feel as though there are players sitting it out on the sidelines, dan? > > well i think right now since january was pretty dismal really from a historical standpoint, i think that has caused a fair amount of investors and market participants to pause and wait and see how this plays out over the next couple of months-- particularly how the economy is going to play out. there's still some-- basically stagnation in this economy and that's also got people looking and staying on the sidelines. > > thank you for your help, dan. have a good one. > > thanks. that wraps up today.. but make it a point to check us out tomorrow as we breakout our annual oscar edition. find out which stars are are giving film studios a shot at the gold and will our prediction be right on the money. from all of us at first business... have a wonderful wednesday!

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