this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by -- >> the street.com. founded by jim cramer, the street.com is an independent source for stock market analysis. cramer's action alerts plus service is home to his multimillion dollar portfolio. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr. silver lining. not as many jobs were created in january as hoped but the unemployment rate dropped, and experts are saying that trends are actually encouraging. from coast-to-coast. why are californians thousands of miles from the harsh east coast winter also feeling the chill? and high risk, high reward. if you're looking to invest in companies with big growth potential, our market monitor guest tonight has a list of

stocks that are relatively young and newly public. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for friday, february 7th. good evening, everybody. i'm bill griffeth. tyler mathisen is off again tonight. >> good evening from me as well. i'm susie gharib. american businesses didn't do much hiring in january, only 113,000 new jobs were added to payrolls. the words used to describe today's jobs report, disappointing, anemic, and even awful. but wall street saw a brighter side saying it wasn't so terrible. after all, the unemployment rate fell one notch to 6.6%. surprisingly, stocks rallied, closing positive on a week that started with the dow plunging 300 points on monday. here's a look at today's closing digits. the dow up 165 points, nasdaq surged by 6 and the s & p added 23. hampton pearson takes a closer look at this latest jobs report and some encouraging trends

behind the numbers. >> for a second straight month, leading economists and market analysts didn't know what to make of a government report telling two different stories about the job market. employers added fewer workers to payrolls than expected, but the unemployment rate dropped again. >> i think it's a lot of weather still in this number. in the 30,000 decline in government, something odd is going on there. i think the thing to keep in mind is this divergence where you're getting plus 600,000 employment on the household survey and getting only plus 100,000 on the establishment survey is going to be a big problem. >> reporter: while the january headline number of just 113,000 jobs is weak, trend underlying the employment rate decline are encouraging. in january, the number of people with jobs increased by 638,000. the labor force increased by nearly 500,000. and the number of people out of work six months or longer fell by 232,000.

all are indicators, economists say, of new businesses and jobs being created but not yet reflected in surveys of employers. >> what we could be seeing is new business formation beginning to start to gain some momentum, which has been really absent much of this recovery. we don't know that for sure yet, but there's an inkling that it could happen. >> reporter: part of the new business and job creation story that is going below the radar, job incubators like 1776 in washington, d.c. formed less than a year ago with private funding, corporate partnerships, and a boost from the d.c. government, it's been a launching pad for more than 200 new businesses. >> there are a lot of people who have lost their jobs or their jobs are at risk that are looking at entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship really crosses any sort of economic situation. whether you've got an up economy or down economy. >> reporter: one of the success stories is rides cap a

technology platform that tells you how to get around but what modes of transportation are best. its target audience are millennials, one of the fastest-growing population groups in the nation's capitol, many of whom don't have cars. in just six months, they've hired 20 full and part-time employees and expect to double that workforce in the near future. >> this company could scale very quickly. we believe it will. and some of the older employees really love the opportunity to be part of a team that's going to scale and be explosive in its growth. >> reporter: make no mistake, doing a start-up in today's tough job market is risky. but creating new jobs and new businesses has always been the key to taking any economic recovery to the next level. for "nightly business report," i'm hampton pearson in washington. and for some companies looking to hire more employees, a big challenge to growth and profitability is finding the right workers, like skilled welders or machinists. mary thompson reports tonight on

the one company freedman seeding in chicago on where the jobs are. >> reporter: 120-year-old freedman seeding is growing like an adolescent. >> over the past 10 years we've averaged about 10% compounded growth per year. >> reporter: as with the teenager, the growth spurt for the maker of seats for buses and delivery trucks brings some unwelcome problems. after adding 100 workers last year, president craig freedman wants to hire another 35 skilled workers this year if he can find them. >> there's been a bidding war for these workers. >> reporter: those workers include welders and people trained to operate computer-guided machines. freedman says smaller manufacturers along with richer chicago-based multinationals sometimes poach these employees. so the shortage of workers for these high-paying jobs which could fetch up to 12 to $25 an hour is squeezing freedman's bottom line. >> we have to use a lot of

overtime to get the work done. we have to outsource a fair amount of work that we don't have the capacity to do because we don't have the skilled labor to do it. >> reporter: to find needed workers, freedman's tapping two sources, a local high school and a chicago-based nonprofit called the jane adams resource corporation. jerk as it's known trains displaced adults for industries offering living wages and upward mobility. >> we don't run it like a traditional school where people are sitting in classrooms working out of books. it's a job. our lead instructor functions more like a plant manager. >> reporter: this woman trained at jark and sees a future after years of dead end jobs. >> i actually feel like i'm on a career path. i'm still in the entry level welding position, but i have the skills that i need to improve and move forward with that. >> reporter: freedman seating also moving forward with other

local manufacturers to addre wo. it's part ofoverseeing austin polytechnical academy, a chicago high school training students in job-ready manufacturing skill. 19-year-old press operator torrence hughes is one of the two graduates freedman has hired. >> i feel like i was introduced to something that can change my life in the future as well, can really mean something to me and my family. and i love what i do. >> reporter: freedman making seats that transport passengers and their employees, too. for "nightly business report," i'm mary thompson in chicago. joe davis says today's jobs report was bad, but not so bad. and he's hopeful about the outlook for the u.s. economy. he's the chief economist at vanguard. this is a giant mutual fund company. so joe, you sound like you're a glass half full kind of guy. but tell it to us straight. because we've gotten so many mixed signals on the economy.

and everyone wants to know is the economy getting better or worse? >> well, i think susie hampton hit it on the head. it's marginally improving. we're confident in the underlying trend in the economy which is modest growth as we continue to proceed into 2014. there were disappointsments today in the number, in the business survey, a little weaker than expected and maybe some weather distortions at play. but nonetheless, i think we continue to see a gradual tightening of the labor market despite slack. the progress is good. i would like to have seen stronger job growth today. >> more than one person today, joe, said to me we need to get used to these lower job growth numbers. this is the new normal in this economy. do you agree? >> i think generally speaking, yeah. we've been of the view that trend growth, though, is closer to 2% and job growth around 100 to 150,000 jobs per month. in other words, to make a dent in the so-called slack or gap in

the economy. and so i think we have to look at a lower barometer or speed limit for the economy. so i think that said, she thes numbers are better than trend growth but it certainly pales in comparison to what we may have seen 20 to 30 years ago. >> what do you think janet yell in yillen is going to say. she'll be testifying before congress next week. is she going to stay on track with what the fed has been saying or will we hear something different given the job market and stock market? >> i think it's a great question. i think we will see more of the same in terms of the recent communications. i think the federal reserve has done a good job of trying to communicate to the market that they are looking, for example, well beyond the 6.5 unemployment rate which we are close to now in terms of thinking about tightening. we mentioned the last time i was on this show, susie, that the fed was going to be very slow and deliberate in their tapering

program. so i think that still is the case. i think to deviate from current policy is high. today's numbers may raise an eyebrow. nonetheless they would have to see corroborating evidence both anecdotal and in data for them to deviate from the present course. >> i know you're an economist but everybody has an opinion about the stock market. if the jobs number was not as good as expected, why in the world did the stock market rally as much as it did today, do you think? >> i think part of that is really the association in some invest ors' mind between the potential to slow the rate of asset purchases by the federal reserve and just global monetary liquidity with formative stock market. we went into the year more guarded than in the past several years with respect to our long-term equity outlook that. still remains the case. but any day it is ironic we're in an environment that seems to be the word weaker than expected growth numbers can be associated with stronger equity returns. >> we're going to see what happens next week. thank you so much, joe.

>> thanks, joe. >> joe davis, chief economist at vanguard. have a great weekend. still ahead, why californians who are thousands of miles from the harsh winter weather in the east are now also starting to feel the chill of their own. the white house today warned congress that the government could start missing payments on its bills soon after february 27th. that is if lawmakers fail to raise the limit on public borrowing. back in october, congress suspended the cap on borrowing until today, february 7th. now the treasury is taking extraordinary measures to save money and avoid breaching the debt ceiling. starting today, uncle sam

suspended sales of u.s. treasury bonds to state and local governments. well, another kind of limit is affecting residents of california. they're being asked to power down on their use of electricity. jackie deangeles explains. >> reporter: california not just short on water at the moment but also low on natural gas in california, you typically see this in the summer when air conditioners are running on high. but right now it's happening because of unseasonably cold temperatures across the country. in fact, residents have been urged to voluntarily cut their electricity use to help out. that means turning off lights and electrically-powered heaters. the alert expired last night, but it's not clear on whether more usage orders will come. all this coming after california has increased its nat gas usage since the decision last year to close a key nuclear facility. according to a 2010 report, 53% of california's power comes from natural gas. nation-wide, natural gas production has dropped, roughly

1% last month according to research firm ben tech energy. experts say nation-wide supplies are still fairly robust. part of the production slump can be attributed to the cold itself. chesapeake energy, the nation's number two nat gas producer, has said unusually cold temps have hurt output as demand surges. after hitting a four-year high recently, natural gas futures have declined slightly today. now just under $4. still experts say that the forecasts are calling for the cold weather to last and that will keep demand high. so for right now, mother nature still supporting these natural gas prices. for "nightly business report," i'm jackie deangeles reporting. elsewhere, apple purchases $14 billion of its own shares. that's where we begin tonight's market focus. ceo tim cook told the "wall street journal" that apple initiated that buy back in the two weeks after its quarterly earnings report, taking advantage of the stock's drop the day after those results.

activist investor carl icahn weighed in on that repurchase. he took to twitter writing google at 19 times 14 estimated operating profit at the same multiple apple equals $1245 per share. rilgz. keep buying, tim, you still have $145 billion in cash. shares rose more than 1% to close at $519.68. and cigna posted weak quarterly earnings and a disappointed outlook. that company said that costs in its private medicare businesses were higher which might continue into this year. and that pressured the stock. those shares t shares tumbled. shares of ibm rose on reports it might be selling its semiconductor business. big blue has been spinning off some business units. it's part of its push into cloud technologies. just two weeks ago, ibm agreed to sell its low-end server division to chinese pc maker

lenovo. the stock closed at $177.25 today, a gain of 1.5%. expedia was the biggest gainer in the s & p a day after posting better than expected earnings. the travel site operator reported a 21% jump in gross bookings. its deal with rival travelocity also helped boost hotel room sales. other online travel agencies including trip adviser, price line and orbitz rose of lot on that report. expedia gained 14% to $74.45. go pro has filed for an ipo. the maker of those tiny high-definition video cameras that a lot of skiers and hikers attach to their helmets to record a first person look at the action has filed paperwork to begin selling stock to the public. here comes go pro. >> and maybe one day go pro will grow up to be a big player like google. the search giant became the second most valuable company in the s & p today, passing exxon

mobile for a market cap of just under $400 billion. still apple is the biggest with nearly $460 billion. >> just amazing. our market monitor guest tonight likes to buy stocks that are the innovative part of the stock market, the high growth companies but also high risk to some degree. mark leeman is president of j and p securities and investment bank based in san francisco. mark, how are you doing? >> good. thanks for having me on the show. i appreciate it. >> an individual stock picker but overall do you see this particular get going higher? what did you make of the volatility this week? >> i thought it was an interesting bit of action this week. clearly we had a tough january, which surprised a lot of investors. i think the consensus obviously going into 2014 was that bonds would be weak and stocks would probably continue to be higher. and that's obviously not what happened in the first part of the year. but fundamentals were somewhat decent this week. i think investors really saw opportunities for some equities in some of the high-growth companies we're about to talk

about put up stellar fourth quarters really are the shining stars of the market. we see that continuing through 2014. >> i think it's really interesting your list of companies you're going to talk about, mark. most of them have gone public a year ago or less, and you already are raving about them. tableau. ticker symbol data. it went public a year ago. tell us you like this and why investors should put money in it. >> it's playing in a huge market, data and data analytics. it's a market that really hasn't had a lot of innovation over the last few decades. it's a terrific product. it's a large-growing market. we see that as about a $13 billion market now growing to about a low $20 billion market in the next five to six years. they have a very small market share, growing it very rapidly. if they get their natural market share, this stock which being

expensive has done quite well since it's been public will continue to do well, gain market share, we think will be a winner. >> here's another one. workday. they're in the human resources and finance business. that's a pretty competitive field. >> it's a big field. and the european market is one that has a lot of incumbent players. the management team, dave duffield was at people soft. if he does the same thing here he's competing with incumbent players like oracle and sap who combined have a 250 billion dollar market cap. if they get their natural market share as they are also growing about 100% this could be an extraordinary company. it already is. but be it an expensive company, they gain that kind of market share this stock will keep going higher. >> you keep saying in this if that. these are risky stocks and not for people who like to sleep at night easily. let's talk about your next one,

alatana. i hope i'm pronouncing that right therapeutics. >> you are. >> it's a company that's dealing with healthy pets, right? >> well, healthy pets and as we all know pets aren't always healthy. we also know that people are going to extraordinary lengths to make sure their pets stay healthy, if they do get sick they're going to some other lengths to make sure they get back to being healthy. that is a market that has grown absolutely in recession in good times in bad. the pet market has never stopped growing in the last 30 years. the management team is stellar. they've got an ample capital to grow the company. they also something we really should pay attention to is if when you take a life sciences company focused on the human market, the product to get to market takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get to market. when this company takes products to the pet market it takes tens of millions of dollars to get to market. the cost to market is lower, you have a very wide open playing field. number one player in that

market. i think great things are headed to this company. >> all three have done very well in the last year. are they vulnerable if there is a definite market downturn? >> there's risk and there's reward, bill, as you know. these stocks have done extremely well and they're also trading at premiums to the market. but with their growth, i think buying a full share today, putting all your dollars to work tomorrow, probably not a good idea. but these are the winners. these are the companies that we think are going to do extremely well. j and p has followed these companies obviously since they've been public and they've done nothing but exceed their expectations since they've been public. >> any disclosures on your part? >> we've done investment banking work for all three companieses proudly. and i don't own the stock personally but i do think these stocks are going higher. >> mark leeman, president of j and p securities. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you both. coming up on the program, meet the man who had a craving and used his hunger, hard work and a little bit of luck to turn a small chocolate shop into a sweet success story.

we aim to end this jobs friday in good taste. the kind a chef would appreciate. with a week to go until valentine's day, the godivas, lindts and ghirardellis know work will pick up. this is a bright idea of a swedish chef who makes it his business to cater to the american palate. >> for this the world is open. >> welcome to eric landegren's world. hand-crafted peanut butter patties, turtles, toffees and caramels. just the kind of american-style

treats you'd expect a european chef to sniff at. >> we love to come here and tell the american public what they should like. well it's 300 million americans like peanuts i'm going to work with peanuts. >> his chocolates were more of a local curiosity when he began selling them at the village store in tiny bridgewater, connecticut in 1995. the chef came to new york from sweden in the 1980s. >> very first machine i ever had. >> he had never dabbled in chocolate until he moved to bridgewater where he worked as a personal chef for one of wall street's best-known deal makes, peter may. when his boss bought his store, rescuing it from bankruptcy, landegren's suggested chocolate, high quality chocolate could bring in new customers. >> superb business concept yet it failed miserably. >> the confections were considered a little pricey. but things changed after a new york radio host called to ask if bridgewater shipped boxed

chocolates. >> i wanted to do send more chocolate. and of course i immediately said yes, we do in fact. >> little did he know she would rave about bridgewater chocolates on the air. >> we got slammed and got about 100 phone calls that afternoon. i had no idea how to go about it. >> peter may's son-in-law developed a craving for the chocolate. >> i'd bring it to work and we'd put it on the conference room table. it would be devoured in 30 seconds. and then i'd look at my bill from my credit card it was never charged. so i said this is not a good business situation. >> in 1999, browner teamed up with landegren's transforming the company into a serious business. one key change, marketing the chocolates in their handsome hinged boxes to corporate customers. >> we can customize the inside

lid. >> they moved to a big warehouse in an industrial park nearby. >> he brought this machine 55 feet long. you cannot put this anywhere. you need to have a facility. where are you going to put it? he said i was going to put it in my basement. >> it's absolutely true everything he says. because when i am just me, it's pretty hard to be me. and he makes it really easy for me to be me. >> which makes it very hard to be me. >> the duo have turned bridgewater chocolates into a multimillion dollar business. sweet success in a crowded, competitive field. >> we have always made money. and the goal has always been to be america's chocolate. we want to have a box of bridgewater chocolate on everybody's dinner table for every special occasion. >> and more than 60% of sales are holiday gifts for those special occasions, most of it ordered online or by phone. valentine's day is their next busiest time, accounting for more than 10% of his business.

>> great story. she's only been on the job for three weeks but already the new chief executive of g.m. is getting a lot of attention. mary barra the first woman to ever head up a major automaker has just been named the world's most powerful woman in business by fortune magazine. coming in number two, ibm ceo jenny rometti. third was pepsico's indr nuyi. the 2014 olympic games in sochi, russia have already begun. this year's gold medals will be among the largest in olympic's history. but not the most expensive. a gold medal from this year's games is worth about $581. down from the record value of $706 for a gold medal back in the 2012 london olympics due in part to the decline in gold prices. >> but make no mistake. to all those athletes, a gold medal, priceless. >> absolutely right. that's "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm susie gharib. thanks for joining us. have a great weekend. >> i'm bill griffeth.

do indeed have a great weekend, everybody. we'll see you again on monday. this has been "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by -- >> the street.com. founded by jim cramer, the street.com is an independent source for stock market analysis. cramer's action alerts plus service is home to his multimillion dollar portfolio. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr.

gwen: uncertainty rules the day. on the economy, on the politics of health care and on what too expect as elections approach. onight on "washington week." how to measure this economy. unemployment numbers are down so today the stock market shot up. more jobs but not enough of them. plus, a new report shows the health care law could shrink the work force. >> the c.b.o. report today devastating, two million fewer jobs as a result of the obama health care law. >> this san example of when one misinterpretation goes out of the box early and goes around the world, it takes the truth a long time to catch up. gwen: and it