. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by. >> thestreet.com featured to you by herb greenberg who reminds investors that it is real, you can learn more at thestreet.com/reality check. turn around on track. hewlett-packard reports a drop in revenue and cuts thousands of jobs. why and what else is in the earnings report that investors need to watch. super size protests, mcdonald's defends its business strategy as thousands of demonstrators chant for higher rages. and the $84,000 question,

why are some drug prices so high and what can and should be done about it? all that on thursday may 22 for "nightly business report." good evening, everyone, a big surprise from hewlett-packard today. but not a pleasant one. it accidentally released its second quarter earnings about an hour early while the markets were still open. the report was scheduled to come out after the closing bell. well, investors were puzzled by the change, disappointed in the results and it didn't help the shares either. the world's biggest computer maker continues to struggle to stay relevant in the world of mobile devices and cloud storage, it is no wonder they announced more job cuts for a total of 50,000 employees getting the axe. for the earnings, 88 cents a share in line with analysts' estimates, revenue continued to decline and then and thenarrowl forecasts, shares fell slightly in late trading after sliding 2

and a half percent during today's session. now, more on hewlett-packard's results and the one big takeaway you see from these numbers. yeah, they keep talking about the fact the turnaround is still on track, but the bottom line it still has so much further to go. pretty much everything we've seen in this quarter is what we've heard from hewlett-packard over and over again. they're cutting jobs and streamlining their system. the bottom line is they're cutting revenue, if you dig into the numbers every single one of hp's biggest divisions actually lost sales except for one. that is really scary especially when you think about the enterprise part of the business. cisco and hp raised their sales and it really shows the turn around is still struggling. all right, thank you sheila for coming by. stocks end with the major numbers closing up. stocks got help from good news

about manufacturing over in china and here at home and improved earnings from some big retailers like best buy and dollar tree. and even though first time jobless claims rose last week they are still sitting near seven-year lows. at the closing bell, dow up ten points, nasdaq higher by 22 and the s&p up by four. and wall street, more than a thousand fast food workers and union protesters turned up the heat at mcdonald's annual shareholder meeting held in oak brook, illinois. far from business as usual. hampton pearson has more. >> reporter: the annual mcdonald's shareholder meeting has been the target of nationwide protests in support of a $15 an hour minimum wage. >> mcdonald's should not have to wait on the government to raise minimum wage. >> reporter: over a thousand demonstrators marched outside

chicago in the last two days targ targeting the world's biggest fast food chain as the first step on the road for organizing the entire industry. >> these organizers are not fighting to raise the minimum wage, they're sitting down to negotiate a pay raise and re-write a union contract. >> inside the unit, a lot were not happy about what was on the menu, the top managers were accused of targeting the children with predatory-like enthusiasm. ceo thompson answered the critics. >> at mcdonald's, we were not as mentioned predatory, we do have values at mcdonald's. >> reporter: but the majority of shareholders are concerned about losing ground to the competitors in the multi-billion dollar fast

food industry. >> this is a long-term investment. i want to see it in another 30 years and not another stack of worthless paper. >> analysts say the near term keys of shareholder value are profiting sales in europe and will return cash to shareholders. for "nightly business report," i'm hampton pearson in oak brook, illinois. more trouble from boeing, officials say more tests are needed to determine the safety of lithium ion batteries, the spokesperson said tests are needed. it stemmed from its investigation of a battery fire on board of a grounded 787 dreamliner last year. and leaving his post a little earlier than expected but he will continue as president of

the intercontinental exchange group. he joined them in 2007, guiding the exchange through the financial crisis and presided over the $11 billion merger. and some key housing data up to date. sales of previously owned homes rose in april from the month prior, the first monthly gain of the year. but sales are below last year's springtime pace and inventories are tighter in many markets. still, there are hopes that housing can pick up steam later this year. and diane olick has more. >> reporter: more of these sprang up in the nation's overhaul, the first monthly gain of the year. >> inventory limitation has been a holdback, but now, very good news. >> reporter: a lack of homes for sale has been hurting the market and pushing prices higher at an unhealthy pace when compared to demand. single family housing starts did

not improve much in april and millions of potential sellers are stuck in place. owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. >> if we were not stuck in this position. if we were not under water on our current mortgage we would be able to buy a larger home. >> reporter: when we first met the royals two years ago they were trapped under their mortga mortgage. now rising prices have them back above water but they are still stu stuck. >> we recouped what we loss, probably about where we were at the beginning. that is positive, unfortunately the homes that we were in a real position to afford a couple of years ago have also appreciated. so they have kind of grown out of our price range. april was 5% higher than a year ago, the smallest annual price gain in two years. rising prices have brought more homeowners above water but only a fraction of those were able to sell. so as this rather disappointing spring season came to a close

ext. usually as temperatures rise home sales cool. but with both prices and credit easing and more homes coming on the market we could see just the opposite. for "nightly business report," i'm diana olick in washington. still ahead, a thousand dollars for one pill. why are some prescription drugs so expensive? and what if anything can be done about it? it has been nearly half a year since recreational sales and legal use of marijuana has been legal in colorado, but state officials are still struggling with the economy including how to collect taxes and how sellers deal with skittish banks in an all-cash business. more from denver at the cannabis

convention. >> your take is about 20%? >> yeah. >> reporter: they're raking in the tax money five months into colorado's great retail pot experiment. the state collected $8 million in taxes and fees for recreation marijuana sales. >> here we have two. >> reporter: brook gering used to be in residential banks now she runs pot sales and retail sales are out-pacing marijuana sales. she has to keep separate her recreational and medical product and cash for state law. >> cash management is an entire individual sector of our business now. >> reporter: that is because this remains an all-cash business. entrepreneurs at colorado's first cannabis summit learn that even as federal banks can accept pot money there is so much paperwork involved and the risk of getting in trouble with other regulators is so high they

remain skeptical. jennifer murray runs a testing lab and her long-time bank dropped her account. >> and we just have other ways of banking. >> reporter: there is a move to create the cooperative banking for businesses outside of banks but it is raising red flags. >> i would be very scared to expose other money and then for any reason be at risk for any time of laundering. >> so some are taking the cash to pay taxes and the state is not putting that in the bank? >> absolutely. >> but you can't put it in the bank? >> no. >> reporter: proving as colorado rolls out an entire new industry, the costs are high. and we begin tonight's market focus, the retailer had missed sales. the company told investors that

it expects sales to decline over the next two quarters because of a lack of compelling new products. despite that forecast, shares were up about 3 and a half percent today. sears says the first quarter lost, the retailer is in the process of closing 80 stores and that number may increase. the company which operates k-mart and the name sake stores reported revenue. that sent shares up more than 4% today. 38.10 was the closingwr% sale. and dollar tree posted better than expected earnings on increased sales. the company says the strong sales in april continued into may. the dollar store operator narrowed the outlook for the full year but investors played past that one. shares popped to $63.31. a stunning debut for jd.com today. the company's first day of

trading, jd is china's second largest ecommerce company next to alibaba. jd4u raised almost $1.1 billion shares closed at $20.90, an increase of 10%. and quarterly earnings at gap plunged 22% mostly because of fortune currency issues, same store sales also fell for the first time in a few years but the company still looked at the outlook. the shares rose to $40.84. the fda is coming down hard on illegal on-line pharmacies, the fda partnering with other federal and international agencies, took action against websites that sell what it calls potentially dangerous and unapproved prescription medicines to u.s. consumers. this week, the fda detained or seized hundreds of packages at

u.s. mail facilities containing illegal prescription drugs. while those mail order pharmacies may be the only way some can afford their prescription medications as the price of drugs seems to climb higher and higher. so why do brand name drugs cost so much and can anything be done about it? meg terrell gets some answers. >> reporter: when it was approved in 2001, the cancer drug and others that followed enabled patients to live almost normal life spans, the price about $30,000 a year, now it tripled to $92,000 a year. everybody is taking notice. >> access really is a problem for a lot of patients in relation to these very costly medicines. we sometimes think well, people have insurance and under obamacare there is a lot more coverage. but what that does not take into account is that very often there

is a big co-payment that the customer has to come up with that is often many, many hundreds or thousands of dollars. >> reporter: some doctors think about price when prescribing medicines. zol zoltrab didn't work any better but cost twice as much, last year a group of physicians called for lower prices on leukemia drugs. in march, they were asked to explain the price of the drug. it cost $84,000, or about a thousand dollars a day. supporters point out it is a cure for hepatitis c and could save money over the long term. >> some of the price tags put on drugs just appear high to folks. and it is very difficult for somebody that is not a trained specialist to explain why a drug that perhaps costs $50,000 a year is actually cheap for society. >> researchers say there needs

to be a balance between lowering drug prices and encouraging companies to spend money on risky science, the drug companies say it takes a decade to research. for every one, there are thousands of potential drugs that never make it to market. for "nightly business report," i'm meg terrell. the drug sovaldi mentioned

>> she is undergoing treatment with sovaldi and j and j's olizio. >> i take the two pills, that is it. i haven't had one side effect. >> she now tests negative for the virus, which untreated can lead to liver failure. >> no pain in your belly? >> i have no pain in my belly. >> there is no question the drug works. >> we're talking about curing people with the 90% success rate. >> but at a high price, the treatment for sovaldi costs $84,000, a thousand dollars per pills with the companion drug olizio, more thousands. those drugs have costly side effects sometimes, but sovaldi does not. >> it may seem like sticker shock, but the truth is you're saving money in the long term. >> it may be the biggest, an

estimated 3 million americans are infected with the virus and demand has been strong. >> we have a large number of people that are willing to be treated that previously resisted treatment because they were afraid of the side effects. >> the drugs saw more than $2 billion in sales the first four months and that has private insurance, medicaid and medicare bracing for the high cost. >> it is both a high price and high volume and that is what makes people very nervous about what it may mean to the cost of care and programs and to the cost of insurance. >> michelle carver worried about the costs and feels blessed her insurer covered it. >> i feel so much better since i have been taking it. >> a variety of treatments could come up, and could bring prices down because of competition. but for now, sovaldi has a lock on the market. bertha coombs, "nightly business report," new york.

and why are some specialty drugs so high and what if anything can be done about it? joining us now with two volunteviews on the subject, rory riley, an expert at pharmaceutical research. lori, let me begin with you. such a heartwarming story that bertha just reported on when somebody has a drug that can be cured permanently of a terrible disease, how can you explain why gilead charges $900 for the same medication over time. $900 in egypt? >> well, thank you for the question and thank you for having me here today. i think the point that was made in your earlier piece about this medicine and the value that it creates for patients, when you think about hepatitis c, this is

a condition that kills more patients in the united states than hiv/aids, the leading cause of liver cancer. patients that have this disease often have many costly episodes of care throughout the year. we now have a treatment that provides 90 to 100% cure rate over a 12-week period of time with little to no side effects. it is really hard to argue about the value that this medicine is bringing to society. i think a lot of the reasons that the focus right now is on the price of medicines is in part because our insurance system demands that patients like the patients that we saw there often pay a much higher percent for that medicine out of pocket compared to a lot of other health care. >> i get what you're saying, sorry to interrupt. but why is it 84,000 in the u.s. and $900 for the same drug in egypt? that is a huge discrepancy. >> one thing is clear that health care in the united states is often more expensive than it is in other places and that is

true not just for prescription medicines but virtually for any other health care. you have countries around the world that have much lower cost of living and much lower economic abilities for patients. and honestly, a much higher epidemic for this medicine. but again, you know, going back to the situation in the united states i think it is important to put the cost of medicines into perspective. as a society we're spending about 10 to 12% of all of health care on medicines. it has been about the same amount for the last many years and is projected to be about the same going forward. a lot of times the insurers want to put the spotlight on a handful of medicines and ignore the fact that about 86% of all prescriptions prescribed today are generic medicines. and we have a system in the united states that encourages that kind of efficiency. >> let me bring dan durham there, much to consider there,

lori has brought up a point of view. obviously, no one is questioning the value of these medications, really, because obviously they have lifesaving value. what people are surprised by, dan, is the pricing of those medicines and why in our system they are so much higher than they are in other parts of the world. >> well, that is an excellent question, i mean, we're facing a public health crisis in this country with hepatitis c. and to deal effectively with that type of crisis, stakeholders need to react responsibly. price gouging is not acting responsibly. charging a thousand dollars a pill, $84,000 for a course of treatment is not acting responsibly. asking for a blank check is not acting responsibly. the growth in prices that we're seeing for these specialty medicines is simply unsustainable for family bumpdgs

and providing health care. it is unsustainable for things like medicare/medicaid. >> are we going to have a two-tiered medical system for people who can afford the drugs can get the plans and the other people will be left out in the cold? >> well, another excellent question, health plans do everything they can to keep down premiums. part of that is negotiating the best price they can for the consumers that they serve. and when you have a monopoly in this case as we do, in a case that has no competitors there is no leverage to negotiate that kind of lower price. and so it becomes very difficult and very challenging to ensure that patients have access to these kinds of medicines. >> we've run out of time on this very important discussion, thank you for joining us. lori riley with the pharmaceutical research and factories of america, and dan durham, thank you both very much. and coming up, women are

making more on the household spending and decisions. but there is something holding them back on taking the right amount of risks. that story is next. call it the power of the purse, more and more women around the globe are making money decisions in their household. a new study shows that women in the u.s. are responsible for almost 40% of all investable assets and that number is growing. but surprisingly, only half of them rely on a financial adviser on the best ways to save and invest. you would think lauren has it all. a model, entrepreneur, and ceo. now she even has a book to help others maximize their potential.

>> financial being, planning for my future, even in my modelling days was always very, very important to me. i was the girl who was not buying the fancy shoes. >> reporter: she was gutsy enough to start companies from scratch. but when it came to managing her money she was anything but a risk-taker. that changed after she became a single mother of two following a divorce. >> it was uncharted territory for me. while i had been an entrepreneur i had not necessarily immersed myself in the decisions. >> reporter: one study shows that women create and control influence, more than a quarter of the world's wealth. 60% of the women say they make the investment decisions in their household. >> there are studies that project it out to be women eclipsing men over the next several decades.

>> reporter: stacey runs a management firm in new york with the focus on women. she said women like men want a good return but it is tougher to convince women on the value of having a financial adviser. and to many women investments need to be something tangible, something they can use. >> it is venus and mars, often money intimidates women, what do we do? do we embrace it? no, we go shopping. >> reporter: part of the problem is confidence. women are less likely than men to consider themselves knowledgeable about their finances. they fear an adviser might force them to make risky decisions. she has been working with the finances and says the key is working in the relationship. the trust has to be earned. >> the relationship boils down to communication. right? most women are not going to get their quarterly report or monthly report in an e-mail with very little face time. >> another interesting conclusion from that study, confidence is less of an issue

in china. women were almost as confident as men when it comes to money issues. that is it for "nightly business report," i'm susie gharib. i'm tyler mathisen, we'll see you back here tomorrow.

man: it's like holy mother of comfort food.ion. kastner: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy. man: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man #2: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.