♪ this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> profit triples. aly baba is showing off his financial strength, grabbing investor attention weeks ahead of the suspected landmark debut. too late too little? the securities and exchange commission tightens rules on sectors. and new record. apple shares hit a new high ahead of the widely expected release of its iphone 6. but what features do consumers really want in a phone? we have all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, august 27th. good evening, everyone. tyler's off tonight. well, here's a ticker symbol you'll be hearing a lot about pretty soon. baba. it stands for aly baba, often

called the amazon of china with a little bit of google mixed in. you can't buy or sell it yet, but this giant chinese tech company is expected to launch a huge public stock offering in a few weeks, and the shares will trade on the new york stock exchange. investors around the world are waiting eagerly for this ipo. and today they got some fresh financial information about this tech success story. in a filing with the securities and exchange commission, aly baba revealed that its profits nearly tripled and its revenue surged last quarter. also, the company said it's investing in more businesses with new revenue streams. taylor tausche has more on what's fueling that growth. >> reporter: aly baba's earnings engine is revving. the company's latest filing showing revenues growing to $2.5 billion in the quarter ending june 30th. revenues from mobile shopping

doubling since march. investors took the numbers with cautious optimism, noting while profits nearly tripled year over year, the private value of aly baba stock has tripped too, even as sales growth matures and slows. legendary tech investor roger mac that me says it's still faster than its peers. >> i think the thing to focus on, especially with aly baba, we're in a very low-growth economy right now. so companies with real underlying growth are few and far between. investors are stretching really far and really hard to get them. and are willing to pay up quite a lot. >> reporter: that quest is buy growth may have other effects on your portfolio. piper jaffray and bernstein believe aly baba's valuation will be north of $200 billion. reuters reports money managers will make room for that 800-pound e-commerce gorel i willa by shares of its compensate to, amazon. meanwhile, yahoo! a major shareholder, could see a boost.

aly baba is eyeing a debut here at the new york stock exchange in mid september, following two weeks crisscrossing the globe to meet investors. it will be a milestone for the market, the largest ipo ever in the u.s. both in the technology sector and beyond. for "nightly business report," i'm kayla tausche in new york. our guest tonight says aly baba will be the stock to own in every investor portfolio. she is kathleen smith, ipo fund manager at renaissance capital. cathy, nice to have you here on the set. and you're really not giving to exaggeration in the years i've interviewed you. this is such a bold statement. why do you say alibaba is going to be such a hit? >> it's such a fast growing company and a way to own the digital economy in china. and i think that every portfolio manager is going to take a look at this and eventually this will find its way in all major stock portfolios.

>> how hard is it going to be to get this stock if it's hot? >> i don't think it will be too hard. it's a large ipo. we think $20 billion which could make it the biggest ever. >> reporter: that could make it bigger than facebook. >> yes, it would and bigger than visa and maybe bigger than the biggest of all ipos we have seen yet. the company will have to work hard to attract investors. and i think that there will be a chance for many investors to own this stock either on the offering or in post ipo trading. >> you kind of feel some investors will be skeptics especially after what happened with facebook. so much press, so much publicity and in the first year of trading didn't do so well. floundered. how do you think alibaba will do in the first year? >> we think it will do well in the long run. but with the ipos in general, they tend to be -- they can be volatile and subject to a lot of emotion. so investors looking at newly public companies need to realize that they're not -- their stock charts aren't set. it's going to be some uncertainty about how it rolls

out. but we do think in the long run this is going to work very well. >> as kayla said in her package, the next few weeks aly baba executives are going to be on the road with their bankers, on a road show, pitching this to institutional investors. how do you think they're going to respond to these new numbers that we saw today about profits and revenues? >> i think the numbers look very good. we were a little worried when we saw the march numbers, which had a lower growth rate in the high 30%. but these current ones in june show an accelerating growth rate, and success the companies made in the mobile market, which has been a key area of interest and concern by investors. so they have done well, hat tip to management. we think these current numbers look quite good. >> that's really impressive. now, the whole ipo market this year has been impressive. i think the best market since, what, year 2000, with almost 200 companies going public and now this alibaba thing. do you think this continues -- will there be an alley baba

effect that it will attract more companies to go public or just the opposite, might crowd out the other guys? >> there's a little bit of both. the ipo market has been very active so far, and i don't think that relates to alibaba, it relates to strong returns. for example, the renaissance ipo index was up 54% in 2013. and so far this year, is up almost 7%. so those are great returns, and they encourage more companies to go public. so it's been a very good market. we do think, however, that alibaba will take some air out of the ipo room a little bit while it gets done. it's such a large ipo, will represent the $20 billion deal. could be half of what we have raised so far this year in ipos. >> amazing. >> and so i think that and investors will make room for alibaba in the portfolio. maybe looking at jd.com as a comparable company that might be less interesting to investors when they can own this juggernaut, alibaba, as an alternative. >> we'll see what happens in a few more weeks.

maybe you'll come back and give us analysis post ipo. thank you so much, cathy. pleasure having you on the program. kathleen smith, ipo fund manager at renaissance capital. and here's another company going public. san francisco-based peer to peer loan maker, lending club filed paperwork today for its initial public stock offering. the firm which says it has facilitated more than $5 billion in loans since it began lending in 2007 hopes to raise half a billion dollars by selling its shares to the public. meanwhile, stocks on wall street meandered today between positive and negative territory after a week of new records and milestones. and despite strong earnings from retailers like tiffany's, michael's and express, investors just weren't inspired to snap up stocks. by the close, the dow added 15 points and the s&p edged up by a fraction to close just a tad above its 2000 record level. over in the bond market, the yield on the 30-year treasury bond fell to its lowest level

since may of 2013 to 3.1%. here's a sign that despite sluggish trading on wall street, investors around the globe are still pretty bullish. the value of global equities has now soared to a record $66 trillion. what's powering that humongous number, the hope of more stimulus measures in europe, the s&p topping 2,000 this week and market rallies in japan, brazil and other global exchanges. just two more days to close out the month of august and it looks like this has been the best august for wall street in 14 years. but things could turn ugly on monday with the start of september. a month notorious for market corrections. as morgan brennen shows us, there are few stocks investors should keep a close watch on this fall. >> reporter: call them back from the beach stocks. names that tend to pop in september, as investors return to work after summering by the shore. these are stocks that have on

average outperformed the brooder market over the past five septembers, posting positive gains even when the market tumbled in 2011. only 17 names are just over 3%, of the s&p 500 fit the bill. consumer discretionary stocks like amazon, elle, cerner, celgene and per go and sandisk and ibm. they have all returned on average 4% or more for the month. turner returning the most. headed into this fall season, experts are again setting sights on these sectors. >> the industries we like going into the fall would be cyclicals. and those would include health care, tech, energies, energy and industrials. those are really what we're focused on. stocks that do well in a growing economy with low inflation, which is what we're in. >> reporter: september has historically been the worst for stocks, a down month for many of the past 50 years.

but market strategists note that hasn't been the case post crisis. thanks largely to fed policy and the effects that's had on the bond market. >> we're a bit cautious going into the fall, because the fall is definitely a difficult time for the stock market. and you know, we haven't had a 10% correction in about three years. so if we get a selloff in the fall, you know, we wouldn't be surprised and it may actually be healthy in the long term. >> reporter: but until such a correction occurs, if it does, stocks remain at record highs. so it's also important to look at value. right now, stocks trading at a discount to their five-year averages include kraft, constellation brands, aig, discovery communications and at&t. but remember, investors come back in september and so does market moving data. starting next week, for the u.s. jobs report on friday and the much-anticipated european central banks meeting on

thursday. for "nightly business report," i'm morgan brennen. the nation's largest bank may have been hacked. according to dow jones, the fbi is investigating a possible cyber attack on the computer network inside jpmorgan chase. when the attack took place, what was affected and the potential costs to the bank are not clear. but in a statement, a spokesperson for jpmorgan said a company of that size experiences cyber attacks nearly every day. a real black eye for christine lagarde, head of the international monetary fund. a french court has opened a formal investigation into charges of, quote, negligence involving a political fraud case dating back to 2008. she was france's finance minister at the time. lagarde says the allegations have no merit. well, a sobering report today about the outlook for the u.s. economy. the congressional budget office predicts the economy will grow by just 1.5% this year, and that is far below white house

forecasts. john harwood joins us now from washington with more details. so john, besides that disappointing growth number, the other head line statistic that popped out was the budget deficit. tell us more about that. >> budget deficit is going to be slightly higher, susie, than was projected this year, just over $500 billion. that's not because spending was higher than expected. it's because revenue has dropped somewhat. but the good news is, this is below 3% of gdp, which is below the 40-year historical average. so deficits are in a pretty manageable range right now. remember, just early in the obama administration, they -- while the stimulus bill was being passed, it was almost 10% of gdp. >> so 10% down to 3%. does that mean mission accomplished for the obama budget war, so to speak? >> well, in the short term, yes. but not in the long term. because what we see is, over the next ten years, as more and more baby boomers retire, go on to

social security and medicare, those deficits are going to go back up. they'll go back up beyond the 40-year historic average to close to 4% of gdp, and that is a difficult situation and will make the deficit be higher and it will make the administration at that time having a need to close that gap. >> all right. and this is always such a contentious issue between the democrats and the republicans in congress. what needs to be done in the long term to keep these deficits down and keep spending down? >> some combination of higher taxes, lower benefits or both. but the one good news, susie, is that the moderation in the rise in health care costs has continued. right now, for the next five years, cbo projects that spending on medicare will be $677 billion less over the next five years than they projected for those same years just a few years ago. so those things make it easier to deal with the problem.

the question is, where's the political will. >> oh, yeah. those are not popular subjects to deal with in washington. thank you, so much, john. john harwood reporting from washington. also from washington today, the securities and exchange commission conducting a hearing on more new rules to reform wall street's financial institutions to protect investors from another financial crisis. but is it too little too late for burned investors? a eamon jafrs reports. >> signify your vote by saying yes or no. >> yes. >> yes. >> the recommendation is unanimously approved. >> reporter: it's been six years since the financial crisis and four years sits the dodd frank reform law passed. they focus on two areas key to the financial crisis. asset-backed securities and financial ratings agencies. the rules would force credit rating agencies to strengthen their internal controls, beef up

conflict of interest requirements, and establish policies to spot analyst reports biased by the prospect of future employment at a financial firm. credit ratings agencies came under fire during the crisis for issuing unrealistically high ratings, a particular problem in the housing market where bad loans were given top and a half ratings. the new rules would also require specific loan level disclosure for certain asset-backed securities. so investors can see exactly what they're buying. some s.e.c. commissioners said the ratings took a moderate approach. >> today's rule makings directly address two major components of the financial crisis. a failure of confidence in the securitization markets and a failure of competence by credit rating agencies in producing structured finance ratings. >> reporter: reformers, however, say the rules could have gone farther. >> we're pleased that the agency made some of the improvements that we called for, specifically with conflicts of interest.

we were a little displeased to see they had done nothing with universal rating symbols. so i think that we -- we're encouraged, but not ready to declare complete victory. >> reporter: even four years in, only 52% of the rules required by dodd/frank have actually been completed. and that leaves a lot more work to do here in washington. for "nightly business report," i'm a monday jafrs. >> still ahead on the program, apple shares climbed to a record high on rumors over what the new iphone might look like. apple fans tell us what features they want to see in the iphone 6. that's coming up.

♪ lots of rumors coming out of silicon valley that apple is getting ready to launch its biggest tablet ever. even though tablet sales have been declining, published reports say apple will put out a new ipad with a 12.9 inch screen in 2015. right now the company's largest ipad has a 10-inch screen. even before the new ipad comes out, it looks like apple is two weeks away from releasing the new iphone 6. and with anticipation building for the new device, apple shares are trading at record highs, more than 1% today. but not a word from apple, leaving a lot of consumers to wonder, what new innovations the iphone 6 will offer. will it have a bigger screen? or longer battery life? and how much will it cost? josh lipton takes a look at what people really want in a new iphone. >> from washington, d.c., to new york city --

>> three days, really cool, super light. futuristicy. >> to apple's backyard in silicon valley -- >> not too big. but bigger. >> everyone seems to have an opinion on what they want in the soon to be announced iphone 6. >> i want more battery. oh, my god. please new battery. that last at least one day. that would be great. >> reporter: rumors are running rampant online, from apple fan and even celebrity gossip sites getting in on the guessing game. and while nothing will be 100% certain until apple's ceo tim cook takes the stage on a reported media event september 9th, most analysts believe the new iphone will be built to impress. >> apple has done and will do what consumers expect at the very least, which is make it faster, lighter, thinner, more powerful, better screen, better resolution, and hopefully better software. and all of that will create what

i would consider an acceptable experience for those who are in the apple camp. >> reporter: the potential iphone 6 buyers' wish lists are mixed. on a larger screen size rumored to be 4.7 and 5.5 inches. >> that's too big. i don't want a tablet on my ear. >> i think it would be cool to have a larger screen. >> it needs to fit in your pocket still and in your bag. >> a larger screen when you're almost 50 years old so you can see better. >> reporter: and while there's excitement behind the expected launch, not everyone sees the need for something new. >> i already what i need. it works fine. it's great. >> reporter: we'll soon find out if apple can make all these consumers happy. the stakes are high, given that the iphone still does generate over 50% of apple's revenue. josh lipton, "nightly business report," palo alto, california. >> if you want to read more about the features potential iphone buyers want in a phone, go to our website, nbr.com. big trouble today for people

with time warner cable. a major internet outage earlier today. the company says something went wrong during routine maintenance work on an internet and on-demand cable services. coverage in 29 states from new york to california went dark for about an hour and a half starting around 4:30 a.m. eastern time. but it was all bright and shiny from tiffany's and that's where we begin tonight's market focus. earnings of the jewelry row tailer surged in the second quarter, thanks it to vong sales in the americas and the asia pacific regions. the company raised its earnings outlook for the year, noting improving sales and expa profit m the stock rose almost 1% to $101.75. express reported lowered income in sales in second quarter, but still the results came in better than analyst's estimates. the clothing retailer upped its full year forecast and said profit margins are improving, despite a difficult retail environment. shares jumped nearly 13% to $16.45.

but chico's was the misfit of these retailers' earning reports. its profit tumbled more than 30% as price cuts to unload seasonal merchandise squeezed margins. sales were slightly better because of increased promotional pricing but wasn't enough to help the company meet revenue estimates. the stock fell 4.5% to $15.29. michaels crafted a quarterly earnings report since going public in june. the company beat wall street estimates. the chain also gave a 2014 full year forecast above consensus. the stock popped up 9% to $16.54. and guess posted weaker than expected earnings. the apparel retailer also offered third quarter and full-year guidance below street forecasts. shares tumbled initially after hours trading. during the regular trading session, the stock was down slightly to $25.64.

and coming up, what might happen to one of the country's most popular ski towns this winter if the ski lifts stop running. we have some good news for drivers. thanks to a late summer slide in oil prices, gas prices at the pump this labor day will be the lowest in four years. this weekend, a gallon of regular unleaded gas will average $3.41 nationwide. and gas buddy.com says they

could head even lower over the next two months. one of the nation's most popular ski areas is worried about this winter as a big legal battle might keep skiers off the slopes. jane wells is in park city, utah, with that story. >> reporter: this is the time of year park city starts prepping for ski season. the profit engine for the small community. >> such a magical mountain. and there is so much to offer. >> reporter: but the magical mountain is a mountain divided, and there may be no ski season. >> you'll have a direct impact of hundreds and hundreds of employees who won't have a job. >> reporter: the bottom of the mountain at park city mountain resort is owned by pcmr, run by a local billionaire named john coupling. this is where there is park and access at the bottom of the lift. the top of the mountain where the skiing happens is owned by canadian company. currently, neither is letting the other have access to its property, which could hurt the whole town. >> the impact could be somewhere in the realm of $180 million. so, you know, that's a

substantial factor. >> reporter: here's how we got here. for years, pcmr at the bottom of the mountain paid rent to access the top for about $150,000 a year. then the lease lapsed and the top found a tenant willing to pay a whole lot more, $25 million. that tenant is vail resorts, which also got the resort next door thrown in as part of the deal. the problem is, pcmr still owns the bottom of the mountain. the billionaire at the bottom of the hill lost in court and faces eviction. but this week a judge heard arguments to let pcmr put up a bond so the ski season could go forward at least this year. both sides say they want to do what's right for the community, and they're in mediation. ideally, the top of the mountain would like to buy out the bottom, but the billion their down below has said if he doesn't get a fair price, he may just rip out the lifts and put in a winter sports park. locals are tired of the whole mess. >> i just want the resort to be

open. at this point, i'm not really concerned with who is going to be operating it. just don't shut us down for the season, please. >> reporter: otherwise, with no skiing, it's the park city economy which may be going downhill. for "nightly business report," jane wells, park city, utah. a lot of companies simply aren't raising salaries. instead, they're boosting bonuses. a new survey from consulting firm a i don't know hewitt shows performance-based annual bonuses made up nearly 13% of all payel rolls this year. that's the highest percentage on record. bonuses allow firms to reward and retain valuable employees, keeping them focused on doing a good job, rather than just showing up for work. and speaking of work, some good news for anyone on vacation this week. a new survey from audit firm e-y. this is formally known as earns and young found employees who use up more of their allotted vacation days end up with better performance reviews. it seems that time away from the office helps workers recharge

batteries and helps cut down on employee turnover. and that's "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm susie gharib. thanks for watching. have a great evening. and we hope to see all of you right back here tomorrow night.

tonight on "quest" -- people have been riding bicycles for nearly 200 years. but we still don't understand why they work so well. not just one thing explains how the bicycle behaves. meet engineers searching for the answer to a surprisingly complex question -- exactly how are we able to balance on a bike? and mark twain's famed jumping frog of calaveras county may be hopping towards extinction. what's really alarming, something like 40% of all known amphibians are threatened with some level of extinction. see how scientists are working to save these frogs and other endangered amphibians. support for "quest" is