this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathi susie gharib. funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer an portfolio ma share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. lucky seven. the holiday cheer with dow industrial with seven straight days of gains. while it and the s&p hit fresh records. retail round-up christmas may be over. many hope the buying will continue and extend what seems to be a strong holiday shopping season. so will the consumers keep the money flowing? >> and the gift that keeps on giving. our market monitor tonight said

he has three stocks he thinks can get you 20% gains over the next six months. all that and more >> i'm in for tyler mathisen. >> i'm susie gharib. a strong finish to the week as wall street soared to new highs today. major averages were up for the second week in a row. the dow pushed through the psychologically important 18,000 mark earlier this week and then just kept ongoing. today, the dow rose 23 points to 18,053, its 37th record this year. nasdaq added 33 points and the s&p jumped 15 to 2088. that's the 52nd record this year, both records for the dow and the s&p. for the dow, up 1.4% and nasdaq and s&p gained nearly 1%. you think all the christmas traffic at the malls is over? think again. shopper track predicts that

today will end up being the second busiest shopping day of the year with last saturday being the busiest. the returns, the gift cards, the drastically flashed afterchristmas prices in. josh lipton braved the crowds for us tonight. >> reporter: the season of giving might be over but retailers hope the season of buying will continue. >> that's $59.99. >> shoppers were excited about taking advantage of all those big deals at the mall. >> they said, today is the cheapest. >> you can get some good deals. not all but for the most part. >> i see that the prices are down, take off and go places and buy stuff. >> reporter: analysts expect to see a lot of strength in the consumer as we head into the final holiday stretch. thanks to lower gas prices, a stronger labor market and improved consumer confidence. >> maybe look around a little more. >> reporter: the national retail federation forecast holiday

sales to jump 4% to $617 billion. so where were bargain hunters looking for deals today? apparel sales always attract a lot of attention. express, for example, offering 50% off everything. not to be outdone, gap is offering up to 60% off. consumers were also returning all those dispointing christmas gifts today. analysts say that's always potentially good news for retailers. >> oftentimes, you get money back or credit you can use to work something out and may have forgotten or see a great promotion they haven't seen before the holidays which they want to take advantage of. >> thanks. >> have a great one. >> reporter: analysts expect the american consumer to stay busy buying through the end of this year with this december beating out last year's $149 billion sales number. for "nightly business report," i'm josh lipton in san jose, california. overall, seems shoppers have

done more than their part to boost the economy and retailers profits. sales picked up as christmas approached and gasoline prices continue to fall. mastercard spending said compared to last year, grew 5.5% from black friday through christmas eve and online, sales jumped more than 8%. the figures included hotels and restaurants but not auto sales. so let's bring in our guest now, tom, chief retail central gist at strategy and pwc. hi, tom. nice to have you with us on this day after christmas. >> great to be with you, susie. >> after this very insane crazy shopping season, how do things turn out from your perspective? i know you spend a lot of times in the store. what stood out this season than seasons past? >> this year has been a transformational season, from when the season started in early october to what occurred

thanksgiving evening to the redefinition of black friday sort of to a waning of cyber monday and super saturday. what stood out most of all was the move to mobile. a tremendous move to mobile this year. >> what does that do? you talk about, there used to be this ebb and flow in the retail shopping season from black friday through cyber monr satur. that has been diffused now by online shopping and mobile shopping. so take it to the future. what happens now? >> i think if we were to take it to 2015 and beyond, without question, mobile shopping, we call it web rooming, becomes the new way that people actually browse for products. what will be fair to say is that if we think this year was big in mobile shopping, next year will be explosive. it will be a year in which retailers must must deal with omni channel retailing. >> as you look to the last days

of december, as you heard in our package, a lot of people take advantage of their gift cards and the big sales. i mean, how much more shopping and profits can retailers expect in the next few days? >> you know, if you offer cheap enough, they will buy. so let's expect, let's expect that the retail shoppers will come to the stores to get that last minute deal. in fact, as i mentioned earlier, it was -- it's fair to assume 8% of the holiday season occurs after christmas. so let's watch that bill for the next few days throughout next week. >> and what about the convenience factor? if we are going to see more use of mobile technology on a long line, people don't have to go to the mall. they can shop at home. does that bode well for retailers at our position for that? i mean, will we see stronger sales because people can shop whenever they want to? >> i think a couple of points there. stores will continue to provide a huge role in the holiday

shopping period as they will for the rest of the year. but what's important is that shoppers will actually use online or mobile to help them sift through the offers that they get to shop in a given season. >> tom, i know you can't name names of retailers, but generically, who are the winners and who are the losers? >> well, first and most importantly, the shopper was an unbelievable winner this year. but looking at various channels, department stores did a tremendous job in clothing this year. mass merchants did a tremendous job in helping people select those home items or houseware items. the retailers did a nice job in making america go back to playing games with children. great year for all channels. >> nice way to end the conversation. thank you, tom, from pwc. >> thank you. after "the interview,"

opened on christmas day after all, just not as planned. sony said the mostly smaller art theaters that showed the film grossed more than a million dollars christmas day. there was some online streaming as well, not tallied up yet. the original wide open release was cancelled of course after sony was hacked allegedly by north korea. kate rogers puts it all together for us tonight. >> reporter: from los angeles to washington, d.c. >> it does feel like there's a larger principle here. >> reporter: to new york city, flocked to see the interview after independent theaters rallied behind the sony comedy. the film stars james franco and seth rogan, who also codirected the movie made a special appearance to thank fans for coming out. >> we thought this might not happen at all.

>> reporter: the hype surrounding the scandal translated into additional publicity to movie goers. >> the controversy got me interested. >> reporter: in a statement, sony president worldwide distribution thanked fans for their support and said, considering the incredibly challenging circumstances, we're extremely grateful to the people all over the country who came out to experience "the interview" on the first day of its unconventional release. added the film grossed over $1 million in its limited release. over 200 independent theaters rallied behind the film deciding to release it. sony made the film available online through google play, youtube, xbox, and playstation. >> you want us to kill the leader of north korea? >> reporter: critics split on the interview. >> i can't believe a film like this caused an international incident. >> i just really wanted to see it just to stick it to north

korea. >> i think all around, it was a good movie. it was funny. >> reporter: despite the mystery views, box office was strong. >> a million dollars yesterday which is a huge number for a film that's just over 300 theaters. >> reporter: but sony has a long way to go to recoup the money for the production at reported $100 million to break even. for "nightly business report," i'm kate rogers in new york city. >> it apparently had nothing to do with the sony hacking over the "the interview," but there may have been an hack attack on christmas. gamers found it difficult to connect with sony's playstation and microsoft's xbox network yesterday. xbox mostly back up today but sony's playstation network remained out. a hacker group called lizard squad is claiming responsibility and neither the company is

commenting on the cause of the outag outages. game users try to hook up with the old streaming of the interview could have contributed to the problem. bill? >> this and other recent instances of digital extortion have made cyber security a major concern at the white house. concerns are being driven not only by the unusually destructive nature of the attack on sony but by the migration of virtually everything to the internet. so the white house wants to find ways for the government that can protect itself but also help vulnerable companies with their security upgrades. joining us tonight from washington is john. how is the administration responding to this mounting threat of cyber attacks? we hear about new ones everyday now. >> first of all, bill, you've got the same issue that arose after 9/11 when we woke up to a kind of security threat and said, there's all this information out there, but it's not well coordinated.

different government agencies, different investigators. now you have that compounded by different sectors of the economy. how does the government keep up with the information, share that wi right people, keep companies up to speed on what might be coming at them. that kind of information coordination is step number one. >> i've talked to a lot of ceos about this. most are doing everything possible that they can do, but if somebody wants to hack in, they can hack in. so what more can the government really do? >> there's legislation on the hill, susie, to try to have minimum standards for companies for cyber security. there's been a lot of criticism of sony for having inadequate cyber security. the challenge is that while businesses want to be more secure, they're not sure they want government telling them to do that. they're also liability concerns that come if you set standards and then someone can sue a company for not having complied with those standards. so it's a complicated to try to solve the political puzzle to

get business and government on the same page. obviously, business likes protection. they don't often like government regulation. >> quickly, we all know that washington has been paralyzed by gridlock the last several years. is cyber security a gridlock issue or can they get something done? >> i think, bill, they can get something done. the more novel an issue is when it doesn't have familiar partisan sides, the more promising it is to have some sort of resolution and here you have a security threat that's typically a republican issue. you've got a threat to holiday. that's a democratic base constituency and i think there's peshl to come together in this new congress. >> john harwood in washington, have a good weekend. >> you bet. you too. coming up on the program, it's nice that gas prices are low, but there's a downside to cheap oil. we'll tell you which states are losing out and which ones are benefitting the most from oil.

many minimum wage workers get a post-holiday gift in the new year, especially if they live in washington state. according to the seattle times, a cost of living escalator will push the minimum pay to $9.47 an hour come january 1st. that will be the highest in the nation and in neighboring oregon, the minimum wage bumps up to $9.25, the second highest in the country. 18 other states are hiking their minimum wages as well. full-time washington state workers will make a total of $312 more annually without overtime. lower gasoline prices are

great for consumers, but hard on the oil and oil services companies and not at all good for many states where budgets depend on high gas taxes. scott cohn joins us now from california. scott, over to you. >> reporter: hi, susie. first, the winners in this. states have, just like you and me, pay less for their fuel. that will help to some degree, but the big potential wind fall is if gas prices mean more consumer spending, the state that rely heavily on sales taxes win and those are washington state and nevada, florida, south dakota and tennessee. the states that lose though are the oil states. already a budget crisis in alaska that gets 90% of the state revenue from oil and gas taxes. they have a $3.5 billion budget halt. new mexico gets a fifth of revenue from gas taxes. texas gets about 8% and a lot of question of whether texas can weather the oil shock like the

1980s and then north dakota, a growing oil state of course and oklahoma. >> you know, scott, you just mentioned texas and how it was devastated by the last oil shock. this is back in the '80s. how do you think it's going to play out this time? will it be different? >> there's a lot of debate about that. as i said, 8% of the state's revenue comes from oil and gas taxes. that's part of it. but so much of the economy, even though they've done so much to diversify in the last 30 years, it's still a big oil state and the oil presence in texas has only grown. so there's a lot of concern that if the crude oil prices stay low for a long time, it could start to ripple through that very big, very important economy. >> texas is not the only one. there's other oil states. what are they doing to respond the oil prices? especially when budgets depend on it, right? >> reporter: yeah, exactly. there's a lot of states that are looking at some pretty serious budget cuts. of course, i mentioned alaska. this all came about 2 weeks into

the administration. bill walker turned to the public about the budget cuts in louisiana, another oil state. the states are really looking at this now to try and get ahead of it, but this came on so fast well into the new fiscal year. some cases, their hands are tied. >> fascinating situation. thank you so much, scott. scott cohn reporting from california. well, amazon saw a record increase in its prime subscribers giving shares a nice lift today. that's where we begin our market focus tonight. the online retailer said 10 million new customers tried their prime focus for the holidays. prime users obviously get unlimited free two-day shipping for about $100 a year and they get access to books, tv shows and movies. some of the users could be taking advantage of the 30 day trial of prime. we'll know that in a month. shares up 2% to $309.09. go pro contributed to retail

results. best selling cameras on that site this holiday season. that along with comments from windbush this week about the company's sales this season had the shares on fire ed. today, shares up more than 4% to $69.23. and tesla has announced today it is making some updates to its old road ster model. the company said a new battery, new tires and other improvements let the electric car travel 400 miles on a single charge. as a result, shares up 2.5% to $200.82. a rough start to the week. rbc capital suggesting the drug maker could agressively buy back up to $10 million using cash generated from blockbuster hepatitis c drug. it would be a good use of cash and a way to signal confidence

to investors amid uncertainty over drug prices. rose to $93.79. freeport macmaran was one of the biggest. the natural resources company had a successful production test in south louisiana and plans to bring the well online next year. rose more than 2.5% to $23.51. reportedly, mcgraw hill standard near a settlement with regulators over their investigation how the company graded real estate bonds during the financial crisis. the settlement could involve a suspension of s&p from some rating deals and a fine of at least $60 million. that's according to reports. shares of parent company sell today, down a fraction to $89.92. >> now to market monitor guest. stock picks he thinks could generate 20% returns just the first half of the new year. he is ross gerber, ceo and

president of gerber kawasaki. always good to see you, my friend. >> 20% returns. we've gone through five years of good returns here the last five years. you think it's going to be harder to come by, so you're being very selective in the new year when you're doing stock picking, aren't you? >> correct. it's higher, becoming what we call a stock picker's market. the price earnings ratio is higher as the market goes higher. >> viewers are salivating. they can get a 20% return over the next few days. you have apple at the top of the list. why do you like apple at $113 and how high is your target? >> apple has all the characteristics of a company that we look for, i'm sure

everybody understands why apple is a great company because we have the products. but iphone 6 and 6 plus doing way better than what analysts think as well as the launch of the apple watch. my opinion is that this will be a blockbuster product and none of the analysts have also modelled in what the earnings will be for this in the first quarter and second quarter of the year. between blockbuster sales of new products and continued just great christmas season for ap e apple. should trade multiple, which means with higher earnings and higher, i would say opinion of the company, we expect the shares to also move higher. >> like disney. bob biegers already got this. setting records. you think there's more to come? >> yes, iger doing such a good

job. tim cook, amazing manager. disney has everything going for it too. amazon reported today that the number one selling doll in td i. the continued synergy from the movies, the products, the theme parks all coming together as a solid network group. abc is struggling a bit and star wars, that's going to be huge. >> can you squeeze in 15 seconds why you like taser at $26. >> we need accountability in policing. taser is the number one maker of body cameras for police. it's being adapted by everybody including the lapd just recently. and i think this is a must for all police forces in the united states and taser will benefit greatly from this. >> ross gerber from gerber

kawasaki. have a great weekend. >> thank you, you too. up next, a classic coke won't cut it anymore. beverage makers spend big bucks to rethink the things you might drink in the future. shares of groupon today from a report from the korea times said a unit of goldman sachs is considering acquiring a stake in groupon's south korea based ticket monster business. groupon is reportedly mulling a sale of at least 20% and up to more than half of its stake. switching gears here. what will you be drinking in the

future or a few years from now? it's happening as sara eisen tells us. >> cherry, vanilla, strawberry, raspberry. >> reporter: choice, personalization and kus tomization. what does drinkfinty tell us about the consumer in 25 years? >> it tells us a number of things. firstly, consumers are going to look for much more exciting propositions, you know? a long time ago, you had a choice between two koe las. now consumers have a vast choice available to them. >> reporter: you see them in coke freestyle to customize your coke bands or pepsi spire to mix and match combos. that's what alcoholic beverage drinkers want as well. >> the next five to 20 years, i think you see the consumer have

a clear role in playing with that beer experience tastes like. >> reporter: at miller corps test lap in chicago, they experiment with profiles and skurps demand natural and healthier choices. >> i think that flavor companies are going to get more complex with their flavors, more natural. >> reporter: big companies are currently experimenting with natural speweeteners and coke a pepsi true just launched. consumers want to make it themselves. for instance, home brewing equipment kits grow double digits according to the american home brewing association and that number is expected to continue to grow. you're seeing big companies bet with this. launch at home brewer set for 2015. and a soda stream for pepsi users on their own. and the trend is clear. personalization and make it natural and healthier.

that's what beverages look like in the next 25 years. for "nightly business report," i'm sara eisen. >> that is "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm susie gharib, have a great weekend. >> i'm bill griffeth. have a great weekend. we'll see you back here on monday. "nightly business report" has been funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer an portfolio manage share their investment strategies, stock market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr.

gwen: we go around the world focusing on the good news, the bad news and the challenges that remain. that shaped 2014, week." on "washington >> i'm eager to work with all of you. declaredsident obama 2014 his year of action. stand stilloes not and neither will i. so wherever and whenever i can steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more whatcan families, that's i'm going to do. gwen: congress resisted his executive action especially after democrats went down to midterm defeat. >> this is a serious breach of our constitution. it's a serious threat to our system of government. gwen: after republicans seized control of congress, for the