this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- >> thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. prices stumble. oil falls to a 5 1/2-year low as libyan production concerns fail to support prices. what's next for crude? win streak snapped. the dow may have dropped, but it is shaping up to be another banner year for equities. tonight a list of stocks you may want to consider for new year. and going public. shake shack filed for an ipo, but will investor appetite for new offerings be as strong in 2015 as it was this year? we have all that and more tonight on "nightly business

report" for monday, december 29th. good evening, everyone. i'm susie gharib. >> i'm bill griffeth in for tyler mathisen. the price of oil fell to a fresh multi-year low today on expectations that a global glut of crude oil may keep growing into the new year. now, it didn't start out that way. oil today actually began the session higher on concerns that unrest in libya could put a cramp on global supplies but by the close of trade, futures had dipped to a new five-year low on a swell in supplies. light sweet crude closed at $53.61 a barrel and the benchmark brent crude in dlon was down 1.57 closing at a 5- 1/2 year low of $57.88 a barrel. jackie deangelis has more on today's wild swings in the price of crude and what could affect oil prices moving forward. >> reporter: another volatile day for crude prices.

we saw a bit of a pop in prices this morning after traders were concerned about reports of clashes in libya around one of the key export termen always but then prices went sharply lower, closing at 53.61 for west texas intermediate. that's the lowest close since may of 20009. what this underscores is that geopolitics could still ta prices higher, but the events have to be very significant. this particular one wasn't traders still looking for the same story, which is supply and demand and they're not worried about global supply economics right now. i want to talk about gas prices because as we go lower in crude we're seeing retail gas prices decline. $2.21 the national average for a gallon of regular according to aaa, down ten cents in a week. and traders say be could go lower from here. reporting that they're seeing gas prices under $2. very strong news for consumers as we head into 2015. i'm jackie deangelis. >> here's a question.

will low oil prices make some energy companies attractive takeovers in to 2015? we'll explore that later. the dow broke its eight-session winning streak but record closes for the s&p 500 as well as for the russell 2000 and the dow utilities index. blue chip stocks were down 15 the nasdaq rose by a fraction and the s&p added 2 points. with all the major averages at or near record highs, dominic chu takes a look at the range of stocks that help send the markets to hit new milestones in 2014 and whether the upward trend can continue. >> reporter: 2014 turned out to be another banner year for u.s. stocks with large, mid, and small-cap indices all reaching record highs, but it was the sharp move higher in stocks in just the last couple of months that really propelled the market to rarefied air. since mid-october the s&p large cap indeck has risen 12%.

the midcap index has risen by nearly 14% in that span and that russell's small-cap index has also risen by that same amount. some think the routing in small caps can continue into 2015. >> the last stages of this rally will likely be a shift from large-cap into small as the investing space becomes smaller and smaller, as the rest of the world appears to perhaps be slowing down and that the u.s. is the only safe haven left. >> reporter: smaller company stocks are seen as more reliant on the u.s. economy as opposed to global factor so it can be more insulated to foreign instabilities. if larger companies are on your shopping list some of this year's outperformers could continue to do so next year. >> next year financials in health care probably the two health care sectors that we like. both are trading at a relative discount when you look at them versus their peer their other sector groups and they do have

some favorable momentum. >> reporter: next year may be the year when just about anything can happen. >> we'll see a little bit of everything. the biggest question for asset allocators u.s. versus non-u.s. investment glade versus high yield. those are the more interesting questions rather than just do stocks go up and down. >> reporter: so now that 2014 is just about over it's time to start looking ahead to 2015 which means taking a hard look at your portfolio and seeing if it still makes sense given risks and potential rewards. for "nightly business report," i'm dominic chu. now not every stock gained this year although it sure seemed like it. morgan brennan takes a look at some of this year's winners and losers. >> reporter: it's been another strong year for stocks. the russell 1000 which includes the largest companies traded in the u.s. has gained more than 12% in '14. the biggest winner skyworks solutions. the chipmaker has risen 150% this year thanks in part to strong demand for the apple

devices it helps supply. investors say it was a perfect mix for many of the biggest tech stocks. >> intel, nvidia cisco, oracle these are all stocks that we own in the technology space did well in 2014. primarily because they were really undervalued heading into the year. >> reporter: airlines also had a good year both southwest and american airlines more than doubled, as fuel costs have fallen and ticket prices have risen on stronger demand. in pharma companies including intercept, allergan posted strong returns as well. helped by attractive dividends. but what about the biggest losers? >> energy stocks have been battered and bruised. we actually like energy heading into 2015 because the stocks have gotten to be so inexpensive. >> reporter: oil and gas producers including sandridge energy and oasis petroleum have tumbled dramatically this year. and sea drill have lost more than 70%.

cliff natural resources and others had another tough year as well thanks to soft demand. telecom giant sprint has also plunged as competition for subscrers continues to ramp up in the wireless space. but some of the biggest losers could become next year's outperformers. buckingham for example, like the oil driller ansko, and chip companies like ibm. for "nightly business report" i'm morgan brennan at the nasdaq in new york city. those are some of the big winners and losers of this year but which ones could be the big gainers in 2015? all week long we'll be talking with our market monitors about their stock picks. we begin tonight with peter sorantino at huntington asset advisers. happy holidays. >> thank you, susie, happy holidays to you. >> you heard our story at the top of the program talking about energy prices and all the volatility in that space. your top stock pick is valero

which is an oil refiner. trading at 50 you think it can go up by 20%. tell us why. >> well one of the things that we're seeing is because of the supply of cheap crude that's available, especially the low grade crudes coming out of both mexico and out of canada that valero's uniquely positioned. very few refineries in the country can handle that type of crude. so it's sort of a closed market. the collapse in price really allows someone like valero to use very cheap feed stock and because they're pretty well integrated in both ethanol and the crude refining they can ship blended product all around the world. that creates an opportunity for them to take market share. so even with prices crashing and prices at the pump falling every day, it creates an opportunity where sort of survival of the fittest becomes the rule of the day. and for those properly positioned it creates a great opportunity. >> a lot of analysts love technology still, peter, and often they're talking about the apples and the twitters of the world, facebook but you're

going with an old-school company, the software giant oracle. why? >> well one of the things that we saw this year -- and it's been a recurring theme -- it's got to be getting attention and got to be getting its share of capital spending going forward have been the security breaches. they continue to happen. they're becoming financially very risky. if you're in a regulated industry such as financial service or utilities this is a real problem and you have to start to address it and there will be an outcry to see that it's dealt with. so for the big players who can cover a lot of the needs of a corporation, it's a unique business opportunity. and oracle we think is well positioned. they have a habit of moving the company where it needs to be as we saw with their acquisitions over the last really 15 years. they move in a very methodical fashion. so it's one of those names that it just keeps going up in your portfolio. you buy it well and it just continues to climb higher. it's a name that we feel pretty confident that we can buy and it will continue to work for us for

the foreseeable future. >> we know that health care storks have been real strong winners in this past year. you've chosen for the new year a reit managed care company, senior housing properties trust. tell us about why this is attractive to you. >> one of the things that the health care law changes did was it sort of cleared the mist away and for those who are approaching retirement such a wave with the baby boomers, it created an opportunity for those in the health care especially in the senior care area to begin to you know position themselves where the demographic trends are most favorable and senior properties has been one where they've really done a good job of acquiring properties they managed them well they managed properties for others and the demographic story is an old one, but it's still there. we haven't really seen much of a change in the labor participation rate. so it in fact looks as though a lot of people who left the workforce have no intention of coming back. as such we think that that

creates a surge for them in terms of future clientele. >> well a lot of interesting things to think about. thank you so much peter. peter sorentino at huntington asset advisers. heading overseas. athens today, greek stocks fell 4% after the greek parliament failed to elect a new president. that forces the government now to call for national elections early in the new year and stokes fears that a left-wing victory there could look to overhaul its european union bailout deal. russia's economy is taking some real hits. the ruble currency fell another 7% in value today and russia's economy saw its first contraction in five years. tough western sanctions and a steady slide in oil prices combine to shrink economic growth by 0.5% in november. still ahead, will shake shack's ipo filing today kick off a big year for initial public offerings?

if you're hungry for a new place to invest your money, shake shack is warming up the grill for its initial public stock offering. the new york city-based burger chain, which has just 63 outlets right now, filed paperwork to begin shelling shares to the public and the company plans to open up more restaurants with the money it's raising. >> shake shack is not alone. this past year has been a very strong one for initial public offerings. so what's the outlook for new investment opportunities there in 2015? bob pisani takes a look tonight. >> reporter: ipos were big in 2014 and may even be bigger in 2015.

2014 saw 275 ipos, the most since 406 companies went public in 2000 that includes the biggest of all time alibaba. health care led by biotech and technology where words like cloud computing and big data and social media all became common terms in 2014. what about 2015? the ipo market's simple. what's happening now. wall strt wants to take companies public that are growing. where do you find that in 2015? technology some of the big names may include uber airbnb pinterest, spotify and that's just in technology. other potential candidates include first data an electronic payments processor, r roku univision, a spanish language based media company and finally ferrari, a spin-off of chrysler. in consumer business fast

casual did well in 2014 so good chance that smashburger may go as well. cancer therapies of any kind were offered practically every week. is anything in trouble? with yields potentially rising that makes yield-oriented names like master limited partnerships or mlps less attractive. there were plenty of mlps last year mostly in the oil and gas pipeline business. i think the chances that we'll see less of them is pretty good in 2015. for "nightly business report," i'm bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. mergers and acquisitions had a banner year with a whopping $3.5 trillion worth of deals. that makes 2014 the best 12 months of deals since 2007. our guest tonight says this trend could continue in 2015. he's chairman of the global mna practice at jones day. you know bob, for the longest time nobody wanted to do a deal.

what's changed, what's the conversation in boardrooms that all of a sudden this year and now you're saying next year they have an appetite to do mergers and acquisitions? >> the basics are really very good. i think what really changed is we didn't have any of the after shocks of the financial crisis for the last 12 to 18 months. we didn't have that u.s. debt downgrade, rumors of the breakup of the eu any of those things that made people cautious about spending big amounts of money. >> i've always taught bob, that when you get a lot of mergers and acquisitions that signals a bottom of sorts. as companies see value, they want to go out and make those acquisitions but we've had five years of a strong market already. is there still value out there or are they just playing catch-up right now and where do you see sectors where we'll see some mergers? >> there can be a bottom but one of the things that's helped the market and made the multiples that are made in m & a

deals really very good is the incredibly low interest costs and the oceans of capital that are available to companies both on their balance sheets and, if they have to going outside. obviously, pharma and health care were huge this year. telecom was big. and not headline grabbing deals but there are lots of deals in financial services. all that's going to continue i think, in 2015 but i also think we're going to see a lot in retail maybe in retail there will be a lot of shotgun weddings rather than other kinds of things. frankly, the change in the dynamic in the oil patches are going to make a lot in energy and we're going to continue to see tons of deals in tech. >> you know bob, we saw a lot of mergers. we saw a lot of what people saw demergers, companies splitting up hewlett-packard, ebay talking about the splits. will we see more of those? and it seems like a lot of these have been pushed along because of activist investors. is that a trend you see continuing? >> well the overall trebd is

towards capital efficiency. and that's really the story of activists today. you know in the old days activists went after, you know basically companies that were kind of not performing very well. today it's really about capital allocation. are you in two businesses that really don't match up in terms of valuation in the marketplace? so yeah there have been a lot of them. i think there's a lot more to come. there was something announced even today by carl icahn that seemed like a prelude to a breakup, but so called demerger i think there won't be nearly as many but there will be plenty of those as capitalists searching for highest application. >> and quickly, there were those companies wanting to buy companies overseas for tax purposes. but congress seems to be closing those loopholes. does that take away the cachet of mergers?

>> the world is globalized. so m & a is globalized. the so-called inversion phenomenon which you're talking about, the treasury tightened down on that a little bit in october. and we haven't seen too many of those. i think that was sort of a blip on the screen for the last yea and don't -- there will be some deals but not a lot. >> sounds like you will have a busy year ahead, bob. thank you so much for coming on the program and happy new year. >> same to you. elsewhere shares of manitowoc popped after carl icahn disclosed a stake in the crane company. that's where we begin tonight's market focus. what activist investor icahn wants to do he feels it's undervalued. he has plans to push this company to split into two, separating its crane business from its food services business. recently another activist launched a similar campaign to improve manitowoc and shares were up 9% to a high of $22.79.

google's e-mail service g-mail has been blocked in china in what may be a government attempt to limit or ban access to google services there. the drop in traffic seems to have started on friday. class-a shares of goog many were down $4.21 to $537.31. and caesars entertainment said about 40% of senior bond holders have backed its restructuring plan to improve its balance sheet. this comes after it recently said that it would acquire caesars acquisition. shares of seizers down a penny to $15.45. starting today shipping a package with u.p.s. will be a little bit more expensive. its rate hike of 4.9% went into effect. fedex also upped its prices but that won't kick in until january 5th. shares rose a fraction. walgreen's shareholders

okayed spending $16 billion to buy the rest of the european health and beauty retailer alliance boots it didn't already own. the deal is expected to close this wednesday and the combined company will be called walgreen's boots alliance. shares rose slightly to 76.79. move over uber. the chinese budget smartphonemaker confirming that it rose money in a fresh round of funding putting a value on the company of $46 billion. that's 5 billion more than uber the popular ride-sharing service. nothing even close to that at the weekend box office this weekend, but the take for sony's unconventional one online streaming release for its new movie "the interview" those numbers were still pretty good as well. could this mean a new way for hollywood to release feature films in the future? jane wells has more from los angeles tonight. >> i'm actually like frodo

baggins. >> reporter: not quite. while hobbits ruled the big screen over the christmas weekend, sony's "the interview" ruled the small screen. >> nuking all of the west coast. >> reporter: becoming the most successful movie to ever stream on youtube with 2 million downloads across digital platforms accounting for 80% of the $18 million the movie made. >> it was really great, it was really funny. >> where did you see it online? >> i saw it on youtube. christmas day, right around 12:00 midnight. >> i saw it online. >> what did you think? >> it was okay. maybe a little overhyped. >> i was amazed by these numbers. >> reporter: so does this usher in the era of finally releasing big movies in theaters the and online at the same time providing consumers with the choice so many of them want? >> i would be shocked if the next "star wars" installment, the next jurassic installment, the next bond which is next year the next avengers movie, the next "ted" which are all coming out in 2015 i doubt

we'll see any of those go day in day as "the interview" was. >> reporter: it could be with more small budget independent films. >> it's critical that he keeps his hand open and touches nothing. >> reporter: even so the online release highlighted another problem. an estimated 1.5 million illegal downloads denied sony millions more in revenue, yet with this first big test of how consumers would respond to choice "the interview" provided some answers. for "nightly business report," jane wells, los angeles. the house can market is cooling off, and that could be a good thing. we'll explain why right after

it looks like it's shaping up to be a december to remember for auto sales. cars.com says expect sales of cars and light trucks this month to hit 1.5 million units, that's up more than 11% from a year ago making this the best december for car sales since 2006. >> and to another big purchase we're talking about a home now, and the u.s. housing market is rounding out 2014 on a decidedly weaker note with recent readings on home prices showing that gains are shrinking. analysts expect more in tomorrow's release of the case schiller home price index for october. but that slowdown in price growth may not be such a bad thing after all. diana olick explains. >> reporter: what a difference a year in housing makes. >> there have been a lot of pent-up demand and it just sort

of released itself beginning of 2013. we just saw a major, major huge jump in prices and that was due to activity of the pentup demand. >> reporter: home prices are still rising but the annual gain as of october was just 4 1/2% according to black knight financial services. the double digit gains of a year ago, gone. >> i really think we're sort of at a plateau where we'll see whether prices go flat go up 1% 2% some areas might see a dip of 1% that sort of thing. it really really depends on neighborhood to neighborhood house to house. >> reporter: one stat connecticut, is already in the negative for the year and prices fell on a monthly basis in four of the nation's five largest cities. but that may not be negative for the health of housing in 2015. affordability has been sidelining a lot of potential buyers. home sales were down dramatically in november and price could be the culprit. >> overall the prices have been outpacing wage growth. so that is hitting

affordability. >> reporter: the number of homes for sale now is down a bit from a year ago, but the number of affordable homes for sale is way off. a survey of potential buyers by redfin found just 11% said their biggest obstacle with lack of homes for sale while nearly 33% cited their biggest obstacle as affordability in the area they want to buy. that's the first time since 2012 that buyers were more concerned about affordability than lack of inventory. the good news is with prices rising even slightly that means that more home owners will be coming up from under water and thatly allow them to list them for sale in the spring market. diana olick, in washington. if we want to read more about how a dip in home prices could benefit the housing market you can head to our website, the story's there at nbr.com. that is "nightly business report" for tonight. i'm susie gharib.

thanks for joining us. >> i'm bill griffeth. we'll see you again here to. "nightly business report" has been funded in part by -- >> thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr.

>> welcome to "film school shorts," a showcase of the most exciting new talent from across the country. experience the future of film next on "film school shorts." "film school shorts" is made possible by a grant from maurice kanbar celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image, and by the members of kqed. >> man: so, i'm walking home by the river one night, and i come upon this group of beautiful