this is "nightly business " with tyler mathisen and sue herera. >> where is the consumer? they didn't spend in april and didn't splurge at the mall. what that means for economic growth and the federal reserve. big win. the long drawn out and public battle between an american company and an activist investor comes to an end. funding cut. hours after a crash, a committee votes to trim and track budget. all of that tonight for "nightly business for wednesday, may 13th. >> good evening sand welcome. there was a hope that the retail sales would show a rebound from the government chill it. didn't.

retail sales barel budged coming in unchanged in april. many considered this report just as important in its own way as the monthly employment number but for now no sign of an economic bounceback and that could make the federal reserve's decision on when to hike interest rates even more complicated. hampton pearson reports. >> no signs of a springtime rebound in the economy from the latest retail sales numbers. the april downturn saw things downs. clothing sales were up slightly along with sporting goods and online stores. the biggest bounce was garld material and building equipment and bars as the hibernation finally ended but still a catch 22 for the feds. low rates are supposed to help

spending but consumers didn't spend in april, when the weather was bad in february and march and haven't been spending since last fall. >> over the last six months we've essentially flatlined. so the monetary policy with the intention to drive demand has pulled forward so much economic activity there is only so much they can pull forward. >> slow growth is another potential speed bump for the fed on the road to raising interest rates. and leading economists are wasting any time in blowering gld forecast. jp morgan chase cut from 2.5% to 2%. meanwhile the snow may have backed up but there are little signs the dollar is going away soon. it is impacting the trade deficit and tourist spending and

providing more ammunition to critics of the long running low interest policy. >> that has limits just like everything else and we are wearing well past the limits and we're seeing that firsthand. >> what the fed needs to see is a return of higher strong growth sand higher wages to encourage consumers to open their wallets and spend more money. i'm hampton pearson in washington. >> and macy's reported lower sales and profits and that pressured shares which fell nearly 2.5%. courtney reagan looks at what is holding consumers back. >> the magic wasn't with macy's in the first quarter. they fell short of the wall street expectations on both earnings and sales but the retailer did reaffirm the full year earnings and sales forecast. macy's increased the dividend

and share buy back program and due to delayed merchandise from the west coast port congestion severe winter weather and lower spending by international tourists. in new york chicago, las vegas and san francisco. the department store has a number of new initiatives including an off priced pilot, macy's back stage, launching with four locations this fall. the retailer has plans to expand the newly acquired spa and cosmetics brand new mercury. >> they join many others who said macy's is a best in class retailer but with the lack lummer results and no both in the retail sales data many are wondering where is the consumer? >> this is a clear theme and i think it is a theme you'll see from other retailers out there, that you need this improvement

in wages to kick in or the flip side of this is gas prices are not as low as they were combined with the profit and loss statements for the retailers, it is a negative. >> morgan stanley said consumers are weary after saving the boost to income from lower energy prices last quarter. to macy's along with much of the retalt sector is waiting for wages to improve so consumer spending can rebound in the second half of the year. for "nightly business report," i'm courtney reagan. stocks finishes the session with little change as the latest economic round of data pushed investors to the side lines and business inventories barely rose. by the close the dow jones was at 18,060 and nasdaq was up five points and the s&p fell by a

fraction. crude prices down to $60.50 despite stockpiles for second week in a row. >> cisco earnings coming in at 54 cents a share, a penny better than expected and shares spiked after the close before falling back a bit. josh lipton is in san francisco with the one key takeaway investors need to know from that report. good evening, josh. >> hi sue. well $2.1 billion, that was a big number on cisco's earnings report and it refers to how much the network giant returned to shareholders in the quarter. remember bulls are betting that cisco will return more cash to shareholders in buybacks and dividends in the quarters ahead. and the hope is the recent change in the cisco seat sweep

could mean greater capital return is on the way. long time ceo john chambers will step down in late july and chuck robbins will assume the role. and on the last conference call today his opinion it was at a positive inflection point. >> thank you so much. josh lipton in san francisco. after a very long and sometimes very nasty battle within -- investigator nelson peltz, dupont prevails. investors are unhappy with the news sending shares down almost 7% making dupont t stock in the dow industrials. and mary reports now from the headquarters in wilmington delaware.

>>t t victor in a public nine month battle against investor nelson peltz. peltz failing to get his four nominees elected to the board in what he called a closed vote. adam kullman pleased with the outcome but where trion management are not going away at least for now. >> we'll continue to engage with them in a constructive way and focus on delivering value for our shareholders. >> one of the largest shareholders and since february he has publicly attacked management and criticized the underperformance and asked the board to break up the 212-year-old company. >> frustrated by the lack of response and his depiction as high risk and destructive, peltz aimed at the board. >> looking for a seat in the boardroom as he's done at heinz, wendy's and other big-name firmed but in the end he was

rebuffed by the faithful retail holders and index funds which sided with the company, putting their faith in their vision for dupont. >> we are focused in giving out to the market place and to deliver to our shareholders. >> but since pelt took credit since he took a stake. saying pressure from trion helped them to spin off their chemicals unit. pelt sounding victorious even in defeat. i'm mary thompson for "nightly business >> still ahead, new details on the deadly train derailment in philadelphia. an find out what happened in washington just hours after that tragic crash.

new details tonight on the deadly amtrak train crash outside of philadelphia. the national transportation safety board has confirmed that the train was going over 100 miles per hour before it derailed at least twice the speed limit on that stretch of track. aim on javers comes to us from philadelphia. good evening. >> good evening, sue. authorities here are saying as many as seven people were killed in this horrific train accident last night and shut down traffic

on the northeast corridor here ina and the investigation is focusing on excessive speed as the cause of the accident and of the people that were killed, two of the were ejected of the train and found in the area nearby this devastated train wreck. >> more than 11 million people travelled this route last year and as many as 2,000 trains per day travel this corridor, including commuter rail and amtrak the mayor said it will have a huge impact. >> it has a huge impact on new york and philli and the whole economy. i think we lose $100 million a day in activity. >> today a heated debate between democrats who want to increase spending on the rail system and republicans who accused democrats of playing politics with the tragedy. >> what we should have been

doing is subsidizeyied the safety of those people on the amtrak train yesterday and suggests priorities. and because we did not fund this properly that that caused the accident when you have no idea no idea what caused this accident. and to use that as a means of supporting the last amendment, support it if you want to. but don't use this tragedy in that way. it was beneath you. >> and guys we got a briefing here in philadelphia from the national transportation safety bort and they are focusing on a system they call positive train control and that system is in place in the northeast corridor to control the speed of the train as they roll along, no matter what the engineer is doing. tragically that was not in place on this stretch of track as the engineer approached a sharp curve and threw on the emergency

brakes but it was too little too late. >> a man javers in philadelphia thank you. a deal has been reached for the trade initiative to give the democrats a chance to vote on two trade priorities as stand alone bills. this comes one day after democrats voted to block the bill which is one of president obama's legislative priorities. >> and billions of dollars of ear marks found their way into 2015 appropriati bills despite a moratorium that was supposed to end such waste. they highlight items such as a $120 million item to upgrade an army tank that the army doesn't want any more. $4 million on aquatic plant control and $15 million to increa salmon. and earmark is for a special interest and never subject to a

full congressionalhearing. bird flu takes a bigger toll on post holdings and that is where begin. the breakfast food company said 20% of the egg supply has been effected and raising concerns it might inflate costs. ralph lauren saw earnings fall as foreign earnings are weighing on the company. they will repurchase $500 million worth of shares falling to $189.18. and j.c. penney reporting a loss much smaller than expected. revenue was below consensus but up guidance and same-store sales. before the close the stock was up almost 2% to $8.71. >> shake shack has revenue surge

7% and same-store sales beat expectations and shares rose 4% to $68.36. and delta and southwest with buybacks. delta planned $6 billion in share dividends and southwest lost a $1.5 billion buy back and ups the dividend to 7.5 cents per share. and southwest was off more than #% to finish at $21.47. we paul -- we told you tall corporation was looking to sell and it will involve a deal worth 14 blts. shares of paul were up to 123.89 and dana her up to $187.35.

prescription drug costs are driving faster for americans and according to a new study, more than a half million u.s. patients had medication costs in excess of 50,000 dollars last year and some spent more. meg terrell reports. >> they are call super spenders and their numbers rival to the city of boston, each accruing more than the median household income from a new study from express scripts which is waging a battle with drug companies to lower the cost of their products. it found the number of americans annual medication costs of more than 100,000 dollars tripled to 139,000 people driven by high price drugs for hepatitis c and cancer. >> this is not clearly sustainable. we can't have 600,000 people in

the united states spending more than 50,000 dollars a year on drugs and the payor community is having a difficulty with this. >> the average spend on prescription drugs last year about $1,400. so the 5% of americans with the most expenses accounted for more than 6% of the country's total spend. >> express did it on 31 million in skpoel ated most were covered by insurance, either commercial or the government or medicare or medicaid. >> so who is the super spender? >> they are primarily older men. three out of five people in the 100,000 plus wer baby boomers and male. they have multiple maladies. 16% were taken three medications and a third being treated for

ten different conditions. >> until recently it was given as an article of faith if you had a good drug you could price at whatever cost you could and insurers would reimburse. now that has changed a bit because certainly payors push back upon a price so clearly it is something that pharmaceutical companies and investors think about. >> they have moves for spending on these drugs and making waves in hepatitis c to exclude those by gilead and get a discount by ab v. and also with cancer where list prices can top 10,000 dollars a month. for "nightly business repor i'm meg terrell. >> coming up can an in vestment banker by trade find the next

best thing on a pig farm? his story, coming up next. here is what to watch tomorrow. we'll have results from more retailers including nordstrom and kohl's. on the data front, the consumer price index will be out,s in important indicator and jobless claims and that is what is on the agenda for thursday. >> facebook wants to give the low wage workers a pay raise. it will require the contractors and vendors to pay employees at least $15 an hour. facebook wants the employees to get at least 15 paid days off annually for holidays sick days

and if they don't get paid patiental leave they move they get a 4,000 dollars bonus, bringing attention to the wage gap in silicon valley. >> japan's biggest carmakers will investigate worldwide, recalling 6.5 million calls, honda didn provide details so this brings it to 31 million worldwid concerns that takata airbags may explode and send shrapnel into drivers and passengers. radioshack has a new owner and standard general was the winner and also picked up the rights to the customer data. >> wal-mart is getting ready to take on amazon prime. they told reuters they will

offer a service of $50 a year for unlimited shipping and that takes on amazon's prime service which is $99 a year. the u.s. minted a record number of new millionaires thanks to a stock market and others. and these well to do look sharply different than the other wealthy. >> this psychotherapist has heard it all. >> people think about four different things. they talk about fear sex, love and money. >> in her profession money is a taboo subject. >> we talk about poverty, we talk about the economy and how it effects people but we don't actually talk about how people relate to their money psychologically. gibbons advises her clients

not to hide her financial fears. >> when they leave i have to deal w what was just said. i can't hide of it myself. >> the mother of three is taking control of her finances and investing regularly and working with a financial advisers something she shares with a new class. >> today's millionaires are part of an emerging affluent group and a majority of them with rim. >> now we can see the playing field is a little bit more even for everybody and because of that there is a whole new face of millionaires. >> the afluently millionaires have annual incomes of 125,000

dollars. >> and money compounds over your working career and translates into a big nest egg in which you can withdraw from your retirement income. >> willing to invest some money. >> i'm taken some risk in terms of what happens with my brokerage accounts i'm very conservative. but gibbons is focused on long-term growth. for "nightly business repor" m sharon epperson. >> and finally from wall street to the farm. that is the path an in vestment banker took found the next big thing that led him to pigs not just any old pigs. but to high end ones. jane has the story. >> are they smart. >> they're incredibly smart. >> chris anderson wonders if his pigs are smartder than he is. he worked for drexel and fought

the investigation and went on to win and spend a -- spent a life on wall street and now saying these pigs are better. >> how much does it cost to raise these animals verse you a conventional pig. >> he is producing the kobe beef of pork the largest breeder and supplier in the u.s. with 4500 pigs on seven farms and he sells the meats to high end restaurants. if i can get this 234r your nose and -- can get this under your nose and into your mouth you're hooked. >> they have to be hand processes and the prices reflect that. he called it the doubler steak

and doubles the price. >> what should i start with. >> as he scales up what is the goal? >> the goal is to get people to under how actually screwed up our food chain is. i can sell you a manga lisa color steak and get you 5 or 6 ounces and you'll eat that and be full like as if you had an 18 ounce beef steak. >> it is all self-funded but he hopes for not long. >> i have a deep and abiding conviction there is no shortage of capital in the world except human capital. >> when do the lines cross? >> fourth quarter of 2015? >> really? >> yeah. >> a bold experiment raising pigs for a guy up to now only raised money. for "nightly business repor jane wells, branchville, new jersey.

>> look at that cute pig. >> cute very cute. let's try that sometime. >> become a collar steak. that does it for "nightly business r on that note. i'm sue herera thanks for joining us. >> i'm tyler mathisen thanks from me as well. we'll see you back here tomorrow night. >> she end to -- she had to end on a baby -- a baby piggy.

announcer: major funding for "quest" is provided by... sethi: food...

it fuels our bodies, delights our senses, and forms the backbone of family and cultural traditions. but we rarely pause between forkfuls to ponder where the food we eat comes from or where our leftovers are headed. we should, because even as the number of mouths to feed continues to rise in the u.s., roughly 40% of the food produced here goes to waste. globally, food production will have to double by mid-century.