. ♪ ♪ this is. ♪ nightly business report" with tyler matheson and sue herera. stuck in neutral with its stock going nowhere, general motors faces pressure not just from shareholders but from rivals. perhaps . the next blockbuster. the fda reviews a new class of cholesterol drugs that holds big promise, but could come at a big price. >> unprecedented plan. the government wants to ease student loan debt for some americans, but will it help solve the $1.2 trillion problem? all that and more tonig on "nightly business report" for tuesday, june 9th. >> good evening, everyone. i'm sharon epperson in tonight for sue herera. >> and i'm tyler matheson. welcome, everybody. we begin this evening with

general motors the pressure its facing now from both shareholders and competitors. ceo mary barra hosted the company's annual shareholder meeting today at a time when the ceo of fiat chrysler is reportedly turning up the heat of gm to merge with it and as reports surface about possible criminal charges against the automaker stemming from those defective ignitio switches. investors are answers about the stock which has basically been stuck in neutral for the past year or more. after the shareholder meeting, general motors stock rose fractionally today as you see there. phil lebeau has the details. >> reporter: gm ceo mary barra meeting with share holders in detroit says t largest automaker is on track to deliver better returns and better sales despite a turbulent year. much of that surrounds how gm handled the recall of defective ignition switches. there are reports the department of justice may ramp up its criminal investigation by the end of this summer.

barra says gm is cooperating that investigation, but anything else in terms of timing or potential finds is all speculation. there's also no update or increase to charges related to the recall. barra says the focus right now is returning capital to investors. some of those investors are now being courted by fiat chrysler ceo sergio marsione. today he's reached out to hedge funds to place sta gm for fiat and gm chrysler. it's a move barra and the gm board have so far dismissed. >> we have scaled. we have leveraged the appropriate opportunities where we can benefit from co-development and it's someth doing for several years and so when i look at it the focus that i have is truly on the general motors shareholders and making sure we execute our plan. >> despite those moves shares of general motors are up just 1%

this year. fiat chrysler's stock is up 32% over the same time period. phil lebeau nightly business report chicago. >> day of the liston joins us to talk about gm and whether or not he thinks the deal is the answer for gm stock. he is the senior auto equity strategist at morningstar. david, thanks for joining us. we talked about this merger potentially for fiat chrysler and gm and the stock has been stuck. will this help move it? >> gm stock? honestly i don't think so. because there's so much let alone something of this size and gm's history is checkered and ugly and things such as the joint venture in fremont, cali and most recently with peugeot, saab and sud not a good history there at all and i'm not necessarily sure the market would welcome this

merger. would the talk of it give the stock a short-term boost? just a buzz. >> i'm sorry, can you say that again? >> can just the buzz the talk of a possible merger give the stock a li >> well, without gm tying up with fca which i don't think they need to do at all. i think they need gm far more than the other way around. gm has a great turnaround plan in place. they have the size and they just never had the economies of scale as they should but they're moving toward that and the target of gm north america outmargins next year and i think that's conservative. >> we've seen the work that activist investors can do when they work with the company and there's talk that activists and investors may be working with fiat chrysler to push this forward. do you hear any talk about that and what impact can that have on >> obviously, at this point "the wall street journal" story about how sergio

mark on and so far no one has taken him up on his offer and the former task force member and that resulted in a crystal clear asset allocation that i like a lot and also entails buying back at least $5 billion of gm stock before the end of this year. so i think gm is doing plenty to return cash to shareholders and drive shareholder value. you just have to be a bit more patient. so you'd buy the stock? >> it's the best idea for our department at morningstar. the $50 estimate and i like gm for the longer term investor there's a lot of hair. >> good advice for long-term investors. than from morningstar. f drama at general motors to possible drama at netflix. the company is hosting its annual shareholder meeting and buzz is all about a potential massive 30 to 1 stock split and shares are currently

trading at $647 a share and they have soared almost 90% this year. shareholders are being asked to approve a investly expanded reserve of stock which could potentially pave the way for a split as big as 30 to 1. te is also hosting its annual shareholder meeting and investors are looking for reassurance that th company is on track to hit several milestones including the model x later this summer. shareholders are expected to ask about tesla's strategy in china whether its growth targets can be achieved and where production stands on the giga factory, battery place. shares of tesla fell slightly to close at $256. tyler, on wall street the s&p 500 snapped its three-day losing streak but not by much. the dow jones industrial average and the nasdaq headed in the other direction. by the close of trading the blue chip dow index fell two points to 17,764. the na dropped seven, and

the s&p 500 gained less than a point. investors are still keeping a close watch on the bond market which bond yields move to their highest levels in eight months and west texas crude settled up 3% on expectations of a drop in stockpiles. inventories held by april, wholesale inventories are up by more than expected .4%. that was the strongest advance since january. an increase in inventories can be seen as an indication of rising business optimism as companies replenish their shelves in anticipation of stronger demand. the better than expected number prompted one wall street firm to raise its estimate, albeit just slightly from second-quarter gdp to 2.9%. job openings get a record in april. the labor department reports employers posted more than 5 million openings and the most since it started tracking the number in 2000. the number of people quitting their jobs remain near a seven-year high and a sign that

s feel confident enough to leave one job than another. hsbc will cut as many as 50,000 jobs roughly one in five positions worldwide. the move part of the british bank's overhaul of its global business. hsbc also plans to sell several underperformin businesses in brazil and turkey to cut billions in costs. china's stock market is hot, trading near a seven-year high and many investors had hoped to gain more access to that country, but to wait a little bit longer. indexing giant msci expects to include china shares in its emerging market index only after remaining issues related to market accessibility have been resolved and this decision comes even as stock investing within china becomes more popular even in rural farm towns. eu >> they say money doesn't grow on tree but apple farmer is

learning that i does grow in the stock market. from his remote village in western china liu invested more than $8,000 into the shanghai index six moago, a sizeable portion of his life savings. it's a lot easier to make money from stocks and farm work he says but it's risky. you can earn $1600 in ten minutes and lose it all in the next. hundreds here are buying into the shanghai market for the first time. so much so that the villages have set up a mini stock exchange center so they could monitor their investments minute by minute. the villagers started plowing their savings into stocks after one he craze in a nearby town. he came and spread the word to farmers like grocer wang lee. my advice is to read the news every day. she told me she started with $820 in 2010 and grew her port tim over to more

than $33. she's known by the locals as the stock market goddess, obsessively checking quotes of listed companies like bank of china. with the chinese government supportive of stock investing, liu says he has a bullish long-term view though he's still getting used to the highs and lows. he says the farmers now only tend to their fields outside of market hours. i've made some small profit and gained experience he says but i feel anxious when my investments aren't doing well. anxious that some day can upset the applecart. for "nightly business report" i'm janice yung. >> how an app a day ca away. how one doctor is using an app to keep .

kwefsh on abamerican semiconductor and the move will happen on the close of june 11th, two days from now. it is in the process of acquiring lorillard and that is expected to go through june 12th. >> and advisers to the food and drug a voted in favor of approval of a new class of experimental lowering drugs. the drug underw is made by regeneron. a similar therapy by amgen goes before the advisory panel tomorrow. why there's hope behind the new drugs. >> lipitor was once the top-selling drug in the world. it's part of a class of medicines called statens which have the ability to drastically

lower cholesterol, but statens don't work for everyone and heart disease thought to be connected to levels of bad cholesterol known as ldl is still the leading cause of deaths worldwide. >> there's still a need in the treatment of cholesterol because a good proportion of patients still don't reach goal with the fat therapy or the other available therapies. >> phil nato estimates 15% of patients can't tolerate statens because of side effects like muscle pain and he says 20% don't get cholesterol levels low enough to keep them from being at high risk of heart attack or stroke. that's where a new class of drugs came in. developed by regeneron partnered with sanifee they are partnered by outside advisers. >> so far they haven't seen a lot of side effects. >> moreover they've shown to reduce cholesterol levels by 40% to 60%.

analysts expect both drugs to get approved and draw as much as $5 billion each in peak annual revenue. one question remains. how much does lowering bad ldl cholesterol translate into improved outcomes like lowering the risk of heart attack and stroke? those outcome studies are expected to read out in 2017. >> we think the use of these will be limited to the most high-risk pati issue, the medicines are given by injection unlike statens which are pills. analysts say that can initially limit use. the drugs are expected to be priced around $10,000 a year and already pharmacy be managers like express scripts and cvs health have set their sights on their cost and that will be the main focus if and when both drugs reach the market expected later this summer. for "nightly business report" i'm meg turel. >> imagine going to the doctor and getting a prescription for an app on your smartphone.

it isn't as strange as it sounds and it's what doctors at oxnard health system are doing, and with the reports they're seeing ♪ ♪ >> john was never one to count calories but mobile devices and he apps are finally helping him get his diet and diabetes under control after years of nagging from his doctor. >> i would go to the doctor and say yes, sir, and listen to all the good advice and then i would go down the street and have a po' boy. >> then his cardiologist prescribed mobile apps that got loaded on to his phone and now on to his apple watch right at the hospit version of a genius bar. >> i still struggle with my weight, but made me more aware of what i'm eating. >> it's trying to harness mobile technology to coax patients to get healthier. >> there are 100,000 health and

wellness apps out on the market. as many as 50% are not very useful so we would like to feature the ones we and others have found to be apps and mob ilblood pressu cuffs to actively monitor their miles per hour tension. they've also bought the patients apple watches to make things like notifications about medications more immediate. seeing what the medication was and seeing the picture of it kind of helped me which one i was supposed to take. >> early results have been encouraging. >> we're seeing at the end of 60 days over 60% of our patients are getting under control and that's in a very short period of time. >> it' a much more interactive model of patient care which requires constant monitoring of the data they generate on their devices and constant contact on the phone. it may seem intrusive to some but patients in the program say it works for them. >> i love it. my gosh i definitely want them to know what's going on with my

blood pressure for sure. it would be different if they were listening to my phone calls, but this is for my own good. >> as john hope puts it he feels he's getting a real support network now. bertha coombs "nicely business report," new orleans. signs of weakness from american airlines and southwest is where we n tonight's market focus. american lowered its second-q forecast while southwest added seats citing weak economic growth after data and united revised to the down side. still shares of american airlines rose 1% to $40.33 but southwest fell 4% to $34.59. lululemon out with earnings that beat on both the top and bottom lines. quarterly profit more than doubled and on that the yogawear retailer raised its revenue guidance for the year. shares rose about 11% to $68.27. and an ugly report from hovnanian. the home builder posted a

quarterly loss that s larger than expected by weaker margins. the ceo says he expects the firm will post a loss for the year. shares fell. almost 10% to $2.86. >> general electric will sell its landing unit to canada's largest pension fund about $12 billion, the price tag there, a major step toward the industrial company's retreat from banking. were up a fraction today at $37.33. meantime campbell's soup spicing things up with the purchase of salsa maker garden fresh gourmet. the $230 million buy, part of the plan to diversify from canned food and get into the fresh and organic building. campbell's that's mm-good, closed at $34.57. blaming increased store closures and harsh winter weather. the off-price retailer announcing plans to raise the minimum wage for its employees with six months or more of

service to $9 an hour. shareholders didn't like it. off 4.5%. et see's backer tiger global manager hiked its stake in the firm to about 9%. the move invigorated interest in the online craft marketplace and shares popped today by a very nice 7.5% to $15.99. the obama administration wants to forgive the student debt of tens of thousands of students who attended the now bankrupt corinthian colleges. it could expand to debt relief for a much larger number of students. the secretary of education announcing a massive federal forgiveness program for borrowers who can prove they were led by fraudulent recruiting. it eight former students of corinthian colleges. one of the largest for-profit education companies in the u.s. it closed its doors and filed for bankruptcy last month after federal officials accused the chain about lying to prospective

students about graduate success in finding jobs. >> it's good news that the department has recognized that studenteds who were defrauded by corinthian and other schools need to have discharged a up a process that hopefully will be quick and fair for doing that. >> the u.s. education department says loan forgiveness could extend beyon0 corinthian students that applied over the past five years. the cost of erasing that debt a lobe could be $3.5 billion. the price tag could be much higher any loans directed by the federal government could be as long the borrower can show they were defrauded under state could be difficult to prove especially when the colleges reported job placement success. >> schools do this all the time. where do we draw the line between advertisement and puffery and fraud? i think it's going to be a

stretch to say there is actually fraud involved here. >> the education department says a special master will be created to help them apply for tax relief. >> we would like to see them do that in a more streamlined fashion and particularly where there is clear government evidence of fraud that they shouldn't have to jump through any officials say the goal is to identify frauj lend schools and hold them accountable for their actions and ensure borrowers they get the relief they're entitled to. at this point, some say the plan may not do much. >> it seems too vague and procedurally it would be unworkable and frankly, i don't think it will help the people that actually need the help. >>o say the new federal loan forgiveness plan sets a bad precedent of putting taxpayers on the hook for the fraudulent actions of some colleges but tyler, some advocacy groups say the plan could have gone further to provide blanket relief to

defrauded borrowers. >> sharon coming up states spend billions trying to attract businesses but do the incentives pay off or are they a waste of taxpaye here's what to watch tomorrow. weekly mortgage applications are out and we'll see how they rise and interest rates impacted homebuyers. s will hold a final vote on increasing its minimum wage to $15 an hour. amazon will have its annual shareholder meeting and that's what to watch wednesday. some tense moments in the nation's capital today. this afternoon the white house press office was evacuated during a briefing. a bomb threat was called in and

the secret service cleared the room searched it and determined it was safe. the briefing room was t only room evacuated within the white house. sec scare came just a short time after capitol police received a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of a tsa-related hearing on the hill. intel announcing plans today to back start-ups with women and minorities in leadership roles. the chipmaker's venture capital arm is pledging $125 million over the next few years to bring more management diversity to its start-up portfolio. ceo brian kri some, anich says staying diverse is important to the future o intel. >> we have example after example that when you have a diverse workforce, and if you think of something like a wearable. you can't go into the wearables industry where you will be on every kind of person that makes up the population and say you'll only have one segment of the population make that product and it's going to fit the needs of all

>> the move comes as tech companies face chris sichl for overwhelmingly male and white workforces. a big viktee for governor chris christie today. he can cut more than $1.5 from state pension funding, giving some temporary financial relief. new jersey's tension system faces a funding shortfall of more than $37 billion, and it makes annual contributions to the fund at one of the lowest levels among states. a primary weapon in the war between the states for jobs is incentives tax breaks and subsidies, but do they work? scott cohn has a look at some of the subsidies and the some say the whole thing has gotten out of hand. >> when aluminum giant alcoa was looking to save money in new york state in 2007 it turned to the state's power authority and scored big. $5.6 billion in electricity discounts over 30 years.

the largest single state business subsidy in u.s. history. the governor at the time elliott spitzer took credit for saving hundreds of jobs. not only is spitzer long gone so are some of the jobs and with alcoa talking about more cuts governor andrew cuomo agreed to sweeten the deal. >> good jobs first says it's a prime example of throwing good money after bad. >> they were devoted for companies that were there a long time ago and they just w to use a lot of cheap electricity. the alcoa deal helps put new york at the top of good job, first list of top subsidies and followed by washington state that has given massive tax breaks to boeing. in all, states are giving away $70 billion a year. >> that amount of money could have plugged significant state deficits during the recession. it could be keeping classroom sizes lower and it can be facing

infrastructure that benefits all employers. but the founder of tesla whose company received a $1.3 billion deal says the incentives t a bad rap. elon musk says it creates thousand of jobs and the tax breaks help the process. >> what the incentives do is they are a catalyst and improve the rate at which a certain thing happens. companies like tesla have growing bargaining power. that's because the number of corporate still down from the recession and they're offering more subsidies and that's more money facing fewer deals. the companies have the states right where they want them. for "nightly business report" i'm scott co tonight, bank rate is out with the list of best cities to retire and if you're picturing florida, it didn't even make the top five. prescott arizona, arlington and alexandria virginia ranked at number two, and the phoenix metro area in arizona including mesa and scottsdale.

the ranking was based on cost of living weather, crime rate healthcare quality and walkability among o factors and you know which came in the last place? >> new york city. >> new york city. the expenses taxes. >> new york is a great place to retire but arlington, virginia my hometown number two. >> that might be where you're headed. "nightly business report qwest ". i'm sharon epperson. thanks for watching. >> i'm tyler matheson have a great evening, everybody and we hope to see yo

tonight on "spark!," we meet ambitious and accomplished performers who have invested years of hard work and practice into perfecting their craft and are now making their moves. in our first story after stints with chant leer and beach

blanket babylon matt albers matt alber is poised for stardom with work that harkens back to his midwestern roots. >> i definitely think america is ready for an openly guy country music star. it's just time. >> in our second story george mylordos is one of the world's most accomplished bouzouki players. he and his band kymata are now striking out on their own moving from the wedding circ