>> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. taking a stand. cvs, the nation's largest pharmacy benefits manager, will limit opioid drug prescriptions amid the national epidemic. will others follow? sec hack. the information obtained may have been used for insider trading. investors have a lot of questions and few answers. hot zone. is california the country's biggest state economy, prepared for a major earthquake? those stories and much more tonight on "nightly business report" for this thursday, september the 21st good evening, everybody, i'm bill griffeth here at the new york stock exchange, in tonight for tyler mathisen. >> great to see you, bill, thanks for joining us.

i'm sue herera. cvs is a major player in the nation's health care system and drug supply chain. it's also on the front lines of the epidemic. tonight that company is taking steps to try and curb abuse of the drugs by limiting the duration and dose of some prescriptions. cvs' reach is wide. through its caremark unit, the company manages medications for nearly 90 million people. that's about 28% of the u.s. population. meg terrell has more now on cvs' new rules for opioid painkillers. >> reporter: cvs health said today it's taking new actions to try to curb misuse of prescription opioids. >> if we do limit exposure to these medications, we'll have fewer people who become addicted to them. and the fewer people who become addicted, they'll lead better lives. we'll relieve human suffering and the number of deaths that occur. >> reporter: cvs says it will

limit use of o to seven days. for chronic pain, cvs says it will put caps on the daily dose. they say it's consistent with guidelines set last year by the centers for disease control and prevention. >> the number of deaths from drug overdoses continues to climb. it's a real crisis, an epidemic in our country. that's where everybody involved in pharmacy and taking care of patients needs to take steps to address it. >> reporter: the opioid epidemic now claims more lives each year than car accidents. >> there's no doubt there simple are too many prescriptions for too many opioids in america right now. >> reporter: new york attorney general eric schneiderman is among those in government taking action. his office sent letters to the three largest pharmacy benefits managers including cvs caremark last week, seeking information about their role in opioid

prescribing. >> we want to get information from them on how all parts of the system work so we can understand how to make less addictive drugs more available and cut down on the distribution of opioids. >> reporter: states' attorneys general and congress are looking into the issue. but some doctors worry about unintended consequences. >> sometimes specific populations rely on these medications, specifically cancer patients. and cdc guidelines weren't intended for that population. if we applied their guidelines and recommendations too broadly, we end up sometimes affecting to the detriment those specific populations. >> reporter: vanderbilt's david edwards says cvs' change is just one many changes, leading to administrative headaches. >> i spend probably half my day

now calling, doing peer to peers with other physicians that represent these companies, rather than caring for my patients. >> reporter: he said the key to making a dent in the opioid epidemic is making sure patients have access to alternative therapies and ways to treat addiction. for "nightly business report," i' >> so will c vchlt sch decision limit opioid prescriptions cause other pharmacy benefits managers to do the same? here to talk about the potential implications is dr. david stream, the medical director of medical and alcohol drug recovery at cleveland clinic. dr. stream, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> i'm curious, is it up to the prescribing doctor to limit the dosage and decide when it can be distributed? how does it work with the benefit manager, then? >> well, i think it's really best when these sorts of decisions are made in a collaborative process with another very important element of that, and that's the patient.

so patients, payers, pharmacists, physicians, all should take a part in developing a treatment plan, if there's a procedure, and what the post-procedure pain management plan is going to be. >> doctor, full disclosure, i'm married to a doctor, take that into consideration. but i think while we all applaud any attempt to get rid of the scourge of opioid addiction, it seems as though this may be extremely time-consuming for the pharmacists who have to then liaison with the doctor. and a lot of doctors don't like to be challenged when they've written a prescription. they push back against that. do you see this working, or not? >> well, good physicians need good pharmacists. i feel that very strongly, not just about thepiate prescribing issue. we need to have a good collaborative relationship with

pharmacists with which we interact. and i think you're exactly right that the time that these interactions take will be the major cost of implementing these changes, not just for cvs but for all health care providers on both sides or on all sides of the patient. and the time element is going to be the most costly part of getting this horrendous opiate addiction epidemic under control. >> so to the first question, cvs is trying this out, they want to limit the dosage and how it's distributed. do you think other pbms will follow? >> i think some will. i think what's most important is that the policy not only focus on what the pharmacists will or won't do, but the emphasis on collaboration, and that how much time the pharmacist is going to

need to spend collaborating with both the physician and with the patient to determine what the right pain management plan is, and whether it includes opiates or not, is the most important and most costly part of this. and it's important that the time required for that is allowed and accounted for on both the pharmacy side, the benefit manager side, and the physician . >> we will see how it works out. dr. david stream with cleveland clinic, thanks again for joining us tonight, sir. >> thank you so much. to wall street now, where the dow's nine-day win streak was snapped. apple weighed on the index for a second day on concerns about internet connection issues with its apple watch. in fact the stock is on track for its worst week ahead of a major product launch since 2007. the dow jones industrial average fell 53 points to 22,359. nasdaq was off 33. the s&p 500 dropped seven.

today's small market moves are pretty common in this market. but that doesn't mean things are dull. bob pisani explains. >> reporter: the markets may not be as dull as you think they are. the low market volatility is making a lot of investors a bit crazy. but look beneath the hood and you'll see a market that's showing healthy rotation and really no signs of breaking down, at least not now. in the past month, there have been big rallies in energy and material stocks. and biotech stocks and semi conductors have again reasserted market leadership. even banks, which has been a huge underperformer all year, have been outperforming the markets. all of this is happening with the s&p 500 often just moving four or five points from its high to its low on an interday basis. this has been going on for the last few weeks. it wrongly making it look like the market isn't doing anything. there's real dynamism in the market. it's just below the surface. it really isn't captur the only thing you're watching is

the s&p 500. i see two problems. first, investors have gotten very used to investing in nothing but these index-backed etfs. they need to focus more carefully on the market nuances. second, investors need to understand that there is no law that says the markets need heavy volume or high volatility to advance. as my old friend lazlo barini told me yesterday, if all you look at is the dow and s&p, you won't see everything that's going on on. he said the best strategy was to buy the nine biggest stocks in the s&p's subindexes, that's apple, exxon, johnson & johnson, jpmorgan, ge, and amazon. and holding a basket of those

stocks has produced a 22% return this year. that's pretty impressive. i'm bob pisani at the new york stock exchange. standard & poor's has cut china's credit rating for the first time since 1999. the rating agency is citing risks from soaring debt in that country. analysts say the downgrade highlights challenges faced by communist leaders as they cope with slowing economic growth. president trump announced new sanctions on north korea and said china, north korea's biggest trading partner, has ordered its banks to stop doing business with pyongyang. >> china. their central bank has told their other banks, that's a massive banking system, to immediately stop doing business with north korea. this just happened, just in addition to everything else, what we will do is identify new

industries, including textiles, fishing, information technology, and manufacturing, that the treasury department can target with strong sanctions. >> the treasury secretary today said the u.s. plans to call on russia to do more as well on the north korean situation. in mexico city, rescuers there continue to push through debris for signs of any life, two days after that powerful earthquake rocked the city. the president of mexico said that he has accepted offers of technical assistance now from the u.s., from spain, israel, japan, and other countries. but that quake now has many californians asking where the u.s.'s biggest state economy is prepared should the big one hit. jane wells is in los angeles tonight. >> the brick facade has just collapsed. >> reporter: it's been decades since california experienced a major earthquake. 1994 in los angeles.

1989 in san francisco. and while seismologists predict the west coast is due for another big one in the next 30 years, californians tend to ignore such predictions until a big one hits somewhere else, like mexico city. do you have earthquake insurance? >> yes. but i just got it. >> way too expensive. i can't afford it. >> i'm thinking about getting some kind of system to store water. the buzz is that you need to be prepared. and i want to be prepared. >> reporter: the u.s. geological survey says several areas of the country face potentially significant damage from an earthquake. but california has the most faults. billions have been spent strengthening bridges. but veteran seismologist lucy jones says it's not enough. >> infrastructure especially. who thinks about the pipes in the ground? no one wants to spend money on that, it's out of sight, out of

mind. yet the resilience of those structures affects the future of the communities. >> reporter: research predicts hundreds of older buildings miles away in los angeles would collapse if there were an earthquake in san francisco. the region's main water supply would be damaged. they've been working on an early warning system like they have in japan, for years, at a cost of around $40 million. million, not billion. but it's only half done, not yet available to the public, and congress is now debating whether to fund its completion. an alert could be sent out on cellphones, giving people at least a few seconds to duck and cover. and in the case of a quake along the san andreas, residents in los angeles might get a full minute warning before shaking starts there. all it takes is money. >> we've reached the point that earthquakes don't kill too many people. but it's much more of a threat to our pocketbooks at this point than it is to our lives. >> reporter: just this week, a

small tremblor in los angeles reminded everyone they live in earthquake country. >> did you feel that? >> did you feel it? we just had a little earthquake. >> reporter: unlike a hurricane, quakes come without a warning. at least for now. for "nightly business report," jane wells, los angeles. still ahead, this year's most powerful women in business. who is the list and who is not. in silicon valley, facebook said it is actively working with the u.s. government on its investigations into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. in a facebook live post, ceo mark zuckerberg said his company will provide 3,000 ads created

by fake accounts linked to russia and give them to congress. >> we are in a new world. it is a new challenge for internet communities to have to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. but if that's what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion. our sophistication in handling these threats is growing and improving quickly. we will continue working with the government to understand the full extent of russian interference. and we will do our part. >> facebook has faced growing pressure from congress to release the content of t alphabet's google division is buying part of htc's smartphone operations for modern $1 billion. that move bolsters google's hardware business. analysts say the deal shows google is serious about growing its smartphone unit and can now further develop its flagship pixel smartphone. just when equifax thought things couldn't get much worse,

their twitter account tweeted links to a fake phishing site pretending to be equifax. it used an address similar to equifax's. those twitter posts have been deleted. earlier this month, equifax said the personal information of 143 million customers was potentially compromised in a cyberattack. wall street's regulator, the sec, is coming under fire after being hacked. late last night the agency said it discovered a breach in its corporate filing system last year and became aware last month that hacked information may have been used for illegal stock trades. eamon javers is following the story for us from washington. eamon, i said they discovered this last year. why did it take so long for them to disclose this hack? >> reporter: we've been asking the sec exactly that all day, bill, that's the obvious question here. if you knew about it last year, why is it just coming to light

today? the sec has not responded to us at all. they do say, however, that ultimately the vulnerability here was in part of the edgar system, which is where companies file documents for public disclosure. it's the part of the system that allo that on a temporary basis, tee those documents up for disclosure tomorrow or the next day. that was the weakness here, the sec disclosed that much, but they're not saying why it took as much as a full year to give these details out to the public. >> have they said what they do about it, if anything? >> reporter: they have said they patched that particular flaw, and they've said they have launched an internal investigation into what happened here. but ultimately, we're left with a lot of big questions, including who done it, right? we don't have any idea who was responsible for this or what they did with this information. in theory, this was a case of cyber insider trading, people getting access to sensitive documents before they're released publicly, then trading on that information. but we don't know at all what

the trading was, which companies were affected, or how much those hackers might have made in all of this scam. the possibility here is that it was a nation state. we've seen the north koreans, the russians and others interested in this. that could be where we're looking. but the sec not giving any guidance whatsoever on any of that. >> quite a story. eamon javers in washington, thank you, as always. >> reporter: you bet, bill. sales fall at scholastic. that's where we begin tonight's market focus. the book publisher reported a wider loss, citing a lack of blockbuster titles to compete with last year's harry potter sales. the company noted it typically reports a loss during its first quarter, when many u.s. schools are not in session. shares finished the day down 7%. anadarko said it would launch a $2.5 billion share buyback program. the oil and natural gas company also reaffirmed its 2017 production guidance for its assets in the gulf of mexico. shares of anadarko petroleum rose 8% to 48.49.

all state said it expects catastrophe losses for august to reach nearly $600 million. much of that attributable to the damage caused by hurricane harvey. the company has yet to release estimated insurance losses from hurricane irma. all state's shares fell fractionally. the fda warned that a liver disease drug made by intercept pharmaceuticals could lead to death if given in the incorrect dosage. prior to the the fda's letter, the company issued a similar message earlier this month to the medical community, warning physicians to closely follow the dosage guidelines for the drug, called akaliva. intercept's shares plunged to $73.73. mcdonald's is raising its quarterly dividend to $1.01. the yield on that dividend now, 2.5%. mcdonald's shares fell slightly

today to 159.03. sue? bill, the most powerful women in business. "fortune" magazine is out with its annual ranking. topping the list for the third year in a row is mary berra, followed by the ceo and chair of pepsi. rounding out the top three is lockheed martin's marilyn hughes on. let's welcome back -- >> speaking of powerful women. >> right back at you. mary berra heads up what has been a male dominated field. >> that's right. the first time she made the list, i said to her, how are you going to compete with all these silicon valley companies that want to disrupt the auto business? she said, we're disrupting ourselves. now, every ceo says that these days, but she's proving, don't

count out general motors. she beat tesla to the market with the chevy volt. revenues are up, you know, stock is up. and so she really belongs in that top spot for the third year. >> bill? >> suzy, i'm so sorry not to see you there in person. >> same here. >> let me ask you this. number four, you've got fidelity's abigail johnson. number five is cheryl sandberg. she jumped ahead of ginni rometty at ibm. what can you tell us about that? >> one thing about this list, bill, it's not just about what company you're running, it has to be a big, important company like ibm. cheryl sandberg is chief operating officer at facebook, that's a big job. it's also what impact are you making on the social and cultural scene, what is your job trajectory. so cheryl has changed the way women -- we look at women in the workplace, she's changed the way we look at grieving in the workplace with her bestselling book on that subject. whenever there's a big job out there, whether it's disney or

uber or the white house, her name comes up. she is a role model to a lot of women. she's making a lot of changes. she's powerful woman. >> she certainly is. you mentioned some of the reasons why she made the list. and they are varied. but were there specific themes or kind of threads that went through this year's list? >> yeah, we are seeing a lot of changes in this list. the big one is, so many more women in big technology jobs. we just mentioned ginni rometty, but also we're seeing women in, you know, apple, in google, and oracle, meg whitman at hewlett-packard. when "fortu came out with this list 20 years ago, most of the powerful women were in retailer, consumer products, food companies. but now we're seeing a big change in all of that. we're seeing a few more women of color. the first latina, at pg&e, and

from pepsi and home depot. >> suzy, thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks, bill. >> bill, back down to you. coming up, were small business owners caught in the middle of the kansas great tax experiment? we'll . back in 2014, you may know that kansas undertook a great tax experiment, cutting taxes sharply, only to roll them back a few years later because of the big budget deficits that they caused. but some small business owners got caught tangled up in the sudden end of the state's aggressive tax reductions.

kate rogers is in kansas city for us tonight. >> reporter: shortly after kelly mccracken launched her small business, amazing smiles of kansas city, some five years ago, she was given a gift in the form of a tax break from the state, which was undergoing a real live experiment in tax reform. governor sam brownback cut personal income tax rates and scrapped taxes altogether for mccracken's.businesses lik she saved thousands of dollars and was able to reinvest in her startup due to the tax break. >> the realization of several thousands of dollars, which goes back into the business in the form of hiring other small businesses to help with our website, do seo, hire another employee, and most recently, we made a durable equipment purchase. >> reporter: but the experiment didn't go as planned. the state wound up with a budget deficit in the billions. impacting its schools, roads, and pension systems. in june 2017, the state legislature reversed the cuts and made taxes retroactive for

pass throughs for the entire year. not all small businesses thought the experiment was a success even though they saved money. carl miller, owner of lark label in wichita, said the tax break wasn't enough to make a difference to his bottom line. >> it was nice little pocket change, but for 12 or $1400 a year, i couldn't go out and hire a new employee. so it didn't affect us that way. >> reporter: the burden of taxes ranks as the top three issues for small businesses around the country, according to the national federation of independent business. but with president trump pushing for a low rate for passthrough businesses as part of his overall reform package, critics of the experiment in kansas say the administration should proceed with caution. back at amazing smiles, with back taxes coming due, mccracken is figuring out what her next step should be. >> even just a few thousand dollars alters your usable income for the year. it greatly impacts these decisions that we made just months ago.

without the plan or knowledge that this was going to be coming in the future. >> reporter: for "nightly business report," i'm kate rogers in kansas city, kansas. finally tonight, halloween is big business. a new report from the national retail federation put spending this year at more than $9 billion, a new record. shoppers plan to spend the most on, what else? costumes. but kandi ca candy is a close s. i'm sue herera. >> i'm bill griffeth. have a great evening. .

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