report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. rally on wall street. a bumpy week for stocks ends on a high note.r and rket monitor has investing ideas for this market. cutting ties. business is separating itself from the gun lobby. but for funds, selling shares io gun makers is t that simple. taking off. would you get in a flying taxi? the future may be closer than k. you th those stories and much more tonight on "nightly business report" for this friday, february the 23rd. and we bid you good evening, everybody. i'm bill griffit tyler and sue are off tonight. once again, i'm coming from you the new york stock exchange where stocks rallied to end a choppy and sometimes confusing week. h

equitie been getting pushed around and by interest rates amid concerns the solid economic growth we have seen could force the federal reserve to raise inrest rates more times than answered this year. but a report released today by the central bank appearedo alleviate some of those concerns. and that's when stocks took off. the dow a closed its high of the day, up 347 points to 25,309. the nasdaq added a very strong 127 points. the s&p was up by 43. and today's gains helped the major indexes close higher forn the weekhat a week iwas. here bob pisani. >> reporter: stocks drifted steadily higher to tth close he dow up more than 300 points. every day this week we've seen some big intraday swing. stocks would rise at the open,

peak in the milled of the day. there was often not a lot of news o there. today the rally finally held up. ower bond yields were a help throughout the day. the dow, which dropped 2500 % points, in a little more than a week earlier in the month has recouped from its losses. a rebnd in boeing and caterpillar. that means investors believe the global growth story is intact. the federal reserve bolstered itthat sentiment w a report saying the jobs market continues to strengthen, hourly wages are growing moderately and inflation should hit their 2% target next week. joer poll will be testifying in front of congress next week. despite all the drama the s&p 500 ended the week just up fractionally. bob pisani y at the nk stock exchange. in washington, the white house unveiled what it called the largest ever set of sanctions on north korea. now, the move is an attempt to

further isolate the regime so that it feels pressure to give up its nuclear missile program. >> today's actions will signatureti conally hinder north korea's ability to conduct evasive maritime activities that slits toll and fuel transports and limit the regime's ability to ship goods through international waters. >> amp president t today warned of what he called phase two if these sanctions don't work. well, two major insurers are joining the list of companies cutting business ties with t national rifle association. met life is ending its discount program for car and home insurance for nra members. and chubs says it will stop underwring nra insurance for gun owners. alamo and national car rental brands has ended a discount for nla that change effective late next

month. and cyber securityoftware company sem an tech has also stopped its discount with the gun rights organization. it had been offering a price reduction on norton anti-virus and malware protection for members of that group. as some investors reevaluate their gun stock positions investment firms and pension funds have to prepare for a potential shakeup in their portfolios. just how easy is it too that? and what's the cost? joining us to talk about this is craze aleman, the chief executive officer of the world's larnest educator pension fund. chris, thank you for joining us tonight. er thank you, bill. it's good to be >> now, we all know about socially responsible investing. you invest in what you support. often it's environmentally friendly companies. you avoid wout oppose. often it's tobacco or alcohol or even firearms. your mandate is simply to make

money to sustain an enormous pension fund. do you already consider yourself a socially responsible investor? >> bill i'd actually say,e are not. no. as hard as that sounds. we are long-term sustainable vestor. if we think an industry does not have long term gs, isn't going to survive like tobacco or particularly some of these firearms products then we are to the going to own them. but not for a socasl , for an investment, business reason. >> and you don't just then isel. now you are the type that you wanted to engage with some ofes those compa to learn more about their business practices before you make that final decision to sell, right? >> exactl bill. i have often said that devestment is not going to solve a social problem. you literally are just turningk your bnd walking away from it by selling the stock. we have found the w best is to talk to a company, to engage and talk back and forth to explain what we are concerned about and

try to raise it to management to explain why we think it is a business risk. in some industries like the tobacco industry it is a single product. in the firearm industry, they wouldn't even talk to news the ceo of black rock said this week that they were mindful of what some of their investorstelt abirearms manufacturers in the wake of the tragedy at parkland high sc but at the same time they are bow holden to the indexes that they invest in for those investors who invest in index funds, those -- some of those firearms manufacturers are in ere. so it's not so easy to be socially responsible when you e trying to make money. when you are investing on the scale thatou do or black rock or some of the other big investors, right? >> exactly,bill. i agree with larry fink and the statemts that black rock said. my heart breaks for these kinds of situations. we care approximate so many -- and i personally care about a lot of these social issues.

but this isn't our money. this is a t fund, and we are fiduciaries. what we are trying to d m ise a long term investment decision. i feel for many of my piers that are at the teacher retirement fund, and i know their members are angryhey may own these. but as you hesaid, own them because it's the entire market. they own the entire u.s. stock market. these are in that index. which means you own it. to pull one company out of an index, there is a hole there and, you can't trade it as well. and many time it is in a mutual fun and they don't have the ability to not open that one lile slice. you want to track the markets, that means all companies not just som subset of that. >> yeah. you said something that intrigued me aboutur the f of firearms makers. do you think a lot of what's going on right now necessarily

has their future in doubt? is that what you were saying? >> yes. our board decided bac in2015 not to own firearm companies that made products that were lilg in th state of california. -- that were illegal in the state of california. that was an investmentdecision, not a socialci on. although we were wrong initially, we felt that regulations would come intoha effect would potentially harm these companies, that these productsre not sustainable, they are not a useful product. and therefore we didn't think these comnies had a long enough life. that's why we made the investment decision several years ago to get out of these weapons manufactures, these firearm manufacturers. >> chris aleman, who heads call sters, the biggest education fund in the land always good to see you my hafriend. ve good evening. >> thank you, bill. time to take a look at some

of today's upgrades and dadn . fedex's rating was lifted to yut parm from market perform at bernstein. they call concerns over amazon moving into the parcel market overblown. fedex sharesose 3% to $252.22.ps rival saw its rating cut pi at deutsche bank. the the analysts there says management needs torticulate a strong price and volume had he it comes to competing with amazon.t the price tar is $11. shares of ups were up a fraction to $105.61 today. meanwhile, shares of amazon itself were upgraded to outperform from peer perform at wools research. they say grocery to become a new growth driver forhe company.

the analyst predicts the company could hite $2,000 befend of the year. am done was up 1%. it closed rht at 1,500 a share today. interestingly. still ahead, if cereal and yogurt are not getting the attention of american shoppers, general mills is betting tl.t pet food w kraft heinz ss warren buffet is retiring from their board after the end of his firm. he acquired kraft foods in 2015 in order to create one of the biggest food and beverage

companies. berkshire hathaway will release its shareholder letter this weekend. il general of course feeds your family. now it wants to feed your pet ae . the food company is move into the very fast-growing pet food business with this $8 billionse purcf blue buffalo. shares of blue buffalo soared by 17% on the news today. general mills fell into today's trade. dominik chu takes a look at what drove this deal for us. >> reporter: there is a huge reason why a big food company like general mills wants a dog fopany like blue buffalo. when you are going to marry these brands, bet crocker, lucky charms, pillsbury, progressiveoup on the general mills side and you marry them ar the organic natural dog food premium dog food, this side is showing stagnant growth, this side is where there is double digit sales and profit growth. that's the reason why they are paying

billion to buy blue buffalo. the reason why they want to do this inhe grow environment is the overall market for ped products is growing. in 201 americans spent overall about $55.5 billion. that was the size of the pet industry. steadily, it has grown until now, in 2017, where you can see an estimat near $70 billion. that's the size the pet industry in america these days. so the bigger f picture fets are growing as well. now, general mills' entrancein this particular pet food side of thing,ir t late entrance there are big established players in this industry right now. mars yes tha same candy company, mars. has ped agree, iams. eukanuba among its items. you have got nestle. purina is owned by nestle. and smucker's has meo mix, kibbles and bits, and milk bone

dog biscuits. it is asi m industry, general mills wants in. why s arguably the reason they are paying big bucks to get a piece of that blue buffalo business. for "nightly business report" i'm dominik chu. sine mark earnings blue past analyst expectations. that's whe we begin tonight's market focus. ticket price increases and higer concession spend helped the move he auto theater operator record recor quarterly revenue. to raised its dividend $1.28 a share. and shares themselves rose by 6% to $42.27. >> meanwhile investors had their first chance to react to wing stop's disappointing earnings outlook but the owner says he is still forging ahead with plans topa . >> we have been developing restaurants at a very rapid pace both in the use a overseas. last year we opened 135 net new locations. which represented more than y%

growr on year. and our long term guidance is for 10 plus continued unit growth for the sha s. >>res of wing stop fell by 4% today to $44.38. investors also reacted today down beat guidance from intuit late yesterday.ak the of turbo tax cited the late start to tax filing season but the ceo did business is looking up. >> we are out of the gate strong. right now the irs has received about 1% few returns than last year at this point in time. we are actually up 2%. so we are gaining a little bit of share and we are feeling good about the year. >> the stock closed fractionally lower to $171.78. nordstrom's founding family is reportedly working on a deal to take the upscale retailer private. according to reuter's the family recently met with investment banks. they are hoping a happen as early as next week. of course the family initially

suspended earlier efforts to go private after they could not secure the necessary financing. this late news sent the sto soaring by 6.5%. time now for our weekly market hmonitor, was three picks he says are helpi to drive the u.s. economy. this is his first time on ourpr ram. jordan waxman is managing partner at hsw advisers at high tower. thank you for joining us tonight. >> good to see you. >> you are loong at three categories you feel drive the economy. let's go through them. firsof all, the area of credit. you chosecarlyle's business development corp. why credit? >> most on the economye united states is maul and medium sized businesses. any need accs to capital. it is an underbanked part of the oarket. if you want play the larger credit picture the banks are the place to go. but if you are a small or a medium size business you have to

borrow from some source and fund like carlyle'sund or goldman sachs has a fund. these business development corps are basically pools of loans to small and medium sized businesses. >> like lot of banks and financially or yepted companies, presumably, as rates go higher, they benefit. is that the idea. >> well, all the of the loans that carlyle isss are floating rate loans. as short-term rates go up, they y more interest. however, since tax rates have gone down for corporations the ability to pay back loans to be stronger. the companies that have 5 to 25 of ebitda need to tap the markets need to go somewhere. >> another area you see ow. infrastructure. we keep hearing about the infrastructurelans of the government. you chose enterprise products. >> when you think about what's going on in the united stes. it has gone from being an

importer of energy to an exporter. energy companies are gettingm demands f chemical companies, utilities changing to natural gas and to the export market where fally the united states is exporting the products and all the subproducts aswe. enterprise products is very well managed. the group, master limited partnerships of which this is a part, is rehated, and you getting a 65% yield wh 2 or 3% growth. great management team clean balance sheet. good way to enter that market. >> finally your third area of growth for the economy, innovations, broad carry. and you picked a big one, alphabet. >> think about it. most clients who can invest in venture fds haveo be rich.

it's closed to new money. d's h to get access torobo robotics, portfolio venture investments. this is a way to get in whether you are paying 25 times earnings fo a compaith $30 billion of free cash flow that's making investments in every aspect of technology. they have made over 200 acquisitions in t past 15 years. they are repatriating over $1bi ion of cash. this is going to be a way to tap ore innovation in the market the next decade or more. >> all right. very interesting. jordan waxman of hsw advisors at thai high tower. thank you for joining us. >> by the wa the rising interest rates we mentioned at the start of the broadcast are m causingtgage rates to rise of course just as the spring housing market gets under he with a. what does that mean for the waltz of the potential yers? diana owe election does the math for us on the. >> reporter: if you are houseee hunting thisnd you probably already know you will be paying more on your mortgage

than you would have been at the start of this year. rates were near historic lows in december. began to rise in january, and o then too this month. what exactly does that mean to e buyer's pact book. let's make the loan amount $300,000. that's between the median price of an existing h and a newly built home. using a 30 year mixed mortgage with 20% down. the bore oroer's monthly payment on january 1st this year b woul han $1472. today it's 1545. an increase of $74 per year. interest rates don't just dictate your monthly payment. they also dictate how much you can qualify for. lendersoday are strict as to the amount of teb you can carry compared to your income. on january 1st let's say the oumaximum loan could qualify for with your income level and

debt was $3it,000. today the higher interest te you would qualify for $280,000. or 5% less house. again w the 20% down payment you have gone from being able t afford a $375,000 house to a $357,000 thhouse. doesn't seem like a big difference but for those on the margins, higher rates mean you can buy less house or potentially no house at all. coming up, traling in a flying car certainly sounds futuristic. but air tax c may beser to reality than you think.

beer industry is toasting provision in the new tax law that provides temporary financial relief, and a number of businesses may pour tvi s back into their operations. landon dowdys in stanford, connecticut, with that story tonight. >> reporter: thef owner this brewery is raising a glass thanks to a provision in the n tax code that provides two years of tax relief. $15,000ll end up saving this year. we were going through the budgeting process. >> reporter: under the new law, by brewers on each barrel of beer they sel is produced to 3.50 to $7 for the first 60,000 barrels. that's a big savings for brewers who produce less than 2 million barrels a year. for larger breweries, the tax drops from 18 to 16 on the first 6 million experts say that could lead to growth across the industry. >> i think we are going to seer

theion of jobs. i think we are going to see a spur in innovation in beers of all kinds. 2.2ca million ame owe their livelihoods in one way or anotheucto the pron, distribution, and sale of beer. and we think that this tax relief is going to spur that further. >> eeporter: analystsxpect larger breweries to use the extra money to hire more employees. smaller ones may tryout more products. re, the extra cashill allow ene company to be innovative and focus on like limited release beers and tasting rooms. >> things we ar not sure are going to work out and translate. at the end of the day, it might be and not my taste but it allows us to experiment with that and potentially have it il but not really have it impact us. >> reporter: spirit makers and wineries will also see adu reion in taxes, totaling billions of dollars in savings, savings the industry hopes translates into more growth.

cloud storage company drop box has filed to goublic. that has given investors their first look at the financials of the start-up that was previously valued at $10 billion of the it turned out it pulled in $1 billion in reference last year and has 500 million users. it's goi to be dbx. china government seized control of a firm that owns the waldorf astoria in amg. they have taken control of anbang insurance saying it was in illegal operations that could endanger the company's chances of staying in buness. >> volkswagen saw its profits double despite the fallout from ssions scl e the automaker benefitted from strong sales and cost cutting at its flagship vw brand. the ceo did warn of challenges,

including more competition and big bets on electric vehicles and self drivingrs speaking of which, ever since the jetsons were on televisionn the 1960s, people thought it would be cool to some day zpip around in a flying car. now some companies and tech firms are racing to make that a reality. how close are they to talking off? phil lebeau takes a look for us tonight. >> reporter: this is the vahana air taxi a prototype built by airbus which made a bef b successful first flight last month in oregon. after years of building traditional planes airbus is exploring the idea s ofll aircraft carrying one or two people short di iances. boei doing the same thing though its prototypes are not ready for humans to climb on board. that's not the case for hitty hawk. last year a video showed a man

flying it over a lake in northern california. this video alone with animation ouom uber showing a fleet of air taxis it like to develop highlights the appeal of developing flying cars. with highways more congested than ever it would make sense to have a small aircraft moving people short distances in trips that would be four times faster than riding in car. that's why many believe this could be how we get around in the ture. with one notable exception. elon musk. muskas been a visionary deloping electric cars through tesla, pushing space nd exploration,iving us the idea the hyper loop, he is skeptical we will want air taxis. he recently tweeted sarcastically if you love drones over your house you will love vast numbers of cars flying every your hd that are 1,000 times bigger and noisier and blow away anything that isn't nailedown when they land. what do regulators like those at

the faa tnk about air taxis? it is an area they are exploring. to can bet if we ever g the point where some of these air taxis are ready to fly ther fe government will be ready with laws to make sure it's safe for us to take to the skie phil lebeau, "nightly business report," chicago. before we go, one m on the day on wall street and the week for that matter. the dow 3 gaine points during a big rally at the close. the nasdaq added 127. the s&p up 43. all the indexes were higher fth week as a result of this rally. that's "nightly business report." i'm billgriffith. thanks for watching. have a great weekend. hope to see you on monday.

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