"nightly business report" with sue herera and bill griffeth. >> oh, what a difference a tweet makes. presidentke after trump hints at progress in s./china trade talk. >> apple in focus. most valuable u.s. publicly traded cpany is making more money from its iphones and app stores than ever before. but inlesters wevestors were le more. hot sellers, americans in love with big cars, eve t asy get more expensive. those stories and more on tonight's "nightly business report." it's thursday, november 1st. good evening, everyone, and welcome. not a bad start to november. pocks extended their rally

after thesident tweeted that he had a productive talk with china's president onrade issues. the market rose for the third straight day, bringing the three-day gain in the dow to 900 points. the blue chip index advanced 264 points to 25,380. the nasdaq was up 128.th s&p 500 added 28. as we start the month of november, he are some things to keep in mind, november is the second best month of the year for the market, up 1 1/2% on avage since 1950. the six-month stretch from november to april is considetd the b six-month period of the year. and since world war ii, the fourth quarter in election years tends to rise. now to apple'suarterly results, which are being closely scrutinized given the pullback in the text sector last month. first the good news, the company recorded record revenue in profit, higher iphnde prices stronger app store sales that

all helped make the most recent quarte its bestver. but now the bad, apple actually missed on its iphone unit sales estimates and issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the holiday quarter. the company earned $2.91. that was 13 cents above expectations. revenue was upy % from a year ago to $63 billion almost. the focus though w onhose iphone sales, which sent the stock down in initialr- aftehours trading this evening. josh lipton is at apple headquarters in cupertino, california, with more. >> reporter: apple sells a lot of products but it's chiefly still known as the iphone maker in this quarter iphone shipments came in at $36.9 million. the street had been looking for $47.5 million so it did miss expectations there but the average iphone selling price came in much stronger than expected, and t chance to catch up with ceo tim cook, he told me it was a huge corner fn

him a high end of the line. remember the new 10x and 10x mal came ale in late september. and for guidance, the mid-point is below expectations though cookeminding investors there are realities he's dealing with, including foreign exchange head winds. for "nightly business report," i'm josh lipton, cupertino, california. >> so let's turn to paul meeks earning on apple's results and what it means for tech going forward. he's the lead portfolio manager for thed wireless f and he owns apple's shares. paul, welcome. nice to have you here. >> always a pleasure. >> your reactio to the report. the street seems disappointsed inur after- trading. >> i'modestly disappointed. the thing to know about sales is it's the multiplication of two items, the unit and selling price. the problem is the unit growth will continue to slow. member, least in the developed world, we have market saturation of smartphones. so allf e growth is going to

come from the emerging markets. the problem with the emerge markets is, a,e have issues with the key country china. and b, there's a lot of folks in the emerging markets that cannot dent a thousandlars on a phone. so one of the things ai worry abt, sue, unless we can increase flat selling prices for iphones, you're going to cap the growth of apple overall. >> the thing i keep hearing from bulls on apple is they look at the services apple is continuing lyto su that it's becoming more and more of a servicesmp y, not just a hardware company. does that not offset the slower growth in unit sales for iphones? >> it partially offsets it, but onee things that i have a problem with with the services business within apple, when you take a look at apple pay and the other segments that are contued services, this is not proprietary content. it's essentially toll keeper

revenue. over time i would like to see apple have more proprietary content, a la netflix, a la the films y see on prime video for amazon and some of the other players. >> so what do you do with the stock at this point if you're long-term trader? and what does it mean for the broader technology? sect >> what would i do with this stock is simply hold it. i would not be tempted when it drops probably 4%, 5% off the bat whene start trading tomorrow morning. i think an interesting price to maybe get in if you have not done already or add to$1 it is abou. and we're going to probably open etmorrow at about $210 or $215, so not there i do think this might put a bit of a pause over the tech sector which had a o rottenober. the nasdaq had its worst 0 month of october since november 2008. >> paul, thank you so much. paul meeks with the wireless

fund. one of the dow components that helped lift the industrial averagoday was dow dupont. that company topped wall street estimates on stronger demand for ch used in cosmetics and paint and that helped offset slowing agriculture business. the world's largest chemical maker announcedla to spend $3 billion buying back its own shares over the next sear. and t shares rose by 8%, making it the best performer in the dow today. before the president's tweet this morning, the head of black rock said things between the worse d china could g before they get better. he made the spmments while king at "the new york times" deal book conference. >> i was in china a few weeks ago, and i do believe we are going to igo,the path remains the same in the next few weeks, we're going to have a full-fledged tra war. >> as you may know, he's the headf the world's largest asset manager and one of the most influential figures in global finance. with economic growth in

china slowing, it appears that consumers in tt country are saving more and spending less. but that ay not necessarily be that good.'r in beijing tonight. >> reporter: beijing has been hoping thara during this fight, the chinese consumer could help hold up the economy. well, theat's indns all of this bad economic news a trade war is weighing on people's minds here and scaring more of them into saving rather than spending. consumers are pulling back and delaying purchases o big-ticket items like cars. sales in september dropped 11.6% from a year ago. smartphone sales have been weakening all year with quarter china shipments down 10% from a year ago. we spoke to one wried consumer, a corporate lawyer, and he told us he cut his g monthly spend a quarter. >> translator: first of all, i'm cutting back because of the uncertainty in the chinese

economy. for example, china's local government are suffering from high debt. the fragile financial system is also becoming a risk.se secondly bec the top market has increased the pressure, my investments have shrun quite a lot. >> reporter: doesn't go well for foreign brands, whichend to ess higher in this market across industries. if the consumption downgrades as it's being called here holds, there could be two pential outcomes -- policymakers here could have a bigger headache on their hands as they try to manage and meet their economic growth targets, and this could be another potential head wind for u.s. markets. vichbters are already worried about a china slowdown so if there's a widespread retrenchment of consumption, that could hurt u.s. companies. for "nightly business report," i'm yunus un in beijing. >> and from th chinese economy to the u.s., where demand for new vehicles remained strong last moh, despite higher interest rates on auto loans. and drivers are also willing to

shell out more money for those vehicles. >> reporter: from suvs to pickup trucks, bigger and priceyer sellers remain the hot in show rooms. take the new jeep cherokee. after another big month of october, sales of the redesigned suv are up almost 50% this yearm jeep and trucks helped fete chrysler do much better than expected in october, with sales growth easily outpacing toyota and ford. overall, dealers saw brisk business last month, especially models with higher sticker prices. at ford, demand s for news helped pushhe up t price paid for a new vehicle by more than $1,400. thanks to a strong economy, low unemployment and high consumer confidence, people are willing toor pay more new cars and trucks. so far higher rates and higher monthly auto loan payments are not scaring off buyers. last month the average auto loan

had an interest rate of 6.2%. th highest auto loan interest rate since 2009. while thoseat higher may not be stopping people from taking out a loan for a new vehicl dealers admit it's getting tougher to close a sale, pecially as automakers cut back on the number of 0% or low interestoans. phil lebeau, "nightly business report," chicago. a key economic number rose in the third quarter that would be workerit product chvgs up by 2.2%. that follows a strong gain in the spring as well, making this the best back-to-back performance in four years. productivity is thet of output per hour of work and it has been weak the current economic recovery. worker productivity plays a key role in the economy, and specifically in the president' goal o getting growth to 3%. steve liesman explains. >> reporter: wanted, 1 million workers. that's the numr of extra workers the u.s. economy will

likely need if it's even going to have a chance to grow at 3%. that's the percentage point above what economists think right now as u.s. economic potential. here's the map, right now u.s.e economic pal growth is thought to be 1.9%. half a point of that comes from workforowth and 1.4% comes from productivity. that is americanorkers getting more efficient every year. but president trump and others want to see growth return to the post-war average of 3% plus. to do , the u.s. would need more workers and more productivity. >> historically necessity society or economy that has a ing population, has a shrinking labor force, it do tn't have to be end of the world in terms of output and growth in your position in the world but you have to r faster just to maintain the level of output we currently have, which isround $20 trillion to maintain that or move it to $25 trillion, like you said, we will need a combination of more workers, automation and

across our workers for more works aswell. >> reporter: exactly how many more workers? say half of the extra 1 percentage point of growth from growing the workforce. right now the u.s. is expected to add 1 million workers a year. economists say another 1 million workers above and beyond what's forecast will be neededvery year to add a half a point to potential growth. and tha us even if th. gets people who aren't working to start participating in the labor force. conrad from rdq economics said it's really difficult to get this additional labor via higher participatio rates because of aging of the population. the u.s. could put more of the unemployed back to work but the low 3.7% unemployment rate suggests the pool of workers iin small and gesmaller. and the question is, further the federal reserve will let unemployment fall before it feels it has to slam the brakes on the economy. >> i think they're on the edge. their forecast would tell you they don't want it to go below 3 1/2. i think they keep going

gradually. i don't think it means they hav to go faster. it may ultimately they go further.to >> reporter: b line, it's going to be very hard for the u.s. to reach a goal of 3% growth. not because there isn't work to be done. it's because is there may not be enough workers. for "nightly business report," i'm steve liesman. tomorrow the monthly employment report is released, and expectations for nonforeign payrolls to increase 188,000. the unemployment rate is t projecte remain steady at 3.7% and average hourly earnings ar poised to rise a fraction. time to take a look now at some of today's upgrades and downgrades. we begin with pfizer tonight. their shares were cut to market perform to outperform at b.m.o. capital. the analysts cited a number of head winds, includingsa disappointins of some of the company's drugs. shares rose 1% today to $43.67. chesapeake was upgraded to outperform from underperform at raymond james.

thest ana calls chesapeake's recent acquisition of wild horse vans fthmative. price target is $5. that stock rose more than 1 today to $3.57. and american eagle outfitters was downgraded to underperform at neutral fropg bra of america/merrill lynch. the analysts cited a lack of marginmprovement there. price target $18. that stock dropped 4 1/2% today to $22.02. still- ahead you might be surprised by what investors did with their money during last month's rocky performance.

despite october's losses, investors took only a modest amount of money out of the market last month. according to fact sets, u.s. equityet saw outflows of a little more than just $3 billion. that's just % of assets under management. equity funds that are considered buy and hold investments like etfs that track the s&p 500 saw large inflows and that suggests many were buying while stocks were declining. speaking of which, let's turn to j.j. to find out if his customers were buying or selling in the stock market last month. j.j., of course, chief strategist at td ameritrade. welcome back. >> hey, bill, always great to be you.th >> nice to see you again. i always love your monthly visits where you talk about whae your cus were buying or selling, but especially after the month we had in october with all of that tremendous

volatility. and a lot of your customers were still buying, technoloeren't they? >> they were. we're not coming out with our monthly until next week but wawt wever the last i think week and a half is really interesting, bill, because you see microsoft, amazon leading the way.f onee stocks that was really interesting to me is one that's a little bit of a technology play but also a yield play, be aand that would be at&. i think sometimes peopl forget, there's not only been volatility in stocks but there's beenvo tility in yield. so many of your viewers who already probably oee at&t the big dividends, see the blue chip stock, get some exposure to technology. so it becomes a very interesting longer-term play for people. >> let's flip it around, what were they selling? >> so twitter, which is a technology play but rallied back and as you guys know reporting on it all the time, h had som volatility itself over the last couple of years. butn particularlye last few months it's has a nice run.

i think you saw ome profit-taking there. the one that was really interesting that caught my eye was fo, which ford tends to be a stock that many of our clients buy but in these volatile times over the last week, i think that people took their little bump over the last week or s to actually unload some of that position. that's probably of all of theoc i just talked about, is that one was the most surprising to me. >> among the b buyers --k to the ones that they were buying late in the month here, caterpillar is one that's considered one of the most vulnerable u.s. companies with the trade problems with china, yet your customers were in there buying, weren't they? >> they were, bill. if you look at what the stock's done okr the past w or so, it's up 10%. so i think that's a buy where people say- they are very vulnerable to what's going on, but i think that many people lo at that and say longer term still a good company, maybe s o mu this news is built in because from the very time that

some of these tariffs were announced, caterpillar along with boeing and jn deere were the very first stocks to take the brunt of this, and so any signs of hope there, and they seem to be the first ones to react to the upside alsoy >> always v interesting. j.j., thank you for taking the time. appreciate you stopping by. >>lways a pleasure. "the new york times" tops $4 milli -- 4 million in total t'bscribers and that's where we begin toni market focus. nearly two-thirds came from subscriptions. total revenue and profits were better than expected and the ceo said strength in its digital ads helped as well. >> we've got a model which is delivering strong digitalcr sution growth but actually very encouraging digital advertising growth.r igital advertising as the chart shows grew 17% over the year quarter. so what we hope is we have a sustainable model for rapidly growing out a digital business

out of journalism, which is growing much quier than our int business is declining. >> the stock rose neay 7% to $28.23. teva pharmaceuticals raised its 2018erring outlook citing stabilization in its core generics business. the company also said its turnaround plan is progressing and its cut its costs. the shares are higher by 23 crepts to $23 even. cigna bumped up its forecast for the year after topping earnings and revenue estimates for most recent quarter. the ceo said the company waser helped by l medical costs and he sees former improvement once its deal with express ooychiatrists is closed. >> the environment to impress for opportunity from afford ability and that directll ned what core cigna is doing and core express is doing and one reason we're putting the two companies together to further accelerate and improve, b it's

offer a strong base each company is delivering and we think there will be continuing partnership opportunities if a regulatory standpoint to verify ways to improve affordabilityor individuals. >> cigna's shares rose 1% to $216.28. spotify reported its fi first-ever p however the world's biggest paid streaming music serviceoi dissed wall street with only modest subscriber growth. it was up only 2% when 8% to 9% was expected. that sent shares lower. after the bell, cbs said an increa in ad sales helped earnings top expectations. they were also helped in growth by its digital subscription business. cbs shares were higher after hours tonight. they finished up 2% to $58.49. also on after the bell tonight, id rbucks said they strengthen its domestic and chinese markets, led to same-store sales that grew to a

faster-than-expected pace and that translated to profits tha beat wall street estimates. shares were initially higher in the after-hours session ut a ed the regular day up fraction to $58.63. and coming up -- affordable care action open enrollment bdains and there are some key changes to be mindful of. google workers around the world staged walkouts in the

last 24 hours to protest the company's handling of sexual misconduct issues. the demonstrations occurred in more than 20oc lions globally, including its headquarters in moin tin view,lifornia, offices in new york as well as thndon and dublin and parts of asia. protesters and demanding more transparency arrannsy arou handling of harassment ikeues and w empowerment. >> every person that shows up to work at google is an equal member of our community and deserves to be respected, protected and safe atrk >> i want google to enforce the provisions that they already have, and to take seriously claims of people who are harassed. >> a lot of us are trying to step way from being passive allies and start to actively doe things to m difference. >> we have the eyes of many companies looking at us and e've always been a vanguard company. if we don't lead the way, nobody else will. >> google's ceot spoke ae "the new york times" deal book conference and he said he actually supports these

walkouts. >> moments like this showe do not always get it right so we are committed to doing atter. listening to employees. that's partly why today is nkportant. i there are concrete steps coming out in terms of what we can do better. >> hedded this clearly has been a difficult time throughout the company. . good news for folks saving for retirement. beginning in 2019, the irs saysn thel contribution limit for employees who participate i0 k plans will increase to $19,000. that's up from $18,500. that limit will always app to 403-bs and thrift savings most 457 plans. and the limit on the contributions toou.r.a. as will increase from $5,500 to $6,000. well, open i enrollmen officially under way for the roughly 11 million americans who buy health insurance through the federal marketplace. and if consumers looking at the

options, pay close attention to the details as se things, like price, may have changed from a year ago. bert bertha cumes reports. >> reporter: when she started her financial services firm these years ago she qualified for a subsidized care act plan. that changed last year. >> i didn't g the subsidy anymore because my business went well. >> reporter: health care pri ds arown 1 1/2% on average for 2019 but nancy finds her health up. issing going >> my same plan will be about $1r50 more per month. >> reporter: she might savef she switches plans. after years of uncertainty, which led to price hikes, insurers are starting to turn a profitd on the exchanges r 2019 carriers like 6-year-old os kaer health are offering more options and expanding coverage. >> we're increasingly in a market that has found stability so this is a special open

enroment period for us. we feel great about going into more markets. >> reporter: another big change, e trump administration extended cheaper hort-term plans with fewer benefits butover up 12 months. online brokerage e-health a helping consumers not eligible for subsidies explorete atives. >> united health care is coming with reall innovative products for the individual short-term market.t so there are j a lot more choice. now, the negative to that is there's more complexity. as this is a complicated and consequentl decision for families, it's just more important than ever that they shop. >> reporter: and do your home work says nancy, after considering a short-term plan which claimed her doctors were in network. >> i called my doctors, and they said they don't take those plans. it would have been a good savings but i don't really trust that it would have covered anything. >> reporter: next year ame'tcans also w have to pay a penalty for being uninsured but insurers

e confident people will still sign up. >> members in this market have started to become educated to the point where they realize it isn't just about premium, it's about the service you get. >> reporter: election polls show health care affordability remains a top issue for most americans. e-health's scott flanders said if the house s andate leadership are split after the midterms, that will likelyower the odds of big legislative changes, and that couldrode more stability for the exchange markets through 2020. for "nightly business report," i'm bertha comes. >> and that's "nightly business report." i'm sue herera. thank you for joining us. >> and i'm bill griffeth. have a great evening. see you tomorrow.

♪ >> this is "bbc world news america." >>nunding of this presentat is made possible by the frman foundation, and kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. >> this fall, it's a season of revelations. from the choice of america's favorite novel. t >> books we want people to take a look at. we are hoping to get people to fall in love with novels again.

>> to the fate of a hero's love. >>'